London Civic Theatre: City Drama and Pageantry from Roman Times to 1558, and: Masks and Masking in Medieval and Early Tudor England (review)

Reviews241 AnneLancashire.London CivicTheatre:CityDramaandPageantry from Roman Times to 1558.Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2002. Pp. xix + 355. $65.00. MegTwycrossandSarahCarpenter.MasksandMaskinginMedieval andEarly TudorEngland.Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2002. Pp. [x]+ 418.£47.50. The two books under review represent important contributions to the study of early English drama. Each is firmly based on the evidence of records of early performance, and neither engages in theoretical flights of fancy. Speculation, which is sometimes necessary, is always linked to possible options rather than to preconceived constructs. As Meg Twycross and Sarah Carpenter remark in relation to their study, "to adopt any single theoretical approach is to run the risk of imposing rather than elucidating meaning" (3). Anne Lancashire's survey of the civic theater in London begins with the Roman period, which has received interest recently following the find in 1987-88 of a Roman amphitheater in the city's center—indeed, underneath the yard of the Guildhall. Following the removal of the Roman legions from Britain in a.D. 410, there is circumstantial evidence that in London theatrical activity, broadlydefined,continued.With the coming oftheAnglo-Saxons,perhaps some of it might have been related to the types of performers described in Terry Gunnell's The Origins ofScandinavian Drama (1995). After c.980 monasteries had the option of presenting rudimentary liturgical drama like the Visitatio Sepulchri included in the Regularis Concordia. Then, in the twelfth century, William FitzStephen's Description ofLondon boasts that, in comparison with the drama of Roman times, the City was famed for "holier plays, wherein are shown forth the miracles wrought by Holy Confessors or the sufferings which glorified the constancy of Martyrs" (31). Dated c.l 170-82, FitzStephen's comments indicate already a tradition ofsaint plays,a genre that again would emerge most visibly in the St. Thomas Becket pageant borrowed by the Skinners' guild in 1519 from the parish of St. Giles for the City's Midsummer festivities. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,antitheatrical complaints in ecclesiastical and civic documents emerged, specifically in opposition to "inhonesti ludi" in churchyards and the participation ofclergy in or their presence at plays, and then against masking,especiallyduring Christmas festivities.These ofcourse do not suggest public rejection ofdrama but rather the opposite, for theywould appear to be indicative ofwidespread dramatic activity even though we do not have playtexts or full descriptions of performances. While the activities of the London puy,though discussed in Lancashire's book, might not be designated as 242Comparative Drama dramatic entertainment,mummings and disguisings were also being presented. She gives the example of a mumming for Prince (later King) Richard in which 130 mummers in costume, some of them wearing "black masks [visers nayrs] like devils" (42),passed through the London streets to a meeting with the young nobleman,who was allowed to win at dice. More generous information is available about the sumptuous entries with which London formally greeted their kings and queens as well as high-ranking visiting dignitaries. These entries included adornment with "amazing devices" as early as 1207 and 1236 (44). At the entry ofEdward II in 1308, London, with its hangings ofgold,was intended to resemble the New Jerusalem (44). The routes used for royal and other entries through the City are usefully listed in appendix A. But the most spectacular of the civic dramas may well have been the Clerkenwell plays, organized by the clerks of the City and performed during the summer over a three- to five-day period. These included a "play ofthe Passion ofour Lord and Creation ofthe World" as designated in 1390 when King Richard II and his queen Anne of Bohemia were in attendance (55). Henry IV and "most part of the nobles and gentles of England" were in the audience in 1409 (55), and then it seems that a full Creation to Doom cycle—a cycle like the Corpus Christi cycle at York—was set forth. It cannot be ascertained whether these dramas were somehow linked to the much earlier plays reported by FitzStephen, but in any case the clerks,joined with others since such a massive undertaking was involved,were producers ofa major dramatic undertaking, at least from 1384 to 1409. Thereafter...