Metropolitan tragedy: genre, justice, and the city in early modern England

2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (03) ◽  
pp. 53-1152-53-1152
2000 ◽  
Vol 4 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 379-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Budd

AbstractProtestant iconoclasm has generally been understood as an assault on the beliefs and practices of traditional religion. This article challenges that understanding through a detailed study of Cheapside Cross, a large monument that was repeatedly attacked by iconoclasts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It draws on contemporary pamphlets and the manuscripts records of the City of London to reveal the complex variety of associations that Cheapside Cross acquired before and during the Reformation era. It argues that perceptions of the monument were shaped not only by its iconography but also by its involvement in ceremonies and rituals, including royal coronation processions. The iconoclastic attacks on Cheapside Cross should be interpreted not merely as a challenge to traditional beliefs but as attempts to restructure the monument's associations. The paper concludes that attacks on other images may be understood in a similar manner.


Urban History ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
MASARU YONEYAMA

ABSTRACTThis article examines the decline of the craft guilds in early modern England by way of a case-study of the Tuckers’ Company in Exeter. From the 1980s, this case figured prominently in the historiographical debate concerning guild decline; however, it has not been examined recently. The current study reveals the Tuckers’ Company is not a case of decline in guild membership so much as a case of the loss of guild monopoly and a concomitant transition to charitable functions. On the basis of empirical sources, this study also reveals the mechanisms and context of this transformation in the post-Civil War politics of the city of Exeter. Specific attention is given to first, the decline of royal authority bolstering the guild against the city government and secondly, the shift of power in the guild with the ascendance of the merchant fullers. Finally, the historiographical implications of the article's findings are discussed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIMON SZRETER

ABSTRACTThis article offers an innovative attempt to construct an empirically-based estimate of the extent of syphilis prevailing in two contrasting populations in late eighteenth-century Britain. Thanks to the co-incident survival of both a detailed admissions register for Chester Infirmary and a pioneering census of the city of Chester in 1774 taken by Dr John Haygarth, it is possible to produce age-specific estimates of the extent to which adults of each sex had been treated for the pox by age 35. These estimates can be produced both for the resident population of Chester city and comparatively for the rural region immediately surrounding Chester. These are the first estimates of the prevalence of this important disease produced for the eighteenth century and they can be compared with similar figures for England and Wales c. 1911–1912.


2020 ◽  
pp. 191-211
Author(s):  
Deirdre Serjeantson

By the early modern period, the city of Babylon was in ruins, but it continued to loom large in the imagination. This chapter takes the English recusant printer, polemicist, and spy Richard Verstegan as the lens through which to examine the diverse iconography of Babylon in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Verstegan’s treatment of the Tower of Babel reflects contemporary interest in questions about the origins of language and nation, but he also employed it to explore issues of tyranny in early modern England. He reclaimed the image of the harlot from the stock Protestant identification of the Whore of Babylon with the Roman Church, and used the biblical exile of the Jews in Babylon to frame his own religious exile. The chapter places Verstegan alongside his contemporaries, from Spenser to Milton, illuminating their use of the image of Babylon through consideration of his treatment of this very flexible symbol.


Early Theatre ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Burg

The records of Lincoln Cathedral possess the largest and most enduring evidence for cathedral-funded dramatic performance in medieval and early modern England. In the mid-sixteenth century earlier forms of financial backing were replaced by the rewarding of travelling players by the chapter. The absence of similar rewards in the civic accounts of the period makes the cathedral records unique in their documentation of touring players and school comedies in the city. The following essay demonstrates the unique role played by Lincoln Cathedral and reveals an alternative view of looking at who bestowed financial gifts on travelling players during the reign of Elizabeth I.


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