The Bible in English Renaissance Civic Pageants

Abstract

The Bible in English Renaissance Civic Pageants David M. Bergeron Biblical allusions abound in the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, often reflecting a keen awareness of and sensitivity to the implications of the biblical text, however the text may have been mediated to the writer. The seventeenth century , we know, gives rise to an extraordinary group of poets who focus on religious matters, notably Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, and Crashaw. Despite studies of Shakespeare's use of the Bible and of Renaissance religious poetry, scant attention has focused on civic pageants for their use of biblical material, though we recognize that these street entertainments of the Tudor and early Stuart periods contain reminders of medieval dramatic traditions .1 Indeed, the great biblical Corpus Christi drama, flourishing by the end of the fourteenth century in such places as York, Chester, Coventry, and elsewhere, persisted in performance until in the middle of her reign Queen Elizabeth suppressed the plays.2 Therefore, it would be relatively easy for the biblical content of one dramatic form to influence the other since the Corpus Christi drama historically overlaps the rise of regular performances of civic pageants. When I refer to civic pageants, I mean consciously planned dramatic entertainment, ordinarily taking place in the streets, celebrating perhaps some special occasion—e.g., a coronation or the inauguration of a magistrate. In the Shakespearean period such shows were regularly written by the major dramatists of the public theater, such as Middleton, Heywood, Dekker, Webster , and Munday. More often than not, trade guilds and city governments helped plan, produce, and finance the pageants— DAVID BERGERON is Professor of English at the University of Kansas. He is the author of English Civic Pageantry 1558-1642 and Shakespeare's Romances and the Royal Family, and he is the editor of Pageantry in the Shakespearean Theater. 160 David M. Bergeron161 another sign of a medieval heritage. Increasingly in the Stuart period the guilds made explicit references to their heritage, coats of arms, former mayors, and other historical events that called attention to the sponsoring guild. In this paper I will focus on three kinds of pageants: Midsummer Shows, royal entries, and Lord Mayor's Shows. My historical scope will be no less than a 120-year period, from 1519 to 1639. Such a historical panorama enables us to move from the earliest full record about a Midsummer Show (1519) to the last civic pageant (1639) in London before the Puritans gained control of Parliament and snuffed life out of the street drama and other dramatic forms in 1642. Gordon Kipling has ably demonstrated the use of biblical and liturgical matter in the royal entry of King Richard ? into London in 1392.3 Indeed, this civic pageant, extraordinarily rich and sophisticated in handling biblical material, has few rivals. No civic pageant in the Tudor or early Stuart period quite matches such a display of biblical reference. Given an already strong tradition of biblical drama, one is not surprised at the 1392 pageant's emphasis. Admittedly, such materials in the Tudor and early Stuart era are subordinate, but they are nevertheless important. Part of the change—decline, if you like— comes from the historical movement of Catholic to Protestant England. Ironically, Protestantism with its greater emphasis on the Bible gives rise to a drama much less biblically focused. As a means of analyzing this broad area of material, I will begin with an examination of the Midsummer Shows, which cover a range of biblical subjects. Then I will discuss the royal entries and Lord Mayor's Shows in terms of their references to the Old Testament, New Testament, and the Bible generally. I will primarily focus on biblical characters but with some attention to the representation of biblical concepts in the civic pageants. Throughout I intend to establish one main point: biblical references in the pageants serve political purposes, offering in various ways support for the state. Thus the Renaissance pageants make no effort to present biblical history in the manner of the Corpus Christi drama but rather use episodes or characters in order to comment on politics, thereby making the sacred reinforce the secular. About the early sixteenth-century Midsummer Shows in...