Shows of Joy and Malice

Performance, the Star Chamber, and the Celebration of James I’s Coronation in Norwich in 1603

Authors

  • Emily Mayne University of Oxford

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12745/et.23.2.4387

Keywords:

Performance

Abstract

The spread of the plague in Norwich in July 1603 disrupted the city’s celebrations of the coronation of King James I, and precipitated a conflict between the city’s mayor, Thomas Lane, and the alderman Robert Gibson, which culminated in Gibson taking Lane to the Star Chamber. Drawing on previously unexamined legal and civic documents, this essay reconstructs both Norwich’s planned and actual coronation festivities and their role in the dispute in July, including its longer legal aftermath in court. The essay examines the meanings and functions participants attributed to the celebrations in Norwich, and to what extent they can be understood as performances, and, if so, of what.

Author Biography

Emily Mayne, University of Oxford

Emily Mayne (emily.mayne@merton.ox.ac.uk) is a stipendiary lecturer in English at Merton College, University of Oxford. In 2019-20 she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. With Professor Matthew Woodcock she is editor of Records of Early English Drama: Norwich, 1540-1642.

Downloads

Published

2021-02-18

Issue

Vol. 23 No. 2 (2020)

Section

Issues in Review Essays

License

Contributors to Early Theatre retain full copyright to their content. All published authors are required to grant a limited exclusive license to the journal. According to the terms of this license, authors agree that for one year following publication in Early Theatre, they will not publish their submission elsewhere in the same form, in any language, without the consent of the journal, and without acknowledgment of its initial publication in the journal thereafter.