Pageantry and Power: A Cultural History of the Early Modern Lord Mayor’s Show, 1585-1639

Pageantry and Power is the first full and in-depth cultural history of the Lord Mayor’s Show in the early modern period. It reveals the lived expectation of the Shows and sets them in the context of the wider ceremonial culture of early modern England. Going beyond the boundaries if traditional literary criticism, it produces a genuinely wide-ranging cultural history of the period. Central to the cultural life of the City of London in the early modern period, the Lord Mayors’ Shows were high-profile and lavish entertainments produced by some of the most talented writers of the time. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, Pageantry and Power explores the commissioning of and expenditure on the Shows, their reception by audiences, their use of allegory, symbolism and civic history, their engagement with contemporary politics, their connections to the professional stage and to the masque, and the relationship between the printed texts of the Shows and the actual events. This full-scale study of the civic works of Ben Jonson, Thomas Heywood, Thomas Middleton, John Webster, Thomas Dekker, John Taylor and Anthony Munday enhances our understanding of their other, often better-known, dramatic works and contributes to a fuller estimation of their literary careers. Pageantry and Power will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students of early modern literature, drama, history, civic culture, pageantry, urban studies, cultural geography, book history, as well as those interested in the culture of London more broadly.