The Device of the Pageant
Author: Thomas Nelson
Editor: Laurie Ellinghausen
Quickstart: The Device of the Pageant (Modern)
Texts of this Edition
Apparatus
Critical Paratexts
Annotations
Device
Something artistically devised or framed; a fancifully conceived design or figure(OED, device n.8).
Device also meant
an emblematic figure or design, esp. one borne or adopted by a particular person, family, etc.(OED n.9.a), such as the coats of arms that appear near the end of this show. George Peele’s 1585 and 1591 title pages contain with the same phrase (
The Device of the Pageantand
The Device of a Pageant) suggesting that show writers used device to reference the shows themselves as well as the emblems appearing within them.
Fishmongers
See Para8.
Staple
See Para8.
fell
The skin or hide of an animal along with the hair, wool, etc.(OED n.1.a).
Nelson is indicating a fish’s skin behind the
figure.
Sabbath
shape,
Comma added to emphasize the phrase
so strangeand thus highlight the merman’s shape, important to the speaker’s larger point about
strangeindividuals who disregard fish days.
godly magistrates
The
godly magistrateshere are the
worthyCity’s aldermen, over which the lord mayor presides.
England’s Peace
England’s Peace stands for Queen Elizabeth I, regnant
from 1558 until her death in 1603.
thirty-two years’ space
The length of Elizabeth’s reign from her accession in
1558 to the date of the performance (1590).
pretence:
an expressed aim or object; an intention, purpose, or design(OED, n.6).
Q comma changed to colon to introduce the intention immediately following.
Both … Peace.
Here the word
Both,according to Meagher,
may be a misinterpreted speech headingthat directs the final two lines to be spoken in unison (99, n. 57-66). Because treating this word as part of the speech keeps that line and the following line at ten syllables apiece (no other line in the Wisdom/Policy passage has fewer than ten), I am treating it as part of the speech. The figures may speak the last two lines in unison; for more on this possibility, see
Performance.
Peace
I capitalize
Peacehere as Wisdom and Policy stand on either side and may gesture toward the figure. Both speaking in unison may draw further attention to Peace as well.
Peace
I capitalize
Peacehere because God’s Truth may be speaking of Peace of England who spoke previously; Peace of England also may still be present in the continuing pageant.
Prudence and virtue
Meagher states that
Prudence and Virtue are simply alternative names for Policy and Wisdomwho here, like Wisdom and Policy, shade an enthroned Peace with a cloth-of-state canopy (99, n. 57-66 and 100, n. 67-79). Although there indeed may be two figures here who literally
shadePeace, the lack of speaking roles makes their existence as characters, rather than abstract qualities, uncertain; therefore I leave them in lowercase, as does Meagher.
Peace
At this point, Nelson has separated Peace from Elizabeth,
as the latter is now
shewho will hopefully live to maintain the former. I capitalize
peacehere to emphasize the distinction.
Lord … increase
Elizabeth never married nor did she have children. For
more on the implications of Elizabeth’s chastity for continued peace and
prosperity at the end of her reign, see
Historical Context.
Upon … feet
Plenty may gesture here to a bundle of wool, situated
at the feet of Peace, signifying the fleece. For more on what the wool may
signify, see
Historical Context.
senate’s
Senatecould refer to an
assembly or counsel of citizenscharged with governance (OED, n.1); Meagher comments that
Senate is a not infrequent affectation for the City Council during this period(102, n. 107-13). Since London had no body officially titled
Senate,I have changed the word to lowercase as a general reference to the body of civic magistrates.
means this Peace
i.e., means by which this peace.
Help, Walworth, now,
Commas are added here to emphasize the king’s direct
request to Walworth. The king may also have made this exclamation in
response to a
threatening advancefrom Straw (Meagher 103, n. 121-3).
Hob … Miller too
Two other rebels who also will appear in the anonymous
history play The Life and Death of Jack Straw (c.
1593-4).
Richard the Second:
King Richard II, regnant from 1377 until his deposition
in 1399.
mayor
Mayormeans
lord mayorhere.
place
Commonwealth has assumed Walworth’s place with this
speech. See Lancashire, Comedy 17 and Meagher 103,
n. 124-43.
Fishmonger
Although the BL copy has this word in lowercase, I capitalize
it to emphasize Walworth’s civic identity and kinship with the sponsoring
company.
dagger
The dagger Walworth used to kill Tyler.
adore
To display profound reverence or respect(OED, v.2).
It
No space exists between this passage and the previous
speech in Nelson’s pageant book. I have
separated this portion to distinguish it as
a stage direction or prose account. I have preserved Q’s line breaks except
in cases footnoted below.
near about him
Meagher observes that
notable personagesin lord mayor’s shows often stood surrounded by identifying furniture (104, n. 144-6).
dagger given … London
The London seal of 1381 features a dagger in the upper
quadrant of a cross. By popular belief, this is the dagger with which
Walworth killed Tyler. However, the seal was executed prior to that event
and the sword likely represents the sword of St. Paul instead (Fairholt
117).
impossible
The BL copy uses
unpossible,a word that the OED treats as synonymous with
impossible.Uses of each word as recorded in LEME also appear interchangeable in meaning, thus the modernization here.
Time:
I have treated this line as a heading introducing a
personified figure named
Time.For more on the epilogue as it appears in the original text, see
The Pageant Book.
Attend,
Comma added to suggest direct address to Allott, as the
shows’ pageantry conventionally addressed the lord mayor as
both the show’s subject and its ideal audience(Lobanov-Rostovsky 881).
in such wise
I.e., in a such a way.
now,
Comma added to emphasize direct exhortation to Allott.
ay
A variant on
ay,with both pronounced similarly to the modern
mayor
day.
For ay: for ever, to all eternity(OED, n.3.a).
Goldsmiths’
I place the apostrophe after the
sto indicate the plural possessive.
state
Bullough capitalizes
Statehere, presumably in keeping with the above speech prefix as it appears in Q. Q leaves it in lowercase, as have I given that there is no speaking character named
State.
Policy, … state, saith:
Typically Bullough does not punctuate the end of the speech prefixes; here, however,
he adds a period.
Let them be still:
I have substituted a colon for the comma in Q so that the first clause in the line
serves to dramatically introduce the second clause.
Collations
Although Bullough appears to replicate old spelling, here he offers
Mayorwhereas Q reads
Maior.
Prosopography
Janelle Jenstad
Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of
Victoria, Director of The Map
of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama
Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Kaethler, she
co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old
Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s
A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML
and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice
(with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not
Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in
Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern
Literary Studies, Shakespeare
Bulletin, Renaissance and
Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval
and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives
(MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern
England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and
the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in
Early Modern England (Ashgate); New
Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter);
Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating
Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and
Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking
Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital
Technologies (Routledge); and Civic
Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern
London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.
Laurie Ellinghausen
Laurie Ellinghausen is Professor of English at the University of
Missouri—Kansas City, where she teaches courses on early modern English
literature and drama. She is the author of Pirates,
Traitors, and Apostates: Renegade Identities in Early Modern English
Writing (U of Toronto P, 2018) and Labor
and Writing in Early Modern England, 1567-1667 (Ashgate,
2008). She is also the editor of Approaches to Teaching
Shakespeareʼs Early Modern English History Plays (MLA
Publications, 2017). Her current project is a monograph on
representations of seafaring labour in proto-imperial British writing.
Mark Kaethler
Mark Kaethler is Department Chair, Arts, at Medicine Hat College; Assistant Director,
Mayoral Shows, with MoEML; and Assistant Director for LEMDO. They are the author of
Thomas Middleton and the Plural Politics of Jacobean Drama (De Gruyter, 2021) and a co-editor with Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Janelle Jenstad
of Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge, 2018). Their work has appeared in The London Journal, Early Theatre, Literature Compass, Digital Studies/Le Champe Numérique, and Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative, as well as in several edited collections.
Mark’s research interests include early modern literature’s intersections with politics;
digital media and humanities; textual editing; game studies; cognitive science; and
ecocriticism.
Molly Rothwell
MoEML Project Manager, 2022-present. Research Assistant, 2020-2022. Molly Rothwell
was an undergraduate student at the University of Victoria, with a double major in
English and History. During her time at LEMDO, Molly primarily worked on encoding
the MoEML Mayoral Shows.
Navarra Houldin
Project manager 2022-present. Textual remediator 2021-present. Navarra Houldin completed
their BA in History and Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. During their
degree, they worked as a teaching assistant with the University of Victoriaʼs Department
of Hispanic and Italian Studies. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality
in early modern Europe and Latin America.
Rylyn Christensen
Rylyn Christensen is an English major at the University of Victoria.
Thomas Nelson
Bookseller and ballad-writer. See ODNB.
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Orgography
LEMDO Team (LEMD1)
The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project
director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators,
encoders, and remediating editors.
MoEML Mayoral Shows (MOMS1)
The MoMS General Editors are Mark Kaethler and Janelle Jenstad. The team includes
SSHRC-funded research assistants. Peer review is coordinated by the General Editors
but conducted by other editors and external scholars.
University of Victoria (UVIC1)
http://www.uvic.ca/Metadata
| Authority title | The Device of the Pageant |
| Type of text | Edition |
| Short title | DEVI3 |
| Publisher | The Map of Early Modern London on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform |
| Series | MoEML Mayoral Shows anthology |
| Source |
Edition landing page created by the LEMDO Team.
|
| Editorial declaration | This edition was edited according to the MoMS Editorial Guidelines. |
| Edition | Released with MoEML Mayoral Shows 1.0 |
| Encoding description | Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines |
| Document status | published, peer-reviewed |
| Licence/availability | Intellectual copyright in this edition is held by the editor, Laurie Ellinghausen. The XML file of the modern text is licensed for reuse under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license, which means that it is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the editor, MoMS, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and/or data; (2) derivatives (e.g., adapted scripts for performance) must be shared under the same CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license; and (3) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the editor, MoMS, and LEMDO. The critical paratexts are licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license, which means that they are freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the editor, MoMS, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and/or data; (2) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (3) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of MoMS, the editor, and LEMDO. This license allows for pedagogical use of the critical paratexts in the classroom. |