The REED N-E Team are pleased to announce the recent publication of Early Performers and Performance in the Northeast of England by ARC Humanities Press. You can get your copy here: https://arc-humanities.org/products/e-6997-110100-60-6826/. Here is the publisher’s description: ‘Description This collection explores the evidence for a wide variety of performance traditions up to 1642 in the […]
Dare to dance with a pair of Durham dragons, along with automatic monsters and creepy costumes at our free show in Durham Cathedral, Priors Hall, on 17th June, from 19.30, with a chance to mingle with the monsters before and after. Follow the Facebook Event for updates. England’s North-East is uncommonly rich in legends about […]
Among the usual records of fornication, adultery, playing cards during service times, marrying without having the banns read properly and similar infringements, the Archbishop of York’s Visitation Book for 1615 has a most intriguing entry1: This is kind of entry REED editors trawl Visitation books in the hope of finding, but what can we make of it? […]
REED: Durham editors John McKinnell and Mark Chambers are pleased to announce the launch of the latest collection of records from Durham: the Durham Priory Feretrars’ Accounts. The ‘Feretrar’ (Medieval Latin feretrarius, from feretrum) was the officer-monk in charge of the shrine of St. Cuthbert and relics related to the saint – for their upkeep and maintenance, […]
Come face-to-face with a cast of deathly characters, including Beelzebub, a Quack Doctor, a Black Knight and a skull-headed wild horse at a free and unique performance in Durham on 12th September, 19.30, in the Concert Hall, Palace Green. Drawing on research conducted as part of Records of Early English Drama North East, Souls of the North will […]
REED: Durham editors John McKinnell and Mark Chambers are very pleased to announce the launch of the pre-publication records from the Durham Priory locelli. The designation locelli (from Latin locellus, lit. ‘a little place’) originally referred to boxes or chests in which important documents were stored. Now referring to a category of important Priory documents, the Durham locelli contain […]
King Henry VIII visited Yorkshire only once in the course of his long reign, in the summer and autumn of 1541, and seems to have been prompted to travel so far only by the perceived need to calm (and possibly threaten) the rebellious North in the wake of the Pilgrimage of Grace and other risings […]
Ted McGee, co-editor of the Yorkshire, West Riding REED material (with Sylvia Thomas) has made available some new records* for West Yorkshire, relating to performance in the ancient village of Methley and nearby Methley Manor, and in the accounts of Sir Leonard Beckwith of Selby (c.1520-1555). You can access all of the current West Riding […]
REED N-E’s own Mark Chambers will be speaking on ‘Nudity in the Medieval Drama’ at the workshop below, hosted by Durham University’s Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies: —REGISTRATION IS OPEN— [WORKSHOP] Laid Bare: Attitudes to Nudity in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period Saturday 10th March 2018 Senior Common Room, St Cuthbert’s Society, 12 […]
In an update to REED N-E’s earlier ‘Flower of the Month’, we’ve discovered that Durham might have even older evidence for plow ceremonies than those mentioned last week (see Epiphanytide in Medieval Durham). As mentioned in the previous post, accounts from several of the manor houses attached to Durham Cathedral Priory record payments to ploughmen and […]