Sixteenth-century England witnessed both unprecedented generic experimentation in the recording of spectacle and a shift in strategies of sovereign representation and subject formation: it is the central objective of this dissertation to argue for the reciprocal implication of these two phenomena. Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth I used performance to legitimate their authority. Aristocratic and civic identities, in turn, were modelled on sovereign identity, which was disseminated through narratives in civic entries, tournaments, public progresses, and courtly pageantry. This dissertation investigates the relationship between ritualized social dramas (a marriage, birth, and coronation) and the mechanisms behind the recording and dissemination of these performances in courtly and civic texts in England from 1501 to 1559. Focussing on The Receyt of the Ladie Kateryne (London 1501), The Great Tournament Roll of Westminster (Westminster 1511), and The Quenes Maiesties Passage (London 1559), this project attempts to understand the role performance texts played in developing conceptions of social identity. Specifically, this dissertation seeks to demonstrate that a number of new hybrid genres emerged in Tudor England to record ritualized social dramas. I argue that each of the texts under scrutiny stands out as a unique record of performance as their authors use unprecedented narrative strategies to invest their accounts with “liveness,” situating the reader as a “spectator” of the sovereign within a performative context. An important objective of these hybrid genres was to control the audience/reader’s response to the symbology of performance. Each monarch attempted to influence social and political identities through courtly performance; however, the challenges of governing differed among reigns. While Henry VII struggled against charges of illegitimacy, Henry VIII had to consolidate the loyalties of his nobles, and Elizabeth I came to the throne amidst religious turmoil and anxieties about female rule. Strategies for the performance and recording of sovereign authority shifted, therefore, to account for the changes in England’s political structure. By examining how performance is textualized in these new genres, I attempt to expose the tensions animating the relationships among the monarch, his/her nobility, and the civic authorities. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2009-02-25 22:42:18.684

Laurence Humphrey was acknowledged in his own day as a leading Protestant intellectual, Oxford pedagogue, and Latinist. In posterity however, he has been predominantly defined by his involvement in the ‘vestiarian controversy’ of the 1560s. This thesis proposes a revised view, which takes into account the significant educational contexts and concerns with which Humphrey was engaged before, during and after his Marian exile in Zurich and Basel. The thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter One presents the fruits of new biographical research into Humphrey’s education and early adult life, his grounding in Protestant ideology, and the circumstances of his exile up until 1559. Relocated amongst the Rhineland’s finest scholar-printers, Humphrey immerses himself in the dual currents of European humanism and religion, a context that characterizes his earliest works. Chapter Two argues that Humphrey’s 1559 Interpretatio Linguarum evidences an international network of reformed scholars using Graeco-Latin translation theory to inform the development of vernacular literary culture. In discussing contemporary writers and their translations, Humphrey’s Latin work reveals itself as an intellectually central text of English vernacular culture. Chapter Three analyses the 1560 Optimates as an exposition of the pedagogical concept of the vir bonus, which Humphrey refashions for a new Elizabethan generation of English Protestant gentry. Chapter Four reprises the biographical narrative by following Humphrey’s return to the educational environment of early Elizabethan Oxford. The period from 1560 to the mid-1570s sees the consolidation of Humphrey’s reputation as one of the leading reformist educators of his generation. Chapter Five looks at the 1573 Vita Iuelli. Referencing a range of literary traditions, Humphrey presents Bishop John Jewel as the fulfilment of the ideals of reformed humanist education. This thesis re-introduces Humphrey as an important figure in the merged intellectual, multi-lingual, reforming currents of humanism and religion that characterize the mid-Tudor moment.

This thesis. looks at a group of texts, that it has identified as English Protestant~ antI-epIscopal martyrologies, in their social context. It examines the dIalogue In print and manuscript between Protestant reformers in Tudor England and the bishops who opposed them. I argue that an analysis of the polemlical texts which contributed to this dialogue demonstrates the strongly antI-epIscopal stance adopted by English Protestants from the early sixteenth century to the accession of Elizabeth I. The texts I probe have been little studled eIther by historians or literary critics, and this has resulted in their literary discourses, as well as their importance as contributions to the development of the English Reformation, being overlooked. The reason for this neglect is that commentators have failed to identify the way in which they limned Protestant martyrological stances for their characters. Furthermore the context common to all these texts - a systematic opposition to the judicial, economic and political powers of the bishops in England, which was being carefully developed by Protestant propagandists from as early as 1520 - has not previously been discussed. The thesis makes equal use of historical and literary sources in order to make sense of otherwise oblique references and rhetorical techniques in both well-known and more obscure pieces of Protestant doctrinal writing and ecclesiastical satire produced between 1520 and 1560. By paying attention to episcopal archives and modern research on English bishops of the sixteenth century, the thesis identifies the fundamental importance of English episcopal administration for Henrician, Edwardian, and Marian ecclesiology. It shows that the Tudor ecclesiastical polity created a culture that fostered a martyrological consciousness, which was ultimately the only form of justification for opponents of the established church. Such a consciousness was exploited by anti-episcopal apologists for propaganda purposes. My study identifies the formation of this martyrological consciousness by early writers such as William Tyndale, William Barlow and George Joye, whose writing has hitherto not been discussed in such terms. It then looks at the way in which this early martyrological writing was tailored into more specialised anti-episcopal martyrology, such as those pieces which satirised episcopal visitation and examination or those which analysed the significance of last wills and testaments in the context of an episcopal administration. From this the thesis concludes that anti-episcopal martyrology heavily informed the thinking behind the later debates over the social and political position of the church within the state, such as in the Admonition Crisis of the 1570s and the Marprelate Controversy of the late 1580s and early 1590s. There is also strong evidence to suggest that, rather ironically, the literary creation of a Protestant martyrological posture made between 1520 and 156~ was adopted by Catholic apologists in the 1570~ and 1580s In theIr confrontation with the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Ellzabetian Settlement. It Iso argues that further work should be done on the borrowIng of notions of martyrology from the early propagandists by later more well-known authors such as John Foxe, Edmund Spenser, John Milton and John Bunyan. I have consulted collections of MSS and early printed sources in The British Library, Cambridge University libraries, Lambeth Palace Library, Dr Williams' Library and Winchester Cathedral library.

Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) served as King of England from 1509 until his death in 1547. A melancholic character, Henry was known for his many marriages, his temper, his bouts of tyranny, and his break with the Catholic Church. Most authors, even those writing contemporary accounts, portray Henry as a villain. Hilary Mantel paints Henry differently. In Wolf Hall and Bringing up the Bodies, the King is as he has always been; argumentative, sardonic, and excessive. However, Mantel chooses to augment these parts of his character with some of his better traits, giving the King a softer edge that is often lost to his actions and infamy. An analysis of Mantel’s writing, as compared to the historical record, sheds new light on Henry VIII and invites readers, through the joy of historical fiction, to be more open in their interpretation of the King.

No description available.