This is a truly paradigm-shifting study that reads a key text in Latin Humanist studies as the culmination, rather than an early example, of a tradition in university drama. It persuasively argues against the common assumption that there was no drama in the medieval universities until the syllabus was influenced by humanist ideas, and posits a new way of reading the performative dimensions of fourteenth and fifteenth-century university education in, for example, Ciceronian tuition on epistolary delivery. David Bevington calls it an impressively learned discussion and commends the sophistication of its use of performativity theory.
Author(s): Thomas Meacham
Series: Early Drama, Art, and Music
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 212
City: Berlin
Abstract v
Acknowledgments vii
List of Figures xi
Introduction: University Drama Before the Tudor Period 1
The St. Scholastica's Day Riot 6
The Clerical Corporate Body of Oxford University 7
Performing the 'Planctus Universitatis Oxoniensis' 9
1. Performative Ideation and the New Wykehamist Ideal 17
The Defense of Human Nature 20
Healing the Clerical Corporate Body 28
The 'New' Wykehamist Ideal 31
2. Devotional Performativity: A 'Ductus' for the Trinity College MS 41
A Defense of Medieval Moral Philosophy 42
Medieval Theories of Conscience 44
A Defense of Medieval Theology 47
A 'Ductus' to Devotional Performativity 50
Bekynton’s Divine Legacy 66
3. 'Libellus de laudibus duarum civitatum': A Medieval 'Altercatio' 75
Chaundler’s Role in the Cultivation of the 'studia humanitatis' 75
Chaundler’s Humanist Gestures and Sacred Authorities 76
The Performance of the First Part of 'Libellus de laudibus' 79
The Medieval Antecedents of the 'Libellus de laudibus' 83
The Performance of the Second Part of the 'Libellus de laudibus' 88
4. Exchanging Performative Words: Christmas Kings, Epistolary Performance, and Honest Solace 101
Honest Solace and the Christmas King 101
The Solace King and Chaundler’s 'Collocutiones' 104
Medieval Epistolary Performance 110
The 'rex fabarum' (King of Beans) Christmas King Tradition 112
The “Ancient Custom” of the Christmas King 115
Secular and Monastic Performative Exchange 123
Redefining the Christmas King Tradition 127
Epistolary Performance in the Trinity College MS 129
Conclusion 141
The Mercurial Nature of Performance 141
The Breadth of Medieval University Performance 143
Ductus for Future Research 145
Appendix 1. Textual and Performative Communities of Oxford, Wells, and Exeter 149
Appendix 2. Performance Spaces at Wells Cathedral 151
Appendix 3. The Codicological Implications of All Souls College MS 182 153
Appendix 4. Cambridge: Trinity College MS R.14.5 Illustrations 159
Appendix 5. Performative Oxford Letters and Related Material 175
Bibliography 179
Index 197
