Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:02:34.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

V.4 - Public spectacle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Tom Licence
Affiliation:
University of East Anglia, Norwich
Julia Crick
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
Elisabeth van Houts
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

Public spectacle, which may be defined as any orchestration of events designed to engage the minds of spectators, can inform our understanding of the social identity or prevailing mores of past cultures. Typically it evolves as a co-adapted set of devices: superficially, devices such as sights, sounds, smells, splendour and ceremony, but at a deeper level – one might say psychologically – a sense of participation; an affirmation of identity and life's meaning for the individual, as a spectator within a collectivity of his or her peers. The trick is that each spectator imagines that he or she is at one with all, most or many of the others by participating in the common response of the crowd; indeed, the most enduring forms of public spectacle in the period 900–1200 stimulated the crowd to respond in a predetermined way. In doing so they performed four main social functions. The first function of spectacle was essentially contractual: to affirm the mutual responsibilities, or the mutually profitable relationship, between different ranks of the social hierarchy (including God and the saints), or social equals. Another function was to affirm life's meaning, usually by reinforcing belief in God and in the Christian cosmology. A third function might be termed recreational. Village drama, knockabout, satire, skits and the enactment of heroic tales tackled life's big questions in engaging, allusive, fun or frivolous ways, and surely helped people come to terms with them.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Public spectacle
  • Edited by Julia Crick, University of Exeter, Elisabeth van Houts, University of Cambridge
  • Book: A Social History of England, 900–1200
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511976056.026
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Public spectacle
  • Edited by Julia Crick, University of Exeter, Elisabeth van Houts, University of Cambridge
  • Book: A Social History of England, 900–1200
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511976056.026
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Public spectacle
  • Edited by Julia Crick, University of Exeter, Elisabeth van Houts, University of Cambridge
  • Book: A Social History of England, 900–1200
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511976056.026
Available formats
×