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² E.g., Geertz, , Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth Century Bali (Princeton, 1980)Google Scholar; Geertz, , Islam Observed, Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (New Haven, 1968)Google Scholar; Geertz, C., Geertz, H. and Rosen, L., Meaning and Order in Moroccan Society (Cambridge and New York, 1979)Google Scholar.

³ Representative examples would include Kantorowicz, Ernst, The King's Two Bodies (Princeton, 1957)Google Scholar; Strong, Roy, Splendour at Court: Renaissance Spectacle and Illusion (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Burke, Peter, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London, 1978)Google Scholar; Muir, Edward, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice, (Princeton, 1981)Google Scholar; and Busahway, Bob, By Rite, Custom, Ceremony and Community in England, 1700–1880 (London, 1982)Google Scholar.

⁴ Phythian-Adams, Charles, “Ceremony and the Citizen, the Communal Year at Coventry, 1450-1550” in Clark, Peter and Slack, Paul, eds., Crisis and Order in English Towns, 1500–1700 (London, 1972), pp. 57–85Google Scholar, and Phythian-Adams, , Desolation of a City, Coventry and the Urban Crisis of the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1979), part 4Google Scholar.

⁵ Phythian-Adams, “Ceremony and the Citizen,” and see also James, Mervyn, “Ritual, Drama and Social Body in the Late Medieval English Town,” Past and Present 98 (Feb., 1983): 3–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kolve, V. A., The Play Called Corpus Christi (New York, 1966)Google Scholar, and Nelson, Alan H., The Medieval English Stage, Corpus Christi Pageants and Plays (Chicago, 1974)Google Scholar.

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⁸ This concept is explored in Tittler, , “The End of the Middle Ages in the English Country Town,” Sixteenth Century Journal 18, 4 (Winter, 1987): 471–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹ Though a case has recently been made by Dr. Marjorie McIntosh for greater community control amongst small towns of the southeast in the late fifteenth century, the evidence of borough incorporations, town trusts, litigation and even Crown intervention supports this trend over a wider geographic area and to a greater extent in the period especially from c. 1540-1640. Cf. McIntosh, , “Local Change and Community Control in England, 1465-1500,” Huntington Library Quarterly 49, 3 (Summer 1986): 219–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tittler, , “The Incorporation of Boroughs 1540-1558”; History 62, 204 (February 1977): 24–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Everitt, Alan, “The Marketing of Agricultural Produce,” in Thirsk, J., ed.; The Agricultural History of England and Wales, 4: 1500–1640 (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 502–06Google Scholar; Clark, and Slack, , Crisis and Order, p. 22Google Scholar, and English Towns in Transition (London, 1976), pp. 126–28Google ScholarPubMed; Tittler, “The End of the Middle Ages in the English Country Town.”

¹⁰ Clark, and Slack, , Crisis and Order, p. 22Google Scholar.

¹¹ E.g., Dobson, R. B., “Admissions to the Freemen of the City of York in the Later Middle Ages,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 23 (1973): 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ramsay, G. D., “The Recruitment and Fortunes of Some London Freemen in the mid-Sixteenth Century,” Ec.H.R., 2 ser., 31 (1978): 526–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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¹³ E.g., Hammer, Carl I. Jr., “Anatomy of an Oligarchy, the Oxford Town Council in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” Journal of British Studies 18, 1 (Fall 1978): 1–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pearl, Valerie, “Change and Stability in Seventeenth Century London,” London Journal 5 (1979): 3–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rappaport, S., “Social Structure and Mobility in Sixteenth Century London,” Part I, London Journal 9 (1983): 107–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Part II, 10 (Spring, 1984): 107-34 and Rappaport, , Worlds Within Worlds, Structures of Life in Sixteenth Century London (Cambridge, 1989), esp. chs. 3 and 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ Geertz, C., “Centers, Kings and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power,” in Ben-David, J. and Clark, T. N., eds., Culture and its Creators (Chicago, 1977)Google Scholar, as reprinted in Wilentz, Sean, ed., Rites of Power, Symbolism, Ritual and Politics Since the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1985), pp. 15–16Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Eames, Penelope, Furniture in England, France and the Netherlands from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century (London, 1977), pp. xxi and 181Google Scholar. Compare this now current view with the traditions expressed in Fastnedge, Ralph, English Furniture Styles, 1500–1830 (1955, reprinted London, 1969), p. 8 or HGoogle Scholar. Cescinsky, and Gibble, E. R., Early English Furniture and Woodwork, 2 vols. (London, 1922), 2: 145Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Gloag, John, The Englishman's Chair (London, 1964), p. 41Google Scholar. See also Wolsey, S. W. and Luff, R. W. P., Furniture in the Age of the Joiner (London, 1968), p. 69Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Priestley, Ursula and Corfield, P.J., “Rooms and Room Use in Norwich Housing, 1580-1730,” Post-Medieval Archeology 16 (1982): 108–09Google Scholar; Agius, Pauline, “Late Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Furniture at Oxford,” Furniture History 7 (1971): 72, 76Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Chinnery, Victor, Oak Furniture: the British Tradition, a History of Early Furniture in the British Isles and New England (London, 1979), p. 39Google Scholar. Christopher Hill sees the common replacement of benches by chairs in the wealthier homes only in the Restoration period, though this may be something of an extreme view; Hill, , The Century of Revolution (London, 1961), p. 250CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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²⁰ Cescinsky, Herbert, “An Oak Chair in St. Mary's Hall, Coventry,” Burlington Magazine 39 (Oct. 1921): 170–77Google Scholar, summarized in Cescinsky, and Oribble, , Early English Furniture, 2: 154–163 and figs. 204 and 220Google Scholar; Gloag, , Englishman's Chair, pp. 33–34Google Scholar; Eames, P., Furniture in England… pp. 196–97Google Scholar.

²¹ Ingram, R. W., ed., Records of Early English Drama, Coventry (Toronto, 1981), pp. 364–365Google Scholar.

²² Public Record Office, STAC 5/C23/37, deposition of James Cooke; STAC 5/C41/1, deposition of George Chatfield.

²³ Pegden, N. A., Leicester Guildhall, a Short History and Guide (Leicester, 1981), p. 4Google Scholar; Fosbrooke, T. H. and Skillington, S. H., “The Old Town Hall of Leicester,” Trans. Leicestershire Archeol. Soc. 13 (1923-1924): 1–72Google Scholar, passim.

²⁴ These furnishings seem first to have been noted in Tittler, Robert, Architecture and Power, the Town Hall and the English Urban Community, c. 1500–1640 (Oxford, 1991), plates 9 and 10Google Scholar. The author wishes to thank Mr. Raymond Grange and Ms. Margaretha Smith of the Borough of Beverley Tourist Office, and Mr. Arthur Coates of Beverley for access to this furniture and discussion thereof, and to Mr. Clive Wainwright of the Victoria and Albert Museum for his advice on the same.

²⁵ Raine, A., ed., York Civic Records, 6 (Yorkshire Archeol. Soc., Rec. Sen, 112, 1948 for 1946): 55Google Scholar.

²⁶ Raine, A., ed., York Civic Records, 7 (Yorks. Arch. Soc., Rec. Ser., 115, 1950 for 1949): 168Google Scholar. The reference also illustrates the usage “Lord Mayor,” a designation exclusive, so far as is known, to the chief officials of York and London; Oxford English Dictionary (1st ed.), vide “Lord Mayor.”

²⁷ Department of the Environment, “List of Buildings of Historical Interest, District of S. Hams, Devon” (1978), pp. 43–44Google Scholar (notes by Michael Laithwaite).

²⁸ Chinnery, , Oak Furniture, pp. 448–49 and plate IGoogle Scholar.

²⁹ Victoria County History, Wiltshire, 6 (1962), p. 87Google Scholar. Shortt, Hugh, ed., The City of Salisbury (1957), pp. 58 and 94Google Scholar; Salisbury City Muniments, Wiltshire Record Office MS. G23/1/3 (“Ledgerbook, 1571-1640”), fol. 61r. The fact that the Salisbury chairs were donated by individual mayors, a donation commemorated by the initials of the donor, should not be neglected. It suggests a parallel to the donation by prominent families of relics or other holy objects to Italian churches of the same era, or the tendency of monarchs in many past societies to redistribute gifts to the community. Such donations may be seen as efforts to gain notoriety and respect from the recipient community. See, e.g., Trexler, Richard, “Ritual Behaviour in Renaissance Florence: the Setting,” Medievalia et Humanistica, n.s., 4 (1973): 128–29Google Scholar and Geertz, “Centers, Kings and Charisma,” passim.

³⁰ E.g., Hirst, Derek, The Representatives of the People? Voters and Voting under the Early Stuarts (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 45–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clark and Slack, Crisis and Order, Introduction; and Clark and Slack, English Towns in Transition, ch. 9; Hoskins, W. G., The Age of Plunder, England in the Age of Henry VIII, 1500–1547 (1976), p. 42Google Scholar. The author is currently preparing an essay on this theme, entitled “The Apotheosis of the Mayoralty, c. 1500-1640.”

³¹ See Tittler, Architecture and Power, chs. 3-4.

³² This point emerges from an examination of Statutes of the Realm, in which mayoral powers are frequently equated with those of the J.P., a survey of charters of incorporation as they appear in the Calendar of Patent Rolls, and in numerous town by-laws in which the blossoming of mayoral authority is almost ubiquitously reflected. Cf. also Bellamy, John G., Criminal Law and Society in Late Medieval and Tudor England (Gloucester and New York, 1984), chs. 1 and 2Google Scholar; Henderson, E. G., Foundations of English Administrative Law… (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), chs. 1 and 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sidney, and Webb, Beatrice, English Local Government, The Manor and the Borough, 2 vols. (1908), chs. 2, 3, and 6Google Scholar; and Bateson, M., ed., Borough Customs, 2 vols. (Selden Soc., 1904 and 1906)Google Scholar. The best contemporary description of the Mayor's role in a highly developed example of municipal government in this era is Hooker's, JohnDescription of the Citie of Excester, ed., Harte, W. J., Schopp, J. W. and Tapley-Soper, H., (Exeter, 1919), 3: 804–06Google Scholar.

³³ Jewitt, Llewellyn and Hope, W. H. St. John, The Corporate Plate and Insignia of Office of the Cities and Towns of England and Wales, 2 vols. (1895), 1: xxiii–xlGoogle Scholar; Tweedy-Smith, R., The History, Law, Practice and Procedure Relating to Mayors, Aldermen and Councillors (1934), ch. 6Google Scholar; Tittler, , Architecture and Power, pp. 35-7, 117–18Google Scholar.

³⁴ Aries, P. and Duby, George, eds., A History of Private Life, (New York, 1987), 1: 8Google Scholar.

³⁵ Trexler, Richard, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1980), p. 258Google Scholar.

³⁶ Muir, , Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice p. 205Google Scholar; cf. also pp. 191, 206, 253 and 274.

³⁷ Grant, Michelle, “The Person of the King: Ritual and Power in a Ghanaian State,” in Cannadine, David and Price, Simon, eds., Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 298–330Google Scholar. See also Wilks, Ivor, Asante in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 110-112, 391, 430 and 661Google Scholar; and Kyerematen, A. A. Y., “The Royal Stools of Ashanti,” Africa, 38, i, 2–5Google Scholar. My thanks to Prof. J. D. Esseks for his insights into Ghanian culture.

³⁸ Gilbert, , “The Person of the King,” pp. 318–19Google Scholar.

³⁹ Master's chairs are depicted in numerous contemporary woodcuts, including those reprinted in Orme, Nicholas, Education and Society in Medieval and Renaissance England (London, 1989), p. 72Google Scholar; Lawson, John and Silver, Harold, A Social History of Education in England (London, 1973), pp. 101 and 138Google Scholar and Thompson, Craig R., Schools in Tudor England (Ithaca, New York), p. 40Google Scholar. It is worth noting that these conventionally show the master wielding a birch: a symbol of authority akin to and held in the same manner as the mayor's mace. A master's chair may be dated from c. 1531 at Newark-upon-Trent School, and from c. 1541 at Berkhampstead School; Seaborne, Malcolm, The English School, ils Architecture and Organization, 1370–1870 (London, 1971), pp. 14–16Google Scholar. My thanks to Prof. Kenneth Charlton for his help in identifying appropriate depictions and his discussion of the issue.

⁴⁰ Agius, Pauline, “Late Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Furniture at Oxford,” Furniture History 7 (1971): 72–76Google Scholar; Chinnery, , Oak Furniture, p. 19Google Scholar; Nelson, Alan, Records of Early English Drama, Cambridge, 2 vols. (Toronto and Buffalo, 1989), 1: 507–08Google Scholar. For a presentation of patriarchal authority in the family during this period, see Stone, Lawrence, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (London, 1977), especially ch. 5Google Scholar. It is probably superfluous to note the importance of priority seating at court. When the Duchess of Alba, accompanying the entourage of Philip II of Spain following his marriage to Mary Tudor, came to court, both Queen and Duchess insisted on the courtesy of sitting lower than the other. In the end they both sat on the floor! Loades, David, Mary Tudor, a Life (London, 1989), p. 33Google Scholar.

⁴¹ See n. 5 above. Corpus Christi pageants have been documented in Wakefield, York, Coventry, Chester and in an unidentified city which sounds much like Lincoln, but numerous other pageants performed elsewhere undoubtedly often served a similar social function. See Nelson, Alan H., The Medieval English Stage, Corpus Christi Pageants and Plays (Chicago, 1974)Google Scholar, passim.

⁴² Heales, Alfred, History and Law of Church Seats, 2 vols. (1872), 1: 30–31Google Scholar.

⁴³ Mire, John, Instructions for Parish Priests, ed. by Peacock, John (Early English Text Society, rev. ed., 1902, repr., 1975), p. 9Google Scholar, lines 270-276, as cited in Heales, , Church Seats, 1: 11Google Scholar. See also Thompson, A. H., The Historical Growth of the English Parish Church (2nd ed.; Cambridge, 1913), p. 109Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Heales, , Church Seats, 1: 11–12Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Hardy, W. J., “Remarks on the History of Seat Reservations in Churches,” Archeologia (2nd ser., part i, 53, 1892): 104Google Scholar; Masters, B. R. and Ralph, E., eds., The Church Book of St. Ewen's, Bristol, 1454–1584 (Bristol and Gloucestershire Archeol. Soc., Records Section, 6, 1967), pp. xxvi, et passimGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁶ Churchwardens' Accounts, St. Lawrence, Reading, 1498-1626, Berkshire Record Office MS. D/P 97/5/2, p. 349. I am indebted to the Records of Early English Drama project at the University of Toronto for access to microfilms of these and other Reading churchwardens' accounts noted below, and especially to Dr. Alexandra Johnston for her advice concerning these records.

⁴⁷ Masters, and Ralph, , The Church Book of St. Ewen's, Bristol, p. 25Google Scholar; Cox, J. Charles, Churchwardens' Accounts from the Fourteenth Century to the Close of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1913), pp. 67 and 189Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ Cox, , Churchwardens' Accounts, p. 189Google Scholar; Public Record Office, SP 14/112/83; Rev. Beresford, J. R., ed., “The Churchwardens' Accounts of Holy Trinity, Chester, 1532-1633,” Jour. Chester N. Wales Archit., Archeol. and Hist. Soc. 38 (1951); 112–17Google Scholar; Foster, J. E., ed., Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge from 1504 to 1635 (Cambridge Antiq. Soc., 35, 1905), passim; 5 Edward VI, c. 4Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Foster, , Accounts of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, pp. 572–73Google Scholar, et passim; Amphlett, Joseph, ed., The Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Michael's in Bedwardine, Worcester, 1539–1603 (Worcester Hist. Soc., VII, 1896), pp. xv–xviGoogle Scholar; Orders of 9 and 23 Elizabeth cited in SP 14/112/83; Bailey, John, ed., Transcription of the Minutes of the Borough of Boston, 3 vols. (1980–), 1: 81, 643Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Churchwardens' Accounts, St. Giles, Reading, 1518-1642, Berkshire Record Office MSS D/P 96/5/1, 1518-1642, passim.

⁵¹ This and subsequent conclusions about the identity of prominent citizens rests on the correlation of the names of Reading office holders, especially its Capital and Secondary Burgesses, with those listed as renting seats in the same years. The reprinted lists of officials may be found in J.M. Guilding, Records of Reading, 4 vols. (Reading, 1897- ), 1: passim, for the appropriate years.

⁵² Churchwardens' Accounts, St. Lawrence's, Reading, 1498-1626, Berkshire R.O. MS. D/P 97/5/2.

⁵³ Churchwardens' Accounts, St. Mary's, Reading, 1550-1642, Berkshire Record Office MS. D/P 98/5/1.

⁵⁴ Berkshire R.O. MS. D/P 98/5/1, p. 90.

⁵⁵ Such listings seem not infrequently to have been kept, though most have not survived. Berkshire R.O. MS. D/P 98/5/1, p. 92 for 1585, p. 94 for 1586 and p. 96 for 1587.

⁵⁶ E.g., Clark, Peter, “The Migrant in Kentish Towns, 1580-1640” in Clark, and Slack, , Crisis and Order in English Towns, 1500–1700, pp. 117–63Google Scholar. Patten, J., Rural-Urban Migration in Pre-Industrial England (Oxford U. School of Geography Resch. Ppr., 1973), passimGoogle Scholar.

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⁵⁹ Bailey, , Transcription of Minutes of Boston, 1: 643Google Scholar.

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