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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Many, if not most, of the writers on early pageantry state that the first pageantic “royal-entry” at London took place in 1236, when Queen Eleanor of Provence arrived at her new capital. It is the purpose of this paper to show that there had been elaborate “royal-entries” before that date, and that the first pageantic “royal-entry” did not occur until sixty-two years after this ceremony. The best way to do this, is to make a survey of the “royal-entries” of the thirteenth century.
It was in connection with this method of honoring their rulers that the English people developed pageantry most notably between the early years of the thirteenth century and the reign of Queen Elizabeth; therefore the beginnings of pageantry in connection with the “royal-entry” are not only interesting in themselves, but historically important. The splendor which surrounded all ceremonies involving the king was great, long before 1200; Wendover's account of the coronation of Richard I in 1189 is a clear picture of the kind of thing that took place.
1 Flores Historiarum, i, pp. 164 f.; copied by Matthew Paris (Historia Minor, ii, pp. 6 f.; Chronica Majora, ii, p. 348). Cf. Strutt, Manners and Customs, ii, p. 59.
2 Annales Lond., i, p. 13: “…in cuius adventu tota oivitas Londoniæ induit solempnitatem pallis et aliis ornamentis circumornata.” Cf. also E. K. Chambers, The Medi
val Stage, Oxford, 1903, ii, p. 166, n. 5.
In Chrétien de Troyes' romance Ywain (lines 2319, 2340 f.), is an interesting mediæval account of citizens welcoming a king. To be sure, the king is Arthur, and the citizens live in a land which cannot be located on a map of this world; but we may presume that Chrétien took his description of the streets hung with tapestries, the dancing folk, and other “features,” from the life of the time. There is nothing pageantic in this welcome; but we must not forget that the description is probably taken from the life of the mid-twelfth century.
3 Chron. Maj., iii, p. 336. Giles, in his translation (i, p. 8), renders this “with wonderful devices and extraordinary representations,” which again is ambiguous. There may have been pageantry on this occasion; representations may refer to miracle plays; but this interpretation is not necessary. That it is unlikely, seems to be shown by the fact that no other example of a pageantic “royal-entry” occurs before 1298.
The oft-quoted passage from Stow is this: “of triumphant Shewes made by the citizens of London, yee may read in the yeere 1236. the 20. of Henrie the third, Andrew Bockell then beeing Maior, how Elianor … riding through the Citie of [London] towards Westminster, there to bee crowned Queene of England, the Citie was adorned with silkes, and in the night with Lamps, Cressets … besides many Pageants and strange deuices there presented. …” Stow, Survey (1618), p. 147; cf. Hone, Ancient Mysteries Described, p. 234; Taylor, Glory of Regality, p. 251; Chambers, op. cit., ii, p. 167; etc.
Miss Strickland, in her Lives of the Queens of England, i, p. 247 (referring to Matthew Paris) notes that the citizens “prepared all sorts of costly pageantry to grace the coronation festival.” It should be pointed out that her use of the word pageantry is extremely loose; (cf. ibid., i, pp. 41, 42, 43, 121, etc.). The same caution may be extended to Mr. Richard Davey (cf. The Pageant of London (2 vols.), London, 1906, i, p. 95) and many other writers, who use the word rather in a sense of “gorgeous procession” than in its stricter meaning. We must be on our guard against this too-general use of the word.
4 Chron. Maj., iii, p. 617: “De cuius adventu cum rex certificaretur secus quam deceret lætabundus occurrit venienti, præcipitque cives Londonienses in adventu ejus omnes truncos et sterquilinia lutum quoque et omnia offendicula a plateis festinanter amovere; civesque festivis vestibus ornatos, in equis eidem comiti gratanter occurrere faleratis. In quo facto, rex multorum sibilum movit et cachinnum.”
5 Op. cit., iv, p. 261 f.; “Venit autem in apparatu magno et fastigio pomposa nimis; … jussit rex civitatem Londoniarum cortinis aulæis et diversis aliis ornamentis decorari a ponte usque Westmonasterium, stipitibus, luto et omni eluvie et offendiculo procul a visu transeuntium elongato.” Giles translates this passage: “She came in great state, and with very pompous pageantry,” etc. This is the free use of the word; there is no reason to suppose that the citizens furnished pageants.
This entry of the Countess is noted in Arohaeologia, l, p. 492, note d. The property inventoried in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul (ibid., p. 492) included “rubeus strictus cum longis avibus et leonibus, de dono Oomitissae Provinciae.”
6 Paris, Chron. Maj., iv, p. 255. Pompa inanis gloriœ stands in the margin.
7 Ibid., iv, p. 644. (The account begins on p. 640). Cf. also Ann. Lond., i, p. 44 (sub anno 1246): “dominus rex cum honorabili processione dictum sanguinem recepit.” Flores Hist., ii, pp. 343 f., contains an account of this ceremony, which Davey (Pageant of London, i, p. 115), calls “one of the most picturesque pageants” of the reign of Henry III—using the word carelessly.
8 Says Matthew Paris (op. cit., iv, pp. 641 f.): “Quo et ipse rex venit, et cum summo honore et reverentia ac timore accipiens illud vasculum cum thesauro memorato, tulit illud ferens in propatulo supra faciem suam, iens pedes, habens humilem habitum, scilicet pauperem capam sine caputio, præcedentibus vestitis prædictis, sine pausatione, usque ad ecclesiam Westmonasterii, quæ distat ab ecclesia sancti Pauli circiter uno miliari… . Nec adhuc cessabat dominus rex, quin indeffesus ferens illud vas, ut prius, circuire [t] ecclesiam, regiam, et thalamos suos.” This was no pompa inanis gloriœ!
9 Matthew Paris, op. cit., v, pp. 266 f. The splendor and extravagance of the marriage banquets are remarked on, pp. 269 f.
10 Matthew Paris, op. cit., v, p. 527: “Quo die a magnatibus Angliæ quamplurimus et civibus Londoniensibus, civitate Londoniarum nobiliter adornata, est receptus, et usque ad regiam Westmonasterialem cum magno pompa et applausu est perductus.”
11 Ibid., V, pp. 573, 574. It is interesting to note that the Fifth Episode of the Chester Pageant of 1910 showed the visit of Prince Edward and Princess Eleanor to that city in 1256 (Book of the Chester Pageant, p. 49). No pageants—in the older sense—were reproduced.
12 See Ann. Lond., i, p. 84; Flores Hist., iii, p. 44; Rishanger, Chronica et Annales, p. 84. Matthew of Westminster is quoted by J. G. Nichols, London Pageants, p. 10, as his authority for saying that on the king's return from abroad (2 August 1274) “the streets were hung with rich cloths … the Aldermen and Burgesses of the city threw out of their windows handfuls of gold and silver to signify their great gladness at his safe return, and the conduits ran plentifully with wine. …” I cannot find the basis for these remarks in Matthew of Westminster. Cf. Fairholt, Lord Mayor's Pageants, pt. i, p. 2.
13 Rishanger, p. 83. If this shows pageantry, make the most of it!
14 Sturgeons.
15 Salmons.
16 A trade-mark common enough in later Lord Mayor's Shows.
17 The Chronicle of Dunmow, (in Harl. ms. 530, fols. 2-13; this paragraph is on fol. 7b), cited by Stow, Annals, p. 207. Chambers, op. cit., ii, p. 167, says that he could not identify Stow's authority (abbreviated Chro. Dun.). By referring to the first place where Stow uses it—namely on p. 170 of his Annals—I discovered the name of the chronicle written out in full. Thomson, Chron. Land. Bridge, p. 101, describes the ms.; it “is now to be found only in a small quarto volume in the Harleian Library of Manuscripts, no. 530, article ii, page 2a. It consists of a miscellaneous collection of notes, in the handwritings of Stow, Camden, and perhaps Sir Henry Savile; transcribed upon old, stained and worn-out paper.”
Cf., also, on this 1298 show, Herbert, History of the Livery Companies, i, pp. 89 f.; Chambers, ii, p. 167; Davidson, English Mystery Plays, p. 86 (who says that in 1293—obviously a misprint—the London guilds held a procession with what appear to have been moving pageants indicative of trade, to welcome Edward I on his return from Scotland); J. G. Nichols, Lond. Pag., p. 6. All these writers go back to Stow.
Fairholt, op. cit., pt. i, pt. 3, calls this “the earliest exhibition of shows or pageants connected with the city trades or companies.” I have found no earlier purely civic pageantry.
18 These may have been real; but as they rode “luces of the water” they were probably, at the most, members of the guild, (who may also have been members of the watch,) and strongly suggest pageant-knights, whose patent of knighthood was ephemeral.