ABSTRACT
Late medieval and early modern Europe saw a wide range of cultural festivities, enjoyed by communities at traditionally determined moments in the calendar year. Anthropologists such as Victor Turner have advocated the notion of the ‘safety-valve’, arguing that the celebration of Carnival enabled ‘common people’ to let off steam in an otherwise rigidly controlled hierarchical structure. In Germany, Martin Luther opposed the Carnival in Nuremberg in 1539,23 and even before that, in 1469, the Nuremberger Burgermeister and City Council sought to constrain that year’s Carnival-related festivities by forbidding men and women to make changes to their normal clothing, cross-dress, or wear masks, so that they remained recognisable. The personal attack on Mr Humphrey Palmer was a mock-variation of a traditional pageant that was normally performed by the Chandlers, Tanners, and Butchers, in which a priest on horseback would have distributed grains from a sack. This event thus developed traditional festivity, albeit in a more savage direction.
