ABSTRACT
Recent developments in performance studies and in theories of performativity have encouraged us to reflect on performance beyond the established confines of dramatic events. Performance is increasingly understood not as bound by the theatre, but as a fundamental medium both of social relationships and of individual identity. Many sixteenth-century spectacle-narratives seem designed for wide public circulation, increasingly in print. Young’s account seems closer to a slightly earlier group of reports, less explicitly aimed at a broad public readership, and perhaps intended primarily for fellow officers of arms, recording protocol and establishing precedents. Two qualities Young especially emphasises are the magnificence that asserts the momentousness of the alliance; and the images and gestures of unity, both formal and informal, that embody its political implications.
