ABSTRACT
English folk performance has a deep and abiding relationship with the rhythms of the year, with many performative customs developing from and in response to interconnected religious, economic, and social calendars. One particularly significant traditional festival, sitting at the intersection of these three calendars, is Shrovetide, the English iteration of the pre-Lenten Carnival. While Carnival on the continent has long been recognized as a font of theatrical and folk performance, English Shrovetide has not. Indeed, some scholars have gone so far as to claim that England lacks a Carnival season of public performance and always has. But as this essay endeavours to show, from the medieval period through to the end of the nineteenth century – and in some communities still today – Shrovetide was the occasion of myriad performative customs which meandered through the streets. Focusing on these premodern Shrovetide processions and perambulations, this chapter examines how they arose in response to the specific structural pressures of the season. After a general survey of processions and the themes they conveyed, a more intensive case study of perambulatory begging customs demonstrates how social, religious, and material issues could intersect, develop, and be performed over time through the cyclical medium of the calendar.
