ABSTRACT
Seventeenth-century pageantry conventions can be traced back to traditional, seasonal perambulatory ‘shows’ performed provincially for over a century before Elizabeth I’s coronation royal entry of 1559. Participants’ collection of money or goods – the ‘quête’ – as the price of their entertainment sometimes structured part of the perambulatory shows. I examine this neglected historical context, looking specifically at ‘encounter customs’, a term coined by Thomas Pettitt. I anatomise (1) the presentation of gifts; (2) the calling for a ‘largesse’; and (3) the formal acceptance of a dramatic role by a sovereign or Lord Mayor. I look at Queen Elizabeth I’s inaugural civic triumph; mayoralty Shows including Anthony Munday’s 1605 The Triumphs of Re-united Britannia and his 1611 Chruso-Thriambos, The Triumphs of Gold; Ben Jonson’s 1604 entertainment for James and Anne at the house of William Cornwallis at Highgate; and Munday’s 1610 civic entry for Prince Henry, London’s Love. It is only with an understanding of earlier provincial perambulatory festivities that we can properly understand how notions of economic agency and civic responsibility shifted from earlier periods to London’s age of great civic pageantry.
