ABSTRACT
The image on the cover of this volume shows a common magic trick, one of many ‘desperate or dangerous iuggling knacks’ whereby ‘the simple’ were deceived and divested of their money.1 Here we see the physical re-enactment of the ‘decollation of Iohn Baptist’ – one of the most famous and frequently represented of all biblical narratives – as a trick designed to gull an audience, one of a whole repertoire travelling performers might draw upon. The exploitation through such ‘deceiptfull arts’ of the (often rustic) ‘simple’ folk was a commonly repeated motif of early modern culture across Europe, appearing in jest books, drama and poetry as well as in images by Breugel and others, designed for consumption as much by those conventionally characterised as ‘elite’ patrons as an admonition for those in the ‘popular’ sphere. When acted out by performers of skill – as it was by one ‘Kingsfield of London’ at Bartholomewtide in 1582 – this particular trick must have been visually stunning, drawing together the sacred and the profane in a provocative synthesis through little more than the use of a board, a cloth, a platter and two boys of equivalent ‘bignesse’.2
