Ludgate time: Simon Eyre's oath and the temporal economies of The Shoemaker's Holiday

Huntington Library Quarterly

Volumn 71, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 11-32

  Harris, Jonathan Gil ^a  

^a GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Conceptions of time in early modern London; King Lud; Ludgate; Simon Eyre; Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday

Indexed keywords

EID: 57749126674     PISSN: 00187895     EISSN: 1544399X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/hlq.2008.71.1.11     Document Type: Review

References (66)

1. Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker, The Roaring Girl, ed. Paul Mulholland (Manchester, 1987), 2.2.109
2. There has been speculation that Ludgate did not have a clock when the play was first performed; see Andor Gomme, ed., The Roaring Girl (London and New York, 1976), 50 n. 105. But the 1720 engraving reproduced in figure 1 clearly shows a clock in the gate's turret
3. The historical Simon Eyre was not a shoemaker, but an upholsterer and draper; see Alfred B. Beaven, ed., The Aldermen of the City of London, vol. 2 (London, 1913), 9
4. For Eyre's oath, see Thomas Dekker, The Shoemaker's Holiday, ed. Anthony Parr (London and New York, 1990), 1.169,1.219,4.69,7.37,17.36,21.17-18; for Margery's refrain, see 1.156,1.158,4.54,7.42-43, 7.122-23,7.125,7.147,7.153,10. 20,10.27,10.51-52,10.74,10.92,20.37. All further references to the play are given in the text
5. Michel Serres and Bruno Latour, Eclaircissements: Cinq Entretiens avec Bruno Latour (Paris, 1992)
6. See also Latour, We Have Never Been Modern, trans. Catherine Porter (Cambridge, Mass., 1993), 75
7. The Shoemaker's Holiday, 15 n. 169
8. Parr's attribution echoes other influential editions. The first New Mermaids edition likewise glosses the referent of Eyre's oath as "possibly the legendary King Lud, whose statue stood in Ludgate, a city thoroughfare"; The Shoemaker's Holiday, ed. D. J. Palmer (London, 1975), 16 n.170
9. Robert L. Smallwood and Stanley Wells observe in their Revels edition of the play that "Eyre's phrase may allude to the image of Lud, placed on the east side of Ludgate when it was rebuilt in 1586"; The Shoemaker's Holiday (Manchester, 1973), 93 n. 173
10. "nobilissimis muris necnon & turribus mira arte fabricates"; Acton Griscom, ed., The Historia Regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth (London, 1929), 252
11. "reedificauit Lundoniam, edifices uenustissimis, murorum, turrium, protarum, serarum, pontium, 〈uniarum〉 regiarum"; Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People, ed. and trans. Diana Greenway (Oxford, 1996), 750
12. "ad sui memoriam Carlunden uocaretur"; Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, 750
13. For speculations about the etymology of Ludgate, see Peter Cunningham, Handbook of London, Past and Present (London, 1850), 304
14. Henry B. Wheatley, London Past and Present: Its History, Associations, and Traditions (London, 1891), 444
15. and W. W. Hutchings, London Town Past and Present (London, 1909), 412
16. Raphael Holinshed, The First Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande (London, 1577), bk. 3, p. 33
17. John Stow, A Survey of London, ed. Charles Lethbridge, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1908), 1:1
18. Robert Greene, The Royal Exchange (1590), in Alexander B. Grosart, ed., The Life and Complete Works in Prose and Verse of Robert Greene, 15 vols. (London, 1881-86), 7:222
19. William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, in Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Jean E. Howard, and Katharine Eisaman Maus, eds., The Norton Shakespeare (New York and London, 1997), 3.1.32,4.2.101
20. Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, ed. J. William Hebel (Oxford, 1961), 143
21. Richard Verstegan, Restitution of Decayed Intelligence: in Antiquities, Concerning the most noble and renowned English nation (Antwerp, 1605), 134. I thank Val Wayne for directing me to this reference
22. Drayton, Poly-Olbion, 158
23. Stow, Survey of London, 1:38
24. Kathleen Biddick, The Typological Imaginary: Circumcision, Technology, and History (Philadelphia, 2003)
25. Robert Lemon, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1581-90 (London, 1865), 342-43
26. See Steven Mullaney, The Place of the Stage: License, Power, and Theater in Early Modern England (Chicago, 1988), 10-20
27. Lawrence Manley, Literature and Culture in Early Modern London (Cambridge, 1997), 226
28. For Anne Boleyn's coronation in 1533, for example, Ludgate was "costly and sumptuously garnished with gold, colours, and azure"; Elizabeth's pre-coronation approach to Ludgate was announced by the playing of music at the site. See Robert Withington, English Pageantry: An Historical Outline, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1920), 1:184,202
29. Thomas Dekker, The Magnificent Entertainment: Giuen to King Iames, Queene Anne his wife, and Henry Frederick the Prince, vpon the day of his Maiesties Tryumphant Passage (from the Towere) through his Honourable Citie (and Chamber) of London, being the 15. of March. 1603 (London, 1604), passim
30. The symbolic importance of Ludgate in James's coronation procession was perhaps enhanced by the Lord Mayor's command, on the day of Queen Elizabeth's death (24 March 1603), that "the gates at Ludgate and portcullis [be] shutt and downe" until James was installed as king; see John Bruce, ed., Diary of John Manningham (Westminster, 1868), 147
31. On the artisanal stage properties used in mystery plays and in The Shoemaker's Holiday, see my "Properties of Skill: Product Placement in Early English Artisanal Drama," in Jonathan Gil Harris and Natasha Korda, eds., Staged Properties in Early Modern English Drama (Cambridge, 2002), 31-59
32. See also Ronda A. Arab's "Work, Bodies, and Gender in The Shoemaker's Holiday" Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 13 (2001): 182-212, which argues that the play's nostalgic attitude to artisanal materials depends on the domination of women
33. and Pharaoh was dramatized with his "knights" in the Norwich city play of the "Tanners, Coryours, Cordwaners," i.e., shoemakers. See Withington, English Pageantry, 1:150,56,176,195 (Hector), 2:73 (Hercules), 1:168,177 (Arthur), 2:12 n. 3 (Pharaoh)
34. Lawrence Manley, "Of Sites and Rites," in David L. Smith, Richard Strier, and David Bevington, eds., The Theatrical City: Culture, Theatre, and Politics in London 1576-1649 (Cambridge, 1995), 35-54
35. See Fernand Braudel, The Wheels of Commerce, vol. 2 of Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century (Berkeley, Calif, 1992)
36. and Jean Favier, Gold and Spices: The Rise of Commerce in the Middle Ages, trans. Caroline Higgett (New York, 1998)
37. See esp. Craig Muldrew, Economy of Obligation: The Culture of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England (New York, 1998)
38. John Higgins, The Nomenclator, or Remembrancer of Adrianus Iunius Physician diuided in two tomes, conteining proper names and apt termes for all thinges vnder their conuenient titles (London, 1585), 325
39. Donald Lupton, London and the Countrey Carbonadoed and Quartred into Seuerall Characters (London, 1632), 45
40. R. M., Micrologia: Characters, or Essayes, Of Persons, Trades, and Places, offered to the City and Country (London, 1629), sig. D3
41. Stow, Survey of London, 1:37, 246
42. Norman Egbert McClure, ed., The Letters of John Chamberlain (Philadelphia, 1939), 633
43. Beaven, ed., Aldermen of the City of London, 2:9
44. and in 1592 the Lord Mayor himself requested that he have access to the water from "the Conduit at Ludgate" (Analytical Index to the Series of Records Known as the Remembrancia Preserved Among the Archives of the City of London, A.D. 1579-1664 [London, 1878], I. 656 23rd April 1592, p. 554)
45. John Taylor, A Memorial of All the English Monarchs, being in number 150. from Brute to King James (London, 1622), sig. C4V
46. For discussions of early modern London debtors' prisons and their conditions, see Clifford Dobb, "London Prisons," Shakespeare Survey 17 (1964): 87-100
47. Bruce Watson, "The Compter Prisons of London," London Archaeologist 7 (1993): 115-21
48. and Simon Devereaux and Paul Griffiths, eds., Penal Practice and Culture 1500-1900: Punishing the English (New York, 2004)
49. tie on Midlent-Sunday last (London, 1621), sig. E3V
50. A Description of Love. With certaine Epigrams, Elegies, and Sonnets. And Also Ionson's Answer to Withers. The Second Edition, With the Crie of Ludgate and The Song of the Begger (London, 1620), sig. E1v
51. Ben Jonson, Every Man Out of his Humour, ed. Helen Ostovich (Manchester and New York, 2001), 1.2.124
52. Philip Massinger, The City-Madam, ed. T. W. Craik (London, 1964), 1.3.22-28
53. "The Cry of Ludgate," sigs. E1V-E2
54. For a fascinating study of early modern affective responses to credit and debt, including Antonio's sadness, see Theodore Leinwand, Theatre, Finance, and Society in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1999)
55. William Rowley, A New Wonder: A Woman Never Vext (London, 1623) ; all page references are given in the text
56. Dekker and Webster, Westward Ho, in Fredson Bowers, ed., The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, 5 vols. (Cambridge, 1953-61), 2:3.2.22-23
57. Thomas Dekker, A Rod for Run-awayes, in Alexander B. Grosart, ed., The Non-Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, 5 vols. (London, 1885), 4:287
58. Thomas Dekker, Satiromastix, in Dramatic Works, 1:4.3.94-96
59. See also Withington, English Pageantry, 2:35 n. 4
60. and Fredrick O. Wage, Thomas Dekker's Pamphlets, 1603-1609, and Jacobean Popular Literature, 2 vols. (Salzburg, 1997), 2:272
61. Thomas Dekker, The Seuen Deadly Sinnes of London: Drawne in seuen seuerall Coaches, Through the seuen seuerall Gates of the Citie Bringing the Plague with them (London, 1606), 31
62. See Leinwand, Theatre, Finance, and Society, especially the introduction, "Affective Economies," and chapter 1, "Credit Crunch."
63. Douglas Bruster, "On a Certain Tendency in Economic Criticism of Shakespeare," in Linda Woodbridge, ed., Money and the Age of Shakespeare: Essays in New Economic Criticism (London and New York, 2003), 67-95
64. For a more general discussion of how Dekker provides fantasy solutions to enduring economic problems, see David Scott Kastan's "Workshop and/as Playhouse: Comedy and Commerce in The Shoemaker's Holiday," in David Scott Kastan and Peter Stallybrass, eds., Staging the Renaissance (New York, 1991), 151-63
65. Slavoj Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (London, 1989)
66. For a useful account of Dekker's time in debtors' prison, see Marie-Therese Jones-Davies, Un peintre de la vie londonienne: Thomas Dekker (circa 1572-1632), 2 vols. (Paris, 1958)