Popular culture essay Flashcards
Religious Elite - Quote from Burke
The reformers […] demanded a learned clergy”
The new priest was “considerably more remote from his flock”
Religious withdrawal
Ridings often against puritans who were often of a higher class Riding in 1602 at Waterbeach against a vicar who had been beaten by his wife considered a “defacing of the ministry” Riding at Wells in Somerset in 1607 due to the puritan, John Hole who had attempted to suppress the city’s May games. Hole, in line with Puritan views considered the May day games to be “unseemly pastimes”
Religious withdrawal counters
Puritan concerns with chiavaris were generally isolated and there is generally little evidence of concern in wider moralist literature.
Concern was more with the maintenance of order than with religious objections, but they may well have silently disapproved.
Catholic church involved in as a part of religion, transubstantiation at the mass. Focus on relics etc, Prince Frederick and his collection of 200 relics at the beginning of the period.
Noble Elite Burke
more ‘polished’ manner
“they had to show they were different from other people.””
Examples of noble withdrawal
Francis Child - Ballads as the “possession of the uneducated
Scottish nobility began to reject traditional Gaelic, with Adam Ferguson describing it as “a language spoken in the cottage, but not in the parlour, nor at the table of any gentleman”
This linguistic separation could also be seen on the continent, in Bohemia Bohuslav Balbín said anyone heard speaking Czech was “thought to have harmed his reputation.”
Noble withdrawal counter examples
1672: Lady Haslewood suggested a riding after Anthony Cable, a smallholder, came home drunk and was beaten by his wife. Her husband, local squire and justice Sir William Haslewood, vetoed this but only on the grounds cable had done him good work, not that he was against them on principle.
1640: Parliamentary regime consults William Lilly to help using his prophecies to aid military strategy
Growth of ‘high’ magic becoming popular among the upper classes particularly prophecy, Elizabeth I had John Dee, personal astrologer.
Gentry withdrawal burke
“The polished manner of the nobility was imitated by officials, lawyers and merchants who wanted to pass for noblemen”
Genrty examples
“The polished manner of the nobility was imitated by officials, lawyers and merchants who wanted to pass for noblemen”
Examples in favour
1587: Dr Richard Crick (lecturer in East Bergholt, Essex) asks the Dedham conference for guidance dealing with a riding which had occurred when he was away. He states he had already “vehemently inveighed against it”
1661: John Bond was ejected as minister of Holt, Norfolk and describes a riding as “a most horrid and prodigious misdemeanor” and demanded the ringleaders face “exemplary punishment”.
Samuel Pepy’s exemplifies the more appropriate and nuanced approach to popular culture.
He was clearly a learned man, with a huge library totalling 3000 books.
However engaged in both popular and elite culture as well, watched brawling butchers and water men in the Southwark Beer Garden and had lessons in the flute
Went to Bartholomew fair, acrobats, dancing horses ect
However Pepys was ashamed to be in the presence of ‘citizens’ and ‘mean people’
Participated but looked down on popular culture, catalogued certain books in his library as ‘vulgaria’
Intelectual elites
Even prior to the Reformation there was considerable resentment of popular culture from the most learned elites.
Erasmus considered carnival to be a remnant of ancient paganism and unchristian.
German Lawyer Sebastian Brant considered drinking, dancing and gaming in religious festivals to be the ruin of country people, his criticism also came notably early in 1495 (Ship of Fools)
Use of ‘high’ magic as opposed to ‘low’ magic of cunning folk
1488: Lichtenberger publishes ‘Prognostications”, using stars to make prophecy. It is the most popular book on prophecy, describing stars and planets as demonic powers.
1558: Della Porta publishes ‘Natural Magic’, inspired by Ficino (1489, On the Life to be obtained from the heavens), split magic into two parts, the low part using “foul spirits” was hated by “all learned and good men”, and the higher magic, based on temporal physical objects, to advance understanding of nature.
