Yorkshire Almanac Edwin Sandys, Reformation Archbishop of York, cracks down on fun

12 June 1578: Edwin Sandys, Reformation Archbishop of York, cracks down on fun

Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s ‘Feast of St. George with the dance around the maypole’ (Brueghel the Younger 1620ish).

Edwin Sandys. 1578. Injunctions of Edwin, Archbishop of York. Online: Records of Early English Drama. Apparently Sandys’ injunctions were published in 1578, but I can’t find an online edition. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

25 Item, that the said Churchwardens shall not suffer any Lordes of misrule, Maygames, or morice daunces, with like disorders to come into the Churche or Churchyarde, in time of Common prayer, nor at anie other time, neither shall suffer any pedlers, or other whatsoeuer, to set out or vtter any wares, or open any shoppes in time of Common prayer, nor shall suffer any Uittayling, Tippling houses, or Tauerns, to be frequented in time of deuine seruice, but shall presente the offenders therein by name immediately, upon euery such offence committed…

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

See also the struggles of Edmund Grindal, Sandys’ predecessor, e.g. from OED:

E. Grindal Iniunctions Prouince of Yorke §19. sig. C.iij The Minister & churchwardens shall not suffer any Lordes of misrule, or Sommer Lordes..to come vnreuerently into any Church [etc.].

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Comment

See also the struggles of Edmund Grindal, Sandys’ predecessor, e.g. from OED:

E. Grindal Iniunctions Prouince of Yorke §19. sig. C.iij The Minister & churchwardens shall not suffer any Lordes of misrule, or Sommer Lordes..to come vnreuerently into any Church [etc.].

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Similar

29 August 1570: On arriving in Yorkshire, Archbishop Grindal declares war on bloody-minded folk-Catholicism

26 December 1570: Edmund Grindal, Puritan archbishop of York, orders the removal of rood-lofts (and their superstitious images), and the erection of pulpits

7 January 1397: On the longest of the 42 days of his carnivalesque reign, boy-bishop John de Cave of York goes on a 200-mile begging spree

22 September 1465: A menu for the enthronement at Cawood Castle of George Neville as Archbishop of York

4 May 1807: Lord Milton welcomes 10,000 to his 21st birthday barbecue at Wentworth Woodhouse, Rotherham, during his campaign to be elected MP for the Whigs

25 August 1662: Following Charles II’s purge of Presbyterian ministers, Roundhead Captain John Hodgson of Coley Hall (Halifax) is again harassed as a suspected plotter

15 March 1586: Offered a jury acquittal, Margaret Clitherow of York, concealer of priests, chooses martyrdom and is crushed under her own front door

30 July 1820: Primitive Methodists try to disrupt the traditional Maudlin Fair football match between Hedon and Preston (Holderness)

2 August 1680: William Dolben, perhaps reluctantly, condemns Thomas Thwing to death at York for his part, without co-conspirators, in a fictitious conspiracy – the Popish Plot

18 September 1858: The Spectator is bowled over by the new Leeds Festival chorus’s singing of the Messiah – “the music text-book of the West Riding”

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Comment

Comparison with the piece from The Spectator on the same day suggests to me that their critic is referred to above:

The Leeds Musical Festival terminated with The Messiah on the morning of Saturday last. In the performance of the solo parts there was nothing remarkable, the principal singers being the usual metropolitan celebrities, Madame Clara Novello, Miss Dolby, Mr. Sims Reeves, and Mr. Weiss; but the choruses were sung in a manner which the metropolis certainly has never been able to equal. We have already had occasion to notice the superiority of the choristers of Birmingham to those of Exeter Hall, notwithstanding their inferiority in numerical strength: at Leeds the same observation held good in a still more remarkable degree. At Exeter Hall the choral and instrumental band numbers above 700; at Birmingham it numbered about 500; at Leeds under 350: while the real power of these tuneful hosts was in the inverse ratio of their numbers. The Birmingham 500 excelled the London 700, while the Leeds 350 excelled both the one and the other. The Yorkshire choristers are the best in England, if not the best in the world; and all the Leeds choristers were Yorkshire people belonging to the working classes, drawn from the towns and villages of that musical land. Among them there was not one useless individual: they all had sound, mellow, English voices; they all thoroughly knew their parts, and consequently sang without hesitation or wavering, and their united voices formed a volume of pure musical sound which we have never heard equalled elsewhere by twice their number. Of all the districts of England the great county of York is the best able to furnish the materials for a great music-meeting; and in former times it was in the city of York that the greatest of the English Festivals was held, though it has been long since crushed by the interference of clerical bigotry. We are glad that a new Yorkshire Festival has been established. Like that of Birmingham, it is independent of the abused power of ecclesiastical dignitaries: and as the people of Leeds have emulated those of Birmingham in spirit and energy, their Festival has a fair prospect of rivalling the other in durability and magnitude. And this prospect is all the greater for the design, (which we understand, is contemplated) of rendering the Leeds Festival, like that of Birmingham, a permanent establishment, with triennial meetings for one charitable object, the benefit of the General Infirmary, a charity of great and extensive usefulness.

The financial result of this first Music Meeting at Leeds has been highly favorable. The audiences at the seven morning and evening performances amounted on an average to 2000 persons at each; the whole amount received has been about 75001, while the expenditure is estimated at 6000l: so that the charity will be benefited to the extent of about 1500l.

The appointment of Professor Sterndale Bennett (who, in addition to his high talents and reputation, is a Yorkshireman born) to the office of conductor, gave general satisfaction from the outset, and the vigour and ability with which he performed his duties, enhanced greatly the excellence of the performances and the success of the Festival.
(Spectator 1858/09/18)

George Bernard Shaw, however:

Down to 1877 the majority of the committee never got beyond the primitive notion that a great musical event was one at which Tietjens sang and Costa conducted. It was not until she died and he repudiated the committee that Leeds at last found out that familiarity with The Messiah, Elijah and the overture to William Tell, was not the climax of nineteenth-century musical culture.

Can someone point me to something about the York festival?

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