Flower of the Month: The Percys’ Fool in the New World?

The Percy family documents seldom provide much information about named performers, but for Thomas Wigen or Wyggen, the references suggest an eventful, perhaps harrowing life. He appears first in 1605 ...

Flower of the Month: a New Year’s Day play in the East Riding of Yorkshire

Among the usual records of fornication, adultery, playing cards during service times, marrying without having the banns read properly and similar infringements, the Archbishop of York’s Vi...

Flower of the Month: Dragons and Dancing Giants in Yorkshire West Riding

Some of the earliest records of performance in the West Riding provide evidence of the dragon of Ripon Minster. In the accounts of 1439-40, the Chamberlains of this Benedictine monastery note the stip...

Celebrating Maundy Thursday in Medieval Durham (2018)

Today is a beautiful sunny Maundy Thursday in Durham. In light of the day, we’re reposting this Flower from a few years back: How did the medieval monks of Durham celebrate Maundy Thursda...

Flower of the Month: Beverley’s Benevolence to Henry VIII

King Henry VIII visited Yorkshire only once in the course of his long reign, in the summer and autumn of 1541, and seems to have been prompted to travel so far only by the perceived need to calm (and ...

Update (stop the press): even earlier plough ceremonies from Durham?

In an update to REED N-E’s earlier ‘Flower of the Month’, we’ve discovered that Durham might have even older evidence for plow ceremonies than those mentioned last week (see E...

Epiphanytide in Medieval Durham

The Feast of Epiphany celebrates the revelation of God’s earthly presence to the Gentiles, through the revelation of the Christ-child to the Magi: et ecce stella quam viderant in oriente anteced...

‘No No my Lord’: Northumberland will have no turnings or windings

‘No No my Lord’ Anyone frustrated by current arguments in the news might benefit from reading the following spirited letter from the ninth Earl of Northumberland to William Cecil, second Earl of S...

Flower of the Month: Leeds’ John Harrison – good Christian benefactor or ‘the very knave of knaves’?

A standard search of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for “John Harrison” produces twelve results. Among scientists, artists, a horologist, a naval officer, clergymen, conspirat...

Flower of the Month: Youths playing ‘badly’ in Berwick-upon-Tweed

This month’s Flower comes from the Northumberland border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. The borough account book records some youthful shenanigans in the streets of Berwick in the early 1540s. An u...

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