I’ve been given the Janet Arnold Award by the Society of Antiquaries to recreate clothing described in the Tudor song, Greensleeves.
Really excited to be working on this project with a team of superb costume historians.
Among other things, there will be a video to come in the future, and a book about Greensleeves & early modern clothing in music and song, but in the meantime, here is our recording of the words and music… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pej-PqWDJ4U&ab_channel=Passamezzo
My orders from the library came in yesterday and this morning I am starting Black Tudors: The Untold Story by Miranda Kaufman. I will reserve any judgment as I am literally only a few pages in, but I have high hopes as it was shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize.
"For a brief moment in the Renaissance, in between the invention of the microscope, printing press, and pencils – along with other technologies that uphold modern society – upper class men were rather preoccupied with erecting another innovation: the codpiece." —Zaria Gorvett for the BBC.
In Tudor and Stuart times, gifts were given at New Year rather than at Christmas.
Here is a musical New Year's Gift. It's an anonymous 17th Century dance of that name from Thomas Middleton's Inner Temple Masque, or Masque of Heroes, 1619.
From BL Add. 10444
Alison Kinder: bass viol
Tamsin Lewis: violin
A Tudor Christmas Carol
As I outrode this enderes night.
From the Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, one of the Coventry Mystery Plays.
[The better known 'Coventry Carol', "lully lulla, thou little tiny child" comes from the same source.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39AA6kFmpWY&ab_channel=Passamezzo
With its haunting melody, and the romantic myth that it was written by #HenryVIII as a love song for #AnneBoleyn, Greensleeves has remained popular over the centuries and today, is probably the best known of all #Tudor#songs.
However there is no proven connection to Henry VIII, and the earliest mention of the broadside ballad called #Greensleeves was not until September 1580, (some 33 years after his death). It was an immediate hit, and a number of imitations and parodies were produced in the following months and years.
Our recording uses the text from 'A Handful of Pleasant Delights', 1584 - the earliest surviving source. There are many verses, some of which contain lovely descriptions of #Elizabethan clothing and other aspects of #MaterialCulture
Two anonymous 17th Century ballads describing the purported evil deeds of Richard III, the murder of the Princes in the Tower, and the Battle of Bosworth Field, which was fought #onthisday in 1485.
A good example of Tudor propaganda.
A song of the Life and Death of King Richard the Third (to the tune of Who list to lead a soldier's life)
and
The most cruel murther of Edward the fifth, and his brother Duke of York, in the Tower; by their Uncle Richard Duke of Gloucester (to the tune of Fortune my foe)
From Richard Johnson's ballad miscellany, The Golden Garland of Princely Delights, 1620
What meat eats the Spaniard?
An anonymous #Elizabethan#theatre#song about eating too much fish!
From Blurt Master-Constable. Or The Spaniards night-walke.
[Attributed to] #Middleton and #Dekker 1602.
‘A Historical Introduction to English Law: Genesis of the Common Law’, my new textbook from Cambridge University Press for new law students, is out soon.
My research explores the eroticization of Tudor queens in a range of popular genres, from #earlymodern letters and plays, to tv and #fanfiction today. I also consider the affordances and limitations of color-conscious #casting in #perioddrama.