Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - ‘Now fearing neither friend nor foe,/ To the worldes viewe these verses goe’
T2 - mapping libel performance in early-modern Devon
AU - Egan, Clare
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Libel — the spreading of a message in order to defame a person — was a common offence in the provincial communities of early-modern England. The surviving records of these libels, which were tried in the court of Star Chamber, have been studied by historians for evidence of popular political engagement and levels of literacy; however, by plotting examples of libel from the Star Chamber records for the county of Devon onto a map of the contemporary landscape, it becomes clear that these libels should be seen as public performances devised by and enacted in provincial communities. Furthermore, mapping libels shows that these communities had an acute awareness of the potential that precise locations held for targeted, yet widespread dissemination. This article interprets libels in relation to the deliberately public and socially significant spaces of roads, boundaries and buildings in which they were performed and discusses the outcomes of digitally mapping a small sample of cases.
AB - Libel — the spreading of a message in order to defame a person — was a common offence in the provincial communities of early-modern England. The surviving records of these libels, which were tried in the court of Star Chamber, have been studied by historians for evidence of popular political engagement and levels of literacy; however, by plotting examples of libel from the Star Chamber records for the county of Devon onto a map of the contemporary landscape, it becomes clear that these libels should be seen as public performances devised by and enacted in provincial communities. Furthermore, mapping libels shows that these communities had an acute awareness of the potential that precise locations held for targeted, yet widespread dissemination. This article interprets libels in relation to the deliberately public and socially significant spaces of roads, boundaries and buildings in which they were performed and discusses the outcomes of digitally mapping a small sample of cases.
M3 - Journal article
VL - 36
SP - 70
EP - 103
JO - Medieval English Theatre
JF - Medieval English Theatre
SN - 0143-3784
ER -