Narratives of exchange in early modern London, 1580-1600

Tomlin, Rebecca Catherine (2016) Narratives of exchange in early modern London, 1580-1600. Doctoral thesis, Birkbeck, University of London.

Abstract

This study examines some of the stories through which the inhabitants of early modern London comprehended and negotiated their rapidly changing city. The method that it follows is the investigation of the memoranda of alms collection petitions made at St Botolph’s without Aldgate between 1583 and 1600, and drama that was contemporary to those collections. Special attention is paid to Edward the Fourth (Heywood, 1599), A Warning for Fair Women (anon., c.1597), An Humorous Day’s Mirth (Chapman, 1599) and The Fair Maid of the West (Heywood, c.1603). The methodology adopted reads the alms petitions and plays alongside each other to show how they worked together in a common cultural discourse to shape ideas of neighbourhood in early modern London, and also to consider how the drama of the period emerges from and shapes that discourse. Both petitions and plays are found to be performative texts, expressing spatial practices that articulate early modern Londoners’ experiences of their city, especially in terms of charity, commerce and neighbourhood. The complexity and reciprocity of exchange is enacted in the process of narration, revealing some of the many ways in which early modern Londoners comprehended and shaped their city. The people of early modern London, as playgoers and charitable donors are shown to be constituted by playing and petitioning. Stories of charitable and commercial exchange are shown to shape the social relationships that constitute London’s spaces.

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