University of Toronto Press Dorset / Cornwall: 14 (Records of Early English Drama)

The Records of Early English Drama (REED) series establishes the context of early English drama by examining the historical manuscripts that provide evidence of drama, communal entertainment, secular music and ceremony from the Middle Ages to 1642, when the Puritans closed the public theatres of London. This volume combines the records of the counties of Dorset and Cornwall, both located in the southwest of England. Dorset/Cornwall provides a comprehensive collection of the records of public performance--music, song, dance, theatre, folk ritual, and civic customs--in those counties up to 1642. Drawing on a wide range of extant documents from private account diaries to Star Chamber cases, the volume situates performance activity within the complex economic and political forces shaping the social history of early modern England. Organizing the records by specific locations, this volume completes the REED survey of entertainment in the southwest of England. The records, in Middle and Early Modern English, Latin, and Cornish are presented with a substantial introduction for each county that includes a historical essay, as well as descriptions of the documents, a select bibliography, translations, extensive notes, and other editorial apparatus designed to make the historical records accessible to all readers.