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Insubstantial pageants: Women's work and the (im)material culture of the early modern stage

2011; Routledge; Volume: 7; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17450918.2011.625442

1745-0926

Natasha Korda,

Historical Art and Culture Studies

Abstract The excavations of the sites of the Rose and Globe playhouses have uncovered thousands of small objects that early moderns wore about their persons, holding together parts of their clothing and headwear and adding lustre to them. The labour of manufacturing and applying such objects was mainly female, in contrast to that of the professional playing companies, which was exclusively male. The drama itself is recurrently concerned with the status of such female labour, which can be read in the context of wider anxieties about women's freedom, sexual behaviour, and appearance. This article explores these anxieties using the data recoverable from documentary and archaeological evidence to reflect upon the stagecraft of the commercial theatre as it was influenced by increasingly elaborate and spectacular court masques. The greater the demand for spectacularly decorated bodies, the greater the reliance upon women's labour and anxiety concerning its products and social effects. Keywords: staging The Tempest masquesstage clothingornamentJonsonarchaeologybeadswomen's work Notes 1. I have retained the First Folio's capitalization of "Globe" in order to underscore the metatheatrical dimension of the speech. 2. The Rose excavations uncovered a total of 288 small glass beads, 39 (or 13.5%) of which were located in the stage area. Of the remainder, the preponderance (51%) came from the area beneath the galleries, confirming that spangled attires were worn by more socially elevated theatregoers, as well as by actors. The smaller percentage of beads found in the stage area versus the galleries might reflect the ratio of actors to audience. Certainly, as Bowsher and Miller emphasize, there is "a danger of reading too much theatrical association" into the beads and other artefacts found at the Rose and Globe. It is thus important to read the finds in relation to other documents of theatre history. Theatrical inventories confirm that players wore spangled costumes on the professional stage, as discussed below. No beads were found in the "pit" or yard area of the Rose, where more plebeian theatregoers stood (see Bowsher and Miller 144). 3. On women's work in the luxury textile trades in early modern England, see Earle; Erickson "Married Women's Occupations" and "Eleanor Mosley"; Korda (93–143); and McIntosh, (222–25, 232–23). Early modern trade manuals for silk workers stated the advantages of women's nimble fingers in these processes "because of the delicate nature of the work" (Lacey 187). 4. On early modern market regulation and efforts to control and stigmatize wares manufactured by women and other workers outside the guild system, see Berlin; Kellet; Archer (124–31); Rappaport ( 45–6, 111–17, 187–88, 225). 5. The Revels accounts mention a similar workforce of garland weavers: "214 woorkfolkes the most of them being women" were hired to gather, sort, and string "1560 ffadam [fathoms, so 1.8 miles]" of flower garlands to adorn the banqueting house at Whitehall for entertainments on the occasion of the Duc de Montmorency's visit in 1572 (Feuillerat 164). 6. Mountague provided "Lawne", "White Sipers [cypress, a delicate, transparent fabric resembling cobweb lawn]", "ffrenge of golde twisted", "Bone Lace cheyne ffrenge & edging lace of golde & silver with spangles", "Poynting Ribbon of golde and sylke", "Ribon of penny brode silke", "parchement Lace of watchett and sylver", "Laces of Crymsen", and "Spanish Lace & white heare lacing". Bowll provided "Copper Sylver ffrenge Twist and bone Lace", "Golde ffrenge", and "Copper silver & silk Buttons and loopes". Wyett provided "carnacion and sylver Lawne", "Sylver Tyncell", and "Ribbon of Silver & golde" (Feuillerat 156, 161). 7. For example, "a longe black vellvet clocke layd wth sylke lace", "A payer of hosse of clothe of gowld layd thick wth blacke sylk lace", and "A blacke vellvet gercken layd thicke wth black sylke lace & A payer of Rownd hosse of paynes of sylke layd wth sylver lace". A list of playing apparel in the hand of Edward Alleyn, compiled c.1602, includes many items adorned with gold, silver, and other expensive trimmings, such as "A scarlett cloke wth ij brode gould Laces: wt gould buttens", "A scarlett cloke Layd downe wt silver Lace and silver buttens", and "A damask cloke … garded wt vellvet" (Foakes 50v, 52r, 53r, and Appendix 1, article 30, 291). 8. Few dress accessories were found at the Globe due to the limited depth of the excavation there (Bowsher and Miller 141). 9. Such as a velvet cloak "embroydered wt gould and gould spangles", a "blak bugell cloke", "A vellvet dublett cut diamond lact wt gould lace and spang[les]", a "blak tafata [doublet] cut on blak velvett lacte wt bugell[s]", and "frenchose" embellished with "black bugell[s]" and "spangled" (Foakes Appendix 1, article 30, 291, 293–94). 10. On Shrove Monday, 1573/4, the Revels accounts list "An Italian Woman &c. to dresse theier heades". The "&c". may refer to the Italian woman's servants or assistants, since the next record makes clear that she was not working alone: "Lodging, ffyer, & vittells for the children [of the Merchant Taylor's School] & Women that wayted tattyer them" for a masque staged on Shrove Tuesday at Hampton Court. We know the identity of one of the women who accompanied the Italian head-dresser, since a later record for "hier of the womens heares for the Children" refers to her daughter: "To the Italian women & her dawghter for Lending the Heares &c. & for theier service & attendaunces" (Feuillerat 219). In 1574/5, there is a similar entry concerning another foreign tirewoman and her daughter, this time French, who provided perukes and dressed the heads of the Children of the Chapel for a play staged at Richmond. Under the heading "The Hyer of Heares for headdes", the accounts list a payment "To the french woman for her paynes and her Dawghters paynes that went to Richmond & there attended … [the] Children & dressed theier heades &c. when they played before her Magestye" (Feuillerat 241). These records provide a fascinating example of foreign tirewomen working independently behind the scenes of theatrical entertainments staged by children's companies at court, possibly with hired employees and certainly with daughters whom they had trained in their craft. The records make clear that tirewomen not only fabricated perukes and head-attires for boy-actors but served as their theatrical dressers as well. 11. These include a payment of 12 shillings in December 1601 "at the apoyntment of the companye [the Admiral's Men] unto mrs gosen for a head tyer", a second payment of the same amount in February 1601/2 "to mrs goossen for a headtyer", and a loan of 10 shillings in January 1602/3 to John Thare, a member of the Earl of Worcester's Men, "to geve unto mrs calle for ij curenets for hed tyers" for a performance at court (Foakes ff. 95v, 104r, 118v). There are numerous payments for the purchase of similar attires, which may also have been acquired from tirewomen (for example 22v, 44r, 54v, 106r, 106v, 108r, 115r). 12. In the first play licensed for the King's Revels at Whitefriars, Edward Sharpham's Cupids Whirligig (1607), Lady Troublesome, Peg (her kinswoman), and Nan (a merchant's daughter) enter adjusting their head-attires for a wedding masque: "Doth my Tyre sit well Nan?" the Lady asks, to which Nan replies, "Passing well, ile assure you Madame" (Sharpham K4v). 13. A December 1596 entry thus records £3. 10s. paid for "a headtier & a Rebata & other thinges" for the Admiral's Men, and the inventory of costumes and properties taken by the company two years later includes "vi head-tiers" and "iiii rebatos" (Foakes f. 22v and Appendix 2, 318). In January 1598/9, the company paid £3 for, among other things, "ii Rebates & j fardengalle"; in April 1599 they paid 10s. for "A frenche hoode"; in January 1601/2 they paid 10s. for "ij tiers"; in May of the same year they paid 25s. for "Rebatous & other things"; in August they paid 40s. for "Rebatose & fardingalls"; and in October they paid £20 for "ij hedtyers", among other articles of apparel (ff. 44r, 54v, 104r, 106r, 115r, 108r). An inventory of playing apparel in the hand of Edward Alleyn dated c.1602 includes "ij hedtirs sett wt stons" (Appendix 1, article 30, 293). 14. Philip Stubbes, in The Anatomy of Abuses, complains of "monsterous ruffes" that "stand a full quarter of a yarde (and more) from their [wearers'] necks", in many layers, "one beneath another", which needed a "supportasse or underpropper" to "beare up the whole frame & body of the ruffe, from falling and hanging down". When they became so large in circumference that even the underpropper could not keep them from falling, he claims, "they [we]re pinned up to their eares" (D7v, F4v–F5r). 15. Our knowledge of the Mountjoys' association with Shakespeare is derived mostly from legal documents of a suit brought by Stephen Belott (who served an apprenticeship with them and later married their daughter) against Christopher Mountjoy for failing to pay the dowry that Belott claims they had agreed upon. Shakespeare was summoned to London to give a deposition in the case in 1612, both because he had lodged with the family (in a tenement above their shop) and because he had helped negotiate the dowry. The documents of the case are transcribed by Wallace (Shakespeare and His London Associates, 261–304). Wallace argues that Shakespeare resided with the Mountjoys from 1598 until the end of his theatrical career, even using it as a pied à terre after his move back to Stratford (New Shakespeare Discoveries 505–06). 16. We may also detect anxiety regarding female theatrical embodiment, and an effort to ward off criticism of the scantily clad goddesses, in Daniel's explanation for having them descend three by three, "as in a number dedicated unto Sanctity and an incorporeall nature" (Daniel 62). 17. "Stage-Playes are the Pompes, and Vanities of this wicked World", Prynne maintains, citing the "effeminate, rich, and gorgious Attire" and "glittering … Apparrell" worn onstage (47). His treatise echoes and elaborates on Gosson's early attacks on the "Gearish apparel" of the stage (E1r). 18. Jonson's Epicoene, for example, is littered with references to tirewomen and their wares, evoked in its satirical indictment of women's "pieced beauty" (1.1.81). Truewit asks, "Is it for us to see [women's] perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eyebrows, their nails?" (1.1.112–14), and later lists the retinue of retainers women employ to maintain their artificial allure, including "embroiderers, jewelers, tirewomen, sempsters, feathermen, [and] perfumers" (2.2.105–06). 19. The monstrous appetite for vain spectacle is elsewhere satirized in Trinculo's remark, "Were I in England now (as once I was) and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver. There would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man. When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian" (2.2.27–33), and more poignantly, in Caliban's being lulled by "a thousand twangling instruments" to dream of clouds that "would open and show riches / Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked / I cried to dream again" (3.2.140–46). 20. Indeed, the phrase "not a hair perished" followed by "on their" might lead auditors to expect the next word to be "heads", so when the account veers toward sartorial matters, a potential ambiguity is introduced: "hair" might be taken to refer figuratively to the garments themselves, since the pile of fabrics like velvet was often described as shorn/unshorn. Stephano will later use the term in this way when he says, "Now jerkin you are like to lose your hair and prove a bald jerkin" (4.1.235–37). Human hair was also used in the fabrication of dress accessories, lace and head-attires. Queen Elizabeth's silkwoman Dorothy Speckard thus provided the Wardrobe of Robes with such items as "cc [200] devises made of heare; xij devices made in hare in maner of peramides: xij devices made in heare in maner of leaves: lx devices of heare in maner of globes" in 1602 (Arnold 226). 21. In Gervase Markham's The Famous Whore, or Noble Curtizan (1609), the courtesan in question suffers from the "French disease" (13) an affliction that refers not only to her "rotten carkasse" (15), but to the French attires with which she covers it ("Borders and tyers, rebatoes, falles and ruffes" [9]), which the text implies she fabricates herself ("my artfull works most fine, / Aracknes needle durst not warre with mine" [15]). When her body becomes so decayed that she can no longer sell herself, she "sell[s] old frippery stuffe or such like trash" (19). The poem thus conflates her sexual incontinence ("as sound stuffe I did richly passe" [8], she boasts) with the foreign fripperies she wears and produces, as symptoms of her vanity. It thus aims to teach the lesson that "The beauty of the bodie is but winde, / She truly faire is, that is faire in minde" (19).