Guest blog post for York Mystery Plays

http://www.yorkmysteryplays.co.uk/guest-blog-trail-mysteries-eleanor-bloomfield/

ANZAMEMS repost

Copied below – short blurb on my doctoral research and description of a favourite office object,  featured this week on the ANZAMEMS Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers' Facebook group (thankyou!)

My doctorate research is on modern revivals and reinventions of the medieval York mystery play cycle, exploring the modern cultural needs that have looked to revive and sustain the play cycle in (and for) current and future generations. I am interested in how the the cycle’s role and intent differ today from the Middle Ages, and in what ways they remain the same or comparable. I am also intrigued by what draws people to modern productions of the cycle – why the cycle is still played today, the expectations with which audiences approach the plays, and how contemporary viewers experience performances.
This month I leave on a research trip to the UK, Canada and US for archival work, interviews with academics, cast and creatives involved in recent productions of the plays, and observation of the September waggon production of the plays in the York streets.

This is Nicholas, my Hubberholme knitted mouse. Named after Nicholas Blackburn, a fifteenth-century mercer who features prominently in my MA thesis, my mother brought him back from the UK for me, along with the photographs of the Hubberholme church rood screen I neglected to take on my MA research trip and which proved vital to my thesis! The Hubberholme screen is one of only two surviving medieval rood screens in England; the church is also known for the mice (not medieval) carved into the oak pews – the trademark of the woodcarver Robert Thompson, ‘the mouseman of Kilburn.’

Sheffield here I come!

http://www.medievalenglishtheatre.co.uk/

The mundane and the marvellous

This is legitimately my working life in the Arts Assignment Centre ;D via

stamping assignments ~ scanning assignments ~ filing assignments ~ counting assignments ~ stapling assignments (see above) ~ impaling one's thumb on badly stapled assignments ~ requesting students to please include a cover sheet with their assignments ~ students' smiles when they collect assignments and find they've done well ~ having to tell students, "No, sorry, your assignment has not been returned yet" ~ realising how very rarely people actually notice the person on the other side of a reception desk ~ being polite and nice for an entire working day ~ laughing with office mates ~ commiserating with fellow PhD students ~ the lunchtime rush in the common room kitchen, and the delicate dance between fridge, cupboards, microwave, drawers, sink and dishwasher ~ arriving first in the morning, and the secret satisfaction of knowing one has the entire English department to one's self ~ afternoon tea parties in the common room ~ passing the provisional year review two months early ~ having people explain just how highly they rate (or don't) a PhD in medieval drama ~ being told by a Professor in the field that a PhD in medieval drama is "necessary work" ~ writing 1,000 words a day with ease ~ writing 300 words a day with an effort greater than squeezing blood from a stone ~ having a conference abstract accepted ~ having an article rejected ~ trying to present ad lib for the first time ~ booking a one-way flight to England for a summer of research ~ the generosity, academic and otherwise, of strangers ~ an inbox full of replies to a call for information on the York plays ~ academic detective work ~ when one's university computer dies (again) ~ renewing library books ~ scribbled pencil notes ~ a paper-strewn desk ~ poppies in Albert Park ~ oak trees in full green leaf ~ the overloaded and heavenly scented philadelphus bush behind Old Choral Hall ~ the power of poetry ~ the Clocktower striking noon ~ walking down to St Pat's after lunch ~ people watching ~ the Pop-up Globe opening again soon ~ summer...

This day...

... is call'd the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, 'Tomorrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, 
But he'll remember with advantages
What feast he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words –
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster, –
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered, –
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs't they were not here;
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Have you seen the York Mystery Plays?

Just received university ethics clearance for interviewing people involved with the York Mystery Plays. Now I need people to talk to! Please get in touch or help spread the word!

YORK EVOLVING: CHANGE AND PERMANENCE IN THE 

YORK MYSTERY PLAY CYCLE

CALL FOR INFORMATION

Eleanor Bloomfield, a PhD candidate at the University of Auckland, is researching modern revivals of the York mystery play cycle and is seeking first-hand accounts of the plays. Anyone who has seen, or been involved with, any performances of the York plays from 1951 to the present day, and is willing to be interviewed regarding their memories, impressions and experiences, please contact e.bloomfield@auckland.ac.nz or write to Eleanor Bloomfield, The University of Auckland (English, Drama and Writing Studies), 14A Symonds St, 206-646, Auckland 1010, New Zealand. Confidential interviews will be held in Britain between March and September 2018. Approved by the University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee on 10th October 2017 for three years. Reference Number 020006.

Pride and Prejudice public reading

This year is the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death, and to mark the occasion the UoA English department is holding a public reading of scenes from Pride and Prejudice. Tuesday 29th August 2pm – 5pm in 207-501 (Arts 2 building, Pat Hanan Room).

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. ~ Northanger Abbey

The Solitary Student

A blissfully quiet working day on the Arts reception desk (thanks be for university holidays) gave rise to this piece of arrant nonsense, herewith shared for your amusement with apologies to William Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper:

The Solitary Student

Behold her, single at her desk,
Yon solitary student for a PhD!
Writing and weeping by herself,
Stop here, or quickly flee!
Alone she sits to tax her brain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the halls profound
Are overflowing with the sound.

Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, forgotten, far-off things
And drama long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Target word count not met today?
Article rejected? Feedback causing pain?
University computer just died (again)?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her thesis had no ending,
I saw her groaning at her work,
And o'er the keyboard bending;
I listened, motionless and in thrall;
And, as I tiptoed down the hall,
The keyboard tapping continued still
Sapping mind and heart and will!

PhD update: six months in

When I started this blog its avowed purpose was to be a forum for my research and academic work. Looking back over my posts from the last few months, it seems to have turned into more of a Pop-up Globe photo fest. (Sorry-not-sorry;  je ne regrette rien.) So, without further ado, here is a brief roundup of my recent much ado about nothings; or, my accomplishments in academia since starting my PhD.

• writing and presenting my first conference paper; attending my first conference 

• presenting at the university's School of Humanities PhD students' seminar series

• writing up my Blackburn conference presentation as a paper and submitting it to the Cerae journal (it made it past the desk-reject stage and is currently under review)

• being invited to contribute a chapter proposal to an edited collection of essays on the family networks of medieval/early modern merchants (go the Blackburns!)

• writing to This England magazine with a plea to those who have seen any productions of the York Mystery Plays since the 1950s, asking them to get in touch if willing to share any memories or information. (NB this request still stands, so anyone reading this who has been involved in any way with the mystery plays and has stories to share, please leave a comment!) So far this has yielded email contact from two lovely people who have sent me information about the Hastings mystery plays, a Times article reporting the £500,000 loss made on the 2016 York Minster production of the plays (what a shame), a copy of the 1957 York Festival Programme, a copy of the Exodus pageant performed in that production, and one very grateful PhD student with a renewed faith in the kindness of strangers.

• applying to, and being accepted for, the University of York's visiting PhD student programme for a year; then balking at the prospect of paying £16,000 in tuition fees and having to decline the offer!

• volunteering as a reader/reviewer for the Hortulus journal

• attempting to learn French, which is pretty much indispensable for working with Middle English; and also, as it turns out, with early 20th century avant-garde drama. Alas, so far this has not been an unqualified success. My working knowledge of the French language is still largely restricted to what I have picked up from watching Henry V at the Globe. Couper la gorge!  

And looking ever onwards and upwards, here are my goals-still-in-progress:

• passing my provisional year review (eek).

• getting to York for the 2018 production of the mystery plays, and to explore the archives and city records there and at Lancaster and Bristol, as a 'visiting academic' (no fees required) as opposed to a 'visiting student' (large fees required).

• ditto getting to Toronto University, where productions of the full cycle were staged in the 1970s and '90s.

• submitting a paper proposal to the 2018 International Medieval Congress (IMC) in Leeds – and being accepted! 

And so, back to work...

Manchester 22.5.17

 Tony Walsh's This is the place, performed for Manchester after Monday's bombing:

Happy days at the Pop-up Globe

Blue skies over the Pop-up Globe. Sometimes the skies look like this:

Globe carpark under water! It takes a certain amount of enthusiasm? dedication? madness? to get out of a nice warm dry car into this...

Hugh and Sebastian come for the Shakespeare but also for the ice-creams :)

Two dedicated fans!

Daniel Rowe, Playhouse Manager, in action

Stage front, and heavens above (note the cannon!)

The Globe standard flies over the yard

The Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra takes over the stage for Shakespeare's birthday

Henry V vs. the High Constable of France

"My soul is in the sky"

Kudos to whoever can spot the Pop-up Globe in this photo 😊

Conversations at the Pop-up Globe

Well-heeled gentleman in the middle gallery: Who are all those people down there?
Me: Those are the groundlings, the cheap tickets and the best view in the house.
Well-heeled gentleman: Are they part of the play? Or can anyone buy those tickets?

*

During a school matinee of Othello:

Schoolboy 1: [whispers earnestly and at length the plot of Othello to his chum]

Schoolboy 2: Oh, thankyou... I understand now.

*

Lady [peering at my lanyard]: Why are you volunteering here?

Me: Because it's fun!!

Lady: Oh...

*

And, without fail, every time I volunteer there will be a version of this conversation:

Friendly fellow volunteer/audience member: So, what do you do?

Me: I'm-a-PhD-student-in-English-Literature-looking-at-medieval-drama-in-the-modern-context.

Friendly fellow volunteer/audience member, light suffusing their features: Ah! So that's why you're here! Living research!

At first I tried earnestly to explain that Shakespearean drama is not medieval but Elizabethan/Jacobean, i.e. early modern, and that I am at the Globe first and foremost because I love it... now I just smile sweetly and say, "Indeed."

I am also asked fairly regularly if I am an actor; I have no idea why (perhaps the 'dancer's posture'?) And someone asked me today how I do my hair. Life is never dull at the Pop-up Globe. 😊

Dream of the Rood

For Good Friday, here is an extract from one of my favourite poems, the Anglo-Saxon Dream of the Rood, thought to be one of the oldest poems in the English language. Rood is the old word for cross or crucifix.

Hwæt! Ic swefna cyst secgan wylle,
hwaet me gemætte to midre nihte,
syðþan reordberend reste wunedon!
þuhte me þæt ic gesawe syllicre treow
on lyft lædan, leohte bewunden,
beama beorhtost. Eall þæt beacen wæs
begoten mid golde. Gimmas stodon
fægere æt foldan sceatum, swylce þær fife wæron
uppe on þam eaxlegespanne. Beheolden þær engel drythtnes ealle,
fægere þurh forðgesceaft. Ne wæs ðær huru fracodes gealaga,
ac hine þær beheoldon halige gastas,
men ofer moldan, ond eall þeos mære gesceaft.
Syllic wæs se sigebeam, ond ic synnum fah,
forwunded mid wommum. Geseah ic wuldres treow,
waedum geweorðode, wynnum scinan,
gegyred mid golde; gimmas hæfdon
bewrigene weorðlice wealdendes treow.
Hwæðre ic þuhr þæt gold ongytan meahte
earmra ærgewin, þæt hit ærest ongan
swætan on þa swiðran healfe.

It loses something in translation, but because the Old English is so hard to read, here is a rough version in modern English:

Listen! I will tell the best of visions,
What came to me in the middle of the night,
When the speach-bearers took their rest!
I thought that I saw a most wondrous tree,
Lifted on high, wound round with light,
Brightest of beams. That same beacon was
Shining with gold. Gems stood
At the corners of the earth, and five were there also
Upon the crossbeam. All there beheld the angels of the Lord,
Fair through creation. This was no wicked gallows,
But beheld there by holy spirits,
By men over all the earth, and by all creation.
Wondrous was the victory-tree, and I stained by sin,
With guilt wounded. Saw I this wondrous tree,
Arrayed in garments, with joys shining,
Gilded in gold; gems had
Gloriously covered this tree of the forest.
Yet, through the gold, I perceived
The age-old battle of good and evil, so that
On the right side the cross began to bleed.

Old English should really be spoken aloud, so here is a reading of the poem I rather like; it also has the words to the poem in both Old and modern English, which is handy:

Popule meus, quid feci tibi? aut in quo contristavi te? Responde mihi. Quia eduxi te de terra Aegypti: parasti crucem Salvatori tuo.

 ~ Reproaches from the Good Friday liturgy

Holy Week | Hours of the Cross

For Holy Week, the York Hours of the Cross, in their original Middle English; find a modern English translation here.


Matins
lord iesu cryste, I pray þe here my steuenen.
for þi swete modyr sak, þat es qwhen of heuen;
þi wysdome of þe fadyr, þe god ryghtwensnes.
God and man, at morne tyde, taken he es,
for-sakyne of hys frendes & left – withouten les.
Betrayede to þe jewys and dampnyde sackles.
lord for þat ylk payn þu suffyrde at morne tyde
lat neuer my saule on domis day be forlorne.

Prime
At prime led was iesu unto Pilate
yai band hym as a thefe, and sor hym smate;
many fals witness, þai wryed hym many gate,
þai spytted iesuys face, þe light of heuens yate.
lord for þat ilke shame þu soffird at prime,
lat neuer my saul on domesday mystime.

Tierce
At þe tyme of oundron þai gun cry & call,
For hethyng þai hym cled in purper & in pall,
þai set on his heyde a cron of thorn wit-all,
and gerte hym bere on his bak þe cros to þe pynstall.
lord for þat ilk shame, þu sofyrd in þat place,
of deydly synne me to shryue, þu gyue grace.

Sext
At þe tyme of myd-day þai dyd hym on þe rode
Betwix two theuves þat had spylt manys blode;
for þe panys he threysted il þai gaue him drynk ungod,
Bytter gall [.....] he wald noght of þat fod.
lord for þat ilk shame þat was þi body neghe
Scheld me fro my il fays, þe world, fend & fleshe.

Nones
At þe tyme of none iesu gun cry'
he wytte his saul to his fadyr, [Eli]
A knyght smat him to þe hert, had he no mercy;
þe sone be-gane to wax myrk qwen iesu gun dy.
lord out of þi syd ran a ful fayre flude
As clere as well water our rannsom be þi blode.

Evensong
At þe tyme of euen-sang þai tok hym fro þe rod
his myght was in his godhede, so gracius and god,
þe meydcyne of his paynes, þe schedyng his blod,
Be noryschyng to us of or gastly fod.
lord for þat ilk schame þat þu doun was tane
lat neuer my saul wit deydly syn be sclayne.

Compline
At our of comepely, thei leiden hym in graue,
The noble bodi of Iesu, that mankind schal saue:
With spicerie he was biried, hooli writ to fulfille,
Thenke we sadli on his deeth, that schal saue us from helle.


O blessed chryst, these houres canonycall,
To thee I offer with meke deuocyon:
For us thou hast suffered those paynes all,
In thy greuous agony by lyke reason,
So by the remembraunce of thy passyon,
Make me according to my busyness,
Partaker of thy crowne and glory endless.

Detail from the Passion and Resurrection sequence (14th century stained glass), All Saints Pavement, York

Telegraph | The first Shakespearean scholar?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/02/notebook-written-unknown-17th-century-william-shakespeare-scholar/

Overheard at the Pop-up Globe

"It's better than I expected."
~ laconic teen trying very hard to pretend she is not enjoying herself

*

"It's good... but not as good as last year!"
~ approx. 10 year old school twinkie, mournfully, at a riotous performance of As You Like It

*

Lady: Oh look there, I think it's Anthony Harper [law firm & Pop-up Globe foundation sponsor]!
Me: ?!
Lady: Look! It is! It's Anthony Harper!
Me: That's Tobias Grant [commercial director].
Lady: It's Tony Harper himself! I'm sure of it!
Me: *shrugs*

*

Lady 1: Oh, is it Henry V today? I thought it was Henry VIII.
Lady 2: Oh, no, dear, I'm sure it was Richard V.
*ushers scanning tickets exchange agonised glances*

Soggy fun at the Pop-up Globe

Under the greenwood tree,

Who loves to lie with me,

And turn his merry note,

Unto the sweet bird's throat,

Come hither, come hither, come hither:

Here shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

Who doth ambition shun

And loves to live i' the sun,

Seeking the food he eats

And pleased with the food he gets,

Come hither, come hither, come hither:

Here shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

~ As You Like It II.5

"Rough weather" at the Pop-up Globe this morning is stating it rather mildly. Torrential rain and inch-thick mud would be nearer the mark. This, however, did absolutely nothing to dampen the lively spirits of around 480 school children, some of them very small, who came to see As You Like It. Nor did the rain rust their voiceboxes, which laughed, booed, whistled, whooped, sang, screeched and screamed; the resulting cacophany was like feeding time at the zoo and, having been 'promoted' to working on the usher's two-way radio, meant that I couldn't hear a blessed word that was said on the other end... 

I do love school matinees though – they are such fun and it is really lovely to see so many twinkies enjoying Shakespeare. It must be wonderful to play to them as they are such a giving audience.

HUMANITIES POSTGRADUATE SEMINAR SERIES
MON 27 MARCH, NOON, PAT HANAN ROOM, ARTS 2

Fortune, Family and Faith: On the Trail of the Blackburns, 1400 – 1450

Nicholas and Margaret Blackburn senior
(detail from St Anne Window, All Saints North Street, York)
Photograph E. Bloomfield

Throughout the first half of the fifteenth century the Blackburn family – rich, astute and ambitious – were among the leading citizens in one of medieval England’s most important cities: York. The Blackburns were a mercantile family whose roots lay in Lancashire; during the fourteenth century they moved into Yorkshire and in the late 1390s to York itself, probably with the expectation of making their fortune there. From the detailed wills left by Nicholas Blackburn, the family patriarch, and his wife Margaret we know that this expectation was fulfilled. The wills reveal how the Blackburns’ lives were shaped by two over-arching concerns: faith and family. Linking and facilitating the two is fortune; the distribution of wealth stipulated by the wills illuminates the Blackburns’ relationship with both God and family, and is the means by which these relationships are expressed and delineated. 

Non Nobis

Non nobis Domine, Domine, 
Non nobis Domine,
Sed nomine,
Sed nomine,
Tuo da gloriam.

This old Latin hymn of thanksgiving, originally associated with the Knights Templar, was according to legend ordered by Henry to be sung after victory at the Battle of Agincourt:

Do we all holy rites.
Let there be sung Non Nobis and Te Deum,
The dead with charity enclos'd in clay,
And then to Calais, and to England then,
Where ne'er from France arriv'd more happy men.
~ Henry V IV.8.117-21.

Get thee hence down to the Pop-up Globe for a rousing performance of this and indeed of the whole play. Blood! Mud!! Canon!!! Flaming arrows!!!! Sword fights in full armour!!!!! Glorious poetry!!!!!