REED is pleased to announce the publication of the latest volume in the
series. Data relating to the patrons and performance events of patronized
entertainers in Wales has been simultaneously uploaded on the Patrons and
Performances Web Site (http://link.library.utoronto.ca/reed/).
We encourage REED-L subscribers to order copies for their institutional or
personal libraries.
The following description comes from the University of Toronto Press,
co-publisher with The British Library:
Wales
Edited by David N. Klausner. 707 pp.
The Records of Early English Drama (REED) series aims to establish the
context for the great drama of Britain's past by examining material
related to drama, secular music, and other communal entertainment and
ceremony from the Middle Ages until the mid-seventeenth century.
This latest volume in the series is a collection of documentary
evidence for dramatic performance, minstrelsy, and civic ceremony in the
Principality of Wales from the mid-fifth century to 1660. Editor David
N. Klausner has included documents relevant to the explicitly Welsh mode
of bardic performance as well as evidence of the bardic profession's
efforts to regulate itself with a grading system and standards for
education and training. Municipal records show payments to civic
musicians and other performers, and records of the courts in particular
- Star Chamber, Great Sessions, and Quarter Sessions - clarify the
existence of local drama on both a professional and non-professional
basis, in both Welsh and English, from at least the beginning of the
sixteenth century.
This volume is a superb addition to the already much-admired
REED series and will be of great benefit to anyone interested in
Renaissance theatre or Welsh history and culture.
David N. Klausner is a professor in the Department of English and the
Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto.
