Print

Print


REED: Berkshire, ed. Alexandra F. Johnston, Launched!

Announcing REED?s second digital edition, for the county of Berkshire,  
edited by Alexandra F. Johnston. Now freely available at REED Online:  
https://ereed.library.utoronto.ca/.

We are pleased to make available the long-awaited records for  
Berkshire and equally delighted that for the first time users will be  
able to search across two collections for locations, people and a wide  
range of topics, such as summer games or the King?s Men. We anticipate  
an ever-growing list of results as more collections are published  
online.

The REED: Berkshire records illustrate a rich popular entertainment  
tradition. The most prominent details of mimetic activity come from  
the parish of St Laurence, Reading, which has preserved records  
running from 1498 to 1573, among the fullest and richest in England.  
Virtually every kind of mimetic activity is featured--an Easter play  
with evidence from 1498 to 1537, an early sixteenth-century Creation  
play, a Robin Hood game, morris dancing, church ales, maypoles, and  
Hock gatherings. Reading was a stopping place for all kinds of late  
medieval travelling entertainers as well as for some of the most  
prominent professional companies, including Queen Elizabeth?s, the  
earl of Leicester?s, and King James? players, along with those of  
other royal family members in the early seventeenth century. Noble  
households are also well represented in the collection, which includes  
an edition of ?The Entertainment of Queen Elizabeth? by Lady Elizabeth  
Russell at Bisham in 1592.