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.