Performance and Theatricality in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Edited by Mark Cruse

Book cover: Performance and Theatricality in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Extent: 207 pages

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Subjects: Early Modern & Renaissance Studies, Medieval Studies, Music & Performing Arts

Series: Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Series volume number: 41

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(August 2018)

ISBN: 9782503579870

Price: $107.00

In stock

This volume offers a panoramic mosaic of the world-making role of theater and performance in medieval and early modern European societies.


This volume is a contribution to the cross-cultural study of theater and performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The studies gathered here examine material from Austria, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, and Spain from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century. Underlying all of these essays is the understanding that performance shapes reality–that in all of the cultural contexts included here, performance opened a space in which patrons, rulers, writers, painters, spectators, and readers could see themselves or their societies differently, and thereby could assume different identities or construct alternative communities. Addressing confession and private devotion, urban theater and pageantry, royal legitimacy and religious debate, and a wide range of genres and media, this volume offers a panoramic mosaic of the world-making role of theater and performance in medieval and early modern European societies.

  • Edited by Mark Cruse