
Contents
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Tothill Fields (1571): Law versus Theatre in “the Last Trial by Battel” Tothill Fields (1571): Law versus Theatre in “the Last Trial by Battel”
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Law as Performance: Legal Theatricality and Antitheatricality as Idea and Practice Law as Performance: Legal Theatricality and Antitheatricality as Idea and Practice
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Law as Spectatorship: Public Trials, Open Courts, and the “Audience” Law as Spectatorship: Public Trials, Open Courts, and the “Audience”
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Performance, Theatricality, Gender, Law, and the Question of Anachronism Performance, Theatricality, Gender, Law, and the Question of Anachronism
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Representations of Legal Performance versus Legal Performance as Representation Representations of Legal Performance versus Legal Performance as Representation
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Chapter Summaries Chapter Summaries
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Cite
Extract
Tothill Fields (1571): Law versus Theatre in “the Last Trial by Battel”
On June 18, 1571, over four thousand spectators gathered in Tothill Fields, Westminster for an extraordinary event: a trial by battle.1 All around the field (or “lists”) were scaffolds “for people to stande and beholde” (1152). Trial by battle was long obsolete: the last in England had been in 1456 (a nasty fight involving penis and nose biting). Perhaps this one would be equally riveting. Following tradition, the litigants would not themselves take the field. Instead, “champions” would represent them. After a public ceremony of casting down the “Gauntlet[s]” (1151), the champions were “sworn…to perform the battle” (fol. 301b), and the fight was on. The contrast between the two champions added further spice to the spectacle. The defendant’s champion, George Thorne, was “a bigge, broade, strong set fellowe.” The plaintiffs’ champion, fencing master Henry Nayler, was, on the contrary, very “slender” and certainly “not…tall.” But he was handsome: altogether “a proper…man” (1151). It would be lithe skill plus sex appeal against brute force, David against Goliath. Moreover, Nayler had something even more important than skill and sex appeal: exceptional theatrical flair. This he had gained in part from performing regularly as a “prize player” in public fencing matches in the London theatres.2 As “servant to the…Earle of Leicester” (1151) he was also probably an actor in Leicester’s troupe, performing alongside the master of the bawdy jig Richard Tarlton, who studied fencing with Nayler and was to become the most famous comic actor of his era.3
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