The Politics of Hats

In the 17th century, the Quakers and other English religious radicals caused a scandal by refusing to take off their hats to their social 'betters', on the basis that all humans were equal before God:

'We should learn a great deal of the truth about class in this century... if we could grasp the whole etiquette of hats. The first principle was that the master of the house, and no one else, had the right to wear his hat in his own home. That is why members of Parliament sat ‘covered’, and are still supposed to do so. The second principle was that social inferiors ‘uncovered’ before their superiors — a practice still recalled by the elderly rural labourer’s habit of ‘touching his cap’.

Against this recognition of class distinctions the Quaker refusal to uncover to any man was a conscious protest. Liberal historians are apt to treat this habit of theirs as a meaningless breach of good manners, a tasteless eccentricity. On the contrary, it meant the boldest thing in social life. It was a revolutionary act. Taken over, like most of the Quaker beliefs and practices, from the Anabaptist tradition, it was an affirmation of human equality, a revolt against class…'

The Levellers and the English Revolution by H.N. Brailsford (Stanford University Press, 1961)

Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance: Shakespeare on raving

The search for the linguistic origins of 'rave' and 'raver' continues. Jon, who does the interesting Alsatia history site, has found the earliest use so far of 'raver' as a noun. As he observes in a comment to an earlier post, Aphra Behn's 'Love Letters Between a Nobleman and his Sister' (1684) features the line 'Oh tell me in the agony of my soul, why must those charms that bring tranquility and peace to all, make me a wild, unseemly raver?'.

Going back a hundred years further, Shakespeare's work is the obvious place to look for the usage of words. Shakespeare doesn't use the term 'raver' but raving appears once in his work: the direction 'Enter CASSANDRA, raving' in Troilus and Cressida, 1602. He uses words 'rave' or 'raved' at least five times in his plays and poems, usually in the context of a verbal expression of madness.

Twelfth Night (1601-2) features this exchange about Malovolio:

MARIA: He's coming, madam; but in very strange manner. He is, sure, possessed, Mdam.
OLIVIA: Why, what's the matter? does he rave?
MARIA: No. madam, he does nothing but smile:

In Henry VI, Part Three (written in 1591), Queen Margaret's speech has a similar usage of the word:

I prithee, grieve, to make me merry, York.
What, hath thy fiery heart so parch'd thine entrails
That not a tear can fall for Rutland's death?
Why art thou patient, man? thou shouldst be mad;
And I, to make thee mad, do mock thee thus.
Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.
(Act 1, Scene 4).

I got quite excited to find 'rave' and 'dance' in the same sentence, as so far I haven't found any connection between the two before the 1940s, but in fact they are being contrasted here. Margaret has had young Rutland killed in the Wars of the Roses and is taunting the enemy Yorkists - she wants them to show their suffering (to mourn, to cry, to rave) to give her satisfaction.

Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece (1594) includes the curse:

'Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances,
Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans;
Let there bechance him pitiful mischances,
To make him moan; but pity not his moans:
Stone him with harden'd hearts harder than stones;
And let mild women to him lose their mildness,
Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness.

'Let him have time to tear his curled hair,
Let him have time against himself to rave,
Let him have time of Time's help to despair,
Let him have time to live a loathed slave,
Let him have time a beggar's orts to crave,
And time to see one that by alms doth live
Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.

In Cymbeline, it is madness itself that raves: 'not frenzy, not Absolute madness could so far have raved, To bring him here alone;'

Finally, in Titus Andronicus (written in the early 1590s), Lucius passes sentence on Aaron that he should be starved to death:

'Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him;
There let him stand, and rave, and cry for food;
If any one relieves or pities him,
For the offence he dies'.

Two of these examples link raving with craving for food. The same scene of Titus Andronicus also includes the line 'Good uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor, This ravenous tiger, this accursed devil'. Another possible line of enquiry - rave and ravenous?

Alsatia, Revels and Rave

Alsatia is a new blog dedicated to exploring the lost 'liberties and sanctuaries of London'. They explain: "In the seventeenth century, there existed, just outside the walls of the City of London, in the ward of Farringdon Without, from Fleet Street down to the banks of the Thames, between the Temple and St Brides, an area famed and feared for its lawlessness. This was the ’sanctuary’ or ‘liberty’ of Whitefriars, colloquially known as Alsatia... Alsatia was not the only anomalous territory in London; there had been a number of religious spaces within the City granting sanctuary, many of which had been thrown into doubt with the reformation. There were liberties, where the residents had special privileges and exemptions, and peculiars governed by outside authorities.... This combination of overlapping authorities and customary rights opened up quasi-autonomous spaces".

This is indeed fascinating stuff; John Constable has done some research into the related 'Liberty of the Clink' as part of his ongoing Southwark Mysteries project.

There's an interesting connection between the Whitefriars area and 'revels'; at one time the Office of the Revels was based there, responsible for organising official festivities. In the book Queer Virgins and Virgin Queans on the Early Modern Stage, Mary Bly considers the Whitefriars plays associated with the King's Revels theatre company (such as the delightfully named Cupid's Whirligig).

Is there a linguistic connection between 'revels' and 'rave'? Apparently, 'Thomas Blount in his 1656 dictionary "Glossographia" notes that "Revels" originates from the French word "reveiller", to wake from sleep. He goes on to define "Revels" as: "Sports of Dancing, Masking, Comedies, and such like, used formerly in the Kings House, the Inns of Court, or in the Houses of other great personages; And are so called, because they are most used by night, when otherwise men commonly sleep"'.

Sunday Dancing in the 17th Century

In England the 17th century saw frequent conflict between church authorities and people who wished to dance or otherwise enjoy themselves on Sundays. These examples come from the county of Shropshire:

'In the village where I lived the Reader read the Common-Prayer briefly, the rest of the Day even till dark night almost, except Eating time, was Spent in Dancing under a May-Pole and a great Tree, not far from my Father's Door, where all the Town did meet together... we could not read the Scripture in our family without the great disturbance of the Taber and Pipe and Noise in the Street... And sometimes the Morrice-Dancers would come into the church, in all their Linnen and Scarfs and Antick Dresses, with the Morrice-Bells jingling at their leggs. And as soon as the Common-Prayer was read, did haste out presently to their Play again' -Richard Baxter (1615-91), writing about the period 1625 to 1640 in Eaton Constantine.

In 1637, Richard Titherland of Westbury was accused of playing the pipe and tabor on Sundays 'before the whole service was ended... and by his meanes hath drawen divers to profane the saboath by daunceinge at unlawfull times'.

Source: The Folklore of Shropshire by Roy Palmer (Logaston Press, 2004)

Bristol: a tale of two parties

1. Bristol area, 1611

'The village of Rangeworthy, a few miles north of Bristol, was a detached part of the large parish of Thornbury… In 1611 the vicar decreed that the customary Whitsun revel should no longer begin on the sabbath. The villagers obediently curtailed their celebration to Whit Monday; it was preceded by a sermon of 'near three hours'. During the afternoon the constable of Thornbury Hundred, John Parker, was called to the scene. He found, he told Star Chamber, 'a most disorderly, riotous and unlawful assembly' engaged in 'unlawful games and most beastly and disorderly drinking'. The ringleaders, Parker decided, were four 'unknown persons who passed under the name of musicians, all of them being strangers having no habitations thereabouts nor appertaining to any nobleman or man of worth' - vagrants or master-less men, in other words. He tried to arrest the musicians and put them in the stocks, but was resisted by the villagers, who surrounded the stocks and rescued them. According to Parker, he and his handful of assistants were badly beaten up.

Viewed from this standpoint the Rangeworthy revel pitted a group of law-abiding reformers against a crowd of violent, drunken louts. To the villagers it seemed very different. Their defence was based on a familiar system of values. 'By all the time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary', they declared, the revel feast had been held in Rangeworthy during Whitsun week. Its purpose was 'the refreshing of the minds and spirits of the country people, being inured and tired with husbandry and continual labour… for preservation of mutual amity, acquaintance and love… and allaying of strifes, discords and debates between neighbour and neighbour'. It had always included innocent diversions like 'wrestling, leaping, running, throwing the bar' as well as dancing and 'other honest sport'. On the day in question there was no excessive drinking - just a few young people dancing while the musicians played and some of the older inhabitants lingered to watch on their way home from the sermon. This idyllic scene was shattered only by the arrival of the arrogant constable, who provoked the crowd by his 'reviling speeches' against the dancers and musicians… They denied obstructing him, though they admitted that nobody had lifted a finger when Parker called for assistance.'

Source: Revel, Riot, and Rebellion: popular politics and culture in England, 1603-1660 – David Underdown (Oxford University Press, 1985)

2. Bristol area, 2006

'Bristol Police attacked would be party goers and pedestrians attempting to walk up Cumberland road in the early hours of Sunday morning and used pepper-spray against those inside the party. Police had arrived at the scene earlier in the night to put an end to a free-party which was happening in an unused warehouse on Cumberland road. Despite causing no public nuisance, being sufficiently away from residential properties and set back from the road thus causing no road obstruction the police presence to stop the party was huge. A helicopter, three riot vehicles, at least 6 police cars, a police dog unit and mounted section were all at the scene in an attempt to crack down on this non commercial recreational activity…

In spite of their numbers, the police’s attempt to shut the party down was unsuccessful. A small group of officers who entered the building to turn the music off were met with a crowd unwilling to be silenced. After refusing to stop the music a number of people behind the decks were pepper sprayed directly to the faces. The flagrantly abusive police behaviour in this instance instantly galvanised the crowd to surge the officers towards the exit. With the officers just outside the building a defiant partygoer plummeted from the ceiling hanging on the chain to close the roller-shutter which due to the loss of power was too stiff to do manually from the ground. The police safely outside and at least 400 safely inside the sealed building, the party went on.

Meanwhile outside, the police, undermined by the solidity of the rave inside, and unwilling to leave it be, began to try and clear the area of anymore would be party-goers. Given the numbers inside the utility of expending resources in order to evict the no more than 30 people from the surrounding area was questionable. Logic notwithstanding however the police formed a line across the road. Shielded, with batons in hand and backed up by horses and dogs, at approximately 3am police baton charged the people remaining outside. A number of people were brutally beaten with batons as they ran away and at least two violent arrests were made of people posing absolutely no threat to the police themselves or the maintenance of public order.Within ten minutes of carrying out this violent attack the police presence completely dissolved leaving the party to its own devices save for a small number of officers who later returned to monitor the harmless proceedings. This change of tactic after having made some token arrests and venting their anger at their failure on innocent bystanders demonstrates the fickle nature of the policing of parties, which represents more of a test of crowd control tactics, a show of strength and intimidation than a genuine attempt to protect the public good. Indeed any genuine attempt to serve the public interest would consist of leaving harmless partygoers to have fun.'

Source: Bristol Indymedia