Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Acknowledgments
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Editorial Note
- I Corporate Medievalism II: Some Perspective(s)
- II Interpretations
- “Longest, oldest and most popular”: Medievalism in the Lord Mayor's Show
- Gendering Percy's Reliques: Ancient Ballads and the Making of Women's Arthurian Writing
- Romancing the Pre-Reformation: Charles Reade's The Cloister and the Hearth
- Renovation and Resurrection in M. R. James's “An Episode of Cathedral History”
- Rodin's Gates of Hell and Dante's Inferno 7: Fortune, the Avaricious and Prodigal, and the Question of Salvation
- Film Theory, the Sister Arts Tradition, and the Cinematic Beowulf
- Red Days, Black Knights: Medieval-themed Comic Books in American Containment Culture
- Notes on Contributors
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
“Longest, oldest and most popular”: Medievalism in the Lord Mayor's Show
from II - Interpretations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2013
- Frontmatter
- Acknowledgments
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Editorial Note
- I Corporate Medievalism II: Some Perspective(s)
- II Interpretations
- “Longest, oldest and most popular”: Medievalism in the Lord Mayor's Show
- Gendering Percy's Reliques: Ancient Ballads and the Making of Women's Arthurian Writing
- Romancing the Pre-Reformation: Charles Reade's The Cloister and the Hearth
- Renovation and Resurrection in M. R. James's “An Episode of Cathedral History”
- Rodin's Gates of Hell and Dante's Inferno 7: Fortune, the Avaricious and Prodigal, and the Question of Salvation
- Film Theory, the Sister Arts Tradition, and the Cinematic Beowulf
- Red Days, Black Knights: Medieval-themed Comic Books in American Containment Culture
- Notes on Contributors
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
Summary
The Lord Mayor's Show is the longest, oldest and most popular civic procession in the world. It winds through nearly 800 years of London history to arrive in the 21st century more splendid than ever. In 1213 a grateful King John awarded the City of London the right to choose its own Mayor, but he had a condition: every year, when a new Mayor took office, he had to make his way upriver to Westminster and pledge loyalty to the Crown. The Lord Mayor of London is one of the world's oldest elected officials, and the Lord Mayor's Show is the public festival that has grown up around his journey.
This introduction to the Lord Mayor's Show is posted on the opening page of its website. The reference to King John places the practices that led to the show firmly in the medieval period. Moreover, the narrative as given here suggests that John willingly granted London rights in contrast to the forced concessions of Magna Carta. The official voice of the Lord Mayor's Show identifies its origins in loyalty to political structures, rather than as a form of resistance to them. By pairing the phrase “one of the world's oldest elected officials” with the idea of “public festival” the current introduction also creates the suggestion that the Lord Mayor's Show, claimed as the “longest, oldest and most popular civic procession in the world,” originated in the medieval period.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Studies in Medievalism XXIICorporate Medievalism II, pp. 29 - 44Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013