Ceremony and Civility

by Barbara Hanawalt

"Medieval London, like all premodern cities, had a largely immigrant population--only a small proportion of the inhabitants were citizens--and the newly arrived needed to be taught the civic culture of the city in order for that city to function peacefully. Ritual and ceremony played key roles in this acculturation process. In Ceremony and Civility, Barbara A. Hanawalt shows how, in the late Middle Ages, London's elected officials and elites used ceremony and ritual to establish their legitimacy and power. In a society in which hierarchical authority was most commonly determined by...