Dec 27, 2021
When London established a new
mayor every October, there was a pageant put on to celebrate the
appointment and introduce the new mayor to the city known as the
Lord Mayor’s Show. This event was an extravagant affair, featuring
a huge parade that followed an established route through the city.
In one of the earliest accounts we have of the Lord Mayor’s Show,
from 1585, records indicate that part of the parade that year was a
pageant known as the King Of Moor’s pageant. This pageant is
described by our guest this week, Maria Shmygol, as
a Moor pageant that was performed by an actor in
blackface, and other such pageant devices and dark-skinned
personages (variously described as ‘Moors’ and ‘black Indians’).
Maria writes that this pageant and this presentation of black moors
would come again in close to 10 other mayoral inaugurations across
the early to mid 17th century, including 3 within Shakespeare’s
lifetime.
Maria Shmygol joins us today to explain the
King of Moors pageant, including what we know about the actors,
blackface makeup, and whether there was a distinction culturally
between African, Indian, and Arabic, or if “moor” was a more
general term. Since the
images of the King of Moor’s pageant also includes drawings of a
giant leopard, Maria will share with us the purpose and place of
that specific animal in the pageant as well.