Emotions, Speech and the Art of Politics in fifteenth-century York:House Books, Mystery Plays and Richard Duke of Gloucester

The York House Books provide much-cited evidence of Richard III's relationship with the City of York in 1485, yet the nature and purpose of the House Books has never been satisfactorily explored. Through a focus on the records of a single year (1476–77), this article places their development within the context of new forms of civic bureaucracy in England and France in which the recording of emotions and speech had particular rhetorical and political significance in the reign of Edward IV. This expanding culture of civic literacy led not only to the creation of fuller records of civic politics and events (including the surviving texts of the Corpus Christi drama), but also enabled new forms of political activity.