Street Singers in Renaissance Europe - Introduction

This special issue focuses upon a central figure in the social, cultural, and aural landscape of Renaissance Europe: the singer of tales, or the street singer (known as cantimbanco, canterino or cantastorie in Italy, balladeer or mountebank in England, Bänkelsänger in Germany, ciego coplero in Spain, chanteur de rue in France, guslar in Bosnia or Serbia, and Meddah in the Ottoman world). At least since Peter Burke’s seminal work on early modern popular culture, street singers have been recognized as a subject of pivotal importance, albeit inherently elusive and difficult to study. These seemingly shadowy performers held a place at the epicentre of European Renaissance society and culture, whose ‘hybridity’ they epitomized. Itinerant performers have been identified as crucial mediators in the dynamic continuum of learned and popular cultures and of orality and literacy that characterized early modern Europe. By analysing a variety of case‐studies ranging from Amsterdam, Antwerp, Florence, London, Paris, Venice and Valencia, this collection of essays further investigates the composite persona of the street singer in Renaissance Europe, who embodied a very powerful communicative medium. By shedding new light on them, one might illuminate many interesting aspects of Renaissance culture and society.