Pageants, processions and Royal Entries were regular and significant occurrences in the streets of London between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, but the streets were perhaps surprisingly unsuited for such events. The condition of most roads, streets and lanes was very poor: a mixture of paved and unpaved surfaces, soil, gravel, stones, domestic waste, trade waste, mud, and dung. In addition to such conditions under foot, the clear passageway along these thoroughfares was often encroached upon by indiscriminate additions to buildings which had hitherto formed the natural boundaries of streets. Local officials in London wrestled with the seemingly never-ending problems of human and animal waste and built encroachments upon the streets. The purpose of this article is to establish the nature of street conditions and their preparation for the execution of pageants and processions.

The everyday condition of the streets in which pageants and processions took place was, by modern standards, primitive and ill-thought-out. The situation was not substantially improved when a procession took place, although citizens and local officials did attempt to clean up before processions and pageants, and to improve safety along procession routes. An example of the extent to which the London mayors and their aldermen considered it necessary to regulate street conditions to facilitate pageants and processions is clearly outlined in ‘A proclamation for the coming of Queen Margaret of England’ issued in London in 1445: