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Popular Culture Review
through the years. The largest annual amount spent on the celebrations occurred
in 1544: 2640 pence, a sum close to the annual salary of an endowed priest in
the rich London parish of St. Mary’s Woolnoth (Woolnoth xvii). Seventy-one
percent of the larger costs resulted from an increase in the stipends paid to
musicians, but xmfortunately no reason is given for that year’s large inflation in
their wages.
In 1540 the man playing St. George was paid 80 pence, a sum equal to
about nineteen days’ wages for a laborer (Ludlow 35). There also were
payments to standard bearers, the dragon bearer, who was inside the figure of
the dragon and worked the controls ^\^