Chapter XXV: Humanism and Mediaevalism (13)

[387] On the way in which the later local miracle-play and the scriptural interlude merge into each other, cf. p. 191.

[388] The Destruction of Jerusalem, together with the Visit of Veronica to Tiberius and the Death of Pilate, which are scenes in the Cornish cycle, forms the subject-matter of a French _Vengeance de Nostre Seigneur_, printed in 1491. Another _Vengeance de Nostre Seigneur_ is attached to the Passion of Eustache Mercadé (†1414). A representation of a Vengeance, following close on one of a Passion, is recorded at Metz in 1437, and there are several later examples (Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 12, 175, 415, 451).

[389] Cf. p. 61.

[390] Cf. p. 97.

[391] Cf. vol. i. p. 221.

[392] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 574.

[393] Archdeacon Rogers thus describes the Chester plays (_Digby Plays_, xix) ‘They first beganne at yᵉ Abbaye gates; & when the firste pagiente was played at yᵉ Abbaye gates, then it was wheeled from thence to the pentice at yᵉ highe crosse before yᵉ Mayor; and before that was donne, the seconde came, and yᵉ firste wente in-to the water-gate streete, and from thence vnto yᵉ Bridge-streete, and soe all, one after an other, tell all yᵉ pagiantes weare played.’

[394] Cf. pp. 95, 160.

[395] D’Ancona, i. 228.

[396] Cf. p. 83.

[397] Cf. p. 83.

[398] _C. T._ 3384 (_Miller’s Tale_). This ‘scaffold’ may have been merely a throne or _sedes_ for Herod. But plays on platforms or scaffolds are found at Chelmsford, Kingston, Reading, Dublin.

[399] Cf. M. Jusserand, in _Furnivall Miscellany_, 186, and the pit for _La Mer_ on the 1547 Valenciennes Passion play stage figured in his _Shakespeare in France_, 63.

[400] _Furnivall Miscellany_, 192, 194, from _Bodl. MS._ 264, ff. 54ᵇ, 76ᵃ.

[401] The directions to the Coventry Weavers’ play refer to the ‘for pagand’ and the ‘upper part’; those of the Grocers’ play at Norwich to the ‘nether parte of yᵉ pageant.’ For the purposes of the dramas these are distinct localities.

[402] Cf. p. 86. The Digby St. Mary Magdalen play has the stage direction, ‘a stage, and Helle ondyr-neth that stage.’ At Coventry the Cappers had a ‘hell-mouth’ for the Harrowing of Hell and the Weavers another for Doomsday.

[403] Every conceivable spelling of the word ‘pageant’ appears in the records. The _Promptorium Parvulorum_, ii. 377 (†1440, ed. A. Way for Camd. Soc.), has ‘Pagent, _Pagina_,’ and this is the usual Latin spelling, although _pagenda_ and _pagentes_ (acc. pl.) occur at Beverley. The derivation is from _pagina_ ‘a plank.’ The _Catholicon Anglicum_ (1483, ed. S. J. H. Herrtage for E. E. T. S.) has ‘A Paiande; _lusorium_,’ and there can be little doubt that ‘playing-place,’ ‘stage’ is the primary sense of the word, although as a matter of fact the derivative sense of ‘scene’ or ‘episode’ is the first to appear. Wyclif so uses it, speaking of Christmas in his _Ave Maria_ (_English Works_, E. E. T. S. 206) ‘he that kan best pleie a pagyn of the deuyl, syngynge songis of lecherie, of batailis and of lesyngis ... is holden most merie mon.’ In _Of Prelates_ (_loc. cit._ 99) he says that false teachers ‘comen in viserid deuelis’ and ‘pleien the pagyn of scottis,’ masking under St. George’s ‘skochen.’ The elaborate pageants used in masks and receptions (cf. p. 176, and vol. i. p. 398) led to a further derivative sense of ‘mechanical device.’ This, as well as the others, is illustrated in the passages quoted by the editors of the _Prompt. Parv._ and the _Cath. Angl._ from W. Horman, author of _Vulgaria_ (1519) ‘Alexander played a payante more worthy to be wondred vpon for his rasshe aduenture than for his manhede.... There were v coursis in the feest and as many paiantis in the pley. I wyll haue made v stagȝ or bouthis in this playe (_scenas_). I wolde haue a place in the middyl of the pley (_orchestra_) that I myght se euery paiaunt. Of all the crafty and subtyle paiantis and pecis of warke made by mannys wyt, to go or moue by them selfe, the clocke is one of the beste.’ Synonyms for ‘pageant’ in the sense of ‘stage’ are ‘cariadge’ (Chester) and ‘karre’ (Beverley); in the sense of ‘scene,’ _iocus_ (Coventry), _visus_ (Lincoln), _processus_ or ‘processe’ (Towneley and Digby plays, Croxton _Sacrament_ and Medwall’s morality of _Nature_).

[404] Cf. p. 90, and _Hamlet_, iii. 2. 9 ‘O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod.’ The Miller in _Cant. Tales_, 3124, cries out ‘in Pilates vois.’ The torturers also seem to have been favourite performers; cf. the _Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II_ (T. Wright, _Political Songs_, C. S. 336):

‘Hii ben degised as turmentours that comen from clerkes plei.’

[405] Cf. p. 48.

[406] In Jean Fouquet’s miniature representing the French mystery of St. Apollonia (cf. p. 85) a priest, with a book in one hand and a wand in the other, appears to be conducting the play.

[407] Cf. p. 203.

[408] _Hen. V_, ii. 3. 42 ‘Do you not remember, a’ saw a flea stick upon Bardolph’s nose, and a’ said it was a black soul burning in hell-fire?’

[409] _Hamlet_, v. 1. 85 ‘Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murder.’

[410] Warton, ii. 223 ‘In these Mysteries I have sometimes seen gross and open obscenities. In a play of _The Old and New Testament_, Adam and Eve are both exhibited on the stage naked, and conversing about their nakedness: this very pertinently introduces the next scene, in which they have coverings of fig-leaves. This extraordinary spectacle was beheld by a numerous assembly of both sexes with great composure: they had the authority of scripture for such a representation, and they gave matters just as they found them in the third chapter of Genesis. It would have been absolute heresy to have departed from the sacred text in personating the primitive appearance of our first parents, whom the spectators so nearly resembled in simplicity.’

[411] Deimling, i. 30 ‘Statim nudi sunt ... Tunc Adam et Eva cooperiant genitalia sua cum foliis.’

[412] Cf. vol. i. p. 5.

[413] Cf. p. 103. So the ‘ordinary’ or prompter (p. 140) is the man in charge of the _ordinale_.

[414] ‘Oreginale de S. Maria Magdalena’ (_Digby MS_.); ‘originall booke,’ ‘regenall,’ ‘rygynall,’ ‘orraginall’ (Chester); ‘orygynall,’ ‘rygenale’ (Coventry); ‘regenell’ (Louth); ‘ryginall’ (Sleaford).

[415] Cf. p. 90.

[416] As the price paid was only ‘iiijᵈ’ a _printed_ play was probably bought, from which the ‘partes,’ at a cost of ‘ijˢ,’ were written; cf. p. 192.

[417] Ritson, _Bibl. Poet._ 79, included in his list of Lydgate’s works a ‘Procession of pageants from the creation’ which has not been identified. On the ‘Procession of Corpus Christi,’ which follows in the list, cf. p. 161.

[418] Ten Brink, ii. 235 ‘An incessant process of separating and uniting, of extending and curtailing, marks the history of the liturgical drama, and indeed of the mediaeval drama generally.’

[419] _Towneley Plays_ (E. E. T. S.), xiv.

[420] _Anglia_, xi. 253.

[421] Davidson, 252.

[422] Cf. p. 69.

[423] Thus at York, the Corpus Christi procession which the plays were originally designed to magnify, had become by 1426 a hindrance to them; cf. p. 139.

[424] There is but little of direct merging of the plays with folk-customs. At Aberdeen the ‘Haliblude’ play was under the local lord of misrule. At Norwich the play was on Whit-Monday; the lord of misrule held revel on Whit-Tuesday. At Reading there were plays on May-day. At Chelmsford and Wymondham they were attached to the Midsummer ‘watch’ or ‘show.’ Typically ‘folk’ personages, the ‘wodmen’ (cf. vol. i. p. 185), appear in the Aberdeen Candlemas procession, and at Hull the ‘hobby-ship’ (cf. vol. i. p. 121) becomes the centre of a play.

[425] Richard Carew lays stress on the delight taken by the spectators in the devils of the Cornish plays. Collier, ii. 187, quotes a jest about the devil in a Suffolk stage-play from _C. Mery Talys_ (†1533). In the _Conversion of St. Paul_ of the Digby MS., a later hand has carefully inserted a devil scene. On the whole subject of the representation of devils in the plays, cf. Cushman, 16; Eckhardt, 53.

[426] _York Plays_, 524.

[427] Ed. Groeneveld (1888); cf. Creizenach, i. 362; Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 180, ii. 342.

[428] I do not think that these Dutch plays have been printed. The MS., in the Royal Library at Brussels, is described by Hoffmann von Fallersleben, _Horae Belgicae_, vi, xxix; cf. Creizenach, i. 366. Besides the three chivalric plays, it contains a dramatized _estrif_ of Summer and Winter (cf. vol. i. p. 187) included with them under the general title of ‘abele Spelen,’ and also a long farce or ‘Boerd.’ To each of the five plays, moreover, is attached a short farcical after-piece. A few notices of other fifteenth-century Dutch chivalric plays are preserved. The subjects are Arnoute, Ronchevale, Florys und Blancheflor, Gryselle (Griseldis); cf. Creizenach, i. 372.

[429] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 284, 310.

[430] Ed. F. Guessard et E. de Certain (1862) in _Collection des documents historiques_; cf. Creizenach, i. 372; Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 576; H. Tivier, _Étude sur le Myst. du Siège d’O._ (1868). The play may have been designed for performance at the festival held at Orleans in memory of the siege on May 8. The passage quoted from Sir Richard Morrison on p. 221, suggests that a similar commemoration was held in the sixteenth century by the English at Calais of the battle of Agincourt in 1415.

[431] Ed. Stengel (1883); cf. Creizenach, i. 374; Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 569.

[432] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. Dublin.

[433] Collier, ii. 183, thinks the term ‘morality’ a ‘recent’ one, but it was used in 1503: cf. p. 201.

[434] There is not much direct imitation of the _Roman de la Rose_ in the moralities. Perhaps the French _Honneur des Dames_ of Andrieu de la Vigne (Julleville, _Rép. com._ 73) comes nearest. But its leading episode, the siege of the fortress of Danger, is reflected in the siege of the Castle of Perseverance and that of the Castle of Maudleyn in the _Mary Magdalen_ of the Digby MS. On the general place of allegory in contemporary literature cf. Courthope, i. 341.

[435] Cf. pp. 63, 77.

[436] Ward, i. 105; _Archaeologia_, xiii. 232. A _débat_ on precisely this theme is introduced into the _Chasteau d’Amour_, a theological work in the form of a romance, ascribed to Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253), on which cf. F. S. Stevenson, _Life of Grosseteste_, 38; Jusserand, _Eng. Lit._ i. 214. In the English version of the fourteenth century (R. F. Weymouth, _The Castel of Love_, 273) the passage begins—

‘For now I chul tellen of þe stryf
Þat a-mong þe foure sustren liþ.’

[437] No stress is of course to be laid upon the late introduction of Dolor and Myserye into the Grocers’ play at Norwich, when the text was rewritten in 1565.

[438] _Ludus Cov._ 106 (play xi, _Virtutes_), 70, 79, 89, 105, 124, 129, 289 (plays viii-xiii, xxix, _Contemplacio_), 184 (play xix, _Mors_), 386 (play xli, _Sapientia_); cf. Hohlfeld, in _Anglia_, xi. 278.

[439] Jusserand, _Théâtre_, 123; Pearson, i. 2; Creizenach, i. 461; _Captain Cox_, clxvi; W. Seelmann, _Die Totentänze des Mittelalters_ (_Jahrb. d. Vereins f. niederdeutsche Sprachforschung_, xvii. 1). A bibliography of the Dance of Death is given by Goedeke, i. 322 (bk. iii. § 92).

[440] Prudentius, _Psychomachia_ (†400 _P. L._ lx. 11); cf. Creizenach, i. 463.

[441] _Ephesians_, vi. 11.

[442] Creizenach, i. 470; Julleville, _La Com._ 44, 78. The earliest French notice is that of the ‘Gieux des sept vertuz et des sept pechiez mortelz’ at Tours in 1390. A ‘mystère de Bien-Avisé et Malavisé’ is said to have been played in 1396 (Julleville, _Rép. com._ 324). The extant play of that name, somewhat later in date, is a morality. Other early French morals on a large scale are _L’Homme juste et l’Homme mondain_ (1508) and _L’Homme pécheur_ (†1494) (Julleville, _Rép. com._ 39, 67, 72). All these are on variants of the Contrast of Vice and Virtue theme.

[443] Creizenach, i. 465, quoting a thirteenth-century German sermon.

[444] Cf. p. 201 and _Texts_ (ii). It is not quite clear whether the English play of _Everyman_ is the original or a translation of the Dutch _Elckerlijk_, or whether the two plays have a common source.

[445] Cf. p. 131.

[446] Cf. p. 199.

[447] Cf. vol. i. p. 381.

[448] Cf. p. 218.

[449] See Pearson, ii. 260, and the interesting study of P. Weber, _Geistliches Schauspiel und kirchliche Kunst_ (1894).

[450] Cf. p. 42.

[451] W. Lambarde, _Alphabetical Description of the Chief Places in England and Wales_ (1730, written in the sixteenth century), 459, s.v. Wytney.

[452] Gairdner, 253, quoting an unnamed chronicler, ‘a picture of the Resurrection of Our Lord made with vices, which put out his legs of sepulchre, and blessed with his hand and turned his head.’

[453] Magnin, _Marionnettes_; J. Feller, _Le Bethléem verviétois_ (_Bull. de la Soc. verviétoise d’Arch. et d’Hist._ 1900).

[454] Cf. vol. i. p. 71.

[455] Morley, _passim_; Hone, 229; Strutt, 164; T. Frost, _Old Showmen and Old London Fairs_ (1874); W. B. Boulton, _Amusements of Old London_, ii. 49, 224.

[456] The term ‘motion’ is not, however, confined to puppet-plays. Bacon, Essay xxxvii, uses it of the dumb-shows of masquers, and Jonson, _Tale of a Tub_, v. 1, of shadow-plays.

[457] _P. C. Acts_, viii. 131.

[458] _Winter’s Tale_, iv. 3. 102.

[459] _Bartholomew Fair_, v. 3; cf. v. 1. 8 ‘O, the motions that I, Lanthorn Leatherhead, have given light to in my time, since my master Pod died! Jerusalem was a stately thing, and so was Nineveh, and the City of Norwich, and Sodom and Gomorrah, with the rising of the prentices and pulling down the bawdy-houses there upon Shrove-Tuesday; but the Gunpowder Plot, there was a get-penny! I have presented that to an eighteen or twenty pence audience, nine times in an afternoon’; also _Every Man out of His Humour_, Induction:

‘Will show more several motions in his face
Than the new London, Rome, or Nineveh.’

[460] Lanthorn Leatherhead says of his puppets, ‘I am the mouth of them all’; cf. _Hamlet_, iii. 2. 256 ‘I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying’; _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, ii. 1. 100 ‘O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet! Now will he interpret to her.’

[461] Morley, 179, 187, 190, 247, 261, 273, 304, 321, records ‘Patient Grisel’ (1655, 1677), ‘Susanna’ (1655), ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’ (1656), ‘Judith and Holophernes’ (1664), ‘Jephtha’s Rash Vow’ (1697, 1698, 1701, 1704, 1733), ‘The Creation of the World’ (1701).

[462] Powell’s performances of the ‘Creation of the World’ at Bath and ‘Susanna’ at Covent Garden are referred to in the _Tatler_ for May 14, 1709, and the _Spectator_ for March 16, 1711.

[463] Hone, 230, describes a ‘gallantee show’ of the Prodigal Son and of Noah’s Ark with a scene of ‘Pull Devil, Pull Baker,’ showing the judgement upon a baker who gave short weight (cf. the cut in Morley, 356), seen by him in London in 1818. This was an exhibition of _ombres chinoises_ rather than a puppet-play proper.

[464] A. Dieterich, _Pulcinella_, 234, considers Pulcinella a descendant of Maccus, derives the name from _pullicenus_, _pulcinus_, _pullus_, and connects the fowl-masks of Italian comedy with the cockscomb of the English fool (cf. vol. i. p. 385).

[465] Collier, _Punch and Judy_ (1870), 11 sqq.; Frost, _The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs_, 29. The earliest English notice of Punch in England is in the overseers’ books of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields for 1666 and 1667, ‘Recᵈ of Punchinello, yᵉ Italian popet player, for his booth at Charing Cross.’ In a Bartholomew Fair playbill of the early eighteenth century, ‘the merry conceits of Squire Punch and Sir John Spendall’ were attached to the puppet-show of the Creation of the World. Punch was also amongst the _dramatis personae_ of Robert Powell. The nature of these earlier Punch plays is unknown. That now traditional in England is implied by the ballad of _Punch’s Pranks_ (†1790). Collier, who prints it as given by one Piccini in Drury Lane, with cuts by Cruikshank, considers it to be derived from _Don Juan_. But it seems to me to come still nearer to the morality plays. French Punch plays have many other themes.

[466] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 208; cf. p. 95.

[467] Printed by Halliwell, _Minor Poems of Lydgate_ (Percy Soc.), 95, from Shirley’s _Harl._ 2251, f. 293, as a _Processioune of Corpus Cristi_, with a note at the end that ‘Shirley kowde fynde no more.’ It is also, with the same note, in Shirley’s _Trin. Coll. Camb. MS._ R. 3. 20, f. 348, with the heading, ‘Ordenaunce of a p’cessyoun of the feste of Corpus Cristi, made in London by Daun John Lydegate’ (E. P. Hammond, in _Anglia_, xxii. 364), and is copied thence by John Stowe in _B. M. Add. MS._ 29, 729, f. 166. The piece is nᵒ. 153 in the list of Lydgate’s works given by Ritson, _Bibl. Poet._ 79. It may be doubted whether Ritson’s nᵒ. 152 ‘A Procession of pageants from the creation’ is really distinct. Lydgate describes to his hearers ‘figures shewed in your presence’ which embody ‘gracious mysteries grounded in Scripture.’ Of course ‘mysteries’ has no technical dramatic sense here. Lydgate’s method of ‘interpreting’ may have been based on the incorrect mediaeval notion of the methods of the classical stage, which he adopts in his _Troy Book_ (cf. p. 208). The ‘figures’ represented twenty-seven persons whose utterances revealed the mystery of the Mass. There were eight patriarchs, the Ecclesiast, four prophets, the Baptist, four evangelists, St. Paul, and seven Christian doctors.

[468] Sharp, 172, quotes from a contemporary writer a passage showing that the Dublin procession, like those of Coventry and Shrewsbury, lasted to a recent date: ‘The Fringes was a procession of the trades and corporations, performed in Ireland on Corpus Christi day, even within the author’s recollection. King Solomon, Queen of Sheba, with Vulcan, Venus, and Cupid, were leading persons upon this occasion.’

[469] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 211; Davidson, 219.

[470] The following is from an account of a continental Corpus Christi procession in Barnabe Googe’s translation of Naogeorgos’ _Popish Kingdom_ (1553), iv. 699 (Stubbes, i. 337):

‘Christes passion here derided is, with sundrie maskes and playes;
Faire Ursley with hir maydens all, doth passe amid the wayes:
And valiant George, with speare thou killest the dreadfull dragon here;
The deuil’s house is drawne about, wherein there doth appere
A wondrous sort of damned sprites, with foule and fearefull looke;
Great Christopher doth wade and passe with Christ amid the brooke:
Sebastian full of feathred shaftes, the dint of dart doth feele;
There walketh Kathren with hir sworde in hande, and cruell wheele:
The Challis and the singing Cake, with Barbara is led,
And sundrie other Pageants playde in worship of this bred, &c.’

[471] Sharp, 217, records a play of the _Golden Fleece_ provided by Robert Crowe for the Cappers’ Candlemas Dinner in 1525; the London drapers had a pageant with the same title in 1522 (cf. p. 165).

[472] Cf. the Paradise show at the London reception of Henry VI in 1432 (p. 170).

[473] Toulmin Smith, _English Guilds_, 149.

[474] Ibid. 148.

[475] Ibid. 30.

[476] Kelly, 7, 11.

[477] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. Canterbury.

[478] The ‘pagent’s paynted and lemenyd with gold’ of the Holy Trinity, Saints Fabian, Sebastian, and Botulph, ‘and the last pagent of the terement, & gen’all obyte, of the brether’n and suster’n, that be passed to God,’ which the London guild of the Holy Trinity had on a ‘rolle of velom, cou’ed with a golde-skyn’ in 1463 (Hone, 81), were probably not, as Davidson, 224, thinks, ‘a description and representation of the pageants which were carried in procession by the guild,’ but illuminated pages (_paginae_). For a similar misunderstanding cf. p. 401, n. 1. Abp. Thoresby (†1357) circulated a ‘tretys in Englisce ... in smale pagynes’ (Shirley, _Fasciculi Zizaniorum_, xiii).

[479] _Representations_, s.v. Preston.

[480] Dyer, 60.

[481] Cf. vol. i. p. 221.

[482] Cf. vol. i. pp. 118, 120.

[483] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. London.

[484] J. G. Nichols, _London Pageants_ (1837); F. W. Fairholt, _Lord Mayor’s Pageants_ (1843-4, Percy Soc. nᵒˢ. 38, 43), and _The Civic Garland_ (Percy Soc. 1845).

[485] Herbert, i. 457. The same writer quotes a payment from the drapers’ accounts of 1516 of £13 4_s._ 7_d._ for ‘Sir Laurens Aylmer’s Pageant.’ But this cannot have been intended for a lord mayor’s show, for Aylmer’s only mayoralty was in 1507-8, and a grocer, not a draper, was mayor in 1515-6 and in 1516-7.

[486] Malcolm, _Londinium Redivivum_, ii. 42; W. C. Hazlitt, _Livery Companies_ (1892), 310.

[487] Herbert, i. 199.

[488] W. Smith, _A breffe description of the Royall Citie of London_ (1575), quoted by Nichols, 95.

[489] The _Annales Londonienses_ record at the visit of the Emperor Otho to King John in 1207 ‘tota civitas Londoniae induit solempnitatem pallis et aliis ornamentis circumornata,’ and at the entry of Edward II after his marriage in 1308 ‘tapeti aurei’ and the city dignitaries ‘coram rege et regina karolantes’ (_Chronicles of the Reigns of Edw. I and Edw. II_, R. S. i. 13, 152). At the coronation of Henry IV in 1399 was an ‘equitatio magnifica’ (_Annales Hen. IV_, R. S. 291), and the streets were hung with ‘paremens,’ and there were ‘nœuf broucherons a manière de fontaines en Cep a Londres, courans par plusieurs conduits, jettans vin blanc et vermeil’ (Froissart, _Chroniques_, ed. Kervyn de Lettynhove, xvi. 205).

[490] M. Paris, _Chronica Maiora_ (R. S.), iii. 336 ‘quibusdam prodigiosis ingeniis et portentis.’

[491] Stowe, _Annals_, 207. The authority quoted in the margin is ‘Chro. Dun.,’ which I cannot identify. It is not the Dunstable Annals in the _Annales monastici_ (R. S.), vol. iii.

[492] _Annales Londonienses_ (_Chron. of Edw. I and Edw. II_, R. S.), i. 221 ‘quaedam navis, quodam mirabili ingenio operata, cum malo et velo erectis, et depictis de supradictis armis [of England and France] et varietate plurima’; cf. H. T. Riley, _Memorials of London_, 107, from _Corporation Letter Book D._ f. 168.

[493] T. Walsingham, _Hist. Anglica_ (R. S.), i. 331.

[494] Fabyan, 538; H. Knighton, _Chronicon_ (R. S.), ii. 320; Richard Maydiston, _De concordia inter regem Ricardum II et civitatem London_ (_Political Poems_, R. S. i. 282).

[495] Full contemporary accounts in _Gesta Henrici Quinti_ (Eng. Hist. Soc.), 61, and a set of verses by John Lydgate printed in _London Chronicle_, 214, and H. Nicolas, _Hist. of Agincourt_ (1833), 326; more briefly in _London Chronicle_, 103; T. Walsingham, _Hist. Anglic._ (R. S.), ii. 314; cf. C. L. Kingsford, _Henry V_, 156.

[496] T. Walsingham, _Hist. Anglica_ (R. S.), ii. 336 ‘ludicis et vario apparatu.’

[497] Cf. p. 174.

[498] Printed from _Corp. Letter Book K._ f. 103ᵛ, by H. T. Riley, _Liber Albus_ (R. S.), iii. 457; cf. descriptive verses by Lydgate, _Minor Works_ (Percy Soc.), 2; _London Chronicle_, 119; Fabyan, 603; Gregory, 173.

[499] Carpenter uses the term _pagina_, which here occurs for the first time in connexion with these London receptions. Mr. Riley quite unnecessarily proposes to read _machina_.

[500] A pun was concealed here, for John de _Welles_, grocer, was mayor, and the ‘oranges, almonds, and the pomegranade’ on the trees were the grocers’ wares. Cf. the tree of the Norwich grocers in the Corpus Christi procession (p. 163).

[501] Stowe, _Annals_, 385; cf. _London Chronicle_, 134 ‘goodly sights ayenst her coming’; Fabyan, 617 ‘sumptuous and costly pagentes, and resemblaunce of dyuerse olde hystoryes’; Gregory, 186 ‘many notabylle devysys in the cytte.’ According to Stowe, Lydgate wrote verses for these pageants.

[502] A memorandum of ceremonial _As ffor the ressaunge off a Quene and her Crownacion_ of the reign of Henry VII (_Antiquarian Repertory_, i. 302) has the following direction for the riding from the Tower to Westminster, ‘at the condit in Cornylle ther must be ordined a sight wᵗ angelles singinge and freche balettes yʳon in latene, engliche and ffrenche, mad by the wyseste docturs of this realme; and the condyt of Chepe in the same wyse; and the condit must ryn bothe red wyn and whit wyne; and the crosse in Chepe muste be araid in yᵉ most rialle wyse that might be thought; and the condit next Poules in the same wyse.’

[503] Contemporary account in Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), iv. 218, and J. Ives, _Select Papers_ (1773), 127.

[504] Minutely detailed contemporary account in _Antiquarian Repertory_, ii. 248; cf. Stowe, _Annals_, 483; Hazlitt-Warton, iii. 160.

[505] Stowe, _Annals_, 517; Hall, 638; cf. _Representations_ (London).

[506] Minutely detailed contemporary account in _Antiquarian Repertory_, ii. 232; Hall, 801; Collier, ii. 353. Leland’s and Udall’s verses for the pageants are in _Ballads from MSS._, i. 378 (Ballad Soc.).

[507] Contemporary account in Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), iv. 313.

[508] Stowe, _Annals_, 616; cf. _Texts_, s.v. John Heywood.

[509] Holinshed, iii. 1121.

[510] Contemporary account in Nichols, _Progresses of Elizabeth_, i. 38.

[511] Cf. vol. i. p. 121.

[512] Warton, iii. 158, says that ‘Speakers seem to have been admitted into our pageants about the reign of Henry VI.’ But there were songs, and for all we know, speeches also in 1377 and 1415. Verses such as Lydgate wrote for pageants were often fastened on them, and read or not read aloud when the visitor approached, as might be convenient.

[513] Cf. p. 5.

[514] Wheatley-Cunningham, _London Past and Present_, i. 373, 458; iii. 409.

[515] Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 196; ii. 186.

[516] Sharp, 145.

[517] Davies, 162, 171, 282.

[518] J. Raine, _English Miscellanies_ (Surtees Soc., vol. lxxxv), 53, from _Corporation House Book_, vi. 15.

[519] Contemporary account in Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), iv. 185. A description of an earlier reception of Edward IV at Bristol with ‘Wylliam conquerour,’ ‘a greet Gyaunt delyueryng the Keyes,’ and St. George is in Furnivall, _Political, Religious, and Love Poems_ (E. E. T. S.), 5.

[520] Leland, _Collectanea_, iv. 263.

[521] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. Aberdeen.

[522] Cf. vol. i. p. 398.

[523] Symonds, _Renaissance in Italy_, iv. 338.

[524] Cf. vol. i. p. 86.

[525] Ward, i. 108. The limitation by Collier, ii. 299, of ‘what may be properly, and strictly, called _Interludes_’ to farces of the type affected by John Heywood has introduced a most inconvenient semi-technical term into literary nomenclature. I do not so limit the word.

[526] _Gawain and the G. K._ 472:

‘Wel bycommes such craft vpon, cristmasse,
Laykyng of enterludez, to laȝe & to syng.’

[527] Cf. vol. i. p. 93.

[528] Hazlitt, _E. D. S._ 80 ‘How thanne may a prist pleyn in entirlodies?’ In Barbour, _Bruce_ (†1375), x. 145 ‘now may ȝe heir ... Interludys and iuperdys, þat men assayit on mony vis Castellis and pelis for till ta,’ the sense is metaphorical, as in ‘ioculando et talia verba asserendo interludia fuisse vanitatis’ quoted by Ducange from _Vit. Abb. S. Alb._, i.e. probably Thomas Walsingham (†1422), not Matthew Paris (†1249). The reading is doubtful in Anastasius Bibliothecarius (9th cent.), _Hist. Pontif._ (_P. L._ lxxx. 1352), ‘quem iussit sibi praesentari in interludo noctu ante templum Palladis.’

[529] For probable 1385 cases, cf. _Representations_, s.v. King’s Lynn.

[530] A ‘vyce’ made pastime before and after a play at Bungay, but this was not until 1566.

[531] Julleville, _Les Com._ 97. These performances were known as _les pois pilés_ and began about the middle of the fourteenth century. The Anglo-French _entrelude_, asterisked by the _N. E. D._, is found in 1427 (cf. p. 186). Collier’s theory receives some support from the Spanish use of the term _entremes_ for a comic piece played in conjunction with a serious _auto_. But the earlier sense of _entremes_ itself appears to be for an independent farce played at banquets (Ticknor, _Hist. of Span. Lit._ (ed. 1888), i. 231; ii. 449).

[532] Cf. the accounts in Leland, _Collectanea_, iv. 228, 236, of the court of Henry VII. Douglas, _Palace of Honour_, ii. 410 ‘At eis they eit with interludis betwene,’ dates from 1501. Horman, _Vulgaria_ (1519), quoted on p. 137, speaks of the ‘paiantis’ of a play as corresponding in number to the courses of a feast. Much earlier Raoul de Presles (†1374) in his _Exposicion_ to Augustine, _de Civ. Dei_, ii. 8 (Abbeville, 1486), says that comedies ‘sont proprement apellez interludia, pour ce quilz se font entre les deux mengiers.’ But the use of _interludere_ by Ausonius, _Idyll_, x. 76, ‘interludentes, examina lubrica, pisces,’ and Ambrose, _Epist._ xlvii. 4, ‘interludamus epistolis,’ supports my view.

[533] For a curious distinction, probably neither original nor permanent, drawn about 1530 between ‘stage playes’ (presumably out of doors) in the summer and ‘interludes’ (presumably indoors) in the winter, cf. the documents printed by H. R. Plomer, in _Trans. of Bibliographical Society_, iv. (1898), 153, and A. W. Pollard in _Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse_, 305, about a suit between John Rastell, lawyer, printer, and playwright, and one Henry Walton. Rastell, going on a visit to France about 1525, had left with Walton a number of players’ garments. These are fully described. They were mostly of say or sarcenet, and the tailor, who with the help of Rastell’s wife had made them, valued them at 20_s._ apiece. Walton failed to restore them, and for some years let them on hire, to his own profit. Evidence to this effect was given by John Redman, stationer, and by George Mayler, merchant tailor, and George Birche, coriar, two of the king’s players. These men had played in the garments themselves and had seen them used in ‘stage pleyes’ when the king’s banquet was at Greenwich [in 1527; cf. vol. i. p. 400]. They had been used at least twenty times in stage plays every summer and twenty times in interludes every winter, and Walton had taken, as the ‘common custume’ was, at a stage play ‘sumtyme xlᵈ., sometyme ijˢ., as they couth agree, and at an interlude viijᵈ for every tyme.’ Rastell had brought a previous suit in the mayor’s court, but could only receive 35_s._ 9_d._, at which the goods had been officially appraised. But they were then ‘rotten and torne,’ whereas Rastell alleged that they were nearly new when delivered to Walton and worth 20 marks. Walton relied on the official appraisement, and had a counter-claim for 40_s._ balance of a bill for 50_s._ costs ‘in making of stage for player in Restall’s grounde beside Fyndesbury, in tymbre, bourde, nayle, lath, sprigge and other thyngs.’ He held the clothes against payment of this amount, which Rastell challenged.

[534] In 1503 a _Magi_ was given in Canterbury guildhall. Some of the crafts of Coventry (1478-1568) and Newcastle (1536) had plays at their guild feasts. The indoor performances of Chester plays in 1567 and 1576 are late and exceptional.

[535] Cf. Appendix E, ii (Maxstoke), iii (Thetford), vii (Howard), viii (Tudor Court). ‘Moleyn’s wedding’ attended by Lord Howard, is the first of many at which the players are recorded to have made the mirth. Some of the entries may imply visits _to_ the plays, rather than _of_ the plays, and this I suppose to be the case with Henry VII’s payment ‘to the players _at_ Myles End.’ It is perhaps a little arbitrary to assume, as I have done, that players locally named are never professional. Thus the _lusores de Writhill_ paid by the duke of Buckingham on Jan. 6, 1508, are almost certainly identical with the _lusores Dñi de Wrisell_ (his brother-in-law, the earl of Northumberland) paid by him at Xmas, 1507 (_Archaeologia_, xxv. 318, 324), although it happens curiously enough that the Chelmsford wardrobe was drawn upon by players of Writtle in 1571-2. The local designation of members of the minstrel class is exceptional; but cf. the York example in the next note. The locally named _lusores_ may, however, sometimes have acted not a miracle, but a May-game or sword-dance; e.g., at Winchester College in 1400 when they came ‘cum tripudio suo’ (App. E, iv).

[536] I have taken _lusores_ in the _computi_ as always meaning performers of a dramatic _ludus_. This is often demonstrably correct and never demonstrably incorrect, except that when Colet in his _Oratio ad Clerum_ of 1511 quotes the canon ‘ne sit publicus lusor’ he seems to use the term in its canonical sense of ‘gambler.’ The English version (1661) has ‘common gamer or player.’ A similar ambiguity is, I think, the only one which attaches itself to ‘player’ where it is a technical term after the middle of the fourteenth century. Lydgate in his _Interpretacyon of the names of Goddys and Goddesses_ (quoted by Collier, i. 31) uses it of an actor, although an older sense is preserved by the _Promptorium Parvulorum_ (1440), ‘Bordyoure or pleyere, _ioculator_.’ The sense of _ludentes_, I think, is wide. The _ludentes_ ‘_de Donyngton_’ and ‘_de Wakefield_’ paid by the York corporation in 1446 (_York Plays_, xxxviii) are more likely to have been minstrels whom the corporation did provide for the plays than actors whom they did not. On the other hand about _interludentes_ and _interlusores_, neither of them very common terms, there can be no doubt. _Lusiatores_ occurs as a synonym for _lusores_ at Shrewsbury only. _Mimi_ and _histriones_ I have uniformly treated as merely minstrels. At a late date they might, I suppose, be actors, but it is impossible to differentiate.

[537] Plays were sometimes read, even in the fifteenth century. The prologue of _The Burial and Resurrection_ has ‘Rede this treyte,’ although it was also converted into ‘a play to be playede’; and the epilogue of the Digby _St. Mary Magdalen_ has ‘I desyer the redars to be my frynd.’ Thomas Wylley in 1537 describes some of his plays to Cromwell as ‘never to be seen, but of your Lordshyp’s eye.’ Prynne, 834, asserts that ‘Bernardinus Ochin his Tragedy of Freewil, Plessie Morney his Tragedie of Jeptha his daughter, Edward the 6 his Comedie de meretrice Babilonica, Iohn Bale his Comedies de Christo et de Lazaro, Skelton’s Comedies, de Virtute, de Magnificentia, et de bono Ordine, Nicholaus Grimoaldus, de Archiprophetae Tragedia ... were penned only to be read, not acted’; but this is incorrect as regards Bale and Skelton and probably as regards others. The earliest printed plays are perhaps _Mundus et Infans_ (1522) and _Hickscorner_ (n.d.) both by Wynkyn de Worde (1501-35), _Everyman_ (n.d.) by Richard Pynson (1509-27). If a _Nigramansir_, by Skelton, was really, as Warton asserts, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1504, it might take precedence.

[538] Cf. Appendix E.

[539] 3 _Edw. IV_, c. 5; cf. vol. i. p. 45. This was continued by 1 _Hen. VIII_, c. 14, 6 _Hen. VIII_, c. 1, and 24 _Hen. VIII_, c. 13.

[540] Cf. Appendix E; _Hist. MSS._ v. 548.

[541] Percy, _N. H. B._ 22, 158, 339. An estimate for 1511-12 includes ‘for rewardes to Players for Playes playd in Christynmas by Stranegers in my house after xxᵈ every play by estimacion. Somme xxxiijˢ iiijᵈ.’ Another of 1514-15 has ‘for Rewards to Players in Cristynmas lxxijˢ.’ By 1522-3 the customary fee had largely grown, for a list of ‘Al maner of Rewardis’ of about that date has ‘Item. My Lorde usith and accustometh to gif yerely when his Lordshipp is at home to every Erlis Players that comes to his Lordshipe bitwixt Cristynmas ande Candelmas If he be his ˢpeciall Lorde and Frende ande Kynsman, xxˢ ... to every Lordis Players, xˢ.’

[542] Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), iv. 265. The _computi_ of James IV (_L. H. T. Accts._ ii. 131, 387; iii. 361) contain entries for plays before him by ‘gysaris’ including one at this wedding; but there is no evidence of a regular royal company at the Scottish court. In 1488 occurs a payment to ‘Patrik Johnson and the playaris of Lythgow that playt to the King,’ and in 1489 one to ‘Patrick Johnson and his fallowis that playt a play to the kyng in Lythqow.’ This Johnson or Johnstone, celebrated in Dunbar’s _Lament for the Makaris_, seems to have held some post, possibly as a minstrel, at court (_L. H. T. Accts._ i. c, cxcviii, ccxliv, 91, 118; ii. 131; Dunbar, _Poems_ (ed. S. T. S.), i. ccxxxvii).

[543] Collier, i. 44 and passim; Henry, _Hist. of Britain_, 454; cf. Appendix E, viii. The _Transactions of the New Shakspere Soc._ (1877-9), 425, contain papers about a dispute in 1529 between one of the company George Maller, glazier, and his apprentice, who left him and went travelling on his own account. From these it appears that ‘the Kinge’s plaierz’ wore ‘the Kinge’s bage.’ George Maller is the same player who appeared as a witness in the Rastell suit (cf. p. 184). There he is described as a merchant tailor; here as a glazier. That a king’s player should have a handicraft, even if it were only nominal, at all, looks as if the professional actors were not invariably of the minstrel type. Perhaps the glamour of a royal ‘bage’ made even minstrelsy respectable. Arthur, prince of Wales, had his own company in 1498 (_Black Book of Lincoln’s Inn_, i. 119), and Henry, prince of Wales, his by 1506.

[544] Medwall’s _Nature_ is divided into two parts, for performance on different days. But Medwall was a tedious person. Another interlude of his played in 1514 was so long and dull that Henry VIII went out before the end. _The Four Elements_ was intended to take an hour and a half ‘but if you list you may leave out much of the said matter ... and then it will not be past three quarters of an hour of length.’

[545] This method begins with the Croxton _Sacrament_, which has twelve parts, but ‘ix may play it at ease.’ Bale’s _Three Laws_ claims to require five players and _Lusty Juventus_ four. Several of the early Elizabethan interludes have similar indications.

[546] A Winchester _computus_ of 1579 (Hazlitt-Warton, ii. 234) has ‘pro diversis expensis circa Scaffoldam erigendam et deponendam, et pro domunculis de novo compositis cum carriagio et recarriagio ly joystes et aliorum mutuatorum ad eandem Scaffoldam, cum vj linckes et jᵒ duodeno candelarum, pro lumine expensis, tribus noctibus in ludis comediarum et tragediarum xxvˢ viijᵈ.’

[547] Appendix E (i).

[548] Brewer, iv. 1390, 1393, 1394; Hall, 723; Collier, i. 98.

[549] Stowe, _Annals_, 511.

[550] The miracle-plays and popular morals have a more general prayer for the spiritual welfare of the ‘sofereyns,’ ‘lordinges,’ and the rest of their audience.

[551] Willis, _Mount Tabor_ (1639, quoted Collier, ii. 196), describing the morality of _The Castle of Security_ seen by him as a child, says ‘In the city of Gloucester the manner is (as I think it is in other like corporations) that when Players of Enterludes come to towne, they first attend the Mayor, to enforme him what noble-mans servants they are and so to get licence for their publike playing: and if the Mayor like the Actors, or would show respect to their Lord and Master, he appoints them to play their first play before himselfe and the Aldermen and Common Counsell of the City; and that is called the Mayor’s play, where every one that will comes in without money, the Mayor giving the players a reward as hee thinks fit, to show respect unto them. At such a play, my father tooke me with him, and made mee stand betweene his leggs, as he sate upon one of the benches, where we saw and heard very well.’ In _Histriomastix_, a play of 1590-1610 (Simpson, _School of Shakespeare_, ii. 1), a crew of tippling mechanicals call themselves ‘Sir Oliver Owlet’s men and proclaim at the Cross a play to be given in the townhouse at 3 o’clock. They afterwards throw the town over to play in the hall of Lord Mavortius.’ In _Sir Thomas More_ (†1590, ed. A. Dyce, for Shakespeare Society, 1844) ‘my Lord Cardinall’s players,’ four men and a boy, play in the Chancellor’s hall and receive ten angels. For similar scenes cf. the _Induction_ to _The Taming of the Shrew_, and _Hamlet_, ii. 2; iii. 2.

[552] The earliest record of plays at inns which I have noticed is in 1557, when some Protestants were arrested and their minister burnt for holding a communion service in English on pretence of attending a play at the Saracen’s Head, Islington (Foxe, _Acts and Monuments_, ed. Cattley, viii. 444).

[553] Eustace Deschamps (†1415), _Miroir de Mariage_ (_Œuvres_, in _Anc. Textes franç._ vol. ix), 3109 (cf. Julleville, _La Com._ 40):

Mais assez d’autres femmes voy,
Qui vont par tout sanz nul convoy
Aux festes, aux champs, au theatre,
Pour soulacier et pour esbatre:
...
Elles desirent les cités,
Les douls mos a euls recités,
Festes, marchiés, et le theatre,
Lieux de delis pour euls esbatre.

This theatre was probably one established towards the end of the fourteenth century by the _confrérie de la Passion_. From about 1402 they performed in the _Hôpital de la Trinité_; cf. Julleville, _Les Com._ 61, _La Com._ 40.

[554] Cf. vol. i. p. 383.

[555] _Register of Bishop Grandisson_ (ed. Hingeston-Randolph), ii. 1120. The letter, unfortunately too long-winded to quote in full, was written on Aug. 9, 1352, to the archdeacon of Exeter or his official. Grandisson says:—‘Sane, licet artes mechanicas, ut rerum experiencia continue nos informat, mutuo, necessitate quadam, oporteat se iuvare; pridem, tamen, intelleximus quod nonnulli nostrae Civitatis Exoniae inprudentes filii, inordinate lasciviae dediti, fatue contempnentes quae ad ipsorum et universalis populi indigenciam fuerunt utiliter adinventa, quendam Ludum noxium qui culpa non caret, immo verius ludibrium, in contumeliam et opprobrium allutariorum, necnon eorum artificii, hac instanti Die Dominica, in Theatro nostrae Civitatis predictae publice peragere proponunt, ut inter se statuerunt et intendunt; ex quo, ut didicimus, inter praefatos artifices et dicti Ludi participes, auctores pariter et fautores, graves discordiae, rancores, et rixae, cooperante satore tam execrabilis irae et invidiae, vehementer pululant et insurgunt.’ The _ludus_ is to be forbidden under pain of the greater excommunication. At the same time the _allutarii_ are to be admonished, since they themselves, ‘in mercibus suis distrahendis plus iusto precio, modernis temporibus,’ have brought about the trouble, ‘ne exnunc, in vendendo quae ad eos pertinent, precium per Excellentissimum Principem et Dominum nostrum, Angliae et Franciae Regemillustrem, et Consilium suum, pro utilitate publica limitatum, exigant quovis modo.’

[556] L. G. Bolingbroke, _Pre-Elizabethan Plays and Players in Norfolk_ (_Norfolk Archaeology_, xi. 336). The corporation gave a lease of the ‘game-house’ on condition that it should be available ‘at all such times as any interludes or plays should be ministered or played.’ John Rastell’s 50_s._ stage in Finsbury about 1520-5 (cf. p. 184), although not improbably used for public representations, is not known to have been permanent.

[557] At Rayleigh, Essex (1550), 20_s._ from the produce of church goods was paid to stage-players on Trinity Sunday (_Archaeologia_, xlii. 287). _An Answer to a Certain Libel_ (1572, quoted Collier, ii. 72) accuses the clergy of hurrying the service, because there is ‘an enterlude to be played, and if no place else can be gotten, it must be doone in the church’; cf. S. Gosson, _Third Blast of Retrait from Plaies and Theaters_, 1580 (Hazlitt, _E. D. S._ 134) ‘Such like men, vnder the title of their maisters or as reteiners, are priuiledged to roaue abroad, and permitted to publish their mametree in euerie Temple of God, and that through England, vnto the horrible contempt of praier. So that now the Sanctuarie is become a plaiers stage, and a den of theeues and adulterers.’ Possibly only the publication of the _banns_ of plays in church is here complained of. Cf. also Fuller, _Church History_ (1655), 391.

[558] Bonner’s _Injunctions_, 17, of April, 1542 (Wilkins, iii. 864), forbade ‘common plays games or interludes’ in churches or chapels. Violent enforcers of them were to be reported to the bishop’s officers; cf. the various injunctions of Elizabethan bishops in _Ritual Commission_, 409, 411, 417, 424, 436, and the 88th _Canon_ of 1604.

[559] Kelly, 16 ‘Paid to Lord Morden’s players because they should not play in the church, xijᵈ.’

[560] Jackson-Burne, 493, citing Sir Offley Wakeman in _Shropshire Archaeological Transactions_, vii. 383. Such plays were performed on wagons at Shropshire wakes within the last century. The ‘book’ seems to have been adapted from the literary drama, if one may judge by the subjects which included ‘St. George,’ ‘Prince Mucidorus,’ ‘Valentine and Orson,’ and ‘Dr. Forster’ or ‘Faustus.’ But a part was always found for a Fool in a hareskin cap, with balls at his knees. He is described as a sort of presenter or chorus, playing ‘all manner of megrims’ and ‘going on with his manœuvres all the time.’ I have not been able to see a paper on _Shropshire Folk-plays_ by J. F. M. Dovaston. G. Borrow, _Wild Wales_, chh. lix, lx (ed. 1901, p. 393), describes similar Welsh interludes which lasted to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The titles named suggest moralities. He analyses the _Riches and Poverty_ of Thomas Edwards. This, like the Shropshire interludes, has its ‘fool.’

[561] Roper, _Life and Death of Sir Thomas More_ (†1577, J. R. Lumby, _More’s Utopia_, vi) ‘would he at Christmas tyd sodenly sometymes stepp in among the players, and never studinge for the matter, make a parte of his owne there presently amonge them’; Erasmus, _Epist._ ccccxlvii ‘adolescens comoediolas et scripsit et egit.’ Bale, _Scriptores_ (1557), i. 655, ascribes to him comoedias iuveniles. Lib. 1.’ In the play of _Sir Thomas More_ (cf. p. 189) he is represented, even when Chancellor, as supplying the place of a missing actor with an improvised speech. Bale, ii. 103, says that Henry Parker, Lord Morley (1476-1556) ‘in Anglica sermone edidit comoedias et tragoedias, libros plures.’

[562] The _Revels Account_ for 1511 (Brewer, ii. 1496) notes an interlude in which ‘Mr. Subdean, now my Lord of Armykan’ took part. In his _Oratio ad Clerum_ of the same year Colet criticizes the clerics who ‘se ludis et iocis tradunt’ (Collier, i. 64). A _Sermo exhortatorius cancellarii Eboracensis his qui ad sacros ordines petunt promoveri_ printed by Wynkyn de Worde about 1525 also calls attention to the canonical requirement that the clergy should abstain ‘a ludis theatralibus’ (Hazlitt, _Bibl. Coll. and Notes_, 3rd series (1887), 274).

[563] Collier, i. 46 and _passim_; Bernard Andrew, _Annales Hen. VII_ in Gairdner, _Memorials of Henry VII_ (R. S.), 103; Hall, 518, 583, 723; Kempe, 62; _Revels Accounts_, &c., in Brewer, _passim_; cf. Appendix E (viii). The Chapel formed part of the household of Henry I about 1135 (_Red Book of Exchequer_, R. S. iii. cclxxxvii, 807); for its history cf. _Household Ordinances_, 10, 17, 35, 49; E. F. Rimbault, _The Old Cheque Book of the Chapel Royal_ (C. S.); F. J. Furnivall, _Babees Book_ (E. E. T. S.), lxxv.

[564] Percy, _N. H. B._ 44, 254, 345. In household lists for 1511 and 1520 comes the entry ‘The Almonar, and if he be a maker of Interludys than he to have a Servaunt to the intent for Writynge of the Parts and ells to have non.’ There were nine gentlemen and six children of the chapel. The 1522-3 list of ‘Rewardes’ has ‘them of his Lordship Chappell and other his Lordshipis Servaunts that doith play the Play befor his Lordship uppon Shroftewsday at night, xˢ,’ and again, ‘Master of the Revells ... yerly for the overseyinge and orderinge of his Lordschip’s playes interludes and Dresinge [? disguisinges] that is plaid befor his Lordship in his Hous in the xij days of Xmas, xxˢ.’ This latter officer seems to have been, as at court, distinct from the ‘Abbot of Miserewll’ (vol. i. p. 418).

[565] _Black Books of Lincoln’s Inn_, i. 104, 119.

[566] Hall, 719; Collier, i. 103.

[567] R. J. Fletcher, _Pension Book of Gray’s Inn_, xxxix, 496.

[568] _Hist. MSS._ vii. 613. The play was to comprehend a ‘discourse of the world,’ to be called _Love and Life_, and to last three hours. There were to be sixty-two _dramatis personae_, each bearing a name beginning with L.

[569] Cf. Appendix E (v).

[570] Brewer, iv. 6788.

[571] Boase, _Register of the University of Oxford_ (O. H. S.), i. 298.

[572] Mullinger, _Hist. of Cambridge_, ii. 73. Ascham, _Epist_. (1581), f. 126ᵛ, writing †1550 (quoted Hazlitt-Warton, iii. 304) says that Antwerp excels all other cities ‘quemadmodum aula Iohannis, theatrali more ornata, seipsam post Natalem superat.’ Speaking in _The Scholemaster_ (ed. Mayor, 1863), 168, of his contemporaries at St. John’s (†1530-54), Ascham highly praises the _Absalon_ of Thomas Watson, which he puts on a level with Buchanan’s _Jephthah_. Watson, however, ‘would never suffer it to go abroad.’ This play apparently exists in manuscript; cf. _Texts_ (iv). Ascham himself, according to his _Epistles_, translated the _Philoktetes_ into Latin (Hazlitt, _Manual_, 179). In _The Scholemaster_, he further says, ‘One man in Cambrige, well liked of many, but best liked of him selfe, was many tymes bold and busie to bryng matters upon stages which he called Tragedies.’ Ascham did not approve of his Latin metre. Possibly he refers to John Christopherson, afterwards bishop of Chichester, to whom Warton, iii. 303; Cooper, _Athenae Cantab._ i. 188; _D. N. B._ attribute a tragedy in Greek and Latin of _Jepthes_ (1546). I can find no trace of this. It is not mentioned by Bahlmann.

[573] Cf. p. 220.

[574] J. Peile, _Christ’s College_, 54; cf. p. 216.

[575] Mullinger, _Hist. of Cambridge_, ii. 627. _Statute_ 24 of 1560, _De comoediis ludisque in Natali Christi exhibendis_, requires that ‘novem domestici lectores ... bini ac bini singulas comoedias tragoediasve exhibeant, excepto primario lectore quem per se solum unam comoediam aut tragoediam exhibere volumus.’ A fine is imposed on defaulters, and the performances are to be in the hall ‘privatim vel publice’ during or about the twelve nights of Christmas. On an earlier draft of this statute cf. vol. i. p. 413.

[576] _Statute_ 36 (_Documents relating to Cambridge_, iii. 54); cf. Mullinger, _op. cit._ ii. 73.

[577] Dee, _Compendious Rehearsall_ (app. to Hearne, _Ioh. Glastoniensis Chronicon_, 501), after mentioning his election, says ‘Hereupon I did sett forth a Greek comedy of Aristophanes’ play named in Greek Εἰρήνη, in Latin _Pax_.’

[578] J. Sargeaunt, _Annals of Westminster_, 49; _Athenæum_ (1903), i. 220.

[579] Maxwell-Lyte, _Hist. of Eton_ (3rd ed. 1899), 118 ‘pro expensis circa ornamenta ad duos lusus in aula tempore natalis Domini, xˢ.’

[580] Printed in E. S. Creasy, _Memoirs of Eminent Etonians_, 91 ‘circiter festum D. Andreae ludimagister eligere solet pro suo arbitrio scaenicas fabulas optimas et quam accommodatissimas, quas pueri feriis natalitiis subsequentibus, non sine ludorum elegantia, populo spectante, publice aliquando peragant. Histrionum levis ars est, ad actionem tamen oratorum et gestum motumque corporis decentem tantopere facit, ut nihil magis. Interdum etiam exhibet Anglico sermone contextas fabulas, quae habeant acumen et leporem.’

[581] Brewer, xiv. 2. 334 ‘Woodall, the schoolmaster of Eton, for playing before my Lord, £5.’

[582] Brown, _Cat. of Venetian Papers_, iv. 3. 208, 225; Brewer, iv. 3563; Hall, 735; Cavendish, _Life of Wolsey_ (ed. Singer), 201; Collier, i. 104.

[583] Lupton, _Life of Colet_, 154.

[584] _Texts_, s.v. Heywood.

[585] Warton speaks of a play by the ‘children’ or ‘choir-boys’ of St. Paul’s at a visit to Elizabeth by Mary and of another play of _Holophernes_ ‘perhaps’ by the same children later in the year. But the dates given in his _Hist. of Poetry_ (ed. Hazlitt), ii. 234, iii. 312, and his _Life of Sir Thomas Pope_ (ed. 1780), 46, do not agree together, and the authority to which he refers (_Machyn’s Diary_, then in MS.) does not bear him out. On his _bona fides_ cf. H. E. D. Blakiston, in _E. H. Review_, for April, 1896. Ward, i. 153, rather complicates the matter by adding to _Holophernes_ a second play called _The Hanging of Antioch_, but even in Warton’s account this ‘hanging’ was only a curtain.

[586] Bale, _Scriptores_ (1557), i. 700 ‘Radulphus Radclif, patria Cestriensis, Huchiniae in agro Hartfordiensi, & in coenobio, quod paulo ante Carmelitarum erat, ludum literarium anno Domini 1538 aperuit, docuitque Latinas literas. Mihi quidem aliquot dies in unis & eisdem aedibus commoranti, multa arriserunt: eaque etiam laude dignissima. Potissimum vero theatrum, quod in inferiori aedium parte longe pulcherrimum extruxit. Ibi solitus est quotannis simul iucunda & honesta plebi edere spectacula, cum ob iuventutis, suae fidei & institutioni commissae, inutilem pudorem exuendum, tum ad formandum os tenerum & balbutiens, quo clare, eleganter, & distincte verba eloqui & effari consuesceret. Plurimas in eius museo vidi ac legi tragoedias & comoedias ... Scripsit de Nominis ac Verbi, potentissimorum regum in regno Grammatico, calamitosa &

_Exitiali pugna, Lib. 2_ ...
_De patientia Grisilidis, Com. 1_ ...
_De Melibaeo Chauceriano, Com. 1_ ...
_De Titi & Gisippi amicitia, Com. 1_ ...
_De Sodomae incendio, Tra. 1_ ...
_De Io. Hussi damnatione, Tra. 1_ ...
_De Ionae defectione, Com. 1_ ...
_De Lazaro ac diuite, Com. 1_ ...
_De Iudith fortitudine, Com. 1_ ...
_De Iobi afflictionibus, Com. 1_ ...
_De Susannae liberatione, Tra. 1_ ...

Claruit Radclifus, anno a Christi servatoris ortu 1552 ... Nescioque an sub Antichristi tyrannide adhuc vivat.’ Bale, _Index_, 333, has fuller titles. Some of Radclif’s plays were almost certainly in Latin, for Bale gives in Latin the opening words of each, and as Herford, 113, points out, those of the _Lazarus_ and the _Griselda_ clearly form parts of Latin verses. But he showed them ‘plebi.’ Professor Herford learnt ‘that no old MSS. in any way connected with Radclif now remain at Hitchin, where his family still occupies the site of his school.’