the corporation and the actors became acute, a play was thought no inappropriate accompaniment to the annual feast of a guild, or the welcome or valediction of a civic dignitary.[1] The domestic plays of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges had their origin in the Renaissance theories of education, and dispensed with the professional mimes. A detailed study of them lies outside the scope of these volumes.[2] The Inns of Court men, too, could hold their own upon the boards at will. But for their ordinary solace they were accustomed to take the easier course of calling in professional aid. At the Inner Temple, Beaumont mentions a Christmas show of Lady Amity, probably not long after his admission in 1600, and the Treasurer's accounts of the Inner Temple, which are extant from 1605, show that from that year to 1611 there was always a play, at a cost of £5, either upon Candlemas or upon All Saints' Day, and in some years on both dates. At Candlemas 1611, something must have gone wrong, for on February 10 the Benchers passed a decree:
'For that great disorder and scurrility is brought into this House by lewd and lascivious plays, it is likewise ordered in this parliament that from henceforth there shall be no more plays in this House, either upon the feast of All Saints or Candlemas day, but the same from henceforth to be utterly taken away and abolished.'
At the following feast of All Saints the only expenditure entered by the Treasurer is of £2 10s. for a 'consort' of music and £2 for antics and puppets. These must have proved but inadequate substitutes, for on November 24 the period of austerity was brought to an end by the withdrawal of the interdict.
'Whereas of late years upon the two festival days of All Saints and Candlemas, plays have been used after dinner for recreation which have lately been laid down by order in parliament, it is now ordered that the same order shall henceforth stand repealed.'
The payments are now resumed, and continue twice a year, generally at the increased rate of £6 13s. 4d. At Candlemas 1613 some misunderstanding seems to have led to a supple-
- ↑ Machyn, 222, 290, notes a play, either in the Guildhall or in that of the Lord Mayor's company, on 6 Jan. 1560, and a play at the Barber Surgeons' feast on 10 Aug. 1562. The Pewterers collected 'playe pence' at their 'yemandrie feast' about 1563 (C. Welch, Pewterers, i. 233). Recorder Fleetwood saw a play at a dinner with the outgoing sheriffs on 29 Sept. 1575 (Hatfield MSS. ii. 116; dated 1573 in error in Murdin, ii. 259, and Nichols, Eliz. i. 357).
- ↑ They are fully treated for the sixteenth century by F. S. Boas, University Drama in the Tudor Age (1914), and more briefly for the whole period, with a valuable bibliography, by the same writer, in C. H. vi. 293. I have recorded the extant plays, English and Latin, in App. K.
