ultimately destined to shatter, not only the stage, but the Tudor scheme of things itself. In its main outlines the issue was that which had been set ever since the decadent theatre of Greece and Rome came face to face with Semitic asceticism and barbarian indifference. The traditional dislike and contempt of the moralist for the mime had still to find their last expression. But it is a noteworthy aspect of this new revival of the secular struggle, that the attack came less from official churchmanship than from those extreme champions of reformation principles, whose zeal against abuses, and in particular against abuses countenanced by official churchmanship, won them the name of Puritans. The rise of Puritanism was coincident with the beginnings of the agitation against the stage, and the growth of Puritanism in London was the chief feature in a process which stirred the local magistracy, as represented by the Lord Mayor and Corporation of the City, to try its strength, with the stage as a bone of contention, against the central authority of the Privy Council. The controversy is so important a one, from the point of view of the history of the stage and of civilization, that even at the risk of retraversing ground already trod, it is desirable to consider at some length the forces that were at work.[1]
The general relation of Reformation sentiment to the drama is a matter of rather complicated cross-currents. In the first place, there was the humanist rediscovery of the classics, fanning into flame the enthusiasm for Terence which had smouldered throughout the Middle Ages themselves, and making full use in its theory of education of the school-play as a means of inculcating pure Latinity, sound moral precepts, and gentlemanly self-possession in the conduct of affairs. In some at least of its manifestations this tendency is comprehensive enough to include the professional, as well as the academic, player. An example may be found in the treatise De recta reipublicae administratione of the German jurist, John Ferrarius. This was written in 1556 and translated into English by William Bavande of the Middle Temple in 1559. It was probably not without its influence upon the line of apologetic adopted by those gentlemen of the Inns of Court to whom the London stage came to look as its warmest supporters. For Ferrarius players are no longer the proscribed folk of the Middle Ages. They have become one of the seven handicrafts of the commonweal; and, provided
- ↑ Mediaeval Stage, ii. 206.
