being called on in 1611-12 for as many as twenty-two plays. Their Court fees during 1603-16 amounted on an average to £125 a year.[1] The exact number of sharers is not known; it was probably not more than twelve. All things considered, it is not unreasonable to put the earnings of a sharer in the King's men during the first decade of the seventeenth century at about £100 to £150 a year, to which, if he were a 'housekeeper' with an interest in both houses, he might be able to add another £40 or £50. This estimate agrees with Sir Henry Herbert's valuation of the shares which he held before the war in the companies other than the King's at £100 each on an average.[2] Sir Sidney Lee's figure of £700 for Shakespeare's total professional income, which includes £40 for the books of his plays, seems to me vastly overestimated.[3] Even the more modest £200 or so was a handsome income for the time, since the purchasing power of money in the seventeenth century is variously reckoned at from five to eight times as much as at present. Of course, in times of inhibition from plague or other cause the income vanished altogether, and was very inadequately replaced by the meagre gains of travelling, together with the allowance made by King James to his men for private practice during the infection.
The gross takings of the sharers were naturally much greater. But they were subject to heavy outgoings. The King's men reckoned these in 1635 at £3 a day or from £900 to £1,000 a year for hired 'journeymen' and boys, music, lights, and so forth, in addition to 'extraordinary' charges for apparel and poets.[4] The wages of a hireling are given by Gosson
- ↑ Cf. App. B.
- ↑ Variorum, iii. 266.
- ↑ Lee, 315; cf. A. Thaler, Shakespeare's Income (S. P. xv. 82), who halves Lee's estimate.
- ↑ In 1628 Sir Henry Herbert notes in his office-book (Variorum, iii. 176), 'The Kinges company with a general consent and alacritye [poor devils! E. K. C.] have given mee the benefitt of too dayes in the yeare, the one in summer, thother in winter, to bee taken out of the second daye of a revived playe, att my owne choyse. The housekeepers have likewyse given their shares, their dayly charge only deducted, which comes to some 2l 5s. this 25 May, 1628.' Herbert words it oddly, but the 'dayly charge' must be that of the sharers, not the housekeepers, who had none, and the estimate agrees fairly with that of 1635. Herbert took during 1628-33 sums of from £1 5s. to £6 7s., averaging £4 8s. 6d., out of five performances at the Globe, and £9 16s. to £17 10s., averaging £13 10s., from five performances at the Blackfriars. The gross takings averaged therefore £6 13s. 6d. at the Globe and £15 15s. at the Blackfriars. In 1633 Herbert compounded for a payment of £10 at Christmas and £10 at Midsummer. But in 1662 (Variorum, iii. 266) he included amongst the incomings of his office the profits of a summer's day and a winter's day at the Blackfriars, which he valued at £50 each.
