sive venellae praedictae & abbuttantem super gardinum ibidem tunc vel nuper praeantea in occupacione Willelmi Sellers versus orientem & super vnum aliud gardinum ibidem tunc vel nuper praeantea in tenura Johannis Burgram sadler versus occidentem & super venellam ibidem vocatam Mayden lane versus austrum cum omnibus domibus aedificijs structuris vijs easiamentis commoditatibus & pertinentiis ultimis recitatis praemissis seu alicui parti vel parcellae inde spectantibus seu aliquo modo pertinentibus simul cum libero ingressu egressu & regressu & passagio . . . per & trans praedictam viam sive venellam iacentem & existentem inter praemissa praedicta.'
The lease was granted for a term of thirty-one years from
Christmas 1598 to Christmas 1629, and conveyed the property
in two equal moieties, the one to Cuthbert and Richard
Burbadge and the other to William Shakespeare, Augustine
Phillips, Thomas Pope, John Heminges, and William Kempe.[1]
With the exception of Cuthbert Burbadge these were all
members of the Chamberlain's company. Each moiety was
charged with a ground-rent of £7 5s. There is nothing to
show how the funds for building were found. 'Wee', said
the Burbadges in 1635, 'at like expence built the Globe,
with more summes of money taken up at interest, which lay
heavy on us many yeeres; and to ourselves wee joyned those
deserveing men, Shakspere, Hemings, Condall, Philips, and
others, partners in the profittes of that they call the House,
but makeing the leases for twenty-one yeeres hath beene the
destruction of ourselves and others, for they dyeing at the
expiration of three or four yeeres of their lease, the subsequent
yeeres became dissolved to strangers, as by marrying with their
widdowes and the like by their children.'[2] This is, however,
not a strictly accurate account of what took place in 1599,
for Condell was not one of the original 'housekeepers', and
the original lease was for thirty-one, not twenty-one, years.
In any case, the Burbadges contributed the woodwork of the
Theatre.
Between the execution of the lease and the completion of the play-house, Shakespeare and his four fellows assigned their moiety to William Levison and Thomas Savage, who 'reassigned to euerye of them seuerally a fift parte of the said moitie', so that after the building each of the five had a 'ioynt tenancie' with the other four in a moiety of the ground and galleries, and was also 'tenant in common' during the term of the lease.[3] Professor Wallace explains that 'the purpose of a joint-tenancy was to prevent the breaking up and scattering of an estate into fractions by keeping
