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THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE
VOL. I
Oxford University Press
_London_ _Edinburgh_ _Glasgow_ _Copenhagen_
_New York_ _Toronto_ _Melbourne_ _Cape Town_
_Bombay_ _Calcutta_ _Madras_ _Shanghai_
Humphrey Milford Publisher to the UNIVERSITY
[Illustration:
_Emery Walker ph. sc._
_Wedding Mask of Sir Henry Unton_
_National Portrait Gallery_]
THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE
BY E. K. CHAMBERS. VOL. I
OXFORD: AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
M.CMXXIII
Printed in England
PREFACE
In 1903 I explained the origin of _The Mediaeval Stage_ out of
preliminary investigations for a little book on Shakespeare. That little
book is still unwritten, and perhaps it was only a mirage, since working
days have their term, and all that I can now offer, after an interval of
twenty years, is another instalment of _prolegomena_. It has been in
hand, more or less, throughout that period, which now ends felicitously
with the tercentenary of the First Folio. But it has often been laid
aside for other literary diversions, and still more often through the
preoccupations of a life mainly concerned with activities remote from
letters. As a result, I have constantly had to take account of new
material furnished by the research or the speculations of others; and I
only hope that in the process of revision I have succeeded in achieving
a reasonable completeness of statement and a reasonable consistency in
the conclusions of chapters drafted at very different dates.
Much in these volumes is of course mere archaeology, but the historian
may find some interest in the development of the stage as an
institution, and in the social and economic conditions which made such a
development possible. My First Book is devoted to a description, perhaps
disproportionate, of the Elizabethan Court, and of the ramifications in
pageant and progress, tilt and mask, of that instinct for spectacular
_mimesis_, which the Renaissance inherited from the Middle Ages, and of
which the drama is itself the most important manifestation. The Second
Book gives an account of the settlement of the players in London, of
their conflict, backed by the Court, with the tendencies of Puritanism,
and of the place which they ultimately found in the monarchical polity.
To the Third and Fourth belong the more pedestrian task of following in
detail the fortunes of the individual playing companies and the
individual theatres, with such fullness as the available records permit.
The Fifth deals with the surviving plays, not in their literary aspect,
which lies outside my plan, but as documents helping to throw light upon
the history of the institution which produced them. I have not for the
most part carried my investigations beyond the death of Shakespeare, and
although I have sometimes regretted that I did not push on to the
closing of the theatres, the decision not to do so has long been
irretrievable.
Obviously I am treading a region far more carefully charted by
predecessors than that of _The Mediaeval Stage_; but the progress of
Elizabethan scholarship during recent years has been so great as to
render a fresh attempt at a synthesis justifiable. I am conscious of a
deeper debt than I can express to many fellow-workers, notably to my
friends Dr. W. W. Greg and Mr. A. W. Pollard and Professor Feuillerat of
Rennes, and to a growing band of American students, of whom I may name
Professor C. W. Wallace and Mr. J. T. Murray as examples.
E. K. C.
_January, 1923._
CONTENTS
VOLUME I
PAGE
PREFACE vii
LIST OF AUTHORITIES xv
BOOK I. THE COURT
I. ELIZABETH AND JAMES 1
II. THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD 27
III. THE REVELS OFFICE 71
IV. PAGEANTRY 106
V. THE MASK 149
VI. THE MASK (_continued_) 175
VII. THE COURT PLAY 213