Research in Progress

NOTES

1 I should like to thank Miss Jean Kennedy, county archivist, and the staff of the Norfolk Record Office whose active co-operation and interest have helped me so much during the past seven years . In particular, I should like to thank Mr Paul Rutledge, senior assistant archivist, who, with his eye for the significance of things, drew my attention to `The Seven Deadly Sins', and who helped me to make some sense of a few difficult readings . I am greatly indebted, also, to Dr Cameron Louis, editorial assistant with Records of Early English Drama, who, prudently, caused me to suppress some of my own `poetic' readings in favour of his paleographic ones . It was he who told me of `A Fifteenth Century Didactic Poem in British Museum Add . MS. 29729,' which resembles the Norwich one and, during the past few months, he has made many other valuable suggestions. 2 For a brief survey of the various types of records of visitations, see Dorothy M . Owen, The Records of the Established Church in England (British Records Association, 1970), 30-5 . 3 By my count the folios are 132v and 133 . 4 For a brief discussion of the subject and a transcript of the poem, see A.S .G . Edwards, Neu- philologische Mitteilungen, 70 (1969), 702-6 .

Research in progress

AUDREY W . DOUGLAS

Cumbria county has three record offices : Carlisle, which houses city of Carlisle and former Cumberland county documents ; Kendal, which holds its own materials and those of the former Westmorland ; and Barrow, a new deposit for the Furness area, until 1972 part of Lancashire but now incorporated in Cumbria. My research so far has been based at Kendal. I visited Carlisle in October 1978 for a brief review of possible materials, some of which were later temporarily transferred to Kendal for further use . Cumbria does not hold many materials of potential interest to REED for the period before 1642. A preliminary search suggests that the chief sources of interest are the Chamberlains' Accounts for Kendal and for Carlisle, which between them cover the period 1582-1642 . Although both towns had considerable guild activity, original materials for the REED period are sadly lacking . Similarly, among parish records, churchwardens' accounts prior to 1642 are very few, and Carlisle in fact holds none . In the category of manorial, estate and household records, of materials so far examined the Curwen accounts have yielded the most relevant material . I hope, however, to supplement this particular type of private household activity

13 with information gained from visits to the Department of Palaeography and Diplo- matic at Durham for the Howard accounts, Naworth Castle, Cumberland, Chats- worth House for the Bolton manuscripts and to Brougham and Appleby Castles, Westmorland . The Kendal Chamberlains' Books, with few gaps, cover the period 1582-1641 . The accounts are handled by two chamberlains elected annually, with other officers, at Michaelmas . Each book records income and expenditure under various cate- gorized headings. REED items are usually found among those listed as 'Extra- ordinary payments'. What follows here is based on a rough preliminary examination . Payments to the town's waits are recorded regularly throughout the period . Their main function appears to have been performance at dinners on the occasion of civic elections and the Easter and Michaelmas Court Leet, but also at venison feasts on five occasions, 1622-31, and `when mr . doctor robinson was hear', 1591-2 . While not receiving an annual stipend - they were rewarded on each occasion - they were apparently given a livery, described as 'cotes', 1584-1603, and 'cloks', from 1614-40 . Materials and colour varied : 'blu', 1595-6, 'gren ffrese', 1600-1, and `broad read', 1603-4 and 1618-9 . The accounts also record over thirty payments for `the drum' or `the drummer', the earlier ones in connection with `the queen's day', temp Elizabeth i, when ringers also celebrated each anniversary of the coronation . The drum was used as well for quasi-military purposes : for the musters dinner, 1592-3 ; when 'bekens' were burnt at Penrith, 1595-6, 1600-1 ; `when watch was sett', 1600-1 . Use of the drum was stepped up 1638-41, probably in connection with the levy of trained bands, and one Webster received special livery as drummer . Thirty-seven payments for `players' are found from 1585-1637 . These include players of Lord Morley, Lord Monteagle, the earl of Derby, Lord Wharton, the earl of Sussex, and Lord Dudley, as well as the king's, the queen's, the prince's, and players of the queen of Bohemia . King James visited Kendal in 1617 ; the accounts show only that his harbingers came to seek suitable accommodation, that a purse was presented, and that payments were made to grooms, litter men, and trumpeters. The accounts contain about a dozen unspecified references to plays or players, 1587-1611, with occasional detail as to individuals or locations involved : `the playe . .. at mr wilsons', 'mr Ingall play' (both 1587-8), and `the charges of the Staydge of Syr potters play', 1593-4 ; a play took place in James Calley's 'lofte', 1587-8, and in a 'stret', 1600-1 ; players are mentioned in the 'newe hall', 1592-3, and at `the dragon', 1593-4 ; there is a payment for `building the stage', 1613-14 . The Kendal Boke off Recorde, which also mentions a play, was begun in 1575 as a register or minute book for the newly formed corporation, being added to in the 1580s. These late sixteenth-century hands run throughout the book, with later hands interspersed. Many folios are blank . References to the play comprise an order prohibiting drinkings on occasions that include meetings of occupations `aboute orders for their severall pagiandes', 1575 ; a constitution for shearman ordering that, prior to admission as freemen, they pay 12d `beside custome for

14 the playe', 1581 ; an order that burgesses wear violet gowns on days including the play day, 1586 ; and a statement that the staging of the Corpus Christi play, or any other stage play, must be with the consent of the chief burgesses and not the aldermen alone, 1586 . The extant Carlisle Chamberlains' Accounts cover eleven years between 1602 and 1644 and contain a variety of materials of interest to REED . Two chamberlains, elected annually at Michaelmas, recorded each year's accounts in a separate paper booklet. Carlisle also had a regular audit from 1597, on 24 March, interrupted only by the Civil War. The format of the Audit Book, however, with three summary heads annually, limits its interest for REED to three items, among them the waits' wages (4), 1612-13 . The Chamberlains' Accounts in Volume 1 vary in format . Those for the years 1602-3 and 1603-4 record disbursements under various heads, of which three (fees and annuities, benevolences to the poor, lame soldiers and minstrels, and expen- ditures on wine, ale and cakes) contain useful items . The last account, 1618-19, also categorizes disbursements, amongst which those headed Ordinary, Rewards and Presents, Annual Fees, and Liveries are useful . The accounts for 1608-9 and 1610-11 each present an uncategorized list of all disbursements on a chronological basis, distinguishing only fees and annuities under a separate head . The 1605-6 account is represented by its title only . References to Carlisle's own waits occur in 1602-3 and in 1618-19, both payments for livery . The accounts do, however, record payments to an interesting selection of waits from other communities : Penrith, Cockermouth, Appleby, and Kendal (all from the present Cumbria) ; Lancaster, Lincoln ; Newcastle (North- umberland) ; Barnard Castle and Durham ; Leeds, Richmond, Wakefield, Halifax, Ripon, 'Midlam' (?Middleham), all in Yorkshire, as well as York itself . An annual fee was paid to a drummer, from 1602-9 named as Nicholas Hudson . John, or John Burton, trumpeter, also received payments over the period 1602-19, including three for his part on election day, and once (1618-19) on All Hallows Day . Ascen-, sion Thursday is marked in the accounts by payments for cakes and wine served in the corporation chamber (1602-3, 1604-5, 1610-11), musicians' `powder' and `plaie' (1610-11), and for òne that was foole' (1604-5) . Elsewhere, various items of clothing `for the foole' are paid for (1610-11), and he is included under Liveries, 1618-19 . On 26 December 1610, payments were made for a coat, hat, and stockings , to my lord abbot', and for candles ; a Christmas lord of misrule may be inferred . Shrove Tuesday was marked by special celebrations : not only by cakes and ale to the chamber, 1602-3, but also by `play games', 1602-3, 1604-5, 1608-9, 1610-11 (when payments were also made for a football and the Penrith waits), and 1618-19 . Players and musicians visited the city . Named among the former are those of the king, Lord Morley, Lord Evers, Lord Stafford, Lord òf Lincoln', Lord Wharton, Lord Aubrey, and the Cockermouth and Penrith players . James Baines and his fellow players appeared in 1602-3 . Nine entries for musicians include a musician of `Mr. dudleys', Sir Wilfrid Lawson's musicians, and ì scots gentlewoman minstrell'! Of the guild records of Carlisle that have reference to the REED period, the

15 Butchers' Book contains nothing relevant . From 1625 to 1636 the undermasters of the Merchants' Guild kept detailed accounts, the annual term running from the Friday of the feast of St Peter (June-July) . The occupation's dinner was held on the Sunday after Our Lady's Nativity (f 2, order for same), and the accounts contain entries for music and musicians at these times, as well as occasional mention of banners . Similarly, the Tanners' Guild Book (copy only) contains entries for minstrels and music at annual dinners until the late 1630s . The Tailors' Guild Book (copy only) contains a transcription of an earlier order that on Corpus Christi day ,the whole light with the whole occupacion and banner' should assemble at the ash tree in St Mary's churchyard at 10 o'clock . The Kendal three-weekly court and the mayor's court, Carlisle, were concerned with pleas of debt. Examination of occupation of parties produced one local minstrel (1584/5), and one Carlisle wait (1584) . A Quarter Sessions Book of recognizances names a local piper (1614) . At Carlisle, use of the index and Guide produced ten pipers, one fencer, and a wait . The Carlisle Court Leet Rolls are more revealing as to activity. On 23 October 1629 and again in 1630, the three waits were ordered to play every day until Candlemas, including all Christmas but excep- ting Sundays, having their customary allowance. None of the seventeenth-century churchwardens' accounts contains any items of direct relevance to REED's interests. The Beetham Account Book is an unsatis- factory transcription in which comment is interspersed with intrinsic subject- matter; original materials often appear to have been summarized by the transcriber, and imperfectly understood . The accounts of the other four parishes, Orton, Askham, Heversham and Troutbeck, contain payments to ringers that reveal local emphasis on anniversaries of the coronation (Orton, Beetham before 1620) and of the 5th of November (Heversham, Beetham after 1620). The Heversham account for 1609 gives details of a special assessment for the purchase of a new organ viewed at and brought from York . Of the manorial, estate and household records, the Court Books are largely limited to agrarian activities and contain no information as to occupation of parties mentioned . The Pennington Memoranda Book is confined to sales of sheep and produce, leases, debts and so forth . Roll 29 (Rose Castle) includes one summary account of rewards paid to minstrels and others . The handlist in Carlisle describes Roll 16 as having itemized disbursements to household servants and may prove more fruitful. The Curwen accounts contain over fifty items of interest to REED ; many of these are regular payments to a local piper at Christmas (10s) and to a piper at harvest time (up to fifteen days at 2d a day) . Twelve payments are made to players, 1625-36, including those of the earl of Derby and Lord Wharton and the Cockermouth players . Other items include payments to fiddlers, Yorkshire musicians, two payments for an `instrument', and one to an organist who tuned the organs . The Lowther accounts start late in the REED period. As in the Curwen accounts, personal and household items are intermingled with estate matters . Between 1638 and 1642 there are two payments to waits (Penrith and 'Midlam'), and one each for a piper, a `drum mendinge', and players (unnamed) .

16 ALICE B . HAMILTON

Work began on the records of Leicester in the summer of 1977 when I began checking secondary material at the University of Leicester, the Leicestershire Record Office and the Public Reference Library of the city of Leicester . Immedi- ately afterwards I began reading and transcribing the earliest (1544-1645) surviving churchwardens' accounts for Leicester, which are those for St Martin's Cathedral . Unfortunately, earlier churchwardens' accounts for any church in Leicester are missing. So too are the corporation accounts for the years 1380 to 1467 . The work at Leicester continued in two directions : (1) in reading published material in local histories and in antiquarian papers that are unavailable in Canada ; and (2) in transcribing records from the Chamberlains' Accounts (Rolls 39-51, for 1571-83), the Hall Book 11 (1553-87) and Hall Papers Bound I (1583-6) . De(a)thyck was town clerk of Leicester for about fifty years . When writing fiscal accounts, his writing is clear . Even though the Chamberlains' Accounts are each year written on two sheepskins, neck to tail, it is possible to transcribe them with a certain ease. The Hall Books and Hall Papers are frequently marred by dampness, gnawed by rats, and written at great speed . To read them is often a daunting experience yet it is in them that many interesting acts and reports are to be found . The Churchwardens' Accounts (1544-1645) show that the procession from St Martin's Church to St Margaret's on Whitsun Monday, the reading of the `Passion' by the 'proffit' on Palm Sunday, the cakes and ale at the procession, the painting of a sword for Herod, the adornments of altars and priests, even the very harness of St George and his horse for the Riding of the George were gone by 1547 . At the same time the organ in the church was dismantled and sold. St George's harness, the parts of the organ, the vestments, St Nicholas' shirt, the banner cloths for the procession reappeared in 1552 to 1554 . The three shepherds were paid at Whitsun in 1555 . The cakes and ale, and the procession with cross and banners were back in 1557-8 . The players were paid in 1559 . 'Serten stufe' was lent to the `players of fosson' the following year . In 1561 more of the same was sold ; and there the church plays ended. At the tithe of the disappearance of the plays and processions, substitute activities are recorded in the borough accounts . The Huntingdons had provided a venison feast at Corpus Christi Hall in 1551/2 for the mayor and brethren, but they preferred to go to the play at St Martin's Church, presumably having missed dramatic activity since 1547 . Bearbaiting appears regularly on borough rolls after 1550 . The chief practitioner at Leicester was George Warde, servant to the earl of Huntingdon . At least three times (1570, 1580, 1599) bearwards were paid for being at mayors' dinners. One splendid occasion in 1589 marked the time that the mayor entertained the high sheriff and Leicester gentlemen, at a bearbaiting, with wine, sugar and gold. Musical activity appears in the earliest accounts that I have seen, and it was ob- viously enjoyed and supported from at least the fourteenth century . Waits were

17 certainly employed at Leicester by 1524 . They had tawny-orange liveries and silver badges with the Leicester cinqfoil impressed on the metal . An edict of 22 February 1583 set out their duties, to make music for the town both morning and evening ; their support, by the mayor and his brethren and the towns people, was guaranteed ; their privileges were indicated in that they alone were to play at houses and wed- dings. Disputes that arose among the waits were settled by the borough council . Other musicians (viz, the men of the earl of Essex in 1590) did come to Leicester and were rewarded by the corporation for their services, but not as liberally as `certen playars, playinge uppon ropes at the Crosse Keys' who got at least fourteen times as much money in the same year . I have counted over fifty different companies of actors that came to Leicester in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who were rewarded either for playing or for not playing at the Town Hall . They came sporadically between 1531 and 1547 ; but not all borough records exist for these years, and visits by actors may have occurred more frequently than appears from the surviving fiscal rolls . The hosts of companies come after 1560, when church plays have ceased . The companies of the Hastings (both of the earl of Huntingdon and of his relatives) ; of the queen ; of the earls of Leicester, Sussex, Warwick, Derby, Worcester, Oxford, Arundel, Hartford, Pembroke and Lincoln, of the lord chamberlain, the lord admiral and of the Children of the Chapel appear, among others . An edict of 1582 tried to stop them . It comes from Hall Book 11 1553-87 for the year 1583 .

Item it is Agreed that frome henceforthe there shall not bee anye ffees or Rewardes gevon by the Chamber of this Towne, nor anye of the xxiiijti nor xlviijti to be charged, with anye paymentes / ffor, or towardes anye Bearewardes, Bearbaitinges / Players . // Playes, enterludes or games, or anye of theym // Except the Queues maiestes : or the Lordes of the Privye Counsall :/ nor that anye Players bee suffred to Playe att the Towne hall : (except before except/) & then butt onlye before the mayor & his bretherne / vppon Peyne of :xl s: to be lost by the mayor that shall suffer or doe to the Contrarye to be Levyed by his Successor vpon peyne of v Ii : if he mak Default therein / &c :/

ad huc : /

This edict does not seem to have stopped the arrival of companies . Within three- and-a-half months a company was in Leicester, insisting that it was licensed to play, that it would play, that it had no fear of the mayor and what the borough council said . They were saucy, loud and abusive . And they got their own way and played at their inn. Plague kept companies away in 1606, 1607, 1610, 1611 . They were back in Leicester from 1612 to 1637, every year . One year, 1599, seems to have been especially busy and costly for the borough . Players of the earl of Derby, earl of

18 Lincoln, Lord Howard, Lord Morley, the queen, earl of Huntingdon, earl of Pembroke and Lord Dudley all appeared . Six plays were paid for at one time, at the Town Hall. Leicester seems to have had its share, willing or unwilling, of support for drama .

ALEXANDRA F . JOHNSTON

When the York records went into production, a major landmark in my own career and in the history of Records of Early English Drama was passed . It was felt by some of the REED Advisory Board and Executive Committee that I, as executive editor, should not undertake new research of my own but rather act as an advisor to new researchers. However, as work progressed on Leicester, Hereford/Worcester, Cumbria, Beverley, Devon and Shropshire, I found that whereas I was familiar with northern corporations and their ways, I knew little about parishes and nothing about villages . Colleagues working in southern or country districts waxed enthusi- astic about folk plays and church ales, extolling the parishes as centres of dramatic activity . The parishes of York were singularly lacking in such activity . My practical experience with the three major public repositories in York (the City, the Minster and the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research) and the single private one (the Merchant Adventurers) proved inadequate preparation for questions involving the usefulness of manor court rolls, how to approach a local vicar holding documents, and what value to place on antiquarian material . On the editorial side, the compel- ling unity imposed by the York corporation had not prepared me for the hard organizational questions raised by disparate material having only topographic unity and, specifically, the question of whether material from noble or royal households should be integrated with purely parochial or borough material. And so I went to Berkshire. Most of the Berkshire material has now been gathered . Besides providing me with the expertise I lacked, the exercise has led me to consider larger questions about mimetic and musical activity in our period . In York the dominant force for social cohesion was the craft guilds and the corporation made up of those craft guilds. It was, therefore, the corporation and the craft guilds who created both local drama and music through the three great plays and the city waits and who paid to have foreign players and minstrels perform for them . In Berkshire no such powerful corporations existed . Perhaps because of their proximity to London neither Abingdon nor Reading, although they had a guild structure, had any civic drama. Local dramatic activity centred on St Helen's Abingdon and St Laurence's, St Mary's and St Giles' Reading . From the late fourteenth century the Reading corporation paid for players from surrounding villages such as Henley, Wokingham and Yately, and both towns were on the routes of the professional companies after 1576 . But neither sponsored mimetic activities themselves, and neither had

19 borough musicians . The social life of Berkshire then, as now, revolved about the parishes, and then, as now, with a few exceptions, the parishes of Berkshire were small . Inevitably, the local drama of the area was on a small scale - May games, morris dancers, mummers and Robin Hood plays with one or two small biblical pieces recorded in St Laurence Reading. But it was also ubiquitous . Documents survive from twenty-two ancient parishes in Berkshire from before 1642 . Seventeen of these contain evidence of church ales and folk play activity surrounding Whitsuntide . In larger towns, such as Newbury, the dominance of parish over borough is clear from the fact that from the time the parish records begin in 1602, the parish ale was held in the guildhall, with the profits accruing to the church . In many smaller parishes without patrons or endowments of land, the church ale was the sole source of income, providing much needed funds for the repair of the fabric . The parochial part of the Berkshire collection will show that Whitsun celebrations were frequently an indispensable part of parish life and as intricately interwoven into the fabric of society in Berkshire as the Corpus Christi Play was in York .

DAVID KLAUSNER

The documents of Hereford provide a fascinating if frustrating glimpse of a limited tradition of drama which, whatever its precise nature, ceased to be a living force in the community in the mid-sixteenth century . The documents known to Chambers in 1903 and printed by Macray in the HMC Reports include a pageant list of 1503 that Chambers notes `seems to concern a dumb-show only,' 1 a guild ordinance of 1548, which mentions that the pageants were then 'omytted and Surceassed', 2 and a lawsuit of 1340 concerning 'unius libri de lusionibus' . 3 The city records are sparse. A large number of them were stolen in the 1820s by a cleaner in the civic offices and sold as waste paper to local merchants . The cleaner was apprehended in 1830, and two volumes were recovered . There is no clear record of how much was lost. The two volumes that were recovered constitute a set of corporation register abstracts for the years 1472-1598, though aside from the pageant list of 1503 and the guild ordinance of 1548 they contain little other than recognizances and indenture papers . Assorted city papers are collected in nine bound volumes and yield several documents relating to the city waits . A few guild accounts for the Haberdashers and Barbers survive in the City Library, none earlier than 1612 . An extensive series of mayors' and bailiffs' court rolls survives dating from 1287, as well as sporadic mayors' account rolls from between 1533 and 1600 . Mayoral inventories survive regularly from 1522 to 1600, but contain no records pertaining to drama. Extensive municipal records do survive for the borough of Leominster . These have only recently been deposited in the County Record Office and have not yet

20 been catalogued .4 They include chamberlains' accounts for the years 1544-1712 (not quite inclusive) and an extensive set of bailiffs' accounts . The former provide extensive references to the hiring of professional companies in the years 1596- 1626. Parish records include churchwardens' accounts for the parishes of Stoke Edith from 1532-70, Hentland from 1629-1729, Madley from 1564-1669, St Nicholas, Hereford, from 1601-70, and All Saints, Hereford, from 1619-65 . The first two of these are on deposit in the County Record Office ; the rest are in the hands of the incumbents . At this time only the accounts from rural parishes have been examined, and they have yielded little . If the materials of Worcester are paralleled in Hereford, there is a far greater chance of useful information among the urban parish records . Most of the episcopal registers survive in the Diocesan Registry . They contain several references of note, among them a proclamation from Bishop John Trillek in 1348 forbidding the performances of plays in church and a proclamation from Bishop Richard Swinfield in 1286 excommunicating a number of citizens who attended a Jewish wedding at which a play appears to have been performed .5 A household account roll of Bishop Swinfield for the year 1289-90, now in the Bodleian, provides extensive references to the hiring of minstrels. Books of household accounts for the Scudamore family of Holme Lacey for the years 1632-42 (now in the Cathedral Library and the City Library) include numerous references to the hiring of the waits . In contrast to the Hereford records, Worcestershire has an extraordinary collection of medieval and renaissance records . As in Hereford, the earliest records tend to be ecclesiastical prohibitions, including a 1450 episcopal directive against 'ludis inhonestis' .6 The city records include chamber orders from 1542 and ordinances dating from the time of Edward IV . Among these are several ordinances referring to the use of pageants, though the references are not absolutely clear as to whether or not they concern true plays or some form of tableaux vivants . 7 A lease dated 1584 in the Chamber Order Book refers to the `vacant place where the pagantes do stand .8 This reference may well be related to the pageant house that appears in several leases through the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and that seems to have stood in the Cornmarket . The problem of storage with which these leases appear to deal also provides several other references of some interest, among them a Cathedral inventory of 1576 which lists a variety of `players gere', including `the devils apparel', although why this should be kept at the Cathedral when the pageant house leases seem to imply facilities for municipal storage is as yet unclear.9 The Cathedral may, of course, have been supporting some dramatic activities on its own . A thorough search of wills has not yet been undertaken, but two wills may serve to show the wealth of material which may be buried in them . William Specheley, draper, died in 1556 (ten years before the last municipal performance of the pageants) . The inventory roll made at his death includes : `Item the pleyars garmentes and all the other Tyrement belongyng to the same preysed at xxx li'.'0 Specheley appears to have been storing these costumes for which, as a draper, he

21 would have had ample facilities . A will of one Harry Smythe of St Helen's parish, dated 1575, includes in the inventory :

Item for the players geare valewd at xl s Item for the vyalls & the books valewd at iiij 1 Item for the recorders valewed at ij 1 11

The instruments reappear in the will : `also I geve vnto my boyes all my Instruments bothe vyalls & Recorders & theyr boks vpon the consyderazion that they will use theyr selfes well towards theyr dame' . 12 The last recorded pageant appears to have been given in 1566 . References to the hiring of professional companies begin soon after this, both in Worcester and elsewhere in the county . The churchwardens' accounts of the parish of Bewdley have especially extensive records of payments made both to professional companies and to the waits. As in Hereford, the waits also figure prominently in the accounts of the city until they were suppressed by a chamber order on 17 November 1642 .

It is ordered that John Browne & his companie of musicians called the waites be suppressed from playing of their instruments about the Citty in the morning, And that they may not expect any recompence for their paynes And that the Chamberlaynes are desired to give notice unto them of this order. 13

Worcester also has extensive records of parish drama in both churchwardens' accounts and in the Cathedral records . This drama was only occasionally religious in nature, as the charitable donations made by Prior William More to several parishes for their Robin Hood plays show : `Item rewards to certen yong men of seynt Eleyns that pleyd Robyn whod 12d' . 14 Prior More's account book, which extends from 1519 to 1535, also includes frequent payments to both players and musicians for entertainment . The occasions and even in some cases the names of the players are specified. The book includes a total of over 200 such references and provides a major source for dramatic activity in Worcester (especially about the Cathedral) in the early sixteenth century . It also presents a problem in that during the seasons of Advent and Lent from 1519 to 1530, Prior More regularly hired two players each Sunday . These payments are kept quite separate from accounts for entertainment and are entered in combination with household expenses and ecclesiastical accounts, grouped with such things as bread, wine, and 'seyny money' . The following sample entries show the invariable form :

Ebd xja In primis for expenses on howsolde 12s 6d unde of ij pleyers 12d

Ebd xija In primis for expenses on howsolde 18s 3d unde pleyers 12d

22 Ebd prima in Natale Domini 1520 In primis for expenses on howsold 26s 8d unde pleyers 12d Is

Outside the seasons of Advent and Lent the two players are replaced in the accounts by 'seyny money', again at the rate of 12d a week . Several questions arise from these curious entries. What were the players doing? What is their relation to the seyny money collected at other times? What use was made of the large sums of money collected as seyny money? The usual answer to this last, that it was used to provide choir books for clerics who were being bled, seems inadequate for so large a sum. I would be grateful for any information from other REED researchers who may have encountered similar accounts in other places . As in other parts of the country, dramatic activity in Worcester died out quickly in 1642 . The waits were suppressed, and payments to professional companies cease abruptly . The tone of life changed with rapidity over the next few years, and the door was closed even on popular entertainment when, in 1649, the city council ordered `that Ballard singers shall bee put by the heeles' . I6

NOTES

1 E .K . Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage (Oxford, 1903), II, 369 . 2 Hereford County Record Office : Hereford City Records, Great Black Book, f 27 . 3 Chambers, II, 363 . This trial record may now be lost, since it occurred in the second of two gatherings of the Mayors' Court Book for 1439-40 . Only the first gathering (ff 1-12) is now in the County Record Office . The Hereford City MSS were moved to the County Record Office several years ago, and this gathering appears to have been lost, either in the transfer or before . No trace of it remains in the City Library . 4 The Leominster MSS came to the Hereford County Record Office in 1977 . 1 would like to thank Miss E .M. Jancey, the deputy county archivist, for her kindness in allowing me to see them and photograph them before they were fully catalogued . 5 ' . . . omnes illos qui predictis conuiuiis seu connubiis intererant comedendo, bibendo, ludendo, ioculando, seu quodcumque ystrionatus officium exercendo, seu quocumque alio modo eisdem ad honorem ipsorum communicando in obprobrium fidei christiane . . .' Hereford Diocesan Registry : Swinfield Register, f 39v . 6 Bodleian MS 692, f 163v. The manuscript is a notebook kept by John Lawerne, a student of Gloucester College, Oxford, around 1430, and later cathedral almoner in Worcester . Somewhat earlier than this is a payment from the cathedral sacristy to players on Corpus Christi in the year 1424. In 1489 a Christmas play was given at the Cathedral School ; the payment of 3d survives in the accounts of the warden of the Lady Chapel, under whose jurisdiction the school was maintained . 7 The ordinances were printed by J . Toulmin Smith in English Gilds, EETS, OS 40 (London, 1870), 370-412 . 8 Worcester City Records : Chamber Order Book I, f 157v. 9 A. Dyer, The City of Worcester in the Sixteenth Century (Leicester, 1973), 250 . 10 Worcester Probate Records : 1556/152A. 11 Worcester Probate Records : 1575/97A . 12 Worcester Probate Records : 1557/97B .

13 Worcester City Records : Chamber Order Book II, f 211 . 14 E .S . Fegan (ed), The Journal of Prior William More, Worcestershire Historical Society (London, 1913-14), 293 . 15 Fegan, 121-3 . 16 Worcester City Records : Liber Legum, 1649 entry (no foliation) .

Comment : The East Anglian 'game-place' : some facts and fictions

DAVID GALLOWAY

A year ago, in the REED Newsletter, Richard Beadle wrote about `the potential significance of the East Anglian game-place' and concluded his article by saying that ,the game-places of Norfolk and Suffolk would seem to offer a possible departure for further research involving textual, documentary and, conceivably, even archaeo- logical evidence' .' I am glad to say that documentary evidence will be available in Records of Plays and Players in Norfolk and Suffolk, to be published as Malone Society Collections X12 before - I hope - the end of this year and containing the records of thirty-eight towns and villages ; those of us who are interested in the East Anglian game-place may, however, be disappointed . Such information as there is about the game-places at Walsham-le-Willows and Great Yarmouth is fairly well- known already . 3 The only new game-place which has come to light is one at Wymondham, in references in a vellum-bound Wymondham Town Book which, until the early summer of 1977, had lurked uncatalogued in the Norfolk Record Office.4 The first reference to the Wymondham game-place occurs, probably, in 1583-4, when `Thomas Haste gent' pays four shillings for `one acre of land in his Cloase nere the game place by yere' (f 18v) .5 In 1584-5 Haste again pays his rent of four shillings (f 21) and there are two more entries in that year :

Item payd to hym ye xxti of marche for takyng downe ye stages at ye game place and workyng at ye Chirche by syxe dayes (f 22) Item payd to Thomas Coote for bringynge of ye stagyng tymber from ye game place to ye Chyrche (f 22v)

In the following year, 1585-6, Thomas Talbot, a doctor of civil law and a well- known local worthy, seems to have taken over Haste's land, because he too pays four shillings `for one acr of lande lyeng in his Cloase nere ye game place' (f 25) . Similar entries appear every year until 1620-1, although in 1606-7 the rent goes up