Presentation: Rogues, Vagabonds, and Common Players: Late Elizabethan Playing

Companies as a Stabilizing Force in Suburban London, American Shakespeare

Centers Blackfriars Conference, Oct. 2015
Theatre historians increasingly have studied the socio-economic conditions of the
neighborhoods in which Elizabethan players lived and worked. And doing so certainly
makes sense: what the company members saw day after day must have affected them and,
therefore, the plays they produced. The records suggest that during the 1590s and early
seventeenth century, they likely saw many people living in -- or near -- poverty. The end of
Queen Elizabeth's reign was an especially desperate time for the English, a time when,
according to Matthew Hales contemporary description, "the poor...greatly increased",
(Matthew Hale in Poverty and Policy). This paper argues that companies playing at the
outdoor amphitheatres at the turn of the seventeenth century engaged in an intimate and
stabilizing relationship with these greatly increased numbers of poor and unsettled
residents of Londons suburbs.
I use Patricia Fumerton's term unsettled, here, to describe those living in generally
unstable living conditions. Downward social mobility was common enough in this period
that even families who, from a historical distance, appear stable were threatened by a sense
of cultural unsettledness. Apprentices, sailors, soldiers, and orphans therefore become
those idle persons who join the unsettled and potentially unsettled fencers, bearwards,
common players of interludes, [and] minstrels wandering abroad of the Poor Laws.
The Elizabethan Poor Laws stipulated three ways parishes might react to the
unsettled: #1.) [charity] Parishes were to raisemoney forthe necessary relief of
suchamong them being poor and not able to work (Archer and Prince). #2.)
[employment] Those who were able to work were to be enforced to so much and such

kind of works as they are able to do" (Archer and Prince). And #3.) [Punishment]
Punishment for those wandering persons (Archer and Prince) should begin by "openly
whipp[ing the person] until his or her body be bloody" (Archer and Prince). After a
whipping, the authorities were to send the person back to his or her home parish with a
letter labeling him or her as a vagrant deserving of punishment. Parish leaders therefore
used punishment as a way of distinguishing the offender as separate from the surrounding
parish community. Traveling to a foreign parish, having no connections to a known
employer, and being orphaned all indicated that a person was not a part of a community
and was therefore dangerous; dangerous because they did not belong. And, at the turn of
the sixteenth century, London's theatrical suburbs were home to many who did not belong.
Early modern theatre companies, as commercial members of these suburban
parishes, followed many of the regulations of the poor laws including charitable giving.
Gurr calls theatrical charitable donations part of a company's "usual...show [of] goodneighborliness" (The Shakespearean Stage) and there is evidence to suggest that such
company donations were indeed usual. When, for example, in 1600, the Earl of
Nottingham's Men petitioned to "erecta newe Playehowse" in St. Giles without
Cripplegate, the parish residents supported them because the "Erectours.are contented to
give a very liberall porcion of money weekelie, towardes the releef of our Poore. Even
years later, after the Commonwealth was established and theatres were closed, playing
companies were still associated with poor relief. Edward Shatterall, who was arrested for
"staging illicit 'enterludes' at the Red Bull" (G.E. Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage),
claimed (in his defense) that the local Clerkenwell government "hired out the theatreto
anyone who was willing to risk a theatrical venture and who would furthermore contribute

'towards relief of their poor and repairing their highways'" (G.E. Bentley, The Jacobean and
Caroline Stage). That the Clerkenwell authorities expected any theatrical troupe to be
willing to donate alms suggests that theatre companies were not only traditionally inclined
to be charitable, but indeed, traditionally connected in this way to the poor and unsettled.
Theatre company members also endeavored to employ the unsettled -- and
potentially unsettled. One of the most obvious ways in which the theatre companies
encouraged the employment of the unsettled was the bringing in of young boys as
apprentices who were often, although not always, part of the potentially unsettled.
Company members often offered apprentices a place to live, food to eat, and clothes to
wear. Indeed, relationships between masters and apprentices could become almost
familial. The relationship between Ben Jonson and Nathan Field, for example, is a famously
intimate one. Field himself wrote that Jonson acted as a "Father" to a "loving son" (The
Shakespearean Stage). The employment of unsettled youths, therefore, sometimes led
beyond the mere lucrative relationship to a charitable -- even familial, and therefore
stabilizing, - - relationship with Englands unsettled.
In addition to apprenticeships, the companies often supported the employment of
their fellow parishioners. For instance, in 1593 when the Lord Strange's Men petitioned the
Privy Council to keep their theatre open, they included a letter about their economic
connection to the watermen who ferried audience members across the river. The
watermen were potentially unsettled, Fumertons unstable working poor (xv), and in
danger of a greatvndoeinge (Chambers) if the playhouse closed and traffic across the
river, therefore, slowed. By maintaining the "plaiehowse", the Lord Strange's Men claimed
they provided "great releif", in the form of employment, for "the poor watermen theare"

(EHD). They ended their letter reminding the Counsel that "not onlie our selves But alsoe a
greate nomber of poore men shal be especiallie bounden to praie for yor Honours" (EHD).
The watermen themselves also petitioned the Privy Counsel on behalf of the Lord Stranges
Men. "The watermen as Mark Bayer writes, claimed the playgoing would serve local
interests and forge a more financially stable, less disorderly, and more law-abiding
community. As an integrated part of the parish community, therefore, the playhouses not
only apprenticed unsettled youths, but also worked to create stable economic
opportunities for their neighbors.
Theatre companies also punished the unsettled; but in a way that instead of
alienating the unsettled, actually made them part of the theatrical community. Mark Bayer,
for example, compares the punishment of a pick-pocket at the theatre with the punishment
an adulterous woman suffered inside a parish church. Pickpockets were hoisted on stage
and -- in front of the audience -- shamed for their thievery. The adulterous woman was
required to stand in front of her congregation during a sermon in a wedding dress and then
to beg forgiveness not just of her husband, but of the entire congregation. The implication
is that both offenses -- the stealing and the adultery -- were visible to and affected the
entirety of both communities. In this comparison, the pick-pocket is a part of the theatrical
community -- an audience member -- in the same way that the adulterous woman is a part
of her parish church. Unlike the parish poor laws and most parish overseers, who did not
grant vagrants member status, the theatres welcomed the unsettled as part of their
community. The theatre was a place where -- if only for an afternoon -- the unsettled
belonged.

Indeed, many companies sought out the unsettled of London as audience (i.e.
community) members. In the 1570s, a groundling could purchase a ticket to the Theatre for
a penny. Over seventy years later, a penny was still the lowest price of admission at the
Fortune, the Red Bull, and the Globe (The Shakespearean Stage). It was, according to Gurr,
"cheap [when compared with] most forms of entertainment" (The Shakespearean Stage).
By maintaining such an inexpensive admission price throughout a period of great inflation,
companies made their plays available to almost every segment of early modern society -including those unsettled "rogue[s]...poor boys...[and] prentices (English Historical
Documents) who lived and sometimes worked in the theatrical neighborhoods.
The re-building of the Globe also suggests that the Kings Men had been invested in
their suburban neighborhood. When the Globe burned down in 1613, they were divided
between their now-famous ampitheatre and their indoor playhouse at Blackfriars. As Gurr
explains, they could have gone on playing...just at the Blackfriars, but the outdoor
playhouse was evidently a feature...a majority of them decided they should not dispense
with. So they dug deep into their pockets and rebuilt it" (The Shakespearean Stage).
Despite the potential financial risk, something about the Globe was "evidently" important
enough to the King's Men to rebuild their outdoor theatre and still offer inexpensive
admission to the local, unsettled, parish residents. There is not proof, of course, that the
King's Men choose to rebuild the Globe and continue offering inexpensive theatre there
because they cared about the unsettled members of their parish; there were, most likely,
many reasons the King's Men choose to rebuild the Globe. But their activities, and the
activities of other theatre companies, suggest an investment in building a community,
which -- unlike the late Elizabethan poor laws -- welcomed the unsettled.

That the theatre companies welcomed the unsettled does not mean that the
company members were necessarily altruistic or even especially concerned with the
welfare of their parish communities. Giving charity to the poor, housing apprentices, and
opening their doors to the unsettled may have advantaged the companies in any number of
ways and been simply part of doing business. Whether or not the playing companies were
primarily concerned with helping the unsettled or with doing business does not, actually,
matter: their actions remain the same. And these, regardless of the motivations behind
them, show that the playing companies did engage in an intimate and stabilizing
relationship with Londons unsettled. Thank you very much.