Shakespearean Playhouses Part 16

Burbage's originality, however, did not stop with the choice of Blackfriars as the site of his new theatre; he determined to improve on the form of building as well. The open-air structure which he had designed in 1576, and which had since been copied in all public theatres, had serious disadvantages in that it offered no protection from the weather. Burbage now resolved to provide a large "public"

playhouse, fully roofed in, with the entire audience and the actors protected against the inclemency of the sky and the cold of winter. In short, his dream was of a theatre centrally located, comfortably heated, and, for its age, luxuriously appointed.

With characteristic energy and courage he at once set about the task of realizing this dream. He found in the Blackfriars precinct a large building which, he thought, would admirably serve his purpose. This building was none other than the old Frater of the Monastery, a structure one hundred and ten feet long and fifty-two feet wide, with stone walls three feet thick, and a flat roof covered with lead. From the Loseley doc.u.ments, which M. Feuillerat has placed at the disposal of scholars,[280] we are now able to reconstruct the old Frater building, and to point out exactly that portion which was made into a playhouse.[281]

[Footnote 280: _Blackfriars Records_, in The Malone Society's _Collections_, (1913).]

[Footnote 281: For a reconstruction of the Priory buildings and grounds, and for specific evidence of statements made in the following paragraphs, the reader is referred to J.Q. Adams, _The Conventual Buildings of Blackfriars, London_, in the University of North Carolina _Studies in Philology_, XIV, 64.]

At the time of the dissolution, the top story consisted of a single large room known as the "Upper Frater," and also as the "Parliament Chamber" from the fact that the English Parliament met here on several occasions; here, also, was held the trial before Cardinals Campeggio and Wolsey for the divorce of the unhappy Queen Catherine and Henry VIII--a scene destined to be reenacted in the same building by Shakespeare and his fellows many years later. In 1550 the room was granted, with various other properties in Blackfriars, to Sir Thomas Cawarden.[282]

[Footnote 282: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, pp. 7, 12.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN ILl.u.s.tRATING THE SECOND BLACKFRIARS PLAYHOUSE

The Playhouse was made by combining the Hall and the Parlor.]

The s.p.a.ce below the Parliament Chamber was divided into three units.

At the northern end was a "Hall" extending the width of the building.

It is mentioned in the Survey[283] of 1548 as "a Hall ... under the said Frater"; and again in the side-note: "Memorandum, my Lorde Warden claimeth the said Hall." Just to the south of the Hall was a "Parlor,"

or dining-chamber, "where commonly the friars did use to break their fast." It is described in the Survey as being "under the said Frater, of the same length and breadth." The room could not have been of the "same length and breadth" as the great Parliament Chamber, for not only would such dimensions be absurd for an informal dining-room, but, as we are clearly told, the "Infirmary" was also under the Parliament Chamber, and was approximately one-third the size of the latter.[284]

Accordingly I have interpreted the phrase, "of the same length and breadth," to mean that the Parlor was square. When the room was sold to Burbage it was said to be fifty-two feet in length from north to south, which is exactly the breadth of the building from east to west.

The Parlor, as well as the Hall, was claimed by the Lord Warden; and both were granted to Sir Thomas Cawarden in 1550.

[Footnote 283: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, p. 7.]

[Footnote 284: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, pp. 105-06.]

South of the Parlor was the Infirmary, described as being "at the western corner of the Inner Cloister" (of which the Frater building const.i.tuted the western side), as being under the Parliament Chamber, and as being approximately one-third the size of the Parliament Chamber. The Infirmary seems to have been structurally distinct from the Hall and Parlor.[285] It was three stories high, consisting of a "room beneath the Fermary," the Infirmary itself, a "room above the same";[286] while the Parliament Chamber, extending itself "over the room above the Fermary," const.i.tuted a fourth story. Furthermore, not only was the Infirmary a structural unit distinct from the Hall and the Parlor at the north, but it never belonged to Cawarden or More, and hence was not included in the sale to Burbage. It was granted in 1545 to Lady Mary Kingston,[287] from whom it pa.s.sed to her son, Sir Henry Jerningham, then to Anthony Kempe, who later sold it to Lord Hunsdon;[288] and at the time the playhouse was built, the Infirmary was still in the occupation of Hunsdon.

[Footnote 285: In all probability it was separated from the Hall and Parlor by a pa.s.sage leading through the Infirmary into the Inner Cloister yard.]

[Footnote 286: One reason for the greater height may have been the slope of the ground towards the river; a second reason was the unusual height of the Parlor.]

[Footnote 287: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, p. 105.]

[Footnote 288: _Ibid._, p. 124.]

At the northern end of the Frater building, and extending westward, was a narrow structure fifty feet in length, sixteen feet in breadth, and three stories in height, regarded as a "part of the frater parcel." The middle story, which was on the same level with the Parliament Chamber, was known as the "Duchy Chamber," possibly because of its use in connection with the sittings of Parliament, or with the meetings of the Privy Council there. The building was granted to Cawarden in 1550.[289]

[Footnote 289: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, p. 8.]

Upon the death of Cawarden all his Blackfriars holdings pa.s.sed into the possession of Sir William More. From More, in 1596, James Burbage purchased those sections of the Frater building which had originally been granted to Cawarden[290]--that is, all the Frater building except the Infirmary--for the sum of 600, in modern valuation about $25,000.[291] Evidently he had profited by Farrant's experience with More and by his own experience with Gyles Alleyn, and had determined to risk no more leases, but in the future to be his own landlord, cost what it might.

[Footnote 290: For the deed of sale see _ibid._, p. 60.]

[Footnote 291: It should be observed, however, that Burbage paid only 100 down, and that he immediately mortgaged the property for more than 200. The playhouse was not free from debt until 1605. See Wallace, _The First London Theatre_, p. 23.]

The properties which he thus secured were:

(1) The Parliament Chamber, extending over the Hall, Parlor, and Infirmary. This great chamber, it will be recalled, had previously been divided by Cawarden into the Frith and Cheeke Lodgings;[292] but now it was arranged as a single tenement of seven rooms, and was occupied by the eminent physician William de Lawne:[293] "All those seven great upper rooms as they are now divided, being all upon one floor, and sometime being one great and entire room, with the roof over the same, covered with lead." Up into this tenement led a special pair of stairs which made it wholly independent of the rest of the building.

[Footnote 292: The northern section of the Cheeke Lodging (a portion of the old b.u.t.tery) which had const.i.tuted Farrant's private theatre, and which was no real part of the Frater building, had been converted by More into the Pipe Office.]

[Footnote 293: A prosperous physician. His son was one of the ill.u.s.trious founders of the Society of Apothecaries, and one of its chief benefactors. His portrait may be seen to-day in Apothecaries'

Hall. See C.R.B. Barrett, _The History of the Society of Apothecaries of London_.]

(2) The friar's "Parlor," now made into a tenement occupied by Thomas Bruskett, and called "the Middle Rooms, or Middle Stories"--possibly from the fact that it was the middle of three tenements, possibly from the fact that having two cellars under its northern end it was the middle of three stories. It is described as being fifty-two feet in length north and south, and thirty-seven feet in width. Why a strip of nine feet should have been detached on the eastern side is not clear; but that this strip was also included in the sale to Burbage is shown by later doc.u.ments.

(3) The ancient "Hall" adjoining the "Parlor" on the north, and now made into two rooms. These rooms were combined with the ground floor of the Duchy Chamber building to const.i.tute a tenement occupied by Peter Johnson: "All those two lower rooms now in the occupation of the said Peter Johnson, lying directly under part of the said seven great upper rooms." The dimensions are not given, but doubtless the two rooms together extended the entire width of the building and were approximately as broad as the Duchy Chamber building, with which they were united.

(4) The Duchy Chamber building "at the north end of the said seven great upper rooms, and at the west side thereof." At the time of the sale the ground floor of this building was occupied by Peter Johnson, who had also the Hall adjoining it on the west; the middle story was occupied by Charles Bradshaw; and the top story by Edward Merry.[294]

[Footnote 294: Mr. Wallace's description of the building and the way in which it was converted into a playhouse (_The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, pp. 37-41) is incorrect. For the various details cited above see the deed of sale to Burbage.]

Out of this heterogeneous property Burbage was confronted with the problem of making a playhouse. Apparently he regarded the Parliament Chamber as too low, or too inaccessible for the purposes of a theatre; this part of his property, therefore, he kept as a lodging, and for many years it served as a dormitory for the child-actors. The Duchy Chamber building, being small and detached from the Frater building, he reserved also as a lodging.[295] In the Hall and the Parlor, however, he saw the possibility of a satisfactory auditorium. Let us therefore examine this section of the Frater building more in detail, and trace its history up to the time of the purchase.

[Footnote 295: This may have contained the two rooms in which Evans lived, and "the schoolhouse and the chamber over the same," which are described (see the doc.u.ments in Fleay's _A Chronicle History of the London Stage_, p. 210 ff.) as being "severed from the said great hall." In another doc.u.ment this schoolhouse is described as "schola, anglice _schoolhouse_, ad borealem finem Aulae praedictae." (Wallace, _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 40.)]

The Parlor was described as "a great room, paved," and was said to have been "used and occupied by the friars themselves to their own proper use as a parlor to dine and sup in."[296] Sir John Portynary, whose house adjoined the Duchy Chamber, tells us that in 1550, when King Edward granted the Blackfriars property to Cawarden, "Sir Thomas Cawarden, knight, entered into the same house in the name of all that which the King had given him within the said friars, and made his lodging there; and about that time did invite this examinant and his wife to supper there, together with diverse other gentlemen; and they all supped together with the said Sir Thomas Cawarden, in the same room [the Parlor] where the said school of fence is now kept, and did there see a play."[297]

[Footnote 296: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, pp. 43, 47, 48.]

[Footnote 297: _Ibid._, p. 52.]

Later Cawarden leased the Parlor to a keeper of an ordinary: "One Woodman did hold the said house where the said school of fence is kept, and another house thereby of Sir Thomas Cawarden, and in the other room kept an ordinary table, and had his way to the same through the said house where the said school of fence is kept."[298]

[Footnote 298: _Ibid._, p. 51.]

In 1563 William Joyner established in the rooms the school of fence mentioned above, which was still flouris.h.i.+ng in 1576.[299]

[Footnote 299: Feuillerat, _Blackfriars Records_, p. 121.]

When in 1583 John Lyly became interested in the First Blackfriars Playhouse, he obtained a lease of the rooms, but it is not clear for what purpose. Later he sold the lease to Rocho Bonetti, the Italian fencing-master, who established there his famous school of fence.[300]

In George Silver's _Paradoxes of Defence_, 1599, is a description of Bonetti's school, which will, I think, help us to reconstruct in our imagination the "great room, paved" which was destined to become Shakespeare's playhouse:

He caused to be fairely drawne and set round about the schoole all the n.o.blemen's and Gentlemen's Armes that were his schollers, and, hanging right under their Armes, their Rapiers, Daggers, Gloves of Male, and Gantlets. Also he had benches and stooles, the roome being verie large, for Gentlemen to sit about his schoole to behold his teaching.

He taught none commonly under twentie, fortie, fifty, or an hundred pounds. And because all things should be verie necessary for the n.o.blemen and Gentlemen, he had in his schoole a large square table, with a green carpet, done round with a verie brode rich fringe of gold; alwaies standing upon it a verie faire standish covered with crimson velvet, with inke, pens, pen-dust, and sealing-waxe, and quiers of verie excellent fine paper, gilded, readie for the n.o.blemen and Gentlemen (upon occasion) to write their letters, being then desirous to follow their fight, to send their men to dispatch their businesse.

And to know how the time pa.s.sed, he had in one corner of his Schoole, a Clocke, with a verie faire large diall; he had within that Schoole a roome the which he called his privie schoole, with manie weapons therein, where he did teach his schollers his secret fight, after he had perfectly taught them their rules. He was verie much loved in the Court.

[Footnote 300: _Ibid._, p. 122.]

We are further told by Silver that Bonetti took it upon himself "to hit anie Englishman with a thrust upon anie b.u.t.ton." It is no wonder that Shakespeare ridiculed him in _Romeo and Juliet_ as "the very butcher of a silk b.u.t.ton," and laughed at his school and his fantastic fencing-terms:

_Mercutio._ Ah! the immortal "pa.s.sado"! the "punto reverso"!

the "hay"!

_Benvolio._ The what?