Saturday, September 10, 2011

Feasting on Early Modern Theater Database


A review of a new digital resource - Early Modern London Theatres, ed. by John McGavin
Toronto, Records of Early English Drama, 2011 - in Reviews in History (David Kathman, review of Early Modern London Theatres, review no. 1119), drew me to the online source and database itself.  This appears to be the first stage (as it were) of the database, or Version 1 (February 2011): "Records pertaining to the Eight Theatres north of the Thames [Red Lion (1567), the Theatre (1576), the Curtain (1577), the Fortune (1600), the Red Bull (1604), the Boar's Head (1602), the Phoenix or Cockpit (1616), and Salisbury Court (1629)."  A quick run through the database, finds some 40 uses of the term "feast."  Although the term is, of course, often used to date contracts, the following note from mid-November 1626:
  • "The Duke of Buckingham feasts and entertains the King and Queen with 'plays and desports' at York House. Joseph Mead reports, 'some people stick not to prate that his majesty is in very great favour with the duke's grace.'"
Materials, then, for "Elizabethan Worlds," and beyond.

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