Tales of London’s early theatres

A wealth of documentary evidence relating to theatres and society in early-modern London has for the first time been brought together online, in an international project led by the University of Southampton, with significant contributions from King’s College London.

Professor of English at Southampton, John McGavin, has directed research to find and transcribe historical texts relating to eight early theatres north of the Thames, which operated outside the capital’s city walls. The online database ‘Early Modern London Theatres’ (EMLoT), has been created as part of this research project and contains many of the transcribed documents.

‘The website allows you to see what direct use has been made in books and other texts over the last four centuries of pre-1642 documents relating to the theatres in Middlesex and Westminster,’ says Principal Investigator, Professor McGavin.

‘This gives a fascinating insight into many aspects of 16th and 17th century theatre life and its place in society. The site is very flexible, allowing the user to pull together documents which are interlinked by common themes or events to help with their investigations. It shows how we got our information about the early theatres, from whom and when.’

The EMLoT database was designed and created under the direction of Co-Investigator John Bradley, Centre for Computing in Humanities (CCH) at King’s.

He says: ‘Our work on EMLoT has given CCH a better formal understanding of how historians think about the transmission of ideas and events presented in historical primary documents and various secondary sources up to the present day. The transmission model that has emerged might well be applicable to other projects with which we are involved, and we look forward to exploring it with other partners.’

The database includes a Learning Zone devised for senior school pupils and university students, sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Teachers planning lessons can select a particular historical topic and explore the database for documentary evidence. There is also a tutorial on the 1617 riots at the Phoenix theatre which shows how this event was represented in a succession of documents of different ages using a timeline.

Kidnaps and riots...

The process of creating the EMLoT site, which was largely funded by a £370,000 grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), has brought many tales of London theatre life to light. Among these are examples of dangers for performers, such as the kidnapping of child performers and rioting at theatres.

Records show in 1575 that a chorister of St Pauls was ‘stolen’, presumably by a rival group, prompting the Privy Council to call for action against the suspects. In another example in 1631, the King’s Revels company at Salisbury Court demanded the return of its boy actor, who had been put into service by the King’s Men group at Blackfriars Theatre.

The database contains a number of references to violence at the Cockpit or Phoenix theatre in Drury Lane, during riots by apprentices in London on the 4 March 1617. Several people were killed before apprentices entered the theatre, defaced it, cut up performer’s clothes, and burned books. The following day a letter was sent from the Privy Council to the Lord Mayor asking for an inquiry to be set up to ‘examine and punish’ the offenders.

Although EMLoT has now been launched, there are plans for further work on it. Toronto’s REED group are planning to extend EMLoT to cover theatres on the South Bank of the Thames, such as the Globe, which are now considered part of London, but as with the theatres of Middlesex and Westminster, were originally outside the city limits.

John Bradley adds: ‘There has also been another exciting development that has grown out of the work on EMLoT. EMLoT contains information about the various geographic venues for theatre in historic London. What might happen if this data could be geographically combined with, say, socio-economic data about Historical London, and what new things might be in this way revealed about the place of theatre in London society?

’To explore this, a team of EMLoT partners have been involved in discussions with colleagues from the Institute of Historical Research and the Museum of London Archaeology Unit who hold various kinds of data about historical London, and we are looking into ways to work towards a Web Based open ‘historical Geographic Information System (GIS)’ where data from these various sources, and potentially others, could be brought together.’

The British Academy has called EMLoT a ’huge achievement and will prove an invaluable resource encompassing a wide range of academic disciplines’ http://www.britac.ac.uk/news/news.cfm/newsid/456 .

The Early Modern London Theatres website can be found at: http://www.emlot.kcl.ac.uk/

[Image caption: Detail of the cover of ’A select collection of old plays’ Vol 8, London: printed for R Dodsley in Pall Mall M.DCC.XLIV. Courtesy of University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library]