XVII
THE PRIVATE THEATRES
i. THE BLACKFRIARS
[Bibliographical Note.—Many documents bearing upon the history of the
theatre are preserved at Loseley, and the most important are collected by
Professor A. Feuillerat in vol. ii of the Malone Society's Collections (1913).
A few had been already printed or described by A. J. Kempe in The
Loseley Manuscripts (1835), by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps in Outlines,
i. 299, by J. C. Jeaffreson in the 7th Report of the Hist. MSS. Commission
(1879), by Professor Feuillerat himself in Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, xlviii
(1912), 81, and by C. W. Wallace, with extracts from others, in The
Evolution of the English Drama up to Shakespeare (1912, cited as Wallace, i).
In the same book and in The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars (1908,
cited as Wallace, ii), Professor Wallace prints or extracts documents from
other sources, chiefly lawsuits in the Court of Requests and elsewhere,
which supplement those discovered by J. Greenstreet and printed in
F. G. Fleay, Chronicle History of the London Stage (1890). The references
to the theatre in J. P. Collier, History of English Dramatic Poetry (1837
and 1879), are seriously contaminated by forgeries. Some material for
the general history of the precinct is furnished in the various editions
of John Stowe, Survey of London (1598, 1603, ed. Munday, 1618, ed.
Strype, 1720, ed. Kingsford, 1908), in W. Dugdale, Monasticon (1817-30),
by M. Reddan in the Victoria History of London, i. 498, and in the
Athenaeum (1886), ii. 91. A. W. Clapham, On the Topography of the
Dominican Priory of London (Archaeologia, lxiii. 57), gives a valuable
account of the history and church of the convent, but had not the
advantage of knowing the Loseley documents, and completely distorts
the plan of the domestic buildings and the theatre. An account by
J. Q. Adams is in S. P. xiv (1917), 64. The status of the liberty is discussed
by V. C. Gildersleeve, Government Regulation of the Elizabethan Drama, 143.]
The Dominicans, also called the 'preaching' or 'black'
friars, came to England in 1221. Their first house was in
Holborn.[1] In 1275 they acquired a site on the sloping ground
between St. Paul's and the river, just to the east of Fleet
ditch, and obtained leave to divert the walls of the City
so as to furnish a north and north-west boundary to their
precinct. Here grew up a very famous convent, the mother-*house
of all the Dominican settlements in the country. It
received favours from several sovereigns, notably from
Edward I and his Queen Eleanor, who were regarded as its
founders; and in return held its great buildings available
for national purposes. In 1322-3 it furnished a depository
for state records. It housed divers parliaments, at first in
- ↑ W. P. Baildon, Black Books of Lincoln's Inn, iv. 263; C. F. R. Palmer, The Friar-Preachers of Holborn, London (Reliquary, xvii. 33, 75).
