London Exchange, Leadenhall, the Regent House at Oxford.[1] There are scenes in churches or heathen temples and in monasteries.[2] There are certainly also hall scenes in castles or private houses, and it is sometimes a matter of taste whether you assume a hall scene or a threshold scene.[3] Certain features of hall scenes may be enumerated. Personages can go into, or come forth from, an inner room. They can be brought in from without.[4] Seats are available, and a chair or 'state' for a sovereign.[5] A law court has its 'bar'. Banquets can be served.[6] Masks
- [Footnote: and thou shalt sit in the chaire' (v. 10); Sir T. More, sc. ii. 104, 'An
Arras is drawne, and behinde it (as in sessions) sit the L. Maior. . . . Lifter the prisoner at the barre'; Warning for Fair Women, II. 1180, 'Enter some to prepare the judgement seat to the Lord Mayor. . . .(1193) Browne is brought in and the Clerk says, 'To the barre, George Browne'; M. V. IV. i; 1 Sir John Oldcastle, V. x; &c.]. . . (1521) 'Entreate their Lordships come into the hall'. E. M. I. III. i, ii (a continuous scene), is at Thorello's house, and in III. iii. 1592 it is described with 'I saw no body to be kist, vnlesse they would haue kist the post, in the middle of the warehouse; for there I left them all . . . How? were they not gone in then?' But I. iv. 570, also at Thorello's, has 'Within sir, in the warehouse'. Probably the warehouse was represented as an open portico.]gets vp vpon him [Bajazet] to his chaire'; Dr. Faustus, 1010 (addition of 1616 text), 'His Maiesty is comming to the Hall; Go backe, and see the State in readinesse'; Look About You, sc. xix, 'Enter young Henry Crowned . . . Henry the elder places his Sonne, the two Queenes on eyther hand, himselfe at his feete, Leyster and Lancaster below him'; this must have involved an elaborate 'state'.]*
- ↑ Bacon and Bungay, scc. vii, ix (Regent House), where visitors 'sit to heare and see this strange dispute' (1207), and later, 'Enter Miles, with a cloth and trenchers and salt' (1295); Shoemaker's Holiday, sc. xv (Leadenhall); Englishmen for my Money, sc. iii (Exchange).
- ↑ 1 Troublesome Raigne, sc. xi, in a convent, entails the opening of a coffer large enough to hold a nun and a press large enough to hold a priest; 2 Troublesome Raigne, sc. iii, before St. Edmund's shrine, has a numerous company who swear on an altar. Alphonsus, IV. i, begins 'Let there be a brazen Head set in the middle of the place behind the Stage, out of the which cast flames of fire'. It is in the 'sacred seate' of Mahomet, who speaks from the head, and bids the priests 'call in' visitors 'which now are drawing to my Temple ward'.
- ↑ T. of a Shrew, scc. ix, xi, xiii; Sir T. More, scc. ix, 'Enter S^r Thomas Moore, M^r Roper, and Seruing men setting stooles'; xiii, 'Enter . . . Moore . . . as in his house at Chelsey' . . . (1413) 'Sit good Madame [in margin, 'lowe stooles'
- ↑ Cf. p. 63, nn. 3, 4.
- ↑ Sir T. More, scc. ix, xiii (stools, vide supra); x, where the Council 'sit' to 'this little borde' (1176); R. J. I. v (stools, vide supra); James IV, I. i. 141, 'Enstall and crowne her'; Sp. Tragedy, I. iii. 8, 'Wherefore sit I in a regall throne'; 1 Rich. II, II. ii. 81, 'Please you, assend your throne'; 1 Tamburlaine, IV. ii. 1474, 'He [Tamburlaine
- ↑ Bacon and Bungay, sc. ix. (vide supra); T. of a Shrew, sc. ix. 32, 'They couer the bord and fetch in the meate'; 1 Edw. IV, IV. ii, 'They bring forth a table and serue in the banquet'; Patient Grissell, 1899,
