[From A Sermon preached at Pawles Crosse on Sunday the thirde of November 1577 in the time of the Plague. By T. W. This was printed, according to the colophon, by F. Coldocke on 10 Feb. 1578. There are two copies in the B.M., but one has been bound in error with the title-page of an earlier sermon of 9 Dec. 1576, by the same author. T. W. was probably Thomas White, vicar of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, and later founder of Sion College and of White’s Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. The sermon is sometimes claimed for Thomas Wilcox; but he was in ecclesiastical disgrace in 1577 and unlikely to have access to Paul’s Cross.]
P. 46. ‘Looke but vppon the common playes in London, and see the multitude that flocketh to them and followeth them: beholde the sumptuous Theatre houses, a continuall monument of Londons prodigalitie and folly. But I vnderstande they are nowe forbidden bycause of the plague. I like the pollicye well if it holde still, for a disease is but bodged or patched vp that is not cured in the cause, and the cause of plagues is sinne, if you looke to it well: and the cause of sinne are playes: therefore the cause of plagues are playes.... Shall I reckon vp the monstrous birds that brede in this nest? without doubt I am ashamed, and I should surely offende your chast eares: but the olde world is matched, and Sodome ouercome, for more horrible enormities and swelling sins are set out by those stages, than euery man thinks for, or some would beleeue, if I shold paint them out in their colours: without doubt you can scantly name me a sinne, that by that sincke is not set a gogge: theft and whoredome; pride and prodigality; villanie and blasphemie; these three couples of helhoundes neuer cease barking there, and bite manye, so as they are vncurable euer after, so that many a man hath the leuder wife, and many a wife the shreuder husband by it: and it can not otherwise be, but that whiche robbeth flatlye the Lord of all his honor, and is directly against the whole first table of his law, should make no bones of breache of the second also, which is toward our neighbour only. Wherefore if thou be a father, thou losest thy child: if thou be a maister, thou losest thy seruaunt; and thou be what thou canst be, thou losest thy selfe that hauntest those scholes of vice, dennes of theeues, and Theatres of all leudnesse: and if it be not suppressed in time, it will make such a Tragedie, that London may well mourne whyle it is London, for it is no playing time.’
xvi. 1577. John Northbrooke.
[From A Treatise wherein Dicing, Dauncing, Vaine playes, or Enterluds, with other idle pastimes, &c., commonly used on the Sabboth day, are reproued by the Authoritie of the word of God and auntient writers. N.D. H. Bynneman for George Byshop. This is doubtless the ‘booke wherein Dycinge, dauncinge, vaine playenge and Interludes, with other idle pastimes, &c., comonlie used on the Saboth daie are reproved’, entered for Bishop in S. R. on 2 Dec. 1577 (Arber, ii. 321). A second edition was printed in 1579. Northbrooke was a Gloucester minister. The book was edited by J. P. Collier (1843, Sh. Soc.).]
[Summary and Extracts.] The treatise is ‘made dialogue-wise’ between Youth and Age. Epistles to Sir John Yong and to The Christian and Faithful Reader, dated respectively from Bristol and Henbury. A Treatise against Idlenes, Idle Pastimes, and Playes. The greater part deals generally with ‘ydle playes and vaine pastimes’ and their relation to the Christian life. P. 82. Youth asks Age his opinion of ‘playes and players, which are commonly vsed and much frequented in most places in these dayes, especiallye here in this noble and honourable citie of London’. Age condemns ‘stage playes and enterludes’ as ‘not tollerable, nor sufferable in any common weale, especially where the Gospell is preached; for it is right prodigalitie, which is opposite to liberalitie’. Considers ‘the giftes, buildings, and maintenance of such places for players a spectacle and schoole for all wickednesse and vice to be learned in’, and particularly applies this to ‘those places also, whiche are made vppe and builded for such playes and enterludes, as the Theatre and Curtaine is, and other such lyke places.... Satan hath not a more speedie way, and fitter schoole to work and teach his desire, to bring men and women into his snare of concupiscence and filthie lustes of wicked whoredome, than those places, and playes, and theatres are; and therefore necessarie that those places, and players, shoulde be forbidden, and dissolued, and put downe by authoritie, as the brothell houses and stewes are’. Quotes the Fathers on the offences to chastity at theatres. P. 92. Condemns the playing of ‘histories out of the scriptures. By the long suffering and permitting of these vaine plays, it hath stricken such a blinde zeale into the heartes of the people, that they shame not to say, and affirme openly, that playes are as good as sermons, and that they learne as much or more at a playe, than they do at God’s worde preached.... Many can tarie at a vayne playe two or three houres, when as they will not abide scarce one houre at a sermon.... I speake (alas! with griefe and sorowe of heart) against those people that are so fleshlye ledde, to see what rewarde there is giuen to such crocodiles, whiche deuoure the pure chastitie bothe of single and maried persons, men and women, when as in their playes you shall learne all things that appertayne to craft, mischiefe, deceytes, and filthinesse, &c. If you will learne howe to bee false and deceyue your husbandes, or husbandes their wyues, howe to playe the harlottes, to obtayne one’s loue, howe to rauishe, howe to beguyle, howe to betraye, to flatter, lye, sweare, forsweare, how to allure to whoredome, howe to murther, howe to poyson, howe to disobey and rebell against princes, to consume treasures prodigally, to mooue to lustes, to ransacke and spoyle cities and townes, to bee ydle, to blaspheme, to sing filthie songs of loue, to speake filthily, to be prowde, howe to mocke, scoffe, and deryde any nation ... shall not you learne, then, at such enterludes howe to practise them?... Therefore, great reason it is that women (especiallye) shoulde absent themselues from such playes.’ Notes the infamia of histriones, which he translates ‘enterlude players’, and refers to the statute of 1572. Expounds the heathen origin of plays. P. 101. Youth admits ‘that they ought to be ouerthrowne and put downe.... Yet I see little sayd, and lesse done vnto them; great resort there is daily vnto them, and thereout sucke they no small aduantage’. P. 102. ‘They vse to set vp their billes vpon postes certain dayes before, to admonishe the people to make their resort vnto their theatres, that they may thereby be the better furnished, and the people prepared to fill their purses with their treasures.’ P. 102. Youth concludes: ‘I maruaile the magistrates suffer them thus to continue, and to haue houses builded for such exercises.... I maruaile much, sithe the rulers are not onely negligent and slowe herein to doe, but the preachers are as dumme to speake and saye in a pulpitte against it’; and Age: ‘I doubt not but God will so moue the hearts of magistrates, and loose the tongue of the preachers in such godly sort (by the good deuout prayers of the faithfull) that both with the sworde and the worde such vnfruitfull and barren trees shall be cut downe’. P. 103. Youth then raises the question of scholastic plays. These Age admits. ‘I thinke it is lawefull for a schoolmaster to practise his schollers to playe comedies, obseruing these and the like cautions: first, that those comedies which they shall play be not mixt with anye ribaudrie and filthie termes and wordes (which corrupt good manners). Secondly, that it be for learning and vtterance sake, in Latine, and very seldome in Englishe. Thirdly, that they vse not to play commonly and often, but verye rare and seldome. Fourthlye, that they be not pranked and decked vp in gorgious and sumptious apparell in their play. Fiftly, that it be not made a common exercise, publickly, for profit and gaine of money, but for learning and exercise sake. And lastly, that their comedies be not mixte with vaine and wanton toyes of loue. These being obserued, I iudge it tollerable for schollers.’ An Inuectiue against Dice-Playing and A Treatise against Dauncing.
xvii. 1578. John Stockwood.
[From A Sermon Preached at Paules Crosse on 24 Aug. 1578. A reprint is in Harrison, iv. 329. John Stockwood was Master of Tonbridge Grammar School.]
P. 23. ‘Wyll not a fylthye playe, wyth the blast of a Trumpette, sooner call thyther a thousande, than an houres tolling of a Bell, bring to the Sermon a hundred? nay euen heere in the Citie, without it be at this place, and some other certaine ordinarie audience, where shall you finde a reasonable company? whereas, if you resorte to the Theatre, the Curtayne, and other places of Playes in the Citie, you shall on the Lords day haue these places, with many other that I can not recken, so full, as possible they can throng.’ P. 50. ‘We notwithstanding on the Lordes daye must haue Fayers kept, must haue Beare bayting, Bulbayting (as if it wer a thing of necessity for the Beares of Paris garden to be bayted on the Sunnedaye) must haue baudie Enterludes.’ P. 85. Calls on the Mayor, Sheriffs and Aldermen as ‘publike magistrates’ to keep watch against ‘flocking and thronging to baudie playes by thousandes’ on the Lord’s Day, and notes ‘resorting to playes in the time of sermons a thing too manifest’. P. 133. ‘There be not many places where ye word is preached besides the Lords day (I woulde to God there were) yet euen that day the better parte of it is horriblie prophaned by diuellishe inuentions, as with Lords of Misserule, Morice dauncers, May-games, insomuch that in some places, they shame not in ye time of diuine seruice, to come and daunce aboute the Church, and without to haue men naked dauncing in nettes, which is most filthie: for the heathen that neuer hadde further knowledge, than the lighte of nature, haue counted it shamefull for a Player to come on the stage without a slop, and therefore amongest Christians I hope suche beastly brutishnesse shal not be let escape vnpunished, for whiche ende I recite it, and can tell, if I be called, where it was committed within these fewe weekes. What should I speake of beastlye Playes, againste which out of this place euery man crieth out? haue we not houses of purpose built with great charges for the maintenance of them, and that without the liberties, as who woulde say, there, let them saye what they will say, we will play. I know not how I might with the godly learned especially more discommende the gorgeous Playing place erected in the fieldes, than to terme it, as they please to haue it called, a Theatre ... I will not here enter this disputation, whether it be vtterly vnlawfull to haue any playes, but will onelye ioine in this issue, whether in a Christian common wealth they be tolerable on the Lords day.... If playing in the Theatre or any other place in London, as there are by sixe that I know to many, be any of the Lordes wayes (which I suppose there is none so voide of knowledge in the world wil graunt) then not only it may, but ought to be vsed, but if it be any of the wayes of man, it is no work for ye Lords Sabaoth, and therfore in no respecte tollerable on that daye.’ P. 137. ‘For reckening with the leaste, the gaine that is reaped of eighte ordinarie places in the Citie whiche I knowe, by playing but once a weeke (whereas many times they play twice and somtimes thrice) it amounteth to 2000 pounds by the yeare.’
xviii. 1578. John Florio.
[From First Fruites (1578), A_{1}, an Anglo-Italian phrase book.]