The Murder of John Lambe: Crowd Violence, Court Scandal and Popular Politics in Early Seventeenth-Century England
2008; Oxford University Press; Volume: 200; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/pastj/gtn013
ISSN1477-464X
Autores Tópico(s)Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
ResumoBy the summer of 1628, the Fortune playhouse was one of only three open-air, public theatres still in business in London. In its heyday, before a devastating fire in the winter of 1621, the Fortune had been considered by some ‘the fairest playhouse’ in the town, and had drawn a respectable crowd;1 by 1628, five years after the reconstructed theatre had opened, the venue had perhaps begun to acquire what would become an ‘overwhelmingly plebeian’ reputation, drawing rowdy audiences that one contemporary dismissed as a rabble of ‘prentizes and apell-wyfes’.2 Situated north of the City walls on the eastern side of Golden (or Golding) Lane, in the impoverished parish of St Giles without Cripplegate, the Fortune, like other open-air theatres, offered a range of accommodation — from penny admission places among the groundlings to more expensive seats in the galleries. On a good day, perhaps three thousand people could pack themselves into the building.3
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