6 CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL AT BLACKFRIARS 
trum, 
Farther contributive also was the practice of public re- 
hearsals by the Master of the Revels, leading even to such exhi- 
bitions by the Children as seen at Whitefriars in 1580 and at 
Blackfriars 1581-84. 
Nobility imitating royalty provided private plays at weddings, 
at the Christmas or ‘“‘Revels’’ festival, at the entertainment of the 
Queen upon progresses through the country, and on other fes- 
tival occasions. 
Their theatrum likewise was a private apart- 
ment or hall of the house or castle; and the hearers, invited 
guests. 
When finally the private theatre found a permanent home the 
structure naturally tock as its distinguishing feature the privacy 
of the noble and royal hall. 
The hearers could not be enter- 
tained as invited guests; but the price of admission was placed so 
high,—from three to twelve times that of the public theatres — 
that the audience was aristocratically select. 
The private theatre of first importance in origin and influence 
was the Blackfriars, established 1597 under patronage of the 
Queen. 
It was in fact what may be called an aristocratic public 
playhouse, with galleries, private boxes or “lords’ rooms,” arti- 
ficial lighting, select audiences, seats in the pit as well as in all 
dertheater (Diss. Halle, 1883), 1, 
traces the origin of the private the- 
atre to the Catholic church, and 
specifically to a cathedral school for 
training boys to sing in the church 
service, established at Rome, 590. 
But we should find ourselves on 
safer ground if we should trace it 
back to man’s creation,—to the Gar- 
den of Eden. Or, seriously, the 
source is not an institution, but man 
as the maker of institutions. Man’s 
nature is dramatic and craves rep- 
resentation, as exhibited from the 
child, the ignorant, and the sage of 
today, back to the acts of primitive 
man. Church and sovereign became 
first sources of influence because of 
their larger power to institution- 
alize man’s innate desire. But the 
uninstitutionalized drama and stage 
is the home, the field, the street, 
wherever two or more people meet. 
The reflex influences of school 
and nobility are seen in such as 
Merchant Taylor’s (Mulcaster’s) 
school, Westminster, Eton, Oxford, 
&c., and in such ephemeral, often 
elaborate, representations in noble 
houses as historical records report 
on special occasions. 
All these minor influences have 
practically nothing to do with the 
development in question, although 
some have thought so. I am pre- 
senting of course the private the- 
atre as a factor in the drama, and 
the immediate conditions that led 
to it, not the remote or the unre- 
lated. The only period when the 
private theatre was such a factor 
is the period treated in the present 
work, 1597-1613. The preceding 
years of Elizabeth were but pre- 
paratory to it, and the succeeding 
years of James and the two 
Charleses but echoes of it. 
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