I - OUTLINES OF THEIR HISTORY

Summary

Our chief source of knowledge in regard to the acting of plays in the different colleges of the University of Cambridge apart from that derived from the plays themselves printed or in MS. is the Bursarial Accounts. Unfortunately however this source often fails us. At St John's there are no college accounts extant of earlier date than 1555 and so we have no record of the performance of the plays seen in the college hall by Ascham. At Caius there are no accounts before 1609, though we know of the performance of a play at Caius just thirty years earlier. Even where the accounts exist, their mention of performances known to us from other sources is only haphazard, especially after the earliest period. And where they do mention a performance, more often than not they omit the name of the play.

Long before plays were acted by members of the University in their several colleges, players, musicians and jesters of the town or strollers attached to some great household frequently made their appearance and received an acknowledgement from the colleges of the performances they gave. Entries of such payments are found in the accounts of King's Hall (preserved in Trinity College) as early as Michaelmas 1448-1449 (27 Henry VI).