II - MANNER OF PRODUCTION OF COLLEGE PLAYS

Summary

The first question that arises is this: What was the connexion, if any, between the college plays produced in the 16th and 17th centuries and the institution known as the ‘Christmas Lord’?

Dr Boas tells us that at Merton College, Oxford, a Christmas Lord, ‘Rex Fabarum’ as he was there called, was appointed as early as 1485 ‘per antiquam consuetudinem'. According to Wood, whom Dr Boas quotes, he was the senior fellow that had not borne the office, and had from Christmas to Candlemas a mock-authority over his juniors. Wood does not assign to the’ Rex Fabarum’ the duty of providing plays or shows: but from a decree of the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church of Dec. 12th, 1554, it seems that the annual comedies and tragedies were produced by ‘the Lord.’ (Dr Boas tells me however that it was the two Censors who were usually responsible for them and paid the accounts.) At St John's College, Oxford-at least when the office of Christmas Lord was filled again after 30 years intermission in 1607–it also fell to this officer to produce tragedies and comedies. Dr Boas suggests what is probably the true account of the matter, that the production of tragedies and comedies, an outcome of the Renaissance, had been attached to the office of the Christmas Lord, though as a burlesque ruler he still kept some characteristics which had belonged to his office in pre-Renaissance times.