Note 753 — VII THE COURT PLAY

Feuillerat, M. P. 57, gives an excellent summary of the data in the Accounts, but his schedule of properties does not attempt to disentangle masks and plays. The latter were liberally supplied. The Italians at Reading and Windsor during the progress of 1574, for example, were furnished with 'golde lether for cronetes', 'shepherdes hookes', 'lam-skynnes for shepperds', 'arrowes for nymphes', 'a syth for Saturne', 'iij deveils cotes and heades and one olde mannes fries cote' (Feuillerat, Eliz. 227). Probably the apparel used on the stage was of less costly materials than that worn by lords and ladies in masks, but it was doubtless calculated to present the same glittering effect.