Note 535 — Chapter XXIV · PLAYERS OF INTERLUDES

Cf. Appendix E, ii (Maxstoke), iii (Thetford), vii (Howard), viii (Tudor Court). ‘Moleyn’s wedding’ attended by Lord Howard, is the first of many at which the players are recorded to have made the mirth. Some of the entries may imply visits to the plays, rather than of the plays, and this I suppose to be the case with Henry VII’s payment ‘to the players at Myles End.’ It is perhaps a little arbitrary to assume, as I have done, that players locally named are never professional. Thus the lusores de Writhill paid by the duke of Buckingham on Jan. 6, 1508, are almost certainly identical with the lusores Dñi de Wrisell (his brother-in-law, the earl of Northumberland) paid by him at Xmas, 1507 (Archaeologia, xxv. 318, 324), although it happens curiously enough that the Chelmsford wardrobe was drawn upon by players of Writtle in 1571-2. The local designation of members of the minstrel class is exceptional; but cf. the York example in the next note. The locally named lusores may, however, sometimes have acted not a miracle, but a May-game or sword-dance; e.g., at Winchester College in 1400 when they came ‘cum tripudio suo’ (App. E, iv).