26 April, 1595 - Godfrey of Bouillon

Here's what the Admiral's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: y^e 27 of ap^rell 1595 ... R at godfrey of bullen ... xxix^s 

In modern English: [26^th] April, 1595 ... Received at Godfrey of Bouillon ... 29 shillings

The death of Godfrey of Bouillon.
From a thirteenth century
manuscript of William of 
Tyre's Histoire d'Outremer

Today, the company revived a play that Henslowe calls Godfrey of Bouillon. This was probably The Second Part of Godfrey of Bouillon, a lost sequel that you can read more about it in the entry for 19th July. Alternatively, it might have been the equally lost original play, sometimes identified by scholars with the mysterious Jerusalem, which you can read about in the entry for 22 March, 1592. Either way, today's play would have dramatized some aspect of the eponymous medieval warrior's capture of the city of Jerusalem from the Turks.

Godfrey of Bouillon is a surprising choice: the company last performed it at the end of October last year, when its box office had begun to nosedive. They seem to be hoping that a period of absence from the stage might have restored the public's affections, but today's crowd is only half that of those seen at the rest of this week's plays, perhaps because the Easter holiday is now over.

What's next?

There will be no blog entry tomorrow because 27th April was a Sunday in 1595 and theplayers did not perform. Henslowe's Diary ... as a Blog! will thus return on the 28th - see you then!

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

Comments?

Did I make a mistake? Do you have a question? Have you anything to add? Please post a comment below!