24 January, 1597 - That Will Be Shall Be and a new accounting system

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

Henslowe writes: Janewary 1597 | 24 |  R at that wilbe shalbe ... | 0 | 17 | 00 19-07 

In modern English: 24^th January, 1597 ... Received at That Will Be Shall Be ... 17 shillings

Something strange has just happened. As you can see from the entry above, Henslowe has suddenly changed his accounting system! The format that we have become used to over the years has been replaced by an entirely new one, in which five numbers follow the play title. In addition, two days, from now, Henslowe will cease to begin each entry with "R" for "received", and will instead begin them with "tt", which is short for "totalis" (Latin for "total"). The reasons for some of these changes are unknown.

The scholarly consensus is that the two numbers following the play title are the box office takings in pounds and shillings (for the uninitiated, there are twenty shillings to the pound). Previously, Henslowe had recorded his box office takings only in shillings, not bothering to mention pounds unless the amount rose as high as £3, which it did only on exceptional occasions. Now, he always counts the pounds. In order to keep continuity with the previous entries in this blog and thus make comparisons easier, I will specify in the 'modern spelling' version of the entry both the figures given by Henslowe and their equivalent in shillings only (this is not necessary for today's entry, since the takings were less than £1).

But there is a mystery about Henslowe's new system. The box office takings are always followed by  three more numbers (today, "00 19-07"). Unfortunately, nobody knows their meaning; some scholars suspect that they represent the receipts taken at the door to the theatre (recall that Henslowe's box office takings are only for entry into the gallery or seating area), but this is not certain and they might represent some other entirely different receipts or expenditures. Since the meaning is unclear, I have decided to leave these figures out of subsequent blog entries, to avoid confusion.  

Apart from that, today was an ordinary day at the Rose. The Admiral's Men revived That Will Be Shall Be, an enigmatic lost play about which you can read more in the entry for 30 December, 1596. The company continues to perform That Will Be Shall Be more than once a week, and its box office continues to be unspectacular. 

A female archer tries to take down a war elephant. The man on the
right appears to share the sentiments of this play's title.
From the Smithfield Decretals (c.1340)

FURTHER READING

Information on the new accounting system

• Neil Carson, A Companion to Henslowe's Diary (Cambridge University Press, 1988), 18-19
• R.A. Foakes, ed. Henslowe's Diary, 2nd ed.(Cambridge University Press, 2002), xxxvii-xl

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!