29 April, 1596 - Julian the Apostate

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

Henslowe writes: y^e 29 of aprell 1596 ... ne ... R at Julian the apostata ... xxxxviij^s 

In modern English: 29^th April, 1596 ... New ... Received at Julian the Apostate ... 48 shillings

Today, the Admiral's Men performed a new play! Julian the Apostate is now lost, but it must have told the story of the Roman emperor who tried to reverse the empire's adoption of Christianity.

Julian depicted in Giovanni
Battista Cavalieri's Romanum
Imperatorum (1583)

Emperor Julian reigned for a few years in the late 4th century. At that time, the official faith of the Roman Empire was Christianity. But Julian was converted back to the old pagan beliefs; he ordered the churches demolished and Christians in government to be persecuted.

Julian's actions were interrupted by the need to fight a war against the Sasanian Empire in Persia. He planned to continue his assault on Roman Christianity upon his return, but was killed in battle. His successor, Jovian, restored Christianity as Rome's official faith.

While the outlines of this story are clear, it is difficult to reconstruct exactly how the players might have told it. In his entry for the Lost Plays Database, David McInnis quotes William Poole's opinion that the likeliest source for the play was Meredith Hanmer's 1577 translation of the church historian Socrates Scholasticus. This text is rather dry overall, but it does contain some moments that could have made for a good scene in the theatre.

At one point, Socrates writes, the blind Bishop of Chalcedon was "led by the hand" to Julian and "began to rebuke the Emperor sharply, calling him an impious person, an apostate and an atheist", whereupon Julian "called him a blind fool and said unto him further, 'Thy God of Galilee will not restore thee thy sight again'", to which the Bishop replied that he was grateful to God for making him blind, "lest that ever I should set mine eye upon so ungracious a face as thine is" (305).

The rulers of the Sassanian Empire trample the body
of Julian; from a rock relief at Taq-e-Bostan, Iran

And Socrates adds an exciting extra dimension to Julian's death in battle. Although some reports said he was killed by a Persian, and others by his own men, there was a third  report that "it was a wicked fiend or devil that ran him through". Socrates thinks this "may very well be true, for we learn that the furies of hell have oftentimes recompensed such lewd persons with extreme punishments (312). The entry of a devil onto the stage in the final scene could have been a thrilling moment, and would link the play to others in the repertory, such as Dr Faustus.

As for how the play may have ended, McInnis notes that several works about Julian state that his dying words were "Vicisti Galilaee!" ("You have won, Galilean"), a sardonic final scoff at Christianity.

These nuggets may offer some clues as to what the Rose audience saw on this day. But the play's premiere was a disappointment. Although it received the biggest audience since the Rose re-opened a fortnight ago, it was still unimpressive compared to the norm for a premiere.

FURTHER READING

Julian the Apostate information

• Meredith Hanmer, trans., The Ancient Ecclesiastical Histories of the First Six Hundred Years After Christ (1577), 305-12.
• Martin Wiggins, British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue, vol. 3 (Oxford University Press, 2013), entry 1035.
• David McInnis, "Julian the Apostate", Lost Plays Database (2015), accessed 4 April, 2020. 

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?

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