Mahomet

Anon.? (>1594)
George Peele? (>1594)

Historical Records

Performance Records

Playlists in Philip Henslowe's diary

Fol. 9^v (Greg I, 18)

y^e 14 of aguste 1594

. . . . . . .

Res at mahomet

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iij^li v^s

Fol. 10 (Greg I, 19)

y^e 27 of aguste 1594	. . . . . .	Res at mahemet	. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxx^s
y^e 9 of septmbʒ 1594	. . . . . .	Res at mahemett	. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxv^s
y^e 21 of septmbʒ 1594	. . . . . .	Res at mahemett	. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxviij^s
y^e 14 of octobʒ 1594	. . . . . .	Res at mahemett	. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvj^s

Fol. 10^v (Greg I, 20)

y^e 6 of novembʒ 1594	. . . . . .	Res at mahemette	. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv^s
y^e 4 of desembʒ 1594	. . . . . .	Res at mahemet	. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xj^s

Fol. 11 (Greg I, 21)

y^e 5 of febreary 1594

. . . . . .

Res at mahemett

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvj^s

Payments

Miscellaneous expenses in Philip Henslowe's diary

F. 92/ Greg I, 145

Layd owt at the a poyntment of the

company the 2 of aguste 1601 for a parell

for mahewmet the some of . . . . . . . . . . x^s iiij^d

pd at the a poyntment of the company

for mackynge of divers thinges for mahewmett

vnto dover the tayller . . . . . . . . . . xij^s

pd [vn]at the apoyntment of the company

vnto w^m whitte for mackynge of crownees

& other thinges for mahewmet the 4 of

agust 1601 the some of . . . . . . . . . . l^s

Purchase of the play from Edward Alleyn in Philip Henslowe's diary

F. 93/ Greg I, 147

pd vnto edward alleyn at the a poymtment

of the company the 22 of aguste 1601 for the

Boocke of mahemett the some of . . . . . . . . . . xxxx^s

Inventories

Philip Henslowe's papers

Under Henslowe's title, "The Enventary tacken of all the properties for my Lord Admeralles men, the 10 of Marche 1598" is the following Greg, Papers 116:

Item, j wooden canepie; owld Mahemetes head.

Theatrical Provenance

"Mahomet" was performed at the Rose playhouse by the Admiral's men, 14 August 1594 to 5 February 1595. It is not marked "ne." It was apparently revived in 1601, perhaps as part of the revival of Edward Alleyn's star roles at the opening of the Fortune playhouse.

Probable Genre(s)

Romantic Tragedy? Heroical Romance?

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

If "Mahomet" is a discrete play, now lost

Its sources are unidentified.

If "Mahomet" is "The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek"

In The Palace of Pleasure (1566), William Painter appropriates the story of "Hyrenee the faier Greke" from Matteo Bandello's Novelle, Book I, #10. Painter prefaces the narration with this blurb: "Mahomet one of the Turkishe Emperours executeth curssed crueltie vpon a Greke maiden whom he toke prisoner, at the winning of Constantinople" (EEBO, Project Gutenberg). Richard Knolles published The Generall History of the Turkes in 1603, too late to be literally a source for Peele, but the story is obviously not new with Knolles, and some details of his telling might have been "in the air," so to speak, for Peele's use. William Barksted's poem, "Hiren: or, the Fair Greek," 1611, is even later, but Barksted's history as a player locates him in the theatrical community and thereby lends his account special interest in regard to the lost play (Project Gutenberg).

See "The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek" for an extended discussion of the story in these sources.

If "Mahomet" is The Battle of Alcazar

If "Mahomet" is Henslowe's name for The Battle of Alcazar, it is not a lost play. The definitive summary of sources for the extant play is in The Dramatic Works of George Peele, vol. 2; John Yoklavich, editor of The Battle of Alcazar, provides both a discussion of the sources (pp. 227-79) and a "Special Bibliography" of accounts of the historical battle (369-73). In The Stukeley Plays Charles Edelman discusses the sources also (pp. 10-16). However, Edelman does not identify "Mahomet" as The Battle of Alcazar but as the lost "Muly Molocco" in the repertory of Strange's men at the Rose, 1592-3 (p. 23).

References to the Play

If "Mahomet" is a discrete play, now lost

No specific references to it are known.

If "Mahomet" is "The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek"

See "The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek" for theatrical allusions to Peele's lost play.

If "Mahomet" is The Battle of Alcazar

The following plays allude to The Battle of Alcazar by way of Calipolis, the wife of Muly Mahamet, the villainous Moor: 2 Henry IV, William Shakespeare; Satiromastix, Thomas Dekker; What You Will, John Marston; and Poetaster, Ben Jonson. Shakespeare's Pistol alludes to Calipolis and Hiren in the same context (II.iv.156, 175); in Dekker's play, the same character (Tucca) alludes to Calipolis and Hiren, but in separate contexts (IV.1.150, IV.iii.243-4).

Critical Commentary

"Mahomet" as "The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek"

Scholarly tradition has inclined to identify "Mahomet" as Peele's lost play. That tradition includes Malone (p. 295, n.1), Collier (p. 39, n.2), A. H. Bullen (I.xxxvii), and Fleay, BCED (2.153 #5). Greg II (#50, p. 167) hesitates, suggesting it "equally possible" that "Mahomet" was the play behind the reference to "Mahomet's Pow" in Peele's poem, "A Farewell" (1589), which had previously been linked to Robert Greene's Alphonsus King of Aragon. Chambers, ES (3.462) condenses vague suggestions by Greg and adds two other lost plays in the Admiral's repertory—"Grecian Comedy" and "The Love of a Grecian Lady" (1594-5)—as possible evidence of Peele's lost play. Samuel Chew considers and rejects the identification of "The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek" with Greene's Alphonsus and the two lost Grecian comedies. He opines that Peele's lost play was the best match with Henslowe's "Mahomet" (pp. 484-5).

"Mahomet" as The Battle of Alcazar

W. W. Greg in 1923 offers the identification of "Mahomet" as The Battle of Alcazar (p. 12), and in so doing, he casts doubt on the long-standing identification of "Muly Molocco" (Strange's men, 1592) with The Battle of Alcazar. Yoklavich considers but does not choose Greg's suggestion of "Mahomet" for The Battle of Alcazar (2.223). Andrew Gurr revives the identification by interjecting The Battle of Alcazar into the repertorial list of the Admiral's men and noting that "[j]ust possibly it is the same play as the one revived in August 1594 under the name Mahomet" (p.252, n.111). However, he treats "Mahomet" in its own entry "rather reluctantly ... as a separate play" from The Battle of Alcazar (p. 206, n.16).

Wiggins, Catalogue, #812, sorely tempted to identify The Battle of Alcazar with "Mahomet," argues for a date of 1601 for the revival to which the plot belongs. Wiggins discusses the problems of dating that revival in further detail in a 2002 essay (see Works Cited below); in that discussion, he disconstructs W. W. Greg's argument that the revival belongs to 1598-9. In that same article, Wiggins revisits the assignment of properties in Philip Henslowe's inventories to "Mahomet."

Hirrel argues for "Mahomet" as Alcazar. In his opinion, the Alcazar quarto’s titlepage boast—"As it was sundrie times plaid by the Lord high Admirall his servants"—must refer to recent performances. He notes that the 1594 date on Q could refer to a date as late as 24 March 1595 in New Style dating (the Stationers’ Company was in the practice of recording Old Style dates for their operating calendar). At the lower limit of the date range, he observes that the Admiral’s were "reorganized in May 1594" (p. 6). He argues that during this period, "Henslowe was recording every play the Lord Admiral’s performed in London" (p. 7), hence by implication, Alcazar must be lurking somewhere in the diary under another name during this period. His preferred candidate for Alcazar’s pseudonym is "Mahomet": "The company performed ‘Mahomet’ eight times from August 1594 to February 1595. Those dates fall within the range suggested by the 1594 quarto’s title page" (p. 7).

"Mahomet" as neither

Yoklavich, by not identifying The Battle of Alcazar with any lost plays including "Mahomet," "Muly Molocco," and "The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek," comes close by default to suggesting that "Mahomet" is not identifiable with any plays now known, extant or lost.

For What It's Worth

An advantage of considering "Mahomet" as a play discrete from Peele's extant one is that the property of old Mahomet's head could belong to this play; if so, then the play had an "old" Mahomet who was either beheaded or had a very fancy head-dress. In Chronicle History (p. 114), Fleay assigns not only the Mahomet head to this play but also the four gowns for Janissaries. Greg repeats both assignments, identifying at the same time "Mahomet" with Peele's lost "Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek" ("owld Mahemetes head" Papers, APX. I., art. 1, p. 114, l. 65; "iiij genesareyes gownes" Papers, APX. I., art. 1, p. 114, l. 18)

Works Cited

Bullen, A. H. ed. The Works of George Peele. 2 vols. London: John C. Nimmo, 1888.

Chew, Samuel. The Crescent and the Rose. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937.

Fleay, Frederick Gard. A Chronicle History of the London Stage 1559-1642. 1890. New York: Burt Franklin, 1964.

Greg, W. W. Two Elizabethan Stage Abridgements: The Battle of Alcazar & Orlando Furioso. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923.

Gurr, Andrew. Shakespeare's Opposites:The Admiral's Company 1594-1625. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Hirrel, Michael J. "Alcazar, The Lord Admiral's, and Aspects of Performance." Review of English Studies Advance Access published 22 Aug 2014. doi: 10.1093/res/hgu067.

Knolles, Richard. A Generall Historie of the Turkes. London 1603. EEBO

Painter, William. The Palace of Pleasure. 1566. (vol. 1, #40, fols. 107v-112). EEBO

Wiggins, Martin. "A Choice of Impossible Things: Dating the Revival of The Battle of Alcazar." Shakespeare & Ses Contemporains. ed. Patricia Dorval. 2002. 185-202.

Yoklavich, John, ed. The Battle of Alcazar. in The Dramatic Works of George Peele, vol. 2. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961.

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; 4 March 2011. Updated David McInnis, 27 Nov 2014.