Friar Spendleton

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Historical Records

Playists in Philip Henslowe's diary

Fol. 27^v (Greg, I, p. 54)

octobʒ
		|31|		. . . ne ..		tt at fryer spendelton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		02|00|00 — 014 — 00
novembʒ 1597
		|5|				tt at fryer spendelton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .		00|14|01 — 14 — 01

Inventories

Philip Henslowe's papers in the Dulwich College Library

List of playbooks

Greg, Papers (APX. I, art. 1, p. 121. l. 192)

Under the heading “A Note of all suche bookes as belong to the Stocke, and such as I have bought since the 3d of Marche 1598:

Frier Pendelton.

Theatrical Provenance

Henslowe recorded the maiden performance of "Friar Spendleton" at the Rose playhouse in the same month that he noted in the margin of his playlist that the Admiral's men and Pembroke's men had begun to play at his house. It therefore appears to be the first new repertory item performed by the merged company.

Probable Genre(s)

Comedy (Harbage)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

Information welcome.

References to the Play

None known.

Critical Commentary

Malone lists "Friar Spendleton" but makes no comment on it. Collier adds a note to the initial entry of "Friar Spendleton" in which he identifies lines from a ballad as evidence that the play was popular: "Friar Spendleton, the play,/Carried it away." He claims to have found this snippet in an undated Elizabethan publication by E. Allde entitled "Medley Ballad" (p. 91).

Greg, II cites Collier's notation of the "Spendleton" ballad, adding that he himself was unable to locate this contemporary resource (#114, p. 187). Freeman and Freeman make no mention of "Medley Ballad," the "Spendleton" citation, or Collier's note of it, thus allowing the assumption that Collier did not invent this ballad source.

Wiggins, Catalogue #1084) conjectures from Henslowe's inventory of friars' gowns in March 1598 that the apparently hoodless "freyers gowne of graye" Greg, Papers, ( APX. I. 1. 121, l. 182) might belong to Friar Spendleton and might thus identify him as a Franciscan (#1084).

For What It's Worth

Information welcome.

Works Cited

Freeman, Arthur & Janet Ing Freeman. John Payne Collier: Scholarship and Forgery in the Nineteenth Century. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

Site created and maintained by Christopher Matusiak, updated 7 March 2011. Updated by Roslyn L. Knutson, 5 July and October 11, 2019.