Albion Knight

Anon. (c.1565)


Historical Records

Stationers' Register

22 July 1565--22 July 1566 (S.R. I, 1.295)

colwell Recevyd of Thomas Colwell for his lycence for prynting of a
play intituled a merye playe bothe pytthy and pleasaunt of
ALBYON knyghte . . . . . . . . Iiijd



Print fragment

A 6-leaf fragment comprising leaves B1, B4, and C1-4 survives at the Huntington Library:

Anon., [A mery playe bothe pytthy and pleasaunt of albyon knyghte], [London: Printed by Thomas Colwell, 1566], RB 60584.

(Reproduced by permission of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.)

RB60584 pBir - thumb.jpg RB60584 pBiv - thumb.jpg
sig. B1r
(Click here for transcription)
sig. B1v
(Click here for transcription)


RB60584 pBiv r - thumb.jpg RB60584 pBiv v - thumb.jpg
sig. [B4]r
(Click here for transcription)
sig. [B4]v
(Click here for transcription)


RB60584 pC1r thumb.jpg RB60584 pC1v thumb.jpg
sig. C1r
(Click here for transcription)
sig. C1v
(Click here for transcription)


RB60584 pC2r thumb.jpg RB60584 pC2v thumb.jpg
sig. C2r
(Click here for transcription)
sig. C2v
(Click here for transcription)


RB60584 pC3r thumb.jpg RB60584 pC3v thumb.jpg
sig. C3r
(Click here for transcription)
sig. C3v
(Click here for transcription)


RB60584 pC4r thumb.jpg RB60584 pC4v thumb.jpg
sig. C4r
(Click here for transcription)
sig. C4v
(Click here for transcription)




Theatrical Provenance

Unknown.


Probable Genre(s)

Moral Interlude (Harbage); Moral (Wiggins).


Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

See Wiggins 408 for a summary of the fragment's action.


References to the Play

(Information welcome)


Critical Commentary

Wiggins (408) dates the play to 1565, the year he suggests it was printed (given the SR entry), but provides limits of 1537-8, 1559-65.

Harbage dates the play much earlier, to 1537, though provides generous limits of c.1537-1566.

Greg (229), in his MSC edition (1910), associated this play with the entries in Archer's List (see the specific page here) and Kirkman's list of publications (A true, perfect, and exact catalogue of all the comedies, tragedies, tragi-comedies, pastorals, masques and interludes, that were ever yet printed and published, till this present year 1661). He further reports that although Collier was the first to record the existence of this print fragment (reprinting it in 1840), his suggestion that it had been used as wastepaper in a binding was not certain: "This may be so, though the leaves bear no sign of having ever formed part of a binding" (228).


For What It's Worth

(Information welcome)


Works Cited

Anon., [A mery playe bothe pytthy and pleasaunt of albyon knyghte], [London: Printed by Thomas Colwell, 1566], RB 60584.
Greg, W. W. Malone Society Collections 1.3 (Oxford, 1910 for 1909), 229-42.




Site created and maintained by David McInnis, University of Melbourne; updated 29 February 2016.