The Wells Cordwainers Show: New Evidence Concerning Guild Entertainments in Somerset

The Wells Cordwainers Show: New Evidence Concerning Guild Entertainments in Somerset James Stokes Very little information survives concerning craft guild enter­ tainments in Somerset. The records of the guilds themselves seem to have disappeared, and few references occur in other civic records. One of the substantial pieces of evidence is the well-known list, in a Wells Corporation Acts Book, describing six guild shows staged for the Queen on 20 August 1613 during her visit to Wells (see transcription in the Appendix to this paper).l According to that list, the masters and wardens of six Wells companies representing fifteen local occupations prepared shows which included presentations of their respective company arms, several morris dances, and a variety of pageants. While the brief descriptions survey the broad features of the shows, they provide few details concerning the entertainments— the number of actors, the staging, the content, the nature of the presentations themselves. In the absence of further evidence, the list of shows is cryptic at best. Fortunately, a series of original guild accounts prepared by the Wells Cordwainers, one of the six companies who staged the shows in 1613, has come to light at the Somerset Record Office.2 The accounts, which encompass the period from 1606 through 1720, contain several references to the Cordwainers’ show for the Queen.3 Thus they provide clarifying details concerning not only some features of one of the shows on the list but also what may be the only contemporary guild descrip­ tion by the participants themselves of a guild performance held JAMES STOKES is Assistant Professor of English at the University of WisconsinStevens Point. He is editor of a volume-in-preparation, The Dramatic Records of Somerset, for the Records of Early English Drama. 332 James Stokes 333 in Somerset. The accounts additionally contain information concerning the organization and practices of Somerset craft guilds in the early seventeenth century. In these several respects, they provide a much needed contribution to our understanding of guild entertainments in Somerset. According to the list in the Corporation Acts Book, the Cordwainers were: The Ffowerth companie The Cordyners who presented St. Crispian and [sic] both of them sonnes to a kinge and the youngest a shoemaker who married his Masters daughter they allsoe presented a morrice daunce and a Streamer with their armes.4 While this summary identifies three elements—a morris dance, a streamer and arms, and a presentation involving St. Crispin and St. Crispianus, the patron saints of their company—it tells little else about the nature of the show.5 The Cordwainers’ accounts add a number of helpful details, beginning with the costs of the show. The first entries relevant to the entertainments occurred at the company’s annual account­ ing on St. Crispin’s Day, 25 October 1613, two months after the Queen’s visit. Outgoing master John Crese reported expenses of vjh js jd for an “Item layd out when her maiestie Came to wells as by to severell billes it dothe a pere. . . .”6 The incoming master, John Eddicott, reported an additional 5s. “payd to John Crese towardes his Charges when the quenes maiesties Came to wells”7 and an Item dealivered to phillipp stille in mony ijs iiijd.8 The combined expenses of £6 8i. 5d., though relatively modest compared to what might have been spent by a wealthy company, were the largest ever recorded in the Cordwainer accounts and depleted nearly all the company’s current funds. Only lOy. 10d. remained in the accounts when Crese declared his account in October 1613.9 All other references to the show occur as a narrative section of the subsequent account which was made 25 October 1614. The scribe began by reporting that the company had Reseaued more in goods that our master John bukstone hathe in his kustody The wiche was boughte to make the shoue for the master shoumakers againste the queans [ane] Cumminge to wells wiche was shouen before queane ane the twentye day of auguste 1613 of our kings Raine. . . .10 334 Comparative Drama Apparently, the “severell billes” and “charges” were primarily for this new playing gear. Bukstone (Buxton) was elected master on 25 October 1614. One of...