The Jacobean Theater through the Eyes of Catholic Clerics

Abstract

'9 AdISTORIANS of the drama are familiar with the controversy regarding the lawfulness of playgoing that was conducted in Paris in i694 between Father Francis Caffero, a priest of the Theatine order, and Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux. Father Caffero argued that plays are lawful diversions, provided that certain restrictions are observed. To refute him Bossuet wrote his Maximes et Reflexions sur la Cone'die, in which he takes the rigoristic stand that playgoing is dangerous to morals and should be prohibited. During the early years of the same century a similar controversy between Catholic clerics was waged in Jacobean London, a controversy which has come down to us in a manuscript.1 In I94i Dr. Harbage drew attention to this manuscript. The manuscript consists of three documents: the prohibition, dated March 9, i6i7/i8, and signed by William Harrison, Archpriest of England, wherein the secular priests under his jurisdiction are forbidden to attend plays acted by common players upon common stages, under penalty of losing the use of their sacerdotal faculties; the protest against the prohibition, dated April 25, i6i8, and signed by Thomas Leke, a secular priest of London; and the rejoinder to this protest, undated and unsigned, but evidently the work of John Colleton, assistant to the archpriest, who published the prohibition. The three principals to the controversy were clerics who had labored for many years in the mission field of England. William Harrison was the third and last. archpriest of England. After the death of Cardinal Allen, in I594, English Catholics were left without an ecclesiastical leader and superior. In I598 Rome appointed an archpriest over the secular clergy, with a council of twelve assistant priests. In i6I5 Father Harrison was created archpriest by Pope Paul V, an office which he held until his death in i62i. An antient Preist is the term most often used in the rejoinder to describe Father Thomas Leke. In 1595 he reported the trial of Father Robert Southwell, which he had witnessed on February 20. At the time of the controversy he and a number of other priests were in prison, whence they went to the theaters. This fact furnished Father Colleton with an opportunity to embellish his accusation with