The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 25.483 Monday, 8 December 2014
From: Peter H Greenfield <
Date: December 6, 2014 at 11:31:19 AM EST
Subject: New REED Prepublication Website
Records of Early English Drama would like to announce a new outlet for its work, The Records of Early English Drama Pre-Publication Collections website, at www.reedprepub.org. This website makes the work of individual field editors available to scholars and students in draft form, in advance of their official publication as part of a fully searchable, online Records of Early English Drama database that is currently in development. For now, these materials are presented in a form resembling that found in the printed REED volumes. The transcribed records have not yet received editorial attention from REED’s staff paleographers and Latinists, nor have the notes and other editorial apparatus been checked for completeness and accuracy.
Although none of the records so far posted on the site deal directly with Shakespeare, there is a good deal of evidence about touring minstrels and players in records of Southampton, Winchester and Winchester College from the late fourteenth century to the seventeenth. E.g., Southampton copied into its own records several of the licenses from the Master of the Revels presented by visiting companies, some of which aren't known from other sources. The college records also tell of the boys' own dramatic efforts. Other highlights of the website so far include the extensive records of the parish of St Laurence, Reading, including biblical plays and Robin Hood games. Several smaller Hampshire parishes offer records of kingales and other festive customs, and of the efforts to suppress those activities by civic and ecclesiastical authorities. We will be adding records from other parts of England—and Scotland as well—over the coming months.
We encourage interested scholars to make use of these materials, with the understanding that they represent the work of the individual editors and are works in progress that will be checked by the REED editorial team before final publication. We also urge users to contact us with comments, suggestions or corrections that the editors may find helpful in preparing the final versions of their work.