Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 1).pdf/81



coronations and funerals. These are appended to the special Accounts of the Masters of the Wardrobe for such ceremonies, and copies, covering inter alia the coronation (1559) and funeral (1603) of Elizabeth, the coronation (1604) and funeral (1625) of James, the funeral (1612) of Henry, and the funeral (1619) of Anne, are preserved as precedents in ''Lord Chamberlain's Records'', ii. 4-6. On the other hand, it is necessary to exercise caution in using the very numerous lists which bear some such title as 'A Generall Collection of all the Offices in England with their Fees in her Maiesties Gift'. Of these I have noted the following: Stowe MS. 571, f. 6 (1552); ''Harl. MS. 240 (1545-53); Stowe MS.'' 571, f. 133 (1575-80); Stowe MS. 571, f. 159 (1587-90); ''Lansd. MS.'' 171, f. 246^v (1587-91); Cotton MS., Titus B iii, f. 163^v (1585-93); S. P. D., Eliz. ccxxi (1588-93); Lord Chamberlain's Records, v. 33 (1593); ''Hargrave MS. 215 (1592-5); Stowe MS. 572, f. 26 (1592-6); Harl. MS.'' 2078, f. 6 (1592-6); H. O. 241 (misdated 1578) from Peck, i. 51 (1598); ''Addl. MS.'' 35848 (1605-7); ''Addl. MS. 38008 (1605-7); Archaeologia'', xv. 72 (1606); Stowe MS. 574 (temp. Jac. I); Stowe MS. 575 (1616). The dates are mostly approximate, rendered possible by the fact that the occupants of a few of the chief posts are usually named. The list of 1552 alone has all the names and is in the full sense an Establishment List. The rest should probably be regarded not as official lists but as convenient handbooks prepared for courtiers seeking patronage. Errors of transcription are frequent, and often recur in several manuscripts. Stowe MS. 574 is interesting, because a second hand has corrected several errors. It seems pretty clear that the names of offices were sometimes retained on these lists after the offices were in fact obsolete. They are not limited to Household Offices, but are usually arranged in four sections, Courts of Justice, Household (1, Household proper, 2, Standing offices; cf. p. 49), Military Posts, Keeperships (cf. p. 11). They include fees payable in the household, as well as at the Exchequer; and have prototypes, in less fixed form, in lists temp. Hen. VIII (Brewer, ii. 873; iii. 364; iv. 868). A more careful list, of somewhat similar type, with names appended, but limited to fees payable at the Exchequer, is to be found in the abstract of revenue and expenditure in 1617 printed with the pamphlet ''Truth Brought to Light and Discovered by Time (1651, cited as Abstract'').

But there are no comprehensive ordinances for the Tudor-Stuart Household, which must largely be studied from its origins. The best text of the Constitutio Domus Regis of Henry I (c. 1135) is in T. Hearne, ''Liber Niger Scaccarii^2 (1774), i. 341; a less good one in H. Hall, The Red Book of the Exchequer'' (1896, Rolls Series), iii. 807. For Edward I we have unprinted ordinances of 1279 (Addl. MS. 4565 H; Lord Steward's Misc. 298), and the description of the palace jurisdictions by a contemporary lawyer (c. 1290) in John Selden's edition of ''Fleta, seu Commentarius Juris Anglicani'' (1685); for Edward II ordinances of 1318 and 1323 edited from the French original in Tout, 267, and from a translation by Francis Tate (1601) in Life Records of Chaucer, ii. 1, together with related Exchequer ordinances in Hall, iii. 908, 930. Ordinances of Edward III, not known to be extant, are referred to by the compiler of the ''Liber Niger Domus Regis Angliae'' in the reign of Edward IV. Of the Liber Niger a large number of manuscripts exist (Lord Steward's Misc. 299; Exchequer T. of R. Misc. 230; Harl. MSS. 293, f. 19; 298, f. 41; 369, f. 56^v; 610, f. 1; 642, f. 196^v; Soc. Antiq. MS.). It is not certain from which of these the bad text in H. O. 13 is printed; probably it used the last two. The Liber Niger is less an ordinance than an unfinished literary treatise by a household clerk, probably motived by the actual ordinances of 1478, of which an unprinted copy is in Exchequer T. of R. Misc. 206. An