London's four Inns of Court (Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, and the Inner and the Middle Temple) served, probably from the fourteenth century, as nurseries not only of common law and lawyers, but of the social arts of music and dancing, and of the mimetic arts of comedy, tragedy, and the masque. Their denizens composed and acted in their own plays, especially in the 1560s under Elizabeth I, and performed in masques composed by professional playwrights in the Jacobean period. This three-volume edition of dramatic records surviving from the Inns of Court collection includes material from manuscripts and printed books from the archives and libraries of all four Inns, as well as from The National Archives, the British Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library and other repositories, covering over 200 years from 1407 to the closing of the theatres in 1642. Of particular note are account entries from the beginning of the seventeenth century which situate performances of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors (1594) and Twelfth Night (1602) in the context of annual visits to the Inns of Court by professional playing companies, such as (after 1603) the king's men. The Introduction provides a survey of Christmas entertainment supervised by Inns of Court Masters of the Revels and Christmas Princes, including minstrels, a lion-tamer, musicians, disguisings, plays, masques, and even a puppet-show. The illustrations (ground-plans and plates) offer evidence of the original performance conditions for Inns of Court plays and masques. Alan H. Nelson is Professor of English Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley; the late John R. Elliott Jr was Professor of English at Syracuse University. Table of Contents Volume 1 Introduction Select Bibliography Maps The Records Volume 2 Appendix 1: Christmas Prince Revels Appendix 2: Masque Texts Appendix 3: Speeches and Barriers Appendix 4: Eyewitness Accounts Appendix 5: Royal and Civic Records Appendix 6: Bibliography of Inns of Court Entertainment Appendix 7: Cast Lists Appendix 8: Chronological List of Inns of Court Performances Appendix 9: Inner Temple Instructions for the Master of the Revels Appendix 10: William Prynne's Discourse against Revels Appendix 11: Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales Appendix 12: Bacon's Essay on Masques and Triumphs Appendix 13: Music and Dance at the Inns of Court Appendix 14: Inns of Court Gentlemen as Playgoers Appendix 15: Inns of Court Playwrights Appendix 16: Saints' Days and Festivals Volume 3 Translations Endnotes Glossaries Indexes