30-643: The Beargarden was a facility for bear-baiting , bull-baiting , and other " animal sports " in the London area during the 16th and 17th centuries, from the Elizabethan era to the English Restoration period. Baiting is a blood sport where an animal is tormented or attacked by another animal, often dogs, for the purpose of entertainment or gambling . Samuel Pepys visited the venue in 1666 and described it as "a rude and nasty pleasure". The last recorded event at
60-479: A bull tossing a dog into a spectators' box. Others mention the bulls tossing dogs into the air and then catching the falling dogs on their horns again. On a few rare occasions (in 1604 and 1605, and in 1609 and 1610), lions were baited. The shows at the Beargarden had surprising aspects; according to contemporary accounts, music and fireworks were used, and special effects were employed. German tourist Lupold von Wedel
90-623: The Cockpit Theatre in 1619, and the Hope was thereafter used for bear and bull baiting, prizefighting , fencing contests, and similar entertainments. The Corporation of London outlawed both play-acting and bear-baiting at the start of the English Civil War in 1642. Animal sports were suppressed by the Puritan regime in 1656. The last seven surviving bears were shot to death by a company of soldiers;
120-582: The "Paris Garden", stood out in the public mind. In 1578, William Fleetwood, "Sergeant-in-law" and Recorder of London, described it as a place where foreign ambassadors met their spies and agents; at night it was so dark and obscured by trees that a man needed "cat's eyes" to see. Ambassadors and travellers were often shown the Beargarden; The prominent French nobleman the Duke of Biron was escorted there by Sir Walter Raleigh on September 7, 1601. On Sunday, January 13, 1583, eight people were killed and others injured when
150-509: The Beargarden was the baiting of "a fine but vicious horse" in 1682. The Beargarden was constructed as a round or polygonal open structure, comparable to the public theatres built in and around London starting in 1576. Contemporaneous illustrated maps of the city show a substantial three-storey building that resembles the theatres nearby. It was located in the Bankside , across from the City of London on
180-504: The Beargarden's construction is unknown; it was in existence by the 1560s, when it is shown on the "woodcut" map of the city. Questions of the Beargarden's location and date are complicated by the fact that animal sports were conducted at more than one place in Southwark in this era; the Agas map shows both a bull-baiting and a bear-baiting ring, situated near each other (bulls to the west, bears to
210-619: The Dulwich College Lower School in the 1850s to Alleyn's School in 1887, and remains active to this day, run without any parental or scholastic support, regularly producing household names in the theatre. The intention of theatre as a medium for the young was further promoted by the secondment of the School's Head of English, Michael Croft, in the late 1950s to establish the National Youth Theatre. Although many members were from
240-508: The Globe did not. Because Henslowe's original contract with Katherens survives, we know something about the specifics of the construction of the Hope, more so than for other theatres of the period. The contract states that the Hope must be built according to the pattern of the Swan, with two staircases on the outside, and the "heavens" built over the stage, without posts or supports on the stage to disrupt
270-451: The Hope as being "as dirty as Smithfield and stinking every whit" — Smithfield being the district of London dominated by the livestock market and slaughterhouses. On Henslowe's death in 1616, his son-in-law Edward Alleyn inherited Henslowe's share in the Hope, which Alleyn then leased to Meade. The Hope remained an active facility for the coming decades. In its early years the Hope was used more for playing than animal baiting —
300-469: The Hope was generally called the Beargarden after its primary use. Samuel Pepys , in an entry in his famous Diary, describes a visit he and his wife paid to the Hope/Beargarden on August 14, 1666. (He called the spectacle "a rude and nasty pleasure".) Surviving descriptions of the entertainment offered at the Beargarden have an extraordinary ring to a modern ear and sensibility. The crowds were amused at
330-765: The Paris garden." Late-16th-century sources, however – the Speculum Britanniae map of 1593, and the Civitas Londini map of 1600 – show the Beargarden farther to the east, in the liberty of the Clink, where it sits on the northwestern side of the Rose Theatre . The building could have been moved from its original location, much as The Theatre was moved and rebuilt into the Globe Theatre in 1598–99. The date of
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#1732858546434360-465: The School, their outreach achieved the target of opening the theatre to many of less advantaged backgrounds, and a worldwide movement resulted. Another Beargarden was located in Hockley-in-the-Hole at Clerkenwell Green in central London where bull-baiting , bear-baiting and similar activities occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries . During Queen Anne's time, this Beargarden rivalled
390-651: The Southwark Beargarden of the Elizabethan era . 51°30′30″N 0°5′44″W / 51.50833°N 0.09556°W / 51.50833; -0.09556 Bear-baiting Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.132 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 389979733 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Fri, 29 Nov 2024 05:35:46 GMT Hope Theatre The Hope Theatre
420-534: The amusement of the Moroccan ambassador... and for as many as would pay to see it." The horse reportedly had killed several men and other horses. It survived and beat off the dogs; to please the clamoring crowd, the horse was stabbed to death with a sword. Nowadays, by contrast, the term "Bear Garden" is employed by a retailer of teddy bears and stuffed animals. However, the Bear Pit is not entirely forgotten: Alleyn bought
450-517: The audience's view — a somewhat different concept from current ideas about the theatres of the period. (The Hope's stage had to be removable, to make room for the "Beares and Bulls.") The Hope was completed and opened to the public in October 1614. On 31 October, Ben Jonson 's Bartholomew Fair was acted in the Hope by the Lady Elizabeth's Men . In the printed text of his play, Jonson describes
480-496: The days devoted to dramas outnumbered those devoted to animal sports by three to one. Lady Elizabeth's Men were joined by Prince Charles's Men around 1615; when the Lady Elizabeth's company left to tour the provinces in 1616, Prince's Charles's Men remained for another three years. Yet the mix of the two activities was never easy, and the actors grew more unhappy with the arrangements at the Hope as time went on. The actors left for
510-568: The dogs and the cocks kept there were also killed. (The Commonwealth commander Thomas Pride was responsible for this action; in 1680 – 24 years after the bears' deaths, and 22 years after Pride's — an anonymous satirist composed Pride's confessional Last Speech...being touched in Conscience for his inhuman Murder of the Bears in the Beargarden .) By one (questionable) account, the Hope Theatre
540-568: The east). John Taylor the Water Poet , testifying in the Court of Exchequer in 1620 or 1621, said that "the game of bear-baiting hath been kept in four several [i.e. separate] places, at Mason Stairs on the Bankside, near Maid Lane by the corner of Pike Garden, at the beargarden which was parcel of the possession of William Payne, and at the place where they now are kept." Yet one main bear-baiting facility,
570-403: The extant documentary record.) Construction was slow, taking over a year. The Hope may have been delayed because the Globe was being rebuilt at the same time — it had burned down on 29 June 1613 — and two such large jobs, done simultaneously, may have taxed the personnel and resources of the "construction industry" of Southwark, such as it was at the time. (The Hope was located just to
600-471: The legal bounds of the City of London . Henslowe had had a financial interest in the Beargarden (the ring for bear-baiting and similar "animal sports") since 1594; on 29 August 1613 he contracted with the carpenter Gilbert Katherens to tear down the Beargarden, and to build a theatre in its place, for a fee of £360. (After the Hope was built, it was often still called the "Beargarden" in common parlance and in
630-408: The manor of Dulwich in 1605 and in the course of establishing his tenure, implemented a requirement of Sir Francis Bacon's Star Chamber to establish a charitable school "for 12 poor children of the parish of Camberwell" – who appear in practice to have often been the players of the female parts at the Globe. Their own sub-company, named the Bear Pit, continued in the original School, which passed through
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#1732858546434660-460: The northwest of the Globe, so that the two projects could have competed directly for men and material.) Also, the Hope was likely a more complex construction job, since it was designed as a dual-purpose facility from the start. The contract calls for a: John Stow records that stage plays were mounted on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, with bear baiting on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Hope would have required facilities for keeping animals;
690-524: The practice of animal baiting along with their other business of theatre production. Henslowe bought out Alleyn's share in 1611, for £580 (though Alleyn re-acquired his share upon Henslowe's 1616 death). In 1613, Henslowe and new partner Jacob Meade tore down the Beargarden, and in 1614 replaced it with the Hope Theatre . The Hope was equipped as a dual-purpose venue, hosting both stage plays and animal sports. Gradually, though, fewer plays were staged there, and
720-490: The reign of Richard III . In 1573 a Ralph Bowes was appointed Queen Elizabeth 's "Master of Her Majesty's Game at Paris Garden". ( Elizabeth herself, like other royals and aristocrats of her era, was a passionate fan of animal baiting.) In 1604, Philip Henslowe (who had a financial interest in bear-baiting at least from 1594) and his son-in-law Edward Alleyn purchased the royal office of the Mastership for £450, and maintained
750-423: The scaffold seating in the Beargarden collapsed under their weight. Puritan commentators, hostile to animal baiting as they were to other sports and pastimes (like play-going), attributed the accident to God's displeasure. The Beargarden closed for a time, but reopened a few months later. The English monarchy had had an official "bearward", an officer in charge of its "bears, bulls, and mastiff dogs", at least from
780-584: The south bank of the River Thames in Southwark ; but its exact location is unclear, and apparently changed over time. Documentary sources from the middle 16th century refer to the bear-baiting rink as being in Paris Garden, the liberty at the western end of the Bankside. The names of the facility and its location were merged in popular usage: John Stow , writing in 1583, calls it "The Beare-garden, commonly called
810-432: The whipping of the old blind bear "Harry Hunks" until the blood ran down his shoulders. (At least some bears – perhaps the fiercest, longest-enduring ones – were given names: "George Stone", "Ned Whiting", and the most famous, " Sackerson ".) There are extant descriptions of horses with apes tied to their backs set upon by dogs. An early account, from the visiting Duke of Najera in 1544, mentions Pepys describes
840-514: Was "pulled down to make tenements, by Thomas Walker, a petticoat maker in Canon Street," on Tuesday, 25 March 1656. Yet the practice of animal sports resumed at the Restoration in 1660; if the Hope had been torn down, a replacement facility was soon established. The Diary of Samuel Pepys records a visit Pepys and his wife made to the Beargarden on 14 August 1666. The last word of animal sports at
870-430: Was at the Beargarden on August 23, 1584; he left a description that cites the usual and expected baiting of bulls and bears, and a horse chased by the dogs, plus people dancing, and a man who threw white bread to the crowd (they "scrambled for it"). And then, The last recorded instance of animal baiting at the Hope/Beargarden occurred on April 12, 1682, when "a fine but vicious horse was advertised to be baited to death for
900-637: Was one of the theatres built in and around London for the presentation of plays in English Renaissance theatre , comparable to the Globe , the Curtain , the Swan , and other famous theatres of the era. The Hope was built in 1613–14 by Philip Henslowe and a partner, Jacob Meade, on the site of the old Beargarden on the Bankside in Southwark , on the south side of the River Thames — at that time, outside
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