The Will of Simon Jewell and the Queen’s Men Tours in 1592

Abstract

The will of Simon Jewell, a player of the Queen’s Men who died in August 1592, was first discovered in 1974. The will, filled with information about the company’s finances, has since been recognized as an invaluable source of evidence documenting useful details of the financial costs of an Elizabethan theatrical company. Despite its value as a historical document, however, the will has so far received somewhat cursory attention. This essay discusses this invaluable historical document with more careful attention to its details. It focuses on the company’s costs and the actor’s personal network in and outside the company, and investigates an implied local performance of the Queen’s Men tours in the summer of 1592 in order to clarify its significance for theatre history.