ABSTRACT
Throughout the 16th century there were professional boys’ acting companies that existed to provide entertainment for the aristocracy. The most famous and lasting of the companies were the Children of the Chapel Royal and the Children of Saint Paul’s, but there were others that came and went in the provinces.
The training of boys’ singing voices has deep roots in English history, far back at least into the Middle Ages, when the Chapel Royal was an ecclesiastical body of musicians and singers formed to address the spiritual needs of the aristocracy. Boys’ voices were considered the closest to the voices of angels, and entire cathedrals were designed to capture the sound. Sometime in the 15th century, if not earlier, trained boy singers began to be used in processions, often perched atop elaborately decorated pageant wagons that would stop at crossroads and allow the singers to perform. These performances gradually became short skits, or “interludes,” and, eventually, longer plays. By the 16th century, with Henry VIII and then his daughter Elizabeth, the popularity of boy performers grew, and well-funded boys’ companies and their song masters and playwrights became the primary purveyors of delightful entertainments at court.
