ABSTRACT
E. K. Chambers and G. Wickham both discuss the development of the 'professional' player in the fifteenth century. The minstrels that travelled the roads of England before and during the fourteenth century 'performed' in a variety of ways. 'Professionals' performed plays 'as a means of making a living', and were performing 'from the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries' as records show. Stanley Kahrl introduces the problems of terminology by reference to the discussions of Giles Dawson in the introduction to his volume of Kent records, but ends up in a situation similar to Wickham's, basing his conclusions on the records of King's Lynn. 'Travelling' in relation to 'players' carries with it overtones of late sixteenth-century travelling companies, and too often has the later been used silently to prove the earlier. 'Travelling players' leads to talk of 'circuits' and 'itineraries'. The late fifteenth is a very different world from the late sixteenth century.
