Shakespeare of Stratford/The Biographical Facts/Fact 25
XXV. SHAKESPEARE A PART OWNER OF THE GLOBE THEATRE (1599).
Reference to the newly erected Globe Theatre in post-mortem inventory (May 16, 1599) of the property of Sir Thomas Brend, whose son had leased the site of the building to Shakespeare and his partners.
Una domo de novo edificata . . . in occupacione Willielmi Shakespeare et aliorum.[1]
Note. When the Globe was built in 1599 a half-interest in the property was assigned to the brothers, Richard and Cuthbert Burbage, and the remaining half-interest divided equally among five actors of the Chamberlain’s Company: Shakespeare, Kempe, Pope, Phillips, and Heminge. Shakespeare, therefore, had at the start a one-tenth share in the theatre. The mathematical proportion of his interest to the entire property varied in later years as some of his fellow-sharers retired and new ones came in.
A later inventory of the Brend estate, in 1601, names the tenants of the playhouse as ‘Richard Burbage and William Shackespeare, Gent.’—mentioning, that is, simply the two most famous of the sharers.
- ↑ ‘[In] a house newly built . . . in the occupation of W. Shakespeare and others.’