Episode 7: Fear of Assembly – Theater Closures, Sumptuary Laws, and the Dangerous Crowd (1600–1700)
A London playhouse in the early seventeenth century made the social order visible before the actors said a word. Apprentices and laborers crowded the yard while merchants and gentlemen occupied more expensive places in the galleries. Admission prices preserved distinctions of wealth and rank, and nobody mistook a servant for a gentleman simply because both…