[Footnote 105: For other but unimportant references to the Theatre see The Malone Society's _Collections_, vol. I: disorder at, October, 1577, p. 153; disorder at, on Sunday, April, 1580, p. 46; fencing allowed at, July, 1582, p. 57; fencing forbidden at, May, 1583, p. 62; to be closed during infection, May, 1583, p. 63; complaint against, by the Lord Mayor, September, 1594, p. 76. And see Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 363, for a special performance there by a "virgin," February 22, 1582.] CHAPTER IV THE CURTAIN Although James Burbage was, as his son asserted, "the first builder of playhouses," a second public playhouse followed hard on the Theatre, probably within twelve months. It was erected a short distance to the south of the Theatre,--that is, nearer the city,--and, like that building, it adjoined Finsbury Field.[106] To the two playhouses the audiences came trooping over the meadows, in "great multidudes," the Lord Mayor tells us; and the author of _Tarlton's Newes out of Purgatory_ (_c._ 1589) describes their return to London thus: "With that I waked, and saw such concourse of people through the fields that I knew the play was done."[107] [Footnote 106: The site is probably marked by Curtain Court in Chasserau's survey of 1745, reproduced on page 79.] [Footnote 107: Ed. by J.O. Halliwell, for The Shakespeare Society (1844), p. 105.] The new playhouse derived its name from the Curtain estate, on which it was erected.[108] This estate was formerly the property of the Priory of Holywell, and was described in 1538 as "scituata et existentia extra portas ejusdem nuper monasterii prope pasturam dicte nuper Priorisse, vocatam _the Curteine_."[109] Why it was so called is not clear. The name may have been derived from some previous owner of the property; it may, as Collier thought, have come from some early association with the walls (_curtains_) or defenses of the city; or, it may have come, as Tomlins suggests, from the mediaeval Latin _cortina_, meaning a court, a close, a farm enclosure.[110] Whatever its origin--the last explanation seems the most plausible--the interesting point is that it had no connection whatever with a stage curtain. [Footnote 108: The Rose and the Red Bull derived their names in a similar way from the estates on which they were erected.] [Footnote 109: Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 364.] [Footnote 110: Tomlins, _Origin of the Curtain Theatre, and Mistakes Regarding It_, in The Shakespeare Society's Papers (1844), p. 29.]