Excerpt from Minutes and Accounts of the Corporation of Stratford-Upon-Avon and Other Records, 1553-1620, Vol. 1: 1553-1566 Stratford-upon-avon is rich, perhaps as rich as any borough in England, in its records. Owing partly, no doubt, to Shakespeare's connexion with it, documents that might seem in any way to bear upon his life and work have for a con siderable period been carefully collected or preserved, and the labours of such able writers as Edmund Malone, Robert Bell Wheler, J. O. Halliwell-phillipps and Sir Sidney Lee, not to mention others, have both added to the treasures and awakened interest in their value. There is a mass of material at Stratford under the care of the Birthplace Trust, belonging to the Trustees or to the Corporation, and elsewhere - as at Worcester, the Public Record Office, Somerset House, the British Museum, and the Bodleian Library - which should permit of a full history of Shakespeare's native town during his lifetime, throwing light, not only on the Poet's biography, plays, and poems, but on the religious, political, economic, and municipal conditions of the age. A chapter in the story of a town of the comparative importance of Stratford is a chapter also in the story of Warwickshire, the Midlands, and even of England. This volume is an attempt to give and interpret the records of the years from 15 53 to 1566. They have been glanced at by many and read by a few, and one or two have appeared in print. They are now published in full for the historian as well as the student of Shakespeare, and their respective sources are indicated. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.