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...Item reddit compotum de viij d. solutum pro expensis parachianorum de West Wyttenham in die decollacionis Sancti Iohannis Baptisti quando ludus erat...
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Item he renders account of 8d paid for the expenses of the parishioners of West Wittenham on the (feast) day of the beheading of St John the Baptist when there was a play...
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Riley, 'Exeter College,' p 128, transcribes this entry in his calendar of the manuscript holdings of Exeter College but mistakenly dates it 1360. This is the earliest external record evidence for parish playmaking. For a discussion of its significance see Performance Traditions.
Record title: Exeter College Archives Rectors'
Accounts
Repository: Exeter College Archives
Shelfmark: ECB/RA1/21
Repository location: Oxford
The evidence of a play from the village of West Wittenham (now Long Wittenham southeast of Abingdon) is the earliest external evidence so far discovered by research undertaken by Records of Early English Drama that documents drama at a parish level. It dates from 1361 and survives in a compotus roll of Exeter College, Oxford, who held the advowson of the parish of West Wittenham.
1361; Latin; parchment; single sheet; 695mm x 276mm; damaged in bottom right-hand corner by a tear or rodent, 60mm x 100mm missing; dated in modern pencil. Flat in box with other sheets of accounts removed from guardbook with brown morocco cover, tooled leather corners and spine.