r inns of {36}
this period were, for the most part, built in the form of a quadrangle
surrounding an open court. Opening directly off this court were the
stables, the kitchen, and other offices of the inn; above these were
from one to three stories of bedrooms and sitting rooms, entered from
galleries running all round the court. When such a courtyard was used
for theatrical performances, the actors erected a platform at one end
to serve as a stage; the space back of this, shut off by a curtain,
they used as a dressing-room; and the part of the gallery immediately
over it they employed as a second stage which could represent the walls
of a city or the balcony of a house. In the courtyard the poorer class
of spectators stood; in the galleries the more wealthy sat at their
ease. These conditions made the innyards much better places for play
acting than were the city squares, while they were given still another
advantage from the actors' point of view by the fact that the easily
controlled entrance gave an opportunity for charging a regular
admission fee--a fee which varied with the desirability of the various
parts of the house. Thus the innyards made no bad playhouses, and they
continued to be used as such even after theaters were built.

They had, however, one obvious disadvantage; their long, narrow shape
made a large number of the seats and a large proportion of the spaces
available for standing room distinctly bad places from which to see
what was happening on the stage. To remedy this defect, the builders
of the theaters took a suggestion from the bull-baiting and
bear-baiting rings. These rings, of which a considerable number
already existed {37} in the outskirts of London, had been built for
fights between dogs and bulls or bears, sports vastly enjoyed by the
Elizabethans. The rings, like the innyards, had galleries in which
spectators could sit and an open yard in which they could stand, and
they possessed the added merit of being round. Very possibly these
rings, like the Cornish rings used for miracle plays, originated in the
stone amphitheaters built by the Romans during their occupation of
Britain, buildings occasionally used, even in the sixteenth century,
for the performance of plays. It is hardly necessary, nevertheless, to
look farther than the bear ring to find the cause which determined the
shape of the Elizabethan public theater.

+The History of the Public Theaters+.--With such models, then