The Stratford Corporation’s chamberlain, in his annual account records the payment of 20 pence for a quart of sack and a quart of claret wine "geven to a precher at the newe place"

Stratford’s Corporation chamberlains presented their annual accounts, covering payments from the previous twelve months, in January each year. Although individual payments are usually undated, it can be assumed they were entered broadly in chronological order. On January 13, 1615, the chamberlains presented the accounts for 1614, shown here, which include a mention of Shakespeare’s property, New Place.

During 1614 the chamberlain, John Woolmer, entered three payments to visiting preachers, 10 shillings to an anonymous unnamed preacher invited to the town by Alderman Daniel Baker, 20 pence for sack and quart given “to a precher [also unnamed] at the newe place,” and 2 shillings when “Mr Beck … preched here.” “Mr Beck” is either Job Beck, rector and preacher at Stanway, in Gloucestershire, until his death in May 1619, or James Beck, rector and preacher at Bourton-on-the-Hill, also in Gloucestershire, until his death in July 1617.

Scholars have attempted to link these three payments to the three annual sermons provided for under charitable bequests by Robert Perrott, Thomas Oken and Hamlet Smith. However, specific sums of 3s. 4d. were reserved for each of these sermons, normally delivered by the parish vicar. Although smaller payments were occasionally made to other travelling or invited preachers, three in one year was most unusual. However, this could have been the result of the serious town fire which occurred on July 9. Urban fires provided a good opportunity for itinerant preachers to deliver sermons suggesting why such calamities had been visited upon local communities and the appropriate spiritual responses. The three payments are separated by only fourteen lines in the accounts, and follow a payment for eight new buckets as ordered by the Corporation on July 15 (at the bottom of p. 265 of the accounts, not shown here).

The payment naming New Place is worded slightly ambiguously. It probably indicates that the preacher was simply staying, or at least resting at New Place, rather than that he preached there. If he had preached at the nearby Guild Chapel, New Place would have been an appropriate place to receive refreshment. This implies some tolerance by Shakespeare or his family towards what would have been a Puritan message and also indicates that the Corporation was not necessarily prepared to meet all the preacher’s expenses.