(13) These records show that travelling companies toured in Warwickshire from 1431, when performers of Lord Astley and the earl of Warwick were at Maxstoke Priory, until 1636/7, when rope dancers of the king, Charles I, were rewarded 2s for a performance in Warwick: 'To ye Kings servants who
shewd ye dancing of ye Ropes & other rare activities of ye Body.' (14)
This is the Erasmus whose full scrutiny of textual revision and variation does not confine himself to the widest range of patristic (`the ancients'), medieval (`the old theologians'), and contemporary (`the
shewd' Lorenzo Valla and Lefevre d'Etaples) reference, but in addition forwards the kind of ancient, classical allusion to be expected from the urbane collector of Adagia.