Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay

The play then passed into the repertory of the Admiral's Men; that company paid Thomas Middleton to write a Prologue and Epilogue for a Court performance in 1602.

Greene's primary source for his play was an anonymous sixteenth-century prose romance titled The Famous History of Friar Bacon (c.

In addition to Roger Bacon, the tale of the brazen head was connected with several other prominent figures of the later Middle Ages, including Robert Grosseteste and Gerbert of Aurillac.

[6] Prince Edward, the son and heir of King Henry III, plans to seduce Margaret, the Fair Maid of Fressingfield, with the help of the necromancer Friar Bacon.

When Edward learns of the love of Lacy and Margaret, he threatens to kill his friend – before he masters his passion and reconciles himself to the fact.

The beautiful Margaret is the unwilling cause of a quarrel between two of her neighbours, the Suffolk squires Serlesby and Lambert: they both fancy themselves in love with her, and kill each other in a duel.

After an understandable hesitation, Margaret accepts Lacy's conduct and his explanation; they are married – together with Edward and Elinor – at the end of the play.

In collaboration with another magician, Friar Bungay, Bacon labours toward his greatest achievement: the creation of a talking artificial head made of brass, animated by demonic influence, that can surround England with a protective wall of the same metal.

This has suggested to some researchers that the Friar Bacon play acted by Strange's Men on 19 February 1592 was this second part of the story rather than the original FBFB.

In 2013, television actor David Oakes directed the play at Shakespeare's Globe as part of their Read Not Dead season.