Fulgens and Lucrece
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Fulgens and Lucrece is a late 15th-century interlude by Henry Medwall. It is the earliest purely secular English play that survives.[1] Since John Cardinal Morton, for whom Medwall wrote the play, died in 1500, the work must have been written before that date.[1] It was probably first performed at Lambeth Palace in 1497, while Cardinal Morton was entertaining ambassadors from Spain and Flanders.[2] The play is based on a Latin novella by Buonaccorso da Montemagno that had been translated into English by John Tiptoft, 1st Earl of Worcester and published in 1481 by William Caxton.[3] The play was printed in 1512–1516 by John Rastell,[4] and was later only available as a fragment until a copy showed up in an auction of books from Lord Mostyn's collection in 1919.[5] Henry E. Huntington acquired this copy, and arranged the printing of a facsimile.[6] The play is an example of a dramatised débat.[7]