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''The Weeding of the Covent Garden, or the Middlesex Justice of Peace,'' alternatively titled ''The Covent Garden Weeded,''〔Modern usage often drops the definitive article before "Covent Garden."〕 is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy written by Richard Brome that was first published in 1659. The play is a noteworthy satire on the emerging ethos of Capitalism as reflected in real estate and urban development in the early modern city. The precise dates of authorship and first performance of the play are not known with certainty; but it must have originated c. 1632, when the development of Covent Garden was a public controversy. The play may have been staged by the King's Men.〔Corns, p. 200.〕 ''The Weeding of Covent Garden'' was first published in the 1659 octavo volume ''Five New Plays,'' a collection of Brome's dramas issued by the booksellers Andrew Crooke and Henry Brome. ==Covent Garden== Even in the first half of the 17th century, major urban developments were subjects of intense dispute. In both the Elizabethan and the Jacobean eras, regulations had been promulgated to control the urban sprawl that was then uniting London with nearby Westminster. The last open spaces between the two were under pressure in the early 17th century: the area of Lincoln's Inn Fields was partially developed, leaving Covent Garden – the former "convent garden" attached to Westminster Abbey — as the next obvious target for exploitation. In January 1631, the land's owner, Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford, obtained from King Charles I the waiver of the legal restrictions on new building that he needed for a large building project centred on a Continental-style piazza. (The waiver cost Bedford £2000; Charles had dismissed Parliament and begun his eleven-year period of personal rule, and needed the money.) 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Weeding of Covent Garden」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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