[Nice Tie Lloyd!] Histriomastix: The Player's Scourge, or Actor's Tragedy published in 1632 is a critique of professional theatre and actors, written by the Puritan author and controversialist William Prynne . Histriomastix represents the culmination of the Puritan attack on the English Renaissance theatre and celebrations such as Christmas , as noted in the following: "Our Christmas lords of misrule, together with dancing, masks, mummeries , state players, and such other Christmas disorders, now in use with Christians, were derived from these Roman Saturnalia and Bacchanalian festivals, which should cause all pious Christians eternally to abominate them." Running to over a thousand pages, and with a main title of 43 lines, Histriomastix marshals a multitude of ancient and medieval authorities against the "sin" of dramatic performance. The book condemns most aspects of dramati...