NONE OF THE ACTIVITIES reflected in Henslowe's diary and discussed in the previous pages would have been possible without the contribution of the dramatists who supplied the plays. The establishment of permanent theatres and resident acting companies in London was of great significance to writers, because it created a new, easily accessible market. In the eyes of many, however, playwriting was scarcely less vicious than the theatre it served. Playhouses were widely believed to be haunts of iniquity, sites of riot, and both the final and efficient causes of plague. Moreover, at a time when publishers concerned themselves almost exclusively with works of religion or popular ballads and broadsheets, plays were hardly considered to be literature at all. This prejudice was reinforced by the reputation of playwrights such as Marlowe and Greene, who gave fuel by their conduct to rumour and scandalous speculation. Young men with talent and ambition contemplating a literary career at the beginning of the 1590s were caught, therefore, in a perplexing dilemma. On the one hand, those associated with the Court held literature to be a gentlemanly pastime, but were less than generous in inviting new writers into their ranks. On the other, the players offered attractive pecuniary inducements, but these could be yielded to only at a cost in pride or reputation. Henslowe's records begin, therefore, at a period of transition.