A groundling was a person who visited the Red Lion, The Rose, or the Globe theatres in the early 17th century.If they paid one penny (equivalent to £1 in 2023), they could stand in "the pit", also called "the yard", just below the stage, to watch the play.At the time, the word had entered the English language to mean a small type of fish with a gaping mouth—from the vantage point of the actor playing Hamlet, set on a stage raised around 5 feet (1.5 m) from the ground, the sea of upturned faces may have looked like wide-mouthed fish.[2] They were known to misbehave and are commonly believed to have thrown food such as fruit and nuts at characters or actors they did not like, although there is no evidence of this.[citation needed] In 1599, Thomas Platter mentioned the cost of admission at contemporary London theatres in his diary: There are separate galleries and there one stands more comfortably and moreover can sit, but one pays more for it.
An imagined Elizabethan theatre, the groundlings standing in the bottom right
The pit and upper levels of the reconstruction of the Globe
