I. MIRACLE-PLAYS.

Chester Plays.

Manuscripts.

(i) Hg. †1475-1500. Hengwrt MS. 229, in the library of Mr. Wynne of Peniarth, containing Play xxiv (Antichrist) only. Probably a prompter’s copy, as some one has ‘doubled it up and carried it about in his pocket, used it with hot hands, and faded its ink.’

(ii) D. 1591. Devonshire MS., in the library of the Duke of Devonshire, written by ‘Edward Gregorie, a scholar of Bunbury.’

(iii) W. 1592. Brit. Mus. Addl. MS. 10,305. Signed at the end of each play ‘George Bellin.’

(iv) h. 1600. Brit. Mus. Harl. MS. 2013, also signed after some of the plays by ‘George Bellin’ or ‘Billinges.’ A verse proclamation or ‘banes’ is prefixed, and on a separate leaf a copy of the prose proclamation made by the clerk of the pentice in 1544 (cf. p. 349) with a note, in another hand.

(v) B. 1604. Bodl. MS. 175, written by ‘Gulielmus Bedford,’ with an incomplete copy of the ‘banes.’

(vi) H. 1607. Brit. Mus. Harl. MS. 2124, in two hands, the second being that of ‘Jacobus Miller.’ An historical note, dated 1628, is on the cover.

(vii) M. MS. in Manchester Free Library, containing fragment of Play xix (Resurrection) only.

[The MSS. D, W, h, B are derived from a common source, best represented by B. MS. H varies a good deal from this group, and is the better text. MS. Hg is probably related to H.]

Editions.

(a) 1818. Plays iii, x (Noah, Innocents) and Banes; J. H. Markland, for Roxburghe Club (No. 11).

(b) 1836. Play xxiv (Antichrist); J. P. Collier, Five Miracle-Plays.

(c) 1838. Plays iii, xxiv (Noah, Antichrist); W. Marriott, English Miracle-Plays.

(d) 1843-7, 1853. Cycle; Thomas Wright, from MS. W, for Shakespeare Society.

(e) 1883. Part of Play xix (Resurrection), from MS. M, in Manchester Guardian, for May 19, 1883.

(f) 1890. Plays iii, part of iv (Noah, Isaac); Pollard, 8.

(g) 1893-. Cycle (vol. i with Introduction, Banes and Plays i-xiii only issued by 1902); H. Deimling, from MS. H (with collation), for E. E. T. S. (Extra Series, lxii).

(h) 1897. Plays v, xxiv (Prophetae, Antichrist); Manly, i. 66, 170, from (g) and MS. Hg respectively.

[F. J. Furnivall, Digby Plays, xx, prints eighteen additional lines to the Banns as given by Deimling from MSS. h, B. These are from a copy in Rogers’s Breviary of Chester (cf. p. 350), Harl. MS. 1944. A distinct and earlier (pre-Reformation) Banns is printed by Morris, 307, from Harl. MS. 2150 (cited in error as 2050), which is a copy of the White Book of the Pentice belonging to the City of Chester.]

The Cycle.

The list of ‘pagyns in play of Corpus Χρi’ contained in the ‘White Book of the Pentice’ (Harl. MS. 2150, f. 85 b), and given apparently from this source, by Rogers (Furnivall, xxi), makes them twenty-five in number, as follows:—

The list of plays contained in the pre-Reformation Banns is the same as this, with one exception. Instead of twenty-five plays it has twenty-six. After Wyt Sonday is inserted the play ‘of our lady thassumpcon,’ to be brought forth by ‘the worshipfull wyves of this towne.’ This play of The Assumption was given in 1477, and as a separate performance in 1488, 1497, and 1515 (Morris, 308, 322, 323). Doubtless it was dropped, as at York, out of Protestantism. The post-Reformation Banns and the extant MSS. of the cycle have it not. Further, they reduce the twenty-five plays of the ‘White Book’ list to twenty-four, by merging the plays of the Scourging and Crucifixion into one. In MSS. B, W, h, the junction is plainly apparent (see Deimling, i. ix; Wright, ii. 50). In MS. H there is no break (Deimling, i. xxiv).

Literary Relations.

Wright, i. xiv, and Hohlfeld, in Anglia, xi. 223, call attention to the parallels between the Chester plays and the French Mystère du Viel Testament and to the occurrence in them of scraps and fragments of French speech. The chief of these are put into the mouths of Octavian, the Magi, Herod, and Pilate, and may have been thought appropriate to kings and lordings. They may also point to translation from French originals. Davidson, 254, suggests that the earliest performances at Chester were in Anglo-Norman, and points to the tradition of MS. H (cf. p. 351) as confirming this. There are slight traces of influence upon some of the Chester plays by the York cycle (Hohlfeld, loc. cit. 260; Davidson, 287). Hohlfeld, in M.L.N. v. 222, regards Chester play iv as derived from a common original with the Brome Abraham and Isaac. H. Ungemacht, Die Quellen der fünf ersten Chester Plays, discusses the relation of the plays to the Brome play and the French mystères, and also to the Vulgate, the Fathers, Josephus, and the Cursor Mundi.

York Plays.

Manuscripts.

(i) Brit. Mus. Addl. MS. 35,290, recently Ashburnham MS. 137, fully described by L. T. Smith, York Plays, xiii. The MS. dates from about 1430-40, and appears to be a ‘register’ or transcript made for the corporation of the ‘origenalls’ in the hands of the crafts. In 1554 the ‘register’ was kept by the clerk at the gates of the dissolved Holy Trinity Priory. After the plays ceased to be performed it got into the hands of the Fairfaxes of Denton. In 1695 it belonged to Henry Fairfax, and its ownership can be traced thence to the present day.

(ii) Sykes MS. in possession of the York Philosophical Society, fully described in York Plays, 455. This is of the early sixteenth century. It contains only the Scriveners’ play, of ‘The Incredulity of Thomas,’ is not a copy from the Ashburnham MS., and may be an ‘origenall,’ or a transcript for the prompter’s use. It has a cover with a flap, and has been folded lengthwise, as if for the pocket.

Editions.

(a) 1797. Play xlii (Incredulity of Thomas), from Sykes MS., in J. Croft, Excerpta Antiqua, 105.

(b) 1859. Play xlii (Incredulity of Thomas), from Sykes MS., ed. J. P. Collier, in Camden Miscellany, vol. iv.

(c) 1885. Cycle, from Ashburnham MS., in L. Toulmin Smith, York Plays.

(d) 1890. Play i (Creation and the Fall of Lucifer), from York Plays, in Pollard, 1.

(e) 1897. Plays xxxviii, xlviii (Resurrection, Judgment Day), from York Plays, in Manly, i. 153, 198.

The Cycle.

The subjects of the forty-eight plays and one fragment contained in the Ashburnham MS. are as follows:—

The majority of these plays were entered in the register about 1440. The fragment of a later play on The Coronation of Our Lady was added at the end of the fifteenth century. It was doubtless intended to supersede xlvii. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (iv) and The Purification of Mary, Simeon and Anna prophesy (xli) were inserted in 1558. The former is probably of the same date as the rest; the latter is thought by the editor to be later. It is misplaced both in the MS. and the printed text. It should follow xvii, but there was no room for it in the MS. Some notes, probably written when the plays were submitted to the Dean of York in 1579, state that xii, xviii, xxi, xxviii had been rewritten since the register was compiled.

The register does not represent quite all the plays ever performed at York. Spaces are left for The Marriage at Cana and Christ in the House of Simon the Leper, which were never written in; and the corporation archives refer to a play of Fergus or Portacio Corporis Mariae, which came between xlv and xlvi and was ‘laid apart’ in 1485; and to a scene of Suspencio Iudae, which was in 1422 an episode of xxxiii. In other respects the contents of the register agree substantially with the fifty-one plays of the Ordo paginarum entered by the Town Clerk in the Liber Memorandorum in 1415⁠[936] and with the fifty-seven plays of a second Ordo of uncertain date which comes a little later in the same Liber⁠[937]. The three lists show some variations in the grouping of the subject-matter into pageants, due to the constant shifting of responsibility amongst the crafts.

Literary Relations.

Davidson, 252 sqq., attempts to trace the growth of the York plays out of a parent cycle, from which the Towneley and Coventry plays borrowed. The biblical and apocryphal sources are discussed by L. Toulmin Smith, York Plays, xlvii; A. R. Hohlfeld, in Anglia, xi. 285; P. Kamann, Die Quellen der York-Spiele, in Anglia, x. 189; F. Holthausen, in Arch. f. d. Studium d. neueren Sprachen und Litteratur, lxxxv. 425; lxxxvi. 280; W. A. Craigie, in Furnivall Miscellany, 52. I have not been able to see O. Herrtrich, Studien zu den York Plays (Breslau Diss. 1886). There are textual studies by F. Holthausen as above, and in Philologische Studien (Sievers-Festgabe), 1896; E. Kölbing, in Englische Studien, xvi. 279; xx. 179; J. Hall, in Eng. Stud. ix. 448; Zupitza, in Deutsche Litteraturzeitung, vi. 1304; K. Luick, in Anglia, xxii. 384.

Towneley Plays.

Manuscript.

Written in the second half of the fifteenth century, formerly in the library of Towneley Hall, long in the possession of Mr. Quaritch, the bookseller, and now in that of Major Coates, of Ewell, Surrey. There are thirty-two plays in all, but twenty-six leaves are missing.

Editions.

(a) 1822. Play xxx (Iudicium); F. Douce, for Roxburghe Club (Publications, No. 16).

(b) 1836. Play xiii (Secunda Pastorum); J. P. Collier, in Five Miracle-Plays.

(c) 1836. Complete cycle; for Surtees Soc. (It is uncertain whether the editor was J. Raine, J. Hunter, or J. S. Stevenson.)

(d) 1838. Plays viii, xiii, xxiii, xxv, xxx (Pharao, Secunda Pastorum, Crucifixio, Extractio Animarum ab Inferno, Iudicium); W. Marriott, English Miracle-Plays.

(e) 1867. Play iii (Processus Noe cum filiis), E. Mätzner, Altenglische Sprachproben, 360.

(f) 1875. Play ii (Mactacio Abel); T. Valke, Der Tod des Abel (Leipzig).

(g) 1885. Plays viii, xviii, xxv, xxvi, xxx (Pharao, Pagina Doctorum, Extraccio Animarum, Resurreccio Domini, Iudicium); L. Toulmin Smith, York Plays, 68, 158, 372, 397, 501 (not quite in full, for comparison with corresponding York plays).

(h) 1890. Play xiii (Secunda Pastorum), abridged; Pollard, 31.

(i) 1897. Cycle, G. England and A. W. Pollard, for E. E. T. S. (Extra Series, lxxi).

(k) 1897. Plays iii, v, vi, xiii (Processus Noe, Isaac, Iacob, Secunda Pastorum) from (i); Manly, i. 13, 58, 94.

The Cycle.

There are thirty-two extant plays, as follows:—

Plays xxxi and xxxii (a fragment) are obviously misplaced. The former should come between xix and xx; the latter, which is added to the MS. in an early sixteenth-century hand, between xxii and xxiii. Probably two plays at least are lost. Twelve leaves are missing after Play i, and twelve more after Play xxix. These doubtless contained plays of The Fall and Pentecost.

Literary Relations.

The Towneley Cycle is a composite one (Ten Brink, ii. 257; iii. 274; Davidson, 253; England-Pollard, xxi). Mr. Pollard distinguishes three fairly well-marked strata, and this classification is probably not exhaustive. There are (a) a group of plays of the ordinary didactico-religious type; (b) a group derived from the York plays in an earlier form than the extant text; (c) a group written by a single writer of marked power and a bold sense of humour. The plays of this group include iii, xii, xiii, xiv, xxi, and are, for literary quality, the pick of the vernacular religious drama. Mr. Pollard considers the cycle practically complete by about 1420. The horned female headdress (xxx. 269) which led the Surtees editor to put the composition in 1388, is found in miniatures of the later date. The relation of the cycle to that of York is also studied by Davidson, 271 sqq., and A. R. Hohlfeld, in Anglia, xi. 253, 285. Ten Brink, ii. 244; iii. 274, thinks that a much earlier (late thirteenth century) play is preserved in Plays v and vi (Isaac and Iacob). I agree with Mr. Pollard that this conjecture lacks proof.

A. Ebert has a study, Die englischen Mysterien, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Townley-Sammlung, in Jahrbuch f. rom. u. engl. Lit. i. 44, 131. The folk-lore incident of the Secunda Pastorum is supplied with parallels by E. Kölbing, in England-Pollard, xxxi, and by H. A. Eaton, in M.L.N. xiv. 265, from The Merry Tales of Gotham (H. Oesterley, A Hundred Merry Tales (1526), No. xxiv; Hazlitt, Shakespeare’s Jest-Books, iii. 4). There is an allusion to the ‘foles of Gotham,’ in Play xii. 180. J. Hugienen, in M.L.N. xiv. 255, finds in Play iv. 49 an adaptation of the French Viel Testament, 9511.

The Locality.

Douce described the manuscript for the sale of Towneley MSS. in 1814 as supposed to have ‘belonged to the Abbey of Widkirk, near Wakefield, in the county of York.’ In his Roxburghe Club edition of the Iudicium he substitutes the name of the Abbey of Whalley, near Towneley Hall. How far either of these statements or conjectures rests upon Towneley family tradition is unknown. Widkirk is merely another form (cf. Prof. Skeat, in Athenæum for Dec. 2, 1893) of Woodkirk, also called West Ardsley, a small place four miles north of Wakefield. There was not, strictly speaking, an abbey at Woodkirk, but a small cell of Augustinian canons, dependent upon the great house of St. Oswald at Nostel.

The MS. itself seems to bear witness to a connexion of the plays with the crafts of Wakefield. Play i is headed ‘Assit Principio, Sancta Maria, Meo. Wakefeld.’ In the margin of Play ii is written ‘Glover Pag.’ in a later hand. Play iii is headed ‘Processus Noe cum filiis. Wakefeld.’ In the margin of Play viii is ‘Litsters Pagonn’ in a later hand, and further down, in a third hand, is ‘lyster play.’ Under the title of Play xxvii is ‘fysher pagent’ in a later hand. Further in Play xiii is a mention of ‘Horbury Shroges,’ Horbury being a village two or three miles from Wakefield, and a ‘crokyd thorne’ which may be a ‘Shepherd’s Thorn’ near Horbury in Mapplewell. These indications are spread over the three groups of plays distinguished by Mr. Pollard, and certainly suggest that the whole cycle belonged to the Wakefield crafts. On the other hand, I find no hint of any plays in the local histories of Wakefield. The evidence for a connexion with Wakefield is strengthened by M. H. Peacock, The Wakefield Mysteries, in Anglia, xxiv. 509, from which it appears that there are places called Thornhill and Thornes to the E. and W. respectively of Horbury. Play ii, line 367 ‘bery me in gudeboure at the quarell hede’ points to Goodybower Close in Wakefield, which once had a quarry. Play xxiv, line 155 ‘from this towne vnto lyn’ suggests at least a borrowing from East Anglia.

Perhaps we may combine the data of the manuscript and of tradition by supposing that the plays were acted by the crafts of Wakefield, not in the town at Corpus Christi or Whitsuntide, but at one of the great fairs which the canons of Nostel held under charter at Woodkirk about the feasts of the Assumption (Aug. 15) and the Nativity (Sept. 8) of the Virgin. These fairs, run into one continuous horse fair, and known from a local family of Legh, as Lee fair, lasted until quite recently⁠[938].

Ludus Coventriae.

Manuscript.

Brit. Mus. Cotton MS. Vespasian D. viii. Forty-two plays, the last incomplete. On f. 100ᵛ is the date 1468. At the beginning is written ‘Robert Hegge, Dunelmensis’ and before the twenty-ninth play ‘Ego R. H. Dunelmensis, Possideo: Ου κτησις αλλα χρησις.’ On the fly-leaf, in an Elizabethan hand, is ‘The plaie called Corpus Christi,’ and in the hand of Cotton’s librarian, Richard James, ‘Contenta Novi Testamenti scenice expressa et actitata olim per monachos sive fratres mendicantes: vulgo dicitur hic liber Ludus Coventriae, sive ludus Corporis Christi: scribitur metris Anglicanis.’ The following account was given by a later librarian, Dr. Smith, in his printed catalogue (1696) of the Cottonian MSS.: ‘A collection of plays, in Old English metre: h.e. Dramata sacra, in quibus exhibentur historiae veteris & N. Testamenti, introductis quasi in scenam personis illic memoratis quas secum invicem colloquentes pro ingenio finget Poeta. Videntur olim coram populo, sive ad instruendum sive ad placendum, a Fratribus mendicantibus representata.’

Editions.

(a) 1830. Plays i-v (Fall of Lucifer, Days of Creation and Fall of Adam, Cain and Abel, Noah’s Flood, Abraham and Isaac) in Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum (ed. 2). vi, pt. 3, 1534.

(b) 1836. Play x (Betrothal of Mary), Collier, Five Miracle-Plays.

(c) 1838. Plays xii, xiv (Doubt of Joseph, Trial of Mary), William Marriott, English Miracle-Plays.

(d) 1841. Cycle: J. O. Halliwell[-Phillipps] for Shakespeare Society.

(e) 1890. Play xi (Annunciation), Pollard, 44.

(f) 1897. Plays iv, xi (Noah’s Flood, Annunciation), Manly, i. 31, 82.

(g) A new edition of the complete cycle is promised in the ‘Extra Series’ of the Early English Text Society.

The Cycle.

The text is not definitely divided up into plays in the MS., although some such indication as an Explicit occasionally helps. Probably the following division is correct. Halliwell’s is clearly wrong, but for convenience of reference I give his numbers in brackets.

Then a prologue by Contemplacio, promising a ‘matere’ of ‘the modyr of mercy’ from her conception to the meeting with Elizabeth, and a ‘conclusyon.’

Opens with scene between Contemplacio, Virtutes, Pater, Veritas, Misericordia, Iusticia, Pax, Filius.

This group of plays closes with the promised ‘conclusyon,’ namely ‘Ave regina coelorum,’ and Contemplacio disappears.

Another group of scenes begins. Contemplacio, called in the stage direction ‘an exposytour, in doctorys wede,’ reappears; and after a procession has ‘enteryd into the place, and the Herowdys taken his schaffalde and Pylat and Annas and Cayphas here schaffaldys,’ says:—

This group does not well bear splitting up into plays. The action is continuous, although it takes place now at one scaffold, now at another.

Here, possibly, the group ends. Then follow:—

The Assumption play, according to Halliwell, is inserted in a hand of the time of Henry VIII.

A few lines appear to be missing at the end.

In dividing the plays, I have been helped by a prologue which is put in the mouths of three Vexillatores. Says Primus:—

The Vexillatores then take turns to describe the ‘ffyrst pagent,’ ‘secunde pagent,’ and so on, up to ‘the xlᵗⁱ pagent.’ This should be ‘xlii,’ but by a slip two numbers are used twice. The prologue ends:—

The prologue so far agrees with the plays that it must have been written for them; but it was not written for them as they stand. It gives some of the incidents, especially of the trial scenes, in a different order from the text. Plays viii, xiii, xviii, xxvi, and xlii are omitted altogether. Of these xlii is a late interpolation in the text; but the fact that the numbers viii and xiii are skipped over in the enumeration, although the order in which the Vexillatores speak proceeds regularly, shows that the prologue is later in date than the text, and contemplates the omission of existing plays.

The Problem.

The exact nature of the Ludus Coventriae is a nice literary point. It is much doubted whether they have anything to do with Coventry at all. Cotton’s librarians regarded them as Coventry plays, acted not by craft-guilds, but by monks or begging friars. But what was their authority? The earliest possessor of the MS. who can be traced is Robert Hegge, a Durham man by birth, and a Fellow of C. C. C., Oxford. Hegge died in 1629, and probably the MS. then passed into Sir Robert Cotton’s collection through Richard James, who happened to be also a C. C. C. man, and was in the habit of picking up finds for Cotton in Oxford⁠[939]. The note on the MS. may represent a tradition as to its origin gathered by James from Hegge.

With this note should be compared the following passage in Dugdale’s History of Warwickshire, referring to the house of Franciscans or Grey Friars at Coventry:—

‘Before the suppression of the monasteries, this city was very famous for the Pageants that were play’d therein, upon Corpus-Christi-day; which occasioning very great confluence of people thither from far and near, was of no small benefit thereto; which Pageants being acted with mighty state and reverence by the Friers of this House, had Theaters for the severall Scenes, very large and high, placed upon wheels, and drawn to all the eminent parts of the City, for the better advantage of Spectators: And contain’d the story of the New-Testament, composed into Old English Rithme, as appeareth by an antient MS. intituled Ludus Corporis Christi or Ludus Coventriae’ [in bibl. Cotton, sub effigie Vesp. D. 9].

‘I have been told by some old people, who in their younger years were eye-witnesses of these Pageants so acted, that the yearly confluence of people to see that shew was extraordinary great, and yielded no small advantage to this City⁠[940].’

Dugdale, it is to be observed, has the MS. as one of his authorities, but he goes further than the librarians by ascribing the plays to a particular house of friars. Unfortunately his account will not hold water. He was born in 1605, and educated for five years in Coventry. Now there could have been no plays performed by the Grey Friars after 1538, for they were suppressed in that year. But the craft-plays survived, with great éclat, until 1580, and it is manifest that it is these plays which his informants described to him. They were acted on Corpus Christi day, obviously leaving no room for Grey Friars plays on the same day. The craft-plays seem to have been confined to the history of the New Testament (cf. p. 423), but the Ludus Coventriae is not. There is, however, a not very trustworthy bit of evidence which makes it just possible that the Grey Friars did act, not at Corpus Christi, but at Whitsuntide. This is the statement of the Coventry Annals that in 1492-3, Henry VII came to see the plays acted by the Grey Friars⁠[941]. But the Annals only date from the seventeenth century, and they are not trustworthy (cf. p. 358) as to the history of the plays. I incline to think that the Grey Friars connexion is an Oxford guess of Hegge or his friends, which has found its way alike into the accounts of Richard James and Dugdale, and into the Annals. But is the connexion of the plays with Coventry also part of the guess, inspired by the fact that the Coventry mysteries, and these alone, obtained literary notice in the sixteenth century? Or have we Coventry guild-plays to deal with? The Ludus Coventriae is quite distinct from the two extant Coventry plays (p. 422); but those are of the sixteenth century, and appear to represent a recension in 1535 of ‘new plays’ produced, according to the Annals, in 1520 (p. 358). So far as this goes, the Ludus Coventriae might be the discarded fifteenth-century cycle of the Coventry crafts. Ten Brink points out certain features in the Ludus which seem, from the Cappers’ accounts extracted by Sharp, to have existed also at Coventry⁠[942]. On the other hand, the Coventry plays, unlike the Ludus, seem to have been confined to the New Testament. The Ludus does not give those opportunities for showing off artisanship which are characteristic of other craft-cycles⁠[943]. And, strongest of all, while the Coventry plays were processional, a study of the Ludus will make it quite clear that it was intended for a stationary performance. The ‘pagents’ contemplated by the prologue can only be episodes artificially distinguished in a practically continuous action. Often there is no well-marked break between pageant and pageant. The same personages appear and reappear in more than one; and the whole performance evidently takes place in and around a ‘place’ or locus interludii (Halliwell, 44) upon which are situated various ‘scaffolds’ or ‘stages⁠[944],’ a heaven, a hell, a temple, a sepulchrum, and so forth. The navis for Noah is practicable, and can come and go.

If the plays are not from Coventry, can they be located elsewhere? They have been ascribed to Durham, but merely, I think, because Robert Hegge was ‘Dunelmensis.’ Mr. Pollard follows Ten Brink in assigning their dialect and scribal peculiarities to the North-East Midlands, and in ascribing them to a strolling company⁠[945]. They regard ‘N. towne’ in the prologue as a common form (N = ‘nomen,’ as in the Church Catechism and Marriage Service). As to the dialect I offer no opinion; I am sorry not to have been able to see M. Kramer, Sprache und Heimath der Coventry-Plays. But I do not think that the strolling company is proved. The vexillatores may be merely proclaimers of banns sent round the villages hard by the town where the play was given. And ‘N.’ may be an abbreviation for a definite town name. Northampton (q.v.) has been suggested; but would not scan. Norwich (q.v.) would; and these might conceivably be a cycle played by the guild of St. Luke at Norwich before the crafts took the responsibility for the Whitsun plays from it. But the elaborate treatment of the legends of the Virgin suggests a performance, like that of the Lincoln plays, and of the Massacre of the Innocents in the Digby MS., on St. Anne’s day (July 26). It is to be observed that both these examples are in the E. Midland area to which philologists assign the text of the Ludus Coventriae.

Literary Relations.

Ten Brink, ii. 283, calls attention to the composite character of the cycle, in which groups of various origin are placed side by side without much attempt at imposing a literary unity upon them. He thinks, however, that all the plays received their form in the same part of England, and considers the dialect to be that of the North-East Midlands. In a note (iii. 276) he finds an analogy in the treatment of certain themes between the Ludus Coventriae and the Coventry plays proper. Davidson, 259, thinks that the author might have been ‘connected with one of the great religious houses of the Fen District.’ Hohlfeld (Anglia, xi. 219) has some interesting remarks on the cycle. It may be observed that Plays xxx-xxxv in my grouping are evidently taken from a cycle of which only a part was given in each year. The Purification and Presentation in the Temple of the Digby MS. affords a parallel example. Possibly Plays viii-xiii in which, as in Plays xxx-xxxv, Contemplacio appears, have the same source.

Coventry Plays.

[See also account of Ludus Coventriae.]

Manuscripts.

A copy, probably the ‘original’ of the Shearmen and Tailors’ play, was in the possession of Thomas Sharp. It is described in a colophon as ‘T[h]ys matter nevly correcte by Robert Croo the xiiijᵗʰ day of marche fenysschid in the yere of owre lorde god MCCCCC & xxxiiijᵗᵉ [1534/5].’ At the end are three songs, with the date 1591. A similar copy of the Weavers’ play ‘nevly translate be Robert Croo in the yere of oure Lorde God Mlvᶜ xxxiiijᵗᵉ ... yendide the seycond day of Marche in yere above sayde,’ was ‘unexpectedly discovered in 1832,’ and a transcript made by Sharp. This also has songs at the end, but no date. The collections of Sharp passed into the Staunton collection at Longbridge House, and thence into the Shakespeare Memorial Library at Birmingham, where they were burnt in 1879.

Editions.

(a) 1817. Shearmen and Tailors Play. Thos. Sharp in a series, separately paged, of Illustrative Papers of the History and Antiquities the City of Coventry. [Reprinted 1871 under editorship of W. G. Fretton.]

(b) 1825. Shearmen and Tailors’ Play. Reprinted from (a) by Thomas Sharp, with full illustrative matter, in A Dissertation on the Coventry Mysteries, 83.

(c) 1836. Weavers’ Play. J. B. Gracie for the Abbotsford Club.

(d) 1838. Shearmen and Tailors’ Play. William Marriott, English Miracle-Plays.

(e) 1897. Shearmen and Tailors’ Play. Manly, i. 120, from (b).

(f) 1902. Weavers’ Play. Edited from (c) by F. Holthausen, in Anglia, xxv. 209.

(g) 1903. Shearmen and Tailors’ Play. A. W. Pollard, in Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse (English Garner), 245.

(h) Both plays are being edited by H. Craig for the E. E. T. S.

The Cycle.

The Shearmen and Tailors’ Play has a prologue by ‘Isaye the profet.’ Then follow in order, the Annunciation, the Doubt of Joseph, the Journey to Bethlehem, the Nativity and Shepherds, a dialogue of two ‘Profettis,’ Herod and the Magi, the Flight to Egypt, the Massacre of the Innocents. The Weavers’ Play must have followed next in the cycle. It opens with a dialogue of two ‘Profetae’. Then come the Presentation in the Temple and the Dispute with the Elders. The subjects of four of the other plays can be pretty clearly identified. The Smiths’ accounts show them to have played the Trial and Crucifixion, to which was added in 1573 the ‘new play’ of the Death of Judas; the Descent from the Cross passed through various hands from the Pinners and Needlers in 1414 to the Coopers in 1547; the Cappers’ accounts point to the Resurrection, Harrowing of Hell, and Quem quaeritis, with from 1540 the ‘Castell of Emaus’; and those of the Drapers to Doomsday. It is difficult to say how many plays remain unidentified. The crafts were grouped and regrouped, and the total number of plays may have varied. But it would seem that besides the crafts already named, the Mercers, Whittawers, Girdlers, Cardmakers, and Tanners were playing in the middle of the fifteenth century. The ‘jest’ quoted on p. 358 points to a Pentecost play with the ‘xij Articles of the Creed,’ similar to that of Chester. It is noticeable that no Old Testament play can be established at Coventry.

Literary Relations.

These plays, of which the Weavers’ Play was, until recently, difficult to procure, have been but little studied. Two communications by C. Davidson and A. R. Hohlfeld in Modern Language Notes, vii. 184, 308, call attention to the fact that the larger part of the dialogue in the Dispute in the Temple scene is practically the same as that common to the York, Towneley, and Chester plays (cf. York Plays, 158, and A. R. Hohlfeld in Anglia, xi. 260).

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Manuscript.

The Shipwrights’ Play of Noah’s Ark was in the hands of its first editor, Henry Bourne; but is not known to be now preserved (Holthausen, 32).

Editions.

(a) 1736. Noah’s Ark; or, The Shipwrights’ Ancient Play or Dirge; in H. Bourne, Hist. of Newcastle, 139.

(b) 1789. Reprint of (a) in J. Brand, Hist. of Newcastle, ii. 373.

(c) 1825. Reprint of (a) in T. Sharp, Dissertation on Coventry Mysteries, 223.

(d) 1897. F. Holthausen, in Göteborg’s Högskola’s Ärsskrift, and separately.

(e) 1899. R. Brotanek, in Anglia, xxi. 165.

Both (d) and (e) are founded on Bourne’s text; but Brotanek has endeavoured to restore what he considers to have been the probable MS. text. This he dates, conjecturally, at about 1425-50.

The Cycle.

The Shipwrights’ play deals with the Making of the Ark, but stops short of the Deluge. The personages are Deus, Angelus, Diabolus, Noah, Uxor Noah. The subjects of most of the plays of the other crafts can be recovered, as follows:—

• Creation of Adam.
• Noah’s Ark.
• Offering of Isaac.
• Israel in Egypt.
• Kings of Cologne.
• Flight into Egypt.
• Baptism.
• Last Supper.
• Bearing of Cross.
• Burial of Christ.
• Descent into Hell.
• Burial of Our Lady.

Of these, two, the Creation of Adam and the Flight into Egypt, were maintained, in 1454, by one craft, the Bricklayers and Plasterers. The Merchant Adventurers, in 1552, paid for ‘fyve playes, whereof the towne must pay for the ostmen playe.’ There are six guilds whose plays are not known; so that the total number may have been as many as twenty-three⁠[946].

The accounts of the Merchant Adventurers also include in 1554 and 1558 charges in and about ‘Hoggmaygowyk’ or ‘Hogmagoge⁠[947].’ I do not think, with Holthausen, that this was one of the Corpus Christi plays. I think it was a spring or summer folk-feast. One of the London ‘giants’ is Gogmagog.

Norwich.

Manuscript.

The extracts, made early in the seventeenth century from the Grocers’ Book, and in the possession (1856) of Mr. Fitch, included two versions of the play of the Fall. The first was copied into the Book in 1533. It is headed The Story of yᵉ Creac̄on of Eve, wᵗ yᵉ expellyng of Adam & Eve out of Paradyce. It ends with a ‘dullfull song,’ perhaps the ‘newe ballet’ paid for in 1534 (cf. p. 388). It appears to have a lacuna. The second version is ‘newely renvid & accordynge unto yᵉ Skrypture, begon thys yere Aᵒ 1565. Aᵒ 7 Eliz.’ It is quite a new text. It is provided with two speeches by a Prolocutor, one to be used ‘when yᵉ Grocers Pageant is played wᵗ owte eny other goenge befor yᵗ,’ the other for use ‘yf ther goeth eny other Pageants before yᵗ.’ The former speaks of the ‘Pageants apparellyd in Wittson dayes’ that ‘lately be fallen into decayes.’

Editions.

(a) 1856. Robert Fitch in Norfolk Archaeology, v. 8, and separately.

(b) 1897. Manly, i. 1, from (a).

The Cycle.

The Grocers’ play begins in both versions with the creation of Eve. The first ends with the expulsion from Paradise. The dramatis personae are Pater, Adam, Eva, Serpens. In the second is added an Angel, and after the expulsion Adam and Eve depart ‘to yᵉ nether parte of yᵉ Pageants,’ are threatened by Dolor and Myserye, and comforted by the Holy Ghost.

A list, dating probably from 1527, makes it possible to complete the outline of the cycle⁠[948]:—

• Creation off the world.
• Paradyse [Grocers’ play].
• Helle Carte.
• Abell & Cain.
• Noyse Shipp.
• Abraham & Isaak.
• Moises & Aaron, with the Children of Israel & Pharo with his Knyghts.
• Conflict off David and Golias.
• The Birth off Christ with Shepherds and iij Kyngs of Colen.
• The Baptysme of Criste.
• The Resurrection.
• The Holy Gost.

Abraham and Isaac (Dublin MS.).

Manuscript.

Trinity College, Dublin, MS. D. iv. 18, f. 16ᵛ. In the same hand are a list of mayors and bailiffs of North[ampton] up to 1458 and a brief chronicle, in which N[orthampton] recurs.

Editions.

(a) 1836. J. P. Collier, in Five Miracle-Plays.

(b) 1899. R. Brotanek, in Anglia, xxi. 21.

Literary Relations.

The play has probably no connexion with Dublin, beyond the fact that the MS. is there. Brotanek conjectures from the character of the MS. that it belongs to Northampton (cf. p. 386). The dialect appears to be South Midland of about the first half of the fifteenth century, and the text to be based on the corresponding play (xi) in the Viel Testament (Julleville, Les Myst. ii. 363).

Abraham and Isaac (Brome MS.).

Manuscript.

‘The Book of Brome,’ a commonplace book of 1470-80 in the possession of Sir Edward Kerrison of Brome Manor, Norfolk.

Editions.

(a) 1884. L. T. Smith, in Anglia, vii. 316.

(b) 1886. L. T. Smith, in A Commonplace Book of the Fifteenth Century.

(c) 1887. W. Rye, in Norfolk Antiquarian Miscellany, iii. 1.

(d) 1897. Manly, i. 41, from (a) and (b).

Literary Relations.

The play is 465 lines long. There is an epilogue by a Doctor, but no title or prologue, and nothing to show that it was, or was not, part of a cycle. The text is probably derived from a common source with that of the corresponding Chester play: cf. Pollard, 185; A. R. Hohlfeld, in M. L. N. v. 222.

F. Holthausen has some critical notes on the text in Anglia, xiii. 361.

Croxton Play: The Sacrament.

Manuscript.

Trinity College, Dublin, MS. F. 4. 20, of the latter half of the fifteenth century.

Editions.

(a) 1861. Whitley Stokes, in Transactions of Philological Society, 1860-1 (Appendix).

(b) 1897. Manly, i. 239.

There is a prologue by two Vexillatores, ending—