Then comes a title: ‘Here after foloweth the Play of the Conversyon of Ser Jonathas the Jewe by Myracle of the Blyssed Sacrament.’ The play is 927 lines long, with occasional lines in Latin. It ends with a Te Deum. The colophon runs: ‘Thus endyth the Play of the Blyssyd Sacrament, whyche myracle was don in the forest of Aragon, in the famous cite Eraclea, the yere of ower Lord God Mˡcccc.lxi, to whom be honower. Amen!’ This account of the event on which the play is founded is confirmed by ll. 56-60 of the prologue. The date of composition cannot therefore be earlier than 1461, and probably is not much later. After the colophon is a list of the dramatis personae, who are twelve in all, and the note ‘IX may play it at ease,’ signed ‘R.C.’ The name Croxton is common to places in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, and other counties. Further identification may perhaps be helped by ll. 540-1—
The stage-directions imply a ‘place,’ with ‘stages’ for the chief players, a ‘tabyll,’ and a ‘chyrche’ (ll. 149, 288, 305, 445).
F. Holthausen has some textual criticism on the play in Englische Studien, xvi. 150, and Anglia, xv. 198.
On these, which are transitional between the liturgical play and the miracle-play proper, cf. p. 90.
[Authorities.—The best edition is that of Dr. Furnivall. The careful study by K. Schmidt, published partly as a Berlin dissertation (1884), partly in Anglia, viii (1885), 371, should be consulted.]
Bodleian Digby MS. 133. The dramatic contents of this composite manuscript are as follows:—(i) f. 37. The Conversion of St. Paul. This is written in a single hand, except that a second has inserted on f. 45 a scene between two devils, Belial and Mercury. At the end (f. 50ᵛ), is ‘ffinis conuercionis sancti pauli.’ There is a prologue, headed Poeta, against which has been written in a later hand ‘Myles Blomefylde.’ Schmidt, Diss. 6, identifies a Miles Blomefylde as a monk of Bury born in 1525. (ii) f. 95. St. Mary Magdalen, written in the second hand of (i). At the beginning are the initials M. B.; at the end (f. 145) ‘Explycit oreginale de sancta Maria magdalena.’ (iii) f. 146. Massacre of Innocents and Purification, written in the first hand of (i). At the beginning is ‘candelmes day & the kyllynge of the children of Israell, anno domini 151’; at the end ‘Anno domini Millesimo, cccccxij,’ and after a list of ‘The Namys of the Pleyers’ the entry ‘Ihon Parfre ded wryte thys booke.’ None of these notes seem to be in the hand of the text. (iv) f. 158. Fragment of morality of Mind, Will, and Understanding, found complete in the Macro MS. (cf. p. 437), in a hand apparently distinct from those of (i), (ii), (iii). This also has ‘M. B.’ at the beginning.—The texts in the MS. are probably early sixteenth-century copies of late fifteenth-century plays. There is nothing to show that Parfre or Blomfield was concerned in the authorship. They may have been the copyists. If Blomfield was really the monk of Bury born in 1525, he was probably only an owner of the MS.
(a) 1773. Massacre of Innocents, in T. Hawkins, Origin of the English Drama.
(b) 1835. Massacre of Innocents, Conversion of St. Paul, St. Mary Magdalen, in T. Sharp, Ancient Mysteries from the Digby Manuscripts (Abbotsford Club).
(c) 1838. Massacre of Innocents, in W. Marriott, English Miracle-Plays.
(d) 1882. Complete series in F. J. Furnivall, The Digby Mysteries (New Shakspere Soc., reprinted in 1896 for E. E. T. S.).
(e) 1890. St. Mary Magdalen (part only), from (d), in Pollard, 49.
(f) 1897. Conversion of St. Paul, from (d), in Manly, i. 215.
The plays appear to have been accidentally brought together in one MS., and should be treated separately for the purposes of literary history.
Schmidt, Diss. 28, assigns this to an East Midland author, and a Southern scribe. The play opens with a prologue by the Poeta who speaks of ‘owr processe.’ In the first scene or ‘station,’ Saul starts for Damascus and ‘rydyth forth with hys seruantes a-bout the place & owt of the place.’ There is a ‘conclusyon’ by the ‘Poeta—si placet,’—
After a stage-direction ‘ffinis Istius stacionis, et altera sequitur,’ the Poeta introduces another ‘prosses,’—
This scene takes place outside and in Damascus. There is a tempest, and ‘godhed spekyth in heuyn.’ Saul meets Ananias, and ‘thys stacion’ is concluded by the Poeta, and ‘ffinis istius secunde stacionis et sequitur tarcia.’
Again the Poeta calls on the audience ‘To vnderstond thys pagent at thys lytyll stacion.’ Saul returns to Jerusalem, preaches and plans to escape over the wall in a basket. Here the later hand inserted the devil scene. The Poeta has his ‘Conclusyo,’ which ends:—
The play, but for the devil scene, follows closely the biblical narrative. It was probably written for a small village, and for scene had a platea, and two loca, for Damascus and Jerusalem (with possibly a third for heaven). The audience moved with the actors from one ‘station’ or ‘pageant’ to the other, and back again. A later hand has inserted marginal directions for a ‘Daunce’ at various points in the speeches of the Poeta.
Schmidt, Anglia, viii. 385, assigns this to a West Midland author and Kentish scribe. Furnivall, 53, thinks the dialect East Midland. The plot covers the whole legendary life of the Magdalen, as it appears in the Golden Legend. The characters are very numerous, and include Satan and other devils, with allegorical figures such as the ‘Kyngs of the World and the Flesch’ and the ‘Seven Dedly Synnes.’ The action is not in any way divided in the manuscript, and implies an elaborate stationary mise en scène with various loca. These include the ‘castell of Maudleyn’ or Magdalum, thrones for the Imperator, who opens the play by calling for silence, Herod and Pilate, ‘a stage, and Helle ondyr-neth that stage’ for ‘the prynse of dylles,’ Jerusalem with a ‘place,’ an ‘erbyr’ or arbour, a tavern, the ‘howse of symont leprovs,’ a sepulchrum for Lazarus, and another for the Quem quaeritis and Hortulanus scenes which are introduced, a palace for the King of ‘Marcylle’ (Marseilles), a heathen temple, a ‘hevyne’ able to open, a lodge for the Magdalen in Marcylle, another castle, a rock, and a wilderness. There is also a practicable ship which goes to and from Marcylle (l. 1395 ‘Here xall entyre a shyp with a mery song’; l. 1445 ‘Her goth the shep owt of the place’; l. 1717 ‘Ett tunc navis venit in placeam’; l. 1797 ‘tunc remigat a montem’; l. 1879 ‘et tunc navis venit adcirca plateam’; l. 1915 ‘et tunc remigant a monte’; l. 1923 ‘Here goth the shep owȝt ofe the place’). The play ends with a Te Deum; but the following lines, added after the Explicit, suggest that the author had readers as well as spectators in mind:—
Assigned by Schmidt, Diss. 18, to a Midland author and Southern scribe. Against the title of the play has been written, in a hand identified as that of the chronicler Stowe, ‘the vij booke.’ Evidently the play was one of a series, spread over successive years, and given on Saint Anne’s day (July 26). This is shown by the opening speech of a Poeta, from which I extract:—
The action includes the Wrath of Herod, with a comic knight, Watkin, the Flight into Egypt, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Death of Herod, the Purification. The stage-directions mention a ‘place’ and a ‘tempill.’ In the latter are the virgins, who ‘tripident’ with Anne at the end. The Poeta excuses the ‘rude eloquens’ and ‘sympyll cunnyng’ of his company, promises ‘the disputacion of the doctours’ for next year, and calls on the minstrels and virgins for a final dance.
See Texts (ii), s.v. Macro Morals.
Bodleian MS. e Museo, 160, f. 140. Furnivall, vii. 166, asserts that this once formed part of the Digby MS. 133, but offers no proof. The copy seems to date from the early fifteenth century. After the Explicit, in a later hand, is ‘written by me ...’; unfortunately the name is torn off. Lines here and there in the earlier part of the piece have been crossed out.
(a) 1843. Wright and Halliwell, Reliquiae Antiquae, ii. 124.
(b) 1882. F. J. Furnivall, The Digby Plays, 171 (New Shakspere Soc., reprinted 1896 for E. E. T. S.).
See study by K. Schmidt in Anglia, viii. 393.
Schmidt assigns the play to a writer whose dialect was a mixture of Northern and East Midland forms; Morris to a Northern author and West Midland scribe. Ten Brink, ii. 287, also thinks it to be Northern, and to date from 1430-60. Apparently the author set out to write, not a drama, but a narrative poem, mainly in dialogue. The first fifteen lines are headed ‘The prologe of this treyte or meditatione off the buryalle of Criste & mowrnynge therat,’ and contain a request to ‘Rede this treyte.’ The first 419 lines have a few narrative phrases introducing the speeches, such as ‘Said Maudleyn,’ ‘Said Joseph.’ At this point the writer seems to have stopped these, crossed out such as he had already written, and inserted in the margin of his second page,—
‘This is a play to be playede, on part on gudfriday after-none, & the other part opon Esterday after the resurrectione, In the morowe, but at the begynnynge ar certene lynes [the prologue] which must not be saide if it be plaiede, which (... a line cut off).’
The Good Friday scene is an elaborate planctus. It is opened by Joseph of Arimathea, and the three Maries. Then comes Nicodemus, and the body of Christ is taken from the cross. The Virgin Mary enters with St. John, and the planctus is resumed. The body is laid in the sepulchre, and the scene is closed with—
The Easter morning scene begins with—
It contains a Quem quaeritis, a scene of lamentation between Peter, Andrew, and John, a Hortulanus, with a second apparition to all three Maries. They sing the first part of the Victimae paschali, ‘in cantifracto vel saltem in pallinodio,’ and the Apostles come in for the dialogue part. Then the tidings are announced, and Peter and John visit the sepulchre; after which, ‘Tunc cantant omnes simul Scimus Christum vell aliam sequentiam aut ympnum de resurrectione.’
(i) C. Hastings, Le Théâtre Français et Anglais, 167, says:—
‘Il existe, en plus des quatre cycles de Mystères dont nous avons parlé dans les chapitres précédents, une cinquième collection (manuscrit), propriété d’un simple particulier, M. Nicholls.’
(ii) W. C. Hazlitt, Manual for the Collector and Amateur of Old English Plays, 274, says:—
‘Mr. F. S. Ellis told me (Dec. 10, 1864) that a gentleman at Leipsic then had a fragment of a large sheet on which was printed in types formed from a block and of a very large size an English Miracle-Play. In its perfect state it seems to have been intended to attach to a church door or any other suitable place.’
(i) Bodl. MS. 791. Fifteenth century, with some alterations and additional stage-directions in a later hand. The text is Cornish, not earlier in date than the fourteenth century. Mr. Pedler (Norris, ii. 506) puts it, not very convincingly, at the end of the thirteenth.
(ii) Bodl. MS. 28,556. Seventeenth-century copy of (i), with an English translation of the larger part of the text by John Keigwyn, of Mousehole, 1695.
1859. In Edwin Norris, The Ancient Cornish Drama, from (i), with modern translation by the editor.
The text forms three dramas, intended, as the closing words of the first two show, for performance on three consecutive days. At the end of each is a diagram of the disposition of the pulpita or tenti (cf. p. 391) for the day. The action on each day is continuous, but for the sake of comparison I divide it into scenes. These are sometimes indicated by a Hic incipit or similar formula.
(1) Hic Incipit Ordinale de Origine Mundi.
The diagram gives Celum, Tortores, Infernum, Rex Pharao, Rex Dauid, Rex Sal[omon], Abraham, Ortus.
(2) Hic Incipit Passio Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi.
The diagram gives Celum, Tortores, Doctores, Pilatus, Herodes, Princeps Annas, Cayaphas, Centurio.
(3) Hic Incipit Ordinale de Resurrexione Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi.
The diagram gives Celum, Tortores, Infernum, Pilatus, Imperator, Josep Abar[imat], Nichodemus, Milites.
At the end of (1) and (3) the minstrels are directed to pipe for a dance.
Mr. Norris prints an opinion of Mr. Pedler that the place-names suggest the neighbourhood of Penrhyn, and that the plays may have been composed in the collegiate house, hard by, of Glasney.
(i) Bodl. 219, with colophon ‘Heare endeth the Creacion of the worlde wᵗʰ noyes flude wryten by William Jordan: the xiiᵗʰ of August, 1611.’ The text is Cornish, with English stage-directions containing forms earlier than 1611.
(ii) Bodl. 31,504 (MS. Corn. C. 1). Copy of (i), with English translation by John Keigwyn, 1693, written by ‘H. Usticke.’
(iii) Harl. 1867. Similar copy of (i), with Keigwyn’s translation.
(iv) MS. belonging (in 1864) to J. C. Hotten the bookseller, containing also a copy of the narrative Passion or Mount Calvary.
(a) 1827. The Creation of the World, with Noah’s Flood. Edited from (iii) by Davies Gilbert (with Keigwyn’s translation).
(b) 1864. Gwreans an Bys. The Creation of the World. Edited from (i), with a [new] translation by Whitley Stokes, as appendix to Transactions of Philological Society (1863).
The text is headed ‘The first daie [of] yᵉ playe’ and ends with a direction to minstrels to pipe for dancing, and an invitation to return on the morrow to see the Redemption. It is, therefore, probably unfinished. It appears to be based, with certain additions, on the Origo Mundi. It is continuous, but may be divided as follows:—
In Hengwrt MSS. of Mr. Wynne at Peniarth. Cornish Ordinale de Vita Sancti Mereadoci Episcopi et Confessoris, written by ‘dominus Hadton’ in 1504. At the end is a circular diagram.
1872. Beunans Meriasek: The Life of Saint Meriasek. Edited and translated by Whitley Stokes.
Mr. Stokes suggests Camborne, of which place St. Meriasek was patron. The play invokes St. Meriasek and St. Mary of Camborne at the close.
Written in two hands of the first half of the fifteenth century on blank spaces of a Computus of Holy Trinity Priory, Dublin, for 1343, preserved in the Irish Record Office, Dublin (Christ Church collection).
1891. J. Mills in Proceedings of Royal Soc. of Antiquaries of Ireland.
1898. Brandl, 2.
Cf. H. Morley, English Writers, vii. 1730.
The play was probably written early in the fifteenth century. The dialect is that of the South of England, not far from London, modified by Northern scribes.
Only a fragment (502 ll.) is preserved, but a prologue gives the plot. There is no title; but ‘[A mens]ke gam schal gyn & ende’ (l. 7), and ‘[Of Kyng of] lif I wol ȝou telle’ (l. 17). The extant characters are Rex Vivus, Primus Miles Fortitudo, Secundus Miles Sanitas, Regina, Nuntius Mirth, Episcopus. The King rejoices with Mirth and his soldiers, and Queen and Bishop vainly call on him to repent. Later in the play Death and Life strove for the King, and Death took him. He was claimed by the ‘ffendis,’ but ‘oure lady mylde’ prayed to have him.
The play was out of doors (l. 10); the King had a tentorium which could be closed (l. 306); the Bishop sat on his ‘se’ (sedes); and so probably with the other actors, except Mirth, who perhaps came in ‘oure þe lake’ (l. 269); cf. Brandl, xix.
(a) Macro MS., formerly in the possession of Mr. Cox Macro, now in that of Mr. Gurney, of Keswick Hall, Norfolk. The MS. appears from a gloss in Mankind (l. 674; cf. Brandl, xxvi), naming King Edward, to have been written during the reign of Edward IV (1461-1483). At the end of two of the plays is the name of Hyngham, a monk, to whom the MS. belonged.
(b) Digby MS. 133, on which cf. p. 428, has on f. 158 the first 754 lines of Mind, Will, and Understanding. The handwriting is said to be the same as that of the Macro MS. (Collier, ii. 207).
[A complete edition of the three moralities of the Macro MS. has long been contemplated by the E. E. T. S.]
1890. Pollard, 64 (408 lines only).
Pollard dates the play not later than the middle of the reign of Henry VI. It contains about 3,500 lines.
The subject is the struggle of good and bad qualities for Humanum Genus. On the one side are Malus Angelus and Mundus, Belial, and Caro, aided by the Seven Deadly Sins and Voluptas, Stultitia, Detractio: on the other Bonus Angelus, with Confessio, Schrift, Penitencia, and the Six Divine Graces. Amongst other episodes Humanum Genus is besieged in the Castle of Perseverance. At the end Misericordia, Iustitia, Pax, Veritas, dispute in heaven, and Pater sedens in trono inclines to mercy.
The indications of mise en scène are very valuable. On the first leaf of the MS. is a diagram of the playing place, reproduced by Sharp, 23. There is a large circle with a double circumference, in which is written, ‘This is the watyr a bowte the place, if any dyche may be mad ther it schal be pleyed; or ellys that it be stronglye barryd al a bowte: & lete nowth ower many stytelerys be withinne the plase.’ Within the circle is a rude representation of a castle, and above, ‘This is the castel of perseveranse that stondyth in the myddys of the place; but lete no men sytte ther for lettynge of syt, for ther schal be the best of all.’ Beneath the castle is a small bed, with the legend, ‘Mankynde is bed schal be under the castel, & ther schal the sowle lye under the bed tyl he schal ryse & pleye.’ At the side is a further direction, ‘Coveytyse cepbord schal be at the ende of the castel, be the beddys feet.’ Outside the circle are written five directions for scaffolds, ‘Sowth, Caro skaffold—West, Mundus skaffold—Northe, Belial skaffold—North Est, Coveytyse skaffold—Est, deus skaffold.’ At the foot of the page are some notes for costume: ‘& he that schal pley belyal, loke that he have gunne powder brennyng in pypys in his hands and in his ers, and in his ars whanne he gothe to batayle. The iiij dowters schul be clad in mentelys, Mercy in wyth, rythwysnesse in red al togedyr, Trewthe in sad grene, & Pes al in blake, and they schul pleye in the place al to gedyr tyl they brynge up the sowle.’
There is a prologue by two vexillatores, who declare—
They add that they will ‘be onward be underne of the day’ (9 a.m.).
1835. T. Sharp, Ancient Mysteries (Abbotsford Club, 754 lines from Digby MS.).
1837. W. B. D. D. Turnbull (Abbotsford Club, the rest from Macro MS.).
1882. F. J. Furnivall, Digby Plays, 139 (754 lines only).
Lucifer seduces Mind, Will, and Understanding. These are the three parts of Anima, who enters with devils running from under her skirts. Everlasting Wisdom effects a re-conversion. There are a number of mute persons attendant on the chief characters, whose coming and going, ‘dysgysyde,’ create scenic effects, as in a masque. There are minstrels and a hornpipe, songs and dances. At one point Lucifer snatches up ‘a shrewde boy’ (perhaps from the audience), and carries him off. An allusion to the Holborn quest suggests a London origin, but Schmidt (Anglia, viii. 390) thinks the dialect to be that of the north border of the West Midlands.
1897. Manly, i. 315.
1898. Brandl, 37.
The text is 901 lines long. A list of place-names (l. 491) makes it probable that it belongs to the borders of Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.
Mercy and Mischief, the latter helped by Nought, New Gyse, Nowadays, and the devil Titivillus, essay in turns to win the soul of Mankind.
The scene is divided. Part represents a tavern, of which Titivillus is host; part a ‘deambulatorye’ outside. A reference to the spectators (l. 29) runs, ‘O ȝe souerens, þat sytt, and ȝe brotherne, þat stonde ryghte wppe’: cf. Brandl, xxxii.
[1509-1530.] Richard Pynson (fragment in B. M.).
[1509-1530.] Richard Pynson (fragment in Bodl.).
[1521-1537.] John Skot. ‘Here begynneth a treatyse how the hye fader of heuen sendeth dethe to somon euery creature to come and gyue a counte of theyr lyues in this Worlde, and is in maner of a morall playe’ (B. M. and Huth Library).
[1529-1537.] John Skot (in St. Paul’s Churchyard).
There are modern editions by Hawkins (1773, vol. i), Gödeke (1865), Hazlitt-Dodsley (1874. vol. i), Pollard (1890, part only, and in full in Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, 1903), H. Logeman, Elckerlijk and Everyman (1892), F. Sidgwick (1902). Another is announced in a series edited by I. Gollancz.
There are about 900 lines. Pollard, 202, assigns the text to the end of the fifteenth century; Ten Brink, ii. 302, to the reign of Edward IV. Prof. H. Logeman, Elckerlijk (1892), argues the play to be an English version of the closely similar Dutch Elckerlijk, attributed to Petrus Dorlandus of Diest, but K. H. de Raaf, Spyeghel der Salicheyt van Elckerlijk (1897), would invert the relation: cf. Brandl, xiv. The characters are Messenger, God, Death, Everyman, Fellowship, Kindred, Goods, Good Deeds, Knowledge, Confession, Beauty, Strength, Discretion, Five Wits, Angel, Doctor. The Messenger prologizes. God sends Death for Everyman, who finds that no one will accompany him save Good Deeds. The Doctor epilogizes. There are no indications of the mise en scène, except that there was a central scaffold for the ‘House of Salvation’ (Gödeke, 174, 200, cf. Brandl, xx).
An Oxford bookseller, John Dorne, had a copy of ‘mundus, a play’ in 1520[949].
1522. Wynkyn de Worde. ‘Here begynneth a propre newe Interlude of the Worlde and the chylde, otherwyse called (Mundus & Infans)....’
1523. Wynkyn de Worde.
There are a reprint by Lord Althorp (Roxburghe Club, 1817) and modern editions in Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. i; Manly, i. 353.
The dramatis personae are Mundus or the World, Infans or Dalliance or Wanton or Love-Lust and Liking or Manhood or Shame or Age or Repentance, Conscience, Folly, Perseverance. The representative of Man in various ages is alternately won over to good and evil. There are 979 lines. Collier, ii. 224; Pollard, li, assign the play to the reign of Henry VII; Brandl, xlii, thinks that the use of the Narrenmotif points to a date of composition not long before that of publication. Mundus says, ‘Here I sette semely in se’ (l. 22), and Manhood ‘Here in this sete sytte I’ (l. 285).
Skelton was born, probably in Norfolk, about 1460. He studied at Cambridge and acquired fame as a scholar. Both universities honoured him with the degree of poeta laureatus. He was tutor to Henry VIII as a boy, and became rector of Diss in Norfolk. But he died in sanctuary at Westminster (1529), driven there on account of his bitter satires against Wolsey. In his Garland of Laurell (pr. 1523), a late work, he has a list of his writings, including—
Bale, Scriptores, i. 652, ascribes to him Comoediam de uirtute, Lib. 1; De magnificentia comoediam, Lib. 1; Theatrales ludos, Lib. 1; De bono or dine comoediam, Lib. 1. Magnificence is, however, his only extant play.
Warton (Hazlitt-Warton, iii. 287) describes a piece shown him by William Collins, the poet, at Chichester, about 1759. He says:—
‘It is the Nigramansir, a morall Enterlude and a pithie, written by Maister Skelton laureate, and plaid before the King and other estatys at Woodstoke on Palme Sunday. It was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in a thin quarto, in the year 1504. It must have been presented before Henry VII, at the royal manor or palace at Woodstock in Oxfordshire, now destroyed. The characters are a Necromancer or conjurer, the devil, a notary public, Simony, and Philargyria or Avarice. It is partly a satire on some abuses in the church.... The story, or plot, is the trial of Simony and Avarice.’
Warton proceeds to describe the action at some length. Nothing further is known of the play. Ritson, Bibliographia Poetica, 106, said ‘it is utterly incredible that the Nigramansir ... ever existed,’ and Mr. H. E. D. Blakiston (Eng. Hist. Rev. for April, 1896) has called attention to several cases in which Warton showed mala fides as a literary historian. In another place (iii. 310) Warton incidentally calls the piece ‘Skelton’s The Trial of Simonie.’ E. G. Duff, Hand Lists of English Printers, Part i, knows of no extant copy.
[1529-1533.] John Rastell. ‘Magnyfycence, a goodly interlude and a mery, deuysed and made by mayster Skelton, poet laureate, late deceasyd.’ Folio.
1533. John Rastell. Quarto.
1821. J. Littledale (Roxburghe Club).
1843. A. Dyce, Poetical Works of Skelton, i. 225.
1890. Pollard, 106 (extract).
The characters are Felicity, Liberty, Measure, Magnificence, Fancy, Counterfeit Countenance, Crafty Countenance, Cloked Collusion, Courtly Abusion, Folly, Adversity, Poverty, Despair, Mischief, Good Hope, Redress, Sad Circumspection, Perseverance. The plot shows Magnificence brought low by evil counsellors, and restored by good ones. The players come in and out of ‘the place.’ There are 2,596 lines. The play was written later than 1515, as a reference to the liberality of the dead Louis of France (l. 283) must intend Louis XII who died in that year, not the niggard Louis XI.
Sir David Lyndsay ‘of the Mount’ in Fifeshire was born in 1490. By 1511 he was employed in the royal household, first as an actor or musician, then as ‘Keeper of the Kingis Grace’s person.’ In 1529 he became Lyon King at Arms, a post which included the charge of court entertainments. His satire did not spare the church, and he seems to have been in sympathy with Knox and other reformers, but he did not so far commit himself as to endanger his office, which he held until his death in 1555.
(i) Jan. 6, 1540, Linlithgow, before James V. This performance, the first of which there is any satisfactory evidence, was described by Sir W. Eure in a letter to Cromwell (Ellis, Original Letters, 3rd Series, iii. 275; Brewer-Gairdner, xv. 36), enclosing a ‘Copie of the Nootes of the Interluyde.’ The version seems to have been different from that now extant. ‘Solaice’ figured as the presenter. Eure mentions the ‘scaffald’ and ‘the interluyds of the Play.’ He adds that, as a result, James V admonished the Bishops to reform their ways.
(ii) June 7 (Whit-Tuesday), 1552, Cupar of Fife. The Bannatyne MS. (see below) has the ‘Proclamation maid at Cowpar of Fyffe, upon the Castell-hill, 7 June, beginning at seven.’ This was therefore the extant version. The year is fixed by an incidental reference to the day (June 7) as Whit-Tuesday.
(iii) 1554 (?), Edinburgh. Henry Charteris, in his preface to Lyndsay’s Warkis of 1568 (Laing, iii. 231), says of the ‘makar’s’ relations to the clergy, ‘Sic ane spring he gaif thame in the Play, playit besyde Edinburgh, in presence of the Quene Regent, and are greit part of the Nobilitie, with ane exceding greit nowmer of pepill, lestand fra ix houris afoir none till vj houris at evin.’ The Bannatyne MS. gives the play as ‘maid in the Grenesyd besyd Edinburgh,’ and ‘in anno 155-ȝeiris.’ Cf. Appendix W, p. 366.
(a) 1602. Robert Charteris. ‘Ane satyre of the thrie estaits, in commendation of vertew in vituperation of vyce. Maid be Sir Dauid Lindesay of the Mont, alias, Lyon King of Armes.’
Diligence, as presenter, summons the three estates before Rex Humanitas. Many ‘Vycis’ and other allegorical personages appear before the Rex on his ‘royall sait.’ In ll. 1288-1411 comes the first interlude (although the term is not used in the text) of ‘The Sowtar and Tailor.’ At l. 1931 is the ‘End of the First Part of the Satyre,’ with the direction, ‘Now sall the Pepill mak collatioun: then beginnis the Interlude: the Kings, Bischops, and principal Players being out of their seats.’ This interlude introduces the Pauper, Pardoner, Sowtar, and others. Part ii begins at l. 2298. At l. 4283, ‘Heir sall enter Folie,’ and at l. 4483, ‘Heir sall Folie begin his Sermon, as followis.’ The theme is, of course, Stultorum numerus infinitus, and at the close the preacher names recipients of his ‘Follie Hattis or Hudes’ (cf. ch. xvi). At l. 4629, the people are finally dismissed to dance and drink, Diligence calling on a minstrel.
(b) †1568. Bannatyne MS. (ed. Hunterian Club, 1873-1896, Part iv).
George Bannatyne included in his collection of pieces by the Scots ‘makaris’ (a) the ‘Proclamation’ at Cupar of Fife (see above), (b) a preliminary interlude, not in Charteris’s edition, of a Cottar, an Auld Man and his Wife, a ‘Fuill,’ &c.; (c) seven extracts from the play, headed, ‘Heir begynnis Schir Dauid Lyndsay Play maid in the Grenesyd besyd Edinburgh, quhilk I writtin bot schortly be Interludis, levand the grave mater thereof, becaws the samyne abuse is weill reformit in Scotland, praysit be God, quhairthrow I omittit that principall mater and writtin only Sertane mirry Interludis thairof verry pleasand, begynnyng at the first part of the Play.’
1869. F. Hall, Works of Lindsay, Pt. iv (E. E. T. S. o. s. 37).
1879. D. Laing, Works of Lindsay, vol. ii.
[Other editions are enumerated by Laing, iii. 259. There is an analysis of the play in T. F. Henderson, Scottish Vernacular Literature, 219.]
Medwall was chaplain to John Morton, cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury (1486-1500), who is probably the ‘my lord’ of Nature, i. 1438. Besides Nature, he wrote an interlude ‘of the fyndyng of Troth, who was carried away by ygnoraunce and ypocresy,’ played by the King’s players before Henry VIII at Richmond on Jan. 6, 1514. The ‘foolys part’ was the best, but the play was too long to please the King (cf. p. 201). See also s.v. Lucrece (p. 458).
[1530-4.] William Rastell. ‘A goodly interlude of Nature compyled by mayster Henry Medwall,’ &c.
1898. Brandl, 73.
There are two ‘partes’ of the ‘processe’ (i. 1434). The first (1439 ll.) has Mundus, Worldly Affection, Man, Nature, Innocency, Reason, Sensuality, Privy Council, Pride, a Boy, Shamefastness. In the second (1421 ll.), on a different day, some of these recur, with Bodily Lust, Wrath, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, Humility, Charity, Abstinence, Liberality, Chastity, Good Occupation, and Patience. The personages come in and out at ‘dorys’ (i. 728) and sit down on ‘stole’ or ‘chayr.’ There was also a fire (ii. 518 sqq.). Probably the scene was in a room. At the end ‘they syng some goodly ballet.’
John Heywood was born either in London or at North Mimms in Hertfordshire, about 1497. He is claimed as a member of Broadgates Hall, afterwards Pembroke College, Oxford. From about 1515 he was employed at Court; in 1519 he is called a ‘singer,’ later a ‘player at virginals,’ and finally he was master of a company of children, possibly the singing-school of St. Paul’s. His advancement with Henry VIII and the Princess Mary is ascribed to Sir Thomas More, whose kinsman he became. More’s sister Elizabeth married John Rastell, lawyer and printer. John Heywood’s wife was their granddaughter, Elizabeth. It may be added that their daughter, another Elizabeth, was the mother of John Donne. Heywood took More’s line in Church matters, but conformed to the Act of Supremacy. He was in high favour under Mary, and at her death retired to Malines. He was alive in 1577, but dead in 1587.
Heywood’s extant interludes are all early work; although Bale, writing in 1557 (Scriptores, ed. 2, ii. 110), only ascribes to him De Aura, comoediam; De Amore, tragoediam; De quadruplici P. The Pardoner and Friar, which mentions Leo X as alive, must be before 1521. Love and the Four Ps may be about as early: the rest may belong to the following decade (Brandl, li). In 1538 Heywood showed a play of children before Mary (Madden, 62). In 1539, Wolsey paid him for a masque of Arthur’s Knights, or Divine Providence, at court (Brewer, xiv. (2) 782). In 1553 he set out a play of children at court (Loseley MSS. 89). At Mary’s coronation he sat in a pageant under a vine against the school in St. Paul’s Churchyard and made speeches (Holinshed (1808), iv. 6).
See W. Swododa, J. Heywood als Dramatiker (1888).
1533. Wyllyam Rastell. ‘A mery Play betwene the pardoner and the frere, the curate and neybour Pratte.’
There are modern editions in F. J. Child, Four Old Plays (1848); Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. i; Pollard, 114 (extract).
The scene of the action is supposed to be a church. About 1,000 lines. The date of composition was under Leo X (1513-1521).
1533. William Rastell. ‘A play of loue, A newe and mery enterlude concerning pleasure and payne in loue, made by Ihon̄ Heywood.’
[Unique copy in Magd. Coll., Camb. See Greg, Plays, 143.]
[1546-1586.] John Waley.
[Unique copy, without title-page, in Bodl., bound with Weather and Four Ps. (Bodl. 4ᵒ, P. 33, Jur.). Copies of these three plays, with one now lost, of ‘Old Custom,’ are mentioned in an inventory of the effects of John, Earl of Warwick, 1545-1550 (Hist. MSS. ii. 102).]
1898. Brandl, 159.
Little more than a series of disputations between Lover Loved, Lover not Loved, Loved not Loving, and No Lover nor Loved. There are 1,573 lines. Towards the end, ‘Here the vyse cometh in ronnynge sodenly aboute the place among the audiens with a hye copyn tank on his bed full of squybs fyred.’
[1541-1547.] William Myddleton. ‘The playe called the foure P. P. A newe and very mery enterlude of A palmer. A pardoner. A poticary. A pedler. Made by Iohn Heewood.’
[1549-1569.] William Copland.
1569. John Allde.
There are modern editions in W. Scott, Ancient British Drama, vol. i (1810): Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. i; Manly, i. 483.
[Copyright, with that of Love and Weather transferred, Jan. 15, 1582, from late Sampson Awdeley to John Charlwood (Arber, ii. 405). The Four Pees is mentioned with other early plays in Sir Thomas More (Shakes. Soc. 1844).]
There are no indications of mise en scène. There are 1,236 lines.
1533. William Rastell. ‘The Play of the wether. A new and very mery enterlude of all maner wethers made by Iohn̄ Heywood.’
[1564-1576.] Anthony Kytson.
1898. Brandl, 211.
1903. Gayley, 19.
The characters are Jupiter, Merry Report, ‘the vyce,’ Gentleman, Merchant, Ranger, Water Miller, Wind Miller, Gentlewoman, Launder, A Boy (‘the lest that can play’). All in turn petition different weather from Jupiter. The piece is 1,255 lines long. Jupiter has his ‘thron’ (l. 179).
1533/4. William Rastell. ‘A mery play between Iohan Iohan the husbande, Tyb his wyfe and Syr Ihān the preest.’
1819. Chiswick Press.
1898. Brandl, 259.
1903. Gayley, 61.
The action proceeds in the ‘place’ (l. 667), which represents Johan’s house with a fire (ll. 399, 460). The door of the priest’s chamber is also visible (ll. 316, 673). There are 680 lines.
Harl. MS. 367.
1846. F. W. Fairholt (Percy Soc.). ‘A dialogue concerning witty and witless.’
Thomas Hacket entered the ‘pleye of wytles’ on S. R. in 1560-1 (Arber, i. 154). This piece is a mere dialogued débat or estrif.
[1516-1533.] John Rastell. ‘Of Gentylnes and Nobylyte. A dyaloge ... compilid in maner of an enterlude with diuers toys and gestis addyt therto to make mery pastyme and disport.’
1829. J. H. Burn.
This resembles Witty and Witless in character. It is only conjecturally assigned to Heywood. The copy in the British Museum of Rastell’s edition (C. 40, i. 16) has a mounted woodcut portrait with the initials I. H., but I do not know whether that really belongs to it.
[Authorities.—Collier, i. 123; ii. 159; Ward, i. 173; Lives of Bale in D. N. B. (article by Mandell Creighton) and Cooper, Athenae Cantabrigienses; his own works, especially Illustrium Maioris Britanniae Scriptorum Catalogus (1548, ed. 2, 1557-9, i. 704) and Vocacyon to Ossory (Harl. Miscellany, ed. 1808, i. 328); editions of plays named below, especially that of Schröer.]
John Bale was born in 1495 at Cove, near Dunwich, in Suffolk. He was placed as a boy in the Carmelite convent of Norwich, thence went to that of Holn, or Holm, in Northumberland, and finally to Jesus College, Cambridge. He took orders, but was converted to Protestantism by Lord Wentworth, and married a ‘faithful Dorothy.’ He became vicar of Thorndon, in Suffolk, and earned the protection of Thomas Cromwell ob editas comoedias. Cromwell’s accounts (Brewer, xiv. 2. 337) show payments to him for plays on Sept. 8, 1538, at St. Stephen’s, Canterbury, and on Jan. 31, 1539. At his patron’s fall in 1540 he fled to Germany, and joined vigorously in polemic. In his Epistel Exhortatorye of an Inglyshe Christian (1544), written under the pseudonym of Henry Stalbridge, he says: ‘None leave ye unvexed and untrobled—no, not so much as the poore minstrels, and players of enterludes, but ye are doing with them. So long as they played lyes, and sange baudy songes, blasphemed God, and corrupted men’s consciences, ye never blamed them, but were verye well contented. But sens they persuaded the people to worship theyr Lorde God aryght, accordyng to hys holie lawes and not yours, and to acknoledge Jesus Chryst for their onely redeemer and saviour, without your lowsie legerdemains, ye never were pleased with them.’ He returned in 1547, and in 1548 printed in his Scriptores the following list of his ‘in idiomate materno, comedias sub vario metrorum genere.’
As Bale gives a Latin translation of the opening words of each piece, his five extant plays can be identified with those I have italicized. It is to be noted that Nos. 18 and 19 have the same subject as No. 3, which seems to form part of a complete Passion cycle (Nos. 2-9).
In 1547 Bale was made rector of Bishopstoke, Hants, in 1551 of Swaffham, Norfolk, and in 1553 Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland. On the day of the proclamation of Queen Mary he had some of his plays performed at the market-cross of Kilkenny (cf. p. 374). But he had to take refuge at Basle, and on the accession of Elizabeth found himself too old to resume his see, and retired on a prebend in Canterbury Cathedral, where he died in 1563.
(i) 1577. ‘A Tragedye or enterlude manyfestyng the chefe promyses of God vnto man by all ages in the olde lawe, from the fall of Adam to the incarnacyon of the lorde Jesus Christ. Compyled by John Bale, An. Do. 1538, and now fyrst imprynted 1577. [List of characters.] Iohn Charlwood for Stephen Peele, 1577.’
(ii) n.d. [Another edition]. ‘Compyled by Johan Bale, Anno Domini M.D.XVXXVIII.’ B. L.
(iii) 1874. Hazlitt-Dodsley, i. 277 (and in all earlier editions of Dodsley, from 1744).
A prologue by Baleus prolocutor is followed by seven ‘Actes,’ in which Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Esaias, Iohannes Baptista discourse in turn with Pater Coelestis. Each Act ends with one of the pre-Christmas antiphons known as the seven Oes (cf. vol. i. p. 344), to be sung by a ‘Chorus cum organis’ in Latin or English. Baleus Prolocutor epilogizes, ending ‘More of thys matter conclude hereafter we shall.’ This play is practically a Prophetae.
(i) n.d. ‘A Brefe Comedy or Enterlude of Johan Baptystes preachynge in the Wyldernesse; openynge the craftye assaultes of the hypocrytes, with the gloryouse Baptyme of the Lorde Jesus Christ. Compyled by Johan Bale, Anno M.D.XXXVIII.’
(ii) 1744. Harleian Miscellany, i. 97.
Praefatio by Baleus Prolocutor. Then Incipit Comoedia. Bale has a final speech. The Interlocutores are Pater Coelestis, Ioannes Baptista, Publicanus, Pharisaeus, Iesus Christus, Turba vulgaris, Miles armatus, Sadducaeus.
(i) n.d. ‘A brefe Comedy or enterlude concernynge the temptacyon of our Lorde and sauer Iesus Christ, by Sathan in the desart. Compyled by Iohan Bale, Anno M.D.XXXVIII.’
(ii) 1870. A. B. Grosart, Miscellanies of Fuller Worthies Library, vol. i.
Praefatio by Baleus Prolocutor. Then Incipit Comoedia. Bale has a final speech. The other Interlocutores are Iesus Christus, Satan tentator, Angelus primus, Angelus alter. The play calls itself an ‘Acte.’
[These three plays closely resemble each other. They were all written at Thorndon in 1538, and are markedly Protestant in tone. They were also all performed at Kilkenny, on Aug. 20, 1553.]
(i) n.d. A Comedy concernynge thre lawes, of nature, Moses, and Christ, corrupted by the Sodomytes Pharysees and Papystes. Compyled by Johan Bale. Anno M.D.XXXVIII.
Colophon: Thus endeth thys Comedy [&c.]. Compyled by Johan Bale. Anno M.D. XXXVIII, and lately inprented per Nicolaum Bamburgensem.
(ii) 1562. Edition by Thomas Colwell.
(iii) A. Schröer, in Anglia, v. 137.
The play may have been written in 1538, but the allusions (ll. 2073, 2080) to King Edward and the Lord Protector show that it was revised after 1547. It is not, like (i), (ii), and (iii), a miracle-play, but a morality, and its Protestantism is far more advanced and polemical than theirs. It is 2,081 lines long, and has five Actus, with the usual Praefatio by Baleus Prolocutor. The other Interlocutores are Deus pater, Natura lex, Moseh lex, Christi lex vel Euangelium, Infidelitas, Idololatria, Sodomismus, Ambitio, Auaricia, Pseudodoctrina, Hypocrisis, Vindicta Dei, Fides Christiana. At the end is a note how ‘Into fyue personages maye the partes of thys Comedy be deuyded,’ and another for ‘The aparellynge of the six vyces or frutes of Infydelyte.’
In possession of the Duke of Devonshire, found amongst papers probably belonging to the Corporation of Ipswich. Written in two hands, of which one is believed to be Bale’s.
(i) 1838. Ed. J. P. Collier for Camden Soc.
(ii) 1890. Extract in Pollard, 146.
(iii) 1897. Manly, i. 525, from (i).
‘Kynge Johan’ contains 2,656 lines, but is divided into ‘ij playes,’ i.e. Acts. At l. 1119 is a reference to ‘the seconde acte’ and a ‘Finit Actus Primus.’ There are nineteen personages—Kynge Johan, Ynglond, Clargy, Sedycyon, Cyvyle Order, Stevyn Langton, Commynalte, Nobylyte, Cardynall Pandulphus, Pryvat Welth, Dissimulacyon, Raymundus, Symon of Swynsett, Usurpyd Power, The Pope, Interpretour (a presenter), Treasor, Veryte, Imperyall Majestye—but these are marked with brackets to show that they can be taken by nine actors. The play is strongly Protestant. It was doubtless written before 1548, as ‘Lib. 2. de Ioanne Anglorum Rege’ are included in Bale’s Scriptores list of that year. Collier, i. 123, quotes a deposition as to ‘an enterlude concernyng King John’ performed ‘in Christmas tyme [1538-9] at my Lorde of Canterbury’s’ which was certainly anti-Papal, and was probably Bale’s. But the extant text has undergone a later revision, for the prayer at the end is for Elizabeth. Fleay, Hist. of Stage, 62, conjectures that it was performed upon her visit to Ipswich in August, 1561. There was probably a single stage or pageant. The characters enter and go out. At l. 1377 Sedycyon speaks ‘extra locum’; at l. 785 is the phrase ‘Ye may perseyve yt in pagent here this hower.’
Grimald was the son of a Genoese clerk in the service of Henry VII. He migrated from Christ’s College, Cambridge, to Oxford, where, after a short stay at Brasenose, he became Fellow and Lecturer first of Merton in 1540, then of Christ Church in 1547. To this period belong his Latin plays, and the bulk of his lyrics and other poems in Tottel’s Miscellany. He was widely read in theology and scholarship, and was chosen chaplain to Bishop Ridley, for whom he did much controversial work. Under Mary in 1555 he was imprisoned, but escaped by a recantation. He was dead before 1562. Bale, Scriptores (1557), i. 701, ascribes to him amongst other writings:—
Of these the first and fourth survive; of the others some can only be conjecturally put down as plays.
1543. Gymnicus, Cologne. Christus redivivus. Comoedia tragica, sacra et nova. Authore Nicolao Grimaoldo.
1899. J. M. Hart, in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, xiv. No. 3.
The dedication is dated, ‘Oxoniae, e Collegio Martonensi. Anno 1543’; but according to the account of the play given therein by the author, it was performed by the pubes of B. N. C. before he joined Merton.
Brit. Mus. Royal MS. 12 A. 46.
1548. Gymnicus, Cologne. Archipropheta, Tragoedia iam recens in lucem edita. Autore Nicolao Grimoaldo.
The dedication is dated 1547. The play is divided into Acts and Scenes, and has choruses. It deals with the story of John the Baptist. Herford, 116, suggests a possible influence from the Iohannes Decollatus (1546) of Jakob Schöpper of Dortmund (Bahlmann, Lat. Dr. 93).
[Authorities.—Bale, Scriptores (1557), i. 717; Ward, i. 254; Pearson, ii. 413; Kempe, 63, 90; S. L. Lee, s.v. Udall in D. N. B.; T. Fowler, Hist. of C. C. C. 370; Maxwell-Lyte, Hist. of Eton (3rd ed. 1899), 117; J. W. Hales, The Date of the First English Comedy, in Englische Studien, xviii (1893), 408; E. Flügel, Nicholas Udall’s Dialogues and Interludes, in Furnivall Miscellany (1901), 81.]
Nicholas Udall, Uvedale, Owdall, Woodall, or Yevedall, was born in Hampshire in 1505, and educated at Winchester and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he held an informal lectureship in 1526-8. He was an early Oxford exponent of Lutheran views. In 1532 he assisted Leland in preparing verses for the London pageants at the coronation of Anne Boleyn. From 1533-7 he was vicar of Braintree, Essex, and not improbably wrote the play of Placidas, alias Sir Eustace, recorded in 1534 in the churchwardens’ accounts. But from 1534 he was also head master of Eton. Thomas Cromwell’s accounts for 1538 include ‘Woodall, the schoolmaster of Eton, for playing before my Lord, £5’ (Brewer, xiv. 2. 334). In 1541 he left Eton, under an accusation of theft and other misbehaviour. But he found favour with Katharine Parr, Somerset, and Edward VI through literary and theological work, was made tutor to Edward Courtenay and obtained in 1551 a prebend at Windsor, and in 1553 the living of Calborne, Isle of Wight. He had not, however, so far committed himself on the Protestant side as to make it impossible to conform under Mary. He was tutor to Bishop Gardiner’s household, and either in 1553 or 1554 became head master of Westminster. Here he remained to his death in 1556. A letter of Mary in 1554 states that he had ‘at soondrie seasons’ shown ‘dialogues and enterludes’ before her, and requires the Revels office to provide him with ‘apparell’ for his ‘devises’ at the coming Christmas. The Revels accounts for the year mention ‘certen plaies’ made by him, but the items referring to them cannot be disentangled from those for masks given at the same Christmas. Bale does not mention Udall in the 1548 edition of his Scriptores, but in that of 1557 he gives a list of works ‘Latine et Anglice,’ including ‘Comoedias plures, Lib. 1,’ and adds that he ‘transtulit’ for Katherine Parr, ‘tragoediam de papatu.’ When Elizabeth was at Cambridge on Aug. 8, 1564, ‘an English play called Ezekias made by Mr. Udal’ was given before her by King’s College men (Nichols, Progr. of Eliz. i. 186).
[1566-7. In this year the play was entered on the Stationers’ Registers to Thomas Hacket, and to this edition the unique copy, without title-page or colophon, presented in 1818 to the Eton College library, probably belongs.]
1818. Briggs.
1821. F. Marshall.
1830. Thomas White, in Old English Drama, vol. i.
1847. W. D. Cooper, for Shakespeare Society.
1869. E. Arber, in English Reprints.
1874. Hazlitt-Dodsley, iii. 53.
1897. J. M. Manly, ii. 3 (based on Arber).
1903. E. Flügel, in C. M. Gayley, Representative English Comedies, 105.
The play is divided into Actus and Scenae, and is called in a prologue, which refers to Plautus and Terence, a ‘comedie, or enterlude.’ The prayer at the end is for a ‘queene’ who protects the ‘Gospell.’ Probably Elizabeth is meant. This, however, must be later in date than that of the play itself, which has been fixed by Prof. Hales to 1553-4, on the ground that a passage in it is quoted in the third edition (1553 or 1554) of T. Wilson’s Rule of Reason, but not in the earlier editions of 1550-1 and 1552. Prof. Hales thinks that Udall was master of Westminster as early as 1553, and wrote it for the boys there. If Wilson’s date is 1554, the play may have been one of those given at court in the Christmas of 1553.
The dramatis personae are all abstractions, with an occasional moral type, such as Hickscorner, or a social type, such as a Taverner.
1. †1486-1501. Henry Medwall. Nature.
See s.v. Medwall.
2. †1513. Hickscorner.
[1501-35.] W. de Worde. Hyckescorner.
[1546-86.] J. Waley.