[347] Cf. pp. 36, 37, 47; Lange, 160 ‘ad faciendam similitudinem domini sepulchri,’ ‘ad faciendam similitudinem domini apparitionis’ (Fleury, thirteenth century), ‘versus ad stellam faciendam’ (Nevers, †1060), ‘fiunt peregrini’ (Saintes, thirteenth century).
[348] Cf. p. 103, n. 5 above.
[349] Cf. pp. 58, 60; Lange, 157; ‘ad repraesentandum quomodo sanctus Nicolaus’ (Fleury, thirteenth century), ‘historia de Daniel repraesentanda’ (Hilarius, twelfth century), ‘si Mariae debeant repraesentari’ (Coutances, fifteenth century).
[351] Cf. pp. 45, 107; Lange, 136; ‘in resurrectione domini repraesentatio’ (Cividale, fourteenth century), ‘repraesentatio trium Regum’ (Rouen, 1507, 1521), ‘repraesentacio pastorum ... resurreccionis ... peregrinorum’ (Lichfield, †1190).
[352] Cf. vol. i. p. 393.
[353] Cf. pp. 63, 73, ‘ludus super iconia Sancti Nicolai’ (Hilarius, twelfth century); cf. the Antichrist and Benedictbeuern Nativity, and note 11 below.
[355] Cf. vol. i. p. 91; vol. ii. pp. 60, 380; ‘miraculum de Sancto Nicolao’ (Fleury, thirteenth century), repraesentationes miraculorum’ (Fitz-Stephen, †1180), ‘miraculum in nocte Paschae’ (Lichfield, †1190; cf. note 7 above), ‘ludum ... quem Miracula vulgariter appellamus’ (Matthew Paris, thirteenth century), ‘ludos quos vocant miracula’ (Grosseteste, 1244). The vernacular ‘miracles,’ ‘myraclis,’ is found in the Handlyng Synne, and the Tretise of miraclis pleyinge.
[356] Pollard, xix; Ward, i. 41. The first English use of the term ‘mystery’ is in the preface to Dodsley’s Select Collection of Old Plays (1744). The distinction between ‘mysteries’ which ‘deal with Gospel events only’ and ‘miracles,’ which ‘are more especially concerned with incidents derived from the legends of the Saints of the Church’ is a not very happy invention of the literary historians.
[357] Julleville, Les Myst. i. 417 ‘Licence de faire et jouer quelque Misterre que ce soit, soit de la dicte Passion, et Résurreccion, ou autre quelconque tant de saincts comme des sainctes.’
[358] Julleville, Les Myst. i. 189.
[359] Except after its dramatic sense was already well established; cf. pp. 42, 65, ‘mysterium in die Ascensionis’ (Lille, 1416), ‘misterium Pastorum’ (Rouen, 1457).
[360] Cf. Appendix B.
[361] Walafridus Strabo, de rebus eccles., c. 22, in the ninth century, gives the name ‘actio’ to the ‘canon’ or unchangeable portion of the Mass (Maskell, Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England, 112).
[363] Cf. supra, p. 102, note 1.
[365] Trans. of Shropshire Antiq. Soc. viii. 273.
[366] Analytical Index to Remembrancia of City of London, 330 sqq.; 350 sqq.
[368] For the general Puritan attitude to the stage, see S. Gosson, Schoole of Abuse, 1579 (ed. Arber); W. Prynne, Histriomastix (1633), with the authorities there quoted; and the tracts in W. C. Hazlitt, The English Drama and Stage.
[369] On such guilds cf. Cutts, Parish Priests, 476; Rock, ii. 395; F. A. Gasquet, The Eve of the Reformation, 351.
[370] C. Tales, 3383 (Miller’s Tale).
[371] Cf. vol. i. p. 121.
[372] On the economics of a mediaeval parish and the functions of the churchwardens cf. Hobhouse, Churchwardens’ Accounts, xi (Somerset Record Soc.).
[373] Cf. Appendix T.
[378] I can only give the most general account of the legendary content of the plays. For full treatment of this in relation to its sources cf. the authorities quoted in the bibliographical note to chapter xxi, and especially L. T. Smith, York Plays, xlvii; P. Kamann, in Anglia, x. 189; A. Hohlfeld, in Anglia, xi. 285. Much still remains to be done, especially for the Chester plays and the Ludus Coventriae. The chief earlier sources are probably the Evangelium Pseudo-Matthaei and the Evangelium Nicodemi (including the Gesta Pilati and the Descensus Christi ad Inferos), both in Tischendorf, Evangelia Apocrypha, and the Transitus Mariae in Tischendorf, Apocalypses Apocryphae. The later sources include the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine (†1275) and the Cursor Mundi (ed. R. Morris for E. E. T. S.), a Northumbrian poem of the early fourteenth century.
[380] Cf. the Mors Pilati in Tischendorf, Evang. Apocr. 456.
[381] The ‘Holy Rood’ episodes are those numbered 6, 13, 14, 16-20, 61 in the table. The fullest accounts of the legend in its varied literary forms are given by W. Meyer, Die Geschichte des Kreuzholzes vor Christus (Abhandlungen der k. bayer. Akad. der Wiss. I. Cl. xvi. 2. 103, Munich, 1881), and A. S. Napier, History of the Holy Rood-tree (E. E. T. S. 1894). Roughly, the story is as follows: Seth went to Paradise to fetch the oil of mercy. An angel gave him three pips from the tree of knowledge. These were laid beneath the tongue of Adam at his burial, and three rods, signifying the Trinity, sprang up. Moses cut the rods, and did miracles with them. At his death they were planted in Mount Tabor. An angel in a dream sent David to fetch them. They grew into one tree, in the shade of which David repented of his sin with Bathsheba. When the Temple was building, a beam was fashioned from the tree, but it would not fit and was placed in the Temple for veneration. The woman Maximilla incautiously sat upon it and her clothes caught fire. She prophesied of Christ, and the Jews made her the first martyr. The beam was cast into the pool of Siloam, to which it gave miraculous properties, and was finally made into a bridge. At the Passion, a portion of it was taken for the Rood.
[382] The Norwich play of the Fall is extant in two sixteenth-century versions.
[383] The Newcastle play of the Building of the Ark is extant.
[384] Two Coventry plays are extant, the Shearmen and Taylors’ play, extending from the Annunciation to the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Weavers’ play of the Purification and Christ in the Temple.
[385] Probably these smaller plays, chiefly Paschal, were in English. The Nativity and Resurrection plays in Lord Northumberland’s chapel and the Resurrection play in Magdalen College chapel may have been in Latin (cf. p. 107).
[386] ‘Thobie’ is included in the French collection of mysteries known as the Viel Testament (Julleville, Les Myst. ii. 354, 370).
[387] On the way in which the later local miracle-play and the scriptural interlude merge into each other, cf. p. 191.
[388] The Destruction of Jerusalem, together with the Visit of Veronica to Tiberius and the Death of Pilate, which are scenes in the Cornish cycle, forms the subject-matter of a French Vengeance de Nostre Seigneur, printed in 1491. Another Vengeance de Nostre Seigneur is attached to the Passion of Eustache Mercadé (†1414). A representation of a Vengeance, following close on one of a Passion, is recorded at Metz in 1437, and there are several later examples (Julleville, Les Myst. ii. 12, 175, 415, 451).
[391] Cf. vol. i. p. 221.
[392] Julleville, Les Myst. ii. 574.
[393] Archdeacon Rogers thus describes the Chester plays (Digby Plays, xix) ‘They first beganne at yᵉ Abbaye gates; & when the firste pagiente was played at yᵉ Abbaye gates, then it was wheeled from thence to the pentice at yᵉ highe crosse before yᵉ Mayor; and before that was donne, the seconde came, and yᵉ firste wente in-to the water-gate streete, and from thence vnto yᵉ Bridge-streete, and soe all, one after an other, tell all yᵉ pagiantes weare played.’
[395] D’Ancona, i. 228.
[398] C. T. 3384 (Miller’s Tale). This ‘scaffold’ may have been merely a throne or sedes for Herod. But plays on platforms or scaffolds are found at Chelmsford, Kingston, Reading, Dublin.
[399] Cf. M. Jusserand, in Furnivall Miscellany, 186, and the pit for La Mer on the 1547 Valenciennes Passion play stage figured in his Shakespeare in France, 63.
[400] Furnivall Miscellany, 192, 194, from Bodl. MS. 264, ff. 54ᵇ, 76ᵃ.
[401] The directions to the Coventry Weavers’ play refer to the ‘for pagand’ and the ‘upper part’; those of the Grocers’ play at Norwich to the ‘nether parte of yᵉ pageant.’ For the purposes of the dramas these are distinct localities.
[402] Cf. p. 86. The Digby St. Mary Magdalen play has the stage direction, ‘a stage, and Helle ondyr-neth that stage.’ At Coventry the Cappers had a ‘hell-mouth’ for the Harrowing of Hell and the Weavers another for Doomsday.
[403] Every conceivable spelling of the word ‘pageant’ appears in the records. The Promptorium Parvulorum, ii. 377 (†1440, ed. A. Way for Camd. Soc.), has ‘Pagent, Pagina,’ and this is the usual Latin spelling, although pagenda and pagentes (acc. pl.) occur at Beverley. The derivation is from pagina ‘a plank.’ The Catholicon Anglicum (1483, ed. S. J. H. Herrtage for E. E. T. S.) has ‘A Paiande; lusorium,’ and there can be little doubt that ‘playing-place,’ ‘stage’ is the primary sense of the word, although as a matter of fact the derivative sense of ‘scene’ or ‘episode’ is the first to appear. Wyclif so uses it, speaking of Christmas in his Ave Maria (English Works, E. E. T. S. 206) ‘he that kan best pleie a pagyn of the deuyl, syngynge songis of lecherie, of batailis and of lesyngis ... is holden most merie mon.’ In Of Prelates (loc. cit. 99) he says that false teachers ‘comen in viserid deuelis’ and ‘pleien the pagyn of scottis,’ masking under St. George’s ‘skochen.’ The elaborate pageants used in masks and receptions (cf. p. 176, and vol. i. p. 398) led to a further derivative sense of ‘mechanical device.’ This, as well as the others, is illustrated in the passages quoted by the editors of the Prompt. Parv. and the Cath. Angl. from W. Horman, author of Vulgaria (1519) ‘Alexander played a payante more worthy to be wondred vpon for his rasshe aduenture than for his manhede.... There were v coursis in the feest and as many paiantis in the pley. I wyll haue made v stagȝ or bouthis in this playe (scenas). I wolde haue a place in the middyl of the pley (orchestra) that I myght se euery paiaunt. Of all the crafty and subtyle paiantis and pecis of warke made by mannys wyt, to go or moue by them selfe, the clocke is one of the beste.’ Synonyms for ‘pageant’ in the sense of ‘stage’ are ‘cariadge’ (Chester) and ‘karre’ (Beverley); in the sense of ‘scene,’ iocus (Coventry), visus (Lincoln), processus or ‘processe’ (Towneley and Digby plays, Croxton Sacrament and Medwall’s morality of Nature).
[404] Cf. p. 90, and Hamlet, iii. 2. 9 ‘O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod.’ The Miller in Cant. Tales, 3124, cries out ‘in Pilates vois.’ The torturers also seem to have been favourite performers; cf. the Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II (T. Wright, Political Songs, C. S. 336):
[406] In Jean Fouquet’s miniature representing the French mystery of St. Apollonia (cf. p. 85) a priest, with a book in one hand and a wand in the other, appears to be conducting the play.
[408] Hen. V, ii. 3. 42 ‘Do you not remember, a’ saw a flea stick upon Bardolph’s nose, and a’ said it was a black soul burning in hell-fire?’
[409] Hamlet, v. 1. 85 ‘Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murder.’
[410] Warton, ii. 223 ‘In these Mysteries I have sometimes seen gross and open obscenities. In a play of The Old and New Testament, Adam and Eve are both exhibited on the stage naked, and conversing about their nakedness: this very pertinently introduces the next scene, in which they have coverings of fig-leaves. This extraordinary spectacle was beheld by a numerous assembly of both sexes with great composure: they had the authority of scripture for such a representation, and they gave matters just as they found them in the third chapter of Genesis. It would have been absolute heresy to have departed from the sacred text in personating the primitive appearance of our first parents, whom the spectators so nearly resembled in simplicity.’
[411] Deimling, i. 30 ‘Statim nudi sunt ... Tunc Adam et Eva cooperiant genitalia sua cum foliis.’
[412] Cf. vol. i. p. 5.
[414] ‘Oreginale de S. Maria Magdalena’ (Digby MS.); ‘originall booke,’ ‘regenall,’ ‘rygynall,’ ‘orraginall’ (Chester); ‘orygynall,’ ‘rygenale’ (Coventry); ‘regenell’ (Louth); ‘ryginall’ (Sleaford).
[416] As the price paid was only ‘iiijᵈ’ a printed play was probably bought, from which the ‘partes,’ at a cost of ‘ijˢ,’ were written; cf. p. 192.
[417] Ritson, Bibl. Poet. 79, included in his list of Lydgate’s works a ‘Procession of pageants from the creation’ which has not been identified. On the ‘Procession of Corpus Christi,’ which follows in the list, cf. p. 161.
[418] Ten Brink, ii. 235 ‘An incessant process of separating and uniting, of extending and curtailing, marks the history of the liturgical drama, and indeed of the mediaeval drama generally.’
[419] Towneley Plays (E. E. T. S.), xiv.
[420] Anglia, xi. 253.
[421] Davidson, 252.
[423] Thus at York, the Corpus Christi procession which the plays were originally designed to magnify, had become by 1426 a hindrance to them; cf. p. 139.
[424] There is but little of direct merging of the plays with folk-customs. At Aberdeen the ‘Haliblude’ play was under the local lord of misrule. At Norwich the play was on Whit-Monday; the lord of misrule held revel on Whit-Tuesday. At Reading there were plays on May-day. At Chelmsford and Wymondham they were attached to the Midsummer ‘watch’ or ‘show.’ Typically ‘folk’ personages, the ‘wodmen’ (cf. vol. i. p. 185), appear in the Aberdeen Candlemas procession, and at Hull the ‘hobby-ship’ (cf. vol. i. p. 121) becomes the centre of a play.
[425] Richard Carew lays stress on the delight taken by the spectators in the devils of the Cornish plays. Collier, ii. 187, quotes a jest about the devil in a Suffolk stage-play from C. Mery Talys (†1533). In the Conversion of St. Paul of the Digby MS., a later hand has carefully inserted a devil scene. On the whole subject of the representation of devils in the plays, cf. Cushman, 16; Eckhardt, 53.
[426] York Plays, 524.
[427] Ed. Groeneveld (1888); cf. Creizenach, i. 362; Julleville, Les Myst. i. 180, ii. 342.
[428] I do not think that these Dutch plays have been printed. The MS., in the Royal Library at Brussels, is described by Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Horae Belgicae, vi, xxix; cf. Creizenach, i. 366. Besides the three chivalric plays, it contains a dramatized estrif of Summer and Winter (cf. vol. i. p. 187) included with them under the general title of ‘abele Spelen,’ and also a long farce or ‘Boerd.’ To each of the five plays, moreover, is attached a short farcical after-piece. A few notices of other fifteenth-century Dutch chivalric plays are preserved. The subjects are Arnoute, Ronchevale, Florys und Blancheflor, Gryselle (Griseldis); cf. Creizenach, i. 372.
[429] Julleville, Les Myst. ii. 284, 310.
[430] Ed. F. Guessard et E. de Certain (1862) in Collection des documents historiques; cf. Creizenach, i. 372; Julleville, Les Myst. ii. 576; H. Tivier, Étude sur le Myst. du Siège d’O. (1868). The play may have been designed for performance at the festival held at Orleans in memory of the siege on May 8. The passage quoted from Sir Richard Morrison on p. 221, suggests that a similar commemoration was held in the sixteenth century by the English at Calais of the battle of Agincourt in 1415.
[431] Ed. Stengel (1883); cf. Creizenach, i. 374; Julleville, Les Myst. ii. 569.
[433] Collier, ii. 183, thinks the term ‘morality’ a ‘recent’ one, but it was used in 1503: cf. p. 201.
[434] There is not much direct imitation of the Roman de la Rose in the moralities. Perhaps the French Honneur des Dames of Andrieu de la Vigne (Julleville, Rép. com. 73) comes nearest. But its leading episode, the siege of the fortress of Danger, is reflected in the siege of the Castle of Perseverance and that of the Castle of Maudleyn in the Mary Magdalen of the Digby MS. On the general place of allegory in contemporary literature cf. Courthope, i. 341.
[436] Ward, i. 105; Archaeologia, xiii. 232. A débat on precisely this theme is introduced into the Chasteau d’Amour, a theological work in the form of a romance, ascribed to Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253), on which cf. F. S. Stevenson, Life of Grosseteste, 38; Jusserand, Eng. Lit. i. 214. In the English version of the fourteenth century (R. F. Weymouth, The Castel of Love, 273) the passage begins—
[437] No stress is of course to be laid upon the late introduction of Dolor and Myserye into the Grocers’ play at Norwich, when the text was rewritten in 1565.
[438] Ludus Cov. 106 (play xi, Virtutes), 70, 79, 89, 105, 124, 129, 289 (plays viii-xiii, xxix, Contemplacio), 184 (play xix, Mors), 386 (play xli, Sapientia); cf. Hohlfeld, in Anglia, xi. 278.
[439] Jusserand, Théâtre, 123; Pearson, i. 2; Creizenach, i. 461; Captain Cox, clxvi; W. Seelmann, Die Totentänze des Mittelalters (Jahrb. d. Vereins f. niederdeutsche Sprachforschung, xvii. 1). A bibliography of the Dance of Death is given by Goedeke, i. 322 (bk. iii. § 92).
[440] Prudentius, Psychomachia (†400 P. L. lx. 11); cf. Creizenach, i. 463.
[441] Ephesians, vi. 11.
[442] Creizenach, i. 470; Julleville, La Com. 44, 78. The earliest French notice is that of the ‘Gieux des sept vertuz et des sept pechiez mortelz’ at Tours in 1390. A ‘mystère de Bien-Avisé et Malavisé’ is said to have been played in 1396 (Julleville, Rép. com. 324). The extant play of that name, somewhat later in date, is a morality. Other early French morals on a large scale are L’Homme juste et l’Homme mondain (1508) and L’Homme pécheur (†1494) (Julleville, Rép. com. 39, 67, 72). All these are on variants of the Contrast of Vice and Virtue theme.
[443] Creizenach, i. 465, quoting a thirteenth-century German sermon.
[444] Cf. p. 201 and Texts (ii). It is not quite clear whether the English play of Everyman is the original or a translation of the Dutch Elckerlijk, or whether the two plays have a common source.
[447] Cf. vol. i. p. 381.
[449] See Pearson, ii. 260, and the interesting study of P. Weber, Geistliches Schauspiel und kirchliche Kunst (1894).
[451] W. Lambarde, Alphabetical Description of the Chief Places in England and Wales (1730, written in the sixteenth century), 459, s.v. Wytney.
[452] Gairdner, 253, quoting an unnamed chronicler, ‘a picture of the Resurrection of Our Lord made with vices, which put out his legs of sepulchre, and blessed with his hand and turned his head.’