The Practicalities of Early English Performance: Manuscripts, Records, and Staging: Shifting Paradigms in Early English Drama Studies (Variorum Collected Studies) [1 ed.] 9781472486288, 1472486285

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Also in the Variorum Collected Studies Series: PETER MEREDITH, edited by JOHN MARSHALL The Practicalities of Early English Performance: Manuscripts, Records, and Staging Shifting Paradigms in Early English Drama Studies MEG TWYCROSS, edited by SARAH CARPENTER and PAMELA KING The Materials of Early Theatre: Sources, Images, and Performance Shifting Paradigms in Early English Drama Studies SEYMOUR DRESCHER Pathways from Slavery British and Colonial Mobilizations in Global Perspective DAVID JACOBY Medieval Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond GILES CONSTABLE Medieval Thought and Historiography GILES CONSTABLE Medieval Monasticism MICHAEL J.B. ALLEN Studies in the Platonism of Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico ALEXANDRA F. JOHNSTON, edited by DAVID N. KLAUSNER The City and the Parish: Drama in York and Beyond BENJAMIN Z. KEDAR Crusaders and Franks Studies in the History of the Crusaders and the Frankish Levant DAVID MILLS, edited by PHILIP BUTTERWORTH To Chester and Beyond: Meaning, Text and Context in Early English Drama Shifting Paradigms in Early English Drama Studies NELSON H. MINNICH The Decrees of the Fifth Lateran Council (1512–17) Their Legitimacy, Origins, Contents, and Implementation https://www.routledge.com/history/series/VARIORUMCS

VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES SERIES

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The Practicalities of Early English Performance: Manuscripts, Records, and Staging ________________

Peter Meredith Edited by John Marshall

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The Practicalities of Early English Performance: Manuscripts, Records, and Staging ________________

Shifting Paradigms in Early English Drama Studies



First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 selection and editorial matter, John Marshall; individual chapters, Peter Meredith The right of John Marshall to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of Peter Meredith for the individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-1-4724-8628-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-26604-8 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

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CONTENTS Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: Matters of manuscript and text 1. ‘“Nolo mortem” and the Ludus Coventriae play of the Woman Taken in Adultery’, MÆ, 38 (1969), pp. 38–54 2. ‘A reconsideration of some textual problems in the N.Town manuscript (BL MS Cotton Vespasian D viii)’, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 9 (1976–77), pp. 35–50 3. ‘John Clerke’s hand in the York Register’, Essays in Honour of A.C. Cawley, ed. by Peter Meredith, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 12 for 1980–81 (1981), pp. 245–71 4. ‘The York Millers’ pageant and the Towneley Processus Talentorum’, METh, 4.2 (1982), pp. 104–14 5. ‘Scribes, texts and performances’, in Aspects of Early English Drama, ed. by Paula Neuss (Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1984), pp. 13–29 6. ‘The Towneley pageants’, in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, ed. by Richard Beadle and Alan J. Fletcher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, revised edn, 2008), pp. 152–82. 7. ‘Establishing an expositor’s role: Contemplacio and the N.Town manuscript’, in The Narrator, the Expositor, and the Prompter in European Medieval Theatre, ed. by Philip Butterworth (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), pp. 289–306 Part II: Resuscitating records 8. ‘The development of the Mercers’ pageant waggon’, METh, 1.1 (1979), pp. 5–18 9. ‘“Item for a grone – iijd” – records and performances’, in Proceedings of the First Colloquium at Erindale College, University of Toronto, 31 Aug.–3 Sept. 1978, ed. by JoAnna Dutka (Toronto: Records of Early English Drama, University of Toronto, 1979), pp. 26–60

10. ‘The Ordo Paginarum and the development of the York Tilemakers’ pageant’, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 11 for 1979 (1980), pp. 59–73 11. ‘“Make the asse to speake” or staging the Chester Plays’, in Staging the Chester Cycle, ed. by David Mills, Leeds Texts and Monographs, n.s. 9 (1985), pp. 49–76 12. ‘The ffteenth-century audience of the York Corpus Christi play: Records and speculation’, in ‘Divers Toyes Mengled’: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Culture in Honour of André Lascombes, ed. by Michel Bitot, Roberta Mullini, and Peter Happé (Tours: Université François Rabelais, 1996), pp. 101–11 13. ‘Professional travelling players of the ffteenth century: Myth or reality?’, in European Medieval Drama 1997: Papers from the Second International Conference on Aspects of European Medieval Drama, Camerino, 4–6 July, 1997, ed. by Sydney Higgins (Camerino: Università Degli Studi di Camerino, 1997), pp. 25–40 Part III:Performance: Original and modern 14. ‘Original-staging production of English medieval plays – ideals, evidence and practice’, in Popular Drama in Northern Europe in the Later Middle Ages: A Symposium. Proceedings of the Eleventh International Symposium organized by the Centre for the Study of Vernacular Literature in the Middle Ages held at Odense University on 17–18 September, 1986, ed. by Flemming G. Andersen, Julia McGrew, Tom Pettitt and Reinhold Schröder (Odense: Odense University Press, 1988), pp. 65–100 15. ‘Mankind in Camerino: Playing the very devil and other matters’, Studies in Theatre Production, 16 (December, 1997), pp. 84–92 16. ‘Performance, verse, and occasion in the N-Town Mary Play’, in Individuality and Achievement in Middle English Poetry, ed. by O.S. Pickering (Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1997), pp. 205–22 17. ‘Carved and spoken words: The angelic salutation, the Mary Play and South Walsham Church, Norfolk’, in Porci ante Margaritam: Essays in honour of Meg Twycross, ed. by Sarah Carpenter, Pamela King, and Peter Meredith, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 32 (Leeds: School of English, University of Leeds, 2001), pp. 369–98 18. ‘The sealing of the tomb: N-Town and its context’, in According to the Ancient Custom: Essays presented to David Mills, ed. by Phil Butterworth, Pamela M. King, and Meg Twycross, METh, 29 (2007), pp. 75–88 Bibliography Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Author, Editor, and Publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to reproduce the original publications that comprise this volume. The bibliographical details of those publications are listed in full in the Contents. Reproduction of copyright images are also acknowledged beneath each photograph.

INTRODUCTION In bringing together the volumes in this series the General Editors are attempting to bring to a wider scholarly and student readership the most important twentieth- and twenty-first century scholarship on English medieval drama/theatre. In the second half of the twentieth century there were some fundamental shifts in our knowledge of medieval theatre and its practice. The first authors in this series, Professor David Mills (Liverpool) Professor Alexandra Johnston (Toronto) Professor Peter Meredith (Leeds) and Professor Meg Twycross (Lancaster) have between them been responsible for some of the most important research in this field. The purpose of the series is to widen the readership for their work and make it more accessible to scholars in related areas. There are also many young scholars of medieval drama/theatre who are not aware of the depth of investigation that has already been carried out in their field. This volume presents selected works of Peter Meredith. As is the case with the other authors in this series, much of Meredith’s work has been published in specialist publications that are, in some instances, difficult to access. Peter Meredith is a major contributor to the revival of academic and public interest in medieval English drama and theatre that followed the groundbreaking publication in the late 1950s of Glynne Wickham’s first volume of Early English Stages 1300 to 1660 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959). Wickham was also responsible for recognizing the practical and research benefits of realizing in production medieval play texts as a legitimate mode of study. He viewed practice as equivalent to laboratory experiments in the sciences. Peter Meredith has raised this belief in the importance of practice informing theory to new heights. Much of the work in this volume combines his characteristic ability and enthusiasm to make clear the technical complexities of manuscript and textual analysis with a remarkable insight into the practical implications of medieval records of performance. This vision has, in no small part, informed his teaching and research as well as being the driving force behind the initiation and active involvement in the movement to recreate the original staging of medieval plays. Meredith’s knowledge and expertise in this area ensured that his name was invariably one of the first to be attached to the organizing committees dedicated to the production of medieval plays, particularly the cycles: the wagonstaged York Cycle at Leeds University (1975), the Towneley Cycle in Wakefield (1980), the Chester Plays at Leeds and Chester (1983), and the N.town production at the University of Toronto (1988). These productions not only sought to test in practice modern theories of medieval theatre but also to bring spectacular entertainment to a wide audience. Born in Ross-on-Wye, Meredith attended schools in Southampton, Bideford, and Eastleigh. Following National Service in the RAF, he went to Exeter College, Oxford (1953–7) where,

under the tutelage of Nevill Coghill, his interest in all things medieval was ignited. After a period of school-teaching, Meredith returned to his love of the medieval world by researching representations of the Christ Knight at University College of North Staffordshire at Keele (1958–60). One of his supervisors, Ralph Elliott, was to further guide Meredith’s career by encouraging him to apply for a post teaching Medieval Literature and the History of the English Language at the University of Adelaide (1961–9). It was here that opportunity and resources facilitated the exploration of medieval drama in practice with full-scale productions of pageants from various cycles. Notable among them was the Chester Noah, presented in a recreation of medieval costume, with a masked God, and using a demountable stage which could be transformed into the ark; an early venture into the realm of original-staging production. In 1969, Meredith returned to England and began a distinguished career as lecturer and later Professor of Medieval Drama in the School of English, University of Leeds. It was here, as with so many scholars of medieval drama, that Meredith was to experience the kindness and influence of Arthur Cawley, Professor of English Language and Medieval Literature at the University of Leeds. Knowing of Meredith’s passion for the N.town plays nurtured in Adelaide, Cawley introduced him to Stanley J. Kahrl from Ohio State University who was also working on the N.town plays. This collaboration resulted in the invaluable and scholarly facsimile of MS Cotton Vespasian D VIII published as one of the Leeds Texts and Monographs in 1977. Meredith’s unequalled knowledge and understanding of the manuscript and text of N.town also generated two indispensable books on originally independent plays: The Mary Play from the N.town Manuscript (London and New York: Longman, 1987), and The Passion Play from the N.town Manuscript (London and New York: Longman, 1990). In addition to these editions, Meredith published a number of articles on N.town; six of them are reproduced in this volume in recognition of his immense contribution to furthering the study, amongst students and scholars alike, of the manuscript, text, and performance of this remarkable collection of pageants and plays. In the field of medieval drama/theatre, Peter Meredith’s legacy is not confined to the visibility of the works presented here. Behind the scenes, as it were, he has been instrumental in setting up or supporting some of the most influential organizations responsible for sustaining the dissemination of research, records, and opinions. He was one of the organizing committee that created the first of the international colloquia in medieval drama (Leeds, 1974) that continues to meet every three years as the Société Internationale pour l’Étude du Théâtre Médiévale. He joined the Executive Board of Records of Early English Drama at its inception (1975) and was invited by Meg Twycross to join her in setting up and co-editing the journal Medieval English Theatre (1979). All three organizations continue to thrive. In 1993, Meredith was one of the committee that founded the highly regarded and successful Leeds International Medieval Congress where matters of medieval drama and performance have consistently played a part in the wider lively exchange of ideas with medievalists from around the world. Without these major resources, publication of discoveries and interpretations of texts and records would have been more difficult to achieve. This volume brings to a new generation of students and scholars work that is crucial to an appreciation of the extensive input made by Peter Meredith to our understanding of medieval drama. It exemplifies his invaluable contribution to that understanding within the areas of manuscript and text analysis,

record interpretation, and the application of those findings to the practical realization of the plays. It would be an absurd reduction to suggest that Meredith’s published work can be divided into the three distinct areas outlined above. Convenience of collation explains the division here into categories of accent. The first part, ‘Matters of manuscript and text’, examines what the material culture of medieval drama can tell us about the processes of composition. For example, Meredith’s insight that an appreciation of scribal practice can uncover editorial decisions that in turn expose the structure and meaning of the play is profound. It also impacts on performance as in the case of the use of Latin in a speech where it becomes a character defining device. Throughout the publications in this section, Meredith demonstrates, with reassuring clarity, that the meticulous reading and analysis of manuscripts is a necessary precursor to understanding the creation and fluidity of texts. In turn, this procedure can reveal the processes of structuring a play and its meaning with concomitant impacts upon performance. As he makes very clear in the opening section, without technical competence and application at the material level of manuscripts there is a likely failure to acknowledge the organic growth of medieval plays in favour of reliance upon a static template. Meredith makes an impassioned plea for the study of medieval drama to go beyond texts in isolation to a view of them in chronological sequence and context as revealed by revisions recorded in manuscripts. This approach to the understanding of medieval drama/theatre is finely signposted in Meredith’s first publication included here; ‘“Nolo mortem” and the Ludus Coventriae Play of the Women Taken in Adultery’. It not only marks his career-long and fervent academic interest in the N.town plays but it also sets out his exacting research methodology. It begins with the simple statement that the first line of the play, The Woman Taken in Adultery, is in fact the first line of the play. Not, it might seem, an auspicious start to his published work in academic journals. But what follows is an immaculate dissection of the play that engages with manuscript study, dramatic structure, performance history, and theology and religious practice. It might have been a hard act to follow but it set the academic standard for the analysis of medieval drama as an interdisciplinary field. The first part also shows that Peter Meredith has not limited his research and publication to the N.town plays. The seven publications in ‘Matters of manuscript and text’ deal in depth, and with the same scrupulousness, with the manuscripts and texts of the York Cycle, the Towneley Cycle, and the Chester Plays as well as N.town. ‘Resuscitating records’ highlights Meredith’s contribution to one of the most significant developments in the study of medieval drama/theatre to have taken place in the last 50 years or so: the publication of records of dramatic performance up to the Civil War. From the late nineteenth century, antiquarians, local historians, and theatre historians published extracts from parish and civic records that referred to performance. These were mostly selective, not always accurate, and in some cases fake. In the interwar years the Malone Society began a regular publication of records of performance in addition to their prime purpose of publishing lesser known works from the Tudor, Elizabethan, and Jacobean periods. Although generally more accurate than previous transcriptions, the volumes lacked historical context and an academic apparatus. In 1979 Records of Early English Drama (REED), based in Toronto, began to

publish county and city volumes of in many cases previously unknown material. It is in the context of this exciting development that scholars in the area of medieval drama began to match records to manuscripts and texts. Meredith was one of the pioneers of this movement and his publications in the second section reveal both the excitement of new discoveries and the advancement of the study of medieval theatre practice. Much of the work represented in this section owes an enormous debt to the foresight, energy, and resilience of those that founded and sustain REED. Much of that excitement and the supportive environment of the Medieval English Theatre meetings begun by Meg Twycross at Lancaster in 1979, in which ideas could be shared and problems discussed, comes vividly through Meredith’s first piece in this section. It concerns the York Mercer’s pageant wagon and the application to the manuscript and text of a (then) recently found guild inventory. As Meredith made clear in the second article, ‘Item for a grone – ijd’, the twin necessities of dealing with records are ‘accurate transcription’ and ‘painstaking interpretation’. Precisely the same demands he placed on the study of manuscripts and texts. The second section reveals through a variety of often enigmatic examples Meredith’s skilfulness in breathing life into accounts of expenditure and interpreting their practical implications. A recurring theme running through Meredith’s published and spoken delivery is the questioning of received opinion. Too often a fleeting remark or an unsubstantiated opinion goes unchallenged and passes into orthodoxy. In the world of medieval drama this is no more evident than in the widely held belief that professional travelling players roamed England during the fifteenth century. In ‘Professional travelling players of the fifteenth Century: Myth or reality?’ he explores the terminology to describe the assortment of performers at the time to observe that they are not as precise as some critics have hoped. In the third part, ‘Performance: Original and modern’, Meredith applies the evidence of staging to recreating the conditions of performance. As always, he is driven by evidence; not just what seems to work for modern audiences, such as the over-exploitation of humour and attempts at topicality, but what the surviving material actually dictates. The opening article, ‘Original-staging production of English medieval plays’ provides a very useful guide to modern reproductions of medieval plays. His depth of understanding is further exemplified in the piece on ‘Mankind in Camerino’ where problems of production are solved or proposed from a wealth of evidence, exegesis, and theatrical nous. The articles in this part make it abundantly clear that ‘evidence’ is not confined to the financial recordings of churchwardens and civic officials. If one knows where to look it can also be found in the text and its verse, and in the carved representations of scenes in common preserved in local churches. Without the interrogation of manuscripts and their relationship with texts and the ‘painstaking interpretation’ of records, attempts to reconstruct original-staging productions for modern audiences would be hypothetical and worthless. There is no suggestion here that manuscript scrutiny, textual analysis, and record and image interpretation are merely servants to production. Clearly they possess purpose in their own right. But it does demonstrate the interconnectedness of source, practice, and performance. It represents a triumvirate of processes that Peter Meredith has embraced, refined, and shared to the lasting benefit of those of us who study medieval drama and theatre.

JOHN MARSHALL

Part I

Matters of manuscript and text

1

‘NOLO MORTEM’ AND THE LUDUS COVENTRIAE PLAY OF THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY The first line of the Ludus Coventriae play de muliere in adulterio deprehensa is ‘Nolo mortem peccatoris’. It should be unnecessary to say this, since the scribe of the manuscript has already done so, but as in the last few years at least two scholars have declined his instruction it seems necessary to restate it as a fact.1 Eleanor Prosser in her study of the Ludus Coventriae says, ‘The sermon opens with “Man for thi synne take repentaunce” (l. 1)’,2 thereby implying the rejection of the true first line, and R. G. Thomas in his recent edition of the play more specifically says, ‘Probably the scribe believed that the play began with the Latin phrase “Nolo mortem peccatoris” – which precedes the first words of Jesus, as a kind of text before the pageant.’3 Because he believes it to be a kind of text, Thomas rejects the Latin line and begins the play with ‘Man for thi synne take repentaunce’. This reluctance to begin with Nolo mortem peccatoris appears to stem partly from the appearance of the play in the manuscript (British Museum, Cotton Vespasian D.VIII), partly from its appearance in Miss Block’s edition, and partly perhaps from a hesitation about including an apparently unrelated Old Testament passage in a New Testament play.4 A detailed description of the relevant page of the manuscript should reveal the true situation clearly.5 The play begins at the top of f. 121. The first line of the page consists of the title hic de muliere in adulterio deprehensa and the phrase Nolo mortem peccatoris. The former is underlined in red and the two parts are divided from one another by a large red paragraph sign (¶). In the right hand margin, slightly below the first line, there is a similar red paragraph sign preceding the abbreviated speaker’s name: jhc. The second, third and fourth lines are as follows: Man for þi synne take repentaunce If þou amende þat is amys Than hevyn xal be þin herytaunce

The M of Man in l. 2 is a large red capital of the kind used to mark the beginning of other plays (e.g. Plays 4, 5, 6, 7, 12). The first and third lines are linked by a rhyme bracket, and the second and fourth likewise, giving rhymes peccatoris: amys and repentaunce: herytaunce. Four more lines complete the eight-line stanza – this stanza form being the pattern for the whole play. At the very top of the page, on the right hand side, is a note in the hand of the main scribe, written very small, ‘gyn at//Nolo mortem’. From all this – rhyme scheme, stanza length,

scribal indications and instructions – there can be only one conclusion drawn, that Nolo mortem peccatoris is the first line of the play. It is not difficult to suggest a way in which the situation in the manuscript could have come about. First the scribe, presumably imagining the Latin phrase to be a kind of text, included it in a slightly more formal script with the title in the first line of the page;6 he then left a space for a large initial at the beginning of the assumed first line of the play before continuing with the rest of the page. On looking back at this page – most probably when adding the rhyme brackets, since he would then be forced to see it as a rhyming line and as a part of the stanza – he realized that the Latin was, in fact, part of the play and yet misleadingly cut off from it. Rightly assuming that the rhyme brackets would not be enough to indicate the beginning of the play, he added a note at the top of the page, perhaps as a reminder to himself when rubricating, and divided off the title from the Latin phrase by two long vertical lines with bracket-like branches. Then when rubricating he underlined the title and drew in the large initial ‘M’ of line 2.7 This last, however, so clearly drew attention to that line as the beginning of the play that he used the obvious and to a certain extent meaningful device of a large red paragraph sign on top of the dividing vertical lines to draw attention to Nolo mortem peccatoris, and a corresponding sign before the speaker’s name to link the two together.8 Despite his efforts, however, the large red ‘M’ still dominates the page, and, at a cursory inspection seems to start the play. Miss Block’s edition of the Ludus Coventriae largely re-creates the appearance of the manuscript in so far as this can be done in print, and unfortunately, in the case of this play, it means that the scribe’s error is fairly accurately reproduced but not his efforts to correct it. Nolo mortem peccatoris is, as it is in the manuscript, included in the same line as the title, but in the edition it is divided off from it only by a small black paragraph sign – there is, of course, no use of red in the edition. The play then appears to start, again as in the manuscript, with ‘Man for þi synne take repentaunce’, and here there are no rhyme brackets, and the headnote is relegated to a footnote given without comment as to its significance. The only indication which is added is the line numbering – an indication easily missed. It all probably seemed a small matter to the editor, but it has almost certainly helped to form a doubt about the first line of the play. Finally, the question whether an unrelated Old Testament passage could be an integral part of the play could have had no importance had the facts of rhyme scheme and stanza length been noticed. No editor or commentator would hesitate to include an Old Testament line in a New Testament play simply on the grounds that it came from the Old Testament. Nevertheless, the fact of its apparent unrelatedness, taken together with the scribal error, may have helped to conceal its intimate connection with the play – and it is an intimate connection. The textual establishing of Nolo mortem peccatoris as the first line of the play is only a beginning. It is, of course, a serious thing to leave a line out of a play, but the degree of seriousness must obviously depend on the significance of the line; the nature of the connection between it and the play. In this case the line not only concentrates within itself the theme, but also, I believe, provides a key to the structure of the whole play. It is this connection which I want now to examine. The theme of the play I take to be mercy and the necessity of repentance, and to see the way

in which Nolo mortem peccatoris and the story of the woman taken in adultery became for the playwright the ideal combination to express this theme, it is necessary to look at the kind of meaning which had accumulated around the Ezechiel and John passages from commentary and liturgical use. Both Nolo mortem peccatoris and the story of the woman taken in adultery have a common background in the liturgy during Lent, the period of preparation for Easter, the period above all of fasting and penitence, and therefore of mercy. ‘God ȝeuyth grace to man all tymes; but for a man nedyþe more hys grace þys tyme þen anoþer, þerfor, of hys hegh mercy, he ȝeuyth nowdayes more habundant of Lenton þen any oþer tyme.’9 Nolo mortem peccatoris is part of the weekday antiphon for the psalms at Prime during the first four weeks of Lent: ‘Vivo ego, dicit Dominus, nolo mortem peccatoris sed ut magis convertatur et vivat.’10 It thus occurs once a day, except Sundays, during those four weeks. There are also two adaptations of the phrase which occur in the mass for Ash Wednesday: ‘Deus qui non mortem sed penitenciam desideras peccatorum’, and ‘… qui dixisti te penitenciam malle peccatorum quam mortem’.11 It should also be remembered that the companion verse in Ezechiel, xviii 23, occurs in the epistle for the mass on Friday in the first week of Lent.12 The story of the woman taken in adultery is the gospel of the mass for Saturday before MidLent Sunday.13 Quotations from it, key phrases of forgiveness and judgement, serve as the Communio at the mass, and the Magnificat antiphon at Saturday vespers: ‘Nemo te condempnauit mulier nemo domine: nec ego te condempnabo iam amplius noli peccare,14 and the antiphon for the Benedictus at Saturday lauds: ‘Inclinavit se Jesus et scribebat in terra, si quis sine peccato est mittat in eam lapidem’.15 In the liturgy the two never approach physically nearer than prime and the mass, but Nolo mortem peccatoris because it expresses the spirit of the season (a common function of antiphons) pervades the whole of the first part of Lent. God’s natural inclination towards mercy is perhaps nowhere else, even in the New Testament, so clearly stated.16 So clear in fact is the statement, that it is seen by some commentators as an antidote to despair, by others as a dangerously open offer of forgiveness.17 But though it is clear, it is not unqualified – ‘sed ut magis convertatur et vivat’. From the first, convertatur was interpreted inevitably to refer to penitence or repentance; Jerome is a useful example, ‘Vivo ego, dicit Dominus, “nisi malo paenitentiam peccatoris, quam mortem”’.18 That the whole passage was normally connected with penitence is clear not only from an adaptation such as Jerome’s, but also from those adaptations already quoted from the great ceremony of penitents, the mass for Ash Wednesday, where the antithesis is sharpened, as it is in Jerome, by the substitution of paenitentia for ut magis convertatur. Nolo mortem peccatoris is then the ideal phrase for Lent. It offers mercy to sinners through penitence; it emphasizes God’s natural inclination to mercy, so that none need despair, but it also emphasizes that the act of mercy must be provoked, so that all must repent – ‘revertimini et vivite’.19 But if Nolo mortem peccatoris clearly deals with both mercy and penitence, it is by no means clear that the story of the woman taken in adultery does. Of mercy there is no doubt. The central act of pardoning the woman, enough in itself to establish mercy,20 is seen by many of the commentators as clustered round with details also rich in mercy. To Bede ‘Mons quippe Oliueti sublimitatem dominicae pietatis et misericordiae designat’ and ‘Pergit Iesus in

montem Oliueti ut arcem misericordiae in se constare denuntiet’. Dawn signifies the rising of grace, and Christ’s coming into the temple at dawn, the announcement of mercy, ‘cum incipiente noui testamenti lumine’, to the faithful.21 The Glossa Ordinaria repeats the substance of Bede’s interpretation.22 Augustine relates Christ’s bending down to write in the earth with his coming down to earth for the giving of the new law of mercy,23 and finally Bede includes John viii, 12 in his interpretation of the story by linking it with the beginning of the chapter: what Christ did figuraliter at the beginning of the story, he taught manifeste at the end, ‘arcem uidelicet se esse misericordiarum et Deum totius consolationis praeconem simul et largitorem lucis indeficientis legis pariter latorem et gratiae’.24 But as the last few words suggest, the woman taken in adultery is not exclusively a story of mercy; it is also a story of justice, and, strangely enough, it is through justice that it becomes a story of penitence. It is not a case simply of justice towards the Jews – though this is the central action; it is a case of justice also towards the woman. Both Christ’s words to the Jews and his final ones to the woman – in both cases the ones singled out for repetition in the liturgy – are seen by the commentators as justice; in the former, as justice remarkably combined with gentleness, and in the latter, as justice, taking second place it is true, but as justice even more remarkably combined with mercy. The combination of gentleness with justice arises from the dual nature of the trap which the Jews set in bringing the woman for judgment to Jesus – ‘si eam iusserit lapidari, mansuetudinem non habebit; si earn dimitti censuerit, iustitiam non tenebit’;25 the combination of mercy with justice arises from the need to show that the woman was not being let off scot free. Augustine is clearly aware of this need when he says in commenting on Nec ego te condemnabo, ‘Quid est, Domine? Faues ergo peccatis? Non plane ita. Adtende quod sequitur: Vade, deinceps iam noli peccare. Ergo et Dominus damnauit, sed peccatum, non hominem.’26 He divides the woman from her sins to show that though mercy is given to the one, justice is given to the other. Other commentators are content simply to point to the double nature of Christ’s words, the mercy contained in Nec ego te condemnabo or Vade, and the justice in amplius noli peccare.27 Augustine, however, goes even further in an exploration of the possibilities of the story in his commentary on Psalm xxxviii, 13, Exaudi deus orationem meam et precem meam domine inaurire, hoc est, auribus percipe lacrimas meas.28 He concentrates this time not on the words of Christ but on the words of the woman, Nemo, domine. When asked by Christ, ‘Nemo te lapidauit? she does not, Augustine says, reply ‘Quare? Quid feci, domine? Numquid enim rea sum?’, but simply ‘Nemo, domine’. She thereby accuses herself, and confesses, which, Augustine says, was what Christ was waiting for: ‘Et nemo propter confessionem peccatorum, et domine propter indulgentiam meritorum. Nemo domine. Vtrumque agnosco. Qui sis noui, quae sim noui. Tibi enim confiteor. Audiui enim: Confitemini domino, quoniam bonus est. Noui confessionem meam, noui misericordiam tuam. Ista dixit: Custodiam uias meas, ut non delinquam in lingua mea. Illi delinquerunt dolose agenda; ista magis se absoluit confitendo. Nemo te lapidauit? Et illa: Nemo, et tacet.’29 The woman not only confesses her sins, but, quoting the first line of Psalm xxxviii, she promises amendment, and since the line from which Augustine starts is presumably her contrition, she has gone quite as far as the woman in the play does. Augustine could hardly go further in an exposition of two words, and already it is a far remove from the story of pure mercy which the gospel tells.

There is then through the various commentators not just an accumulating emphasis on mercy, but, through Augustine, a clear statement of the justification for mercy by the woman’s repentance. Augustine’s interpretation brings the story of the woman and Nolo mortem peccatoris into almost perfect accord; in fact the Ezechiel passage traces the fortunes of the story with almost literal exactness, as well as containing within itself the general implications of mercy and penitence. Vivo ego, dicit dominus, nolo mortem peccatoris sed ut magis convertatur et vivat – each phrase in the passage parallels, step by step, the development of the story in both Augustine’s interpretation and the play itself. The combination of line and story is there almost ready-made in the liturgy; the interpretation is there in the commentaries. That the playwright knew both passages from the liturgy is very probable, and that he knew Augustine’s commentary is at least possible; that he started from scratch in interpreting the story is unlikely to the point of impossibility. Further than that one cannot really go. The similarity between the meaning of the line and the meaning of the story is then an intimate and ancient one, but, as far as I can discover, the playwright of the Woman Taken in Adultery in the Ludus Coventriae was the first to bring them together. Augustine comes close to doing so when at the end of his homily on John viii, 1–11, he quotes a telescoped version of Ezechiel xviii, 21, 22 and 27: ‘Illis qui desperatione periclitantur, quid dicit? In quacumque die iniquus conuersus fuerit, omnes iniquitates eius obliviscar.’30 Verse 23, here left out of the telescoping, is the companion verse to xxxiii, 11, and since Augustine is here concerned with comfort for the desperate he could well have used xviii, 23 or xxxiii, 11, as he uses the latter in the same context elsewhere.31 Nearer in time Pecock almost links them in his Reule of Cristen Religioun. As witnesses to his xxxvije trouþe he quotes Ezechiel xxxiii, 11 and 12; as witnesses to his xxxixe trouþe he quotes John viii, 11 and Ezechiel xxxiii 12.32 Both the trouþes concern forgiveness of sins; the former the impossibility of proper satisfaction and therefore the importance of mercy, the latter the three chief means for provoking God to mercy – contricioun, confessioun and wil and purpos for to forbere. But it is not just the linking of line and story that is new. What is also new and far more important is that the playwright has seen a structural relationship between the two – that of text and exemplum – and, with considerable ingenuity, turned his whole play into a sermon. The first line is crucial therefore, not simply because it introduces the theme, but because it establishes the form of the play. That the play should be seen as a sermon throughout, I have little doubt. It is not a university one, progressing step by numerical step, making extravagant play with each word of the text, but an ancient appeal to the emotions of its audience; no less well organized than a university sermon, and more calculated to move a holiday crowd. Its preacher is the first and best of all, Christ, Verbum caro factum;33 its text the preacher’s own words spoken once through his prophet, recalled now in his own lifetime on earth. And its theme is the very reason for the preacher’s existence on earth: mercy and salvation through penitence. It is around this theme that the sermon is constructed section by section; the text (l. 1), the introduction (ll. 2–40), the exemplum (ll. 41–284), the conclusion (ll. 285–92), and the prayer (ll. 293–6). The sections which I have suggested here may not at first sight seem a very sure foundation for asserting that the playwright is using the sermon form. The opening Latin line – the text –

can be paralleled in a number of other plays in the cycle, and so can the closing prayer with its Amen. The sections themselves may seem too generally applicable to be associated with one particular form, and the disproportionate length of the exemplum may also seem to rule out the sermon. Nevertheless I think it can be shown that there is sufficient distinctiveness in the form of this play to justify the claim that it is modelled on the sermon. In considering the opening Latin lines it should be said at once that there is a general dramatic purpose common to them all – that of arresting the audience’s attention. The good cannot, like their more boisterous evil counterparts, bawl and threaten, but they can declaim Latin and get with sonorous rhetoric what the evil get with brute violence. There is, however, almost always a specific purpose as well as this general one, which differentiates the use of the opening Latin in one play from that in another. The three plays which come closest in this respect to the Woman Taken in Adultery are play 1 the Creation, play 21 Christ and the Doctors and play (22) the Baptism.34 Play1 is a special case since the Latin line Ego sum alpha et oo. principium et finis, is not part of the rhyme scheme of the play. Though this does not rule it out as a part of the play (the first part at least of the line forms the opening of this play in all the other cycles)35 it does suggest that the line is more of a decorative flourish than an integral part of the form of the play. It is presumably used to proclaim the grandeur of God by the sound of the Latin, and also to make clear God’s isolation and omnipotence, since we might expect the Latin of a phrase which is common and familiar to be understood as well as felt. Its meaning, though it has a general connection with the whole, could hardly be said to state the theme of the play, as Nolo mortem peccatoris can. The opening lines of the other two plays are both part of the rhyme schemes: play 21 ‘Scripture sacre esse dinoscimur doctos’, play (22) ‘Ecce vox clamantes in deserto’. The special purpose of the Doctors’ play opening, however, is again different from that of the Woman Taken in Adultery. It is spoken by the first Doctor and there is, first of all, a general appropriateness in a doctor speaking Latin – but it goes a bit deeper than this. The two doctors are portrayed at first as comic boasters, and the Latin line (with its fellow in line 3, ‘Velud rosa omnium florum flos,’ spoken by the second Doctor) serves, through its meaning as well as its style, to open their boasting with a flourish, and at the same time to increase the sense of boasting by the very fact that it is in Latin – simple learned one-upmanship. That this was the intention seems to me confirmed by the fact that when later Christ pricks the bubble of their boasting he does so not only by what he says but also by saying it in Latin; ‘Omnis sciencia a domino deo est’ caps the manner as well as the meaning of their self-exaltation. This connection between Christ’s and the Doctors’ Latin is strengthened by the fact that, except for a two-word reference to Isaiah’s prophecy Ecce virgo (l. 181), they are the only appearances of Latin in the play. Here the opening line serves a specific, mainly comic, purpose in the play, and one quite different from that served by Nolo mortem peccatoris. With the first line of the Baptism play we come closer, but there are still great differences. One of John the Baptist’s chief functions is, of course, preaching, and it is clearly this that the playwright envisages him doing at the beginning of the play. To this extent the openings are the same. There is, however, a big difference between a play concerned with preaching, and a play constructed as a sermon. The Baptism play does contain a sermon of sorts, but Ecce vox clamantes in deserto is not its text. The first line is not in fact a text at all, but a self-

introduction through a direct quotation from the Gospel account.36 It introduces John, it lends familiar Biblical weight to the opening, and provides an appropriately declamatory tone, proclaimed at once in the initial and additional Ecce, for the evangelical fervour of the preaching which ultimately follows. Once again the specific purpose is different. In the Woman Taken in Adultery the opening Latin line is, as I have said, the text of the sermon which is the whole play. Up to now in considering Nolo mortem peccatoris I have talked of the passage as a whole – Nolo mortem peccatoris sed ut magis convertatur et vivat37 – but in the play it is in fact only the first three words of it which appear. This is unusual because in all the quotations of the passage which I have found, it only twice appears without its second half.38 This raises an interesting point. In most sermons the text or theme is translated – ‘and ben þus muche to sey in Englissh …’39 – but in the play it apparently is not. What the playwright seems to have done is to telescope the translation with the quotation; using in this case the first part of the Ezechiel passage in the original and the second part in a paraphrase. Since it is God speaking, the first part is appropriate as direct statement, and the second is paraphrased into a direct exhortation to match the first part and to complete the quotation. It is true, of course, that by doing this the playwright loses the added feeling of a sermon that the full translation device would have given; but the device is cumbersome and the added dramatic impact more than makes up for the loss of verisimilitude. The playwright perhaps also assumed that Nolo mortem peccatoris was sufficiently well-known to be recognized and understood40 and, inspired by the common preaching device of translating the text, he aimed to startle his audience by an unconventional treatment of the second part of the passage.41 Besides translating their texts, preachers normally quoted their authorities. Once again the playwright does not use an obvious device for giving the authentic ring to his sermon; he does not include Ezechielis trecesimo iii as part of his play. But then a preacher quoting his authority is, in a way, acknowledging his own weakness: he must have authority to make what he says worthwhile. Christ has no such need – his own word is enough (‘erat enim docens eos quasi potestatem habens’, Mark i, 22); to quote his authority would not simply be dramatically weak (though it certainly would be that), but unnecessary. These deviations from common sermon practice do not, I think, weaken the case for saying that Nolo mortem peccatoris is being used as the text of a sermon, rather, because they are explicable in sermon terms as well as terms of dramatic desirability, they strengthen it. The case of the prayer endings is somewhat different. There are three other plays with endings of this kind: that is ones in which a prayer is said on behalf of the audience by one of the play characters.42 These are play 6 Moses, play 21 Doctors, and play (22) Baptism. Their endings are as follows: Ffrendys þese be þe lawys þat ȝe must kepe therfore every man sett well in mende Wethyr þat þou do wake or slepe these lawys to lerne þou herke ful hynde and godys grace xal be þi ffrende he socowre and saue ȝow in welth fro woo Fare well gode frendys for hens wyll I wende my tale I haue taught ȝow my wey I goo. (Moses ll. 187–94)

we pray ȝow jhesu of consolacion At oure most nede of ȝow to haue all þat hath herd þis consummacion of þis pagent ȝour grace þem saue. Amen. (Doctors ll. 285–8) Now haue I tawght ȝow good penauns god graunt ȝow grace at his plesauns to haue of synne delyverauns Ffor now my leve I take. (Baptism ll. 179–82) Now god þat dyed ffor all mankende saue all þese pepyl both nyght and day and of oure synnys he us vnbynde hyȝe lorde of hevyn þat best may. Amen. (Woman ll. 293–6)

The general purpose of the prayer endings is, of course, to round off the play and to do it in a formal Christian manner – the pageant is about to leave, so it leaves with a blessing – but in two cases out of the three it is not just the play that is rounded off but a sermon as well. In both the Moses and Baptism plays the play ends with a sermon. In the case of the Moses play it is an explanation of the Ten Commandments, in the case of the Baptism play it is a call to repentance. The Moses example is the more formal and therefore the more straightforward. Moses, having been given the tables of the commandments, is told by God to ‘Go forth and preche’, which he at once does. He opens with a Latin text, Custodi precepta domini dei tui, with its reference, deutronomini. vjto. and plunges into his sermon: The commaundement of þi lord god man loke þou kepe. (l. 49)

One should perhaps say here that though the text is not part of the rhyme scheme, there seems no reason, in view of the use of a number of other Latin passages which stand outside the rhyme scheme, why it should not be part of the play.43 Thereafter he preaches a conventional exposition of the Ten Commandments, rounding it off with the prayer already quoted. In the Baptism play the formal sermon does not appear. Lines 14 and 15 look like a text. They are ideal material for one since they are direct quotation from the Gospel and convey the essence of John’s teaching: Penitenciam nunc agite Appropinquabit regnum celorum44

There is, however, no real development into a sermon until 130 lines later where, having once again announced the fact of preaching (l. 139), John launches into a direct address to the audience, with this theme and based on the Gospel accounts, which is rounded off with the brief prayer. In both these plays then, the brief prayer is used as the normal ending for a sermon, and is also seen as a convenient conclusion for the play itself. The third play with a prayer ending, the Doctors’ play, contains no sermon. It has all the same a similarity with the Woman Taken in

Adultery in that the prayer is spoken by a character stepping outside the play. The stepping outside is made explicit in the Doctors’ play by the specific reference to ‘þis consummacion/ of þis pagent’ (ll. 287–8). I have up to now been concerned with the way in which these plays are similar in their endings to the Woman Taken in Adultery, but the most remarkable thing about the play is the way in which it differs from the others, the way in which it combines their techniques and transcends them; and the fact that it does transcend them is a direct result of the nature of the play. The nature of the other plays leads to a simple response to their prayer endings, the nature of the Woman Taken in Adultery leads to a very complex response. Both Moses and the Baptism are fairly conventional miracle plays – Moses almost entirely so, the Baptism only partly. One of the things which makes them conventional is the use of what I shall call the ‘third-person style’.45 In Moses this takes the form of a character telling the audience what he is doing at the same time as he is doing it;46 and in the Baptism of a character moralizing on or explaining the meaning of what he or another character is doing or saying.47 Both these characteristics tend to distance the actor from the action and make the actor someone dressed in the clothes of a character and presenting his words and actions, rather than an actor embodying a character’s actions and words in what he says and does. When the ‘thirdperson style’ is present to any great extent in a play, it inevitably modifies the effect of the play on the audience; the audience becomes less aware, for instance, of the interaction of character and the rise and fall of tension in the play, and more aware of individual significances and meanings; and the actor changes from protagonist to presenter. This happens in both the Moses play and the Baptism. In Moses the ‘third-person style’ is less apparent because the play is more formal and anyway is much concerned with presenting; the Baptism wavers uneasily between ‘third-person’ presenting and naturalistic preaching. In both plays the ‘third-person style’ affects the closing prayer. Both plays follow the same pattern in this, and it is a pattern that derives from this style. First they tell the audience that they have taught them, then they call a blessing on them, and then they tell them that they are going to leave them. There is no sense of a character stepping out of the play, because the play has no self-contained atmosphere; it is simply the presenter of Moses and the presenter of John the Baptist, taking a natural presenter’s leave. In the Doctors’ play there is a self-contained atmosphere almost up to the moment when the first Doctor steps wholly out of the play for his closing prayer; and the stepping out of the play is very rawly done. The Doctor abruptly steps out from the play’s time into the present; for two lines of the play he too becomes a presenter, dressed in the Doctor’s costume. The device is too abrupt and brief to be anything but rather a crude rounding off; and yet the ending of the Woman Taken in Adultery is almost as abrupt and almost as brief. In this play Christ is a presenter, but in a way utterly different from Moses or John the Baptist, and he steps out of the play, but in a way utterly different from the Doctor. The play is self-contained in two ways, as a sermon and as a story of a woman taken in adultery. Christ appears in both; as the preacher of the sermon, and as the chief protagonist of the story. Since he presents the story of the woman, of which he is himself a part, as an exemplum in his own sermon, there is a curious double time involved – he is both presenter and presented. This in a way prepares for the change which takes place at the end when Christ steps out of his character

as Christ to become wholly the preacher praying for those present. The first words of the prayer abruptly establish this change: Now god þat dyed ffor all mankende   (l. 293)

This is not a simple anachronism, it is Christ praying to himself in terms of an action which has not yet occurred, and the audience is shocked into seeing not Christ but the preacher. And yet it is not simply the preacher. The change is never explicitly made; it is only implied in his words, and four lines is too short a space to divest a character entirely of his identity; so that we are left with a curious and exciting effect. The character be comes twofold: Christ and preacher; the play is drawn clearly into the present, but it is a present in which Christ still lives, and so the ending becomes an echo of the most sacred of Christian mysteries: Christ did die, is dead, and yet lives for all time. The use of the opening Latin line in other plays, then, tends to reveal the uniqueness of its use in the Woman Taken in Adultery, and the use of the concluding prayer tends both to confirm the sermon form and to reveal the way in which the Woman Taken in Adultery transcends the other plays in its use of this ending. Both these sections of the play are of key importance because, as will be seen in examining the sermon form, they are the clearest pointers to the use of this form that exist in the play. In some ways it is difficult to talk of a sermon form at all. The university type has its themes and prothemes, divisions and sub-divisions, carefully discussed by the theorists, but the socalled ‘ancient’ type has no rules.48 Yet there are clearly things which suggest a sermon, devices which a writer would be expected to use when writing a sermon. The sermons of Chaucer’s Pardoner, for instance, though of a very different nature from the one we are considering, nevertheless contained text (theme), exemplum (ensamples many oon, and the tale itself, Which I am wont to preche) and concluding prayer (the much-discussed reference to Christ’s pardon),49 just as the Woman Taken in Adultery does, and this kind of suggestive device is just what a playwright needs: not enough sermon technique to turn it into an actual sermon, but just enough to create an impression of the form within which the story can be presented. In a play, of course, the visual presentation is as important as the verbal, and the simple combination of an actual pulpit on the pageant waggon with the spoken text could make the sermon form clear from the beginning. So also with the ending: the woman moves slowly down the steps from the waggon, Christ returns to the pulpit, turns to the audience, and the sermon is re-established. Text and prayer then are clearly of key importance, but what of the extended exemplum? Once again it is the fact that this is a play and not a real sermon that solves the difficulty. What the playwright does is create the suggestion of solid development from the text by means of Christ’s lengthy introduction; this speech (ll. 2–40) perfectly gives the feeling of the sermon and yet at the same time leaves the main playing-time free for what is after all the main action of the play. The audience’s awareness of the sermon fades during the course of the exemplum only to be suddenly re-asserted in the conclusion and prayer. There is no danger that the exemplum will destroy the unity of the whole, because of the perfect way in which it is dovetailed with the introduction and conclusion.

In the introduction three main points are made and each relates directly to the exemplum. They are all to do with mercy. First, mercy is shown as an antidote to despair and in opposition to judgment – however great your sins, ask mercy (ll. 5–12); secondly, Christ came down to earth for man’s love, to make satisfaction and bring mercy (ll. 13–24); and thirdly, mercy is seen in its practical application to one’s neighbour (ll. 25–32). The three points are recapitulated in the reverse order in the final stanza of the introduction, which is made to stand out from the other stanzas by the formal repetition of the word mercy. Each point is picked up in the exemplum. For the first: the woman, though her sin is deserving death, does not despair but asks mercy and is forgiven; the Jews apply only judgment to the woman, attempt to catch Christ through his judgment and are judged. For the second: the exemplum is a living proof of Christ’s willingness to forgive, and of his acceptance of repentance and the asking of mercy as satisfaction.50 The third goes with the first: the Jews are not merciful to their neighbour the woman; they stand by ‘cruel jugement’ and are themselves judged. The conclusion of the sermon refers back to the first and central point: a man’s repentance moves God away from judgment to mercy – God wele not kepe olde wrethe in mynde but bettyr loue to hem he has very contryte whan he them fynde   (ll. 290–2)

Just as the woman’s story is paralleled in the text of the sermon, so each aspect of the story is prepared for in the introduction. There are two other possible confirmations of the sermon form of the play, this time from outside it. In the Gospel the account of the woman taken in adultery, which begins at verse 3, is preceded by a brief reference to Christ teaching in the temple; the Pepysian Gospel harmony paraphrases it thus: ‘And vpon þe morowe Jesus entred in to þe temple & preched to þe folk …’51 If the playwright needed a suggestion of what form to use for his play, he could have found no more authoritative one than this. The setting of the story actually in the middle of teaching is emphasized by Bede in commenting on this passage, when he says, ‘atque inter docendum peccatricem soluit a crimine’ – ‘in the course of his teaching …’52 Interestingly enough Bede, later in this same commentary, closely foreshadows one important aspect of the structure of the play. He sees the opening of the chapter as a figurative statement, and the ending, ‘Ego sum lux mundi’, as a manifest statement of the coming of mercy; between the two comes the act of mercy itself, the forgiving of the woman.53 The introduction of the play is as carefully linked with the conclusion. ‘Man for pi synne take repentaunce’ (l. 2) is paralleled by ‘What man of synne be repentaunt’ (l. 285), the first line of the conclusion – the declamatory order of the opening has been softened to the promise by the act of mercy in between. The other possible confirmation of the sermon form, though a less precise one, seems worth mentioning. It has already been said that both the Latin text and the story appear in the liturgy of Lent, the great season of penitence, and their connection with each other and the theme of the season is clear; but not only was Lent the great season of penitence but also of preaching,54 and it is just possible that an association between the two in the playwright’s mind made the choice of the play’s form more certain.

In my discussion of the play I have spent little time on the relationship between the story and its framework, partly because Professor Prosser has already – not wholly satisfactorily – dealt with this, and partly because my aim has been to establish the sermon structure of the play so as, first, to show the key significance of the first line, and secondly to demonstrate, if possible, that the play is a remarkable achievement. Structurally it surpasses the Towneley Second Shepherds’ play, good though that is in this respect, and the conclusion is one of the most moving moments in medieval drama. The variety of method at the playwright’s command is apparently endless: the boisterous comedy of the young man and the Jews which, as Professor Prosser points out, also establishes the reality of the woman’s sin; the contrasts between the set rhythmic vituperation of the Jews and the woman’s overflowing plea for mercy, or the silent figure writing on the ground and impatient self confident bustle of the Jews’ questioning; the understanding of visual effect revealed in the alteration of the gradual Biblical exits to the ‘omnes accusatores quasi confusi separatim in tribus locis se disiungent’ bursting apart like stylized waves on a rock;55 all these things are remarkable enough, and in addition there is his structural ability to bind it all together into a unified whole. One can even go a step further: the sermon form does not simply unify, it profoundly alters the dramatic effect. The sermon is taking place before the audience as a representation of a historic time, yet it has already taken place because the Jews in the sermon’s own exemplum are motivated by it, and it is also taking place in a kind of eternal way as one of the chief Christian messages. The interweaving layers of time seem almost endless. The effect of the dissolving and crystallizing of time is paradoxically to make the meaning of the play far more of a present reality than the ostensibly present message of other plays. The sermon form of the play is more than just a unifying device, it is a shape-shifting one which enables Christ to be both preacher and son of God forgiving sins, both presenter and presented; and enables the play to be both of historical time and of all time. The scribe who wrote ‘gyn at Nolo mortem’, in drawing attention to this form, spoke more wisely than he can have realized.

Notes  1. ‘Nolo mortem peccatoris’ appears as the first line in the first complete edition of the plays, Ludus Coventriae, ed. by J. 0. Halliwell (London: Shakespeare Society, 1841), p. 213; in Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays, ed. by A. C. Cawley, Everyman’s Library (London: Dent, 1956), p. 133; and in the complete edition of the plays, Ludus Coventriae, ed. by K. S. Block, Early English Text Society, ES 120 (London: Oxford University Press, 1922), p. 200. Since, however, these editions have been ignored or misunderstood twice already, it does seem necessary to establish the fact unequivocally.  2. Eleanor Prosser, Drama and Religion in the English Mystery Plays, Stanford Studies in Language and Literature 23 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961, reprinted 1966), p. 105. Miss Prosser is somewhat inconsistent in her numbering of the lines because although here she calls the line line 1, she later adopts a system (probably Miss Block’s) in which this would be line 2.  3. Ten Miracle Plays, ed. by R. George Thomas, York Medieval Texts (London: Arnold, 1966), p. 91.  4. The immediate source of this passage as it appears in the play is the liturgy; the ultimate source is Ezekiel. The liturgical form is presumably generalized from three Ezechiel passages: xviii, 23 and 32, and xxxiii, 11; but in none of these does the word peccatoris appear. The word does appear in the Old Latin version published by Sabatier of Ezechiel xxxiii, 11 (Bibliorum Sacrorum Latinae Versiones Antiquae … seu Vetus Italica, ed. by Pierre Sabatier (Paris: François Didot, new ed., 1751) p. 816), and it also appears in various quotations of the passage by many of the early Church Fathers. In the Middle Ages the liturgical form of the passage appears almost universally in quotations of the passage. The story of the woman taken in adultery appears in John viii, 3–11.  5. I have expanded the abbreviations of the manuscript except where it is otherwise stated.  6. There are only two other plays which contain what might be called ‘texts’. These are plays 1 and 41. In both the ‘text’

 7.  8.

 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

21. 22.

stands outside the play in rhyme scheme, and outside, physically, in its positioning in the manuscript. Play 41 is not in the hand of the main scribe, and he, therefore, would have been concerned with it, if at all, only through the rubrication. In fact he left the ‘text’ entirely alone, which suggests, though vaguely, that he saw it as part of the play and not as a ‘text’ outside it. In play 1 the ‘text’ is in a slightly larger script and is underlined in red which suggests, somewhat more clearly, that the scribe saw it as something outside the play since he uses red underlining primarily for stage directions and speech headings. It is possible that he was uncertain how to deal with these ‘texts’ and that this uncertainty led to the confusion over the opening of the Woman Taken in Adultery, where he was faced with an apparent ‘text’ which turned out to be part of the first stanza. In this play he also had to deal with a title, which neither play 1 nor 41 possesses, and this may have added to the confusion. We have, however, little idea of what kind of copy the scribe had and it is quite possible that the muddle really originated there. It seems unlikely that the rubrication was done by anyone other than the scribe. There is nothing in the manuscript to suggest the work of an illuminator and in the case of this play the rubrication follows the apparent intention of the scribe so closely with a minimum of direction that it seems easier to assume that it was the scribe himself who did it. The red paragraph sign is first and foremost an indication of the beginning of a stanza. It would, therefore, be meaningful here in indicating the beginning of the first stanza of the play. In that position (i.e. marking the beginning of the play as well as the stanza) it occurs twenty-four times in the manuscript. This number is, however, somewhat misleading because of these twelve occur at the beginning of run-on plays, when the first stanza is treated as any other (plays 2, 3, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37); five are prologues, where there is, perhaps, some doubt about where the play begins (plays 8, 9, 10, 11 [Contemplacio] and 14 [Summoner]); one is play 41, where the paragraph sign is squashed into the work of another scribe; and one is the Woman Taken in Adultery. Only five (plays 1, 21, 23, 26, 40) are clear-cut examples. It would, therefore, be true to say that the normal sign of the opening of a play is the large red initial and not the red paragraph sign. There are one or two other uses of the red paragraph sign which are relevant. It is used thirteen times (excluding its use in the Woman Taken in Adultery) to mark the first speech heading of a play but only in three of these does it coincide with a similar sign at the beginning of the first stanza. It is used occasionally elsewhere, four of these occasional uses being to draw attention to things which might otherwise be missed or misunderstood (ff. 33v, 41v, 44v, 113v). The sign was, therefore, an obvious one for the scribe to use to draw attention to his error, but its particular meaning was by no means immediately clear. Perhaps’gyn at// Nolo mortem’ should be seen as the scribe’s last desperate attempt to clarify with words what he had failed to clarify with signs. Mirk’s Festial, ed. by Theodor Erbe, Early English Text Society ES 96 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1905), p. 86. Breviarium ad Usum … Sarum, fasc. II, col. dlxxxix, Feria II Primae Ebdomadae Quadragesimae, Ad primam. All quotations from the liturgy are taken from The Sarum Missal, ed. by J. Wickham Legg (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1916), or Breviarium ad Usum … Sarum, ed. by Francis Proctor and Christopher Wordsworth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1879–86). References are given to the York Missal and Breviary and Hereford Missal and Breviary only where they differ from the Sarum ones in matters other than spelling and word order. Sarum Missal p. 50 and pp. 49–50, Feria Quarta in capite ieiunii. Also Missale ad usum … Eboracensis, ed. by William G. Henderson, Publications of the Surtees Society 59 (Durham: Surtees Society, 1874), pp. 44 and 45; and Missale ad usum … Herefordensis, ed. by William. G. Henderson, (Leeds: McCorquodelale & Co, 1874), p. 40. Sarum Missal, p. 62, Feria vi [post inuocauit]. Ezechiel xviii, 20–28. Sarum Missal, p. 78, Sabbato [post oculi]. (i) Sarum Missal, p. 78. (ii) Brev. Sarum fasc. II, col. dclxxxvi, Dominica IV Quadragesimae, Ad Vesperas. Brev. Sarum fasc. II, col. dclxxxi, Ebdomada II Quadragesimae, Sabbato. So much so that to the compiler of the Speculum Christiani it was a New Testament passage. See the edition ed. by Gustaf Holmstedt, Early English Text Society OS 182 (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), pp. 112 and 113. Augustine is aware of both the value and the danger (see Corpus Christianorum Series Latina XL (Turnholt: Brepols, 1956), pp. 1434 and 2097 – his commentaries on Psalms CI and CXLIV); Jerome stresses the antidote to despair in discussing Ezechiel iii (Patrologia Latina, XXV, coll., 319–20); Speculum Christiani sees it as a key passage Contra desperacionem (p. 113); Tertullian, a special case perhaps because of his very strict brand of Christianity, sees it frequently as a dangerously open offer of mercy (see in particular De Pudicitia, CCSL II (Turnholt: Brepols, 1954), pp. 1284, 1300, and 1318–19). The passage occurs in Tertullian, usually in his own adaptation, more frequently than in any other of the Church Fathers. CCSL LXXV, 169; Jerome, Commentariorum in Hiezechielem. Ezechiel xviii, 32. Durandus sees the epistle and gospel for the day as contrasting ways to salvation: ‘In sabbato vero ostenditur quod dominus saluat per iusticiam et misericordiam’; the epistle, ‘Loquitur de susanna quae saluata est per iusticiam’, and the gospel, ‘de muliere deprehensa in adulterio quam dominus liberauit per misericordiam’. (Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, Book VI, De sabbato [post oculi]; Bodleian Library Auct IV, Q, I, 3.). CCSL CXXII, 178–9; Bede, Homelia I, 25 In Quadragesima. PL. CXIV, Glossa Ordinaria, col. 389.

23. CCSL XLI, 221–2; Augustine, Sermones de Vetere Testamento, Sermo XVIA. 24. CCSL CXXII, 182; Bede. 25. CCSL XXXVI, 308; Augustine, In Iohannis Evangelium, Tractatus XXXIII. The idea of the twofold trap, though not explicitly stated in the Bible version, appears in treatments of the story, almost inevitably, from Augustine onwards. 26. CCSL XXXVI, 309; Augustine. 27. E.g. Bede in CCSL CXXII 182; Rupertus Tuitiensis in PL CLXIX 534. 28. CCSL XLI 218; Augustine. 29. Ibid. p. 221. 30. CCSL XXXVI, 311; Augustine. 31. E.g. CCSL XL, 1434, 2097; Augustine. 32. The Reule of Cristen Religioun, ed. by W. C. Greet, Early English Text Society OS 171 (London: Oxford University Press, 1927), pp. 152 and 162. 33. On Christ as a preacher see Forma Praedicandi of Robert de Basevorn, in Th. M. Charland, Artes Praedicandi … Institut d’études médiévales d’Ottawa 7 (Paris: Vrin, 1936), p. 245. 34. Ludus Coventriae ed. Block, pp. 16, 178 and 188. For the numbering of the plays I have used the numbers that appear in the manuscript. These are given in a table in Miss Block’s edition on pages vii–ix. The Baptism has no number in the manuscript, but since there is a gap in the sequence and it is clear what the number must have been, I have included it in parentheses. 35. In Towneley ‘Ego sum alpha et o’ opens the play: Towneley Plays ed. by George England and Alfred W. Pollard, Early English Text Society ES 71(London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1897), p. 1. York has the Latin outside the rhyme scheme: ‘Ego sum Alpha et O. vita via Veritas primus et nouissimus’: York Plays ed. by Lucy Toulmin Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885), p. 1. Chester has: ‘Ego sum Alpha et oo,/ primus et nobilissimus;’: The Chester Plays ed. by Hermann Deimling, Early English Text Society ES 62 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1893), p. 9. It is interesting that the Ludus Coventriae playwright is the only one to go back to the original quotation from the Apocalypse (xxi, 6). 36. See Matthew iii, 3; Mark i, 3; Luke iii, 4 and John i, 23. All have Vox clamantis in deserto; only John has Ego … preceding the phrase. None has Ecce. 37. I have previously included Vivo ego, dicit Dominus, since this is part of the liturgical version, but as this section is very seldom included in quotations of the passage outside the liturgy, it cannot really be considered part of the common version. 38. (i) The Sermons of Thomas Brinton ed. by Sister Mary A. Devlin, Camden Society 3rd. Series, 85 and 86 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1954), I. 126–7. Elsewhere Brinton quotes the passage in full; see I. 72 and II. 346.(ii) Greet, Reule of Cristen Religioun p. 152. 39. Middle English Sermons ed. by W. O. Ross, Early English Text Society OS 209 (London: Oxford University Press, 1940), p. 206. This phrase or one similar introduces almost all the translations of texts in this collection. 40. It would have been well known to a clerical audience; how familiar it would have been to a lay one, is difficult to assess. It is certainly quoted widely. Apart from its appearance in the liturgy and frequent quotation in the Church Fathers, it appears in such a variety of places as the Prologue to the Benedictine Rule; Thomas Waleys’ De modo componiendi sermones (ed. by Charland Artes Praedicandi p. 390.) – in an example of a particular rhetorical device; the prologue to the fourteenth-century English version of the Bible; A Fourteenth Century English Biblical Version ed. by Anna C. Paues, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1904), p. 5, and is constantly quoted in sermons and religious writings of the later Middle Ages. 41. There is another possibility. In the Baptism play John’s words Penitenciam nunc agite / Appro pinquabit regnum celorum (ll. 14–15) are paraphrased by the play-wright:   ffor your trespas penaunce do ȝe   and ȝe xall wyn hevyn dei deorum (ll. 16–17). It happens that Christ also preaches the same words (Matthew iv, 17). The similarity between these lines and ll. 2–4 of the Woman Taken in Adultery is obvious. It is, therefore, possible that the playwright made use of Christ’s first recorded preaching to open his play, since the meaning fitted so neatly. The fact, however, that the story of the woman taken in adultery occurs later and in another Gospel, makes this possibility less likely. That the thought is a commonplace does not, I think, invalidate hunting for an immediate source. 42. I have deliberately left out play 5 Abraham and Isaac, which has, from this point of view, an ambiguous ending, since the prayer could be for the audience though there is nothing in it to force this interpretation. A number of other plays, e.g. plays 15 and 16, end with a prayer for a character or characters within the play. The dramatic effect of these endings is, of course, quite different from those under discussion. 43. The evidence is not conclusive but suggestive, partly because of the uncertainty about how many playwrights are involved in the cycle and the lack of information about the relative dates of the plays, and partly because there is no situation precisely the same as the Moses one – if we except the Woman Taken in Adultery one. In plays 9 (Block, p. 73) and 10 (p. 93) the playwright is prepared to break the regularity of the verse pattern to include naturalistic touches in Latin – the

44. 45.

46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

blessings of Joachym and Anne in play 9 (ll. 53 and 55), and of Episcopus in play 10 (l. 343). There is no doubt that these are part of the play even though outside the rhyme scheme. In play 8 (Block, p. 62) there is an unusual use of Latin, again outside the rhyme scheme and inside the play. To give added verisimilitude to the temple scene, a brief excerpt from a service is included (ll. 85–90). Though it is sung, its nature is utterly unlike that of the liturgical pieces which are sung at length in other plays. They are primarily worship, this is primarily drama. All this evidence, however, comes from the Contemplacio group of plays; evidence from outside that group is scarcer and less clear. There is the use of the Nunc Dimittis in the Purification play, play 19, which has similarities with both the extended liturgical piece and with the Latin used for a dramatic purpose (Block, p. 167); and there are the occasional Latin lines, like Ecce agnus dei qui tollit peccata mundi which stands outside the rhyme scheme and which is presumably part of the play. In many ways the Moses example is nearer to the Contemplacio group ones, since it is, in the case of the text, a piece of dramatic verisimilitude, and in the case of the commandment headings a device something similar, though less stylized, to the use of the Gradual Psalm and the Magnificat headings in plays 9 and 13 (Block, pp. 75–7 and 118–19). The evidence suggests, to me at least, that the Latin line opening the Moses sermon is an integral part of the play. Matthew iii, 2; ‘Paenitentiam agitc; appropinquavit enim regnum celorum’. The playwright seems to be aware of the misquotation of appropinquavit, judging by the paraphrase which follows in ll. 16–17. The ‘third-person style’ does not necessarily produce worse plays, only plays of a different sort, ones closer in nature to the town progress scene. It appears primarily when the need to instruct or explain overcomes the desire to dramatize. It becomes a kind of alienation technique, by which the signification of an event is pointed up, and the natural drama played down. Ludus Coventriae ed. by Block, pp. 51–53; ll. 33–35 in particular, but see also l. 5, ll. 17–24 and l. 48. By introducing the device of the sermon, the playwright provides the perfect dramatic medium for instruction. The ‘third-person style’ becomes dramatically appropriate as well as instructionally so. Ludus Coventriae ed. by Block, pp. 188–93; ll. 79–87 and also e.g. ll. 135–7. Much of Jesus’ part is in this style. For discussions of sermon construction sec: G. R. Owst, Preaching in Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926), c. 8, particularly pp. 301–30; and in Middle English Sermons ed. by W. O. Ross, pp. xliii–lv. The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer ed. by F. N. Robinson, (London: Oxford University Press, 2nd. ed., 1957), pp. 148–9; ll. 333–4; 435 and 461; 916–18. It would be possible, visually, to suggest the’coming down’ as well, if the pulpit were raised above the level of the waggon floor. The Pepysian Gospel Harmony ed. by Margery Goates, Early English Text Society OS 157, (London: Oxford University Press, 1922), p. 54. CCSL CXXII 183. CCSL CXXII 182. See Owst, pp. 146–7. Ludus Coventriae ed. by Block, p. 207. The Gospel has: ‘Audientes autem unus post unum exibant, incipientes a senioribus’; John viii, 9. The image of the wave on the rock is Augustine’s in his commentary on Psalm CII (CCSL XL 1462.).

2

A RECONSIDERATION OF SOME TEXTUAL PROBLEMS IN THE N-TOWN MANUSCRIPT (BL MS COTTON VESPASIAN D VIII) 1. “hese juge” – The Visitation, play 13, f. 71 (Block, p. 116, l. 34)1

In this speech of Contemplacio, near the beginning of play 13, there are a number of obscurities and minor scribal errors which create a context of textual uncertainty for the apparently incomprehensible hese juge (l. 34). Three of these are simply false starts on the part of the scribe, which he corrects: wyff for woman (l. 29); to for lo (l. 35); and gab – repeated (l. 37) He also inserts the omitted word lippis (l. 35). The punctuation too is uncertain. There is some justification for the points in ll. 25–7 as indicating speech pauses, but the pointing in ll. 32 and 35 (especially 32) has almost no purpose whatsoever. Furthermore, there are obscurities in the text such as let (l. 25), which Miss Block tentatively suggests should be Lot;2 weryd clepyd (l.

26); and thei (l. 36) where one might expect a singular pronoun referring only to ȝakarye, especially if, as seems likely, the play is at this point based on the Legenda Aurea.3 It is therefore not a question simply of explaining hese juge, but of removing the uncertainties from the whole passage. The scribe himself has removed some of the uncertainty by correcting the false starts. The punctuation though odd is no odder than at other places in the manuscript; but its arbitrariness should put us on our guard against relying too heavily on it as evidence for a particular reading. The obscurities in the text which are possibly due to scribal errors need more discussion. As an isolated sentence ‘Aftere here let Apere’ (l. 25), meaning ‘Afterwards allow/cause (them) to appear here’, is possible, but stylistically a bit awkward. In the context, however, it is highly unlikely, partly because the imperative is difficult to fit into the speech, but mainly because the twenty-four priests do not appear at all. Lot, on the other hand, has much to recommend it. The o/e confusion is a common one (the main scribe himself often writes an e which is indistinguishable from an o), and there is the further possibility that the ett of grett in the previous line might have caught the scribe’s eye when he was copying, and produced the word let instead of lot. Lot is also supported by the most likely source of this passage, the Legenda Aurea, which has ‘secundum sortes dedit unicuique hebdomadam vicis suae’ in describing the way in which the priests’ periods of duty were arranged, and ‘Aftere here l[o]t’ comes close to being an exact translation of the ‘secundum sortes’ of the Legenda Aurea.4 If lot is accepted, then the first three lines of the speech are best taken as one sentence: ‘Know that King David here ordained twenty-four priests of great devoutness to appear in the temple of God according to their lot’. Syntactically it is an awkward sentence, but the kind of prose-verse which Contemplacio is given frequently suffers from this awkwardness. The whole speech is, however, a not inadequate reduction and adaptation of the opening of the De nativitate sancti Johannis baptistae in the Legenda Aurea.5 If the simple explanation is accepted that weryd (l. 26) is weryn attracted into the ending of clepyd, then the next problem is the central one, hese juge. Miss Block, discussing the contractions used in the manuscript, says, ‘There is one instance of the use of the 9 for com on fo.112 – company, p. 188, l. 19 – and it is possible that the unintelligible hese juge, p. 116, l. 34, may be due to the scribe’s misreading of this contraction in considerynge; the corresponding Latin is: considerans sui senectutem’.6 She is certainly near the solution. If instead of dividing the two words into hese and juge, one divides them into he and sejuge, it only requires the realization of the scribe’s misreading of y as j (or possibly the substitution of an initial j for a medial i), and n as u to produce the perfectly acceptable he seynge ‘he, seeing …’ He, seynge hese vnwurthynes and age, not be-levyd so.

It is true that seynge is not the most precise translation of considerans, but it makes sense and is a reasonable representation of the Latin source. Moreover, the error is easily explicable inasmuch as the following hese might well have imposed itself on a pair of words with the same opening letters, and so produced the manuscript reading ‘hese juge. hese vnwurthynes’. The punctuation can then be explained as the scribe’s attempt to give meaning to the line, which he presumably saw as parallel in syntax to ll. 32 and 35 where the point divides the subject,

the Aungel gabryel (32) and The plage of dompnesse (35), from the verb. He apparently therefore took hese juge to be the subject of not be levyd so, and punctuated accordingly. The difficulty of thei (l. 36) is of a different kind, since it makes good sense except in relation to the source, where Zacharias clearly goes home alone: ‘completa autem septimana officii sui abiit in domum suam et concepit Elizabeth’.7 It is possible that the existence of th- at the beginning of the lines before and after this one prompted the scribe to write thei instead of he, but it is also possible that the scribe had in mind some such tradition as that reflected in Cursor Mundi (l. 10996),8 where the crowd outside the temple leads him home. There does not seem to me to be enough evidence here to make emendation desirable. Contemplacio’s speech can be seen as a workmanlike but plainstyle compression and adaptation of its source. It usefully prepares for the meeting with Elizabeth and Zakarye, and at the same time ‘covers’ the journey of Mary and Joseph. The uncertainty of the text may be due at least in part to the main scribe’s own adaptation of the material he was copying, and is perhaps a reflection of his uncertainty about the fitting of this Marian-group play into the cycle material. This is after all the play for which alternative endings are provided: one which leads naturally into the Contemplacio epilogue, and another which does not.9 The unravelling of textual uncertainties is one stage towards the greater problem of investigating the nature of the composition of the manuscript itself. 2 ‘calsydon’ – The Last Supper, play 2610 f. 147 (Block, p, 244, l. 374) Whereas hese juge is surrounded by textual uncertainties and hesitations, calsydon is part of a clean and unemended page. The word, if it is only one, occurs at the beginning of Christ’s speech to his disciples on the way to the Last Supper and describes the path on which they are walking. Miss Block and Davies print it as Calsydon, Halliwell and Happé as cal Sydon.11 Miss Block is the only one to offer an explanation, which she does in some notes on an unnumbered page at the end of her edition.12 She suggests that the word is ‘chalcedony’, and that the reference is either to its hardness (Bede and Court of Sapience), or to the fact that it typified ‘those who show forth the light that is within them when called upon to give public testimony of their faith’ (Bede).13 There is clearly a general if somewhat vague appropriateness in both these. The hardness could typify Christ’s fate, the Jews’ treatment of him, or even the condition of their hearts; while the path does indeed lead, ultimately, to Christ’s trial and death, which might be said to show him being called ‘vel doctrinae vel aliis sanctorum usibus in servitute ad publicum procedere’. But when the whole of the Bede passage is taken into account, even that slight appropriateness seems to disappear: Chalcedonius quasi ignis lucernae pallenti specie renitet, et habet fulgorem sub dio, non in domo. Quo demonstrantur hi qui coelesti desiderio subnixi, hominibus tamen latent, et quasi in abscondito, jejunium, eleemosynas precesque suas, agunt. Sed cum vel doctrinae, vel aliis sanctorum usibus in servitute, ad publicum procedere jubentur, mox quid fulgoris intus gesserint ostendunt.14

These are Christian virtues, certainly, but they are the virtues of Christians, not of Christ; nor are they relevant to this moment in his life. Perhaps more appropriate is the latter part of Bede’s commentary where he compares the hardness and attracting power of chalcedony to the power of the virtuous man unaffected by outside pressures, who draws the weaker to him. But even this has no specific, only a general relevance.15 A prior question, however, which should have been asked is why in the first place should the path be said to be of chalcedony. Unless there is a tradition to this effect, it must remain rather an arbitrary choice of stone and lessen the force of the spiritual significance which is to be drawn from it. I have not so far been able to find such a tradition.16 The other suggestion is that calsydon should be cal Sydon and presumably be translated as ‘called Sydon’. There is no reason in the manuscript why this should not be so; incorrect division of words certainly appears. But once again there is a need for a tradition which would make Sydon more than an arbitrary choice for the name of the path, and once again I have not been able to find one. The associations of Sydon, indeed, and its relative insignificance make it a far less likely possibility than calsydon.17

Plan of Jerusalem (late twelfth century) from the Bibliothèque Municipale, Cambrai. This is a re-drawing from photographs of the Cambrai plan. No attempt has been made to indicate the coloured shading, and the abbreviated words have been silently expanded. Many words are now illegible and these have been added in square brackets from earlier accounts of the plan.

Another possibility, not so far suggested, perhaps because it involves emendation, is that the scribe has misread the words cald Syon. The place of the Last Supper, to which Christ is going with his disciples, is a house on Mount Syon (already mentioned in ll. 346–51), and to call the path Syon, therefore, has an immediately understood relevance which calsydon and Sydon lack. There is, furthermore, an early tradition for such a naming, since the plan of Jerusalem (late twelfth century) in the Bibliothèque Municipale in Cambrai gives the name via montis Syon to the street leading to the Mount Syon gate (see plan on p. 27).18 Moreover, the name Syon gives rhetorical point to the otherwise rather self-evident second line of Christ’s speech (l. 375), ‘wech xal conuey us wher we xal be;’ Syon will lead them to Syon. But we are asked to consider this name in a spiritual way as well; the path is ‘cald Syon. be goostly ordenawns’

(l. 374). What then is Syon? Augustine provides a typical answer: Syon is the Church, but it is also that city towards which the church is journeying in this world – once again Syon shall convey us to Syon, the church is the way to the heavenly city.19 Syon, ‘id est speculatio’, is also the place from which we can see the future with gostly ey; being members of the church means being able to see into the heavenly city which is to come.20 Syon as the Church is also especially appropriate to the place where the Last Supper is about to be held, since it is there that the institution of the Eucharist, the centre of the church’s life, is about to take place.21 The question of the true reading must nevertheless remain an open one. There is still the possibility that calsydon is right, and that a tradition of the nature of the rock of Mount Syon will be found which underlies this. In that case ‘wech xal conuey us wher we xal be’ may well prove to be a loose way of saying ‘which will take us where we want to be’, and ‘Contewnyng in pees’ may mean no more than it says, that the disciples are still at peace with one another. But there must be the possibility of a more subtle use of language, not unknown in this group of plays, and a deeper significance which we are invited to discover with gostly ey in Syon. 3. The Assumption of the Virgin, play 40,22 ff. 214–222v (Block, pp. 354–73) One of the many problems connected with the N-Town plays, as the discussion of the opening of the Visitation play has suggested, is the extent to which the main scribe was involved in revising the material which he copied. It might be hoped that some light could be thrown on this by the one play in the manuscript, play 40 The Assumption of the Virgin, which is written in a different hand, and in which, therefore, the main scribe’s alterations can be easily distinguished. Unfortunately, the fact that he incorporated it directly into his manuscript in the form in which he found it, means presumably that he or those for whom he was writing were satisfied with it in that form, and that therefore the amount of revision was likely to be slight. Nevertheless it should give some indication of the areas on which the main scribe was working. Greg makes it clear from the start in his edition of the play23 that he believes the main scribe to be responsible for all the rubrication: ‘the whole manuscript, including our play, has been rubricated at one time and in one manner, obviously by one person, and a careful examination of his work throughout the volume will show that that person was none other than the main scribe’ (p. 7). Later, in his Note on the text (p. 46), he goes into more detail: ‘The manuscript has been rubricated by a hand which is not that of the scribe [of play 40], but is that of the corrector in ll. 261–2 [i.e. the main scribe; Block, ll. 186–7]. Certain words and passages have been underlined in red … The rubricator also added the paragraphs, both large and small, which mark the stanzaic arrangement, and the signs (v = versus) which distinguish certain Latin versicles, and placed the number of the play, 41, in large arabic numerals in the right margin opposite ll. 11–14 [Block, ll. 9–12]. He further crossed out a number of words and letters which the scribe had merely expunged.’ Miss Block, without referring to Greg’s edition, supports this point of view (pp. xvii, xix, xxv and 361 n. 7), and I can see no reason for departing from their conclusions. If this is so, then the most conspicuous work of the main scribe was the rubrication, and one clear reason for this was his desire for uniformity. Since the Assumption play was totally unrubricated, the first necessity seems to have been to bring its appearance into line with that

of the rest of the manuscript – hence the paragraph marks showing the beginning of stanzas, the number of the play, and the underlining of the stage directions and the speakers’ names. But there is more to the marking of the metrical arrangement than simply this attempt at uniformity. To understand what the main scribe is doing, it is necessary to know something of the intricacies of this metrical arrangement, and the most detailed description is Greg’s: ‘The stanzas had namely been bound together, or separated, as we please to regard it, by a series of intercalary lines and couplets which broke the regular stanzaic sequence … When these intercalary lines have been eliminated the play is seen to consist for the most part of a mixture of stanzas of thirteen and of eight lines respectively [pp. 26 and 27]. In only two cases is an independent couplet introduced [Block, ll. 66–7 and 214–15]. In three cases a couplet continues the last rime of the previous stanza [Block, ll. 89–90, 466–7 and 499–500] … There remain in all twenty-six lines, eight couplets and ten single lines, which anticipate the first rime of the following stanza’ (p. 29). It is this complex arrangement that the main scribe apparently set himself to elucidate. He seems to have felt with Greg that ‘if not somehow distinguished from the stanzas themselves, the intercalary lines had the effect of reducing the whole scheme to apparent chaos.’ He therefore introduced, as Greg points out, the small paragraph mark for the intercalary lines and the large for the opening of stanzas.24 What Greg did not apparently observe was that the main scribe introduced a further refinement by using the small paragraph mark only for couplets, and another mark, resembling a looped c or o, for single lines (see plate over the page, ll. 1 and 24). This painstaking care argues a very remarkable concern with the technical details of metre. Another area of concern for the main scribe has not so far been discussed at all, indeed seems never to have been noticed. This is his alteration of the rhymes of a number of stanzas. It has been assumed in the past that these alterations were the work of the scribe of play 40, but a number of details of the alterations tell against this.25 The alterations occur in the following places:

The Assumption of the Virgin, BL MS Cotton Vespasian D VIII, f. 217. © British Library Board f. 216, ll. 9 and 11 (Block, ll. 92 and 94; Greg ll. 141 and 143)

‘is’ has been erased from the ends of the lines and inserted above in a different hand, with a caret, earlier in the line. The rhyme-link has been extended to reach the new end of the line. The horizontal stroke of the top of the s, and the arc which the scribe of play 40 uses to mark his i, are visible at the end of both lines. l. 5 (Block, l. 98; Greg, l. 148)

‘is’ at the end of the line has been erased and then re-inserted in the same place in the revising

hand, as though the reviser later decided not to alter the plural ending of myhtis (l. 13). There is no reason why both should not have been altered. f. 217, ll. 6 and 8 (Block, ll. 153 and 155; Greg, ll. 220 and 222) (see plate above)

‘is’ has once again been erased at the ends of the lines. In l. 6 ‘is’ has been squeezed in above the line before diht; in l. 8 an ampersand has been inserted above before riht. The position of each is indicated by a caret. The remains of the original words (‘is’ in both cases) at the ends of the linesare clearly visible and the rhyme-links have not been extended. ll. 15, 17, 19 (Block, ll. 162, 164, 166; Greg ll. 231, 133, 235)

A final word, almost certainly (as Greg and Miss Block suggest26) now, hasbeen erased and the rhyme-link extended. ll. 20, 21, 22 (Block, ll. 167–91 Greg, ll. 236–8)

Final ‘is’ has been erased and re-inserted as before. Signs of the original words can be seen at the ends of all three lines. The existence of ‘is’ at the end of line 21 is odd, as this is the last of the now rhymes (myth [now] 15, ryth[now] 17, syth [now] 19, brith [is] 21). In each case the rhyme-link has been extended. The reason for attributing these alterations to the main scribe rather than to the scribe of play 40 is a palaeographical one. The play 40 scribe uses a finals with either a bold horizontal top stroke, or a backward-curling flourish; the main scribe uses one with an arc-shaped top. Every s in the alterations noted above is of the main scribe’s type. The symbol used for and on f. 217 (l. 8) also probably indicates the main scribe but not so certainly, for though the scribe of play 40 normally uses a z-shaped symbol with a hook descending from the left-hand end of the top stroke, he once uses a symbol very similar to that of the main scribe (f. 219, the stage direction at l. 10). The play 40 scribe also uses a bold arc to ‘dot’ his i, and there are no examples of this in the emendations, except above the re-written ‘is’ on f. 216 (l. 15) where it is left over from the original ‘is’. The rhyme alterations on ff. 215–215v, 218 and 220 may be the work of the main scribe, but there is too little evidence to be sure and we do know that the scribe of play 40 also made alterations to the rhymes (see f. 214, l. 10). Besides the changes that have been detailed above and those mentioned by Greg, there are also the rhyme links added in red on f. 214v (kyngrysyng, alle-thralle) and f. 220v (fle-me, brouth-wrouth).27 It is clear from what has been said that the main scribe was prepared to make changes in play 40, besides those which bring it into line with the appearance of the rest of the manuscript. But what do these changes amount to, and do they suggest in what area we might expect to find the main scribe working elsewhere? To take the second question first: the area in which he is working in this play is clearly metrical. In no sense can the alterations to rhymes or the additions of metrical symbols be considered of dramatic significance. What is revealing, I think, is the finicky detail of his interest. Despite Greg’s concern, the elucidation of the metrical scheme is of no substantial value except to a copyist anxious to check the stanzas, or to someone deeply interested in the mechanics of metre. There is nothing here to support the idea of the main scribe as an inspired adapter of his material, the positive evidence shows us

merely a metre organizer. Had the alterations of rhymes been thorough, it might have suggested something more, but the petty tampering with words that he indulges in seems merely to emphasize the smallness of his interest.28 The changes then amount to little, and perhaps it is wrong to expect more. As I said at the beginning the accepting of the play as an already-written manuscript in its entirety, implies that it was in the main satisfactory, but there is nevertheless the niggling feeling that an adapter with real dramatic skill would not have revealed his hand in quite the way that the main scribe does in this play.

Notes  1. References to the N-town plays are to Ludus Coventriae, ed. by K.S. Block, EETS, ES 120 (London: Oxford University Press, 1922), cited as ‘Block’. The passages quoted have been newly transcribed from the manuscript in order to draw attention to the alterations made by the main scribe and to show more consistently his use of the long i. In the transcription j represents a normal long i and I an elaborated form of it. I have used y for þ since the form it takes in the manuscript is indistinguishable from y. I have also included the scribe’s marginal signs and retained his marks of contraction and suspension and his final flourishes. The line numbering, however, is as in Block.  2. Block, p. 116, n. 5.  3. Miss Block makes a brief but convincing case for accepting the Legenda Aurea as the main source for Contemplacio’s speech (p. xlvii).  4. J. de Voragine, Legenda Aurea, ed. by Th. Graesse (Breslau, 1890), p. 357.  5. Ibid, p. 357.  6. Block, p. xliii.  7. Legenda Aurea, p. 358.  8. Cursor Mundi, ed. by Richard Morris, vol. 2, Early English Text Society, OS 59 (London: Trübner, 1875), p. 630. This tradition is somewhat different since Zachari is there described as ‘madd’, and it seems that this is the reason that the crowd lead him home.  9. The alternative ending, it is really an alternative linking passage, appears on f. 73v (see footnote beginning si placet). It avoids the inconsistency contained in the fuller ending that Mary leaves Elizabeth and yet is twice said by Contemplacio to stay with her (‘Mary with elizabeth abod þer stylle’ l. 10, and ‘And evyr oure lady a-bod stylle þus / tyl johan was of his modyr born’ ll. 17–8). The most natural lead into the next play would be the fuller ending, with Mary and Joseph leaving but no epilogue by Contemplacio, though the alternative ending, with Contemplacio’s epilogue, produces no actual clash of meaning with the next play. 10. That is play 27, according to the numbering of the manuscript. For a discussion of this, and for the titles used here, see the facsimile of The N-Town Plays, with an introduction by P. Meredith and S.J. Kahrl, Medieval Drama Facsimiles IV (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1977), pp. viii–xii. 11. The Corpus Christi Play of the English Middle Ages, ed. by R.T. Davies (London: Faber, 1972), p. 254; Ludus Coventriae … ed. by J.O. Halliwell, (London: The Shakespeare Society, 1841), p. 260; English Mystery Plays, ed. by Peter Happé, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1975), p. 434. 12. The meaning of the word is given as ‘chalcedony’ in the Glossary, s.v. calsydon. 13. Block, Notes following p. 402. 14. Explanatio Apocalypsis in Migne, Patrologia Latina XCIII, col. 198. 15. Later commentaries add little to Bede, and that little of no more specific relevance for this passage. Chalcedony is ‘vilior quam sapphirus in natura, sed in mysticis sensibus valde invenitur et ipse pretiosus’ (Haymo) but the spiritual meanings are those of Bede; it signat charitatem (Richard of St Victor), curat lunaticos (Marbod) and, a quality much stressed by the lapidaries, gives the power to overcome one’s adversary in argument (also Marbod). See Migne, Patrologia Latina CXVII, col. 1205 (Haymo); CXCVI, col. 871 (Richard of St Victor); CLXXI, cols. 1744 and 1774–5 (Marbod). It is the stone in the ring which Christ gives to Katherine in Capgrave, Life of St Katherine of Alexandria, ed. by C. Horstmann, EETS, OS 100 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1893), pp. 248–9, and one of the many figures of the Virgin Mary in Lydgate’s Gloriosa dicta sunt de te (The Minor Poems of John Lydgate, ed. by H. N. MacCracken, Early English Text Society, ES 107 (London: Oxford University Press, 1911), part 1, p. 321. Bartholomeus Anglicus draws together many of the qualities of the stone already mentioned, with Isidore as his main authority; Trevisa’s translation, On the Properties of Things ed. by M.C. Seymour et al., 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), 2, p. 840. The fourteenthcentury commentary on the Apocalypse contained in MS Harley 874 adds the explanation of the chalcedony which is perhaps most relevant to the passage in the play, ‘Calcidoyne þat haþ þe colour palle. bitokneþ hem þat lyuen sharp lijf’; An English Fourteenth Century Apocalypse Version with a Prose Commentary, ed. by Elis Fridner, Lund Studies in

English 29 (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1961), p. 190. 16. It is, of course, the third foundation, or the stone adorning the foundation, of the heavenly Jerusalem (see Revelations 21, xix), and therefore could have a relevance to the earthly Jerusalem as well; but one would still expect a specific connection between this and Mount Syon. 17. It is primarily as a representative Phoenician or non-Jewish power that Sidon, often with Tyre, appears in the Bible. Isidore comments only on its wealth and the derivation of its name: ‘a piscium copia Sidon appellaverunt. Nam piscem Phoenices ‘sidon’ vocant’, or from Sidon, a descendant of Ham (Cham); Etymologiarum sive originum, ed. by W.M. Lindsay, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911) XV, i, 28; IX, ii, 22. Bede, amongst others, interprets the name as venator (Migne, Patrologia Latina, XCI, col. 279) and venatio (ibid, XCII, col. 58). 18. There is another plan at the The Hague (Koninklijke Bibliotheek, MS 69), also of the late twelfth century, which gives the name as ‘vicus porte montis syon’. Both are reproduced in T.S.R. Boase, Kingdoms and Strongholds of the Crusaders, (London: Thames & Hudson, 1971), plates 2 and 40. A slightly more complete reproduction of the Cambrai plan is given in The Dark Ages, ed. by David Talbot Price (London: Thames & Hudson, 1965), p. 335. 19. Augustine frequently makes these associations in his commentaries on Psalms, see especially those on Psalms 64, ii; 101, xxii; 131, xiii; 149, ii; Enarrationes in Psalmos in Migne, Pat. Lat. XXXVI, col. 774; XXXVII, coll. 1307, 1725, 1952. Isidore also makes the contrast between Jerusalem and Syon: ‘Pro peregrinatione autem praesenti Ecclesia Sion dicitur, eo quod ab huius peregrinationis longitudine posita promissionem rerum caelestium speculetur; et idcirco Sion, id est speculatio, nomen accepit. Pro futura vero patriae pace Hierusalem vocatur. Nam Hierusalem pacis visio interpretatur.’ Etymologiarum, VIII, i, 5–6. It would perhaps be stretching ingenuity too far to see in the phrase ‘Contewnyng in pees’ (l. 378) a reference to this meaning of the word Jerusalem, but since there does not seem to be an obvious relevance in this phrase to the disciples preparing the Last Supper, it should perhaps be borne in mind. The disciples are concerned with earthly ordenawns (Block, l. 382), the preparations for the Last Supper, Christ with goostly ordenawns, the peace of heaven. 20. See Isidore Etymologiarum, VIII, i, 5; Augustine, commentary on Psalms 64, ii and 101, xxii, in Migne, Pat.Lat. XXXVI, col. 774; XXXVII, col. 1307. 21. Block, pp. 255–7. See also The Book of Margery Kempe, ed. by S.B. Meech and H.E. Allen, Early English Text Society, OS 212 (London: Oxford University Press, 1940), p. 12, for the institution on Mount Syon of the Eucharist. Mount Syon was also the site of the events of Pentecost and therefore in another sense of the foundation of the Church, see Isidore Etymologiarum VIII, i, 4. Its associations were well-known in the later Middle Ages through the Franciscan house on Mount Syon which enclosed the cenaculum or ‘upper room’ and where pilgrims frequently stayed; see Fratris Felicis Fabri Evagatorium, ed. by C.D. Hassler, 3 vols (Stuttgardt: Literarischer Verein, 1843), 1, pp. 241–5. 22. That is play 41, according to the manuscript numbering. 23. The Assumption of the Virgin. A miracle play from the N-Town Cycle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1915); cited as ‘Greg’. 24. The first intercalary couplet is on f. 215v, and is one of the independent ones. The first intercalary line is on f. 217 (l. 1). The scribe is not entirely accurate in his use of the paragraph marks; for example, at l. 11 on f. 216v he uses a large paragraph instead of a small; there is a superfluous large one on f. 216 (l. 1), while four lines further down a small one is omitted. In the main, however, he is consistent and careful. 25. See Greg, p. 33; Miss Block notes the corrections but does not comment on who made them, see footnotes on pp. 358, 360–1. 26. Greg, p. 52; Block, p. 361, n. 1. 27. Miss Block notes only those on f. 214v, see p. 356, n. 2. 28. Few, however, will question the literary good-sense of altering some of the contrived and jingling rhymes; see Greg, pp. 31– 2.

3

JOHN CLERKE’S HAND IN THE YORK REGISTER Item payd to John Clerke for kepyng of the Register of Corpuscrysty play at the furst place accustomyd xxd

The name of John Clerke is little known even to students of the York play, but he will almost certainly prove to be our most important single witness to the state of the play in the last 40 years or so of its existence. This article is intended as a preliminary examination of the sources of information about John Clerke, and of his relationship with the Register. In her edition of the play,1 Lucy Toulmin Smith recognised Clerke’s main contributions to the Register but she refers to him by name once only, in a note to the Fullers’ pageant: This piece is written in a hand of the end of the 16th century, the same which wrote the addition to the play of Cain and Abell; see after, p. 37. The reason for this is found in a Chamberlain’s Book of the City of York (vol. 4) under date of l Eliz, 1558;2 ‘Item. payd to John Clerke for entryng in the Regyster the Regynall of the pagyant pertenynge to Craft of Fullars, which was never before regestred, 12d’. (p. 18)

Apart from describing a hand of 1558 as ‘of the end of the 16th century’, this is an accurate statement of the case. Later in referring to the Cain and Abel addition she says more appropriately that it was written ‘towards the middle of the sixteenth century’ (p. 37), but there is no further mention of John Clerke. The only other large-scale addition to the Register by Clerke is the Purification pageant, entered out of place towards the end of the manuscript. Once again Miss Toulmin Smith makes no mention of John Clerke by name, and he is simply ‘the same hand of the middle of the 16th century which wrote the Fullers’ play’ (p. 433). These three additions are referred to in the Introduction to her edition: ‘Three pieces were inserted by a hand which we are able to date at 1558 from the municipal books’ (pp. xiv–xv), but once again there is no mention of Clerke by name. She points out also that the note on f. 68 (her foliation) referring to the misplacing of the Purification is ‘in the same hand’ (p. 433), and that the opening of the Vintners’ pageant (all that there is) is ‘in the hand of the sixteenth century’ (p. xv).

Figure 1 The opening of the Fullers’ pageant, one of John Clerke’s more extensive contributions to the York Register which can be dated 1558/9 (© British Library Board, BL MS Additional 35290, f. 11v [10v]) Apart from these references, which can with a little difficulty be drawn together around John Clerke, there are a number scattered through the Toulmin Smith edition which are only possibly to be linked with him. Most specific are references to ‘the late/later hand’ (26 instances), ‘the

Elizabethan hand’ (2 instances), ‘the 16th century hand’ (5 instances), ‘the late annotator’ (once), and ‘the late corrector’ (4 instances). When these minor alterations, corrections and additions are mentioned in the Introduction, the phrase which is used is, ‘in a hand of the second half of the sixteenth century’ (p. xv). Besides these there are numerous vaguer references to ‘a late hand’, ‘by late hand’, ‘an Elizabethan hand’, ‘an old corrector’, and so forth. The question which naturally arises is what Miss Toulmin Smith meant by the preciser references. Were they intended to point to John Clerke; and was she making a careful distinction between Clerke, whose hand she recognized, and a number of unidentified hands that also worked on the play? The answer to the first of these questions must be a hesitant ‘yes’, in that she appears to have intended to draw attention to the appearance in a number of places of this ‘hand of the sixteenth century’; and to the second question a qualified ‘no’. In most cases it is true that the preciser references are to Clerke’s hand, though there are a few that are not and some that are doubtful, but at the same time there are many imprecise references to additions and notes which are certainly by Clerke.3 If she intended a precise distinction between Clerke and other annotators, then the method was a vague and rather inaccurate one. Miss Toulmin Smith’s failure clearly to identify Clerke’s hand, however, is easily understandable considering that hers was the pioneer text of the York Play; what is remarkable is that she was able to give the space and time that she did to trimmings of this sort. Unfortunately the apparent excellence of her text has led later scholars to give equal trust to matters that were central and those that were peripheral in her edition, and her comments on the later additions have given rise to two conflicting notions: on the one hand to a vague impression of an insignificant band of casual annotators, and on the other to the idea of a single hand linked with the supposed censoring activities of the ecclesiastical authorities in York towards the end of the sixteenth century.4 Neither is anywhere near the truth. Of the 175 or so marginal additions, about a hundred are certainly by Clerke, and a further 20 or so possibly by him. In other words there are additions by other hands, but they are not numerous. Moreover his additions include almost all the longer and more important ones. As far as ecclesiastical censorship is concerned, the entry that seems more than any other to have given rise to the idea is, ‘Doctor, this matter is newly mayde, wherof we haue no coppy’ (f. 42). Miss Toulmin Smith in commenting on this (and other entries) claims that ‘The “Doctor” whom the city officers were eager to assure that so many portions of their favourite plays were “mayd of newe”, was none other than [Matthew] Hutton [dean of York] himself’ (p. xvi). She earlier claims that these marginal entries ‘are evidence that the plays underwent careful revision in 1568, when the city council agreed “that the book thereof should be perused and otherwise amended before it were playd,” in obvious anticipation of the correction or censure of the reforming Archbishop Grindal’. The ‘Doctor’ who appears in this addition, however, is the name of the first speaker in the Annunciation pageant, accidentally omitted by the original scribe and supplied by Clerke, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Hutton or the reforms of the church.

Figure 2 The speaker’s name and marginal note by Clerke at the opening of the Spicers’ pageant (© British Library Board, BL MS Additional 35290, f. 42 (44]). The initial L is similar in style to Clerke’s other decorative capitals

Figure 3 The earliest appearance of what seems to be Clerke’s hand in the House Books. The entry above it is by Miles Newton. (York City Archives, HB 11, f. 111. Photograph © David Whiteley, University of York) Before looking further at John Clerke’s annotation of the Register it is worth asking who he was and what official position (if any) he held in York in the mid-sixteenth century. His family did not belie its name. He was the son of Thomas Clerke and the grandson of John Clerke, each in his time sheriffs’ clerk in the city. When Thomas Clerke, his father, was made a freeman in 1506–7 he was described in the Freemen’s Rolls as ‘litteratus, filius Johannis Clerke nuper clerici vice-comitis’.5 In the 1540s Thomas was being paid 20s a year under the heading ‘fees of lernyd men’, and was clearly being retained by the city as an adviser on legal and other matters.6 He was no longer in office in 1556 since a certain John Grene was said to have the

post of Clerk to the Sheriffs’ Court ‘as Thomas Clerke layt Clerke of the sayd Courtes hadd occupied’.7 John Clerke had a brother, Michael (presumably elder since he was made a freeman in 1533–4), whose occupation is not described in the Freemen’s Rolls (I, p. 252), but who in view of his family may well have been the ‘mychaell clarke’ paid 16d for making a supplication to the Lord Mayor on behalf of the Bakers’ Company in 1544.8 He was described as ‘gentleman’ when his son, Robert, was made free in 1560–1 (II, p, 2). Robert was, like John Clerke, a scrivener. When John was himself made free in 1538–9 he was referred to as ‘Johannes Clerk, scryvener, filius Thome Clerk, generosi’ – son of Thomas Clerk gentleman (I, p. 258). None of the family is ever described as Bachelor of Law, attorney or even notary public, and they seem always to have been on the edge of the legal profession, clerks and gentlemen rather than professional lawyers. John Clerke was born in 1510, according to the evidence given in a legal case in which he was involved as a witness (see pp. 42–3). Before he was admitted to the freedom of the city in 1538–9, he was already officially employed since in the Bridgemasters’ accounts (which he was keeping at the time) he is described as ‘vnder clerk to Miles Newton the common Clerk of this city’.9 It was a position of this sort which he was to occupy for the rest of his life. In 1550, after Miles Newton’s death, when the new Common Clerk took up office, John Clerke’s services were retained: Also it is agreyd [as well] by the said presens as by the assent of the said Thomas ffaill, That John Clerke lait seruaunt and deputy to the said Myles Newton Lait Common Clerke of this Citie for suche diligent paynes as he the same John haith heretofore takyn in the said office of a Long tyme shall fromhensefurth be admittyd as deputy in the same office for the said Thomas ffaill according to his honeste demeanour in the same.10

The obscurity of this position has no doubt contributed to his later neglect but he was in his time a man whose services were much in demand. For the city, not only did he act as clerk to the Bridgemasters but his hand is to be found in all the other major city records: in the Freemens’ Rolls, entering new freemen and chamberlains; in the Chamberlains’ Rolls and Books, recording the day-to day expenses of the city; and, most commonly of all in the House Books minuting the regular meetings of the Council.11 Besides his work for the city, he was employed as a ‘free lance’ clerk by both the guilds whose records have survived in any quantity, the Bakers’ and the Mercers’. The Bakers employed him to keep their accounts over a number of years, beginning in 1567, and there are also many occasional payments for specific work.12 In 1553, for example, the first year in which his name appears, he is paid 14d for ‘wryten’, 6d for registering a ‘new market’ at Ouse Bridge, and 6d for ‘makyng a Coppy of our presentments’ (f. 15). Compared with this in the same year Mr Faill, the Common Clerk, was paid 2s for making a supplication to the mayor, and 8d for ‘the copie of the laste decre’ (ff. 14v–15). The sums are not markedly different but there is a certain superiority about the work which the Common Clerk is asked to do. Some idea of the quality of John Clerke’s work and of the kind of thing he was doing in keeping the accounts can be gathered from the 1569 ones which have survived in two forms, the rough draft (not by Clerke) and the final copy (ff. 65–6 and 33v–4). In the main the rough draft is legible and uncomplicated and John Clerke’s was very much the scrivener’s task of presenting a neat appearance, but there were spellings to regularize and some adjustments to make besides the actual job of adding up, which had not been done in rough. ‘hearye kelland’

and ‘harie ketland’ become ‘Henry ketland’, for example, and ‘willn Lamtonge’ (is there more than wayward spelling involved here, in reference to the son of Mr Langton, gentleman?) becomes ‘William Langton’. The neatness of the final version is partly at least a result of the conventional frame of the headings, ‘Receptes as followeth’ and ‘Paymentes as followeth’, and the two Summae totalis, but there is also considerable calligraphic skill shown in the initials and the hierarchy of scripts. One alteration seems worth noting, though whether the result of John Clerke’s advice or not it is impossible to tell, namely that ‘Item paid for the occupaicion for mr mayson when we went ageynts hym’ is first altered to ‘Item paid for the occupaicion whan we mett the others consernyng mr mayson’ (f. 66) and finally appears as ‘Item paid for thoccupacion at our metyng a nother tyme consernyng mr Mayson’ (f. 34). The first alteration is in Clerke’s hand though what the precise reason for it was, who suggested it, or what the situation was that produced the original entry, is not clear. The main impression left from a comparison of the two drafts is above all of careful and skilful presentation. What is particularly interesting about the run of Clerke accounts (1567–70 and 1572–4) is the changing pattern of the relationship between Clerke and the Bakers that they show. In 1567 the Bakers gave him only 12d for ‘wrytynge of the audit’ and disallowed payment for his dinner, 6d; though it is true that in that year the searchers overspent by 2/6d (ff. 27–28v). In the following year, 1568, not only are they apparently giving him an extra 8d for last year’s accounts but they are allowing him his dinner, 4d, paying him a ‘goodes penye’ (i.e. earnest money to seal a bargain) of 4d, and paying him ‘wages’ of 5s (f. 32v). The bargain struck in 1568 created a new relationship with the Bakers’ for the next two years; he was paid a regular 5s a year, for ‘his fee accustomyd’, and 4d for his dinner. Then for some reason, perhaps that one of the searchers was literate, or perhaps that the Bakers’ felt that 5s was too large a sum to disburse regularly, another hand does the accounts (1571), and when John Clerke reappears in the next year (1572) his fee accustomed has disappeared and he is charging for ‘wrytyng of my byll – iiijd’ and ‘for wrytyng this accompte in dewe order and forme – xijd’ (f. 37v). In 1573 he is again paid a fee, but a reduced one of 3/4d (f. 39). After 1576 he disappears altogether.

Figure 4 The end of the Bakers’ accounts for 1569–70, written by Clerke and containing several references to him. This is the first year in which he makes use of the elaborately calligraphic S (© British Library Board, BL MS Additional 33852, f. 35v; much reduced) As an employee of the Mercers’ company he appears first, as far as the printed records show,13 in 1560 when he is paid 13s 4d as his ‘hole yere fee’ (p. 160). As Thomas Clerk (presumably his father) was paid 13s 4d in 1529 as ‘clerk to this gilde’ (p. 132), it seems

likely that John also was their clerk. He may have taken over from his father, since besides the family connection he would be well known to the Mercers through his work for a city which was frequently under their governance.14 The last mention in the printed records of his employment by them is in 1578 when he was paid 2s ‘for makinge of a letter and a certefecate for apprentices to beyond the seas’ (p. 195), There is no doubt much more to be uncovered about him in the unpublished Mercers’ documents. It is chiefly as a scrivener that he is being employed by the city and the guilds, not as a learned man. In a law-suit of 1556 he is described, presumably on his own evidence, as ‘a man partelie lerned and somthyng vnderstondes the Latten tonge’.15 The law suit was against the vicar of St Martin, Coney Street, Robert Fox, for drunkenness, being unlearned and a sower of discord, and it is interesting to see how Clerke stands amongst his fellow parishioners. Of the six witnesses only one other gives detailed evidence of Fox’s errors in the Latin services he performed at St Martin’s. That is John Langton, a member of the Bakers’ Company, and a gentleman – he is so described in the Freemen’s Rolls (I, p. 248). Interestingly enough he was not only a neighbour of Clerke’s but also a searcher of the Bakers’ Company in the year that Clerke was first employed by them. He gives several examples of Fox’s mistakes in the Latin service, for example that in christening children ‘“super hanc fauilla” he hathe pronunced and caulled it “super hanc familia”’, John Clerke is the only other of the witnesses to have observed and remembered this kind of error. The other witnesses were William Nicolsonne, aged 60, who could not read or write, understands no Latin, and therefore cannot say ‘whether the said Sir Robert foxe be lerned or not’; Robert Hewet, an armourer, not learned; Mr Adam Bynkes, sheriff, aged 45, who understood no Latin; and John Foxgale, the parish clerk, also not learned though he is able to offer two comments on Fox’s conduct of services. In the first place he failed to administer extreme unction as he should, and secondly, a few years before, in christening a child ‘when he shoolde have said “Ego baptiso te in nomine patris etc.”, he said nothing but “Ego baptiso te”’, Clerke not only gives evidence of a learned kind but also remembers the events mentioned by the other witnesses of Fox’s drunkenness in church on ‘Schier thursdaye’ and at Adam Bynkes’ house, and the Ibson episode when for ‘cominge in to churche and not spekinge out the said vicar caulled him and said “good even, tomme foole”, the said Ibson beinge knelinge of his knees before the sacrament’. This law suit is not only useful for giving Clerke’s age but also for setting him in a social context, producing a background to the pure facts of scrivening, and also perhaps revealing one of the routes by which employment came to him. Another view of him comes through his will, made in March 1580 when he was aged 70 or so.16 It shows that he was still living in St Martin’s parish, and in it he asks to be buried in the porch of his parish church. He died in July 1580 and was buried on the twenty-ninth of that month, and his wife Margaret on 5 August, a week later. He bequeathed to his wife (fruitlessly as it was to turn out) ‘the lease of my tenement wher I now dwell in Connystrett in yorke’, ‘my standinge bed in the parlour wher we lye with all furniture to the same belonginge, my counter in the greate parlour and my Flanders chiste in the Chamber’. Besides this she was allowed the ‘vse and occupacion’ of the orchard and property in North Street,17 over the River Ouse, and half the residue of his goods and chattels when his debts were paid. To his daughter Jane, he left the orchard in North Street after her mother’s death and the other half of the residue of his

goods and chattels. The tenement in North Street he gave to his granddaughter ‘yonge Jane Pullen my doughters doughter’ after his wife’s death. Finally to Henry Pullaine, his son-in-law and one of the executors of his will, he left ‘all my Bookes of lawe and president’ and the property in Coney Street after his wife’s death. It would be interesting to know whether the stations of the play were ever visible from Clerke’s house.18 Compared with people like John North who made ‘specific bequests of nineteen houses, nine closes, two gardens, two orchards, a bowling alley, and a dovecote in the city’, Clerke was not a wealthy man, but he did live in one of the streets described in 1622 as ‘the fairest and cheifest streetes in this Citty’, and one ‘wherein men of the best sorte and ranck do frequent and dwell’,19 and if he never attained high office in the city he was nevertheless a much trusted servant of those who did. ‘Iohn Clerke’ was the obvious choice of the city council in 1567 when they ‘Aggreed that the Pageantes of Corpus christi suche as be not allready Registred shalbe with all convenyent spede be fayre wrytten by Iohn Clerke in the old Registre yerof’.20 Some knowledge of who John Clerke was seems essential for a true understanding of what he was doing in the Register of the Corpus Christi play, and I have tried to give information of that sort in the first half of this article. I should now like to turn to look more particularly at his work on the Register. It is first important to establish as far as that is possible over what period of time he was working on it. The earliest possible reference to his involvement is that contained in the 1542 Chamberlains’ Book: Item paid to the seruant of the common Clerk for kepyng xxd of the Register at the furst place where as the play of Corpus Christi was playd of Corpus Christi day this yere Accustomed21

As I have already said, Clerke was referred to as ‘seruaunt and deputy’ to Miles Newton who was Common Clerk from 1519 until 1550; was he therefore the ‘seruant’ referred to here? Unfortunately though there is no doubt that Clerke was servant to Miles Newton in 1542 it is not possible to say for certain that it does refer to Clerke because there was at the time another man, William Thomlyngson, also described as a servant to the Common Clerk and (if one payment is sufficient evidence) apparently on a par with Clerke. The payment that suggests their parity is 3/4d for ‘Clensyng the Chamber and making the ffyres accustomyd’ in the 1542 Chamberlains’ Book (f. 88v for Thomlyngson and f. 89v for Clerke). I have so far been able to find out nothing more about Thomlyngson. He does not appear to have gained the freedom of the city if his occupation was of a clerkly kind, and the only place where I have found the name in the right kind of context is at the end of the Freemen’s Rolls where it is written three times on two separate pages in the same hand amongst other apparent ‘signatures’.22 His very shadowiness makes it difficult to dismiss him entirely, but certainly if later evidence is anything to go by it is John Clerke that is the more likely servant to sit at the first station of the play. 1542, then, is a possible first date for Clerke’s official involvement with the play in performance; the first certain date for his involvement is 1554: Item payd to Iohn Clerke for kepyng of the Register of Corpuscrysty play at the furst place accustomyd xxd23

Then in 1559 comes the reference noticed by Lucy Toulmin Smith to the entering of the Fullers’ pageant, and in 1567 the request that the unregistered pageants should be brought in and entered by Clerke.24 His connection with the play, both as a text and in performance, possibly stretches over 25 years. One other reference needs to be noted which has some rather more general repercussions. In 1527 instead of the Common Clerk being at the first station his place was taken by Thomas Clerke.25 The first suggestion, fanciful but not at all unlikely, that might be made is that his 17year-old son might well have been with him. The second more general suggestion is that Miles Newton might have made a habit of absenting himself from this duty. He was possibly absent in 1524 and 1525 because he rented a station himself in Coney Street, he was absent in 1527 when Thomas Clerke took his place, and in 1542 when his servant did. At none of these times, however, is it officially stated that he was absent; the information always comes obliquely from another source. It is therefore quite possible that the regular references in the station lists to the Common Clerk should not be taken at face value, especially when, as is the case with a number of years, the records that might provide the necessary information of who was actually there are missing.26 John Clerke’s work on the Register is of such a varied kind that is seems to me most useful to deal with it under a number of headings. I cannot here consider all his additions and alterations in detail but I will attempt to indicate the kind of change and to discuss some of the more complicated examples.

Omissions from the Register By far the commonest type of annotation in the manuscript refers to omission and most commonly it takes the form of hic caret. These brief (usually abbreviated) entries pose a special problem since it is very difficult to identify a hand on such small evidence. More important, however, than to identify the hands in these cases is to ask how the entries arose; how did the scribe, whether it was John Clerke or another, know that something was missing? If he discovered it by comparing the Register with the guild original, then why did he not enter the missing portions, since that was in general the clear intention of the city authorities? The answer is, I think, very much more likely to be that he noticed the omissions in the Register while he was following the pageant text at the first station and was usually only in a position to make quick indications of the position (and sometimes the extent) of missing portions. One of Clerke’s rather longer annotations throws some light on this process. The Cardmakers’ pageant (III, God creates Adam and Eve) is entered twice in the manuscript. On f. 8 (7)27 in the right margin against the end of God’s speech which ends, ‘Adam and Eue ȝour names sall be’ is entered; caret

And leyd your lyves in good degree &c. Adam here name I the &c. and Eve &c. her name shall be / and be thy Subgett right

On f. 10v (9v) at the same point in the second copy of the pageant is written in the left margin: And leyd your lyves in good degre

Adam here make I the / a man of mykyll myght This same shall thy subget be and eve her name shall hight The first of these additions has clearly been written at a number of different times; first probably caret; then ‘And … degree &c.’; then ‘Adam … be’; and finally ‘and … right’, but all by Clerke. And they do not make sense as verse. The inference is surely that he scribbled down, perhaps over a number of years, what he could catch and record from the actors of the pageant, each time, thinking that he had finished, he added ‘&c.’ (in the case of the third entry having second thoughts in the middle) until he had most of the verse. How he produced the second version it is difficult to be sure. It is possible that he got hold of the guild original and copied it out from there; but it is equally possible (I would say, more likely) that he finally worked out something that made sense from his own memory of the lines, and rather than erase his earlier attempts entered it in the second copy of the pageant. A similar situation exists on f. 34 (35) where caret hic, written first, is later followed by part of the missing text, and later again by the rest. The same changes of angle, size and ink are apparent here, and once again the second addition is followed by ‘&c.’28 These attempts by John Clerke to fill in the missing sections are however the exception; what we are left with as a rule is a bare hic caret or hic deficit and no way of knowing how extensive or significant the additional passages were. In most cases the missing passages seem to be the result of revisions made by the guilds in their pageants rather than omissions of original material by the main scribe of the Register. He was by no means faultless but the indications of omission do not as a rule correspond with those places where he is clearly at fault.29 We are therefore in most cases being given a tantalizing glimpse of the prevalence of revision with no indication of its extent or significance.

Figures 5 and 6 The additions to the Cardmakers’ pageant (© British Library Board, BL MS Additional 35290, f. 8 [7] and f. 10v [9v]). The first line of each addition replaces the final line of the previous stanza

Another area of omission is the absence of complete pageants, something which one would expect Clerke to be much concerned with. In the case of the Fullers’ pageant the guild brought in its copy and the text was entered by Clerke in 1559. No other omitted pageant was brought in until after the final demand of the city council in 1567, and even that produced only the Masons’ and Labourers’ Purification. What did Clerke do in the case of those which never appeared? In one case, the Vintners’, he did what he had done with some of the omitted speeches and entered what he no doubt felt was an appropriate incipit. We are therefore in the curious position of having just one line and a bit to represent the whole pageant: Loo this is A yoyful day / o------ Archedeclyne / for me and                     (f. 92v [97v])

Given that the subject is unique in English plays, the Marriage at Cana, it is especially to be regretted that Clerke left us with such an unhelpful snippet. His other approach to omitted pageants was quite different and had nothing to do with performance. Looking at the leaves on which the Ironmongers’ pageant should appear it seems at first that he did nothing (f. 98 [107]). In fact he had erased what he had written perhaps in the expectation of receiving the original after the Council ordered in June 1567 the registering of the missing pageants.30 What he had written was a copy of the entry for the pageant taken from the Ordo Paginarum in the city’s A/Y Memorandum Book. It was presumably another way of indicating what should be there, but does it also suggest that the pageant was not in production and that therefore John Clerke could not give an incipit? The same may have been true of the Masons’ and Labourers’ Purification, since Clerke first entered a description of it (interestingly enough not taken from the Ordo Paginarum)31 and then an incipit (f. 68 [74]). It is difficult to say whether there is a gap in time between the one and the other and therefore a possibility that at first the pageant was not in production, but was later. When Clerke received the original from the guilds he erased the earlier entry and put the present note drawing attention to the complete pageant towards the end of the manuscript. Between the few lines and the complete pageants there exist a large number of omissions which Clerke has annotated somewhat more fully than with a simple hic caret. Most extensive of these omissions, in fact amounting apparently to a complete pageant, is the Girdlers’, of which Clerke says, ‘This matter of the gyrdlers agreyth not with the Coucher in no poynt / it begynnyth Lysten Lordes vnto my Lawe /’ (f. 73v [79v]); in other words the Girdlers were playing a pageant which had been so extensively revised as to be unrecognizable from the copy in the Register. Elsewhere there are the familiar, ‘this matter is newly mayde / wherof we haue no Coppy /’ (f. 42 [44]); ‘This matter is mayd of newe after anoþer forme’ (f. 69 [75]) about which he apparently changed his mind since the annotation is deleted; ‘her wantes A pece newely mayd for saynt John Baptiste’ (f. 84v [92v]) and ‘This matter is newly mayd & devysed wherof we haue no coppy Regystred’ (f. 86 [94]). Altogether about eight separate pageants are annotated in this way, which means that in the mid-sixteenth century at least eight pageants were being played in a substantially different form from the one they had had when they were registered somewhere between 1463 and 1477.32

Figure 7 Addition in what is almost certainly Miles Newton’s hand, emended by Clerke (© British Library Board, BL Additional 35290 f. 221[239])

Figure 8 The ‘interpolated cry’ (© British Library Board, BL MS Additional 35290 f. 129 [144]) Clerke also notes matters of staging, especially music. Most of these added stage ‘directions’ record singing: ‘tunc cantat Angelus’, sometimes with an incipit, ‘tunc cantat angelus ne timeas Maria’ (f. 44 [46]); ‘tune cantant Angeli venicreator /’ (f. 88 [96]), at an unexpected moment in the Temptation as Christ is placed on the pinnacle of the temple; and ‘tunc Angelus Cantat Resurgens’ (f. 199 [217]) as Christ rises from the tomb. On f. 224 (239) is a music note interesting from two points of view; first because it is almost certainly in the hand of Miles Newton, and secondly because Clerke has altered the note ‘Tunc cantant Angeli gloria in excelsys deo’ by the deletion of the incipit and the entering of a new one, ‘Ascendo ad patrem meum’, suggesting that the guild had decided on a new piece of music for Christ’s ascension. Clerke’s most extensive noting of stage movement is in Herod and the Magi, ‘Nota the harrode passeth & the iij kynges commyth agayn to make there offerynges’ (f. 65v [71v]); but most of his notes refer to smaller movements such as drinking (f. 149v [164v]), or washing (ff. 119v [132v], 171 [187]). He also notes an interpolated cry of ‘lorde’ by the knights at Cayphas’ court, when Cayphas at the end of a ranting speech suddenly turns and directly addresses them:  Cayphas And therefore, sir knightis, / tunc dicunt I charge you chalange youre rightis lorde (f. 129 [144]) The interpolation is brief, but the theatrical possibilities, especially for comedy, are considerable. Perhaps it was the development of these that forced the interpolation on Clerke’s notice. I have included here omissions of original material as well as what might be thought of as additions because it seems to me that to Clerke they were all part of the attempt to record more precisely what the play actually was in the sixteenth century.

Matters of organization John Clerke as an agent of the city was to some extent concerned with changes in guild responsibility, and there are a few annotations of this kind. The fullest is that which records the taking over by the Weavers of the Sledmen’s pageant: Wevers assygnyd in Aodni M1 D liijti William Cowplande then maior

This has been added over the erased guild heading at the beginning of the pageant (f. 203v [221v]). To the left of this and a little bit lower is ‘Sledmen’, and to the right is ‘Palmers’. The problem here is, however, that all other evidence suggests that this was not the Sledmen’s pageant but the Winedrawers’, and that the next pageant was the one he should have marked. Lucy Toulmin Smith comments on it thus: ‘The Wynedrawers’ runs along the top of every page of this piece except the first, where it has been scratched out and the following written, [as above] … Along the top of every page of the next piece XL the original copyist also wrote ‘The wynedraweres,’ but it has been crossed through and ‘Sledmen’ written instead, on the first page (fo.206), in the same hand that wrote ‘Sledmen’ on fo. 203vo. It seems therefore that the original copyist made the mistake of writing ‘The Wynedrawers’ over the two plays, that a contemporary in correcting it himself wrote ‘Sledmen’ to Play XXXIX in error for XL (there is a faint line across the word which may mean a stroke of his pen), but then went on to correct the first page of XL (the rest are done in a different hand). And Play XXXIX, originally performed by the Winedrawers, was assigned to the Weavers in 1553, and at some other time, perhaps late in their history, it was assigned to the Palmers. (p. 421)

I would tentatively suggest a different series of changes. In the first place I do not think that we should automatically dismiss the evidence of the main scribe of the Register. He may have been right in suggesting that by the late fifteenth century the two pageants were both the responsibility of the Winedrawers; certainly there is no evidence from that period to contradict this. In this case it may be that the Sledmen took over both pageants (again there is no contrary evidence) and that Clerke’s note on the assigning of the pageant to the Weavers was accurate. The curious, apparent ascription of the first pageant to the ‘Palmers’ (not in Clerke’s hand but apparently earlier) may then be no more than a brief way of saying that this pageant was part of that dealing with the episode of the pilgrims to Emmaus. There is no sign elsewhere in the records at York of a Palmer’s guild being involved in the play. The cluster of hic novo facto’s written by Clerke at the beginning of the second pageant may reflect later attempts (perhaps when the Sledmen took over) to make a smooth transition from one pageant to the next. Clerke was not only responsible for the note assigning the pageant to the Weavers, he also added ‘Sledmen’ at the head of the pages of the second of these pageants and presumably deleted ‘Wynedrawers’ at the same time. If what I have suggested above is right, why did he not also correct ‘Wynedrawers’ to ‘Sledmen’ in the first pageant? I cannot as yet find a satisfactory explanation, but it should be noticed that the correction of headings is not as consistent as Miss Toulmin Smith suggests; five are corrected to ‘Sledmen’, two are merely deleted, and the last one is left untouched. It is therefore possible that Clerke changed his mind about the alteration in working through the second pageant and decided merely to leave the indication of guild responsibility to the name ‘Sledmen’ on the first page. The control by the

Weavers only lasted one year. In 1554 they were once more bringing forth their own pageant of Mary’s appearance to Thomas, and of what happened to these two pageants Clerke gives no hint, apart perhaps from crossing out his own new heading.33 One other concern of Clerke’s, and one which may prove ultimately of considerable importance, is his organization of the Register itself. Entries like ‘this is entryd afterwardes’ (f. 5v [6v]) at the beginning of the Cardmakers’ pageant, or the note referring the reader to Clerke’s own entry of the Purification towards the end of the manuscript, are straightforward enough, but there are others with rather more complex implications. Below the last line of the Cardmakers’ pageant (second version, f. 11 [10]) are the words:          The ffullers pagyant Adam and eve this is the place o----- Deus/

Since the Fullers’ pageant was missing when Clerke first certainly took charge of the Register (see pp. 35 and 47), it could be said that this is merely an incipit for a missing pageant. But as in the other cases of this sort (e.g. the Ironmongers’ and the Vintners’) Clerke has written the craft name and incipit on the first blank page after the previous pageant, it seems here as though he intended something slightly different. What he perhaps intended to show is revealed in the House Book for 1529, where the joining together of the Cardmakers’ and Fullers’ crafts is ordered: Item the said presens haith ordred that the Walkers [i.e. Fullers] & Cardemakers of this City fromehensfurth shall ioyne bathe thayre paiauntes in oone …34

In other words it is likely that by putting the incipit of the Fullers’ on the same page as the end of the Cardmakers’ pageant Clerke was indicating the physical joining together of the two. That this is what Clerke was doing is made even more probable when one looks at the end of the first version of the Cardmakers’ pageant. There to the right and below the last line of text is the entry: nota caret Adam & Eve this is the place that I haue grant you of my grace to haue your wonnyng in &c.v (f. 9 [8])

It is by Clerke and has been partially erased. In the light of the use he made of the first version for scribbling in snatches of missing text (see pp. 45–8), it is likely that he was here recording his first impression that the text was continuous and that there was something missing, and that later (as with the missing lines) he was setting out in the second version a considered statement of the situation. It is worth observing that in his first note there is no mention of the fact that it is the Fullers’ pageant that is missing, merely that it is a section of the text, which fits with the idea that the notes were made from seeing the play in performance.35 An even more complex problem arises from Clerke’s notes to the Masons’ and the Goldsmiths’ pageants. These pageants are in themselves odd since though the Goldsmiths handed over one of their ‘pageants’ to the Masons in 1432 (it is called in the agreement, ‘pagina herodis’),36 their text, registered in 1463–77, still includes both the Herod and the Offering of the Three Kings. Much of the Masons’ text consequently overlaps with the Goldsmiths’ (ll. 58 to the end, Masons’, with ll. 73–216, Goldsmiths’).37 The main scribe of

the Register was clearly given the revised Herod (then in the hands of the Masons) and the unrevised Offering of the Three Kings (the text as performed by the Goldsmiths before 1432). Anyone using the text in the Register would therefore have considerable difficulty in following a performance, and to make following the text even more confusing the Masons had apparently given up their playing of Herod by 1477 when they took over the Purification.38 In the text, therefore, there would be an unplayed pageant before the Goldsmiths’. There are, however, no signs given by Clerke that the Masons’ pageant was not played; in fact there are indications to the contrary. On f. 58v (63v) there is a catch-phrase, ‘his wille’, inadvertently left in by the main scribe, which ties the first part of the Masons’ in with the old Goldsmiths’ Herod. At this point there are erased notes in the right margin, and, just below, an erased ‘sequitur postea’ in the left margin. On f. 61 (66) there is a further erased note:  Hic caret

         Ius Rex Alake forsoth what shall I say

 sequitur postea

We lake þat syne þat we haue soght

in other words an incipit (in a slightly different form) for the rest of the Goldsmiths’ pageant (ll. 217 to the end). In the text there are minimal alterations: ‘herodes’ has been supplied where the first speaker’s name was missing, and ‘is’ inserted in l. 19 (f. 57v [62v]): and ‘contrees’ has been replaced by ‘the world’ (f. 60 [65]). In the Goldsmiths’ pageant there are no alterations to the text until f. 64 (70), when ‘jude’ is altered to ‘all Jury’ (l. 120), and ‘filius’ added as a speaker’s name (l. 125) thereby bringing it into line with the Masons’. The Kings are numbered on f. 64v (70V), and re-numbered on f. 65 (71) probably not by Clerke, and ‘herodes’ provided as the speaker’s name on f. 65v (71v). Apart from these alterations there is only the marginal note by Clerke on f. 65v (71v): ‘Nota the harrode passeth & the iij kynges commyth agayn to make there offerynges’. There is not much to go on, but it is important for an understanding of the performance of these two pageants in the sixteenth century to attempt to explain how Clerke’s annotations arose. I will offer what seems to me the most likely explanation. When Clerke sat at the first station in 1554 the Masons were presumably not playing Herod, since they had already taken over the Purification, and the Minstrels were not playing it since they did not take it over until 1561.39 Why then are there annotations to the Masons’ pageant? They cannot be explained in terms of the later taking over by the Minstrels, because they relate the Masons’ pageant to the Goldsmiths’. Is it possible that when the Masons gave up the Herod, the Goldsmiths absorbed it into their pageant? Certainly the Goldsmiths’ Offering would make an oddly truncated version of the episode on its own. The alternative is that the Goldsmiths simply reverted to their original text; but if that is so, why do Clerke’s notes seem to attempt to integrate the Masons’ Herod with the Goldsmiths’ Offering? If Clerke had been following from the two texts in the Register a version integrating them both in performance, what might he have found? It would have run smoothly enough through Herod’s opening rants until line 57 where he might have been momentarily thrown by the extraneous catch-phrase ‘his wille’; but surely not enough to have produced such a spate of annotation. Is it possible that at this point the Goldsmiths returned to their own text for the first appearance of the Kings (ll. 1–72)? It is

crucial that we should be able to read Clerke’s first note, but so far I have been able only to make out a possible ‘caret’ and a few isolated letters. If he did write ‘caret’, then it might suggest that the Kings’ first appearance was played, that it was lacking in the text he was following, and that he found it afterwards later in the manuscript (‘sequitur postea’). From there the text again would run smoothly until the end of the Masons’ pageant, after which the Offering would presumably follow from the Goldsmiths’. At this point, the end of the Masons’, there is therefore a ‘Hic caret’ and an incipit for the missing section. Clerke later found the section in the Goldsmiths’ pageant and added ‘sequitur postea’. It is interesting that the wording of the incipit is different from the text, as it suggests once again that Clerke was writing down what he heard.40 In confirmation of this explanation there is the ‘filius’ added to the Goldsmiths’ pageant thereby bringing it into line with the Masons’ which gives this speech to Herod’s son, a character who does not exist in the Goldsmiths’ version. The notes in the Masons’ pageant could have been erased when the Minstrels took over in 1561 and the previous arrangement no longer held. It is Clerke who indicates the change by adding ‘Mynstrells/’ at the head of the first page (f. 57v [62v]). The actual evidence is admittedly somewhat slender for this reconstruction of Clerke’s actions but it is by and large consistent, both with itself and with what we know of his work elsewhere. Those inconsistencies that do exist, and they are few and small, could be the result of Clerke’s attendance with the Register at the first station on more than one occasion. Having discovered that the Goldsmiths’ text mainly duplicated the Masons’ he may have followed the Goldsmiths’ on a later occasion and made the minor alterations (‘jude’ to ‘all Jury’; ‘the thar’ to ‘of this’, l. 157) which appear there and not in the Masons’. If this explanation is right, it throws interesting light on the process of adaptation and change taking place in the pageants in the sixteenth century, helps to establish the nature of the performance of the Goldsmiths’ pageant at this time, and offers an answer to one part of the thorny question of which pageants were being played and which were not. Understanding the nature of the additions to the Register is not a straightforward business and the explanation of their meaning almost always involves some leaps into speculation. It is, however, essential that we should see them as clearly as possible in their context if only for the negative reason that seeing clearly what something is enables us to reject what it is not. Part of the context is John Clerke himself, his relation to the City he served and to the play. It is possible to get a clear idea of his public face as a diligent servant of many masters, and even a glimpse of his private one, what is difficult to see is what his attitudes were, especially to the play that was to some extent in his care. He was an official employee and he seems to have been a careful scribe, and to this extent his additions to the text have a value far beyond that of a casual scribbler. Whether they record guild revisions that had already been made or actors’ mistakes of the moment, they provide useful insights into the nature of the text and its performance. His attempts to indicate the ordering of the pageants too, considering that they were presumably in the nature of notes to himself, are by and large consistent and even if requiring speculation, not impossible of solution. Even his (and others’) simple hic carets and hic deficits have an important place in indicating the areas in which revision had been carried out. The notes on the music used, given the reticence of the York text in stage directions, and the comments on stage business, few though they are, help to fill out our understanding of the

resources of a York performance. Nothing in the additions and alterations by John Clerke or anyone else gives any sign of being censorship or official revision for the ecclesiastical authorities. Indeed the very wording of the notes, ‘hic caret’, ‘here wants the conclusion’, ‘this matter lacks’ emphasizes that this is an observer noting omissions in the text from watching the pageants in performance. Much more will be discovered about John Clerke41 but the essential facts seem to me to be clear. He was a respected scribe, if not a wealthy man then certainly a man of substance, officially employed by the city, and, as far as the play was concerned, given the task of checking the City’s text. York’s mayor and council had always exercised a careful overall control over the Corpus Christi play, though leaving the guilds to organize their individual pageants, and one thing besides the quality of the performance which they had always kept an eye on was the content of the play. The billets and the Ordo Paginarum were the early method of control; by the latter part of the fifteenth century the registering of all the pageants was undertaken to replace the Ordo, and that of itself necessitated the last stage the supervision of the text by the mayor and council through the Common Clerk. John Clerke’s work is therefore part of a continuing process of city control and not the result of a sudden ecclesiastical interest. His own work on the play either began before the Reformation was under way42 or when Catholicism was again the state religion – neither of them times likely to produce Protestant censorship. In the course of his supervision he made a wide variety of observations about the sixteenth-century performances which are an invaluable source of information for our understanding of the play at this period. I hope I have given some idea of the value of these observations despite the difficulty of interpretation. The study of medieval English drama cannot just be a study of texts in isolation but of texts in a chronological context. The old philosophical truism that you can’t jump into the same river twice is almost as true of something like the York play – you can’t chronologically speaking study the same text twice. What John Clerke can do is to give an insight into that final period before the river dried up.

Notes I should like to thank Mrs Rita Freedman and Mrs Mary Thallon for their unfailing helpfulness and for making the York City Archives one of the pleasantest and easiest places to work, and also Eileen White, who in her search for the remains of other York worthies has observed and passed on so much of interest relating to John Clerke. Pages from British Library MSS Additional 35290 and 33852 are reproduced by permission of the British Library.  1. York Plays, ed. by Lucy Toulmin Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885).  2. The date of this entry in the Chamberlains’ Book is given in York, REED as 1559, not 1558 as in Toulmin Smith; York, Records of Early English Drama, ed. by Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Rogerson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), p. 330. ‘l Eliz.’ runs from 17 November 1558 to 16 November 1559.  3. Of the additions by Clerke to the Cardmarkers’ pageant, for example, she says, ‘These lines are written in the margin in an Elizabethan hand’ (p. 15), and of that at the beginning of the Spicers’ pageant, ‘A marginal note here in 16th cent. Hand’ (p. 93). Later, in the Bowyers’ and Fletchers’ pageant, she notes, ‘MS. here has “hic caret” in the 16th cent. Hand’, which is not by Clerke (p. 265).  4. Hardin Craig, for example, talks of these entries as ‘a series of light revisions [which] appear in the manuscript of the York plays and apparently date from the revision called for [i.e.] in 1568’. He goes on, ‘There are about fifty of these emendations recorded by Lucy Toulmin Smith, who regarded the handwriting as of the late sixteenth century. The revisions are, for the most part, mild and doctrinal and seem to be corrections made at this time, possible at the direction of Dean Hutton’; Hardin Craig, English Religious Drama of the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), p. 359. See also H.C. Gardiner, Mysteries’ End (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946), p. 74, fn. 49.  5. Register of the Freemen of the City of York, ed. by F. Collins, 2 vols, Surtees Society 96 and 102 (1897 and 1900), I, p.

230. Page references in the text are to these two volumes.  6. For an example of his fee-ed position, see York City Archives, Chamberlains’ Book 4, f. 81, where two payments of ten shillings each are made to him during the year (1542) and are entered under the heading, ‘Learned mens fees’. For an example of one type of advice he was called upon to give, see York City Archives, House Book 13, f. 59 (11 August 1536): ‘Item Mr Thomas Clerk the Shiryffes Clerk of this Citye vppon the syght of the seid dett book & sclaunderous byll is of the same oppinyon of the writyng of them lyke as the forseid Robert Shellay & Mr William ffaux is’. The case appears fully in York Civic Records 4, ed. by Angelo Raine, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series 108 (1945 for 1943), pp. 7– 13.  7. York City Archives, House Book 22, f. lv. John Grene must have been the Sheriffs’ clerk for some time as he is named as such and paid learned mens’ fees in 1554; YCA, Chamberlains’ Book 4, f. 118. The entry in House Book 22 is written by John Clerke.  8. Bakers’ Account Book, I, British Library MS Additional 33852, f. 5v.  9. 10 January 1535: ‘Item it ys Agreyd by the seid presens yat bathe the brigmaisters of ousebryge & fossebryg shall content & pay vnto John Clerk nowe beynge vnder Clerk to myles Newton the Common Clerk of this City for the makyng of theyre Accomptauntes of this yere Accordyng to the Auncyent custome of ┌ye seid┐ City yat is to say the seid brigmaisters of Ousebryge viijs And the seid brigmaisters of fossebryg – iiijs And frome nowfurth the brigmaisters of this City for the tyme beyng to obserue & kepe the seid custome for makyng of theyre Accomptes yerely for euermore’; YCA, House Book 13, f. 14v. In 1564, when he was still doing the Bridgemasters’ accounts, he received 28s; Bridgemasters’ Account Rolls, C91:1 (dorse). 10. 8 December 1550, YCA, House Book 20, f. 34. Thomas Fale died in 1571 and was succeeded by Leonard Belt, gentleman. I have not so far found it recorded that John Clerke continued as his deputy, but he was certainly still in the City’s employment in 1573 since, when a city charter of Richard I was returned (it had been lent to William Cook, a citizen, to clear himself of tolls charged at Grimsby), it is said to have been ‘layde up by John Clerk in the little chyst in the Chambre’; York Civic Records 7, YAS, Record Series 115 (1950), p. 74. 11. See, for example, the Freemens’ Rolls, YCA, C/Y, ff. 199–219v; Chamberlains’ Books 4 and 51 Bridgemasters’ Rolls C91:1, 2, 3; and also a number of the category E documents, for example E 41, the 1542 Muster Roll. His main contribution, however, is to the House Books where he appears as early as 1533 (House Book 11, ff,117–8v, 121v, et al.), even before being made a freeman of the City. 12. References to him and work by him are wholly contained in the Bakers’ Account Book, I, BL MS Additional. 33852. The years in which Clerke kept the Bakers’ accounts appear on ff. 27–8v (1567), 31–2v (1568), 33v–4 (1569), 34v–5v (1570); 36v–7v (1572), 38–9 (1573), 39v–41 (1574). 13. The York Mercers and Merchant Adventurers, 1356–1917, ed. by Maud Sellers, Surtees Society 129 (1918 for 1917). The records printed there are only a tiny proportion of the documents of the guild that survive. 14. ‘Of the one hundred and six aldermen during the sixteenth century, sixty were merchants proper’; of the 39 mayors, 19 or 20 were merchants; D.M. Palliser, Tudor York (Oxford: OUP, 1979), p. 106. 15. The records of the case are in the Dean and Chapter Court Cause Papers in the Borthwick Institute, University of York (D/C CP 1556/1). John Clerke’s evidence is on f. 6v. I am grateful to Eileen White for drawing my attention to the case. 16. The will is contained in Probate Register 22B, f. 495r&v, Borthwick Institute, and is dated March 20 1580 (1579 o.s.). Probate was granted on 7 February 1584 (’83 o.s.). His death and that of his wife are recorded in The Parish Registers of St Martin, Coney Street, York, ed. by R.B. Cook, Yorkshire Parish Register Society 36 (1909), p. 76. 17. Property in North Street is the subject of two feoffments between Thomas Clerke on the one hand and William Pullay and Thomas Williams on the other, dated 1544. The property is described (in Joyce Percy’s translation) as lying ‘in width between the land of the Mayor and Commonalty of York on the south and the land of Christopher Neleson, gentleman, on the north, and in length from Northestrete on the east as far as the land of John Bachelor, cordwainer, on the west’. If the city property is the same as that viewed in 1572 and described as ‘at the west end of Alhallos Churche Yerde’, then it may be possible to fix the position of Clerke’s property fairly precisely as lying to the north of All Saints Church and fronting on North Street. John Clerke was one of those who viewed the city property in 1572, perhaps because, as his land was adjacent, he was an interested party in establishing the bounds. He is apparently not one of those named as an officer of the City. See York Memorandum Book, ed. by Joyce W. Percy, Surtees Society 186 (1973) pp. 260–1 (feoffments), p. 295 (city property).   The Clerke family may have been associated with North Street very much earlier. Thomas Clerke, Common Clerk, who died in 1482 and was buried in All Saints Church (his monumental brass still partially survives), owned land ‘lying between the messuage of the Mayor and Commonalty in which Thomas Neweton, shearman, lately dwelt, on the one side, and the messuage of William Kendale, late citizen and merchant of York on the other, and extending in length from Northstrete in front to the messuage of William Holbek, citizen and merchant, occupied by William Warde, behind’ (Y.M.B, pp. 204–5). ‘Thomas Clerk’ has been written in the margin against this entry in a hand that appears to be John Clerke’s, and this Thomas Clerke may have been John’s great grandfather, but if so his son John was registered as a freeman twice, first as his son and secondly as ‘clerk vicecomitis’ (Sheriff’s clerk), Freemens’ Rolls, I, pp. 202 and 204.

18. Though he lived in Coney Street Clerke seems never to have rented a station to hear the play. It is possible that his house was on the wrong side of the road (see Meg Twycross, ‘“Places to hear the play:” pageant stations at York, 1398–1572’, REED Newsletter (1978: 2), 18–20), or that being never in on the day he had no reason to. Henry Pullaine, who also lived in Coney Street, rented a station in front of his house in 1572 for the Pater Noster play.   Henry Pullaine, who married Jane Clerke in 1563, was a scrivener who became a notary public and later an attorney. He and his wife both died in 1605. Besides being John Clerke’s son-in-law, he clearly worked with him since when in 1567 the City Council decided to order its books and documents it suggested John Clerke, Ed. Fale and Henry Pullen by name as appropriate people to help the Common Clerk; York Civic Records 6, YAS, Record Series 112 (1948), p. 126. It is probable that Henry was the grandson of John Pullaine, Common Clerk in the early years of the sixteenth century.   Jane, John Clerke’s granddaughter, married William Scrafton in 1586 and bore him 15 children. It is odd that she is the only grandchild that Clerke names in his will since he had nine altogether, several of whom survived. For information about the family see The St Martin, Coney Street, Parish Registers (note 16, above). 19. Palliser, Tudor York, p. 105 (John North’s bequests) and pp. 138–9 (description of the streets from House Book 34). 20. York, REED, p. 351, from House Book 24, f. 82. 21. York, REED, p. 2 80, from Chamberlains, Book 4(1), f. 88 (the entry is in Miles Newton’s hand). 22. YCA, C/Y f. 355r&v. Of the other names only ‘Ricardus Ripplyngham’ was a scrivener, made free in 1484–5 (I, p. 207). Thomlyngson’s name appears in the Muster Roll of 1539 (YCA, E64 f. 84) as ‘seruant of the said Myles Newton’, Newton himself appears a few names further up the list. They are both in the section labelled ‘Archers – Able persons for the warre/horsyd and harnest’, and both have been deleted. John Clerke appears later under ‘Archers – Able persons for the warre hauyng neither hors nor harnes’ (f. 84v). This would suggest that Thomlyngson was Newton’s personal servant, and perhaps make it more likely that it was Clerke who was employed to keep the Register at the first station in 1542. I am grateful to Eileen White for noticing Thomlyngson’s name in the Muster Roll. 23. York, REED, p. 317, from Chamberlains’ Book 4(2), p. 142. 24. York, REED, p. 351. 25. York, REED, p. 244, from Chamberlains’ Book 3(1), p. 159. See also Twycross, ‘“Places to hear the play”’, 32. 26. Meg Twycross slightly obscures this in her otherwise most useful lists (‘“Places to hear the play”’, 28–33) by not including the appearances of Miles Newton’s servant (1542) and John Clerke (1554) at the Trinity Gate station. Though the statement in the station lists ‘where the Common Clerk keeps the Register’ is common form and the allotting of a place to the Common Clerk does not necessarily imply his personal presence, nevertheless Miles Newton’s hand does appear in the Register, and he seems to have been making notes of a kind similar to John Clerke’s (see p. 48).   The information of who was at the first station will normally appear only if (a) someone deputizes for the Common Clerk, needs paying and therefore appears in the Chamberlains’ Books or Rolls, and then (b) only if the relevant book has survived. 27. The double foliation is given in order to link references both to the Toulmin Smith edition and to the forthcoming facsimile of the York Register in Leeds Texts and Monographs, Medieval Drama Facsimile series [The York Play: A facsimile of British Library MS Additional 35290 (1983)]. The first number is that of the edition, the second, which takes into account all blank leaves, is that of the facsimile. A full list of marginal additions and alterations will appear in the Introduction to the facsimile. 28. There are a number of alterations and notes of omission in this pageant, the Parchmenters’ and Bookbinders’ Abraham and Isaac, X. The one described here is in some ways straightforward, the others are more complicated. On f. 32v (33v), for example, Clerke has indicated the omission of Isaac’s words: father wold god I shuld be slayne. He has later deleted them. A guide mark x indicates that he understood them to belong between ll. 164 and 165. The marginal lines are so like l. 89, ‘Why fadir, will god þat I be slayne’, that it seems almost certain that they are a misplaced variant of it. The most obvious reason why Clerke should have entered them here is that the actor playing Isaac came in with his lines too early. The pattern of error is only too familiar. The mistaken placing is preceded by two lines of Isaac’s, the second being: Bot wher-of sall oure offerand be? (l.162) and two lines by Abraham (actually the beginning of a long speech). The correct placing is preceded by two lines of Isaac’s, the second being: Whar-of oure offerand shulde be grathid? (l.186)

29.

30.

31.

32. 33.

34.

35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

and two lines by Abraham. It looks like a classic case of an actor’s lack of concentration. Understandably Clerke, or someone else, later deleted the added line. The Toulmin Smith edition gives no indication of this marginal entry. The main scribe seems to have had particular difficulty with the central Passion pageants, XXIX–XXXIV, perhaps because of the heavy revision of the copy he was provided with. For a typical example, see f. 165v (181v), where he misses a speaker’s name, lets the lay-out of the verse become somewhat confused, and seems finally (but rather unnecessarily) to despair of rhyme-links. York, REED, p. 351. The Vintners’ pageant, if it had been brought in, would simply have been copied in following on from the first lines, but by copying in the Ordo Paginarum description of the Ironmongers’ pageant Clerke had taken up some of the space needed for the text. The Purification was the only pageant to be brought in and copied up. Why the Cappers’ pageant needed to be seen and compared with the Register version is not clear. One might have expected the Girdlers’ to be required in view of Clerke’s comments (see p. 47). The Ordo Paginarum description is the unaltered 1415 one and runs: ‘Maria cum puero Josep Anna obstetrix cum pullis columbarum Syme[on recipiens] puerum in vlnas suas et duo filii [symeonis]’ (parts in square bracketsare under a paper patch). The erased description on f. 68(74) of the Register runs, as far as it can be made out: ‘Maria et Joseph offerentes … Symeon … in vlnas suas Anna prophetissa et angelus/’. Richard Beadle was, as far as I know, the first to notice the erased inscription.   The Ironmongers’ description in the Ordo is now almost totally covered by the paper patch, but Clerke’s copy agrees almost word for word with that given in the Toulmin Smith transcription (York Plays, p. xxii). For this dating of the Register see Richard Beadle and Peter Meredith, ‘Further external evidence for dating the York Register (BL Additional MS 35290)’, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 11 (1980 for 1979), 51–8. This change was a result of the removal of the Marian pageants from the play in 1548, one of which, the Appearance of our Lady to Thomas, was brought forth by the Weavers. The play was performed without the Marian pageants in 1548, 1549, 1551 and 1553. Only in 1553 did the Weavers take over another pageant, the Sledmen’s, and in 1554 with the return of Catholicism under Mary they took up their own Marian pageant again, and the Sledmen apparently reverted to theirs. For the records on which the foregoing is based see York, REED, pp. 291–2, 293, 297, 307, 310 and 321. York, REED, pp. 249–50, from House Book 11, f. 55. There is no doubt here of the joining together of pageants and not just crafts, though the wording of official decrees is not always as clear as one might expect. It would sound from the wording of the Locksmiths’ and Blacksmiths’ agreement of 1530, for instance, as though each craft owned a pageant, though there is no evidence that there was ever more than one. See York, REED, p. 252, from House Book 11, f. 89. The case of the Tilers and the Chandlers, discussed by Richard Beadle at the first Medieval English Theatre meeting in 1979 at Lancaster, is somewhat similar though more complex. Here there is also the erased incipit and the caret note. There is no sign in the records of a joining together of the crafts, but there is the linking of the pageants implied in the revised wording of the Ordo description of the Tilers’ pageant, ‘… angelus loquens pastoribus et ludentibus in pagina sequente’.   I am most grateful to Richard Beadle for various discussions of the Register that have arisen out of our work on the facsimile edition. For a number of marginal notes, especially those requiring ultra-violet light, he was the first to offer a reading. York, REED, pp. 47–8, from A/Y Memorandum Book, ff. 257–7v. The line numberings given are those of Lucy Toulmin Smith’s edition, although in this instance she does not print that part of the Masons’ which overlaps with the Goldsmiths’ pageant. York, REED, pp. 112–13, from A/Y Memorandum Book, f. 291v, and p. 115, from Chamberlains’ Book lA, f. 114v. York, REED, pp. 337–8, from B/Y Memorandum Book, ff. 222–3v. The text of the Goldsmiths’ pageant reads: A! sirs, for sight what shall I say? Whare is oure syne? I se it not (ll. 217–18).

41. For example, Eileen White has drawn my attention to E48/49, the Royal Subsidies, where John Clerke is listed as a constable of St Martin’s parish (with Gregory Metcalf) and where Miles Newton and John Langton are among the four men sworn to give assistance to the constables (1540). The assessment in the same volume gives an idea of Clerke’s wealth; he is assessed at £4. Much also remains to be discovered about his father and the rest of his family before a complete picture will emerge; but this is clearly beyond the scope of this article. 42. ‘There was as yet little evidence of Protestant thinking in the Minster. Perhaps the injunctions which Lee (archbishop until 1544) gave to the dean and chapter concerning the parish churches in their care reflect his theological caution. He required the dean and chapter to see that in the parish churches appropriated to the Minster the priests taught their people the Pater Noster, the Salutation of our Lady, and the Creed in English, and to repeat prayers in English after the curate; and he expected the curates themselves to buy a bible in English, and to read and compare it with the Latin Vulgate. The only one of Lee’s injunctions which could not have been devised by a reforming Catholic was that ordering ministers publicly to deny

the authority of the bishop of Rome, and to proclaim the king the supreme head of the Church under God. Not until Lee died in 1544, and Robert Holgate replaced him, did an active Protestant archbishop appear in the church of York.’; Claire Cross, ‘From the Reformation to the Restoration’, in A History of York Minster, ed. by G.E. Aylmer and Reginald Cant (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), p. 198.

4

THE YORK MILLER’S PAGEANT AND THE TOWNELEY PROCESSUS TALENTORUM I have suggested elsewhere1 that the space which now precedes the description of the Pinners’ and Painters’ pageant in the Ordo Paginarum (A/Y Memorandum Book, York City Archives, f. 254) contained the entry for the lost Millers’ pageant, erased when the newly amalgamated Saucemakers’, Tilemakers’, Turners’, Hairsters’ and Bollers’ and Millers’ pageants became a single entry preceding the Shearmen’s, sometime after 1422–3. The discovery of an entry for a separate Millers’ pageant in the Ordo as well as in the second list gives the pageant a more positive existence since it places it amongst those pageants which could date back to the foundation of the play in the late fourteenth century, and makes it worthwhile looking again at the suggestion first put forward by M.G. Frampton2 and later rejected by Martin Stevens,3 that the Processus Talentorum in the Towneley Cycle is based on the lost York Millers’ pageant, or as Frampton more outspokenly expressed it: ‘The Processus Talentorum is, in my judgement, the one-time Millers’ play at York’ (654). Metrically the Towneley pageant divides into a number of sections, described at some length by both Frampton and Stevens, who are in broad agreement on the layers of composition which are embedded in it. The sections are these: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) (vi)

stanzas 1–54 – ascribed to the Wakefield Master by Frampton (647–8); Stevens is in general agreement, but a little more cautious (424); stanzas 6–9 – a mixed stanza series accepted as part of the original pageant by both Frampton (646) and Stevens (424); stanzas 10–20 – rime couée ‘interpolated’ representing ‘the first edition of the play’ (Frampton 646–7); ‘an interpolation’ (Stevens 424); stanzas 21–55 – ‘the main story’, ‘the original play’ (Frampton 646–7); ‘the basic form of the play’ (Stevens 424); stanzas 56–9 – Wakefield Master (Frampton 647); (Stevens 424); stanza 60 – accepted as an early addition by Frampton (647) unmentioned by Stevens when discussing the general pattern (424) but later referred to the Wakefield Master (432).

Allowing for a certain over-rigidity in a scheme which divides a pageant by stanzas, I have no quarrel with these conclusions except to suggest that stanzas 6–9 as well as stanza 60 may

be part of a ‘Wakefield Master revision’. It would be ridiculous to suppose that the Wakefield Master wrote only perfect versions of his own stanza and there are similarities in metre and content between these and the Master’s stanzas which precede them; in the one case (stanzas 6–9) they form a rough linking with the stanzas which follow, and in the other (stanza 60) a rounding off of the whole pageant. Furthermore, despite Frampton’s and Stevens’ argument, there is no necessity to see stanzas 6–9 as part of the main section, since they are not essential to the basic story nor are they in a markedly similar stanza form. They are linked to the main section by the character called ‘boy’ by Pilate and later given the name Consultus, and by the action, in that in the earlier part Pilate is put to rest with strict instructions not to be disturbed, while in the latter he is disturbed and acts accordingly.5 But this does not prove that stanzas 6– 9 are part of the original story, rather that a reviser (perhaps the Wakefield Master) took a modicum of care to link the two sections together. Stanzas 6–9 fit best in tone, subject matter, and to some extent verse form with the Wakefield Master opening, and though there is almost certainly something missing from the beginning of the main section (it begins: ‘Bot to sir pilate prynce I red that we go hy’, line 161), there is no hint of its length or nature, and no necessity to look for it in stanzas 6–9. Since apart from these stanzas there is a measure of agreement on what constitutes the original part of the pageant (stanzas 21–55); it is clearly on that area that any discussion of the dependence of Towneley on York should concentrate. Professor Stevens’ objections to Frampton’s suggestion are linguistic, and based on four dialect criteria: the development of OE ā, the present plural in -(e)s, sall as opposed to shall, and the present participle in -and (427–9). The evidence which he quotes using the first criterion (the rhyme gose/lose, lines 106–7) is inadmissible as it is taken from the rime couée interpolation and cannot therefore give information about the form of the original. The only convincing non-Northern rhyme in the main section (not one mentioned by Stevens) seems likely to be the result of an interpolation: primus tortor I assent to that sagh, by mighty mahowne!   Let vs Weynde to sir pilate withoutten any fabyll; Bot syrs, by my lewte, he gettys not this gowne;   Vnto vs thre it were right prophetabyll;     Spill-payn what says thou? Secundus tortor your sawes craftily assent I vnto                       170 primus tortor Then will I streght furth in this place, And speke with sir pilate wordys oone or two, … ffor I am right seemly and fare in the face; And now shall we se or we hence go (lines 165–74)

The rhyme vnto/two/go would suggest the development of ā to ọ̄ in two and go, and a somewhat imprecise rhyme with vnto. Frampton suggests, however, that the two lines 169 and 170 are an ‘actor insertion’, prompted by the name Spillpain in the rime couée section (line 124), since they turn two quatrains (the normal stanza form at this place in the pageant) into stanzas of five lines. The stanza pattern of the pageant is too irregular for the appearance of five-line stanzas amongst quatrains to prove interpolation, but the fact that the first of these

lines (line 169) contains no rhyme word does support Frampton’s suggestion. The two lines are clearly dependent on each other so that if line 169 is an interpolation, then line 170 is as well. It would be dangerous to base an argument against a Northern original on such evidence. One other apparent rhyme dependent upon the development of ā to ọ̄ perhaps needs comment here, that of nomo and do at lines 292 and 294. There is almost certainly some corruption here and Frampton has offered a convincing explanation of the intended stanza form which removes the nomo/do rhyme suggested by England in the EETS edition. One other point, however, might be made. The lines read in Frampton’s version: Primus Tortor. Gramercy thi gudnes! Pilate. yee, bot greue me nomore;  fful dere beys it boght, In fayth, if ye do. Primus Tortor. Shall I then saue it? Pilatus. yee, so saide I,  or to draw cutt is the lelyst, and long cut, lo,       this wede shall wyn. Tercius Tortor. Sir, to youre saying yit assent we vnto;  Bot oone assay, let se who shall begyn. (lines 292–8)

This is certainly an improvement, but one other change might be made. It will probably seem obvious that the removal of or from the beginning of the fourth line to the end of the third line not only improves the sense (with the meaning ‘before’) but also restores the rhyme. Pilate has indeed just said that they should preserve the garment whole, and is now moving off on to a new tack, that of drawing cut straws: Pilatus. yee, so saide I or! to draw cutt is the lelyst, and long cut, lo,   this wede shall wyn.

There is clearly no longer any evidence for a non-Northern rhyme. There is one rather complex but possibly convincing piece of evidence in favour of a Northern origin, the rhyme taght/waght (lines 216 and 218). The spelling taght suggests an undiphthongized Northern development of a + [X]; waght appears to be a form of wathe (OED sv Wothe), possibly influenced by wough. The rhyme could therefore depend upon forms postdating the disappearance of [X], and upon [t] for [θ]/[ð] in waght; giving [ta:t]/[wa:t]; or upon retention of [X], giving [taXt]/[ waXt;]. This does therefore look like a somewhat unusual but nevertheless fairly convincing Northern rhyme, since it is difficult to see how more southerly development of the words could produce rhyming forms.6 Of his second criterion Professor Stevens says, ‘The ending –(e)s for present plural verbs when the subject is not a personal pronoun immediately preceding or following the verb occurs in all plays [used in the sample]7 except the Talents’ (430). I have, however, been unable to find a definite example in Pharao, a pageant which can be taken as a useful comparison with the Talents because of its known York connection. The only possible example is line 143: ‘that linage luffis me noght’, because of the plural pronoun in the following line: ‘Gladly thay Wold me greyf’, but this is too doubtful an example to be of any use as the sole evidence. In fact all the evidence in Pharao points in quite a different direction. Not only are there no examples of an –(e)s present plural in Pharao, but all the examples present in the York text have been altered to –(e). It appears then that the borrower or adapter of the York Pharao pageant,

whether by natural habit or by design, was removing the Northern –(e)s present plural. If there were any –(e)s in the Millers’ pageant they might well have been removed in the course of transmission, and the fact that there is no example present in the main section of the Talents given the evidence from Pharao is of no significance.8 For the third criterion, the use of sall as opposed to shall (430), there are, it is true, no sall forms in the main section of the Talents, while there are two retained from York in Pharao. To set against these two, however, there are thirty-five shall forms in Pharao which have been altered from York sall. It should also be noted that the two sall forms occur very close together in the manuscript (within four lines of each other) and could therefore be the result of only a momentary aberration on the part of the scribe.9 There seems no reason, given the fewer number of lines in the main section of the Talents (206, against 406 (York) or 431 (Towneley) in Pharao), and the fewer instances of sall/shall (25, as against 37), why any trace of the York form should not have been removed. Professor Stevens’ evidence relating to the fourth criterion, present participle in –and, is taken from the disputed section, stanzas 6–9 (431), and given the likelihood of their association with the initial Wakefield Master stanzas it should not be used as representative of the original York material. There are no instances of a rhyme on a present participle in the main section and therefore no chance of discovering whether –and or –yng was the original form.10 I have spent some space on the linguistic evidence which Professor Stevens has brought to bear on the question of the origin of Processus Talentorum because it has clearly set the trend for the rejection of the York Millers’ pageant, but it must be said that so little is known of the transmission of the pageants from York to the Towneley manuscript, and the period concerned is so late, that it is probably impossible for the linguistic evidence alone to be so unambiguous as to prove the case one way or the other. Comparisons with other borrowed pageants though helpful, are not conclusive evidence, since there is no reason why the history of the transmission of, for example, Pharao or the Harrowing of Hell should be the same as that of the Miller’s pageant; indeed the very fact of its dropping completely from the York play at an early date may account for an earlier borrowing and a more extensive revision of both language and subject matter.11 It is certainly going too far to say ‘The linguistic evidence thus establishes that the source of the Towneley Talents was not the lost York play or any play deriving from the Northern dialect belt’ (432). There are, however, matters other than linguistic ones which may throw some light on the history of the Processus Talentorum. They are best approached through the most recent comments on the relation between the two pageants, those of Rosemary Woolf.12 Miss Woolf, though it is clearly not her purpose to investigate the evidence in detail, accepts that ‘this lost York play was known to the Towneley dramatist’ (266–7), and in a note adds, ‘whilst, even without the linguistic argument, one would not readily accept that Towneley xxiv was substantially the lost York play, it is nevertheless certain that Towneley was influenced by York, for coincidence here would be beyond the bounds of probability’ (404). One reason no doubt for her acceptance of the influence of York upon Towneley was that she was able to find only one other dramatic treatment of Pilate acquiring Christ’s garments from the soldiers, and even that is hardly a parallel, as her own words imply and as a glance at the Donaueschingen text makes clear.13 Having accepted an influence, however, Miss Woolf plays down the

dependence of Towneley upon York: For a brief period, however, York had a short play in which ‘Pilatus et alii milites ludebant ad talos pro vestimentis Jesu …’ It is reasonable to assume that this lost York play was known to the Towneley dramatist; but this assumption does not explain why a reviser of the Towneley cycle (probably the Wakefield Master) chose to introduce so substantial a treatment of a rather unimportant episode into the cycle nor why he placed it at so odd a point in time (if he had adopted the order of the York cycle, the play would have followed The Flagellacio). (266–7)

Her obvious reluctance to accept the dependence makes her here overplay the evidence against it. There is, for example, no way of telling how ‘short’ the Millers’ pageant was, since only a description of it survives, yet this ‘short play’ is clearly being contrasted with ‘so substantial a Treatment’ in Towneley. It is also possible to question the ‘brief period’ during which York had a dicing pageant. Since the Ordo in its original form almost certainly contained a separate pageant for the Millers, it is possible that the dicing pageant was one which had existed from the beginning of the cycle itself in the late fourteenth century. The ‘brief’ period might then have lasted as much as fifty years. Furthermore ‘the order of the York cycle’ to which Miss Woolf refers is difficult to establish. In the second list of pageants entered by the Common Clerk in the A/Y Memorandum Book at York, which at the time Miss Woolf was writing was the only evidence in print for the order of the separate pageants, and which for the pageants grouped with the Millers’ is the earliest evidence, the dicing episode follows the Ductio christi & ostensio veronice; that is it comes after the carrying of the Cross to Calvary (and presumably after the stripping of Christ) and before the Crucifixion. In the present Ordo Paginarum description (dating from some time after 1422–3) it is most oddly placed after the Scourging of Christ, and in the present text of the York play (copied sometime between 1463 and 1477), consisting only of a highly abbreviated drawing of lots, it follows the Crucifixion (The York Plays, 322–314). If the Millers’ pageant was borrowed early, then the order would have been after the leading of Christ to Calvary and before the Crucifixion; if later, then after the Scourging and before the leading to Calvary; and if later still, after the Crucifixion, though by that time the episode could hardly have been thought of in York as a separate item. Clearly, the ‘order of the York cycle’ cannot be used as evidence against the borrowing of the Millers’ pageant. Why the Towneley playwright placed the episode where he did is surely to be explained by its biblical position, which in every Gospel is after the Crucifixion.15 The problem is Miss Woolf’s first, why it was included, not where it was placed, and the simple fact of the existence of a ready-made pageant on the subject of the dicing for Christ’s garments remains the most likely reason for the Towneley playwright’s inclusion of this odd episode. The case for rejecting the origin of the Towneley pageant in York, either on linguistic grounds or on any other which have so far been suggested, is a weak one: but how strong a case can be put forward from the other side? Miss Woolf’s firm acceptance of the necessity of some sort of a link between the two on the grounds of the uniqueness of the episode is a starting point, but a number of other pieces of evidence need to be taken into account. At York when the Millers’ pageant was being played, it followed the taking of Christ to Calvary and preceded the Crucifixion. This means that in that pageant there should strictly speaking be no reference to the Crucifixion having already taken place. In Towneley the Processus

Talentorum follows the Crucifixion and a number of clear references to it appear in the rime couée section (stanzas 10–20). In the main section (stanzas 21–59), however, there are only four remarks which could refer to the Crucifixion, and each of these despite the side notes in the EETS edition is vague and unclear in its reference. The first is the Consultus’: The cause of my calling is of that boy bold ffor it is saide sothely now this same day That he shuld dulfully be dede,      Certayn; Then may youre cares be full cold If he thus sakles be slayn.                (lines 203–8)

Which certainly does not say, ‘Jesus is dead’, as the side note suggests. The second is the primus tortor’s ye wot that ye demyd this day apon desse we dowte not his doing for now is he done                (lines 231–2)

which does not precisely say, ‘Jesus, whom Pilate condemned, is now dead’. Pilate replies, Be it fon so of that fatur, in faith then am I fayne                  (line 234)

that is, ‘if what you say proves true, then I am pleased’. Certainly primus tortor could mean that Christ is dead, but there is no necessity for such an interpretation. Similarly with the secundus tortor’s we haue markyd that mytyng, nomore shall he mar; we prayed you, sir pilate, to put him to payn,     And we thought it well wrought.                 (lines 235–7)

the context must determine the meaning – if the Crucifixion has already happened, then he means that Christ is dead; if not, then he refers to the certainty of his punishment taking place. The final reference in the main section is the casual one of the Tercius tortor to the ‘los of that lad’ (line 241), which again is too vague to establish that the Crucifixion has happened. Compared with the words of the primus and secundus tortores in the rime couée section I thought I did full curiously In fayth hym for to hyng                 (lines 95–6)

and And ther we wroght with hym oure will, And hang hym on a rud                 (lines 135–6)

all these references are unspecific. Though this cannot, of course, prove the dependence of Towneley on York, it is interesting that the references are exactly the kind one might expect from a pageant as awkwardly placed

as the Millers’. The Crucifixion had not taken place (it was the subject of the next pageant), yet these were the men who in the previous pageant had led Christ to Calvary to crucify him; and one would expect no break between the leading of Christ to Calvary and his Crucifixion. Nevertheless the three tortores break off from the action to come to Pilate to dice for Christ’s garments. It would be most appropriate, therefore, for their references to the Crucifixion to give the impression of its taking place without actually saying that it has. I am not suggesting that the playwright was deliberately planning this (though he may have been) but that this kind of reference is almost inevitable if the playwright remained aware of the context of his pageant. As with the linguistic evidence, however, the same caution needs to be observed in dealing with pageants about whose revision, in the course of transmission from York to Towneley, we know so little. The present wording may be the result of minor alterations aimed at bringing the various sections, rime couée, Wakefield Master, and the main one, into closer conformity one with another. Having stated that he was crucified at the beginning of the pageant, they have no need to repeat it. One area of somewhat greater certainty is the subject matter of the Millers’ pageant. The longest description is contained in the agreement made in 1422–3: pagina molendinariorum vbi pilatus & alij milites ludebant ad talos pro vestimentis Iesu & pro eis sortes mittebant & ea partiebantur inter se.16

What is immediately striking about this is the apparent overlap between the incidents described. How can Pilate and the soldiers play at dice for the garments, then draw lots for them, and then divide them amongst themselves? At first sight it would seem that each one of these actions cancels out the others, yet in the Processus Talentorum this series, the order reversed, is exactly what we find. When Pilate has failed to bluster or cajole the garment from the soldiers, the third suggests that they divide it, yee, lord, let shere it in shredys.          (line 255)

Their various attempts to agree on the division lead ultimately to failure because Pilate refuses to allow them to cut the gowne. He then suggests drawing lots, to draw cutt is the lelyst, and long cut, lo, this wede shall wyn.                 (lines 296–7)

This, however, is rejected on the grounds that Pilate will cheat them, and they finally turn to the dice which the third soldier has brought with him, That is a gam all the best, bi hym that me boght, ffor at the dysyng he dos vs no wrang.                  (lines 305–6)

There is thus a remarkable coincidence between the York description and the Towneley pageant, especially in as much as it appears to be unique. One minor discrepancy remains. In York the subject of the argument is always referred to in the plural, vestimentis … eis … ea … in Towneley it is always the singular that is used, this

gowne (line 163), that harnes (line 243), this cote (line 268), this wede (line 297), this frog (line 311), and this garment (line 352). Of these, only harnes could have either singular or plural meaning. It is, however, only an apparent discrepancy. What the soldiers are concerned about is the perfect robe, the tunica inconsutilis, and it is this garment which they wish to keep from Pilate. That there are other clothes is made clear from the sharing-out by Pilate: take thou this, & thou that, & this shall be thyn, And be lefe and by law this may leyfe styll                 (lines 256–8):

And the complaints of the soldiers: It is shame forto se, I am shapyn bot a shrede  (1) The hole of this harnes is holdyn to you,    (2) And I am leuered a lap is lyke to no lede,     ffor-tatyrd and torne. If he skap with this cote it were a great skorne  (3)               (lines 263–6 and 268)

The distinction between the clothes and the single garment exists even in the ultimate source from which both the gospel passages and the play derive: Diuiserunt sibi vestimenta mea Et super vestem meam miserunt sortes           (Psalm 21: 19)

a distinction which John elaborates (19: 23–4) into the vestimenta and the tunica inconsutilis. The division also already exists in John between the dividing of the garments and the casting of lots for the ‘seamless coat’; what the York and Towneley pageants add is the further division between the lots and the dicing. This, combined with the presence of Pilate in the sharing and dicing, makes a close connection between York and Towneley seem certain by providing two otherwise unrecorded features in both. The fact that the three stages of the sharing is so basic and yet so unnecessary a part of the plot makes it likely that the Processus Talentorum is the result not just of an acquaintance with the Millers’ pageant at York but an actual use of it by the Towneley playwright as a basis for his own pageant. If the Millers’ pageant is indeed the basis of the Talents, this raises a number of practical questions about the relationship between Towneley and York. The Millers’ pageant dropped out of use in 1422–3; who then preserved it for use elsewhere, the Millers or the City? There seems to have been no civic copy of the whole Corpus Christi play until the compiling of the Register between 1463 and 1477. Did the City nevertheless look after pageants which had been dropped? The fact that the Register contains the whole (apparently) of the old Goldsmiths’ pageant suggests that the craft copy from which the Register text was taken was the one used before the splitting-off of the Masons’ pageant in 1432–3. In other words, the craft had preserved its own copy even though a part of it was no longer in use by them. This is a special case, in as much as the text was in part still in use, but there are other whole pageants which dropped out for a considerable period of time, for example the Purification and Fergus. For the first of these two the evidence suggests that the pageant was not being performed for

some years preceding 1477, for the latter that it was not being performed between 1432 and 1476. For there is no evidence to show who preserved the texts while they were out of use. Equally problematic is when the borrowings took place. If the Millers’ pageant was taken up as soon as it was discontinued in York (or while it was still being performed, as clearly happened with the other pageants since they were never discontinued), then this puts the compilation of Towneley back to the early years of the 15th century. Frampton in discussing the date of the borrowing says, ‘How long it was tossed about after being discarded by the Millers in 1422 before it was acquired by Wakefield, no one can say, and a disused play deteriorates rapidly, but 1425 would seem an early date for its acquisition’ (654); in fact, there is nothing to show that disused plays do deteriorate, and the borrowing could have taken place at any time between the first writing of the play (perhaps as early as the late 14th century) and the second half of the 15th century, allowing time for the adaptation to take place before its copying into the Towneley manuscript. What is true of the Millers’ pageant is also true of the other pageants borrowed, and there is no reason to suppose that they were necessarily borrowed all at the same time. A further and equally important question also remains unanswered, and that is, who provided the copy? If the borrowed pageants are not memorial reconstructions, and they show no signs of being so, then someone, officially or unofficially, must have provided copy. Was it at the craft level? Or was it simply personal contact between master and master? Though there will probably never be a full answer to these questions, they do need asking. The process of borrowing has never been fully explored and exploring it might ultimately throw light on which local towns were likely (as well as which were able) to mount a complex cycle making use of pageants already well-known from York.

Notes  1. Peter Meredith, ‘The Ordo Paginarum and the development of the York Tilemakers’ Pageant’, Leeds Studies in English, NS 11 (1979 for 1980), 61–3.  2. M.G. Frampton, ‘The Processus Talentorum (Towneley XXIV)’, Publications of the Modern Languages Association, 59 (1944), 646–54.  3. Martin Stevens, ‘The Composition of the Towneley Talents play: A linguistic examination’, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 58 (1959), 423–33.  4. All stanza and line references are to The Towneley Plays, ed. by George England and Alfred W. Pollard, EETS ES 71 (1897).  5. Stanzas 7 and 8 are very like the cauda of the Wakefield Master stanza, and 6 and 9 have a variation between four long and four shorter lines reminiscent in a general way of that between the frons and cauda of the Wakefield Master stanza. Stanzas 6–8 continue Pilate’s ranting.  The principal stanza form of the main section are seven lines with the fifth line somewhat shorter, rhyming ababcbc, and a quatrain rhyming abab.  6. Rhymes like saw: knawe (lines 188–90); wrang: fang (lines 259–61); saw: blaw (lines 344–46) suggest, without proving, a Northern origin.  7. Professor Stevens’ sample of ‘representative plays and groups of plays in Towneley and York’ is set out on p. 428.  8. It is also worth noting that almost every plural present verb in the main section of the Talents is in close proximity to a personal pronoun. Two which at first sight look relevant here, present (line 162) divided from pronoun subject, and be (line 318) with noun subject, are subjunctive.  It is interesting that the Wakefield Master stanzas in the Talents have a number of plural presents and plural imperatives in – (e)s (bese line 376, lakys line 387, crakkys line 388, bakys line 389, and hauys line 412). Clearly the adapter of the Pharao pageant in borrowing from York had a different idea from the Wakefield Master of the appropriate form. The adapter of the Harrowing of Hell varies between retaining and rejecting – (e)s. In four cases (one an imperative) he rejects it, in four (two of them rhymes) he retains it.

 9. Towneley Plays, p. 76, lines 366 and 372; MS fol. 24v, lines 16 and 19; see The Towneley Cycle: A Facsimile of Huntington MS HM 1, Leeds Texts and Monographs (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1976). One example of shall for sall, however, comes between them.  The small significance of this variation is perhaps shown by the fact that the York scribe when correcting the position of the two lines in the Shipwrights’ pageant (fol. 23) first writes the word sall and afterwards schall. See the forthcoming facsimile of the York Register in the Leeds Texts and Monographs series. 10. There is in fact only one present participle in the main section of the Talents, syttand (line 228) though it is not a rhyme and there is no reason to reject it as evidence of a Northern origin since in general the changes made are in the direction of Midland forms. 11. Furthermore it should be remembered that the text as it has survived from York for all the borrowed pageants is the official copy made in 1463–77 and that this may well not represent the direct source of the Towneley versions. If it is accepted that the Talents was originally the Millers’ pageant then the craft copy must have been the direct source since as far as we know there was no civic copy in existence. 12. Rosemary Woolf, The English Mystery Plays (London: Routledge, 1972), pp. 266–8 and pp. 403–4 (n67). 13. Woolf, p. 266, ‘The only surviving medieval play besides Towneley to reconstruct this incident’ (the acquiring of the garment by Pilate) ‘is Donauesching: it does so briefly and neatly by making one of the executioners give the coat to Pilate when he comes to inspect the Crucifixion’. The only similarity is that Pilate is seen obtaining the garment. 14. The York Plays, ed. by Richard Beadle (London: Arnold, 1972). 15. More precisely the situation is as follows: in every case the dividing takes place before Christ’s death; in Matthew it is Postquam autem crucifixerunt eum, in Mark Et crucifgentes eum, in Luke it is after … ibi crucifixerunt eum and in John cum crucifixerunt eum. 16. See York, ed. by Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Rogerson, Records of Early English Drama (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), p. 48, and for a discussion of this agreement, see Meredith, ‘The Ordo Paginarum and the Development of the York Tilemakers’ Pageant’, pp. 61–4.

5

SCRIBES, TEXTS AND PERFORMANCES The importance of manuscript evidence for an understanding of late medieval drama has been clear at least since W.W. Greg’s pioneering work on the English mystery plays at the beginning of this century.1 Yet despite an awareness of the basic importance of this kind of study, much scholarly discussion (and, incredibly it seems, even some editing) has with certain notable exceptions proceeded with only a nod in the direction of the manuscript. The appearance of facsimiles of the major manuscripts has encouraged, and should further encourage, those interested to go back to the manuscript to find out what the scribes were doing.2 Even though the interpretation of manuscript evidence is a complex matter and often ends only in speculation about what the scribe intended, nevertheless it is essential that it should be attempted if only to establish the kinds of basic question that need to be asked about the nature of the text and its relationship with performance. It has, for example, been usual to talk about stage directions using the term in the same way as for a modern play. But are the ‘stage directions’ of medieval plays really this kind of thing? Who wrote them, for instance? The author? A scribe who happened to see a performance; a scribe with the Bible or one with an ideal performance in his mind? A producer (if the word is meaningful in a medieval English context), or a prompter? The answer is, of course, that it could have been any of these, or indeed all of them. Few texts have stage directions all of one kind or of one date. It is now unfashionable to believe that one can establish an authoritative text of a medieval work of literature. If this is true of a non-dramatic work, it is much more so of a play. The play may not merely be going through the hands of scribes but through the mouths of actors and the mill of production. What do we know of the treatment of the text of a civic play in England in the later Middle Ages? There is almost an unspoken acceptance of a kind of hierarchy of texts: the Register, the authoritative full copy of the whole cycle, kept by the town or city; the original, the copy of the individual pageant held by the craft or guild; the parcels, the parts copied out and used by the craft members in learning their parts. If this is so (and certainly these three types of text did exist) then the chances of a wide variety of texts developing are enormous; the parcels could be altered and annotated in the course of production; these changes might or might not reach the original (itself possibly annotated); this in turn might or might not affect the Register. But do we know what the actual relationship was between these types of text? Where did the Register come from? Is it the author’s text, perhaps at some remove from the earliest form of

the Corpus Christi cycle? Or is it merely the sum of its parts, a registering of already existing craft pageants? And what is the status of the annotations? It has been customary to label most of these with some such phrase as ‘by a later hand’ thereby denying them any authority. But what if they are corrections or additions from the craft guild’s own copy? A play that lasts nearly two hundred years is not likely to remain static; these are not author’s but they may well be owner’s revisions and as such perhaps equally worth a place in the text. It is worth remembering that the texts that we possess (none earlier than the second half of the fifteenth century and some very much later) almost certainly contain many annotations ‘by a later hand’, absorbed into the text and now indistinguishable from the rest of it. From what I have already said it will be clear that going back to the manuscript also means going back to the records of the place where the play was performed. It is not possible to answer questions about the use of a text without referring constantly to city and guild records. The text of a play is only one (though an important one) amongst a number of pieces of evidence for the functioning of the play in performance. This does not entirely differentiate a play from, say, a sermon, which has a similar kind of context; or even from a poem orally delivered, but for a play the context – the organization, setting, costumes, properties, style of acting – is more important and more integral to the text than it is for either of these others. Fortunately through the work of the Malone Society and Records of Early English Drama the records are becoming more easily accessible and the published versions more dependable.3 Though the records are an essential part of establishing a context for the play, they cannot answer all the questions. Sometimes this is because of the difficulty of attaching a manuscript to a place; sometimes because of loss. It is important to remember that consecutive evidence from year to year, for guild or city, is the exception rather than the rule. Of all the craft guilds of York, only the Mercers’ provides anything like continuous records from the early fifteenth century to the late sixteenth century, and even in these there are numerous gaps. I have up to now been talking in general terms about the texts and the records of the plays but what is most striking about the major cycles of mystery plays, given that the sources of their subject matter were the same, is their variety. This is nowhere more true than in their manuscripts and it is to an individual consideration of three groups of these that I now wish to turn.

York – British Library Additional MS 35290 The manuscript of the York play – the Ludus Corporis Cristi or Corpus Christi play – is in some ways the easiest to deal with since its provenance, its date, its scribes, the reasons for its compilation and its owners are all to some extent known. It contains the texts of forty-eight of the craft pageants. Space has been left specifically for two others, the Vintners’ and the Ironmongers’, but neither was registered. In the case of the Vintners’ this is particularly unfortunate since it was the only play on the subject of the Marriage at Cana in the English mystery cycles. The manuscript was written in the late 1460s or 1470s in York, probably by local scribes. That they were local is an assumption, not a proven fact. ‘Registering’ was however the normal process by which a document of importance to the City was copied into one of its large books, called therefore registers, and it is difficult to imagine the City Council

going outside the ranks of its own perfectly adequate clerks for the registering of something so entirely a City matter as the play. Moreover the style of lay-out and script is very much the kind of work that the better of the City’s clerks produced elsewhere in the City records – a normally neat but workaday script, not elaborately laid out or decorated. The local knowledge implied in the English craft names perhaps also points to a City scribe. The Register – and of all the manuscripts of the plays the York one most deserves the name – was almost certainly written to provide the City with a quick and accurate reference book for checking the performances of the play and noting changes of craft responsibility. In this it replaced the Ordo Paginarum which was a brief description of each of fifty-one pageants, originally written in 1415 by the Common Clerk Roger Burton, but much altered. Until the writing of the Register this seems to have been the only check that the City had on the contents of the pageants. The first mention of the Register in the City records is in 1527 when 2s 4d was provided as expenses for Thomas Clerke ‘deputato communis Clerici custodiendum Registrum’ (‘deputy of the Common Clerk for keeping the Register’). This ‘keeping of the Register’ is the only real clue to the use to which the manuscript was later put, and the phrase recurs fairly regularly in the station lists from 1538 onwards in conjunction with the place for the Common Clerk at the first station opposite Holy Trinity priory gates – ‘the ffyrst place at Trenytie yaites whereas the Comon Clerke kepys the Registre’ (REED York, p. 263). The station lists recorded the places where the pageants were to stop to perform, and also the payments made for the privilege of having a station at one’s door. The place for the Common Clerk set aside officially and costing nothing appears first in the station list of 1501. Certainly from that time on the Common Clerk or his deputy was expected to sit with the Register at the point where the pageants first turned into the pageant route to perform. Why? I have already suggested that the City kept a check on the pageants and it seems that for some reason in the 1460s and 1470s they decided to make it possible not just generally to check on the contents but precisely to check the text; the pageants in the Register could be compared word for word as the actors spoke. This fits with the concern for ‘þe honour of þe Citie and Worship of þe saide Craftes’ that underlies the 1476 ordinance regarding the players in the Corpus Christi play (REED York, p. 109). It is clear that the Register was also kept up to date by occasional comparison with the craftguilds’ own copies. Some alterations, for example those in the Shipwrights’ pageant, could hardly have been made on the spot at the first station. Likewise the extensive addition to the Glovers’ pageant seems more likely to have come from a comparison of Register and craft copy. It is possible that this kind of checking is referred to in the attempt made by the City to bring in the unregistered pageants in 1567: ‘[the pageant of] the Cappers to be examined with the Register & reformed’ (REED York, p. 351). The manuscript of the York play is then a late-fifteenth-century official civic document, compiled for the purpose of control over the activities of the crafts in their Corpus Christi pageants. Written apparently by local scribes, it was annotated in their official capacities by the Common Clerks or their deputies, often during the performance of the play at the first station, or corrected by them from the craft copies. It is last heard of in the City’s hands when it was to be sent for correction to the Archbishop and Dean of York in 1579 for a projected performance that never took place (REED York, p. 390).

York – the Sykes Manuscript (York City Archives)4 Only one copy of an original survives from York: ‘The Incredulity of Thomas’. Considering that it was the Scriveners’ own copy of their pageant, it is a surprisingly undistinguished booklet. It consists of four parchment leaves enclosed within a folder of parchment. It dates from the first half of the sixteenth century and is therefore later than the Register. It differs from the text of the Register in innumerable minor ways and also in the omission of one line and the inclusion of another (York lines 27–8 missing in Sykes; Sykes l. 181 missing in Register). These differences show that texts could already have been faulty when copied into the Register, and that new faults (as well as revisions) would continue to appear in the craft copies. By the late fifteenth century the original was very unlikely still to be the original. Despite the differences that exist between the two texts there are no annotations to this effect in the Register. This could mean that the Scriveners’ pageant was no longer being performed during the period when the Common Clerks were keeping the Register, but the existence of the Sykes manuscript makes this unlikely. It is more likely to be an indication that the Common Clerks were not always as vigilant in their checking or that by the end of a long day attention began to wander. The Sykes manuscript is also devoid of annotation so that unfortunately it gives no idea of how production notes or alterations might have reached the official copies of the play. No parcels survive from York (nor from any other of the major plays in England), nor is there any reference to them in the records.

Chester – Huntington Library MS 2; BL M S Additional 10305; BL M S Harley 2013; Bodleian Library M S Bodley 175; BL M S Harley 2124 I have chosen to deal with Chester next since it is the only English mystery play besides York which survives in something like its entirety (the cycle consists of 24/25 pageants) and which is closely and certainly associated with a particular city. Even from the list of manuscripts, however, one marked difference will be immediately apparent: York survives in a unique City copy, Chester survives in five copies, none associated with the City authorities. Moreover the date of the York text is well within the period of the performance of the play (late fourteenth century to 1569), whereas all the Chester manuscripts date from some time after the last recorded performance in 1575: Huntington, 1591; Additional, 1592; Harley 2013, 1600; Bodley, 1604; and Harley 2124, 1607. It is also worth noting that though in York there are signs of a desire to renew the performance of the play after 1569 despite ecclesiastical opposition, there is no sign in Chester of any similar desire; indeed the Chester Coopers’ company seems to have been selling off its pageant carriage wheels in the year after what later turned out to be the last performance (REED Chester, p. 117). Chester, however, had its Midsummer Show to replace the lost play; York had almost nothing. The main question which arises about these manuscripts is why they were written. Chester is sharply distinct from York in one way especially: there was an enormous amount of antiquarian activity in the City in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Not only are there the Mayors’ lists and the Rogers’ Breviary recording dates and describing City activities, but there were the four Randle Holmes copying and transcribing City and guild records.5 To some extent

no doubt this activity sprang from the practical purpose of recording the past for such legal reasons as the settling of disputes, but in the main it seems likely that all the play texts are antiquarian copies made to preserve or to recall ancient City ceremonial. They were certainly not made as acting or production copies. They were in three cases, however, copied out by the kind of men who at an earlier date might well have been called upon to provide acting copies for the companies. George Bellin, in particular, was clerk to the Coopers’ company as well as the scribe of Additional 10305 and Harley 2013; William Bedford was later clerk to the Brewers’ and also scribe of Bodley 175. We might therefore expect a format and a mode of copying not dissimilar from that of the Sykes Manuscript or the York Register, but, on the other hand, one which may conceal later marginal additions. Huntington and Harley 2124 are somewhat different. The former was written by Edward Gregory, who describes himself as ‘scholler at Bunburye’, a small town near Chester, and the latter was written partly by James Miller, probably a minor canon of Chester Cathedral. It is this last manuscript that is different in format as well as in text from the others. It provides unique sections of text, links two elsewhere distinct pageants together, has ‘stage directions’ in Latin, a number of biblical texts in the margin and a carefully prepared lay-out. A further question in relation to the manuscripts is what they were copied from. Was there a Register at Chester? Were it not for a single reference in the records, the answer might well have been: apparently not. Though the term used there is ‘the originall booke of the whydson plaies’ (REED Chester, p. 80), there is no doubt that it was the City’s book and very little that it was a complete text of the cycle. It is therefore possible that the extant texts go back to a City Register (though it should not be forgotten – bearing the York Register in mind – that that copy might well retain the individual idiosyncrasies of the craft originals), or also possible that they go back to a set of craft originals. The mention of craft originals and of parcels copied from them is common in the Chester records, and two additional pieces of evidence arise from these references: first, some confirmation that the parcels were indeed parts for the actors (REED Chester, pp. 66 and 95); and secondly, that the original was in some way used at the performance at Whitsun. Its most likely use was as a prompt book, but bearing the York Common Clerks in mind it is just possible that through ‘the Reygenall beyrer’ (‘the person who carried the original’, REED Chester, p. 50) or ‘him that Rydeth (‘reads’) the orrygynall’ (REED Chester, p. 83) the companies were keeping an eye on their own actors’ treatment of the text.

Chester – National Library of Wales MS Peniarth 399; Chester Coopers’ Company MS Besides the five complete texts of the plays there are also two surviving originals: the Antichrist pageant (Peniarth 399) of the early sixteenth century, and the Coopers’ Trial and Flagellation pageant of 1599. The latter clearly springs from the desire of the company to ‘register’ its own pageant and like the manuscripts of the whole cycle it is not an acting copy. It was written by George Bellin. The Antichrist pageant on the other hand dates from the period of the production of the plays, though there is little in the way of annotation beyond the altering of a few words.

Though there is a good deal of evidence from Chester for the use of the originals there are none for the use of the City’s copy of the plays.

N-Town – BL MS Cotton Vespasian D VIII6 The N-Town plays are very different from those of York and Chester. Though they contain elements of a cycle – such as the Banns and many individual pageants – they also contain complete plays which were never part of a cycle. Furthermore, they are not associated with any one place or any one time of the year, and as evidence for their performance there is only the manuscript itself. There is also no sign that they were ever the possessions of crafts or companies. Both York and Chester contain a series of separate pageants – a typical mystery play cycle; what we have in the N-Town manuscript is a miscellaneous collection of often disparate plays. There are a number of individual pageants, but there is also a composite play on the early life of Mary and a two-part Passion play. Unfortunately, these two forms of play, unique in England, have been altered and adapted by the main scribe of the manuscript to fit with the cycle form which he has attempted to impose on the whole manuscript. It is not entirely clear what he had in mind, but he seems to have wanted completeness and continuity while at the same time leaving the possibility open of disconnecting (and perhaps performing separately) some of the parts. His desire for completeness may be related to the purpose of the manuscript. It has been suggested that it was, like The Castle of Perseverance, the property of a touring company. This seems to me in a high degree unlikely. There is no sign of a touring company of the later Middle Ages in England that could have put on The Castle of Perseverance let alone tackled the complexities of staging the N-Town plays. It could, on the other hand, have been intended as a touring manuscript. There is growing evidence in East Anglia for the banding together of small towns into groups for the performance of plays, but no evidence so far of where the texts came from. It is at least possible that the pageant part of the N-Town plays was prepared as a text for borrowing, and therefore one which would be played in a variety of places – hence the ‘N-Town’ of the Banns: A sunday next yf þat we may      On At vj of þe belle we gynne oure play In N. Town wherfore we pray That God now be ȝoure spede.           (‘N-Town’, p. 16)

Besides which, performance by a group of towns is one which requires advertisement and perhaps travelling vexillatores (‘proclaimers/announcers of the play’), such as those of the NTown Banns, to announce the performance. The idea of a manuscript to be borrowed might also explain the addition and adaptation that has extended the pageant cycle, and the apparently detachable parts. Any prospective ‘producer’ could be shown on the one hand the possible range of material, and on the other, that if there were not the resources to produce the whole, that sections could be taken out of it and produced separately. There is only one sign in the manuscript itself that this was done, and

it is not along the lines apparently suggested by the main scribe. A section in the latter part of the Passion plays is marked at the beginning Incipit hic (‘Begin here’; f. 189 ‘N-Town’, p. 312) and at the end finem jadie (‘end of first day’; f. 196 ‘N-Town’, p. 327). It isolates the setting of the watch, the latter part of the Harrowing of Hell, the Resurrection, and the return of the soldiers to Pilate, and it implies at least a two-day play. The scribe seems to have intended that the early life of Mary, once a separate play, could still be detached – if his alternative ending on f. 73v–f. 74 (‘N-Town’, pp. 120–1) is intended as a rounding-off and an avoidance of continuity with the next pageant, as it seems to be. Using terms like Register and original in a discussion of the N-Town manuscript is inappropriate because of their implications of civic organization. The matters that the N-Town manuscript raises are related to revision – turning a heterogeneous collection of plays into a homogeneous whole; and to the nature of the earlier texts which were basic material for this. The Assumption pageant in N-Town, for example, was a separate booklet before it was bound into the composite manuscript. The first part of the Passion play is also a booklet, of a somewhat more complex kind, but equally having had an existence of its own before being incorporated into the larger manuscript. The Assumption has been little touched by the main scribe, just enough to bring it into line with the appearance of the rest of the manuscript.7 The first part of the Passion play, on the other hand, has been revised and adapted; mainly, it seems, to include material mentioned in the Banns (and therefore part of the earlier pageant series though not previously part of the Passion play) but also perhaps to make it more all-inclusive. The ‘Life of Mary’ play has been adapted somewhat differently. In this case the scribe has copied out the play afresh, but where it overlapped with material from the pageant series (mainly at the Betrothal of Mary) he has blended it and produced a composite version. At the end of the Mary play he blended and even possibly re-wrote in order to link it up with the following pageant material. We have then in N-Town a situation quite different from that of the other manuscripts. There we have scribes doing their best, at York to produce texts acceptable to the City or craft, which were accurate records of what was being performed, at Chester antiquarian copies of past ceremonial. In N-Town we have a scribe adapting, blending and revising to produce an allinclusive play apparently adequate to anyone’s needs. The diversity which the manuscripts show in their background and make up is reflected in the nature and source of the information which they provide about performance. At York it is the comments of the Common Clerks and their deputies, in particular John Clerke, deputy from the 1530s until the end of the plays, that provide the information.8 Their comments are of a number of different kinds. There are the indications of material missing on a large scale, and there are the hic caret (‘here something is missing’) references which could mean anything from a word to a complete speech. These are important for signs of revision in the pageants, but frustrating because they often tell us no more. Occasionally the whole situation is made clear, as in the stanza added to the Cardmarkers’ pageant (ff. 7 and 9v; York Facsimile, p. 15); occasionally we are given an incipit:   Alas that I was borne   dixit prima anima mala & ij a

said the first evil soul, and the second

  anima mala de nouo facta

evil soul – made new        (f. 264; York, p. 412)

This particular example (see plate 1) is interesting for two reasons: first because of the use of dixit (‘said’) instead of dicit (‘says’), implying description rather than direction; and secondly, because the incipit happens to be the first line of what looks like an intrusive stanza spoken by one of the damned souls in the Towneley Last Judgement pageant, itself an expansion of the York one (Towneley, p. 367). This is not a conclusive argument for saying that we can reconstruct the missing speech, because the line is too commonplace, but it opens up an interesting possibility. There are also the added ‘stage directions’. These are important not usually for their content but because, being descriptions rather than directions, we can rely on the action actually having taken place. The indications of music however do considerably increase our understanding of performance. It is worth knowing for example that before Gabriel spoke the angelic greeting to Mary, he, or another angel, sang it: first (presumably) an Ave Maria (‘Hail Mary’) and then Ne timeas Maria (‘Do not be afraid Mary’). When he speaks, therefore, his speeches are expansions of the sung pieces. Again at the Ascension the marginal notes show that Christ’s rising was accompanied by angelic music, and interestingly enough here the music was changed in the course of the early sixteenth century from Gloria in excelsys deo to Ascendo ad patrem meum (‘I ascend to my Father’, 239, York, p. 377). We are becoming used to the idea of revision of text: it is useful to have evidence that the choice of music could also change. Momentary impressions of staging also come through sometimes in the marginal additions. The interpolated ‘Oyes’ of the messenger (?) in the Tilemakers’ pageant summoning Christ to appear (f. 183v, York, p. 300); the heel-clicking ‘Lorde’ of the soldiers in the Bowyers’ and Fletchers’ (f. 144, York, p. 243), which they seem to have caught from the knights in the Tapiters’ and Couchers’ (f. 163, York, p. 269), where there is an absolutely similar call and response; or the badly mistimed speech by the agonized Isaac in the Parchmenters’ and Bookbinders’ (f. 33v, York, p. 95, between lines 165 and 166). The actor playing Isaac seems, on one occasion at least, to have come in with his line ‘Why! fadir, will god þat I be slayne?’ (1.189) slightly ‘revised’ and twenty-four lines earlier.9 Perhaps most important of all as insights into the organization of the performance are the indications given, mainly by Clerke, of the joining of pageants – what Richard Beadle has called ‘playing in tandem’ – which affect the Cardmakers’ and Fullers’, the Tilemakers’ and Chandlers’, and the Masons’ and Goldsmiths’ pageants.

Plate 1 Page from the Mercer’s pageant at York, showing marginal annotations by John Clerke (British Library MS Additional 35290, f. 264. © ‘British Library Board) If York provides a miscellany of suggestive details through the annotations of the Common Clerks and their deputies, the Chester manuscripts supply a wealth of direct but not always explicit information through the stage directions. Some are clear and revealing, like the description of the mechanics of the dove in the Harley 2124 version of ‘Noah’s Flood’: Tunc emittet columbam; et erit in nave aliam columbam ferens olivam in ore, quam dimittet aliquis ex malo per funem in manibus Noe.

(‘Then he shall send out a dove; and in the ship will be another dove carrying olive in its mouth, which someone shall let down by a cord from the mast into the hands of Noah’) (Chester, p. 464.)

Earlier in the same pageant Noah and his family are said to ‘make a signe as though the (‘they’) wrought upon the shippe with divers instruements’ (Chester, p. 47), clearly implying a preconstructed ark. The phrase ‘make a sign’ (or in the case of Latin directions, faciet signum) is something of a feature of the Chester plays. It covers actions of a very varied kind; from Moses cutting the tablets of the Law from the mountain (Chester, p. 82), to the angel in the Purification pageant writing the word virgo back into Simeon’s book (Chester, p. 206). Herod too ‘makes a sign’: Tunc faciet signum quasi morietur (‘Then he shall make a sign as though he were dying’, Chester, p. 201). The positioning of the stage directions on the page varies from manuscript to manuscript, from pageant to pageant and from direction to direction.10 One group, however, in all but Harley 2124, is placed in the left margin; what might reasonably perhaps be called the more casual side of the text. Because of the antiquarian nature of the manuscripts there is no difference in hand or script between these directions and the main text, but they bear all the signs of director’s or actor’s jottings (see plate 2). They accompany the speeches of Herod in the Magi pageant (Chester, pp. 163–74), and consist of the following: ‘staffe, staffe, sword, Cast vpp, staffe and an other gowne, a bill, caste downe þe sworde, breake a sworde, caste vp, caste vp, the boye and pigge when the kings are gone, staffe, sworde, caste vp’11 If these do derive from the jottings of a director or actor, what do they mean? The first note of the series, ‘staffe’ occurs beside the line: ‘Bien soies venues, royes gent’ (‘Welcome, noble kings’, l.157) at the moment when Herod first greets the three kings. The second, ‘staffe’ again, occurs at 1.197: ‘For all men may wott and see’, where Herod is controlling his anger and re-adopting his regal pose. This gives a definite clue to the use of the staff: an expression of Herod’s regality, his staff of office. But where does he get it from? From the back of the pageant? By his throne? And when does he put it down? It seems to me that we have here the typical situation for the ‘conjuror’s assistant’. When a piece of equipment is needed the assistant is there to provide it, and who more likely than the messenger to play the part. The pattern of the action then would be of a Herod wavering between frenzy and desperate regality being fed props by his messenger. This makes sense of the ‘staffe and an other gowne’ both as a symbolic donning of regality and as a viable piece of stage business.

Plate 2 Marginal directions for Herod’s speech in the Vintners’ pageant at Chester (British Library MS Additional 10305, f. 60. © ‘British Library Board) There is then no trouble with the provision of props, but what does Herod do with them? With the staff there is no problem. He grasps it, and when his moment of regality is over he hands it (or throws it) back to his messenger. But ‘Cast vpp’? Since he is holding a sword it must surely refer to that, and there seem to be two explanations of what he is doing. The dull one is that he is raising his arm in a rhetorical sweep; the other is that he actually throws the

sword in the air. Either is possible. If the former is correct then when he later ‘casts down’ his sword it is simply the gesture in reverse. He is then able to ‘break the sword’ that he has in his hand. After breaking the sword there are two ‘caste vp’s in quick succession, then towards the end of the pageant a further flurry of swordplay. This may be simply rhetorical flourishing, but there remains the possibility that Herod is almost juggling with the swords (there is clearly more than one), and that we are dealing with a whirling dervish rather than a frenzied orator. When writing of one of the performers for the Painters’, Salter says ‘there would be no “goynge one the styltes” at the Whitsun plays’ (p. 126). Would there also be no juggling with swords? I think we are in danger of being too so-bersided about the plays and not allowing for the possibility that people with particular entertainment skills might well be encouraged to introduce them into the plays. There is a grisly delight in sword juggling skilfully performed which might well increase the horror of Herod rather than the comedy. Whether we accept the broadly gesturing or the ‘juggling’ version of Herod the important thing to be aware of is that here we are given an extraordinary insight into the stage business of a pageant. Nowhere else do we come so close to an actual performance. It is worth noting that Balaak, though but a pale reflection of Herod, is given a similar style of acting if the stage directions are any guide: ‘Florish, Caste vp, Sworde’ (Chester, pp. 83–4). And there is one further use of this kind of direction; in the Peniarth manuscript Antichrist himself is momentarily given a hint of the same style, and it begins to seem as though there is a Chester way of representing evil ranters. Especially interesting is that this direction, ‘stafe’ (lines 401 and 502), occurs only in the Peniarth MS, the Dyers’ original. What other marginal directions did not find their way through to the five antiquarian manuscripts? The N-Town plays are, as I have already suggested, very different from York and Chester. The manuscript is a composite one, made up of an incomplete pageant series and two diverse plays, a ‘Life of Mary’ play and a two-part Passion play. Here I want to consider how the main scribe of the manuscript blends the material of pageants and plays together to give an impression of continuity, and also to look at the possibilities of disentangling the blending to reveal the earlier forms of the plays. There is, regrettably, space here for only one sample of his methods – from the ‘Life of Mary’. Chart of the lay-out of the ‘Earlier Life of Mary’ play in the N-Town manuscript f. no

MS no

Editorial Title

Banns no

Banns relationship

f. 37v

8

The Conception of Mary

–

not in Banns

f. 42

9

in the

–

not in Banns

f. 49

10

The Betrothal on Mary

8 and 9

two pageants in Banns description occasionally close

f. 58v

11

The Parliament of Heaven

10

no Parliament and

and the Annunciation

description not close

f. 67

12

Joseph’s Troubles about Mary

11

close but commonplace

f. 71

13

The Visitation

–

not in Banns

The scribe has numbered each pageant in the manuscript with a large red numeral; these are shown here in the ‘MS no.’ column. The titles given here are those used in the ‘N-Town’ Facsimile. Each pageant of the earlier pageant series is numbered in the Banns; these are shown in the ‘Banns no.’ column, and in the final column is a brief indication of the similarity

between the description of the pageant given in the Banns, and the pageant itself. Pageants 8, 9 and 13 originally existed only as part of the ‘Life of Mary’ play; pageants 10 and 11 existed in separate versions in the ‘Life of Mary’ and the pageant series; and pageant 12 existed only in the pageant series.

The earlier ‘Life of Mary’ play contains no mention of the episode of Joseph’s Trouble about Mary (in ‘N-Town’ called ‘Joseph’s Return’) according to the description which Contemplacio, the expositor or commentator of the play, gives of the play’s contents (‘NTown’, pp. 62–3, 71 and 81–2). From the Banns, on the other hand, which gave the contents of the pageant series, it is clear that there was a pageant on this subject in that series. Such a pageant appears in the manuscript (‘N-Town’, pp. 109–15) and it is reasonable to assume that it is the one referred to in the Banns, and therefore from the earlier pageant series. On the surface it appears that this pageant, ‘Joseph’s Return’, is simply presented as a separate pageant placed between two episodes of the ‘Life of Mary’ play. There are, however, one or two tell-tale signs of alteration which suggest that the main scribe made some attempt to blend it with the surrounding parts of the Mary play. First, at the end of the previous episode, ‘The Parliament of Heaven and the Annunciation’, there is a deleted stage direction: And jean Mary seyth. Secondly, in the middle of the first page of the Joseph pageant (see plate 3) are the words ‘how hast’, deleted; and thirdly, the opening of the following episode, ‘The Visitation’, seems like an abrupt breaking into the middle of a speech. None of these is in itself sufficient to suggest alteration of pageant and play to blend the two, but together they form a pattern. As there was no Joseph episode in the earlier Mary play, ‘The Parliament of Heaven’ should run straight on to ‘The Visitation’; and Pan Mary seyth should lead to a speech of Mary’s. If one removes ‘Joseph’s Return’, this is what happens, but it makes the transition very abrupt from the departure of Gabriel and no Joseph, in the ‘Parliament’, to Mary talking to Joseph in the ‘Visitation’ as though part of a continuing conversation.

Plate 3 Opening of ‘Joseph’s Return’, showing the cancellation of ‘how hast’ and layout of the first stanzas. (British Library MS Cotton Vespasian DVIII, f. 67. © ‘British Library Board) What of the deleted ‘how hast’? It occurs between Joseph’s, ‘I haue sore laboryd for þe and me’, and Mary’s, ‘Husbond ryght gracyously now come be ȝe’ (‘N-Town’, p. 109, lines 12 and 13). The same words, ‘how hast’, begin line 21, and it looks as though the scribe was originally going straight from line 12 to line 21. Is it possible that lines 13–20 are intruders here? And that they were originally part of the ‘Visitation’ or of a passage linking the

‘Parliament’ and the ‘Visitation’? If we take out the possibly intrusive passage (ll. 13–20) from ‘Joseph’s Return’ and link it with the surrounding episodes, the end of the ‘Parliament’ and the beginning of the ‘Visitation’, the section then reads: Angeli cantando istam sequenciam (‘with an angel singing this sequence’): Aue Maria gratia plena dominus tecum uirgo serena (‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, fair virgin’). And Pan Mary seyth:

Maria

Husband, right graciously now come be ȝe. It solacyth me sore, sothly, to se ȝow in syth

Joseph

Me merveylyth, wyff, surely, ȝour face I cannot se, But as þe sonne with his bemys quan he is most bryth.

Maria

Husband, it is as it plesyth oure Lord, þat grace of hym grew. Who þat evyr beholdyth me, verily, They xal be grettly steryd to vertu; For þis ȝyfte and many moo, good Lord, gramercy! Bvtt, husband, of oo thynge I pray ȝow most mekely: I haue knowing þat oure cosyn Elyzabeth with childe is, Þat it plese ȝow to go to here hastily, If owught we myth comforte here, it wore to me blys. (my punctuation)

The appearance of Joseph is still a little sudden, but not impossibly so; the abruptness of the breaking into a conversation at the beginning of the ‘Visitation’ is removed; and interestingly the second stanza (previously lines 17–20 of ‘Joseph’s Return’) fits with the rhyme scheme of the first quatrain from the ‘Visitation’. Moreover, lines 13–20 fitted badly into ‘Joseph’s Return’, being written in longer lines and with more elaborate language, but the passage now seems quite natural. It is finally worth noting that the reference to Mary’s shining face leads more naturally to an accepting Joseph, as in the ‘Visitation’, than to the suspicious Joseph of ‘Joseph’s Return’. Curiously enough the scribe could have avoided the business of blending pageant and play altogether if he had followed the normal order of events and placed Joseph’s return/trouble after and not before the Visitation, and thus after the end of the ‘Life of Mary’ play. We are not in a position to say for certain that this was the form of the earlier Mary play (that is perhaps something that we shall never know) but at least it makes sense of the surviving evidence and puts us a stage nearer to a unique dramatic form. It also provides further evidence of the methods of the main scribe in his adaptation of his material. Manuscripts are a fascinating study in themselves, and the manuscripts of the late medieval English mystery plays are no exception. It is, however for what they can tell us about the organization, the staging and the nature of that drama, as well as for providing texts, that they demand investigation.

Notes  1. W.W.Greg, ‘The Bibliographical and Textual Problems of the English Miracle Cycles’, reprinted from The Library, 3rd

series, V (London: A. Moring, 1914).  2. So far four of the major mystery play manuscripts have been reproduced in the Leeds Texts and Monographs Medieval Drama facsimiles series: two Chester ones, The Chester Mystery Cycle: A Facsimile of MS Bodley 175, with an introduction by R. M. Lumiansky and David Mills, Leeds Texts and Monographs, Medieval Drama Facsimiles I (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1973) and The Chester Mystery Cycle: A Reduced Facsimile of Huntington Library MS 2, with an introduction by R. M. Lumiansky and David Mills, Leeds Texts and Monographs, Medieval Drama Facsimiles VI (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1980). The Towneley manuscript, The Towneley Cycle: A Facsimile of Huntington MS HM I, with an introduction by A. C. Cawley and Martin Stevens, Leeds Texts and Monographs, Medieval Drama Facsimiles II (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1976), and N-Town, The N-Town Plays: A Facsimile of British Library MS Cotton Vespasian DVIII, with an introduction by Peter Meredith and Stanley J. Kahrl, Leeds Texts and Monographs, Medieval Drama Facsimiles IV (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1977). The York manuscript will be published in 1983, and the third Chester manuscript, Harley 2124, soon afterwards. All folio references in this chapter to the York Register use the new foliation contained in the forthcoming facsimile.  3. REED has so far published the records of York, Records of Early English Drama: York, ed. by Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Rogerson, 2 vols (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1979), Chester, Records of Early English Drama: Chester, ed. by Lawrence M. Clopper (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1979) and Coventry, Records of Early English Drama: Coventry, ed. by R. W. Ingram (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981). Newcastle-uponTyne is due in 1982, and the first part of Norwich in 1983. The Malone Society has published the records of Kent, Malone Society Collections Volume VII: Records of Plays and Players in Kent 1450–1642, ed. by Giles E. Dawson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), Lincolnshire, Malone Society Collections VIII: Records of Plays and Players in Lincolnshire 1300–1585, ed. by Stanley J. Kahrl (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974 for 1969). and Norfolk and Suffolk, Malone Society Collections XI: Records of Plays and Players in Norfolk and Suffolk 1330–1642, ed. by David Galloway and John Wasson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980/1).  4. An edition and full description of the manuscript is contained in A.C. Cawley ‘The Sykes Manuscript of the York’s Scriveners’ Play’, Leeds Studies in English, 7 and 8 (1952), pp. 45–80.  5. The antiquarian activity in Chester is briefly described in REED Chester, pp. xxiii–xxvii.  6. For a discussion of the manuscript see Stephen Spector, ‘The Composition and Development of an Eclectic Manuscript: Cotton Vespasian D VIII’, Leeds Studies in English, NS 9 (1977), 62–83.  7. See Peter Meredith, ‘A reconsideration of Some Textual Problems in the N-Town Manuscript (BL MS Cotton Vespasian D VIII)’, Leeds Studies in English, NS 9 (1977), 35–50.  8. For further information about John Clerke and his annotations in the York Register see Peter Meredith, ‘John Clerke’s Hand in the York Register’, Leeds Studies in English, NS 12 (1981), 245–71.  9. The reference to Isaac is discussed in Meredith, ‘John Clerke’s Hand’, p. 269. 10. For further discussion of the stage directions in the Chester manuscripts see David Mills, ‘The Stage Directions in the Manuscripts of the Chester Mystery Cycle’ Medieval English Theatre 3:1 (1981), 45–51. 11. I have here used the forms of the directions from BL MS Additional 10305.

6

THE TOWNELEY PAGEANTS Almost certainly the most anthologized of all medieval English dramatic pieces is the socalled Second Shepherds’ Play, containing the double story of Mak the sheep-stealer and the visit of the shepherds to Bethlehem. Through this public exposure, not only the play but the ‘name’ of the author also has become familiar – ‘The Wakefield Master’. Not everyone who knows of the Second Shepherds’, however, will automatically connect it with the thirty-two short plays (better called ‘pageants’) that together make up the Towneley manuscript, or realize that it is not so much the ‘second’ as an alternative Shepherds’ pageant: Alia eorundem (Another of the same). Even knowing the relationship between the pageant, the Wakefield Master and the Towneley manuscript does not, however, take you very far; why, for example Wakefield Master, but Towneley Mysteries or Plays – the titles of the earliest editions?1 ‘Wakefield’ refers to the industrial town in what used to be known as the West Riding of Yorkshire. In the Middle Ages, Wakefield was the centre of the extensive manor of Wakefield, and it later became the county town of the West Riding.2 Since early in this century it has been claimed, with varying degrees of certainty, as the original home and place of performance of this series of pageants.3 As the York play was to York, so, it was said, the Towneley pageants were to Wakefield. The name ‘Wakefield Master’ was hence created as a convenient reference name for the anonymous author of a strikingly original group of pageants within the collection.4 His pageants contain a number of references to places in and around Wakefield and it is not, therefore, an inappropriate name. He is not, however, certainly known to be a Wakefield man. The name ‘Towneley’ comes from the family of Towneley in whose possession the manuscript of the pageants was when it came to public notice in the early nineteenth century.5 The name was established by the publication of The Towneley Mysteries in 1836 by the Surtees Society – the first of the complete English medieval ‘cycles’ of pageants to be published. The family were Catholics and their main seat was Towneley Hall near Burnley in Lancashire. The manuscript formed part of the library of Christopher Towneley, a seven-teenth-century antiquary and collector, but how it came into his possession or where it came from is not known. As a Catholic, Towneley may have picked up and preserved the manuscript as a sample of a time when his faith was the acknowledged faith of the whole of the country.6 The first problem with the cycle is, then, one of names and origins. A second, in some ways related, problem is the kind of performance that is appropriate to it; related because knowledge of the place of performance can provide knowledge of the type of staging. With no town records to serve as a context for the pageants we are thrown back on the manuscript and

the text itself. Unfortunately, unlike those in N-Town, the stage directions do not give ‘staging’ information. That is, they do not talk in terms of scaffolds or ‘place’ or curtains unclosing but in the narrative terms of the story. The staging information in the stage directions tends to be details of movement, gesture and action, not broad indications of stages and sets. Furthermore, the association with Wakefield, even if it were certain, would provide no more information about the physical theatrical setting of the pageants, since the burgess court records refer only to text and responsibility. A more basic problem even than those of provenance and staging is the nature of this collection of pageants. Comparison with York again reveals how our certainty about the York cycle derives from a combination of text with civic information. The relationship of pageants to crafts, the responsibilities for performance, the type of performance, the date and to some extent the development of the cycle are all matters of certainty or relative certainty because of this combined evidence.7 Because of the absence of related records for Towneley, the smallest details of the writing, layout and make-up of the manuscript, and its later treatment, become of crucial importance in trying to understand it.8

The manuscript The Towneley pageants are contained in a single manuscript, now in the Huntington Library in California (MS HM 1). It is a large folio volume of parchment leaves made elaborate partly by the use of a fine series of decorative initials and partly, though to a more limited extent, by the use of rubrication. It is written throughout in the hand of a single scribe, with the possible exception of the final pageant, no. 32, Suspencio Jude (the Hanging of Judas), the hand of which is, however, of much the same date.9 The thirty-two pageants in the manuscript tell the history of mankind from the Creation to the Last Judgement. Four of them are out of sequence. The order of Pharao and Processus Prophetarum (the Prophets) has been reversed, and Lazarus and Suspencio Jude occur at the end of the manuscript instead of in their correct positions, between Johannes Baptista and Conspiracio (the Conspiracy) and between Coliphizacio (the Buffeting) and Flagellacio (the Scourging) respectively.10 There are a number of gaps in the manuscript where leaves have been lost or removed: (i) between pageants l and 2, the Creation and Mactacio Abel (the Killing of Abel); (ii) between pageants 4 and 5, Abraham and Isaac; (iii) between pageants 17 and 18, Purificacio Marie (the Purification of Mary) and Pagina Doctorum (the pageant of the Doctors); and (iv) between pageants 29 and 30, Ascencio Domini (the Ascension of the Lord) and Judicium (the Judgement). As a consequence seven pageants are incomplete (all those mentioned here except Mactacio Abel), some more seriously than others. The Creation lacks the temptation and fall of man; Abraham lacks only the conclusion after the reprieve of Isaac; Isaac lacks a beginning – a serious loss since the pageant is unique in English drama; half of the Purification is missing (the unusual beginning has fortunately survived) and the Doctors lacks an opening – perhaps containing further searching for prophecies of Christ’s birth, or perhaps the discovery by Mary and Joseph of Jesus’ absence, as in the corresponding York pageant. Most serious is the loss of the twelve leaves towards the end of the manuscript. At first sight, it affects only the very end of the Ascension, but it is impossible to tell how much is

missing before and at the beginning of the Judgement.11 The loss could represent more than a thousand lines of text; in other words, besides a missing beginning of the Judgement, there could have been two lengthy, or three substantial, or even four ordinary length pageants. In this position all the extant cycles have a Pentecost pageant (missing, however, in the Beverley list); York has as well a death of Mary sequence – Death, Burial (no longer extant), Assumption and Coronation; Chester has two Antichrist pageants and once had an Assumption. The extant York pageants, from Pentecost to Coronation, number 890 lines, so the missing leaves in Towneley could have contained a complete sequence of later life of Mary pageants up to her coronation, or something more unusual on the lines of Chester (a little over 1,000 lines). These calculations cannot be precise because the layout of the lines on the page crucially affects the number that can be contained, and the layout cannot be known. It is, however, important to realize how drastically the missing leaves could affect our view of the series of pageants as a whole. The losses, except for the twelve leaves, are all of central leaves in a quire – one of the commonest positions for accidental loss to take place, or for leaves to be removed when the removal has nothing to do with the content. The loss of the twelve leaves, however, looks like deliberate tearing-out, since it affects the middle and end of one quire and the beginning and middle of the next. If the lost leaves did contain Marian material it may well be that they were removed as part of the Reformation reaction against the veneration of the Virgin Mary, which also accounts for the loss of the Chester Assumption and for the non-playing of the York Mary pageants. There are a very few other signs in the manuscript of Reformation activity. In common with church service books the word ‘pope’ has been erased from Magnus Herodes (Herod; fol. 57v), though the reference is hardly flattering, and ‘lady’ has been altered to ‘lord’ once in the second of the Shepherds pageants, though not with much confidence (fol. 44). Further changes are the alteration of a line in John the Baptist, which clearly once contained a reference to the Mass (the rhymes are on -es and no doubt the last word of the altered line was mes; fol. 67), and the deletion of a passage in the same pageant relating to the sacraments and marked ‘correctyd and not playd’ in the margin (fol. 66). A further deletion occurs at the end of Jesus’ speech in the Resurrection – a stanza on transubstantiation (fol. 104v). One other possible loss should perhaps be mentioned. It is normal for a planned manuscript to begin either with a quire marked a or with one marked with a cross (as in alphabets of the time). The Towneley manuscript appears to begin with a b quire.12 Since the manuscript consists of quires of eight leaves it is possible that eight or even sixteen further leaves are missing before the Creation pageant. There is no way of knowing what was contained in these leaves, if they existed. If they contained material directly related to the pageants, then Martin Stevens’ suggestion that it was a set of banns or a proclamation for the pageants (as with NTown and Chester) is possible, though it is unlikely that they would have required that much space.13 It is just possible that a blank quire was placed at the beginning (not necessarily consisting of eight leaves) for expected additional introductory material, and that it was never used and so detached. It is important to note this absence because of its possible connection with staging, but it is clearly impossible to estimate its significance. There are any number of questions for which answers might be sought in the manuscript but two, relating to date and to the nature and function of the manuscript, stand out. The manuscript used to be thought of as of the mid-fifteenth century, but the facsimile, published in 1977, put it

either very late in the fifteenth century or, perhaps more likely, early in the sixteenth. The most recent palaeographical study, by Malcolm Parkes and Alexandra Johnston, has now suggested a mid-sixteenth century date.14 The date of the manuscript does not, of course, provide a date for the compilation of the series of pageants, but a late date for the one does allow a late date for the other. It is important also to remember that this date is not the date of individual pageants. The compilation is somewhat complex but to take it at its simplest level there are three elements: pageants known to be from York and hence, in origin, certainly early fifteenthcentury, Wakefield Master pageants, probably fifteenth century, and pageants from another source or sources whose date is unknown. Setting aside dubious cases, the Wakefield Master has added to or revised two of the York pageants, and also added (though only once substantially) to four pageants from other sources. No-one has obviously revised or tampered with any of the complete Wakefield Master pageants and it would therefore seem a not unreasonable conclusion that his was the last revision of the cycle. ‘Revision’ sounds like a formal review of the whole work, but it would be wrong to think of it in those terms. These are plays, not acts of parliament, and no doubt the reviser added, altered and deleted only where he was specifically directed or where he saw an opportunity to improve. Certainly the Wakefield Master seems to have indulged his natural skill in extending the range of humour and grandeur of the ranting tyrants. The period when the series of pageants was first brought together may well, therefore, be the period when the Wakefield Master was making his alterations. Unfortunately that does not provide a firm date. The most helpful internal evidence comes from the satirical costume references in the additions to the Judgement, but even that is open to question. Long hair and padded shoulders for men and low collars for women do suggest the late fifteenth century, but other references could as easily be earlier or not suggest any particular date. Hoods, which are referred to, apparently went out of fashion in the midcentury; horned headdresses are usually taken to refer to the extravagances of the early part of the century, but could also refer to later fashions. The costume references cannot provide a firm date, but they certainly suggest a period or periods within the fifteenth century.15 If the manuscript is indeed of the mid-sixteenth century then the reason for the re copying of an oldfashioned series of pageants may well have been a political one; one of the many attempts to re-establish the Catholic faith in Mary’s reign by re-engaging the hearts and minds of ordinary people through an appeal to their own past. Or it may simply have been a town re-establishing a well-loved activity. To turn to the second question: what kind of a manuscript is this and what was its function? The obvious answer is that it was a register or an official copy of a series of pageants, but this is difficult to prove. Only one register exists, that for the York Play, so the evidence for the nature of a register derives from one example only. The York Register is a text of all the pageants (except for a number never entered but for which, by and large, spaces were left). By its very existence it demonstrates a civic concern with the play, and this is borne out by the marginal annotations, which show the city authorities attempting to keep an eye on the extent to which the text as performed was differing from the text as recorded in the Register. Further civic concern is with the responsibility of individual crafts for specific pageants. Craft names, not titles, are used as running headings in the manuscript.16 Even a glance at the Towneley manuscript will reveal how little these features are present.

There are no running headings. The pageants are titled and the only craft attributions are later additions at the beginnings of four pageants, with one craft (‘Lysters pagon’) repeated, vertically, in the margin of the last (unfinished) pageant, Judas. It would certainly not serve as a check on craft responsibility. The annotations are few. As already mentioned, there are two deletions which are almost certainly a result of Protestant censorship (fols 66 and 104v). There is a small scattering of notes written vertically and horizontally in the margin (e.g. fol. 31, ‘note this very …’; fol. 6r, ‘no materes ben as sade’) and a few alterations to the text. These include the addition of a missing line (fol. 81v), the correction (again for Protestant purposes) of the line relating to the Mass (fol. 67), and minor alterations of words (‘lady’ to ‘lord’, fol. 44; ‘a pope’ erased, fol. 57v). In no way are these comparable to the York annotations.17 The Towneley manuscript looks like a register primarily because it contains what looks like a cycle of pageants. There are gaps (no Trial before Herod, for example) and there are pageants out of order (Pharaoh, Lazarus and Judas) but it remains a cycle in appearance. What the annotations do, it seems to me, is to suggest that this was a manuscript related (however distantly) to performance. This makes sense of noting that a passage was ‘not playd’. That there are few annotations does not matter. We do not know whether the York Register was typical, or even whether there is such a thing as a typical register. And it is important to keep in mind that the annotations in York had around a hundred years in which to accumulate. If the late dating of Towneley is right then it had around twenty years at the most. Furthermore, if Towneley was from Wakefield the social set-up was of quite a different kind: a small town, the centre of a large manor and under the control of the lord of the manor and his bailiff, not, like York, a largely autonomous city. There is also no real reason why the craft names should appear in the same way in both play manuscripts. The craft guilds in York were directly responsible to the city authorities. We do not know what the relationship of the crafts to the Towneley pageants was. If we again use the Wakefield records, then it is clear that crafts were involved there and that they were subject to fines by the burgess court; and the records are of 1556. Whether related to Wakefield or not, the craft names look like the record of a concern with performance.

Editions, translations, concordances and performances The Towneley pageants have been fully edited three times: once by Joseph Hunter and James Gordon for the Surtees Society (the edition already referred to) in 1836, then, just over sixty years later, in what was the standard text for nearly a hundred years, by George England and A W. Pollard for the Early English Text Society edition of 1897. The latter is a very considerable improvement on the former in accuracy and in its presentation of the text, but there are still confusions in stanza forms and still some errors, one or two lines missing, a very inadequate glossary and, for so complex a text, a sad absence of annotation. In 1994 the long-awaited second EETS edition appeared, edited by Martin Stevens and A.C. Cawley.18 Cawley had already produced an excellently accurate text of the six accepted Wakefield Master pageants, with full introduction, notes and glossary.19 This was the only part of the series that had so far been fully annotated and accurately edited, though fifteen of the pageants, nearly half of the sequence, are included in David Bevington’s useful and reliable anthology, Medieval Drama.20

With the appearance of the new EETS edition an annotated text of all the pageants now exists.21 Cawley and Stevens in 1976 brought out a facsimile of the manuscript in the Leeds Medieval Drama facsimile series, which, besides providing an excellent description of the manuscript which supersedes Louis Wann’s article, re-examined the date of the manuscript and provided a new dating of the end of the fifteenth century or the beginning of the sixteenth.22 There are also useful concordances to the six Wakefield Master pageants and to the complete series.23 Martial Rose’s pioneering translation was valuable in making the pageants available to a wider audience and in putting them back on the stage, but it is not always an accurate guide to the detailed meaning of the text.24 Since the performances at Bretton Hall, near Wakefield, in 1958 (part of the series) and 1967 (in full), and at the Mermaid Theatre in London in 1961 (part), there have been a number of productions, using a variety of staging layouts, of parts or of the whole: at Wakefield in 1975 (on pageant wagons, part) and 1980 (processionally at three fixed stages, complete), and in Toronto in 1985 (place-and-scaffold, complete).25 Though there have been dissenting voices, the Wakefield Master’s work has usually been highly praised.26 His skills are readily appreciated in the study, and criticism, often at a loss as to how to deal with the plays, has tended to concentrate on his work to the exclusion of the rest of the collection. Two concurrent lines of investigation, apparently very diverse, have brought renewed attention to the series as a whole. One is the study of manuscripts. There the concern with understanding the nature of the manuscript, and in particular of explicating the relationship between play and performance, has brought attention back to the interrelationship of all pageants and, surprisingly, encouraged an interest in whole ‘cycles’ in performance. The other is the renewed interest in the plays as theatrical experiences: day-long, popular, open-air (often street), celebratory performances, not extracts made to fit into our modern prosceniumarch theatres or single pageants forced into the one-act play format. This welcome revival of interest in cycles – as opposed to individual pageants – as theatrical pieces is a necessary step before criticism looks, as it has still not done properly, at the Towneley pageants as a whole.27

Stage directions Original stage directions can be of great value in providing evidence for recreating the staging of the pageants. As has already been said, there is none here that provides evidence for the overall staging, but many do provide evocative detail. The manuscript contains sixty-eight stage directions in all, some integrated into the layout of the text, some in the margin. They are spread unevenly through the pageants. Twelve have no directions at all, and those that do exist vary considerably in the kind and amount of evidence that they give. Most potentially striking is the single direction in John the Baptist: Hic tradat ei agnwm dei (Here let him give to him the Lamb of God). The pageant combines Christ’s baptism with Christian baptism, and the handing over of the Lamb of God to John adds another layer to the meaning. John is the historical prophet and the presenter of baptism as a sacrament; with the handing over of his traditional emblem he becomes also the familiar saint of the contemporary Church. He is not, like the shepherds, a biblical character becoming a contemporary human, but a biblical character becoming a contemporary icon. Unfortunately the pageant is so lacking in dramatic

power that the further possibilities that the stage direction suggests remain merely potential and are never realized. The flat and repetitive verse which accompanies the action, with its inappropriate promise ‘It may were the [protect thee] from aduersyte’, kills the imaginative possibilities. Particularly valuable are the stage directions dealing with music not otherwise referred to in the text, even though there are only five of these. The singing of the angels in the Purification (after line 132): Angeli cantant: ‘Simeon iustus et timoratus’, adds an element of liturgical splendour to the marvel of the self-ringing bells (after line 102). The singing of the first verse of the Salvator Mundi by the souls in hell ironically explains the nature of the ‘din’ which irritates the devils in the Extraccio animarum (Deliverance of the souls, after line 4) and the singing of the angels at Christ’s Resurrection enhances the wonder of the moment of his appearance (Resurrection, after line 229). Most unusual of the musical occurrences are the two suggested by the stage directions in Thomas of India (after lines 104 and 120). Each time Christ appears he sings Pax vobis, etc., and passes among the assembled disciples, like the spirit which they at first take him to be. Stage directions also establish the use of horses by the three kings in the Oblacio Magorum (Offering of the Magi, after line 504), and Centurio in the Resurrection (after line 44). Only one special effect is mentioned, the common one of the disappearing of Christ at the meal in Emmaus (after line 296). The oddest stage direction is that in Jacob (after line 58). Between lines 58 and 59 several years have passed covering Jacob’s sojourn with his mother’s kinsman Laban, when he has married Rachel, had several children and amassed considerable possessions. All this is covered by the direction: Hic egrediatur Jacob de Aran in terram natiuitatis sue (Here let Jacob leave Haran for the land of his birth). He arrives a single man and leaves with wives, servants, children, flocks and possessions (and pursued by his uncle Laban), yet nothing is said of this. The immediately following stage direction (after line 84) is puzzling in a different way: Hic scrutetur superlectile (Here let him examine his belongings). It seems to be no more than a response to Leah’s ‘Go and see [whether our things have passed the Jordan]’. Why does it deserve a stage direction? Merely to set him apart to struggle with the angel? Oddly the words are reminiscent of an earlier part of the biblical story when Jacob angrily asks Laban why scrutatus es omnem supellectilem meam? (have you searched all my household stuff?). The word supellectilem/superlectile is not so uncommon as to make a connection certain,28 but it is possible that the biblical account has become woven into the stage direction. The ‘stage direction’ in Lazarus: Et lacrimatus est Jesus (after line 88) is, of course, an exact quotation from John 11.35. A further long direction describes the meeting of Jacob and Esau, here more satisfactorily translating into dramatic terms what in Genesis is a long and complicated series of devices that Jacob employs to turn away his brother’s anger (Jacob, after line 22). There is much of interest here for performance, but, as has been said already, there is nothing in the stage directions that gives a hint as to the type of staging involved.

Wakefield and towneley Because of the amount of speculation that there has been about the provenance of the Towneley pageants it is important at the outset to lay out the documentary evidence from Wakefield. It

takes three forms: the Wakefield burgess court rolls, a letter from the ecclesiastical commission in York and the manuscript itself. In 1988, the burgess court material was represented by A.C. Cawley, Jean Forrester and John Goodchild because the rediscovery of the originals of the lost rolls demonstrated beyond doubt that part of the evidence presented by J.W. Walker in 1929 did not exist.29 There are two relevant rolls, for 1556 and 1559,30 which contain between them the following items: 1556. Item a payne is sett that everye crafte and occupacion doo bringe furthe theire pagyauntes of Corpus Christi daye as hathe bene heretofore vsed, and to gyve furthe the speches of the same in Easter holydayes in payne of everye one not so doynge to forfett xls. 1559. Item a payn ys layd þat Gyles Dolleffe shall brenge in or cavsse to be broght þe regenall of Corpvs Christy play before þis and Wytsonday in pane … Item a payn is layde þat þe mesteres of þe Corpvs Christi playe shall come and mayke thayre acovntes before þe gentyllmen and burgessvs of þe town before thys and May day next in payn of euere on not so doynge xxs. (For ‘before’ in each of the latter entries read, presumably, ‘between’)

The 1556 roll is headed: ‘Paynes layde by the burges enqueste at the Courte kepte at Wakefelde / nexte after the Feaste of Saynte Michaell tharchaungell in / thirde and fourte yeares of the Reignes of oure Soueraigne Lorde / and Ladye kinge Philyppe and quene Marye 1556’. Since this shows that the court was held after Michaelmas (29 September) the threatened penalty must relate to an anticipated performance in 1557. The entry establishes a number of things: the involvement of the crafts, the existence of pageants (without specifying the meaning of the word), the relationship with Corpus Christi day (leaving it slightly uncertain whether it is the pageants performed on that day or, less likely, a generic title), the existence of performances before 1557, the presence of speeches and the need to distribute them during the Easter holiday. If ‘to gyve furthe speches’ is to hand out parts, as seems likely, then an ample two months was allowed for learning and rehearsal.31 The first 1559 entry establishes the existence of a text. We cannot be certain that it is a complete copy of the play rather than a craft original of a single pageant, but the words used seem to imply the former. The second entry apparently shows that the money for the play was collected by the masters of the Corpus Christi play – whether collected from crafts, wards of the town or parishes is not specified.32 Whoever the masters were they were responsible to the burgess court, not to any individual group. If the period of the 1559 roll is broadly speaking the same as that of the 1556 one, then the entries refer to 1560 – accounts to be made before 1 May, ‘regenall’ to be brought back before 2 June (Whitsunday). This makes sense if the ‘regenall’ was the town copy of the complete play and a projected performance was in Whitsun week. The first (1556) reference is to a performance in the reign of Philip and Mary, possibly part of a revival or an affirmation of an old custom, or possibly the inauguration of a new. The second (1559) reference is to a projected performance in the second year of the reign of Elizabeth – a survival. The instructions from the ecclesiastical commission in York sent on or around 27 May 1576 to the bailiff (the lord of the manor’s official), the burgesses and other inhabitants, presumably refers to a projected performance two weeks or so later (in that year Whitsunday was 10 June, Corpus Christi, 21 June).33 The commissioners understood that it was intended that ‘in the towne of Wakefeld shalbe plaied this yere in Whitsonweke next or theraboutes a plaie commonlie called Corpus Christi plaie which hath bene heretofore vsed there’. The letter specifies the abuses that it seeks to prevent, but these specifications seem rather more like

blanket prohibitions: no representation of any of the Persons of the Trinity, or the administration of either sacrament (in the Reformed Church there were only two, baptism and Lord’s Supper or Communion), nothing encouraging superstition or idolatry, or contrary to divine or civil law. It is impossible to know how much the authorities in York knew about the play and hence to what extent these prohibitions were specific. There does not seem to be any direct connection between these instructions and the Towneley manuscript. Certainly there is now no institution of the Eucharist (‘administration’ of the sacrament of the ‘Lord’s Supper’) in the Last Supper section of the Towneley Conspiracy, but it seems there never was. The removal of one of the references to the seven sacraments in John the Baptist, marked ‘correctyd and not playd’, clearly refers to an occasion when these lines were not performed but presumably the pageant (and the play) was. It is more likely that the letter was an attempt deliberately couched in very broad terms to get rid of the play altogether. The instructions from the commissioners are therefore important witness to continuing attempts to perform the play at Wakefield in Whitsun week or thereabouts as late as 1576, but they give little other information. The manuscript provides three kinds of evidence.34 The link with Wakefield is established by the appearance of the name of the town, ‘Wakefeld’, at the head of the Creation (fol. 1) and after the title of Noah cum filijs suis (Noah with his sons, fol. 7v). Though there is therefore no doubt about the existence of a connection, the appearance of the name twice, instead of strengthening the connection, weakens it, since the name at the beginning of the whole manuscript might seem to establish a relationship between the town and the whole play, while the name at the beginning of the Noah makes it seem as though it relates only to individual pageants.35 There are next the local references within the text. The most specific of these is to ‘Gudeboure at the quarell hede’ (Killing of Abel, line 369) referring to a lane, Goodybower, to the north of the parish church in Wakefield (where Brook Street now is). There are three references to the Wakefield locality in the Shepherds pageants. The most certain is to ‘Horbery shrogys’ (II, line 657), alluding to the rough ground near Horbery, a town to the south-west of Wakefield. There are also ‘ayll of Hely’ (I, line 352), perhaps referring to Healey, a hamlet beyond Horbury, and ‘the crokyd thorne’ (II, line 581), reputed to be a reference to the Shepherds’ thorn that apparently once stood in Mapplewell, though perhaps more likely a reference to one of the many ‘thorn’ place names in the immediate district. There is finally the reference to ‘Watlyn strete’ in the Judgement (line 186). This is a name given to a number of stretches of old Roman road, one not too far distant from Wakefield. It is also, however, a name for the constellation of the Milky Way, to which it could easily refer in the pageant. All five of these local, or possibly local, references occur in the work of the Wakefield Master, so that once again what appears to be a link between Wakefield and the whole play becomes a rather more specific connection with a portion of it. Nevertheless a connection of some sort with Wakefield is certain. There are finally in the manuscript the six craft names added in casual six-teenth-century hands to five of the pageants: Creation, ‘Barker’ (fol. l); Killing of Abel, ‘Glover pag …’ (fol. 3); Pharaoh, ‘Litsters pagonn’ and ‘lyster play’ (fol. 21); Peregrini (the Pilgrims) ‘fysher pagent’ (fol. 107v); Hanging of Judas, ‘Lysters pagon’ (fol. 131v). These are not in themselves references to Wakefield but they do establish a similarity in that some (and by implication all)

of the pageants were performed by crafts during the sixteenth century. They also establish, as do the corrections and cancellations, that this is a manuscript connected with the organization of performance, not simply a reading copy for someone’s library. It is not really possible to take it very much further. Arguments have been levelled against Wakefield as the home of Towneley on the grounds that it was too small to have produced so complex a play. Many of these objections were made, however, when the play was thought of as of the early fifteenth century.36 If the form in which the pageants have survived is of the sixteenth, very possibly of the middle of the sixteenth century, then the chances are somewhat greater that it could have been performed in Wakefield. There is not really enough evidence either way as yet, especially in view of the uncertainty about the mode and organization of the performance. Wakefield was the organizational centre of a very large manor – from the later fifteenth century, a royal manor. Towns, villages and hamlets in nearby areas were to an extent dependent upon it and it is possible that they could have been drawn as individual entities or as parts of larger groups into a centrally organized performance.37 So far no evidence for such an organization has been provided for the West Riding of Yorkshire. Nor is there any evidence for a site or sites for the performance in or outside Wakefield.

Literary Relationships The York Play As has been well known since the first edition of The York Plays by Lucy Toulmin Smith,38 five of the Towneley pageants are closely related to the parallel pageants in York, or as Miss Toulmin Smith put it: The Towneley plays are not only written in the same dialect, but five of them are the same as five of the York plays, with certain passages cut out or modified. (p. xlvi)

Since that straightforward (but incidentally misleading) statement was made, the battle lines have been drawn up between the various theories intended to account for the situation. Broadly speaking they are these: Towneley borrowed from York, or vice versa, or both derived from a common original cycle.39 Much valuable work came out of the battle and now, some fifty years after the final salvoes were fired, it seems to be worth looking again at the relationship, drawing on what has been said already and adding some further suggestions. The starting-point is inevitably the variation between the two versions of the five pageants: Pharaoh, the Doctors, the Deliverance, the Resurrection and the Judgement. It is clear from a quick glance at the underprinted texts in the Toulmin Smith edition of York that the word ‘same’ has been used rather loosely. Pharaoh moves almost step by step with the York pageant and could indeed (allowing for minor variations) be said to be the same. The Towneley Doctors is also in a way ‘the same’, but here there are two major alterations: a totally different opening for the doctors themselves and an expansion of Christ’s explanation of the Ten Commandments. The Towneley Judgement is far from being the same as York. The two have twenty-three stanzas in common (give or take a few lines) out of a total in Towneley of seventy-seven and in York of forty-eight stanzas. In other words just under half of the York pageant is incorporated

into Towneley, and, despite the fact that the core of the episode is represented by the York sections, these are overwhelmed and transformed by the new Towneley material. There is a difficulty in making this comparison because the opening of Towneley is missing, but even if all the eighteen York stanzas that precede the opening of the Towneley pageant were added (and this would make for a very overweight pageant) it would still only make up a little over half of the present pageant. The ‘sameness’ of the Judgement pageants is clearly very different from the ‘sameness’ of Pharaoh or the Doctors. The other two pageants are different again, but they are in some ways similar to each other. Each has a new introductory section, a speech for Jesus in the Deliverance and one for Pilate in the Resurrection, and then both continue alongside York but very freely altering, adding, omitting and reordering. I have concerned myself first with the five major borrowings from York because, quite rightly, they have tended to dominate the discussion of the relationship between the two cycles. There is a danger, however, that concentrating on the five tends to conceal the extent of York influence elsewhere in Towneley, and also to limit the discussion of possible influence. There are two other pageants that may well be from York: the so-called Processus Talentorum (probably a mistake for Talorum ‘of the Dice’ and hereafter called the Dicing) and the fragmentary Suspencio Jude (the Hanging of Judas). The evidence for the first being in origin a York pageant (or, to be precise, lines 180–377 of it) is reasonably strong, and no satisfactory argument has been brought against this attribution.40 Unlike the five others, however, its York counterpart dropped out of production in around 1422–3 and it is not therefore recorded in the York manuscript.41 For Judas there are two pieces of evidence. The first is the name, which is the same as that given to the York pageant in the so-called second list of pageants in the York A/Y Memorandum Book.42 Like the Dicing it was no longer in performance after 1422–3 and there is perhaps a greater likelihood therefore of the old name being retained.43 Secondly, it is written in one of the common York stanza forms (six-line, rhyming aaabab), used also in the Towneley/York Resurrection. The Dicing is to my mind almost certainly a York pageant in origin; Judas seems likely to be, but there is no final proof. Besides these two possible York pageants there are a number of intrusions of York material into other Towneley pageants. The Flagellacio (Scourging) contains ninety-eight lines certainly from York, and a further fifty that are almost certainly so, out of the pageant’s 572 lines. The Towneley Offering of the Magi contains only one York stanza, but the rest of the pageant is consistently in the six-line stanza of many York pageants, including the Resurrection. This is not in itself sufficient evidence to show that the Offering is an earlier version of the York pageant of the Magi, but the appearance of a single (in-significant) stanza from the current York pageant argues a proximity of some sort between the two pageants. Besides these borrowings there are a number of reminiscences of the York Joseph’s Trouble about Mary in the Towneley Annunciation, and perhaps also worth mentioning is the obvious joining together of two or more pageants to make the present Towneley Conspiracio (Conspiracy). The pageant is oddly called Conspiracio at the beginning and Capcio (Taking) at the end. These hints of multiple breaks is a reminder that in the second list from York this section of the play was originally four separate pageants, the final one Capcio Christi orantis in monte (the Taking of Christ Praying on the Mountain).44 The York Register, to which reference has been made more than once in what has already

been said, is a neat official copy made from craft originals of texts of the pageants of the Corpus Christi play in, as far as we know, the period 1463–77.45 It clearly attempts to present a clean and accurate text. I have up to now used this text as a basis for investigating what ‘Towneley’ did to ‘York’, since there is no other text to use. It is, however, almost certain that the Register was not the exemplar for the Towneley versions of the York pageants and there is therefore a certain speciousness in talking about changes made to it as though they were the result of one person or several people in a single place (represented by Towneley) working on a known text (the Register). We do not know whether the versions of the York pageants borrowed by Towneley had already been revised to a considerable extent in York. There are one or two hints, however, that that was not so. If the borrowings were made before the Register was compiled in 1463–77, then the texts used are likely to have been craft copies of the text. But since the Register itself was compiled from craft copies, both texts, Towneley and York, are making use of similar originals, and so using the Register text to give an indication of Towneley’s exemplar is not totally wrong-headed. On the other hand, if the Towneley borrowings were made after the compilation of the Register, but still from craft copies, we might expect to find some indication of any extensive changes in those copies in the annotations of some decades of Common Clerks or their deputies noting in the margins of the Register alterations in what they saw and heard at the first station of the play. For the five pageants under consideration there are no such annotations. It is still important to remember, however, that we know very little about the circumstances of the borrowings. We do not know under whose auspices the changes in the texts were made, or who made them, or for what purpose. We do not know whether they were made in isolation or in connection with each other. We do not know whether the borrowings were made to fill in gaps or to replace unsatisfactory pageants in an already existing cycle, or whether they were the nucleus around which a new cycle was to be created. If all the suppositions about the origins of the pageants were facts, then York would have provided this new cycle, in part or in whole, with ten pageants, six still being performed in York – Pharaoh, the Doctors, the Scourging, the Deliverance, the Resurrection and the Judgement – and four disused pageants – Offering of the Magi, Conspiracy and Taking of Christ, the Dicing and the Hanging of Judas.46

Non-dramatic literature Examination of the way in which Towneley treats York is important for the light it can throw on the possible development of the cycle, but it is also important as an indication of the ways in which writers alter, adapt and develop their sources. The major vernacular source of Towneley is undoubtedly York, but there are also some minor vernacular pieces absorbed into the pageants. The most extensive of these is the lyric contained in the speech of the risen Christ in the Resurrection (lines 248–338).47 The interpolation (measured by material added to the York pageant) consists of two additional stanzas for the soldiers set to guard the tomb (Towneley, lines 218–29), three stanzas for Jesus introducing the lyric (lines 230–47) and two stanzas rounding off the lyric (lines 339–50). All seven of the stanzas outside the lyric are in

the York six-line stanza, in one of them the rhyme scheme momentarily failing (Towneley, line 228). The main interpolation here is, however, the thirteen stanzas apparently extracted from the lyric lament of Christ on the cross, ‘Herkyne wordis wonder gud’.48 The lyric exists in three manuscripts, none of which is the direct source of Towneley, and in a printed carol of 1550. The lyric and carol versions are all addresses of Christ on the cross to man and one might expect, therefore, some adjustment to fit the meaning to the risen Christ of the pageant. The playwright, however, though he has left out a number of stanzas, has not made that adjustment and the effect of the lyric is, at the joyous moment of the Resurrection, to remind the audience of Christ’s sufferings, and the bleeding figure before them acts, as the bleeding figure of Piers does in Passus XIX of Piers Plowman, as a visual transition from the crucified body of Christ to the sacrament: I grauntt theym here a measse

meal

In brede, myn awne body. (Resurrection, lines 343–4)

The expansion of the child Christ’s exposition of the Ten Commandments in the Doctors makes similar use of a series of verses. These, however, are found elsewhere, not as a single lyric, but scattered in the Speculum Christiani, a pastoral handbook of the fourteenth century.49 As identifiable lyrics with a separate existence outside the play these two additions exemplify the use made of lyric poetry by the Towneley writer, especially, as here, in the revision and expansion of earlier work. Such use raises the question of whether lyrics underlie other apparently separable sections of the Towneley text. The most obvious example is the extended speech of Lazarus at the end of that pageant (lines 111–217). The speech is marked by a change to a more complex stanza form and to a heightened language, and, like the unexpected appearance of the crucified Christ in the Resurrection pageant, it is accompanied by an unorthodox presentation of a traditional scene. The figure of Lazarus is transformed into a memento mori or an image from a transi tomb, the lines he speaks demanding that the audience see a decaying body, a typical medieval figure of the dead, rather than the restored and purified body of the risen Lazarus.50 The speech falls into two parts, one having much in common with many medieval lyrics on Death (lines 111–93), the other with repentance lyrics and carols (lines 194–217). The use of lyrics in the drama testifies to the common awareness amongst medieval writers of all kinds of the availability of literary and didactic texts for their own use. Re-use and adaptation of this kind are a commonplace of medieval literary work. The Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament that lies behind the York/Towneley Pharaoh is one kind – a formative, structural use of another poem;51 the assimilation of a lyric like ‘Herkyne wordis wonder gud’, for a specific limited purpose in the Resurrection, is another. Between these two and beyond them are all kinds of further exploitations of other literary work. The Northern Passion has frequently been cited as an important formative influence on the plays. Though the breadth of influence has sometimes been overplayed, there are undoubted connections between the Northern Passion and the drama.52 One pageant in Towneley, the Last Supper section of the Conspiracy, certainly is affected by the Passion but in a very limited way. The influence appears most clearly at lines 344–53, where occasionally whole lines and

frequently phrases and words are identical with one or other of the Northern Passion texts. This does not seem to be a sign of an overall influence, or even of a deliberate use of a specific section for a definite purpose, but rather a familiarity with the poem spilling over verbally into the pageant. Or possibly a more immediate borrowing from the Northern Passion in an earlier version of the pageant is still showing through in the present Towneley text.

The ‘Wakefield Master’ A.C. Cawley in his edition of The Wakefield Pageants in the Towneley Cycle put forward three main pieces of evidence for the existence of the writer usually referred to as the ‘Wakefield Master’: the regular use of a particular nine-line stanza53 in five pageants (Noah, the two Shepherds, Herod the Great and the Buffeting), that the pageants written in this stanza are distinguished by a highly original use of colloquial idiom and that verbal parallels, as well as a number of other similarities of style and content, exist between the pageants. This may seem somewhat flimsy evidence upon which to base the existence of a writer, and yet anyone reading the five pageants will almost certainly be struck by their similarities of tone and style. To these pageants Cawley added the Killing of Abel, which, though it has only one pure Wakefield Master stanza (and one with one line missing) (in Cawley, lines 450–62 and 463– 70), seemed to him and to most scholars to bear all the signs of Wakefield Master work. Cawley also drew attention to the existence of other uses of this characteristic stanza, equally in the same style, and concluded that the Wakefield Master had a hand in re-shaping or adding to the Conspiracy (stanzas 2–5), the Scourging (stanzas 5–27), the Crucifixion (stanza 57), the Dicing (stanzas l–5 and 56–9), the Pilgrims (stanza 4), the Ascension (stanzas 57–8) and the Judgement (stanzas 16–48 and 68–76).54 Apart from one or two minor uncertainties, this seems to be a convincing minimum view of the extent of his work. I want to look at the Wakefield Master’s work first through his revision of the York Judgement, where some of his talents and propensities are displayed in an extreme form.55 Most noticeable of all is his verbal extravagance. His characteristic stanza form may in part have commended itself to him because it demanded a high degree of verbal ingenuity, and then allowed a display of the results of that ingenuity in its series of rhymes. There is no doubt at all of his love of words. He reaches out for them in all directions: the language of fashion, of the streets, the law courts, the cloister. Where he cannot find a word he invents it (tristur, ‘post, job’, line 304; pransawte, ‘prancing’, line 749), or perhaps trawls through the lower levels of the language to turn it up (fryggys ‘?fidget, jerk about’, line 461; skawte, ‘?cloth,?blow’, line 745). There are constant reminders of his virtuosity: With hawvell and iawvell

babbling; jabbering

Syngyng of lawvell

?drinking songs   (lines 491–2)

His luddokkys thai lowke Like

buttocks; look

  walk-mylne cloggys,

fulling-mill blocks

His hede is like a stowke, Hurlyd as hoggys,

stook; bristly

A woll-blawen bowke, Thise fryggys as froggys.

puffed out belly; jerk about

This Ielian Iowke, Dryfys he no doggys To felter.

?hunt,?fight

  (lines 456–64)

The Judgement also reveals his enjoyment of lists of words. One stanza indeed is to all intents and purposes simply a list: Ye lurdans and lyars, Mychers and thefes,

rogues; pilferers

Flytars and flyars, That all men reprefes,

scolds; fugitives; reprove

Spolars, extorcyonars, Welcome, my lefes …

spoilers; comrades   (lines 521–64)

He clearly delights in problems; series of rhymes on a Latin word, for example: ‘thus/eius, tax/wax/mendax/’ (lines 412–16); ‘is/mys/fecistys’ (lines 439–41); ‘com/eternum, day/may/mala’ (lines 555–9). Sometimes he creates comically contrived rhymes: ‘roll of ragman [a list of accusations] / breffes in my bag, man, / vnethes [scarcely] may I wag, man, / whils I set my stag [young horse], man.’ (lines 326–32) or ‘fill vs / till vs / Tutiuillus’ (lines 361–3). He is only drawn once into identical rhymes in this pageant: ‘hoket/hoket’ (lines 340/2) or twice into nearly alike in: ‘wedlake/ lake’ (lines 785/7) and ‘hande/nerehande’ (lines 277/81), but these are small failures amongst the eighty-six four-rhyme and forty-three three-rhyme series that are required. Two things in particular, I think, undermine this bravura display. The first is that the words are not borne up by a sufficiently varied syntax. Though there are variations, the syntactical and rhythmic pattern is predominantly one of mid line break and end-stopping. There is a considerable element of subjectivity here, but on my count the ratio of clear breaks (mid-line and end-line) to run-on lines is a little under two to one. Secondly, the thought and action of the additions are largely uncontrolled. The devils ramble and the lost souls (if we may consider their speeches also part of the Wakefield Master’s revision) extend the laments by more than double. It is not that what they say is uninteresting, but the impact of the Judgement is lost. The contrast is excellent between the ordered, rather old-fashioned, patterned statements of Jesus and the disordered verbal extravagances of the devils, but the delay in the action is too great between ‘The tyme is commen I will make ende’ (line 123) and the making of that end nearly six hundred lines later. What might have sustained the action would have been a continuous sense of the frightened compulsion to go to the Judgement occasionally apparent in the devils, but this is impossible to create out of the odd reference amidst an indulgent parading of sins. In addition the satirical descriptions do not grow into an absorbing of the audience into the dread of Doomsday. They become instead an entertaining display, as they are for the devils. I have spent this long on the Wakefield Master’s section of the Judgement because it demonstrates clearly some of the major strengths and weaknesses that reveal themselves, usually in a smaller way, in the rest of his work. His major strength, his command of a wide and varied vocabulary, provides the external appeal of many of his pageants and additions to pageants: an obvious example is the bravura Latin opening of the Dicing. It comes out clearly in the mock feast of the first of the Shepherds pageants, where the most exotic words of aristocratic cookery are laid side by side with mock French and comic English: ‘oure mangyng’ (eating, from French manger) where we ‘foder/Oure mompyns’ (feed our faces) with ‘sawsed’ and ‘powderd’ meat, ‘chekyns endorde’ (gilded), ‘calf lyuer skorde / With the

veryose’ (sliced and served with verjuice, lines 334, 303–4, 310, 312, 337, 341–2). It flourishes in the hypochondriac rages of Herod (though less exotically than in the vaunts of Pilate): ‘losels, lyars, lurdans, tratoures, knafys’ (lines 235–8), ‘ditizance doutance’ (Fr. ‘say without doubt’, line 247), ‘Fy, dottypols’ (crackpots, line 335), and in his list of literary sources: ‘Vyrgyll, Homere, legende, poecé-tayllys, pystyls, grales, mes, matyns’ (lines 293–8). It is apparent too in the minor uses of Latin, not only the prophecies recorded by Herod’s doctors and the shepherds, where it might be expected (though adding Virgil to the shepherds’ catalogue, even if it is drawn from the well-known Pseudo-Augustinian sermon, gives it something of a virtuoso performance), but in night spells (Shepherds I, lines 419–25; Shepherds II lines 383–6) and to accompany the stretching and yawning awakening of one of the shepherds: Resurrex a mortruus! … Judas carnas dominus! (Shepherds II, lines 504/6). It exists too in his use of proverbs and proverb-like utterances and of traditional stories and incidents. Not only does he use them as a typical part of human language, but he uses them naturally; they are character-creating, not merely decorative, as with the proverb-capping meeting of the two shepherds: 2 PASTOR

Poore men ar in the dyke And oft-tyme mars,

come to grief

The warld is slyke; Also helpars

like that

Is none here. 1 PASTOR

It is sayde full ryfe

commonly

‘A man may not wife

marry

And also thryfe,

prosper

And all in a yere’. 2 PASTOR

Fyrst must vs crepe

We must crawl before

And sythen go.

we can walk (Shepherds I, lines 135–45)

This verbal abundance creates characters at all levels, not just that of the shepherds. The vaunts of Pilate and the rages of Herod are more entertaining because of the words they use, but the words also individualize the characters. Words also create situation. The idea of the mock feast is good fun, the audience sees bread and ale (or maybe water) while it hears the words of medieval haute cuisine, but it is only the choice of those words that can give a reality to the aristocratic meal or create the kind of image that will make it parallel to the poverty of the stable embodying the royalty of the King of Kings. The abundance of words and the images they carry with them might be expected to produce a sense of God’s plenty, but instead they seem to me to convey man’s plenty. This seems to be true in almost all the Wakefield Master’s pageants and adaptations. His major skill is an ability to create the variety of the world. Noah and his wife are a squabbling married couple. He is also a patriarch and the chosen of God, but first he is a hen-pecked husband. He is not a figure or type of Christ in this pageant because the playwright makes no attempt to present him as such. The ark is not the Church, his wife is not the saved Christian, the Flood is not the Last Judgement. This is another well-told story. Maybe the fights go on a bit too long, maybe two is too many, but the comedy and the humanity are what make the story effective. It is the fun of ‘ram-skyt’ (ram-shit, line 313); of the fearful husband knowing what’s coming – ‘And I am

agast That we get som fray / Betwixt vs both’ (lines 267–9); of the knockabout fights; of the presentation of the typical human situation, not the type-antitype situation, that govern the pageant. The Wakefield Master’s work is not open throughout to typological explanation, because he tends to draw attention to it when its use is appropriate. One of his skills lies in his ability to touch a stable reference point in the spiritual world beyond this one when he wants to. Little touches like ‘This is boyte of oure bayll’ (Shepherds I, line 357) in relation to a bottle of ale (or water imagined as ale) rather than Christ, are intellectual/spiritual fun because they hint at this other world, but like the anachronistic curses and asseverations they do not draw that world to the fore. It is at most the sudden shock of the strangeness, not a complex presentation of time, that is involved. Hints of the fall of man do not turn the widow’s farmyard of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale into the Garden of Eden, they intellectually enliven the story Chaucer is telling by hinting at and suggesting unexpected associations. The oaths and references are there primarily because they are what people say. They are part of a localized contemporary humanity. Only secondarily do they give a glimpse of a world beyond. Individualized humanity lies at the root of almost all the Wakefield Master’s techniques. He deliberately eschews the ‘shepherds are pastors’, Pilatus id est diabolus kind of equation. His shepherds and Pilates are individuals, made so by what they say and how they say it. This is why suggestions that all the tyrants are merely clones of Satan or Antichrist are so unsatisfactory. It is not their likeness that makes them interesting but their individuality. Pilate lives through the details he reveals of himself – each time different from or an extension of the last. The second of the Shepherds pageants is remarkable because it is in this pageant alone that the individualized humanity and the presence of the spiritual world are integrated in a broader way. The shepherds are created separate: one moans of the inequalities of the social order, the second of the conflicts of marriage, the third of those of employer and employed. The structure of their speeches, however, links them together. Each complains first of the elemental disorder of the world (the weather – they are after all English shep-herds) before going on to the specific complaint. Each complaint is contained within six stanzas. The first and second shepherds have six stanzas each of soliloquy, the third, for variation, has three stanzas, then one of dialogue, and then another two to himself. They also have a less obvious similarity in the movement from complaint to resolution. The first having made his complaint, shrugs it off, ‘It dos me good … Of this warld for to talk In maner of mone’ (lines 66–9); the second rounds his off with a comic caricature of his own wife which allows any seriousness that the complaint might have had to dissolve in laughter. For the third shepherd the audience witnesses the complaint acted out, since he is the servant and the other two the masters. As the complaint is enacted, so is its resolution, in the singing of the three-part song. The naming of the parts – ‘tenory’, ‘tryble’ and ‘meyne’ (lines 270–2) – is not mere verbal gusto on the part of the Wakefield Master, but a deliberate indication that the song is in three parts and that they harmonize. The less obvious similarity in the Shepherds’ opening, then, is one of movement in the case of each shepherd from discontent with one’s state and with one’s fellow human beings to content and harmony. Society may be grossly unjust, especially to the poor, marriage may be hell, especially if you’re married (and a man), it may be no fun being a servant, especially with

masters like these two, but it does not stop good fellowship and good humour from reestablishing contentment. The first part of the pageant is, then, a cleverly varied pre-echo of what most people now see as the main theme of the whole pageant, the movement from conflict to reconciliation, from a world at odds with God to one reconciled to him through the birth of Christ.56 In the major part of the pageant this conflict must be felt, hence the value of the Wakefield Master’s skill in establishing a sense of a real situation: natural suspicion of the known thief, natural animosity between masters and men, natural (if typical) conflict between husband and wife. But as with all else he does, the sense of ‘natural’ is primarily a product of his verbal vitality, especially apparent in Mak: his southern tooth, his night spell, his ‘magic’, his (and Gill’s) ingenious excuses for the state of their ‘baby’. The reconciliation of this conflict is equally natural. It is turned into a very ordinary game; but this is also the way in which lyric, carol and sermon writers described the birth of Christ and the end of man’s separation from God. The two halves of the pageant thus stand as unequal but matching sides of a figural diptych: birth and birth, reconciliation and reconciliation.57 There is no need to read this into the pageant: it is there. Not so obvious as to be unexciting, but with sufficient indications as to be inevitable. But what of the shepherds? The pre-echo of reconciliation that acted as a kind of prologue to the pageant is not merely another part of the matching diptych; it is also the first step in a demonstration that the shepherds are indeed the men to whom the angel’s message should be addressed. Their coming to terms with their complaints in one way or another is a first sign of this. The second is the entirely natural (and heart-warming) reaction of the third shepherd and the others to their failure of common humanity in not giving Mak and Gill’s newborn child a gift. The third is their common agreement to turn the punishment of Mak into a game. Thus the Wakefield Master’s elaborate creation of three believable human beings is part and parcel of the spiritual meaning of the pageant. The audience does not just understand that the angelic message was to men of goodwill, it feels what goodwill is by being moved by the common humanity, common humaneness, of the three shepherds. The Shepherds pageant is also a demonstration that the Wakefield Master’s knowledge is not just of words. It is apparent that the description of the song of the three shepherds is not merely a demonstration of the writer’s technical competence but is to draw attention to the abstract idea of harmony. The Wakefield Master repeats this use of music in the course of the pageant thereby creating a kind of choric comment on the action. The discordant singing of Mak (accompanied perhaps by Gill’s groans) is the other side of humanity’s music. The angel’s song (and it is important to remember that there is only one angel) is the perfect music of heaven. Again the Wakefield Master uses technical terms for a spiritual purpose: ‘Thre brefes to a long’ (‘Three short notes to one long’, line 948) is, according to the theorists, perfect time.58 It is also perfect audibly; the ‘harmonies’ are so true as to be indistinguishable from a single line. The shepherds then try to imitate it and fail comically. But the comic failure is a further sign of humanity. Laughter becomes in this pageant a sign of man’s goodwill, a parallel to the game that is Mak’s punishment. The Wakefield Master is, then, as capable of controlled, structured writing as he is of boisterous exuberance. He is quite able to handle a complex parallel presentation of the

spiritual and human world, but even here humanity dominates. His achievement in this pageant is to make his proven skill in the depiction of humanity subserve a spiritual aim (and to interweave with it) without losing any of its natural life. Martin Stevens suggested that the Wakefield Master was the ‘guiding intelligence’ for the whole cycle.59 This is impossible to prove or disprove but it does usefully raise the question of the extent to which his hand can be traced. The normal way of recognizing his work is through the use of the characteristic nine-line stanza. Yet it is unlikely that such a skilful and ebullient writer would allow himself to be confined in such a way, and the fairly general agreement amongst scholars about his authorship or at least his participation in the writing of the Killing of Abel shows a willingness to accept this. But looking for his work outside the nine-line stanza can only be based on his work done in it, and judging only from that we may be getting a false impression of his complete range. In particular, we know very little about what might be called his ‘solemn’ style. Almost everything that survives is for shepherds, devils, hen-pecked patriarchs, tyrants and the like. We have very little for God (ten stanzas, many of them directions for building the ark), for Mary (two stanzas), Jesus (four lines), for angels (two stanzas). Outside the five pageants there is a tiny sample for the apostles: Luke, one stanza in the Pilgrims; Matthew, one in the Ascension. Neither of these, though competent, is anything out of the ordinary, and anyway they are too brief to give a fair sample. It may, therefore, be that in our assessment of his work we are missing an important side of his output. The Thomas of India pageant should perhaps be looked at closely. It has what looks like a series of Wakefield Master rhymes in one of Peter’s speeches: Bot euer alas, what was I wode! Myght no man be abastir. I saide if he nede bestode, To hym shuld none be trastir; And for a woman that there stode, That spake to me of frastir, I saide I knew not that good Creature my master. (lines 81–8)

The invention and adaptation that has gone into producing the rhymes ‘abastir/trastir/of frastir’ (more ashamed/more trusty/?questioningly) are typical of those found elsewhere. Besides this, the argument between Thomas and the other apostles is handled with considerable ingenuity and naturalness. The fact that it goes on too long may also seem characteristic of some of his work. It is difficult to speculate about what the ‘solemn’ side of his writing would be like but at least this might be a starting-point for investigation.

Towneley and the cycle form It has been suggested that the pageants of Towneley do not combine well together. Rosemary Woolf expresses it most clearly: The only cycle in which the different styles and stages of revision have not grown together into an organic whole is the Towneley cycle …60

This apparent lack of unity is up to a point a scholarly and literary problem rather than a theatrical one.61 The fact that we know that the York pageants in Towneley are from York gives them a separateness that they would not have if their different origin was unknown. Besides

which the briefness of pageants like the Salutation or the Flight into Egypt that we can see in reading them is not nearly so noticeable in performance, where they have their own individuality and physical space. Equally the rather simple language of pageants like the Creation, Isaac or Jacob is less obvious when the pageant is seen as well as heard. Only the Wakefield Master’s work, perhaps, because his pageants are so much more developed, literary and structured, stands out. There is a danger that they hold up the flow of the narrative. In performance this is no more so than with the longer pageants at York. Pageant performance involves the isolation of incidents and episodes while at the same time allowing them to be part of the same story. Their temporal and spatial relation to the whole is therefore not the same as scenes in a continuous action. Pageant performance can absorb very different styles of writing as well as of playing – as it must if the responsibility for the playing is divided amongst a number of individual craft guilds, with, as far as we know, no overall control. There are some odd gaps, however, apart from those caused by the losses in the manuscript. There is no temptation of Christ, no institution of the sacrament at the Last Supper, no trial before Herod (though it is referred to). There are also unexpected additions: the Isaac and Jacob pageants, Caesar Augustus, the Dicing. But these do not prevent the series of pageants from being a whole. David Mills has suggested that the pageants exist within a known story and that there is therefore no need to perform every part of it.62 This is surely right. How many people in seeing a performance are aware that there is no Nativity or are worried by the fact that there has been no trial before Herod, even though the first torturer says that that is where they are coming from? As for the additions, Isaac and Jacob form part of an integrated family group with Abraham, and the Dicing provides yet another interesting sidelight on Pilate (and, for those who know the story, a lead into his later life) as well as providing an entertaining break between the horrors of the Crucifixion and the joys of the Harrowing and Resurrection. Caesar Augustus is more difficult to justify. Trivial in language and over simple as verse, it lacks any interest of plot and seems merely a tame preparation for Herod. There is also a more positive unifying element, a sense of a concentration on human nature which gives the pageants homogeneity. All the cycles translate biblical into human. It is good teaching practice – a way of making the Bible live; it is an obvious way of expanding what are often the bare hints of a story; and it is, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the normal approach to Christ’s life.63 To say, therefore, that a cycle is characterized by its humanity would seem to be stating the inevitable. In Towneley, however, there seems to be far more particularizing of human language, character and action than elsewhere. It is especially noticeable, of course, in the Wakefield Master’s work and it may well be that the dominance of his presence draws the reader’s attention to this element in the other pageants. Even before the scatological humanity of Cain, however, there is a Lucifer who while still in bliss doesn’t care a ‘leke’ (Creation, line 129) and a Cherub who leads Adam into Paradise by the hand, giving him and Eve distinctly elder-brotherly/ sisterly advice (lines 210–25). What gives a strong sense of humanity is the number of particularizing words or phrases, or individualizing emotions, actions or ideas. The image of Cain’s debased humanity is largely created by his individualized language. We may be used to God’s ‘back parts’ (posteriora mea, Exodus 33.23) but ‘his ars’ (Mactacio Abel, line 240) still seems the most incredible blasphemy. Cain’s language not only particularizes his humanity but attempts to re-create others, including

God, in his image. In the main action of Abraham the human element almost of necessity predominates, but from the beginning that element is there. In his first speech Abraham recalls the past. Partly this links him into the story; but he does not do it impersonally, instead he sees it through a veil of pity for the sadness of it all. Remembering brings no comfort, only a longing for death (lines 33–6). Later, as Abraham pictures the return home without Isaac, he very sharply particularizes Sarah’s reactions and words. What shal I to his moder say? For ‘Where is he?’ tyte will she spyr.

at once ask

If I tell hir, ‘Ron away’, Hir answere bese belife, ‘Nay, sir!’

will immediately be   (lines 225–8)

Even some of the small additions to Pharaoh are in the direction of additional individuality of speech (e.g. lines 218, 224, 229, 231). The biblical account is altered at the end of Jacob in order to give greater weight to the reconciliation of Jacob and Esau and to the reuniting of the family in Esau’s last words. In Genesis the reconciliation is rather a cold one and there is no invitation from Esau that they should together go to see their parents. Apparent anachronism can also be an individualizing device, as it is most frequently in the oaths and asseverations of shepherds, torturers and others, but also in the tithes of Cain (lines 106–7 in particular) and Jacob (lines 55–8). David Mills has seen a unifying element in memory in Towneley.64 I am sure he is right but I would prefer the term ‘recollection’. In York, also, it is not uncommon for a character to run through earlier history at the opening of a pageant, but in Towneley this recalling occurs elsewhere as well and is far more personal to the character. It has already been suggested that Abraham’s first speech is an individualizing one, but its subject is the recalling of the past. Noah opens not with God recalling the past but with Noah, and what starts as an address to God in his majesty and might turns into a contemplation of sin and a fear of God’s vengeance. Again the recalling has a personal and emotional basis. The same is true of other acts of recalling. The precise recollections of Christ’s miracles are by the torturers, angrily condemning his failure to conform to the law (Scourging, lines 196–247), or, less individualized and more conventional, by Annas and Caiaphas trying to convince Pilate of the need for action (Conspiracy, lines 116–47). The lyric added to the Resurrection acts as a recalling of the Crucifixion in the middle of the triumph of the Resurrection. The disciples in the Pilgrims and in Thomas of India recall the same events in grief, and in disbelief of the fulfilment of remembered promises. The other element of recalling is prophecy, which, except for the Prophets, almost always appears as recollection. Like the moments of recalling, the prophecies are usually part of some human reaction to events: the kings’ excited realization that the star they are following is the fulfilment of Balaam’s prophecy (Magi, lines 205–28), Simeon’s pondering on the fate of his predecessors and gratitude for the prophecies that have been sent (Purification, lines 9–24), the doctors’ faith that the prophecies will be fulfilled but their doubt about when (Doctors lines l–48), the souls in hell recalling at the moment of fulfilment the prophecies of Christ’s coming (Deliverance, lines 25–88). There are also the formal researchings into the past by Herod’s doctors/councillors. Not all of these recall events

present in the pageants. Some function instead within the Christian consciousness of history, but whether they are inside or outside the pageants they create an interweaving pattern of past and present. Though recollection is important in Towneley, typology is not. There is one striking moment of poise between past and future when God at the beginning of the Annunciation balances past and future acts: For reson wyll that ther be thre – A man, a madyn, and a tre. Man for man, tre for tre, Madyn for madyn; thus shal it be. (lines 31–4)

It is the nearest that the pageants come to explicit typological interpretation. Typology has for some time now been a way of approaching the structure and meaning of cycle plays. Not all critics have found it a satisfying approach, but the charismatic force of such works as Kolve’s The Play Called Corpus Christi65 coupled with the scholarship of such writers as Rosemary Woolf has carried it into an almost automatic acceptance. I have said it is an approach to structure and meaning; I mean that it has been used to give order and coherence to what may have seemed haphazard and ill-constructed, and to give depth to what may have seemed shallow and superficial. Much good has come of it in the right hands, but there has also come a danger of feeling the typology and forgetting about the context. Typology needs exposition, or verbal reference or visual reference to make it effective, or it needs the structure of cycle or pageant to create an appropriate framework; in Towneley as a whole none of these seems to me to be present. Humanity and recollection, and the humanity of recollection, create a web of interrelation which holds it together. In form and content Towneley is no less a cycle than York or Chester. It is a cycle of human beings, humble and natural, gross and inflated, but all human, not types and figures.

Notes  1. There has been considerable, and often profitable, debate about the appropriateness of the term ‘cycle’ to Towneley; see, for example, David Mills, ‘“The Towneley plays” or “The Towneley cycle”?’ LSE ns 17 (1986), 93–104, Barbara D. Palmer, ‘Recycling “the Wakefield cycle”: The Records’, RORD 41 (2002), 88–130, Garrett Epp, ‘The Towneley Plays and the Hazards of Cycling’, RORD 32 (1993), 121–50, and Peter Happé, The Towneley Cycle: Unity and Diversity (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007). I have given way to the anti-cycle camp to the extent of naming the chapter ‘The Towneley pageants’ rather than, as in the first edition, ‘The Towneley cycle’, not because I think ‘cycle’ is inappropriate but because it doesn’t seem to me important enough to make an issue of here.  2. The medieval manor and town of Wakefield are discussed in West Yorkshire: An Archaeological Survey to A.D. 1500, 3 vols. + 1 vol. of maps, ed. by M.L. Faull and S.A. Moorhouse (Wakefield: West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council, 1981).  3. The Wakefield Pageants in the Towneley Cycle, ed. by A.C. Cawley (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1958), p. xxxv.  4. Alfred W. Pollard refers to him as ‘the Wakefield or Woodkirk editor’ in the introduction to the earlier EETS edition (EETS ES 71, (1897), p. xxii), but Charles Mills Gayley, Plays of Our Forefathers (London: Chatto and Windus, 1907) seems to have been the first to use the name ‘Wakefield Master’.  5. The Towneley Cycle: A Facsimile of Huntington MS HM 1, ed. by A.C. Cawley and Martin Stevens (Leeds: University of Leeds, School of English, 1976), p. vii. See also, Louis Wann, ‘A new examination of the manuscript of the Towneley plays’, PMLA 43 (1928), 137–52, (p. 137).  6. Barbara D. Palmer has recently attempted to make a case for Lancashire, and more specifically Whalley Abbey, as the

 7.  8.

 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27.

‘home’ of the pageants, and the Towneleys as ‘writers’, in some sense, and preservers of the manuscript, Palmer, ‘Recycling’. In this connection, it is worth bearing in mind that the Linguistic Atlas places the scribe of the surveyed sections (Wakefield Master) of HM I in the West Riding of Yorkshire (LP 211; Grid ref. 435 420); see A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English, 4 vols, ed. by Angus Mcintosh, M.L. Samuels and Michael Benskin (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986), 1, p. 260; 3, pp. 622–3. See, Richard Beadle, ‘The York Corpus Christi play’ in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, ed. by Richard Beadle and Alan J. Fletcher, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 99–124. Despite the publication of a new EETS edition, The Towneley Plays, 2 vols, ed. by Martin Stevens and A.C. Cawley, EETS, ss 13–14 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), the best brief description and discussion of the manuscript remains the introduction to the Cawley and Stevens facsimile (see note 5), and the earlier ones by Wann, and Martin Stevens, ‘The manuscript of the Towneley Plays: its history and editions’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 67 (1973), 231–44 are still of value. There is no substitute, however, for looking at the manuscript itself, now made possible (if through a glass, darkly) by the existence of the complete facsimile. Cawley and Stevens, The Towneley Cycle: A Facsimile, p. ix. Malcolm Parkes considers Judas to be in the hand of the main scribe but ‘copied in a hurry’. I am grateful to Professor Alexandra Johnston for sending a typescript of her paper ‘The Towneley MS (Huntington MS 1): A Paleographical and Codicological Study’ presented at the International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo in 2002, containing her own and Malcolm Parkes’s views of the Towneley manuscript. Where manuscript titles survive I have used them in this paragraph and later usually when they appear for the first time. Thereafter I have used a short translated title. Of these only the Deliverance [of the souls], used for the Extraccio animarum, differs significantly from that in the latest EETS edition, Harrowing [of Hell]. Martin Stevens, ‘The missing parts of the Towneley cycle’, Speculum 45 (1970), 254–65. Cawley and Stevens, The Towneley Cycle: A Facsimile, p. 8. Stevens, ‘The missing parts’. As reported by Johnston (p. 3 of her typescript, see note 9 above), Parkes’s conclusion was that ‘this ms was written and decorated in the Marian period (1553–8) by a single scribe who was a trained legal scrivener’. The most convenient check on costume dates is C. Willett and Phillis Cunnington, Handbook of English Medieval Costume (London: Faber, 1952); see pp. 98–168 for the fifteenth century. Mendel G. Frampton, ‘The date of the flourishing of the “Wakefield Master”’ PMLA 50 (1935), 631–60, pp. 631–43 has investigated the evidence provided by the costume references most fully, but his discussion makes clear what shifting sand this is upon which to base a firm date for the work of the Wakefield Master. See illustration 12 in Beadle, ‘The York Corpus Christi Play’, p. 107. Some doubt has been cast on the authenticity of the annotations, but there seems no real reason for this, except extreme scepticism (see Barbara Palmer, who has done more than anyone else to open up discussion of the provenance of Towneley, ‘“The Towneley plays” or “Wakefield cycle” revisited’, CD 22 (1988), 318–48, p. 321 and p. 342 n. 14). Frampton very strongly defends the idea of the Towneley manuscript as a register. See n. 8. See n. 3. Medieval Drama, ed. by David Bevington (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975). In this chapter I have followed the line-numbering of the new EETS edition. See further, note 53. The projected modern spelling edition by myself and John Marshall mentioned in the first edition of the Companion exists only in the ring bound form provided for students by the School of English, University of Leeds, 2 vols, 1990 and 1991. It was based on the text provided by myself, with the assistance of Meg Twycross, for the performance of Towneley at Wakefield in1980. The most recent anthology, Medieval Drama: An Anthology, ed. by Greg Walker (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000) includes only ‘The second Shepherds’ play’ from Towneley, pp. 42–57. See n. 5. Michael J. Preston and Jean D. Pfleiderer, A KWIC Concordance to the Plays of the Wakefield Master (New York and London: Garland, 1982) and Gerald Byron Kinneavy, A Concordance to the Towneley Plays (New York and London: Garland, 1990). The Wakefield Mystery Plays, ed. by Martial Rose (London: Evans Bros., 1961). John R. Elliott, Jr, Playing God: Medieval Mysteries on the Modern Stage (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989) gives a useful but selective list of productions of medieval plays in England between 1901 and 1980; see pp. 111–13 for productions of the Towneley plays. Reviews of complete productions of the cycle will be found in METh 2 (1980), 49–52, and RORD 23 (1980), 81–4 (Wakefield, 1980); METh 7 (1985), 51–4, and RORD 28 (1985), 189–99 (Toronto, 1985). For some discussion of the Bretton Hall performances see Philip Butterworth, ‘Discipline, dignity and beauty: the Wakefield mystery plays, Bretton Hall, 1958’, LSE ns 32 (2001), 49–80. Hans-Jürgen Diller, ‘The craftsmanship of the Wakefield Master’, Anglia 83 (1965), 271–88, p. 271. See also Rosemary Woolf, The English Mystery Plays (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), pp. 142–4. Though see now, Peter Happé, The Towneley Cycle.

28. It occurs, scattered through the Old Testament, twenty-five times, relating to temple and household furnishings, material and general commodities. 29. A.C. Cawley and others, ‘References to the Corpus Christi play in the Wakefield burgess court rolls: The originals rediscovered’, LSE 19 (1988), 85–104. 30. I have used the date 1559 but Jean Forrester states: ‘the 1554 roll [the old dating] cannot possibly be dated earlier than December, 1559’. This means that the roll could be 1560. See Jean Forrester, Wakefield Mystery Plays and the Burgess Court Records (Ossett: Harold Speak & Jean Forrester, 1974), p. 5. 31. Palmer understands this rather differently, and as a result is worried by the inappropriateness of parts of the cycle to performance at Easter, ‘“The Towneley plays” or “Wakefield cycle” revisited,’ p. 329 and p. 345 n. 51. 32. The plural ‘mesteres’ could mean a single group of people responsible for financing the whole play, or a number of individual groups responsible for several pageants, such as the pageant masters of the York craft guilds. 33. Cawley, The Wakefield Pageants, p. 125 and p. 262. 34. Cawley, The Wakefield Pageants, pp. xiv–xvii. 35. Wann, pp. 151–2 and Martin Stevens, Four Middle English Mystery Cycles (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 101–8. 36. Stevens, Four Middle English Mystery Cycles, 97, 116–7. 37. Palmer moves towards this kind of arrangement, ‘“The Towneley plays” or “Wakefield cycle revisited”’, pp. 340–1, whilst admitting that there is so far no evidence for it from this part of the country. 38. York Plays, ed. by Lucy Toulmin Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885). 39. Hardin Craig, English Religious Drama of the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), pp. 114–15 gave a very partisan view, and listed many of the contributions to the debate. 40. A.C. Cawley, ‘The Towneley Processus Talentorum: a Survey and Interpretation’, LSE ns 17 (1986), 131–9, and A.C. Cawley and Martin Stevens, ‘The Towneley Processus Talentorum: Text and Commentary’, LSE ns 17 (1986), 105–30. 41. Peter Meredith, ‘The York Millers’ pageant and the Townely Processus Talentorum’, METh 4 (1982), 104–14. 42. Records of Early English Drama: York, 2 vols, ed. by Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Rogerson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1979), pp. 25–6; The York Play: A Facsimile of British Library MS Additional 35290, together with a Facsimile of the Ordo Paginarum section of the A/Y Memorandum Book, and a note on the music by Richard Rastall, ed. by, Richard Beadle and Peter Meredith (Leeds: University of Leeds, School of English, 1983), pp. lii– lix. 43. Peter Meredith, ‘The Ordo Paginarum and the development of the York Tilemakers’ pageant, LSE ns 11 (1980). 44. Of the many earlier discussions of these matters, those by Mendel G. Frampton, ‘The date of the “Wakefield Master”: bibliographical evidence’, PMLA 53 (1938), 86–117, and ‘Towneley XX, the Conspiracio (et Capcio)’, PMLA 58 (1943), 920–37 are still of value, though his conclusions are often undermined by too great a reliance on the then accepted dating of the Ordo and the second list. 45. The York Plays, ed. by Richard Beadle (London: Edward Arnold, 1982), pp. 10–19. See also The York Play: A Facsimile ed. by Beadle and Meredith. 46. Besides the York association there is the brief reflection of Chester (Resurrection, lines 339–50, and, sporadically, Chester Resurrection lines 162–81), and the complicated interrelation of the Doctors pageants, investigated by W.W. Greg, ‘The Trial and Flagellation’ and Other Studies in the Chester Cycle, Malone Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935), pp. 101–20. 47. George Coffin Taylor, ‘The relation of the English Corpus Christi play to the Middle English religious lyric’. MP 5 (1907), 1–38, pp. 26–7. 48. The lyric is no. 1119 in the Brown-Robbins Index of Middle English Verse. 49. Carleton Brown, ‘The Towneley Play of the Doctors and the Speculum Christiani’. MLN 31 (1916), 223–6. 50. Some idea of the usual fifteenth-century presentation of Lazarus can be gained from Gertrud Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, translated by J. Seligman, 2 vols. (Greenwich, Conn: New York Graphic Society, 1971), figs. 580–1. 51. Richard Beadle, ‘The York Hosiers’ play of Moses and Pharaoh: A Middle English dramatist at work’. Poetica 19 (1984), 3–26. 52. The Northern Passion, ed. by Frances A. Foster, EETS, os 147 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., 1916), pp. 81–101. Foster certainly overstresses the relationship between the poem and the plays, as a close inspection of her examples will show. 53. Cawley, The Wakefield Pageants, pp. xviii–xxi. Martin Stevens chose to regard the previously accepted nine-line stanza as a thirteener (Towneley Plays, pp. xxix–xxxi, and Four Middle English Mystery Cycles, pp. 130–56). By doing this he claimed that the stanza was brought into line with the use of the thirteener by other medieval English writers, though in the majority of cases, in terms of line length, the forms are very unlike. His major evidence for dividing the stanza in this way was that the first appearance of the Wakefield Master stanza in the manuscript is written in thirteen lines (fol. 7). There are, however, other ways of explaining its presence here: the possible uncertainty of the scribe about how to deal with this new form, the ‘need’ to fill in space on an empty page, simple variety. It is likely that choice between the two forms will be

54. 55. 56. 57.

58. 59. 60. 61.

62. 63. 64. 65.

determined by preference rather than proof. In this chapter, I have left the form of the stanza as a nine-liner, but adjusted line-numbering to match the new EETS edition, which treats the Wakefield Master stanza as a thirteener, and indicated a new line by a capital letter. Cawley, The Wakefield Pageants, p. xviii. Martin Stevens has also used the Judgement to characterize the work of the Wakefield Master, though his prime concern is to reveal the theme, as he sees it, of the ‘abuse of language’ in his work, the devils ironically condemning themselves by their extravagant language (Four Middle English Mystery Cycles, pp. 164–8). V.A. Kolve’s very perceptive and subtle discussion of the Shepherds’ pageants, pp. 151–74) seems to me to overstress the depiction of the ‘world at its worst’ (p. 167), and to underestimate the skill of the Wakefield Master by seeing such a subtle approach as common to all the English Shepherds’ plays. The two parts are not only linked thematically, but are also joined by numerous reflected details. Many scholars from Homer A. Watt, ‘The dramatic unity of the “Secunda Pastorum”’, in Essays and Studies in Honor of Carleton Brown (New York: New York University Press, 1940), 158–66 onwards have dealt with this, notably Arnold Williams, The Drama of Medieval England (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State College Press, 1950), pp. 128–9 and Rosemary Woolf, pp. 190– 1. See Nan Cooke Carpenter, ‘Music in the Secunda Pastorum’, Speculum 26 (1951), 696–700, p. 698, and also Manfred F. Bukofzer, ‘Speculative thinking in medieval music’, Speculum 17 (1942), 165–80, (pp. 177–8), for theorists relating ternary rhythm to perfection and the Trinity. Stevens, Four Middle English Mystery Cycles. Woolf, p. 310. David Mills, ‘“The Towneley plays” or “The Towneley cycle”?’ LSE ns 17 (1986), 93–104, emphasizes the incoherence of the manuscript: ‘The manuscript could almost be an idiosyncratic assemblage of material from a variety of sources into a sort of presentation volume, using a Creation-Doomsday framework of organization’ (p. 95). He stresses, however, the ability of the framework to contain the diversity. In my opinion he overstresses the diversity. Mills, ‘Towneley plays’, p. 96. The tendency to expand and fill the gaps in the story of Christ’s life exists from an early date, as the apocryphal gospels show. The later tendency that of affective piety, is to elaborate on the feelings and experiences of the characters, as in the Meditationes vitae Christi and its successors. Mills, ‘Towneley plays’. V.A. Kolve, The Play Called Corpus Christi (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966).

7

ESTABLISHING AN EXPOSITOR’S ROLE: CONTEMPLACIO AND THE N.TOWN MANUSCRIPT The problem in considering Contemplacio is to know what text is appropriately his. Add some or take some away and his role and character change. Unfortunately, a necessary preliminary to establishing Contemplacio’s text is establishing the existence of the play of which he is a defining part, and my first remarks are directed at the peculiar nature of the N.town manuscript and the compiler who created it. I can think of no current scholarly edition of a medieval English text in which anyone has attempted to go back to present the text at a stage earlier than that represented by the surviving manuscripts. Why should one want to? And on what grounds, when the text as it appears in the manuscript represents a genuine contemporary form even if sometimes misunderstood and confused by contemporary scribes? To debate the superiority of one manuscript over another or one reading over another is the stuff of scholarship, but not to set aside the form in which the text has survived. This sounds too much like deleting the Christian elements in Beowulf and calling what is left a pagan epic. There may be a sense that some part of a text is not original, but, however certain someone may feel about it, it does not result in removal of the doubtful part. It is simply a stage that the text has gone through. We would be extraordinarily lucky to have the original form of a medieval text. And how would we know it was ‘original’? And what is an ‘original’ form anyway? Is it the first form which the text took or the later, perhaps improved, stages of its development? These questions are commonplaces of every period, not simply the medieval one. When we come to the N.town manuscript, we have an undoubted fifteenth-century manuscript, written, by and large, in a single hand, containing a series of biblical and apocryphal scenes, in a recognizable fifteenth-century dramatic form: the typical English mystery cycle,1 represented most clearly by the York Play. N.town is not, of course, exactly like York. It has a descriptive proclamation, for instance, that York has not, which hints that the production is intended for a fixed location not a processional one – a hint confirmed later in the text.2 It is also different in that the location is not specific: ‘N.town’, that is, ‘N’ = ‘Insert your own place of performance’. Nevertheless the form of a series of pageants telling the story of the world from creation to judgement is the same. The N.town manuscript is not a high quality production but it is a good workaday job, clear and, in the main, straightforward.3

There seems at first glance no more reason to question its form and to disrupt it than to question and disrupt York or Chester. But appearances can be deceptive. What we are recognizing is apparently what the main scribe of the manuscript, the compiler, wanted us to recognize. He had in the first place a series of pageants in front of him. Then finding or being given or having his attention drawn to dramatic pieces of a different kind telling different stories, composite plays as opposed to pageants, he momentarily set aside his pageants and attempted to tailor the texts of these plays to fit the pageant series.4 But he wouldn’t be the first medieval compiler to do something like that. Why might one even so be tempted to try and dig below the surface and, going against the prevailing orthodoxy, present these plays as they might have been before he copied them into his manuscript? There seem to me to be two main reasons. The first is that though the main scribe has done a lot to make his newly compiled work appear a normal series of pageants, much of what he has done is window-dressing. And though he has, on the one hand, tried to conceal the disparities between his source texts and the cycle he is creating, he has, on the other, left clues as to the earlier form of these source texts.5 In other words his transformations are always incomplete, and recovering the earlier texts is in many cases a real possibility. This, as I have said elsewhere, is a manuscript in process of being made, not the finished article. The second reason is that the plays that lie just below the surface of the present N.town manuscript are what for English medieval drama are two unique dramatic pieces: the only surviving Passion Play and the only surviving play on the early life of Mary. For that reason alone it seems worthwhile not simply revealing the plays that lie beneath the compiler’s text but also presenting them in their earlier forms.6 Which brings me to the play and to Contemplacio. The play on the early life of Mary, which is defined by the appearances of Contemplacio, is made up of five episodes: the Conception of Mary; her Presentation in the Temple; her Marriage to Joseph; the Parliament of Heaven and the Annunciation; and the Visit to Elizabeth, or, as described by Contemplacio: ‘here concepcyon’ (line 10), ‘offryd into þe temple’ (line 11), ‘maryed to Joseph’ (line 12), ‘þe salutacyon’ (line 12), and ‘Metyng with Elyzabeth’ (line 13). Contemplacio himself apparently makes six appearances. At the very beginning (1), after introducing the whole play, he sketches out the five episodes described above but without mentioning the Parliament of Heaven. On his next appearance (2), he bridges the gap between the Conception and Presentation, mentioning Mary’s birth in passing. Then (3), he rounds off the Presentation and introduces the Marriage, and also, unusually, looks forward to the fourth episode, the Annunciation, mentioning the Parliament for the first time. He appears in a new guise before the Annunciation (4), sets the scene for the Visit (5), and rounds the whole play off at the end of that episode (6). As the introducer, expositor, continuity man, and concluder of what has come to be known as the Mary Play, and therefore the character that binds the five episodes together and creates the play’s individual integrity, Contemplacio must have been an embarrassment to the N.town compiler wanting to give the impression of a series of separate pageants. Yet, despite some indications that he originally intended to leave Contemplacio out,7 Contemplacio still appears in the present manuscript, apparently in his Mary Play positions. Though submerged in the series of pageants, it is therefore still quite clear that the Mary Play was once a separate unit. The group of episodes then, because it is contained by Contemplacio, implies a play, one

unique in its subject matter in medieval English drama and therefore one crying out to be extracted from its, in some ways inappropriate, surroundings. But though much of it can be easily extracted, some is interwoven with the surrounding pageants and some is missing. This affects Contemplacio in two ways. Because I am concerned not only with what he says in his own speeches but also with how he interrelates with the episodes his speeches introduce and comment on, I need to know to what extent I can be certain that the text of his own speeches and also the text of the episodes are actual Mary Play text. I should make it clear here that I am attempting to go back to the play that existed immediately before it was copied into the present manuscript, the compiler’s copy-text, not to some theoretical ‘original’. This raises another problem. There is little doubt that the play was already changing and developing before it was copied and adapted for the N.town manuscript. Distinguishing between changes that had already taken place and ones made by the compiler in absorbing it into the pageant series is not always easy. The major adaptations, and the ones that can be most easily disentangled, are those that affect the Marriage, where the compiler had to decide between using pageant text and using Mary Play. These only affect Contemplacio incidentally, however, and they have been dealt with fully elsewhere.8 What I want to turn to here are the problems affecting Contemplacio’s first three speeches, and to look at them in some detail. Metrically, the first two appearances that Contemplacio makes consist of octaves, two and one respectively, rhyming ababbcbc (the typical stanza form of the Mary Play), and a single nine-line stanza which looks like a truncated version of the thirteen-line stanza that is characteristic of the pageant series. Not only is there a metrical division, however, but, matching it, the subject matter of the speeches seems to conclude with the end of the octaves and then start again with the nine-line stanzas. In his first speech (1), for example, Contemplacio describes the episodes to follow, ending with       þat it xulde nat be tedyous To lernyd nyn to lewd, nyn to no man of reson. Þis is þe processe; now preserve ȝow, Jhesus! (Mary Play, lines 14–16)

This certainly sounds like a conclusion. But it is followed by: Þerffore of pes I ȝow pray all þat ben here present, And tak hed to oure talkyn, what we xal say       (lines 17–18)

Which sounds to me like restarting. More or less the same is true of his second appearance (2): Þis sentens sayd xal be hire begynnyng. Now þe modyr of mercy in þis be our sped! And as a childe of thre 3ere age here she xal appere To alle pepyl þat ben here present;       (lines 260–63)

In both cases what is contained in the final stanza adds something, but nothing that is essential, to what has already been said. In the first it adds a request for silence and attention and a

prayer; in the second it adds detail: Mary was three years old, she lived holily and stayed in the temple till she was fourteen – none of which the audience needs to know since it will all shortly be made clear. On his third appearance (3), before the Marriage, the metrical pattern varies slightly but not significantly from the earlier ones. Instead of Mary Play octaves there are two quatrains (a not infrequent feature of the play) preceding the usual nine-line stanza. This time, however, the final stanza is not superfluous. The information contained in it is essential for the introduction of the next episode, the Marriage, and for the one following, the Parliament of Heaven and Annunciation: Hath pacyens with vs we besech 3ow her,   And in short spas The Parlement of Hefne sone xal ȝe se, And how Goddys sone com man xal he; And how þe salutacyon aftere xal be,   Be Goddys holy gras. (Mary Play, lines 588–93)

The immediate question here is, if these are revisions, as they seem to be, are they part of the compiler’s exemplar, or are they changes that he himself made when he copied the Mary Play into the new manuscript?9 In general, if I am right in saying that the compiler was not at first intending to include Contemplacio in his new text, then it is unlikely that he would have bothered with revising the texts of his speeches. If, on the other hand, having decided to include him he saw a way of blending him better into the pageants by making alterations, he might well have done so. The alterations in question, however, seem to have nothing to do with blending pageants and play episodes. They are more concerned with making links within the group of episodes (i.e. the play). Though the final stanzas of the first and second of Contemplacio’s appearances seem like restarts, there is no problem theatrically in making them work. A change of tone or a change of direction to another part of the audience would effectually remove any potential awkwardness. Considering them as revisions within the play, why might they have been made? In view of the necessary information contained in the final stanza of Contemplacio’s speech at his third appearance (necessary in view of his invariable habit of introducing the next episode, or in this case more necessary because it is the one after the next), it seems likely that it is there that an explanation lies. Many have thought that the Parliament of Heaven is an addition to an earlier form of the Mary Play, simply because it is not part of his initial list of episodes but is announced only in this stanza.10 If this is so then the whole series of added nine-line stanzas could be the result of a reviser’s leading into the new episode. Once having added this new stanza form as a conclusion of Contemplacio’s third speech introducing the Parliament, he extended the pattern back through the first two appearances. The nine-line stanzas and the Parliament, then, may well have been part of a single revision and part of the compiler’s exemplar. The next appearance of Contemplacio (4), before the Parliament of Heaven and the Annunciation, is the one which has given rise to most discussion since not only does his character change, he no longer appears as a simple expositor but as a character in the play, but the manuscript suggests that this single character was once two.11 The first question, therefore, is whether we should consider this speech (or these stanzas) to be Contemplacio’s at all. The

situation in the manuscript seems to have developed in the following way. Initially, when the compiler was copying out these stanzas on fol. 58v (Figure 1), he indicated a division between the second and the third by placing a guide letter, the number ‘2’, above the first letter of the first word of the third stanza. When he came to rubricate later, he followed the intention indicated by the guide letter and placed a red ‘2’ in the left margin, corresponding to the red ‘1us’ at the head of the first stanza. When he added ‘Contemplacio’ (somewhat squashed in on the right at the head of the page), either after or, more likely, before he added the rubrication, he did not cancel the earlier attributions. What are we to make of this? The numbers clearly divide the four stanzas into two groups of two, in direct contradiction to a single four-stanza speech for Contemplacio, and the most likely explanation is that they represent two speakers. Because they are simply numbers and because the compiler does not usually place a speaker’s name in the left margin, it is possible that he did not understand the significance of them and simply copied them from his exemplar, then, seeing no apparent speaker’s name, he supplied ‘Contemplacio’ at the top of the page. Or, to look at it another way and to credit the compiler with some dramatic sense, he realized the striking effect to be gained, over-rode the copy-text attribution of them to two speakers, and gave the stanzas to Contemplacio. But why did he leave the numbers in? The answer no doubt lies in his tendency to leave indications of the previous state of the text in his newly copied version and the numbers reflect the situation, with or without the Contemplacio attribution, that he found in the source text.

Figure 1 The opening of the Parliament of Heaven, BL MS Cotton Vespasian D VIII, fol. 58v (© British Library Board). The guide figure ‘2’ appears just above the paraph at the beginning of stanza 3. The speech indicators, ‘1us’ and ‘2’, in the top and left margins respectively, are in red. ‘Contemplacio’ is in the top right corner of the page, above the compiler’s large red ‘11’, indicating the beginning of what he was presenting as a new pageant If this is so who were the two speakers of the two speeches? Two pairs have been favoured: a representative or representatives of the patriarchs and prophets, and a representative or

representatives of the angels and archangels. Spector sums up the evidence for the former:12 the words are ‘spoken from the perspective of earthdwellers’ (e.g. lines 1074, 1076, 1090), reference is made to later prophets making supplication (lines 1094 and 1115), and in ‘several analogues, prophets and angels utter laments’. To take the first of these, the perspective of earthdwellers, the speeches refer to ‘com(e) down(e)’ (lines 1069, 1091) ‘here to erth’ (line 1069), ‘vesyte vs’ (line 1074) ‘woo to vs’ (line 1076) ‘oure hed’ (line 1089), which sounds like an earthly, human perspective. This is certainly true, but whose voices are we hearing? It is made clear at lines 1066 and 1084 that the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah are being quoted by the speakers. And even where the words are not said to be quotations, some of them are. The first two lines of the second speech beginning, ‘A, woo to vs wrecchis of wrechis be’, are, for example, from Jeremiah, even though he is not mentioned until nine lines later. There is, in other words, no strict division between the quoted words of the prophets and those of the speakers.13 The speakers are conveying the words and attitudes of these two prophets, making supplication on their behalf, and through them for mankind. As the Virtutes point out in the speech following the two debated ones: ‘Oure offyse [the office of the angels] is to present here [‘their’, i.e. the patriarchs’ and prophets’] prayerys to the [‘thee’, i.e. God]’ – which seems to be exactly what the characters in the two previous speeches have done. It might be described in exegetical terms not as ‘Here the psalmist speaks in the voice of Christ at his Passion’ but ‘Here the angels speak in the voices of the patriarchs and prophets before the Incarnation’. It is also worth envisaging the moment in terms of costume. If one imagines actors costumed as angels speaking the first two speeches of this episode on behalf of mankind, would there be any sense of incongruity, any clash between speech and speaker? I think not. It should be borne in mind, too, that the angels are intimately concerned with the salvation of mankind in as much as it will remedy the fall of the rebel angels and restore the angels’ numbers. As the Virtutes say: Lete þi mercy make hym with aungelys dwelle, Of Locyfere to restore þe place. (Mary Play, lines 1106–07)

They are, emotionally, speaking in their own voices too.14 Finally, though in the Charter of the Abbey of the Holy Ghost, a work certainly related to the Mary Play, the prophets present their pleas in person, in the Nicholas Love version of the Meditationes, also related to at least parts of the Mary Play, it is the angels that plead. Furthermore, Gabriel, who speaks for the angels, is said by Love to have received ‘speciale reuelacion of cristes Incarnacion in hir al name’ (i.e. on behalf of all [the angels]),15 which fits well with the strangely prescient pleas of lines 1069–73 and 1080 of the Mary Play: And com down here into erth, And levyn ȝerys thre and threttye, Thyn famyt folke with þy fode to fede; To staunche þy thrysté let þy syde blede, For erste wole not be mad redempcyon (lines 1069–73) With þi blyssyd blood from balys hem borwe          (line 1080)

It will be clear that I have finally come down on W. W. Greg’s side that the speakers are the representatives of the angels.16 Many will no doubt still feel that the speeches are too earthbased for them to be the speakers, but it is worth remembering that there are a number of thirdperson references to ‘Man’ (e.g. lines 1061, 1065, 1079 (‘þei’), 1080 and 1083 (‘hem’), 1087 (‘Here’)) which though acceptable as the words of prophets or patriarchs nevertheless are particularly appropriate to a non-earthly group. If it is accepted that the speakers are angels then the words of the Virtutes at lines 1096–97, ‘Aungelys, archaungelys, we thre, | Þat ben in þe fyrst ierarchie’, would refer to the first three speakers of this episode; the most obvious division being angels (lines 1060–75), archangels (lines 1076–91), and powers or Virtutes (lines 1092–1107), the three members of the first hierarchy of angels in the Gregorian system.17 The effect of this is to deprive Contemplacio of one of his most effective moments in the play. But if I were to revise my edition of the Mary Play now, that is what, with some reluctance, I would do. There is one further point to be considered. Returning to Contemplacio’s third speech (3), as I have already mentioned not only does he announce the episode which follows immediately afterwards, the Marriage, but unusually he also announces the episode which comes after that, the Parliament of Heaven and Annunciation. The most likely reason for introducing the later episodes at this point is that Contemplacio was not expected to appear again until he introduced the Visit to Elizabeth. In other words he was not expected to appear at the beginning of the Parliament of Heaven. Consequently it suggests that the attribution of the two-speaker speeches to Contemplacio was a later alteration, perhaps a last minute one by the compiler, and not one connected with the series of revisions that I have discussed in Contemplacio’s first three speeches. Contemplacio next appears (5) after the opening of the Visit to Elizabeth (fol. 71). Uniquely he does not open the episode but appears after it has started. As Mary and Joseph go round the place to Elizabeth and Zachary’s scaffold, Contemplacio using the words of the Legenda Aurea,18 sets the scene for the next episode. If ever the compiler had doubts of including the expositor they have clearly evaporated by this stage. Contemplacio’s final appearance is different again. Here the compiler deliberately presents us with alternative endings, not only affecting the text of the episode but also that of Contemplacio himself. There are in fact three possible endings though only two are, as it were, offered. The implied ending (6a) leaves Contemplacio with a rather bare two stanzas explaining how the Ave Maria was put together and what it is worth to devotees, and providing a conventional rounding-off: apology for any shortcomings, prayer for the audience, and a cue for a musical finale. The offered alternatives are one that extends the visit of Joseph and Mary by leaving them at Elizabeth and Zachary’s (6b), and another that cuts their visit short (6c). The first of these is indicated by a marginal sign on fol. 73v leading, si placet, to an additional three lines at the foot of the page (Figure 2). This then leads into Contemplacio’s speech of thirty-six lines, beginning with the analysis of the Ave Maria already mentioned, and going on to describe Joseph and Mary’s stay, the birth of John the Baptist, the removal of Zachary’s dumbness, the saying of the Benedictus, Joseph and Mary’s departure, and Contemplacio’s concluding remarks.19 The alternative (forty-four lines) contains the end of Joseph and Mary’s visit, Elizabeth and Zachary’s departure for the temple, and, as in the first, Contemplacio’s

analysis of the Ave and his concluding remarks but, obviously, without the narrative of Mary and Joseph’s stay.20 It is possible that the compiler accidentally forced the third ending onto himself by choosing to copy in as main text elements of two contradictory endings that were in front of him – one in which Mary and Joseph depart and one in which they stay behind. Noticing this, he perhaps decided that he had to offer a solution by side-tracking the main text with a lead-in to an alternative at the foot of the page (si placet). Probably neither was the original ending of the play. If we use the purely mechanical method of analysing stanza-forms and exclude anything in non-Marian stanzas, then the play ended with Elizabeth’s explanation to Joseph of Zachary’s dumbness, immediately followed by Contemplacio’s analysis of the Ave and his concluding remarks (6a) – quite an abrupt ending. If this had been the ending then it is understandable that someone attempted to improve on it, rounding off Elizabeth’s speech with the three concluding lines, and giving Contemplacio’s speech a warmth that it lacks by including the full description of the circumstances of John the Baptist’s birth (6b, as in the current edition of the Mary Play). Or, to take the alternative ending (6c), it is equally possible that for the same reason someone expanded the departure of Mary and Joseph for home and Elizabeth and Zachary for the temple and rounded off the play with Elizabeth’s words, which project the meaning of the play forward in time and lift the ending onto another plane: For now is cum mercy and venjauns is past: God wyl be born for mannys prow To brynge us to blysse þat ever xal last.    (Mary Play, Appendix 3, lines 26–28)

Figure 2 Part of the conclusion of the Visit to Elizabeth, BL MS Cotton Vespasian D VIII, fol. 73v (© British Library Board). The additional lines are at the foot of the page introduced by the Latin phrase si placet (‘if wanted’). The sign indicating the addition appears just above the speaker’s name ‘Joseph’ in the right margin, linking with a repetition of the sign before ‘his mercy’ just below the regular text. Some doubling-up can be seen in the last six lines of the regular text The question as regards Contemplacio is whether his speech is to be simply analysis and conclusion, as perhaps it was originally, or analysis and, before concluding, something more human and more emotionally satisfying. As far as I am concerned the question remains open,

but I suspect that the earliest form that the speech took was the former. But what did the compiler have in front of him when he came to copying this part of the Mary Play into his new manuscript? Did he have the alternative endings set out neatly and clearly as alternatives? Or were they merely scribbled possibilities on loose sheets of paper, perhaps given to him at the last moment? Or was he, the compiler, responsible for composing either of them? There is, sadly, no way of telling. The evidence of the manuscript suggests to me that they were available to him, but that they were not clearly set out, and that at first he decided or was asked to use only one of them. Then, at a late stage, he decided or was asked to include both. The evidence is this. His average of manuscript lines per page in this part of the manuscript is twenty-eight or fewer and the previous pages show no sign of an expected shortage of space until fol. 73v. Each contains twenty-four lines or fewer, with no doubling-up of lines of text, until fol. 73r which contains twenty-eight, with one doubled line. Fol. 73v has thirty manuscript lines plus the three added at the foot – with doubling-up, making thirty-six text lines + three (Figure 2) – and fol. 74r has thirty-one manuscript lines – with doubling-up, making fifty-two text lines + one stage direction (Figure 3). So by doubling-up the lines of text, the compiler crammed an exceptionally large number onto the final page, fol. 74r, having already doubled up the lines at the foot of the previous page, fol. 73v, and added an extra three lines in the margin at the foot of the page. This argues for a serious change of plan, most likely the addition of the second of the alternative endings, decided upon late in the copying process. It will be apparent from what I have said that analysing Contemplacio’s role in the Mary Play is not a straightforward task. There is no doubt about the existence of his first two appearances, though it is certainly possible that the text has been expanded. The only problem about his third appearance is its relationship to the episode which follows, largely made up of pageant text as it is. His next appearance, before the Parliament of Heaven, is doubtful. For the reasons outlined above, I now think that if we are trying to get as near as possible to the form of the Mary Play that the compiler was working from, then Contemplacio should not be given these stanzas. The attribution of the stanzas to him is likely to be a feature of the copying of the play into the new manuscript, not of the copy text. His fifth appearance, before the Visit to Elizabeth, is like the first two straightforward, and, as has been indicated, his final roundingoff presents three possibilities: the abrupt conclusion, the narrative of Mary and Joseph’s stay, or the enacted departure.

Figure 3 The final page of the Visit, BL MS Cotton Vespasian D VIII, fol. 74r (© British Library Board). The heavily doubled-up lines contrast with the expansive treatment of Contemplacio’s analysis of the Ave; the latter, with the last stanza of all, is probably text common to all three endings Let me turn now to the effect of his presence on the play, and in the first instance to his name. It has been suggested that his name reflects the influence of popular religious devotion and that it perhaps derives from the frequent use of ‘Contemplacio’ in Love’s Mirror to characterize

that mode of devotion which encourages the visual imagining of events in the lives of Christ and his mother.21 This seems to me entirely likely, but it should be remembered that at no point does Contemplacio reveal his name to the audience. He is not like Rumour ‘painted full of tongues’, who not only riddlingly reveals his name in his costume but speaks it in the second line (2 Henry IV, Induction, sd and lines 1–2), or Time who whets the appetite to know who he is before the revelation comes (The Winter’s Tale, IV. 1. 1–4). If his name is significant, it is so only to the writer and, perhaps, the performers. There are moments where the tone of his remarks might suggest the sort of contemplation common in Love’s Mirror, but the most transparent of these, the description of the household of Elizabeth and Zachary, does not occur until his concluding remarks in one of the alternative endings, possibly in a passage of revision. It is true that the tone of the episodes themselves is very much that of the devotional work, so that there is an overall congruity between the name of the expositor and the episodes, but the audience is never given the opportunity of making the connection. What of the tone conveyed by his words? As with many later prologues and choruses, like a storyteller he holds the story in his hands, but unlike them he doesn’t add a frisson of excitement as he introduces an episode, as for example the Choruses of Henry V or of Marlowe’s Dr Faustus do. It is very much factual information delivered by a slightly fussy, benevolent clergyman. He is concerned about things being badly put, from the point of view either of meaning or of delivery, depending how one understands lines 3–6 of his opening remarks. He is also concerned about clarity, and about time and being tedious. He carefully sets out the five parts of the play (lines 10–13), explains the absence of the presentation of Mary’s conception and birth (line 256) and methodically introduces each episode. As for time and tediousness, the Presentation in the Temple is ‘compiled breffly’ (line 11), the conclusion is ‘In fewe wurdys talkyd þat it xulde nat be tedious | To lernyd nyn to lewd’ (lines 13–14). Mary’s conception and birth are passed over ‘breffnes of tyme consyderynge’ (line 257), and ‘Tyme sufficyth not to make pawsacyon | Hath pacyens with vs we besech ȝou her … in short spas … sone’ (lines 587–90), he says, before the Marriage. At first, there is also a sense of ‘them and us’ in the way in which he refers to the performers, though the opening ‘þe personys here pleand’ (line 3), ‘here [their] sentens’ (line 4), is mitigated a bit by ‘oure talkyn, what we xal say’ (line 18) – perhaps significantly in the probably interpolated stanza – and, as the play progresses, Contemplacio expresses himself more as one of a team of performers. His language, as so often with medieval expositors, is occasionally high-flown, a sprinkling of Latinate words and a convoluted syntax being the usual form it takes.22 He keeps his relationship with the audience on a formal level. A number of comparisons seem worth pursuing here. First of all he is not the only expositor in N.town. His namesake provides the link between the first and second Passion Plays, and in this case, though once again the audience are not told his name, they are at least shown his role through his costume: an exposytour in doctorys wede (Passion Play, p. 89, line 1sd). He is more concerned than the Mary Play Contemplacio in instructing the audience in their role: ‘kepe þe passyon in ȝour mende’ (line 8) and ‘Besekyng ȝou for mede of ȝour soulys to take good hede theratte’ (line 20). ‘Keeping the Passion in mind’ is very much a part of ordinary contemplation. From the very beginning, the Passion Contemplacio allies himself with the performers – ‘We intendyn … þat we lefte … we beseche … we shewyd’ (lines 6–9) – and his

language is straightforward. Despite the brevity of his role, the audience knows more about this Contemplacio than it does about his namesake simply because of his costume, yet the name really seems not to matter. His speech is twenty lines long and after it he is seen no more. His name is squashed in the right margin, almost as though it is an afterthought. Did the compiler simply think that Contemplacio was a convenient name for an expositor? The other expositor in N.town is named ‘Doctor’ and introduces the Assumption Play, a self-contained play not written by the compiler and with no doubts surrounding it (N.town Play, pp. 387–409). Again no-one is told the expositor’s name, but the nature of his introduction is very much that of the clerkly scholar. He gives his source: ‘a book clepid apocriphum’ (line 4) written by ‘Jhon the Euangelist’ (line 3), and provides a calculation of Mary’s age at the time of the Assumption according to his authority, the Legenda Sanctorum, which he cites (line 13). He goes on to describe her mode of life from the time of the Ascension (lines 14–23). His role is quite clearcut but it is simply a prologue of twenty-five lines and he doesn’t appear again. Both of these are very unlike Contemplacio especially in their brevity and in the fact that they do not contain the action. The most worthwhile comparison, it seems to me, is with Poeta in the Conversion of St Paul.23 Poeta’s role is much more like Contemplacio’s. He remains incognito and contains the action by introducing and rounding off the play as well as appearing within the action to move it forward. Where Contemplacio stresses time, Poeta stresses skill. They are not, he says, rhetoricians (lines 355, 656–60); the real story is in the Bible, where the audience can read it (lines 10–11, 158–60, 352); the compiler has done his best, as he should, but he’s open to correction (lines 356–59). As a result one is more aware of the story as an artful construct being presented to us as audience. Poeta’s humility topos engages the audience, whereas Contemplacio’s concern with time simply seems like worry. This is partly, I think, because Poeta has another part to play. He literally moves the audience from one station to another (lines 155–58, 354) so that his relationship with the audience becomes, almost by default, a much more personal one. Without the transformation to the passionate representative of humankind that once preceded the Parliament of Heaven, Contemplacio is little more than a cataloguer of episodes and an explainer of benefits. But if Contemplacio loses, what of the play? In the second episode, Mary in the Temple, the play moves on to a different plane of existence, abstract and devout, a half-way house between earth and heaven. The Marriage necessarily moves towards earth again, but it is difficult to tell what the original tone would have been because there is so much intrusion of pageant text. Its Mary Play ending is, however, recoverable: Mary’s devout reading and enthusiastic praise of the psalms, leading to her final reading of Psalm 84: I haue seyd sum of my sawtere and here I am At þis holy psalme indede: Benedixisti domine terram tuam; In this holy labore, Lord me spede!    (lines 1026–29)

This is, of course, the psalm which forms the basis of the debate of the four daughters of God, the Parliament of Heaven. Mary’s last words then lift the action again onto the heavenly plane

and lead naturally into the pleas of the angels and the debate on the salvation of mankind. As Joseph leads Mary across to the house of the Annunciation, the angels appear to make their appeal. To my mind Contemplacio would, at this moment, be an intrusion into this otherworldly state. What is a diminution of the expositor’s role is an enhancement of the play as a whole. It’s a price I’d be willing to pay.

Notes 1. This is how it is presented in the editions of the full text, from Halliwell’s to Spector’s. See Ludus Coventriae, a Collection of Mysteries, formerly represented at Coventry on the Feast of Corpus Christi, ed. by James Orchard Halliwell (London: Shakespeare Society, 1841); Ludus Coventriae or The Plaie called Corpus Christi, ed. by K. S. Block, Early English Text Society, ES, 120 (London: Oxford University Press, 1922); The N.town Play: Cotton MS Vespasian D.8, ed. by Stephen Spector, 2 vols, Early English Text Society, SS, 11 and 12 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). All three editions retain the compiler’s numbering and division of pageants, and the latest of them emphasizes the unity of the text by the use of ‘Play’ rather than ‘Plays’ in the title. All references to N.town outside the Mary Play and the Passion Play are to the Spector edition. The confusion with the plays of Coventry had been resolved by the time of Block’s edition, but she retained Ludus Coventriae as a generic title (p. vi). 2. N.town Play, I, 17, line 399; ‘oure pleyn place’ implies a single fixed location. See some useful discussion of this in Alan H. Nelson, ‘Some Configurations of Staging in Medieval English Drama’, in Medieval English Drama: Essays Critical and Contextual, ed. by Jerome Taylor and Alan H. Nelson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), pp. 116–47; and Anne Cooper Gay, ‘The “Stage” and the Staging of the N.town Plays’, Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, 10 (1967), 135–40. 3. There is a complete facsimile in The N.town Plays, a Facsimile of British Library M S Cotton Vespasian D VIII, ed. by Peter Meredith and Stanley J. Kahrl, Leeds Texts and Monographs, Medieval Drama Facsimiles, 4 (Leeds: School of English, University of Leeds, 1977). 4. It is impossible to tell whether the compiler’s treatment of the manuscript was under his own control or under the direction of someone else. For some discussion of his methods, see Alan J. Fletcher, ‘The Design of the N.town Play of Mary’s Conception’, Modern Philology, 79 (1981), 166–73, and ‘Layers of Revision in the N.town Marian Cycle’, Neophilologus, 66 (1982), 469–78; Peter Meredith, ‘Scribes, Texts and Performance’, in Aspects of Early English Drama, ed. by Paula Neuss (Cambridge: Brewer, 1983), pp. 13–29, and ‘Manuscript, Scribe and Performance: Further Looks at the N.town Manuscript’, in Regionalism in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts: Essays Celebrating the Publication of ‘A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English’, ed. by Felicity Riddy (Cambridge: Brewer, 1991), pp. 109– 28; Stephen Spector, ‘The Composition and Development of an Eclectic Manuscript: Cotton Vespasian D VIII’, Leeds Studies in English, 9 (1977), 62–83 and the appendices to his edition, N.town Play, II, 537–54. 5. The clearest example of this is the presence of the red dots within the bowl of the paraphs at the beginning of stanzas indicating that the source of the text is the Mary Play. See Fletcher, ‘Layers of Revision’, pp. 477 (n. 13) and 478 (n. 19); Meredith, ‘Manuscript, Scribe and Performance’, p. 117; N.town Play, II, 539. 6. I have attempted to do this in my editions of the Mary Play from the N.town Manuscript (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1997) and the Passion Play from the N.town Manuscript (London: Longman, 1990). All references to the Mary Play are to the former edition. 7. In the manuscript this shows most clearly at Contemplacio’s first appearance, fol. 37v. The recto of fol. 37 contains the last twenty lines of the preceding pageant, the Tree of Jesse. According to the N.town Proclamation this should be followed by the two-part pageant of the Marriage of Mary, leading on to the Annunciation. It is now followed by the Conception episode from the Mary Play. In the N.town manuscript, pageants are often divided from each other by a blank – sometimes a page, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending where on the page the previous pageant ends. One might expect the verso of fol. 37, therefore, to be blank, with the next pageant following on fol. 38’. This could have been the scribe’s first intention, as the next episode does indeed begin on fol. 38r. But it appears that he later changed his mind and altered the opening of the episode by inserting the Contemplacio speech on the blank page of fol. 37v. There is no way of proving this but there are one or two indications. Ysakar’s speech, at the beginning of the Conception episode, opens with a large red capital ‘T’, and his name is written in a slightly larger script and preceded by a red capitulum. All this looks like the opening of a pageant. What alters that effect is the later insertion of the large red ‘8’, the pageant number, next to the opening of Contemplacio’s speech on fol. 37v. 8. See, for example, Fletcher, ‘Layers of Revision’, pp. 472–74; Meredith, ‘Manuscript, Scribe and Performance’, pp. 115–16. 9. For other discussion of these sections, see Fletcher, ‘Layers of Revision’, pp. 470–71, and Spector, ‘Composition and Development’, pp. 69–71.

10. See, for example, Ludus Coventriae, ed. by Block, pp. xxii–xxiii; Fletcher, ‘Layers of Revision’, p. 474; Spector, ‘Composition and Development’, p. 70. 11. The first to draw attention to this was W. W. Greg in ‘Bibliographical and Textual Problems of the English Miracle Cycles. IV. Ludus Coventriae’, The Library, 3rd Series, 5 (1914), 365–99, pp. 381–82. It has since been discussed by Alan J. Fletcher, ‘The “Contemplacio” Prologue to the N.town Play of the Parliament of Heaven’, Notes and Queries, 27 (1980), 111–12, and Spector in N.town Play, II, 452. 12. N.town Play, II, 452. 13. The quotations are Isaiah 64.1 (lines 1068–69); Jeremiah 45.3 (lines 1076–77); Jeremiah 9.1 (lines 1084–5); Lamentations 2.13 (line 1088); Lamentations 5.16 (line 1089). All are also quoted in the Charter of the Holy Ghost (Yorkshire Writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole and his Followers), ed. by C. Horstmann, 2 vols (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1895), I, 347–48. 14. Giving the speeches to angels and archangels also makes sense of the Virtutes – the third of the angelic hierarchy as speakers of the third pair of stanzas. They, otherwise, seem an odd choice. 15. Nicholas Love’s ‘Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ’: A Critical Edition Based on Cambridge University Library Additional M SS 6578 and 6686, ed. by Michael G. Sargent (New York: Garland, 1992), p. 14. 16. Greg, ‘Bibliographical and Textual Problems’, p. 382. 17. See note to line 1092sn in Mary Play, p. 107. 18. Compare Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea, ed. by Theodor Graesse, 3rd edn (Breslau, 1890), p. 357. 19. This is the ending given in the main text of the Mary Play, lines 1558–96. 20. See Mary Play, Appendix 3, pp. 134–37. 21. M. P. Forrest, ‘The Role of the Expositor Contemplacio in the St Anne’s Day Plays of the Hegge Cycle’, Medieval Studies, 28 (1966), 60–76; Richard Beadle, ‘“Devoute ymaginacioun” and the Dramatic Sense in Love’s Mirror and the N.town Plays’, in Nicholas Love at Waseda ed. by Shoichi Oguro, Richard Beadle, and Michael G. Sargent (Cambridge: Brewer, 1997), pp 1–15. 22. E.g. ‘oblocucyon’ (line 5, ‘pawsacyon’ (line 587), ‘supportacyon’ (line 1590) and for syntax, see for example the rather unwieldy sentence making up the first stanza. 23. The Late Medieval Religious Plays of Bodleian MSS Digby 133 and E Museo 160, ed. by Donald C. Baker, John L. Murphy, and Louis B. Hall, Jr, Early English Text Society, OS, 283 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 1–23.

Part II

Resuscitating records

8

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MERCERS’ PAGEANT WAGGON [This is an edited version of the talk given at the Lancaster meeting on 7 April 1979, and includes comment and discussion from the audience.] As John Anderson has just remarked to me, one of the difficulties with York, paradoxically, is that there is just so much material. But even with all this evidence, there is not that much which is specific in what it tells us about the structure of the pageant waggon. Because there is so much material, it seems crazy to try and work through it all in detail. So what I shall do first is establish a general picture of the development of the Mercers’ pageant waggon, and then look more closely at certain parts of the evidence, following in the footsteps of Sandy Johnston and Margaret Dorrell (or Margaret Rogerson, as she now is).1

The 1433 indenture As I suppose everyone knows who has thought about pageant waggons at all, one of the most important pieces of evidence from York is the 1433 indenture.2 And not simply for the Mercers’ waggon but for York as a whole. Not only is it the most important, it is also the earliest of the Mercers’ waggon evidence. Before 1433 there is evidence for the existence of a pageant, in the sense of a short play, but none for the waggon. (I should say that I will use the term ‘pageant’ for the short play; ‘waggon’ or ‘pageant waggon’ for the thing on which or around which it was performed; and ‘play’ the whole series of pageants which constituted the Corpus Christi Play. In that, I realize, I am being more consistent than the records themselves.) The most important piece of evidence for the pageant is the Ordo Paginarum,3 in the case of the Mercers’ entry, of 1415; but it would be quite wrong to assume that that pageant must necessarily fit the 1433 waggon. By 1433 very considerable changes had taken place amongst the Guilds and their pageants: pageants had amalgamated, others had split away, and financial arrangements between Guilds had been formed and broken. And much of this for which records survive had taken place between 1415 and 1433. So the first caveat, I suppose, is against yoking the 1415 description and the 1433 structure together. Obviously they must be compared; but one must never assume that the 1415 pageant was ever performed on the 1433 waggon, or that the 1433 waggon was constructed for the 1415 pageant. I shall come back to the details of the 1433 structure, but I now want to move on to the next stage of development.

The souls’ waggon of 1463 The next stage is the addition of the ‘now pagand yat was mayd for ye sallys (souls) to ryse owtof.’4 In the 1463 Mercers’ accounts where mention is first made of this new ‘pagand’ a certain amount of information is provided about the materials of its construction; but how it was constructed, what it looked like, what its relationship was to the ‘great pageant’, as the other waggon was called, is a matter of conjecture. One thing to notice is that in the accounts there is no mention of wheels; so that the ‘thing’ out of which the souls rose may not have been a wheeled vehicle at all – Johnston and Dorrell5 make this point, and I think it’s an important one. At the same time, however, one should remember that in the previous year the Mercers had bought two new wheels,6 and it’s possible that they were planning to make their new waggon a little bit earlier than we usually give them credit for. Certainly the cost of these two wheels (3s 8d the pair) makes it very unlikely that they were intended for the ‘great pageant’, for which a new wheel was bought in 1448 for 13s 3d7 – in fact it makes them sound like trolley wheels. The possibility remains therefore that the souls’ ‘pagand’ was a waggon, or at any rate a wheeled vehicle, but nothing like the size of the ‘great pageant.’ What is absolutely certain is that the Mercers could, from 1463 on, perform their pageant from two ‘vehicles’. This is particularly interesting when taken in connection with something which Richard Beadle and I have been working on, dating of the Register of the York Play (BL MS Additional 35290).8 It appears that it dates from somewhere between 1463 and 1477, and it may well be that we should think of the Mercers’ Last Judgement pageant as one which was specifically written for this double pageant ‘waggon’ production. But again we are moving into the realms of conjecture.

The Drawswerd wagon, 1501–7 The next stage in the development of the Mercers’ waggon is, of course, the big change in 1501 when they scrapped the old ‘great pageant’ and employed the noted alabaster carver Thomas Drawswerd to create them a new one; ‘the said Thomas shal mak the pagiant of the dome belonging to the merchauntes newe substancialie in euery thing þervnto belonging havyng for the warke-manship and Stuff of the same vij marcs in money And his entrie fre with Also the old pagiaunt.’9 They don’t, you notice, say anything about the souls’ pageant. Was it too insignificant to worry about? Or had they given up using it years ago? The last we actually hear about the souls’ pageant is in1467, when some repairs were being done to it. But even that reference is not as clear as it might be. What the accounts say is ‘Item payd for stowres & ij Inglyshe burdes & dubyll spykyng & warmanship (workmanship) whare ye saulys lyes’.10 And where in the past accounts (1463 and 1465) reference is made to ‘pageants’ in the plural (1465 even has ‘havyng of both pagyantes agayn to the pagyant hows’),11 in 1467 we find ‘puttynghome of ye pajand’ and ‘puttyng ye pajand aboute on ye morn’. It is therefore possible that the life of the souls’ ‘pageant’ was only three or four years. To set against this evidence, however, there is the fact that there is no mention of either ‘pageant’ between 1467 and 1501, so the possible early scrapping of the souls’ one must remain a possibility only. But what of the Drawswerd version? The first thing to notice is that it is being made completely new (‘newe substancialie in euerything þervnto be-longing’), a total reconstruction.

The date at which this is talked about first is 1501, but it would be wrong to assume that it was ready for Corpus Christi Day in that year for a number of reasons. One is that the Drawswerd agreement is said to have been made ‘by thassent & consent of Richerd Thornton maior’ and ‘in this present yere abouesaid’, i.e. 1501. But Thornton was Mayor from 3 February 1502 to 3 February 1503 (New Style) or 1501–2 (Old Style), so that the only way in which the agreement could have been made both with Richard Thornton as Mayor and in 1501, is for the dating to be Old Style, and the time to be somewhere between 3 February (when Thornton was elected) and 25 March when the Old Style year ended. The second reason for not immediately accepting a quick construction for the new waggon is that in 1504 Henry Marshall is paid for ‘diuers Stuff for payntyng of ye pagiant xi js vjd’12 and in 1507 Drawswerd is given 40s ‘pro pagine de Domesdaye.’13 These payments suggest perhaps continuing work on the new waggon: Drawswerd’s, possibly his final instalment, or something to cover rising costs. Some slight confirmation of this state of affairs is given by the fact that there is no evidence for a performance of the Corpus Christi Play between 1501 and 1506. Perhaps Drawswerd was never pushed for time because the new waggon was not needed until 1506. But once again this is conjecture and one could argue from the other side that the painting may have been re-painting, or the Mercers may have disliked the first colour scheme; and the absence of evidence for performance does not automatically mean that there was none. It is safest to think of the creation of the Drawswerd waggon as being within the period 1501–7.

After 1507 The first point that needs making is that we have until 1526 no idea of what the Drawswerd waggon looked like, apart from the fact that some part of it or its appurtenances was painted. The 1526 inventory,14 scrappy and ill-spelt, is the only clue to its appearance. In some ways it seems to have resembled the old ‘great pageant’, especially the ‘yren sett with iiij Rappes’ (if ‘sett’ does mean ‘seat’). On the other hand, ‘hell dure’ and even more ‘pagand dure’ and ‘iiij wendows’ conjure up quite different pictures. But it’s as well to realize just how scrappy this inventory is. Disregarding the costumes, what actually is there? (a) (c) (d) (e)

The cloud; (b) Hell door, pageant door, 4 windows; 2 great angels, 4 angels (2 missing), 3 1ittle angels (1 missing); Iron seat (?) with 4 ropes, windlass with 1 rope, 8 pulleys; 9 nails (+ 2 missing); (f) The ‘trenette hus’, the ‘trenette’.

This is not a very impressive list of possessions for one of the richest Guilds in York, nor does it add up to a pageant waggon. There may be (b) two doors and four windows, but where are the walls, the roof, the floor, the wheels? Was the waggon itself not entrusted to the pageant masters, unlike its counterpart in 1433? Or did they just not bother to mention it? There are decorative features: (a) the cloud (one only, apparently) and (c) the various angels (detachable presumably, since three are missing); there is a complete set of raising gear (d); and there is (f) the Trinity banner and its case (nothing to do with the waggon, pace Johnston and Dorrell).15 Apart from that there are nine nails and two missing ones (e). Why should nails be

listed separately, and noted if missing? They can’t be common or garden ‘dubbyl spikings’ at 4d a hundred (1487), or ‘midill spykyngs’ at 3d a hundred (1477). If the doors and windows were detachable, were they perhaps put through the hinge irons to re-attach them? Whatever they were, they seem to be given the same importance at least as the pulleys. Overall there is very little to go on to get a picture of the Drawswerd waggon. It is simply the existence of the doors and windows that has provoked such imaginings as ‘a solid wooden structure with the details of heaven carved into or painted on the fabric’.16 It may be right, but it’s important to remember upon what slender evidence it is based. Thereafter, apart from the use of the ‘merchauntes paieaunt’ at the coming of Henry VIII to York in 1541,17 there is no evidence at all for the waggon. No repairs, no wheels, no repainting, nothing except the payment of rent for the pageant house and the receipts from Mercers refusing to be pageant masters. We know nothing whatsoever about its last years.

The 1433 waggon I want finally to turn back to the 1433 indenture, which, in as much as it is the fullest description that we have of a York waggon, deserves the fullest attention. Up to now, only Johnston and Dorrell have attempted to give a complete reconstruction (with drawing) of the waggon. (See Fig. 1) Many of Sandy Johnston’s ideas have, I know, changed through the production of the pageant in the full Toronto Cycle in 1977 and by itself in 1978, but it is nevertheless with the printed version that I want to deal because it is that one which is in danger of becoming accepted. It is only too easy, I think, for people to jump to conclusions without thinking through all the evidence, and one of the great advantages of a gathering such as this which Meg has arranged is that people can put their heads together over a problem and provide a variety of points of view about what a particular word might mean, or what structure is likely in a given circumstance; and this matter of likelihood needs stressing. I don’t think we shall ever be absolutely one hundred percent sure what the waggon looked like, and in many cases there are going to be details, perhaps important details, which we shall never find out; but we can work out what is likely.

Figure 1 Reconstruction by Alexandra Johnston and Margaret Dorrell of the York Mercers’ Pageant Waggon of 1433. (Reproduced from Leeds Studies in English NS 6 (1972), p. 10, by kind permission of the authors.) Key: The York Mercers’ Indenture of 1433. a Pagent With iiij Wheles helle mouthe … 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

A cloud & ij peces of Rainbow of tymber A grete coster of rede damaske payntid for the bakke syde of þe pagent ij other lesse costers for ij sydes of þe Pagent iij other costers of lewent brede for þe sides of þe Pagent A litel coster iiij squared to hang at þe bakke of god iiij Irens to bere vppe heuen iiij finale coterelles & a Iren pynne A brandreth of Iren þat god sall sitte vppon when he sall sty vppe to heuen With iiij rapes at iiij corners A heuen of Iren With a naffe of tre ij peces of rede cloudes & sternes of gold langing to heuen ij peces of blu cloudes payntid on bothe sydes iij peces of rede cloudes With sunne bemes of golde & sternes for þe heist of heuen With a lang small border of þe same Wurke vij grete Aungels halding þe passion of god Ane of þame has a fane of laton & a crosse of Iren in his hede gilted iiij smaller Aungels gilted holding þe passion ix smaler Aungels payntid rede to renne aboute in þe heuen A lang small corde to gerre þe Aungels renne a boute ij shorte rolls of tre to putte forthe þe pagent

The indenture, as Johnston and Dorrell have said, and as I have stressed elsewhere,18 is a binding legal document. It is not a scrappy list 1ike the 1526 inventory, and the ordering of its contents is, I think, important. It appears to break down into a number of natural groupings; a) b)

‘a Pagent With iiij Wheles helle mouthe’ Costumes for devils, souls, angels, apostles (+ one or two props)

c) d) e) f) g) h)

‘A cloud & ij peces of Rainbow of tymber Array for god …’ Backcloths Machinery: ‘iiij Irens to bere vppe heuen, iiij finale coterelles & a Iren pynne, A brandreth of Iren … With iiij rapes at iiij corners, A heuen of Iren With a naffe of tre’ Decoration (clouds) Decoration (angels) Storage (?)

The only apparent oddness is the putting together of God’s costume with the cloud and rainbow (clearly stage props), and I can only suggest that the two were so closely connected as a visual effect (God seated on the rainbow at the Last Judgment) that they naturally fell together in the writing up of the indenture. What significance have these groupings for the waggon? Clearly (a) and (e), and to a lesser extent (g) and (h), are important. (a) The putting of Hell-mouth with the pageant suggests that it is closely connected with it but that it is in some way a separate object. I have always thought of a Hell-mouth attached to the front of the wagon in the middle between the wheels, but it is of course possible that it was a separate structure or that it was hinged on to one of the uprights of the waggon itself. The absence of anything that could constitute a superstructure in the rest of the indenture leads me to suppose that the term ‘pageant’ is to be understood in the (admittedly much later) Norwich sense of ‘a howse … buylded on a carte with fowre whelys’,19 in other words a wooden box-frame. Group (e) is the most interesting and the most tantalizing. It first of all suggests that the raising machinery and the iron heaven with its wooden ‘naffe’ are very closely connected. I said in Toronto in 1978 that what I thought we had here was an iron-frame heaven on the roof of the wooden box-frame superstructure of the waggon, with the four ropes from the ‘brandreth’ running over a hub (‘naffe’), and providing a simple raising mechanism. What is less easy to do is to present a clear picture of that and at the same time integrate into it the ‘iiij Irens’ and the ‘iiij finale coterelles’ and the ‘Iren pynne’. Or rather it’s much too easy to integrate the last items. Any number of satisfactory reconstructions can be produced, none more convincing than another. The main problem is the ‘iiij Irens’, since there is very little limitation of meaning possible. They may have been uprights to support the roof, as Johnston and Dorrell suggest, but I have been able to find very little use of structural ironwork in the Middle Ages. It seems mainly to have been used for decoration or for windows (upright and horizontal bars crossing the window space), for crampons to hold top-courses of stone together, or stays to support free-standing chimneys and pinnacles. Only one reference given by Salzman20 sounds truly structural: two pillars, each 8 feet long, and a cross bar of iron to support a collapsing fireplace. If not main supports, the ‘Irens’ could have been stay-bars used to steady the ‘heuen of Iren’ as the waggon moved around the streets; or, if the heaven is merely the top part of the structure, they could have been the uprights which held up the heaven on the roof of the waggon. The ‘iiij finale coterelles’ which come next to the ‘Irens’ could be the cotter pins which lock the ‘Irens’ on to the ‘heuen’. Rather than present a series of possibilities, however, I will stick my own neck out and offer a reconstruction of my own. Figure 2 shows the view looking down at the ‘brandreth’ through the hole in the waggon roof

through which God ascends (‘sall sty vppe to heuen’ is the true reading; ‘fly’ was a mistaken transcription). The iron-frame ‘heuen’ is four feet wide up to a height of four feet, which should enable the seated actor to rise above floor level and without too much difficulty step off on to the waggon roof. The problem of carrying four separate ropes over the ‘naffe’ and preventing them from tangling or coming out of the grooves, I have solved by placing guide rings at a point just before they reach the ‘naffe’. The most dangerous moment comes when the brandreth is raised through the roof and the ropes are splayed out to their greatest extent. There is no evidence in the indenture regarding this problem, as far as I can see, and I have assumed the guide-bar to be part of the ‘heuen of Iren’. I have also assumed rope-pullers on the ground. They would need to be only about four feet behind the waggon to allow the ropes to clear the back edge of the waggon roof. The mechanism in general is based on the normal medieval method of raising stones, etc., in building operations. Figure 3 shows the ‘heuen’ from the side. The shape, dimensions, and structure are, of course, pure hypothesis. The structure, of iron bars with ‘tongues’ passed through the uprights, and locked with wedge-shaped pins, is based on the largest iron constructions of this sort that I know from the later Middle Ages, the cathedral clocks (Wells, Salisbury and Exeter) and the Dover Castle clock. These also carried heavy, moving weights suspended from them. There are obvious differences but they make a useful starting point. I have placed the ‘naffe’ near the back of the roof to cut down the angle at which the ropes leave the ‘naffe’ and therefore the distance behind the waggon that the pullers need to stand. It also allows the actor playing God space to rise from the brandreth (a little under 3 feet from the edge of the hole to the front of the waggon). I have taken the ‘heuen’ from back to front of the waggon roof, but it could as well have been a smaller structure. Six feet is probably the minimum height that a ‘heuen’ of this sort could be without restricting the movement of the actor. The size of the ‘naffe’ is approximately that noted by Sturt as normal for the hub of a farm waggon (‘eleven or twelve inches in diameter and twelve or thirteen inches from end to end’)21 It has not, of course, yet been trimmed as a wheel hub would need to be.

Figure 2 Horizontal view of waggon at lifting-tackle level

Figure 3 Side elevation of ‘heuen of Iren’ Figure 4 shows the ‘heuen’ from the front. The raising machinery would probably be less visible than I have made it, since I have used none of the cloud decorations provided for ‘heuen’. The Gothic trimming is pure fancy. I am not convinced of the accuracy of making the ‘iiij Irens’ into stay-bars, but it does seem to me that the structure as a whole might sway and could do with lateral support. But we don’t know whether the ‘heuen’ already had it; and it remains a possibility that the ‘Irens’ actually supported the ‘heuen’ from the waggon floor. I would like to suggest a purpose for the ‘Iren pynne’, but no one seems any more likely than another. If I am right that the groupings are significant, then it ought to be linked with the ‘iiij finale coterelles’ and possibly with the ‘iiij Irens’. The opening at the front is not large, and a 5’ 9” actor would be the limit for casting God, but I don’t think one need worry that he would look awkwardly cramped, since, if MS illuminations are anything to go by,22 the Middle Ages weren’t worried.

Figure 4 Front elevation of the ‘heuen of Iren’ Figure 5 gives an idea of the structure of the whole waggon with ‘heuen’ and ‘helle mouthe’ in position and the judgment seat suspended between. Apart from suggesting the rainbow and the ‘costers’ around the base, I have not added any of the decorative features, backcloths, clouds, or angels, or indicated actors. Access to the waggon I am assuming was from the side or sides. The whole stands 18’ high. It will be immediately apparent that I see the waggon very differently from Johnston and Dorrell. I do not think that they were aware of the problem of the ‘naffe’ and its implications for the raising mechanism, and structurally their reconstruction leaves much to be desired. Even the more recent practical approximation of the XVth c. waggon at Toronto, valuable though it was, has been an impressionistic rather than a carefully detailed attempt at solving the problems of the indenture. At least it no longer has a ‘braining’ method of raising God, or one that leaves him dangling, with his head through the roof.

Figure 5 York Mercers’ Waggon, front elevation, showing structure without decoration I can’t, I fear, take us any further with the ‘ij shorte rolls of tre to putte forthe þe pagent’. If the wheels were taken off for storage, then the ‘rolls of tre’ could be useful for moving the unwheeled waggon in and out of the pageant-house. But why ‘shorte’, and why only ‘ij’? And what are ‘rolls of tre’? The earliest reference the OED offers is 1426–7 in the accounts of St Mary-at-Hill, London (‘Also payd for a rolle & ij goiouns of Iron & a rope’), which, in view of the gudgeons and rope, sounds like a hoisting wheel. ‘Roller’ is not earlier (OED, 1434), and the first reference is to a ‘towel roller’. Like ‘Irens’, only to a lesser extent, perhaps more like ‘brandreth’, there are a number of possibilities. ‘Brandreth’, incidentally, which I have left as a plain flat swing-seat in the sketches, could be something more like a stool, as I have suggested elsewhere.23 But we are back at the basic problem of word meaning. Irons, pageant, pin, rolle, brandreth – however many times we turn to the OED or the MED for help, we can seldom be sure what a particular word really meant to a Mercer in 1433. And with that return to likelihood, I had better stop.

Discussion Meg Twycross: It must have been extremely heavy that brandreth – and why make it of iron? Peter Meredith: Yes, I’m uneasy about the use of iron generally here. What worries me is that they used it, and they must have known what they were doing, and yet I can’t really see why. I feel we’ve missed the point somehow. Someone I was talking to said, if you really wanted to have a framework on top of a wooden structure, it might look better in iron than in wood. Maybe the brandreth is a similar kind of thing – I know the brandreth we’ve got at home in the grate nearly breaks my back when I try and lift it. It would seem crazy to try and use something like that. Meg Twycross: Less likelihood of bits breaking off? Peter Meredith: Yes, I suppose if it hit the roof as it went up through it, it’s more likely to break the roof than to break itself. So God might be a bit safer. John Anderson: It’s going to take a bit of a pasting, I suppose, over the years; so if you wanted it to last, iron would be better. Peter Meredith: Yes, and it’s one of those things that’s mentioned in 1526 – if it is the ‘yren sett’. If so then the same thing could have lasted from 1433 to 1526. Peter Happé: Is it perhaps something to do with compactness? Because after all, if you’re using iron, you’re making a decision to have something small and strong rather than something cumbersome and strong. Peter Meredith: That’s certainly a possibility. They didn’t want great timbers up there, but nevertheless the structure had to bear a considerable weight. Jeremy Maule: Four ‘rappes’, 1526 – an ‘yren sett with iiij rappes’? Peter Meredith: Four ‘ropes’. The spelling of the 1526 inventory is appalling and has had its own offspring of problems. Johnston and Dorrell interpret ‘chartt’ (‘Wants j chartt’) as a ‘cart’,24 I don’t think there’s any doubt that it’s a ‘shirt’, ‘sark’ cum ‘shert’, and a pageant waggon has been created out of it. The spelling is quite extraordinary: the ‘Wesserons’ for ‘vizards’, for example; and they spell ‘rope’ in three different ways ‘Rappes’, ‘repe’ and ‘Rope’. That ‘yren sett with iijj Rappes’ is so close to the description of the brandreth of 1433, that you can’t believe Drawswerd didn’t make use of the same method, if not actually the same objects, in the new pageant waggon. David Parry: From the perspective of one who has actually stored waggons, I would suggest that if you’re right in the kind of superstructure you’re putting on top, then one of the reasons why iron was used is because it can be taken off and put on again much more easily and much

less destructibly than wood. And left on, the size of the waggon multiplies the storage problems enormously. Peter Meredith: I think that’s another important point about iron, because one should remember that it is nails and wooden pegs that are being used on a wooden structure, not screws or bolts, and therefore the thing once put together cannot easily be taken apart. Whereas with an iron structure, you’re using something which can either be taken off as a whole, or taken apart. The waggon superstructures we built at Leeds could be taken apart because we used bolts but the Mercers don’t seem to have done. The use of iron could produce rigidity in something that could nevertheless be taken apart. You’ve mentioned storage problems. We have a lot of miscellaneous information about the pageant houses, for example the dimensions of the piece of land on which the Goldsmiths built (‘continet in latitudine quatuor vlnas regias & in longitudine quinque vlnas regias & tria quarteria vnius regie’).25 But it doesn’t really help with the Mercers. We know their pageant-house was a pretty substantial building because they get daubers in, and then ground-wallers; everyone comes. It was tiled, and was clearly a building, not just an old shack out at Toft Green. But we don’t know what size it was. They spent a fair bit of money on hinges, which perhaps suggests that the doors were large and put a lot of strain on the hinges; and they also spent quite a bit on doors, which perhaps also suggests they were large. But you’re right, nevertheless; the problem of storing a tall pageant waggon is one reason why you’d want to take off the top – and also the wheels? David Parry: Sure, once you actually take the wheels off, or lift the stage off the chassis, you can store the things in about a quarter of the space. We have ten or eleven waggons stored dismantled; if we’d tried to store the same number complete, it would have taken an enormous amount of room. Meg Twycross: What do you do, up-end them, or what – for storage? David Parry: No, you lift the stage bolts, then the stage comes entirely off the chassis. The chassis is basically two axles and a ridge, on which you have some blocked pieces into which the next section, the stage, can be set down and be rigid. Once you’ve taken that off, whether it be a flat stage or a box frame, the ridge can be taken out and the axles stored with or without wheels. If you take the wheels off the axles, you save even more space. The whole thing really compresses down. If you have a pageant with a second storey, I think it could not really have been taken apart as much as that: a reason for large doors. Then it would have to be stored as a frame. But if you have something which is a much simpler pageant, on which you’re using a very basic framing and curtaining, then the frame itself can be taken apart, and you can store it in a very small space. John Marshall: I think it is interesting that there is evidence in Yorkshire in the sixteenth century that farmers stored their wains by taking the wheels off, and stored them for the winter laid down on their sides.

Peter Meredith: It is true that if you store something for any length of time with the wheels on, you are continuing the pressure on the wheel in one place only, which must strain the wheel, and may be a further reason for taking the wheels off. Richard Beadle: But you’d want to leave it at an approximate height so you could get the wheels back on. I’m not too convinced by this idea about lowering the thing, when you take the wheels off, onto rollers. David Parry: Well, it’s very easy – with manpower. All it requires is a lot of bodies who each take a little bit of the weight; even with a big double-storey waggon. We did it with the Mercers’ one in Toronto. You could just turn it on its side, because we had to get it out of the doors, and it really is quite easy to do. With one person in charge and a gang of people who can lift the weight, it’s just a question of setting it on and off. It’s much easier than you think.

Notes 1. Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Dorrell, ‘The Doomsday Pageant of the York Mercers, 1433’, Leeds Studies in English NS 5 (1971), 29–34, and ‘The York Mercers and their Pageant of Doomsday, 1433–1526’, Leeds Studies in English NS 6 (1972), 10–35. All quotations from the York records are taken from Records of Early English Drama, York, 2 vols, ed. by Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Rogerson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1979). 2. York, pp. 55–6. 3. York, p. 24. 4. York, pp. 95–6. 5. ‘York Mercers,’ p. 18. 6. York, p. 95. 7. York, p. 73. 8. Our findings will be discussed in an article to appear in Leeds Studies in English next year. 9. York, pp. 188–9. 10. York, pp. 99–100. 11. York, p. 97. 12. York, p. 200. 13. York, p. 205. 14. York, pp. 241–2. 15. See MED hous(e n.; especially the quotation under (b) 1391 ‘Pro j hous pro le baner et j autre pro le pennon, xix scot.’ Or OED House sb 2. 16. ‘York Mercers’, p. 19. 17. York, p. 272. 18. Peter Meredith, ‘“Item for a grone – iijd” – records and performance’ in, Proceedings of the First Colloquium, ed. by JoAnna Dutka (Toronto: Records of Early English Drama, 1979), pp. 46–50. 19. Non Cycle Plays and Fragments, ed. by Norman Davis, EETS ss 1 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. xxxv. 20. L.F. Salzman, Building in England down to 1540 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), p. 290. 21. George Sturt, The Wheelwright’s Shop (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1923), p. 100. 22. For example, Belles Heures of the Duc de Berry, fol. 30. Reproduced in John Harthan, Books of Hours (London: Thames & Hudson, 1977), p. 62. 23. ‘Item for a grone,’ pp. 48–9. 24. ‘York Mercers,’ pp. 19–20. 25. York, p. 35.

9

‘ITEM FOR A GRONE – iijd’ – RECORDS AND PERFORMANCES At the beginning of any discussion of records, the twin necessities of accurate transcription and painstaking interpretation must be stressed. Records are worse than useless without them. Without them the ‘grone’ of my title is likely to become the final comment of posterity on our efforts. The dangers are particularly great for medieval drama because the records are, relatively speaking, so patchy that the whole interpretation of a guild’s or even a town’s dramatic activity can hang on one phrase. ‘An ouerplas’ becomes ‘on our plas’ and a suspicion of indoor performance can become a certainty.1 Or the presence and absence of ‘j chartt’ turns a small reference to costume into a fleet of wheeled vehicles.2 Because we are groping for information, we often overreact to apparent discoveries. Yet who is to tell us that ‘chartts’ are ‘shirts’ not ‘carts’? Not only is our evidence limited in frequency, it is often set down in such a way as to make its interpretation particularly problematical. Neither the OED nor the MED record all the vagaries of spelling indulged in by the stewards or pageant masters of the guilds, or, on occasion, by the town-clerks.3 Does the OED help you to find out that a ‘grone’ in one place may be a ‘grayne’ in another? Or that ‘lethes & lenarse’ are nothing more grand than ‘lights and livers’? And did the Chester Painters’ Company eat eels when they bought ‘snyges’ in 1575, or were they simply lighting their feast, by metathesis, with ‘singes’ or candles?4 Nor are the problems created only by the spellings. They are also caused by a lack of specificity in the words themselves. Certain items are inevitably vague because of the semantic range of the word used: ‘iiij Irens to bere vppe heuen’ is perhaps the most tantalizing of all of these.5 Other items are precise enough but ambiguous. A good example are the ‘too selles’ which the Chester Coopers bought in 1572 for their carriage, and which John Marshall ingeniously and plausibly suggested were ‘seats’.6 He is now convinced that they are ‘sills’. Both explanations are possible, but what tilts the scale in favour of the latter is the context, which suggests carriage construction. The ‘too selles’ come between: ‘Item coste the brekynge of the caryge the bernggyn yt up to ye stuerdes doure xviii d’ and: ‘more payde to lohn croulay for the makyng of ye caryge and nayles iiii s’.7 In view of the major overhaul which the Coopers’ carriage was undergoing in 1572, it seems very likely that two such important structural items as sills were being replaced. An ambiguity more difficult of solution surrounds the use at Chester of a word variously spelt ‘beyrech, beyryches, berrage, berrag, beryg, baryage, beryge, bereache, berage’. Two separate words are undoubtedly involved here: one, ‘beverage’, is well-attested in both OED and MED, but the other does not appear in either. It

must be a derivative of ‘bear’ (to carry), and the meaning ‘carrying’ fits a number of the appearances of the word.8 But what of: ‘more spende whan ye payntars came to garne ye bereghe and at the seconde Reherse in the stuardes lenekers ix d’?9 Are we to punctuate so as to give ‘garne’ no object, and leave ‘bereghe’ with its usual meaning of ‘carrying’ (a very awkward solution); or is the ‘bereghe’ really a physical object that the painters came to decorate? Certainly this entry in the Coopers’ accounts of 1572 fits very well with one in the Painters’ for the same year: ‘Item spende at Tomas Lynecarsse for the baryage of the carriage vi d,’10 and taken with a similar Painters’ payment in 157511 suggests that the Painters were responsible for decorating some part of the Coopers’ carriage. The precise meaning of ‘bearage’ is still left uncertain, but it seems at least possible to refer to the body of the carriage as opposed to its undercarriage. If this is so then part of the bearage that the Painters came to ‘garne’ in 1572 may well have been the two new sills that the Coopers had bought.12 Though in the case of ‘selles’ the context is useful in determining the meaning of the word, this is not always so, since whether similar entries are grouped together or not will usually depend upon the man who made up the accounts or the material from which he was working. The ‘paste balye’ costing 8d, which rounds off the Chester Painters’ accounts for 1575, is particularly tantalizing.13 Does it come in that position because it was an odd item of food for which the bill came in late or was mislaid? Or is it a further product of Alderman Hallwood’s painting skills,14 and therefore a pasteboard property for the Shepherds’ feast? If so, it is the only such item in the whole Painters’ accounts, and adds a further complication to understanding the nature of the production.15 Knowing precisely what the objects were that are listed in medieval accounts is an obvious necessity if the records are to be of use in interpreting production, but knowing who the people were who were involved in the plays can be almost as important, though here the diversity of spelling often makes absolute certainty of identification impossible. The two versions of Thomas Linaker’s name give some idea of the variations that occur, though with him there is no doubt about the identity of the two names.16 But is ‘Rychard kalle’, who was paid 16d for an unspecified service by the Chester Coopers in 1572, the same man as Richard Cally (in the Mayor’s Book shown as Kelly) who was made a freeman of the city as a painter in 1563–4? And is he the same man as ‘Rychard Calye’ who owed 5s 5d to the Painters’ Company for the ‘whytsone playes’ in 1568?17 The identification may at first seem not to matter very much, but it can be of considerable importance since without as exact a knowledge as possible of who the people were, to build up a picture of the society out of which the plays came and an understanding of the relationship of that society with the production of the plays is impossible. Richard Cally is, however, a special instance, because the service for which he was paid by the Coopers seems to have been acting. We know so little about the actors in the civic plays that any further information about one is automatically of importance. His craft, his age, his connections are all matters that may help to answer questions about casting and performance. Even the identification of people with vaguer connections with the plays may be of importance. F.M. Salter went some way towards finding out about Richard Doby. He discovered that he was a glazier, working between 1549 and 1562 at the church of St Mary-onthe-Hill, and also a stilt-walker, and that there was another Doby, Edward, also a glazier working later in the century at the Cathedral.18 This information led him to the conclusion that

‘the cathedra of the Flagellation play is represented by a window, perhaps even a stainedglass one, at the mid-rear of the stage’, and to make the statement that ‘there would be no “goynge one the styltes” at the Whitsun plays’.19 Had he looked further his conclusions would no doubt have been somewhat different. The Dobies were certainly a family of glaziers. Henry Dawby received payment from the churchwardens of Holy Trinity Church in 1533, and Richard Dawby (Dawby or Dalby seem to be the preferred forms) of Handbridge was paid 18s by the wardens of the same church in 1562 ‘for glassinge of windows that were broken’, and again, in 1567, 6s ‘for mendinge all the windows’. In 1572 a whole series of payments begin to Edward Doby/Dalby for various glazing jobs.20 From the Freemen’s Rolls it appears, that a Richard Doby was given his freedom in 1565–6, and two sons of a Richard Dawby given theirs in 1570–1 and 1573–4.21 Here is something odd, because as the freedom of the city was usually taken up after ending one’s apprenticeship, and therefore at the age of twenty-one or so, Richard Doby would have been five and eight at the births of his sons, Edward and Richard. It is possible (though I think unlikely) that the Richard of 1565 is not the same man as the father of Edward and Richard, but it seems more probable that Richard senior was one of those who took up the freedom later in life. In 1573–4 at his son’s taking up of his freedom, Richard senior is described as ‘late of Chester’, and as in Harley 2054, part of the Randle Holme collection, he appears as an alderman of the Painters’ Company between 1568 and 1571,22 he probably died in 1571 or 1572. In the Chester play accounts Richard Doby appears three times: in 1572, ld is paid by the Painters ‘for bayre that Rochart doby hade’; in 1575, they paid 6d certainly, and possibly a further 6d, specifically for stilt-walking; in 1575 also, the Coopers spent 2d on him. A few more entries are needed to put Richard Doby and the stilts in context: 1572

Item for goyng vppon the styltes at Rydyng the bannes

vj d

1573

To Ryd Dobe for going uppon the styltes

iij d

To Edward Dobe for going uppon the stylts at Midsomer

iij d

1574

For going on the stylts

xij d

1575

Payd to Edward Dobie for going on the stilts

xij d

1576

the ij sheperts for going uppon the styltes

xx d23

The importance of the stilts is attested partly by the regular painting of them, partly by their being entrusted to Alderman Hallwood for repainting in 1575, and partly by the fuss that was made when Robart Waytt, a member of the company, promised his man for stilt-walking in 1577 and then went off to the Isle of Man, either taking the stilts with him (which seems unlikely) or leaving them in such a place that no-one could find them.24 This has been, I am afraid, a long preamble to a tale; what conclusions can now be drawn from it? Two negative ones, which in clearing away uncertainty can be as important as any, and two positive ones: first, that as far as the plays are concerned we are not dealing with Richard Doby, senior; secondly, that though all the Dobies were glaziers, their occupation has nothing to do with the plays; thirdly, that though stilt-walking may have nothing to do with the plays, it was certainly an important element in company entertainments; and fourthly, and this must be one important justification for spending so long with the family, that in Richard and Edward

Doby we may be able to identify two of the actors of the Painters’ play. The play concerned is the Shepherds’ play; the two Dobies are the only named stilt-walkers during the period for which play records are extant; they both walked, together or separately, at the Banns or at Midsummer certainly between 1573 and 1575; and in 1576 two shepherds are paid 20d for going upon the stilts at Midsummer. This is clearly not proof, but the balance of probability here is often as much as we can hope for. I have up to now been illustrating what seem to me to be general problems existing in the use of records. I now want to turn to some specific areas of performance on which the material contained in the records can throw some light. My first is the very centre of performance, acting; and here let me say at once that I know of no evidence in the records that justifies us in assuming that ‘professional’ actors were used in the civic plays. ‘Professionalism’ has, since Salter’s Mediaeval Drama in Chester, become a commonplace for explaining any payment that seems rather large, and frequently no attempt is made to produce any evidence for ‘professionalism’ beyond the simple fact of a large payment.25 As Salter’s argument seems to lie behind many of the more recent references to professional actors, we might, perhaps, have a closer look at it. Now in a day when a penny was a fair – or an accepted – wage for a day’s labour, what about Old Simeon who received forty times that amount, 3/4? Was he an unskilled actor? It is not the general nature of business men to pay for services more than the services are worth; and the inescapable fact is that the Smiths paid Simeon 3/4 at the same time that they paid the workmen in their shops a penny or less for a day’s work …26 Surely there can be no escape from the conclusion that the professional actor had a part in these plays.27

Not only the conclusion, but also the basis of the calculations is very dubious. In the first place, the gap between the supposed date of the accounts, 1554 (1546),28 and the date of the wage regulations used for the calculations, 1592–3, is too wide to be useful except in a very general way. Secondly, the sum paid to Simeon in 1554 (1546) is the same as the sum paid in 1561, which suggests that it is not really related to wages. Thirdly, if we are to think in business terms, to compare the highest-paid actor with the lowest-paid worker is surely odd. Fourthly, and again in business terms, the payment is not a single day’s wage but would have to cover time spent in learning and rehearsing the part. Fifthly, and I think very importantly, we are here concerned with celebration not business, and I doubt very much whether the same rules apply. Nevertheless Salter has here raised an important issue, one which only the records can help to settle. The first necessity is to know whom we are dealing with. For the actors to be listed by role rather than by name is normal, but just occasionally name rather than role appears. In Chester, to take up the issue on its starting ground, a number of actors’ names are given amongst other entries. They are best listed: Painters (Shepherds) 1572

Item payde to Robert radeborne

xij d29

Smiths (Purification) 1561

to Tho ellam

xij d

To wm loker for plleyinge

xij d

1567

to the players Robt Rabon

xij d30

Coopers (Passion) 1572

payde to hugh gyllam

iii s vii d

payde to Thomas marser

ii s iii d

payde to Iohn stynson

ii s iii d

payde to Rychard kalle

xvi d31

The evidence for assuming that these are actors varies considerably. The only one who is actually called an actor is Robert Rabon in the Smiths’ accounts of 1567, where he heads the list of a cast all the rest of which is shown by role. Thomas Ellam’s name appears among the rest of the cast (context here seems to be reasonable evidence), and William Loker, in the same 1561 Smiths’ list, is specifically paid for ‘plleyinge’. That Robart Radeborne acted for the Painters in 1572 is simply a deduction from the members of the cast who are missing and the amounts that these missing members were usually paid, and the evidence for the four given in the 1572 Coopers’ list is somewhat similar. All these men, it can be said with reasonable certainty, are local; almost all, identifiable members of one or other of the Chester craft companies; and despite the high wages in some cases, no hint of the professional. But more can be learnt from the list than that. No necessity exists for a company to provide the actors from amongst its own number;32 only William Loker for the Smiths and John Stynson for the Coopers are members of the company responsible for putting on the play.33 Of the other Coopers’ actors Hugh Gillam was a tailor, Thomas Mercer a barber-surgeon, and Richard Cally either a painter or a slater.34 Of the Smiths’, Thomas Ellam was a singer not made free until October 1574 and therefore at this time still a boy,35 and Robert Rabone (probably the same man as the Robert Radeborne of the 1572 Painters’ accounts) is almost certainly the Robert Rathbone who was made free in 1541–2 and who was, like many others, listed without a craft in the Freeman’s Rolls.36 The money spent ‘at the heringe of the p[l]ayers’ or ‘layd downe about the seeking our players’ was as necessary as the money spent on repairing the carriage, and as locally directed. Other information besides the local origins of the actors can be derived, but it hovers on the edge of speculation. The necessity of such speculation and the unsatisfactory nature of much of it can be seen from the Smiths’ records. There are records for six years of performance, 1546, 1561, 1567, 1568, 1572 and 1575.37 Only two of these years, 1546 and 1575, contain complete lists of actors and their wages, and setting them side by side will show both the range of the amounts paid out and the way in which some remain unchanged over thirty years. A clear idea of the recorded cast and its relation to the text of the play will also be given. 1546 The doctors

text38

1575 iij s 4 d

(not differentiated In 1546)39

our frest doctor

xvj d

Primus Doctor

our 2 doctor

xvj d

Secundus Doctor

our tret doctor

xij d

Tertius Doctor

letall God

xij d

litle god

20 d

Deus

mary

x d

oure marye

xviij d

Maria/Marye

Ioseph

vijj d

gossip

xvj d

Josephe

Damane

x d

our dame An

x d

Anna Vidua

ould Semond

iij s 4 d

Seameon

iij s

Simeon

the Angells

vj d

our first angell

vj d

Angelus

secon angell

vj d

(in 1561 and 1567 only 1 angel appears)

In the other years various characters are omitted, and I have suggested that in 1561 these are made up by the addition of Thomas Ellam and William Loker, but it is important to see how well they fit in. The two parts that are missing in that year are Mary and Joseph; Ellam, if it is the singer, would have been a boy and therefore right for the part of Mary, if he were old enough. The age for taking up the freedom of the city is usually assumed to have been around twenty-one.40 If he were twenty-one or two in 1574, he would have been between seven and nine in 1561, which is cutting it a bit fine for a boy actor. On the other hand as a singer he would not necessarily be on a par with the other apprentices, and the date of his freedom could be somewhat later. This sounds like special pleading, but I think it is important to show that the matter is still open. There is another candidate for Mary, Thomas Ellome, a clerk and tailor, made free in 1559.41 Under the normal circumstances this would make him about twenty-three at the time of the 1561 performance. Mary in this play need not have a good singing voice (with the text as it has survived, that is), and the twenty-three year old clerk could be just as likely a candidate for the part. It is a pity that neither identification is a certainty, since either would considerably expand our understanding of female roles in the plays.42 William Loker is more straightforward. He was made free in 1543–4 and would presumably be getting on for forty in 1561.43 The way in which he appears in the accounts, how ever, is unusual: away from the list of actors and specified as ‘to Wm laker for plleyinge xvj d’. Perhaps he was persuaded against his will to take over the part late, or perhaps he was the only member of the Smiths’ Company to act, or he may simply have been left out of the list and therefore the payment seemed to a scrupulous steward to need specifying in the accounts. He is not an obvious type-casting for the aged Joseph, on paper at least, but just another piece of information to be registered. A further general point needs making about the lists of actors, and that is that the complete list is almost the exception. As we have seen, only two of the Smiths’ accounts provide complete lists, or three if we include the 1561 one; the rest are fragmentary in some way or another. Gaps in the lists have been explained by doubling or, as in the case of the Coopers’ accounts, joint company responsibility. Neither of these seems to me to be satisfactory. Certainly neither would work for the Smiths’ play. One of the Smiths’ lists is particularly interesting in that it gives all the characters but marks payments to only a few of them. To my mind this confirms that for some reason a number of actors were prepared to act unpaid. Were they apprentices of the company; or journeymen; or members who wanted rather than had to be persuaded to perform? I do not as yet know the answer. In 1567 the characters left out of the Smiths’ accounts are Mary and Simeon; in 1568, the three doctors, Anna, the Angel and Simeon are missing; and in 1572 the only characters named are the second and third doctors, Joseph, Anna and Simeon. Though the play falls into two parts, The Purification and Christ and the

Doctors in the Temple, neither part could be done satisfactorily using only the paid characters; though doubling could just explain the 1567 situation, it would certainly not help either 1568 or 1572. No unspecified payments are made to people who could have taken parts, except perhaps the 3s 4d to ‘master Rond barnes’ in 1568, and that is more likely to be for music since all the years record payments for songs and singers from the cathedral. Of the three Painters’ accounts, 1568, 1572 and 1575, only one, 1572, is incomplete. From that, the first shepherd and Joseph are missing, but in view of the payment of 12d to Joseph in 1575, Robart Radeborne, also paid 12d, is likely to have played that part. Of the first shepherd there is no trace. The other slight problem in the Painters’ play is raised by the entry at the end of the 1572 accounts, ‘ytem for thomas poolles child bycose he pled not our god iiij d’ There may after all be a missing actor in the 1568 and 1575 accounts, the Christ child. The suggestion of a real child playing the baby in the stable is not by any means a surprise, but it is a useful confirmation of the practice, even if, as here, the child was not used. In the Coopers’ accounts the non-existent actors far out-number the listed ones. Four are indicated by the payments in 1572 and 1575, and even for the Coopers’ part of the play, five at least, and possibly seven or eight, are left unaccounted for.44 Too few actors cause one sort of problem, too many cause another, but the problems are those that raise questions of presentation as a whole. Having spent so long on the rather mundane aspects of casting, I will turn to performance and to the question of what sort of information the records provide about the way a play was put on. Once again I will limit myself to one or two plays from one place, because it seems to me the time has come to look at the details and let the generalizations look to themselves. Both the Painters and the Smiths at Chester give a fair amount of information about costumes and props, and a little about what might loosely be called scenery. Yet neither provides a full list of anything. So at the outset it is perhaps worth saying that though we can find out something about the way the plays were put on, we cannot hope to find out everything from the records. Broadly speaking, the companies are interested in what they have to pay for, and the corporations are concerned with that and with what has to be controlled; and that is what will appear in the records. The props that the Painters paid for in 1572 (the fullest list) are bottles (probably borrowed), six whistles (two for Trow, the Garcius of the play), ‘bogyttes’ (the same as the bags borrowed from ‘tangkere’ in 1575), and possibly a shepherd’s crook, though the phrase is ‘shype hoke’ which Bridge interprets as ‘sheep’s hock’. Possible ‘scenery’ references45 are contained in ‘Item for pentynge the houke and ass’ and ‘Item the styltes and stare’ which follows immediately after and is included in the same payment of 12d. In 1568 the ‘ox & asse’ were painted, and it may be that ‘houke’ is a spelling of ‘ox’, but if a shepherd’s ‘hoke’ were used, then it is at least as likely to have been painted.46 The ‘stare’ is not mentioned elsewhere in the records, but the Second Shepherd in the play refers to ‘the stare / that stoode [them] beforne’47 while they were in the stable, even though no mention has been made of it before, so there is a possibility that it was part of the play and not something used in the Banns riding and to be connected with the stilts. As far as costume is concerned no specific reference is made to the shepherds or to Mary and Joseph, though their costumes may be included in the ‘gettyng wedes’ (1572) and ‘wedes’ (1575), and ‘when we made oure capes & cotes’48 (1568); almost everything that is spent is spent on Trow’s shoes (two pairs), on his

‘Cote’ (1568) or his ‘cape’ (1575), and on a ‘payer of lether garteres’ (1572). For ‘make-up’ there is ‘for payntes to bone the pleares’ (1572), though that entry could refer to costume decoration, and ‘hayare of the ij bardes’ (1575).49 Most of these items are fairly certainly identifiable as props, costumes, ‘scenery’ or ‘makeup’, but a broad category of objects in the Painters’ records may or may not be stage properties. The early part of the play, before the wrestling and after the three shepherds have met, is taken up with a feast, and by far the most numerous items in the accounts are payments for food. The following is the 1568 list: A bestes baly to dener, wosshyng puddynges, botter to the playe, Chesse, bryddes, Crabefysshes, bred to the playe, A qarter of vele, a qarter of corsse vele, a bestes bely & a calues fette, a Mydcalffe and Anox tonge, a calues hed, a grone, a Tuppes hed, xv hagays, bacon, a calues hed parbolyng of the garbyge, a quarter of A lambe, v haggassys, samontt. The question, of course, is: are these items of food for the play or for the company’s feast? Only three indicate their destination: ‘A bestes baly to dener’, ‘bred to the playe’ and ‘botter to the playe’; otherwise it is an open question which they were for. Bridge clearly thought that much of the food was for the play, and certainly quite a convincing overlap occurs between the play and accounts, though the most convincing, the ‘gannokes/Ianokes’, occurs only in the 1572 and 1575 accounts. Before we imagine all this good food being tipped out and packed away at station after station around the streets and lanes of Chester, one or two points should be borne in mind. The number of the company in 1590 (the first list known to Bridge)50 was eighteen full members and five journeymen, a number not far off the haggises of 1568; and there are also in the accounts each year payments for a number of earthen mugs (fourteen in 1572, twelve in 1575), which could be props, but which again look more as though they are intended to be one for each member of the company. In the second place, though the food list seems enormous, the amount spent on individual items that are named was just under a pound, whereas the Smiths in the same year, 1568, spent just over a pound. Obviously the calculations can be done in a variety of ways, but none that I have tried shows the Painters spending appreciably more in any one year than the Smiths. Despite these reservations, however, I am convinced that some of this food was used in the play, and a list of the items mentioned there should help to substantiate this (the items italicized coincide with the 1568 accounts; those starred, with the 1572 ones. 1575 shows a marked reduction in the number of named items.): bread *, onyons, garlik, lyckes, butter*, greene cheese *, (ale), a pudding*, a Ianock *, a sheepes head*, a groyne, (soure mylke), a piggs foote*, a paunch cloute/a womb clout, a lyver*, a chitterling (?), a pigges foote* from pudding purie, Gambons*, a pudding* with a prick in the end, Oxe tonge*. What can be said, then, about the performance? In a modern production the amount of real food that is consumed during a play is negligible. In this case, however, though the actors may have eaten on the carriage, stops occurred between stations, and it is possible that little was left by the time the end was reached. What is clear is that this was no imaginary spread. Unlike the animals in the ark, the food was real.51 The care taken with Trow’s goatskin shoes, and the fact that he also had a pair of pumps, suggest that these were a special feature of the play just as the existence of his two whistles suggests a ‘turn’ of some sort. These, taken with the feast and the wrestling, could make the first half of the play into a series of ‘turns’, but nothing in the accounts or the play necessarily suggests a concentration on anything other than a fairly

naturalistic presentation. What is needed above all is that we should adjust our understanding of the play to the presence of these items in the accounts. One other matter needs mentioning before I move on briefly to the Smiths’ play. I began this section by saying that sometimes too many actors are found in the accounts. In the Painters’ play what this means is that Trow’s boy, paid 6d in each year for which there are records, plays no part whatsoever in any of the extant texts of the play. That he was there is clear, but what he did is simply not known. A parallel situation may exist with the three or four shepherds’ boys, who do not appear in the version of the play in Harley 2124, but who do appear in all the other versions. Was there once a version with a part for Trow’s boy? It is possible, but I think that really he is a part of theatrical rather than literary history. Once again, however, an adjustment needs to be made to our envisaging of the play. Where the Painters’ accounts seem to support a largely naturalistic presentation, the Smiths’ do not. It is true that an emphasis is made on the reality of the temple: Simeon is dressed in a cope (made? in 1546; borrowed in 1572 and 1575), an altarcloth is mentioned (borrowed in 1572 and 1575), and the steeple too may be an attempt to evoke the physical presence of the temple. Elsewhere, however, indications of something other than naturalism are found. Payments from 1546–72 for the gilding of God’s face, since Christ is in this play markedly human, suggest an emphasis on another kind of reality and the stressing of his godhead rather than his manhood. The crown for Mary, because the part she has in both sections of the play emphasizes those qualities which are most distinctively human, suggests that once again the Smiths are concerned with symbolic rather than naturalistic representation. Mary is the queen of heaven even when she is most a mother. These two approaches need not clash, since both stress magnificence and grandeur, and the naturalism of the temple setting is an appropriate background for the outwardly shown divinity of the characters. It is interesting in this connection that the gilding of God’s face is not mentioned in 1575, nor does a crown for Mary appear after 1568. Was there a change in the later performances of the play? The only other noticeable changes are the additional borrowing of a doctor’s gown and hood, and the washing of the borrowed ‘gere’. The continued existence of the copes is no surprise. Not only are they theatrically striking but also any parish church of the time would be expected to possess and use albs, copes and tunicles.52 The differences could be a sign of a move towards stressing the natural rather than the supernatural side of the play, as the pressures from ecclesiastical authority became stronger. The evidence is limited, but the absence of the gilding of God’s face taken in conjunction with the rather garbled strictures in the ‘Conclusion’ to the Late Banns about the representation of God do to some extent justify this conclusion: ffor no man can proportion that Godhead I saye To the shape of man face nose & eyne But sethence the face gilte doth disfigure the man that deme A Clowdy Coueringe of the man a voyce only to heare And not God in shape or person to appeare.53

I have chosen to discuss the Chester companies’ accounts at length because they contain such a wealth and variety of information related more or less closely to a still-existing set of plays. That they are late is no bar to their usefulness, because almost everything at Chester is late, and

like the Coventry records they contain details of presentation which the more generally extensive records at York on the whole do not. Even though I have spent so much space, I have still only pecked at the material that is there, and if I have made it seem unimportant or uninformative then I have done the records a disservice. I have left almost untouched the evidence for the use of music in the plays, clearly important for the Smiths’; I have also not mentioned so far the amount of carriage information that exists, or, yet another aspect, the usefulness of the material relating to rehearsal and organization. What it seems to me Chester is lacking, however, is detailed information about the civic organization of the plays; hence it is to the celebrated Ordo Paginarum, a document at York concerned with this, that I want to turn my attention to next. I will confine myself in looking at the Ordo to certain problems that it raises. The A/Y Memorandum Book54 in which it appears is a collection of civic and guild ordinances and other documents compiled for consultation by the city authorities. The Ordo itself runs from f 252v to f 254v. It is followed by a torch list with an ordinance for the order of the procession, and, starting on f 254v and running over to f 255, the proclamation of the play. This is followed by the second list of guilds and pageants, which ends with a further torch list.55 The Ordo was originally compiled by Roger Burton, who was made a freeman of the city in 1398–9 as a notary and was common clerk from 1415 until 1433.56 In the margin, and written afterwards, beside the opening of the Ordo is the explanation of its purpose which, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I think should be taken at its face value. The following is a literal translation of it: ‘The schedules of the pageants are to be delivered in the form subsequently below-written to the crafts by six sergeants-at-mace of the mayor in the first or second week of Lent annually [they are] to be written by the common clerk’. It is a directive for yearly action to be taken. If the ‘schedules’ are, as they seem to be, the descriptions of the pageants which follow, and they are to be delivered annually to the crafts, then they would certainly appear to be part of the contents of the billets. They are a sign that the city was not only indicating that the play would be performed, but also attempting to ensure that the guilds did what they had agreed to do, since the existence of a description however short, however much just a cast list as some are, was some check on their activity. If these descriptions are a part of the billets, then one would expect them to be brought up to date to take account of any changes in guild responsibility or in the content of the pageant. All this is straightforward, and, if not always accepted, is also not very new. One further fact about the manuscript needs to be borne in mind when assessing the Ordo and its companion pieces. It is that they were written at the very end of the volume in which they appear. A/Y is a composite of three volumes, called at the time the maior or magnum registrum, the novum registrum, and ‘the calendar’.57 The maior registrum ends at present f. 256, and the novum continues to present f. 381. The ‘calendar’ is a paper manuscript bound in at the end, and is an attempt to index some of the material in the council chamber in 1482. The Ordo and its companion pieces appear at the end of the maior registrum, and it is quite possible that they were entered as a group for easy reference before the rest of the volume was filled.58 They would then have formed a composite set of pieces of information about the play, and it may well be that we should not think of one pageant list as superseding the other, but of each as complementary. The second list was perhaps an interim measure to take account of a

slightly changed situation, or perhaps merely a brief check-list of pageants. The Ordo, because of its completeness, was certainly the primary list throughout the fifteenth century. It should be remembered that what the A/Y Memorandum Book contains are working documents; they should reflect their period of usefulness by the changes that are made in them. To some extent they do, but they were not subjected to systematic and regular overhaul. Instead, they were brought up to date piecemeal and as the observancy of the common clerk took him. The whole volume shows a picture of constant attempts to regularize situations and constant ad hoc decisions. Attempts were made to cross-reference; sometimes old ordinances were crossed out and reference made to new ones, sometimes not; in 1482 the index was attempted; but there was never a thorough-going revision or updating of anything. The Ordo, however, is something that was used annually, as the marginal note tells us, and one might expect revision more accurate and reliable here than elsewhere. It is worth looking to see how up-to-date it has been kept, and whether the changes in the pageants and their owners, apparent from other sources, have been recorded. Of the fifty-one pageants in the Ordo, thirty-two seem to me to need no change in guild ascription. Of the nineteen left, seven need no alteration because they are combinations of guilds for financial purposes, the two guilds involved still producing both pageants.59 Of these seven have been altered to a greater or lesser extent.60 The five that remain involve eight changes not noted in the Ordo: the Hosiers (1) and Tailors (2) become contributory to or are grouped with the Drapers;61 the Sledmen (3) take over the Broggers pageants, which the Woollen-weavers’ (4) then take over from the Sledmen in 1553;62 and the Drapers’ (5), ‘Fergus’ (6), the Woollen-weavers’ (7), and the Hostlers’ pageants (8) are ‘set aside’ in 1551.63 Of these changes the five that can be dated are of the mid-sixteenth century (4–8), and therefore date from a time when the Ordo appears in some respects to be giving way to the Register (the York Play manuscript) as the main civic record of guild involvement in the play. The other three changes are difficult to date: the Tailors and Hosiers seem to have been contributory to or grouped with the Drapers by 1535, since they are listed together in the pageant money collection of that year;64 the Sledmen are entered as the guild responsible for the Emmaus pageant in the Register, but in a later hand over an erasure, so that their association with that pageant need not pre-date the writing of the manuscript. They are listed as paying pageant money in the 1535 list and so may have had their pageant by then.65 All the changes in guild ascription, then, are either noted in the Ordo, or, except perhaps for the undated Tailors’, Hosiers’ and Sledmen’s changes, took place after the importance of the Ordo had waned. The only apparent problem left in these alterations to guild ascriptions in the Ordo is the absence of the Saucemakers from the reconstituted Condempnacio Cristi. The Pagina condempnacionis Jhesu Cristi is the pageant made up in 1422–3 of the Saucemakers’ Suspensio Jude, the Tilemakers’ Condempnacio Cristi per Pilatum, the Turners’, Hairsters’ and Bollers’ Flagellacio et coronacio cum spinis and the Millers’ Particia vestimentorum Cristi.66 In the Ordo, the Tilemakers, Millers, Ropers, Sievers, Turners, Bollers and Hairsters have been entered at various times. The Saucemakers appear only in the second list, which represents the situation before the amalgamation of the pageants and lists the individual constituent pageants with their still separate guilds. The Saucemakers first appear in the

records requesting the contribution of the paris-candle makers in 1417–18;67 they then blossom into the main guild for the Condempnacio Cristi in 1422,68 until in 1432 they hand over to the Tilemakers.69 One would therefore expect an alteration to the Ordo to include their name, if the Ordo description was written before 1432, as is generally assumed. There is no doubt, however, that this section of the Ordo has been almost totally erased, and that the present description is a re-writing which records the amalgamated Condempnacio Cristi, written most likely after 1432. After 1432, the Saucemakers, having handed over the pageant, had presumably dropped out of prominence to such an extent that their contribution to the pageant was no longer a matter worthy of record. Besides the guild ascriptions, the other significant side of the Ordo is its descriptions of the pageants. As with the Condempnacio Cristi, these have often been seen as the original 1415 versions with an occasional, usually minor, addition. Yet if the descriptions were to keep pace with the changes in the pageants, they, like the guild ascriptions, would from time to time be in need of more than just a few additions. There are signs in the manuscript that a number of descriptions have indeed been substantially altered, sometimes to the extent of whole passages being erased and a new description written over the top.70 This more than anything else bears witness to the attempts that were made to keep the Ordo usable. The alterations in the Goldsmiths’ description will give an idea of the way some changes are recorded. At the beginning of the description an ‘ττ’ is placed, not an uncommon device, and then another added half-way down, before Maria, to show the division of the pageant into two. ‘et filius Herodis’ has been added above the line to show the addition of a new character, and possibly ‘et nuncius’ also towards the end of the first part. An attention to the cast is quite usual in the descriptions. ‘masons’ has then been added before the first ‘ττ’. The division into two may indicate the two pageants that the Goldsmiths claimed to support in 1432.71 They are something of a problem, since the Goldsmiths clearly had only one pageant wagon in 1420.72 We should not underrate the speed with which changes could take place, however, and in the twelve years that separate the pageant house building from the hand-over to the Masons, the Goldsmiths could have easily divided up their single pageant into two (even acquired two wagons), discovered it was too hefty a financial load, and been ready to hand over one pageant to another guild. If the kind of patching that the Goldsmiths description reveals seems to us an awkward and inefficient method of keeping up with changes, I think it seemed so to the city of York too, and was at least the partial cause of the compilation of the Register.73 The various alterations to pageants and in guild ownership which are recorded in the Ordo are likewise indicated in the Register, this time by a flurry of marginalia. If the common clerks ever bothered to find out what was lacking at all the hic carets, they seldom entered the information in the Register; the ultimate effect was of just as inefficient a method of conveying information as the Ordo. It should finally be said that once again we are bound by the evidence that remains. It is possible that the common clerk had a separate list and description of the pageants which superseded the Ordo and which has since disappeared, and that is the reason why the Ordo was not as efficiently kept up as it might have been. With the evidence as it is, however, I think it reasonable to assume that the Ordo remained the source of the billets and was brought up to date, more or less fully, until some time after the turn of the sixteenth century.

The Ordo Paginarum is one of those records that is on the edge of performance proper. I should like finally to touch on one that is absolutely central. The Mercers’ indenture which turned up in York in 197174 has been perhaps the most important recent find in medieval dramatic records, and it gave to the Mercers, already a wellrecorded guild, the only properly documented wagon in York. Though the indenture has already been much discussed, I would like to begin at the beginning and ask what sort of a document it is. First, it is an inventory of guild possessions relating to the pageant and is, as far as I know, unique among medieval dramatic records in that it is legally binding on the pageant masters, and therefore of far greater importance than any casual list. If there is an accurate catalogue of one guild’s pageant possessions then this is it. Secondly, it is an original, not copied either by a later antiquarian, like the Coventry Halliwell-Phillipps list,75 or even to register it in the guild’s own books. Thirdly, its language suggests literacy and understanding. What then can it tell us about the production of the Mercers’ pageant? It is as well to see its limitations first. Its descriptions though clear are not precise or detailed enough to show exactly what many items were. I have already mentioned the ‘iiij Irens to bere vppe heuen’. It also assumes that the reader will know what a pageant is. The four wheels are specified, but does ‘Pagent’ include or exclude superstructure? It cannot tell us the cast because it is concerned with the possessions of the guild and therefore anything that is provided by an actor, or hired, will not be mentioned. And as the cast can be deduced only from the costumes, items of this sort will not appear. Nevertheless deductions can be made. It is likely that there were only two angels, because if a wealthy guild buys two angel costumes it is unlikely to be thinking of more. Costumes which are not everyday will be owned or hired, and just as the presence of two angel costumes suggests two angels, so does the presence of one God costume, three devil, two good soul and two evil soul costumes suggest the appropriate number of those characters. The indenture tells us nothing about the dimensions of the wagon, or whether or not it steered, or which way it faced. And finally, being a list, it does not show us the relationship of the parts to the whole. It is, however, an ordered list: the pageant is grouped only with hell mouth, the costumes are put together, except that God’s is separated off by the cloud and rainbow. It is clear that at this point not costumes but items related through the action of the play come together. This is followed by curtaining, and then the mechanical items are grouped, and finally the scenery and decoration of the wagon. This is undoubtedly a document where context can be trusted. From this material Alexandra Johnston and Margaret Dorrell have given us their version of the pageant, and I hope it will not be considered carping if I make a number of comments on their suggestions. They start by suggesting that the superstructure was a heaven made of iron and wood, supported by four iron poles. As I have already said the indenture does not say whether ‘Pagent’ includes the super structure. The Norwich description (admittedly over a hundred years later) specifically does include it.76 If the ‘Pagent’ at York includes a box frame on top of the wagon, then the ‘heuen of Iren’ is clearly not the superstructure, and the ‘iiij Irens’ are not the four corner posts. Could the ‘heuen’ be what one might expect, a structure on the roof? This question leads on to the flying mechanism ‘A brandreth of Iren þat god sall sitte vppon when he sail sty vppe to heuen’. If the pageant superstructure is ‘heuen’, how can God ‘sty vppe’ to it when he is already there? The ‘heuen’ must be higher up, in other words a

structure on the roof of the wagon. This then raises the question of the meaning of ‘naffe of tre’. It would normally mean the hub of a wheel or the wheel itself. In connection with ‘heuen’ and ‘sty vppe’, it must surely be the ‘wheel’ over which the ropes go to pull God up. We have then a wagon with a box-frame superstructure surmounted by an iron-frame heaven containing a ‘wheel’ to carry the ropes which raise God to the roof of the pageant. Only one other item needs a little more comment. The word ‘brandreth’, though it can be a simple gridiron, also means a trivet or three-legged grate. The meaning given in both the Promptorium Parvulorum and Catholicon Anglicum is tripes,77 and a supported grid is very much more satisfactory than a free-swinging gridiron for God, even if he first sits on it only at the moment of ascending. I have no quarrel with the Johnston and Dorrell version of the costers except to wonder why they insist that ‘lewent brede’ means ‘eleventh’ broad (?), when all the evidence suggests that it means ‘broad-cloth of Louvain’78. The clouds provide a free range of possibilities, almost any of which could be right. One point, however, does need making: if it is accepted that heaven is a roof structure then it looks as though all the clouds are at or above the roof level and the ‘hiest of heuen’ is then the very top of the iron frame round which the ‘lang small border’ goes. The nine smaller angels which run about heaven are again items for which we have too little evidence. If a ‘lang small corde’ made them work then it is possible that they were on wheels. They seem to be individual items rather than attached to a frame, but they may have circled the iron heaven like the mechanical figures of a clock. The characters that the indenture indicates number between fourteen and seventeen. That the four apostles with ‘iiij diadems’ and ‘iiij Cheuelers of ȝalow’ also wore the four albs is likely, and the ‘iij versernes for iij Appostels’ with their ‘diademes’ either were used in conjunction with costumes not owned by the guild or were alternative head-gear; even Corpus Christi day would be a bit cold for just viserns and diadems. As I have said above, to argue that the costumes listed here give a full idea of the characters in the pageant of 1433 would be unwise, but I would see the list as limiting the angels, devils, good and evil souls and God, so that only with the apostles is there room for expansion, or with characters totally unrepresented by costumes owned by the guild. With regard to the souls, it is interesting that the Ordo description gives four of each; the Towneley pageant, based at this point on York, shows how with only a little more material four souls can be accommodated and perhaps represents here the earlier York version.79 Innumerable further questions surround the York Mercers’ pageant and its use, just as they do about every other pageant or carriage for which records in some way exist. I have attempted in this paper to look in some detail at a few of them. In doing so, I have become more and more convinced of the need for reliable editions, not only of that material which has not yet been published but also of much of that which has, so that the painstaking interpretation that I spoke of at the beginning can be undertaken with confidence in rather than suspicion of the texts from which one is working. What better situation could there be for the launching of REED’s first volume?

Notes  1. See Alan H. Nelson, The Medieval English Stage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), p. 162, and Lawrence M. Clopper, ‘The History and Development of the Chester Cycle,’ Modern Philology, 75 (1978), 219–46 (p. 239).

 2. See Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Dorrell, ‘The York Mercers and their Pageant of Doomsday,’ Leeds Studies in English, ns 6 (1972), 11–35 (pp. 19–20). The OED does not record the form ‘chartt’. See also below, note 3.  3. A good example of idiosyncratic (though phonetic) spelling is in the Chester Smiths’ accounts (Harley 2054, f 20v), the work of either Thomas Towers or Davy Mountford, stewards for 1574–5. There ‘Joseph’ appears dangerously misleadingly as ‘gossep’. The Randle Holme responsible for the transcription has remarked in the margin of these accounts ‘ould english’. The 1526 Mercers’ document in which ‘chartt’ appears contains one or two unusual spellings, e.g., ‘wesseren’ for ‘visern’, ‘chyffes’ for ‘sheaves’ (pulleys), and ‘rappes’, ‘repe’ and ‘Rope’ for ‘rope’. For a transcription of the document, see Johnston and Dorrell, LSE, 6 (1972), pp. 30–1.  4. See Joseph C. Bridge, ‘Items of Expenditure from the 16th century Accounts of the Painters, Glaziers, Embroiderers, and Stationers Company, with special reference to the “Shepherds’ Play”,’ Journal of the Architectural, Archaeological and Historic Society for the County and the City of Chester, and North Wales, 20 (1914), 153–91. I am indebted to Lawrence M. Clopper for his generosity in making his new transcriptions of the Painters’ accounts available before their publication. Any forms that are due to him are followed by (c). ‘Grone’ (c) is ‘grene’ in Bridge, 161; ‘lethes & lenarse’, Bridge, 169 (but ‘lenarse’ should be ‘leuarse’); ‘snyges’ (c) is not entered by Bridge, who has instead ‘For wystelles ij’ repeated from a few lines earlier pp. 171–2.

‘Grone’ appears as a subordinate word in the OED and sv Groin sb 1. ‘Grayne’ does not appear at all but is the form the word takes in the Huntington MS of the play, see The Chester Mystery Cycle, ed. by R.M. Lumiansky and David Mills, EETS, ss 3 (1974), p. 130. ‘Lethes & leuarse’, OED has no subordinate word entry for either; ‘lethes’ does not appear sv Lights, but the spelling ‘lever’ is recorded sv Liver sb 1. ‘Snyges’ is recorded (snygge) sv Snig sb 1; but ‘singe’ does not appear at all. I have let the word remain here, though I think it may be a ghost. It seems to be confirmed by the marginal remarks on candles in the Holy Trinity churchwardens’ accounts, ‘called ex antiquo singes now sysses’ (p. 124); by the reading of Bodley 175, f 81 ‘A singe I offer here also I of virgine wax’ (Purification play); and by ‘syne’ in the Smiths’ accounts (Harley 2054, f 20v), where it could be the candle Joseph presents. But I suspect that the first is a result of the mistranscription of ‘surges’, and the second a mistake for ‘signe’, which is what the other MSS have. It is difficult either to explain away or to be sure of the third. See Rev J.R. Beresford, ‘The Churchwardens’ Accounts of Holy Trinity, Chester, 1532 to 1637,’ Journal of the Chester and North Wales Architectural, Archaeological and Historic Society, 38 (1951), 95–172 and the facsimile of Bodley 175 in The Chester Mystery Cycle, ed. by R.M. Lumiansky and David Mills, Leeds Texts and Monographs Medieval Drama Facsimiles, I (Leeds: University of Leeds, School of English, 1973), f 81.  5. See Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Dorrell, ‘The Doomsday Pageant of the York Mercers, 1433,’ Leeds Studies in English, ns 5 (1971), 29–34 (p. 29).  6. John Marshall, ‘The Chester Coopers’ Pageant: “Selles” and “Cathedra”’, Leeds Studies in English ns 8 (1975), 120–8.  7. See for a photograph of the relevant page of the Coopers’ accounts The Chester Mystery Plays (Chester: Chester Corporation, 1962), p. 16. The transcription in F.M. Salter, Mediaeval Drama in Chester (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1955), pp. 72–3, is somewhat more accurate than the modernized one in the Chester booklet (p. 17).  8. The word occurs in the Shoemakers’ accounts, the Smiths’ and the Painters’. In the Painters’ for 1586, it is fairly certainly ‘beverage’ (Bridge, p. 176); in the Smiths’ for 1561 it seems to mean ‘carrying’ (Harley 2054, f 16v).  9. Cf. Salter MDC, p. 73. 10. (c) cf. Bridge, p. 167. The word ‘carriage’ also contains the dual meaning of ‘carrying’ and ‘vehicle’. Both meanings are exemplified in the Smiths’ accounts in Harley 2054, f 16v. 11. ‘item to the beryge of the caryge v d’ (c); not in Bridge, cf. p. 171. 12. The structure of modern farm wagons is laid out clearly, with a comparative table of names of parts, in James Arnold, Farm Waggons and Carts (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1977), pp. 8–12. ‘Sill’ is represented by the modern word ‘sole’, used in Kent and Holland (Lincolnshire). The separation of body and undercarriage is well shown in John Vince, Discovering Carts and Wagons (Aylesbury: Shire Publications, 1970; rev 1974), p. 15. 13. ‘item for a paste balye viij d’ (c); not in Bridge, cf. p. 172. 14. Robert Hallwood/Halowood was an alderman of the Painters’ Company from at least 1567 until 1582; see the list of aldermen and stewards in Harley 2054, f 92. For the last few years of the play, the family was clearly one of the mainstays of the company. The house of Richard Hallwood (R.’s brother?, died 1569) was used in 1568 for making arrangements

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

about the hire of the Coopers’ wagon, dressing ‘oure playes’, making ‘oure capes & cotes’ and various entertainings. His wife provided haggises and much of the other food. Robert acted as host to the rehearsals in 1572 and 1575, besides making the ‘bohye’ and painting the stilts. Between 1567 and 1571, he was a fellow alderman with Richard Dalby senior. (For the Dalbies, see below.) He died in 1583 (‘Spent at the beryaull of our Alderman Halwood viij’, Bridge, p. 175). See pp. 165–6. See p. 158. For Rychard kalle, see Coopers’ accounts, 1572, in Salter MDC, p. 73; for Richard Cally/Kelly see, The Rolls of the Freemen of the City of Chester: Part I, 1392–1700, ed. by J.H.E. Bennett, The Record Society for the Publication of Original Documents relating to Lancashire and Cheshire, 51 (1906), p. 37; and for Rychard Calye (c), see Bridge, p. 163. Salter MDC, pp. 66, 113–14 and 126. Salter MDC, p. 66 and p. 126. See also Marshall, ‘Chester Coopers,’ p. 127, note 15. ‘Holy Trinity Churchwardens,’ pp. 109, 124–5, 127–8, 139, 142 and 148. Chester Freemen’s Rolls, pp. 38, 44 and 46. f 92. Bridge, p. 170 (‘bayre’ (c)), and pp. 171–3. Bridge, p. 173. Waytt was a steward in 1571 and 1576 (see Harley 2054 f 92). Margaret Dorrell, ‘The Mayor of York and the Coronation Pageant’, Leeds Studies in English, ns 5 (1971), 35–45, (p. 38) says, ‘It may also be conjectured that professional players took part in 1449 and 1454, when the payments made were of 8s. and 10s. respectively’; see also note 29. In Johnston and Dorrell, ‘York Mercers’, pp. 12–13, the argument is different, but would the idea of professionals have arisen if the payments had been smaller? Formal agreements certainly do not imply professional involvement; see the Thomas Colclow arrangement with the Coventry Smiths in 1452–3 (Hardin Craig, Two Coventry Corpus Christi Plays, EETS, es 87 (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), p. 83). The large fee and ‘continuing characters’ (that is, characters appearing in more than one pageant) is the reason given for professionals at Lincoln (Kenneth Cameron and Stanley J. Kahrl, ‘Staging the N-Town Cycle,’ Theatre Notebook, 21 (1967), 122–38 and 152–65 (p. 133), and this is taken up by David Bevington, ‘Discontinuity in Medieval Acting Traditions,’ The Elizabethan Theatre, 5 (London: Macmillan Press, 1975), pp. 1–16 (pp. 12–14), who continues, ‘The extent of professionalism in the acting of late medieval drama has probably been underestimated, both in the cycles and in the pageant-like displays such as royal entries and Lord Mayor’s shows’ (p. 14); but, for the cycles, where is the evidence? For the idea that payment to ‘the player/s’ means to professionals see the York Bakers’ accounts where ‘the plaer’ is paid a large sum and turns out to be John Huntington, a York baker (in BL Additional 33852, ff 6v, 9, 10v 11, 12, 13v,16, etc.). The rate quoted in 1570 for a day’s work with food and drink done by a smith is 3d; see ‘The rates of seruaunts and hirers wages within the citty of chester’, Harley 2054, f 9v. Salter MDC, p. 78. Glynne Wickham in Early English Stages, 3 vols (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959), I, p. 298, expressed doubt about the evidence that Salter offered for professional actors. The date in brackets is that suggested by Lawrence M. Clopper in ‘The Chester Plays: Frequency of Performance,’ Theatre Survey, 14.2 (1973), 46–58 (p. 51) and supported by John Marshall in ‘The Chester Whitsun Plays: Dating of Post-Reformation Performances from the Smiths’ Accounts,’ Leeds Studies in English, ns 9 (1977), 51–61 (pp. 51–4). (c); not in Bridge, cf. MDC, pp. 166–70. Harley 2054, ff 17 and 18v. Salter MDC, p. 73. ‘Thomas marler’ should be ‘Thomas marser’ who was persuaded to play again, at a cost of 2d, in 1575; see MDC, p. 74. There is no trace here of buying love-membership of a company, for which the 1523 Coventry Weavers’ accounts provide evidence; see Craig, Two Coventry Corpus Christi Plays, pp. 106–7. Loker is listed among the company members in 1561, in 1567 (as Rychardson) in which year he was a steward, and in 1568. See Harley 2054, ff 16v, 18 and 18v. Stynson, a bowyer, was steward in 1572, the year in which he acted. See Coopers’ accounts for 1572 and Chester Freemen’s Rolls (sv Stevenson), p. 32. I do not know what Clopper’s reason is for saying that all were ‘apparently members of the guild’; see ‘The Rogers’ Description of the Chester Plays,’ Leeds Studies in English, ns 7 (1974 for 1973 and 1974), 63–94 (p. 80 and 93, note 29). For Gillam, see Chester Freemen’s Rolls, p. 21; for Mercer, p. 68; and for Cally, p. 37 and p. 24. Chester Freemen’s Rolls, p. 48; but see p. 163. Ibid., p. 23. The Smiths’ play accounts are contained in the Randle Holme manuscript, Harley 2054, ff 14v–21v, in the seventeenthcentury transcription. Speakers’ names as in Lumiansky and Mills, pp. 204–17. In 1561 the payments are 16d to the first doctor, and 12d each to the second and third. The 3s 4d of 1546 is most likely made up of similar payments, and the first and third doctors’ wages, like Anna’s and the angel’s, remain unchanged over the thirty years. This is an assumption difficult to substantiate. It is based on the idea that a boy taking up an apprenticeship is likely to be

41. 42.

43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54. 55. 56.

57.

58.

about thirteen years old; that the apprenticeship is likely to last about seven years; and that he is likely to take up his freedom in the year after his apprenticeship ends. Though this is no doubt broadly true, to base individual calculations on it is difficult because each one of the circumstances can vary. Of a list of apprentices made in 1494–5 at Coventry, one is for nine years, three are for eight, six are for seven years, two for six and two for five. What is more, one of the apprentices is already twenty-four years old. (The Coventry Leet Book, 2 vols, ed. by Mary Dormer Harris, EETS 135 (1908), II, 560– 3.) Ordinances of town and guild usually name seven years as the minimum, but even this varies (see Sylvia L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962), pp. 11, 159 and 192–3). My estimate of the ages must therefore be taken as likelihoods, not certainties. Chester Freemen’s Rolls, p. 35. Salter (MDC, p. 71) says, ‘it is interesting to note that the Assumption was produced, and no doubt performed, by the Worshipful Wives of the City. But in other plays also women took their parts as naturally as men.’ I know of no evidence whatsoever for performance by women in the civic plays in England; in fact, what there is points the other way: ‘Ryngold’s man Thomas thatt playtt Pylats wyff’ in 1495 at Coventry (Craig, p. 87); Halliwell-Phillipps’ list (see R.W. Ingram, ‘“To find the players and all that longeth therto”: Notes on the production of Medieval drama in Coventry’, The Elizabethan Theatre, 5 (1975), pp. 17–44 (p. 35)); and the parts (treble, tenor and bass) for the women in the song from the Shearmen and Taylors’ pageant, see Thomas Sharp, A Dissertation on the Pageants, or Dramatic Mysteries at Coventry (Coventry: Merridew and Son, 1825; rpt Wakefield: EP Publishing, 1973), pp. 116–17. Chester Freemen’s Rolls, p. 24. The four in 1572 and 1575 seem to be Pilate, two tormentors and Annas. Assuming the accounts refer to a play similar to the one extant, this would leave Caiaphas, two tormentors, Christ and Herod unprovided for. There are also the parts of Peter, the Damsel and the Jew (perhaps one of the tormentors) in the Huntington MS of the play (Lumiansky and Mills, pp. 302–3). On the Coopers’ actors see Clopper, ‘Rogers’ Description’ LSE ns 7 (1974), p. 80, and the forthcoming article by John Marshall in Theatre Notebook. The 1572 accounts are in Bridge, pp. 166–70. These readings are from (c). Bridge reads ‘honke & ars’ and ‘the styltes and the stave’, p. 168. Lumiansky and Mills, p. 150. The Late Banns also mention the star; see F.M. Salter’s edition in The Trial & Flagellation with Other Studies in the Chester Cycle, Malone Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935), p. 153. (c); Bridge reads ‘caps’, p. 160. Bridge (p. 171) explains this as the hire of horse-trappings, but it must surely be hire of ‘beards’. The reading given is (c). Bridge, p. 178. Lumiansky and Mills, p. 48. The list of food from the play is taken from the edition of Harley 2124 in The Chester Plays, ed. by Hermann Deimling and Dr Matthews, EETS, es 62 and 115 (London: Oxford University Press, 1892, 1916), I, pp. 137–8. Because of an extra eight lines, the items from ‘a piggs foote’ to ‘a chitterling’ exist only in this manuscript. The instructions in the Edwardian Prayer Book to which the Elizabethan church referred in this matter read as follows: ‘Vpon the daie, and at the tyme appoincted for the ministracion of the holy Communion, the Priest that shal execute the holy ministery, shall put vpon hym the vesture appoincted for that ministracion, that is to saye: a white Albe plain, with a vestement or Cope. And where there be many Priestes, or Decons, there so many shalbe ready to helpe the Priest, in the ministracion, as shalbee requisite: and shall haue vpon theim lykewise, the vestures appointed for their ministery that is to saye, Albes, with tunacles.’ (See the 1549 Prayer Book, the beginning of The Communion section). These vestments would be readily available and, what is more, would not be blatantly ‘papistical’. In Trial & Flagellation, p. 159. York City Archives, E 20. For an edition of the whole section, with translation, see Martin Stevens and Margaret Dorrell, ‘The “Ordo Paginarum” Gathering of the York A/Y Memorandum Book’, Modern Philology, 72 (1974), pp. 45–59. Register of the Freemen of the City of York, I, ed. by F. Collins, Surtees Society, 96 (1897), p. 100. The dating given is misleading, as all the dates are left old-style, and the regnal years do not coincide with the mayoral ones. ‘21 Ric 11’ runs from 22 June 1397 to 21 June 1398. The mayoral, and at this time the chamberlains’, year runs from February to February, so that the year of Burton’s admission should be February 1398 to February 1399. For Burton’s term of office as common clerk, see Angelo Raine, York Civic Records, I, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, 98 (1939), p. 1. The division is shown in many ways. In the first place, the original medieval foliation goes only up to f 255 (medieval f 236, the end of the maior registrum except for a flyleaf, present f 256); there are frequent cross-references, both within a volume, and from one volume to the other. The most significant of the former occurs on present f 19v and is a reference to the Ordo Paginarum ‘in fine huius libri’; an example of the latter is on present f 28, containing a note ‘plus in nouo Registro de eodem fo cclxxxxo ‘(a reference to the Walkers’ ordinances on present f 300). To this has been added above and after ‘Registro’, ‘istius libri’. It is clear from this, first, that the two parts were once separate, and secondly, that they had been joined together before the end of the Middle Ages. The ‘calendar’ is clearly distinct, being on paper and having its own title. I have not yet made a detailed examination of the material contained in the leaves surrounding the Ordo section (ff 255v–6v and 251–2), but a preliminary investigation

59. 60.

61.

62. 63.

64.

65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77.

suggests that f 256 contains material from 1388–1405, and f 255v from 1415–25; f 252, 1418–22, f 251v, 1418–23 and f 251, 1420–4. Material in a more regular chronological order going up to 1425 ends on f 250. This suggests that the last leaf already contained some writing when the Ordo section was entered; that whoever arranged the entering of the Ordo section knew roughly how many leaves were required and could start at the right place in the manuscript to give space for all the play material; and that apart from the Ordo section the last part of the manuscript was used as a jotting place working backwards from the end to f 251. These are the Plasterers and Tilers; and Cardmakers and Tapiters, and later Cardmakers and Walkers; and the Marshals and Smiths. Goldsmiths (Magi) divided between Goldsmiths and Masons; St Leonard’s (Purification) taken over by Masons; (?) combination of Plumbers (Woman taken in Adultery) and Capmakers (Lazarus) hinted at by marginal lettering; Tilemakers and Millers totally rewritten; Pinners and Painters partly rewritten; ‘Fergus’ taken over by Linenweavers; ‘Coronation’ taken over by Hostlers. There is no evidence for what happened to the Hosiers. They seem originally to have been a breakaway group from the Drapers, taking on their own pageant of Moses and Pharaoh in 1403; see York Memorandum Book, I, ed. by Maud Sellers, Surtees Society, 120 (1911), p. 251. Their play is in the Register. Were they still performing it when the Register was made up? Or had they already joined the Drapers? As far as the Tailors are concerned, in 1505 the question of their being contributory to the Drapers had arisen. An agreement was reached in 1508. In 1523 some Tailors certainly were assessed for a large sum in pageant money to go to the Drapers, 14s 4d, which when set against the total sum for Drapers, Hosiers and Tailors of 1535, 20s, makes it look as though the Tailors in 1523 were already the main supporters of the Drapers’ pageant. The Drapers in 1505 had claimed that they were down to three members, and a count of those in the related trades made free between 1487–8 and 1507–8 shows eighty-four Tailors, thirty-one Haberdashers, six Hosiers and six Drapers. Even allowing for the expected errors on the part of the officials, these figures are startling. The cost to each individual Draper of putting on the pageant alone must have been very considerable in the early sixteenth century. Perhaps it is not surprising that people were becoming Tailors. See York City Archives, House Books, 9, ff 25–6 and 10, f 63Bv; Chamberlains ‘Account Book 3(2), pp. 51–2 and 153–4. The Sledmen’s pageant was described in 1553 as ‘now farr in decay and broken’ when the Woollen-weavers took over, but otherwise little is known about it. See House Book 21, f H. From various pieces of evidence, it is clear that 1551 marks the setting aside of the Marian pageants, presumably as a result of growing Protestant pressure. Their pageant money was paid to the mayor and distributed by him ‘towardes settyng forth of pageantz on Corpus Cristi day wher he shall see most nede’ (House Book 20, f 52v). ‘Fergus’ may have already been set aside long before this. Each of the Mary pageants in the Register has a + at the head of the page by the name of the guild responsible for it. In 1535 two lists were made of all the pageant money paid (in two instalments, hence the two lists) by all the crafts, because in that year the Corpus Christi play was not played and the money was to be put towards some expenses incurred on the city’s behalf. These lists have been interestingly used by Margaret Dorrell to serve as a guide to the pageants that were being played at that time. (See ‘The Corpus Christi Play at York,’ PhD dissertation, Leeds 1973; I, 268–73.) In these lists the Drapers, Tailors and Hosiers jointly paid 20s. See Chamberlains’ Account Book 3(2), pp. 51–2 and 153–4. The Sledmen are listed as paying the very small sum of 2s 8d in 1535. This is equal, however, to the amounts paid by the Coopers and the Armourers, and presumably evidence for their putting on a pageant. The 1535 lists are not without their problems when used to show the pageants being played. See York Memorandum Book, II, Surtees Society, 125 (1915), pp. 171–3. York Memorandum Book, I, pp. 155–6. Ibid., II, pp. 171–3. Ibid. Both the 1422 situation and the 1432 situation are dealt with in the same entry, the earlier one being merely referred back to. See, for example, the already-mentioned Tilemakers’ etc., and the Tanners’, the Tilers’, the Bowyers’ and Fletchers’, the Broggers’ and Woolpackers. York Memorandum Book, II, pp. 123–4. B/Y Memorandum Book, f 42. For a summary see York Memorandum Book, III, ed. by Joyce W. Percy, Surtees Society, 186 (1973), p. 58. The close relationship between the Ordo and the Register is best seen in the fact that the Ordo description of the Ironmongers’ pageant appears (now erased) at the head of a blank leaf that should contain the opening of the text of the pageant. It was apparently the next best thing. See BL Additional 35290, f 101. See Johnston and Dorrell, ‘Doomsday Pageant,’ LSE 5, and ‘York Mercers,’ LSE 6, for the discussion that follows. Quoted in Ingram, ‘Medieval drama at Coventry,’ Elizabethan Theatre, 5, p. 36. Non-Cycle Plays and Fragments, ed. by Norman Davis, EETS, ss 1 (1970), p. xxxv. Promptorium Parvulorum, ed. by Albert Way, Camden Society, 89 (1865), sv Brandelede; Catholicon Anglicum, ed. by Sidney J.H. Herrtage EETS, 75 (1881), sv Brandryth.

78. MED (L4), sv Leuwin. 79. The situation is obviously more complicated than I have made it sound. York, at stanza 45, has a single octave, Towneley, at stanzas 64–5, an octave (closely matching the York one) and a quatrain. What stands out is how easily the four souls could have been fitted into the single octave. See York Plays, ed. by Lucy Toulmin Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885; rpt. New York: Russell and Russell, 1963), pp. 511–12; and The Towneley Plays, ed. by George England, EETS, es71 (1897), p. 383.

10

THE ORDO PAGINARUM AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE YORK TILEMAKERS’ PAGEANT The list of the pageants of the York Corpus Christi play known as the Ordo Paginarum (A/Y Memorandum Book, York City Library, ff. 252v–54v) is a more complicated document than is normally indicated by those who refer to it.1 When Lucy Toulmin Smith printed it in the Introduction to her edition of the York play, she rightly observed that ‘the side for the names of the crafts is found to be full of alterations, erasures, and new writing, of differing dates, evidently made to correct the list to the changes among the crafts’ (pp. xviii–xix). It was unfortunate that she limited her general observations to the left side containing the craft names, since the other side which contains the descriptions of the pageants is just as full of ‘alterations, erasures, and new writing, of differing dates’. Had Miss Toulmin Smith drawn attention to these alterations in the same way, scholars might have been less ready to treat the Ordo as a homogeneous description of the state of the York play in 1415.2 In this article I shall be concerned with one of those entries, the pageant which in the Ordo is allocated to the Tilemakers, Millers, Ropers, Sievers, Turners, Bollers and Hairsters. I print it as it appears in Toulmin Smith:3

In a footnote to the word ‘Milners’ Miss Toulmin Smith notes, ‘Several changes are apparent in the writing here. The Ropers and Sevours [?Sievors] were added later’. She also draws

attention to the changing fortunes of the Millers in relation to the pageant. As with her general remarks, however, she concentrates on the changes in guild attributions and no indication is given that the date of the description of the pageant is anything other than 1415. In the second list of pageants in the A/Y Memorandum Book (f. 255),4 usually dated 1417– 22 and not printed by Miss Toulmin Smith, most of the same crafts appear but this time with separate pageants. The separate pageants cover broadly speaking the same subject matter but are preceded by the Saucemakers’ Judas pageant, and enclose the Shearmen’s Journey to Calvary: Sausmakers

Suspensio iude

Tylemakers

Condempnacio Christi per pilatum

Turnours bollers

flagellacio & coronacio cum spinis

Sherman

Ductio Christi & ostensio veronice

Milners

Particio vestimentorum christi5

Also important for the early history of this pageant is the agreement of 1422–3 (quoted in Toulmin Smith, pp. xxiv–v), which shows that an amalgamation of the pageants of Saucemakers; Tilemakers; Turners, Hairsters, and Bollers; and Millers took place in that year.6 Apart from the early Saucemakers’ agreement which shows that their pageant already existed separately in 1417,7 the two pageant lists and the 1422–3 agreement represent the entire evidence for the altering relationships between the crafts in this early period, and the development suggested by them, if the traditional dates are adhered to, is one of rapid and surprising splitting and re-grouping: 1415 (Ordo Paginarum) – a combined pageant of Tilemakers, Millers, Turners, Hairsters and Bollers already in existence; 1417–22 (second list) – separate pageants for Tilemakers, Turners and Bollers, Millers, and also Saucemakers, in existence; 1422–3 (Preston agreement) – a combined pageant of Tilemakers, Saucemakers, Millers, Turners, Hairsters and Bollers formed.

It is exactly this development of combined pageant becoming separate pageants becoming combined pageant, which is posited by M.G. Frampton: The stories of these entries is clear. Burton’s play ceased to be given and in its place appeared three new plays [those of the Tilemakers, the Turners and Bollers, and the Millers] under the individual sponsorship of the several guilds which had given his play jointly … but already in 1421 [the 1422–3 agreement] the guilds sponsoring these new plays, joined by the Salsmakers, who were sponsors of another new play not known to Burton in 1415, the Suspencio Iude, were petitioning the City Council for permission to surrender their several plays and to unite again in giving a new play on their old theme, the Condemnacio.8

There is, however, no need for such a hypothesis if one looks closely at the Ordo Paginarum entry. Though there is no doubt that the Ordo is dated 1415 and that it originated with Roger Burton, the particular entry which refers to the Tilemakers’ etc. pageant has been totally erased and re-written at a later date. The most likely explanation of the present entry in the Ordo is that it reflects the situation after 1422–3 when the amalgamation had already taken place, and it

can tell us nothing therefore about the state of the pageant in 1415. The development of the combined pageant then appears far simpler: the second list, containing separate pageants for the guilds, becomes the earliest stage for which we have firm evidence; the 1422–3 agreement shows the combining of these separate pageants; and the present Ordo description represents a situation existing at some time after that agreement was made. Two small problems do still exist. Firstly, if the entry as it stands in the Ordo represents the situation after 1422–3, one would expect to find the Saucemakers included in the list of those responsible, and their pageant contained in the combined description. Secondly, given that the separate pageants of the second list represent the earliest stage of the development of the combined pageant for which evidence exists, what was the original form of the Ordo entry? The absence of the Saucemakers from the Ordo entry could result from the subsequent history of the amalgamated pageant. In 1422–3 the pageants were combined on an apparently equal footing. In 1424–5, only two years after the previous settlement, it was agreed that instead of the apparently equal responsibility among the four groups, the Saucemakers and the Tilemakers should assume responsibility for bringing forth the pageant, and that the Millers should pay 10s and the Hairsters and their associates 5s towards the costs.9 In 1432, however, it was arranged that the Tilemakers should be solely responsible for the pageant and that the Saucemakers should pay 5s towards costs;10 which must have represented a substantial reduction in their involvement. One explanation of the absence of the Saucemakers’ name from the Ordo is, therefore, that the entry as it now stands was written not only later than 1422–3, but after 1432 when the Saucemakers’ financial involvement was considerably reduced and when they may scarcely have been involved at all in the production of the pageant. Alternatively, and more simply, their name could have been lost when the Tilemakers’ almost was,11 or erased from the Ordo and replaced by one of the later additions, Ropers or Sievers, who rose to slightly greater prominence in the later fifteenth century. The question of the original form of the entry in the Ordo must remain uncertain, but there is some suggestive evidence. In the A/Y Memorandum Book, the Tilemakers’, etc. pageant description precedes the Shearmen’s at the foot of f. 253v. At the top of the following leaf, f. 254, there is an erased line which precedes the Pinners’ and Painters’ pageant description. The layout of the line clearly shows that it was a pageant entry. There are the remains of a craft name, then a space, then the edges of what is most likely a capital P. Thereafter there are merely the ascenders and descenders of a number of letters until the final word, iħu, which is almost intact. Enough remains of the first word (the craft name) to strongly suggest that it was some form of ‘Molyners’. There is no doubt in my mind that the erased line was the entry for the separate Millers’ pageant, though what the description exactly consisted of it is impossible now to be sure. It is interesting, however, that the first part of the description contained in the 1422–3 agreement fits well with much of what survives in the erased entry in the Ordo: Pilatus & alij milites ludebant ad talos pro vestimentis Iesu.

Figure 1 The Ordo Paginarum, showing erased entry at the top of f. 254. (A/Y Memorandum Book, York City Archives MS E 20, North Yorkshire County Library; photographed by © Meg Twycross) The Ordo, therefore, once contained a separate entry for the Millers’ pageant, following the Shearmen’s in exactly the same way as in the second list. This does not, of course, prove that the Ordo originally consisted of separate pageants for all the related crafts, Tilemakers; Turners, Hairsters, and Bollers; Saucemakers; and Millers, but given the separate existence of the Millers’ (presumably in 1415) and the Saucemakers’ (before 1417) it makes that explanation more likely than that there was an amalgamated pageant which split up and then reformed. One importance of these discoveries is that they help to clarify the development of the amalgamated pageant and its contributory crafts, and though the dating of some of the changes can even now be only approximate, nevertheless there are enough relevant entries in the York records to provide a fairly detailed history of the development of this pageant:12 1415 (Ordo Paginarum) – At this time there were most probably separate pageants. The evidence comes from the separate (erased) entry of the Millers’ pageant, the separate existence of the Saucemakers’ pageant before 1417 (see next entry), and the likelihood that the second list reflects the original Ordo. There is no way of knowing how far back this situation goes, but it is perhaps not too far-fetched to suggest that it represents the original development of these pageants in the Corpus Christi play. 1417–18 – The first evidence for a separate Saucemakers’ pageant is contained in an agreement between the Saucemakers and the sellers of Paris candles, made in the mayoralty of William Bowes (1417–18). From the way in which the pageant is referred to there it is apparent that it was in existence before 1417: ‘… quod licet de consuetudine actenus vsitata gentes de Salsemakercrafte omnes etiam Candelmakcrs … sustinuerint simul suis sumptibus & expensis paginam illam …’ (York, REED, pp. 30–1). The agreement also provides a description of the subject matter of the Saucemakers’ pageant: ‘Iudas Scarioth se suspendit & crepuit medius’.13 1417–22 (the second list)14 – The separate pageants are here fully listed for the first time, as far as the surviving evidence goes:

1422–3 (the Preston agreement)15 – The amalgamation of the four separate pageants as ‘pagina condempnacionis Iesu Christi’. The subject matter of the individual pageants is again stated and corresponds with that of the second list, though this is no proof that each was represented in the new pageant. The old pageants are said to be ‘pro perpetuo exclusis’, but clearly the new pageant was made up from the subject matter of the old ones, Equal responsibility is implied for each craft since no alternative arrangement was made, and each craft having previously owned a pageant was on an equal footing. That this arrangement was not wholly satisfactory is shown by the reference to disagreements amongst the crafts over paying for the pageant ‘Super hoc artifices arcium predictarum contendebant inter se de modo solucionis ad paginam predictam’. The 1424–5 agreement was an attempt to resolve these difficulties.

1424–5 (the Bracebridge agreement)16 – The Tilemakers and Saucemakers take over responsibility for bringing forth the pageant (‘portent onus & expensas pagine predicte & ipsam in bono & honesto modo annuatim ludendam producent’). On the day before Corpus Christi day the Millers are to hand over 10s to the pageant masters of the two crafts, and the Hairsters 5s. The Turners and Bollers are not mentioned but are presumably included under ‘& illi qui eis antea soluerunt’ which follows the mention of the Hairsters (for a similar use of one craft to represent the group, see below, 1482 and 1487). Representatives from the Millers and the Hairsters are to accompany the pageant on Corpus Christi day (one or two from the Millers, one from the Hairsters) and are allowed to eat and drink with the two main crafts (‘in cibo potuque solacia percipiant’) if they so wish. Repairs are paid for by the two main crafts with contributions from the others; every third penny from the Millers, and half the amount paid by the Millers from the Hairsters. Representatives from Millers and Hairsters (one from each) were allowed to oversee the

costing of the repairs. One clause in the agreement has a relevance outside this group (‘Et quod nulla quatuor arcium predictarum ponat aliqua signa arma vel insignia super paginam predictam nisi tantum huius honorabilis ciuitatis’) in as much as it implies the use of the arms or insignia of the craft guilds as part of the decoration of the pageant waggons. No indication is given of the subject matter. 1432 (the Snaudon agreement)17 – This is in fact an amendment to the previous agreement and refers only to the Saucemakers. By it the Tilemakers become solely responsible for the bringing forth of the pageant and the Saucemakers join the other crafts as contributors. The Saucemakers are now to hand over 5s to the Tilemakers on the day before Corpus Christi day, are to send two or three of their members to go around with the pageant on the day (with food and drink if they so wish), and are to pay equally with the Tilemakers for repairs (the repairs being overseen by two Tilemakers and two Saucemakers). No mention is made of the other crafts who presumably remained on the same terms as before. By this arrangement the Saucemakers clearly shed some of the financial burden of the pageant. Their only regular expenditure is 5s a year (as little as the Hairsters) and they are only called upon for more when the pageant needs repair. The arrangements for paying for repairs need some comment. The previous arrangement whereby the Millers paid every third penny and the Hairsters half the amount paid by the Millers, left the Saucemakers and Tilemakers to pay the rest between them. As the new arrangement specifies that the Saucemakers shall pay exactly the same, penny for penny, as the Tilemakers it suggests that previously one or other of them paid more. It would be in keeping with the decreasing of the financial burden on the Saucemakers represented by this agreement to assume that they had previously borne the larger share and were now put on an equal footing with the Tilemakers, but there is no certain proof of this. Their responsibility for the safety, smooth-running and general support of the pageant on Corpus Christi day remained somewhat greater than that of the other contributory crafts. Again no indication is given of the subject matter of the combined pageant at this stage. Possibly it contained the subjects of the separate pageants, but by no means certainly. 1432/3–36 – It seems likely that during this period the description of the combined pageant at present found in the Ordo Paginarum was entered. It appears to be in the hand of Roger Burton, and if this is so it must have been entered before 1436 when Burton gave up the office of Common Clerk which he had held for twenty one years. It is not written in the script used by Burton for the original entries in the Ordo, but is similar to that used in the second list. The last section, ‘tres milites mittentes sortem super vestem Jesu’, is somewhat more roughly written and may have been added later and by another hand. The whole description is written over an erasure. The pageant described contains an apparently extensive condemnation (the original Tilemakers’ subject) which sounds remarkably like that in the still-existing pageant in the York Register. There is also a flagellation and crowning with thorns (the original Turners’,

Hairsters’ and Bollers’ subject, also contained in the surviving pageant) and a casting lots for Christ’s garments (the original Millers’ subject) … There is no mention of the Saucemakers’ Judas pageant at all. The pageant here described could be the one created in 1422–3 or it could be a revision of that, but the absence of the Saucemakers’ Judas section need not imply revision since there is no evidence that it ever formed a part of the combined pageant. The description of the amalgamation of the pageants simply states that they ‘fuerunt combinate simul in vnam paginam ceteris predictis paginis pro perpetuo exclusis’, that is the individual pageants were to give way to the combined one (York, REED, p. 48). 1463–77 – At some time during this period the Register (BL Additional MS 35290) was compiled. The Tilemakers’ pageant was entered on ff. 167–74. It is headed ‘The Tyllemakers’.18 The subject matter is the same as the present Ordo description except that the casting of lots for Christ’s garments does not appear. There is a leaf missing between ff. 173 and 174 but it seems unlikely from the point of view of space or position in the sequence of events in the pageant that it could once have contained the Millers’ section. Only the old Tilemakers’ and Turners’, Hairsters’ and Bollers’ pageants are therefore now represented. 1482 and 1487 – These are agreements regarding the payment of pageant money, and introduce the Ropers for the first time. The wording of the 1482 agreement,19 from the Carpenters’ ordinances, would suggest that the Ropers and Turners were one craft; that of 148720 that the Ropers and Hairsters were one. The confusion no doubt arises from the overlap in trade between the Ropers and Hairsters (they carried torches as one craft according to the Corpus Christi torch lists of 1501, see York, REED, p. 186) on the one hand, and the frequent association of Turners and Hairsters on the other. The association of Turners, Hairsters and Bollers continued throughout the period of the play, but in the late fifteenth century the Ropers, perhaps once part of the Hairsters, rose to greater prominence. The 1482 agreement refers to an overlap in trade with the Carpenters and therefore it is appropriate for Turners to be named, and the 1487 one refers specifically to the work of Ropers and Hairsters so it is appropriate for the Hairsters to be named. Clearly any one of the old group of three crafts could represent them all (see above 1424–5). That there was a close association between the Ropers and this group is confirmed in the later entries below, 1554 and 1563. The connection of the Ropers with the Turners and Hairsters in these agreements suggests that they too were contributory to the Tilemakers’ pageant, and this, therefore, is the most likely time for the addition of their name to the list of crafts in the Ordo. It is worth remembering, however, that the sole evidence for the Ropers’ (and Sievers’) connection with the Tilemakers’ pageant is the entry in the Ordo. But that is in itself good evidence for a connection, and perhaps, in view of the fact that the entry was never cancelled, suggests that the connection lasted. 1515 – The Millers take over from the Tilemakers (‘Tielhousez’),21 who are in this agreement described as ‘ruynous & dekayed’, from 25 April (the date of the agreement) and therefore

possibly in time for Corpus Christi (June 7) of that year, though there is no evidence of a performance in 1515. The ‘Milners Saucemakers & oyer misters’ are said to have been previously contributory to the Tilemakers, but the Millers are now ‘tobe the Tope … & the other Craftes tobe contributory vnto them & to bere lik charges as haith beyn affore tyme’. In view of the 1518 agreement it would seem likely that the Tilemakers’ connection was severed completely for a while, and it may be that at this time ‘The Tyllemakers’ was deleted as a heading in the Register and ‘Mylners’ substituted (York Plays, p. 320). 1518 – The Saucemakers’ connection with the pageant is finally severed. Their pageant money (with that of the Whitechandlers still coming to 5s) was to go to the Girdlers, but the Millers were to have the ‘Tielhouses when they goo towardes yer Charges of yer pageant bringyng furth’.22 1535 – In this year the play was not played but the pageant money was collected and handed over to the mayor to put towards expenses incurred on the city’s behalf. In the lists of pageant money handed over, only the Tilemakers and the Millers appear.23 The Tilemakers’ money amounted to 4/4d and the Millers’ to 12/-. One would expect these lists to show the pageant money either of all the crafts contributory to the Millers, or of the Millers alone. The presence of only the Tilemakers amongst the contributory crafts can perhaps be explained by their having been for so long the organizers of the pageant that they retained this position in the civic lists even after handing over to the Millers. Taken together their pageant money suggests that their pageant was one of the better endowed, being exceeded only by the Merchants’, Tailors’ Drapers’ and Hosiers’, Cordwainers’, and Tanners’. 1541 – A petition to the mayor to obtain pageant money from a number of unfranchized but practising millers: ‘we beseke your lordyschipe & your breder yat we may haue some thynge of theys to mend our pagand with all’.24 1551 and 1552 – Repeated ordinances (26 June 1551 and 16 December 1552)25 which state that the Turners, Hairsters, Sievers and Bollers should be contributory to the Ropers ‘for bringyng forth of ther pagiant’. This wording suggests that the Ropers owned their own pageant, but there is no other evidence for this (see 1554 below). There is a further and rather puzzling reference to the Ropers’ pageant money in 1552. It is recorded that the Lord Mayor received ‘of Ropars for their paigeant money jmo Ianuarij vs after ijd the grote.’26 The Lord Mayor is later named as Thomas Appleyard, whose term of office lasted from February 1551 to February 1552, and the date of the entry should, therefore be 1 January 1552 This is confirmed by the phrase ‘aftre ijd the grote’ which refers to a debasement of the coinage in 1551 and a consequent request to the Chamberlains to indicate whether their accounts related to before or after the debasement. The entry presumably refers to pageant money of the previous year, 1551. In that year the Corpus Christi play was played though with somewhat maimed rites because of the threat of plague. Does the Ropers’ payment to the Lord Mayor therefore represent money paid because the Millers’ pageant was not performed in that year, and the pageant money not used was handed over to the mayor? Or is it simply that there was less fixity in the contributory status of crafts than is usually supposed, and that crafts occasionally paid into

a central fund administered by the mayor? This entry relating to the receipt of the Ropers’ pageant money is the only one of its kind, but clearly under special circumstances, like the payments of 1535 (York, REED, pp. 256–9 and 260–1) and those connected with the suppression of the Marian pageants (York, REED, p. 297), money was paid direct to the mayor. Such an arrangement was made in 1552 on account of the plague (22 April), but it was later rescinded (20 June; York, REED, pp. 303 and 304). 1554 – There were two agreements in this year relating to the Ropers and Turners.27 The former (18 May) makes carpenters, joiners and carvers using ‘turning’ contributory to the Turners and Ropers ‘towardes their expenses of settyng forth Pageantz’; the latter (21 September), obviously a reaction against the former agreement, reinforces the Carpenters’ ordinances of 1482 (see above) which make their members free of contributions to the Ropers and Turners ‘towardes chardges of (‘ther’ deleted) any pageant’. Both the phrases relating to the pageant, and especially the alteration of ‘ther’ to ‘any’, clearly imply contributory status (either to the Lord Mayor or to another guild) for the Ropers and Turners. 1563 – This is merely a copy of the Carpenters’ ordinances, repeating those of 1482 and the second agreement of 1554.28 A marginal note ‘ffree of Turnars pageant’, like the reference to the Ropers in 1551/2 above, does not mean that the Turners owned their own pageant. Once again the wording of the ordinance, ‘towardes chardges of any pageant’, suggests the true state of affairs. There are no further references to the Millers’ (quondam Tilemakers’) pageant, but it is worth noting that the Millers are the only one of the combined crafts to be mentioned in the list of those contributing to Grafton’s interlude in 1585.29 This is especially interesting as the crafts are listed still in their Corpus Christi play order, and as the Millers retain their place between the Cooks (quondam Remorse of Judas) and in the absence of the Shearmen30 the Painters (quondam Crucifixion), this is some confirmation of their continued control of the Condempnacio Iesu Christi to the very end of the period when the Corpus Christi play was performed. The history of the development of the Tilemakers’ pageant may at first sight seem an insignificant detail, but it is important in a number of ways. First of all as a sample of pageant development it should alert us to the possible complexity involved. Secondly, and more specifically, it should make us wary of assuming that the Ordo Paginarum description is necessarily the earliest known form of the pageant; and wary too of thinking that the relationship between Ordo and second list is a simple chronological one of earlier, 1415, and later, 1417–22. Thirdly, the history of the Tilemakers’ pageant is important in that it to some extent makes specific the stages of revision that a pageant might go through, and clarifies the changing roles that guilds might play in a pageant during the life of the cycle. It cannot tell us everything, of course, but when set against the detailed histories of the other guilds and their pageants a fuller picture than has hitherto been drawn should be possible. We do not know, for example, how the amalgamation of the separate pageants which go to make up the Condempnacio was managed or why it was felt desirable, but the contemporary

amalgamation of the Pinners’ and Painters’ pageants throws some light on one possible process. In their agreement of 31 January 1422,31 the two guilds state that the Corpus Christi play is hindered by the large number of pageants involved and that matters are getting worse (‘impeditur pre multitudine paginarum & nisi celerior & melior prouideatur cautela timendum est multo magis breuissime processu temporis impediri’). Realizing that their two pageants could easily be performed as one (‘intelligentes quod materie ambarum paginarum simul in vna pagina possent’), they agree to drop one pageant and include its subject matter in the other one (‘assumant onus ludendi in pagina sua materiam loquelarum que per prius in pagina sua & in pagina de les Payntours & Steynours ludebatur’). There is no way of knowing if these were the only reasons for the change or even the genuine ones; what is interesting is that they were thought to be sound and acceptable both by the guilds who gave them and by the mayor and city council that received them with acclaim (‘benigne acceptantes … laudabili commendantes’) The Pinners and Painters amalgamation does not prove that the specific reason for the amalgamation which led to the Condempnacio Iesu Christi was the same, but it does offer one clear contemporary parallel to such a change. In its Appendix VI, ‘Pageants in the Corpus Christi Play’, the York volume of the Records of Early English Drama series has begun in a brief way to provide a history of individual pageants (pp. 657–85), but more importantly it has provided in the main body of the text the material for a far richer and more thorough investigation of such matters than there has been heretofore. When those investigations have been made and the results published, we shall have a far better idea of the functioning of the Corpus Christi play in York and a far better idea too of the complex interrelationships between guild and guild, and guild and city. Only then will we have the basic information for re-examining the development of the text of the cycle and the organization of its performance.32

Notes  1. This situation may be changed by the two new editions of the Ordo Paginarum which have appeared recently, that of Martin Stevens and Margaret Dorrell, ‘The Ordo Paginarum Gathering of the York A/Y Memorandum Book’ Modern Philology, 72 (1974), 45–59, and that contained in York, Records of Early English Drama, ed. by Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Rogerson, 2 vols (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979) I, pp. 16–24. Both are in many ways improvements upon earlier versions, but neither is completely satisfactory. Miss Toulmin Smith had already drawn attention to one or two alterations in the pageant descriptions in her footnotes, the Stevens and Dorrell edition draws attention to a number of others not mentioned by Miss Smith, but leaves the majority still concealed. The REED edition aims at recording all alterations. Unfortunately, though many new findings are recorded (for example, the erased line before the Pinners’ and Painters’ pageant, and the extensive erasure and re writing in many pageant descriptions) a number of important alterations remain unnoted there. I am at the moment working on a detailed re-examination of the Ordo Paginarum.  2. Hardin Craig, English Religious Drama of the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), for example, follows Miss Toulmin Smith in mentioning only the alterations in the list of crafts (p. 202), and elsewhere treats the Ordo as though it were of 1415 throughout (see, for example, pp. 225–7). Rosemary Woolf, English Mystery Plays (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972) gives no indication of the variation in date amongst the pageant descriptions in her references to ‘Burton’s list of 1415’, see especially p. 305 and the notes on p. 415.  3. York Plays, ed. by Lucy Toulmin Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885), p. xxv. Both the Stevens and Dorrell and the REED editions offer improved readings (for example, they both indicate that the initial Iesus is a later addition), but they also introduce their own errors. Both give Serveourz for the correct reading in Toulmin Smith, Seveourz; REED misleadingly places indications of no longer legible craft names, presumably representing the Toulmin Smith Turners, Hairsters and Bollers, opposite the Shearmen’s pageant description, without identifying them by giving the Toulmin Smith readings, and Stevens and Dorrell omits them altogether. Not only do these crafts indisputably belong to the Tilemakers’ pageant, but they are linked to it in the manuscript by guide lines. They are also still partly visible; certainly the -resters of

 4.  5.  6.

 7.  8.  9. 10.

11. 12. 13.

14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

the Toulmin Smith Hayresters. Furthermore, in support of the earlier readings is the fact that Miss Toulmin Smith saw the A/Y Memorandum Book before it was damaged by the 1892 flood. Neither of the recent editions notes any alteration in this entry beyond the addition of Iesus. The best edition is that in York, REED, pp. 25–6. York, REED, p. 26. I have not indicated expansions and have made some minor corrections. York, REED, pp. 48–50. This first agreement is on p. 48, l. 29 – p. 49, l. 1. It was made in the mayoralty of Henry Preston which spanned the end of Henry V’s and the beginning of Henry VI’s reigns (9 and 10 Henry V and 1 Henry VI), that is it falls within the period 21 March 1421–31 August 1423 (Handbook of Dates, ed. by C.R. Cheney (London: Royal Historical Society, 1970), p. 22). The mayor was elected on St Blase’s day (February 3) so that Preston’s term of office must have run from February 1422 to February 1423, and the agreement have been made during that time (not 1421–2, as in York, REED, p. 674). The dates given in the published Freemen’s Roll are apparently two years behind at this period, but are actually one because the dates given are old style (Register of the Freemen of York, ed. by F. Collins, 2 vols., Surtees Society 96 and 102 (1897 and 1900), I, p. 131). York, REED, pp. 30–2. M. G. Frampton, ‘The Processus Talentorum (Towneley XXIV)’, PMLA, 59 (1944), 646–54 (p. 652). York, REED, pp. 49–50. The 1424–5 agreement occupies ll. 1–38 of p. 49 with the final word on p. 50. It is dated from the mayor, Thomas Bracebridge. The REED summary of pageant history makes no mention of this as an agreement separate from that of 1422–3 (see p. 674). York, REED, p. 50. The agreement is dated ‘primo die Septembris Anno regni regis Henrici sexti xjmo”=’ (not ‘jmo’ as in REED) during Thomas Snaudon’s mayoralty. This is the last of this early series of agreements between the amalgamated crafts. It appears to have been added to the other two, but all three sections are in the hand of Roger Burton, the Common Clerk, and are so homogeneous as to suggest that the earlier sections were re-written so that the last could be added and the whole kept together in one place in the manuscript. There is just enough space available in the Ordo, and instead of the single used to precede a single craft there appears to be a double one, perhaps indicating Tilemakers and Saucemakers. This outline of the history of the pageant differs partly in dating and partly in emphasis and interpretation from the much briefer one provided in York, REED, pp. 674–5. There are two agreements contained in this entry relating to the Saucemakers’ pageant, one dating from the mayoralty of William Bowes (1417–18) and the other from that of John Moreton (1418–19), both registered by Roger Burton. The dating of the former is confused in the A/Y Memorandum Book by ‘henrici sexti’ having been written instead of ‘henrici quinti’, but it is clear that the year is 1417. In both cases the section containing the dating has been written over an erasure, but apparently in the hand of Roger Burton (York, REED, pp. 30–2). The translation in the REED second volume of ‘crepuit medius’ in the description of the pageant appears correctly as ‘burst in the middle’ on p. 733 (the 1422–3 agreement), but not on p. 716 (this agreement). I have retained the traditional dates though it seems to me possible that the second list is in fact of the same period as the original Ordo. It certainly pre-dates those early changes for which records exist: the Pinners and Painters amalgamation of 1422 (York, REED, pp. 37–8), and the Tilemakers, etc., of 1422–3 (York, REED, pp. 48–9); and there is no reason to make 1417 its earliest possible date since the separate Saucemakers’ pageant clearly existed before that date and was quite possibly originally listed in the Ordo and later erased with the original Tilemakers’ pageant description. In view of the signs which are appearing of a closer relationship between the Ordo and the second list, for example the presence of the Millers’ separate pageant in the Ordo, it is quite possible that the two are very close in date. Both are in Burton’s hand, though using a somewhat different script. I have suggested elsewhere that the Ordo, proclamation and second list may all have been entered at around the same time in a planned position at the end of the maior registrum (the once separate first part of the A/Y Memorandum Book) to act as a convenient reference section to those pieces of information about the Corpus Christi play which were regularly used. For my findings regarding the A/Y Memorandum Book see York, REED, pp. xx and 868; for a general discussion of the final section of the maior registrum see my paper, ‘“Item for a grone-iijd”-records and performance’, in Records of Early English Drama: Proceedings of the First Colloquium, ed. by JoAnna Dutka, (Toronto: Records of Early English Drama, 1979), pp. 26–60 (pp. 41–6). See above note 6. See above note 9. See above note 10. Toulmin Smith, York Plays, pp. 320–36. York, REED, p. 129. This is a late-sixteenth century copy of the 1482 ordinances, ‘abridged and reformed’ according to a note in the left margin of the preamble (f. 6v). Note the confusing ‘The Turners pageant’ in the right margin. York, REED, pp. 152–3. York, REED, p. 212. York, REED, p. 217. York, REED, pp. 257–9 and 260–1.

24. York, REED, p. 277. The list is (upside-down) on f. 74v, not f. 74. Though they are all said to be ‘vnfranchyst’, Cuthbertus Smerthwat (1534–5) and Laurencius Eshebe (1533–4) are entered in the Freemen’s Roll and appear to be the same as two of those listed; see Register of the Freemen of York, pp. 253 and 252. 25. York, REED, pp. 300 and 304. In REED the first is dated ‘27 June’. 26. York, REED, p. 305. In the REED volume, it is rather misleadingly placed after the material which relates to the rest of 1552. 27. York, REED, p. 311–2. 28. York, REED, p. 342. 29. York, REED, pp. 421–2. 30. The Shearmen who should follow the Millers are not listed at all. As the last reference to their pageant is in 1517, there is no way of knowing when, or if, they dropped out. They did not contribute in 1535. 31. York, REED, pp. 37–8. 32. I am grateful to Professor A.C. Cawley for his many helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

11

“MAKE THE ASSE TO SPEAKE” OR STAGING THE CHESTER PLAYS Discussions of the staging of medieval plays tend either to fly off in any number of directions or else to concentrate on one tiny point of evidence. I shall do both. To begin with it may be helpful to set out a series of questions, old and new, about staging and the Chester Cycle as an indication of the directions in which I may fly off. First of all, acting: What kind of style was used, and as a corollary to that was there only one style, and are the terms ‘naturalistic’ and ‘stylized’ of any use here? Was there any mime? To what extent was pure entertainment part of the presentation? How much preparation did actors have? Did actors play the same parts from year to year? Was there any doubling of roles? Where were actors drawn from – the city, professional troupes? Did members perform only in the play of their own company? Then, costume: To what extent were costumes made new for each performance? Were they borrowed? Were they contemporary or historical? What were they made of? The carriage: To what extent was the performance restricted to the carriage? What evidence is there for other locations? How solid was the superstructure? The music: How much instrumental music was there? How much vocal? What was the style of the music? To what extent was it integrated into the performance? Properties: How much use was made of stage props – thrones, sepulchres, crosses? How much of hand props? How were they used? Were they iconographic or naturalistic? This lengthy catechism, which goes beyond what I shall be able to deal with here, does not exhaust the questions that might be asked, but it does give some direction and limitation to a discussion that is in danger of disintegrating by its breadth. One question which I have left unasked, but which must nevertheless be answered, is: how do we know? I have a hierarchy of answers. My first would be: from the records. Company and civic records, ambiguous, infrequent, sporadic, ill-spelt, uninformative though they may be, are our most certain guide. My second answer would be: from the stage directions. In a way they seem to offer so much more than the records, but they are beset by uncertainty. Who wrote them? What date are they? What is their purpose – literary, theatrical? Do they reflect actual stage practice? They are still of the greatest importance but they do need to be treated carefully. Third, I would place the text itself. It suffers from at least one of the same problems as stage directions, that of date, but it does draw attention to movement, gesture, props, details of costume, that may remain unmentioned in stage directions yet must in some way be part of

the performance. Finally, I would turn to evidence from elsewhere: first from the British Isles, secondly from the continent. Despite the dangers of careless use of continental material, it would be foolish to ignore the wealth of evidence for staging practice that exists, because at the very least it is proof that such was current at the time. Renward Cysat of Lucerne learnt from Milan; why should England not learn from France or the Netherlands?1 A few further preliminary remarks are necessary about these sources of evidence. For the staging of the plays at Chester, the company, as opposed to the civic, records provide most information and it is on those that I shall be concentrating. It is still common to talk of the Chester Plays as medieval, but as far as these records are concerned they are sixteenth century. The earliest of them dates from 1546, Smiths’, (if we are to accept, as I have here, John Marshall’s dating of their first accounts) or 1550, Shoemakers’, (if we accept Larry Clopper’s dating of these same Smiths’ accounts to the later date of 1554). A chart of the main extant accounts will make this clear:

It will be seen that the bulk of the information comes from 1568 and later, and that only 1572, and 1575 are play years containing three parallel sets of company accounts. We have only the 1546 Smiths’ to give us any idea of a pre-Reformation performance (one reason why John Marshall’s dating is so important); the rest represent a single performance in Edward’s reign (1550) and five in Elizabeth’s (1561–75). We have no evidence for the revival under Mary if it ever took place in Chester. The two sets of Banns, which are civic records rather than parts of the text even though the late ones appear in some manuscripts, provide some but not much evidence for pre-Reformation and post-Reformation staging. The texts of the plays all post-date the last performance (1575), except for the single Antichrist pageant (c.1500) and the fragment of the Resurrection. As far as staging is concerned, therefore, Chester must be considered a sixteenth-century, almost an Elizabethan, play. Some preliminary information about the context of the plays is also necessary. It is accepted that the plays were performed over three days at Whitsun, the breaks in the cycle coming between the Mercers’ Magi’s Gifts (Play 9) and the Goldsmiths’ Killing of the Innocents (Play 10), and the Cooks’ Harrowing of Hell (Play 17) and the Skinners’ Resurrection (Play 18). It is not known when this pattern came into existence3 but it was certainly established by the time of the records and is therefore an element of the context of the staging. One area of doubt has been created here, however, over the final performance. Larry Clopper in his introduction has said of this 1575 performance: they [the mayor and council] moved the performance to Midsummer, produced it on one day rather than three, and in only one place in the city rather than the accustomed four or five.4

The records clearly state that the saide Sir John Savage [mayor at the time] did cause the saide pagions and plays to be sett furth and playde as is aforesaide; which did begyn the xxvith of June [a Sunday] laste paste, in the after-none of the same day, and there

contynued untill the Wednesday at eveninge then nexte folowinge.5

Far from being reduced to a one-day event they were stretched to a three-and-a-half-day one. Lumiansky and Mills, who rightly draw attention to the extended performance time, note that in four of the five cycle manuscripts the Balaam and Balak episode ends:6 Now, worthye syrs both great and smale, here have wee shewed this storye before; and yf hit bee pleasinge to you all, tomorrowe nexte yee shall have more.    (5/448–51)

All our other records indicate a break at a much later point in the text, and the break recorded in this version of the cycle, if it relates to the 1575 performance, creates a self-contained Old Testament prologue to the cycle on the Sunday afternoon, leaving the New Testament material for the following three days. There is a further area of debate over this last performance relating to the stations. MS BL Harley 2125 says that annoyance was caused because the pageants were performed in ‘on part of the citty’ (Essays, No. 16 (I), p. 231). This has been interpreted as meaning at only one station, but it seems to me that ‘on part of the citty’ is far too vague a location to be interpreted so precisely. We would need to know what was in the writer’s mind. Parishes? Wards? Or some other, less precise, area? Even for the last performances in 1575, therefore, it seems to me that we should be thinking in terms of performance divided over a number of days and probably at more than one station, though it is impossible to be sure to what extent innovation or custom carried the day. That some pageants were omitted is mentioned in one Mayors’ list (MS BL Harley 2133 – see Essays, No. 16 (I), p. 230) but there is no other information about the form that the ‘correction and amendement’ took. A final context to be considered for the cycle is the Midsummer Show. The Midsummer Show or Watch took place on the eve of the Nativity of St John the Baptist (23 June), the eve also of the great Midsummer Fair at Chester. Its early form and origins are both obscure but from the civic and company records which survive is seems to have developed and changed during the sixteenth century, especially after the disappearance of the Corpus Christi festivities, and to have changed again before the play came to an end.7 One possibly continuous element is the parading of the ‘Geyantes and beastes’; but even for these the first full evidence does not appear until 1564 (Clopper, REED, p. 72). Before 1560 the company records refer only to minstrels and charitable gifts to prisoners (only the Smiths and Shoemakers have records as early as this), but in 1560 the Shoemakers mention payment for hobbyhorses on Midsummer Eve. Thereafter a number of characters from the Plays appear: Mary Magdalene and Judas for the Shoemakers (between 1563 and 1570; Judas only twice, 1564–5); two of the Doctors and little God for the Smiths (between 1563 and 1570); Shepherds on stilts for the Painters (between 1568 and 1570; and again in 1576); and two figures in copes (representing Annas and Caiaphas?) for the Coopers (1569–70). Randle Holme observes in the margin of the Smiths’ accounts for 1564–5: ‘it semed Companys vsed then no banners but part of the plays’. The Painters’ stiltwalkers, presumably because of their entertainment value, continued to appear sporadically until 1603; and in the Innkeepers’ records, which survive only from 1583–

4, the characters of the woman and her two demons (usually referred to as ‘Cups and Canes’) continue until 1600. By and large, however, the play characters disappear after 1570 and their place is taken by the boys and banners.8 The first appears in 1570–1 in the Smiths’ records, followed by the Coopers in 1571–2. The Painters have a boy and the Shoemakers a banner and probably a boy too in 1572–3. The crier first occurs in records in 1567–8 (Shoemakers) and begins to occur regularly after 1571–2, apparently to announce the companies at the Barrs. The Show had clearly changed again before the end of the Play’s life. Rogers in the Breviary of 1609 says: … when the witson playes weare played. then the showe at midsomer wente not. And when the whitson playes weare not played. then the midsomer showe wente onlye. (Clopper, REED, p. 252)

Randle Holme, however, notes in the margin of the Painters’ accounts for 1571–2: ‘Whitson plays went this yeare 1572 and mesomer show also per accounts’. There is no doubt that Holme was right; the Smiths’ accounts for 1560–1, 1567–8, 1574–5, the Painters’ for 1567–8, 1571–2, 1574–5, and the Coopers’ for 1571–2 and 1574–5, all contain payments for both Plays and Show. The Show was then not just part of the general semi-dramatic context of the Plays, it was often an immediate and close neighbour, in 1575 preceding the Plays by only two and a half days.

Tables of accounts Some explanation is necessary of the table of craft company accounts that I have set out at the end of the essay. I have selected only those items directly related to staging, but even here I have omitted evidence for rehearsal and other preparation, for ‘putting’ the carriage and for texts and prompting. The major items omitted from the complete accounts are those relating to food and drink and to repairs to the carriage. I should perhaps say here that all the companies spent more money on food and drink than on any other single item. For example, in 1561 (the year in which their carriage expenses were most costly) the Smiths spent a recorded £1 16s 8d on the carriage, about 17s on production, and £2 7s 6d on food and drink. In the other years for which records survive, the cost of carriage repair only once rose above a shilling, while the cost of food only once dropped below £1, in the final year 1575. In that same year the cost of production for the first time rose above the food and drink (c.27s 7½d as opposed to 16s 2d). This expenditure on food is an essential part of the festivity of the productions; it is really a part of the context which I have been talking about above. Quantities of food were consumed at rehearsals; there were breakfasts for players and the company before setting out on the day of the play, there was food and drink when they undressed after the play. They ate and drank on the route between stations, and in the case of the Painters possibly in the play as well. But the plays were festive events, and food and drink have always been a part of such celebrations. The payments relating to the structure of the carriage I have omitted because John Marshall discusses these in his essay.9 I will merely observe that in the surviving records there is no sign of a solid superstructure. The items I have included are intended to give a comparative view of expenditure within a company between different years and between different companies in the same year. The main

difficulties in the way of comparison are the gaps in the accounts and the habit of grouping a number of items under a bulk payment. These I have indicated by a + after the item or before the cost. Where there is no + the cost is entirely of the item indicated. I have included only one receipt: that of the Coopers for hire of their carriage to the Painters and Skinners. One lingering problem is the accuracy of the accounts. The payments often do not add up when a total is indicated, and when there is a way of checking accuracy (as with the Painters’ payment of carriage hire to the Coopers in 1575), there is a discrepancy. The special difficulty with the Painters’ accounts is drawing the line between food for entertainment and food for the play: hence the line of question-marks. I have included one Midsummer Show payment (marked MS), the Smiths in 1568 paying for gilding God’s face and providing gloves, because it raises some questions about the presentation of the play. I have set out the table of wages for 1570 as a comparative guide to the value of the payments referred to throughout.

Preparations for the performance The first question to ask about preparation is what kind of activity it involved. The accounts, because they are accounts, only refer to the preparations obliquely. Food consumed at a rehearsal, or drink in a tavern or in someone’s room while recruiting players, involves payment and is recorded. There is therefore no account of any unpaid activity; no rehearsal is referred to per se, only in so far as food or drink were consumed at it. However because of the terms that are used in the accounts, some information can be uncovered. Rehearsals were apparently of two kinds, the ordinary and the general. All the companies make this distinction. But what was a general rehearsal? Surely these short plays were not rehearsed in sections. It seems more likely that the general rehearsal was a time when the play was performed before the whole of the company; when there was opportunity for a celebratory meal and minstrels as well. The very considerable sum of £1 14s 1d was spent by the Smiths in 1561 on food and drink at their general rehearsal. Not all companies indulged to that extent, nor indeed did the Smiths do so regularly, but nevertheless the earlier rehearsals are always much cheaper affairs. The pattern of rehearsal – an irregular one – is of one, two or three preliminary ones and one general (?dress) rehearsal. There are also rehearsals before the mayor (Smiths 1567, 2s 6d spent; Painters 1568, 2s 6d and 1575? ls ld), though whether he was there in a supervisory capacity or not is not clear. It may be that the mayor simply chose to see certain plays according to his fancy. No modern producer/director would dream of having no rehearsals on the actual stage on which the play was to be performed. What of Chester in the sixteenth century; were the carriages ever used for this? The rehearsal venues mentioned are always ‘at --- ‘s’ except for one, the Smiths in 1567, which was ‘under St Johns’, presumably the large church just outside the city walls. Even that is not an obvious place for a carriage to be. There is one possible hint of having the carriage available. The Coopers paid 18d in 1572 on ‘brekynge of the caryge’ and ‘the bernggyn yt up to the stuerdes doure’. It is I suppose possible that it was brought there to rehearse on, but the conjunction with ‘breaking’ makes it sound as though it was there for construction rather than acting. The single payment in 1567 to the journeyman of the Smiths for ‘wachinge the carrage all night’ could imply that it had been used for rehearsal in the street and

therefore needed watching over during the following night; but it seems more likely that the carriage was prepared the day before performance, could not be returned to the carriage house, and was therefore left out in the street. The Smiths performed on the Tuesday; could they have spent the Monday – the first day of the plays – not only dressing their carriage but also having a rehearsal? There is, I’m afraid, no way of knowing. The usual rehearsal venues appear to be at the houses of the aldermen of the companies; which makes sense in terms of supervision or control, though not of familiarizing players with performance on a carriage in the streets. Perhaps rehearsals were largely word rehearsals. Familiarity with a routine may have meant that rehearsal in the modern sense was not necessary. It may rather have been a question of running the play through to revive memories or familiarize newcomers with the movements. Rehearsal time was to some extent dependent on notification of performance. The Banns are said to have been ‘ridden’ on St. George’s day, 23 April, from two weeks and three days to seven weeks and one day from Whitsun – depending on the date of Easter. But the only clear information that we have about notification of the companies comes from the open letter of the City Council exonerating John Hanky and Sir John Savage from a charge of having brought forth the plays in 1572 and 1575 respectively at their own whim. There the order to perform is said to have been taken on 29 April in 1572 and on 30 May in 1575 (Essays, No. 15 (d), pp. 224–5). If this was the first indication of performance that the companies had, then they would have had twenty-six days in 1572 and twenty-seven in 1575 in which to prepare. Before each of these years as far as we know, there was a gap in performances of three and two years respectively; perhaps just long enough for the smooth organization of a regular event to become forgotten. And if not only the play but also the carriage had to be prepared, there may have been a flurry of activity in those few weeks. The other preliminary activity was, of course, finding players. Had the plays been a regular annual performance and the players drawn from their own company then there would have been no problem. Neither, however, seems to have been so. The only consecutive performances we know of were in 1567 and 1568. Otherwise there are gaps of from three to ten years. The players clearly do not come only from their own companies but from any appropriate source in Chester. John Marshall has shown that the named players in the Coopers’ accounts were a tailor, a barber, a bowyer and a painter,10 and what little evidence there is from elsewhere would support the view that players were drawn from any company. The expense of 2d on getting Thomas Marser to play was no doubt used in softening up his resistance with a pint or two. He is the only player actually named as needing this treatment, but quite frequently money is spent on getting players (Smiths, 1561), hearing players (Smiths, 1567; Coopers, 1572), seeking players (Smiths, 1572), getting singers (Smiths, 1561). Marser is merely the most colourfully suggestive. Besides providing players, one would have thought that players needed providing with scripts. The only references to these, however, are the irregularly mentioned ‘parcels’: in the Smiths’ accounts of 1561 (paper to copy out parcels, delivering parcels), the Painters’ of 1568 and 1572 (paid for copying parcels) and the Coopers’ of 1572 (delivering parcels) and 1575 (writing parcels). We do not know whether players were repeating roles already played and therefore needed no script, whether players were illiterate and learnt by ear and hence only some parcels needed copying, or whether parcels were returned after a performance and only

those lost needed re-copying. Certainly the copying of parcels suggests that there was some learning from scripts. When the Smiths needed to choose between two plays to take the best, which happened in the exceptional year of 1575, they were apparently both read through, though whether in parts or by a single reader is not shown. We do not know whether one was old and one new, both old or both new plays, but in any case some re copying of parts might have been expected, but there is none in the accounts at all. It will be apparent from the tables and from what I have said that there is quite a lot of information about the preparations for performance in the accounts, but also that it is not easy to interpret. The same is true of the evidence for performance itself, and it is time to turn to that.

The Performance Players It will be clear that the players, as far as one can tell, were members of the local craft companies with the addition of singers from the Cathedral. There is no reason to invoke the notion of professionals except in the case of the singers. What further evidence about players can the lists of payments provide? One thing they cannot give us is a clear picture of a complete cast. We can speculate about the absence of the three Doctors from the Smiths’ accounts of 1568, or of Simeon in 1567 and 1568, but it may simply be a result of the arbitrariness of the records. Equally, because we only have the 1550 accounts for the Shoemakers, we should probably be careful about reconstructing a text from the list of players. All we have to account for is the existence of two bit parts (the Knights at 4d each – no other part at Chester gets as little as this) and a quite highly paid team, the Jailer and his man. The absence of payments to Peter, Philip, Simon, Lazarus, janitor, two boys, two Pharisees and two merchants, though it seems so significant because of the numbers, may well be of no more importance than the absences in the Smiths’ list of 1568. There, three out of the nine appear, here, seven out of eighteen (if we count the citizens as one) – a larger proportion present. Besides which the 16d of the Jailer may be for no more than a few lines. The First Doctor in the Smiths’ play is paid the same but has only twenty lines to say, according to the text as it has survived. Saying what cannot be said about the staging ought to give way to something more positive. I have called the Jailer and his man a ‘highly-paid team’, which conjures up images of a comedy duo from a modern variety show; is there any evidence for specialist acts in the plays? I have elsewhere tentatively suggested that one could make a case for stilt-walking in the Painters’ Shepherd’s Play,11 and equally tentatively for juggling in the Vintners’ Magi.12 Stilt-walking was certainly a skill used by the Painters as part of their entertainment in the Midsummer Show, and as it was two people at least dressed as shepherds who went in the Show it is possible that one entertainment borrowed from the other. Bottom was eager to offer all his skills to his craft companions and perhaps Edward and Richard Dawby were the same. It would certainly make for an impressive and appropriate entry. The juggling of Herod is suggested by something rather different. One or two in a series of stage directions (‘Sword’,

‘Cast up’ beside 8/200–205; ‘Breake a sword’, ‘Cast up’ [twice] beside 8/349–66; and a similar group to the first towards the end of the play) may indicate a Herod juggling with one of his props. If this suggestion is accepted, it has implications elsewhere in the text, since in play 5 the tyrannical Balak in his anger has the directions ‘Florish’, ‘Caste up’ and ‘Sworde’ (5/96–163). Was there a special style for Chester tyrants? I am not inclined to press the more extreme side of this approach too far, but I am sure that we should not shut our minds to the possibility of individual theatrical skills being woven into the action of the plays. The skill which seems to come through in the Smiths’ play is that of singing. The Smiths spent some effort on getting singers for their production and the most important role involving singing is that of Simeon, if, as the stage direction says, he sings the Nunc dimittis (ll/166+SD). Apart from the high payment of 3s 4d for Simeon there is no obvious sign of getting a singer for the part, except that when Simeon is absent from the list of payments a Mr White is paid 4s. Richard Rastall has suggested that this is Robert White the composer, briefly resident in Chester, and that he was paid this amount for performing Simeon.13 It is an attractive possibility and one that increases even more our expectations of the excellence of the performance. There is only one slight objection and that is that White is paid in 1568 specifically for singing, and it is possible that his inclusion is connected with a special development of the liturgical music of the temple in the play rather than that he played Simeon. We know of his likely skill in music but we know nothing after all of his skill as an actor. The emphasis upon music is marked in the records. In 1561 there is a choir of five plus a ‘choir master’; in 1567 there is apparently singing accompanied by the regals, a small portable reed organ; and even in the cheapest year, 1575, there are at least four singers employed. Of the extant company records only the Painters with their shepherd boys show anything like the same interest in good vocal music.14 The most important theatrical skill of all is, of course, acting, and it is one about which, for this period, we know very little. There are one or two pieces of evidence, however, which may affect acting styles and which certainly affect the audience’s perception of the characters presented. The first is the fact, for that is what it seems to be, that in England women’s roles were played by men or boys. I know of no evidence for women playing women in the English mystery plays; what evidence there is (and it is not extensive) is all for men. There is no indisputable evidence from Chester either way. Even if there were, it is very difficult to say what the effect of this transvestism would be – or would have been. Is a man playing the Virgin Mary less ‘natural’ than a woman; more appealing, or less? Is a woman playing Mrs Noah less funny than a man? Some discussion and some reactions are gathered together in Medieval English Theatre 5:2.15 Even if this kind of performance became normal in revivals of the plays, however, I think we would still be a long way from knowing what effect it had on a sixteenth-century audience’s perception of the plays. It is simply another element in the picture which we are trying to build up. The other piece of evidence which may affect our understanding of acting styles, and of perception of characters, is that for the use of symbolic or emblematic costumes or props. There is, for example, a crown (and halo?) for Mary in the Smiths’ Purification play. I at first thought that this might add a very striking new dimension to one’s perception of Mary, acting as wife and mother but perceived as Queen of Heaven. This may be so, but I now have the feeling

that it may as readily have been passed over because iconographically so commonplace. The most striking evidence of symbolic costume is the gilded face of the Christ-child in the same play. To everyone in the play he is a child and by and large treated like one, but to the audience his voice sounds like a child but his words and appearance are resplendently God. Symbolic costume certainly can affect the audience’s perception of characters but how far does it affect our understanding of acting style? The real problem here is that there is too little evidence to put a limit on possibility. The main limitation should be the text – a combination of style and meaning – but the variation that exists gives only the very broadest of indications of acting style. Taking Mary’s and Christ’s words together with their appearances seems to suggest stylized acting. But would such a style be expressed in stylized gesture and movement, and rhetorical delivery? And would it be true of all characters and situations? It seems unlikely; but we are up against an almost total lack of evidence for the English plays. Once again all we can do is build the information (such as it is) into our understanding of the sixteenth-century performance at Chester. Doubling of parts has been readily accepted as another element in the performance of the mystery plays. York provides what seems to me to be clear evidence in its ban on actors playing more than twice on Corpus Christi day;16 and with forty-eight pageants to cast in a day some doubling is perhaps to be expected. The evidence from Chester is much less certain. The only reasons for making use of doubled roles are shortage of actors or, if you have to pay them, shortage of money; and although the craft companies spend time and money on finding players there is no reason to suppose that either the players or the money was in short supply. There were after all only at most nine plays in a day to cast. The notion of doubling seems to have arisen to explain the curious entries in the Coopers’ accounts:17 1572

Payde for the carynge of Pylates clothes  vid

1575

Item paied unto Pylat and to him that carried Arates clothes and for there gloves vjs vjd

(Lumiansky and Mills, Essays, No. 17 (b) (iv),                 pp. 255 256)

Before assuming doubling here, however, one should take into account the use made by the Coopers of living lay figures – men to wear someone’s costume – in the Midsummer Show. The clearest description of this is in 1569–70: Item payde to wyllyan rogerson for the lone of to copes

iiiid

more payde to them that caryed them and for drenke whan the were in dressenge and oon dressenge

xxd.

                 (Clopper, REED, p. 89)

The word ‘caried/caryed’ is here used for ‘wore’ and the same may be true of the other references. The ‘carrying’ of Pilate’s clothes may have been in Banns or in Midsummer Show in 1572 and have led to an appropriate reward of 6d. The 1575 6s 6d is more difficult since it has been lumped together with Pilate’s wages. There do seem to be two people referred to as

each is given a pair of gloves. The Coopers paid 6d in 1573 (Clopper, REED, p. 99) for a pair of gloves, so this may account for ls. Hugh Gillam was paid 3s 7d in 1572 so the wages may account for that or a little bit more since one of the other payments seems to have risen a little too. That still leaves ls 6d – ls lld as opposed to 6d in 1572. If, of course, the reason for putting the payments together was that both Pilate and Herod went in the Midsummer Show, one the highly paid Hugh Gillam and the other a lay figure, then the explanation becomes clear: 6d for ‘Herod’ and ls to ls 5d for Pilate. In any case doubling does not seem the most likely explanation of the payments. An item used as contributory evidence for doubling is Herod’s visor, mended in 1575. The use of masks is, however, a common enough feature of the civic plays as Meg Twycross and Sarah Carpenter have reminded us,18 especially for evil characters, and there is plenty of evidence for the masked Herod. The existence of a mask for Herod in this particular play, the Trial and Flagellation, should be used not as evidence for doubling but as a salutary reminder of the co-existence of masked and unmasked characters in the most seemingly naturalistic of plays. The existence of Herod’s mask, the only one mentioned in Chester, should perhaps make us ask whether the gilded face of Christ in the Smiths’ play was a mask. The gilding looks like a straightforward reference to make-up until one reaches the 1568 accounts where payment is made for gilding at Midsummer only. This then raises the question of whether little God going in the Show at other times was gilded and if so why payment is only shown once. The answer could be that the ‘face’ was a mask which could with no difficulty be used twice in one year at Play and Show, but which might need re-gilding in subsequent years. Costume Discussion of masks and face-painting leads naturally on to costume, but I wish to comment here only briefly on the references in company accounts since Meg Twycros will be considering costume more generally in her essay.19 It may seem surprising that there is so little evidence for costume in the accounts. But of course costume is a storable item and the fact that only a mask, two wigs, Mary’s crown, a halo, a borrowed cope and tunicle and doctor’s gown and hood (and miscellaneous painting) are mentioned for the ten characters in the Smiths’ play in their accounts should not really surprise us. The ‘making of the copes 5s’ in the Smiths’ 1546 accounts is more likely to be the making of drip-catching ‘cups’ for candles or torches in view of its context: For makinge of the copes vs For dressinge of the stands and janddasses xiid for gelding of the fane and for carriages of the lights xiid   (Lumiansky and Mills, Essays, No. 17 (b) (ii), p. 237)

It is, however, a lot of money for ‘cups’ and it is worth leaving the question open. The cope and tunicle borrowed in 1572, almost certainly for Simeon, emphasizes the contemporary liturgical appearance of the temple especially when taken together with the altar-cloth. Since Simeon could have worn only one cope, the copes of 1575 may mean that the angels or singingmen or one of them also wore a cope.

From the Painters’ accounts what stands out is not only Trowle’s shoes but the regularity of their provision. They are of two quite different kinds – pumps and shoes made of skins (two goatskins in 1575) – but why does he need two pairs and why are they almost the only items of costume supplied for anybody in the play? Provision of clothes for the shepherds can hardly have been difficult, but there is the angel and Joseph and Mary. The combination of shoes and wages for Trowle in 1575 could mean that, as often with gloves, one pair is a form of remuneration. But why should this form of payment be adopted for this character? Trowle’s speciality is wrestling; is it possible that the shoes are something to do with this? Whatever it is, it is something that we have to consider in envisaging the staging of the play. Properties For most people staging means the physical properties of the stage and how they are used. The records give us precious little information. Two important stage properties that do appear are the steeples in both the Shoemakers’ and the Smiths’ accounts – in the case of the latter oddly only in 1567. It has been suggested that the ‘gyse’ which appear in the Shoemakers’ accounts are ropes (‘guy-ropes’) and used to support the steeple in the manner of the ropes shown in the Leuven ommegang.20 It is much more likely, however, that the ‘iij gyse’ are three ‘joists’, since the immediate context all relates to wood. The Shoemakers pay for setting up the steeple, and a wooden structure on top of the superstructure of the carriage – in the manner of the York Mercers’ heaven – seems the most likely though by no means the only form for it to take. If the steeple symbolically represents the temple, the altar cloth, like the cope and tunicle, add detailed realization to the setting; and if the ‘stands and janddasses’ of 1546 are, as John Marshall and I believe, the standing and carried candles, then the emphasis on liturgical celebration is even stronger.21 These last may indeed be the one sign of a distinctly preReformation performance. Questions again abound with the Painters’ accounts. Bottles and bags are not unexpected, though it is hard to see what was so special about ‘tangkeres bages’ that were borrowed in 1575, but the food is the real problem. The Painters’ play abounds in food; yet if real food were used (and there is no doubt that some was), was it repeatedly eaten at all four stations, or was it taken out of the bags and put back with only some mimed eating? That might be all right for jannocks (there were only two bought in 1572) but the butter must have suffered. Listing the itemized food in one year’s accounts will give some idea of the variety and extent: 1568. Puddings, butter, cheese, birds, crabfish, bread, quarter of veal, quarter of coarse veal, beast’s belly, calf’s foot, mid calf, ox tongue, calf’s head, a groin, tup’s head, haggis, bacon, another calf’s head, quarter of lamb, five more haggises.

I have no doubt that much of this went on the company at its rehearsals and other meetings, but so much is mentioned in the play and the coincidence of sorts of food is so great that more than the food specifically said to be for the play must surely have been used. The mention of the star (apparently its painting) in the Painters’ accounts leads naturally to consideration of a rather unhelpful stage direction, and to a more general look at the use of the stage and its properties: Tunc sedebunt [the shepherds], et stella apparebit.

[Then they will sit and the star will appear.]       (7/299+SD)

Fortunately there is also an appearance of a star in the next play which may elucidate this: Tunc reges iterum genua flectent, et Angelus portans stellam. [Then the Kings should kneel again, and the Angel bearing the star.]               (8/84+SD)

The appearance of the star is not some elaborate piece of stage machinery but simply an angel carrying one. There is no way of proving that this was the device that the Painters used, but it is a useful indication that such a method was current in Chester at the time; and given that they were performing on a stage that moved from place to place and that therefore cannot easily have lines attached to it for running stars along, it seems a sensible device. If the appearance of the star does not after all involve stage machinery, is there any sign of more elaborate methods elsewhere? The plays involving heaven and hell might be expected to provide some examples and up to a point they do. There is the light which appears in hell at the harrowing: Et primo fiat lux in inferno materialis aliqua subtilitate machinata. [And at the start let there be material light created by some cunning device]                (17/ Before 1 SD)

Unfortunately there is no indication of how this ingenious device is managed. How does one provide light in hell on a bright Whitsun Tuesday? Evidence from the continent would suggest the use of a polished bowl as a reflector;22 but how satisfactory would that be in the depths of a narrow Chester street on a carriage pointing at different times in three different ways? Another related problem is that of the Fishmongers’ Pentecost play: Tunc Deus emittet Spiritum Sanctum in spetie ignis, et in mittendo cantent duo angeli antiphonam … Et cantando projecient ignem super apostolos. [Then let God send forth the Holy Spirit in the form of fire, and as it is sent, let two angels sing an antiphon … And as they sing let them throw fire upon the Apostles.] (21/238+SD)

Was the answer fireworks? The continental (and, what there is of it, English) evidence would suggest that fireworks are not used for heavenly effects; they seem to be naturally diabolical.23 Once again the stage direction tells us what is done, but does not tell us how. The one piece of stage machinery that is explained at Chester is the return of the dove during the flood: Tunc emittet columbam; et erit in nave aliam columbam ferens olivam in ore, quam dimittet aliquis ex malo per funem in manibus Noe. [Then he should send out a dove; and in the ship there will be another dove bearing an olive branch in its mouth, which someone should release from the mast by means of a rope in Noah’s hands.] (Appendix 1A/15+SD)

A beautifully simple device, which should perhaps set us looking for equally simple devices for the solution of the other stage business. The simplicity of the Noah device should not conceal that to make it work we first need a

very elaborate ark – as the text suggests, in the form of a contemporary ship. (3/81–96). There seems to me little doubt that the ark is there from the beginning; that it is a piece of nonrealistic spectacle which later needs the miming of its making, as the stage directions suggest (3/112+SD). The stage directions also describe the managing of the animals, and again it is fairly clear what is required: Tunc Noe introibit archam, et familia sua dabit et recitabit nomina animalium depicta in cartis et, postquam unusquisque suam locutus est partem, ibit in archam, uxore Noe excepta, et animalia depicta cum verbis concordare debent [Then Noah will enter the ark and his family will give and recite the names of the animals painted on the boards and, after each has spoken his part, he will go into the ark, with the exception of Noah’s Wife, and the animals depicted must agree with the words.] (3/160+SD, 1607 MS)

I have given the Latin version of the stage direction since I find it clearer and more informative. Noah goes aboard the ark; his children remain in the street. One by one they swing up the boards which are hung on the ark, painted perhaps like gun ports on one side, to reveal the animals painted beneath them. As each finishes so he goes aboard, until only Mrs Noah is left. That is how it seems to me to work. That the animals are painted on boards here should not lead us to suppose that all animals appearing in the cycle were two-dimensional. The ox and ass which look so insignificant in the Painters’ accounts must surely have benefited from being the property of the company, two of whose members were responsible for the Midsummer Show beasts. And the Midsummer Show beasts should also alert us to the possibility of something special for the dromedaries of the Kings or Balaam’s ass (8/101–8, 5/223+SD–239) At least in the latter case there is no doubt that the beast is human. Et hic oportet aliquis transformiari in speciem asinae; et quando Balaham percutit, dicat asina. [And here someone should be transformed into the form of the ass; and when Balaham strikes, let the ass speak.] (5/223+SD)

The Kings, Balaam, Balak, Melchisadek, Abraham, Christ, all require real or artificial animals, and such use at once implies the opening-up of the action on to the street level, to absorb and be absorbed by the audience. Chester is striking for its use of mounted characters – Doctors and Expositors among them (4/lll+SH). Is there again some cross-fertilization between Show and Plays? It is not just the use of the street but also the use of upper levels that is required by the stage directions and action of the plays. God is ‘in some high place – or in the clowdes, if it may bee’ at the beginning of Noah’s Flood (3/Before 1 SD): ‘Christ must speake in heaven’ in the Pentecost play (21/152+SD), and ‘quasi in nube, si fieri poterit’ (‘as if in cloud, if it can be done’) must descend in the Last Judgement (24/356+SD); and where are there more obviously convenient high places than in Chester? Chester’s Rows are poorly documented in the sixteenth century but they were there.24 It would be wrong to picture them as the continuous walkways that they are now, but there is little doubt that they would have provided raised places at the High Cross (the Pentice) and in Watergate and Bridge Streets, and the possibility of decorating beforehand (‘in the clowdes, if it may bee’). The mason John Brooks is said, in the entry of his death in 1614, to have made ‘many showes & pastymes on the steple of Trinity & also on the topp of St. peters steple as many thousands did wittnesse’ (Clopper, REED, p. 286). Perhaps the high places were sometimes really high.

The most spectacular-sounding of the uses of raised places is that in the Tailors’ play of the Ascension. There Christ ascends, sings ‘in media quasi supra nubes’ (‘in the midst, as if above the clouds’), is met by angels and finally ascends to heaven with the angels singing (20/96+SD-152+SD). Sadly there is no indication of how it was done but unless it was off the carriage it must imply a superstructure and raising mechanism at least as elaborate as that of the York Mercers’.25 We are unfortunate in having records only of those plays that required no elaborate superstructure. The impression given from their dressing is inevitably one hemmed in by tenterhooks, cords, pins and nails. Even the curtains, which to judge from the Late Banns were the glory of many carriages, only make an occasional appearance when they need washing.

Conclusions What general conclusions can be drawn from this detail? First of all that we need to be very careful about applying modern understanding of rehearsal and preparation to these plays. Secondly, that the plays were wholly a product of the city of Chester, not of any outside professional or semi-professional group. Thirdly, that the kinds of tricks and skills employed by performers in the Show may also have been used in the Plays. Fourthly, that in envisaging styles of acting we should take into account the physical props and costumes that we know existed, as well as the text. Masks and crowns, swords and stilts, may affect style as well as altering the audience’s perception of the character that is being presented. Fifthly, that we must be open to the possibility of great variety in the staging of the plays. Though the companies whose records have survived have evidence only of curtains, if of that, for a superstructure, the stage directions and text provide evidence for something as elaborate as a fully rigged sixteenth-century ship. Sixthly, that the evidence unequivocally shows action on carriage floor, in the street and in the ‘high places’; even if no ladder has yet come to light to show how the performers got up and down.26 Finally it is important to reemphasize that to re-create the staging of the plays we must use the contexts of their own city and their own time. The evidence, as I suggested at the beginning, is scattered and bitty, which is why one concentrates so much on those bits that there are to try and force them to reveal all they can, and then leaps off to another scattered detail to do the same. We must concentrate in this way but we must also eventually try and put the bits into a pattern. This, it seems to me, can only really be done in a production. It is there that the ideas which the records and texts throw up need to be tried out. When I called this paper ‘Make the Asse to speake’ (Late Banns, 88) I was thinking of the moment which clearly to the sixteenth century was the most spectacular in the Cappers’ Balaam and Balak; but it more and more came to seem applicable to what I was doing. Can you make the records and stage directions speak? Up to a point I think you can, but I have an uneasy feeling that as with Balaam if you put a foot wrong there will be an angel with a drawn sword (here in the form of scholarship) to cut you down.

Notes  1. Cysat was the director of the Lucerne Easter Play in the later sixteenth century. For his interest in Milanese black smoke, see The Staging of Religious Drama in Europe in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by Peter Meredith and John E. Tailby

(Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1983), p. 149; (hereafter referred to as Staging).  2. For the dating of the Smiths’ accounts see John Marshall, ‘The Chester Whitsun Plays: Dating of Post-Reformation Performances from the Smiths’ accounts’, Leeds Studies in English ns 9 (1977), 51–61. Where a dated account is mentioned I have not given a separate reference to Chester, Records of Early English Drama, ed. by Lawrence M. Clopper, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979); (here-after referred to as Clopper, REED). For the Smiths’ accounts here dated 1546, see Clopper, REED, p. 53. The Smiths’ Midsummer Show accounts given by Clopper as 1554–5 (pp. 54– 5), are dated by Marshall, 1557–8.  3. David Mills, ‘“None had the like nor the like darste set out”: the City of Chester and its Mystery Cycle’ in Staging the Chester Cycle, ed. by David Mills, Leeds Texts and Monographs, New Series 9 (Leeds: Leeds School of English, University of Leeds, 1985), 1–16.  4. Clopper, REED, p. lv.  5. R.M. Lumiansky and David Mills, The Chester Mystery Cycle: Essays and Documents (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), No. 15e, 224.  6. Lumiansky and Mills, Essays, p. 193.  7. For a brief description of an elaborate St John’s Eve parade in Florence, see Staging, p. 193.  8. I have assumed here that the woman and her two devils are play characters. It is not provable but it seems likely in view of the cups that she carries that the woman is, in origin anyway, the ale-wife of the Cooks’ and Innkeepers’ Harrowing of Hell (The Chester Mystery Cycle, ed. by R.M. Lumiansky and David Mills, 2 vols, EETS, ss 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), I, pp. 337–339).  9. John Marshall, ‘“The manner of these playes”: the Chester Pageant Carriages and the Places where They Played’ in Mills, Staging the Chester Cycle, pp. 17–48. 10. John Marshall, ‘Players of the Coopers’ pageant from the Chester Plays in 1572 and 1575’, Theatre Notebook 33 (1979), 18–23. 11. Peter Meredith, ‘“Item for a grone – iijd” – records and performance’ in REED Proceedings of the First Colloquium, ed. by JoAnna Dutka (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), pp. 26–60 (pp. 29–31). 12. Peter Meredith, ‘Scribes, texts and performance’, Aspects of Early English Drama, ed. by Paula Neuss (Cambridge: D S Brewer, 1983), pp. 13–29 (pp. 25–26). 13. Lumiansky and Mills, Essays, p. 134. 14. Richard Rastall, ‘“Some myrth to his majestee”: Music in the Chester Cycle’ in Mills, Staging the Chester Cycle, pp. 77– 99. 15. Meg Twycross, “‘Transvestism” in the Mystery Plays’, Medieval English Theatre 5:2 (1983), 124–128. 16. York, ed. by Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Rogerson, 2 vols, Records of Early English Drama (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), I, p. 99. 17. Lawrence M. Clopper, ‘The Rogers’ Description of the Chester Plays’, Leeds Studies in English ns 7 (1974), 63–94 (p. 80). The ‘doubling’ in York appears to have been of a rather different kind, spanning two or more pageants rather than two roles in one pageant. 18. Meg Twycross and Sarah Carpenter, ‘Masks in Medieval English Theatre (2)’, Medieval English Theatre 3 (1981), 69– 113 (pp. 90–91). 19. Meg Twycross, ‘The Chester Cycle Wardrobe’ in Mills, Staging the Chester Cycle, pp. 100–123. 20. For an illustration of one of the pageants using ropes for steadying a high structure, and for a general description of the book illustrating the ommegang, see Meg Twycross, ‘The Liber Boonen of the Leuven ommegang’ Dutch Crossing 22 (April, 1984), 93–96 and fig. 1. 21. This entry from the end of the 1546 Smiths’ accounts is omitted in Clopper, REED but is given in Lumiansky and Mills, Essays as ‘stands and janddasses’ (p. 237), a possible but so far unexplained reading. 22. As at Revello in 1483 (Staging, p. 114). Perhaps the alternative suggestion, that of using torches when the sun was not shining, was used at Chester. For some other lighting effects see pp. 119, 243–247. 23. The destructive lightning thrown by the angels in Bourges could well have been fireworks (Staging, p. 101). For other firework effects see pp. 105–106, 149 and 268. Belial in the Castle of Perseverance has gunnepowdyr brennynge In pypys in hys handys and in hys erys and in hys ars. whanne he gothe to batayl (Macro Plays, ed. Mark Eccles, EETS 262 (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 1). 24. For a useful historical account of the Rows see P.H. Lawson and J.T. Smith, ‘The Rows of Chester: Two Interpretations’, Journal of the Chester and North Wales Architectural, Archaeological and Historic Society 45 (1958), 1–42. 25. For a description of the superstructure and raising mechanism see Peter Meredith, ‘The Development of the York

Mercers’ Pageant Waggon’, Medieval English Theatre 1 (1979), 5–18. 26. The Coopers’ ‘ladar, and the settyng up of yt one the welles [wheels]’ (Lumiansky and Mills, Essays p. 254) could be a reference to a way of getting up onto the carriage floor, but it seems to me, in view of the considerable re-construction that was taking place in 1572, the wording of the entry, and its uniqueness, that the reference is as likely to be to a structural part of the carriage (see MED, s.v. ladder(e n, l.b., and OED, s.v. Ladder sb 3.).

1. Payments to actors in the company accounts.

2. Payments for costume, etc. in the company accounts.

3. Payments for properties in the company accounts

4. Payments for dressing the carriage from the company accounts.

5. Table of wages fixed for the year 1570.

12

THE FIFTEENTH-CENTURY AUDIENCE OF THE YORK CORPUS CHRISTI PLAY: RECORDS AND SPECULATION This paper falls, I hope not too awkwardly, into two parts. The first is a re-examination of certain civic records relating to audiences and the organization of the York Corpus Christi play, and the second is speculation, arising partly out of that re-examination, about the varying ways in which the audiences might have perceived the play. My starting point is a remark by David Crouch in an excellently detailed article in a most recent volume of Medieval English Theatre.1 In discussing the station-holders in York in the fifteenth century he says: ‘There would seem to have been little scope for the free audience movement through the clogged and heavily policed streets in the way that was once assumed.’ I think I would have wanted to explore this comment further even if the reference given by Crouch had not been to a remark of my own.2 My assertion (since it was that) was that (a) a street performance audience is, and it seems reasonable to assume was, extremely mobile, (b) that individual members of such an audience create their own contexts for performance, and (c) that where processional performance is concerned they can reconstitute the complete play in a variety of different patterns. Crouch’s comments relate to my first assertion, and since if that is not accepted neither of the others exists, I’d like to address that first. The key words in his remark are ‘clogged’ and ‘heavily policed’. The latter seems to derive on the one hand from the fact that certain craft guild members were required to process with the pageant,3 and on the other from the necessary organizational instructions of the mayor and council. The phrase is, perhaps, unfortunate. ‘Heavily policed’ implies a kind of modern riot-gear coercion for which there is no evidence in the records of the Corpus Christi play. The craft members may have assisted (there is no evidence either way) in demarcating space for the performers of their pageant but this hardly amounts to ‘heavy policing’, and anyway their presence may have had more to do with adding dignity to the play than with crowd control – like the chaplains of the Corpus Christi Guild, organizers but also dignifiers of the procession (REED York p. 15). On the organizational side, the mayor and council’s instructions are very light-handed. They amount to little more than marking the official stations by the placing of banners, insisting on performances taking place at those stations and nowhere else, and forbidding the carrying of weapons.4 This last regulation, however, raises a particular problem. The one reference to what might

be called ‘policing’ on the part of the mayor and council occurs in a disputed part of the Corpus Christi play proclamation: And þat men of craftes & all othir men þat fyndes torches þat þai com forth in array & in manere as it (has been vsed) & customed be fore þis tyme, noght haueyng wapen (careynge tapers [Toulmin Smith]/saveyin keepers [Drake]) of þe pagentz and officers þat ar kepers (of þe pees) of payne of forfaiture of þair franchis and þaire bodyes to prison …

The parts in round brackets in the above passage are now illegible in the A/Y Memorandum Book.5 Lucy Toulmin Smith and Francis Drake agree on most things (apart from minor differences of spelling) but not on the key passage referring to weapons. If Drake was right then the ‘keepers of þe pagentz’ were allowed to carry weapons and were thus on a par with the ‘kepers of þe pees’. But who were these ‘keepers of þe pagentz’? Are they to be equated with the craftsmen who accompanied the pageants? Or are they civic officials overseeing the organization of the whole play? As far as I know they are not referred to elsewhere.6 With the ‘kepers of þe pees’ they could, I suppose, represent what would now be called a ‘police presence’. However, it may be that Toulmin Smith is right and that the phrase is ‘careynge tapers’. She was after all able to consider Drake’s reading when making her own transcription, and presumably reject it, and elsewhere she appears to be reasonably accurate in her transcriptions. The fact that her reading creates a much more difficult syntactical situation, of which she was apparently aware, argues perhaps that she was confident of her reading. If the A/Y Memorandum Book, however, was the annual source for the proclamation one would have thought that someone would have noticed that it didn’t make sense and emended it. So Drake may have been right after all. It remains a problem. What is certain is that there were ‘kepers of þe pees’ that carried weapons, but it seems highly unlikely that they would have prevented audience mobility. ‘Keeping the peace’ is surely ensuring that holiday humour doesn’t get out of hand not keeping spectators still. There remains the question of the ‘clogged’ streets. The clogging to which Crouch refers was, he suggests, created by scaffolds set up in front of certain of the houses serving as stations for the play in 1417.7 There are two particular problems here: we don’t know how large the scaffolds were and we don’t know whether the scaffolds were ever set up again after 1417. As far as the first of these is concerned there is simply no information; the second needs further thought. In discussions of the stations it seems to be generally assumed that scaffolds continued to be set up during the life of the Corpus Christi play in York.8 Yet there is no reference to scaffolds after 1417, or, indeed, before.9 The single record from which the evidence comes is the minutes of two meetings held by the mayor, the council of the city (the Twelve and the Twenty-four), and an unspecified number of the commons, on the 7th and the 12th of June 1417. This record has been known for a long time. It is printed in REED York (pp. 28–30), has been frequently used in discussions of the play10 and is examined in detail by Crouch (pp. 72–3). There is, however, more to be said about it though I shall have to go over old ground in order to put it in context. Two inter-related matters are at issue in the first of these meetings (7 June). The first is concerned basically with public and private profit. It was reported that people were setting up scaffolds outside their houses where the play was to be performed and charging for sitting on them. The scaffolds were, however, being set up on public land (the street) and consequently the city was demanding a toll on the takings of a third (one penny in

every three) from the scaffold proprietors. Secondly, from the minutes it is also clear (perhaps as a result of the erection of scaffolds) that the positioning of the stations was under scrutiny. It seems likely that the positioning had become so firmly established that citizens who owned property where stations were placed were treating the stations as if they owned them as well – hence the setting up of scaffolds and the charging. The threat in the minutes of the first meeting was that if scaffold owners refused to pay or demurred that the positioning of the stations might well be changed. The meeting was unanimous in its decision except for, significantly (as Crouch says), ‘paucis possessoribus skaffoldorum in Mikelgate’. Micklegate was easily one of the broadest of the streets through which the play passed and hence potentially the most profitable for erecting scaffolds. But there is a further question. What does the phrase ‘paucis possessoribus skaffoldorum in Mickelgate dumtaxat exceptis’ actually mean? Does it mean that agreement was unanimous ‘except only for the few who were possessors of scaffolds in Micklegate’, implying that possessors of scaffolds elsewhere did not object? Or ‘except only for a few of the possessors of scaffolds in Micklegate’, implying that some possessors of scaffolds in Micklegate did not object? Or ‘except for a few, who were the possessors of the scaffolds, in Micklegate’, implying that the few who objected were the owners of all the scaffolds which happened all to be in Micklegate? All these seem to me to be possible but their implications are very different. If the scaffolds were only in Micklegate it is reasonable to assume that people of importance elsewhere in the city as well as the so-called commons were objecting to the private profit being made by a small group of individuals; that the setting-up of scaffolds did not affect the whole of the route; and that the clogging of the streets would have been minimal. One further matter was raised at this meeting, the placing of city banners at the stations, ‘vexilla ludi corporis Christi sub armis ciuitatis’. It seems clear that this follows from the need to establish the positions of the stations but it is likely that it also springs from a desire to establish the city’s control over those stations. The second meeting followed soon after the first on 12 June. In it the matter of the positioning of the stations was returned to but with no further mention of scaffolds. The decision that the mayor and council and commons came to was that in future there would be no fixed places for stations but that they should go to the highest bidders. Or rather, lest perhaps it should seem too much a matter of money, to the highest bidders and those who were willing to do more for the community in relation to the play. There is still an area of uncertainty, however. It is said that the places should be changed unless those who were at present station holders pay ‘aliquod sertum quid’, ‘a certain agreed something (?)’, to the city. And, finally at this meeting it becomes apparent, as Crouch suggests (p. 73) that the whole business possibly arose because of one particular individual. ‘John Moreton, as regards his properties, submitted himself entirely to the direction and rule of the mayor and council of the Chamber [as to] how much [he should pay] to the above-said play for performance outside the door of his dwellinghouse in Micklegate (and in his other properties in the city [added later])’ (cf. REED York, p. 715). One point which no discussion of the two 1417 meetings seems to have taken into account still needs to be considered, namely that they straddle Corpus Christi day itself. The first was

on the Monday before Corpus Christi day and the second on the Saturday after. They are, in other words, what might be called ‘panic’ meetings; or rather the first was – to try and sort something out before the day of the play – and the second was a slightly soberer reaction to the situation after the event was all over for the year. But what was the situation that needed such instant action? If it was the presence of scaffolds on the streets it seems odd that nothing had been done in the aftermath of the previous year’s performance, if scaffolds had been in use in previous years. If, on the other hand, the scaffolds were a new phenomenon, the implications of which had only just been realized, it accounts for the haste in dealing with the matter. When did people become aware of what was happening? Did they see the scaffolds going up? Did they discover others were booking places in advance? Or was John Moreton boasting about his potential profits? However it was discovered it provoked a considerable reaction. The mayor, William Bowes, the two sheriffs, nine of the Twelve, the Recorder, thirteen of the Twenty-four, and two of the three chamberlains, as well as an unspecified crowd of ‘other citizens’ (‘multitudine aliorum civium’) came together on 7 June and almost the same group, minus the citizens, on 12 June. The first meeting took place in the Common Hall where meetings of a more public nature were held and was called apparently only for the matter of the scaffolds and stations, the second took place in the greater intimacy of the Council Chamber (probably that next to St William’s Chapel on Ouse Bridge) and dealt with other routine Council business as well. As Crouch points out John Moreton (who was to be mayor in the following year) was present as one of the Twelve at both meetings (p. 105, n. 48). He was the only person singled out as submitting to the mayor and council on 12 June and was no doubt one of those who abstained from or voted against the 7 June resolution. It looks as though in the less stressful surroundings of a familiar Council meeting he was brought to his senses. This has been a long preamble to a tale of a mobile audience, but does it take us anywhere? What I hope I have shown is that the 1417 arrangements might well have been ad hoc responses to an immediate and pressing problem and not the result of a gradual process of change. That, given this, it is quite possible that owners of stations where scaffolds might have been set up realized that the profit to be made from erecting them was not worth the trouble and that nothing further came of that piece of opportunist profit making. This would account for the absence of any further references to scaffolds in the York play records. It also seems to me possible that there were only ever scaffolds set up in Micklegate (and possibly on the Pavement) where the width of the street made such constructions viable. And, given that, that there was not, even in 1417, any great ‘clogging’ of the streets. In looking again at the 1417 arrangements, my concern has not been with minimizing the importance of a stationary audience but with establishing the likely continuing presence of a mobile one. I should now like to turn to the audience’s own experience of the play and to lead into that by examining what effects different performance conditions may have had on the development of the play itself. There has been for many years a tendency to seek overall unity in the Corpus Christi plays, to see typology in particular as a structural device used by the playwrights to create unified wholes. Though not entirely denying the value of this kind of approach, I think we should look again at the fragmenting effect of the performance conditions. Obviously in the plays performed processionally the narrative is inevitably broken up into a series of episodes, the pageants of the play. It is obvious, but its obviousness should not be

allowed to decrease its importance. York takes this fragmenting even further since many episodes are broken down into even smaller units, what I shall call ‘incidents’. The six Creation pageants in York, for example, (York Plays, pp. 49–73) contain material dealt with in one pageant in Towneley, one and a half in Chester and two in N.town. That there were once more of this type of pageant is clear from the records. In 1422 the Pinners and Painters agreed with the city to join their two pageants into a single one. The brevity of the contents of their previously separate pageants is made clear in the agreement: Pinners ‘de expansione & clauacione Christi ad crucem’; Painters, ‘de leuacione crucifixi super montem’ (REED York, p. 37). The same is true of another amalgamation of pageants in the same year, 1422: the Saucemakers (‘vbi Iudas se suspendebat & crepuit medius’), Tilemakers (‘vbi Pilatus condempnauit Iesum morti’), Turners, Hairsters and Bowlmakers (‘vbi Iesus ligatus erat ad columpnam & flagellatus’), and Millers (‘vbi Pilatus & alij milites ludebant ad talos pro vestimentis Iesu & Pro eis sortes mittebant & ea partiebantur inter se’) (REED York, under date 1432, p. 48). It is possible that this fragmenting approach was initially a result of the number of crafts who wanted to own pageants, but that could have been solved by simply increasing the number of episodes. What could have given validity to the breaking up of episodes into briefer incidents is the common approach to the Bible narrative. The meaning derived from traditional fourfold exegesis is not a narrative but an iconic one.11 In this type of exegesis the narrative is changed from a story into a whole series of nuclear moments with the power to detonate a disparate range of parallel meanings. To say ‘Iste Ysaac, qui lignum portauit, Christum significat, qui lignum crucis (in quo pro nobis immolari voluit in suo proprio corpore) portauit’ is not to provide a narrative interpretation.12 Whether the relationship with the story of Christ’s passion continues as an acceptable meaning in the rest of the story of Isaac is unimportant to the biblical commentator. The significance lies in the momentary paralleling of two apparently unconnected incidents. If the first York playwrights had been looking for material to satisfy the demand for pageants they could well have seen this treatment of these brief incidents as sanctioning the dividing of the narrative into a number of short but significant elements. This would only produce structural unity in the whole play, however, if these elements were then arranged in a totally different way, as typological parallels rather than narrative action. Clearly the York playwrights went for narrative rather than typology and settled for fragmentation of the story, which is no problem in a play that is already by its method of performance broken up into sections. Having decided on a narrative ordering of these incidents there was then the question of their dramatic treatment to be decided. Narrative action usually implies a certain kind of relationship between character and event, what might be called, perhaps dangerously, a naturalistic one. For example, Mary goes to see Elizabeth because Gabriel has told her that she is pregnant. Elizabeth is her elderly cousin so, naturally, she would go. The naturalism is implied not stated in the biblical narrative. If this naturalistic approach were highly developed the narrative meaning could eclipse any other. To what extent do the playwrights seem to be concerned with this? In the case of the Annunciation and Visitation pageant (York Plays, XII, pp. 110–17) the playwright leaves the story almost wholly as it is in the gospel of Luke (ii. 36– 40). Later the pageant was to have added to it the long explanatory commentary of the Doctor, and this perhaps indicates the way in which this particular pageant was viewed, primarily as

two iconic incidents. The kind of naturalistic treatments seen at its most basic in this pageant, is highly developed in certain other ones. Pilate’s relationship with his wife, Percula, in Pageant XXX, for example (York Plays, pp. 254–8), is almost entirely narrative development of character. Does this kind of treatment exclude an iconic understanding of incidents within the episode? To watch the pageant from beginning to end as a developing narrative as the audience is encouraged to do would, I think, if not exclude certainly discourage it. But another possibility is worth investigating, and one which leads in the opposite direction. Watching a familiar story, one which you have seen over and over again, does not require the same attention to narrative development as watching a new one, or perhaps one should say that the kind of attention changes. My own experience of watching medieval plays over the years, which I think has a kind of validity as evidence, suggests not that you lose interest in the narrative but that, on the one hand, the better you know it the more you simply enjoy hearing the text, and, on the other, because you know the story and its mode of telling, that certain elements catch your attention and the narrative is suspended while your imagination and memory explore the ramifications of the associations. It is at this moment that, for me, typology enters in. The playwright has done nothing to provoke this response, it is not in the text, it is simply that the suspension of the narrative interest allows the imagination free range. In other words the way the audience’s awareness functions can work against the nature and content of the pageant. I’d like now to turn wholly to the experience of the audience. It is a truism to say that the life of a play is in the playing, but it is a truism which is also a truth and one which needs repeating. Other forms of literature in the later Middle Ages have life in themselves, but plays are expected to live in performance. Or if they are not, they are not plays. Obviously many sorts of writing were also carried by the voice and they lose something by not being heard, sermons are an obvious example, but they are not constructed so that an important part of their meaning lies in performance and presentation. Chaucer, it is constantly being asserted, must be heard (and I would wholeheartedly agree) but a sympathetic silent reader will probably not lose much, and Chaucer himself often presents his poems as read text. There is a difference between being able to perceive the speaking voice while reading silently, and needing to receive the text embodied in an actor’s voice and presence. Much of the time we are told how to hear a poem’s voices; a play has to provide them. Plays exist then in the mouths of actors and the ears of audiences, and, to add the other theatrical dimension, they exist also in visual presentation and the eyes of the spectator, and just as there is many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip’ so there is many a variation of communication between mouth and ear, and between scene and see-er. The mouth speaks as meaningfully as it can what is set down for it (or it ad fibs), the presentation visually embodies the incident in what is considered by the performers to be some appropriate way; the eyes and ears of the spectator/audience see and hear what is presented and spoken as well as circumstances allow, and their owner understands according to his or her knowledge, personality and physical nature. Consequently we are always at a disadvantage in trying to understand how a play was understood in the Middle Ages. We can know what the text was (perhaps), we can know who individual members of the audience were (sometimes), very occasionally we can know who the actors were (but not in York), but we can’t know how what was being played was perceived by its audience.

No-one thought it worth recording their reactions to the play, and consequently we are thrown back on what is evidence of a very secondary nature. The best that I can offer is an individual spectator. We may not know how he received the play but at least we know something about him and we know he was there. Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York from 1480 to 1500, was a churchman and statesman of national and international importance. On Corpus Christi day, 17 June 1484, he, together with the dean and chapter of York, watched the play from a room hired by the Minster above Minster Gates which overlooked the junction of Stonegate and Petergate, one of the stations of the play. It was still the first year of the reign of the ‘northern’ king, Richard III.13 Almost exactly a year before to the day, 13 June 1483, the same archbishop had been deprived of the Chancellorship of England and imprisoned in the Tower by the same ‘northern’ king, then still Richard, Duke of Gloucester. As we now know, the imprisonment was brief, three weeks, from Friday 13 June to Friday 4 July, but as Lord Hastings the Chamberlain, who had been arrested at the same meeting as Rotherham, had been led out to immediate execution, it cannot have been a comfortable moment. Rotherham remained in office as archbishop of York until the end of his life, but the accession of Richard III marked the end of his public career as a statesman. What lay behind the eyes of this particular spectator in 1484? Rotherham was born on 24 August 1423, so he was nearly sixty-one when he first (as far as we know) saw the play. He was the son of John and Alice Rotherham (or Scot), minor gentry of south Yorkshire.14 After some basic education at Rotherham he went on to Eton (as king’s scholar) and King’s College, Cambridge (1443), where he later became a fellow and bursar. After a variety of minor church appointments, he was in 1468 made bishop of Rochester, and in 1472 bishop of Lincoln. From there he was raised to the Archbishopric of York in 1480. He was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1469, while he was still at Rochester, (with breaks) until 1485, when he had been five years at York. He was Chancellor of England from 1474 until 1483. He played a major part in Edward IV’s dealings with France (he was present at the treaty of Picquigny in 1475 and was awarded a pension of 1,000 crowns a year by Louis XI) and appears loyally to have supported his queen after Edward’s death. He himself died at his residence of Cawood on the banks of the Yorkshire Ouse on 29 May 1500, a few months short of his seventy-seventh birthday. In his time he had been not only a prelate and a statesman but also a builder. As Chancellor of the University, for example, he saw to the completion of the Schools buildings at Cambridge, and as Bishop of Lincoln he secured the continuation of Lincoln College, Oxford to the extent that he was seen as its second founder, and also extended its buildings. But his most striking foundation was that of the College of Jesus at his birthplace of Rotherham. So much for the public career of this spectator; what of his attitudes and private feelings? This most necessary element in an investigation of someone’s reactions to the play is also the most insubstantial. There is space here to look at only one piece of evidence, his will of 1498.15 It really needs to be read as a whole, but I will extract what I can, trying not to extinguish the glimmers of suggestion that do exist. It reveals piety, local and family feeling, humility (as one might expect in a will), and concern for learning of all kinds, for particular devotions and for patterns in words and life. But can the ‘photo-fit’ picture one might draw from this possibly look like a real human and reveal something about his attitudes to the play? I

have more reservations first. Rotherham was there with the dean and chapter, potentially thirtysix people; were they all there? What was the room like above the Minster Gates? How big were its windows and how were people placed in it? What distractions were there? None of these questions can, I think, be answered but merely asking them seems to me to put us on firmer ground. I feel the same about my sample spectator. It is difficult to say that I know more about the audience in 1484 because of Rotherham, but his very existence as more than a name and a date invites speculation. To return to his will. There he demonstrates an intense devotion to the Name of Jesus. His college in Rotherham is founded ‘ad laudem, honorem et exaltationem gloriosissimi nominis Domini nostri Ihesu Christi salvatoris nostri’;16 his priests and choristers celebrate the liturgical devotions of the Name of Jesus every Friday in the year; the chalice he leaves to the college has inscribed on it ‘Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini’; he exclaims in his will at the mention of Jesus’ name, ‘Cujus nomen O si amarem ut deberem et vellem’. Here is a specific sensitivity to apply to our reading of the text of the play. He is concerned in his will not just with learning as a way to the priesthood but with those ‘multi acuti in ingenio’ whose abilities are in the ‘mechanicas artes’, and he is concerned, too, to bring to the church, and to a love of the church, the ‘rudi et montani homines’ of the parish. Despite his earlier life, this doesn’t sound like someone who would see the play as a simplistic embarrassment. He also often talks in patterns. He sees the ten members of his college as a remedy for his own failure to fulfil the ten commandments; he begins his will on the feast of the Transfiguration, 6 August, and (stretching the point) on that of the Name of Jesus, 7 August, both of which he established at York, and he ends it on his seventy-fifth birthday, 24 August; he balances his God-given (as he saw it) education at Rotherham with his man-established college – the one the act of gratitude for the other. None of these elements is unusual in a late fifteenth-century ecclesiastic, what is important is that they are known to be there in one person and that he was at the play. The suggestions await further investigation. To return to the beginning and to my two assertions so far left unconsidered. It may well be that Rotherham, though not a member of a mobile audience will nevertheless ‘create his own context for the performance’. The room he is in; the people he is with; the events of his past; his own consciousness, will shape the story he sees. Up to a point this is true of all theatrical experience, but the civic mystery plays by the familiarity of the story and the everydayness of the setting allow far greater scope for spectators, and especially mobile ones, to give their own context to incidents of the play. As to my final assertion, ‘the reconstituting of the play in a variety of different patterns’, this is far more the capability of the mobile audience. The order of the narrative is fixed up to a point but free movement and repeated performance of pageants does allow re-organization of time and causal relationships, either by design or chance. It is possible to reverse the order of events, to leap in time from event to event, but more important, perhaps, it is possible to catch sudden glimpses down a street or catch words round a corner which fix a moment in the same kind of meaningful isolation as typological explanations do, but with a meaning that is personal. It seems to me that we need to retain our belief in a mobile audience because it was a reality which had a very special effect on the experience of the play, but we also need to explore more fully those individuals in the audience who are more than merely names or merely possibilities, whether they are mobile or stationary.

Notes  1. David Crouch, ‘Paying to see the play: the stationholders on the route of the York Corpus Christi Play in the fifteenth century’, Medieval English Theatre, 13 (1991), 64–111. (References to this article will be given in the text.) Since Anna J. Mill’s pioneering article, ‘The Stations of the York Corpus Christi Play’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 37 (1951), 492–502, there have been two other particularly valuable articles: Meg Twycross, ‘“Places to hear the play”: pageant stations in York, 1398–1572’, REED Newsletter, 2 (1978), 10–33, and Eileen White, ‘Places for hearing the Corpus Christi play in York’, Medieval English Theatre, 9 (1987), 23–63.  2. Peter Meredith, ‘Putting on plays in the fifteenth century’, in Peter Meredith, William Tydeman, and Keith Ramsey, Acting Medieval Plays (Lincoln: Honywood Press, 1985), pp. 1–26.  3. This is reasonably well though very variedly supported from the records. From the fifteenth century there are: 1417, Cordwainers, twelve ‘honestis viri’ (York, Records of Early English Drama, ed. by Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Rogerson, 2 vols (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), pp. 19–20); 1424, Plasterers and Tilers, an unspecified number of craftsmen from both crafts (p. 39); 1432, Saucemakers, implied that a number from each craft of the amalgamation of Saucemakers, Tilemakers, Turners etc., and Millers will be going round with the pageant and will be given refreshment (p. 50); 1475, Armourers, ‘alle the maisters of the same Crafte … with Ane honest wapyn … at þe firste place … and so toawayte apon þe same thair pagende thurgh þe Cite to þe play be plaide as of þat same pagende’ (pp. 104–5) – the only ordinances to mention a weapon, but then they are the craft of Armourers; 1477, Masons, pageant masters (‘Magistri pagine’) ‘ex antiqua consuetudine’ (p. 113); 1493, Spurriers and Lorimers, ‘euery maister of the said Craftes’ (p. 176). (All references to these Records will be quoted as REED York both in the text and in the notes.).  4. For banners and the insistence on playing at the set stations, see REED York, pp. 10–12 (1399) and pp. 28–30 (1417). For the carrying of weapons, see REED York, p. 24 (1415); York Plays, ed. by Lucy Toulmin Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1885), p. xxxiv (Subsequent references to this edition will be inserted in the text); Francis Drake, Eboracum or the History and Antiquities of the City of York, 1738, facsimile reprint (East Ardsley, Wakefield: EP Publishing Limited, 1978), Appendix p. xxxii.  5. See the facsimile of the Ordo Paginarum section of the York A/Y Memorandum Book (fols. 254v–255r) in The York Play: A facsimile of British Library MS Additional 35290, together with a facsimile of the Ordo Paginarum section of the A/Y Memorandum Book, ed. by Richard Beadle and Peter Meredith (Leeds: School of English, University of Leeds, 1983).  6. There is a reference to the City rewarding four men in 1484 for ‘labouring about the settyng foward and ordering of the Pageantes vpon Corpus Christi Daye’ (REED York, p. 135). These may, I suppose, be ‘keepers of the pageantz’. They were given only 6s 8d between them, which is not a large sum if, as civic officials, they were helping with all the pageants all day. Their names were not thought significant enough to be recorded, or they were forgotten. If the ‘keepers of the pageantz’ were craft officials it is worth bearing in mind the ‘honest wapyn’ carried by each of the masters of the Armourers, craft (see above n. 3).  7. For the evidence for the existence of these scaffolds, see REED York, pp. 28–30.  8. Most recently: Meg Twycross and Richard Beadle in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, ed. by Richard Beadle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 45 and 99.  9. Crouch draws attention to one other scaffold reference, a request in September 1479 to the mayor and council by a John Fulford, but there is no reason to associate this with the play (Crouch, 67 and n. 26). Fulford was no doubt a station-holder in 1462 but asking for assistance in relation to a dispute over the purchase of a scaffold seventeen years later between two people, Christopher Bell and Sir Richard Yorke, with no known connection with station holding hardly indicates a connection with the Corpus Christi play. For further information on the somewhat dubious-sounding career of Bell, a tiler (free 1467–8), see, The York House Books, 1461–1490, ed. by Lorraine C. Attreed, 2 vols (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1991), I, pp. 49, 59, 196 and 206. 10. For example in Margaret Dorrell’s ‘Two studies of the York Corpus Christi Play’, Leeds Studies in English 6 (1972), 63– 111; see especially, pp. 88–92. 11. The distinction I am making is a basic one. Narrative meaning is that derived from the continuity of incidents and episodes, iconic is that derived from incidents or episodes seen in isolation. 12. The example is taken from the printed Biblia Pauperum. See, Biblia Pauperum, ed. by Avril Henry (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1987), pp. 156–95. 13. On Richard’s ‘northernness’, see, Richard III and the North, ed. by Rosemary Horrox (Hull: Centre for Regional and Local History, University of Hull, 1986). 14. For Rotherham’s life, see Henry Leigh Bennett, Archbishop Rotherham (Lincoln: n.p., 1901), updated from A.B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957–9), s.v. Rotherham. 15. Rotherham’s will is printed in Testamenta Eboracensia, 4, ed. by James Raine, Surtees Society, 53, (Durham: Andrews & Co., 1869), pp. 138–48.

From the grant of Edward IV for the setting-up of the College, William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. by J. Caley, 16. H. Ellis and B. Bandinel 6, part 3, (London: James Bohn, 1846), p. 1441.

13

PROFESSIONAL TRAVELLING PLAYERS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY: MYTH OR REALITY? The professional player is for me a bugbear that has lurked in the margins of medieval drama scholarship for many years. He is also part of an ingrained habit of mind. Is one player paid more than another? He must be a professional player. This piece of dramatic ingenuity is so clever that it can only be the result of the involvement of professional players. Small cast, no scenery – obviously played by a travelling company of professional players. The certain evidence, however, for professional players, even in a noble household, before the third quarter of the fifteenth century is non-existent; even suggestive evidence is scant. Ian Lancashire in his wide-ranging and judicious overview of the development of drama in Britain plumps for ‘Jakke Travail’ in 1426 and 1427 as ‘the country’s first recorded professional troupe’ but what evidence is there that they were professional, or even that they were performing plays?1 A Jakke Travail et ses compagnons feisans diverses jeuues et entreludes dedeins le feste de Noell devant notre dit sire le roi  4 lib.2

The problems of the terminology of ‘play’ I cannot deal with now, though they certainly complicate any investigation. The terms used here, for instance, ‘jeuues et entreludes’ could refer to anything from tumbling to a full-scale play. They certainly do not prove that ‘Jakke Travail et ses compagnons’ were performing plays for the entertainment of Henry VI, who, incidentally, was only just 5 years old at their first appearance, having been born on 6 December 1421. ‘Entertainments’ would seem to be a reasonable understanding of what the ‘jeuues et entreludes’ might entail. ‘Four pounds’ is a lot of money, but the entertainments could have been numerous, extensive and spectacular. It is quite possible that Jakke and his companions were highly skilled performers, but does this make them professional? Chambers and Wickham3 both discuss the development of the ‘professional’ player in the fifteenth century. Very broadly they are in agreement and what follows is my conflation of their views. The minstrels that travelled the roads of England before and during the fourteenth century ‘performed’ in a variety of ways. Wickham calls them ‘vaudeville artists’ and stresses the ‘individual’ as opposed to the ‘ensemble’ nature of the performance.4 He later emphasizes their ‘versatility and technical accomplishment.’5 Being attached to a noble household gave them status and something of a regular income. They did not perform plays. From the tenth

century onwards drama had been developing inside and outside the church. This involved ‘ensemble’ playing and was in the hands of clerics.6 From the late fourteenth century, groups of town players were taking plays (i.e. ensemble playing) to neighbouring towns and to the halls of neighbouring households.7 Chambers does not make a link here between clerical performances and secular ones; Wickham, on the other hand, says that ‘a tradition of scenic representation and costume iconography of Christian inspiration grew up in the liturgical drama of scriptural origin, which was rapidly taken over by the amateur participants in chivalric tournaments associated with Romance literature and the Mummings and Disguisings that often accompanied prize-giving’.8 Chambers’ town players and Wickham’s ‘amateurs’ of tournament, mumming and disguising were what provided the spur to the minstrels to diversify into ‘ensemble playing’. ‘It is obvious that this practice of travelling must have brought the local players into rivalry with those hereditary gentlemen of the road, the minstrels.’;9 ‘… we may be quite sure that groups of minstrels had taken to ensemble playing by the mid fifteenth century.’10 It will be clear from this brief summary that both Chambers and Wickham imply or state the existence of ‘professional’ travelling performers of plays, by the mid-fifteenth century at the latest, as a development of minstrel activity. Both support their views by reference to financial records, Wickham especially to those of Selby Abbey, printed as his Appendix C, and Chambers by reference to the much more varied collection extracted in his Appendix E.11 Stanley Kahrl12 follows in Wickham’s footsteps though he adds a warning about the problems of interpreting the terminology of players as it appears in the records.13 He accepts the division into ‘professional’ and ‘amateur’ (provided ‘amateur’ does not mean ‘amateurish’). He defines ‘amateurs’ as those who ‘did not primarily depend on their acting for their bread’.14 ‘Professionals’ performed plays ‘as a means of making a living’, and were performing ‘from the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries’ as records show.15 He introduces the problems of terminology by reference to the discussions of Giles Dawson in the introduction to his volume of Kent records,16 but ends up in a situation similar to Wickham’s, basing his conclusions on the records of King’s Lynn.17 For all three scholars ‘the records’ are the ultimate authority. Yet, as has been pointed out by Gordon Kipling en passant18 and by Barbara Palmer19 in discussing the Selby Abbey entertainments, the records have to be treated with considerable care. At a very basic level, Kipling and Palmer both rightly object to the automatic interpretation of histriones as ‘players.’20 Kipling, however, goes on to harden up the division Giles Dawson makes between the minstrel group of terms and the player group: ‘“minstrels mimi, and histriones are synonymous terms”’ on the one hand, while ‘“players, lusores, ludatores, and homini ludentes”’ are likewise to be equated on the other. Hence, in a study of the Kent records, he [Dawson] shows that ‘histriones are always to be seen as minstrels, and that actors’ companies can only be identified with certainty when they are referred to as players, ludatores, or the like’. But the record evidence is shakier than this. Since Dawson is cited by Kahrl and Kipling to introduce a note of caution in the use of records, and since his detailed discussion is in many ways a model of its kind, it is worth looking at a problem that even he skirts. I quote in full his demonstration of the existence and first appearance of a household acting company, and then a section of the records on which this

is based. The most important question about noblemen’s men is at how early a date some of them ceased to be musicians and became bonafide players. Down to 1477, 128 payments to minstrels belonging to kings and lords are recorded in the accounts of five towns, and these men are never called players or lusores. This does not prove that some of them had not already begun to give dramatic performances, for it is possible that the men who had always been called minstrels would continue to be known by the same name even after they adopted a new mode. But the converse is equally probable – that chamberlains and clerks would ordinarily call men who sang minstrels and men who performed dramatically players. Be that as it may, the distinction is clearly made in 1477–8 when the officials of Dover reward two companies belonging to the Earl of Arundel, calling one company minstrels and the other players. That this use of two different designations did not result from mere scribal carelessness is made virtually certain by rewards to the same two companies in Dover in each of the two succeeding years. And in the third of these three years, 1479–80, rewards to Arundel’s minstrels and his lusores are recorded at Lydd. I do not suggest of course that Arundel was the first nobleman to take under his patronage a company of proper players or minstrels turned players, but his are the first nobly patronized players recognizable in the extant records in Kent, and it seems more reasonable to assume that they were actually the first in Kent than that clerks and chamberlains suddenly began making a distinction to which they had before been indifferent.21

There are some of the old assumptions underlying this; for example that it was ‘minstrels’ (‘musicians’ here) who transformed into ‘bona-fide players’, that they may well have been giving ‘dramatic performances’ while still called minstrels in the records (not by any means impossible but dangerous as an assumption), and that minstrels were singers. It is, nevertheless, generally a careful analysis of the evidence. The problem here is not so much the existence of the players but what the records actually mean when they refer to players and playing. As Barbara Palmer has said of the Selby records: ‘… what were these performers performing? That indeed is the question, and with it the author is up to her knees in the dreaded muck of early entertainment vocabulary.’22 Dover records

1477–78

Item paid to the kynges mynstrell

vjs viijd & for wyn xd

Item paid to iiij players playng byfore the mayr

xxd

Item to the Item paid the xxiiij day of Ianuarie to playares of my lord of Arundell

vs

Item to Robert Gylys & other his felowez pleyng byfor the mayr

xxd

Item paid to a Bereward

xxd

Item paid to playrr thurow hopys

xijd

Item paid to my lord of Arundell minstrel

vjs viijd & wyn iiijd

Item paid for wyn geven to the pleyeres of Fulston

ijs

Item paid by the mayr to the quenys mynstrell

ijs & for wyn iiijd

Item paid by the mayr to playeres of chyldryn

ijs vjd

Item paid to playeres in Sent Martyns Cherche

vjd

Item paid to the duke of Glawceter mynstrell

vs & in wyn vjd23

In the Dover records there are seven references to ‘player(s)’ and one simply to ‘playing’. What do they mean? Only one is so specific as to be picturable, ‘a playrr thurow hopys’, even if the picture is a bit blurry. Did he dive through hoops? Was he a contortionist? Does ‘thurow’ mean that he went ‘through’ the hoops or, perhaps less likely, that it was by means of hoops that he played (i.e. did he juggle with them or do conjuring tricks with them?)? If that fairly specific entry causes trouble, what of the less specific ‘playeres of chyldryn’? Is this a childrens’ company? Or is it an acrobatic troupe that used children? Then there are a series of payments simply to ‘players’, only one of which has a number attached (‘iiij players playng byfore the mayr’) and consequently is the only one of the groups where some idea of a payment per person is apparent – in this case 5d. Unfortunately also only one date is given (January 24),24 so we have no way of guessing at most of the occasions. Once we are told where the players played; one name is given, Robert Gylys, one place where the players came from, Folkestone (‘Fulston’) and one venue, St Martin’s Church.25 The payments vary from an average 5d per player for unspecified ‘playng’ to one shilling for the individual turn of playing ‘thurow hopys’, and from 1/8d to five shillings for a group of unspecified number. The point is that though we can perhaps say the ‘players’ are different from ‘minstrels’ (and I emphasize the ‘perhaps’) we cannot be sure what these ‘players’ were doing. Dawson may be right that Arundel’s players are the ‘first nobly patronized players recognizable in the extant records in Kent’, but ‘acting plays’ can only be taken as one possible activity amongst a large number of others (not excluding music). The existence of travelling professional players was accepted without question by David Bevington (writing just after Wickham and before Dawson and Kahrl) in his From ‘Mankind’ to Marlowe.26 Instead of making records his starting point, he used the plays themselves, in particular Mankind: ‘Judging from internal evidence, the canon of this sort of drama begins with Mankind, written some time around 1471.’27 The ‘sort of drama’ to which he is referring he exemplifies by reference to the morality performed by travelling players and described in R. Willis’ Mount Tabor, published in 1639 but referring to events of the 1560s or early 1570s. It is a fascinating insight into a boy’s theatrical experience but its date makes it largely inadmissible as a piece of evidence for drama of the later fifteenth century. Bevington sees in Mankind ‘unmistakable marks of commercial production’:28 ‘a feasible cast for a strolling troupe’, ‘few demands of its easily improvised stage’, ‘portable properties’, ‘close and vigorous contact between player and spectator’, ‘entertainment and instruction for financial reward to a diversified national audience.’29 All of which is certainly true but does not mean that it was written for ‘commercial production’ by a troupe of professional travelling players. It may seem unnecessary to rehearse the views of books published from twenty-five to over ninety years ago, but because of their overall worth and lasting value all carry with them an authority which in this case seems to confirm as certain what is at best unprovable. The confidence with which these assertions are made has led, on the one hand, to a readiness to accept the existence of professional travelling players in the fifteenth century and consequently to too little investigation of the evidence, and, on the other, to their use as an available option for explaining anything that seems slightly abnormal in fifteenth-century theatre. Three examples will give some indication of what I mean. Suzanne Westfall in her Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels30 is not

primarily concerned with the pre-Tudor players and consequently accepts, as she says, the conclusions of ‘E.K. Chambers, T.W. Craik, and Glynne Wickham’ on the development of the ‘patronized player troupes.’31 She then uses Wickham’s Selby records and Chambers’ Appendix E as a statistical basis for part of her ‘Size of itinerant Player Troupes, Appendix A’, even though, as Gordon Kipling has said,32 both Chambers and Wickham attach undue importance to the use of histriones in the records, normally translating it as ‘players’ when it is simply synonymous with ministralli, and consequently seriously misrepresent the evidence. Christine Richardson and Jackie Johnston in their Medieval Drama characterize ‘the popular tradition’ by saying: The popular moralities were designed for performance by itinerant adult players, who were liveried retainers of an aristocratic patron, but who travelled all over the country acting for gain. Their plays required simple staging so that they could move from one location to another. They needed to be flexible to meet varying conditions of performance and their troupes were of limited size, so their plays had small casts or relied on extensive doubling. Whereas these popular players sometimes performed in the halls of the nobility, they did not rely on an elaborate hall-screen and gallery. This was the drama of the whole nation, which noble audiences also shared, but it was not exclusive in any way.33

The nature of the book clearly does not allow extensive investigation of evidence and confidently asserts what is still the traditionally accepted view. There is space here for detailed examination of only one piece of evidence. In Contexts of Early English Drama, Alexandra Johnston presents a valuable overview of the varied existence of medieval drama in England as demonstrated in the records.34 The article is not concerned with ‘professional travelling players’ but in what follows, by reference to J.T. Murray, it sets up an overview of all travelling groups, drawing, it seems to me, on the traditional viewpoint. Travelling groups were plentiful all over the kingdom from the mid-fifteenth century, making J.T. Murray’s starting date of 1558 one hundred years too late. Evidence of their existence comes from payments made by city councils from general funds, from the mayor’s special allowance, or from the privy purse allowances of priors or bishops. An outstanding example of their number and variety can be found in the York Chamberlains’ Books from the 1440s (REED: York, pp. 65–77). Many of the named troupes are clearly musicians, but some are traveling players. Wherever these payments occur it is clear that we have not only troupes carrying warrants from the king or major magnates of the realm but also groups that can be localized by villages or by the name of a member of the local gentry. Traveling players is a term then that applies not only to groups touring the provinces from London but also to more local groups on a more restricted circuit.35

I have quoted this at length because it interestingly demonstrates both the air of certainty and the implied doubts. ‘Many are clearly musicians, but some are traveling players’ set against ‘An outstanding example of their [travelling players] number and variety’. It rightly emphasizes, as does the rest of the article, the existence of the local players noted by Chambers but not, as a rule, it seems to me, sufficiently stressed in later accounts. It also raises the question in my mind of whether ‘traveling players’ is a good catch-all term for the supposed professional troupes and the local groups of players, and whether ‘circuit’ (or ‘itinerary’) gives too much the sense of a regularized pattern of travelling for players in the fifteenth century. But I want now to tum to the records themselves that Johnston refers to. Those referred to here36 represent a remarkably detailed listing of entertainers visiting York in the years 1446–9. They do not, however, seem to me to bear out the claim that they are ‘An outstanding example of their number and variety’, if by ‘their’ is meant, as I take it it is,

‘travelling players’. In the four years covered there are altogether only twenty-one references to ‘players’ in one or other of the forms lusori, lusoribus, ludenti, ludentibus, involving twenty-six ‘players’ and with nine references to unspecified numbers. No reference is tied to any household, noble or otherwise, and, with one exception, rewards are low to middling (between a penny and 7d per person). Three groups are manifestly local: one ‘of the city’, one from the parish of St Denis in York, and one from Dunnington, four miles to the east of York. One is not far distant, Wakefield, about 30 miles south. Two others turn out to be almost certainly local: ‘Henrici Stirop’ mentioned in 1449 as the leader of a group of players and ‘Johanni Tarte lusori’. Both appear to be York citizens, the one, Henry Sterop, a weaver, (free 1434–5), and the other, one of the John Tarts, tailor, (either free 1422–3 or about to become so in 1450–1). It is also likely that two other of the references fit into the ‘fairly local’ category, since the ‘player’ (1447) and the two ‘players’ (1448) of ‘Jolly Wat and Malkyn’ are likely to be the puppet players from Grimsby that Ian Lancashire has identified.37 Only one group is identifiably distant and certainly well paid: ‘iiij ludentibus de London’, paid 6/8d on June 11, 1447. To set against the ‘player’ references there are payments to three hundred and eighty-six minstrels (ninety-five in 1446, one hundred and fifteen in 1447, ninety-three in 1448 and eighty-three in 1449), besides a fairly stable number of waferers (between eight and eleven each year), a varying number of specified instrumentalists and one or two fools and storytellers (if that is what ‘geistours’ are). It is also worth noting that there are clusters of references to ‘players’ around Christmas. Since this was the major time for household festivities, it is perhaps likely that the groups without a location specified, and which appear in these clusters at Christmas, are also local individuals or groups. It is certainly in these clusters that a number of the identifiably local groups or individuals appear. Altogether the Christmas-related references add up to twelve, over half of the total. The references outside the Christmas season comprise the London group (Sunday after Corpus Christi day 1447), the two ‘Jolly Wat and Malkyn’ ones (between 27 September and 18 November 1447 and before 23 May 1448), four groups or individuals without location (at various times of the year between April and October), and two groups which should perhaps be associated with the Christmas period, since one is on the feast of the Conception of the Virgin (December 8) and the other (‘iiij lusoribus Civitatis’) is early in the year. What an analysis of these remarkably detailed lists reveals is a fairly small amount of ‘player’ activity during the four years, largely by local or fairly local groups. Where the activity can be identified, and that is only twice, it is apparently puppets. Five of the payments are to single ‘players’, sixteen are to groups varying in number, where it is specified, between two (appearing three times) and four (the same), with a group of three appearing once. Apart from those to the London group, the payments for groups range from 4d (for four players and for two players) to one shilling (for three players and for two) and 1/6d (for an unnumbered group). The Christmas payments in 1447 are lumped together at 2/10d (the only other payment given that year was 6/8d for the London group; the ‘Jolly Wat and Malkyn’ has no payment entered); those of 1446 add up possibly to 3/4d (the whole year totalling 5/9d), and those of 1448 to 2/2d (whole year 3/4d), and those of 1449 possibly to two shillings (whole year

2/4d). This again emphasizes the importance of the Christmas activities, and of the local groups, and also just how extraordinary the London group is. There is no sign of what one could call a professional group unless one takes the old line and automatically sees the London group as such because of the high payment. But we need to bear in mind that we do not know what they were performing (as with the Dover players) or how often during the Sunday after Corpus Christi day they performed. It may be that of all the performers they were the only ones to perform a play. Or they may have had a particularly impressive acrobatic act. Or they may have been dancers. A couple of other points that need making are that on June 1, just over a week earlier, three minstrels from London were paid a shilling and that ‘in festo corporis christi’ itself (June 8) sixteen shillings was paid to ‘Ministrallis’ (unnumbered). What was the connection, if any, between the four ‘players’ and the three ‘minstrels’? And were all involved in the Corpus Christi activities? The only way in which one could use these particular York records as support for the idea that there were large numbers of travelling players in the mid-fifteenth century would be to annexe the minstrels. There are certainly large numbers, they are clearly travelling members of households, and their activities are, by and large, unstated. Fortunately, unlike the players, the minstrels do have some job descriptions even if they tend towards the defamatory. The wellknown categorizing of minstrel activity by Thomas de Cabham is from the early fourteenth century,38 Langland’s minstrel character Haukyn from the late fourteenth, and the real job description in The Black Book of the Household of the King of England from the mid fifteenth. Cabham indicates three main areas of activity – or of damnation. His first group, clearly the worst, entertain by contorting their bodies (often half-naked) and by the unspecified use of masks; the second haunt noblemen’s courts telling stories against those who are absent (he calls them scurrae vagi, ‘wandering buffoons’ in Coulton’s translation); the third are divided into two kinds of musician, those who accompany dances and drinkings and those who sing of the deeds of princes and saints. This leaves the field wide open but does not include performing plays. Given Cabham’s violent bias, however, one might not recognize his description of such an activity. William Langland’s viewpoint is not Cabham’s but it is that of someone critical of all who contribute nothing to the physical or spiritual welfare of society, and of one who is himself potentially implicated in that uselessness by writing poetry. Haukyn, or Activa Vita, represents ordinary sinful humanity leading a normal life in the world. It is therefore interesting that Langland makes him a minstrel. He describes himself as a ‘mynstral’ and a ‘wafrer’ who serves many lords. For my purposes, however, it is what he cannot do that is interesting since he lists extensively the expected accomplishments of the minstrel. These are: lying, making men laugh, playing the tabor or the trumpet, telling stories, farting, fiddling, harping, jesting, sleight-of-hand/juggling, piping, dancing, playing the psaltery, singing with the gittern.39 Music looms large here; there are also physical entertainment skills (farting, sleight-of hand/juggling, dancing) and verbal entertainment skills (lying, telling stories, jesting, singing). Langland’s detail fits broadly into Cabham’s more general categories. Once again there is no mention of play-acting, but both these examples are from the fourteenth century. The Liber Niger Domus Regis Angliae lists and describes the activities and rewards of each member of Edward IV’s household.40 It dates from the 1460s. The ‘Mynstrelles’ appear

after the ‘Kinges of Armez, Heroldez, and Purseuntes’ and the ‘Sergeantes of Armes’ and before the ‘Wayte’ and the four ‘Messagers’.41 Their duties are ‘blowynges and pipings’ using trumpets, shawms or small pipes for ‘soupers and other reuils’; ‘to warn at the kinges ridinges whan he goith to horsbak … and by thyre blowinges the houshold many [company] may folow in to the contrez’. There are thirteen of them but only two have to be permanently at court. They have two servants to carry their ‘trumpettes, pipes and other instrumentes’. Their duties, as listed, are purely ceremonial and there is no suggestion or other activities. They are, of course, the top rank minstrels and these are their formal duties, so one would not expect to find farting and juggling appearing here. Play-acting, however, might have been expected to have found a place if such was part of their normal activities at court. Thirty years or less later (1494) the then king, Henry VII, is giving Lusoribus Regis, alias in lingua Anglicana, les pleyars of the kings enterludes, four of them, ‘an annual salary of 20 marks, livery and rewards for performances,’42 these are not instead of minstrels; indeed the two whose occupations can be identified are quite unlike minstrels in that they are not players by profession but one, John English, was probably a joiner, certainly an occasional employee of the court, and the other, Richard Gibson, was Yeoman Tailor and Porter of the Great Wardrobe.43 This it seems to me is the point from which we should be tracing the existence of players. We are here dealing with a reference as certain as we are likely to get, and a number of questions need asking. Is the king a leader or a follower of fashion in paying some of his employees specifically for playing? The situation of his players appears to be not that of the minstrels but that of the local players in that they are part-time. Is that where the tradition springs from? Or is it from the employees, also part-time players, retained by noble and gentry households because they could perform in entertainments of one kind or another when needed.44 Or are both of these part of the same tradition of part-time actors. Acting is a pastime, a leisure activity, not a full-time job. We know that local townsmen were skilled in ensemble playing (performing plays in our sense of the term) from as early as the late fourteenth century. We know that clerics had performed long before that in plays in and out of church. We know nothing of the play-performing activities of minstrels. In the middle of the fifteenth-century, minstrels, at least the higher orders, were clearly feeling the competition from various ‘rude countrymen and mechanicals of various crafts’ (in their terms) who were stealing their business.45 Were they reacting to the ‘minstrel’ groups from the towns? Or to the local players? In any case, professional minstrels’ reaction may not have been to have re-trained as ensemble players (as Chambers and Wickham suggest) but to have entrenched themselves even more firmly in their traditional roles. Since the evidence for the existence of part-time players already exists in towns and to a lesser extent in households it is there, it seems to me, that we should be looking for players, not among the minstrels. As to professional players (if by that we mean people making their living from acting plays) there seems to me to be no evidence that they existed in the fifteenth century. There were clearly professional entertainers – farters, sleight-of-hand tricksters, jugglers, contortionists, mimes, story-tellers – but that they gave up their traditional skills to learn different ones that required the co-operation of others in the verbal interaction of plays seems to me unlikely. If you can earn a shilling playing ‘thurow hopys’ by yourself, why bother? I think we should jettison the term ‘professional’ in relation to actors in the fifteenth century. As Stanley Kahrl

rightly implied, using the word ‘amateur’ is going to suggest amateurish or unskilled in contrast to the highly skilled ‘professional’. When there is no professional theatre there is no point in talking about ‘amateurs’ anyway. And what about travelling? It is quite clear that groups travelled whether they were ministralli, histriones, lusores, ludatores, mimi and whether they were part of a household or a town or village community.46 ‘Travelling’ in relation to ‘players’ carries with it overtones of late sixteenth-century travelling companies, and too often has the later been used silently to prove the earlier. ‘Travelling players’ leads to talk of ‘circuits’ and ‘itineraries’. The late fifteenth is a very different world from the late sixteenth century. Perhaps we should wait until the REED volumes are complete before settling on terms but meanwhile perhaps we could drop the professional at least before 1500. There is a wealth of investigation to be done in the volumes that have appeared, and so far, in a preliminary survey, I have seen nothing that proves to me the existence of ‘a troupe of professional travelling players’. I wait to be informed.47

Notes  1. Ian Lancashire, Dramatic Texts and Records in Britain: A chronological Topography to 1558 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. xx. Lancashire’s main reference for these and other activities in 1426–7 is B. Wolffe, Henry VI (London: Eyre Methuen, 1981), but Wolffe provides no further evidence for the group’s professional status. Lancashire also suggests that the four boys of the Duke of Exeter who entertained the king at the same time constitute one of ‘the very early acting troupes patronized by noblemen’ (p. xx). The problem is probably that the word ‘interlude’, used in both cases, is being taken as certain evidence of ‘a play’; but its semantic range is far wider, see Nick Davis, ‘Allusions to Medieval Drama in Britain (4): Interludes’, Medieval English Theatre, 6:1 (1984), 61–91. Davis’s conclusions about the meaning in ‘The Meaning of the Word interlude’ seem to me rather narrowly dramatic, however.  2. E.K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1903), II, chapter 24, ‘Players of Interludes’, esp. pp. 180–87.  3. G. Wickham, Early English Stages 1300 to 1660, 3 vols (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959), I, chapter VIII, ‘Players and Commerce: 2, Amateur and Professional Acting in the Middle Ages’, esp. pp. 264–75.  4. Wickham, pp. 264–65.  5. Wickham, p. 266.  6. Wickham, p. 266.  7. Chambers, pp. 184–85.  8. Wickham, p. 266.  9. Chambers, p. 185. 10. Wickham, p 268. 11. Wickham, pp. 532–9 and Chambers II, pp. 240–58. Chambers includes records from Durham, Maxstoke and Thetford priories; Winchester College; Magdalen College, Oxford; Shrewsbury Corporation; the Howard family of Stoke-byNayland, Essex and the English Court. A judicious translation of the Selby Abbey Bursar’s account of 1398–99 appears in John H. Tillotson, Monastery and Society in the Late Middle Ages: selected account rolls from Selby Abbey, Yorkshire, 1398– 1537. (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1988), pp. 45–91. See especially pp. 58–64. The Selby Abbey accounts are discussed inter alia in B.D. Palmer, ‘Early English Northern Entertainment: Patterns and Peculiarities’, Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, 34 (1995), 167–82. 12. S.J. Kahrl, Traditions of Medieval English Drama (London: Hutchinson, 1974). 13. Kahrl, p. 100. 14. Kahrl, p. 99. 15. Kahrl, p. 100. 16. Records of Plays and Players in Kent, 1450–1642, ed. by G. Dawson, Malone Society Collection VII (Oxford: The Malone Society, 1965), pp. x–xv. 17. Kahrl, pp. 101–2. The records in question are for 1384/5 and indicate an ‘interludium’ on Corpus Christi day by ‘quibusdam ludentibus’ for which they were given 3/4d, and an ‘interludium Sancti Thome Martiris’ by ‘ludentibus’ who were also given 3/4d. These look like plays though that could include ceremonial celebrations. It is impossible to say who was performing. No household is associated with either ‘interludium’. Lynn was able to put on plays later, in 1445/6, and given the proven ability of towns elsewhere to mount plays in the 1370s it is perhaps more likely that these were local players. For the text of

18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

45.

46. 47.

the records, see, Records of Plays and Players in Norfolk and Suffolk, 1330–1642, ed. by David Galloway and John Wasson, Malone Society Collections XI (Oxford: The Malone Society, 1980). G. Kipling, ‘Henry VII and the Origins of Tudor Patronage’ in, Patronage in the Renaissance, ed. by G.F. Lytle & S. Orgel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), pp. 117–64 (p. 150). Palmer, pp. 170–1. For an invaluable discussion of player terms, see A.A. Young, ‘Plays and Players: the Latin terms for performance (i)’, Records of Early English Drama Newsletter, 9:2 (1984), 56–62; ‘Plays and players: the Latin terms for performance (ii), REED Newsletter, 10:1 (1985), 9–16; ‘Minstrels and minstrelsy: household retainers or instrumentalists?’ REED Newsletter, 20:1 (1995), 11–17. For the confusing variety in early Tudor court records, see W.R. Streitberger, Court Revels, 1485–1559 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), pp. 3–5. Dawson, p. xii. Palmer, p. 170. I have expanded the abbreviations and slightly modernised the spelling given in Dawson, pp. 26–7. In 1478, the Saturday before Sexagesima Sunday. This is presumably the church of St Martin’s Priory, a Benedictine house, see D. Knowles & R.N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales (London: Longmans, 1953), p. 64. D. Bevington, From ‘Mankind’ to Marlowe: Growth and Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962). Bevington, p. 150. Bevington, p. 15. Bevington, p. 180. S.R. Westfall, Patrons and Performance: Early Tudor Household Revels (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). Westfall, p. 123. Kipling, p. 150. C. Richardson and J. Johnston, Medieval Drama (London: Macmillan, 1991), pp. 127–8. A.F. Johnston ‘What if no texts survived? External evidence for Early English Drama,’ in Contexts for Early English Drama ed. by M.G. Briscoe and J.C. Coldewey (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989), pp. 1–19. Johnston, p. 8. Records of Early English Drama: York, 2 vols, ed. by A.F. Johnston and M. Rogerson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), pp. 65–73 and 75–7. Lancashire, pp. 6–8. The text of Cabham’s description is given in Chambers (II, pp. 262–3). There is a translation in G.G. Coulton, Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938), pp. 403–4. The word Cabham uses is histrio which Coulton translates as ‘play actor’. Piers Plowman, Passus XIII, ll. 224–40; A.V.C. Schmidt, ed., William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman: a complete edition of the B-text (London: Dent, 1978), p. 154. A.R. Myers, The Household of Edward IV: the Black Book and the Ordinances of 1478 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959). Myers, pp.130–3. W.R. Streitberger, Court Revels, 1485–1529 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), p.49. Streitberger, p.49; Kipling, p.152. Like the best known example quoted by Chambers (I, p. 177), from the Paston Letters of a servant kept ‘thys iij yere to pleye seynt Jorge and Robynhod and the shryff of Notyngham (letter from John Paston II to John Paston III, 16 April 1473) Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, Part 1, ed. by N. Davis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), pp. 460–1. See the charter granted to the minstrels in 1469 quoted in Chambers (II, pp. 260– 1) and also J. Southworth The English Medieval Minstrel (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1989), p. 144 and G.R. Rastall, ‘The Minstrel Court in Medieval England’ in, A Medieval Miscellany: essays … in honour of Professor John Le Patourel ed. by R.L. Thomson (Leeds: Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, 1982), 96–105. But interestingly, as Kipling has shown, Henry VII’s players travelled little (p. 153). As part-timers, they were not as free as the minstrels. Underlying my whole discussion are the financial records of towns, religious houses and secular households. I have looked at many that have been used as evidence for professional playing including in some detail Durham, Selby, Shrewsbury and York. I have not, however, searched everywhere. I have also profited from reading a large number of comments by my colleagues, usually incidental, on the matter of professional players. Sally Beth Maclean’s entry ‘Travelling Players’ in A Companion to the Medieval Theatre, ed. by R.W. Vince (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), pp. 353–8 was a useful overview even if I don’t always see eye to eye with it. I found also useful the volume English Parish Drama, ed. by A.F. Johnston and W. Hüsken (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996) though much of the material was too late for my purposes, Peter

Greenfield’s look at amateur players ‘“All for your de-light/we are not here”: Amateur players and the Nobility’ Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, 28, (1985), 173–80, John Coldewey’s, ‘“Plays and Play” in Early English Drama.’ Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, 28 (1985), 181–8 and Pettit’s and Marshall’s articles on Mankind (T. Pettit, ‘Mankind: an English Fastnachtspiel?’ in, Festive Drama: papers from the Sixth Triennial Colloquium of the International Society for the Study of Medieval Theatre, Lancaster, 13–9 July, 1989, ed. by M. Twycross (Cambridge: Brewer, 1996), pp. 190–202 and J. Marshall ‘“O 3e souerens þat sytt and 3e brothern þat stonde ryght wppe”: addressing the audience of Mankind’ in European Medieval Drama, ed. by S. Higgins (Camerino: Centro Linguistico, 1996), 189–202. My real homage is to the transcribers of records.

Part III

Performance: Original and modern

14

ORIGINAL-STAGING PRODUCTION OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL PLAYS – IDEALS, EVIDENCE AND PRACTICE Practical interest in the production of medieval English drama begins with revivals of Everyman and some pageants from the Chester Cycle in the early years of this century. Before and after the First World War there were adaptations of the N.Town (Ludus Coventriae) Passion Plays by Nugent Monck in London and in Norwich,1 and of various pageants and groups of pageants from York, Chester and Towneley, as well as most of the Mary Play from N.Town, by E. Martin Browne in various parts of the country. These productions were in part a response to a new interest in early drama (mainly sixteenth and seventeenth century, but with exploratory soundings into the earlier period), and in part a response to the need for ‘new’ religious drama. In the same tradition, but with the added element of patriotic interests and loyalties (national and local), the York Mystery Plays (an adaptation of the York Cycle by Canon J.S. Purvis of York Minster) began production in Festival of Britain year (1951), again under the direction of Martin Browne.2 Since then, the Mystery Plays have remained the centrepiece of the York Festival, and elsewhere there have been further productions of various parts of N.Town, and adaptations of one kind and another (often of large sections) of the Chester, York and Towneley Cycles.3 More recently, however, there has been a change of direction. Instead of age, religion and local interest being the deciding factors in the choice of play, and theatricality (according to modern notions of that concept) being the deciding factor in production, there has been a move towards choosing plays where evidence exists for staging and using that evidence for the production as fully as possible – the ‘original-staging’ production. This is not to say that age, religion, local interest and theatricality have been shown the door, but that the impetus for the productions has come from the desire to investigate medieval techniques – the ‘does-it-work?’ approach – and to try and reconstruct from the evidence not just the appearance but also the appeal of a medieval production. Many individual elements of medieval staging had been used before this time, and there had been considerable investigation of medieval techniques, but with productions like that of the Cornish Ordinalia in St Piran’s round (1969), the York Cycle at Leeds (1975), the Castle of Perseverance in Toronto (1979), and Mary Magdalen in Durham (1982), there have been attempts to investigate on a much broader front and in a much fuller way the problems and practicalities presented by the evidence. These attempts have

coincided with and been fuelled by a very strong practical bent in much scholarly work on medieval drama and a resurgence of interest in records of staging – itself an important part of the concern with evidence.4 It should be said at once that there are severe limitations on the extent to which the original staging can be reproduced; the language of the original is, for example, an immediate problem. The Poculi Ludique Societas (PLS) of Toronto made a valiant attempt to reproduce the medieval sound by using a reconstructed fifteenth-century pronunciation for touring performances of the Towneley Mactacio Abel. To all but medievalist-English scholars, however, it was largely incomprehensible. In an attempt to retain the words and to give a sense of the rhythm of the original, the production of the Towneley Cycle at Wakefield (1980) used a modem pronunciation of the original text. It was generally comprehensible, and at times powerful and moving, but there were other times when it was like an opera synopsis without the opera; subtleties of meaning were lost and the music of the unfamiliar speech could not always provide the satisfaction that the music of an opera would. Besides which, without an awareness of subtleties of meaning differences of character can become blurred and generalized, and pageants like the Second Shepherds’ which are to some extent dependent on such differences suffered accordingly. On the other hand there were none of the jars which a sudden intrusion of contemporary idiom can produce; simply the occasional awkwardnesses of understanding and unintentional comedy – Cain asking his servant to help him bury Abel’s body: We should bury him both in fere         (II, 1. 383)

‘together’ but sounding like ‘in fear’ (not as damaging to the sense as York: A female shall thou have to fere (III, 37) ‘as a companion’); Noah’s apparent addiction, ‘This is a noble gin!’ (Towneley III, 276, caught from God 128) ‘device, plan’; ‘fry’ (III, 66, 177) ‘children’; ‘teen’ and ‘tray’ (III, 533) ‘suffering, misery’; ‘tite’ (II, 53, III 219) ‘quickly’; and so on. Perhaps the ideal is not a total shedding of the old words and syntax, but spotting and adapting potential difficulties; even though seeking to reproduce something like a medieval sound will seem to some like chasing a will o’ the wisp.5 Setting is another obvious limitation. You can’t jump into the same river twice; York in the 1980s is not York in the 1480s – in fact in the case of York in the 1980s you can’t even jump into the river, since the authorities have not so far been persuaded that the appropriate streets could be closed to traffic to allow a fully waggon-staged production. An interesting trial was made with taking some of the plays from the production of the Chester cycle at Leeds to Chester in 1983.6 Eight pageants went: Noah’s Flood (III) (see ill. 1); Moses, Balaack and Balaam (V) (see ill. 2); the Shepherds (VII) (see ill. 3); the Purification, Christ and the Doctors in the Temple (XI) (see ill. 4 et al.); the Temptation, the Woman Taken in Adultery (XII); the Harrowing of Hell (XVII); Christ on the Road to Emmaus, Doubting Thomas (XIX); the Last Judgment (XXIV) (see ill. 5). The Rows were used to provide a ‘high place’ for God (see ill. 6), and generally as ‘heaven’ which was frequently shared by spectators getting a back view of the performance – greater crowd control in the sixteenth century? The height of the Rows is not great and though it provided a convenient place for heaven (the

Shepherds’ star looked well there) it often seemed too low for God. Having the angels share heaven with spectators produced the effect of a crowded manuscript miniature (see ill. 7), but God’s solitude and dignity seemed (to me at least) to be a little impaired – however entertaining the photos after the event may be. And what of the view from the Pentice where God would have seemed even lower (cf. ill. 1)? The ‘carriages’ (this being Chester) processed down Northgate Street and into the area of the High Cross in front of St Peter’s Church as they would have done in the sixteenth century (see ill. 5). At the time, the performance in Chester was dominated by the hair-raising organizational problems but in retrospect it was important as the nearest we have so far come to an ‘original’ setting;7 even if the importance lay in the historical imagination as much as in the eye of the beholder. The Rows are there but the buildings are largely nineteenth-century; the Pentice, most important of the viewing places, has gone; the High Cross has been moved and is a later structure; and though we were able to perform at the site of the first station we were unable to follow the route down Watergate Street and instead had to do a U-turn back through the bollards down Eastgate Street and into the area of morris dancing to canned music. Up to a point the limitations of setting, like those of language, are something we have to live with; an approximation – outdoors, narrow streets (or for place and scaffold, an open space), no traffic interference, a festive atmosphere – is all we can hope for. We are not medieval people, our perceptions are only medieval by skilful grafting, and we can never be sure how true the fruit will be. Limitation imposed by the survival of evidence is considerable. For wag-gon-staging, there is evidence for the overall arrangements and for considerable detail of production from York and Chester (and from Coventry but the text survives only for two pageants).8 For place and scaffold staging, there is again evidence for framework and for details of production (though lacking the records of locality and performers) for the Castle of Perseverance, Mary Magdalen, the N.Town Passion, and going outside the English-language plays, for the Cornish Ordinalia and St. Meriasek. For Mankind, the Croxton Play of the Sacrament and for most of the shorter plays there is little evidence for the framework or place of performance.9 By this I mean that we do not know when they were performed (season of the year or time of day) by whom, where, and to a great extent how. This is not to say that they cannot be given a form of original staging (the Medieval Players and the PLS have triumphantly proved this) but that we should be aware of what kind of evidence we are relying on. Limitations of this kind are, however, often one of the spurs to experiment. The hints of records and stage directions excite investigation and have led in the past ten years or so to at least six productions of complete (or nearly complete) cycles, and to full-scale original-staging productions of the Castle, the N.Town Passion, and Mary Magdalen. How have these matched up to the idea of original staging? To answer this I want first to look at the evidence for the staging of the York and Chester cycles and then at some details of recent productions.

Ill. 1 Noah’s Flood; God partly obscured by the (very small) mast and sail. Chester, 1983 (Photo © Geoffrey Newcombe) For York the general evidence suggests (some would say demands) performance: (1) on a single day, Corpus Christi day and therefore somewhere between May 21 and June 24, (2) in the street – the route remained fixed throughout the period of the plays, (3) at least twelve ‘stations’ or performing places,10 (4) on waggons, and (5) of the 48 pageants contained in the Register (i.e. the whole of the extant text), each by a separate group.11 Some comment is needed on this evidence. The single day is implied by all the references to the performance date. Though there is only one specific statement of timing within that day, there is no evidence that the performance ever extended beyond it, except perhaps by spilling over into the early hours of the following morning. It seems that the performance regularly began soon after first light and that it continued until after dark. I say ‘seems’, first because the section of the Proclamation of the play that contains the specific reference to time, ‘at the myd howre betwix iiijth & vth of the cloke in the mornyng’ (REED, York, p. 25), is an early sixteenth century alteration over an erasure in the original and it is just possible that the alteration was made specifically to include this detail (see York facsimile p. liv); and secondly because the evidence for ‘after dark’ comes from the Goldsmiths-Masons agreement of 1432–3, where the Masons complain that their pageant of ‘Fergus’ (the Burial of the Virgin Mary) was rarely or

never (‘raro vel nunquam’) played ‘in daylight’ (‘claro die’; REED, York, pp. 48 and 732). ‘Fergus’ would have followed the Drapers’ ‘Death of the Virgin’ (the forty-seventh in the Register) and so would be within three pageants of the end of the play. Given its lateness in the series, the indication of time is interesting not only because it shows that the pageant was normally played after dark, but also (if we are to take the rather legalistic wording at its face value) that it sometimes, if only rarely, was not.12

Ill. 2 ‘Make the Asse to Speake’; Balaak and Balaam, Chester, 1983 (Photo © Rosemary Cross)

Ill. 3 The Shepherds at the High Cross. Chester, 1983 (Photo © Geoffrey Newcombe) Street performance at twelve stations gives the commonest situation. The division of these twelve among the streets of York appears somewhat uneven: four in Micklegate, four in Coney Street, two in Stonegate, one each in Petergate and on the Pavement (see ill. 8). To some extent this is dictated by the length of the streets, but, as Meg Twycross has suggested in discussing the popularity of Micklegate,13 the bunching towards the beginning of the route has no doubt also to do with such considerations as getting the best performance (because of the freshness of the players) and, especially in Micklegate, having space available for the setting up of audience scaffolds. In certain years in the sixteenth century the number of stations went up to as many as sixteen, so that the positioning of the stations was subject to some slight variation. This raises the question of how close together stations were allowed to be; a question which is difficult to answer because of the lack of precision in our knowledge of the positioning of individuals’ houses.14 In the sixteenth century certainly, stations seem to have been freely bid for, but since where their positions are certain there is not much variation from the traditional pattern, it seems that the conditions that dictated the early placings of the stations remained broadly the same throughout the period of the plays. Only once did the Petergate stations rise to four (1525) and the Pavement ones to three (1569).

Ill. 4 The Purification carriage approaching down Northgate Street. Chester, 1983 (Photo © Geoffrey Newcombe)

Ill. 5 Chester: the High Cross in the foreground, Rows to the right, looking towards Eastgate Street; Last Judgment in performance, 1983 (Photo © Geoffrey Newcombe) Two small doubts need to be introduced in relation to the waggons. Owing to the normal description in York of both the decorated waggon and the short play as ‘pageant’, it is very difficult to find evidence that every craft used a waggon for its ‘pageant’. The existence of pageant houses for individual crafts seems reasonable evidence for the possession of a waggon, and references to money going to the ‘reparation of the pageant’ rather than to its ‘sustentation’ or ‘support’ may also indicate a waggon’s existence. If so there are twenty-two named crafts with evidence for waggons. After 1501 ‘diverse crafts’ are paying 18s for the rent of a pageant house. Since the commonest rent for a pageant house is one shilling, this could mean that a further eighteen crafts are storing their waggons in a single pageant house; on the other hand it could mean that an unspecified number of crafts are storing their props and costumes together in one house near the assembly point for the pageants on Toft Green, and tell us nothing about waggon ownership. The very top estimate, I would say, is evidence for perhaps forty crafts owning waggons, which would still leave ten lacking proof. I raise this point (laboriously, I’m afraid, but then nothing is straightforward about the evidence) merely to open up the possibility of performance, where appropriate, without a waggon. The other doubt

is about whether the waggons steered or not, which is still an open question.15

Ill. 6 ‘Some high place’; God (Noah’s Flood) in the Rows, Chester, 1983 (Photo © Geoffrey Newcombe) The number of known pageants varies from the highest possible fifty-six to the fifty of the Register (of which there are forty-eight extant texts). How many were performed each year is not known. It is assumed that all were asked for by the Mayor, but that for one reason or another perhaps some could not. It has, on the other hand been suggested (mainly because of doubts about fitting them all into one day) that only a limited number ever performed in one year.16 The only oblique evidence for this (and it is oblique) is the list of crafts contributing money collected for the play but not used for it in 1535.17 If accepted as evidence this would suggest perhaps thirty-four pageants; but this number should be used with great caution as the evidence is again by no means straightforward. If the evidence for the framework of the performance has weak points, a look at the details of production will reveal even more. Evidence for the costuming of the plays is almost nonexistent if we look only at York. Meg Twycross has shown what can be done by wide and expert reference to other records, to later costume books, and to pictorial evidence to produce a convincing and splendid effect (see ill. 9 et al.),18 but the fact remains that for all but Mercers’ and Bakers’ pageants we have no direct evidence from the records at York. Nor do we know in a more general way how costuming was regarded by those responsible for ‘bringing forth’ the pageants. It is only from somewhere like Lucerne in the late sixteenth century, a centrally organized play with elaborate costume lists specifying details of individual costumes, that there appears something approaching an overall scheme.19 It seems unlikely that a craft designed its pageant anew each time it was used, and likely that even if there had once been an overall design for the pageant later performances fell back on renovating old

costumes, adding new where necessary, using actors’ own clothes where appropriate or ones that had been left or given to the craft for its pageant. This is not to rule out the occasional redesigning of a whole pageant; but re-designing a pageant is not re-designing the whole play.

Ill. 7 The shepherds’ star in ‘heaven’. Chester, 1983 (Photo © Geoffrey Newcombe)

Ill. 8 Map of York (John Speed) showing the early pattern of the stations, established by 1399. Map redrawn by Meg Twycross Evidence for the structure and appearance of the waggon, the typical centre of these performances, is, apart from the Mercers’, non-existent. We do not know such basic facts as how high off the ground the waggon floor was, what its dimensions were, how actors got up and down between street and wag-gon, how the waggon was decorated, whether all had superstructures, and so on. Our only evidence is the Mercers’ indenture of 1433 (see appendix) and occasional references in later Mercers’ documents. Even the Mercers’ indenture, invaluable though it is, does not give a clear description of the waggon. At least two reconstructions have been produced to bring the words to life. The Leeds Studies in English version (see ill. 10a) was the initial response to the Mercers’ Indenture. It is a handsome structure but takes no account of the problem of how God shall ‘sty vppe (ascend)’ to heaven, or of the references in the indenture to the ‘heuen of iren’. This was to some extent put right in the 1977 production of the York plays in Toronto, when the raising of God was managed with an ingenious pulley system attached below the roof (see ill. 11a). Nevertheless, the ‘heuen’ was still only represented by a seven-foot high background of angel dolls (see ill. 11b) and the raising mechanism, though visually most effective, still did not match the indenture since God could not sit but had to stand in order to pass through the roof and reach the floor of heaven. The reconstruction elaborated from that in Medieval English Theatre (see ill. 10b) (not yet practically put to the test) is a step towards incorporating all the features mentioned in the indenture, in particular the details of the ‘heuen of iren and the naffe of tre (wooden

hub/wheel)’. There are still some clouds missing and I suspect that the positioning of the nine red angels at the very top is wrong; partly because they would be too vulnerable there and partly because the position is visually and practically awkward. Beyond the details of the waggon there are some broader problems which are still unresolved and may remain so.20 One such is the matter of ‘end-on’ or ‘lengthways’ performance. Both reconstructions have supposed a ‘lengthways’ one with the audience facing the long side of the waggon. There is, however, no proof that this was so. The whole superstructure could cover half of the length of the waggon, making an open fore-stage of the other half (see ill. 12). This in turn raises questions about positioning the waggon in the street and (again) the matter of steering/nonsteering and hence ease of maneuverability. The Mercers’ waggon has tended for obvious reasons to dominate views of the York Play, but although its structure would be suitable for a number of pageants – those requiring ascents and descents obviously, the Tailors’ Ascension or the Weavers’ Assumption of the Virgin – for many it would seem unduly elaborate and restricting – the Painters’ Crucifying of Christ, for example (see ill. 13).21 Though we have good evidence for one pageant, therefore, it cannot be used as a model for all. Finally, lest this tale of doubts and uncertainties should seem endless, let me very briefly mention manner of production and style of acting. From York we know nothing about these. Even the relative certainty that all parts were played by men and that the only professionals were the singers depends on evidence from elsewhere. We do not know anything for example about the organization of the production – rehearsals, where held? how conducted?; the existence of a director; whether the procession entailed a tableau permanently in position or a procession of actors going with the waggon (in front? following?); whether actors ‘hid’ behind the waggon and ‘entered’ around the sides or directly onto the waggon, or whether they mingled with the audience, or both; whether time was allowed for ‘setting-up’ after the waggon had arrived at the station or whether the pageant began at once. Similarly with acting-style, there is no evidence beyond what can be deduced from the text or is implied by a general understanding of how a character or scene is commonly envisaged in the Middle Ages. Obliquely, of course, some details can throw light on presentation of character. That the souls, good and bad, in the Last Judgement are masked,22 even if we know nothing of the appearance of the masks, conditions our understanding; that the devils have two-faced masks and that Christ’s is gilded affects it even more. If Christ’s face is gilt, is his ‘wounded shirt’ also gilded? Combined with the halo, what sort of style of delivery for his lines would then seem appropriate?

Ill. 9a & b Costumes designed by Meg Twycross for angels (Creation and Harrowing); Leeds and Chester, 1983 (Photos © David Mills & © Geoffrey Newcombe)

Ill. 10a Reconstructions of the York Mercers’ wagon: a. from Leeds Studies in English, 5 (1971)

Ill. 10b From Medieval English Theatre, 1 (1979) Very briefly turning to Chester, there are many similarities but also some interesting differences. Evidence survives only from the sixteenth century for the cycle play as it has survived in the texts. This evidence suggests performances: (1) over three days, (2) in the street (though the route is by no means as certain as at York), (3) at certainly two and possibly five stations, (4) on waggons, (5) of as many as twenty-five pageants, each by a separate group; nine the first day, nine the second, and seven the third. From Chester there is evidence from the records of four crafts, which provides information about rehearsals; about actors – the

wages they were paid, in some cases their names; about the ‘dressing’ of waggons and about the use of the same waggon on different days by two or even three crafts; and a little about props and costumes, masks and face-painting.23 We know, for example, that the face of the child-Christ in the Doctors in the Temple episode was gilded, which adds considerably to the authority of his words and takes away the sense of mere human precociousness (see ill. 14). The Coventry records contain even more information of a roughly similar kind which considerably expands our general knowledge, but unfortunately, owing to the absence of texts, only with the records of the Weavers can we integrate records and pageant. Putting all these cities’ records together, however, we still lack any dimensions for a waggon, any idea whether they steered or not, any idea of how they processed, and so on. I’m afraid this concern with details and evidence will seem to anyone who wants to get on and produce a play like just so much academic dithering, but in the end it is what ‘original staging’ involves.

Ill. 11a & b Two details of the Last Judgment wagon used in Toronto, 1977; a. the raising mechanism under construction (Photo © Poculi Ludique Societas); b. the heaven (Photo © Poculi Ludique Societas) Having stated as fully as I can the problems of the evidence from York, it will be obvious that the second stage of investigation must be to go to evidence outside – preferably from Chester and Coventry where there is at least some similarity of performance – and finally to

the third stage, evidence from outside waggon-staging, and ultimately from outside England. It would be impossible to work through this evidence in the way I have with York, but instead I will look at one pageant, an extreme example, where external evidence of this kind is invaluable, since there is only the text and one stage direction to give an idea of the staging. There is in York, uniquely as far as England is concerned, a Transfiguration pageant.24 The action involves Christ leading Peter, James and John to ‘3one mountayne’ to see ‘a sight’. He leaves them and after a short time something happens to provoke John into saying ‘Beholde, her we nowe haue / In hast som new tythande’. Elijah and Moses then speak. Peter comments on ‘3one brightnes’ and James on the fact that there was ‘one, now is ther thre’. John says that Christ was beautiful before, ‘But neuere als he is nowe’, Peter, ‘His clothyng is as white as snowe, / His face schynes as þe sonne’ Elijah, Moses and Christ speak to the disciples and then the single stage direction of the pageant occurs: ‘Hic descendunt nubes’ (‘Here the clouds descend’), and the extended speaker’s name, ‘Pater in nube (‘The Father in the cloud’). After God has spoken Peter speaks of the ‘glorious gleme’ that has now gone and that Christ is left there alone. James speaks again of ‘þis brightnes’ and Peter describes the descent of the cloud: There come a clowde of þe skye Lyght als þe lemys on þame lent (Bright as the light which shone around them)

and James adds: ‘þat clowde cloumsed (‘stunned’) vs clene / þat come schynand so clere’, and John that the ‘noys noyed (‘terrified’) vs more / þat here was herde so hydously’. Christ then speaks normally to them and Peter asks why they were not allowed to see God the Father’s face. The pageant ends with Christ telling them to keep this secret until after his passion. There is here some fairly precise information on what the audience must see, or imagine, as well as hear, but little on how it was done. Elijah and Moses appear but how? Does Christ disappear and if so when and where? How does he become ‘shining’? The clouds descend; where from and where to? How are they made to gleam, and what is the noise? All we know from York is that it must happen in the street, be repeated twelve or more times, and be contained on a waggon. There could be curtains as back or side drops (see Mercers’ ‘costers’), and there could be a raising mechanism (see Mercers’ ‘heaven’), but are they needed? The first revelation could be the opening of a wholly curtained waggon (no evidence from York, but cf. N.Town Passion scaffolds), but is this the best way of showing a mountain? Given the fairly precise descriptions in the text it would of course be possible to devise ways of presenting the episode, but would they be medieval?

Ill. 12 The Purification at Chester, 1983: ‘end-on’ performance (Photo © Poculi Ludique Societas)

Ill. 13 The York Crucifixion, Toronto, 1977, as at Leeds using a bare wagon but here using the end to support the cross (Photo © Poculi Ludique Societas) As it happens there are two descriptions from the continent that suggest ways of approach to the episode; from Revello (1483) and from Mons (1501, but I have used also the quotations from the Passions of Michel and Greban, given in Cohen’s notes, from which the text is derived). The Revello stage direction runs as follows: And when Jesus is on the mountain let there be a polished bowl which makes the brightness of the sun striking the bowl, reflect on Jesus and towards his disciples. Then Jesus shall let fall his crimson garment and appear in white garments. And if the sun is not shining, let there be torches and some other lights.25

The Mons one: Note that here Jesus goes inside the mountain to put on a white gown (the whitest that can be found) and his face and hands gilded; and he should raise his arms; and let there be behind him a great sun. Then he ought to be raised up by the machine to the appropriate place and immediately after Elijah ought to appear to his right dressed like a Carmelite with a prophet’s hat on his head, and Moses on his left holding the tables [of the law]. And while these things are being prepared, Magdalene must speak and Jesus must not show himself at all until she has finished.26

Ill. 14 The gold faced child-Christ; Chester, 1983 (Photo © Geoffrey Newcombe) Greban has Jesus in white garments ‘his face shining like gold’ and ‘Moses and Elijah in front of him’; Michel, the basis for the Mons direction, has ‘Then he [Jesus] should be raised high in the air by an ingenious counter-weight (contrepoys)’. All have a cloud descending and Mons adds its own detail of God speaking with the voice of three actors, high, middle and low voices, intelligibly and harmoniously. Mons and Greban both have Moses and Elijah taking leave silently, and Greban adds ‘and Moses goes to Limbo and Elijah to the other place’. Michel describes Jesus’ departure: ‘Here Jesus descends into the mountain in order to come back in his earlier clothing’. There are obviously great differences between the continental plays and York. They use fixed staging and consequently Moses can be seen going to Limbo and Elijah to Paradise. They have a fixed heaven scaffold from which clouds can descend and God the Father speak. Besides which, Christ has some considerable time to prepare while the Magdalen scene takes place. Even so the descriptions are valuable in suggesting ways of approach. The use of the reflected sunlight is a simple and attractive device but perhaps easier to use in an open square with fixed orientation than in narrow streets with the stage constantly changing position in relation to the sun. The white-beneath-red garments are a reminder that the customary white for

a modem Christ is totally non-medieval,27 and that the sudden change to white garments is one way of making Christ brilliant. In Revello, Christ simply goes up onto the mountain and this would be possible for York, but the raising mechanism at Mons is also a possibility taking Christ from the street level to a position on the mountain by a lift through a trap-door in the floor of the waggon. Reference to Revello and Mons, etc., does not answer all the questions, but it does curb the over-freedom of modern possibilities and by making specific how certain actions and effects were contrived confirms the suggestions of the York text. Christ’s face and garments really are ‘bright’; he does ‘miraculously’ appear; the cloud really does descend, and God remains invisible. It also adds further possibilities: the costuming and positioning of Moses and Elijah and the voice of God. Could the ‘noys’ that terrifies the disciples be the threefold voice of God, or is it thunder for which there is no evidence here but plenty elsewhere? We may not be any nearer knowing, but the possibilities are clearer and more definite. Ideally then an ‘original-staging’ production should be solidly but imaginatively based on the detailed evidence of the actual pageant or play (text, stage directions, records and descriptions) or failing that on contemporary English and finally continental evidence; always remembering, however, that in some cases continental contacts may have been closer than English ones. What has this to do with the productions that have taken place? I can speak best for the Leeds and Wakefield ones with which I have been involved. The York cycle was first produced again on waggons, processionally, in Leeds in 1975. It is now quite surprising to realize that no volume of REED had then been produced, Medieval English Theatre was still in the future, and the Mercers’ indenture had been re-discovered only four years previously. After Salter’s book on the Chester cycle and Richard Southern’s on the Castle of Perseverance, no-one could say that scholarship was still in the ninteenth-century study; but the final burgeoning of the marriage of scholarship and theatre was still to come. One has only to look at the list of productions at the end of Glynne Wickham’s The Medieval Theatre (itself by no means complete) to realize that this was no sudden burgeoning out of nothing. Indeed Wickham himself was instrumental in bringing scholarship and practice together. Even so noone in the present day had tried staging an English cycle processionally. In part the impetus to do this came from the attack on the traditional idea of processional staging by Alan Nelson in 1970,28 in part from dissatisfaction with the current York Festival productions spread on a huge stage against the ruined wall of St Mary’s abbey. Our aims were to follow as closely as we could the then-known records, to reproduce a festival atmosphere by surrounding the production with a fair, and to entertain as wide a variety of people as possible, bringing university and city together as audience. The bias was therefore towards the scholarly but not to the exclusion of other considerations. Looking back now at slides of very raw, lamentably undecorated waggons, it is difficult to feel the excitement that accompanied the production, but there is no doubt at all that it helped to confirm the view that processional waggon staging worked and that it was the only really satisfactory way of staging a cycle of this kind. Before looking at the results, however, let me go back to my list of York staging criteria. (1) Corpus Christi day. It was not performed on Corpus Christi day in 1975 or on a possible day within the period May 21 to June 24;29 nor was it performed on a single day but on two days, Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18,

starting at 10am on the first day and 2pm on the second. The reason is clear: Saturdays are holidays for many, Sundays for almost all, and we needed an audience. By doing this, however, we lost the now generally accepted (but still untried) magical effect of the Creation coinciding with day-break, we missed seeing the effect of after-dark performance for the later pageants, and there was no chance of seeing whether all the pageants could have been played in one day (but see further below). It also meant that the cycle was broken into two halves and things like the build-up to the Passion and the sheer physical pressure of a continuous performance from day-break to late at night was lost. (2) The cycle was performed in the streets of the University campus – genuine streets but not quite public thoroughfares – and the streets were partly lined with fair stalls. The background was of trees at stations 2 and 3 and modern buildings at 1 (particularly unfortunate in slides of the upper part of pageants using a waggon roof, but far less noticeable at the time; see ill. 15a); (3) There were three stations, so that even if we had been able to perform all the pageants in one day we would still have been unable to prove that the traditional performance was possible. They were about 30 yards apart and in fact pageants were mutually visible (and audible too, depending on the pageant) between 1 and 2, and less so between 2 and 3. There were small audience scaffolds at 1 and 3. At a rough guess they would match the stations at the corner of Coney Street and Stonegate, but as far as one can tell they were closer together than those. (4) All the pageants were performed on waggons except the Entry into Jerusalem and the Road to Calvary. The former conflicts with the evidence mentioned above since the Skinners made regular payments for a pageant house; but for the Shearmen there are no records of the possession of a waggon. There were only eight waggons in all, consequently each had to be re-dressed and re-used. This meant that specific dressing of an individual pageant was limited to what could be managed in the turn-around period. Superstructures were occasionally removed, as for the Crucifying of Christ and the Ascension, but no superstructure was built specifically for the performance of one pageant. Six were working waggons hired from a local farmer, with floor areas varying between 13′6″ × 6′6 ″ and 11′6 ″ × 5′. Of the other two, one (the largest measuring about 16′ × 7′) was used for performance by the Lords of Misrule at York and had been used at the Festival for their pageant performances; the other was the property of Bretton Hall College and had been adapted for pageant performance by having a fixed and usable roof attached. Its floor area was about 12′ × 6′ (see ill. 15). The waggons were not available until about a week before the performance so that no rehearsal was possible before that week on the waggons, and no superstructures could be mounted though all had been made ready to the dimensions of the waggons. (5) Of the forty-eight pageants only thirty-six were performed; not by design but by the chance defaulting of a number of groups. Each pageant was performed by a separate group: a local amateur drama company (a number from churches), departments and ad hoc groups in the university at Leeds, and one, the Lords of Misrule, from York. It will seem at first sight that this fails almost totally to meet my desiderata for an originalstaging production; but it must be remembered that they are ideals and also that the aim at Leeds was far more modest than a complete original staging. Most importantly what we learnt was that not only was staging on waggons, processionally, a viable method, but also that it was a truly popular street theatre of a potential splendour powerful enough to transform the everyday street into a transcendental world. The production also made sense of the dramatic

form of the series of short pageants in a way that continuous performance on a fixed stage with an audience at a seated distance did not. Pageants so brief that they become moments in the continuous production, or with expositors breaking up the continuity and hence omitted, like the Annunciation, by being separate pageants were allowed their own space and time and made their effect as strongly as the longer and more obviously dramatic episodes – at times more strongly. What else did we learn in practice? Many things, I should say, that now seem like second nature. How impressive a dressed waggon is when bearing down on you (see ill. 4); how effective the sudden sight of a previous or approaching episode is seen in chance juxtaposition with the one you are watching (the proximity of stations is not distracting but illuminating); how short a time it takes to ‘set up’ at a station; how easy a (steering) waggon is to manoeuvre; how unimportant are the differences in timing between the pageants, about which so much has been written, when the audience is mobile; how a pageant can be followed round and seen over and over again; how members of the audience can go off for an hour or so and yet pick up where they had left off the story at a later station; how interesting is the succession of different actors playing the same character in establishing a sense of ‘presentation’ rather than ‘identification’; how necessary it is to bear in mind the need to start again at the beginning after each performance but the last (Christ’s wounds have to be removed (?), the cross taken down, the nails removed; hell-gates have to be put back in place; Lazarus has to be re-bound in his grave clothes); the list is endless. There were also answers that had to be found: if the pageants were not to be played totally on the waggons, there must be steps. These may have been part of the waggon originally but we had to supply them at each station. Casts on moving waggons looked ungainly and were in some danger. One actor perhaps but not fourteen or more. The records suggest that the craft members were expected to accompany the pageant but gives no information about the cast. At Leeds therefore all processed with (and in some cases pulled) the waggon, which incidentally increased the impressiveness of the approaching pageant.

Ill. 15a & b The York Last Judgment waggon at Leeds, 1975 (Photos © Centre for Mediaeval Studies, University of Leeds) The whole experiment in retrospect seems like a leap into the dark but an amazing amount of illumination came from it, and it also provided the impetus for the Toronto production of the York cycle in October 1977 (for which see the many reviews in Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, 20 (1977)). One thing that neither Leeds nor Toronto really took account of was detail. Partly because York is so lacking in stage directions and records of props,

costumes, masks, etc., but partly because both were intent on investigating the viability of processional performance. Toronto did go some way towards realizing the Last Judgement waggon (see ill. 11), and also produced waggons that were basically beautiful and were sometimes splendidly dressed; even if at other times they were scarcely an improvement on Leeds. Having broken through the difficulties with York, it should have meant that with Chester (1983), eight years later, with more expertise to draw on and far more published material to work with, we could concentrate on those things that had been missed with York. Between York and Chester, Towneley had been produced successfully for the Wakefield Festival (1980) on three fixed stages (see ill. 16) in the pedestrian precinct in front of the Cathedral in the centre of the city,30 and Chester should have been the culmination of the series. Perhaps we were expecting too much. There were several improvements: the costuming designed by Meg Twycross was splendid in conception and usually so in execution, though it raised the question of the appropriateness of overall design. The plays were performed appropriately over three days, and in many cases proper attention was paid to the very extensive stage directions; God had his ‘high place’ ready for him at each station. The same three stations were used as for York but, given the Chester evidence, were more appropriate. There was, however, insufficient overseeing of the separate pageants and hence they differed not just in skill (an understandable if regrettable fact) but also in using medieval and modern styles of presentation. Again the waggons, gathered in the same way, were (with one notable exception) not given sufficient time and care centrally and though decorated with some fine backcloths by individual groups still looked raw and unfinished. Worst of all the fickle weather after the first day made playing outside impossible and the whole performance moved to fixed stages indoors. Consequently what had set out to be a true original-staging production, at that level failed.31 The one pageant that satisfied all the criteria, however, the Purification and Doctors in the Temple32 of the Joculatores Lancastrienses came into its own at Chester the following month (see ill. 17 et al:). The costumes were immaculately right, the cast was entirely male, the special effects were imaginative realizations of the stage directions, the records were followed precisely and the pageant effectively acted. Where no evidence was available – for the whereabouts of the angel, for example – appropriate parallels were made use of – the statue which comes to life. There were many satisfying details, like the changing words in the book. Simeon believing that ‘virgo’ is a copyist’s error in ‘Ecce virgo concipiet’ erases it and substitutes ‘a good woman’. An angel alters the words back to ‘virgo’, this time in red. Simeon repeats his correction and the angel finally convinces him with ‘virgo’ in gold. The changing of the words was demonstrated to the audience as a kind of conjuring trick, but the episode was both funny (at Simeon’s – and mankind’s – expense) and moving, through the golden-faced angel, the music and the book. Meg Twycross, the director, also made successful use of the ‘end-on’ waggon, though the breadth of the street at the High Cross and the absence of a series of stations did not push the experiment of positioning the waggon very far. In fact the performance of the eight pageants at Chester, together with the first day at Leeds, gave some idea of what the whole production could have achieved; very far from perfection, but definitely progress.

Ill. 16 A fixed stage in a modern setting: the Cathedral precinct, Wakefield, 1980 (Photo © Sandra Billington)

Ill. 17 Anna, Simeon and the Angel; the Purification, Chester, 1983 (Photo © Rosemary Cross) Besides the Leeds–Wakefield productions there has been an even more important series of productions in Toronto since the York one of 1977: the Castle (1979), the N.Town Passion (1981), Chester (1983), Towneley (1985). In Durham there has been the very interesting Mary Magdalen (1982), and there have been many performances using medieval methods and

techniques; like John Marshall’s series of productions in Winchester Cathedral of the shorter Digby pieces: Wisdom, the Killing of the Children, and the Conversion of St Paul; as well as the continuing work of the Medieval Players.33 One might well wonder with this amount of varied experiment going on whether the strict original-staging production on a large scale is any longer necessary. Some would clearly like to see energies directed differently. Martin Stevens writing in RORD about the Toronto Towneley asks for modernization and a modern production to show the contemporaneity of the plays.34 This is happening constantly in drama (and English) departments and colleges on both sides of the Atlantic, and is certainly part of a living theatrical tradition, but the kind of careful investigation through experiment that the large-scale original-staging production involves is by no means exhausted. We have still not had a whole production that pays proper attention to stage directions and record evidence (we haven’t yet had a proper production of the York Mercers’ Last Judgement), or one that attempts to curb the tendency of its individual parts towards modern ideas of theatricality. It is not easy to convey the detailed research of scholars to a wide and varied group of performers, or to convince them of the value of following the evidence. It is very tempting and so much easier to follow one’s own instincts and imagination. And though we can never reach the wholly medieval production (or wouldn’t recognize it if we had), the nearer we can get to realizing all the potential evidence rather than taking short cuts – in other words to producing a true original-staging production – the nearer we shall be to understanding the variety and effectiveness of medieval theatre.35

APPENDIX The 1433 York Mercers’ Indenture A breakdown of the information – items listed in original order: Pageant with 4 wheels Hell mouth 3 devil suits (‘garmentes’), including 3 two-faced masks 2 evil soul costumes (‘array’) – 2 shirts, 2 pair hose, 2 masks, 2 wigs 2 good soul costumes – 2 shirts, 2 pair hose, 2 masks, 2 wigs 2 pair angel wings – ‘with iren in the endes’ 2 ‘trumpes of white plate’ and 2 reeds 4 albs for 4 apostles 3 haloes with 3 masks for 3 apostles 4 haloes with 4 yellow wigs for 4 apostles 1 cloud and 2 pieces of wooden rainbow God’s costume – ‘wounded’ shirt, halo with gilt mask 1 large damask hanging (‘caster’) for back of pageant 2 smaller hangings for 2 sides 3 other hangings of Louvain broadcloth for the sides 1 little hanging ‘four squared’ to hang behind God’

4 ‘irens’ to hold up heaven 4 ‘finale coterelles’ and an iron pin 1 iron ‘brandreth’ (grid used as a seat) with 4 ropes at 4 comers that God shall sit on when he ascends to heaven 1 heaven of iron with a ‘naffe’ (hub/wheel) of wood 2 pieces of red cloud and gold stars for heaven 2 of blue cloud painted both sides 3 of red with sunbeams of gold and stars for highest of heaven and a long narrow border of the same work 7 large angels holding passion symbols, one with ‘fane’ of latten and cross of iron in head 4 smaller gilt angels holding passion symbols 9 smaller angels painted red to move around in heaven, a long thin cord to make the angels move around 2 short rollers of wood to move the pageant out a banner of red buckram with the Trinity and ostrich feathers embroidered in gold and with a long streamer 4 small banners of russet (either the colour or the cloth) with the Trinity on them

Notes  1. Nugent Monck’s career is described in some detail in Franklin J. Hildy, Shakespeare at the Maddermarket: Nugent Monck and the Norwich Players (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1986). For a useful summary of early productions and attitudes to them see Ian Lancashire’s ‘Medieval Drama’ in Editing Medieval Texts, English, French and Latin, Written in England, ed. by A.G. Rigg (Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto 5–6 November, 1976). (New York and London: Garland, 1977), pp. 58–85 (pp. 58–9).  2. For the growth of religious drama in England and America, and Martin Browne’s involvement in it, see E. Martin Browne (with Henzie Browne), Two in One (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), especially chapters 3 and 10.  3. For some earlier productions see the list in Glynne Wickham, The Medieval Theatre (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974), pp. 221–6, and that by John Elliott in Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama (RORD), 13–14 (1970– 71), 259–66; and the description of the early work of PLS in RORD, 11 (1968), 141–61.  4. The main published results of this are the Collections volumes of the Malone Society especially VII: Kent (1965), VIII: Lincolnshire (1974), XI: Norfolk and Suffolk (1980); and the volumes of Records of Early English Drama (REED): York (1979), Coventry (1981), Newcastle upon Tyne (1982), Norwich 1540–1642 (1984), Cumberland/Westmorland/Gloucestershire (1986), Devon (1986), published by the University of Toronto Press. There are innumerable articles concerned with records and performance, see especially the REED Newsletter (1976–) and Medieval English Theatre (METh) (1979 –), while F.M. Salter, Medieval Drama in Chester (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1955), Richard Southern, The Medieval Theatre in the Round (London: Faber and Faber, 1957), and Glynne Wickham, Early English Stages 1300–1660, 3 vols (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959), I, were landmarks in the combination of the scholarly and the practical.  5. Paula Neuss writes about modernization v. non-modernization in Themes in Drama 5: Drama and Religion, ed. by James Redmond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 250–2. There are frequent explanations in programmes; for example those of Castle of Perseverance (Toronto, 1979), Towneley (Wakefield, 1980), N.Town Passion (Toronto, 1981), Towneley (Toronto, 1985), and comments in reviews; for example Martin Stevens on Towneley in Toronto, RORD, 28 (1985), 197–8. For a contrary experience to mine of ‘original-pronunciation’ productions, see Catherine Belsey on Mankind at Cambridge in 1976 (dir. Carl Heap, later one of the founders of the Medieval Players): ‘after twenty minutes or so it became clear that we could all follow the dialogue perfectly’, RORD, 19 (1976), 83.  6. There are reports in METh, 5.1 (1983), 2 and 36–44, as well as a plan of the route and photographs of the productions.  7. I am not forgetting the very effective waggon performances of single pageants in the streets of York, one of which, Christ and the Doctors in the Temple (1960), first opened my eyes to the possibilities of waggon staging. The nearest that these productions have come to an ‘original’ site are the performances in Petergate. For photographs see Eileen White’s

forthcoming article in METh, 9:1 (1987), and Martin Stevens, ‘The Staging of the Wakefield Plays’, RORD, 11 (1968), 125.  8. The evidence has been published in the REED volumes for York, Chester, and Coventry and there is considerable discussion of the records and performance in the Proceedings of the First Colloquium, Records of Early English Drama, ed. by J. Dutka (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1979) especially pp. 26–100, and Staging the Chester Cycle, ed. by David Mills (Leeds: University of Leeds, School of English, 1985). The relevant records for Chester are also published in R.M. Lumiansky and David Mills, The Chester Mystery Cycle: Essays and Documents (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), pp. 203–310.  9. For Castle of Perseverance and the Cornish Ordinalia and Meriasek there are stage plans and stage directions; for N.Town and Mary Magdalen there are stage directions alone. Of the shorter plays only Killing of the Children has an indication of date, and the Play of the Sacrament an indication of place – the not very helpful association with Croxton. For an attempt to link the Digby Plays with Chelmsford see John C. Coldewey, ‘The Digby Plays and the Chelmsford records’, RORD, 18 (1975), 103–21. 10. See Meg Twycross, ‘Places to hear the play’, REED Newsletter (1978:2), 10–33, for information about the route and stations. 11. The most recent edition of the complete cycle is Richard Beadle, The York Plays (London: Edward Arnold, 1982). There is a reliable account of the evidence for the play in performance by Eileen White, The York Mystery Play (York: The Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological Society, 1985). A facsimile of the manuscript is available in the Leeds Texts and Monograph series, 7, The York Play, ed. by Richard Beadle and Peter Meredith (Leeds: The University of Leeds, School of English, 1983). 12. The Masons almost certainly mean that later performances in a single year were played in the dark rather than that they were starting out from the first station and playing throughout in the dark. For the re-dating of the agreement (REED: York has 1431–2) see Peter Meredith, ‘Further External Evidence for Dating the York Register (BL Additional MS 35290)’, Leeds Studies in English (LSE) n.s. 11 (1980 for 1979), 59–73 (p. 56, n. 4). 13. ‘Places to hear the play’, pp. 17–18. 14. But see Eileen White’s forthcoming article in METh 9:1 (1987) for the establishing of the positions of certain houses at which stations were located. For comment on the effect of stations being visible to one another, see Twycross, “Places to hear the play”, p. 15. 15. Some pageant waggons in Japan do not steer and occasionally elaborate devices, such as a retractable central pivot, have evolved to turn them (information from Professor Takeo Fujii, Kansai University of Foreign Studies). 16. Numbers were of course affected by the changes of craft responsibility (the disappearance of Fergus, for example) and by the results of Reformation attitudes (the removal of the Death, Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin pageants), see REED: Proceedings of the First Colloquium, p. 58, n. 63. 17. See REED: York, pp. 257–61. As far as I know the idea was first put forward by Margaret Dorrell (now Rogerson) in her Leeds PhD thesis. 18. This was particularly demonstrated in the Leeds Chester production. See also the article by Meg Twycross, ‘The Chester Cycle Wardrobe’ in Staging the Chester Cycle, pp. 100–23, and ‘Apparel comely’ in Aspects of Early English Drama, ed. by Paula Neuss (Cambridge and Totowa, NJ: D.S. Brewer and Barnes and Noble, 1983), pp. 30–49. 19. For a lengthy section in English translation from the Lucerne lists see The Staging of Religious Drama in Europe in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by Peter Meredith and John Tailby, EDAM monograph series 4 (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1983), pp. 130–8. For the original see M. Blakemore Evans, The Passion Play of Lucerne: An Historical and Critical Introduction (New York and London: The Modern Language Association of America, 1943), pp. 176–214. 20. There are discussions of the records and reconstructions in Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Dorrell ‘The Doomsday Pageant of the Mercers, 1433’, LSE, 5 (1971), 29–34, and ‘The York Mercers and their pageant of Doomsday’ LSE, 6 (1972), 10–35, and Peter Meredith ‘The Development of the York Mercers’ Pageant Waggon’, METh, 1 (1979), 5–18. 21. The Crucifying of Christ was played at Leeds in 1975 on a bare waggon on which the cross was raised and fixed into a mortise built up on the floor of the waggon. 22. For the information contained in the Mercers’ indenture see appendix; for the original see REED: York, pp. 55–6. 23. For the records see REED: Chester, and Chester Mystery Cycle: Essays and Documents, and for discussion see Staging the Chester Cycle (note 8 above). 24. York Plays, pp. 192–8 (pageant XXIII). 25. The translation is from Staging of Religious Drama, p. 114; for the original see La Passione di Revello, ed. Anna Cornagliotti (Torino: Centro Studi Piemmontesi, 1976), p. 87. 26. For the original see Le Livre de Conduite du Regisseur et Le Compte des Dépenses pour le Mystère de la Passion joué à Mons en 1501, ed. by Gustave Cohen (Pans: Les Belle Lettres, 1925), p. 177. See also p. 181 and (for discussion and records) pp. LXI–II, LXXVI, 500, 509, 513, 516, 519, 527 and 562. 27. See Meg Twycross’ comments in Staging the Chester Cycle, pp. 106–7. 28. Alan H. Nelson, ‘Principles of Processional Staging: York Cycle’, Modern Philology, 67 (1970), 303–20, and The Medieval English Stage: Corpus Christi Pageants and Plays (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1974),

29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35.

pp. 15–37, but first aired at the MLA meeting in December, 1968; see RORD, 12, (1969), 86–92. The York production at Leeds was inspired by Jane Oakshott’s enthusiasm, and that of Towneley at Wakefield and Chester at Leeds and at Chester were under her general directorial eye. To do it accurately, however, we should take into account the loss of the eleven days in 1752 and therefore add nine or ten days to give a rough equivalence for the time of year of a fifteenth or sixteenth-century Corpus Christi day performance. In the final performance at York (1569), the cycle was performed on the Tuesday of Whit week. For reviews see RORD, 23, (1980), 81–4, and METH, 2 (1980), 49–52 and 98–100. See the reviews in METH, 5 (1983), 29–35, and RORD, 26 (1983), 117–19, and the comments in the University of Leeds Review (1983), 137–45. Text in The Chester Mystery Cycle, ed. by R.M. Lumiansky and David Mills, EETS. ss. 3 (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), pp. 204–17 (play XI). There is also a METH modern spelling text by Meg Twycross (Lancaster: Lancaster University, 1983). The following is a list of the reviews of the large-scale productions in RORD and METh (there are also reviews of many productions of the shorter plays not included here): RORD, 10 (1967) N.Town at Grantham, 141–51; 15–16 (1972–73) Towneley at Ely and Chester at Chester, Castle of Perseverance, 117–30; 17 (1974) N.Town at Winchester, 131–3; 20 (1977) York at Leeds and Toronto, 107–22; 22 (1979) Castle of Perseverance at Toronto, 142–5; 23 (1980) Towneley at Wakefield, 81–4; 24 (1981) N.Town Passion at Toronto, 181–92; 26 (1983) Chester at Toronto, 109–16, Chester at Leeds, 117–19; 28 (1985) Towneley at Toronto, 189–99; and in METh, 1 (1979) York at Toronto, 5–18; 2 (1980) N.Town Passion at Toronto, 122– 31; 4 (1982) Mary Magdalen at Durham, 63–70; 5 (1983) Chester at Leeds and Chester, 29–44, Chester at Toronto, 44–51; 6 (1984) Mary Magdalen at Durham. See note 28 (1985), 198. Attention should finally be drawn to the many videotapes of ‘original-staging’ productions: from Lancaster (Meg Twycross), The York Resurrection, The Chester Purification and Doctors in the Temple, Fulgens and Lucres, Virtuous and Godly Susanna; from the Media Centre, University of Toronto, Castle of Perseverance, The Killing of Abel, Robin Hood and the Friar, The Toronto Passion Play (N.Town), The York Cycle Pageant (separate pageants). Leeds has not produced any commercial videos but enquiries about film and tape of Wakefield and Chester should be sent to the Director, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds. There is also mention in RORD 13–14 (1970–1) of a complete film of the Cornish Ordinalia performed in St Piran’s round in 1969 (p. 220).

15

MANKIND IN CAMERINO: PLAYING THE VERY DEVIL AND OTHER MATTERS Between lines 474 and 475 of Mankind, after a collection has been taken from the audience to ensure that he will appear, the devil makes his entrance. Not that the audience know who they’re paying to see. The preparation for his appearance goes back to l. 453 where ‘he’ is to be brought on with a ‘flute’. His unhelpful off-stage cry (l. 454) is a response to the incantation of that ‘flute’ or ‘Walsingham whistle’ but explains nothing, and he remains thereafter simply ‘he’, ‘a man with a head that is of great omnipotence’, ‘a worshipful man’ of an ‘abominable presence’. Anyone vouched for by the Ns is unlikely to be ‘worshipful’ but apart from that the field is fairly open. The context for his appearance is prepared by Nowadays, one of the tempter/vice figures. He again assures the audience that ‘he’ is worth seeing and finally he creates the appropriately expectant atmosphere with a call for space and a hint of danger: He is a goodly man, sirs. Make space, and beware!                     (l. 474)

The devil enters with a ringing Latin assertion, borrowed from God, and reveals his identity: Ego sum dominantium dominus, and my name is Titivillus.                     (l. 475)

This passage encapsulates for me the problems of Titivillus, one practical, the other (a related one) actorly. The practical problem is how to get him on appropriately, the actorly one is how to play him – again appropriately. In relation to the first he could just enter, but the build-up he has been given implies more than that. The invocation of the ‘Walsingham whistle/flute’ has already produced the enigmatic off-stage cry: I come with my legs under me!           (l. 454)

potentially if not actually also comic. Funny or not, there is a sense of the ubiquitous ‘old mole’ about the cry, of the omnipresent, threatening presence, able to be invoked but coming on its own terms. Equally ‘Make space and beware!’ implies something more exciting than a simple entrance; an eruption into the playing-space, perhaps? It is possible, of course, to deny that expectation, to make it anti-climactic, to follow the comic hint rather than the threatening one, but devils in medieval plays generally erupt onto the scene rather than merely coming in, and

this particular one has after all, been conjured up. There’s no circle with ‘Jehovah’s name/Forward and backward anagrammatiz’d’, but the overall situation is similar. The 1996 Leeds production was intended to be flexible and easily adaptable to any flat indoor space, based as it was on the idea of a production in a medieval hall. Our solution to Titivillus’s entrance has no basis in the text of the play; it is simply justifiable in terms of general medieval stagecraft, no more. The solution grew out of an earlier decision relating to Titivillus’s mighty opposite on the side of good, Mercy. At the beginning of the play, Mercy first talks with the audience and then preaches to them. The obvious site for preaching, in the Middle Ages as now, is a pulpit. Mercy is an attribute of God himself and hence stable and firm as God is. The pulpit could provide the visual sense of stability and firmness and it could give him his own location in the unspecific space of the hall. But Mercy in the play is functioning in the world with its own laws. The Ns can pull at Mercy’s clothing, jostle him, trip him up. They can’t affect the essential Mercy but they can disturb what are simply elements of his temporary physical manifestation. So why not demonstrate the unstable position of divine grace in the world, as the play later does through Mankind, by destabilizing the security of the pulpit, one of Mercy’s adjuncts? The pulpit therefore became a pulpit on wheels, apparently stable but actually able to be spun round, run about the playing area, or off it altogether. The progression I have set out here is much more systematic than what actually happened. The whole pulpit idea was one I had experimented with in an earlier production of Mankind. What happened this time was that it bedded itself more and more firmly into the meaning and structure of the play. The final apparent destabilization of divine security was to make the pulpit not only mobile but also exploding. Then Titivillus’s entrance could be not only an eruption into the very centre of the playing-space but could also appear to destroy Mercy’s secure base. The audience’s attention having been distracted from the pulpit by the Ns expectantly looking for Titivillus anywhere in the ‘hall’ but the pulpit, the effect could be the kind of explosively unexpected entrance that Titivillus seemed to require. However, he still had to get in unseen. To do this the Ns stole the pulpit when they exited at l. 101 and used it as a mobile base for hanging up the song-sheet when they returned at l. 331, with Titivillus concealed inside. The pulpit thus became a site for the conflicting powers of God and devil as well as demonstrating the progress of that conflict. Having been disrupted by Titivillus it was taken over and reconstructed by the Ns to create a visual centre, as a court of law, for the formal transfer of Mankind’s allegiance from Mercy to Mischief. With the rout of the Ns and Mischief it was returned finally to the control of Mercy as a stable base for the concluding lines of the play. It thus contained within itself the memory of the weakness of mankind that Mercy refers to at the end: Mankind is wretched, he hath sufficient proof.                 (l. 912)

The pulpit becomes, in the record of the play, part of that proof. The play balances end with beginning. The wretchedness of mankind stated by Mercy and Mankind at the beginning is made manifest in the action and returned to at the end. The mercy

of the beginning is as abundantly present at the end but has proved its worth. In a practical way the pulpit echoes these balances as a kind of objective correlative, providing not only a useful economy in staging but some important symbolic contrasts. But its exploding is nevertheless a stage trick, like a star trap for the demon-king in a pantomime, and in the play Titivillus is not a demon-king but the Devil, the seriously successful seducer of mankind. He is warned against by Mercy, he is the final solution for the Ns and Mischief to the continued resistance of Mankind, and he is totally successful. Everything he does works. Might the stage trickery of the pulpit undermine the seriousness of his rôle or is there already a strong element of the mountebank written into his part which the exploding pulpit would match? Is there already an inbuilt contradiction between the rôle’s serious purpose and its comic presentation? And if so, how is it to be played? Can the serious be left to look after itself in the action, while playing Titivillus for all your worth as an entertainer, a comic showman? If the exploding pulpit solves the problem of Titivillus’s entrance, it also underlines the problem of how to play him. Titivillus was a familiar minor devil in the later Middle Ages, a collector of words and syllables skipped over in divine service and noter of chatter in church, all to be used as evidence against clergy and laity at the Last Judgement. He is neatly characterized in the late fifteenth-century anecdote: a Cistercian abbot noticed a devil going from monk to monk in the choir picking up missed words and syllables and dropping them into a large sack he was carrying. He came at last to the abbot, who was terrified by his ‘foulness and mis-shape’ but managed to ask who he was and what he was doing. ‘I am a poor devil and my name is Titivillus’, the devil replied. ‘I must each day bring my master a thousand bags full of failings and negligences in syllables and words that are done in your order in reading and singing, or else I must be sore beaten.’ The purpose of the anecdote is a serious warning against performing divine service negligently, and the devil is reputedly hideous, but the action is trivial, the scene slightly comic and Titivillus rather pathetic.

I’m not concerned here with why the author of Mankind elevated this minor figure to the part of the Devil, but rather with what the implications of this combination are for the interpretation of the part. In the first moment, grandeur of a sort is uppermost. The explosive entry from the pulpit felt right; it agreed with the arrogantly self-assertive ‘Ego sum dominantium dominus’. But is ‘and my name is Titivillus’ (perhaps echoing the anecdote) an instant under-cutting, deliberately bathetic, even pathetic? Or does it continue the threatening assertion of ‘Ego sum’? Little in his later behaviour or language seems to match those first words except his easy triumph over Mankind. He demonstrates the cleverness of his followers with a few obvious tricks of sleight-of-hand, he threatens the neighbourhood with a rash of horse thieving, he overexplains his simple devices to trap Mankind – a board in the earth, a few weeds – with selfsatisfied care. He is constantly chatting with the audience, taking them into his confidence,

asking for their connivance or promising them fun. The depths of triviality and apparent bumbling are perhaps reached as he waits for Mankind to return from ‘shitting leasings’ (ll. 565–80). It could be expanded something like this: TITIVILLUS (with sneering self-satisfaction) Mankind was busy in his prayer, yet I did him arise. He is conveyed, by Christ, from his divine service. (self-confident) Whither is he, trow ye? Iwis I am wonder wise, (nasty) I have sent him forth to shit leasings.

[Thinks: Where’s that bloody Mankind got to? It doesn’t take that long to have a shit. Oh well, better keep them happy. I’ll try the ‘powder of Paris’ routine.] If ye have any silver, in hap pure brass, Take a little powder of Paris, and cast over his face, And even in the owl-flight let him pass. (getting back in the swing) Titivillus can learn you many pretty things.

[Thinks: Bloody hell, he’s still not back. What’s he doing? He must come soon.] I trow Mankind will come again soon. Or else, (sarcastically) I fear me, evensong will be done.

[Thinks: And talking of evensong I never picked up those beads he chucked down. Better clear them up, just in case.] His beads shall be triced aside, and that anon.

[Thinks: What’s the bugger up to? Must keep them interested.] (suggestively but a touch desperate) Ye shall a good sport if ye will abide.

[Thinks: At last! and about time too.] (with hardly concealed relief) Mankind cometh again. Well fare he!

Is this babbling, self-satisfied con-man really the cause of Mankind’s downfall and if so can one take that downfall seriously any more or does the triviality of the deceiver reduce the seriousness of the outcome? There’s no reason why Titivillus’s words should not follow a recognizable mental pattern of this sort. People too readily assume that trains of thought of this naturalistic kind seldom exist in medieval plays. The language is too rhetorical or structured, it seems, or the characters too abstract to make it likely. Trains of thought always seem to me to be worth looking for, in medieval plays as in any other. This one certainly makes sense put besides ‘I am a poor devil’. But, as usual, there’s more than one possibility. What if ‘dominantium dominus’ is the clue here? It is equally possible to read the speech as a carefully thought-out series of moves: ‘I have tricked Mankind, I will now, for your entertainment and as a demonstration of my cleverness, trick you. Mankind will be back soon, so I will remove his beads. You’ll enjoy this. Look he’s coming!’ Titivillus is over-explicit because to his mind he’s dealing with fools; he’s likeable because he’s taking everyone into his confidence and pretending to need their support, but he’s actually in total control. Both sides of the character clearly exist, it’s a question of how and where they are to appear.

Titivillus is both ‘lord of lords’ and a travelling showman. To the Ns and Mischief he is absolute authority, they scuttle around at his bidding; to Mercy ‘he is worst of them all’, a threat to be taken very seriously, and to Mankind he is a voice in the head. But to the audience he is a friendly, confiding entertainer. We tried to bring his authority out by emphasizing his puppet-master control of the Ns, sending them off and calling them back at will, and to imply his power over Mankind by allowing him to control, for example, where he put his corn and the moment at which he began to feel sleepy. In a way parallel to that in which the Ns affect Mercy, Titivillus can control Mankind, but only through his body and its functions. Titivillus can only touch the true Mankind, his soul, by making him forget his spiritual existence, by leading Mankind more and more into the control of his body. Mankind’s props are important here. The spade can regulate the actions of the body and the beads those of the mind, to satisfy the needs of the soul; Titivillus by frustrating the body and, through the body, distracting the mind leads Mankind to reject both his props (in both senses of the word) and to give up self-control. What is striking is that on the surface it is very trivial. Just as Titivillus collecting scraps of words in the monk’s choir is trivial, but both lead to damnation. This triviality is not a problem, however, because ultimately all the sinful characters are nothing. One common way of seeing sin in the Middle Ages is as the absence of good. Their power is that they can create that absence in others, as they demonstrate with Mankind. Because they are merely ‘absence’, they appear (rightly) thin and insubstantial, though superficially attractive. Titivillus’s triviality is his strength because of its attractiveness. Paradoxically it is his triviality that makes him potentially ‘dominantium dominus’ – his power lies in his ability to make others as empty as himself. And the emptiness, the absence of good, is what the audience should and usually do feel at the latter end of the play. Why Mercy is the character everyone remembers after the performance is because he is not thin and insubstantial but full, not just of goodness but of meaning, emotion and compassion. Titivillus is the ultimate deceiver, the invisible voice in the head. We gave him a devil’s head that, like the pulpit, exploded so that he could be both the spectacular devil and the invisible one. But also so that the deception is complete. He was finally not even worth paying good money to see. Without his distinguishing feature, ‘the head that is of great omnipotence’, he was intended to seem unnoticeable. But we also allowed him his ‘dominantium dominus’, at the beginning and the end. If there was one moment when we tried to make his power more than that of ordering people around or arranging traps, it was his final words, bitterly triumphant, over Mankind’s sleeping body: Farewell, everychone, for I have done my game, For I have brought Mankind to mischief and to shame.                   (ll. 605–6)

After that, the demon-king laugh on exit felt right; Titivillus is still the showman. But it also felt to me like the show that has turned sour rather than the laugh of comic horror. Mankind’s first words after Titivillus’s exit are interesting. He leaps out of sleep with the triumphant cry that Mercy is dead. His compassion has gone, his concern is only with bodily satisfaction, his relief that there is no longer any need for control is obvious. There could be no clearer sign of

Titivillus’s success. Mankind only begins to feel the emptiness he has been left with when finally he is alone again with Mercy, a scene which Amanda Price discusses in this journal (pp. 77–83) and Richard Boon in the previous journal (15, pp. 62–72). Emptied of meaning, life is no longer of any worth. Mankind’s despair is completely convincing. To drain his life of significance we had constantly placed Titivillus very close to Mankind, whispering in his ear, replacing the earlier situation when Mercy had been close to him to confirm that significance. Now Mankind has to find his own way back. This was one reason for playing Mercy and Mankind at a distance from each other at the end. Mercy cannot pick him up and embrace him, but merely be available. The parent-child parallel is not irrelevant here. There is a time for embracing and there is a time for keeping one’s distance. Once again natural human behaviour lies behind the abstractions. It is difficult to know how devils on the medieval stage were received. They are in England almost invariably obstreperous; associated with fireworks noise and disorder, they come roaring in demanding space. Titivillus is not like that. Even his opening words are more like Lucifer before his fall, still with his divine power, than the usual ranting devil. What he does after those words is unlike any other medieval English devil, he self-consciously performs not just as showman but as explicator of his own show. I was uncertain about this, not sure how far one should push it. Now it seems to me that it is that unique element in Titivillus that should be the key to performance. Mankind is after all a play about performing, Mischief puts on a nonsensical patter routine for Mercy; the Ns constantly perform, jokes, dances, acrobatic stunts and songs, but not so Mercy and Mankind. They are in a different entertainment, as Nowadays implies when he says to Mercy: This [their fun and games] is not part of thy play.                  (l. 84)

There are, as it were, two different plays intersecting at the moment of performance. Mankind, an inhabitant of both because of his dual nature, owes allegiance to Mercy’s because only then does his life have meaning. But the other world of bodily delight draws him by its superficial glitter. Only Titivillus has the power to trick him across, because only he amongst the representatives of evil is aware of how to use Mankind’s dual nature of body and soul against himself. Titivillus is performing his own play in which he is victor and Mankind the victim. But Mankind is a didactic play so Titivillus not only performs but he also explains what he’s doing; while Mankind the character is tricked in his sleep or his absence, mankind the audience is told how the tricks are done. This, however, makes it not Titivillus’s play but Mercy’s since the simplicity of sin is being revealed to the audience in all its imminent danger. But Titivillus never knows this, because confident of his success he has already left. By playing him as the complete showman some small part of this might become apparent, at least this blindness born of his own misplaced self-confidence. But the complexities of playing Mankind begin to seem not just like Chinese boxes, but Chinese boxes with reflecting sides. I’m happy about our method of bringing Titivillus on but as for the appropriate way of playing him, I’m still working on it. Thanks to Amanda’s direction and the whole cast’s dedicated involvement, at least I have a clearer idea of the theatrical potential.

16

PERFORMANCE, VERSE, AND OCCASION IN THE N-TOWN MARY PLAY With a few notable exceptions – Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain poet, the lyrics – there seems to be a reluctance to engage in the literary discussion of medieval verse; as though we are afraid that the veil of acceptability is so fragile that to probe it will be to destroy it and reveal the dismal truth underneath that medieval verse is by and large incompetent and dull. Or the reluctance may be a reaction to the fact that something written in verse in the Middle Ages is just a chance result of existing in a period when verse rather than prose was the literary norm, with the consequence that since everything had to be forced into the same mould, it is hardly a subject for discussion. Or it could be an understandable uneasiness about judging something which has its own temporal and social context, one which is very different from our own. This last is particularly relevant to the drama, where the context is so much a part of the text that our ignorance seems at first sight to make it impossible satisfactorily to judge the skill and impact of the verse. In many cases it is true we know very little about the context. We often do not know when or where a play was performed, whether it was indoors or out, summer or winter, tied to a liturgical or a festive season; we do not know under whose auspices it was performed, religious or secular, learned or lay, village or town, guild or parish, noble or gentry or what. We do not know who performed it or how it was staged, nor do we know what was seen to be an appropriate acting style, in speaking, in gesture, in movement. When we do know some of these, as, for example, with the Mercers’ pageant at York or the Painters’ at Chester, our understanding is increased a hundredfold, but at the same time information in a few cases increases our awareness of how necessary the detailed context is in every case for talking effectively about the dramatic skill of the writing. However, plays, in the old commonplace, cannot exist on the page alone. If the context does not exist, the only way to lift the play off the page may be the text itself. I am not here primarily concerned with the overall staging of plays but rather with attempting to understand the effectiveness of the words in their context of speeches, and speeches in their context of the whole play. And if the words are to be at the centre of the discussion one key element of the context is the actor. The words exist only as he1 speaks them. What do we know about the relation between the actor and his role? Rather than reiterate the statements of our ignorance let me cling, as others have done before me,2 to the three elements that York was looking for in its actors in 1476, ‘connyng’, ‘personne’ and ‘voice’, and give

them my own gloss. ‘Connyng’ is ability or knowledge, in this context presumably ‘theatrical know-how’, which could include the ability to interpret a role, to read and understand a speech, to turn words on a page into speeches on a stage. ‘Personne’ is physical appearance, including here perhaps theatrical presence, appearance appropriate to a part, good-looks, even. Finally ‘voice’ is presumably the ability to make oneself heard in outdoor (or indoor) performance, to speak clearly (with ‘non oblocucyon’ as the Mary Play puts it, line 5),3 and perhaps to speak appropriately to one’s role. There is an interesting quotation in the MED under persoun(e n. (1), 2, from the Middle English translation of Christine de Pisan’s Livre du corps de policie:4 Euery man that herde him did blisse theimselfe for the grete mervayle that they sawe in his retentyfe witte and also of his fayir rethoryke forthe with his fayir facounde and mevyng of his persone so well accordyng to his fayre langage.

This links, in the traditional rhetorical way, memory (‘retentyfe witte’), eloquence (‘facounde’), and gesture (‘mevyng of his persone’) matching the spoken words (‘accordyng to his fayre langage’). There is no reason why these elements should not also lie behind the York requirements. We should perhaps add ‘ability to memorise’ to the definition of ‘connyng’, ‘appropriate gesture’ to ‘personne’, and ‘eloquence’ to ‘voice’. Having set off down this primrose path of speculation let me continue a step further. If I were briefly and very basically to set out my own approach to a role it would be directed first to understanding the words and secondly to speaking them. Their lexical meaning obviously comes first but then, a gradual process, their meaning in the context of the speech, the character, the play and the occasion of the performance. In speaking the words the key is appropriateness, to the mode of performance, to the character, to the occasion (both that within the play and that of the performance) and to the speech. Any speech will have its own clues and directives for performing built into it, which should guide the actor. In a well-written speech the clues and directives will consistently point in a certain number of possible directions. It is the business of the actor to make sense of one of those directions and embody it in his performance of the speech. It is impossible to tell whether this would be a medieval performer’s approach but it seems to me to fit with some of the possible interpretations of ‘connyng’, ‘personne’ and ‘voice’. A brief example, will, I hope, to some extent demonstrate the process. Within the Towneley Cycle there is no immediate context for the first meeting of Herod and his messenger beyond the Magnus Herodes pageant (by the Wakefield Master) in which they appear.5 What can the pageant and the speeches tell us about performing this meeting? The pageant is opened by the messenger whose speeches are a mixture of tyrannical rant and obsequious panegyric. He is part sycophant, part pale reflection of his master. His build-up of Herod ends with instruction to the audience of how to greet him: Downe dyng of youre knees All that hym seys.          (88–9)

The word ‘dyng’ might be thought of as a characteristic of the violent in both the Towneley and York cycles, but only in Towneley, and by Herod’s messenger, is it used of kneeling. The comic exaggeration is typical of him. It is part of his fantasy of his master’s power. Needless to

say no-one but he does ‘dyng downe’. His next stanza begins with a sighting of Herod (‘Here he commys now, I cry, / That lord I of spake’, 92–3) and ends with a greeting to Herod (‘Hayll, the worthyest of all! / To the must I bow’, 103–4). In between, the messenger describes what he is doing or about to do in a series of short bursts: ‘Fast afore wyll I hy, / Radly on a rake’ (94–5); ‘And welcom hym worshipfully, / Laghyng with lake, / As he is most worthy’ (96–8); ‘And knele for his sake / So low’ (99–100); ‘Downe deruly to fall, / As renk most ryall’ (101– 2). Is he hurrying to place himself in front of Herod, or is he running beside him? His pathetic eagerness in either case is what creates the entertainment. What kind of laughter is this with which he greets Herod? Does he try out his laughter here or delay it till he meets his master? Does he start kneeling as he says it at line 99, and go even lower at 101? Is his bowing at 104 lower still? Can bowing be kneeling? No doubt in the messenger’s exaggerated perception of the respect due to Herod the answer is ‘Yes’. The burst of description, the comic delight, the overdoing of the kneeling – where is he when he finally hails Herod? – and in the next stanza his over-eagerness to prove his faithful service, all provide a verbal medium for the performance of his comic subservience. It is the key words ‘romoure’, ‘boldly’, ‘kyng’ (111–14) that finally stop Herod in his tracks. ‘Romoure’ is the bane of the suspicious, ‘boldness’ is allowed to none of his subjects, and the idea of ‘kyng’ being applied to any but himself is clearly intolerable. Is it at this moment that he registers the existence of the messenger, stiffening at ‘Thay carp of a kyng’ (114) and at last speaking, in a threatening undertone to create the contrast with the imminent first outburst of Herod in full throat: Bot I shall tame thare talkyng And lat thame go hang thame. Stynt, brodels, youre dyn –         (116–18)

It is no chance that the first words Herod speaks are part of the messenger’s stanza, rounding off his rhyme scheme; something which is audible to the audience. These words allow Herod to take over from the messenger, to continue low key, to lull the audience momentarily, to build up to his attack. In the speech that follows (118–93), one skilful device of the playwright is to pepper Herod’s first two stanzas with opportunities for him to respond to apparent reactions of the audience (‘Yei, perde!’, 126, ‘Speke not’, 137, ‘Styr not’, 141) and, often at the same moment, to turn on individuals in the audience as if they had moved or spoken (‘Yei, everychon!’, 119, ‘Speke not’, ‘Styr not’, as above). It is not simply unbroken rant, but a pattern of build-up broken by an abrupt turn to address an individual in the audience. It is a pattern similar to that of the music-hall comedian who breaks off his story or his gag to single out a late-comer or fabricate a misdemeanor. It creates for the audience the pleasure of variety and of enjoying the discomfort of others. Besides this there must surely be also the ‘mevyng of his persone so wel accordyng to his … langage’, in this case a physical demonstration of his words, at ‘breke ilka bone’ / ‘pull fro the skyn / The carcas anone’ (123–5), ‘ryfe you in sonder’ (129), ‘brane hym thrugh the hede!’ (136), ‘clefe / You small as flesh to pott’ (142–3). At first sight this looks like run-of-the-mill verse, but it skillfully incorporates a whole series of theatrical devices for the successful playing of a key moment, the explosive first appearance of Herod.

Gesture, movement and mode of delivery spring from the interpretation of character and text. But they also arise out of or at least interact with the occasion. As far as one can tell plays in England until late in the fifteenth century were occasional plays, written and performed to celebrate specific occasions or to further specific purposes (such as fund-raising). They are not plays performed because there is a group of performers whose livelihood depends upon performing. The occasion is often a particular calendar festivity, Candlemas or Shrove Tuesday or Midsummer Day, for example, with a significance for the whole community, though it should be said that the significance may often have had more to do with holiday than with holy day. For it to work, the celebration of a community occasion should appeal broadly, or at least contain elements with a broad appeal. I have tried to look at a section of a pageant only from the point of view of what the text suggests in order to see how well the verse serves its purpose, but it is impossible not to see the speech in some kind of theatrical and social space, to see it in fact as part of a community event performed in the street. There is a strong element of showmanship in Herod’s language. It would be difficult to play him low-key without contradicting the text. Showmanship is appropriate to street theatre. Herod and to a lesser extent his messenger are extravagant figures whose extravagance inevitably has strong elements of comedy. Again the recipe is one appropriate to the large-scale community occasion. That the comic extravagance of Herod’s self-assertion also tells us something about the emptiness of worldly power when contrasted with the spiritual power of Christ, ‘that lad’ (153), ‘that boy’ (164), ‘a carll in a kafe’ (352), is a sign that the Wakefield Master is not simply entertaining the crowds. My realization of this short section depends upon an amalgam of perceptions about mystery-play performance drawn from experience of varying kinds, practical and theoretical. Nevertheless it does seem to me that the particular mode of performance that I have suggested works with the text and not against it. And that one can say something about the theatrical effectiveness of the verse-writing and something about the nature of the occasion. Another play without theatrical or social context and without indication of specific place or calendar time is the Mary Play. Can one use a similar approach to uncover the skill of the verse writing through its appropriateness to performance and discover something of the nature of the occasion? It is necessary to look at the verse in the context created by the play’s structure and intellectual framework. It has often been said that the play has a strongly devotional tone, but it is devotion of a particular kind. Its aim is certainly to excite an emotional and spiritual response but inasmuch as it is also informing intellectually it fits very well with what Nicholas Watson has called ‘vernacular theology’.6 The key to the play’s intellectual framework is the opening statement of Contemplacio’s final speech: Lystenyth, sovereynys, here is a conclusyon: How þe Aue was mad, here is lernyd vs.               (1561–2)7

He then goes on to analyze verbally the way the Ave Maria has been created. It seems to me, however, that the phrase ‘How þe Aue was mad’, not only describes his analysis here but also describes the basic framework of the whole play, since it can be seen as an extended exposition of the Ave. It is as though the play were created from a series of questions reaching

out into the history, context and meaning of the prayer. Who was Mary? Who were her parents? What was she like as a person? What had her life been before the moment of the Annunciation? And so on. The play gives Mary’s history, thus providing a human context for the prayer, but it also deals with the significance of the Annunciation and the reasons why it happened, and consequently provides a theological context as well. How the playwright creates the human context is fairly straightforward. He tells the story of Mary’s early life: her conception, her reception in the temple, her marriage, her salutation by the angel and her visit to her cousin, Elizabeth, laying stress on the emotional relationships between the different members of the human society. The creation of the theological context is more complex. It does not suddenly appear with Contemplacio’s supplication to God for the salvation of man at line 1060, but is woven into the fabric of the play from the beginning. God’s relenting is stated first at 1114, ‘Tyme is come of reconsyliacyon’, but the way human character and behaviour are presented throughout the play creates a world in which that relenting is understandable. There is no ill-will, no evil, no boisterousness even. Joseph, in those parts which are provably Mary Play,8 is a dignified figure, often channeling the wonder and power of Mary’s goodness. The rejection of Joachim from the temple in the first episode of the play is a sign of the justice of the Old Law, but the high priest, Ysakar, is not a vindictive representative of a hypocritical power soon to be superseded, but one concerned with the seriousness of the position he holds and with maintaining its dignity (26–9, 40–1). Nor is he comic. When Joachim goes back to the temple with Anne to present Mary as one of the maidens in the temple Ysakar welcomes his return: Joachym, I have good mende how I ȝow revyled; I am ryght joyful þat God hath ȝove ȝow þis grace To be amonge fruteful.                  (307–9)

His words to Mary likewise are those of a staid but loving adult: Come, gode Mary! Come, babe, I þe call! Þi pas pratyly to þis plas pretende.                  (347–8)

The presentation of the figures of the Old Law is a benevolent one. It is Ysakar who, after Contemplacio’s welcome to the audience, opens the play. His voice is the first to be heard. Or rather the blended voice of Bible and liturgy is heard through his voice, since for the learned his words are those of Leviticus, or perhaps more immediately the mass for Corpus Christi Day (where an adaptation of Leviticus is quoted).9 Not only is this a world of good will, it is also, through hints and suggestions, a proto-Christian world. The ‘tribes’ are about to celebrate the most important of their feast days, Festum Encenniorum, the ‘newe fest’. No comment is made here on the phrase ‘newe fest’ nor is the Festum Encenniorum said elsewhere to be more important than the other annual feasts, but the way it is treated hints at change and renewal and its relevance to this moment. What is more, the title which Ysakar gives to the priesthood is regal sacerdocium, a ‘kingly priesthood’, on the surface a perfectly appropriate title but one used in the Legenda Aurea of Christ and hence Christians, and derived from 1 Peter 2.9 where it again refers to ordinary Christians.10 For the learned the hints of change are

already there. These are further consolidated by the liturgical celebrations, especially the singing of the sequence Benedicta sit beata Trinitas and the section of the service sung after Joachim’s rejection, ending with Ysakar’s blessing: Benedicat vos diuina maiestas et vna deitas + Pater + et Filius + et Spiritus Sanctus.                  (114–15)

This could seem like simple confusion, a lack of care to distinguish a Jewish past. Or it could stem from the idea still popular in some people’s minds of medievalizing or localizing that past. The sophistication of the underlying thought in the play as a whole would suggest that this is not the whole truth. The theological context is complicated more when Joachim returns with Anne and Mary to the temple. Up to this point the temple has been a sign of justice, which can seem harsh, the home of a dignified and high-minded priesthood, and of music. Because the only other source of music has been heaven, and because in both the music is of the Christian liturgy, there is a sense of a relationship between the two. And that relationship is about to become closer. When Ysakar welcomes Mary to the temple he says: Þu xalt be þe dowtere of God eternall If þe fyftene grees þu may ascende. It is meracle if þu do. Now God þe dyffende! From Babylony to hevynly Jherusalem þis is þe way Every man þat thynk his lyff to amende, Þe fyftene psalmys in memorye of þis mayde say.                  (349–54)

There are a number of points to consider here. The first is the significance of referring to climbing the steps as a journey from ‘Babylony’ to ‘hevynly Jherusalem’. The second is whether the audience can respond to the simple action of climbing the steps as a miracle. And the third is what the effect is of the overt instruction of the audience in the last two lines. They are in fact all related. Mary has already shown through her words to her parents as she takes leave that she is aware of the transformation that is to take place: I haue a Fadyr in hefne, þis I beleve; Now, good fadyr, with þat Fadyr ȝe me blysse.                  (321–2)

Becoming the ‘dowtere of God eternall’ (349) involves the leaving of this world and its associations. The crossing of the threshold between the two worlds, of ‘Babylony’ and ‘hevynly Jherusalem’, is represented by the ceremonial speaking (and, it seems likely, singing) of the fifteen Gradual Psalms.11 In other words not only do the steps show the child climbing to the temple, they are transformed by the incantation of the words (and music) into the way from earth to heaven. The slow upward movement, the pauses at each step to speak, the words (and the music) create a sense of something beyond the human. This is not to deny the pathos of the moment as the human child slowly leaves her familiar world or the precariousness of the climbing, but these are merely elements in the overall effect, not the dominant ones. Mary,

through her speaking of the complicated verses, appears too capable for pathos to hang around her for long. Or it might be truer to say that her humanity becomes absorbed through her words into the transcendental. It is perhaps fair to ask at this point whether the verse can carry this complexity of significance. It is a combination of direct explanatory statement, for example: The thrydde is gladnes in mende in hope to be, That we xall be savyd all thus;                 (367–8)

Latin liturgical text: Letatus sum in hijs que dicta sunt mihi; in domum domini ibimus;                 (371–2)

and translation of this text: I am glad of these tydyngys ben seyd to me, Now xal we go into Goddys hous.                 (369–70)

To my mind the very awkwardness of the language common in Middle English translations, and here extended to the initial comment, lifts it out of the ordinary. It must, however, be considered within the context of the formal movement up the steps, the formal numbered repetition, and the child who speaks it. The oddness of the language combines with the childishness of the speaker to become in repetition haunting in its simplicity: The fyftene is gracyous with on acorde, Which is syne of godly love, semyth me: Se now, blysse oure Lord, All þat oure Lordys servauntys be.                  (439–42)

When Mary reaches the top she is oddly still in the human world because the words of the high-priest are still of that world, the marvel is still a human marvel: A babe of thre ȝer age so ȝynge To come vp þese grecys so vpryght.                  (447–8)

It is Mary’s words that turn the scene to ‘Goddys hous’. She asks to be taught, and the mode of life in God’s house is a teaching one. There is obviously a problem here for a modern audience. Ysakar’s advice may be seen through the distorting lens of Polonius and become comically bumbling, or simply through that of the religious text-book, and become boring. This is counteracted, I think, by the verse. There is a definite change between Ysakar praising Mary’s climbing the steps at 445–50 and Ysakar’s teaching at 453–68: Ȝe muste love God sovereynly and our evyn crystyn pleyn; God fyrst for his hyȝ and sovereyn dygnyte; He lovyd ȝow fyrst, love hym ageyn, For of love to hys owyn lyknes he made the.                       (457–60)

The last two lines in particular combine a simplicity of language, a neat rhetorical pattern through the repetition of ‘love’, and a complexity of meaning: ‘Love him because it was out of love that he created you in his own image.’ A passage of more overt but no less effective rhetoric follows, expanding on the word ‘love’ and on the idea of the distinctive threeness of God contained in one whole: Love Fadyr, Sone and Holy Gost: Love God þe Fadyr, for he gevyth myght; Love God þe Son, for he gevyth wysdam, þu wost; Love God þe Holy Gost, for he gevyth love and lyght. Thre personys and on God þus love of ryght, With all þin hert, with all þi sowle, with all þi mende And with all þe strenghthis in þe bedyght; Þan love þin evyn crystyn as þiself withowtyn ende.                       (461–8)

The patterning of the language, then, begins the creation of the world of the ‘hevynly Jherusalem’, but it is not completely heaven, it is a world of transcendental teaching in which the meaning creates the importance but the pattern creates the beauty – not only in the organization of the language, the rhetorical patterning, but also in the organization of the ideas; or rather the one reflects the other. The threefold difference within similarity existing in God, which is expanded on in Ysakar’s words, is picked up again in the threefold farewell of Joachim, Anne and Mary (my italics): Joachym Dowtere, þe Fadere of oure feyth þe mot defende, As he of his myght made all thynge of nowth! Anne

Mary, to þi sowle solas he sende In whos wysdam all þis werd was wrought! …

Mary

Be þe Holy Ghost at hom be ȝe brought! (503–6, 509)

Ysakar balances love and hate (469–70), Mary makes seven petitions (513–25), the angel creates an acrostic on Mary’s name (545–52). Patterns are also visualized in the abstract figures of the five maidens and the seven priests. The first are not the bickering virgins in the temple of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew12 but virtues specific to the place and to the person of Mary: Meditation, Contrition, Compassion, Cleanness and, singled out, that ‘holy mayde’ Fruition, not human fruition yet, though that is perhaps a latent meaning, but ‘spiritual enjoyment’ or ‘a partaking of things spiritual’ – in its ultimate form the fruitio Dei, ‘enjoyment of God’. Being in a play these maidens are visible beings not simply allegorical names, and likewise the seven priests are at the same time abstract and real presences: Discretion, Devotion, Dilection (love), Deliberation, Declaration, Determination (logical thought), Divination (spiritual foresight).13 The temple, on the border between earth and heaven, is the ideal meeting place of human and spiritual. The angels can perform human acts like feeding Mary with ‘confeccyons’ (though one has to bear in mind that these are ‘aungelys mete’)14 and bringing her presents, but can also, in her praise, weave acrostics around her name, each letter

extended alliteratively through the line: In ȝour name, Maria, fyve letterys we han: M – mayde most mercyfull, and mekest in mende; A – auerte of þe anguysch þat Adam began; R – regina of regyon, reyneng withowtyn ende; I – innocent be influens of Jessés kende; A – aduocat most autentyk, ȝour antecer, Anna. Hefne and helle here kneys down bende Whan þis holy name of ȝow is seyd: Maria. (545–52)

In this world patterns predominate, of teaching, experience, rhetoric, numbers, names, letters. One father becomes another, one food is another. It is Mary’s, and the audience’s, moment of learning as ‘a spiritual sense perception’.15 Ysakar’s abrupt and bold direction to the audience at the beginning of the episode: Every man þat thynk his lyff to amende, Þe fyftene psalmys in memorye of þis mayde say                  (353–4)

is an invitation to become part of this spiritual world. The next episode, Mary’s marriage to Joseph, which also takes place in the temple, presents a problem. Instead of text that we can call the Mary Play we have a mixture of play and pageant. Signs of the play’s distinctive approach to the human world and the world of the temple come through, but for the purposes of investigating the theological framework of the play it is more satisfactory to move on to the next episode, the ‘Parlement of Hefne’ (590). Because this has been so anthologized and separately performed it is difficult to see it as simply an episode of the Mary Play. But that is what it is, though the culminating one. After the episode of Mary’s marriage, the temple disappears and its place is taken by heaven. The temple has made its final transformation. It is no longer an earthly place filled with abstractions and spiritual teaching, it is now the place where abstractions are reality and teaching is experience. It is also the place where ultimate decisions are made. At the theological centre of the play are the questions: should man be saved? and if so, how? And it is in this episode that the questions are raised, discussed and solved. The theological debate as to whether man shall be saved is a discussion between the four daughters of God; and the three persons of the Trinity determine, through their own natures, the part each will play in the plan of salvation. There is here an interesting development of the allegorical figures. The five maidens and the seven priests are dumb, present physically but only labelled not realized. The four daughters of God speak and respond to each other. They speak as their characters, Veritas, Misericordia, Justicia and Pax, but by engaging in genuine argument and at the same time speaking in the words of the Bible, they are more than mere personifications and also more than ordinary human sisters. The abstractions are reality. God the Father begins this series of quotations, not proving by the authority of the Bible but self-referentially reminding others of his own words spoken through the Psalmist. His daughters weave their arguments around the words of the Bible, partly using them as evidence by quoting God’s words, partly speaking them as their own words – which is appropriate since they are aspects of God and his words are their

words. There is no sermon like Latin quotation and English translation here, instead the words are absorbed into the speeches. This web of concealed quotation, almost a florilegium of reference to truth, mercy, justice and peace, has at least two effects. It creates a set of intertextual reference points for the learned in the audience and it gives the arguments a series of, apparently conflicting, nodal points. God’s truth and justice will last forever, but so will his mercy; God loves truth and justice but mercy is above everything. The characters of the daughters are also expressed through their words. Truth abruptly, selfassertively, begins: Lord, I am þi dowtere, Trewth, Þu wylt se I be not lore                  (1119–20)

whereas Mercy begins with supplication: O, Fadyr of mercy and God of comforte, Þat counsell us in eche trybulacyon, Lete ȝour dowtere, Mercy, to ȝow resorte.                  (1135–7)

Justice does not even address God but responds immediately to Mercy. Only Mercy and Peace address their sisters as ‘systyr’/ ‘systerys’, and Peace, unlike Mercy, appropriately maintains a distance from the debate. The speeches are not without rhetorical patterning, fitting the courtlike nature of the occasion: Mercy’s neat solution, ‘Endles synne God endles may restore’ (1168), and in the same speech a longer back-to-back balance of ‘Þow he forsook God be synne, by feyth he forsook hym neverþemore’ (1170). Verbal patterning is there too in the playing on the names of the four daughters, and Filius crowns this with his self-quotation which obliquely refers to the power of peace and confirms Peace’s last words: Pax

Here is God now, here is vnyté; Hefne and erth is plesyd with Pes.

Filius

I thynke þe thoughtys of pes and nowth of wykkydnes.

                 (1197–9)

The familiar pattern of the attributes of the persons of the Trinity returns in their final discussion of man’s salvation and, like the names of the daughters, is woven into their speeches: Pater

In ȝour wysdam, Son, man was mad thore, And in wysdam was his temptacyon; Þerfor, Sone, Sapyens, ȝe must ordeyn herefore And se how of man may be salvacyon …

Filius

And syth in my wysdam he began, I am redy to do þis dede.

                 (1235–8, 1241–2)

The Parliament of Heaven acts as a spiritual prologue to the scene which follows, the Annunciation. It is at the centre of the explanation of the Ave since it demonstrates clearly why it happened and what its significance was. It is also the theatrical centre of the play’s spectacle since the successive transformations of the temple have led to the splendour of heaven which after this gives way to the solitary human splendour of Mary. The use of quotation becomes a dominant feature of the Annunciation scene, or, perhaps, because of its extent, it would be more accurate to call it translation. Beginning with the Father’s words at 1251 the play moves forward in a series of ‘farsed’ translations from the gospel of Luke. Pater’s speech resembles the Gradual Psalms (and later in the play the Magnificat) in being translated word by word and therefore, perhaps, by its awkwardness drawing attention to the fact that it is translation. Gabriel’s speech, on the other hand, weaves a translation of the Ave into a series of celebratory rhetorical glosses, while Mary’s first speech transforms the Latin text not into celebratory rhetoric but into naturalistic expression of very human reaction. Its first part translates Quae cum audisset turbata est in sermone eius et cogitabat qualis esset ista salutatio (Luke 1.29) thus: A, mercy, God! Þis is a mervelyous herynge! In þe aungelys wordys I am trobelyd her; I thynk how may be þis gretynge.               (1292–4)

Inasmuch as turning third person into first is involved, some may consider this to be adaptation rather than translation, but whatever term is used what must be recognized is the closeness on occasion of Latin and English, for example how in 1294 the Latin source (cogitabat qualis esset ista salutatio) affects the order of the English: ‘I thynk how may be þis gretynge’. And yet despite this the effect is, it seems to me, colloquial. This is even more marked when the gospel is temporarily left for Mary’s further comments. Her thinking is apparent in what she says, the sudden move from topic to topic, and her words have just the half sentence structures of agitated thought: And also thus hyȝly to comendyd be And am most vnwurthy –

Finishing with a breaking off in confusion – I cannot answere; Grett shamfastnes and grett dred is in me.                  (1297–9)

She has to end on something like this because Gabriel’s next words (1300) are ‘Mary, in þis take ȝe no drede’ (Ne timeas Maria), but nevertheless the playwright takes care to make her reaction and the transition to Gabriel’s words thoroughly natural. I have tried to suggest in this series of snapshots of the Mary Play how varied the verse is and how skillfully the playwright adjusts its style to draw out character, to match situation and to enhance meaning. Despite its variety, however, the verse of the play seems to me always to retain a particular quality. It never loses a prose-like freedom of expression. The verse is never dominated by its metrical rhythm or the insistence of its rhyme scheme. In this it is

strikingly different from most of the verse in the mystery cycles. Let me take two examples: first, Joseph’s speech of reluctance at hearing the summons to appear in the temple, and the speech of the first of David’s kin in the same episode but deriving from the pageant material and not originally part of the play: Joseph What oure prince of prestys doth men, Þat every man xuld come and brynge with hym a whande. Abyl to be maryed þat is not I, so mote I then; I haue be maydon evyr, and evyrmore wele ben.                       (748–52) Primus generacionis David To wurchep my lord God, hedyr am I come, Here for to offyr my dewe offrynge. A fayr white ȝarde in hand haue I nome, My lord sere busshop, at ȝour byddynge.                       (776–9)

The verse in the latter passage is impossible to escape since the words seem to have been organized for rhythm at least as much as meaning. In Joseph’s speech there is an underlying iambic pattern in the first three lines, though they vary in length, but the fourth line moves into a purely speech rhythm, ending in a throw-away asseveration, and the fifth has its own rhetorical pattern. The form which the verse takes may simply reflect the capability or the inclination of the playwright, but whether that is the case or not it provides an excellent medium for what he seems to be attempting. It allows him freedom to develop rhetorical patterns, to make use of fairly close translation and to create not only natural speech but a sense of natural mental activity behind it. Let me give a second example. Joachim’s prayer to God after his rejection in the temple and his meeting with the shepherds explores the chaotic state of his mind (149–64). He moves on from one idea to another, sometimes expressing the development of the idea backwards as a way of explaining it to himself. For example, he begins with a series of contrasts between himself and God, stressing his own absolute worthlessness, and ending with: What art þu, Lord? What am I, wrecche, werse þan an hownde?                         (152)

This rhetorical expression of worthlessness is then seen to be slightly at odds with his underlying feeling: Þu hast sent me shame, which myn hert doth wounde.                         (153)

This sounds rather like a complaint, and if he believes in his own worthlessness then this personal reaction is unimportant. He recognizes this at once with: I thank þe more herefore þan for all my prosperité                         (154)

following which he immediately explains this reaction:

Þis is a tokyn þu lovyst me, now to þe I am bounde                         (155)

and then explains that in turn: Þu seyst þu art with hem þat in tribulacyon be.                         (156)

The next stanza begins with a final reassurance apparently concluding the argument: And hoso haue þe, he nedyth not care thanne                         (157)

only to go off immediately on another trail of guilt-ridden examination: My sorwe is feryng I haue do sum offens.                         (158)

The verse form is hardly observable here for the reason, it seems to me, that it would be distracting. This kind of intense speech implies an audience concerned generally with the human problem, but, more importantly, ready to respond to what might seem excessive selfquestioning, ready to sympathize with an extreme reaction to exclusion from a society. It is dangerous to extrapolate an audience from the content and form of a play but where the Towneley Herod and his messenger fit perfectly into the world of the broader community and the street, the Mary Play seems much more to imply the intimacy of a select group with a common purpose. It says something too about the acting style. ‘Connyng’, ‘personne’ and ‘voice’ are still crucial elements but the broad, self-assertive style of a Herod is clearly not called for. Two swallows don’t make a summer and two examples can hardly be expected to convince, but this verse form based on natural speech patterns and rhythms and on rhetorical structures is what characterizes the poetry of the Mary Play. Has this something to do with its purpose and possibly the occasion of its performance? As I have said, the occasion is unknown but from the play itself it may be possible to go some way towards confirming a possibility. If looked at as a whole the kind of experience that the play provides is devotional, in the sense that it uses liturgical material, that it teaches devotion and that it demonstrates devotion. What is more it delights in devotion. When Mary says of the Magnificat: In hefne it is wretyn with aungellys hond; Evyr to be songe and also to be seyn, Euery day amonge us at oure evesong              (1539–41)

she (or the playwright) presumably expects to produce a surge of excited agreement. Just as when she earlier speaks movingly of the psalms ‘swetter to say than any ony’ (1019), she is appealing to a familiar pious practice. Similarly the playwright does not allow Ysakar simply to teach Mary in the temple, as we have seen, but reserves his more effective rhetoric for his speeches. When Gabriel greets Mary with Ave the moment is held by a series of interweaving rhetorical glosses on the greeting. Devotion is not merely in the play but is celebrated by it. Equally the play celebrates the warmth of friendship between family and friends, children and

parents, and the pain of rejection: Ecce quam bonum et quam jocundum; habitare fratres in vnum              (437–8)

as one of the Gradual Psalms says. Threading through the play, too, are interconnections waiting to be picked up, centring on number, threes and fives and sevens. And finally there is teaching: the duties of a Christian or a curate, possible devotions, exemplary behaviour, meanings of names, and finally the structure of the Ave. At the centre of the play is the richest teaching of all about the salvation of man, and, as with devotion, it is not mere statement but, through staging and language, celebration. It has been suggested before that the play was written for a guild or fraternity or for a parish.16 Any of these seems to me potentially to have exactly the right kind of interests and more importantly to possess the readiness to respond to what is offered. What better celebration for a guild of the Presentation of Mary than to see her climbing the fifteen steps of the temple, or for a guild of the Annunciation than to experience emotionally Mary’s reception of Christ (1356–72)? And who else would be expected to respond so warmly to talk of the Magnificat or to the reciting of the Gradual Psalms? The play seems ideally suited to lay piety and to hold at its centre something appropriate to it in all its forms, the Ave. What better for all devout laymen and women than to witness a performance which imbues the mumbled prayer with life, meaning, colour and excitement? The late fifteenth-century Dutch painting of Maria in sole, Mary as the Woman of the Apocalypse enthroned in the sun, shows Mary surrounded by three concentric rings of angels.17 On her head she wears a rose garland and a crown, and above her in the middle ring, four angels hold three scrolls reading Sanctus. Around and beneath her, angels hold the instruments of the passion. Between the four at the top and those below, on either side of her, is an angel holding a string of red beads. This picture seems to express in a different yet equally striking way the growth of the devotion to the Ave. The beads have become, it seems, as significant as the instruments of the Passion in the way to salvation. They are also artistically significant, balancing with the delicate rose garland, the ‘rosarie’ that Mary wears. The Mary Play similarly expresses the significance of the devotion of the Ave but is concerned not just to celebrate it but to explore its story and its meaning with those for whom it is most familiar. This is not the drama of religious entertainment, a term which could be applied to most English mystery cycles and single plays, but uniquely here the drama of devotion.

Notes  1. I use ‘he’ for the actor since in the Middle Ages in England most actors appear to have been male. The main actor in the Mary Play, however, certainly as a young child and possibly as a girl, may well have been female.  2. Most recently Meg Twycross in, The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, ed. by Richard Beadle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 43–4. See also William Tydeman, ‘“Agreable to hys pageaunt”: Some Thoughts on Medieval Acting’, in Peter Meredith, William Tydeman, and Keith Ramsay, Acting Medieval Plays (Lincoln: Honeywood Press, 1985), pp. 38–9. For the York injunction see, York, Records of Early English Drama, ed. by Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Rogerson, 2 vols (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1979), I, p. 109.  3. All references to the Mary Play are to, The Mary Play from the N.Town Manuscript, ed. by Peter Meredith (London and New York: Longman, 1987).

 4. Cf. The Middle English Translation of Christine de Pisan’s Livre du Corps de Policie, ed. by Diane Bornstein, Middle English Texts, 7 (Heidelberg: Winter, 1977), p. 103.  5. All references to the Towneley Cycle are to The Towneley Plays, ed. by Martin Stevens and A. C. Cawley, 2 vols, EETS SS 13, 14 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).  6. Most recently in Nicholas Watson, ‘Censorship and Cultural Change in Late-Medieval England: Vernacular Theology, the Oxford Translation Debate, and Arundel’s Constitutions of 1409’, Speculum, 70 (1995), 822–64.  7. The ‘a’ before ‘conclusyon’ in 1561 was omitted in error in Meredith, Mary Play, as was ‘be’ at the end of 442 quoted later in this essay. For the correct readings see, The N-Town Play, ed. by Stephen Spector, 2 vols, EETS SS 11, 12 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1991), I, pp. 137, 88.  8. The question of what is and what is not a part of the Mary Play is presented in my edition and explored most fully in Peter Meredith, ‘Manuscript, Scribe and Performance: Further Looks at the N.Town Manuscript’, in, Regionalism in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts, ed. by Felicity Riddy (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1991), pp. 109–25 (pp. 114–19). See also Alan J. Fletcher, ‘The N-Town Plays’, in Beadle, Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, pp. 163–88 (pp. 167–70).  9. Leviticus 21.6. The adaptation occurs in the Offertorium: see, Missale ad Usum … Sarum, ed, by Francis Henry Dickinson (Burntisland: E prelo de Pitsligo, 1861–83), cols 458–9. 10. Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea, ed. by Theodor Graesse, 3rd ed. (Breslau: Koebner, 1890), p. 587. 11. Since the singing of the Gradual Psalms remains only a possibility I have put further references to it in brackets. It was used most convincingly in John McKinnell’s production of the Mary Play in Durham in 1995. 12. See, Apocryphal Gospels, Acts and Revelations, trans. by Alexander Walker, Ante-Nicene Library, 16 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1870), pp. 27–8; Evangelia Apocrypha, ed. by Constantinus Tischendorf (Leipzig: Avenarius et Mendelssohn, 1853), p. 68. 13. For the maidens, see Meredith, Mary Play, ll. 481–4, and for the priests, ll. 495–7. 14. Meredith, Mary Play, stage direction after l. 528, and l. 531. 15. The phrase is Wolfgang Riehle’s; see his The Middle English Mystics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), p. 104. 16. I have discussed this in relation to the Commonplace Book of Robert Reynes of Acle, Norfolk, in Mary Play, pp. 10–12. See also Fletcher, ‘The N-Town Plays’, p. 166. 17. Reproduced and discussed in Henk van Os, The Art of Devotion in the Late Middle Ages in Europe, 1300–1500 (London: Merrell Holberton, 1994), plate 44b and pp. 151–6.

17

CARVED AND SPOKEN WORDS: THE ANGELIC SALUTATION, THE MARY PLAY AND SOUTH WALSHAM CHURCH, NORFOLK As things stand at the moment, it is not possible to ‘place’ the N.town plays with any greater precision than ‘East Anglia, most probably Norfolk’.1 The work of A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English2 has placed the scribe in the south of the county in the Thetford area, more precisely somewhere near East Harling.3 Despite the fact that LALME aims not to place a text but the scribe who wrote it, it is inevitable that the placing of the scribe will rub off on the text he has written. There is a general feeling, therefore, that the N.town plays are probably from somewhere in the East Harling/Thetford area. As far as records are concerned, there is no clear evidence from there that would specifically point to the kinds of play represented by the N.town manuscript, but, as with many other small country places, the records are by no means extensive. The now-missing East Harling church-wardens’ accounts refer to ‘an Interlude at the Cherch gate’ in 1452 and to the ‘Games’ from Lopham and Garboldisham in 1457, and from Kenninghall in 1463 and 1467.4 Judging from the use of the word in records from small villages elsewhere in Norfolk, ‘games’ are as likely (if not more likely) to be sports and general entertainments, or even processions, as any kind of formal drama. The ‘Interlude’ could, I suppose, refer to the Mary Play, the Purification or the Assumption but probably not to anything on a larger scale.5 Thetford is at first sight a much more promising place. It was already an ancient town by the fifteenth century. There was a castle (demolished in 1173); there had been an Anglo-Saxon cathedral, and, by the fifteenth century, there were twenty parish churches, and dominating the town was a large and wealthy Cluniac Priory. Fifteenth-and early sixteenth-century evidence for entertainment survives, but unfortunately only from the Priory. There are relevant records from 1496 until 1540, though again there is nothing that looks obviously like any of the N.town plays. But what would the N.town plays look like in a series of priory accounts? There are jucelararis, ‘Menstrelles’ and ‘pleyeres’, Mimis and lusoribus, commanding fees of between xijd (1499/1500) and ixs (1496/7); there are more ‘games’, a ‘gild’, a ‘procession’ and, most promisingly at first sight, a ‘ludus’ – but worth only xijd, and probably never at Thetford anyway.6 As at East Harling, local places appear, but there are others, especially (but not only) the waits, from quite a distance. But even if the scribe of the N.town manuscript was originally from that area, scribes move about, especially when there is a commercial or social reason for doing so, as LALME readily

admits; and, besides, they are not the only kind of evidence. The EDAM series of volumes on the surviving and recorded art of individual cities and counties partly stems from the idea that local connections may exist between the media of art and drama, and that possibilities of this kind are worth investigating.7 The idea of the ‘discourse community’ seems to me to be useful here. I am not using it simply to refer to a language community but to a community created by shared attitudes (whether in opposition, agreement or indifference) and by shared experience, by familiarity with a local landscape (the built environment as well as the natural and agricultural) and with local social conditions. ‘Discourse’ is the right word because it implies communication and reception; that what is spoken, written, carved or painted will be presented and understood in a particular local way.8 A ‘discourse community’ however, is a difficult thing to establish, especially from the distant perspective of the twenty-first century. How do you define its borders? Or what is part of the ‘discourse’? What one person saw at the time, may be what another was blind to; what was of obvious importance to one, insignificant to another. And how do we interpret the evidence? Is the plague inscription in Acle church in Norfolk9 an expression of the deeply felt grief of a community, or is it a sign of the ingenuity and Latinity of the parish priest, or just the opportunity for some moralizing? Would the ‘community’ even have been aware of it, placed as it is on the north wall of the chancel? What we can know is that it existed in Acle in the fifteenth century and that in that same century Acle was in what one scholar believes to have been a region of endemic disease and at times a ‘crisis-mortality zone’.10 Despite the difficulties, it is one such possible discourse community that I want to start piecing together here. It involves the N.town Mary Play, the village of South Walsham, and the nearby small town of Acle. South Walsham (TG 365131)11 might appear at present a little non descript. It has no obvious centre; it lies along what is now a minor road from Norwich to Great Yarmouth, and suffers a bit from it. Almost five kilometres to the south-east is Acle (TG 401102) which suffers more, being drawn and quartered by roads, though the main Norwich-to-Yarmouth road now by-passes the centre. If you went to Norfolk in search of great churches or of Arthur Ransome or simply of peace and quiet, you would probably not stop at either. Also, both lie just outside the tourist orbit of the Broads, even though South Walsham possesses a broad of its own. About two kilometres to the north of Walsham is Ranworth, which in site and broad and church fittings and tourist provision easily outdoes both Acle and South Walsham. Not that either of them is lacking in interest. Acle has a large church, St Edmund’s, a very elaborate fifteenth-century font, a ‘tall and exceptionally good’ screen (as Pevsner says), the alreadymentioned and remarkable Latin plague inscription painted on the north wall of the chancel, and a fifteenth-century porch with donors carved in the left-hand spandrel of the arch.12 Walsham has a pretty painted screen (not Pevsner this time) with an inscription, a fifteenthcentury porch with an Annunciation in the spandrels of the arch and a Coronation of the Virgin in a niche above, and a series of fifteenth-century bench-ends with carved poppyheads. Walsham is also unusual though not unique in possessing two churches in one churchyard, St Mary and the larger St Lawrence. The latter was, however, burnt out in 1927, and only an extended chancel now survives. The nave is a herb garden and the tower a pile of rubble.13 In the fifteenth century, South Walsham and Acle were in the same archdeaconry (Norwich), the same deanery (Blomfield) and the same hundred (Walsham), but the parishes were not

adjacent. Acle was the local market town.14 Both places had religious institutions associated with them: Acle, the Augustinian Priory of Weybridge, and South Walsham, the Benedictine Abbey of St Benet of Hulme. All the evidence suggests that St Benet’s maintained a regular community of a little over twenty monks throughout its existence, but Weybridge Priory apparently never had more than four canons, and latterly only two.15 Weybridge Priory appears to have been just outside Acle, near the bridge over the river Bure on the road to Yarmouth, but as an Augustinian house, and a very small one, it was closely associated with the town. It possessed a guild of St Anne.16 St Benet’s was about three kilometres to the north-east of Walsham, across the river Bure. It owned property in Walsham and held a manor court there, but as a flourishing Benedictine abbey it was largely self-contained, besides which its outside associations were to the north and east rather than to the west and south. Sir John Fastolf, who was a benefactor of the abbey, and his wife, Millicent Scrope, were buried there in the south aisle of the chancel, which he had built as a chapel, probably intending it as the centre-piece of the college which it was his intention to found.17 There was possibly a ferry across the river at St Benet’s, however, linking it with its possessions in Walsham, as there certainly was at a later date. South Walsham lies about fourteen kilometres east of Norwich; between is Mousehold heath, which in the fifteenth century was one of the largest areas of heathland in Norfolk and had a somewhat unsavoury reputation. Acle, of course, was also the home of Robert Reynes. His so-called commonplace book contains the heterogeneous contents of a human life; fortunately a life which touched on literature and drama as well as on business and family affairs, so that not only did he ensure the survival of two excerpts from plays of which we should otherwise know nothing, but he also allows us a view of the activities and beliefs of one member of a fifteenth-century audience or, if that is jumping too much to conclusions, at the very least to glimpse an individual with some known dramatic connections.18 Various attempts have been made to characterize Reynes. Cameron Louis in the introduction to his edition gives the fullest account. He sees Reynes as grammar-or business-school trained,19 a practised scribe if not a fluent Latinist, acting perhaps as reeve for the lord of the manor, the Abbot of Tintern, as well as a church-warden. It is worth saying also that Reynes’s legal documents are full of references to Norwich, and his book includes two routes to Tintern Abbey, via Oxford or via London (with the address of the Abbot of Tintern’s inn in London, as well), perhaps implying that it would be wrong to see him as Acle-bound. Louis is less concerned with Reynes’s devotional side. This is dealt with to some extent by Eamon Duffy, who uses Reynes as his sample lower-end-of-thesocial-scale Christian.20 For Duffy, he is ‘as near as one is likely to get to the typical representative of the class of men who became churchwardens in the parishes of late fifteenthcentury England’, and ‘he was clearly far less sophisticated and far less well educated than either Idley or the compilers of [Cambridge University Library MS Ff.2.38]’ (p. 71). His demonstration of this consists largely in listing the contents of Reynes’s book. But it is important to remember that it is not a commonplace book in the later understanding of the term21 or a book of instruction for others; it is a personal memorandum book – a repository of what he didn’t want forgotten, either because it was interesting or important, or because it might or would come in useful in the future. It is easy to be critical of Reynes for not getting his Latin quite right22 or for jotting down charms instead of prayers,23 but he was as far as we

know doing it for his own benefit or as an aide-memoire for his community. Though revealing, it is not perhaps remarkable that ordinary members of a small-town community in rural Norfolk should have access to such varied resources; officials of religious guilds might well have possessed literature appropriate to their chosen dedicatees, such as a full-scale life of St Anne; manorial men of affairs must have had the means of knowing assizes of bread and ale, the processes involved in swearing allegiance, or legal formularies for such matters as transferring of land. What is remarkable is that it is one man’s range, and that he had either intellectual curiosity enough to want to keep this material himself or social responsibility enough to want to keep it for his community, and the skill and diligence to make a record of it. But it isn’t because of the simple existence of his book that he doesn’t fit my idea of a typical church-warden. How many church-wardens possessed a Cisio-Janus (120)24 or were interested in listing all the archbishoprics of the world (119)? How many made notes about the reredos of the altar of their local shrine (116c), or listed the nine orders of angels (115) or what Louis calls ‘Major Events in the History of the World’ (94)? And interestingly enough his book reflects, both in a general and in a detailed way, theological and devotional matters that also interested the writer and the scribe of the N.town plays (in particular the Mary Play): the lineage of Mary and Anne (46–48), puns on Ave (99), Our Lady’s Psalter (90), the names of the knights who watched the sepulchre (78). The N.town plays are not, like many French plays, monuments of theological learning; they are repositories of history and legend, fun, knowledge of affairs, serious devotion. One might argue that there’s not much fun in Reynes’s book; that may be the nature of memorandum books. There is certainly a bit of everything else. South Walsham can claim no-one to match Reynes, but it can offer something which parallels the kind of devotional world which appears in his book. St Mary’s church contains a very full, possibly complete, set of fifteenth century bench-ends (fig. 1), though they are not in the same decorative class as, for example, those at Wiggenhall St Mary, Salle or Fressingfield, over the border in Suffolk.25 There are two beautifully carved arm-rest figures surviving of the four which once existed (though both are rather damaged), but the main interest of the bench-ends lies in their subject matter not in the beauty of their carving. A number of the poppyheads carry the text of the Ave Maria carved on shields. It is divided up as follows: (1) Ave /Maria (2) gratia / plena (3) dominus / tecum (4) benedic/ta tu (5) in mu/lieribus (fig. 2a) (6) et bene / dictus (fig. 2b) (7) Amen (below which, contained within the shield, is a Maria monogram). Of these, five are undamaged: dominus tecum, in mulieribus, et benedictus, benedicta tu and Amen. Ave Maria is just discernible, and gratia plena somewhat worn. Because both et benedictus and Amen exist there can be little doubt that fructus ventris tui Iesus was also once present.26 The phrase is unlikely to have appeared on one shield. It has twenty-two letters in four words as opposed to the longest phrase contained on a single shield, twelve in two words. Even with abbreviation this is too long, and it is likely that the phrase was divided into fructus ventris and tui Iesus. As it happens, there are two further shields, whose letters have been cut away, which could contain the missing phrases. Some letter shapes are just discernible, and it seems to me that, to say the least, they are not inconsistent with the missing words.27 It is not possible to know for sure what the original layout of the Ave was. The phrases now appear in order (with one exception) down the central nave aisle of the church going from east to west and then back again, west to east, but with varying gaps between them (fig. 3). Ave

Maria is on the easternmost pew on the south side of the nave aisle [C1], and is immediately followed by gratia plena on the next pew to the west [C2]. There is then a gap of one pew between each of the next two phrases, dominus tecum [C4] and benedicta tu [C6]. The next phrase, in mulieribus, is nine pews further on: that is six to the back of the church on the south side and three pews forward again from the back on the north side of the nave aisle [D10]. It is followed by et benedictus two pews further on towards the east [D8]. One of the defaced shields, ?fructus ventris, then follows two pews on again [D6], and Amen four pews on [D2], across the aisle from gratia plena. These phrases, therefore, are in the order of the Ave. If it is part of the group, the exception to the order is the defaced shield on the south side of the north aisle, two pews from the west end [E11]. If it contains the words ?tui Iesus, as I think it does, it is clearly out of order. It is odd that one defaced shield appears to be in the right place and the other not. If the nineteenth-century restorers were aware of the existence of the Ave, as they must have been, it is strange that they didn’t see the significance for the missing phrase of the second defaced shield. Structurally these bench-ends are interchangeable, so there would be no difficulty in bringing the one facing north into a position facing south, even though it would mean turning it 180°. And in fact, by moving this defaced shield from its present position in the north aisle to one in the central nave aisle [D4], opposite dominus tecum, it would be brought back into its ‘correct’ place in the Ave (fig. 4). Assuming the earlier existence of the missing phrases, then, the Ave takes up nine bench-ends. Is it possible that these originally flanked the pews of a chapel of Our Lady or of the Annunciation? The church guide draws attention to the existence of a Lady Chapel in the south aisle; but a position in the south aisle would not accommodate the bench-ends which must face south (see below) since the south ends of the relevant benches are attached to the wall. Given that the church is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, it is entirely appropriate that they should occupy the central position, as to some extent they still do, in the nave of the church. At present there are in all sixty-eight fifteenth-century bench-ends, of which only twenty-one have letter-carving on the poppyheads, so seemingly the difficulties of arranging them in their original order are great. Fortunately, however, one group can be fixed. The bench-ends with arm-rests can face only one way. There are two south-facing ends and two north-facing ones. This suggests that they stood at either end of two pews. Unlike all the others, they have signs of what appear to be grooves cut into them for backs, which would have the effect of joining them in pairs. One of the north-facing ends has the shield with gratia plena on it [C2], one of the south-facing ones, Amen-Maria [D2]. They at present face each other across the central nave aisle, and this could well have been their original position. At the south end of the gratia-plena pew is a shield with an R [B2]; at the north end of the Amen pew is a poppyhead with no further decoration [E2]. The arm-rests have carvings on them but as previously mentioned one has been slightly and one seriously damaged, one has been entirely cut away, and one almost so. The one that survives almost intact is that at the north end of the north pew [E2], otherwise decorated with a simple pop-pyhead. Its subject is a woman kneeling at a prayer-stool with her beads in her hand, while what appears to be another female figure, also kneeling, leans over her right shoulder almost enveloping her (fig. 5a and b). The carving on the arm rest at the south end of the pew (the bench-end with the Amen shield [D2]) has been completely cut away. Opposite it, at the north end of the south pew (the gratia-plena bench-end [C2]), the figure on the arm-rest has been cut away but a prayer

stool survives and on it the hands of the figure (fig. 5c). Sufficient of the knees and feet also survives to show that it was a male figure. The damaged but nearly complete carving, at the south end of the south pew (R benchend [B2]), is of a man kneeling alone apparently at a prayer stool (fig. 5d). Two conclusions can be drawn from this. Given the common division of men from women during medieval church services, it seems more than a possibility that the southern pew was for men and the northern for women; indeed, that the northern side of the church was the women’s side and the southern the men’s.28 More importantly, the presence of this fixed point for the bench-ends with arm-rests, two of which contain Ave-Maria shields, establishes the position of the Ave Maria as a whole in the nave (fig. 4). This positioning perhaps suggests parish devotion rather than a separate guild, since it is clearly central to the arrangement of the whole church. What is not so clear is why the words of the Ave are organized in this particular way. It is possible that they were intended to link the male and female members of the congregation across the aisle, or, perhaps less likely, they were an attempt to link just the central part of the church together in a circuit of belief. Or that the power of devotion was seen as emanating out from the centre like ripples in a stone-disturbed pool, ultimately including those seated in the aisles. Whatever the reason behind it, this layout of pews indicates the prominence being given to a verbal sign of Mary.29 There are bench-ends elsewhere which contain text or are wholly made up of it, but they are not common.30 The only others I know which contain the text of a prayer are again Ave-Maria ones, from Trent in Dorset and almost certainly of the early sixteenth century.31 In this case it is an abbreviated form of the prayer, with the words arbitrarily dismembered, and it is contained in four bench-ends (but duplicated, so that there are two sets): (1) AVE MARIA G-; (2) RATIA PLE (fig. 6); (3) NA doM I-; (4) NUS TECVM AMEN. Perhaps associated with the Ave Maria (and also duplicated) is a bench-end design of monograms of Jesus and Maria, one above the other. The first Ave-Maria set is laid out consecutively on the south side of the nave aisle. It is followed by the second set which goes (out of order) to the west end of the church and comes back down the north side of the aisle but is interrupted by a patterned bench-end and a monogram one. The second set looks like a later close copy. The significance of the sixteenthcentury set is unknown but its form makes it an interesting contrast with the treatment of the Ave at South Walsham. The nave of the church at Trent was extended in the nineteenth century, but even given its smaller dimensions there are not enough Ave-Maria bench-ends to make anything other than a small isolated group. The pews on the south side are divided into two blocks by the entrance passage from the south porch doorway. In the eastern block there are at present five pews. If this had been so in the early sixteenth century, it is possible that the Ave Maria together with the Iesus/Maria monogram bench-ends created a separate ‘guild’ space. The casualness with which the text is treated, however, perhaps tells against this. Whatever the earlier use of these bench-ends, it clearly represents a charming but less sophisticated treatment than that at South Walsham. Verbal signs are, of course, not uncommon in medieval art, nor is simple text. The latter is, in the later Middle Ages in England, taking on a far more central role in decoration. It had for a long time been used in art for labelling (in explanatory scrolls, for example), for key elements of dialogue (like the angelic salutation and Mary’s reply), and in diagrams, but its decorative function had been minimal except in display lettering.32 Even there it is the letters rather than

the text which are central. But in the fifteenth century, text takes on a new importance as a decorative motif, and there is far more of it. Something like the Sherborne Missal33 already represents an enormous increase in the volume of ancillary text; the margins are never silent. Much of this ancillary text in the missal is labelling or information panels, but by no means all. Characters are constantly addressing God in prayer or each other in conversation. Down the left hand border of p. 30, for example, a scroll winds with the words of the angel to Joseph (Matthew 1. 20–21), assuring him of the purity of Mary’s pregnancy: Joseph fili dauid nolite timere accipere Mariam coniugem tuam Quod in ea natum est de spiritu sancto est. It ends in the initial H of the opening of the Mass for Christmas Eve, where the angel leans over Joseph, lying in bed, with the words: Pariet autem filium et vocabis no [men eius Iesum] (Backhouse, p. 10). At the foot of page 581, God and Moses converse over the burning bush, and next to them John the Baptist speaks of and to his lamb (Backhouse, p. 62). The border itself speaks to Christ on behalf of the Centurion (John 4. 48– 49) on page 347: Domine descende priusquam moriatur filius meus (Backhouse, p. 38). This is also the case with many memorial brasses, where text curls from the mouths of those commemorated. In sculpture, something different appears in a work like the roof of the Divinity School at Oxford. There, in the form of rebuses, prayers, mottoes, initials, monograms, and simple statements, text almost dominates the decorative pattern. The middle section of the third (central) bay is, for example, threaded through with words: ‘ladi help’, ‘Jhc mercy’, ‘Jhc [b]e mi [s]ped’, parts of which the north and south sections repeat, also adding further text: ‘Da gloriam deo tuo’, ‘Edwardus rex Quartus’.34 Tiles from the Malvern tilery also speak: in prayer, with the Ave for example, or at greater moral length, taking up a whole tile, in warning of the duplicity of executors.35 The line of letters in Gazeley church, Suffolk, probably serving to commemorate donors and benefactors, is carved in such a way as to create a spectacular decorative frieze along the back of the pew.36 In a century when text becomes a burning issue,37 it also becomes at times a dominant decorative motif. Words carved in wood or stone stand in a curious relationship with everyday use. They are no longer thoughts in the head or transient breaths of air as even the most beautifully spoken words are, but have a material form, a fixed three-dimensional shape and permanence, potentially inert but also potentially inflammatory. Most carved words or letters are proprietorial, informational or commemorative. The carved initials at Walsham are probably one or more of these. But what of the Maria monogram? Is it inert? Has it the lifelessness of over-repeated prayer, or the vigour of the Cloud of Unknowing’s single word cries?38 It looks more like celebration. The questions raise themselves even more clearly in the case of the carved Ave. As has been already suggested, it is unusual to find a text carved sectionally on a series of poppyheads. Is it commemoration or celebration or just fulfilling the practical purpose of marking out the pews of members of a guild; or is it intended to be read? It is unlikely that we shall ever know how the words were perceived, or even whether they were after the first year or so, but it would certainly be wrong to close off the possibilities. It is even possible that the verbal sign becomes visual as it begins and ends at the east end of the nave and consequently circles back on itself, creating something of the effect of a string of beads. Some may have used it in this way. For others the carved words may simply have been a sign of status, for themselves or for the church; for others still, a work of craftsmanship; for some

invisible, for others abomination. In this century, too, the material form of the written word is given complicated theatrical life. With his careful writing of Memento homo quod cinis es et in cinerem reverteris Mankind gives objective reality to his commitment to a particular mode of behaviour.39 But the material text, the folded paper, transforms the appearance of the commitment into a protective charm – the badge he wears on his breast. Memento homo, as formal commitment and as talisman, has physical form; the piece of paper with its ink is an object in its own right carrying both elements. Mankind’s text is a highly emotionally charged one, potentially carrying his hope of salvation. Of a very different kind, Pilate’s simulated writing of his public statement, his ‘tabyl’, in N.town Passion II brings text into theatrical prominence again.40 Mankind’s writing, though it has material form, is private. It is not public utterance like Pilate’s or like the Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards forced on Parliament by being nailed to the doors of Westminster Hall,41 but it is folded and put away. Or rather within the world of the play it is private; but for the audience, it has been made public. And in that way it is more like the public statement of Pilate or the Lollards. Are the kinds of statement that the bench-ends make like any of these? The Divinity School with its ‘text’ bosses, Mankind with his paper, the brasses with their appeals, the Missal with its scrolls, the bench-ends with their prayer, the Lollards with their Ten Conclusions, even Reynes with his book, are all elements in an explosion of text. In this way they are part of a very much larger ‘discourse community’. But what of the smaller one that centres on the Mary Play? Do Reynes’s book, the bench-ends and the Mary Play fit into any kind of common discourse? In a general sense they obviously do, but to make a case for a more limited accessibility there needs to be detailed similarity. There are a number of details which bring Reynes’s book and the N.town Mary Play together, most strikingly those related to the genealogy of Mary. That both should be interested in Mary’s parents and relations is a point of similarity but not an uncommon one. The extended holy family is a common subject of fifteenth-century painting.42 But elements of the N.town genealogies and Reynes’s are surprisingly alike: forms of the less common ‘Nasaphat’ occur as the name of Anne’s mother in both (Reynes: (46) 1.3 ‘Nasabath’; (47) ‘Nazaphat’; (48) 1.4 ‘Nasaphat’; Mary Play, p. 87); both have forms of the tag: Est tuus Anna pater Izakar, Nazaphat tua mater (Reynes) Est Ysakar Anne pater; Melophat sic quoque mater vel Nasaphat (N.town);

both use the name ‘Asmaria’ for Joachim’s mother (Reynes: (48), 1.2; Mary Play, p. 87); for the relations of Elizabeth, both, with minor spelling variations, have: ‘Eliud, Eminen, filia, Beatus Geruasius Episcopus’ (Reynes: (46) margin to 1. 19, (48), 1. 12; Mary Play, p. 87). The last of these is the most interesting in that not only do both have exactly the same names but also they repeat the error ‘Geruasius’ for ‘Servatius’.43 These are small details but coming together with the broader similarities they seem to me to make the beginnings of a case. There is one other most tantalizing piece of evidence from South Walsham church, this time a visual rather than a verbal sign. On the south porch is a representation of the Annunciation. It fills the spandrels of the arch on either side of the doorway (fig. 7a). On the right, as you face

the entrance from the outside, is Gabriel, his right leg bent and his knee braced against the arch, his left leg stretched out straight, the long toe of his sabatoun curled up to fit the acute angle in which he stands. He is in feathered armour and his wings echo the shape of the spandrel. Over his left shoulder he carries a sceptre now largely broken away. His hair sticks out in a typically fifteenth-century angelic way and behind his head is a large halo. In front of the right wing, flung out towards Mary, is the scroll of his greeting. On the left-hand side of the arch Mary kneels at a small prie-dieu from which what remains of the scroll, presumably of her response, rises. Framing her head is a sun-burst halo. Behind her, filling the left-hand side of the spandrel, is a huge lily stem rising from a pot. Her hands were probably originally raised in prayer or response to Gabriel’s message, but they are now broken off. The rest of the space is filled by a great sun-burst, which extends to Mary’s head and shoulder, emanating from two small figures rising out of tiered rings of cloud in the top right corner (fig. 7b). The presence of the two figures, rather than one, turns what is a fairly run-of-the-mill presentation of the scene into something very much more unusual. A number of questions arise from this, but the most important for my purposes is: if the two tiny figures are persons of the Trinity, as I assume they are, where is the third? Annunciations abound with the figure of God the Father in heaven and a ray of light descending from him to Mary. Often these elements are accompanied by a dove or a figure of a small child descending the ray, or both. The presence of God the Father or of the dove does not lead to the expectation of another figure, but the presence of two nearly identical figures, clearly in or from heaven, does. Do the broken hands of the Virgin conceal the fact that there was once a dove there? Was it destroyed in some iconoclastic attack, or is it simply that it was the most vulnerable part? Or if there was never a third ‘person’ visible was that because the child was already in Mary’s womb? If so, how was that indicated? Or is the scroll not Mary’s reply but the continuation and reality of the angelic greeting, the Word? I don’t know of another Annunciation quite like this one, and so can adduce no parallels that might explain it.44 With the third person present, I would be reminded instantly of the Mary Play Annunciation. Gabriel has delivered his message but the persons of the Trinity are the fulfilment of that message, or, perhaps better, are that message. Hence their position between the ‘bemys’. One behind the other, they embody the fact that the incarnation is the work of the whole Trinity: Here þe Holy Gost discendit with thre bemys to Our Lady, the Sone of þe Godhed nest with thre bemys to þe Holy Gost, the Fadyr godly with thre bemys to þe Sone, and so entre all thre to here bosom …                             (Mary Play, 1. 1355sd)

The tiny figures at South Walsham do not descend with three ‘bemys’ one after the other, to each other, and finally to Mary, and for some that will make them too unlike to be worth considering further. But given the space available to the carver, a reasonable attempt is made to suggest the Trinity in the identity of the figures, and its creative power in the traditional shafts of the sun-burst. If only there were a third figure. I can only say that at the moment I have nothing further to offer. I have stared at the original carving and at my own photographs and can think of no obvious solution to the missing person. The only obviously missing parts are Mary’s hands. There is damage to her face, to the prie-dieu, and possibly to the scroll, but no obvious place where another figure could have been. So I am left with the lame conclusion that

here is an unusual iconography of the Annunciation. What would a member of my discourse community have seen? Or in other words, are both play and carving sufficiently unusual and yet sufficiently related to be part of the same way of seeing? A similar question might be asked about the bench-ends. Allowing for the fact that the Ave is one of the commonest forms of devotion, does the unusualness of the bench-ends and the unusualness of an English play centred on the Ave offer any grounds for seeing them as products of the same discourse community? The obvious problem is of knowing how uncommon these two manifestations of interest in the Ave were. So much has been lost that it is impossible to be sure. Nevertheless it is worth bearing in mind that the play is text-oriented;45 most clearly, but not only, in the conclusion spoken by Contemplacio as he works through the Ave Maria, temporal layer by layer: How þe Aue was mad, here is lernyd vs: Ϸe aungel seyd: Ave gracia plena dominus tecum Benedicta tu in mulieribus; Elyzabeth seyd: et benedictus Fructus uentris tui; thus þe Chirch addyd Maria and Jhesus her.                             (Mary Play, ll. 1562–66)

Clearly it cannot be said that the bench-ends are teaching the structure of the Ave, as Contemplacio is, but they are showing the same concern with its text and putting that text at the centre of devotion. Taken with the arm-rest figures, they also appear to be emphasizing the seriousness of prayer; something which the play certainly does address, though it is not its central theme: Ther is not [nothing] may profyte but prayour to ȝour presens With prayorys prostrat byfore þi person I wepe; [Joachim to God] (ll. 161–62) God is plesyd with þin helmes [alms] and hath herd þi prayere [Angel to Joachim] (l. 176) God hath herd þi preyour and þi wepynge [Angel to Anne] (l. 220) For with pray3er [come] grace and mercy [Bishop to Mary] (l. 473) For be prayour grett knowlech men recure; [Minister to bishop] (l. 699) Thy preyer is herd to hyȝ hevyn halle [Angel to bishop] (l. 713)

The overall impression in the action of the play is of God’s readiness to respond to prayer; and in what is said of prayer the overwhelming impression is of its crucial importance: prayer is the prompter of mercy (the emended line 473); prayer produces knowledge in a dilemma (l. 699); God responds only to prayer (l. 166). Prayer is also the saying of the psalms, and Mary lists the varied benefits that come from that (ll. 1010–25). So that though what the play is trying to do above all is to give the Ave emotional depth by reinstating an understanding of the human and divine context of the words (something which does not obviously concern the designers of

the benchends), it has also as a running theme through the first part, the importance and power of prayer generally. This theme culminates at the very centre of the action of the play, the moment of the Annunciation, when it is to prayer that God responds when he first (in terms of human time) contemplates the saving of mankind (ll. 1115–18). Unlike the textual bench-ends or the textually oriented play, this concern with prayer is not unusual, but it does provide a context of similarity for bench-end texts and for play. The Ave of the bench-ends is enclosed by praying figures, as, it might be said, the Ave of the play is. Where does this leave the relationship between play and place? I was first attracted to Acle by the clear similarities that exist, both generally and in detail, between the N.town plays and Reynes’s book, which despite its reaching out to the world beyond Acle remains very much a part of that place. General concerns and detail are most apparent in the sections dealing with the early life of Mary. I was next struck by the unusualness of the Ave-Maria benchends at South Walsham St Mary’s, and by their concern with the significance of the text of the prayer to the exclusion of almost all other decoration. Again there seemed to be here a connection in approach and spirit between play and place. Finally, (admittedly to a mind ready to be convinced) the specific oddness of the Annunciation in the spandrels of the porch arch at St Mary’s, the presence of two heavenly figures approaching Mary at the moment of the angel’s greeting, seemed to spring out of the way of thinking that produced the Mary Play staging of that moment of the Annunciation. And, (it has to be said, to my delighted surprise) Acle was just down the road. None of these similarities is precise, but (perhaps more naturally) all seem to fit together and to expand on and grow out of each other in a way that might be expected in a community. This, of course, leaves out the ultimate question; where were they performed? LALME quite properly restricts its statements about manuscripts to the provenance of scribes. I, in turn, can only say that there seems to me to be a cluster of evidence for a particular way of seeing and thinking about the Ave Maria and the Annunciation in this area. It doesn’t yet place the play(s). I have not found a ‘playing-place’, let alone an author. My ‘fit technique’ is not in any way comparable to that of LALME. But it does seem to me that there is value in investigating (very carefully) apparent discourse communities whose thinking and seeing echo that of a play. To give the last (fanciful) word to Robert Reynes. On the Thursday before Lady Day, 1465, the new Abbot of Tintern made his first official visit to his manor of Acle. The N.town manuscript was certainly written down some time, probably not long, after 1468, and the Mary Play must have existed before then. Reynes records only the court held to affirm allegiances and tenancies (100), but what a perfect setting that visit would have been for a performance of the Mary Play.

Figure 1 St Mary’s Church, South Walsham, Norfolk – the nave looking east

Figure 2 Poppy-heads from St Mary’s, South Walsham ‘in mulieribus’ [D10] ‘et benedictus’ [D 8]

Figure 3 Schematic plan of the pews of St Mary’s, South Walsham. Pews are numbered from east to west: 1–12 (8), and lettered from south to north: A–F

Figure 4 Suggested original positions of the Ave-Maria bench ends. Two changes are involved: moving bench-end D 10 to C8 [in mulieribus] and E11 to D4 [?tui Iesus]. The asterisked Gothic M in the plan indicates the positions of the two Maria monograms

Figure 5 Arm-rest figures at St Mary’s, South Walsham

Figure 6 Two Ave-Marie bench ends from St Andrew’s Church, Trent, Dorset AVE MARIA G RATIA PLE

Figure 7 The south porch, St Mary’s, South Walsham Entrance showing the position of the Annunciation (Photo © E.M. Trendell) Mary and the two figures of the Trinity

Notes I should like to thank Canon Phillip MacFadyen for permission to print the photographs of the bench-ends and porch at South Walsham and the Rev A.J.H. Edwards for permission to print

those of the bench-ends at Trent. I should also like to thank Mr Martial Rose for finding a photographer and Mr Michael Trendell for his assistance with the photography at South Walsham.  1. The most recent edition of the complete N.town plays is Stephen Spector, The N-town Play, 2 vols, Early English Text Society SS 11 and 12 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). As his title suggests, Spector is not concerned to separate out the individual plays which make up this disparate manuscript. Separate editions of the Mary Play appear in, The Mary Play from the N.town Manuscript, ed. by Peter Meredith, Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997) and Medieval Drama: an anthology, ed. by Greg Walker (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 167–95; and of The Passion Play, in The Passion Play from the N.town Manuscript, ed. by Peter Meredith (London: Longman, 1990). Arguments for their separateness are set out in Peter Meredith, ‘Manuscript, Scribe and Performance: further looks at the N.town manuscript’, in Regionalism in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts, ed. by Felicity Riddy, York Manuscripts Conference: Proceedings Series 2 (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1991), pp. 109–28, and for and against in Alan J. Fletcher, ‘The N-Town plays’, in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, ed. by Richard Beadle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 167–78. The Assumption of Mary was separately edited by W.W. Greg many years ago: The Assumption of the Virgin: a miracle play from the N-town cycle (London: Oxford University Press, 1915). The Purification, the other ‘separate’ play, has not been individually edited. On provenance, Spector comments: The fact that the principal constituents of the cycle were copied out by East Anglian scribes, evidently writing at various times, argues strongly for compilation and transcription in East Anglia. And the appearance of East Anglian dialect words, several times in rhyme, confirms the notion of composition and performance in that region (pp. xv–xvi).  2. Referred to hereafter as LALME; ed. by Angus Mcintosh, M.L. Samuels and Michael Benskin, 4 vols (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986).  3. There are some uncertainties associated with this placing. The manuscript was analysed by Professor M.L. Samuels for LALME and appears as mapped source LP4280, London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D viii (LALME 3, pp. 339– 40). This locates the main scribe of the manuscript to the south-west of Norwich (Grid ref. 595 289, between East Harling and, to the north-west, East Wretham). LALME covered fols l–20 of the manuscript by ‘analysis’ and ‘scanned’ to 106. I am assuming that by ‘scan’ is meant a less intensive search. (For comments on the analysis of literary manuscripts, see 1, section 5, pp. 51–52.) The Mary Play occurs between fols 37v and 73v, so no part of the play was included in the analysis, only in the ‘scan’. The Passion Play, starting on fol. 136, was not investigated at all. Not surprisingly, considering the lack of certainty about that aspect of the manuscript, there seems to have been no attention paid to the different periods of transcription in the N.town plays. Had there been, it is possible in view of what is said in the Introduction (1, p. 39) that a different kind of analysis would have been used; though it has to be admitted that the kind of difference evidenced in the N.town manuscript is not quite what is usually meant in LALME by ‘linguistically diverse’. If any attempt is made to place the scribe of this particular play, analysis of strictly Mary Play text will be needed, though it has to be said that it may not materially alter the placing. Fletcher reports briefly on such findings in ‘The N-Town plays’,p. 185, fn. 5.  4. Records of Plays and Players in Norfolk and Suffolk, 1330–1642, ed. by David Galloway and John Wasson, Collections Volume XI, The Malone Society 1980/1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), s.v. East Harling. Kenninghall (TM 040860) is about 4 kilometres due east of East Harling (TL 995865), Garboldisham (TM 005815) about 5 kilometres slightly east of south, and the two Lophams (TM 036825 and 040817) around 6 and 7 kilometres south-east. They lie in an arc on slightly higher ground than East Harling. All four villages are now similarly small, but there is no sign that they were ever significantly larger. Each has a large church, that at South Lopham having a particularly impressive Norman tower. As with so many other rural towns and villages, there may well be a connection between games, etc. and raising funds for the church. For Norfolk churches, see H. Munro Cautley, Norfolk Churches (Ipswich: Norman Adlard, 1949) and Nikolaus Pevsner and Bill Wilson, Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East, The Buildings of England, 2nd edn (London: Penguin Books, 1997) and Norfolk 2: North-West and South, The Buildings of England, 2nd edn (London: Penguin Books, 1999).  5. ‘At the Cherch gate’ presumably means an outdoor performance. The Assumption with its boisterous action and partly outdoor setting, would make an excellent outdoor play; less so the Purification. The scenes of elaborate liturgical staging combined with the intimate tone of the Mary Play seem to me elements which mark it out as an indoor play. But for the moment it remains an open question.  For discussion of the word ‘interlude’, see Nicholas Davis, ‘The meaning of the word “Interlude”’, and ‘Allusions to Medieval Drama in Britain (4): Interludes’, Medieval English Theatre 6:1 (1984), 5–15 and 61–91.  6. Norfolk and Suffolk, s.v. Thetford. Thetford (TL 875831) lies on the southern edge of Norfolk, on the border with Suffolk.

 7.

 8.

 9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Places from which entertainers come that appear in both the East Harling and the Thetford records are marked with asterisks and grid references are not repeated: Bardwell (TL 945735) [1505/6, game], Croxton (TL 874866) [1506/7. 1524/25, gild], Finchingfield, Essex [1524/25, ludus], Gislingham (TM 075715) [1505/6. game], Ixworth, Suffolk (TL 931702) [1508/9, play], Kenninghall* [1511/12, play], Lopham* [1504/5, game], Mildenhall, Suffolk (TL 710746) [1505/6, play], Shelfanger (TM 108837) [1508/9, play], Snarehill (there is now no village but a number of place-names just east of Thetford indicate the area meant) [1510/11, procession], Spalding, Lincolnshire [1533/34, Iocatores], Walsham (probably but not certainly North Walsham, TG 285302) [1505/6, game], Wangford, Suffolk (TM 465791) [1524/25, minstrels], Wymondham (TM 115015) [1533/34, Iocatores]; Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk [waits], Colchester, Essex [waits], Hull, East Yorkshire [waits], King’s Lynn [waits], Norwich [waits]. Interestingly, only the waits and the Croxton gild appear more than once. I have divided off those referred to as ‘waits’, but ‘Iocatores’ and ‘minstrels’ could as easily be ‘waits’. Except for those from Bury, waits come from greater distances. This is perhaps another reason for identifying the Iocatores and minstrels as waits, since Wangford and Spalding are both more distant locations. Finchingfield [ludus] is distant, but Galloway and Wasson suggest that this is a record of a monetary contribution to a play performed elsewhere rather than a visit by one. See also Richard Beadle, ‘Plays and Playing at Thetford and Nearby, 1498–1540’, Theatre Notebook 32 (1978), 4–11, and Fletcher, ‘The N-Town plays’, pp. 166–67. The original intention seems to have had more to do with using local art as source material for modern stagings of medieval plays (see Clifford Davidson’s remarks in the Introduction to the York volume, p. iii).  So far Chester (ed. by Sally Beth Maclean, 1982), Coventry/Stratford-upon-Avon/Warwick and Lesser Sites in Warwickshire (ed. by Clifford Davidson and Jennifer Alexander, 1985), The West Riding of Yorkshire (ed. by Barbara Palmer, 1990), and York (ed. by Clifford Davidson and David E. O’Connor, 1978) have been published. Norfolk will appear soon (ed. by Ann Eljenhom Nichols). All are Medieval Institute Publications from Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, in the Early Drama, Art, and Music Reference Series. I am grateful to Professor Nichols for generously sharing her Marian findings in Norfolk with me. I have borrowed the term from R.N. Swanson, Religion and Devotion in Europe, c. 1215 – c. 1515 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 9: ‘Christendom might then be portrayed as a series of “discourse communities” (in the terminology of the rhetorical theorists), sharing perceptions, aspirations, and vocabulary, and operating independently at a variety of levels …’. G.G. Coulton, ‘A medieval inscription in Acle church’, Norfolk Archaeology 20 (1921), 141–49. Robert S. Gottfried, Epidemic Disease in Fifteenth Century England: the medical response and the demographic consequences (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1978), pp. 2 and 135. Place names in Norfolk and Suffolk are followed by a grid reference since many are small and not always easy to locate. Using the grid, however, also launched me into using ‘kilometre’ which does not come naturally. For Acle, see Pevsner/Wilson, Norfolk 1, pp, 357–58. Colin Richmond identifies the donors as ‘Robert Bataly and Joan his wife’; see ‘Religion’, in Fifteenth-Century Attitudes, ed. by Rosemary Horrox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 84. According to Richmond, Robert died in 1494 ‘leaving 20 marks for the building of the porch; Joan was his executor’. For South Walsham, see Pevsner/Wilson, Norfolk 1, pp. 668–69. There is a short but informative church guide by Nicholas Groves (1995) and a note on Shared Churchyards (also by Groves, 1994) available in the church. A Historical Atlas of Norfolk, ed. by Peter Wade-Martins, 2nd edn (Norwich: Norfolk Museums Service, 1994), pp. 88– 93 and end-maps. David Knowles and R. Neville Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales (London: Longmans, 1953), pp. 75 and 159. Francis Blomefield, and Charles Parkin, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, 5 vols (Fersfield, Norwich, Lynn, 1739–75). Acle is in volume 5, pp. 1457–60. G.S. Amos, A History and Description of South Walsham, Norfolk, rev. edn (South Walsham: South Walsham Parish Council, 2000), pp. 25–28. Colin Richmond, The Paston Family in the fifteenth century: Fastolf ’s will (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 68–70. The Commonplace Book of Robert Reynes of Acle: an edition of Tanner MS 407, ed. by Cameron Louis, Garland Medieval Texts 1 (New York & London: Garland, 1980). It is worth noting here that by 1350 a school administered by the Bishop of Norwich existed in Blofield. It lies about 7 kilometres east of Acle and 5 southeast of South Walsham and was the centre of the Deanery in which both lay (Nicholas Orme, English Schools in the Middle Ages (London: Methuen, 1973), p. 144, n. 5). Reynes is discussed in Louis’s introduction pp. 24–39, and in Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c. 1400–c. 1580 (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 71–75. A number of the entries from Reynes’s book appear in Medieval Popular Religion 1000–1500, ed. by John Shinners, Readings in Medieval Civilisations and Culture: 2 (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 1997), pp. 335–76. Duffy’s description of Reynes as a ‘rural artisan’ seems also to underplay his literacy, the range of his literary, social and legal interests and his curiosity. For what it’s worth, his brother James calls himself ‘gentylman’ in his will (Commonplace Book, p. 518).

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29.

30.

31. 32. 33.

34. 35.

36. 37.

See Louis’s discussion in Commonplace Book, pp. 99–103. Commonplace Book, pp. 34–35. Stripping of the Altars, p. 73. The numbers refer to Louis’s division of the contents of the manuscript. For discussion and photographs of these bench-ends see, under their place names, Cautley, Norfolk Churches, and his Suffolk Churches and their Treasures (Ipswich: Norman Adlard, 1937), and also J. Charles Cox, Bench Ends in English Churches (London: Oxford University Press, 1916). There is a slight complication in that beneath the words ‘et benedictus’ there is at the foot of the shield a capital ‘I’ (fig. 1b). This could be an abbreviation for the missing ‘Iesus’, placing it before rather than after ‘fructus ventris tui’, though this would be an odd position for it. The ‘I’ is very shallowly cut and may have been an error later shaved away. The original content of the defaced shields is made slightly less certain by the existence of other carved poppyhead shields. Their decoration consists of a number of initial letters: A (twice), I, R (three times), S, T (possibly twice), and W (twice), and a Maria monogram. The initials are most likely to have proprietary or commemorative significance and represent donors, churchwardens or other local benefactors. The apparently random row of letters on the pew back at Gazeley, Suffolk, seems to be commemoration of that sort (Cautley, Suffolk Churches, p. 150). As there is no sign of any mutilation of ‘initial’ shields and as the little that is still visible on the defaced shields looks most like the missing elements of the Ave, however, fructus ventris tui Iesus must remain their most likely content. See Cox, Bench Ends, pp. 17–19 and Stripping of the Altars, p. 171. There are two further questions that occur to me: was there a matching bench-end with inscribed shield placed opposite the Ave-Maria one on the other side of the nave aisle, and was the Ave-Maria bench-end always immediately in front of the gratia-plena one, rather than one pew away like the other phrases? As regards the first question, apart from an initial the only bench-end that would naturally fill the gap is the Maria monogram. But as there is already a monogram on the Amen shield, that seems inappropriate. Besides which, if there were no matching decorated shield opposite, it would give greater prominence to the opening of the Ave Maria, which is perhaps the intention. The best-known is probably the Simon Werman one in Broomfield church, Somerset, which may record the name of the carver. There is a good collection of photographs of bench ends published in Peter Poyntz Wright, The Rural Benchends of Somerset (Amersham: Avebury, 1983), but it relates only to one county and Cox, Bench Ends remains an essential source. For some discussion of ‘text’ bench-ends, see Wright, Rural Benchends, pp. 152–59.  Wright also has photographs of three bench-ends with beads on them (see pp. 77–80), two at Kingston St Mary, which parallel South Walsham’s concern with prayer. There is a useful guide to Trent church, Margaret Webster, St Andrew’s Church, Trent (Trent, 2000), which contains drawings of a number of the bench-ends. There are photographs of all the Ave-Maria ones and a brief discussion in Cox, Bench Ends, pp. 91–93. For some discussion of text in art, see Roger Ellis, ‘The Word in Religious Art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance’, in Word, Picture, and Spectacle, ed. by Clifford Davidson, Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series 5 Medieval Institute Publications, 21–38. The Sherborne Missal, once in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick Castle, is now British Library Additional MS 74236. It is dated between 1396 and 1407. For full descriptions see Kathleen Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts, 1390–1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 6, 2 vols (London: Harvey Millar, 1996), II, pp. 45–60, and Janet Backhouse, The Sherborne Missal (London: The British Library, 1999). References in the text are to illustrations in Backhouse. H. Edith Legge, The Divinity School, Oxford: a guide for visitors (Oxford: Blackwell, 1923). The central bay is described on pp. 7–9 and a list of the texts used appears in Appendix 1. There are individual photographs of most of the ‘text’ bosses, and Plate 21 shows the middle section of the central bay. See Elizabeth S. Eames, Medieval Tiles: a handbook (London: The British Museum, 1968), especially pp. 22–24 (the Malvern tilery and its inscribed tiles); Jane A. Wight, Medieval Floor Tiles: their design and distribution in Britain (London: John Baker, 1975), especially pp. 136–47 (Malvern and inscribed tiles), and Elizabeth Eames, Medieval Craftsmen: English Tilers (London: The British Museum, 1996), see especially pp. 60–63. Malvern was not the only tilery to make inscribed tiles, nor, of course, do pavements with inscriptions first appear in the fifteenth century. The great pavement at Westminster Abbey, for example, with its elaborate inlaid latten inscription, dates from 1268; see Paul Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets: kingship and the representation of power, 1200–1400 (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 95–97, and Richard Foster, Patterns of Thought: the hidden meaning of the great pavement of Westminster Abbey (London: Cape, 1991). Cautley, Suffolk Churches, pp. 147 and 150. Three Lollards were burnt in Norwich in 1428; see Norman P. Tanner, Heresy Trials in the Diocese of Norwich, 1428– 31, Camden Fourth Series 20 (London: The Royal Historical Society, 1977), p. 8. It is perhaps worth mentioning, though at the cost of a long footnote, that Acle was not unacquainted with Lollardy. In one case, that of Margery Baxter (1 April 1429), the defendant’s penance required her on two occasions to walk barefoot around Acle market place, as well as on

38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44.

45.

four Sundays around the parish church of her then home town of Martham (about 10 kilometres to the north-east); see Tanner, Heresy Trials, pp. 41–51 (for the court’s decision see p. 43), and Shinners, Medieval Popular Religion, pp. 491– 96. Tanner does not comment on the reason for this double penance, but it seems likely that it was because she was born in Acle.  The ‘heretical’ conversations took place in Joan Clifland, the deponent’s, home in Norwich where Margery Baxter was sitting and sewing by the fire. Amongst other things, the accused apparently called ‘Walsingham’ ‘Falsingham’: ‘quod prefata Margeris docuit et informavit eandem iuratam quod ipsa nunquam iret peregre ad Mariam de Falsyngham nec ad aliquem sanctum vel alium locum’ [‘… that the said Margery instructed and told the witness that she should never go on pilgrimage to Mary of Falsingham or to any saint whatever or other place’] (Tanner, p. 47). The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. by Phyllis Hodgson, Early English Text Society OS 218 (London: Oxford University Press, 1944), pp.73–75. Mankind: an acting edition, ed. by Peter Meredith (Leeds: Alumnus, 1997), pp. 25, 35 and 58. Meredith, The Passion the Play from the N.town Manuscript p. 126, 1.874sd. For the ‘Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards’ see Selections from English Wycliffite Writings, ed. by Anne Hudson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 24–29 and 150–55. For further discussion see Fiona Somerset, ‘Answering the Twelve Conclusions: Dymmok’s halfhearted gestures towards publication’, in Lollardy and the Gentry in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by Margaret Aston and Colin Richmond (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1997), pp. 52–76. Up the road from South Walsham is the rood screen in Ranworth church with its painted reredos for the altar of Our Lady depicting Mary and her half-sisters with their offspring (illustration in Richard Tilbrook and C.V. Roberts, Norfolk’s Churches Great and Small (Norwich: Jarrold Publishing, 1997), pp. 76–77). See Louis’s discussion of the names in Commonplace Book, pp. 406–16, especially pp. 411–12. Gertrud Schiller has no comparable Annunciation scene; see Iconography of Christian Art, trans. by Janet Seligman, 2 vols (London: Lund Humphries, 1971), pp. 33–35 and figs 64–129.  An alabaster of the ‘Annunciation’ in the Victoria and Albert Museum (A58–1925) has, however, two figures of God the Father and the Holy Spirit seated in heaven, identical except for their poses and the attributes held in their left hands (God the Father, an orb; the Holy Spirit, a book). In the centre the Christ-child descends in a mandorla towards Mary. The scene is surrounded by the four daughters of God bearing scrolls with texts from Psalms (Vulgate) 84 and 118. Mary is at the bottom right in an Annunciation pose, but there is no Gabriel. See Francis Cheetham, English Medieval Alabasters (Oxford: Phaidon. Christies, 1984), p. 175. For some discussion of another kind of text-centredness see Peter Meredith, ‘The direct and indirect use of the Bible in medieval English drama’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 77:3 (1995), 61–77, especially pp. 69–73. There is also the acrostic of MARIA (Mary Play, II. 545–50) which celebrates the name in a way similar to, but more expansively than, the bench-end monogram.

18

THE SEALING OF THE TOMB: N.TOWN AND ITS CONTEXT The whole action of the setting of the watch over Christ’s tomb occurs at the very end of the chapter of a single Gospel, and the sealing of the tomb appears almost as an afterthought in that same passage (Matthew 27:62–6). Pilate having been approached yet again by the princes, priests, and Pharisees, this time to make sure that Christ’s body is not stolen away by the disciples in order to pretend that he has risen from the dead, as he foretold, tells them that as they have the means, they should go and set guards themselves; illi autem abeuntes munierunt sepulchrum signantes lapidem cum custodibus (Matthew 27:66; my emphasis). The Wycliffite Bible translation maintains the awkwardness and the imprecision of the Latin: ‘Forsooth thei goynge forth, kepten the sepulchre, markinge the stoon, with keperis’; the Pepysian Gospel Harmony develops the idea a little but keeps to the word ‘mark’: ‘And þe kniȝttes wenten forþ yarmed þo, and merkeden þe ston þat lay beforne þe entree’; but Tyndale, having likewise turned the parenthetic phrase into a main clause, makes the meaning specific, thereby giving the action the prominence which it had already often possessed: ‘They went, and made the sepulcre sure with watche men, and sealed the stone’.1 No phrase in the Gospels is going to be free of exegetical cross-referencing in the Middle Ages, especially when it can be linked with an image as rich as the sealed books of the Apocalypse (5: 1, etc.), or as potentially rich as the fountain sealed in the Song of Songs (4:12) or the sealed door in Daniel (Daniel 14:10, etc.), but the sealing of the tomb never becomes one of the key types.2 For Bede, what is important is the irony that by sealing the tomb the Jews demonstrate Christ’s power more clearly; the Glossa Ordinaria stresses the parallel between Christ’s rising from the sealed tomb and being born of a virgin; and Ludolphus of Saxony, like Bede, sees irony, in that the Jews, by sealing the tomb, bear witness to the Resurrection.3 But the episode is not found, for example, in the Biblia Pauperum or in the extensive collection of types in the Pictor in Carmine.4 If we turn to the English plays, there is only one group that includes the setting of the watch and the sealing, N.Town. In York/Towneley, the words and actions of Annas and Cayphas relate simply to setting a watch to obviate any chance of the disciples stealing the body and pretending that Christ has risen, while in Chester they fear witchcraft being used to make believe Christ has risen, but again simply set a watch.5 This lack of concern with the secure closing of the tomb is apparent also in the treatment of the setting of the watch and the subsequent actions and reactions of the ‘knights’. In York/ Towneley there are four guards, and

they simply sit on each side of the tomb – it is clearly envisaged as a table top tomb. In Towneley, in an expansion of the York text on which it is otherwise quite closely based, the soldiers claim their own positions: 1 Miles

Who shuld be where? fayn wold I wytt.

2 Miles

Euen on this syde wyll I sytt.

3 Miles

And I shall fownde his feete to flytt.

               (Towneley 26, lines 218–20)

In Chester there are only three soldiers, but the same attention is paid to positioning: And I shall nowe sett us soe, yf that he ryse and would goe, one of us, or elles two, shall see of his upryste. Stand thou there, and thou here, and I myselfe in middle mere.                (Chester 18, lines 146–51)

This treatment leads to a sense of schoolboyish competition in Towneley and of military organization in Chester, and to some extent in York, but more importantly distracts from the tomb itself. The treatment of the Resurrection and of the waking of the soldiers similarly draws attention away from the closed tomb. In York there is little indication of the staging of the Resurrection. The soldiers settle and an enigmatic stage direction follows: Tunc Jhesu resurgente (‘Then with Jesus rising’ York 38, sd after line 186). Immediately afterwards the three Maries appear. The stone, they observe, has been ‘putt beside’ (line 230), the Maries see ‘a ȝonge childe’, dressed in white, sitting where they are going (line 225); they approach, and an English version of the Quem quaeritis dialogue with the single angel follows. In Towneley, generally speaking there is the same order of events, but instead of the simple statement of Christ’s rising, there is a cue for music, Tunc cantabunt angeli (‘Then the angels shall sing’, sd after line 229), and then a very long speech by Jesus. After that, the Maries appear, the lifted stone is again simply referred to as already ‘put besyde’ (line 394), and the Quem quaeritis dialogue follows, this time with two angels. Chester has a longer stage direction for the Resurrection: Tunc cantabunt duo angeli: ‘Christus resurgens a mortuis’ etc., et Christus tune resurget; ac postea, cantu finito, dicat ut sequitur. (Chester 18, sd after line 153) ‘Then two angels shall sing: ‘Christ rising from the dead’ etc., and then Christ shall rise; and afterwards, when the song is finished, he shall say as follows.’

Some manuscripts follow this with: Jesus resurgens et eos pede milites quatiat (‘And Jesus, rising, shall stir/prod the soldiers with his foot’). After a speech by Christ, another stage direction indicates: Tune duo angeli posteaquam Christus resurrexit, sedebunt in sepulchro, quorum alter ad caput, alter ad pedes, sedeant (‘Then, after Christ has risen, two angels shall sit on the tomb, one of them at the head, the other at the feet’, sd after line 185). Whereas in

York and Towneley the Resurrection is followed by the coming of the Maries, in Chester it is followed immediately by the waking of the soldiers, so that they wake not to an empty tomb, but to one inhabited by bright shining angels (line 214). Unlike the York/Towneley soldiers, their reactions are brief and the tomb remains a ‘divine’ space – presumably in full view during the ensuing dialogue with Pilate, Annas, and Cayphas. There is no indication of when or how the stone is put aside, with the doubtful exception of a brief reference in York/Towneley. To understand this reference, it is first necessary to make clear that there is no evidence that the York/Towneley soldiers were other than fast asleep during Christ’s rising from the tomb. Their reaction on waking is utter amazement that the tomb is empty (Towneley 26, lines 447– 64). There is absolutely no suggestion here of a tranced sleep in which they would be able to see Christ rise. It is true that the First Soldier says later (lines 467–8) that he (Christ) certainly rose alone, but, given the strong evidence for their sleeping, it would be more appropriate to see this as the simple certainty that no one else came near, rather than any real awareness of what actually occurred. The Second Soldier in Towneley claims to have seen Christ go (lines 472–4, not in York), but is immediately squashed; again appropriately, it would seem, in view of his first reaction. They then decide to lie about the event (lines 481–8), until brought up short by the First (York)/ Fourth (Towneley) Soldier’s assertion that they must tell the truth – which they do, with the expected result of a storm of abuse from Pilate. They then fall back on their first line of approach and start lying: nobody dared do anything, we were so frightened we fell down and trembled, we trembled and dared not move – ‘When that he put besyde the stone’ (York line 378, Towneley line 532). Given this stream of invented reaction, clearly at odds with the earlier evidence that they were fast asleep, it would be unwise to use this as a guide to the staging of the episode, namely that Christ himself moved the stone. To sum up then: in none of the three treatments is any emphasis laid on the fact that the tomb is securely closed, and there is no trustworthy evidence of when or how the tomb is opened. The emphasis is on the antics of the soldiers, except where, in York/Towneley, the visit of the Maries to the tomb intervenes between the setting and the breaking up of the watch; though even there the tomb is already open, so it is not the wonder of the closed tomb but the solemnity of the open one that one is aware of. In contrast, N.Town devotes 27 lines purely to the episode of the sealing. This may not seem much, but given the fast-moving nature of the action in N.Town, and the stage business involved, this constitutes an emphasis. Pylatus

Now, jentyl serys, wole ȝe vowchsaffe To go with me and sele þe graffe? Ϸat he ne ryse out of þe grave Ϸat is now ded.





Cayphas

We graunte wel, lete us now go. Whan it is selyd and kepte also, Than be we sekyr withowtyn wo, And haue of hym no dred.



Tunc ibunt ad sepulcrum Pilatus, Cayphas, Annas et omnes milites, et dicit ‘Then Pilate, Caiaphas, Annas, and all

the soldiers shall go to the tomb, and [Annas] says’

Annas

Loo, here is wax ful redy dyght, Sett on ȝour sele anon ful ryght; Ϸan be ȝe sekyr, I ȝow plyght, He xal not rysyn agayn.





Pilatus

On þis corner my seal xal sytt And with þis wax I sele þis pytt. Now dare I ley he xal nevyr flytt Out of þis grave, serteayn.





Annas

Here is more wax ful redy, loo. All þe cornerys ȝe sele also, And with a lokke loke it too, Than lete us gon oure way. And lete þese knytys abydyn þerby; And yf hese dysciplys com preuyly To stele awey þis ded body, To vs they hem brynge without delay.





Pilatus

On every corner now is sett my seale, Now is myn herte in welthe and wele. This may no brybour awey now stele, Ϸis body from vndyr ston.







(N.Town Passion Play 2, lines 1272–99)6

Something to notice in particular here is the intention of the sealers. The sealing (supplemented by a lock) and the presence of the watch will, they claim in N.Town, ensure that Christ cannot rise and that the body is not stolen. The addition of the lock becomes important because, in intention, it will prevent Christ rising; though the seals can easily be broken, the lock cannot. Yet the lock seems almost an afterthought. In York/Towneley, there is some disagreement about whether Christ can rise by his own strength or not. Annas is adamant that he can’t (lines 145– 6). In Chester, Pilate is fearful and Annas and Caiaphas scornful of Christ’s unaided strength. In all cases the watch is seen as the answer, mainly to prevent outside interference. The possibility of the tomb itself preventing Christ’s Resurrection is not considered. In the other plays, the Harrowing of Hell is separated off in separate pageants. The continuity of N.Town allows for the integration of the Harrowing with the surrounding episodes. After Christ has died (line 920) Mary laments and John comforts her before leading her to the Temple (lines 921–92). That shift of the audience’s attention presumably allows the Anima Christi to appear unnoticed (line 993) from behind/below Christ’s body on the Cross.

The beginning of the Harrowing follows. After the Setting of the Watch and the sealing (lines 1264–1367), comes the second part. Anima Christi leads the souls from Hell and goes to raise his own body: Tunc transiet Anima Christi ad resuscitandum corpus: quo resuscitato, dicat Jhesus: (N.Town Passion Play 2, sd after 1439) ‘Then the Soul of Christ shall go to revive the body; and when it is revived, Jesus shall say:’

There is no indication of how this was staged. Then, after a scene where Jesus visits his mother, the Soldiers at the tomb are awakened by an earthquake and rush off to tell Pilate. When the Maries arrive at the tomb, a stage direction says that Mary Magdalene looks into it (sd after 1709), as does at least one of the other Maries, without apparently seeing any angel first. The Angel does not speak until 24 lines after the stage direction. The Maries then hurry away to tell the disciples (line 1766). There is no indication of when the stone is removed from the tomb, but it is clearly off when the Maries first arrive. Again to sum up: there is clear interest in the sealed nature of the tomb in N.Town but apparently no continuing emphasis upon it. The guards sleep but are awakened by the earthquake and affirm that Christ has risen. It is not clear whether they know that instinctively or prove it by looking in the tomb. There is no indication of the latter, but if they do look then the stone must have already been moved. Before going on, there is a textual problem that needs to be mentioned first: the part of the N.Town play which runs from Christ’s death on the Cross to his Resurrection straddles the break-up of the continuous text of what has come to be called Passion Play 2. Put as briefly as possible, the continuous text of Passion 2 stops at line 880, just before Christ’s fourth Word from the Cross, and picks up again in a somewhat muddled form at line 1043, the Centurion’s affirmation of Christ’s Godhead. It then stops in the middle of the Setting of the Watch at line 1263, and picks up again (if ever) at line 1766 after the Visit of the Maries to the Sepulchre. Consequently, the death of Christ and the first part of the Harrowing (lines 881–1042), and then, later on, the sealing of the tomb, the second part of the Harrowing, the Resurrection, and the Visit of the Maries (lines 1264–1765), are all outside the Passion Play proper, and form part of what I have called elsewhere ‘the pageant material’. In other words, the text of all the episodes we are concerned with here is not part of the Passion Play. Though this creates a problem for talking about the Passion Play, it is not necessarily a problem in trying to see how the stage action of Burial to Resurrection was envisaged here, since all the significant elements are contained within one type of textual evidence, the so-called ‘pageant material.’7 Confirmation of N.Town’s concern with the sealing of the tomb (and, incidentally, of the play’s Norfolk provenance) has been found in the presence of the unusual roof boss in the north cloister of Norwich Cathedral, which has for some time now been seen as a parallel representation. Martial Rose’s recent description is the most detailed: This scene [in the N. Town play] is shown in the carving. Pilate is on the left of the tomb and behind him are two of his courtiers and four of his knights. In the play he designates four knights, and names them, to guard the tomb. On the right of the tomb are Annas and Caiaphas, and behind them four priests. Annas carries in his left hand a jar of wax. Behind him Caiaphas, with his gloves held in his left hand, has his right hand palm upwards on the tomb as though sealing the wax with his signet ring. In the play specific reference is made to Pilate’s seal being affixed to the tomb. Pilate carries his staff in his left hand, the top of which has been broken off. At the level of his head the golden clasp of the lock of the tomb waits perhaps to be snapped to, across the mid-part of the tomb.8

Some elements of the boss, however, are not as clear as this description would suggest. There are in fact five characters behind Pilate, not six. Since four of them carry weapons it could be that there are four knights, but only one is in armour and one is wearing the same headdress and short tunic as the ‘courtier’ immediately behind Pilate. Annas is carrying what is surely a bag, with typical tassel-like attachments at the bottom corners; he is gesturing across the tomb towards Pilate, but his gesturing hand has been broken off. There are four characters behind Annas and Caiaphas. They are distinguished from the figures on Pilate’s side of the tomb by their round-necked upper garments, almost certainly thrown-back hoods. Caiaphas’s right hand is indeed palm-up on the tomb, but there is nothing to suggest a seal or a ring, and the figure behind him also has his hand palm-up on the tomb. They could well have been making the same gesture as Annas. As to the ‘lock’, there seem to be many objections. It joins up with the end of the weapon which the armoured man is carrying and could be part of that weapon, held reversed. It would almost certainly have been partially if not wholly concealed by the head of Pilate’s staff: it could even have been a part of it. There is also the possibility that it could be part of the uncarved background which the gilder has mistaken for an object (part of the uncarved background can be seen over Pilate’s left shoulder). Finally, it is a very odd shape for the hasp of a lock and anyway that kind of lock would only be useful if the stone top were hinged. The scene looks most like one in which some bargain is being struck, or some offer or request is being made – with a monetary inducement. Though none of the English plays has any handing over of money until after the Resurrection, it appears elsewhere. There is even a promise of it in N.Town (line 1310). It is possible, therefore, that this boss represents a version of the setting of the watch. If it had been a sealing, one would have expected far more emphasis on the seals themselves, and there is no sign of them. N.Town’s uniqueness does not seem to have local support here. I want now to turn to some French plays. In contrast to the English, the French Passions and Resurrections frequently emphasize the securing of the tomb. Michel and Gréban, Arras and Mons, for example, all have an episode of the sealing, but the play which best follows through the significance of the sealed tomb is the Mystère de la Résurrection from Angers (1456).9 It was written to be performed over two days and the Burial and Resurrection are split between the two. On Day 1, after brief lamentations from Peter and James the Less and a very long Hell scene (including the first part of a Harrowing), lines 328–3494, there is a series of events similar to those in Michel before the tomb is sealed. After getting Pilate’s agreement to the setting of the watch, Caiaphas and Annas bargain with the soldiers over payment and then go to the tomb. They need to know it is the right one, so Caiaphas tells them to lift the stone a little and look inside. Which they do. Satisfied, they proceed to seal the tomb on the grounds that they will then be able to tell at once if the body has been stolen. The guards are left and Caiaphas and Annas go to find Joseph of Arimathaea. A prison is built on stage (accompanied by the farce of the blind man and his servant), Joseph is put inside and the door is then sealed (lines 3813–4565). There is then a brief scene between four angels and the Anima Cristi, where the angels seek permission to go and honour the body of Christ which lies in the tomb. This they do and the guards marvel at the great light which they are aware of, passing to and fro by them. Gabriel then goes to visit the Virgin Mary.

There is a further scene between the blind man and his servant, and then between the Virgin Mary, the three Maries, and John, leading on to the buying of the ointment from the apothecary. This ends the Day (lines 4566–5318). I have given this in rather extreme detail to show, unlike N.Town, just how little space is given to the central story, 319 out of 4990 lines. Day Two begins with Christ leading the souls out of Limbo (line 5586) – in effect, the second half of the Harrowing – and sending the Saved Thief to lead them, ultimately, into the Terrestrial Paradise. After scenes for the Virgin Mary and the Disciples, the Resurrection follows at line 6236, with this elaborate stage direction:

Norwich Cathedral Cloisters: Roof boss CNA5 Early fifteenth century (before 1430) Pilate, Annas, and Caiaphas with followers surround the tomb of Christ (Photo © Peter Meredith) Icy endroit, Magdalaine et les autres troys femmes dessus nommees se partent d’avecques la mere de Jhesus pour aller au tombeau o leurs boestes et oignemens et sejournent en chemin secretement jusques a ce qu’il soit temps d’aler en avant; et Jhesus vestu de blanc et les piéz nudz et acompaignie de trois anges, c’est assavoir Michel, Raphaël et Uriel, doit soudainement et subtillement saillir de dessoubz terre de costé son tombeau par une petite trappe de boys couverte de tourbe de terre herbue, laquelle se reclot sans ce que on s’en apperçoive. Et se siee dessus sondit tombeau sans froisser ne entamer aucunement. Et lors semblablement Carinus et Leoncius, vestuz de blanc et les piéz nudz, se sourdent et resuscident de leurs tombeaux qui doivent estre en

Jherusalem assez loignet du tombeau de Jhesus, lequel doit estre préz de Jherusalem. Et lors soit fait artificielement ung escroix et terrible tremblant de terre, dont les quatre gardes du Sepulcre cheent comme mors tous platz de grant paour sans soy lever, si non les testes, jusques a ce qu’ilz aille[nt] anoncer aux Juifz ladicte Resurrection. Et lors die Jhesus seant sur son tombeau; (Angers 342–3) ‘Here Magdalen and the other three [a mistake for ‘two’] women above-named take leave of the mother of Jesus to go to the tomb with their boxes and ointments, and wait unobtrusively on the way until it is time for them to move on, and Jesus, dressed in white and with bare feet, and accompanied by the three angels, namely Michael, Raphael, and Uriel, must suddenly and ingeniously come out from below the ground beside his tomb by means of a small wooden trapdoor, covered with grassy turf, which re-closes without anyone noticing. And he is to seat himself on top of the said tomb without knocking or opening it at all. And then similarly Carinus and Leoncius, dressed in white and with bare feet, must rise and come out of their tombs, which ought to be in Jerusalem at an appropriate distance from the tomb of Jesus, which ought to be near Jerusalem. And then there must be made artfully a commotion and great trembling of the earth, at which the four guards of the sepulchre fall down prostrate as if dead from great terror, without raising themselves, except their heads, until they go to announce the Resurrection to the Jews. And then Jesus, sitting on his tomb, says:’

Thus the tomb remains closed. Christ rises, not from an open tomb, but through a trap beside (? behind) it, and there is obvious concern with ensuring that the tomb remains unaffected. The episode is completed (52 lines later) with Gabriel removing the covering of the tomb: Icy endroit, Gabriel doit descendre diligemment de paradis au tombeau et oster la pierre de dessus et se y seoir au costé destre avant que les femmes y soient arrivees. Et ce pendant, Carinus et Leoncius qui doivent estre resuscitez quant et Jhesus, dient, et premierement Carinus … (Angers 347) ‘Here Gabriel must go down promptly from paradise to the tomb and remove the stone from on top and seat himself on the right side before the women have arrived. And meanwhile, Carinus and Leoncius, who should have risen when Jesus did, speak, and first Carinus …’

No-one comments on the fact that Christ has risen from a tomb which has been securely sealed (though it is possible that the seals are so noticeable that they are their own advertisement – the grant seau de chire rouge (‘great seal of red wax’) that Caiaphas at Mons attaches to the tomb – nevertheless, there seems at Angers to be a deliberate attempt to maintain the significance of the sealed tomb without specifically drawing attention to it. This is borne out by the earlier return of Anima Cristi to the body in the tomb. Anima Cristi (incidentally always addressed as ‘Ma Dame’) says to Enoch and Elias – and to the audience – (lines 5858–81) that she is going to revive the body to prepare for the appearances which are to follow. The stage direction which indicates how and when this occurs comes some 300 lines later. … lors l’ame de Jhesus et celle de Carinus et de Leoncius se doivent partir de paradis terrestre et aller visiblement devant les gens du jeu se bouter es lieux ou sont leurs corps et y entrer sans les ouvrir pour resusciter incontinent aprés ledit congié. Puis, en la maniere que cy aprés sera declairé au prouchain fueillet et apres lesdictes resurrections faictes, s’en doivent lesdictes trois ames aller par dessoubz terre si que on ne les voye point ne plus. (Angers 340) ‘… then the soul of Jesus and that of Carinus and of Leoncius should leave the terrestrial paradise and go openly in front of the players to end up at the places where their bodies are and to go in there without opening [the tombs] to revive them immediately after the aforesaid leave-taking [between the Maries, John, and the Virgin]. Then, in the way that is afterwards described on the next leaf and after the said resurrections have happened, the three souls ought to go beneath the ground so that no-one sees them again.’

Does the soul disappear down the same trap that the body will later rise up through? It would be one way of drawing the audience’s attention back to the sealed nature of the tomb in preparation for the Resurrection. Unfortunately it isn’t specified. Nevertheless, the continued

emphasis upon not disturbing the tomb allows for the possibility that the sealing, in itself a small and unimportant action, can have the sort of significance that Bede or Ludolph of Saxony saw in it. N.Town has a similar kind of potential. In my description of Angers, I have emphasized that the playwright or director took the offered opportunity of maintaining the significance of the sealed tomb throughout the play, without actually drawing attention to it. The stage directions always indicate actions that are in keeping with this: Anima Cristi rises from the sealed tomb and returns to it, and later Christ rises from it, all before the stone is removed. The same could be true of N.Town. At first the sequence of actions is slightly different: Anima Christi appears from the Cross and not the tomb (line 993). In staging terms, this means that the first ‘rising’ from the sealed tomb does not happen. But the pattern thereafter is similar. The ‘sowle’ goes to the gates of Hell for the first part of the Harrowing (sd after line 1016–line 1042), breaks down the gates and confronts the devil, Belial. After the intrusion of the Passion Play 2 material comes the sealing of the tomb. The guards sleep and the second part of the Harrowing follows, as at Angers. Anima Christi brings the souls from Hell and then returns to the body in the tomb. There are none of the lengthy stage directions that make the action of the Angers play clear, but the sequence of events is similar. Does this evidence allow us to say that N.Town shows the same kind of concern with the sealed tomb that Angers shows? I think the immediate answer would have to be ‘No’. On the other hand there is in the text and stage directions much that fits and nothing that directly conflicts with this. Christ’s body is laid in the tomb, and the tomb is then sealed (and locked). When the soul returns to the tomb to raise the body, a similar stage device to the Angers one could have been used, and when the Maries find the tomb open when they arrive, there is no reason why the angel cannot already have opened it, even if they do not see him until he speaks. The one element added to the Angers treatment is the lock on the tomb. Is the N.Town playwright/di-rector deliberately playing on the theatrical nature of the incident? Certainly this is what Angers appears to be doing. The trap is to shut without anyone noticing; Christ is to be careful not to disturb the top of the tomb when he sits on it, and his appearance is to be done ‘suddenly and ingeniously/cleverly/ adroitly (subtilement)’. It is true that the Resurrection is the formative moment of the Christian religion and that the wonder created by the entering and leaving of a locked box is a theatrical wonder, but there seems no reason why the one should not be used in the service of the other. It is the sealing that initiates this transcendental, theatrical effect and the Angers Resurrection that demonstrates most clearly what N.Town may well have been aiming at. It is also worth bearing in mind that at the time of the Angers play and the likely time of N.Town, the Queen of England was from Anjou.

Notes 1. 2.

3.

All biblical references are to the Biblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, ed. by B.Fischer and others (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 4th edition 1994). References to earlier translations of the Bible are to The Gothic and Anglo-Saxon Gospels in Parallel Columns with the Versions of Wycliffe and Tyndale, ed. by Joseph Bosworth and George Waring (London: Reeves and Turner, 3rd edition 1888); The Pepysian Gospel Harmony, ed. by Margery Goates in EETS OS 157 (London: Oxford University Press, 1922); passage quoted is at p. 101. Bede’s Commentary on Matthew’s Gospel in Migne Patrologia Latina 92 (1862), col. 127; Glossa Ordinaria in Migne

4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9.

PL 114 (1862), col. 177; Ludolphus of Saxony in Vita D.N. Jesu Christi, ed. by A.-C. Bolard, L.-M. Rigollot, and J. Carnandet (Paris & Rome: 1865), p. 686. Biblia Pauperum, ed. by Avril Henry (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1987); on ‘Pictor in Carmine’ see M.R. James in Archaeologia 94 (1951), pp. 141–66. The York Plays, ed. by Richard Beadle (London: Edward Arnold, 1982), Play 38 ‘The Resurrection’; The Towneley Plays, ed. by Martin Stevens and A.C. Cawley, 2 vols EETS SS 13 and 14 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), Play 26 ‘Resurrection’; The Chester Mystery Cycle, ed. by R.M. Lumiansky and David Mills, 2 vols EETS SS 3 and 9 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974 and 1986), Play 18 ‘Resurrection’. All references to N.Town are to The Passion Play from the N.town Manuscript, ed. by Peter Meredith (London: Longmans, 1990). For some discussion of this see Passion Play, pp. 8–9 and 245–47. Martial Rose and Julia Hedgecoe, Stories in Stone: the Medieva1 Roof Carvings of Norwich Cathedral (London: Herbert Press, 1997), p. 26. Mystère de la Résurrection, ed. by Pierre Servet, 2 vols, Textes Littéraires Français (Genève: Librairie Droz 1993).

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PUBLICATIONS BY PETER MEREDITH

Books The N.Town Plays: A facsimile of British Library MS Cotton Vespasian D VIII, ed. by Peter Meredith and Stanley J. Kahrl, Leeds Texts and Monographs, Medieval Drama Facsimiles, 4 (Leeds: School of English, University of Leeds, 1977) Fulgens & Lucres by Mayster Henry Medwall, Leeds Studies in English Playtext (Leeds: School of English, University of Leeds, 1981) The Staging of Religious Drama in Europe in the Later Middle Ages: Texts and Documents with English Translation, ed. by Peter Meredith and John Tailby; trans. by Raffaella Ferrari, Peter Meredith, Lynette R. Muir, Margaret Sleeman, and John Tailby (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1983) The York Play. A facsimile of British Library MS Additional 35290 together with a facsimile of the ‘Ordo Paginarum’ section of the A/Y Memorandum Book, ed. by Richard Beadle and Peter Meredith, with a note on the music by Richard Rastall. Leeds Texts and Monographs, Medieval Drama Facsimiles, 7 (Leeds: School of English, University of Leeds, 1983) The ‘Mary Play’ From the N. town Manuscript (London and New York: Longman, 1987, reprinted, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997) The Towneley Cycle, Parts I & II (Leeds: School of English, 1989, revised edition 1990 (Part I) and 1991 (Part II)) The ‘Passion Play’ From the N. Town Manuscript (London: Longman, 1990) Mankind: An Acting Edition, Playtexts in Performance (Leeds: Alumnus, 1997) The Thursby Manuscripts, being an Account of a Journey by a Leeds man to Lisbon and Oporto in 1755–56, a Collection of Letters from T. D. Whitaker to Lucy Thursby of Meadow Lane, Leeds, 1779–90, and other related Thursby family material, Publications of the Thoresby Society, n.s. 21 (2011 for 2010) Ralph Thoresby’s Review of his Life, 1658–1714 (Yorkshire Archaeological Society MS 26), PThS Ducatus Tercentenary, 2 (2015)

Articles ‘“Nolo Mortem” and the Ludus Coventriae Play of the Women Taken in Adultery’, Medium Ævum, 38 (1969), 38–54 ‘The Evaluation of Children’s Literature’, Proceedings of the 15 th Biennial Conference, Library Association of Australia, Adelaide 1969, (1970), 470–77; (reprinted in Opinion, 14 (1970), 39–54) ‘Chauntecleer and the Mermaids’, Neophilologus, 54 (1970), 81–83 ‘“That panelled me at heeles”: Antony and Cleopatra IV.x.34’, English Studies, 55 (1974), 118–26 ‘A reconsideration of some textual problems in the N.Town manuscript (BL MS Cotton Vespasian D viii)’, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 9 (1976–77), pp. 35–50 ‘The Development of the Mercers’ Pageant Waggon’, Medieval English Theatre, 1.1 (1979), 5–18 ‘The Ordo Paginarum and the Development of the York Tilemakers’ Pageant’, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 11 for 1979 (1980), 59–73 with Richard Beadle, ‘Further External Evidence for Dating the York Register (BL Additional MS 35290)’, LeedsSE, n.s. 11 for 1979 (1980), 51–58 with John Marshall, ‘The Wheeled Dragon in the Luttrell Psalter’, METh, 2.2 (1980), 70–73 ‘John Clerke’s Hand in the York Register’, Essays in Honour of A. C. Cawley, LeedsSE, n.s. 12 for 1980–1981 (1981), 245– 71 ‘The York Millers’ Pageant and the Towneley Processus Talentorum’, METh, 4.2 (1982), 104–14 with Lynette Muir, ‘The Trial in Heaven in the Eerste Bliscap and Other European Plays’, Dutch Crossing, 22 (1984), 84–92 with Meg Twycross, ‘Farte pryke in cule and cock-fighting’, METh, 6.1 (1984), 30–39

‘The Direct and Indirect Use of the Bible in Medieval English Drama’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 77.3 (1995), 61–77 ‘Mankind in Camerino: Playing the very devil and other matters’, Studies in Theatre Production, 16 (December 1997), 84–92 ‘The City of York and its “Play of Pageants”’, Early Theatre, 3 (2000), 22–48 ‘Carved and Spoken Words: The Angelic Salutation, The Mary Play and South Walsham Church, Norfolk’, Porci ante Margaritam: Essays in Honour of Meg Twycross, LeedsSE, n.s. 32 (2001), 369–98 with Lynette R. Muir, ‘The Corpus Christi Bull, 1264: Latin text with modern English translation’, METh, 24 (2002), 62–78 ‘Some notes on the Amesbury Psalter Crucifixion (All Souls College, Oxford, MS 6)’, Essays for Joyce Hill on her Sixtieth Birthday, LeedsSE, n.s. 37 (2006), 427–39 ‘The Sealing of the Tomb: N. Town and its Context’, METh, 29 (2007), 75–88 ‘The Thoresby Collection’, PThS, n.s. 18 (2008 for 2007), 101–15 ‘The Chester Play of Noah and the Presentation of Reality’, Essays in Honour of Oliver Pickering, LeedsSE, n.s. 41 (2011), 146–54 ‘From Grand Design to Scribbled Note: Ralph Thoresby’s Presence in the Society’s Library’, PThS Ducatus Tercentenary, 1 (2015), 151–81 ‘Ralph Thoresby and “Cosen Susy”’, PThS Ducatus Tercentenary, 1 (2015), 183–99

Chapters in Books ‘“Item for a grone - iij d”- Records and Performances’, in Proceedings of the First Colloquium at Erindale College, University of Toronto, 31 Aug.–3 Sept. 1978, ed. by JoAnna Dutka (Toronto: Records of Early English Drama, University of Toronto, 1979), pp. 26–160; Comments, pp. 93–97; Discussion pp. 98–100 Four Fifteenth-Century Religious Songs in English, ed. by Ann-Marie Seaman and Richard Rastall, with a note on the texts, translations and a guide to pronunciation by Peter Meredith (Newton Abbot: Antico, 1979) Six Fifteenth-Century English Songs, ed. by Ann-Marie Seaman and Richard Rastall, with a note on the texts, translations and a guide to pronunciation by Peter Meredith (Newton Abbot: Antico, 1979) ‘The York Cycle and the beginning of vernacular religious drama in England’, in Le Laudi drammatiche Umbre delle origini, atti del V Convegno di Studio, Centro di studi sul teatro medioevale e rinascimentale (Viterbo: Centro di studi sul teatro medioevale e rinascimentale, 1980), pp. 311–33 ‘Scribes, Texts and Performances’, in Aspects of Early English Drama, ed. by Paula Neuss (Cambridge: Brewer, 1984), pp. 13–29 ‘“Make the asse to speake” or Staging the Chester Plays’, in Staging the Chester Cycle, ed. by David Mills, Leeds Texts and Monographs, New Series, 9 (Leeds: School of English, University of Leeds, 1985), pp. 49–76 ‘Putting on plays in the fifteenth century’, in Acting Mediaeval Plays, ed. by Peter Meredith, W. Tydeman and K. Ramsay (Lincoln: Honywood Press, 1985), pp. 1–26 ‘Stage Directions and the Editing of Early English Drama’, in Editing Early English Drama: Special Problems and New Directions. Papers given at the Nineteenth Annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto 4–5 November 1983, ed. by A. F. Johnston (New York: AMS Press, 1987), pp. 64–94 ‘Original-staging production of English medieval plays – ideals, evidence and practice’, in Popular Drama in Northern Europe in the Later Middle Ages: A Symposium. Proceedings of the Eleventh International Symposium organized by the Centre for the Study of Vernacular Literature in the Middle Ages held at Odense University on 17–18 November, 1986, ed. by Flemming G. Andersen, Julia McGrew, Tom Pettitt and Reinhold Schroder (Odense: Odense University Press, 1988), pp. 65–100 ‘Manuscript, scribe and performance: further looks at the N. town manuscript’, in Regionalism in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts: Essays Celebrating the Publication of a Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English, ed. by Felicity Riddy, York Manuscripts Conferences, Proceedings Series, 2 (Cambridge: Brewer, 1991), pp. 109–28 ‘The Iconography of Hell in the English Cycles: A Practical Perspective’, in The Iconography of Hell, ed. by Clifford Davidson and Thomas H. Seiler, Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series, 17 (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992), pp. 158–86 ‘The Towneley cycle’, in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, ed. by Richard Beadle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 134–62 ‘Theatrical Larks or Pious Practices: Playing for Souls in the Middle Ages’, in European Medieval Drama 1996: Papers from the First International Conference on Aspects of European Medieval Drama, Camerino, 28–30 June, 1996, ed. by Sydney Higgins (Camerino: Universita Degli Studi di Camerino, 1996), pp. 3–15 ‘The Fifteenth-Century Audience of the York Corpus Christi Play: Records and Speculation’, in ‘Divers Toyes Mengled’: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Culture in Honour of André Lascombes, ed. by Michel Bitot, Roberta Mullini, and Peter Happé (Tours: Université François Rabelais, 1996), pp. 101–11 ‘“The Bodley Burial and Resurrection”: Late English Liturgical Drama?’, in Between Folk and Liturgy, ed. by Alan J. Fletcher

and Wim Hüsken (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997), pp. 133–55 ‘Performance, Verse, and Occasion in the N-Town Mary Play’, in Individuality and Achievement in Middle English Poetry, ed. by O. S. Pickering (Cambridge: Brewer, 1997), pp. 205–22 ‘Professional Travelling Players of the Fifteenth Century: Myth or Reality?’, in European Medieval Drama 1997: Papers from the Second International Conference on Aspects of European Medieval Drama, Camerino, 4–6 July, 1997, ed. by Sydney Higgins (Camerino: Universita Degli Studi di Camerino, 1997), pp. 25–40 ‘Mysteries and Moralities’, in Moral Mysteries: Essays to Accompany a Season of Medieval Drama at The Other Place, ed. by David Jays (Stratford-upon-Avon: RSC Publications, 1997), pp. 6–16 ‘Latin Liturgical Drama’, in The Medieval European Stage, 500–1550, ed. by William Tydeman, Theatre in Europe: a documentary history (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 53–134 ‘The Language of Medieval Cookery’, in The English Cookery Book: Historical Essays, ed. by Eileen White, Leeds Symposium on Food History ‘Food and Society’ Series (Blackawton, Totnes: Prospect Books, 2004), pp. 28–54 ‘A Tale of Two Plays’, in Mainte belle oeuvre faicte: Études sur le théâtre médiéval offertes à Graham A. Runnalls, ed. by Denis Hüe, Mario Longtin, Lynette Muir, Medievalia, 54 (Orléans: Paradigme, 2005), pp. 407–18 ‘“Some high place”: actualizing heaven in the Middle Ages’, in Envisaging Heaven in the Middle Ages, ed. by Carolyn Muessig and Ad Putter (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 139–54 ‘“Young men will do it”: Fun, Disorder, and Good Government in York, 1555: Some Thoughts on House Book 21’, in ‘Bring furth the pageants’: Essays in Early English Drama Presented to Alexandra F. Johnston, ed. by David N. Klausner and Karen Sawyer Marsalek (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 2007), pp. 41–57 ‘Establishing an Expositor’s Role: Contemplacio and the N.town Manuscript’, in The Narrator, the Expositor, and the Prompter in European Medieval Theatre, ed. by Philip Butterworth (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2007), pp. 289–306 ‘The Towneley pageants’, in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, ed. by Richard Beadle and Alan J. Fletcher, 2nd. edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 152–82 ‘Reading a procession: Bishop Blase at Bradford’, in In strange countries, Middle English Literature and its Afterlife: Essays in Memory of J. J. Anderson, ed. by David Matthews (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2011), pp. 108–31

Encyclopedia Entries ‘British Isles’, in A Companion to the Medieval Theatre, ed. by R. W. A. Vince (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), pp. 40– 48 ‘Medieval Drama in Europe’, in The Cambridge Guide to World Theatre, ed. by M. J. Banham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988; rev. edn, The Cambridge Guide to Theatre, 1992), ‘Introduction’, p. 630; ‘England, Scotland and Ireland; Cornwall and Wales’, pp. 633–36; ‘Staging in the Middle Ages’, pp. 649–53 ‘English’, in Encyclopedia of European Languages, ed. by Glanville Price (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998), pp. 136–50 ‘mystery plays’, in The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, ed. by Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason and Hugh Pyper (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 459–60

Book Reviews Review of C. Gauvin, Un Cycle du théâtre religieux anglais du moyen age: le jeu de la ville , Modern Language Review, 71.3 (1976), 622–24 Review of William Tydeman, The Theatre in the Middle Ages: Western European Stage Conditions, c. 800–1576, Early Drama, Art and Music Newsletter, 2.1 (November 1979), 5 Review of A. C. Cawley and others, The Revels History of Drama in English, Vol. I: Medieval Drama, and York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling, ed. by R. Beadle and P. M. King, MLR, 82.3 (1987), 699–701 Review of P. Happé, Medieval English Drama: A Casebook, Comparative Drama, 21.1 (1987), 95–98 Review of the Malone Society Reprints, The Pardoner and The Friar, 1533 and The Four Ps, 1544, CD, 21.4 (1987), 387–88 Review of W. Tydeman, English Medieval Theatre 1400–1500, MLR, 84.4 (1989), 918–19 Review of The N-Town Play, Cotton MS Vespasian D.8, 1: Introduction and Text; 2: Commentary, Appendixes and Glossary, ed. by S. Spector, Speculum, 69.3 (1994), 889–91 Review of J. W. Harris, Medieval Theatre in Context: An Introduction, Medium Ævum, 63.2 (1994), 311–12 Review of B. Murdoch, Cornish Literature, and A Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge, ed. by C. Davidson, MLR, 91.1 (1996), 189– 90 Review of L. Earp, Guillaume de Machaut: A Guide to Research, and The Tale of the Alerion, by Guillaume de Machaut. ed. and trans, by M. Gaudet and C. B. Hieatt, MLR, 82.4 (1997), 967–69 Review of The Towneley Plays, Vol. I: Introduction and Text; Vol. II: Notes and Glossary, ed. by M. Stevens and A. C. Cawley, MLR, 91.2 (1997), 436–37 Review of Janette Dillon, The Cambridge Introduction to Early English Theatre, LeedsSE, 38 (2007), 221–24 Review of John J. McGavin, Theatricality and Narrative in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland, LeedsSE, 39 (2008), 139–43

Performance Reviews Review of Performance of ‘The York Cycle at Toronto, October 1–2, 1977’, Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, 20 (1977), 112–14 Review of Performance of ‘The Croxton Play of the Blyssyd Sacrament, July 13, 1977, Cambridge Medieval Players, at Salle des Fêtes, Alençon’, RORD, 20 (1977), 101 Review of Performance of ‘The Towneley Pharoah, July 12, 1977, Graduate Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds, at Place du Puits des Forges, Alençon’, RORD, 20 (1977), 100 Review of Performances of ‘The Castle of Perseverance, May 23–27, 1978, at St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield, London; and June 3–24, 1978, on tour’, RORD, 21 (1978), 100–01 ‘Reports on Two Mystery Play Productions in 1979: The Coventry Mystery Play, July–August 1979’, METh, 1.1 (1979), 44 ‘Alia Eorundem’, METh, 4.1 (1982), 66–70 ‘Mary Magdalen at Durham’, METh, 4.2 (1982), 63–70 ‘The Conversion of St. Paul at Winchester Cathedral’, METh, 4.1 (1982), 71–72 ‘;The Chester plays at Leeds, May Bank Holiday 1983, organised by the Centre for Medieval Studies’, University of Leeds Review, 26 (1983), 137–45 ‘Stray Thoughts on Chester 1983’, METh, 5.1 (1983), 42–44 ‘The Killing of the Children at Winchester Cathedral, 26th–28th May 1983’, METh, 5.1 (1983), 51–52 ‘Medwall’s Fulgens and Lucres’, METh, 6.1 (1984), 44–48 ‘A fourteenth-century Easter matins service’, METh, 12.1 (1990), 81–83

Notes ‘The Leeds Descriptive Catalogue of Medieval Drama’, RORD, 21 (1978), 91–93 ‘John Dixon’s Sketchbooks’, Notes from the Library, 3, The Thoresby Society (2010) ‘The Ripon Millenary’, Notes from the Library, 4, The Thoresby Society (2011) ‘Ralph Thoresby’s House in Kirkgate, Leeds’, Notes from the Library, 5, The Thoresby Society (2012) The Osmondthorpe Painted Glass Panel, Notes from the Library, 7, The Thoresby Society (2015) ‘A previously unrecorded plan of Leeds, 1792’, Notes from the Library, 8, The Thoresby Society (2016)

INDEX Abraham 92–3, 114 Abraham 115, 210 Acle (town) 310–311, 320–321 actors 12, 76, 78, 147–9, 159–64, 166, 195, 203–4, 259–60, 292; boy 163; highest-paid 161; part-time 242; professional 160–161; unskilled 161 Adam 45, 50, 114, 300 allegorical figures 301 Anderson, John 141, 152 angel costumes 171 angel dolls 260 angels 98, 127–8, 144, 146, 171–2, 275–6, 307, 320, 336–7, 342–3; bright shining 337; golden-faced 275; message of the 111; rebel 127; red 260; singing 88, 208, 210; single 336 Angers 341, 343–6 Anima Christi 339, 342, 344–5 Annas 115, 163, 181, 198, 276, 300, 335, 337–42 Anne 296–7, 300, 312, 320 annotations 45, 47, 49, 52, 74, 76, 78, 83, 95–6, 104 Annunciation 115, 122, 124–5, 128, 295, 303, 307, 311, 314, 318–21 Annunciation pageant 39, 103, 115, 122, 226 Antichrist 110 see also Satan Antichrist pageant 78, 93, 196 apostles 112–13, 146, 172, 208 Appleyard, Thomas 189 apprentices 42, 159, 163 archangels 127–8 Archbishopric of York 228 Arundel, Earl of 235–7 Ascension 134 Ash Wednesday 5–6 Assumption of the Virgin 28–30, 65, 75, 80, 93, 134, 235, 260, 309 Assumption pageant 80 Augustine 6–8, 28 Ave Maria 314–15, 320

Bakers’ Company 39, 41–2 Bakers’ pageant 258 Balaam and Balak 197, 210–211, 251, 253 Banns 78–80, 86, 94, 160, 165, 196, 201, 205 baptisms 9–13, 97, 100 Beadle, Richard 83, 142, 154 Bede 6, 15, 25–6, 335, 345 Bedford, William 77 Bellin, George 77–8 Benedictine Abbey of St Benet of Hulme 311 benefactors 311, 316 Bevington, David 237 Bible 73, 114, 134, 226, 296, 301 Block, K. S. (Miss) 3–4, 23–6, 28–9, 31, 315 Bollers pageant 61, 169, 181–2, 184, 186, 188–9 Bowes, William 185, 224 Breviary 1609 198 Broggers pageants 169 Brooks, John 210 Browne, E. Martin 249 burials 93, 253, 340–341 Burton, Roger 167, 182–3, 187 Bynkes, Adam 43 Caesar Augustus 113–14 Caiaphas 115, 198, 338–42, 344 Cain and Abel 35, 114–15, 250 Cally, Richard 158–9, 162 Calvary 66, 68, 182, 271 carriages 157–8, 162, 166, 173, 195, 199–201, 206–7, 210–211, 251, 255 The Castle of Perseverance 79, 249, 251–2, 270 Catholics 91, 95 Cawley, Arthur xiv, 96, 99, 106 Cayphas 48, 181, 335, 337–8 Chamberlains’ Rolls and Books 40, 44, 189, 224, 228, 235 Chaucer, Geoffrey 110, 227, 291; and The Pardoner’s Tale 14; sermons of 110, 227, 291 Chester 79–80, 210, 274; manuscripts 77, 83; Painters’ accounts 158; Painters’ Company 157; plays xiv, xvi, 195–211; records 78; tyrants 203 Chester (plays) 77–8, 83–5, 93–4, 158–61, 195–6, 200–205, 208–9, 251–8, 274–7, 336–7 Chester Cathedral 78 Chester Coopers Company 77, 157–9, 161–2, 196, 198–202, 205 Chester craft companies 162, 167 Chester Cycle 195, 249–50, 252, 270

Chinese boxes 290 Christ 6–10, 13–14, 66–8, 104–5, 109–11, 266, 270, 335–7, 339–40, 342–5; and baptism 97; birth of 111; body of 335, 339, 342, 345; and Calvary 66, 68; crucified 105; garments of 65–6, 68, 187–8; life of 114; modem 270; praying 13, 104; as preacher 13; risen 105; rising from the dead 337; scourging of 66, 92, 103–4, 107, 115; speech of 25, 28; spiritual power of 295; stripping of 66; temptation of 113; tomb of 335, 342; voice of 127; words of 6–7, 204 Christ and the Doctors 9–13, 37, 39, 93, 102–5, 115, 134, 163, 202, 210 Christians 26, 296, 306; consciousness of history 115; ordinary 296; saved 109 Christmas 239–40 Church of St Mary, South Walsham 310–311, 313, 315, 318–21 church-wardens 309, 312 churches 28, 39, 43, 159, 229, 234, 242, 311, 313–15, 317; appointments to 228; contemporary 98; local xvii; parish 43, 101, 167, 309 City Register 78 Clerke, John 35–54, 81–2; age of 43; annotations of 52; attendance with the Register 53; and the Cardmakers’ pageant 51; and matters of organization 49–54; and omissions from the Register 45–9; servant to Miles Newton in 1542 44; and the York Register 35–54, 77–8, 95–6, 104, 187 Clerke, Thomas (father of John Clerke) 39, 42 Clopper, Larry 197–8, 205, 210 Coghill, Nevill xiv combined pageants 182–3, 187 commonplace books 311–12 companies 77–9, 160, 162–5, 195–6, 198–201, 207, 209, 211, 235–6, 241; acting 235; late sixteenth-century travelling 242; local amateur drama 272; touring 79, 233 Condempnacio Cristi 169–70, 185 Condempnacio Iesu Christi 190–191 Conspiracio 92, 104 Conspiracy and Taking of Christ 92, 100, 104, 106–7, 115 Contemplacio 121–35; allies himself with performers 134; appearances of 122; role in the Mary Play 131; speech of 23–5, 86, 121–9, 131–5, 295, 319; supplication to God 296; welcome to the audience 296 Coopers’ Trial and Flagellation pageant 78 Corpus Christi Day 44, 99, 143, 172, 186–7, 204, 224, 228, 239–40, 271 Corpus Christi Guild 221 Corpus Christi play 43–4, 70, 74–6, 99–100, 104, 185, 188–91, 198, 221–2, 225 costumes 133–4, 144, 146, 164–5, 171–2, 195–6, 205–6, 261, 264, 274–5; angel 171; decoration 165; emblematic 204; iconography 234; individual 258; lists of 258; old 259; and props 164; references to 95; symbolic 204 craft guilds 74, 76, 96, 113, 144, 186 crafts 76, 78–80, 95–6, 99–101, 104, 181–2, 186, 188, 190, 256–9; combined 190; contributory 184, 187, 189; diverse 256; individual 95, 256; list of 188, 257; main 186

creation xv, 111, 122, 143, 296, 299 The Creation 93–4, 101, 113–14 Crouch, David 221–4 Crucifixion 66–8, 107, 114–15, 190, 268 Crucifying of Christ 260, 272 cycles 65–6, 77–9, 91–2, 96–7, 103–5, 112–14, 116, 191, 196–8, 271; Chester Cycle 195, 249–50, 252, 270; common original 102; English mystery 75, 121, 307; of human beings 116; N.town productions xiv–xvi, 121, 249, 251–2, 309–10, 312, 317, 335, 338–42, 345–6; Towneley Cycle xiv, xvi, 61, 65, 91–116, 249–50, 293; welcome revival of interest in 97; York Cycle xiv, xvi, 65–6, 92, 249, 270, 274, 293 Daniel (Bible reference) 335 Dawson, Giles E. 235, 237 de Cabham, Thomas 240 death 14, 26, 93, 106, 114, 210, 340; Christ’s trial and 26, 340; medieval lyrics on 106; mother’s 43; wife’s 43 The Dicing 104 disused pageants 92, 100, 104, 106–7, 115; Conspiracy and Taking of Christ 92, 100, 104, 106–7, 115; The Dicing 104; Fergus 70, 169, 253; Offering of the Magi 51–3, 83, 98, 103–4; Purification 35, 37, 50–52, 70, 93, 161, 163, 251, 255, 275–6 Doby, Edward 160 Doby, Richard 159–60 Dorrell, Margaret (now Margaret Rogerson 141–2, 144–7, 150, 152, 154, 171–2 Dover players 240 Drake, Francis 222 Drapers 169, 253 Drawswerd 143, 153; agreement 143; waggon 143–4 ecclesiastical commission in York 99–100 Edward, King 196 eight-line stanzas 4 Elijah 266, 269–70 Elizabeth, Queen 25, 100, 122, 128–30, 133, 196, 226, 295, 317 Ellam, Thomas 162–3 Elliott, Ralph xiv Ellome, Thomas 163 Emmaus pageant 169 employees 42, 241–2 English 154–5, 204, 208, 259, 262, 270, 277, 303, 335, 341; craft names 75; devil 290; drama xiii, 54, 93, 123, 249; medieval drama xiii, xvii, 91, 122, 249–77; mystery cycles 75, 121, 307; mystery plays 73, 77, 89, 204; John 241 English shepherds 110 Esau 98, 115

Ezechiel 5, 8 Ezechiel passages 7, 10 Fastolf, Sir John 311 Fergus 70, 169, 253 Festum Encenniorum (important feast day) 296 First World War 249 five-line stanzas 63 Flagellacio (the scourging) 65, 92, 103, 169, 185 flagellation 78, 159, 187, 205 Fletcher, Alan 81 forgiveness 5, 8 Forrester, Jean 99 Fox, Robert 42 Foxgale, John 43 Frampton, M. G. 61–3, 70, 182 Freemen’s Rolls 39, 42, 44, 159 French Passions and Resurrections 341 French plays 341 Fullers’ pageant 35–6, 44, 47, 50–51, 83 Gabriel 81, 88, 128, 226, 303–4, 306, 318, 342, 344 garments 63, 68–9, 270; dividing of the 70; white 268–70 Gazeley church 316 Gibson, Richard 242 Gillam, Hugh 162, 205 Girdlers’ pageant 47, 189 Glossa Ordinaria 6 Glovers’ pageant 76 God 111–12, 114–15, 166–7, 171–2, 250–252, 259–60, 269–70, 283–5, 299–305, 318–20 Goldsmiths-Masons agreement 253 Goldsmiths’ pageant 51–3, 70, 83, 153, 170, 197 Goodchild, John 99 Gospels 5, 7, 12, 15, 66, 226, 300, 303, 335 Gradual Psalms 298, 303, 306–7 Greban 268–70 Greg, W. 29, 31–2, 73 Grene, John 39 grone xvi, 155, 157, 165 guilds 40, 42, 45–8, 73–4, 141, 157, 167–72, 182–3, 190–191, 307; religious 312; and their pageants 141; wealthy 171; well-recorded 171 Gylys, Robert 236

Hairsters pageant 61, 169, 181–9, 225 Hanging of Judas 92, 95–6, 101, 103–4, 190 Hanky, John 201 Harley 77, 83, 159, 166 Harrowing of Hell I 65, 80, 197, 251, 339–41, 343, 345 Henry VII 241 Herod 48, 51–2, 83, 85, 106, 108–9, 113–14, 203, 205, 293–5; first meeting of 293; first outburst of 293; first words 294; greeting to 293; and his doctors/councillors 109, 115; horror of 85; hypochondriac rages of 108; masked 205; self-assertion of 295; wavering between frenzy and desperate regality 85 High Cross 210, 251, 254, 256, 277 history xiv, 49, 65, 92, 115, 183–4, 190–191, 295, 312; early 115, 182; literary 166; of mankind 92 Holme, Randle 77, 198 Holy Gost 299, 319 Hostlers’ pageant 169, 189 humanity 109, 112, 114, 116, 298; common 111; individualized 110; localized contemporary 110 Hunter, Joseph 96 Hutton, Matthew (Dean of York) 38–9 Ibson episode 43 Iesus/Maria 315 incomplete pageants: Abraham 92–3, 114; Ascension 134; The Creation 93–4, 101, 113–14; Doctors 9–13, 37, 39, 93, 102–5, 115, 134, 163, 202, 210; Isaac 92–3, 113–14, 226; The Judgement 93, 95, 101–4, 107–8; Purification 35, 37, 50–52, 70, 93, 161, 163, 251, 255, 275–6 Ironmongers’ pageant 47 Isaac 92–3, 113–14, 226 item for a grone – ijd xvi, 157–73 items 40, 44, 99, 155, 157–8, 164–6, 171–2, 199, 205–6, 236; identifiable as props, costumes, ‘scenery’ or ‘make-up’ 165; mechanical 171; named 165 Jacob 98–9, 113–15 Jeremiah 127 Jerome 6 Jerusalem 27–8, 271, 343 Jesus 3, 5–6, 103, 105, 108, 228–9, 268–70, 336–7, 339, 343–4; descends into the mountain 270; and the discovering of his absence 93; speech in the Resurrection 94 Jews 6, 14–16, 25, 335, 343 Joachim 296, 300, 319–20; and his prayer to God 304; and the rejection from the temple 296; returns with Anne and Mary to the temple 297 John the Baptist 6, 8–9, 12–13, 70, 93, 97–8, 100, 129, 266, 316

Johnston, Alexandra xiii, 94, 142, 145, 238–9 Johnston, Jackie 238 Johnston, Sandy 141, 144, 146–7, 150, 152 Joseph 88–9, 93, 129–30, 133, 135, 163–5, 301, 304, 316, 341 Joseph pageant 86 ‘Joseph’s Return’ 86–9 journals xv–xvi, 289; Medieval English Theatre xv–xvi, 204, 221, 260, 263, 270 The Judgement 95, 101–4, 107–8 judgement 93 Kahrl, Stanley J. xiv, 235, 237, 242 Kent records 234–5, 237 Killing of Abel 92, 101, 106, 112 Killing of the Children 277 Killing of the Innocents 197 Kipling, Gordon 234–5 Lancashire, Ian 233, 239 Langland, William 240–241, 291 Langton, John 42 Langton, William 40 Last Judgement pageant 92, 109, 285 Last Judgement play 142, 146, 210, 251, 256, 264–5, 273–4, 277 Last Supper 25–6, 28, 113 Late Banns 167, 210–211 Latin xv, 4, 9, 11, 24, 42–3, 78, 83, 303, 312; liturgical texts 11, 15, 134, 298, 303; phrases 3–4, 130; services 42 Lazarus 92, 96, 98, 105–6, 202, 274 Leeds xiii–xv, 153, 249, 251, 261, 268, 270, 272–4, 277; production 1996 284; and Wakefield 270 Leeds International Medieval Congress xv Leeds Medieval Drama facsimile series 96 Leeds Studies in English 145, 154–5, 259, 262 Leeds Texts and Monographs xiv Legenda Aurea 24, 129, 296 Leviticus 296 Limbo 270, 343 Loker, William 162–3 London group 239–40 Louis, Cameron 311–12 Love, Nicholas 128, 133 Ludolphus of Saxony 335, 345 Ludus Coventriae xv, 3–4, 7, 249

Luke (apostle) 112 Luke (Gospel) 226, 303 Lumiansky, R. M. 197, 205–6 Magdalen, Mary 198, 250–252, 269, 277, 339; age of 134; appearance 50; conception and birth 122, 133; crown of 206; departure with Joseph 129; devout reading and enthusiastic praise of the psalms 135; parents and relations 317; pregnancy of 316; reception of Christ 307 Magi 48, 98 Magnificat 5, 303, 306–7 Magnus Herodes 93, 293 Mak (sheep-stealer) 91, 111–12 Malone Society xvi, 74 Mankind 251, 283–90 Mankind (a representative of the human race) 288–9, 317; considers life as being no longer of any worth 289; and the downfall of 288; transfers allegiance from Mercy to Mischief 285 manuscripts xiii–xvii, 3–4, 24–5, 27–9, 73–80, 83, 91–7, 99–101, 121–2, 168–70; alreadywritten 32; analysis of xv; composite 80; five antiquarian 85; five cycle 197; interrogation of xvii; list of 77; new 124, 131, 133; planned 94; scrutiny of xvii; surviving 121; and text analysis xiv–xvi Maries 336–40, 342, 344–5 marriage 47, 75, 110–111, 122–4, 128, 133, 135, 270, 295 Marser, Thomas 161, 201 Marshall, Henry 143 Marshall, John xvii, 154, 157, 196, 199, 201, 207, 277 Mary 79–81, 86, 88, 129, 162–3, 165–7, 295–300, 303–4, 306–7, 317–21; lists the benefits from prayer 320; marriage to Joseph 301; pageants 93; shining face of 89; womb of 318 Mary Play and South Walsham Church, Norfolk 309–21 The Mary Play from the N.town Manuscript xiv, 291–307 Masons’ pageant 47, 51–3, 70, 83, 170 Matthew (apostle) 112 Matthew (Gospel) 316, 335 medieval xiii–xv, xvii, 73, 121, 123, 171, 195–6, 249, 251, 288; art 315; costumes xiv; drama xiii–xvii, 16, 96, 157, 238, 250; expositors 134; lyrics 106; and modern styles of presentation 274; records of performance xiii; sound 250; stagecraft 284, 289; staging 195, 249; techniques 249; text 121; theatre practice xiii–xiv, xvi, 270, 277; verse 291 Medieval English Theatre xv–xvi, 204, 221, 260, 263, 270 Medieval Players 252, 277 Mercer, Thomas 162 Mercers’ pageant waggon 141–52; and the 1433 indenture 141–2; and the 1433 waggon 144–52; after 1507 143–4, 152; and the Drawswerd wagon, 1501-7 142; and the souls’ waggon of 1463 142–4 Meredith, Peter xiii–xvii, 152–5, 342; knowledge and expertise xiii; passion for the N.town

plays xiv; work published in specialist publications xiii Mermaid Theatre, London 97 Micklegate (street) 223–5, 254–5 Middle Ages 73, 79, 91, 147, 149, 227, 260, 284–5, 288, 291 Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament 106 Middle English translations 292, 298 Midsummer shows 77, 160, 197–8, 200, 203, 205–6, 209 Miller, James 78 Millers’ pageant 61, 64–6, 68, 70–71, 169, 181–90, 225 Mills, David xiii, 73, 113, 115, 197, 205–6, 261 Milners Saucemakers 188 minstrels 52–3, 198, 200, 233–5, 237, 239–42 Mons 268–70, 341, 344 Moreton, John 224 Moses 10–13, 83, 251, 266, 269–70, 316 Mount Syon 28 Mystère de la Résurrection 341 N-Town 28, 78–80, 85–6, 88, 92, 94, 291; banns 79; compilers 123; Facsimile 86; genealogies 317; manuscripts 23, 79–80, 86, 121–35; plays xiv–xvi, 121, 249, 251–2, 309–10, 312, 317, 335, 338–42, 345–6; playwright/directors 345; production at the University of Toronto xiv N.Town Passion 134, 277 Nativity of St John the Baptist 198 Nelson, Alan 271 New Testament 3–5, 197 Newcombe, Geoffrey 252, 254–8, 261, 269 Newton, Miles 38–9, 44, 48 nine-line stanzas 106, 112, 123–5 Noah xiv, 83, 101, 106, 109, 115, 204, 209, 250 Noah’s Flood 83, 210, 251, 257 North, John 43 Northern Passion 106 Northern rhymes 64 Oblacio Magorum (Offering of the Magi) 51–3, 83, 98, 103–4, 115, 203 Offering of the Magi 51–3, 83, 98, 103–4, 115, 203 Ordinalia 249, 251 Ordo Paginarum 47, 54, 61, 66, 75, 141, 167–72, 181–91 original-staging production xiii–xiv, xvii, 249–50, 252, 266, 270, 272, 275, 277; full-scale 252; large-scale 277; strict 277 pageant, money collection 169

pageants 45–54, 85–6, 91–101, 103–6, 108–16, 141–4, 167–73, 181–91, 256–60, 270–272; alternative Shepherds’ 91; Annunciation 39, 103, 115, 122, 226; The Antichrist 78; Assumption 80; Bakers’ 258; Bollers 61, 169, 181–2, 184, 186, 188–9; Broggers 169; Cardmakers’ 45–6, 50–51; combined 182–3, 187; Coopers’ Trial and Flagellation 78; Emmaus 169; Goldsmiths’ 51–3, 70, 83, 153, 170, 197; Hairsters 61, 169, 181–9, 225; Hostlers’ 169, 189; Ironmongers’ 47; Joseph 86; Last Judgement 92, 109, 285; of Mary’s appearance to Thomas 50, 93; Masons’ 47, 51–3, 70, 83, 170; Millers’ 61, 64–6, 68, 70–71, 169, 181–90, 225; money collection 169, 188–9; performances of 113, 272; Pinners’ and Painters 61, 184, 191, 225; Ropers’ 169, 181–3, 188–90; Saucemakers’ 61, 63, 169–70, 182–7, 189, 225; Scriveners’ 76; separate 48, 66, 79, 86, 104, 182–5, 187, 191, 272, 274; series of 80, 86, 91, 93–5, 113, 122–3, 141; Shearmen’s 61, 181–2, 184–5, 190, 271; Shipwrights’ 76; Sledmen’s 49–50, 169; Spicers’ 38; texts 45, 123, 131, 135; Tilemakers 81, 181, 187–8, 190–191; Towneley 61–2, 64–6, 68–70, 91–3, 96–7, 99–106, 113–16, 225, 249–50, 336–7; Vintners’ 37, 47, 50, 75, 84, 203; Visitation 23, 28, 86, 88–9, 226; York Mercers’ xvi, 93–4, 102–5, 154–5, 173, 207, 210, 262, 277 painters 85, 158–62, 164, 166, 190, 196, 198–203, 207–8, 225, 260; accounts 158, 162, 164, 166, 198–9, 206–7, 209; amalgamation 191; pageants 61, 191; records 165 Painters’ Company 158–9; pageant description 184; payment of carriage 158, 199 Palmer, Barbara 236 Palmer, D. 49–50, 234 Parkes, Malcolm 94 Parliament 86, 88, 94, 122, 125, 317 Parliament of Heaven and the Annunciation 86, 122, 124–6, 128, 131, 135, 303 Passion Play from the N.town Manuscript xiv, 134, 339–40, 345 Pentecost 93, 208, 210 pentice 210, 251 see apprentice performance: celebratory 97; last 77, 196–7; pre-Reformation 196, 207; processional 221, 274; projected 76, 100; sixteenth-century 54, 204 Pharao 64–5, 92 Pharaoh 96, 101–4, 106, 115 Pilate 62–3, 65, 67–70, 103, 108–10, 114–15, 205, 317, 335, 337–42; agreement to the setting of the watch 341; to dice for Christ’s garments 68; dramatic treatment of 65; and Herod 205; and his relationship with his wife Percula 226; seal affixed to the tomb 340; vaunts of 108–9 Pinners’ and Painters pageants 61, 184, 191, 225 Poculi Ludique Societas 250, 265, 267–8 Pollard, A.W. 96 ‘pope’ (reference to the word) 93 Price, Amanda 289 Processus Talentorum 65 professional travelling players 233–43 Prosser, Eleanor 3, 15–16 publications: Leeds Texts and Monographs xiv; The Mary Play from the N.town Manuscript xiv, 291–307; The Passion Play from the N.town Manuscript xiv

Pullaine, Henry 43 Purification 35, 37, 50–52, 70, 93, 161, 163, 251, 255, 275–6 Rabon, Robert 161 Rabone, Robert 162 Radeborne, Robart 162, 164 Ransome, Arthur 310 Rastall, Richard 203 Rathbone, Robert 162 Records of Early English Drama xv–xvi, 74–8, 154–5, 185, 187–8, 190–191, 198, 205, 223–6, 253 REED xvi, 75–8, 185, 187–8, 190, 198, 205, 221, 223–6, 253 see Records of Early English Drama Reformed Church 100 Register 35, 43–7, 50–53, 70, 73–6, 78, 95–6, 104, 169–71, 253 see City Register see York Register Renaissance Drama 274 Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama 274 Resurrection 94, 98, 102–6, 115, 196–7 Resurrection 80, 105, 114, 336–7, 345 Revello 268, 270 revisions 46, 65, 68, 80–81, 105, 107, 124–5, 128, 168, 187; last 94; official 54; owner’s 74; record guild 53; single 125 revivals, welcome 97 Reynes, Robert 311–12, 317–18, 320–321 rhyme brackets 3–4 rhyme-links 31 rhyme scheme 4, 9, 11–12, 88, 105, 294, 304 rhymes 3, 30–32, 62–4, 94, 113; contrived 108; identical 108; imprecise 63; non-Northern 62; Northern 64; series of 107 rhythms 250, 304, 306 Richard, Duke of Gloucester 228 Richard III 228 Richardson, Christine 238 Rogers’ Breviary 77 Rogerson, Margaret 141, 154 Romance literature 234 Ropers’ pageant 169, 181–3, 188–90 Rotherham, Alice 228–9 Rotherham, Thomas 228 Salter, F.M. 85, 159–61 Satan 110

Saucemakers’ pageant 61, 63, 169–70, 182–7, 189, 225 Savage, Sir John 197, 201 scholars xiii–xiv, xvi, 3, 37, 106, 112, 134, 181, 228, 234; of medieval drama xiv; medievalist-English 250; young xiii scholarships 116, 121, 211, 270–271; medieval drama 233; twenty-first century xiii scourging of Christ 66, 92, 103–4, 107, 115 scribes 3–4, 23–5, 28–32, 73, 75, 77, 80, 86, 88–9, 309–12; contemporary 121; local 75–6; main 4, 24–5, 28–32, 46, 49, 51–2, 79–80, 86, 89, 122; misreading 24; misreading of y as j 24; original 39; respected 54 Scriveners’ pageant 76 Scrope, Millicent 311 sealing of the tomb 335–46 Second Shepherds’ Play 91, 110, 164, 250 Selby Abbey 234 Selby records 236 sermons 3, 8–16, 74, 227; of Chaucer’s Pardoner 14; formal 12; forms of 8, 13–16; structure of 15; techniques of 14; university 8; writers of 111 Shearmen’s pageant 61, 181–2, 184–5, 190, 271 shepherds 91, 93, 98, 101, 106, 108–12, 160–161, 164–6, 203, 206–7; English 110; first 164; oaths and asseverations of 115; and Pilates 110; third 110–111; thorn 101; and the visit to Bethlehem 91 Shipwrights’ pageant 76 Shoemakers 196, 198, 202, 207 Sievers 169, 181, 183, 188–9 Skinners 197, 199, 271 Sledmen’s pageant 49–50, 169 Smith, Lucy Toulmin 35, 37, 44, 49–50, 102, 181–2, 222 Smiths 161–7, 196, 198–206; accounts 161, 163, 196, 198, 201–2, 207; lists 162–3, 202; records 162, 198; and Shoemakers 198 Snaudon agreement 186 Société Internationale pour l’Étude du Théâtre Médiéval xv soldiers 65, 68–9, 80–81, 336–9, 341 souls 98, 115, 142–3, 146, 172, 264, 288, 290, 339, 343–5; damned 81; good 171; in hell 98, 115; lost 108 South Walsham Church of St Mary 310–311, 313, 315, 318–21 Southern, Richard 270 speaker’s names 4, 38, 52, 125, 130; abbreviated 3; extended 266 speeches 24, 81, 83, 88, 105–6, 123–5, 127–8, 131, 292–4, 301–4; by Christ 337; complete 80; extended 105; final 295; first 115, 123, 303; of Herod 83; intense 305; mistimed 81; natural 304; omitted 47; of Peter 112; ranting 48; single four-stanza 125; third 125, 128; two-speaker 128 Speed, John 259 Spicers’ pageant 38

St Anne 311–12 St Benet of Hulme 311 St John the Baptist 198 St Martin’s Church 42–3, 236 St Mary-at-Hill, London 151 St Mary’s Abbey, York 271, 311, 320 St Mary’s Church, South Walsham 313, 321 St. Meriasek 251 St Peter’s Church, York 251 stage directions 73, 83, 97–9, 195–6, 203, 207–11, 274–5, 336–7, 339, 343–5; and action of the plays 210; deleted 86; enigmatic 336; oddest 98; original 97; and records of props 274; single 266 staging 79, 81, 92, 97, 195–7, 206–7, 211, 249–50, 271–2, 336–7; complexities of 79; directions 92; economy in 285; fixed 270; interest in records of 250; and language 307; layouts 97; medieval 195, 249; of plays 291; post-Reformation 196; practices 196; processional 271; scaffold 251; on waggons 251, 266, 271–2 stanza form 4, 62, 96, 129; characteristic 107; complex 105; intended 63; new 125; normal 63; typical 123 stanzas 29–30, 32, 61–4, 66, 102–3, 105–7, 110, 112, 125, 127; beginning of 29, 126; characteristic 107; common York 103; to Contemplacio 127; eight-line 4; final 14, 124–5; first 87, 125; five-line 63; interpolated 134; last 132; nine-line 106, 112, 123–5; non-Marian 129; second 88; six-line 103; third 125; thirteen-line 123; Wakefield Master’s 62, 64 Sterop, Henry 239 Stevens, Martin 61–2, 64–5, 94, 96, 112, 277 stories 5–8, 13–15, 109, 113–14, 122, 133–4, 226–7, 229–30, 241, 294–5; basic 62; biblical 98; of Christ’s passion 226; of justice 6; of mercy 6; of penitence 6 story-tellers 133, 239, 242 stripping of Christ 66 Stynson, John 162 Sykes Manuscript 76–7 tailors 122, 162–3, 169, 201, 210, 239, 260 Taking of Christ Praying on the Mountain 104 Tarts, John 239 texts 73–89; absence of 264; Chester – Huntington Library MS 2 77–8; Chester – N-Town – BL MS Cotton Vespasian D VII 78; Chester – National Library of Wales MS Peniarth 399 78–89; of pageants 45, 123, 131, 135; and records xv; study of 54; York – the Sykes Manuscript (York City Archives) 76–7 textual problems 26–32; The Last Supper 26–32; The Visitation 23–32 ‘third-person style’ 12 Thomas, R. G. 3, 39, 50 Thomas of India 98, 112, 115 Thomlyngson, William 44

Thornton, Richard 143 Tilemakers 61, 83, 169, 181–90, 225; combined pageant of 182; connection 188; money 189; old 188; pageant 81, 181, 187–8, 190–191 Titivillus 283–90; entrance (solution) 284–5; exit of 289; success of 289; triviality 289; words of 288 tomb 48, 105–6, 335–45; closed 336, 338; empty 337; open 344; sealed 335, 341, 344–5 Toronto Cycle 144 Toronto production of the York cycle 274 Towneley 16, 66, 116; and dependence on York 62, 65, 68; dramatists 65; and the Last Judgement pageant 81; manuscripts 65, 71, 91, 94–5, 100; playwrights 66, 70; texts 105–6; Christopher (seventeenth-century antiquary and collector) 91 Towneley Cycle xiv, xvi, 61, 65, 91, 106, 113, 249–50, 293 Towneley pageant 61–2, 64–6, 68–70, 91–3, 96–7, 99–106, 113–16, 225, 249–50, 336–7; and the claims of the Second Soldier in the 337; and the relationship with York 70; and York 66, 70, 104 transubstantiation 94 Travail, Jakke 233 travelling players 233–43 Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards 317 Twycross, Meg xiii, xv–xvi, 152–3, 184, 205–6, 254, 258–9, 261, 274–5 University of Cambridge 228 University of Leeds xiv, 273 University of Toronto xiv University of York 38 Vintners’ pageant 37, 47, 50, 75, 84, 203 Virgin Mary 93, 204, 253, 314, 342–3 The Virtutes 127 Visitation pageant 23, 28, 86, 88–9, 226 Wakefield xiv, 70, 91–2, 96–7, 99–102, 239, 250, 270, 275; and Towneley 99; in Whitsun week 100 Wakefield Festival 274 Wakefield Master 61–2, 65, 68, 91, 94–7, 101, 106–9, 111–12, 293, 295 Walsham 310–311, 316 Weavers 49–50, 239, 260, 264 West Riding 91, 102 Westfall, Suzanne 237 Weybridge Priory 311 Whiteley, David 38 Wickham, Glynne xiii, 233–4, 237, 242, 270–271 Winchester Cathedral 277

The Woman Taken in Adultery xvi, 3–16 Woolf, Rosemary 65 Woollen-weavers 169 ‘The Wynedrawers’ 49–50 York 64–6, 68–71, 74–83, 102–5, 154–5, 187–91, 223–9, 249–54, 272–4, 336–7; annotations 95; citizens 239; and the influence on Townerley 65; manuscripts 103; playwrights 226; records 154, 184, 240; stanzas 103; and Towneley Cycles 70, 249, 337 York City Archives 38, 61, 76, 184 York Corpus Christi Play 181, 221–30 York Cycle xiv, xvi, 65–6, 92, 249, 270, 274, 293 York Festival 249, 271 York Mercers’ pageant xvi, 93–4, 102–5, 154–5, 173, 207, 210, 262, 277 York pageants 93–4, 102–5, 113 The York Plays 102, 121, 260 York Register 35–54, 77–8, 95–6, 104, 187 York text 64, 77, 270, 336 York Tilemakers’ Pageant 181–91 York/Towneley 335, 337–9 106; soldiers 337 Ysakar 296, 299–301, 306 Zachary 129, 133