viii. 259) which introduce episodes from the life of the Virgin previous

to the Nativity.

[245] Creizenach, i. 70, quoting _Gesta Alberti Livoniensis episcopi_ (†1226) in Gruber, _Origines Livoniae_ (1740), 34 ‘Eadem hyeme factus est ludus prophetarum ordinatissimus, quam Latini Comoediam vocant, in media Riga, ut fidei Christianae rudimenta gentilitas fide etiam disceret oculata. Cuius ludi et comoediae materia tam neophytis, quam paganis, qui aderant, per interpretem diligentissime exponebatur. Ubi autem armati Gedeonis cum Philistaeis pugnabant; pagani, timentes occidi, fugere coeperunt, sed caute sunt revocati.... In eodem ludo erant bella, vtpote Dauid, Gedeonis, Herodis. Erat et doctrina Veteris et Novi Testamenti.’

[246] Text edited by V. Luzarche (Tours, 1854); L. Palustre (Paris, 1877); K. Bartsch, _Chrestomathie_, (ed. 1880, 91); K. Grass (Halle, 1891); cf. the elaborate study by Sepet, xxix, 105, 261, and Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 81; ii. 217; Creizenach, i. 130; Clédat, 15. The manuscript is _Tours MS._ 927, formerly belonging to the Benedictines of Marmoutier. Grass, vi, summarizes the opinions as to its date. In any case the text is probably of the twelfth century, and Grass, 171, after an elaborate grammatical investigation, confirms the opinion of Luzarche, doubted by Littré and others, that it is of Anglo-Norman rather than Norman origin. But, even if the writer was an Anglo-Norman clerk, the play must have been written for performance in France. I doubt if it was ever actually played or finished. It is followed in the MS. by a Norman (not Anglo-Norman) poem on the Fifteen Signs of Judgement (text in Grass, 57), which looks like material collected for an unwritten Sibyl prophecy. The remaining contents of the first part of the MS., which may be of the twelfth century, are some hymns and the Latin Tours _Quem quaeritis_ (p. 38).

[247] Sepet, xxix, 112, 128, points out that certain _lectiones_ and _responsoria_ which accompany the _Adam_ and _Cain and Abel_ are taken from the office for Septuagesima. Possibly an independent liturgical drama of the Fall arose at Septuagesima and was absorbed by the _Prophetae_. But mention of the ‘primus Adam’ is not uncommon in the Nativity liturgy; cf. Sepet, xxix, 107, and the _Sponsus_ (p. 61).

[248] _Annales Ratisponenses_ (_M. G. H. Scriptores_, xvii. 590) ‘Anno Domini 1194. Celebratus est in Ratispona ordo creacionis angelorum et ruina[e] Luciferi et suorum, et creacionis hominis et casus et prophetarum ... septima Idus Februarii.’

[249] Köppen, 35, discusses the textual relation between the St. Gall and Benedictbeuern plays and their common source, the Freising _Stella_.

[250] Text in Mone, _Schauspiele des Mittelalters_, i. 143; cf. Creizenach, i. 123.

[251] Text in Schmeller, _Carmina Burana_, 80; Du Méril, 187; Froning, 877, from a Munich MS. of thirteenth to fourteenth century formerly in the abbey of Benedictbeuern in Bavaria; cf. Creizenach, i. 96; Sepet, xxxviii, 398. The title ‘Ludus scenicus de nativitate Domini’ given by Schmeller is not in the MS.

[252] Cf. p. 56. The Balaam in _Adam_ is ‘sedens super asinam,’ but no further notice is taken of the animal.

[253] Text ed. Le Verdier (_Soc. des Bibliophiles normands_); cf. Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 36, 430.

[254] Cf. p. 38.

[255] Tischendorf, _Evangelia Apocrypha_ (1876), 389.

[256] Cf. pp. 4, 5, 20. One of the anthems for Easter Saturday in the _Sarum Breviary_ is _Elevamini, portae_.

[257] Text in Pollard, 166; K. Böddeker, _Altenglische Dichtungen des MS. Harl._ 2253 (1878), 264; E. Mall, _The Harrowing of Hell_ (1871); cf. Ten Brink, ii. 242; Ward, i. 90; Creizenach, i. 158. There are three MSS.: (_a_) _Bodl. Digby MS._ 86 (late thirteenth century); (_b_) _Harl. MS._ 2253 (†1310); (_c_) _Edin. Advoc. Libr._ (_Auchinleck_) _MS._ W. 41 (early fourteenth century). The Digby version has a prologue beginning:

‘Hou ihesu crist herewede helle Of hardegates ich wille telle.’

The Harleian has:

‘Alle herkneth to me nou, A strif will I tellen ou.’

The Auchinleck prologue lacks the beginning, but the end agrees with the Harleian. Böddeker, who accepts the dramatic character of the piece, thinks that the prologues were prefixed later for recitation. In any case this poem became a source for a play in the _Ludus Coventriae_ cycle (Pollard, xxxviii).

[258] Text of Muri fragments in Froning, 228; cf. Creizenach, i. 114; Wirth, 133, 281. A French fragment (†1300-50) also introducing this theme is printed by J. Bédier, in _Romania_, xxiv. (1895), 86. Pez, _Script. rerum austriacarum_, ii. 268, describes a vision of the thirteenth-century recluse Wilbirgis: ‘Item quadam nocte Dominicae Resurrectionis, cum in Monasterio ludus Paschalis tam a Clero quam a populo ageretur, quia eidem non potuit corporaliter interesse, coepit desiderare, ut ei Dominus aliquam specialis consolationis gratiam per Resurrectionis suae gaudia largiretur. Et vidit quasi Dominum ad Inferos descendentem et inde animas eruentem, quae quasi columbae candidissimae circumvolantes ipsum comitabantur, et sequebantur ab inferis redeuntem.’ Meyer, 61, 98, deals fully with the development of the Resurrection and Harrowing of Hell themes in the early vernacular plays.

[259] Text in Monmerqué et Michel, _Théâtre fr. au moyen âge_, 10, from _Bibl. Nat. fr._ 902; cf. Creizenach, i. 135; Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 91; ii. 220; Clédat, 59. The MS. is of the fourteenth century, but the Norman-French, which some writers, as with the _Adam_, think Anglo-Norman, is assigned to the end of the twelfth century.

[260] D’Ancona, i. 90. The original authority for the statement, taken from a MS. treatise on the _Commedia italiana_ by Uberto Benvoglienti, is not given.

[261] D’Ancona, i. 87, quoting several chronicles: ‘hoc anno in festo Pascae facta fuit Reppraesentatio Passionis et Resurrectionis Christi solemniter et ordinate in Prato Vallis.’

[262] Text in Schmeller, _Carmina Burana_, 95; Du Méril, 126; Froning, 284; cf. Creizenach, i. 92; Wirth, 131, 278. The only heading to the play in the MS. is ‘Sancta Maria assit nostro principio! amen.’

[263] Scenes between the _Mercator_, his wife, and their lad Rubin play a large part in the later German Passion plays; cf. Wirth, 168.

[264] Creizenach, i. 155. Two fourteenth-century texts exist, one in Provençal, one in Catalan.

[265] Text in Mone, _Schauspiele des Mittelalters_, i. 72; cf. Creizenach, i. 121; Wirth, 135, 282.

[266] Text in Froning, 340 (begins ‘Incipit ordo sive registrum de passione domini’); cf. Creizenach, i. 219; Wirth, 137, 295.

[267] Text in Froning, 305 (begins ‘Ad materiae reductionem de passione domini. Incipit ludus pascalis’); cf. Creizenach, i. 92, 120; Wirth, 134, 293.

[268] Giuliano da Cividale, _Cronaca Friulana_ (D’Ancona, i. 91; Muratori, _Rer. Ital. Script._ xxiv. 1205, 1209): ‘Anno domini MCCLXXXXVIII die vii exeunte Maio, videlicet in die Pentecostes et in aliis duobus sequentibus diebus, facta fuit Repraesentatio Ludi Christi, videlicet Passionis, Resurrectionis, Ascensionis, Adventus Spiritus Sancti, Adventus Christi ad iudicium, in curia Domini Patriarchae Austriae civitatis, honorifice et laudabiliter, per Clerum civitatensem .... Anno MCCCIII facta fuit per Clerum, sive per Capitulum civitatense, Repraesentatio: sive factae fuerunt Repraesentationes infra scriptae: In primis, de Creatione primorum parentum; deinde de Annunciatione Beatae Virginis, de Partu et aliis multis, et de Passione et Resurrectione, Ascensione et Adventu Spiritus Sancti, et de Antichristo et aliis, et demum de Adventu Christi ad iudicium. Et predicta facta fuerunt solemniter in curia domini Patriarchae in festo Pentecostes cum aliis duobus diebus sequentibus, praesente r. d. Ottobono patriarcha aquileiensi, d. Iacobo q. d. Ottonelli de Civitate episcopo concordiensi, et aliis multis nobilibus de civitatibus et castris Foro-iulii, die XV exeunte Maio.’ Still earlier, some dramatic fragments not later than the mid-thirteenth century from Kloster Himmelgarten near Nordhausen, include scenes from both the early and late life of Christ (Text, ed. Sievers, in _Zeitsch. f. d. Phil._ xxi. 393; cf. Creizenach, i. 124); but these might conceivably belong to a set of plays for different dates, such as those of the Sainte Geneviève MS. (Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 379). Besides the English cosmic cycles, there are several fifteenth-century French ones described by Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 394 sqq.: in Germany plays of this scope are rare.

[269] Pearson, ii. 312; Köppen, 49; Ten Brink, i. 287.

[270] Cf. Sepet, xxxviii. 415; Creizenach, i. 260; G. Smith, 253; Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 352. _Le Mistère du viel testament_, printed †1510 (ed. Rothschild, 1878-91, for _Soc. des anciens textes français_), is a fifteenth-century compilation of O. T. plays from various sources.

[271] French versions of the _Vengeance de Notre Seigneur_, of which the chief episode is the Siege of Jerusalem, appear in the fifteenth century (Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 12, 415, 451). A late Coventry play on the same theme is unfortunately lost.

[272] Cf. p. 99.

[273] Cf. p. 79.

[274] Pearson, ii. 315; and cf. the angels aloft in the Rouen _Pastores_ (p. 41).

[275] Cf. p. 50.

[276] Plan in Mone, ii. 156; Froning, 277; Davidson, 199; Pearson, ii. 320; Könnecke, _Bilderatlas_, 55: on the play, cf. Creizenach, i. 224; Wirth, 139, 327. Another sixteenth-century plan from Lucerne is given by Leibing, _Die Inscenierung des 2-tägigen Osterspiels_, 1869; cf. Creizenach, i. 168.

[277] See the mention of ‘en mi la place’ in the prologue; but ‘place’ might be only the French equivalent of ‘platea’ as used in the Fleury _Suscitatio Lazari_.

[278] Pearson, ii. 322.

[279] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 37.

[280] Reproduced in Clédat, 4; Bapst, 33, from _Horae_ of †1460; cf. Jusserand, _Lit. Hist._ i. 470.

[281] D’Ancona, i. 191, however, describes the Italian _devozioni_ as taking place on _talami_ or platforms in the naves of churches. In France, minor religious plays at least took place on scaffolds, built up sometimes against the wall of a church (Bapst, 23, 29). A raised stage, with _sedes_ along the back of it, is shown by the miniatures in the MS. of the Valenciennes _Passion_ (reproduced in Jusserand, _Shakespeare in France_, 63; cf. Julleville, _Les Mystères_, ii. 153); but this is as late as 1547.

[282] Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 386; Bapst, 28.

[283] Cf. p. 137. Amongst the ‘establies’ required for the Rouen play of 1474 was ‘Enfer faict en maniere d’une grande gueulle se cloant et ouvrant quant besoing en est’ (Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 37). Just such an ‘enfer’ is represented in the Fouquet and Valenciennes miniatures.

[284] Cf. p. 98.

[285] Cf. p. 77.

[286] Froning, 363 ‘Et notandum, quod optime congruit, ne populus nimiam moram faciendo gravetur, et ut resurrectio domini gloriosius celebretur, ut ulterior ordo ludi in diem alterum conservetur; quod si apud rectores deliberatum fuerit, Augustinus coram populo proclamet dicens sine rigmo, ut in die crastino revertatur.’

[287] Creizenach, i. 340.

[288] Cf. p. 130.

[289] Cf. p. 74. By the fifteenth century lay performers appear even in the ritual _Quem quaeritis_. An Augsburg version of 1487 (Milchsack, 129) concludes ‘Permittitur tamen aliis, qui forsan huiusmodi personas [i.e. ‘sacerdotes’ et ‘cantores’] non habent, ut cum aliis personis et etiam moribus honestis tamen et discretis, huiusmodi visitationem sepulchri exequantur.’ See also the jest of Tyll Ulenspiegel with the parson’s concubine who played the angel, quoted by Pearson, ii. 308.

[290] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 2. For plays by German guilds cf. Pearson, ii. 364.

[291] Creizenach, i. 137; Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 115; _Les Com._ 43. Probably the ‘Jeu de Nicholas’ of Jean Bodel, and the fourteenth-century ‘Miracles de Notre Dame,’ belong to the _répertoires_ of _puys_.

[292] Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 412; _Les Com._ 55.

[293] Du Méril, 410, 414, prints examples of such _épîtres farcies_ for the feasts of St. Stephen and St. Thomas of Canterbury: cf. the numerous references in D’Ancona, i. 66, and vol. i. p. 277.

[294] Text in Coussemaker, 256, from _Bibl. St. Quentin MS._ 75 (fourteenth century); cf. Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 64. The _Quem quaeritis_ includes the _Hortulanus_ scene and has, like the Prague versions, the _Mercator_. It was probably written later than 1286, as the _Ordinarius_ of that year (Coussemaker, 337) directs a shorter version in Latin.

[295] Text in Froning, 49, from _Trier MS._ 75 (begins ‘incipit ludus de nocte paschae, de tribus Mariis et Maria Magdalena’ ... ends ‘explicit ludus’); cf. Creizenach, i. 112; Davidson, 149; Wirth, 120, 235.

[296] Cf. _Academy_ for Jan. 4 and 11, 1890, where Prof. Skeat prints the text from _Shrewsbury MS. Mus._ iii. 42 f. 48 (a book of anthems). Manly, i. xxviii, also gives it with some valuable notes of his own.

[297] Creizenach, i. 109.

[298] Ibid. i. 99, 202; Pearson, ii. 271, 302, 394; Wirth, 168, 201, 215; D’Ancona, i. 62.

[299] Cf. vol. i. p. 83.

[300] Cf. vol. i. pp. 185, 207, 213.

[301] Cf. p. 56.

[302] Cf. p. 4.

[303] Cf. vol. i. pp. 258, 268, 327.

[304] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 412; _Les Com._ 149, 237 (Chaumont), 239 (Chauny).

[305] Creizenach, i. 356; cf. p. 146.

[306] D’Ancona, i. 87 sqq.; F. Torraca, _Discussioni e ricerche_ (1888), 92; Creizenach, i. 299 sqq.; J. A. Symonds, _Renaissance in Italy_, iv. 242 sqq.; G. Smith, 297; Wechssler, 30; Gaspary, i. 138, 357; I. S. A. Herford, _The Confraternities of Penance, their Dramas and their Lamentations_ in _E. H. Review_, vi. (1891), 646. A first instalment of dramatic Lauds was published by Monaci, _Appunti per la storia del teatro italiano in Rivista di Filologia Romana_, i. 235, ii. 29. For other collections cf. D’Ancona, i. 153; Gaspary, i. 361. D’Ancona has published _Sacre Rappresentazioni_ (1872). A selection of Lauds, Devozioni, and Rappresentazioni is in F. Torraca, _Il teatro italiano dei Secoli xiii, xiv, e xv_ (1885).

[307] D’Ancona, i. 94.

[308] Galvano Fiamma, _de rebus gestis a Vicecomitibus_ (D’Ancona, i. 97; Muratori, _Rer. Ital. Script._ xii. 1017). The ceremony was ‘in die Epifanie in conventu fratrum Praedicatorum.... Fuerunt coronati tres Reges in equis magnis, vallati domicellis, vestiti variis, cum somariis multis et familia magna nimis. Et fuit stella aurea discurrens per aera, quae praecedebat istos tres Reges, et pervenerunt ad columnas Sancti Laurentii, ubi erat rex Herodes effigiatus, cum scribis et sapientibus. Et visi sunt interrogare regem Herodem, ubi Christus nasceretur, et revolutis multis libris responderunt, quod deberet nasci in civitate Bethleem in distantia quinque milliariorum a Hierusalem. Quo audito, isti tres Reges coronati aureis coronis, tenentes in manibus scyphos aureos cum auro, thure et myrrha, praecedente stella per aera, cum somariis et mirabili famulatu, clangentibus tubis, et bucinis praecedentibus, simiis, babuynis, et diversis generibus animalium, cum mirabili populorum tumultu, pervenerunt ad ecclesiam Sancti Eustorgii. Ubi in latere altaris maioris erat praesepium cum bove et asino, et in praesepio erat Christus parvulus in brachiis Virginis matris. Et isti Reges obtulerunt Christo munera; deinde visi sunt dormire, et Angelus alatus ei dixit quod non redirent per contratam Sancti Laurentii, sed per portam Romanam: quod et factum fuit. Et fuit tantus concursus populi et militum et dominarum et clericorum, quod nunquam similis fere visus fuit. Et fuit ordinatum, quod omni anno istud festum fieret.’ This is precisely the liturgic _Stella_ translated into an out-of-door _spectacle_, which in its turn becomes the model for many a Quattrocento painting; cf., e.g., Botticelli’s _Magi_ in the Uffizi, or Gentile da Fabriano’s, with the baboons done to the life, in the Accademia.

[309] D’Ancona, i. 94, 301, considers, however, that the late fifteenth-century _Passio_ of Revello was not a native growth, but modelled on contemporary cyclic plays from France.

[310] The Rouen play of 1474 (Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 36) was one, and cf. pp. 119, 122.

[311] Creizenach, i. 242; cf. the lists in Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 183.

[312] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 9 sqq.

[313] D’Ancona, i. 218; Guasti, _Le feste di San Giovanni Baptista in Firenze_ (1884). _Rappresentazioni_ on St. John’s day were known to the late fourteenth-century Florentine historian Goro di Stagio Dati. An account of the feast in 1407 makes no mention of them, but they appear in that of 1439, and are elaborately described in the _Storia_ of Matteo di Marco Palmieri about 1454 (D’Ancona, i. 228). Early in the morning of June 22 started a procession of clergy, _compagnie_, _edifizii_, and _cavalleria_. These stopped in the Piazza della Signoria, and _rappresentazioni_, forming a complete cycle from the Fall of Lucifer to the Last Judgement, and lasting sixteen hours, were given upon the _edifizii_. D’Ancona suggests that the dumb show type of _rappresentazioni_ preceded the dialogued one, ‘come più semplice.’ But this seems equally inconsistent with his view that the _rappresentazioni_ grew out of _devozioni_, and mine that they were an adaptation of earlier cyclical plays to the conditions of the Florentine feast.

[314] Cf. ch. xxi.

[315] D’Ancona, i. 243; Schack, ii. 103; Ticknor, _Hist. of Spanish Lit._ ii. 249. The _Autos Sacramentales_ are so named from their connexion with this day.

[316] Creizenach, i. 170, 227. The earliest German mention is at the council of Prague in 1366 (Höfler, _Concilia Pragensia_, 13, in _Abhandl. d. königl. böhmischen Gesellsch. der Wiss._ series v. vol. 12) ‘omnibus ... clericis et laicis ... mandatur ut ludos theatrales vel etiam fistulatores vel ioculatores in festo corporis Christi in processionibus ire quovis modo permittant et admittant.’ Extant _Frohnleichnamsspiele_ are those of Innsbruck, †1391 (Text in Mone, _Altteutsche Schauspiele_, 145), and of Künzelsau, †1479 (ed. H. Werner, in _Germania_, iv. 338). Cf. the description (†1553) of Naogeorgos (transl. Googe) in Stubbes, i. 337.

[317] Julleville, ii. 208.

[318] Ward, i. 44; Davidson, 215; Malleson-Tuker, ii. 227.

[319] See e.g. the ‘Processio huius ludi’ at the end of the text of the Alsfeld Passion of 1501 (Froning, 858); cf. Pearson, ii. 365. As to the general relations of processions and plays, cf. p. 160.

[320] Cf. p. 136.

[321] The closest merging of play and procession is suggested by an order at Draguignan in 1558 (Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 209), where it was ordered ‘Le dit jeu jora avec la procession comme auparadvant et le plus d’istoeres et plus brieves que puront estre seront et se dira tout en cheminant sans ce que personne du jeu s’areste pour eviter prolixité et confusion tant de ladite, prosession que jeu, et que les estrangiers le voient aisement.’ Perhaps the short speeches of the Innsbruck play were similarly delivered while the procession was moving. The nearest continental approach to the English type is the Künzelsau play, which was divided into three parts and played at three different stations (Creizenach, i. 227).

[322] Creizenach, i. 218.

[323] Creizenach, i. 128, 137 sqq., 156; Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 95, 107, 115, 185; ii. 2, 4, 5, 221, 226, 345; _Les Com._ 49; Sepet, 202, 242; Clédat, 63, 73, 105.

[324] Creizenach, i. 130, 165, 176; Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 347; _Les Com._ 291; D’Ancona, i. 57; Pearson, ii. 303; Wirth, 144. A play could be given outside the church without wholly losing its connexion with the liturgy. It became a sort of procession: cf. pp. 32, 67. D’Ancona, i. 59, quotes from _Bibl. de l’École des Chartes_, iii. 450, a licence given by the Bishop of Langres in 1408 ‘Ut in quadem platea vel plateis congruis et honestis, infra vel extra villam, prope et supra rippariam loci, coram clero et populo, alta et intelligibili voce, lingua latina et materna, cum magna reverentia et honore ac diversis personacium et habituum generibus ad hoc congruis et necessariis, solemniter et publice vitam et miracula egregii confessoris et pontificis Machuti, recitare et exponere, missamque solemnem in pontificalibus, in platea seu plateis supradictis super altare portatili consecrato per alterum vestrum canonicorum vel alium ydoneum sacerdotem celebrare ... licentiam et auctoritatem impertimus per praesentes.’ Cf. the examples of plays at the Feasts of Fools and of the Boy Bishop (vol. i. pp. 295, 296, 299, 304, 306, 309, 313, 342, 348, 349, 380).

[325] Cf. p. 16.

[326] Cf. vol. i. p. 318. Pearson, ii. 285, translates: ‘The old Fathers of the Church, in order to strengthen the belief of the faithful and to attract the unbeliever by this manner of religious service, rightly instituted at the Feast of Epiphany or the Octave religious performances of such a kind as the star guiding the Magi to the new-born Christ, the cruelty of Herod, the dispatch of the soldiers, the lying-in of the Blessed Virgin, the angel warning the Magi not to return to Herod, and other events of the birth of Christ. But what nowadays happens in many churches? Not a customary ritual, not an act of reverence, but one of irreligion and extravagance conducted with all the license of youth. The priests having changed their clothes go forth as a troop of warriors; there is no distinction between priest and warrior to be marked. At an unfitting gathering of priests and laymen the church is desecrated by feasting and drinking, buffoonery, unbecoming jokes, play, the clang of weapons, the presence of shameless wenches, the vanities of the world, and all sorts of disorder. Rarely does such a gathering break up without quarrelling.’

[327] On Gerhoh (1093-1169) see the article in the 2nd ed. of Wetzer and Welte’s _Kirchenlexicon_. He took a strong reforming and anti-imperial line in the controversies of his day.

[328] Gerhohus, _Comm. in Ps. cxxxii_ (_P. L._ cxciv. 890) ‘Cohaerebat ipsi Ecclesiae claustrum satis honestum, sed a claustrali religione omnino vacuum, cum neque in dormitorio fratres dormirent, neque in refectorio comederent, exceptis rarissimis festis, maxime in quibus Herodem repraesentarent Christi persecutorem, parvulorum interfectorem, seu ludis aliis aut spectaculis quasi theatralibus exhibendis comportaretur symbolum ad faciendum convivium in refectorio aliis pene omnibus temporibus vacuo.’

[329] Gerhohus, _de Inv. Ant._ lib. i. c. 5, _de spectaculis theatricis in ecclesia Dei exhibitis_ (_Gerhohi Opera Inedita_, ed. Scheibelberger, i. 25) ‘Et sacerdotes, qui dicuntur, iam non ecclesiae vel altaris ministerio dediti sunt, sed exercitiis avaritiae, vanitatum et spectaculorum, adeo ut ecclesias ipsas, videlicet orationum domus, in theatra commutent ac mimicis ludorum spectaculis impleant. Inter quae nimirum spectacula adstantibus ac spectantibus ipsorum feminis interdum et antichristi, de quo nobis sermo est, non ut ipsi aestimant imaginariam similitudinem exhibent sed in veritate, ut credi potest iniquitatis ipsius mysterium pro parte sua implent. Quidni enim diabolus abutatur in serium rebus sibi exhibitis in vanitatis ludicrum, sicut Dominus quoque Iesus convertens in seria ludibria, quibus apud Iudaeos vel Pilatum in passione sua affectus est?... Quid ergo mirum si et isti nunc antichristum vel Herodem in suis ludis simulantes eosdem non, ut eis intentioni est, ludicro mentiuntur sed in veritate exhibent, utpote quorum vita ab antichristi laxa conversatione non longe abest?... Contigit, ut comperimus, aliquando apud tales, ut eum quem inter ludicra sua quasi mortuum ab Elisaeo propheta suscitantem exhiberent peracta simulatione mortuum invenirent. Alius item antichristo suo quasi suscitandus oblatus intra septem dies vere mortuus, ut comperimus, et sepultus est. Et quis scire potest an et cetera simulata antichristi scilicet effigiem, daemonum larvas, herodianam insaniem in veritate non exhibeant?... Exhibent praeterea imaginaliter et salvatoris infantiae cunabula, parvuli vagitum, puerperae virginis matronalem habitum, stellae quasi sidus flammigerum, infantum necem, maternum Rachelis ploratum. Sed divinitas insuper et matura facies ecclesiae abhorret spectacula theatralia, non respicit in vanitates et insanias falsas, immo non falsas sed iam veras insanias, in quibus viri totos se frangunt in feminas quasi pudeat eos, quod viri sunt, clerici in milites, homines se in daemonum larvas transfigurant....’

[330] Prynne, _Histriomastix_, 556, refers to ‘the visible apparition of the Devill on the Stage at the Belsavage Play-house, in Queene Elizabeth’s dayes (to the great amazement both of the Actors and Spectators) whiles they were there prophanely playing the History of Faustus (the truth of which I have heard from many now alive, who well remember it), there being some distracted with that fearefull sight.’

[331] Pollard, xxiv. I do not know how Ward, i. 43, gets at the very different theory that in 1210 (_sic_ for 1207) Innocent III ordered plays ‘to be represented outside the church as well as inside.’ Mr. Pollard, by the way, assigns the prohibition to ‘Pope Gregory,’ a further mistake, due, I suppose, to the fact that it was subsequently included in the Gregorian _Decretals_.

[332] Cf. vol. i. p. 279.

[333] Quoted by Creizenach, i. 101, ‘Non tamen hic prohibetur repraesentare praesepe Domini, Herodem, magos et qualiter Rachel ploravit filios suos, etc., quae tangunt festivitates illas, de quibus hic fit mentio, cum talia ad devotionem potius inducant homines quam ad lasciviam vel voluptatem, sicut in pascha sepulcrum Domini et alia repraesentantur ad devotionem excitandam’: cf. vol i. p. 342. J. Aquila, _Opusculum Enchiridion appellatum ferme de omni ludorum genere_, f. 14 (Oppenheim, 1516), after referring to the canon, says, ‘Demonstrationes quae fiunt ad honorem dei puta passionis Christi aut vitae alicuius sancti non prohibentur in sacris locis ac temporibus fieri.’ Both canon and gloss are cited in _Dives and Pauper_, a book of fifteenth-century English morality (F. A. Gasquet, _Eve of Reformation_, 317): cf. also D’Ancona, i. 54.

[334] Cf. vol. i. p. 91. An anchoress of Tarrant Keynston (_Ancren Riwle_, †1150, C. S. 318) was bound to confess if she ‘eode oðe pleouwe ine chircheie: biheold hit ⁊ oðe wrastlinge ⁊ oðer fol gomenes’: but ‘pleouwe,’ like _ludus_ (vol. i. p. 393), may have a very general meaning.

[335] Manning, 146:—

Un autre folie apert Vnt les fols clercs cuntroue, Qe ‘miracles’ sunt apele; Lur faces vnt la deguise Par visers, li forsene,— Qe est defendu en decree; Tant est plus grand lur peche. Fere poent representement,— Mes que ceo seit chastement En office de seint eglise Quant hom fet la deu servise,— Cum iesu crist le fiz dee En sepulcre esteit pose, Et la resurrectiun, Pur plus auer deuociun. Mes, fere foles assemblez En les rues des citez, Ou en cymiters apres mangers, Quant venent les fols volunters,— Tut dient qe il le funt pur bien,— Crere ne les deuez pur rien Qe fet seit pur le honur de dee, Einz del deable, pur verite, Seint ysidre me ad testimone Qe fut si bon clerc lettre; Il dist qe cil qe funt sepectacles Cume lem fet en miracles, Or ius qe nus nomames einz— Burdiz ou turneinens,— Lur baptesme vnt refusez, E deu de ciel reneiez,’ &c.

Robert Mannyng of Brunne (1303) translates:—

‘Hyt ys forbode hym, yn the decre, Myracles for to make or se; For myracles, ȝyf þou begynne, Hyt ys a gaderyng, a syghte of synne, He may yn þe cherche þurghe þys resun Pley þe resurrecyun, Þat ys to seye, how Gode ros, God and man yn myȝt and los, To make men be yn beleue gode That he has ros wyþ flesshe and blode: And he may pleye wyþoutyn plyghte Howe god was bore yn ȝole nyght, To make men to beleue stedfastly Þat he lyghte yn þe vyrgyne Mary. Ȝuf þou do hyt in weyys or greuys, A syghte of synne truly hyt semys. Seynt Ysodre, y take to wytnes, For he hyt seyþ þat soþ hyt es; Þus hyt seyþ yn hys boke, Þey foresake þat þey toke— God and here crystendom— Þat make swyche pleyys to any man As myracles and bourdys, Or toumamentys of grete prys,’ &c.

The reference to ‘Seynt Ysodre’ is to Isidore of Seville, _Etymologiarum_ xviii. 59, _de horum [ludorum] exsecratione_ (_P. L._ lxxxii. 660). The saint is speaking of course of the Roman _spectacula_.

[336] On the ‘pardon’ or ‘Ablass’ given to actors at Oberammergau, and the meaning, or want of meaning, to be attached to it, see an amusing controversy in the _Nineteenth Century_ for January and February, 1901.

[337] L’Enfant, _Hist. du Concile de Constance_ (1727), ii. 404; Hardt, _Magnum Oecumenicum Constantiense Concilium_ (1700), iv. 1089; K. Schmidt, _Die Digby-Spiele_, 12. The performance, which was possibly a dumb show, took place at a banquet on Jan. 24, 1417/8, and was repeated on the following Sunday before the emperor, who had arrived in the interval. Hardt quotes the German of one Dacher, an eye-witness: ‘Am 24ᵗᵉⁿ tag des Monats Januarii, das war auff Timotheus tag, da luden die Bischöff aus Engeland, der Bischoff Salisburgensis, der Bischoff von Londen, und demnach funff Bischoff von Engeland, alle Räht zu Costniz und sonst viel ehrbar Bürger daselbst, in Burchart Walters Haus, das man vorzeiten nennt zu dem Burgthor, itzt zu dem gulden Schvvert, allernächst bey S. Laurenz. Und gab ihnen fast ein köstlich mahl, ie 2. Gericht nach einander, jedes Gericht besonder mit 8 Essen: Die trug man allvveg eins mahl dar, deren allvveg waren 4 verguld oder versilbert. In dem mahl, zvvischen dem Essen, so machten sie solch bild und geberd, als unser Frau ihr Kind unsern Herrn und auch Gott gebahr, mit fast köstlichen Tüchern und Gevvand. Und Joseph stellten sie zu ihr. Und die heiligen 3 Könige, als die unser Frauen die Opffer brachten. Und hatten gemacht einen lauteren guldnen Stern, der ging vor ihnen, an einem kleinen eisern Drat. Und machten König Herodem, vvie er den drey Königen nachsandt, und vvie er die Kindlein ertodtet. Das machten sie alles mit gar köstlichem Gevvand, und mit grossen guldenen und silbernen Gürteln, und machten das mit grosser Gezierd, und mit grosser Demuht.’

[338] The provincial _C. of Sens_ (1460), c. 3 (Labbé, xiii. 1728), while confirming the Basle decree, allowed ‘aliquid iuxta consuetudines ecclesiae, in Nativitate Domini, vel Resurrectione ... fiat cum honestate et pace, absque prolongatione, impedimento, vel diminutione servitii, larvatione et sordidatione faciei’; cf. the Toledo decree of 1473 quoted vol. i. p. 342. The _C. of Compostella_ (1565), c.c. 9-11 (Aguirra _Conc. Hispan._ v. 450, 460), forbade ‘actus sive repraesentationes’ during service in church; they might take place with leave of the bishop, or in his absence the chapter, before or after service. Devotional ‘actus’ were allowed in Passion week on similar conditions. The Corpus Christi procession ‘semel tantum subsistat, causa horum actuum vel representationum in eo loco extra ecclesiam quem Praelatus aut [capitulum] idoneum iudicabit.’ On the other hand the _C. of Seville_ (1512), c. 21 (Aguirra, v. 370), had forbidden priests or monks to perform or give a ‘locus’ for such ‘actus’: ‘Sumus informati, quod in quibusdam Ecclesiis nostri Archiepiscopatus et Provinciae permittitur fieri nonnullas repraesentationes Passionis Domini nostri Iesu Christi, et alios actus, et memoriam Resurrectionis, Nativitatis Salvatoris nostri, vel alias repraesentationes. Et quia ex talibus actibus orta sunt, et oriuntur plura absurda, et saepe saepius scandala in cordibus illorum qui non sunt bene confirmati in nostra sancta fide Catholica, videntes confusiones, et excessus, qui in hoc committuntur....’ Cf. also the Langres licence of 1408 (p. 97).

[339] Text in _Reliquiae Antiquae_, ii. 42; Hazlitt, 73; from late fourteenth-century volume of homilies formerly in library of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields. There is also in _Rel. Ant._ i. 322 a satirical English poem from _Cott. MS. Cleop._ B. ii (fifteenth century), against the miracle plays of the ‘frer mynours,’ apparently at Rome. But the Minorite in _Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede_ (†1394, ed. Skeat), 107, says of his order, ‘At marketts & myracles we medleþ vs nevere.’

[340] Creizenach, i. 157, 162: Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 107, 187; G. Smith, 251; Pollard, xix; Ward, i. 41.

[341] Cf. ch. xxv.

[342] Cf. p. 54 (Rouen, _Prophetae_, fourteenth century).

[343] Cf. pp. 37, 41, 45; Lange, 130, 155; ‘officium sepulchri,’ ‘officium peregrinorum,’ ‘officium pastorum,’ ‘officium regum trium,’ ‘stellae officium’ (Rouen, eleventh century-fifteenth century); ‘resurrectionis domini aguntur officia’ (Prague, fourteenth century). At Melk in 1517, ‘acturus officium angeli’ (Lange, 110), ‘officium’ has rather the sense of ‘part.’

[344] Cf. pp. 37, 48, 49, 53, 71, 77; Lange, 48, 93, 95, 146; ‘Ordo visitationis sepulchri’ (Strassburg, 1513), ‘Ordo visitandi sepulchrum’ (Bamberg, 1597), ‘Ordo ad visitandum sepulchrum’ (Prague, twelfth century, Haarlem, thirteenth century), ‘Ordo sepulchri’ (Würzburg, thirteenth century), ‘Ordo ad suscipiendum peregrinum’ (Beauvais), ‘Ordo stellae’ (Laon, thirteenth century), ‘Ordo [stellae]’ (Bilsen, eleventh century), ‘Ordo Rachaelis’ (Freising, eleventh century), ‘Ordo Prophetarum’ (Laon, thirteenth century), ‘Ordo creacionis, etc.’ (Regensburg, 1194), ‘Ordo, sive registrum de Passione domini’ (Frankfort, fourteenth century).

[345] See last note.

[346] Cf. p. 58.

[347] Cf. pp. 36, 37, 47; Lange, 160 ‘ad faciendam similitudinem domini sepulchri,’ ‘ad faciendam similitudinem domini apparitionis’ (Fleury, thirteenth century), ‘versus ad stellam faciendam’ (Nevers, †1060), ‘fiunt peregrini’ (Saintes, thirteenth century).

[348] Cf. p. 103, n. 5 above.

[349] Cf. pp. 58, 60; Lange, 157; ‘ad repraesentandum quomodo sanctus Nicolaus’ (Fleury, thirteenth century), ‘historia de Daniel repraesentanda’ (Hilarius, twelfth century), ‘si Mariae debeant repraesentari’ (Coutances, fifteenth century).

[350] Cf. pp. 37, 39.

[351] Cf. pp. 45, 107; Lange, 136; ‘in resurrectione domini repraesentatio’ (Cividale, fourteenth century), ‘repraesentatio trium Regum’ (Rouen, 1507, 1521), ‘repraesentacio pastorum ... resurreccionis ... peregrinorum’ (Lichfield, †1190).

[352] Cf. vol. i. p. 393.

[353] Cf. pp. 63, 73, ‘ludus super iconia Sancti Nicolai’ (Hilarius, twelfth century); cf. the Antichrist and Benedictbeuern Nativity, and note 11 below.

[354] Cf. pp. 140, 202.

[355] Cf. vol. i. p. 91; vol. ii. pp. 60, 380; ‘miraculum de Sancto Nicolao’ (Fleury, thirteenth century), repraesentationes miraculorum’ (Fitz-Stephen, †1180), ‘miraculum in nocte Paschae’ (Lichfield, †1190; cf. note 7 above), ‘ludum ... quem Miracula vulgariter appellamus’ (Matthew Paris, thirteenth century), ‘ludos quos vocant miracula’ (Grosseteste, 1244). The vernacular ‘miracles,’ ‘myraclis,’ is found in the _Handlyng Synne_, and the _Tretise of miraclis pleyinge_.

[356] Pollard, xix; Ward, i. 41. The first English use of the term ‘mystery’ is in the preface to Dodsley’s _Select Collection of Old Plays_ (1744). The distinction between ‘mysteries’ which ‘deal with Gospel events only’ and ‘miracles,’ which ‘are more especially concerned with incidents derived from the legends of the Saints of the Church’ is a not very happy invention of the literary historians.

[357] Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 417 ‘Licence de faire et jouer quelque Misterre que ce soit, soit de la dicte Passion, et Résurreccion, ou autre quelconque tant de saincts comme des sainctes.’

[358] Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 189.

[359] Except after its dramatic sense was already well established; cf. pp. 42, 65, ‘mysterium in die Ascensionis’ (Lille, 1416), ‘misterium Pastorum’ (Rouen, 1457).

[360] Cf. Appendix B.

[361] Walafridus Strabo, _de rebus eccles._, c. 22, in the ninth century, gives the name ‘actio’ to the ‘canon’ or unchangeable portion of the Mass (Maskell, _Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England_, 112).

[362] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. Shipton.

[363] Cf. supra, p. 102, note 1.

[364] Cf. p. 146.

[365] _Trans. of Shropshire Antiq. Soc._ viii. 273.

[366] _Analytical Index to Remembrancia of City of London_, 330 sqq.; 350 sqq.

[367] Cf. ch. xxv.

[368] For the general Puritan attitude to the stage, see S. Gosson, _Schoole of Abuse_, 1579 (ed. Arber); W. Prynne, _Histriomastix_ (1633), with the authorities there quoted; and the tracts in W. C. Hazlitt, _The English Drama and Stage_.

[369] On such guilds cf. Cutts, _Parish Priests_, 476; Rock, ii. 395; F. A. Gasquet, _The Eve of the Reformation_, 351.

[370] _C. Tales_, 3383 (_Miller’s Tale_).

[371] Cf. vol. i. p. 121.

[372] On the economics of a mediaeval parish and the functions of the churchwardens cf. Hobhouse, _Churchwardens’ Accounts_, xi (Somerset Record Soc.).

[373] Cf. Appendix T.

[374] Cf. pp. 58, 60.

[375] Cf. p. 73.

[376] Cf. p. 41.

[377] Cf. p. 75.

[378] I can only give the most general account of the legendary content of the plays. For full treatment of this in relation to its sources cf. the authorities quoted in the bibliographical note to chapter xxi, and especially L. T. Smith, _York Plays_, xlvii; P. Kamann, in _Anglia_, x. 189; A. Hohlfeld, in _Anglia_, xi. 285. Much still remains to be done, especially for the Chester plays and the _Ludus Coventriae_. The chief earlier sources are probably the _Evangelium Pseudo-Matthaei_ and the _Evangelium Nicodemi_ (including the _Gesta Pilati_ and the _Descensus Christi ad Inferos_), both in Tischendorf, _Evangelia Apocrypha_, and the _Transitus Mariae_ in Tischendorf, _Apocalypses Apocryphae_. The later sources include the _Legenda Aurea_ of Jacobus de Voragine (†1275) and the _Cursor Mundi_ (ed. R. Morris for E. E. T. S.), a Northumbrian poem of the early fourteenth century.

[379] Cf. p. 63.

[380] Cf. the _Mors Pilati_ in Tischendorf, _Evang. Apocr._ 456.

[381] The ‘Holy Rood’ episodes are those numbered 6, 13, 14, 16-20, 61 in the table. The fullest accounts of the legend in its varied literary forms are given by W. Meyer, _Die Geschichte des Kreuzholzes vor Christus_ (_Abhandlungen der k. bayer. Akad. der Wiss._ I. Cl. xvi. 2. 103, Munich, 1881), and A. S. Napier, _History of the Holy Rood-tree_ (E. E. T. S. 1894). Roughly, the story is as follows: Seth went to Paradise to fetch the oil of mercy. An angel gave him three pips from the tree of knowledge. These were laid beneath the tongue of Adam at his burial, and three rods, signifying the Trinity, sprang up. Moses cut the rods, and did miracles with them. At his death they were planted in Mount Tabor. An angel in a dream sent David to fetch them. They grew into one tree, in the shade of which David repented of his sin with Bathsheba. When the Temple was building, a beam was fashioned from the tree, but it would not fit and was placed in the Temple for veneration. The woman Maximilla incautiously sat upon it and her clothes caught fire. She prophesied of Christ, and the Jews made her the first martyr. The beam was cast into the pool of Siloam, to which it gave miraculous properties, and was finally made into a bridge. At the Passion, a portion of it was taken for the Rood.

[382] The Norwich play of the Fall is extant in two sixteenth-century versions.

[383] The Newcastle play of the Building of the Ark is extant.

[384] Two Coventry plays are extant, the Shearmen and Taylors’ play, extending from the Annunciation to the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Weavers’ play of the Purification and Christ in the Temple.

[385] Probably these smaller plays, chiefly Paschal, were in English. The Nativity and Resurrection plays in Lord Northumberland’s chapel and the Resurrection play in Magdalen College chapel may have been in Latin (cf. p. 107).

[386] ‘Thobie’ is included in the French collection of mysteries known as the _Viel Testament_ (Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 354, 370).

[387] On the way in which the later local miracle-play and the scriptural interlude merge into each other, cf. p. 191.

[388] The Destruction of Jerusalem, together with the Visit of Veronica to Tiberius and the Death of Pilate, which are scenes in the Cornish cycle, forms the subject-matter of a French _Vengeance de Nostre Seigneur_, printed in 1491. Another _Vengeance de Nostre Seigneur_ is attached to the Passion of Eustache Mercadé (†1414). A representation of a Vengeance, following close on one of a Passion, is recorded at Metz in 1437, and there are several later examples (Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 12, 175, 415, 451).

[389] Cf. p. 61.

[390] Cf. p. 97.

[391] Cf. vol. i. p. 221.

[392] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 574.

[393] Archdeacon Rogers thus describes the Chester plays (_Digby Plays_, xix) ‘They first beganne at yᵉ Abbaye gates; & when the firste pagiente was played at yᵉ Abbaye gates, then it was wheeled from thence to the pentice at yᵉ highe crosse before yᵉ Mayor; and before that was donne, the seconde came, and yᵉ firste wente in-to the water-gate streete, and from thence vnto yᵉ Bridge-streete, and soe all, one after an other, tell all yᵉ pagiantes weare played.’

[394] Cf. pp. 95, 160.

[395] D’Ancona, i. 228.

[396] Cf. p. 83.

[397] Cf. p. 83.

[398] _C. T._ 3384 (_Miller’s Tale_). This ‘scaffold’ may have been merely a throne or _sedes_ for Herod. But plays on platforms or scaffolds are found at Chelmsford, Kingston, Reading, Dublin.

[399] Cf. M. Jusserand, in _Furnivall Miscellany_, 186, and the pit for _La Mer_ on the 1547 Valenciennes Passion play stage figured in his _Shakespeare in France_, 63.

[400] _Furnivall Miscellany_, 192, 194, from _Bodl. MS._ 264, ff. 54ᵇ, 76ᵃ.

[401] The directions to the Coventry Weavers’ play refer to the ‘for pagand’ and the ‘upper part’; those of the Grocers’ play at Norwich to the ‘nether parte of yᵉ pageant.’ For the purposes of the dramas these are distinct localities.

[402] Cf. p. 86. The Digby St. Mary Magdalen play has the stage direction, ‘a stage, and Helle ondyr-neth that stage.’ At Coventry the Cappers had a ‘hell-mouth’ for the Harrowing of Hell and the Weavers another for Doomsday.

[403] Every conceivable spelling of the word ‘pageant’ appears in the records. The _Promptorium Parvulorum_, ii. 377 (†1440, ed. A. Way for Camd. Soc.), has ‘Pagent, _Pagina_,’ and this is the usual Latin spelling, although _pagenda_ and _pagentes_ (acc. pl.) occur at Beverley. The derivation is from _pagina_ ‘a plank.’ The _Catholicon Anglicum_ (1483, ed. S. J. H. Herrtage for E. E. T. S.) has ‘A Paiande; _lusorium_,’ and there can be little doubt that ‘playing-place,’ ‘stage’ is the primary sense of the word, although as a matter of fact the derivative sense of ‘scene’ or ‘episode’ is the first to appear. Wyclif so uses it, speaking of Christmas in his _Ave Maria_ (_English Works_, E. E. T. S. 206) ‘he that kan best pleie a pagyn of the deuyl, syngynge songis of lecherie, of batailis and of lesyngis ... is holden most merie mon.’ In _Of Prelates_ (_loc. cit._ 99) he says that false teachers ‘comen in viserid deuelis’ and ‘pleien the pagyn of scottis,’ masking under St. George’s ‘skochen.’ The elaborate pageants used in masks and receptions (cf. p. 176, and vol. i. p. 398) led to a further derivative sense of ‘mechanical device.’ This, as well as the others, is illustrated in the passages quoted by the editors of the _Prompt. Parv._ and the _Cath. Angl._ from W. Horman, author of _Vulgaria_ (1519) ‘Alexander played a payante more worthy to be wondred vpon for his rasshe aduenture than for his manhede.... There were v coursis in the feest and as many paiantis in the pley. I wyll haue made v stagȝ or bouthis in this playe (_scenas_). I wolde haue a place in the middyl of the pley (_orchestra_) that I myght se euery paiaunt. Of all the crafty and subtyle paiantis and pecis of warke made by mannys wyt, to go or moue by them selfe, the clocke is one of the beste.’ Synonyms for ‘pageant’ in the sense of ‘stage’ are ‘cariadge’ (Chester) and ‘karre’ (Beverley); in the sense of ‘scene,’ _iocus_ (Coventry), _visus_ (Lincoln), _processus_ or ‘processe’ (Towneley and Digby plays, Croxton _Sacrament_ and Medwall’s morality of _Nature_).

[404] Cf. p. 90, and _Hamlet_, iii. 2. 9 ‘O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod.’ The Miller in _Cant. Tales_, 3124, cries out ‘in Pilates vois.’ The torturers also seem to have been favourite performers; cf. the _Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II_ (T. Wright, _Political Songs_, C. S. 336):

‘Hii ben degised as turmentours that comen from clerkes plei.’

[405] Cf. p. 48.

[406] In Jean Fouquet’s miniature representing the French mystery of St. Apollonia (cf. p. 85) a priest, with a book in one hand and a wand in the other, appears to be conducting the play.

[407] Cf. p. 203.

[408] _Hen. V_, ii. 3. 42 ‘Do you not remember, a’ saw a flea stick upon Bardolph’s nose, and a’ said it was a black soul burning in hell-fire?’

[409] _Hamlet_, v. 1. 85 ‘Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murder.’

[410] Warton, ii. 223 ‘In these Mysteries I have sometimes seen gross and open obscenities. In a play of _The Old and New Testament_, Adam and Eve are both exhibited on the stage naked, and conversing about their nakedness: this very pertinently introduces the next scene, in which they have coverings of fig-leaves. This extraordinary spectacle was beheld by a numerous assembly of both sexes with great composure: they had the authority of scripture for such a representation, and they gave matters just as they found them in the third chapter of Genesis. It would have been absolute heresy to have departed from the sacred text in personating the primitive appearance of our first parents, whom the spectators so nearly resembled in simplicity.’

[411] Deimling, i. 30 ‘Statim nudi sunt ... Tunc Adam et Eva cooperiant genitalia sua cum foliis.’

[412] Cf. vol. i. p. 5.

[413] Cf. p. 103. So the ‘ordinary’ or prompter (p. 140) is the man in charge of the _ordinale_.

[414] ‘Oreginale de S. Maria Magdalena’ (_Digby MS_.); ‘originall booke,’ ‘regenall,’ ‘rygynall,’ ‘orraginall’ (Chester); ‘orygynall,’ ‘rygenale’ (Coventry); ‘regenell’ (Louth); ‘ryginall’ (Sleaford).

[415] Cf. p. 90.

[416] As the price paid was only ‘iiijᵈ’ a _printed_ play was probably bought, from which the ‘partes,’ at a cost of ‘ijˢ,’ were written; cf. p. 192.

[417] Ritson, _Bibl. Poet._ 79, included in his list of Lydgate’s works a ‘Procession of pageants from the creation’ which has not been identified. On the ‘Procession of Corpus Christi,’ which follows in the list, cf. p. 161.

[418] Ten Brink, ii. 235 ‘An incessant process of separating and uniting, of extending and curtailing, marks the history of the liturgical drama, and indeed of the mediaeval drama generally.’

[419] _Towneley Plays_ (E. E. T. S.), xiv.

[420] _Anglia_, xi. 253.

[421] Davidson, 252.

[422] Cf. p. 69.

[423] Thus at York, the Corpus Christi procession which the plays were originally designed to magnify, had become by 1426 a hindrance to them; cf. p. 139.

[424] There is but little of direct merging of the plays with folk-customs. At Aberdeen the ‘Haliblude’ play was under the local lord of misrule. At Norwich the play was on Whit-Monday; the lord of misrule held revel on Whit-Tuesday. At Reading there were plays on May-day. At Chelmsford and Wymondham they were attached to the Midsummer ‘watch’ or ‘show.’ Typically ‘folk’ personages, the ‘wodmen’ (cf. vol. i. p. 185), appear in the Aberdeen Candlemas procession, and at Hull the ‘hobby-ship’ (cf. vol. i. p. 121) becomes the centre of a play.

[425] Richard Carew lays stress on the delight taken by the spectators in the devils of the Cornish plays. Collier, ii. 187, quotes a jest about the devil in a Suffolk stage-play from _C. Mery Talys_ (†1533). In the _Conversion of St. Paul_ of the Digby MS., a later hand has carefully inserted a devil scene. On the whole subject of the representation of devils in the plays, cf. Cushman, 16; Eckhardt, 53.

[426] _York Plays_, 524.

[427] Ed. Groeneveld (1888); cf. Creizenach, i. 362; Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 180, ii. 342.

[428] I do not think that these Dutch plays have been printed. The MS., in the Royal Library at Brussels, is described by Hoffmann von Fallersleben, _Horae Belgicae_, vi, xxix; cf. Creizenach, i. 366. Besides the three chivalric plays, it contains a dramatized _estrif_ of Summer and Winter (cf. vol. i. p. 187) included with them under the general title of ‘abele Spelen,’ and also a long farce or ‘Boerd.’ To each of the five plays, moreover, is attached a short farcical after-piece. A few notices of other fifteenth-century Dutch chivalric plays are preserved. The subjects are Arnoute, Ronchevale, Florys und Blancheflor, Gryselle (Griseldis); cf. Creizenach, i. 372.

[429] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 284, 310.

[430] Ed. F. Guessard et E. de Certain (1862) in _Collection des documents historiques_; cf. Creizenach, i. 372; Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 576; H. Tivier, _Étude sur le Myst. du Siège d’O._ (1868). The play may have been designed for performance at the festival held at Orleans in memory of the siege on May 8. The passage quoted from Sir Richard Morrison on p. 221, suggests that a similar commemoration was held in the sixteenth century by the English at Calais of the battle of Agincourt in 1415.

[431] Ed. Stengel (1883); cf. Creizenach, i. 374; Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 569.

[432] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. Dublin.

[433] Collier, ii. 183, thinks the term ‘morality’ a ‘recent’ one, but it was used in 1503: cf. p. 201.

[434] There is not much direct imitation of the _Roman de la Rose_ in the moralities. Perhaps the French _Honneur des Dames_ of Andrieu de la Vigne (Julleville, _Rép. com._ 73) comes nearest. But its leading episode, the siege of the fortress of Danger, is reflected in the siege of the Castle of Perseverance and that of the Castle of Maudleyn in the _Mary Magdalen_ of the Digby MS. On the general place of allegory in contemporary literature cf. Courthope, i. 341.

[435] Cf. pp. 63, 77.

[436] Ward, i. 105; _Archaeologia_, xiii. 232. A _débat_ on precisely this theme is introduced into the _Chasteau d’Amour_, a theological work in the form of a romance, ascribed to Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253), on which cf. F. S. Stevenson, _Life of Grosseteste_, 38; Jusserand, _Eng. Lit._ i. 214. In the English version of the fourteenth century (R. F. Weymouth, _The Castel of Love_, 273) the passage begins—

‘For now I chul tellen of þe stryf Þat a-mong þe foure sustren liþ.’

[437] No stress is of course to be laid upon the late introduction of Dolor and Myserye into the Grocers’ play at Norwich, when the text was rewritten in 1565.

[438] _Ludus Cov._ 106 (play xi, _Virtutes_), 70, 79, 89, 105, 124, 129, 289 (plays viii-xiii, xxix, _Contemplacio_), 184 (play xix, _Mors_), 386 (play xli, _Sapientia_); cf. Hohlfeld, in _Anglia_, xi. 278.

[439] Jusserand, _Théâtre_, 123; Pearson, i. 2; Creizenach, i. 461; _Captain Cox_, clxvi; W. Seelmann, _Die Totentänze des Mittelalters_ (_Jahrb. d. Vereins f. niederdeutsche Sprachforschung_, xvii. 1). A bibliography of the Dance of Death is given by Goedeke, i. 322 (bk. iii. § 92).

[440] Prudentius, _Psychomachia_ (†400 _P. L._ lx. 11); cf. Creizenach, i. 463.

[441] _Ephesians_, vi. 11.

[442] Creizenach, i. 470; Julleville, _La Com._ 44, 78. The earliest French notice is that of the ‘Gieux des sept vertuz et des sept pechiez mortelz’ at Tours in 1390. A ‘mystère de Bien-Avisé et Malavisé’ is said to have been played in 1396 (Julleville, _Rép. com._ 324). The extant play of that name, somewhat later in date, is a morality. Other early French morals on a large scale are _L’Homme juste et l’Homme mondain_ (1508) and _L’Homme pécheur_ (†1494) (Julleville, _Rép. com._ 39, 67, 72). All these are on variants of the Contrast of Vice and Virtue theme.

[443] Creizenach, i. 465, quoting a thirteenth-century German sermon.

[444] Cf. p. 201 and _Texts_ (ii). It is not quite clear whether the English play of _Everyman_ is the original or a translation of the Dutch _Elckerlijk_, or whether the two plays have a common source.

[445] Cf. p. 131.

[446] Cf. p. 199.

[447] Cf. vol. i. p. 381.

[448] Cf. p. 218.

[449] See Pearson, ii. 260, and the interesting study of P. Weber, _Geistliches Schauspiel und kirchliche Kunst_ (1894).

[450] Cf. p. 42.

[451] W. Lambarde, _Alphabetical Description of the Chief Places in England and Wales_ (1730, written in the sixteenth century), 459, s.v. Wytney.

[452] Gairdner, 253, quoting an unnamed chronicler, ‘a picture of the Resurrection of Our Lord made with vices, which put out his legs of sepulchre, and blessed with his hand and turned his head.’

[453] Magnin, _Marionnettes_; J. Feller, _Le Bethléem verviétois_ (_Bull. de la Soc. verviétoise d’Arch. et d’Hist._ 1900).

[454] Cf. vol. i. p. 71.

[455] Morley, _passim_; Hone, 229; Strutt, 164; T. Frost, _Old Showmen and Old London Fairs_ (1874); W. B. Boulton, _Amusements of Old London_, ii. 49, 224.

[456] The term ‘motion’ is not, however, confined to puppet-plays. Bacon, Essay xxxvii, uses it of the dumb-shows of masquers, and Jonson, _Tale of a Tub_, v. 1, of shadow-plays.

[457] _P. C. Acts_, viii. 131.

[458] _Winter’s Tale_, iv. 3. 102.

[459] _Bartholomew Fair_, v. 3; cf. v. 1. 8 ‘O, the motions that I, Lanthorn Leatherhead, have given light to in my time, since my master Pod died! Jerusalem was a stately thing, and so was Nineveh, and the City of Norwich, and Sodom and Gomorrah, with the rising of the prentices and pulling down the bawdy-houses there upon Shrove-Tuesday; but the Gunpowder Plot, there was a get-penny! I have presented that to an eighteen or twenty pence audience, nine times in an afternoon’; also _Every Man out of His Humour_, Induction:

‘Will show more several motions in his face Than the new London, Rome, or Nineveh.’

[460] Lanthorn Leatherhead says of his puppets, ‘I am the mouth of them all’; cf. _Hamlet_, iii. 2. 256 ‘I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying’; _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, ii. 1. 100 ‘O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet! Now will he interpret to her.’

[461] Morley, 179, 187, 190, 247, 261, 273, 304, 321, records ‘Patient Grisel’ (1655, 1677), ‘Susanna’ (1655), ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’ (1656), ‘Judith and Holophernes’ (1664), ‘Jephtha’s Rash Vow’ (1697, 1698, 1701, 1704, 1733), ‘The Creation of the World’ (1701).

[462] Powell’s performances of the ‘Creation of the World’ at Bath and ‘Susanna’ at Covent Garden are referred to in the _Tatler_ for May 14, 1709, and the _Spectator_ for March 16, 1711.

[463] Hone, 230, describes a ‘gallantee show’ of the Prodigal Son and of Noah’s Ark with a scene of ‘Pull Devil, Pull Baker,’ showing the judgement upon a baker who gave short weight (cf. the cut in Morley, 356), seen by him in London in 1818. This was an exhibition of _ombres chinoises_ rather than a puppet-play proper.

[464] A. Dieterich, _Pulcinella_, 234, considers Pulcinella a descendant of Maccus, derives the name from _pullicenus_, _pulcinus_, _pullus_, and connects the fowl-masks of Italian comedy with the cockscomb of the English fool (cf. vol. i. p. 385).

[465] Collier, _Punch and Judy_ (1870), 11 sqq.; Frost, _The Old Showmen and the Old London Fairs_, 29. The earliest English notice of Punch in England is in the overseers’ books of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields for 1666 and 1667, ‘Recᵈ of Punchinello, yᵉ Italian popet player, for his booth at Charing Cross.’ In a Bartholomew Fair playbill of the early eighteenth century, ‘the merry conceits of Squire Punch and Sir John Spendall’ were attached to the puppet-show of the Creation of the World. Punch was also amongst the _dramatis personae_ of Robert Powell. The nature of these earlier Punch plays is unknown. That now traditional in England is implied by the ballad of _Punch’s Pranks_ (†1790). Collier, who prints it as given by one Piccini in Drury Lane, with cuts by Cruikshank, considers it to be derived from _Don Juan_. But it seems to me to come still nearer to the morality plays. French Punch plays have many other themes.

[466] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 208; cf. p. 95.

[467] Printed by Halliwell, _Minor Poems of Lydgate_ (Percy Soc.), 95, from Shirley’s _Harl._ 2251, f. 293, as a _Processioune of Corpus Cristi_, with a note at the end that ‘Shirley kowde fynde no more.’ It is also, with the same note, in Shirley’s _Trin. Coll. Camb. MS._ R. 3. 20, f. 348, with the heading, ‘Ordenaunce of a p’cessyoun of the feste of Corpus Cristi, made in London by Daun John Lydegate’ (E. P. Hammond, in _Anglia_, xxii. 364), and is copied thence by John Stowe in _B. M. Add. MS._ 29, 729, f. 166. The piece is nᵒ. 153 in the list of Lydgate’s works given by Ritson, _Bibl. Poet._ 79. It may be doubted whether Ritson’s nᵒ. 152 ‘A Procession of pageants from the creation’ is really distinct. Lydgate describes to his hearers ‘figures shewed in your presence’ which embody ‘gracious mysteries grounded in Scripture.’ Of course ‘mysteries’ has no technical dramatic sense here. Lydgate’s method of ‘interpreting’ may have been based on the incorrect mediaeval notion of the methods of the classical stage, which he adopts in his _Troy Book_ (cf. p. 208). The ‘figures’ represented twenty-seven persons whose utterances revealed the mystery of the Mass. There were eight patriarchs, the Ecclesiast, four prophets, the Baptist, four evangelists, St. Paul, and seven Christian doctors.

[468] Sharp, 172, quotes from a contemporary writer a passage showing that the Dublin procession, like those of Coventry and Shrewsbury, lasted to a recent date: ‘The Fringes was a procession of the trades and corporations, performed in Ireland on Corpus Christi day, even within the author’s recollection. King Solomon, Queen of Sheba, with Vulcan, Venus, and Cupid, were leading persons upon this occasion.’

[469] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 211; Davidson, 219.

[470] The following is from an account of a continental Corpus Christi procession in Barnabe Googe’s translation of Naogeorgos’ _Popish Kingdom_ (1553), iv. 699 (Stubbes, i. 337):

‘Christes passion here derided is, with sundrie maskes and playes; Faire Ursley with hir maydens all, doth passe amid the wayes: And valiant George, with speare thou killest the dreadfull dragon here; The deuil’s house is drawne about, wherein there doth appere A wondrous sort of damned sprites, with foule and fearefull looke; Great Christopher doth wade and passe with Christ amid the brooke: Sebastian full of feathred shaftes, the dint of dart doth feele; There walketh Kathren with hir sworde in hande, and cruell wheele: The Challis and the singing Cake, with Barbara is led, And sundrie other Pageants playde in worship of this bred, &c.’

[471] Sharp, 217, records a play of the _Golden Fleece_ provided by Robert Crowe for the Cappers’ Candlemas Dinner in 1525; the London drapers had a pageant with the same title in 1522 (cf. p. 165).

[472] Cf. the Paradise show at the London reception of Henry VI in 1432 (p. 170).

[473] Toulmin Smith, _English Guilds_, 149.

[474] Ibid. 148.

[475] Ibid. 30.

[476] Kelly, 7, 11.

[477] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. Canterbury.

[478] The ‘pagent’s paynted and lemenyd with gold’ of the Holy Trinity, Saints Fabian, Sebastian, and Botulph, ‘and the last pagent of the terement, & gen’all obyte, of the brether’n and suster’n, that be passed to God,’ which the London guild of the Holy Trinity had on a ‘rolle of velom, cou’ed with a golde-skyn’ in 1463 (Hone, 81), were probably not, as Davidson, 224, thinks, ‘a description and representation of the pageants which were carried in procession by the guild,’ but illuminated pages (_paginae_). For a similar misunderstanding cf. p. 401, n. 1. Abp. Thoresby (†1357) circulated a ‘tretys in Englisce ... in smale pagynes’ (Shirley, _Fasciculi Zizaniorum_, xiii).

[479] _Representations_, s.v. Preston.

[480] Dyer, 60.

[481] Cf. vol. i. p. 221.

[482] Cf. vol. i. pp. 118, 120.

[483] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. London.

[484] J. G. Nichols, _London Pageants_ (1837); F. W. Fairholt, _Lord Mayor’s Pageants_ (1843-4, Percy Soc. nᵒˢ. 38, 43), and _The Civic Garland_ (Percy Soc. 1845).

[485] Herbert, i. 457. The same writer quotes a payment from the drapers’ accounts of 1516 of £13 4_s._ 7_d._ for ‘Sir Laurens Aylmer’s Pageant.’ But this cannot have been intended for a lord mayor’s show, for Aylmer’s only mayoralty was in 1507-8, and a grocer, not a draper, was mayor in 1515-6 and in 1516-7.

[486] Malcolm, _Londinium Redivivum_, ii. 42; W. C. Hazlitt, _Livery Companies_ (1892), 310.

[487] Herbert, i. 199.

[488] W. Smith, _A breffe description of the Royall Citie of London_ (1575), quoted by Nichols, 95.

[489] The _Annales Londonienses_ record at the visit of the Emperor Otho to King John in 1207 ‘tota civitas Londoniae induit solempnitatem pallis et aliis ornamentis circumornata,’ and at the entry of Edward II after his marriage in 1308 ‘tapeti aurei’ and the city dignitaries ‘coram rege et regina karolantes’ (_Chronicles of the Reigns of Edw. I and Edw. II_, R. S. i. 13, 152). At the coronation of Henry IV in 1399 was an ‘equitatio magnifica’ (_Annales Hen. IV_, R. S. 291), and the streets were hung with ‘paremens,’ and there were ‘nœuf broucherons a manière de fontaines en Cep a Londres, courans par plusieurs conduits, jettans vin blanc et vermeil’ (Froissart, _Chroniques_, ed. Kervyn de Lettynhove, xvi. 205).

[490] M. Paris, _Chronica Maiora_ (R. S.), iii. 336 ‘quibusdam prodigiosis ingeniis et portentis.’

[491] Stowe, _Annals_, 207. The authority quoted in the margin is ‘Chro. Dun.,’ which I cannot identify. It is not the Dunstable Annals in the _Annales monastici_ (R. S.), vol. iii.

[492] _Annales Londonienses_ (_Chron. of Edw. I and Edw. II_, R. S.), i. 221 ‘quaedam navis, quodam mirabili ingenio operata, cum malo et velo erectis, et depictis de supradictis armis [of England and France] et varietate plurima’; cf. H. T. Riley, _Memorials of London_, 107, from _Corporation Letter Book D._ f. 168.

[493] T. Walsingham, _Hist. Anglica_ (R. S.), i. 331.

[494] Fabyan, 538; H. Knighton, _Chronicon_ (R. S.), ii. 320; Richard Maydiston, _De concordia inter regem Ricardum II et civitatem London_ (_Political Poems_, R. S. i. 282).

[495] Full contemporary accounts in _Gesta Henrici Quinti_ (Eng. Hist. Soc.), 61, and a set of verses by John Lydgate printed in _London Chronicle_, 214, and H. Nicolas, _Hist. of Agincourt_ (1833), 326; more briefly in _London Chronicle_, 103; T. Walsingham, _Hist. Anglic._ (R. S.), ii. 314; cf. C. L. Kingsford, _Henry V_, 156.

[496] T. Walsingham, _Hist. Anglica_ (R. S.), ii. 336 ‘ludicis et vario apparatu.’

[497] Cf. p. 174.

[498] Printed from _Corp. Letter Book K._ f. 103ᵛ, by H. T. Riley, _Liber Albus_ (R. S.), iii. 457; cf. descriptive verses by Lydgate, _Minor Works_ (Percy Soc.), 2; _London Chronicle_, 119; Fabyan, 603; Gregory, 173.

[499] Carpenter uses the term _pagina_, which here occurs for the first time in connexion with these London receptions. Mr. Riley quite unnecessarily proposes to read _machina_.

[500] A pun was concealed here, for John de _Welles_, grocer, was mayor, and the ‘oranges, almonds, and the pomegranade’ on the trees were the grocers’ wares. Cf. the tree of the Norwich grocers in the Corpus Christi procession (p. 163).

[501] Stowe, _Annals_, 385; cf. _London Chronicle_, 134 ‘goodly sights ayenst her coming’; Fabyan, 617 ‘sumptuous and costly pagentes, and resemblaunce of dyuerse olde hystoryes’; Gregory, 186 ‘many notabylle devysys in the cytte.’ According to Stowe, Lydgate wrote verses for these pageants.

[502] A memorandum of ceremonial _As ffor the ressaunge off a Quene and her Crownacion_ of the reign of Henry VII (_Antiquarian Repertory_,