Part 2

These four sets are the York, Wakefield, Chester, and Coventry plays. Each “set” includes a great many plays—in the York collection, for instance, there are forty-eight—and year after year from the reign of Edward III to the time of Henry VII they were acted at the four towns mentioned. Not in these towns alone either, but all over England; for if a city had no plays of its own it borrowed one of the York, Chester, Wakefield, or Coventry set.

If we look at the York collection of Miracle plays, it will do as an example of the rest. We find that it begins with the _Story of the Creation of the World_, and all the chief stories of the Old and New Testament follow in proper order. So that, even if he could not read, any one who saw the whole series one after the other, would have a very good idea of all the teaching of the Bible.

Now let us in thought go back to the Middle Ages, and try to picture the scene in some old market-place, soon after Whitsuntide, the time when Miracle plays were generally acted. To help us to do this, let us imagine how the sight of them impressed two out of the thousands of children who with their parents went to see these plays.

II How Colin and Margery kept the Feast of Corpus Christi

Colin and Margery were two children who, five hundred years ago, lived in the country, not far from York. Their father, who had a little farm, held his land from the great lord whose castle with its battlements and turrets stood up proudly on a neighbouring hill, and sometimes the children had seen him when, with a great company of followers, he went hawking, and rode past their cottage.

Now, except for the Lady Alicia, her young children, and a few retainers, the castle stood empty. Its lord, with all his men-at-arms, had gone to fight in the wars with France, for Henry V was king, and, not content with ruling England, he wanted to be King of France as well.

The children’s father, Farmer Short, was not rich, but neither was he very poor. The cottage in which he lived with his wife and his little son and daughter was in those days considered comfortable.

It was built of stone, had low walls and a thatched roof, and the kitchen, in which Colin and Margery slept, was paved with stone, and had a wooden ceiling, which Farmer Short could easily touch with his hand.

Neither Colin nor Margery went to school. There was no school nearer than York, some miles distant; and though Margery was nine and Colin ten, they did not even know their letters, and all their lives they never learnt to read. But without going to school there was plenty to do all day long. Colin had to look after the cows and to help his father in the fields; and every morning, besides learning to help her mother in the house, Margery was sent out on to the common to watch the geese, and to drive them back if they strayed too far.

One June evening both the children went to bed in a state of great excitement. The next day was the Feast of Corpus Christi—a festival in honour of the Lord’s Supper—and with their father and mother they were to ride into York to see the Miracle plays. The last time they were in church they had smiled at one another when they found it was Trinity Sunday, because they knew that Corpus Christi would come on the following Thursday, four days later. Now the great day was close at hand, and, though they lay down on the little sacks of straw which served them for beds, it was a long time before either of them slept. Colin had once seen the plays, and his sister kept asking him questions about them. What were they like? What did the people do? What did they say? But Colin’s explanations did not satisfy her. He remembered a big man dressed in bright clothes, who stamped and made a great noise, and had a sword. He told her about angels with great white wings, and something also about people with black faces and feathers and claws. But Margery was very little the wiser; and presently, when she found her brother’s voice growing drowsier and drowsier, she too curled round on her straw bed and went to sleep.

It was light when she awoke, though the sun had not yet risen; and, jumping up, she shook Colin, who directly he could be made to understand that the day had come, also leaped from his bed and began to struggle with the great bars of the kitchen-door. Just as he managed to undo them and to throw open the door to make quite certain that the morning was fine, his mother, Mistress Short, came clattering down the steps that led from the upper room right into the kitchen.

She wore all her best things. A gown of grey material was looped high over a girdle to show her red stockings and her buckled shoes. On her head there was a white cap, indented over the forehead, and rising into two wings on either side, while folds of linen were brought round her neck under her chin. Over her arm she carried the children’s holiday clothes, for this was a great occasion. The whole family was to spend the day at the house of her husband’s sister, Mistress Harpham, a rich glover’s wife in York, and Mistress Short was determined to make a good appearance.

Colin and Margery were soon dressed, and if no idea of much washing occurred to them, you must remember that they lived hundreds of years ago, when soap and water were not considered so necessary as they are now. They dipped their heads indeed, into a trough of water in the farmyard just outside, and rubbing their faces with a cloth, were ready to have the finishing-touches put to their clothes. In his long stockings and little brown tunic, Colin looked quite charming, and Margery was very proud of her green frock looped up over a girdle like her mother’s. Both children wore little capes of linen, to which a hood was attached, to be buttoned under the chin or left hanging, according to the state of the weather.

Their mother had prepared a meal of cakes and ale, but they were almost too excited to eat and drink, and it was not till their father, who had gone to fetch the horses, appeared, riding on Dobbin and leading Jock, that they could believe they were really going to start.

Margery was soon seated in front of her father on Dobbin’s broad saddle, and Colin rode with his mother on Jock, the other farm-horse; and so, long before the sun rose, they ambled out of the yard into a lane which led to the high road to York.

The sky was clear, the larks were singing, and the wild roses in the hedges were all wet with dew, as they rode under the arching trees. Soon, however, they turned into the long white road, where already groups of people, some on foot, some on horseback, others in wooden carts, were wending their way to the city, whose walls and gates could be seen in the distance.

Before long they were joined by several friends, and a company of ten or twelve jogged along together, discussing the probable events of the day.

You might find it difficult to understand their conversation if you could hear it now, for though these country people of course spoke English, it was not the English of to-day. Though many of the words were those we know well, there were others which have since fallen out of use, or are pronounced differently; so if I put their talk into the language to which we are accustomed, you must remember that though the sense of it is the same, it was not spoken in just this way.

“Whereabouts does the first play begin?” asked Farmer Short, who had not been to the city for a whole year.

“At the gates of the priory in Mikelgate,” said the man who rode next to him.

Master Brigg was a townsman on a visit to his country relations, with whom he was journeying.

“Next, at the door of Robert Harpham,” he went on. “Then at Skeldergate End. After that, I don’t know. I’ve forgotten.”

Colin pricked up his ears.

“We shan’t have to wait long,” he whispered, leaning across to Margery. “Aunt Harpham lives close to Mikelgate.”

“And who plays the _Creation_ this year?” his father was asking.

“The Plasterers,” replied Master Brigg.

“And _Adam and Eve_?”

“That I forget. But the Glovers have charge of _Cain and Abel_, and the Shipwrights this year are giving _The Building of the Ark_.”

“A good thought! ’Tis the best play for shipwrights!” declared the farmer, laughing. “I’ll be bound they’ll see it built well and truly. What of _The Shepherds’ Play_?”

“The Chandlers have the care of that, and the Goldsmiths of _The Coming of the Three Kings to Herod_.”

“That’s the man I told you about,” cried Colin. “The man that stamped, and talked loud, and had a sword.”

“Oh, look!” interrupted Margery, excitedly. “We are coming quite close! We shall soon be there!” And indeed, while they talked, the little company had drawn near to the city, whose walls and frowning gates rose up before them. In a very few minutes they had clattered under the archway of Petergate, and the children found themselves in the city.

III The Creation of the Angels, and the Fall of Lucifer

Margery, who had never been to any big town before, looked about her with delight and amazement as they rode towards the inn where Dobbin and Jock were to be left in the stables till the evening. The narrow streets were paved with cobble-stones, and lined with houses which compared with the little cottage at home, seemed to her marvellously grand and imposing. They were built of plaster and timber, with gables curiously carved, and as in many of them each story projected beyond the lower one, the top windows on either side of the streets were close together, so that opposite neighbours were near enough to shake hands. There was such a crowd that the horses had to walk very slowly, pushing their way amongst the people. Early as it still was, the whole city seemed to be awake and astir, and the noise was deafening. Carts clattered over the rough stones, their drivers shouting to the throng to make way. Boys whistled and screamed, whips cracked; mothers called to their children to keep close, and the whole crowd seemed to be moving in one direction.

“They are going to Mikelgate; that’s where the first play begins,” called Colin, looking back over his shoulder. “Oh, father, make haste! We shall be late.”

“Plenty o’ time! plenty o’ time!” declared Farmer Short. “Here we turn in, at the sign of the ‘Dragon.’ Pull Jock’s head round, mother!”

They had now reached an archway, and following a procession of other horses and carts, they soon found themselves in the big courtyard of the inn, which had a wooden gallery upon which the living-rooms of the first floor opened, running along three sides of it. Above the gallery there was another story, surmounted by gabled roofs, with carvings upon them of curious birds and beasts and hobgoblins. The blue sky formed the ceiling over the courtyard.

A stableman ran to lift Margery from Dobbin’s back, and then to help Mistress Short to dismount. Colin had slipped from the saddle by himself, and his father following him, went to see that the horses were as comfortably lodged as possible, for there were so many others that there was scarcely room for them all in the stables.

The children waited impatiently till he reappeared, for they were to go on foot to the house of Mistress Harpham, near Mikelgate.

“We shall be late! I know we shall be late!” Margery kept repeating till her mother bade her be quiet.

“It will take at least an hour for the first play to reach the house of your Aunt Harpham,” she assured her. “It has but just begun at Mikelgate.”

But Margery was not happy till, having pushed their way out of the throng in the courtyard, they found themselves on the way to their kinswoman’s dwelling.

Master Harpham’s house appeared very grand to the children. It had a big carved doorway leading to the shop, and the rooms above seemed to them magnificently furnished, with their big oak chests, and their high-backed chairs with leather seats, and the ornamented beams across the ceiling. Mistress Harpham, a stout, rosy-faced dame, greeted them very kindly, and called to her son to come and be introduced to his little cousins.

“Giles is going to act!” she told them proudly. “But not yet. His turn comes later. He is to be Isaac in the play of _Abraham’s Sacrifice_.”

Colin and Margery looked with awe and amazement upon their cousin. He was a pretty boy of twelve, with fair hair hanging to his shoulders, and a pale, delicate little face.

“Won’t you be frightened?” whispered Margery, gazing at him with breathless interest.

“No; not very,” he said, laughing. “I have been in the plays before. Last year I was an angel.”

“Take them to the window, Giles!” called his mother. “It’s time we were in our seats. Little ones in the front; grown-ups at the back!”

The room was by this time full of townsfolk, invited by the glover and his wife, and the first-floor windows, as well as the upper ones, were crowded with people in holiday dresses; the women in snowy wimples, and gowns of many colours; the men in tunics of russet brown or dull green.

Colin, Margery, and Giles sat on stools close to the window, and the country children looked with interest at the scene before them. The glover’s house was at the corner of the market-place, and the windows of all the houses surrounding it were hung with gay cloths, and packed from basement to roof with people.

Below, in the cobble-paved square, with a babel of noise and confusion, the poorer folk crowded.

“There won’t be any room when the play _does_ come!” exclaimed Colin.

“The heralds will clear the way,” said Giles. “Last night it was such fun to watch them! They rode through all the town reading the proclamation. That’s a warning, you know, for every one to behave properly to-day.”

“Oh, what did they say?” asked Margery, with interest.

“Well, they came to the market-place here, on horseback, with trumpets, and one man shouted at the top of his voice. Let me see. What did he say? I believe I can remember some of it. It was like this.... _Oyez. We command, on the King’s behalf, and the Mayor and the Sheriffs of this city, that no man go armed in this city with swords nor Carlisle axes, nor none other defences in disturbance of the King’s peace and the play, or hindering of the procession of Corpus Christi, and that they leave their harness in their inns...._ I forget the words that came next, but they meant that each guild was to act its play in proper order. And that all manner of craftsmen who were responsible for a play should employ ‘good players well-arranged and openly speaking’ upon pain of a fine. And all that sort of thing, you know.”

“I can’t think how you can remember it!” said Margery.

“Oh, when you act, you have a great deal to learn by heart, so you _must_ have a good memory,” returned Giles, airily.

“Oh, look! look!” interrupted Colin. “Here they come! These are the heralds, aren’t they?”

There was a stir and a swaying in the crowd, and all the people at the windows began to crane their necks to see three or four horsemen, who came riding down a narrow side-alley into the market-place, scattering the throng, which pressed back before them. Then a silence fell.

“Oh, how beautiful they look!” Margery whispered. And indeed in their tunics of blue and crimson, embroidered with gold, their horses also decked in gay velvet trappings, the heralds, with their silver trumpets, were quite magnificent.

One of them, after a long blast on his trumpet, had by this time begun to announce the plays.

“Reverend lords and ladies all, That at this time here assembled be,”

he chanted, and then went on to mention the subject of each play, and the special guild by which it was to be acted.

The children exchanged delighted glances when the Parchment-makers’ and Bookbinders’ Guild came in its place on the list, for in that play, “Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac on an altar,” they were, of course, specially interested.

At last, with another blast from the trumpets, the heralds clattered away.

“The first pageant will be here in a minute,” said Giles. “It must be nearly over at Mikelgate by this time. The heralds were late.”

“What are all those flags for?” asked Colin. He was looking down into the market-place, where a great square was marked out by gay banners stuck at intervals into the ground between the cobble-stones. Each banner had the arms of the city painted upon it, and all the flags fluttered bravely in the wind.

“They’re to mark the place where the pageant is to stand,” said Giles. “It’s arranged like that all over the town. Wherever a platform is to be placed, the banners are put to show the exact position.”

“Is Giles telling you all about it?” asked Master Harpham, leaning over the shoulders of his friends at the window to pat Margery’s head. “Aye! aye! You ask him anything you want to know, and I’ll warrant he’ll have an answer ready. A fine fellow at the pageants is Giles! The Town Council chose him out of a score of others to play Isaac. Aye, that they did!” he added proudly, turning to the women who crowded behind the children.

Margery looked up shyly at the big man, whom they had not seen before. He had just come up from his shop in the basement to bring the news that the first platform, or _pageant_, as every one called it, was on its way; and now he was passing from group to group at the windows, greeting his acquaintances in a loud, hearty voice, and inquiring whether every one could see.

“Did you have to practise a long time for Isaac?” asked Margery, who could not get over her awe at the knowledge that Giles was one of the players.

“Oh, not so very long. We had about six rehearsals at the Town Hall. But some of the people _were_ such a long time learning their parts!” said Giles, sighing.

“It’s coming! it’s coming!” cried Colin; and every one turned eagerly to the window.

Down below in the square there was a swaying amongst the crowd, and a great murmur of expectation as at the corner of the market-place, a huge object came into view, towering high above the heads of the people. It was preceded by a body of young men, who pressed back the crowd with clubs or with the flat sides of their swords, so as to clear the space marked out by the banners.

“Who are all these people with clubs and swords?” inquired Colin excitedly, while Margery’s eyes were fixed on the swaying blue canvas that was approaching.

“They are the apprentices of the guild—the Tanners’ Guild, you know”—Giles explained. “The apprentices of each guild have to keep the crowd in order, and some of them have to drag the pageant along. Here they come! That’s Master Smith pulling in front. We know him well. And there’s Robin Coke next to him!”

The throng in the market-place was now well enough ordered for the pageant to be clearly visible, and the children saw a big wooden stage of two platforms, one above the other.

It ran upon huge wheels, and in front there were ropes, which were passed round the waists of eight or ten men, who were pulling with all their might.

On it came, jolting over the cobble-stones of the market-square till the men ceased to pull, and the double platform stopped just in front of the window at which the children sat.

The upper stage was just on a level with their eyes, and Margery clasped her hands in delight.

“We’ve got the best place of all!” she whispered to her brother.

As yet the curtains of the upper platform were close drawn, and she had time to look at the whole car before the play actually began.

The lower half, she noticed, was all covered in by brightly-coloured painted cloths, so that nothing of the interior could be seen.

“That’s where the players dress,” Giles told her. “And there are trap-doors and steps leading from it to the upper part, which is the stage, you know. And——.”

But the curtains were now pulled aside, disclosing what seemed to the children a grand and beautiful scene. A canopy, painted deep blue to represent the sky, stretched above the head of an imposing figure seated upon a gilt throne.

Those of you who have seen pictures of popes, can imagine the dress of the player who represented Almighty God. He wore a mitre upon his head, over hair that was made stiff with gold. His beard was also of stiff gold, and his robes were magnificently embroidered and clasped with jewels. In his hand he held a jewelled sceptre. The floor at his feet was strewn with rushes, and at first there was nothing on the stage but this stately figure, over-arched by the blue sky.

Then he spoke, chanting in a grave full voice, so that the sound of it reached over the market-place; and these were his words, put into the kind of English we speak to-day. Below on this page you will find them as they were then written.

“I am gracious and great, God without beginning; I am maker unmade, all might is in me; I am life and way unto salvation winning; I am foremost and first; as I bid shall it be. My blessing of face shall be blinding, And descending from harm to be hiding, My body in bliss ever abiding, Unending without any ending.”

“I am gracyus and grete, God without you begynning; I am maker unmade, all mighte es in me; I am lyfe and way unto welth wynnyng; I am foremaste and fyrste, als I bid sall it be. My blyssing of ble sall be blending, And held and fro harme to be hydande, My body in blys ay abydande, Une dande withouten any endyng.”

Then, with other grave words, the Lord began the work of Creation. First He brought into existence the angels, summoning them in nine orders of rank and power, each order greater and more powerful than the last. One after another they appeared from a platform at the back of the stage, wearing coats of gilded skin, over which long robes hung to their feet. Golden wings were fastened to their shoulders, and on their foreheads diadems sparkled.

Then, greatest of all, and more beautiful and resplendent than the rest, came Lucifer.

On him the Almighty conferred dignity and honour above all the other spirits He had created. He was the Star of the Morning, the great and splendid archangel.

But Lucifer, filled with pride, soon began to contend before God. He claimed still higher powers than those which had been granted him, trying to make himself the equal of the Almighty.

Then at last God spoke his sentence of banishment, and he and the angels who worshipped him, were cast down from heaven.

“_O Lucifer, Star of the Morning, how art thou fallen!_” is a beautiful line in the Bible, which alludes to the disgrace and banishment which the audience now saw acted before their eyes.

Shortly after the fall of Lucifer, the curtains of the pageant closed upon the scene of God enthroned, surrounded by the good angels singing their praises to the one and only deity.

Margery, who had looked and listened in amazed delight, drew a long breath when this first play was over. Colin, no less excited, began at once to talk and to ask questions.

“Look! they are dragging the stage away!” he exclaimed, “There’s the man you called Robin Coke, and there’s Master Smith, pulling with all his might. Where are they going to take it now?”

“In front of John Gyseburn’s door; that’s where it’s played next,” said Giles. “That’s his son, Matthew Gyseburn, the lawyer,” he added, pointing out a man who stood at the other window.

“See!” called Margery. “Here comes another pageant. What is this, Giles?”

“Still the _Creation_. The earth is made now, and the birds and fishes and all the animals. This is the Plasterers’ pageant. Yesterday John Wiseman showed me all the pigeons he had got for it.”

“Pigeons?” echoed Colin.

“You’ll see,” said Giles, nodding. “I wonder whether I ought to go?” he added, looking back anxiously at his mother. “They’ll be doing the third play now at Mikelgate, as the second one has just reached us.”

“Plenty of time,” declared Mistress Harpham, reassuringly. “You needn’t go for another hour yet, my boy.”