Three complete collections of ancient English mysteries have descended
to modern times, or rather are now known to be preserved, which are
generally distinguished by the titles of the Chester, the Townley, and
the Coventry Mysteries; and, with the exception of a few detached pieces
of far inferior importance, we derive nearly all our actual knowledge of
the early English drama from these series of plays, which have been long
known to every one interested in this class of literary pursuits, as some
of the most curious and valuable relics of bygone times; not merely as
important records of our early stage, but also as illustrating, in a very
interesting manner, the customs, language, and manners of the periods to
which they belong. The only one of these series (which is, perhaps, the
most important of all), that has yet been printed, is the Townley, which
was published by the Surtees Society, with a very interesting and learned
preface by Mr. Hunter. The Coventry is contained in the following volume;
and the Chester, so ably commented upon by Mr. Markland, a gentleman
to whom belongs the distinction of being the first in recent times to
direct public attention to these researches, has already been under the
consideration of the Council of the Society under whose auspices the
present volume is produced.[1]
Mr. Collier, in the second volume of his excellent History of English
Dramatic Poetry, has carefully analyzed the Coventry Mysteries, with
occasional notices of resemblances or dissimilarities in the method in
which the same subjects are treated in the other collections. It will,
therefore, be unnecessary for me in this place to enter on the general
question of the chain in the evidence of dramatic history which these
mysteries afford.
The Coventry Mysteries are contained in a quarto volume, the principal
part of which was written in the year 1468, now preserved in the
Cottonian collection of manuscripts, under the press-mark Vespas.
D. viii. The date of the MS. is ascertained from the verso of fol.
100, a fac-simile of which page will be found at the commencement of
this work. The history of the manuscript is unfortunately wrapped
in obscurity, and it cannot be distinctly traced back to those who
are presumed to have been its former possessors—the Grey Friars of
Coventry. The principal authority for its appropriation to this body is
contained in the following memorandum on the fly-leaf of the manuscript
in the hand-writing of Dr. Richard James, librarian to Sir Robert
Cotton:—“Contenta Novi Testamenti scenice expressa et actitata olim
per monachos sive fratres mendicantes: vulgo dicitur hic liber Ludus
Coventriæ, sive Ludus Corporis Christi: scribitur metris Anglicanis.”
The MS. was previously in the possession of Robert Hegge of Christ
Church, Oxford, who died in 1629,[2] and was, most probably, purchased
by James about that time for Cotton, as it appears from a letter in the
same library[3] that James was engaged about that period at Oxford in
procuring manuscripts for his patron.
James, in his MS. collections in the Bodleian, does not notice the MS.
of the Ludus Coventriæ, and I have been unsuccessful in endeavouring to
trace either the destination of Hegge’s library, or the authority for
James’s assertion that this volume was commonly (vulgo dicitur) known
under the above title.[4] That it was so, there cannot, I imagine, be
the slightest doubt, for what object could James—a man who was, most
probably, uninterested about the subject of the manuscript, and inserted
the account above given as Cotton’s librarian, according to his usual
custom—have had in making a misrepresentation? It must be remembered,
also, that the last leaf, or, perhaps, the last few leaves, are now
deficient, and there is no improbability in the conjecture that these may
not have been lost when James wrote his description, and that a colophon
supplied him with his information.
Robert Hegge has given us his autograph in two places, and in both
added the cognomen of “Dunelmensis.” On this account, some writers
have conjectured that the volume originally came from Durham; but this
supposition is not supported by any evidence and very little probability.
The principal mark of dialect which the Mysteries contain, viz., _x_ for
_sh_ in such words as _xal_, _xulde_, &c., belong to that part of the
country in which Coventry is situated.
If, then, we have not complete and absolute evidence that Ludus Coventriæ
is the proper title of these Mysteries, yet the probabilities are greatly
in favour of the correctness of this appellation, and no urgent reasons
have been given for any different conclusion. By this name, at all
events, the MS. has been known since the time of Dr. James, who died in
1639.
The external evidence is also greatly in favour of the claim of Coventry
to these plays. Coventry was a place formerly famous for the performance
of its Corpus Christi plays by the Grey Friars, in the same manner as
Chester was for the performances of its trading companies. Mr. Sharp’s
_Dissertation on the Coventry Mysteries_, 4to., Cov. 1816, contains a
most curious and valuable collection of information[5] relative to the
plays once performed there, and the manner in which the actors were
dressed. In 1456, Queen Margaret was at Coventry, when she saw “alle
the pagentes pleyde save domesday, which might not be pleyde for lak
of day.” Even as late as 1575, “certain good harted men of Coventree”
had the honour of performing before Queen Elizabeth in the celebrated
entertainment at Kenilworth, and gained considerable applause.[6] And
Heywood, in a passage which has been frequently quoted, alludes to the
devil as a famous character in the old Coventry mysteries:—
“For as good happe wolde have it chaunce,
Thys devyll and I were of olde acqueyntaunce;
For oft, in the play of Corpus Christi,
He hath played the devyll at Coventry.”[7]
The Coventry Mysteries attracted the attention of the antiquary, Dugdale,
at an early period, and he has given us the following curious and
important account of them:—
“Before the suppression of the monasteries, this city was very famous
for the pageants that were play’d therein, upon Corpus-Christi day;
which occasioning very great confluence of people thither from far and
near, was of no small benefit therto; which pageants being acted with
mighty state and reverence by the friers of this house, had theaters
for the severall scenes, very large and high, placed upon wheels, and
drawn to all the eminent parts of the city, for the better advantage of
spectators: and contain’d the story of the New-Testament, composed into
old English Rithme, as appeareth by an ancient MS. [in bibl. Cotton.
sub effigie Vesp. D. 9.] intituled _Ludus Corporis Christi_, or _Ludus
Coventriæ_. I have been told by some old people, who in their younger
years were eye-witnesses of these pageants so acted, that the yearly
confluence of people to see that shew was extraordinary great, and
yielded no small advantage to this city.”[8]—_Dugdale’s Antiquities of
Warwickshire_, fol. Lond. 1656, p. 116, col. 1.
I scarcely think, however, that this notice of the MS. affords much
evidence in favour of James’s title, except so far as it shows that
Dugdale himself had no doubt whatever about its correctness. It will be
observed that Dugdale does not give a right reference to the press-mark
of the manuscript, and he had probably not examined the volume with much
attention, or he could scarcely have omitted to notice the following
passage at the end of the prologue, which has been adduced to prove that
these mysteries were not exclusively[9] performed before the “gentyllys
and ȝemanry” of Coventry:—
“A Sunday next, yf that we may,
At vj. of the belle we gynne oure play
In N. towne.”
“The letter N,” observes Mr. Collier,[10] “is placed for the _nomen_ of
the town, which was to be filled up as occasion required, by the person
making the proclamation.” If the opinion I have formed of their locality
be correct, I can account for this by supposing that the prologues of the
vexillators belong to another series of plays, or that these mysteries
were occasionally performed at other places. The summaries of the
pageants, as given in the prologue, are often confusedly numbered; and it
must be confessed that the conclusion would suit a company of strolling
players much better than the venerable order of the Grey Friars. In
the order of the pageants, I have not regarded the speeches of the
vexillators; and the divisions in the MS. being very incorrectly given,
I have endeavoured to make as correct an arrangement as possible, taking
the two other series of mysteries as my guide.
At the commencement of the twenty-ninth pageant, Contemplatio, an
allegorical personage, who acts as prologue-speaker, explains the events
and moralises on occasion, but who is in no way concerned in the action,
says—
“We intendyn to procede the matere that we lefte the last ȝere:”
which proves that the remainder of these pageants were not played the
same year as the preceding twenty-eight mysteries.
In offering the first edition of the Coventry Mysteries to the members of
the Shakespeare Society, I am anxious to state that I have endeavoured
to give the reader as faithful a copy of the original manuscript as was
possible, with all its errors and defects. These are not few, for the
MS. is evidently the work of a scribe who was not very well acquainted
with his copy. He makes barbarous work of the few Latin passages which
occur, and verbal errors are of frequent occurrence; and yet, on mature
deliberation, I came to the conclusion that it would be more advisable
to leave these corrections for the notes, and thus give the reader an
opportunity of forming his own opinion on passages which are certainly
corrupt, but which may possibly admit of more than one method of
explanation.
The frequent occurrence of the double letter _ff_ in the manuscript, and
in places where it could not be used for the capital letter, implies a
dialectical distinction, the exact meaning of which has not yet been
discovered. I have carefully preserved them in the text.
The Glossary will be found useful to those who are learned in the
philology of our early language, as there are many words of very
unfrequent occurrence; but I have constructed it more especially with a
view to the wants of those who have not made our early poetry a matter
of study. In doing so, I thought that I should be consulting the best
interests of the Shakespeare Society, as a large majority of its members
belong, in all probability, to the latter class.