By Joseph C. Bridge,
M.A., Mus. Doc. Oxon. et Dunelm., F.S.A.
_Introduction._
There is no more interesting study in our early literature than the
Mystery Plays which were once so popular throughout the length and
breadth of England. It may be well to premise that their proper title
is “Miracle” Plays, and no early writer ever alludes to them under
any other name; nor was there in this country any difference between
“Miracle” and “Mystery,” as stated by some authorities. But custom
has now definitely coupled the latter title with those early dramatic
efforts of our forefathers, and it will be used in these pages.
Excluding odd ones, four great series of plays have come down to us,
viz. those of York, Wakefield, Chester, and Coventry, and each place
probably served as a centre of dramatic influence. While York acted as
a stimulus to Wakefield itself and Newcastle, so Chester supported the
dramatic efforts from Kendal in the north to Shrewsbury in the south
and Dublin in the west.
Each series of plays possesses distinct characteristics, and, happily,
Chester can claim that her plays have in them “less to offend and a
more reverential tone” than many others, for it is useless to disguise
the fact that many readers object to these plays as seeming to treat
religious subjects with levity. But with a little reflection we shall
see that these plays do not deserve such condemnation if judged from
the right standpoint, and that standpoint is assuredly _not_ the
twentieth century. We must throw ourselves back five centuries at least
if we are to obtain a right focus. From the time of St. Paul, God’s
Word has been preached in divers ways and by divers methods, and we
must not be surprised if the mediæval preacher was shrewd enough to use
the dramatic instincts of the people as distributing media of religious
knowledge.[6]
[6] Milton thought of writing _Paradise Lost_ as a Mystery Play, but
changed his mind.
Let us remember that the Bible and religious books could not be read
or consulted by the people; and as late as the seventeenth century we
find an aged rustic who knew nothing of our Saviour except what he had
learnt by seeing a _Corpus Christi_ play at Kendal, where “there was,”
said he, “a man on a tree, and the blood ran down.”
There is a good deal of strong argument put into the mouths of mediæval
players by the old Wycliffe preacher, who makes them say that “by such
playing of miracles men be converted to good living--and, since it is
lawful to have the miracles of God painted, why is it not as lawful to
have the miracles of God played, since men may better read the will of
God and His marvellous works in the playing of them rather than in the
painting of them ... for this is a dead book, the other a quick?”
The introduction of humour into these sacred plays is no novelty. There
is a broad touch of it as early as the time of Hilarius in his play
of _St. Nicholas_, and we cannot deny that the writers of our Miracle
Plays showed some skill in thus early lighting upon one of the greatest
of dramatic rules, viz. the law of contrast.
Then, again, one other point, which is generally overlooked, must
be taken into consideration. The Persons of God and our Saviour are
treated with the _utmost_ reverence. It is only when the common people
come on the stage that we find a certain coarseness and humour. And
this is no more than we should expect to find.
These city actors would have thought it absurd to render shepherds as
quiet, well-educated men. Did they not know plenty of shepherds round
Chester who had hard times and hard fare, and whose only knowledge was
of the diseases of animals? Were they not plagued with mischievous
shepherd-boys who were ever ready for fun and play? And if Noah’s wife
was a shrew, were they not well acquainted with many such, and was
not the scold’s bridle and the ducking-stool kept at the Cross for
such offending citizens? And can we blame them for looking upon many
of the characters mentioned in the Bible as being ordinary everyday
personages? I think not. However, opinions on this point will always
be divided, and the following quotations from the writings of two
well-educated women, who lived 100 years apart, are interesting:--
“Next he (Mr. Bryant) spoke upon the Mysteries, or origin of our
theatrical entertainments, and repeated the plan and conduct
of several of these strange compositions, in particular one he
remembered, which was called _Noah’s Ark_, and in which that patriarch
and his sons, just previous to the Deluge, made it all their delight
to speed themselves into the ark without Mrs. Noah, whom they wished
to escape; but she surprised them just as they had embarked, and made
so prodigious a racket against the door that, after a long and violent
contention, she forced them to open it, and gained admission, having
first contented them by being kept out till she was thoroughly wet to
the skin.
“These most eccentric and unaccountable dramas filled up chief of our
conversation; and whether to consider them most with laughter, as
ludicrous, or with horror, as blasphemous, remains a doubt I cannot
well solve.”
So wrote that somewhat priggish but clever and witty young authoress,
Miss Fanny Burney, in the eighteenth century.[7]
[7] It may be interesting to note that her father, Dr. Burney, was
educated in Chester.
The following twentieth-century opinion is from a paper by the late
Mrs. Henry Sandford, a woman of sound judgment and of great educational
experience:--
“In the first place, we cannot but observe that, with all their
faults, they did keep vividly before the mind of the English nation
the leading outlines of Christian teaching, and that, in the
historical form suggested by the Apostles’ Creed. Much that was
legendary, coarse, incongruous, was there also, no doubt, but _that_
was there above all.
“The old religious drama created in the popular mind a high ideal of
the true use and purpose of dramatic art, namely, to present to the
imagination a living picture of the realities of life and feeling.”
But I will not pursue the arguments any further. Suffice it to say
that the sense of humour and the representation of everyday life occur
in all the arts of the Middle Ages. Those who would eliminate all
this human part of the plays, or would forbid their use, must, to be
consistent, rip the _Misereres_ out of the choir of Chester Cathedral
and burn them for firewood.
It is sometimes said that not only was there irreverence, but even
indecency, especially in the play of the _Creation and Fall_, where
Adam and Eve are commanded to “stand nackede.” I believe this stage
direction to be merely figurative,[8] and the Cornish play of the
_Creation of the World_[9] gives a clue to the whole matter, as it
contains specific instructions that Adam and Eve are to be “apparelled
in white leather.”[10] At Norwich also we know that Adam wore “a wig,
gloves, and a cote of hosen steyned,” and Eve “a wig, gloves, and two
cotes of hosen steyned.”
[8] Thomas Wright, the able editor of the Chester plays, comes, I am
glad to say, to the same conclusion.
[9] _The Creation of the World._ A Cornish Mystery, edited by Whitley
Stokes.
[10] The Person of God was also occasionally represented in white
leather with the face gilded.
Further, there can be no doubt whatever that women were not allowed to
take part in plays or to appear on the stage in public until some years
after Mystery Plays had completely died out.[11]
[11] Miss Hamilton Moore, in _English Miracle Plays and Moralities_,
seems to think that I assert in my Introduction to the _Chester Plays_
(published for the revival in 1906) that women acted the play of _The
Assumption_. Not so: I merely stated that the ale-wives of the city
provided and furnished the play, but I am quite sure they did not
perform it.
Evidence of this may also be found in the music of the plays. In the
Coventry Mysteries the “Lullaby,” supposed to be sung by the women
in the _Slaughter of the Innocents_, actually has _Tenor and Bass
parts_.[12]
[12] This trio would be sung by two men and a boy. Similarly the trio
in Chester _Noah’s Play_ would be sung by the “Three clerkes from the
Minster,” who, as we shall see, were duly engaged as professionals.
_Origin of Plays._
These plays sprang from the Church, and “all evidence points to Easter
as the festival with which the earliest religious dramas were most
intimately connected, and it is probable that the first form which the
Easter play assumed was that of a ceremony in which the Crucifix was
solemnly buried on Good Friday and again disinterred on Easter Day amid
a pompous ritual.”[13]
[13] Professor Pollard.
So long as the Church controlled the plays, the clergy were favourable
to their performance; but when their popularity and their growth
rendered it necessary to perform them out of doors, when the stage was
pitched on the green or in the street before the Abbey gate, it became
another matter.
The following rimes, written in 1303 by Robert Manning (Le Brunne),
show this distinctly:--
“Hyt ys forebode in the decree
Miracles for to make or se
For miracles yf you begynne
Hyt ys a gaderynt, a syghte of synne
He may in the churche, thurgh thys resun
Play the resurrecyon.
Yf thou do it in weyis or grenys
A syghte of synne truly hyt semys.”
As late as 1385 we find William of Wykeham objecting to the plays
taking place in the churchyard, and threatening those who should lend
vestments from the church to the actors.[14]
[14] We must not forget that the Welsh played interludes in their
churchyards on Sunday afternoons down to a very late period.
The opposition of the clergy might have been fatal to the continuance
of Miracle Plays but for the Feast of Corpus Christi, which was
instituted in 1264, and firmly established in 1311. On this day
the people and the trade gilds took part in processions with the
clergy, carrying pictures and images of saints, and sometimes
accompanied by the members of the gilds dressed as angels, the twelve
apostles, &c.[15] From this parade it was an easy step to dramatic
representation; and this day was rigidly adhered to by the gilds as
their great and common festival.
[15] This is frequently to be seen in Italy at the present day.
Chester has always had the credit of being an exception to the rule by
holding the performances of the plays at Whitsuntide, but this view is
incorrect, and Chester was, at first, in line with other places, for
we find from the Bakers’ Charter, 2 Edward IV. (which is the earliest
authoritative allusion to the plays), that “there hath been tyme out of
mind a company of bakers,” and they are “to be redy to pay the costes
and expenses and play and light of _Corpus Christi_ as oft tymes as it
shall be assessed.”[16] Chester’s gilds were numerous and powerful, and
many of them exist in some form or other at the present day.
[16] The alteration must have occurred very soon after this, for the
“Banes,” quoted later, which gives Whitsuntide as the time of the
plays, cannot, I think, be much later than 1470.
The authorship of the plays is generally attributed to Ralf Higden, the
author of _Polychronicon_, and a monk of Chester, where he is said to
have died at a great age in 1353. But there is no evidence to justify
such a definite statement as this. All we know of the origin of the
plays is found in the following:--
1. A “Banes,” XV. Cent., giving Sir John Arneway as the “deviser.”
He was Mayor 1268-1276;
2. A Proclamation, _c._ 1520, giving Arneway as the “deviser,” and
Francis, a monk, as the writer.
3. A “Banes,” _c._ 1570, giving Arneway as “deviser,” and a “Dom
Randall” as the writer.
4. An account of the plays, by Archdeacon Rogers, _c._ 1575; one
version gives “Randall Higden” as the writer, and places the
time in the mayoralty of Arneway, 1328; the other version gives
“one Randoll a monke,” Arneway as Mayor, and the date 1339.
5. An endorsement or a Proclamation in the Harleian MSS., supposed
to be written by one of the Holmes, _c._ 1628, stating “Hignet”
was the writer.
6. A similar endorsement on a copy of the plays of about the same
date.
If the religious tendency of the Chester Plays was owing to a guiding
hand from the monastery, that hand was, according to our earliest
tradition, one Henry Francis, whose name occurs in deeds dated 1377-82.
Higden was never mentioned until late in the sixteenth century.
It is quite possible that Henry Francis and Ralph Higden may have
translated and revised some of the plays, and rendered literary help
in reducing the cycle to unity, and that is all we can say with
safety.[17] And this theory is supported by the fact that the closer
the plays are studied, the more certain appears the fact that they are
not by one hand.
[17] It seems to me sheer waste of time to try and synchronize Arneway
and Higden as many writers do. I see no reason why we should not
believe in the _earliest_ tradition that Arneway _devised the plays_.
The writing of them would be a gradual process, covering many years and
involving, probably, several authors.
Wright and Collier have pointed out many passages which are identical
with the French plays published in the _Mystère du Vieux Testament_.
Certain plays may therefore have been translated from the French. The
_Sacrifice of Isaac_ is probably derived from a play found at Broom
Hall, Suffolk, or perhaps _both_ are from some other original. Miss
Toulmin Smith says:--
“Lines 163-314 have a strong resemblance to corresponding 134 lines
in Chester version. This resemblance, sometimes of phrase, sometimes
only of meaning, is interrupted by occasional passages in the Brome
MS., which have no equivalents in Chester. Apparently, both editors
worked upon a common original, but the Chester poet compressed the
more freely, and, in so doing, greatly heightened the effect and
dialogue. But he showed poor tact in omitting the charming scene
between the father and the son after their agony is over.... It
is possible, however, that the Chester play has come down to us
mutilated. It was plainly at one time a separate play, and when
amalgamated with that of _Abraham and Lot_ may well have been cut down
for greater convenience of performance.”
The germ of the fine speech from the _Resurrection_, quoted later, may
be found in the Wakefield play, where it begins as follows:--
“Earthly man that I have wroght,
Wightly wake and slepe thou noght!
With bitter bayll I have thee boght
To make thee free;
Into this dongeon depe I soght,
And all for luf of thee.”
The _Three Kings_ seems founded on a Latin play, and the exceptional
plays of the series (Nos. 23 and 24) can be traced in that fine old
poem the _Cursor Mundi_.
In _The Shepherd’s Play_ we certainly find the work of a local
playwright, as references are made to a “jannock of Lancastershire,”
butter from Blacon (a suburb of Chester), and ale from Halton. Other
examples might be given.
It seems probable that as the plays sprang from the Church, so the four
great cycles now existing are derived from some greater and anterior
cycle authorised by the Church.
We find numerous references in the Chester Companies’ accounts to the
original book of the play, which is generally called the “reginall.”
This may in some cases refer merely to the special playbook belonging
to the company, but it more often refers to the volume of the plays
possessed by the City Corporation. If we still had this book we might
settle many vexed questions. Unfortunately it is missing, for on April
30th, 1567, “Randall Trever gent was called before the Maior of the
Citie of Chester and was demaunded for the originall booke of the
Whydson Plaies of the said Citie who then and ther confessed that he
have had the same booke which book he deposeth upon the holy evangelist
of God that by commaundement he delivered againe but where the same is
now or to whom he then delivered the same book, deposeth likewise he
knoweth not.”
In the year 1883, Mr. Sutton (the chief librarian of the Manchester
Free Library) found an old parchment book-cover, with some writing upon
it, which he submitted to Dr. F. J. Furnivall, who pronounced it to
be a portion of a late fifteenth century MS. of the Chester Plays. It
is the commencement of the play of the _Resurrection_, and it is very
probable--being on parchment--that it is a remnant of the original
Chester Play Book.
We are therefore dependent upon certain transcriptions of the whole
series of plays made at the end of the sixteenth century. When the
plays were dying out, it is certain that some of the old citizens would
desire to keep a “book of the words,” hence the number of MSS. of that
period.