The number of plays now existing is twenty-five, but we know that the
_Assumption_ has been lost, and there are signs of two plays being
compressed into one, as in the _Histories of Lot and Abraham_, so that
the original number was no doubt larger. Fluctuations would undoubtedly
take place with the rise and fall of City Companies, if for no other
reasons. As the number of gilds expanded or were reduced, so the plays
were increased or amalgamated.[38] The list of plays and the gilds
that performed them will be found in the “Banes” already printed. The
Chester series is noted for two plays that occur nowhere else, viz. No.
23, on _Prophecies_, and No. 24, on _Anti-Christ_.
[38] At York the MS. of the plays (_c._ 1430) shows 48; but in 1415
there had been 51; and another earlier list shows 57.
The English employed seems to be of the beginning of the fifteenth
century, many of the stage directions are in Latin, and the Three
Kings, Octavian, and Herod occasionally use French, that being the
Court language.[39]
[39] It is not generally considered to afford any argument as to the
plays being derived from the French.
It is not to be supposed that we have the text of the plays as written
_at first_, for the original plays are without doubt much older than
the fifteenth century. We find that the quarrels of Noah and his wife
formed so familiar a story that they became proverbial. Chaucer says:--
“Hast thou not heard (quod Nicholas) also
The sorowe of Noe with his felowship
Or that he might get his wife to ship.”
Chaucer wrote this about 1390, and it appears certain, therefore, that
our play of _Noah_, and probably those on the same subject at Wakefield
and Newcastle-on-Tyne, were often performed by the middle of the
fourteenth century.
The metre employed varies, but a large proportion is in eight line
stanzas, sometimes with two rimes:--
a a a b
a a a b
and sometimes with three;
a a a b
c c c b
as may be seen in the following example:--