CLERKENWELL AND CLERKS' PLAYS
Parish clerks are immortalised by having given their name to an
important part of London. Clerkenwell is the _fons clericorum_ of the
old chronicler, Fitz-Stephen. It is the Clerks' Well, the syllable _en_
being the form of the old Saxon plural. Fitz-Stephen wrote in the time
of King Stephen: "There are also round London on the northern side, in
the suburbs, excellent springs, the water of which is sweet, clear,
salubrious, 'mid glistening pebbles gliding playfully; amongst which
Holywell, Clerkenwell, (_fons clericorum_), and St. Clement's Well are
of most note, and most frequently visited, as well by the scholars from
the schools as by the youth of the City when they go out to take air in
the summer evenings."
It was then, and for centuries later, a rural spot, not far from the
City, just beyond Smithfield, a place of green sward and gently sloping
ground, watered by a pleasant stream, far different from the crowded
streets of the modern Clerkenwell. It was a spot famous for athletic
contests, for wrestling bouts and archery, and hither came the Lord
Mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen at Bartholomew Fair time to witness the
sports, and especially the wrestling.
[Illustration: OLD MAP OF CLERKENWELL]
But that which gave to the place its name and chief glory was the
fact that once a year at least the parish clerks of London came here to
perform their mystery plays and moralities. "Their profession," wrote
Warton[57], "employment and character, naturally dictated to this
spiritual brotherhood the representation of plays, especially those of
the scriptural kind, and their constant practice in shows, processions,
and vocal music easily accounts for their address in detaining the best
company which England afforded in the fourteenth century at a religious
farce for more than a week." These plays were no ordinary performances,
no afternoon or evening entertainment, but a protracted drama lasting
from three to eight days. In the reign of Richard II, A.D. 1391, the
clerks were acting before the King, his Queen, and many nobles. The
performances continued for three days, and the representations were the
"Passion of Our Lord and the Creation of the World," which so well
pleased the King that he commanded £10, a very considerable sum of money
in those days, to be paid to the clerks of the parish churches and to
divers other clerks of the City of London. Here is the record of
his gift:
"_Issue Roll_, Easter, 14 Ric. II.
"11 July. To the clerks of the parish churches and to divers
other clerks of the city of London. In money paid to them in
discharge of £10 which the Lord the King commanded to be paid
to them of his gift on account of the play of the 'Passion of
Our Lord and the Creation of the World' by them performed at
Skynnerwell after the feast of St. Bartholomew last past. By
writ of Privy Seal amongst the mandates of this term--£10."
[Footnote 57: _English Poetry_, vol. ii. p. 397.]
Skinners' Well was close to the Clerks' Well, and it was so called, so
Stow informs us, "for that the Skinners of London held there certain
plays yearly of Holy Scripture,"
A few years later, in the succeeding reign, 10 Henry IV, A.D. 1409, the
fraternity of clerks were again performing at the same place. Stow says:
"In the year 1409 was a great play at Skynners' Welle, neere unto
Clarkenwell, besides London, which lasted eight daies, and was of matter
from the creation of the world; there were to see the same the most part
of the nobles and gentles in England"--a mighty audience truly, which
not even Sir Henry Irving could command in his farewell performances at
Drury Lane.
[Illustration: A MYSTERY PLAY AT CHESTER (FROM A PRINT AFTER A PAINTING
BY T. UWINS)]
These religious plays or mysteries were a powerful means for instructing
the people; and if we had lived in mediæval times, we should not have
needed to fly to Ober-Ammergau in order to witness a Passion Play. In
the streets of Coventry or Chester, York, or Tewkesbury, Witney, or
Reading, or on the Green at Clerkenwell, we could have seen the
appealing spectacle; and though sometimes the actors lapsed into
buffoonery, and the red demons carrying souls to hell's mouth created
merriment rather than terror, and though realism was carried to such a
pitch that Adam and Eve appeared in a state of nature, yet many of the
spectators would carry away with them pious thoughts and some grasp of
the facts of Scripture history, and of the mysteries of the faith.
Originally the plays were performed in churches, but owing to the
gradually increased size of the stage and the more elaborate stage
effects, the sacred buildings were abandoned as the scenes of mediæval
drama. Then the churchyard was utilised for the purpose. The clergy no
longer took part in the pageants, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries the people liked to act their plays in the highways and
public places as at Clerkenwell. The guilds and fraternities in many
places provided the chief actors, and in towns where there were many
guilds and companies, each company performed part of the great drama,
the movable stage being drawn about from street to street. Thus at York
the story of the Creation and the Redemption was divided into
forty-eight parts, each part being acted by a guild, or group of
companies. The Tanners represented God the Father creating the heavens,
angels and archangels, and the fall of Lucifer and the disobedient
angels. Then the Plasterers showed the Creation of the Earth, and the
work of the first five days. The Card-makers exhibited the Creation of
Adam of the clay of the earth, and the making of Eve of Adam's rib, thus
inspiring them with the breath of life. The Fall, the story of Cain and
Abel, of Noah and the Flood, of Moses, the Annunciation and all Gospel
history, ending with the Coronation of the Virgin and the
Final Judgment.
The stage upon which the clerks performed their plays, according to
Strutt, consisted of three platforms, one above another. On the
uppermost sat God the Father surrounded by His angels. He was
represented in a white robe, and until it was discovered how injurious
the process was, the actor who played the part used to have his face
gilded. On the second platform were the glorified saints, and on the
lowest men who had not yet passed from life. On one side of the lowest
platform was hell's mouth, a dark pitchy cavern, whence issued the
appearance of fire and flames, and sometimes hideous yellings and noises
in imitation of the howlings and cries of wretched souls tormented by
relentless demons. From this yawning cave the devils constantly ascended
to delight the spectators and afford comic relief to the more serious
drama. The three stages were not always used. Archdeacon Rogers, who
died in 1595, left an account of the Chester play which he himself saw,
and he wrote that the stage was a high scaffold with two rooms, a higher
and a lower, upon four wheels. In the lower the actors apparelled
themselves, and in the higher they played. But this was a movable stage
on wheels. The clerks' stage would, doubtless, be a fixed structure, and
of a more elaborate construction.
The dresses used by the actors were very gorgeous and splendid, though
little care was bestowed upon the appropriateness of the costumes. The
words of the play of the Creation differ in the various versions which
have come down to us. Strutt thinks that the clerks' play, acted before
"the most part of the nobles and gentles in England," was very similar
to the Coventry play, which cannot compare in grandeur and vigour with
the York play discovered in the library of Lord Ashburnham, and edited
by Miss Toulmin Smith[58]. But as the north-country dialect of the York
version would have been difficult for the learned clerks of London to
pronounce, their version would doubtless resemble more that of Coventry
than that of York. The first act represents the Deity seated upon His
throne and speaking as follows:
_Ego sum Alpha et Omega, principium et finis_.
My name is knowyn, God and Kynge;
My work to make now wyl I wende;
In myselfe resteth my reynenge,
It hath no gynnyng, ne no ende,
And all that evyr shall have beynge
Is closed in my mende;[59]
When it is made at my lykynge
I may it save, I may it shende[60]
After my plesawns."[61]
[Footnote 58: Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1885. A portion of this is
published in Mr. A.W. Pollard's _English Miracle Plays_.]
[Footnote 59: Mind.]
[Footnote 60: Destroy.]
[Footnote 61: Pleasure.]
At the close of this oration, which consists of forty lines, the angels
enter upon the upper stage, surround the throne of the Deity, and sing
from the _Te Deum_:
_Te Deum laudamus, te dominum confitemur_.
The Father bestows much honour and brightness on Lucifer, who is full of
pride. He demands of the good angels in whose honour they are singing
their songs of praise. Are they worshipping God or reverencing him? They
reply that they are worshipping God, the mighty and most strong, who
made them and Lucifer. Then Lucifer daringly usurps the seat of the
Almighty, and receives the homage of the rebellious angels. Then the
Father orders them and their leader to fall from heaven to hell, and in
His bliss never more to dwell. Then does Lucifer reply:
"At thy byddyng y wyl I werke,
And pass from joy to peyne and smerte.
Now I am a devyl full derke,
That was an angel bryght.
Now to Helle the way I take,
In endless peyn'y to be put;
For fere of fyr apart I quake
In Helle dongeon my dene is dyth."
Then the Devil and his angels sink into the cavern of hell's mouth.
We cannot follow all the scenes in this strange drama. The final
representation included the Descent into Hell, or the Harrowing of Hell,
as it was called, when the soul of Christ goes down into the infernal
regions and rescues Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, and the saints of old.
The _Anima Christi_ says:
"Come forth, Adam and Eve, with the,
And all my fryends that herein be;
In Paradyse come forth with me,
In blysse for to dwell.
The fende of hell that is your foe,
He shall be wrappyd and woundyn in woo;
Fro wo to welth now shall ye go,
With myrth ever mo to melle."
Adam replies:
"I thank the Lord of thy grete grace,
That now is forgiven my great trespase;
No shall we dwell in blyssful place."
The accompanying print of the Descent into Hell was engraved by Michael
Burghers from an ancient drawing for our Berkshire antiquary,
Thomas Herne.
Modern buildings have obliterated the scene of this ancient drama acted
by the clerks of London, but some traces of the association of the
fraternity with the neighbourhood can still be found. The two famous
conventual houses, for which Clerkenwell was famous, the nunnery of St.
Mary and the priory of St. John of Jerusalem, founded in 1100, have long
since disappeared. Clerks' Close is mentioned in numerous documents, and
formed part of the estate belonging to the Skinners' Company, where
Skinner Street now runs. Clerks' Well was close to the modern church of
St. James's, Clerkenwell, which occupies the site of the church and
nunnery of St. Mary _de fonte clericorum_, which once possessed one of
the six water-pots in which Jesus turned the water into wine. Vine
Street formerly delighted in the name Mutton Lane, which is said to be a
corruption of meeting or moteing lane, referring to the clerks' mote or
meeting place by the well. When Mr. Pink wrote his history of
Clerkenwell forty years ago, there was at the east side of Ray Street a
broken iron pump let into the front wall of a dilapidated house which
showed the site of Clerks' Well. In 1673 the spring and plot of ground
were given by the Earl of Northampton to the poor of the parish, but the
vestry leased the spring to a brewer. Strype, writing in 1720, states
that "the old well at Clerkenwell, whence the parish had its name, is
still known among the inhabitants. It is on the right hand of a lane
that leads from Clerkenwell to Hockley-in-the-Hole, in a bottom. One Mr.
Crosse, a brewer, hath this well enclosed; but the water runs from him,
by means of a watercourse above-mentioned, into the said place. It is
enclosed with a high wall, which was formerly built to bound in
Clerkenwell Close; the present well (the conduit head) being also
enclosed by another lower wall from the street. The way to it is through
a little house, which was the watch-house. You go down a good many steps
to it. The well had formerly ironwork and brass cocks, which are now cut
off; the water spins through the old wall. I was there and tasted the
water, and found it excellently clear, sweet, and well tasted."
[Illustration]
In 1800 a pump was erected on the east side of Ray Street to celebrate
the parish clerks' ancient performances, which were immortalised in
raised letters of iron with this inscription:
A.D. 1800. William Bound, Joseph Bird, Churchwardens. For the
better accommodation of the neighbourhood, this pump was
removed to the spot where it now stands. The spring by which
it is supplied is situated four feet eastward, and round it,
as history informs us, the Parish Clerks of London in remote
ages commonly performed sacred plays. That custom caused it
to be denominated Clerks'-Well, and from which this parish
derived its name. The water was greatly esteemed by the Prior
and Brethren of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem and the
Benedictine Nuns in the neighbourhood.
Hone, in his _Ancient Mysteries_, describes this pump, which in his day,
A.D. 1832, stood between an earthenware shop and the abode of a
bird-seller, and states that the monument denoting the histrionic fame
of the place, and alluding to the miraculous powers of the water for
healing incurable diseases, remains unobserved beneath its living
attractions. "The present simplicity of the scene powerfully contrasts
with the recollection of its former splendour. The choral chant of the
Benedictine Nuns, accompanying the peal of the deep-toned organ through
their cloisters, and the frankincense curling its perfume from priestly
censers at the altar, are succeeded by the stunning sounds of numerous
quickly plied hammers, and the smith's bellows flashing the fires of Mr.
Bound's ironfoundry, erected upon the unrecognised site of the convent.
The religious house stood about half-way down the declivity of the hill,
which commencing near the church on Clerkenwell Green, terminates at the
River Fleet. The prospect then was uninterrupted by houses, and the
people upon the rising ground could have had an uninterrupted view of
the performances at the well."
In the parish there is a vineyard walk, which marks the site of the old
vineyard attached to the priory of St. John. The cultivation of the vine
was carried on in many monasteries. In 1859, in front of the old
Vineyard Inn, a signboard was set up which stated that "This house is
celebrated from old associations connected with the City of London.
After the City clerks partook of the water of Clerks' Well, from which
the parish derives its name, they repaired hither to partake of the
fruit of the finest English grapes." This was an ingenious contrivance
on the part of the landlord to solicit custom. It need hardly be stated
that the information given on this signboard was incorrect. Before the
Reformation there were few inns, and the old Vineyard Inn can scarcely
claim such a remote ancestry.
When miracle plays ceased to be performed the clerks did not desert
their old quarters. It is, indeed, stated that the ancient society of
parish clerks became divided; some turned their attention to wrestling
and mimicry at Bartholomew Fair, whilst others, for their better
administration, formed themselves into the Society of the Mayor,
Aldermen, and Recorder of Stroud Green, assembling in the Old Crown at
Islington; but still "saving their right to exhibit at the Old London
Spaw, formerly Clerks' Well, when they might happen to have learned
sheriffs and other officers to get up their sacred pieces as usual."
Even so late as 1774 the members of this ancient society were accustomed
to meet annually in the summer time at Stroud Green, and to regale
themselves in the open air, the number of persons assembling on some
occasions producing a scene similar to that of a country wake or fair.
These assemblies had no connection with the Worshipful Company of
Parish Clerks.