twelfth century); cf. the Antichrist and Benedictbeuern Nativity, and
note 11 below.
[354] Cf. pp. 140, 202.
[355] Cf. vol. i. p. 91; vol. ii. pp. 60, 380; ‘miraculum de Sancto
Nicolao’ (Fleury, thirteenth century), repraesentationes miraculorum’
(Fitz-Stephen, †1180), ‘miraculum in nocte Paschae’ (Lichfield, †1190;
cf. note 7 above), ‘ludum ... quem Miracula vulgariter appellamus’
(Matthew Paris, thirteenth century), ‘ludos quos vocant miracula’
(Grosseteste, 1244). The vernacular ‘miracles,’ ‘myraclis,’ is found in
the _Handlyng Synne_, and the _Tretise of miraclis pleyinge_.
[356] Pollard, xix; Ward, i. 41. The first English use of the term
‘mystery’ is in the preface to Dodsley’s _Select Collection of Old Plays_
(1744). The distinction between ‘mysteries’ which ‘deal with Gospel
events only’ and ‘miracles,’ which ‘are more especially concerned with
incidents derived from the legends of the Saints of the Church’ is a not
very happy invention of the literary historians.
[357] Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 417 ‘Licence de faire et jouer quelque
Misterre que ce soit, soit de la dicte Passion, et Résurreccion, ou autre
quelconque tant de saincts comme des sainctes.’
[358] Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 189.
[359] Except after its dramatic sense was already well established; cf.
pp. 42, 65, ‘mysterium in die Ascensionis’ (Lille, 1416), ‘misterium
Pastorum’ (Rouen, 1457).
[360] Cf. Appendix B.
[361] Walafridus Strabo, _de rebus eccles._, c. 22, in the ninth century,
gives the name ‘actio’ to the ‘canon’ or unchangeable portion of the Mass
(Maskell, _Ancient Liturgy of the Church of England_, 112).
[362] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. Shipton.
[363] Cf. supra, p. 102, note 1.
[364] Cf. p. 146.
[365] _Trans. of Shropshire Antiq. Soc._ viii. 273.
[366] _Analytical Index to Remembrancia of City of London_, 330 sqq.; 350
sqq.
[367] Cf. ch. xxv.
[368] For the general Puritan attitude to the stage, see S. Gosson,
_Schoole of Abuse_, 1579 (ed. Arber); W. Prynne, _Histriomastix_ (1633),
with the authorities there quoted; and the tracts in W. C. Hazlitt, _The
English Drama and Stage_.
[369] On such guilds cf. Cutts, _Parish Priests_, 476; Rock, ii. 395; F.
A. Gasquet, _The Eve of the Reformation_, 351.
[370] _C. Tales_, 3383 (_Miller’s Tale_).
[371] Cf. vol. i. p. 121.
[372] On the economics of a mediaeval parish and the functions of the
churchwardens cf. Hobhouse, _Churchwardens’ Accounts_, xi (Somerset
Record Soc.).
[373] Cf. Appendix T.
[374] Cf. pp. 58, 60.
[375] Cf. p. 73.
[376] Cf. p. 41.
[377] Cf. p. 75.
[378] I can only give the most general account of the legendary content
of the plays. For full treatment of this in relation to its sources cf.
the authorities quoted in the bibliographical note to chapter xxi, and
especially L. T. Smith, _York Plays_, xlvii; P. Kamann, in _Anglia_, x.
189; A. Hohlfeld, in _Anglia_, xi. 285. Much still remains to be done,
especially for the Chester plays and the _Ludus Coventriae_. The chief
earlier sources are probably the _Evangelium Pseudo-Matthaei_ and the
_Evangelium Nicodemi_ (including the _Gesta Pilati_ and the _Descensus
Christi ad Inferos_), both in Tischendorf, _Evangelia Apocrypha_, and the
_Transitus Mariae_ in Tischendorf, _Apocalypses Apocryphae_. The later
sources include the _Legenda Aurea_ of Jacobus de Voragine (†1275) and
the _Cursor Mundi_ (ed. R. Morris for E. E. T. S.), a Northumbrian poem
of the early fourteenth century.
[379] Cf. p. 63.
[380] Cf. the _Mors Pilati_ in Tischendorf, _Evang. Apocr._ 456.
[381] The ‘Holy Rood’ episodes are those numbered 6, 13, 14, 16-20, 61
in the table. The fullest accounts of the legend in its varied literary
forms are given by W. Meyer, _Die Geschichte des Kreuzholzes vor
Christus_ (_Abhandlungen der k. bayer. Akad. der Wiss._ I. Cl. xvi. 2.
103, Munich, 1881), and A. S. Napier, _History of the Holy Rood-tree_ (E.
E. T. S. 1894). Roughly, the story is as follows: Seth went to Paradise
to fetch the oil of mercy. An angel gave him three pips from the tree of
knowledge. These were laid beneath the tongue of Adam at his burial, and
three rods, signifying the Trinity, sprang up. Moses cut the rods, and
did miracles with them. At his death they were planted in Mount Tabor.
An angel in a dream sent David to fetch them. They grew into one tree,
in the shade of which David repented of his sin with Bathsheba. When the
Temple was building, a beam was fashioned from the tree, but it would
not fit and was placed in the Temple for veneration. The woman Maximilla
incautiously sat upon it and her clothes caught fire. She prophesied of
Christ, and the Jews made her the first martyr. The beam was cast into
the pool of Siloam, to which it gave miraculous properties, and was
finally made into a bridge. At the Passion, a portion of it was taken for
the Rood.
[382] The Norwich play of the Fall is extant in two sixteenth-century
versions.
[383] The Newcastle play of the Building of the Ark is extant.
[384] Two Coventry plays are extant, the Shearmen and Taylors’ play,
extending from the Annunciation to the Massacre of the Innocents, and the
Weavers’ play of the Purification and Christ in the Temple.
[385] Probably these smaller plays, chiefly Paschal, were in English. The
Nativity and Resurrection plays in Lord Northumberland’s chapel and the
Resurrection play in Magdalen College chapel may have been in Latin (cf.
p. 107).
[386] ‘Thobie’ is included in the French collection of mysteries known as
the _Viel Testament_ (Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 354, 370).
[387] On the way in which the later local miracle-play and the scriptural
interlude merge into each other, cf. p. 191.
[388] The Destruction of Jerusalem, together with the Visit of Veronica
to Tiberius and the Death of Pilate, which are scenes in the Cornish
cycle, forms the subject-matter of a French _Vengeance de Nostre
Seigneur_, printed in 1491. Another _Vengeance de Nostre Seigneur_ is
attached to the Passion of Eustache Mercadé (†1414). A representation of
a Vengeance, following close on one of a Passion, is recorded at Metz in
1437, and there are several later examples (Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii.
12, 175, 415, 451).
[389] Cf. p. 61.
[390] Cf. p. 97.
[391] Cf. vol. i. p. 221.
[392] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 574.
[393] Archdeacon Rogers thus describes the Chester plays (_Digby Plays_,
xix) ‘They first beganne at yᵉ Abbaye gates; & when the firste pagiente
was played at yᵉ Abbaye gates, then it was wheeled from thence to the
pentice at yᵉ highe crosse before yᵉ Mayor; and before that was donne,
the seconde came, and yᵉ firste wente in-to the water-gate streete, and
from thence vnto yᵉ Bridge-streete, and soe all, one after an other, tell
all yᵉ pagiantes weare played.’
[394] Cf. pp. 95, 160.
[395] D’Ancona, i. 228.
[396] Cf. p. 83.
[397] Cf. p. 83.
[398] _C. T._ 3384 (_Miller’s Tale_). This ‘scaffold’ may have been
merely a throne or _sedes_ for Herod. But plays on platforms or scaffolds
are found at Chelmsford, Kingston, Reading, Dublin.
[399] Cf. M. Jusserand, in _Furnivall Miscellany_, 186, and the pit for
_La Mer_ on the 1547 Valenciennes Passion play stage figured in his
_Shakespeare in France_, 63.
[400] _Furnivall Miscellany_, 192, 194, from _Bodl. MS._ 264, ff. 54ᵇ,
76ᵃ.
[401] The directions to the Coventry Weavers’ play refer to the ‘for
pagand’ and the ‘upper part’; those of the Grocers’ play at Norwich to
the ‘nether parte of yᵉ pageant.’ For the purposes of the dramas these
are distinct localities.
[402] Cf. p. 86. The Digby St. Mary Magdalen play has the stage
direction, ‘a stage, and Helle ondyr-neth that stage.’ At Coventry the
Cappers had a ‘hell-mouth’ for the Harrowing of Hell and the Weavers
another for Doomsday.
[403] Every conceivable spelling of the word ‘pageant’ appears in
the records. The _Promptorium Parvulorum_, ii. 377 (†1440, ed. A.
Way for Camd. Soc.), has ‘Pagent, _Pagina_,’ and this is the usual
Latin spelling, although _pagenda_ and _pagentes_ (acc. pl.) occur at
Beverley. The derivation is from _pagina_ ‘a plank.’ The _Catholicon
Anglicum_ (1483, ed. S. J. H. Herrtage for E. E. T. S.) has ‘A Paiande;
_lusorium_,’ and there can be little doubt that ‘playing-place,’ ‘stage’
is the primary sense of the word, although as a matter of fact the
derivative sense of ‘scene’ or ‘episode’ is the first to appear. Wyclif
so uses it, speaking of Christmas in his _Ave Maria_ (_English Works_,
E. E. T. S. 206) ‘he that kan best pleie a pagyn of the deuyl, syngynge
songis of lecherie, of batailis and of lesyngis ... is holden most merie
mon.’ In _Of Prelates_ (_loc. cit._ 99) he says that false teachers
‘comen in viserid deuelis’ and ‘pleien the pagyn of scottis,’ masking
under St. George’s ‘skochen.’ The elaborate pageants used in masks and
receptions (cf. p. 176, and vol. i. p. 398) led to a further derivative
sense of ‘mechanical device.’ This, as well as the others, is illustrated
in the passages quoted by the editors of the _Prompt. Parv._ and the
_Cath. Angl._ from W. Horman, author of _Vulgaria_ (1519) ‘Alexander
played a payante more worthy to be wondred vpon for his rasshe aduenture
than for his manhede.... There were v coursis in the feest and as many
paiantis in the pley. I wyll haue made v stagȝ or bouthis in this playe
(_scenas_). I wolde haue a place in the middyl of the pley (_orchestra_)
that I myght se euery paiaunt. Of all the crafty and subtyle paiantis
and pecis of warke made by mannys wyt, to go or moue by them selfe, the
clocke is one of the beste.’ Synonyms for ‘pageant’ in the sense of
‘stage’ are ‘cariadge’ (Chester) and ‘karre’ (Beverley); in the sense of
‘scene,’ _iocus_ (Coventry), _visus_ (Lincoln), _processus_ or ‘processe’
(Towneley and Digby plays, Croxton _Sacrament_ and Medwall’s morality of
_Nature_).
[404] Cf. p. 90, and _Hamlet_, iii. 2. 9 ‘O, it offends me to the soul to
hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very
rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are
capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have
such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod.’ The
Miller in _Cant. Tales_, 3124, cries out ‘in Pilates vois.’ The torturers
also seem to have been favourite performers; cf. the _Poem on the Evil
Times of Edward II_ (T. Wright, _Political Songs_, C. S. 336):
‘Hii ben degised as turmentours that comen from clerkes plei.’
[405] Cf. p. 48.
[406] In Jean Fouquet’s miniature representing the French mystery of St.
Apollonia (cf. p. 85) a priest, with a book in one hand and a wand in the
other, appears to be conducting the play.
[407] Cf. p. 203.
[408] _Hen. V_, ii. 3. 42 ‘Do you not remember, a’ saw a flea stick upon
Bardolph’s nose, and a’ said it was a black soul burning in hell-fire?’
[409] _Hamlet_, v. 1. 85 ‘Cain’s jawbone, that did the first murder.’
[410] Warton, ii. 223 ‘In these Mysteries I have sometimes seen gross
and open obscenities. In a play of _The Old and New Testament_, Adam and
Eve are both exhibited on the stage naked, and conversing about their
nakedness: this very pertinently introduces the next scene, in which they
have coverings of fig-leaves. This extraordinary spectacle was beheld
by a numerous assembly of both sexes with great composure: they had the
authority of scripture for such a representation, and they gave matters
just as they found them in the third chapter of Genesis. It would have
been absolute heresy to have departed from the sacred text in personating
the primitive appearance of our first parents, whom the spectators so
nearly resembled in simplicity.’
[411] Deimling, i. 30 ‘Statim nudi sunt ... Tunc Adam et Eva cooperiant
genitalia sua cum foliis.’
[412] Cf. vol. i. p. 5.
[413] Cf. p. 103. So the ‘ordinary’ or prompter (p. 140) is the man in
charge of the _ordinale_.
[414] ‘Oreginale de S. Maria Magdalena’ (_Digby MS_.); ‘originall booke,’
‘regenall,’ ‘rygynall,’ ‘orraginall’ (Chester); ‘orygynall,’ ‘rygenale’
(Coventry); ‘regenell’ (Louth); ‘ryginall’ (Sleaford).
[415] Cf. p. 90.
[416] As the price paid was only ‘iiijᵈ’ a _printed_ play was probably
bought, from which the ‘partes,’ at a cost of ‘ijˢ,’ were written; cf. p.
192.
[417] Ritson, _Bibl. Poet._ 79, included in his list of Lydgate’s works a
‘Procession of pageants from the creation’ which has not been identified.
On the ‘Procession of Corpus Christi,’ which follows in the list, cf. p.
161.
[418] Ten Brink, ii. 235 ‘An incessant process of separating and uniting,
of extending and curtailing, marks the history of the liturgical drama,
and indeed of the mediaeval drama generally.’
[419] _Towneley Plays_ (E. E. T. S.), xiv.
[420] _Anglia_, xi. 253.
[421] Davidson, 252.
[422] Cf. p. 69.
[423] Thus at York, the Corpus Christi procession which the plays were
originally designed to magnify, had become by 1426 a hindrance to them;
cf. p. 139.
[424] There is but little of direct merging of the plays with
folk-customs. At Aberdeen the ‘Haliblude’ play was under the local lord
of misrule. At Norwich the play was on Whit-Monday; the lord of misrule
held revel on Whit-Tuesday. At Reading there were plays on May-day. At
Chelmsford and Wymondham they were attached to the Midsummer ‘watch’ or
‘show.’ Typically ‘folk’ personages, the ‘wodmen’ (cf. vol. i. p. 185),
appear in the Aberdeen Candlemas procession, and at Hull the ‘hobby-ship’
(cf. vol. i. p. 121) becomes the centre of a play.
[425] Richard Carew lays stress on the delight taken by the spectators in
the devils of the Cornish plays. Collier, ii. 187, quotes a jest about
the devil in a Suffolk stage-play from _C. Mery Talys_ (†1533). In the
_Conversion of St. Paul_ of the Digby MS., a later hand has carefully
inserted a devil scene. On the whole subject of the representation of
devils in the plays, cf. Cushman, 16; Eckhardt, 53.
[426] _York Plays_, 524.
[427] Ed. Groeneveld (1888); cf. Creizenach, i. 362; Julleville, _Les
Myst._ i. 180, ii. 342.
[428] I do not think that these Dutch plays have been printed. The
MS., in the Royal Library at Brussels, is described by Hoffmann von
Fallersleben, _Horae Belgicae_, vi, xxix; cf. Creizenach, i. 366. Besides
the three chivalric plays, it contains a dramatized _estrif_ of Summer
and Winter (cf. vol. i. p. 187) included with them under the general
title of ‘abele Spelen,’ and also a long farce or ‘Boerd.’ To each of the
five plays, moreover, is attached a short farcical after-piece. A few
notices of other fifteenth-century Dutch chivalric plays are preserved.
The subjects are Arnoute, Ronchevale, Florys und Blancheflor, Gryselle
(Griseldis); cf. Creizenach, i. 372.
[429] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 284, 310.
[430] Ed. F. Guessard et E. de Certain (1862) in _Collection des
documents historiques_; cf. Creizenach, i. 372; Julleville, _Les Myst._
ii. 576; H. Tivier, _Étude sur le Myst. du Siège d’O._ (1868). The play
may have been designed for performance at the festival held at Orleans
in memory of the siege on May 8. The passage quoted from Sir Richard
Morrison on p. 221, suggests that a similar commemoration was held in the
sixteenth century by the English at Calais of the battle of Agincourt in
1415.
[431] Ed. Stengel (1883); cf. Creizenach, i. 374; Julleville, _Les Myst._
ii. 569.
[432] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. Dublin.
[433] Collier, ii. 183, thinks the term ‘morality’ a ‘recent’ one, but it
was used in 1503: cf. p. 201.
[434] There is not much direct imitation of the _Roman de la Rose_ in the
moralities. Perhaps the French _Honneur des Dames_ of Andrieu de la Vigne
(Julleville, _Rép. com._ 73) comes nearest. But its leading episode, the
siege of the fortress of Danger, is reflected in the siege of the Castle
of Perseverance and that of the Castle of Maudleyn in the _Mary Magdalen_
of the Digby MS. On the general place of allegory in contemporary
literature cf. Courthope, i. 341.
[435] Cf. pp. 63, 77.
[436] Ward, i. 105; _Archaeologia_, xiii. 232. A _débat_ on precisely
this theme is introduced into the _Chasteau d’Amour_, a theological work
in the form of a romance, ascribed to Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253), on
which cf. F. S. Stevenson, _Life of Grosseteste_, 38; Jusserand, _Eng.
Lit._ i. 214. In the English version of the fourteenth century (R. F.
Weymouth, _The Castel of Love_, 273) the passage begins—
‘For now I chul tellen of þe stryf
Þat a-mong þe foure sustren liþ.’
[437] No stress is of course to be laid upon the late introduction of
Dolor and Myserye into the Grocers’ play at Norwich, when the text was
rewritten in 1565.
[438] _Ludus Cov._ 106 (play xi, _Virtutes_), 70, 79, 89, 105, 124, 129,
289 (plays viii-xiii, xxix, _Contemplacio_), 184 (play xix, _Mors_), 386
(play xli, _Sapientia_); cf. Hohlfeld, in _Anglia_, xi. 278.
[439] Jusserand, _Théâtre_, 123; Pearson, i. 2; Creizenach, i. 461;
_Captain Cox_, clxvi; W. Seelmann, _Die Totentänze des Mittelalters_
(_Jahrb. d. Vereins f. niederdeutsche Sprachforschung_, xvii. 1). A
bibliography of the Dance of Death is given by Goedeke, i. 322 (bk. iii.
§ 92).
[440] Prudentius, _Psychomachia_ (†400 _P. L._ lx. 11); cf. Creizenach,
i. 463.
[441] _Ephesians_, vi. 11.
[442] Creizenach, i. 470; Julleville, _La Com._ 44, 78. The earliest
French notice is that of the ‘Gieux des sept vertuz et des sept pechiez
mortelz’ at Tours in 1390. A ‘mystère de Bien-Avisé et Malavisé’ is said
to have been played in 1396 (Julleville, _Rép. com._ 324). The extant
play of that name, somewhat later in date, is a morality. Other early
French morals on a large scale are _L’Homme juste et l’Homme mondain_
(1508) and _L’Homme pécheur_ (†1494) (Julleville, _Rép. com._ 39, 67,
72). All these are on variants of the Contrast of Vice and Virtue theme.
[443] Creizenach, i. 465, quoting a thirteenth-century German sermon.
[444] Cf. p. 201 and _Texts_ (ii). It is not quite clear whether the
English play of _Everyman_ is the original or a translation of the Dutch
_Elckerlijk_, or whether the two plays have a common source.
[445] Cf. p. 131.
[446] Cf. p. 199.
[447] Cf. vol. i. p. 381.
[448] Cf. p. 218.
[449] See Pearson, ii. 260, and the interesting study of P. Weber,
_Geistliches Schauspiel und kirchliche Kunst_ (1894).
[450] Cf. p. 42.
[451] W. Lambarde, _Alphabetical Description of the Chief Places in
England and Wales_ (1730, written in the sixteenth century), 459, s.v.
Wytney.
[452] Gairdner, 253, quoting an unnamed chronicler, ‘a picture of the
Resurrection of Our Lord made with vices, which put out his legs of
sepulchre, and blessed with his hand and turned his head.’
[453] Magnin, _Marionnettes_; J. Feller, _Le Bethléem verviétois_ (_Bull.
de la Soc. verviétoise d’Arch. et d’Hist._ 1900).
[454] Cf. vol. i. p. 71.
[455] Morley, _passim_; Hone, 229; Strutt, 164; T. Frost, _Old Showmen
and Old London Fairs_ (1874); W. B. Boulton, _Amusements of Old London_,
ii. 49, 224.
[456] The term ‘motion’ is not, however, confined to puppet-plays. Bacon,
Essay xxxvii, uses it of the dumb-shows of masquers, and Jonson, _Tale of
a Tub_, v. 1, of shadow-plays.
[457] _P. C. Acts_, viii. 131.
[458] _Winter’s Tale_, iv. 3. 102.
[459] _Bartholomew Fair_, v. 3; cf. v. 1. 8 ‘O, the motions that I,
Lanthorn Leatherhead, have given light to in my time, since my master Pod
died! Jerusalem was a stately thing, and so was Nineveh, and the City
of Norwich, and Sodom and Gomorrah, with the rising of the prentices
and pulling down the bawdy-houses there upon Shrove-Tuesday; but the
Gunpowder Plot, there was a get-penny! I have presented that to an
eighteen or twenty pence audience, nine times in an afternoon’; also
_Every Man out of His Humour_, Induction:
‘Will show more several motions in his face
Than the new London, Rome, or Nineveh.’
[460] Lanthorn Leatherhead says of his puppets, ‘I am the mouth of them
all’; cf. _Hamlet_, iii. 2. 256 ‘I could interpret between you and your
love, if I could see the puppets dallying’; _Two Gentlemen of Verona_,
ii. 1. 100 ‘O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet! Now will he interpret
to her.’
[461] Morley, 179, 187, 190, 247, 261, 273, 304, 321, records ‘Patient
Grisel’ (1655, 1677), ‘Susanna’ (1655), ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’ (1656),
‘Judith and Holophernes’ (1664), ‘Jephtha’s Rash Vow’ (1697, 1698, 1701,
1704, 1733), ‘The Creation of the World’ (1701).
[462] Powell’s performances of the ‘Creation of the World’ at Bath and
‘Susanna’ at Covent Garden are referred to in the _Tatler_ for May 14,
1709, and the _Spectator_ for March 16, 1711.
[463] Hone, 230, describes a ‘gallantee show’ of the Prodigal Son and
of Noah’s Ark with a scene of ‘Pull Devil, Pull Baker,’ showing the
judgement upon a baker who gave short weight (cf. the cut in Morley,
356), seen by him in London in 1818. This was an exhibition of _ombres
chinoises_ rather than a puppet-play proper.
[464] A. Dieterich, _Pulcinella_, 234, considers Pulcinella a descendant
of Maccus, derives the name from _pullicenus_, _pulcinus_, _pullus_,
and connects the fowl-masks of Italian comedy with the cockscomb of the
English fool (cf. vol. i. p. 385).
[465] Collier, _Punch and Judy_ (1870), 11 sqq.; Frost, _The Old Showmen
and the Old London Fairs_, 29. The earliest English notice of Punch in
England is in the overseers’ books of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields for 1666
and 1667, ‘Recᵈ of Punchinello, yᵉ Italian popet player, for his booth at
Charing Cross.’ In a Bartholomew Fair playbill of the early eighteenth
century, ‘the merry conceits of Squire Punch and Sir John Spendall’ were
attached to the puppet-show of the Creation of the World. Punch was
also amongst the _dramatis personae_ of Robert Powell. The nature of
these earlier Punch plays is unknown. That now traditional in England is
implied by the ballad of _Punch’s Pranks_ (†1790). Collier, who prints it
as given by one Piccini in Drury Lane, with cuts by Cruikshank, considers
it to be derived from _Don Juan_. But it seems to me to come still nearer
to the morality plays. French Punch plays have many other themes.
[466] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 208; cf. p. 95.
[467] Printed by Halliwell, _Minor Poems of Lydgate_ (Percy Soc.),
95, from Shirley’s _Harl._ 2251, f. 293, as a _Processioune of Corpus
Cristi_, with a note at the end that ‘Shirley kowde fynde no more.’ It
is also, with the same note, in Shirley’s _Trin. Coll. Camb. MS._ R. 3.
20, f. 348, with the heading, ‘Ordenaunce of a p’cessyoun of the feste of
Corpus Cristi, made in London by Daun John Lydegate’ (E. P. Hammond, in
_Anglia_, xxii. 364), and is copied thence by John Stowe in _B. M. Add.
MS._ 29, 729, f. 166. The piece is nᵒ. 153 in the list of Lydgate’s works
given by Ritson, _Bibl. Poet._ 79. It may be doubted whether Ritson’s
nᵒ. 152 ‘A Procession of pageants from the creation’ is really distinct.
Lydgate describes to his hearers ‘figures shewed in your presence’ which
embody ‘gracious mysteries grounded in Scripture.’ Of course ‘mysteries’
has no technical dramatic sense here. Lydgate’s method of ‘interpreting’
may have been based on the incorrect mediaeval notion of the methods of
the classical stage, which he adopts in his _Troy Book_ (cf. p. 208). The
‘figures’ represented twenty-seven persons whose utterances revealed the
mystery of the Mass. There were eight patriarchs, the Ecclesiast, four
prophets, the Baptist, four evangelists, St. Paul, and seven Christian
doctors.
[468] Sharp, 172, quotes from a contemporary writer a passage showing
that the Dublin procession, like those of Coventry and Shrewsbury,
lasted to a recent date: ‘The Fringes was a procession of the trades and
corporations, performed in Ireland on Corpus Christi day, even within the
author’s recollection. King Solomon, Queen of Sheba, with Vulcan, Venus,
and Cupid, were leading persons upon this occasion.’
[469] Julleville, _Les Myst._ ii. 211; Davidson, 219.
[470] The following is from an account of a continental Corpus Christi
procession in Barnabe Googe’s translation of Naogeorgos’ _Popish Kingdom_
(1553), iv. 699 (Stubbes, i. 337):
‘Christes passion here derided is, with sundrie maskes and playes;
Faire Ursley with hir maydens all, doth passe amid the wayes:
And valiant George, with speare thou killest the dreadfull dragon here;
The deuil’s house is drawne about, wherein there doth appere
A wondrous sort of damned sprites, with foule and fearefull looke;
Great Christopher doth wade and passe with Christ amid the brooke:
Sebastian full of feathred shaftes, the dint of dart doth feele;
There walketh Kathren with hir sworde in hande, and cruell wheele:
The Challis and the singing Cake, with Barbara is led,
And sundrie other Pageants playde in worship of this bred, &c.’
[471] Sharp, 217, records a play of the _Golden Fleece_ provided by
Robert Crowe for the Cappers’ Candlemas Dinner in 1525; the London
drapers had a pageant with the same title in 1522 (cf. p. 165).
[472] Cf. the Paradise show at the London reception of Henry VI in 1432
(p. 170).
[473] Toulmin Smith, _English Guilds_, 149.
[474] Ibid. 148.
[475] Ibid. 30.
[476] Kelly, 7, 11.
[477] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. Canterbury.
[478] The ‘pagent’s paynted and lemenyd with gold’ of the Holy Trinity,
Saints Fabian, Sebastian, and Botulph, ‘and the last pagent of the
terement, & gen’all obyte, of the brether’n and suster’n, that be passed
to God,’ which the London guild of the Holy Trinity had on a ‘rolle
of velom, cou’ed with a golde-skyn’ in 1463 (Hone, 81), were probably
not, as Davidson, 224, thinks, ‘a description and representation of the
pageants which were carried in procession by the guild,’ but illuminated
pages (_paginae_). For a similar misunderstanding cf. p. 401, n. 1. Abp.
Thoresby (†1357) circulated a ‘tretys in Englisce ... in smale pagynes’
(Shirley, _Fasciculi Zizaniorum_, xiii).
[479] _Representations_, s.v. Preston.
[480] Dyer, 60.
[481] Cf. vol. i. p. 221.
[482] Cf. vol. i. pp. 118, 120.
[483] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. London.
[484] J. G. Nichols, _London Pageants_ (1837); F. W. Fairholt, _Lord
Mayor’s Pageants_ (1843-4, Percy Soc. nᵒˢ. 38, 43), and _The Civic
Garland_ (Percy Soc. 1845).
[485] Herbert, i. 457. The same writer quotes a payment from the drapers’
accounts of 1516 of £13 4_s._ 7_d._ for ‘Sir Laurens Aylmer’s Pageant.’
But this cannot have been intended for a lord mayor’s show, for Aylmer’s
only mayoralty was in 1507-8, and a grocer, not a draper, was mayor in
1515-6 and in 1516-7.
[486] Malcolm, _Londinium Redivivum_, ii. 42; W. C. Hazlitt, _Livery
Companies_ (1892), 310.
[487] Herbert, i. 199.
[488] W. Smith, _A breffe description of the Royall Citie of London_
(1575), quoted by Nichols, 95.
[489] The _Annales Londonienses_ record at the visit of the Emperor Otho
to King John in 1207 ‘tota civitas Londoniae induit solempnitatem pallis
et aliis ornamentis circumornata,’ and at the entry of Edward II after
his marriage in 1308 ‘tapeti aurei’ and the city dignitaries ‘coram rege
et regina karolantes’ (_Chronicles of the Reigns of Edw. I and Edw.
II_, R. S. i. 13, 152). At the coronation of Henry IV in 1399 was an
‘equitatio magnifica’ (_Annales Hen. IV_, R. S. 291), and the streets
were hung with ‘paremens,’ and there were ‘nœuf broucherons a manière de
fontaines en Cep a Londres, courans par plusieurs conduits, jettans vin
blanc et vermeil’ (Froissart, _Chroniques_, ed. Kervyn de Lettynhove,
xvi. 205).
[490] M. Paris, _Chronica Maiora_ (R. S.), iii. 336 ‘quibusdam
prodigiosis ingeniis et portentis.’
[491] Stowe, _Annals_, 207. The authority quoted in the margin is ‘Chro.
Dun.,’ which I cannot identify. It is not the Dunstable Annals in the
_Annales monastici_ (R. S.), vol. iii.
[492] _Annales Londonienses_ (_Chron. of Edw. I and Edw. II_, R. S.), i.
221 ‘quaedam navis, quodam mirabili ingenio operata, cum malo et velo
erectis, et depictis de supradictis armis [of England and France] et
varietate plurima’; cf. H. T. Riley, _Memorials of London_, 107, from
_Corporation Letter Book D._ f. 168.
[493] T. Walsingham, _Hist. Anglica_ (R. S.), i. 331.
[494] Fabyan, 538; H. Knighton, _Chronicon_ (R. S.), ii. 320; Richard
Maydiston, _De concordia inter regem Ricardum II et civitatem London_
(_Political Poems_, R. S. i. 282).
[495] Full contemporary accounts in _Gesta Henrici Quinti_ (Eng. Hist.
Soc.), 61, and a set of verses by John Lydgate printed in _London
Chronicle_, 214, and H. Nicolas, _Hist. of Agincourt_ (1833), 326; more
briefly in _London Chronicle_, 103; T. Walsingham, _Hist. Anglic._ (R.
S.), ii. 314; cf. C. L. Kingsford, _Henry V_, 156.
[496] T. Walsingham, _Hist. Anglica_ (R. S.), ii. 336 ‘ludicis et vario
apparatu.’
[497] Cf. p. 174.
[498] Printed from _Corp. Letter Book K._ f. 103ᵛ, by H. T. Riley, _Liber
Albus_ (R. S.), iii. 457; cf. descriptive verses by Lydgate, _Minor
Works_ (Percy Soc.), 2; _London Chronicle_, 119; Fabyan, 603; Gregory,
173.
[499] Carpenter uses the term _pagina_, which here occurs for the
first time in connexion with these London receptions. Mr. Riley quite
unnecessarily proposes to read _machina_.
[500] A pun was concealed here, for John de _Welles_, grocer, was mayor,
and the ‘oranges, almonds, and the pomegranade’ on the trees were the
grocers’ wares. Cf. the tree of the Norwich grocers in the Corpus Christi
procession (p. 163).
[501] Stowe, _Annals_, 385; cf. _London Chronicle_, 134 ‘goodly sights
ayenst her coming’; Fabyan, 617 ‘sumptuous and costly pagentes, and
resemblaunce of dyuerse olde hystoryes’; Gregory, 186 ‘many notabylle
devysys in the cytte.’ According to Stowe, Lydgate wrote verses for these
pageants.
[502] A memorandum of ceremonial _As ffor the ressaunge off a Quene and
her Crownacion_ of the reign of Henry VII (_Antiquarian Repertory_,
i. 302) has the following direction for the riding from the Tower to
Westminster, ‘at the condit in Cornylle ther must be ordined a sight
wᵗ angelles singinge and freche balettes yʳon in latene, engliche and
ffrenche, mad by the wyseste docturs of this realme; and the condyt of
Chepe in the same wyse; and the condit must ryn bothe red wyn and whit
wyne; and the crosse in Chepe muste be araid in yᵉ most rialle wyse that
might be thought; and the condit next Poules in the same wyse.’
[503] Contemporary account in Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), iv.
218, and J. Ives, _Select Papers_ (1773), 127.
[504] Minutely detailed contemporary account in _Antiquarian Repertory_,
ii. 248; cf. Stowe, _Annals_, 483; Hazlitt-Warton, iii. 160.
[505] Stowe, _Annals_, 517; Hall, 638; cf. _Representations_ (London).
[506] Minutely detailed contemporary account in _Antiquarian Repertory_,
ii. 232; Hall, 801; Collier, ii. 353. Leland’s and Udall’s verses for the
pageants are in _Ballads from MSS._, i. 378 (Ballad Soc.).
[507] Contemporary account in Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), iv. 313.
[508] Stowe, _Annals_, 616; cf. _Texts_, s.v. John Heywood.
[509] Holinshed, iii. 1121.
[510] Contemporary account in Nichols, _Progresses of Elizabeth_, i. 38.
[511] Cf. vol. i. p. 121.
[512] Warton, iii. 158, says that ‘Speakers seem to have been admitted
into our pageants about the reign of Henry VI.’ But there were songs, and
for all we know, speeches also in 1377 and 1415. Verses such as Lydgate
wrote for pageants were often fastened on them, and read or not read
aloud when the visitor approached, as might be convenient.
[513] Cf. p. 5.
[514] Wheatley-Cunningham, _London Past and Present_, i. 373, 458; iii.
409.
[515] Julleville, _Les Myst._ i. 196; ii. 186.
[516] Sharp, 145.
[517] Davies, 162, 171, 282.
[518] J. Raine, _English Miscellanies_ (Surtees Soc., vol. lxxxv), 53,
from _Corporation House Book_, vi. 15.
[519] Contemporary account in Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), iv.
185. A description of an earlier reception of Edward IV at Bristol with
‘Wylliam conquerour,’ ‘a greet Gyaunt delyueryng the Keyes,’ and St.
George is in Furnivall, _Political, Religious, and Love Poems_ (E. E. T.
S.), 5.
[520] Leland, _Collectanea_, iv. 263.
[521] Cf. _Representations_, s.v. Aberdeen.
[522] Cf. vol. i. p. 398.
[523] Symonds, _Renaissance in Italy_, iv. 338.
[524] Cf. vol. i. p. 86.
[525] Ward, i. 108. The limitation by Collier, ii. 299, of ‘what may
be properly, and strictly, called _Interludes_’ to farces of the
type affected by John Heywood has introduced a most inconvenient
semi-technical term into literary nomenclature. I do not so limit the
word.
[526] _Gawain and the G. K._ 472:
‘Wel bycommes such craft vpon, cristmasse,
Laykyng of enterludez, to laȝe & to syng.’
[527] Cf. vol. i. p. 93.
[528] Hazlitt, _E. D. S._ 80 ‘How thanne may a prist pleyn in
entirlodies?’ In Barbour, _Bruce_ (†1375), x. 145 ‘now may ȝe heir ...
Interludys and iuperdys, þat men assayit on mony vis Castellis and pelis
for till ta,’ the sense is metaphorical, as in ‘ioculando et talia verba
asserendo interludia fuisse vanitatis’ quoted by Ducange from _Vit.
Abb. S. Alb._, i.e. probably Thomas Walsingham (†1422), not Matthew
Paris (†1249). The reading is doubtful in Anastasius Bibliothecarius
(9th cent.), _Hist. Pontif._ (_P. L._ lxxx. 1352), ‘quem iussit sibi
praesentari in interludo noctu ante templum Palladis.’
[529] For probable 1385 cases, cf. _Representations_, s.v. King’s Lynn.
[530] A ‘vyce’ made pastime before and after a play at Bungay, but this
was not until 1566.
[531] Julleville, _Les Com._ 97. These performances were known as _les
pois pilés_ and began about the middle of the fourteenth century. The
Anglo-French _entrelude_, asterisked by the _N. E. D._, is found in 1427
(cf. p. 186). Collier’s theory receives some support from the Spanish
use of the term _entremes_ for a comic piece played in conjunction with
a serious _auto_. But the earlier sense of _entremes_ itself appears to
be for an independent farce played at banquets (Ticknor, _Hist. of Span.
Lit._ (ed. 1888), i. 231; ii. 449).
[532] Cf. the accounts in Leland, _Collectanea_, iv. 228, 236, of the
court of Henry VII. Douglas, _Palace of Honour_, ii. 410 ‘At eis they eit
with interludis betwene,’ dates from 1501. Horman, _Vulgaria_ (1519),
quoted on p. 137, speaks of the ‘paiantis’ of a play as corresponding in
number to the courses of a feast. Much earlier Raoul de Presles (†1374)
in his _Exposicion_ to Augustine, _de Civ. Dei_, ii. 8 (Abbeville, 1486),
says that comedies ‘sont proprement apellez interludia, pour ce quilz se
font entre les deux mengiers.’ But the use of _interludere_ by Ausonius,
_Idyll_, x. 76, ‘interludentes, examina lubrica, pisces,’ and Ambrose,
_Epist._ xlvii. 4, ‘interludamus epistolis,’ supports my view.
[533] For a curious distinction, probably neither original nor permanent,
drawn about 1530 between ‘stage playes’ (presumably out of doors) in
the summer and ‘interludes’ (presumably indoors) in the winter, cf.
the documents printed by H. R. Plomer, in _Trans. of Bibliographical
Society_, iv. (1898), 153, and A. W. Pollard in _Fifteenth Century Prose
and Verse_, 305, about a suit between John Rastell, lawyer, printer,
and playwright, and one Henry Walton. Rastell, going on a visit to
France about 1525, had left with Walton a number of players’ garments.
These are fully described. They were mostly of say or sarcenet, and the
tailor, who with the help of Rastell’s wife had made them, valued them
at 20_s._ apiece. Walton failed to restore them, and for some years
let them on hire, to his own profit. Evidence to this effect was given
by John Redman, stationer, and by George Mayler, merchant tailor, and
George Birche, coriar, two of the king’s players. These men had played
in the garments themselves and had seen them used in ‘stage pleyes’
when the king’s banquet was at Greenwich [in 1527; cf. vol. i. p. 400].
They had been used at least twenty times in stage plays every summer
and twenty times in interludes every winter, and Walton had taken, as
the ‘common custume’ was, at a stage play ‘sumtyme xlᵈ., sometyme ijˢ.,
as they couth agree, and at an interlude viijᵈ for every tyme.’ Rastell
had brought a previous suit in the mayor’s court, but could only receive
35_s._ 9_d._, at which the goods had been officially appraised. But they
were then ‘rotten and torne,’ whereas Rastell alleged that they were
nearly new when delivered to Walton and worth 20 marks. Walton relied on
the official appraisement, and had a counter-claim for 40_s._ balance
of a bill for 50_s._ costs ‘in making of stage for player in Restall’s
grounde beside Fyndesbury, in tymbre, bourde, nayle, lath, sprigge and
other thyngs.’ He held the clothes against payment of this amount, which
Rastell challenged.
[534] In 1503 a _Magi_ was given in Canterbury guildhall. Some of the
crafts of Coventry (1478-1568) and Newcastle (1536) had plays at their
guild feasts. The indoor performances of Chester plays in 1567 and 1576
are late and exceptional.
[535] Cf. Appendix E, ii (Maxstoke), iii (Thetford), vii (Howard), viii
(Tudor Court). ‘Moleyn’s wedding’ attended by Lord Howard, is the first
of many at which the players are recorded to have made the mirth. Some
of the entries may imply visits _to_ the plays, rather than _of_ the
plays, and this I suppose to be the case with Henry VII’s payment ‘to
the players _at_ Myles End.’ It is perhaps a little arbitrary to assume,
as I have done, that players locally named are never professional. Thus
the _lusores de Writhill_ paid by the duke of Buckingham on Jan. 6,
1508, are almost certainly identical with the _lusores Dñi de Wrisell_
(his brother-in-law, the earl of Northumberland) paid by him at Xmas,
1507 (_Archaeologia_, xxv. 318, 324), although it happens curiously
enough that the Chelmsford wardrobe was drawn upon by players of Writtle
in 1571-2. The local designation of members of the minstrel class is
exceptional; but cf. the York example in the next note. The locally
named _lusores_ may, however, sometimes have acted not a miracle, but a
May-game or sword-dance; e.g., at Winchester College in 1400 when they
came ‘cum tripudio suo’ (App. E, iv).
[536] I have taken _lusores_ in the _computi_ as always meaning
performers of a dramatic _ludus_. This is often demonstrably correct and
never demonstrably incorrect, except that when Colet in his _Oratio ad
Clerum_ of 1511 quotes the canon ‘ne sit publicus lusor’ he seems to use
the term in its canonical sense of ‘gambler.’ The English version (1661)
has ‘common gamer or player.’ A similar ambiguity is, I think, the only
one which attaches itself to ‘player’ where it is a technical term after
the middle of the fourteenth century. Lydgate in his _Interpretacyon of
the names of Goddys and Goddesses_ (quoted by Collier, i. 31) uses it
of an actor, although an older sense is preserved by the _Promptorium
Parvulorum_ (1440), ‘Bordyoure or pleyere, _ioculator_.’ The sense of
_ludentes_, I think, is wide. The _ludentes_ ‘_de Donyngton_’ and ‘_de
Wakefield_’ paid by the York corporation in 1446 (_York Plays_, xxxviii)
are more likely to have been minstrels whom the corporation did provide
for the plays than actors whom they did not. On the other hand about
_interludentes_ and _interlusores_, neither of them very common terms,
there can be no doubt. _Lusiatores_ occurs as a synonym for _lusores_
at Shrewsbury only. _Mimi_ and _histriones_ I have uniformly treated as
merely minstrels. At a late date they might, I suppose, be actors, but it
is impossible to differentiate.
[537] Plays were sometimes read, even in the fifteenth century. The
prologue of _The Burial and Resurrection_ has ‘Rede this treyte,’
although it was also converted into ‘a play to be playede’; and the
epilogue of the Digby _St. Mary Magdalen_ has ‘I desyer the redars to
be my frynd.’ Thomas Wylley in 1537 describes some of his plays to
Cromwell as ‘never to be seen, but of your Lordshyp’s eye.’ Prynne,
834, asserts that ‘Bernardinus Ochin his Tragedy of Freewil, Plessie
Morney his Tragedie of Jeptha his daughter, Edward the 6 his Comedie de
meretrice Babilonica, Iohn Bale his Comedies de Christo et de Lazaro,
Skelton’s Comedies, de Virtute, de Magnificentia, et de bono Ordine,
Nicholaus Grimoaldus, de Archiprophetae Tragedia ... were penned only to
be read, not acted’; but this is incorrect as regards Bale and Skelton
and probably as regards others. The earliest printed plays are perhaps
_Mundus et Infans_ (1522) and _Hickscorner_ (n.d.) both by Wynkyn de
Worde (1501-35), _Everyman_ (n.d.) by Richard Pynson (1509-27). If a
_Nigramansir_, by Skelton, was really, as Warton asserts, printed by
Wynkyn de Worde in 1504, it might take precedence.
[538] Cf. Appendix E.
[539] 3 _Edw. IV_, c. 5; cf. vol. i. p. 45. This was continued by 1 _Hen.
VIII_, c. 14, 6 _Hen. VIII_, c. 1, and 24 _Hen. VIII_, c. 13.
[540] Cf. Appendix E; _Hist. MSS._ v. 548.
[541] Percy, _N. H. B._ 22, 158, 339. An estimate for 1511-12 includes
‘for rewardes to Players for Playes playd in Christynmas by Stranegers
in my house after xxᵈ every play by estimacion. Somme xxxiijˢ iiijᵈ.’
Another of 1514-15 has ‘for Rewards to Players in Cristynmas lxxijˢ.’ By
1522-3 the customary fee had largely grown, for a list of ‘Al maner of
Rewardis’ of about that date has ‘Item. My Lorde usith and accustometh
to gif yerely when his Lordshipp is at home to every Erlis Players that
comes to his Lordshipe bitwixt Cristynmas ande Candelmas If he be his
ˢpeciall Lorde and Frende ande Kynsman, xxˢ ... to every Lordis Players,
xˢ.’
[542] Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), iv. 265. The _computi_ of
James IV (_L. H. T. Accts._ ii. 131, 387; iii. 361) contain entries for
plays before him by ‘gysaris’ including one at this wedding; but there
is no evidence of a regular royal company at the Scottish court. In 1488
occurs a payment to ‘Patrik Johnson and the playaris of Lythgow that
playt to the King,’ and in 1489 one to ‘Patrick Johnson and his fallowis
that playt a play to the kyng in Lythqow.’ This Johnson or Johnstone,
celebrated in Dunbar’s _Lament for the Makaris_, seems to have held some
post, possibly as a minstrel, at court (_L. H. T. Accts._ i. c, cxcviii,
ccxliv, 91, 118; ii. 131; Dunbar, _Poems_ (ed. S. T. S.), i. ccxxxvii).
[543] Collier, i. 44 and passim; Henry, _Hist. of Britain_, 454; cf.
Appendix E, viii. The _Transactions of the New Shakspere Soc._ (1877-9),
425, contain papers about a dispute in 1529 between one of the company
George Maller, glazier, and his apprentice, who left him and went
travelling on his own account. From these it appears that ‘the Kinge’s
plaierz’ wore ‘the Kinge’s bage.’ George Maller is the same player who
appeared as a witness in the Rastell suit (cf. p. 184). There he is
described as a merchant tailor; here as a glazier. That a king’s player
should have a handicraft, even if it were only nominal, at all, looks
as if the professional actors were not invariably of the minstrel type.
Perhaps the glamour of a royal ‘bage’ made even minstrelsy respectable.
Arthur, prince of Wales, had his own company in 1498 (_Black Book of
Lincoln’s Inn_, i. 119), and Henry, prince of Wales, his by 1506.
[544] Medwall’s _Nature_ is divided into two parts, for performance on
different days. But Medwall was a tedious person. Another interlude of
his played in 1514 was so long and dull that Henry VIII went out before
the end. _The Four Elements_ was intended to take an hour and a half ‘but
if you list you may leave out much of the said matter ... and then it
will not be past three quarters of an hour of length.’
[545] This method begins with the Croxton _Sacrament_, which has twelve
parts, but ‘ix may play it at ease.’ Bale’s _Three Laws_ claims to
require five players and _Lusty Juventus_ four. Several of the early
Elizabethan interludes have similar indications.
[546] A Winchester _computus_ of 1579 (Hazlitt-Warton, ii. 234) has
‘pro diversis expensis circa Scaffoldam erigendam et deponendam, et pro
domunculis de novo compositis cum carriagio et recarriagio ly joystes et
aliorum mutuatorum ad eandem Scaffoldam, cum vj linckes et jᵒ duodeno
candelarum, pro lumine expensis, tribus noctibus in ludis comediarum et
tragediarum xxvˢ viijᵈ.’
[547] Appendix E (i).
[548] Brewer, iv. 1390, 1393, 1394; Hall, 723; Collier, i. 98.
[549] Stowe, _Annals_, 511.
[550] The miracle-plays and popular morals have a more general prayer for
the spiritual welfare of the ‘sofereyns,’ ‘lordinges,’ and the rest of
their audience.
[551] Willis, _Mount Tabor_ (1639, quoted Collier, ii. 196), describing
the morality of _The Castle of Security_ seen by him as a child, says
‘In the city of Gloucester the manner is (as I think it is in other like
corporations) that when Players of Enterludes come to towne, they first
attend the Mayor, to enforme him what noble-mans servants they are and
so to get licence for their publike playing: and if the Mayor like the
Actors, or would show respect to their Lord and Master, he appoints them
to play their first play before himselfe and the Aldermen and Common
Counsell of the City; and that is called the Mayor’s play, where every
one that will comes in without money, the Mayor giving the players a
reward as hee thinks fit, to show respect unto them. At such a play,
my father tooke me with him, and made mee stand betweene his leggs, as
he sate upon one of the benches, where we saw and heard very well.’ In
_Histriomastix_, a play of 1590-1610 (Simpson, _School of Shakespeare_,
ii. 1), a crew of tippling mechanicals call themselves ‘Sir Oliver
Owlet’s men and proclaim at the Cross a play to be given in the townhouse
at 3 o’clock. They afterwards throw the town over to play in the hall
of Lord Mavortius.’ In _Sir Thomas More_ (†1590, ed. A. Dyce, for
Shakespeare Society, 1844) ‘my Lord Cardinall’s players,’ four men and a
boy, play in the Chancellor’s hall and receive ten angels. For similar
scenes cf. the _Induction_ to _The Taming of the Shrew_, and _Hamlet_,
ii. 2; iii. 2.
[552] The earliest record of plays at inns which I have noticed is in
1557, when some Protestants were arrested and their minister burnt for
holding a communion service in English on pretence of attending a play at
the Saracen’s Head, Islington (Foxe, _Acts and Monuments_, ed. Cattley,
viii. 444).
[553] Eustace Deschamps (†1415), _Miroir de Mariage_ (_Œuvres_, in _Anc.
Textes franç._ vol. ix), 3109 (cf. Julleville, _La Com._ 40):
Mais assez d’autres femmes voy,
Qui vont par tout sanz nul convoy
Aux festes, aux champs, au theatre,
Pour soulacier et pour esbatre:
...
Elles desirent les cités,
Les douls mos a euls recités,
Festes, marchiés, et le theatre,
Lieux de delis pour euls esbatre.
This theatre was probably one established towards the end of the
fourteenth century by the _confrérie de la Passion_. From about 1402 they
performed in the _Hôpital de la Trinité_; cf. Julleville, _Les Com._ 61,
_La Com._ 40.
[554] Cf. vol. i. p. 383.
[555] _Register of Bishop Grandisson_ (ed. Hingeston-Randolph), ii. 1120.
The letter, unfortunately too long-winded to quote in full, was written
on Aug. 9, 1352, to the archdeacon of Exeter or his official. Grandisson
says:—‘Sane, licet artes mechanicas, ut rerum experiencia continue nos
informat, mutuo, necessitate quadam, oporteat se iuvare; pridem, tamen,
intelleximus quod nonnulli nostrae Civitatis Exoniae inprudentes filii,
inordinate lasciviae dediti, fatue contempnentes quae ad ipsorum et
universalis populi indigenciam fuerunt utiliter adinventa, quendam
Ludum noxium qui culpa non caret, immo verius ludibrium, in contumeliam
et opprobrium allutariorum, necnon eorum artificii, hac instanti Die
Dominica, in Theatro nostrae Civitatis predictae publice peragere
proponunt, ut inter se statuerunt et intendunt; ex quo, ut didicimus,
inter praefatos artifices et dicti Ludi participes, auctores pariter et
fautores, graves discordiae, rancores, et rixae, cooperante satore tam
execrabilis irae et invidiae, vehementer pululant et insurgunt.’ The
_ludus_ is to be forbidden under pain of the greater excommunication.
At the same time the _allutarii_ are to be admonished, since they
themselves, ‘in mercibus suis distrahendis plus iusto precio, modernis
temporibus,’ have brought about the trouble, ‘ne exnunc, in vendendo
quae ad eos pertinent, precium per Excellentissimum Principem et Dominum
nostrum, Angliae et Franciae Regemillustrem, et Consilium suum, pro
utilitate publica limitatum, exigant quovis modo.’
[556] L. G. Bolingbroke, _Pre-Elizabethan Plays and Players in Norfolk_
(_Norfolk Archaeology_, xi. 336). The corporation gave a lease of the
‘game-house’ on condition that it should be available ‘at all such
times as any interludes or plays should be ministered or played.’ John
Rastell’s 50_s._ stage in Finsbury about 1520-5 (cf. p. 184), although
not improbably used for public representations, is not known to have been
permanent.
[557] At Rayleigh, Essex (1550), 20_s._ from the produce of church
goods was paid to stage-players on Trinity Sunday (_Archaeologia_,
xlii. 287). _An Answer to a Certain Libel_ (1572, quoted Collier, ii.
72) accuses the clergy of hurrying the service, because there is ‘an
enterlude to be played, and if no place else can be gotten, it must be
doone in the church’; cf. S. Gosson, _Third Blast of Retrait from Plaies
and Theaters_, 1580 (Hazlitt, _E. D. S._ 134) ‘Such like men, vnder
the title of their maisters or as reteiners, are priuiledged to roaue
abroad, and permitted to publish their mametree in euerie Temple of God,
and that through England, vnto the horrible contempt of praier. So that
now the Sanctuarie is become a plaiers stage, and a den of theeues and
adulterers.’ Possibly only the publication of the _banns_ of plays in
church is here complained of. Cf. also Fuller, _Church History_ (1655),
391.
[558] Bonner’s _Injunctions_, 17, of April, 1542 (Wilkins, iii. 864),
forbade ‘common plays games or interludes’ in churches or chapels.
Violent enforcers of them were to be reported to the bishop’s officers;
cf. the various injunctions of Elizabethan bishops in _Ritual
Commission_, 409, 411, 417, 424, 436, and the 88th _Canon_ of 1604.
[559] Kelly, 16 ‘Paid to Lord Morden’s players because they should not
play in the church, xijᵈ.’
[560] Jackson-Burne, 493, citing Sir Offley Wakeman in _Shropshire
Archaeological Transactions_, vii. 383. Such plays were performed on
wagons at Shropshire wakes within the last century. The ‘book’ seems
to have been adapted from the literary drama, if one may judge by the
subjects which included ‘St. George,’ ‘Prince Mucidorus,’ ‘Valentine and
Orson,’ and ‘Dr. Forster’ or ‘Faustus.’ But a part was always found for
a Fool in a hareskin cap, with balls at his knees. He is described as a
sort of presenter or chorus, playing ‘all manner of megrims’ and ‘going
on with his manœuvres all the time.’ I have not been able to see a paper
on _Shropshire Folk-plays_ by J. F. M. Dovaston. G. Borrow, _Wild Wales_,
chh. lix, lx (ed. 1901, p. 393), describes similar Welsh interludes
which lasted to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The titles
named suggest moralities. He analyses the _Riches and Poverty_ of Thomas
Edwards. This, like the Shropshire interludes, has its ‘fool.’
[561] Roper, _Life and Death of Sir Thomas More_ (†1577, J. R. Lumby,
_More’s Utopia_, vi) ‘would he at Christmas tyd sodenly sometymes stepp
in among the players, and never studinge for the matter, make a parte
of his owne there presently amonge them’; Erasmus, _Epist._ ccccxlvii
‘adolescens comoediolas et scripsit et egit.’ Bale, _Scriptores_ (1557),
i. 655, ascribes to him comoedias iuveniles. Lib. 1.’ In the play of _Sir
Thomas More_ (cf. p. 189) he is represented, even when Chancellor, as
supplying the place of a missing actor with an improvised speech. Bale,
ii. 103, says that Henry Parker, Lord Morley (1476-1556) ‘in Anglica
sermone edidit comoedias et tragoedias, libros plures.’
[562] The _Revels Account_ for 1511 (Brewer, ii. 1496) notes an interlude
in which ‘Mr. Subdean, now my Lord of Armykan’ took part. In his _Oratio
ad Clerum_ of the same year Colet criticizes the clerics who ‘se ludis
et iocis tradunt’ (Collier, i. 64). A _Sermo exhortatorius cancellarii
Eboracensis his qui ad sacros ordines petunt promoveri_ printed by Wynkyn
de Worde about 1525 also calls attention to the canonical requirement
that the clergy should abstain ‘a ludis theatralibus’ (Hazlitt, _Bibl.
Coll. and Notes_, 3rd series (1887), 274).
[563] Collier, i. 46 and _passim_; Bernard Andrew, _Annales Hen. VII_ in
Gairdner, _Memorials of Henry VII_ (R. S.), 103; Hall, 518, 583, 723;
Kempe, 62; _Revels Accounts_, &c., in Brewer, _passim_; cf. Appendix E
(viii). The Chapel formed part of the household of Henry I about 1135
(_Red Book of Exchequer_, R. S. iii. cclxxxvii, 807); for its history cf.
_Household Ordinances_, 10, 17, 35, 49; E. F. Rimbault, _The Old Cheque
Book of the Chapel Royal_ (C. S.); F. J. Furnivall, _Babees Book_ (E. E.
T. S.), lxxv.
[564] Percy, _N. H. B._ 44, 254, 345. In household lists for 1511 and
1520 comes the entry ‘The Almonar, and if he be a maker of Interludys
than he to have a Servaunt to the intent for Writynge of the Parts and
ells to have non.’ There were nine gentlemen and six children of the
chapel. The 1522-3 list of ‘Rewardes’ has ‘them of his Lordship Chappell
and other his Lordshipis Servaunts that doith play the Play befor his
Lordship uppon Shroftewsday at night, xˢ,’ and again, ‘Master of the
Revells ... yerly for the overseyinge and orderinge of his Lordschip’s
playes interludes and Dresinge [? disguisinges] that is plaid befor his
Lordship in his Hous in the xij days of Xmas, xxˢ.’ This latter officer
seems to have been, as at court, distinct from the ‘Abbot of Miserewll’
(vol. i. p. 418).
[565] _Black Books of Lincoln’s Inn_, i. 104, 119.
[566] Hall, 719; Collier, i. 103.
[567] R. J. Fletcher, _Pension Book of Gray’s Inn_, xxxix, 496.
[568] _Hist. MSS._ vii. 613. The play was to comprehend a ‘discourse of
the world,’ to be called _Love and Life_, and to last three hours. There
were to be sixty-two _dramatis personae_, each bearing a name beginning
with L.
[569] Cf. Appendix E (v).
[570] Brewer, iv. 6788.
[571] Boase, _Register of the University of Oxford_ (O. H. S.), i. 298.
[572] Mullinger, _Hist. of Cambridge_, ii. 73. Ascham, _Epist_.
(1581), f. 126ᵛ, writing †1550 (quoted Hazlitt-Warton, iii. 304) says
that Antwerp excels all other cities ‘quemadmodum aula Iohannis,
theatrali more ornata, seipsam post Natalem superat.’ Speaking in _The
Scholemaster_ (ed. Mayor, 1863), 168, of his contemporaries at St. John’s
(†1530-54), Ascham highly praises the _Absalon_ of Thomas Watson, which
he puts on a level with Buchanan’s _Jephthah_. Watson, however, ‘would
never suffer it to go abroad.’ This play apparently exists in manuscript;
cf. _Texts_ (iv). Ascham himself, according to his _Epistles_,
translated the _Philoktetes_ into Latin (Hazlitt, _Manual_, 179). In
_The Scholemaster_, he further says, ‘One man in Cambrige, well liked of
many, but best liked of him selfe, was many tymes bold and busie to bryng
matters upon stages which he called Tragedies.’ Ascham did not approve of
his Latin metre. Possibly he refers to John Christopherson, afterwards
bishop of Chichester, to whom Warton, iii. 303; Cooper, _Athenae Cantab._
i. 188; _D. N. B._ attribute a tragedy in Greek and Latin of _Jepthes_
(1546). I can find no trace of this. It is not mentioned by Bahlmann.
[573] Cf. p. 220.
[574] J. Peile, _Christ’s College_, 54; cf. p. 216.
[575] Mullinger, _Hist. of Cambridge_, ii. 627. _Statute_ 24 of 1560, _De
comoediis ludisque in Natali Christi exhibendis_, requires that ‘novem
domestici lectores ... bini ac bini singulas comoedias tragoediasve
exhibeant, excepto primario lectore quem per se solum unam comoediam aut
tragoediam exhibere volumus.’ A fine is imposed on defaulters, and the
performances are to be in the hall ‘privatim vel publice’ during or about
the twelve nights of Christmas. On an earlier draft of this statute cf.
vol. i. p. 413.
[576] _Statute_ 36 (_Documents relating to Cambridge_, iii. 54); cf.
Mullinger, _op. cit._ ii. 73.
[577] Dee, _Compendious Rehearsall_ (app. to Hearne, _Ioh. Glastoniensis
Chronicon_, 501), after mentioning his election, says ‘Hereupon I did
sett forth a Greek comedy of Aristophanes’ play named in Greek Εἰρήνη, in
Latin _Pax_.’
[578] J. Sargeaunt, _Annals of Westminster_, 49; _Athenæum_ (1903), i.
220.
[579] Maxwell-Lyte, _Hist. of Eton_ (3rd ed. 1899), 118 ‘pro expensis
circa ornamenta ad duos lusus in aula tempore natalis Domini, xˢ.’
[580] Printed in E. S. Creasy, _Memoirs of Eminent Etonians_, 91
‘circiter festum D. Andreae ludimagister eligere solet pro suo arbitrio
scaenicas fabulas optimas et quam accommodatissimas, quas pueri feriis
natalitiis subsequentibus, non sine ludorum elegantia, populo spectante,
publice aliquando peragant. Histrionum levis ars est, ad actionem tamen
oratorum et gestum motumque corporis decentem tantopere facit, ut nihil
magis. Interdum etiam exhibet Anglico sermone contextas fabulas, quae
habeant acumen et leporem.’
[581] Brewer, xiv. 2. 334 ‘Woodall, the schoolmaster of Eton, for playing
before my Lord, £5.’
[582] Brown, _Cat. of Venetian Papers_, iv. 3. 208, 225; Brewer, iv.
3563; Hall, 735; Cavendish, _Life of Wolsey_ (ed. Singer), 201; Collier,
i. 104.
[583] Lupton, _Life of Colet_, 154.
[584] _Texts_, s.v. Heywood.
[585] Warton speaks of a play by the ‘children’ or ‘choir-boys’ of
St. Paul’s at a visit to Elizabeth by Mary and of another play of
_Holophernes_ ‘perhaps’ by the same children later in the year. But the
dates given in his _Hist. of Poetry_ (ed. Hazlitt), ii. 234, iii. 312,
and his _Life of Sir Thomas Pope_ (ed. 1780), 46, do not agree together,
and the authority to which he refers (_Machyn’s Diary_, then in MS.) does
not bear him out. On his _bona fides_ cf. H. E. D. Blakiston, in _E. H.
Review_, for April, 1896. Ward, i. 153, rather complicates the matter by
adding to _Holophernes_ a second play called _The Hanging of Antioch_,
but even in Warton’s account this ‘hanging’ was only a curtain.
[586] Bale, _Scriptores_ (1557), i. 700 ‘Radulphus Radclif, patria
Cestriensis, Huchiniae in agro Hartfordiensi, & in coenobio, quod paulo
ante Carmelitarum erat, ludum literarium anno Domini 1538 aperuit,
docuitque Latinas literas. Mihi quidem aliquot dies in unis & eisdem
aedibus commoranti, multa arriserunt: eaque etiam laude dignissima.
Potissimum vero theatrum, quod in inferiori aedium parte longe
pulcherrimum extruxit. Ibi solitus est quotannis simul iucunda & honesta
plebi edere spectacula, cum ob iuventutis, suae fidei & institutioni
commissae, inutilem pudorem exuendum, tum ad formandum os tenerum &
balbutiens, quo clare, eleganter, & distincte verba eloqui & effari
consuesceret. Plurimas in eius museo vidi ac legi tragoedias & comoedias
... Scripsit de Nominis ac Verbi, potentissimorum regum in regno
Grammatico, calamitosa &
_Exitiali pugna, Lib. 2_ ...
_De patientia Grisilidis, Com. 1_ ...
_De Melibaeo Chauceriano, Com. 1_ ...
_De Titi & Gisippi amicitia, Com. 1_ ...
_De Sodomae incendio, Tra. 1_ ...
_De Io. Hussi damnatione, Tra. 1_ ...
_De Ionae defectione, Com. 1_ ...
_De Lazaro ac diuite, Com. 1_ ...
_De Iudith fortitudine, Com. 1_ ...
_De Iobi afflictionibus, Com. 1_ ...
_De Susannae liberatione, Tra. 1_ ...
Claruit Radclifus, anno a Christi servatoris ortu 1552 ... Nescioque an
sub Antichristi tyrannide adhuc vivat.’ Bale, _Index_, 333, has fuller
titles. Some of Radclif’s plays were almost certainly in Latin, for Bale
gives in Latin the opening words of each, and as Herford, 113, points
out, those of the _Lazarus_ and the _Griselda_ clearly form parts of
Latin verses. But he showed them ‘plebi.’ Professor Herford learnt ‘that
no old MSS. in any way connected with Radclif now remain at Hitchin,
where his family still occupies the site of his school.’
[587] Julleville, _Les Com._, _passim_. A collection of farces is in E.
L. N. Viollet-le-Duc, _Ancien Théâtre français_ (1854-7). For morals
and farces at the Feasts of Fools and of the Boy Bishop abroad, and for
the satirical tendency of such entertainments, cf. vol. i. p. 380. In
1427, after the feast of St. Laurent, Jean Bussières, chaplain of St.
Remi de Troyes, ‘emendavit quod fecerat certum perconnagium rimarum in
cimiterio dicte ecclesie Sancti Remigii; de quibus rimis fuerat dyabolus
et dixerat plura verba contra viros ecclesiasticos’ (_Inv. des Arch, de
l’Aube_, sér. G, i. 243). The fifteenth-century Dutch farces appear to
have been played at the meetings of the _Rederijkerkammern_, and the
German _Fastnachtsspiele_, which derive largely from folk _ludi_, by
associations of handicraftsmen (Creizenach, i. 404, 407).
[588] Julleville, _Les Com._ 325.
[589] Ibid. 342. There is nothing to show the character of the French
players who visited the English court in 1494 and 1495 (Appendix E, viii).
[590] Cf. p. 190 and vol. i. p. 383. The only known English _puy_ is that
of London (vol. i. p. 376).
[591] The titles of the printed plays do not help, as they were probably
added by the printers, and in any case ‘enterlude’ does not exclude a
popular play.
[592] _Hist. MSS._ vii. 613.
[593] Collier, ii. 196, quotes the description by Willis, _Mount Tabor_
(1639), and refers to other notices of the play. In _Sir Thomas More_
(†1590, ed. A. Dyce, from _Harl. MS._ 7368 for Shakes. Soc. 1844) ‘my
lord Cardinall’s players’ visit More’s house and offer the following
repertory:
‘The Cradle of Securitie,
Hit nayle o’ th’ head, Impacient Pouertie,
The play of Foure Pees, Diues and Lazarus,
Lustie Juuentus, and the Mariage of Witt and Wisedom.’
The ascription of these plays to Wolsey’s lifetime must not be pressed
too literally. Of _Hit Nayle o’ th’ Head_ nothing is known. Radclif (p.
197) wrote a _Dives and Lazarus_. For the rest cf. p. 189; _Texts_ (iv).
The piece actually performed in _Sir Thomas More_ is called _Wit and
Wisdom_, but is really an adaptation of part of _Lusty Juventus_. A play
of _Old Custome_, probably a morality, was amongst the effects of John,
earl of Warwick, in 1545-50 (_Hist. MSS._ ii. 102).
[594] Cf. Brandl, xl. The performances of _Everyman_ given in the
courtyard of the Charterhouse in 1901, and subsequently in more than one
London theatre, have proved quite unexpectedly impressive.
[595] John Rastell printed †1536 _Of gentylnes and nobylyte, A dyalogue
... compilit in maner of an enterlude with divers toys and gestis addyd
thereto to make mery pastyme and disport_; cf. _Bibliographica_, ii.
446. Heywood’s _Witty and Witless_ is a similar piece, and a later one,
_Robin Conscience_, is in W. C. Hazlitt, _Early Popular Poetry_, iii.
221. In 1527 Rastell seems to have provided for the court a pageant of
‘The Father of Hevin’ in which a dialogue, both in English and Latin,
of riches and love, written by John Redman, and also a ‘barriers’
were introduced (Brewer, iv. 1394; Collier, i. 98; Hall, 723; Brown,
_Venetian Papers_, iv. 105). A dialogue of Riches and Youth, issuing in
a ‘barriers,’ is described by Edward VI in 1552 (_Remains_, ii. 386).
On the vogue during the Renascence of this dialogue literature, which
derives from the mediaeval _débats_, cf. Herford, ch. 2.
[596] Collier, i. 69. This notice is said by Collier to be from a slip of
paper folded up in the _Revels Account_ for 1513-4. It is not mentioned
in Brewer’s _Calendar_.
[597] Leland, _Collectanea_ (ed. Hearne), iv. 265; _Computus_ for 1551-6
of Sir Thos. Chaloner (_Lansd. MS._ 824, f. 24) ‘Gevyn on Shrove monday
to the king’s players who playd the play of Self-love ... xx⁸.’
[598] Cf. ch. xvi.
[599] There was a ‘farsche’ at Edinburgh in 1554 (_Representations_,
s.v.). In 1558 the Scottish General Assembly forbade ‘farseis and clerke
playis’ (Christie, _Account of Parish Clerks_, 64). Julleville, _La Com._
51, explains the term. _Farsa_ is the L. L. past part. of _farcire_ ‘to
stuff.’ Besides its liturgical use (vol. i. p. 277) ‘on appela _farce_
au théâtre une petite pièce, une courte et vive satire formée d’éléments
variés et souvent mêlée de divers langages et de différents dialectes....
Plus tard, ce sens premier s’effaça; le mot de farce n’éveilla plus
d’autre idée que celle de comédie très réjouissante.’ _Farce_ is,
therefore, in its origin, precisely equivalent to the Latin _Satura_.
[600] Cf. vol. i. p. 83.
[601] _Texts_, s.v. Lyndsay. The only other fragment of the Scottish
drama under James IV is that ascribed to Dunbar (_Works_, ed. Scot. Text
Soc., ii. 314). In one MS. this is headed ‘_Ane Littill Interlud of the
Droichis Part of the_ [_Play_] but in another _Heir followis the maner
of the crying of ane playe_. Both have the colophon. _Finis off the
Droichis Pairt of the Play._ From internal evidence the piece is a _cry_
or _banes_. Ll. 138-41 show that it was for a May-game:
‘ȝe noble merchandis ever ilkane
Address ȝow furth with bow and flane
In lusty grene lufraye,
And follow furth on Robyn Hude.’
[602] Cushman, 63, 68.
[603] No play in the first two sections of the ‘vice-dramas’ tabulated
by Cushman, 55, has a vice. Of the eleven plays (excluding _King John_,
which has none) that remain, eight can be called morals. But to these
must be added Heywood’s _Love_ and _Weather_, Grimald’s _Archipropheta_,
_Jack Juggler_, _Hester_, _Tom Tiler and His Wife_, none of which are
morals, unless the first can be so called.
[604] Cushman, 68. It has been derived from _vis d’âne_, and from
_vis_, ‘a mask’; from the Latin _vice_, because the vice is the devil’s
representative; from _device_, ‘a puppet moved by machinery,’ and
finally, by the ingenious Theobald, from ‘O. E. _jeck_—Gk. εἰκαῖ, i.e.
ϝικαῖ = ϝείκ = formal character.’
[605] Cf. _Texts_, s.v. Medwall. In _Misogonos_ (†1560) Cacurgus, the
_Morio_, is a character, and is called ‘foole’ and ‘nodye’ but not ‘vice.’
[606] Collier, ii. 191; Cushman, 69; cf. ch. xvi.
[607] Cf. _Representations_, s.vv. Bungay, Chelmsford.
[608] The ‘pleyers with Marvells’ at court in 1498 are conjectured to
have played miracles. But they may have been merely _praestigiatores_.
[609] Cf. vol. i. p. 180.
[610] Cf. p. 197, n. 1.
[611] Cf. _Texts_, s.v. Grimald.
[612] W. B[aldwin], _Bell the Cat_ (1553).
[613] Krumbacher, 534, 644, 653, 717, 746, 751, 766, 775. The Χριστὸς
Πάσχων (ed. by J. G. Brambs, 1885; and in _P. G._ xxxviii. 131) was long
ascribed to the fourth-century Gregory Nazianzen. Later scholars have
suggested Joannes Tzetzes or Theodorus Prodromus, but Krumbacher thinks
the author unidentified. A third of the text is a cento from extant
plays, mainly of Euripides.
[614] Krumbacher, 645.
[615] Teuffel, ii. 372; Cloetta, i. 3, 70; Creizenach, i. 4, 20. The
_Querolus_ (ed. L. Havet, 1880) was ascribed by the Middle Ages to
Plautus himself. The _Geta_, if it existed, is lost.
[616] Sidonius, _Carm._ xxiii. 134.
[617] Cloetta, i. 14; ii. 1; Creizenach, i. 1, 486; Bahlmann, _Ern._
4; M. Manitius, in _Philologus_, suppl. vii. 758; Ward, i. 7, quoting
Hrotsvitha,
‘sunt etiam ...
qui, licet alia gentilium spernant,
Terentii tamen fragmenta frequentius lectitant.’
[618] Creizenach, i. 2; Ward, i. 8; _Göttinger gelehrte Anzeigen_ (1835),
911.
[619] Creizenach, i. 17; Cloetta, i. 127; Ward, i. 6; Pollard, xii; A.
Ebert, _Gesch. d. Litt. d. Mittelalters_ (1887), iii. 314; W. H. Hudson
in _E. H. R._ iii. 431. The plays of Hrotsvitha (ed. K. A. Barack,
1858; ed. P. L. Winterfeld, 1901) are the _Gallicanus_, _Dulcitius_,
_Callimachus_, _Abraham_, _Paphnutius_, _Sapientia_. They were discovered
by Conrad Celtes and edited in 1501. It is not probable that he forged
them.
[620] Printed in Appendix U.
[621] Creizenach, i. 5; Cloetta, i. 38. One of the exceptionally learned
men who really knew something about the classical drama was John of
Salisbury (†1159), _Polycraticus_, i. 8 ‘comicis et tragoedis abeuntibus,
cum omnia levitas occupaverit, clientes eorum, comoedi videlicet et
tragoedi, exterminati sunt’; iii. 8 ‘comoedia est vita hominis super
terram, ubi quisque sui oblitus personam exprimit alienam’ (_P. L._
cxcix. 405, 488). For the popular notion cf. Lydgate, _Troy Book_ (ed.
1555), ii. 11, perhaps translating Guido delle Colonne:
‘In the theatre there was a smale aulter,
Amyddes sette that was half Circuler,
Which into East of custome was directe,
Upon the whiche a Pulpet was erecte,
And therin stode an auncient poete,
For to reherse by rethorykes swete,
The noble dedes that were hystoryall,
Of kynges & prynces for memoryall ...
All this was tolde and red of the Poete,
And whyle that he in the pulpet stode,
With deadly face all deuoyde of blode,
Synging his ditees with muses all to rent,
Amyd the theatre shrowded in a tent,
There came out men gastfull of their cheres,
Disfygured their faces with viseres,
Playing by sygnes in the peoples syght,
That the Poet songe hath on heyght, ...
And this was done in Apryll and in May.’
[622] Creizenach, i. 6; Cloetta, i. 35. See the miniature reproduced from
a fifteenth-century MS. of Terence in P. Lacroix, _Sciences et Lettres au
Moyen Âge_ (1877), 534.
[623] Cloetta, i. 14, has accumulated a fund of learning on this subject;
cf. Creizenach, i. 9.
[624] Johannes Januensis, _Catholicon_ (1286), quoted by Cloetta, i.
28 ‘differunt tragoedia et comoedia, quia comedia privatorum hominum
continet facta, tragoedia regum et magnatum. Item comoedia humili stilo
describitur, tragoedia alto. Item comoedia a tristibus incipit sed cum
laetis desinit, tragoedia e contrario.’
[625] Vincent of Beauvais, _Speculum maius triplex_ (†1250), i. 109
‘Comoedia poesis exordium triste laeto fine commutans. Tragoedia
vero poesis a laeto principio in tristem finem desinens.’ The
Dante-commentator Francesco da Buti, quoted by Cloetta i. 48, illustrates
this notion with an extraordinary explanation of the derivation of
_tragedia_ from τράγος; ‘come il becco ha dinanzi aspetto di principe per
le corna e per la barba, e dietro è sozzo mostrando le natiche nude e non
avendo con che coprirle, così la tragedia incomincia dal principio con
felicità e poi termina in miseria.’ Krumbacher, 646, describes the very
similar history of the terms τραγῳδία and κωμῳδία in Byzantine Greek.
[626] Boethius, who of course understood the nature of comedy and
tragedy, says (_Cons. Philosoph._ ii. pr. 2. 36) ‘quid tragoediarum
clamor aliud deflet, nisi indiscreto ictu fortunam felicia regna
vertentem?’ This becomes in the paraphrase of his eleventh-century
commentator Notker Labeo (ed. Hattemar, 52ᵇ) ‘tragoediae sínt luctuosa
carmina. álso díu sínt. díu sophocles scréib apud grecos. de euersionibus
regnorum et urbium. únde sínt uuideruuártig tien comoediis. án dîen uuir
îo gehórên laetum únde iocundum exitum.’
[627] Cloetta, i. 4; Teuffel, ii. 506. Blossius Aemilius Dracontius was a
Carthaginian poet. The _Orestes_ is printed in L. Baehrens, _Poet. Lat.
Min._ (_Bibl. Teub._), v. 218. There seems a little doubt whether the
title _Orestis tragoedia_ in the Berne MS. is due to the author or to a
scribe. The Ambrosian MS. has _Horestis fabula_.
[628] Creizenach, i. 12.
[629] Ibid. i. 7; Cloetta, i. 49. The _ludus prophetarum_ played at Riga
in 1204 (p. 70) is called ‘ludus ... quam Latini comoediam vocant.’
Probably this is a bit of learning on the part of the chronicler; cf. the
Michael-House instance (p. 344). For scraps from non-dramatic classical
authors in liturgical plays, cf. p. 48. The ‘theatricales ludi’ of
Innocent III and others (vol. i. p. 40; vol. ii. p. 99) seem to be not
miracle-plays, but the Feast of Fools and similar mummings.
[630] Dante, _Dedicatio_ of _Paradiso_ to Can Grande (_Opere Latine_, ed.
Giuliani, ii. 44) ‘est comoedia genus quoddam poeticae narrationis....
Differt ergo a tragoedia in materia per hoc quod tragoedia in principio
est admirabilis et quieta, in fine sive exitu est foetida et horribilis
... comoedia vero inchoat asperitatem alicuius rei, sed eius materia
prospere terminatur.’ P. Toynbee (_Romania_, xxvi. 542) shows that Dante
substantially owed these definitions to the _Magnae Derivationes_ of the
late twelfth-century writer, Uguccione da Pisa.
[631] Boccaccio’s _Ameto_ bears the sub-title _Comedia delle Ninfe
fiorentine_.
[632] Chaucer, _Monk’s Prologue_, (_C. T._ 13,999):
‘Or elles first Tragedies wol I telle
Of whiche I have an hundred in my celle.
Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie,
As olde bokes maken us memorie,
Of him that stood in greet prosperitee
And is y-fallen out of heigh degree
Into miserie, and endeth wrecchedly.’
Cf. the gloss in his _Boethius_, ii. pr. 2, 78, to the passage already
quoted on p. 20; and the description of _Troilus_ in _T. C._ v. 1786.
[633] Lydgate, _Fall of Princes_, prol.:
‘My maister Chaucer with his fressh commedies,
Is deed, alas, chefe poete of Bretayne:
That sometyme made full pitous tragedies.’
[634] W. F. Trench, _A Mirror for Magistrates; its Origin and Influence_
(1898), 18, 76, 82, 120, 125.
[635] Cf. vol. i. p. 177.
[636] Bale, i. 370.
[637] Ibid. ii. 68.
[638] Cloetta, ii. 4, 11, 91, 147; Creizenach, i. 487, 529, 572;
Bahlmann, _Ern._ 9, 13, 15, 30, 40.
[639] Cloetta, ii. 69, 221; Creizenach, i. 490, 510, 580.
[640] The earliest printed text (†1473) of Claudian’s _De Raptu
Proserpinae_ is from a version arranged as two pseudo-dramas (Cloetta, i.
135).
[641] Cloetta, i, _passim_; Creizenach, i. 20; Peiper, _Die profane
Komödie des Mittelalters_, in _Archiv f. Litteraturgeschichte_, v. 497.
Some of the texts are in Müllenbach, _Comoediae Elegiacae_ (1885), and
T. Wright, _Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems_ (1844). Cloetta gives
references for the rest.
[642] Creizenach, i. 533, 548, 563, 581; Bahlmann, _Ern._ 13, 36, 38, 44,
48.
[643] Creizenach, i. 569; ii. 23, 43, 59; Bahlmann, _L. D._ 31;
Julleville, _Les Com._ 298; J. Bolte, in _Vahlen-Festschrift_ (1900), 589.
[644] Creizenach, ii. 1, 71, 88, 370, 374; Heiland, _Dramatische
Aufführungen_, in K. A. Schmid, _Enc. d. gesammten Erziehungs- und
Unterrichtswesens_ (2nd ed. 1876-87).
[645] Cf. p. 196.
[646] A. Wood, _Athenae_ (ed. Bliss), i. 35, s.v. _Lilly_, says that
Ritwise ‘made the Tragedy of Dido out of Virgil; and acted the same with
the scholars of his school before cardinal Wolsey with great applause.’
The date of this performance is given in the _D. N. B._, through a
confusion with the anti-Lutheran play at court (cf. p. 196), as 1527. It
is often identified with the _Dido_ played before Elizabeth at Cambridge
in 1564. But there is no reason to doubt the statement of Hatcher’s
sixteenth-century MS. account of King’s College (transcript in _Bodl._
11,614) that the author of this was Edward Halliwell, who, like Ritwise,
was a fellow of the college.
[647] Cf. p. 195.
[648] For the translation of the _Philoktetes_ of Sophocles by Roger
Ascham, cf. p. 195. Bale, _Scriptores_ (1557), i. 720, mentions a
translation from Greek into Latin of _tragoedias quasdam Euripidis_ by
Thomas Keye or Caius (†1550).
[649] Creizenach, ii. 74; Herford, 84; Ward, i. 120; Bahlmann, _L. D._
39, 53, 66, 82. Many plays of this school are in _Comoediae et Tragoediae
aliquot ex Novo et Vetere Testamento desumptae_ (Brylinger, Basle, 1540)
and _Dramata Sacra_ (Oporinus, Basle, 1547).
[650] Creizenach, ii. 76; Herford, 119; Bahlmann, _L. D._ 71. The play is
in Brylinger, 314. A recent edition is that by Bolte and Schmidt (1891).
[651] Cf. p. 195. Both Thomas Artour, of Cambridge (ob. 1532), who wrote
a _Microcosmum, tragoediam_, and a _Mundum plumbeum, tragoediam_ (Bale,
i. 709), and John Hooker (ob. †1543), of Magdalen College, Oxford, who
wrote a _comoediam, scilicet Piscatorem ... alio titulo Fraus illusa
vocatur_ (Bale, i. 712), seem to have been Protestants, but nothing is
known of the character of their plays, which may have been either English
or Latin.
[652] Cf. p. 197.
[653] Bale, _Scriptores_, i. 674. It was written in his eleventh year
(1547-8): cf. his _Remains_, i. xvi.
[654] Hall, 641.
[655] Hall, 719; Collier, i. 103.
[656] Hall, 735; Collier, i. 104; Brewer, iv. 1603; Brown, _Venetian
Papers_, iv. 208; Cavendish, _Life of Wolsey_, i. 136. The characters
further included ‘an oratur,’ a Poet, Religion, Ecclesia, Veritas,
Heresy, False Interpretation, ‘Corrupcio Scriptoris,’ St. Peter, St.
Paul, St. James, a Cardinal, two Serjeants, the Dauphin and his brother,
a Messenger, three ‘Almayns,’ ‘Lady Pees,’ ‘Lady Quyetnes,’ ‘Dame
Tranquylyte.’ Brandl, lvi suggests that the play might have been related
to the _Ludus ludentem Luderum ludens_ of Johannes Hasenberg (1530), and
the analysis of this piece given by Bahlmann, _L. D._ 48, shows that
the two had several characters in common. Another anti-Luther play, the
_Monachopornomachia_ (1538) of Simon Lemnius (Bahlmann, _L. D._ 70),
appears to be distinct.
[657] Brown, _Venetian Papers_, iv. 229.
[658] Herbert of Cherbury, _Life of Henry VIII_ (Kennet, _Hist. of
England_, ii. 173).
[659] Collier, i. 119, quoting Foxe, _Martyrologie_ (1576), 1339.
[660] Herford, 129; Mullinger, _Hist. of Cambridge_, ii. 74; Cooper,
_Annals of Cambridge_, i. 422; J. Peile, _Christ’s College_, 48. The
correspondence about the play between Gardiner and Parker is printed in
full in J. Lamb, _Collection of Documents from C. C. C. C._ (1838), 49.
[661] Brewer, xii. 1. 557, 585.
[662] Bale, _Scriptores_, i. 702. Cf. also S. R. Maitland, _Essays on the
Reformation_, 182.
[663] Brewer, xii. 1. 244; Collier, i. 128. ‘The Lorde make you the
instrument of my helpe, Lorde Cromwell, that I may have fre lyberty to
preche the trewthe.
I dedycat and offer to your Lordeshype A Reverent Receyving of the
Sacrament, as a Lenton matter, declaryd by vj chyldren, representyng
Chryst, the worde of God, Paule, Austyn, a Chylde, a Nonne callyd
Ignorancy; as a secret thyng that shall have hys ende ons rehersyd afore
your eye by the sayd chyldren.
The most part of the prystes of Suff. wyll not reseyve me ynto ther
chyrchys to preche, but have dysdaynyd me ever synns I made a play
agaynst the popys Conselerrs, Error, Colle Clogger of Conscyens, and
Incredulyte. That, and the Act of Parlyament had not folowyd after, I had
be countyd a gret lyar.
I have made a playe caulyd A Rude Commynawlte. I am a makyng of a nother
caulyd The Woman on the Rokke, yn the fyer of faythe a fynyng, and a
purgyng in the trewe purgatory; never to be seen but of your Lordshyp’s
eye.
Ayde me for Chrystys sake that I may preche chryst.
Thomas Wylley
of Yoxforthe Vykar
fatherlesse and forsaken.’
[664] Brewer, xiv. 1. 22; Collier, i. 124.
[665] Foxe, _Acts and Monuments_ (ed. Cattley), v. 443, 446.
[666] Brewer, xvii. 79; Wilkins, iii. 860. About the same date a
_Discourse_ (_Cotton MSS. Faustina_, C. ii. 5) addressed by Sir Richard
Morison to Henry VIII is described by Brewer xvii. 707 as proposing ‘a
yearly memorial of the destruction of the bishop of Rome out of the
realm, as the victory of Agincourt is annually celebrated at Calais, and
the destruction of the Danes at Hoptide (_sic_: cf. vol. i. p. 154). It
would be better that the plays of Robin Hood and Maid Marian should be
forbidden, and others devised to set forth and declare lively before
the people’s eyes the abomination and wickedness of the bishop of Rome,
the monks, friars, nuns and such like, and to declare the obedience due
to the King.’ In 1543 the Lord Mayor complained to the Privy Council of
the ‘licentious manner of players.’ Certain joiners, who were the Lord
Warden’s players, were imprisoned and reprimanded for playing on Sunday
(_P. C. Acts_, i. 103, 109, 110, 122).
[667] 34, 35 _Hen. VIII_, c. 1; Hazlitt, _E. D. S._ 3; Collier, i.
127. A proclamation of May 26, 1545 (Hazlitt, _E. D. S._ 6), states an
intention to employ in the fleet ‘all such ruffyns, Vagabonds, Masterles
men, Comon players and euill disposed persons’ as haunt ‘the Banke, and
such like naughtie places,’ and forbids the retaining of servants, other
than household servants or others allowed by law or royal licence. I have
already (p. 185) called attention to the ambiguity of the term ‘comon
player,’ and on the whole, in view of a reference in the proclamation to
‘theft and falsehood in play’ I think that gamblers are here in question.
In any case the protected players were not suppressed.
[668] 1 _Edw. VI_, c. 12.
[669] _S. P. Dom. Edw. VI_, i. 5; Collier, i. 135.
[670] Kempe, 64, 74, with a list of personages for precisely such a play.
W. Baldwin, on whom cf. pp. 194, 200, and _Modern Quarterly_, i. 259, was
probably a dramatist of this temper.
[671] Brown, _Venetian Papers_, v. 347; cf. the letters between Gardiner
and Somerset, quoted by Maitland, _Essays on the Reformation_, 228, from
Foxe, vi. 31, 57.
[672] Hazlitt, _E. D. S._ 8; Collier, i. 142; Fuller, _Ch. Hist._ (1655),
391.
[673] 2, 3 _Edw. VI_, c. 1.
[674] Hazlitt, _E. D. S._ 9; Collier, i. 144. In 1550 ‘il plaiers’
were sought for in Sussex (_Remains_ of Edward VI, ii. 280). In 1551
the council gave Lord Dorset a licence for his players to play in his
presence only (_P. C. Acts_, iii. 307). In 1552 Ogle sent to Cecil a
forged licence taken from some players (_S. P. Dom. Edw. VI_, xv. 33).
[675] Holinshed (1808), iv. 61.
[676] Hazlitt, _E. D. S._ 15; Collier, i. 155; _P. C. Acts_, iv. 426.
[677] _S. P. Dom. Mary_, viii. 50; _P. C. Acts_, v. 234, 237; vi. 102,
110, 118, 148, 168, 169. In Feb. 1556 the council sent Lord Rich to
inquire into a stage-play to be given at Shrovetide at Hatfield Bradock,
Essex, and directed him to stop such assemblies. An order against
strolling players who spread sedition and heresy came in May. In June,
1557, performers of ‘naughty’ and ‘lewd’ plays were arrested in London
and Canterbury. An order forbade plays throughout the country during
the summer. In August a ‘lewd’ play called a ‘Sackfull of News’ was
suppressed at the Boar’s Head, Aldgate; and in September plays were
forbidden in the city except, after licence by the ordinary, between All
Saints and Shrovetide.
[678] The proclamation of 16 May 1559 is printed in Hazlitt, _E. D. S._
19; Collier, i. 166; _N. S. S. Trans._ 1880-5, 17†. I do not think the
proclamation loosely referred to by Holinshed (1587), iii. 1184, as at
‘the same time’ as another proclamation of 7 April is distinct from this.
By 1 _Eliz._ c. 2 (the _Act of Uniformity_) the provision of 2, 3 _Edw.
VI_, c. 1, against ‘derogation, depraving or despising’ the _Book of
Common Prayer_ in interludes was re-enacted with a penalty of 100 marks.
[679] Cf. vol. i. p. 54.
[680] Guy, xxvii.
[681] B. Bernhard, _Rech. sur l’Hist. de la Corp. des Ménétriers ou
Joueurs d’Instruments de la Ville de Paris_ (_Bibl. de l’École des
Chartes_, iii. 377; iv. 525; v. 254, 339).
[682] Julleville, _Les Com._ 238.
[683] Morris, 12, 346; Rymer, xi. 642; Ribton-Turner, 109, 129, 133, 148,
182, 201; Ormerod, _Hist. of Cheshire_, i. 36; _Memorials of the Duttons_
(1901), 9, 209.
[684] _Carta le Roy de Ministralx_, in Dugdale, _Monasticon_ (1822), iii.
397, from _Tutbury Register_ in Coll. of Arms; Plot, _Hist. of Staffs._
(1686), ch. x. § 69.
[685] Rymer (1710), xi. 642, (1741) v. 2. 169.
[686] Percy, 372.
[687] _Analytical Index to Remembrancia of the City of London_, 92.
[688] Grove, _Dict. of Music_, s.v. Musicians; W. C. Hazlitt, _Livery
Companies of London_.
[689] Civis, No. xxi.
[690] Poulson, _Beverlac_, i. 302 (probably from _Lansd. MS._ 896, f.
180).
[691] Leach, _Beverley MSS._ 179.
[692] Crowest, 244.
[693] _York Plays_, xxxviii. 125; M. Sellers in _Eng. Hist. Review_, ix.
284.
[694] So placed in the old MS.
[695] _Boor_—so spelt to accord with the vulgar pronunciation of the word
_bower_.
[696] _Porte_—so spelt in the original. The word is known as indicating a
piece of music on the bagpipe, to which ancient instrument, which is of
Scandinavian origin, the sword-dance may have been originally composed.
[697] _Stour_—great.
[698] _Muckle tinte_—much loss or harm; so in MS.
[699] Something is evidently amiss, or omitted here. David probably
exhibited some feat of archery.
[700] _Lout_—to bend or bow down, pronounced _loot_, as _doubt_ is _doot_
in Scotland.
[701] _Figuir_—so spelt in MS.
[702] _Agast_—so spelt in MS.
[703] _var. lect. anulas, agniculam, anniculam._
[704] _var. lect._ ulerioticos. Ducange explains _jotticos_ as ‘_ludi_,
Gall. _jeux_.’
[705] _Ermuli._ Ducange, s.v., would read _hinnuli_. He says that
Archbishop Ussher thought that the passage referred to the Saxon god
Irminsul.
[706] _maida_ G. explains as _Backtrog_, i.e. ‘kneading-trough’ (Gk.
μάκτρα); cf. Diez, _Etym. Wörterbuch_, s.v. madia; Körting, _Lat.-Rom.
Wörterbuch_, No. 4980.
[707] MS. _fectum_.
[708] _Cod. Madrid_, Friga holdam; _var. lect._ unholdam.
[709] 709-709 _Omitted by Frere, probably because it was inconvenient to
facsimile part only of a page._
[710] _Christu_m.
[711] et.
[712] Si_mi_li.
[713] _Omitted._
[714] dicat hoc modo.
[715] contingit.
[716] _Omitted._
[717] Deinde.
[718] _Omitted._
[719] Ungentes.
[720] Dilecti.
[721] 721-721 _Omitted: but a later hand has written on a margin of the
manuscript_, Condimentis aromatum vnguentes corpus _sanc_t_issi_m_um_ quo
p_re_ciosa.
[722] 722-722 _Omitted._
[723] reuoluit.
[724] appariat.
[725] _Omitted._
[726] dicat sic.
[727] _Omitted._
[728] gaudendo.
[729] dica_n_t sim_u_l.
[730] eas dicens.
[731] dicentes simul.
[732] deferens.
[733] 733-733 _Omitted._ _Lines 3-5 of the sequence are preceded by_
S_e_c_un_da Maria, _and lines 6-9 by_ Tercia Maria di_cat_.
[734] _Manly suggests_ mortuus.
[735] respondeat quasi.
[736] Tercia.
[737] et interim.
[738] _Omitted._
[739] dicentes hoc modo.
[740] audito.
[741] dicant.
[742] 742-742 _Omitted._
[743] Only a stage-direction, _Hic ludit_ [? _cadit_] _Lucifer de celo_.
[744] Imperfect.
[745] Jordan closes with an invitation to a _Redemptio_ on the morrow.
[746] Narrated.
[747] Duplicates.
[748] Misplaced.
[749] Imperfect.
[750] Late addition.
[751] Imperfect?
[752] And later fragment.
[753] Imperfect.
[754] J. Stuart, _Extracts from the Council Register of the Burgh of
Aberdeen_, vol. i. 1398-1570 (Spalding Club, 1844).
[755] Dunbar, _Works_ (ed. J. Small, for Scottish Text Soc.), ii. 251.
[756] Hearne, _Liber Niger Scaccarii_ (ed. 2), ii. 598.
[757] B. H. Wortham, _Churchwardens’ Accounts of Bassingbourne_
(_Antiquary_, vii. 25); Lysons, _Magna Britannia, Cambridgeshire_, 89;
Dyer, 343, from _Antiquarian Repertory_ (1808), iii. 320.
[758] C. B. Pearson, _Accounts of St. Michael’s, Bath_ (_R. Hist. Soc.
Trans._ vii. 309).
[759] _Cant. Tales_, 6140 (_W. of B.’s Prol._ 558).
[760] L. T. Smith, _York Plays_, lxv.
[761] _Acta Sanctorum_, Maii, ii. 189; _Historians of the Church, of
York_, i. 328 (Rolls Series, lxxi); Rock, ii. 430; A. F. Leach in
_Furnivall Miscellany_, 206.
[762] A. F. Leach, _Beverley Town Documents_ (Selden Soc. xiv), l. lix.
33, 45, 75, 99, 109, 117; and in _Furnivall Miscellany_, 208; Poulson,
_Beverlac_, i. 268 sqq., 302; _Lansdowne MS._ 896, f. 133 (Warburton’s
eighteenth-century collections for a history of Yorkshire).
[763] A. F. Leach, in _Furnivall Miscellany_, 220.
[764] Corrie, _Boxford Parish Accounts_ (_Cambridge Antiq. Soc. Trans._
i. 266).
[765] Pearson, ii. 413; Morant, _History of Essex_ (1768), ii. 399.
[766] L. Toulmin Smith, _Ricart’s Kalendar_ (Camden Soc.), 80.
[767] L. G. Bolingbroke, in _Norfolk Archaeology_, xi. 336; _Eastern
Counties Collectanea_, 272.
[768] _Hist. MSS._ xiv. 8, 133; Arnold, _Memorials of St. Edmund’s Abbey_
(R. S.), iii. 361.
[769] Masters, _Hist. of C.C.C. Cambridge_ (ed. 1753), i. 5.
[770] Hazlitt-Warton, iii. 302. The only reference given is ‘MSS.
Rawlins. Bibl. Bodl. Oxon.’ Mr. F. Madan kindly informs me that the
document cannot now be identified amongst the Rawlinson MSS.
[771] _Arch. Cantiana_, xvii. 147.
[772] _Ibid._ xvii. 80.
[773] _Hist. MSS. Comm._ ix. 1, 147.
[774] Pearson, ii. 414; _Freemasons’ Magazine and Magic Mirror_, Sept.
1861.
[775] Morris, 575.
[776] Morris, 317. Canon Morris does not say where he found the document.
He dates it in ‘24 Hen. VIII, 1531.’ [The regnal year. 24 Hen. VIII,
by the way, is 1532-3.] But the monastery is called ‘dissolved,’ which
it was not until 1541. The list of Mayors (Morris, 582) gives William
Snead (1516-7), William Sneyde (1531-2), William Sneyde, jun. (1543-4).
Obviously two generations are concerned. The second mayoralty of the
younger man was 1543-4. And the appointment of Newhall as clerk of the
Pentice was in 1543 (Morris, 204). Oddly, Canon Morris’s error was
anticipated in a copy of the proclamation made on the fly-leaf of _Harl.
MS._ 2013 of the plays (Deimling, 1), which states that it was ‘made by
Wᵐ newall, Clarke of the pentice [in R]udio 24, H. 8 [1532-3].’
[777] I reproduce Canon Morris’s text _literatim_. But he does not
explain the square brackets, and I do not understand them.
[778] The ‘proclamation’ in the White Book is clearly a revision of
the 1544 version. On the other hand, the Corpus Christi procession was
suppressed in 1547. The ‘Banns,’ which include a pageant ‘of our lady
thassumpcon’ not in the list of plays, are perhaps rather earlier.
[779] _Harl. MS._ 2150, ff. 85ᵇ-88ᵇ.
[780] It is this entry which shows that _Harl. MS._ 2150 is not the
‘White Book,’ but a copy. The official catalogue of the Harleian
collection is in doubt on this point.
[781] So printed by Furnivall, possibly as an addition to the text of
_Harl._ 1944, from the shorter copy of the _Breauarye_ in _Harl._ 1948.
[782] _Hist. MSS._ i. 49.
[783] C. L. Kingsford in _D. N. B._ s.v. Higden. Mr. Kingsford does not
think that ‘Randle Heggenett,’ the author of the _Chester Plays_, can be
identified with Higden. But ‘Higden,’ which occurs in Rogers’s list of
Mayors, is an earlier form in the tradition than ‘Heggenett.’
[784] Ormerod, _Hist. of Cheshire_ (ed. Helsby), iii. 651; Morris, 315.
[785] Morris, 316. The Painters and Glaziers’ charter is quoted as
calling them ‘tyme out of minde one brotherhood for the ... plaie of the
Shepperds’ Wach,’ but no date is given.
[786] Ibid.
[787] _Harl. MS._ 2150, f. 85ᵇ.
[788] Morris, 318; Furnivall, xxv; _Hist. MSS._ viii. 1. 363, 366.
[789] Pennant, _Wales_, i. 145.
[790] Furnivall, xxii, xxviii.
[791] D. Rogers, _Breauarye_, in Furnivall, xviii; Morris, 303.
[792] Morris, 322, 353; Furnivall, xxvi.
[793] Morris, 322; Furnivall, xxvi; Collier, i. 112.
[794] Morris, 324; Furnivall, xxiii; Fenwick, _Hist. of Chester_, 370.
[795] Sharp, 8.
[796] C. L. Kingsford, _Henry V_, 346, says that he reached Coventry
alone on March 15, and joined Katharine at Leicester on March 19. Ramsay,
_Y. and L._ i. 290, quoting J. E. Tyler, _Henry of Monmouth_, ii. 28,
gives the same dates. The entry in the _Leet Book_ (Harris, 139) brings
him to Coventry on March 21 and with the queen. But this was Good Friday.
If the _Leet Book_ is right, he might have remained for Hox Tuesday,
April 1.
[797] Brewer, xiv (1), 77.
[798] _C. Mery Talys_, lvi (ed. Oesterley, 100).
[799] Heywood, _The Foure PP_, 831 (Manly, i. 510).
[800] Foxe, vi. 411; viii. 170; Maitland, _Essays on the Reformation_, 24.
[801] Sharp, 12, 39, 64, 75, 78; _Weavers’ Play_, 21.
[802] Sharp, 9; Hearne, _Fordun’s Scotichronicon_, v. 1450.
[803] Sharp, 157; Hearne, loc. cit.
[804] Sharp, 216.
[805] Sharp, 209; Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, ii. 296.
[806] Sharp, 159.
[807] J. T. Gilbert, _Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin_, i. 239; ii.
54. Cf. Davidson, 222, and in _Modern Language Notes_, vii. 339.
[808] Harris, _Hist. of Dublin_, 147; J. C. Walker, _Hist. Essay on the
Irish Stage_ (_Trans. Roy. Irish Acad._ ii (1788), 2. 75), from MS. of
Robert Ware.
[809] Walker, loc. cit.; Sir James Ware, _Annales Rerum Hibern._ (1664),
161; _Variorum_, iii. 30, from MS. in Trin. Coll. Dublin. W. F. Dawson,
_Christmas: its Origin and Associations_, 52, says that Henry II kept
Christmas at Hogges in 1171 with ‘miracle plays.’ But I cannot find the
authority for this.
[810] Gilbert, op. cit. i. 242.
[811] Matthew Paris, _Gesta Abbat. S. Albani_, ap. H. T. Riley, _Gesta
Abbatum S. Albani_ (R. S.), i. 73; Bulaeus, _Historia Universitatis
Parisiensis_, ii. 226; Collier, i. 13.
[812] J. D. Marwick, _Records of Edinburgh_ (Scottish Burghs Record
Soc.), ii. 193 sqq.
[813] Kelly, 19.
[814] Pearson, ii. 413.
[815] L. G. Bolingbroke, _Pre-Eliz. Plays and Players in Norfolk_
(_Norfolk Archaeology_, xi. 338).
[816] _N. and Q._ xii. 210; Kelly, 68.
[817] _Hist. MSS._ xiii. 4. 300.
[818] _Hist. MSS._ xiii. 4. 288.
[819] R. Johnson, _Ancient Customs of Hereford_ (ed. 2. 1882), 119.
[820] _Hist. MSS._ xiii. 4. 352.
[821] Nichols, _Extracts from Churchwardens’ Accounts_, 175.
[822] W. Sandys, _Christmas Carols_, xc.
[823] G. Hadley, _Hist. of Kingston upon Hull_ (1788), 823.
[824] W. Andrews, _Historic Yorkshire_, 43; _Curiosities of the Church_,
19.
[825] J. Wodderspoon, _Memorials of the Ancient Town of Ipswich_ (1850),
161; _Hist. MSS._ ix. 1. 245.
[826] Nathaniel Bacon, _The Annalls of Ipswich_, 1654 (ed. W. H.
Richardson, 1884), 102 and _passim_. Some additional notices are in
_Hist. MSS._ ix. 1. 241 sqq.
[827] R. S. Ferguson, _A Boke of Record ... of Kirkbie Kendall_ (Cumb.
and Westm. Arch. and Ant. Soc.), 91, 136.
[828] See s.v. Manningtree.
[829] Weever, _Funeral Monuments_, 405.
[830] I. Disraeli, _Curiosities of Literature_, Second Series, iii. 343.
[831] Bale, _Vocacyon to Ossory_ (1553), in _Harleian Miscellany_ (ed.
1745), vi. 402; (ed. 1808), i. 345.
[832] _Hist. MSS._ xi. 3. 165, 223, 224. The original documents appear to
be in Latin.
[833] Harrod, _King’s Lynn Records_, 87.
[834] Cf. Appendix E (viii).
[835] Lysons, _Environs of London_, i. 229.
[836] See s.v. Kendal.
[837] Percy, _N. H. B._ 343, 345.
[838] Kelly, 27, 187. M. Bateson, _Records of Leicester_, ii. 297; J.
Nichols, _History of Leicestershire_, iv. i. App. 378, 9.
[839] Kelly, 188.
[840] Kelly, 7.
[841] Kelly, 14, 16.
[842] Kelly, 15, 18, 19, 20; T. North, _Accounts of Churchwardens of St.
Martin’s_, 2, 21, 74, 86, 87.
[843] Kelly, 193.
[844] _Lincoln Statutes_, ii. 15, 23.
[845] Cf. vol. i. p. 91.
[846] Wordsworth, 126, and in _Lincoln Statutes_, ii. lv. The entry given
for 1452 in the latter omits ‘et Prophetis.’
[847] Wordsworth, 126.
[848] A. F. Leach, in _Furnivall Miscellany_, 223; Rock, ii. 430.
[849] Leach, loc. cit. 224.
[850] Wordsworth, 139.
[851] Leach, loc. cit. 224; _Lincoln Statutes_, ii. ccliv; _Hist. MSS._
xiv. 8. 25.
[852] Wordsworth, 141; Leach, loc. cit. 223, from _Chapter Act Book_, A.
31, f. 18; _Shaks. Soc. Papers_, iii. 40, from copy of same document in
_Harl. MS._ 6954, p. 152. The latter has ‘Serenomium’ (for Ceremonium).
Mr. Leach reads ‘Sermonium’ and translates ‘speech.’
[853] Leach, loc. cit. 227; _Gentleman’s Magazine_, liv. 103.
[854] J. C. Robertson, _Materials for the Hist. of Becket_ (R.S.), iii. 9.
[855] Dodsley, _Collection of Old Plays_ (1744), i. xii. I cannot trace
the original authority.
[856] Malvern, _Continuator_ to _Higden’s Polychronicon_ (ed. J. R. Lumby
in R.S.), ix. 47.
[857] Malvern, loc. cit. ix. 259. Probably this is the play for which
the Issue Roll of the Exchequer for Easter—Michaelmas, 1391 (F. Devon,
_Issues of the Exchequer, Hen. III-Hen. VI_, 244), records on July 11,
1391, a payment ‘to the Clerkes of the Parish Churches and to divers
other clerkes of the City of London, in money paid to them in discharge
of £10 which the Lord and King commanded to be paid 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 Skynner Well, after the Feast of Bartholomew
last past.’ But the dates do not quite agree, and there may have been a
play at Bartholomew-tide 1390 as well as that of July, 1391.
[858] _London Chronicle_, 80.
[859] _London Chronicle_, 91. The _Cott. MS._ reads ‘Clerkenwelle’ for
the ‘Skynners Welle’ of the _Harl. MS._ _Gregory’s Chronicle_ (_Hist.
Coll. of a Citizen of London_, Camden Soc.), 105, also mentions ‘the
grette playe at Skynners Welle’ in 1409.
[860] J. H. Wylie, _Hist. of Henry IV_, iv. 213.
[861] J. G. Nichols, _Grey Friars Chronicle_ (Camden Soc.) 12; R.
Howlett, _Monumenta Franciscana_ (R.S.), ii. 164.
[862] J. Christie, _Some Account of Parish Clerks_, 24, 71.
[863] H. Morley, _Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair_, 15.
[864] Stowe, _Survey_, 7.
[865] Andrew, _Annales Henr. VII_ (R.S.), 121.
[866] Collier, in _Shakesp. Soc. Papers_, iii. 40. The ‘pagents’ on a
roll of vellum belonging to the Holy Trinity Guild in St. Botolph’s,
Bishopsgate (†1463), were probably only paintings with descriptive verses
(Hone, 81).
[867] Kempe, 71. The date given, Shrovetide, 38 Hen. VIII, must be wrong,
as the king died before Shrovetide (Feb. 20-2) in the thirty-eighth year
of his reign.
[868] Herbert, _Hist. of Livery Companies_, i. 80.
[869] E. B. Jupp, _Hist. of Carpenters’ Company_, 198.
[870] Collier, i. 51.
[871] Machyn, 138.
[872] Machyn, 145.
[873] Prynne, 117.
[874] Stowe, _Annales_, 489; _Survey_, 38; Herbert, i. 197, 454;
Brand-Ellis, i. 166.
[875] R. W. Goulding, _Louth Records_.
[876] _Hist. MSS._ v. 517.
[877] _Manningham’s Diary_ (Camden Soc.), 130.
[878] Heywood, _Apology for Actors_ (Shakespeare Soc.), 61.
[879] Quoted in _Variorum_, xvi. 295.
[880] Dekker’s _Plays_ (ed. Pearson).
[881] Hazlitt-Warton, iii. 312.
[882] Harrod, _King’s Lynn Records_, 88.
[883] W. Hobhouse, _Churchwardens’ Accounts_ (Somerset Record Soc.), 209.
[884] F. Holthausen, _Das Noahspiel von N. upon T._ (1897), 11; H.
Bourne, _Hist. of N._ (1736), 139; J. Brand, _Hist. of N._ (1789), ii.
369; E. Mackenzie, _Hist. of N._ (1827), ii. 664, 707; F. W. Dendy,
_Newcastle Gilds_ (Surtees Soc.), i. 4; ii. 161, 164, 171.
[885] W. A. Scott-Robertson, _The Passion Play and Interludes at New
Romney_ (_Archaeologia Cantiana_, xiii. 216); _Hist. MSS._ v. 533; _Arch.
Cantiana_, xvii. 28.
[886] C. A. Markham and J. C. Cox, _Northampton Borough Records_, ii. 184.
[887] _Paston Letters_, iii. 227.
[888] H. Harrod, _Particulars concerning Early Norwich Pageants_
(_Norfolk Archaeology_, iii. 3).
[889] R. Fitch, _Norwich Pageants: The Grocers’ Play_, in _Norfolk
Archaeology_, v. 8, and separately.
[890] Fitch, op. cit.; Blomfield, _Hist. of Norfolk_, iii. 176.
[891] Blomfield, iv. 426.
[892] Cf. vol. i. p. 222.
[893] Cf. Appendix E (v).
[894] W. Hobhouse, _Churchwardens’ Accounts_ (Somerset Record Soc.), 232.
[895] Norris, ii. 452; E. H. Pedler in Norris, ii. 507; Carew, _Survey
of Cornwall_; D. Gilbert, _History of Cornwall_; Borlase, _Antiquities
of Cornwall_ (ed. 2), 207; _Nat. Hist. of Cornwall_, 295; T. F. Ordish,
_Early London Theatres_, 15.
[896] See s.v. Kendal.
[897] W. A. Abram, _Memorials of the Preston Guilds_, 18, 21, 61, 99.
[898] C. Kerry, _History of St. Lawrence, Reading_, 233. Extracts only
from the accounts are given; a full transcript would probably yield more
information.
[899] W. H. R. Jones, _Vetus Registrum Sarisburiense_ (R.S.), ii. 129.
[900] _Cal. State Papers, Dom. Addl._ (1580-1625), 101.
[901] Jones and Macray, _Salisbury Charters_ (R.S.), xi, 102.
[902] Cf. Appendix E (vi).
[903] Phillips, _Hist. of Shrewsbury_, 201.
[904] Phillips, 201.
[905] Owen and Blakeway, _Hist. of Shrewsbury_, i. 328.
[906] _Shropshire Arch. Soc. Trans._ viii. 273.
[907] F. A. Hibbert, _Influence and Development of English Craft Guilds_
(1891). 113.
[908] _Add. MS._ 28,533, ff. iᵛ, 2. _Computi_ from 1477 to 1545 are in
this MS.; but most of them are very summary.
[909] _York Plays_, lxv.
[910] G. Oliver, _Hist. of Holy Trinity Guild at Sleaford_ (1837), 50,
68, 73, 82.
[911] Cf. Appendix E (vii).
[912] Collier, ii. 67.
[913] Hobhouse, 184.
[914] Hazlitt-Warton, iii. 163, from _Register_ of St. Swithin’s. This is
amongst the _Wulvesey MSS._, now in the possession of the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners (_York Plays_, lxv). The date is given as 1487 by
Hazlitt-Warton, but the visit is said to be that ‘on occasion of the
birth of Prince Arthur,’ which took place in the autumn of 1486.
[915] _London Chronicle_, 159.
[916] Cf. e.g. _Durham Accounts_, i. 95, 101, 105 ‘Soteltez ... Sutiltez
... Suttelties erga Natale.’
[917] E. Picot, in _Romania_, vii. 245.
[918] _Hist. MSS._ xiv. 8, 187.
[919] Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 342; Toulmin Smith, _Ordinances of
Worcester_ in _English Guilds_, 385, 407 (E. E. T. S.).
[920] _Norfolk Archaeology_, ix. 145; xi. 346.
[921] A. Nevyllus, _De furoribus Norfolciensium Ketto Duce_ (1575), i.
18; Holinshed (1587), iii. 1028.
[922] L. G. Bolingbroke, in _Norfolk Archaeology_, xi. 334.
[923] _Lincoln Statutes_, ii. 98; cf. _Use of Sarum_, i. xxii*.
[924] Cf. p. 409.
[925] _York Plays_, xxxv, xli; _Arch. Review_, i. 221.
[926] Drake, _Eboracum_, App. xxix; Davies, 243; _York Plays_, xxxiv.
Melton is called ‘sacrae paginae professor,’ which Drake and many
light-hearted scholars after him, down to A. W. Ward (ed. 2, 1899), i.
53, translate ‘professor of holy pageantry.’ The ‘sacred page,’ however,
is the Bible, and the title = S.T.P., or D.D.
[927] Davies, 245.
[928] _Antiquary_, xxiii. 29.
[929] _York Plays_, xxi, 125; _E. H. R._ ix. 285.
[930] Wyclif, _English Works_, ed. Mathew (E. E. T. S.), 429.
[931] _York Plays_, xxix; Toulmin, _English Gilds_ (E. E. T. S.), 137.
[932] _Antiquary_, xxii. 265.
[933] Halliwell, _Letters of the Kings of England_, i. 354, from a Latin
original in the _Bodl. Rawlinson MSS._
[934] Davies, 263.
[935] Davies, 273; _Arch. Review_, i. 221.
[936] Printed in _York Plays_, xix.
[937] Printed in Davies, 233.
[938] W. Andrews, _Yorkshire in Olden Times_, 105, 146.
[939] _D. N B._ s.v. Hegge. _Poems of Richard James_ (ed. Grosart, xxii);
T. Fowler, _Hist. of C. C. C._ 175, 183, 394.
[940] Dugdale, _Hist. of W._ (1656), 116. A not materially different
version, from Dugdale’s MSS., is given by Sharp, _Dissertation_, 218. Nor
does Sharp, in the account of the Grey Friars in his _Hist. and Antiq. of
Coventry_ (1817), add any information as to their plays.
[941] Hearne, _Fordun’s Scotichronicon_, v. 1493 (from MS. of _Annals_,
penes Thomas Jesson of Ch. Ch.) ‘This yeare the King came to se the
playes acted by the Gray Friers and much commended them.’ The mayoral
list in this text of the _Annals_ goes to 1675. It is probably another
that Sharp, _Diss._ 5, quotes as making the same statement and describes
as ‘not older than the _beginning_ of Charles I’s reign.’ He does not
give the full entry. Is it the basis of Mr. Fretton’s addition to the
1871 ed. of Sharp’s _Hist. and Antiq. of Cov._ 202 ‘1492. Henry 7th and
his Queen saw the Plays at Whitsuntide’? Can ‘by the Gray Friers’ mean
‘at a station by the convent’? In the Carpenters’ accounts for 1453 is
an item ‘for the mynstrell at the frerˢ.’ This, says Sharp, _Diss._ 213,
relates to the craft’s annual dinner held at the White Friars. There is
no other possible allusion to friars’ plays in Mr. Sharp’s extracts.
[942] Ten Brink, iii. 276; Sharp, 45.
[943] Hohlfeld, in _Anglia_, xi. 228.
[944] The term ‘pageant’ is once used in the stage-directions (Halliwell,
132) ‘Hic intrabit pagentum de purgatione Mariae et Joseph.’
[945] Ten Brink, ii. 283; Pollard, xxxvii. Hohlfeld (_Anglia_, xi. 228)
combines two theories by suggesting that the Coventry Grey Friars were
driven by the popularity of the rival craft-plays to travel.
[946] Holthausen, 16.
[947] F. W. Denby, _Newcastle Gilds_ (Surtees Soc.), ii. 165, 168.
[948] _Norfolk Archaeology_, iii. 3.
[949] _Collectanea_ (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), i. 130.
SUBJECT INDEX
[This index is almost wholly confined to the text, and only
includes the principal passages dealing with each subject. I
am sorry not to have been able to prepare a local or a nominal
index. The want of the former may be in part met, so far as
the miracle-plays are concerned, by the topographical list of
representations in Appendix W.]
_A l’entrada dal tens clar_, i. 170.
_Abbayes joyeuses_, i. 375, 383.
Abbesses, mock, i. 361.
Abbot, of Bon-Accord, i. 173, ii. 333;
of Marham, i. 173, ii. 250;
of Misrule, i. 403;
of Unreason, i. 181, ii. 335.
_Abraham and Isaac_, plays of, ii. 130, 426.
_Abrenuntiatio_, i. 19, 97.
_Absalon_ of Thomas Watson, ii. 195, 458.
Account-books, extracts from, on minstrelsy and plays, ii. 234, 240.
_Acolastus_, of Gnaphaeus, ii. 217;
of John Palsgrave, 459.
_Actio_, term for miracle-play, ii. 105.
Actors, a perplexity to Roman government, i. 3, 7;
punished for satire, 5;
private performances of, 7;
_infamia_ of, 8, 12, 14, 16;
hostility of, to Christianity, 10;
become minstrels, 24;
in miracle-plays, regulations for, ii. 114;
payment of, 139;
professional, under Tudors, 186, 225;
the King’s, 187, 201;
economic _status_ of, under Elizabeth, 225.
_Actus_, term for miracle-play, ii. 105.
_Adam_, ii. 70;
analysis of, 80;
vernacular mingled with Latin in, 89.
Adam le Boscu, minstrel in 1306, i. 47.
Adan de la Hale, plays of, i. 171, 381.
Adoptionist controversies, and Christmas, i. 240.
_Adoratio Crucis_, ii. 16.
Advent, i. 247;
liturgical drama in, ii. 62, 67.
Agricultural festivals. _See_ Feasts, Village festivals.
Agriculture, begun by women, i. 106;
religion of, 106, 109.
_Aguilaneuf_, i. 254.
Alcuin, his dislike of minstrelsy, i. 32, 35.
Ales, i. 179.
Allegory in mediaeval drama, ii. 151.
Alleluia, funeral of, i. 186.
All Saints’ day, i. 247, 265.
All Souls’ day, i. 247, 265.
_Altercatio Ecclesiae et Synagogae_, ii. 64, 152.
_Amour_, _Prince d’_, at Middle Temple, i. 416.
Ancestors, cult of, at New Year, i. 264.
Andrew, St., his day, i. 232.
_Andria_ of Terence, ii. 215, 456.
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, songs in, i. 31.
Anglo-Saxons, non-professional singers of, i. 64.
Animals, cult of, i. 131.
Animism, i. 103.
Anne, St., miracle-plays on her day, ii. 118, 127, 130.
Annunciation, dramatic ceremonies at, ii. 66.
Annunciation style, i. 246.
_Antichristus_, liturgical play of, ii. 62, 151.
_Antiphonarium_ of Gregory the Great, ii. 7.
Antiphons, nature of, ii. 6.
_Apfeln-Bischof_, i. 369.
Apostles, feast of, at Beauvais, i. 287;
at Sens, 288.
Aquinas, on minstrels, i. 58.
_Archipropheta_ of Grimald, ii. 451.
Armenians, on birthday of Christ, i. 239.
_Armiger_, title of minstrel, i. 50, ii. 139.
Aryan and pre-Aryan in folk-lore, i. 101.
Ascension, feast of, i. 114;
dialogued trope for, ii. 11;
dramatic ceremony at, 65;
miracle-play at, 129.
_Asotus_ of Macropedius, ii. 217.
Ass, ears of, worn by ‘fools,’ i. 385;
liturgical drama, ii. 57.
_See_ _Palmesel_.
Asses, feast of, i. 275, 282, 304, 305, 320, 330, 374, 377.
_See_ Prose of Ass.
Atellanes, i. 2, 4.
_Aubes_, i. 78, 171.
_Aucassin et Nicolete_, i. 42, 45, 74.
_Auctor_ of plays, i. 83.
Augustine, St., and theatre, i. 12, 17;
a character in miracle-plays, ii. 72, 77.
Ausonius, his _Ludus Septem Sapientum_, ii. 212.
Authorship of miracle-plays, ii. 144.
_Autos Sacramentales_, ii. 95, 105.
_Baculus_, feast of, i. 276, 279, 283, 289, 309, 319, 325, 345.
Balaam, episode of, in _Prophetae_, ii. 55, 72.
Baldwin, William, his plays, ii. 194, 200.
Bale, John, ii. 131, 144, 220, 222, 224, 446.
Ball, tossed at festivals, i. 128;
at Feast of Fools, 327;
struggle for, in games, meaning of, 149.
Ballad, in Elizabethan age, i. 69.
_Ballationes_, i. 161.
‘Banns’ of miracle-plays, ii. 114, 122, 140, 144.
Barbarian indifference to theatre, i. 19, 21.
Bards, classes of, i. 76.
‘Barring-out,’ i. 263.
_Barritus_ of Germans, i. 26.
Bartholomew Fair, puppet-shows at, ii. 158.
_Basoches_, i. 375.
_Bastaxi_, i. 71.
Baston, Robert, his _tragoediae_, ii. 211.
Bathing at folk-festivals, i. 122.
Battle, mock, in folk-drama, i. 187, 210.
_See also_ _Débats_.
Bauble of fool, i. 385.
Bean, king of, i. 260, 408.
‘Bearing the book,’ ii. 140.
Bearwards, i. 68, 72.
Beast-dances, i. 166.
Beast-mimicry, by minstrels, i. 71.
‘Beating the bounds,’ i. 120, 143.
_Beauty and Good Properties of Women_, ii. 455.
Beelzebub, in Plough Monday play, i. 209;
in St. George play, 214.
Befana, i. 268.
Bel, cult of, in Bohemia, i. 253.
Bells, in morris-dance, i. 200;
in sword-dance, 201.
_Beltane_, i. 111, 133, 138, 143.
Belus, cult of, in Europe, i. 112, 234.
Benedictbeuern manuscript, liturgical plays in, ii. 37, 39, 40, 72,
76.
_Benedictio fontium_, i. 124.
_Beowulf_ i. 29;
sword-dance in, 191.
‘Bessy’ in sword-dance, i. 192, 194, 198, 206, 210.
‘Bezant’ procession, i. 119.
Bilingual religious plays, ii. 89, 108.
‘Bishops’ of Fools, i. 295, 326, 368.
_See_ Feast of Fools, _passim_.
Black faces at folk-festivals, i. 125, 154, 199, 214.
Blood, importance of, in sacrifice, i. 132, 138.
_Blôt-monath_, i. 256.
Boar, sacrificial animal at New Year, i. 257.
Bon Accord, abbot of, i. 173, ii. 333.
_Bordeors Ribauz, Des Deus_, i. 67, 79, 85.
_Bouffons_, _danse des_, i. 191.
‘Box-holder’ in St. George play, i. 217.
Boy Bishop, sermons of, i. 356;
in schools and universities, 362;
disliked by Reformation, 366;
customs of, resemble Feast of Fools, 368;
in religious drama, ii. 72.