British Museum MS. Addit. 35290 (about 1430-40), f. 193 b.
The miracle play _Harrowing of Hell_ is assigned to the craft of
Saddlers in the York cycle, edited by Miss L. Toulmin-Smith, Oxford
1885, pp. 372 ff. This is the text reproduced below. It is also found,
though in a less perfect form, among the _Towneley Plays_, ed. England
and Pollard, E.E.T.S., 1897, pp. 293 ff.
All the mediaeval stories of Christ's Descent into Hell are based on the
gospel of Nicodemus, which seems to date from the fourth century, though
the legend is referred to nearly two centuries earlier. This apocryphal
narrative was popular throughout the Middle Ages. There is a prose
translation in late Anglo-Saxon, and a Middle English verse rendering
supplies some of the phrases in the play.
Two points deserve notice for their bearing on the development of
miracles. A trace of their origin in the services of the Church is seen
in the use made of the Scriptural passage 'Attollite portas, principes,
vestras, et elevamini portae aeternales, et introibit rex gloriae', the
dramatic possibilities of which were recognized in ritual from an early
date. And the growing taste for comic scenes is met, without prejudice
to the serious characters, by the rudimentary buffoonery of the Devil
and his companions.