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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
In determining whether the Lincoln mystery plays were processional like those of York and Chester or were acted on a fixed stage, it is important to know whether the St. Anne's Day Sights, about which there is a considerable amount of information, were merely floats or real plays. They are regarded as plays by Mr. Chambers and by Mr. A. F. Leach. A recently discovered account book of the Lincoln Cordwainers' Company, preserved in the Free Public Library, indicates what part the Cordwainers took in the St. Anne's day celebration and what the nature of the spectacle was. The Cordwainers were to maintain and send forth annually in the procession of St. Anne's day a pageant, called the Pageant of Bethlehem. This was not a play, and there is no evidence to show that they were responsible for a play at any season of the year. Their entries of expenses indicate a very different form of dramatic activity from that of the Weavers of Coventry and other companies in that city where the companies maintained plays.
1 E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, ii, pp. 377-9.
2 Some English Plays and Players in the “Furnivall Miscellany,” 1901, pp. 224 ff.
3 This document I was able to see and transcribe through the kindness of Mr. Corns, the librarian.
4 Thomas Sharp, Dissertation on the Coventry Mysteries, 1825, pp. 13 ff.; The Presentation in the Temple, a Pageant as originally represented by the Corporation of the Weavers of Coventry, Abbotsford Club, 1836, pp. 20 ff.; or the writer's Two Coventry Corpus Christi Plays, 1902, App. ii, where the records from Sharp are republished.
5 Written precession and usually below.
6 The latter entry is crossed out; both of course belong to the strictly religious activity of the gild.
7 The usual headings in each annual computus are in nocte potacionis, stipendia officiorum, obit. fact. hoc anno, and expens. necessar. (or “other expenses”). The items concerning the pageant are under the last mentioned heading.
8 An item in this list “ad le pypers in die processionis iiijd” probably refers to a procession on the day of St. Crispin and St. Crispianus.
9 The following item for this year stands after the expense for St. Anne's day and before the payment for rent: “It. soli. coco nostro iiijd. It. soli. certis de players in aula nostra ad cenam vjs iiijd.”
10 This entry is probably to be regarded as a record of a special play like that given in the hall two years before; but since it says the players instead of certain players, it may indicate that a general levy for the Corpus Christi play, falling short in the sum of viijd, was made up out of the common funds.
11 The last three entries may or may not refer to St. Anne's day. They are followed in the account by these entries: “It. paid to the porter iiijd.”
12 This entry may not refer to the pageant.
13 The following entries seem also to refer to the ceremonies at the minister or to the pageant: “It. for weshyng the awlbe and ames that the prest syngs in iijd. It. for a pottyll wyn geven to Master Sapcotts iiijd. … It. for weshyng herd clothes and towells vjd. It. for bred and wyn to said prest vid.”
13a The last two entries are not necessarily to be connected with the St. Anne's day procession, since the entries in these lists of miscellaneous expenses seem to have no fixed arrangement.
14 Following this entry are these: “It. for gloves viijd. It. for mendyng the angells of the hersse ijd.”
15 There is no entry for 1541 which refers to the pageants. The entry “It. to the waits iiijd” evidently does not.
16 This entry is cancelled and apparently repeated on f. 112b.
16a The entries which follow probably have no connection with St. Anne's tide: “It. for cheis xiiijd, for iiij dessyn tayks to Xpofer brampsten iiij—summa vs ijd. It. for ij dossyn bred and halff ijs vjd. It. to James Lovday for lyghtyng candylls at mynster iiijd. It. to the mynstrells iijd.”
17 Chambers, ii, p. 364.
18 Chambers, ii, p. 399.
19 Cf. Mr. A. W. Pollard, English Miracle Plays (1909), p. 31.
20 Entries of Common Council 1511-1541 (“White Book”), f. 97, 1519.
21 F. 179, 1524.
22 F. 97b, 1519; f. 115, 1520; f. 144, 1522, etc.
23 F. 81, 1518; f. 107, 1520; f. 142b, 1521; f. 129, 1523; f. 169, 1524; f. 179b, 1524; f. 189, 1526; f. 198, 1527.
24 F. 131b, 1521; f. 159, 1523; f. 179b, 1524; etc.
25 F. 169.
26 F. 42b, 1515; f. 81, 1518; f. 131b, 1531; f. 198, 1527.
27 F. 160b, 1523.
28 F. 132.
29 F. 276.
30 An entry given by Mr. A. F. Leach, “History of Lincolnshire Schools,” in the Victoria County History of Lincolnshire, ii, p. 464, indicates that there was a stationary play also at Louth in Lincolnshire: “Paid to Mr. Goodall for certain money by him laid out for the furnishing of the play played in the market stede on Corpus Christi Day, the year before my entering (1555-6).”
31 See the present writer's letter to the Athenœum, August 16, 1913, and to the Nation, October 8, 1913; also his Note on the Home of Ludus Coventriae, published with An Inquiry into the Composition and Structure of Ludus Coventriae, by Miss Esther L. Swenson, The University of Minnesota Studies in Language and Literature, No. 1, 1914; Miss Swenson's article is also important.