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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 February 2021
In her study of the relationship of the York and Towneley Plays, Dr. Marie C. Lyle directed special attention to a series of discrepancies which she found between the description of the York plays given by Burton in his list in 1415 and the extant text of these plays. Noting the fact that these discrepancies occurred in plays which incorporated material from the Gospel of Nichodemus, she undertook to account for them by supposing that these plays as we have them represent a revision, made subsequent to Burton's list, under the influence of the Middle English metrical Gospel of Nichodemus.
1 The Original Identity of the York and Towneley Cycles. University of Minnesota 1919.
2 Ibid., p. 31.
3 Miss Lyle (p. 31) further divides these into nine incidents
4 I have searched the legendary histories of Pilate (or the source of this incident presented by the Couchers, but have discovered nothing beyond a possible suggestion in Pilate's letter to Herod: “And when Proclas my wife and the Romans heard these things they came and told me, weeping, for they were also against Him, when they devised the evils which they had done unto Him. So that I also was on the couch of my bed in affliction, and put on a garment of mourning, and took unto me my 50 Romans with my wife and went to Galilee” (Cowper, Apocryphal Gospels, p. 374).
The first three incidents in this play are exactly such as might have been added by the Couchers' gild, which appears to have been one of the newer crafts (see below, note 30).
5 The verbal agreements between the Gospel of Nichodemus and this play are given by Miss Lyle (p. 31, note 5). The possible relation of the appearance of the devil in this play to the Northern Passion was pointed out to me by Professor Brown; see Northern Passion, Harley MS 4196, fol. 74b-75.
6 See Miss Lyle, p. 31. Miss Smith also noted this relationship (York Mystery Plays, p. 283).
7 Miss Lyle, p. 31.
8 Miss Smith, op. cit., p. xxiii
9 Cf. note 30, below.
10 Ibid., p. xxiv, note.
11 Both the MS of Burton's List and the MS of York XXXIII afford evidence that this play passed through the hands of several guilds, thereby giving opportunity for revision, even though it was not mentioned in the body of Burton's description. In the Burton MS the word miners is written over and the words Ropers and Sevours are added in a later hand. Moreover, the York MS verifies this later handing of the play over to the Milners, for the original ascription to the Tyllemakers is crossed through, and Milners is written in a later hand as a fresh heading on five of the pages of this piece. See Miss Smith, op. cit., pp xxiv-v and 320.
12 The casting of lots for Jesus' garments was originally the subject of the Millers' play, but when the Millers combined with the Tylemakers, the whole incident was contracted into a few lines at the end of 34, 35. See Miss Smith, op. cit., pp. xxv and 347, 358.
13 Miss Lyle op. cit., p. 32.
14 For extensive parallels see W. A. Craigie, “The Gospel of Nichodemus and the York Mystery Plays,” Furnivall Miscellany, 1901, p. 54 Note that these parallels are more verbal than structural, so that the relation between them need not necessarily appear in Burton.
15 Above the word Sellers is written Sadellers; and the word Glasiers is written over the word Verrours. The brackets around the first “vj” indicate later interlineation. See Miss Smith, op. cit., p. xxvi.
16 Op. cit., p. 32.
17 Written “Isaac” in error.
18 Miss Smith gives both texts; see pp. 396-420.
19 Jesus does not appear in the Persons of the play and this action is provided for only by a rubric Tunc Iesu resurgente, and to this a marginal note is added in a later hand: Tunc angelus cantat Resurgens. See Miss Smith, op. cit., p. 406, note 1.
20 The words in brackets are added later, showing again, as in the case of Barton 36 and 40, that this play went through the hands of more than one group of gilds, undergoing changes as a result. Miss Smith gives additional evidence regarding the change in ownership of this play; see p. xxvi, note 4.
21 Op. cit., pp. 32-33.
22 Burton's description reads as follows:
23 Ibid., p. 33; Miss Lyle gives verbal parallels in her note 14.
24 This is, of course, true of plays other than those containing Gospel of Nichodemus material. Compare, for instance, note 12, above.
25 See Craigie, op. cit., pp. 52-61.
26 Pharaoh, Doctors, Harrowing of Hell, Resurrection, Last Judgment, and part of On the Way to Calvary.
27 Op. cit., p. 30.
28 Miss Lyle says: “In spite of independent revisions through which other plays passed after the separation of the two cycles, these plays retain practically their parent form. They may therefore be considered direct evidence of the original identity of the two cycles” (p. 56).
29 “Revisions in the Early English Mystery Plays,” Mod. Phil., XV, 181-88.
30 In the Introduction of her ed. of the York Plays. As a further bit of evidence relating to the Couchers (who joined with the Tapiteres in giving Play XXX) I quote her note appended to Play XIX, The Massacre of the Innocents, given by the “Gyrdellers and Naylers:”
“On lf. 73 is the word Mylners crossed through; on the back of the same leaf is noted in a late hand, ‘This matter of the gyrdlers agreyth not with the Couches in no point, it beginneth, Lyston lordes unto my Lawe’.” As a matter of fact, this sounds like the first line in York XXXVIII, the play of the Carpenteres, where the first words are by Pilate and are “Lordingis, listenys nowe unto me.” Miss Smith continues: “It does not appear what this refers to. Play XXX is by the Tapiteres and Coucheres, but it does not begin with this line. I have no mention of Couchers among my extracts from the City records, though several as to the Tapiters; probably the Couchers were a newer craft” (York Plays, p. 146). For a further instance of a play which was transferred from gild to gild, see note 11, above.
31 See, for instance, Mrs. Grace Frank (Mod. L. Notes, XXXV, 45): “This dissertation, the most notable contribution in recent years to the study of the relations between the York and Towneley Cycles, presents in admirable form a most plausible solution of that problem.”