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The York Plays of the Dying, Assumption, and Coronation of Our Lady
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The comparative scarcity of evidence as to dramatic performances of saints' miracles in mediæval England has frequently been the subject of comment. The only surviving independent texts of separate plays are those of Mary Magdalen, St. Paul, and the Cornish Meriasek; and the list of recorded performances is far from impressive. Particularly noticeable is the almost complete lack of evidence of such independent Miracles of Our Lady as would correspond to the amazing French series of Miracles de Notre Dame.1 The Lincoln play of the Assumption (sometimes Ascension) and Coronation of Our Lady, undertaken by the cathedral clergy over a long period, and, perhaps, as time went on, linked with the municipal St. Anne's play, is unusual.2 But, if self-contained plays of the Virgin Mary are notable mainly by their absence, there is ample evidence of a well-established group of Death and Assumption of Mary plays within the framework of the regular Corpus Christi cycles. Texts of such groups have survived in the York Register3 and in the Ludus Coventriœ.* Records of such plays occur at Newcastle, where the Burial of the Virgin was played by the masons;6 at Beverley where the priests, and at Aberdeen where the tailors were responsible for the Coronation of Our Lady;6 and, as we shall see, at York. At York, too, as elsewhere, certain features, at least, of the Assumption Play seem to have been incorporated in royal entry civic celebrations.
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- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1950
References
1 L. Petit de Julleville, Histoire du théátre en France: Les mystères (Paris, 1880), i, 115 ff.
2 Virginia Schull, “Clerical Drama in Lincoln Cathedral, 1318–1561”, PMLA, in (Dec. 1937), 946–966.
3 L. T. Smith, ed. York Plays (Oxford, 1885), pp. 473 ff.
4 K. S. Block, ed. Ludus Coventria or the Plaie Called Corpus Christi, EETS e.s. 120 (London, 1922), pp. 354 ff.
5 Waterhouse, ed. The Non-Cycle Mystery Plays, EETS e.s. 104 (London, 1909), p. xl.
6 E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage (Oxford, 1903), n, 341, 322; A. J. Mill, Mediaeval Plays in Scotland (Edinburgh and London, 1927), p. 125.
7 A series of extracts from the House Books is in course of publication by Angelo Raine in his invaluable York Civic Records (Yorkshire Archaeol. Soc, Record Series, nos. 98, 103, 106,108, 110, 112). The transcripts of all but a few of the House Book entries used in this article were, however, made by me before the publication of those volumes, and have since been re-checked with the originals in York. Hence my frequent citation of the original MS., together with a reference to Raine.
8 Thus, e.g., Smith, p. xvii, is apparently unaware of the existence of Chamberlains' Accounts (either Books or Rolls) prior to 1519.
9 Maud Sellers, York Memorandum Book, Surtees Soc, nos. 120, 125 (London, 1912–15), i, 10.
10 Robert Da vies, Extracts from the Municipal Records of the City of York (London, 1843), p. 236.
11 Textually it survives in English drama only in the Ludus Coventriœ.
12 R. Morris, ed. EETS o.s. 58 (London, 1880), p. 151.
13 R. Morris, ed. EETS o.s. 57, 62, 66, 68, 99, 101 (London 1874–92), p. 1186 (MS. Cotton).
14 Theodor Erbe, ed. Mirk's Festial, EETS e.s. 96 (London, 1905), Pt. I, 223.
15 Smith, p. xlix, has a useful bibliography. Cf. also G. G. Coulton, A Medieval Garner (London, 1910), p. 700; Art and the Reformation (Oxford, 1928), p. 394, n. 1.
16 J. R. Lumby and G. H. McKnight, eds. EETS o.s. 14 (London, 1866; re-edited 1901), p. 128.
17 Sellers, ii, 123 ff. The whole text deserves careful examination. In a recent important monograph the writer professes not to take too seriously the first of the masons' objections. Quoting only partially (and under the date 1468 instead of 1431) the unfavorable reactions to Fergus, he comments: “The real grievance, I suspect, that underlay the complaint was the fact that the protesting cementarii could never get through the play in day light”: Harold C. Gardiner, S.J., Mysteries End, An Investigation of the Last Days of the Medieval Religious Stage (New Haven, 1946), p. 39.1 see no reason for discounting the earlier part of the protest.
18 MS House Books, I, f. 20b; Raine, i, 6.
19 MS House Books, II, III, Iv, ft“. 160, 163; Raine, I, 114, 115.
20 MS Chamberlains' Rolls, Case I. This account is labelled 1485, but it runs from the Feast of St. Blaise, 1 Henry VII, that is, from Feb. 3, 1485–86, for a year.
21 W. W. Greg, Bibliographical and Textual Problems of the English Miracle Plays (London, 1914), p. 28. Smith, p. xxviij, however, dates the Register as early ISth century and suggests that the omission of Fergus was accidental. The item in the MS Chamberlains' Books, i A, in an account officially dated as 1449, “Et Johanni Kirketon pro ligatwra vnius libri vocati le Regestre ij s”, may have some bearing on the date of the Register. I am not convinced that this account is correctly dated; but the matter requires further investigation.
22 The relation of the woollen- and linenweavers to the cutlers' pageant is not quite clear, nor does a previous minute of 1493, cited by Raine, II, 97, help.
23 MS House Books, ix, f. 94b; Raine, iii, 65. Raine reads “Vergins” for “vergus” in both instances, but the MS seems clear.
24 Davies, p. 236. He remarks also that it is probable that this group, as they are the lowest in the series, were also “of the latest introduction.” But they are surely in place chronologically.
25 Raine, iii, 14.
26 Ibid., i, 158. The speech of Our Lady follows.
27 John Leland, Collectanea (London, 1770), rv, 189. Leland's transcript, however, from MS. Cotton Julius, B xii, ff. lib, 12, is a careless one and there are several misreadings in the “speche”, of which a somewhat different version is given in the House Book (Raine, loc. cit.).
28 MS Chamberlains' Rolls, Case iv, 1486–87. The account runs from the feast of St. Blaise, 1 Henry VII, for a year; so that this item of expenditure could not be for the second visit of the king, July 30, 1487.
29 Smith, p. xlii, by implication, follows Davies.
30 MS Chamberlains' Rolls, Case i. The date is almost obliterated but the account seems to run from the feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, 11 Henry VI, that is, from Feb. 2, 1432–33, for a year. In this and in subsequent excerpts from the accounts, the year given in the text of the article is that on which the play of Corpus Christi would fall within the particular financial year in which the expenditure is incurred.
31 Written above “lode” deleted.
32 MS “coronaciones.”
33 MS Chamberlains' Books, i A, f. 28. On the basis of internal evidence, this account, defective at the beginning, has been labelled officially 1449.
34 MS “virgnis.”
35 MS Chamberlains' Rolls, Case m. This roll is labelled “1463:4 Ed. IV”, but the original scribe clearly states that the account runs from the feast of St. Blaise 2 Edward IV for a year.
36 Ibid. Labelled 1466, but the account runs from the feast of St. Blaise 7 Edward TV for a year.
37 Labelled 1478 apparently on the basis of internal evidence.
38 MS House Books, v, f. 24; Raine, i, 92.
39 Smith, p. xlii; Greg, p. 29. Greg suggests that the marginal “caret” written in a later hand in the Register at the beginning of the original innholders' play (MS. Add. 35,290, f. 242) indicates that this text had been cancelled in favor of the later version. But would not this be an unusual use of “caret”, which, in fact, occurs many times with its usual meaning in the Register marginalia? May it rather be that, at some periodical check-up, the beginning of the play, as then played, was found to be wanting, and that the aureate fragment, consisting of speeches by the Son and the Father, was meant to make good that deficiency?
40 MS Chamberlains' Rolls, Case iv.
41 Ibid., Case v. The roll from which the 1505 item is taken is labelled 1504–6, but the account seems to run from the feast of St. Maury the Abbot, 20 Henry VII, for one year only.
42 Ibid., Case I. Date missing. Labelled Henry IV, later altered to 7 Henry VIII.
43 MS Chamberlains' Books, n, ff. 25, 62, 104,151, 194, 236. The date of the first of the series is missing; but the following account runs from the feast of St. Maury the Abbot, 12 Henry VIII, for a year, and a similar entry is also in a Chamberlain's Roll, Case vi, apparently for the same date.
44 MS House Books, xiii, ff. 24, 35b, 50; Raine, iii, 174; iv, 5.
45 MS Chamberlains' Rolls, Case vi. The original date on the roll is, however, missing.
46 MS Chamberlains' Books, iii, f. 26. This volume has three separate series of pagination and foliation, of which this is the third.
47 Ibid., iv, f. 69.
48 MS House Books, xix, ff. 16b, 69b; Raine, iv, 176, v, 15.
49 MS House Books, xx, f. 52 b; Raine, v, 55. Cf. also Raine, v, 59.
50 MS House Books, xx, f. 56.
51 Ibid., xxi, f. H; Raine, v, 88. Presumably the sledmen's play was XL in the Register, The Travellers to Emmaus Meet Jesus. But cf. Smith, pp. 421 n, 426 n1. The original MS. of the Register (Add. 35,290) does nothing to clear up the confusion.
52 MS House Books, xxi, f. 31; Raine, v, 100.
53 MS Chamberlains' Books, iv, p. 104.
54 Raine, v, 110.
55 MS House Books, xxi, f. 85; Raine, v, 120.
56 MS House Books, xxii, ff. 5, 53b.
57 Ibid., f. 68.
58 MS Chamberlains' Books, v, f. 73.
59 Smith, p. xv.
60 MS Chamberlains' Books, v, f. 97b.
61 There is, however, a gap in the House Books from Jan. 1558–59 to Feb. 1560–61.
62 MS House Books, xxiv, f. 82; Raine, vi, 128.
63 MS House Books, xxiii, f. 10; Raine, vi, 8.
64 Raine, vi, 94.
65 MS House Books, xxiv, f. 133b. According to the 1415 Ordo and the Register of the plays, the chandlers were responsible for the Pastores.