Note 787 — from the Origins To the Renaissance (continued 8)
Reading edition
The principal monuments of the English religious stage are the following: "Chester Plays," ed. Th. Wright, Shakespeare Society, 1843-7, 2 vols., 8vo (seem to have been adapted from the French, perhaps from an Anglo-Norman original, not recovered yet).
"The Pageant of the Company of Sheremen and Taylors in Coventry ... together with other Pageants," ed. Th. Sharp, Coventry, 1817, 4to. By the same: "A Dissertation on the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries anciently performed at Coventry ... to which are added the Pageant of the Shearmen and Taylors Company," Coventry, 1825, 4to (illustrated).
"Ludus Coventriæ," ed. Halliwell, Shakespeare Society, 1841, 8vo (the referring of this collection to the town of Coventry is probably wrong).
"Towneley Mysteries" (a collection of plays performed at Woodkirk, formerly Widkirk, near Wakefield; see Skeat's note in Athenæum, Dec. 3; 1893) ed. Raine, Surtees Society, Newcastle, 1836, 8vo.
"York Plays, the plays performed by the crafts or mysteries of York on the day of Corpus Christi, in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries," ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith, Oxford, 1885, 8vo.
"The Digby Mysteries," ed. Furnivall, New Shakspere Society, 1882, 8vo.
"Play of Abraham and Isaac" (fourteenth century), in the "Boke of Brome, a commonplace book of the xvth century," ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith. 1886, 8vo.—"Play of the Sacrament" (story of a miracle, a play of a type scarce in England), ed. Whitley Stokes, Philological Society Transactions, Berlin, 1860-61, 8vo, p. 101.—"A Mystery of the Burial of Christ"; "A Mystery of the Resurrection": "This is a play to be played on part on gudfriday afternone, and the other part opon Esterday afternone," in Wright and Halliwell, "Reliquiæ Antiquæ," 1841-3, vol. ii. pp. 124 ff., from a MS. of the beginning of the sixteenth century.—See also "The ancient Cornish Drama," three mysteries in Cornish, fifteenth century, ed. Norris, Oxford, 1859, 2 vols. 8vo (with a translation).—For extracts, see A. W. Pollard, "English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes," Oxford, 1890, 8vo.
On the question of the formation of the various cycles of English mysteries and the way in which they are connected, see A. Hohlfield, "Die altenglischen kollektivmisterien," in "Anglia," xi. p. 219, and Ch. Davidson, "Studies in the English Mystery Plays, a thesis," Yale University, 1892, 8vo.