Book 4 — APPENDICES (continued 5)

‘I have been told by some old people, who in their younger years were eye-witnesses of these Pageants so acted, that the yearly confluence of people to see that shew was extraordinary great, and yielded no small advantage to this City⁠[940].’

Dugdale, it is to be observed, has the MS. as one of his authorities, but he goes further than the librarians by ascribing the plays to a particular house of friars. Unfortunately his account will not hold water. He was born in 1605, and educated for five years in Coventry. Now there could have been no plays performed by the Grey Friars after 1538, for they were suppressed in that year. But the craft-plays survived, with great éclat, until 1580, and it is manifest that it is these plays which his informants described to him. They were acted on Corpus Christi day, obviously leaving no room for Grey Friars plays on the same day. The craft-plays seem to have been confined to the history of the New Testament (cf. p. 423), but the Ludus Coventriae is not. There is, however, a not very trustworthy bit of evidence which makes it just possible that the Grey Friars did act, not at Corpus Christi, but at Whitsuntide. This is the statement of the Coventry Annals that in 1492-3, Henry VII came to see the plays acted by the Grey Friars⁠[941]. But the Annals only date from the seventeenth century, and they are not trustworthy (cf. p. 358) as to the history of the plays. I incline to think that the Grey Friars connexion is an Oxford guess of Hegge or his friends, which has found its way alike into the accounts of Richard James and Dugdale, and into the Annals. But is the connexion of the plays with Coventry also part of the guess, inspired by the fact that the Coventry mysteries, and these alone, obtained literary notice in the sixteenth century? Or have we Coventry guild-plays to deal with? The Ludus Coventriae is quite distinct from the two extant Coventry plays (p. 422); but those are of the sixteenth century, and appear to represent a recension in 1535 of ‘new plays’ produced, according to the Annals, in 1520 (p. 358). So far as this goes, the Ludus Coventriae might be the discarded fifteenth-century cycle of the Coventry crafts. Ten Brink points out certain features in the Ludus which seem, from the Cappers’ accounts extracted by Sharp, to have existed also at Coventry⁠[942]. On the other hand, the Coventry plays, unlike the Ludus, seem to have been confined to the New Testament. The Ludus does not give those opportunities for showing off artisanship which are characteristic of other craft-cycles⁠[943]. And, strongest of all, while the Coventry plays were processional, a study of the Ludus will make it quite clear that it was intended for a stationary performance. The ‘pagents’ contemplated by the prologue can only be episodes artificially distinguished in a practically continuous action. Often there is no well-marked break between pageant and pageant. The same personages appear and reappear in more than one; and the whole performance evidently takes place in and around a ‘place’ or locus interludii (Halliwell, 44) upon which are situated various ‘scaffolds’ or ‘stages⁠[944],’ a heaven, a hell, a temple, a sepulchrum, and so forth. The navis for Noah is practicable, and can come and go.

If the plays are not from Coventry, can they be located elsewhere? They have been ascribed to Durham, but merely, I think, because Robert Hegge was ‘Dunelmensis.’ Mr. Pollard follows Ten Brink in assigning their dialect and scribal peculiarities to the North-East Midlands, and in ascribing them to a strolling company⁠[945]. They regard ‘N. towne’ in the prologue as a common form (N = ‘nomen,’ as in the Church Catechism and Marriage Service). As to the dialect I offer no opinion; I am sorry not to have been able to see M. Kramer, Sprache und Heimath der Coventry-Plays. But I do not think that the strolling company is proved. The vexillatores may be merely proclaimers of banns sent round the villages hard by the town where the play was given. And ‘N.’ may be an abbreviation for a definite town name. Northampton (q.v.) has been suggested; but would not scan. Norwich (q.v.) would; and these might conceivably be a cycle played by the guild of St. Luke at Norwich before the crafts took the responsibility for the Whitsun plays from it. But the elaborate treatment of the legends of the Virgin suggests a performance, like that of the Lincoln plays, and of the Massacre of the Innocents in the Digby MS., on St. Anne’s day (July 26). It is to be observed that both these examples are in the E. Midland area to which philologists assign the text of the Ludus Coventriae.

Literary Relations.

Ten Brink, ii. 283, calls attention to the composite character of the cycle, in which groups of various origin are placed side by side without much attempt at imposing a literary unity upon them. He thinks, however, that all the plays received their form in the same part of England, and considers the dialect to be that of the North-East Midlands. In a note (iii. 276) he finds an analogy in the treatment of certain themes between the Ludus Coventriae and the Coventry plays proper. Davidson, 259, thinks that the author might have been ‘connected with one of the great religious houses of the Fen District.’ Hohlfeld (Anglia, xi. 219) has some interesting remarks on the cycle. It may be observed that Plays xxx-xxxv in my grouping are evidently taken from a cycle of which only a part was given in each year. The Purification and Presentation in the Temple of the Digby MS. affords a parallel example. Possibly Plays viii-xiii in which, as in Plays xxx-xxxv, Contemplacio appears, have the same source.

Coventry Plays.

[See also account of Ludus Coventriae.]

Manuscripts.

A copy, probably the ‘original’ of the Shearmen and Tailors’ play, was in the possession of Thomas Sharp. It is described in a colophon as ‘T[h]ys matter nevly correcte by Robert Croo the xiiijᵗʰ day of marche fenysschid in the yere of owre lorde god MCCCCC & xxxiiijᵗᵉ [1534/5].’ At the end are three songs, with the date 1591. A similar copy of the Weavers’ play ‘nevly translate be Robert Croo in the yere of oure Lorde God Mlvᶜ xxxiiijᵗᵉ ... yendide the seycond day of Marche in yere above sayde,’ was ‘unexpectedly discovered in 1832,’ and a transcript made by Sharp. This also has songs at the end, but no date. The collections of Sharp passed into the Staunton collection at Longbridge House, and thence into the Shakespeare Memorial Library at Birmingham, where they were burnt in 1879.

Editions.

(a) 1817. Shearmen and Tailors Play. Thos. Sharp in a series, separately paged, of Illustrative Papers of the History and Antiquities the City of Coventry. [Reprinted 1871 under editorship of W. G. Fretton.]

(b) 1825. Shearmen and Tailors’ Play. Reprinted from (a) by Thomas Sharp, with full illustrative matter, in A Dissertation on the Coventry Mysteries, 83.

(c) 1836. Weavers’ Play. J. B. Gracie for the Abbotsford Club.

(d) 1838. Shearmen and Tailors’ Play. William Marriott, English Miracle-Plays.

(e) 1897. Shearmen and Tailors’ Play. Manly, i. 120, from (b).

(f) 1902. Weavers’ Play. Edited from (c) by F. Holthausen, in Anglia, xxv. 209.

(g) 1903. Shearmen and Tailors’ Play. A. W. Pollard, in Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse (English Garner), 245.

(h) Both plays are being edited by H. Craig for the E. E. T. S.

The Cycle.

The Shearmen and Tailors’ Play has a prologue by ‘Isaye the profet.’ Then follow in order, the Annunciation, the Doubt of Joseph, the Journey to Bethlehem, the Nativity and Shepherds, a dialogue of two ‘Profettis,’ Herod and the Magi, the Flight to Egypt, the Massacre of the Innocents. The Weavers’ Play must have followed next in the cycle. It opens with a dialogue of two ‘Profetae’. Then come the Presentation in the Temple and the Dispute with the Elders. The subjects of four of the other plays can be pretty clearly identified. The Smiths’ accounts show them to have played the Trial and Crucifixion, to which was added in 1573 the ‘new play’ of the Death of Judas; the Descent from the Cross passed through various hands from the Pinners and Needlers in 1414 to the Coopers in 1547; the Cappers’ accounts point to the Resurrection, Harrowing of Hell, and Quem quaeritis, with from 1540 the ‘Castell of Emaus’; and those of the Drapers to Doomsday. It is difficult to say how many plays remain unidentified. The crafts were grouped and regrouped, and the total number of plays may have varied. But it would seem that besides the crafts already named, the Mercers, Whittawers, Girdlers, Cardmakers, and Tanners were playing in the middle of the fifteenth century. The ‘jest’ quoted on p. 358 points to a Pentecost play with the ‘xij Articles of the Creed,’ similar to that of Chester. It is noticeable that no Old Testament play can be established at Coventry.

Literary Relations.

These plays, of which the Weavers’ Play was, until recently, difficult to procure, have been but little studied. Two communications by C. Davidson and A. R. Hohlfeld in Modern Language Notes, vii. 184, 308, call attention to the fact that the larger part of the dialogue in the Dispute in the Temple scene is practically the same as that common to the York, Towneley, and Chester plays (cf. York Plays, 158, and A. R. Hohlfeld in Anglia, xi. 260).

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Manuscript.

The Shipwrights’ Play of Noah’s Ark was in the hands of its first editor, Henry Bourne; but is not known to be now preserved (Holthausen, 32).

Editions.

(a) 1736. Noah’s Ark; or, The Shipwrights’ Ancient Play or Dirge; in H. Bourne, Hist. of Newcastle, 139.

(b) 1789. Reprint of (a) in J. Brand, Hist. of Newcastle, ii. 373.

(c) 1825. Reprint of (a) in T. Sharp, Dissertation on Coventry Mysteries, 223.

(d) 1897. F. Holthausen, in Göteborg’s Högskola’s Ärsskrift, and separately.

(e) 1899. R. Brotanek, in Anglia, xxi. 165.

Both (d) and (e) are founded on Bourne’s text; but Brotanek has endeavoured to restore what he considers to have been the probable MS. text. This he dates, conjecturally, at about 1425-50.

The Cycle.

The Shipwrights’ play deals with the Making of the Ark, but stops short of the Deluge. The personages are Deus, Angelus, Diabolus, Noah, Uxor Noah. The subjects of most of the plays of the other crafts can be recovered, as follows:—

Creation of Adam.

Noah’s Ark.

Offering of Isaac.

Israel in Egypt.

Kings of Cologne.

Flight into Egypt.

Baptism.

Last Supper.

Bearing of Cross.

Burial of Christ.

Descent into Hell.

Burial of Our Lady.

Of these, two, the Creation of Adam and the Flight into Egypt, were maintained, in 1454, by one craft, the Bricklayers and Plasterers. The Merchant Adventurers, in 1552, paid for ‘fyve playes, whereof the towne must pay for the ostmen playe.’ There are six guilds whose plays are not known; so that the total number may have been as many as twenty-three⁠[946].

The accounts of the Merchant Adventurers also include in 1554 and 1558 charges in and about ‘Hoggmaygowyk’ or ‘Hogmagoge⁠[947].’ I do not think, with Holthausen, that this was one of the Corpus Christi plays. I think it was a spring or summer folk-feast. One of the London ‘giants’ is Gogmagog.

Norwich.

Manuscript.

The extracts, made early in the seventeenth century from the Grocers’ Book, and in the possession (1856) of Mr. Fitch, included two versions of the play of the Fall. The first was copied into the Book in 1533. It is headed The Story of yᵉ Creac̄on of Eve, wᵗ yᵉ expellyng of Adam & Eve out of Paradyce. It ends with a ‘dullfull song,’ perhaps the ‘newe ballet’ paid for in 1534 (cf. p. 388). It appears to have a lacuna. The second version is ‘newely renvid & accordynge unto yᵉ Skrypture, begon thys yere Aᵒ 1565. Aᵒ 7 Eliz.’ It is quite a new text. It is provided with two speeches by a Prolocutor, one to be used ‘when yᵉ Grocers Pageant is played wᵗ owte eny other goenge befor yᵗ,’ the other for use ‘yf ther goeth eny other Pageants before yᵗ.’ The former speaks of the ‘Pageants apparellyd in Wittson dayes’ that ‘lately be fallen into decayes.’

Editions.

(a) 1856. Robert Fitch in Norfolk Archaeology, v. 8, and separately.

(b) 1897. Manly, i. 1, from (a).

The Cycle.

The Grocers’ play begins in both versions with the creation of Eve. The first ends with the expulsion from Paradise. The dramatis personae are Pater, Adam, Eva, Serpens. In the second is added an Angel, and after the expulsion Adam and Eve depart ‘to yᵉ nether parte of yᵉ Pageants,’ are threatened by Dolor and Myserye, and comforted by the Holy Ghost.

A list, dating probably from 1527, makes it possible to complete the outline of the cycle⁠[948]:—

Creation off the world.

Paradyse [Grocers’ play].

Helle Carte.

Abell & Cain.

Noyse Shipp.

Abraham & Isaak.

Moises & Aaron, with the Children of Israel & Pharo with his Knyghts.

Conflict off David and Golias.

The Birth off Christ with Shepherds and iij Kyngs of Colen.

The Baptysme of Criste.

The Resurrection.

The Holy Gost.

Abraham and Isaac (Dublin MS.).

Manuscript.

Trinity College, Dublin, MS. D. iv. 18, f. 16ᵛ. In the same hand are a list of mayors and bailiffs of North[ampton] up to 1458 and a brief chronicle, in which N[orthampton] recurs.

Editions.

(a) 1836. J. P. Collier, in Five Miracle-Plays.

(b) 1899. R. Brotanek, in Anglia, xxi. 21.

Literary Relations.

The play has probably no connexion with Dublin, beyond the fact that the MS. is there. Brotanek conjectures from the character of the MS. that it belongs to Northampton (cf. p. 386). The dialect appears to be South Midland of about the first half of the fifteenth century, and the text to be based on the corresponding play (xi) in the Viel Testament (Julleville, Les Myst. ii. 363).

Abraham and Isaac (Brome MS.).

Manuscript.

‘The Book of Brome,’ a commonplace book of 1470-80 in the possession of Sir Edward Kerrison of Brome Manor, Norfolk.

Editions.

(a) 1884. L. T. Smith, in Anglia, vii. 316.

(b) 1886. L. T. Smith, in A Commonplace Book of the Fifteenth Century.

(c) 1887. W. Rye, in Norfolk Antiquarian Miscellany, iii. 1.

(d) 1897. Manly, i. 41, from (a) and (b).

Literary Relations.

The play is 465 lines long. There is an epilogue by a Doctor, but no title or prologue, and nothing to show that it was, or was not, part of a cycle. The text is probably derived from a common source with that of the corresponding Chester play: cf. Pollard, 185; A. R. Hohlfeld, in M. L. N. v. 222.

F. Holthausen has some critical notes on the text in Anglia, xiii. 361.

Croxton Play: The Sacrament.

Manuscript.

Trinity College, Dublin, MS. F. 4. 20, of the latter half of the fifteenth century.

Editions.

(a) 1861. Whitley Stokes, in Transactions of Philological Society, 1860-1 (Appendix).

(b) 1897. Manly, i. 239.

There is a prologue by two Vexillatores, ending—

Then comes a title: ‘Here after foloweth the Play of the Conversyon of Ser Jonathas the Jewe by Myracle of the Blyssed Sacrament.’ The play is 927 lines long, with occasional lines in Latin. It ends with a Te Deum. The colophon runs: ‘Thus endyth the Play of the Blyssyd Sacrament, whyche myracle was don in the forest of Aragon, in the famous cite Eraclea, the yere of ower Lord God Mˡcccc.lxi, to whom be honower. Amen!’ This account of the event on which the play is founded is confirmed by ll. 56-60 of the prologue. The date of composition cannot therefore be earlier than 1461, and probably is not much later. After the colophon is a list of the dramatis personae, who are twelve in all, and the note ‘IX may play it at ease,’ signed ‘R.C.’ The name Croxton is common to places in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, and other counties. Further identification may perhaps be helped by ll. 540-1—

The stage-directions imply a ‘place,’ with ‘stages’ for the chief players, a ‘tabyll,’ and a ‘chyrche’ (ll. 149, 288, 305, 445).

F. Holthausen has some textual criticism on the play in Englische Studien, xvi. 150, and Anglia, xv. 198.

Shrewsbury Fragments.

On these, which are transitional between the liturgical play and the miracle-play proper, cf. p. 90.

Digby Plays.

[Authorities.—The best edition is that of Dr. Furnivall. The careful study by K. Schmidt, published partly as a Berlin dissertation (1884), partly in Anglia, viii (1885), 371, should be consulted.]

Manuscript.

Bodleian Digby MS. 133. The dramatic contents of this composite manuscript are as follows:—(i) f. 37. The Conversion of St. Paul. This is written in a single hand, except that a second has inserted on f. 45 a scene between two devils, Belial and Mercury. At the end (f. 50ᵛ), is ‘ffinis conuercionis sancti pauli.’ There is a prologue, headed Poeta, against which has been written in a later hand ‘Myles Blomefylde.’ Schmidt, Diss. 6, identifies a Miles Blomefylde as a monk of Bury born in 1525. (ii) f. 95. St. Mary Magdalen, written in the second hand of (i). At the beginning are the initials M. B.; at the end (f. 145) ‘Explycit oreginale de sancta Maria magdalena.’ (iii) f. 146. Massacre of Innocents and Purification, written in the first hand of (i). At the beginning is ‘candelmes day & the kyllynge of the children of Israell, anno domini 151’; at the end ‘Anno domini Millesimo, cccccxij,’ and after a list of ‘The Namys of the Pleyers’ the entry ‘Ihon Parfre ded wryte thys booke.’ None of these notes seem to be in the hand of the text. (iv) f. 158. Fragment of morality of Mind, Will, and Understanding, found complete in the Macro MS. (cf. p. 437), in a hand apparently distinct from those of (i), (ii), (iii). This also has ‘M. B.’ at the beginning.—The texts in the MS. are probably early sixteenth-century copies of late fifteenth-century plays. There is nothing to show that Parfre or Blomfield was concerned in the authorship. They may have been the copyists. If Blomfield was really the monk of Bury born in 1525, he was probably only an owner of the MS.

Editions.

(a) 1773. Massacre of Innocents, in T. Hawkins, Origin of the English Drama.

(b) 1835. Massacre of Innocents, Conversion of St. Paul, St. Mary Magdalen, in T. Sharp, Ancient Mysteries from the Digby Manuscripts (Abbotsford Club).

(c) 1838. Massacre of Innocents, in W. Marriott, English Miracle-Plays.

(d) 1882. Complete series in F. J. Furnivall, The Digby Mysteries (New Shakspere Soc., reprinted in 1896 for E. E. T. S.).

(e) 1890. St. Mary Magdalen (part only), from (d), in Pollard, 49.

(f) 1897. Conversion of St. Paul, from (d), in Manly, i. 215.

The Plays.

The plays appear to have been accidentally brought together in one MS., and should be treated separately for the purposes of literary history.

A. Conversion of St. Paul.

Schmidt, Diss. 28, assigns this to an East Midland author, and a Southern scribe. The play opens with a prologue by the Poeta who speaks of ‘owr processe.’ In the first scene or ‘station,’ Saul starts for Damascus and ‘rydyth forth with hys seruantes a-bout the place & owt of the place.’ There is a ‘conclusyon’ by the ‘Poeta—si placet,’—

After a stage-direction ‘ffinis Istius stacionis, et altera sequitur,’ the Poeta introduces another ‘prosses,’—

This scene takes place outside and in Damascus. There is a tempest, and ‘godhed spekyth in heuyn.’ Saul meets Ananias, and ‘thys stacion’ is concluded by the Poeta, and ‘ffinis istius secunde stacionis et sequitur tarcia.’

Again the Poeta calls on the audience ‘To vnderstond thys pagent at thys lytyll stacion.’ Saul returns to Jerusalem, preaches and plans to escape over the wall in a basket. Here the later hand inserted the devil scene. The Poeta has his ‘Conclusyo,’ which ends:—

The play, but for the devil scene, follows closely the biblical narrative. It was probably written for a small village, and for scene had a platea, and two loca, for Damascus and Jerusalem (with possibly a third for heaven). The audience moved with the actors from one ‘station’ or ‘pageant’ to the other, and back again. A later hand has inserted marginal directions for a ‘Daunce’ at various points in the speeches of the Poeta.

B. St. Mary Magdalen.

Schmidt, Anglia, viii. 385, assigns this to a West Midland author and Kentish scribe. Furnivall, 53, thinks the dialect East Midland. The plot covers the whole legendary life of the Magdalen, as it appears in the Golden Legend. The characters are very numerous, and include Satan and other devils, with allegorical figures such as the ‘Kyngs of the World and the Flesch’ and the ‘Seven Dedly Synnes.’ The action is not in any way divided in the manuscript, and implies an elaborate stationary mise en scène with various loca. These include the ‘castell of Maudleyn’ or Magdalum, thrones for the Imperator, who opens the play by calling for silence, Herod and Pilate, ‘a stage, and Helle ondyr-neth that stage’ for ‘the prynse of dylles,’ Jerusalem with a ‘place,’ an ‘erbyr’ or arbour, a tavern, the ‘howse of symont leprovs,’ a sepulchrum for Lazarus, and another for the Quem quaeritis and Hortulanus scenes which are introduced, a palace for the King of ‘Marcylle’ (Marseilles), a heathen temple, a ‘hevyne’ able to open, a lodge for the Magdalen in Marcylle, another castle, a rock, and a wilderness. There is also a practicable ship which goes to and from Marcylle (l. 1395 ‘Here xall entyre a shyp with a mery song’; l. 1445 ‘Her goth the shep owt of the place’; l. 1717 ‘Ett tunc navis venit in placeam’; l. 1797 ‘tunc remigat a montem’; l. 1879 ‘et tunc navis venit adcirca plateam’; l. 1915 ‘et tunc remigant a monte’; l. 1923 ‘Here goth the shep owȝt ofe the place’). The play ends with a Te Deum; but the following lines, added after the Explicit, suggest that the author had readers as well as spectators in mind:—

C. Massacre of the Innocents.

Assigned by Schmidt, Diss. 18, to a Midland author and Southern scribe. Against the title of the play has been written, in a hand identified as that of the chronicler Stowe, ‘the vij booke.’ Evidently the play was one of a series, spread over successive years, and given on Saint Anne’s day (July 26). This is shown by the opening speech of a Poeta, from which I extract:—

The action includes the Wrath of Herod, with a comic knight, Watkin, the Flight into Egypt, the Massacre of the Innocents, the Death of Herod, the Purification. The stage-directions mention a ‘place’ and a ‘tempill.’ In the latter are the virgins, who ‘tripident’ with Anne at the end. The Poeta excuses the ‘rude eloquens’ and ‘sympyll cunnyng’ of his company, promises ‘the disputacion of the doctours’ for next year, and calls on the minstrels and virgins for a final dance.

D. Morality of Wisdom.

See Texts (ii), s.v. Macro Morals.

Burial and Resurrection.

Manuscript.

Bodleian MS. e Museo, 160, f. 140. Furnivall, vii. 166, asserts that this once formed part of the Digby MS. 133, but offers no proof. The copy seems to date from the early fifteenth century. After the Explicit, in a later hand, is ‘written by me ...’; unfortunately the name is torn off. Lines here and there in the earlier part of the piece have been crossed out.

Editions.

(a) 1843. Wright and Halliwell, Reliquiae Antiquae, ii. 124.

(b) 1882. F. J. Furnivall, The Digby Plays, 171 (New Shakspere Soc., reprinted 1896 for E. E. T. S.).

See study by K. Schmidt in Anglia, viii. 393.

The Play.

Schmidt assigns the play to a writer whose dialect was a mixture of Northern and East Midland forms; Morris to a Northern author and West Midland scribe. Ten Brink, ii. 287, also thinks it to be Northern, and to date from 1430-60. Apparently the author set out to write, not a drama, but a narrative poem, mainly in dialogue. The first fifteen lines are headed ‘The prologe of this treyte or meditatione off the buryalle of Criste & mowrnynge therat,’ and contain a request to ‘Rede this treyte.’ The first 419 lines have a few narrative phrases introducing the speeches, such as ‘Said Maudleyn,’ ‘Said Joseph.’ At this point the writer seems to have stopped these, crossed out such as he had already written, and inserted in the margin of his second page,—

‘This is a play to be playede, on part on gudfriday after-none, & the other part opon Esterday after the resurrectione, In the morowe, but at the begynnynge ar certene lynes [the prologue] which must not be saide if it be plaiede, which (... a line cut off).’

The Good Friday scene is an elaborate planctus. It is opened by Joseph of Arimathea, and the three Maries. Then comes Nicodemus, and the body of Christ is taken from the cross. The Virgin Mary enters with St. John, and the planctus is resumed. The body is laid in the sepulchre, and the scene is closed with—

The Easter morning scene begins with—

It contains a Quem quaeritis, a scene of lamentation between Peter, Andrew, and John, a Hortulanus, with a second apparition to all three Maries. They sing the first part of the Victimae paschali, ‘in cantifracto vel saltem in pallinodio,’ and the Apostles come in for the dialogue part. Then the tidings are announced, and Peter and John visit the sepulchre; after which, ‘Tunc cantant omnes simul Scimus Christum vell aliam sequentiam aut ympnum de resurrectione.’

Unidentified Plays.

(i) C. Hastings, Le Théâtre Français et Anglais, 167, says:—

‘Il existe, en plus des quatre cycles de Mystères dont nous avons parlé dans les chapitres précédents, une cinquième collection (manuscrit), propriété d’un simple particulier, M. Nicholls.’

(ii) W. C. Hazlitt, Manual for the Collector and Amateur of Old English Plays, 274, says:—

‘Mr. F. S. Ellis told me (Dec. 10, 1864) that a gentleman at Leipsic then had a fragment of a large sheet on which was printed in types formed from a block and of a very large size an English Miracle-Play. In its perfect state it seems to have been intended to attach to a church door or any other suitable place.’

Cornwall.

i. Origo Mundi: Passio Domini: Resurrexio Domini.

Manuscripts.

(i) Bodl. MS. 791. Fifteenth century, with some alterations and additional stage-directions in a later hand. The text is Cornish, not earlier in date than the fourteenth century. Mr. Pedler (Norris, ii. 506) puts it, not very convincingly, at the end of the thirteenth.

(ii) Bodl. MS. 28,556. Seventeenth-century copy of (i), with an English translation of the larger part of the text by John Keigwyn, of Mousehole, 1695.

Edition.

1859. In Edwin Norris, The Ancient Cornish Drama, from (i), with modern translation by the editor.

Analysis.

The text forms three dramas, intended, as the closing words of the first two show, for performance on three consecutive days. At the end of each is a diagram of the disposition of the pulpita or tenti (cf. p. 391) for the day. The action on each day is continuous, but for the sake of comparison I divide it into scenes. These are sometimes indicated by a Hic incipit or similar formula.

(1) Hic Incipit Ordinale de Origine Mundi.

Fall of Lucifer (line 48).

Creation and Fall of Man (1-437).

Cain and Abel (438-633).

Seth in Paradise, and Death of Adam (634-916).

Noah and the Flood (917-1258).

Abraham and Isaac (1259-1394).

Moses and the Exodus (1395-1708).

Moses in the Wilderness (1709-1898).

David and the Rods (1899-2104).

David and Bathsheba (2105-2376).

Building of the Temple (2377-2628).

Prophecy of Maximilia (2629-2778).

Bridge over Cedron (2779-2824).

The diagram gives Celum, Tortores, Infernum, Rex Pharao, Rex Dauid, Rex Sal[omon], Abraham, Ortus.

(2) Hic Incipit Passio Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi.

Temptation (1-172).

Entry into Jerusalem (173-330).

Cleansing of the Temple (331-392).

Healing of Bartimaeus (393-454).

Jesus in House of Simon the Leper (455-552).

Conspiracy of Jews (533-584).

Treachery of Judas (585-616).

Last Supper (617-930).

Gethsemane (931-1200).

Jesus before Caiaphas (1200-1504).

Remorse and Death of Judas (1505-1566).

Jesus before Pilate (1567-1616).

Jesus before Herod (1617-1816).

Condemnation (1817-2533), including—

Dream of Pilate’s Wife (1907-1968, 2193-2212).

Cross brought from Cedron (2534-2584).

Bearing of the Cross (2585-2662).

Crucifixion (2663-2840).

Casting of Lots (2841-2860).

Death of Jesus (2861-3098), including—

Planctus Mariae (2925-2954).

Longinus (3003-3030).

Harrowing of Hell (3031-3078).

Descent from Cross (3099-3201).

Burial (3202-3216).

The diagram gives Celum, Tortores, Doctores, Pilatus, Herodes, Princeps Annas, Cayaphas, Centurio.

(3) Hic Incipit Ordinale de Resurrexione Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi.

Release of Joseph and Nicodemus (1-96, 307-334, 625-662).

Harrowing of Hell, resumed (97-306).

Setting of Watch (335-422).

Resurrection (423-678).

Quem quaeritis (679-834).

Hortulanus (835-892).

Incredulity of Thomas (893-1230, 1345-1586).

Peregrini (1231-1344).

Death of Pilate (1587-2360), including—

Veronica and Tiberius (1587-2360).

Ascension (2361-2630).

The diagram gives Celum, Tortores, Infernum, Pilatus, Imperator, Josep Abar[imat], Nichodemus, Milites.

At the end of (1) and (3) the minstrels are directed to pipe for a dance.

Locality.

Mr. Norris prints an opinion of Mr. Pedler that the place-names suggest the neighbourhood of Penrhyn, and that the plays may have been composed in the collegiate house, hard by, of Glasney.

ii. Creation of the World.

Manuscripts.

(i) Bodl. 219, with colophon ‘Heare endeth the Creacion of the worlde wᵗʰ noyes flude wryten by William Jordan: the xiiᵗʰ of August, 1611.’ The text is Cornish, with English stage-directions containing forms earlier than 1611.

(ii) Bodl. 31,504 (MS. Corn. C. 1). Copy of (i), with English translation by John Keigwyn, 1693, written by ‘H. Usticke.’

(iii) Harl. 1867. Similar copy of (i), with Keigwyn’s translation.

(iv) MS. belonging (in 1864) to J. C. Hotten the bookseller, containing also a copy of the narrative Passion or Mount Calvary.

Editions.

(a) 1827. The Creation of the World, with Noah’s Flood. Edited from (iii) by Davies Gilbert (with Keigwyn’s translation).

(b) 1864. Gwreans an Bys. The Creation of the World. Edited from (i), with a [new] translation by Whitley Stokes, as appendix to Transactions of Philological Society (1863).

The Play.

The text is headed ‘The first daie [of] yᵉ playe’ and ends with a direction to minstrels to pipe for dancing, and an invitation to return on the morrow to see the Redemption. It is, therefore, probably unfinished. It appears to be based, with certain additions, on the Origo Mundi. It is continuous, but may be divided as follows:—

Creation and Fall of Lucifer (1-334).

Temptation and Fall (335-1055).

Cain and Abel. Birth of Seth (1056-1430).

Death of Cain (1431-1726).

Visit of Seth to Paradise (1727-1964).

Death of Adam (1965-2093).

Seth and Enoch (2094-2210).

Noah’s Flood (2211-2530).

iii. St. Meriasek.

Manuscript.

In Hengwrt MSS. of Mr. Wynne at Peniarth. Cornish Ordinale de Vita Sancti Mereadoci Episcopi et Confessoris, written by ‘dominus Hadton’ in 1504. At the end is a circular diagram.

Edition.

1872. Beunans Meriasek: The Life of Saint Meriasek. Edited and translated by Whitley Stokes.

Locality.

Mr. Stokes suggests Camborne, of which place St. Meriasek was patron. The play invokes St. Meriasek and St. Mary of Camborne at the close.

II. POPULAR MORALITIES.

The Pride of Life.

Manuscript.

Written in two hands of the first half of the fifteenth century on blank spaces of a Computus of Holy Trinity Priory, Dublin, for 1343, preserved in the Irish Record Office, Dublin (Christ Church collection).

Editions.

1891. J. Mills in Proceedings of Royal Soc. of Antiquaries of Ireland.

1898. Brandl, 2.

Cf. H. Morley, English Writers, vii. 1730.

The play was probably written early in the fifteenth century. The dialect is that of the South of England, not far from London, modified by Northern scribes.

Only a fragment (502 ll.) is preserved, but a prologue gives the plot. There is no title; but ‘[A mens]ke gam schal gyn & ende’ (l. 7), and ‘[Of Kyng of] lif I wol ȝou telle’ (l. 17). The extant characters are Rex Vivus, Primus Miles Fortitudo, Secundus Miles Sanitas, Regina, Nuntius Mirth, Episcopus. The King rejoices with Mirth and his soldiers, and Queen and Bishop vainly call on him to repent. Later in the play Death and Life strove for the King, and Death took him. He was claimed by the ‘ffendis,’ but ‘oure lady mylde’ prayed to have him.

The play was out of doors (l. 10); the King had a tentorium which could be closed (l. 306); the Bishop sat on his ‘se’ (sedes); and so probably with the other actors, except Mirth, who perhaps came in ‘oure þe lake’ (l. 269); cf. Brandl, xix.

Macro Morals.

Manuscripts.

(a) Macro MS., formerly in the possession of Mr. Cox Macro, now in that of Mr. Gurney, of Keswick Hall, Norfolk. The MS. appears from a gloss in Mankind (l. 674; cf. Brandl, xxvi), naming King Edward, to have been written during the reign of Edward IV (1461-1483). At the end of two of the plays is the name of Hyngham, a monk, to whom the MS. belonged.

(b) Digby MS. 133, on which cf. p. 428, has on f. 158 the first 754 lines of Mind, Will, and Understanding. The handwriting is said to be the same as that of the Macro MS. (Collier, ii. 207).

[A complete edition of the three moralities of the Macro MS. has long been contemplated by the E. E. T. S.]

i. The Castle of Perseverance.

Edition.

1890. Pollard, 64 (408 lines only).

Pollard dates the play not later than the middle of the reign of Henry VI. It contains about 3,500 lines.

The subject is the struggle of good and bad qualities for Humanum Genus. On the one side are Malus Angelus and Mundus, Belial, and Caro, aided by the Seven Deadly Sins and Voluptas, Stultitia, Detractio: on the other Bonus Angelus, with Confessio, Schrift, Penitencia, and the Six Divine Graces. Amongst other episodes Humanum Genus is besieged in the Castle of Perseverance. At the end Misericordia, Iustitia, Pax, Veritas, dispute in heaven, and Pater sedens in trono inclines to mercy.

The indications of mise en scène are very valuable. On the first leaf of the MS. is a diagram of the playing place, reproduced by Sharp, 23. There is a large circle with a double circumference, in which is written, ‘This is the watyr a bowte the place, if any dyche may be mad ther it schal be pleyed; or ellys that it be stronglye barryd al a bowte: & lete nowth ower many stytelerys be withinne the plase.’ Within the circle is a rude representation of a castle, and above, ‘This is the castel of perseveranse that stondyth in the myddys of the place; but lete no men sytte ther for lettynge of syt, for ther schal be the best of all.’ Beneath the castle is a small bed, with the legend, ‘Mankynde is bed schal be under the castel, & ther schal the sowle lye under the bed tyl he schal ryse & pleye.’ At the side is a further direction, ‘Coveytyse cepbord schal be at the ende of the castel, be the beddys feet.’ Outside the circle are written five directions for scaffolds, ‘Sowth, Caro skaffold—West, Mundus skaffold—Northe, Belial skaffold—North Est, Coveytyse skaffold—Est, deus skaffold.’ At the foot of the page are some notes for costume: ‘& he that schal pley belyal, loke that he have gunne powder brennyng in pypys in his hands and in his ers, and in his ars whanne he gothe to batayle. The iiij dowters schul be clad in mentelys, Mercy in wyth, rythwysnesse in red al togedyr, Trewthe in sad grene, & Pes al in blake, and they schul pleye in the place al to gedyr tyl they brynge up the sowle.’

There is a prologue by two vexillatores, who declare—

They add that they will ‘be onward be underne of the day’ (9 a.m.).

ii. Mind, Will, and Understanding.

Editions.

1835. T. Sharp, Ancient Mysteries (Abbotsford Club, 754 lines from Digby MS.).

1837. W. B. D. D. Turnbull (Abbotsford Club, the rest from Macro MS.).

1882. F. J. Furnivall, Digby Plays, 139 (754 lines only).

Lucifer seduces Mind, Will, and Understanding. These are the three parts of Anima, who enters with devils running from under her skirts. Everlasting Wisdom effects a re-conversion. There are a number of mute persons attendant on the chief characters, whose coming and going, ‘dysgysyde,’ create scenic effects, as in a masque. There are minstrels and a hornpipe, songs and dances. At one point Lucifer snatches up ‘a shrewde boy’ (perhaps from the audience), and carries him off. An allusion to the Holborn quest suggests a London origin, but Schmidt (Anglia, viii. 390) thinks the dialect to be that of the north border of the West Midlands.

iii. Mankind.

Editions.

1897. Manly, i. 315.

1898. Brandl, 37.

The text is 901 lines long. A list of place-names (l. 491) makes it probable that it belongs to the borders of Norfolk and Cambridgeshire.

Mercy and Mischief, the latter helped by Nought, New Gyse, Nowadays, and the devil Titivillus, essay in turns to win the soul of Mankind.

The scene is divided. Part represents a tavern, of which Titivillus is host; part a ‘deambulatorye’ outside. A reference to the spectators (l. 29) runs, ‘O ȝe souerens, þat sytt, and ȝe brotherne, þat stonde ryghte wppe’: cf. Brandl, xxxii.

The Summoning of Everyman.

Editions.

[1509-1530.] Richard Pynson (fragment in B. M.).

[1509-1530.] Richard Pynson (fragment in Bodl.).

[1521-1537.] John Skot. ‘Here begynneth a treatyse how the hye fader of heuen sendeth dethe to somon euery creature to come and gyue a counte of theyr lyues in this Worlde, and is in maner of a morall playe’ (B. M. and Huth Library).

[1529-1537.] John Skot (in St. Paul’s Churchyard).

There are modern editions by Hawkins (1773, vol. i), Gödeke (1865), Hazlitt-Dodsley (1874. vol. i), Pollard (1890, part only, and in full in Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, 1903), H. Logeman, Elckerlijk and Everyman (1892), F. Sidgwick (1902). Another is announced in a series edited by I. Gollancz.

There are about 900 lines. Pollard, 202, assigns the text to the end of the fifteenth century; Ten Brink, ii. 302, to the reign of Edward IV. Prof. H. Logeman, Elckerlijk (1892), argues the play to be an English version of the closely similar Dutch Elckerlijk, attributed to Petrus Dorlandus of Diest, but K. H. de Raaf, Spyeghel der Salicheyt van Elckerlijk (1897), would invert the relation: cf. Brandl, xiv. The characters are Messenger, God, Death, Everyman, Fellowship, Kindred, Goods, Good Deeds, Knowledge, Confession, Beauty, Strength, Discretion, Five Wits, Angel, Doctor. The Messenger prologizes. God sends Death for Everyman, who finds that no one will accompany him save Good Deeds. The Doctor epilogizes. There are no indications of the mise en scène, except that there was a central scaffold for the ‘House of Salvation’ (Gödeke, 174, 200, cf. Brandl, xx).

The World and the Child.

Editions.

An Oxford bookseller, John Dorne, had a copy of ‘mundus, a play’ in 1520⁠[949].

1522. Wynkyn de Worde. ‘Here begynneth a propre newe Interlude of the Worlde and the chylde, otherwyse called (Mundus & Infans)....’

1523. Wynkyn de Worde.

There are a reprint by Lord Althorp (Roxburghe Club, 1817) and modern editions in Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. i; Manly, i. 353.

The dramatis personae are Mundus or the World, Infans or Dalliance or Wanton or Love-Lust and Liking or Manhood or Shame or Age or Repentance, Conscience, Folly, Perseverance. The representative of Man in various ages is alternately won over to good and evil. There are 979 lines. Collier, ii. 224; Pollard, li, assign the play to the reign of Henry VII; Brandl, xlii, thinks that the use of the Narrenmotif points to a date of composition not long before that of publication. Mundus says, ‘Here I sette semely in se’ (l. 22), and Manhood ‘Here in this sete sytte I’ (l. 285).

John Skelton. (Magnificence.)

Skelton was born, probably in Norfolk, about 1460. He studied at Cambridge and acquired fame as a scholar. Both universities honoured him with the degree of poeta laureatus. He was tutor to Henry VIII as a boy, and became rector of Diss in Norfolk. But he died in sanctuary at Westminster (1529), driven there on account of his bitter satires against Wolsey. In his Garland of Laurell (pr. 1523), a late work, he has a list of his writings, including—

Bale, Scriptores, i. 652, ascribes to him Comoediam de uirtute, Lib. 1; De magnificentia comoediam, Lib. 1; Theatrales ludos, Lib. 1; De bono or dine comoediam, Lib. 1. Magnificence is, however, his only extant play.

Warton (Hazlitt-Warton, iii. 287) describes a piece shown him by William Collins, the poet, at Chichester, about 1759. He says:—

‘It is the Nigramansir, a morall Enterlude and a pithie, written by Maister Skelton laureate, and plaid before the King and other estatys at Woodstoke on Palme Sunday. It was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in a thin quarto, in the year 1504. It must have been presented before Henry VII, at the royal manor or palace at Woodstock in Oxfordshire, now destroyed. The characters are a Necromancer or conjurer, the devil, a notary public, Simony, and Philargyria or Avarice. It is partly a satire on some abuses in the church.... The story, or plot, is the trial of Simony and Avarice.’

Warton proceeds to describe the action at some length. Nothing further is known of the play. Ritson, Bibliographia Poetica, 106, said ‘it is utterly incredible that the Nigramansir ... ever existed,’ and Mr. H. E. D. Blakiston (Eng. Hist. Rev. for April, 1896) has called attention to several cases in which Warton showed mala fides as a literary historian. In another place (iii. 310) Warton incidentally calls the piece ‘Skelton’s The Trial of Simonie.’ E. G. Duff, Hand Lists of English Printers, Part i, knows of no extant copy.

Magnificence.

Editions.

[1529-1533.] John Rastell. ‘Magnyfycence, a goodly interlude and a mery, deuysed and made by mayster Skelton, poet laureate, late deceasyd.’ Folio.

1533. John Rastell. Quarto.

1821. J. Littledale (Roxburghe Club).

1843. A. Dyce, Poetical Works of Skelton, i. 225.

1890. Pollard, 106 (extract).

The characters are Felicity, Liberty, Measure, Magnificence, Fancy, Counterfeit Countenance, Crafty Countenance, Cloked Collusion, Courtly Abusion, Folly, Adversity, Poverty, Despair, Mischief, Good Hope, Redress, Sad Circumspection, Perseverance. The plot shows Magnificence brought low by evil counsellors, and restored by good ones. The players come in and out of ‘the place.’ There are 2,596 lines. The play was written later than 1515, as a reference to the liberality of the dead Louis of France (l. 283) must intend Louis XII who died in that year, not the niggard Louis XI.

Sir David Lyndsay. (Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis.)

Sir David Lyndsay ‘of the Mount’ in Fifeshire was born in 1490. By 1511 he was employed in the royal household, first as an actor or musician, then as ‘Keeper of the Kingis Grace’s person.’ In 1529 he became Lyon King at Arms, a post which included the charge of court entertainments. His satire did not spare the church, and he seems to have been in sympathy with Knox and other reformers, but he did not so far commit himself as to endanger his office, which he held until his death in 1555.

The Thrie Estaitis.

Performances.

(i) Jan. 6, 1540, Linlithgow, before James V. This performance, the first of which there is any satisfactory evidence, was described by Sir W. Eure in a letter to Cromwell (Ellis, Original Letters, 3rd Series, iii. 275; Brewer-Gairdner, xv. 36), enclosing a ‘Copie of the Nootes of the Interluyde.’ The version seems to have been different from that now extant. ‘Solaice’ figured as the presenter. Eure mentions the ‘scaffald’ and ‘the interluyds of the Play.’ He adds that, as a result, James V admonished the Bishops to reform their ways.

(ii) June 7 (Whit-Tuesday), 1552, Cupar of Fife. The Bannatyne MS. (see below) has the ‘Proclamation maid at Cowpar of Fyffe, upon the Castell-hill, 7 June, beginning at seven.’ This was therefore the extant version. The year is fixed by an incidental reference to the day (June 7) as Whit-Tuesday.

(iii) 1554 (?), Edinburgh. Henry Charteris, in his preface to Lyndsay’s Warkis of 1568 (Laing, iii. 231), says of the ‘makar’s’ relations to the clergy, ‘Sic ane spring he gaif thame in the Play, playit besyde Edinburgh, in presence of the Quene Regent, and are greit part of the Nobilitie, with ane exceding greit nowmer of pepill, lestand fra ix houris afoir none till vj houris at evin.’ The Bannatyne MS. gives the play as ‘maid in the Grenesyd besyd Edinburgh,’ and ‘in anno 155-ȝeiris.’ Cf. Appendix W, p. 366.

Editions.

(a) 1602. Robert Charteris. ‘Ane satyre of the thrie estaits, in commendation of vertew in vituperation of vyce. Maid be Sir Dauid Lindesay of the Mont, alias, Lyon King of Armes.’

Diligence, as presenter, summons the three estates before Rex Humanitas. Many ‘Vycis’ and other allegorical personages appear before the Rex on his ‘royall sait.’ In ll. 1288-1411 comes the first interlude (although the term is not used in the text) of ‘The Sowtar and Tailor.’ At l. 1931 is the ‘End of the First Part of the Satyre,’ with the direction, ‘Now sall the Pepill mak collatioun: then beginnis the Interlude: the Kings, Bischops, and principal Players being out of their seats.’ This interlude introduces the Pauper, Pardoner, Sowtar, and others. Part ii begins at l. 2298. At l. 4283, ‘Heir sall enter Folie,’ and at l. 4483, ‘Heir sall Folie begin his Sermon, as followis.’ The theme is, of course, Stultorum numerus infinitus, and at the close the preacher names recipients of his ‘Follie Hattis or Hudes’ (cf. ch. xvi). At l. 4629, the people are finally dismissed to dance and drink, Diligence calling on a minstrel.

(b) †1568. Bannatyne MS. (ed. Hunterian Club, 1873-1896, Part iv).

George Bannatyne included in his collection of pieces by the Scots ‘makaris’ (a) the ‘Proclamation’ at Cupar of Fife (see above), (b) a preliminary interlude, not in Charteris’s edition, of a Cottar, an Auld Man and his Wife, a ‘Fuill,’ &c.; (c) seven extracts from the play, headed, ‘Heir begynnis Schir Dauid Lyndsay Play maid in the Grenesyd besyd Edinburgh, quhilk I writtin bot schortly be Interludis, levand the grave mater thereof, becaws the samyne abuse is weill reformit in Scotland, praysit be God, quhairthrow I omittit that principall mater and writtin only Sertane mirry Interludis thairof verry pleasand, begynnyng at the first part of the Play.’

1869. F. Hall, Works of Lindsay, Pt. iv (E. E. T. S. o. s. 37).

1879. D. Laing, Works of Lindsay, vol. ii.

[Other editions are enumerated by Laing, iii. 259. There is an analysis of the play in T. F. Henderson, Scottish Vernacular Literature, 219.]

III. TUDOR MAKERS OF INTERLUDES.

Henry Medwall.

Medwall was chaplain to John Morton, cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury (1486-1500), who is probably the ‘my lord’ of Nature, i. 1438. Besides Nature, he wrote an interlude ‘of the fyndyng of Troth, who was carried away by ygnoraunce and ypocresy,’ played by the King’s players before Henry VIII at Richmond on Jan. 6, 1514. The ‘foolys part’ was the best, but the play was too long to please the King (cf. p. 201). See also s.v. Lucrece (p. 458).

Nature.

Editions.

[1530-4.] William Rastell. ‘A goodly interlude of Nature compyled by mayster Henry Medwall,’ &c.

1898. Brandl, 73.

There are two ‘partes’ of the ‘processe’ (i. 1434). The first (1439 ll.) has Mundus, Worldly Affection, Man, Nature, Innocency, Reason, Sensuality, Privy Council, Pride, a Boy, Shamefastness. In the second (1421 ll.), on a different day, some of these recur, with Bodily Lust, Wrath, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, Humility, Charity, Abstinence, Liberality, Chastity, Good Occupation, and Patience. The personages come in and out at ‘dorys’ (i. 728) and sit down on ‘stole’ or ‘chayr.’ There was also a fire (ii. 518 sqq.). Probably the scene was in a room. At the end ‘they syng some goodly ballet.’

John Heywood.

John Heywood was born either in London or at North Mimms in Hertfordshire, about 1497. He is claimed as a member of Broadgates Hall, afterwards Pembroke College, Oxford. From about 1515 he was employed at Court; in 1519 he is called a ‘singer,’ later a ‘player at virginals,’ and finally he was master of a company of children, possibly the singing-school of St. Paul’s. His advancement with Henry VIII and the Princess Mary is ascribed to Sir Thomas More, whose kinsman he became. More’s sister Elizabeth married John Rastell, lawyer and printer. John Heywood’s wife was their granddaughter, Elizabeth. It may be added that their daughter, another Elizabeth, was the mother of John Donne. Heywood took More’s line in Church matters, but conformed to the Act of Supremacy. He was in high favour under Mary, and at her death retired to Malines. He was alive in 1577, but dead in 1587.

Heywood’s extant interludes are all early work; although Bale, writing in 1557 (Scriptores, ed. 2, ii. 110), only ascribes to him De Aura, comoediam; De Amore, tragoediam; De quadruplici P. The Pardoner and Friar, which mentions Leo X as alive, must be before 1521. Love and the Four Ps may be about as early: the rest may belong to the following decade (Brandl, li). In 1538 Heywood showed a play of children before Mary (Madden, 62). In 1539, Wolsey paid him for a masque of Arthur’s Knights, or Divine Providence, at court (Brewer, xiv. (2) 782). In 1553 he set out a play of children at court (Loseley MSS. 89). At Mary’s coronation he sat in a pageant under a vine against the school in St. Paul’s Churchyard and made speeches (Holinshed (1808), iv. 6).

See W. Swododa, J. Heywood als Dramatiker (1888).

Plays.

i. The Pardoner and the Friar.

Editions.

1533. Wyllyam Rastell. ‘A mery Play betwene the pardoner and the frere, the curate and neybour Pratte.’

There are modern editions in F. J. Child, Four Old Plays (1848); Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. i; Pollard, 114 (extract).

The scene of the action is supposed to be a church. About 1,000 lines. The date of composition was under Leo X (1513-1521).

ii. Love.

Editions.

1533. William Rastell. ‘A play of loue, A newe and mery enterlude concerning pleasure and payne in loue, made by Ihon̄ Heywood.’

[Unique copy in Magd. Coll., Camb. See Greg, Plays, 143.]

[1546-1586.] John Waley.

[Unique copy, without title-page, in Bodl., bound with Weather and Four Ps. (Bodl. 4ᵒ, P. 33, Jur.). Copies of these three plays, with one now lost, of ‘Old Custom,’ are mentioned in an inventory of the effects of John, Earl of Warwick, 1545-1550 (Hist. MSS. ii. 102).]

1898. Brandl, 159.

Little more than a series of disputations between Lover Loved, Lover not Loved, Loved not Loving, and No Lover nor Loved. There are 1,573 lines. Towards the end, ‘Here the vyse cometh in ronnynge sodenly aboute the place among the audiens with a hye copyn tank on his bed full of squybs fyred.’

iii. Four Ps.

Editions.

[1541-1547.] William Myddleton. ‘The playe called the foure P. P. A newe and very mery enterlude of A palmer. A pardoner. A poticary. A pedler. Made by Iohn Heewood.’

[1549-1569.] William Copland.

1569. John Allde.

There are modern editions in W. Scott, Ancient British Drama, vol. i (1810): Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. i; Manly, i. 483.

[Copyright, with that of Love and Weather transferred, Jan. 15, 1582, from late Sampson Awdeley to John Charlwood (Arber, ii. 405). The Four Pees is mentioned with other early plays in Sir Thomas More (Shakes. Soc. 1844).]

There are no indications of mise en scène. There are 1,236 lines.

iv. Weather.

Editions.

1533. William Rastell. ‘The Play of the wether. A new and very mery enterlude of all maner wethers made by Iohn̄ Heywood.’

[1564-1576.] Anthony Kytson.

1898. Brandl, 211.

1903. Gayley, 19.

The characters are Jupiter, Merry Report, ‘the vyce,’ Gentleman, Merchant, Ranger, Water Miller, Wind Miller, Gentlewoman, Launder, A Boy (‘the lest that can play’). All in turn petition different weather from Jupiter. The piece is 1,255 lines long. Jupiter has his ‘thron’ (l. 179).

v. John, Tib and Sir John.

Editions.

1533/4. William Rastell. ‘A mery play between Iohan Iohan the husbande, Tyb his wyfe and Syr Ihān the preest.’

1819. Chiswick Press.

1898. Brandl, 259.

1903. Gayley, 61.

The action proceeds in the ‘place’ (l. 667), which represents Johan’s house with a fire (ll. 399, 460). The door of the priest’s chamber is also visible (ll. 316, 673). There are 680 lines.

vi. Witty and Witless.

Manuscript.

Harl. MS. 367.

Edition.

1846. F. W. Fairholt (Percy Soc.). ‘A dialogue concerning witty and witless.’

Thomas Hacket entered the ‘pleye of wytles’ on S. R. in 1560-1 (Arber, i. 154). This piece is a mere dialogued débat or estrif.

vii. Gentleness and Nobility.

[1516-1533.] John Rastell. ‘Of Gentylnes and Nobylyte. A dyaloge ... compilid in maner of an enterlude with diuers toys and gestis addyt therto to make mery pastyme and disport.’

1829. J. H. Burn.

This resembles Witty and Witless in character. It is only conjecturally assigned to Heywood. The copy in the British Museum of Rastell’s edition (C. 40, i. 16) has a mounted woodcut portrait with the initials I. H., but I do not know whether that really belongs to it.

John Bale.

[Authorities.—Collier, i. 123; ii. 159; Ward, i. 173; Lives of Bale in D. N. B. (article by Mandell Creighton) and Cooper, Athenae Cantabrigienses; his own works, especially Illustrium Maioris Britanniae Scriptorum Catalogus (1548, ed. 2, 1557-9, i. 704) and Vocacyon to Ossory (Harl. Miscellany, ed. 1808, i. 328); editions of plays named below, especially that of Schröer.]

John Bale was born in 1495 at Cove, near Dunwich, in Suffolk. He was placed as a boy in the Carmelite convent of Norwich, thence went to that of Holn, or Holm, in Northumberland, and finally to Jesus College, Cambridge. He took orders, but was converted to Protestantism by Lord Wentworth, and married a ‘faithful Dorothy.’ He became vicar of Thorndon, in Suffolk, and earned the protection of Thomas Cromwell ob editas comoedias. Cromwell’s accounts (Brewer, xiv. 2. 337) show payments to him for plays on Sept. 8, 1538, at St. Stephen’s, Canterbury, and on Jan. 31, 1539. At his patron’s fall in 1540 he fled to Germany, and joined vigorously in polemic. In his Epistel Exhortatorye of an Inglyshe Christian (1544), written under the pseudonym of Henry Stalbridge, he says: ‘None leave ye unvexed and untrobled—no, not so much as the poore minstrels, and players of enterludes, but ye are doing with them. So long as they played lyes, and sange baudy songes, blasphemed God, and corrupted men’s consciences, ye never blamed them, but were verye well contented. But sens they persuaded the people to worship theyr Lorde God aryght, accordyng to hys holie lawes and not yours, and to acknoledge Jesus Chryst for their onely redeemer and saviour, without your lowsie legerdemains, ye never were pleased with them.’ He returned in 1547, and in 1548 printed in his Scriptores the following list of his ‘in idiomate materno, comedias sub vario metrorum genere.’

1. ‘Lib. 14. Vitam D. Ioannis Baptistae.

2. Com. 1. de Christo duodenni.

3. Com. 2. de baptismo & tentatione.

4. Com. 1. de Lazaro resuscitato.

5. Com. 1. de consilio pontificum.

6. Com. 1. de Simone leproso.

7. Com. 1. de coena Domini & pedum lotione.

8. Com. 2. de passione Christi.

9. Com. 2. de sepultura & resurrectione.

10. Lib. 2. super utroque regis coniugio.

11. Lib. 2. de sectis Papisticis.

12. Lib. 2. erga Momos et Zoilos.

13. Lib. 2. Proditiones Papistarum.

14. Lib. 1. contra adulterantes Dei verbum.

15. Lib. 2. de Ioanne Anglorum rege.

16. Lib. 1. de imposturis Thomae Becketi.

17. Lib. 1. de magnis Dei promissionibus.

18. Lib. 1. de predicatione Ioannis.

19. Lib. 1. de Christi tentatione.

20. Lib. 1. Corruptiones legum divinarum.

21. Lib. 1. Amoris imaginem.

22. Lib. 4. Pammachii tragoedias transtuli.’

As Bale gives a Latin translation of the opening words of each piece, his five extant plays can be identified with those I have italicized. It is to be noted that Nos. 18 and 19 have the same subject as No. 3, which seems to form part of a complete Passion cycle (Nos. 2-9).

In 1547 Bale was made rector of Bishopstoke, Hants, in 1551 of Swaffham, Norfolk, and in 1553 Bishop of Ossory, in Ireland. On the day of the proclamation of Queen Mary he had some of his plays performed at the market-cross of Kilkenny (cf. p. 374). But he had to take refuge at Basle, and on the accession of Elizabeth found himself too old to resume his see, and retired on a prebend in Canterbury Cathedral, where he died in 1563.

Plays.

i. God’s Promises.

Editions.

(i) 1577. ‘A Tragedye or enterlude manyfestyng the chefe promyses of God vnto man by all ages in the olde lawe, from the fall of Adam to the incarnacyon of the lorde Jesus Christ. Compyled by John Bale, An. Do. 1538, and now fyrst imprynted 1577. [List of characters.] Iohn Charlwood for Stephen Peele, 1577.’

(ii) n.d. [Another edition]. ‘Compyled by Johan Bale, Anno Domini M.D.XVXXVIII.’ B. L.

(iii) 1874. Hazlitt-Dodsley, i. 277 (and in all earlier editions of Dodsley, from 1744).

A prologue by Baleus prolocutor is followed by seven ‘Actes,’ in which Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Esaias, Iohannes Baptista discourse in turn with Pater Coelestis. Each Act ends with one of the pre-Christmas antiphons known as the seven Oes (cf. vol. i. p. 344), to be sung by a ‘Chorus cum organis’ in Latin or English. Baleus Prolocutor epilogizes, ending ‘More of thys matter conclude hereafter we shall.’ This play is practically a Prophetae.

ii. John Baptist.

Editions.

(i) n.d. ‘A Brefe Comedy or Enterlude of Johan Baptystes preachynge in the Wyldernesse; openynge the craftye assaultes of the hypocrytes, with the gloryouse Baptyme of the Lorde Jesus Christ. Compyled by Johan Bale, Anno M.D.XXXVIII.’

(ii) 1744. Harleian Miscellany, i. 97.

Praefatio by Baleus Prolocutor. Then Incipit Comoedia. Bale has a final speech. The Interlocutores are Pater Coelestis, Ioannes Baptista, Publicanus, Pharisaeus, Iesus Christus, Turba vulgaris, Miles armatus, Sadducaeus.

iii. Temptation.

Editions.

(i) n.d. ‘A brefe Comedy or enterlude concernynge the temptacyon of our Lorde and sauer Iesus Christ, by Sathan in the desart. Compyled by Iohan Bale, Anno M.D.XXXVIII.’

(ii) 1870. A. B. Grosart, Miscellanies of Fuller Worthies Library, vol. i.

Praefatio by Baleus Prolocutor. Then Incipit Comoedia. Bale has a final speech. The other Interlocutores are Iesus Christus, Satan tentator, Angelus primus, Angelus alter. The play calls itself an ‘Acte.’

[These three plays closely resemble each other. They were all written at Thorndon in 1538, and are markedly Protestant in tone. They were also all performed at Kilkenny, on Aug. 20, 1553.]

iv. Three Laws.

Editions.

(i) n.d. A Comedy concernynge thre lawes, of nature, Moses, and Christ, corrupted by the Sodomytes Pharysees and Papystes. Compyled by Johan Bale. Anno M.D.XXXVIII.

Colophon: Thus endeth thys Comedy [&c.]. Compyled by Johan Bale. Anno M.D. XXXVIII, and lately inprented per Nicolaum Bamburgensem.

(ii) 1562. Edition by Thomas Colwell.

(iii) A. Schröer, in Anglia, v. 137.

The play may have been written in 1538, but the allusions (ll. 2073, 2080) to King Edward and the Lord Protector show that it was revised after 1547. It is not, like (i), (ii), and (iii), a miracle-play, but a morality, and its Protestantism is far more advanced and polemical than theirs. It is 2,081 lines long, and has five Actus, with the usual Praefatio by Baleus Prolocutor. The other Interlocutores are Deus pater, Natura lex, Moseh lex, Christi lex vel Euangelium, Infidelitas, Idololatria, Sodomismus, Ambitio, Auaricia, Pseudodoctrina, Hypocrisis, Vindicta Dei, Fides Christiana. At the end is a note how ‘Into fyue personages maye the partes of thys Comedy be deuyded,’ and another for ‘The aparellynge of the six vyces or frutes of Infydelyte.’

v. King John.

Manuscript.

In possession of the Duke of Devonshire, found amongst papers probably belonging to the Corporation of Ipswich. Written in two hands, of which one is believed to be Bale’s.

Editions.

(i) 1838. Ed. J. P. Collier for Camden Soc.

(ii) 1890. Extract in Pollard, 146.

(iii) 1897. Manly, i. 525, from (i).

‘Kynge Johan’ contains 2,656 lines, but is divided into ‘ij playes,’ i.e. Acts. At l. 1119 is a reference to ‘the seconde acte’ and a ‘Finit Actus Primus.’ There are nineteen personages—Kynge Johan, Ynglond, Clargy, Sedycyon, Cyvyle Order, Stevyn Langton, Commynalte, Nobylyte, Cardynall Pandulphus, Pryvat Welth, Dissimulacyon, Raymundus, Symon of Swynsett, Usurpyd Power, The Pope, Interpretour (a presenter), Treasor, Veryte, Imperyall Majestye—but these are marked with brackets to show that they can be taken by nine actors. The play is strongly Protestant. It was doubtless written before 1548, as ‘Lib. 2. de Ioanne Anglorum Rege’ are included in Bale’s Scriptores list of that year. Collier, i. 123, quotes a deposition as to ‘an enterlude concernyng King John’ performed ‘in Christmas tyme [1538-9] at my Lorde of Canterbury’s’ which was certainly anti-Papal, and was probably Bale’s. But the extant text has undergone a later revision, for the prayer at the end is for Elizabeth. Fleay, Hist. of Stage, 62, conjectures that it was performed upon her visit to Ipswich in August, 1561. There was probably a single stage or pageant. The characters enter and go out. At l. 1377 Sedycyon speaks ‘extra locum’; at l. 785 is the phrase ‘Ye may perseyve yt in pagent here this hower.’

Nicholas Grimald.

Grimald was the son of a Genoese clerk in the service of Henry VII. He migrated from Christ’s College, Cambridge, to Oxford, where, after a short stay at Brasenose, he became Fellow and Lecturer first of Merton in 1540, then of Christ Church in 1547. To this period belong his Latin plays, and the bulk of his lyrics and other poems in Tottel’s Miscellany. He was widely read in theology and scholarship, and was chosen chaplain to Bishop Ridley, for whom he did much controversial work. Under Mary in 1555 he was imprisoned, but escaped by a recantation. He was dead before 1562. Bale, Scriptores (1557), i. 701, ascribes to him amongst other writings:—

Archiprophetae tragoediam.

Famae comoediam.

Christum nascentem.

Christum redivivum.

Protomartyrem.

Athanasium, seu infamiam.

Troilum ex Chaucero, comoediam.

Of these the first and fourth survive; of the others some can only be conjecturally put down as plays.

†1540. Christus Redivivus.

Editions.

1543. Gymnicus, Cologne. Christus redivivus. Comoedia tragica, sacra et nova. Authore Nicolao Grimaoldo.

1899. J. M. Hart, in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, xiv. No. 3.

The dedication is dated, ‘Oxoniae, e Collegio Martonensi. Anno 1543’; but according to the account of the play given therein by the author, it was performed by the pubes of B. N. C. before he joined Merton.

1547. Archipropheta.

Manuscript.

Brit. Mus. Royal MS. 12 A. 46.

Edition.

1548. Gymnicus, Cologne. Archipropheta, Tragoedia iam recens in lucem edita. Autore Nicolao Grimoaldo.

The dedication is dated 1547. The play is divided into Acts and Scenes, and has choruses. It deals with the story of John the Baptist. Herford, 116, suggests a possible influence from the Iohannes Decollatus (1546) of Jakob Schöpper of Dortmund (Bahlmann, Lat. Dr. 93).

Nicholas Udall.

[Authorities.—Bale, Scriptores (1557), i. 717; Ward, i. 254; Pearson, ii. 413; Kempe, 63, 90; S. L. Lee, s.v. Udall in D. N. B.; T. Fowler, Hist. of C. C. C. 370; Maxwell-Lyte, Hist. of Eton (3rd ed. 1899), 117; J. W. Hales, The Date of the First English Comedy, in Englische Studien, xviii (1893), 408; E. Flügel, Nicholas Udall’s Dialogues and Interludes, in Furnivall Miscellany (1901), 81.]

Life.

Nicholas Udall, Uvedale, Owdall, Woodall, or Yevedall, was born in Hampshire in 1505, and educated at Winchester and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he held an informal lectureship in 1526-8. He was an early Oxford exponent of Lutheran views. In 1532 he assisted Leland in preparing verses for the London pageants at the coronation of Anne Boleyn. From 1533-7 he was vicar of Braintree, Essex, and not improbably wrote the play of Placidas, alias Sir Eustace, recorded in 1534 in the churchwardens’ accounts. But from 1534 he was also head master of Eton. Thomas Cromwell’s accounts for 1538 include ‘Woodall, the schoolmaster of Eton, for playing before my Lord, £5’ (Brewer, xiv. 2. 334). In 1541 he left Eton, under an accusation of theft and other misbehaviour. But he found favour with Katharine Parr, Somerset, and Edward VI through literary and theological work, was made tutor to Edward Courtenay and obtained in 1551 a prebend at Windsor, and in 1553 the living of Calborne, Isle of Wight. He had not, however, so far committed himself on the Protestant side as to make it impossible to conform under Mary. He was tutor to Bishop Gardiner’s household, and either in 1553 or 1554 became head master of Westminster. Here he remained to his death in 1556. A letter of Mary in 1554 states that he had ‘at soondrie seasons’ shown ‘dialogues and enterludes’ before her, and requires the Revels office to provide him with ‘apparell’ for his ‘devises’ at the coming Christmas. The Revels accounts for the year mention ‘certen plaies’ made by him, but the items referring to them cannot be disentangled from those for masks given at the same Christmas. Bale does not mention Udall in the 1548 edition of his Scriptores, but in that of 1557 he gives a list of works ‘Latine et Anglice,’ including ‘Comoedias plures, Lib. 1,’ and adds that he ‘transtulit’ for Katherine Parr, ‘tragoediam de papatu.’ When Elizabeth was at Cambridge on Aug. 8, 1564, ‘an English play called Ezekias made by Mr. Udal’ was given before her by King’s College men (Nichols, Progr. of Eliz. i. 186).

Roister Doister.

Editions.

[1566-7. In this year the play was entered on the Stationers’ Registers to Thomas Hacket, and to this edition the unique copy, without title-page or colophon, presented in 1818 to the Eton College library, probably belongs.]

1818. Briggs.

1821. F. Marshall.

1830. Thomas White, in Old English Drama, vol. i.

1847. W. D. Cooper, for Shakespeare Society.

1869. E. Arber, in English Reprints.

1874. Hazlitt-Dodsley, iii. 53.

1897. J. M. Manly, ii. 3 (based on Arber).

1903. E. Flügel, in C. M. Gayley, Representative English Comedies, 105.

The play is divided into Actus and Scenae, and is called in a prologue, which refers to Plautus and Terence, a ‘comedie, or enterlude.’ The prayer at the end is for a ‘queene’ who protects the ‘Gospell.’ Probably Elizabeth is meant. This, however, must be later in date than that of the play itself, which has been fixed by Prof. Hales to 1553-4, on the ground that a passage in it is quoted in the third edition (1553 or 1554) of T. Wilson’s Rule of Reason, but not in the earlier editions of 1550-1 and 1552. Prof. Hales thinks that Udall was master of Westminster as early as 1553, and wrote it for the boys there. If Wilson’s date is 1554, the play may have been one of those given at court in the Christmas of 1553.

IV. LIST OF EARLY TUDOR INTERLUDES.

Pre-Controversial Moralities.

The dramatis personae are all abstractions, with an occasional moral type, such as Hickscorner, or a social type, such as a Taverner.

1. †1486-1501. Henry Medwall. Nature.

See s.v. Medwall.

2. †1513. Hickscorner.

[1501-35.] W. de Worde. Hyckescorner.

[1546-86.] J. Waley.

Fragments of unidentified editions are described by Greg, Plays, 139. On Jan. 15, 1582, the copyright was transferred from the late Sampson Awdeley to John Charlwood (Arber, ii. 405). Modern reprints are in Hawkins, vol. i; Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. i; Manly, vol. i. There are 1,026 lines. Ten Brink, iii. 125, dates the play at about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Collier, ii. 227, and Ward, i. 119, place it in the reign of Henry VII, whose ship, the Regent, is named. Brandl, xxviii, notes that this is spoken of (l. 356) as sunk, which occurred in 1513. This is one of the ‘auncient Plays’ in Captain Cox, cxviii.

3. †1513-29. Youth.

[1546-86.] J. Waley. Thēterlude of Youth.

[1549-69.] W. Copland.

Greg, Plays, 141, mentions a fragment of a third edition. The play is printed in Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. ii. There are about 1,200 lines. Collier, ii. 230; Ward, i. 126; Pollard, liv, put the date in Mary’s reign; Brandl, xxviii, early in that of Henry VIII. Passages are borrowed from Hickscorner. This is named in Captain Cox, cxviii.

4. †1517. John Rastell. The Nature of the Four Elements.

[1516-33.] John Rastell. A new interlude and a mery of the nature of the .iiii. elements declarynge many proper poynts of phylosophy naturall and of dyuers strange landys and of dyuers strannge effect and causis, which interlude, if the whole matter be played, will contain the space of an hour and a half; but if you list you may leave out much of the said matter, as ... and then it will not be past three quarters of an hour of length.

There are modern editions by Halliwell (Percy Soc. lxxiv), and in Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. i, and extracts in Pollard, 97. There are about 900 lines. A note says ‘also, yf ye lyst, ye may brynge in a Dysguysinge,’ and a direction for the ‘dance’ or disguising shows that the stage was a ‘hall.’ The date is fixed by Collier, ii. 238; Ward, i. 126; Pollard, 205, on the ground that the discovery of America is said to be ‘within this twenty years’ and by ‘Americus’ (i.e. Amerigo Vespucci, 1497). The authorship has been doubted, apparently in ignorance of the ascription of it to Rastell by Bale, Scriptores (1557), i. 660 ‘Insignis his Cosmographus, de trium mundi partium, Asiae, Africae, et Europae descriptione, ingeniosissimam ac longissimam comoediam primum edidit, cum instrumentis & figuris, quam uocabat Naturam naturatam. Lib. 1. Exuberans diuinae potentiae gratia.’ The opening words quoted by Bale translate those of the play ‘Thaboundant grace of the power devyne.’ Probably Rastell was also the printer, although the unique and imperfect copy (B.M. 643, b. 45) has only a manuscript imprint.

5. †1541-8. John Redford. Wit and Science.

Printed by Halliwell (Shakespeare Soc., 1848) and Manly, vol. i, from Brit. Mus. Addl. MS. 15,233, which is imperfect at the beginning, but has the colophon ‘Thus endyth the Play of Wyt and Science, made by Master Jhon Redford.’

There are 1,059 lines. The final prayer is for the ‘Kyng and Quene.’ Brandl, lxxii, dates the play between 1541, when the ‘gaillard,’ which is mentioned, was first danced in England, and the death of Katharine Parr in 1548. It was adapted in more than one Elizabethan interlude; cf. Brandl, loc. cit.; J. Seifert, Wit- und Science-Moralitäten (1892); and p. 200, n. 2. Redford was at one time Master of the St. Paul’s song-school. The MS. also contains songs and fragments of other moralities by him.

Pseudo-Interludes: Disputations.

6. †1521. John Heywood. Love.

7. †1521-31. John Heywood. Witty and Witless.

8. †1521-31. John Heywood (?). Gentleness and Nobility.

See s.v. Heywood.

Pseudo-Interlude: Banns.

9. †1503. W. Dunbar. The Droichis Part of the Play. Printed in Dunbar’s Works (ed. J. Small, for Scottish Text Soc.), ii. 314.

One MS. is headed ‘Ane Littill Interlud of the Droichis Part of the [Play]’; another, and the fuller, ‘Heir followis the maner of the crying of ane playe.’ Both have at the end ‘Finis off the Droichis Pairt of the Play.’

There are 176 lines. The Droich (dwarf) enters to an ‘amyable audiens’ in Edinburgh, ‘to cry a cry.’ He calls himself ‘Welth,’ and bids

The piece is clearly a ‘banns’ for a May-game; cf. vol. i. p. 174. The S. T. S. editors (i. ccxxxiii), think it was written for the reception of Princess Margaret in 1503.

Pseudo-Interlude: Translation.

10. Necromantia.

[1516-33.] John Rastell. Necromantia. A dialog of the poet Lucyan, for his fantesye faynyd for a mery pastyme. And furst by hym compylyd in the Greke tonge. And after translated owt of the Greke into Latyn, and now lately translated out of Laten into Englissh for the erudicion of them, which be disposyd to lerne the tongis. Inter locutores, Menippus and Philonides.

R. G. C. Proctor, in Hand Lists of English Printers, Pt. ii, distinguishes two editions, one certainly, the other probably, printed by Rastell. Hazlitt, Manual, 164, describes the translation as ‘after the manner of an interlude.’ The Latin and English are in parallel columns, and Collier, ii. 280, who saw a fragment in the Douce collection, thought that it was ‘a modern Latin play, possibly by Rightwise.’ Bale, Scriptores (1557), i. 656, says that More translated Lucian’s ‘Menippum, seu Necromantiam, Dial. 1. Salue atrium, domusque uesti[bulum]’; but the reference is probably to the Latin version of this and other dialogues published in 1506.

Farces of Mediaeval Type.

11. †1521. John Heywood. The Pardoner and the Friar.

12. †1521. John Heywood. The Four Ps.

13. †1521-31. John Heywood. The Weather.

14. †1521-31. John Heywood. John, Tib and Sir John.

See s.v. Heywood.

Translation from Spanish.

15. Calisto and Melibaea.

[1516-33.] John Rastell. A new cōmodye in englysh in maner Of an enterlude ryght elygant & full of craft of rethoryk wherein is shewd & dyscrybyd as well the bewte & good propertes of women as theyr vycys & euyll cōdiciōs with a morall cōclusion & exhortacyon to vertew.

A modern reprint is in Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. i. The dramatis personae are Calisto, Melibaea, Sempronio, Celestina, Parmeno. The play is a partial English version through the Italian of the Spanish Celestina (1492) of Fernando Rojas de Montalvan and Rodrigo Costa. A later translation is J. Mabbe, Celestina (1630), ed. J. Fitzmaurice Kelly in Tudor Translations; cf. J. G. Underhill, Spanish Literature in the England of the Tudors, 65, 375.

Translation from Classical Latin.

16. Terence. Andria.

[1516-33.] John Rastell (?). Terens in englyssh. The translacyon out of Latin into englysh of the furst comedy of tyrens callyd Andria.

Translations from Neo-Latin.

17. 1537. Thersites.

[1558-63.] John Tysdale. A new Enterlude called Thersytes. This Enterlude Folowynge Dothe Declare howe that the greatest boesters are not the greatest doers.

There are modern editions in J. Haslewood, Two Interludes (Roxburghe Club, 1820); F. J. Child, Four Old Plays (1848); Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. i; also a facsimile by H. S. Ashbee (1876) and extracts in Pollard, 126. There are 915 lines. The dramatis personae are Thersites, Mulciber, Miles, Mater, Telemachus. Mulciber has ‘a sharp sword made in the place,’ and Mater ‘the place which is prepared for her.’ The date is fixed by a prayer for Prince Edward, born Oct. 12, 1537, and Queen Jane Seymour, who died Oct. 24, 1537. Bolte, in Vahlen-Festschrift, 594, says that the piece is translated from the Thersites of J. Ravisius Textor, printed in his Dialogi (1651), 239. The first edition of the Dialogi was in 1530 (Bahlmann, Lat. Dr. 31).

18. †1560. Thomas Ingelend. The Disobedient Child.

[Probably an Elizabethan play, but included here on account of its relation to Thersites.]

[1561-75.] Thomas Colwell. A pretie and Mery new Enterlude: called the Disobedient Child. Compiled by Thomas Ingelend late Student in Cambridge.

There are modern editions by Halliwell (Percy Soc. xxiii) and in Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. ii. The closing prayer is for Elizabeth. Bolte, loc. cit., considers this a translation of the Iuvenis, Pater, Uxor of Ravisius Textor (Dialogi, 71). Brandl, lxxiii, finds in it the influence of the Studentes (1549) of Christopherus Stymmelius (Bahlmann, Lat. Dr. 98).

Farces on Classical Models.

19. †1550-3. W. Stevenson (?). Gammer Gurton’s Needle.

1575. Thomas Colwell. A Ryght Pithy, Pleasaunt and merie Comedie: Intytuled Gammer gurton’s Nedle: Played on Stage, not longe ago in Christes Colledge in Cambridge. Made by Mʳ S. Mʳ of Art.

1661. Thomas Johnson.

There are modern editions in Hawkins, vol. i; W. Scott, Ancient British Drama (1810), vol. i; Old English Drama (1830), vol. i; Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. iii; Manly, vol. ii. The latest is by H. Bradley in C. M. Gayley, Representative English Comedies (1903).

The play is divided into Acts and Scenes, has a prologue and a plaudite; but the subject is not taken from Latin comedy. It is probably identical with the Dyccon of Bedlam entered by Colwell on the Stationers’ Register in 1562-3, since ‘Diccon, the bedlem’ is a character. The 1575 edition may, therefore, not have been the first. Jusserand, Théâtre, 181, thinks that the satire is even pre-Reformation in tone. The authorship is much in dispute. I. Reed, Biographia Dramatica (1782), suggested John Still, afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells, who was a M.A. of Christ’s in 1565. C. H. Ross, in Modern Language Notes, vii (1892), no. 6, and Anglia, xix. 297, accepts John Bridges, afterwards bishop of Oxford, who is spoken of, but with doubtful seriousness, as the author, in Martin Marprelate’s Epistle (1588). But Bridges’ initial is not S, nor was he a Christ’s man. H. Bradley, in Athenæum for August 6, 1898, and J. Peile, Christ’s College (1900), 54, 73, point out that one William Stevenson, a Bachelor Fellow of Christ’s, is shown by college accounts to have been in charge of plays there between 1550 and 1553. His seems to me by far the strongest claim yet made.

20. †1553-4. Nicholas Udall. Roister Doister.

See s.v. Udall.

21. †1553-8. Jack Juggler.

[1562-9.] W. Copland, A new Enterlude for Chyldren to playe, named Jacke Jugeler, both wytte, and very playsent Newly Imprentid.

According to Grosart, two leaves of another edition are bound with the Duke of Devonshire’s copy.

The play was entered by Copland on the Stationers’ Register in 1562-3. There are modern reprints in J. Haslewood, Two Interludes (Roxburghe Club, 1820); F. J. Child, Four Old Plays (1848); A. B. Grosart, Fuller Worthies Library Miscellanies (1873), vol. iv; Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. ii, and a facsimile by E. W. Ashbee (1876). The piece is an imitation of the Amphitruo of Plautus. Brandl, lxxi, assigns it to the reign of Mary on the strength of a Catholic sentiment.

Tragedy on Classical Model (?).

22. †1516-33. Lucrece.

A fragment of a ‘Play concerning Lucretia’ is attributed by R. G. C. Proctor, in Hand Lists of English Printers (1896), Part ii, to the press of John Rastell (1516-33). It is in the Bagford collection of fragments, Harl. MS. 5919, f. 20 (no. 98), and consists of two pages, containing a scene in which Publius Cornelius instructs a confidential friend with the initial B to sound the feeling of ‘Lucres’ towards him, and the beginning of a scene between B. and ‘Lucres.’ Halliwell-Phillipps, ii. 340, says that the play was written by Medwall, †1490, and gives the title as ‘A godely interlude of Fulgeus, Cenatoure of Rome, Lucres his daughter, Gayus Flaminius and Publius Cornelius, of the Disputacyon of Noblenes.’ The ‘Fulgius and Lucrelle’ of seventeenth-century play-lists (Hazlitt, Manual, s.v.; Greg, Masques, lxx) may be related to this. The heroine is not Shakespeare’s Lucrece.

Latin Neo-Mysteries.

23. †1535-45. Thomas Watson (?). Absolon.

Ascham, Scholemaster (ed. Mayor, 1869), highly praises, together with Buchanan’s Jephthes, the Absolon of Thomas Watson ‘in Sᵗ John’s College Cambridge’ which he never would publish because an anapaest sometimes stood where he thought, incorrectly, that there should have been an iambus. Watson became bishop of Lincoln. Fleay, Biog. Chron. ii. 267, and others ascribe the play in error to John Watson, bishop of Winchester, and speak of a manuscript at Penshurst, which, however, is not mentioned in the account of the Penshurst MSS. in Hist. MSS. iii. app. 227. Probably the play is identical with the Absolon preserved in Brit. Mus. Stowe MS. 957, described by G. B. Churchill and W. Keller, Die lat. Universitäts-Dramen Englands in der Zeit der Königin Elisabeth (Shakespeare-Jahrbuch, xxxiv (1898), 229). An eighteenth-century ascription on the first leaf to John Bale is of no authority. The play is of a Senecan type, with acts and scenes and a chorus. The first line was originally ‘Adhuc animus vexatur excusso metu,’ but in the MS., which has many corrections, ‘Animus adhuc’ has been substituted.

24. †1540. Nicholas Grimald. Christus Redivivus.

25. †1547. Nicholas Grimald. Archipropheta.

See s.v. Grimald.

26. †1550. John Foxe. Christus Triumphans.

1551. Christus triumphans, Comoedia apocalyptica. Autore Ioanne Foxo Anglo. London 1551. 8ᵒ.

1556. Oporinus, Basle.

1590. Nuremberg, Gerlach.

In 1672 and 1677 the Latin text was edited by Thomas Comber for school use. A French translation by Jacques Bienvenu appeared in 1562. There is also

1579. John and Richard Day. Christ Jesus Triumphant, A fruitefull Treatise, wherein is described the most glorious Triumph, and Conquest of Christ Iesus our Saviour.... Made to be read for spiritual comfort by Iohn Foxe, and from Latin translated intoo English by the Printer....

There are later editions of 1581 and 1607. This is generally regarded as a translation of the Christus Triumphans, but Greg, Masques, cxxiii, doubts this, and notes that ‘a modern reprint [1828] in the B. M. is not dramatic.’ The reprint is in fact a translation of the De Christo Triumphante, Eiusdem Autoris Panegyricon appended to the Basle edition of the play. But possibly it does not represent the whole of Day’s work. The 1551 edition is given by Bahlmann, Lat. Dr. 107. According to S. L. Lee, in D. N. B., it only rests on the authority of Tanner. In 1551 Foxe was tutor to the children of Lord Surrey, who had been executed some years before. In 1555 he entered the printing office of Oporinus at Basle, and in 1564 that of John Day in London. The MS. of the play is Lansd. MS. 1073. It is an ‘Antichrist’ play, written under the influence of the Pammachius (1538) of Thomas Kirchmaier or Naogeorgus (Bahlmann, op. cit. 71). A full analysis is given by Herford, 138.

Translation from Latin Neo-Moral.

27. †1530-40. J. Palsgrave. Acolastus.

1540. Thomas Berthelet. Ioannis Palsgravi Londoniensis, ecphrasis Anglica in comoediam Acolasti. ¶ The Comedye of Acolastus translated into oure englysshe tongue, ... Interpreted by John Palsgraue.

This is a translation of the Acolastus (1530) of Wilhelm de Volder, known in learning as Gnaphaeus or Fullonius, of the Hague (Bahlmann, Lat. Dr. 39). It is arranged for school use, with marginal notes on grammar, &c. The original play is the most important of the group dealing with the Prodigal Son motive: cf. Herford, 152.

Drama of Catholic Controversy.

28. 1553. Respublica.

Printed by Collier, Illustrations of Old English Literature (1866), vol. i, and Brandl, 281, from sixteenth-century MS. of Mr. Hudson Gurney of Keswick Hall, Norfolk, with the heading ‘A merye enterlude entitled Respublica, made in the yeare of our Lorde, 1553.’

The play is divided into Acts and Scenes, and is a ‘Christmas devise’ (prol. 6) by ‘boyes’ (prol. 39). The place-names are of London. The controversial tone is Catholic, and political, rather than theological. Brandl, lviii, finds the model in Lyndsay’s Satyre. Except for the Prologue (the Poet) all the characters are abstractions. Avarice, alias Policy, is ‘the vice of the plaie.’

Dramas of Protestant Controversy.

29. 1538. John Bale. God’s Promises.

30. 1538. John Bale. John Baptist.

31. 1538. John Bale. The Temptation.

32. 1538. John Bale. The Three Laws.

33. ?1539, 1561. John Bale. King John.

See s.v. Bale.

34. †1547-53. R. Wever. Lusty Juventus.

[1549-69.] W. Copland. An Enterlude called lusty Iuuentus. Lyuely describing the frailtie of youth: of natur prone to vyce: by grace and good counsayll, traynable to vertue.—At end of play, ‘Finis, quod R. Wever.’

[1548-86.] A. Vele.

Copyright was entered on the Stationers’ Register by John King in 1560-1. There are modern reprints in Hawkins, vol. i, and Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. ii. The characters are abstractions with the Devil, a Messenger, and Little Bess a ‘Curtisane.’ The prayer is for a king and his council who rule, which points to the reign of Edward VI.

35. †1547-53. T. R. Nice Wanton.

1560. John King. A Preaty Interlude called, Nice wanton.—At end of play, ‘Finis T. R.’

There are reprints in Hazlitt-Dodsley, vol. i, and Manly, vol. i. The characters are curiously heterogeneous: Messenger, Barnabas, Ismael, Dalila, Eulalia, Iniquitie, Baily Errand, Xantippe, Worldly Shame, Daniel. Brandl, lxxii, considers the play an adaptation of the Rebelles (1535) of George Van Langeveldt or Macropedius, of Utrecht (Bahlmann, Lat. Dr. 55). The rhyme ‘queenes’—‘things’ in the final prayer shows an original date of composition under Edward VI.

36. †1547-53. Somebody, Avarice and Minister.

Fragment of unidentified edition amongst papers of the reign of Edward VI in Lambeth Library, reprinted by S. R. Maitland, List of Early Printed Books at Lambeth (1843), 280. Brandl, lix, considers this a politico-religious interlude of the school of Lyndsay.

Protestant Controversy: Translation.

37. †1561. Henry Cheke. Freewill.

[1558-63.] John Tisdale. A certayne Tragedie wrytten fyrst in Italian, by F. N. B. entituled, Freewyl, and translated into Englishe, by Henry Cheeke.

The copyright of a book ‘of frewil’ was entered on the Stationers’ Register on May 11, 1561 (Arber, i. 156). The original is the Tragedia del Libero Arbitrio (1546) of Francesco Nigri de Bassano. The translator cannot be, as stated in the D. N. B., Henry, the son of Sir John Cheke, if the date of his birth is as there given (†1548).

Protestant Controversy: Pseudo-Interludes.

38. †1547-53. Robin Conscience.

Often described as an ‘interlude,’ but really a series of dialogues between Robin Conscience, his father Covetousness, his mother New-guise, and his sister Proud-beauty. Collier, ii. 315, describes it from a printed fragment in the Devonshire library, and inclines to ascribe it to the reign of Edward VI; cf. Herford, 55. Hazlitt, iii. 225, prints the full text from a later edition.

39. 1549. Ponet. Bishop of Rome.

A tragoedie or Dialoge of the uniuste usurped primacie of the Bishop of Rome. A translation by John Ponet, Bishop of Winchester, from the Italian of Bernardino Ochino (1549); cf. Bale, i. 694; Herford, 33. Among the speakers are Edward VI and Somerset.

Lost Interludes.

See s.v. Skelton for the alleged Nigramansir (1504).

S. Jones, Biographia Dramatica (1812), ii. 328, describes ‘A newe Interlude of Impacyente Poverte, newlye Imprinted. M. V. L. X.’ The copyright of this play, which is in the Sir Thomas More list (cf. p. 200) and that in Captain Cox, cxviii, was transferred on the Stationers’ Register from the late Sampson Awdeley to John Charlwood on Jan. 15, 1582.

Halliwell-Phillipps, Dictionary of Old English Plays (1860), quoting ‘Coxeter’s Notes,’ is the authority for ‘An Interlude of Welth and Helth, full of Sport and mery Pastyme,’ n.d.