Note 6 — Chapter XVIII · LITURGICAL PLAYS

Collier, i. 82; Feasey, 68, 75, quoting payments ‘for the prophets.’ their ‘raiment,’ ‘stages’ for them, &c., from sixteenth-century Revels and churchwardens’ accounts. The Sarum Processional, 50 (from eds. 1508, 1517), has ‘finito evangelio, unus puer ad modum prophetae indutus, stans in aliquo eminenti loco, cantat lectionem propheticam modo quo sequitur.’ Then come alternating passages between the ‘propheta’ and ‘tres clerici.’ Perhaps the latter were also sometimes disguised, but the Sarum Processional, as well as the thirteenth-century Consuetudinary and the York Missal (MS. D), all specify that the clergy, other than the prophet, shall be ‘habitu non mutato.’ Several of the London records given by Mr. Feasey mention an ‘angel,’ and one of them a ‘chylde that playde a messenger.’ A Coutances Order of 1573 (Gasté, 74) forbids ‘spectacula ... cum habitibus inhonestis’ at the Gospel during Mass on Palm Sunday.