Note 403 — Chapter XXII · GUILD PLAYS AND PARISH PLAYS (continued)
Reading edition
Every conceivable spelling of the word ‘pageant’ appears in the records. The Promptorium Parvulorum, ii. 377 (†1440, ed. A. Way for Camd. Soc.), has ‘Pagent, Pagina,’ and this is the usual Latin spelling, although pagenda and pagentes (acc. pl.) occur at Beverley. The derivation is from pagina ‘a plank.’ The Catholicon Anglicum (1483, ed. S. J. H. Herrtage for E. E. T. S.) has ‘A Paiande; lusorium,’ and there can be little doubt that ‘playing-place,’ ‘stage’ is the primary sense of the word, although as a matter of fact the derivative sense of ‘scene’ or ‘episode’ is the first to appear. Wyclif so uses it, speaking of Christmas in his Ave Maria (English Works, E. E. T. S. 206) ‘he that kan best pleie a pagyn of the deuyl, syngynge songis of lecherie, of batailis and of lesyngis ... is holden most merie mon.’ In Of Prelates (loc. cit. 99) he says that false teachers ‘comen in viserid deuelis’ and ‘pleien the pagyn of scottis,’ masking under St. George’s ‘skochen.’ The elaborate pageants used in masks and receptions (cf. p. 176, and vol. i. p. 398) led to a further derivative sense of ‘mechanical device.’ This, as well as the others, is illustrated in the passages quoted by the editors of the Prompt. Parv. and the Cath. Angl. from W. Horman, author of Vulgaria (1519) ‘Alexander played a payante more worthy to be wondred vpon for his rasshe aduenture than for his manhede.... There were v coursis in the feest and as many paiantis in the pley. I wyll haue made v stagȝ or bouthis in this playe (scenas). I wolde haue a place in the middyl of the pley (orchestra) that I myght se euery paiaunt. Of all the crafty and subtyle paiantis and pecis of warke made by mannys wyt, to go or moue by them selfe, the clocke is one of the beste.’ Synonyms for ‘pageant’ in the sense of ‘stage’ are ‘cariadge’ (Chester) and ‘karre’ (Beverley); in the sense of ‘scene,’ iocus (Coventry), visus (Lincoln), processus or ‘processe’ (Towneley and Digby plays, Croxton Sacrament and Medwall’s morality of Nature).