2 The subjects of the smiths', cappers', and drapers' pageants can be told from the records preserved in Sharp; the pinners' from a document quoted by him, the rules and orders of the company, which speak of their pageant called the "Taking down of God from the Cross."1 One of the reasons for assigning the Assumption group of subjects to the mercers is, besides the importance of the subject and the priority of that craft, the fact that when the Princess Mary came to Coventry in 1525 she saw "the mercers' pageant play being finely drest in the Cross Cheeping."3 This, although a mere agreement of names, carries some weight when we compare it with the special exhibitions provided for the entertainment of Margaret, Edward, and Arthur. Besides this, and more important, is the fact that the mercers' seems to have been a fraternity in honour of the Assumption. Their arms, the same as those of the Mercers' Company in London, which may still be seen painted on a wall in the mercers' room in St. Mary's Hall, Coventry, are-gules, a demy Virgin Mary with her hair disheveled crowned, rising out and within an orb of clouds, all proper; motto, Honor Deo. St. Mary's Guild, or the Merchants' Guild, founded in 1340, had annual meetings in St. Mary's Hall, at the feast of the Assumption. St. Mary's, St. John Baptist's, St. Katharine's, and Trinity Guild were formally united in 1392; and they seem, with the Guild of Corpus Christi, always closely associated and finally united with the amalgamated guild in 1534, to have been from the beginning in control of the mercers and drapers. After the union of guilds there appear in 1539 in the Corpus Christi accounts 5 entries of expenses on Corpus Christi day and evening which indicate a pageant of the Assumption in the Corpus Christi procession. The entries are: first, among several entries for food, peny bred for the apostells vj.d., beiff for the appostles viij. d.; then, to the Marie for hir gloves and wages ij. s., for beryng the crosse and candelsticks the even and the day viij. d., to the Mr. to offer xij. d., the Marie to offer j.d., Katharine and Margaret iiij. d., viij. virgyns viij. d., to Gabriell for beryng the lilly iiij. d., to James 1 See Appendix II., p. 103. 2 There is every evidence of a devoted worship of the Virgin at Coventry; St. Mary's Hall and the Cathedral were both named in her honour. If this was, as seems probable, a presentation of the regular mercers' play, it is also possible that in the four pageants set forth in honour of Queen Elizabeth the regular plays of the crafts were enacted, since nothing is said in the Annals to indicate that these pageants had anything else set upon them; see MS. Annals below. 4 M. D. Harris, Life in an Old English Town (Lond. 1898), Chs. 7 and 13. 5 Quoted by Sharp, p. 162; Coventry Corp. MS., A. 6. and Thomas of Inde viij. d., to x. other apostells xx. d. (1541, xij. torches of wax for the apostles). With these entries are also to be connected the following items from an inventory of jewels 1493 in the same MS. (f. 53): a girdull of blue silk harnest with silver and gilt weyng cord and all iiij. unc. et dim., a girdull of rede silk harnest with silver and gilt weying cord and all vi. unc. iii. qrt. These last entries and several others about payments and properties for the Mary on Corpus Christi day prior to 1534 seem to indicate that the presentation of the Assumption in the Corpus Christi procession had been controlled by the Corpus Christi guild even before the union of the guilds; but the connection with the mercers' company would not in any way be affected. Two other facts are also to be brought into this connection: The Smiths provided that Herod, the chief character in their pageant, should ride in the Corpus Christi procession, a circumstance which may indicate that other companies did a similar thing. Then it is to be remembered that the Shearmen and Taylors', as the guild of the Nativity, presented an appropriate subject. More will be said about their relation to the fullers later; at present it may be noted that their seal, impressions of which are still in existence, was (according to Fretton) round, about an inch and a half in diameter, of brass, representing the Virgin Mary seated and crowned with the infant Christ in her lap, receiving gifts of the three Kings of Cologne. These two circumstances might offer clues for the determination of the names of other pageants, if more were known about the Corpus Christi procession, and more of the patron saints of the different companies could be determined. At any rate, we see that, out of ten pageants, the subjects of six can be told with certainty, and of another, the mercers', with some probability. This leaves three companies, tanners, whittawers and girdlers, the subjects of whose pageants are unknown. An examination of the table will show, however, three important groups of subjects unprovided for. First, there is John the Baptist. The popularity of this saint in Coventry was such that it may be taken as certain that there was a play upon this subject in the Coventry cycle. What other subjects may have been grouped with it is still more a matter of guess; but the four, or some of them, which succeed it in the list are the more probable. It is perhaps too slight a thread to connect the tanners with the subject, because their pageant stood before the Church of St. John the Baptist, and perhaps performed the craft play there, when Queen Elizabeth visited the city. Secondly, the Last Supper is a most probable subject, inasmuch as no known cycle of plays is without it. It could hardly have been a part of the already over-crowded smiths' pageant, and it would certainly have been a part of any Corpus Christi cycle. Then, finally, there is a group of subjects centering in the Ascension, which is also of universal occurrence and would hardly have failed to appear at Coventry. It will be noticed that this leaves no room for any Old Testament plays at Coventry, a characteristic which would be exceptional. Of course one of the unknown pageants may have been upon such a subject; but one hardly sees in the circumstances how it could have been. The following explanation may solve the difficulty. The Coventry plays in existence, except the Doctors' play, evidently grew up bit by bit with little influence from the outside. The Shearmen and Taylors' pageant and the first part of the Weavers' pageant, the Purification, are mosaics of different metres and hands, and show evidence of having undergone a course of amplification extending through a long period of time. It is still possible, as we shall see later, to discover in each of the three stories the traces of an earlier form, a complete outline, with all essential features, of a very early play. The peculiarity which may account for the absence of Old Testament plays is that the prophet plays and prologues in the two pageants preserved, which are probably the first two in the cycle, contain the outline of a Processus Prophetarum. Isaiah is the prologue to the Shearmen and Taylors' pageant, and two other prophets enter at line 332 between the parts of the play. There is no way of identifying these prophets, but the allusions in their speeches correspond in a rough way to the parts usually given to Moses, and there is a reference to David (1. 396) and to Habakkuk (11. 460-2). The Weavers' pageant is also introduced by a prophet play, and here we have to do with Balaam, Jeremiah, and Malachi (11. 23, 58, 68). Finally, Simeon refers to the Sibyl (1. 197) and to Daniel (11. 204, 244). In other words, those familiar Latin quotations, ultimately derived from the Augustinian sermon 3 which is the basis of the Processus Prophetarum, appear or are alluded to in the two plays preserved. Besides that other lost plays appear from the 2 1 See below. 2 Note also the reference to Adam, line 20 ff. records to have had prologues and prophets. It looks very much as if the Processus Prophetarum had never been developed at Coventry, so that the prophets did not make their formal speeches by name as at other places. At York, it became the basis for many other plays (I-XI), and had enough left over for a prologue to the Nativity (XII). In the Towneley cycle, there are several Old Testament plays, some of which may be native to Wakefield and derived from the prophet-play-the remainder, probably incomplete as preserved,2 was an independent play. The fifth Chester play shows the Processus Prophetarum in a transition stage, with the Balaam and Balak play formed in the midst of it. The prophecies of Octavian and the Sibyl occur in the midst of the Nativity play (VI), a thing which still further bears out the theory of the origin; since Zachariah and Elizabeth, the proper node for the growth of the Annunciation and the Visit of Mary to Elizabeth, occur in the regular scheme of the prophet-play before the Sibyl and Caesar Augustus. There is nothing, then, inconsistent in believing, since at other places there are such wide differences, that at Coventry the Old Testament plays never developed at all. DUGDALE AND THE MANUSCRIPT ANNALS. Dugdale is the carliest authority for the belief that the Coventry Corpus Christi play told the story of both Old and New Testaments. In order to understand his error it is necessary to consider first a reference to the plays in several more or less trustworthy lists of Coventry mayors with annals, some of them still in manuscript. The annals have some bearing on the plays in general, so it is well to transcribe all of the references which they contain to the Corpus Christi play. There are at least four of these books of annals still to be found in manuscript. Two, A. 26 and A. 43, are among the Corporation Manuscripts at Coventry. Neither is of very great age, and both contain pretty much the same matter. A. 26 has more references to pageants, and it, with Harl. 6388, have been used as a basis for the 1 Adam and Eve and probably other Old Testament characters were in the cappers' pageant and would appear always in the Descent into Hell; what use was made of the three patriarchs in Doomsday is more puzzling. See Appendix II., where the three patriarchs, Jacob's twelve sons and the Children of Israel are seen to have been represented at the reception of Prince Edward. 2 Towneley Plays, p. 64. 3 See J. M. Manly, Specimens Pre-Shak. Drama, vol. i., introduction, p. xxvii ff. |