Misplaced Pages

#601398

54-582: The manuscript is now housed in the British Library, London (BL MS Cotton Vespasian D.8). As its name might suggest, though, it was once the property of the 17th-century antiquarian Sir Robert Bruce Cotton and was housed in his large library. Cotton's librarian, Richard James , quickly examined the manuscript and erroneously assumed that it contained the Biblical plays performed in Coventry during

108-538: A later hand than most of the manuscript. This has led some to believe that for its entire lifetime, the Wakefield Cycle was sponsored and produced by other associations, either governmental or religious. Either way, it was surely performed by non-professional actors from the community, as were all the cycles. The most notable poetic innovation in the manuscript is called the Wakefield Stanza, which

162-640: A meditation text rather than using it as a text to be enacted. The stage directions are in Latin in the pageants, in the Mary Play they are a mix of English and Latin and in the Passion Play they are almost entirely in English. They seem to function as much as an aid to help a reader visualise the action as actual practical instructions to a director. The details of costume and action in the stage directions in

216-658: A new play by Roy Clarke , was performed in Lincoln and Southwell. In 2014, "The Last Post" was performed by the Lincoln Mystery Plays company at The Drill Hall, based on the true story of the eight local Beechey brothers , five of whom were killed in World War I . Lincolnshire Archives . This was then followed in 2018, at the Lincoln Drill Hall , by "The World at her Feet" by Steve Gillard, marking

270-680: A pastiche of the East Anglian ecclesiastical court system. Some recent published editions of the N-town plays include: A facsimile of the manuscript from the British Library was also published: The N-Town Plays: a facsimile of British Library MS Cotton Vespasian D VIII . Ed. Peter Meredith and Stanley J. Kahrl. Leeds: University of Leeds School of English, 1977. The Lincoln Mystery Plays are modern performances of medieval mystery plays and other productions in Lincoln Cathedral and

324-713: A series of thirty-two mystery plays based on the Bible most likely performed around the Feast of Corpus Christi probably in the town of Wakefield , England during the Late Middle Ages until 1576. It is one of only four surviving English mystery play cycles. Some scholars argue that the Wakefield cycle is not a cycle at all, but a mid-sixteenth-century compilation, formed by a scribe bringing together three separate groups of plays. The unique manuscript , now housed at

378-417: A single talent behind them, due to the unique poetic qualities of the works ascribed to him. There is widespread disagreement among scholars concerning the staging of the Wakefield Cycle, and of mystery plays in general. It is known that the cycle at York was staged on wagons that moved from place to place in the city, with multiple plays staged simultaneously in different locales in the city. However, there

432-477: A valid showpiece. Frank Dunlop , in the first British theatrical performances of the musical on stage, preceded his Young Vic productions of Joseph with his own adaptation of the first six Wakefield Mystery Plays, which were credited in the programme. The entire production was a double bill called Bible One: Two Looks at the Book of Genesis . Part I, entitled The Creation to Jacob (or Mediaevel Mystery Plays ),

486-583: Is an incomplete list of some of the manuscripts from the Cotton library that today form the Cotton collection of the British Library . Some manuscripts were destroyed or damaged in a fire at Ashburnham House in 1731, and a few are kept in other libraries and collections. Robert Bruce Cotton organized his library in a room 26 feet (7.9 m) long by six feet wide filled with bookpresses , each with

540-423: Is disagreement as to whether the Wakefield plays were performed in a similar manner. One problem is the population of Wakefield in 1377, which is approximately the date of the first performance of the plays. It consisted of 567 people aged sixteen or older. Assuming that half were male, that leaves only about 280 men to play the 243 roles in the plays. This leaves many to believe that multiple plays were performed by

594-582: Is evident in all five texts. The term "Wakefield Master" emerged from a need to distinguish some material in the Towneley manuscript from a mass of unexceptional material, and was first coined by Charles Mills Gayley . In 1903, Gayley and Alwin Thaler published an anthology of criticism and dramatic selections entitled Representative English Comedies . It had long been believed that the Towneley Play

SECTION 10

#1732787039602

648-579: Is found in the Noah play, the two shepherds' plays, the Herod play, and the Buffeting of Christ pageant. This unique characteristic may be described as: a nine-line stanza containing one quatrain with internal rhyme and a tail-rhymed cauda, rhyming AAAABCCCB; or, a thirteen-line stanza containing a cross-rhymed octet frons, a tercet cauda with tail-rhymes, the whole rhyming ABABABABCDDDC. The former description

702-538: Is most renowned for the inclusion of The Second Shepherds' Play , one of the jewels of medieval theatre . It also contains The Talents , a macaronic poem in Middle English and Latin. Theatre Royal Wakefield (formerly Wakefield Theatre Royal & Opera House) produced a modern-day version of the plays in Wakefield Cathedral with a young community cast from 11–20 August 2016. The cycle

756-463: Is sometimes thought to be a nine-line stanza, with the quatrain containing internal rhyme. This view predominated in the critical literature until the late twentieth century, and has fallen out of favor. When Cawley himself edited the entire cycle with Martin Stevens for publication in 1994, the two opted to present the lines as a thirteen-line stanza. In any case, the number of syllables in the lines

810-959: Is the Cotton-Corpus Legendary , a Worcester manuscript (1050 x 1075) which includes Byrhtferth 's Life of Oswald , his Life of Ecgwine and Lantfred of Winchester 's Translatio et Miracula S. Swithuni . (2) In the second part, various texts with dates ranging between the 10th and 13th century are bound together. These include the Oswald Cartulary and IV Edgar (a law-code belonging to King Edgar , r. 959–975). Folios 182 and 183 of Cotton Nero E.i, pt.2 (Worcester cartulary), are now bound separately as London, BL, MS. Add. 46204. Old English Lapidary Item 1 – Worcester Chronicle ( Anglo-Saxon Chronicle D) includes Anglian collection of royal genealogies and Anglo-Saxon Cotton world map Wakefield Mystery Plays The Wakefield or Towneley Mystery Plays are

864-526: Is the work of many authors, some sourced from the York Cycle . However, the most significant contribution has been attributed to an anonymous author known as the "Wakefield Master." It is believed that his additions include Noah, The First Shepherds' Play, The Second Shepherds' Play, Herod the Great and The Buffeting of Christ. This common authorship is suspected due to a unique nine-line rhymed stanza, which

918-403: Is variable, and the number of stressed syllables can usually be counted at two or three per line in the thirteen-line version. Since the Towneley Play was a drama and therefore spoken rather than read silently, to some degree this presentation of the poetic units in graphical form is somewhat arbitrary and inconsequential. But it does provide insights into the poetic influences and innovations of

972-491: The Huntington Library , San Marino, California , originated in the mid-fifteenth century. The Towneley family who lent their name to the manuscript, sold it at an auction in 1814, but it was probably part of their library at a much earlier date. Although almost the entire manuscript is in a fifteenth-century hand, the cycle was performed as early as the fourteenth century in an earlier form. The Wakefield Cycle

1026-711: The Protestant Reformation ended the tradition. The plays were almost forgotten for hundreds of years. The first major revival was in 1951 in York by E Martin Brown. In 1969 a production of "The Lincoln Cycle of Mystery Plays" was performed at the Cathedral in conjunction with Lincoln Theatre Royal. Adapted from a translation by Martial Rose. First performance was 23 August 1969. Principal actors were Brian Tree, Brian Protheroe and Alison Steadman . The production

1080-509: The 100th anniversary of WW1, about women's football in Lincoln during the war years. The Mystery Plays tell the story of mankind as seen through the eyes of a person from the Middle Ages. The plays are usually set between the birth of Christ and his crucifixion. The plays were written in middle English , the language of the ordinary people of that time. These guild productions flourished over 200 years in English cities until Cromwell and

1134-661: The 15th and 16th centuries, thus naming them the Ludus Coventriae or "the Play Called Corpus Christi ". He was mistaken in both cases, but that mistake has proven very difficult to correct; the name Ludus Coventriae persists in the secondary and critical literature well into the 20th century. A further complication of the N-Town plays was made by Hardin Craig who, in his Medieval Drama (1955), called

SECTION 20

#1732787039602

1188-653: The 15th century. This makes it the oldest MS. to contain a large number of Biblical plays. Although we know there were plays performed elsewhere from the late 14th century, the York manuscript was written down in the 1470s, the Towneley MS. after the turn of the 16th century and all the versions of the Chester plays after 1596. The majority of the plays that make up the N-Town Cycle are based (some rather tenuously) on

1242-707: The 9th or 10th century (2) fos. 120–53, once part of BL Egerton 3314, belonging to the 11th century. It consists of two parts: fos. 120–41, part A, computistical texts; annals of Christ Church, Canterbury ; Old English and Latin prognostications and charms fos. 142–53, excerpts from Bede , De temporibus anni , with additional notes. At f. 123v is found a pagan Norse charm, invoking the god Thor . fos. 25r–97r. Symeon of Durham , Liber de exordio atque procursu Dunelmensis ecclesiae , including Bede's Death Song fos. 99r–99v, Pseudo-Bede, De Quindecim Signis fos. 99v–102r, Pseudo-Augustine, De Antichristo quomodo et ubi nasci debeat (1) The first and earliest part

1296-546: The Bible, while the others are taken from Roman Catholic legend, apocryphal sources and folk tradition. The Parliament of Heaven is based on just one verse from a psalm . The Marian plays place a strong emphasis on the early life of the Virgin, as well as on the relationship between her and Joseph (which plays heavily upon the popular medieval old man with a younger wife trope). The Trial of Mary and Joseph play has been identified as

1350-476: The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama, Christina M. Fitzgerald and John T. Sebastian find it important to note, "the quotation marks placed around the name 'Wakefield Master' are thus to be taken to indicate that the ascription of authorship is the product of convention, rather than proven fact. All that can be said with confidence is that there seems clearly to have been a common force involved in

1404-503: The Cotton collection became one of the foundational collections of its library, so manuscripts are still designated by library, bookpress, shelf, and number (even though they are no longer stored in that fashion). For example, the manuscript of Beowulf is designated Cotton MS Vitellius A.xv , and the manuscript of Pearl is Cotton MS Nero A.x . (1) fos. 3-117, 8th and 9th-century material from France, which had arrived in England by

1458-821: The Ma(jest) ye of God the Father, God the Sonne, or God the Holie Goste or the administration of either the Sacrementes of baptism or of the Lordes Supper be counterfeited or represented, or anything plaid which tend to the maintenance of superstition and idolatry or which be contrary to the laws of God or of the realm.'" (Kyng Johan, Lines 413-15) Such strictures are a Protestant form of the aniconism in Judaism ,

1512-470: The Passion Play suggest a description of an actual performance. The liturgical music is specified in the Mary Play and Assumption Play by including the opening words of each piece or the "incipit" in the stage directions. On the other hand, the stage directions in many of the pageants are quite laconic. All scholars who have worked with this manuscript agree that it belongs in the east Midlands. Some attempt has been made to place it as far north as Lincoln (it

1566-647: The United States in 1989. States . 2000 was Ramsay's last production of the Mystery Plays: 2004 saw Karen Crow directing, 2008's production was directed by Geoff Readman, the 2012 production was directed by John Bowtell, 2016 by Colin Brimblecombe. In 2011 Lincoln Theatre Royal hosted a gala performance to raise funds for the 2012 production, directed by Angela Gunstone, with performances by actors from 1969 to 2008. Cotton Vespasian This

1620-597: The Wakefield Master. In 1576, the Wakefield plays were altered by the Protestant authorities, before being discontinued completely. "In that year, the Diocesan Court of High Commission at York revealed their attitude to the citizens of Wakefield in no uncertain terms. Permission was granted for the performance of their Cycle provided that: 'In the said play no pageant be used or set further wherein

1674-531: The Woman Taken in Adultery) almost unique in early drama. These plays can all be played from a wagon or a single booth stage. On the other hand, the two Mary Plays and the Passion Play were written for what is often called "place and scaffold" production in the round using "scaffolds" or raised stages and also the "platea" or the "place" between the stages. The true nature of the manuscript has been hidden by

N-Town Plays - Misplaced Pages Continue

1728-399: The bust of a figure from classical antiquity on top. Counterclockwise, these were Julius Caesar , Augustus , Cleopatra , Faustina , Tiberius , Caligula , Claudius , Nero , Galba , Otho , Vitellius , Vespasian , Titus , and Domitian . (Domitian had only one shelf, perhaps because it was over the door). In each press, each shelf was assigned a letter; manuscripts were identified by

1782-574: The bust over the press, the shelf letter, and the position of the manuscript (in Roman numerals) counting from the left side of the shelf. Thus, the Lindisfarne Gospels, Nero B.iv, was the fourth manuscript from the left on the second shelf (shelf B) of the press under the bust of Nero. For Domitian and Augustus, which had only one shelf each, the shelf letter was left out of the press-mark. The British Museum retained Cotton's press-marks when

1836-464: The collection the Hegge Plays after their former owner, Robert Hegge . The name Hegge Plays only briefly caught on, and the most common way to refer to these plays now is The N-Town Plays, after the reference in the last stanza of the opening proclamation that the play was to be played at "N-Town"; when the plays toured from town to town, "N" (meaning nomen, the Latin for name) would be replaced by

1890-675: The death, Assumption , and coronation as Queen of Heaven of the Virgin Mary . The majority of the plays that make up the Wakefield Cycle are based (some rather tenuously) on the Bible , while the others are taken from either Roman Catholic or folk tradition. When the Andrew Lloyd Webber–Tim Rice musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was in its infancy in 1972, it was so short that productions needed an added preamble to create

1944-512: The eclectic nature of the MS. has been recognised, scholars have been hesitant to insist that all the plays copied into this anthology were played in the same place. The date "1468" appears in the hand of the major scribe at the end of the Purification play (f 100v). This, then, is the earliest possible date for the copying of the text. Spector has concluded on the basis of dialectal evidence that

1998-479: The existence of one "Wakefield Master", and propose that multiple authors could have written in the Wakefield Stanza. Barbara Palmer suggests that the story of the Wakefield Master and the suggestion that the Second Shepherd's Play was performed as part of the Wakefield Cycle were both inventions of an amateur historian named J. M. W. Walker. However, scholars and literary critics find it useful to hypothesize

2052-658: The fact that the scribe arranged all the episodes in "chronological order" starting with Creation and ending with Judgment, simulating an episodic play presenting salvation history as in the two northern civic cycles from York and Chester . As he did this he buried the Mary Play inside the Nativity sequence and copied the Passion Play into place between the Raising of Lazarus and the Resurrection appearances. It has taken painstaking paleographic and codicologic examinations of

2106-507: The forbidding of any depiction of God or other supernatural beings, such as angels or demons. In addition, alterations were sometimes made in the scripts to reflect Reformed doctrine. For example, the play involving John the Baptist was altered to conform to Protestant doctrines about the sacraments . The word " pope " was excised from "Herod the Great," and twelve leaves are completely missing, which scholars suspect contained plays about

2160-522: The grownd evyn here. Then begynnys to grufe to us mery chere; Bot, husband, What grownd may this be? The hyllys of Armonye. Now blissid be he That thus for us can ordand. The thryd tyme wille I prufe what depnes we bere Now long shalle thou hufe, lay in thy lyne there. I may towch with my hufe the grownd evyn here. Then begynnys to grufe to us mery chere; Bot, husband, What grownd may this be? The hyllys of Armonye. Now blissid be he That thus for us can ordand. (All

2214-415: The manuscript to determine what the scribe actually did. To further complicate the matter, at some point in the history of copying out these plays, the proclamation was attached to them. Although the proclamation does not match the plays that follow, someone, possibly the scribe of this manuscript, placed numbers in the margin of the text against incidents that correspond to the description of the "pageants" in

N-Town Plays - Misplaced Pages Continue

2268-692: The name of the town the cycle was playing in at any given time. The plays of the N-Town cycle vary from simple, almost liturgical, recitations of Biblical texts (as in the Moses play of the Ten Commandments, the Jesse play with its kings and prophets, and the Pentecost play) to highly complex and fast moving short dramas on Biblical themes that have a naturalism and liveliness (as in the Death of Herod and

2322-480: The plays cannot predate 1425 and on the basis of the watermarks on the paper that the paper used by the main scribe comes from the period 1460–77. It is possible, again on the basis of the paper, that the Assumption play, written separately by a different scribe and bound into the main MS., was copied slightly earlier. We are safe to assume that the MS. dates from the second half of the third quarter (ca. 1463–75) of

2376-408: The proclamation. This does not affect the single episode pageants but it breaks up the flow of the Passion Play and has obscured the very existence of the Mary Play for centuries. A final scribal feature of this manuscript is the stage directions which reflect a curious mixture of intent. They seem to be recording performance detail while, at the same time, facilitating the reading of the manuscript as

2430-428: The punctuation and indentations are editorial and not part of the original manuscript.) In the first case above, the first four lines contain internal rhyme (i.e., "prufe," "hufe," "hufe," and "grufe"); but the second example arranges the same verses in shorter lines, which in the manuscript are separated from one another by apparently random use of the obelus (÷), virgules [/], double-virgules[//], and line-breaks. In

2484-530: The same cast during most of the lifetime of the cycle. Another way in which the Wakefield cycle differed in its staging from other cycles is that lack of association with the guilds. In other towns York and Coventry certain plays were staged by different guilds, according to their specialty (such as the shipwrights staging the Noah play). Although the names of four guilds are found on the manuscript (the barkers , glovers, litsters , and fishers), they are found in

2538-423: The second example, it is readily seen that the poet uses a cross-rhymed octet frons with a five-line tail-rhymed cauda. It is this innovative use of the cauda that is most distinctive in the stanza. There is some disagreement over whether the Wakefield Stanza is nine or thirteen lines long. Owing largely to A. C.Cawley 's 1957 edition of five of the pageants, and to others' arrangement of the manuscript lines, this

2592-518: The shaping of all five of these plays. " The most obvious of these characteristics is that several of the pageants use a distinctive stanza, sometimes called the Wakefield Stanza (see below). The pageants that manifest the Wakefield Stanza are noted for comedy, social satire, and intense psychological realism. These qualities also show up throughout the Towneley Cycle, most often where it seems to depart from its presumed sources. Some question

2646-653: The surrounding area. The Lincoln Mystery Plays are based on the N-Town Plays and were inspired by Keith Ramsay (b.1933-d.2021) who was head of drama at Bishop Grosseteste College during the 1970s. In 1974, Ramsay directed the Oberfuer Cycle which then led to his work, directing the productions every four years between 1978 and 2000 of the Lincoln Mystery Plays. The plays are performed in the Lincoln Cathedral and Southwell Minster . There are occasionally other performances. For example, in 2003, Mister Wesley ,

2700-417: Was Dunlop's reworking of the first six Wakefield plays, with music by Alan Doggett. Part II was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat . An adaptation of the plays was performed at London's National Theatre under the title of ' The Mysteries ' first in 1977. in 1985, it was filmed and broadcast for Channel 4. As part of Wakefield's centenary celebrations in 1988, Adrian Henri was commissioned to do

2754-427: Was a mediocre work that showed extensive borrowing from other sources but containing vibrant and exciting material, apparently by one author, who was responsible for four or five complete pageants and extensive revisions. Gayley refers to this person as the "master" (with a lowercase m ) in the book. Then in a 1907 article, Gayley emended this to "The Wakefield Master," the name which is still frequently used. Within

SECTION 50

#1732787039602

2808-439: Was based upon the earliest editions of the play that reflected the space-saving habits of the medieval scribe, who often wrote two verse-lines on a single manuscript line. Thus, depending upon how one interprets the manuscript, a stanza (from the Noah pageant) might appear in either of the following forms: The thryd tyme wille I prufe what depnes we bere Now long shalle thou hufe, lay in thy lyne there. I may towch with my hufe

2862-561: Was directed by Clare Venables and assisted by Rhys McConnochie . In 1978, Ramsay revived the Lincoln or N-Town Plays plays in Lincoln. He directed nine productions in Lincoln Cathedral and two in Southwell Minster . Ramsay was invited to present the production at several international conferences on medieval drama. The company performed in Neustadt, Germany; Viterbo, Rome & Camerino Italy; Perpignan, France and Oregon, in

2916-642: Was even called the Lincoln cycle by some scholars for a period and is still performed in the shadow of Lincoln Cathedral ), but the general consensus places the manuscript in East Anglia . Stephen Spector cautiously writes "The linguistic evidence indicates that the codex was recorded principally or exclusively by scribes trained in East Anglia" (Spector, xxix) Meredith more positively asserts that The Mary Play comes from Norfolk (Meredith, 6). However, since

#601398