e mediaeval Church. Early in
the Middle Ages the clergy and their parishioners began the habit, at
Christmas, Easter and other holy days, of playing some part of the story
of Christ's life suitable to the festival of the day. These plays were
liturgical, and originally, no doubt, overshadowed by a choral element.
But gradually the inherent human capacity for mimicry and drama took the
upper hand; from ceremonies they developed into performances; they
passed from the stage in the church porch to the stage in the street. A
waggon, the natural human platform for mimicry or oratory, became in
England as it was in Greece, the cradle of the drama. This momentous
change in the history of the miracle play, which made it in all but its
occasion and its subject a secular thing, took place about the end of
the twelfth century. The rise of the town guilds gave the plays a new
character; the friendly rivalry of leagued craftsmen elaborated their
production; and at length elaborate cycles were founded which were
performed at Whitsuntide, beginning at sunrise and lasting all through
the day right on to dusk. Each town had its own cycle, and of these the
cycles of York, Wakefield, Chester and Coventry still remain. So too,
does an eye-witness's account of a Chester performance where the plays
took place yearly on three days, beginning with Whit Monday. "The
manner of these plays were, every company had his pageant or part, a
high scaffold with two rooms, a higher and a lower, upon four wheels. In
the lower they apparelled themselves and in the higher room they played,
being all open on the top that all beholders might hear and see them.
They began first at the abbey gates, and when the first pageant was
played, it was wheeled to the high cross before the mayor and so to
every street. So every street had a pageant playing upon it at one time,
till all the pageants for the day appointed were played." The
"companies" were the town guilds and the several "pageants" different
scenes in Old or New Testament story. As far as was possible each
company took for its pageant some Bible story fitting to its trade; in
York the goldsmiths played the three Kings of the East bringing precious
gifts, the fishmongers the flood, and the shipwrights the building of
Noah's ark. The tone of these plays was not reverent; reverence after
all implies near at hand its opposite in unbelief. But they were
realistic and they contained within them the seeds of later