such performances probably
owed their existence or at least considerable encouragement to the
system of religious brotherhood detailed in our opening chapter--was
enacted in the year 1110 at Dunstable. Matthew Paris informs us that one
Geoffrey, afterwards Abbot of St. Albans, produced at the town aforesaid
the Play of St. Catherine, and that he borrowed from St. Albans copes in
which to attire the actors. This mention of copes reminds us of the
Boy-Bishop, and is one of the symptoms indicating community of origin.
To this may be added that miracle plays were at first performed in
churches, and, as we shall hereafter see, in some localities were never
removed from their original sphere. The clergy also took an active share
in the performances, as long as they were confined to churches; but on
their emergence into the streets, Pope Gregory forbade the participation
of the priests in what had ceased to be an act of public worship. This
was about A.D. 1210. From that time miracle plays were regarded
by the straiter sort with disfavour, and Robert Manning in his "Handlyng
Sinne" (a translation of a Norman-French "Manuel de Peche") goes so far
as to denounce them, if performed in "ways or greens," as "a sight of
sin," though allowing that the resurrection may be played for the
confirmation of men's faith in that greatest of mysteries. Such
prejudice was by no means universal; in 1328--more than a hundred years
later--we find the Bishop of Chester counselling his spiritual children
to resort "in peaceable manner, with good devotion, to hear and see" the
miracle plays.

We saw that the earliest religious drama known to have been performed in
this country was one on St. Catherine. William Fitzstephen, in his "Life
of St. Thomas a Becket," written in 1182, brings into contrast with the
pagan shows of old Rome the "holier plays" of London, which he terms
"representations of the miracles wrought by the holy confessors or of
the sufferings whereby the constancy of the martyrs became gloriously
manifest." Thus we perceive how the term "miracle" attached itself to
this species of theatrical exhibitions. Probably, towards the
commencement of the twelfth century, French playwrights fastened on the
miracles of the saints as their special themes, and, by force of habit,
the English public in ensuing generations retained the description,
though subjects had come to be chosen other than the marvels of the
martyrology. Dr. Ward would limit