Chapter XV (1)

_Daily Life in the Town (continued)--Religion and Amusements of the Townsfolk_

High above market-place and churchyard, above booth and stall, and the life and movement of a busy crowd, rose a forest of magnificent spires, three from the cathedral and one from either parish church. And after the day's chaffer many a busy trader would turn aside and enter the long aisles to listen to the chanting of vespers or tell his beads before the image of his patron saint.

In these days of tempered enthusiasm and lukewarm local interest we can hardly realise what a source of joy and pride these churches were to the townsfolk. Self-denial had enabled them to raise these goodly buildings, which they gave of their best to beautify. The painters, masons, carpenters, and carvers of the city did the work; the red sandstone, which, alas! so soon crumbles and decays, came from the local quarries; and though the grand outline of S. Michael's may be due to some bishop of the thirteenth century,[600] the design of the building, with which we are now familiar, came from the brain of a local architect--some parish priest, perhaps, or master mason of the city. For the churches of Trinity and S. Michael's were practically built anew from their foundations, neither perhaps by one family of merchants, but by the whole body of parishioners in the hey-day of the city's wealth,[601] while the small collegiate church of S. John the Baptist was raised by the Trinity guild. All these show the influence of the new "Perpendicular" style; but S. Michael's more than the rest is a triumph of the amazing lightness and technical skill so characteristic of the architecture of the fifteenth century--a style which, though lacking the strength and mystery of the earlier Gothic of the thirteenth century, has yet a certain majesty of its own.

Having once built the churches, the townsfolk made provision for continual prayer and supplication to be held therein. With a touching belief in the efficacy of prayer, even vicarious, and a business-like intention of making the best of both worlds, these worthy men devoted large sums to the support of chantry priests, who, while their patrons were engaged in secular business, prayed for the souls of the faithful departed and for living members of the town guilds and brotherhoods.[602] In the lady chapels of S. Michael's the priests of the Trinity guild chanted daily the "Antiphones of the Virgin" and the psalm _De Profundis_ on behalf of the founders of the fraternity.[603] Similarly a priest said mass at the altar of Our Blessed Lady in Trinity church "for the good estate of King Richard and Anne his Queen, the whole realm of England, and all those by whom this altar is sustained ... and for their souls after death," remembering especially his patrons, the brethren of the Corpus Christi guild.[604] The dyers' and drapers' priests had their appointed task, so had the chaplains of S. John the Baptist's and S. Nicholas' churches, while the bedesmen, as their name implies, in the almshouse offered daily prayers for the welfare of the members of the Trinity guild.

But the good folk were not content with offering their supplications by proxy. Although much of the spiritual fervour of the thirteenth century died away in the later Middle Ages, the townsfolk were methodical and regular in their religious observance and attended church with due decorum on Sunday and holy-days. In the pews sat the city officers and their wives each in their degree, the various craftsmen occupying no doubt the special chapels called after their names, and the apprentices and servants sitting or standing "in the alleys."[605] The walls of the churches were bright with fresco, where even the most ignorant could learn the stories taken from the lives of the saints or from Holy Writ; it is only within living memory that the smoke has blackened a rediscovered representation of the Last Judgment above the chancel arch of Trinity church. And when the worshippers lifted their eyes to the window-glow they beheld amid the company of the saints scenes taken from local legend, the old compact for the freedom of the market between Leofric and Godiva, the blazoning of the arms of founders and benefactors, and the insignia of trade and craft.[606] For the mediæval artist saw no firm line sundering the things of religion from the affairs of daily life, and the people did not care to keep their civic patriotism and inspirations solely for the guild-hall. In the aisles and chapels lay the most honoured of the city dead; Bond and Haddon were laid among their fellow drapers, and the tomb of Ralph Swyllington, recorder, may yet be seen on the mercers' side in S. Michael's church.

The craft companies paid an annual rent for the chapels within their keeping, whither they repaired at least once a year to keep the festival of their patron saint and present their offerings. Thus each of the cappers subscribed twelve pence a year towards the maintenance of the furniture in S. Thomas's chapel in S. Michael's, and presented a penny as an offering on the feast of the translation of the saint.[607] In these chapels, where the glory of goldsmiths' and artist's work testified to the munificence of the craftsfolk, dead members of the brotherhood were occasionally buried, and their _obits_ or anniversaries kept.

It was a common practice to bequeath house property to provide funds for the continual commemoration of the testator's death and prayers for his soul's peace. Thus in 1492 Richard Clyff, late parson of S. George, London, bequeathed to the church of Holy Trinity, Coventry, a tenement in Well Street "to the entent ... that the Wardeyns of the same Church, for the tyme beinge yerely, for evermore, observe and kepe within the same Church, in the vigyll of Saynt Alphege, placebo, and dirige over nyght, by ii well-dysposyd prestys, there to be said devoutly without note; and on the morowe after, ayther of the same prestys to say messe of Requiem for the soules of John Cliff, and Margarete hys wyff, hys ffader and moder, hys own Soule, all hys ffrendys Saulys, and all Crystyan Saulys." Other features of the obit were the distribution of alms to the poor, and the feast which followed the service. Thus on the day whereon Robert Burnell's obit was kept 4s. was given to the poor, and 3s. 10d. expended in bread and ale.[608]

When a craftsman died, the whole company of his brethren were present at his burial, which, if he were a noteworthy citizen, would take place with much solemnity at the Greyfriars' or one of the parish churches.[609] Funeral masses were invariably said in the cathedral, the offerings remaining to the use of S. Mary's minster and convent; the candles also that had burnt about the coffins[610] were left in the cathedral after the dead had been borne away to their graves. Whether the people of Coventry disliked this practice we cannot tell, but it brought the convent into collision with the Greyfriars, who, as an active and popular body within the town, were rather disposed to call the authority of the monks in question. The matter of the funeral candles and offerings touched the former very nearly, for their chapel was a favourite burial place; and in 1446 Friar John Bredon threw down his glove. We would fain know if brother John were a mere busybody or a born reformer; perhaps he belongs rather to the latter than the former class, as he also appears, it seems, as a champion of the poorer folk against the deceiving victuallers.[611] Be this as it may, he was a man of great influence with the citizens, and, together with the prior, had helped on a former occasion to still the religious excitement which had followed on the preaching of Grace, the hermit. The enmity between the friars and the convent was at last the cause of his overthrow. Concerning this matter of the candles, the friar was so moved to bitterness that he openly preached and affirmed "in the parish churches of this same citee ... that alle maner offerynges owen to be yeven alonely to theyme that mynistren the Sacraments to the parisshens," and bade the people give these candles to the parish churches; "permytting my selfe," he says, "to defende theyme that so did." Moreover, the friar declared "that in Englond was not so bonde a Citee as this Citee of Coventry is, in keping and observyng the said custome"; and in bills which he set up on the church doors he "promysed to delyver the pepull of this same Citee from the thraldom of Pharao." The prior of S. Mary was not to be daunted by this audacious front, and petitioned the King against Friar Bredon. In due time sentence was pronounced, and a form of recantation arrived prescribed by parliament. In presence of the Forty-eight[612] the friar was compelled to admit that the custom he had inveighed against "is a custom commendable, and so owyng to be kept and observed to encrese of mede, by pleasure made to Almighty God, who graunte to you and me to lif in this world aftir juste lawes and lawful customs vertuously, soo that we may deserve to rejoyse (enjoy) hevenly recompense everlastyngly."[613] After which recantation he was banished the city.

The citizens were as thorough and systematic in their pastimes as in their prayers, and all sorts of amusements of a vigorous character, wherein they gladly indulged, were rarely discouraged by the corporation. The practice of archery was looked on as part of every man's necessary training, and crafts were ordered to keep butts in good repair, so that all members of their fellowships could keep their hands well in use.[614] Bull-baiting, a favourite sport, gave its name to the Bull-ring hard by Trinity church;[615] but the traces of "le cokfyting place"[616] and of the bowling-green near the Charter-house[617] have been lost.

Bear-baiting was highly popular likewise, and frequent gifts to Sir Fulk Greville's bearward[618] form a feature in the chamberlains' accounts in the early days of Elizabeth. Like all the great Queen's subjects the men of Coventry delighted in theatrical representations, and now that the local religious drama was dead, their appreciation of the strolling players' art caused constant inroads to be made on the public purse. The wardens were frequently called upon for payments, such as "to the Earle of Darbyes players v_s._," "to the lord Chamberlain's players x_s._,"[619] items which accord ill with the payments for sermons at this time.[620] In the end the sermons gained the day, and it would be hard to find in the Midlands--save Banbury--a more staunchly Puritan town than Coventry under the Stuarts.

In the sixteenth century the corporation appear to have become disquieted at the reckless lives and illicit amusements of those over whom they ruled. A new era was about to dawn, wherein mediæval barriers would be broken down; and it seems as if the discreet and worthy burghers were afraid of the lawlessness and unrest which had entered into the spirit of society, and which in itself was the sign of coming change. Orders directed against gaming,[621] or intercourse, especially on the part of apprentices, with women of evil fame had always been a feature of the regulations passed by the leet; but as time goes on the mention of "unlawful games" becomes more and more frequent. As early as 1510 the aldermen of the several wards were charged to make search "for all them that keep misrule," who on being discovered were to be committed to ward, or, if they persisted in their evil ways, to be banished the city.[622] In 1516 this command was followed up by a fresh ordinance enjoining them to make inquiry for vagabonds, "as well women as men," suspected alehouses, "blynde ynnes," unlawful games, and the like.[623] But the evil appeared to increase as the century advanced, and in 1548 a complaint of leet reveals a state of things which has quite a modern look, so little change has human nature and human habit undergone these three hundred and fifty years. Many, we learn, passed their time drinking in taverns, and "playnge at the cardes and tables,[624] and spende all that they can gett prodigally upon theym selfes to the highe displeasure of God and theyre owne ympovershyng, whereas," the worthy men of the leet were of opinion, "if it were spente at home in theyre owne houses theyre wiffes and childerne shulde have part therof."[625] It was forthwith decreed that any of these prodigals, whether "labourer, journeyman, or apprentice," if discovered resorting to any alehouse on a work day should be imprisoned for a day and night.

In those days, as in our own time, the lower classes had the keenest appreciation of all that appertained to sport, and the loafer loved to roam the country lanes with a dog at his heels. Long time since the prior had complained how the citizens hunted and hawked in his warren, and in the sixteenth century the corporation were hard put to it to keep this passion within the bounds prescribed by the statutes of the realm. People, we hear in the eighteenth year of Henry VIII., who did not possess the necessary qualification, a 40s. freehold, presumed to keep birds and dogs, whereby idleness "is greatly encreased"; henceforward they were forbidden to keep hawk, hound, greyhound, or ferret, or to presume to hunt with the same under a heavy penalty.[626]

Other practices in which the citizens indulged were looked upon with an unfavourable eye by the rulers of the town, brawling being expressly forbidden. No one was allowed to carry defensive weapons through the streets, and hosts were charged to bid their stranger guests leave their swords behind them, when they had occasion to leave the hostels wherein they had taken lodging.[627] The penalty for smiting "with a knife drawyn" was half a mark, unless the smiter were "himself defendant." "No man of craft," another order runs, "bear no bills, nor gysarnes, nor great staves," upon pain of forfeiture of the same weapons. Those who were driving cattle to market could, however, carry a small staff in their hands.[628] These orders did not suffice by any means to abolish brawls, and sometimes lords, knights and squires, the "mighty" men of the country round, fought out their ancient family quarrels among the dwellings of the burgher folk;[629] at others the citizens had their own grievances to urge against one or other of these mighty men, and drew sword upon him and his retainers. In these cases there would be, most likely, death or shedding of blood, while in disputes arising among the citizens themselves merely blows and beatings would be given on either side, but with such violence that combatants were afterwards often spoken of as "in despair of their lives" from the injuries they had received.

Troubles of this kind were a feature of the times when the gentry flocked into the city to see the far-famed Corpus Christi shows, or to be near the Court, for Henry VI. and his Queen tarried frequently at Coventry. On Corpus Christi even in the year 1448 Sir Humphrey Stafford and his son Richard were attacked in the Broadgate[630] after nightfall, as they came from Lady Shrewsbury's[631] lodging, by Sir Robert Harcourt and his men. Richard was slain and his father wounded in the darkness and confusion, while two of the Harcourt faction died also in the fray. All this took place, says John Northwood, writing to Viscount Beaumont, "as men say, in a Paternoster while." It was a terrible business; Northwood, evidently striving to be exact, could hardly describe how it happened. The two chief enemies, he says, "fell in handes togyder, and Sir Robert smot hym (Sir Humphrey) a grette stroke on the hed with hys sord, and Richard with hys dagger hastely went toward hym, and as he stombled on of Harcourts men smot hym in the bak with a knyfe, men wotte not ho hytt was reddely; hys fader hard noys and rode toward hem and hys men ronne before hym thyderward, and in the goyng downe of hys hors, on, he wotte not ho,[632] be hynd hym smot hym on the hede with a nege tole,[633] men know not with us with what wepone, that he fell downe and hys son fell downe be fore hym as goode as dede." And the whole affray--characteristically enough--was "be cawse of an old debate that was betwene heme for takyng of a dystres as hyt is told." The law was not always prompt in bringing gentlefolk to account, and Sir Robert Harcourt at that time escaped justice, only to be overtaken by revenge, however, twenty-two years later, when he died at the hands of the Staffords.[634]

Among the citizens also certain feasts and merry-makings ministered occasion for riots and quarrels. Such were the Lammas feasts, whereon the chamberlains, with a tumultuous following, opened out the common pasture lands that encircled the city. Such again were the three great processional nights, the vigils of Corpus Christi, of S. John the Baptist (Midsummer eve) and S. Peter. "The people come at Lammas," runs an order of Leet, "in excess number and unruly, to ill ensample"; and it was laid down that only a few from each ward, who had been appointed by the corporation, should accompany the chamberlains on their annual ride. Moreover, "great debate and manslaughter and other perils and sins" fell out on Midsummer eve and S. Peter's night, because so "great a multitude" was gathered together at that season within the city, "that it lieth in no man's power ... for to please them all";[635] and the Church tried to interfere in the interests of peace, but without success. Occasionally the good folk of the place fell to blows, it would seem, on ordinary working days, without having their presence at a merry-making to urge in extenuation of their fault. Thus in 1444 the corvesars, or tanners of leather, fell out about some obscure point or other with the weavers, and so hotly did the quarrel rage between them, and so frequent the exchange of deadly blows, that Thomas Burdeux, weaver, was said to be in "despair of his life" by reason of the sore beating he had received. The quarrel was allayed, according to the wisdom of the mayor and his discreet council, by the drinking of a certain amount of ale among the fellowship of both crafts at their joint expense.[636]

But few pleasures appealed to the mediæval citizen so strongly as that of dining well; and besides these peace-promoting drinkings there were many occasions whereon members of guilds and crafts met together to feast and do their best to justify the reputation, which still clings to city folk and aldermen, of loving good cheer. The meals of the Middle Ages were long and heavy. The highly-flavoured cookery, with its strange mixture of meat and sweets--fowls stuffed with currants was a favourite dish--would appear barbarous to modern epicures; but such as it was, vast preparations and much money were lavished upon it. The members of each craft fellowship met once a year to hold a feast, while the brethren of the Trinity guild celebrated the Assumption and S. Peter's Eve by a banquet and probably also the festival of the Decollation of S. John. The Corpus Christi had a "Lenton" dinner, a "goose" dinner in August, and a "venison" one in October,[637] and in 1492 they spent £26, 0s. 4d. on their feasts, a sum only 13s. less than the annual stipend due to the five priests supported by the guild.[638] But the record of common feasting is not yet exhausted. The members of the Corpus Christi fraternity met together at a breakfast on the morning of the festival of the Body of Christ, and all the crafts supped on cakes and ale on the great processional nights. One dozen spiced cakes, three dozen white cakes, "a seysterne" and a half of ale with "comfets," and a pound of "marmalet" were ordered for the carpenters' merry-making on Midsummer eve, 1534.[639] Nor were the journeymen forgotten on these joyous evenings; they partook of plainer fare--bread and ale--at their master's expense.

On Midsummer and S. Peter's eves the townsfolk gave themselves up to mirth and jollity, decorating banqueting-halls, streets, and houses with birchen boughs and all manner of greenery.[640] This custom was, Stowe tells us, also observed in London, where every man's door was "shadowed with Greene Birch, long Fennel, S. John's wort, Orpin, white Lilies, and such like, garnished with Garlands of beautifull flowers, and had also Lamps of glasse with Oyle burning in them all the night."[641] But lamps were not the only means of illumination on those joyous nights. "On the Vigils of Festivall dayes and on the same Festivall dayes in the Evenings," continues the London chronicler, "after the Sun-setting, there were usually made Bone-fires in the streets, every man bestowing wood or labour towards them. The wealthier sort also before their doores, neere to the said Bone-fires, would set out Tables on the vigils, furnished with sweete bread and good drinke, and on the Festivall days with meats and drinkes plentifully, whereunto they would invite their neighbours and passengers also to sit, and be merry with them in great familiarity, praysing God for his benefits bestowed on them. These were called Bone-fires, as well of amity amongst neighbours, that being before at controversie, were there by the labour of others reconciled, and made of bitter enemies loving friends."[642]

It is good to dwell on this scene of frank gaiety and open-handed hospitality, the pleasantest, to my thinking, that has come to us from mediæval times. The dusk lighted by the flicker of the bonfires, the flower-wreathed houses, the merry groups, the hand-clasp in token of reconciliation, what a picturesque glimpse we have here of common union and common joy to which our fêtes and holidays nowadays can afford no parallel!

But the chief glory of these festal nights was the setting forth of the armed watch.[643] This was not such an imposing spectacle in Coventry as in London, where the route extended, says Stowe, "to 3200 Taylors yards of assize." The procession way was lighted by 700 cressets, and the marching watch numbered 2000 men. Yet the Coventry folk made great preparation for their humbler show, which was undertaken, so said the drapers' craft with pardonable pride, "to the lawde and prayse of God and the worship of this city." All the craft fellowships met together to consult as to ways and means some days beforehand, "at the mayor's commandment," and dire penalties were laid on those who should refuse to attend on Midsummer night when the chief master sent his "clerk or sumoner" to warn them.[644] When all was ready for the procession, the worthy folk rode forth, two by two, each man in the livery proper to his calling, the least important brotherhood going first, the others following, each in their degree, until the train of fellowships closed with the mercers, the senior craft.[645] The journeymen, perhaps on foot, followed their masters, and the chief folk of the corporation rode conspicuous in their scarlet cloaks, each one having an attendant torchbearer.[646] But the chief glory of the procession was the sight of the watch riding in shining armour, and bearing battle-axes, swords and guns. Thus the dyers sent forth two clad in complete white armour, and four in brigandines, the drapers four "in almayne revetts," while the smiths among others hired four, and the butchers made provision for six armed men.[647] Moreover, a crowd of minstrels and hirelings bearing cressets, torches, spears gay with pennons and bells,[648] streamers whereon were depicted the arms of the various crafts,[649] and mirth-provoking figures of giants and giantesses,[650] caused the streets to fill with colour, light, music, and laughter. The citizens in the dusk of those June evenings beheld a right gallant show. There was the sound of minstrelsy, broken by a sudden discharge of guns,[651] with the murmur of many voices and the tramp of many feet, and between the rows of densely packed crowd the torchlights glinted on the bright advancing line of the armed watch, or glowed on the stately figures of my masters the mayor, sheriffs and aldermen, arrayed in scarlet, bringing up maybe the rear of the train. In this manner did the good folk of Coventry celebrate the vigils of S. John the Baptist and S. Peter, according to the ancient custom of the city, until the changes of the sixteenth century, or the growth of Puritan feeling, or poverty, or a combination of all these, caused the observance to be laid aside. The riding on S. Peter's eve was discontinued after 1549,[652] though Midsummer eve was still celebrated by a procession for some years after that date.

On the morning of the Corpus Christi festival, before the Mystery Plays were acted, another procession of the crafts, more strictly religious in character than those we have described, also took place. Following the train of companies of traders and artificers came the members or priests of the Trinity guild bearing the Host, the various religious bodies of the city probably walking behind the Sacrament. The Corpus Christi guild provided gorgeous vessels, wherein the consecrated elements were placed, and four burgesses hired by the fraternity carried a canopy of costly material over the same, while the effect of the religious ceremonial was heightened by banner and crucifix coming from the treasuries of the guilds. A pageant setting forth scenes in the life of the Virgin, the Annunciation, which, on account of its mystical meaning, was highly appropriate to the occasion, and the Assumption also figured in the train, and the records of the Corpus Christi guild show the payments made to the persons who represented S. Gabriel bearing the lily,[653] the Virgin with a crown of great price upon her head, the twelve apostles, including S. Thomas of India, eight virgins, S. Margaret and S. Catherine. And the smiths caused the actor who was to represent Herod in their pageant to ride on horseback in a gorgeously painted coat in the procession. After this portion of the festival was over, the craftsfolk set forth the famous plays or pageants, whereof the fame filled Coventry from time to time with royal and noble visitors, and all the good folk of the surrounding country. Henry V. in 1416, Margaret of Anjou in 1457, Richard III. in 1485, Henry VII. in 1487, and again with his Queen, Elizabeth of York, in 1493,[654] witnessed these shows, which in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were at the height of their popularity.

Among the everyday people who came at this season in crowds to Coventry, merchants combined business with religious edification, since the fair followed hard on the plays,[655] with others the latter counted most. "If you believe not me," says a preacher in the _Hundred Merry Tales_, at the conclusion of his sermon on the Creed, "then for a more surety and sufficient authority, go your way to Coventry and there ye shall see them all played in Corpus Christi play."[656] We may take it that the dramatic illusion was notably sustained in these plays, and that they "fortified the unlearned in their faith." The men of this midland city had a passion for acting; they performed on every occasion; such adepts were they at their art that we hear of their playing at Court in 1530, at Bristol and Abingdon in 1570, and four times in Leicester between 1564 and 1571-2.[657] In this manner did Warwickshire folk prepare for Shakespeare's coming. The soil on which the Elizabethan drama grew with such luxuriance, had been tilled for well-nigh two hundred years by nameless actors, who set forth on local stages the tragedy, which for simple dignity, has no peer among the tragedies of the world.

The famous Corpus Christi pageants were not of lay but of clerical origin. The church was the earliest theatre; clerks the first actors; and the earliest plays grew out of the dramatic rendering of parts of the Easter and Christmas services--a colloquy between those representing the angel at the sepulchre and the women bearing precious ointment,[658] or the singing by a choirboy "in the similitude of an angel" perched "in excelso"--aloft--of glad tidings to personators of the shepherds of Bethlehem,[659] or the successive utterance of clerks in the character of Isaiah, Habakkuk and other prophets of appropriate testimony to the coming of Christ. From such simple, liturgical sources there developed first in clerical, then in lay, hands, a religious drama which ultimately covered the whole field of Christian history from the Creation to the Day of Doom. In view of the near connection between the Coventry monks and the Lichfield canons, it is of great interest to note that the _Peregrini_--the appearance of Christ to the travellers at Emmaus--an early development of the Easter cycle, and the _Pastores_, or the Christmas Shepherds' play, were regularly performed at Lichfield under Bishop Hugh of Nonant.[660] Of other plays, called _Miracula_ or Miracles, whereof the source was not the liturgy, but rather the life of a saint, there is frequent mention; such an one in honour of S. Catherine was performed before 1119 at a monastic school at Dunstable on the road between London and Coventry. Nearly 400 years later a "miracle" on the same subject was seen in the "Little Park" just outside the walls of the midland city.

As the liturgical plays grew long and elaborate they ceased to be included in the church service; and gradually it came about that the churchyard, since it would admit of more spectators than the church, was deemed a more fitting place for their representation, as at Beverley, where about 1220 a crowd assembled to witness a play on the Resurrection.[661] Thence, so greatly did the laity love these shows, they passed to convenient greens and highways, somewhat to the scandal of rigider moralists, who held that, though clerks might act in church plays, it was a "sight of sin" for them to hold these performances in a more secular neighbourhood. It was probably in response to this feeling that the regular clergy--save on occasions the friars--gradually withdrew from out door plays, and that lay performers, controlled by the growing and wealthy craft-guilds, practically replaced clerks. The vulgar tongue ousted Latin, and plays proper to Easter and Christmas, linked together into one whole religious story, were acted on the great processional feasts, when daylight is longest, Corpus Christi or, less frequently, Whitsuntide. The process, still somewhat obscure to us, whereby the performances passed under secular control, would seem to be complete in the fourteenth century. Local tradition places the earliest representation at Chester in 1328, while we have more certain knowledge of them at Beverley in 1377, York in 1378 and Coventry in 1392. What part, if any, was played by the professional entertainers, wandering "mimes," minstrels and jugglers in the gradual secularization of the plays we know not, neither is there definite information about the earliest dramatic authors, save that tradition points to Ralph Higden of _Polychronicon_ fame as author of the Chester cycle. Plays, however, were so frequently revised and expanded by local folks, clerks and laymen, that they sometimes became, like the Coventry craft-plays, affairs of metrical patchwork. The last redaction these special dramas underwent was at the hands of Robert Croo, a jack-of-all-trades theatrical, by whom they were "neuly translate" or "neuly correcte" in 1535.[662]

Each Coventry craft was required by the authorities to contribute towards the setting forth of a pageant at the festival. The more important fraternities--such as the mercers and drapers--were able to bear the expenses of furnishing stage scenery, paying actors, and providing suitable accessories without any aid from bodies outside their ranks. But among the lesser crafts it was usual for two, three, four, or more to band together in order to lessen the individual burden,[663] while in all cases the journeymen probably contributed towards the expenses of their masters' pageant.[664] The task of adjusting these payments according to the means of the various inferior craft companies, was a delicate one, and often brought trouble upon the corporation. None of them cared to undertake the expenses and responsibility involved in the provision of a play. The smiths in 1428 petitioned the leet to be released from the burden;[665] the dyers in 1494 could not be induced to take the load upon their shoulders;[666] while for many years the skinners, fishmongers, cappers, corvesars, butchers, and others contrived to evade payment towards the support of a pageant, until a complaint arose from some of the contributory crafts that they were over-burdened with charges consequent thereon.

This primary difficulty being overcome, the crafts took no little pains to make the representations as perfect as possible. They provided the dresses and stage furniture from their own funds, each company having a pageant-house[667] usually in Mill Lane, now Cox Street, wherein these properties were stored. They paid the composer of the piece, if need were, or the copyist; the actors also, who were maybe lower craftsfolk, had a fixed hire, with "bread and ale" at rehearsals, and between the repetition of the performance on the festival day in different quarters of the town. All were required by order of leet to play "well and sufficiently," "lest any impediment should arise" in the performance, under pain of 20s. to the town wall,[668] and in order that they might be perfect in their several parts, there were usually two, or in the case of a new play no less than five, rehearsals before the festival,[669] some of these taking place in the presence of the assembled fellowship, while the "keeper of the play book" attended, no doubt in the capacity of prompter.

36 Gosford St]

91 Gosford St]

The common word for these craft-plays is pageants, a word of uncertain origin, which is also applied to the vehicle or movable stage whereon the acting took place. These pageants[670] were divided into two parts; the actors dressed--and no doubt waited also, when their presence was not required on the stage--in the under part, where they were concealed by hanging cloths; the play was set forth on the upper part, which was open to the view, and furnished with suitable scenery, and the floor strewn with rushes. Journeymen and other hirelings dragged the pageants from place to place, the play being repeated at convenient points within the city, beginning with Gosford Street. The second and third stations appear to have been at the end of Much Park Street, most likely the corner of Jordan Well, and at the New Gate respectively. Dr Craig thinks that there were ten stations, which would accord well with the number of pageants and of wards within the city, though I cannot think that each of the plays was performed ten times over. Flesh is weak, and it is difficult to see how either actors or spectators could have borne the strain.[671] Moreover even the long light days of May or June would hardly have sufficed for such a stupendous task: when it was once essayed, all the pageants being first played before Richard Wood's door to pleasure Queen Margaret, in 1457, daylight failed, and the performance of "Doomsday" was perforce abandoned. Indeed it seems that this particular play, which naturally concluded the series, was but thrice acted, since the drapers regularly order three "worldys"--for which in 1556 they paid Croo two shillings--one to be destroyed, it appears, in each performance.[672]

No doubt this mobility of the theatre, and the simultaneous acting of various pageants at different stations was necessitated by the lack of an open space within the city sufficient to contain the throng of spectators. The acting of single plays, not belonging to the traditional cycle, such as the play of S. Catherine acted in 1491, or that of S. Crytyan or Christian, "magnus ludus vocatus seynt Xpeans pley,"[673] performed at Whitsuntide in 1505, took place in the Little Park where space was ample. That a regular open-air amphitheatre was constructed--such as the _plân an guare_ which survives at S. Just in Cornwall, is improbable; the Park-Hollows, where later Lollard and Marian martyrs suffered death, would maybe serve aptly for the purpose. Such an indelible impression did S. Christian's play make on those that beheld it, that years later when divers neighbours and friends were asked to give proof of Walter Smith's age--it was the Walter Smith who was after strangled by means of Dorothy, his faithless wife--they recalled that his baptism took place the year S. Christian's play was played in the Little Park.

There was possibly a convenient station close to the Greyfriars' church, where Henry VII. and his Queen viewed the plays in 1493. This is the explanation, whereat Dr Craig[674] has arrived after a careful sifting of the evidence, of the cryptic saying of some of the annalists that the King and Queen saw the plays acted _by the Greyfriars_. "In his Mayoralty," says one version, "K.H. 7 came to see the plays acted by the _Grey Friers_ and much commended them"; another version, quoted by Dr Craig, varies the reading to "_at_ the greyfriers," the probably correct interpretation.[675] The only other reference to the grey friars' acting comes from Dugdale, who goes further in attributing a particular manuscript to this particular house. The plays were "acted," he says, "with mighty state and reverence by the Friers of this House"; and further "I have been told," he continues, "by some old people, who in their younger years were eye-witnesses of these _Pageants_ so acted, that the yearly confluence of people to see that shew was extraordinary great, and yeilded no small advantage to this City."[676] Here Homer distinctly nods. Dugdale does not seem to have heard of the craft plays, whereof the regular representation did not cease until 1580,[677] twenty-five years before his birth, and thirty-five years before his entry into Coventry grammar school, but it was clearly to these pageants that the old people aforesaid referred, since any hypothetical acting on the part of the friars must have ceased in 1538 with the suppression of their house, sixty-seven years before Dugdale's birth and seventy-seven years before the beginning of his scholastic life at Coventry.

It is also on the slenderest grounds that the historian of Warwickshire attributes the fifteenth century MS. of the _Ludus Coventriæ_ to the Franciscans of that city. The first possessor of the manuscript was one Robert Hegge of Durham, after whose death in 1629 it appears to have passed into Cotton's possession and is still included in the great Cottonian collection in the British Museum.[678] Cotton's librarian, Richard James, described the MS. on the fly-leaf as scenes from the New Testament,[679] acted by monks or mendicant friars, adding that the book is commonly known as the Coventry plays or Corpus Christi plays.[680] A later librarian in 1696 omitted the Coventry attribution, but still alluded to the plays as represented by mendicant friars.

Here the matter must rest. Probably the last word has still to be said on the subject. Scholars are not agreed on the _locale_ of the _Ludus Coventriæ_ which have been assigned to districts as far removed as the northeast midlands and Wiltshire, or to their actors, who have been represented as strolling players, or even Coventry friars "on tour."[681] We might be disposed to accept--with caution--the view, evidently based on some tradition or other, that these plays were acted by friars,[682] but the objection to identifying these friars with the Coventry Franciscans, acting at any rate in Coventry, is that the city was furnished already with well-authenticated craftsmen-acted plays of great renown, whereof some examples are now left, and that it would be impossible for two sets of plays and actors to command attention at the feast of Corpus Christi. Nor is there evidence, so far as I am aware, to connect any of the Coventry religious with the stationary plays acted on occasions at Whitsuntide.[683]

We touch surer ground when we come to examine the craft-plays, whereof we have abundance of evidence. Unlike those of Chester, York and Wakefield, the Coventry plays were few in number, having been fused together, and, it seems, formed a series illustrating the life of Christ, closing with His second coming on the Day of Judgment. The absence of Old Testament scenes would be a rare feature, and the point has been disputed,[684] but so few of the pageants remain unidentified, and such striking scenes in the life of Christ have no play assigned to them, that there hardly seems room for scenes drawn from the Old Testament. The procession of prophets[685]--_Processus Prophetarum_--the nucleus whence the Old Testament cycle spread, is likewise very undeveloped in Coventry. None of the prophets are individualized in the plays that have come down to us, except Isaiah, who appears as prologue to the tailors' and sheremen's play of the _Nativity_; others appear as rather "defuce" commentators--to use their own word--further on in the action, and again as prologue to the weavers' play of the _Purification_.[686] It is impossible to construct the whole series of the Coventry plays, for, save two pageants--that of the sheremen and tailors, and that of the weavers--all are missing, and in some cases the very titles of the plays cannot be recovered. The first pageant set forth was probably that of the guild of the Nativity, the company of tailors and sheremen, representing the _Annunciation, Joseph's Trouble_, _the Journey to Bethlehem_, _the Birth of Christ_, _the Angels and the Shepherds_, _the Offering of the Magi_, _the Flight into Egypt_, _and the Murder of the Innocents_. The weavers' pageant, wherein was set forth the _Presentation of Christ in the Temple_, and _Christ and the Doctors_, would follow as a matter of course. The titles of four pageants--those of the mercers, tanners, whittawers, and girdlers--are lost, though Dr Craig has made the shrewd guess that the subject of the first was the _Assumption_.[687] The story of _Christ's Trial and Crucifixion_ was the theme of the smiths' show, the _Burial_ or the "taking down of God from the Cross" was played by the pinners and needlers, the _Harrowing of Hell_ and the _Resurrection_ was enacted on the stage furnished by the cardmakers, later cappers, and this, with the drapers' _Doomsday_, closes the list of the plays that are known to us. It will thus be seen that the inferior clothing crafts represented the Christmas cycle, and the workers in iron, smiths, pinners, cardmakers, the Passion-Resurrection one, so that we may suppose that the subject of the girdlers' pageant, since they were workers in iron, would be a subject nearly connected with this latter group--possibly the "Maundy" and _the Agony in the Garden_.

The shearmen and tailors' pageant of the _Nativity_ and the weavers' _Presentation in the Temple_, both plays whereof the text has been preserved, were discovered by the antiquary, Thomas Sharp, and printed early in the last century, a fortunate circumstance, since the former with all Sharp's collection perished in the fire at Birmingham in 1879. One manuscript alone remains, now in the possession of the broad weavers and clothiers, a small volume of seventeen leaves, one missing, bound in ancient boards and leather, with end-papers of Holbeinesque wood-cuts. The whole--save two songs at the end--is in the handwriting of Robert Croo, by whom it was "newly translate" in 1534.

Both these plays are written in many metres, and obviously show the workmanship of many hands. Rhythm and versification often betray the 'prentice; indeed on the whole it is but clumsy writing; and yet here and there that wonderful instrument, the English language, gives out its music though it be stricken with an unsure and careless hand. Isaiah's prologue, the scenes between Simeon and Anna,[688]--even the lines of that sublime braggart, Herod, have a hint of that wonderful quality to which English verse attained when Spenser wrote it. The kernel of the story is told in rough, simple quatrains; here and there--particularly in the comic parts--a rollicking stanza, derived apparently from one employed in the Chester cycle, breaks in; while some portions of the piece have been so worked over that the verse defies metrical analysis.[689]

There is no comedy connected with the shepherds' scenes in the Coventry Christmas plays, such as occurs in the Towneley (Wakefield) cycle, where the sheep-stealing episode is the work of a master-hand. Nor is the presentation of their gifts to the Child as charming as the "bob of cherries" passage in the northern dramatist's verses, still the scene is full of the tender feeling, which it never fails to draw forth.

"I have nothing," says the first shepherd to Mary,--

"I haue nothyng to present with thi chylde But my pype; hold, hold, take yt in thy hond; Where-in moche pleysure that I haue fond; And now, to oonowre thy gloreose byrthe, Thow schallt yt haue to make the myrthe.

II. Pastor. Now, hayle be thow, chyld, and thy dame! For in a pore loggyn here art thow leyde, Soo the angell seyde and tolde vs thy name; Holde, take thow here my hat on thy hedde! And now off won thyng thow art well sped, For weddur thow hast noo nede to complayne, For wynd, ne sun, hayle, snoo and rayne.

III. Pastor. Hayle be thou, Lorde ouer watur and landis!
For thy cumyng all we ma make myrthe
Have here my myttens to pytt on thi hondis.
Other treysure have I non to present the with."

A pipe, a hat, a pair of mittens! How homely it sounds! In the _York Plays_ the Child receives a broach with a tin bell, two cob-nuts on a string, and a horn spoon that can hold forty pease!

In the Nativity scene Joseph warms the Child at the breath of the beasts in the manger.

Mare. A! Josoff, husebond, my chyld waxith cold,
And we haue noo fyre to warme hym with_.

Josoff. Now in my narmys I schall hym fold,
Kyng of all kyngis be fyld and be fryth;
He myght haue had bettur, and hym-selfe wold,
Then the breythyng of these bestis to warme hym with.
Mare. Now, Josoff, my husbond, fet heddur my chyld,
The Maker off man and hy Kyng of blys.

Josoff. That schalbe done anon, Mare soo myld,
For the brethyng of these bestis hath warmyd [hym] well, i-wys.

The comic element in the preserved plays is represented by Joseph, a weariful old husband, and natural grumbler, who becomes exceedingly fretful when bidden by Mary to find some doves for the Purification offering at the Temple.

"Swette Josoff," says Mary, "fuffyll ye owre Lordis hestes."

"Why," says her husband ruefully,

"Why _and_ woldist th[o]u haue me to hunt bridis nestis? I pray the hartely, dame, leve thosse jestis And talke of thatt wol be.

For, dame, woll I neuer vast my wyttis, To wayte or pry where the wodkoce syttis; Nor to jubbard among the merle pyttis, For thatt wasse neyuer my gyse. Now am I wold and ma not well goo: A small twyge wold me ouerthroo; And yche[690] were wons lyggyd aloo, Full yll then schulde I ryse."[691]

Finding the task inevitable, he murmurs that "the weakest go ever to the wall," and appeals for sympathy to the audience, particularly to the husbands of young and headstrong wives in the traditional manner beloved by mediæval play-goers,

"How sey ye all this company Thatt be weddid asse well asse I? I wene that ye suffer moche woo; For he that weddyth a yonge thyng Must fullfyll all hir byddyng, Or els make his handis wryng, Or watur his iis when he wold syng; And thatt all you do know."[692]

Finally he subsides helplessly upon a "lond" or furrow, till the angel appears and thrusts the birds into his hands. No mention is made to Mary of the miraculous interposition when Joseph has hurried home, pluming himself upon the capture.

"I am full glade I haue them fond. Am nott I a good husbonde?"

says the saint with glee. It is a delicious scene, and its writer was a comedian of no mean order.

Herod was the popular favourite of the Christmas play cycle, for the predecessors of Shakespeare's groundlings loved to have their ears split by his noisy arrogance. He "ragis in the pagond and in the strete also," according to a stage direction, and it is possible that his buffoonery was tinged with the memory of the wild frolic of the ancient Christmas festivals, the feast of the Ass and the feast of Fools.[693]

"It out-herods Herod," says Shakespeare, the professional player, in scorn of the amateur of the old régime. But the rant Herod utters is gorgeous rant.

How the children shuddered when he wielded his "bright brond" or terrible sword, and how his great voice rang out through the streets when he cried:--

"For I am evyn he thatt made bothe hevin and hell, And of my myghte power holdith up this world rownd. Magog and Madroke, bothe them did I confounde."

What megalomania! "Magog and Madroke," are undeniably fearsome names and suit well with Herod's vizor, his falchion and towering crest.

"I am the cawse," he cries out,--

"I am the cawse of this grett lyght and thunder; Ytt ys throgh my fure that the[694] soche noyse dothe make. My feyrefull contenance the clowdis so doth incumbur That oftymis for drede therof the verre yerth doth quake. Loke, when I with males this bryght brond doth schake, All the whole world from the north to the sowthe I ma them dystroie with won worde of my mowthe!

* * * * *

Behold my contenance and my colur, Bryghtur then the sun in the meddis of the dey. Where can you haue a more grettur succur Then to behold my person that ys soo gaye? My fawcun and my fassion, with my gorgis araye,-- He thatt had the grace all-wey ther-on to thynke, Lyve the[694] myght all-wey with-owt othur meyte or drynke."[695]

There was another Herod in the smiths' play of the Passion, which has not survived, but he was outshone by Pilate, who received 4s. for his hire from the same company, whereas his fellow, the personator of Herod, received but 3s. 8d.; the former, too, drank wine in the intervals between the proformances, while the minor players were refreshed with mere ale for the nonce. Both these above named were rampant characters, Pilate always possessing the organ of Stentor. He appears again in the cappers' play of the Resurrection, and evidently became very terrific, laying about him with his club or mall when the soldiers brought news that Christ had risen from the dead. Years after in 1790 when even the tradition of the pageants was almost forgotten, Sharp, the antiquary, found Pilate's mall in an old chest in the cappers' chapel in S. Michael's church.[696] It was made of leather and stuffed with wool, and had evidently served as the head of a staff. Pilate's "balls," also made of leather, and possibly the forerunners of the fool's bauble, also ministered occasion for noise and laughter. Both Herod, Pilate, and the demons had vizors or masks, hence the smiths' entry, "paid to Wattis for dressyng of the devells hede viii_d_."[697] The devil--sometimes in the plural--appears in at least three Coventry plays, the _Trial_, where no doubt he whispered the dream to "Dame Procula," Pilate's wife, as he did at York,[698] the _Harrowing of Hell, and Doomsday_. In the last two pageants there would be much by-play with Hell-mouth and the souls in the infernal place. I cannot tell in which particular piece the devil, whom John Heywood, interlude-writer, claimed as an "old acquaintance," was an actor, but it undoubtedly was in one of them, since in his _Foure P.P._ Heywood says:--

"Oft in the play of Corpus Christi, He had played the deuyll at Coventry."

Among the cappers' list of actors there is one which has about it a certain Miltonic grandeur; it is the "Mother of Death."[699] It is to be regretted that _Doomsday_ has not survived, for the names of the persons represented are very suggestive; two demons, two spirits were among them, two "worms of conscience," three black--or damned--souls, and three white--or saved--souls, and a Pharisee.[700] The details of the stage property and payments abound in _naïf_ and grotesque allusions. Thus we learn that a "new hook" for hanging Judas was purchased at the cost of 6d.;[701] and one Fawston received 4d. for "coc croyng," presumably "to startle the penitent Peter."[702] Adam's spade, "Eve's distaff," and the "apple tree,"[703]

"the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the world and all our woe,"

are part of the stage furnishing of the _Harrowing of Hell_, since therein Christ drew out from limbo our first parents. Everything about these pageants must have been terrifying especially to sensitive or guilty consciences. A hireling was paid fourpence "for kepyng of fier at hell mothe"[704]from the drapers. This craft also purchased a "baryll," whereof the rolling might imitate the sound of the "yerthequake" on the Judgment Day.[705]