Ludus Coventriæ

LUDUS COVENTRIÆ.
A Collection of Mysteries, FORMERLY REPRESENTED AT COVENTRY ON THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI.
EDITED BY JAMES ORCHARD HALLIWELL, ESQ. F.R.S. HON. M.R.I.A., F.S.A., F.R.A.S., &c.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY. 1841.

LONDON: F. SHOBERL, JUN., 51, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET, PRINTER TO H. R. H. PRINCE ALBERT.



Mr. Collier, in the second volume of his excellent History of English Dramatic Poetry, has carefully analyzed the Coventry Mysteries, with occasional notices of resemblances or dissimilarities in the method in which the same subjects are treated in the other collections. It will, therefore, be unnecessary for me in this place to enter on the general question of the chain in the evidence of dramatic history which these mysteries afford.
Robert Hegge has given us his autograph in two places, and in both added the cognomen of “Dunelmensis.” On this account, some writers have conjectured that the volume originally came from Durham; but this supposition is not supported by any evidence and very little probability. The principal mark of dialect which the Mysteries contain, viz., x for sh in such words as xal , xulde , &c., belong to that part of the country in which Coventry is situated.