The friars of the monastery of the Franciscans at Coventry are particularly celebrated for their ingenuity in performing these pageants on Corpus Christi day; a copy of this play or miracle is preserved in the Cottonian Collection, written in old English rhyme. It embraces the transactions of the Old and New Testament, and is entitled Ludus Corpus Christi. It commences—
A PLAIE CALLED CORPUS CHRISTI.[469]
Now gracyous God groundyd of all goodnesse,
As thy grete glorie neuyr begynnyng had;
So you succour and save all those that sytt and sese,
And lystenyth to our talkyng with sylens stylle and sad,
For we purpose no pertly stylle in his prese
The pepyl to plese with pleys ful glad,
Now lystenyth us lowly both mar and lesse
Gentyllys and ȝemaury off goodly lyff lad,
þis tyde,
We call you shewe us that we kan,
How that þis werd fyrst began,
And howe God made bothe worlde and man
If yt ye wyll abyde.
These miracles were intended to instruct the more ignorant, or those whose circumstances placed the usual means of acquiring knowledge beyond their reach; but as books became accessible, they were no longer needed; the printing press made the Bible, from which the plots of the miracle plays were usually derived, common among the people, and these gaudy representations were swept away by the Reformation; but they were temporarily revived in Queen Mary's time, with the other abominations of the church papal, for we find that "in the year 1556 a goodly stage play of the Passion of Christ was presented at the Grey Friers in London on Corpus Christi day," before the Lord Mayor and citizens;[470] but we have nothing here to do with anecdotes illustrating a period so late as this.
We have now arrived at the dawn of a new era in learning, and the slow, plodding, laborious scribes of the monasteries were startled by the appearance of an invention with which their poor pens had no power to compete. The year 1472 was the last of the parchment literature of the monks, and the first in the English annals of printed learning; but we must not forget that the monks with all their sloth and ignorance, were the foremost among the encouragers of the early printing press in England; the monotony of the dull cloisters of Westminster Abbey was broken by the clanking of Caxton's press; and the prayers of the monks of old St. Albans mingled with the echoes of the pressman's labor. Little did those barefooted priests know what an opponent to their Romish rites they were fostering into life; their love of learning and passion for books, drove all fear away; and the splendor of the new power so dazzled their eyes that they could not clearly see the nature of the refulgent light just bursting through the gloom of ages.
After the invention of the printing art, bibliomania took some mighty strides; and many choice collectors, full of ardor in the pursuit, became renowned for the vast book stores they amassed together. But some of their names have been preserved and good deeds chronicled by Dibdin, of bibliographical renown; so that a chapter is not necessary here to extol them. We may judge how fashionable the avocation became by the keen satire of Alexander Barkley, in his translation of Brandt's Navis Stultifera or Shyp of Folys,[471] who gives a curious illustration of a bibliomaniac; and thus speaks of those collectors who amassed their book treasures without possessing much esteem for their contents.
"That in this ship the chiefe place I gouerne,
By this wide sea with fooles wandring,
The cause is plain & easy to discerne
Still am I busy, bookes assembling,
For to have plentie it is a pleasaunt thing
In my conceyt, to have them ay in hand,
But what they meane do I not understande.
"But yet I have them in great reverence
And honoure, sauing them from filth & ordure
By often brushing & much diligence
Full goodly bounde in pleasaunt couerture
Of Damas, Sattin, or els of velvet pure
I keepe them sure, fearing least they should be lost,
For in them is the cunning wherein I me boast.
"But if it fortune that any learned man
Within my house fall to disputation,
I drawe the curtaynes to shewe my bokes them,
That they of my cunning should make probation
I love not to fall in alterication,
And while the commen, my bokes I turne and winde
For all is in them, and nothing in my minde.
"Ptolomeus the riche caused, longe agone,
Over all the worlde good bookes to be sought,
Done was his commandement—anone
These bokes he had, and in his studie brought,
Which passed all earthly treasure as he thought,
But neverthelesse he did him not apply
Unto their doctrine, but lived unhappily.