These religious plays or mysteries were a powerful means for instructing the people; and if we had lived in mediæval times, we should not have needed to fly to Ober-Ammergau in order to witness a Passion Play. In the streets of Coventry or Chester, York, or Tewkesbury, Witney, or Reading, or on the Green at Clerkenwell, we could have seen the appealing spectacle; and though sometimes the actors lapsed into buffoonery, and the red demons carrying souls to hell's mouth created merriment rather than terror, and though realism was carried to such a pitch that Adam and Eve appeared in a state of nature, yet many of the spectators would carry away with them pious thoughts and some grasp of the facts of Scripture history, and of the mysteries of the faith. Originally the plays were performed in churches, but owing to the gradually increased size of the stage and the more elaborate stage effects, the sacred buildings were abandoned as the scenes of mediæval drama. Then the churchyard was utilised for the purpose. The clergy no longer took part in the pageants, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the people liked to act their plays in the highways and public places as at Clerkenwell. The guilds and fraternities in many places provided the chief actors, and in towns where there were many guilds and companies, each company performed part of the great drama, the movable stage being drawn about from street to street. Thus at York the story of the Creation and the Redemption was divided into forty-eight parts, each part being acted by a guild, or group of companies. The Tanners represented God the Father creating the heavens, angels and archangels, and the fall of Lucifer and the disobedient angels. Then the Plasterers showed the Creation of the Earth, and the work of the first five days. The Card-makers exhibited the Creation of Adam of the clay of the earth, and the making of Eve of Adam's rib, thus inspiring them with the breath of life. The Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, of Noah and the Flood, of Moses, the Annunciation and all Gospel history, ending with the Coronation of the Virgin and the Final Judgment.
The stage upon which the clerks performed their plays, according to Strutt, consisted of three platforms, one above another. On the uppermost sat God the Father surrounded by His angels. He was represented in a white robe, and until it was discovered how injurious the process was, the actor who played the part used to have his face gilded. On the second platform were the glorified saints, and on the lowest men who had not yet passed from life. On one side of the lowest platform was hell's mouth, a dark pitchy cavern, whence issued the appearance of fire and flames, and sometimes hideous yellings and noises in imitation of the howlings and cries of wretched souls tormented by relentless demons. From this yawning cave the devils constantly ascended to delight the spectators and afford comic relief to the more serious drama. The three stages were not always used. Archdeacon Rogers, who died in 1595, left an account of the Chester play which he himself saw, and he wrote that the stage was a high scaffold with two rooms, a higher and a lower, upon four wheels. In the lower the actors apparelled themselves, and in the higher they played. But this was a movable stage on wheels. The clerks' stage would, doubtless, be a fixed structure, and of a more elaborate construction.
The dresses used by the actors were very gorgeous and splendid, though little care was bestowed upon the appropriateness of the costumes. The words of the play of the Creation differ in the various versions which have come down to us. Strutt thinks that the clerks' play, acted before "the most part of the nobles and gentles in England," was very similar to the Coventry play, which cannot compare in grandeur and vigour with the York play discovered in the library of Lord Ashburnham, and edited by Miss Toulmin Smith [58]. But as the north-country dialect of the York version would have been difficult for the learned clerks of London to pronounce, their version would doubtless resemble more that of Coventry than that of York. The first act represents the Deity seated upon His throne and speaking as follows:
Ego sum Alpha et Omega, principium et finis.
My name is knowyn, God and Kynge;
My work to make now wyl I wende;
In myselfe resteth my reynenge,
It hath no gynnyng, ne no ende,
And all that evyr shall have beynge
Is closed in my mende; [59]
When it is made at my lykynge
I may it save, I may it shende [60]
After my plesawns." [61]
[58] Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1885. A portion of this is published in Mr. A.W. Pollard's English Miracle Plays.
[59] Mind.
[60] Destroy.
[61] Pleasure.