“Before the suppression of the monasteries, this city was very famous for the pageants that were play’d therein, upon Corpus-Christi day; which occasioning very great confluence of people thither from far and near, was of no small benefit therto; which pageants being acted with mighty state and reverence by the friers of this house, had theaters for the severall scenes, very large and high, placed upon wheels, and drawn to all the eminent parts of the city, for the better advantage of spectators: and contain’d the story of the New-Testament, composed into old English Rithme, as appeareth by an ancient MS. [in bibl. Cotton. sub effigie Vesp. D. 9.] intituled Ludus Corporis Christi, or Ludus Coventriæ. I have been told 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 yielded no small advantage to this city.”[8]—Dugdale’s Antiquities of Warwickshire, fol. Lond. 1656, p. 116, col. 1.
I scarcely think, however, that this notice of the MS. affords much evidence in favour of James’s title, except so far as it shows that Dugdale himself had no doubt whatever about its correctness. It will be observed that Dugdale does not give a right reference to the press-mark of the manuscript, and he had probably not examined the volume with much attention, or he could scarcely have omitted to notice the following passage at the end of the prologue, which has been adduced to prove that these mysteries were not exclusively[9] performed before the “gentyllys and ȝemanry” of Coventry:—
“A Sunday next, yf that we may,
At vj. of the belle we gynne oure play
In N. towne.”
“The letter N,” observes Mr. Collier,[10] “is placed for the nomen of the town, which was to be filled up as occasion required, by the person making the proclamation.” If the opinion I have formed of their locality be correct, I can account for this by supposing that the prologues of the vexillators belong to another series of plays, or that these mysteries were occasionally performed at other places. The summaries of the pageants, as given in the prologue, are often confusedly numbered; and it must be confessed that the conclusion would suit a company of strolling players much better than the venerable order of the Grey Friars. In the order of the pageants, I have not regarded the speeches of the vexillators; and the divisions in the MS. being very incorrectly given, I have endeavoured to make as correct an arrangement as possible, taking the two other series of mysteries as my guide.
At the commencement of the twenty-ninth pageant, Contemplatio, an allegorical personage, who acts as prologue-speaker, explains the events and moralises on occasion, but who is in no way concerned in the action, says—
“We intendyn to procede the matere that we lefte the last ȝere:”
which proves that the remainder of these pageants were not played the same year as the preceding twenty-eight mysteries.
In offering the first edition of the Coventry Mysteries to the members of the Shakespeare Society, I am anxious to state that I have endeavoured to give the reader as faithful a copy of the original manuscript as was possible, with all its errors and defects. These are not few, for the MS. is evidently the work of a scribe who was not very well acquainted with his copy. He makes barbarous work of the few Latin passages which occur, and verbal errors are of frequent occurrence; and yet, on mature deliberation, I came to the conclusion that it would be more advisable to leave these corrections for the notes, and thus give the reader an opportunity of forming his own opinion on passages which are certainly corrupt, but which may possibly admit of more than one method of explanation.