Then the “Pageant carriages,”[21] which had been securely housed since the last performance, had to be newly cleaned and repaired, and there needed much mending and repainting of the canvas and boards which represented “Heaven and Hell,” “Morning and Night,” or, as in “Noah’s Play,” was embellished with representations of birds, beasts, and fishes.
[21] The carriages themselves were sometimes called “Pageants,” and were kept in special houses. Most of the Gilds had their own, but sometimes two Gilds shared the cost between them. They were drawn by men, as a rule, e.g.:—
| “To twelve porters of the cariage | iis. | ivd.” |
—Painters and Glaziers’ Accounts.
The stage manager’s properties had also to be bought or borrowed throughout the town, and included many dozens of articles, ranging from a costly cope[22] down to the whistles[23] for the shepherd-boys and the ox tongue[24] for the old shepherd to put in his haversack, and it is obvious that the success of these plays depended greatly on the felicitous subdivision of work amongst the numerous City Companies, for no one manager could have supervised the whole.
| [22] | “To the Clark for loan of a Cope an Altar Cloth and Tunick | xd.” |
—Smiths’ Accounts.
| [23] | “For two Wystylls for Trowe | iid. | |
| [24] | “For a beast’s tongue and four calfe’s feet | viiid.” |
—Painters and Glaziers’ Accounts.
The expenses were evenly divided among the members of the Company. Sometimes there was a “passive resister” who thought the plays nonsense, and that there should be “no more cakes and ale”; but he was speedily disillusioned, for the Mayor promptly clapped him into prison until he, or his friends, paid his proper[25] share.