Chester Mystery Plays

'''The Chester Mystery Plays have become a rare and treasured part of Britain's cultural heritage, now only performed every five years (June/July 2018, 2023, etc.), with a cast of hundreds including choirs and the gawping crowd! There are very many ways of examining the plays, this article looks at links between the subject-matter of the play and the trade of the guild which performed it. The puzzle is whether the assignment of plays to appropriate guilds was a definite choice, or whether the guilds took the plays in the hierarchic order of the guilds and (perhaps only slightly) adapted the scripts to reflect their own interests. "Order of Precedence" was once very contentious in the London Livery Companies and possibly gave rise to the English saying "At sixes and sevens". All the evidence points towards the plays not being entirely the work of one person but the accretion of varied themes and sources around a traditional set of works.'''

Overview


'''Performed on wagons throughout the city, the plays could be regarded as the first organised street theatre. Taken over by city guildsmen after the monks gave up the increasingly elaborate procedure of dramatising church services for the many who couldn't follow the Latin texts, these wagon performances of amateur actors became injected with both wit and humour.'''

"Mystery" in this context refers "specialized skill" (ministerium, meaning craft). Very few other places found the economic or administrative means to stage such a sequence of plays, tracing God's intervention into human history, but the Chester cycle managed to thrive. It was (in medieval times) a popular annual event and the plays became a source of pride in the city. Even in the 1500s, when the growth of Puritanism led to such activities being banned altogether, Chester determined to continue and managed to stage its plays longer than anywhere else in England - much to the fury of some of the local clergy. A near-complete text of 24 plays and some fascinating documentation of actual medieval performances in Chester survives today.

The origin of Mystery Plays may go back to 1210, when, suspicious of the growing popularity of miracle plays, Pope Innocent III issued a papal edict forbidding clergy from acting on a public stage. This had the effect of transferring the organization of the dramas to town guilds, after which several changes followed. Vernacular texts replaced Latin, and non-Biblical passages were added along with (occasional) comic scenes.

Chamber's "Book of Days" (1863) states of them (under May 15):


 * The mystery or miracle plays of which we read so much in old chronicles possess an interest in the present day not only as affording details of and amusements of the people in the middle ages of which we have no very clear record but in them and the illuminated MSS but also in helping us to trace the progress of the drama from a very early period to the time when it reached its meridian glory in our immortal Shakspeare. It is said that the first of these plays one on the passion of our Lord was written by Gregory of Nazianzen and a German nun of the name of Roswitha who lived in the tenth century and wrote six Latin dramas on the stories of saints and martyrs. When they became more common about the eleventh or twelfth century we find that the monks were generally not only the authors but the actors. In the dark ages when the Bible was an interdicted book these amusements were devised to instruct the people in the Old and New Testament narratives and the lives of the saints the former bearing the title of mysteries the latter of miracle plays. Their value was a much disputed point among churchmen some of the older councils forbade them as a profane treatment of sacred subjects. Wicklisse and his followers were loud in condemnation yet Luther gave them his sanction saying Such spectacles often do more good and produce more impression than sermons. In Sweden and Denmark the Lutheran ecclesiastics followed the example of their forefathers and wrote and encouraged them to the end of the seventeenth century it was about the middle of that century when they ceased in England. Relics of them may still be traced in the Cornish acting of St George and the Dragon and "Beelzebub".

One fact often overlooked about the plays is that they were performed along The Rows, so people would be watching them both from the Rows and from rooms above, particularly the chamber over the Rows. The fact that well-to-do sixteenth-century Cestrians rented out window seats in those apartments during the Whitsun play performances testifies to how highly locals valued the view of the wagons from above.

Much ink has been spilt on the subject that the Mystery Cycles hide some deeper and over-arching meaning. One such theory is that the Chester Plays have a sub-text about the social and even physical relations between men in a male dominated society where women only have the role of child-bearing and are otherwise merely a source of grief (Eve brings about the downfall of Adam, Noah's wife is a problem he doesn't need and Mary causes Joseph worry due to her "infidelity"). That supposed sub-text would see the plays as some kind of reference to a "homo-social" society, where men must know their place as regards other dominant male figures. Such analysis can perhaps be taken too far. Fitzgerald for example (see links) suggests that Lucifer is a Tanner because the Tanners led the Corpus Christi procession "carrying lights", and that the Tanners were somehow "untouchable" and disenfranchised because of their profession. Such an extreme view may not be needed to understand the plays as distinct from the essentially patriarchal elements of the society they were found in. In fact, during the period 1558-1625 Chester was ruled by 71 mayors and of these 8 or 11-26 per cent can be identified as leather craftsmen. These 8 comprised 6 glovers, including Robert Brerewood who was mayor on three occasions, and 2 tanners. If the attainment of mayoral rank be viewed as an indicator of social and economic influence, it is clear that the much smaller group of overseas merchants was considerably more powerful than the leather craftsmen, or any other occupational group in the city. Among the sheriffs of the city the leather craftsmen featured more regularly, numbering a total of 26, or 19-11 per cent, out of 136 who held office during this period. Of these 11 were tanners, 9 were glovers, 3 were shoemakers, 1 was a skinner and 1 a saddler.

There is sometimes a tendency in historical analysis to import present day issues into prior situations. Thus, some Victorian writers considered that one reason the Mystery Plays were banned was because they featured "cross-dressing". In fact, it would have been more unseemly at the time for a woman to play a woman's part, than for the part to be played by a man or a boy. Similarly, it is possible for concepts such as the similarity of some of the plays to the nature of the trades involved, maybe planted in jest, to take root and become "gospell". This article explores possible reasons for the allocations of the plays performed by the various guilds in Chester.

History
'''The history of the Chester Mystery palys is complex and only a short version is given here. Other documents relating to the history are given in the "Sources and Links" below. This list is not exhaustive as only a limited number of the vast quantity of books and papers on the subject are available on-line.'''



Origins
The plays are traditionally dated about 1325 (or 1327), but a date of about 1375 has also been suggested. Chambers also gives a date of 1208 but notes that date may be too early. Some early writers expressed the view that they were written by Ranulf Higden (c.1280 - c.1363), author of the Polychronicon, as stated in the Prologue to the plays. Whatever their actual date, it is clear that as early as 1533 they were regarded as old beyond living memory. Chambers eventually fixed on a date of 1328 which was accepted for many years, and from which it appeared that the Chester plays were the earliest surviving mystery plays. Later reserach showed that Chambers date was based on myths and mis-statements from a proclamation from around 1531/2 and the likely date for the current text of the plays dates from around 1532 with earlier versions of some or all of the plays being performed as far back as some time before 1422.

It would appear that much of the text of the plays is derived from "A Stanzaic Life of Christ" which was itself based on Higden's Polychronicon and the "Legenda Aurea". It was written by a monk of St Werburgh's, Chester, and it was a clear influence on the Chester mystery plays.

The first evidence for religious plays in Chester is of a performance on Corpus Christi day 1422, which usually falls in June, but can be anywhere from 23rd May to 24th June, depending on the date of easter. The Corrpus Christi feast was established by 1311. At Corpus Christi representatives of the guilds walked in procession, from St Mary on the Hill to St Johns behind a consecrated "host" holding torches in a ritual known as a "light". The initial form may have been a fairly simple "passion play", expanded to eleven plays and then to more (later with giants, unicorn, dromedary, lynx, camel, ass, dragon, hobbyhorses and naked boys). In 1499, the play "The Assumption of Our Lady" was performed before Prince Arthur (see: Cowper).

The first possible reference to the Corpus Christi procession is an inauspicious one - a record of 1399 describes a terrible brawl which broke out between the members of the guilds of the weavers, shearmen, challoners (blanket-makers) and the walkers (fullers) against their apprentices, outside of St Peter's:


 * " ..and many other master weavers came with force and arms, with pole-axes, staves, daggers, and other diverse armaments, by a premeditated plan on Thursday, the feast of Corpus Christi, in the twenty-second year of the reign of King Richard the second,opposite the church of Blessed Peter of Chester. Also, those gathered together insulted William de Wybunbure, junior, Thomas del Dame, and very many others, their servants, called journeymen, in a great affray of the whole population of the city, against the peace of the lord king"

The "pole-axe" is an axe-head at end of a long pole. The design arose from the need to breach the plate armour of men at arms during the 14th and 15th centuries. Generally, the form consisted of a wooden haft some 1.2–2.0 m (4–6.5 ft) long, mounted with a heavy steel axe-head and is designed for very serious combat. This was not the only "riot" associated with the Corpus Christi procession, in June 1424 the men who took part in another Corpus Christi Day riot were said to have attacked the king's ministers at Castle Lane End: "iuxta le stouneplace que quondam fuit Petri de Thornton chivalier" - probably the stone-built house belonging to Peter the Clerk (an administrator at Chester Castle) on lower Bridge Street.



Other famous Mystery Play “Cycles” in England were written in Coventry, York (dating from 1376 or earlier) and Wakefield. None of these play cycles should be seen as embodying some high-level theological debate without clear evidence for the same. The canon of plays in York is larger than that of Chester, as discussed in further detail below.

It was the local streets and population of Chester itself that were incorporated into the fabric of the show, providing significant aspects of its production values, and continually shaping the performances from year to year. So far as we are aware there is no surviving first-hand description of the plays being performed and the majority of the surviving texts can only be dated to after performance of the plays had been banned. The finance records of the Guilds show something of what they spent on the plays, but the records leave many gaps. It is rather like turning up at a theatre long since closed, finding some of the receipts of what the organisers spent and some versions of the scripts recorded by long-dead fans who were never sure of the evidence on which they based their work.

Performance
The plays were originally performed over two days. The event proved so popular that still later, around 1521, it was stretched to cover the three days of Whitsuntide, Whit Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The guild accounts of expenditure give us a fairly detailed picture of the sequence of events leading up to the performance of the Whitsun Plays. Though the mayor and council were the final arbiters of whether to produce the plays, the companies apparently could petition for a performance by submitting a 'bill' to the mayor. When the decision was favourable, the companies began to ready their materials and to practise their parts.

Their first but least difficult task was to ride the Banns. The guilds participated in a yearly procession at Midsummer whenever the Whitsun Plays were not performed; consequently, they could anticipate the demand for costumes and horses for the character who rode with them and be ready to ride in procession by St George's Day, the time David Rogers claims was set aside for the Banns. If the route for the Banns was the same as that for the Midsummer Show, the companies assembled at the Bars outside Eastgate, where the crier read the Banns and called forth the guilds. The route then took them past the prisons at Northgate and at Chester Castle, where they contributed money to the prisoners (in one year the Smiths spent two pence). The liberties of the city extended beyond the walls, but by passing through the major streets and by coming to each of the gates, the guildsmen would thereby reconfirm the city's boundaries and freedoms. At then end of the day there would be a feast. On the day the Smiths spent 2d on the prisoners, they spent six shillings on the banquet, five shillings on the minstrels.

The attitude to the plays in the Later Banns indicates that they were already considered more of a tradition than a meaningful art form. Attention is drawn to the curious waggon staging, the archaic language which may not carry meaning for contemporary audiences, and the dramatic crudity of allowing God to be impersonated on stage by an actor with a gilded face. The plays are compared disadvantageously to the sophistication of the modern theatre, its actors and audiences. The spectators are asked to make allowances for the time in which the plays were written and the circumstances of their performance: "By craftsmen and mean men these pageants are played, and to commons and country men accustomably before". Yet these disclaimers should not be taken too seriously. The Later Banns are an attempt to defend the plays publicly against criticisms of them as theologically unsound and dramatically blasphemous. To present them as something once revolutionary which has now lost its purpose is a clever way of urging their continuation as a worthwhile but harmless local custom.



This ceremonial function concluded, the companies would begin to prepare their plays by copying and handing out parts ('parcells'), holding trials for roles, and rehearsing from one to three times before their general rehearsal. Each rehearsal and the final performance seems in some cases to have required the purchase of sometimes copious amounts of food (beef, chicken, bread, cakes and cheese) and drink (wine and beer). The mayor, at least in later years, saw all the plays at some point, but whether he visited each separately or saw them as a group is uncertain. Minstrels were hired for the performances and these presumably played while the carts carrying the stages were being moved from place to place, as the Painters et al paid for "a mynstrell to goe before vs". Both the mistrels and the players were treated to breakfast. The surviving account books of the guilds give a lot of detail on the expenses associated with the plays (humourously, the books relating to the Flood are too water-damaged to be clear) listing expenses for gloves, the dressing of boys, ribbons etc. One reason why the records are kept in such detail is that the guild "book-keeper", elected from year to year, was responsible for any shortfall out of his own pocket. The books perhaps also show how the plays provided a means for distributing the subscriptions levied from the members back to them.



An antiquarian, Robert Rogers, Rector of Gawsworth and Archdeacon of Chester, included a description of the plays among his notes which passed to his son David on his death in 1595. David copied these notes in at least five versions between 1609 and 1637. The route described began at the Abbey gate outside the cathedral where, according to David's 1637 version in Liverpool University Library's Special Collections, 'the monks and Churche mighte haue the firste sight'. It then passed down Northgate Street to the High Cross in front of St Peter's Church where stood the Pentice, Chester's then "town hall" - 'Before the mayor and Aldermen', says David. The next station was somewhere in Watergate Street, and the pageants then passed through the back lanes Weaver Street and Commonhall Street to the fourth station in Bridge Street and then along Pepper Street and what is now Newgate Street to the Eastgate, the last station. Almost all of this route is downhill. Chester's plays belonged to the clergy, to the aldermen, and to all the citizens, not to an elitist group, and when the arrangements were varied in 1575 there is evidence of discontent that the plays did not tour the city as usual.

Dugdale makes it clear that one of the purposes of Mystery Plays (he is writing about Coventry) was to attract visitors (and hence business) to the city:


 * "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."

Decline
During the Reformation such plays were considered ‘Popery’. The returned Genevan exile Christopher Goodman (then rector of Aldford) wrote complaining about the plays in 1572 - he felt that the plays were heretical and dogmatically Roman Catholic. The plays were consequently banned by the Church of England under Elizabeth I. Despite this growing uneasyness with the plays, the cathedral paid for the stage and beer as in 1562. The performance schedule in the 1560s and 1570s was erratic - plays were performed only in 1561, 1567, 1568, 1572, and 1575 - and Henry Hardware, for example, did not allow a performance of the plays in his first mayoral term in 1559-60. The reason for not performing the plays may have also been influenced by the fact that the mayors in some of the years when the plays were not performed were members of the gentry rather than members of the guilds, and in 1574 and possibly other years, by the plague.



In 1572, in the mayoralty of the Protestant John Hankey, the authorities approved a production which went ahead despite the known opposition of the national authorities and of factions within the city. Various records tell us that the plays were "againste ye willes of ye Bishops of Canterbury Yorke and Chester"; that "manye of the Cittie were sore against the settinge forthe therof"; and that "an Inhibition was sent from the Archbishop to stay them but it Came too late". Chester’s major in 1574/5, Sir John Savage (gent.) who also allowed the plays, was subsequently summoned to the Star Chamber in London to explain himself. The 1575 wording in the Mayor's book concerning this is quite delightful:


 * "this year the said Sir lohn Sauage caused ye popish plaies of Chester to bee playd ye Sundav Munday Tuesday and Wensday after Midsummer day in contempt of and Inhibition and ye primates letters from yorke and from ye Earle of Huntington, for which cause hee was serued by a purseuant from yorke, ye same day yat ye new Maior was elected, as they came out of ve common hall, notwithstanding the said Sir lohn Sauage tooke his way towards London, but how his matter sped is not knowne"

Savage wrote to the city council to request a certificate that the council and not he alone had ordered the plays, and Henry Hardware (Draper), who was mayor 1575/6, was honourable enough to send the certificate stating that both Savage and Hankey (Merchant and Vinter, mayor 1571/2) had acted with the consent of the council. Apparently, this shared 'guilt' satisfied the government, or the city's charter prevented any further action against the two past mayors. Nevertheless, the message was clear and the plays were never performed in Chester again after 1575, except for one performance of the Shepherds before the Lord Strange and other notables in 1577-8. Perhaps this final ban was encouraged by the "Marian" elements found in the plays and the concurrent focus of rebellion around Mary, Queen of Scots - at that time imprisoned but still alive. Also at this time Elizabeth had begun to establish her cult of virginity - in 1559 she told the Commons, "And, in the end, this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin". Perhaps the presence of a second Mary and a second Virgin in the play were simply too much.

Revival


The 1818 edition by J. H. Markland, himself a Cestrian, of two plays from the Chester cycle represented the first modern edition of any English mystery plays. It was followed by improved editions of the full cycle, each in two volumes, published in 1843–7 and 1892–1916. Prior to this, the plays were often described as buffoonery as for many years the prevailing view was that there was no serious English theatre before the age of Shakespeare. This view changed in the later 19th century.

A new interest in the performance of medieval plays was stimulated by William Poel's production of Everyman at the Charterhouse in London in 1901; it was paired with a production of Chester's Sacrifice of Isaac, the first performance of a Chester play in modern times. One of Poel's company, Nugent Monck, formed his own company and staged versions of Chester's Nativity, Shepherds, and Magi plays in Bloomsbury Hall, London, in 1906. Monck wrote to the Chester Archaeological Society offering to produce the whole cycle in the traditional manner over three days at Whitsun 1907. The proposal, which must be seen against the background of Chester's music festivals and the city's growing concern with its past, would have resulted in the first complete revival of any English play-cycle. The Society organized a public meeting chaired by the bishop to discuss it. Although the dean of Chester opposed the production, the cathedral organist, J. C. Bridge, supported it, and a number of Cestrians who had seen Everyman in London or on tour reported favourably on the production. Following the meeting, the three 'Nativity' plays were performed at the Music Hall in 1906 to test local reactions. An edition of the performance-text by Bridge was published to accompany the production. The production was enthusiastically received, but the society then decided that the cost of staging the full cycle was too high and the scheme fell-though.

Christopher Ede directed the first modern revival at Chester in the Cathedral Refectory to mark the Festival of Britain in 1951. York's play cycle was actually performed two weeks before and the Players of St Peter had been performing the plays in London roughly every five years since 1946. It was Ede who later (1967) brought the plays out into the light (and rain) of the Cathedral Green. Even in the 1950's and early 1960's there were elements of censorship as the figure of Christ was not allowed to be portrayed on stage until the summer of 1966. The 1951 York play was the subject of prolonged legal argument about the blasphemy laws and the threat of disruption by Christian evangelicals.

The text of the plays is mutable and is frequently modified to reflect current issues and provide humour relevant to the present day.

List of plays and guild associations
It is not easy to account for the number of transcripts of the Chester Plays which were made in the closing years of the sixteenth century and at the beginning of the seventeenth. Five copies made during this period are still preserved The first of these was written in 1591 by Edward Gregorie a scholar of Bunbury and is now in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire; the two next in date now MS Additional in the Brit Mus No 10,305 and MS Harl No 2013 were written by George Bellin in 1592 and 1600 (Bellin was parish clerk at Holy Trinity in Watergate Street); a fourth was written by William Bedford in 1604 and is now in the Bodleian Library MS Bodley No 1 75 and the latest in date. MS Harl No 2124 was written in 1607 by James Miller. All these transcripts made by persons who were not well acquainted with the language of the original MS from which they copied or with palaeography and included errors. The biblical plays performed in Chester at the beginning of the fifteenth century probably looked different, perhaps very different, from the cycle that Gregorie, Bellin, Bedford, and Miller may have seen — which itself may have differed in important ways from the version that they wrote down.



The charter of 1208, restricted trade in the city of Chester to the "..men of Chester and their heirs..", formally excluding non-residents and women from mercantile activities and establishing a system of hereditary trading rights. The much coveted status of ‘freeman’, bestowed by the Guild Merchant and a necessary qualification to carry out legal trade in the city, was, therefore, restricted to this Chester-based fraternity. These restrictions continued well into the fourteenth century but, in a period pockmarked by plague and low life-expectancy, there was a dearth of suitable candidates, which necessitated a widening of the franchise. Therefore, in 1392, apprenticeships were established which, when completed, allowed outsiders to join their respective company upon payment of a fee to the Guild Merchant for inclusion in the Freemen Rolls. The guilds were social and until the Reformation religious organizations as much as economic ones, with concerns which focused on burial of the dead and camaraderie with the living. Members of the Smiths' company, for example, were fined in 1501 for failing to attend a brother's funeral.

The content of the plays often appears to be well-suited to the guilds associated with them. In some cases this may be because the subject-matter suggested which guild should perform the play, in others the script of the play may have been adapted to make jokes about the guild in question. However it may be that the allocation is simply the order of the Corpus Christi procession. The total cast needed for the plays seems to be about 350 people, some ten percent of the population of Chester at the time. In York the guilds were also perhaps allocated to the plays by profession: for example, the Shipwrights performed the Building of the Ark, while the Butchers played the Death of Christ or Crucifixion. The Chester alignment of guilds with particular plays seems clearer than that at York, but different sources may give slightly different associations between the plays and guilds. This latter variation may be due to the membership of guilds relating to multiple trades changing over time.



The size of individual guilds before 1500 is difficult to determine. Nineteen men witnessed the Fletchers and Bowyers' charter in 1468, and in the 1490s both the Bakers and the Butchers had a membership of c. 18. About 1576 the Cappers and Dyers had 6 members each, the Saddlers, Fishmongers, and Goldsmiths 9, the Skinners 10, the Barbers and Mercers 15 each, the Fletchers and Weavers 19 each, the Joiners 21, the Butchers 23, the Drapers 26, and the Smiths 33.

Already by the 1420s some trades were collaborating with others in order to stage a Corpus Christi pageant: the Fletchers, Bowyers, and Stringers with the Coopers and Turners, for instance, and the Weavers, Walkers, and Chaloners with the Shearmen. Sharing of costs continued later: in 1521 the Smiths agreed with the Founders and Pewterers to continue their joint contributions. Some of the pageant groupings resulted in the formation of guilds which combined men following disparate trades, but others were simply ad hoc, if long-lasting, arrangements between what always remained separate companies. The Masons and Goldsmiths, for example, put on a pageant together by the 1430s but were distinct guilds, as were the Cappers and Mercers c. 1520. Some crafts which were either wholly new or newly prominent after the mid 15th century never formed a guild of their own: makers of felt caps were part of the Skinners' company by 1489, and glaziers belonged to the Painters' company by 1482. Changes in the arrangements of the pageants between c. 1500 and the Reformation may have precipitated a further restructuring of certain guilds. Three guilds (the Tanners; the Cappers and Pinners; and the Painters, Glaziers, Embroiderers, and Stationers) put on their own pageants for the first time. Conversely the Cooks' guild merged with that of the Tapsters and Hostellers to put on a single play, and the Ironmongers similarly collaborated with the Fletchers and Coopers. The last arrangement, however, did not lead to permanent union in a single guild, perhaps because at the Reformation they separated again in order to replace the pageant previously put on by the Worshipful Wives.

The notes on the plays given below quote the post-Reformation "Banns" which in some cases attempt to explain away some of the non-biblical references in the plays and identify the guilds involved. These Banns are a unique feature of the Chester plays and can be seen as advertising for the forthcoming plays. It also notes the guild allocation of the corresponding York plays.

1 - The Fall of Lucifer (Barkers and Tanners)
York also has a single play for this subject: Barkers (Tanners) – The creation, and the Fall of Lucifer


 * "Now, you worshipful Tanners, that of custom old, The Fall of Lucifer did truly set out! Some writers a warrant your matter; therefore be bold lustily to play the same to all the rout. And if any therefore stand in any doubt your author his author hath. Your show let be! Good speech, fine players, with apparel comely!"



In some cities Barkers were a guild of those who attempted to attract patrons to entertainment events, such as a circus or funfair, by exhorting passing public.This was not the case in Chester: here Barkers collected oak bark for the Tanners, who worked in exceedingly noxious conditions in the Tanning trade: perhaps they got the play for that reason or perhaps as they were particularly important guilds had the priviledge of going first. The first Pageant, that of the Fall of Lucifer, tells the story in the traditional manner. Lucifer, the greatest and fairest of the angels, falls because during God's absence, after having sworn fealty, he sets him-self up for worship. Certain of the angels acknowledge his claim - God returns and slings him out. One curious feature is that after their fall the fallen angels are not alluded to by name but are called Primus and Secundus Demon.

Lucifer is a Latin name for the planet Venus in its morning appearances, and is often used for mythological and religious figures associated with the planet. Due to the unique movements and discontinuous appearances of Venus in the sky, mythology surrounding these figures often involved a fall from the heavens to earth or the underworld. The Sumerian goddess Inanna (Babylonian Ishtar) is associated with the planet Venus, and Inanna's actions in several of her myths, including Inanna and Shukaletuda and Inanna's Descent into the Underworld appear to parallel the motion of Venus as it progresses through its synodic cycle. The fall from heaven motif also has a parallel in Canaanite mythology. In ancient Canaanite religion, the morning star is personified as the god Attar (another corruption of Ishtar, cf Astarte, Astaroth, who attempted to occupy the throne of Ba'al and, finding he was unable to do so, descended and ruled the underworld. Attar is frequently depicted as an ibex, often mistaken for a goat. The French equivalents of this mystery play have Lucifer, Astaroth and Satan as separate "demons".

Typical depictions of Lucifer provide bat-like, leathery wings and horns. Another possible origin for the "horned devil" is the Gaulish Celt deity Cernunnos (the Horned One) the etymology of Cernunnos is unclear, but seems to be rooted in the Celtic word for "horn" or "antler". Cernunnos may have been assimilated into christianity in both a negative sense (as the devil) and a more positive sense as the stag or deer as an integral part of myths, legends and fables - such as the foundation legend of St Johns in Chester. Barkers collected oak bark (and brought it into Chester down Barker's Lane, and had an association with the "Green Man".

It is not clear whether the entire host of angels mentioned would be walking in procession with the wagons (there would be no space for all of them on the wagons).

2 - The Creation of the World (Drapers and Hosiers)
'''York next has six plays: Plasterers – The creation – to the Fifth Day; Cardmakers – Creation of Adam and Eve; Fullers (preparers of woollen cloth) – Adam and Eve in Eden; Coopers (makers of wooden casks) – Fall of Man; Armourers – Expulsion from Eden; and Glovers – Sacrifice of Cain and Abel. Chester conflates these into one.'''


 * "Of the Drapers you, the wealthy company, The Creation of the World! Adam and Eve according to your wealth, set out wealthily, and how Cain his brother Abel his life did bereave."



Drapers and hosiers may have been assigned to this play because of the lack of clothing of Adam and Eve initially. In the alternative the Drapers may have used large sheets of cloth to illustrate the creation of the world, including a "Mappa Mundi". These plays are continuous; one merges into the other. The pageants must have followed one another quickly through the streets, one taking up the story very nearly where the other leaves it. Cestrian David Rogers is especially impressedby the way that the plays seem to push in on each other, so that no play ends without the next one being visible:


 * "the weareplayed upon mondaye tuesedaye and wensedaye in whitson weekeand thei firste beganne at the Abbaye gates. and when the firstepagiante was played at the Abbaye gates then it was wheled from thense to pentice at the hyghe crosse. before the maiorand before that was donne the seconde came. and the firste wenteinto the watergate streete. & from thense unto the Bridgestreeteand so one after an other tell all the pagiantes weare playedappoynted for the firste daye. and so likewise for the seconde and the thirde daye.  these pagiantes or cariage was a higheplace made like a howse with 2 rowmes beinge open on thetope. the lower rowme their apparrelled and dressed them selues. and the bigger rowme[s] theie played. and thei stoode upon vi wheeles.  and when the had donne with one cariage in one place theie wheled the same from one streete to another. firste from the Abbaye gate. to the pentice. then to the watergate streete. then to the bridge streete. through the lanes &so to the esttgatestreete. And thus the came from one streete to another. kepinge a diverse order in everye streete for before thei firste Carige was gone from one place the seconde came and so before the seconde was gone the thirde came and so till the laste was donne all in order withoute anye stayeinge in any place. forworde being brougthe howe everye place was neere doone the came and make noeplace to tarye tell the laste was played."

The second play tells the story of the six days of Genesis. Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. It also provides the basis for the doctrines of the fall of man and original sin that are important beliefs in Christianity, although not held in Judaism or Islam. Adam is created, but until after the sleep in which Eve is formed from his rib, he does not speak a word. The word "rib" is a pun in Sumerian (which also has a version of this myth), as the word "ti" means both "rib" and "life". There are other puns in the creation myth: the words meaning "naked" and "knowledgable" also sound very similar.

From the stage directions we gather that Adam rises when he is told to do so, but it is not until after his sleep that he has any words to utter.

This play also contains the story of Cain and Abel. In some modern versions of the play this is performed separately as is also the case with some other mystery play cycles. Play 2 deals with the creation of man and with the beginnings of sin among mankind. Man's first and "original" sin is the wilful disobedience of God's known will, mythologised as the eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. For this man is denied eternal life and is expelled from Eden into a harsh world. Within this world in the play the consequences of that sin are enacted in Cain's fratricide of Abel, Man's sin against God beging paralleled by his sin against his fellowMan. The two are linked in Eve's self-­recrimination when Cain returns to his parents before going into exile. It has been proposed that the etymology of Cain and Abel may be a direct pun on the roles they take in the Genesis narrative. Abel is thought to derive from a reconstructed word meaning "herdsman", with the modern Arabic cognate ibil now specifically referring only to "camels". Cain is thought to be cognate to the mid-1st millennium BC South Arabian word qyn, meaning "metalsmith". This theory would make the names descriptive of their roles, where Abel works with livestock, and Cain with agriculture—and would parallel the names Adam ("man," אדם) and Eve ("life-giver," חוה Chavah).

3 - Noah and his Ship (Waterleaders and Drawers in the Dee - Helped by the Brewers)
'''York next has two plays: Shipwrights – Building of the Ark and Fishers and Mariners – Noah and his Wife. Chester combines these into one:'''


 * "The good, simple Waterleaders and Drawers of Dee, see that in all points your Ark be prepared.Of Noah and his Children the Whole Story: and of the Universal Flood, by you shall be played"

These "guilds" (it is not clear that they had full guild status) were obviously chosen because of their association with the River - Waterleaders were responsible for bringing water to the citizens of Chester from the River Dee and Drawers of Dee were fishermen. At about the time of their incorporation (1607), the beer brewers combined with the water leaders and drawers of Dee in the Midsummer Show; in 1607 the beer brewers also paid 13s 6d for taffeta for a banner for the company’s use at Midsummer and 40s to Randle Holme, the heraldic painter, for painting it.



The Noah story of the Pentateuch is almost identical to a flood story contained in the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, composed about 2000 BC. In the Gilgamesh version, the Mesopotamian gods are enraged by the noise that man has raised from the earth. To quiet them they decide to send a great flood to silence mankind. Various correlations between the stories of Noah and Gilgamesh (the flood, the construction of the ark, the salvation of animals, and the release of birds following the flood) have led to this story being seen as the inspiration for the story of Noah.

This was perhaps the favourite play of all. It gave opportunity for the kind of horse-play, especially marital, which the people of the middle ages so much loved. When the ark is built Noah's wife has changed her mind and will not enter it, and then the fun starts. Noah tells her to go into the ark but she refuses and the play turns to slapstick comedy with Noah's wife complaining about ferrets and stoats. Of the  five  extant  middle English Noah plays, the Chester cycle’s Noah’s Flood is the only one that attempts to represent the actual loading of the beasts and birds onto the ark. All five manuscripts of the Chester play agree in their emphasis on this critical moment of the deluge story, naming up to forty-seven different creatures in a verbal catalogue parcelled out to seven of the main characters.

The dispute between Noah and his wife is only found in the Towneley and Chester Plays, but probably it was one of these to which Chaucer alludes in the Miller's Tale, where he speaks of: "The sorwe of Noe with his felawship / Or that he mighte get his wif to ship". Chaucer wrote in the 1380s–1390s and is known to have visited Chester having taken part in the "Scrope" trial at St Johns. Millers in Chester were generally regarded as crooked - taking more than their allocated share of what they ground. Chaucer's next tale, The Reeve's Tale, has a crooked miller who steals wheat and meal brought to him for grinding.

The lists of animals given by the various characters appears to be symbolic and the stage directions make it clear that it should not be tampered with. Shem leads off with heraldic beasts (lions and leopards representing the king and the aristocracy) then lists the horse and the ox (of little use for breeding given that oxen are castrated) followed by other domestic beasts. The inclusion of swine in this catalogue (clearly there for food-value) again shows the unimportance of biblical literalism, since an old testament culinary  context  would  have  prohibited  pork  as  unclean  —  yet  it appears here because it was a staple of medieval and early modern diets. Ham brings in animals which are used for work but not eaten by the public at large, as well as semi-domestic "wild" animals. Japhet gets the cats and dogs as well as small quadrupeds which were not considered edible and in many cases considered as pests: the otter, the fox, the fulmart (pole-cat), and the hare. The animals that they mention are associated with traditionally masculine activities, namely political governance (with the lion and leopard), plowing, crop  production,  large  animal  husbandry,  trade  (of  animal  com-modities,  such  as  wool),  and  hunting. Medieval and  early  modern  people  would have viewed these activities as comprising the backbone of their econ-omy  and  the  basis  of  its  major  social  divisions,  with  the  contributions  of  royalty, aristocracy, the mercantile class, and the peasantry clearly accounted for in the animals on the ark.



The women’s bird catalogues, generally speaking, focus on birds associated with two of women’s "traditional" activities, cooking and cleaning. Ham’s wife begins the bird catalogue with herons, cranes, bitterns, swans, and peacocks, all birds that were eaten at aristocratic banquets. The play, as scholars and critics have noted, focuses on issues of labour: how to organize necessary tasks, how to complete tasks expeditiously, and how to parcel out duties so that all members of the household share the labour. As David Mills writes, "the image of organized labour, each [character] with an appropriate task to perform, is in contrast to the more individual and comic construction of the ark in York or Towneley". Noah’s wife violates a number of principles that inform the catalogues of the other characters: not a single one of her animals contributes to the household economy. None is edible and none performs worthwhile labour. They are either entertaining animals or useless predators with bad reputations, let loose on the ark without any clear way to control them. Given Noah’s wife’s reluctance to work in the earlier scene — her excuse  being  that  women  are  too  weak  to  perform  great  labour — her animals continue this theme of idleness. By the mid-sixteenth century, protestant disapproval of bear-baiting was evident, and Chester’s puritan mayor actually banned bear-baiting in Chester in 1599–1600  —  so Noah’s wife would have been going against the contemporary moralists by wanting the bear on the ark for its entertainment value. Many medieval and early modern sources suggest the foolishness of Noah’s wife’s animals.

In medieval ethnography, the world was believed to have been divided into three large-scale racial groupings, corresponding to the three classical continents: the Semitic peoples of Asia, the Hamitic peoples of Africa and the Japhetic peoples of Europe. It is not clear therfore why Japhet should get the "dregs".

The Noah's Flood play was set operatically by both Benjamin Britten (Noye's Fludde) and Igor Stravinsky (The Flood).

4 - Abraham and Isaac (Barber Surgeons and Wax-chandlers)
'''York has a single play next: Parchmenters and Bookbinders – Abraham and Isaac. Chester also has one:'''


 * "The Sacrifice that Faithful Abraham of his Son should Make, you Barbers and Wax-chandlers of ancient time in the fourth pageant with pains ye did take. In decent sort set outt he story is fine. The offering of Melchysedeck of bread and wine and the preservation thereof set in your play. Suffer you not in any point the story to decay."



The Barber surgeons were probably because God instructs Abraham to circumcise his son. This Company combined the crafts of medicine, hair trimming and candle making. It is known to have been in existence by 1475 and received charters from Chester Corporation in 1540 and 1550. The verses recording the Sacrifice of Isaac are among some of the best in the whole of the plays. The broken- hearted father doing what he conceives to be the will of God and the son obedient unto death. As in the traditional story Isaac is saved by his substitution by a 'Ram in a Thicket'. This also seems to be related to ancient symbolism - the Ram in a Thicket is a pair of figures excavated in Ur, in southern Iraq, and which date from about 2600–2400 BC. One is currently exhibited in the Mesopotamia Gallery in Room 56 in the British Museum in London; the other is in the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, USA. The pair of rams would more correctly be described as goats, and were discovered lying close together in the 'Great Death Pit', one of the graves in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, by archaeologist Leonard Woolley during the 1928–9 season.

Rule 18 in the Barber-Surgeons books provides for their appearance in the Midummer Watch:


 * "It is further ordered and agreed upon by the said com­pany that upon every Midsome even at the Watch at the companys charge the Stewards for the time being are to provide against that time & times one to ride Abraham and a young stripling or boy to ride Isaac and they to be set forth according to the ancient custom as hath been before times used in the company and the said Stewards for the time being to do their best in the setting forth of the said Show for the better credit of the said Society and company in payn of 6s. 8d."

The "Brome play of Abraham and Isaac (also known as The Brome “Abraham and Isaac”, The Brome Abraham, and The Sacrifice of Isaac) is a 15th Century play of unknown authorship, written in an East Anglian dialect of Middle English, which dramatizes the story of the binding of Isaac. The text of the play was lost until the 19th century, when a manuscript was found in a Commonplace Book dating from around 1470–80 at Brome Manor (demolished 1958), Suffolk, England – thus, the name of the play. The manuscript itself has been dated at 1454 at the earliest. This manuscript is now housed at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The Brome Abraham’s relation to the play of the same subject in the cycle of Chester Mystery Plays has attracted attention. A comparison of the texts reveals around 200 lines of striking similarity, in particular during the debates between Abraham and Isaac that are at the hearts of the plays.

5 - Balak and Balaam (Cappers, Wiredrawers and Pinners)
York follows with: Hosiers – Departure of the Israelites from Egypt;Ten Plagues; Crossing the Red Sea: Chester has a unique play:


 * "Cappers and Linen­drapers, see that ye forth bring in well­decked order That Worthy Story of Balaam and his Ass and of  Balaack the King. Make the ass to speak, and set it out lively"

This is unique in the Chester Plays; it does not occur in any of the other English cycles, though it is to be found in the French mysteries - some passages in this play are almost exact translations from the French. Some versions of the plays omit this story completely. Balaaam, the non-Jewish sorcerer and prophet was commissioned by Balak King of Moab to curse the Jews, found himself incapable of cursing them. It is in this play that we have the first mention of "Mohammed" (in the original text). The story relates how Balaam was blocked from progress (on his donkey) ...




 * ..in a path of the vineyards, with a wall on both sides. The donkey saw the angel, and she pressed against the wall (to squeeze past the angel), crushing Balaam's "leg" and destroying his "tools", and he beat her again. Then the angel stood in a narrow place, where there was no room to turn right or left.. (a clear reference to wire-drawers)

The original story is quite bawdy, with the donkey able to talk. The Talmud also suggests that Balaam has had sex with the donkey, as the donkey says:


 * ..Since you first started until now you have always ridden on me. Moreover by day I provide you with riding, and by night with intimacy.. (Rashi, Numbers 22:30; Avodah Zarah 4b.)

According to the guild website, the cappers made firing caps for guns. This is untrue, the percussion cap only replaced the flint, the steel "frizzen", and the powder pan of the flint-lock mechanism following its invention by Joseph Egg, around 1817. "Cappers" is probably better translated as a maker of headgear (from Old English cæppe, from Late Latin cappa). As the play required the manufacture of a donkey head for one of the cast to wear, it was appropriate that it should go to the cappers.

The Cappers Company was in existence by 1523-24, when it petitioned the Mayor and Aldermen, complaining that, because of competition, mainly from the mercers, it was too impoverished to produce its play. Perhaps because of this, the Cappers were joined by the Pinners and Wierdrawers in producing ‘King Balak and Baalam with Moses’, probably by c.1540. By 1603, the Linen Drapers had amalgamated with the Cappers, Pinners and "Wierdrawers".

In 1967, at Deir Alla, Jordan, Dutch archaeologists found an inscription with a story relating visions of the seer of the gods Bala'am, son of Be'or, who may be the same Bala'am mentioned in Numbers 22–24. This Bala'am differs from the one in Numbers in that rather than being a prophet of Yahweh he is associated with Ashtar, a god named Shgr, and Shadday gods and goddesses. The inscription is datable to ca. 840–760 BCE. The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies describes it as "the oldest example of a book in a West Semitic language written with the alphabet, and the oldest piece of Aramaic literature."

6 - The Nativity (Wheelrights, Slaters, Tylers, Daubers and Thatchers)
'''York next has three plays: Spicers – Annunciation and Visitation; Pewterers and Founders – Joseph's trouble about Mary; and Tile-thatchers – Journey to Bethlehem & the Nativity of Jesus. Chester has one:'''


 * "Of Octavian the Emperor, that could not well allow the prophecy of ancient Siby1 the sage, ye Wrights and Slaters with good  players in show lustily bring forth your well­decked carriage. The Birth of Christ shall all see in that stage. If the Scriptures awarrant not of the midwives' report the author telleth his author; then take it in sport"



Thatchers being associated with stables, this is an appropriate choice for these trades. But it might also be that some clever manipulation of the props might be needed for the "scene shifts" in this play.

The version of the nativity is different from the one in the bible as it features a walk-on part by the Roman emperor Octavian/Augustus. The play moves from Joseph's house at Nazareth to the Emperor's court at Rome, partly to show why Octavian ordered the general tax but more importantly to evaluate the pax Romana into which the Prince of Peace was born. The Roman senate believe that the long peace and prosperity of Octavian's rule must be a sign of his divinity and request his deification, but Octavian recognises his own mortality and rejects the offer. He then consults a sibyl who foretells the birth of a child of greater power than he. The action returns to Bethlehem for the birth, but then reverts to Rome, where Octavian is granted a vision of the Virgin and Child in a star and orders his countrymen to worship the Child. In the course of the play the pax Romana is shown to have been based upon a primitive kind of early warning system, the Temple of Peace, contrived by a fiend, so that Rome always had advance notice of rebellion. At Christ's birth, the structure collapsed, and subsequently a church has been built to commemorate the vision.

The local connection is that the "church" is Santa Maria in Ara Coeli which is known for housing relics belonging to Saint Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine. In Great Britain, a later legend, mentioned by Henry of Huntingdon but made popular by Geoffrey of Monmouth, claimed that Helena was a daughter of the King of Britain, Cole of Colchester, who allied with Constantius to avoid more war between the Britons and Rome. All of this is entirely without any historical foundation. In the play the church has its name mangled: "The churche is called Saynte Marie - The sirname in a Racali".

The myth may arise from the similarly named Welsh princess Saint Elen (alleged to have married Magnus Maximus and to have borne a son named Constantine). The church actually stands on the site of the Temple of Juno Moneta (where coins were minted). The original structure cannot possibly date back to the time of Augustus (Rome did not become officially Christian until the 4th century), but by the 6th century the existing church was already considered old. It was later rebuilt, with the present structure dating from the 13th century. There was a Temple of Peace in Rome, but this was not built until 71 AD under Emperor Vespasian. The funds to create this grand monument were acquired through Vespasian's sacking of Jerusalem during the Jewish-Roman Wars. The interior and surrounding buildings were decorated with the treasures collected there by the Roman army.



There is a curious reference to the "high horse beside Boughton" in only one version of the play (Harl Ms. 2124) which may be a grim reference to Gallows-Hill at Boughton or a reference to a local brothel in Love Street. Ulpian Fulwell in his "Like will to Like" calls the gallows a two legged mare: "This peece of land whereto you iuheritours are / Is called the land of the two legged mare / In this peece of ground there is a mare in deed / Which is the quickest mare in England for speede."

Arrived at Bethlehem, Joseph goes out to search for two midwives. He finds two, by name Lebell and Salome. The story of the birth, of Salome's disbelief of Mary's virginity, of the withering of her hand and of its healing follow the apocryphal Gospel of James (ch. XIV):


 * 14 And the midwife went out from the cave, and Salome met her. 15 And the midwife said to her, "Salome, Salome, I will tell you a most surprising thing, which I saw. 16 A virgin has brought forth, which is a thing contrary to nature." 17 To which Salome replied, "As the Lord my God lives, unless I receive particular proof of this matter, I will not believe that a virgin has brought forth."


 * 18 Then Salome went in, and the midwife said, "Mary, show yourself, for a great controversy has arisen about you." 19 And Salome tested her with her finger. 20 But her hand was withered, and she groaned bitterly, 21 and said, "Woe to me, because of my iniquity! For I have tempted the living God, and my hand is ready to drop off

7 - The Shepherds (Painters, Glaziers, (Stationers) and Embroiderers)
'''York then has: Chandlers (Candlemakers) – The Annunciation to the shepherds, the Adoration of the Shepherds. Chester also has a single play:'''


 * "The appearing Angel and Star upon Christ's birth, The Shepherds, poor, of base and low degree, you Painters and Glaziers, deck out with all mirth and see that "Gloria in Excelsis" be sung merrily. Few words in the pageant make mirth truly, for all that the author had to stand upon was "Glory to God on high, and peace on Earth to Man."

The Banns evidently seek to excuse the meetting of the shepherds and their feasting and wrestling which precede the appearance of the angels and constitute a different kind of "comedy" from the angelic song. These four crafts developed in the early 16th century. The painters were heraldic painters: the glaziers catered for the growing use of glass; the embroiderers embellished materials and the stationers were concerned with bookbinding and book selling. In 1534, members of these crafts successfully petitioned the Mayor, Aldermen and Common Council for a charter of incorporation. In their petition, they cited their long association with the production of ‘The Shepherd’s Offering’ in the Chester cycle of Mystery Plays. It would appear that the Glaziers included stilts in their performance.



The Adoration of the Shepherds, is one of the most important in the whole cycle, because it is of all the plays the one in which local traditions, customs and ideas receive the freest expression. It would also have been one of the more difficult to play, not only because of the lines which needed to be learned but also because of the physical acting in the "wrestling" match. The first Shepherd enumerates the various diseases to which sheep are liable and the remedies to be applied. There is then a discussion of food which mentions many things which can be supposed to be local dishes. As a playable piece of drama, to be repeated at four wagon stations, the scene is a prop master‘s nightmare.Within less than fifty lines, the three Shepherds unpack and eat "bredd", "onyons", "garlycke", "leekes", "butter", "greene cheese", "puddinge", "jannock" (a leavened oatcake), "sheepes head sowsed in ale", "grayne" (either a pig‘s snout or its groin), "sowre milke" (curds), "pigges foote from puddinges purye", "gambonns" (gammon joints), another "puddinge" (with a pricke in the end, provocatively), and "tonge". Tudd refers vaguely, three more times, to other "meate" that he has brought. Then the Shepherds drink ale ‖and other "lickour" from a "flackett", "bottell" ,‖and "bowles". In later lines, the Shepherds and their boy Trowle gesture to further items that must be visible onstage, though they haven‘t been mentioned aloud yet: a pot for more drinking, a "loyne" (with punning reference to Hannkeynn‘s own loins), "sose" (sauce, possibly, or just a sloppy mess of food), and pickled pig parts, usually the feet and ears. The records of monies spent on the plays indicate that the Painters actually bought real food for this scene. It has been suggested that the Painters shared the food with the audience, but they do not seem (from their records) to have bought enough for that. There are some specific references to "local" dishes: one Shepherd says:


 * "And brave ale of Halton I have / And what meat I had to my hire / A pudding may no man deprave / And a jannock of Lancaster-shire."

The "ale of Halton" may be a reference to Norton Priory, closed down in October 1536. In a book called "Industrial Lancashire" published in 1897, John Mortimer explains that "Jannock" was a kind of oatmeal bread introduced by Flemish weavers who moved to Lancashire from the 13th century onwards (not that different to "Bannock"). This bread was considered to be "good and wholesome" and so the word was applied to other things that were good and wholesome.



As in much medieval art Joseph is represented as an old and decrepit man, and such we find him all through these plays. The object being to emphasize the fact that he was not the father of Mary's child.

8 - King Herod / Adoration of the Magi (Vintners)
'''York next has: Masons – Coming of the Three Kings to Herod. Chester also has a single play:'''


 * "And you worthy Merchant ­vintners, that now have plenty of wine, amplify the story of those Wise Kings Three that through Herod's land and realm, by the star that did shine, sought the sight of the Saviour that then born should be."

Herod seems to have caught the imagination of the people of the middle ages. He appears to have been the most popular of all the characters in the mysteries. He is always represented as a swaggering, shouting braggart; this probably accounted for his popularity and possibly explains the choice of the vinters. For some inexplicable reason the characters in the original script of this play keep switching between English and French. Maybe this play was in part directed at visitors to Chester from afar, possibly having arrived via the port. One of the guilds particularly associated with the port and especially with foreign trade would have been the Vinters. Another explanation for the use of French is that it is used to illustrate how the dialog is between persons of high rank.

The portrayal of Herod was so "over-the-top" that it may have been referenced by Shakespeare in Hamlet (act 3, scene 2) where he mockingly coins the phrase "to out-Herod Herod" as an admonition to the players in the "play within the play":


 * O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

At one point in the text the marginal stage instructions mention a boy and a pig. This has been the subject of much puzzlement, but may be a reference to how Macrobius (c. 400 CE), one of the last pagan writers in Rome, in his book Saturnalia, wrote:


 * “When it was heard that, as part of the slaughter of boys up to two years old, Herod, king of the Jews, had ordered his own son to be killed, he [the Emperor Augustus] remarked, ‘It is better to be Herod’s pig [Gr. hys] than his son’ [Gr. huios]”.

This has been described as a reference to how Herod, as a Jew, would not kill pigs, but had three of his sons, and many others, killed.

9 - The Three Kings (Mercers and Spicers)


York next has a single play: Goldsmiths – Coming of the Kings: Adoration - as does Chester:


 * "And you worshipful Mercers, though costly and fine you trim up your carriage as custom ever was, yet in a stable was he born, that mighty King divine, poorly in a stable betwixt an ox and an ass"

The Spicers would have sold incense. This company later became the Mercers, Ironmongers, Grocers and Apothecaries Company. The Apothecaries later left to found their own guild. At least two of the trades involved with the play (Mercers and Spicers) would been concerned with foreign trade and this play, like the previous one, takes the opportunity to portray foreign visitors in a positive light. Looking at the materials used for their set (the purchase was recorded in their accounts), the Mercers covered their pageant wagon in velvet, satin, damask, taffeta, and sarsenet (a fine silk material) with green piping, materials that at once suggest the Kings‘ royalty (because of their high price) and their Eastern origins — hence, trade through the port, particularly via the Continent. Thus, the Mercers‘ had an especially commercial motive in staging their "Offerings" play — it offered them an opportunity to display their imports, which it was their business to sell.

This play is very similar to the Shepherd play. As to the shepherds so to the Magi, Mary offers thanks for the gifts, and Joseph (the kings, like the shepherds, speak of him as an old man) repeats his story of Mary's virginity.

The play finishes with a "blessing" of the audience, which fits its location as the last play of the first day.

Second Day
====10- Slaughter of the Innocents (Goldsmiths and Masons)====

'''In York there are next two plays: Marshals (Grooms) – Flight into Egypt; and Girdlers and Nailers – Massacre of the Innocents. Chester has a single play:'''


 * You Goldsmiths and Masons, make comely show, how Herod at the return of those kings did rage, and how he slew the tender male babes being under two years of age.



It has been suggested the pun is that either will fleece innocents. However, a much clearer explanation is that Herod's most famous and ambitious architectural project was the expansion of the Second Temple in Jerusalem - something which the Masons could have been aware of (later "Masonic" rituals are concerned with the First Temple). The Masons do not sit easilly within the guild structures, possibly because they were "free" and not tied to one city, but would move around as their work required. By c.1529-37, they were associated with the goldsmiths, making an agreement with the vintners and dyers over the use of the latter’s Mystery Play carriage (used the day previously and presumably depicting Herod's palace). The Masons Company petitioned the Assembly for a Charter in 1691 and was ordered to have one jointly with the carpenters and bricklayers. However, the Assembly later rescinded this decision, and the Company was incorporated with the plasterers in 1705. In the early 18th century, they were also associated with the clothworkers and were still calling themselves the Company of Masons and Clothworkers in 1835.

When Herod finds that the Magi do not return, he realises that he has lost the opportunity of discovering the Child and decides on the massacre of all the young children in Bethlehem so as to make sure of killing the Child Jesus. For this purpose he calls his knights together. The two first mentioned are Sir Grimbalde and Sir Launcher. Arrived at Bethlehem the fun starts in a true mediaeval manner. There is a great slaughter of infants, but the soldiers do not have it all their own way. The women of that city seem to have been of Amazonian breed and the men at arms were severely cudgelled. The mothers defended their children stoutly. The fray is brought to an end by a dramatic and unexpected incident. A child is slain, and the woman cries out that it was not her child but one given to her to nurse, and that the slain infant was actually Herod's son. Apparently the shock of his son's death is the cause of that of Herod.

In actual history Herod died in Jericho c. 4 BCE, after an excruciatingly painful, putrefying illness of uncertain cause, known to posterity as "Herod's Evil". Josephus states that the pain of his illness led Herod to attempt suicide by stabbing, and that the attempt was thwarted by his cousin. In some much later narratives and depictions, the attempt succeeds; for example, in the 12th-century Eadwine Psalter. It would not have been possible to utter an oath based on the historic Mohammad (c. 570 CE – 8 June 632 CE) as several characters do in this play's original text.

====11- Purification of Our Lady or in some versions Christ in the Temple (Smiths, Forbers and Pewterers)====

'''York places its version of "Purification" out of sequence amd next has two plays: Spurriers and Lorimers (Spurmakers and makers of horse bits and bridles) – Christ with the Doctors & Barbers – Baptism of Jesus. Chester has only one:'''


 * "You Smiths—honest men, yea, and of honest art— how Christ Among the Doctors in the temple did dispute, to set out your play comely it shall be your part. Get minstrels to that show  —pipe, tabret, and flute."

The first part deals with the ceremony of the Purification, and the second with the Child Jesus discoursing in the Temple with the Doctors (in the Coventry cycle these are two separate plays). In 1575, the Smiths generated two draft versions of their cycle play, the Purification/Doctors, and performed both before a group of aldermen so that they could choose which would be accepted into the cycle (and thus, assumedly, entered officially into the "Regynall" official copy.

Six sets of play­ accounts for the Blacksmiths' company are extant, the earliest being of 1550. They indicate that the face of the boy Jesus was gilded; that Mary wore a crown; and that wigs were used. The play involved much music. The references in the Post­-Reformation Banns to minstrels with "pipe, tabret, and flute" are confirmed by payments to the minstrels in the accounts. Additionally, choristers were hired from the cathedral, presumably for singing at moments such as the angel's entrances. Simeon is required to sing, and the part seems on occasion to have been taken by a cathedral singing­man. The 1567 accounts, which contain no payment for hiring choristers, mention a regalls, a small portable organ sometimes called a "positive". Positives required either the player or a second person to operate the bellows in order to supply wind to the instrument, something eminently suited to the Smiths. Payment to the Clerk for the loan of a cope, altar­cloth and an ecclesiastical garment in 1572 suggests the source and nature of the ecclesiastical costumes.

12- The Temptation & Woman taken into Adultery (Butchers)
York then has three plays which equate to the next two in the Chester Cycle: Smiths – Temptation of Jesus; Curriers (men who dress leather) – Transfiguration; and Capmakers – Woman Taken in Adultery; Raising of Lazarus


 * "And next to this, you the Butchers of this City, the story of Satan that would Christ needs Tempt set out as accustomably used have ye — the Devil in his feathers, all ragged and rent."

It begins with a soliloquy by Satan which is rather curious. He has a great deal of knowledge of Jesus; knows what kind of a man he is and who is his mother but is quite unable to discover who his father is. Thus while he knows all about Mary and Jesus and the circumstances of the birth, he has no knowledge of Joseph - yet another way of almost writing Joseph out as little more than a side-character. Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) placed Joseph on the Roman Kalendar, and since that time there has been a tendency to give him a little more honour than was accorded to him in the earlier Church, which may help date the plays. Sixtus was also responsible for the construction of the Sistine Chapel and the creation of the Vatican Archives. However, there may be another reason for the Devil's apparent confusion. While it is clearer in some of the other English Mystery Cycles than in the Chester cycle, some of the mystery cycles appear to be based on the premise that the Devil has to be somehow decieved into bringing sbout the death of Christ and therefore overstepping the limits of his power - dominion over all the dead except for a few prophets. This is not a strong element in the Chester plays.

Finding a reason for the association of the Butchers with this play is problematic. Although it has noted that at some periods Butchers were forbidden to serve on a trial jury which was deciding on a matter of life and death (although there is little hard evidence for this). The Post-­Reformation Banns refer to "the Devil in his feathers all ragged and rent," suggesting a spectacular feathered costume; the popularity of this figure is indicated by his inclusion in the midsummer show. Jesus's confrontation with this strange creature contrasts with the more "naturalistic" confrontation between the Pharisees and Jesus, perhaps again at ground level. The Pharisees seem usually to have been dressed in clerical robes, and they have a ready point of entry from the temple. The woman who escapes being stoned (played by a boy) would be dressed in contemporary fashion, perhaps even as a respectable lady in the community. Fortunately for the accused woman, Mary is not present on the wagon in this play as otherwise the line "...and cast at her the first stone" would have probably got the response "come on Mary" from a Chester crowd.

13- Raising of Lazarus (Glovers and Parchment-makers)

 * "The Death of Lazarus and his Rising Again you of the Glovers the whole  occupation in pageant with players  orderly — let it not be pain —  finely to advance after the  best fashion."

In the York and Coventry, the Temptation is a separate play, while the Chester combines it with the Woman taken in Adultery, which in the York is part of the Lazarus play. The play uses the word "Chester" where "thester" (meaning dark) might have been in the original text. This may be a copying error or a local pun.



14- The Coming of Christ to Jerusalem (Corvisars)
York mext has two plays: Skinners – Jesus' entry into Jerusalem & Cutlers – The conspiracy: Pilate, Annas, Caiaphas, Bargain of Judas: Chester combines these into one:


 * "The story How to Jerusalem Our Saviour Took the Way you Corvisors that in number full many be with your Jerusalem Carriage shall set out in play. A commendable true story, and worthy of memory"

Corvisors aka Cordwainer - the shoemakers. In this play Judas is put up to betray Jesus by the Jerish priests, after causing comic havoc in the temple by throwing the goods (possibly shoes) of a pair of merchants about - there do not appear to be any money-changers inolved. In 1550, the expenses of their play included 19d for riding the banns; 2s 8d for a dozen boards for the carriage; and 22d for 2½ yards of flaxen cloth for Mary Magdalene’s coat.

15- The Last Supper/Betrayal (Grocers, Bakers and Millers)
'''For the next two plays in the Chester Cycle, York has a total of ten: Bakers – Last Supper; Cordwainers (Shoemakers) – Agony, Betrayal and Arrest; Bowyers and Fletchers – Denial of Peter; Jesus before CaiaphasTapiters (makers of tapestry and carpets) and Couchers – Dream of Pilate's wife; Pilate's court; Listers (Dyers) – Trial before Herod; Cooks and Water-leaders – Second Accusation before Pilate; Remorse of Judas; Purchase of the Field of Blood; Tilemakers – Second Trial before Pilate; Shearman – Christ Led to Calvary; Pinners and Painters – Crucifixion; and Butchers – Mortification of Christ; Burial. Chester next has:'''


 * "And how Christ our Saviour at his Last Supper gave his body and blood for redemption of us all you Bakers see that with the same words you utter as Christ himself spake them, to be a memorial of that death and Passion which in play after ensue shall. The worst of these stories doth not fall to your part; therefore, cast God's loaves abroad with accustomed cheerful heart."

Grocers and Bakers etc for obvious reasons - Millers perhaps because they were seen as habitually crooked and like Judas took their percentage. Evidently the Bakers tossed small loaves to the crowds during the performance - maybe those became treasured souvenirs. In Chester, the price of bread was fixed accordingly to the price of corn in the market by assessors working under the Mayor’s supervision. There are many examples of bakers refusing to comply with Assize of Bread or supplying bread deficient in weight or quality. In 1576, the bakers refusal to accept the Assize resulted in their mass committal to the Northgate gaol. The Bakers stacking of gorse for their ovens was strictly regulated by the Assembly of Mayor, Aldermen and Common Councilmen so as to lessen the danger of fire and in 1729 the Bakers petitioned to be allowed to build windmills on Hough Green because of complaints about charges at the Dee Mills.

16- The Crucifixion (Ironmongers and Ropers)

 * "You Fletchers, Bowers, Coopers, Stringers, and Ironmongers, see soberly ye make out Christ's Doleful Death, his scourging, his whipping, his bloodshed and Passion, and all the pains he suffered till the last of his breath. Lordings, in this story consisteth our chief faith the ignorance wherein hath us many years so blinded; as through now all see the path plain, yet the most part cannot find it."

Ironmongers sell nails, hence their choice for this play. The wording of the Banns stresses the abandonment of the "misguided" Roman Catholic teaching on the Eucharist in favour of the recently established doctrines of Protestantism founded upon the biblical text and seem to imply that, though the theological truth is now available, it is still not widely understood.

The Scourging of Christ (Bowyers, Fletchers, Stringers, Coopers and Turners) is sometimes listed as a single play with the following. The "four Jews" in this play spend extra time discussing an "iron pynne" (Passion lines 192-6, lines 199-200), an overt reminder of the connection between the Passion pageant and the craft of its supporting guild.

Textual analysis indicates that the authorship of the York plays changes for the ten plays at this point in the York cycle with the supposed author being known as "The York Realist". The distinctive feature, apart from the high quality of the writing, is the attention to incidental detail in the story-telling and in the subtle portrayal of the negative characters, Pilate, Herod (who does not appear in the Chester play), Annas and Caiaphas.

The dispute over the clothes and the dice-throwing take place before the crucifixion and Caiaphas has to order the men to get on with their work. It is curious to note that the Romans are not mentioned: it is apparently all the work of the Jews. When they come to nail Jesus to the cross they find that he is "short armed." The holes for the nails would be bored beforehand, and the phrase means that they find that Christ's hands will not reach them because the arms are too short - something that can be fixed by streching them with ropes. The origin of this tradition is to be found in the Revelation of the Virgin to St. Bridget of Sweden. The story is found in other mystery plays besides those of Chester so it was evidently a popular tradition. It also conveniently avoids having to actually nail an actor to the cross!

The Ironmongers‘guild brought a suit in 1422 against the "Wrights"‘guild (see note above) over the fairness of production costs for the "Passion", the play that the two guilds had shared up to that point. The Cestrian mayor, John Hope, settled the guildsmen‘s financial complaints by splitting one play into two, and then assigning the two halves to separate guilds: one containing all the material from flagellation up to the crucifixion and the other beginning with the crucifixion.

17- Harrowing of Hell (Cooks, Tapsters, Ostlers and Innkeepers)
'''York next has a single play: Saddlers – Harrowing of Hell. Chester also has a single play:'''


 * "As our belief is that Christ after his Passion descended into Hell — but what he did in that place, though our author set forth after his opinion, yet credit you the best learned; those he doth not not disgrace. We wish that of all sorts the best you embrace. You Cooks with your carriage see that you do well; in pageant set out The Harrowing of Hell."

Cooks roast meat but also take things out of the fire. The credal article claiming that Christ descended into hell rests upon uncertain scriptural foundation. The Banns accordingly attempt to reassure performers and audience that what they will witness is doctrinally sound. It is in the Legenda Aurea or "Golden Legend," and hence in A Stanzaic Life of Christ, probably the immediate source of Chester's play.

The play also contains a "ale-wife" who has given false measure and does not get released from Hell - presumably this was because her "sin" was seem as too great for any redemption. She was undoubtedly a great hit with the crowd as she took part, with the devil, in the Midsummer Show. This play was not restored in 1951 and was first performed in 1962.

Third Day
====18- The Resurrection (Skinners, Plastercard-makers, Hatters, Painters and Girdlers)====

'''York next has two plays: Carpenters – Resurrection and Winedrawers – Christ's Appearance to Mary Magdalene. In Chester these form a single play:'''


 * "The Skinners, Cardmakers, Hatters, Paynters, and Girdlers performed "The Resurrection." This play took place on the third day, Wednesday, in Whitsun Week. In the books no details of expenses in con­nection with the show are given. This leads one to suppose that the joint companies named hired the stage belonging to one of the other companies."

Frank Simpson writes of them (F. Simpson, ‘The City Gilds or Companies of Chester: The Skinners and Feltmakers Company’, J.C.A.S., 21 (1915)).

Peter's traditional role as the first pope; possibly implied at the end of the play, is found in only two of the five manuscripts, and was censored for that reason after the Reformation.

====19- Castle of Emmaus & the Apostles (Saddlers - sometimes with Saddle-tree makers)====

'''Both York and Chester continue with a single play. York has: Sledmen – Travellers to Emmaus. Chester has:'''


 * The Saddlers and Friezers should in their pageant declare the appearance of Christ, his Travel to Emmaus, his often speech to the woman and his disciples dear, to make his Rising­ again to all the world notorious.

Saddlers are recorded in Chester from 1392-93. In 1472, their company was given a monopoly by Edward IV to last for 40 years. The Sadlers charter mentions the plays and the Corpus Chrisi lights, and requires them to:


 * "..to support the burdens and costs of the play and pageant assigned to the occupiers of the same art and city (which) portions of the play and light of Corpus Christi are to be supported and watched over anually for the honour of the same by the occupiers of the same art and trade in the aforementioned city and other manifold burdens ordered annually for the honour of goddd and of the aforesaid city and supported by the same craftsmen within our aforesaid city."

In the 16th century cycle of Mystery Plays, the Saddlers produced ‘The Castle of Emmaus and the Apostles’. In 1639, the company was granted another charter, on this occasion by the City. The saddlers amalgamated with the curriers, who were leather dressers.

20- The Ascension (Tailors)
'''York has three plays next including the out of sequence "Purification" (which makes no sense as that play refers to events after the Nativity play). The York plays are: Hatmakers, Masons, Labourers – Purification of Mary; Simeon and Anna; Scriveners (Scribes) – Incredulity of Thomas and Tailors – Ascension. Chester has one play:'''


 * Then see that you Tailors with carriage decent the story of The Ascension formally do frame, whereby that glorious body in clouds most ardent is taken up to the heavens with perpetual fame.

This choice is ironic beacuse the shroud is left behind. There is no real break between this and the preceding play: Jesus virtually continues his discourse from the last scene and the disciples are yet uncertain about His bodily existence. Again Jesus by way of quietening their fears asks for food. There is a further reference to clothing in the "Golden Legend" of Jacobus da Varagine, Jesus is depicted as ascending with his clothes dyed with blood.

21- Whitsunday Making of the Creed - descent of the Holy Spirit (Fishmongers)
'''Both Chester and York then have a "Whitsun" play. York has: Potters – Descent of the Holy Spirit: Chester has:'''


 * Thus of the Old and New Testament to end all the story which our author meaneth at this time to have in play, you Fishmongers to the pageant of The Holy Ghost well see

The assignment of this play is probably a pun of the smell of the fish-stalls. After having received the Holy Spirit the apostles are able to speak various tongues as recorded in the Acts. But it is interesting to note the geographical terms of the mystery where they differ from the New Testament classification. Sixteenth-Century records show that Chester's cycle was then performed at Whitsun, the festival commemorating the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles at Pentecost. This play of Pentecost therefore had particular significance. The wording of the Banns suggests that the mystery cycle once ended here - or it may mean that the final three plays are not wholly based on any biblical text.

22- Prophets before the Day of Doom (Shearmen)
'''The following parts of the recorded Chester Cycle and the York Cycle differ considerably. York has the "Whitsun" play followed by a string of three "Marian" plays: Drapers (Dealers in cloth and dry goods) – Death of Mary; Weavers – Appearance of Mary to Thomas; and Ostlers (Stablemen) – Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin. Chester has the Whitsun play followed by two "Antichrist plays":'''


 * "And after those ended, yet doth not the author stay but by Prophets showeth forth how Antichrist should rise — which you Shearmen see set out in most comely wise"

The "Shearmen" were cloth finishers. When cloth, especially woollen cloth, is woven, the surface of the cloth is not smooth, and this roughness is the nap. Generally the cloth is then 'sheared' to create an even surface, and the nap is thus removed. The play features the Fifteen Signs before Doomsday and the greater part of the text is spoken by the "Expositor" with the prophets only having relatively short speeches.

23- Antichrist (Hewsters and Bellfounders) - or in some versions Dyers (which are Hewsters or Heusters)

 * "And then, you Dyers and Huesters, Antichrist bring out — first with his Doctor, that goodly may expound who be Antichrists the world round about — and Enock and Hely, persons walking on ground, in parts well set you out, the wicked to confound; which, being well  understanded Christ's word for to be, confoundeth all Antichrists and sects of that degree."

The "Bell-founders" are a confusing guild as they are only ever mentioned once and that is in connection with the production of this pageant. There have been bell-founders at Congleton. Thomas Hughes states:


 * "..we had several founders settled at Chester, both long before and after Edward the Sixth's reign; Mr. Seth Rosomgreve, who was himself one of that craft, may have melted his weighty acquisition on the spot. One Simon Montford was a Chester founder at the date of the dissolution of the monasteries, as were others of his family before and since that date."

In 1558 the churchwardens of Childwall, in Lancashire, sold one of their church bells to "John Plymmer", of Chester, but it is not known whether he was a founder, or not.

A full legend of the reign of Antichrist developed which took influential form in "De ortu et tempore Antichristi" by a tenth-­century Burgundian monk, Adso of Montier­-en-­Der. De antichristo was not an original work; it combined exegesis of biblical text with Sibylline (that is, oracular) accounts. The most important exegetical text was the commentary on 2 Thessalonians by Haimo of Auxerre, but Adso also used Jerome's De Antichristo in Danielem, and Alcuin's De Fide Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis. The most important oracular one is the myth of the Last Emperor found in (Latin reworkings of the originally Syriac) Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, besides the oracles of the Tiburtine Sibyl. We do not know the immediate source of Chester's play, but most of its details can be found in Adso's narrative and the numerous other works which developed from it. Chester is unique among the English cycles in having a play of Antichrist. It was probably a late insertion into the cycle and the version described in the Post­-Reformation Banns seems to have been rather different from our extant play since it describes Antichrist's Counsellor as expounding "who be Antichrists the world round about." The Pre-­Reformation Banns describe "a wurthy cariage that is a thing of grett costage." The action takes place primarily within the temple in Jerusalem. An agreement of 1531 or 1532 indicates that the performing company, the Dyers, shared a waggon with the Vintners and the Goldsmiths. Theses are both set in the court of Herod, and parts of that set were probably re­utilised in Antichrist. Given the craft of the Dyers, the set presumably included rich hangings, and the play would be costumed with some splendour.

24- The Last Judgement (Weavers and Walkers)
'''Both Chester and York complete the cycle with a similar play. York has: Mercers (Dealers in textiles) – Judgement Day. Chester has:'''


 * "The coming of Christ to give eternal judgement, you Weavers last of all your part is to play. Doomsday we call it,  when the Omnipotent shall make an end of this  world by sentence, I say. On his right hand to stand God grant us that day, and to have that sweet  word in melody: "Come hither, come hither." "Venite Benedicti."

The "Walkers" based in the fulling mills on the Handbridge side of the Dee, carried out part of the cloth finishing process: originally this involved walking up and down in wet cloth. The weaving trade in Chester was both important and organised by 1399, when many master weavers took part in an affray against the journeymen opposite St Peter’s Church on the feast of Corpus Christi. Stewards of the Company are named in a Pentice Court roll in 1438-39 and by the middle of the 15th century, it was apparently associated with the fullers and the chaloners (blanket-makers). The Banns seem to promise a denunciation of contemporary Antichrists and an attack upon heretical sects; but the cast never makes this declaration in the play.

In addition there was "The assumption of the Virgin" which was performed by the "worshipful wives of this town" between plays 22 and 23. This was removed from the performaed part of the cycle at some late stage. There are several possible reasons for removal including the possible use of female actors, and the "Marian" associations either to the Catholic Mary or to one or other of "Bloody Mary" or Mary Queen of Scots.

Assigned or Adapted?
Some writers have suggested that there appears to be a connection between the subject matter of the plays and the trades of the guilds which performed each one. This could be fortuitous, done on purpose, or the plays could have had their wording adapted to fit. In some cases the link is apparently very strong: those whose work involves the River Dee get Noah and the Flood; Grocers and Bakers get the last supper; Ironmongers get the crucifixion and Cooks (who take things out of the fire) get the harrowing of hell. In some cases the link is ironic: the Drapers get Adam and Eve; the Fishmongers get the holy spirit; and the Masons get Herod (who built the "Wailing Wall" - הַכּוֹתֶל הַמַּעֲרָבִי or حَائِط ٱلْبُرَاق). In places lines in the play may have been inserted to reflect the profession of the guild - such as the line "where are you going dressed in red?" in the Ascension play, as assigned to the Tailors. However, close examination shows that these local edits are relatively few.

If there were a clear logical association between the allocation of the plays and the trade of the guilds involved it could be expected that the same or similar association would be found in York. In general this is not the case, although there are some similar allocations. In both the York and Chester cycles the Tanners get the initial "Lucifer" play, the Fishermen get the "Noah" play the Thatchers get the "Nativity", the Bakers are involved in the "Last Supper" and the Tailors get the "Ascension". There are also some "near-miss" associations with the Goldsmiths and Masons turing up in the Herod/Kings cluster in both Chester and York (but not in the same plays).

"Order of Precedence" was once very contentious in the London Livery Companies and possibly gave rise to the English saying "At sixes and sevens" when the Merchant Taylors and Skinners companies, both founded in the same year (1327), argued over sixth place in the order of precedence. In 1484, after more than a century and a half of bickering, the Lord Mayor of London Sir Robert Billesden ruled that at the feast of Corpus Christi, the companies would swap between sixth and seventh place and feast in each other's halls. Nowadays, they alternate in precedence on an annual basis. There are however other possible explanations for the saying: William Shakespeare uses a similar phrase in Richard II, "But time will not permit: all is uneven, And every thing is left at six and seven" (Act II, scene 2).

Conflicts between craft guilds over their places in the Corpus Christi procession arose frequently. In York for instance, a dispute between the Cordwainers and the Weavers lingered on for eleven years, and required the intervention of the of the king to make an end to it. Although this case is exceptional, it does illustrate how central the position in the Corpus Christi procession was to a crafts’ status. Comparable, though less extensive cases, can be found in the records of Shrewsbury, Chester, York, and Newcastle. In all these disputes the Corporation acted as mediator and had the final word in the conflict.

There may be other reasons for placement - the Tanners, one of the earliest and leading guilds, come first. The actual order of precedence of the guilds compared with the order of the plays is as listed below. Some of those taking part in the Mystery Plays were not technically guilds. The Vinters, of whom the earliest record is c. 1500 were connected with Merchants (i.e. not a craft guild) in1550s and collaborated with them for the "pageant" in the later 16th cent. The eventually became part of amalgamated guild from 1583 (Innholders, Cooks, and Victuallers). Their "pageant" was the Three Kings (the eighth play).

There is at times some lack of clarity as to who gets which play. In some lists the Ironmongers and Ropers get the Crucifixion to themselves whereas in others the Joiners, Carvers and Turners’ Company are involved.

Guild Order of Precedence in Chester
The order of precedence is the order in which the guilds processed during the Corpus Christi procession, the performance of the Mystery Plays and the Midsummer Show. The Corpus Christi procession was discontinued at the Reformation, the Mystery plays were discontinued after 1575 and the Midsummer Show eventually stopped in 1670.


 * 1 Tanners’ Company; Earliest record 1361. Called Barkers later 15th cent.; Barkers and Tanners later 16th cent.; Tanners 1550s and from early 17th cent. Pageant: Creation and Fall of Lucifer (first play - same as York);


 * 2 Brewers’ Company; Incorporated by Assembly as Beerbrewers 1607 and by Crown as Brewers 1634. Collaborated with Drawers of Dee and Waterleaders for pageant in earlier 17th cent. and later replaced Drawers of Dee in order of guilds.(possibly the third play - they combined with "Noah" in the Midsummer show - similar to York);




 * 3 Barber-Surgeons’ Company (Barber-Surgeons, Wax and Tallow Chandlers); Earliest record of Barbers c. 1423. Called Barbers and Chandlers (sometimes specifying Wax, or Tallow, or both) or Barbers, Chandlers, and Leeches mid and later 16th cent.; Barber-Surgeons and Tallow Chandlers earlier 17th cent.; Barbers and Chandlers (or Tallow Chandlers) 18th cent.; Barbers, Surgeons, Wax and Tallow Chandlers 19th cent. Pageant: Abraham and Isaac (fourth play);


 * 4 Merchant Drapers’ Company (Merchant Drapers and Hosiers); Earliest record of Drapers 1437. Incorporated by Crown as Merchant Drapers and Hosiers 1577. Pageant: Adam and Eve (second play);


 * 5 Cappers, Pinners, Wiredrawers, and Linendrapers’ Company; Cappers' guild emerged after c. 1500. Called Cappers and Pinners early 16th cent.; Cappers, Wiredrawers, and Pinners 1550s and later 16th cent. Linendrapers, then Bricklayers joined to assist with pageant before 1603. (Called Cappers, Pinners, Wiredrawers, Bricklayers, and Linendrapers early 17th cent. Bricklayers separated 1619. Afterwards called Cappers, Pinners, Wiredrawers, and Linendrapers. Pageant: Balaam and Balaak (fifth play);


 * 6 Bricklayers’ Company; Collaborated with Cappers, Pinners, Wiredrawers, and Linendrapers for pageant before 1603. Separated by Assembly from that guild 1619. Incorporated as separate guild by Assembly 1683. (may have been involved with the fifth play);


 * 7 Wrights and Slaters’ Company (Wrights, Slaters and Tawyers); Earliest record of Wrights (alias Carpenters) 1422. Called Wrights and Slaters earlier 16th cent.; Wrights, or Wrights, Slaters, and Tilers 1550s; Wrights, Slaters, Tilers, Daubers, and Thatchers later 16th cent.; Joiners, Wrights, Carvers, and Slaters c. 1576. Incorporated by Assembly as Wrights, Carpenters, Slaters, and Sawyers 1584. Pageant: Nativity.(sixth play - similar to York);


 * 8 Joiners, Carvers and Turners’ Company; Incorporated by Assembly 1566. Turners had previously been associated with Fletchers, Bowyers, Coopers, and Stringers; Joiners and Carvers with Wrights and Slaters (part of the sixteenth play);


 * 9 Painters, Glaziers, Embroiderers and Stationers’ Company; Earliest record of Painters and Glaziers 1482–3. Embroiderers and Stationers collaborated for pageant earlier 16th cent. Incorporated by Assembly as Painters, Glaziers, Embroiderers, and Stationers 1534. Pageant: Shepherds.(seventh play);


 * 10 Goldsmiths’ Company (Goldsmiths and Watchmakers); Earliest record 1422. Incorporated by Act of Parliament 1700. Called Goldsmiths and Clockmakers 18th and early 19th cent. Pageant: Massacre of the Innocents, jointly with Masons (tenth play);


 * 11 Smiths, Cutlers and Plumbers’ Company (Smiths, Cutlers, Pewterers, Plumbers, Founders, Cardmakers, Girdlers, Headmakers, Wiredrawers, Spurriers, Arrowheadmakers, Armourers and Bellfounders);  Earliest record of Smiths 1427. Merged with Founders and Pewterers after 1521. Called Smiths earlier 16th cent.; Smiths, Furbers (or Furbishers, or Cutlers), and Pewterers 1550s and later 16th cent.; Smiths, Pewterers, Girdlers, Plumbers, Cardmakers, and Furbers c. 1576; Smiths, Cutlers, Pewterers, Cardmakers, and Plumbers earlier 17th, 18th, and early 19th cent. (sometimes adding Spurriers, Girdlers, and Headmakers earlier 17th cent.); Smiths, Cutlers, Cardmakers, and Plumbers 1835. Pageant: (pre-Reformation) Purification; (post-Reformation) Christ in the Temple.(eleventh play);


 * 12 Butchers’ Company;  Earliest record 1457. Apparently incorporated by Assembly 1665. Pageant: Temptation of Christ (twelveth play);


 * 13 Wet and dry Glovers’ Company;  Earliest record of Glovers 1422. Called themselves Glovers, Pursers, Bagmakers, and Pointers 1556. Also called Glovers and Parchment Makers 1550s and later 16th cent. Called Wet and Dry Glovers occasionally earlier 17th cent., regularly 19th and 20th cent. Pageant: Raising of Lazarus (thirteenth play);


 * 14 Cordwainers and Shoemakers’ Company; Earliest record 1364. Called Tawyers (alutarii) and Shoemakers (sutores) 1360s; Corvisers 15th and earlier 16th cent. and 1550s; Corvisers or Shoemakers later 16th cent.; Cordwainers (or Shoemakers) earlier 17th cent.; Cordwainers 18th, 19th, and sometimes 20th cent. Pageant: Entry into Jerusalem (fourteenth play);


 * 15 Bakers’ Company;  Earliest record c. 1422. Called Bakers and Millers 1550s and later 16th cent. Pageant: Last Supper.(fifteenth play - similar to York);


 * 16 Coopers’ Company;  Earliest record 1422, when already collaborating for pageant with Fletchers, Bowyers, and Stringers. Called Coopers 1475–6. Later merged in Fletchers, Bowyers, Coopers, and Stringers (part of the sixteenth play);


 * 17 Mercers, Ironmongers, Grocers, and Apothecaries’ Company; Incorporated by Assembly as Mercers and Ironmongers 1605 (previously two guilds: see Ironmongers; Mercers). Called Mercers, Grocers, Ironmongers, and Apothecaries (occasionally Grocers, Ironmongers, Mercers, and Apothecaries) by 1757 (ninth play);


 * 18 Innkeepers’ Company (merged with Cooks); Incorporated by Assembly as Innholders, Victuallers, and Cooks 1583 (fn. 168) (previously two guilds: see Cooks, Tapsters, and Hostellers; Vintners). Called Cooks, Innholders, and Victuallers earlier 17th cent.; Vintners, Innholders, Cooks, and Victuallers late 18th cent (seventeenth play);


 * 19 Skinners and Feltmakers’ Company; Earliest record of Skinners 1449. Called Skinners 15th cent.; Skinners and Feltcappers later 15th cent.; Skinners and Hatmakers, or Skinners, Cardmakers, and Hatters 1550s; Skinners, Cardmakers, Hatters, Pointers, and Girdlers (or omitting Hatters) or Skinners and Haberdashers later 16th cent.; Feltmakers, or Skinners and Feltmakers early 17th cent.; Feltmakers and Skinners 18th and early 19th cent. Pageant: Resurrection (eighteenth play);


 * 20 Saddlers and Curriers’ Company; Earliest record of Saddlers 1448. Called Saddlers and Fusters 16th cent. Incorporated by Assembly as Saddlers and Curriers 1639. Pageant: Supper at Emmaus.(nineteenth play);


 * 21 Merchant Tailors’ Company; Earliest record of Tailors 1302. Called Tailors until early 19th cent.; Merchant Tailors 1835; Merchant Taylors late 20th cent. Pageant: Ascension (twentieth play - same as York);


 * 22 Masons’ Company (Clothworkers and Masons); Earliest record 1436. Incorporated by Assembly with Plasterers 1705. Called Clothworkers, Walkers, and Masons (or Clothworkers and Masons) 18th and early 19th cent.; Masons 20th cent. Pageant: Massacre of the Innocents, jointly with Goldsmiths (tenth play); and


 * 23 Weavers’ Company; Earliest record 1422. Called Weavers, Walkers, and Chaloners (or Weavers and Walkers (or Fullers) or Weavers and Chaloners) 15th cent. Evidently included Shearmen 1429 but not 1467. Called Weavers and Walkers 16th cent.; Weavers 1550s. Incorporated by Assembly as Weavers 1583. Called themselves Weavers and Silkweavers 1633 or 1634; Weavers 18th cent. and later. Pageant: Judgement Day.(twenty-fourth and last play);

Plays or Economic Importance Determine Precedence?
Comparing this with the order of the plays it can be seen that very little re-arrangement is needed to get the two lists in the same order: the Drapers and Mercers need to be moved up the precedence list. The Masons are already helping the Goldsmiths with their play: presumably providing some brawn or making up numbers as the Goldsmiths were at times a very small guild.

In 1422, discord arose between the ironmongers and carpenters as to who should have the help of the fletchers, bowyers, stringers, coopers and turners in the Corpus Christi play. The outcome was that the fletchers, bowyers, stringers, coopers and turners should produce their own pageant, "The Scourging of Christ".

The Drawers of Dee are first recorded in 1438 as Fishermen (piscatores). The were called Drawers of Dee (occasionally Drawers in Dee) in the 15th and 16th cent. and Owners and Drawers of Dee Water in the later 16th cent. They collaborated for pageant with Waterleaders from 16th cent. or earlier and amalgamated with them in 1603. They were disbanded in or soon after 1746, certainly before 1757. Their Pageant was Noah's Flood. The Brewers were associated with them for the "pageant" in records from the earlier 17th cent (by which time the Mystery Plays had been discontinued) and later replaced them in the order of guild rank.

The lists of precedence and association of plays do show a startling resenblance. Some of the same assignments are found in the York plays: Tanners doing the Fall of Lucifer, Fishermen doing Noah and his wife, Bakers the Last Supper, Tailors the Ascension. However the rest of the 48 York plays have different attributions. This begs the question as to which came first in Chester - the order of precedence of the guilds (possibly based on wealth or economic importance) or the allocation of the plays to the guilds (possibly based on goods and trades relevant to the subject matter of the plays)? Attribution of precedence by the relative age of the guilds does not seem to be a major factor.

Precedence Determines Attribution of Plays?
In London, which did not have Mystery Plays, the order of precedence of the guilds was determined by wealth and status. The London list was headed by the Mercers, Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers and Goldsmiths. In Coventry the highest ranked guilds were the Mercers, Drapers, and Dyers, but in the Coventry Corpus Christi procession the highest ranked guild, the Mercers, came last (next to the consecrated "host"). The Mercer's play was the Assumption (not in the Chester Cycle) and the Drapers had charge of the Doomsday play. Both of these plays are well down the list. It would therefore appear that in Coventry the Precedence of the guild came first and possibly influenced which plays were allocated to each guild.

Attribution of Plays Determines Precedence?
The Chester precedence order follows the historical order of the events in the plays very closely. The Drawers of Dee and Water-Leaders do not appear to be a wealthy guild, but came second in the order of precedence. The Merchant Drapers would appear to be a quite wealthy guild (their wealth is mentioned sever times in the Banns) but comes in fourth place in the precedence and have the second play. The Joiners at times perform a play much later in the cycle (appropriately, the Crucifixion) than their precedence would suggest - being 8th in precedence but performing the Crucifixion. The Masons (towards the end of the precedence) get Herod's slaughter of the innocents, play 10. The Mercers are also well down the precedence list at 17, but perform the Three Kings.

In both York and Chester the Tanners get the initial "Lucifer" play, the Fishermen get the "Noah" play the Thatchers get the "Nativity", the Bakers are involved in the "Last Supper" and the Tailors get the "Ascension". There are also some "near-miss" associations with the Goldsmiths and Masons turing up in the Herod/Kings cluster in both Chester and York. Perhaps notably this allocation of the Chester plays is both in many cases logical and does not require much variation from the order of precedence.

Summary
There is a close correlation between the order of precedence of the guilds and the order in which the plays were performed. Some of the plays seem to have been allocated out of order either because they are better suited to another group, or possibly because they are seen as a more important play:


 * The Drawers of Dee (2nd Rank) get the third play, Noah (an appropriate choice). While not a wealthy guild they do appear to have assisted by the Brewers (perhaps the reason for the comic drunken wife) who later took their place in the precedence hierarchy. Elsewhere the shipwrights had this play;


 * The Drapers (4th rank), but a wealthy guild get the spectacular Creation play (second). In Coventry they had the spectacular Doomsday play;


 * The Joiners (8th Rank) get the important Crucifixion (16th play) - but not in all versions of the lists;


 * The Mercers (17th Rank) but a wealthy guild get the King's play (seventh);


 * The Masons (22nd Rank) get the slaughter of the innocents (the tenth play), but were associated with the Goldsmiths (rank ten) in doing this;

Apart from the above, the plays and the order of precedence follow each other. There are references to the trades of the guilds which can be found in other plays, but these are in general minor. As examples: The Tanners are devils, the Barbers would have performed very rare circumcisions, the Cappers make a donkey head, Wrights et al build a stable, the Smiths have a bellows organ, the Bakers (pehaps some thought irreverently) throw bread into the audience at the Last Supper, the Ironmongers provide nails for the Crucifixion and the Innkeepers leave the comic Ale-wife in Hell. In many cases these are minor script variants which could have been introduced after the plays were allocated to the various guilds, either as a pun or as a way of showing off their wares. If the intention had been to positively link the plays with the professions of the associated guilds there was plenty more opportunity to do this than that of which advantage was apparently taken. However, it must not be forgotten that the texts of the plays which survive today date in most cases from years after the last performance of the plays. On balance, it appears that the allocation of the plays in most cases follows the hierarchy of the guilds rather than the nature of their trades. On the other hand the order of precedence of the Chester guilds leads naturally to some of the same allocations as in York, especially as regards the Tanners, Fishermen, Thatchers, Bakers and Tailors.

Local Elements In The Plays
There are some few connections to local tastes and legends: the Shepherds feast on local food and mention Blacon and Halton, the Nativity perhaps alludes to a local myth about St. Elen and Magnus Maximus and Boughton is also mentioned in one version of the Nativity. Again, this does not indicate a vast amount of local adaption.

Conclusions
On balance it would appear that the majority of the Mystery Plays were not adapted significantly to serve the interests of the particular guilds assigned to each one. However, it does appear that the connections between guilds formed by their coming together to support a particular play did extend to matters other than the plays themselves.

Related Pages

 * Midsummer Watch Parade;
 * Minstrel Court;
 * Charters;
 * Tanning;
 * Frank Simpson;

Sources and Links
There are many other sources than those listed below, but these are all available free online:



General

 * Records of Early English Drama;
 * WORDPLAY IN GENESIS 2:25-3:1;
 * The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakespeare: And Annals of the Stage to the Restoration, Volume 2;
 * Censorship and the Representation of the Sacred in Nineteenth-Century England;
 * The Drama of Masculinity and Medieval English Guild Culture;
 * Late Medieval Festivity and its Reform, 1450-­1642;

Chester

 * Freemen of Chester;
 * Chester Mystery Plays on Wikipedia;
 * Another set of texts;
 * Chester Mystery Plays official website;
 * The History of the County Palatine of Chester by J. H. Hanshall;
 * Documents relating to the plays;
 * Play Texts and Public Practice in the Chester Cycle, 1422-1607;
 * CHESTER'S MYSTERY CYCLE AND THE 'MYSTERY' OF THE PAST;
 * Bibliographical and textual problems of the English miracle cycles by Greg, W. W. (Walter Wilson), 1875-1959
 * The Animals in Chester’s Noah’s Flood;
 * A History of the County of Chester: Volume 5 Part 2, the City of Chester: Culture, Buildings, Institutions: Craft Guilds;
 * The Stage as Mirror: Civic Theatre in Late Medieval Europe;

Frank Simpson on the Chester Guilds and Freemen

 * F. Simpson, ‘The City Gilds or Companies of Chester: The Skinners and Feltmakers Company’, J.C.A.S., 21 (1915)
 * Simpson, F., (1914). The city gilds of Chester: The Smiths, Cutlers, and Plumbers' Company.;
 * Simpson, F., (1918). The city gilds of Chester: the Bricklayers' Company.;
 * Simpson, F., (1911). The city gilds or companies of Chester, with special reference to that of the Barber-Surgeons'.;

Others

 * Lincoln;
 * York;