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!

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 the ruling archbishop. A near-complete text of 24 plays and some fascinating documentation of actual medieval performances in Chester survives today.

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.

History
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 an earlier version being performed some time before 1422.

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. At Corpus Christi representatives of the guilds walked in procession behind a consecrated "host" holding torches in a ritual known as a "light". Other famous Mystery Play “Cycles” in England were written in Coventry, York (dating from 1376 or earlier) and Wakefield.

Christopher Ede directed the first modern revival in the Cathedral Refectory to mark the Festival of Britain in 1951. York's play cycle was actually performed two weeks before. It was Ede who later (1962) 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.

List of plays and guild associations
The content of the plays is often well-suited to the guilds associated with them. In some cases this may be 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. The total cast needed for the plays seems to be about 350 people, some ten percent of the population at the time.

1 - The Fall of Lucifer (Barkers and Tanners)
Barkers collected oak bark for the Tanners, who worked in exceedingly noxious conditions: 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.

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)
Drapers and hosiers because of the lack of clothing of Adam and Eve initially. 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 is created, but until after the sleep in which Eve is formed from his rib, he does not speak a word. 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.

3 - Noah and his Ship (Waterleaders and Drawers in the Dee)
These guilds 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.

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".

The lists of animals given by the various characters appears to be symbolic. 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) followed by other domestic beasts. 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 small quadrupeds which were not considered edible. The women’s bird catalogues, generally speaking, focus on birds associated with two of women’s "traditional" activities, cooking and cleaning. 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".

4 - Abraham and Isaac (Barber Surgeons and Wax-chandlers)
Probably because God instructs Abraham to circumcise his son. 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.

5 - Balak and Baalam (Cappers, Wiredrawers and Pinners)
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. It is in this play that we have the first mention of "Mohammed" (in the original text). The cappers made firing caps for guns. 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".

6 - The Nativity (Wheelrights, Slaters, Tylers, Daubers and Thatchers)
Thatchers being associated with stables. 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. There is a curious reference to the "high horse beside Boughton" which may be a grim reference to Gallows-Hill or a reference to a local brothel in Love Street. 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.

7 - The Shepherds (Painters, Glaziers and Embroiderers)
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

As in much mediceval 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)
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.

9 - The Three Kings (Mercers and Spicers)
who would have sold incense. 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.

10- Slaughter of the Innocents (Goldsmiths and Masons)
the pun being that either will fleece innocents. 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.

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

12- The Temptation & Woman taken into Adultery (Butchers)
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 (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.

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

14- The Coming of Christ to Jerusalem (Corvisars)
aka Cordwainer - the shoemakers. In this play Judas is put up to betray Jesus by the money-lenders.

15- The Last Supper/Betrayal (Grocers, Bakers and Millers)
Bakers etc for obvious reasons - Millers perhaps because they were seen as habitually crooked.;

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.

16- The Crucifixion (Ironmongers and Ropers)
Ironmongers sell nails. 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. 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)
Cooks roast meat but also take things out of the fire. The play also contains a "ale-wife" who has given false measure and does not get released from Hell. This play was not restored in 1951 and was first performed in 1962.

20- The Ascension (Tailors)
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)
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.

22- Prophets before the Day of Doom (Shearmen)
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.

24- The Last Judgement (Weavers and Walkers)
In addition there was "The assumption of the Virgin" which was performed by the "worshipful wives of this town" between plays 22 and 23.

Sources and Links

 * Chester Mystery Plays on Wiki;
 * Chester Mystery Plays official website;
 * Full Text of the plays