The Passion and Miracle Plays(71) were of great use in instructing the people in the contents of Scripture, being almost always composed of biblical scenes and histories. They were often very elaborate; sometimes more than one hundred actors were needed to fill the parts; and the plays were frequently so lengthy that they lasted for two or three days. The ecclesiastical managers felt that the continuous presentation of grave and lofty scenes and sentiments might weary their audiences, and they mixed them with lighter ones, which frequently degenerated into buffoonery and worse. The sacred and severe pathos of the Passion was interlarded with coarse jokes about the devil; and the most solemn conceptions were profaned. These Mysteries were generally performed in the great churches, and the buildings dedicated to sacred things witnessed scenes of the coarsest humour, to the detriment of all religious feeling. The more serious Churchmen felt the profanation, and tried to prohibit the performance of plays interlarded with rude and indecent scenes within the churches and churchyards. Their interference came too late; the rough popular taste demanded what it had been accustomed to; sacred histories and customs coming down from a primitive heathenism were mixed together, and the people lost the sense of sacredness which ought to attach itself to the former. The Feast of the Ass, to mention one, was supposed to commemorate the Flight to Egypt. A beautiful girl, holding a child in her lap, was seated on an ass decked with splendid trappings of gold cloth, and was led in procession by the clergy through the principal streets of the town to the parish church. The girl on her ass was conducted into the church and placed near the high altar, and the Mass and other services were each concluded by the whole congregation braying. There is indeed an old MS. extant with a rubric which orders the priest to bray thrice on elevating the Host.(72) At other seasons of popular licence, all the parts of the church service, even the most solemn, were parodied by the profane youth of the towns.(73) All this, however, tells us little about the intimate religious life and feelings of the people, which is the important matter for the study of the roots of the great ecclesiastical revolt.