II. Religious Sources.--Mass--Dialogues introduced in the Christmas service--The Christmas cycle (Old Testament)--The Easter cycle (New Testament). The religious drama in England--Life of St. Catherine (twelfth century)--Popularity of Mysteries in the fourteenth century--Treatises concerning those representations--Testimony of Chaucer William of Wadington--Collection of Mysteries in English. Performances--Players, scaffolds or pageants, dresses, boxes, scenery, machinery--Miniature by Jean Fouquet--Incoherences and anachronisms 456 III. Literary and Historical value of Mysteries.--The ancestors' feelings and tastes--Sin and redemption--Caricature of kings--Their "boast"--Their use of the French tongue--They have to maintain silence--Popular scenes--Noah and his wife--The poor workman and the taxes--A comic pastoral--The Christmas shepherds--Mak and the stolen sheep 476 IV. Decay of the Mediaeval Stage.--Moralities--Personified abstractions--The end of Mysteries--They continue being performed in the time of Shakespeare 489 CHAPTER VII. THE END OF THE MIDDLE AGES. I. Decline.--Chaucer's successors--The decay of art is obvious even to them--The society for which they write is undergoing a transformation--Lydgate and Hoccleve 495 II. Scotsmen.--They imitate Chaucer but with more freedom--James I.--Blind Harry--Henryson--The town mouse and the country mouse--Dunbar--Gavin Douglas--Popular ballads--Poetry in the flamboyant style 503 III. Material welfare; Prose.--Development of the lower and middle class--Results of the wars--Trade, navy, savings. Books of courtesy--Familiar letters; Paston Letters--Guides for the traveller and trader--Fortescue and his praise of English institutions--Pecock and his defence of the clergy--His style and humour--Compilers, chroniclers, prosators of various sort--Malory, Caxton, Juliana Berners, Capgrave, &c. 513 IV. The Dawn of the Renaissance.--The literary movement in Italy--Greek studies--Relations with Eastern men of letters--Turkish wars and Greek exiles--Taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II.--Consequences felt in Italy, France, and England 523 Index 527 BOOK I. _THE ORIGINS._ CHAPTER I. _BRITANNIA._ I.