British Popular Customs, Present and Past: Illustrating the Social and Domestic Manners of the People. Arranged According to the Calendar of the Year.Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
History
British Popular Customs, Present and Past: Illustrating the Social and Domestic Manners of the People. Arranged According to the Calendar of the Year.
Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (Thomas Firminger)
Folklore -- Great Britain; Great Britain -- Social life and customs
By the Ordinary of the goldsmiths, plumbers, glaziers, pewterers, and
painters, dated 1436, they were commanded to play at their feast the
three Kings of Coleyn. In the books of the fullers and dyers, one of the
charges for the play of 1564 is: “Item, for 3 yards of lyn cloth for
God’s coat, 3_s._ 2_d._ ob.” About the year 1578, the Corpus Christi
plays seem to have been on the decline; for the Ordinary of the millers,
dated that year, says, “Whensoever the general plaies of the town shall
be commanded by the mayor, &c.,” they are to play, “the Antient playe
of, &c.” Similar expressions are used in the Ordinary of the house
carpenters in 1579, in that of the masons in 1581, and also in that of
the joiners in 1589. Weaver, in his _Funeral Monuments_, says that these
plays were finally suppressed in all towns of the kingdom, about the
beginning of the reign of James I. The only vestige that remains of the
Newcastle Mysteries was preserved by Bourne. It is entitled “Noah’s Ark;
or, the Shipwright’s Ancient Play or Dirge,” wherein God, an Angel, Noah
and his wife, and the Devil are the characters. Mackenzie, _History of
Newcastle_, 1827, vol. ii. p. 708; Hone’s _Ancient Mysteries Described_,
1823, p. 213.
YORKSHIRE.
The play of Corpus Christi was acted in the City of York till the
twenty-sixth year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, 1584.
It consisted of a solemn procession, in remembrance of the Sacrament of
the Body of Christ; the symbolic representation being borne in a shrine.
Every trade in the city was obliged to furnish a pageant at its own
expense, and join the procession, and each individual had to personify
some particular passage in the Old or New Testament, and to repeat some
poetry on the occasion. The whole was preceded by a great number of
lighted torches, and a multitude of priests in their proper habits;
after which followed the mayor and citizens, surrounded by an immense
concourse of spectators. Commencing at the great gate of the priory of
the Holy Trinity, they proceeded to the Cathedral Church and thence to
St. Leonard’s Hospital, where they left the sacrament. There are several
public orders yet remaining in the old register of the city relative to
the regulation of this ceremony; and indulgences were granted from the
Pope to those who contributed to the relief of the fraternity, or who
observed the annual ceremony in the most devout manner, particularly if
they personally attended from the country.--Drake’s _Eboracum_, 1736;
Hargrove, _History of York_, 1818, vol. ii. p. 494.
IRELAND.
Corpus Christi Day was formerly celebrated at Dublin with high
veneration. In the Chain-book of the City of Dublin are several entries
to that purpose. We are told that there was a grand procession, in which
the glovers were to represent Adam and Eve, with an angel bearing a
sword before them.
The corrisees (perhaps curriers) were to represent Cain and Abel, with
an altar and their offering.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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