[8] Worcester, 25 H. VIII. c. 18. III. The disappearance of the craft gilds appears to have been connected with one of their accidental features, as I may call them--their common worship. The attempted resuscitation at Coventry was due to another--to the fact that each craft provided a certain amount of pageantry for the town. I suspect that the so-called "Mistery plays" were the plays organised by the different "misteries" or crafts. The Chester plays, the Coventry plays, and the York plays,[9] have been published, and they present features which force comparison with the Passion Play which is being given this year at Ober Ammergau; and they were most attractive performances. The accounts of the various trading bodies show that these pageants were continued through the sixteenth century; they were suspended for eight years previous to 1566, and again in 1580 and three following years, when the preachers inveighed against the pageants, even though "there was no Papistry in them"; revived once more in 1584, they were finally discontinued in 1591.[10] [9] Recently edited by Miss L. T. Smith for the Clarendon Press. [10] T. Sharp, "Pageants" (1815), p. 12, 39, and 39. I have lately seen the originals of the dialogue of the Weavers' Pageant, with the separate parts written out for the individual actors. During the fifteenth century, these pageants were performed with much success, and several of the smaller trades appear to have been united for the purpose of performing some pageant together. In 1566 and in 1575 Queen Elizabeth visited Coventry, and the pageants were performed, and with the view of reviving the diminished glories of the towns considerable pains were taken to reorganise the old crafts; thus the Bakers and Smiths joined in producing a pageant in 1506.[11] The Fullers appear to have been reorganised in 1586, and there was a very distinct revival of the old corporations about that time. This same element, the manner in which the crafts had contributed to the local pageants, was noticeable in connection with the organisation of the bodies at Norwich; and I cannot but connect the resuscitation of some of the Coventry Gilds at this time with the desire to perpetuate these entertainments; certain common lands had been enclosed by the town to bear another part of the expense.[12] Though the interest in the pageants marks the beginning of this revival at Coventry, it yet appears that during the seventeenth century it continued. There was some general cause at work connected with the condition of industry which called out a new set of efforts at industrial regulation, but the power which called these gilds or companies into being was no longer merely municipal; they rely, as in the earliest instances, on royal or Parliamentary authority. It is by no means easy to see what was the precise motive in each case of the incorporating of new industrial companies in the seventeenth century.