In the later mediæval period Morris-dancing was associated with churches, and the wardens not infrequently had in their possession certain properties that were necessary for its due performance. The Morris-dancing was occasionally actually performed within the churches, that is in the nave or at the west end; the mummers not going forth on their Whitsuntide round until the first dance had been given within the sacred fabric. Nor is it difficult for the antiquary to trace the connection between the Morris-dancing and the active expression of Christianity. When the Fifth Crusade succeeded in effecting the capture of Constantinople, the Latins in their joy celebrated the event by solemn dances in the great church of St. Sophia. The usual, nay almost invariable, subject of the mumming-play, as apart from the miracle-play, was one drawn from the crusading legend. St. George rescuing a Christian maid from her Turkish masters was the usual stock piece, whilst the joy of victory was invariably celebrated in the Morris (that is the Moorish) dance. The earliest of the Kingston-upon-Thames churchwarden accounts, which cover the last years of Henry VII. and the reign of Henry VIII., have various references to these dances. In the inventory of church property for 1537-8 are enumerated:--"A fryers cote of russet and a kyrtele welted with red cloth, a mowrens (Moor's) cote of buckram, and four morres daunsars cotes of white fustian spangelid, and too gryne satin cotes, and disarddes cote of cotton, and six payre of garters with belles." In the recently published and highly-interesting churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary's, Reading, are the following entries for the year 1556-7:-- "I'tm payed for the morrys daunsers and the mynstrelles mete and drinke at Whitsuntide iii.s.iiij.d I'tm payed to them the Sondy after Mayday xx.d Pd to the painter for paynting of their Cottes ii.s.viij.d Pd for a peir of showes for the morris daunsers iiij.s Pd for iiij dozen belles for the morrys daunsers ij.s Pd for sowing of the morrys Cottes vij.d The churchwardens' accounts of St. Helen's, Abingdon, for the second year of Queen Elizabeth (1559) show that "two dozen of morres belles were bought by the parish for a shilling." An injunction of Henry VIII. laid down the principle, now so generally accepted, that "all soberness, quietness, and godliness ought there (in the churches) to be used," and enjoined that "no Christian person should abuse the same by eating, drinking, buying, selling, playing, dancing, or with other profane or worldly matters." But this injunction was often treated as a dead letter up to the close of the century in which it was issued. In Stubb's "Anatomie of Abuses," first printed in 1585, we read:--