Life in a mediæval city : $b illustrated by York in the XVth centuryBenson, Edwin
History
Life in a mediæval city : $b illustrated by York in the XVth century
Benson, Edwin
York (England) -- History; York (England) -- Social life and customs
The full cycle gave in dramatic form the leading episodes of the
Scriptures from the Creation to the Last Day.
While the trade-guilds were thus responsible for individual pageants,
help and control were given by the Guild of Corpus Christi
(inaugurated in 1408 and incorporated in 1459), and the city council.
The guild had a very large number of members, among whom were the
Archbishop, many bishops and abbots and nobles. These dramatic
productions belonged to the religious and social sides of the guilds.
The plays, however, did not always provoke pleasure, for sometimes
members of some of the guilds complained of the financial burden they
were forced to bear in order to produce the plays allotted to them.
The guilds also took part in public processions with torches on Corpus
Christi Day in celebration of this popular festival. In the
processions, which were closely connected with the religious and
guild-phases of city life, there walked city clergy wearing their
surplices, the master of the Guild of Corpus Christi, the guild
officials, the bearers of the shrine of the guild, the mayor, aldermen
and corporation, and officers and members of the Guild of Corpus
Christi and of the city trade-guilds. As the procession went on its
way litanies and chants were sung by the clergy. The shrine, the
central feature of the procession, was presented in 1449. It was
itself of gilt and had many images some of which were gilded, while
the main ones under the "steeple" were in mother-of-pearl, silver, and
gold: to it were attached rings, brooches, girdles, buckles, beads,
gawds and crucifixes, in gold and silver, and adorned with coral and
jewels.
On the occasion of the processions and performances of pageants, as at
fairs, the city was filled with a boisterous multitude which turned
what was by tradition a religious exercise and entertainment, to a
time of riotous merry-making, and uncouth disorder. In 1426 a kind of
crusade was preached by a friar minor, William Melton, against the
riotous and drunken conduct of the people at the Corpus Christi
festival. He denounced the disgracing of the festival and affirmed
that the people were forfeiting by their conduct the indulgences
granted for the festival. The result of the friar's crusade was the
holding of a special meeting of the city council, which decided that
the processions and pageants were to be held on separate days, the
pageants on the eve of Corpus Christi, and the procession on the feast
itself. Formerly both had taken place on the same day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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