Ludus Coventriæ : $b A collection of mysteries, formerly represented at Coventry on the feast of Corpus Christi
General
Ludus Coventriæ : $b A collection of mysteries, formerly represented at Coventry on the feast of Corpus Christi
English drama -- To 1500; English language -- Middle English, 1100-1500 -- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.; Mysteries and miracle-plays, English
P. 338. THE RESURRECTION.] The writer of the sermon against mysteries
before quoted is very severe on the performance of so sacred a subject as
the present. “In the dayes of ceremonial religion,” says Lambarde, “they
used at Wytney to set foorthe yearly in manner of a shew or interlude,
the Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Chryste, partly of purpose to
draw thyther some concourse of people that might spend their money in the
towne, but chiefly to allure by pleasant spectacle the comon sort to the
likinge of Popish maumetrie; for the which purpose, and the more lyvely
thearby to exhibite to the eye the hole action of the Resurrection,
the pristes garnished out certein smalle puppets, representinge the
persons of Christe, the watchmen, Marie, and others, amongest the which
one bare the parte of a wakinge watcheman, who, espiinge Christ to
arise, made a continual noyce, like to the sound that is caused by the
metinge of two styckes, and was thereof comonly called Jack Snacker of
Wytney.”—_Dictionarium Angliæ Topographicum et Historicum_, Lond. 1730,
p. 459.
P. 346, l. 11, 12.
Harde gatys have I gon,
And peynes sofryd many on.
These lines bear a very remarkable resemblance to two others in the early
mystery of the Harrowing of Hell, recently printed, and would lead us
to think that the author of the Coventry play had had the other in his
recollection:—
“Hard gates havy gon,
Sorewen soffred mony on.”—p. 15.
P. 361, l. 27. To stey to my fadyr.] “Touche me not yet, for I have not
yet stied up to my fadir; but go to my brethren and seie to them, I stie
to my fadir and to youre fadir, to my God and to youre God.”—John, xx.
Wickliffe’s translation.
P. 362, l. 21. But now in herte.] This and the following twenty-one lines
are repeated in the MS. in a different hand.
P. 383. THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN. The whole of this pageant is
written in a more recent hand, of the time, I should think, of Henry
VIII. It will be observed that this composition differs considerably from
the other plays.
P. 402, l. 1. Clamavit.] The Latinity throughout the MS. is very bad, but
I have suffered it generally to remain as a criterion of the reliance to
be placed upon the MS. text.
CORRECTIONS OF THE MS. AND ERRATA.
Transcriber’s Note: The errata have been corrected, except for the one
about repeated lines. (The lines are indeed repeated. It’s just not clear
what the author thinks you should do about it.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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