The stage was of considerable area, and contained two “rooms,” the upper room for heaven and the lower for earth; or the upper “room” was earth and the lower was hell. Sometimes there were three “rooms.” The play was introduced by a prologue: each player was presented by name: when not acting the players stood aside and were supposed to be invisible. The realism was startling. When Judas was hanged he carried to the gallows the entrails of some animal, which, when he cast himself off, he let fall. At the same time the devil, who was behind him on the gallows, cut the rope, and they both fell down into hell together. There was no shrinking from the representation of a birth upon the stage: saints in torture made jokes; Solomon quarrelled with one of his wives and drank a mug of beer; the devil carried off a soul in a wheelbarrow; at the scene of the Resurrection the gardener made fun over the effects of his herbs; the pedlar wanted to sell his wares to the women weeping over the grave; the mouth of hell vomited flames; Adam and Eve appeared as they were before the Fall; it is as if the Church wanted to make the event more real by connecting it with the actual life, the unmistakable life of men and women. From Church to Market-place was one step; from the mystery to the morality is another step; the last step of all was from the morality, an insipid performance, to the real comedy of human life, and even this had to make its way by means of the drama founded on the life of the saint. How great a step to discover that in every man there was a possible drama equal in interest to the life of any saint or martyr! There is very little positive information about the early drama in London. Yet we know that the miracle play was performed here as well as elsewhere. Stow’s contribution to our knowledge I have already quoted. FitzStephen, too, speaks of these plays. Piers Plowman mentions them as common. Chaucer’s Wife of Bath goes to processions, pilgrimages, miracle plays, and marriages. To the class of Church Play belongs the curious function of the Boy Bishop, which was practised in St. Paul’s and in many parish churches of the City. On the eve of St. Nicholas, the choristers elected one of their number to be the Boy Bishop. A set of episcopal robes was provided for the boy, including a mitre, a pastoral staff, and all the vestments:—