But I will not pursue the arguments any further. Suffice it to say that the sense of humour and the representation of everyday life occur in all the arts of the Middle Ages. Those who would eliminate all this human part of the plays, or would forbid their use, must, to be consistent, rip the _Misereres_ out of the choir of Chester Cathedral and burn them for firewood. It is sometimes said that not only was there irreverence, but even indecency, especially in the play of the _Creation and Fall_, where Adam and Eve are commanded to “stand nackede.” I believe this stage direction to be merely figurative,[8] and the Cornish play of the _Creation of the World_[9] gives a clue to the whole matter, as it contains specific instructions that Adam and Eve are to be “apparelled in white leather.”[10] At Norwich also we know that Adam wore “a wig, gloves, and a cote of hosen steyned,” and Eve “a wig, gloves, and two cotes of hosen steyned.” [8] Thomas Wright, the able editor of the Chester plays, comes, I am glad to say, to the same conclusion. [9] _The Creation of the World._ A Cornish Mystery, edited by Whitley Stokes. [10] The Person of God was also occasionally represented in white leather with the face gilded. Further, there can be no doubt whatever that women were not allowed to take part in plays or to appear on the stage in public until some years after Mystery Plays had completely died out.[11] [11] Miss Hamilton Moore, in _English Miracle Plays and Moralities_, seems to think that I assert in my Introduction to the _Chester Plays_ (published for the revival in 1906) that women acted the play of _The Assumption_. Not so: I merely stated that the ale-wives of the city provided and furnished the play, but I am quite sure they did not perform it. Evidence of this may also be found in the music of the plays. In the Coventry Mysteries the “Lullaby,” supposed to be sung by the women in the _Slaughter of the Innocents_, actually has _Tenor and Bass parts_.[12] [12] This trio would be sung by two men and a boy. Similarly the trio in Chester _Noah’s Play_ would be sung by the “Three clerkes from the Minster,” who, as we shall see, were duly engaged as professionals. _Origin of Plays._ These plays sprang from the Church, and “all evidence points to Easter as the festival with which the earliest religious dramas were most intimately connected, and it is probable that the first form which the Easter play assumed was that of a ceremony in which the Crucifix was solemnly buried on Good Friday and again disinterred on Easter Day amid a pompous ritual.”[13] [13] Professor Pollard. So long as the Church controlled the plays, the clergy were favourable to their performance; but when their popularity and their growth rendered it necessary to perform them out of doors, when the stage was pitched on the green or in the street before the Abbey gate, it became another matter.