Religious plays were also not infrequent. These the city folk dearly loved. Clerkenwell was a favourite place for their performance, and there the Worshipful Company of the Clerks of London performed some wonderful mysteries. In 1391 A.D. they were acting before the King, his Queen, and many nobles, "The Passion of our Lord and the Creation of the World," a performance which lasted three days. At Skinners' Well, the Company of the Skinners "held there certain plays yearly"; and in 1409 the Clerks performed a great play which lasted eight days, when the most part of the nobles and gentles in England were present. Originally these plays were performed in the churches, but owing to the gradually increased size of the stage, the sacred buildings were abandoned as the scenes of mediaeval drama. Then the churchyards were utilised, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the people liked to act their plays in the highways and public places as at Clerkenwell, which, owing to the configuration of the ground, was well adapted for the purpose. Strange scenes of savage punishment attract the attention of the unfeeling crowd in the city streets, who jeer at the sufferers. Here is a poor man drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house. He is a baker who has made faulty bread, and the law states that he should be so drawn through the great streets where most people are assembled, and especially through the great streets that are most dirty (that is especially laid down in the statutes), with the faulty bread hanging from his neck. There stands the pillory, and on it, with head and hands fast, is another baker, who has been guilty of a second offence. Blood is streaming from his face, where cruel stones have hit him, and rotten eggs and filth are hurled at him during the one hour "at least" which he has to remain there.