The determination of the relations in which the plays stand towards one another is a field in which literary scholars, delayed by the want of trustworthy critical texts, are only just beginning to set foot. The question lies outside the scope of these pages. But I may call attention to Mr. Pollard’s analysis of the various _strata_ in the Towneley plays[419], and to the studies by Professor Hohlfeld[420] and Professor Davidson[421] upon the greater cycles in general and especially upon the influence exercised by York over the Towneley and other plays, as excellent examples of what may be looked for. The _Ludus Coventriae_ will afford a good subject for investigation, when the manuscript has been properly re-edited. It is evidently a patchwork cycle, roughly put together and in parts easy to break up into its constituent elements. The problem is not confined to English literature. The Chester tradition represents Higden’s work as an affair rather of translation than of anything else. It is not quite clear whether translation from the Latin or from the Norman-French is intended. In any case it is probable that the earlier English playwrights made use of French models, and certain parallels have already been traced between English plays and others to be found in the French collection known as the _Viel Testament_. Here, as elsewhere, the international solidarity of mediaeval literature is to be taken into account. Two chapters back I defined the change which took place in the character of the _religious drama_ of western Europe during the thirteenth century as _being_, to a large extent, _a process of secularization_. ‘Out of the hands of the clergy,’ I said, ‘in their naves and choirs, the drama passed to those of the laity in their market-places and guild-halls.’ And I pointed to the natural result of these altered conditions in ‘the reaction of the temper of the folk upon the handling of the plays, the broadening of their human as distinct from their religious aspect[422].’ A study of the texts and records of the fully developed miracle-play as it existed in these islands from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century can only confirm this view. I have indeed shown, I hope, in the course of this imperfect summary, that the variety of mediaeval theatrical organization was somewhat greater than a too exclusive attention to the craft-cycles of the great towns has always allowed scholars to recognize. But, with all qualifications and exceptions, it is none the less true that what began as a mere spectacle, devised by ecclesiastics for the edification of the laity, came in time to appeal to a deep-rooted native instinct of drama in the folk and to continue as an essentially popular thing, a _ludus_ maintained by the people itself for its own inexhaustible wonder and delight[423]. Literary critics have laid stress upon the emergence of the rude humour of the folk, with its love of farce and realism, in somewhat quaint juxtaposition to the general