The miracle-play lent itself to modification in two directions: firstly, by an extension of its subject-matter; and secondly, by an adaptation of its themes and the methods to other forms of entertainment which, although mimetic, were not, in the full sense of the term, dramatic. There are a few plays upon record which were apparently represented after the traditional manner of miracles, but differ from these in that they treat subjects not religious, but secular. Extant examples must be sought in the relics, not of the English, but of the continental drama. The earliest is the French _Estoire de Griselidis_, a version of the story familiar in Chaucer’s _Clerkes Tale_, which was written and acted, according to the manuscript, in 1395[427]. Slightly later is a Dutch manuscript which contains, amongst other things, probably the _répertoire_ of some _compagnie joyeuse_, three plays on the subjects respectively of Esmoreit, Gloriant of Brunswick, and Lanseloet and Sanderijn[428]. Both the French and Dutch plays belong to what may be called the wider circle of chivalric romance. An obvious link between such pieces and the ordinary miracle-play is to be found in those of the _Miracles de Nostre Dame_ which, like _Amis et Amiles_ or _Robert le Diable_, also handle topics of chivalric romance, but only such as are brought technically within the scope of the miracle-play by the intervention of the Virgin at some point of the action[429]. Similarly, another French play, dating from about 1439, on the subject, drawn not from romance but from contemporary history, of the Siege of Orleans, may be explained by the sanctity already attributed in the national imagination to Joan of Arc, who is naturally its leading figure[430]. But the usual range of subject was certainly departed from when Jacques Millet, a student at Orleans, compiled, between 1450 and 1452, an immense _mystère_ in 30,000 lines on the _Istoire de la destruction de Troye la grant_[431]. In England, the few examples of the mingling of secular elements with the miracle-plays which present themselves during the sixteenth century can hardly be regarded as mediaeval[432]. The only theme which need be noticed here is that of King Robert of Sicily. A play on this hero, revived at the High Cross at Chester in 1529, is stated in a contemporary letter to have been originally written in the reign of Henry VII. But a still earlier _ludus de Kyng Robert of Cesill_ is recorded in the Lincoln _Annales_ under the year 1453.