[_Authorities._—(i) Editions of the plays by Wright and Deimling, described on p. 408. (ii) Notices in Furnivall, _Digby Plays_, xviii, from (_a_) _Harl. MSS._ 1944, 1948, which are versions of a _Breviary of the City of Chester_, compiled in 1609 by David Rogers from the collections of his father, Robert Rogers, Archdeacon of Chester, who died in 1595; (_b_) local _Annales_ in _Harl._ 2125 (Randle Holme’s _Collections_), and Daniel King’s _Vale-Royall_ (1656). (iii) Notices in R. H. Morris, _Chester in the Plantagenet and Tudor Reigns_ (1894), from (_a_) Corporation archives, (_b_) accounts of the Smiths’ Company in _Harl._ 2054, (_c_) a copy in _Harl._ 2150 (cited in error as _Harl._ 2050) of part or all of the contents of a record known as the _White Book of the Pentice_. This was bound with other documents by Randle Holme, and indexed by him in 1669. I do not find any mention of such a ‘White Book’ in the calendar of extant Corporation archives by Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson, in _Hist. MSS._ viii. 1. 355, unless it is identical with the _Pentice Chartulary_ compiled in 1575-6 on the basis, partly of an older ‘Black Book,’ ‘translated oute of Laten and Frenche’ in 1540, and partly of loose ‘sceduls, papers and books’ in the Treasure House.] _The Whitsun Plays: The Tradition._ The Chester plays are traditionally ascribed to the mayoralty of one John Arneway. As ‘John Arneway,’ ‘de Arnewey,’ ‘Hernwey,’ or ‘Harnwey’ served continuously as mayor from 1268 to 1277[775], and as no other of the great English cycles of municipal plays can claim anything like this antiquity, it is worth while to examine the evidence pretty closely. I therefore put the versions of the tradition in chronological order. (_a_) 1544. The following document is headed ‘The proclamation for the Plaies, newly made by William Newhall, clarke of the Pentice, the first yere of his entre.’ It is dated ‘tempore Willi Sneyde, draper, secundo tempore sui maioritatis’ [Oct. 9, 1543-1544], endorsed as made ‘opon the rode ee’ [Rood-eye], and stated on an accompanying sheet to be ‘of laten into Englishe translated and made by the said William Newhall the yere aforesaid[776].’