‘1483. To the minstrels, vjᵈ. To Noah and his wife, jˢ vjᵈ. To Robert Brown playing God, vjᵈ. To the Ship-child, jᵈ. To a shipwright for clinking Noah’s ship, one day, vijᵈ. 22 kids for shoring Noah’s ship, ijᵈ. To a man clearing away the snow, jᵈ. Straw, for Noah and his children, ijᵈ. Mass, bellman, torches, minstrels, garland, &c., vjˢ. For mending the ship, ijᵈ. To Noah for playing, jˢ. To straw and grease for wheels, ¼ᵈ. To the waits for going about with the ship, vjᵈ. 1494. To Thomas Sawyr playing God, xᵈ. To Jenkin Smith playing Noah, jˢ. To Noah’s wife, viijᵈ. The clerk and his children, jˢ vjᵈ. To the players of Barton, viijᵈ. For a gallon of wine, viijᵈ. For three skins for Noah’s coat, making it, and a rope to hang the ship in the kirk, vijˢ. To dighting and gilding St. John’s head, painting two tabernacles, beautifying the boat and over the table, vijˢ ijᵈ. Making Noah’s ship, vˡⁱ viijˢ. Two wrights a day and a half, jˢ vjᵈ. A halfer (rope) 4 stone weight, iiijˢ viijᵈ. Rigging Noah’s ship, viijᵈ.’ Hadley, the historian of Hull, extracts these items ‘from the expences on Plough-day,’ and says, ‘This being a maritime society, it was celebrated by a procession adapted to the circumstance[823].’ There are continental parallels for ship-processions at spring feasts (vol. i. p. 121); but evidently that at Hull had been assimilated, perhaps under the influence of Beverley, to a miracle-play or pageant. A recent writer, apparently from some source other than Hadley, says that the entries in the accounts run from before 1421 to 1529. Amongst his additional extracts are:— ‘A payr of new mytens to Noye, iiijᵈ. Amending Noye Pyleh, iiijᵈ. Nicholas Helpby for wrytᵍ the pley, vijᵈ. A rope to hyng the shipp in ye kyrk, ijᵈ. Takyng down shype and hyngyng up agayn, ijˢ. Wyn when the shype went about, ijᵈ. 1421. New shype, vˡⁱ viijˢ iiijᵈ[824].’ HYTHE, KENT. Hythe players were at New Romney in 1399 and at Lydd in 1467. IDBURY, OXFORDSHIRE. See s.v. SHIPTON. IPSWICH, SUFFOLK. In 1325 the former Guild Merchant was reconstituted as a Guild of Corpus Christi. The Constitution provides for a procession, on Corpus Christi day, unless it is hindered ‘pro qualitate temporis[825].’ The notices in the seventeenth-century Annals of the town point to a play as well as a procession[826]. The Guild included all the burgesses; each paying 16_d._ a year and attending the dinner on Corpus Christi day. In 1443 the common marsh was devised ‘to maintaine and repaire the pageants of the Guilde.’