The characteristic English type of play was the long cycle given annually under the superintendence of the corporation or governing body of an important city and divided into a number of distinct scenes or ‘pageants,’ each of which was the special charge of one or more of the local ‘crafts,’ ‘arts,’ or ‘occupations.’ Such cycles, organized upon very similar lines, can be studied in the records available from Chester, York, Beverley, Coventry, Newcastle, Lincoln, and Norwich; and the same general model is known or conjectured—sometimes, it is true, on the slightest indication—to have been followed in the plays of Lancaster, Preston, Kendal, Wakefield, Leicester, Worcester, Louth, Bungay, Canterbury, Dublin, and Aberdeen. As in all matters of municipal custom, the relative functions of the corporations and the crafts were nicely adjusted. The direction and control of the plays as a whole were in the hands of the corporations. They decided annually whether the performance should be given, or whether, for war, pestilence, or other reason, it should be withheld. They sent round their officers to read the proclamation or ‘banns’ of the play. They kept an official version of the text, at Chester an ‘original,’ at York a ‘register’ copied from the ‘originals’ belonging to the crafts. Agreements and disputes as to the liability of this or that craft to maintain or contribute to a particular pageant were entered or determined before them. They maintained order at the time of the play and inflicted fines on the turbulent, or upon crafts neglectful or unskilful in carrying out their responsibilities. In particular they required the provision of properly qualified actors. Thus Robert Greene and others were admonished before the leet of Coventry in 1440, that they should play _bene et sufficienter_ so as not to cause a hindrance in any _iocus_. Similarly, Henry Cowper, ‘webster,’ was fined by the wardens of Beverley in 1452, _quod nesciebat ludum suum_. An order at York, in 1476, directed the choice of a body of ‘connyng, discrete, and able players’ to test the quality of all those selected as actors. All ‘insufficiant personnes, either in connyng, voice or personne’ they were to ‘discharge, ammove, and avoide’; and no one was to perform more than twice in the course of the day. Sometimes the actual oversight of the plays was delegated to specially appointed officers. At Beverley the wardens themselves ‘governed’ the Corpus Christi plays, but the Paternoster play was in the hands of ‘aldermen of the pageants.’ At Aberdeen the Haliblude play was undertaken in 1440 by the local lord of misrule, known as the Abbot of Bon Accord; for the Candlemas play ‘bailyes’ represented the corporation. At Lincoln the ‘graceman’ of the guild of St. Anne was responsible, and had the aid of the mayor. At Leicester a number of ‘overseers’ with two ‘bedalls’ were chosen to have the ‘gydyng and rule’ of the play.