As a rule, the cost of the plays fell almost wholly upon the crafts. The ordinances of the craft-guilds provide for their maintenance as a _leitourgia_ or fraternal duty, in the same way as they often provide for a ‘serge’ or light to be burnt in some chapel or carried in the Corpus Christi procession, or, at Beverley, for the _castellum_ in which the craft sat to do honour to the procession of St. John of Beverley in Rogation week. At Coventry, where the burden upon the crafts was perhaps heaviest, they were responsible for the provision, repairing, ornamenting, cleaning, and strewing with rushes of the pageant, for the ‘ferme’ or rent of the pageant house, for the payment of actors, minstrels, and prompter, for the revision of play-book and songs and the copying of parts, for the ‘drawing’ or ‘horsing’ of the pageant on the day of the performance, for costumes and properties, and above all for copious refreshments before and after the play, at the stations, and during the preliminary rehearsals. The total cost of the smiths’ pageant in 1490 was £3 7_s._ 5½_d._ In 1453 they had contracted with one Thomas Colclow to have ‘the rewle of the pajaunt’ for twelve years at an annual payment of £2 6_s._ 8_d._, and other examples of ‘play lettine’ can be traced at Newcastle and elsewhere. But it was more usual for the crafts to retain the management of the pageants in their own hands; at York each guild appointed its ‘pageant-masters’ for this purpose. The expense to the craft primarily in charge of a pageant was sometimes lightened by fixed contributions from one or more minor bodies affiliated to it for the purpose. Part of it was probably met from the general funds of the craft; the rest was raised by various expedients. A levy, known as ‘pagent pencys’ at Coventry and as ‘pajaunt silver’ at York, was made upon every member. The amount varied with the numbers of the craft and the status of the craftsman. At York it ranged from 1_d._ to 8_d._ At Beverley the journeymen paid 8_d._ to light, play, and castle, and 6_d._ only in years when there was no play. At Coventry the ordinary members of more than one craft paid 1_s._; others apparently less. To the proceeds of the levy might be added fines for the breach of craft ordinances, payments on the taking out of freedom by strangers and the setting up of shop or indenturing of apprentices by freemen. At York, the mercers are found granting free admission to a candidate for their fraternity on condition of his entering into a favourable contract for the supply of a new pageant. At Coventry, in 1517, one William Pisford left a scarlet and a crimson gown to the tanners for their plays, together with 3_s._ 4_d._ to every craft charged with the maintenance of a pageant. Besides the levy, certain personal services were binding upon the craftsmen. They had to attend upon the play, to do it honour; the Coventry cappers expected their journeymen to do the ‘horsing’ of the pageant.