These London plays may have had some original connexion with the great fair of the neighbouring priory of St. Bartholomew upon August 24; but they are recorded at various dates during the summer, and extended over four, five, or even seven days. Whether the guild of St. Nicholas bore any relation to the clerks of St. Paul’s, who petitioned Richard II in 1378 against the rivalry of certain ‘unexpert people’ in the production of an Old Testament play, must be matter for conjecture. The performance contemplated at St. Paul’s was to be at Christmas. The Cambridge guild of Corpus Christi was responsible for a _ludus Filiorum Israelis_ about 1350, and this is more likely to have formed part of a cycle than to have stood alone. An unverified extract of Warton’s from a Michael-House _computus_ suggests that some of the Cambridge colleges may have assisted in dramatic undertakings. At Abingdon the hospital of Christ held their feast on Holy Cross day (May 3), 1445, ‘with pageantes and playes, and May games.’ At Sleaford, in 1480, a play of the Ascension was performed by the guild of the Holy Trinity. At Wymondham a guild seems to have existed in the sixteenth century for the express purpose of holding a ‘watch and play’ at Midsummer. The proceedings were directed by officers designated ‘husbands.’ The one example of an isolated play under the management of a craft-guild is at Hull. Here an annual play of Noah, with a ship or ark which went in procession, was in the hands of the Trinity House, a guild of master mariners and pilots. The records extend from 1421 to 1529. There is no sign of a dramatic cycle at Hull. The Noah play was given on Plough Monday, and it is possible that one may trace here a dramatized version of just such a ship procession as may be found elsewhere upon the coasts in spring[371]. After the performance the ‘ship’ was hung up in the church. The text of the play was perhaps borrowed from that of the watermen of the neighbouring city of Beverley.