disposition of other English ‘standing’ plays must have been on very similar lines. In some cases there is evidence that the level _platea_ was replaced by a raised ‘platform,’ ‘scaffold,’ or ‘stage.’ Thus Chaucer’s ‘joly Absolon’ played Herod ‘on a scaffold hye[398].’ But the ‘stages’ or ‘scaffolds’ mentioned in accounts are sometimes merely for the spectators and sometimes equivalent to the _loca_ of leading actors. In the Digby play of St. Mary Magdalen, a practicable ship moves about the _platea_. Possibly a similar bit of realism was used elsewhere for the ever popular ‘Noy schippe,’ and, if so, this may explain the pit and trench of the Perranzabulo ‘round[399].’ As to the ‘pageant’ or movable stage of the processional plays, a good deal of information is preserved. Dugdale describes it at Coventry as a ‘Theater ... very large and high, placed upon wheels’; Rogers at Chester as ‘a highe place made like a howse with ij rowmes, beinge open on yᵉ tope: the lower rowme they apparelled and dressed them selues; and in the higher rowme they played; and they stood vpon 6 (_v.l._ 4) wheeles.’ According to an inventory of 1565 the grocers’ pageant at Norwich was ‘a Howse of Waynskott paynted and buylded on a Carte wᵗ fowre whelys.’ It had a square top or canopy; on it were placed a gilt griffin and two large and eighty-three small vanes; and about it were hung three painted cloths. Similar adornments of the pageant were in use at Coventry. At York it bore the arms of the city or of the guild. M. Jusserand has unearthed from a Bodleian manuscript two fourteenth-century miniatures which apparently represent pageants. These have draperies covering the whole of the lower ‘room’ down to the ground and resemble nothing so much as the ambulant theatre of a Punch and Judy show[400]. The pageants were probably arranged so that the action might be visible from every side. The scenery would therefore be simple—a throne, a house. Certain plays, however, necessitate a divided scene, such as the inside and outside of a temple[401]. For the ‘hell,’ the traditional monstrous head on a lower level, with practicable chains and fire, was required[402]. The pageant used for the Flood scene was doubtless shaped like an ark. The ‘shipp’ belonging to the Trinity guild of Hull cost £5 8_s._ 4_d._ The ordinary pageant may have been less expensive. That of the Doom at York was made ‘of newe substanciale’ for seven marks, the old pageant and a free admission into the guild. At Lincoln three times as much was charged for housing the ship as for any other pageant.