Here the matter must rest. Probably the last word has still to be said on the subject. Scholars are not agreed on the _locale_ of the _Ludus Coventriæ_ which have been assigned to districts as far removed as the northeast midlands and Wiltshire, or to their actors, who have been represented as strolling players, or even Coventry friars "on tour."[681] We might be disposed to accept--with caution--the view, evidently based on some tradition or other, that these plays were acted by friars,[682] but the objection to identifying these friars with the Coventry Franciscans, acting at any rate in Coventry, is that the city was furnished already with well-authenticated craftsmen-acted plays of great renown, whereof some examples are now left, and that it would be impossible for two sets of plays and actors to command attention at the feast of Corpus Christi. Nor is there evidence, so far as I am aware, to connect any of the Coventry religious with the stationary plays acted on occasions at Whitsuntide.[683] We touch surer ground when we come to examine the craft-plays, whereof we have abundance of evidence. Unlike those of Chester, York and Wakefield, the Coventry plays were few in number, having been fused together, and, it seems, formed a series illustrating the life of Christ, closing with His second coming on the Day of Judgment. The absence of Old Testament scenes would be a rare feature, and the point has been disputed,[684] but so few of the pageants remain unidentified, and such striking scenes in the life of Christ have no play assigned to them, that there hardly seems room for scenes drawn from the Old Testament. The procession of prophets[685]--_Processus Prophetarum_--the nucleus whence the Old Testament cycle spread, is likewise very undeveloped in Coventry. None of the prophets are individualized in the plays that have come down to us, except Isaiah, who appears as prologue to the tailors' and sheremen's play of the _Nativity_; others appear as rather "defuce" commentators--to use their own word--further on in the action, and again as prologue to the weavers' play of the _Purification_.[686] It is impossible to construct the whole series of the Coventry plays, for, save two pageants--that of the sheremen and tailors, and that of the weavers--all are missing, and in some cases the very titles of the plays cannot be recovered. The first pageant set forth was probably that of the guild of the Nativity, the company of tailors and sheremen, representing the _Annunciation, Joseph's Trouble_, _the Journey to Bethlehem_, _the Birth of Christ_, _the Angels and the Shepherds_, _the Offering of the Magi_, _the Flight into Egypt_, _and the Murder of the Innocents_. The weavers' pageant, wherein was set forth the _Presentation of Christ in the Temple_, and _Christ and the Doctors_, would follow as a matter of course. The titles of four pageants--those of the mercers, tanners, whittawers,