The Coventry Mystery Plays, or Coventry Corpus Christi Pageants, are a cycle of medieval

mystery play Mystery plays and miracle plays (they are distinguished as two different forms although the terms are often used interchangeably) are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the represen ...

s from

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, and are perhaps best known as the source of the " Coventry Carol". Two plays from the original cycle are extant having been copied from the now lost original manuscript in the early 19th century. Another, separate manuscript (BL MS

Cotton Vespasian This is an incomplete list of some of the manuscripts from the Cotton library that today form the Cotton collection of the British Library. Some manuscripts were destroyed or damaged in a fire at Ashburnham House in 1731, and a few are kept in othe ...

D.8) was initially titled the ''

Ludus Coventriae The N-Town Plays (also called the Hegge Cycle and the Ludus Coventriae cycle) are a cycle of 42 medieval Mystery plays from between 1450 and 1500. The manuscript The manuscript is now housed in the British Library, London (BL MS Cotton Vespasian ...

'' by a 17th-century librarian who erroneously assumed it was copy of the Coventry mystery plays. The collection within this manuscript are now more commonly known as the

N-Town Plays The N-Town Plays (also called the Hegge Cycle and the Ludus Coventriae cycle) are a cycle of 42 medieval Mystery plays from between 1450 and 1500. The manuscript The manuscript is now housed in the British Library, London (BL MS Cotton Vespasian ...

and are thought to have originated in East Anglia.

Details

Performances of the Coventry Plays are first recorded in a document of 1392–3, and continued for nearly two centuries; the young

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

may have witnessed them before they were finally suppressed in 1579. Latterly the plays were performed in a version revised by one Robert Croo in 1535. At the height of their popularity, performances would have been lavish productions which attracted people from all over England.

Richard III Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Battl ...

visited Coventry and saw the plays there on Corpus Christi day in 1485, just a couple of months before he was killed at the Battle of Bosworth. Henry VII and

Elizabeth of York Elizabeth of York (11 February 1466 – 11 February 1503) was Queen of England from her marriage to King Henry VII on 18 January 1486 until her death in 1503. Elizabeth married Henry after his victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field, which ma ...

came to see the plays in 1493 and gave them ''great commendacions''. The antiquarian

William Dugdale Sir William Dugdale (12 September 1605 – 10 February 1686) was an English antiquary and herald. As a scholar he was influential in the development of medieval history as an academic subject. Life Dugdale was born at Shustoke, near Coleshi ...

, writing in the mid-17th Century, gives an idea of the scale of audiences based on memories of those who had attended the plays in their youth:

…I have been told by some old people, who in their younger years were eye-witnesses of these Pageants so acted, that the yearly confluence of people to see that shew was so extraordinary great, and yielded no small advantage to this City.

In its fullest form the cycle comprised about ten plays, all on New Testament themes, though only two have survived to the present day. Of these two, the Shearmen and Tailors' Pageant was a

nativity play A Nativity play or Christmas pageant is a play which recounts the story of the Nativity of Jesus. It is usually performed at Christmas, the feast of the Nativity. Liturgical The term "Nativity Drama" is used by Wellesz in his discussion of the ...

portraying events from the

Annunciation The Annunciation (from Latin '), also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the biblical tale of the announcement by the ange ...

to the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Weavers' Pageant dealt with the Purification and the Doctors in the Temple. The only ancient manuscript of the Shearmen and Tailors' Pageant was destroyed by fire in 1879; fortunately it had been transcribed and published by Thomas Sharp, first in a limited run of twelve copies in 1817, and then again in 1825. A leather mask thought to be a surviving example of those worn by some performers in the Coventry Plays is held in the collections of the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum.

References

External links

{{wikiquote
This production in 2006
by the Players of St Peter included the Weavers' Pageant Middle English literature Folk plays English plays Medieval drama Festivals in the West Midlands (county) Coventry Christian plays Plays set in the 1st century Works of unknown authorship