Saturday, September 19, 2026 · 天火 · tianmu.org

Mystery Plays and Early Drama

The mystery cycles and early drama of medieval England — the great town plays of Corpus Christi, performed by the craft guilds.

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Texts

Introduction to Medieval English DramaHow the towns of medieval England staged the whole history of the universe — the Corpus Christi cycles, the moralities, their suppression, and the accidents by which their words survived.Ludus Coventriae — The N-Town PlaysThe N-Town cycle of mystery plays (the Proclamation, the Mary Play, the Passion, and Doomsday), from K. S. Block's 1922 EETS edition of the Cotton MS Vespasian D.VIII, recovered from HathiTrust per-page OCR.The Chester PlaysThe complete Chester cycle of English mystery plays, all twenty-four pageants from the Fall of Lucifer to the Last Judgement, in the original Early Modern English of the Harleian manuscript, from the EETS critical edition.The Digby PlaysFrederick Furnivall's edition of the Digby Plays — the Conversion of St Paul, the two-part Mary Magdalene, Herod's Killing of the Children, an incomplete Wisdom, and Christ's Burial and Resurrection — five late medieval English mystery plays from the Digby manuscript, with the editor's Forewords and Glossary, Early English Text Society Extra Series 70, 1896.The Macro PlaysThe three Macro morality plays — Mankind, Wisdom, and The Castle of Perseverance — from Furnivall and Pollard's 1904 EETS edition, restored from HathiTrust OCR.The Non-Cycle Mystery PlaysThe surviving English biblical plays outside the four great cycles, with the Croxton Play of the Sacrament and the fragmentary Pride of Life, edited by Osborn Waterhouse (EETS Extra Series 104, 1909).The Towneley PlaysThe complete 32-play Wakefield cycle of medieval English mystery plays, re-edited from the unique Towneley manuscript, restored from HathiTrust page scans of the 1897 Early English Text Society edition.Two Coventry Corpus Christi PlaysThe two pageants that survive of the medieval Coventry Corpus Christi cycle — the Shearmen and Taylors' Nativity play, source of the Coventry Carol, and the Weavers' Presentation in the Temple — from Hardin Craig's EETS edition.