Abstract
A wealth of details in civic documents, guild accounts and church records survives for the organisation and performance of the York Mystery Cycle and the text survives complete in one manuscript which clearly indicates its provenance from York. Although this material gives many indications as to the method of staging the plays and to the status the cycle had in the life of the city, it does offer certain contradictions and is still far from providing a clear, full picture of the presentation of the cycle. The role of the trade guilds is quite clear and both civic records and the manuscript show the assignation of the individual plays to particular guilds.
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Notes
Cf. Nelson, Medieval English Stage and Rose, Wakefield Mystery Plays. For refutations of Nelson, cf. Alexandra Johnston’s review of Nelson, The Medieval English Stage in University of Toronto Quarterly XLIV (1975), 238–48 and
Margaret Dorrell, ‘Two Studies of the York Corpus Christi Play’, Leeds Studies in English NS, VI (1972), 63–111.
Alexandra Johnston and Margaret Rogerson (eds), REED York 2 vols (Toronto and Manchester, 1979), II, p. 722.
Cf. Clifford Davidson, ‘The Realism of the York Realist and the York Passion Play’, Speculum 50 (1975), 270–83, reprinted in Happé,Medieval English Drama pp. 101–17.
Cf. V. A. Kolve, The Play Called Corpus Christi (Stanford, 1966), pp. 101–23 for a discussion of ‘God’s time’ and how it works in the cycle plays.
Cf. Kolve, Play Called Corpus Christi, chapter 9 and Lawrence M. Clopper, ‘Tyrants and Villains: Characterization in the Passion Sequence of the English Cycle Plays’, Modern Language Quarterly, 41 (1980), 3–20.
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© 1991 Christine Richardson and Jackie Johnston
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Richardson, C., Johnston, J. (1991). York ‘Crucifixion Play’. In: Medieval Drama. English Dramatists. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21180-7_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21180-7_5
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