Pleasing the Queen but Preserving Our Past: Cheshire and Lincolnshire Attempt to Continue Their Cycle Plays and Satisfy Elizabeth's Injunctions

Spelling and grammar for most quotations from original sources have been modernized. By the mid-fourteenth century community-based performances of religious drama based on stories from the Bible and the lives of saints had become a part of the popular culture of many a town and city in England. The institution of the feast of Corpus Christi (1311) seems to have spurred this phenomenon. The feast of Corpus Christi falls shortly after Pentecost, usually in mid-May, and involved an elaborate procession of churchmen, town officials, and guildsmen bearing a consecrated wafer through the streets of the community. Before long, especially in larger municipalities like York and Coventry, plays performed by the laity based on religious themes began to become part of the celebrations. In other communities, like Chester, the feast of Whitsun (Pentecost) involved similar festivities (Wickham Medieval 62-99, Chambers 2: 94-146). Sources reveal that by the beginning of the fifteenth century, smaller communities had developed their own local performances, dramatizing the lives of their patron saints, or Bible stories like The Flood, or their own version of a Passion play. Many of these community performances were complex and costly. The volumes of the University of Toronto's Records of Early English Drama (REED) are full of entries like those from Devon, Dorset, and Cornwall that describe, for example, 17 shillings, 10 pence paid in 1415 for costumes for the Corpus Christi celebrations in Exeter (REED. Devon 17, 360, 382). That sum of money equaled the cost of 160 chickens or 20 sheep at the time (Reed Bristol 18), an indication of just how much money communities were willing to lay out for their community celebrations. REED volumes show payments made to guild members in compensation for the time they, or their apprentices, spent in rehearsal, and for the purchase of properties and costumes, like sacks of wheat to create the image of Lot's wife as a pillar of salt, purple satin gowns to costume Jesus, crimson vestments, and gloves and devils’ coats. Costume expenses alone in New Romney (Kent) for the year 1560 totaled almost £10 (Malone Kent 207-11), more than a year's salary for a parish clerk (Hanham 154), and the total expense that year was almost £50 (Malone Kent 207-11). Even the Easter sepulchers set up in small parishes sometimes involved what we would call “special effects”—machinery that lowered effigies of angels from above to open Jesus's tomb (REED Dorset, Cornwall 267-8, 471-3, REED. Devon 17, 360, 382, Malone Kent 135, 207). We also must consider the small populations of English cities and towns in order to appreciate fully the amount of community involvement in these activities. Except for London, the largest cities in pre-modern England—Norwich, York, and Bristol—possessed only 12,000 to 15,000 inhabitants. Smaller cities like Chester and Lincoln had populations somewhere between 5,000 to 8,000 people. Most other towns had populations ranging from less than 400 to a little over 2000 people. The population of New Romney, mentioned above, probably was less than 1000 (Bower 146), yet its detailed plans for the 1560 play include 10 speaking parts, an unspecified number of “tormenters” and “devils,” and 62 other people assigned various tasks in what we would call “technical” aspects of the production (189-202). A conservative estimate of the total number of New Romney inhabitants involved in the play therefore would be about 80 to 100. And, conservatively, that suggests that at least 8 to 10 percent of the town's population was directly involved in mounting the play. In larger cities like York, Lincoln, and Chester it is likely that similar percentages, if not even larger ones, contributed to their play cycles. Those cycles lasted over two or three days, and involved the city authorities and most of the trade and craft guilds combining their efforts and monies to mount their annual productions (Wickham, Medieval 62-99, Chambers 2: 113-46). In terms of money, time, and effort, then, these religiously based plays put on by the laity were deeply embedded in the civic and popular culture of the small towns and the larger cities of pre-modern England. The turmoil begun by Henry VIII's religious reforms and carried on through the reign of his son Edward VI disrupted these traditions. Even before Henry VIII's break with Rome, Humanist reformers in England were attempting to purge the church of what they considered superstition, sloth, and excess. Humanists also attacked what they perceived as the traditional church's propensity to wink at superstitious beliefs and impose itself between the “true” meaning of the Gospels and the laity (Marius 83, 89-90, 286-7). As Henry's reforms got underway, some bishops called in the traditional playscripts for review and revisions to purge them of superstition or what they considered vulgarities. Many were never returned (Wickham, Medieval 207). By 1537 reformers’ attacks upon medieval Catholicism began in earnest. All traditional holidays were abolished—except Christmas, Easter, the Annunciation and the feasts of St. John the Baptist, St. Michael, and St. George—and veneration of the saints was forbidden (Wickham, Medieval 206-07). Local authorities were ordered to punish citizens who abandoned work on traditional holidays, and some bishops forbade performances of any plays in churches or churchyards (Lancashire 289). In the 1540s the Scriptural emphases of Protestant reformers intensified (Collinson Puritan 23-7, and Birthpangs 95-8). Veneration of Scripture approached sanctification, and some reformers began to believe it was sacrilege for anyone to portray (“counterfeit” was the word often used) God the Father or Christ (Ashton 5, 6). A parliamentary act of 1543 specified that “in no plays nor interludes they might make any expositions of Scripture” (Burnett 1: 583). Early Protestant reformers like John Bale used religious plays presenting anti-papal, pro-Protestant messages in the late 1530s (White 12-41). However, when Henry VIII swung back towards a more Catholic stance in the 1540s, these plays were banned (Collinson Birthpangs 102-04). The shifting religious policies of the 1530s and 1540s must have made people fearful of presenting any kind of religious theme, whether of Catholic or Protestant bent. The government of Henry's son and successor Edward VI was pronouncedly Protestant, as was Edward himself. For example, Spain's ambassador to England noted that Edward played an active role in the plan to name his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey as his successor (Taylor 70-1, Plowden 147-52). Edward's government introduced wide-sweeping changes in worship. Parishes were ordered to remove and sell off all statues, religious images and ornaments, and any other accoutrements that bore “popish” symbols including “popish” vestments, and the costumes and properties owned by, or stored in, churches, which previously had been used in religious plays—in short, anything that represented the old religious order. Further, the libraries of the monasteries and other religious establishments were dissolved by Henry VIII and Edward VI, and those of several parish churches as well, were sold off. Most play scripts used by players in towns and cities now disappeared into private hands never to be seen again. In 1549 penalties were enacted to punish anyone who performed plays that could be construed as criticisms of the new Protestant liturgy and practice (White 57). Two years later, in 1551, a proclamation outlawed all players except the King's Players and a small number of troupes under the patronage of Protestant lords (Lancashire 70-72), but even the performances and scripts of these “authorized” players needed the prior approval of Edward's Privy Council (White 42-63). All of these measures, and more, were reinforced by English bishops, their deputies, and royal officials who made frequent parish visitations to ensure local compliance with the mandated reforms (Haigh 166-83, 208-11). Hence, the religious policies of Henry VIII and Edward VI deprived local, civic-sponsored drama of holidays on which it could be performed and of locations for its performance, of its traditionally accepted dramatic content, of the costumes and properties necessary for its performance, and of its scripts, (Lancashire 63, 68, 203, 205, 289). It is no wonder that the parish and civic theatrical activity that had flourished for 200 years disappeared all over England before the death of Edward VI in 1553. Recent scholarship argues that with the succession of the Catholic Mary most Englishmen returned to the Mass with far more enthusiasm than Elizabethan propaganda would admit, but restoring the ruined and scattered accoutrements of traditional Catholicism was expensive and time-consuming. Churchwardens’ accounts reveal that much had been “scattered abroad,” that much had been “spoiled and mangled,” and that individuals had to be taken to court to recover the former possessions of some churches. In most parishes the Protestant renovations carried out under Edward VI's orders necessitated a complete re-renovation of church interiors to restore them to Catholic use (Haigh 208-18). Given these conditions, attempts to revive traditional parish and city drama were tepid. Only three full-scale attempts at revivals of local drama in smaller communities have come to light during Mary's reign—a St. Thomas à Becket pageant in Canterbury in 1554, Wakefield's Corpus Christi play in 1555, and plans by New Romney to revive its passion play in the years from 1556 to 1560 (Lancashire xxix-xxx). And with Elizabeth's succession and her reversion to the Protestantism of her brother, for all intents and purposes, by the middle of her reign the local cycle plays or passion plays forever disappeared. Such probably was not the result of the gleeful acceptance throughout England of Elizabethan Protestantism, the “happie time of the gospell,” as Matthew Hutton, Dean of York Cathedral labeled his age in 1568 (REED York 353), and as traditional historians have asserted (MacCulloch 1-19). Though the small towns like New Romney abandoned attempts to resuscitate civic theatre within the first years of Elizabeth, larger cities like Chester, Lincoln present us with case studies of how municipalities tried to find some means to preserve their dramatic traditions. The “popish plays of Chester” (REED Chester 111), Lincoln, and a few other English cities were not abandoned willingly; in those municipalities city authorities tried to preserve and accommodate to the new “happie time of the gospell.” Whether these attempts to maintain some form of traditional civic pageantry were due to lingering Catholic sympathies or civic pride and prosperity is moot. The traditional plays and the potential for local income were entwined. Chester authorities flatly stated that the plays augmented the “prosperity of this City” (REED Chester 27). Accounts from York make it clear that local merchants increased sales and other inhabitants received rental income for lodging and stables when York's cycle plays were performed (York Memorandum, passim). Even in small towns and parishes community performances also provided community income. For example, in 1535 Boxford, Suffolk, toured its play to several neighboring towns, and earned enough money to build a new steeple for the church (Williams 23-30). Nonetheless, by the 1570s local authorities, it seems, ultimately became convinced that no matter how much they tinkered with, altered, or revised their old religiously based plays so long dear to their citizenry, civic pride, and “pocketbooks,” Elizabeth's government and church would tolerate no drama too closely based on Biblical episodes. The volumes published by the University of Toronto (Records of Early English Drama) and by the Malone Society detailing dramatic activities in Chester and Lincolnshire offer us case studies in the failed attempts of English municipalities to reach accommodations between their traditional, civic-sponsored plays and Elizabeth's religious settlement. The city of Chester, whence County Cheshire derives its name, is the principal municipality of the county. Located in northwestern England near Wales, and bordering on Lancashire, the county was largely agricultural during the Tudor era. Its main product for export was salt. The city of Chester, with a population of about 5000 (Bower 141), was the county's principal market town, and an episcopal and royal administrative center. Chester's walls and streets preserved the form of the city's Roman origins. The town wall was roughly square and pierced on each side by a gate; the two main streets stretched from to at the middle of the city in the form of a to of the Chester activities upon these and the the became the administrative of the medieval and Tudor Sources are the of the Chester in the late and the of the Whitsun back to or Chester no to the Whitsun plays before but a passion play performed on Corpus Christi as as (REED Chester In of of Wales, Chester, and of the of Lady was played at the and at the (REED Chester Whether or not these plays were or of the Whitsun plays is not but plays of the matter in the Whitsun is is that before the religious reforms of the century Chester had a of performances to Corpus Christi St. and Whitsun (Pentecost) in which the city's authorities, and all were involved (REED Chester to the city's proclamation of the Whitsun plays were as only for the increased in Christ to the of the people but also for the prosperity of this City” (REED Chester 27). The city's and is probably to in at least of the cycle The of the through and when the of and from the of angels to the to only that God at the of the of and a which to the of the of Chester, it must be had its square and for its plays was at the the main streets from each Hence, with made between Chester's civic and its Whitsun cycle it is no wonder that city authorities to find to accommodate their plays to the religious of the English church during its several by Tudor In shortly after Henry VIII dissolved Chester's a city proclamation noted that the plays had been their to a of that who was with of the original plays (REED Chester 27). In after the break with and reforms had been the of the the performances of the that to the Mary were so as to to new religious policies the veneration of saints (REED Chester revisions to the were made in when any to Corpus Christi the and veneration of the and were (Wickham Nonetheless, guild and civic from to 1549 that Corpus Christi St. and the Whitsun plays to be not after when Edward VI's Protestant reforms were in full all those including the revised Whitsun The Whitsun plays in after Catholic Mary the Though are no performances of the Whitsun plays to Corpus Christi and St. celebrations during Mary's reign and disappeared after 1554, the first year of Elizabeth's reign and her reversion to the reforms of Edward VI REED Chester The of the Whitsun plays was noted in city for the year but no of them in when the that the plays were the to the Whitsun plays years in would have the plays to the of the of York The the forbidden performances an was from the to them but it too (REED Chester the Whitsun plays performed in those years during which they were in the We that the city in the considered them the prosperity of this City” (REED Chester 27). then, performances were but and the and to by government and We that about the time the city in to their for the city's St. procession by in their than in their (REED these three in the Chester the plays to to a of their or so that a of time before was necessary to the the city were the or so years to if their could be made to the new “happie time of the gospell.” We never for but the to the Whitsun plays only three years later, and that the city were an with Elizabeth's religious The of that John the plays of Chester to be played the and after in of an and from the of York and from the of of the Council of the but which were might not be for the superstition that was in (REED Chester the the of Catholic plays and the of the plays from to with the annual of the civic would them into a activity in the of the authorities, just as the city of its St. procession to with the of the new (Reed that were the was for was by a from York, the that the new was and his towards (REED Chester was from by a from the of Chester to the Privy The stated that “in of an order taken by of the And by and with the and of his the of the and of the (REED Chester it seems, had not on his but with the of Chester's and this the of performances of Chester's Whitsun in the owned by the and used to their pageant were to private The was into a The probably was for its was out to Edward (REED Chester Lincolnshire in the Tudor was largely an agricultural county with towns scattered throughout its for which Chester was the two in Lincoln, the episcopal and a market for the two are not from the Tudor but based on from towns it is they more than 2000 inhabitants (Bower In Tudor two through the from to the other from to the county a kind of for in the part of England (Malone Lincoln The REED not yet published dramatic for but the of dramatic published by the Malone less than most REED much about Lincolnshire activities. Those that several Lincolnshire towns be from payments in several town to from other towns for which no are these that was a of town plays in Lincolnshire during the fifteenth and payments to that at least Lincolnshire towns their plays in other towns, and them on (Malone Lincoln dramatic from most town, are but they show the town money for a play as as of the The for in that the of the suggests it have been used to create for the play (Malone Lincoln The play in for when expenses for are (Malone Lincoln Though these two are only of the for to suggests an to the of the we if the play was performed after that for the to a play in from That year a was paid for his but the nor the matter of the play is the play have and whether it was we not and in any That year the town the of plays or in the town's or (Malone Lincoln these and their us is that the religious reforms of Henry VIII and Edward VI have city authorities in to its religious play. And the to the for a new play in efforts in other towns to find a dramatic that would Elizabeth's York, which in also a to a new play (REED York The total on dramatic performances in in suggests that by this time the city in the any to the town's theatrical into a form to Elizabeth's Records from the city of Lincoln back to that the city had a long of play The first is to a play by the Cathedral In from we find the city a play (Malone Lincoln the fifteenth century the show a of plays sometimes by the sometimes by the but the are not enough to if were any of for Corpus Christi play first in from for the Corpus Christi play in and are as pence and of money in the late fifteenth the not the they no to the of the Corpus Christi play (Malone Lincoln before St. became with a pageant cycle (Malone Lincoln from suggests that the cycle two in the pageant were paid for St. and the after (Malone Lincoln to the in the the cycle and show that part of the cycle for of expenses that at least two the Mary and the Annunciation of pence and the received in the form of and on what expenses for the production of the cycle pence year (Malone Lincoln officials on its cycle A of £10 was on any guild that failed to its part in the that equaled almost a year's income to a (Malone Lincoln so many other English towns, Lincoln the cycle plays during Edward's and them at Mary's in but they disappeared forever from the shortly after Mary (Malone Lincoln And like and York, city to mount a new play to Elizabeth's Records from the city a new and like Chester the city to it into the of the local for the city were ordered to money from the guilds and for a of some of the Bible be played two this (Malone Lincoln A of properties in the suggests the play the of and its of the of the from and the of In and the play was performed this time during to this play disappeared from the in the cities of Chester and the attempts of the city of Lincoln to craft as to (Malone Lincoln Elizabeth's government and the religious reformers in the church to have been to out any local religious By her reign those reformers who it was sacrilege for anyone to Scripture or religious practice were in of the English church and In of York the of the York's play. It was never returned (REED York In the court of York forbade the town of to any of its traditional plays which the God the or God the or the of the of or of the or anything which to the of superstition and (Wickham and by church and officials in Chester, and Lincoln must have that attempts to by Protestant by presenting of their traditional plays or even new plays based on or stories was

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