Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/180

 i68 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND TEXTUAL PROBLEMS OF THE ENGLISH MIRACLE CYCLES. II. THE COMING OF ANTICHRIST: RELATION OF THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE CHESTER CYCLE. HE subject I propose to discuss in this ledlure is the textual relation in which the manuscripts of the Chester plays stand to one another. This problem is in itself purely bibliographical, but we shall nevertheless find that our investigations will include a number of points of more general interest in the history of the religious drama. There is a legend as to the origin of the Chester plays which has come down to us in a variety of more or less discrepant versions. Mr. Chambers, comparing these versions with one another and analyzing them in the light of historical records, comes to the conclusion that the original tradition must have represented the plays as written by Ranulf Higden, monk of St. Werburgh's Abbey, Chester, and author of the c Polychronicon/ in 1328, during the mayoralty of Richard Herneys, and the papal pardon for the spectators as obtained,