Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/31

 MIRACLE CYCLES. 19 prolific in France, was not unknown in this country either. But normally the religious play in England con- sisted of a series of individual scenes from sacred history or belief from Creation to Doomsday, centring in the Redemption, a<5ted by the various city guilds on movable pageants drawn in pro- cession through the streets and halting at recog- nized stations. The management of these per- formances, which are represented sometimes as an asset of the community, and sometimes as a burden on its resources, were usually under the direct or indirect control of the corporation. At Leicester and Beverley the city seems to have owned some at least of the properties, and this may originally have been the case even at York. At Lincoln the plays were managed by a guild of St. Anne, at Norwich by a guild of St. Luke. The relation between such guilds and the cor- poration, and between this and the guild of Corpus Christi, is very obscure; but it is, I think, significant that at Ipswich, where the Corpus Christi guild had the whole condu<5l of the plays, this was itself a reorganization of the old guild-merchant, and was pradlically iden- tical with the corporation. Anyhow, the con- nexion between the plays and the feast of Corpus Christi was traditional, and is constantly insisted on. At Chester the plays were afled at Whitsun- tide, but they are constantly spoken of as Corpus Christi plays. A supplementary performance seems to have been given on the feast day ; no doubt that was the original date. Even at York, where it