Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/34

 22 PROBLEMS OF THE ENGLISH earlier state it was a<5ted by the Bowyers, Fletchers, and Ironmongers, who probably formed a flourish- ing company ; and when with these were associated the Stringers and Coopers, the play, which had already outgrown its limits, split into two. The connexion between Bowyers and Stringers is obvious enough, but it is not very easy to see how a guild of Coopers should come to bud off from the same parent stem. Yet a similar thing seems to have happened at Beverley. There, in 1411, the Bowyers and Fletchers a6led both the ' Sacrifice of Isaac ' and the ' Flight into Egypt,' while about a hundred years later the latter play was in the hands of the Coopers. But Coopers and Bowyers con- tinued to ele6l one alderman between them. 1 Here then is an instance in which the growth of a cycle can be traced in the extant manuscripts and illus- trated by extant records. Again, at Beverley, in 1493, *k e Drapers split off from the Mercers, with the result that the Trial before Herod had to be divided from that before Pilate. The process can also be traced at York. There, in 1415, the cycle consisted of fifty-one pageants, somewhat later of fifty-seven. The extant manuscript contains forty- five, but at least three were omitted. Of these one was subsequently supplied, and two others of later date were also added. The two Magi plays seem to have arisen by splitting. On the other hand, several Chester plays suggest fusion. Substitution also took place. We have two versions of the 1 Historical MSS. Commission, * Beverley MSS.,' pp. 99, 69. See M. L. Spencer, * Corpus Christi Pageants in England,' pp. 36, 80.