Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/39

 MIRACLE CYCLES. 27 does not mean a<5led, by c the worshipfull wyues of this towne,' and was also performed indepen- dently. It was, therefore, one of those plays which did not belong to the regular guilds, but were given by loosely attached companies which sometimes associated with them on these occasions. The Assumption was a favourite subject for such bodies to choose. Both at Lincoln and at Beverley it was performed by the priests. At York, on the other hand, it was given by the Innkeepers, who were reorganized for this purpose in 1483, but never became a regular guild, and the text of their play in the ' register ' is a fragment added in a later hand. 1 Perhaps it is significant that in the 'Ludus Couentriae ' the Assumption play is clearly of a different origin from the rest of the cycle. Again, in 1415 the Hospital of St. Leonard at York took charge of the 'Purification,' and the play is absent from the extant manuscript. Also it is recorded that there was discontent at Beverley because the ' generosi ' escaped the burden of a play, and in 1411 they were charged with the production of one. But in this case the newcomers seem to have been allotted one of the most fundamental plays of the cycle, for about a hundred years later we find them giving the c Peregrini.' Thus we have to assume that not only were the regular guild plays constantly changing and being altered and revised, but that round or through this comparatively stable 1 They had, however, produced a play on the same subject earlier, the text of which is preserved in the original ' register.' They are there called the ' Osteleres,' and a later hand has added 'alias Inholders' and also the word * caret,' indicating apparently that this text had been cancelled in favour of the later version.