Middle English Literature

Pageants
As the growing quantity of records in the Records of Early English Drama
series attests, medieval moralities and cycle plays were not only the occasion
for many different kinds of play but were also economically significant
enterprises. Morality plays often required large place and scaffold structures,
costuming, and sometimes large casts while, most notably, town guilds and
other civic and religious bodies created elaborate wagons, sets, props, and
costumes for the enormous cycles staged in the streets of cities and villages.
The majority of the records that survive concerning medieval drama are
accounts for expenses and income generated from the more formal annual
plays and the sporadic performances of indoor and street theater of many
kinds. Many are guild ordinances (see “Guilds,” p. 155). In York the muni-
cipal authorities and the guilds collaborated for the prestige of the city and
the individual crafts and trades involved. The plays were quite a financial
burden for guilds, and negotiations and adjustments of costs between the
town council and the guilds, and among the guilds themselves, are a promin-
ent part of the records.
Primary documents and further reading
Beadle, R. (ed.) (1994) The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Beckwith, S. (2001) Signifying God: Social Relation and Symbolic Act in the York
Corpus Christi Plays. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Centre for Research in Early English Drama. Records of Early English Drama (REED).
Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Sponsler, C. (1997) Drama and Resistance: Bodies, Goods, and Theatricality in Late
Medieval England. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Swanson, H. (1989) Medieval Artisans: An Urban Class in Late Medieval England.
Oxford: Blackwell.
A/ Y Memorandum Book, fols. 19v, 187v–188r, 60v, 247r–247v. In A. F. Johnston and M.
Rogerson (eds. and trans.) (1979) Records of Early English Drama: York, 2 vols. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, II: 697–724 (selections).
Language: French and Latin
Manuscript date: 1399–1422
1399
To the honourable men, the mayor, and aldermen of the city of York, the
commons of the same city beg that, inasmuch as they incur great expense

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and costs in connection with the pageants and plays of Corpus Christi day,
1
the which cannot be played or performed on the same day as they ought to
be because the aforesaid pageants are played in so many places at consider-
able hardship and deprivation to the said commons and strangers who have
travelled to the said city on the same day for the same purpose, that it please
you to consider that the said pageants are maintained and supported by the
commons and the craftsmen of the same city in honour and reverence of
our Lord Jesus Christ and for the glory and benefit of the same city, that
you decree that the aforesaid pageants be played in the places to which they
were limited and assigned by you and by the aforesaid commons previously,
the which places are annexed to this bill in a schedule, or in other places
from year to year, according to the disposition and will of the mayor and
the council of the chamber, and that anyone who acts in contravention of
the aforesaid ordinances and regulations shall incur a fine of forty shillings
to be paid to the council chamber of the said city, and that if any of the
aforesaid pageants be delayed or held back through fault or negligence on
the part of the players, that they shall incur a penalty of six shillings, eight
pence to the same chamber. And they (the commons) beg that these afore-
said matters be performed, or otherwise the said play shall not be played by
the aforesaid commons. And they (the commons) ask these things for the
sake of God and as a work of charity for the benefit of the said commons
and of the strangers who have travelled to the said city for the honour [of]
God and the promotion of charity among the same commons.
Places where the play of Corpus Christi will have been played: first at the
gates of Holy Trinity in Micklegate; second at Robert Harpham’s door;
third at John de Gyseburne’s door; fourth at Skeldergate and North Street;
fifth at the end of Coney Street opposite the Castlegate; sixth at the end of
Jubbergate; seventh [at] Henry Wyman’s door in Coney Street; eighth at
the end of Coney Street next to the Common Hall; ninth at Adam del
Brigg’s door; tenth at the gates of the Minster of Blessed Peter; eleventh
at the end of Girdlergate in Petergate; twelfth on the Pavement.
And it has been ordained that the banners of the play with the arms of
the city be delivered by the mayor on the eve of Corpus Christi to be set in
the places where the play of the pageants will be, and that each year on the
day after Corpus Christi, the banners be returned to the chamber to the hands
of the mayor and chamberlains of the city and kept there for the entire year
following, under penalty of six shillings, eight pence to be paid to the needs
of the commons by anyone who shall have kept the banners beyond the next
day and shall not have given them up in the manner which is stated.
1
The first Thursday after Trinity Sunday, i.e., during the last week in May or first week in June.
Pageants
205

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206
Style and Spectacle
June 7, 1417
[T]he mayor, the honourable men, and the whole said commons, by their
unanimous consent and assent, order [that] all those who receive money for
scaffolds, which they may build in the aforesaid places before their doors on
public property at the aforesaid sites, from those sitting on them shall pay
the third penny of the money so received to the chamberlains of the city to
be applied to the use of the same commons. And if they have refused to pay
or agree upon a third penny of this kind or other monies with the chamber
decently, that then the play be transferred to other places at the will and
disposition of the mayor holding office at the time and of the council of the
chamber of the city. No one spoke against this kind of ordinance except
only a few holders of scaffolds in Micklegate . . .
And, indeed, because of the closeness of the said feast of Corpus Christi
and the shortness of time, the said matter was not able to be committed to
the aforesaid execution fully. Therefore, those assembled in the chamber of
the council on the twelfth day of June in the abovesaid year of the lord
and the king, considering that it would be improper and not to the profit of
the commons that the said play be performed in the same certain places and
in no other yearly, since everyone bear his charge towards the upholding of
this play according to his estate, it was therefore unanimously ordained
that for the benefit of the commons the places for the performance of the
aforesaid play would be changed unless those before whose places the play
used to be performed have paid whatever was enjoined yearly to the com-
mons for having this, his individual profit, thus. And it was ordained that in
all the years following while this play is played, it must be played before the
doors and holdings of those who have paid better and more generously to
the chamber and who have been willing to do more for the benefit of the
whole commons for having this play there, not giving favour to anyone for
his individual benefit but rather that the public utility of the whole of the
commons of York ought to be considered. And the abovesaid reverend
gentleman John Moreton, in the matter of his buildings, submitted himself
completely to the disposition and ruling of the mayor and the council of
the chamber as to how much he should pay towards the abovesaid play for
having the play before the gate of his house in the quarter of Micklegate
and at other buildings of his in the city.
1417–1418
There follows the agreement of the saucemakers and sellers of Paris candles.
And because a serious complaint had been made here in the council
chamber by the saucemakers, craftsmen of the city, namely, by those whom

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we commonly call salsemakers, that although by the hitherto usual custom
the members of the saucemakers’ craft as well as all candlemakers outside
the flesh shambles who used to sell Paris candles in their houses and win-
dows, have sustained that pageant in the feast and play of Corpus Christi in
this city, both in its costs and its expenses, in which it is shown that Judas
Iscariot hung himself and cried out in the midst; further, although the
skinners and other craftsmen of this city of York in great number, who are
not saucemakers, make and presume to sell, through themselves and their
wives, Paris candles in their homes and windows; nevertheless, they, having
been asked, refuse to be contributors to the support of the said pageant.
And unless a remedy be quite speedily imposed so that from now on they
be contributors of this kind with the saucemakers, the saucemakers them-
selves will be unable to support that pageant any longer. Wherefore, in the
year of our Lord 1417 and in the fifth year of the reign of King Henry
the sixth after the conquest of England, it was decided by the mayor,
William Bowes,
2
and the council of the chamber, that each and every crafts-
man of the city, of whatever kind they be, who are not butchers or wives of
butchers and who, through themselves or through their wives, sell Paris
candles by retail within the city of York and the suburbs of the same, shall
from now on contribute every third penny along with the saucemakers of
this city to maintaining the aforesaid pageant in the feast and play of Corpus
Christi. Afterwards, when John Moreton was mayor,
3
the aforesaid ordinance
notwithstanding, it was agreed between the Saucemakers and makers of Paris
candles that anyone making or selling such Paris candles would pay two
pence per annum for the presentations of the aforesaid play and no more,
with the exception of butchers or their wives, as mentioned previously.
January 31, 1422
He who is ignorant of nothing knows, and the whole people lament, that
the play on the day of Corpus Christi in this city, the institution of which
was made of old for the important cause of devotion and for the extirpation
of vice and the reformation of customs, alas, is impeded more than usual
because of the multitude of pageants, and unless a better and more speedy
device be provided, it is to be feared that it will be impeded much further
in a very brief passage of time. And the craftsmen of the painters, stainers,
pinners, and latteners
4
of the aforesaid city, formerly appointed separately to
2
Mayor 1417, 1418.
3
Mayor 1418.
4
Makers of and workers in latten, brass, and similar yellow-colored mixed metals.
Pageants
207

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208
Style and Spectacle
two pageants which must be performed in the aforesaid play, viz., one on
the stretching out and nailing of Christ on the cross, and the other, indeed,
on the raising up of the crucified upon the mount, knowing that the matter
of both pageants could be shown together in one pageant for the shorten-
ing of the play rather profitably for the people hearing the holy words of the
players, consented for themselves and their other colleagues in the future
that one of their pageants should be left out from now on and the other
maintained, following what the mayor and the council of the chamber
wished to arrange. And upon this business the searchers and craftsmen of
the aforesaid crafts came before Richard Russell, the mayor of York,
5
the
aldermen, and other honourable men in the council chamber situated here
on Ouse Bridge on the last day of January in the ninth year of the reign of
King Henry the fifth after the conquest of England and presented to them
their desire and intention as stated above . . . Wherefore, the aforesaid mayor,
aldermen, and honourable men, receiving this kindly and commending the
aforesaid craftsmen for their laudable proposal, ordered and ordained, on
their own counsel and that of all the aforesaid craftsmen, that from this day
forward the pageant of the painters and stainers should be thoroughly
removed from the aforesaid play, and that the craftsmen of the pinners and
latteners should take upon themselves the burden of performing in their
pageant the matter of the speeches, which were previously performed in
their pageant and in the pageant of the painters and stainers, and that the
painters and stainers each year should collect among themselves from the
men of their craft five shillings sterling yearly and pay them yearly to those
who are the masters of the pageant of the pinners and latteners [at the
time], yearly on the eve of Corpus Christi. And if at any time they default in
this payment, then they wish and agree that they and all their successors be
distrained and strictly compelled in their homes and places of habitation or
elsewhere, where they can be better and [more easily] distrained by the
mayor and those who are chamberlains of this city at the time, to pay forty
shillings of good English money to those who were masters of the pageant
of the pinners and latteners at the time, on the next Sunday following the
said feast without further delay. And that the punishments levied in this case
shall remain in their power until satisfaction has been made fully to the
aforesaid pageant masters concerning the aforesaid forty shillings together
with the costs and expenses borne in their recovery, thus always, so that he
who is mayor at the time may receive and have one half of the aforesaid
5
Mayor 1421, 1430.

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forty shillings for the use of the commons, and those who shall have been
pageant masters of the pinners and latteners at the time shall have the other
half for the use and maintenance of their said pageant. For making which
payments well and faithfully, indeed, in the manner and form written above,
and for holding to and fulfilling the present ordinance in everything, the
aforesaid . . . [guildsmen] for their part pledge themselves and their succes-
sors of their crafts, provided only that the said craftsmen of the painters and
stainers do not meddle in the pageant of the pinners or in their accounts
hereafter in any way.