e places where they played them was in every street. They began
first at the abbey gates, and when the first pageant was played, it was
wheeled to the high cross before the mayor, and so to every street, and
so every street had a pageant playing before them at one time till all
the pageants appointed for the day were played; and when one pageant was
near ended, word was brought from street to street, that so they might
come in place thereof, exceedingly orderly, and all the streets have
their pageants afore them all at one time playing together; to see which
plays was great resort, and also scaffolds and stages made in the
streets in those places where they determined to play their pageants."

Each play, then, was performed by the representative of a particular
trade or company, after whom it was called the fishers', glovers', &c.,
_pageant_; while a general prologue was spoken by a herald. As a rule
the movable stage sufficed for the action, though we find horsemen
riding up to the scaffold, and Herod instructed to "rage in the pagond
and in the strete also." There is no probability that the stage was, as
in France, divided into three platforms with a dark cavern at the side
of the lowest, appropriated respectively to the Heavenly Father and his
angels, to saints and glorified men, to mere men, and to souls in hell.
But the last-named locality was frequently displayed in the English
miracles, with or without fire in its mouth. The costumes were in part
conventional,--divine and saintly personages being distinguished by gilt
hair and beards, Herod being clad as a Saracen, the demons wearing
hideous heads, the souls black and white coats according to their kind,
and the angels gold skins and wings.

Character of the Plays.

Doubtless these performances abounded in what seem to us ludicrous
features; and, though their main purpose was serious, they were not in
England at least intended to be devoid of fun. But many of the features
in question are in truth only homely and _naif_, and the simplicity of
feeling which they exhibit is at times pathetic rather than laughable.
The occasional grossness is due to an absence of refinement of taste
rather than to an obliquity of moral sentiment. These features the four
series have more or less in common, still there are certain obvious
distinctions between them. The _York_ plays (48), which were performed
at Corpus Christi, are comparatively free from the tendency to
jocularit