d performances, London has plays of a more
sacred kind, representing the miracles which saints have wrought, or
the sufferings and constancy of martyrs."

It appears that about the middle of the next century itinerant actors
were well known; for one of the regulations found in the _Burton
Annals_ has the following, under date 1258: "Actors may be
entertained, not because they are actors, but because of their
poverty; and let not their plays be seen nor heard, nor the
performance of them allowed in the presence of the Abbot or the
monks." The Clergy differed in opinion as to the lawfulness of such
exhibitions; and in an Anglo-French poem written about this time they
are sharply censured, and the using of them is restricted to certain
places and persons. An English paraphrase of this poem was made by
Robert Brunne in 1303; who specifies what pastimes are allowed to "a
clerk of order," declaring it lawful for him to perform Miracle-Plays
of the birth and resurrection of Christ in churches, but a sin to
witness them "on the highways or greens." He also reproves the
practice, then not uncommon, of aiding in such performances by lending
horses or harness from the monasteries, and especially declares it
sacrilege if a priest or clerk lend the hallowed vestments for that
purpose.

The dogma of transubstantiation was particularly fruitful of such
exhibitions. The festival of _Corpus Christi_, designed for the
furthering of this dogma, was instituted by Pope Urban IV. in 1264.
Within a few years from that date Miracle-Plays were annually
performed at Chester during Whitsuntide: they were also introduced at
Coventry, York, Durham, Lancaster, Bristol, Cambridge, and other
towns; so that the thing became a sort of established usage throughout
the kingdom. A considerable variety of subjects, especially such as
relate to the Incarnation, the Passion, and the Resurrection, was
embraced in the plan of these exhibitions; the purpose being to extend
an orthodox belief in those fundamentals of the faith.

A very curious specimen of the plays that grew out of the
_Corpus-Christi_ festival was lately discovered in the library of
Trinity College, Dublin, the manuscript being, it is said, as old as
the reign of Edward IV., who died in 1483. It is called _The Play of
the Blessed Sacrament_, and is founded on a miracle alleged to have
been wrought in the forest of Arragon, in 1461. In form it closely
resembles the Miracle-Plays founded on Sc