Wakefield Mystery Plays
Encyclopedia
The Wakefield or Towneley Mystery Plays are a series of thirty-two mystery play
s based on the Bible
most likely performed around the Feast of Corpus Christi
probably in the town of Wakefield
, England during the late Middle Ages
until 1576. It is one of only four surviving English mystery play cycles.
The unique manuscript
, now housed at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California
, originated in the mid-fifteenth century. The Towneley family
who lent their name to the manuscript, sold it at auction in 1814, but it was probably part of their library at a much earlier date. Although almost the entire manuscript is in a fifteenth-century hand, the cycle was performed as early as the fourteenth century in an earlier form.
The Wakefield Cycle is most renowned for the inclusion of "The Second Shepherds' Play
," one of the jewels of medieval theatre
.
. However, the most notable plays (including) "The Second Shepherd's Play" were written by an anonymous author dubbed the "Wakefield Master", who also wrote "Noah," "The First Shepherds' Play," "Herod the Great," and "The Buffeting," and may have revised "The Killing of Abel."
The term "Wakefield Master" emerged from a need to distinguish some material in the Towneley manuscript from a mass of unexceptional material, and was first coined by Charles Mills Gayley
. In 1903, Gayley and Alwin Thaler published an anthology of criticism and dramatic selections entitled Representative English Comedies. It had long been believed that the Towneley Play was a mediocre work that showed extensive borrowing from other sources but containing vibrant and exciting material, apparently by one author, who was responsible for four or five complete pageants and extensive revisions. Gayley refers to this person as the "master" (with a lowercase m) in the book. Then in a 1907 article, Gayley emended this to "The Wakefield Master," the name which is still frequently used.
Literary critics found several features in the Towneley manuscript worthy of interest. These features suggested an author of original poetic gifts, and came to be regarded as the marks of the Wakefield Master's hand.
The most obvious of these characteristics is that several of the pageants use a distinctive stanza, sometimes called the Wakefield Stanza (see below). The pageants that manifest the Wakefield Stanza are noted for comedy, social satire, and intense psychological realism. These qualities also show up throughout the Towneley Cycle, most often where it seems to depart from its presumed sources.
Some question the existence of one "Wakefield Master", and propose that multiple authors could have written in the Wakefield Stanza. Barbara Palmer suggests that the story of the Wakefield Master and the suggestion that the Second Shepherd's Play was performed as part of the Wakefield Cycle were both inventions of an amateur historian named J. M. W. Walker. However, scholars and literary critics find it useful to hypothesize a single talent behind them, due to the unique poetic qualities of the works ascribed to him.
One problem is that the population of Wakefield in 1377 (approximately the date of the first performance of the cycle) consisted of 567 people aged sixteen or older. Assuming that half were male, that leaves only about 280 men to play the 243 roles in the plays. This leaves many to believe that multiple plays were performed by the same cast during most of the lifetime of the cycle.
Another way in which the Wakefield cycle differed in its staging from other cycles is that lack of association with the guilds. In other towns York and Coventry
certain plays were staged by different guilds, according to their specialty (such as the shipwrights staging the Noah
play). Although the names of four guilds are found on the manuscript (the barkers
, glovers, litsters, and fishers), they are found in a later hand than most of the manuscript. This has led some to believe that for its entire lifetime, the Wakefield Cycle was sponsored and produced by other associations, either governmental or religious. Either way, it was surely performed by non-professional actors from the community, as were all the cycles.
-- A nine-line stanza containing one quatrain with internal rhyme and a tail-rhymed cauda, rhyming AAAABCCCB; or—A thirteen-line stanza containing a cross-rhymed octet frons, a tercet cauda with tail-rhymes, the whole rhyming ABABABABCDDDC.
The former description was based upon the earliest editions of the play that, following the space-saving habits of the medieval scribe, who often wrote two verse-lines on a single manuscript line. Thus, depending upon how one interprets the manuscript, a stanza (from the Noah pageant) might appear in either of the following forms:
(All the punctuation and indentations are editorial and not part of the original manuscript.)
In the first case above, the first four lines contain internal rhyme
(i.e., "prufe," "hufe," "hufe," and "grufe"); but the second example arranges the same verses in shorter lines, which in the manuscript are separated from one another by apparently random use of the obelus (÷), virgules [/], double-virgules[//], and line-breaks. In the second example, it is readily seen that the poet uses a cross-rhymed octet frons with a five-line tail-rhymed cauda. It is this innovative use of the cauda that is most distinctive in the stanza.
There is some disagreement over whether the Wakefield Stanza is a 9 line or a 13 line. Owing largely to A.C.Cawley
's 1957 edition of five of the pageants, and to others' arrangement of the manuscript lines, this is sometimes thought to be a nine-line stanza, with the quatrain containing internal rhyme. This view predominated in the critical literature until the late twentieth century, and has fallen out of favor. When Cawley himself edited the entire cycle with Martin Stevens for publication in 1994, the two opted to present the lines as a thirteen-line stanza. In any case, the number of syllables in the lines is variable, and the number of stressed syllables can usually be counted at two or three per line in the thirteen-line version.
Since the Towneley Play was a drama and therefore spoken rather than read silently, to some degree this presentation of the poetic units in graphical form is somewhat arbitrary and inconsequential. But it does provide insights into the poetic influences and innovations of the Wakefield Master.
by the Protestant authorities before being discontinued completely. The play about John the Baptist
had been "corrected" to conform to Protestant doctrines about the sacraments. The word "pope
" was excised from "Herod the Great," and twelve leaves are completely missing, which scholars suspect contained plays about the death, Assumption
, and coronation as Queen of Heaven of the Virgin Mary
.
, while the others are taken from either Roman Catholic
or folk
tradition.
was in its infancy in 1972, it was so short that productions needed an added preamble to create a valid showpiece. Frank Dunlop
, in the first British theatrical performances of the musical on stage, preceded his Young Vic productions of Joseph with his own adaptation of the first six Wakefield Mystery Plays, which were credited in the programme. The entire production was a double bill called Bible One: Two Looks at the Book of Genesis. Part I, entitled The Creation to Jacob (or Mediaevel Mystery Plays), was Dunlop's reworking of the first six Wakefield plays, with music by Alan Doggett. Part II was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Mystery play
Mystery plays and miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song...
s based on the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
most likely performed around the Feast of Corpus Christi
Corpus Christi (feast)
Corpus Christi is a Latin Rite solemnity, now designated the solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ . It is also celebrated in some Anglican, Lutheran and Old Catholic Churches. Like Trinity Sunday and the Solemnity of Christ the King, it does not commemorate a particular event in...
probably in the town of Wakefield
Wakefield
Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....
, England during the late Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
until 1576. It is one of only four surviving English mystery play cycles.
The unique manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
, now housed at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, originated in the mid-fifteenth century. The Towneley family
Towneley (family)
The Towneley or Townley family are an English recusant family whose ancestry can be traced back to Norman England. They take their name from Towneley Hall in Burnley, Lancashire, which was the family seat until its sale in 1901.-The Towneleys of Towneley Hall:...
who lent their name to the manuscript, sold it at auction in 1814, but it was probably part of their library at a much earlier date. Although almost the entire manuscript is in a fifteenth-century hand, the cycle was performed as early as the fourteenth century in an earlier form.
The Wakefield Cycle is most renowned for the inclusion of "The Second Shepherds' Play
The Second Shepherds' Play
The Second Shepherds' Play is a famous medieval mystery play which is contained in the manuscript HM1, the unique manuscript of the Wakefield Cycle. It gained its name because in the manuscript it immediately follows another nativity play involving the shepherds...
," one of the jewels of medieval theatre
Medieval theatre
Medieval theatre refers to the theatre of Europe between the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century A.D. and the beginning of the Renaissance in approximately the 15th century A.D...
.
Authorship
The cycle is the work of multiple authors over the course of approximately two centuries. Some plays are shared with the York CycleYork Mystery Plays
The York Mystery Plays, more properly called the York Corpus Christi Plays, are a Middle English cycle of forty-eight mystery plays, or pageants, which cover sacred history from the creation to the Last Judgement. These were traditionally presented on the feast day of Corpus Christi...
. However, the most notable plays (including) "The Second Shepherd's Play" were written by an anonymous author dubbed the "Wakefield Master", who also wrote "Noah," "The First Shepherds' Play," "Herod the Great," and "The Buffeting," and may have revised "The Killing of Abel."
The term "Wakefield Master" emerged from a need to distinguish some material in the Towneley manuscript from a mass of unexceptional material, and was first coined by Charles Mills Gayley
Charles Mills Gayley
Charles Mills Gayley was a professor of English and the Classics at the University of California at Berkeley, from the fall of 1889 through July 1932.-Biography:...
. In 1903, Gayley and Alwin Thaler published an anthology of criticism and dramatic selections entitled Representative English Comedies. It had long been believed that the Towneley Play was a mediocre work that showed extensive borrowing from other sources but containing vibrant and exciting material, apparently by one author, who was responsible for four or five complete pageants and extensive revisions. Gayley refers to this person as the "master" (with a lowercase m) in the book. Then in a 1907 article, Gayley emended this to "The Wakefield Master," the name which is still frequently used.
Literary critics found several features in the Towneley manuscript worthy of interest. These features suggested an author of original poetic gifts, and came to be regarded as the marks of the Wakefield Master's hand.
The most obvious of these characteristics is that several of the pageants use a distinctive stanza, sometimes called the Wakefield Stanza (see below). The pageants that manifest the Wakefield Stanza are noted for comedy, social satire, and intense psychological realism. These qualities also show up throughout the Towneley Cycle, most often where it seems to depart from its presumed sources.
Some question the existence of one "Wakefield Master", and propose that multiple authors could have written in the Wakefield Stanza. Barbara Palmer suggests that the story of the Wakefield Master and the suggestion that the Second Shepherd's Play was performed as part of the Wakefield Cycle were both inventions of an amateur historian named J. M. W. Walker. However, scholars and literary critics find it useful to hypothesize a single talent behind them, due to the unique poetic qualities of the works ascribed to him.
Staging
There is widespread disagreement among scholars concerning the staging of the Wakefield Cycle, and of mystery plays in general. It is known that the cycle at York was staged on wagons that moved from place to place in the city, with multiple plays staged simultaneously in different locales in the city. However, there is disagreement as to whether the Wakefield plays were performed in a similar manner.One problem is that the population of Wakefield in 1377 (approximately the date of the first performance of the cycle) consisted of 567 people aged sixteen or older. Assuming that half were male, that leaves only about 280 men to play the 243 roles in the plays. This leaves many to believe that multiple plays were performed by the same cast during most of the lifetime of the cycle.
Another way in which the Wakefield cycle differed in its staging from other cycles is that lack of association with the guilds. In other towns York and Coventry
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
certain plays were staged by different guilds, according to their specialty (such as the shipwrights staging the Noah
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
play). Although the names of four guilds are found on the manuscript (the barkers
Tanning
Tanning is the making of leather from the skins of animals which does not easily decompose. Traditionally, tanning used tannin, an acidic chemical compound from which the tanning process draws its name . Coloring may occur during tanning...
, glovers, litsters, and fishers), they are found in a later hand than most of the manuscript. This has led some to believe that for its entire lifetime, the Wakefield Cycle was sponsored and produced by other associations, either governmental or religious. Either way, it was surely performed by non-professional actors from the community, as were all the cycles.
Wakefield Stanza
The most notable poetic innovation in the manuscript is called the Wakefield Stanza, which is found in the Noah play, the two shepherds' plays, the Herod play, and the Buffeting of Christ pageant. This unique characteristic may be described as:-- A nine-line stanza containing one quatrain with internal rhyme and a tail-rhymed cauda, rhyming AAAABCCCB; or—A thirteen-line stanza containing a cross-rhymed octet frons, a tercet cauda with tail-rhymes, the whole rhyming ABABABABCDDDC.
The former description was based upon the earliest editions of the play that, following the space-saving habits of the medieval scribe, who often wrote two verse-lines on a single manuscript line. Thus, depending upon how one interprets the manuscript, a stanza (from the Noah pageant) might appear in either of the following forms:
- The thryd tyme wille I prufe what depnes we bere
- Now long shalle thou hufe, lay in thy lyne there.
- I may towch with my hufe the grownd evyn here.
- Then begynnys to grufe to us mery chere;
- Bot, husband,
- What grownd may this be?
- The hyllys of Armonye.
- Now blissid be he
- That thus for us can ordand.
- The thryd tyme wille I prufe
- what depnes we bere
- Now long shalle thou hufe,
- lay in thy lyne there.
- I may towch with my hufe
- the grownd evyn here.
- Then begynnys to grufe
- to us mery chere;
- Bot, husband,
- What grownd may this be?
- The hyllys of Armonye.
- Now blissid be he
- That thus for us can ordand.
(All the punctuation and indentations are editorial and not part of the original manuscript.)
In the first case above, the first four lines contain internal rhyme
Rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...
(i.e., "prufe," "hufe," "hufe," and "grufe"); but the second example arranges the same verses in shorter lines, which in the manuscript are separated from one another by apparently random use of the obelus (÷), virgules [/], double-virgules[//], and line-breaks. In the second example, it is readily seen that the poet uses a cross-rhymed octet frons with a five-line tail-rhymed cauda. It is this innovative use of the cauda that is most distinctive in the stanza.
There is some disagreement over whether the Wakefield Stanza is a 9 line or a 13 line. Owing largely to A.C.Cawley
Arthur Clare Cawley
Arthur Clare Cawley was an English literature academic. He was foundation professor of English Language and Medieval Literature at the University of Leeds. The university currently offers a post-graduate scholarship in his name....
's 1957 edition of five of the pageants, and to others' arrangement of the manuscript lines, this is sometimes thought to be a nine-line stanza, with the quatrain containing internal rhyme. This view predominated in the critical literature until the late twentieth century, and has fallen out of favor. When Cawley himself edited the entire cycle with Martin Stevens for publication in 1994, the two opted to present the lines as a thirteen-line stanza. In any case, the number of syllables in the lines is variable, and the number of stressed syllables can usually be counted at two or three per line in the thirteen-line version.
Since the Towneley Play was a drama and therefore spoken rather than read silently, to some degree this presentation of the poetic units in graphical form is somewhat arbitrary and inconsequential. But it does provide insights into the poetic influences and innovations of the Wakefield Master.
Protestant Censorship
In its later performances, the cycle was subject to censorshipCensorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
by the Protestant authorities before being discontinued completely. The play about John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
had been "corrected" to conform to Protestant doctrines about the sacraments. The word "pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
" was excised from "Herod the Great," and twelve leaves are completely missing, which scholars suspect contained plays about the death, Assumption
Assumption of Mary
According to the belief of Christians of the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and parts of the Anglican Communion and Continuing Anglicanism, the Assumption of Mary was the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her life...
, and coronation as Queen of Heaven of the Virgin Mary
Mary (mother of Jesus)
Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
.
Sources of the plays
The majority of the plays that make up the Wakefield Cycle are based (some rather tenuously) on the BibleBible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, while the others are taken from either Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
or folk
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
tradition.
- The Creation myth
- The Killing of AbelCain and AbelIn the Hebrew Bible, Cain and Abel are two sons of Adam and Eve. The Qur'an mentions the story, calling them the two sons of Adam only....
- Noah
- AbrahamAbrahamAbraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
- IsaacIsaacIsaac as described in the Hebrew Bible, was the only son Abraham had with his wife Sarah, and was the father of Jacob and Esau. Isaac was one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites...
- JacobJacobJacob "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.In the...
- Pharaoh (the ExodusThe ExodusThe Exodus is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible.Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness...
) - The Procession of the Prophets
- Caesar AugustusAugustusAugustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
- The AnnunciationAnnunciationThe Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her...
- The Salutation of ElizabethElizabeth (Biblical person)Elizabeth is also spelled Elisabeth or Elisheva...
- The First Shepherds' Play
- The Second Shepherds' PlayThe Second Shepherds' PlayThe Second Shepherds' Play is a famous medieval mystery play which is contained in the manuscript HM1, the unique manuscript of the Wakefield Cycle. It gained its name because in the manuscript it immediately follows another nativity play involving the shepherds...
- The Offering of the MagiMagiMagi is a term, used since at least the 4th century BC, to denote a follower of Zoroaster, or rather, a follower of what the Hellenistic world associated Zoroaster with, which...
- The Flight into EgyptEgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
- Herod the GreatHerod the GreatHerod , also known as Herod the Great , was a Roman client king of Judea. His epithet of "the Great" is widely disputed as he is described as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis." He is also known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and elsewhere, including his...
- The Purification of Mary
- The Play of the Doctors
- John the Baptist
- LazarusLazarus of BethanyLazarus of Bethany, also known as Saint Lazarus or Lazarus of the Four Days, is the subject of a prominent miracle attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus restores him to life four days after his death...
- The Conspiracy
- The Buffeting
- The Scourging
- The Hanging of JudasJudas IscariotJudas Iscariot was, according to the New Testament, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. He is best known for his betrayal of Jesus to the hands of the chief priests for 30 pieces of silver.-Etymology:...
- The CrucifixionCrucifixionCrucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...
- The Talents
- The Deliverance of Souls
- The Resurrection
- The Pilgrims
- ThomasThomas the ApostleThomas the Apostle, also called Doubting Thomas or Didymus was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. He is best known for questioning Jesus' resurrection when first told of it, then proclaiming "My Lord and my God" on seeing Jesus in . He was perhaps the only Apostle who went outside the Roman...
of India - The Ascension of the Lord
- The JudgementLast JudgmentThe Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, or The Day of the Lord in Christian theology, is the final and eternal judgment by God of every nation. The concept is found in all the Canonical gospels, particularly the Gospel of Matthew. It will purportedly take place after the...
Appearance in popular culture
When the Andrew Lloyd Webber–Tim Rice musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor DreamcoatJoseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with lyrics by Tim Rice. The story is based on the "coat of many colors" story of Joseph from the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly...
was in its infancy in 1972, it was so short that productions needed an added preamble to create a valid showpiece. Frank Dunlop
Frank Dunlop
Frank Dunlop is an Irish lobbyist and former broadcast journalist with Raidió Teilifís Éireann . Originally from County Kilkenny, he is a key witness to the Mahon Tribunal which is investigating improper payments by property developers to Irish politicians and will be a key witness in pending...
, in the first British theatrical performances of the musical on stage, preceded his Young Vic productions of Joseph with his own adaptation of the first six Wakefield Mystery Plays, which were credited in the programme. The entire production was a double bill called Bible One: Two Looks at the Book of Genesis. Part I, entitled The Creation to Jacob (or Mediaevel Mystery Plays), was Dunlop's reworking of the first six Wakefield plays, with music by Alan Doggett. Part II was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Sources
Rose, Martial. (1963). "An Introduction to the Wakefield Plays," in The Wakefield Mystery Plays, Anchor Books.External links
- Wakefield Mystery Plays at the Wakefield Council web site