What are cycle plays and where did they come from?
In the Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, Alexandra F. Johnston writes in the introduction that "liturgical drama was not originally conceived as a presentation for a passive audience of spectators". (4) Although most of the original church plays were written and performed in Latin, by the 13th century many of them were being performed in English. This change was brought about by developments within the church. The cycle (or mystery) plays were designed to promote devoutness and faith to the church and God. The creation of the mendicant friars, who were "separate from the secular clergy, with there emphasis on evangelism, acts of charity, and emotive spirituality" (Johnston 5) allowed these plays to move from the private to the public sphere.
Johnston explains that a distinct shift in the Eucharist also influenced the public performance of cycle plays. The new Eucharist ritual involved the metamorphosis of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. This "doctrine of transubstantiation" (5) as Johnston calls it led to the establishment of a Corpus Christi feast to celebrate the divinity. Johnston continues saying that the "feast was celebrated on the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday (a Thursday falling between 21 May and 24 June, inclusive, according to the date of the preceding Easter), and in some English cities, such as York and Coventry, it also became the occasion of annual cycles of Biblical plays". (5)
These cycle plays were meant to embody (like the sacraments) the mysteries of the divine and instruct the spectators in how to live a good life. The stories told in the York Cycle (for the purposes of this presentation of research I will continue to reference the York Cycle for clarity), for example, include:
Johnston explains that a distinct shift in the Eucharist also influenced the public performance of cycle plays. The new Eucharist ritual involved the metamorphosis of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. This "doctrine of transubstantiation" (5) as Johnston calls it led to the establishment of a Corpus Christi feast to celebrate the divinity. Johnston continues saying that the "feast was celebrated on the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday (a Thursday falling between 21 May and 24 June, inclusive, according to the date of the preceding Easter), and in some English cities, such as York and Coventry, it also became the occasion of annual cycles of Biblical plays". (5)
These cycle plays were meant to embody (like the sacraments) the mysteries of the divine and instruct the spectators in how to live a good life. The stories told in the York Cycle (for the purposes of this presentation of research I will continue to reference the York Cycle for clarity), for example, include:
- The Creation, Fall of Lucifer
- The Creation of the Fifth Day
- God creates Adam and Eve
- Man's disobedience and Fall
- Building the Ark
- Abraham's Sacrifice
- Woman taken into Adultery, Raising of Lazarus
- The Last Supper
- The Agony and Betrayal
- Harrowing of Hell
- Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin
(Image from Smith's edition of the York Mystery Plays)
There are dozens of plays included in each cycle and they would have performed them throughout the festivities.
Before continuing on to look at how the cycle plays were performed, it is important to note what Johnston says about the actual material scholars have to study:
"We are reliant on written records that include, on the one hand, the texts of the plays that have survived from the medieval period and much later, and on the other, references to dramatic activity in external sources, such as civil and ecclesiastical prohibitions, civic ordinances and, most frequently, financial accounts. Both sources of information do not provide the full picture, however. Nearly all of medieval play-texts were ephemeral objects, scripted for performance purposes only, and the idea of preserving plays in written form did not become common in Britain and Ireland until much later. If medieval plays did come to be written down for long-term preservation it was usually for reasons that had little to do with practical performance. The earliest surviving text of the complete Chester cycle, for example, was committed to manuscript in an antiquarian spirit twenty years after the last date on which it is known to have been performed. The extant canon of early drama in Britain and Ireland is much smaller than that from most Continental countries, partly because so few of the early plays from the British Isles were written down in permanent form, and partly because those which were became liable to destruction on doctrinal grounds at the Reformation." (Johnston 7-8)
Clearly, although we can talk about these plays and read some of the texts, we cannot fully understand them as they were meant to be seen. These performances exist in the world of the repertoire, as Diana Taylor would say, which poses a challenge for theory historians. But it is one that we should not shy away from!
Before continuing on to look at how the cycle plays were performed, it is important to note what Johnston says about the actual material scholars have to study:
"We are reliant on written records that include, on the one hand, the texts of the plays that have survived from the medieval period and much later, and on the other, references to dramatic activity in external sources, such as civil and ecclesiastical prohibitions, civic ordinances and, most frequently, financial accounts. Both sources of information do not provide the full picture, however. Nearly all of medieval play-texts were ephemeral objects, scripted for performance purposes only, and the idea of preserving plays in written form did not become common in Britain and Ireland until much later. If medieval plays did come to be written down for long-term preservation it was usually for reasons that had little to do with practical performance. The earliest surviving text of the complete Chester cycle, for example, was committed to manuscript in an antiquarian spirit twenty years after the last date on which it is known to have been performed. The extant canon of early drama in Britain and Ireland is much smaller than that from most Continental countries, partly because so few of the early plays from the British Isles were written down in permanent form, and partly because those which were became liable to destruction on doctrinal grounds at the Reformation." (Johnston 7-8)
Clearly, although we can talk about these plays and read some of the texts, we cannot fully understand them as they were meant to be seen. These performances exist in the world of the repertoire, as Diana Taylor would say, which poses a challenge for theory historians. But it is one that we should not shy away from!
An example of a cycle play from the York Cycle
(from the volume edited by Lucy Toulmin Smith)
Location, Location, Location
In Chapter 2 of the Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, Twycross explains that "all surviving pageant wagons have a basic structure in common". (29) Each cycle (or play as many scholars call it) is made of up several pageants (or tableaux or vignettes) that tell the whole story of the universe from the moment before creation to the Day of Judgement (i.e. the end). Twycross continues, explaining that "each episode [pageant] was delegated to a separate group, a craft or religious guild, which was totally responsible for its production. Each group had or shared a mobile stage also called a pageant, which when their turn came they pulled through the city along a traditional route, stopping at prearranged stations (the word means 'stopping place') to perform their episode." (29)
There was one route that all of the pageants followed that went through the city. If there were ten pageants, then there were ten stations. Pageant number one would begin its journey and would stop at each of the ten stations to play out their vignette. Pageant number two would start the journey after Pageant one reached station one so that they would arrive there to play out their episode as soon as the first one finished. If a spectator were to arrive at a station prior to the first pageant's arrival, they could stay at that station and see the entire play - or cycle - played out in full. They did not, however, have to do this. They could move about the city or they could arrive part way through the cycle.
This is where my first question comes into play. Is it the narrative or the spectacle of the cycle that is more important? Each episode is its own individual lesson, however, they are meant to fit together as a whole to form the history of the world. So what happens if an audience member comes in part way through? If the cycle is meant to cleanse the soul - like a Eucharist - and is meant to evoke feelings of veneration for Christ, does the cycle still have the same ecclesiastic effect in part as it does in whole? And what if an audience member is walking from one end of the city to the other and is travelling in the opposite direction from the cycle? If they see the story in reverse, does it matter? Or is it more that they are present and participating at all that is the most important thing? Or is it the journey? As I said in my introduction to this research project, I have more questions than answers.
To get back to the topic, how were the route and stations selected? Did they have a particular meaning or significance? First, let us take a look at a map of the route for the York cycle.
There was one route that all of the pageants followed that went through the city. If there were ten pageants, then there were ten stations. Pageant number one would begin its journey and would stop at each of the ten stations to play out their vignette. Pageant number two would start the journey after Pageant one reached station one so that they would arrive there to play out their episode as soon as the first one finished. If a spectator were to arrive at a station prior to the first pageant's arrival, they could stay at that station and see the entire play - or cycle - played out in full. They did not, however, have to do this. They could move about the city or they could arrive part way through the cycle.
This is where my first question comes into play. Is it the narrative or the spectacle of the cycle that is more important? Each episode is its own individual lesson, however, they are meant to fit together as a whole to form the history of the world. So what happens if an audience member comes in part way through? If the cycle is meant to cleanse the soul - like a Eucharist - and is meant to evoke feelings of veneration for Christ, does the cycle still have the same ecclesiastic effect in part as it does in whole? And what if an audience member is walking from one end of the city to the other and is travelling in the opposite direction from the cycle? If they see the story in reverse, does it matter? Or is it more that they are present and participating at all that is the most important thing? Or is it the journey? As I said in my introduction to this research project, I have more questions than answers.
To get back to the topic, how were the route and stations selected? Did they have a particular meaning or significance? First, let us take a look at a map of the route for the York cycle.
(Image from Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, p.28)
It is difficult to tell from this image, however, the pageant route is defined by slightly thicker black lines outlining the streets. It seems that the cycle would have started at the bottom left-hand part, near Holy Trinity, and would have gone straight, then turned left and continued in a circular shape and then returned back out to its starting point. This may not have been the case for every York Cycle; this could have been the route only for one year. It was dependant on the number of pageants and stations and it also varied from cycle to cycle and from town to town.
So aside from many of the stations being at churches, was there any other significance to the locations chosen? In his book Four Middle English Mystery Cycles: Textual, Contextual, and Critical Interpretations, Martin Stevens explains that a cycle play was "no mere popular entertainment, no ordinary annual festive occasion; it was the city's proud and solemn celebration of itself... Medieval city drama, both in its manner of production and its dramatic content, presented to its spectators a mirror of their lives and their environment. The York cycle derives its unity from its multifaceted view of the city and its inhabitants. ". (17-29) It is clear that the city is as much a part of the cycle as the pageants, so it can be concluded that the choice of location must be of some significance. Both literally and philosophically, the cycle plays represented journeys, most notably the journey of Christ to Jerusalem. In a discussion of the York cycle, Stevens says, "The processional journey that led inward into the city was, in effect, a vicarious pilgrimage. Like all of the highest pilgrimages, its goal was the visitation of Jerusalem, which, in the mimetic mode of drama, the host city had become." (65) For the audience to understand this pilgrimage, the pageants had to represent the locations of that pilgrimage; like the city they had to transform.
This raises the question of whether it was the physical location of the station that was important or if it was the image of locate created by the pageant that was of a higher significance. In his book Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama, Theodore K. Lerud explains that "From its earliest forms in Mass, the liturgy was regarded as a memorial to Christ's life, and the tropes and ceremonies to which it gave rise contain clear evidence of attention to matters of context and place. At the same time, the developing visual art of manuscript illumination, particularly the illumination of the Book of Hours largely contemporary with the Corpus Christi plays, reveals a sensitivity on several levels to space, border, and background, which suggests parallels to the drama." (63) This idea of context and place in a visual sense offers the idea that the symbolic location - i.e. the background of the pageant - is more important than the physical placement of the pageant in terms of the audience's understanding of the liturgy. There is no definitive answer to this question, however. It seems that both the physical location - the city as stage - and the representational location - the symbolic place - are important to the understand and the meaning behind the cycle plays.
The following are some images that could have inspired the backdrops for pageants:
So aside from many of the stations being at churches, was there any other significance to the locations chosen? In his book Four Middle English Mystery Cycles: Textual, Contextual, and Critical Interpretations, Martin Stevens explains that a cycle play was "no mere popular entertainment, no ordinary annual festive occasion; it was the city's proud and solemn celebration of itself... Medieval city drama, both in its manner of production and its dramatic content, presented to its spectators a mirror of their lives and their environment. The York cycle derives its unity from its multifaceted view of the city and its inhabitants. ". (17-29) It is clear that the city is as much a part of the cycle as the pageants, so it can be concluded that the choice of location must be of some significance. Both literally and philosophically, the cycle plays represented journeys, most notably the journey of Christ to Jerusalem. In a discussion of the York cycle, Stevens says, "The processional journey that led inward into the city was, in effect, a vicarious pilgrimage. Like all of the highest pilgrimages, its goal was the visitation of Jerusalem, which, in the mimetic mode of drama, the host city had become." (65) For the audience to understand this pilgrimage, the pageants had to represent the locations of that pilgrimage; like the city they had to transform.
This raises the question of whether it was the physical location of the station that was important or if it was the image of locate created by the pageant that was of a higher significance. In his book Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama, Theodore K. Lerud explains that "From its earliest forms in Mass, the liturgy was regarded as a memorial to Christ's life, and the tropes and ceremonies to which it gave rise contain clear evidence of attention to matters of context and place. At the same time, the developing visual art of manuscript illumination, particularly the illumination of the Book of Hours largely contemporary with the Corpus Christi plays, reveals a sensitivity on several levels to space, border, and background, which suggests parallels to the drama." (63) This idea of context and place in a visual sense offers the idea that the symbolic location - i.e. the background of the pageant - is more important than the physical placement of the pageant in terms of the audience's understanding of the liturgy. There is no definitive answer to this question, however. It seems that both the physical location - the city as stage - and the representational location - the symbolic place - are important to the understand and the meaning behind the cycle plays.
The following are some images that could have inspired the backdrops for pageants:
(Images pulled from Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama, p. 77-93)
The Who and the How
In his book The Drama of Medieval England, Arnold Williams begins discussing the production of cycle plays by saying, "The cycle plays were a product of the municipal enterprise of fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth century England. A group of plays such as that of York is as unthinkable in the eleventh century as it would be in the twentieth, for in the eleventh century the town life which supported them scarcely existed. The manner of their creation, the fashion of their production, their financial support, even many of the literary features they exhibit are understandable only against the background of the society which gave rise to them, the medieval town." (91) The cycle plays were initiated by the church, but they required the entire town to produce them. This is a variation on the theme of the town itself being the stage; the town itself is also the producer.
The Corporation and the Guilds
As mentioned earlier, the pageants were split up amongst different guilds. The corporation decided which pageants would go to which crafts or guilds. These guilds included:
(Smith xxxvi)
Williams explains that the "principal task of the corporation was to see that each guild pulled its weight". (92) The corporation was in a sense the curator and made sure that each pageant was prepared according to the values of the overall concept and that each guild was able to pay for their pageant. One could say that not all guilds were created equal. Some were much larger than others and some were simply wealthier. And others did not have the funds or resources to pay for their pageants entirely by themselves. Williams points out that "The records are full of accommodations to such circumstances. The chandlers and cooks are commanded to contribute to the smith's play, the butchers to pay sixteen shillings and eightpence yearly to the whittawers' play, and the like." (92) This again comes back to the idea of the city as a whole being part of the cycle play.
The Playwrights
The authorship of the cycle plays is a somewhat contested subject. From the language used in the various pageants, it is clear that cycles were not always written by one person. It is not always known who wrote the plays - or what their real names were. In Studies in Fifteenth-Century Stagecraft, Robinson discusses two prominent playwrights: The Wakefield Master and the York Realist. Robinson clearly identifies the different writing styles of these two playwrights. The Wakefield Master, "who consistently writes in a particular stanzaic form and has a pronounced aptitude for proverbial language and an interest in contemporary rural life, with which he manifests a detached sympathy, unarguably wrote five of the Biblical plays in the Towneley manuscript". (Robinson 17) To compare the two authors, Robinson explains that the York Realist "writes true or functional alliterative verse in rhyming stanzas, but unlike the Wakefield Master uses different stanzaic forms for each of his plays... and he has a strong interesting in argument and debate as well as in contemporary upper-class life, which he satirizes." (18) He is said to be the author of many of the York plays, hence his name. It is clear that although the pageants and plays may have been written by different people and have had a different slant (i.e. rural versus upper-class life), the playwrights were consistently using heightened language and poetic or rhetorical form in their scripts. This type of language could be used to set the cycle plays apart from other forms of theatre that existed at the time. It could also be used to codify and deify the performances, making them almost ritualistic.
The Actors (Players)
Anyone could be an actor in a cycle play, but only the best were chosen! Smith writes that there was "no lack of players". (Smith xxxvii) It was up to the individual guilds to cast their shows, so there was competition for the best actors. What is interesting about the players in the cycle plays is not those who are on the stage, but those who are in the audience. Twycross explains that "Processional production also gave rise to a perception of the play, on the audience's part, which is unfamiliar to us. Our modern concept of the captive audience is irrelevant. In York, for nearly twenty hours, some part of the play would be going on in some part of the town. It was more like a party one could drop into and out of at will." (34) The movement of the audience invites them to be participatory, not simply passive.
This does, however, bring up one of my questions regarding the narrative versus spectacle. Twycross touches upon this saying, "One view sees the pageants as a picture sequence, the same in kind and intent as those of the Book of Hours... The other dimension, the warp to history's weft, is the recurring strands of doctrine and imagery". (35) She clearly sets the narrative in contrast to the spectacle, but yet again there is no conclusion as to which one was more important - or which one provided the meaning that the cycle plays were intending to entrust to the audience. Perhaps the very nature of the cycle plays entrusts not only the meaning but the ability to find the meaning to the audience. It could be that the choice that the audience, the requirement for active participation in their reception of the plays, is what allows them to find the meaning.
The Stages
Twycross explains that "Our clearest description of one [a pageant] is a laconic pair of items in an inventory of 'particulars appartaynyng to the Company of the Grocers' of Norwich in 1565:
A Pageant, that is to says, a howse of waynskott painted and buylded on a carte with fowre whelys
A square topp to sett over the sayde howse (35)
Simply put, the pageants were wagons with roofs. Williams provides more detail about the pageants, saying that "The total impression which they create is that productions of the cycle plays must have approached the lavish. The extravagant taste of the fifteenth century to which the decorated architecture of the period and the work of illuminators and painters, especially in the Low Countries, testify is supported by the records of the playing guilds. In the nature of things, we cannot know what we would most like to know, how competent the acting and directing was, but perhaps we can infer something from the care taken to provide the costume, properties and scenic effects." (94) It may not be top priority for all theatre historians to know how well a play was acted, but the attention to detail does give us some clue as to the quality of the pageants being produced. Although the pageant structures were simplistic, they were dressed to be worthy of Christ, the reason the cycle plays were created in the first place. This lavishness could have the same effect as the heightened language. The use of music, costuming and scenic paintings would transport the audience to the world of the divine, recreating Christ's pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
The Corporation and the Guilds
As mentioned earlier, the pageants were split up amongst different guilds. The corporation decided which pageants would go to which crafts or guilds. These guilds included:
- The Skinners
- The Walkers
- The Tapiters
- The Tanners
- The Carpenters
- The Bakers
- The Cordiners
- The Cowpers
(Smith xxxvi)
Williams explains that the "principal task of the corporation was to see that each guild pulled its weight". (92) The corporation was in a sense the curator and made sure that each pageant was prepared according to the values of the overall concept and that each guild was able to pay for their pageant. One could say that not all guilds were created equal. Some were much larger than others and some were simply wealthier. And others did not have the funds or resources to pay for their pageants entirely by themselves. Williams points out that "The records are full of accommodations to such circumstances. The chandlers and cooks are commanded to contribute to the smith's play, the butchers to pay sixteen shillings and eightpence yearly to the whittawers' play, and the like." (92) This again comes back to the idea of the city as a whole being part of the cycle play.
The Playwrights
The authorship of the cycle plays is a somewhat contested subject. From the language used in the various pageants, it is clear that cycles were not always written by one person. It is not always known who wrote the plays - or what their real names were. In Studies in Fifteenth-Century Stagecraft, Robinson discusses two prominent playwrights: The Wakefield Master and the York Realist. Robinson clearly identifies the different writing styles of these two playwrights. The Wakefield Master, "who consistently writes in a particular stanzaic form and has a pronounced aptitude for proverbial language and an interest in contemporary rural life, with which he manifests a detached sympathy, unarguably wrote five of the Biblical plays in the Towneley manuscript". (Robinson 17) To compare the two authors, Robinson explains that the York Realist "writes true or functional alliterative verse in rhyming stanzas, but unlike the Wakefield Master uses different stanzaic forms for each of his plays... and he has a strong interesting in argument and debate as well as in contemporary upper-class life, which he satirizes." (18) He is said to be the author of many of the York plays, hence his name. It is clear that although the pageants and plays may have been written by different people and have had a different slant (i.e. rural versus upper-class life), the playwrights were consistently using heightened language and poetic or rhetorical form in their scripts. This type of language could be used to set the cycle plays apart from other forms of theatre that existed at the time. It could also be used to codify and deify the performances, making them almost ritualistic.
The Actors (Players)
Anyone could be an actor in a cycle play, but only the best were chosen! Smith writes that there was "no lack of players". (Smith xxxvii) It was up to the individual guilds to cast their shows, so there was competition for the best actors. What is interesting about the players in the cycle plays is not those who are on the stage, but those who are in the audience. Twycross explains that "Processional production also gave rise to a perception of the play, on the audience's part, which is unfamiliar to us. Our modern concept of the captive audience is irrelevant. In York, for nearly twenty hours, some part of the play would be going on in some part of the town. It was more like a party one could drop into and out of at will." (34) The movement of the audience invites them to be participatory, not simply passive.
This does, however, bring up one of my questions regarding the narrative versus spectacle. Twycross touches upon this saying, "One view sees the pageants as a picture sequence, the same in kind and intent as those of the Book of Hours... The other dimension, the warp to history's weft, is the recurring strands of doctrine and imagery". (35) She clearly sets the narrative in contrast to the spectacle, but yet again there is no conclusion as to which one was more important - or which one provided the meaning that the cycle plays were intending to entrust to the audience. Perhaps the very nature of the cycle plays entrusts not only the meaning but the ability to find the meaning to the audience. It could be that the choice that the audience, the requirement for active participation in their reception of the plays, is what allows them to find the meaning.
The Stages
Twycross explains that "Our clearest description of one [a pageant] is a laconic pair of items in an inventory of 'particulars appartaynyng to the Company of the Grocers' of Norwich in 1565:
A Pageant, that is to says, a howse of waynskott painted and buylded on a carte with fowre whelys
A square topp to sett over the sayde howse (35)
Simply put, the pageants were wagons with roofs. Williams provides more detail about the pageants, saying that "The total impression which they create is that productions of the cycle plays must have approached the lavish. The extravagant taste of the fifteenth century to which the decorated architecture of the period and the work of illuminators and painters, especially in the Low Countries, testify is supported by the records of the playing guilds. In the nature of things, we cannot know what we would most like to know, how competent the acting and directing was, but perhaps we can infer something from the care taken to provide the costume, properties and scenic effects." (94) It may not be top priority for all theatre historians to know how well a play was acted, but the attention to detail does give us some clue as to the quality of the pageants being produced. Although the pageant structures were simplistic, they were dressed to be worthy of Christ, the reason the cycle plays were created in the first place. This lavishness could have the same effect as the heightened language. The use of music, costuming and scenic paintings would transport the audience to the world of the divine, recreating Christ's pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
(Samples of music from the York Cycle plays pulled from Smith's edition of the York Mystery Plays.)