8
The term ‘property’ as used in theatrical contexts is not commonly found in medieval play texts or records. The principal reference to the word is that used in The Castle of Perseveraunce, where it is associated with the term ‘parcellys’ (parcels or players’ parts) as a means of describing the process through which the players ‘purpose us to playe’:
þese parcellys in propyrtes we purpose us to playe
þis day seuenenyt before ȝou in syth
At … on þe grene in ryal aray.1
The MED is cautious in its definition of the term prŏpretē:’3.(b)?an appurtenance for a play,?stage property’. The word ‘property’ is often shortened to the term ‘prop’, and it is this practice that leads to a potential confusion of meaning. A relatively modern use takes the meaning of ‘prop’ to be that of ‘propping up something’ or ‘supporting something’.2 This understanding is different, but not that far removed, from the meaning of ‘props’ as objects to assist in the promotion of theatrical statement conditioned by players.3 In medieval use, the property is more concerned with its symbolic attributes in addition to any functional qualities that it might possess in promoting and directing didactic purpose. The medieval prop, as an object, embodies functional, symbolic and didactic purpose.
Ornaments
Perhaps one of the reasons for the limited medieval use of the word ‘property’ might be the more prevalent use of the term ‘ornament’. Of the various words used to describe ‘properties’, the term ‘ornament’ appears to be the most consistently used and the one I shall use hereafter. In 1445, John Causton was appointed to ‘mantaine the ornamts belonging to Corp’ Xi pageant, and the stages’ at Ipswich:
John Causton admitted, and sworne free Burgess, uppon condition that for seven yeres next following, he shall mantaine the ornamts belonging to Corp’ Xi pageant, and the stages, receiving the Charges thereof from the farmers of the Common Marshe, and the Portmens medow, as the Bayliffs for the time being shall think meete.4
In the same document, for 1492, it is recorded that ‘Kepers of the Ornamts and utensiles of Corp’ Chr’i appointed’.5 The Memorandum of Agreement Concerning the Midsummer Watch at Chester (1563–64) requires ‘Thomas Poole & Robrt hallwood […] bring ffurth repare & have in redines for the wache afforeseid all suche ornamentes as hereafter ensueth […] withall furnytures thervnto belongeng’.6 At Cambridge, in the King’s College Liber Communarum, an account for Christmas week in 1484–85 records: ‘Item pro communis vnius Scissoris reparentis Ornamenta Aule x d’ (Likewise for the commons of one tailor repairing the ornaments of the hall 10 d).7 Storage of play ornaments is accounted for in the Christ’s College Accounts at Cambridge in 1534–35: ‘Item for a sugar cheyst for the players ornamentes vj d’.8 The Coventry Leet Book records the inability of the Card-makers and Saddlers in 1531 to maintain the costs of their pageant and, thus, their entry into an agreement with the more affluent Cappers for the transfer of their pageant, its ‘ornamentes, Juelles & lightes […] appurtenaunces & apparells’ to the Cappers, together with a chapel in the parish church of St Michael:
Item, wher-as the Company, feliship, & Craft of Cardemakers & Sadelers of this Citie meny yeires & of longe continuaunce haue hadd & yet haue the cheif rule, gouernaunce, reparyng & meyntenaunce as-well of a Chapell within the parishe Churche of seynt Michelles in the seid Citie, named seynt Thomas Chappell, & of the ornamentes, Juelles & lightes of the same, As also of a pagiaunt with the pagiaunt-house & pleyng geire with other appurtenaunces & apparells belongyng to the same pagiaunt.9
Although accounts of ‘ornaments’ tend to be sporadically recorded in play accounts, they are more commonly found in relation to church fittings, fixtures and clothing. Presumably, use of the word for theatrical purposes became transferrable from ecclesiastical practice.10 Such use is recorded in the Letters and papers of John Shillingford, Mayor of Exeter 1447–50, where an article of complaint records further use of the term ‘ornament’:
diverse marchauntez that bryngeth theyre marchaundyses to towne to sylle yn tymes of feyrez have be ever woned and usyd specially when that grete multitude of peple and muche marchaundyse comyth to the Cyte, to ley opene bye and sylle diverse marchaundisez yn the seide churche and cimitery and speciall yn the kyngges hye way ther as atte Welles Salysbury and other places moo, as dishes bollys and other thyngges lyke and yn the seyde churche ornamentes for the same and other juellys convenyant therto.11
In Lincoln in the 1520s, the Guild of St Anne’s became ‘the chief producer of civic entertainments in Lincoln […] charged with mounting civic processions, pageants, and drama’.12 The City Council Minute Book for 1514–15 records the difficulty of borrowing ‘he⌈a⌉riormentes’ (ornaments) due to fear of the plague:
also in This presentes it is agreid That wher diuers garmentes & other he⌈a⌉riormentes is yerly boroyd [borrowed] in the Cuntrey ffor the arryeyng off ye [page] pagentes off Saynt anne gyld now ye knyght & gentylmen be ffreyd with [afraid of] the plage So yat the graceman Can borowght non Sutch garmentes wherfore euery alderman Schall prepare & Setfoorth in ye Seid arrey ij good gownes and euery Scheryff pere a gowne and euery Chaumberlen pere a gowne & the persons with Theym To weyr ye Same13
Other terms that are sometimes used in Lincoln to describe ‘ornaments’ are ‘implements’, ‘utensils’ and ‘stock’. An inventory of 1568 identifies that ‘the Commen Clerk of this Citie schall viewe & make an Inuentorye of such Implementes∧ ⌈vtenselles ⌉ Stuff & gere as the seid william huddylston haith in custodye of [f] any guyldes or plays’.14 The mayor of Lincoln is recorded as delivering the stock of St George’s Guild to the graceman of the Guild: ‘Also itt is agreid that master maier shall tak the graceman of Saint George gyld beffor hym & vppon good & sufficient Suertie Delyuer to the said graceman the stok of the sam’.15 In York, the 1433 indenture of the Mercers’ Guild itemises the ornaments of their pageant as ‘parcelles’: ‘þe saide Maister & constables has deliuerde to þe saide Pagent Maisters all þir parcelles vndrewretyn langing to þaire pagent safely to kepe & to gouerne for þaire tyme’.16 In the Chester Waterleaders and Drawers of Dee play of Noyes Fludd (Play 3), a stage direction records that Noe ‘wrought upon the shippe with divers instruements’.17
Clearly, reference to ornaments, implements, appurtenances, utensils, parcels and instruments refers to physical objects in the service of plays, pageants and processions. These names, alternatives to ‘properties’ or ‘props’, signify their function as objects aiding the realisation of theatrical statement. In order for ornaments to work theatrically, they need to be precisely selected, precisely used or referred to and precisely manipulated to create didactic meaning. Principally, in medieval English theatre, the selection and focused use of ornaments is predetermined by biblical or other religiously orientated narratives. Because of these kinds of narrative sources, it may well be that the ornament already possessed didactic significance that simply needed to be re-presented in theatrical form. If the ornament did not already possess didactic quality or significance, then it would have had to be imbued with such attributes in performance in order to realise its theatrical purpose. This potential relationship between an object in its non-theatrical life and its theatrical interpretation is what is referred to by Frances Teague as the ‘dislocated function’, where ‘the property has a function, but it is not the same function as it has offstage (though it may imitate that ordinary function)’.18 Although Teague makes this distinction in relation to any theatre, she does so in a context relevant to her examination of Shakespearian theatre. An object taken from everyday life may retain its physical shape, size and weight when used ‘on stage’. However, its identity changes when it is used for a theatrical purpose, particularly when it is used by the player for a didactic purpose that is intended to symbolise the action through a form of shorthand representation.19 Andrew Sofer, writing of post-1560 Renaissance theatre, encapsulates this symbolic value: ‘And while they [objects] may be drawn into stage action in various ways, their default function is to convey information about the play world in a kind of visual shorthand, as when boots suggest a journey’.20
Although ornaments are listed for use throughout the country, the largest recorded collections appear to be those in lists and inventories at Coventry and Cambridge.21 This should not automatically imply that such detailed accounts record the most comprehensive use of ornaments in these places: they may simply act as a reflection of their respective accounting processes. Searches through any of the REED volumes will testify to the widespread use of ornaments, where there are many more itemised in stage directions and accounts after my 1560 limit and fewer records before 1560. Even so, the recorded range of ornaments and effects is too extensive to itemise in its entirety, and so I have selected examples, itemised in accounts and explicit stage directions, that represent types of ornaments that are different in kind, purpose and function. There are a number of ornaments and effects that I have examined in other works which I omit here or refer to tangentially. These include the use of dice, light, fire and water.22
Different college accounts at Cambridge record payment for some distinctively imaginative ornaments. The Trinity College Senior Bursar’s Accounts record payment in 1554–55 ‘for makyng iij crocodiles & iij aspides vj d’.23 The Junior Bursar’s Accounts at Trinity College, for the same accounting year, itemise the ‘makyn a payre of lytle gallowes for ye shew’ (the amount paid is not itemised).24 The St John’s College Register of Inventories for 1541–42 records provision of ‘Plaiares Garmentes Lienge in the chest in our Masteres owtward chamber’: ornaments are also kept in this chest.25 There are: ‘iij golden scepteres’, ‘vnum invenitur’, ‘iij sheldes’, ‘a [Cappe] Crowne & face for Iupiter’, ‘A swerde gilted’ and ‘ij Dragones’. Further ornaments are recorded in the ‘Buttere’ at St. John’s College: a ‘Thunder Barell’, ‘xxvj Candelstikes in ye cofer in ye buttre/ & vj taied in ye candelstik’ and ‘ij Crownes gilted’.26 Later, in 1548–49, the St John’s College Register of Inventories records possession of ‘a fooles dagger of wodd’, ‘a Croked sword gilted’, ‘A halfe mone gilden vppon the on side’ and ‘iij shildes on [one] with a golden porculles/ ye oyer two with red draggones’.27 The Trinity College Inventory ‘made of all ye playing gere’ for 1550–01 itemises ‘a trumpet of wodde’.28 The Christ’s College Accounts for 1553–54 record payment for ‘iij plaites of tynn for plaies iij s’.29
At Coventry, undated Drapers’ Accounts record payment for ‘vij skynnes for godys cott & the baryll for the yerthe quake iij s’.30 Again at Coventry, the Cappers’ Records for 1544 detail payment for a club for the devil: ‘payd for a yard of canvas for ye devylles mall & for makyng viij d’.31 Other clubs are itemised for the giant and Pilate in an ‘Invitori of the Implments of the company of Cappers’ for 1591: ‘The giandes head and clubbe pylates clubbe’.32 Other Coventry ornaments include balls, baskets, coins, cord, curtains, distaffs, a noose for Judas, pole axes, sceptres, spades, swords and stars.33
Books
Books, unsurprisingly, do not feature strongly as ornaments, perhaps with the principal exception of the ‘book miracle’, as David Mills refers to it, in the Chester Blacksmythes Playe, The Purification (Play 11), where Symeon disagrees with the angel in correctly identifying the description given to Mary:
Tunc fabricabit librum quasi deleret hoc verbum (virgo); et post ponit librum super altare [altarem]. Et veniet Angelus et accipiet librum, faciens signum quasi scriberet; et claudet librum et vuanesset [evanescet]; et dicat Anna Vidua:
[Then he shall scrape the book as if he were deleting this word ‘virgin’; and then he places the book upon the altar. And the angel shall come and shall take the book, making a sign as if he were writing; and he shall close the book and disappear; and the widow Anna is to speak.]34
This stage direction, also discussed in Chapter 3 of this work as a record of the use of signs, clearly articulates the action of this sequence. Didactically speaking, it is important that spectators are guided in appreciating and understanding the significance of the changes to the book. The recorded action is so clear in the stage direction that the mimed action must itself have been clear. However, presentational scale may have made it necessary to make use of additional visual support to clarify the smaller-scale changes to the book. This position is not unlike the current way of explaining on-screen digital text messages to an audience that does not possess either of the correspondents’ mobile phones by separately screening the dialogue as equivalents to subtitles. In this instance, an example might consist of holding up a board with large-scale words that are alternately and visibly changed: this action to be timed in association with the actual scrapings of the words in the book.
Although references to the Bible are frequently implicit ones, equivalent allusions to the New Testament are less frequent. In John Bale’s A Comedy concernynge thre lawes, of Nature, Moses, & Christ, corrupted by the Sodomytes, Pharysees and papystes, a stage direction states: ‘Hic pro signo dat ei nouum testamentum’ (Here he gives him the New Testament for a sign), and Deus Pater says: ‘Take thys precyouse boke, for a token euydent./ A seale of my couenaunt, and a lyuynge testament’.35
In Beunans Meriasek: The Life of St Meriasek, during the onset of leprosy on the masked Constantine, a doctor is summoned who in turn instructs Bachelor Jenkyn to: ‘Fetch my book of physic/ Carry it under thy armpit’. A stage direction records: ‘erthyn pott. ye bouke aredy And the urnell enspektad’ (An earthen pot: the book ready; and the urinal [to be] inspected). Constantine is uncertain as to whether resort to the Doctor’s book will cure him: ‘I do not know through books/ That there is medicine that would heal me’.36 The Bishop of Pola is certain that Constantine will only be healed if he bathes in the pure blood of several thousand children. Constantine cannot submit to this possibility and becomes resigned to his fate, whereupon Christ, through the agencies of Peter, Paul and Pope Silvester, intervenes with an instruction for Silvester to restore Constantine to health by baptising him. The doctor and his book are superseded, and Constantine is restored to health.
The kinds of books referred to in the anonymously written Nice Wanton are those despised by Ismael and Dalila, two school-aged miscreants whose mission in their early lives is to have nothing to do with school. They sing: ‘Fare well our scoole/ Away with boke and all’. A stage direction exemplifies their respective attitudes to school: ‘They caste awaye their bookes’.37 These are actions understood by most older children and adults of any age.
The Star
During the appearance of the star in The Annunciation and the Nativity in the Chester Wrightes Playe (Play 6), two stage directions record: ‘Tunc stella apparebit’ (Then the star shall appear) and ‘Tunc apparet stella et veniet Angelus, [dicens] ut sequitur:’ (Then the star shall appear and the Angel shall come, saying as follows).38 The star is critical and pivotal as an ornament to the story of the Nativity and is again revealed in the Chester Paynters Playe of The Shepherds (Play 7), when a stage direction records: ‘Tunc sedebunt, et stella apparebit, et dicat Primus Pastor:’ (Then they shall sit down, and the star shall appear; and the First Shepherd is to say).39 In the succeeding play in the Chester Cycle, The Vintners Playe of the Magi (Play 8), a further stage direction also establishes ‘Tunc apparebit stella’ (Then the star shall appear).40 In each of these three plays, the stage directions determine that the star shall ‘appear’. This could either refer to the star’s literal appearance before personages and spectators or to their initial recognition or acknowledgement of the star. It is not clear whether there is any consistency in the method of manipulation of the star or of its design in these three plays, but, as each of them was played consecutively on the first day of the Cycle, it does not seem possible that the respective guilds shared their carriages, as was often the practice at Chester.41 As the plays were played sequentially, and presentation of the star represented the same star as dictated by the narrative, it seems possible that there could have been some correspondence in the design and construction of the stars. The method involved in creating the appearance of the respective stars may be compared with those recorded at various dates for the same purpose in the chancel of the church of St Nicholas, Great Yarmouth:
Expenses.
For leading the Star (iijd. 1465. For hanging the Sterr, & scoring the Sterr. 1506. For a new balk line to the Sterr & ryving of the same Sterr. viiid. 1493. For a line called a nine thred & a six thread to lead the Sterr. 1512. Form making a new Sterr 1462.42
As payment is recorded for ‘scoring’ (scouring) the star, it seems clear that it was made of metal and intended to reflect and possibly glisten.43 The two thicknesses of thread indicate one to support the star (the ‘nine thred’) and one to pull it across the balk (the ‘six thread’).44 The same simple technique may have been used at Lincoln, for this method may be considered to be one of the simplest and most practical ways of achieving the effect.45 However, from a didactic perspective, there is no reason why a star held aloft on the end of a pole, moved by someone around the carriage or in the street, could not fulfil the recorded need. This appears to have been the case in the Chester Vintners Playe of the Magi (Play 8) in Chester, where a stage direction reads: ‘Tunc reges iterum genua flectent, et Angelus portans stellam [dicet]:’ (Then the kings shall again kneel, and the Angel carrying the star shall say).46 In this case, the star appears to have contained an image of the Christ child, as indicated by an implicit stage direction where it says: ‘For in the starre a chylde I see’.47 The overt simplicity of such a move indicates one of the problems with staging methods to realise didactic intentions. Audiences do not need to receive oversimplified statements that condition their understanding. Audiences need to be able to recognise, then as now, that a didactic story convention is taking place in such a way that they do not feel that they are being insulted or patronised by presentation of naive content.
Suspended Cords
The use of horizontally suspended cords to transport animated ornaments is contained in the 1433 indenture of the Mercers’ Pageant Documents at York for ‘ix smaler Aungels payntid rede to renne aboute in þe heuen A lang small corde to gerre þe Aungels renne aboute’.48 In the Gwreans An Bys: The Creation of the World, a stage direction records additional use of ornaments running on the line:
Let them fight wth swordis and in the end Lucyfer voydeth & goeth downe to hell apareled fowle wth fyre about hem turning to hell and every degre of devylls of lether & spirytis on cordis runing into ye playne and so remayne ther, 9 angells after Lucyfer goeth to hell49
This stage direction incidentally implies a theatre-in-the-round staging form consistent with a performance at ground level and a raised audience surrounding it in order to permit the requirement of ‘spirytis on cordis runing into ye playne and so remayne ther’. Sloping cords, from a higher level among the audience into ‘ye playne’, would presumably allow the ‘spirytis’ to slide down the cords by gravity. This kind of device appears to have been used during the raising of Lazarus at Semur: ‘Here the soul descends and comes on a wire [filium] onto the body in the tomb’.50 M. D. Anderson suggests that the Holy Spirit, represented by a doll, was similarly ‘sent sliding down the wires’ at the Incarnation.51
Lifting Devices
Another use of cords is implicated in the opening stage direction of the Gwreans An Bys: The Creation of the World that records on ‘The first daie [of] ye playe […] The father must be in a clowde and when he speakethe of heaven let ye levys open’.52 The MED offers a useful definition of the word ‘lef’ to help with understanding of the construction of the ‘clowde’: ‘lēf n. 3. (a) The movable hinged part of any device, e.g., of a balance, drawbridge [cp. draught~], gate, window shutter; one side of a hinged pair of writing tablets’. Thus, the suggestion is that the ‘clowde’ consists of one or more hinged ‘levys’ that are allowed to fall open or be pulled open to reveal God. Later, in the same play, a stage direction declares ‘After the father hath spoken lett hem departe to heaven in a clowde’.53 Here, the implication is that the cloud is capable of being raised or lowered. A similar arrangement is present in Mary Magdalen, where a stage direction records: ‘Her xall hevyn opyn, and Jhesus xall shew [hymself]’.54 Here, too, heaven as represented by a cloud or clouds opens by a hinged mechanism to reveal Jesus. Presumably, it is this cloud to which another stage direction refers when it records: ‘Here xall comme a clowd from heven, and sett þe tempyl on afyer, and þe pryst and þe cler[k] xall synke, and þe kyng gothe hom, þus seyyng’.55 If this is the case, then the cloud is capable of being manipulated by cord or rope in such a way as to open up and be lowered. Later in the play, the device is used again to realise another stage direction:
Here xall to angyllys desend into wyldyrnesse, and other to xall bryng an oble, opynly aperyng aloft in þe clowddys; þe to benethyn xall bryng Mari, and she xall receyve þe bred, and þan go aȝen into wyldyrnesse.56
Ornaments such as clouds easily merge into effects when brought into operation. Effects are fewer in number than ornaments, but perhaps more fundamental in creating and securing theatrical statement. Often, the means of creating effects are just as important as the effects themselves. For example, the windlass (winch or wynd) is crucial to the provision of movement between heaven and earth. A ‘cloud’ is itemised as an ornament in both the 1433 and 1526 Mercers’ Pageant Documents at York. In these cases, the cloud is likely to have been a stationary scenic ornament positioned behind God when he ‘sall sty vppe to heauen’: it is God who is raised up to the cloud representing heaven on ‘A brandreth of Iren þat god sall sitte vppon when he sall sty vppe to heuen With iiij rapes at iiij corners’.57 The 1526 account provides more detail of the means by which God is raised:
ye yren sett [seat] with iiij Rappes
[The ‘brandreth’ with four ropes in the 1433 indenture]
[…]
ye wendes with j repe
[the ‘wind’ or ‘windlass’ with one rope]
[…]
ye viij chyffes
[the ‘blocks’ containing eight pulleys].58
‘[Y]e yren sett with iiij Rappes’ is the same ornament as the ‘brandreth’ of the 1433 account; ‘ye wendes with j repe’ is the winch with one rope. The ‘iiij Rappes’ presumably came together into ‘j repe’ above God’s head which was then wound by the ‘wendes’. A square brandreth is indicated of a size sufficient to keep the four ropes vertical and prevent any tightening upon God’s body. A simple mechanism such as a square block of wood, of the same size as the brandreth seat, above God’s head, may have received the four ropes from the brandreth. A single rope to the winch could then, in turn, also be connected to this block of wood to be returned to the ‘wendes’. ‘[Y}e viij chyffes’ are the pulley blocks into which are placed the pulley wheels, side by side. Two sets of ‘chyffes’ (shives), each containing four pulleys, are placed some distance apart, and the ‘repe’ is threaded from one set of ‘chyffes’ to the other, forming a continuous loop that goes over each of the pulleys, and it is then that the end of the rope can be pulled to raise the ‘brandreth’, using much less effort than if the rope simply went over one pulley alone. With this kind of arrangement, it might have been possible for one or two people to raise God without too much effort. The principle by which this phenomenon operates is known as ‘mechanical advantage’ and is clearly illustrated in the modern ‘block and tackle’, which consists of a rope (or chain) and pulleys, that is used to lift heavy loads.59 Two or three pulleys are assembled side by side to form the blocks (chyffes), with one set that is fixed and one that moves with the load. The rope is threaded through the pulleys to provide mechanical advantage that increases the force applied to the rope.60 An arrangement of this kind inevitably makes use of a longer rope than would be used if ‘chyffes’ were not involved (see below). These suggested arrangements presuppose sufficient height in which to manipulate the contraption.
Use of a winch to raise Jesus into heaven is again recorded by three stage directions in the Chester Play of The Ascension (Play 20):
Tunc adducet discipulos in Bethaniam; et cum pervenerit ad locum, ascendens dicat Jesus, stans in loco ubi assendit [ascendit?]. Dicat Jesus, ‘Data est mihi omnis potestas in caelo et in terra’.
[Then he shall lead the disciples into Bethany; and when he shall have reached the place, Jesus is to say as he ascends, standing in the place where he ascends. Jesus shall say: ‘All power has been given unto me in heaven and in earth’ (Matthew 28:18)].
Tunc Jesus ascendet, et in ascendendo cantet (God singeth alonne)
[Then Jesus shall ascend, and in the course of ascending, he shall sing. (God singeth alone).]
Cum autem impleverit Jesus canticum, stet in medio quasi supra nubes, et dicat major angelus minori angelo
[When, however, Jesus has fully sung the hymn, he shall stand in the midst, as if above the clouds, and the Greater Angel shall speak to the Lesser Angel.]61
There are several clues in these stage directions as to the arrangements for lifting Jesus up to heaven. The first of these directions states that Jesus shall stand in a particular spot from where he is to ascend. Such a fixed position implies a pre-arranged location from which a winch may operate. Second, the rate at which he ascends relates to and depends upon the time taken to sing ‘Ascendo ad Patrem meum et Patrem vestrum, Deum meum et Deum vestrum. Alleluia’ (I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God [John 20:17]).62 One of the features of the motion produced by a block and tackle arrangement is that it is slow and controlled and thus able to be managed in relation to the timing taken to deliver the anthem. The third of these stage directions indicates that there is a middle height ‘medio quasi supra nubes’ (as if above the clouds) that is achievable by the winched lift. Here, the stage direction does not record the use of a cloud or clouds but merely alludes to the possibility. The same allusion occurs in another stage direction in the Chester Webstar’s play of The Judgement (Play 24), where it describes:
Finitis lamentationibus mortuorum [descendet] Jesus quasi in nube, si fieri poterit, quia, secundum doctoris opiniones, in aere prope terram judicabit Filius Dei. Stabunt angeli cum cruce, corona spinea, lancea, et instrumentis aliis; ipsa demonstrant.
[When the laments of the dead have ended, Jesus shall come down as if in a cloud, if it can be contrived, because according to the opinions of scholars, the Son of God shall give judgement in the air close to the Earth. The angels shall stand with the cross, the crown of thorns, the lance, and the other instruments; they display them.]63
Here again, the reference is made to ‘quasi in nube, si fieri poterit’ (as if in a cloud, if it can be contrived), which presumably refers to the quality of motion rather than the appearance of Christ in or on a cloud. However, the stage direction recognises that it might be possible to lower Jesus ‘as if in a cloud, if it can be contrived’. Such a possibility clearly refers to a winch of some sort. David Mills refers to the inevitable imbalance of the pageant carriage when hoisting Jesus and suggests:
Though the disciples could have remained on ground-level for the Ascension, the combined weight of eleven men on the waggon floor would perhaps add ‘ballast’ for Jesus and the angels above. Something of the strength of the waggon may be gauged from the possibility that it may have had to accommodate a maximum of sixteen actors (eleven apostles, four angels and Jesus).64
Mills’s suggestion would certainly have had a bearing upon the problem, but greater security of the carriage’s stability might have been needed, using stanchions or ‘legs’ to prop up the platform of the carriage. Placed under the corners of the platform and wedged in position on arrival at its stopping point, the carriage could have been stabilised by the putters. This is the procedure recorded at Canterbury, Coventry and York.65
Both the Cappers and the Drapers at Coventry made use of winches in their respective pageants. The identity of the Cappers’ play is not entirely clear, although it began with the Harrowing of Hell and apparently ended with the Resurrection, and it is the action of the winch that is implied in opening and closing ‘hellmowthe’.66 Payment is recorded in the Cappers Records for 1539: ‘for kepyng of the wyend jd’, and in 1540 the same accounts record payment to ‘iij men to kep the wynd vj d’.67 Whether ‘iij men’ were employed to operate the winch because of their collective strength or to take it in turns to work the apparatus is unclear. The Cappers’ windlass, or ‘wynles’ is itemised in an ‘inventary of all goodis late in the custody & Kepyng of thomas lynycars late desesyde’ as an ‘Item a wynles & a corde to the stevenn’.68 The ‘stevenn’ appears to have been an artificial rock lowered by ‘corde’ to block the hell mouth.69An important device to ‘lock off’ the mechanism is recorded in the Cappers’ Accounts: ‘Item, paid for a locker to the wind & for [rossh] rosshes iiij d’.70 Presumably the ‘locker’ came into effect once the ‘stevenn’ had been raised, leaving the hell mouth open. The Drapers’ play was the play of Doomsday, and payment is recorded in 1561 ‘for kepyng of the wynde and of hell mowthe xvj d’.71 In this case, the winch was served by a rope 3 fathoms long (18 feet): ‘Itm for mendyng a Rope to the pagent thre ffedom longe v d’.72 Such length might seem long enough to have been involved in a block and tackle arrangement in order to raise and lower Christ on his return in majesty.73
Hand-held Ornaments
Just as there is a fine line between designation of attire, masks (‘visards’), wigs (‘hayres’) and beards (‘berds’) as ornaments, so, too, is there a fine line between scenic ornaments and hand-held ones. The fine line is not one of scale but one of contributory value to theatrical statement. Hand-held objects such as weapons in the form of swords, spears, knives and guns frequently assist the focus of scenes that turn out to be pivotal in the dramatic narrative. Clear examples of the limited information contained in stage directions recorded by observers are contained in two identical stage directions in The Castle of Perseverance: ‘Tunc pugnabunt diu’ (Then they shall fight for a long time).74 This way of expressing an observed fight, which lasts for ‘a long time’, is typical of generalised records of action of indeterminate lengths for which a more accurate account would be necessary if the stage direction had been directed at players. It seems that the observer does not have the means of confirming the length of ‘a long time’. The time taken by this fight appears to be that defined by the experience of the observer. The text surrounding the first of these incidents points to what may seem an unequal fight, with the Vices using swords and the Virtues using roses. Nevertheless, Invidia claims ‘Wyth fayre rosys myn hed gan breke’ and Ira adds ‘Hyr rosys fel on me so scharpe’.75 In the second of these fights, Gula (Gluttony) and Accidia (Sloth) are defeated, and Luxuria (Lechery) declares himself to be ‘dayschyd and so drenchyd’ (l. 2388). Swords are recorded for a variety of uses beyond fighting. As fighting weapons, they symbolise power, authority and threat. As ceremonial objects, they denote status. As flaming swords, they symbolise God’s authority. In the Beunans Meriasek: The Life of St. Meriasek, a stage direction records: ‘Hic pompabunt tortores [w swerdys’76 (Here the torturers shall parade [with swords]), whereupon the Emperor Constantine orders his torturers to kill ‘All that believe in Mary’s Son/ By torment slay them’.77 Having washed his disciples’ feet, Jesus, in a stage direction recorded in the Passio Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi of the Cornish Ordinalia, provides two swords for his disciples: ‘hic parantur duo gladii et petrus portet unum’ (Here two swords are got ready, and let Peter carry one).78 In justification, Jesus says: ‘Truly, those are enough/To govern all the world’.79 In Skelton’s Magnyfycence, a stage direction indicates that Magnificence is about to kill himself: ‘Here Magnyfycence wolde slee hymselfe with a knyfe’. As this action is about to happen, another stage direction states: ‘Hic intrat Good Hope, fugientibus Dyspare and Myschefe; repente Good Hope surripiat illi gladium, et dicat’ (Here enters Good Hope while Despair and Mischief are running away. Let Good Hope suddenly snatch the sword from him and say).80 The same kind of intervention is recorded in a stage direction in the Chester Barbers Playe of Abraham (Play 4):
Here lett Abraham take and bynde his sonne Isaak upon the aulter, and leett him make a signe as though hee would cutt of his head with the sword. Then lett the Angell come and take the sworde by the end and staye yt, sayinge.81
As seen in the stage directions in Skelton’s Magnyfycence and the Chester Barbers Playe of Abraham, theatrical use of swords is closely related to careful moments of timing. In these instances, the swords are not permitted to complete their intended purpose. The same may be said of their use when other angels wield swords where the theatrical value exists in the threat imposed by the ‘drawn sword’. In the Chester Cappers Playe of Moses and the Law: Balaack and Balaam (Play 5), a stage direction declares:
Tunc Balaham ascendit super asinam et cum Milite equitabit; et in obviam venit Angelus domini cum gladio extricto [extracto]; et asina videt ipsum et non Balaham, ad [terram] prostrata jacebit; et dicat [Balaham]:
[Then Balaam climbs upon his ass and shall ride with the Knight; and an angel of the Lord meets them with drawn sword; and the ass—and not Balaam—sees him, shall fall prostrate to the ground. And Balaam is to say.]82
The same theatrical device is recorded later in the same play at Chester:
Tunc videns Balaham Angelum evaginatum gladium habentem [adorans] ipsum dicat Balaham (Balaham on his knees shall fall sodenly downe and speaketh to the Angell)
[Then Balaam, seeing the angel bearing his drawn sword, shall fall suddenly down (on his knees) and is to speak reverently to the angel.]83
The power of the sword in these instances exists in the fact that the swords are ‘drawn’ and ready to be used: thus, they threaten. In the battle between the Archangels Michael and Gabriel with Lucifer, in the Gwreans An Bys: The Creacon of the World, a stage direction records that ‘All the Angells must haue swords and staves & must come to the rome wher Lucyfer ys’.84 A further stage direction (cited earlier in this chapter) signals the start of the battle:
Let them fight wth swordis and in the end Lucyfer voydeth & goeth downe to hell apareled fowle wth fyre about hem turning to hell and every degre of devylls of lether & spirytis on cordis runing into ye playne and so remayne ther, 9 angells after Lucyfer goeth to hell85
In this instance, the use of fire helps to arm Lucyfer in a seemingly disproportionate way, although there are other accounts of angels being armed with flaming swords such as the stage direction in the N.town Play of The Creation of the World; The Fall of Man (Play 2): ‘Hic recedit Deus, et angelus seraphicus cum gladio flamme[o] verberat Adam et Euam extra paradisum’ (Here God withdraws and an angel seraphim with a flaming sword drives Adam and Eve out of paradise).86
Another specific use of the sword is recorded in the Chester Bakers Playe of the Last Supper, Betrayal (Play 15), when two stage directions state: ‘Tunc extrahet gladium et abscindet auriculam Malchi’ (Then he shall draw out a sword and shall cut off the ear of Malchus) and ‘Tunc Jesus tetigerit auriculam et sanabit’ (Then Jesus shall have touched the ear and shall heal it).87 The miraculous nature of this action and its apparent cure amounts to straightforward sleight-of-hand. On the swish of the sword, Malchus covers his ear and does not let go until the text determines that the ear is replaced and healed. Thus the miracle appears to have taken place. The same incident is recorded by three stage directions in the Passio Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi of the Cornish Ordinalia: ‘tunc petrus abscidit auriculam tortoris nomine malcus et dicit’ (Then Peter cuts off the ear of an executioner named Malchus; and says) followed by ‘hic jhc [Jhesus accipiet auriculam malchi et sanabit eum’ (Here Jesus shall take the ear of Malchus, and shall cure him). The third stage direction states: ‘sanatur auricula malchi’ (The ear of Malchus is healed).88 The action here appears to be different from the Chester Bakers’ example in that Jesus seemingly displays the severed ear to the audience and, in healing it, he simply puts it over Malchus’s hand. Malchus swiftly brings up his other hand to cover Jesus’s hand. Jesus slips his hand away leaving Malchus holding the false ear, which, when removed, is secreted about his person.89 A further example of the incident occurs in the N.town play of the Betrayal (Play 28), where a stage direction states: ‘And forthwith he smytyth of Malchus here, and he cryeth, “Help! Myn here, myn here!” And Cryst blyssyth it and tys hol’.90As with many sleight-of-hand tricks, restitution of something that is supposed to have been removed can take place without the action actually having occurred in the first instance.91
A stage direction in the N.town Play of The Betrayal (Play 28) states:
Here Jesus with his dyscipulis goth into þe place; and þer xal come in a x personys weyl beseen in white arneys and breganderys, and some dysgysed in odyr garmentys, with swerdys, gleyvs, and other straunge wepoun, as cressettys, with feyr, and lanternys, and torchis lyth; and Judas formest of al, conveyng hem to Jesu be contenawns: Jesus þus s[eyng]92
This detailed stage direction, like many of those in the N.town manuscript, is still one derived from observation. The detail is written as a description of that which has been previously witnessed. Description of ‘other straunge wepoun[s]’ suggests lack of familiarity with, and absence of understanding of, their nature and purpose. In John Redford’s Wit and Science, a stage direction declares: ‘Heere Wyt cumth in and bryngth in the hed upon his swoorde and sayth as folowyth’.93 The head in question is that of the giant, Tediousness. This represents the price to be paid by Wyt for the hand of Lady Science as demanded by her father, Reason.
In addition to the various uses of swords expressed in stage directions, reference to the use of spears as ornaments occurs in two gruesome stage directions in the Chester Gouldsmythes Playe of the Innocents (Play 10): ‘Tunc Miles trasfodiet primum puerum et super lancea [lanceam] accipiet’ (Then the knight shall transfix the first male-child and lift it on his spear) and ‘Tunc Secundus Miles transfodiet secundum puerum’ (Then the Second Knight shall transfix the second male-child).94 The theatrical image of the infant child speared on the soldier’s spear is a powerful one, irrespective of the different ways in which it might be portrayed in all seriousness or in comedy. The longer the ornament baby was held aloft on the spear, the longer the didactic value could be transmitted, particularly if this was supported by the apparent jocular indifference or studied negligence displayed by the soldiers. The more the soldiers are seen to enjoy their actions, the more the audience may be seen to shrink away from their actions, especially if these actions are played with any hint of comic purpose. Similarly, the more competitive are the soldiers in their spearing actions, the more this would further dislocate and distance the realities of the soldiers and spectators. The horrific elements of the soldiers’ actions consist of the lunge of the spear and the slow raising of the spear and child in triumph. Even though spectators are able to discern dummy infants on the ends of the spears, the respective images incite strong audience responses. Whether the means of presenting this play was serious, comic or conducted through ‘failed seriousness’, the overriding purpose was a didactic one: its purpose was to instruct or teach. 95
When Christ has been crucified in the Chester Irenmongers Playe of the Passion (Play 16A), Cayphas instructs Longyus [Longynus] (Longinus, the Roman soldier): ‘Longys, take this speare in hand/ and put from thee—looke thou ne wond’. Whereupon, a stage direction states: ‘Tunc Longyus lancia perforat latus Christi, dicens’ (Then Longinus pierces Christ’s side with a spear, saying).96 The purpose of this action is to check whether or not Christ is dead. Longyus’s response is: ‘What I have donne well wott I neere,/but on my hand and on my speare /owt water runneth throwe;/ and on my eyes some can fall/ that I may see both one and all’.97
The same lack of observer familiarity, as detailed above in the N.town Play of The Betrayal (Play 28), may be seen in the Beunans Meriasek: The Life of St. Meriasek, where a stage direction records: ‘her a gonn yn y dragon ys movthe aredy & fyr’ (Here a gun ready in the dragon’s mouth and fire).98 The description of ‘a gun’ appears to be the nearest term that the observer can draw upon to approximate to a firework consisting of a stickless rocket in tube form designed to project fizzing sparks to simulate shooting fire. This is not ‘a gun’ to fire bullets or projectiles.99 Two further stage directions in the Gwreans An Bys: The Creacon of the World record an apparently straightforward action with a different type of weapon: ‘let his man levyll the arrowe; and then shote’ and ‘when cayme is stryken lett bloud appeare & let hem tomble’.100 However, these stage directions belie a simple sleight-of-hand trick. Cain hides in a bush and is mistaken for an animal by Lamech, who fires an arrow into the bush. Lamech is convinced that he has shot the animal, whereupon a bleeding Cain tumbles out of the bush. Cain has had time to prepare the trick while hidden in the bush. Presumably, the arrow lands in the bush, and the player playing Cain is protected from it. When he tumbles out of the bush, he has fitted a device around himself which makes it seem that the arrow has gone through him: ‘Pierced am I through the ribs,/ And the arrow hath gone quite through me’.101 The principle of the trick is one of those demonstrated in Reginald Scot’s Discouerie of Witchcraft (1584) that include knives where the blade slides up inside the handle when pressed against the body or a knife blade with a semicircular section cut out of it which, when pressed against an arm, leg or neck, gives the appearance of slicing through that part of the body. In the case of Cain’s death, a band of thin, flexible metal or supple wood such as reed or willow fits half way around his body, with the pointed end of the arrow fastened to one end of the band and the flight feathers on the arrow’s other end fastened to the other end of the band, creating the appearance of the arrow piercing the body.102 A joke version of this device that is intended to fit over the head is available from joke shops today.
Fire and Simulated Effects
One of the ways of determining the importance of named ornaments and effects in any given play is to consider performance without such assistance. Could the play still achieve its theatrical intention without the use of identified ornaments and effects? Perhaps the play that puts most reliance on its recorded use of ornaments and effects is The Play of the Sacrament (Croxton). This play could not achieve its theatrical purpose without use of its identified ornaments and effects. They are integral to all statements within the play. Even though the stage directions in this play are governed by observation, the quality of insight and understanding indicates the observer is particularly well informed. According to the stage directions, the principal ornaments involved are: four ‘daggerys’, a ‘tabyll’, the ‘Ost’ (Host wafer), a false hand, ‘nayles’, ‘þe fyre’, a ‘cawdron’ (cauldron), blood, an ‘ovyn’ and ‘pynsonys’ (pincers). Even though these labelled ornaments are identifiable by name, their theatrical identities may well be different from their non-theatrical ones, depending on didactic realisation. A case in point may well be the pivotally important ornament of the ‘Ost’ (the Host wafer). A stage direction records: ‘Here shall þe iiij Jewys pryk þer daggerys in iiij quarters [of the ‘Ost’], þus sayng’.103 After which, another stage direction states: ‘Here þe Ost must blede’.104 Different didactic methods of simulating the bleeding ‘Ost’ may be possible and relevant according to what the audience is intended to see. Do spectators see blood as liquid? Do they see blood as a change in colour of the ‘Ost’? In order that the ‘Ost’ is able to bleed when stabbed by the four daggers of the four Jews, it must be made of a material that is capable of retaining liquid.105 In their attempts to destroy the ‘Ost’ (the ‘bred’ or ‘cake’), the Jews do not anticipate that it will bleed. When it does so, panic sets in, and other means of destroying the ‘Ost’ are sought. The ‘Ost’ sticks to Jonathas’s hand and it is nailed to a post in attempts to pull the hand away from it. The outcome of this effort is such that Jonathas’s arm is pulled clear, leaving the hand stuck to the ‘Ost’. A further attempt to destroy the ‘Ost’ occurs when a stage direction says: ‘Here shall Jason pluck owt the naylys and shake þe hond into þe cawdron’.106 Another stage direction describes: ‘Here shall þe cawdron byle, apperyng to be as blood’. The boiling cauldron of oil now appears to consist of boiling blood. An improved device is sought to destroy the ‘Ost’ through a ‘redd hott’ oven. A stage direction requires the fire to be built up: ‘Here þei kyndyll þe fyre’ and ‘Here shall Jason goo to þe cawdron and take owt the Ost with hys pynsonys and cast yt into the ovyn’.107 Again, the device does not work, for a stage direction states: ‘Here the owyn must ryve asunder and blede owt at þe cranys, and an image appere owt with woundys bledyng’.108 The image is that of Christ wanting to know why the Jews are being ‘onkynd’ to him. In response, a stage direction declares the Jews’ contrition: ‘Here shall they knele down all on ther kneys, saying’. Whereupon, a stage direction records: ‘Here shall Ser Jonathas put hys hand into þe cawdron, and yt shalbe hole agayn; and then say as fo[l]wyth’.109 Jonathas seeks out the Bishop and confesses his actions, for which he asks for absolution. A stage direction then states: ‘Here shall þe im[a]ge change agayn into brede’.110
The objects and devices used in this play are essential to the story and its theatrical execution. This much is clear. What is not clear is the nature of these ornaments, their construction and what defines their function and appearance. First, the ‘Ost’ needs to be made of a material that is allowed to be stabbed by the daggers and yet retain its composition and form. Sponge, or sponge-like material, appears to fulfil the need. And, in this instance, given the religious significance of the ‘Ost’, it perhaps needs to have been fashioned to simulate the real wafer. Such adherence to simulation is less likely with the other ornaments in their didactic realisation. When Jonathas’s hand sticks to the post, it needs to do so with a section of his sleeve attached to it. Inside the short sleeve is the means of holding the false hand; this could have been through the use of a short stick, of the kind used in some glove puppets, projecting into the hand. When the hand hangs the stick is hidden inside the short sleeve. On retrieval of the hand, it is thrown into the cauldron along with the nails. At this point, the contents appear to boil as blood. Creating the appearance of a boiling liquid at a specified time would not seem to be achievable over a lit fire. The necessary dimension and timing of the boiling cauldron effect might be more successfully achieved through the use of pyrotechnic ingredients to produce red smoke. Both the ‘cawdron’ and the ‘ovyn’ sit on fires, but the concern for issues of reliable timing point to the use of pyrotechnic processes over which there is some control.111 None of these considerations might be relevant if the fire was an artificial one.
In the Prelude and Chapter 3 of this work, I outlined the single-word and short-phrased stage directions in the Chester Cappers Playe of Moses and the Law: Balaack and Balaam (Play 5) that seemingly reflected the nature of their exemplar. These stage directions, governed by earlier practice, function as reminders of that action, together with the potential function as a reminder of intended action. They embody what we would today refer to as stage management functions and instigate warnings to be ready for action. These stage directions were copied into their manuscript in 1591, some 30 years beyond my chosen cut-off point and reflect the theatrical development of stage-direction functions beyond 1560. The shorthand nature of these stage directions not only implies earlier understanding of their observed necessity, but also subsequent practical requirements in production. The same analysis may be applied to the Chester Vintners Playe of the Magi (Play 8), where stage directions of the same kind are similarly recorded (also cited in Chapter 3 of this work). The essential character of these stage directions is that they presume that the reader knows of their intention, meaning, relevance and timing. They are directed to those capable of enacting the content and represent a change in function from other stage directions in the Chester Plays. They are:
Staffe [p. 163, l. 156], Staffe [p. 164, l. 196], Sword [p. 164, l. 200], Cast up [p. 165, l. 204], A bill [p. 168, l. 282], Cast downe the sword [p. 170, l. 326], Breake a sword [p. 172, l. 349], Cast up [p. 172, l. 357], Cast up [p. 172, l. 365], Staffe [p. 173, l. 389], Sword [p. 173, l. 397].112
These abbreviated stage directions are all directed towards Herod’s actions. The ornaments possess violent purpose and ceremonial status. Consequently, they are symbols deliberately chosen to demonstrate Herod’s power. To further establish his power, he is required to ‘Breake a sword’ as a demonstration of his anger. He presumably breaks a partially broken sword across his knee as he says ‘By cockes sowle, thou art forsworne! Have done!’113
Today, special effects can be used in theatre to support and enhance naturalism or be elevated and organised to create theatrical statements of their own. Effects can become theatre.114 Ornaments, on the other hand, operate as adjuncts in revealing and developing theatrical statement. Medieval effects and ornaments did not seemingly work to the same ends as those required in modern Western theatre. Given the consistency to be observed in the didactic orientation of plays, the commensurate playing of personages and the teaching function of expositors, it seems logical that the use of effects and ornaments should also have been orientated in such a way as to align with these features. In other words, the symbolic values of ornaments and effects should be seen to contribute to the overall didactic purpose of the play.
Notes
1. The Castle of Persverance, ed. by John Stephen Farmer, Old English Drama, Students’ Facsimile Edition, Tudor Facsimile Texts (London: T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1908), fol. 155r.
2. OED Online prop n. 1. a. ‘A stick, rod, pole, stake, or beam used as a temporary support or to keep something in position, esp. one not forming an integral part of the thing supported; (in extended use) anything that serves to support something or keep it in place. Sometimes as the second element in compounds, as clothes prop, etc.: prop. v. 1, 3. To provide support or help, esp. to some weak or failing cause or institution; to sustain. Now usually with up’.
3. OED Online prop, n. 6. Originally Theatre slang. 1. ‘A property in a theatre, film set, or similar location; a stage property’: property, n. 5. Theatre and Film. ‘Any portable object (now usually other than an article of costume) used in a play, film, etc., as required by the action; a prop. Chiefly in plural’; Albert Feuillerat, Documents relating to the Office of the Revels in the time of Queen Elizabeth (Louvain: A. Uystpruyst, 1908), p. 110.
4. The Annalls of Ipswche: The Lawes Customes and Governmt of the same. Collected out of Ye Records Books and Writings of that Towne, By Nathll Bacon serving as Recorder and Town Clark in that Towne. Anno: Dom: 1654, ed. by William H. Richardson (Ipswich: S. H. Cowell, 1884), p. 103. Payments were also ‘Granted to John Stangilts, 20s 8d yerely for 12 yeres, to finde the stageing for Corp’ Chr’i play And to John Parnell’33s 4d, to find the ornamts during suche time, and collectors named of assessmts for the play’, p. 177.
5. Richardson, The Annalls of Ipswche, p. 164.
6. Baldwin, Clopper and Mills, REED: Cheshire including Chester, I, p. 111.
7. Alan H. Nelson, Records of Early English Drama: Cambridge, 2 vols (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1989), I, p. 64, II, 1090.
8. Nelson, REED: Cambridge, I, p. 108.
9. The Coventry Leet Book: or the Mayor’s Register, transcr. and ed. by Mary Dormer Harris, The Early English Text Society, OS 134 135 138 146 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner; Humphrey Milford, 1907–13), pp. 707–08.
10. MED ŏurnement n. 1 (a) Sg. & pl. Ornamental apparel, trappings, jewel(s, trinket(s, etc.; 2. Pl. Equipment, accessories, trappings, furniture accouterments; 3. Usually in pl.: (a) ‘the sacred utensils, furnishings, or ornamentation of a pagan temple, or of the Jewish temple at Jerusalem; also the adornment of an idol; (b) eccl. the furnishings or paraments of a church; esp. the apparatus pertaining to the celebration of the Eucharist; also, the ornamental accessories to ecclesiastical vestments’. See Chapter 5, n. 25, in this work.
11. Letters and papers of John Shillingford, Mayor of Exeter 1447–50, ed. by Stuart A. Moore, Camden Society, n.s., 2 (Westminster: Printed for the Camden Society, 1871), p. 93.
12. Records of Early English Drama: Lincolnshire, ed. by James Stokes, 2 vols (Toronto, Buffalo: The British Library/University of Toronto Press), II, p. 409.
13. Stokes, REED: Lincolnshire, 1, p. 135, II, p. 455: the ‘graceman’ was ‘the person charged with mounting the procession and arranging for the pageants on St Anne’s Day’. Each of the guilds or occupations in Lincoln had their own graceman whose role appears to be the same or similar to the Mercers’ Pageant Master at York. See Stokes, REED: Lincolnshire, I, pp. 108, 134–35, 141, 143–44, 145, 146, 147, 148, 152, 153, 154.
14. Stokes, REED: Lincolnshire, I, p. 194.
15. Stokes, REED: Lincolnshire, I, p. 159.
16. Johnston and Dorrell (Rogerson), REED: York, I, p. 55; MED parcel 2. (a) Coll. & pl. ‘Particular items in a list of objects, expenditures, payments received, etc.; listed items in a financial record; also, the itemized list; bille of parceles, a statement of payments; bok of parceles, an itemized account of commercial transactions; etc.’.
17. Lumiansky and Mills, Chester Mystery Cycle, I, p. 47; see Chapter 3, n. 15, in this work.
18. Frances Teague, Shakespeare’s Speaking Properties (Lewisburg, London, Toronto: Bucknell University Press; Associated University Presses, 1991), p. 17.
19. See Andrew Sofer, The Stage Life of Props (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003), pp. 11–13, 21.
20. Andrew Sofer, ‘Properties’ in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre, pp. 560–74 (p. 562). The same parallel point is made with players’ attire: see Chapter 3, text and n. 97, in this work.
21. Ingram, REED: Coventry, pp. 240–41, 334–35; Nelson, REED: Cambridge, I, pp. 64, 93, 108, 122–23, 127, 159–62, 171, 172, 185, 190, 192, 540. There is sometimes a fine line between the designation of attire and vestments and items such as masks (‘visards’), wigs (‘hayres’) and beards (‘berds’) as ornaments. Some of the references in this note cross the boundary between ornaments and attire.
22. Butterworth, Theatre of Fire, throughout; Butterworth, Staging Conventions, pp. 140–55; Philip Butterworth, ‘ “That gam me thoght was good!”: Structuring Games into Medieval Plays’, Medieval English Theatre, 43 (2022), 191–223.
23. Nelson, REED: Cambridge, I, p. 190.
24. Nelson, REED: Cambridge, I, p. 192; see the explicit stage directions in Sir David Lindsay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits (Edinburgh: Robert Charteris, 1602), pp. 134–42, where the option to hang Thift, Dissait and Falset or their dummy representations is recorded; gallows for theatrical use were inevitably contrived to simulate their authentic counterparts. Care needed to be taken to protect the player from his personage’s death. Most frequently, it was Judas who was to be hanged, and there are accounts of the accidental death of the player playing Judas. A necessary precaution to protect the player of Judas in the Donaueschingen Easter Play records: ‘The devil must take care of the fastening and sit behind him on the bar of the gallows’: Hase, Miracle Plays and Sacred Dramas, p. 23; Peter Meredith and John Tailby, eds, The Staging of Religious Drama in Europe in the Later Middle Ages: Texts and Documents in English Translation, Medieval Institute Publications, Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series, 4 (Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University, 1983), pp. 115–16; some recent accidents are highlighted by their headlines: ‘Police investigate death of actor who hanged on stage’ (Independent.co.uk), Wednesday 20 August 1997 [Greece, 1997: accessed 20 February, 2021]; ‘Brazil actor playing Judas dies from accidental hanging’ (www.bbc.co.uk/news) [Brazil, 2012: accessed 20 February 2021]; ‘Theatre hanging: Raphael Schumacher declared brain dead’ (www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35481616) [Pisa, Italy, 2016: accessed 20 February, 2021].
25. Nelson, REED: Cambridge, I, p. 127.
26. Nelson, REED: Cambridge, I, pp. 127–28, II, p. 1383: ‘taied pp of uncertain meaning; perhaps “tied”: joined, connected (with reference to a six-branched candelabrum?)’.
27. Nelson, REED: Cambridge, I, p. 162.
28. Nelson, REED: Cambridge, I, p. 171.
29. Nelson, REED: Cambridge, I, p. 185.
30. Ingram, REED: Coventry, p. 474.
31. Ingram, REED: Coventry, p. 167.
32. Ingram, REED: Coventry, p. 334.
33. Ingram, REED: Coventry, pp. 59, 73, 95, 163, 167, 168, 175, 179, 181, 200, 240, 260, 285, 334.
34. Lumiansky and Mills, Chester Mystery Cycle, I, p. 206; Mills, The Chester Mystery Cycle: A New Edition with Modernised Spelling, p. 193.
35. See Chapter 3 for discussion of this stage direction in relation to its significance as a ‘sign’.
36. Stokes, Beunans Meriasek: The Life of St. Meriasek, pp. 80–81, 84–85.
37. Nice Wanton, ed. by John S. Farmer, The Tudor Facsimile Texts (London, Edinburgh: T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1909) (King edition), sig. A.iiv
38. Lumiansky and Mills, Chester Mystery Cycle, I, pp. 116, 118.
39. Lumiansky and Mills, Chester Mystery Cycle, I, p. 138.
40. Lumiansky and Mills, Chester Mystery Cycle, I, p. 158.
41. The Vintners, who played on the first day, and the Dyers, who shared their carriage and played on the third day, drew up an agreement to let the Goldsmiths and the Masons also use their carriage on the second day. See Mills, Recycling the Cycle, p. 117.
42. Galloway and Wasson, Collections XI, p. 16; see also The History and Antiquities of the Ancient Burgh of Great Yarmouth in the County of Norfolk. Collected from the Corporation Charters, Records, and Evidences; and other the most authentic Materials, ed. by Henry Swinden (Norwich: John Crowe, 1772), p. 810; An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, ed. by Francis Blomefield and continued by Charles Parkin, 5 vols ([Kings] Lynn: W. Whittingham, 1739–75), V, p. 1670.
43. If such stars are not made of metal, then wood or pasteboard gilded or covered with a thin film of orsedue (arsedine, assidue), which is a form of gold leaf consisting of an alloy of copper and zinc, could be used: Butterworth, Theatre of Fire, p. 211.
44. MED balke n. 3. (a) A beam of wood suitable for use in the framework of a building or ship; maister~, the chief tie-beam of a building; one of the tie-beams (the balkes) stretching from wall to wall of a house.
45. See James Stokes, REED: Lincolnshire, I, pp. 106, 168, 169, 174, 180; Peter Meredith and John Tailby, eds, The Staging of Religious Drama in Europe in the Later Middle Ages: Texts and Documents in English Translation, Medieval Institute Publications, Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series, 4 (Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University, 1983), pp. 197, 250.
46. Lumiansky and Mills, Chester Mystery Cycle, I, p. 159; Thomas Wright was the first editor of the British Library MS Additional 10305 and published as The Chester Plays: A Collection of Mysteries Founded upon Scriptural Subjects, ed. by Thomas Wright, 2 vols (London: The Shakespeare Society, 1843, 1847), I, p. 149; The Chester Mystery Cycle: A Reduced Facsimile of Huntington Library MS2, intro. by R. M. Lumiansky and David Mills, Leeds Texts and Monographs, Medieval Drama Facsimiles VI (Leeds: School of English, 1980), p. 51; The Chester Mystery Cycle: A facsimile of British Library MS Harley 2124, intro. by David Mills, Leeds Texts and Monographs, Medieval Drama Facsimiles VIII (Leeds: School of English, University of Leeds, 1984), fol. xlvj.
47. Lumiansky and Mills, Chester Mystery Cycle, I, p. 159.
48. Johnston and Dorrell [Rogerson], REED: York, I, pp. 55–56: as part of the same device were ‘iiij smaller Aungels gilted holding þe passion’.
49. Stokes, The Creation of the World, p. 28. Of the play, Stokes writes: ‘Who the author was remains uncertain. The William Jordan mentioned at the end may well have been only the transcriber, and the occurrence in the stage-directions of such forms as sortis, beastis, garmentis, every ch-on “every one” and car[i]eth “they carry” seems to indicate a date prior to 1611, when Jordan completed his manuscript. The author’s mention of limbo, too, may tend to shew that the play was composed before the Reformation’, p. 4.
50. Meredith and Tailby, The Staging of Religious Drama in Europe in the Later Middle Ages, p. 113.
51. M. D. Anderson, Drama and Imagery in English Medieval Churches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), p. 133; Gibson, Theater of Devotion, p. 146.
52. Stokes, Gwreans an Bys: The Creation of the World, p. 6.
53. Stokes, Gwreans an Bys: The Creation of the World, p. 36.
54. Baker, Murphy and Hall, Late Medieval Religious Plays, p. 69.
55. Baker, Murphy and Hall, Late Medieval Religious Plays, p. 76.
56. Baker, Murphy and Hall, Late Medieval Religious Plays, p. 91.
57. Johnston and Dorrell [Rogerson], REED: York, I, p. 55.
58. Johnston and Dorrell [Rogerson], REED: York, I, p. 242; MED brand-reth n. 1. (a) ‘A grate, gridiron, or trivet for supporting cooking utensils above a fire’; MED, windas n. (a) ‘An apparatus for hoisting or hauling, a windlass, winch’; MED, shive n. (d) ‘a grooved wheel for a pulley, sheave’; OED Online, sheave, n. 1, 2. a. ‘A wheel having a groove in the circumference to receive a cord passing over it, a pulley; esp. one of the pulleys connected in a block’. For a good selection of ‘windlas’ and other analagous lifting-device records, see L. F. Salzman, Building in England Down to 1540 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), pp. 324–25. ‘Windes’, ‘windlasses’ and ‘wendes’ went under other names such as ‘verns’ or ‘ferns’: see MED fern n. (3) ‘A windlass’; Lynn White, Jr., ‘Medical Astrologers and Late Medieval Technology’ in Medieval Religion and Technology: Collected Essays, ed. by Lynn White, Jr. (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1978), p. 311: ‘Then (fol. 140) Arnault shows a compound pulley with four wheels in each of the two blocks, and this is followed (fol. 141) by three diagrams of hydraulic devices’; Emilio Bautista Paz, Marco Ceccarelli, Javier Echávarri Otero and José Luis Muñoz Sanz, A Brief Illustrated History of Machines and Mechanisms (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), pp. 62–63.
59. OED Online block 5.a. Mechanics. ‘A pulley or system of pulleys mounted in a case [the block], used to increase the mechanical power of the ropes running through them; employed esp. for the rigging of ships, and in lifting great weights. They take various names from their shape, position, or use, as fiddle block, sister block, etc.’. In the case in York, they are named as ‘chyffes’ (shives, sheaves). In the 1433 indenture of the Mercers at York, there is no mention of the means by which God is raised. In my Staging Conventions, I suggested that God was raised by lifting his brandreth ‘hand over hand’. However, the 1526 account does record use of a winch (‘ye wendes’).
60. For a useful explanation of the kind of block and tackle system that I have in mind, together with other mechanical devices see: www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1P3tWm4WXs [accessed 20 February 2021]. The video, ‘Making a Block and Tackle Wooden Pulley System’, shows the process of constructing a wooden block and tackle and ends with a demonstration of lifting a block of stone; William Horman, in his Vulgaria, refers to a pulley as a ‘trace whele’: ‘There must be made a trace whele/to wynd vp stone’: William Horman, Vulgaria (London: Richard Pynson, 1519), sig. 241v; see OED Online trace n. 2. ‘trace wheel’; Abbott Payson Usher, A History of Mechanical Inventions, rev. edn (New York: Dover, 1988), p. 124.
61. Lumiansky and Mills, Chester Mystery Cycle, I, pp. 372–73.
62. Lumiansky and Mills, Chester Mystery Cycle, I, pp. 373. This is the Benedictus anthem at Lauds on Ascension Day.
63. Lumiansky and Mills, Chester Mystery Cycle, I, p. 450.
64. Mills, The Chester Mystery Cycle: A New Edition with Modernised Spelling, p. 348.
65. Records of Early English Drama: Kent: Diocese of Canterbury, ed. by James M. Gibson, 3 vols (Toronto, Buffalo: The British Library, University of Toronto, 2002), I, p. 123; Ingram, REED: Coventry, p. 49; Johnston and Dorrell [Rogerson], REED: York, I, pp. 91, 116; MED staunchŏun n. (a) ‘An upright supporting bar or timber, a stanchion’; OED Online leg, n. II. 9. a. ‘A bar, pole, stem, or beam used as a support or prop (esp. in Shipbuilding and Mining)’. For consideration of the need to stabilise the pageant vehicle during the operation of lifting God when he ‘sall sty vppe to heuen’ in York, see Butterworth, Staging Conventions, p. 151.
66. King and Davidson, Coventry Corpus Christi Plays, pp. 33–41 (p. 36).
67. Ingram, REED: Coventry, pp. 150, 153.
68. Ingram, REED: Coventry, p. 240.
69. For further explanation of the working of the ‘stevenn’, see Butterworth, Staging Conventions, p. 149.
70. Ingram, REED: Coventry, p. 249; MED lŏker(e n. (1) (a) ‘A mechanism for locking, fastening, or closing; a clamp, a stopper, a door latch’. For construction of a wooden winch that makes use of a ‘locker’, see www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG1DW5p-nlk [accessed 20 February 2021]. For an account of the possible use of ‘rosshes’, other than strewing them across the floor of the pageant vehicle, see my ‘Pageant-Carriage Maintenance at Chester’, Medieval English Theatre, 39 (2017), 5–34 (18).
71. Ingram, REED: Coventry, pp. 217, 246.
72. Ingram, REED: Coventry, p. 465; MED fadme n. 1. (a) ‘A measure of length, equivalent to six feet or thereabouts; fadme lengthe: (b) a depth of six feet in taking nautical soundings’; Ronald Edward Zupko, British Weights and Measures: A History from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977), p. 162.
73. King and Davidson, Coventry Corpus Christi Plays, p. 46.
74. Eccles, The Macro Plays, pp. 68, 73. See also the Prelude and Chapter 6.
75. Eccles, The Macro Plays, pp. 68–69, 73.
76. Stokes, Beunans Meriasek: The Life of St. Meriasek, p. 66.
77. Stokes, Beunans Meriasek: The Life of St. Meriasek, p. 67.
78. Norris, The Ancient Cornish Drama, Passio Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi, I, pp. 294–95.
79. Norris, The Ancient Cornish Drama, Passio Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi, I, pp. 294–95; see also pp. 404–05.
80. Ramsay, Magnyfycence, p. 72. The ‘knife’ and the ‘gladium’ (normally ‘sword’) are presumably meant to be the same object.
81. Lumiansky and Mills, The Chester Mystery Cycle, I, p. 76.
82. Lumiansky and Mills, The Chester Mystery Cycle, I, p. 87.
83. Lumiansky and Mills, The Chester Mystery Cycle, I, p. 89.
84. Stokes, Gwreans An Bys: The Creation of the World, p. 24.
85. Stokes, Gwreans An Bys: The Creation of the World, p. 28.
86. Spector, The N-Town Play, I, p. 32. The flaming sword may have been made in the way that torches were constructed: see Butterworth, Theatre of Fire, p. 56.
87. Lumiansky and Mills, The Chester Mystery Cycle, I, p. 282.
88. Norris, The Ancient Cornish Drama, Passio Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi, I, pp. 312–13.
89. This treatment is just one method that I have used in production.
90. Spector, The N-Town Play, I, p. 290.
91. Butterworth, Magic on the Early English Stage, pp. 162–72.
92. Spector, The N-Town Play, I, p. 289.
93. John Redford, The Play of Wit and Science, Tudor Facsimile Texts, ed. by John S. Farmer (London, Edinburgh: T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1908), sig. 15v; Tudor Interludes, ed. by Peter Happé (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), p. 215. In Meg Twycross’s production of 1993 [on DVD], the head of the giant, Tediousness, is not hoisted on a sword in triumph but carried by Wit—possibly because of its size: John Redford, Wit and Science, dir. and des. by Meg Twycross (Houghton Tower: Crossbow Productions, 1993) [on DVD].
94. Lumiansky and Mills, The Chester Mystery Cycle, I, pp. 198, 199.
95. Matthew Sergi discusses interpretations of these actions, some of which plant modern preconceptions on to the motivation and meaning of this sequence: he, himself develops an argument concerned with Susan Sontag’s notion of camp or ‘seriousness that fails’: Sergi, Practical Cues and Social Spectacle, pp. 31–32, 62–71 (p. 68).
96. Lumiansky and Mills, Chester Mystery Cycle, I, p. 321; John 19:34; see the Introduction in this work at n. 17.
97. Lumiansky and Mills, Chester Mystery Cycle, I, p. 321: II, p. 258, n. 370; John 19:34 states: ‘Sed unus militum lancea latus eius aperuit, et continuo exivit sanguis et aqua’ (But one of the soldiers opened his side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water); Butterworth, Magic on the Early English Stage, p. 171; ‘Small bags filled with red ink simulate blood. When pressed against the body, the liquid overflows, giving the scene a vivid realism’: Chelkowski, ‘Dramatic and Literary Aspects of Ta’zieh-Khani—Iranian Passion Play’, p. 133.
98. Stokes, Beunans Meriasek: The Life of St. Meriasek, p. 228. See Chapter 3, n. 33, in this work.
99. Butterworth, Theatre of Fire, pp. 79–80.
100. Stokes, Gwreans An Bys: The Creation of the World, p. 122.
101. Stokes, Gwreans An Bys: The Creation of the World, p. 123.
102. Scot, Reginald, The Discouerie of Witchcraft (London: H.[enry] Denham for W.[illiam] Brome, 1584), pp. 346–52; Butterworth, Magic on the Early English Stage, pp. 159–79 (pp. 162–64).
103. Davis, Non-Cycle Plays and Fragments, p. 72.
104. Davis, Non-Cycle Plays and Fragments, p. 73.
105. For examples, see Butterworth, Magic on the Early English Stage, pp. 171–72.
106. Davis, Non-Cycle Plays and Fragments, p. 78.
107. Davis, Non-Cycle Plays and Fragments, p. 80.
108. Ibid.
109. Davis, Non-Cycle Plays and Fragments, p. 82.
110. Davis, Non-Cycle Plays and Fragments, p. 83.
111. See Butterworth, Theatre of Fire, pp. 48–54.
112. Lumiansky and Mills, Chester Mystery Cycle, I; MED bil n. ‘A cutting, hacking, or grubbing implement: (a) a falchion, halberd, pike, gisarme; ~ibeat; (b) a pruning hook or blade; (c) a mattock, pickax, or hoe; (d) ~hager (i.e. hakker), an offensive fellow or cut-throat (lit., one who hacks with a blade)’; Lumiansky and Mills, The Chester Mystery Cycle: A Reduced Facsimile of Huntington Library MS2, sigs. 52r, 52v, 53v, 54r, 54v, 55r.
113. ‘Have done!’ represents the kind of implicit stage direction that Matthew Sergi refers to as a ‘practical cue’: see Sergi, Practical Cues and Social Spectacle, pp. 126, 213.
114. Take, for example, the demonstrations conducted by Oskar Schlemmer at the Bauhaus through his ‘Form’ and ‘Stick’ dances, experiments with ‘Equilibristics’ and the ‘Triadic Ballet’: see The Theater of the Bauhaus, ed. by Walter Gropius, trans. by Arthur S. Wensinger (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), pp. 81–104; The Secret of Theatrical Space: The Memoirs of Josef Svoboda, ed. by J. M. Burian (New York, Tonbridge, UK: Applause Theatre, 1993), pp. 110–20, for productions involving ‘Laterna Magica’.