LISE EVANS continues intriguing series on
the Medieval history of Coventry with a
look at the Mystery Plays staged in the city.
By Lise Evans
THE MYSTERY Plays were one of the greatest events in the Coventry calendar, bringing thousands into the city to marvel at the sheer spectacle, colour and pageantry.
For around two centuries they brought fame, prestige and wealth to the city and entertained all levels of English society from our monarchs to the humblest of peasant.
Richard II visited Coventry in 1384 and watched them, Henry VII in 1487 (hot off the battlefield at Bosworth) also enjoyed them and Queen Elizabeth was entertained by a special performance during her only visit to Coventry in August 1565.
The celebrated dramas were renowned throughout England. Coventry’s streets thronged, its hostelries filled to bursting point as pilgrims and other travellers arrived to witness the sight and partake in the eight day fair that followed.
The city’s merchants, hawkers and traders prospered from income accumulated during the prolonged festivities.
The Mystery Plays were traditionally performed on Corpus Christi Day – one of the many festival days of the Christian calendar – and so were also known as the Corpus Christi Plays.
The feast day honours the Eucharist or Holy Communion which itself celebrates the doctrine of transubstantiation – that the bread and wine of Communion becomes the body and blood of Christ, Corpus Christi being Latin for the body of Christ.
The plays were among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe (starting in the 10th century) and focused on the representation of stories from the Bible.
They reached the height of their popularity in the 15th century by which time they had developed into a series of plays dealing with all the major events in the good book from The Creation to The Day of Judgment.
By the end of the 15th century, the practice of acting these plays in cycles on festival days (such as Corpus Christi) was established not only in England but several parts of Europe.
They began life as church dramas performed by the clergy, but the idea was soon taken over by various craft guilds, each of whom was responsible for putting on its own section of the Mystery Play.
Each play was performed on a decorated cart called a pageant that moved about the city to allow different crowds to watch each play. These mobile stages on wheels were dragged around Coventry to different locations such as Gosford Street, Broadgate, Bishop’s Gates and St Michael’s churchyard.
Each of the city’s craft guilds also had to provide its own wagon, costumes and props at their own expense which could amount to a fair old sum. These were kept in special storage rooms known as pageant houses in various parts of the city. Records tell us that in 1392, the Drapers guild had their pageant house in Little Park Street.
Surviving accounts of the various expenses of the Drapers (who presented Doomsday) show how one year they, among other expenses, paid 2s 8d for four pairs of angel’s wings, 12d for the making and painting of new ‘hell head’ and 8d to a chap named Fawston for hanging Judas.
As economic decline began to set in in the in late 1400s so many of the craft guilds tried to pull out of doing their pageant because of the increasing costs of putting on the performance. The city Leet (or Council), however, imposed heavy fines if they did not! The performances brought great kudos to Coventry.
The performances began in the early morning, after the magnificent Corpus Christ Procession which involved the entire community of Coventry, led by the clergy and leading members of the city’s ruling elite all in their finest regalia. The first section began with the Creation followed by the Deluge and then the Birth of Christ. It was during the latter section as Mary held the infant Jesus in her arms a chorus of Luly Lulay, thou tiny child, the famous Coventry Carol would be sung.
The last play was Doomsday and this was staged at nightfall. This was the end of the world when all would be judged and featured a huge monstrous head with a massive gaping mouth from which bellowed smoke and flames. Occasionally the devil would leap out and grab someone from the audience dragging them kicking and screaming through the mouth and metaphorically into hell.
Not all those who acted in the plays, however, were craftsmen for as the mysteries began to get more popular, real actors were hired by the guilds and became involved. They painted their faces to enhance their expression to the crowds and figures such as Christ and St Peter wore golden wigs. Rehearsals took place in St Nicholas Hall, St Mary’s Guildhall and the long-gone Bishop’s Palace.
Some believe that the Coventry plays were the most popular in England. They were well-liked enough that Shrewsbury’s Mercers Guild threatened to fine any of its members who shirked off to Coventry festivities, instead of taking part in their own celebrations.
The end of the Mystery Plays came about in the late 1500s as Coventry became increasingly puritanical and many saw the plays as ‘popish’. Calls came for them to be abolished. The craft guilds were in agreement due to the financial burden it imposed on them but the city traders and Leet disagreed.
The end, however, was nigh and after the last cycle was performed in 1589, the Coventry plays disappeared until they were revived in the mid 20th century and performed in the Cathedral ruins.
