Mystery

MYSTERY PLAYS

At first known as Miracle plays, dramatisations of biblical stories were popular in the Middle Ages from the 13th to the 16th centuries. The Passion Play at Oberammergau is a modern survival. In 1311 the Feast of Corpus Christi was established as a holy day and provided a focus for the plays, which were performed all over England, often on pageant wagons, before a festive audience. The trade guilds were usually entrusted with the performance, each working on individual episodes. Though religious in subject matter, the plays were realistic in performance and designed to entertain.

A few complete cycles of Mystery plays in verse have survived, notably from Chester, York and Wakefield. Newcastle had a cycle of twelve, performed, according to Henry Bourne (q.v.) on Corpus Christi Day. It was a colourful occasion, with banners, church bells and marches to places of performance like the Spital and the Sandhill. The creation of Adam was put on by the Bricklayers and Plasterers, the Descent into Hell by the Tailors, and so on. In 1568, the Sacrifice of Isaac cost the Slaters five shillings and sixpence. The Shipwrights' enactment of Noah's Ark is the only one to have survived: it included an angel, Noah's wife and the Devil. The earliest performance of the plays in Newcastle is said to be 1426, though this seems rather late. Declining in popularity in 1578, they were suppressed in the 1600s as a result of Reformation opposition to the idolatry and pageantry associated with Catholicism.

The apprentice boys of Newcastle also kept falling foul of the Puritan tendency. An Act of the Merchant adventurers of 1554 thunders against their gay dress and 'tippling and dancing... what use of gitternes [guitars] by night!' In 1603, the youths are again enjoined 'not to dance or use music in the streets at night': nor are they to deck themselves in velvet and lace - or to wear their 'locks at their ears like ruffians'. All to no avail: in 1649, Newcastle's Puritan elders were still railing against ribbon and lace, gold and silver thread, and coloured shoes of Spanish leather. Nine recalcitrant youths received the pudding-basin treatment for their hair.

Despite this killjoy attitude it is nevertheless the case that the Newcastle corporation was unique among towns in maintaining a 'company of fools' from 1561-1635. Fools were otherwise confined to courts or noble families.

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
MYSTERY PLAYS At first known as Miracle plays, dramatisations of biblical stories were popular in the Middle Ages from the 13th to the 16th centuries. The Passion Play at Oberammergau is a modern survival. In 1311 the Feast of Corpus Christi was established as a holy day and provided a focus for the plays, which were performed all over England, often on pageant wagons, before a festive audience. The trade guilds were usually entrusted with the performance, each working on individual episodes. Though religious in subject matter, the plays were realistic in performance and designed to entertain. A few complete cycles of Mystery plays in verse have survived, notably from Chester, York and Wakefield. Newcastle had a cycle of twelve, performed, according to Henry Bourne (q.v.) on Corpus Christi Day. It was a colourful occasion, with banners, church bells and marches to places of performance like the Spital and the Sandhill. The creation of Adam was put on by the Bricklayers and Plasterers, the Descent into Hell by the Tailors, and so on. In 1568, the Sacrifice of Isaac cost the Slaters five shillings and sixpence. The Shipwrights' enactment of Noah's Ark is the only one to have survived: it included an angel, Noah's wife and the Devil. The earliest performance of the plays in Newcastle is said to be 1426, though this seems rather late. Declining in popularity in 1578, they were suppressed in the 1600s as a result of Reformation opposition to the idolatry and pageantry associated with Catholicism. The apprentice boys of Newcastle also kept falling foul of the Puritan tendency. An Act of the Merchant adventurers of 1554 thunders against their gay dress and 'tippling and dancing... what use of gitternes [guitars] by night!' In 1603, the youths are again enjoined 'not to dance or use music in the streets at night': nor are they to deck themselves in velvet and lace - or to wear their 'locks at their ears like ruffians'. All to no avail: in 1649, Newcastle's Puritan elders were still railing against ribbon and lace, gold and silver thread, and coloured shoes of Spanish leather. Nine recalcitrant youths received the pudding-basin treatment for their hair. Despite this killjoy attitude it is nevertheless the case that the Newcastle corporation was unique among towns in maintaining a 'company of fools' from 1561-1635. Fools were otherwise confined to courts or noble families.
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