The Actors and Manner of Presentation.—­At first the actors were priests who presented the plays either in the church or in its immediate vicinity on sacred ground.  After a while the plays became so popular that the laity presented them.  When they were at the height of their popularity, that is, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the actors were selected with great care from the members of the various trades guilds.  Each guild undertook the entire responsibility for the presentation of some one play, and endeavored to surpass all the other guilds.

[Illustration:  HELL MOUTH._From a Columbia University Model_.]

Considerable humor was displayed in the allotment of various plays.  The tanners presented the fall of Lucifer and the bad angels into the infernal regions; the ship carpenters, the play of Noah and the building of the ark; the bakers, the Last Supper; the butchers, the Crucifixion.  In their prime, the Miracle plays were acted on wooden platforms mounted on wheels.  There were two distinct stories in these movable stages, a lower one in which the actors dressed, and an upper one in which they played.  The entrance to the lower story, known as Hell Mouth, consisted of a terrible pair of dragonlike jaws, painted red.  From these jaws issued smoke, flame, and horrible outcries.  From the entrance leaped red-coated devils to tempt the Savior, the saints, and men.  Into it the devils would disappear with some wicked soul.  They would torture it and make it roar with pain, as the smoke poured faster from the red jaws.

In York on Corpus Christi Day, which usually fell in the first week in June, the actors were ordered to be in their places on these movable theaters at half past three in the morning.  Certain stations had been selected throughout the city, where each pageant should stop and, in the proper order, present its own play.  In this way the enormous crowds that visited York to see these performances were more evenly scattered throughout the city.

The actors did not always remain on the stage.  Herod, for example, in his magnificent robes used to ride on horseback among the people, boast of his prowess, and overdo everything.  Shakespeare, who was evidently familiar with the character, speaks of out-Heroding Herod.  The Devil also frequently jumped from the stage and availed himself of his license to play pranks among the audience.

Much of the acting was undoubtedly excellent.  In 1476 the council at York ordained that four of the best players in the city should examine with regard to fitness all who wished to take part in the plays.  So many were desirous of acting that it was much trouble to get rid of incompetents.  The ordinance ran:  “All such as they shall find sufficient in person and cunning, to the honor of the City and worship of the said Crafts, for to admit and able; and all other insufficient persons, either in cunning, voice, or person, to discharge, ammove and avoid.”  A critic says that this ordinance is “one of the steps on which the greatness of the Elizabethan stage was built, and through which its actors grew up."[10]