Our earliest instance of a Miracle-Play in England was near the beginning of the twelfth century.  Matthew Paris, in his Lives of the Abbots, written as early as 1240, informs us that Geoffrey, Abbot of St. Albans, while yet a secular person brought out the Miracle-Play of St. Catharine at Dunstaple; and that for the needed decorations he obtained certain articles “from the Sacristy of St. Albans.”  Geoffrey, who was from the University of Paris, was then teaching a school at Dunstaple, and the play was performed by his scholars.  Warton thinks this was about 1110:  but we learn from Bulaeus that Geoffrey became Abbot of St. Albans in 1119; and all that can with certainty be affirmed is, that the performance was before he assumed a religious habit.  Bulaeus also informs us that the thing was not then a novelty, but that it was customary for teachers and scholars to get up such exhibitions.

Our next information on the subject is from Fitzstephen’s Life of Thomas a Becket, as quoted by Stowe.  Becket died in 1170, and the Life was probably written about twelve years later.  After referring to the public amusements of ancient Rome, Fitzstephen says:  “In lieu of such theatrical shows and performances, London has plays of a more sacred kind, representing the miracles which saints have wrought, or the sufferings and constancy of martyrs.”

It appears that about the middle of the next century itinerant actors were well known; for one of the regulations found in the Burton Annals has the following, under date 1258:  “Actors may be entertained, not because they are actors, but because of their poverty; and let not their plays be seen nor heard, nor the performance of them allowed in the presence of the Abbot or the monks.”  The Clergy differed in opinion as to the lawfulness of such exhibitions; and in an Anglo-French poem written about this time they are sharply censured, and the using of them is restricted to certain places and persons.  An English paraphrase of this poem was made by Robert Brunne in 1303; who specifies what pastimes are allowed to “a clerk of order,” declaring it lawful for him to perform Miracle-Plays of the birth and resurrection of Christ in churches, but a sin to witness them “on the highways or greens.”  He also reproves the practice, then not uncommon, of aiding in such performances by lending horses or harness from the monasteries, and especially declares it sacrilege if a priest or clerk lend the hallowed vestments for that purpose.

The dogma of transubstantiation was particularly fruitful of such exhibitions.  The festival of Corpus Christi, designed for the furthering of this dogma, was instituted by Pope Urban IV. in 1264.  Within a few years from that date Miracle-Plays were annually performed at Chester during Whitsuntide:  they were also introduced at Coventry, York, Durham, Lancaster, Bristol, Cambridge, and other towns; so that the thing became a sort of established usage throughout the kingdom.  A considerable variety of subjects, especially such as relate to the Incarnation, the Passion, and the Resurrection, was embraced in the plan of these exhibitions; the purpose being to extend an orthodox belief in those fundamentals of the faith.