The practice in question, however, was by no means universal.  We learn from Stowe that in 1391 and 1409, plays were acted in London by the parish clerks.  In cities and large towns, these performances were generally in the hands of the trade fraternities or guilds.  Our information touching the Corpus Christi plays at Coventry extends from 1416 to 1590; during which period there is no sign of the Clergy having any part in them.  The records of Chester also show that the whole business was there managed by laymen.  And in 1487 a Miracle-Play on the descent of Christ into Hell was acted before Henry the Seventh by the charity boys of Hyde Abbey and St. Swithin’s Priory.  Long before this date, acting was taken up as a distinct profession, and regular companies of actors were formed.

That churches and chapels of monasteries were at first, and for a long time after, used as theatres, is very certain.  The Anglo-French poem already referred to informs us that Miracle-Plays were sometimes performed in churches and cemeteries, the Clergy getting them up and acting in them.  And Burnet tells us that Bishop Bonner as late as 1542 issued an order to his clergy, forbidding “all manner of common plays, games, or interludes to be played, set forth, or declared within their churches and chapels.”  Nor was the custom wholly discontinued till some time after that; for in 1572 was printed a tract which has a passage inferring that churches were still sometimes used for such purposes.

When plays were performed in the open air, temporary scaffolds or stages were commonly erected for the purpose; though in some cases the scaffold was set on wheels, so as to be easily moved from one part of the town to another.  It appears that the structure used at Chester had two stages, one above the other; the lower being closed in, to serve as a dressing-room for the actors, while the performance was on the upper stage where it could be seen by all the spectators.  Sometimes the lower stage seems to have been used for Hell, the devils rising out of it, or sinking into it, as occasion required.  In some plays, however, as we have seen in that of Mary Magdalen, more than one scaffold was used; and certain stage-directions in the Towneley and Coventry plays infer that two, three, and even four scaffolds were erected round a centre, the actors going from one to another across the intervening space, as the scene changed, or their several parts required.

MORAL-PLAYS.

The purpose of the Miracle-Plays was to inculcate, in a popular way, what may be termed the theological verities; at first they took their substance and form solely with a view to this end, the securing of an orthodox faith being then looked upon as the all-important concern.  In course of time, the thirst for novelty and variety drew them beyond their original sphere of revealed religion into that of natural ethics.