The writer of the French Manuel de Peché, particularly reprobates the performance of Miracle-plays, en les rues de citez, which seems to point at the performance of plays or pageants, during the festival of Corpus Christi. It is supposed that these were first A. D. introduced into this country in the year 1268, 1268. very shortly after the festival of Corpus Christi had been established by Pope Urban IV.*:

grace,' and the cardinal virtues: he narrowly escapes the tower of flame' of Satan; but finally triumphs, exclaiming, 'swyche playes I defye.' Cotton, MSS. Tiberius, A. vii.

The quotations from Robert de Brunne are from Harl. MS. No. 1701. *In Bower's Lives of the Popes, vi. 268, the following account of the origin of the feast is given on the authority of St. Antonius, Archbishop of Florence.

'A priest, having spilt at mass some of the consecrated wine, it ap 'peared upon the corporale (that is, upon the piece of linen on which the chalice and host are placed by the officiating priest) like so many drops of blood. But Diestemius, Prior of the Benedictines at Liege, 'tells us that the priest being staggered in his belief of the real presence, 'blood flowed from the host into the chalice, and upon the corporale. 'The corporale being brought, bloody as it was, from Bolsena, where 'the miracle was supposed to have happened, to Orvieto, the Pope, ' after examining the priest and all who were present, was convinced of 'the miracle, and thereupon appointed the solemnity of Corpus Christi 'to be annually celebrated.'

On this occasion, Urban IV. granted a pardon of a certain number of days to all who attended different parts of divine service at this festival. It is extant in Harl. MS. No. 955, under the following title:Here foloweth the pardon of corpus Christi fest, which is ' graunted bi pope urban the fourth, and bi pope martin the fift, and 'bi pope Eugeny the fourthe, and is witnessed bi the generall counsell "of Basill.'

It contains nothing about the representation of Miracle-plays; and,

that event occurred in 1264; so that only four years elapsed before the annual representation of Miracle-plays, at Chester during Whitsuntide, appears to have been established. Exhibitions of a similar kind took place at Coventry, York, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Preston, Kendall, Bristol, Witney, Cambridge, Manningtree, and other places; and it may be conjectured, that they were originally introduced into large towns nearly contemporaneously, for the purpose of disseminating a certain degree of knowledge of Scripture history; and, as Robert de Brunne remarks, (for the observation is not found in any copy of the original I have had an opportunity of examining,) for the purpose of extending a belief in the miraculous conception of the Saviour, as well as in the resurrection.

In Piers Ploughman's Crede, two lines are put into the mouth of a friar minor, which advert to the performance of Miracle-plays in market towns:

'We haunten no tavernes, ne hobelen abouten;
• At marketes and Miracles we meddley us never *?

consequently, must be different from the pardon mentioned in the 'Proclamation of the Whitsone Playes,' at Chester, dated 24 Henry VIII., as granted by Clement [VI.] for the encouragement of the performances.

* Yet in 1420, not long after this poem was written, we find a friar minor interfering at York, to procure the annual representation of the Corpus Christi plays, and he was then called 'a professor of holy pageantry.'-See the Appendix to Drake's History of York.

Chaucer has many allusions to exhibitions of this description, and he represents his Wife of Bath amusing herself with them during Lent, and while her husband was absent :

Therfore made I my visitations,

'To vigilies and to processions,

To prechings, and to thise pilgrimages, • To playes of myracles, and to mariages, 'And wered upon my gay skarlet gites *'

It may be doubted, whether by the word Menestrallus, found in accounts of household expenses, about this period, and a little earlier, something more might not be meant than a mere player upon an instrument +. In the MS. series of pageants at Chester

* It is a coincidence perhaps worth notice, that in the year in which Chaucer is supposed to have been born, 1328, 'Playes of Myracles,' as he calls them, were, perhaps, first performed in English; the conjecture, hereafter attempted to be supported, being that until then they were only allowed in French.

Bishop Percy was of opinion that minstrels were authors and composers of songs and ballads, as well as performers of them on the harp. (Reliques, i. xxi. edit. 1812.) Ritson, on the other hand, denies the position, and probably degrades the character of a minstrel below the level it actually held in society among our ancestors. (Ancient Songs and Ballads, i. xvii. edit. 1829.) In his answer to Percy, he has displayed a vast deal more learning than candour, and the discovery of truth is sacrificed to the love of triumph. The result seems to be that neither disputant was strictly in the right; for although minstrels (most anciently called Gleemen), in the first instance united the arts of poetry and music,' yet they subsequently seem to have lost this distinction, and to have degenerated into 'mere musicians,' and performers upon instruments.

6

A. D.

and Coventry, Minstrels are not unfrequently spoken of; and there, unquestionably, their business was only to fill up intervals, or to accompany certain parts of the performance with music. As early as A. D. 1308, the Duke of Lancaster had a company menestrallorum, forming part of his 1308. domestic establishment *. The author of the Manuel de Peché, and the translator of it, Robert de Brunne, - in a manner couple minstrels and Miracle-plays; but there is no evidence to prove that minstrels at any time acted, although they certainly aided in the representation.

Robert Baston, a Carmelite friar of Scarborough, who flourished in the reign of Edward II., and accompanied that king in his expedition into Scotland, is mentioned by Bale (quoted by Warton, Hist. Eng. Poet., ii. 65, edit. 8vo.) as the author not only of Poems and Rhymes, but of Tragœdiæ et Comœdiæ vulgares. None of these are extant, but no reasonable doubt can be entertained that they were Miracleplays, for Bale calls his own productions of a similar kind, tragedies and comedies.' Some of Baston's dramatic productions might be in existence at the time when Bale wrote, about the middle of the sixteenth century.

In the year 1333, Eleanora, the sister of Edward III., was married to Reignold Earl of Guelderland,

* Vide Lansdown MSS. No. 1. The cost of this establishment cannot be ascertained, as it is mixed up with other items.

and in a MS. of the receipts and payments on that occasion, and during her journey, mention is made of a lusum in camera sua, but in what sense we are here to take the word lusum is questionable. It is clear that it was not a performance of music; and in the same accounts we find frequent entries of payments to minstrels for their minstrelsies, both in the house of the Princess and elsewhere *. It is very possible that this lusum was some game of chance, at which the Princess lost her money.

* The following items, with a view to my present purpose, are curious. The MS. from which they are taken, was in Mr. Craven Ord's collection, recently dispersed.

'Duobus Menestrallis facientibus menestralcias suas.

'Cuidam Menestrallo facienti Menestralciam suam coram Dna 'Eleonora in tenemento suo.

'Lusum in Camera. Eccelmo Dalmaund, servienti Regis ad arma, per denarias per ipsum solutas diversis locis, per diversas 'vices, diversis servientibus libantibus Dnæ E. pro luso in camera

sua.

'Diversis vidulatoribus facientibus menestralcias suas coram 'cruce ad porticum borealem in ecclesia Sti. Pauli London, de dono 'Dnæ E.

'Cuidam Menestrallo, vocato Bag-piper, facienti menestralciam ( suam coram Dna Eleonora, per manus proprias.

S. 20

S.

12

S.

17

S.

12

S. 12

Her liberality to musicians was extraordinary; and one of them, William Cardinall, is mentioned by name. She bestowed upon them many other smaller sums, and on the day she was desponsata she gave a largess of 207. to the minstrels. She had also gentlemen and singing men belonging to her chapel, who were allowed servants and horses.