The York Corpus Christi Plays

Medieval Christians observed the feast of Corpus Christi through not only solemn processions with the consecrated Host, but also pageants and plays depicting central moments from salvation history. These vernacular-language dramas inspired medieval audiences toward greater devotion and encouraged emotional participation in such events as the Creation of Adam and Eve, the Nativity, and the Crucifixion. This edition’s forty-seven plays, preserved exclusively in the fifteenth-century manuscript known as London, British Library, MS Add. 35290, form the only complete play cycle verifiably performed as part of the feast of Corpus Christi at a specific location in England. Performed by members of York’s craft and mercantile guilds on mobile wagon stages, these plays were an annual tradition observed continuously from the fourteenth century until their suppression amid anti-Catholic sentiment in 1569. Not performed again until the twentieth century, the York Corpus Christi Plays represent a unique, remarkable survival of Middle English drama.