HISTORY
OF
THE ENGLISH DRAMA AND STAGE
TO
THE TIME OF SHAKESPEARE.
In order to make the reader acquainted with the origin of the English stage, such as Shakespeare found it when he became connected with it, it is necessary to mention that a miracle-play, or mystery (as it has been termed in modern times), is the oldest form of dramatic composition in our language. The stories of productions of this kind were derived from the Sacred Writings, from the pseudo-evangelium, or from the lives and legends of saints and martyrs.
Miracle-plays were common in London in the year 1170; and as early as 1119 the miracle-play of St. Katherine had been represented at Dunstaple. It has been conjectured, and indeed in part established 1 , that some of these performances were in French, as well as in Latin; and it was not until the reign of Edward III. that they were generally acted in English. We have three existing series of miracle-plays, all of which have been recently printed; the Towneley collection by the Surtees Club, and those known as the Coventry and Chester pageants by the Shakespeare Society. The Abbotsford Club has likewise printed, from a manuscript at Oxford, three detached miracle-plays which once, probably, formed a portion of
1 See Hist, of Engl. Dram. Poetry and the Stage, vol. ii. p. 131.
/ a