Adam and Eve and a tree betwixt them; the serpent deceiving them with apples; God speaking to them and cursing the serpent, and with a sword driving them out of paradise.
Adam and Eve, an angel with a spade and distaff assigning them work.
Abel and Cain offering victims in sacrifice.
God warning Noah to make an Ark of floatable wood,
Noah in the Ark, with his wife; the three sons of Noah with their wives; with divers animals.
Abraham sacrificing his son, Isaac, on an altar, a boy with wood and an angel.
Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness; King Pharaoh; eight Jews wondering and expecting.
A Doctor declaring the sayings of the prophets of the future birth of Christ. Mary; an angel saluting her; Mary saluting Elizabeth.
Mary, Joseph wishing to put her away; an angel speaking to them that they go to Bethlehem.
Mary, Joseph, a midwife; the Child born, lying in a manger betwixt an ox and an ass, and an angel speaking to the shepherds, and to the players in the next pageant.
The shepherds talking together, the star in the East; an angel giving the shepherds the good tidings of the Child's birth.
16, 17. Orfevers (Goldsmiths), Goldbeaters, Moneymakers.
The three kings coming from the East, Herod asking them about the child Jesus; the son of Herod, two counsellors, and a messenger. Mary with the Child, a star above, and the three kings offering gifts.
How completely the people of each town were engaged in the presentation of the plays, can be judged from the following supplementary list of the other trade guilds that took parts. Many of them bear quaint names, which are now obsolete. They included the girdellers, makers of girdles; nailers, sawyers, lorymers (bridle makers), the spurriers (makers of spurs), the fevers or smiths, the curriers, the plumbers, the pattern-makers, the bottlers, the cap-makers, the skinners, the bladesmiths, the scalers, the buckle-makers, the cordwainers, the bowyers (makers of bows), the fletchers (arrow-featherers), the tilemakers, the hayresters (workers in horse hair), the boilers (bowl-makers), the tunners, the sellers or saddlers; the fuystours (makers of saddle tree), the verrours (glaziers), the broggours (brokers), the dubbers (refurbishers of clothes), the luminers or illuminators, the scriveners, the drapers, the potters, the weavers, the hostlers and mercers. The men of no occupation, however menial it may seem to us, were barred. Each of these companies had a special pageant with a portion of the Old or New Testament to represent and in each succeeding year spent much of their spare time in preparing for their dramatic performance, studying and practising their parts and making everything ready for competition with their brother craftsmen in the other pageants. Only those who know the supreme educative value of dramatic representations for those actively interested in them, will appreciate all that these plays meant for popular education in the best sense of the word, but all can readily understand how much they stood for in popular occupation of mind with high thoughts and how { 247} much they must have acted as a preventive of debasing dissipations.