Before dealing with the Mysteries, and as perhaps a kind of retrospect, let us have a look what Wharton has to say of the early drama. "Trade," he says (in the early centuries) "was carried on by means of fairs, which lasted several days. Charlemagne established many great marts of this sort in France, as did William the Conqueror and his Norman successors in England. The merchants, who frequented these fairs in numerous caravans and companies, employed every art to draw the people together. They were, therefore, accompanied by jugglers, minstrels, and buffoons (_i.e._, Pantomimists), who were no less interested in giving their attendance and exercising their skill on these occasions. Few large towns existed, no public spectacles or popular amusements were established; and as the sedentary pleasures of domestic life and private society were yet unknown, the fair time was the season for diversion. In proportion as the shows were attended and encouraged, they began to be set off with new decorations and improvements; and the arts of buffoonery being rendered still more attractive by extending their circle of exhibition, acquired an importance in the eyes of the people. By degrees the Clergy, observing that the entertainments of dancing, music, and mimicry exhibited at these annual celebrations made the people less religious by promoting idleness and a love of festivity, proscribed these sports and excommunicated the performers."
Mystery plays were afterwards divided into three classes, though the generic term Mysteries, meaning all three, is generally used. In the Mysteries, Biblical events were principally used; Miracle plays were obtained from the legends of the saints; and the last, Moralities, allegorical stories of a moral character not essentially taken from the Bible, or from the legends of the saints, comprised the third heading. The Mysteries were for several centuries known on the Continent before they were performed in England. The earliest Mystery play known to have been acted in England was at Dunstable about the year 1110. It was probably in Latin, and composed by a Norman monk.
It is a peculiarity of the English Mystery plays that they were combined into a series of plays on the Old and New Testament; and in which the whole course of Divine Providence, from the Creation to the Day of Judgment, is set before the spectator. Four noted groups of plays were the Chester, the Towneley, Coventry, and York Mystery plays. The Chester plays began on Whit Monday, and, continued till the following Wednesday. Permission to perform them, in the beginning of their institution, had twice to be asked of the Pope. They consisted of 24 plays, and were almost annually performed till 1577. Before the suppression of the monasteries the Grey Friars at Coventry were celebrated for their exhibitions of the Mystery plays usually on _Corpus Christi_. The Towneley, or Woodkirk group of plays were acted at Woodkirk, about four miles from Wakefield, and they are of a style that may be likened to the times of Henry VI., or Edward IV. Until the Mystery play fell into disuse, the trading companies and guilds seem principally to have maintained them. The mixture of secular with ecclesiastical players helped to change the characters of the English plays and to provoke censure, which began to be levelled at them from the beginning of the thirteenth century.