N-Town plays

▪ English drama

      an English cycle of 42 scriptural (or “mystery (mystery play)”) plays dating from the second half of the 15th century and so called because an opening proclamation refers to performance “in N. town.” Since evidence suggests that the cycle was not peculiar to one city or community but traveled from town to town, the abbreviation “N.” would indicate that the appropriate name of the town at which the cycle was being presented would have been inserted by the speaker.

      The cycle is preserved in the Hegge Manuscript, so called after its 17th-century owner, Sir Robert Hegge, and it is therefore sometimes referred to as the Hegge cycle. On the flyleaf of the Hegge Manuscript is written “Ludus Conventriae” (“Play of Coventry”), and until the 19th century it was believed that the plays represented the Coventry cycle, until individual plays from Coventry were discovered and found to be totally different from equivalent plays in the N-Town cycle. Some scholars have attempted to show that the N-Town cycle is closely related to the (lost) cycle that was performed at Lincoln.

      The N-Town cycle begins with the creation of the angels and the Fall of Lucifer and ends with the Assumption of the Virgin and the Last Judgment. Among the plays with no equivalent in other cycles are one on the death of Cain and five whose central figure is that of the Virgin, with whom the cycle is generally much preoccupied. Typically the N-Town plays are grave and dignified; the comic relief distinguishing other surviving cycles (from Chester, York, Wakefield) is markedly absent. A basic difference between the N-Town plays and those of the other cycles is that this cycle, because it was a traveling one, was apparently presented by professional actors. It did not use pageant wagons, whereby plays were presented as a procession, but was given in a single open space, with “mansions” (indicating general scenes) set up about a single acting area. The performances may have taken place over two successive days.

Additional Reading

Stephen Spector (ed.), The N-Town Play: Cotton MS Vespasian D.8, 2 vol. (1991), is an edition of the N-Town plays that includes an introduction and extensive commentary.

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