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The Original Identity of the York and Towneley Cycles—A Rejoinder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Marie C. Lyle
Marie C. Lyle*
Affiliation:
Keuka College
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Abstract

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Type
Comment and Criticism
Information
PMLA , Volume 44 , Issue 1: American Bibliography for 1928 , March 1929 , pp. 319 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1929

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References

Note 1 in page 319 “The York Plays and the Gospel of Nichodemus,” PMLA, XLIII, 153-61.

Note 2 in page 319 “Was Gilbert Pilkington Author of the Secunda Pastorum?” PMLA, XLIII, 124-36.

Note 3 in page 319 The Original Identity of the York and Towneley Cycles, Research Pubs., University of Minnesota, VIII, 3 (1919).

Note 4 in page 320 See York Memorandum Book, ed. Maud Sellers, Surtees Society, 120, 125; Lucy Toulmin Smith, York Mystery Plays, intro. xviii-xlii; Mrs. Grace Frank, “Revisions in the English Mystery Plays,” Mod. Phil., XV, 565-72.

Note 5 in page 320 Frank, op. cit., pp. 565-72.

Note 6 in page 320 Davidson, Charles, “Studies in the English Mystery Plays,” Trans. Connecticut Acad. of Sciences, IX, 137 ff.

Note 7 in page 320 An early York Cathedral reference: see Lincoln Statutes, II, 98; Chambers, Melieval Stage, II, 399.

Note 8 in page 321 Foster, op. cit., p. 133. The situation in the Towneley Crucifixion (XXIII), Noah (III), and Magi (XIV), to which Miss Foster refers (p. 132), need not be treated in detail: she admits the probability of the expansion of the Towneley Crucifixion into two at York; I had in mind the parent-cycle version of the Noah play, of which the extant versions of York and Towneley represent independent revisions; the Magi, as Miss Foster points out, did not suffer partition until 1431.

Note 9 in page 321 Clark, op. cit., pp. 159-60.

Note 10 in page 321 Foster, op. cit., p. 133.

Note 11 in page 321 The Towneley Plays, EETS, Ex. Ser. LXXI, intro. xxiii-xxv.

Note 12 in page 321 Plays of our Forefathers (New York 1907), pp. 133, 164.

Note 13 in page 322 Cf. St. 10 and 17:

The water to norish the fysh swymand,

The erth to norish bestys crepeand,

That fly or go may.

Multiplye in erth, and be

In my blyssyng, wax now ye;

This is the fyft day. (St. 10)

and

Erthly bestys, that may crepe and go,

bryng ye furth and wax ye mo,

I se that it is good;

now make we man to oure liknes,

that shall be keper of more & les,

of fowles, and fysh in flood. (St. 17)

Note 14 in page 322 The natural position for the so-called couplet insertion (ll. 198-203; see Cady, The Couplets and Quatrains in the Towneley Plays, JEGP, X, 576), which contains God's command not to eat of the tree of life, is after l. 194 where it would follow his statement to Adam and Eve that as long as they refrain from sin, they will have “joye and blis” in paradise. God's order to the angel would then be followed by the angel's reply. In his stage direction the playwright apparently made an attempt to reconcile the order of events: “Tunc capit cherubyn adam per manum, & dicit eis dominus.”

Note 15 in page 323 Cf. T ll. 198-99: wife, life and Y Pl. IV, ll. 83-89: Lyfe, wyf; T ll. 165-66: liknes, les and Y Pl. III, ll. 21-23: lesse, make, likeness; T ll. 176-80: wise, will, fulfill, paradise, playce and Y Pl. IV, ll. 1-9: place, grace, in tree, see, myn, parodyce, begynne, wyse; T ll. 7-8: begynnyng, endyng and Y Pl. I, ll. 1-8: begynnyng, me, wynnyng, be, blendyng, hydande, abydande, endyng; T ll. 16-17: will, fulfill and Y Pl. I, ll. 17-19: wyll, me, full-fyll.

Note 16 in page 323 Pp. 52-101.

Note 17 in page 323 “The Relation of the English Corpus Christi Play to the Middle English Religious Lyric,” Mod. Phil. V, 26. It will be noted that the metre of the lyric begins three strophes earlier in Towneley than do the verbal similarities; also that no similarities with Chester (see Pollard, op. cit., intro. xix) are apparent in the stanzas written in the metre of the lyric.

Note 18 in page 323 Cf. N.P. Ad. ll. 183-90: grythe, wyth, fynde, kynde, saye, waye, haulle, alle and T ll. 320-29: grith, with, fynde, kynde, say, way, all, hall; N.P. H. 204 a, b: doune, bowne and T ll. 346-47: bowne, downe; N.P. C.Gg. ll. 409-10: crawe, thrawe and T ll. 380-81: throw, craw; N.P. A. 345a-48: be, blys, mys, mo, forego and T ll. 392-95: mys, blys, forgo, also.

Note 19 in page 323 Cf. N.P. H. ll. 111-112: broght, wroght and T ll. 254-56: wroght, always, broght; N.P. H. ll. 117-18: fete, bete and T ll. 260-62: beytt, thare, feytt; N.P. p. 20. ll. 15-16: solde, talde and T ll. 278-80: told, thryrty, sold; N.P. H. ll. 159-60: I, by and T ll. 212-16: I, lang, witterly, emang, by; N.P. p. 19, ll. 3-4: salde, talde and T ll. 238-40: sold, se, told.

Note 20 in page 324 Cf. N.P. H. ll. 379-82: fle, me, write, smyte and T ll. 417-20: me, ilkon fle, smeten; N.P. H. ll. 408-10a: pe, thrise, wise, deny and T ll. 426-29: the, broght, twyse, thre; N. P. H. ll. 449-54: be, me, still, will and T ll. 500-3: styll, me, wyll, be; N.P. p. 51. ll. 11-12, 17-18: knaw, saw, mis, kis and T ll. 588-91: knaw, wys, saw, kys; N.P. H. ll. 513-14: rowte, obout and T ll. 584-87: me, rowtt, be, abowte; N.P. C.Gg. ll. 591-94: here, fere, vnryght, nyght and T ll. 700-5: here, rowte, fere, abowte, yll, nyght.

Note 21 in page 324 See Pollard, op. cit., intro. xxvi; Cady, “The Passion Group in Towneley,” Mod. Phil., X, 588 ff.; Foster, The Northern Passion, EETS, 147, p. 86 and PMLA, XLIII, 133.

Note 22 in page 324 For opinions regarding the work of the Wakefield author, see Pollard, op. cit., introd. xxi ff.; Gayley, op. cit., pp. 161-90; Cady, “The Wakefield Group in Towneley,” JEGP, XI, 244 ff.; Frank, op. cit., Mod. Phil. XV, 565 ff.; my dissertation, pp. 78, 82 ff., 100.

Note 23 in page 324 See for instance: Pollard, op. cit., intro. xxvi; Davidson, op. cit., pp. 137 ff.; Gayley, op. cit., p. 161; Cady, “The Passion Group in Towneley,” Mod. Phil X, 590; Foster, op. cit., EETS, 147, p. 86.

Note 24 in page 324 See my dissertation, pp. 5-18, 77-83.

Note 25 in page 324 Foster, op. cit., PMLA, XLIII, 133.

Note 26 in page 325 Foster, op. cit., p. 133, note 48.

Note 27 in page 325 Gayley, op. cit., p. 164.

Note 28 in page 325 Foster, op. cit., p. 132.

Note 29 in page 325 For Paragraphs under discussion, see pp. 106-7 of my dissertation.

Note 30 in page 325 See my dissertation, pp. 107-8.

Note 31 in page 325 Miss Foster (op. cit., pp. 131-34) would make it seem that the dating was an important factor in my proof.

Note 32 in page 326 York Memorandum Book, Surtees Society 120, pp. 115, 78-79.

Note 33 in page 326 In answer to the queries which Miss Foster makes (see op. cit., p. 134), one could hardly conceive of a division into two plays of the Harrowing of Hell (York XXXVII), but the division of the Denial and Caiaphas (York XXIX) would not be without reason.

Note 34 in page 326 Clark, op. cit., p. 160.

Note 35 in page 326 W. A. Craigie, “The Gospel of Nicodemus and the York Mystery Plays,” Furnivall Miscellany, p. 61. See W. H. Hulme (The Middle-English Harrowing of Hell and Gospel of Nicodemus, EETS, 100, introd. xix), who states that “there are good reasons for believing that the poetical Gospel of Nicodemus, was in existence as early as the first quarter of the fourteenth century.”

Note 36 in page 326 Clark, op. cit., p. 159.

Note 37 in page 327 The northern septenar section of the Towneley Conspiracy must also have been written at this time.

Note 38 in page 327 Clark, op. cit., p. 161

Note 39 in page 327 See Davies, Extracts from the Municipal Records of the City of York (London 1843), pp. 233-36.

Note 40 in page 327 So stated in footnote 6, p. 31, of my dissertation.

Note 41 in page 327 Clark, op. cit., p. 154.

Note 42 in page 327 Op. cit., pp. 157-58.

Note 43 in page 327 See Miss Foster's dating (op. cit., EETS, 147, p. 2): “. . . . before 1350 it [i.e., the Northern Passion] was expanded and in part rewritten. The original translation, therefore, may safely be dated early in the fourteenth century.”

Note 44 in page 328 On this point, see Miss Frances H. Miller, “The Northern Passion and the Mysteries,” M. L. N. XXXIV, 88 ff.), whose results confirm Miss Foster's early statement (M. L. N., XXVI, 169 f.) that in the York passion plays the playwright turned to vernacular sources, and that the Northern Passion and the Middle English Gospel of Nicodemus form the basis of whole plays. . . . . Aside from these [i.e., certain scenes which the playwright has obviously elaborated in an original manner], there is practically nothing in the passion group of York that cannot be found also in the Middle English Gospel of Nicodemus or in the Northern Passion.“