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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Towneley XX, the Conspirado (et Capcio), is one of the most composite plays in the Towneley manuscript. Not only does it show the hand of several poets and editors, but it covers the ground of three plays as registered at York—the Conspiracy, the Last Supper, and the Capture—the last of these including the Agony. It opens with six Wakefield stanzas, which are, rather certainly, the last writing upon it. These stanzas are spoken by Pilate and are in the typical Pilate vein, beginning with a demand for silence, followed by elaborate self-boasting, and then by the theme of the play, Pilate's fear of Jesus, who had declared that “if he lyf a yere / dystroy oure law must vs.” These stanzas offer no problem.
page 920 note 1 I presume that no one now agrees with Cady that the Wakefield writing in Towneley was early. (Frank Cady, “The Towneley Couplets and Quatrains,” JEGP, x, 572 ff.)
page 920 note 2 T xx, line 38.
page 920 note 3 The actual number of stanzas is 22. The EETS numbers the caudas as separate stanzas. Caudas are lacking after stanzas 13 and 48.
page 920 note 4 Charles Davidson, Studies in the English Mystery Plays, p. 127.
page 920 note 5 Quoted from Lucy Toulmin Smith, York Mystery Plays, p. xxiii. It is true that Burton omits to mention Anna, who must have been in the play as he knew it. But the Janitor was a new character, not in other cycles, and centers attention upon himself so definitely that mention of him would seem certain had he been in the play. Like Pilate's wife and the Ancilla of York xxx, he belongs to the very late writing at York.
page 921 note 6 Davidson, op. cit., p. 157.
page 921 note 7 Frank Cady, “The Passion Group in Towneley,” MP, x, 592.
page 921 note 8 Chester, which follows John as source of its foot-washing episode, falls under the influence of Towneley here. It changes the wording, however, so as to omit all sense of going. It reads:
Ihesus. Brethren, take up this meat anon, 137
to an other worke we must gone. 138 (Play xv)
page 922 note 9 John, 14: 31.
page 922 note 10 Cady, op. cit., p. 593. The resemblances he points out are: T 348; Y 40: T 380; Y 43: T 384–385; Y 45–46: T 392–393; Y 51–52.
page 922 note 11 Ibid., p. 593.
page 923 note 12 John, 13: 13–15.
page 923 note 13 Burton's play appears as two plays in the “second list,” the first dealing with the supper and the second with the foot-washing and after supper discourse of Jesus. This second play was sponsored by the Waterleders, but, sometime before the York plays were registered, they relinquished the play to join with the Cooks in giving York Play xxxii. The fact that the York play as registered preserves the iambic movement and the stanzaic organization of the early septenar writing at York suggests that the Bakers, sponsors of Burton's play, merely resumed their old play with little or no change.
page 923 note 14 Quoted from York Mystery Plays, p. xxiii.
page 923 note 15 This distinction is made in the N.P. (line 237), in the Chester cycle (Play xv, stanza 10), and in the Ludus Covenlriae (The Last Supper, lines 690–694 and 706–709), but in none of them is it connected with the foot-washing episode.
page 924 note 16 The four echoes show that the poet probably knew York but they fall far short of showing any formative influence upon him.
page 924 note 17 Frances Foster, MLN, xxvi, p. 170.
page 924 note 18 Cady, op. cit., p. 594, n. 2.
page 924 note 19 T. line 355.
page 924 note 20 N.P., line 268. Of course the tense is changed as Judas is speaking in person. All quotations from the N.P. will be from Frances Foster, “The Northern Passion,” EETS, OS, cxlv.
page 925 note 21 The wording of Matthew 26: 23.
page 925 note 22 I substitute this word from Dd. 1.1., as Gg. 3.31. reads “Ihesus” in error.
page 925 note 23 Line 212 of the short versions is the only line found in the long Harley version.
page 925 note 24 Whether a given word or words in the N.P. influenced Towneley or which version exerted the influence when present, often raises a nice question. Even rhyme words may be so natural a choice as to occur to any poet regardless of their use elsewhere. Often, too, the creative expression of a poet may so blend the common ideas of various sources that no one of them can be said to be the formative influence.
As examples of necessary caution let us take the rhyme words “bowne-downe” in T 346–347. These words occur in H 204a–204b but I hesitate to accept the influence of H. The ideas in T and H differ and the passage in which the words appear in T derives, as a whole, from the short versions not the long H. Again, the rhyme words of T 314–315, “ette-mete,” may derive from “mete-strete” common to all versions of the Passion, lines 181–182, yet the word “mete” common to both passages, is a noun in T and a verb in the N.P. Only the sound could have exerted an influence and the words in T would come naturally from one translating from the Vulgate according to Matthew 26; 17: “Ubi uis paremus tibi pascha?” These words are actually given in H but the poet certainly was not dependent upon H for a knowledge of them.
Where words or ideas in T are found in more than one version of the N.P. the safe principle is to derive them from the source most used or being used at the time. It is on this principle that we would derive T 328–329 from the short versions although the word “rest” is also in H. The two lines, however, close a considerable debt to the short versions. The wisdom of this choice here is verified by the fact that the word “dyscypyls,” T 328, occurs only in the short versions.
There is but one other case of possible derivation from H in the Cena couplets. The words of Matthew and of Mark, after the soldiers have captured Jesus, “Then all the disciples forsook him and fled,” are transferred in all versions of the N.P. to the Peter prophecy passage where they are made much of. T certainly follows the N.P. in this and, in lines 378–379 is very close in expression to H where H differs from the short versions:
The case of H seems certain till we recall that in all versions, a little earlier, in lines 379–380, occur the words:
Gg. 5.31.
fful fast sall зhe fro me flee 379
And some of зhow forsake mee. 380
I quote from Gg. to show that the short versions may well account for the T passage, and also because the next two lines in T correspond to Gg. where it differs completely from the other versions. I believe the influence emanates from Gg. Thus I find in all the Cena portion of T XXb no single instance of certain Harley influence. Even if I am mistaken in every case the influence of H is still negligible.
page 926 note 25 Foster, EETS, OS, cxlvii, p. 97.
page 927 note 26 I see no certain evidence that the poet was familiar with the long Harley version. See my note 24 above.
page 927 note 27 Because the Cena poet follows the Passion with such unusual closeness I feel that the foot-washing couplets, if ever a part of the Cena portion of T XXb, must have followed line 373 to correspond to the placing in the poem. It might be argued that the similarity of wording between T 350–351 and Ad. 362–364, in-as-much as these lines in the Passion close the foot-washing episode, would place it in T between lines 349 and 350. Such placing, however, would violate the Passion order and the idea motivating the words in the Passion —the mutual relations of Master and servant,—differs from that in T,—the mutual relations of the disciples. I am inclined to think, therefore, that the T poet merely echoes the N.P., perhaps unconsciously, rather than that the echo shows a one time inclusion and placing of the foot-washing episode.
page 927 note 28 T 384–385; N.P. 334: T 387; N.P. 339–340: T 392–396; H 341–346b. The first is verbal; the second advances an idea found only in the N.P.; the third I treat in the text.
page 927 note 29 Miss Foster quotes here Ashmole 31, a short version, EETS, OS, cxlvii, p. 87, but I agree with Miss Lyle in deriving the influence from Harley, Marie C. Lyle, “Original Identity of the York and Townley Cycles,” Research Publications of the University of Minnesota, viii, #3, p. 11. As the other short versions do not have the rhymes in -is I am confident that both Ashmole and Towneley derive from Harley independently.
page 928 note 30 John, 13:9.
page 928 note 31 This evidence is probably supported further by the unlikehood that a poet who followed so closely the N.P. otherwise would depart from that account in his writing of the episode.
page 928 note 32 T 421–t22.
page 929 note 33 Cady, op. cit., p. 593.
page 929 note 34 Davidson, op. cit., p. 156.
page 929 note 35 The only stanzas not so written by the scribe are stanzas 93–95, 97 and the last four stanzas. All of these he writes in four lines each fully ligatured. Except for the last two all differ from the standard stanzas by showing four undoubted accents in all the lines and, more important, they make large use of alliteration. The last two stanzas may belong with the play and their writing be a carry over from the two stanzas which precede them, or they may be a clumsy late writing by some one seeking to make transition to the next play.
page 930 note 36 The true line of Passion influence is often hard to determine, a difference of judgment being, at times, fully justified. Fortunately it is not necessary to determine the exact source of his echoes as his use of sources makes such determination of no importance. Without discussion, however, I believe that I may list as Harley echoes those in the following lines. The short versions can make no such showing. T 588–591; H extension lines 11–19, entered after line 512 by Miss Foster: T 599; H 564: T 669; H 530: T 674; H 539: T 690; H561: T692; H587: T699; H 568: T707; H544.
page 930 note 37 T lines 500 and 707. For the T payn the short versions have ded and the gospels, cup. Only H 544 resembles T 707 at all.
page 930 note 38 E. M. Clark, “The Towneley Plays,” Orate Fratres, xvi, 73, points to the ultimate source of T 654–655, “ludas wakys, and slepys not he/he commys to betray me here belyfe,” in the eighth lession of Holy Thursday, “Vel Judam non videtis, quomodo non dormit, sed festinat tradere me Judaeis?”
page 933 note 39 I have taken my illustrations from the Agony as nearest the Peter prophecy quatrains. A good example of the eclecticism I have illustrated is in stanzas 113–115 of the Capture portion of the play. In them the poet places chronology and sources at his own will as in the passages I have studied.
page 934 note 40 John, 18: 6: N.P., 532–534. H expands with four new lines.
page 934 note 41 See the study of the complexity with which mystery cycles developed offered by Grace Frank, MP, xv, 565 ff., particularly her judgment of the situation in Towneley as given on pp. 571–572.
page 935 note 42 Quoted from York Mystery Plays, p. xxiii.
page 935 note 43 Charles Mills Gayley, Plays of our Fore-fathers, pp. 157–158.
page 935 note 44 See my dating of this period at York, PMLA, liii, 97–112.
page 935 note 45 Foster, EETS, OS., cxlvii, p. 89.
page 936 note 46 Quoted from PMLA, liii (March, 1938), 101, n. 79. It has been customary to call this list “Burton's second list,” because some reader has scribbled the name Burton in the margin beside it. I early questioned this ascription because Burton in his 1415 list always calls the Lord by the name of Jesus, although he once writes, in his description of Play xxvii; “institucio sacrimenti corporis Cristi.” In the second list, however, the Lord is always called Christ. Note that Burton does not so spell the word on the one occasion when he used it. I wrote Mr. Angelo Raine, to whom I am indebted for the correct transcription of the list which I published in the note referred to above, asking his opinion. He replied that he did not think the hand was Burton's, but to make assurance doubly sure, he called in a friend who was an experienced paleographer. It was the judgment of this gentleman that: 1, the list proper, the annotations and the signature are in different hands; 2, that the word “Burton” was not written by Burton himself; 3, that neither the original list nor the annotations is in Burton's hand; and, 4, that the hand of the list proper “is certainly not much later than that of list one,” i.e., Burton's list. Letter dated from 129, The Mount, York, 23 August, 1939. Again I wish to thank Mr. Raine for his many courtesies to me. I feel we should accept his judgment and that of his friend as final.
page 936 note 47 This repetition of the prophecy in successive plays calls for no comment. York plays xvi and xvii in like manner repeat the Coming of the Three Kings.
page 937 note 48 See my correction of Miss Lyle's dating of this list, PMLA, liii, p. 101, n. 79, last paragraph.
page 937 note 49 See my study in PMLA, liii, 109–112.