Professor A. W. Ward 1) tells us 'in general, there is no reason to doubt that the composition of the Towneley Plays is due to the friars of Woodkirk or Nostel'. This however seems to be a somewhat bold assumption.

Mr. J. P. Collier 2) speaks throughout his work of the 'Widkirk Miracle Plays', and supposes that they belonged to 'Widkirk Abbey'.

Professor Alexander Hohlfeld, in his masterly essay 3) entitled "Die altenglischen Kollektivmisterien" considers that the Towneley mysteries were acted in "Wakefield oder seine nächste Umgebung (Woodkirk)”.

Dr. Charles Davidson 4) favours the view that the plays belonged to Woodkirk.

Jusserand, in his "Literary History of the English People" (p. 466) says that the Towneley Mysteries are a "collection of plays performed at Woodkirk, formerly Widkirk, near Wakefield".

It will therefore be our purpose to discuss the merits of the rival claims of Woodkirk (or Widkirk) and Wakefield for the honour of having given birth to and fostered the growth of what is probably the most original and characteristic of all the cycles of English Mysteries: but before proceeding to this discussion, a few remarks may be made upon the appropriateness of the title, "Towneley Plays" or "Towneley Mysteries".

It has already been stated that the Surtees Society first published the plays in question under the title of "The Towneley Mysteries", in the year 1836; and the recent edition. of the Early English Text Society has been brought out under the name of "The Towneley Plays". The justification for these titles is not far to seek, as it lies in the fact that the unique manuscript volume, from which these works were printed, is supposed to have been for some centuries in the possession of the Towneley family of Towneley Hall in Lancashire, to whom it belonged in the year 1814, when it

1) English Dramatic Literature I p. 36.

2) History of English Dramatic Poetry, London 1831.

3) Anglia Vol. XI, 219-310.

4) Studies in the English Mystery Plays, Yale 1892.

was sold by auction, though it is not known how or when such possession was acquired. But it would have been more in accordance with the analogy of the custom adopted in connexion with the great classical authors, if we were to speak of the Towneley Manuscript of the plays, and to name the plays themselves after the place where they were acted.

The title "Widkirk Plays" seems however to have absolutely no justification. Its origin is as follows. When the Towneley Library was dispersed by auction sale in 1814, Mr. Douce, a well known Shaksperian critic of the day, annotated the catalogue of manuscripts at the request of the owners; and he wrote concerning the volume which contains the Mysteries that it was supposed to have formerly "belonged to the Abbey of Widkirk, near Wakefield, in the County of York". But Mr. Douce himself, as the Surtees Society Editor informs us, appears to have subsequently considered this supposition as not worthy of much regard. For only eight years later, when supplying an introduction to the "Judicium" from this series, published by Mr. Peregrine Edward Towneley, Mr. Douce relinquished this position altogether, and then expressed his opinion that the manuscript had formerly belonged to the Abbey of Whalley in Lancashire (which was quite adjacent to Towneley Hall) and had passed into the hands of the Towneleys at the dissolution of religious houses in the middle of the 16th century. It may therefore be fairly asserted that, in default of evidence to support either of these views, Mr. Douce's opinion is not one that carries conviction: and yet the Surtees Society Editor declares that "the supposition that this book belonged to the Abbey of Widkirk, near Wakefield, has upon it remarkably the characteristics of a genuine tradition". He has accordingly built up an argument which not only rests on no real foundation, but is also in some respects at least in direct contradiction to the plain indications given by the text itself, and to certain facts hereafter to be mentioned: and in consequence of this argument these plays have frequently been called "The Widkirk (or Woodkirk) Plays" a title which seems to be both unjusti

fiable and misleading.

There is no place of the name of Widkirk in the neighbourhood of Wakefield, nor indeed in any part of the district

to which the dialect of the plays seems to point. But about four or five miles north west of Wakefield there is a village called Woodkirk, or West Ardsley, where a religious establishment was founded by the Earls Warren early in the 12th century, and placed under the control of the Priory of S. Oswald at Nostell, which is some five miles south of Wakefield. This establishment was not however an Abbey, as Mr. Douce and the Surtees Society Editor wrongly asserted, but merely a cell of Augustinian or Black Canons. It was moreover taken for granted that at the fairs held at Woodkirk) under a charter granted by Henry I, on the feasts of the Assumption and the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin (Aug. 15 and Sept. 8 respectively) dramatic representations of sacred subjects were provided for the delectation and instruction of the visitors. More than this, one writer has gone so far as to state that the plays were probably written in "Woodkirk Monastery", and acted in the Church which still exists there. 2) Finally, in the "Athenæum" of Dec. 2, 1893, Professor Skeat has shown that there is no philological difficulty in assuming that Widkirk and Woodkirk are simply varieties of the same name. Unfortunately, however, a diligent search has revealed to the writer no trace of the former pronunciation, though the following spellings have been discovered in various documents:

Wudechirche (1202), Wodekirk (1293), Wodkirk (1379), Wodkyre (1379), Woodkirk (1490 &c), Wodkyrke (1546), Woodkirke (1595), and Woodchurch (1623, 1642, 1716, 1756, 1765, &c.). There is moreover at the present time no knowledge of any pronunciation such as Widkirk in the locality itself, where Woodkirk and Woodchurch are apparently used at pleasure.

It therefore seems altogether unreasonable to persist in speaking of Widkirk Plays on the grounds already mentioned, because:

1) This fair was called "Wodekirk Fair" in the 14th & 15th centuries but more recently "Lee Fair”, and in later times was famous, amongst other things, for the disputations of scholars from the Grammar Schools of Wakefield & Leeds.

2) See "Old Yorkshire" by William Smith Vol. I p. 10. The days of play acting in Churches must have gone by long before these mysteries saw the light.

Anglia. N. F. XII.

35

(1) the only authority for the name is a statement given in a note in an auctioneer's catalogue, but afterwards contradicted by the author himself;

(2) there is no such place as Widkirk in the neighbourhood of Wakefield;

(3) there is no authority for identifying the imaginary Widkirk with Woodkirk;

(4) there is no evidence that any religious plays were ever acted at Woodkirk.

There is however a place called Whitkirk about four miles to the east of Leeds, and about eight miles north east of Wakefield. But as no abbey or other monastic building is known to have existed there, no attempt need be made to connect the mysteries with it.

Nor need any attempt be made to connect the mysteries with the "Abbey of Whalley in Lancashire", mentioned by Mr. Douce as his second conjecture, as the dialect used does not possess the necessary characteristics.

As was stated at the commencement of this paper, writers upon the subject of the English Mysteries have only been able to make indefinite statements as to the place where the so called "Towneley Plays" were represented, though some have rightly pointed out their close connexion with Wakefield. The following considerations, which include many points not hitherto referred to by critics, seem to render it practically certain that the ancient city of Wakefield itself was the home of these mysteries.

I. Wakefield and its Trade Guilds are mentioned more than once in the original manuscript. Thus at the commencement of the first play (Creatio) we find the words: In dei nomine amen.

Assit Principio, Sancta Maria, Meo. Wakefeld.

And in the margin is added the word "Barkers", undoubtedly referring to the guild of tanners who undertook the performance of this particular play: the same guild took the corresponding play at York, as we learn from Miss Toulmin Smith's introduction to her valuable edition of the "York Plays".

The second play (Mactatio Abel) has a marginal entry at the commencement:

Glover Pag.

the imperfect word being part of the word Pageant, or its mediæval latin equivalent, Pagina or Pagonna; the Gaunters (or Glovers) took the corresponding play in the York series. The third play is thus headed:

Processus Noe cum filiis. Wakefield.

"Processus" being practically a synonym with "pagina". The eighth play (Pharao) has a marginal note at the beginning

Litsters Pagonn,

and in another hand a later place:

lyster play

referring to the ancient guild of dyers at Wakefield: the "Lytsteres" at York took the play entitled "The trial before Herod ".

The twenty seventh play (Peregrini) has the words:

fysher pagent

written underneath the title in a later hand.

It is unfortunate that no historical records of these Wakefield trade guilds have yet been discovered, but there is sufficient evidence in the manuscript copy of the plays to show that the craftsmen of the town took care to form themselves, as in other towns, into societies for the protection of their rights. References have however been recently found to most of the trades mentioned above: thus in the 14th century the tanners were frequently brought before the Wakefield Manor Court for imposing on their customers by substituting various skins in place of ox-hide leather: as regards the litsters or dyers, we learn that in 1312 the Lord of the Manor sold the right of dyeing in the town of Wakefield for the sum of 8 shillings and 8 pence a year: and in 1329 the right of fishing in the river Calder at Wakefield was valued at 12 pence, while in 1339 it had risen to 5 shillings per annum. 1) There is thus no need to suppose, with Mr. Pollard,2)

1) See "Wakefield Town life in the 14th century" pp. 35, 36: by J. W. Walker F. S. A., 1900.

2) Towneley Plays, Intr. p. XXVIII note.