Not long ago the Chapter of York Minster, the governing body of the Cathedral, decided that the time had come to replace the stone-work around the arch over the main West doorway. The figures that were originally carved there had slowly worn away. The scenes to be newly carved included the Garden of Eden, the story of Cain and Abel, the dramas of Noah and Jonah, as well as three scenes of our Lord and St. Peter. To achieve this end the clergy and the architect agreed on the subjects and the drawings to be made, then the stonemasons in the Minster work-yard were informed and asked to execute the carvings required.
    This is, I am sure, exactly what must have happened in medieval days. The builders and stonemasons would have been fully aware of what it was that they had to produce – even if we are, in part, mystified by what they carved. Some of the symbolism may be wholly lost on us but you may be sure it was well understood by those who carved it.
    The masons were aware of their work and its contribution to the education of the public who would see it and were also fully aware of their need to share in the life of the local community. Their Guild, with those of other crafts, formed the basis of town or city government and this sense of communal involvement is what led them to take part in the annual public procession of Corpus Christi plays in June.
    This mobile performance of plays during one whole day took place in cities as far apart as Newcastle, York, Wakefield, Norwich, Coventry, Exeter and Chester; country-wide, in fact. And the performances continued for over 250 years – from just after 1300 to about 1575, a sizeable slice of English history.

The Guild Performances

In each city there were two lists: one of the plays to be performed and another of the Guilds in their local order of importance. This latter order differed: in Chester and Norwich the most important Guilds were those of the Drapers and Haberdashers whilst in York it was the Barber-surgeons. Whatever the order, the Guilds made their choice of which play they would each present, according to the local order. Once their choice was made, that play was the one which they would probably perform for year after year unless there was a change in the ranking of the local Guilds or if a Guild specially requested permission to change their play, as the York masons did in 1431. What must be emphasised is that even if, as with the Masons, a Guild was one of the lesser ones and thus had a more limited choice after several others had decided, great care was still taken over the kind of play because not only was the symbolism of the play important – as with their stone-carving – but the cost of performance was substantial. In present day values the initial outlay would be up to £4000 with an annual upkeep of £1000.
    Each Guild wanted a play which related to its own Patron Saint; the Masons preferred plays involving either the Virgin Mary or the two Saints John. The other requisite was that the content of the play needed to relate to the particular craft which presented it. The Barber-surgeons preferred plays showing the fine beards of John the Baptist or the Jewish priests whilst the Watermen chose plays about Noah’s Ark or Jonah and the Whale. The Masons wanted plays about the Temple, David and Solomon, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, stones or the death of the innocent – the latter referring to the ancient builder’s legend that a suitable victim had to be slain and laid in the foundations before a building could be safely erected. What they chose is relevant to several degrees known in York in the 18th century.

The Masons performed in:
Aberdeen, the Massacre of the Innocents;
Beverley, the Temptation of Jesus on the pinnacle of the Temple;
Chester, the Massacre of the Innocents;
Coventry, the three Maries at the tomb of Jesus with the stone rolled away;
Dublin, Moses causing Pharaoh’s host to be lost in the Red Sea;
Newcastle, the Burial of the Virgin Mary;
Norwich, Cain murdering his brother Abel;
Wakefield, the child Jesus presented in the Temple; or Cain murdering Abel;
York, the Burial of the Virgin Mary; or the coming of the Magi and the Massacre of the Innocents; or Jesus’ presentation in the Temple.

Symbolic Meanings

The plays were composed in verse and the words learnt by heart since the participants might be unable to read. Severe fines were imposed for disgracing the company by failing to recite the words correctly. In addition, the verses were accompanied by formal gestures because the public, also largely illiterate, were used to the formal gestures employed by the clergy during mass. Objects were used which acquired symbolic meanings – pointed hats signified Jews; mitres represented High Priests; staves denoted prophets and a cluster of candles was a star, pots represented manna or incense and robes of specially chosen colours were used. If you want to find Solomon or David on the roof of our older churches or cathedrals you simply look for a figure holding a model temple or a harp.
    Is it any wonder that from these plays men and women received impressions that persist nearly seven hundred years later – impressions that have gone very deep and affected our whole culture: the idea that God is an old man with a beard sitting on a cloud; that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John surround one’s bed; that Hell is a blazing furnace with red horned devils brandishing forks; that angels have blond hair, white robes and huge wings; that the Virgin Mary wears blue and has a halo of stars. The complete list is much longer.
    If seeing the plays was able to so deeply impress the minds of the audience, and their descendants, what might it have done to those who planned and produced the plays they memorised? Furthermore, the clergy attached to the Guilds, those who read the books which coloured the contents of the plays, were as influential in affecting the city craftsmen as the monks of the monasteries had been in guiding the masons whom they employed.
    I have no hesitation in asserting that, contrary to what some have claimed were the uninteresting practices of the late medieval masons, these men had a dramatic background knowledge to draw on. The operative masons were likely, over time, to weld into their traditions the words, symbols and gestures which they had so regularly displayed in their plays. When these operatives were joined, or replaced, by the new `speculatives’ who, as products of the new Tudor grammar schools, were now able to read and write, then the old form of the Lodge and its acquired `traditions’ could begin to be altered. Through these new and accepted Freemasons, the new Guild `lodges’ could be shaped, slowly but steadily, into a style more familiar to us and the proceedings of that kind of `lodge’ would begin to be not play-acting but ritual.

A period of transition

It is impossible to explain briefly the transition in dramatic presentation following the late 1500s when many of the Mystery plays ceased to be regularly staged; in York this end came in 1572. However, some places continued them until about 1620. Even so, three points are relevant to note:
1: Some fifty new plays, based on biblical themes, were produced between 1550 and the arrival of King James I in 1603; the subjects include Moses, Gideon, Jephtha and King Hiram of Tyre. In 1560 there was a special play called "The Wisdom of Solomon" which ended with the Queen of Sheba arriving at Solomon’s court to admire the completion of the Temple.
2: The Globe Theatre in London was designed to be erected as a form of sacred temple in the octagon shape of what was then thought to be the form of the Holy Sepulchre. Here the plays of Shakespeare were staged still using verse with formal gestures, symbolic dress and symbolic objects.
3: Masons like Inigo Jones and Nicholas Stone were asked to construct buildings in Stuart times based on the work of an architect called Serlio whose main contribution had been the construction of the perspective stages of the Roman theatre. Inigo Jones, the designer of the Whitehall Banqueting Hall, which was erected for Royal stage entertainments, became, with colleagues, the creator of masques and costume dramas; a presentation of "Solomon and Sheba" took place in 1607.
    We can conclude that even though Guild plays were discontinued by 1580, the number of biblical themes available was actually increased. The introduction of the Geneva (or Breeches) Bible in 1560 introduced clear links with our present ritual.1 The Freemasons links with dramatic presentations were clearly continued and revived knowledge about ancient forms of architecture was being acquired.
    The Commonwealth period saw a ban on theatres, a limit on large house building and an attack on traditional beliefs and practices. But it only lasted for twenty years and many people hung on, all the more tenaciously, to what they prized from the past. It was followed by the Restoration: ideas and customs that had been disallowed burst forth and we come to this fresh age of re-building with Palladian and Vitruvian-style stone dwellings that also made use of Roman stage designs. And, it saw the emergence of what we can begin to call Masonic ritual.
    What do we find when anything resembling our present practice appears? Ritual in verse, standard biblical themes, no printed or published texts, memory learning still required, specific gestures, symbolic items – almost a complete re-run of where the Mystery Plays left off. Only now, not performed on an open wagon and in the street, but on a tavern or private house floor and in a rear or upper room.
    I would dare to claim that we have come from Role-play to Ritual.

The Rev. Neville Barker Cryer, MA., formerly served as Grand Chaplain, Assistant Provincial Grand Master of Surrey, and Master of Quatuor Coronati Lodge, No. 2076. He was Prestonian Lecturer in 1974 and Batham Lecturer, 1996-8 and author of many books including Masonic Halls of England, The Arch and the Rainbow, and I Just Didn’t Know That. Until his retirement, he was the General Director of the British & Foreign Bible Society.

1 Cryer, N. B., "The Geneva Bible and the Development of English Speculative Freemasonry", Yearbook of Grand Lodge of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1993, pp. 52-60.

York Medieval Theatre project: www.lancs.ac.uk/users/yorkdoom/welcome.htm