cycles. Perhaps the most interesting of them all are the
Wakefield plays. They are also called the Townley plays, from
the name of the family who possessed the manuscript for a long
time.

Year after year the same guild acted the same play. And it
really seemed as if the pageant was in many cases chosen to suit
the trade of the players. The water-drawers of Chester, for
instance, acted the Flood. In York the shipwrights acted the
building of the ark, the fishmongers the Flood, and the gold-
beaters and money-workers the three Kings out of the East.

The members of each guild tried to make their pageant as fine as
they could. Indeed, they were expected to do so, for in 1394 we
find the Mayor of York ordering the craftsmen "to bring forth
their pageants in order and course by good players, well arrayed
and openly speaking, upon pain of losing of 100 shillings, to be
paid to the chamber without any pardon."*

*Thomas Sharp, Dissertation on the Pageants.

So, in order to supply everything that was needful, each member
of a guild paid what was called "pageant silver." Accounts of
how this money was spent were carefully kept. A few of these
have come down to us, and some of the items and prices paid sound
very funny now.

"Paid for setting the world of fire 5d.
For making and mending of the black souls hose 6d.
For a pair of new hose and mending of the old for the white souls 18d.