the two scenes might be taken from their regular places in the service,
combined, and presented at any season of the year. Other Biblical scenes,
as well, came to be enacted, and, further, there were added stories from
Christian tradition, such as that of Antichrist, and, on their particular
days, the lives of Christian saints. Thus far these compositions are called
Liturgical Plays, because they formed, in general, a part of the church
service (liturgy). But as some of them were united into extended groups and
as the interest of the congregation deepened, the churches began to seem
too small and inconvenient, the excited audiences forgot the proper
reverence, and the performances were transferred to the churchyard, and
then, when the gravestones proved troublesome, to the market place, the
village-green, or any convenient field. By this time the people had ceased
to be patient with the unintelligible Latin, and it was replaced at first,
perhaps, and in part, by French, but finally by English; though probably
verse was always retained as more appropriate than prose to the sacred
subjects. Then, the religious spirit yielding inevitably in part to that of
merrymaking, minstrels and mountebanks began to flock to the celebrations;
and regular fairs, even, grew up about them. Gradually, too, the priests
lost their hold even on the plays themselves; skilful actors from among the
laymen began to take many of the parts; and at last in some towns the
trade-guilds, or unions of the various handicrafts, which had secured
control of the town governments, assumed entire charge.

These changes, very slowly creeping in, one by one, had come about in most
places by the beginning of the fourteenth century. In 1311 a new impetus
was given to the whole ceremony by the establishment of the late spring
festival of Corpus Christi, a celebration of the doctrine of
transubstantiation. On this occasion, or sometimes on some other festival,
it became customary for the guilds to present an extended series of the
plays, a series which together contained the essential substance of the