Christian story, and therefore of the Christian faith. The Church generally
still encouraged attendance, and not only did all the townspeople join
wholeheartedly, but from all the country round the peasants flocked in. On
one occasion the Pope promised the remission of a thousand days of
purgatory to all persons who should be present at the Chester plays, and to
this exemption the bishop of Chester added sixty days more.

The list of plays thus presented commonly included: The Fall of Lucifer;
the Creation of the World and the Fall of Adam; Noah and the Flood; Abraham
and Isaac and the promise of Christ's coming; a Procession of the Prophets,
also foretelling Christ; the main events of the Gospel story, with some
additions from Christian tradition; and the Day of Judgment. The longest
cycle now known, that at York, contained, when fully developed, fifty
plays, or perhaps even more. Generally each play was presented by a single
guild (though sometimes two or three guilds or two or three plays might be
combined), and sometimes, though not always, there was a special fitness in
the assignment, as when the watermen gave the play of Noah's Ark or the
bakers that of the Last Supper. In this connected form the plays are called
the Mystery or Miracle Cycles. [Footnote: 'Miracle' was the medieval word
in England; 'Mystery' has been taken by recent scholars from the medieval
French usage. It is not connected with our usual word 'mystery,' but
possibly is derived from the Latin 'ministerium,' 'function,' which was the
name applied to the trade-guild as an organization and from which our title
'Mr.' also comes.] In many places, however, detached plays, or groups of
plays smaller than the full cycles, continued to be presented at one season
or another.

Each cycle as a whole, it will be seen, has a natural epic unity, centering
about the majestic theme of the spiritual history and the final judgment of
all Mankind. But unity both of material and of atmosphere suffers not only