dramas had been prepared, clustering around four cardinal points of
Christian teaching; namely, Creation, the Fall, Redemption, and Doomsday or
the Last Judgment.

[Sidenote: GROWTH OF THE MIRACLES]

At first such plays were given in the church, and were deeply religious in
spirit. They made a profound impression in England especially, where people
flocked in such numbers to see them that presently they overflowed to the
churchyard, and from there to the city squares or the town common. Once
outside the church, they were taken up by the guilds or trades-unions, in
whose hands they lost much of their religious character. Actors were
trained for the stage rather than for the church, and to please the crowds
elements of comedy and buffoonery were introduced, [Footnote: In the
"Shepherd's Play" or "Play of the Nativity," for example, the adoration of
the Magi is interrupted by Mak, who steals a sheep and carries it to his
wife. She hides the carcass in a cradle, and sings a lullaby to it while
the indignant shepherds are searching the house.] until the sacred drama
degenerated into a farce. Here and there, however, a true Miracle survived
and kept its character unspotted even to our own day, as in the famous
Passion Play at Oberammergau.

[Sidenote: CYCLES OF PLAYS]

When and how these plays came to England is unknown. By the year 1300 they
were extremely popular, and continued so until they were replaced by the
Elizabethan drama. Most of the important towns of England had each its own
cycle of plays [Footnote: At present only four good cycles of Miracles are
known to exist; namely, the Chester, York, Townley (or Wakefield) and
Coventry plays. The number of plays varies, from twenty-five in the Chester