ABSTRACT
One of the great challenges in the study of English medieval drama is the instability of the texts. Scholars have thought that the two northern cycles, Chester and New York, were conceived and controlled in a similar way. Christopher Goodman was alarmed by the preparations for the performance of the Chester plays in 1572, seeing in them a papist interpretation of the biblical story. By endorsing the Roman Catholic interpretation of each, the producers of the Chester plays in 1572 were signalling their theological biases, justifying the concern of evangelicals, such as Goodman, about the nature of the 1572 production. The various Chester scribes in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries seem to have been inspired to make many copies of the Chester plays through a combination of antiquarian curiosity and civic pride. The scholarly editions of the plays with which one is familiar and are often used exclusively by critics interpreting the plays, trap them in editorial conventions.
