ABSTRACT
Just as the original re-enactment of the Visit of the Three Marys to Christ’s tomb on Easter Sunday morning in Benedictine Abbeys of the tenth century ad was protected within the Christian liturgy by the Latin words quasi (as if) and quomodo (in the manner of), so all aspects of its visual realisation—from actors and acting to costume and scenic representation—were protected iconographic-ally by the Church. Slowly, as century followed century, it was relaxed and modified as the repertoire of plays on offer came to be extended from the earliest liturgical music-dramas of the tenth and eleventh centuries to embrace other subject matter abstracted from biblical, legendary and chivalric literature. By 1440, York had commissioned forty-nine, but of these only nine were taken from the New Testament and all of them are shorter than those presented in Chester and Wakefield.
