ABSTRACT
The manuscript of the York play–the Ludus Corporis Cristi or Corpus Christi play–is in some ways the easiest to deal with since its provenance, its date, its scribes, the reasons for its compilation and its owners are all to some extent known. It contains the texts of forty-eight of the craft pageants. The manuscript of the York play is then a late-fifteenth-century official civic document, compiled for the purpose of control over the activities of the crafts in their Corpus Christi pageants. Written apparently by local scribes, it was annotated in their official capacities by the Common Clerks or their deputies, often during the performance of the play at the first station, or corrected by them from the craft copies. The N-Town plays are very different from those of York and Chester. Though they contain elements of a cycle– such as the Banns and many individual pageants – they also contain complete plays which were never part of a cycle.
