Pleasing the Queen but Preserving Our Past
107
not extensive enough to indicate if there were any pattern of alternating
responsibilities for plays. Lincoln’s Corpus Christi play first appears in records
from 1472. Expenses for the Corpus Christi play in 1486 and 1487 are listed as
459 pence and 267.5 pence, respectively, both substantial sums of money in the
late fifteenth century. Since the records do not itemize the expenditures, they
give no hint to the content of the Corpus Christi play {Malone Lincoln 37-8).
Sometime before 1521 St. Anne’s Day became celebrated with a
pageant cycle {Malone Lincoln xv). An expenditure dating from 1541 suggests
that the cycle spanned two days. Bearers in the pageant were paid for St. Anne’s
Day and the morning after {Malone Lincoln 61). According to the limited
information in the accounts, the cycle included scenes portraying Bethlehem and
Rome. Other references show that one part of the cycle contained roles for
shepherds. One list of expenses shows that at least two actors—whoever
portrayed the Virgin Mary and (probably) the Annunciation angel—received
stipends of 6 pence each, and the others received refreshment in the form of
bread and ale. Based on what existing records tell us, expenses for the
production of the cycle averaged 123 pence per year {Malone Lincoln 47-65).
Obviously Lincoln’s officials placed great value on producing its cycle plays. A
stiff penalty of £10 was levied on any guild that failed to fulfill its part in the St
Anne cycle—a fine that equaled almost a year’s income to a skilled craftsman
{Malone Lincoln 47).
Like so many other English towns, Lincoln suspended the Saint Anne’s
Day cycle plays during Edward’s reign, and reinstated them at Mary’s accession
in 1553, but they disappeared forever from the records shortly after Elizabeth
succeeded Mary {Malone Lincoln 64). And like Boston and York, Lincoln’s city
council sought to mount a new play acceptable to Elizabeth’s injunctions.
Records from 1563 indicate the city council mounted a new play, and like
Chester the city fathers sought to tie it into the secular Midsummer muster of the
local militia. Agents for the city were ordered to collect money from the guilds
and townspeople for a “play of some Story of the Bible [which] shall be played
two days this Summertime” {Malone Lincoln 67). A list of properties itemized
in the records suggests the play dramatized the Book of Nehemiah and its story
of the return of the Israelites from Babylon and the rebuilding of Jerusalem. In
1565 and 1566, the play was performed again, this time during Whitsuntide.
After 1566 references to this play disappeared from the records. Like in the
cities of Chester and Boston, the attempts of the city fathers of Lincoln to craft
“an acceptable alternative,” as Proudfoot puts it, “were doomed to failure”
{Malone Lincoln xxi, 67-8).
Elizabeth’s government and the religious reformers in the church
hierarchy seem to have been determined to stamp out any local religious drama.
By her reign those reformers who believed it was sacrilege for anyone to
“counterfeit” Scripture or religious practice were firmly in control of the English
church and government. In 1572 Archbishop Grindal of York demanded the