190 THE CHESTER MYSTERIES. 
The great subject of the second day is the Passion and 
Resurrection of Christ, answering to the Passion Play at Ober- 
Ammergau, which is nothing else but the middle portion of the 
usual set of medieval mysteries, very much reformed and puri- 
fied. The scenes represented upon the third day set forth the 
beginning of the Christian Church, and the close of the present 
dispensation by the second advent of Christ. As at Ober- 
Ammergau, all the characters in the Passion Play (which is per- 
formed once in ten years) are sustained by the peasants and 
farmers and mechanics of the place itself, so also in Chester 
the Whitsun plays were acted by members of the various trade 
guilds, each guild making itself responsible for one particular 
play out of the entire set of 24. But here the resemblance 
ceases, for the Tyrolese Passion Play is acted in a simple but 
very perfect little temporary theatre, whereas each of the 
Chester plays had its own moveable stage, known as a pagiant; 
and it would appear from the following description that each play 
was acted two or three times over in the course of the day, in 
different parts of the city. 
I cannot do better than read you a portion of Archdeacon 
Rogers’s description :— 
‘‘ The plays,” he says, ‘‘ were divided into 24 pagiantes or parts, according 
- to the number of the Companyes of the Cittie, and every Companye brought 
forth their pagiant, which was the carriage or place that they playedin. To 
see which playes there was great resorte, and also scafoldes and stages made 
in the streets in those places where they determined to play their pagiantes. 
And yarlye before these were played there was a man fitted for the purpose 
which did ride, as I take it, on S. George’s day, through the Cittie, and there 
published the tyme aud the matter of the playes in brief, which was called 
the Reading of the Banes. They were played upon Monday, Tuseday, and 
Wenesday, in Witson weeke. And they first began at the Abbaye Gates ; 
and when the first pagiant was played at the Abbaye Gates, then it was 
wheeled from thence to the Pentice at the High Crosse before the Mayor, 
and before that was done the second came, and the first went into the Water- 
gate Street, and from thence into the Bridge Street, and soe all, one after 
another, till all the pagiantes were played appointed for the first daye, and so 
likewise for the seconde and thirde daye. These pagiantes or carriages was a 
high place made like a howse with 2 rowmes, being open at the tope, the lower 
rowme they apparelled and dressed themselves, and in the higher rowme they 
played 7 eee! et 
(I interrupt the description to remark that we find from the 
parallel account of a German stage on wheels, quoted by 
Mr. Baring Gould, that when the play required that the 
action should be carried on in Earth, Heaven, or Hell, the 
lower room was made to serve for Hell, whilst the upper room 
was covered in, so as to form a third stage on the top, which 
might suitably represent Heaven. It will presently be seen 
that some similar arrangement must have been employed for the 
representation of some of the plays in the Chester Collection.) 
SiLin(tisulals ‘And when they had done with one carriage in one place they 
wheeled the same from one street to another ; first from the Abbaye Gate to 
the Pentice, then to Watergate Street, then to the Bridge Street through the 
lanes, and so to the Eastgate Street. And thus they came from one streete to 
another, keeping a direct order in every streete. For before the first carriage 
