The Enghsh Moral Plays 389 
King Charles VI. But in England the representation of comic in- 
cidents from the lives of common people in brief, lively, and entirely 
undidactic spirit, was not inaugurated till John Heywood, writing, 
it has been proved, under the direct influence of the French farce,} 
told the stories of John, the Husband, of Wit and Folly, and of the 
Four P’s. But when once this type of play was introduced, the 
days of the morality were numbered, not primarily because of its 
superior godliness, but rather because of its abstention from the 
theme most interesting to humanity—human life. The rule of alle- 
gory in literature had been long, and its reach wide; it was now 
compelled to yield to the reawakened sense of the dignity and the 
wealth of secular thought and secular life. 
It will be impossible to trace further the secularization of the 
moral play without giving some consideration to the forms of 
dramatic presentation that then prevailed, for these exercised con- 
stantly a greater and greater influence upon the plays themselves. 
The Pater Noster play of ancient York, the earliest known moral 
play, and the similar plays at Beverley and Lincoln, were presented 
after the fashion of the great Corpus Christi cycles by the members 
of regularly incorporated gilds on pageants that nfoved from one 
designated playing-place to another. And ina more simple manner 
other plays, like Saint John the Evangelist, were given as a sub- 
stitute for open-air religious instruction on Sunday afternoons.?. But 
none of the moralities that have been preserved belonged in this 
intimate way to the life of a particular city, or the needs of a cer- 
tain parish. Apparently they were in the hands of traveling com- 
panies, as the so-called Coventry cycle is conjectured to have been, 
at first under the supervision of the church, if one may judge from 
the contents of the plays, but soon controlled by strictly profes- 
sional interests. Beginning, then, on common ground with the 
miracle-cycles, the record of the presentation of the moral plays, 
keeping pace with the change of content, carries the student into 
the field of professional theatricals. 
Other plays than John the Evangelist were given out-of-doors. 
The prologue of The Pride of Life admonishes the audience to stand 
still and listen attentively no matter what the weather might be. 
But these out-door performances were not all arranged by ecclesias- 
tics as a means of Sabbath diversion, for even a play so thoroughly 
didactic in spirit as The Castle of Perseverance was in the hands of 


1K. Young, Modern Philology, 2. 97-124. 
2 See above, 340. 
