86 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 
determined.* The other numerous lyric types, most of which like the 
planctus seem to have had their origin in the Latin,? and some of which, 
like the planctus, have spread through Europe, have been, so far as I 
can learn, almost entirely ignored. ‘Taken collectively, these forms 
doubtless contributed far more extensively to the growth of the cyclic 
plays in Europe than did the planctus, and one of these types alone, The 
Testament of Christ or The Complaint of Christ to his People, probably 
had an effect, all but as important as that of the planctus itself, on the 
growth and expansion of the passion-play. 
It was at the suggestion of Professor Manly that I began several 
years ago to investigate the relation of the general body of lyric poetry 
in Middle English to the Corpus Christi plays. The field proved fertile. 
Indeed, so numerous are the types of the lyric which have contributed to 
the formation of the Corpus Christi plays, and so numerous are the 
examples which go to make up certain of these types,3 that I found it 
necessary for the time being to limit the thoroughgoing investigation to 
one special type, the Planctus Mariae.4 From a general survey of the 
field, however, I have been able to arrive at results certain and definite 
enough to warrant some sort of a statement, and this paper will have 
attained its object if it succeeds in putting forward some of the more 
important of the types of the Middle English religious lyric upon 
which the writers and compilers of the miracle-plays have drawn 
most freely and extensively. 
It will be unnecessary to enter here into an elaborate discussion of 
the meaning of the term “lyric;” but inasmuch as many of the poems 
to which reference will be made are not lyrical in any ordinary modern 
sense, it may be well to say that I have classed as lyric any verse which 
either in metrical form or in emotional motive seemed in any sense to 
belong to the lyric categories. I have listed many prayers which are 
For references, see ‘‘The English Planctus Mariae,’’ Modern Philology, Vol. IV, pp. 605 ff. A thesis 
by Thien, Ueber die englischen Marienklagen, was published several months before my article on the Planctus 
appeared. My article, which had been in the hands of the editors of Modern Philology for almost two years, 
was being printed when I secured a copy of Thien’s thesis. 
2 Unfortunately, during the last few months, Amalecta hymnica (Dreves) has been inaccessible to me. 
It doubtless contains many other Latin prototypes of the Middle English lyrics than those which I cite in 
this paper. 
3 The Testament of Christ and The Hail Mary. 
4 See “The English Planctus Mariae,” Modern Philology, Vol. IV, pp. 605 ff. 
