126 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
Chester 
DOCUMENTS—Continued. 
Date. Document. 
Content. 
Interpretation. 
14 Ed. IV. Morris, p. 572. 
Controversy between 
bowers, fletchers on one 
side and cowpars on the 
other “for the beryng 
lights in procession 
with thaire lights on 
Corpus Day.” 
Stage I. 
Conclusion: The data of composition of the Chester plays, 
originally given on Corpus Christi Day, is about 1327- (See 
Chambers, Vol. 2). The earliest reference to the Corpus 
Christi procession in England is at Ipswich in 1325 (Chambers 
II, 371). Clement V. at the Council of Vienne (1311) confirmed 
the bull of Pope Urban IV (1264) concerning the festival 
(Friedburg, Vol. II, Col. 1174-1177). By 1318, the feast was 
celebrated in almost every church in France. The feast was en¬ 
joined on Canterbury in 1332. The Exeter Ordinale speaks of 
Corpus Christi as a novelty in 1337. Therefore, it seems reason¬ 
able to suppose that the procession was not instituted in Chester 
much before 1325. If the date of the plays is + 1327, the de¬ 
velopment from procession to play (if there was one) must have 
been very rapid. Moreover, the Chester Whitsun plays took 
three consecutive days. The plays on Corpus Christi day could 
not have been much shorter, and therefore could not have been 
given during the procession. Plays and procession at Chester, 
though given on the same day, seem to have had no connection. 
