Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/41

MIRACLE CYCLES. 29 the astrologer of Bury, born in 1525, who was evidently a collector, for his copy of de Worde's c Information for Pilgrims ' is now in the library of St. John's College, Cambridge, and John Stow, the historian, mentions having transcribed a poem from ' Master Blomfelds boke.' l There is one point I should like to mention before I close. Some critics assume that the miracle plays were transmitted orally, and that they grew out of the liturgical drama by a process akin to that which has been postulated for the develop- ment of the popular ballad. They are, I think, mistaken. The liturgical plays were written offices of the Church, having their appointed places in the service books. Transition plays are found in the written collections of the ' scholares vagantes.' If English manuscripts are wanting before the close of the fifteenth century, that is no argument for supposing that they did not exist. Written parts for single actors are extant belonging both to the late liturgical drama and to the Miracles of Our Lady. In the sixteenth century we have found William Ellis writing such parts. Collective manuscripts and prompters 5 copies of the plays of the miracle cycles are alike forthcoming. That plays may have been borrowed, or stolen, orally I do not deny. That many performers were illiterate and had to learn their parts by ear is not impossible. But that, at any period, the texts were normally transmitted otherwise than as written documents is contrary to all evidence and to all probability. 1 See at the British Museum, MS. Addit. 29729, fol. 2.