At the beginning of the book I posed a number of questions. What is the nature of drama and of liturgy and how do they relate to each other? What are the cultural contexts for the N-Town Play? It is often described as liturgical, but what exactly does that mean, what is the liturgical content, and what is the effect of that liturgical material on the audience? Do other plays and texts use liturgy in similar ways in their telling of the story of salvation in whole or in part? Finally, how did the play evolve, from separate plays to a compilation, or even from staged performance to private reading?

It was clear from the start that addressing the questions would provide only partial answers to the fundamental mystery of the N-Town Play. We are no closer to finding the meaning of ‘N’, or who produced or owned the play during the first hundred years or so of its history. The separate parts were probably performed on stage, or at least intended for performance; but the compilation was never completed, and the play as we have it was probably not ‘brought forth’ in fifteenth-century East Anglia. But the detailed investigation of its liturgicality has shed new light on the extant text.

The liturgical content of the N-Town Play is much greater and more integrated than that of any other Middle English play of its time, giving it a devotional aspect that complements its learnedness but is certainly not monochrome. Few writers have looked closely at the aims or effects of putting drama and liturgy together, so this study has been to a large extent breaking new ground.