In 1955 Hardin Craig affirmed confidently that ‘the Chester Cycle, almost certainly the oldest Corpus Christi play in England, and certainly, as preserved, the one that retains most perfectly the original form and spirit of the Corpus Christi play, somehow escaped the excessive and unregulated changes undergone by other cycles in pursuit of fifteenth–century modernization’. Craig was repeating a critical belief about Chester's civic play–cycle that had been propagated for over three centuries. This paper examines the origins of that belief, the evidence for its truth, and the ways in which it informed, and was informed by, the early scholarly attitudes towards medieval drama and its audience. In conclusion, it briefly describes some of the changes in our approach to and understanding of early English drama in general and Chester's plays in particular during the last forty years

The Tudor Image of the Plays

The earliest published critical assessment of Chester's mystery cycle was written in the later sixteenth century. It appears in the Post–Reformation Banns, the verse announcement describing the plays, which was proclaimed in the city on St George's Day in a performance–year by a herald, accompanied by representatives of the participating trade and manufacturing companies in play–costume. That such an announcement was necessary indicates that the plays were not by that date performed regularly. Chester had had a play on Corpus Christi day by 1422, which some time before 1521 had been replaced by a play at Whitsun. Probably by 1531–32 it was being performed in three parts over three days. Since 1498–99 the town had also developed a carnivalesque show at Midsummer, and thereafter each year the mayor could choose whether to stage the plays or to put on the Midsummer Show. In the times of religious controversy under the Tudors the show was the safer option.

The Post–Reformation Banns have a defensive tone which predicates objections to the plays. The civic play–cycles were regarded by many as relics of the unreformed Church, particularly in view of their frequent association with the Feast of Corpus Christi which honoured the miracle of Transubstantiation. So these Banns defend the plays not as devotional or proselytising but as an established tradition reaching back to the city's medieval past: ‘… in this cittie dyvars yeares the have bine set out’ (28).