In the late 1400s in eastern England, a scribe was in the process of compiling a large dramatic manuscript of over two hundred vellum folios. The manuscript contains components of an independent Mary Play, parts one and two of an independent Passion Play and an independent Assumption of Mary Play, as well as ten play subjects that appear in no other English cycles - the killing of Lamech in the Noah Play, the Root of Jesse, the story of Joachim and Anne, the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, the Parliament of Heaven, the Trial of Mary and Joseph, the scene of Mary and the cherry tree in the Nativity Play, the Death of Herod, the scene of Veronica's handkerchief in the Procession to Calvary, and the appearance of the risen Christ to the Virgin Mary in her Assumption Play. This edition acknowledges the N-Town compiler who took plays from various contexts and integrated them into an existing cycle of plays, thus treating the manuscript as if it were a superstructure whose parts could be replaced, renovated, and supplemented without altering the fundamental coherence of the overarching design.

The Mary Play is a beautiful and engaging piece of late medieval stagecraft. It is rich in music and spectacle, and is the only English play which deals with the parents of the Virgin Mary and with her early life; the only play which centers on a prayer, the Ave Maria; the only play which in its devotional intensity reflects the central concerns of the late fifteenth century lay piety.

The drama of the English Middle Ages is perennially popular with students and theatre audiences alike, and this is an updated edition of a book which has established itself as a standard guide to the field. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, second edition continues to provide an authoritative introduction and an up-to-date, illustrated guide to the mystery cycles, morality drama and saints' plays which flourished from the late fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries. The book emphasises regional diversity in the period and engages with the literary and particularly the theatrical values of the plays. Existing chapters have been revised and updated where necessary, and there are three entirely new chapters, including one on the cultural significance of early drama. A thoroughly revised reference section includes a guide to scholarship and criticism, an enlarged classified bibliography and a chronological table.

These volumes are one of the four extant Middle English cycles of mystery plays. A collection of unknown origin, N-Town contains forty-one plays, dramatizing divine history from Creation to Doomsday and illustrating ways of reading, supplementing and altering biblical accounts. The collection is rich in textual information testifying about the alteration and expansion of the text. The language of the plays advance knowledge of the history of English. The plays provide instructions in the fundamental elements of medieval Christianity and explain much about forms of consolation and self-fortification that were available in the late Middle Ages.

First full examination of the N-Town Play, arguing for its reappraisal as a work of private devotion as well as public performance.