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Play 23a, The Feast in Simon's House

Play 23a, THE FEAST IN SIMON’S HOUSE: EXPLANATORY NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS: AV: Authorized (“King James”) Version; Meditations: Meditations on the Life of Christ, trans. Ragusa and Green; MED: Middle English Dictionary; OED: Oxford English Dictionary; RB: Richard Beadle, ed., York Plays; REED: Records of Early English Drama; YA: Davidson and O’Connor, York Art; York Breviary: Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesie Eboracensis; York Missal: Missale ad usum insignis ecclesiae Eboracensis.

References to the Ordo paginarum are to REED: York, 1:16–27.

Not recorded by either the original scribe or John Clerke, who was ordered to enter the Ironmongers’ pageant in 1567;1 nevertheless Clerke noted its contents in his handwriting in the Register, subsequently erased. Beadle’s reading, under ultraviolet light, is as follows: “This matter lakkes, videlicet: Jesus, et Symon leprosus rogans eum ut manducaret cum eo, duo discipuli, Maria Magdalena lavans pedes Jesu lacrimis et capillis suis tergens.”2 Jesus, invited by Simon the Leper to eat with him in his house, came with two disciples. While at the meal, Mary Magdalen washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and then dried them with her hair. The erased entry in the Register is consistent with the description in the Ordo paginarum, but also describes the pageant as it probably existed in the final years when the cycle was being played.

Play 23a, THE FEAST IN SIMON’S HOUSE: TEXTUAL NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS: Bevington: David Bevington, ed., Medieval Drama (1975); Köbling: E. Köbling, “Beiträge zur Erklärung und Textkritik der York Plays”; LTS: Lucy Toulmin Smith, ed., The York Plays (1885); RB: Richard Beadle, ed., The York Plays (1972) (incorporating numerous emendations from other sources); RB²: Richard Beadle, “Corrections to The York Plays,” in Gerald Byron Kinneavy, A Concordance to the York Plays (1986), pp. xxxi–xxxii; s.d.: stage direction; Sykes: A. C. Cawley, ed., “The Sykes MS of the York Scriveners’ Play”; Towneley: Martin Stevens and A. C. Cawley, eds., The Towneley Plays.

The base text for this edition is London, British Library, MS. Add. 35290, called the “Register” in the York civic records and here identified by the abbreviation Reg. Some variations in lineation from the manuscript are not noted here; see RB and Beadle and Meredith’s The York Play: A Facsimile. In most cases the line numbering in the present text is consistent with RB. Lineation of alliterative verse throughout is based on Reg, with line numbering adjusted accordingly to account for half lines. Scribes are identified as follows: Scribe A; Scribe B: main scribe; JC: John Clerke; LH: later scribal hand (unidentified).

Reg: under erasure, in JC’s hand (following RB’s reading): This matter lakkes, videlicet: Jesus et Symon leprosus rogans eum ut manducaret cum eo, duo discipuli, Maria Magdalena lavans pedes Jesu lacrimis et capillis suis tergens.