ABSTRACT
If the mystery cycles were defensive in their Christian intent, there were other plays of the fourteenth, fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries which were much more aggressive. These may loosely be grouped as morality plays, which illustrate an argument about sin, repentance and salvation through largely abstract characters, and miracle plays, or saints’ plays, which mostly have a saint as protagonist and include a miracle or religious conversion (or both) in the action. Even fewer of these moralities and miracles have survived than pageants from the mystery cycles: there are only five definite morality plays extant – The Pride of Life, actually only a fragment of the play which was probably originally composed around the time of the Black Death about 1350; The Castle of Perseverance, dating from fifty years later; Mankind and Wisdom Who Is Christ, or Mind, Will and Understanding, usually known simply as Wisdom, both of which were composed around 1465; and still probably the best-known morality play, The Summoning of Everyman, which is actually a translation from Dutch, made about 1500. The number of miracle plays is even fewer, the only certain survivals being The Play of the Sacrament, dated about 1461; The Conversion of St Paul and Mary Magdalene, both about 1500; the slightly later Cornish play, written in Cornish, Saint Meriasek; and The Interlude of St John the Evangelist, about 1550.
