The Towneley Plays

A collection of biblical plays in the Huntington Library's MS HM 1. Once thought to constitute a cycle of plays from the town of Wakefield in Yorkshire's West Riding, the collection includes some of the best-known examples of medieval English drama, including the much-anthologized Second Shepherds Play.

Named for the former owners of the manuscript containing them, the Towneley Plays present some of the best-known examples of Middle English drama. The manuscript itself is now thought to have been produced as late as the mid-sixteenth century, although most of its plays were written much earlier. Once called the Wakefield Cycle on the assumption that they form a cohesive cycle of mystery plays performed by medieval guilds in Wakefield in Yorkshire’s West Riding, previous editions of the plays present them in the order in which they appear in the manuscript, encompassing Christian history from Creation to the Day of Judgment. The present edition not only foregrounds the collection’s status as an anthology of varied origins and production requirements, but also reflects manuscript evidence of attempts to shape the collection into a coherent whole, while also providing context for theatrical production, facilitating classroom study, and promoting scholarly argument.