It will seem very strange to have a seventeenth-century play as the subject of a paper at a colloquium on Medieval Theatre, however flexible the boundaries of medieval drama have been seen to be. I have several reasons for introducing it here, which may or may not seem sufficient, but I hope that you will grant me the benefit of the doubt.

My first reason, although it has nothing to do with the subject of this year's colloquium, is that this is a play whose discovery is a direct result of research on medieval drama. I found it in the Cheshire Record Office while doing research for the Cheshire volume of Records of Early English Drama. I offer it as an example, if one were needed, of how research into medieval drama can inform other areas of literature and history. Similarly, I am aware that many people here are not exclusively medieval in their interests, and this is possibly the most efficient means of bringing Musophilus to the attention of a substantial number of the people most likely to be interested in it. I am currently editing the text and hope to have it published in due course.

These reasons, of course, are not sufficient on their own for distracting the colloquium's attention from the Middle Ages proper, and I will attempt to justify it on grounds more in keeping with the theme of the colloquium. I would argue that although the play is a seventeenth-century play, with topical allusions to the events of the seventeenth century, and with obviously post-Renaissance elements, there are still features and characters which can be traced back to medieval literature. In particular, I would like to consider the continuation of certain character 'types', some of whom seem to come from fabliaux and folktales as much as from the drama. The argument for continuity can, of course, be made for numerous other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century plays, including the works of Shakespeare. I feel, however, that as Musophilus is a newly-discovered play, without the critical apparatus of several centuries, we can therefore approach it without preconceptions (insofar as that is possible) and look at the characters and situations as part of a continuing tradition.

First, as the play is an unfamiliar one, it is necessary to provide a brief outline of the manuscript and the plot. The manuscript was found in the Cheshire Record Office, among the papers of the Crewe family of Crewe.⁽¹⁾ Further than that, virtually nothing is known of the provenance. The manuscript consists of 15 unnumbered paper folios sewn together at the left margin, measuring 308mm by 212mm. The handwriting is of the first half of the seventeenth century, with preference for the second quarter. This agrees with internal evidence. The play is in one hand throughout, with some corrections which may be in a different hand, although some of them seem to be in the first hand. The first folio is considerably damaged, and virtually the top half of the folio is missing. The second folio is less damaged. There is no title given on the manuscript; if there was one it has been lost in the damage done to the first folio. There is no indication of author, although the name 'Thomas Masie' is written on the outside of the manuscript. There is nothing to show whether this is the author, the owner, or just someone writing his name on a blank piece of paper.

The play is a comedy, and deals with the familiar theme of wit and money, or rather wit without money. The hero, Musophilus, is a poor student. His father, Tremulus, is an old usurer, who at the beginning of the play refuses to see Musophilus because he has not brought him any money. The pursuit of learning and the pursuit of wealth are seen as mutually exclusive at this stage of the play. Tremulus later bestows all his wealth on his elder son, Trusophilus, who is also a successful usurer, but so lacking in wits that he has to have a character called Genius accompany him and tell him what to say; he usually manages to get the line wrong even after Genius has given it to him. Musophilus, however, does have the support of his mother, Tremula, who resists Tremulus' actions as far as she is able, and comments on them. He also has the support of his faithful friend Fido.

The play's focus is not only on Tremulus' avarice, but also on his failing eyesight (the moral implications of this are not lost on the other characters). The climax of the play comes not simply when Musophilus wins all his father's wealth by a trick, but when he forgives his father and restores his sight. Tremulus has been advised that only the 'water of an honest woman or of an vnspotted virgin' will cure him. Tremulus appeals first to his wife, who excuses herself on the grounds that she has 'the colique', but who is clearly unwilling to help him in any case because of his treatment of Musophilus. His maid, Unite, laughs at the idea, as she is, she points out, over twelve years old and has lived in London all her life. Musophilus then produces his beloved, Urina, who has already figured in a subplot involving the gentleman usher Mounsieur Silly.⁽²⁾ Urina is able to cure Tremulus, and Tremulus is overwhelmed at Musophilus' magnanimity. However, it is not necessary for him to revoke his earlier grant to Trusophilus, as Musophilus has already had his friend Simplicius, the court fool, 'begg him for a foole', that is, have Trusophilus declared mentally incompetent. The device of having one fool beg another for a fool has been successful, and all the characters (except Trusophilus) unite in praising Musophilus' cleverness and rejoicing in his marriage.

This is only a very broad outline of the main plot. I have not included the various subplots and minor characters in this overall synopsis, although I will be bringing them into my discussion later. There are in fact twenty-nine parts in the play (only twenty-one of them named roles), but it seems clear from the arrangement of the scenes that the play was meant to be performed by a much smaller number, most probably nine actors. In addition, the structure of the play is of interest, and may have some relation to the medieval drama.

As can be seen from the plot synopsis, there are in fact two solutions to the problem of the play: Musophilus winning his father's wealth with the help of Simplicius, and Musophilus curing his blind father with the help of Urina. The restoring of Tremulus' eyesight is, as it were, a secular miracle. There is no mention of divine aid, but the efficacy of the cure depends upon the moral virtue of Urina. It ties in with the 'chastity tests' of folklore; the 'chastity test' is a feature which occurs in both fabliau and romance settings, but here it is of secondary importance, as the main focus is on the cure. This cure is both 'natural' in that Tremulus has consulted a physician and received his advice, and 'supernatural' in that it is dependent on the virtue of the individual providing the material for the cure. In this latter feature it recalls the cures attributed to secular figures in the romances, such as Lancelot's cure of Sir Urré in Malory's Morte D'Arthur, which is dependent on Lancelot's status as 'best knight in the world'.⁽³⁾ The second solution comes from the tradition of the student who 'lives by his wits' and overcomes his wealthy but less quick-witted opponents. This figure is familiar from folktales and fabliaux. Each of these solutions makes the other one unnecessary, in terms of achieving Musophilus' aim, but the combination makes possible a reconciliation of all the main characters. As with a true miracle play, the effect of the miracle is to produce a conversion in the recipient.⁽⁴⁾ Tremulus recognises that he has not deserved the kindness which Musophilus has shown him, and this allows him to accept the grant of goods which Musophilus has obtained, and which Musophilus immediately produces:

Tre: this act exceeds beleife, can it

be that you can have so much charity, (I cannot call it duty)

to so vnkind a ffather,⁽⁵⁾

Mu: Tis a kindnesse sufficient the acknowledging of your

former vnkindnesse read this.,

Tremulus What's this a grant of Trusophilus his land to you

Musophilus, begd for a foole

Mu: No, the foole beggd him for one

Tremulus To what our superiours yeeld I willingly subscribe

Nay were not that sufficient I woold revoake

my grant and bestow it on you.

(V.v, fol. 14v)

It will be obvious by this point that there are several stock characters in the play: the poor student, the usurer, the unhappy wife, the chaste beloved, and, of course, the fool, who are familiar from other forms of medieval literature than simply the drama. As with the plot structure, a number of different literary strands and stock features of character seem to be meeting in the play. Consider the main character, Musophilus: we learn in the first scene that he is both a student and the youngest son of his parents. All the characters within the play know that as a student he is by definition poor; this is a feature of students which goes back to Chaucer's Clerk and beyond, and which is still, to a degree, current today.⁽⁶⁾ We also expect, as he is a student, that he will be clever and win money by his wits, and this view is also echoed in the play. The characters friendly to Musophilus evidently feel that it is wrong that he, who is so clever, should be so poor. As his mother puts it: "Witt without mony is like a bagg puddin without salt" (V.iv, fol. 14r). As Musophilus is also a youngest son, his triumph is assured by all the laws of folktale. All this is perfectly obvious and needs hardly invoke a continuity with medieval tradition in order to justify its presence in the text. What is interesting is that other traditional features of the student 'type' are also associated with Musophilus' character, even when there is a clash with the necessities of the plot. In this, I believe, we see the influence of the fabliaux. Lechery, of course, is the other main feature of the archetype of the student, and this feature is most apparent in fabliaux, whereas poverty can appear as a feature of students in a variety of literary forms. Again, the Chaucerian examples, the Miller's Tale and Reeve's Tale, spring most readily to mind, but Chaucer was himself drawing on a fabliau tradition of lecherous students. This tradition is referred to obliquely by Simplicius in II.ii, when Musophilus, having heard that Simplicius' wife is sick, claims to be a physician and offers to cure her:

Sim: It's no matter farr you well I'l trust ner a scholler of

you all to feele my wife's pulse (II.ii, fol. 4r)

Musophilus seems to be falling into the same role later in his scene with the lawyer's maid, Pritty. The whole sequence in which Musophilus is employed by Hillarius the lawyer (III.ii and III.iv) does not serve to advance the plot in any way, and only provides an excuse for a series of jokes about lawyers and in law Latin. In III.iv Musophilus is very clearly portrayed as the lecherous student:

Prit: O fy na indeed I'l cry a gentleman and vse

a woman thus, you rend my cloaths, look some body

will see vs,

Mu: O these women ar most willing when most vnwilling

Like Phillis that woed her sweethart by flying

from him. (III.iv, fol. 7r)

This view of women actually echoes that put forward in the tavern scene which comes between the two lawyer scenes, and immediately precedes the scene quoted above. In it, the view that women are 'most willing when most vnwilling' is put forth by the 'hansom wenches', Lais and Bebia, who have been hired to keep Timothy Johns and his friend Carouse company in the alehouse.

Lais ...

These modest Nimphs they seem more chast than arr

Bebia Women ar all alik the difference this

The one seemes and is not th'other seemes and is

Lais Or, if some are not as we call it ill

They want the power and meanes but not the will

(III.iii, fol. 7r)

All this is perfectly in keeping with a fabliau view of women, but at odds with the emphasis at the end of the play on Urina's chastity. In his scenes with Urina, Musophilus takes on the role of the humble lover, struck speechless at the sight of his beloved.⁽⁷⁾ He is contrasted in this role with the foolish lover, Mounsieur Silly the gentleman usher, who is sure that he is in love, although he doesn't know with whom, and who speaks without knowing what he is saying. Silly hopes to meet Cupid in person to ask for his help. When Mounsieur Silly and Musophilus meet (through the agency of Fido), Musophilus informs him not only that he must be in love with Urina, but also offers to bring him to Cupid. Mounsieur Silly is unable to pronounce the 'magick charmes' which Musophilus claims will make Urina love him⁽⁸⁾, and shows his complete lack of understanding of the finer points of wooing:

Mu: No I'l warrant you, next you must anagramatise

her name and sympathise your ouwne

Moun: Tie thies sies, I shall never hitt out, I think it

were better to make her love me, to discourse lik a courtier

of the best horses that belong to the court, frech⁽⁹⁾

spaniard, Pegg with a Lanthorne, strawburies and cream

flebitte oths, and such things as these will please hir

best (IV.i, fol. 9r)

Silly's meeting with Cupid (Musophilus in disguise) is predictably comic, and involves the blindfolded Silly being beaten by Cupid ("his stick is of the same wood his arrowes ar made of", IV.i., fol. 9r) and frantically groping his way around the stage to find the exit. This scene is literally slapstick, down to the stage direction "thwick thwack" (IV.ii, fol. 9v) and is certainly a feature that is older than the seventeenth century. Characters being beaten until they leave the stage occur in The Croxton Play of the Sacrament, where the stage direction instructs that "Here shall þe iiij Jewys bett away þe leche and hys man".⁽¹⁰⁾ Mounsieur Silly's humiliation is not complete, however, as he is arrives at Urina's convinced that she must love him because he has been beaten by Cupid. He is at first rebuffed by Edentula, the older of Urina's two attendants, and then, upon Urina learning his intentions, he is turned over to Edentula for punishment by Edentula and her four furies:

Vri: Edentula you with the rest of your coadiutors

teach him his love lesson

Eden: Medea menippa Sill Trulla, come quickly and helpe

to coole this hot lover

(Ent 4 furies and nipp him) (IV.iv, fol. 10v)

The four furies would almost certainly have been masked, in order to make them appear more fantastic, but also because they are being played by almost the whole of the remaining cast.⁽¹¹⁾ The four furies are hardly necessary: Edentula is more than a match for Silly on her own. They seem to be descendents of the devils of the mystery plays, and it may be that their number is also influenced by the traditions of medieval staging, where groups of four are popular: four soldiers in the Crucifixion (N-Town, York, Towneley, Chester) and Resurrection (N-Town, York, Towneley, Coventry⁽¹²⁾) pageants, four supporting Jews in The Croxton Play of the Sacrament. In another scene in Musophilus, there are four begging soldiers, who are also unnecessary to the plot. In the mystery plays, there are good practical reasons for having four of a particular type of character: it balances the stage, and provides a variety of voices.⁽¹³⁾ There seems to be no good reason for having four furies in Musophilus, and it must have added to the difficulties of backstage management and the provision of costumes. The four soldiers have the same advantages as those in the mystery plays, although there is still no real reason for them to be in the play at all. They provide another stereotype, of course, although this is one which seems to have come into England after the medieval period, via classical drama: the braggart soldier, or miles gloriosus. Musophilus himself borrows this role when, after being rejected by his father in his own person, he disguises himself as a soldier in order to test his father's charity. Tremulus' response, "Away away a souldier, that's almost as badd as a scholler" (II.iii, fol. 4v) leads Musophilus to trick Tremulus. He claims that "With but blowing my nose I disipated a hole armie of Persians", and when Tremulus asks how, he "takes him by the nose and pulls of his spectacles" (II.iii, fol. 4v). His behaviour to his now-blind father is mocking rather than expressing the pity he shows in the final scene: "Ha ha he find him without eyes ha ha he" (II.iii, fol. 5r). Here Musophilus is in the role of the trickster, who is able to outwit his opponents but who can also sometimes play quite cruel tricks on them. His behaviour toward Mounsieur Silly is a similar case. The features of disguise and physical attack are constant. Musophilus, in fact, spends most of the play putting on one disguise or another: his first appearance, in I.ii is "in the habit of a waterman" (I.ii, fol. 1v), although there the disguise is not particularly intended to conceal as to comment upon his state. He assures Fido that "I am the very same Musophilus, changing my habit only, not my fayth" (I.ii, fol. 2r), and uses the waterman costume to moralise on the ebbs and flows of fortune. He enacts the role, briefly, of a lawyer's clerk, and complains of being "smelt out" when he is dismissed because he does not know his business. There is also a good deal of discussion between Musophilus and Simplicius of possible roles which Musophilus might undertake, which of course provides an opportunity for jokes about various occupations, including Simplicius' own.

Sim: I am the court mirth whom rude and saucy people

call foole

Mu: They distinguish now adayes ther be naturall [ffooles] and

artificiall [ones], ther be tolerable fooles and intolerable ones

Sim: Ther be fooles in ordinary and extraordinary ones

to speak truth ther be so many we can scarce

live on by another,

Mu: Now I'l vse a litle Latine, there be fooles cum privilegio

and sine privilegio (II.ii, fol. 3v)

The play hinges, in part, on there being these different types of 'fool'. The basic distinction is between a professional fool, such as Simplicius, who is allowed a certain licence and can be witty at the expense of his betters, and the 'natural' fool, such as Trusophilus who at the end of the play is pronounced incompetent to manage his own affairs. Trusophilus' first appearance is in the scene immediately preceding Simplicius' first appearance, and it is clear that Trusophilus is unable to speak without prompting from his friend Genius. He is unable to even pronounce the word 'wits':

Trus: thay say my brother Musophilus is returned and lives

by his [wittes] w,w,w,w w w, I cannot hit <...>⁽¹⁴⁾

Ge: By his witts. (II.i, fols. 3r-3v)

The third fool is, of course, Mounsieur Silly, whose name indicates his character. He would fall into the class of 'intolerable' and 'extraordinary' fool, who considers himself wise. Simplicius, the witty fool, and Musophilus, the witty trickster, are set against the real fools of the piece, Trusophilus, Silly, and, to an extent, Tremulus, whose blindness is mental as well as physical.⁽¹⁵⁾ Various types of fool are found on the medieval as well as the Elizabethan stage. The shepherds in the Towneley Prima Pastorum would fall into the same class as Trusophilus and Silly: the first two quarrel over imaginary sheep as if they were present (this is also a well-known folktale motif), and the third empties out a sack of malt in his attempt to show them how empty their wits are. The shepherds in the Towneley Secunda Pastorum are initially fooled by the trickster Mak, but, as with Musophilus, an act of generosity leads to a restoration of things to their right relationship.

Musophilus' final appearance as trickster (as opposed to his final role of dutiful son and humble lover) is at the beginning of the final scene, when Simplicius arrives to bring him the grant of Trusophilus' land and goods. In a complete non sequitur, Simplicius, after handing over the articles, says that he has heard that Musophilus can conjure:

Mu: I have studdied the black art

Sim: The Divell you have, but can you tell me who

loves a wench best of all this companie,

Mu: Banks his horse could doe that, I'l tell the all

the spectators especialy those that doe not laugh

they that look as though butter would not melt

in their mouths (V.v, fol.14r)

The object of this passage is purely to raise a laugh, and the method used is the same as that used by the Pardoner in the prologue to his tale,⁽¹⁶⁾ where he exploits the idea that anyone in his audience guilty of a particular sin will not be able to behave in the way he wants them to. This method of involving the audience in the play not so much by direct address but by reference between characters is also found in plays such as the Croxton Play of the Sacrament, where Coll and Master Brundyche discuss the possibility of finding customers among the audience:

Master Brundyche. Here ys a grete congregacyon,

And all be not hole, without negacyon;

I wold haue certyfycacyon:

Stond vp and make a proclamacion.⁽¹⁷⁾

Awareness of the audience as part of the play is also possibly seen in the Towneley Prima Pastorum, when the shepherds, after eating their meal, resolve to give the remnants to the poor. The First Shepherd's lines "Geder vp, lo, lo, Ye hungré begers frerys!" may be addressed directly to the audience, and they may be indicated by the Third Shepherd when he refers to 'poore men'.⁽¹⁸⁾ The association with the Croxton Play of the Sacrament is especially interesting if Musophilus is seen in terms of a miracle play. The scene with Coll and Master Brundyche is reminiscent of some of the scenes in Musophilus, which involve a similar type of 'patter' and humourous discussion of various stereotyped occupations, as in the discussion by Musophilus and Simplicius of the various types of fool. This scene goes on to offer Musophilus a variety of careers, if he has the right qualifications:

Sim: ...or sirra dost thou heare thou

shalt be a Iudge canst thou sleep well vpon a bench,

Mu: As soundly as Endimion, but with a vigilant nose

Sim: Or thou shalt be a Burges canst thou tell the clocke

Mu: Very perfectly at my fingers ends

Sim: Thou shalt be a Bishop hast thou any great thums

canst thou say grace and yet if thou beest not a good politician

thou ar not fitt for the court

Mu: As good as ever Machiavel,

(II.ii, fol. 4r)

A similar exchange takes place in Act III, scene i, between Musophilus and Fido:

ffi: What wil you turne Player. Mu: Non,

ffi: Will you be a gentle man vsher to my Lady Mince

One who is well knowne in Court, and very kind

and curteous to hir servaunts,

Mu: No that's as bad as a player, for ther a man should

overact himselfe I feare, No I had rather turne

preacher for I could bump a pulpit stoutly and

snifle through the nose devoutly, and then I am

sure I should have more followers then the greatest

potentat, in all the land, though I should chance to be

layd vp for a litle false doctrine yet ther contribution

would follow me to the deepest dungeon but there is

so many of these already...

(III.i, fol. 5v)

As can be seen, these are seventeenth-century rather than medieval stereotypes, especially the extended one of the preacher. They operate in the play alongside the older types, such as the poor student who must outwit his opponents, or the youngest son who must win his fortune. Some stereotypes are used for purposes of contrast: Simplicius the witty fool is contrasted with Trusophilus the 'natural' fool, Mounsieur Silly the ignorant and foolish lover with Musophilus the true lover (and possibly Musophilus in the scene with Pritty is contrasted with himself in the scenes with Urina). Another possible contrast figure to Musophilus is Timothy Johns, Tremulus' neighbour and debtor, who finds a bag of money (hidden by Tremulus) and, in a short 'rake's progress', proceeds to spend it all. Prodigality and riotous living are another feature of the stereotypical student, and of the younger son; Timothy Johns, although not shown as a student or younger son, is an example of the 'prodigal'. This role is thus raised in the play, but disassociated from the character of Musophilus, who, it is stated, has not been either idle or prodigal:

Tremulus The report goes that my sonne Musophilus is re<...>

even as he went a poore scholler

Tremula They say he is a good shcholler and hath made

good vse of his time.

(I.iii, fol. 2r)

There is a contrast here between the notion of 'poor scholar' as one who is not very good academically, and one who has no money, and, in the lines following those quoted here, between Musophilus' making 'good vse of his time', and Tremulus' 'use' (i.e. usury) of his money.

The female characters in the play also draw on various stereotypes, some of which, of course, are stereotypes of women which stretch well beyond the medieval period. The wantonness of Lais and Bebia, and Lais' abandonment of Timothy Johns once his money has run out offers a contrast to the chastity and true love offered by Urina. Unite's indignant repudiation of the idea that she might be a virgin provides a joke at the expense of the women of London:

Vni: What a pritty sencless question is ther, I am above

12 yeares old, and have livd in the citty all my life time

and could you expect it of me,

(V.v, fol. 14v)

In the manuscript, the numeral '12' is actually written over '9', and this suggestion of wantonness at an extremely early age is carried further in the figure of Edentula, Urina's attendant who, with the help of the furies, drives off Mounsieur Silly:

Eden: ...

I think in conscience I was as hansom as either of

both these when I was a young wench, oh I was

as plumpe as the grape, O happy who that got the

first branch of my maydenhead, that was as I remember

t'wixt foure and five yeares of age, but now I must

confesse I am growne an auncient bearer.

(IV.iv, fol. 11r)

This portrait of the old woman remembering her youth goes back to La Vieille of the Roman de la Rose, and its most famous example in English literature is surely the Wife of Bath:

But -- Lord Christ! -- whan that it remembreth me

Upon my yowthe, and on my jolitee,

It tikleth me aboute myn herte roote.

Unto this day it dooth myn herte boote

That I have had my world as in my tyme.

But age, allas, that al wole envenyme

Hath me biraft my beautee and my pith.⁽¹⁹⁾

The character of Tremula is, next to Urina, the most important female role in the play. She provides both resistance to and comment on Tremulus' refusal to provide for Musophilus, and frequently serves to point out the important points of the play. She also seems to be drawing on the tradition of some of the argumentative wives of the mystery plays, such as Noah's Wife, although she is less openly combative. Her attitude toward her husband is shown first in a lament against her marriage in Act I, scene iii (unfortunately damaged):

Tremula Poore love when you will part with a litle of your dust to

releive his necessite No not by my entreaty, he prefers

his wealth before wife or child, married, now heaven

defend if this <..> marriage, thus to be griped in the

pawes of such an vsurer and bedded in his bowells

O all ye Kind Gods why was a bound

To this <...> table peece of man

<.>is lif<...>h doth in his coffers ly

<...> ceremoniall ring which d<.>d vs ioine

<...> day when first I was prefyrdd

<...> night when first I saw his bedd,

<...> the time, the place, for now I see

<...>as my mony that he woed not me

(I.iii, fol. 1v)

The missing openings of the last section probably contained such words as 'Cursed be', and the whole forms a typical lament against inequality in marriage. In this case, the inequality is one of character, but there may also be an inequality of age; although her name indicates age, she does not appear to be as ancient as Tremulus, and it is possible that she should be seen as quite a bit younger. Unlike the women in the mystery plays, she does not offer direct violent opposition to her husband, but rather curses and complains about him in his absence.⁽²⁰⁾ She does, however, express a wish for revenge, and even violence. The revenge that she considers possible, however, is not violence, but something more in keeping with the fabliaux:

Tremula Me thinks I can not hat my sonne Trusophilus

and yet I can hardly affect him, his brothers affection

shall alwayes have supremacie, Now I could curse my

selfe or nature for framing me a woman,

otherwise I might have bine revenged on this damnd

extortioner, but t'is no matter I can fitt him as

other women do ther blind husbands,

(IV.vi, fol. 12r)

The line 'as other women do ther blind husbands' relies on the audience being aware of a fabliau tradition of women being able to commit adultery because of the blindness of their husbands (cf. Chaucer's Merchant's Tale). There is no indication in the play that Tremula does take revenge on Tremulus by being unfaithful, although her refusal to supply the healing 'water' at the end of the play could indicate guilt as well as malice.

In examining the use of stereotyped characters in the play, I have been interested to find that the playwright is apparently making conscious use of a number of different stereotypes and playing them off one against another. It cannot be entirely accidental that scenes with Simplicius are followed by scenes with Trusophilus, or that Musophilus' comments on women echo those of Lais and Bebia, nor that a play which puts forward the premise that "the best and wisest have ther fooles about them"⁽²¹⁾ should exhibit so many different types of fool. This is, of course, a seventeenth-century play, and it draws on (and could perhaps contribute to) many stereotypes which would belong more to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries than to the medieval period: the preacher, the lawyer, the usurer, the puritan. But it also makes use of much older stereotypes, often playing off one stereotyped characteristic of a particular 'occupation' against another, as in the case of the student. Furthermore, the playwright seems to be drawing on various traditions, of fabliau, of folktale, and, I would suggest, of the medieval miracle play. What at first appears to be a reluctance to throw out anything that provides an excuse for a joke begins, on closer reading, to look like an attempt to provide an entertainment which while appealing to popular taste provides a resolution which stresses healing and redemption, albeit in a purely secular sense. It is necessary that the audience have a familiarity with these traditional figures of the poor student and the professional fool in order for the contrast with the different types of fool and different possible roles for the poor student to be effective. By building on familiar stereotypes, and audience expectations of those stereotypes, the author is able to explore a range of meaning in the characters.

Elizabeth M.S. Baldwin

School of English and Centre for Medieval Studies

University of Leeds

February, 1998

1. ¹ Cheshire Record Office, DCR/27/8. This call number, however, refers to a box of miscellaneous papers of the Crewe family, and the play manuscript has in fact been separated from the box and put on a shelf by itself, although the call number remains the same. In citing quotations from the play, I have chosen to give act and scene number (slightly amended, as the manuscript has some errors in numbering) and folio rather than line numbers, as these are more meaningful in an unedited text.

2. ² Mounsieur Silly: this is the manuscript spelling, and it is frequently abbreviated 'Moun'. I have retained it throughout, despite its oddity, to be consistent with the quotations.

3. ³ Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur, ed. Janet Cowen (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1969), Book XIX, chapters 10-12.

4. ⁴ See for example The Croxton Play of the Sacrament, in N. Davies, ed., Non-Cycle Plays and Fragments, EETS SS 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 81, lines 741 ff.

5. ⁵ The character name 'Tre:' is actually interlineated, and the line begins midline after a short line from Musophilus. In the passages quoted in this paper, I have not indicated interlineated words, and have omitted cancelled words.

6. ⁶ See the description of the Clerk in the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, in Larry D. Benson et al, eds., The Riverside Chaucer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 28, lines 285-308.

7. ⁷ The stage direction indicates that at their first meeting "Musophilus and Vrina stand amasd" (V.iii, fol. 13v).

8. ⁸ "Boreas executrix diaphragma paralellagramon" (IV.i, fol. 9r)

9. ⁹ 'frech': sic MS.

10. ¹⁰ Davis, p. 78, s.d. after line 652.

11. ¹¹ That is, eight of the proposed nine actors are on stage at this point. As 'one sings' offstage immediately after the exit of Silly (possibly pursued by the furies), it is likely that there is another actor who is not 'on' in this scene. Silly's struggle with the furies and Edentula would hardly leave him breath enough to sing.

12. ¹² The Coventry text does not survive, but the Cappers record payment to 'iiij knyghtes' (R.W. Ingram, Coventry: Records of Early English Drama, (University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 1981), passim). The Chester Resurrection uses only three soldiers.

13. ¹³ Four is used for the number of good or bad souls in some of the Doomsday pageants: Chester has four saved souls, but six lost ones. Towneley has four of each, and York has two, but indicates four of each in the cast headings. The Coventry Drapers pay three souls. N-Town is vague, with 'omnes anime' splitting into choruses of saved and lost souls.

14. ¹⁴ It is clear that the author meant Trusophilus to stammer at this point. The word 'wittes' is crossed out, but it is not clear that the line of 'w' is in a different hand. Possibly the scribe 'corrected' his original copy, putting in 'wittes' as being the word that Trusophilus means to use, and realised on rereading it that the sense hinged on Trusophilus' failure to pronounce the word. As the line comes at the bottom of a page, and if the same was true of his exemplar, it would be a quite natural error. The missing word at the end is probably 'it' or 'out' (cf. Silly's line "I cannot hit out", quoted above).

15. ¹⁵ "Your ffather blinded with ignorance and affection hath setled his hole estate vpon your brother Trusophilus." (Fido speaking to Musophilus, V.i, fol. 12v).

16. ¹⁶ Riverside Chaucer, p 195, lines 377-88.

17. ¹⁷ Davis, pp 76-7, lines 601-04.

18. ¹⁸ Martin Stevens and A.C. Cawley, eds., The Towneley Plays, 2 vols., EETS SS 13 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994), vol. I, p. 117, lines 411-12.

19. ¹⁹ Riverside Chaucer, p. 111, lines 469-75.

20. ²⁰ For instance, the passage quoted above follows Tremulus' exit, and the stage directions are very clear that he has gone off and Tremula remained behind: 'Exit manet vxor'.

21. ²¹ II.ii, fol. 4r.