It has long been known that there was a Corpus Christi procession in Durham in the later middle ages, and that some plays performed by the trade companies of the city were associated with it,⁽¹⁾

but the surviving records are disappointingly sparse. In this paper, I want to suggest that a broader consideration of ceremonies in Durham connected with the sacrament may make it possible to arrive at a better understanding of the context and probable subjects of the plays.

The earliest evidence for Corpus Christi plays at Durham is a transcript of a Butchers' and Fleshers' Ordinary dated 1403.⁽²⁾

This is the first of six surviving ordinaries, granted by the Prince Bishops to five different trade companies, which impose the duty of performing a play at Corpus Christi. These show that there were at least five plays, which were performed once each year following a procession, and that they (or some of them) were traditional by 1403. They had probably ceased when the Drapers and Tailors received their 1549 Ordinary, which does not mention Corpus Christi: the organisation of the Corpus Christi procession seems to have been in the hands of the Guild of Corpus Christi in St. Nicholas' Church in the Market Place.⁽³⁾

We would therefore expect it to lapse when religious guilds were outlawed in the Chantries Act of 1548,⁽⁴⁾

and The Rites of Durham includes a vivid description of the destruction of the major focus of the procession, the Shrine of Corpus Christi, by one of the commissioners of Edward VI who visited Durham in 1548.⁽⁵⁾

Durham was a small city, even by medieval standards, with only six parishes (compared with York's forty),⁽⁶⁾

and most of its trade companies were amalgamations of related trades: a dispute over who should pay for a royal visit in 1633 reveals that there were then only fifteen companies,⁽⁷⁾

two of which had no traditions of pre-reformation origins.⁽⁸⁾

This suggests that mid 16th century Durham had about thirteen companies, and there is no reason to think that there were ever many more, or that all of them necessarily supported plays. If there ever was a Durham cycle, therefore, it must have been a very small one. Alternatively, if Durham had something less than a full cycle, what did it include?

Fortunately, there is a surviving work which can tell us a good deal about the context of the plays as they related to Durham cathedral priory. The Rites of Durham survives in about a dozen MSS., of which the oldest, an incomplete roll now known as MS Durham Cathedral Library C.III.23, was written during the 1590's, probably by the antiquarian William Claxton of Wynyard, Co. Durham (c. 1530-1597).⁽⁹⁾

The second manuscript, Durham University Library, MS Cosin B.II.11 (c. 1630), is complete, and its title dates the work to 1593. Doyle cautiously suggests that the author could be the scribe of the roll, William Claxton, and that some of his information might have come from George Clyff, the last survivor among the former monks of Durham, who despite latent catholic sympathies remained a canon and died as vicar of Billingham (not far from Wynyard) in 1595-6.⁽¹⁰⁾

The purpose of the work is to record as much as possible of the decorations and rituals of the monastic church; its viewpoint is catholic and the dominant tone is of lament for the beauty of the past. Its tone is conversational, with many incomplete sentences, which give an impression of oral delivery and suggest that much of it may represent the oral reminiscences of older people who remembered the ceremonies of the pre-reformation church more clearly than Claxton can have done. The copyists of later manuscripts feel free to add to the work at many points, so it should perhaps be viewed as an evolving compilation rather than the work of a single author. Its concern to include everything leads to it being constructed on a curious geographical principle, going methodically round the cathedral and recording the decorations in and rituals connected with each place within and around it. Even allowing for the continuing presence of the building and its stained glass (subsequently destroyed by Cromwell's army after the Battle of Dunbar in 1650), it is an astonishing triumph of detailed memory; but it is certainly not a sophisticated work. However, when we rearrange its account in the order of the church year, the major ceremonies it describes fall into a coherent and relatively brief sequence which begins on Maundy Thursday and ends at Corpus Christi.

I can find no surviving liturgical books of the early sixteenth century from Durham with which the account in The Rites of Durham might be compared,⁽¹¹⁾

but there are two from the mid fourteenth century. One is the Durham Missal (now MS BL Harley 5289),⁽¹²⁾

which in the later years of the priory was used at one of the nine altars at the east end of the cathedral, but was originally intended for use in the cathedral quire. The other is the Durham Processional, item 28 (ff. 116r-125r) of MS BL Royal 7.A.vi, a liturgical miscellany;⁽¹³⁾

this is a collection of words and music for processions from Christmas Day to the Assumption of the Virgin. Apart from Palm Sunday and the Assumption, all the most elaborate processions recorded in it are part of the sequence I am discussing, and they confirm much of the detail in the Durham Missal.

1. Maundy Thursday.

Maundy Thursday had three ceremonies: the washing of the feet, the setting up of the Paschal, and the Judas cup. The first of these took place at about 9 a.m., when the Prior washed the feet of thirteen poor old men on the east side of the cathedral cloister, while each of the monks did the same for a boy on the south side. The old men and boys then received a meal of bread and fish, at which they were served by the Prior and monks personally, before departing with a gift of thirty pence each. This ceremony cannot have been merely a penance (the old men are instructed that their feet must already be clean when they come to have them washed by the Prior!) The Prior is imitating Christ washing the disciples' feet at the Last Supper (John 13: 4-10); but he is not presuming to impersonate Christ, for he washes the feet of thirteen men (representing the disciples plus Christ), not twelve. The monks, in each washing a boy's feet, are recognising the presence of Christ in the least of human beings (Matthew 25:40).

The Paschal Candle was more of a monument than a ceremony, and it must have been an impressive one.⁽¹⁴⁾

It was set up in front of the high altar on Maundy Thursday, but according to the Durham Missal not lit until nones on Easter Saturday, after which it was left burning until after Vespers on Easter Sunday.⁽¹⁵⁾

It was an enormous structure of candlestick metal and wood, decorated with flying dragons, figures of the evangelists, and animals and men in a hunting scene; it took up most of the width of the quire, and was surmounted by seven great candlesticks, of which the central one was so high that it came within a man's height of the cathedral vault, so that the candle on top of it had to be lit by a device which came down through a hole in the vault.⁽¹⁶⁾

In most places the Paschal Candle was lit on Holy Saturday and remained until Ascension Day, representing the forty days of Christ's life on earth after the Resurrection; in Durham it was put in place two days earlier, so as to include the Passion, and remained until three days after Pentecost, thus linking most of the ceremonies of the Sacrament Sequence together. It may also have been seen as representative of the redemption offered to mankind in this life through the sacrament; its removal before Trinity Sunday might then imply the idea that at the Last Judgement the time of grace will be over, and those who have not accepted redemption by then can no longer hope for it.

The Thursday night Maundy ceremony also recalls the Last Supper, with the prior in the place of Christ.⁽¹⁷⁾

The cup of which all the members of the priory drank was called the Judas cup, and was not used at any other time. According to The Rites of Durham, this ceremony was held in the Frater House, but it is probably the same as a ceremony which appears in the Durham Processional under the title: Feria quinta in cena domini ad mandatum in capitulo, 'On (Maundy) Thursday at the Lord's Supper, at the 'command' in the Chapter House'.⁽¹⁸⁾

This begins with two sung sentences with music, (of which the first refers to the Last Supper), followed by a sung dixit dominus and a sequence of prayers and psalms without music. After this, 'they return to the quire (of the cathedral) with A(ntiphon and the) Ps(alm) Misericordiam⁽¹⁹⁾

with Gloria Patri', and there is a brief reference to further prayers.

No monk could be asked at Passiontide to represent Judas, so presumably the traitor is present in the decoration in the middle of the bowl.⁽²⁰⁾

The fact that Judas was identified as the betrayer by a sop dipped into the sacramental cup (John 13:26-7), and that in the Garden of Gethsemane Christ refers to the Passion as a cup (e.g. Luke 22:42) would intensify the significance of Judas' picture in the base of the cup for every monk who drank from it. They would probably also recall Christ's promise to James and John that they would 'share of my cup' (Matthew 20:22-3), and take it as an exhortation to identify emotionally with Christ's sufferings. The general focus of the Maundy Thursday ceremonies seems to be on the prior as representative (but not impersonator) of Christ.

2. Good Friday

The Good Friday ceremony began with the singing of the Passion according to John 18 and 19,1-37.⁽²¹⁾

This must have recalled another detail linking the Thursday and Friday ceremonies: the kiss. The sincere kisses of the feet-washing on Thursday and the adoration of the Cross on Friday come on either side of the treacherous kiss of Judas commemorated in the Judas Cup (see e.g. Luke 22:47-8). The combined mass and vespers service for Maundy Thursday in the Durham Missal (f. 165ra) underlines this by stipulating that on that day and the next two the normal use of the kiss of peace during the mass is to be omitted, 'because the kiss of peace was the signal given by the betrayer'.

Another dramatic feature of the singing of the Passion occurred when the narrative reached the point Partiti sunt vestimenta mea ('They parted my clothing among them', John 19:24), when two attendant monks seized the ends of two linen cloths which had lain folded on top of the linen altar cloth and pulled them violently towards them.

This was followed by the adoration of the Cross as it lay on a velvet cushion held by two senior monks; they were the first to venerate the Cross, while the Good Friday reproaches were sung. The prior and all the monks then crawled on their knees to venerate the Cross, while the choir sang the hymn Pange lingua. The Cross was then taken to the entry at the west end of the quire to be venerated by the laity, then back to the sanctuary step, where it was met by the Bishop or Prior (representing Joseph of Arimathea), accompanied by two lucifers and a thurifer, who took it to the Easter Sepulchre, a wooden framework hung with gold-embroidered red velvet curtains which had been set up before the service on the north side of the sanctuary. The Cross was then 'buried', along with the consecrated sacrament and an image of the risen Christ which was to be used during the resurrection ceremony.⁽²²⁾

The Durham Missal and Processional do not mention this image, which may have been added after they were written, but otherwise they provide a detailed script for the whole Good Friday ceremony, on which they agree with and supplement each other and The Rites of Durham. It is important to notice that the representative of Christ is constantly being changed in these ceremonies, to prevent any danger of idolatry.

3. Easter Morning

This ceremony began before dawn. Two of the oldest monks came to the Easter Sepulchre and took from it the image of the risen Christ, which had the consecrated sacrament in a glass-fronted compartment inside it. They placed it on the altar while the anthem Christus resurgens was sung. The image was then carried round the church in procession on a velvet cushion, with a purple velvet canopy fringed with red silk and gold held over it by four ancient gentlemen, and accompanied by torches and the choir singing the hymn Salve festa dies. At the end of it, the image of the risen Christ was replaced on the altar, and remained there until Ascension Day.⁽²³⁾

This ceremony is obviously a symbolic re-enactment: the High Altar represents this world, and forms a visual symbolic link between the feasts of Easter and Ascension. The Durham Missal does not mention this ceremony, but it appears (with a good deal of extra detail) in the Durham Processional, though again with no mention of the image of the risen Christ.

4-6. Ascension week, Pentecost and Trinity.

Although the ceremonies described here cover a period of two weeks, they are described in The Rites of Durham as a single unit, whose dominant feature is procession outwards from the cathedral;⁽²⁴⁾

a good deal more can be learned about them from the financial records of the priory.

The Durham Missal includes none of these processions, though it does include a service after sext on the eve of Pentecost which emphasises the link with the Resurrection by stating that its readings may be replaced by those for Easter Saturday (f. 212vb). The Durham Processional includes rather simple musical elements for the Ascension Day, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday and Corpus Christi processions; they appear consecutively (ff. 122r - 123r), and are all linked to the Easter procession by the use of the hymn Salve festa dies (which appears in the processional only for these five feasts). This suggests that the sacrament sequence was not fully developed in the mid fourteenth century, but that a liturgical link was already being made between the Easter season and the later feasts.

On the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday preceding Ascension Day there were processions to three of the churches in the city, followed by a solemn service with sermon. By the early 16th century this was preached by one of the monks, until 1473 it was probably the responsibility of the Almonry (i.e. Boy) Bishop, who appears in many of the financial accounts of the priory from 1346-7 onwards. In most places, the Boy Bishop ceremony was in December,⁽²⁵⁾

but several Durham accounts show that it took place there in the period around Ascension and Pentecost. The most notable of these is the Hostillar's account for 1405-6, which notes that there was no Almonry Bishop ceremony in that year 'because of the wars at that time' - which can only be a reference to the Earl of Westmoreland's expedition against Archbishop Scrope's rebellion in May 1405. There was also a 'Bishop of Elvet' (a parish boy bishop for St. Oswald's, Durham) for whom payments are recorded in the Hostillar's, Finchale Priory and Elvethall Manorial accounts between 1424 and 1479.

After 1473 there was a re-organisation, after which all contributions were paid to the Feretrar and there are no payments from his accounts that relate to the Almonry Bishop. The actual ceremony was probably discontinued at this time, with the contributions to it being retained as a tax paid to the Shrine of St. Cuthbert, and this is no doubt why the boy bishops are not mentioned in The Rites of Durham; but the procession and sermon probably reflect what the duties of the Almonry Bishop had been. The constant shifting of the representative of Christ continues, and the symbolic function of the Almonry Bishop may have been very like that of the boys whose feet were washed by the monks on Maundy Thursday.

Ascension Day itself saw the first of three great processions (the others being at Pentecost and Trinity) in which the priory showed off its relics, headed by the Banner of St. Cuthbert, which incorporated the corporax supposedly used by the saint when he celebrated the sacrament. These were processions round the outside of the cathedral, from the north door to the abbey gate, through the cloister and back into the cathedral by the south door. All the monks took part, wearing the priory's finest copes, including the prior's cloth-of-gold cope, which is said to have been so heavy that the sides of it had to be held up for him as he processed.

The processions at Pentecost were more complex than is evident from The Rites of Durham. From the time of the earliest Feretrar's account in 1375 there are receipts in the form of oblations brought cum vexillis ecclesiarum diocesis Dunelmi in ebdomada Pentecoste, 'with banners of the churches of the diocese of Durham in the week of Pentecost'. Initially, there was only one procession, but from 1420 onwards there is more than one; offerings were made by beneficed clergy (with, from 1422, fines on any who were absent), and the account for 1480-1 specifically mentions a procession on Whit Monday. These oblations probably relate to two processions - offerings from lay people at the Pentecost procession on Whit Sunday, and payments by beneficed clergy during a procession of parish banners to the cathedral on Whit Monday.

The dominant emphasis of these processions shifts from the image of Christ enclosing the Sacrament (which is in its turn forgotten), to the outgoing of the saints, especially Northumbrian and other local saints: the Banner of St. Cuthbert, Bede's shrine, the Cross of St. Margaret of Scotland, and the pictures or images of St. Oswald and St. Aidan. And besides the outward movement from the priory, which symbolises mission, we see on Whit Monday the beginnings of a return movement, with the parish clergy representing the first-fruits of Christian conversion.

7. Corpus Christi

The climax of the sequence described in The Rites of Durham is the Corpus Christi ceremonies, when the emphasis was again on procession, but this time inwards towards the cathedral by the whole population of Durham.⁽²⁶⁾

The town bailiff summoned the craft companies in the Market Place, and each marched with its banner and lights to the north door of the cathedral; The Rites of Durham does not mention the plays specified in the company ordinaries, because its interest is in the part played by the priory, but they were presumably played outside the cathedral door. The company banners and lights then lined the path outside the cathedral as the procession of the Shrine of Corpus Christi arrived from St. Nicholas' Church and was met by the prior and monks with the Banner of St. Cuthbert (again, wearing their best copes). All the processions then joined in a progress round the Shrine of St. Cuthbert, and the Shrine of Corpus Christi was placed in the quire while a solemn service was held, after which the processions of Corpus Christi and of the trade companies returned to the Market Place.

Here, the link with the earlier processions is provided by St. Cuthbert's Banner, but its role and that of the prior are no longer dominant. The representative of Christ is now clearly the Shrine of Corpus Christi, which the prior and convent receive on their knees, and its symbolic action is to bring all sorts and conditions of men, represented by the banners of the trade companies, into the church, as Christ came to bring all sorts of human beings into heaven.

Most of the ceremony on Corpus Christi day probably evolved after the writing of the Durham Missal, which includes only a brief office for that day (ff. 280ra-281rb). The Durham Processional (ff. 121v - 123r) includes a fairly simple Corpus Christi procession, but makes no mention of the civic procession or the Shrine of Corpus Christi, which may not have developed until shortly before the Butchers' and Fleshers' Ordinary of 1403.

This sequence of ceremonies can be seen as forming a single pattern celebrating the sacrament. They begin with its institution at the Last Supper, continue through the betrayal, passion, resurrection and ascension of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The celebration of the Trinity is the only ceremony which does not recall a scriptural event, and even that may look forward to the Last Judgement. The climax of the whole series is the Corpus Christi procession, which celebrates the sacrament in the Shrine of Corpus Christi and thus returns to the point from which the sequence began.⁽²⁷⁾

Most of the physical evidence of these ceremonies has disappeared, but one exception is a cope which is now on display in the Treasury in Durham Cathedral; it is described as 'blue velvet, brocaded in silver-gilt thread, woven with a pattern of conventional foliage'.⁽²⁸⁾

A St. Cuthbert's cross on the morse (the fastening panel at the front) shows that it was made for Durham cathedral priory; it is decorated with English orphreys which have been dated to ca. 1440-1470.⁽²⁹⁾

The scenes begin from the bottom on each side; the left side has:

1. The betrayal of Christ

2. The scourging of Christ

3. The procession to Calvary

4. Christ being nailed to the Cross.

The right side scenes are:

5. The resurrection

6. The incredulity of Thomas

7. The ascension

8. Pentecost.

On the hood there is an image of Christ in glory in the clouds, surrounded by angels, sitting on the rainbow and with his feet on an orb which probably represents the world. This iconography suggests the Last Judgement, but in its present form most of it dates from 1627, when the cope was repaired; before this restoration, the hood is said (by a puritan who despised such imagery, see below) to have carried an image of the Trinity, but it was probably in a bad state of disrepair, and this may have been a misunderstanding based on late medieval scenes of worship of the Trinity.

The restoration of the cope swiftly became part of a power struggle between some of the puritan clergy and a rising generation of High-Church Anglicans. In 1630, a puritan prebend called Peter Smart made a series of legal allegations against the high churchmen, including an accusation that the cathedral treasurer had bought two pre-reformation copes, one of which was 'wrought in gold very bravly', had an image of the Trinity on the hood and was adorned with images, while the other had been used during May games in Durham for more than forty years.⁽³⁰⁾

These copes clearly made a considerable impression on Smart, for he repeats the accusation about them a number of times and repeatedly associates them with drama.⁽³¹⁾

At a first reading, it seems that Smart may be describing the 'marvellous rich cope' worn by the Prior in the Ascension Day and other processions described in The Rites of Durham. At the Dissolution the priory had only one cope of cloth-of-gold (also called 'cloth of tissue'), as can be seen from the 1546 inventory of the vestry ornaments of the cathedral; it is recorded as having been a gift from the Bishop of Durham.⁽³²⁾

However, the royal commissioners were instructed to send all gold vessels and vestments of cloth-of-gold to the jewel house at the Tower of London, and this document ends with a summary of the few objects sent to the King from County Durham, including this cope.⁽³³⁾

The Prior's cloth-of-gold cope was probably a donation from Bishop Walter Skirlaw (1388-1405): a memorandum of his generosity to the Priory includes a vestment of cloth-of-gold with precious orphreys which he gave to the priory a long time before his death,⁽³⁴⁾

apparently because he knew of a need arising out of the particular customs of the church in Durham. The obvious likelihood is that he saw the need for a splendid cope for the great processions of Ascension Day, Pentecost, Trinity and Corpus Christi, and that the gift was intended specifically to supply that need. The surviving cope must have been considered less remarkable. There is no record of it in the printed sections of the 1446 inventory, but it can probably be identified in the 1546 list as the principal cope in a set of blue velvet vestments with orphreys, listed immediately after the set including the prior's cloth-of-gold cope. It may have been worn by one of the other major officers of the Priory on Corpus Christi Day.

The correspondence between the scriptural events celebrated in the ceremonies described in The Rites of Durham and the nine scenes on the cope is quite striking. The betrayal was commemorated in the Judas cup ceremony on the evening of Maundy Thursday; the scourging of Christ was narrated during the singing of the Passion on Good Friday (see John 19,1-3); the procession to Calvary and the Crucifixion were the focus of much of the Good Friday ceremony; the Resurrection corresponds to the ceremony at dawn on Easter Sunday; and the Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity were all celebrated with major processions. The only scene on the cope which has no equivalent in The Rites of Durham is the incredulity of Thomas.

It is very unlikely that the sacrament ceremonies and the cope could refer to the same episodes without there being any link between them. I have studied 74 other late medieval vestments or sets of orphreys which are complete enough for their iconography to be clear,⁽³⁵⁾

most of which fall into a few iconographic types, and none of which shares more than half the scenes on the Durham cope. Those which share some of its scenes are either concerned mainly with the passion (King nos. 58, 82),⁽³⁶⁾

or with the parallel triumphs of Christ and the Virgin (King no. 108),⁽³⁷⁾

and none of them is close to the Durham cope in date, style or iconographic plan.⁽³⁸⁾

There is, however, one group of chasubles whose orphreys resemble those on the Durham cope in artistic style. These have a partly common iconographic scheme, in which the cross orphrey on the back shows Longinus with a lance or halberd below a crucifixion with two or three angels, one or more of whom catches Christ's blood in a chalice; above the crucified Christ is God the Father in a sunburst, with the dove of the Holy Spirit immediately below Him. The front orphrey is divided into three pillared niches in which there are saints, whose identity varies from one example to another.⁽³⁹⁾

In at least three examples the intertwined pillars and canopy surrounding each scene are identical to those on the Durham cope, while another shows an identical canopy but rather different representation of the pillars⁽⁴⁰⁾

. These must come from the same workshop, possibly in London,⁽⁴¹⁾

that produced the Durham cope; that workshop was clearly used to producing vestments in at least partly standardised iconographic schemes, but in this case certainly did not do so.

This must suggest that the scenes on the cope were deliberately commissioned, probably to reflect the meaning of the occasions on which it was worn. Durham's particular concern with the sacrament is also suggested by another medieval cope now in the Cathedral library; this is of blue velvet with russet velvet orphreys whose decoration consists of the repeated motif of a chalice and paten or wafer with rays of gold radiating from them.⁽⁴²⁾

Again, the iconographic scheme of this cope is without parallel in King, even on objects where one might have expected it, such as the early sixteenth-century Fetternear Banner, which probably belonged to the Confraternity of the Holy Blood in St. Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh.⁽⁴³⁾

It is tempting to suggest that the scenes on the cope may have been influenced by the content of the Corpus Christi plays at Durham, but this is unlikely. The Rites of Durham, whose viewpoint is that of the Priory, does not mention the plays, and probably includes the civic procession only because it finishes with a procession and service inside the cathedral. The commissioners of the cope probably shared this viewpoint, and it seems likely that both it and the cope were influenced by the sequence of ceremonies. The cope shows the scriptural episodes that were considered central to the sacrament sequence, and hence also the most likely contents of the plays. So I would suggest the theory that the sequence of the Corpus Christi plays at Durham may have been roughly as follows:

1. The Last Supper (including Jesus washing the disciples' feet and the identification of Judas) and the Betrayal.

2. The trial, mocking and scourging of Christ.

3. The procession to Calvary.

4. The crucifixion and burial of Christ.

5. The resurrection.

6. The incredulity of Thomas (?).

7. The ascension.

8. Pentecost.

9. The last judgement (perhaps with the Trinity as judge); this probably ended with all the processions of the trade companies joining the procession of the Shrine of Corpus Christi into 'heaven', represented by the cathedral, linking the fictive world of the plays back into the contemporary religious life of the community.

1.

^1. C.E. Whiting, 'The Durham Trade Gilds', Transactions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland 9:2 (1941), 143-262 and 9:3 (1943), 265-416, see 331-4.

2. ^2. See F.J.W. Harding, 'The Company of Butchers and Fleshers of Durham', Transactions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland 11 (1958), 93-100. In this article, this ordinary is quoted direct from its source, MS Durham University Spearman 49.

3. ^3. See the description of the Corpus Christi procession in The Rites of Durham, noted below.

4. ^4. See the 1552 and 1555 inventories of the remaining property of the dissolved Guild in W. Page, The Inventories of Church Goods for the Counties of York, Durham and Northumberland, Surtees Soc. 97, Durham, London and Edinburgh, 1897, 126, 147; and for the measure of 1547-8 outlawing church chantries, see J.D. Mackie, The Earlier Tudors, 1485-1558 (Oxford History of England vol. 7), Oxford, 1952, 513-4.

5. ^5. The Rites of Durham, ed. J.T. Fowler, Surtees Society, vol. 107, Durham, 1903, reprinted Durham and London, 1964, 108.

6.

^6. See R.M. Butler, Medieval York, York: Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological Society / The Sessions Book Trust, 1982, 9-13.

7. ^7. Whiting 225; this document lists eleven companies, but we know of another four, which presumably paid their share without argument.

8. ^8. Whiting 297, 301.

9.

^9. A.I. Doyle, 'William Claxton and the Durham Chronicles', in Books and Collectors 1200-1700. Essays presented to Andrew Watson, ed. James P. Carley and Colin G.C. Tite, London: The British Library, 1997, 335-355, see especially pp. 347-8.

10.

^10. Doyle 347-9, footnote 51 and references.

11.

^11. For a list of the books known to have belonged to Durham Cathedral Priory, see N.R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain. A List of Surviving Books, 2^nd ed., London: Royal Historical Society, 1964; MS BL Harley 1804, a late-15^th century book of hours from Durham (Ker 73), contains nothing relevant to the sacrament sequence.

12.

^12. A note in very large formal script on f. 1v runs: Liber sancti cuthberti ex procuratione domini Johannis prioris dunolm. ('St. Cuthbert's book, procured by (or 'at the expense of'?) John, Lord Prior of Durham'); the first prior called John was John Fossour (prior 1341-1371), and the note presumably refers either to him or to John of Hemingburgh (prior 1391-1416). A few extracts, including parts of the liturgy for Candlemas, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, In Cena Domini and Holy Saturday, are printed in The Rites of Durham 171-191.

13.

^13. The feasts for which processional music is included are: Christmas Day, Candlemas (2^nd February), St. Cuthbert (20^th March), *Palm Sunday, *Maundy Thursday, *Good Friday, *The Easter Vigil, *Easter Day, The octave of Easter, *Ascension Day, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, Corpus Christi, St. John the Baptist, (an unidentified feast day), St. Oswald, *The Assumption of the Virgin (15^th August). The processions vary considerably in length; the elaborate ones, for most of which there is also some description of ceremony, are asterisked in the list above.

14.

^14. Other places known to have had such objects include Winchester, Cluny, Canterbury and Ely, though none of these is described as fully as the one at Durham (see T.S.R. Boase, English Art 1100-1216, The Oxford History of Art vol. III, Oxford: Clarendon, 1953, 90-91). An example survives in the cathedral in Milan, but this is 'only' five metres high, and is reputed to come from northern France or the Low Countries.

15.

^15. The Rites of Durham 187-8.

16. ^16. The Rites of Durham 10-11, from Cosin's MS.

17. ^17. The Rites of Durham 80.

18.

^18. MS BL Royal 7.A.vi, ff. 118v - 119r.

19.

^19. If this reading is correct, the reference may be to Psalm 101 (Authorised version).

20.

^20. Similary, the Bede bowl was so called because there was a picture in the middle of it of Bede sitting writing (Rites of Durham 80); it is named in the inventory of 1446, but the Judas cup is not, though there are so many unnamed vessels in that inventory that we cannot be certain that it was not already in existence by that date.

21. ^21. See Fowler's note, The Rites of Durham 204, and the Durham Missal ff. 168va-173ra.

22. ^22. The Rites of Durham 30; Durham Missal ff. 166rb-179ra; Durham Processional ff. 119r - 120v.

23. ^23. The Rites of Durham 12-13, from Cosin's MS; Durham Processional (ff. 120v - 121v).

24. ^24. The Rites of Durham 104-6.

25. ^25. See E.K. Chambers, The Medieval Stage, 2 vols., Oxford, 1903, 352-371.

26. ^26. The Rites of Durham 107-8.

27. ^27. Further on all these ceremonies, see John McKinnell, 'Drama and Ceremony in the Last Years of Durham Cathedral Priory', Medieval English Theatre 10:2 (1988), 91-111, especially 98-107.

28.

^28. Jill Ivy, Embroideries at Durham Cathedral, Durham: Dean and Chapter, 1992, 18-19.

29.

^29. D. King, Opus Anglicanum. English Medieval Embroidery (catalogue of an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 26^th September to 24^th November, 1963), London: Arts Council, 1963, no. 125, p. 52.

30. ^30. The Correspondence of John Cosin, DD., Lord Bishop of Durham, ed. G. Ornsby, vol. I, Surtees Soc. 52, Durham, London and Edinburgh, 1869, 167, 170-2.

31. ^31. The Correspondence of John Cosin, I, 166, 167, 180, 186.

32. ^32. The Inventories of Church Goods for the Counties of York, Durham and Northumberland 137-141, see p. 138.

33. ^33. See The Inventories of Church Goods for the Counties of York, Durham and Northumberland, Introduction xv.

34.

^34. Wills and Inventories illustrative of the History, Manners, Language, Statistics etc. of the Northern Counties of England, Part I, ed. J. Raine (Surtees Society 1), London, 1835, 43-4.

35.

^35. King lists 70 other vestments, of which 7 are too fragmentary for their iconography to be apparent; J. Boot-van der Vlis, 'Een Kazuifel met zeer oud Kostbaar Borduurwerk', Groninger Kerken, Zevende jaargang nr. 1, March 1990, 5-11 adds another eight; and I have studied three in Durham Cathedral library which are briefly described by Street (64-5).

36.

^36. No. 58 (King p. 33), from Marnhull, Dorset, but now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, dates from 1315-1335 and includes (with scenes corresponding to the Durham cope italicised): the Flagellation, the Via Dolorosa, the Crucifixion (Durham has the Raising of the Cross), Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Christ in Judgement. No. 82 (King p. 40), from the diocese of Uppsala, Sweden and now in Statens Historiska Museum, Stockholm, dates from 1340-60 and includes: the Last Supper, the Betrayal, Christ before Pilate, the Flagellation, the Via Dolorosa, the Entombment, the Resurrection, the Three Maries at the Tomb, the Hortulanus (Mary Magdalen meeting the risen Christ in the garden); the Crucifixion and one other scene are now lost.

37.

^37. King p. 48, acquired by les Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels from a private collection in Antwerp, dates from 1400-1430 and includes: the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Coronation of the Virgin, the Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost.

38. ^38. Grace Christie, English Medieval Embroidery, Oxford, 1938, Table 1 includes 55 vestments of the earlier opus anglicanum type, which are entirely covered with embroidered scenes; these include 23 copes, of which none include the Nailing to the Cross or the last Judgement, but two have the other seven scenes and one has six (Christie nos. 78, 96, 55). However, these copes have a total of 27, 47 and 17 scenes respectively, and none of them resembles the Durham cope in date, style or iconographic plan.

39.

^39. For examples, see King nos. 127 (p. 52, from Salisbury cathedral, ca. 1450-80); 129 (pp. 52-3, possibly from Westminster Abbey, now at Ushaw College, Durham, ca. 1460-90); 130 (p. 53 and Boot-van der Vlis fig. 10, possibly given to Burgos Cathedral by the Emperor Charles V, and to the Victoria and Albert Museum by Lord Walston, ca. 1460-90); Boot-van der Vlis figs. 1-2 (from St. Martin's cathedral, Groningen, the Netherlands); 11 (from St. Rochuskerk, Blankenberge, Belgium); 12-13 (from the collection of Baron van Zuylen, present whereabouts unknown); 14 (from St. Clemenskerk, Klemskerk, Belgium); 15 (orphrey only, in Rijksmuseum Het Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, the Netherlands).

40.

^40. The Groningen and Westminster/Ushaw chasubles and the front orphrey of the Baron van Zuylen chasuble show surrounds identical with the Durham cope; King no. 130 has an identical canopy but rather different pillars, which are the same as those on the cross orphrey of the van Zuylen chasuble. Further on the Westminster/Ushaw cope, which seems to have been given to Westminster by Richard III, see P. Cookson, 'The Westminster Vestment', Ushaw Magazine no. 243, Vol. 85 (June 1974), 53-4 and illustrations between pp. 48-9. I have not seen the Salisbury chasuble; the decoration on the Blankenberge, Klemskerk and Utrecht chasubles and on the two Groningen dalmatics are different from the Durham cope.

41.

^41. An account roll (dated 1429-32) of Robert Rollason, deputed by Bishop Langley of Durham to sell lead in London, includes a number of dealings with London jewellers and orphrey makers, including a purchase of two orphreys for the Bishop from John Cavendish for 40 s. (Historiae Dunelmensis Scriptores Tres, ed. J. Raine, Surtees Society 9, London and Edinburgh, 1839, Appendix no. CCCXLIV, p. ccccxli).

42.

^42. See Street p. 64 for a brief description of this cope.

43.

^43. King no. 155, p. 59.