Maps of the play day By Lesley

Dozens of short plays, mounted on pageant wagons, began with a performance at the Trinity Priory (red dot, lower left) and moved through the city streets, stopping at pre-arranged performance locations known as stations (white dots)
It have 16 station.

York Cycle

The York Mystery Plays, more properly called the York Corpus Christi Plays, are a Middle English cycle of forty-eight mystery plays, or pageants, which cover sacred history from the creation to the Last Judgment. These were traditionally presented on the feast day of Corpus Christi (a movable feast occurring the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, between May 23 and June 24). They were It is one of only four virtually complete surviving English mystery play cycles, with the others known as the Chester Mystery Plays, the Wakefield plays and N-Town plays. In addition to these, two long, composite, and late mystery pageants have survived from the Coventry cycle, and there are records and fragments from other similar productions which took place elsewhere. A manuscript of the York plays, probably dating from some time between 1463 and 1477, survives at the British Library.
The play:
There is no record of the first performance of the York Mystery Plays, but they are first recorded celebrating the festival of Corpus Christi, in York in 1376, by which time the use of pageant wagons has already been established. The plays were organised, financed (and often performed) by the York Craft Guilds ("Mystery" is a play on words, representing both a religious truth, or rite, and, in its Middle English meaning of a trade, or craft). The wagons would be paraded through the streets of York, stopping at each of 12 playing stations, designated by the City banners.

English Cycle Plays By Mia

Each cathedral town had its own cycle: York, Chester, Wakefield, N-town
The cycles were very popular amongst commoners and nobility: records show that both Henry VIII and Elizabeth I attended performances. The Protestant Reformation brought a halt to the presentation of cycle plays as they incorporated Roman Catholic theology.

Movable Stage: Pageant Wagon By Lesley

pageant wagons (or click here) moved through the streets while the audience stayed in one place – like parade floats. (W&G call them "wagon stages") (see illustration in text) (click here for a picture..) The term "pageant" is used to refer to the stage, the play itself, and the spectacle. Plays performed in sequence – thus each play was performed several times.
There are few reliable description of pageant wagons. One claims that the wagons must be over 12 feet tall—it would seem impossible to fit through the streets (many medieval streets had overhanging buildings), and would be flimsy.
The medieval pageant wagons used for the York Cycle. Many modern reconstructions have assumed that the pageants played side-on, but this view rests on assumptions derived from modern theatre, medieval two-dimensional art, or the demands of the open campus locations where many modern performances have taken place. Comparative European evidence (drawings of early ommegang wagons, and surviving Spanish pageant wagons) suggests pageants designed as three-dimensional pieces of street architecture, transpicuous wherever possible, and aligned toward the front or the rear. The narrowness of York's streets and practical experiments in 1988 and 1992 at some of the most popular medieval performance places strongly support this model; side-on performance in these places makes it impossible for much of the audience to see the pageants and would sometimes involve placing the property of the stationholder backstage, from where no view would be possible. Medieval pageants were probably higher than most of those used today, with wagon decks five to six feet from ground level and any upper storeys at least eight feet above the lower ones. Large pageants like the Mercers' Doomsday need a total functional height of over twenty feet, excluding spires, pinnacles, etc.; and even this looks modest beside some drawings of ommegang wagons. The larger wagons used a good deal of machinery; study of one type of machine, the functional lift, suggests that it needed grooved pillars, pulleys and a drum winch. Such a machine could be more safely and effectively mounted on an end-facing wagon than a side-facing one. The York wagons were technologically and artistically ambitious, and our modern efforts have yet to match their inventiveness or their flamboyant magnificence.

Fixed Stage By Lesley

On the Continent (except Spain and parts of Italy) (W&G call them "platform stages) Mansions set up in available spaces (courtyards, town squares, etc.), usually arranged in straight lines or rectangles or circles, depending on the space. Heaven and Hell were at opposite ends, if possible.

Stage in the medieval age, By Lesley

Medieval Staging
Two major kinds of stages in the medieval theatre: Fixed and Moveable These technical tricks would be more extensive on fixed stages. The mansion and platea were borrowed from the church services. Simultaneous display of several locations also borrowed from liturgical drama- Simultaneous staging was a distinctive characteristic of medieval theatre.

Introduce the Medieval Theatre by Bulala

Introduce:
The “Middle Ages” is the label historians have given to those years of European history between the fall of Rome (476 A.D) and the coming of the Renaissance; it is a curiously colorless designation for one of the most diversely creative periods in the annals of Western civilization. After the fall of Rome the 600’s A.D., came a period known to us as the "dark ages." Much political turmoil is no reliable political structure, and the church was the only stable “government”, the church exerted increasing influence. In the 4th Century, the Bishop of Rome, claiming to be the successor to St. Peter, established supremacy in church matters and in secular concerns.

In the middle Ages, type of play acted within or near the church and relating stories from the Bible and of the saints. Although they had their roots in the Christian liturgy, such plays were not performed as essential parts of a standard church service. The language of the liturgical drama was Latin, and the dialogue was frequently chanted to simple monophonic melodies. Music was also used in the form of incidental dance and processional tunes
Before 1200, most were still being done inside the church as part of the liturgy. Most were probably still in Latin, the language of the Church.
And the medieval theatre was born in the liturgy of the Christian Church of the early tenth century, when a series of liturgical elaborations, known as tropes (from the Latin tropus, meaning” added melody”), expanded the offices of the Mass.
The most significant of these tropes, the Quem Queritis, appeared in the Easter Mass.

Liturgical Drama

In the middle Ages, type of play acted within or near the church and relating stories from the Bible and of the saints. Although they had their roots in the Christian liturgy, such plays were not performed as essential parts of a standard church service. The language of the liturgical drama was Latin, and the dialogue was frequently chanted to simple monophonic melodies. Music was also used in the form of incidental dance and processional tunes

Before 1200, most were still being done inside the church as part of the liturgy. Most were probably still in Latin, the language of the Church.

Staging:
There were two main areas for the performances to take place:
Mansions -- small scenic structures for indicating location (for instance, a throne might equal the palace of Pilate). In more complex plays, there were many mansions. Platea – general acting area, adjacent to the mansion.
The church structure usually served as the mansions (the choir loft, for instance, could serve as heaven; the altar might be the tomb of Christ).
Machinery was also used: to fly Christ up to heaven, have angels come down, etc.
Costumes were probably ordinary church vestments.
By 1200, some of these plays were being performed outdoors.
By 1350, plays were in the vernacular, rather than Latin.
Laymen were the actors (male members of the community, unpaid—though there were some women on stage in France), no longer clerics and priests.
The stories began to range even further than when they were part of the liturgical services. The church seemed to support these dramas.

Drama in the Early Middle Ages 500-1000

Drama in the early middle ages are small groups of traveling performers-- minstrels, jugglers, acrobats, bards, mimes, puppeteers -- went from town to town entertaining.
They performed in taverns and at festivals for the commoners and at court for the nobility
Festivals usually contained both pagan and Christian elements ( e.g. Halloween and Christmas celebrations )

Earliest extant drama from the middle ages: A four-line dramatization of the resurrection, with direction for its performance.
Comes from an Easter trope (interpolation into existing text, originally lengthened musical passages with words eventually added). – 925 A.D.
By 975, it had become a little drama within the service, probably played by altar boys.
The practice blossomed – many playlets developed dealing with biblical themes—mostly Easter, Christmas, the 12th Night (Feast of the Epiphany).
Usually serious, but at the Feast of Fools and the Feast of the Boy Bishops, much dancing and foolishness and parodies of church practices.
At first, the church had control of the drama outside of the church, but then it gradually became more controlled by secular groups.
The Guilds (tradesmen or Confraternities) took over in some cities, and it was common for certain Guilds to retain control over certain plays / stories, all of which were based in some way on the Bible or religious teachings.
For instance, the Bakers’ Guild would control the play about the Last Supper, and Shipwrights’ Guild would get plays about Noah, etc.
Municipalities took over in some cities. But the church still needed to approve the scripts, even when its role diminished.

Medieval History

After the fall of Rome the 600’s A.D., came a period known to us as the "dark ages." Much political turmoil – no reliable political structure .The Church was the only stable "government" .The church exerted increasing influence. In the 4th Century, the Bishop of Rome, claiming to be the successor to St. Peter, established supremacy in church matters and in secular concerns.
Feudalism – the manor was the chief non-church political entity.
The manor (large estate), headed by a nobleman, had absolute authority over the serfs, (peasants) who worked the land. Lords of manors were vassals, or subjects, of a king. The king’s knights protected the lords and their land. Serfs (servants) owed allegiance to their lord. There are many church edicts against mimi, histriones, ioculatores – terms for secular performers.

Little is known about the theatre between 600-1000 A.D.
There are references to actors (histriones), jugglers, rope dances in nomadic tribes, remnants of Roman mimes, popular pagan festivals and rites. Teutonic minstrels or troubadours ( scops [pronounced "shope] ) became the primary preserver of tribal histories, but the Teutonic tribes converted to Christianity after the 7th or 8th century, and the scops were denounced, branded as bad as mimes. But there was little written drama; none that survives, and almost no other surviving references to it.
Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, a nun, wrote religious plays based on Terence's plays, but they were
probably "closet dramas."
Also Christian ceremonies, where the theatre seems to have been "reborn.". Between 925 and 975, drama becomes re-introduced into the church services. Theatre was "reborn" within the very institution that helped to shut it down. Perhaps the church had little choice – it couldn't’t stop the pagan rites – too popular – so many aspects of pagan rites found their way into Christian ceremonies. (Christmas the birth of Christ, not celebrated in December till the 4th century, to take advantage of the winter festivals; Easter supplanted the spring festivals).
In the 12th century, the Crusades helped bring other cultures to Europe (or, to be more accurate, Europeans took from other cultures and brought them to Europe).
"Liturgical drama" – within the church liturgy, the service
Other religious dramas extended outside the church, in the vernacular