EXTRAORDINARILY FEW SAMPLES of the popular saints' play remain, only
two in fact. Perhaps one should add to The Conversion of St. Paul and
Mary Magdalen, both found in the Digby collection, the several plays on
St. Anne and the early life of the Virgin which have been assimilated into
Ludus, and also the assumption plays of both Ludus and York, all of which
are essentially saints' plays.

But even this larger number is an inadequate of what
once existed. There are accounts of saints' plays from Basingbourne,
Bethersden (Kent), Braintree ( Essex), Canterbury, Coventry, Hereford,
Lincoln, London, and Shrewsbury. The elaborate Creed Play of York may
have been such. The saints celebrated in these recorded plays are a varied
lot. Women seem especially favored: St. Catherine, St. Clara, St. Christina,
SS Feliciana and Sabina, St. Margaret, and St. Susan (which may be
Susanna and the Elders from one of the apocryphal sections of Daniel).
Saints George, Thomas à Becket (at Canterbury as we should expect),
Andrew, Swithin, Lawrence, and Placidus all had one or more plays de-
voted to them. The Cornish had a play about one of their favorites, St.
Meriasek, still extant in the ancient Cornish tongue. The Aberdeen Corpus
Christi procession had pageants, which may or may not have been plays,
about Saints Bestian, Lawrence, Stewin, Martin, Nicholas, John (which
one is not stated), and George.

Of the two saints' plays contained in the Digby collection, one, The
Conversion of St. Paul, is entirely based on Scripture, the other, Magdalen,
partially so. The Conversion also has liturgical precedent. It is, however,
rather improbable that the liturgical play which we have is the exact source
of the Digby piece, though the two are remarkably similar in content. Of
the scriptural scenes of Magdalen, the raising of Lazarus has forerunners
both in the liturgical and in the vernacular cycles, and the visitation of
the sepulchre carries us back to the very origin of medieval drama. Theme
scenes, however, are only a small part of the total play.

Both plays are of the late fifteenth century. They were probably not
written more than twenty years before the date given by the scribe for
the manuscript, 1512. Both seem to belong to the East Midland area. About
the conditions of their performance, whether by some town guild, either
religious or occupational, or by some semi-professional company, we
know nothing, nor do we have any firm ground for speculation.

The Conversion of St. Paul follows the scriptural story rather closely.
After a prologue by " Poeta," Saul, dressed as an "adventurous knight," ^*

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