York Corpus Christi Play Simulator (PSim 2.1; D.G. Jerz) (original) (raw)

[Jump to the York Pageant Simulation]	This image, modified from John Speed's map of Yorkshire, England shows the walled city of York -- the site of the brilliant annual spectacle known to its medieval performers and spectators as the "Corpus Christi Play".
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). [Ask a question or leave a comment] On this Site: Staging, Context & History \| Images	Glossary	Simulation	Link

This website, by Dennis G. Jerz, is intended to provide a gentle introduction to the York Corpus Christi Play, so that readers may better understand the significance of the computer simulation I conducted. This is also the document I would have liked to have read, before I began my own study of the York plays as a graduate student.

**Java Simulation of the Motion of Pageant Wagons in the York Corpus Christi Play **Push a button and watch dots representing individual play-wagons as they move across a map representing the medieval city of York, England. Labels indicate which play is performing at what time. (See: About the PSim program.)

Staging, Context and History of the York Corpus Christi Play
The Corpus Christi Play was an annual outdoor event, involving hundreds of actors; it was already a long-established tradition by the end of the 14th century, and continued until suppressed by the Protestant Reformation in the late 16th century.

A Christ Taken Prisoner The actor playing Judas in a sixteenth-century play is bribed to push "Jesus" off the stage and into the arms of angry debtors. This historical anecdote perfectly illustrates the fuzzy borders between the religious, public, and theatrical spheres in medieval Europe.
20 Nov 1999
**Corpus Christi Processions **A Franciscan Brother's website devoted to the modern practice of the religious display that was the occasion for the creation of the York plays.
24 Apr 2000
"Judas" Dies During Passion Play Rome: A 23-year-old Italian man died during an Easter re-enactment of Christ's passion, probably because the noose he was wearing in the role of Judas Iscariot was too tight, police said Sunday.
22 May 2000**** Oberammergau Passion Play tries to exorcize its anti-Semitic flavor
Oberammergau , Germany: Conceived as a talisman against the plague, corrupted by politics through the ages and conscripted by Adolf Hitler to vilify Jews, the controversial Passion Play staged once a decade by this Bavarian hamlet unveiled a radically reformed millennial performance yesterday exorcised of anti-Semitic intonations.
23 Oct 2003
'Jesus' Struck by Lightning While Filming Mel Gibson's 'The Passion Of Christ'
"I'm about a hundred feet away from them when I glance over and see smoke coming out of [Jim] Caviezel's ears.' See also The Couch, editorializing on Gibson's film: "That's What You get..."

Medieval English Drama Books

Dennis G. Jerz ( Home | E-mail )
Original site published & archived by the electronic journal (Re)Soundings, June, 1997.
See a list of pages that link to PSim (archived).

Acknowledgments

Special thanks are due to Alexandra F. Johnston and the staff at the Records of Early English Drama, for introducing the York plays to this student of 20th-century American literature and teacher of technical writing; and to Allen Forsyth, Ian Graham, John Bradley, and Rudy Ziegler of the University of Toronto Information Commons, for technical and moral support.

June, 1997 -- site first published in (Re)Soundings
16 Jul 1999 -- site posted here
27 Sep 2002 -- minor modifications
?? Oct 2003 -- comment link added
26 Oct 2003 -- news item added