Wisdom (play)

Wisdom, or Mind, Will, and Understanding
A drawing and text from the Macro Manuscript version of Wisdom
Written by	Anonymous
Characters	Wisdom (dressed as Christ) Lucifer Anima, the Soul Mind Will Understanding The Five Wits
Date premiered	ca. 1460-1470
Original language	Middle English
Genre	morality play

Wisdom (also known as Mind, Will, and Understanding) is one of the earliest surviving medieval morality plays. Together with Mankind and The Castle of Perseverance, it forms a collection of early English moralities called "The Macro Plays". Wisdom enacts the struggle between good and evil; as an allegory, it depicts Christ (personified in the character of Wisdom) and Lucifer battling over the Soul of Man, with Christ and goodness ultimately victorious. Dating between 1460 and 1463, the play is preserved in its complete form in the Macro Manuscript, currently a part of the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library (MS V.a. 354).^[1] A manuscript fragment of the first 754 lines also belongs to the Bodleian Library (MS Digby 133).^[2] Although the author of Wisdom remains anonymous, the manuscript was transcribed and signed by a monk named Thomas Hyngman. Some scholars have suggested that Hyngman also authored the play.