The Coventry Mystery Plays, or Coventry Corpus Christi Pageants, are a cycle of medieval mystery plays from Coventry, West Midlands, England, and are perhaps best known as the source of the "Coventry Carol". Two plays from the original cycle are extant having been copied from the now lost original manuscript in the early 19th century.[1] Another, separate manuscript (BL MS Cotton Vespasian D.8) was initially titled the Ludus Coventriae[2] by a 17th-century librarian who erroneously assumed it was copy of the Coventry mystery plays. The collection within this manuscript are now more commonly known as the N-Town Plays and are thought to have originated in East Anglia.[3]
- ^ Chris Upton Midlands archive: No mystery ... Birmingham Post 9 September 2000
- ^ Ed. K. S. Block (1922) Ludus Coventriae or The Plaie called Corpus Christi : COTTON MS. VESPASIAN D. VIII. London: Oxford University Press for the Early English Text Society.
- ^ "Culture: Poetic justice for Coventry history". 2002. Birmingham Post, pp. 14-14.