ENTERTAINMENTS 75

of the shrine of the guild, the mayor, aldermen
and corporation, and officers and members of
the Guild of Corpus Christi and of the city trade-
guilds. As the procession went on its way litanies
and chants were sung by the clergy. The shrine,
the central feature of the procession, was presented
in 1449. It was itself of gilt and had many images
some of which were gilded, while the main ones under
the " steeple" -were in mother-of-pearl, silver, and
gold: to it were attached rings, brooches, girdles,
buckles, beads, gawds and crucifixes, in gold and
silver, and adorned with coral and jewels.

On the occasion of the processions and per-
formances of pageants, as at fairs, the city was
filled with a boisterous multitude which turned
what was b}r tradition a religious exercise and
entertainment, to a time of riotous merry-making
and uncouth disorder. In 1426 a kind of crusade
was preached by a friar minor, William Melton,
against the riotous and drunken conduct of the
people at the Corpus Christi festival. He denounced
the disgracing of the festival and affirmed that the
people were forfeiting by their conduct the in-
dulgences granted for the festival. The result of
the friar's crusade was the holding of a special
meeting of the city council, which decided that the
processions and pageants were to be held on separate
days, the pageants on the eve of Corpus Christi,
and the procession on the feast itself, Formerly
both had taken place on the same day.

' The pageants were produced in suitable parts
of the city. Stages on wheels were brought to
these places, some of them open spaces, others main
streets. The stages, which were the work of
citizen workmen, were of three storeys, the central
and principal one, the stage proper, representing