‘“Long lullynge haue I lorn!”: the Massacre of the Innocents in word and image’
METh 25 (2003) 3–53.

The development of mourning and pleading Bethlehem mothers in liturgical drama into belligerent women fighting Herod's soldiers in vernacular Massacre plays matches earlier depictions in medieval manuscripts, windows and wall-paintings.   

‘Allegory in the Interludes: chronology, taxonomy, and Gorboduc (again)’
METh 25 (2003) 54–70.

Re-examines the nature of dramatic allegory arguing that the form contravenes many conventional assumptions about allegory as a literary mode, focusing on the work of John Heywood, Sir David Lindsay, The Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge, and Gorboduc. Suggests that early-modern definitions of allegory as a 'dark conceit' tell only half of the story.    

‘From Iraq to the English Morris: the early history of the skirted hobbyhorse’
METh 25 (2003) 71–83.

This article traces the early history of the skirted hobbyhorse from tenth-century Iraq through northern Africa to Muslim Andalusia and so into Christian Europe by the late thirteenth century.   

‘The York Plays in Performance: Civitas versus Templum’
METh 25 (2003) 84–97.

To come

Meg Twycross

‘Forget the 4.30 a.m. start: recovering a palimpsest in the York Ordo paginarum’
METh 25 (2003) 98–152.

The techniques of electronic ‘virtual restoration’ make it possible to read material that was erased 500 years ago, throwing new light on the history of the York Corpus Christi Play and on the clerks who kept the records.    

Olga Horner

‘The Parliament of Heaven: theological exposition or legal argument?’
METh 25 (2003) 153–176.

A linguistic analysis of the debate in the N. Town Play showing how the language can both theologically justify the Incarnation and also be compatible with familiar and contemporary legal processes and court procedures.   

Martin W. Walsh

‘The Traditional Mummers’ Play in British Political Drama: Edward Bond’s The Fool (1975) and Vincent Woods’ At the Black Pig’s Dyke (1992)’
METh 25 (2003) 177–186.

Bond employs a complete traditional Mummers’ Play in his drama on the life of poet John Clare to demonstrate the the breakdown of traditional rural communities at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The folk play serves as a prelude to the scenes of agrarian unrest that follow. More experimentally, Woods employs the Mummers' Play form to create an atmosphere of menace in his drama of a mixed marriage on the volatile border between Northern and Republican Ireland.