"Beginning and Beginning-Again": Processions, Plays, and Civic Politics in York and Chester

In late medieval England, the expansion of Corpus Christi festivities to include long sermons, elaborate processions, and dramatic performances suggests widespread enthusiasm for the new feast.1 York and Chester, unusually among English towns, developed processions and biblical play cycles, both civic productions involving the craft guilds, as linked forms of Corpus Christi performance.2 This commonality, together with their abundance of records, invites a comparative analysis of procession and drama in these two towns.3 In York and Chester, the spilling over of the feast to different days bespeaks tension as well