The N-Town Play: Cotton MS Vespasian D.8: Volume I: Introduction and Text

The N-Town Cycle is one of the four extant Middle English cycles of mystery plays. A collection of unknown origin, N-Town is composite and in many ways unique. Its forty-one plays, dramatizing divine history from Creation to Doomsday, illustrate ways of reading, supplementing, and altering biblical accounts. The collection is extraordinarily rich in textual information testifying to the alteration and expansion of the text. And the language of the plays in many small ways advances our knowledge of the history of English.

The plays exemplify the efficacy and beauty of simple faith. They provide instructions in the fundamental elements of medieval Christianity, and tell us much about the forms of consolation and self-fortification that were available in the late Middle Ages.