SOURCE: "The York Cycle: City as Stage," in Four Middle English Mystery Cycles, Princeton University Press, 1987, pp. 17-87.

In the excerpt below, Stevens contends that the unity of the York cycle is based on the medieval view of the plays as a mirror image of the city of York and its inhabitants. He argues that the processional staging of the cycles—especially in the pageant depicting Jesus' entry into Jerusalem—reflects York's use of the Corpus Christi festival as an opportunity for self-celebration that particularly emphasizes the tradition of royal entries into the city.

The York plays present a special problem for those who find thematic or structural unity in the medieval Corpus Christi cycles. The difficulty is that the play in York, perhaps because it was staged from the outset in what was then a large regional city, was more nearly a communal enterprise than any other...