Ancient Mysteries Described, Especially the English Miracle Plays.

Ancient Mysteries Described is William Hone's learned and entertaining survey of the religious drama and popular festivals of medieval and early modern England. Drawing on unpublished manuscripts in the British Museum, Hone describes the great cycles of English miracle and mystery plays, which dramatized the Bible and the apocryphal New Testament from the Creation to the Last Judgment for the crowds of the medieval towns, and he ranges outward to the boisterous customs that grew up around the medieval church, the Feast of Fools and the Feast of Asses, the Boy Bishop, the Descent into Hell, the Lord Mayor's Show, the Guildhall giants Gog and Magog, and the singing of Christmas carols. William Hone (1780 to 1842) was one of the most colorful figures of Regency London, a bookseller, satirist, and radical journalist who in 1817 was tried three times in three days for blasphemous and seditious libel over his political parodies, and, defending himself, was acquitted each time to the delight of the public, striking a famous blow for the freedom of the press. In his later years he turned from satire to antiquarianism, producing this book and the hugely popular Every-Day Book, genial miscellanies of old customs, curiosities, and forgotten lore that remain a treasure house for students of English folk life.