A look at how the York play “The Creation & Fall of the Angels”, on which “The War in Heaven” is based, compares to the plays of the same story across the three other English biblical dramatic cycles.

York’s Mystery Plays are one of four manuscript groups termed “cycle plays”. All of them have the same premise, the dramatisation of the biblical story from Creation to Doom. The Chester Plays belonged to their city on a model similar, but not identical, to York. The Towneley Cycle are also sometimes called the “Wakefield Mystery Plays”, because they were originally thought to belong to that city; today there is only agreement that we don’t know for sure where they are from, or how they were performed. We know even less about the N-Town Plays, which are probably from East Anglia; they may actually be a collection of plays that were compiled together to form a cycle, rather than having ever been played as such, in the manner of the other plays.

All of the cycles start with the Creation of Heaven and the Fall of Lucifer and the rebel angels, so while the story of our play is well represented in the group (this is not true for every play; not all of the stories appear in all of the cycles), we thought it would be interesting to look at how the other opening plays compared to one another. Here’s a brief look at what you’ll find, if you look at them together:

– The play’s length varies considerably. The N-Town play has fewer than a hundred lines, while Chester’s clocks in just over three hundred. (Towneley and York tie at one hundred sixty each.)

– The short N-Town play includes only four characters: God, Lucifer, a Good Angel and a Bad Angel. Though York is twice its length, it only adds a second angel- one is designated a Seraphim and the other a Cherubim*. Despite being equal in length to York, the Towneley “Creation & Fall” includes nine characters, populating Heaven and Hell slightly more thoroughly. Chester’s angels are the reason the play is so long: eight types of angel are represented in the play, in addition to God, while Hell contains two demons, as well as Lucifer, and Lucifer’s companion in both dominions, Lightborne. He is unique in the plays; no other angel or demon, besides Lucifer, is given a proper name rather than a categoric title.   * Note to the sharp-eyed: Seraphim and Cherubim are indeed the plural forms of types of angels. This is how they are named in the plays. Whether that means that each one is effectively a representative spokesangel of its class, or whether a group of actors recite their lines in chorus to create that plural, isn’t noted.

– York’s play belonged to the Tanners (alternatively called the Barkers). Although the Chester plays may not have been “owned” by guilds on quite the same model as York, Chester’s Tanners have also been considered responsible for their “Creation of Heaven and Fall of Angels” play. We don’t know if the N-Town plays were affiliated with a particular location- it’s possible that they weren’t owned by a single city- and there’s no indication of guilds being responsible for particular plays. Only four of the Towneley plays given any suggestion of guilds, and one of the plays that does is this one. If you happened to guess that the guild named is the Barkers, you win! The association of this guild with this particular biblical story, in performance, was apparently strong across England.

– In the York play, the angels don’t argue about whether to worship God or Lucifer. Lucifer brags, and repeatedly tells the angels that they should worship him, but the Good Angels simply continue to worship God. Those angels who are cast down to Hell with Lucifer don’t say much; it’s the only play where the angelic argument comes down to picking a side and then stubbornly staying with it, rather than actively trying to fight the ones who have made a different choice. 

           By contrast, the bulk of the Chester version is a disputation between various types of angels and Lucifer, as they try to convince him of his misguided pride. The Towneley play likewise offers back-and-forth argument, but their play takes a different tactic: once Lucifer has made his pitch for superiority, the angels then argue amongst themselves over who will follow him and who will follow God, rather than arguing with Lucifer himself. The shortness of the N-Town play does not allow for much debate, although even in its briefness the Good Angel informs Lucifer that he is in error.

            It’s a shame we know nothing about the authors of any of these plays, as these distinctions prompt interesting questions about angelic agency, how much power Lucifer truly has (versus how much he thinks he has!), and the usefulness of debate make for interesting perspectives!

– In the Towneley play, God’s creation of the world is also included in that first play. All of the others have “The Creation” as their second play. That changes what God has to accomplish in the play, so in that iteration, much of God’s opening monologue has to be given to the work of those first few days. In fact, in this play he doesn’t enter into dialogue with the angels at all, he creates them and then is offstage for the rest of the play.

            York’s God is slightly more interactive, naming out Lucifer specifically. But he shares an interesting feature with the Towneley God: in both plays, the fall happens without an explicit directive from God, as if Lucifer’s words alone cause him to be spontaneously ejected from Heaven. As God does reappear to close the play with a monologue about what has happened and why, one has different staging options for the actual moment of the Fall, and could choose to depict God’s actions as direct.

            The Chester God is particularly active in his relationship with the angels, speaking with them at length, and picking Lucifer and Lightborne out especially, as if he knows they have special capacity that may also lead them astray. (One reference describes his commandments to them, not to let pride dominate them, as a dare.) His response to their downfall is almost sorrowful rather than angry.

            N-Town’s version of God dominates the short play, with almost half of its lines belonging to him. What stands out about him is that he expounds on his nature as a trinity more than the others. Chester’s also speaks of this (York’s and Towneley’s do not), but it feels less pronounced in the much-longer play.

            What one takes away from looking at the “Creation and Fall of Angels” plays as a comparative group is just how different medieval perspectives were on the Bible story and how to dramatise it. These Gods are not identical, and their angels, whether good or bad, seem to have quite different characters. From the standpoint of staging the plays, we can look at this as a chance for creative license: although the characters of our particular play seem to think and behave in a certain way, there is scope for seeing them as individual rather than merely as a “type”, and we can do so not because our modern sensibilities have taught us to approach the theatre that way, but because even in the Middle Ages, everyone saw things just a little bit differently.