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Popular Culture Review
above to open Jesus’s tomb {REED Dorset, Cornwall 267-8, 471-3, REED.
Devon 17, 360, 382, Malone Kent 135, 207).
We also must consider the small populations of English cities and
towns in order to appreciate fully the amount of community involvement in
these activities. Except for London, the largest cities in pre-modern England—
Norwich, York, and Bristol—possessed only 12,000 to 15,000 inhabitants.
Smaller cities like Chester and Lincoln had populations somewhere between
5,000 to 8,000 people. Most other towns had populations ranging from less than
400 to a little over 2000 people. The population of New Romney, mentioned
above, probably was less than 1000 (Bower 146), yet its detailed plans for the
1560 play include 10 speaking parts, an unspecified number of “tormenters” and
“devils,” and 62 other people assigned various tasks in what we would call
“technical” aspects of the production (189-202). A conservative estimate of the
total number of New Romney inhabitants involved in the play therefore would
be about 80 to 100. And, conservatively, that suggests that at least 8 to 10
percent of the town’s population was directly involved in mounting the play. In
larger cities like York, Lincoln, and Chester it is likely that similar percentages,
if not even larger ones, contributed to their play cycles. Those cycles lasted over
two or three days, and involved the city authorities and most of the trade and
craft guilds combining their efforts and monies to mount their annual
productions (Wickham, Medieval 62-99, Chambers 2: 113-46). In terms of
money, time, and effort, then, these religiously based plays put on by the laity
were deeply embedded in the civic and popular culture of the small towns and
the larger cities of pre-modern England.
The turmoil begun by Henry VIIl’s religious reforms and carried on
through the reign of his son Edward VI disrupted these traditions. Even before
Henry V lll’s bre