Faith and the City: Piety, Place and the Passion in Fifteenth-Century York

Abstract

Fifteenth-century England was a time defined by religion, and by the colourful, extravagant and exuberant expression of that religion. Centring on the city of York, my thesis explores the demonstration of faith in this period, examining the links between piety and its public exhibition. This involves considering how the Mass - the most important ritual of medieval Catholicism - can be viewed as a drama of faith and how it links to the Corpus Christi pageant cycle - a series of plays dramatising the span of Biblical salvation history, performed every year by the York community in the city’s streets. By analysing how different areas of the city - the cathedral, the smaller parish churches, and the city streets - functioned as focal points for the display of devotion, I demonstrate the extent of the relationship between plays and liturgy and how the two interact. This then reveals the distinctive character of York piety, both personal and communal, and how the city’s manifestation of piety shaped its urban identity. Ultimately this leads to a fuller and more detailed understanding of how the performance of faith situated itself within, and interacted with, the wider social culture of medieval York.