Excerpt from Plays of Our Forefathers: And Some of the Traditions Upon Which the Plays Were Founded I have hoped that the reading public might be interested in the mediaeval drama, not only as an instance of the development of literary art, but as a chronicle of the ideals and traditions, the religious consciousness, the romance and humour of times that seem to be remote, but after all are modern in a myriad surprising ways, and human to the core. To laugh and weep, to worship and to revel for a season, in the manner and spirit of our ancestors, were infinitely more pleasing than the pride of controversy or the pursuit of scientific ends. If I have sometimes used mere reverence, fellow-feeling, and imagination to reconstruct these plays and times, I trust the scholar will sympathise and condone; if I have in places turned source-hunter and advocate, I know the genial reader will skip. My indebtedness to authorities is, I think, sufficiently indicated in the body of the book. For the preparation of the index I take great pleasure in expressing my obligation to my former pupil and present colleague, Mr. G. A. Smithson, of the University of California. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."