| The Ordinalia, Britain's only surviving Passion cycle, is a virtually untapped source for the study of culture and society in fourteenth-century Cornwall. Embedded in the Middle Cornish texts of its three religious plays lie references to familiar animals and local place names; comments on political policies and power relationships; and depictions of the economic, legal, and religious facets of life in medieval Cornwall.;This dissertation examines these cultural indicators (superstites) which are anachronistic to biblical events depicted in the text surrounding them but representative of the medieval world of the audience. By superimposing the textual reality revealed by these superstites on the image of reality manifested in official documents of the fourteenth century, the study constructs a collective reality similar to that experienced by the cycle's audience and author in the fourteenth century.;Topical allusions in the Ordinalia, previously discounted, offer evidence of the date and provenance of the cycle, suggesting it was written between 1370 and 1400 at a religious house in the vicinity of Bodmin or Penryn, Cornwall. Moreover, textual reflections of Continental, Celtic, and English culture demonstrate that the playwright and his audience lived in a cosmopolitan milieu which influenced the production of the text. The text also reveals the influence of the diverse Cornish economy, portraying the significant roles played by fishing, farming, and ship-building. Although the Ordinalia's text is written in Cornish, the collective reality of the superstites and documents shows that the cycle could have appealed to all the peoples of cosmopolitan Cornwall, whatever their linguistic background, native land, or social class. |
