It began with the Creation, and ended with the Judgment.

That for which the city of Coventry was famous consists of forty-two subjects, with a long prologue.

Composed by ecclesiastics, the plays would seem to have been first represented by them only, although afterwards it was not always considered right for the clergy to be concerned with them.

The hypocritical Franciscan friar, in "Piers Ploughman's Creed," a poem of the close of the same century, claims as a virtue for his order-- At markets and miracles we meddleth us never.
They would seem likewise to have been first represented in churches and chapels, sometimes in churchyards.

Later, when the actors chiefly belonged to city-guilds, they were generally represented in the streets and squares.
It must be borne in mind by any who would understand the influence of these plays upon the people, that much in them appearing to us grotesque, childish, absurd, and even irreverent, had no such appearance in the eyes of the spectators.