Sunday, 20 March 2016

Palm Sunday | The Entry Into Jerusalem

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JESUS:   To me takis tent and giffis gud hede,
My dere discipulis that ben here,
I schall you telle that shal be indede;
My tyme to passe hense, it drawith nere,
And by this skill
Mannys sowle to save fro sorowes sere
That loste was ill.

From heven to erth whan I dyssende
Rawnsom to make I made promys,
The prophicie nowe drawes to ende;
My Fadirs wille forsoth it is
That sente me hedyr.
Petir, Phelippe, I schall you blisse
And go togedir

Unto yone castell that is you agayne,
Gois with gud harte and tarie noght,
My comaundement to do be ye bayne.
Also I you charge loke it be wrought
That schal ye fynde
An asse, this feste als ye had soght,
Ye hir unbynde

With hir foole, and to me hem bring
That I on hir may sitte a space
So the prophicy clere menyng
May be fulfilled here in this place:
“Doghtyr Syon,
Loo, thi Lorde comys rydand on an asse,
Thee to opon.” (The Entry Into Jerusalem l.1-28)


The York play of the Entry into Jerusalem was performed by the Skinners' Guild. The 'yon castell' referred to by Jesus is probably Clifford's Tower, which stands in the centre of the city, providing a well-known landmark. This fleeting moment both brings together historical and present time within the play and also hints at how inextricably the York play cycle as a whole was linked with the geography and architecture of the city.

The play concludes with the citizens of Jerusalem welcoming Christ into their city:

Hayll, domysman dredfull, þat all schall deme,
Hayll, [þat all] quyk and dede schall lowte,
Hayll, whom worschippe moste will seme,
Hayll, whom all thyng schall drede and dowte.
We welcome þe;
Hayll, and welcome of all abouwte,
To owre ceté. (l.538-44)
The structure of the play is, as Beadle and King point out, very close to a medieval royal welcome: 

the tableau at the end [of the play], with its ordered arrangement of formal greetings, suggests that the dramatist had in mind the conventions of the contemporary royal entry into the medieval town. In the last lines of the play, the local audience must have had a strong sense that the King of Heaven was being welcomed as much to medieval York as to the biblical Jerusalem.
(Beadle and King, introduction to The Entry Into Jerusalem, in York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 106.) 

They also note that "Jesus must have ridden on the ass in the street amongst the audience, who were thus deftly drawn into the illusion of the play, and given a role as the crowd that lined the route into Jerusalem" (ibid.) As with the earlier reference to the castle, Biblical and contemporary time, the sacred (the subjects dealt with in the plays) and the secular (the city of York) are brought together. For the plays' original audiences, Biblical events, happenings and locations were blended with what was for them modern-day York, intertwining them until they became virtually indistinguishable.

Yf any man will you gaynesaye,
Say that youre Lorde has nede of tham
And schall restore thame this same day
Unto what man will tham clayme.
 

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