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Incentivizing Devotion: Processional Play Pardons and Indulgenced Spectatorship in York and the Holy Roman Empire
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Incentivizing Devotion: Processional Play Pardons and Indulgenced Spectatorship in York and the Holy Roman Empire

Glenn Ehrstine
European medieval drama, Vol.29(1), pp.151-188
01/01/2025
DOI: 10.1484/J.EMD.5.152660

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Abstract

In 1453, the Archbishop of York issued an indulgence for attendance at the York Corpus Christi procession. Drawing upon the indulgences granted for spectators at German Corpus Christi plays in Künzelsau and Zerbst, this essay proposes that audience members at performances of the York cycle play, which took place in connection with the procession, similarly expected to receive an apportionment of redemptive grace for their devout engagement with the various pageants before them. The cycle play’s devotional reception likely also included additional prayers of pardon, found in primers created for York use and recited during spectators’ daily devotions. A broad cross-section of spectators presumably recited such prayers before, after, or possibly even during the cycle play’s performance.

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