Resumen de UNDERSTANDING THE BLANKET-TOSS IN MEDIEVAL DRAMA: The Case of Een Cluijt van Lijsgen en Jan Lichthart
This article, and the translation appended to it, will explore one of the most enduring riddles in medieval English drama: the significance of the canvas-tossing episode in the Towneley Second Shepherds’ Play. As the play itself makes clear, the offences of the sheep-thief and black magician Mak, and of his wife and accomplice Gill, should by rights prompt their victims to ‘do thaym to dede’; even Mak himself admits that the shepherds are entitled to ‘gyrd of my heede’.¹ However, for some undisclosed reason, the group instead decide to ‘cast hym in canvas’. Although the shepherds’ change of heart clearly...
