It may mean, as Warton supposes in his
history of English Poetry, a short play performed between the
courses of a banquet or festival; or it may mean the playing of
something by two or more parties, the interchange of playing or
acting which occurs when two or more people act. It was about the
middle of the fifteenth century that dramatic pieces began in
England to be called Interludes; for some time previous they had
been styled Moralities; but the earliest name by which they were
known was Mysteries. The first Mysteries composed in England were
by one Ranald, or Ranulf, a monk of Chester, who flourished about
1322, whose verses are mentioned rather irreverently in one of the
visions of Piers Plowman, who puts them in the same rank as the
ballads about Robin Hood and Maid Marion, making Sloth say:
"I cannon perfitly my Paternoster as the priest it singeth,
But I can rhymes of Robin Hood and Ranald of Chester."
Long, however, before the time of this Ranald Mysteries had been
composed and represented both in Italy and France. The Mysteries
were very rude compositions, little more, as Warton says, than
literal representations of portions of Scripture.
