York’s Guilds’ Names in the 15th Century and Their Translation into Spanish

En la Inglaterra de la Baja Edad Media, los gremios de la ciudad de York se encargaban de representar escenas bíblicas tomadas del ciclo de Corpus Christi. Nuestro objetivo principal será describir, definir y traducir los nombres de los gremios que aparecen en la lista de Burton (1415). Asimismo, trataremos problemas surgidos del intento de establecer una correspondencia adecuada entre los términos en inglés medio, en español y la definición del gremio. Como veremos, los términos que designan a los gremios ingleses no suelen reflejar con exactitud aquellos usados para los gremios medievales españoles o para trabajos y profesiones actuales.Palabras clave: Gremios de York, ciclo de Corpus Christi, traducción, inglés medio, comercio.ABSTRACTIn late medieval England, YorkKs guilds were responsible for the performance of short Biblical scenes from the Corpus Christi cycle. Since no translation of the whole cycle into Spanish is available, we will describe, define and translate the guildsK names in BurtonKs list (1415). We will also deal with some problems found when establishing an accurate correspondence among the terms in Middle English, in Spanish and the definition of the craft. The terms which designate the English guilds do not exactly reflect those used for the Spanish medieval gremios or for current trades and jobs in English and Spanish.Key words: YorkKs guilds, Corpus Christi cycle, translation, Middle English, trade

The York Cycle at Toronto: Staging and Performance Style

Because the York Corpus Christi cycle drew so much of its dramatic power from the life of the medieval community, it presents formidable problems to modern producers. One obvious difficulty stems from the anachronistic dramatization of scriptural history. How can one convey to a twentieth-century audience the contemporaneity of a play in which Pilate holds a Parliament with his ‘bishops’ and Christ enters Jerusalem like a king passing in royal procession through the gates of a medieval walled city? The forty-seven separate pageants in which the York cycle treats the story of man from the Creation to the Last Judgment were mounted by the craft guilds of the city under the supervision of the municipal authorities. By what process are these pageants to be produced today without the social and economic structure of the towns that gave to cycle plays the character of a truly civic drama? Finally, what performing style is to be used by modern actors? Even if the modern productions were to employ a historically accurate style (supposing that one could be reconstructed from surviving evidence), this style would only very partially convey to a modern audience the devotional, didactic, and ceremonial purposes of the medieval cycle.

Staging the York Creation, and Fall of Lucifer

The Creation, and Fall of Lucifer by the York Realist was intended to provide a spectacular opening for the Corpus Christi cycle, of which the city of York felt very proud in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Since the York Realist appears to have been particularly sensitive to the conditions of production, this opening play provides a useful focus for attention to the staging used in the York cycle. The internal evidence of the Realist's Creation, and Fall of Lucifer demonstrates that he was not writing a mere literary exercise, but kept in mind the specifics of stage production.