Mercers’ Use of Instruments, Singers, and Minstrels at York

By Lanndis De Lallo
April 8, 2019

As the wealthiest and most socially prominent craft guild, the Mercers at York had the
honour of performing the final play in the Corpus Christi Festival; ​The Last Judgement​. The play
contains two cues for the blowing of trumpets by Angels onstage, as well as the “song” and
finally the “melody” of Angels. Through analyzing the Mercers’ Pageant Documents from 1461,
and referring to secondary sources from Richard Rastall and Clifford Davidson, I will attempt to
determine the presence of choral singers, instruments, and minstrels in these music cues and in
the final moments of York’s ​Last Judgment​ play.

As well as the two shillings paid to four minstrels, The REED record from 1461 indicates
the Mercers paid three pence for the “making of the bemys”. Although the OED states
definitively that “bemys” means “a trumpet”, Rastall contemplates the word could have been
referencing “wooden beams” or “beams of light” (44). Moreover, Rastall suggests that the two
“reees” which are listed in the same record in conjunction with the “bemys” could have been the
“rays of light scattering from the beams of light” (45) however, this does not appear to make
logical sense. The lack of any convincing call for a lighting cue in ​The Last Judgment​ play
weakens this claim further. Rastall’s theory that the “bemys” “do not refer to trumpets” is
unsubstantiated because he does not acknowledge the likelihood that the word “bemys” means
trumpets, and for both of his alternative solutions, they rely on an uncertain understanding of the
word “reees” which if meant rivets, would not have been used in wood (Rastall 44) and if it
meant “rays”, he does not provide a practical explanation for their purpose nor acknowledge the
redundancy of “rays of light” and “beams of light”.

Another possibility is that the making of the “bemys” is for wooden replica trumpets.
Rastall asserts that “this would suggest that the [trumpet cues in the play were] mimed by actors
who could not play the instruments, [while the real] trumpeters [were] performing behind the
scenes” (44). According to Rastall, “this is a perfectly possible way of doing it”(44) yet there are
no payments to trumpeters in the record from 1461. This theory is also unlikely because of the
nature of the trumpet cues in the play; they simply blow their horns to announce the
commencement of Doomsday. It would be frivolous to employ professional trumpeters, who
Rastall acknowledges are “a breed apart” (45) and therefore are most likely not the four paid
minstrels from the Mercers’ record, to simply blow a horn in a cue clearly designed to be for
noise and not musical purposes. It seems more feasible to simply teach the angel players how to
blow their horns, than to coordinate this simple cue with professional trumpeters. There is also
circumstantial evidence that I believe further weakens Rastall’s claim that professional
trumpeters were employed to play behind the stage. The records indicate that the angels and the
trumpets they played during ​The Last Judgment​ changed over time; The Ordo Paginarum from
York in 1415, indicates the Mercers’ play contained “four Angels with trumpets” (BAMD 84)
yet only two trumpets are listed in the Mercers’ Indenture less than 20 years later. This seems to
suggest that although the amount of Angels with trumpets changed (perhaps based on availability
of players, instruments in working order, or the nature of the pageant during a given year), the
objective was to have a maximum of four angels playing real (or replica) trumpets from the
stage. Alternatively, Davidson suggests that perhaps “some of the angels carried and played
instruments. It is a matter of speculation, but not easily dismissed since angels in York frequently
appear in the visual arts playing instruments… [and] choices of instruments would have been
fairly extensive since there are numerous examples of angel musicians in York playing almost
every conceivable instrument in the fifteenth century” (138). However, if these “bemys” are in
fact wooden replicas, I believe a more likely explanation would be the white plated trumpets
(that are recorded in the Mercers’ Indenture from 1433 (BAMD 138) and presumably still in
their arsenal at the time of the 1461 pageant (Rastall 44)) and the replicas were both used by
angel players onstage, the former producing real sound and the latter employed to visually fill
out the scene.

After the trumpet cues that appear to simply be for the ​noise​ they produce, there are also
two distinctly musical cues in ​The Last Judgement​ play. When Jesus goes to his seat, he is
accompanied by the “song of angels” and the play ends accompanied by the “melody of angels”.
In 1461, there is also an item in the Mercers’ Pageant Documents for the payment to a “klarke
for playeng”. Clifford Davidson points out clerks were “very likely… in charge of a group of
musicians [and] singers” (157). However, I do not believe there is enough evidence in the
records to confirm the presence of paid musicians. Both Rastall and Davidson acknowledge that
“minstrels… would have been hampered in accompanying more complex music” (Davidson
132) because they learned music by ear, and could not read musical notation. Yet, there is record
of the payment to four minstrels at some point during this procession. Rastall triangulates the
cost of said clerk with other years from the Mercers’ payment records, and based on similar
prices, he suggests “these payments [are for] singing only” (45). Moreover, Davidson points out
that although the presence of minstrels is debatable, “[s]inging… was conventionally central to
the procession” (132). This gives way to my hypothesis: The clerk, as well as a body of
professional choral singers were employed for the two musical cues in the Mercers’ play. Church
instruments were not used because as Davidson points out, “musicians with loud instruments,
designed for outdoor use in just such locations [as the procession at York], were at an advantage
as opposed to string instruments which are… likely to be troublesome in the event of damp
weather” (142). The play ends with Jesus “cross[ing] from place to place” (BAMD 136), the
beautiful song of professional angel singers accompanying him and during its final performance,
it would have been at “the Pavement… [where] the play as a whole… arrived at its dramatic
end… in the Mercers’ territory” (BAMD 129)). Although the minstrels would not have
accompanied the choral singers, their expertise at playing outdoors in crowded and loud areas
would have been a perfect fit for the Mercers who could afford a grand finale in the form of
boisterous minstrel music upon the conclusion of the angels’ song. Rastall speculates that
perhaps, like in Chester, “some minstrels attended the waggon without performing as part of the
play… [which would] explain the problematic single payment​1​… if we assume that the four
minstrels were hired on this one occasion only” (46). My hypothesis bolsters this claim, because
it would then be conceivable that the minstrels accompanied and attended to the waggon
throughout the procession, and then upon its’ arrival at the Pavement, the minstrels would have
been free to play their instruments, signalling the spectacular end to the festival’s procession.
 Work Cited

Davidson, C., & White, S. (2013). ​Corpus Christi Plays at York: A Context for Religious Drama​.
New York: AMS Press.

Fitzgerald, C. M., & Sebastian, J. T. (2013). ​The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama​.
Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press.

Johnston, A. F., & Rogerson, M. (1979). ​York: Records of early English drama​. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.

Rastall, R. (2001). ​Minstrels Playing.​ Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer.

Beme, n. (n.d.). Retrieved April 7, 2019, from