The past fifteen years have been a period of active revisionism in the study of the stage history of medieval England. Through the efforts of Richard Southern, Martial Rose, and others, we have gained a quite different perspective on the staging of the religious drama of the Middle Ages. Now the Cornish plays are no longer considered to be an aberration, for we have seen the principle of stationary performance extended to Wakefield and Lincoln, and enough questions have been raised concerning performance in York that processional staging even there seems doubtful. More and more we are being led to the conclusion that not processional staging on pageant carts, but stationary performance was the norm in England, just as it was on the Continent.
