The Wakefield Master

Five of the plays in the Wakefield Cycle are clearly the product of an unknown genius whom we call The Wakefield Master: Noah (III); The First Shepherd's Play (XXII); The Second Shepherd's Play (XIII); Herod the Great (XVI); and The Buffeting (XXI). A sixth, The Killing of Abel (II) was at least heavily doctored by him. He apparently wrote between 1400-1450, so the Towneley Manuscript was written after him and not by him. His identifying characteristics are a distinctive stanza, liberal use of proverbs and allusions to English folk history, and a very earthy wit. His stanza is an incredibly complicated nine line stanza with an elaborate rhyme scheme. The first four lines rhyme internally and at the end, the fifth line, which is very short, rhymes with the ninth which is of varying length and the sixth, seventh, and eighth lines rhyme. The rhyme pattern is thus:

a…b But as far as I've been, or yet as I know,
a…b We poor wedded-men suffer great woe;
a…b We sorrow now and again; it falls oft so.
a…b Silly Caple, our hen, both to and fro
…c She cackles;
…d But begins to croak,
…d To groan or to cluck,
…d Woe is him, our cock,
…c For he is in her shackles.

One of his five plays is perhaps the single greatest Medieval play, The Second Shepherd's Play. Based entirely on Luke, the play is three-fourths a parody of the Nativity without being irreverent. The first section is a real knockabout farce, and the conclusion is one of the most sublimely reverent pieces of Christian literature ever written.