Macro Manuscript

So named for its 18th-century owner Reverend Cox Macro (1683–1767), the manuscript contains the earliest complete examples of English morality plays.

As Clifford Davidson writes in Visualizing the Moral Life, "in spite of the fact that the plays in the manuscript are neither written by a single scribe nor even attributed to a single date, they collectively provide our most important source for understanding the fifteenth century English morality play.

[3] Along with The Castle of Perseverance, Hyngman's Mankind and Wisdom were acquired by the Reverend Cox Macro of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk in the early 18th century.

In August of 1936, Joseph Quincy Adams, the Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, purchased this manuscript from the antiquarian firm Bernard Quaritch for £1,125 (approximately $5,625).

[citation needed] As drama, the Macro plays remained in relative obscurity until 1823, when William Hone mentioned The Castle of Perseverance in Ancient Mysteries Described.

The first intensive critical analysis came in 1832 from John Payne Collier in The History of English Dramatic Poetry.

[11][12][10] The play's full performance would have required about three and a half hours and upwards of twenty actors.

Scholars disagree on the number of players required to perform the play, varying from over twenty to as few as twelve.