Abstract
This article examines how late medieval public drama, particularly the York Corpus Christi plays, functioned as a form of cultural literacy sponsorship through community representation and participation. Drawing on Deborah Brandt’s theory of “Literacy Sponsorship” and insights from Writing Studies, the essay argues that the York craft guilds acted not only as producers of drama but as agents of social, religious, and civic knowledge transmission. The first section analyzes the restructuring of several plays before and after 1422, showing how textual and financial shifts reflect patterns of guild-sponsored literacy. The second section explores embodied forms of participation by city officials, audiences, and craftspeople as documented in civic records to show how performance practices cultivated communal identity and reinforced or reconfigured social hierarchies. Ultimately, the article positions the York plays as sites of complex ideological work, where text, performance, and sponsorship intersected to shape a habitus of medieval life.
Recommended Citation
Brissey, Elizabeth D.
(2026)
"'Ordo societatus': Imparting Cultural Literacy via the York Corpus Christi Plays,"
ROMARD: Vol. 62, Article 8.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/romard/vol62/iss1/8
