Macro Manuscript

The Macro Manuscript is a collection of three 15th-century English morality plays, known as the "Macro plays" or "Macro moralities": Mankind, The Castle of Perseverance, and Wisdom. So named for its 18th-century owner Reverend (1683–1767), the manuscript contains the earliest complete examples of English morality plays. A stage plan attached to The Castle of Perseverance is also the earliest known staging diagram in England. The manuscript is the only source for The Castle of Perseverance and Mankind and the only complete source for Wisdom. The Macro Manuscript is a part of the collection at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. (MS. V.a. 354). For centuries, scholars have studied the Macro Manuscript for insights into medieval drama. 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."

Although the manuscript is now considered a single artifact, its three plays were composed as separate manuscripts. Along with certain place names scattered throughout the plays, the particular dialects in which the three are written suggest that they originated in the East Midlands, particularly around Norfolk and Suffolk. The monk Thomas Hyngman transcribed Mankind and Wisdom between 1460 and 1475. 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. Macro bound them together somewhat arbitrarily, along with three other non-dramatic manuscripts. Early 19th-century owner Henry Gurney separated The Castle, Wisdom, and Mankind from the other manuscripts and bound them together as a collection in a separate volume. In 1936, the Folger Shakespeare Library purchased this manuscript at a Sotheby's auction for 440 pounds.

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