English Mystery Palys: The Killing of Abel

The English Mystery Plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. The plays were written as part of a theological message and were intended to be an act of teaching and worship combined. Moreover the aim of these plays was to celebrate the Christian story from the Creation to Doomsday, with two central peaks in the Nativity and the Passion of Christ. There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays (referred to as “cycles”): the York, the Ludus Coventriae, the Chester and the Towneley cycles. This last cycle includes The Killing of Abel, the play that will be analized in this essay.

In order to have a better understanding of this play one should be acquainted with the account of the fall of Lucifer to Hell. In fact Lucifer is the instigator of the fall of man from the Earthly Paradise, (Genesis 3: 1-7, 13-15).