Corpus Christi Plays at York: A Context For Religious Drama. By Clifford Davidson. AMS Studies in Middle Ages, No. 30. Brooklyn, N.Y.: AMS Press, 2013. xii + 242 pp. $84.50 cloth.

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Corpus Christi Plays at York: A Context For Religious Drama . By Clifford Davidson . AMS Studies in Middle Ages, No. 30. Brooklyn, N.Y. : AMS Press , 2013. xii + 242 pp. $84.50 cloth.Book Reviews and NotesClifford Davidson's latest book, Corpus Christi at York: A Context for Religious Drama , challenges preconceived notions regarding the York cycle plays and delves into new and exciting contexts for understanding them. His latest work sets out to contextualize York medieval drama in a variety of ways that may, at first glance, seem incongruous. As the study proceeds each chapter comes together to create a larger picture of these enduring plays. He seeks to answer why the York plays were continually produced over 200 years in the midst of pressures from multiple arenas to end them. Davidson argues that through the analysis of various disciplinary theories and considering social, political and religious viewpoints the reader will find that the cycle plays of York survived a lengthy history because they provided the city, guilds and people of York with a way in which to safely test the boundaries of their world. He makes use of literary, social, psychological, aesthetic, and spatial theory to lead the reader through a vibrant picture of the production of these plays in the world of medieval York.Beginning with the social history of the plays and York itself, Davidson tackles the various demographic and historical landscapes of this period in York. He builds a strong case for why these plays continued, not least of all as a means by which the Corporation and the guilds sought to affirm the identity of the city while tackling various crises. Citing population fluctuations, disease, harvest shortfalls, and economic distress, Davidson sets the scene for a York that experienced great trials during the 200-year history of these plays. He proves to the reader that the York plays were in fact a means of reinforcing cultural memory through salvation history, stating that even in difficult times these plays "reinforced the collective memory of times past and made them relevant to contemporaries" (32).The following chapters each tackle a different area of context for these plays: visual piety, color, the pageant route, the soundscape, charity, and bullying. Most interesting are the chapters on visual piety and the soundscape, each introducing unique ways of considering the original means of production of these plays. Focusing on visual theory, the chapter on visual piety brings to light many interesting ideas emphasizing the correlation in medieval visual thought between seeing and touching. Davidson utilizes this visual theory to conclude that audiences were not simply passive watchers of these plays but instead active participants in the narrative, stating that, "seeing also could be a channel that, through faith, might lead one to access God's grace" (37). His interweaving of classical and medieval thought on vision and touch are quite interesting and develop a number of new areas for research and consideration. …