The Coventry Carol (arr. cj renzi): “During an age when most people were illiterate, the local churches and monasteries conducted a large number of theatrical performances designed to educate the people about the theological mysteries of God's creation. In England, these plays were performed as early as 1240, and persisted with great popularity until the late 1500s.1 Coventry was one of many places where these performances occurred, and her plays during the Festival of Corpus Christi were a great favorite; the plays grew great crowds — and generated a great deal of business and therefore profit, or, as Dugdale observed in his The Antiquities of Warwickshire Illustrated (1656), "the yearly confluence of people to see that shew was extraordinary great, and yeilded no small advantage to this City." Various Kings and Queens visited with great regularity over the centuries.” By hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com