Staging Scripture: Biblical Drama, 1350–1600. Peter Happé and Wim Hüsken, eds. Ludus: Medieval and Early Renaissance Theatre and Drama 14. Leiden: Brill, 2016. viii + 414 pp. $193

In addition to major theatrical changes, this period witnessed a series of major shifts in biblical production and use, which the volume traces: the Vulgate's hegemony is challenged by new Latin and vernacular translations, notably the Wycliffite translation; various early Tudor translations; and the Geneva Bible, the dominant Bible of Elizabethan England. In spite of the historical range, almost all of the plays studied in these sixteen essays fit what would conventionally be described as medieval: for example, the Newcastle Noah play in the essay by Katie Normington; Herod's killing of the children, by Bob Godfrey; the modern staging of the York plays, by Philip Crispin; Mary's role in the N-Town Crucifixion, by James McBain. David Bevington illustrates how the fifteenth-century Croxton Play of the Sacrament merges theater and liturgy in a way that “while characteristic of other medieval religious plays, is here given a sharpness of focus that may owe its sense of urgency to then-current debate over the Real Presence of Christ in the Mass” (237).