Although the fifteenth century, based on evidence of the York plays and the work of the so-called Wakefield Master, is popularly viewed as the heyday of cycle drama production, scholars of the Chester plays have long suggested that the drama's structure underwent a major shift in performance format in the first part of the sixteenth century. Lawrence Clopper, for example, states:

The period alluded to here by Clopper comes hard on the heels of the granting of the Great Charter in 1506 — a year which seems to have signaled a rise in civic fortunes for Chester by establishing it as a county in its own right. Indeed, the appearance of the “Early” Banns and the issuing of Newhall's Proclamation (1531–32) during this period indicate nothing less than a reintroduction and reinvention of the Chester “play.” In fact, the “cycle,” as the dramatic sequence is popularly known to us, with its performances at separate stations, apparently on pageant wagons, on three successive days during Whitsun week, is clearly a creature of this era.