No More Learning

Like all dancing, it became mimetic in character. Its chief per-
sonages are the fool, who wears the skin of a fox or some other
animal, and the ‘Bessy,' a man dressed in woman's clothes-figures
1 Historia Regum Angliae (1716), pp. 105, 106.
• Chambers, vol. u, p. 155.


## p. 32 (#56) ##############################################

32 Secular Influences on the Early Drama
>
in which folk-lore finds the survival of the ritual of agricultural
worship. One of its off-shoots in England is held to be the morris-
dance, which, however, in Robin Hood (who sometimes appears)
and in Maid Marian (who always does) has drawn to itself features
of other celebrations to be mentioned later. The points of interest
in the sword-dance, for our present purpose, are its use of rimed
speeches to introduce the characters, and its development into
the mummers' or St George play, still to be seen in many rural
districts of the British Isles.
Some types of sword-dance still or recently extant, mainly in
the north of England, have many more characters than the fool or
'Bessy? ' In one case at least, that of the Shetland dance, they
include the seven Champions of Christendom. ' It is possible that
their names only superseded those of earlier national heroes, and
that the verses introducing the characters in the dance are, in
fact, the remains of the folk cantilenae which have been mentioned
before. In several of the extant sword-dances in Britain and on
the continent, one of the dancers is, in different manners, attacked
or killed, or, perhaps, merely symbolically surrounded or approached,
with the swords ; and this feature, which enshrines the memory of
the sacrifice, becomes the principal point of action in the mummers'
or St George plays which developed from the sword-dance. In
these, the dance has developed into a play. Amid a bewildering
variety of nomenclature and detail, the invariable incident of the
death and restoration to life of one of the characters is the point
upon which has been based the descent of this play from pagan
festivals celebrating the death and resurrection of the year. The
fact that this play is nowadays usually performed at Christmas-
time is largely due to a well-known shifting of the seasons of
festivals, due to the fixing of the Christian ecclesiastical feasts.
Analysis of the many varieties known would extend this
chapter unduly? , and it must be our task rather to point out
what is common to all. A transition stage between the sword-
dance and the play may be noticed in the performance of the
plow boys or morris dancers' at Revesby in Lincolnshire, pro-
bably on Plough Monday (the Monday after Twelfth Night)
in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, and several
Plough Monday performances in the eastern midlands. These
have retained their original season that of the resumption of
| The motley crew are collected by Cbambers, vol. 11, pp. 193, 194.
The reader is referred to Chambers, vol. II, pp. 208 ff. and to Ordish.
8 Printed by Manly, Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama, vol. I, p. 296.


## p. 33 (#57) ##############################################

The Mummers' Play
33
agricultural work after winter, and they are entirely unaffected
by heroic influences. In both, the characters are the traditional
grotesques of village festivals—the fool and the Hobby-horse,
who represent worshippers disguised in skins of beasts, and
the ‘Bessy,' the woman or man dressed in woman's clothes. The
latter custom is recorded as obtaining among the Germans by
Tacitus. Some of the eastern midlands performances introduce
farm-labourers. In both there is much dancing; at Revesby, the
fool, and, in the eastern midlands the old woman, Dame Jane,
are killed and brought to life again.
The mummers' plays show another stage of advance. In them,
the central incident is still the killing and restoring to life of one
of the characters, and there is still enough dancing to show their
descent from the sword-dance. First, the characters are intro-
duced in a speech; then comes the drama, in which each personage
has his own introductory announcement; and the whole winds up
with the entrance of subsidiary charaoters, more dancing and the
inevitable collection in itself a survival of hoary antiquity. The
old grotesques of the village festival are mainly relegated to the
third part of the performance; and the principal characters, pre-
sented under almost infinite variety of manner and style, are a
hero, his chief opponent and the (usually comic) doctor. The hero
sometimes kills and sometimes is killed by his opponent; in either
case, the doctor comes to restore the dead man to life. The name
of the hero is almost always saint, king, or prince George; the
chief opponent is divisible into two types : the Turkish knight,
who sometimes has a black face, and a kind of capitano or
blustering Bobadill. There is also a large variety of subsidiary
fighters. The grotesques of the sword-dance, now pushed away
into the third part of the performance, include such figures as the
fool, or the Beelzebub, who, perhaps, are the same person under
different names, the ‘Bessy' and the Hobby-horse. Sometimes,
these figures are allowed a subordinate position in the drama
itself.
The presence of St George (for king and prince George may be
regarded as Hanoverian 'improvements ') implies the influence of
heroic legend and literature. It is very seldom that anything more
than a passing reference to the exploits of the saint is found in
the mummers' play; and, though the dragon appears here and
there, the contest with him is never the main point of the action.
How St George came into the story at all is a matter of some
obscurity. He was, undoubtedly, the patron saint of England.
E. L. V.
3
CH. IL


## p. 34 (#58) ##############################################

34 Secular Influences on the Early Drama
His day, 23 April, was a day on which processions or 'ridings' in
his honour-in which the representations of his defeat of the
dragon had replaced, perhaps, the earlier subject of the victory of
summer over winter-were organised by the guilds of St George
in many parts of England. These 'ridings,' which lasted even as
late as the eighteenth century, were dumb shows or pageants
rather than plays; but cases are known of religious dramas on
the subject. It is possible that the sword-dance, in its development
into the mummers' play, was influenced by these 'ridings' and by
the miracle-plays. On the other hand, the name of St George
may have come into them by way of Richard Johnson's History
of the Seven Champions, first published in 1596—7. In either
case, the introduction of this character has modified the popular
cantilenae which formed the basis of the rude dialogue accompany-
ing the symbolical representation.
Another instance of folk-festivals turned into plays and modi-
fied by the introduction of principal characters of later date is
the development of the May-game into the Robin Hood play.
From the earliest times, dance and song bad celebrated the
coming of spring; and we have seen the elements of drama in
the amoebaean form of the reverdies as well as in the use of the
cantilenae. In France, a direct descent can be traced from the
chansons of the folk to the plays of Adam de la Halle; the lack
of English folk-song makes a corresponding deduction impossible
with regard to English drama. But it is known that, both in
spring or summer and in autumn, a 'king,' or 'queen,' or both,
were appointed leaders of the revel; and the May-game-the
* Whitsun Pastorals' to which Perdita in The Winter's Tale (act iv,
sc. 4) likens her play with the flowers—was protested against by
the clergy as early as the thirteenth century.
The influence of the May-game on the drama may be traced
in such plays as The Winter's Tale, Chapman's May Day and
Jonson's Sad Shepherd; but it achieves its highest importance
through an impetus towards the dramatic form derived from the
minstrels. In France, Robin, as we see from de la Halle's plays,
was the type-name of the shepherd lover, and Marion of his
mistress. It is suggested that these names were brought to
England by French minstrels, and that here, by the sixteenth
century, Robin became confused with the Robin Hood (or
6
1
i
1
1
1
1
1 For a description of the 'riding' at Norwich see Chambers, vol. I, p. 222.
? At Lydd and Bassingbourne. See Chambers, Appendix W, vol. II, p. 383.
s By Chambers, vol. 1, pp. 175, 176.


## p. 35 (#59) ##############################################

Robin Hood Plays
35
d-Wood) who first appears in Piers the Plowman, but who,
perhaps, bad, long before this time, been a popular hero of the
ballads, his origin being purely fictitious, or, perhaps, nothing less
than the personality of Woden himself. Robin becoming Robin
Hood, Marion became Maid Marian, who does not appear at all in
the earliest ballads; the May-game king and queen were now the
central figures of a story, in which subsidiary characters-Friar
Tuck, Little John, the sheriff of Nottingham and others-found
their places; and the old May-game-probably consisting merely
of dances, processional or circular, with the inevitable quête or
collection, still maintained by small boys who go a-maying in the
streets of London-was transformed into the Robin Hood play.
The Paston letters mention a servant who played Robin Hood
and the sheriff of Nottingham. A fragment of such a play dating
from the fifteenth century is extant? . And the Garrick collection
in the British Museum includes a 'mery geste' of Robin Hood,
‘wyth a newe playe for to be played in Maye games' printed
about 1561. In Scotland the play of Robin Hood survived, in
spite of Puritan protest and of legal prohibition, at least till
15784; and in England the new drama was not slow to avail itself
of the story. Anthony Munday was writing for Henslowe in
February 1598 a Downfall and Death of Robert Earl of
Huntingdon, 'surnamed Roben hoodes,' and introduced him again
in his pageant, Metropolis Coronata (1615). He appeared, also, in
Haughton's Roben hooď s penerthese and other lost plays, as well
as in Peele's Edward I, Greene's George a Greene—the Pinner of
Wakefield and the anonymous Look About You. After the
Restoration, he is to be found in Robin Hood and his Crew of
Soldiers (1661). At least four other Robin Hood plays or operas
are noticed in Biographia Dramatica, and a recent production
in London proves that the public is not yet tired of the old story.
More important, however, than the actual subject is the fact that
Robin Hood, whatever his origin, became a national hero, and, as
such, was celebrated in the drama. The new national spirit
awakened in the days of Elizabeth was destined to extend this
narrow field into the spacious domain of the chronicle play.
i Gairdner's edition, vol. in, p. 89.
Manly, vol. 1, p. 279.
3 Furnivall's Laneham's Letter, pp. li, liii, liv.
• See Chambers, vol. 1, p. 181, vol. II, pp. 335, 336, and references.
s Greg's Henslowe's Diary, Part I, pp. 83, 84. 6 Ibid. pp. 124, 125.
3--2


## p. 36 (#60) ##############################################

CHAPTER III
THE EARLY RELIGIOUS DRAMA
MIRACLE-PLAYS AND MORALITIES
THE growth of the medieval religious drama pursued the same
course in England as in the other countries of Europe joined
together in spiritual unity through the domination of the Roman
Catholic church. Everywhere, we may follow the same process,
and note how, from about the tenth century, the production in
churches of a certain species of alternating songs is combined
with a sort of theatrical staging; how, simultaneously with the
progress of this staging, the texts of the songs were enlarged by
free poetical additions, till, finally, a separation of these stage per-
formances from their original connection with religious service
took place, and they were shifted from the church into the open air.
Most of the literary monuments that enable us to reconstruct
the gradual rise of the Christian drama are of German or
French origin; but England, too, furnishes us with several such
monuments representing the earliest stage of the growth in
question. One of special importance is Concordia Regularis,
which contains rules for divine service in English monasteries, and
which was composed during the reign of Edgar (959—975). In
this, we have the oldest extant example in European literature of
the theatrical recital of an alternating song in church. These
rules prescribe that, during service in the night before Easter,
an alternating song between the three women approaching the
grave, and the angel watching on it, shall be recited; the monk
who sings the words of the angel is to take his seat, clad in an
alb and with a palm-twig in his hand, in a place representing
the tomb; three other monks, wearing hooded capes and with
censers in their hands, are to approach the tomb at a slow pace, as
if in quest of something. This alternating song was composed at
St Gallen about the year 900 and was intended to be sung during
mass on Easter morning? ; the statement as to its theatrical
1 The original is as follows:
Quem quaeritis in sepulchro, o Christicolae ?
Jesum Nazarenum crucifixum, o caelicolae.
Non est hic, surrexit, sicut praedixerat. Ite, nuntiate, quia surrexit de sepulchro.


## p. 37 (#61) ##############################################

a
Liturgical Drama
37
production can hardly be a fiction that originated at St Gallen, or
Ekkehard, the historian of that monastery, who generally gives
detailed reports of such matters, would surely not have failed to
mention it. But the custom, undoubtedly, is of continental origin;
in the preface to Concordia Regularis, it is expressly stated
that customs of outlandish monasteries, such as Fleury-sur-Loire
and Ghent, served as models for the present composition; and, in
the description of the ceremonies at the place which is to represent
the tomb, reference is made to a commendable practice of
priests in some monasteries who ‘had introduced this custom, in
order to fortify the unlearned people in their faith. ' These words
also reveal to us the original purpose of Christian drama: it was
to be a sort of living picture-book; the people, ignorant of Latin,
were to perceive by sight what was inaccessible to the ear. For
this reason, also, the tendency to place the whole action visibly
before the eyes of the spectator, to leave nothing to be done behind
the scenes or told by messengers, prevailed in medieval drama
from the very beginning. Thus, the chief difference between
ancient classical and modern romantic drama manifests itself
in the first stage of medieval drama.
That the theatrical development of Easter celebrations in
England did not stop short at this initial stage is proved by several
MSS, more especially by one of the fourteenth century, and of
Sarum origin, where the scene is enlarged by various additions,
including a representation of the race to the tomb run by Peter
and John (St John xx, 4). Nor can it be doubted that, in England
as on the continent, & drama on Christ's birth and childhood
gradually shaped itself out of the Christmas service, where the
dramatic development likewise began with an alternating song ;
thus, e. g. , the tin crowns, mentioned in an inventory of Salisbury
cathedral, drawn up in 1222, were evidently for the use of the
magi at the crib of Bethlehem.
Another species of Latin church drama consisted of the plays
acted by pupils in monastery schools in honour of their patron
saints. The younger pupils honoured as their patron St Nicholas,
whose cult, after the transportation of his body from Asia Minor to
Bari in 1087, spread over all Europe, and of whom legends told
how, on one occasion, he restored to life three convent pupils put
to death for the sake of their money. The patron of older pupils
was St Catharine of Alexandria, who had been victorious in
disputes against heathen philosophers. The best evidence of the
existence of these plays is, again, furnished from England. About


## p. 38 (#62) ##############################################

38
The Early Religious Drama
the year 1110, Godefroy of Le Mans, a Frenchman, headmaster of
the monastery school at Dunstable, caused his pupils to perform
a play on St Catharine; as costumes for the players, he borrowed
church robes from the abbey of St Albans, to which the school
belonged. As it chanced that, on the following night, these
robes were burnt in his lodgings, Godefroy-80 Matthew Paris
tells us-offered himself in compensation and entered the monas-
tery as a monk. But the most remarkable of all school dramas
are those composed by Hilarius, a pupil of Abelard, about 1125.
Hilarius, probably, was an Englishman, for a large proportion of
his verses are addressed to English persons ; at all events, he is
the first definite personality in the way of a dramatic author who
crosses the student's path. In the collection of his poems, worldly
merriment and loose libertinism are apparent, together with all
the enchanting melody characteristic of the songs of vagrant clerks.
This collection contains three small religious dramas, two of which
belong to the Christmas and Easter-cycles, respectively; the third
is a half-humorous play about St Nicholas, who helps a bar-
barus to recover a treasure stolen from him. In this play, the
poet intersperses his Latin verses with French.
The often-quoted mention by William Fitzstephen of religious
plays in London may also, possibly, relate to performances in Latin.
Fitzstephen observes, in his Life of Thomas Becket (c. 1180), that
London, instead of the spectacula theatralia acted in Rome,
possesses other, holier, plays-representations of miracles wrought
by holy confessors, or of the tribulations in which the con-
stancy of martyrs splendidly manifested itself. It is, however,
possible that performances in Anglo-Norman are here intended;
for we see that in France, too, after the vernacular language
had taken possession of the drama, subjects from legends of the
saints were preferred to Scriptural themes. It is well worth note
that here, for the first time, we hear of dramatised martyria,
which take a prominent place in the religious répertoire of the
later Middle Ages. By 'miracles,' it would seem that chiefly
those are to be understood which saints wrought after their
death, when invoked by their faithful worshippers. In any case,
all the miracles produced in the Nicholas plays are of this sort;
and, in France, the application of the word ‘miracle,' as a
theatrical term, continued to be restricted to plays treating of
subjects of this kind only; whereas, in England, it assumed a more
general meaning. Thus, in the statutes of Lichfield cathedral,
c. 1190, mention is made of repraesentatio miraculorum in nocte


## p. 39 (#63) ##############################################

The Vernacular in Medieval Drama
39
Paschae; and bishop Grosseteste, likewise, seems to use the word
in a more general sense, when ordering, in 1244, the suppression
of miracula in the diocese of Lincoln.
The use of the vernacular as the language of religious drama
was not brought about in England by any process analogous to
that observable in continental countries. For the normal develop-
ment of the English language was interrupted by the Norman
conquest, in consequence of which the chief offices in bishoprics
and abbeys were occupied by men of foreign origin. Thus it
happened that the oldest vernacular dramas written in England
belong not to English, but to French, literary history: the play
of Adam and the play of the Resurrection, the oldest two
dramatic poems in the French language, were, according to general
opinion, composed in England in the twelfth century. Only a
very small number of dramatic works and accounts of performances
have been preserved belonging to the long period which begins
with the introduction of the vernacular into medieval drama and
ends at the point at which it had reached its height—that is,
from about 1200 to 1400—in England, as well as in Germany
and France. The material is insufficient for reconstructing the
process of growth, and the historian must needs limit his task
to that of a mere recorder. Later monuments, however, suffice
to indicate how, in this domain too, the native English element
regained its superiority. A remarkable document has been dis-
covered recently at Shrewsbury, which shows how, in English
literature also, the vernacular drama was prepared by the insertion
of vernacular verses in Latin songs. The MS, written in a
northern dialect, is not a complete play, but consists of three
parts written out in full in both English and Latin, with the
respective cues : namely, the part of one of the three Maries at
the tomb, the part of a shepherd at Christ's nativity and the part
of a disciple on the way to Emmaus. The English words para-
phrase the Latin by which they are preceded; but they are not,
like the Latin, provided with musical notes. As the vernacular
found its way into Latin texts, declamation simultaneously took
its place by the side of song, which, till then, had been the only
form in use. Here, we observe a remarkable analogy to the Easter
play of Treves, which represents the same transitional stage in the
history of the German drama.
The earliest purely English drama known to us (if ten Brink's
date be right) was a play on Jacob and Esau, now only
preserved as part of one of the large collections of mysteries of


## p. 40 (#64) ##############################################

40
Religious Drama
The Early
the fifteenth century, the Towneley Mysteries, where it is dis-
tinguished from its surroundings by its short, detached manner
of representing facts, as well as by the simplicity of its versi-
fication (short riming couplets). It is possible that this play,
in its original connection, belonged to a series of prophetical
plays: that is to say, plays in which some of the chief passages from
Old Testament history are selected in chronological order, and
which were produced in the Christmas season, with the intention
of showing forth the birth of Christ as the fulfilment and con-
clusion of the whole process of historical evolution preceding it.
Hereupon, however, the tendency manifested itself to compose
in English, too, legendary narratives of miracles, besides Bible
stories. We met with early instances of this in the period immedi-
ately after the Norman conquest; and the custom was specially
fostered by the increasing cult of the Virgin Mary in the Roman
Catholic church. Ever since the great religious movement of the
eleventh century, we find in all European literatures a multitude
of miraculous stories, which relate how those who devote them-
selves to the service of Mary are aided by her in seasons of
oppression and peril, and how her protection is not denied even
to wrongdoers and criminals, if they but show her the reverence
which is her due. Dramatic handlings of the miracles of Mary
are particularly frequent in French literature, where an example
occurs so far back as the thirteenth century; and, in a MS dating
from the beginning of the fifteenth century, no less than forty
of these plays are preserved. Events which have, originally, nothing
to do with the legend of Mary are here, also, represented in dramatic
form: thus, for instance, the story of Bertha, mother of Charle-
magne, is fitted into this cycle by the single link of the heroine's
losing her way in a wood, where the Mother of God appears to her
and consoles her. Such plays were probably known and popular
in England also, though only one possible specimen of this group is
now extant. In a parchment roll of the fourteenth century,
a single part belonging to a drama in the east midland
dialect has been preserved: that of a duke Moraud. It is still
recognisable that this drama was based on a story widely spread
in medieval literature: that of a daughter who lived in incest
with her father and, to keep the crime secret, murdered her child
and her mother ; whereupon, the father repenting of his sin, she
murdered him also, but, shortly afterwards, fell herself into a state
of deep contrition, confessed her crimes with tears and died a re-
pentant sinner. This story was certainly quite suitable for dramatic
a


## p. 41 (#65) ##############################################

Progressive Popularity of Religious Drama 41
treatment after the manner of the miracles of Mary; though this
cannot be said to be satisfactorily proved by the one part pre-
served, that of the father. From the first words, addressed by the
duke to the spectators, we learn that the play was produced for
payment within an enclosed space ('fold')—whether by the
members of some brotherhood, as was usually the case with French
miracles, is not evident.
A remarkable proof of the widespread popularity of religious
plays at this period is furnished by the Manuel des Pechiez by
William of Wadington, composed, probably, about the end of
the thirteenth century, and translated into English out of the
author's clumsy Anglo-Norman as early as 1303. William of
Wadington finds no fault with the representation in churches
of Christ's burial and resurrection, for this promotes piety; but
he most energetically censures the foolish clergy who, dressed up
in masks and provided with borrowed horses and armour, perform
in the streets and churchyards plays of the sort generally called
miracles. About the beginning of the thirteenth century we meet
with an account of such a performance in St John's churchyard at
Beverley, where the resurrection, 'according to traditional custom,
was acted in word and gesture by people in disguise. The per-
formance, perhaps, took place in English ; at least, we are told
that boys climbed up into the triforium gallery of the church, in
order better to see the action and hear the dialogue from the height
of the windows ; on which occasion, one boy fell down into the
church and was saved by a miracle. A poem on Christ's descent
to hell, from the middle of the thirteenth century (The Har-
rowing of Hell), which has often been called the oldest English
drama, does not, in reality, belong to this species; it is, for the most
part, in dialogue; but, in the beginning, the author says: 'A strif
will I tellen on, Of Jesu and of Satan'; and, at the end, he likewise
speaks in his own person. Evidently, the poem was intended to be
delivered, with changes of voice, by a professional reciter—an art
that had been brought to great perfection by the wandering
jongleurs.
From the last period of the Middle Ages—otherwise than for
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—we have an abundance
of texts and documentary statements. We can perceive how, at
this time, in England, just as in Germany and France, the great
advance of town life caused religious drama likewise to progress
with increasing vigour, the plays constantly assuming larger
dimensions. Historians of literature, from Dodsley onwards,


## p. 42 (#66) ##############################################

42
The Early Religious Drama
usually call these large dramas of the late Middle Ages by the
name, given them in France, 'mysteries'; whereas, in England,
the simple word 'play' was generally used. The treatment of
facts from Bible story is much the same in England and in other
countries ; additions, intended either to adorn the argument
poetically or to furnish the actions of the dramatis personae with
a psychological foundation, are here, as elsewhere, not of the author's
own invention, but are taken over from ecclesiastical literature, for
the most part from the works of contemplative theologians absorbed
in meditation on the work of salvation, the passion, the pains of
the Blessed Virgin, or from the sermons of enthusiastic preachers,
whose brilliant imagination, in its lofty flight, brought before their
audience all the different stages of our Lord's life and passion.
Thus, in the York Mysteries, use is made of one of the most
famous works of contemplative literature, the Meditations of
St Bonaventura ; from this source, for instance, are borrowed the
following details: Joseph, at Christ's birth, observes how the ox
and the ass press close to the crib in which the Child lies, in order
to protect it by their warm breath from the cold; and Mary adores
the new-born as Father and Son. Some decorative additions,
too, can be traced back to the works of medieval Bible com-
mentators-above all, to the most erudite and famous work of this
sort, the Postilla of Nicholas of Lyra. The appearance of
Mary Magdalene, for instance, in the mystery called by her name,
surrounded by the seven deadly sins, is founded on Lyra's inter-
pretation of the words in the Gospel of St Mark (xvi, 9) as to the
seven devils driven out of her by Jesus. When the Gospel of St
John tells us (viii, 7) how Christ, after the adulteress had been
brought before Him, wrote something with His finger on the
ground, but, during the writing, looked up and said to the scribes :
'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone
at her,' whereat the scribes went away one after another, Lyra
explains that Christ had written the secret sins of the scribes in
the sand; and this explanation is followed by the authors of
the mysteries. Some additions, again, are from the apocryphal
Gospels. Thus, for instance, in the York Mysteries, the standards
in Pilate's house bow of themselves at the entrance of Christ. In
this way, many agreements between French and English plays can
be accounted for, which used to be wrongly explained by the
supposition that English poets had used French models; as a
matter of fact, these coincidences are either accidental or due to
the identity of intellectual aliment and conformity of religious
6


## p. 43 (#67) ##############################################

Traditional and Original Elements 43
thought throughout the whole of society in the Middle Ages.
Only in the case of several purely theatrical effects can it be
supposed that they came over from France, where the art of stage
management was more developed than anywhere else.
On the whole, however, in considering these mysteries, we
cannot escape the impression that, neither in Germany nor in
France and England, were the later Middle Ages a period of
great poetical splendour. True, in England, authors of mysteries
attach a great value to artistic metrical form ; so early as the
miracle of duke Moraud, manifold and complicated forms of
stanzas are used; but this is an artistic embellishment which is not
necessarily advantageous to the vivid interchange of dramatic
speech.
It would, however, be unjust to judge these plays alto-
gether from a literary standard. The authors, apparently, had
scarcely any other intention than, by recasting traditional materials
from their narrative form into a dramatic mould, to make
concrete representation possible; they had but little thought of
their productions as procuring literary enjoyment by reading.
Only once is any reference made in any English play to a reader:
namely, in a play on the lowering of Christ from the cross,
intended for performance on Good Friday and, therefore, pre-
serving a more severe style. It was composed about the middle
of the fifteenth century; but, in the MS, which dates from the
beginning of the sixteenth century, the play is preceded by a pro-
logue, exhorting pious souls to read the tract ensuing. It is equally
characteristic that, in England, during the whole of this period, no
authors of religious dramas are known by name, and that not a
single play appears to have been printed.
In England, as everywhere, it is in comic scenes that writers
of mysteries are most original. Here, of course, they could
not borrow anything from theological authors, and they moved in
a domain much more appropriate to the spirit of the later Middle
Ages than the tragical. If, in the fragmentary remains of the
English religious drama of earlier times, the element of burlesque
is entirely missing, this, assuredly, can be nothing else than mere
accident; the mingling of comic with tragic elements, which is
characteristic of the romanticism of the medieval drama, must, be-
yond doubt, here as elsewhere, have been accomplished at a period
when Latin was still the language, and the church the place, of these
performances; the protests of some rigorous moralists against
religious drama, mentioned above, are, unmistakably, to be explained
in the main, in England as well as in other countries, by this


## p. 44 (#68) ##############################################

44 The Early Religious Drama
!
intrusion of the comic element. Some comic effects in English
mysteries belong to the common and international stock of literary
property : such, for instance, as the merry devil Tutivillus or
Titinillus, whose special task it is to watch and denounce women
who talk in church. Another comic intermezzo, a grotesque
dance, performed by the Jews, with accompaniment of music,
round the cross on which Christ hangs, is to be met with
not only in the Coventry Mysteries, but, likewise, in some German
mystery plays Other comic devices, chiefly in the Mary
Magdalene mysteries and some of those in the shepherds' scenes of
the Christmas plays, seem to be borrowed from France. But,
besides these, in England as well as in other countries, it is
precisely in comic scenes that national traditions were developed.
A scene especially characteristic of English mysteries is the quarrel
between Noah and his shrewish wife, who obstinately opposes her
husband's will when he is about to take the whole family into the
newly built ark.
The performance of one of these mysteries was a serious ander-
taking, requiring long preparation and considerable expense.
On the continent, the stage for performances was generally erected
in a large open square, and on the stage were represented, one
beside the other, the places of action—thus, in a passion play, the
garden of Gethsemane, the praetorium of Pilate, the hill of Calvary,
the entrance to hell. The personages moved from one place to the
next before the eyes of the spectators; if the performance, as was
more frequently the case, lasted for several days together, change
of scenery was possible. Such monster productions were known in
London in the time of Richard II; thus, in 1384, the 'clerks' of
London gave a ludus valde sumptuosus at Skinnerswell, which
lasted five days; in 1391, one, of four days, on the Old and New
Testaments; then, again, in 1409, in the presence of Henry IV, one
lasting four days, comprising events from the creation of the world
to the last judgment. For such a stage arrangement, the play of
Mary Magdalene, preserved in the Digby MS, was, likewise, in-
tended, and, undoubtedly, many other English mysteries of whose
existence only documentary evidence survives. But, in the majority
of texts and accounts of performances handed down to us, we find
a different sort of mise-en-scène adopted, in accordance with
national custom and preference.
The usual method of treatment developed, not like that
mentioned above, from liturgical scenes performed within churches,
but from the procession on Corpus Christi day. In 1264, the feast


## p. 45 (#69) ##############################################

Corpus Christi Plays
45
of Corpus Christi was instituted ; this soon grew into a solemnity
in the celebration of which the church displayed her highest
splendour. The Corpus Christi procession was a sort of triumphal
progress, by which the church, after centuries of struggle,
solemnised her absolute and full victory over the minds of men,
and by which, at the same time, she satisfied the perennial in-
clination of the people for disguisings and festal shows. Very soon
it became customary for groups to walk in the Corpus Christi
procession, which groups, in their succession, were to typify the whole
ecclesiastical conception of universal history from the creation to
the judgment day. It was a frequent practice to distribute the
arrangement of these groups among the different crafts, which
always made it a point of ambition to be represented in the
procession as splendidly as possible. In some countries, these
processions assumed a dramatic character, especially in England,
where the processional drama was fully developed as early as the
fourteenth century. Here, it was customary for each of the crafts
presenting a certain group to explain its significance in a dramatic
scene. The different scenes, whenever possible, were distributed
in such a way as to bear some relation to the occupation of
the craft that performed it: e. g. , the task of producing Noah's
ark was entrusted to the boat-builders, the adoration of the
magi to the goldsmiths. The actors stood on a stage ('pageant '),
moving about on wheels. In the course of the procession, a certain
number of stations was appointed, at which the several pageants
stopped in passing, and on which the respective scenes were
performed. For instance, the first craft at the first station
acted the creation of the world; then it passed to the place
where it stopped for the second time, and repeated the perform-
ance; at the same time, the second craft acted at the first station
the sin of our first parents, and afterwards repeated the same at
the second station. In the meantime, the first craft had proceeded
to the third station, and the third craft began at the first station
to act the play of Cain and Abel. If, in such a processional play,
one character appeared in several scenes, it was, necessarily, repre-
sented by different persons : Christ on the Mount of Olives was a
different individual from Christ before Pilate or on Golgotha. As
early as 1377, Corpus Christi plays are mentioned at Beverley;
and, in 1394, this system of plays is spoken of in an ordinance of
the municipality of York, as of old tradition. The earliest docu-
mentary mention of them in this city dates from the year 1378.
By this stage arrangement, every drama was divided into
>


## p. 46 (#70) ##############################################

46
The Early Religious Drama
a series of little plays. The progress of the action was, necessarily,
interrupted as one pageant rolled away and another approached;
on each occasion, order had to be kept, and the attention of
the multitude crowding the streets had to be attracted anew.
The function of calling the people to order was, wherever feasible,
entrusted to a tyrant, say Herod, the murderer of the Innocents,
or Pilate, who, dressed up grotesquely and armed with a re-
sounding sword, raged about among the audience and imposed
silence on the disturberg of peace. Repetitions, also, frequently
became necessary, in order to take up again the broken thread of
action; on the other hand, authors could not give way so freely
to an easy flow of speech as in 'standing plays' (plays performed
in one fixed place, so called in contrast with processional plays).
Of such processional plays, three complete, or almost complete,
cycles have been handed down to us—those of York, Wakefield and
Chester. Besides these, we possess single plays from the cycles of
Coventry, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Norwich; two fifteenth century
plays of Abraham and Isaac are also, probably, to be considered as
originally forming part of a cycle. Of the collective mysteries,
none is uniform in character; in all of them may be distin-
guished, besides older parts, sundry later additions, omissions and
transpositions ; and a comparison of the collections with each
other reveals mutual agreements as to whole scenes as well as
to single stanzas. Nevertheless, each cycle has distinguishing
qualities and a pronounced character of its own. The York series,
preserved in a fifteenth century MS and consisting of forty-nine
single plays (inclusive of the Innholders' fragment), is notable
for many original features in the representation of the passion.
Tyrants, especially, and the enemies of our Lord, are depicted with
powerful realism : Annas, for example, shows a grim joy at
holding the defenceless victim in his power, but then falls into
a violent passion at what he takes to be that victim's obduracy;
he says, 'we myght as wele talke tille a tome tonne'; he even
attempts to strike Jesus, but Caiaphas holds him back. When
Herod addresses Jesus in a jumble of French and Latin, and
Jesus gives no answer, the bystanders think He is afraid of the
boisterous tyrant. But, above all, the figure of Judas is repre-
sented in a way more dramatic and more impressive than in any
other medieval mystery, both in the scene where he offers his
services as betrayer, and in another where, in an agony of
remorse, he implores the high priest to take back the money and
spare Jesus. He is coldly refused, and, when he grows more and


## p. 47 (#71) ##############################################

Towneley Mysteries
47
more violently importunate, Caiaphas bids him be off, or he will
be taught how to behave to his betters.
The so-called Towneley Mysteries are preserved in a MS of
the second half of the fifteenth century, and consist of thirty-two
plays. They were, probably, intended to be produced by the
crafts of Wakefield town, and it seems that, in this case, they were
not played on movable scenes but on fixed stages erected along
the route of the procession, so that the actors did not go to
the spectators, but vice versa. The characteristic feature of this
collection is a certain realistic buoyancy and, above all, the
abundant display of a very robust kind of humour. Thus, the
merry devil Tutivillus has found access into the last judgment
scene (which, otherwise, is in accordance with the corresponding
play in the York collection); the family quarrels in Noah's house-
hold are nowhere else depicted so realistically; and, in the shepherds’
Christmas Eve scenes, the adventures of Mak the sheep-stealer
take the foremost place. But the most grotesque figure of all
is certainly Cain, who appears as the very type of a coarse and
unmannerly rustic. According to medieval tradition, the reason
why the Lord did not look graciously upon Cain's offering was
that Cain offered it unwillingly; and thence grew the commonplace
of church literature, that Cain was the prototype of stingy
peasants who tried to evade the obligation of paying tithes to the
priests. Though moral teaching does not play a great part in
mysteries, clerical authors repeatedly made use of the occasion
to impress the payment of tithe upon peasants as an important
moral duty; and nowhere is this done with so palpable a directness
as here. Cain selects sixteen sheaves for his offering, and, in doing
SO, he feels more and more heavy at heart, until, instead of sixteen,
he gives but two. And when, after the ungracious reception of
his offering, he swears and curses, the Lord Himself appears and
says that the recompense for the offering will be exactly according
as Cain delivers his tithes in a right or in a wrong proportion.
After this long-drawn-out scene, the murder of the brother is
treated quite shortly, almost en bagatelle. Joseph, who, in the
York Plays, was described with evident tenderness, here has a
few humorous features. After receiving the order for the flight
to Egypt, he complains of the troubles that marriage has brought
upon him, and warns the young people in his audience not to
marry. Again, the boisterous tone of the tyrants is in this drama
accentuated with particular zest.
Of the Chester Plays (twenty-five parts), five complete MSS


## p. 48 (#72) ##############################################

48
The Early Religious Drama
-
from the period between 1591 and 1607 have been preserved.
They were doubtless intended for representation on perambu-
lating pageants. It might seem astonishing that the performance
used to take place at Whitsuntide, not on Corpus Christi day;
however, this is not unexampled; at Norwich, for instance,
processional plays were acted on Whit Sunday, at Lincoln on
St Anne's day (26 July). But, besides this, the stage arrangement
here has several peculiarities of its own. Dramatic life is not
so fully developed as in other processional plays; the Chester
Plays, in fact, remind us of the medieval German processional plays
of Zerbst and Künzelsau, from which we still may see how the
procession gradually assumed a dramatic character. As in these,
there appears in the Chester Plays an expositor,' who intervenes
between actors and audience; instead, however, of his place being
with the rest of the actors on the stage vehicle, he accompanies
them on horseback. He declares expressly that he is about to
explain to the unlearned among his audience the connection and
the deeper meaning of the performances; he joins moral reflections
to the actions represented; sometimes, he supplies a narrative of
events passed over in the plays. The contents of several scenes
are chiefly instructive or didactic, such as the offering of bread
and wine by Melchizedek, or the prophecies of Ezekiel, Zechariah,
Daniel and St John concerning the end of the world. The
traditional humorous figures of Noah's wife, and of the shepherds
on Christmas Eve, are still kept up; but, generally speaking, the
original purpose of these processions, namely, a representation of
the ecclesiastical history of the world in its chief passages, appears
more plainly here than in the York and Wakefield Plays, which,
for the sake of what was theatrically effective, almost entirely
neglected the original instructive element. It may be further
noted that, at Chester, processional plays were not all acted
consecutively on a single day, the performance being spread
over Whit Monday and the two following days of the week.
A collection of plays standing altogether apart is preserved in
a MS of 1468, with the much later title Ludus Coventriae; whence
they are generally known as Coventry Plays. Their Coventry origin
is a matter of doubt on the ground of their language, and the
collection has certainly nothing whatever to do with the Corpus
Christi plays of the Coventry crafts (preserved in fragments), which
were of high fame in the fifteenth century and were several times
honoured by the presence of English kings. Where and how this
text was performed is quite unknown. It is preceded by a
!
t
1
1


## p. 49 (#73) ##############################################

Saints' Plays
49
prologue, in which the stanzas are recited alternately by three
standard-bearers (vexillatores) and contain an invitation to witness
the performance to be given on the following Sunday at some town
unnamed. According to this prologue, the play is to consist of
forty pageants; but, to this, the divisions of the text fail to
correspond. Evidently, we have before us no processional, but a
'standing' play, made up of elements originally not forming a whole;
nevertheless, this is the only text that does not show any verbal
correspondences with other collected mysteries. By their didactic
spirit, the Coventry Plays are allied to the Chester Plays; in the
former, too, we have an intermediary between actors and public,
who appears in a doctor's robes under the name Contemplario.
The text of the plays is overcharged with curiosities of medieval
theology; when, for example, Mary, three years old, mounts the
fifteen steps of the Temple, the priest allegorically explains these
steps as the way from Babylon to the heavenly Jerusalem. But,
even here, & realistic tendency is not altogether absent; as, for
instance, when the author dramatises the events of the apocryphal
Gospel of pseudo-Matthew, where Mary is brought into court for
suspected infidelity; in the history of the adulteress, too, occur
some very realistic additions. The soldiers at Christ's tomb are
depicted with admirable humour.
Dramas from legends of the saints, performances of which
are mentioned in English deeds and chronicles-for example, those
of St Laurence, St Botolph, St George, St Christina—were, probably,
of a character analogous to the numerous medieval dramas of this
kind that have been preserved in other countries, especially in
France. At least, the single English play preserved that is based
on a saint's legend, that of Mary Magdalene (about 1500), as
has been noticed before, decidedly exhibits reminiscences of the
French manner. It consists of 2144 lines, about one-half of which
are filled with events of the saint's life until the resurrection; then
follows the legend of her stay in Provence, where she converts
the heathen king of Marseilles by her sermons and miracles.
The comic element is represented by a priest at the king's court
and his impudent acolyte, who says a burlesque service before
the priest bids all present pray to ‘Mahownde. ' A short play
(of 927 lines), on the profanation of a consecrated host by the
Jews, is to be classed with miracle-plays; in the end, the evil-
doers are converted and baptised. In this class, we may also
include a lost play on king Robert of Sicily. It is based on a story,
a
from Gesta Romanorum, of a monarch who, for his over-proud
4
E. L. V.
CH. III.


## p. 50 (#74) ##############################################

50 The Early Religious Drama
consciousness of power, is punished by an angel assuming his
shape and dignity, while he is in his bath. This play was acted at
Lincoln in 1453; on the occasion of a performance of Kynge Robert
of Cicylye at Chester, in 1529, we learn, from a letter addressed
from that town to a gentleman in the royal court, that the piece
was 'penned by a godly clerke' and had been previously acted, in
the reign of Henry VII; evidently, under Henry VIII, a play was
no longer thought quite unobjectionable in which a frank lesson
was given to the great ones of this world.
Finally, three plays from the later Middle Ages must be
mentioned which remind us of the simpler dramatic forms of past
ages. Of one of these, the first part was designed for performance
on Good Friday afternoon, the second for Easter morning; the
first contains lengthy complaints of the Virgin Mary, such as also
occur in other countries in the Good Friday service; here, the
author could make the most ample use of the extant contemplative
literature. In the second part, the complaints of the repentant
Peter occupy much space. For performance on St Anne's day
(26 July), a play was written which comprises the murder of the
Innocents and the purification of Mary; the poet, who offers excuses
himself for his sympyll cunning,' apprises us that, in the foregoing
year, the adoration of the shepherds and the magi had been pro-
duced, and that the dispute in the temple was to be presented in
the year following; and a comic personage, the messenger of
Herod, mars with his stale jests the tragical scene of the murder
of the Innocents. Similar in style is a play on the conversion
of Paul the apostle.
That the production of mysteries was a pious and godly
work, so long as humour did not enter into them too largely,
seems, in the period during which this species of plays
flourished, to have been as little doubted in England as in other
countries. It was believed that men were effectually deterred from
sin if the punishment of it by the devil was shown forth in a play ;
a
that, by the bodily representation of the sufferings of Christ and
the saints, spectators could be moved to tears of pity, and, in
this way, become possessed of the gratia lacrimarum, to which
medieval ascetics attached a great value. And, besides, they
ught that it was very useful for common folk to see the events
of sacred history thus bodily and visually presented before them
and that, since occasional relaxation was a common need, religious
plays were indisputably better than many other diversions. A
singular exception to this universal opinion occurs in an English


## p. 51 (#75) ##############################################

Early Moralities
51
tract, composed towards the end of the fourteenth century, and
evidently connected with the Wyclifite movement? The author
of this tract points out that, by the mysteries, people are drawn
away from more precious works of love and repentance, and
allows no moral value to the tears of spectators of the passion,
since Christ Himself blamed the women who wept for Him. In
several points, the author's ideas already resemble the later
puritan opposition to the stage.
The religious dramas hitherto discussed were chiefly designed
to serve the purpose of visibly representing the facts of Scripture;
but, in the later Middle Ages, there grew up another kind of
dramatic poetry with a moralising, didactic tendency; the
dramatis personae were now, altogether or for the most part,
personified abstractions. This species is also international; in
France, it was called moralité, and, accordingly, in England, literary
historians generally use the name of ‘morality' for a play of this
class, whereas, anciently, they were called “moral plays' or “moral
interludes. The theme running through all these plays is the
contention between the personified good and bad powers of the
soul for the possession of man: a subject first dealt with in
Christian literature about the year 400 by Prudentius in his
allegorical epic Psychomachia, where the great battle between
virtues and vices is, like a Homeric combat, broken up into a
series of single fights between Ira and Patientia, Superbia and
Humilitas, Libido and Pudicitia, and so forth. Prudentius was
one of the authors most frequently read in schools during the
Middle Ages, and the main subject of his poem was sundry times
imitated; so, in the Vision of Piers the Plowman, where the
combat is imagined as the siege of a castle in which man and
Christianity are shut up. In all these imitations, man, as the
object of battle, takes a more prominent place than with Pru-
dentius.
But it was only at a comparatively late date that the conten-
tion between the good and the bad powers of the soul was put
into dramatic form: no instances are to be found earlier than
the last decades of the fourteenth century. About this time, a
brotherhood existed at York, formed for the express purpose of
producing the Pater Noster play. Wyclif? tells us, that this was
'a play setting forth the goodness of our Lord's Prayer, in which
play all manner of vices and sins were held up to scorn, and
the virtues were held up to praise. It would seem that this
'
1 Cf. vol. vi, chap. xiv.
? De officio pastorali, cap. 15.
2
4-2


## p. 52 (#76) ##############################################

52
The Early Religious Drama
play was founded on an idea in medieval moralising literature,
according to which each of the seven supplications of the Pater
Noster contained a means of protection against one of the seven
deadly sins; and the correctness of this supposition is attested by
the fact that one of the plays acted by the York brotherhood had
the title Ludus Accidiae (“ a play of sloth'). Most probably, this
play belonged to the species of moralities; and we may form the
same conclusion as to a play on the Creed, which, from 1446, was
acted every ten years by the Corpus Christi brotherhood at York.
But, from the fifteenth century, we possess English and French
examples fully revealing to us the character of the new species.
Probably from about the middle of this century date three
moralities, which are handed down together in one MS, all
three of which represent the allegorical combat for the soul of
man. In The Castle of Perseverance, Humanum Genus, the repre-
sentative of mankind, is introduced first as a child, finally as an
old man ; in youthful age, he falls into the power of the mortal sin
Luxuria, but is brought by Poenitentia to trust himself to Con-
fessio, who leads him to the castle of perseverance, visible in the
centre of the circular scene; the assault of the vices against the
castle is victoriously foiled. But, in his old days, Humanum Genus
succumbs to the temptations of Avaritia ; so, after his death, the
evil angel claims the right to drag him into hell, but he is set free
by God at the prayers of Pity and Peace. In the morality
Mankynd, there are numerous additions of a rough kind of
humour. The chief representative of the evil principle is our
old acquaintance, the merry devil Tutivillus, who begins the
work of temptation by stealing from man his implement of work,
a spade. In the morality to which modern editors give the title
Mind, Will and Understanding, there reigns more of the subtle
scholastic spirit; here, it is not a single representative of
humanity who is courted by allegorical figures, but the three mental
faculties which give the piece its title appear, each one by itself.
Besides them, Anima appears as a distinct character, first in a
white robe, then, after the three faculties of the soul have been
tempted astray, 'in a most horrible guise, uglier than a devil. '
Another fragment of a morality has been preserved, to which the
title The Pride of Life has been given ; the MS seems to belong
to the first half of the fifteenth century; here, the typical
representative of humanity is a king who, putting full trust in his
knights, Strength and Health, will not think of death and things
beyond the grave, although his queen and a pious bishop try to


## p. 53 (#77) ##############################################

Every-man
53
move his conscience; he considers that he still has time to turn
pious, the church will not run away from him. As appears from
the prologue, the portion of the play which is lost was to show how
the king, in the fulness of his sin, is called away by death, and
how devils are about to take his soul; but, at this point, the
Mother of God was to intercede with her prayers and to point
out to the Judge of the world that the body, not the soul,
was the really guilty part. Thus, it was intended to weave into
the texture of the play one of those debates between body and
soul that had been & widely popular subject in medieval
literature.
The most famous, however, among all these moralities is
Every-man, whose date of composition cannot be defined precisely;
we only know that the earliest printed editions, both undated,
must belong to the period between 1509 and 1530; but so
early as 1495 a Dutch translation was printed? . Every-man treats,
in allegorical style, of the hour of death, and thus deals with a
sphere of ideas which, in the devotional literature of the later
Middle Ages, is one of the main subjects; the most famous
book of that sort, Ars moriendi, was published in an English
translation by Caxton in 1491. The poet endeavoured to give
dramatic animation to his subject by making use of a parable
which is told in the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat: how a man
had three friends, of whom one only declared himself ready to
accompany him before the throne of the judge before whom he is
summoned This friend symbolises a man's good deeds, which
alone accompany him after death before the throne of God and
interpose their prayers for him. The series of scenes—how, first,
Death, as God's summoner, bids man come ; how, then, Fellow-
ship, Kindred and others, when asked to bear him company, by
empty phrases talk themselves out of the affair-exercises
1 Some take this Dutch Elckerlijk for the original of the English morality; but
de Raaf, who inverts the relation, is, most probably, correct. The most convincing
instance pointed out by bim is v. 778 f. , where it appears, beyond doubt, that the
Dutch text must have come from the English. Every-man, after receiving the last
sacraments, says to his fellows:
Now set eche of you on this rodde your bondo
And shortly folwe me. . . . ,
wbere Elckerlijk has (vv. 749 f. ):
Slaet an dit roeyken alle u hant
Ende volghet mi haestelic na desen.
Here, roeyken=virga has been written by a misunderstanding for rodde = crux: it is
evident that Every-man-Elckerlijk had in his hand one of those crosses for the dying
which play an important part in the Ars moriendi literature.
1


## p. 54 (#78) ##############################################

54 The Early Religious Drama
its impressive power even today, not only in the reading but
also on the stage. Only Good-deeds, who lies on the ground
fettered by Every-man's sins, declares herself ready to assist him.
How Every-man is directed by Good-deeds to Knowledge and
Confession, and, finally, leaves the world well prepared, is shown
forth in the last part of the play, where the Catholic point of view
is insisted on with much unction and force. The comic element
disappears almost entirely.
Generally, however, the tendency to give a certain prominence
to the comic element grows more and more distinct; above all,
allegorical representatives of the vices are more and more richly
endowed with realistic features, especially with local jokes concern-
ing London. This is shown, e. g. , in Nature, composed by Henry
Medwall, chaplain of archbishop Morton of Canterbury (1486—
1500), who is also mentioned in the play. Here, we see how
Sensuality drives away Reason from man's side; how, after
all, man is reconciled to Reason by Age; but how Avarice
comes in at the end, and gives the chaplain an opportunity for
a bitter attack upon his own profession. In the morality The
World and the Child (printed 1522), man, the object of strife
between allegorical figures, appears, successively, as child, youth
and man; he is persuaded by Folly to lead a dissolute life
in London; nor is it until, reduced to a low state, he quits
Newgate prison, that good spirits regain possession of him.
Similar in character are the moralities Hick Scorner (printed
before 1534) and Youth (printed 1555), which both seem to
date back to the pre-reformation period. So, probably, does the
morality Magnyfycence, the only play by Skelton that has been
preserved; it was not printed till after his death. Here, instead
of the usual commonplaces from medieval devotional books, a
warning frequently given by classical and humanistic moralists is
allegorically represented, namely, that against excessive liberality
and false friends. In the same manner, Medwall, if we may
trust Collier's account, treated another humanistic commonplace,
namely, the persecution of Truth by Ignorance and Hypocrisy, in
an interlude acted before Henry VIII at Christmas 1514–15.
Skelton and Medwall are the earliest writers of plays in English
whose names have been preserved.
As Dodsley justly remarked, the importance of moralities
in the development of the drama lies in the fact that here the
course of action is not, as with mysteries, prescribed by
1 See vol. III of the present work, chap. iv.


## p. 55 (#79) ##############################################

The Comic Element
55
tradition; the individual author's own inventive power is of
much greater importance. Besides, otherwise than in the case of
mysteries, hearing is more important than seeing. In the
stage arrangement of a morality, however, the costume of
allegorical characters, the choice of symbolic colours for clothes,
the providing of the different figures with emblems illustrating
their moral essence, were all matters of first-rate importance. And
the greater significance of the spoken word in moralities also
accounts for the fact that several of these plays are extant in
contemporary prints, which is not the case with any of the
mysteries.
Besides the serious drama, in which an admixture of the comic
element was seldom wanting, there existed, in the Middle Ages, a
very popular kind of short farce, which was acted at festive
and convivial meetings by professional minstrels or by young
fellows who combined for the purpose? But, of these, an
account has been given in a previous chapter. From France and
Germany, numerous farces of this kind have come down to us; not
so from England, where they were also highly popular, but where,
unfortunately, one only has been preserved, and this but in
fragments. Besides the Interludium de Clerico et Puella', com-
posed, to judge by the handwriting, toward the beginning of the
fourteenth century, we possess an account of another play which
proves that in England, just as in France, events and problems of
the day were satirised in these farces. Bishop Grandison, in 1352,
forbade the youth of Exeter, on pain of excommunication, to act
a satirical play which they had prepared against the drapers' guild
of the town; at the same time, drapers were called upon not to
push their prices too high; thus, evidently, the guild was itself the
cause of the hostile feeling.
The humanistic and reforming movement naturally exercised
everywhere a powerful influence on the drama, which, up to that
time, had been a faithful expression of the medieval view of
life. In England, as in all other countries, the particular circum-
stances under which the movement took place left their traces on
the drama. Here, performances of mysteries on the medieval
· The usual name for such a farce was interlude (interludium); but this word, as
all other names of species in medieval theatrical terminology, has no precise and
definite application : it is, likewise, used for all kinds of religious drama. Among
the different etymologies which have been suggested for the word, that of Chambers
(vol. 11, p. 183) is the most plausible: • Interludium is not a ludus in the interval of some-
thing else, but a ludus carried on between (inter) two or more performers. '
3 Cf. Dame Siriz, ante, vol. 1, pp. 365-6, and chapter o of the present volume.