The Mediaeval Stage, Volume 2 (of 2)

CONTENTS

BOOK III RELIGIOUS DRAMA

CHAPTER XVIII LITURGICAL PLAYS

[Bibliographical Note.—The liturgical drama is fully treated by W. Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren Dramas (vol. i, 1893), Bk. 2; L. Petit de Julleville, Les Mystères (1880), vol. i. ch. 2; A. d’Ancona, Origini del Teatro Italiano (2nd ed. 1891), Bk. 1, chh. 3-6; M. Sepet, Origines catholiques du Théâtre moderne (1901), and by L. Gautier in Le Monde for Aug. and Sept. 1872. The studies of W. Meyer, Fragmenta Burana (1901), and C. Davidson, English Mystery Plays (1892), are also valuable. A. W. Ward, History of English Dramatic Literature (2nd ed. 1899), vol. i. ch. 1 deals very slightly with the subject. A good popular account is M. Sepet, Le Drame chrétien au Moyen Âge (1878). Of older works, the introduction to E. Du Méril’s Origines latines du Théâtre moderne (1849, facsimile reprint, 1896) is the best. The material collected for vol. ii of C. Magnin’s Origines du Théâtre is only available in the form of reviews in the Journal des Savants (1846-7), and lecture notes in the Journal général de l’Instruction publique (1834-6). Articles by F. Clément, L. Deschamps de Pas, A. de la Fons-Melicocq, and others in A. N. Didron’s Annales archéologiques (1844-72) are worth consulting; those of F. Clément are reproduced in his Histoire de la Musique religieuse (1860). There are also some notices in J. de Douhet, Dictionnaire des Mystères (1854).—The texts of the Quem quaeritis are to be studied in G. Milchsack, Die Oster- und Passionsspiele, vol. i (all published, 1880), and C. Lange, Die lateinischen Osterfeiern (1887). The former compares 28, the latter no less than 224 manuscripts. The best general collection of texts is that of Du Méril already named: others are T. Wright, Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems (1838); E. de Coussemaker, Drames liturgiques du Moyen Âge (1860), which is valuable as giving the music as well as the words; and A. Gasté, Les Drames liturgiques de la Cathédrale de Rouen (1893). A few, including the important Antichristus, are given by R. Froning, Das Drama des Mittelalters (1891). The original sources are in most cases the ordinary service-books. But a twelfth-century manuscript from St. Martial of Limoges (Bibl. Nat. Lat. 1139) has four plays, a Quem quaeritis, a Rachel, a Prophetae, and the Sponsus. Facsimiles are in E. de Coussemaker, Histoire de l’Harmonie au Moyen Âge (1852). A thirteenth-century manuscript from Fleury (Orleans MS. 178) has no less than ten, a Quem quaeritis, a Peregrini, a Stella in two parts, a Conversio Pauli, a Suscitatio Lazari and four Miracula S. Nicholai. Two later plays and fragments of three others are found in the famous thirteenth-century manuscript from Benedictbeuern (Munich MS. 19,486, printed in J. A. Schmeller, Carmina Burana, 3rd ed. 1894, with additional fragments in W. Meyer, Fragmenta Burana, 1901). This is probably the repertory of travelling goliardic clerks. The twelfth-century manuscript which preserves the three plays of Hilarius (Bibl. Nat. Lat. 11,331, printed in J. J. Champollion-Figeac, Hilarii Versus et Ludi, 1838) is of a similar character.—The tropes are fully dealt with by L. Gautier, Hist. de la Poésie liturgique au Moyen Âge, vol. i (all published, 1886), and W. H. Frere, The Winchester Troper (1894). I have not been able to see A. Reiners, Die Tropen-, Prosen- und Präfations-Gesänge des feierlichen Hochamtes im Mittelalter (1884). Antiquarian data are collected by H. J. Feasey, Ancient English Holy Week Ceremonial (1897), and A. Heales, Easter Sepulchres, in Archaeologia, vol. xlii. I have printed an important passage from the Regularis Concordia of St. Ethelwold (965-75) in Appendix O. The Planctus Mariae are treated by A. Schönbach, Die Marienklagen (1874), and E. Wechssler, Die romanischen Marienklagen (1893). W. Köppen, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Weihnachtsspiele (1893), and M. Sepet, Les Prophètes du Christ (1878), contain valuable studies of the evolution of the Stella and the Prophetae respectively. The relation of dramatic to iconic art in the Middle Ages is brought out by P. Weber, Geistliches Schauspiel und kirchliche Kunst (1894). A rather primitive bibliography is F. H. Stoddard, References for Students of Miracle Plays and Mysteries (1887).—Authorities for English facts given without references in the present volume will be found in Appendices W and X.]

The discussions of the first volume have often wandered far enough from the history of the stage. But two or three tolerable generalizations emerge. The drama as a living form of art went completely under at the break-up of the Roman world: a process of natural decay was accelerated by the hostility of Christianity, which denied the theatre, and by the indifference of barbarism, which had never imagined it. If anything of a histrionic tradition survived, it took the shape of pitiable farce, one amongst many heterogeneous elements in the spectacula of disreputable mimes. For the men of the Middle Ages, however, peasants or burghers, monks or nobles, such spectacula had a constant attraction: and the persistence of the deep-rooted mimetic instinct in the folk is proved by the frequent outcrops of primitive drama in the course of those popular observances which are the last sportive stage of ancient heathen ritual. Whether of folk or of minstrel origin, the ludi remained to the last alien and distasteful to the Church. The degradation of Rome and Constantinople by the stage was never forgotten; nor the association with an heathenism that was glossed over rather than extinct: and though a working compromise inevitably tended to establish itself, it remained subject to perpetual protest from the austerer spirit in the counsels of the clergy.

It is the more remarkable that the present volume has to describe a most singular new birth of the drama in the very bosom of the Church’s own ritual. One may look at the event as one will, either as an audacious, and at least partly successful, attempt to wrest the pomps of the devil to a spiritual service, or as an inevitable and ironical recoil of a barred human instinct within the hearts of its gaolers themselves. From either point of view it is a fact which the student of European culture cannot afford to neglect. And apart from its sociological implications, apart from the insight which it gives into the temper of the folk and into the appeal of religion, it is of the highest interest as an object lesson in literary evolution. The historian is not often privileged to isolate a definite literary form throughout the whole course of its development, and to trace its rudimentary beginnings, as may here be done, beyond the very borders of articulate speech.

The dramatic tendencies of Christian worship declared themselves at an early period⁠[1]. At least from the fourth century, the central and most solemn rite of that worship was the Mass, an essentially dramatic commemoration of one of the most critical moments in the life of the Founder⁠[2]. It is his very acts and words that day by day throughout the year the officiating priest resumes in the face of the people. And when the conception of the Mass developed until instead of a mere symbolical commemoration it was looked upon as an actual repetition of the initial sacrifice, the dramatic character was only intensified. So far as the Canon of the Mass goes, this point needs no pressing. But the same liturgical principle governs many other episodes in the order of the mediaeval services. Take, for example, the ritual, of Gallican origin, used at the dedication of a church⁠[3]. The bishop and his procession approach the closed doors of the church from without, but one of the clergy, quasi latens, is placed inside. Three blows with a staff are given on the doors, and the anthem is raised Tollite portas, principes, vestras et elevamini, portae aeternales, et introibit Rex gloriae. From within comes the question Quis est iste rex gloriae? and the reply is given Dominus virtutum ipse est Rex gloriae. Then the doors are opened, and as the procession sweeps through, he who was concealed within slips out, quasi fugiens, to join the train. It is a dramatic expulsion of the spirit of evil. A number of other instances are furnished by the elaborate rites of Holy week. Thus on Palm Sunday, in commemoration of the entry into Jerusalem, the usual procession before Mass was extended, and went outside the church and round the churchyard or close bearing palms, or in their place sprigs of yew, box, or withies, which the priest had previously blessed⁠[4]. The introduction of a Palmesel might make the ceremony more dramatic still⁠[5]. Some of the texts used were of a prophetic character, and the singer of these was occasionally dressed as a prophet⁠[6]. At the doors of the church the procession was greeted by boys stationed upon the roof of the porch, and certain French uses transferred to the occasion the dedication solemnity of Tollite portas just described⁠[7]. The reading of the gospel narratives of the Passion, which on Palm Sunday, on the Monday or Tuesday, and the Wednesday in Holy week and on Good Friday preceded the Gospel proper, was often resolved into a regular oratorio. A tenor voice rendered the narrative of the evangelist, a treble the sayings of Jews and disciples, a bass those of Christ himself⁠[8]. To particular episodes of these Passions special dramatic action was appropriated. On Wednesday, at the words Velum templi scissum est, the Lenten veil, which since the first Sunday in Lent had hidden the sanctuary from the sight of the people, was dropped to the ground⁠[9]. On Good Friday the words Partiti sunt vestimenta were a signal for a similar bit of by-play with a linen cloth which lay upon the altar⁠[10]: Maundy Thursday had its commemorative ceremony of the washing of feet⁠[11]; while the Tenebrae or solemn extinction, one after another, of lights at the Matins of the last three days of the week, was held to symbolize the grief of the apostles and others whom those lights represented⁠[12].

These, and many other fragments of ceremonial, have the potentiality of dramatic development. Symbolism, mimetic action, are there. The other important factor, of dialogued speech, is latent in the practice of antiphonal singing. The characteristic type of Roman chant is that whereby the two halves of the choir answer one another, or the whole choir answers the single voice of the cantor, in alternate versicle and respond⁠[13]. The antiphon was introduced into Italy by St. Ambrose of Milan. It had originated, according to tradition, in Antioch, had been in some relation to the histrionic tendencies of Arianism, and was possibly not altogether uninfluenced by the traditions both of the Greek tragic chorus and of Jewish psalmody⁠[14]. At any rate, it lent itself naturally to dialogue, and it is from the antiphon that the actual evolution of the liturgical drama starts. The course of that evolution must now be followed.

The choral portions of the Mass were stereotyped about the end of the sixth century in the Antiphonarium ascribed to Gregory the Great⁠[15]. This compilation, which included a variety of antiphons arranged for the different feasts and seasons of the year, answered the needs of worship for some two hundred years. With the ninth century, however, began a process, which culminated in the eleventh, of liturgical elaboration. Splendid churches, costly vestments, protracted offices, magnificent processions, answered especially in the great monasteries to a heightened sense of the significance of cult in general, and of the Eucharist in particular⁠[16]. Naturally ecclesiastical music did not escape the influence of this movement. The traditional Antiphonarium seemed inadequate to the capacities of aspiring choirs. The Gregorian texts were not replaced, but they were supplemented. New melodies were inserted at the beginning or end or even in the middle of the old antiphons. And now I come to the justification of the statement made two or three pages back, that the beginnings of the liturgical drama lie beyond the very borders of articulate speech. For the earliest of such adventitious melodies were sung not to words at all, but to vowel sounds alone. These, for which precedent existed in the Gregorian Antiphonarium, are known as neumae⁠[17]. Obviously the next stage was to write texts, called generically ‘tropes,’ to them; and towards the end of the ninth century three more or less independent schools of trope-writers grew up. One, in northern France, produced Adam of St. Victor; of another, at the Benedictine abbey of St. Gall near Constance, Notker and Tutilo are the greatest names; the third, in northern Italy, has hitherto been little studied. The Troparia or collections of tropes form choir-books, supplementary to the Antiphonaria. After the thirteenth century, when trope-writing fell into comparative desuetude, they become rare; and such tropes as were retained find a place in the ordinary service-books, especially the later successor of the Antiphonarium, the Graduale. The tropes attached themselves in varying degrees to most of the choral portions of the Mass. Perhaps those of the Alleluia at the end of the Graduale are in themselves the most important. They received the specific names, in Germany of Sequentiae, and in France of Prosae, and they include, in their later metrical stages, some of the most remarkable of mediaeval hymns. But more interesting from our particular point of view are the tropes of the Officium or Introit, the antiphon and psalm sung by the choir at the beginning of Mass, as the celebrant approaches the altar⁠[18].

Several Introit tropes take a dialogue form. The following is a ninth-century Christmas example ascribed to Tutilo of St. Gall⁠[19].

‘Hodie cantandus est nobis puer, quem gignebat ineffabiliter ante tempora pater, et eundem sub tempore generavit inclyta mater.

Int[errogatio].

quis est iste puer quem tam magnis praeconiis dignum vociferatis? dicite nobis ut collaudatores esse possimus.

Resp[onsio].

hic enim est quem praesagus et electus symmista dei ad terram venturum praeuidens longe ante praenotavit, sicque praedixit.’

The nature of this trope is obvious. It was sung by two groups of voices, and its closing words directly introduce the Introit for the third mass (Magna missa) on Christmas day, which must have followed without a break⁠[20]. It is an example of some half a dozen dialogued Introit tropes, which might have, but did not, become the starting-point for further dramatic evolution⁠[21]. Much more significant is another trope of unknown authorship found in the same St. Gall manuscript⁠[22]. This is for Easter, and is briefly known as the Quem quaeritis. The text, unlike that of the Hodie cantandus, is based closely upon the Gospels. It is an adaptation to the form of dialogue of the interview between the three Maries and the angel at the tomb as told by Saints Matthew and Mark⁠[23].

This is the earliest and simplest form of the Quem quaeritis. It recurs, almost unaltered, in a tenth-century troper from St. Martial of Limoges⁠[25]. In eleventh-century tropers of the same church it is a little more elaborate⁠[26].

Here the appended portion of narrative makes the trope slightly less dramatic. Yet another addition is made in one of the Limoges manuscripts. Just as the trope introduces the Introit, so it is itself introduced by the following words:

As M. Gautier puts it, the trope is troped⁠[27].

In the Easter Quem quaeritis the liturgical drama was born, and to it I shall return. But it must first be noted that it was so popular as to become the model for two very similar tropes belonging to Christmas and to the Ascension. Both of these are found in more than one troper, but not earlier, I believe, than the eleventh century. I quote the Christmas trope from a St. Gall manuscript⁠[28].

‘In Natale Domini ad Missam sint parati duo diaconi induti dalmaticis, retro altare dicentes

Quem quaeritis in praesepe, pastores, dicite?

Respondeant duo cantores in choro

salvatorem Christum Dominum, infantem pannis involutum, secundum sermonem angelicum.

Item diaconi

adest hic parvulus cum Maria, matre sua, de qua, vaticinando, Isaias Propheta: ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium. et nuntiantes dicite quia natus est.

Tunc cantor dicat excelsa voce

alleluia, alleluia, iam vere scimus Christum natum in terris, de quo canite, omnes, cum Propheta dicentes:

Puer natus est.’

The Ascension trope is taken from an English troper probably belonging to Christ Church, Canterbury⁠[29].

I return now to the Easter Quem quaeritis. In a few churches this retained its position at the beginning of Mass, either as an Introit trope in the strict sense, or, which comes to much the same thing, as a chant for the procession which immediately preceded. This was the use of the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino at the beginning of the twelfth century, of that of St. Denys in the thirteenth⁠[30], and of the church of St. Martin of Tours in the fifteenth⁠[31]. Even in the seventeenth century the Quem quaeritis still appears in a Paris manuscript as a ‘tropus⁠[32],’ and Martene records a practice similar to that of Monte Cassino and St. Denys as surviving at Rheims in his day⁠[33].

But in many tropers, and in most of the later service-books in which it is found, the Quem quaeritis no longer appears to be designed for use at the Mass. This is the case in the only two tropers of English use in which, so far as I know, it comes, the Winchester ones printed by Mr. Frere⁠[34]. I reproduce the earlier of these from the Bodleian manuscript used by him⁠[35].

‘Angelica de Christi Resurrectione.

Quem quaeritis in sepulchro, Christicolae?

Sanctarum mulierum responsio.

Ihesum Nazarenum crucifixum, o caelicola!

Angelicae voces consolatus.

non est hic, surrexit sicut praedixerat,
   ite, nuntiate quia surrexit, dicentes:

Sanctarum mulierum ad omnem clerum modulatio:

alleluia! resurrexit Dominus hodie,
   leo fortis, Christus filius Dei! Deo gratias dicite, eia!

Dicat angelus:

venite et videte locum ubi positus erat Dominus, alleluia! alleluia!

Iterum dicat angelus:

cito euntes dicite discipulis quia surrexit Dominus, alleluia! alleluia!

Mulieri una voce canant iubilantes:

surrexit Dominus de sepulchro,
   qui pro nobis pependit in ligno.’

In this manuscript, which is dated by Mr. Frere in 979 or 980, the text just quoted is altogether detached from the Easter day tropes. Its heading is rubricated and immediately follows the tropes for Palm Sunday. It is followed in its turn, under a fresh rubric, by the ceremonies for Holy Saturday, beginning with the Benedictio Cerei. From the second, somewhat later Cambridge manuscript, probably of the early eleventh century, the Holy Saturday ceremonies have disappeared, but the Quem quaeritis still precedes and does not follow the regular Easter tropes, which are headed Tropi in die Christi Resurrectionis⁠[36]. The precise position which the Quem quaeritis was intended to take in the Easter services is not evident from these tropers by themselves. Fortunately another document comes to our assistance. This is the Concordia Regularis, an appendix to the Rule of St. Benedict intended for the use of the Benedictine monasteries in England reformed by Dunstan during the tenth century. The Concordia Regularis was drawn up by Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester, as a result of a council of Winchester held at some uncertain date during the reign of Edgar (959-79); it may fairly be taken for granted that it fixed at least the Winchester custom. I translate the account of the Quem quaeritis ceremony, which is described as forming part, not of the Mass, but of the third Nocturn at Matins on Easter morning⁠[37].

‘While the third lesson is being chanted, let four brethren vest themselves. Let one of these, vested in an alb, enter as though to take part in the service, and let him approach the sepulchre without attracting attention and sit there quietly with a palm in his hand. While the third respond is chanted, let the remaining three follow, and let them all, vested in copes, bearing in their hands thuribles with incense, and stepping delicately as those who seek something, approach the sepulchre. These things are done in imitation of the angel sitting in the monument, and the women with spices coming to anoint the body of Jesus. When therefore he who sits there beholds the three approach him like folk lost and seeking something, let him begin in a dulcet voice of medium pitch to sing Quem quaeritis. And when he has sung it to the end, let the three reply in unison Ihesu Nazarenum. So he, Non est hic, surrexit sicut praedixerat. Ite, nuntiate quia surrexit a mortuis. At the word of this bidding let those three turn to the choir and say Alleluia! resurrexit Dominus! This said, let the one, still sitting there and as if recalling them, say the anthem Venite et videte locum. And saying this, let him rise, and lift the veil, and show them the place bare of the cross, but only the cloths laid there in which the cross was wrapped. And when they have seen this, let them set down the thuribles which they bare in that same sepulchre, and take the cloth, and hold it up in the face of the clergy, and as if to demonstrate that the Lord has risen and is no longer wrapped therein, let them sing the anthem Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro, and lay the cloth upon the altar. When the anthem is done, let the prior, sharing in their gladness at the triumph of our King, in that, having vanquished death, He rose again, begin the hymn Te Deum laudamus. And this begun, all the bells chime out together.’

The liberal scenario of the Concordia Regularis makes plain the change which has come about in the character of the Quem quaeritis since it was first sung by alternating half-choirs as an Introit trope⁠[38]. Dialogued chant and mimetic action have come together and the first liturgical drama is, in all its essentials, complete.

I am not quite satisfied as to the relations of date between the Concordia Regularis and the Winchester tropers, or as to whether the Quem quaeritis was intended in one or both of these manuscripts for use at the Easter Matins⁠[39]. But it is clear that such a use was known in England at any rate before the end of the tenth century. It was also known in France and in Germany: the former fact is testified to by the Consuetudines of the monastery of St. Vito of Verdun⁠[40]; the latter by the occurrence of the Quem quaeritis in a troper of Bamberg, where it has the heading Ad visitandum sepulchrum and is followed by the Matins chant of Te Deum⁠[41].

The heading of the Bamberg version and the detailed description of the Concordia Regularis bring the Quem quaeritis drama into close relations with the Easter ‘sepulchre’⁠[42]. They are indeed the first historical notices of the ceremony so widely popular during the Middle Ages. Some account of the Easter sepulchre must accordingly be inserted here, and its basis shall be the admirably full description of St. Ethelwold⁠[43]. He directs that on Good Friday all the monks shall go discalceati or shoeless from Prime ‘until the cross is adored’⁠[44]. In the principal service of the day, which begins at Nones, the reading of the Passion according to St. John and a long series of prayers are included. Then a cross is made ready and laid upon a cushion a little way in front of the altar. It is unveiled, and the anthem Ecce lignum crucis is sung. The abbot advances, prostrates himself, and chants the seven penitential psalms. Then he humbly kisses the cross. His example is followed by the rest of the monks and by the clergy and congregation. St. Ethelwold proceeds:—

‘Since on this day we celebrate the laying down of the body of our Saviour, if it seem good or pleasing to any to follow on similar lines the use of certain of the religious, which is worthy of imitation for the strengthening of faith in the unlearned vulgar and in neophytes, we have ordered it on this wise. Let a likeness of a sepulchre be made in a vacant part of the altar, and a veil stretched on a ring which may hang there until the adoration of the cross is over. Let the deacons who previously carried the cross come and wrap it in a cloth in the place where it was adored⁠[45]. Then let them carry it back, singing anthems, until they come to the place of the monument, and there having laid down the cross as if it were the buried body of our Lord Jesus Christ, let them say an anthem. And here let the holy cross be guarded with all reverence until the night of the Lord’s resurrection. By night let two brothers or three, or more if the throng be sufficient, be appointed who may keep faithful wake there chanting psalms.’

The ceremony of the burial or Depositio Crucis is followed by the Missa Praesanctificatorum, the Good Friday communion with a host not consecrated that day but specially reserved from Maundy Thursday; and there is no further reference to the sepulchre until the order for Easter day itself is reached, when St. Ethelwold directs that ‘before the bells are rung for Matins the sacristans are to take the cross and set it in a fitting place.’

In the Concordia Regularis, then, the Depositio Crucis is a sequel to the Adoratio Crucis on Good Friday. The latter ceremony, known familiarly to the sixteenth century as ‘creeping to the cross,’ was one of great antiquity. It was amongst the Holy week rites practised at Jerusalem in the fourth century⁠[46], and was at an early date adopted in Rome⁠[47]. But the sepulchre was no primitive part of it⁠[48]; nor is it possible to trace either the use which served St. Ethelwold as a model⁠[49], or the home or date of the sepulchre itself. It is unlikely, however, that the latter originated in England, as it appears almost simultaneously on the continent, and English ritual, in the tenth century, was markedly behind and not in advance of that of France and Germany⁠[50]. St. Ethelwold speaks of it as distinctively monastic but certainly not as universal or of obligation amongst the Benedictine communities for whom he wrote. Nor did the Concordia Regularis lead to its invariable adoption, for when Ælfric adapted St. Ethelwold’s work for the benefit of Eynsham about 1005 he omitted the account of the sepulchre⁠[51], and it is not mentioned in Archbishop Lanfranc’s Benedictine Constitutions of 1075⁠[52]. At a later date it was used by many Benedictine houses, notably by the great Durham Priory⁠[53]; but the Cistercians and the Carthusians, who represent two of the most famous reforms of the order, are said never to have adopted it, considering it incompatible with the austerity of their rule⁠[54]. On the other hand it was certainly not, in mediaeval England, confined to monastic churches. The cathedrals of Salisbury⁠[55], York⁠[56], Lincoln⁠[57], Hereford⁠[58], Wells⁠[59], all of which were served by secular canons, had their sepulchres, and the gradual spread of the Sarum use probably brought a sepulchre into the majority of parish churches throughout the land⁠[60].

There are naturally variations and amplifications of the sepulchre ceremonial as described by St. Ethelwold to be recorded. The Depositio Crucis, instead of preceding the Missa Praesanctificatorum, was often, as in the Sarum use, transferred to the end of Vespers, which on Good Friday followed the Missa without a break⁠[61]. The Elevatio regularly took place early on Easter morning before Matins. The oldest custom was doubtless that of the Regularis Concordia, according to which the cross was removed from the sepulchre secretly by the sacristans, since this is most closely in agreement with the narrative of the gospels. But in time the Elevatio became a function. The books of Salisbury and York provide for it a procession with the antiphons Christus resurgens and Surrexit Dominus. Continental rituals show considerable diversity of custom⁠[62]. Perhaps the most elaborate ceremonials are those of Augsburg and Würzburg, printed by Milchsack. In these the Tollite portas procession, which we have already found borrowed from the dedication of churches for Palm Sunday, was adapted to Easter day⁠[63]. But the old tradition was often preserved by the exclusion or only partial admission of the populace to the Elevatio. In the Augsburg ritual just quoted, all but a few privileged persons are kept out until the devil has been expelled and the doors solemnly opened⁠[64]. A curious light is thrown upon this by a decree of the synod of Worms in 1316, which orders that the ‘mystery of the resurrection’ shall be performed before the plebs comes into the church, and gives as a reason the crowds caused by a prevalent superstition that whoever saw the crucifix raised would escape for that year ‘the inevitable hour of death’⁠[65].

A widespread if not quite universal innovation on the earlier use was the burial, together with the cross or crucifix, of a host, which was consecrated, like that used in the Missa Praesanctificatorum, on Maundy Thursday. This host was laid in a pyx⁠[66], monstrance⁠[67], or cup⁠[68], and sometimes in a special image, representing the risen Christ with the cross or labarum in his hands, the breast of which held a cavity covered with beryl or crystal⁠[69]. Within the sepulchre both the host and the crucifix were laid upon or wrapped in a fine linen napkin.

The actual structure of the sepulchre lent itself to considerable variety. St. Ethelwold’s assimilatio quaedam sepulchri upon a vacant part of the altar may have been formed, like that at Narbonne several centuries later, by laying together some of the silver service-books⁠[70]. There are other examples of a sepulchre at an altar, and it is possible that in some of these the altar itself may have been hollow and have held the sacred deposit. Sometimes the high altar was used, but a side-altar was naturally more convenient, and at St. Lawrence’s, Reading, the ‘sepulchre awlter’ was in the rood-loft⁠[71]. The books were a primitive expedient. More often the sepulchre was an elaborate carved shrine of wood, iron, or silver. If this did not stand upon the altar, it was placed on the north side of the sanctuary or in a north choir aisle. In large churches the crypt was sometimes thought an appropriate site⁠[72]. Often the base of the sepulchre was formed by the tomb of a founder or benefactor of the church, and legacies for making a structure to serve this double purpose are not uncommon in mediaeval wills. Such tombs often have a canopied recess above them, and in these cases the portable shrine may have been dispensed with. Many churches have a niche or recess, designed of sole purpose for the sepulchre⁠[73]. Several of these more elaborate sepulchres are large enough to be entered, a very convenient arrangement for the Quem quaeritis⁠[74]; a few of them are regular chapels, more than one of which is an exact reproduction of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and is probably due to the piety of some local pilgrim⁠[75]. Wood, metal, or stone, permanent or movable, the sepulchre was richly adorned with paintings and carvings of the Passion and the Resurrection, with Easter texts, with figures of censer-swinging angels and sleeping knights⁠[76]. A seal was, at least at Hereford and in Hungary, set upon it⁠[77]. A canopy was hung over it and upon it lay a pall, also a favourite object for a pious legacy. Similar legacies might meet the expense of the ‘sepulchre light,’ which was kept burning from Good Friday to Easter morning, and was only extinguished for a few minutes on Easter Saturday to be re-lit from the freshly blessed ‘new fire⁠[78].’ Or the light might be provided by one of the innumerable guilds of the Middle Ages, whose members, perhaps, also undertook the devout duty of keeping the two nights’ vigil before the sepulchre⁠[79]. This watch was important. The Augsburg ritual already quoted makes the possibility of arranging it a condition of setting up the sepulchre at all⁠[80]. The watchers sang psalms, and it is an example of the irrepressible mediaeval tendency to mimesis that they were sometimes accoutred like the knights of Pilate⁠[81]. After the Elevatio, the crucifix seems to have been placed upon a side-altar and visited by processions in Easter, while the host was reserved in a tabernacle. The Sarum Custumary directs that the empty sepulchre shall be daily censed at Vespers and removed on the Friday in Easter week before Mass⁠[82]. Naturally there was some division of opinion at the Reformation as to the precise spiritual value of the Easter sepulchre. While Bishop Hooper and his fellow pulpiters were outspoken about the idolatrous cult of a ‘dead post⁠[83],’ the more conservative views which ruled in the latter years of Henry VIII declared the ceremony to be ‘very laudable’ and ‘not to be contemned and cast away⁠[84].’ The Cromwellian Injunctions of 1538 sanctioned the continued use of the sepulchre light, and by implication of the sepulchre itself. The Edwardine Injunctions of 1547 suppressed the sepulchre light and were certainly interpreted by Cranmer and others as suppressing the sepulchre⁠[85]. The closely related ‘creeping to the cross’ was forbidden by proclamation in 1548; and in 1549, after the issue of the first Act of Uniformity and the first Prayer Book of Edward VI, the disallowance of both ceremonies was legalized, or renewed by Articles for the visitation of that year⁠[86]. Payments for the breaking up of the sepulchre now appear in many churchwardens’ accounts, to be complicated before long by payments for setting the sepulchre up again, in consequence of an order by Queen Mary in 1554⁠[87]. In the same year the crucifix and pyx were missing out of the sepulchre at St. Pancras’ Church in Cheapside, when the priests came for the Elevatio on Easter morning, and one Marsh was committed to the Counter for the sacrilege⁠[88]. The Elizabethan Injunctions of 1559, although they do not specifically name the sepulchre, doubtless led to its final disappearance⁠[89]. In many parts of the continent it naturally lasted longer, but the term ‘visiting sepulchres’ seems in modern times to have been transferred to the devotion paid to the reserved host on Maundy Thursday⁠[90].

I now return to the Quem quaeritis in the second stage of its evolution, when it had ceased to be an Introit trope and had become attached to the ceremony of the sepulchre. Obviously it is not an essential part of that ceremony. The Depositio and Elevatio mutually presuppose each other and, together, are complete. For the dramatic performance, as described by St. Ethelwold, the clergy, having removed the cross at the beginning of Matins, revisited the empty sepulchre quite at the close of that service, after the third respond⁠[91], between which and the normal ending of Matins, the Te Deum, the Quem quaeritis was intercalated. The fact that the Maries bear censers instead of or in addition to the scriptural spices, suggests that this Visitatio grew out of a custom of censing the sepulchre at the end of Matins as well as of Evensong⁠[92]. But the Visitatio could easily be omitted, and in fact it was omitted in many churches where the Depositio and Elevatio were in use. The Sarum books, for instance, do not in any way prescribe it. On the other hand, there were probably a few churches which adopted the Visitatio without the more important rite. Bamberg seems to have been one of these, and so possibly were Sens, Senlis, and one or two others in which the Quem quaeritis is noted as taking place at an altar⁠[93]. However, whether there was a real sepulchre or not, the regular place of the Quem quaeritis was that prescribed for it by St. Ethelwold, between the third respond and the Te Deum at Matins. It has been found in a very large number of manuscripts, and in by far the greater part of them it occupies this position⁠[94]. In the rest, with the exception of a completely anomalous example from Vienne⁠[95], it is either a trope⁠[96], or else is merged with or immediately follows the Elevatio before Matins⁠[97]. The evidence of the texts themselves is borne out by Durandus, who is aware of the variety of custom, and indicates the end of Matins as the proprior locus⁠[98].

No less difficult to determine than the place and time at which the Easter sepulchre itself was devised, are those at which the Quem quaeritis, attached to it, stood forth as a drama. That the two first appear together can hardly be taken as evidence that they came into being together. The predominance of German and French versions of the Quem quaeritis may suggest an origin in the Frankish area: and if the influence of the Sarum use and the havoc of service-books at the Reformation may between them help to account for the comparative rarity of the play in these islands, no such explanation is available for Italy and Spain. The development of the religious drama in the peninsulas, especially in Italy, seems to have followed from the beginning lines somewhat distinct from those of north-western Europe. But between France and Germany, as between France and England, literary influences, so far as clerkly literature goes, moved freely: nor is it possible to isolate the centres and lines of diffusion of that gradual process of accretion and development through which the Quem quaeritis gave ever fuller and fuller expression to the dramatic instincts by which it was prompted. The clerici vagantes were doubtless busy agents in carrying new motives and amplifications of the text from one church to another. Nor should it be forgotten that, numerous as are the versions preserved, those which have perished must have been more numerous still, so that, if all were before us, the apparent anomaly presented by the occurrence of identical features in, for instance, the plays from Dublin and Fleury, and no others, would not improbably be removed. The existence of this or that version in the service-books of any one church must depend on divers conditions; the accidents of communication in the first place, and in the second the laxity or austerity of governing bodies at various dates in the licensing or pruning of dramatic elaboration. The simplest texts are often found in the latest manuscripts, and it may be that because their simplicity gave no offence they were permitted to remain there. A Strassburg notice suggests that the ordering of the Quem quaeritis was a matter for the discretion of each individual parish, in independence of its diocesan use⁠[99]; while the process of textual growth is illustrated by a Laon Ordinarium, in which an earlier version has been erased and one more elaborate substituted⁠[100].

Disregarding, however, in the main the dates of the manuscripts, it is easy so to classify the available versions as to mark the course of a development which was probably complete by the middle of the twelfth and certainly by the thirteenth century. This development affected both the text and the dramatic interest of the play. The former is the slighter matter and may be disposed of first⁠[101].

The kernel of the whole thing is, of course, the old St. Gall trope, itself a free adaptation from the text of the Vulgate, and the few examples in which this does not occur must be regarded as quite exceptional⁠[102]. The earliest additions were taken from anthems, which already had their place in the Easter services, and which in some manuscripts of the Gregorian Antiphonarium are grouped together as suitable for insertion wherever may be desired⁠[103]. So far the text keeps fairly close to the words of Scripture, and even where the limits of the antiphonary are passed, the same rule holds good. In time, however, a freer dramatic handling partly establishes itself. Proses, and even metrical hymns, beginning as choral introductions, gradually usurp a place in the dialogue, and in the latest versions the metrical character is very marked. By far the most important of these insertions is the famous prose or sequence Victimae paschali, the composition of which by the monk Wipo of St. Gall can be pretty safely dated in the second quarter of the eleventh century⁠[104]. It goes as follows:

Originally written as an Alleluia trope or sequence proper, a place which it still occupies in the reformed Tridentine liturgy⁠[105], the Victimae paschali cannot be shown to have made its way into the Quem quaeritis until the thirteenth century⁠[106]. But it occurs in about a third of the extant versions, sometimes as a whole, sometimes with the omission of the first three sentences, which obviously do not lend themselves as well as the rest to dramatic treatment. When introduced, these three sentences are sung either by the choir or by the Maries: the other six fall naturally into dialogue.

The Victimae paschali is an expansion of the text of the Quem quaeritis, but it does not necessarily introduce any new dramatic motive. Of such there were, from the beginning, at least two. There was the visit of the Maries to the sepulchre and their colloquy with the angel; and there was the subsequent announcement of the Resurrection made by them in pursuance of the divine direction. Each has its appropriate action: in the one case the lifting of the pall and discovery of the empty sepulchre, in the other the display by the Maries of the cast-off grave-clothes, represented by a linteum, in token of the joyful event. It is to this second scene, if the term may be used of anything so rudimentary, that the Victimae paschali attaches itself. The dialogue of it is between the Maries and the choir, who stand for the whole body of disciples, or sometimes two singers, who are their spokesmen⁠[107]. A new scene is, however, clearly added to the play, when these two singers not only address the Maries, but themselves pay a visit to the sepulchre. Now they represent the apostles Peter and John. In accordance with the gospel narrative John outstrips Peter in going to the sepulchre, but Peter enters first: and the business of taking up the linteum and displaying it to the other disciples is naturally transferred to them from the Maries. The apostle scene first makes its appearance in an Augsburg text of the end of the eleventh century, or the beginning of the twelfth⁠[108]. It occurs in rather more than half the total number of versions. These are mainly German, but the evidence of Belethus is sufficient to show that it was not unknown in twelfth-century France⁠[109]. The addition of the apostle scene completed the evolution of the Easter play for the majority of churches. There were, however, a few in which the very important step was taken of introducing the person of the risen Christ himself; and this naturally entailed yet another new scene. Of this type there are fifteen extant versions, coming from one Italian, four French, and four German churches⁠[110]. The earliest is of the twelfth century, from a Prague convent. The new scene closely follows the Scripture narrative. Mary Magdalen remains behind the other Maries at the sepulchre. The Christ appears; she takes him for the gardener, and he reveals himself with the Noli me tangere. Mary returns with the new wonder to the choir. This is the simplest version of the new episode. It occurs in a play of which the text is purely liturgical, and does not even include the Victimae paschali. A somewhat longer one is found in a Fleury play, which is in other respects highly elaborate and metrical. Here the Christ appears twice, first disguised in similitudinem hortolani, afterwards in similitudinem domini with the labarum or resurrection banner. The remaining versions do not depart widely from these two types, except that at Rouen and Mont St.-Michel, the Christ scene takes place, not at the sepulchre but at the altar, and at Cividale in a spot described as the ortus Christi⁠[111].

The formal classification, then, of the versions of the Quem quaeritis, gives three types. In the first, the scenes between the Maries and the angel, and between the Maries and the choir, are alone present; in the second the apostle scene is added to these; the third, of which there are only fifteen known examples, is distinguished by the presence of the Christ scene. In any one of these types, the Victimae paschali and other proses and hymns may or may not be found⁠[112]. And it must now be added that it is on the presence of these that the greater or less development of lyric feeling, as distinct from dramatic action, in the play depends. The metrical hymns in particular, when they are not merely choral overtures, are often of the nature of planctus or laments put in the mouths of the Maries as they approach the sepulchre or at some other appropriate moment. These planctus add greatly to the vividness and humanity of the play, and are thus an important step in the dramatic evolution. The use of them may be illustrated by that of the hymn Heu! pius pastor occiditur in the Dublin version found by Mr. Frere and printed, after a different text from his, in an appendix⁠[113]. This play has not the Christ scene, and belongs, therefore, to the second type of Quem quaeritis, but, in other respects, including the planctus, it closely resembles the Fleury version described above. Another planctus, found in plays of the third type from Engelberg, Nuremberg, Einsiedeln, and Cividale, is the Heu nobis! internas mentes⁠[114]; a third, the Heu! miserae cur contigit, seems to have been interpolated in the Heu! pius pastor at Dublin; a fourth, the Omnipotens pater altissime, with a refrain Heu quantus est dolor noster! is found at places so far apart as Narbonne and Prague⁠[115]: and a fifth, Heu dolor, heu quam dira doloris angustia! is also in the Fleury text⁠[116].

Another advance towards drama is made in four Prague versions of the third type by the introduction of an episode for which there is no Scriptural basis at all. On their way to the sepulchre, the Maries stop and buy the necessary spices of a spice-merchant or unguentarius. In three thirteenth-century texts the unguentarius is merely a persona muta; in one of the fourteenth he is given four lines⁠[117]. The unguentarius was destined to become a very popular character, and to afford much comic relief in the vernacular religious drama of Germany. Nor can it be quite confidently said that his appearance in these comparatively late liturgical plays is a natural development and not merely an instance of reaction by the vernacular stage.

The scenic effect of the Quem quaeritis can be to some extent gathered from the rubrics, although these are often absent and often not very explicit, being content with a general direction for the performers to be arrayed in similitudinem mulierum or angelorum or apostolorum, as the case may be. The setting was obviously simple, and few properties or costumes beyond what the vestments and ornaments of the church could supply were used. The Maries had their heads veiled⁠[118], and wore surplices, copes, chasubles, dalmatics, albs, or the like. These were either white or coloured. At Fécamp one, presumably the Magdalen, was in red, the other two in white⁠[119]. The thuribles which, as already pointed out, they carried, were sometimes replaced by boxes or vases representing the ointment and spices⁠[120]. Sometimes also they carried, or had carried before them, candles. Two or three rubrics direct them to go pedetemptim, as sad or searching⁠[121]. They were generally three in number, occasionally two, or one only. The angels, or angel, as the case might be, sat within the sepulchre or at its door. They, too, had vestments, generally white, and veiled or crowned heads. At Narbonne, and probably elsewhere, they had wings⁠[122]. They held lights, a palm, or an ear of corn, symbolizing the Resurrection⁠[123]. The apostles are rarely described; the ordinary priestly robes doubtless sufficed. At Dublin, St. John, in white, held a palm, and St. Peter, in red, the keys⁠[124]. In the earliest Prague version of the Christ scene, the Christ seems to be represented by one of the angels⁠[125]. At Nuremberg the dominica persona has a crown and bare feet⁠[126]. At Rouen he holds a cross, and though there is a double appearance, there is no hint of any change of costume⁠[127]. But at Coutances and Fleury the first appearance is as hortulanus, indicated perhaps by a spade, which is exchanged on the second for the cross⁠[128].

It must be borne in mind that the Quem quaeritis remained imperfectly detached from the liturgy, out of which it arose. The performers were priests, or nuns, and choir-boys. The play was always chanted, not spoken⁠[129]. It was not even completely resolved into dialogue. In many quite late versions narrative anthems giving the gist of each scene are retained, and are sung either by the principal actors or by the choir, which thus, as in the hymns or proses which occur as overtures⁠[130], holds a position distinct from the part which it takes as representing the disciples⁠[131]. Finally the whole performance ends in most cases with the Te Deum laudamus, and thus becomes a constituent part of Matins, which normally comes to a close with that hymn. The intervention of the congregation, with its Easter hymn Christ ist erstanden, seems to lie outside the main period of the evolution of the Quem quaeritis. I only find one example so early as the thirteenth century⁠[132]. It is in quite late texts also that certain other Easter motives have become attached to the play. The commonest of these are the whispered greeting of Surrexit Christus and the kiss of peace, which have been noted elsewhere as preceding Matins⁠[133]. At Eichstädt, in 1560, is an amusing direction, which Mr. Collins would have thought very proper, that the pax is to be given to the dominus terrae, si ibi fuerit, before the priest. The same manuscript shows a curious combination of the Quem quaeritis with the irrepressible Tollite portas ceremony⁠[134]. Another such is found at Venice⁠[135]. But this is as late as the eighteenth century, to which also belongs the practice at Angers described by De Moleon, according to which the Maries took up from the sepulchre with the linteum two large Easter eggs—deux œufs d’autruche⁠[136].

Besides the Quem quaeritis, Easter week had another liturgical drama in the Peregrini or Peregrinus⁠[137]. This was established by the twelfth century. It was regularly played at Lichfield⁠[138], but no text is extant from England, except a late transitional one, written partly in the vernacular⁠[139]. France affords four texts, from Saintes⁠[140], Rouen⁠[141], Beauvais⁠[142], and Fleury⁠[143]. The play is also recorded at Lille⁠[144]. In Germany it is represented by a recently-discovered fragment of the famous early thirteenth-century repertory of the scholares vagantes from the Benedictbeuern monastery⁠[145]. The simplest version is that of Saintes, in which the action is confined to the journey to Emmaus and the supper there. The Rouen play is on the same lines, but at the close the disciples are joined by St. Mary Magdalen, and the Victimae paschali is sung. The Benedictbeuern play similarly ends with the introduction of the Virgin and two other Maries to greet the risen Christ. But here, and in the Beauvais and Fleury plays, a distinct scene is added, of which the subject is the incredulity of Thomas and the apparition to him. It is, I think, a reasonable conjecture that the Peregrini, in which the risen Christ is a character, was not devised until he had already been introduced into the later versions of the Quem quaeritis. Indeed the Fleury Peregrini, with its double appearance and change of costume for Christ, seems clearly modelled on the Fleury Quem quaeritis. But the lesser play has its own proper and natural place in the Easter week services. It is attached to the Processio ad fontes which is a regular portion, during that season, of Vespers⁠[146]. The Christ with the Resurrection cross is personated by the priest who normally accompanies the procession cum cruce. At Rouen the play was a kind of dramatization of the procession itself⁠[147]; at Lille it seems to have had the same position; at Saintes and Beauvais it preceded the Magnificat and Oratio or Collecta, after which the procession started. In the remaining cases there is no indication of the exact time for the Peregrini. The regular day for it appears to have been the Monday in Easter week, of the Gospel for which the journey to Emmaus is the subject; but at Fleury it was on the Tuesday, when the Gospel subject is the incredulity of Thomas. At Saintes, a curious rubric directs the Christ during the supper at Emmaus to divide the ‘host’ among the Peregrini. It seems possible that in this way a final disposal was found for the host which had previously figured in the Depositio and Elevatio of the sepulchre ceremony.

A long play, probably of Norman origin and now preserved in a manuscript at Tours, represents a merging of the Elevatio, the Quem quaeritis, and the Peregrini⁠[148]. The beginning is imperfect, but it may be conjectured from a fragment belonging to Klosterneuburg in Germany, that only a few lines are lost⁠[149]. Pilate sets a watch before the sepulchre. An angel sends lightning, and the soldiers fall as if dead⁠[150]. Then come the Maries, with planctus. There is a scene with the unguentarius or mercator, much longer than that at Prague, followed by more planctus. After the Quem quaeritis, the soldiers announce the event to Pilate. A planctus by the Magdalen leads up to the apparition to her. The Maries return to the disciples. Christ appears to the disciples, then to Thomas, and the Victimae paschali and Te Deum conclude the performance. A fragment of a very similar play, breaking off before the Quem quaeritis, belongs to the Benedictbeuern manuscript already mentioned⁠[151].

It is clear from the rubrics that the Tours play, long as it is, was still acted in church, and probably, as the Te Deum suggests, at the Easter Matins⁠[152]. Certainly this was the case with the Benedictbeuern play. In a sense, these plays only mark a further stage in the process of elaboration by which the fuller versions of the Quem quaeritis proper came into being. But the introduction at the beginning and end of motives outside the events of the Easter morning itself points to possibilities of expansion which were presently realized, and which ultimately transformed the whole character of the liturgical drama. All the plays, however, which have so far been mentioned, are strictly plays of the Resurrection. Their action begins after the Burial of Christ, and does not stretch back into the events of the Passion. Nor indeed can the liturgical drama proper be shown to have advanced beyond a very rudimentary representation of the Passion. This began with the planctus, akin to those of the Quem quaeritis, which express the sorrows of the Virgin and the Maries and St. John around the cross⁠[153]. Such planctus exist both in Latin and the vernacular. The earliest are of the twelfth century. Several of them are in dialogue, in which Christ himself occasionally takes part, and they appear to have been sung in church after Matins on Good Friday⁠[154]. The planctus must be regarded as the starting-point of a drama of the Passion, which presently established itself beside the drama of the Resurrection. This process was mainly outside the churches, but an early and perhaps still liturgical stage of it is to be seen in the ludus breviter de passione which precedes the elaborated Quem quaeritis of the Benedictbeuern manuscript, and was probably treated as a sort of prologue to it. The action extends from the preparation for the Last Supper to the Burial. It is mainly in dumb-show, and the slight dialogue introduced is wholly out of the Vulgate. But at one point occurs the rubric Maria planctum faciat quantum melius potest, and a later hand has inserted out of its place in the text the most famous of all the laments of the Virgin, the Planctus ante nescia⁠[155].

CHAPTER XIX LITURGICAL PLAYS ( continued )

The ‘Twelve days’ of the Christmas season are no less important than Easter itself in the evolution of the liturgical drama. I have mentioned in the last chapter a Christmas trope which is evidently based upon the older Easter dialogue. Instead of Quem quaeritis in sepulchro, o Christicolae? it begins Quem quaeritis in praesepe, pastores, dicite? It occurs in eleventh- and twelfth-century tropers from St. Gall, Limoges, St. Magloire, and Nevers. Originally it was an Introit trope for the third or ‘great’ Mass. In a fifteenth-century breviary from Clermont-Ferrand it has been transferred to Matins, where it follows the Te Deum; and this is precisely the place in the Christmas services occupied, at Rouen, by a liturgical drama known as the Officium Pastorum, which appears to have grown out of the Quem quaeritis in praesepe? by a process analogous to that by which the Easter drama grew out of the Quem quaeritis in sepulchro⁠[156]? A praesepe or ‘crib,’ covered by a curtain, was made ready behind the altar, and in it was placed an image of the Virgin. After the Te Deum five canons or vicars, representing the shepherds, approached the great west door of the choir. A boy in similitudinem angeli perched in excelso sang them the ‘good tidings,’ and a number of others in voltis ecclesiae took up the Gloria in excelsis. The shepherds, singing a hymn, advanced to the praesepe. Here they were met with the Quem quaeritis by two priests quasi obstetrices⁠[157]. The dialogue of the trope, expanded by another hymn during which the shepherds adore, follows, and so the drama ends. But the shepherds ‘rule the choir’ throughout the Missa in Gallicantu immediately afterwards, and at Lauds, the anthem for which much resembles the Quem quaeritis itself⁠[158]. The misterium pastorum was still performed at Rouen in the middle of the fifteenth century, and at this date the shepherds, cessantibus stultitiis et insolenciis, so far as this could be ensured by the chapter, took the whole ‘service’ of the day, just as did the deacons, priests, and choir-boys during the triduum⁠[159].

If the central point of the Quem quaeritis is the sepulchrum, that of the Pastores is the praesepe. In either case the drama, properly so called, is an addition, and by no means an invariable one, to the symbolical ceremony. The Pastores may, in fact, be described, although the term does not occur in the documents, as a Visitatio praesepis. The history of the praesepe can be more definitely stated than that of the sepulchrum. It is by no means extinct. The Christmas ‘crib’ or crèche, a more or less realistic representation of the Nativity, with a Christ-child in the manger, a Joseph and Mary, and very often an ox and an ass, is a common feature in all Catholic countries at Christmas time⁠[160]. At Rome, in particular, the esposizione del santo bambino takes place with great ceremony⁠[161]. A tradition ascribes the first presepio known in Italy to St. Francis, who is said to have invented it at Greccio in 1223⁠[162]. But this is a mistake. The custom is many centuries older than St. Francis. Its Roman home is the church of S. Maria Maggiore or Ad Praesepe, otherwise called the ‘basilica of Liberius.’ Here there was in the eighth century a permanent praesepe⁠[163], probably built in imitation of one which had long existed at Bethlehem, and to which an allusion is traced in the writings of Origen⁠[164]. The praesepe of S. Maria Maggiore was in the right aisle. When the Sistine chapel was built in 1585-90 it was moved to the crypt, where it may now be seen. This church became an important station for the Papal services at Christmas. The Pope celebrated Mass here on the vigil, and remained until he had also celebrated the first Mass on Christmas morning. The bread was broken on the manger itself, which served as an altar. At S. Maria Maggiore, moreover, is an important relic, in some boards from the culla or cradle of Christ, which are exposed on the presepio during Christmas⁠[165]. The presepio of S. Maria Maggiore became demonstrably the model for other similar chapels in Rome⁠[166], and doubtless for the more temporary structures throughout Italy and western Europe in general.

In the present state of our knowledge it is a little difficult to be precise as to the range or date of the Pastores. The only full mediaeval Latin text, other than that of Rouen, which has come to light, is also of Norman origin, and is still unprinted⁠[167]. In the eighteenth century the play survived at Lisieux and Clermont⁠[168]. The earliest Rouen manuscript is of the thirteenth century, and the absence of any reference to the Officium Pastorum by John of Avranches, who writes primarily of Rouen, and who does mention the Officium Stellae, makes it probable that it was not there known about 1070⁠[169]. Its existence, however, in England in the twelfth century is shown by the Lichfield Statutes of 1188-98, and on the whole it is not likely to have taken shape later than the eleventh. Very likely it never, as a self-contained play, acquired the vogue of the Quem quaeritis. As will be seen presently, it was overshadowed and absorbed by rivals. I find no trace of it in Germany, where the praesepe became a centre, less for liturgical drama, than for carols, dances, and ‘crib-rocking⁠[170].’

Still rarer than the Pastores is the drama, presumably belonging to Innocents’ day, of Rachel. It is found in a primitive form, hardly more than a trope, in a Limoges manuscript of the eleventh century. Here it is called Lamentatio Rachel, and consists of a short planctus by Rachel herself, and a short reply by a consoling angel. There is nothing to show what place it occupied in the services⁠[171].

The fact is that both the Pastores and the Rachel were in many churches taken up into a third drama belonging to the Epiphany. This is variously known as the Tres Reges, the Magi, Herodes, and the Stella. It exists in a fair number of different but related forms. Like the Quem quaeritis and the Pastores, it had a material starting-point, in the shape of a star, lit with candles, which hung from the roof of the church, and could sometimes be moved, by a simple mechanical device, from place to place⁠[172]. As with the Quem quaeritis, the development of the Stella must be studied without much reference to the relative age of the manuscripts in which it happens to be found. But it was probably complete by the end of the eleventh century, since manuscripts of that date contain the play in its latest forms⁠[173].

The simplest version is from Limoges⁠[174]. The three kings enter by the great door of the choir singing a prosula. They show their gifts, the royal gold, the divine incense, the myrrh for funeral. Then they see the star, and follow it to the high altar. Here they offer their gifts, each contained in a gilt cup, or some other iocale pretiosum, after which a boy, representing an angel, announces to them the birth of Christ, and they retire singing to the sacristy. The text of this version stands by itself: nearly all the others are derived from a common tradition, which is seen in its simplest form at Rouen⁠[175]. In the Rouen Officium Stellae, the three kings, coming respectively from the east, north, and south of the church, meet before the altar. One of them points to the star with his stick, and they sing:

They kiss each other and sing an anthem, which occurs also in the Limoges version: Eamus ergo et inquiramus eum, offerentes ei munera; aurum thus et myrrham. A procession is now formed, and as it moves towards the nave, the choir chant narrative passages, describing the visit of the Magi to Jerusalem and their reception by Herod. Meanwhile a star is lit over the altar of the cross where an image of the Virgin has been placed. The Magi approach it, singing the passage which begins Ecce stella in Oriente. They are met by two in dalmatics, who appear to be identical with the obstetrices of the Rouen Pastores. A dialogue follows:

‘Qui sunt hi qui, stella duce, nos adeuntes inaudita ferunt.

Magi respondeant:

nos sumus, quos cernitis, reges Tharsis et Arabum et Saba, dona ferentes Christo, regi nato, Domino, quem, stella deducente, adorare venimus.

Tunc duo Dalmaticati aperientes cortinam dicant:

ecce puer adest quem queritis, Iam properate adorate, quia ipse est redemptio mundi.

Tunc procidentes Reges ad terram, simul salutent puerum, ita dicentes:

salve, princeps saeculorum.

Tunc unus a suo famulo aurum accipiat et dicat:

suscipe, rex, aurum.

Et offerat.

Secundus ita dicat et offerat:

tolle thus, tu, vere Deus.

Tercius ita dicat et offerat:

mirram, signum sepulturae.’

Then the congregation make their oblations. Meanwhile the Magi pray and fall asleep. In their sleep an angel warns them to return home another way. The procession returns up a side aisle to the choir; and the Mass, in which the Magi, like the shepherds on Christmas day, ‘rule the choir,’ follows.

In spite of the difference of text the incidents of the Rouen and Limoges versions, except for the angelic warning introduced at Rouen, are the same. There was a dramatic advance when the visit to Jerusalem, instead of being merely narrated by the choir, was inserted into the action. In the play performed at Nevers⁠[176], Herod himself, destined in the fullness of time to become the protagonist of the Corpus Christi stage, makes his first appearance. There are two versions of the Nevers play. In the earlier the new scene is confined to a colloquy between Herod and the Magi:

‘[Magi.] Vidimus stellam eius in Oriente, et agnovimus regem regum esse natum.

[Herodes.] regem quem queritis natum stella quo signo didicistis? Si illum regnare creditis, dicite nobis.

[Magi.] illum natum esse didicimus in Oriente stella monstrante.

[Herodes.] ite et de puero diligenter investigate, et inventum redeuntes mihi renuntiate.’

The later version adds two further episodes. In one a nuntius announces the coming of the Magi, and is sent to fetch them before Herod: in the other Herod sends his courtiers for the scribes, who find a prophecy of the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem. Obviously the Herod scene gives point to the words at the end of the Rouen play, in which the angel bids the Magi to return home by a different way.

At Compiègne the action closes with yet another scene, in which Herod learns that the Magi have escaped him⁠[177].

‘Nuncius. Delusus es domine, magi viam redierunt aliam.

[Herodes. incendium meum ruina extinguam⁠[178].]

Armiger. decerne, domine, vindicari iram tuam, et stricto mucrone quaerere iube puerum, forte inter occisos occidetur et ipse.

Herodes. indolis eximiae pueros fac ense perire.

Angelus. sinite parvulos venire ad me, talium est enim regnum caelorum.’

In a Norman version which has the same incidents as the Compiègne play, but in parts a different text, the armiger is the son of Herod, and the play ends with Herod taking a sword from a bystander and brandishing it in the air⁠[179]. Already he is beginning to tear a passion to tatters in the manner that became traditionally connected with his name. Another peculiarity of this Norman version is that the Magi address Herod in an outlandish jargon, which seems to contain fragments of Hebrew and Arabic speech.

The play of the Stella must now, perhaps, be considered, except so far as mere amplifications of the text are concerned, strictly complete. But another step was irresistibly suggested by the course it had taken. The massacre of the Innocents, although it lay outside the range of action in which the Magi themselves figured, could be not merely threatened but actually represented. This was done at Laon⁠[180]. The cruel suggestion of Archelaus is carried out. The Innocents come in singing and bearing a lamb. They are slain, and the play ends with a dialogue, like that of the distinct Limoges planctus, between the lamenting Rachel and an angelic consolatrix.

The absorption of the motives proper to other feasts of the Twelve nights into the Epiphany play has clearly begun. A fresh series of examples shows a similar treatment of the Pastores. At Strassburg the Magi, as they leave Herod, meet the shepherds returning from Bethlehem:

This, however, is not taken from the Pastores itself, but from the Christmas Lauds antiphon⁠[181]. Its dramatic use may be compared with that of the Victimae paschali in the Quem quaeritis. In versions from Bilsen⁠[182] near Liège and from Mans⁠[183], on the other hand, although the meeting of the Magi and the shepherds is retained, a complete Pastores, with the angelic tidings and the adoration at the praesepe, forms the first part of the office, before the Magi are introduced at all.

The Strassburg, Bilsen, and Mans plays have not the Rachel, although the first two have the scene in which the nuntius informs Herod that the Magi have deceived him. A further stage is reached when, as at Freising and at Fleury, the Pastores, Stella and Rachel all coalesce in a single, and by this time considerable, drama. The Freising texts, of which there are two, are rather puzzling⁠[184]. The first closely resembles the plays of the group just described. It begins with a short Pastores, comprising the angelic tidings only. Then the scenes between the Magi and Herod are treated at great length. The meeting of the Magi and the shepherds is followed by the oblation, the angelic warning, and the return of the messenger to Herod. In the second Freising text, which is almost wholly metrical, the Pastores is complete. It is followed by a quite new scene, the dream of Joseph and his flight into Egypt. Then come successively the scene of fury at court, the massacre, the planctus and consolation of Rachel. Clearly this second text, as it stands, is incomplete. The Magi are omitted, and the whole of the latter part of the play is consequently rendered meaningless. But it is the Magi who are alone treated fully in the first Freising text. I suggest, therefore, that the second text is intended to supplement and not to replace the first. It really comprises two fragments: one a revision of the Pastores, the other a revision of the closing scene and an expansion of it by a Rachel.

As to the Fleury version there can be no doubt whatever⁠[185]. The matter is, indeed, arranged in two plays, a Herodes and an Interfectio Puerorum, each ending with a Te Deum; and the performance may possibly have extended over two days. But the style is the same throughout and the episodes form one continuous action. It is impossible to regard the Interfectio Puerorum as a separate piece from the Herodes, acted a week earlier on the feast of the Innocents; for into it, after the first entry of the children with their lamb, gaudentes per monasterium, come the flight into Egypt, the return of the nuntius, and the wrath of Herod, which, of course, presuppose the Magi scenes. Another new incident is added at the end of the Fleury play. Herod is deposed and Archelaus set up; the Holy Family return from Egypt, and settle in the parts of Galilee⁠[186].

I have attempted to arrange the dozen or so complete Epiphany plays known to scholars in at least the logical order of their development. There are also three fragments, which fit readily enough into the system. Two, from a Paris manuscript and from Einsiedeln, may be classed respectively with the Compiègne and Strassburg texts⁠[187]. The third, from Vienne, is an independent version, in leonine hexameters, of the scene in which the Magi first sight the star, a theme common to all the plays except that of Limoges⁠[188]. I do not feel certain that this fragment is from a liturgical drama at all.

The textual development of the Stella is closely parallel to that of the Quem quaeritis. The more primitive versions consist of antiphons and prose sentences based upon or in the manner of the Scriptures. The later ones, doubtless under the influence of wandering scholars, become increasingly metrical. The classical tags, from Sallust and Virgil, are an obvious note of the scholarly pen. With the exception of that from Limoges, all the texts appear to be derived by successive accretions and modifications from an archetype fairly represented at Rouen. The Bilsen text and the Vienne fragment have been freely rewritten, and the process of rewriting is well illustrated by the alternative versions found side by side in the later Nevers manuscript. With regard to the place occupied by the Stella in the Epiphany services, such manuscripts as give any indications at all seem to point to a considerable divergence of local use. At Limoges and Nevers, the play was of the nature of a trope to the Mass, inserted in the former case at the Offertorium, in the latter at the Communio⁠[189]. At Rouen the Officium followed Tierce, and preceded the ordinary procession before Mass. At Fleury the use of the Te Deum suggests that it was at Matins; at Strassburg it followed the Magnificat at Vespers, but on the octave of Epiphany, not Epiphany itself. Perhaps the second part of the Fleury play was also on the octave. At Bilsen the play followed the Benedicamus, but with this versicle nearly all the Hours end⁠[190]. I do not, however, hesitate to say that the Limoges use must have been the most primitive one. The kernel of the whole performance is a dramatized Offertorium. It was a custom for Christian kings to offer gold and frankincense and myrrh at the altar on Epiphany day⁠[191]; and I take the play to have served as a substitute for this ceremony, where no king actually regnant was present.

There is yet one other liturgical play belonging to the Christmas season, which for the future development of the drama is the most important of all. This is the Prophetae⁠[192]. It differs from the Quem quaeritis, the Peregrini, the Pastores, and the Stella by the large number of performers required, and by the epical mode of its composition. Its origin, in fact, is to be sought in a narrative, a lectio, not a chant. The source was the pseudo-Augustinian Sermo contra Iudaeos, Paganos et Arianos de Symbolo, probably written in the sixth century, but ascribed throughout the Middle Ages to the great African⁠[193]. A portion of this sermon was used in many churches as a lesson for some part or other of the Christmas offices⁠[194]. The passage chosen is in a highly rhetorical vein. Vos, inquam, convenio, O Iudaei cries the preacher, and calls upon the Jews to bear witness out of the mouths of their own prophets to the Christ. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Moses, David, Habakkuk, Simeon, Zacharias and Elisabeth, John the Baptist;—each in turn is bidden to speak, and each testimony is triumphantly quoted. Then: Ecce, convertimur ad gentes. Virgil—poeta facundissimus—is pressed into the service, for the famous line of his fourth eclogue:

Nebuchadnezzar, who saw four walking in the furnace, and finally the Erythraean Sibyl, whose acrostic verses on the ‘Signs of Judgement’ first appear in the writings of Eusebius⁠[196].

The dramatic form of this lectio possibly led to its being chanted instead of read, and distributed between several voices in the manner of the Passions from Palm Sunday to Good Friday⁠[197]. At any rate in the eleventh century there appears in a Limoges manuscript a metrical adaptation in which it has been wholly converted into a dramatic dialogue⁠[198]. This Limoges Prophetae follows the sermon pretty closely in its arrangement. A Precentor begins:

He addresses a couplet each Ad Iudaeos, Ad Gentes, and then calls in turn upon each of the prophets, who reply, Virgil pronouncing his line, the Sibyl the Iudicii Signum, and the others a couplet or quatrain apiece. They are nearly identical with the personages of the sermon: Israel is added, Zacharias disappears, and the order is slightly different. Finally the Precentor concludes:

Two later versions, belonging respectively to Laon⁠[199] and to Rouen⁠[200], diverge far more from the model. They are at much the same stage of development. In both the play is ushered in with the hymn Gloriosi et famosi, the verses of which are sung by the prophets, and the refrain by the choir⁠[201]. The costumes and symbols of the prophets are carefully indicated in the rubrics. The Precentor of Limoges is represented by two singers, called at Laon Appellatores, and at Rouen Vocatores. The dialogue is amplified beyond that of Limoges. Sex Iudaei and sex Gentiles, for instance, take parts: and the Vocatores comment with the choir in an identical form of words on each prophecy. The Laon text is a good deal the shorter. The prophets are practically the same as at Limoges, with one remarkable exception. At the end is introduced Balaam, and to his prophecy is appended a miniature drama, with the angel and the ass: thus—

‘Hic veniat Angelus cum gladio. Balaam tangit asinam, et illa non praecedente, dicit iratus:

quid moraris, asina,

obstinata bestia?

iam scindent calcaria

costas et praecordia.

Puer sub asina respondet:

angelus cum gladio,

quem adstare video,

prohibet ne transeam;

timeo ne peream.’

The Rouen text adds quite a number of prophets. The full list includes Moses, Amos, Isaiah, Aaron, Jeremiah, Daniel, Habakkuk, Balaam, Samuel, David, Hosea, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Ezekiel, Malachi, Zacharias, Elisabeth, John the Baptist, Simeon, Virgil, Nebuchadnezzar, and the Sibyl. In this version, also, the part of Balaam is expanded into a drama.

‘Duo missi a rege Balac dicant:

Balaam, veni et fac.

Tunc Balaam, ornatus, sedens super asinam, habens calcaria, retineat lora et calcaribus percutiat asinam, et quidam iuvenis, habens alas, tenens gladium, obstet asinae. Quidam sub asina dicat:

cur me cum calcaribus miseram sic laeditis.

Hoc dicto, Angelus ei dicat:

desine regis Balac praeceptum perficere.’

Here, too, another little drama is similarly introduced. This is the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, which, with an imago for the brethren to refuse to worship and a fornax for them to be cast into, attaches itself to the vocatio of Nebuchadnezzar.

In the Limoges manuscript the Prophetae is followed by the words Hic inchoant Benedicamus⁠[202]. As has been pointed out in the case of the Bilsen Pastores, this is not conclusive as to the hour at which the performance took place. The day was probably that of Christmas itself. But even the day would naturally vary with the variable position of the lectio out of which the Prophetae grew. At Lincoln it was likewise Christmas day. But at Rouen the processio asinorum was on Christmas eve, and took the place of the ordinary festal procession after Tierce and before Mass⁠[203]. And at St. Martin of Tours the Prophetae was on New Year’s day, performances being given both at Matins and Vespers⁠[204].

The question naturally suggests itself: What was the relation of these liturgical plays of the Christmas season to the Feast of Fools and other ecclesiastical ludi of the Twelve nights, which were discussed in the first volume? At Rouen, the Prophetae received the name of processio asinorum and took place at a festum asinorum, a name which we know to have been elsewhere synonymous with festum fatuorum. At Tours, it was played at a reformed festum novi anni, with a Boy Bishop and at least traces of expelled disorder. So, too, with the other plays. The Rouen Pastores was infected by the fifteenth century with the stultitiae et insolentiae of the triduum. At Bilsen the Stella was performed before a rex, who can hardly have been any other than a rex fatuorum of Epiphany. At Autun the regnum Herodis was considered a Feast of Fools⁠[205]. Probably in both churches the rex acted Herod in the play. I think it must be taken for granted that the plays are the older institution of the two. They seem all to have taken shape by the eleventh century, before there is any clear sign that the Kalends had made their way into the churches and become the Feast of Fools. The plays may even have been encouraged as a counter-attraction, for the congregation, to the Kalends outside. On the other hand, I do not hold, as some writers do, that the riotous Feasts of Asses were derived from the pious and instructive ceremony so called at Rouen⁠[206]. On the contrary, Balaam and his ass are an interpolation in the Prophetae both at Rouen and, more obviously, at Laon. Balaam, alone of the Laon performers, is not from the pseudo-Augustine sermon. Is he not, therefore, to be regarded as a reaction of the Feast of Fools upon the Prophetae, as an attempt to turn the established presence of the ass in the church to purposes of edification, rather than of ribaldry⁠[207]? I think the explanation is the more plausible one. And I find a parallel reaction of the turbulence of the Feast of Fools upon the Stella, in the violence of speech and gesture which permanently associated itself at a very early stage with the character of Herod. The view here taken will be confirmed, when we come to consider certain ecclesiastical criticisms passed upon the liturgical plays in the twelfth century.

Whatever the exact relation of the divine and profane ludi at Easter and Christmas may be, it seems to have been, in the main, at these two great seasons of festivity that what may be called the spontaneous growth of drama out of liturgy took place. There are yet a fair number of Latin plays to be spoken of which are in a sense liturgical. That is to say, they were acted, certainly or probably, in churches and during intervals in the services. But of these such a spontaneous growth cannot be asserted, although it cannot also, in the present state of the evidence, be confidently denied. Their metrical and literary style is parallel to that of the Easter and Christmas plays in the latest stages of development; and, until further data turn up, it is perhaps permissible to conjecture that they were deliberately composed on the model of the Quem quaeritis and the Stella, when these had become widespread and popular. Indeed, some such derivation of the Peregrini from the Quem quaeritis and of the Stella itself, at least in part, from the Pastores, has already appeared probable.

In dealing with this new group of plays, we come, for the first and only time, upon an individual author. As might be expected, this author is a scholaris vagans, by name Hilarius. It would even be doing him no great injustice to call him a goliard. What little is known of Hilarius is gathered from his writings, which exist in a single manuscript. He may have been an Englishman, for a large proportion of his verses are addressed to English folk. He was a pupil, about 1125, of the famous Abelard at his oratory of Paraclete in a desert near Nogent-sur-Seine. Afterwards he made his way to Angers. Many of his verses are of the familiar goliardic type, amorous and jocund; but amongst them are three plays⁠[208]. Two of these are comparatively short, and contain each a few stanzas of French interspersed amongst the Latin. The subject of one is a miracle wrought by St. Nicholas⁠[209]; of the other, the Suscitatio Lazari⁠[210]. The third play, wholly in Latin, falls into two parts, and gives at considerable length the story of Daniel⁠[211]. I take it that these plays were not written for any church in particular, but represent the repertory of a band of wandering clerks. At the end, both of the Daniel and of the Suscitatio Lazari, is a rubric or stage-direction, to the effect that, if the performance is given at Matins, the Te Deum should follow; if at Vespers, the Magnificat. Evidently the connexion with the church service, so organic in the plays of the more primitive type, has become for Hilarius almost accidental. As to the place of the plays in the calendar, the manuscript gives no indication, and probably Hilarius and his friends would be willing enough to act them whenever they got a chance. But the St. Nicholas play would come most naturally on the day of that saint, December 6. The Suscitatio Lazari would be appropriate enough as an addition to the Quem quaeritis and the Peregrini in Easter week. The story is told, indeed, in the Gospel for Friday in the fourth week in Lent; but that does not seem a very likely date for a play. The Daniel perhaps grew, as we have seen a Balaam and a Nebuchadnezzar growing, out of a Prophetae; and may have been a substitute for a Prophetae at Christmas.

These dates are borne out, or not contradicted, by other similar plays, which have more of a local habitation. For no one of Hilarius’ three stands quite alone. Of Latin plays of St. Nicholas, indeed, quite a little group exists; and the great scholastic feast evidently afforded an occasion, less only than Easter and Christmas, for dramatic performances. The earliest texts are from Germany. Two are found in a Hildesheim manuscript of the eleventh century⁠[212]; a third in an Einsiedeln manuscript of the twelfth⁠[213]. The thirteenth-century Fleury play-book contains no less than four, two of which appear to be more developed forms of the Hildesheim plays. The theme is in every case one of the miraculous deeds which so largely make up the widespread legend of the saint⁠[214]. Nicholas restores to life the three clerks

and whom the greed of an innkeeper has slain⁠[215]. He provides with a dowry the daughters of a poor gentleman, who are threatened with a life of shame⁠[216]. He brings back from captivity the son of his wealthy adorer⁠[217]. His image preserves from housebreakers the riches of a Jew⁠[218]. Alone of the extant Latin plays, these of St. Nicholas are drawn from outside the Biblical story. Each of the Fleury versions introduces at the end one of the anthems proper to St. Nicholas’ day, and their connexion with the feast is therefore clear.

A second Lazarus play, which includes not only the Suscitatio but also the episode of Mary Magdalen in the house of Simon, is likewise in the Fleury play-book⁠[219]. A second Daniel, composed by the iuventus of Beauvais, occurs in the same manuscript which contains the Office of the Circumcision for that cathedral⁠[220]. It was perhaps intended for performance on the day of the asinaria festa. Other plays seem, in the same way as the Daniel, to have budded off from the Prophetae. A fragment is preserved of an Isaac and Rebecca from Kloster Vorau in Styria⁠[221]. A twelfth-century mention of an Elisaeus⁠[222] and an eleventh-century one of a Convivium Herodis⁠[223], which suggests rather the story of John the Baptist than that of the Magi, point to an activity in this direction of which all the traces have possibly not yet been discovered.

Three plays, each more or less unique in character, complete the tale. The Fleury play-book has a Conversio Beati Pauli Apostoli, doubtless designed for the feast on January 25⁠[224]. The shorter, but highly interesting collection from Limoges, has a play of the wise and foolish virgins, under the title of Sponsus⁠[225]. This has attracted much attention from scholars, on account of the fact that it is partly in French, or more strictly in a dialect belonging to the Angoumois, and slightly affected by Provençal. As it is therefore of the nature of a transitional form, it may be well to give a somewhat full account of it. It opens with a Latin chorus beginning

The angel Gabriel then addresses the virgins, and warns them in four French stanzas to expect ‘un espos, Sauvaire a nom.’ Each stanza has a refrain, probably sung chorally:

Then comes a lyric dialogue, in which the Fatuae, who have wasted their oil, attempt in vain to get some, first from the Prudentes, and then from some Mercatores, whose presence here recalls the unguentarius in the Prague versions of the Quem quaeritis⁠[226]. This dialogue is in Latin, but with a French refrain:

Then comes the Sponsus, to whom the Fatuae finally appeal:

This stage direction, together with an allusion in the opening lines of the Sponsus to the ‘second Adam,’ link this remarkable, and, I venture to think, finely conceived little piece to the Christmas play of Adam to be discussed in the next chapter. It has essentially an Advent theme, and must have been performed either in Advent itself or at the Christmas season, with which Advent is prophetically connected⁠[227].

Finally, there is a play which was almost certainly performed at Advent⁠[228]. This is the Tegernsee play of Antichristus⁠[229]. It is founded upon the prophecy in St. Paul’s second epistle to the Thessalonians of the homo peccati, filius perditionis, who shall sit in the temple of God until the Christ shall slay him with the breath of his mouth, and destroy him with the glory of his advent⁠[230]: and it is an elaborate spectacle, requiring for its proper performance a large number of actors and a spacious stage, with a temple of God and seven royal sedes, together with room for much marching and counter-marching and warfare⁠[231]. It must have taken up the whole nave of some great church. It begins with a procession of Emperor, Pope, and Kings, accompanied by personages emblematic of Gentilitas, Sinagoga and Ecclesia with her attendants Misericordia and Iustitia. The first part of the action represents the conquest of the four corners of Christendom by the Emperor and his championship of Jerusalem against the King of Babylon. Ecclesia, Gentilitas, and Synagoga punctuate the performance with their characteristic chants. Then come the Hypocrites, sub silentio et specie humilitatis inclinantes circumquaque et captantes favorem laicorum. They are followed by Antichrist himself, who instructs Hypocrisy and Heresy to prepare the way for his advent. Presently Antichrist is enthroned in the temple and gradually saps the Empire, winning over the King of the Greeks by threats, the King of the Franks by gifts, and the King of the Teutons, who is incorruptible and invincible, by signs and wonders. He marks his vassals on the brow with the first letter of his name. Then the Hypocrites attempt to persuade Synagoga that Antichrist is the Messiah; but are refuted by the prophets Enoch and Elijah. Antichrist has the rebels slain; but while he is throned in state, thunder breaks suddenly over his head, he falls, and Ecclesia comes to her own again with a Laudem dicite deo nostro.

The author of the Antichristus is not only a skilled craftsman in rhyming Latin metres; he is also capable of carrying a big literary scheme successfully to a close. His immediate source was probably the tenth-century Libellus de Antichristo of Adso of Toul⁠[232]. Into this he has worked the central theme of the Prophetae and the debating figures from that very popular débat or ‘estrif,’ the Altercatio Ecclesiae et Synagogae⁠[233]. His work differs in several obvious respects from the comparatively simple, often naïve, liturgical dramas which have been considered. It is ambitious in scope, extending to between four and five hundred lines. It introduces allegorical figures, such as we shall find, long after, in the moralities. It has a purpose other than that of devotion, or even amusement. It is, in fact, a Tendenzschrift, a pamphlet. The instinct of the drama, which sways the imaginations of men perhaps more powerfully than any other form of literature, to mix itself up with politics is incorrigible: Antichristus is a subtle vindication, on the one hand, of the Empire against the Papacy, on the other of the rex Teutonicorum against the rex Francorum. It probably dates from about 1160, when Frederick Barbarossa was at the height of his struggle with Alexander III, who enjoyed the sympathies of Louis VII of France. And it is anti-clerical. The Hypocrites who carry out the machinations of Antichrist are the clerical reformers, such as Gerhoh of Reichersberg⁠[234], who were the mainstay of the papacy in Germany.

It is improbable that the few and scattered texts which have come to light represent all the liturgical plays which had made their appearance by the middle of the twelfth century. Besides the lost Elisaeus and Convivium Herodis, there is evidence, for example, of scholars’ plays in honour, not only of St. Nicholas, but of their second patron, the philosophical St. Catharine of Alexandria. Such a ludus de Sancta Katarina was prepared at Dunstable in England by one Geoffrey, a Norman clerk who had been invited to England as schoolmaster to the abbey of St. Albans. For it he borrowed certain choir copes belonging to the abbey, and had the misfortune to let these be burnt with his house. Deeply repentant, he took the religious habit, and in 1119 became abbot of St. Albans. From this date that of the ludus may be judged to be early in the twelfth century⁠[235].

It cannot, of course, be assumed that every play, say in the fifteenth century, which although probably or certainly written in the vernacular was performed in a church, had a Latin prototype⁠[236]. Many such may have been written and acted for the first time on existing models, when the vernacular drama was already well established. But there are certain feasts where it is possible to trace, on the one hand, the element of mimetic ceremony in the services, and on the other, perhaps, some later representation in the dramatic cycles, and where a Latin text might at any time turn up without causing surprise. With a few notes on some of these this chapter must conclude. A highly dramatic trope for Ascension day, closely resembling the Quem quaeritis, has already been quoted from the tropers of Limoges⁠[237]. An Ordinarium of St. Peter’s of Lille directs that, after the respond Non vos relinquam, the officiant shall mount a pulpit and thence appear to ascend towards heaven from the top of a mountain⁠[238]. Fifteenth-century computi speak of this or of a more elaborate performance as a mysterium, and include amongst other items payments for painting the scars on the hands of the performer⁠[239]. On Whit-Sunday it was the custom at St. Paul’s in London and many other churches, during the singing of the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus at Tierce, to open a hole in the roof and let down symbols of the Pentecost; a dove, a globe of fire, bits of burning tow to represent tongues of fire, a censer, flowers, pieces of flaky pastry⁠[240]. This same hole in the roof sometimes served a similar purpose at a mimetic representation of the Annunciation. The Gospel for the day was recited by two clerks dressed as Mary and the angel, and at the words Spiritus Sanctus supervenit in te a white dove descended from the roof. This can hardly be called a drama, for, with the exception of a short fifteenth-century text from Cividale, only the words of the Gospel itself seem to have been used; but obviously it is on the extreme verge of drama. A curious variant in the date of this ceremony is to be noted. In several Italian examples, of which the earliest dates from 1261, and in one or two from France, it belongs to the feast of the Annunciation proper on March 25⁠[241]. But in later French examples, and apparently also at Lincoln⁠[242], it has been transferred to the Advent season, during which naturally the Annunciation was greatly held in remembrance, and has been attached to the so-called ‘golden’ Mass celebrated ten days before Christmas during the Quatuor Tempora⁠[243]. It thus became absorbed into the Christmas dramatic cycle.

CHAPTER XX THE SECULARIZATION OF THE PLAYS

[Bibliographical Note.—The best general account of the vernacular religious drama of Europe is that of W. Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren Dramas (vol. i. 1893), Books 2-4; and this may be supplemented by K. Hase, Das geistliche Schauspiel (1858, trans. A. W. Jackson, 1880); R. Proelss, Geschichte des neueren Dramas (1880-3), vol. i. ch. 1; C. Davidson, English Mystery Plays (1892), and G. Gregory Smith, The Transition Period (1900), ch. 7. There is also the cumbrous work of J. L. Klein, Geschichte des Dramas (1865-86). The nearest approach to a general bibliography is F. H. Stoddard, References for Students of Miracle Plays and Mysteries (1887).—For Germany may be added R. Froning, Das Drama des Mittelalters (1890-1); K. Pearson, The German Passion Play (in The Chances of Death and Other Studies in Evolution, 1897, vol. ii); L. Wirth, Die Oster- und Passionsspiele bis zum 16. Jahrhundert (1889); J. E. Wackernell, Altdeutsche Passionsspiele aus Tirol, 1897; R. Heinzel, Beschreibung des geistlichen Schauspiels im deutschen Mittelalter (1898), and the articles by F. Vogt on Mittelhochdeutsche Literatur, § 73, and H. Jellinghaus on Mittelniederdeutsche Literatur, § 5, in H. Paul, Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, vol. ii (2nd ed. 1901). F. Vogt gives a few additional recent references. Older works are F. J. Mone, Schauspiele des Mittelalters (1846); H. Reidt, Das geistliche Schauspiel des Mittelalters in Deutschland (1868), and E. Wilken, Geschichte der geistlichen Spiele in Deutschland (1872). Many of the books named print texts. Lists of others are given by Pearson and by Heinzel, and full bibliographical notices by K. Goedeke, Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung (2nd ed.), vol. i (1884), §§ 67, 92, and vol. ii (1886), § 145.—For France, L. Petit de Julleville, Les Mystères (1880), is excellent and exhaustive, and contains many bibliographical references, although the ‘Liste des ouvrages à consulter’ intended as part of the work seems never to have been printed. M. de Julleville is also the writer of the article on Théâtre religieux in the Hist. de la Langue et de la Littérature françaises, vol. ii (1896). G. Gröber’s article on Französische Litteratur, §§ 129, 362 in his Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, vol. ii (1901-2), brings the subject up to date and adds some recent authorities. Mortensen, Medeltidsdramat i Frankrike (1899), is beyond my range. G. Paris, La Littérature française au moyen âge (2nd ed., 1890), is a brief summary, and L. Clédat, Le Théâtre au moyen âge (1897), a useful popular account. G. Bapst, Essai sur l’Histoire du Théâtre (1893), is good on matters of stage arrangement. Older works are O. Le Roy, Études sur les Mystères (1837), and J. de Douhet, Dictionnaire des Mystères (1854). Only fragments of C. Magnin’s investigations are available in the Journal des Savants (1846-7) and the Journal général de l’Instruction publique (1834-6). Texts are in A. Jubinal, Mystères du 15ᵉ siècle (1837); Monmerqué et Michel, Théâtre français au moyen âge (1842); E. Fournier, Le Théâtre français avant la Renaissance (1872), and the series published by the Société des Anciens Textes français. The most recent text of Adam is that by K. Grass, Das Adamsspiel (1891). M. Wilmotte, Les Passions allemandes du Rhin dans leur Rapport avec l’ancien Théâtre français (1898), deals with the interrelations of the French and German texts. C. Hastings, Le Théâtre français et anglais (1900, trans. 1901), is a compilation of little merit.—For Italy there is A. D’Ancona, Origini del Teatro italiano (2nd ed. 1891), with texts in the same writer’s Sacre Rappresentazioni (1872), in Monaci, Appunti per la Storia del Teatro italiano (Rivista di Filologia Romana, vols. i, ii), and in F. Torraca, Il Teatro italiano dei Secoli xiii, xiv, e xv (1885).—For Spain, A. F. von Schack, Geschichte der dramatischen Litteratur und Kunst in Spanien (1845-54), and G. Baist, Spanische Litteratur, §§ 19, 63, in Gröber’s Grundriss, vol. ii (1897).—For the minor Romance dramatic literatures, Provençal, Catalan, Portuguese, I must be content to refer to the last-named authority, and for that of Holland to the similar Grundriss of H. Paul.]

The evolution of the liturgic play described in the last two chapters may be fairly held to have been complete about the middle of the thirteenth century. The condition of any further advance was that the play should cease to be liturgic. The following hundred years are a transition period. During their course the newly-shaped drama underwent a process which, within the limits imposed by the fact that its subject-matter remained essentially religious, may be called secularization. Already, when Hilarius could write plays to serve indifferently for use at Matins or at Vespers, the primitive relation of repraesentatio to liturgy had been sensibly weakened. By the middle of the fourteenth century it was a mere survival. From ecclesiastical the drama had become popular. Out of the hands of the clergy in their naves and choirs, it had passed to those of the laity in their market-places and guild-halls. And to this formal change corresponded a spiritual or literary one, in the reaction of the temper of the folk upon the handling of the plays, the broadening of their human as distinct from their religious aspect. In their origin officia for devotion and edification, they came, by an irony familiar to the psychologist, to be primarily spectacula for mirth, wonder, and delight.

It is, however, the formal change with which I am here mainly concerned; and of this it will be the object of the present chapter to trace as briefly as possible the outlines. The principal factor is certainly that tendency to expansion and coalescence in the plays which has been already seen at work in the production of such elaborate pieces as the Quem quaeritis of the Tours or that of the Benedictbeuern manuscript, the Fleury Stella, the Rouen Prophetae and the Antichristus. This culminates in the formation of those great dramatic cycles of which the English Corpus Christi plays are perhaps the most complete examples. But before we can approach these, we must consider a little further the independent development of the Easter and Christmas groups.

It is noteworthy that, during the period now under discussion, the importance of Christmas falls markedly into the background when compared with that of Easter; and a reason for this will presently suggest itself. The Stella, indeed, as such, appears to have almost reached its term⁠[244]; for such further growth as there is we must look chiefly to the Prophetae. The process by which little episodic dramas, as of Balaam and Nebuchadnezzar at Rouen, bud out from the stem of the Prophetae, is one capable of infinite extension. By 1204 the play had found its way to Riga, on the extreme border of European civilization, and the ludus prophetarum ordinatissimus there performed included scenes from the wars of Gideon, David, and Herod⁠[245]. The text of the Riga play is unfortunately not preserved, but the famous Norman-French Ordo repraesentationis Adae is an example of a Prophetae, in which the episodes, no longer confined to the stories of the prophets in the stricter sense, have outgrown and cast into the shade the original intention⁠[246]. Most things about the Adam are in dispute. Scholars differ as to whether the manuscript belongs to the twelfth or the thirteenth century, and as to whether it is the work of a Norman or of an Anglo-Norman scribe. The piece is manifestly incomplete, but how far incomplete it is hard to say. What we have consists of three sections. There is a long play of nearly six hundred lines on the Fall and Expulsion from Paradise, in which the speakers are Adam and Eve, the Figura of God and the Diabolus. Then comes a much shorter one of Cain and Abel; and finally a Prophetae, which breaks off after the part of Nebuchadnezzar. Of the general character of this interesting piece something further will be said presently, but the point to notice here is that, although Adam and Abel may of course be regarded as prophetic types of Christ, if not exactly prophets, yet there is a real extension of the dramatic content of the Prophetae in the prefixing to it of a treatment of so momentous a subject as the Fall⁠[247]. For with the addition of the Fall to the already dramatized Redemption, the framework of a structural unity was at once provided for the great cosmic drama of the future. And the important motive seems to have been still further emphasized in a lost play performed at Regensburg in 1195, which treated, besides the Prophets and the Creation and Fall of Man, the Creation of the Angels and the Fall of Lucifer⁠[248].

Yet another step towards the completion of the Christmas cycle was taken when the Prophetae and the Stella were brought together in a single drama. Such a merging is represented by two related texts from German sources⁠[249]. One is from a fourteenth-century manuscript now at St. Gall⁠[250]. The structure is of the simplest. The setting of the pseudo-Augustine sermon has altogether disappeared. Eight prophets deliver a speech apiece, announcing their own identities after a naïve fashion—Ich bin der alte Balaam, and so forth—which strongly recalls the ‘folk’ or ‘mummers’’ plays. Then follows without break a Stella, whose scenes range from the Marriage of the Virgin to the Death of Herod. Far more elaborate is the Christmas play found in the famous repertory of the scholares vagantes from Benedictbeuern⁠[251]. A peculiarity of this is that for the first time Augustine appears in propria persona. He presides over the prophecies, taking the place of the Precentor of the Limoges Prophetae, and the Appellatores or Vocatores of Laon and Rouen. The only prophets are Isaiah, Daniel, the Sibyl, Aaron, and Balaam, and there is once more a special episode for Balaam’s ass.

‘Quinto loco procedat Balaam sedens in asina et cantans:

vadam, vadam, ut maledicam populo huic.

Cui occurrat Angelus evaginato gladio dicens:

cave, cave ne quicquam aliud quam tibi dixero loquaris.

Et asinus cui insidet Balaam perterritus retrocedat. Postea recedat angelus et Balaam cantet hoc:

orietur stella ex Iacob, etc.’

A long disputatio follows between Augustine, an Archisynagogus, and the prophets, in which at one point no less a person intervenes than the Episcopus Puerorum, affording an interesting example of that interrelation between the religious plays and the festivities of the triduum and the Feast of Fools, about which something has already been said⁠[252]. Presently the prophets retire and sit in locis suis propter honorem ludi. The Stella extends from the Annunciation to the Flight into Egypt. Here the original play seems to have ended; but a later writer has added a scene in Egypt, in which the idols fall at the approach of the Holy Family, and some fragments adapted from the Antichristus, and hardly worked up into anything that can be called a scene.

The form of Christmas play, then, characteristic of the transition century, consists of a version of the Prophetae extended at the beginning by a dramatic treatment of the Fall, or extended at the end by the absorption of the Stella. It so happens that we do not, during the period in question, find examples in which both extensions occur together. But this double amplification would only be the slightest step in advance, and may perhaps be taken for granted. The Rouen Mystère de l’Incarnation et la Nativité of 1474 offers, at a much later date, precisely the missing type⁠[253].

The Easter cycle, also, received memorable accretions during the period. The Quem quaeritis of the Tours manuscript, it will be remembered, included a series of scenes beginning with the Setting of the Watch before the Sepulchre, and ending with the Incredulity of Thomas. Important additions had still to be made, even within the limits of this cadre. One was a more complete treatment of the Resurrection itself through the introduction of the figure of Christ stepping with the labarum out of the sepulchre, in place of a mere symbolical indication of the mystery by the presence of angels with lighted candles and the dismay of the soldiers⁠[254]. Another, closely related to the Resurrection, was the scene known as the Harrowing of Hell. This was based upon the account of the Descensus Christi ad Inferos, the victory over Satan, and the freeing from limbo of Adam and the other Old Testament Fathers, which forms part of the apocryphal Gospel of Nichodemus⁠[255]. The narrative makes use of that Tollite portas passage from the twenty-fourth Psalm, which we have already found adapted to the use of more than one semi-dramatic ceremonial⁠[256], and naturally this found its way into the Harrowing of Hell, together with the so-called canticum triumphale, a song of welcome by the imprisoned souls:

‘Advenisti, desirabilis, quem exspectabamus in tenebris, ut educeres hac nocte vinculatos de claustris.

te nostra vocabant suspiria.

te larga requirebant lamenta.

tu factus es spes desperatis, magna consolatio in tormentis.’

I cannot share the view of those who look upon the East Midland English Harrowing of Hell as intended for dramatic representation. The prologues found in two of the three manuscripts leave it clear that it was for recitation. It is in fact of the nature of an ‘estrif’ or débat, and may be compared with an Anglo-Saxon poem of the eighth or tenth century on the same subject⁠[257]. But there is evidence that the scene had found its way into the Easter cycle at least by the beginning of the thirteenth century, for it occurs amongst the fragments of a play of that date from Kloster Muri; and in later versions it assumed a considerable prominence⁠[258].

The liturgical drama proper abstained in the main from any strictly dramatic representation of the Passion. The nearest approach to such a thing is in the dialogued versions of the Planctus Mariae and in the Benedictbeuern Ludus breviter de Passione, which extends very slightly beyond these. The central event of the transition period is, therefore, the growth side by side with the Quem quaeritis of a Passion play, which in the end rather absorbs than is absorbed by it. A marked advance in this direction is shown in an Anglo-Norman fragment, probably written in the twelfth century, which includes, not indeed the Crucifixion itself, but the Descent from the Cross, the Healing of Longinus, and the Burial of Christ⁠[259]. The first recorded Passion play is in Italy. It took place at Siena about 1200⁠[260]. In 1244 the Passion and Resurrection were played together at Padua⁠[261]. The earliest text of a Passion play is contained in the Benedictbeuern manuscript⁠[262]. It opens with the Calling of Andrew and Peter, the Healing of the Blind, Zacchaeus and the Entry into Jerusalem. Then follows a long episode of Mary Magdalen. She is represented with her lover, buying cosmetics of a Mercator—we have had the Mercator in the Quem quaeritis and in the Sponsus—and with a profane song upon her lips:

She is converted in a dream, puts on black, buys ointments from the same Mercator, and adores the Lord in the house of Simon. Then come, far more briefly treated, the Raising of Lazarus, the Betrayal by Judas, the Last Supper, the Mount of Olives, the Passion itself, from the Taking in Gethsemane to the Crucifixion. The introduction here of some planctus Mariae points to the genesis of the drama, which closes with the Begging of the Body of Christ by Joseph of Arimathaea. And so, at a blow, as it were, the content of the Easter play is doubled. Certain episodes, such as the Conversion of Mary Magdalen and the Raising of Lazarus had, as we know, received an independent dramatic treatment; but in the main the play before us, or its source, bears the character of a deliberate composition on the lines of the pre-existing Quem quaeritis. That it was to be followed in representation by a Quem quaeritis may perhaps be taken for granted. Indeed there is one personage, the wife of the Mercator, who is named in a list at the beginning, but has no part in the text as it stands⁠[263]. She may have come into the Benedictbeuern Quem quaeritis, of which a fragment only survives, and this may have been intended for use, as might be convenient, either with the Ludus breviter de Passione, or with the longer text now under consideration. At all events, Passion and Resurrection are treated together in two slightly later texts, one from the south of France⁠[264], the other from St. Gall⁠[265]. The St. Gall Passion play takes the action back to the beginning of the missionary life of Christ, giving the Marriage at Cana, the Baptism, and the Temptation. It also includes a Harrowing of Hell.

Certain forms of the Passion play, as the conjoint Passion and Resurrection may now be termed, show an approximation to the type of the Christmas play. It is obvious that the Fall and the Prophetae would be as proper a prologue to the Passion which completes the Atonement as to the Nativity which begins it. And the presence of Adam and other Old Testament characters in the Harrowing of Hell would be the more significant if in some earlier scene they had visibly been haled there. The first trace of these new elements is in the St. Gall play, where the Augustine of the Prophetae is introduced to speak a prologue. A long Frankfort play of the fourteenth century, of which unfortunately only the stage directions and actors’ cues are preserved, carries the process further⁠[266]. Again Augustine acts as presenter. A Prophetae begins the performance, which ends with the Ascension, a Disputatio Ecclesiae et Synagogae and the baptizing of the incredulous Jews by Augustine. On the other hand, the Fall forms the first part of an early fourteenth-century Passion play from Vienna⁠[267]. Both the Fall of Lucifer and that of Adam and Eve are included, and there is a supplementary scene in hell, into which the souls of a usurer, a monk, a robber, and a sorceress are successively brought. Lucifer refuses to have anything to do with the monk, an early use of the Tomlinson motive.

The dramatic evolution is now within measurable distance of the ‘cosmic’ type finally presented by the English Corpus Christi plays. Two further steps are necessary: the juxtaposition of the Nativity and Passion scenes behind their common Old Testament prologue, and the final winding up of the action by the extension of it from the Ascension to the second coming of the Christ in the Last Judgement. The eschatological scenes of the Sponsus and the Antichristus are already available for such an epilogue. That the whole of this vast framework was put together by the beginning of the fourteenth century may be inferred from the notices of two performances, in 1298 and 1303 respectively, at Cividale⁠[268]. The first included the Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, Advent of the Holy Spirit, and Advent of Christ to Judgement: the second added to these the Creation, Annunciation, Nativity, with much else, and the Antichrist. Any further development could now be merely episodic. The text could be amplified at the fancy of the individual writer, or upon the suggestion of the great epic narratives, such as the Cursor Mundi, the Passional, the Erlösung⁠[269]. An infinity of new scenes could be added from the Old Testament⁠[270], from the apocryphal gospels and acts, from the historic narratives of the vengeance of the Crucified One upon Rome and Jewry⁠[271]. But beyond the limits of the fixed cadre it was now impossible to go, for these were coincident with the span of time and eternity.

It is now necessary to consider briefly some modifications in the general character of the religious plays which accompanied or resulted from this great expansion of their scope. These all tend towards that process of secularization, that relaxing of the close bonds between the nascent drama and religious worship, which it is the especial object of this chapter to illustrate. Of capital importance is the transference of the plays from the interior of the church to its precincts, to the graveyard or the neighbouring market-place. This must have been primarily a matter of physical necessity. The growing length of the plays, the increasing elaboration of their setting, made it cumbrous and difficult to accommodate them within the walls. It is a big step from the early Quem quaeritis, Pastores or Stella, with their simple mises-en-scène of sepulchrum and praesepe to the complicated requirements, say, of the Fleury group, the tabernaculum in similitudinem castelli Emaus for the Peregrini, the half-dozen loca, domus, or sedes demanded by the Suscitatio Lazari or the Conversio Pauli. Still more exigent is the Antichristus with its templum domini and its seven sedes regales, and its space in between for marchings and counter-marchings and the overthrowing of kings. Yet for a long time the church proved sufficient. The Tours Quem quaeritis and some, if not all, of the Fleury plays were demonstrably played in the church. So was the Rouen Prophetae, and an allusion of Gerhoh of Reichersberg makes it extremely probable that so was the Antichristus⁠[272]. One must conceive, I think, of the performances as gradually spreading from choir to nave, with the domus, loca, or sedes set at intervals against the pillars, while the people crowded to watch in the side aisles. It is in the twelfth century that the plays first seek ampler room outside the church. Of the transition plays dealt with in the present chapter, the Adam, the Benedictbeuern Christmas play, the Anglo-Norman Resurrection, were certainly intended for the open, and the contrary cannot be affirmed in any case with the same assurance. Again, the Riga Prophetae of 1204 was in media Riga, the Padua Passion play of 1244 was in a meadow, the Pratum Vallis, while in England an early thirteenth-century biographer of St. John of Beverley records a miracle wrought at a Resurrection play in the churchyard of the minster.

Of the type of performance now rendered possible, a very good notion is given by the full stage directions of the Adam. These are so valuable a document for the history of stage management that I must take leave to excerpt from them somewhat liberally. The opening rubric recalls at once the minute stage directions of Ibsen and the counsel to the players in Hamlet.

‘A Paradise is to be made in a raised spot, with curtains and cloths of silk hung round it at such a height that persons in the Paradise may be visible from the shoulders upwards. Fragrant flowers and leaves are to be set round about, and divers trees put therein with hanging fruit, so as to give the likeness of a most delicate spot. Then must come the Saviour clothed in a dalmatic, and Adam and Eve be brought before him. Adam is to wear a red tunic and Eve a woman’s robe of white, with a white silk cloak; and they are both to stand before the Figure, Adam the nearer with composed countenance, while Eve appears somewhat more modest. And the Adam must be well trained when to reply and to be neither too quick nor too slow in his replies. And not only he, but all the personages must be trained to speak composedly, and to fit convenient gesture to the matter of their speech. Nor must they foist in a syllable or clip one of the verse, but must enounce firmly and repeat what is set down for them in due order. Whosoever names Paradise is to look and point towards it.’

After a lectio and a chant by the choir, the dialogue begins. The Figura instructs Adam and Eve as to their duties and inducts them into Paradise.

‘Then the Figure must depart to the church and Adam and Eve walk about Paradise in honest delight. Meanwhile the demons are to run about the stage (per plateas), with suitable gestures, approaching the Paradise from time to time and pointing out the forbidden fruit to Eve, as though persuading her to eat it. Then the Devil is to come and address Adam.’

The diabolus thinks he is prevailing upon Adam. He joins the other demons and make sallies about the plateae. Then he returns hylaris et gaudens to the charge. But he fails.

‘Then, sadly and with downcast countenance, he shall leave Adam, and go to the doors of hell, and hold council with the other demons. Thereafter he shall make a sally amongst the people, and then approach Paradise on Eve’s side, addressing her with joyful countenance and insinuating (blandiens) manner.’

Eve, too, is hard to persuade, and is scolded by Adam for listening to the diabolus. But when a serpens artificiose compositus rises hard by the trunk of the forbidden tree, she lends her ear, is won over, takes the apple and gives it to Adam.

‘Then Adam is to eat part of the apple; and after eating it he shall immediately recognize his sin and debase himself. He must now be out of sight of the people, and shall put off his solemn raiment, and put on poor raiment sewn together of fig-leaves, and with an air of extreme dolour shall begin his lament.’

When the Figure ‘wearing a stole’ comes again, Adam and Eve hide in a corner of Paradise, and when called upon stand up, ‘not altogether erect, but for shame of their sin somewhat bowed and very sad.’ They are driven out, and an angel with a radiant sword is put at the gate of Paradise. The Figure returns to the church.

‘Then Adam shall have a spade and Eve a hoe, and they shall begin to till the soil and sow corn therein. And when they have sown, they shall go and sit down a while, as if wearied with toil, and anon look tearfully at Paradise, beating their breasts. Meanwhile shall come the devil and shall plant thorns and thistles in their tillage, and avoid. And when Adam and Eve come to their tillage and see the thorns and thistles sprung up, they shall be smitten with violent grief and shall throw themselves on the earth and sit there, beating their breasts and thighs and betraying grief by their gestures. And Adam shall begin a lament.’

Now the last scene is at hand.

‘Then shall come the devil and three or four devils with him, carrying in their hands chains and iron fetters, which they shall put on the necks of Adam and Eve. And some shall push and others pull them to hell; and hard by hell shall be other devils ready to meet them, who shall hold high revel (tripudium) at their fall. And certain other devils shall point them out as they come, and shall snatch them up and carry them into hell; and there shall they make a great smoke arise, and call aloud to each other with glee in their hell, and clash their pots and kettles, that they may be heard without. And after a little delay the devils shall come out and run about the stage; but some shall remain in hell.’

The shorter play of Cain and Abel is similarly conceived. The sacrifices are offered on two great stones ‘which shall have been made ready for the purpose’; and at the end of the performance the devils hale off Cain and Abel also to hell ‘beating Cain often; but Abel they shall lead more gently.’ The prophets, who have been prepared in a secret spot, now advance one by one and deliver their prophecies. Their appearance is described much as in the earlier Prophetae, and it is noted that each in turn at the finish of his harangue is to be led off to hell by the devils.

Unless the Adam extended much beyond the text left to us, a comparatively small number of loca would suffice for its representation. The contemporary Anglo-Norman Resurrection play required thirteen, as is set out at length in a versified prologue:

I have ventured to arrange these lius (loca) and mansions (domus) or estals (sedes), upon the indications of the prologue, in the following plan:

And I would point out that such a scheme is simply a continuation of the arrangement down the choir and nave of a church suggested above⁠[273]. The crucifix is where it would stand in the church, above the altar. The place of the monument corresponds to that most usual for the sepulchrum on the north side of the chancel. The positions of heaven and hell are those in the former case of the stairs up to the rood-loft, in the latter of the stairs down to the crypt; and what, in a church, should serve for hell and heaven but crypt and rood-loft⁠[274]? The Galilee answers to the porch at the west end of the church, which we know to have been so called⁠[275]; and the castle of Emmaus stands in the middle of the nave, just as it did in the Fleury Peregrini. With my conjectural plan may be compared this actual plan of a sixteenth-century stage from Donaueschingen, in which a similar principle is apparent, the three divisions formed by cross-barriers corresponding to the three divisions of a church—sanctuary, choir, nave⁠[276].

The Anglo-Norman Resurrection play was pretty clearly out of doors⁠[277]; and the double line of sedes may be thought of as stretching from the west door of the church right across the market-place. In Adam the Figura comes and goes from and to the church, which thus serves for a ciel; in the Benedictbeuern Christmas play, the chair of Augustine is set in fronte ecclesiae. This arrangement, also, can be paralleled from later plays, both French and German. At Freiburg in 1504 the stage was built across the cathedral yard from the south door to the Kaufhaus, a space of some 110 feet long⁠[278]. At Rouen, in 1474, the establies went across the market-place from the Axe and Crown to the Angel⁠[279]. It must not, however, be supposed that the rectangular stage survived as the invariable type. In particular a round type was sometimes preferred. The Cornish guary-plays were given in rounds, and a round is figured in a fifteenth-century miniature by Jean Fouquet, representing a play of Saint Apollonia⁠[280].

I have spoken of a stage, but I am not sure that there was any stage in the sense of a platform. There is certainly no such scaffold in Fouquet’s miniature, and the plateae of the Fleury Suscitatio Lazari and the Adam are probably only the open spaces kept free for the actors between the sedes⁠[281]. In the Adam the devils are able to make sallies from the plateae amongst the spectators. The latter probably crowded upon barriers between the sedes. In the miniature, however, the sedes stand close together and are considerably raised, with ladders running up to them. The spectators stand beneath. The prologue to the Anglo-Norman Resurrection speaks of la gent as seated, and possibly raised scaffolds for the audience were already in use. These were certainly known later, and the descriptions of some of them as no less than nine stories high have given rise to an erroneous theory that the plays were performed upon a many-storied stage⁠[282]. It is clear that this was not really the case. All the sedes were on the same level, except that, for greater dignity, the Calvary, the Heaven, the Paradise might be, as in Adam, loco eminentiore, and that the infernum or hell, conventionally represented by the head and open gullet of a monstrous dragon, was low down, as if in the bowels of the earth⁠[283]. It should be added that, as early as the first quarter of the twelfth century, plays had begun to make their way from the church, if not into the open, at any rate into buildings of domestic use. The authority for this is Gerhoh of Reichersberg, who speaks of performances in the refectory of Augsburg, when he was magister scolae there about 1123⁠[284]. Some of the Fleury or other early plays may conceivably have been intended for the refectory.

The expansion of the cycles caused difficulties of time, as well as of space. Without a compression of manner alien to the long-winded Middle Ages, it was sometimes impossible to get the whole of the matter to be treated within the limits of a single day. The problem was amenable to more than one solution. The performance could be spread over two or more sittings. The first recorded example of such an arrangement is at Cividale in 1298⁠[285], but it is one that would naturally suggest itself, especially for the Easter cycle, which fell naturally enough into the two dramas of Passion and Resurrection, from which, indeed, it sprang. In the Frankfort cue-book of the fourteenth century, it is carefully noted, that if the audience are being kept too long, the rectores of the play shall defer the Resurrection to a second day⁠[286]. Another device, which does not occur so early, was to divide the cycle into parts and play them in successive years. This method was adopted with the play of the Seven Joys of Mary at Brussels⁠[287], and English examples will be found in a later chapter⁠[288].

The cycles required in many cases a larger number of actors than the ecclesiastical bodies, even with the aid of wandering clerks and the cloister schools, could supply. It was necessary to press the laity into the service. The Easter play, of which the thirteenth-century anchoress Wilburgis was disappointed, was acted tam a clero quam a populo⁠[289]. It was a further step in the same direction when the laity themselves took over the control and financing of plays. For this one must look mainly to that most important element in mediaeval town life, the guilds. Just as the Feast of Fools passed from the hands of the clergy into those of the sociétés joyeuses, so did the religious drama into those of more serious confraternities. The burgenses of Cahors, who in 1290 and 1302 played a ludum de miraculis beati Marcialis in the graveyard of St. Martial of Limoges, not improbably belonged to a guild formed to do honour to the patron⁠[290]. The primary purpose of such guilds as these was devotional, and if they acted plays, it was doubtless with the countenance and assistance of the clergy to whose church they were affiliated. But those more secular and literary guilds, the puys, also undertook to act religious plays no less than sotties and farces; and in them it may be suspected that the influence of the clergy would have to contend shrewdly with that of the minstrels⁠[291]. It is not surprising to come in time upon signs of a rivalry between lay and clerical actors. Thus, in 1378, the scholars of St. Paul’s are said to have presented a petition to Richard II, praying him to prohibit a play by some ‘unexpert people’ of the History of the Old Testament, a subject which they themselves had prepared at great expense for the ensuing Christmas. It may have been some similar dispute which led about the same date to the formation of the Parisian Confrérie de la Passion, which received from Charles VI a privilege to perform in and about the city, and became a model for many similar confréries throughout France. The charter bears the date of 1402. In 1398 the provost of Paris seems to have been moved to forbid dramatic performances without special sanction in the city or suburbs, a prohibition which, by the way, was flouted on the day of its proclamation at Saint-Maur. Exactly what led to this interposition of authority is not clear; but it probably induced the confrérie, who may have had a previous less formal existence, to apply for their privilege⁠[292]. The confrérie de la Passion seem to have acted, as a rule, in closed rooms. It is not unlikely that the puys did the same.

The altered conditions of representation naturally reacted upon the style and temper of the plays themselves. This is not a subject that can be discussed in detail here, but a few points may be briefly noted. The first is the gradual substitution of vernacular tongues for the Latin of the liturgical drama. This was almost inevitable, where laymen performed to a lay audience. But the liturgical drama itself did not absolutely exclude the vernacular. In the Sponsus, and in the Suscitatio Lazari and the Nicholas play of Hilarius, fragments of French are inserted, just as they are in the ‘farced’ epistles used at the feasts of certain saints, notably at that of St. Stephen⁠[293]. It was a step further when in the fourteenth century the nuns of Origny Ste.-Benoîte rewrote their liturgical Quem quaeritis, leaving indeed some of the more solemn parts, such as the dialogue of the Maries with the angel, or that of the Magdalen with the risen Christ, in Latin, but turning the rest into French⁠[294]. Such an arrangement as this of Origny Ste.-Benoîte became in the transition plays, intended for out-of-door performance to a popular audience, the rule. There was naturally some local variation. Of the two longer scholars’ plays in the Benedictbeuern manuscript, the Christmas play is wholly, the Passion play mainly, in Latin. A large proportion of Latin seems to have been retained in the Frankfort Passion play of the fourteenth century. But on the whole, as the texts grow, and especially as they draw upon the apocryphal books or the great mediaeval vernacular epics for matter not in the liturgical plays, the vernacular steadily gets the upper hand, until in the latest versions the traces of Latin must be regarded as mere survivals.

In some cases where Latin and vernacular appear together, the latter is of the nature of a translation, or rough and often much expanded paraphrase, of the former. This type of mixed and obviously transitional text can, as it happens, be illustrated from French, German, and English sources. It occurs, for instance, in the Adam. Here the Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel scenes are wholly, but for the preliminary lectio and the interpolated chants by the choir, in Norman-French. The prophecies, however, are given in the double form. Thus Isaiah says:

‘Egredietur virga de radice Jesse, et flos de radice eius ascendet, et requiescet super eum spiritus domini.

‘Or vus dirrai merveillus diz:

Jessé sera de sa raïz.

Verge en istra, qui fera flor,

Qui ert digne de grant unor.

Saint espirit l’avra si clos,

Sor ceste flor iert sun repos.’

There are many similar examples in German plays, of which the most complete is a Quem quaeritis in a fourteenth-century manuscript at Trèves⁠[295]. In England Professor Skeat discovered at Shrewsbury a fragmentary text of this type in a manuscript of the early fifteenth century⁠[296]. It is written in a northern, probably Yorkshire, dialect, and contains the part, with cues, of a single actor in three plays, a Pastores, a Quem quaeritis, and a Peregrini. In the first he played the Third Shepherd, in the second the Third Mary, in the last probably Cleophas. The fragment shows clearly enough the way in which the Latin text was first sung by a group of performers together, and then expanded by them separately in the vernacular. The two documents last quoted mark not only the transition from Latin to the vernacular, but also that from the sung drama of the liturgies to the spoken drama of the great cycles. In Professor Skeat’s Shrewsbury fragments the Latin alone is musically noted. In the Trèves Quem quaeritis the Latin and portions of the German are noted, and a careful distinction is made between the lines to be spoken and those to be sung by the use of the terms cantat and dicit in the rubrics⁠[297].

Again, the laicization of the drama was accompanied by a further development of the secular and even comic elements, of which the germs already existed in the plays. A more human and less distinctively ecclesiastical handling became possible⁠[298]. The figure of Herod offered a melodramatic type of ranting tyrant which the tradition of the stage did not readily forget. The life of the unconverted Magdalen in gaudio gave the dramatist his opportunity to paint scenes of wholly secular luxury and romance. Naturally the comic developments attached themselves largely to personalities not already defined in the Testament narratives. The Mercator, for instance, whose domesticities with his wife and his apprentice do so much to enliven the later German plays, is a thoroughly characteristic production of the mediaeval folk spirit, for the delectation of which Rutebeuf wrote the Dit de l’Erberie⁠[299]. It is not, perhaps, altogether unjustifiable to trace a relation between him and the inveterate quack doctor of the spring folk drama itself⁠[300]. This would not be the only point of contact between the ludi of the Church and those of the folk. The significance, from this point of view, of Balaam’s ass has already been touched upon⁠[301]. And in the growth of the devil scenes, from their first beginnings in the Sponsus or in the devil-deacon of the Tollite portas⁠[302], to their importance in the Adam or the various treatments of the Fall of Lucifer and the Harrowing of Hell, may we not trace the influence of those masked and blackened demon figures who from all time had been a dear scandal of the Kalends and the Feast of Fools⁠[303]? It is certain that the imps who sallied amongst the spectators and haled the Fathers off to their limbo of clashed kettles and caldrons must have been an immensely popular feature of the Adam; and it is noteworthy that in more than one place the compagnies joyeuses who inherited the Feast of Fools joined forces with more serious confréries and provided comic actors for the religious plays⁠[304].

In yet another way the coming of the vernacular affected the character of the religious drama. It had been cosmopolitan; it was to be national: and from the fourteenth century, in spite of a few lendings and borrowings, and of a certain uniformity in the general lines of development, it really requires separate treatment in each of the European countries⁠[305]. In Italy the divergence from the common type was perhaps most marked of all, although I think that Signor D’Ancona and others have perhaps pushed the doctrine of the independence and isolation of Italian drama to an extreme. They consider that it almost began afresh with the religious stirrings of the Umbrian Flagellants in 1260. The compagnie or associations of disciplinati, who were the outcome of this thoroughly folk movement, were wont, as they lashed themselves, to sing hymns of praise, laudes, whence they got the secondary name of laudesi. The lauds were mostly sung in the chapels of the compagnie after mass and a sermon on Sundays. Several fourteenth-century collections are extant, and contain examples intended for use throughout the circle of the ecclesiastical year. Many of them were dialogued, and appear to have been recited in costume with scenic accessories. The dramatic lauds were specifically known as devozioni, and by the end of the fourteenth century were in some cases performed rather elaborately upon a talamo or stage in the nave of a church, with luoghi deputati for the accommodation of the chief actors. According to Signor D’Ancona, the devozioni, which were composed by poor folk, were taken direct from the liturgy and owed little more than the initial hint or impulse to the liturgical drama; while at the other end of these developments, they became the source of the out-of-door and splendidly-staged sacre rappresentazioni which originated in Florence in the fifteenth century and thence spread to other Italian cities⁠[306]. On this theory it must be observed that the devozioni have not been shown to be independent of the liturgical drama, and that the derivation of the sacre rappresentazioni from the devozioni is purely conjectural. The sacre rappresentazioni were out of doors and produced by the clergy or laity; the devozioni, which have not been traced to Florence, were produced indoors by religious guilds of a very distinct type. The sacre rappresentazioni, moreover, included subjects, such as the profeti, which are not within the cycle of the devozioni, but do belong to the liturgical drama. It is at least a tenable view, that the devozioni were merely a backwater of the drama, and that the sacre rappresentazioni were derived, like the fifteenth-century plays of other countries, from the liturgical drama through the medium of such transitional types as those already noted at Padua, Siena, and Cividale. The fact that the only transitional texts preserved are those of the devozioni has perhaps led to an exaggerated estimate of the importance of these. Even liturgical dramas are rare in Italy, although there are sufficient thoroughly to establish their existence. The chroniclers, however, mention one or two events which point to another dramatic tradition in Italy than that of the devozioni. At Florence itself, in 1306, there was a show of Heaven and Hell upon the Arno, which though merely pantomimic, may have been based on some dramatic representation of the Last Judgement⁠[307]. At Milan, in 1336, was a Stella, in which the Magi rode through the streets, and Herod sat by the columns of San Lorenzo⁠[308]. Both of these performances, like those at Padua and Cividale and the sacre rappresentazioni themselves, were out of doors. It is true that the sacre rappresentazioni fell less into big cycles than did the contemporary plays of other countries: but cycles were not unknown⁠[309], and it must be borne in mind that the extreme beauty and elaboration of the Florentine mise-en-scène made a limited scheme, on grounds both of time and expense, almost imperative.

With out-of-door plays climatic conditions began to be of importance. Even in sunny France, Christmas is not exactly the season to hang about the market-place looking at an interminable drama. It is not to be denied that Christmas plays continued to be occasionally acted well through the fifteenth century⁠[310], but the number of these, compared with the Passions, is small⁠[311]. Even Easter weather is not invariably genial. Nor, as the cycles lengthened, was the attachment of them to any one of the feasts, whose events they commemorated, a matter of first-rate importance. A tendency set in towards playing them as far as possible in the long warm days of the summer months. The first Whitsuntide performances are those at Cividale in 1298 and 1303; and Whitsuntide became a very favourite date⁠[312]. At Florence the great patronal feast and procession of St. John the Baptist on June 24 was a natural occasion for sacre rappresentazioni⁠[313]. Another high day for the cyclical drama from the fourteenth century onwards, notably in England⁠[314] and Spain⁠[315], and to a much less degree in Germany⁠[316] and France⁠[317], was the recently-established feast of Corpus Christi. This, the most materialistic of all the Church’s celebrations, is in honour of the mystery of the transubstantiated sacrament. It originated locally in an alleged revelation to Juliana, a Cistercian religious of Liège. Pope Urban IV designed in 1264 to make it a universal festival, but he died in the same year, and the bull which he had issued remained inoperative until it was confirmed by Clement V at the council of Vienne in 1311. Corpus Christi day was the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. An office was compiled for it by St. Thomas Aquinas, and the leading ceremony was a great procession in which the host, escorted by local dignitaries, religious bodies and guilds, was borne through the streets and displayed successively at out-of-door stations⁠[318]. When the plays were transferred to Corpus Christi day, they became more or less attached to this procession. Sometimes, perhaps, the procession served as a mere preliminary parade for the actors, such as sometimes preceded plays at other times⁠[319]. The play itself would follow on a fixed stage of the ordinary type. But the method of the great English cycles seems to point to a more complete merging of play and procession than this. The domus, loci, or sedes were set upon wheels, and known as ‘pageants⁠[320]’; and the performance was gone through during the procession, being repeated at the various stations made by the host. If the cycle was a very long one, time could be saved by making an early play at one station coincident with a later play at that in front of it. It is, however, easy to see that with the arrangement here suggested the popularity of the pageants might throw the strictly religious aspect of the procession rather into the shade. The two would then be severed again, but the play might still retain its processional character. This is not, I think, an unreasonable conjecture as to how the type of play found, say at York, may have come into existence⁠[321]. To Chester, where the plays were not on Corpus Christi day, but at Whitsuntide, the method must have been transferred at a later date.

During this brief survey of the critical period for the religious drama between the middle of the thirteenth and the middle of the fourteenth century, I have attempted to bring into relief the tendencies that were at work for its remodelling. But it must not be supposed that either the tendency to expansion or the tendency to secularization acted universally and uniformly. The truth is quite otherwise. To the end of the history of the religious drama, the older types, which it threw out as it evolved, co-existed with the newer ones⁠[322]. The Latin tropes and liturgical dramas held their place in the church services. And in the vernaculars, side by side with the growing Nativities and Passions, there continued to be acted independent plays of more than one sort. There were the original short plays, such as the Stella, the Annunciation, the Sponsus, the Antichrist, by the running together of which the cycles came into being. There were plays, on the other hand, which originated as episodes in the cycles, and only subsequently attained to an independent existence. The majority of these were Old Testament plays, budded off, like the Daniel, from the Prophetae. And finally there were numerous plays drawn from hagiological legends, many of which never came into connexion with the cycles at all. Thus in the transition period we find, not only plays on St. Nicholas and St. Catherine for which liturgical models existed, but also the great French series of Miracles of the Virgin, and plays on Saints Theophilus, Dorothy, Martial, and Agnes⁠[323]. The natural tendency of great churches to magnify their own patron saints led to further multiplication of themes. In the same way, long after the lay guilds and corporations had taken up the drama, performances continued to be given or superintended by the clergy and their scholars⁠[324]. Priests and monks supplied texts and lent vestments for the lay plays. To the last, the church served from time to time as a theatre. All these points, as well as the traces of their liturgical origin lingering in the cycles, will be fully illustrated, so far as England is concerned, in the following chapters.

The question presents itself: What was the official attitude of the high ecclesiastical authorities towards the growing religious plays? It is not precisely answered, as the history of the Feast of Fools has shown, by the fact that the chapters and inferior clergy encouraged and took part in them. The liturgical drama had its motive, as St. Ethelwold is careful to point out, in a desire for devotion and the edification of the vulgar⁠[325]. The hope of affording a counter-attraction to the spring and winter ludi of hard-dying paganism probably went for something. Herrad of Landsberg, in the twelfth century, utters a regret that the Stella rightly instituted at Epiphany by the Fathers of the Church had given place to a shameless revel⁠[326]. But a contrary opinion to Herrad’s arose almost contemporaneously amongst the reforming anti-imperial clergy of Germany. This finds expression more than once in the writings of Gerhoh of Reichersberg⁠[327]. He scoffs at the monks of Augsburg who, when he was magister scolae there about 1122, could only be induced to sup in the refectory, when a representation of Herod or the Innocents or some other quasi-theatrical spectacle made an excuse for a feast⁠[328]. And he devotes a chapter of his De Investigatione Antichristi, written about 1161, to an argument that clergy who turn the churches into theatres are doing the work of that very Antichrist of whom they make a show⁠[329]. Evidently Gerhoh has been stung by the lampooning of his party as the Hypocritae in the pro-imperialist Antichristus which is still extant. But he includes in his condemnation plays of a less special and polemical character, referring especially to the Nativity cycle and to a lost play of Elisaeus. He repeats some of the old patristic objections against larvae and spectacula, and tells tales, such as Prynne will tell after him, of how horrors mimicked by actors have been miraculously converted into verities⁠[330]. Literary historians occasionally commit themselves to the statement that Innocent III forbade the clergy to participate in miracle-plays⁠[331]. It is more than doubtful whether this was so. The prohibition in question is familiar to us, and it is clear that the ludi theatrales which Innocent barred from the churches were primarily the Feasts of Fools, and the like⁠[332]. And as a matter of fact the glossa ordinaria to the decretal by Bernard de Bottone, which itself dates from about 1263, so interprets the words of the Pope as expressly to allow of Christmas and Easter representations calculated to stimulate devotion⁠[333]. Yet there would have been no need for the gloss to have been written had not an opposite interpretation also been current. It was perhaps on the strength of the decree that another reformer, Robert Grosseteste, justified his action when in 1244 he directed his archdeacons to exterminate, so far as they could, the miracula, which he put on the same level as May-games and harvest-Mays, or the scotales of the folk⁠[334]. And it is certainly appealed to before the end of the thirteenth century in the Manuel des Péchés of the Anglo-Norman William of Waddington⁠[335]. Robert Grosseteste presumably, and William of Waddington specifically, objected to miracula even out of doors, which is surely stretching the words of Innocent III beyond what they will reasonably bear. In any case the austere view of the matter was not that which prevailed. The lax discipline of the ‘Babylonish captivity’ at Avignon, which allowed the Feast of Fools to grow up unchecked through the fourteenth century, was not likely to boggle at the plays. The alleged indulgence, not without modern parallels⁠[336], of Clement VI to the spectators of the Chester plays and the performance of a Stella given by the English bishops in honour of their continental colleagues at the council of Constance in 1417⁠[337] are two out of many proofs that the later mediaeval Church found no difficulty in accommodating itself to the somewhat disconcerting by-product of its own liturgy⁠[338]. Such opposition to the religious drama as can be traced after the thirteenth century came not from the heads of the Church but from its heretics. It is chiefly represented by a curious Tretise of miraclis pleyinge which dates from the end of the fourteenth century and may safely be referred to a Wyclifite origin⁠[339]. The burden of it is the sin of making ‘oure pleye and bourde of tho myraclis and werkis that God so ernestfully wrouȝt to us.’ On this note the anonymous preacher harps rather monotonously, and adds that ‘myraclis pleyinge ... makith to se veyne siȝtis of degyse, aray of men and wymmen by yvil continaunse, eyther stiryng othere to letcherie and of debatis.’ Like Gerhoh of Reichersberg, he thinks the plays ‘gynnys of the dyvul to drawen men to the byleve of Anti-Crist.’ He elaborately confutes the views that they are for the worship of God, or the more compassion of Christ, or lead to conversion. He will not allow that ‘summe recreatioun men moten han, and bettere it is or lesse yvele that thei han theyre recreacoun by pleyinge of myraclis than bi pleyinge of other japis.’ The analysis of the piece need not, perhaps, be pushed further. The opinions expressed do not appear to have had any weight either of popular or of ecclesiastical sentiment behind them; but they curiously antedate the histriomastic tracts of many a sixteenth and seventeenth-century Puritan.

This chapter may be fitly closed by a few words on the subject of nomenclature⁠[340]. The old classical terms of tragoedia and comoedia are not of course normally used of the religious plays until the Renaissance influences come in towards the end of the fifteenth century. Their mediaeval sense, in fact, implies nothing distinctively dramatic⁠[341]. The liturgical plays have often a purely liturgical heading, such as Processio Asinorum⁠[342], or Officium Sepulchri⁠[343], or Ordo Rachaelis⁠[344]. Perhaps officium may be taken to denote the thing itself, the special service or section of a service; ordo rather the book, the written directions for carrying out the officium. Or they have a title derived from their subject, such as Visitatio Sepulchri⁠[345], or Suscitatio Lazari⁠[346]. Or they are introduced in terms which cannot be said to have a technical signification at all, ad faciendam similitudinem⁠[347], ad suscipiendum⁠[348], ad repraesentandum⁠[349]. Similitudo I do not find outside Fleury, nor the corresponding exemplum outside the Benedictbeuern manuscript⁠[350]. From ad repraesentandum, however, a technical term does arise, and repraesentatio must be considered, more than any other word, as the mediaeval Latin equivalent of ‘dramatic performance⁠[351].’ This the Italian vernacular preserves as rappresentazione. A synonym for repraesentatio, which naturally came into use when the intention of recreation began to substitute itself for devotion, is ludus, with its vernacular renderings, all in common use, of jeu, Spiel, ‘play.’ But ludus, as already pointed out⁠[352], is a generic term for ‘amusement,’ and the special sense of ‘dramatic play’ is only a secondary one⁠[353]. ‘Clerks’ play’ as a variant for miracle-play is occasionally found⁠[354]. Yet another synonym which makes its appearance in the twelfth century, is miraculum; and this, originally a mere convenient shorthand for repraesentatio miraculi, came, especially in England, to stand for ‘religious play’ in general⁠[355]. Mystère, or ‘mystery,’ on the other hand, is not English at all, in a dramatic sense⁠[356], and in France first appears as misterie in the charter given by Charles VI in 1402 to the Parisian confrérie de la Passion⁠[357]. This term also acquires a very general signification by the end of the fifteenth century. Its radical meaning is still matter of dispute. Probably it is derived from ministerium, should be spelt mistère, and is spelt mystère by a natural confusion with the derivative of μυστήριον. Even then the question remains, what sort of ministerium? M. Petit de Julleville would explain it as a ‘religious function,’ and thus equate it precisely with officium⁠[358]. Only it does not appear in connexion with the liturgical plays⁠[359], and perhaps it is more plausible to regard it as denoting the ‘function’ of the guild of actors, just as its doublet menestrie, the English ‘minstrelsy,’ denotes the ‘function’ of the minstrels⁠[360], or its doublet métier, which in English becomes in fact ‘mystery,’ denotes the ‘function’ of the craft guilds. Perhaps the theory of M. de Julleville finds a little support from the term actio, which appears, besides its meaning in connexion with the Mass⁠[361], to be once at least used for a play⁠[362]. At any rate actus is so used as a Latin equivalent of the Spanish auto⁠[363].

CHAPTER XXI GUILD PLAYS AND PARISH PLAYS

[Bibliographical Note.—The English miracle play has been often, fully, and admirably studied from the point of view of dramatic literature; perhaps less so from that of stage history. The best accounts are those of B. Ten Brink, History of English Literature, bk. v, chs. 2-6 (trans. W. C. Robinson, vol. ii, 1893); A. W. Ward, History of English Dramatic Literature (2nd ed., 1899), vol. i, ch. 1; W. Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren Dramas, vol. i (1893); and the introduction to A. W. Pollard, English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes (3rd ed., 1898). These supersede J. P. Collier, History of English Dramatic Poetry (2nd ed., 1879), vol. ii, and J. L. Klein, Geschichte des englischen Dramas (1876), vol. i. Other useful books are J. A. Symonds, Shakspere’s Predecessors in the English Drama (1884), ch. 3; K. L. Bates, The English Religious Drama (1893), and J. J. Jusserand, Le Théâtre en Angleterre (1881), ch. 2. The substance of this last is incorporated in the same writer’s Literary History of the English People, vol. i (1895), bk. iii, ch. 6. W. J. Courthope, History of English Poetry, vol. i (1895), ch. 10, should also be consulted, as well as the valuable detailed investigations of A. Hohlfeld, Die altenglischen Kollektivmisterien, in Anglia, vol. xi (1889), and C. Davidson, Studies in the English Mystery Plays (1892). I do not think that S. W. Clarke, The Miracle Play in England (n.d.), and C. Hastings, Le Théâtre français et anglais (1900, trans. 1901), add very much. A. Ebert, Die englischen Mysterien, in Jahrbuch für romanische und englische Literatur, vol. i (1859), is an early manifestation of German interest in the subject, and the still earlier native learning may be found in T. Warton, History of English Poetry (ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1871), §§ 6, 33; E. Malone, Historical Account of the English Stage, in Variorum Shakespeare (1821), vol. iii; W. Hone, Ancient Mysteries Described (1823). The antiquarianism of T. Sharp, Dissertation on the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries Anciently Performed at Coventry (1825), is still a mine of material on the Realien of the stage.—The four great cycles have been edited as follows, in most cases with important introductions: the Chester Plays by T. Wright (Shakespeare Society, 1843-7) and by H. Deimling (E. E. T. S., part only issued in 1893); the York Plays by L. T. Smith (1885); the Towneley or Wakefield Plays by an uncertain editor (Surtees Society, 1836), and by G. England and A. W. Pollard (E. E. T. S. 1897); the Ludus Coventriae, by J. O. Halliwell [-Phillipps] (Shakespeare Society, 1841). A miscellaneous collection of late plays from one of the Bodleian Digby MSS. has been printed by T. Sharp (Abbotsford Club, 1835), and F. J. Furnivall (New Shakespeare Society, 1882, E. E. T. S. 1896). The Cornish cycle is in E. Norris, The Ancient Cornish Drama (1859). Good selections of typical plays are in A. W. Pollard’s book, and J. M. Manly, Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama (1897), vol. i. Older books of the same kind are J. P. Collier, Five Miracle Plays, or Scriptural Dramas (1836), and W. Marriott, A Collection of English Miracle Plays or Mysteries (Basle, 1838). The bibliographies given by Miss Bates and by F. H. Stoddard, References for Students of Miracle Plays and Mysteries (1887), may be supplemented from my Appendices of Representations and Texts, which I have tried to make as complete as possible.]

There is no reason to doubt that England had its full share in the earlier development of the religious drama. Texts of the liturgical period are, indeed, rare. The tenth-century version of the Quem quaeritis from Winchester and the fourteenth-century version from Dublin stand, at least for the present, alone. But the wholesale destruction of liturgical books at the Reformation is sufficient to account for such a sparseness, and a few stray notices gathered from the wreckage of time bear sufficient witness to the presence in this country of several amongst the more widespread types of liturgical play. The Lichfield statutes (1188-98) provide for repraesentationes of the Pastores, the Resurrectio, the Peregrini; those of York (†1255) for the Pastores and the Tres Reges; a Salisbury inventory of 1222 includes ‘crowns’ or more probably ‘stars’ (coronae) ad repraesentationes faciendas; while Lincoln account books of the early fifteenth century appear to add the Annuntiatio and the Prophetae, a visus called Rubum quem viderat in 1420 perhaps forming a Moses scene in the latter. So late as 1518 the Quem quaeritis was performed in Magdalen College chapel, and plays of the Nativity and the Resurrection by the clerks of the chapel are contemplated at about the same date in the household regulations of the Earl of Northumberland at Leconfield. Nor were dramatic versions of the legends of saints unknown. I do not trace a St. Nicholas cycle in England, although Hilarius, in whose repertory a St. Nicholas play is included, is thought to have been an Englishman by birth. But the memory of a play of St. Catherine prepared by Geoffrey the Norman at Dunstable early in the twelfth century was preserved, owing to the accident which led to Geoffrey ultimately becoming abbot of St. Albans; and towards the close of the same century William Fitzstephen records the representations of the miracles of holy confessors and the passions of martyrs which took the place of minstrelsy in London. For the most part such early plays are found in close connexion with the cathedrals and great monasteries. But a document of about 1220, the interpretation of which must, however, be considered doubtful, would seem to suggest that plays (actiones) were habitually given at no less than five chapelries within the single parish of Shipton in Oxfordshire, and that the profits thereof formed an appreciable part of the income derived from that living by the prebendaries of Salisbury cathedral.

Examples of the transitional forms by which the liturgical drama grew into the popular religious drama of the great cycles can also be found in England. At Beverley a Resurrection play is described as taking place in the graveyard of the minster about 1220. The intrusion of the vernacular is represented by the curious bilingual text of a single actor’s parts in the Pastores, Quem quaeritis and Peregrini, printed by Professor Skeat from a manuscript found at Shrewsbury. These are probably still liturgical in character, and it is to be observed that their subjects are precisely those of the three plays known to have been used in the neighbouring cathedral of Lichfield. It must remain a moot point whether the religious drama passed directly, in this country, from Latin to English, or whether there was a period during which performances were given in Norman-French. Scholars are inclined to find an Anglo-Norman dialect in that very important monument of the transition, the Repraesentatio Adae, as well as in an early example of the expanded Easter play. But even if the authors of these were, like Hilarius, of English birth, it hardly follows that their productions were acted in England. Nor do the probable borrowings of the Chester and other cycles from French texts much affect the question⁠[364]. That the disfavour with which the austerer section of the clergy looked upon the vernacular religious plays had its spokesmen in England, was sufficiently illustrated in the last chapter.

The English miracle-play reaches its full development with the formation of the great processional cycles almost immediately after the establishment of the Corpus Christi festival in 1311. The local tradition of Chester, stripped of a certain confusion between the names of two distinct mayors of that city which has clung about it, is found to fix the foundation of the Chester plays in 1328. The date has the authority of an official municipal document, forms part of a quite consistent story, several points in which can be independently corroborated, and is on a priori grounds extremely plausible. Unfortunately, owing to the comparative scarcity of archives during this period, the first fifty years of the history of municipal drama are practically a blank. A mention, about 1350, of a ludus filiorum Israelis, in connexion with a guild of Corpus Christi at Cambridge, spans a wide gulf. There is no actual record of plays at Chester itself until 1462. Those of Beverley are first mentioned in 1377, those of York in 1378, and those of Coventry in 1392. But it must be added that the Beverley plays were an antiqua consuetudo in 1390, and that those of York were to take place at stations antiquitus assignatis in 1394. It is in 1378 that the earliest notice of plays in London, since the days of William Fitzstephen, comes to light. The fuller records which are from this time onward available reveal, during the next hundred and fifty years, a vigorous and widespread dramatic activity throughout the length and breadth of the land. It manifests itself at such extreme points as the Cinque Ports in the east, Cornwall in the west, and Newcastle in the north. It penetrates to Aberdeen and to Dublin. And though naturally it finds its fullest scope in the annually repeated performances of several amongst the greater cities, yet it is curious to observe in what insignificant villages it was from time to time found possible to organize plays. Performers from thirteen neighbouring places, many of them quite small, made their way to New Romney between 1399 and 1508; whilst the churchwardens of Chelmsford, in the twelve years after their own play in 1562, reaped a profit by hiring out their stock of garments to the men of some seventeen aspiring parishes. On the other hand, there were several important towns in which, so far as we can judge from documents, such as craft ordinances, which would almost certainly have referred to the plays of the crafts, if these had existed, the normal type of municipal drama failed to establish itself. London is one, although here the want was supplied in another way; others are Northampton, Nottingham, Bristol, Oxford, and Reading. And occasionally plays, which had once been annual, were allowed to fall into desuetude and decay. The corporation of Canterbury, for instance, called upon the crafts about 1500 to revive a Corpus Christi play which for some time had been ‘left and laid apart.’ Certainly, by the sixteenth century, if there was still pride and interest taken in many of the municipal plays, signs were not wanting that they were an institution which had almost outlived its day. A reason for this need hardly be sought beyond the Zeitgeist. No doubt the plays were a financial burden upon the poorer crafts and the poorer members of crafts. There was much grumbling at Beverley in 1411 because certain well-to-do persons (generosi), who did not practise any trade or handicraft, had hitherto escaped the payment of contributions to the civic function; and municipal authorities were constantly called upon to adjust and readjust the responsibility for this and that pageant with the fluctuations of prosperity amongst the various occupations. But on the other hand, the plays, were the cause of much and profitable resort to those fortunate towns which possessed them. The mercers’ guild at Shrewsbury found it necessary to impose a special fine upon those of its members whose business avocations required them ‘to ride or goe to Coventrie Faire’ at Corpus Christi tide, and so to miss the procession of guilds at home⁠[365]. And although the mayor of Coventry wrote to Thomas Cromwell, in 1539, that the poor commoners were put to such expense with their plays and pageants that they fared the worse all the year after, yet against this may be set the statement made to Dugdale by ‘some old people who had in their younger days been eye-witnesses of these pageants’ that ‘the confluence of people from farr and neare to see that shew was extraordinary great, and yeilded noe small advantage to this cittye.’ Moreover the levy upon individuals was a trifling one; the whole of the company of smiths at Coventry only paid 3s. 4d. amongst them for ‘pagent pencys’ in 1552. A leitourgia is always an unpopular institution, and these complaints resemble nothing so much as the groans of an opulent London tradesman in the twentieth century over an extra penny on the education rate. In the smaller places it is clear that plays, far from being a source of expense, were a recognized method of raising funds for public purposes. Even in 1220 the emolumentum actionum from the chapelries of Shipton went to swell the purses of the Salisbury prebendaries. In 1505 the churchwardens of Kingston-on-Thames made £4 towards their new steeple by getting up a play for which they secured the patronage of royalty. At Braintree, in Essex, funds were similarly raised by Nicholas Udall and others, between 1523 and 1534, for the repair of the church. I have little doubt that when the mayor of Coventry said economy he meant Protestantism, just as when, under Elizabeth, the corporation of London wished to make a Puritanic attack upon the theatres, they were always smitten with a terrible dread of the infection of the plague⁠[366].

Certainly the spirit of Protestantism, although it came to be willing to use the religious drama for its own purposes⁠[367], was inclined to see both profanity and superstition in the ordinary miracle-plays⁠[368]. Here, as elsewhere, it inherited the hostile tradition which such reforming clerics as Gerhoh of Reichersberg in the twelfth century and Robert Grosseteste in the thirteenth had handed down to Wyclif and his Lollards. At Bungay in 1514 certain ill-disposed persons ‘brake and threw down five pageants’ usually borne about the town on Corpus Christi day. One may fairly suspect, even at this early date, a Lollardist intention in the outrage, and perhaps also in the interposition of the authority of the warden of the Cinque Ports to suppress the play of New Romney in 1518. With the progress of the new ideas the big cycles began to be irregularly performed or to undergo textual modification. The plays of York, for example, were shorn in 1548 of the pageants representing the Death, Assumption, and Coronation of the Virgin. On the other hand, religious plays sometimes became a rallying-point for those who favoured the old order of things. There is extant a letter from Henry VIII to the justices of York, in which he refers to a riot promoted by certain papists at a play of St. Thomas the Apostle, and warns them not to suffer upon such occasions any language likely to tend to a breach of the peace. The brief Marian reaction led to the resumption of the plays in more than one town which had dropped them. The Lincoln corporation ordered ‘St. Anne’s Gild with Corpus Cristi play’ to be brought forward again in 1554 and 1555. In London Henry Machyn records during 1557 a Passion play at the Grey Friars, and another in the church of St. Olave’s, Silver Street, on the festival of the patron. The New Romney play was elaborately revived, after forty-two years’ interval, in 1560. But the process of decay soon set in again. Even where the plays survived, they were Protestantized, and as Corpus Christi day was no longer observed, the performances had to be transferred to some other date. At York the text of the Corpus Christi play was ‘perused and otherwise amended’ in 1568. In 1569 it was acted upon Whit-Tuesday. Then it lay by until 1579, when the book was referred to the archbishop and dean for further revision, and apparently impounded by them. The Creed play was suppressed, by advice of the dean, in 1568, as unsuitable to ‘this happie time of the gospell.’ The Paternoster play was revised and played in 1572. Then this text also fell into the hands of the archbishop, and the corporation seem to have been unable to recover it. So ended the religious drama in York. In Chester the municipal authorities stood out gallantly for their plays. John Hankey and Sir John Savage, mayors in 1572 and 1575 respectively, were called before the privy council for sanctioning performances in spite of inhibitions from the archbishop of York and other persons of authority. They had revised the text, and had a new and Protestant version of the preliminary ‘banns’ prepared. Copies of the text appear to have been got ready for yet another performance in 1600, but the local annalists record that Henry Hardware, then mayor, ‘would not suffer any Playes.’ In one or two cities, new plays, dealing with apocryphal or other merely semi-religious themes, were substituted for the old ones. Thus at Lincoln a ‘standing play’ of the story of Tobit was given in 1564 and 1567; and in Coventry, where the old cycle had been ‘laid down’ in 1580, an Oxford scholar was hired in 1584 to write a semi-religious semi-historical drama of the Destruction of Jerusalem. In 1591, the Conquest of the Danes and the History of King Edward the Confessor were proposed as alternatives for this. By the end of the sixteenth century all the cycles of which most is known had come to an end. The smaller places—Chelmsford in 1574, Braintree in 1579, Bungay in 1591—had sold off their stock of playing-garments. For such dramatic entertainment as the provinces were still to get, they must look to travelling companies taking their summer vacation from the metropolis. Miracle-plays during the seventeenth century were a mere survival. They lingered in distant Cornwall and at Kendal in the hill country of the north; and had been replaced by morals, themselves almost equally obsolete, at Manningtree. The last religious play recorded in England is a quite exceptional one, given at the end of James I’s reign before Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, and an audience which numbered thousands at Ely Place in Holborn.

In giving some account of the distribution of the various types of religious play throughout England during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, I am dispensed from any obligation to be exhaustive by the fact that the greater municipal dramas at least have already been the subject of more than one fairly adequate discussion. All I shall attempt will be a brief general summary of the main points which emerge from the more or less detailed local notices collected in a lengthy appendix.

The characteristic English type of play was the long cycle given annually under the superintendence of the corporation or governing body of an important city and divided into a number of distinct scenes or ‘pageants,’ each of which was the special charge of one or more of the local ‘crafts,’ ‘arts,’ or ‘occupations.’ Such cycles, organized upon very similar lines, can be studied in the records available from Chester, York, Beverley, Coventry, Newcastle, Lincoln, and Norwich; and the same general model is known or conjectured—sometimes, it is true, on the slightest indication—to have been followed in the plays of Lancaster, Preston, Kendal, Wakefield, Leicester, Worcester, Louth, Bungay, Canterbury, Dublin, and Aberdeen. As in all matters of municipal custom, the relative functions of the corporations and the crafts were nicely adjusted. The direction and control of the plays as a whole were in the hands of the corporations. They decided annually whether the performance should be given, or whether, for war, pestilence, or other reason, it should be withheld. They sent round their officers to read the proclamation or ‘banns’ of the play. They kept an official version of the text, at Chester an ‘original,’ at York a ‘register’ copied from the ‘originals’ belonging to the crafts. Agreements and disputes as to the liability of this or that craft to maintain or contribute to a particular pageant were entered or determined before them. They maintained order at the time of the play and inflicted fines on the turbulent, or upon crafts neglectful or unskilful in carrying out their responsibilities. In particular they required the provision of properly qualified actors. Thus Robert Greene and others were admonished before the leet of Coventry in 1440, that they should play bene et sufficienter so as not to cause a hindrance in any iocus. Similarly, Henry Cowper, ‘webster,’ was fined by the wardens of Beverley in 1452, quod nesciebat ludum suum. An order at York, in 1476, directed the choice of a body of ‘connyng, discrete, and able players’ to test the quality of all those selected as actors. All ‘insufficiant personnes, either in connyng, voice or personne’ they were to ‘discharge, ammove, and avoide’; and no one was to perform more than twice in the course of the day. Sometimes the actual oversight of the plays was delegated to specially appointed officers. At Beverley the wardens themselves ‘governed’ the Corpus Christi plays, but the Paternoster play was in the hands of ‘aldermen of the pageants.’ At Aberdeen the Haliblude play was undertaken in 1440 by the local lord of misrule, known as the Abbot of Bon Accord; for the Candlemas play ‘bailyes’ represented the corporation. At Lincoln the ‘graceman’ of the guild of St. Anne was responsible, and had the aid of the mayor. At Leicester a number of ‘overseers’ with two ‘bedalls’ were chosen to have the ‘gydyng and rule’ of the play.

The corporations do not appear to have themselves incurred much expenditure over the performances. They provided sitting-room and refreshments for their own members, and for distinguished guests. Richard II was elaborately entertained with a special pagina when he visited York on Corpus Christi day, 1397. Sixty years later a collation, including ‘ij cofyns of counfetys and a pot of grene gynger,’ was made ready for Queen Margaret on her visit to Coventry. At York and Beverley, but not at Coventry, the corporations paid the minstrels, and occasionally made a special contribution to the funds of a particularly poor pageant. At York the corporation could well afford to do this, for they claimed the right to fix certain ‘stations’ at which, as well as at two or three traditional ones, the plays should be given, and they made a considerable annual profit out of payments by well-to-do citizens who aspired to have one of these at their doors. The stations were marked by banners broidered with the arms of the city. At Leicester the ‘playyng germands’ seem to have belonged to the corporation. At Beverley in 1391 they owned all the ‘necessaries,’ pageant garments and properties, of the play of Paradise, and lent the same upon security to the craft charged therewith. The pageants may also have been originally corporation property in York, for it was stipulated in 1422 that one of them, like the banners at the stations, should bear the arms of the city, to the exclusion of those of the craft.

As a rule, the cost of the plays fell almost wholly upon the crafts. The ordinances of the craft-guilds provide for their maintenance as a leitourgia or fraternal duty, in the same way as they often provide for a ‘serge’ or light to be burnt in some chapel or carried in the Corpus Christi procession, or, at Beverley, for the castellum in which the craft sat to do honour to the procession of St. John of Beverley in Rogation week. At Coventry, where the burden upon the crafts was perhaps heaviest, they were responsible for the provision, repairing, ornamenting, cleaning, and strewing with rushes of the pageant, for the ‘ferme’ or rent of the pageant house, for the payment of actors, minstrels, and prompter, for the revision of play-book and songs and the copying of parts, for the ‘drawing’ or ‘horsing’ of the pageant on the day of the performance, for costumes and properties, and above all for copious refreshments before and after the play, at the stations, and during the preliminary rehearsals. The total cost of the smiths’ pageant in 1490 was £3 7s. 5½d. In 1453 they had contracted with one Thomas Colclow to have ‘the rewle of the pajaunt’ for twelve years at an annual payment of £2 6s. 8d., and other examples of ‘play lettine’ can be traced at Newcastle and elsewhere. But it was more usual for the crafts to retain the management of the pageants in their own hands; at York each guild appointed its ‘pageant-masters’ for this purpose. The expense to the craft primarily in charge of a pageant was sometimes lightened by fixed contributions from one or more minor bodies affiliated to it for the purpose. Part of it was probably met from the general funds of the craft; the rest was raised by various expedients. A levy, known as ‘pagent pencys’ at Coventry and as ‘pajaunt silver’ at York, was made upon every member. The amount varied with the numbers of the craft and the status of the craftsman. At York it ranged from 1d. to 8d. At Beverley the journeymen paid 8d. to light, play, and castle, and 6d. only in years when there was no play. At Coventry the ordinary members of more than one craft paid 1s.; others apparently less. To the proceeds of the levy might be added fines for the breach of craft ordinances, payments on the taking out of freedom by strangers and the setting up of shop or indenturing of apprentices by freemen. At York, the mercers are found granting free admission to a candidate for their fraternity on condition of his entering into a favourable contract for the supply of a new pageant. At Coventry, in 1517, one William Pisford left a scarlet and a crimson gown to the tanners for their plays, together with 3s. 4d. to every craft charged with the maintenance of a pageant. Besides the levy, certain personal services were binding upon the craftsmen. They had to attend upon the play, to do it honour; the Coventry cappers expected their journeymen to do the ‘horsing’ of the pageant.

In some cities, the crafts received help from outside. At Coventry, in 1501, the tilers’ pageant got a contribution of 5s. from the neighbouring tilers of Stoke. At Chester, vestments were borrowed from the clergy; at Lincoln from the priory and the local gentry. A ‘gathering’ was also made in the surrounding districts. The only trace of any charge made to the spectators, other than the fees for ‘stations’ at York, is at Leicester, where, in 1477, the players paid over to the ‘pachents’ certain sums they had received for playing.

The majority of the crafts in a big city were, of course, already formed into guilds for ordinary trade purposes, and in their case the necessary organization for the plays was to hand. But no citizen could wholly escape his responsibility in so important a civic matter. At Coventry it was ordered in 1494 that every person exercising any craft must become contributory to some pageant or other. At York the innholders, who do not appear to have been a regular guild, were organized in 1483 for the purposes of a pageant on the basis of a yearly contribution of 4d. from each man. The demand at Beverley in 1411 for the appropriation of a play to the generosi has already been alluded to. In a Beverley list of 1520 the ‘Gentylmen’ are put down for the ‘Castle of Emaut.’ It may be suspected that some of the other crafts named in the same list, such as the ‘Husbandmen’ and the ‘Labourers,’ were not regular guilds; not to speak of the ‘Prestes,’ who played the ‘Coronacion of Our Lady.’ This participation of religious bodies in the craft plays can be paralleled from other towns. At York the hospital of St. Leonard took the Purification in 1415; at Lincoln the cathedral clergy, like the priests at Beverley, were responsible for the Coronation or Assumption of the Virgin, a play which at Chester was given by the ‘worshipfull wyves of this town,’ and at York by the innholders. Both at York and Chester this scene was dropped at the Reformation. Possibly its somewhat exceptional position may be accounted for by its having been a comparatively late addition in all four cycles. Some endeavour after dramatic appropriateness is visible in the apportioning of the other plays amongst the crafts. Thus Noah is given to the shipwrights (York, Newcastle), the watermen (Beverley, Chester), the fishers and mariners (York); the Magi to the goldsmiths (Beverley, Newcastle, York); the Disputation in the Temple to the scriveners (Beverley); the Last Supper to the bakers (Beverley, Chester, York); the Harrowing of Hell to the cooks (Beverley, Chester).

A somewhat anomalous position is occupied amongst towns in which the plays were in the hands of the crafts by Lincoln. Here the task of supervision was shared with the corporation by a special guild, religious and social rather than industrial in character⁠[369], of St. Anne. Perhaps this guild had at one time been solely responsible for the plays, and there had been a crisis such as took place at Norwich in 1527. Before that date the charge of the plays had been borne, fittingly enough, by the guild of St. Luke, composed of painters and metalworkers. But in 1527 this guild was ‘almost fully decayed,’ and upon the representation of its members the corporation agreed that in future the pageants should be distributed amongst the various crafts as was customary elsewhere. The Lincoln plays were on St. Anne’s day, but one does not find a position comparable to that of the St. Anne’s guild held by Corpus Christi guilds in other towns. As a rule such guilds concerned themselves with the Corpus Christi procession, but not with the plays. At Ipswich, indeed, the Corpus Christi guild had the whole conduct of the plays, and the craft-guilds as such were not called upon; but this Ipswich guild arose out of a reorganization of the old merchant-guild, included all the burgesses, and was practically identical with the corporation. Other towns, in which the corporation managed the plays itself, without the intervention of the craft-guilds, are Shrewsbury, New Romney, and Lydd.

On the other hand, where neither the corporation nor the crafts undertook plays, it was no uncommon thing for a guild of the religious or social type to step into the breach. A series of London plays recorded in 1384, 1391, 1409, and 1411 may all be not unreasonably ascribed to a guild of St. Nicholas, composed of the ‘parish clerks’ attached to the many churches of the city. At a later date the performances of this guild seem to have become annual and they are traceable, with no very great certainty, to the beginning of the sixteenth century. They were cyclical in character, but not processional, and took place hard by the well known indifferently as Skinners’ well or Clerkenwell, amongst the orchards to the north of London. Chaucer says of his ‘parish clerk,’ the ‘joly Absolon,’ that

These London plays may have had some original connexion with the great fair of the neighbouring priory of St. Bartholomew upon August 24; but they are recorded at various dates during the summer, and extended over four, five, or even seven days. Whether the guild of St. Nicholas bore any relation to the clerks of St. Paul’s, who petitioned Richard II in 1378 against the rivalry of certain ‘unexpert people’ in the production of an Old Testament play, must be matter for conjecture. The performance contemplated at St. Paul’s was to be at Christmas. The Cambridge guild of Corpus Christi was responsible for a ludus Filiorum Israelis about 1350, and this is more likely to have formed part of a cycle than to have stood alone. An unverified extract of Warton’s from a Michael-House computus suggests that some of the Cambridge colleges may have assisted in dramatic undertakings. At Abingdon the hospital of Christ held their feast on Holy Cross day (May 3), 1445, ‘with pageantes and playes, and May games.’ At Sleaford, in 1480, a play of the Ascension was performed by the guild of the Holy Trinity. At Wymondham a guild seems to have existed in the sixteenth century for the express purpose of holding a ‘watch and play’ at Midsummer. The proceedings were directed by officers designated ‘husbands.’ The one example of an isolated play under the management of a craft-guild is at Hull. Here an annual play of Noah, with a ship or ark which went in procession, was in the hands of the Trinity House, a guild of master mariners and pilots. The records extend from 1421 to 1529. There is no sign of a dramatic cycle at Hull. The Noah play was given on Plough Monday, and it is possible that one may trace here a dramatized version of just such a ship procession as may be found elsewhere upon the coasts in spring⁠[371]. After the performance the ‘ship’ was hung up in the church. The text of the play was perhaps borrowed from that of the watermen of the neighbouring city of Beverley.

Where there were craft-plays, social and religious guilds sometimes gave supplementary performances. The ‘schaft’ or parochial guild of St. Dunstan’s, Canterbury, owned a play of Abraham and Isaac in 1491. This may have been merely a contribution towards the craft-cycle on Corpus Christi day. On the other hand, the play of St. George, contemplated by the guild of that saint at New Romney in 1490, was probably an independent undertaking. The town play here was a Passion play. At York there were two rivals to the Corpus Christi plays. One was the Paternoster play, for the production of which a guild of the Lord’s Prayer was in existence at least as early as 1378. By 1488 this guild was absorbed into the Holy Trinity guild of the mercers, and in the year named the play was given, apparently at the charges of the mercers, instead of the ordinary cycle. All the crafts contributed to similar performances in 1558 and 1572. But by this time the supervision, under the corporation, of the play had passed to one of the few religious guilds in York which had escaped suppression, that of St. Anthony. The other extraordinary York play was a Creed play, bequeathed to the guild of Corpus Christi in 1446. This was stationary, and was acted decennially about Lammas-tide (August 1) at the common hall. In 1483, it was ‘apon the cost of the most onest men of every parish,’ who were, it may be supposed, members of the guild. In 1535 the crafts paid for it instead of their usual cycle. Upon the suppression of the guild, the play-book passed into the custody of the hospital of St. Thomas.

In the same way there are instances in which the clergy, who elsewhere lent help to the craft-plays, gave independent exhibitions of their own. At Chester, before the Reformation, they eked out the Whitsun cycle by a supplementary performance on Corpus Christi day. The priors of St. John of Jerusalem, Holy Trinity, and All Saints contributed their share to the somewhat incongruous blend of religious and secular entertainments provided by the traders of Dublin for the earl of Kildare in 1528. The so-called Ludus Coventriae has often been supposed to be the play-book of a cycle acted by the Grey Friars or Franciscans of Coventry. This theory hardly survives critical examination. But in 1557, during the Marian reaction, a Passion play was given at the Grey Friars in London, and the actors were possibly restored brethren. Miracle-plays must often have been performed in choir schools, especially upon their traditional feast-days of St. Nicholas, St. Catherine, and the Holy Innocents. But there are only two examples, besides that of St. Paul’s in 1378, actually upon record. In 1430 the pueri eleemosynae of Maxstoke acted on Candlemas day in the hall of Lord Clinton’s castle; and in 1486 those of St. Swithin’s and Hyde abbeys combined to entertain Henry VII with the Harrowing of Hell as he sat at dinner in Winchester.

Many minor plays, both in towns and in country villages, were organized by the clergy and other officials of parish churches, and are mentioned in the account books of churchwardens. At London, Kingston, Oxford, Reading, Salisbury, Bath, Tewkesbury, Leicester, Bungay, and Yarmouth, such parochial plays can be traced, sometimes side by side with those provided by craft or other guilds. The parochial organization was the natural one for the smaller places, where the parish church had remained the centre of the popular life⁠[372]. The actiones in the chapelries of Shipton in Oxfordshire during the thirteenth century may have been plays of this type. The municipal records of Lydd and New Romney mention visits of players to the towns between 1399 and 1508 from no less than fourteen neighbouring places in Kent and Sussex, many of which must have been then, as they are now, quite insignificant. They are Hythe, Wittersham, Herne, Ruckinge, Folkestone, Appledore, Chart, Rye, Wye, Brookland, Halden, Bethersden, Ham, and Stone. A few other village plays are to be traced in the fifteenth century. In the sixteenth century they are fairly numerous, especially in the eastern counties. In Essex they are found at Chelmsford, Braintree, Halstead, Heybridge, Malden, Saffron Walden, Billericay, Starford, Baddow (by ‘children’), Little Baddow, Sabsford, Boreham, Lanchire, Witham, Brentwood, Nayland, Burnham, High Easter, Writtle, Woodham Walter, and Hanningfield; in Cambridgeshire at Bassingbourne; in Lincolnshire at Holbeach; in Norfolk at Harling, Lopham, Garboldisham, Shelfhanger, and Kenninghall; in Suffolk at Boxford, Lavenham, and Mildenhall; in Leicestershire at Foston; in Somersetshire at Morebath; and in Kent once more at Bethersden. The latest instance is a ‘Kynge play’ at Hascombe in Surrey in 1579.

Parochial plays, whether in town or country, appear to have been in most cases occasional, rather than annual. Sometimes, as at Kingston and Braintree, they became a means of raising money for the church, and even where this object is not apparent, the expenses were lightened in various ways at the cost of neighbouring villages. ‘Banns’ were sent round to announce the play; or the play itself was carried round on tour. Twenty-seven villages contributed to a play at Bassingbourne in 1511. The Chelmsford play of 1562 and 1563 cost about £50, of which a good proportion was received from the spectators. The play was given at Malden and Braintree as well as at Chelmsford, and for years afterwards the letting out of the stock of garments proved a source of revenue to the parish. This same practice of hiring garments can be traced at Oxford, Leicester, and elsewhere. The parochial plays were always, so far as can be seen, stationary. At Leicester, Braintree, Halstead, and Heybridge they were in the church. That of Harling was ‘at the church gate,’ that of Bassingbourne in a ‘croft’; that of Chelmsford in a ‘pightell.’ At Reading performances in the market-place and in an open piece of ground called (then and now) the ‘Forbury’ are mentioned.

There remain a certain number of plays as to the organization of which nothing definite can be said. Such are the minor plays, on the legends of saints, recorded by the annalists of London, Coventry, and Lincoln; those referred to in the corporation accounts of King’s Lynn, as given by unspecified players between 1385 and 1462; and those which took place, as late as the seventeenth century, in ‘rounds’ or amphitheatres at St. Just, Perranzabulo, and elsewhere in Cornwall.

CHAPTER XXII GUILD PLAYS AND PARISH PLAYS ( continued )

The last chapter occupied itself mainly with the diffusion of the vernacular religious plays in England, with their organization, and with their part in municipal and village life. That study must be completed by at least the outline of another, dealing with the content and nature of the performances themselves. Here again it is variety rather than uniformity which requires attention; for the records and texts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries bear witness to the effective survival of all the diverse types of play, to which the evolution of the dramatic instinct gave birth in its progress from liturgical office to cosmic cycle.

The term of the evolution—the cosmic cycle itself—is represented by five complete texts, and one fragment sufficiently substantial to be ranked with these. There are the plays of the York and Chester crafts. The manuscript of the former dates from the middle of the fifteenth century; those of the latter from the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth: but in both cases it may be assumed that we possess the plays, with certain modifications, additions, and omissions, as they were given in the palmy days of their history. There are also, in a fifteenth-century manuscript, the so-called ‘Towneley’ plays, as to whose origin the most likely theory is that they are the craft-plays of Wakefield. There is the Ludus Coventriae, also of the fifteenth century, which has probably nothing to do with Coventry, but is either, as scholars generally hold, the text of a strolling company, or, as seems to me more probable, that of a stationary play at some town in the East Midlands not yet identified. If I am right, the Ludus Coventriae occupies a midway position between the three northern craft cycles, which are all processional plays, split up into a number of distinct pageants, and the fifth text, which is Cornish. This is probably of the fourteenth century, although extant in a fifteenth-century manuscript, and doubtless represents a stationary performance in one of the ‘rounds’ still to be seen about Cornwall. The fragment, also Cornish, is not a wholly independent play, but a sixteenth-century expansion of part of the earlier text.

A study of the table of incidents printed in an appendix will show the general scope of the cyclical plays⁠[373]. My comments thereon must be few and brief. The four northerly cycles have a kernel of common matter, which corresponds very closely with just that dramatic stuff which was handled in the liturgical and the earliest vernacular dramas. It includes the Fall of Lucifer, the Creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel; then the Annunciation and the group of scenes, from the Pastores to the Massacre of the Innocents, which went to make up the Stella; then the Passion in the narrower sense, centring in the planctus Mariae and extending from the Conspiracy of the Jews to the Descent from the Cross; then the Resurrection scenes, centring in the Quem quaeritis and ending with the Peregrini and Incredulity of Thomas; then the Ascension, the Pentecost, and finally the Iudicium or Doomsday. Almost equally invariable is something in the way of a Prophetae. But at York this is thrown into narrative instead of dramatic form; and at Chester the typical defile of prophets, each with his harangue, is deferred to almost the close of the cycle (Play xxiii), and in its usual place stand two independent episodes of Balaam and of Octavian and the Sibyl. Two other groups of scenes exhibit a larger measure of diversity between the four cycles. One is that drawn from the history of the Old Testament Fathers, out of which the Deluge and the Sacrifice of Isaac are the only incidents adopted by all four. The other is the series taken from the missionary life of Christ, where the only common scenes are the Raising of Lazarus and the Feast in the House of Simon the Leper, both of which can be traced back to the liturgical drama⁠[374].

The principal source of the plays belonging to this common kernel is, of course, the biblical narrative, which is followed, so far as it goes, with considerable fidelity, the most remarkable divergence being that of the Ludus Coventriae, which merges the Last Supper with the scene in the House of Simon. But certain embroideries upon scripture, which found their way into the religious drama at an early stage of its evolution, are preserved and further elaborated. Thus each of the four cycles has its Harrowing of Hell, which links the later scenes with the earlier by introducing, as well as the devils, such personages as Adam and Eve, Enoch and Elijah, John the Baptist and others⁠[375]. Similarly the Suspicion of Joseph and the obstetrices at the Virgin Birth finds a place in all four⁠[376], as does the Healing of Longinus, the blind knight, by the blood-drops from the cross⁠[377]. Other apocryphal or legendary elements are confined to one or more of the cycles⁠[378]. The Chester plays, for example, have a marked development of the eschatological scenes. Not only is the Iudicium itself extremely long and elaborate, but it is preceded by two distinct plays, one a section of the split-up Prophetae ending with the Fifteen Signs, the other an Antichrist, in which, as in the Tegernsee Antichristus⁠[379], Enoch and Elijah appear as disputants. The most legendary of the northerly cycles is without doubt the Ludus Coventriae. It has the legend of Veronica, which is only hinted at in the corresponding York play. And it has so long a series of scenes drawn from the legends of the Virgin as to make it probable that, like the Lincoln plays and another East Midland cycle of which a fragment is extant, it was performed not on Corpus Christi day but on that of St. Anne. Before the Annunciation it inserts the episodes of Joachim and Anne, Mary in the Temple, and the Betrothal of Mary. To the common episode of the Suspicion of Joseph it adds the Purgation of Mary. In the Resurrection scene is a purely legendary Apparition of Christ to the Virgin; while the Death, Burial, Assumption, and Coronation of Mary intervene between the Pentecost and the Iudicium. This matter from the after-history of the Virgin belongs also to the York plays, which add the Apparition to St. Thomas of India.

The Cornish plays, although in many respects they are parallel to those of the north, have yet some very marked features of their own. They have episodes of the miraculous Release of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea from Prison, and of the Death of Pilate and the Interview of Veronica with Tiberius⁠[380]. But their most remarkable legendary addition is an elaborate treatment of the history of the Holy Rood, which provides the motives for the scenes dealing with Seth, Moses, David, Solomon, Maximilla, and the Bridge upon Cedron⁠[381]. On the other hand the Cornish plays close with the Ascension and entirely omit the sub-cycle of the Nativity, passing direct, but for the Holy Rood matter, from the Sacrifice of Isaac to the Temptation.

It is not improbable that the majority of the Corpus Christi and other greater English plays reached the dimensions of a cosmic cycle. But in only a few cases is any definite evidence on the point available. Complete lists are preserved from Beverley and Norwich. The Beverley series seems to have been much on the scale of the four extant cycles. It extended in thirty-six pageants from the Fall of Lucifer to Doomsday. Like the Cornish cycle, it included the episode of Adam and Seth; and it presented an exceptional feature in the insertion of a play of the Children of Israel after the Flight into Egypt. The Norwich cycle, which began with the Creation and ended with Pentecost, was a short one of twelve pageants⁠[382]. The small number is due, partly to the grouping of several episodes in a single play, partly to the omission of the Passion proper. The Resurrection followed immediately upon the Baptism. Of other plays, the chroniclers record that in 1391 the London performance covered both the Old and New Testament, that in 1409 it went from the Creation to the Day of Judgement, and that in 1411 it was ‘from the begynnyng of the worlde.’ The fragmentary indications of the records preserved show that the Chelmsford play stretched at least from the Creation to the Crucifixion, the Newcastle play at least from the Creation to the Burial of the Virgin⁠[383], the Lincoln play at least from the Deluge to the Coronation of the Virgin. On the other hand the range of the Coventry plays can only be shown to have been from the Annunciation to Doomsday, although it may be by a mere accident that no Old Testament scenes are here to be identified⁠[384].

Examples, though unfortunately no full texts, can also be traced of the separate Nativity and Easter cycles, the merging of which was the most important step in the formation of the complete Corpus Christi play. Both, if I read the evidence aright, existed at Aberdeen. There was a ‘Haliblude’ play on Corpus Christi day, which I conceive to have been essentially a Passion and Resurrection, and a play at Candlemas, which seems to have included, as well as the Purification, a Stella, a Presentation in the Temple, and something in the way of a Prophetae. There were performances of Passions in Reading in 1508, in Dublin in 1528, at Shrewsbury in 1567, and in London in 1557 and as late as between 1613 and 1622. I do not suppose that in any of these cases ‘Passion’ excludes ‘Resurrection.’ The New Romney town play, also, seems to have been a Passion in the wider sense. The records of Easter plays at Bath (1482), Leicester (1504-7), Morebath (1520-74), Reading (1507, 1533-5), and Kingston (1513-65), are too slight to bear much comment. They may relate to almost anything from a mere Latin Quem quaeritis to a full vernacular Passion and Resurrection.

One interesting text falls to be considered at this point. This is a fifteenth-century Burial and Resurrection of northern provenance. It is very lyrical in character, and apparently the author set out to write a ‘treyte’ to be read, and shortly after the beginning changed his mind and made a play of it. There are two scenes. The first is an elaborate planctus, ‘to be playede on gud-friday after-none.’ The second, intended for ‘Esterday after the resurrectione, In the morowe’ is a Quem quaeritis. An Ascension play was performed by the Holy Trinity guild at Sleaford in 1480. A ‘Christmasse play’ is recorded at Tintinhull in 1451. How much it included can hardly be guessed. But the Stella maintained its independent position, and is found at Yarmouth (1462-1512), Reading (1499, 1539), Leicester (1547), Canterbury (1503), Holbeach (1548), and Hascombe (1579)⁠[385].

The plays just enumerated may be regarded as of precyclical types. But there are a few others which, although they occur independently, would have their more natural position in cycles of less or greater range. In some of these cases it is probable that the independence is only apparent, a mere matter of incomplete evidence. There are two fifteenth-century plays, both on the subject of Abraham and Isaac, one of which is preserved in the ‘Book of Brome’ from Suffolk, the other in a manuscript now at Dublin, but probably of South Midland provenance. It is of course not impossible that these represent isolated performances, but it is on the whole more likely that they are fragments of lost cycles. A third play, of Midland origin, preserved in the Digby manuscript, occupies an exceptional position. It deals with the Massacre of the Innocents and the Purification, and allusions in a prologue and epilogue make it clear that it belonged to a cycle in which it was preceded by a Pastores and a Magi, and followed by a Christ in the Temple. This cycle, however, was not played all at once, but a portion was given year by year on St. Anne’s day. One of the groups of plays brought together in the Ludus Coventriae was evidently intended for performance under similar conditions. It is probable that the ludus Filiorum Israelis of the Cambridge Corpus Christi guild about 1350, the Abraham and Isaac of the ‘schaft’ of St. Dunstan’s, Canterbury, between 1491 and 1520, and the Adam and Eve (1507) and ‘Cayme’s pageaunt’ (1512-5) of St. Lawrence’s, Reading, formed parts of Corpus Christi cycles given in those towns.

Isolated performances of plays picked out of a cycle, or upon subjects usually treated in a cycle, are, however, not unknown. One or more of the Chester plays occasionally formed part of the civic entertainment of a royal or noble personage. When Henry VII visited Winchester in 1486, the schoolboys of the two great abbeys of Hyde and St. Swithin’s gave a Christi Descensus ad Inferos before him at dinner. At York the acting of an ‘interlude of St. Thomas the Apostle’ on a St. Bartholomew’s eve towards the end of the reign of Henry VIII became the occasion for a papist demonstration. This might have been either the Incredulity of Thomas (Play xlii) or the Apparition of the Virgin to St. Thomas in India (Play xlvi) from the Corpus Christi cycle. At York, also, there was, in the hands of a Corpus Christi guild, a distinct play, frequently performed between 1446 and the Reformation, called the Creed play. This was apparently an expansion of a motive found in the Pentecost scene at Chester and probably at Coventry, but not at York itself, wherein, after the coming of the Holy Ghost, each of the apostles in turn enunciates one of the articles of the so-called Apostles’ creed. At Hull, where I find no trace of a cycle, the Trinity guild of sea-faring men had their play of Noah. At Lincoln, a play of Tobit, which does not actually, so far as I know, form part of the Old Testament section of any English cycle⁠[386], was substituted for the regular Corpus Christi play after the Reformation. Naturally such exceptional performances became more common in the decadence of the religious drama⁠[387]. Thus the very scratch series of plays shown before the earl of Kildare at Dublin, in the Christmas of 1528, included, besides other contributions both sacred and secular, an Adam and Eve by the tailors and a Joseph and Mary by the carpenters. The choice of these subjects was evidently motived by their appropriateness to the craft representing them. Similarly, when John Bale was bishop of Ossory in 1553, he had performed at the market-cross of Kilkenny, on the day of the proclamation of Queen Mary, a short fragment of a cycle consisting of a Prophetae, a Baptism, and a Temptation. One fancies that this strange protagonist of the Reformation must have had in his mind some quaint verbal analogy between ‘John Bale’ and ‘John Baptist,’ for he states that he also wrote a dramatic Vita D. Ioannis Baptistae in fourteen books. Nor is this the only example of the treatment of a subject, merely episodic in the Corpus Christi cycles, in a distinct and elaborate play. The invaluable Digby manuscript contains a similar expansion, from the East or West Midlands, of the story of Mary Magdalen. It follows the narrative of the Golden Legend, and introduces the familiar scenes of the Raising of Lazarus, the Feast in the House of Simon the Leper, the Quem quaeritis, and the Hortulanus, preceding these with episodes of the life of the Magdalen in gaudio, and following them with the Conversion of the King and Queen of Marseilles, and of Mary’s Life in the Wilderness and Death. As offshoots from the Corpus Christi cycle may also be regarded the Deaths of the Apostles played in the Dublin series of 1528, Thomas Ashton’s Julian the Apostate at Shrewsbury in 1565, and the Destruction of Jerusalem, written by John Smith in 1584 to take the place of the traditional plays at Coventry⁠[388].

The Mary Magdalen and the rest of the group just described may be considered as standing halfway between the plays of and akin to the Corpus Christi cycle and those founded on the legends of saints. Of regular saint-plays there are unfortunately only two texts available from these islands. The Digby manuscript contains an East Midland Conversion of St. Paul, which, however, is almost wholly biblical and not legendary. It will be remembered that the subject was one known even to the liturgical drama⁠[389]. There is also a Cornish play of St. Meriasek or Mereadocus, the patron saint of Camborne, written at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Other such plays are, however, upon record. It is perhaps curious that no mention should be found of any English parallel to either the Saint Nicholas plays or the Miracles de Nostre Dame of France. It can hardly be doubted that the former at least existed in connexion with the widespread revel of the Boy Bishop⁠[390]. The most popular English saint for dramatic purposes appears to have been St. George. A play of St. George was maintained by the town of Lydd, and was probably copied by a neighbouring guild at New Romney. Another, on an elaborate scale, was given by a group of villages at Bassingbourne in 1511. These seem to have been genuine dramas, and not mere ‘ridings’ or folk-plays such as occur elsewhere⁠[391]. A St. George play, described by Collier at Windsor in 1416, can be resolved into a cake. St. Thomas of Canterbury was only honoured with a dumb show in his own city, but there was a play upon him at King’s Lynn in 1385. Of quite a number of other saint-plays the barest notices exist. London had hers on St. Catherine; Windsor on St. Clotilda; Coventry on St. Catherine and St. Crytyan; Lincoln on St. Laurence, St. Susanna, St. Clara, and St. James; Shrewsbury on St. Feliciana and St. Sabina; Bethersden in Kent on St. Christina; Braintree in Essex on St. Swithin, St. Andrew, and St. Eustace. The Dublin shoemakers contributed a play on their patron saints Crispin and Crispinian to the Dublin festival of 1528. In London, the plays on the days of St. Lucy and St. Margaret at St. Margaret’s, Southwark, may have been on the stories of those saints; and during the Marian reaction a ‘goodly’ stage-play was given at St. Olave’s church on St. Olave’s day.

Quite unique, as dealing with a contemporary ‘miracle,’ is the play of the Blessed Sacrament, performed at one of the many places bearing the name of Croxton, in the latter half of the fifteenth century. According to the manuscript, the event upon which it was based, the marvellous conversion of a Jew who attempted an outrage upon a host, took place at Heraclea in Spain, in 1461. There is, curiously enough, a late French play, quite independent of the English one, upon an exactly parallel miracle assigned to Paris and the thirteenth century⁠[392].

The variation in the types of English miracle-plays naturally implies some variation also in the manner of representation. The normal craft cycles of the greater towns were processional in character. They were not played throughout by a single body of actors and upon a single stage; but the action was divided into a number of independent scenes, to each of which was assigned its own group of performers and its own small movable stage or ‘pageant.’ And each scene was repeated at several ‘stations’ in different parts of the city, pageant succeeding pageant in regular order, with the general effect of a vast procession slowly unrolling itself along the streets⁠[393]. This method of playing was convenient to the distribution of the leitourgia among the guilds, and was adopted in all those places, Chester, York, Beverley, and Coventry, from which our records happen to be the fullest. But it was not the primitive method and, as has been pointed out in a previous chapter, it probably arose from an attempt about the beginning of the fourteenth century to adapt the already existing miracle-plays to the distinctive feature of the festival of Corpus Christi. To this point it will be necessary to recur⁠[394]. The processional play was rare outside England, and even in England it at no period became universal. Two at least of the great cycles that survive, the Cornish one and the Ludus Coventriae, as well as several smaller plays, can be clearly shown from internal evidence to have been intended for stationary performance. They do not naturally cleave asunder into distinct scenes. The same personages appear and reappear: the same properties and bits of scenery are left and returned to, often at considerable intervals. Moreover stationary performances are frequently implied by the records. At Lincoln, after the suppression of the old visus of St. Anne’s processional play, the corporation ordered the performance of a ‘standing’ play ‘of some story of the Bible.’ At Newcastle, although pageants of the plays went in the procession, the actual performance seems to have been given in a ‘stead.’ This arrangement is exactly parallel to that of the Florentine rappresentazioni on St. John’s day in 1454⁠[395]. Elsewhere there was commonly enough no ‘pageant’ at all. The ‘standing’ plays may be traced at various removes from their original scene, the floor of the church⁠[396]. Indeed, the examples of Braintree in 1523 and 1525, of Halstead in 1529, of Heybridge in 1532, seem to show that, quite apart from the survival of ritual plays proper, the miracle-play, even at the very moment of its extinction, had not been always and everywhere excluded from the church itself. The Beverley repraesentatio dominicae resurrectionis about 1220 had got as far as the churchyard. At Bungay in 1566 they played in the churchyard, and at Harling in 1452 ‘at the cherch gate.’ The latest of all the village plays, that of Hascombe in 1579, was at, but perhaps not in the church. The next step brought the plays to the market-place, which itself in many towns lay just outside the church door. At Louth the Corpus Christi play was in the ‘markit-stede,’ and so were some at least of the Reading plays. A neighbouring field might be convenient; the Bassingbourne play was in a ‘croft,’ that of Chelmsford in a ‘pightell.’ Certain places had a bit of waste ground traditionally devoted to the entertainment of the citizens. Such were the ‘Forbury’ at Reading and the ‘Quarry’ at Shrewsbury. The Aberdeen Haliblude play took place apud ly Wyndmylhill. Edinburgh constructed its ‘playfield’ in the Greenside at considerable cost in 1554, while in Cornwall permanent amphitheatres were in use. A writer contemporary with the later performances describes these as made of earth in open fields with an enclosed ‘playne’ of some fifty feet in diameter. If they are correctly identified with the ‘rounds’ of St. Just and Perranzabulo, these examples at least were much larger. The St. Just round is of stone, with seven tiers of seats, and measures 126 feet in diameter; the earthen one at Perranzabulo is 130 feet, and has a curious pit in the centre, joined to the edge by a trench. The disposition of these rounds at the time of performance can be studied in the diagrams reproduced from the fifteenth-century manuscript of the plays by Mr. Norris. Within a circular area is arranged a ring of eight spots which probably represent structures elevated above the general surface of the ‘playne.’ They have labels assigning them to the principal actors. Thus for the Origo Mundi the labels are Celum, Tortores, Infernum, Rex Pharao, Rex Dauid, Rex Sal[omon], Abraham, Ortus. From the stage directions it would appear that the raised portions were called pulpita or tenti, and by Jordan at a later date ‘rooms’; that the ‘playne’ was the platea; and that the action went on partly on the pulpita, partly on the platea between them. Except that it is circular instead of oblong, the scheme corresponds exactly to that of the continental plays shown in an earlier chapter to have been determined by the conditions of performance within a church⁠[397]. Those plays also had their platea; and their domus, loca, or sedes answer to the pulpita and tenti of Cornwall. Judging by the somewhat scanty indications available, the disposition of other English ‘standing’ plays must have been on very similar lines. In some cases there is evidence that the level platea was replaced by a raised ‘platform,’ ‘scaffold,’ or ‘stage.’ Thus Chaucer’s ‘joly Absolon’ played Herod ‘on a scaffold hye⁠[398].’ But the ‘stages’ or ‘scaffolds’ mentioned in accounts are sometimes merely for the spectators and sometimes equivalent to the loca of leading actors. In the Digby play of St. Mary Magdalen, a practicable ship moves about the platea. Possibly a similar bit of realism was used elsewhere for the ever popular ‘Noy schippe,’ and, if so, this may explain the pit and trench of the Perranzabulo ‘round⁠[399].’

As to the ‘pageant’ or movable stage of the processional plays, a good deal of information is preserved. Dugdale describes it at Coventry as a ‘Theater ... very large and high, placed upon wheels’; Rogers at Chester as ‘a highe place made like a howse with ij rowmes, beinge open on yᵉ tope: the lower rowme they apparelled and dressed them selues; and in the higher rowme they played; and they stood vpon 6 (v.l. 4) wheeles.’ According to an inventory of 1565 the grocers’ pageant at Norwich was ‘a Howse of Waynskott paynted and buylded on a Carte wᵗ fowre whelys.’ It had a square top or canopy; on it were placed a gilt griffin and two large and eighty-three small vanes; and about it were hung three painted cloths. Similar adornments of the pageant were in use at Coventry. At York it bore the arms of the city or of the guild. M. Jusserand has unearthed from a Bodleian manuscript two fourteenth-century miniatures which apparently represent pageants. These have draperies covering the whole of the lower ‘room’ down to the ground and resemble nothing so much as the ambulant theatre of a Punch and Judy show⁠[400]. The pageants were probably arranged so that the action might be visible from every side. The scenery would therefore be simple—a throne, a house. Certain plays, however, necessitate a divided scene, such as the inside and outside of a temple⁠[401]. For the ‘hell,’ the traditional monstrous head on a lower level, with practicable chains and fire, was required⁠[402]. The pageant used for the Flood scene was doubtless shaped like an ark. The ‘shipp’ belonging to the Trinity guild of Hull cost £5 8s. 4d. The ordinary pageant may have been less expensive. That of the Doom at York was made ‘of newe substanciale’ for seven marks, the old pageant and a free admission into the guild. At Lincoln three times as much was charged for housing the ship as for any other pageant.

The origin of the pageant is capable of a very easy explanation⁠[403]. Like the edifizio of the Italian rappresentazioni, it is simply the raised locus, sedes, or domus of the stationary play put upon wheels. Just as the action of the stationary play took place partly on the various sedes, partly in the platea, so Coventry actors come and go to and from the pageant in the street. ‘Here Erode ragis in the pagond & in the strete also,’ says a stage direction. It should be observed that the plays at Coventry were exceptionally long, and that scaffolds seem to have been attached to the pageant proper in order to get sufficient space.

The number of ‘stations’ at which the plays were given varied in the different towns. At York there were from twelve to sixteen; at Beverley six; at Coventry not more than three or four can be identified. The many scenes and frequent repetitions naturally made the processional plays very lengthy affairs. At Chester they were spread over three days; at York they were got through in one, but playing began at half-past four in the morning. At Newcastle, on the other hand, the plays were in the afternoon. The banns of the Ludus Coventriae promise a performance ‘at vj of the belle,’ but whether in the morning or evening is not stated.

The normal occasion for the greater plays was the feast of Corpus Christi on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. A few exceptions are, however, to be noted. At Chester, Norwich, New Romney, and apparently Leicester, the date chosen was Whitsuntide. Yet at Chester the play is called the ‘Corpus Christi play’ in craft documents of the fifteenth century, and even in the municipal ‘White Book’ of the sixteenth; from which it must be inferred either that the term was used of all cyclical plays without regard to their date, or, more probably, that at Chester a performance originally given on Corpus Christi day had been for some reason transferred to Whitsuntide. The motive may have been a desire to avoid clashing between the plays and the great Corpus Christi procession in which the crafts everywhere took a prominent part. A difficulty arose on this score at York in 1426, and a Franciscan preacher, one William Melton, tried to induce the citizens to have the plays on the day before Corpus Christi. Ultimately the alternative was adopted of having the procession on the day after. At Lincoln the plays were on St. Anne’s day (July 26) and the last pageant was acted by the clergy in the nave of the cathedral. At Aberdeen there appear to have been two cycles, a processional Nativity at Candlemas and a Haliblude play on Windmill Hill at Corpus Christi.

The oversight of the actors was, as pointed out in the last chapter, an important element in the civic control of the craft-plays. The mention at York of a commission of ‘connyng, discrete and able players’ must not be taken to imply that these were in any sense professionals. All the actors received fees, on a scale proportionate to the dignity of their parts. Thus at Coventry one Fawston got 4d. ‘for hangyng Judas,’ and 4d. more ‘for coc croyng.’ The payment to the performer of God was 3s. 4d. A ‘sowle,’ whether ‘savyd’ or ‘dampnyd,’ got 20d., and a ‘worme of conscyence’ only 8d. At Hull, Noah was generally paid 1s., God and Noah’s wife a trifle less. But there is nothing to show that the performers were drawn from the minstrel class: they were probably, like ‘joly Absolon,’ members of the guilds undertaking the plays. The Chester men describe themselves in their banns as not ‘playeres of price’ but ‘Craftes men and meane men.’ The epilogue to the Conversion of St. Paul in the Digby manuscript similarly deprecates unkindly criticism of folk ‘lackyng lytturall scyens ... that of Retoryk haue non intellygens.’ A characteristic of the acting which greatly impressed the imagination of the audience seems to have been the rant and bombast put from very early times in the mouths of such royal or pseudo-royal personages as Herod and Pilate.⁠[404] In the Chester plays fragments of French, as in a liturgical play fragments of gibberish⁠[405], are used to enhance this effect. In the Cornish plays, as in the modern music hall, each performer at his first appearance displays himself in a preliminary strut about the stage. Hic pompabit Abraham, or Moses, or David, say the stage directions. As is usually the case with amateurs, the function of the prompter became an exceedingly important one. If the Cornish writer Richard Carew may be trusted, the local players did not learn their parts at all, but simply repeated them aloud after the whispers of the ‘ordinary⁠[406].’ Probably this was exceptional; it certainly was not the practice at Beverley, where there is a record of an actor being fined quod nesciebat ludum suum. But it may be taken for granted that the ‘beryng of the boke,’ which is so frequently paid for in the accounts, was never a sinecure. Another functionary who occasionally appears is the stage-manager. In the later Cornish plays he is called the ‘conveyour.’ The great Chelmsford performance of 1562 was superintended by one Burles who was paid, with others, for ‘suing’ it, and who probably came from a distance, as he and his boy were boarded for three weeks.

The professional assistance of the minstrels, although not called in for the acting, was welcome for the music. This was a usual and a considerable item in the expenses. At the Chelmsford performance just mentioned the waits of Bristol and no less than forty other minstrels were employed. There is no sign of a musical accompaniment to the dialogue of the existing plays, which was spoken, and not, like that of their liturgical forerunners, chanted. But the York and Coventry texts contain some noted songs, and several plays have invitations to the minstrels to strike up at the conclusion or between the scenes. Minstrels are also found accompanying the proclaimers of the banns or preliminary announcements of plays. These banns seem to have been versified, like the plays themselves. They are often mentioned, and several copies exist. Those of Chester were proclaimed by the city crier on St. George’s day; those of the Croxton play and the Ludus Coventriae were carried round the country-side by vexillatores or banner-bearers. Minstrelsy was not the only form of lighter solace provided for the spectators of the plays. Two of those in the Digby manuscript were accompanied with dances. At Bungay a ‘vyce’ was paid ‘for his pastyme before the plaie, and after the plaie.’ There were ‘vices’ too at Chelmsford, and ‘fools,’ by which is meant the same thing⁠[407], at Heybridge and New Romney. But these examples are taken from the decadence of the miracle-play, rather than from its heyday.

The accounts of the Bassingbourne play in 1511 include a payment to ‘the garnement man for garnements and propyrts and playbooks.’ This was an occasional and not an annual play, and apparently at the beginning of the sixteenth century such plays were sufficiently frequent to render the occupation of theatrical outfitter a possible one. Certainly those lucky parishes, such as Chelmsford or St. Peter’s, Oxford, which possessed a stock of ‘game gear,’ found a profit in letting it out to less favoured places. The guilds responsible for the greater plays naturally preserved their own costumes and properties from year to year, supplementing these where necessary by loans from the neighbouring gentry and clergy. The Middle Ages were not purists about anachronism, and what was good enough for an English bishop was good enough for Annas and Caiaphas. The hands of the craftsmen who acted were discreetly cased in the gloves, without which no ceremonial occasion was complete, and sometimes, at least, vizors or masks were worn. But, as a rule, the stage setting left a good deal to the imagination. The necessaries for the play of Paradise at Beverley in 1391 consisted of the ‘karre’ or pageant, eight hasps, eighteen staples, two vizors, a pair of wings for the angel, a fir-spar (the tree of knowledge), a worm (the serpent), two pairs of linen breeches, two pairs of shifts, and one sword. For a similar play the Norwich grocers possessed in 1565, besides the pageant and its fittings, sufficient ‘cotes and hosen’ for all the characters, that of the serpent being fitted with a tail, a ‘face’ and hair for the Father, hair for Adam and Eve, and—‘a Rybbe colleryd Red.’ A few other interesting details can be gathered from various records. At Canterbury the steeds of the Magi were made of hoops and laths and painted canvas. In the Doomsday scene at Coventry the ‘savyd’ and ‘dampnyd’ souls were distinguished by their white or black colour⁠[408]. The hell mouth was provided with fire, a windlass, and a barrel for the earthquake. There were also three worlds to be set afire, one, it may be supposed, at each station. The stage directions to Jordan’s Cornish Creation of the World are full of curious information. The Father appears in a cloud and when he speaks out of heaven, ‘let ye levys open.’ Lucifer goes down to hell ‘apareled fowle wᵗʰ fyre about hem’ and the plain is filled with ‘every degre of devylls of lether and spirytis on cordis.’ In Paradise a fountain and ‘fyne flowers’ suddenly spring up, and a little later ‘let fyshe of dyuers sortis apeare & serten beastis.’ Lucifer becomes ‘a fyne serpent made wᵗʰ a virgyn face & yolowe heare upon her head.’ Adam and Eve departing from Paradise ‘shewe a spyndell and a dystaff.’ For the murder of Abel, according to old tradition, a ‘chawbone’ is needed⁠[409], and for the ark, timber and tools, including ‘a mallet, a calkyn yren, ropes, masstes, pyche and tarr.’ I have not space to dwell further on these archaeological minutiae. One point, however, seems to deserve another word. Many writers have followed Warton in asserting that Adam and Eve were represented on the stage in actual nakedness⁠[410]. The statement is chiefly based upon a too literal interpretation of the stage directions of the Chester plays⁠[411]. There is a fine a priori improbability about it, and as a matter of fact there can be very little doubt that the parts were played, as they would have been on any other stage in any other period of the world’s history, except possibly at the Roman Floralia⁠[412], in fleshings. Jordan is quite explicit. Adam and Eve are to be ‘aparlet in whytt lether,’ and although Jordan’s play is a late one, I think it may be taken for granted that white leather was sufficient to meet the exigencies even of mediaeval realism.

The accounts of miracle-plays frequently contain entries of payments for providing copies of the text used. When the stock of the Chelmsford play was dispersed in 1574, the copies were valued at £4. Such copies were naturally of more than one kind. There was the authoritative text kept for reference by the guild or other body of presenters. This is sometimes called the ‘play-book’ or ‘game-book.’ The Cornish term is ordinale, a derivative from the ordo of the liturgical drama⁠[413]. That in use elsewhere is more commonly ‘original,’ which appears in a variety of quaint spellings⁠[414]. In the great towns where plays were given by the crafts under the general supervision of the corporation, each craft held the ‘original’ of its own play, but approved transcripts of these were also in the hands of the corporation officers. At Chester this transcript was itself called the ‘original’; at York it was the registrum. Most of the extant manuscripts of plays appear to be of the nature of ‘originals.’ From York and probably from Wakefield we have registra. The Chester texts are, however, late transcripts due to the zeal of local antiquaries, perhaps in view of some frustrated revival. Specimens exist also of two other kinds of copy. There are single plays from both Chester and York which have all the appearance of having been folded up for the pocket of a prompter. And the nature of the ‘parts’ prepared for individual actors may be seen from the transition example edited by Professor Skeat from a manuscript found at Shrewsbury. They contained the actors’ own speeches, with the ‘cues’ or closing words of the preceding speeches which signalled to him that his turn was at hand⁠[415].

Indications of the authorship of plays are very scanty. John Bale has preserved a list of his own plays, some at least of which were acted in mediaeval fashion. It may perhaps be assumed that Nicholas Udall, afterwards author of Ralph Roister Doister, wrote the play performed at Braintree in 1534, while he was vicar there. At Bassingbourne in 1511 one John Hobarde, ‘brotherhood priest,’ was paid ‘for the play-book.’ In this and in several of the following cases it is impossible to determine whether an author or merely a copying scribe is in question. The corporation of Beverley employed Master Thomas Bynham, a friar preacher, to write ‘banis’ for their plays in 1423. At Reading we find Mr. Laborne ‘reforming’ the Resurrection play about 1533. The later Cornish play of the Creation of the World was ‘wryten’ by William Jordan in 1611, and that of St. Meriasek by ‘dominus Hadton’ in 1504. At Bungay William Ellys was paid in 1558 ‘for the interlude and game-book⁠[416],’ and Stephen Prewett, a priest at Norwich, for some labour about the matter of a game-book in 1526. This same Stephen Prewett had a fee from the Norwich grocers ‘for makyng of a new ballet’ in 1534. One of the extant Coventry plays was ‘nevly correcte’ and the other ‘nevly translate’ by Robert Croo in 1535. The name ‘Thomas Mawdycke’ and the date 1591 are written at the head of some songs belonging to the former. In 1566 Thomas Nycles set a song for the drapers. Robert Croo or Crowe seems to have made himself generally useful in connexion with the Coventry plays. In 1563 the smiths paid him for ‘ij leves of our pley boke.’ In 1557 he wrote the ‘boke’ for the drapers, and between 1556 and 1562 further assisted them by playing God, mending the ‘devell’s cottes,’ and supplying ‘iij worldys’ for burning and a hat for the Pharisee. A later Coventry playwright was John Smith of St. John’s College, Oxford, who wrote the ‘new play’ of the Destruction of Jerusalem in 1584 for a sum of £13 6s. 8d. The fifteenth-century Croxton play has the initials ‘R. C.’ One of the plays in the Digby manuscript ‘Ihon Parfre ded wryte.’ The three others have the initials ‘M. B.,’ and against the Poeta of the prologue to one of them a later hand has written in the margin ‘Myles Blomfylde.’ I repeat the caution that some at least of these names may be those of mere copyists. Miles Blomfield has been identified with a monk of Bury of that name. As he was born in 1525 he obviously was not the original author of the Digby plays, which are probably of the fifteenth century. A much greater monk of Bury, John Lydgate, has been claimed as the author of the Ludus Coventriae, but there does not seem to be any real evidence for this⁠[417]. On the other hand I see no reason to doubt the old Chester tradition which connects the plays of that city with the name of Randulph Higden, author of the Polychronicon. The story is very fairly coherent, and the date (1328) which it assigns for the plays falls within the period of Higden’s monastic life at St. Werburgh’s abbey.

It must, of course, be borne in mind that the notion of authorship is only imperfectly applicable to the miracle-plays. The task of the playwrights was one less of original composition than of adaptation, of rewriting and rearranging existing texts so as to meet the needs of the particular performances in which they were interested. Obviously this was a process that could be carried out with more or with less individuality. There were slavish adapters and there were liberal adapters. But on the whole the literary problem of the plays lies in tracing the evolution of a form rather than in appreciating individual work. Even when written, the plays, if periodically performed, were subject to frequent revision, motived partly by the literary instinct for furbishing up, partly by changing conditions, such as the existence of a varying number of craft-guilds ready to undertake the responsibility for a scene⁠[418]. Further alterations, on theological rather than literary grounds, were naturally called for at the Reformation. Thus Jordan’s Cornish Creation of the World is clearly based upon the older play printed by Mr. Norris. The book of the Norwich grocers contains two versions of their play of Paradise, the later of which, ‘newely renvid accordynge unto yᵉ Skrypture,’ was substituted for the earlier in 1565. The Towneley manuscript has two alternative versions of the Pastores. That of York has a fragmentary second version of the Coronation of the Virgin, and when read with the records affords much evidence of the dropping, insertion, and rearrangement of scenes, and of doctrinal revision during the sixteenth century. At Coventry the local annals mention ‘new playes’ in 1520, fifteen years before the existing texts were ‘nevly correcte’ and ‘translate’ by Robert Crowe.

The determination of the relations in which the plays stand towards one another is a field in which literary scholars, delayed by the want of trustworthy critical texts, are only just beginning to set foot. The question lies outside the scope of these pages. But I may call attention to Mr. Pollard’s analysis of the various strata in the Towneley plays⁠[419], and to the studies by Professor Hohlfeld⁠[420] and Professor Davidson⁠[421] upon the greater cycles in general and especially upon the influence exercised by York over the Towneley and other plays, as excellent examples of what may be looked for. The Ludus Coventriae will afford a good subject for investigation, when the manuscript has been properly re-edited. It is evidently a patchwork cycle, roughly put together and in parts easy to break up into its constituent elements. The problem is not confined to English literature. The Chester tradition represents Higden’s work as an affair rather of translation than of anything else. It is not quite clear whether translation from the Latin or from the Norman-French is intended. In any case it is probable that the earlier English playwrights made use of French models, and certain parallels have already been traced between English plays and others to be found in the French collection known as the Viel Testament. Here, as elsewhere, the international solidarity of mediaeval literature is to be taken into account.

Two chapters back I defined the change which took place in the character of the religious drama of western Europe during the thirteenth century as being, to a large extent, a process of secularization. ‘Out of the hands of the clergy,’ I said, ‘in their naves and choirs, the drama passed to those of the laity in their market-places and guild-halls.’ And I pointed to the natural result of these altered conditions in ‘the reaction of the temper of the folk upon the handling of the plays, the broadening of their human as distinct from their religious aspect⁠[422].’ A study of the texts and records of the fully developed miracle-play as it existed in these islands from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century can only confirm this view. I have indeed shown, I hope, in the course of this imperfect summary, that the variety of mediaeval theatrical organization was somewhat greater than a too exclusive attention to the craft-cycles of the great towns has always allowed scholars to recognize. But, with all qualifications and exceptions, it is none the less true that what began as a mere spectacle, devised by ecclesiastics for the edification of the laity, came in time to appeal to a deep-rooted native instinct of drama in the folk and to continue as an essentially popular thing, a ludus maintained by the people itself for its own inexhaustible wonder and delight⁠[423]. Literary critics have laid stress upon the emergence of the rude humour of the folk, with its love of farce and realism, in somewhat quaint juxtaposition to the general subject-matter of the plays. I only desire to add here that the instinct which made the miracle-plays a joy to the mediaeval burgher is the same instinct which the more primitive peasant satisfied in a score of modes of rudimentary folk-drama⁠[424]. The popularity and elaboration of the devil scenes in the plays is the most striking manifestation of this identity⁠[425]. For your horned and blackened devil is the same personage, with the same vague tradition of the ancient heathen festival about him, whether he riots it through the cathedral aisles in the Feast of Fools, or hales the Fathers to limbo and harries the forward spectators in the market-place of Beverley or Wakefield.

One must not look for absolute breaches of continuity, even in a literary evolution. That the liturgical types of religious drama continued to exist side by side with their popular offshoots, that here the clergy continued to present plays, and in spite of a certain adverse current of ascetic feeling, to assist the lay guilds in divers ways, has already been there shown. It is to be added that the texts of the plays bear traces to the end of their liturgical origin. The music used is reminiscent of church melodies⁠[426]. The dialogue at critical moments follows the traditional lines and occasionally even reverts to the actual Latin of the repraesentationes. More than one play—the Towneley Iuditium, the Croxton Sacrament, the Digby St. Mary Magdalen—closes with the Te Deum which habitually ended Matins when the dramatic interpolation of the office was over. And what are the Expositor of the Ludus Coventriae, the Doctor of the Brome play, or even Balaeus Prolocutor himself, but the lineal descendants, through the dramatized St. Augustine, of certain German plays and the appellatores or vocatores of the Prophetae, of the priest who read the pseudo-Augustinian Christmas lectio from which the Prophetae sprang? Survivals such as these impress upon the student the unity of the whole religious drama of the Middle Ages, from trope to Corpus Christi cycle.

CHAPTER XXIII MORALITIES, PUPPET-PLAYS, AND PAGEANTS

[Bibliographical Note.—The English moralities are well treated from a literary point of view in the books by Ten Brink, Ward, Creizenach, Pollard, Collier, Klein, Symonds, Bates, Jusserand, and Courthope, named in the bibliographical note to Chapter xxi, and also in the Introduction to A. Brandl, Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England vor Shakespeare (1898). Some texts not easily available elsewhere are given in the same book; others are in Dodsley’s A Select Collection of Old English Plays (ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1874-6), vol. i, and J. M. Manly, Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama (1897), vol. i. Extracts are given by Pollard. Lists both of popular moralities and of moral interludes will be found in Appendix X. The French plays of a similar type are dealt with by L. Petit de Julleville, La Comédie et les Mœurs en France au Moyen Âge (1886) and Répertoire du Théâtre comique en France au Moyen Âge (1886).—On puppet-plays, C. Magnin, Histoire des Marionnettes en Europe (1852), and A. Dieterich, Pulcinella (1897), may be consulted. The traditional text of the stock English play is printed, with illustrations by G. Cruikshank, in J. P. Collier, Punch and Judy (1870). English pageants at the Corpus Christi feast and at royal entries are discussed by C. Davidson, English Mystery Plays (1892), § xvii, and Sir J. B. Paul, in Scottish Review, xxx (1897), 217, and the corresponding French mystères mimés by L. Petit de Julleville, Les Mystères (1880).]

I have endeavoured to trace from its ritual origins the full development of that leading and characteristic type of mediaeval drama, the miracle-play. I now propose to deal, very briefly, with certain further outgrowths which, in the autumn of the Middle Ages, sprang from the miracle-play stock; and a final book will endeavour to bring together the scattered threads of this discursive inquiry, and to touch upon that transformation of the mediaeval into the humanist type of drama, which prepared the way for the great Elizabethan stage.

The miracle-play lent itself to modification in two directions: firstly, by an extension of its subject-matter; and secondly, by an adaptation of its themes and the methods to other forms of entertainment which, although mimetic, were not, in the full sense of the term, dramatic. There are a few plays upon record which were apparently represented after the traditional manner of miracles, but differ from these in that they treat subjects not religious, but secular. Extant examples must be sought in the relics, not of the English, but of the continental drama. The earliest is the French Estoire de Griselidis, a version of the story familiar in Chaucer’s Clerkes Tale, which was written and acted, according to the manuscript, in 1395⁠[427]. Slightly later is a Dutch manuscript which contains, amongst other things, probably the répertoire of some compagnie joyeuse, three plays on the subjects respectively of Esmoreit, Gloriant of Brunswick, and Lanseloet and Sanderijn⁠[428]. Both the French and Dutch plays belong to what may be called the wider circle of chivalric romance. An obvious link between such pieces and the ordinary miracle-play is to be found in those of the Miracles de Nostre Dame which, like Amis et Amiles or Robert le Diable, also handle topics of chivalric romance, but only such as are brought technically within the scope of the miracle-play by the intervention of the Virgin at some point of the action⁠[429]. Similarly, another French play, dating from about 1439, on the subject, drawn not from romance but from contemporary history, of the Siege of Orleans, may be explained by the sanctity already attributed in the national imagination to Joan of Arc, who is naturally its leading figure⁠[430]. But the usual range of subject was certainly departed from when Jacques Millet, a student at Orleans, compiled, between 1450 and 1452, an immense mystère in 30,000 lines on the Istoire de la destruction de Troye la grant⁠[431]. In England, the few examples of the mingling of secular elements with the miracle-plays which present themselves during the sixteenth century can hardly be regarded as mediaeval⁠[432]. The only theme which need be noticed here is that of King Robert of Sicily. A play on this hero, revived at the High Cross at Chester in 1529, is stated in a contemporary letter to have been originally written in the reign of Henry VII. But a still earlier ludus de Kyng Robert of Cesill is recorded in the Lincoln Annales under the year 1453.

Far more important than this slight secular extension of miracle-plays is another development in the direction of allegory, giving rise to the ‘moral plays’ or ‘moralities,’ as they came to be indifferently called⁠[433], in which the characters are no longer scriptural or legendary persons, but wholly, or almost wholly, abstractions, and which, although still religious in intention, aim rather at ethical cultivation than the stablishing of faith. The earliest notices of morals are found about the end of the fourteenth century, at a time when the influence of the Roman de la Rose and other widely popular works was bringing every department of literature under the sway of allegory⁠[434]. That the drama also should be touched with the spirit of the age was so inevitable as hardly to call for comment. But it will be interesting to point out some at least of the special channels through which the new tendency established itself. In the first place there is the twelfth-century Latin play of Antichristus. In a sense the whole content of this may be called allegorical, and the allegory becomes formal in such figures as Heresis and Ypocrisis, Iustitia and Misericordia, and in those of Ecclesia, Synagoga, and Gentilitas, suggested to the clerkly author by a well-known disputatio. The same theme recurs in more than one later play⁠[435]. Secondly, there is the theme of the Reconciliation of the Heavenly Virtues, which is suggested by the words of the eighty-fifth Psalm: ‘Mercy and Truth are met together: Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other.’ This is treated in two unprinted and little known French plays, also of the twelfth century, which I have not as yet had occasion to mention and of which I borrow the following analysis from Dr. Ward: ‘These four virtues appear personified as four sisters, who meet together after the Fall of Man before the throne of God to conduct one of those disputations which were so much in accordance with the literary tastes of the age; Truth and Righteousness speak against the guilty Adam, while Mercy and Peace plead in his favour. Concord is restored among the four sisters by the promise of a Saviour, who shall atone to Divine Justice on behalf of man.’ One of these pieces is ascribed to the Anglo-Norman poet, Guillaume Herman (1127-70), the other to Stephen Langton, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. They are generally spoken of as literary exercises, not intended for representation⁠[436]. But it is obvious that they might very well find their places in miracle-play cycles, as links between the scenes dealing respectively with the Fall and the Redemption. Further, precisely such an episode, in precisely such a position, does occur, three hundred years later, in the English cycle known as the Ludus Coventriae. Nor is this the only allegorical element which distinguishes a certain part of this patchwork cycle from nearly all the other English plays⁠[437]. It is not, perhaps, of great importance that in the Assumption scene the risen Christ receives the name of Sapientia, or that Contemplatio is the ‘exposytour in doctorys wede,’ by whom several other scenes are introduced. But there is a striking passage at the end of the Slaughter of the Innocents, where ‘Dethe, Goddys masangere,’ intervenes to make an end of the tyrannic Herod⁠[438], and here, I think, may clearly be traced yet a third stream of allegorical tendency making its way into the drama from that singular danse macabre or ‘Dance of Death,’ which exercised so powerful a fascination on the art of the Middle Ages. Death hobnobbing with pope and king and clown, with lord and lady, with priest and merchant, with beggar and fool, the irony is familiar in many a long series of frescoes and engravings. Nor are cases lacking in which it was directly adapted for scenic representation. An alleged example at Paris in 1424 was probably only a painting. But in 1449 a certain jeu, histoire et moralité sur le fait de la danse macabre was acted before Philip the Good at Bruges, and a similar performance is recorded at Besançon in 1453⁠[439].

The process of introducing abstractions into the miracle-plays themselves does not seem to have been carried very far. On the other hand, the moralities, if God and the Devil may be regarded as abstractions, admit of nothing else. Two at least of the motives just enumerated, the Dance of Death and the Reconciliation of the Heavenly Virtues, recur in them. But both are subordinate to a third, which may be called the Conflict of Vice and Virtue. This débat-like theme is of course familiar in every branch of allegorical literature. Prof. Creizenach traces one type of it, in which the conflict is conceived under the symbols of siege or battle, to the Psychomachia of Prudentius⁠[440], and perhaps even further to the passage about the ‘whole armour of God’ in St. Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians⁠[441]. For the purposes of the stage it is eminently suitable, both because it lends itself to many and various modes of representation, and because conflict is the very stuff out of which drama is wrought.

As the earliest notices of moralities are found in English records and as this particular development of the drama is thoroughly well represented in English texts, I may save space by confining my attention to these, merely noting as I pass the contemporary existence of precisely parallel records and texts on the continent and particularly in France⁠[442]. The first English moralities seem to have been known as Paternoster plays. Such a play is mentioned by Wyclif about 1378 as existing at York, and at some date previous to 1389 a special guild Orationis Domini was founded in that city for its maintenance. The play, however, survived the guild, and was acted from time to time as a substitute for the ordinary Corpus Christi plays up to 1572. Similarly, at Beverley a Paternoster play was acted by the crafts, probably in emulation of that of York, in 1469, while a third is mentioned in Lincoln documents as played at various dates from 1397 to 1521. Although all these Paternoster plays are lost, their general character can be made clear. In that of York ‘all manner of vices and sins were held up to scorn and the virtues were held up to praise,’ while an incidental entry in a computus shows that one division of it was known as the ludus accidiae. The information to be derived from Beverley is even more explicit. There were eight pageants. One was assigned to ‘Vicious,’ probably a typical representative of frail humanity, the other seven to the seven deadly sins which beset him, ‘Pryde: Invy: Ire: Avaryce: Sleweth (or Accidie): Glotony: Luxuria.’ The Paternoster play seems, therefore, to have been in some fashion a dramatization of the struggle of the vices and the corresponding virtues for the soul of man, and the name given to it may be explained by the mediaeval notion that each clause of the Lord’s Prayer was of specific merit against one of the deadly sins⁠[443]. Here then is one version of just that theme of the Conflict of Vice and Virtue noted as dominant in the moralities.

Of the half dozen extant English moralities which can with any plausibility be assigned to the fifteenth century, two are based upon a motive akin to that of the Dance of Death. These are the fragmentary Pride of Life, which is the earliest of the group, and Everyman, which is by far the finest⁠[444]. In the former Death and Life contend for the soul of Rex Vivus, the representative of humanity, who is only saved from the fiends by the intervention of the Virgin. In the latter, God sends Death to summon Everyman, who finds to his dismay that of all his earthly friends only Good Deeds is willing to accompany him. The Conflict of Vice and Virtue is resumed in the moral of Mundus et Infans and in the three morals of the Macro manuscript, the Castle of Perseverance, Mind, Will and Understanding, and Mankind. In all four plays the representative of humanity, Infans or Humanum Genus or Anima or Mankind, is beset by the compulsion or swayed this way and that by the persuasion of allegorized good and bad qualities. At the end of the Castle of Perseverance the motive of the Reconciliation of the Heavenly Virtues is introduced in a scene closely resembling that of the Ludus Coventriae or the earlier essays of Guillaume Herman and Stephen Langton.

A somewhat unique position between miracle-play and morality is occupied by the Mary Magdalen drama contained in the Digby manuscript. The action of this, so far as it is scriptural or legendary, has already been summarized⁠[445]; but it must now be added that the episodes of the secular life of the Magdalen in gaudio are conceived in a wholly allegorical vein. The ‘kyngs of the world and the flesch’ and the ‘prynse of dylles’ are introduced with the seven deadly sins and a good and a bad angel. The castle of Magdala, like the castle of Perseverance, is besieged. The Magdalen is led into a tavern by Luxuria and there betrayed by Curiosity, a gallant. We have to do less with a mystery beginning to show morality elements than with a deliberate combination effected by a writer familiar with both forms of drama.

The manner of presentation of the fifteenth-century moralities did not differ from that of the contemporary miracle-plays. The manuscript of the Castle of Perseverance contains a prologue delivered by vexillatores after the fashion of the Ludus Coventriae and the Croxton Sacrament. There is also, as in the Cornish mysteries published by Mr. Norris, a diagram showing a circular ‘place’ bounded by a ditch or fence, with a central ‘castel’ and five ‘skaffoldys’ for the principal performers. Under the castle is ‘Mankynde, is bed’ and near it ‘Coveytyse cepbord.’ The scaffolds are the now familiar loca or sedes. The scantier indications of more than one of the other moralities proper suggest that they also were performed in an outdoor ‘place’ with sedes, and a similar arrangement is pointed to by the stage directions of the Mary Magdalen. Nor could the moralities dispense with those attractions of devils and hell-fire which had been so popular in their predecessors. Belial, in the Castle of Perseverance, is to have gunpowder burning in pipes in his hands and ears and other convenient parts of his body; Anima, in Mind, Will and Understanding, has little devils running in and out beneath her skirts; and in Mary Magdalen, the ‘prynse of dylles’ enters in ‘a stage, and Helle ondyr-neth that stage.’ The later moralities, of which the sixteenth century affords several examples, were presented under somewhat different conditions, which will be discussed in another chapter⁠[446]. Allusions to the ‘morals at Manningtree,’ however, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, suggest that moralities may have continued in out-of-the-way places to hold the open-air stage, just as miracle-plays here and there did, to a comparatively late date. Actual examples of the more popular type of morality from the sixteenth century are afforded by Skelton’s Magnificence and by Sir David Lyndsay’s Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, shown successively at Linlithgow in 1540, on the Castle-hill at Cupar of Fife in 1552, and in the Greenside at Edinburgh about 1554. This remarkable piece differs in many ways from the English moralities. The theme consists of the arraignment of the estates of the realm before Rex Humanitas. Various ‘vycis’ and allegorical personages appear and plead, and the action is enlivened by farcical interludes for the amusement of the vulgar, and wound up by a sermon of ‘Folie,’ which points rather to French than to English models⁠[447]. The flight of time is also shown by the fact that the Satyre aims less at the moral edification with which the fifteenth-century plays contented themselves, than at the introduction of a sharp polemic against abuses in church and state. Skelton’s Magnificence had also, not improbably, some political bearing. To this matter also I return in another chapter⁠[448].

Miracle-plays and moralities ranked amongst the most widespread and coloured elements, century after century, of burgher and even of village life. It is not surprising that their subjects and their methods exercised a powerful influence upon other manifestations of the mediaeval spirit. The share which their vivid and sensuous presentations of religious ideas had in shaping the conceptions of artists and handicraftsmen is a fascinating topic of far too wide a scope to be even touched upon here⁠[449]. But a few pages must be devoted to indicating the nature of their overflow into various pseudo-dramatic, rather than strictly dramatic, forms of entertainment.

One of these is the puppet-show. It has been pointed out, in speaking of the liturgical drama, that the use of puppets to provide a figured representation of the mystery of the Nativity, seems to have preceded the use for the same purpose of living and speaking persons; and further, that the puppet-show, in the form of the ‘Christmas crib,’ has outlived the drama founded upon it, and is still in use in all Catholic countries⁠[450]. An analogous custom is the laying of the crucifix in the ‘sepulchre’ during the Easter ceremonies, and there is one English example of a complete performance of a Resurrection play by ‘certain smalle puppets, representinge the Persons of Christe, the Watchmen, Marie and others.’ This is described by a seventeenth-century writer as taking place at Witney in Oxfordshire ‘in the dayes of ceremonial religion,’ and one of the watchmen, which made a clacking noise, was ‘comonly called Jack Snacker of Wytney⁠[451].’ This points to the use of some simple mechanical device by which motion was imparted to some at least of the puppets. A similar contrivance was produced by Bishop Barlow to point a sermon against idolatry at Paul’s Cross in 1547 and was given afterwards to the boys to break into pieces⁠[452]. More elaborate representations of miracle-plays by means of moving puppets or marionnettes make their appearance in all parts of Europe at a period when the regular dramatic performances of similar subjects were already becoming antiquated, nor can they be said to be even yet quite extinct⁠[453]. Most of them belong to the repertory of the professional showmen, and it will be remembered that some form or other of marionnette seems to have been handed down continuously amongst the minstrel class from Roman times⁠[454]. In England the puppet-shows were much in vogue at such places as Bartholomew Fair, where they became serious rivals of the living actors⁠[455]. The earliest name for them was ‘motions⁠[456].’ Italian players brought ‘an instrument of strange motions’ to London in 1574⁠[457]. Autolycus, in The Winter’s Tale, amongst his other shifts for a living, ‘compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son⁠[458].’ Ben Jonson, in Bartholomew Fair, introduces one Lanthorn Leatherhead, a puppet-showman, who presents in his booth a curious rigmarole of a motion in which Hero and Leander, Damon and Pythias, and Dionysius are all mixed up⁠[459]. It would appear to have been customary for the showman, like his brethren of the modern Punch and Judy, to ‘interpret’ for the puppets by reciting a suitable dialogue as an accompaniment to their gestures⁠[460]. The repertory of Lanthorn Leatherhead contained a large proportion of ‘motions’ on subjects borrowed from the miracle-play. Similar titles occur in the notices of later performances at Bartholomew Fair⁠[461] and of those given by the popular London showman, Robert Powell, during the reign of Queen Anne⁠[462]. In more recent times all other puppet-shows have been outdone by the unique vogue of Punch and Judy⁠[463]. The derivation of these personages from the Pontius Pilate and Judas Iscariot of the miracle-plays is the merest philological whimsy. Punch is doubtless the Pulcinella⁠[464], who makes his appearance about 1600 as a stock figure in the impromptu comedy of Naples. Under other names his traditions may, for all one knows, go back far beyond the miracle-plays to the fabulae Atellanae. But the particular drama in which alone he now takes the stage, although certainly not a miracle-play, follows closely upon the traditional lines of the moralities⁠[465].

Another kind of religious dumb-show, at once more ancient and more important than that of the puppets, was presented by living persons in the ‘ridings’ or processions which formed an integral part of so many mediaeval festivals. Like the miracle-plays themselves, these tableaux reached their highest point of elaboration in connexion with the ceremonies of Corpus Christi day; and, in order to understand their relation to the regular dramas, it is necessary to return for a moment to the early history of the great feast. It has already been suggested that the processional character of the great English craft-cycles, with their movable pageants and their ‘stations,’ may be explained on the hypothesis, that the performances were at one time actually given during the ‘stations’ or pauses before temporary street altars of the Corpus Christi procession itself. The obvious inconveniences of such a custom, if it really existed, might not unnaturally lead to its modification. Except at Draguignan, where the dialogue was reduced to the briefest limits, no actual traces of it are left⁠[466]. In England the difficulty seems to have been solved at Newcastle by sending the pageants round with the procession in the early morning and deferring the actual plays until the afternoon. At Coventry representatives of the dramatis personae appear to have ridden in the procession, the cumbrous pageants being left behind until they were needed. Herod, for instance, rode on behalf of the smiths. At other places, again, the separation between procession and play was even more complete. The crafts which produced the plays were as a rule also burdened by their ordinances with the duties of providing a light and of walking or riding in honour of the host; but the two ceremonies took place at different hours on the same day, and there was no external relation, so far as the evidence goes, between them. Even so there was still some clashing, and at York, after an unsuccessful attempt on the part of the clergy in 1426 to get the plays put off, the procession itself appears to have been transferred to the following day.

On the other hand the difficulty seems to have been met in certain towns by suppressing the plays and reducing them to dumb-show ‘pageants’ carried in the procession. Lists are extant of such pageants as they were assigned to the crafts at Dublin in 1498 and at Hereford in 1503, and although it is not of course impossible that there were to be plays later in the day, there is no proof that this was the case. For a similar procession of tableaux held in London, in the earlier part of the fifteenth century, a set of descriptive verses was written by John Lydgate, and the adoption of this method of ‘interpreting’ the dumb-show seems to put the possibility of a regular dramatic performance out of court⁠[467]. There were pageants also in the Corpus Christi processions at Bungay and at Bury St. Edmunds, but the notices are too fragmentary to permit of more than a conjecture as to whether they were accompanied by plays. The tableaux shown at Dublin, Hereford, and London were of a continuous and cyclical character, although at Hereford St. Catherine, and at Dublin King Arthur, the Nine Worthies, and St. George’s dragon were tacked on at the tail of the procession⁠[468]. A continental parallel is afforded by the twenty-eight remontrances, making a complete cycle from the Annunciation to the Last Judgement, shown at Béthune in 1549⁠[469]. But elsewhere, both in England and abroad, the shows of the Corpus Christi procession were of a much less systematic character, and Dublin was not the only place where secular elements crept in⁠[470]. At Coventry, in addition to the representative figures from the craft-plays, the guild of Corpus Christi and St. Nicholas, to which, as to special Corpus Christi guilds elsewhere, the general supervision of the procession fell, provided in 1539 a Mary and a Gabriel with the lily, Saints Catherine and Margaret, eight Virgins and twelve Apostles. The Coventry procession, it may be added, outlived the Corpus Christi feast. In the seventeenth century Godiva had been placed in it and became the most important feature. By the nineteenth century the wool-combers had a shepherd and shepherdess, their patron saint Bishop Blaize, and Jason with the Golden Fleece⁠[471]. At the Shrewsbury ‘Show,’ which also until a recent date continued the tradition of an older Corpus Christi procession, Saints Crispin and Crispinian rode for the shoemakers. At Norwich the grocers sent the ‘griffin’ from the top of their pageant and a ‘tree’ which may have been the tree of knowledge from their Whitsun play of Paradise, but which was converted by festoons of fruit and spicery into an emblem of their trade⁠[472].

Aberdeen seems to have been distinguished by having two great mimetic processions maintained by the guilds. The interpretation of the data is rather difficult, but apparently the ‘Haliblude’ play, which existed in 1440 and 1479, had given way by 1531 to a procession in which pageants of the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Coronation of the Virgin were eked out by others of Saints Sebastian, Laurence, Stephen, Martin, Nicholas, John, and George. The other procession seems originally to have been introduced as an episode in a play of the Presentation in the Temple on Candlemas day. Its ‘personnes’ or ‘pageants’ are such as might furnish out the action of a short Nativity cycle, together with ‘honest squiares’ from each craft, ‘wodmen,’ and minstrels. But in this case also the play seems to have vanished early in the sixteenth century, while the procession certainly endured until a much later date.

There are no other English religious dumb-shows, outside those of Corpus Christi day, so elaborate as the Aberdeen Candlemas procession. On the same day at Beverley the guild of St. Mary carried a pageant of the Virgin and Child with Saints Joseph and Simon and two angels holding a great candlestick⁠[473]. The guild of St. Helen, on the day of the Invention of the Cross (May 3), had a procession with a boy to represent the saint, and two men bearing a cross and a shovel⁠[474]. The guild of St. William of Norwich paraded a knave-child between two men holding candles in honour of the youthful martyr⁠[475]. In the Whitsuntide procession at Leicester walked the Virgin and Saint Martin, with the twelve Apostles⁠[476]. More interesting is the pageant of St. Thomas the Martyr on December 29 at Canterbury, with the saint on a cart and knights played by children and an altar and a device of an angel and a ‘leder bag for the blode⁠[477].’ Probably this list could be largely increased were it worth while⁠[478]. The comparatively modern elements in the Corpus Christi pageantry of Coventry, Shrewsbury, and Dublin may be paralleled from the eighteenth-century festival of the Preston guild merchant on or near St. John Baptist’s day with its Crispin and Crispinian, Bishop Blaize, Adam and Eve, Vulcan, and so forth⁠[479], or the nineteenth-century wool trade procession on St. Blasius’ day (February 3), at Bradford, in which once more Bishop Blaize, with the Jason and Medea of the Golden Fleece, appears⁠[480]. It is noticeable how, as such functions grow more civic and less religious, the pageants tend to become distinctively emblematic of the trades concerned. The same feature is to be observed in the choice of subjects for the plays given by way of entertainment to the earl of Kildare at Dublin in 1528.

The dumb-show pageants, which in many cities glorified the ‘ridings’ on the day of St. George (April 23), have been described in an earlier chapter⁠[481]. These ‘ridings,’ of curiously mingled religious and folk origin, stand midway between the processions just mentioned and such seasonal perambulations as the ‘shows’ and ‘watches’ of Midsummer. Even in the latter, elements borrowed from the pageants of the miracle-plays occasionally form an odd blend with the ‘giants’ and other figures of the ‘folk’ tradition⁠[482]. The ‘wache and playe’ went together at Wymondham, and also apparently at Chelmsford, in the sixteenth century. At York we find the pageants of some of the crafts borrowed for a play, though apparently a classical and not a religious one, at the Midsummer show of 1585. At Chester, when the Whitsun plays were beginning to fall into desuetude, the crafts were regularly represented in the Midsummer show by some of their dramatis personae, who, however, rode without their pageants. The smiths sent ‘the Doctors and little God,’ the butchers sent ‘the divill in his fethers,’ the barbers sent Abraham and Isaac, the bricklayers sent Balaam and the Ass, and so forth. These with the giants, a dragon, a man in woman’s clothes, naked boys, morris-dancers and other folk elements, made up a singular cavalcade.

In London, pageants were provided for the Midsummer show by the guilds to which the lord mayor and sheriffs for the year belonged. Thus the drapers had a pageant of the Golden Fleece in 1522, and pageants of the Assumption and Saint Ursula in 1523⁠[483]. To a modern imagination the type of civic pageantry is the annual procession at the installation of the lord mayor in November, known familiarly as the lord mayor’s show. This show was important enough from the middle of the sixteenth century, and the pens of many goodly poets, Peele, Dekker, Munday, Middleton, and others, were employed in its service⁠[484]. But its history cannot be taken much further back, and it is exceedingly probable that when the Midsummer show came to an end in 1538, the pageants were transferred to the installation procession. The earliest clear notice is in 1540, when a pageant of the Assumption, perhaps that which had already figured at the Midsummer show of 1523, was used⁠[485]. The ironmongers had a pageant when the lord mayor was chosen from their body in 1566. It was arranged by James Peele, father of the dramatist, and there were two ‘wodmen’ in it, but unfortunately it is not further described⁠[486]. In 1568, Sir Thomas Roe, merchant tailor, had a pageant of John the Baptist⁠[487]. William Smith, writing an account of city customs in 1575, mentions, as a regular feature of the procession, ‘the Pagent of Triumph richly decked, whereupon, by certain figures and writings, some matter touching Justice and the office of a Magistrate is represented⁠[488].’ And about ten years later the series of printed ‘Devices’ of the pageants begins.

The influence of miracle-plays and moralities is also to be looked for in the municipal ‘shows’ of welcome provided at the state entries of royal and other illustrious visitors. A large number of these, chiefly at coronations, royal marriages and the like, are recorded in chronicles of London origin, and with the London examples in their chronological order I will briefly deal. The earlier features of such ceremonies include the riding of the mayor and corporation to meet the king at some place outside the gates, such as Blackheath, or, in the case of a coronation, at the Tower, and the escorting of him with joyous tripudium or carole to the palace of Westminster, the reading of loyal addresses and the giving of golden gifts, the decking of walls and balconies with costly robes and tapestries, the filling of the conduits with wine, white and red, in place of the accustomed water⁠[489]. The first example of pageantry in the proper sense occurs about the middle of the thirteenth century, in certain ‘devices and marvels’ shown at the wedding of Henry III to Eleanor of Provence in 1236⁠[490]. These are not described in detail; but when Edward I returned to London after the defeat of William Wallace at Falkirk in 1298, it is recorded by a chronicler, quoted in Stowe’s Annals, that the crafts made ‘great and solemne triumph’ and that the fishmongers in particular ‘amongst other pageantes and shewes’ had, as it was St. Magnus’s day, one of the saint accompanied by a thousand horsemen, and preceded by four gilded sturgeons, four salmons on horseback and ‘sixe and fourtie knights armed, riding on horses made like luces of the sea⁠[491].’ It was the fishmongers again who on the birth of Edward III in 1313 went in a chorea to Westminster with an ingeniously contrived ship in full sail, and escorted the queen on her way to Eltham⁠[492]. At the coronation of Richard II in 1377 an elaborate castle was put up at the head of Cheapside. On the four towers of this stood four white-robed damsels, who wafted golden leaves in the king’s face, dropped gilt models of coin upon him and his steed, and offered him wine from pipes laid on to the structure. Between the towers was a golden angel, which by a mechanical device bent forward and held out a crown as Richard drew near⁠[493]. Similar stages, with a coelicus ordo of singers and boys and maidens offering wine and golden crowns, stood in Cheapside when Richard again rode through the city in 1392, in token of reconciliation with the rebellious Londoners. And at St. Paul’s was a youth enthroned amongst a triple circle of singing angels; and at Temple Bar St. John Baptist in the desert surrounded by all kinds of trees and a menagerie of strange beasts⁠[494]. No similar details of pageantry are recorded at the coronations of Henry IV or Henry V. But when the latter king returned to London after the battle of Agincourt in 1415 there was a very fine show indeed. The procession came to the city from Eltham and Blackheath by way of London Bridge. Upon the tower masking the bridge stood two gigantic figures, one a man with an axe in his right hand and the city keys in his left, the other a woman in a scarlet mantle. Beyond this were two columns painted to resemble white marble and green jasper, on which were a lion and an antelope bearing the royal arms and banner. Over the foot of the bridge was a tower with a figure of St. George, and on a house hard by a number of boys representing the heavenly host, who sang the anthem Benedictus qui venit in nomine Dei. The tower upon the Cornhill conduit was decked with red and had on it a company of prophets, who sent a flight of sparrows and other birds fluttering round the king as he passed, while the prophets chanted Cantate Domino canticum novum. The tower of the great Cheapside conduit was green, and here were twelve Apostles and twelve Kings, Martyrs and Confessors of England, whose anthem was Benedic, anima, Domino, and who, even as Melchisedek received Abraham with bread and wine, offered the king thin wafers mixed with silver leaves, and a cup filled from the conduit pipes. On Cheapside, the cross was completely hidden by a great castle, in imitation white marble and green and red jasper, out of the door of which issued a bevy of virgins, with timbrel and dance and songs of ‘Nowell, Nowell,’ like unto the daughters of Israel who danced before David after the slaying of Goliath. On the castle stood boys feathered like angels, who sang Te Deum and flung down gold coins and boughs of laurel. Finally, on the tower of the little conduit near St. Paul’s, all blue as the sky, were more virgins who, as when Richard II was crowned, wafted golden leaves out of golden cups, while above were wrought angels in gold and colours, and an image of the sun enthroned⁠[495]. The details of the reception of Henry and Catherine of France, six years later, are not preserved⁠[496]. Nor are those of the London coronation of Henry VI in 1429. But there was a grand dumb-show at the Paris coronation in 1431⁠[497], and it was perhaps in emulation of this that on his return to London in the following year the king was received with a splendour equal to that lavished on the victor of Agincourt. There is a contemporary account of the proceedings by John Carpenter, the town clerk of London⁠[498]. As in 1415 a giant greeted the king at the foot of London Bridge. On the same ‘pageant⁠[499]’ two antelopes upbore the arms of England and France. On the bridge stood a magnificent ‘fabric,’ occupied by Nature, Grace, and Fortune, who gave the king presents as he passed. To the right were the seven heavenly Virtues, who signified the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, by letting fly seven white doves. To the left, seven other virgins offered the regalia. Then all fourteen, clapping their hands and rejoicing in tripudia, broke into songs of welcome. In Cornhill was the Tabernacle of Lady Wisdom, set upon seven columns. Here stood Wisdom, and here the seven liberal Sciences were represented by Priscian, Aristotle, Tully, Boethius, Pythagoras, Euclid, and Albumazar. On the conduit was the Throne of Justice, on which sat a king surrounded by Truth, Mercy, and Clemency, with two Judges and eight Lawyers. In Cheapside was a Paradise with a grove full of all manner of foreign fruits, and three wells from which gushed out wine, served by Mercy, Grace, and Pity. Here the king was greeted by Enoch and Elijah⁠[500]. At the cross was a castle of jasper with a Tree of Jesse, and another of the royal descent; and at St. Paul’s conduit a representation of the Trinity amongst a host of ministering angels. In 1445 Margaret of Anjou came to London to be crowned. Stowe records ‘a few only’ of the pageants. She entered by Southwark bridge foot where were Peace and Plenty. On the bridge was Noah’s ship; in Leadenhall, ‘madam Grace Chancelor de Dieu’; on the Tun in Cornhill, St. Margaret; on the conduit in Cheapside, the Wise and Foolish Virgins; at the Cross, the Heavenly Jerusalem; and at Paul’s Gate, the General Resurrection and Judgement⁠[501].

The rapid kingings and unkingings of the wars of the Roses left little time and little heart for pageantries, but with the advent of Henry VII they begin again, and continue with growing splendour throughout the Tudor century. Space only permits a brief enumeration of the subjects chosen for set pageants on a few of the more important occasions. Singing angels and precious gifts, wells of wine and other minor delights may be taken for granted⁠[502]. As to the details of Henry VII’s coronation in 1485 and marriage in 1486 the chroniclers are provokingly silent, and of the many ‘gentlemanlie pageants’ at the coronation of the queen in 1487 the only one specified is ‘a great redde dragon spouting flames of fyer into the Thames,’ from the ‘bachelors’ barge’ of the lord mayor’s company as she passed up the river from Greenwich to the Tower⁠[503]. At the wedding of Prince Arthur to Katharine of Aragon in 1501, ‘vi goodly beutiful pageauntes’ lined the way from London Bridge to St. Paul’s. The contriver is said to have been none other than Bishop Foxe the great chancellor and the founder of Corpus Christi College in Oxford. The subject of the first pageant was the Trinity with Saints Ursula and Katharine; of the second, the Castle of Portcullis, with Policy, Nobleness, and Virtue; of the third, Raphael, the angel of marriage, with Alphonso, Job, and Boethius; of the fourth, the Sphere of the Sun; of the fifth, the Temple of God; and of the sixth, Honour with the seven Virtues⁠[504]. As to Henry VIII’s coronation and marriage there is, once more, little recorded. In 1522 came Charles V, Emperor of Germany, to visit the king, and the city provided eleven pageants ‘very faire and excellent to behold⁠[505].’ The ‘great red dragon’ of 1487 reappeared in 1533 when yet another queen, Anne Boleyn, came up from Greenwich to enjoy her brief triumph. It stood on a ‘foist’ near the lord mayor’s barge, and in another ‘foist’ was a mount, and on the mount Anne’s device, a falcon on a root of gold with white roses and red. The pageants for the progress by land on the following day were of children ‘apparelled like merchants,’ of Mount Parnassus, of the falcon and mount once more, with Saint Anne and her children, of the three Graces, of Pallas, Juno, Venus, and Mercury with the golden apple, of three ladies, and of the Cardinal Virtues⁠[506]. The next great show was at the coronation of Edward VI in 1547, and included Valentine and Orson, Grace, Nature, Fortune and Charity, Sapience and the seven Liberal Sciences, Regality enthroned with Justice, Mercy and Truth, the Golden Fleece, Edward the Confessor and St. George, Truth, Faith, and Justice. There was also a cunning Spanish rope-dancer, who performed marvels on a cord stretched to the ground from the tower of St. George’s church in St. Paul’s churchyard⁠[507]. Mary, in 1553, enjoyed an even more thrilling spectacle in ‘one Peter a Dutchman,’ who stood and waved a streamer on the weathercock of St. Paul’s steeple. She had eight pageants, of which three were contributed by the Genoese, Easterlings, and Florentines. The subjects are unknown, but that of the Florentines was in the form of a triple arch and had on the top a trumpeting angel in green, who moved his trumpet to the wonder of the crowd⁠[508]. There were pageants again when Mary brought her Spanish husband to London in 1554. At the conduit in Gracechurch Street were painted the Nine Worthies. One of these was Henry VIII, who was represented as handing a bible to Edward; and the unfortunate painter was dubbed a knave and a rank traitor and villain by Bishop Gardiner, because the bible was not put in the hands of Mary⁠[509]. At the coronation of Elizabeth in 1559, with which this list must close, it was Time and Truth who offered the English bible to the queen. The same pageant had representations of a Decayed Commonwealth and a Flourishing Commonwealth, while others figured the Union of York and Lancaster, the Seat of Worthy Governance, the Eight Beatitudes, and Deborah the Judge. At Temple Bar, those ancient palladia of London city, the giants Gotmagot and Corineus, once more made their appearance⁠[510].

I do not wish to exaggerate the influence exercised by the miracle-plays and moralities over these London shows. London was not, in the Middle Ages, one of the most dramatic of English cities, and such plays as there were were not in the hands of those trade- and craft-guilds to whom the glorifying of the receptions naturally fell. The functions carried out by the fishmongers in 1298 and 1313 are much of the nature of masked ridings or ‘disguisings,’ and must be held to have a folk origin. The ship of 1313 suggests a ‘hobby ship⁠[511].’ Throughout the shows draw notions from many heterogeneous sources. The giants afford yet another ‘folk’ element. The gifts of gold and wine and the speeches of welcome⁠[512] need no explanation. Devices of heraldry are worked in. The choirs of boys and girls dressed as angels recall the choirs perched on the battlements of churches in such ecclesiastical ceremonies as the Palm Sunday procession⁠[513]. The term ‘pageant’ (pagina), which first appears in this connexion in 1432 and is in regular use by the end of the century, is perhaps a loan from the plays, but the structures themselves appear to have arisen naturally out of attempts to decorate such obvious architectural features of the city as London Bridge, the prison known as the Tun, and the conduits which stood in Cornhill and Cheapside⁠[514]. It is chiefly in the selection of themes for the more elaborate mimetic pageants that the reflection of the regular contemporary drama must be traced. Such scriptural subjects as John the Baptist of 1392 or the Prophets and Apostles of 1415 pretty obviously come from the miracle-plays. The groups of allegorical figures which greeted Henry VI in 1432 are in no less close a relation to the moralities, which were at that very moment beginning to outstrip the miracle-plays in popularity. And in the reign of Henry VII the humanist tendencies begin to suggest subjects for the pageants as well as to transform the drama itself.

Certainly one does not find in London or in any English city those mystères mimés or cyclical dumb-shows, with which the good people of Paris were wont to welcome kings, and which are clearly an adaptation of the ordinary miracle-play to the conditions of a royal entry with its scant time for long drawn-out dialogue. The earliest of these upon record was in 1313 when Philip IV entertained Edward II and Isabella. It is not quite clear whether this was a procession like the disguising called the procession du renard which accompanied it, or a stationary dumb-show on pageants. But there is no doubt about the moult piteux mystere de la Passion de Nostre Seigneur au vif given before Charles VI and Henry V after the treaty of Troyes in 1420, for this is said to have been on eschaffaulx and to have been modelled on the bas-reliefs around the choir of Notre-Dame. Very similar must have been the moult bel mystere du Vieil testament et du Nouvel which welcomed the duke of Bedford in 1424 and which fut fait sans parler ne sans signer, comme ce feussent ymaiges enlevez contre ung mur. Sans parler, again, was the mystère which stood on an eschaffault before the church of the Trinity when Henry VI was crowned, only a few weeks before the London reception already mentioned⁠[515].

It may be added that in many provincial towns the pageants used at royal entries had a far closer affinity to the miracle-plays proper than was the case in London. The place most often honoured in this sort was Coventry. In 1456 came Queen Margaret and poor mad Henry VI. One John Wedurley of Leicester seems to have been employed to organize a magnificent entertainment. At Bablake gate, where stood a Jesse, the royal visitors were greeted by Isaiah and Jeremiah. Within the gate was a ‘pagent’ with Saint Edward the Confessor and St. John the Evangelist. On the conduit in Smithford Street were the four Cardinal Virtues. In the Cheaping were nine pageants for the Nine Worthies. At the cross there were angels, and wine flowed, and at another conduit hard by was St. Margaret ‘sleyng’ her dragon and a company of angels. The queen was so pleased that she returned next year for Corpus Christi day. It appears from the smiths’ accounts that the pageants used at the reception were those kept by the crafts for the plays. The smiths’ pageant was had out again in 1461, with Samson upon it, when Edward IV came after his coronation, and in 1474 when the young prince Edward came for St. George’s feast. The shows then represented King Richard II and his court, Patriarchs and Prophets, St. Edward the Confessor, the Three Kings of Cologne and St. George slaying the dragon. Prince Arthur, in 1498, saw the Nine Worthies, the Queen of Fortune, and, once more, Saint George. For Henry VIII and Katharine of Aragon in 1511 there were three pageants: on one the ninefold hierarchy of angels, on another ‘divers beautiful damsels,’ on the third ‘a goodly stage play.’ The mercers’ pageant ‘stood’ at the visit of the Princess Mary in 1525, and the tanners’, drapers’, smiths’, and weavers’ pageants at that of Queen Elizabeth in 1565. I do not know whether it is legitimate to infer that the subjects represented on these occasions were those of the Corpus Christi plays belonging to the crafts named⁠[516].

York was visited by Richard III in 1483, and there were pageants, the details of which have not been preserved, as well as a performance of the Creed play⁠[517]. It was also visited by Henry VII in 1486, and there exists a civic order prescribing the pageants for that occasion. The first of these was a most ingenious piece of symbolism. There was a heaven and beneath it ‘a world desolaite, full of treys and floures.’ Out of this sprang ‘a roiall, rich, rede rose’ and ‘an othre rich white rose,’ to whom all the other flowers did ‘lowte and evidently yeve suffrantie.’ Then appeared out of a cloud a crown over the roses, and then a city with citizens with ‘Ebrauk’ the founder, who offered the keys to the king. The other pageants represented Solomon and the six Henries, the Castle of David, and Our Lady. There were also devices by which a rain of rose-water and a hailstorm of comfits fell before the king⁠[518]. During the same progress which took Henry to York, he also visited Worcester, where there were pageants and speeches, ‘whiche his Grace at that Tyme harde not’ but which should have represented Henry VI and a Ianitor ad Ianuam. Thence he went to Hereford, and was greeted by St. George, King Ethelbert, and Our Lady; thence to Gloucester, where the chronicler remarks with some surprise that ‘ther was no Pageant nor Speche ordeynede’; and finally to Bristol, where were King Bremmius, Prudence, Justice, ‘the Shipwrights Pageannt,’ without any speech, and a ‘Pageannte of an Olifaunte, with a Castell on his Bakk’ and ‘The Resurrection of our Lorde in the highest Tower of the same, with certeyne Imagerye smytyng Bellis, and all wente by Veights, merveolously wele done⁠[519].’ In 1503 Henry VII’s daughter Margaret married James IV of Scotland, and was received into Edinburgh with pageants of the Judgement of Paris, the Annunciation, the Marriage of Joseph and Mary, and the Four Virtues⁠[520]. Eight years later, in 1511, she visited Aberdeen, and the ‘pleasant padgeanes’ included Adam and Eve, the Salutation of the Virgin, the Magi, and the Bruce⁠[521].

The facts brought together in the present chapter show how ‘pageant’ came to have its ordinary modern sense of a spectacular procession. How it was replaced by other terms in the sense of ‘play’ will be matter for the sequel. It may be added that the name is also given to the elaborate structures of carpenters’ and painters’ work used in the early Tudor masks⁠[522]. These the masks probably took over from the processions and receptions. On the other hand, the receptions, by an elaboration of the spoken element, developed into the Elizabethan ‘Entertainments,’ which are often classified as a sub-variety of the mask itself. This action and reaction of one form of show upon another need not at this stage cause any surprise. A sixteenth-century synonym for ‘pageant’ is ‘triumph,’ which is doubtless a translation of the Italian trionfo, a name given to the edifizio by the early Renascence, in deliberate reminiscence of classical terminology⁠[523].

BOOK IV THE INTERLUDE

Patronage cannot kill art: even in kings’ palaces the sudden flower blooms serene.

Modern Play.

CHAPTER XXIV PLAYERS OF INTERLUDES

[Bibliographical Note.—The Annals of the Stage in J. P. Collier, History of English Dramatic Poetry (new ed. 1879), although ill arranged and by no means trustworthy, now become of value. They may be supplemented from the full notices of Tudor spectacula in E. Hall, The Union of Lancaster and York, 1548, ed. 1809, and from the various calendars of State papers, of which J. S. Brewer and J. Gairdner, Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII (1862-1903), including the Revels Accounts and the Kings Books of Payments, is the most important. Some useful documents are in W. C. Hazlitt, The English Drama and Stage (1869). The French facts are given by L. Petit de Julleville, Les Comédiens en France au Moyen Âge (1889).]

The closing section of this essay may fitly be introduced by a brief retrospect of the conclusions already arrived at. The investigation, however it may have lingered by the way, has not been altogether without its logos or rational framework. The first book began with a study of the conditions under which the degenerate stage of the Roman Empire ceased to exist. The most important of these were the indifference of the barbarians and the direct hostility of the Church. A fairly clean sweep was made. Scarcely a thread of dramatic tradition is to be traced amongst the many and diverse forms of entertainment provided by mediaeval minstrelsy. But the very existence of minstrelsy, itself a singular blend of Latin and barbaric elements, is a proof of the enduring desire of the western European peoples for something in the nature of spectacula. In the strength of this the minstrels braved the ban of the Church, and finally won their way to at least a partial measure of toleration from their hereditary foes. In the second book it was shown that the instinct for spectacula had its definitely dramatic side. The ludi of the folk, based upon ancient observances of a forgotten natural religion, and surviving side by side with minstrelsy, broke out at point after point into mimesis. Amongst the villages they developed into dramatic May-games and dramatic sword-dances: in their bourgeois forms they overran city and cathedral with the mimicries of the Feast of Fools and the Boy Bishop; they gave birth to a special type of drama in the mask; and they further enriched Tudor revels with the characteristic figures of the domestic fool or jester and the lord of misrule. Upon the folk ludi, as upon the spectacula of the minstrels, the Church looked doubtfully. But the mimetic instinct was irresistible, and in the end it was neither minstrels nor folk, but the Church itself, which did most for its satisfaction. The subject of the third book is a remarkable growth of drama within the heart of the ecclesiastical liturgy, which began in the tenth century, and became, consciously or unconsciously, a powerful counterpoise to the attraction of ludi and spectacula. So popular, indeed, did it prove that it broke the bonds of ecclesiastical control; and about the thirteenth century a process of laicization set in, which culminated during the fourteenth in the great Corpus Christi cycles of the municipal guilds. The subject-matter, however, remained religious to the end, an end which, in spite of the marked critical attitude adopted by the austerer schools of churchmen, did not arrive until that attitude was confirmed by successive waves of Lollard and Protestant sentiment. Nor was the system substantially affected by certain innovations of the fifteenth century, a tendency to substitute mere spectacular pageantry for the spoken drama, and a tendency to add to the visible presentment of the scriptural history an allegorical exposition of theological and moral doctrine.

It is the object of the present book briefly to record the rise, also in the fifteenth century, of new dramatic conditions which, after existing for a while side by side with those of mediaevalism, were destined ultimately to become a substitute for these and to lead up directly to the magic stage of Shakespeare. The change to be sketched is primarily a social rather than a literary one. The drama which had already migrated from the church to the market-place, was to migrate still further, to the banqueting-hall. And having passed from the hands of the clergy to those of the folk, it was now to pass, after an interval of a thousand years, not immediately but ultimately, into those of a professional class of actors. Simultaneously it was to put off its exclusively religious character, and enter upon a new heritage of interests and methods, beneath the revivifying breath of humanism.

A characteristic note of the new phase is the rise of the term interludium or ‘interlude.’ This we have already come across in the title of that fragmentary Interludium de Clerico et Puella which alone amongst English documents seemed to bear witness to a scanty dramatic element in the repertory of minstrelsy⁠[524]. The primary meaning of the name is a matter of some perplexity. The learned editors of the New English Dictionary define it as ‘a dramatic or mimic representation, usually of a light or humorous character, such as was commonly introduced between the acts of the long mystery-plays or moralities, or exhibited as part of an elaborate entertainment.’ Another recognized authority, Dr. Ward, says⁠[525]: ‘It seems to have been applied to plays performed by professional actors from the time of Edward IV onwards. Its origin is doubtless to be found in the fact that such plays were occasionally performed in the intervals of banquets and entertainments, which of course would have been out of the question in the case of religious plays proper.’ I cannot say that I find either of these explanations at all satisfactory. In the first place, none of the limitations of sense which they suggest are really borne out by the history of the word. So far as its rare use in the fourteenth century goes, it is not confined to professional plays and it does not exclude religious plays. The Interludium de Clerico et Puella is, no doubt, a farce, and something of the same sort appears to be in the mind of Huchown, or whoever else was the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, when he speaks of laughter and song as a substitute for ‘enterludez’ at Christmas⁠[526]. But on the other hand, Robert Mannyng of Brunne, at the very beginning of the century, classes ‘entyrludes’ with ‘somour games’ and other forbidden delights of the folk⁠[527], while the Wyclifite author of the Tretise on Miriclis at its close, definitely uses ‘entirlodies’ as a name for the religious plays which he is condemning⁠[528]. In the fifteenth century, again, although ‘interlude’ is of course not one of the commonest terms for a miracle-play, yet I find it used for performances probably of the miracle-play type at New Romney in 1426 and at Harling in 1452, while the jurats of the former place paid in 1463 for ‘the play of the interlude of our Lord’s Passion⁠[529].’ The term, then, appears to be equally applicable to every kind of drama known to the Middle Ages. As to its philological derivation, both the New English Dictionary and Dr. Ward treat it as a ludus performed in the intervals of (inter) something else, although they do not agree as to what that something else was. For the performance of farces ‘between the acts of the long miracle-plays’ there is no English evidence whatever⁠[530]. The farcical episodes which find a place in the Towneley plays and elsewhere are in no way structurally differentiated from the rest of the text. There are some French examples of combined performances of farces and miracles, but they do not go far enough back to explain the origin of the word⁠[531]. A certain support is no doubt given to the theory of the New English Dictionary by the ‘mirry interludes’ inserted in Sir David Lyndsay’s morality Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits, but, once more, it is difficult to elucidate a term which appears at the beginning of the fourteenth century from an isolated use in the middle of the sixteenth. Dr. Ward’s hypothesis is perhaps rather more plausible. No doubt plays were performed at court and elsewhere between the banquet and the ‘void’ or cup of spiced drink which followed later in the evening, and possibly also between the courses of the banquet itself⁠[532]. But this fact would not differentiate dramatic ludi from other forms of minstrelsy coming in the same intervals, and the fact that miracle-plays are called interludes, quite as early as anything else, remains to be accounted for. I am inclined myself to think that the force of inter in the combination has been misunderstood, and that an interludium is not a ludus in the intervals of something else, but a ludus carried on between (inter) two or more performers; in fact, a ludus in dialogue. The term would then apply primarily to any kind of dramatic performance whatever.

In any case it is clear that while ‘interlude’ was only a subordinate name for plays of the miracle-type, it was the normal name, varied chiefly by ‘play’ and ‘disguising,’ for plays given in the banqueting-halls of the great⁠[533]. These begin to claim attention during the fifteenth century. Dr. Ward’s statement that religious plays could not have been the subject of such performances does not bear the test of comparison with the facts. A miracle of St. Clotilda was played before Henry the Sixth at Windsor Castle in 1429, a Christi Descensus ad Inferos before Henry the Seventh during dinner at Winchester in 1486; nor is it probable that the play performed by the boys of Maxstoke Priory in the hall of Lord Clinton at Candlemas, 1430, was other than religious in character⁠[534]. The records of the miracle-plays themselves show that they were often carried far from home. There was much coming and going amongst the villages and little towns round about Lydd and New Romney from 1399 to 1508. One at least of the existing texts, that of the Croxton Sacrament, appears to be intended for the use of a travelling troupe, and that such troupes showed their plays not only in market-places and on village greens but also in the houses of individual patrons, is suggested by entries of payments to players of this and that locality in more than one computus⁠[535]. Thus Maxstoke Priory, between 1422 and 1461, entertained lusores⁠[536] from Nuneaton, Coventry, Daventry, and Coleshill; while Henry the Seventh, between 1492 and 1509, gave largess, either at court or abroad, to ‘pleyers’ from Essex, Wimborne Minster, Wycombe, London, and Kingston. The accounts of the last-named place record an ordinary parochial play in the very year of the royal ‘almasse.’

It is obvious that this practice of travelling must have brought the local players into rivalry with those hereditary gentlemen of the road, the minstrels. Possibly they had something to do with provoking that querelosa insinuatio against the rudes agricolae et artifices diversarum misterarum which led to the formation of the royal guild of minstrels in 1469. If so, the measure does not seem to have been wholly successful in suppressing them. But the minstrels had a better move to make. Their own profession had fallen, with the emergence of the trouvère and the spread of printing, upon evil days. And here were the scanty remnants of their audiences being filched from them by unskilled rustics who had hit upon just the one form of literary entertainment which, unlike poetry and romance in general, could not dispense with the living interpreter⁠[537]. What could they do better than develop a neglected side of their own art and become players themselves? So there appear in the computi, side by side with the local lusores, others whose methods and status are precisely those of minstrels⁠[538]. The generosity of Henry the Sixth at the Christmas of 1427 is called forth equally by the entreludes of the jeweis de Abyndon and the jeuues et entreludes of Jakke Travail et ses compaignons. By 1464 ‘players in their enterludes’ were sufficiently recognized to be included with minstrels in the exceptions of the Act of Apparel⁠[539]. Like other minstrels, the players put themselves under the protection of nobles and persons of honour. The earliest upon record are those of Henry Bourchier, earl of Essex, and those of Richard, duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard the Third. Both companies were rewarded by Lord Howard in 1482. The earls of Northumberland, Oxford, Derby, and Shrewsbury, and Lord Arundel, all had their players before the end of the century⁠[540]. The regulations of the Northumberland Household Book, as well as entries in many computi, show that by the reign of Henry the Eighth the practice was widespread⁠[541]. Naturally it received a stimulus when a body of players came to form a regular part of the royal household. Whether Richard the Third retained his company in his service during his brief reign is not upon record. But Henry the Seventh had four lusores regis, alias, in lingua Anglicana, les pleyars of the Kyngs enterluds at least as early as 1494. These men received an annual fee of five marks apiece, together with special rewards when they played before the king. When their services were not required at court, they took to the road, just as did the minstrels, ioculator, and ursarius of the royal establishment. In 1503 they were sent, under their leader John English, in the train of Margaret of Scotland to her wedding with James the Fourth at Edinburgh, and here they ‘did their devoir’ before the Scottish court⁠[542]. Henry the Eighth increased their number to eight, and they can be traced on the books of the royal household through the reigns of Edward the Sixth and Mary, and well into that of Elizabeth⁠[543].

The new conditions under which plays were now given naturally reacted upon the structure of the plays themselves. The many scenes of the long cyclical miracles, with their multitudinous performers, must be replaced by something more easy of representation. The typical interlude deals with a short episode in about a thousand lines, and could be handled in the hour or so which the lord might reasonably be expected to spare from his horse and his hounds⁠[544]. Economy in travelling and the inconvenience of crowding the hall both went to put a limit on the number of actors. Four men and a boy, probably in apprenticeship to one of them, for the women’s parts, may be taken as a normal troupe. In many of the extant interludes the list of dramatis personae is accompanied by an indication as to how, by the doubling of parts, the caste may be brought within reasonable compass⁠[545]. The simplest of scenic apparatus and a few boards on trestles for a stage had of course to suffice. But some sort of a stage there probably was, as a rule, although doubtless the players were prepared, if necessary, to perform, like masquers, on the floor in front of the screen, or at best upon the dais where the lord sat at meals⁠[546]. The pleasure-loving monks of Durham seem as far back as 1465 to have built at their cell of Finchale a special player-chamber for the purposes of such entertainments⁠[547]. Henry the Eighth, too, in 1527 had a ‘banket-house’ or ‘place of plesyer,’ called the ‘Long house,’ built in the tiltyard at Greenwich, and decorated by none other than Hans Holbein⁠[548]. But this was designed rather for a special type of disguising, half masque half interlude, and set out with the elaborate pageants which the king loved, than for ordinary plays. A similar banqueting-house ‘like a theatre’ had been set up at Calais in 1520, but unfortunately burnt down before it could be used⁠[549]. Another characteristic of the interlude is the prayer for the sovereign and sometimes the estates of the realm with which it concludes, and which often helps to fix the date of representation of the extant texts⁠[550].

Like the minstrels, the interlude players found a welcome not only in the halls of the great, but amongst the bourgeois and the village folk. In the towns they would give their first performance before the municipality in the guildhall and take a reward⁠[551]. Then they would find a profitable pitch in the courtyard of some old-fashioned inn, with its convenient range of outside galleries⁠[552]. It is, however, rather surprising to find that Exeter, like Paris itself⁠[553], had its regular theatre as early as 1348, more than two centuries before anything of the kind is heard of in London. This fact emerges from two mandates of Bishop Grandisson; one, already quoted in the previous volume, directed against the secta or ordo, probably a société joyeuse, of Brothelyngham⁠[554], the other inhibiting a satirical performance designed by the youth of the city, in disparagement of the trade and mystery of the cloth-dressers. In both cases the ‘theatre’ of the city was to be the locality of the revels⁠[555]. Much later, in 1538, but still well in anticipation of London, the corporation of Yarmouth appear to have built a ‘game-house’ upon the garden of the recently surrendered priory⁠[556].

In the villages the players probably had to content themselves with a stage upon the green; unless indeed they could make good a footing in the church. This they sometimes did by way of inheritance from the local actors of miracles. For while the great craft-cycles long remained unaffected by the professional competition and ultimately came to their end through quite different causes, it was otherwise in the smaller places. If the parson and the churchwardens wanted a miracle in honour of their patron saint and could readily hire the services of a body of trained actors, they were not likely to put themselves to the trouble of drilling bookless rustics in their parts. And so the companies got into the churches for the purpose of playing religious interludes, but, if the diatribes of Elizabethan Puritans may be trusted, remained there to play secular ones⁠[557]. The rulers of the Church condemned the abuse⁠[558], but it proved difficult to abolish, and even in 1602 the authorities of Syston in Leicestershire had to buy players off from performing in the church⁠[559].

Even where the old local plays survived they were probably more or less assimilated to the interlude type. It was certainly so with those written by John Bale and played at Kilkenny. It was probably so with the play of Placidas or St. Eustace given at Braintree in 1534, if, as is most likely, it was written by Nicholas Udall, who was vicar of Braintree at the time. And when we find the wardens of Bungay Holy Trinity in 1558 paying fourpence for an ‘interlude and game-booke’ and two shillings for writing out the parts, the conjecture seems obvious that what they had done was to obtain a copy of one of the printed interludes which by that time the London stationers had issued in some numbers. On the other hand the example of the travelling companies sometimes stirred up the folk, with the help, no doubt, of Holophernes the schoolmaster, to attempt performances of secular as well as religious plays on their own account. The rendering of Pyramus and Thisbe by the mechanicals of Athens, which is Stratford-upon-Avon, is the classical instance. But in Shropshire the folk are said to have gone on playing debased versions of Dr. Faustus and other Elizabethan masterpieces, upon out-of-door stages, until quite an incredibly late date⁠[560].

I return to the atmosphere of courts. It must not be supposed that, under the early Tudors, the professional players had a monopoly of interludes. On the contrary, throughout nearly the whole of the sixteenth century, it remained doubtful whether the future of the drama was to rest in professional or amateur hands. The question was not settled until the genius of Marlowe and of Shakespeare came to the help of the players. Under the pleasure-loving Henries accomplishment in the arts of social diversion was as likely a road to preferment as another. Sir Thomas More won a reputation as a page by his skill in improvising a scene⁠[561]. John Kite stepped almost straight from the boards to the bishopric of Armagh. His performances, not perhaps without some scandal to churchmen, were given when he was subdean of the Chapel Royal⁠[562]. This ancient establishment, with its thirty-two gentlemen and its school of children, proved itself the most serious rival of the regular company. Both gentlemen and children, sometimes together and sometimes separately, took part in the performances, the records of which begin in 1506⁠[563]. The rather exceptional nature of the repertory will be considered presently. Few noblemen, of course, kept a chapel on the scale of the royal one. But that of the earl of Northumberland was of considerable size, and was accustomed about 1523 to give, not only a Resurrection play at Easter and a Nativity play at Christmas, but also a play on the night of Shrove-Tuesday. The functionary to whom it looked for a supply of interludes was the almoner⁠[564].

The gentlemen of the Inns of Courts were always ready to follow in the wake of courtly fashion. Their interludes were famous and important in the days of Elizabeth, but, although Lincoln’s Inn entertained external lusores in 1494 and 1498⁠[565], Gray’s Inn is the only one in which amateur performances are recorded before 1556. A ‘disguising’ or ‘plaie’ by one John Roo was shown here in 1526, and got the actors into trouble with Wolsey, who found, or thought that he found, in it reflections on his own administration⁠[566]. All ‘comedies called enterludes’ were stopped by an order of the bench in 1550, except during times of solemn Christmas⁠[567]. In 1556 an elaborate piece for performance by all the Inns was in preparation by William Baldwin⁠[568].

There were interludes, moreover, at universities and in schools. The earliest I have noted are at Magdalen College, Oxford, where they occur pretty frequently from 1486 onwards. They were given in the hall at Christmas, and overlap in point of time the performances of the Quem quaeritis in the chapel⁠[569]. There was a play at Cardinal’s College in 1530⁠[570]. Nicholas Grimald’s Christus Redivivus was given at Brasenose about 1542. Possibly his Archipropheta was similarly given about 1546 at Christ Church, of which he had then become a member. Beyond these I do not know of any other Oxford representations before 1558. But in 1512 the University granted one Edward Watson a degree in grammar on condition of his composing a comedy⁠[571]. At Cambridge the pioneer college was St. John’s, where the Plutus of Aristophanes was given in Greek in 1536⁠[572]. Christ’s College is noteworthy for a performance of the antipapal Pammachius in 1545⁠[573], and also for a series of plays under the management of one William Stevenson in 1550-3, amongst which it is exceedingly probable that Gammer Gurton’s Needle was included⁠[574]. Most of these university plays were however, probably, in Latin. The Elizabethan statutes of Trinity College⁠[575] and Queens’ College⁠[576] both provide for plays, and in both cases the performances really date back to the reign of Henry VIII. At Trinity John Dee seems to have produced the Pax of Aristophanes, with an ingenious contrivance for the flight of the Scarabaeus to Zeus, shortly upon his appointment as an original fellow in 1546⁠[577].

The Westminster Latin play cannot be clearly shown to be pre-Elizabethan⁠[578], and the Westminster dramatic tradition is, therefore, less old than that of either Eton or St. Paul’s. Professor Hales has, indeed, made it seem plausible that Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister dates from his Westminster (?1553-6) and not his Eton mastership (1534-41). But the Eton plays can be traced back to 1525-6⁠[579], and were a recognized institution when Malim wrote his Consuetudinary about 1561⁠[580]. In 1538 the Eton boys played, under Udall, before Cromwell⁠[581]. A decade earlier, in 1527, John Ritwise had brought the boys of Colet’s new foundation at St. Paul’s to court. They acted an anti-Lutheran play before Henry and probably also the Menaechmi before Wolsey. Certainly they acted the Phormio before him in the following year⁠[582]. The dramatic history of this school is a little difficult to disentangle from that of its near neighbour, the song-school of St. Paul’s cathedral⁠[583]. The song-school probably provided the children whom Heywood brought before the princess Mary in 1538⁠[584] and to court in 1553. But some doubt has been cast upon the bona fides of the account which Warton gives of further performances by them before the princess Elizabeth at Hatfield in 1554⁠[585]. Plays, either in English or in Latin, of which Bale preserves a list, were also acted in the private school set up in 1538 by one Ralph Radclif in the surrendered Carmelite convent of Hitchin⁠[586].

It will be seen that the non-professional dramatic activities of England, outside the miracle-plays, although of some importance in the sixteenth century, came late and hardly extended beyond courtly and scholastic circles. There is nothing corresponding to the plentiful production of farces by amateur associations of every kind which characterized fifteenth-century France. Besides the scholars and the Basoche, which corresponded roughly to the Inns of Court, but was infinitely more lively and fertile, there were the Enfants sans Soucis in Paris, and in the province a host of puys and sociétés joyeuses. All of these played both morals and farces, particularly the latter, for which they claimed a very free licence of satirical comment⁠[587]. As a result, although salaried joueurs de personnages begin to make their appearance in the account books of the nobles as early as 1392-3⁠[588], the professional actors were unable to hold their own against the unequal competition, and do not really become of importance until quite the end of the sixteenth century⁠[589]. In England it was otherwise. The early suppression of the Feast of Fools and the strict control kept over the Boy Bishop afforded no starting-point for sociétés joyeuses, while the late development of English as a literary language did not lend itself to the formation of puys. We hear indeed of satirical performances by the guild of Brothelyngham at Exeter in 1348, and again by the filii civitatis in 1352⁠[590], but Bishop Grandisson apparently succeeded in checking this development which, so far as the information at present available goes, does not seem to have permanently established itself either at Exeter or elsewhere.

CHAPTER XXV HUMANISM AND MEDIAEVALISM

[Bibliographical Note.—The literary discussions and collections of texts named in the bibliographical note to chap. xxiii and the material on the annals of the stage in that to chap. xxiv remain available. W. Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren Dramas, vols. i-iii (1893-1903), is the best general guide on the classical drama and its imitations during the Middle Ages and the Renascence. W. Cloetta, Beiträge zur Litteraturgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance: i. Komödie und Tragödie im Mittelalter (1890); ii. Die Anfänge der Renaissancetragödie (1892), deals very fully with certain points. C. H. Herford, Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century (1886), has an admirable chapter on The Latin Drama. G. Saintsbury, The Earlier Renaissance (1901), chap. vi, may also be consulted. Useful books on the beginnings of the Elizabethan forms of drama are R. Fischer, Zur Kunstentwicklung der englischen Tragödie von ihren ersten Anfängen bis zu Shakespeare (1893); J. W. Cunliffe, The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy (1893); L. L. Schücking, Studien über die stofflichen Beziehungen der englischen Komödie zur italienischen bis Lilly (1901); F. E. Schelling, The English Chronicle Play (1902). The best bibliographies are, for the Latin plays, P. Bahlmann, Die Erneuerer des antiken Dramas und ihre ersten dramatischen Versuche, 1314-1478 (1896), and Die lateinischen Dramen von Wimpheling’s Stylpho bis zur Mitte des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, 1480-1550 (1893); and for English plays, W. W. Greg, A List of English Plays written before 1643 and printed before 1700 (1900). This may be supplemented from W. C. Hazlitt, A Manual for the Collector and Amateur of Old English Plays (1892). A list of early Tudor interludes will be found in Appendix X.]

The dramatic material upon which the interlude was able to draw had naturally its points of relation to and of divergence from that of the popular stage, whose last days it overlapped. It continued to occupy itself largely with the morality. The ‘moral interludes’ of the early Tudor period are in fact distinguished with some difficulty from the popular moralities by their comparative brevity, and by indications of the mise en scène as a ‘room’ or ‘hall’ rather than an open ‘place⁠[591].’ The only clearly popular texts later than those of the fifteenth century, discussed in a previous chapter, are Sir David Lyndsay’s Scottish Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis, and the Magnificence, which alone survives of several plays from the prolific pen of the ‘laureate’ poet, John Skelton. A somewhat intermediate type is presented by the Nature of Cardinal Morton’s chaplain, Henry Medwall. This was certainly intended for performance as an interlude, but it is on the scale of the popular moralities, needing division into two parts to bring it within the limits of courtly patience; and like them it is sufficiently wide in its scope to embrace the whole moral problem of humanity. The conditions of the interlude, however, enforced themselves, and the later morals have, as a rule, a more restricted theme. They make their selection from amongst the battalions of sins and virtues which were wont to invade the stage together, and set themselves the task of expounding the dangers of a particular temperament or the advantages of a particular form of moral discipline. Hickscorner shows man led into irreligion by imagination and freewill. Youth concerns itself with pride, lechery, and riot, the specific temptations of the young. The Nature of the Four Elements and John Redford’s somewhat later Wit and Science preach the importance of devotion to study. The distinction between the episodic and the more comprehensive moralities was in the consciousness of the writers themselves; and the older fashion did not wholly disappear. William Baldwin describes his play for the Inns of Court in 1556 as ‘comprehending a discourse of the worlde⁠[592]’; and mention is more than once made of an interesting piece called The Cradle of Security, which seems to have had a motive of death and the judgement akin to that found in The Pride of Life and in Everyman⁠[593].

The morality was not, perhaps, quite such an arid type of drama as might be supposed, especially after the dramatists learnt, instead of leaving humanity as a dry bone of contention between the good and evil powers, to adopt a biographic mode of treatment, and thus to introduce the interest of growth and development⁠[594]. But by the sixteenth century allegory had had its day, and the light-hearted court of Henry VIII and Katharine of Aragon might be excused some weariness at the constant presentation before it of argumentative abstractions which occasionally yielded nothing more entertaining than a personified débat⁠[595]. Certainly it is upon record that Medwall’s moral of ‘the fyndyng of Troth,’ played at the Christmas of 1513, appeared to Henry so long, that he got up and ‘departyd to hys chambre⁠[596].’ The offenders on this occasion were English and his company of household players. They seem to have been unwisely wedded to the old methods. They pursued the princess Margaret to Scotland with a ‘Moralite’ in 1503, and in the reign of Edward VI they were still playing the play of Self-Love⁠[597]. Perhaps this explains why they make distinctly less show in the accounts of Tudor revels than do their competitors of the Chapel. Unfortunately none of the pieces given by this latter body have been preserved. But, to judge by the descriptions of Hall, many of them could only be called interludes by a somewhat liberal extension of the sense of the term. There was perhaps some slight allegorical or mythological framework of spoken dialogue. But the real amusement lay in an abundance of singing, which of course the Chapel was well qualified to provide, and of dancing, in which the guests often joined, and in an elaborately designed pageant, which was wheeled into the hall and from which the performers descended. They were in fact masques rather than dramas in the strict sense, and in connexion with the origin of the masque they have already been considered⁠[598].

The popular stage, as has been said, had its farcical elements, but did not, in England, arrive at any notable development of the farce. Nor is any marked influence of the overseas habit even now to be traced. The name is not used in England, although it is in Scotland, where at the beginning of the sixteenth century the relations with France were much closer⁠[599]. Whether directly or indirectly through French channels, the farce is perhaps the contribution of minstrelsy to the nascent interlude. That some dramatic tradition was handed down from the mimi of the Empire to the mimi of the Middle Ages, although not susceptible of demonstration, is exceedingly likely⁠[600]. That solitary mediaeval survival, the Interludium de Clerico et Puella, hardly declares its origin. But the farce, in its free handling of contemporary life, in the outspokenness, which often becomes indecency, of its language, in its note of satire, especially towards the priest and other institutions deserving of reverence, is the exact counterpart of one of the most characteristic forms of minstrel literature, the fabliau. These qualities are reproduced in the interludes of John Heywood, who, though possibly an Oxford man, began life as a singer and player of the virginals at court, and belonged therefore to the minstrel class. He grew quite respectable, married into the family of Sir Thomas More and John Rastell the printer, and had for grandson John Donne. He was put in charge of the singing-school of St. Paul’s, the boys of which probably performed his plays. Of the six extant, Wit and Folly is a mere dialogue, and Love a more elaborate disputation, although both are presented ‘in maner of an enterlude.’ But the others, The Pardoner and the Friar, The Four P’s, The Weather, and John, Tib and Sir John are regular farces. And with them the farce makes good its footing in the English drama.

Those congeners of the French farce which took their origin from the Feast of Fools, the Sottie and the Sermon joyeux, are only represented in these islands by the Sermon of ‘Folie’ in Sir David Lyndsay’s Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis⁠[601]. But the ‘fool’ himself, as a dramatic character, is in Shakespeare’s and other Elizabethan plays, and it must now be pointed out that he is in some of the earliest Tudor interludes. Here he has the not altogether intelligible name of the ‘vice.’ A recent writer, Professor Cushman of the Nevada State University, has endeavoured to show that the vice came into the interludes through the avenue of the moralities. Originally ‘an allegorical representation of human weaknesses and vices, in short the summation of the Deadly Sins,’ he lost in course of time this serious quality, and ‘the term Vice came to be simply a synonym for buffoon⁠[602].’ This theory has no doubt the advantage of explaining the name. Unfortunately it proceeds by disregarding several plays in which the vice does occur, and reading him into many where there is none⁠[603]. ‘Vicious’ had his pageant in the Beverley Paternoster play, and vices in the ordinary sense of the word are of course familiar personages in the morals, which generally moreover have some one character who can be regarded as the representative or the chief representative of human frailty. But the vice is not found under that name in the text, list of dramatis personae, or stage directions of any popular morality or of any pre-Elizabethan moral interlude except the Marian Respublica. The majority of plays in which he does occur are not morals, even of the modified Elizabethan type; and although in those which are he generally plays a bad part, even this is not an invariable rule. In The Tide Tarrieth for No Man, as in the tragedy of Horestes, he is Courage. Moreover, as a matter of fact, he comes into the interludes through the avenue of the farce. The earliest vices, by some thirty years, are those of Heywood’s Love, in which he is ‘Neither Loving nor Loved,’ who mocks the other disputants, and plays a practical joke with fireworks upon them, and The Weather, in which he is ‘Merry Report,’ the jesting official of Jupiter. And in the later plays, even if he has some other dramatic function, he always adds to it that of a riotous buffoon. Frequently enough he has no other. It must be concluded then that, whatever the name may mean—and irresponsible philology has made some amazing attempts at explanation⁠[604]—the character of the vice is derived from that of the domestic fool or jester. Oddly enough he is rarely called a fool, although the description of Medwall’s Finding of Truth mentions ‘the foolys part⁠[605].’ But the Elizabethan writers speak of his long coat and lathen sword, common trappings of the domestic fool⁠[606]. Whether he ever had a cockscomb, a bauble, or an eared hood is not apparent. A vice seems to have been introduced into one or two of the later miracle-plays⁠[607]. At Bungay in 1566 he ‘made pastime’ before and after the play, as Tarleton or Kempe were in time to do with their ‘jigs’ upon the London boards. And probably this was his normal function on such occasions.

From the moral the interlude drew abstractions; from the farce social types. The possibility of vital drama lay in an advance to the portraiture of individualities. The natural way to attain to this was by the introduction of historical, mythical, or romantic personages. The miracle-play had, of course, afforded these; but there is little to show that the miracle-play, during the first half of the sixteenth century, had much influence on the interlude⁠[608]. The local players brought it to court, but, for the present, it was démodé. It was, however, to have its brief revival. The quarry of romantic narrative had hardly been opened by the Middle Ages. An old theme of Robert of Sicily, once used at Lincoln, was now remembered at Chester. Robin Hood had yielded dramatic May-games, and his revels were popular at Henry VIII’s court⁠[609]. New motives, however, now begin to assert themselves. Some at least of these were suggested by the study of Chaucer. Ralph Radclif’s school plays at Hitchin included one on Griselda and one on Meliboeus⁠[610]. Nicholas Grimald wrote one on Troilus, and another had been acted by the Chapel at court in 1516⁠[611]. Radclif was also responsible for a Titus and Gisippus, while the king’s players, shaking off their devotion to the moral, prepared in 1552 ‘a play of Aesop’s Crow, wherein the most part of the actors were birds⁠[612].’ An extant piece on ‘the beauty and good properties of women’ and ‘their vices and evil conditions’ is really a version through the Italian of the Spanish Celestina, one of the first of many English dramatic borrowings from South European sources.

So far I have written only of developments which were at least latent in mediaevalism. But the interlude had its rise in the very midst of the great intellectual and spiritual movement throughout Europe which is known as humanism; and hardly any branch of human activities was destined to be more completely transformed by the new forces than the drama. The history of this transformation is not, however, a simple one. Between humanism and mediaevalism there is no rigid barrier. As at all periods of transition, a constant action and reaction established themselves between the old and new order of ideas. Moreover, humanism itself held elements in solution that were not wholly reconcilable with each other. Many things, and perhaps particularly the drama, presented themselves in very different lights, according as they were viewed from the literary or the religious side of the great movement. Some brief indication of the in-and-out play of the forces of humanism as they affected the history of the interlude during the first half of the sixteenth century is, therefore, desirable.

The chief of these forces is, of course, the influence of classical comedy and tragedy. These, as vital forms of literature, did not long survive the fall of the theatres, with which, indeed, their connexion had long been of the slightest. In the East, a certain tradition of Christian book dramas begins with the anti-Gnostic dialogues of St. Methodius in the fourth century and ends with the much disputed Χριστὸς Πάσχων in the eleventh or twelfth⁠[613]. It is the merest conjecture that some of these may have been given some kind of representation in the churches⁠[614]. In the West the Aulularia of Plautus was rehandled under the title of Querolus at the end of the fourth century, and possibly also the Amphitruo under that of Geta⁠[615]. In the fifth, Magnus, the father of Consentius, is said by Sidonius, as Shakespeare is said by Ben Jonson, to have ‘outdone insolent Greece, or haughty Rome⁠[616].’ Further the production of plays cannot be traced. Soon afterwards most of the classical dramatists pass into oblivion. A knowledge of Seneca or of Plautus, not to speak of the Greeks, is the rarest of things from the tenth century to the fourteenth. The marked exception is Terence who, as Dr. Ward puts it, led ‘a charmed life in the darkest ages of learning.’ This he owed, doubtless, to his unrivalled gift of packing up the most impeccable sentiments in the neatest of phrases. His vogue as a school author was early and enduring, and the whole of mediaevalism, a few of the stricter moralists alone dissenting, hailed him as a master of the wisdom of life⁠[617]. At the beginning of the eleventh century, Notker Labeo, a monk of St. Gall, writes that he has been invited to turn the Andria into German⁠[618]. Not long before, Hrotsvitha, a Benedictine nun of Gandersheim in Saxony, had taken Terence as her model for half a dozen plays in Latin prose, designed to glorify chastity and to celebrate the constancy of the martyrs. The dramaturgy of Hrotsvitha appears to have been an isolated experiment and the merest literary exercise. Her plays abound in delicate situations, and are not likely to have been intended even for cloister representation⁠[619]. Nor is there much evidence for any representation of the Terentian comedies themselves. A curious fragment known as Terentius et Delusor contains a dialogue between the vetus poeta and a persona delusoris or mime. The nature of this is somewhat enigmatic, but it certainly reads as if it might be a prologue or parade written for a Terentian representation. In any case, it is wholly unparalleled⁠[620]. In fact, although the Middle Ages continued to read Terence, the most extraordinary ideas prevailed as to how his dramas were originally produced. Vague reminiscences of the pantomimic art of later Rome led to the mistaken supposition that the poet himself, or a recitator, declaimed the text from a pulpitum above the stage, while the actors gesticulated voicelessly below⁠[621]. By a further confusion the name of Calliopius, a third- or fourth-century grammarian through whose hands the text of Terence has passed, was taken for that of a recitator contemporary with the poet, and the Vita Oxoniensis goes so far as to describe him as a powerful and learned man, who read the comedies aloud in the senate⁠[622]. The same complete ignorance of things scenic declares itself in the notions attached to the terms tragoedia and comoedia, not only vulgarly, but in the formal definitions of lexicographers and encyclopaedists⁠[623].

The characteristics which really differentiate the drama from other forms of literature, dialogue and scenic representation, drop out of account, the latter entirely, the former very nearly so. Both tragedy and comedy are regarded as forms of narrative. Tragedy is narrative which concerns persons of high degree, is written in a lofty style, and beginning happily comes to a sad conclusion. Comedy, on the other hand, concerns itself with ordinary persons, uses humble and everyday language, and resolves its complications in a fortunate ending⁠[624]. Even these distinctions are not all consistently maintained, and the sad or happy event becomes the only fixed and invariable criterion⁠[625]. The origin of such conceptions is to be found partly in the common derived classical use of tragoedia and comoedia to describe tragic and comic events as well as the species of drama in which these are respectively represented; partly in a misunderstanding of grammarians who, assuming the dialogue and the representation, gave definitions of tragedy and comedy in relation to each other⁠[626]; and partly in the solecism of the fifth-century epic writer Dracontius, who seems to have called his Orestes a tragedy, merely because it was from tragedies that the material he used was drawn⁠[627]. The comoedia and tragoedia of the Latin writers, thus defined, was extended to all the varieties of narrative, in the widest sense of the word. The epics of Lucan and Statius, the elegies of Ovid, are tragoediae; the epistles of Ovid, the pastoral dialogues of Virgil, are comoediae; the satires of Horace, Persius, Juvenal, are one or the other, according to the point of view⁠[628]. It is curious that, with all this wide extension of the terms, they were not applied to the one form of mediaeval Latin composition which really had some analogy to the ancient drama; namely to the liturgical plays out of which the vernacular mysteries grew. These must have been written by learned writers: some of them were probably acted by schoolboys trained in Terence; and yet, if Hrosvitha, as she should be, is put out of the reckoning, no inward or outward trace of the influence of classical tragedy or comedy can be found in any one of them. In the manuscripts, they are called officium, ordo, ludus, miraculum, repraesentatio and the like, but very rarely comoedia or tragoedia, and never before 1204⁠[629]. From the Latin the mediaeval notions of tragedy and comedy were transferred to similar compositions in the vernaculars. Dante’s Divina Commedia is just a story which begins in Hell and ends in Paradise⁠[630]. Boccaccio⁠[631], Chaucer⁠[632], and Lydgate⁠[633] use precisely similar language. And, right up to the end of the sixteenth century, ‘tragedy’ continues to stand for ‘tragical legend’ with the authors of the Mirror for Magistrates and their numerous successors⁠[634]. Long before this, of course, humanistic research, without destroying their mediaeval sense, had restored to the wronged terms their proper connotation. There is a period during which it is a little difficult to say what, in certain instances, they do mean. When Robert Bower, in 1447, speaks of comoediae and tragoediae on the theme of Robin Hood and Little John, it is a matter for conjecture whether he is referring to dramatized May-games or merely to ballads⁠[635]. Bale, in writing of his contemporaries, certainly applies the words to plays; but when he ascribes tragoedias vulgares to Robert Baston, a Carmelite friar of the time of Edward II, it is probable that he is using, or quoting a record which used, an obsolescent terminology⁠[636]. What the comoediae of John Scogan, under Edward IV, may have been, must remain quite doubtful⁠[637].

It is in the early fourteenth century and in Italy that a renewed interest in the Latin dramatists, other than Terence, can first be traced. Seneca became the subject of a commentary by the English Dominican Nicholas Treveth, and also attracted the attention of Lovato de’ Lovati and the scholarly circle which gathered round him at Padua. The chief of these was Albertino Mussato, who about 1314 was moved by indignation at the intrigues of Can Grande of Verona to write his Ecerinis on the fate of that Ezzelino who, some eighty years before, had tyrannized over Padua. This first of the Senecan tragedies of the Renascence stirred enthusiasm amongst the growing number of the literati. It was read aloud and Mussato was laureated before the assembled university. Two learned professors paid it the tribute of a commentary. The example of Mussato was followed in the Achilleis (1390) of Antonio de’ Loschi of Vicenza and the Progne (†1428) of Gregorio Corraro of Mantua. Petrarch was familiar not only with Terence, but also with Seneca and Plautus, and his Philologia, written before 1331 and then suppressed, may claim to take rank with the Ecerinis as the first Renascence comedy. It was modelled, says Boccaccio, upon Terence. A fresh impulse was given to the study and imitation of Latin comedy in 1427 by the discovery of twelve hitherto unknown Plautine plays, including the Menaechmi and the Miles Gloriosus, and various attempts were made to complete the imperfect plays. In 1441 Leonardo Dati of Florence introduced a motive from the Trinummus into his, not comedy, but tragedy of Hiempsal⁠[638].

It must be borne in mind that during these early stages of humanism classical models and neo-Latin imitations alike were merely read and not acted. There is no sign whatever that as yet the mediaeval misconception as to the nature of Roman scenic representation had come to an end. It was certainly shared by Nicolas Treveth and probably by both Petrarch and Boccaccio⁠[639]. It was not indeed in these regular dramas that the habit of acting Latin first re-established itself, but in a mixed and far less classical type of play. It is probable that in schools the exercise of reciting verse, and amongst other verse dialogue, had never died out since the time of the Empire. In the fourth century the Ludus Septem Sapientum of the Bordeaux schoolmaster Ausonius, which consists of no more than a set of verses and a ‘Plaudite!’ for each sage, was doubtless written for some such purpose⁠[640]. Such also may have been the destiny of the ‘elegiac’ and ‘epic’ comedies and tragedies of which a fair number were produced, from the eleventh century to the thirteenth. These are comedies and tragedies, primarily, in the mediaeval sense. They are narrative poems in form. But in all of them a good deal of dialogue is introduced, and in some there is hardly anything else. Their subject-matter is derived partly from Terence and partly from the stock of motives common to all forms of mediaeval light literature. Their most careful student, Dr. Cloetta, suggests that they were intended for a half-dramatic declamation by minstrels. This may sometimes have been the case, but the capacity and the audience of the minstrels for Latin were alike limited, and I do not see why at any rate the more edifying of them may not have been school pieces⁠[641]. By the fifteenth century it will be remembered, students, who had long been in the habit of performing miracle-plays, had also taken to producing farces, morals, and those miscellaneous comic and satiric pieces which had their origin in the folk-festivals. Many of these were in the vernaculars; but it is difficult to avoid classing with them a group of Latin dialogues and loosely constructed comedies, written in Terentian metres and presenting a curious amalgam of classical and mediaeval themes. Of hardly any of these can it be said positively that they were intended to be acted. This is, however, not unlikely in the case of the anonymous Columpnarium, which goes back to the fourteenth century. Pavia probably saw a performance of Ugolini Pisani’s Confabulatio coquinaria (1435), which has all the characteristics of a carnival drollery, and certainly of Ranzio Mercurino’s De Falso Hypocrita, which is stated in the manuscript to have been ‘acta’ there on April 15, 1437. The Admiranda of Alberto Carrara was similarly ‘acta’ at Padua about 1456. The exact way in which these pieces and others like them were performed must remain doubtful. Acting in the strict sense can only be distinctly asserted of Francesco Ariosto’s dialogue of Isis which was given ‘per personatos’ at the Ferrara carnival of 1444⁠[642].

All this pseudo-classic comedy was looked upon with scorn by the purists of humanism. But it made its way over the Alps and had a considerable vogue in Germany. In France it found an exponent in Jean Tissier de Ravisy (Ravisius Textor), professor of rhetoric in the College of Navarre at Paris, and afterwards rector of the Paris University, who wrote, in good enough Latin, but wholly in the mediaeval manner, a large number of morals, farces, and dialogues for representation by his pupils⁠[643]. Two at least of these were turned into English interludes. The classical element predominates in the pseudo-Homeric Thersites, the production of which can be fixed to between October 12 and 24, 1537; the mediaeval in Thomas Ingelend’s The Disobedient Child, which belongs to the very beginning of the reign of Elizabeth.

It was doubtless the study of Vitruvius which awakened the humanists to the fact that their beloved comedies had after all been acted after very much the fashion so long familiar in farces and miracle-plays. Exactly when the knowledge came is not clear. Polydore Vergil is still ignorant, and even Erasmus, at the date of the Adagia, uncertain. Alberti put a theatrum in the palace built on the Vatican for Nicholas V about 1452, but there is no record of its use for dramatic performances at that time, and the immediate successors of Nicholas did not love humanism. Such performances seem to have been first undertaken by the pupils of a Roman professor, Pomponius Laetus. Amongst these was Inghirami, who was protagonist in revivals of the Asinaria of Plautus and the Phaedra of Seneca. These took place about 1485. Several other representations both of classical plays and of neo-Latin imitations occurred in Italy before the end of the century; and the practice spread to other countries affected by the humanist wave, soon establishing itself as part of the regular sixteenth-century scheme of education. By this time, of course, Greek as well as Latin dramatic models were available. The Latin translation of the Plutus of Aristophanes by Leonardo Bruni (†1427) found several successors, and the play was acted at Zwickau in 1521. The study of Sophocles and Euripides began with Francesco Filelfo (†1481), but no representations of these authors are mentioned⁠[644].

The outburst of dramatic activity in English schools and universities during the first half of the sixteenth century has already been noted. Wolsey may claim credit for an early encouragement of classical comedy in virtue of the performances of the Menaechmi and the Phormio given in his house by the boys of St. Paul’s in 1527 and 1528⁠[645]. The master of St. Paul’s from 1522 to 1531 was John Ritwise, who himself wrote a Latin play of Dido, which also appears to have been acted before Wolsey⁠[646]. The Plutus was given at St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1536; the Pax at Trinity about a decade later⁠[647]. A long series of English translations of classical plays begins with one of the Andria printed, possibly by John Rastell, under the title of Terens in Englysh⁠[648].

A more important matter is the influence exercised by classical models upon the vernacular interludes. This naturally showed itself in school dramas, and only gradually filtered down to the professional players. Two plays compete for the honour of ranking as ‘the first regular English comedy,’ a term which is misleading, as it implies a far more complete break with the past than is to be discerned in either of them. One is Nicholas Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister, the performance of which can be dated with some confidence in 1553, by which time its author may already have been head master of Westminster; the other is Gammer Gurton’s Needle, which was put on the stage at Christ’s College, Cambridge, has been ascribed to John Still, afterwards bishop of Bath and Wells, and to John Bridges, afterwards bishop of Oxford, but is more probably the work of one William Stevenson, who was certainly superintending plays at Christ’s College in 1550-3. Both plays adopt the classical arrangement by acts and scenes. But of the two Gammer Gurton’s Needle is far closer to the mediaeval farce in its choice and treatment of subject. Ralph Roister Doister, although by no means devoid of mediaeval elements, is in the main an adaptation of the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus. A slighter and rather later piece of work, Jack Juggler, was also intended for performance by schoolboys, and is based upon the Amphitruo. The earliest ‘regular English tragedy’ on Senecan lines, or at least the earliest which oblivion has spared, is the Gorboduc or Ferrex and Porrex of 1561. This falls outside the strict scope of this chapter. But a fragment of a play from the press of John Rastell (1516-33) which introduces ‘Lucres’ and Publius Cornelius, suggests that, here as elsewhere, the Elizabethan writers were merely resuming the history of the earlier English Renascence, which religious and political disturbances had so wofully interrupted.

Towards the end of Henry VIII’s reign, the course of the developing interlude was further diverted by a fresh wave of humanist influence. This came from the wing of the movement which had occupied itself, not only with erudition, but also with the spiritual stirrings that issued in the Reformation. It must be borne in mind that the attitude of mere negation which the English Puritans, no doubt with their justification in ‘antiquity,’ came to adopt towards the stage, was by no means characteristic of the earlier Protestantism. The Lutheran reformers were humanists as well as theologians, and it was natural to them to shape a literary weapon to their own purposes, rather than to cast it aside as unfit for furbishing. About 1530 a new school of neo-Latin drama arose in Holland, which stood in much closer relations to mediaevalism than that which had had its origin in Italy. It aimed at applying the structure and the style of Terence to an edifying subject-matter drawn from the tradition of the religious drama. The English Everyman belongs to a group of related plays, both in Latin and in the vernaculars, on its moral theme. The Acolastus (1530, acted 1529) of William Gnaphaeus and the Asotus (1537, written †1507) of George Macropedius began a cycle of ‘Prodigal Son’ plays which had many branches. The movement began uncontroversially, but developed Protestant tendencies. It spread to Basle, where Sixt Birck, who called himself Xystus Betuleius, wrote a Susanna (1537), an Eva (1539), a Judith (1540), and to France, where the Scotchman George Buchanan added to the ‘Christian Terence’ a ‘Christian Seneca’ in the Jephthes (1554) and Baptistes (1564) performed, between 1540 and 1543, by his students at Bordeaux. In these, which are but a few out of many similar plays produced at this period, the humanists drew in the main upon such scriptural subjects, many of them apocryphal or parabolic, as were calculated, while no doubt making for edification, at the same time to afford scope for a free portrayal of human life. This on the whole, in spite of the treatment of such episodes as the Magdalen in gaudio, was a departure from the normal mediaeval usage⁠[649].

A new note, of acute and even violent controversy, was introduced into the Protestant drama by the fiery heretic, Thomas Kirchmayer, or Naogeorgos. Kirchmayer wrote several plays, but the most important from the present point of view is that of Pammachius (1538), written during his pastorate of Sulza in Thuringia before his extreme views had led, not merely to exile from the Empire, but also to a quarrel with Luther. The Pammachius goes back to one of the most interesting, although of course not one of the most usual, themes of mediaeval drama, that of Antichrist; and it will readily be conceived that, for Kirchmayer, the Antichrist is none other than the Pope. It is interesting to observe that the play was dedicated to Archbishop Cranmer, whose reforming Articles of 1536 had roused the expectations of Protestant Germany. It was translated into English by John Bale, and was certainly not without influence in this country⁠[650].

Both the merely edifying and the controversial type of Lutheran drama, indeed, found its English representatives. To the former belong the Christus Redivivus (1543) and the Archipropheta (1548) of the Oxford lecturer, Nicholas Grimald, one of which deals, somewhat exceptionally at this period, with the Resurrection, the other with John the Baptist. The Absalon of Thomas Watson, the Jephthes of John Christopherson (1546)⁠[651], and the Sodom, Jonah, Judith, Job, Susanna, and Lazarus and Dives of Ralph Radclif (1546-56)⁠[652], can only conjecturally be put in this class; and Nicholas Udall, who wrote an Ezechias in English, certainly did not commit himself irrecoverably in the eyes of good Catholics. John Palsgrave’s Ecphrasis or paraphrase of Acolastus (1540) is supplied with grammatical notes, and is conceived wholly in the academic interest. On the other hand controversy is suggested in the titles of Radclif’s De Iohannis Hussi Damnatione, and of the De Meretrice Babylonica ascribed by Bale to Edward VI⁠[653], and is undeniably present in the Christus Triumphans (1551) of John Foxe, the martyrologist. This, like Pammachius, to which it owes much, belongs to the Antichrist cycle.

Nor was controversy confined to the learned language. As Protestantism, coquetted with by Henry VIII, and encouraged by Cromwell, became gradually vocal in England and awakened an equally resonant reply, the vernacular drama, like every other form of literary expression, was swept into the war of creeds. This phase, dominating even the professional players, endured through the reigns of Edward VI and Mary, and still colours the early Elizabethan interludes. Its beginnings were independent of the Lutheran influences that so profoundly affected its progress. The morality already contained within itself that tendency to criticism which was perhaps the easiest way to correct its insipidity. Historically it was politics rather than religion with which the interlude first claimed to interfere. The story begins, harmlessly enough, at court, with an allegorical ‘disguising’ during the visit of the Emperor Charles V to London in 1523, in which the French king, typified by an unruly horse, was tamed by Amitie, who stood for the alliance between Charles and Henry⁠[654]. In 1526 John Roo’s morality, played at Gray’s Inn, of ‘Lord Governaunce’ and ‘Lady Publike-Wele’ wrung Wolsey’s withers, although as a matter of fact it was twenty years old⁠[655]. Religion was first touched in 1527 in a piece of which one would gladly know more. It was played, as it seems, in Latin and French by the St. Paul’s boys under John Ritwise, before ambassadors from France. The subject was the captivity of the Pope, and amongst the singular medley of characters named are found ‘the herretyke, Lewtar’ and ‘Lewtar’s wyfe, like a frowe of Spyers in Almayn⁠[656].’ This was, no doubt, all in the interests of orthodoxy; and a similar tone may be assumed in the comedies acted before Wolsey in the following year on the release of the Pope⁠[657]. But much water passed under the mill in the next few years, and in 1533 there was a comedy at court ‘to the no little defamation of certain cardinals⁠[658].’ In the same year, however, a proclamation forbade ‘playing of enterludes’ ‘concerning doctrines in matters now in question and controversie⁠[659].’ This is a kind of regulation which it is easier to make than to enforce. Its effect, if it had any, was not of long duration. In 1537 much offence was given to Bishop Gardiner, the Chancellor of Cambridge University, by the performance amongst the youth of Christ’s College of a ‘tragedie,’ part at least of which was ‘soo pestiferous as were intolerable.’ This ‘tragedie’ was none other than the redoubtable Pammachius itself⁠[660]. In the same year, strict orders were issued to stay games and unlawful assemblies in Suffolk, on account of a ‘seditious May-game’ which was ‘of a king, how he should rule his realm,’ and in which ‘one played Husbandry, and said many things against gentlemen more than was in the book of the play⁠[661].’ These were exceptional cases. Both the students of Christ’s and the Suffolk rustics had in their various ways overstepped the permitted mark. Certainly Henry was not going to have kingship called in question on a village green. But it is notorious that, in matters of religion, he secretly encouraged many obstinate questionings which he openly condemned. And there is evidence that Cromwell at least found the interlude a very convenient instrument for the encouragement of Protestantism. Bale tells us that he himself won the minister’s favour ob editas comedias⁠[662]; and there is extant amongst his papers a singular letter of this same year 1537, from Thomas Wylley, the vicar of Yoxford in Suffolk, in which he calls attention to three plays he has written, and asks that he may have ‘fre lyberty to preche the trewthe⁠[663].’ Cranmer, too, seems to have been in sympathy with Cromwell’s policy, for in 1539 there was an enterlude at his house which a Protestant described as ‘one of the best matiers that ever he sawe towching King John,’ and which may quite possibly have been John Bale’s famous play⁠[664].

The position was altered after 1540, when Cromwell had fallen and the pendulum of Henry’s conscience had swung back to orthodoxy. Foxe records how under the Act Abolishing Diversity in Opinions (1539), known as the Act of the Six Articles, one Spencer, an ex-priest who had become an interlude-player, was burned at Salisbury for ‘matter concerning the sacrament of the altar’; and how, in London, one Shermons, keeper of the Carpenters’ Hall in Shoreditch, ‘was presented for procuring an interlude to be openly played, wherein priests were railed on and called knaves⁠[665].’ But the stage was by now growing difficult to silence. In 1542 the bishops petitioned the king to correct the acting of plays ‘to the contempt of God’s Word⁠[666]’; and in 1543 their desire was met by the Act for the Advauncement of true Religion and for the Abolishment of the Contrary, which permitted of ‘plays and enterludes for the rebukyng and reproching of vices and the setting forth of vertue’; but forbade such as meddled with ‘interpretacions of scripture, contrary to the doctryne set forth or to be set forth by the kynges maiestie⁠[667].’ This led to a vigorous protest from John Bale, writing under the pseudonym of Henry Stalbridge, in his Epistel Exhortatorye of an Inglyshe Christian. Its repeal was one of the first measures passed under Edward VI⁠[668].

Lord Oxford’s men were playing in Southwark at the very hour of the dirge for Henry in the church of St. Saviour’s⁠[669]. Almost immediately ‘the Poope in play’ and ‘prests in play’ make their appearance once more⁠[670]. Edward himself wrote his comedy De Meretrice Babylonica. In 1551 the English comedies ‘in demonstration of contempt for the Pope’ were reported by the Venetian ambassador to his government⁠[671]. But the players were not to have quite a free hand. It was now the Catholic interludes that needed suppression. A proclamation of August 6, 1549, inhibited performances until the following November in view of some ‘tendyng to sedicion⁠[672].’ The Act of Uniformity of the same year forbade interludes ‘depraving and despising’ the Book of Common Prayer⁠[673]. A more effective measure came later in a proclamation of 1551, requiring either for the printing or the acting of plays a licence by the king or the privy council⁠[674]. Mary, at whose own marriage with Philip in 1554 there were Catholic interludes and pageants⁠[675], issued a similar regulation in 1553, though naturally with a different intention⁠[676]. But this was not wholly effectual, and further orders and much vigilance by the Privy Council in the oversight of players were required in the course of the reign⁠[677].

Only a few texts from this long period of controversial drama have come down to us. On the Catholic side there is but one, the play of Respublica (1553). In this, and in the Protestant fragment of Somebody, Avarice and Minister, the ruling literary influence is that of Lyndsay’s Satyre of the Thre Estaitis. Of the remaining Protestant plays, Nice Wanton (1560) and Thomas Ingelend’s The Disobedient Child (n.d.) derive from the Dutch school of Latin drama and its offshoots. Nice Wanton is an adaptation of the Rebelles (1535) of Macropedius. The Disobedient Child has its relations, not only to the play of Ravisius Textor already mentioned, but also to the Studentes (1549) of Christopher Stymmelius. More distinctly combative in tendency is the Lusty Juventus (n.d.) of R. Wever, who may be reckoned as a disciple of John Bale. The activity of Bale himself can be somewhat obscurely discerned as the strongest impelling force on the Protestant side. He had his debts both to Lyndsay and to Kirchmayer, whose Pammachius, if not his other plays, he translated. But he is very largely original, and he is set apart from the other great figures of the Lutheran drama by the fact that all his plays were written in idiomate materno. Moreover, though not without classical elements, they were probably intended for popular performance, and approach more closely to the mediaeval structure than to that of the contemporary interlude. In his Scriptores he enumerates, under twenty-two titles, some forty-six of them. The five extant ones were probably all ‘compiled’ about 1538 while he was vicar of Thorndon in Suffolk. But some of them were acted at the market-cross of Kilkenny in 1553, and the others show signs of revision under Edward VI or even Elizabeth. In God’s Promises, John Baptist, and The Temptation, Bale was simply adapting and Protestantizing the miracle-play. The first is practically a Prophetae, and they are all ‘actes,’ or as the Middle Ages would have said ‘processes’ or ‘pageants,’ from a scriptural cycle. Of similar character were probably a series of eleven plays extending from Christ in the Temple to the Resurrection. A Vita D. Joannis Baptistae in fourteen libri perhaps treated this favourite sixteenth-century theme in freer style. The polemics are more marked in Three Laws, which is a morality; and in King John, which is a morality varied by the introduction of the king himself as a champion against the Pope and of certain other historical figures. It thus marks an important step in the advance of the drama towards the treatment of individualities. With the Three Laws and King John may be grouped another set of lost plays whose Latinized titles point unmistakably to controversy. An Amoris Imago might be merely edifying; but it would be difficult to avoid meddling in matters of doctrine with such themes to handle as De Sectis Papisticis, Erga Momos et Zoilos, Perditiones Papistarum, Contra Adulterantes Dei Verbum, De Imposturis Thomae Becketi. A pair of plays Super utroque Regis Coniugio, must have been, if they were ever acted, a climax of audacity even for John Bale.

What then, in sum, was the heritage which the early Elizabethan writers and players of interludes received from their immediate predecessors? For the writers there were the stimulus of classical method and a widened range both of intention and of material. Their claim was established to dispute, to edify, or merely to amuse. They stood on the verge of more than one field of enterprise which had been barely entered upon and justly appeared inexhaustible. ‘Tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral’; they possessed at least the keys to them all. Their own work is a heterogeneous welter of all the dramatic elements of the past and the future. Belated morals and miracle-plays jostle with adaptations of Seneca and Plautus. The dramatis personae of a single play will afford the abstractions of the allegory and the types of the farce side by side with real living individualities; and the latter are drawn indifferently from contemporary society, from romance, from classical and from national history. These are precisely the dry bones which one day, beneath the breath of genius, should spring up into the wanton life of the Shakespearean drama. The players had made good their footing both in courts and amongst the folk. But their meddlings with controversy had brought upon them the hand of authority, which was not to be lightly shaken off. Elizabeth, like her brother, signalized the opening of her reign by a temporary inhibition of plays⁠[678]; and her privy council assumed a jurisdiction, by no means nominal, over things theatrical. In their censorship they had the assistance of the bishop of London, as ‘ordinary.’ The lesser companies may have suffered from the statute of 1572 which confined the privilege of maintaining either minstrels or players of interludes to barons and personages of higher degree⁠[679]. But the greater ones which had succeeded in establishing themselves in London, grew and flourished. They lived down the competition of the amateurs which during the greater part of the century threatened to become dangerous, by their profitable system of double performances, at court and in the inn yards. Thus they secured the future of the drama by making it economically independent; and the copestone of their edifice was the building of the permanent theatres. But for courtesy and a legal fiction, they were vagabonds and liable to whipping: yet the time was at hand when one player was to claim coat armour and entertain preachers to sack and supper at New Place, while another was to marry the daughter of a dean and to endow an irony for all time in the splendid College of God’s Gift at Dulwich.

APPENDICES

A THE TRIBUNUS VOLUPTATUM

[The tribunus voluptatum was a municipal officer of the later Empire charged with the superintendence of the spectacula. He seems to have been appointed for life by the Emperor, and to have taken over functions formerly discharged by the praetors and quaestors. Mommsen, Ostgothische Studien (Neues Archiv, xiv. 495), says that he first appears in the fifth century. Possibly, therefore, Suetonius, Tiberius, 42, ‘novum denique officium instituit a voluptatibus, praeposito equite R. T. Caesonio Prisco’ refers to some other post. A titulus, ‘de officio tribuni voluptatū qd a temelicis et scenariis,’ which should be C. Th. i. 19, is missing from the text. C. Th. xv. 7, 13 (413), is addressed to the tribunus voluptatum of Carthage. The office was maintained in Italy under Theodoric (493-526). The formula of appointment here given is preserved by Cassiodorus, Variae, vii. 10; cf. Var. vi. 19 ‘cum lascivae voluptates recipiant tribunum.’ The Senate is informed by Var. i. 43 (†509) of the promotion of Artemidorus, who had held the office, to be praefectus urbanus. The tribunus voluptatum of Rome is referred to in two inscriptions of 522 and 526 (Rossi, Inscr. Christ. i. Nos. 989, 1005). One Bacauda is appointed tribunus voluptatum in Milan by Var. v. 25 (523-6). Constantine Porphyrogenitus de Caer. i. 83 mentions an ἄρχων τῆς θυμέλης in the tenth-century court of Byzantium, who may be the same officer.]

Formula Tribuni Voluptatum.

Quamvis artes lubricae honestis moribus sint remotae et histrionum vita vaga videatur efferri posse licentia, tamen moderatrix providit antiquitas, ut in totum non effluerent, cum et ipsae iudicem sustinerent. amministranda est enim sub quadam disciplina exhibitio voluptatum. teneat scaenicos si non verus, vel umbratilis ordo iudicii. temperentur et haec legum qualitate negotia, quasi honestas imperet inhonestis, et quibusdam regulis vivant, qui viam rectae conversationis ignorant. student enim illi non tantum iucunditati suae, quantum alienae laetitiae et condicione perversa cum dominatum suis corporibus tradunt, servire potius animos compulerunt. Dignum fuit ergo moderatorem suscipere, qui se nesciunt iuridica conversatione tractare. locus quippe tuus his gregibus hominum veluti quidam tutor est positus. nam sicut illi aetates teneras adhibita cautela custodiunt, sic a te voluptates fervidae impensa maturitate frenandae sunt. age bonis institutis quod nimia prudentia constat invenisse maiores. leve desiderium etsi verecundia non cohibet, districtio praenuntiata modificat. agantur spectacula suis consuetudinibus ordinata, quia nec illi possunt invenire gratiam, nisi imitati fuerint aliquam disciplinam. Quapropter tribunum te voluptatum per illam indictionem nostra fecit electio, ut omnia sic agas, quemadmodum tibi vota civitatis adiungas, ne quod ad laetitiam constat inventum, tuis temporibus ad culpas videatur fuisse transmissum. cum fama diminutis salva tua opinione versare. castitatem dilige, cui subiacent prostitutae: ut magna laude dicatur: ‘virtutibus studuit, qui voluptatibus miscebatur.’ optamus enim ut per ludicram amministrationem ad seriam pervenias dignitatem.

B TOTA IOCULATORUM SCENA

C COURT MINSTRELSY IN 1306

[From Manners and Household Expenses of England in the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, 141 (Roxburghe Club, 1841), from Exchequer Roll (King’s Remembrancer’s Dept.) in Rolls Office. The Pentecost feast of 1306 was that at which Prince Edward, who became in the next year Edward II, was knighted. It is described in the Annales Londonienses (Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II, R. S. i. 146).]

Solutio facta diversis Menestrallis die Pentecostes anno xxxiiiiᵗᵒ.

[A. D. 1306.]

Denarii dati Menestrallis.

D THE MINSTREL HIERARCHY

E EXTRACTS FROM ACCOUNT BOOKS — I. Durham Priory. — II. Maxstoke Priory. — III. Thetford Priory. — IV. Winchester College. — V. Magdalen College, Oxford. — VI. Shrewsbury Corporation. — VII. The Howards of Stoke-by-Nayland, Essex. — VIII. The English Court.

[The entries, unless otherwise specified, are amongst the extracts (generally of Dona Prioris) from the Bursars’ Rolls between 1278 and 1371, printed by Canon Fowler in vols. ii, iii of the Durham Account Rolls (Surtees Soc.). D. H. B. = Durham Household Book (Surtees Soc.), F. P. = Inventories and Account Rolls of Finchale Priory (Surtees Soc.). This was a cell of Durham Priory. The minstrelsy often took place at the ludi Domini Prioris, either in his camera (D. A. ii. 424) or at Beaurepaire, Witton, or other maneria of the Priory. There seem to have been in most years four ludi ordinarii (D. A. ii. 296), though occasionally only two or three are mentioned. These were at the feasts of Candlemas, Easter, St. John Baptist, and All Saints (D. A. i. 242, iii. 932). But the Prior, Sub-Prior, and brethren seem often to have been ludentes, spatiantes, or in recreacione (D. A. i. 118, 235), without much regard to fixed dates. In 1438-9 they were ludentes for as much as eleven weeks and four days at Beaurepaire (D. A. i. 71). See also D. A. i. 16, 116, 120, 129, 137, 138, 142, 166, 207, 263; ii. 287, 419, 456, 515; iii. 810, s.vv. Ludi, &c.; D. H. B. 9, 13, 54, 141, 240, 339; F. P. 30, ccxcv, ccccxxxvi.]

[Printed by Hazlitt-Warton, ii. 97, ‘ex orig. penes me.’]

‘In the Prior’s accounts of the Augustine canons of Maxstoke in Warwickshire, of various years in the reign of Henry VI (1422-61), one of the styles or regular heads is De Ioculatoribus et Mimis....

[From Collier, i. 55, 84, on the authority of a ‘MS. of the expenses of the Priory of Thetford, from 1461 to 1540, lately in the collection of Mr. Craven Orde, and now of the Duke of Newcastle.’]

‘The mention of “plays” and “players” does not begin until the 13ᵗʰ of Henry VII; but “Minstrels” and “Waytes” are often spoken of there as receiving rewards from the convent. The following entries, regarding “plays” and “players,” occur between the 13ᵗʰ and 23ʳᵈ of Henry VII:—

... From the 1ˢᵗ to the 31ˢᵗ Henry VIII, the King’s players, the King’s jugglers, the King’s minstrels, and the King’s bearwards were visitors of Thetford, and were paid various sums, from 4ᵈ to 6ˢ 8ᵈ, by the Prior of the convent there, as appears by the entries in the account-book during that period. On one occasion, 16 Henry VIII, Cornyshe, “the master of the King’s chapel,” was paid 3ˢ 4ᵈ by the prior; but he was then, probably, attendant upon the King, who is not unfrequently spoken of as having arrived, and being lodged at the Priory. Mr. Brandon and Mr. Smith are more than once rewarded as “Jugglers of the King.” The Queen’s players, the Prince’s players, and the players of the Queen of France, also experienced the liberality of the Prior, as well as those of the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl and Countess of Derby, Lord and Lady Fitzwater, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Challoner and two gentlemen who are called Marks and Barney.’

[Extracts from computi partly by Hazlitt-Warton, ii. 98, and partly by M. E. C. Walcott, William of Wykeham and his Colleges, 206. The satrapae of 1466 and 1479 are said by Mr. Walcott to have been local notables, but a collation to them would not cost so little or be grouped with rewards to minstrels in the computus. Ducange says that the word is used ‘pro quodam ministro vel satellite.’ The Magdalen accounts use it for the ‘serjeants’ of the mayor of Oxford (Macray, Register, i. 15).]

[Extracts from account books made by J. R. Bloxam and W. D. Macray, A Register of the Members of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford, First Series, ii. 235; New Series, i. 3; ii. 3. The dates given below are for the year in which the account begins.]

[Extracts from the Bailiffs’ accounts by Owen and Blakeway, Hist. of Shrewsbury (1825), i. 262, 267, 275, 284, 290, 292, 325 sqq.; and by W. D. Macray in Hist. MSS. xv. 10. 25. It is not always clear to which calendar year an entry belongs. The accounts run from Michaelmas to Michaelmas, but Owen and Blakeway generally quote entries under one calendar year and sometimes under one regnal year.]

[From Books of Council Orders in Hist. MSS. xv. 13, 16, 18.]

[From accounts of Sir John Howard, in Manners and Household Expenses (Roxburghe Club, 1841), 325, 511.]

[From accounts of John, Lord Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, in Household Books of John, Duke of Norfolk, and Thomas, Earl of Surrey (ed. Collier, Roxburghe Club, 1844), 104, 145, 146, 148, 149, 202, 336, 339.]

[From accounts of Thomas, Earl of Surrey, in Household Books (ut supra), 515, 517, 519.]

[The Howard accounts also include many payments for minstrelsy, &c. The Duke of Norfolk kept singers, a harper, children of the chapel, and two fools, ‘Tom Fool’ and Richard, ‘the fool of the kitchen.’]

[From Rymer, Foedera, x. 387. A memorandum de strenis, liberatis et expensis, at Christmas, 1427.]

A Jakke Travail et ses compaignons feisans diverses jeuues et entreludes dedeins le feste de Noell devant notre dit sire le roi, 4 lib.

Et as autres jeweis de Abyndon feisantz autres entreludes dedeins le dit feste de Noel, 20 sol.

[Extracted by Collier, i. 50, from the Household Book of Henry VII, 1491-1505, and the Book of King’s Payments, 1506-9. I cannot identify the former; the latter appears to be vol. 214 of the Miscellanea of the Treasury of the Receipt of the Exchequer (Scargill-Bird, Guide to the Public Records, 228). I omit, here and below, entries referring to minstrelsy, disguisings, and plays by the King’s players and the Chapel. Probably some of the performances were given at London; others before the King on progress. I have corrected some of Collier’s dates from the similar entries in Bentley, Excerpta Historica, 85, taken from a transcript in B. M. Add. MS. 7099.]

[Extracted by Collier, i. 76, from the Book of King’s Payments for 1509-17, now vol. 215 of the Miscellanea of the Treasury of the Receipt of the Exchequer. The document is more fully analysed in Brewer, ii. 1441. It is an account of the Treasurer of the Chamber.]

[From Accounts of Treasurer of Chamber in Trevelyan Papers (C.S.), i. 146, 161, 174.]

F MINSTREL GUILDS — A. France. — B. England.

G THOMAS DE CABHAM

H PRINCELY PLEASURES AT KENILWORTH — I. A Squire Minstrel. — II. The Coventry Hock-Tuesday Show.

I THE INDIAN VILLAGE FEAST

J SWORD-DANCES — I. Sweden ( Sixteenth Century ). — II. Shetland ( Eighteenth Century ).

K THE LUTTERWORTH ST. GEORGE PLAY — THE CHRISTMAS MUMMERS’ PLAY.

L THE PROSE OF THE ASS

[The text is taken from the following sources:—

i. Beauvais, thirteenth century.—(a) [Duc.]—Ducange, Glossarium (ed. 1733-6), s.v. Festum, from a lost MS.; copied incorrectly by Gasté, 23, and apparently also by Clément, 158: (b) [B¹]—Brit. Mus. Egerton MS. 2615, f. 1, with music for singing in unison: (c) [B²]—Same MS. f. 43, with music harmonized in three parts; partly facsimiled in Annales Archéologiques (1856), xvi. 259, 300.

ii. Sens, thirteenth century.—[S]—MS. Senonense, 46ᵃ, as printed by G. M. Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, xx. 217. The text has also been given from the MS. by F. Bourquelot, in Bull. de la Soc. Arch. de Sens (1858), vi. 79, and others. The version of Clément, 126 is probably, like the facsimile given by him in Ann. Arch. vii. 26, based on one ‘calqué’ from the MS. by a M. Amé, and, where it differs from that of Dreves, is the less trustworthy. Dreves, xx. 257 (cf. infra) and Millin, Monum. Ant. Inédits, ii. 348, also give the music of the opening lines. Modern settings are provided by B. De la Borde, Essai sur la Musique (1780), and Clément, in Ann. Arch. vii. 26, and Chantes de la Sainte Chapelle. An old French translation of the text is printed in Leber, ix. 368.

On these Beauvais and Sens MSS. cf. ch. xiii.

iii. Bourges.—[Bo.]—The first verse with the music and variants in the later verses are given by A. Gachet d’Artigny, Nouveaux Mémoires (1756), vii. 77, from a copy of a book given to Bourges cathedral by a canon named Jean Pastoris. Part of the Bourges music is also given by Millin, loc. cit.

I print the fullest version from Ducange, italicizing the lines not found elsewhere, and giving all variants, except of spelling, for the rest.

Outside Beauvais, Sens, and Bourges the only localized allusion to the prose that I have found is the Autun order of 1411 (vol. i. p. 312) ‘nec dicatur cantilena quae dici solebat super dictum asinum.’ It is not in the Puy officium for the Circumcision, which, though in a MS. of 1553, represents a ceremony as old as 1327 (U. Chevalier, Prosolarium Ecclesiae Aniciensis, 1894). The officium is full of conductus and farsumina, and the clericuli at second Vespers tripudiant firmiter. The sanctum Praepucium was a relic at Puy.

The following passage is from Theoph. Raynaudus, Iudicium de puerorum symphoniacorum processione in festo SS. Innocentium (Opera Omnia, 1665, xv. 209): ‘Legi prosam quandam de asino e Metropolitanae cuiusdam Ecclesiae rituali exscriptam; quae super sacrum concinebatur in die S. Stephani, et dicebatur prosa fatuorum, qua nihil insulsius aut asino convenientius. Similis prosa de bove, quae canebatur in die S. Ioannis, intercidisse dicitur, haud magno sane dispendio. Itaque hae prosae erant particulae festi fatuorum, occoepti a die S. Stephani.’ I have never come across the ‘Prose of the Ox,’ or any notice of it which appears to be independent of Raynaud’s.]

I.

Orientis partibus

Adventavit Asinus,

Pulcher et fortissimus,

Sarcinis aptissimus.4

Hez, Sire Asnes, car chantez,

Belle bouche rechignez,

Vous aurez du foin assez

Et de l’avoine a plantez.8

II.

Lentus erat pedibus,

Nisi foret baculus,

Et eum in clunibus

Pungeret aculeus.12

Hez, Sire Asnes, etc.

III.

Hic in collibus Sichen

Iam nutritus sub Ruben,

Transiit per Iordanem,

Saliit in Bethleem.20

Hez, Sire Asnes, etc.

IV.

Ecce magnis auribus

Subiugalis filius

Asinus egregius

Asinorum dominus.28

Hez, Sire Asnes, etc.

V.

Saltu vincit hinnulos,

Dammas et capreolos,

Super dromedarios

Velox Madianeos.36

Hez, Sire Asnes, etc.

VI.

Aurum de Arabia,

Thus et myrrham de Saba

Tulit in Ecclesia

Virtus Asinaria.44

Hez, Sire Asnes, etc.

VII.

Dum trahit vehicula,

Multa cum sarcinula,

Illius mandibula

Dura terit pabula.52

Hez, Sire Asnes, etc.

VIII.

Cum aristis hordeum

Comedit et carduum:

Triticum e palea

Segregat in area.60

Hez, Sire Asnes, etc.

IX.

Amen dicas, Asine,

Iam satur de gramine,

Amen, Amen, itera,

Aspernare vetera.68

Hez va, hez va! hez va, hez!

Bialx Sire Asnes, car allez:

Belle bouche, car chantez.71

B¹ has heading Conductus asi<ni ubi> adducitur; S, Conductus ad tabulam.

5-8 B¹, ² Hez, hez, sire Asnes, hez; S. Hez, Sir asne, hez; Bo. He, he, he, Sire Ane. He.

18. B¹, ²; S, Enulritus.

21-4. B¹ Hez, hez (and so in all verses but last); B² Hez (and so in all verses); S, Hez, Sir asne, hez (and so in all verses).

vi. B¹, ² omit; Bo. places after viii.

59. Duc. a palea.

65. Duc. adds (hic genuflectebatur).

66. Bo. Iam satis de carmine.

69-71. B² Hez; Clément,

Hez va! hez va! hez va! hez!

Bialx, sir asnes, car chantez,

Vous aurez du foin assez

Et de l’avoine a plantez.

I append the air of the Sens prose, as given by Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, xx. 257.

---

M THE BOY BISHOP — I. The Sarum Office. — II. The York Computus.

N WINTER PROHIBITIONS — I. 190-200. Tertullian. — II. 190-200. Tertullian. — III. †348. Prudentius. — IV. †370. Pacianus, Bishop of Barcelona. — V. 374-397. St. Ambrose. — VI. 380-397. St. Chrysostom. — VII. 380-397. St. Chrysostom. — VIII. 388. St. Jerome. — IX. †396. Asterius of Amasea. — X. 387-430. St. Augustine. — XI. †400. Severian. — XII. 408-410. St. Jerome. — XIII. †412-†465. Maximus of Turin. — XIV. †412-†465. Maximus of Turin. — XV. †412-†465. Maximus of Turin? — XVI. Fifth century. St. Peter Chrysologus. — XVII. 470-542. Caesarius of Arles? — XVIII. ?470-542. Caesarius of Arles? — XIX. 470-542. Caesarius of Arles? — XX. 470-542. Caesarius of Arles. — XXI. †554. Childebert. — XXII. 567. Council of Tours. — XXIII. 572-574. Martin of Braga. — XXIV. †560. Martin, Bishop of Braga. — XXV. 573-603. Council of Auxerre. — XXVI. 6th cent. St. Samson, Bishop of Dôle. — XXVII. 588-659. St. Eligius of Rouen? — XXVIII. †636. St. Isidore of Seville. — XXIX. †685. St. Aldhelm. — XXX. 692. Quinisextine Council. — XXXI. 714. Gregory II. — XXXII. 731-741. Gregory III. — XXXIII. †742. St. Boniface ( alias Winfrid ). — XXXIV. †742. Pope Zachary. — XXXV. 743. Council of Rome. — XXXVI. †750. Priminius. — XXXVII. †766. Egbert. — XXXVIII. †790-800. Lombard Capitulary. — XXXIX. † Eighth century. Homilia de Sacrilegiis. — XL. Ninth century. Pseudo-Theodore. — XLI. †915. Regino of Prüm. — XLII. Before 1024. Burchardus of Worms.

[From De Idololatria (Tertulliani Opera, ed. A. Reifferscheid and G. Wissowa, in Corpus Script. Eccles. xx; P. L. i. 674). Part of the argument of c. 15 is repeated in De Corona Militari, c. 13 (P. L. ii. 97). In De Fuga in Persecutione, c. 13 (P. L. ii. 119), bribes given by Christians to avoid persecution are called ‘saturnalitia’ given to soldiers.]

c. 10. [de ludimagistris]. Ipsam primam novi discipvli stipem Minervae et honori et nomini consecrat ... quam Minervalia Minervae, quam Saturnalia Saturni, quae etiam serviculis sub tempore Saturnalium celebrari necesse est. Etiam strenuae captandae et septimontium, et Brumae et carae cognationis honoraria exigenda omnia, Florae scholae coronandae: flaminicea et aediles sacrificant creati; schola honoratur feriis; idem fit idolo natali: omnis diaboli pompa frequentatur. Quis haec competere Christiano existimabit, nisi qui putabit convenire etiam non magistris?

c. 14. Quemadmodum, inquit, omnibus per omnia placeo, nimirum Saturnalia et Kalendas Ianuarias celebrans hominibus placebat? ... Sabbata, inquit, vestra et numenias et ceremonias odit anima mea; nobis, quibus sabbata extranea sunt et numeniae et feriae a deo aliquando dilectae, Saturnalia et Ianuariae et Brumae et Matronales frequentantur, munera commeant et strenae, consonant lusus, convivia constrepunt.

c. 15. Sed luceant, inquit, opera vestra; at nunc lucent tabernae et ianuae nostrae, plures iam invenias ethnicorum fores sine lucernis et laureis, quam Christianorum ... ergo, inquis, honor dei est lucernae pro foribus et laurus in postibus? ... certi enim esse debemus, si quos latet per ignorantiam litteraturae saecularis, etiam ostiorum deos apud Romanos, Cardeam a cardinibus appellatam et Forculum a foribus, et Limentinum a limine et ipsum Ianum a ianua ... si autem sunt qui in ostiis adorantur, ad eos et lucernae et laureae pertinebunt; idolo feceris, quicquid ostio feceris ... scis fratrem per visionem eadem nocte castigatum graviter, quod ianuam eius subito adnuntiatis gaudiis publicis servi coronassent. Et tamen non ipse coronaverat aut praeceperat; nam ante processerat et regressus reprehenderat factum ... accendant igitur quotidie lucernas, quibus lux nulla est; affigant postibus lauros postmodum arsuras, quibus ignes imminent; illis competunt et testimonia tenebrarum et auspicia poenarum. Tu lumen es mundi et arbor virens semper; si templis renuntiasti, ne feceris templum ianuam tuam, minus dixi; si lupanaribus renuntiasti, ne induaris domui tuae faciem novi lupanaris.

[Apologeticus, c. 42 in P. L. i. 492.]

Sed si ceremonias tuas non frequento, attamen et illa die homo sum. Non lavo sub noctem Saturnalibus, ne et noctem et diem perdam: attamen lavo et debita hora et salubri.

[Contra Symmachum, i. 237 in P. L. lx. 139.]

[Pacianus, Paraenesis ad Poenitentiam (P. L. xiii. 1081). Jerome, de Viris illustribus, c. 106 (P. L. xxiii. 703), says of Pacianus, ‘scripsit varia opuscula, de quibus est Cervus.’]

Hoc enim, puto, proximus Cervulus ille profecit, ut eo diligentius fieret, quo impressius notabatur.... Puto, nescierant Cervulum facere, nisi illis reprehendendo monstrassem.

[From De Interpellatione Job et David, ii. 1 (P. L. xiv. 813), concluding a passage on the cervus as a type of David and of Christ. The Benedictine editors think that if the allusion were to the Cervulus, St. Ambrose would have reprobated it. But in any case it is only a passing allusion.]

Sed iam satis nobis in exordio tractatus, sicut in principio anni, more vulgi, cervus allusit.

[Oratio Kalendis Habita (P. G. xlviii. 953). A sermon preached at Antioch.]

Ἀλλὰ πρὸς ἕτερα κατεπείγοντα ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος ὥρμηται, τὰ σήμερον ὑπὸ τῆς πόλεως ἁπάσης ἁμαρτηθέντα ... καὶ γὰρ καὶ ἡμῖν πόλεμος συνέστηκε νῦν ... δαιμόνων πομπευσάντων ἐπὶ τῆς ἀγορᾶς. αἱ γὰρ διαβολικαὶ παννυχίδες αἱ γινόμεναι τήμερον, καὶ τὰ σκώμματα, καὶ αἱ λοιδορίαι, καὶ αἱ χορεῖαι αἱ νυκτεριναί, καὶ ἡ καταγέλαστος αὕτη κωμῳδία, παντὸς πολεμίου χαλεπώτερον τὴν πόλιν ἡμῶν ἐξῃχμαλώτισαν ... περιχαρὴς ἡμῖν ἡ πόλις γέγονε καὶ φαιδρά, καὶ ἐστεφάνωται, καὶ καθάπερ γυνὴ φιλόκοσμος καὶ πολυτελής, οὕτως ἡ ἀγορὰ φιλοτίμως ἐκαλλωπίσατο σήμερον, χρυσία περιτιθεμένη, καὶ ἱσμάτια πολυτελῆ, καὶ ὑποδήματα, καὶ ἕτερά τινα τοιαῦτα, τῶν ἐν τοῖς ἐργαστηρίοις ἐκάστου τῇ τῶν οἰκείων ἔργων ἐπιδείξει τὸν ὁμότεχνον παραδραμεῖν φιλονεικοῦντος. Ἀλλ’ αὕτη μὲν ἡ φιλοτιμία, εἰ καὶ παιδικῆς ἐστι διανοίας, καὶ ψυχῆς οὐδὲν μέγα οὐδὲ ὑψηλὸν φανταζομένης, ἀλλ’ ὅμως οὐ τοσαύτην ἐπισύρεται βλάβην.... Ἀλλ’, ὅπερ ἔφην, οὐ τοσούτων ἐγκλημάτων ἀξία αὕτη ἡ φιλοτιμία· οἱ δὲ ἐν τοῖς καπηλείοις ἀγῶνες γινόμενοι τήμερον, οὗτοι μὲν μάλιστα ὀδυνῶσι, καὶ ἀσωτίας καὶ ἀσεβείας ἐμπεπλημένοι πολλῆς· ἀσεβείας μέν, ὅτι παρατηροῦσιν ἡμέρας οἱ ταῦτα ποιοῦντες, καὶ οἰωνίζονται, καὶ νομίζουσιν, εἰ τὴν νουμηνίαν τοῦ μηνὸς τούτου μεθ’ ἡδονῆς καὶ εὐφροσύνης ἐπιτελέσαιεν, καὶ τὸν ἅπαντα τοιοῦτον ἕξειν ἐνιαυτόν· ἀσωτίας δὲ, ὅτι ὑπὸ τὴν ἕω γυναῖκες καὶ ἄνδρες φιάλας καὶ ποτήρια πληρώσαντες μετὰ πολλῆς τῆς ἀσωτίας τὸν ἄκρατον πίνουσι.... Ταῦτα ἀπὸ νουμηνίας φιλοσόφει, ταῦτα ἀπὸ τῆς περιόδου τῶν ἐνιαυτῶν ἀναμιμνήσκου.... Τὸ παρατηρεῖν ἡμέρας οὐ Χριστιανικῆς φιλοσοφίας, ἀλλ’ Ἑλληνικῆς πλάνης ἐστίν.... Οὐδὲν ἔχεις κοινὸν πρὸς τὴν γῆν, ἔνθα ἡλίου δρόμοι, καὶ περίοδοι, καὶ ἡμέραι.... Τὸ πρὸς ἡμέρας ἐπτοῆσθαι τοιαύτας, καὶ πλείονα ἐν αὐταῖς δέχεσθαι ἡδονήν, καὶ λύχνους ἅπτειν ἐπὶ τῆς ἀγορᾶς, καὶ στεφανώματα πλέκειν, παιδικῆς ἀνοίας ἐστίν.... Μὴ τοίνυν ἐπὶ τῆς ἀγορᾶς ἀνακαύσῃς πῦρ αἰσθητόν, ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ τῆς διανοίας ἄναψον φῶς πνευματικόν.... Μὴ τὴν θύραν τῆς οἰκίας στεφανώσῃς, ἀλλὰ τοιαύτην ἐπίδειξαι πολιτείαν, ὥστε τὸν τῆς δικαιοσύνης στέφανον σῇ κεφαλῇ παρὰ τῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ δέξασθαι χειρός.... Ὅταν ἀκούσῃς θορύβους, ἀταξίας καὶ πομπὰς διαβολικάς, πονηρῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἀκολάστων τὴν ἀγορὰν πεπληρωμένην, οἴκοι μένε, καὶ τῆς ταραχῆς ἀπαλλάττου ταύτης, καὶ ἔμεινας εἰς δόξαν Θεοῦ.

[Concio de Lazaro 1 (P. L., xlviii. 963). Preached at Antioch on the day after No. vi.]

Τὴν χθὲς ἡμέραν, ἑορτὴν οὖσαν σατανικήν, ἐποιήσατε ὑμεῖς ἑορτὴν πνευματικήν ... Διπλοῦν τούνυν οὕτω τὸ κέρδος ὑμῖν γέγονεν, ὅτι καὶ τῆς ἀτάκτου τῶν μεθυόντων ἀπηλλάγητε χορείας, καὶ σκιρτήματα ἐσκιρτήσατε πνευματικά, πολλὴν εὐταξίαν ἔχοντα· καὶ μετέσχετε κρατῆρος, οὐκ ἄκρατον ἐκχέοντος, ἀλλὰ διδασκαλίας πεπληρωμένου πνευματικῆς· καὶ αὐλὸς ἐγένεσθε καὶ κιθάρα τῷ Πνεύματι τῷ ἁγίῳ· καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῷ διαβόλῳ χορευόντων, ὑμεῖς ... ἐδώκατε τῷ Πνεύματι κροῦσαι τὰς ὑμετέρας ψυχάς.

[Comm. in Ephes. vi. 4 in P. L. xxvi. 540.]

Legant episcopi atque presbyteri, qui filios suos saecularibus litteris erudiunt, et faciunt comoedias legere, et mimorum turpia scripta cantare, de ecclesiasticis forsitan sumptibus eruditos; et quod in corbonam pro peccato virgo aut vidua, vel totam substantiam suam effundens quilibet pauper obtulerat, hoc kalendariam strenam, et Saturnalitiam sportulam et Minervale munus grammaticus, et orator, aut in sumptus domesticos, aut in templi stipes, aut in sordida scorta convertit.

[Sermo adv. Kal. Festum, in P. G. xl. 215.]

Δύο κατὰ ταυτὸν ἑορταὶ συνέδραμον ἐπὶ τῆς χθιζῆς καὶ τῆς ἐνεστώσης ἡμέρας, οὐ σύμφωνοί τε καὶ ἀδελφοί, πᾶν δὲ τοὐναντίον ἐχθρῶς τε καὶ ἐναντίως ἔχουσαι πρὸς ἀλλήλας. Ἡ μὲν γὰρ ἐστι τοῦ ἔξωθεν συρφετοῦ, πολὺ συνάγουσα τοῦ μαμωνᾶ τὸ ἀργύριον ... φιλεῖται μὲν τὸ στόμα, ἀγαπᾶται δὲ τὸ νόμισμα· τὸ σχῆμα διαθέσεως, καὶ τὸ ἔργον πλεονεξίας ... τὰ δὲ ἄλλα πῶς ἄν τις εἴποι; μὴ καὶ ἐκκαλυψάμενος γυναικίζεται ὁ ἀριστεύς; κ.τ.λ.

[Sermo cxcviii in P. L. xxxviii. 1024. In Sermones cxcvi and cxcvii Augustine also attacks the Calends, but in more general terms.]

Et modo si solemnitas gentium, quae fit hodierno die in laetitia saeculi atque carnali, in strepitu vanissimarum et turpissimarum cantionum, in conviviis et saltationibus turpibus, in celebratione ipsius falsae festivitatis, si ea quae agunt gentes non vos delectent, congregabimini ex gentibus.... Qui ergo aliud credit, aliud sperat, aliud amat, vita probet, factis ostendat. Acturus es celebrationem strenarum, sicut paganus, lusurus alea, et inebriaturus te: quomodo aliud credis, aliud speras, aliud amas?... Noli te miscere gentibus similitudine morum atque factorum. Dant illi strenas, date vos eleemosynas. Avocantur illi cantionibus luxuriarum, avocate vos sermonibus scripturarum: currunt illi ad theatrum, vos ad ecclesiam; inebriantur illi, vos ieiunate. Si hodie non potestis ieiunare, saltem cum sobrietate prandete.... Sed dicis mihi; quando strenas do, mihi accipio et ego. Quid ergo, quando das pauperi, nihil accipis?... Etenim illa daemonia delectantur canticis vanitatis, delectantur nugatorio spectaculo, et turpitudinibus variis theatrorum, insania circi, crudelitate amphitheatri, certaminibus animosis eorum qui pro pestilentibus hominibus lites et contentiones usque ad inimicitias suscipiunt, pro mimo, pro histrione, pro pantomimo, pro auriga, pro venatore. Ista facientes, quasi thura ponunt daemoniis de cordibus suis.

[Homilia de Pythonibus et Maleficis (Mai, Spicilegium Romanum, x. 222). The author’s name is given as Severian. A Severian was bishop of Gabala in Syria †400, a prolific preacher and an opponent of St. Chrysostom in Constantinople. It seems, however, a little hazardous to ascribe to him a Latin homily.]

Ecce veniunt dies, ecce kalendae veniunt, et tota daemonum pompa procedit, idolorum tota producitur officina, et sacrilegio vetusto anni novitas consecratur. Figurant Saturnum, faciunt Iovem, formant Herculem, exponunt cum venantibus suis Dianam, circumducunt Vulcanum verbis haletantem turpitudines suas, et plura, quorum, quia portenta sunt, nomina sunt tacenda; quorum deformitates quia natura non habet, creatura nescit, fingere ars laborat. Praeterea vestiuntur homines in pecudes, et in feminas viros vertunt, honestatem rident, violant iudicia, censuram publicam rident, inludunt saeculo teste, et dicunt se facientes ista iocari. Non sunt ioca, sed sunt crimina. In idola transfiguratur homo. Et, si ire ad idola crimen est, esse idolum quid videtur?... Namque talium deorum facies ut pernigrari possint, carbo deficit; et ut eorum habitus pleno cumuletur horrore, paleae, pelles, panni, stercora, toto saeculo perquiruntur, et quidquid est confusionis humanae, in eorum facie collocatur.

[Comm. in Isaiam, lxv. 11 (P. L. xxiv. 638).]

Et vos qui dereliquistis Dominum, et obliti estis montem sanctum meum. Qui ponitis fortunae mensam et libatis super eam.... Est autem in cunctis urbibus, et maxime in Aegypto, et in Alexandria idololatriae vetus consuetudo, ut ultimo die anni et mensis eorum qui extremus est, ponant mensam refertam varii generis epulis, et poculum mulso mixtum, vel praeteriti anni, vel futuri fertilitatem auspicantes. Hoc autem faciebant Israelitae, omnium simulacrorum portenta venerantes: et nequaquam altari victimas, sed huiusce modi mensae liba fundebant.

[Homilia ciii, de Calendis Gentilium (P. L. lvii. 491).]

Bene quodammodo Deo providente dispositum est, ut inter medias gentilium festivitates Christus Dominus oriretur, et inter ipsas tenebrosas superstitiones errorum veri luminis splendor effulgeret.... Quis enim sapiens, qui dominici Natalis sacramentum colit, non ebrietatem condemnet Saturnalium, non declinet lasciviam calendarum?... Sunt plerique, qui trahentes consuetudinem de veteri superstitione vanitatis, calendarum diem pro summa festivitate procurent; et sic laetitiam habere velint, ut sit magis illis tristitia. Nam ita lasciviunt, ita vino et epulis satiantur, ut qui toto anno castus et temperans fuerit, illa die sit temulentus atque pollutus; et quod nisi ita fecerit, putet perdidisse se ferias; quia non intelligit per tales se ferias perdidisse salutem. Illud autem quale est, quod surgentes mature ad publicum cum munusculo, hoc est, cum strenis unusquisque procedit; et salutaturus amicos, salutat praemio antequam osculo? ... Adhuc et ipsam munificentiam strenas vocant, cum magis strenuum, quod——cogitur.... Hoc autem quale est quod, interposita die, tali inani exordio, velut incipientes vivere, aut auspicia colligant, omniaque perquirant; et exinde totius anni sibi vel prosperitatem, vel tristitiam metiuntur? ... Hoc autem malis suis addunt, ut quasi de auspicatione domum redeuntes ramusculos gestent in manibus, scilicet pro omine, ut vel onusti ad hospitium redeant.

[Homilia xvi, de Cal. Ian. (P. L. lvii. 255).]

Quamquam non dubitem vos ... universas calendarum supervenientium vanitates declinare penitus et horrere ... necessarium, nec superfluum reor ... precedentium patrum vobis repetantur alloquia.... Et illorum gravior atque immedicabilis languor est, qui superstitionum furore et ludorum suavitate decepti sub specie sanitatis insaniunt. An non omnia quae a ministris daemonum illis aguntur diebus falsa sunt et insana, cum vir, virium suarum vigore mollito, totum se frangit in feminam, tantoque illud ambitu atque arte agit, quasi poeniteat illum esse, quod vir est? Numquid non universa ibi falsa sunt et insana, cum se a Deo formati homines, aut in pecudes, aut in feras, aut in portenta transformant? Numquid non omnem excedit insaniam, cum decorem vultus humani Dei specialiter manibus in omnem pulchritudinem figuratum, squalore sordium et adulterina foeditate deturpant? ... Post omnia, ad offensionis plenitudinem, dies ipsos annum novum vocant.... Novum annum Ianuarias appellant calendas, cum vetusto semper errore et horrore sordescant. Auspicia etiam vanissimi colligere se dicunt, ac statum vitae suae inanibus indiciis aestimantes, per incerta avium ferarumque signa imminentis anni futura rimantur.

[Sermo vi, de Cal. Ian. (P. L. lvii. 543). The Sermo is ascribed to Maximus in three good MSS. and the style agrees with his. Other MSS. give it to St. Augustine or St. Ambrose, and it is printed in the Benedictine edition of the latter’s works (Sermo vii. in P. L. xvii. 617). The editors, however, do not think it his.]

Est mihi adversus plerosque vestrum, fratres, querela non modica: de iis loquor qui nobiscum natale Domini celebrantes gentilium se feriis dediderunt, et post illud coeleste convivium superstitionis sibi prandium praepararunt.... Quomodo igitur potestis religiose Epiphaniam Domini procurare, qui Iani calendas quantum in vobis est devotissime celebratis? Ianus enim homo fuit unius conditor civitatis, quae Ianiculum nuncupatur, in cuius honore a gentibus calendae sunt Ianuariae nuncupatae; unde qui calendas Ianuarias colit peccat, quoniam homini mortuo defert divinitatis obsequium. Inde est quod ait Apostolus: Dies observastis, et menses, et tempora, et annos; timeo ne sine causa laboraverim in vobis. Observavit enim diem et mensem qui his diebus aut non ieiunavit, aut ad Ecclesiam non processit. Observavit diem qui hesterna die non processit ad ecclesiam, processit ad campum. Ergo, fratres, omni studio gentilium festivitatem et ferias declinemus, ut quando illi epulantur et laeti sunt, nunc nos simus sobrii, atque ieiuni, quo intelligant laetitiam suam nostra abstinentia condemnari.

[Sermo clv in P. L. lii. 609.]

Ubi nostram Christus pie natus est ad salutem, mox diabolus divinae bonitati numerosa genuit et perniciosa portenta, ut ridiculum de religione componeret, in sacrilegium verteret sanctitatem.... Quorum formant adulteria in simulacris, quorum fornicationes imaginibus mandant, quorum titulant incesta picturis, quorum crudelitates commendant libris, quorum parricidia tradunt saeculis, quorum impietates personant tragoediis, quorum obscaena ludunt, hos qua dementia deos crederent, nisi quia criminum desiderio, amore scelerum possidentur, deos exoptant habere criminosos?... Haec diximus, quare gentiles hodie faciant deos suos talia committere, quae sustinemus, et faciant tales qui videntibus et horrori sunt et pudori; faciant ut eos aliquando et ipsi qui faciunt horreant et relinquant, et Christiani glorientur a talibus se liberatos esse per Christum: si modo non eorum ex spectaculis polluantur.... Et si tanta est de assensione damnatio, quis satis lugeat eos qui simulacra faciunt semetipsos?... Qui se deum facit, Deo vero contradictor existit; imaginem Dei portare noluit, qui idoli voluerit portare personam; qui iocari voluerit cum diabolo, non poterit gaudere cum Christo.... Abstrahat ergo pater filium, servum dominus, parens parentem, civem civis, homo hominem, Christianus omnes qui se bestiis compararunt, exaequarunt iumentis, aptaverunt pecudibus, daemonibus formaverunt.

[Sermo Pseud.-Augustin. cxxix de Kal. Ian. in P. L. xxxix. 2001. Parts of this sermon are reproduced ‘mutatis mutandis’ in the eighth-century Frankish Homilia de Sacrilegiis (§§ 23-26), edited by Caspari (cf. No. xxxix, below), and also in a MS. homily, De Kalendis Ianuariis, in Cod. Lat. Monac. 6108 (tenth century), f. 48ᵛ. The rest of that homily is mainly from Maximus Taurinensis, Hom. 16 (No. xiv, above). And nearly the whole of the present Sermo is included in the Homiliarium of Burchardus of Würzburg and printed from his MS. by Eckart, Francia Orientalis, i. 837.

On the date and authorship of the Sermo, cf. Caspari, 67. It is ascribed to Augustine by a Codex Colbertinus. His editors, Blancpain and Coutant, treat it as not his (a) on account of the difference of style, (b) on account of the reference to the ieiunium prescribed by the sancti antiqui patres (i.e. amongst others, Augustine himself: cf. No. x). A Codex Aceiensis ascribes it to Faustinus (i.e. Faustus of Raji), and this is accepted by the Bollandists (Acta SS. Ian. i. 2), and by Eckart, op. cit. i. 433. Finally a codex Navarricus assigns it to Maxentius. This can hardly be the Scythian monk of that name (†520). Caspari suggests that there has been a scribal error. The sermo is headed ‘De natali Domini. In calendis ianuariis.’ There is nothing about the Nativity in it, and possibly a Nativity sermon and the author’s name of the Kalends sermon which followed it have dropped out. He also thinks Maximus Taurinensis may be meant. However Caspari finally agrees with Blancpain and Coutant, that the style and the allusion to the triduum ieiunii so closely resembling that of the Council of Tours (No. xxii) point to a writer of the first half of the sixth century, and that he may very likely be Caesarius of Arles, who, as his Vita (cf. No. xx) states, did preach against the Kalends.]

Dies calendarum istarum, fratres carissimi, quas Ianuarias vocant, a quodam Iano homine perdito ac sacrilego nomen accepit. Ianus autem iste dux quidam et princeps hominum paganorum fuit: quem imperiti homines et rustici dum quasi regem metuunt, colere velut Deum coeperunt.... Diem ergo calendarum hodiernarum de nomine Iani, sicut iam dictum est, nuncuparunt: atque ut ei homini divinos honores conferre cupiebant, et finem unius anni et alterius initium deputarunt. Et quia apud illos Ianuariae calendae unum annum implere, et alterum incipere dicebantur, istum Ianum quasi in principio ac termino posuerunt, ut unum annum implere, alterum incipere diceretur. Et hinc est, quod idolorum cultores ipsi Iano duas facies figurarunt.... Hinc itaque est quod istis diebus pagani homines perverso omnium rerum ordine obscenis deformitatibus teguntur; ut tales utique se faciant qui colunt, qualis est iste qui colitur. In istis enim diebus miseri homines, et, quod peius est, aliqui baptizati, sumunt formas adulteras, species monstrosas, in quibus quidem sunt quae primum pudenda, aut potius dolenda sunt. Quis enim sapiens poterit credere, inveniri aliquos sanae mentis qui cervulum facientes, in ferarum se velint habitum commutare? Alii vestiuntur pellibus pecudum; alii assumunt capita bestiarum, gaudentes et exsultantes, si taliter se in ferinas species transformaverint, ut homines non esse videantur.... Iamvero illud quale et quam turpe est, quod viri nati tunicis muliebribus vestiuntur, et turpissima demum demutatione puellaribus figuris virile robur effeminant, non erubescentes tunicis muliebribus inserere militares lacertos: barbatas facies praeferunt, et videri feminae volunt.... Sunt enim qui calendis ianuariis auguria observant, ut focum de domo sua, vel aliud quodcumque beneficium, cuicumque petenti non tribuant. Diabolicas etiam strenas, et ab aliis accipiunt, et ipsi aliis tradunt. Aliqui etiam rustici, mensulas in ista nocte quae praeteriit, plenas multis rebus, quae ad manducandum sunt necessariae, componentes, tota nocte sic compositas esse volunt, credentes quod hoc illis calendae ianuariae praestare possint, ut per totum annum convivia illorum in tali abundantia perseverent.... Qui enim aliquid de paganorum consuetudine in istis diebus observare voluerint, timendum est ne eis nomen christianum prodesse non possit. Et ideo sancti antiqui patres nostri considerantes maximam partem hominum diebus istis gulae vel luxuriae deservire, et ebrietatibus et sacrilegis saltationibus insanire, statuerunt in universum mundum, ut per omnes Ecclesias publicum indiceretur ieiunium.... Ieiunemus ergo, fratres carissimi, in istis diebus.... Qui etiam in istis calendis stultis hominibus luxuriose ludentibus aliquam humanitatem impenderit, peccati eorum participem se esse non dubitet.

[Sermo Pseud.-Augustin. cxxx in P. L. xxxix. 2003. The authorship is generally taken to follow that of No. xvii, although a Fleury MS. ascribes it to Bp. Sedatus of Besiers †589.]

Sic enim fit ut stultae laetitiae causa, dum observantur calendarum dies aut aliarum superstitionum vanitas, per licentiam ebrietatis et ludorum turpem cantum, velut ad sacrificia sua daemones invitentur.... Quid enim est tam demens quam virilem sexum in formam mulieris, turpi habitu commutare? Quid tam demens quam deformare faciem, et vultus induere, quos ipsi etiam daemones expavescunt? Quid tam demens quam incompositis motibus et impudicis carminibus vitiorum laudes inverecunda delectatione cantare? indui ferino habitu, et capreae aut cervo similem fieri, ut homo ad imaginem Dei et similitudinem factus sacrificium daemonum fiat?... Quicunque ergo in calendis ianuariis quibuscunque miseris hominibus sacrilego ritu insanientibus, potius quam ludentibus, aliquam humanitatem dederint, non hominibus, sed daemonibus se dedisse cognoscant. Et ideo si in peccatis eorum participes esse non vultis, cervulum sive iuvencam⁠[703], aut alia quaelibet portenta, ante domos vestras venire non permittatis.... Sunt enim aliqui, quod peius est, quos ita observatio inimica subvertit, ut in diem calendarum si forte aut vicinis aut peregrinantibus opus sit, etiam focum dare dissimulent. Multi praeterea strenas et ipsi offerre, et ab aliis accipere solent. Ante omnia, fratres, ad confundendam paganorum carnalem et luxuriosam laetitiam, exceptis illis qui prae infirmitate abstinere non praevalent, omnes auxiliante Deo ieiunemus; et pro illis miseris qui calendas istas, pro gula et ebrietate, sacrilega consuetudine colunt, Deo, quantum possumus, supplicemus.

[Sermo Pseud.-Augustin. 265, De Christiano Nomine cum Operibus non Christianis, in P. L. xxxix. 2239.]

Licet credam quod illa infelix consuetudo ... iam ... fuerit ... sublata; tamen, si adhuc agnoscatis aliquos illam sordidissimam turpitudinem de hinnicula vel cervula exercere ... castigate.

[Episcopi Cyprianus, Firminus et Viventius, Vita S. Caesarii Arelatensis, i. 5. 42; P. L. lxvii. 1021.]

Predicationes ... contra calendarum quoque paganissimos ritus ... fecit.

[Constitutio Childeberti, De Abolendis Reliquiis Idolatriae, in Mansi, ix. 738; Boretius, i. 2.]

Noctes pervigiles cum ebrietate, scurrilitate, vel canticis, etiam in ipsis sacris diebus, pascha, natale Domini, et reliquis festivitatibus, vel adveniente die Dominico dansatrices per villas ambulare. Haec omnia, unde Deus agnoscitur laedi, nullatenus fieri permittimus.

[Maassen, i. 121; Mansi, ix. 803.]

c. 18. [De ieiuniis monachorum]

Quia inter natale Domini et epyfania omni die festivitates sunt, idemque prandebunt excepto triduum illud, quod ad calcandam gentilium consuetudinem patris nostri statuerunt, privatas in kalendis Ianuarii fieri letanias, ut in ecclesia psalletur et ora octava in ipsis kalendis circumcisionis missa Deo propitio celebretur.

c. 23. Enimvero quoniam cognovimus nonnullos inveniri sequipedes erroris antiqui, qui Kalendas Ianuarii colunt, cum Ianus homo gentilis fuerit, rex quidam, sed esse Deus non potuit; quisquis ergo unum Deum Patrem regnantem cum Filio et Spiritu Sancto credit, non potest integer Christianus dici, qui super hoc aliqua custodit.

[Martin von Bracara, De Correctione Rusticorum, ed. C. P. Caspari, Christiania, 1883.]

c. 10. Similiter et ille error ignorantibus et rusticis hominibus subrepit, ut Kalendas Ianuarias putent anni esse initium, quod omnino falsissimum est. Nam, sicut scriptura dicit, viii. kal. Aprilis in ipso aequinoctio initium primi anni est factum.

c. 11. ... Sine causa autem miser homo sibi istas praefigurationes ipse facit, ut, quasi sicut in introitu anni satur est et laetus ex omnibus, ita illi et in toto anno contingat. Observationes istae omnes paganorum sunt per adinventiones daemonum exquisitae.

c. 16. ... Vulcanalia et Kalendas observare, menses ornare, lauros ponere, pedem observare, effundere [in foco] super truncum frugem et vinum, et panem in fontem mittere, quid est aliud nisi cultura diaboli?

[Quoted in the Decretum Gratiani, Pars ii, Causa 26, Quaestio 7, c. 13 (C. I. Can. ed. Friedberg, i. 1044), as from ‘Martinus Papa,’ or ‘Martinus Bracarensis’ [c. 74]. Mansi, ix. 857, gives the canon with a reference to C. of Laodicea, c. 39, which is a more general decree against taking part in Gentile feasts. Burchardus, x. 15, quotes it ‘ex decreto Martialis papae.’ Martin of Braga ob. 580. His Capitula are collected from the councils of Braga and the Great Councils. Caspari, Martin von Bracara’s De Con. Rusticorum, xl, thinks that several of them, including c. 74, were his own additions.]

Non licet iniquas observationes agere calendarum, et otiis vacare gentilibus, neque lauro aut viriditate arborum cingere domos: omnis enim haec observatio paganismi est.

[Maassen, i. 179.]

c. 1. Non licet kalendis Ianuarii vetolo aut cervolo facere vel streneas diabolicas observare, sed in ipsa die sic omnia beneficia tribuantur, sicut in reliquis diebus.

c. 5. Omnino inter supra dictis conditionibus pervigilias, quos in honore domini Martini observant, omnimodis prohibite.

c. 11. Non licet vigilia paschae ante ora secunda noctis vigilias perexpedire, quia ipsa nocte non licet post media nocte bibere, nec natale Domini nec reliquas sollemnitates.

[Anonymi Vita S. Samsonis, ii. 13 (Acta S. S. Iulii, vi. 590).]

Nam cum quodam tempore in Resia insula praedicaret, veniente per annuam vertiginem Kalenda Ianuaria, qua homines supradictae insulae hanc nequam solemnem inepte iuxta patrum abominabilem consuetudinem prae ceteris sane celebrare consueverant, ille providus spiritu ob duritiam eorum mitigandam, convenire eos omnes in unum fecit, ut, Deo revelante, sermo ad detestanda tam gravia mala sit. Tum hi omnes verum de eo amantes, pravos ritus anathematizaverunt, ac verum iuxta praecepta tenus sine suscipere spoponderunt. Ille nihilominus in Domino secundum Apostolos gaudens, omnes parvulos qui per insulam illam ob hanc nefariam diem discurrebant, vocavit ad se, eisque singulis per sobriam vocem mercedem nummismunculi auro quod est mensura domuit, praecipiens in nomine Domini, ne ulterius ab illis haec sacrilega consuetudo servaretur. Quod ita Deo operante factum est, ut usque hodie ibidem spiritales ioci eius solide et catholice remanserint.

[Sermo in Vita Eligii of Audoënus of Rouen (P. L. lxxxvii. 524). According to E. Vacandard in R. des Questions historiques, lxiv. 471, this is largely a compilation from the sermons of St. Caesarius of Arles.]

Nullus in Kalendis Ianuarii nefanda et ridiculosa, vetulas aut cervulos, aut iotticos⁠[704] faciat, neque mensas supra noctem componat, neque strenas aut bibitiones superfluas exerceat.

[De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, i. 41; De Ieiunio Kalendarum Ianuariarum (P. L. lxxxiii. 774). This is the chief source of the similar passage in the ninth-century Pseudo-Alcuin, De Div. Offic. c. 4 (P. L. ci. 1177).]

1. Ieiunium Kalendarum Ianuariarum propter errorem gentilitatis instituit Ecclesia. Ianus enim quidam princeps paganorum fuit, a quo nomen mensis Ianuarii nuncupatur, quem imperiti homines veluti Deum colentes, in religione honoris posteris tradiderunt, diemque ipsam scenis et luxuriae sacraverunt.

2. Tunc enim miseri homines, et, quod peius est, etiam fideles, sumentes species monstruosas, in ferarum habitu transformantur: alii, femineo gestu demutati, virilem vultum effeminant. Nonnulli etiam de fanatica adhuc consuetudine quibusdam ipso die observationum auguriis profanantur; perstrepunt omnia saltantium pedibus, tripudiantium plausibus, quodque est turpius nefas, nexis inter se utriusque sexus choris, inops animi, furens vino, turba miscetur.

3. Proinde ergo sancti Patres considerantes maximam partem generis humani eodem die huiusmodi sacrilegiis ac luxuriis inservire, statuerunt in universo mundo per omnes Ecclesias publicum ieiunium, per quod agnoscerent homines in tantum se prave agere, ut pro eorum peccatis necesse esset omnibus Ecclesiis ieiunare.

[Epist. iii in Eahfridum (P. L. lxxxix. 93).]

Et ubi pridem eiusdem nefandae natricis ermuli⁠[705] cervulique cruda fanis colebantur stoliditate in profanis, versa vice discipulorum gurgustia (imo almae oraminum aedes) architecti ingenio fabre conduntur.

[Conc. Quinisextinum or in Trullo, held at Constantinople, versio Latina, c. 62 (Mansi, xi. 971).]

Kalendas quae dicuntur, et vota [Gk. βότα], et brumalia quae vocantur; et qui in primo Martii mensis die fit conventum ex fidelium universitate omnino tolli volumus: sed et publicas mulierum saltationes multam noxam exitiumque afferentes: quin etiam eas, quae nomine eorum, qui falso apud gentiles dii nominati sunt, vel nomine virorum ac mulierum fiunt, saltationes ac mysteria more antiquo et a vita Christianorum alieno, amandamus et expellimus; statuentes, ut nullus vir deinceps muliebri veste induatur, vel mulier veste viro conveniente. Sed neque comicas vel satyricas, vel tragicas personas induat; neque execrati Bacchi nomen, uvam in torcularibus exprimentes, invocent; neque vinum in doliis effundentes risum moveant, ignorantia vel vanitate ea, quae ab insaniae impostura procedunt, exercentes.

[Gregorius II. Capitulare datum episcopo et aliis in Bavariam ablegatis, c. 9 (Mansi, xii. 260).]

Ut incantationes, et fastidiationes, sive diversae observationes dierum Kalendarum, quas error tradidit paganorum, prohibeantur.

[Indicia, c. 23 (P. L. lxxxix. 594). In Epist. 3 sent to Germany on the return of Boniface from Rome in 739, Gregory gives the more general direction ‘abstinete et prohibete vosmetipsos ab omni cultu paganorum’ (P. L. lxxxix. 579).]

Si quis ... ut frater in honore Iovis vel Beli aut Iani, secundum paganam consuetudinem, honorare praesumpserit, placuit secundum antiquam constitutionem sex annos poeniteant. Humanius tres annos iudicaverunt.

[Bonifatius, Epistola xlix (P. L. lxxxix. 746). Epistola xlii (Jaffé, Monumenta Moguntina), Epistola 1 (Dümmler, Epistolae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi, i. 301): cf. Kögel, i. 28; Tille, Y. ad C. 88. The letter is Ad Zachariam Papam.]

Quia carnales homines idiotae Alamanni, vel Bagoarii, vel Franci, si iuxta Romanam urbem aliquid fieri viderint ex his peccatis quae nos prohibemus, licitum et concessum a sacerdotibus esse putant; et dum nobis improperium deputant, sibi scandalum vitae accipiunt. Sicut affirmant se vidisse annis singulis in Romana urbe, et iuxta ecclesiam sancti Petri, in die vel nocte quando Kalendae Ianuariae intrant, paganorum consuetudine choros ducere per plateas, et acclamationes ritu gentilium, et cantationes sacrilegas celebrare, et mensas illa die vel nocte dapibus onerare, et nullum de domo sua vel ignem, vel ferramentum, vel aliquid commodi vicino suo praestare velle. Dicunt quoque se ibi vidisse mulieres pagano ritu phylacteria et ligaturas in brachiis et in cruribus ligatas habere, et publice ad vendendum venales ad comparandum aliis offerre. Quae omnia eo quod ibi a carnalibus et insipientibus videntur, nobis hic improperium et impedimentum praedicationis et doctrinae faciunt.

[Zacharias Papa, Epistola ii (P. L. lxxxix. 918), Epistola li (Dümmler, Epist. Merow. et Karol. Aevi, i. 301). Written Ad Bonifatium in reply to No. xxxiii. The constitutio of Pope Gregory referred to appears to be No. xxxii.]

De Kalendis vero Ianuariis, vel ceteris auguriis, vel phylacteriis, et incantationibus, vel aliis diversis observationibus, quae gentili more observari dixisti apud beatum Petrum apostolum, vel in urbe Roma; hoc et nobis et omnibus Christianis detestabile et perniciosum esse iudicamus.... Nam et sanctae recordationis praedecessoris atque nutritoris nostri domini Gregorii papae constitutione omnia haec pie ac fideliter amputata sunt et alia diversa quam plura.

[Conc. Romanum, c. 9: Mansi, xii. 384. A slightly different version, headed ‘Zacharias Papa in Conc. Rom. c. 9,’ is in Decretum Gratiani, ii. 26. 7, c. 14 (C. I. Can. ed. Friedberg, i. 1045). This seems to be a result of Nos. xxxiii, xxxiv.]

Ut nullus Kalendas Ianuarias et broma ritu paganorum colere praesumpserit, aut mensas cum dapibus in domibus praeparare, aut per vicos et plateas cantiones et choreas ducere, quod maxima iniquitas est coram Deo: anathema sit.

[Dicta Abbatis Priminii, c. 22 (Caspari, Kirchenhistorische Anecdota, i. 172). Priminius was a German contemporary of Boniface.]

Nam Vulcanalia et Kalendas observare ... quid aliut nisi cultura diabuli est?... Cervulos et vetulas in Kalendas vel aliud tempus nolite anbulare. Viri vestes femineas, femine vestes virilis in ipsis Kalandis vel in alia lusa quam plurima nolite vestire.

[Penitentiale Egberti, viii. 4 (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 424).]

Kalendas Ianuarias secundum paganam causam honorare, si non desinit, v annos poeniteat clericus, si laicus, iii annos poeniteat.

[Capit. Langobardicum, c. 3; Boretius, i. 202; Gröber, Zur Volkskunde aus Concilbeschlüssen und Capitularien (1893), No. 11.]

De pravos homines qui brunaticus colunt et de hominibus suis subtus maida⁠[706] cerias incendunt et votos vovent: ad tale vero iniquitas eos removere faciant unusquisque.

[C. P. Caspari, Eine Augustin fälschlich beilegte Homilia de Sacrilegiis (1886), § 17. Caspari (pp. 71, 73) assigns the homily to a Frankish clerk, probably of the eighth century. Later on (§§ 23-26) is another passage on the Kalends taken from the pseud-Augustine, Sermo cxxix, which is No. xvii, above.]

Quicumque in kalendas ienuarias mensas panibus et aliis cybis ornat et per noctem ponet et diem ipsum colit et [in eo] auguria aspicet vel arma in campo ostendit et feclum⁠[707] et cervulum et alias miserias vel lusa [facit] quę in ipso die insipientes solent facere, vel qui in mense februario hibernum credit expellere, vel qui in ipso mense dies spurcos ostendit, [et qui in kalendis ianuariis] aliquid auguriatur, quod in ipso anno futurum sit, non christianus, sed gentilis est.

[Penit. Pseudo-Theod. c. xii (Wasserschleben, ut infra, 597; cf. Haddan and Stubbs, iii. 173). This Penitential, quoted by Tille, Y. and C. 98, and others as Theodore’s, and therefore English, is really a Frankish one, partly based, but not so far as these sections are concerned, on the genuine Penitential of Theodore. I do not quote all the many Penitentials which copy from each other, often totidem verbis, prohibitions of the Cervulus and Vetula. They may be found in F. W. H. Wasserschleben, Bussordnungen der abendländ. Kirche, 368, 382, 395, 414, 424, 428, 480, 517; H. J. Schmitz, Die Bussbücher und die Bussdisciplin der Kirche, 311, 379, 479, 633. On the general character of these compilations and their filiation, see Schaff, vii. 371. Their ultimate authority for the particular prohibition of cervulus and vetula, under these names, is probably No. xxv.]

§ 19. Si quis in Kalendas ianuarii in cervolo aut vetula vadit, id est, in ferarum habitus se communicant et vestiuntur pellibus pecudum, et assumunt capita bestiarum: qui vero taliter in ferinas species se transformant, iii annos poeniteant, quia hoc daemoniacum est.

§ 24. Qui ... kalendas Ianuarii, more paganorum, honorat, si clericus est, v annos poeniteat, laicus iii annos poeniteat.

[Regino von Prüm, De synodalibus causis et disciplina ecclesiastica (ed. Wasserschleben, 1840), i. 304.]

Fecisti aliquid quod pagani faciunt in Kalendis januariis in cervulo vel vetula tres annos poeniteas.

[Collectio Decretorum, xix. 5 (Grimm, iv. 1743; P. L. cxl. 960). The larger part of the book is from earlier Penitentials, &c., but the long chapter from which these extracts are taken appears to be based upon the writer’s own knowledge of contemporary superstition. On the collection generally, cf. A. Hauck, in Sitzb. Akad. Leipzig, phil.-hist. Kl., xlvi (1894), 65.]

Observasti Kalendas Ianuarias ritu paganorum, ut vel aliquid plus faceres propter novum annum, quam antea vel post soleres facere, ita dico, ut aut mensam tuam cum lapidibus vel epulis in domo tua praeparares eo tempore, aut per vicos et per plateas cantores et choros duceres, aut supra tectum domus tuae sederes ense tuo circumsignatus, ut ibi videres et intelligeres, quid tibi in sequenti anno futurum esset? vel in bivio sedisti supra taurinam cutem, ut et ibi futura tibi intelligeres? vel si panes praedicta nocte coquere fecisti tuo nomine, ut, si bene elevarentur et spissi et alti fierent, inde prosperitatem tuae vitae eo anno praevideres?

Credidisti ut aliqua femina sit quae hoc facere possit, quod quaedam a diabolo deceptae se affirmant necessario et ex praecepto facere debere, id est, cum daemonum turba in similitudinem mulierum transformatam, quam vulgaris stultitia holdam⁠[708] vocat, certis noctibus equitare debere super quasdam bestias, et in eorum se consortio annumeratam esse?

Fecisti quod quidam faciunt in Kalendis Ianuarii, i.e. in octava Natalis Domini; qui ea sancta nocte filant, nent, consuunt, et omne opus quodcunque incipere possunt, diabolo instigante propter novum annum incipiunt?

Fecisti ut quaedam mulieres in quibusdam temporibus anni facere solent, ut in domo tuo mensam praeparares, et tuos cibos et potum cum tribus cultellis supra mensam poneres, ut si venissent tres illae sorores quas antiqua posteritas et antiqua stultitia parcas nominavit, ibi reficerentur; et tulisti divinae pietati potestatem suam et nomen suum, et diabolo tradidisti, ita dico, ut crederes illas quas tu dicis esse sorores tibi posse aut hic aut in futuro prodesse?

O THE REGULARIS CONCORDIA OF ST. ETHELWOLD

P THE DURHAM SEPULCHRUM — p. 9. The Quire—The Passion. — The Quire—The Resurrection. — p. 26. The South Alley of the Lantern.

[From A Description or Breife Declaration of all the Ancient Monuments, Rites and Customes belonginge or beinge within the Monastical Church of Durham before the Suppression (ed. J. Raine, Surtees Soc. xv). This anonymous tract was written in 1593. A new edition is in course of preparation for the Surtees Society.]

Within the Abbye Church of Durham, uppon Good Friday theire was marvelous solemne service, in the which service time, after the Passion was sung, two of the eldest Monkes did take a goodly large Crucifix, all of gold, of the picture of our Saviour Christ nailed uppon the crosse, lyinge uppon a velvett cushion, havinge St. Cuthbert’s armes uppon it all imbroydered with gold, bringinge that betwixt them uppon the said cushion to the lowest greeces in the Quire; and there betwixt them did hold the said picture of our Saviour, sittinge of every side, on ther knees, of that, and then one of the said Monkes did rise and went a pretty way from it, sittinge downe uppon his knees, with his shooes put of, and verye reverently did creepe away uppon his knees unto the said Crosse, and most reverently did kisse it. And after him the other Monke did so likewise, and then they did sitt them downe on every side of the Crosse, and holdinge it betwixt them, and after that the Prior came forth of his stall, and did sitt him downe of his knees, with his shooes off, and in like sort did creepe also unto the said Crosse, and all the Monkes after him one after another, in the same order, and in the mean time all the whole quire singinge an himne. The seruice beinge ended, the two Monkes did carrye it to the Sepulchre with great reverence, which Sepulchre was sett upp in the morninge, on the north side of the Quire, nigh to the High Altar, before the service time; and there lay it within the said Sepulchre with great devotion, with another picture of our Saviour Christ, in whose breast they did enclose, with great reverence, the most holy and blessed Sacrament of the Altar, senceinge it and prayinge unto it upon theire knees, a great space, settinge two tapers lighted before it, which tapers did burne unto Easter day in the morninge, that it was taken forth.

There was in the Abbye Church of Duresme verye solemne service uppon Easter Day, betweene three and four of the clocke in the morninge, in honour of the Resurrection, where two of the oldest Monkes of the Quire came to the Sepulchre, being sett upp upon Good Friday, after the Passion, all covered with red velvett and embrodered with gold, and then did sence it, either Monke with a pair of silver sencers sittinge on theire knees before the Sepulchre. Then they both rising came to the Sepulchre, out of which, with great devotion and reverence, they tooke a marvelous beautifull Image of our Saviour, representing the resurrection, with a crosse in his hand, in the breast wherof was enclosed in bright christall the holy Sacrament of the Altar, throughe the which christall the Blessed Host was conspicuous to the behoulders. Then, after the elevation of the said picture, carryed by the said two Monkes uppon a faire velvett cushion, all embrodered, singinge the anthem of Christus resurgens, they brought it to the High Altar, settinge that on the midst therof, whereon it stood, the two Monkes kneelinge on theire knees before the Altar, and senceing it all the time that the rest of the whole quire was in singinge the foresaid anthem of Christus resurgens. The which anthem beinge ended, the two Monkes tooke up the cushions and the picture from the Altar, supportinge it betwixt them, proceeding, in procession, from the High Altar to the south Quire dore, where there was four antient Gentlemen, belonginge to the Prior, appointed to attend theire cominge, holdinge upp a most rich Cannopye of purple velvett, tached round about with redd silke and gold fringe; and at everye corner did stand one of theise ancient Gentlemen, to beare it over the said image, with the Holy Sacrament, carried by two Monkes round about the church, the whole quire waitinge uppon it with goodly torches and great store of other lights, all singinge, rejoyceinge, and praising God most devoutly, till they came to the High Altar againe, whereon they did place the said image there to remaine untill the Ascension day.

Over the [second of the iij Alters in that plage] was a merveylous lyvelye and bewtiful Immage of the picture of our Ladie, so called the Lady of Boultone, which picture was maide to open with gymmers from her breaste downdward. And within the said immage was wrowghte and pictured the immage of our Saviour, merveylouse fynlie gilted, houldinge uppe his handes, and houlding betwixt his handes a fair large Crucifix of Christ, all of gold, the which crucifix was to be taiken fourthe every Good Fridaie, and every man did crepe unto it that was in that church at that daye. And ther after yt was houng upe againe within the said immage.

Q THE SARUM SEPULCHRUM — The Depositio. — The Sepulchre Light. — The Elevatio. — The Censing in Easter Week. — The Removal of the Sepulchre.

[I give the various directions and rubrics referring to the sepulchre from the Consuetudinary (†1210), Ordinal (†1270), Customary (first half of fourteenth century), Processional (1508, &c.), Missal (1526, &c.), and Breviary (1531). The printed sixteenth-century rubrics practically reproduce the later Ordinal of the middle of the fourteenth century.]

[From the Processional, with which the Missal practically agrees.]

Finitis vesperis, exuat sacerdos casulam, et sumens secum unum de praelatis in superpelliceis discalceati reponant crucem cum corpore dominico [scilicet in pixide, Missal] in sepulcrum incipiens ipse solus hoc responsorium Aestimatus sum, genuflectendo cum socio suo, quo incepto statim surgat. Similiter fiat in responsorio Sepullo Domino. Chorus totum responsorium prosequatur cum suo versu, genuflectendo per totum tempus usque ad finem servitii. Responsoria ut sic: Aestimatus sum. Chorus prosequatur cum descendentibus in lacum.... Dum praedictum responsorium canitur cum suo versu, praedicti duo sacerdotes thurificent sepulcrum, quo facto et clauso ostio, incipiet idem sacerdos responsorium Sepulto Domino.... Item praedicti duo sacerdotes dicant istas tres antiphonas sequentes genuflectendo continue: In pace.... In pace factus est.... Caro mea.... His finitis, et dictis prius orationibus ad placitum secrete ab omnibus cum genuflexione, omnibus aliis ad libitum recedentibus, ordine [non, Missal] servato, reinduat sacerdos casulam, et eodem modo quo accessit in principio servitii, cum diacono et subdiacono et ceteris ministris abscedat.

[From the Consuetudinary.]

In die parasceues post repositum corpus domini in sepulcro, duo cerei dimidie libre ad minus in thesauraria tota die ante sepulcrum ardebunt. In nocte sequente et exinde usque ad processionem quae fit in die pasche ante matutinas, unus illorum tantum, magnum eciam cereum paschalem.

[From the Processional, with which the Missal and Customary practically agree.]

Exinde [i.e. from the Depositio] continue ardebit unus cereus ad minus ante sepulcrum usque ad processionem quae fit in Resurrectione Dominica in die Paschae: ita tamen quod dum Psalmus Benedictus canitur et cetera quae sequuntur, in sequenti nocte extinguatur: similiter et extinguatur in Vigilia Paschae, dum benedicitur novus ignis, usque accendatur cereus paschalis.

[From the Consuetudinary.]

In die pasche ante matutinas conueniant clerici ed ecclesiam accensis cunctis cereis per ecclesiam: duo excellenciores presbiteri in superpelliceis ad sepulchrum accedant prius incensato ostio sepulchri cum magna ueneratione, corpus dominicum super altare deponant: deinde crucem de sepulchro tollant, excellenciore presbitero inchoante antiphonam Christus resurgens et sic eant, per ostium australe presbiterii incedentes, per medium chori regredientes, cum thuribulario et ceroferariis precedentibus, ad altare sancti martini canentes praedictam antiphonam cum uersu suo. Deinde dicto uersiculo Surrexit dominus de sepulchro, et dicta oracione ab excellenciore sacerdote post debitam campanarum pulsacionem inchoentur matutine.

[From the Ordinal.]

In Die Pasche

Ad Processionem ante Matutinas conueniant omnes clerici ad ecclesiam ac accendantur luminaria per ecclesiam. Episcopus uel decanus in superpelliceo cum ceroferariis thuribulariis et clero in sepulcrum accedant, et incensato prius sepulcro cum magna ueneracione corpus domini assumant et super altare ponant. Iterum accipientes crucem de sepulcro inchoet episcopus uel decanus Ant. Christus resurgens. Tunc omnes cum gaudio genua flectant et ipsam crucem adorent, idipsum canentes cum ℣. Dicant nunc. Tunc omnes campane in classicum pulsentur, et cum magna ueneracione deportetur crux ad locum ubi prouisum sit, clero canente predictam antiphonam. Quo facto dicat Sacerdos ℣. Surrexit dominus de sepulcro. Or. Deus qui pro nobis. Que terminetur sic, Per eundem christum dominum nostrum.

[From the Breviary, with which the Processional, although less full, practically agrees.]

In die sancto Paschae ante Matutinas et ante campanarum pulsationem conveniant Clerici ad ecclesiam, et accendantur luminaria per totam ecclesiam. Tunc duo excellentiores Presbyteri in superpelliceis cum duobus Ceroferariis, et duobus thuribulis, et clero ad sepulchrum accedant: et incensato a praedictis duobus Presbyteris prius sepulchro cum magna veneratione, videlicet genuflectendo, statim post thurificationem corpus Dominicum super altare privatim deponant: iterum accipientes crucem de sepulchro, choro et populo interim genuflectente incipiat excellentior persona Ant. Christus resurgens. Et Chorus prosequatur totam antiphonam sic, ex mortuis ... Alleluya. Et tunc dum canitur Antiphona, eat processio per ostium australe presbyterii incedens et per medium chori regrediens [per ostium presbyterii australe incedendo per medium chori, et ingrediens, Processional] cum praedicta cruce de sepulchro inter praedictos duos Sacerdotes supereorum brachia venerabiliter portata, cum thuribulis et Ceroferariis praecedentibus, per ostium presbyterii boreale exeundo, ad unum altare ex parte boreali ecclesiae, Choro sequente, habitu non mutato, minoribus [excellentioribus, Processional] praecedentibus: ita tamen quod praedicti duo excellentiores in fine processionis subsequantur, corpore Dominico super altare in pixide dimisso et sub Thesaurarii custodia [in subthesaurarii custodia, Processional], qui illud statim in praedicta pixide in tabernaculo deponat [dependat ut potest in ista statione praecedente, Processional]: et tunc pulsentur omnes campanae in classicum.

Finito Antiphona praedicta, sequatur a toto Choro

V. Dicant nunc Iudei ... Alleluya.

Finita autem Antiphona cum suo Versu a toto Choro, dicat excellentior persona in sua statione ad altare conversus hunc Versum.

V. Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.

R. Qui pro nobis pependit in ligno. Alleluya.

Oremus.

Oratio. Deus, qui pro nobis.... Per Christum Dominum nostrum.

Et terminetur sub Dominicali tono ad processionem: nec praecedat nec subsequatur Dominus vobiscum.

Finita Oratione omnes cum gaudio genuflectent ibidem et ipsam crucem adorent, in primis digniores, et tunc secrete sine processione in chorum redeant.

His itaque gestis discooperiantur ymagines et cruces per totam ecclesiam: et interim pulsentur campanae, sicut in Festis principalibus, ad Matutinas more solito.

[From the Customary.]

Ad primas uesperas ... post inchoacionem antiphone super psalmum Magnificat procedat executor officii cum alio sacerdote ... ad thurificandum altare.... In die tamen pasche et per ebdomadam thurificetur sepulchrum domini post primam thurificacionem altaris, scilicet antequam thurificator altaris circumeat.

[From the Customary.]

Die ueneris in ebdomada pasche ante missam amoueatur sepulchrum.

R THE DUBLIN QUEM QUAERITIS

S THE AUREA MISSA OF TOURNAI

T SUBJECTS OF THE CYCLICAL MIRACLES