Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/433

413 MEDIAEVAL.] DRAMA 413 from the legends of Christian saints. Thus from perhaps the 9th to the ] 2th centuries Germany and France, and through the latter, by means of the Norman Conquest, England, became acquainted with what may be called the literary monastic drama. It was no doubt occasionally performed by the children under the care of monks or nuns, or by the religious themselves ; an exhibition of the former kind was that of the Play of St Katharine, acted at Dunstable about the year 1110 in &quot; copes &quot; by the scholars of the Norman Geoffrey, afterwards abbot of St Albans. Nothing is knsown of it except the fact of its performance, which was certainly not regarded as a novelty. These efforts of the cloister came in time to blend them- &quot; selves with more popular forms of the early Christian drama. To what extent the mimes, or jocidatores (as in the early Middle Ages they came to be more generally called), kept alive the usage of entertainments more essentially dramatic than the minor varieties of their per formances, we cannot say ; but we know that in Northern France they at a very early date appropriated the begin nings of the religious drama to secular uses. Doubtless in both Celtic and Teutonic populations there survived the remnants of religious rites containing dramatic elements, and the heathen festivals, of Roman or other origin, com municated something of their character to the Christian, at which the joculatores were apt to appear. In different countries these entertainers suited themselves to different tastes, and with the rise of native literatures to different literary tendencies. The literature of the troubadours of Provence, which communicated itself to Spain and Italy, came only into isolated contact * with the beginnings of the religious drama ; in Northern France the jongleurs, as the joculatores were now called, were confounded with the trouveres, who sang the chansons de geste commemorative of deeds of war. As appointed servants of particular house holds they were here, and afterwards in England, called menestrels (from ministeriales) and minstrels. Such a histrlo or mimus (as he is called) was Taillefer, who rode first into the fight at Hastings, singing his songs of Roland and Charlemagne, and tossing his sword in the air and catching it again. In England such accomplished minstrels easily outshone the less versatile gleemen of pre-Norman times ; while here as elsewhere the humbler members of the craft strolled from castle to convent, to village-green and city-street, exhibiting as jugglers their pantomimic and other tricks. Both the literary and the professional element had thus survived to become tributaries to the main stream of the early Christian drama, which had its source in the liturgy of the church itself. The service of the mass contains in itself dramatic elements, and combines with the reading out of portions of Scripture by the priest, its epical part, a lyrical one in the anthems and responses of the congrega tion. At a very early period certainly already in the 5th century it was usual to increase the attractions of public worship on special occasions by living pictures illustrating the Gospel narrative and accompanied by songs ; and thus a certain amount of action gradually introduced itself into the service. When the epical part of the liturgy was con nected with its spectacular and to some degree mimical adjuncts, the lyrical accompaniment being of course retained, the liturgical mystery the earliest form of the Christian drama was in existence. This had certainly been accomplished as early as the 10th century, when on great ecclesiastical festivals it was customary for the priests to perform in the churches the offices (as they were called) of the Shepherds, the Innocents, the Holy Sepulchre, c., 1 The Foolish Virgins (Proven$al mystery cf the 12th or llth cen tury). in connection with the gospel of the day. In France in the 12th, or perhaps already in the llth century, short Latin texts were written for these liturgical mysteries ; these in cluded passages from the popular legend of St Nicholas as well as from scriptural story. In the same century the further step was taken of composing these texts in the vernacular the earliest example being the mystery of the Resurrection. In time a whole series of mysteries was The joined together ; a process which was at first roughly and collect: then more elaborately pursued in France and elsewhere, m y ster and finally resulted in the collective mystery a mere scholars term of course, but one to which the principal examples of the English mystery-drama correspond. The productions of the mediaeval religious drama it is Myste usual technically to divide into three classes. The miracl( mysteries proper deal with scriptural events only, their pur- ^ n ,. pose being to set forth, with the aid of the prophetic or guisbet preparatory history of the Old Testament, and more especially of the fulfilling events of the New, the central mystery of the Redemption of the world, as accomplished by the Nativity, the Passion, and the Resurrection. Eut in fact these were not kept distinctly apart from the miracle-plays, or miracles, which are strictly speaking con cerned with the legends of the saints of the church ; and in England the name mysteries was not in use. Of these species the miracles must more especially have been fed from the resources of the monastic literary drama. Thirdly, the moralities, or moral-plays, teach and illustrate the same truths; not, however, by direct representation of scriptural or legendary events and personages, but allegorically, their characters being personified virtues or qualities. Of the moralities the Norman trouveres had been the inventors ; and doubtless this innovation connects itself with the endeavour, which in France had almost proved victorious by the end of the 13th century, to emancipate dramatic per formances from the control of the church. The attitude of the clergy towards the dramatic The cl performances which had arisen out of the elaboration of the & } ! lie services of the church, but which soon admitted elements ^rama from other sources, was not, and could not be, uniform. As the plays grew longer, their paraphernalia more exten sive, and their spectators more numerous, they began to be represented outside as well as inside the churches, and the use of the vulgar tongue came to be gradually preferred. Miracles were less dependent on this connection with the church services than mysteries proper ; and lay associations, guilds, and schools in particular, soon began to act plays iu honour of their patron saints in or near their own halls. Lastly, as scenes and characters of a more or less trivial description were admitted even into the plays acted or superintended by the clergy, as some of these characters came to be depended on by the audiences for conventional extravagance or fun, every new Herod seeking to out- Herod his predecessor, and the devils and their chief assert ing themselves as indispensable favourites, the comic element in the religious drama increased ; and that drama itself, even where it remained associated with the church, grew more, and more profane. The endeavour to sanctify the popular tastes to religious uses, which connects itself with the institution of the great festival of Corpus Christi (1264, confirmed 1311), when the symbol of the mystery of the Incarnation was borne in solemn procession, led to the closer union of the dramatic exhibitions (hence often called processus) with this and other religious feasts ; but it neither limited tLeir range, nor controlled their develop ment. At times favoured, at times denounced by the clergy, dramatic entertainments thus lustily flourished for a series of centuries, in some countries -more, in others less, religious in their character, and variously reinforced by the efforts