Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/434

414 414 D It A M A grass of the craftsmen of the acting profession. In France, maYn soonest advanced into forms connecting themselves with ope; later growths of the drama. At Paris the fraternity of the Bazoche (clerks of the Parliament and the Chatelet) in 1303 acquired the right of conducting the popular festivals ; but after the Confrerie de la Passion, who devoted themselves originally to the performance of passion-plays, had obtained a royal privilege for this purpose in 1402, the Bazoche gave itself up to the production of moralities. A third association, calling itself the Ertfans sans souci (the Devil- may-cares), having about the same time acquired the right of acting sotties short comic plays with allegorical figures the other companies took a leaf out of their book, inter wove their mysteries and moralities with comic scenes from popular life, and gradually began to confine themselves to secular themes. Thus the transition to the regular drama here easily prepared itself ; already in 1395 we find the brethren of the Passion performing a serious play on the story of Griseldis ; and among the abundant literature of sotties and. farces (from Italian farsa, Latin farcita), which after mingling real types with allegorical personages had come to exclude the latter, the immortal Maistre Pierre Patelin (acted in 1480 by the Bazoche) is, however slight in plot, in all essentials a comedy. No Italian mystery has been preserved from an earlier date than 1243, about which time associations were in this country also founded for the pro duction of religious plays. These seem to have differed little from those of Northern Europe except by a less degree of coarseness in their comic characters. Plays on Old Testament subjects were called figure, on New vangeli; in the 15th and 16th centuries they were elaborated and produced with great care, and bore various names, of which rappresentazioni was the most common. 1 The spectacular magnificence of theatrical displays accorded with that of the processions, both ecclesiastical and lay, the trionfi as they were called in the days of Dante, and the religious drama gradually acquired an academical character assimi lating it to the classical attempts which gave rise to the regular Italian drama. The poetry of the Troubadours, which had come from Provence into Italy, here frequently took a dramatic form, and perhaps suggested his early ex periments in this to Petrarch, the father of the Italian Renaissance. After his death there are traces of similar literary efforts in the volgare Provenzale dialect. Meanwhile remnants of the ancient popular entertainments had survived in the improvised farces acted at the courts, in the churches (farsa spirituale), and among the people ; the Roman carnival had preserved its waggon plays (carri} ; and numerous links remained to connect the popular modern comedy of the Italians with the Atellanes and mimes of their ancestors. In Spain, where all traces of the ancient Roman theatre (except its architectural remains) had dis appeared after the Moorish conquest, the extant remains of the religious drama date from a still later period than the Italian the 13th or 14th century. Its beginnings presented themselves in an advanced form, which aroused the opposition of the clergy, who sought to take the plays under their own control. In the secular literature of Spain nothing dramatic can be proved to have existed till the latter part of the 15th century. It had probably been cuotomary from early times to insert in the mysteries so- called entremeses or interludes ; but it is not till 1472 that in the couplets of Miugo Revulgo (i.e., Domingo Vulgus, the common people), and about the same time, in another dialogue by the same author, we have attempts of a kind 1 Such apiece was the San Giovanni e San Paolo (1488), by Lorenzo the Magnificent, the prince who afterwards sought to reform the Italian ctage by paganizing it. LMKDI.F.VAU resembling the Italian contrasti (v. infra). In Germany, on the other hand (the history of whose drama so widely differs from that of the Spanish), religious plays were performed probably as early as the 12th century at the Christmas and Easter festivals. Other festivals were afterwards celebrated in the same way, but up to the Information Easter enjoyed the preference. About the 14th century miracle-plays began to be frequently per formed ; and as these often treated subjects of historical interest, local or other, the transition to the barren beginnings of the German historical drama was afterwards easy. Though these early German plays often have an element of the moralities, they were not as in France blended with the drolleries of the professional strollers (fahrende Lcute), which, carried on chiefly in carnival time, gave rise to the Shrove-Tuesday plays (Fast)iachtsspide), scenes from common life largely interspersed with practical fun. To these last a more enduring literary form was first given in the 15th century by Hans Rosenpliit, called Schnepperer or Hans Schnepperer, called Rosenbliit the predecessor of Hans Sachs.- By this time a connection was establishing itself in Germany between the dramatic amusements of the people and the literary labours of the master-singers ; but the religious drama proper survived in Catholic Germany far beyond the times of the Reformation, and was not suppressed in Bavaria and Tyrol till the end of the 18th century. 1 Omitting any notice of traces remaining of the religious drama in other European countries, we come to our own, from whose literature a fair idea may be derived of the general character of these medieval productions. The miracle-plays, miracles, or plays (these being the terms used in England) of which we hear in London in the 12th century, were probably written in Latin and acted by ecclesiastics; but already in the following century mention is made in the way of prohibition of plays acted by professional players. (Isolated moralities of the 12th century are not to be regarded as popular productions.) In England as elsewhere, the clergy either sought to retain their control over the religious plays, which continued to be occasionally acted in churches even after the Pieformation, or else reprobated them with or without qualifications. In Cornwall miracles in the native Cymric dialect were per formed at an early date ; but those which have been preserved are apparently copies of English (with the occasional use of French) originals ; they were repre sented, unlike the English plays, in the open country, in extensive amphitheatres constructed for the purpose. The flourishing period of English miracle-plays begins with the practice of their performance by trading-companies in the towns. Of this practice Chester is said to have set the example (12G8-1276) ; it was followed in the course of the 13th and 14th centuries by many other towns, in cluding Wakefield, Coventry, York, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Leeds, Lancaster, Preston, Kendal, Wymondham, Dublin, and London, in which last the performers were the parish clerks. Three collections, in addition to some single examples, of such plays have come down to us viz., the Toimeley plays, which were probably acted at the fairs of Woodkirk, near Wakefield, and those bearing the names of Chester and of Coventry. Their dates, in the forms in which they have come down to us, are more or less uncer tain, that of the Towneley may be even earlier than the 14th century ; the Chester may be ascribed to the close of the 14th or the earlier part of the loth ; the body of the Coventry probably belongs to the 15th or 16th. Many of 1 The passion-play of Oberammergau, familiar in its present artistic form to so many visitors, was instituted under special circumstances in the days of the Thirty Years War (1634). Various reasons account for its having been allowed to survive. Religiov drama i: Enplane&quot; Cornish miracle- plays. The Tow ley, 01 ter, and Co vent i 1 play.s.
 * ? e where they had always preserved a secular side, they