Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/285

 POPULAR POETRY 273 crites fly in confusion, the seduced repent, and the delivered Church sings a joyous Alleluia. 'Behold the fate of those who take not God for their helper ! I am like the fruitful olive tree in the house of the Lord. Sing the praises of our God. Alleluia ! ' This drama, so simple in its conception, must, through its earnestness and realistic representation, have been very impressive, for we find that when it was played in Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1469, the authori- ties were obliged to protect the Jews from the fury of the populace. 1 At first these Mystery Plays were composed exclu- sively in Latin. By degrees the Latin songs, scattered here and there, became Germanised, and finally the old text was replaced entirely by a new German text. The German drama and German sacred song were closely interwoven one with the other. The lyric-dramatic ' Marienklagen (' Dolours of Mary ') belonged to the one almost as much as to the other. The Mystery Plays became so popular that in the fourteenth century they were played by the people in the village churches, and as a proof of their popularity it is attested that they were not written, but, like the epics of old, handed down like tradition from one gene- ration to another. As long as the custom continued of "iving these representations in the churches the stage was always erected under the choir loft. Later they were held in the churchyard and in the market-place. Here the 1 Kriegh, Burgerthum, p. 586, n. 419. 'Between 1456 and 1506 there were only three representations at Frankfort-on-the-Main.' ' At Alsfeld a three clays' representation of the Passion was given in the years 1501, 1511, 1517.' Wilken, p. 110. VOL. I. T