Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/454

 450 Rudwin century was but the coming to light again of an earth-bourne of dramatic tradition that had worked its way beneath the ground ever since the theatres of the Empire fell." 350 The fall of the theatres by no means implied the complete extinction of the mimi. They had outlived tragedy and comedy, they also outlived the stage. "Driven from their theatres, they still had a vogue, not only at banquets, but at popular merry-makings or whenever in street or country they could gather together the remnant of their old audiences." 351 To Teutonic manners these private performances seem to have commended them- selves far more than the theatres. 352 The Roman mimi were in fact absorbed into that vast body of nomad entertainers ioculatores, histriones, scenici, homines vagi, on whom so much of the gaiety of the Middle Ages depended. 353 What may be broadly designated as medieval minstrelsy was a coalition of the Roman mimus and the Germanic scdp. There undoubtedly were elements of drama in minstrelsy. 354 The French farce, the Spanish entremesa, and the English comical interlude arose out of the minstrel tradition. 355 The best actor of the French farce was known as maistre mymin. The burlesque of Christian service, which we find now and then in the Carnival plays, is, as has been noted, 356 a legacy to the Carnival players from the ribald clerics. " Familiarity breeds contempt, and it was almost an obvious sport on the part of the vicars and choir-boys to burlesque the sacred and tedious ceremonies with which they were only too painfully familiar." 357 But the parody of Christian rites may also be attributed to the traditions of the Roman mime, with whom it was a favorite act. The comical treatment of Christ and St. Peter, which we find in the medieval drama, may also be put to his credit. Throughout paganism he had ridiculed the 350 Ibid., i. SSsq. "/&#., i. 24. 362 Ibid. 863 Ibid., i. 25. K *Ibid., i. 77sqq.', Fr. Vogt in Paul's Gmndriss*, pp. 336sqq.; Creizenach, op. cit., i. 390sqq. 355 Cf. Chambers, op. cit., ii. 380. 358 Supra, p. 449. 357 Cf. Chambers, op. cit., i. 325, ii. 380.