Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/458

 454 Rudwin the devil would not admit into hell, or the ale-wife in the English mysteries, whom Christ would not harrow out of hell, the churlish peasants, the vainglorious knights, the comical Jews, and the immoral priests are common to both types of play. The devil in the mystery-plays owes many of this characteristics to the blackened demon, who had from ancient times been a favorite character at the folk-festivals. 376 With the introduction of the vernacular into the Church plays the path was paved for the popular or, what may be more truly called, the comic element of the contemporary secular pieces. In this way the Church play came to have a great deal of the character of the Carnival comedy. Their similarity became, indeed, so great towards the close of the Middle Ages that they imperceptibly merged into each other. On the one hand, some of the comic scenes of the pious plays came to be separated and became independent farces. On the other hand, a Carnival comedy may very likely have served as an interlude in a religious production to add variety to the long-drawn represen- tation of sacred subjects. The result is that it is not so easy to draw a line of demarcation between the sacred and the secular plays of the Middle Ages. An obvious link between the two types of drama is to be found in such plays as Theophilus and Jutta, which are brought technically within the scope of the miracle plays by the introduction of the Virgin or some other saint in the action. It would appear from the facts we have adduced that the Church drama owes after all more to the folk-play than the historians of the drama would fain admit, and that conse- quently the folk-play has contributed somewhat more than "the tiniest rill to the mighty stream" of modern drama, as Chambers expresses it. 377 MAXIMILIAN J. RUDWIN. Johns Hopkins University. 376 Cf. Haueis, op. tit., p. 20. 378 Cf. Chambers, op. tit., ii. 91. 377 Op. cit., i. 182. On this question the reader may consult J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, ii. 7S4,Gott.gel. Anzeigen 1838 St. 56 S. 552sq.[= Kleinere Schriften, v. (1871) 281]; G. Milchsack, Die Oster- und Passionsspiele. I. Die lateinischen Osterfeiern (1880), p. 10; K. Pearson, op. tit.,u. 281; Creizenach, op. cit., i. 390n2; K. Gusinde, Neidhart mil dem Veilchen,Germ. Abhandlungen, Heft XVII (1899), p. 33.