Mystery play

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Depiction of a performance of the Mystery Play of Saint Clement in Metz during the Middle Ages. Mystery Play Metz.jpg
Depiction of a performance of the Mystery Play of Saint Clement in Metz during the Middle Ages.

Mystery plays and miracle plays (they are distinguished as two different forms although the terms are often used interchangeably [1] ) are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They told of subjects such as the Creation, Adam and Eve, the murder of Abel, and the Last Judgment. [2] Often they were performed together in cycles which could last for days. [3] The name derives from mystery used in its sense of miracle, [4] but an occasionally quoted derivation is from ministerium, meaning craft , and so the 'mysteries' or plays performed by the craft guilds. [5]

Contents

Origins

Mystery play, Flanders, 15th century Mystery play 001.jpg
Mystery play, Flanders, 15th century

As early as the fifth century, living tableaux were introduced into sacred services. [6] The plays originated as simple tropes, verbal embellishments of liturgical texts, and slowly became more elaborate. At an early period chants from the service of the day were added to the prose dialogue. As these liturgical plays increased in popularity, vernacular forms emerged, and travelling companies of actors and theatrical productions became common in the later Middle Ages.

The Quem quaeritis? is the best known early form of the dramas. It is a schematic dialogue between the angel at the tomb of Christ and the women who are seeking his dead body. [6] Early forms of the responsorium were later elaborated with dialogue and dramatic action. Early performances were given in Latin, and were preceded by a vernacular prologue spoken by a herald who gave a synopsis of the events. The writers and directors of the earliest plays were probably monks or clerics.

In 1210, suspicious of the growing popularity of miracle plays, Pope Innocent III issued a papal edict forbidding clergy from acting on a public stage. This had the effect of transferring the organization of the dramas to town guilds, after which several changes followed. Vernacular texts replaced Latin, and non-Biblical passages were added along with comic scenes, for example in the Secunda Pastorum of the Wakefield Cycle. Acting and characterization became more elaborate.

These vernacular religious performances were, in some of the larger cities in England such as York, performed and produced by guilds, with each guild taking responsibility for a particular piece of scriptural history. From the guild control originated the term mystery play or mysteries, from the Latin ministerium meaning "occupation" (i.e. that of the guilds). The genre was again banned as a result of the Reformation and the establishment of the Church of England in 1534.

The mystery play developed, in some places, into a series of plays dealing with major events in the Christian calendar, from the Creation to the Day of Judgment. By the end of the 15th century, the practice of acting these plays in cycles on festival days was established in several parts of Europe. Sometimes, each play was performed on a decorated pageant cart that moved about the city to allow different crowds to watch each play. [7] The entire cycle could take up to twenty hours to perform and could be spread over a number of days. Taken as a whole, these are referred to as Corpus Christi cycles. These cycles were often performed during the Feast of Corpus Christi. [8]

The plays were performed by a combination of clerics and amateurs and were written in highly elaborate stanza forms; they were often marked by extravagant sets and special effects, but could also be stark and intimate. There was a wide variety of theatrical and poetic styles, even in a single cycle of plays.

English mystery plays

Two Players of St. Peter portraying Adam and Eve 04b266 adamandeve.jpg
Two Players of St. Peter portraying Adam and Eve

There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays. [9] A collection is the York cycle of forty-eight pageants; there are also the Towneley plays of thirty-two pageants, the Ludus Coventriae, and the Chester cycle of twenty-four pageants, now generally agreed to be an Elizabethan reconstruction of older medieval traditions. Also extant are two pageants from a New Testament cycle acted at Coventry. Additionally, a fifteenth-century play of the life of Mary Magdalene, The Brome Abraham and Isaac and a sixteenth-century play of the Conversion of Saint Paul exist. Besides the Middle English drama, there are a few surviving plays in Cornish: namely, the Ordinalia (which is a cycle of three plays) and Pascon Agan Aruth which both tell biblical stories, and Bewnans Ke and Bewnans Meriasek, which tell the stories of the lives of saints.

These biblical plays differ widely in content. Most contain episodes such as the Fall of Lucifer, the Creation and Fall of Man, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, Abraham and Isaac, the Nativity, the Raising of Lazarus, the Passion, and the Resurrection. Other pageants included the story of Moses, the Procession of the Prophets, Christ's Baptism, the Temptation in the Wilderness, and the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin. In given cycles, the plays came to be sponsored by the newly emerging Medieval craft guilds. The York mercers, for example, sponsored the Doomsday pageant. Other guilds presented scenes appropriate to their trade: the building of the Ark from the carpenters' guild; the five loaves and fishes miracle from the bakers; and the visit of the Magi, with their offerings of gold, frankincense and myrrh, from the goldsmiths. [10] [11] The guild associations are not, however, to be understood as the method of production for all towns. While the Chester pageants are associated with guilds, there is no indication that the N-Town plays are either associated with guilds or performed on pageant wagons. Perhaps the most famous of the mystery plays, at least to modern readers and audiences, are those of Wakefield. Unfortunately, we cannot know whether the plays of the Towneley manuscript are actually the plays performed at Wakefield but a reference in the Second Shepherds' Play to Horbery Shrogys [12] is strongly suggestive. In "The London Burial Grounds" by Mrs Basil Holmes (1897), the author claims that the Holy Priory Church, next to St Katherine Cree on Leadenhall Street, London was the location of miracle plays from the tenth to the sixteenth century. Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London (c 1500 - 1569) stopped this in 1542. [13]

Spanish mystery plays

The oldest liturgical drama in Spain is from the 12th century and kept today in Toledo Cathedral. It is a play about the Biblical Magi, three wise men from the East who followed a star and visited the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. [14] It is believed to have been based on an earlier play written in France. [15]

The Misteri d'Elx (in English, the Elx Mystery Play or Mystery Play of Elx) is a liturgical drama dating from the 13th century which has been enacted and celebrated every year without any known interruptions. Commemorating the Assumption of Mary, it is played on every 14 and 15 August in the Basilica de Santa María in the city of Elx (also known as Elche). The prohibition of theatrical plays in churches by the Council of Trent eventually threatened to interrupt the yearly performance of the Misteri, but in 1632 Pope Urban VIII issued a special permit for its continuation. In 2001, UNESCO declared it one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Miracle play

Miracle plays, or Saint's plays, are now distinguished from mystery plays as they specifically re-enacted miraculous interventions by the saints, particularly St. Nicholas or St. Mary, rather than biblical events. [16] Robert Chambers, writing in the 19th century, notes that "especially in England, miracle [came] to stand for religious play in general". [17]

Cornish language miracle plays, particularly the Ordinalia trilogy, the Beunans Meriasek , and the Bewnans Ke , were traditionally performed at the plain-an-gwarrys. [18] To capture the attention of the audience, "the plays were often noisy, bawdy and entertaining." [19]

Modern performances

Attention to the Medieval Mystery plays began to grow during the early 1800s, after their reference and publication by William Hone and James Heywood Markland. Notably, poet Lord Byron wrote the plays Cain and Heaven and Earth: A Mystery as modern version of medieval dramas on similar subjects. Mystery plays are produced regularly throughout the United Kingdom. The local cycles were revived in both York and Chester in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain, and are still performed by the local guilds. [20] The N-Town cycle was revived in 1978 as the Lincoln mystery plays, [21] and in 1994 the Lichfield Mysteries were revived. [22]

In 1977 the National Theatre commissioned Tony Harrison to create The Mysteries , a re-working of the Wakefield Cycle and others. [23] It was again revived in 1985 (the production was filmed for Channel 4 Television), and as a part of the theatre's millennium celebration in 2000. [24] The productions won Bill Bryden the Best Director title in both the 1985 Evening Standard Theatre Awards and the 1985 Laurence Olivier Awards, the year the three plays first appeared together in performance at the Lyceum Theatre. [25]

In 2001, the Isango Ensemble produced an African version of the Chester Cycle at the Garrick Theatre in London as The Mysteries – Yiimimangaliso, performing in a combination of the Xhosa language, Zulu, English, Latin, and Afrikaans. They revived an adapted version of the production at Shakespeare's Globe in 2015 as The Mysteries. [26] In 2004, two mystery plays (one focusing on the Creation and the other on the Passion) were performed at Canterbury Cathedral, with actor Edward Woodward in the role of God. The large cast also included Daniel MacPherson, Thomas James Longley and Joseph McManners. [27]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Drama was introduced to Britain from Europe by the Romans, and auditoriums were constructed across the country for this purpose.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chester Mystery Plays</span> Cycle of biblical plays historically performed in Chester, England

The Chester Mystery Plays is a cycle of mystery plays originating in the city of Chester, England and dating back to at least the early part of the 15th century.

The N-Town Plays are a cycle of 42 medieval Mystery plays from between 1450 and 1500.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian drama</span>

Christian drama or Christian tragedy is based on Christian religious themes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medieval theatre</span> Theatrical performances in the Middle Ages

Medieval theatre encompasses theatrical in the period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century and the beginning of the Renaissance in approximately the 15th century. The category of "medieval theatre" is vast, covering dramatic performance in Europe over a thousand-year period. A broad spectrum of genres needs to be considered, including mystery plays, morality plays, farces and masques. The themes were almost always religious. The most famous examples are the English cycle dramas, the York Mystery Plays, the Chester Mystery Plays, the Wakefield Mystery Plays, and the N-Town Plays, as well as the morality play known as Everyman. One of the first surviving secular plays in English is The Interlude of the Student and the Girl.

The Wakefield or Towneley Mystery Plays are a series of thirty-two mystery plays based on the Bible most likely performed around the Feast of Corpus Christi probably in the town of Wakefield, England during the Late Middle Ages until 1576. It is one of only four surviving English mystery play cycles. Some scholars argue that the Wakefield cycle is not a cycle at all, but a mid-sixteenth-century compilation, formed by a scribe bringing together three separate groups of plays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">York Mystery Plays</span> Annual series of plays in 14th–16th century York, England

The York Mystery Plays, more properly the York Corpus Christi Plays, are a Middle English cycle of 48 mystery plays or pageants covering sacred history from the creation to the Last Judgment. They were traditionally presented on the feast day of Corpus Christi and were performed in the city of York, from the mid-fourteenth century until their suppression in 1569. The plays are one of four virtually complete surviving English mystery play cycles, along with the Chester Mystery Plays, the Towneley/Wakefield plays and the N-Town plays. Two long, composite, and late mystery pageants have survived from the Coventry cycle and there are records and fragments from other similar productions that took place elsewhere. A manuscript of the plays, probably dating from between 1463 and 1477, is still intact and stored at the British Library.

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<i>The Digby Conversion of Saint Paul</i>

The Digby Conversion of Saint Paul is a Middle English miracle play of the late fifteenth century. Written in rhyme royal, it is about the conversion of Paul the Apostle. It is part of a collection of mystery plays that was bequeathed to the Bodleian Library by Sir Kenelm Digby in 1634.

Le Jeu d'Adam is a twelfth-century liturgical drama written in the Anglo Norman dialect of Medieval French. While choral texts and stage directions are in Latin, the spoken text of the play is in the vernacular, which makes the Adam the oldest extant play written in any old French dialect. It is a dramatic representation of the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve, the story of Cain and Abel, and a series of prophets including Isaiah and Daniel. The latter part of the play is largely taken from the Latin Sermo Contra Judaeos, Paganos et Arianos, attributed to pseudo-Augustine. It is part of the medieval tradition of mystery plays, which developed from dramatic elements in the celebration of Mass, and includes choral music.

<i>The Second Shepherds Play</i> Medieval mystery play

The Second Shepherds' Play is a famous medieval mystery play which is contained in the manuscript HM1, the unique manuscript of the Wakefield Cycle. These plays are also referred to as the Towneley Plays, on account of the manuscript residing at Towneley Hall. The plays within the manuscript roughly follow the chronology of the Bible and so were believed to be a cycle, which is now considered not to be the case. This play gained its name because in the manuscript it immediately follows another nativity play involving the shepherds. In fact, it has been hypothesized that the second play is a revision of the first. It appears that the two shepherd plays were not intended to be performed together since many of the themes and ideas of the first play carry over to the second one. In both plays it becomes clear that Christ is coming to Earth to redeem the world from its sins. Although the underlying tone of The Second Shepherd's Play is serious, many of the antics that occur among the shepherds are extremely farcical in nature.

A pageant wagon is a movable stage or wagon used to accommodate the mystery and miracle play cycles of the 10th through the 16th century. These religious plays were developed from biblical texts; at the height of their popularity, they were allowed to stay within the churches, and special stages were erected for them.

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Medieval Spanish literature consists of the corpus of literary works written in Old Spanish between the beginning of the 13th and the end of the 15th century. Traditionally, the first and last works of this period are taken to be respectively the Cantar de mio Cid, an epic poem whose manuscript dates from 1207, and La Celestina (1499), a work commonly described as transitional between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

The pageant of Magnus Herodes is the sixteenth of the pageants of the Towneley Cycle of medieval mystery plays. It occupies folios 55-60 of the unique manuscript of the cycle, Huntington MS HM 1. It is composed in the distinctive stanza-style rhyming associated by scholars with a putative poet known as the 'Wakefield Master'. In the assessment of A. C. Cawley, 'the Wakefield playwright's skill in characterisation is nowhere better shown than in this pageant'. Like other tyrant characters in medieval drama, the protagonist of Herod the Great fictionalises the audience as his own subjects, and this pageant 'presents one of the most extended displays of this figure's interactive antics'.

Passion Plays in the United Kingdom have had a long and complex history involving faith and devotion, civic pageantry, antisemitism, religious and political censorship, large-scale revival and historical re-enactments. The origin and history of Passion Play in the UK differs substantially from Passion Plays in Europe, South and North America, Australia and other parts of the world.

References

  1. ↑ 'Properly speaking, Mysteries deal with Gospel events only). Miracle Plays, on the other hand, are concerned with incidents derived from the legends of the saints of the Church.' Ward, Augustus William (1875). History of English dramatic literature. London, England: Macmillan.
  2. ↑ "Vernacular Drama | Medieval Drama." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 27 May 2013. Web. 7 February 2015.
  3. ↑ "Emergency Lesson Plan Medieval Theatre: Mystery, Miracle, Morality". Archived from the original on 8 February 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
  4. ↑ "mystery, n1 9". Oxford English Dictionary . Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. December 2009.
  5. ↑ Gassner, John; Quinn, Edward (1969). "England: middle ages". The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama. London: Methuen. pp. 203–204. OCLC   249158675.
  6. 1 2 Bellinger, Martha Fletcher, "A Thousand Years Of Quiescence And The Beginnings Of Sacred Drama", A Short History of the Drama, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1927. pp. 115-21
  7. ↑ "Mystery Play | Dramatic Genre." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 27 May 2013. Web. 6 February 2015.
  8. ↑ Windeatt, Barry. "Medieval Imaginations: Literature & Visual Culture in the Middle Ages." Medieval Imaginations: Literature & Visual Culture in the Middle Ages. University of Cambridge, n.d. Web. 7 February 2015.
  9. ↑ Windeatt, Barry. "Medieval Imaginations: Literature & Visual Culture in the Middle Ages." Medieval Imaginations: Literature & Visual Culture in the Middle Ages. University of Cambridge, n.d. Web. 7 February 2015.
  10. ↑ Oxenford, Lyn (1958). Playing Period Plays. Chicago, Illinois: Coach House Press. p. 3. ISBN   0853435499.
  11. ↑ Mikics, David (2007). A New Handbook of Literary Terms . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. p.  194. ISBN   9780300106367.
  12. ↑ Anonymous. The Towneley plays (line 454) Archived 30 August 2002 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ↑ "The London Burial Grounds: Notes on their History from the Earliest Times to the Present Day -Mrs. Basil Holmes (St Katherine Cree)". Londoncemeteries.co.uk. Archived from the original on 11 February 2021. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
  14. ↑ "Liturgical drama: Definition from". Answers.com. Retrieved 16 April 2012.
  15. ↑ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Spanish Language and Literature"  . Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  16. ↑ "mystery play". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  17. ↑ Chambers, Robert (1844). Cyclopaedia of English Literature. Edinburgh, Scotland: Robert Chambers. OCLC   311881902., quoted in Clopper, Lawrence M. (2001). Drama, play, and game: English festive culture in the medieval and early modern period. University of Chicago Press. pp. 69–70. ISBN   978-0-226-11030-1.
  18. ↑ D. Simon Evans (Autumn 1969). "The Story of Cornish". Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review . 58 (231): 293–308. JSTOR   30087876 . Retrieved 12 August 2021.
  19. ↑ St Just Plain-an-Gwarry. Archived 5 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine Historic Cornwall. Retrieved 23 September 2012.
  20. ↑ Rogerson, Margaret. The Plays and the Guilds Archived 1 November 2015 at the Wayback Machine , York Mystery Plays
  21. ↑ Normington, Katie (October 2007). Modern mysteries: contemporary productions of medieval English cycle dramas. Melton, Suffolk, England: Boydell and Brewer. ISBN   978-1-84384-128-9.
  22. ↑ Lichfield Mysteries: Home Page, archived from the original on 21 November 2010, retrieved 28 January 2011
  23. ↑ Dodsworth, Martin (9 January 2009). "A poet in the land of as if". the Guardian. Retrieved 23 December 2022.
  24. ↑ Harrison, Tony (1985). The Mysteries . London: Faber. ISBN   0-571-13790-3.
  25. ↑ Shakespeare's Globe. The Globe Mysteries. 2011
  26. ↑ Shakespeare's Globe. The Isango Ensemble Mysteries Archived 1 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine 2015
  27. ↑ BBC News. Revival of Medieval Mystery Plays. Thursday, 5 August 2004,
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