Mystery plays and
Miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of
BibleThe Bible contains the central religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. Modern Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books known as the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, as it is written almost entirely in the Hebrew language, with some small portions in Aramaic...
stories in churches as
tableauxTableau vivant is French for "living picture." The term describes a striking group of suitably costumed actors or artist's models, carefully posed and often theatrically lit. Throughout the duration of the display, the people shown do not speak or move...
with accompanying
antiphonAn antiphon is a response, usually sung in Gregorian chant, to a psalm or some other part of a religious service, such as at Vespers or at a Mass. This meaning gave rise to the 'antiphony', a call and response style of singing...
al song. They developed from the 10th to the 16th century, reaching the height of their popularity in the 15th century before being rendered obsolete by the rise of professional theatre.
Origins
The plays originated as simple
tropesIn linguistics, trope is a rhetorical figure of speech that consists of a play on words, i.e., using a word in a way other than what is considered its literal or normal form...
, verbal embellishments of liturgical texts, and slowly became more elaborate. As these liturgical dramas increased in popularity, vernacular forms emerged, as traveling companies of actors and theatrical productions organized by local communities became more common in the later Middle Ages.
The
Quem Quœritis is the best known early form of the dramas, a dramatised liturgical dialogue between the angel at the tomb of Christ and the women who are seeking his body. These primitive forms were later elaborated with dialogue and dramatic action. Eventually the dramas moved from church to the exterior - the churchyard and the public marketplace. These early performances were given in Latin, and were preceded by a vernacular prologue spoken by a herald who gave a synopsis of the events.
In 1210 the Pope forbade clergy to act in public, thus the organization of the dramas was taken over by 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 PastorumThe Second Shepherds' Play is a famous medieval mystery play which is contained in the manuscript HM1, the unique manuscript of the Wakefield Cycle. It gained its name from the fact that in the manuscript it immediately follows another nativity play involving the shepherds...
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
YorkYork is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence....
, performed and produced by
guildA guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade.The earliest guilds were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel and a secret society...
s, 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
misterium meaning "occupation" (i.e. that of the guilds). The genre was again banned, following the
ReformationThe English Reformation was the series of events in 16th century England by which the Church of England first broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
and the establishment of the
Church of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches...
in 1534.
Mystery plays are now typically distinguished from
Miracle plays, which specifically re-enacted episodes from the lives of the
saintSaints, individuals of exceptional holiness, are significant in many religions, particularly Christianity.-General characteristics :Though the term is mostly used for Christians considered holy or virtuous, many religions use similar concepts to elevate people worthy of respect, e.g. see Hindu...
s rather than from the Bible; however, it is also to be noted that both of these terms are more commonly used by modern scholars than they were by medieval people, who used a wide variety of terminology to refer to their dramatic performances.
The mystery play developed, in some places, into a series of plays dealing with all the 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 cart called a
pageant that moved about the city to allow different crowds to watch each play. 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.
The plays were performed by a combination of professionals and amateurs and were written in highly elaborate stanza forms; they were often marked by the extravagance of the sets and 'special effects', but could also be stark and intimate. The variety of theatrical and poetic styles, even in a single cycle of plays, could be remarkable.
English mystery plays
There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays; we may no longer call all of them "cycles." The most complete is the
York cycleThe York Mystery Plays are an English cycle of forty-eight mystery plays, or pageants, which cover sacred history from the creation to the Last Judgement. These were traditionally presented on the feast day of Corpus Christi . They were performed in the city of York, from the Middle Ages until 1569...
of forty-eight pageants; there are also the
Towneley plays of thirty-two pageants, once thought to have been a true 'cycle' of plays acted at
WakefieldWakefield is the main settlement of the City of Wakefield metropolitan district in West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder, it had a population of 76,886 in 2001.Wakefield was dubbed the "Merrie City" in the Middle Ages.-Toponymy:...
; the
N Town plays (also called the
Ludus Coventriae cycle or
Hegge cycle), now generally agreed to be a redacted compilation of at least three older, unrelated plays, and the
Chester cycleThe Chester Mystery Plays is a cycle of mystery plays dating back to at least the early part of the 15th century.A record of 1422 shows that the plays took place at the feast of Corpus Christi and this appears to have continued until 1521. Plays on Corpus Christi Day in 1475 included 'The trial...
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 CoventryThe Coventry Mystery Plays, or Coventry Corpus Christi Pageants, are a cycle of medieval mystery plays from Coventry, West Midlands, England, and are perhaps best known as the source of the "Coventry Carol"...
and one pageant each from Norwich and Newcastle-on-Tyne. Additionally, a fifteenth-century play of the life of
Mary MagdaleneMary Magdalene or Mary of Magdala is described, both in the canonical New Testament and in the New Testament apocrypha, as one of the most important women in the movement of Jesus. As a follower, Mary was one of many women who accompanied Jesus and the twelve apostles during his travels...
and a sixteenth-century play of the
Conversion of Saint PaulPaul of Tarsus, also called Paul the Apostle, the Apostle Paul, or Saint Paul, Paul of Tarsus, also called Paul the Apostle, the Apostle Paul, or Saint Paul, Paul of Tarsus, also called Paul the Apostle, the Apostle Paul, or Saint Paul, ...
exist, both hailing from
East AngliaEast Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...
. Besides the
Middle EnglishMiddle English is the name given by historical linguists to the diverse forms of the English language in use between the late 11th century and about 1470, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the introduction of the printing...
drama, there are three surviving plays in
CornishThe Cornish language is one of the Brythonic group of Celtic languages. The language continued to function as a community language in parts of Cornwall until the late 18th century, and a process to revive the language was started in the early 20th century, continuing to this day.The revival of...
known as the
OrdinaliaThe Ordinalia are three medieval mystery plays written in Cornish. The three plays are Origo Mundi, , Passio Christi and Resurrexio Domini...
, and several cyclical plays survive from continental Europe.
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. 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
HorberyHorbury is a large village, west of Wakefield and south of Ossett, in West Yorkshire, England. It has a population of 10,002, and is listed by the census as part of the West Yorkshire Urban Area. Locals often refer to it as a "town", but it is not officially, as it never received a town charter...
Shrogys (
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-old?id=AnoTown&images=images/modeng&data=/lv1/Archive/mideng-parsed&tag=public&part=13&division=div line 454) 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 CreeSt Katharine Cree is a Church of England church in the Aldgate ward of the City of London, located on Leadenhall Street near Leadenhall Market.-History:...
on Leadenhall Street, London was the location of miracle plays from the tenth to the sixteenth century.
Edmund BonnerEdmund Bonner , Bishop of London, was an English bishop. Initially an instrumental figure in the schism of Henry VIII from Rome, he was antagonized by the Protestant reforms introduced by Somerset and reconciled himself to Roman Catholicism...
, Bishop of London (c 1500 - 1569) stopped this in 1542.
The most famous plays of the Towneley collection are attributed to the Wakefield Master, an anonymous playwright who wrote in the fifteenth century. Early scholars suggested that a man by the name of Gilbert Pilkington was the author, but this idea has been disproved by Craig and others. The epithet "Wakefield Master" was first applied to this individual by the literary historian Gayley. The Wakefield Master gets his name from the geographic location where he lived, the market-town of Wakefield in Yorkshire. He may have been a highly educated cleric there, or possibly a friar from a nearby monastery at Woodkirk, four miles north of Wakefield. It was once thought that this anonymous author wrote a series of 32 plays (each averaging about 384 lines) called the Towneley Cycle. The Master's contributions to this collection are still much debated, and some scholars believe he may have written fewer than ten of them. These works appear in a single manuscript, which was kept for a number of years in Towneley Hall of the Towneley family; the manuscript is currently found in the Huntington Library of California. It shows signs of Protestant editing — references to the Pope and the sacraments are crossed out, for instance. Likewise, twelve manuscript leaves were ripped out between the two final plays because of Catholic references. This evidence strongly suggests the play was still being read and performed as late as 1520, perhaps as late in Renaissance as the final years of King Henry VIII's reign.
The best known pageant in the Towneley manuscript is
The Second Shepherds' Pageant, a burlesque of the Nativity featuring Mak the sheep stealer and his wife Gill, which more or less explicitly compares a stolen lamb to the Saviour of mankind. The
Harrowing of HellThe Harrowing of Hell is a doctrine in Christian theology referenced in the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian Creed , which states that Jesus "descended into Hell"...
, derived from the apocryphal
Acts of PilateThe Acts of Pilate is a book of the New Testament Pseudepigrapha. Its date is uncertain, but scholars agree in assigning it to the middle of the fourth century. The text is found in the Gospel of Nicodemus, with additional material...
, was a popular part of the York and Wakefield cycles.
The dramas of the Elizabethan and
JacobeanThe Jacobean era refers to the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of King James I of England, who was also James VI of Scotland...
periods were developed out of mystery plays.
Modern revivals
The Mystery Plays were revived in both
YorkYork is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence....
and
ChesterChester is a city in Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority area of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the...
in 1951 as part of the
Festival of BritainThe Festival of Britain was a national exhibition which opened in London and around Britain in May 1951. The official opening was on 3 May. The principal exhibition site was on the South Bank Site, London of the River Thames near Waterloo Station...
.
The
LichfieldLichfield is a city and civil parish in Staffordshire, England. One of seven civil parishes with city status in England, Lichfield is situated roughly 25 km north of Birmingham and 200 km northwest of London....
Mysteries were revived in 1994. More recently, the N-Town cycle of touring plays have been revived as the
Lincoln mystery playsThe Lincoln Mystery Plays exists to bring people together to perform medieval mystery plays and other productions in Lincoln Cathedral and the surrounding area....
. In 2001, an African version of the Chester plays was performed in London, under the direction of
Mark Dornford-MayMark Dornford-May is a British-born South African film writer and director.-Early life:Dornford-May grew up in Yorkshire and Cheshire...
and musical direction of Charles Hazlewood.
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 the God. The performances commissioned a cast of over 100 local people and were produced by Kevin Wood.
See also
- Medieval theatre
Medieval theatre refers to the theatre of Europe between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Renaissance. The term refers to a variety of genres because the time period covers approximately a thousand years of the art form and an entire continent...
- Easter drama
An Easter Drama is a liturgical drama or religious theatrical performance in the Roman Catholic tradition, largely limited to the Middle Ages. These performances evolved from celebrations of the liturgy to incorporate later dramatic and secular elements, and came to be performed in local languages...
- Mystery Play of Elx
The Misteri d'Elx is a liturgical drama dating from the Middle Ages, which is enacted and celebrated in the Basilica de Santa María in the city of Elche on the 14 and 15th of August of each year. In 2001, UNESCO declared it one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity...
, a CatalanThe Catalans are the people from, or with origins in Catalonia, an Autonomous Community in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France –known in Catalonia proper as Catalunya Nord, and in France as the Pays Catalan– are often included in this definition.-Extended concept:The...
mystery play.
- Passion play
A Passion play is a dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Christ: the trial, suffering and death of Jesus Christ. It is a traditional part of Lent in several Christian denominations, particularly in Catholic tradition.-The Easter play:...
- Chester Plays
- Wakefield Cycle - a collection of thirty-two mystery plays performed in medieval and early Renaissance England.
- York Mystery Plays
The York Mystery Plays are an English cycle of forty-eight mystery plays, or pageants, which cover sacred history from the creation to the Last Judgement. These were traditionally presented on the feast day of Corpus Christi . They were performed in the city of York, from the Middle Ages until 1569...
- a collection of forty-eight mystery plays
- The Mysteries
The Mysteries is a version of the medieval English mystery plays presented at London's National Theatre in 1977. The cycle of three plays tells the story of the Bible from the creation to the last judgement....
– a re-working of the Wakefield cycle and others produced at the National TheatreThe Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company....
in 1977
External links