09 CONTENTS AND SHAKSPERE HIS PREDECESSORS. CHAPTER I. THE MEDIAEVAL DRAMA. THE attitude of religion and the drama towards each other has been strangely varied. Sometimes it has been one of intimate alliance, sometimes of active hostility, but never of indifference. In Greece the connexion between the two was of the closest, for tragedy had sprung directly out of the worship of Dionysus, and the art of Aeschylus and Sophocles bore visible stamp of its sacred origin. Euripides introduced a more secular tone into his plays, and thenceforth the breach between the stage and religion had ever grown wider, (The Attic New Comedy, and its Latin reproduction by Plautus and Terence, drew their materials purely from social life, and were concerned with the most mundane interests. But the degraded taste of imperial Rome and Byzantium could not appreciate an entertainment in which wit and literary grace were cardinal features. Comedy, in the higher sense, was unable to keep the boards; it was ousted by farce and pantomime, by the shows of the Circus and the Amphitheatre. Thus Christianity found the stage in the lowest depths of degradation. To regenerate it seemed impossible, and therefore the Church took the course of proscribing it entirely. Hence an absolute line of cleavage B separates the classical and the mediaeval drama. The former sank out of sight, to reappear at the Renaissance: the latter had an entirely independent birth'. The Church had attacked the corrupt stage of the Caesars, but she could not abolish the theatrical instinct in human nature, and almost unconsciously she turned it to her own account. Once again, as in Greece, the drama had its origin in religious ceremonial. The liturgy of the Mass, including the actions and gestures of the consecrating priests, the chants and confession, the reading of portions of Scripture, the prayers and responses of the congregation, contained from the first true dramatic elements. On festival days there were frequently added tableaux vivants of scenes from the Gospels, often accompanied by song. Into these tableaux action and dialogue were soon introduced, and Easter became the season of especially elaborate ritual. A highly impressive ceremony was the burial of the crucifix on Good Friday in a sepulchre within the church, and its disinterment, amidst jubilant strains, upon the following Sunday. In another of the Easter services a dramatic colloquy took place between two choirmen representing St. Peter and St. John, and three others in albs, personating the three Maries, who announce the Resurrection to the disciples 2. Such ceremonies readily developed into liturgical plays, written in Latin, and acted by the priests in the churches. Soon other incidents in the Gospel story, and episodes in the lives of the saints, attracted the clerical dramatists, and thus a severance began between the liturgy and the scenic representations of which it had been the source. The plays dealing with scriptural events were originally called Mysteries, while those which handled This broad fact of dramatic history is not invalidated by the composition during the earlier Middle Ages of a few plays on classical models. Such are the comedies of Hroswitha, a nun of Gandersheim, which are largely inspired by Terence; and the Xploròs Пáσxwv, a Greek play on the Passion, incorporating several hundred lines of Euripides. This work, long attributed to St. Gregory Nazianzene, is most probably a production of the tenth century. Neither it nor Hroswitha's comedies exercised any influence on the development of the mediaeval drama. 2 See Pollard's Introduction to his edition of extracts from the English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes, pp. xiv-xvi. I am indebted to this Introduction for valuable suggestions, especially on the subject of the Morality. legends of the saints were distinguished by the name of Miracles. In England, however, the former term seems never to have taken root, and the title of Miracle was given indiscriminately to all species of sacred plays. They were almost certainly unknown in this country till after the Norman Conquest, and the first performance of which we have record may be assigned to about I100. The play acted was in honour of St. Katherine, and was written by a certain Geoffrey, a member of the University of Paris, who afterwards became Abbot of St. Alban's. Testimony to the popularity of Miracles in London is given by William Fitzstephen in his Life of Becket, about 1180, and at an earlier date in the twelfth century an Englishman, Hilarius, who was a pupil of Abelard, wrote three sacred plays, which have been preserved. The subjects are the story of Daniel, the Raising of Lazarus, and a miracle of St. Nicholas. The dialogue was in Latin, but French refrains were occasionally introduced, and we thus get the first hint of an all-important change-the substitution of the vernacular for the language of the Church. The earliest play in the common tongue that has come down to us is the Norman Adam, dating from the thirteenth century. It is probable that the English Miracles had their beginning at the same period, though there is none extant that goes back quite so far. The rise of the vernacular sacred drama was associated with a number of important changes. The plays passed from the church to the churchyard, but the latter soon became unable to accommodate the crowds who flocked to the spectacle, especially at fair-times. Hence a further migration took place into the adjoining meadows, and eventually into the streets and squares of the market-towns. This change of locale involved a change of performers. The clergy, who had naturally been the actors within the sacred building, could not well take part in entertainments whose surroundings had become entirely secular. A papal edict in 1210 forbade their appearance on the stage, and the prohibition was repeated by the Council of Treves in 1227. Yet, in spite of such decrees, the inferior Church officials continued to share in the performances. Thus Chaucer's parish clerk, 'joly Absolon,' used to display his talents in the part of Herod' on a scaffold hie.' But by the end of the thirteenth |