Medieval Theatre Overview
Textbooks on Reserve (Put on Reserve by Theatre Faculty for Theatre Appreciation
students)
A cultural history of theatre
NW Owens Reserve NWO Resv Theat B002
(4 HOUR LOAN)
This is good for:
Acting, performance, stage design, theater design, and technical innovations
Theater and society
Influence on modern or contemporary theater
Representative plays and playwrights
Chapter 4 The Medieval Era
Social Ideas/Art Ideas/Chambers of Rhetoric (Theater and Society)
Medieval Theatre – Occasion, Location, Performers, Audience, Standards of Judgement
(Acting, performance, stage design, theater design and technical innovations)
Dramatic Literature – Liturgical Drama/Other Religious Forms/Later Secular
Forms/Hrosvit of Gandersheim (Representative plays and playwrights)
Connections: (Influence on modern or contemporary theater)
Spectacle, mock combats and dances
Drama of moral instruction
Presentation – pageant wagons, stage machinery, general playing area -plateau
Theater of faith and community
Western theatre: Revolution and revival
NW Owens Reserve NWO Resv Theat B005
(4 HOUR LOAN)
This is good for:
Acting, performance, stage design, theater design, and technical innovations
Theater and society
Representative plays and playwrights
Chapter 8 Vernacular religious theatre of the Middle Ages, ca. 1250-1600
The Latter Middle Ages – Feudalism/The Church/Monasticism/Knowledge and
Education/The Rise of the Vernacular/Cities and City Dwellers/Islam, Byzantium, and
the Crusades/Technology. (Theater and Society)
Production Organization/Production Responsibility/Expenditures and Income (directing,
stage management)
Actors and Geniuses
Costumes
Audiences
Theatrical Production of the Vernacular Religious Plays – Simultaneous Place-andScaffold Staging/Staging in the Round/Irregular Theatres/Linear Theatres/Other
arrangement/The Theatre of Procession and Pageant Wagon/Machinery and Special
Effects (stage design, theater design and technical innovations)
Later Medieval Theatre and Its Drama/Early Religious Plays in the Vernacular/Later
Vernacular Plays and the Great Cycles/Other Vernacular Plays: Saints’ Plays and
Moralities (Representative plays)
Theatre: A history of the art
NW Owens Reserve NWO Resv Theat B006
(4 HOUR LOAN)
This is good for:
Acting, performance, stage design, theater design, and technical innovations
Theater and society
Representative plays and playwrights
Chapter 4 The Medieval Theatre
The Medieval World – Rise of Christianity/Development of Feudalism/The Classical
Heritage (Theater and Society)
The Folk Drama – Mummings and Disguisings/Liturgical Drama/Mysteries, Miracles,
and Moralities/The Wakefield Master (Representative plays)
Hrotswitha/Jean Bodel/Adam de Halle (Representative playwrights)
Staging Liturgical Drama/Stages and Scenery/Spectacle
Acting
Costumes
Theatre past and present: an introduction
NW Owens Reserve NWO Resv Theat B014
(4 HOUR LOAN)
This is good for:
Acting, performance, costumes, stage design, theater design and technical innovations
Representative plays and dramatists of the time
Influence on modern or contemporary theater
Chapter 4 Medieval Theater
Representative Theatre: York Cycle/Popular Entertainments – Mummings/Pageants and
Royal Entries/Cycle Plays/Saint or Miracle Plays/Farces/Morality Plays/The Crucifixion
Play (Representative plays)
Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim (Representative Playwright)
Conditions of Performance –Background, Religious and Civic Purposes (Culture and
Society)
York Cycle – Playwriting, Acting and Rehearsals
Visual Elements – Staging/Special Effects/
The Cycle Play’s Modernism (Influence on modern or contemporary theater)
Period Style for the Theatre
NW Owens Reserve 792.02 R962p
(2 HOUR LOAN)
This is good for:
Theater design, costumes, acting, society and culture, representative playwrights and
plays
Chapter 5 Early Medieval Romanesque Style
Art and Culture/Music/Life and Cultural Ideals (Culture and Society)
Ornament, Interiors, Furniture/Early Medieval Theatre (Stage Design and Theater
Design)
Costume and Accessories
Movement/Acting Early Medieval Plays
The Plays (Representative plays and Playwrights)
Period Style for the Theatre
NW Owens Reserve 792.02 R962p
(2 HOUR LOAN)
This is good for:
Theater design, costumes, acting, society and culture, representative playwrights and
plays
Chapter 6 Late Medieval Gothic Style
Art and Culture/Music/Life and Cultural Ideals (Culture and Society)
Ornament, Interiors, Furniture/The Theatre (Stage Design and Theater Design)
Costume and Accessories
Movement/Acting the Plays
The Plays (Representative plays and Playwrights)
History of the theatre / Oscar G. Brockett with Franklin J. Hildy
NW Owens Reserve – Theat B023
This is good for:
Acting, performance, stage design, technical innovations
Theater, Society, and Culture
Representative plays of the time
Chapter 4 European Theatre in the Middle Ages
Introduction/The Theatre, 500 to 900 C.E./Feast of Fools/ (Culture and Society).
Liturgical Drama/ Vernacular Religious Drama/Secular Dramatic Forms/Farce/Morality
Play/Interludes/Tournaments,Mummings, and Disguisings/Royal Entries and Street
Pagenants (Representative plays)
Staging of Liturgical Drama/Music/Audiences and Auditoriums (Performance and
Audience)
Production Arrangement/The Director (Directing)
The Stages/Scenery/Special Effects and Machinery Theatre Architecture/Auditorium and
Audience (Stage Design)
Actors and Acting
Costumes
Medieval culture and society
Daily Life in Medieval Europe
Title Daily life in medieval Europe / Jeffrey L. Singman.
Online Version
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://dailylife.greenwood.com/dle.aspx?k=2&x
=17&bc=&p=1-1
Print Version
LOCATION CALL # STATUS
NW Owens 3rd Floor Main 940.1 S61d
Title Daily life in Chaucer's England / Jeffrey L. Singman and Will McLean.
Online Version
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://dailylife.greenwood.com/dle.aspx?k=3&b
c=DBDL1311&x=GR5951&p=GR5951-82
Print Version
LOCATION CALL # STATUS
NW Owens 3rd Floor Main 942.037 S61d
Library Catalog/MOBIUS Catalog Searches (culture and society)
Do a subject search in the library catalog to find more books about ancient Medieval civilization
(culture and society). You can also search the MOBIUS Catalog and REQUEST books you find
there that Owens Library does not have.
England Social Life And Customs 1066 1485
Civilization Medieval
Core Books on Medieval Theatre in Owens Library
Richard Beadle. "The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre." Cambridge
Collections Online. Cambridge University Press. 1994.08
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://cco.cambridge.org/uid=11992/e
xtract?id=ccol0521366704_CCOL0521366704_root
The Cambridge introduction to early English theatre / Janette Dillon.
LOCATION CALL # STATUS
NW Owens 3rd Floor Main 792.0942 D57c
The Cambridge companion to medieval English theatre / edited by Richard Beadle.
LOCATION CALL # STATUS
NW Owens 3rd Floor Main 792.0942 C17c
Medieval drama / Christine Richardson and Jackie Johnston.
LOCATION CALL # STATUS
NW Owens 3rd Floor Main 822.09 R52m
A Companion to the medieval theatre / edited by Ronald W. Vince.
LOCATION CALL # STATUS
NW Owens Reference 792.09 C73c
The mediaeval stage, by E. K. Chambers.
LOCATION CALL # STATUS
NW Owens 3rd Floor Main 792.09 C44m vols.1&2
The theatre in the Middle Ages : Western European stage conditions, c. 800-1576 /
William Tydeman.
LOCATION CALL # STATUS
NW Owens 3rd Floor Main 792.09 T97t
The English morality play: origins, history, and influence of a dramatic tradition / Robert
Potter.
LOCATION CALL # STATUS
NW Owens 3rd Floor Main 822.09 P86e
The English mystery plays.
LOCATION CALL # STATUS
NW Owens 3rd Floor Main 822.09 W91e
Acting, Stage and Scenery, Performance Practice
Twycross, Meg. "The theatricality of medieval English plays." The Cambridge
Companion to Medieval English Theatre. Ed. Richard Beadle. Cambridge University
Press, 1994. Cambridge Collections Online. Cambridge University Press. 08 July 2009
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521
366704.002
Representative Plays and Playwrights
Beadle, Richard. "The York cycle." The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English
Theatre. Ed. Richard Beadle. Cambridge University Press, 1994. Cambridge Collections
Online. Cambridge University Press. 08 July 2009
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/10.1017/CC
OL0521366704.003
Mills, David. "The Chester cycle." The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English
Theatre. Ed. Richard Beadle. Cambridge University Press, 1994. Cambridge Collections
Online. Cambridge University Press. 08 July 2009
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521
366704.004
Meredith, Peter. "The Towneley cycle." The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English
Theatre. Ed. Richard Beadle. Cambridge University Press, 1994. Cambridge Collections
Online. Cambridge University Press. 08 July 2009
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521
366704.005
King, Pamela M. "Morality plays." The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English
Theatre. Ed. Richard Beadle. Cambridge University Press, 1994. Cambridge Collections
Online. Cambridge University Press. 08 July 2009
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521
366704.009
Grantley, Darryll. "Saints' plays." The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English
Theatre. Ed. Richard Beadle. Cambridge University Press, 1994. Cambridge Collections
Online. Cambridge University Press. 08 July 2009
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521
366704.010
McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama
NW Owens Reference 1st Floor 809.2 M14m
Volume 2 – English Drama/Thirteenth to Seventeenth Centuries
Also there are articles on Morality Plays, Miracle Plays, Mystery Plays, and Jean Bodel.
Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Supplement / William Chester Jordan, editor in chief.
LOCATION CALL # STATUS
NW Owens 3rd Floor Main 909.07 D55d
Articles on Morality Plays, Miracle Plays, Mystery Plays, Jean Bodel, and Hrowtswitha
von Gandersheim.
From ILL Spun Wool: The Second Shepard's Play and Early English Theatre
http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=2615
In this series of audio presentations from the Folger Shakespeare Library, "Richard Paul
talks with artists, scholars, and medievalists about this most mysterious of mystery
plays."
"Everyman," with other interludes, including eight miracle plays by Anonymous
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19481
York Corpus Christi Play – Introduction
“The York Corpus Christi Cycle, a collection of brief plays that together tell Biblical
history from Creation to Doomsday, was the most complex of the medieval cycles”
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/resources/PSim/intro.htm
Biographical Information on Medieval Playwrights in Literature Resource Center
John Bale
(1495-1563)
Copy and paste this URL into your browser’s Address box access articles:
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/
LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=nwmosu_owens&srchtp=athr&ca=1&ste=5&ai=U
13684083&tab=1&tbst=arp&n=10&ST=%22john+bale%22
Hrotsvitha
(935-973)
Copy and paste this URL into your browser’s Address box access articles:
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/
LitRC?vrsn=3&OP=contains&locID=nwmosu_owens&srchtp=athr&ca=1&ste=5&ai=U
13706191&tab=1&tbst=arp&n=10&ST=hrotswitha
Articles on Representative Plays and Playwrights in Cambridge Guide to Theatre
Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim. (2000). In The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. Retrieved July 08, 2009, from
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://www.credoreference.com/entry
/cupthea/hrotsvitha_of_gandersheim
"morality play." The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000. Credo Reference. 08 July 2009
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://www.credoreference.com/entry
/cupthea/morality_play
"miracle play." The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000. Credo Reference. 08 July 2009
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://www.credoreference.com/entry
/cupthea/miracle_play
"mystery play." The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000. Credo Reference. 08 July 2009
http://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/ipchecking.asp?http://www.credoreference.com/entry
/cupthea/mystery_play