Lecture 6 – Brockett Ch. 4 – European Theatre in the Middle Ages
410 CE – Visigoths sack Rome – end of Eastern Roman Empire and Beginning of the
“Dark ages”
With no central authority, Western Europe descends into a war and disorder
Vikings and others make frequent and disruptive raids
Little commerce, communication, learning, technological advancement, etc.
Medieval Europeans conceived of three classes of people
Those who fought - nobility
Those who prayed – priests, monks and other clergy
Those who worked – slaves, serfs, vassals, and all non-free persons
Feudal structure of Society – lordship and vassalage
Christianity and pagan religious
Christianity incorporates pagan rites and festivals – church pageantry
Christian Hours – Transubstantiation of the host – participation
Tournaments, Mummings, Masques
Tenth Century
Liturgical Drama – Began with tropes inserted into the Easter service in early 900s.
Many biblical episodes are dramatized, but the nativity and crucifixion almost never
Staged inside the church with small mansions and platea
Costuming was not elaborate, usually modified church vestments
Special effects included flying machinery
Dialogue was chanted in Latin
1095 – Pope Urban II launches the First Crusade
Twelfth Century
Increasing urbanization and commerce (and in Italy and S. France, literacy)
Increasingly influential heretical movements prompt the Episcopal and then Papal
Inquisitions
Church recognizes the need to spread a uniform message to an illiterate populace
Franciscan and other mendicant (and peripatetic) orders established
Interludes – throughout middle ages, plays presented indoors to nobility and,
increasingly, rich merchants
Outgrowth of scops & gleomen, musicians, jugglers, tumblers
Plays (and entertainments) of all types are included
Usually presented in banquet halls in midst of audience – often audience participated
Professional performers, usually employed by nobility
Massive proliferation of interludes during sixteenth century
Thirteenth through Sixteenth Centuries
Pope Urban IV creates the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264 – Procession and plays that
take place on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday (in late May or June)
Liturgical Drama moves outdoors
Latin is replaced with vernacular drama – beginnings of national differences in drama
Vernacular Religious Drama is born – Passion Plays, Mystery plays and the Cycles
to which they belong
Medieval Cycle Plays – glorified God, educated people, brought wealth & prestige to
town
Exclusively religious subject matter (Christian)
Produced by the city government working with Guilds – not the church
Organized by a “pageant master” who was director, line producer, and promoter
Most actors are townsfolk – amateurs, usually but not exclusively male
Rhymed verse pushes against realism, but neither is their a formalized style
Minimal rehearsal
Costumes are normally contemporary except for extraordinary people/creatures
Fixed stages were used in some places, Pageant Wagons in others
As in liturgical drama, mansions are used for scenery and platea areas for acting
Some wagons (or scaffolds) had curtains
Scenic effects were numerous and increasingly elaborate – flying, trap doors, lights,
fire, water, etc.
Heaven and Hell Mouth are almost always depicted, with worldly locales between
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
Morality Plays – didactic dramas, religious in theme but not biblical
After the Pater Noster plays that were produced along the same lines as the cycle
plays
Allegorical – characters and events represent abstractions
Hrosvitha (935-973) – German nun who wrote 6 plays after the style of Terence –
her morality plays are revived in sixteenth century
Tended toward entertainment over didacticism and professional production
Became more important during second half of sixteenth century as religious drama
declined
1545 – Henry VIII establishes the Office of Revels to coordinate court entertainments
1558 – Elizabeth I becomes queen of England and outlaws all religious plays (which
had been used as propaganda by both Catholics and Protestants – end of Mystery
plays (and cycles)
Similarly on the continent, by 1600 religious plays had been abandoned