The Mediaeval Stage, Volume 1 (of 2)

by E. K. Chambers

E. K. C.

London, May, 1903.

CONTENTS

Volume I
			PAGE
Preface			[v]
List of Authorities			[xiii]
BOOK I. MINSTRELSY
CHAP.
I.	The Fall of the Theatres		[1]
II.	Mimus and Scôp		[23]
III.	The Minstrel Life		[42]
IV.	The Minstrel Repertory		[70]
BOOK II. FOLK DRAMA
V.	The Religion of the Folk		[89]
VI.	Village Festivals		[116]
VII.	Festival Play		[146]
VIII.	The May-Game		[160]
IX.	The Sword-Dance		[182]
X.	The Mummers’ Play		[205]
XI.	The Beginning of Winter		[228]
XII.	New Year Customs		[249]
XIII.	The Feast of Fools		[274]
XIV.	The Feast of Fools (continued)		[301]
XV.	The Boy Bishop		[336]
XVI.	Guild Fools and Court Fools		[372]
XVII.	Masks and Misrule		[390]
Volume II
BOOK III. RELIGIOUS DRAMA
XVIII.	Liturgical Plays		1
XIX.	Liturgical Plays (continued)		41
XX.	The Secularization of the Plays		68
XXI.	Guild Plays and Parish Plays		106
XXII.	Guild Plays and Parish Plays (continued)		124
XXIII.	Moralities, Puppet-Plays, and Pageants		149
BOOK IV. THE INTERLUDE
XXIV.	Players of Interludes		179
XXV.	Humanism and Mediaevalism		199
APPENDICES
A.	The Tribunus Voluptatum		229
B.	Tota Ioculatorum Scena		230
C.	Court Minstrelsy in 1306		234
D.	The Minstrel Hierarchy		238
E.	Extracts from Account Books		240
	I.	Durham Priory	240
	II.	Maxstoke Priory	244
	III.	Thetford Priory	245
	IV.	Winchester College	246
	V.	Magdalen College, Oxford	248
	VI.	Shrewsbury Corporation	250
	VII.	The Howards of Stoke-by-Nayland, Essex	255
	VIII.	The English Court	256
F.	Minstrel Guilds		258
G.	Thomas de Cabham		262
H.	Princely Pleasures at Kenilworth		263
	I.	A Squire Minstrel	263
	II.	The Coventry Hock-Tuesday Show	264
I.	The Indian Village Feast		266
J.	Sword-Dances		270
	I.	Sweden (sixteenth century)	270
	II.	Shetland (eighteenth century)	271
K.	The Lutterworth St. George Play		276
L.	The Prose of the Ass		279
M.	The Boy Bishop		282
	I.	The Sarum Office	282
	II.	The York Computus	287
N.	Winter Prohibitions		290
O.	The Regularis Concordia of St. Ethelwold		306
P.	The Durham Sepulchrum		310
Q.	The Sarum Sepulchrum		312
R.	The Dublin Quem Quaeritis		315
S.	The Aurea Missa of Tournai		318
T.	Subjects of the Cyclical Miracles		321
U.	Interludium de Clerico et Puella		324
V.	Terentius et Delusor		326
W.	Representations of Mediaeval Plays		329
X.	Texts of Mediaeval Plays and Interludes		407
	I.	Miracle-Plays	407
	II.	Popular Moralities	436
	III.	Tudor Makers of Interludes	443
	IV.	List of Early Tudor Interludes	453
SUBJECT INDEX			462

LIST OF AUTHORITIES

[General Bibliographical Note. I mention here only a few works of wide range, which may be taken as authorities throughout these two volumes. Others, more limited in their scope, are named in the preliminary notes to the sections of the book on whose subject-matter they bear.—An admirable general history of the modern drama is W. Creizenach’s still incomplete Geschichte des neueren Dramas (Band i, Mittelalter und Frührenaissance, 1893; Bände ii, iii, Renaissance und Reformation, 1901-3). R. Prölss, Geschichte des neueren Dramas (1881-3), is slighter. The earlier work of J. L. Klein, Geschichte des Dramas (13 vols. 1865-76), is diffuse, inconvenient, and now partly obsolete. A valuable study is expected from J. M. Manly in vol. iii of his Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama, of which two volumes, containing selected texts, appeared in 1897. C. Hastings, Le Théâtre français et anglais (1900, Eng. trans. 1901), is a compilation of little merit.—Prof. Creizenach may be supplemented for Germany by R. Froning, Das Drama des Mittelalters (1891). For France there are the exhaustive and excellent volumes of L. Petit de Julleville’s Histoire du Théâtre en France au Moyen Âge (Les Mystères, 1880; Les Comédiens en France au Moyen Âge, 1885; La Comédie et les Mœurs en France au Moyen Âge, 1886; Répertoire du Théâtre comique au Moyen Âge, 1886). G. Bapst, Essai sur l’Histoire du Théâtre (1893), adds some useful material on the history of the stage. For Italy A. d’ Ancona, Origini del Teatro italiano (2nd ed., 1891), is also excellent.—The best English book is A. W. Ward’s History of English Dramatic Literature to the death of Queen Anne (2nd ed., 1899). J. P. Collier, History of English Dramatic Poetry (new ed., 1879), is full of matter, but, for various reasons, not wholly trustworthy. J. J. Jusserand, Le Théâtre en Angleterre (2nd ed., 1881), J. A. Symonds, Shakespeare’s Predecessors in the English Drama (1884), and G. M. Gayley, Representative English Comedies (1903), are of value. Texts will be found in Manly’s and Gayley’s books, and in A. W. Pollard, English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes (3rd ed., 1898); W. C. Hazlitt, Dodsley’s Old Plays (15 vols. 1874-6); A. Brandl, Quellen des weltlichen Dramas in England (1898). F. H. Stoddard, References for Students of Miracle Plays and Mysteries (1887), and K. L. Bates and L. B. Godfrey, English Drama; a Working Basis (1896), are rough attempts at bibliographies.—In addition the drama of course finds treatment in the general histories of literature. The best are: for Germany, R. Kögel, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur bis zum Ausgange des Mittelalters (1894-7, a fragment); K. Gödeke, Grundriss zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung aus den Quellen (2nd ed., 1884-1900); W. Scherer, Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur (8th ed., 1899): for France, L. Petit de Julleville (editor), Histoire de la Langue et de la Littérature françaises (1896-1900); G. Paris, La Littérature française au Moyen Âge (2nd ed., 1890): for Italy, A. Gaspary, Geschichte der italienischen Litteratur (1884-9, Eng. transl. 1901): for England, T. Warton, History of English Poetry (ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1871); B. Ten Brink, History of English Literature (Eng. trans. 1893-6); J. J. Jusserand, Literary History of the English People (vol. i. 1895); W. J. Courthope, History of English Poetry (vols. i, ii. 1895-7); G. Saintsbury, Short History of English Literature (1898), and, especially for bibliography, G. Körting, Grundriss der Geschichte der englischen Litteratur (3rd ed., 1899). The Periods of European Literature, edited by Prof. Saintsbury, especially G. Gregory Smith, The Transition Period (1900), and the two great Grundrisse, H. Paul, Grundriss der germanischen Philologie (2nd ed., 1896-1903), and G. Gröber, Grundriss der romanischen Philologie (1888-1903), should also be consulted.—The beginnings of the mediaeval drama are closely bound up with liturgy, and the nature of the liturgical books referred to is explained by W. Maskell, A Dissertation upon the Ancient Service-Books of the Church of England (in Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 2nd ed., 1882, vol. iii); H. B. Swete, Church Services and Service-Books before the Reformation (1896); Procter-Frere, New History of the Book of Common Prayer (1901). The beginnings of Catholic ritual are studied by L. Duchesne, Origines du Culte chrétien (3rd ed., 1902, Eng. trans. 1903), and its mediaeval forms described by D. Rock, The Church of our Fathers (1849-53), and J. D. Chambers, Divine Worship in England in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (1877).

The following list of books is mainly intended to elucidate the references in the footnotes, and has no claim to bibliographical completeness or accuracy. I have included the titles of a few German and French dissertations of which I have not been able to make use.]

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Aberdeen Records. Extracts from the Council Register of the Burgh of Aberdeen. Edited by J. Stuart. 2 vols. 1844-8. [Spalding Club, xii, xix.]

Acta SS. Acta Sanctorum quotquot toto orbe coluntur, quas collegit I. Bollandus. Operam continuavit G. Henschenius [et alii], 1734-1894. [In progress.]