The Customs of Old England

by F. J. Snell

CHAPTER VI

MIRACLE PLAYS

There is a palpable resemblance between the subject just quitted and that most characteristic product of the Middle Ages—the miracle play. It may be observed at the outset that instruction in those days, when reading was the privilege of the few, was apt to take the form of an appeal to the imagination rather than the reasoning faculty, and of all the aids of imagination none has ever been so effective as the drama. The Boy-Bishop celebration was not only the occasion of plays which sometimes necessitated the strong hand of authority for their suppression—it was distinctly dramatic in itself. Miracle plays represent a further stage of development, in which a rude and popular art shook itself free from the trammels of ritual, outgrew the austere restrictions of sacred surroundings, and yet kept fast hold on the religious tradition on which it had been nourished, and which remained to the last its supreme attraction.

The liturgical origin of the miracle play may almost be taken for granted, and the single question that is likely to arise is whether the custom evolved itself from observances connected with Easter, or Christmas, or both festivals in equal or varying measure. Circumstances rather point to Paschal rites as the matrix of the custom. The Waking of the Sepulchre anticipates some of the features of the miracle play, while the dialogue may have been suggested by the antiphonal elements in the church services, and specifically by the colloquy interpolated between the Third Lesson and the Te Deum at Matins, and repeated as part of the sequence "Victimæ paschalis laudes," in which two of the choir took the parts of St. Peter and St. John, and three others in albs those of the Three Maries. In the York Missal, in which this colloquy appears at length, its use is prescribed for the Tuesday of Easter Week.

Springing apparently from these germs, the religious drama gradually enlarged its bounds until it not only broke away from the few Latin verses of its first lisping, but came to embrace a whole range of Biblical history in vernacular rhyme. The process is so natural that we need scarcely look for contributory factors, and the influence of such experiments as the Terentian plays of the Saxon nun Hroswitha in the tenth century may be safely dismissed as negligible, or, at most, advanced as proof of a broad tendency, evidence of which may be traced in the "infernal pageants" to which Godwin alludes in his "Life of Chaucer," and which, as regards Italy, are for ever memorable in connexion with the Bridge of Carrara—a story familiar to all students of Dante. These "infernal pageants" were concerned with the destiny of souls after death, and their scope being different from that of the miracle plays, they are adduced simply as marking affection for theatrical display in conjunction with religious sentiment.

As far as can be ascertained, the earliest miracle play ever exhibited in England—and here it may be observed that such performances probably owed their existence or at least considerable encouragement to the system of religious brotherhood detailed in our opening chapter—was enacted in the year 1110 at Dunstable. Matthew Paris informs us that one Geoffrey, afterwards Abbot of St. Albans, produced at the town aforesaid the Play of St. Catherine, and that he borrowed from St. Albans copes in which to attire the actors. This mention of copes reminds us of the Boy-Bishop, and is one of the symptoms indicating community of origin. To this may be added that miracle plays were at first performed in churches, and, as we shall hereafter see, in some localities were never removed from their original sphere. The clergy also took an active share in the performances, as long as they were confined to churches; but on their emergence into the streets, Pope Gregory forbade the participation of the priests in what had ceased to be an act of public worship. This was about A.D. 1210. From that time miracle plays were regarded by the straiter sort with disfavour, and Robert Manning in his "Handlyng Sinne" (a translation of a Norman-French "Manuel de Péché") goes so far as to denounce them, if performed in "ways or greens," as "a sight of sin," though allowing that the resurrection may be played for the confirmation of men's faith in that greatest of mysteries. Such prejudice was by no means universal; in 1328—more than a hundred years later—we find the Bishop of Chester counselling his spiritual children to resort "in peaceable manner, with good devotion, to hear and see" the miracle plays.

We saw that the earliest religious drama known to have been performed in this country was one on St. Catherine. William Fitzstephen, in his "Life of St. Thomas à Becket," written in 1182, brings into contrast with the pagan shows of old Rome the "holier plays" of London, which he terms "representations of the miracles wrought by the holy confessors or of the sufferings whereby the constancy of the martyrs became gloriously manifest." Thus we perceive how the term "miracle" attached itself to this species of theatrical exhibitions. Probably, towards the commencement of the twelfth century, French playwrights fastened on the miracles of the saints as their special themes, and, by force of habit, the English public in ensuing generations retained the description, though subjects had come to be chosen other than the marvels of the martyrology. Dr. Ward would limit the term "miracle play" to those dramas based on the legends of the saints, and would describe those drawn from the Old and New Testaments as "mysteries" in conformity with Continental usage. The distinction is logical, but its acceptance would practically involve the sacrifice of the former term, since the Dunstable play of St. Catherine, the plays founded on the lives of St. Fabyan, St. Sebastian, and St. Botolph, which were performed in London, and those on St. George, acted at Windsor and Bassingbourn—no others are recorded—have all perished.

According to the "Banes," or Proclamation, of the Chester Plays, at the end of the sixteenth century, the cycle of plays acted in that city dates from the mayoralty of John Arneway (1268-76), and the author was Randall Higgenet, a monk of Chester Abbey. These statements are, for various reasons, open to impeachment. For one thing, Arneway's term is incorrectly assigned to the years 1327-8—a far more probable date for the plays, though there is no sort of certainty on the subject, and, in the nature of things, a cycle of plays is more likely to have grown up than to have been the work of a single hand. The later date is more probable, because the re-institution of the Corpus Christi festival by the Council of Vienne in 1311 has an important bearing on the annexation of the miracle play by the trade-gilds, and it was only on their assumption of responsibility that performances on the scale of a cycle of plays could have been contemplated, or possible.

There are four great English cycles—those of Chester, York, Wakefield, and Coventry. By a cycle is meant a series of plays forming together what may be termed an encyclopædia of history; it was attempted to crowd into one short day "mater from the beginning of the world." This ambitious programme bespoke the interested co-operation of many persons, and the gilds, embracing it with enthusiasm, transformed the Corpus Christi festival into an annual celebration marked by gorgeous pageants. The word "pageant," which appears to be etymologically related to the Greek πἡγμα, is technical in respect of miracle plays, and, in this connexion, is thus defined, by Archdeacon Rogers:

"A high scafolde with two rowmes, a higher and a lower, upon four wheeles. In the lower they apparelled them selves, and in the higher rowme they played, beinge all open on the tope, that all behoulders might heare and see them."