After some more supplications, the clerk, who is a student at the University, goes to old Helwis (Siriz in the prose tale) and then the author, more accustomed, it seems, to such persons than to the company of young maidens, describes with some art the hypocrisy of the matron. Helwis will not; she leads a holy life, and what is asked of her will disturb her from her pious observances. Her dignified scruples are removed at length by the plain offer of a reward.
In this way, some time before Chaucer's birth, the lay drama came into existence in Shakespeare's country.
Other stories of the same sort were also turned into plays; we have none of them, but we know that they existed. An Englishman of the fourteenth century calls the performance of them "pleyinge of japis,"[756] by opposition to the performance of religious dramas.
Other amusements again, of a strange kind, helped in the same early period to the formation of the drama. A particularly keen pleasure was afforded during the Middle Ages by songs, dances, and carols, when performed in consecrated places, such as cemeteries, cloisters, churches. A preference for such places may seem scarcely credible; still it cannot be doubted, and is besides easily explainable. To the unbridled instincts of men as yet half tamed, the Church had opposed rigorous prescriptions which were enforced wholesale. To resist excessive independence, excessive severity was needful; buttresses had to be raised equal in strength to the weight of the wall. But from time to time a cleft was formed, and the loosened passions burst forth with violence. Escaped from the bondage of discipline, men found inexpressible delight in violating all prohibitions at once; the day for the beast had come, and it challenged the angel in its turn.
The propelling power of passions so repressed was even increased by certain weird tastes very common at that period, and by the merry reactions they caused. Now oppressed by, and now in revolt against, the idea of death, the faithful would at times answer threats with sneers; they found a particular pleasure in evolving bacchanalian processions among the tombs of churchyards, not only because it was forbidden, but also on account of the awful character of the place. The watching of the dead was also an occasion for orgies and laughter. At the University, even, these same amusements were greatly liked; students delighted in singing licentious songs, wearing wreaths, carolling and deep drinking in the midst of churchyards. Councils, popes, and bishops never tired of protesting, nor the faithful of dancing. Be it forbidden, says Innocent III. at the beginning of the thirteenth century, to perform "theatrical games" in churches. Be this prohibition enforced, says Gregory IX. a little later.[757] Be it forbidden, says Walter de Chanteloup, bishop of Worcester, to perform "dishonest games" in cemeteries and churches, especially on feast days and on the vigils of saints.[758] Be it forbidden, says the provincial council of Scotland in 1225, "to carol and sing songs at the funeral of the dead; the tears of others ought not to be an occasion for laughter."[759] Be it forbidden, the University of Oxford decrees in the same century, to dance and sing in churches, and wear there disguises and wreaths of flowers and leaves.[760]
The year was divided by feasts; and those feasts, the importance of which in everybody's eyes has dwindled much, were then great events; people thought of them long before, saw them in the distance, towering above the common level of days, as cathedrals above houses Everyday life was arrested, and it was a time for rejoicings, of a religious, and sometimes of an impious, character: both kinds helped the formation of drama, and they were at times closely united On such great occasions, more than ever, the caricature and derision of holy things increased the amusement. Christmas-time had inherited the licence as well as it occupied the date of the ancient Roman saturnalia; and whatever be the period considered, be it early or late in the Middle Ages, it will be found that the anniversary was commemorated, piously and merrily, by sneering and adoring multitudes For the one did not prevent the other; people caricatured the Church, her hierarchy and ceremonials, but did not doubt her infallibility; they laughed at the devil and feared him. "Priests, deacons, and sub-deacons," says the Pope, are bold enough, on those mad days, "to take part in unbecoming bacchanals, in the presence of the people, whom they ought rather to edify by preaching the Word of God."[761] In those bacchanals parodies of the Church prayers were introduced; a Latin hymn on the Nativity was transposed line for line, and became a song in honour of the good ale. Here, as a sample, are two stanzas, both of the original and of the parody, this last having, as it seems, been composed in England:
Letabundus
Exultet fidelis chorus,
Alleluia!
Regem Regum
Intacte perfundit thorus:
Res miranda!
Angelus consilii
Natus est de Virgine,
Sol de Stella,
Sol occasum nesciens,
Stella semper rutilans,
Semper clara.
Or i parra:
La Cerveise nos chantera
Alleluia!
Qui que en beit,
Se tele seit com estre deit,
Res miranda!
Bevez quant l'avez en poing;
Bien est droit, car mout est loing
Sol de Stella;
Bevez bien et bevez bel,
El vos vendra del tonel
Semper clara.