The important Festival of Corpus Christi, founded by Pope Urban IV in the year 1264, was ratified years later by the Council of Vienne strictly enforcing its celebration. In England this very Corpus Christi day was, above all others, chosen for the representation of important plays composed in dramatic form chiefly from events connected with the religious history of the civilized world. There are extant several groups of plays which, during the Middle Ages, were regularly performed before appreciative audiences. Four of these “cycles” as they were termed, namely, the York, Townley, Chester, and Coventry plays, have been published and edited by competent scholars. The York cycle contains forty-eight pieces, most of which are derived from biblical subjects. These plays were written during the fourteenth century, and were acted by members of the different guilds.
In the “Ordo Paginorum” of 1415 a detailed list is given of the whole forty-eight interludes. “The order of the Pageants of the Play of Corpus Christi in the time of the mayoralty of William Alne, in the third year of the reign of Henry V, anno 1415, compiled by Roger Burton, town clerk.”
Forty-eight different Companies took part in this pageant, commencing with the Tanners and ending with the Mercers. These crude compositions were still being exhibited during the greater portion of Shakespeare’s lifetime; their total suppression followed in the first decade of the seventeenth century. Although these plays continued until so late a date, signs of their waning interest were apparent in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, when a more ambitious type of drama gradually superseded the old Morality play. The New Comedy displays more inventive genius in dramatic construction, together with greater skill in treating the literary dialogue, and a wider sympathy and ingenuity in the development of character, thus appealing to a more educated section of the public. The first real comedy written in the English language is entitled “Ralph Roister Doister,” and was composed about the year 1550. By this composition an enormous stride in advance was made compared with earlier dramatic pieces.
Many of the characters are moulded on classical models, whilst others still bear traces of an allegorical nature. Other plays quickly followed based on similar types. The first English tragedy called “Gorboduc or Ferrex and Porrex,” produced about this period, was likewise founded on classical lines. Henceforth the Miracle play was doomed, and hereafter budded forth a new drama, the full blossom thereof culminating in the immortal works of William Shakespeare.
The construction of the open-air stage, where the Miracle plays were exhibited, totally differed from any kind of stage adopted by Europeans for the last three hundred years. The inn-yard performance presents a greater likeness to our present theatre than the primitive shows represented before our ancestors of the Middle Ages compared with the inn-yard performances. These Miracle plays were performed for over three centuries, and formed the only dramatic fare of the English people during this long period. The Miracle play can fitly be described as an isolated production, the successive stages can be plainly regarded as an organic whole, beginning with birth, developing into maturity, eventually drifting into decline and decay, finally ending in total extinction. The plays of a later date, and the conditions under which they were produced, owed little or nothing beyond a trifling debt to their forerunners.
When the Miracle plays emerged from the church and became secularized, the performances took place in the open streets. These exhibitions consisted of two kinds, one being stationary, and generally acted in the market place, or other convenient open space, such as the village green, or they were divided into separate stations or points, or as we should now say districts, each station being visited by the several pageants or movable stages, which formed a kind of processional ceremony. The actual acting place was a kind of platform resting on trestles, with planks thrown across; this primitive stage was fixed on wheels and was drawn by horses from one street to another, and as they arrived at each station a performance was given. By this method a large concourse of people could witness the entertainment in ease and comfort. What a contrast in comparison to a performance of a Greek play, when twenty thousand people were seated in a public theatre and watched with enthusiasm and delight the tragic masterpieces of Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and the biting satirical comedies of Aristophanes, and pray remember that these great plays were written and performed about two thousand years before these puny dramatic efforts of our own people. In large towns like York, sixteen stations were erected to satisfy the demands of the public. In a small town about three or four would supply all needs. At Coventry the latter number proved sufficient. Six stations are mentioned in a pageant acted at Beverley. The length and duration of the plays varied at different places. Three days were allotted to the Chester plays, other towns managed in quicker time, finishing their programme in a single day.
These one-day performances usually commenced at daybreak. Newcastle was not quite so enthusiastic, conforming more with our modern ideas, commencing their pageant a little after mid-day, corresponding almost with our matinée. The most trustworthy account of a performance of a Miracle play is that described by Archdeacon Roger, who witnessed one of the plays at Chester during the Whitsun holidays in the year 1594.
“Every company had his pageant, or parte, which pageants weare a high scafolde with two rowmes, a higher and a lower, upon four wheels. In the lower they apparelled themselves, and in the higher rowm they played, beinge all open on the tope that all behoulders mighte heare and see them. The places where they played them was in every street. They begane first at the abye gates, and when the first pageant was played it was wheeled to the high crosse before the mayor, and so to every streete and soe every streete had a pageant playinge before them at one time, till all the pageants for the daye appointed were played, and when one pageant was neare ended, worde was brought from streete to streete that so they might come in place thereof exceedinge orderlye and all the streets have their pageants afore them, all at one time playinge together, to see which plays was great resorte, and also scafoldes and stages made in the streets in these places where they determined to play their pageants.”
The Miracle plays are frequently mentioned by Chaucer, a verse in the Miller’s Tale included among the Canterbury Tales, informs us how Joly Absolom, the parish priest, played Herod “in a Scafolde hie.” Shakespeare refers to the ranting of the actors that prevailed in these entertainments in the proverbial phrase “out Herod’s Herod,” Herod being a well-known character in the Miracle play. May we not indulge in the fancy that John Shakespeare took his eldest son, William, over to Coventry to witness one of these shows, this town being distant only a few miles from Stratford-on-Avon?
In a most fascinating book written by the late Professor Haigh, of Oxford University, entitled The Attic Theatre, the author gives an exhaustive and detailed account of the ancient Greek theatre from the earliest times until its extinction. After the perusal of this admirable work, the reader may well be amazed at the paucity of reliable information concerning our own theatre. The distinguished author analyses each of his statements with remarkable accuracy before pronouncing judgment. The wealth of illustration brought to bear on the subject is truly remarkable, placing before the reader an exact account of how a play was produced in those remote times by graphically describing the conditions with such minuteness and intelligence that the reader can visualize the acted play from the printed page. Many other points of a theatrical interest are discussed in this fascinating book, which should be read by everyone who takes the least interest in the drama. After studying this detailed account of theatrical events, existing so many centuries past, we naturally expect from the innumerable writings of the Elizabethan age an ample and exact account of how a play was represented during that era. Unfortunately in this instance our expectations will remain unrealized, stage history not being deemed worthy of chronicling in those spacious times.