The Old Miracle Plays of England

by Netta Syrett

The first plays, then, were religious plays, and they were acted in churches. But soon they grew so popular, and so many people crowded to see them, that the churches were not large enough to contain the throng, and by degrees the custom grew up of acting them outside the church, so that they might be seen by a much larger audience than the building itself could hold.

From a very old play in which stage directions are given, we are able to understand how the performance was arranged. The story of this play is The Disobedience of Eve, and the loss of Paradise through her sin.

Just below one of the windows of the church, supported by scaffolding, a platform was put up. From this platform, steps led to a lower stage, and there was a space between this under platform and the ground.

Thus the church itself stood for Heaven. The first platform was Paradise, the second Earth, and the space beneath it, Hell. So that when God the Father descended from Heaven to walk in the garden of Paradise “in the cool of the day,” the priest who represented Him, came from the church window to the “Paradise” platform. And when Adam and Eve, having tasted of the fruit, were driven out of the garden, they descended the steps to the “Earth” stage, and at last to the space below which meant Hell, where in the midst of clouds of smoke, and with great rattling of chains, boys dressed as demons lay in wait for them.

A play such as this must have been a quaint and curious sight, and to us who live so many years after the people who gazed at it from some churchyard long ago, it seems childish and even occasionally horrible. But we are in many ways unlike those homely folk who used to stand open-mouthed in amazement before such a scene. We have read many books, and our ideas about religion have changed so much that it is difficult to imagine how greatly acting, even of this sort, must have impressed the simple minds of men and women who had read nothing, and were often full of fears and superstitions. They were like little children who have to be taught in a way that will fix and hold their attention. Just as a tiny boy or girl is taught its letters with bright and highly coloured picture-blocks.

So far we have seen how these religious plays were at first acted in churches, then came to be performed outside them. Now we shall discover that a further change was presently to be made. As the years passed, people began to expect more and more in the way of acting. They wanted richer dresses for the players, more scenery, and bigger spaces for the performances. Far from getting tired of these theatrical performances, the taste for them grew, and greater and still greater throngs pressed towards the churchyards every time a play was announced. You will understand how disorder arose, and spread. Rough crowds spoilt the grass in the churchyards, and trampled upon the graves, for the plays began to be looked upon as amusements for a holiday, rather than as religious ceremonies to be watched quietly and with reverence. So in time it was felt that a churchyard was not a fit place for a boisterous throng. It was too near the sacred building, which the people profaned with their noise.

Yet if the plays were removed from the surroundings of the church, it no longer seemed fitting that priests should take part in them. Thus it happened that by the end of the thirteenth century, about the time when Edward I was king, the clergy had left off acting, except at Christmas-time and at Easter, when, as usual, the Nativity scene, and the scene of the Resurrection were performed in the churches. Every other sort of religious play was henceforward acted by the laity (that is, by people who, whatever they may be by trade or profession, are not clergy). So a class of men grew up who were paid for acting, and often gained their living in this way alone; and though the plays they acted were still religious plays, the cost of them was borne by rich people, and they were by degrees made into grand performances, as we shall see.

All through those years which are known as the Middle Ages it was the custom for men who belonged to the same trade to form themselves into a society, or guild as it was called, to protect and help one another in their own particular work. Each trade had its own guild, and its own special saint as guardian. There was the Tanners’ Guild, the Fishmongers’, the Carpenters’, the Armourers’, the Bakers’, and so forth—too many of them to mention. Now many of these guilds in the course of time had become very rich societies, and could afford to spend a great deal of money upon anything that interested them. Plays interested all the townsfolk immensely, and so even before the clergy had quite left off acting in them, the guilds began to take the management of these plays into their charge, paying the actors, providing rich and costly dresses, such scenery as could in those days be made, and everything in fact that is known as “stage property.”

The priests still wrote the stories, but the acting and the whole management of them passed into the care of the rich guilds.

Miracle plays was the name given to these religious “acted stories,” and very fortunately, four sets of Miracle plays have been found and preserved, so that we can read the very words spoken by actors long ago to audiences of eager and interested people.