I have elsewhere spoken of the singular fact that no remains of a Roman theatre or amphitheatre have been found in London, and I have ventured to put forward a theory as to the site of one or both. One cannot, indeed, understand how there could be a theatre at Rutupiæ, or at Bath, and none at London. It is true that Augusta was, for the greater part of her Roman existence, a Christian City; but so was Bath; it is also true that the Church condemned the Theatre. But these facts did not destroy the Theatre. St. Augustine tells us how much he was attracted by the drama—rapiunt me spectacula theatrica. The total destruction of the Roman theatre in the country with the stage machinery and the stage traditions, we may be quite sure, was effected, not by the thunders of the Church, but by the coming of the Angles and the Saxons, and by the Desolation of Augusta. The drama had to begin again later on. As the mimetic instinct always survives every attempt at repression, the drama in some form was sure to revive. It began again in two forms: first, in the Church, the very place whence it had been denounced, and in the entertainments given by wandering mummers, minstrels, dancers, and tumblers. The wandering folk, the show folk, the ribauds, the people who cannot work, the men and women who can only earn their bread by making music and merriment, by telling stories, singing songs, performing tricks, dancing, turning somersaults, and pandering to the ever-present desire for pleasure,—these people cannot be suppressed; and they kept alive the art of acting. In England they flourished exceedingly in quiet times. What sort of rude play they performed it is not possible to ascertain. It was, I believe, a rough and ready farce, like that preserved in Rabelais, where the Farce of the Dumb Woman is presented. The people want to laugh. What do they mostly laugh at? The discomfiture of some one in some way. Enter the Dumb Woman—she makes great business with her broom; she knocks down one man with it and hits another over the nose; both men complain and suffer pain and indignity. Then the people laugh. Add music and a tumbling girl; add gestures unseemly and jokes unfit for repetition. Add, further, anything you please from the modern role of clown and pantaloon, and we shall understand the entertainment afforded by the show folk of the eleventh century. I suppose that they sometimes made fun of the priests—always a tempting subject—one reason for thinking so is that the more reverend a man wishes to be thought, the more he lays himself open to ridicule; another reason is that contemporary writers, as John of Salisbury, condemn actors with ecclesiastical plainness. They were in request, it would appear, at marriage feasts, and the nature of their entertainment is indicated by the order that any priests who were present were to get up and go away when the players began. These people have left little behind them, but they maintained the taste for scenic performances, and, no doubt, they drew away from the plough or the carpenter’s bench many a lad whose heart yearned for the music and the twinkling feet, the bright dresses, and the laughing life of these masterless vagabonds and lawless girls. But in England nothing was written or invented: it is to the Church and not to the show folk that we owe the modern drama. And it began with the laudable desire—nay, the necessity—of making people, in whom the imagination was dull, realise the doctrines of the Church. The service was in Latin, a language not comprehended any longer even in Italy; nobody could read; there were no books for them if they could: preaching, of which there was little before the Friars came, could not effect much: mural painting was not even begun: how then were the people to be taught the leading events, the foundations, in the History of the Christian Faith? Only by some kind of dramatic representation. Thus, at Christmas-time it was easy—nay, praiseworthy—to build a stall for oxen in the church; to fit it with a manger; to invite all the people to see for themselves, as if they were alive, the Virgin Mother with the Infant Christ, Joseph, the Magi, the angels, and the shepherds. On Good Friday a great crucifix was set up and solemnly lowered into the grave. On Easter Day the stone of the sepulchre was rolled away and our Lord came forth; after Easter He walked with the pilgrims of Emmaus; He appeared to the disciples. At Ascension He mounted visibly to Heaven in the sight of all. So also, He raised Lazarus; He healed the sick; He washed the feet. When the simple people looked on and saw such miracles who could doubt? Nay, who could ever forget? “There is the grave, with Lazarus in it—look at him! The grave-clothes are swathed about him, his face is white, he is dead, there is even to another sense the unmistakable proof of death. Here comes the Lord Himself. Tell me not that it is Brother Ambrose—it is the Lord Himself! Who but the Lord can bring a dead man to life? It is the Very Christ!” So they went away marvelling. These things were elementary; but they offered scope for acting, and they offered food for the imagination. Of course they became more and more realistic. The priests’ robes were exchanged for suitable dresses; the chorister, who represented an angel, added wings to his white surplice, and carried a harp and wore a crown. And the field of the drama widened. It included at length the whole scheme of Redemption from the Fall of Lucifer to the Day of Judgment.
NORTH-WEST VIEW OF THE RUINS OF THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER’S PALACE, SOUTHWARK
The procession of the Patron Saint, or any other holy day, and that of Corpus Christi Day were further used to teach the people in the dramatic way. The saints marched with the Trade Guilds; they were known by what they carried. Adam and Eve wore the Tree of Knowledge; John the Baptist was a herald—everybody at that time knew what was meant by a herald; Judas followed. Of course he was received with hisses and groans, but he could not escape observation, because he carried a bag of gold and was followed by the Devil with the gallows; Christopher carried Christ; the wise men carried gifts; nothing was forgotten. That these representations sank deeply into the hearts of the people is certain, because it is only natural that this should be their effect. A story is related of a German Prince, the Landgrave Frederic of the Scarred Cheek, who, after witnessing a play of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, in which the Virgin Mary herself failed to move her Son to mercy, cried out, “What sort of thing is Christian faith if Christians cannot be pardoned even on the intercession of the mother of God and all the Saints?” And so fell into a religious melancholy such as was common in later times among Calvinists. But it wants no such story to make us understand the power of these dramatic performances. At first they were presented in dumb show; then with the words of the Bible; lastly, with words specially written for them. The next step was the transfer of the stage from the nave of the church to the place outside. This took place when the machinery required was too large for the little parish church, and when the dramatis personæ were too numerous for the ecclesiastical staff of the Church. Then the laity became the actors, speedily the only actors. At the same time, the Church did not surrender control over the plays: in Rome there was the Fraternity of the Gonfaler: in Antwerp the Brethren of St. Luke, who were authorised to perform these plays. In England they were divided among the Trade Guilds, every one of which had to exhibit some dramatic scene on the Feast of Corpus Christi. Thus at Coventry the smiths played the Trial and Crucifixion; the Cappers played the Resurrection and Descent into Hell; the Shearmen played the Birth of Christ, the Adoration of the Magi, the Flight into Egypt and the Massacre of the Innocents. In London the Company of Parish Clerks took a prominent part, one of their performances being recorded by Stow as lasting for three days. This was at the Skinners’ Well, Smithfield, in the year 1391. Another performance is also mentioned which took place in 1409, and lasted for eight days. The civic procession of Corpus Christi, which was attended by Mayor, Sheriffs, and Aldermen, with all the City officers, together with the City clergy, and was adorned by pageants and figures and groups, was entrusted to the Skinners’ Company. I have not been able to discover other London companies entrusted with the representation of these plays. The stage was of considerable area, and contained two “rooms,” the upper room for heaven and the lower for earth; or the upper “room” was earth and the lower was hell. Sometimes there were three “rooms.” The play was introduced by a prologue: each player was presented by name: when not acting the players stood aside and were supposed to be invisible. The realism was startling. When Judas was hanged he carried to the gallows the entrails of some animal, which, when he cast himself off, he let fall. At the same time the devil, who was behind him on the gallows, cut the rope, and they both fell down into hell together. There was no shrinking from the representation of a birth upon the stage: saints in torture made jokes; Solomon quarrelled with one of his wives and drank a mug of beer; the devil carried off a soul in a wheelbarrow; at the scene of the Resurrection the gardener made fun over the effects of his herbs; the pedlar wanted to sell his wares to the women weeping over the grave; the mouth of hell vomited flames; Adam and Eve appeared as they were before the Fall; it is as if the Church wanted to make the event more real by connecting it with the actual life, the unmistakable life of men and women. From Church to Market-place was one step; from the mystery to the morality is another step; the last step of all was from the morality, an insipid performance, to the real comedy of human life, and even this had to make its way by means of the drama founded on the life of the saint. How great a step to discover that in every man there was a possible drama equal in interest to the life of any saint or martyr! There is very little positive information about the early drama in London. Yet we know that the miracle play was performed here as well as elsewhere. Stow’s contribution to our knowledge I have already quoted. FitzStephen, too, speaks of these plays. Piers Plowman mentions them as common. Chaucer’s Wife of Bath goes to processions, pilgrimages, miracle plays, and marriages. To the class of Church Play belongs the curious function of the Boy Bishop, which was practised in St. Paul’s and in many parish churches of the City. On the eve of St. Nicholas, the choristers elected one of their number to be the Boy Bishop. A set of episcopal robes was provided for the boy, including a mitre, a pastoral staff, and all the vestments:—
“Towards the end of evensong on St. John’s Day, the boy bishop and his clerks, arrayed in their copes and having burning tapers in their hands, and singing those words of the Apocalypse (ch. xiv.), Centum quadraginta, walked processionally from the Choir to the Altar of the Blessed Trinity, which the boy bishop incensed. Afterwards they all sang the anthem, and he recited the prayer commemorative of the Holy Innocents. Going back into the Choir, these boys took possession of the upper Canons’ stalls, and those dignitaries themselves had to serve in the boys’ places, and carry the candles, the thurible, the book, like acolytes, thurisers, and lower clerks. Standing on high, wearing his mitre, and holding his pastoral staff in his left hand, the boy bishop gave his solemn benediction to all present; and, while making the sign of the cross over the kneeling crowd, he said:—
Crucis signo vos consigno: vestra sit tuitio.
Quos nos emit et redemit suæ carnis pretio.”
The day after, a sermon, which was written for him, was preached by the Boy Bishop; at this the scholars of St. Paul’s were bound to attend. It has been sometimes stated that the boy celebrated mass, but this is not true; it was impossible at any time in the history of the Church that a child or any person but a priest should be allowed to celebrate mass.
This curious and apparently irreverent ceremony formed part of the general rejoicing, mumming, and feasting of the season. Probably it was explained in something of this way. It taught the children that the things done by the altar concerned them, the young as well as the old. It deepened their impression and strengthened their hold of the simple doctrines which they were taught. It was, in other words, a presentment of the same thing in a different form.