Mystery Plays
At Easter there are other mystery plays telling the story of the divine Passion and of the Resurrection; and still others come at intervals through the year. Some of the participants are priests, but many others laymen, both men and women.[86] All the more important episodes in the Bible are acted out with considerable detail and with much comedy interspersed. The crowds howl with glee when Ananias, like a shrewd Jew, chaffers for the sale of his field, or when hideous devils leap up from hell to seize Herodias's daughter the instant she has accomplished her wicked will with John the Baptist. There is no attempt to represent ancient times. Herod is dressed like a feudal duke, and before him is carried a crucifix. The numerous devils are always black; the angels wear blue, red, and white; "God" appears wearing a papal tiara; and the "souls of the dead" appear covered with veils—white for the saved, red or black for the damned. It is a source of great delight for the people to take part in these plays, and even the great folk are not above joining in them. One need not comment on how completely such proceedings impress the imaginations of the unlearned with the stories of the Old and New Testaments. The Bible can be read only by the few, but an essential part of it is seen and reasonably comprehended by the many.
So much for ordinary religious beliefs and occasions. But there are plenty of people who find their sins are so terrible that they must resort to some great penances, often consuming the remainder of their lives, in order to propitiate Heaven. Besides the monks and the nuns dwelling in convents, there exist a great many hermits and "religious solitaries," who abide in little huts in the woods, perhaps maintaining a tiny chapel for travelers, and being fed on the offerings of forest rangers and peasants. Not all these hermits live, however, in genuine solitude. Right in St. Aliquis village there is something everywhere common—a female recluse.
Many years ago, a certain peasant woman, Elise, murdered her husband. She was promptly condemned to the gallows, but Baron Garnier, with unusual mercy, pardoned her on condition "that she be shut up within a small house in the cemetery, that she might there do penance and so end her days." A stone hut was accordingly built, and the unhappy woman conducted thither with a regular procession, two priests blessing the hut and giving Elise a kind of consecration. She was put inside. Every aperture was then built up except a narrow chink to admit air, a little light, and a small dole of food from her relatives.
Elise has been vegetating in this hut for now twenty years—living in filth and darkness, but talking most piously to visitors standing outside. Seemingly, she does little except to mutter almost incessant prayers. Already her crime is forgotten. The peasants speak of her as "that holy woman" and even wonder whether, after she dies in her cell—for she will never leave it—she cannot be enrolled among the saints. There are many other much more innocent recluses, male and female, who have been walled up voluntarily—either out of piety or of sheer love of idleness, possibly because of both.
Recluses and Pilgrims
Nevertheless, ordinarily the best way to discharge the load of a guilty conscience is by pilgrimage. Confessors often impose this means of penance upon penitents, as the best way of winning the divine mercy. Since death is about the only judicial penalty for great crimes, a penance of pilgrimage for six, ten, or twelve years—going from shrine to shrine all over Christendom—is really a substitute for a term of imprisonment. Pilgrims of this pronounced type are required to go barefoot, with head shaved, to quit their families and wives, and to fast continually—that is, never to touch meat more than once a day.
Even exalted nobles thus spend the remainder of a lifetime expiating their iniquities. Everyone has heard of Count Fulk the Black of Anjou, who heaped up misdeeds even to the murdering of his wife. Then at last he realized the awful peril to his soul. Three times he made the long pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the third time letting himself be dragged upon a hurdle through the streets of the Sacred City, while two varlets smote him with whips.
Such great criminals often carry passports issued by bishops, certifying that they are expiating by pilgrimage specified evil deeds—and requesting Christian folk to give them lodging, food, and assistance. These penitents, if knights, are likely to wear chains upon their wrists and neck, forged of their own armor, as witnesses at once of their social position and their genuine repentance.
Most pilgrims, however, have no such fearful things weighing down their souls. They are simply ordinary erring men who are moved by a genuine piety, possibly admixed with a willingness to find excuse for "seeing the world." Every day they appear at the gate of St. Aliquis castle to ask a share in the supper and a bed on the rushes in the hall, and they are respectfully treated, although Conon sometimes complains that their trailing robes of brown wool, heavy staffs, and sacks slung at belt are merely the disguises for so many wandering rogues. Unwashed and unkempt though many of them are, it never does to repulse them, lest you lose the Scriptural blessing for those who received strangers and so "have entertained angels unawares."