Ne hadde the appil take ben...

For a period of about two hundred years - roughly, from the later fourteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth - the English stage was ruled by performances of Biblical-themed mystery plays. ('Stage', that is, in the sense of carts drawn through the streets, and 'English' in the sense of Yorkshire, predominantly). These open-air productions of scriptural tales had a host of interrelated functions: as religious festival, civic ritual, guild display, and literary playground.

The bulk of any mystery cycle - that is, the sum total of all the plays reguarly performed in a given town - focused upon the Passion and surrounding events. Old Testament material was included, but for the most part only for the parallels and foreshadowing it provided to Christ's story: thus we see the Fall, Abraham and Isaac, Lazarus, et al, together with extra-biblical tales such as the fall of Satan. This Penguin collection, English Mystery Plays, draws upon several of the most important cycles - York, Wakefield, Chester, Towneley and the Ludus Coventriae (not actually from Coventry) - to present the reader with a full cycle, composed of a cross-section of dates and styles.

The mystery plays had their roots in the context of fourteenth-century Corpus Christi processions in northern England, in which the town's guilds - newly risen to prominence and wealth - would carry their banners and generally show themselves off. Corpus Christi was new; it had only entered the liturgical calendar in 1311, intended to honour of the culmination of Christ's sacrifice. Lacking any specific Biblical story to guide the manner of its celebration, the festival was the perfect blank slate for burgeoning towns to shape to their needs.

The plays were amateur productions, funded (at great expense) by the guilds, and for the most part they probably continued to be a part of the procession, whether they were performed at stopping-points along the route or, more usually, from the back of a guild's cart (much like floats at modern carnivals). They were expressions of the town's prestige, a means to display the resources and successful of its richest citizens. As the day progressed, so too would the cycle, with each guild delivering an agreed section of the narrative at a particular time. There would presumably have been much competition to put on the most lavish and striking productions; the same guilds would tend to put on the same play each year (as long as they could afford to do so), but the plays were, in many cases, clearly modified and rewritten to accommodate new ideas.

Doctrinally, the plays are largely conservative and didactically-minded - a factor contributing to their unpopularity with the religious reformers of the mid-sixteenth century. The influence of the earlier morality plays, with their simple dichotomy and emphasis upon flawed humanity, can often be seen:

MORS: Off Kynge Herowde all men beware,
That hath rejoycyd in pompe and pryde;
For all his boste of blysse ful bare,
He lyth now ded here on his syde.
[...]
Wormys mete is his body;
His sowle in helle ful peynfully
Of develis is al to-torn.

[Ludus Coventriae, 20: 'The Death of Herod']

For all that the mystery plays' civic role was public display, they were certainly not secular entertainment; an awareness of the spiritual plight of mankind and the precariousness of existence was ever-present. There are numerous glimpses of the poetically-yearning side of medieval religiosity:

A, quod Jeremye, who xal gyf wellys to myn eyes,
That I may wepe bothe day and nyght
To se our bretheryn in so long peynes?
Here myschevys amende may thi mech myght;
As grett as the se, Lord, was Adamys contryssyon ryght;
   From oure hed is falle the crowne;
Man is comeryd in synne, I crye to thi syght,
Gracyous Lord, gracyous Lord, gracyous Lord, come down!

[Ludus Coventriae 11: 'The Parliament of Heaven']

This is not to say that the writers (largely anonymous) and performers could not do inventive or even slightly irreverent things with their material. The York 'Crucifixion' is a stunning piece, brilliantly contrasting Christ's suffering and serenity with the matter-of-fact callousness of the men wielding the nails, as they observe the effects of each blow with a mixture of professional detachment and gleeful oneupmanship, competing to inflict the most damage. On the lighter side, Joseph is frequently portrayed as a querulous old man (and Mary his much younger wife), with all the attendant undercurrents regarding his cuckolding... One of the Towneley nativity plays features shepherds who are so drunk they can't remember where they left their sheep; the same town's version of Noah and the Flood reads not unlike a proto-Taming of the Shrew, all archetypal nagging wife and beleagured husband:

NOE: My [wife] will I frast       what she will say
And I am agast        that we get som fray
Betwixt us both;
For she is full tethee,
for litill oft angre,
If any thyng wrang be,
Soyne is she wroth.
{Tunc perget ad uxorum}
God spede, dere wife!   How fayre ye!

[--Towneley 3: 'Noah']

The fourteenth century was also a hugely important period for the English language, both in education and in literature (Chaucer, Pearl, Gawain and the Green Knight, etc.). The everyday language of the laity was now a valid vehicle for tackling the Bigger Issues, and for participatory, public events like the mystery plays. The plays are all in English, bar most stage directions and occasional direct quotations from Scripture. The result could be, as above, burlesque. It could also be dramatic...:

CAYM: We! Yei! That shal thou sore abite;
With cheke bon, ot that I blyn,
Shal I the and thi life twyn;
[Cain kills Abel]
So lig down ther and take thi rest,
Thus shall shrewes be chastysed best.

[Towneley, 2: 'The Killing of Abel']

...or wonderfully chilling:

HERODES REX: I ryde on my rowel ryche in my regne,
Rybbys ful reed with rape xal I rende,
Popetys and paphawkys I xal puttyn in peyne,
With my spere prevyn pychyn and to pende.
The gomys with gold crownys ne gete nevyr ageyn,
To seke tho sottys sondys xal I sende.
Do howlott howtyn, hoberd and heyn;
Whan here barnys blede undyr credyl bende,
Sharply I xal hem shende,
The knave childeryn that be
In all Israel countrye;
Thei xul have blody ble
For on I calde unkende.
-
It is tolde in grw
His name xulde be Jhesu.
I-fownde
To have hym ye gon,
Hewe the flesch with the bon,
And gyf him wownde.

[LC 20: 'The Death of Herod']

~~Nic

Comments

[Victoria]

This is where I bask in the glow of being:

a) a Yorkshire denizen

and

b) an Anglo-Medievalist

and thus being able to claim kinship with the socio-historical joy of the Mystery Plays. A new book is just about to come out by a guy called Anthony Bale about Jewishness in the plays and I'm hankering after my supervisor's editor's copy. Huzzah! :-) I read quite a few articles on women's role, identity and piety in the York and Wakefield cycles recently that were very interesting too. Tis a very attractive side project, although certainly over-studied as of the moment and Bale has stolen my particular niche. Damn it. (Och but I should be nice, he's a possible PhD supervisor. :-) )

I'm also very interested to read Barry Unsworth's "Morality Play" now, given the film "The Reckoning" and its references to the impact of the Mystery plays on more traditional forms of medieval "theatre".

[Esther]

"Doctrinally, the plays are largely conservative and didactically-minded...The plays were amateur productions, funded (at great expense) by the guilds".

Was there any particular reason why the church did not help out with the funding of these, given that they were conservative/conformist??

[Nic]

"Was there any particular reason why the church did not help out with the funding of these, given that they were conservative/conformist??"

No, I don't think it there was any conscious aversion - it was simply that the plays were very much a civic initiative. (Vicky: could you go so far as to call it _popular_ religiosity?) It was a source of pride (for town and guilds) that they could stage such events: a way of showing themselves, & their wealth and success, off. I don't imagine Church funding would have been sought, because it would have detracted from the autonomy/self-celebration.

I believe clergymen did get involved in the writing of some of the plays, though (I think the guilds had their own priests?); certainly even the lay writers were educated, which in this period would likely have meant Church-educated.

[Victoria]

You could definitely call it popular religiosity. :-) The 14th century sees a rapid growth of "lay piety" - devotion to the saints and the suffering Christ, also the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) amongst the seculars - and, consequently, a movement towards private religious associations, often attached to skill-based or mercatorial guilds but not always. These guilds provided a new-ish but rapidly growing segment of urban society, the bourgeoisie (sp?), an outlet for both their religiousity, their pretensions of power/influence and also their growing literacy. The traditional Church hierarchy, with its increasingly university educated roots (in England at least), was often closed to them, as were the vital networks of power and influence associated with it.

Until the foundation of the devotional guilds an individual's access to religious services and privileges was directly related to their wealth. By joining a devotional guild an individual could gain the worship power of hundreds of his (even her) fellows in a kind of spiritual co-op: combined wealth could buy better chantries, employ priests, get more masses said for the dead and the faithful, cover burial costs, take care of widows and children etc. Tis all rather fascinating. Some of the guilds, the ones with best plays, became hugely wealthy, building their own chapels, employing a half dozen priests and chanters. I imagine there was also a good deal of competition to attract the best new members, and to get as much visibility as possible...the mystery plays as early form of advertising and recruitment perhaps? :-)

[Nic]

"You could definitely call it popular religiosity. :-)"

I thought so, but I'm always wary of using the term "popular" - probably because it's notoriously difficult to get at on my side of the historical fence. (Plus, I have buzzword issues ;-)).

[Wita]

un peu court mais pas mal du tout