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08 July 2013

Medieval Theatre I: Background, Religious Drama



Between the fall of Rome and the western and the first identifiable “medieval” drama lay about 500 years, a time which used to be labeled the “dark” ages until scholars began to realize that many of the events of this time (approximately 500-1000 AD) shed “light” on many later events.  So we more often refer to this period as the Early Middle Ages. “Middle” in that it was the period before the classical era and the NEO-classical era, the Italian Renaissance.
      
Everyone was tied to the land in those “middle” ages, and the system of economics at this time has been called feudalism While the concept of feudalism has been criticized as it is a simplistic theory of a complicated system and although feudalism is no longer thought to be as static a system as former scholars made it out, there was at the time a well-defined hierarchy from which it was difficult to break away.   In the feudal system, peasants tilled the soil and harvested crops for the lord of the manner.  This lord had absolute authority over his peasants, or serfs, and from what they farmed and cultivated, he gave them barely enough to survive on.  Of course the lord of this manner had to give most of what he took from the serfs to HIS master, some greater lord than he, becoming the greater lord’s vassal. That lord was the vassal of some still greater lord...on and on till you get to the king, who doesn’t have to give anybody anything, which is why, as Professor Mel Brooks instructs us, “It’s very good to be the king!”  Yes, but it’s not so hot being a serf. 

Brief sidebar: if you want to understand feudalism in a matter of minutes and in a very theatrical manner, check out the great song from Leonard Bernstein’s musical Candide, “What’s the Use?” The tune is terrific, the lyrics, by the fine poet and translator Richard Wilbur, witty, sharp and dead on point. Mind you, you have to go back to the original 1956 Broadway production to hear this song, though it was reinserted in some of its many revivals, so depending on the revival you might hear it. Alas, the show was adapted to death, as all too often happens, particularly in the history of recent theatre, according to Dr Jack. And this after all IS theatre history according to Dr Jack!

While there are many levels of hierarchy in feudalism, very few people at any level could write, in some cases not even the king.  There’s a story about the great early medieval emperor Charlemagne, who taught himself painstakingly to read, but though it’s been said he practiced every night, he never quite learned to write. 

St Albans Cathedral (the town is a mere 40 minute train ride
from London) an example of a Romanesque, in England
Norman church - big, sturdy, seeminly weighted to the ground
Who COULD write?  The people of the Church could. This institution was as powerful, more powerful arguably, than any king. In fact throughout the middle ages there was a constant power struggle going on between the leaders of the Church and the secular leaders.  Who crowned Charlemagne in 800 AD? The Pope did. And the Pope named him Holy Roman Emperor, pointing wordlessly these that I’ll put in his mouth,  “You tend the worldly concerns of my flock while I see to its spiritual health.”  Secular and religious power were locked in struggle at that time...and in many places, in our time as well. De nobis fabula narratur. Their story is our story.
      
But how does all of this relate to theatre history?  Stop for a minute and think of what the Christian Church disliked.  Lots of things, right?  The devil, hellfire, non-Christians, and so on. For our purposes,  on perhaps a lesser level of nuisance than some things, the Church really didn’t like the theatre. The Church had succeeded in pretty much wiping out any formal and regularized performances, by the time of the late Roman Empire, but Bishops were constantly making decrees against “mimi, histriones, ioculatores” meaning “mimes, actors, jesters.” The edicts were written in Latin because that was the official, written language of the age, and of course the language of the Church.  However in spite of all the Church’s efforts, ordinary people seemed to keep wanting to watch these sinful “mimi, histriones, ioculatores.
      
To take hold of this thorny issue, let’s imagine an ordinary person named OG. Yes, the family line seems to have made it through
(probably by the skin of its teeth) from the days of cave dwellers. OG, his wife Ermentrude and their son Bodo, in a place near the bottom of the feudal heap, lived lives of near constant toil and servitude.  Only on Saints’ Days and Sundays did OG, Ermentrude and Bodo get any rest. In fact they were not allowed to work on these days, the Church forbade it. So OG took his family to church, but “unfortunately he and Ermentrude were not content just to go to church and to go quietly home again.  They used to 
spend the rest of these days in dancing and singing and buffoonery...they danced in a ring and sang the old pagan songs of their forefathers, left over from old Mayday festivities, or ribald songs that the church disliked.  Over and over again we find the Church councils complaining that the peasants (and sometimes the priests too) were singing ‘wicked songs with a chorus of dancing women’ or holding ‘ballads and dancings and evil and wanton songs and such-like lures of the devil;’ over and over again the bishops forbade these songs and dances, but in vain....Sometimes OG did not dance himself, but listened to the songs of wandering minstrels.  The priests did not at all approve of these minstrels, who (they said) would certainly go to hell for singing profane secular songs instead of Christian hymns....And then there were always jugglers and tumblers, and men with dancing bears, and minstrels to wheedle OG’s few pence out of his pocket.”
(note: I owe a great debt for all of this section – except for the name OG – to a wonderful, simple little book by Eileen Power called Medieval People – if you’re interested you can get it free as an e-book)

There they are.  In spite of all the Church edicts against these mimi,histriones, iocolatores, these simple players endured – and a good thing for OG and Ermentrude!  
John Constable's beautiful painting of Salisbury Cathedral
note the change between the Romanesque Saint
Albans Cathedral pictured above with this and other
Gothic cathedrals pictured below, lighter, airier, pointing to heaven
My own photo of Salisbury Cathedral - not quite up to
Constable, but still a pretty sight.
Salisbury is about two hours west of London by train,
not far from Stonehenge

To counter the constant threat of minstrels who allowed peasants to have fun, however, the Church had to find a way to teach OG its doctrine. But he couldn’t read, right?  So the Church concentrated on visuals.  The Church

built the great Cathedrals: Rouen, Notre Dame, Chartres, Koln, Prague, on and on through Europe.  They were built with spires that pointed sharply UP – towards heaven – perhaps as a reminder to OG not to worry, life is short, don’t worry about your current misery, focus on what it will be like AFTER you die -- eternal life with God in heaven!



This is a powerful message, but even this may be a bit abstract for 
OG – he might not “get” all the paintings and statues and gargoyles and reliefs carved all over cathedral doors and walls of people getting gobbled by devils and demons.  So another even clearer method began to be used to teach OG his faith.  The great irony here is that the instrument of this new education was – THEATRE!  Theatre, which from the earliest days of the Church had been despised and banned.
      
To illustrate, one day Brother Bodo (yes, OG’s son got religion (hey, it was better than all that toil in the fields), at a religious service in which he is feeling particularly inspired, adds an emphasis to a certain phrase, by singing an extra “Alleluia.”  When he sings the Alleluia, the congregation has to sing it back – call and response.  For example, at the end of the Catholic mass the priest says “Ite, Missa est.” (Go, the mass is ended). And the congregation responds, “Deo gratias.” (Thanks be to God).  But in a mass at Easter, say, or Christmas, something special is called for, so the priest adds “Alleluia” to the phrase and the congregation sings it back to him.

This addition to emphasize something important is called a trope, a lyric and melody added for emphasis.  Tropes became very popular and gradually grew more complex, so that on an Easter Sunday around 925 (the year, not the time of morning) a congregation might well have heard something like this:

Angel:  Quem Quaeritis in selpulchro, O Christocolae?
    (Whom do you seek in the tomb, o Christian women?)
Maries: Jesum Nazarenum crucifixum, o caelicolae
    (Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified, o heavenly one)
Angel:  Non est hic, surrexit sicut praedixerat
    (He is not here; he is risen as he foretold)
       Ite, nuntiate quia surrexit de sepulchro
    (Go, and announce that he has risen from the tomb)
(Allardyce Nicoll, Masks, Mimes and Miracles)

That’s the Quem Quaeritis (Whom do you seek?) trope.  





In its earliest version it was probably chanted or sung antiphonally by two portions of the choir.  By 975, however, Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester in England, had compiled a monastic agreement called the Regularis Concordia to encourage uniform practice and order throughout monasteries.  In the document was this little play (for that’s what it is) complete with stage directions! 

The Quem Quaeritis trope is as important a step as was Thespis’ step away from the chorus in Greek theatre.  It is the first instance of what we call liturgical drama -- drama performed in Latin as part of a sacred service in a church.  And what’s it about?  A God-man who dies and is resurrected. If that sounds familiar, just remember the Egyptian Horus, and the Greek Dionysos.

From this relatively simple trope sprang a series of “visitatio” plays – variations on the visit to the tomb and the discovery that Jesus has risen:  in one, the disciples Peter and John race to the 
The nave of Bath Abbey - in the Middle Ages
there would have been no seats in it
tomb to see if what they’ve heard is true; John gets there first, but allows Peter entrance to the tomb before him.  Two monks might have run the length of a cathedral’s nave  (the relatively long, thin area where the congregation stood – only long after the Medieval era did they sit), to enact this version.  Later a secular figure is added to the action: a merchant who sells ointments to the three Maries (Mary Magdelene, Mary mother of James - a disciple - and Mary Salome) so they can anoint the body of Christ. In the earliest versions the merchant is silent, but in later variations he haggles with the women over the price!
   
Gradually more complications are added, more plot is offered:  In one Pontius Pilate sends soldiers to guard the tomb, the angel
This is a side aisle along the nave, but
I like the heavenly light, don't you?
 strikes them with a thunderbolt (props!), the Maries enter, buy oils from the merchant, then...”quem quaeritis?” In the meantime the soldiers report to Pilate, Mary Magdelene laments, Christ appears to her, Christ appears to the apostles, all the disciples gather at the tomb, and all sing a final “Te Deum Laudamus.”
   
Other celebrations as well as Easter begin to make use of liturgical drama.  At Christmas, for example, the shepherds are following the star of Bethlehem to the stable, when an angel stops them and asks:

    “Quem quaeritis in presepe, o pastores?”
    (whom do you  seek in the manger, o shepherds?)
   
Try to imagine this liturgical drama in a cathedral. Where and how do you perform it?  Not under a proscenium arch, or even on a platform stage.  There are many conjectural answers to how these dramas were staged, but all you really needed were two areas -- a mansion and a platea.  If you understand these two terms you’ll come to terms with all medieval staging practice, and of many later forms of theatre as well, most notably the staging in Shakespeare’s theatre.  A mansion is a simple scenic element that represents the location of a scene. For example, a chair can represent the throne of Pontius Pilate, perhaps; or a bush can represent the Garden of Gethsemane; or a cross can represent Golgotha.  The platea is the space around the mansion that becomes the playing area as actors move into the space and so define it.

As liturgical drama got more and more complex, more than one mansion and platea began to be needed; in fact sometimes several would be used in a single service.  Just before Easter, Passion Plays were performed, in which different events that led to the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ were enacted.  To do so, different mansions were set up throughout the nave and the participants in the passion plays moved from mansion to mansion to act out the different scenes. At each move they set up a platea around the appropriate mansion and defined the playing space.  A very diluted form of this practice is still done in Catholic Lenten services -- the stations of the cross.  In present services the mansion and platea have been reduced to fourteen small framed paintings or sculptures set on the walls or pillars up and down the area in which the congregation sits, but it all started back in the early Middle Ages.

In the same century (the tenth) that the quem quaeritis trope was transcribed, the first female playwright that we can identify wrote six plays, all of which still exist.  Hroswitha (a literal translation
is “the white rose,” c 935 - 973 AD) was a canoness at a monastery in Gandesheim, in northern Germany.  A canoness was a woman who took some vows, but was not a nun...like several other women of the era, she used the convent to study and learn much more than it would have been possible for her to learn out in the “real world.”  To improve her Latin, she studied the writing of Roman playwright Terence; and then she set out to imitate his style, but not his subject matter! Instead of rakish young pagan Roman men hunting women; she told, in Latin and in the style of Terence, tales of young Christian women. 
      
Most of her plays were serious and more than a tad didactic (in other words they taught a good bit more than they delighted), but in one, titled Dulcitius, she was able to inject humor as well.  It’s about the martyrdom of three young female saints during the Roman era. If you think that doesn’t seem an appropriate subject for humor, you’re right, but it contains a very funny scene in which the governor Dulcitius, who wants to have his lecherous way with these women before he has them killed, is led (by a miracle?) to the scullery instead of to the room where they are being kept, and kisses the pots and pans in the kitchen, thinking they are the women!  When he comes out his face is all blackened from the soot on the pots, and he looks like a fool.  Of course the women still get martyred, but their virginity remains intact!
      
Whether or not these plays were produced, read aloud in the cloister on a lively winter evening, or just academic exercises, Hroswitha is not only the first identifiable woman playwright, she’s also the first western playwright of either gender that we can identify in the post-classical era.  It has been argued that her strong Christian women protagonists become the first strain of feminism in the theatre.  By the way, the second identifiable playwright after the classical era is ALSO a woman. Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) led a life similar to Hroswitha’s, wrote sacred music as well as at least one play with music, on Christian themes, called Ordo Virtutum, or The Play of Virtues. That play and more of Hildegard's music is available on disc and productions of the play have been produced recently by early music societies.

  
Returning to liturgical drama, gradually, as towns and trading guilds began to grow in Europe, the old feudal system began to break down. As the Early Middle Ages gave way to the more open, somewhat more secular world of the second part of the medieval era, called by some the High Middle Ages (approximately 1050-1300), religious plays began to be performed outside the church and in the vernacular, or the everyday language of a given area, not in Latin.  Liturgical drama continued as well, but the new form had more freedom in that it didn’t have to stick to the liturgy.

The first play of this kind that has come down to us is The Play of Adam, (twelfth century) 2/3 of which is written in French, and which was performed, so the stage directions strongly imply, on the steps in front of the church. Here are some of them:

 “Let Paradise be set up in a somewhat lofty place; let there be about it curtains and silken hangings, at such an height that those persons who shall be in Paradise can be seen from the shoulders upward -- let there be planted sweet-smelling flowers and foliage; let divers trees be therein and fruits hanging on them, so that it may seem a most delectable place.   
 
Then let the Savior come, clothed in a dalmatic, and let Adam and Eve be set before him.  Let Adam be clothed in a red tunic; Eve, however, in a woman’s garment of white, and a white silken wimple; and let them both stand before the Figura (God); but let Adam a little nearer, with composed countenance; Eve, however, with a countenance more subdued...whoever shall speak the name of Paradise, let him look back at it and point it out with his hand.
        
Then a serpent, cunningly put together, shall ascend along the trunk of the forbidden tree, unto which Eve shall approach her ear, as if hearkening unto its counsel: 

Devil:  Adam I’ve seen -- a fool is he.
Eve:    (considering) A little hard...   
Devil:                  He’ll softer be;
              But harder now than iron is;
Eve:    A noble man!
Devil:                  A churl! I wis.
              Thought for himself he will not take;
              Let him have care, e’en for thy sake.
              For thou art a delicate, tender thing,
              Thou’rt fresher than the rose in spring;
              Thou’rt whiter than the crystal pale,
              Than snow that falls in the icy vale.
              An ill-matched pair did God create!
              Too tender thou, too hard thy mate.

Thereafter, Eve shall take the apple and offer it unto Adam... Then shall Adam eat a part of the apple; and having eaten it, he shall straightaway take knowledge of his sin; and he shall bow himself down so that he cannot be seen of by the people, and shall put off his goodly garments, and shall put on poor garments of fig-leaves sewn together; and manifesting exceeding great sorrow, he shall begin his lamentation. And when this is done the Figura shall go back unto the Church.
    
Then shall the devil come, and three or four other devils 
with him, bearing in their hands chains and iron shackles, which they shall place on the necks of Adam and Eve.  And certain ones
 shall push them, others shall drag them toward Hell; other devils, however, shall be close beside hell, waiting for them as they come, and these shall make a great dancing and jubilation over their destruction; and other devils shall, one after another, point to them as they come; and they shall take them up and thrust them into hell; and thereupon they shall cause a great smoke to arise, and they shall shout to one another in hell, greatly rejoicing; and they shall dash together their pots and kettles, so that they may be heard without.  And after some little interval, the devils shall go forth and shall run to and fro in the square; certain of them, however, shall remain behind in hell.”
(Allardyce Nicoll, World Drama)

George Bernard Shaw would love those stage directions, as they are nearly as long and complicated as his own! For those of you who got bored and skipped through them, tsk, tsk, but a few important points: very specific set pieces, props and costumes;
attempts via stage directions, to contrast Adam and Eve’s attitudes; a short rather sensuous poem of seduction spoken to Eve by the Serpent/Devil; and the very important words “when this is done the Figura shall go back unto the Church.” We’re definitely outside of a church, not in it, for the first time in Medieval drama. Note also that after God goes back the devils come on and have a field day, even moving towards participatory drama, breaking out of the platea and running around the square, in my mind to frighten the audience. The unique Play of Adam marks another major change for medieval drama, in that it moves outside the church and is played mostly in the vernacular, but, alas it is unique, an isolated example of religious drama between the years 1150 and 1170.

Two hundred years later, however, in the mid-fourteenth century, the beginning of what some scholars refer to as the Late Middle Ages, we begin to see many religious plays enacted in towns throughout Europe, written in the vernacular and performed outside the church, usually in and around the town square.  These plays, called cycle plays, were probably begun and expanded because of a new Church holiday called Corpus Christi (body of Christ).  The idea for this holiday was conceived by Pope Urban IV in 1264; it was given official sanction in 1311, and was being celebrated almost everywhere in Europe by1350.  It was a moveable feast, but it always occurred between late May and early June -- good weather for outside processions and drama! 
Oberammergau, in Southern Bavaria, stages its passion
play once every ten years
The pope instituted Corpus Christi to emphasize the redemptive power of the consecrated bread and wine -- which for Catholics becomes the body and blood of Christ.  One way to create this emphasis was to enact the events that led up to Christ’s death and resurrection (passion plays) at the holiday of Corpus Christi.  Gradually other events in Christ’s life were added, then events that took place BEFORE Christ’s life and AFTER his death, so that in
York, in the north of England performs parts of its
cycle plays every four years - I saw it in
summer of 2006
 the late middle ages at least some of these pageants included events which ranged from the creation of the world to the last day...judgment day.  Thus there grew up around Corpus Christi, in towns throughout Europe and England, festivals of religious plays which people of all ranks watched and took part in, plays written in the vernacular, plays written about the great cycle from the beginning of the world to its end, or cycles within that ultimate cycle, which might have included only the beginnings:  Eden, the fall of Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood; or only the life of Christ or only PART of the life of Christ, most usually his death and resurrection.

These cycle plays began, in the 14th and 15th centuries, to be played during days other than Corpus Christi.  Plays might be delivered on the feast day of a city’s patron saint, or in thanks after an era had been freed from the plague.

In Britain at least 125 towns produced cycle plays, and we have texts for all or many of the plays that were performed in four different towns: York (48 plays); Chester (24); Wakefield, sometimes called the Towneley plays (23); and the plays of the N-Town cycle, which location scholars have not been able to discover.
      
In France many more texts are still available.  While the French cycles did not always cover the vast amount of time and material that the British did (many focused solely on the Passion), they were usually more elaborate and took up to 25 days to perform. In many other European cities and villages cycle plays were regularly performed. In fact these plays were the most performed theatre in the middle ages.
Sarah Ruhl's Passion Play was an interesting take on
passion plays - Yale Rep produced it in 2008
Their story is our story?
and the Irondale Center performed it in 2010
Next time, how cycle plays were staged, and the secular drama of the era.

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