MEDIEVAL Drama

There was little evidence of drama in the Middle Ages. The earliest being parts of a manuscript from western European religious drama in the tenth century.

Secular over Liturgical

The Roman Catholic Church was the only "stable government" during the Middle Ages, since there was political turmoil during the fall of Rome in 600 A.D.

The church prohibited secular drama, called folk dramas, and supported liturgical plays, which were religious based

The prohibitions they set against secular drama hints at mimes, acrobats,and dancers, during the Middle Ages.

The influence of the church

The church would have Easter services and eventually Christmas services. Plays were used for many more occasions afterwards.

The church plays were sung in Latin. The performers were preists, choirboys, and later on nuns; and eventually it opened up to more of the church congregation.

Church drama grew so popular that they were translated into vernacular; which was the common spoken language.

Forms of Church Drama

Saint Plays were based on legends of saints.

Mystery Plays were based on biblical history.

The Passion Play is the most well-known liturgical drama performed for Easter service and addresses the last week of Christ's life.

The Passion Play was first produced in the Bavarian village in Germany in 1634. It is performed every 10 years as tradition in Europe, Oberammergau, Germany, and performed by the citizens of Bavarian.

STage Platforms

Mansions are church platforms where the early Saint and Mystery plays were staged.

Mansions

• Represented biblical settings 
• Heaven
• Hell
• Sea of Galilee
• Ect.

The plays left the inside of churches, due to popularity and was moved to town squares.

Mansions were then placed in a straight line. Some were permanent and some were used for traveling and are craft guilds.

medieval Craft guilds

Craft guilds are like a whole tv series on wheels, and they would tour the country and give their plays on pageant wagons; which are like the tv series' shows.

They took over much of England's entertainment with Saint and Mystery plays.

The craft guilds often performed during the festival of Corpus Christi, institited in A.D. 1311

The guilds were secular, but the members were associated with the Roman Catholic Church.

Different guilds presented different biblical stories. For example the shipwrights presented the Noah pageant, for Noah's Ark.

Pageant wagons

• 1st level: platform stage
• 2nd level: dressing room
• Used to represent a certain cycle for the guild
• Cycle- series of short plays, like a timeline
• Cycle: from creation-doomsday

Each guild had a pageant wagon and moved around town as they were performing their play.

From Liturgical & secular

As liturgical drama was developing so was secular drama a.k.a folk drama. The first folk play comes from the 12th century.

To the church's disapproval, as secular dramas developed they gave representations of traditional liturgical drama.

By the 15th century drama got more popular. The church began hosting plays without a special holiday, creating Morality plays.

Plays

Morality Plays

• Teaches right and wrong
• Allegories of Satan and God battling over our souls
• Allegories of abstract qualities
• The qualities are closley related to morals
• Famous morality plays: Robin Hood & Everyman

By the early 16th century secular drama had created their own version of traditional liturgical drama: Moral Interludes.

Moral Interludes

• Shorter than Morality plays
• More humorous characters
• More humorous incidents
• More appealing amongst the people

Secular dramatist became the first acting company, causing liturgical drama to decrease in popularity

Nearing the ending of the middle ages

• Secular dramatists 1st acting companies
• Worked for the nobels
• Plays were under noble influence
• Evolved to include chronicles
• Most plays glorified the nobility and aristocracy

Bibliography

http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/spectop006.html

http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/spd130et/medieval.htm