III. The Medieval Period

III. The Medieval Period

A. By 900s the Church included playlets in masses, especially Easter & Christmas

1. Clergy & altar boys were actors

2. Performed in Latin [language of the Church and only language allowed inside the church building]

B. Move to church steps

B. Plays move to the church steps [1200-1350]

1. Performed in the vernacular (language people speak in everyday life)

2. Added mansions (sets)

a. Heaven

b. Hell

C. Guilds

C. Performance of plays was taken on by

religious or trade guilds

What is a guild?

Can you think of modern uses of the word?

What might a trade guild have been?

Medieval trade guilds were made up of people who shared an occupation. In England, the trade guilds produced plays.

1. All Sacred

1. Sacred topics (religious)

     a.  Miracle & Mystery – Bible stories & stories of saints [Second Shepherds’ Play]

b.  Morality – allegories (symbolic plays) in which vice & virtue fight for or within a man’s soul [Everyman]

2. Performed in cycles [autos in Spain]

3. Amateur actors

(C. Performances . . .)

Townley CyclePlays in Townley or Wakefield Cycle, England (published 1460)

  1. The Creation 17. The Purification of Mary 2. The Killing of Abel 18. The Play of the Doctors 3. Noah and the Ark 19. John the Baptist 4. Abraha[m] 20. The Conspiracy 5. Isaac 21. The Buffeting 6. Jacob 22. The Scourging 7. The Prophets 23. The Crucifixion 8. Pharaoh 24. The Talents 9. Caesar Augustus 25. The Deliverance of Souls 10. The Aunnunciation 26. The Resurrection of the Lord 11. The Salutation of Elizabeth 27. The Pilgrims 12. The First Shepherds' Play 28. Thomas of India 13. The Second Shepherds' Play 29. The Lord's Ascension 14. The Offering of the Magi 30. The Judgement 15. The Flight Into Egypt 31. Lazarus 16. Herod the Great 32. The Hanging of Judas

D. Production ElementsD. Production Elements

1. Types of stages

a. Fixed [temporary sets built for an entire cycle of plays to use]

Stage used in the Valenciennes Passion Play, 1547

Hell Mouth in a colored drawing of the same set

b. Pageant Wagons

b. Pageant Wagons

The Triumph Archduchess Isabella of Brussels, 1615, included pageants of the Annunciation, followed by Diana and her Nymphs, and the Nativity, with an angel on the roof.[text from The Theatre: A Concise History, by Phyllis Hartnoll]

What is odd about the inclusion of “Diana and her Nymphs”?

The painting of the ommegang (procession) The Triumph of Isabella [previous slide] shows a procession of pageant wagons in Brussels in 1615. Annual processions similar to this took place all over Europe, and had done so since at least the 14th century.

Among the performers are three black figures suggesting that there was a community of people of African lineage in Brussels at the time. There is a man riding a camel at the bottom left of the painting, a drummer behind the nativity and a servant holding the umbrella of feathers over ‘King Psapho’ in the cart behind the camels.

The next 11 slides show close-ups of sections of this large oil painting, probably completed in 1615.

This pageant wagon depicts The Annunciation, when an angel told Mary that she would give birth to Jesus.

Pageant wagon drawing

Middle English pageant wagon;Scene of Christ before Pilate

2. Special Effects

2. Special effects

a. Flying with ropes & pulleys

b. Trap doors

c. Effigies [like big dolls representing human beings] for scenes of torture

d. Transformations [Moses’ stick to a snake, Jesus turning water to wine, etc.]

The Medieval plays attempted to be as realistic as possible. There are stories of complicated feats, such as representations of the Deluge (great flood) with enormous amounts of water.

Fire was used extensively.

Effigies were filled with animal entrails and burned in hell fire.

While most actors were amateurs, the machinists—the people who did special effects—were well paid.

Unlike during the Roman time, the players were not harmed.

In England the plays were assigned to guilds by appropriateness to their occupations.

This is a list of the guilds of York, England, and their play assignments. Which do you find interesting?

The officially sanctioned drama of the Medieval Period was religious, but there were players who traveled about and presented non-religious drama. These were people outside of the feudal system, who moved about from place to place constantly.

E. Secular (non-religious) theatre, apparently farce

1. Traveling troupes of actors

2. Masks & costumes hid identities of troupe members who apparently committed

criminal acts, such as pick-pocketing

3. Outlawed in most of Europe in 14th & 15th centuries

E. Secular theatre

These traveling troupes performed inside, when invited. This picture shows performers in a manor house or castle.

Troupe members, called mummers in England, often performed in the streets.

In Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, a group of traveling players arrives at the Danish castle. Hamlet requests them to perform a play that reenacts the murder of his father by his uncle, now the king and married to Hamlet’s mother.

Where will you see mummers in literature?