Product Code Database
Mystery plays and miracle plays (they are distinguished as two different forms although the terms are often used interchangeably'Properly speaking, Mysteries deal with Gospel events only). Miracle Plays, on the other hand, are concerned with incidents derived from the legends of the saints of the Church.' ) are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableau vivant with accompanying song. They told of subjects such as the Creation, Adam and Eve, the murder of Abel, and the Last Judgment."Vernacular Drama | Medieval Drama." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 27 May 2013. Web. 7 February 2015. Often they were performed together in cycles which could last for days. The name derives from Sacred Mysteries used in its sense of miracle, but an occasionally quoted derivation is from ministerium, meaning craft, and so the 'mysteries' or plays performed by the craft guilds.
The Quem quaeritis? is the best known early form of the dramas. It is a schematic dialogue between the angel at the tomb of Christ and the women who are seeking his dead body. Early forms of the responsorium were later elaborated with dialogue and dramatic action. Early performances were given in Latin, and were preceded by a vernacular prologue spoken by a herald who gave a synopsis of the events. The writers and directors of the earliest plays were probably monks or clerics.
In 1210, suspicious of the growing popularity of miracle plays, Pope Innocent III issued a Papal bull forbidding clergy from acting on a public stage. This had the effect of transferring the organization of the dramas to town guilds, after which several changes followed. Vernacular texts replaced Latin, and non-Biblical passages were added along with comic scenes, for example in the Secunda Pastorum of the Wakefield Cycle. Acting and characterization became more elaborate.
These vernacular religious performances were, in some of the larger cities in England such as York, performed and produced by , with each guild taking responsibility for a particular piece of scriptural history. From the guild control originated the term mystery play or mysteries, from the Latin ministerium meaning "occupation" (i.e. that of the guilds). The genre was again banned as a result of the Reformation and the establishment of the Church of England in 1534.
The mystery play developed, in some places, into a series of plays dealing with major events in the Christian calendar, from the Creation to the Day of Judgment. By the end of the 15th century, the practice of acting these plays in cycles on festival days was established in several parts of Europe. Sometimes, each play was performed on a decorated pageant cart that moved about the city to allow different crowds to watch each play."Mystery Play | Dramatic Genre." Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 27 May 2013. Web. 6 February 2015. The entire cycle could take up to twenty hours to perform and could be spread over a number of days. Taken as a whole, these are referred to as Corpus Christi cycles. These cycles were often performed during the Feast of Corpus Christi.Windeatt, Barry. "Medieval Imaginations: Literature & Visual Culture in the Middle Ages." Medieval Imaginations: Literature & Visual Culture in the Middle Ages. University of Cambridge, n.d. Web. 7 February 2015.
The plays were performed by a combination of clerics and amateurs and were written in highly elaborate stanza forms; they were often marked by extravagant sets and special effects, but could also be stark and intimate. There was a wide variety of theatrical and poetic styles, even in a single cycle of plays.
These biblical plays differ widely in content. Most contain episodes such as the Fall of Lucifer, the Creation and Fall of Man, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, Abraham and Isaac, the Nativity, the Raising of Lazarus, the Passion, and the Resurrection. Other pageants included the story of Moses, the Procession of the Prophets, Christ's Baptism, the Temptation in the Wilderness, and the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin. In given cycles, the plays came to be sponsored by the newly emerging Medieval . The York mercery, for example, sponsored the Doomsday pageant. Other guilds presented scenes appropriate to their trade: the building of the Ark from the carpenters' guild; the five loaves and fishes miracle from the bakers; and the visit of the Magi, with their offerings of gold, frankincense and myrrh, from the goldsmiths. The guild associations are not, however, to be understood as the method of production for all towns. While the Chester pageants are associated with guilds, there is no indication that the N-Town plays are either associated with guilds or performed on . Perhaps the most famous of the mystery plays, at least to modern readers and audiences, are those of Wakefield. Unfortunately, we cannot know whether the plays of the Towneley manuscript are actually the plays performed at Wakefield but a reference in the Second Shepherds' Play to Horbury Shrogys Anonymous. The Towneley plays (line 454) is strongly suggestive. In "The London Burial Grounds" by Mrs Basil Holmes (1897), the author claims that the Holy Priory Church, next to St Katherine Cree on Leadenhall Street, London was the location of miracle plays from the tenth to the sixteenth century. Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London (c 1500 - 1569) stopped this in 1542.
The Misteri d'Elx (in English, the Elx Mystery Play or Mystery Play of Elx) is a liturgical drama dating from the 13th century which has been enacted and celebrated every year without any known interruptions. Commemorating the Assumption of Mary, it is played on every 14 and 15 August in the Basilica de Santa María in the city of Elx (also known as Elche). The prohibition of theatrical plays in churches by the Council of Trent eventually threatened to interrupt the yearly performance of the Misteri, but in 1632 Pope Urban VIII issued a special permit for its continuation. In 2001, UNESCO declared it one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Cornish language miracle plays, particularly the Ordinalia trilogy, the Beunans Meriasek, and the Bewnans Ke, were traditionally performed at the plain-an-gwarrys. To capture the attention of the audience, "the plays were often noisy, bawdy and entertaining." St Just Plain-an-Gwarry. Historic Cornwall. Retrieved 23 September 2012.
In 1977 the National Theatre commissioned Tony Harrison to create The Mysteries, a re-working of the Wakefield Cycle and others. It was again revived in 1985 (the production was filmed for Channel 4 Television), and as a part of the theatre's millennium celebration in 2000. The productions won Bill Bryden the Best Director title in both the 1985 Evening Standard Theatre Awards and the 1985 Laurence Olivier Awards, the year the three plays first appeared together in performance at the Lyceum Theatre.Shakespeare's Globe. The Globe Mysteries. 2011
In 2001, the Isango Ensemble produced an African version of the Chester Cycle at the Garrick Theatre in London as The Mysteries – Yiimimangaliso, performing in a combination of the Xhosa language, Zulu language, English, Latin, and Afrikaans. They revived an adapted version of the production at Shakespeare's Globe in 2015 as The Mysteries.Shakespeare's Globe. The Isango Ensemble Mysteries 2015 In 2004, two mystery plays (one focusing on the Creation and the other on the Passion) were performed at Canterbury Cathedral, with actor Edward Woodward in the role of God. The large cast also included Daniel MacPherson, Thomas James Longley and Joseph McManners.BBC News. Revival of Medieval Mystery Plays. Thursday, 5 August 2004,
Since 2019, members of the University of Oxford have staged several cycles of Medieval Mystery Plays in different languages at St Edmund Hall.
English mystery plays
There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays.Windeatt, Barry. "Medieval Imaginations: Literature & Visual Culture in the Middle Ages." Medieval Imaginations: Literature & Visual Culture in the Middle Ages. University of Cambridge, n.d. Web. 7 February 2015. [2] A collection is the York cycle of forty-eight pageants; there are also the Wakefield Cycle of thirty-two pageants; the N-Town Plays; and the Chester cycle of twenty-four pageants, now generally agreed to be an Elizabethan reconstruction of older medieval traditions. Also extant are two pageants from a New Testament cycle acted at Coventry. Additionally, a fifteenth-century play of the life of Mary Magdalene, The Brome Abraham and Isaac and a sixteenth-century play of the Conversion of Saint Paul exist. Besides the Middle English drama, there are a few surviving plays in Cornish language: namely, the Ordinalia (which is a cycle of three plays) and Pascon Agan Aruth which both tell biblical stories, and Bewnans Ke and Beunans Meriasek, which tell the stories of the lives of saints.
Spanish mystery plays
The oldest liturgical drama in Spain is from the 12th century and kept today in Toledo Cathedral. It is a play about the Biblical Magi, three wise men from the East who followed a star and visited the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. It is believed to have been based on an earlier play written in France.
Miracle play
Miracle plays, or Saint's plays, are now distinguished from mystery plays as they specifically re-enacted miraculous interventions by the , particularly Saint Nicholas or St. Mary, rather than biblical events. Robert Chambers, writing in the 19th century, notes that "especially in England, miracle came to stand for religious play in general"., quoted in
Modern performances
Attention to the Medieval Mystery plays began to grow during the early 1800s, after their reference and publication by William Hone and James Heywood Markland. Notably, poet Lord Byron wrote the plays Cain and as modern version of medieval dramas on similar subjects. Mystery plays are produced regularly throughout the United Kingdom. The local cycles were revived in both York and Chester in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain, and are still performed by the local guilds.Rogerson, Margaret. The Plays and the Guilds , York Mystery Plays The N-Town Plays cycle was revived in 1978 as the Lincoln mystery plays, and in 1994 the Lichfield Mysteries were revived.
See also
External links
|
|
