Religious drama in 16th century French
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
Serious drama in Europe was reborn in the Middle Ages within the Roman Catholic
church. There, from early times, musical and dramatic elements (tropes) were introduced into
certain offices, particularly at Easter and Christmas. From this practice sprang liturgical drama.
Performances took place inside churches, with the cast of clergy moving from place to place in
the sanctuary. At first only Latin was used, though occasionally snatches of vernacular verse
were included, as in the early 12th-century Sponsus (“The Bridegroom”; Eng. trans. Sponsus),
which uses the Poitevin dialect. Stories from the Bible and lives of the saints were dramatized;
and, as the scope of the dramas broadened, more plays were performed outside the church and
used only the vernacular. The all-male casts employed multiple settings (décor simultané) and
moved from one setting, or mansion, to another as the action demanded.
The first extant mystère, or mystery play, with entirely French dialogue (but elaborate
stage directions in Latin) is the Jeu d’Adam (Adam: A Play). It is known from a copy in an
Anglo-Norman manuscript, and it may have originated in England in the mid-12th century. With
lively dialogue and the varied metres characteristic of the later mystères (all of which were based
on biblical stories), it presents the Creation and Fall, the story of Cain and Abel, and an
incomplete procession of prophets. Neither it nor the Seinte Resurreccion (c. 1200; “Resurrection
of the Saviour”), certainly Anglo-Norman, shows the events preceding the Crucifixion, the
matter of the Passion plays; these first appeared in the early 14th century in the Passion du
Palatinus (“Passion of Palatinus”). Of relatively modest proportions, this contains diversified
dialogue with excellent dramatic potential and probably drew on earlier plays now lost.
The oldest extant miracle, or miracle play (a real or fictitious account of the life, miracles,
and martyrdom of a saint), is the remarkable 13th-century Jeu de Saint Nicolas (“Play of Saint
Nicholas”), by Jehan Bodel of Arras, in which exotic Crusading and boisterous tavern scenes
alternate. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de Théophile is an early version of the Faust theme, in which the
Virgin Mary secures Théophile’s salvation. From the 14th century comes the Miracles de Notre-
Dame par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40
miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles
probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild.
By the 15th century, societies had been formed in various towns for the performance of
the increasingly elaborate mystery plays. In Paris the Confraternity of the Passion survived until
1676, though its production of sacred plays was banned in 1548. Notable authors of mystères are
Eustache Marcadé; Arnoul Gréban, organist and choirmaster at Notre-Dame, and his brother
Simon; and Jehan Michel. Arnoul Gréban’s monumental Mystère de la Passion (c. 1450,
reworked by Michel in 1486; The True Mistery of the Passion) took four days to perform. Other
plays took up to eight days. Biblical material was supplemented with legend, theology, and
elements of lyricism and slapstick, and spectacular stage effects were employed.
Secular drama
A crucial factor in the emergence of the comic theatre was the oral presentation of much
medieval literature. A natural consequence was complete dramatization and collaborative
performances by jongleurs and later by guilds or confréries (confraternities) formed for the
purpose.
The earliest comic plays extant date from the second half of the 13th century. Le Garçon
et l’aveugle (“The Boy and the Blind Man”), a simple tale of trickster tricked, could have been
played by a jongleur and his boy and ranks for some scholars as the first farce. At the end of the
century, the Arras poet Adam de la Halle composed two unique pieces: Le Jeu de la feuillée
(“The Play of the Bower”), a kind of topical revue for his friends, and Le Jeu de Robin et de
Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion), a dramatized pastourelle (a knight’s encounter with a
shepherdess and her friends) spiced with song and dance. The first serious nonreligious play was
L’Estoire de Griseldis (1395), the story of a constant wife.
The profane theatre eventually had its own societies of actors, such as the Basoches
(associations of lawyers and clerks) and the Enfants sans Souci (probably a special group of
Basochiens) in Paris. The societies frequently presented plays in triple bills: first a sotie, a slight,
sometimes satiric, sketch; next a moralité (morality play), a didactic and often allegorical piece;
and finally a farce. Some 150 farces have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries. Most are of
fewer than 500 lines and involve a handful of characters acting out plots similar to those of the
fabliaux. They use the octosyllabic rhyming couplet and may include songs, commonly in
rondeau form. By far the best is the unusually long La Farce de maistre Pierre Pathelin (c. 1465;
Master Peter Patelan, a Fifteenth-Century French Farce), a tale of trickery involving a sly
lawyer, a dull-witted draper, and a crafty shepherd.
