Miracle Play
or Mystery, a form of dramatic composition popular during the latter part of the Middle Ages. These plays had their origin in the offices of religion. It must be remembered that the church services were entirely in Latin, not understood by the congregation, and only the priests were able to read. The clergy, in order to instruct the people, introduced certain scenic representations of events they wished to commemorate or make impressive. For instance, on Good Friday the crucifix might be buried to illustrate the death and burial of the Saviour. On Easter Sunday it would be brought from the tomb with appropriate ceremonies to celebrate the resurrection. Originally those Mysteries, as they were called, were scenes connected with the birth, life, and death of Christ; but gradually other Bibical narratives were represented. The plays became more elaborate. Dialogue and music were introduced. The next step was the "Miracle Play," differing from the Mystery in that it presented scenes from the legends of the saints and the miracles connected with them. The words, Miracle Play and Mystery, have come to be used indiscriminately for either variety of play.
At first, these plays were short. Both authors and actors were ecclesiastics. The scene was represented in the church. Later a scaffolding was erected at the church door and the play was acted upon this. Then the churchyard was chosen for the representation and, as the plays became more and more popular, the village green, and at last the town street, became the place of entertainment.
The first Mystery represented in England was produced about 1110; the last about 1600. During the fourteenth, fifteenth, and a large part of the sixteenth century their popularity was universal. Those presenting Biblical subjects were played in England almost to the exclusion of the Miracles, or those concerned with the lives of saints. It became customary to arrange these plays in a series or cycle, so that the main events from the Creation to Doomsday were enacted. Each large town had its own cycle of plays carefully preserved and acted from year to year. Four cycles, those of York, Chester, Coventry, and Townley, have been preserved. The Townley cycle received its name from Townley Hall in Lancashire. The others are named from the places where they were performed. The York cycle contains forty-eight plays. The actors were selected frequently from the members of various trades guilds, each guild becoming responsible for the performance of some one play. In some instances an effort seems to have been made, possibly with an appreciation of the humor displayed, to select guilds appropriate to the subjects of the plays. For instance, the ship carpenters played Noah and the building of the ark; the bakers played the Last Supper; the butchers, the Crucifixion. Often the stage or platform was movable, like a great box on wheels. This pageant, as it was called, would stop at given points, when the actors would throw open the doors and perform their parts, each pageant performing one play in the series.
The pageant was in two stories. The lower story was used as a dressing room, its entrance from the upper story being the only part visible to the spectators. This entrance was called "Hell Mouth," and had the form of huge jaws, whence issued fire and smoke from time to time as the action of the play required. Sometimes a third story was added to represent Heaven. The main stage was the world. On it the spectators saw enacted the story of Creation, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Cain's murder of Abel, The Deluge, stories of Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, the Slaughter of the Innocents, and all the New Testament stories. The acting was frequently excellent. The stage setting was crude and sometimes absurd. Placards often explained what certain structures were intended to represent. The costumes were as elaborate as funds would permit. The Deity, saints and angels were distinguished by gilt hair, beard, or wings. Often rough pranks and coarse jokes were introduced, the comic element becoming gradually a large part of the performance. Herod, clad in gorgeous robes, left the stage and rode on horseback among the people bragging of his exploits. The Devil would issue from Hell Mouth, as horrible as the skins of beasts, a horn, tail, and cloven hoofs could make him, leap from the stage and play pranks upon the spectators. Sometimes a little real comedy would be introduced. In the Play of the Shepherds, while the shepherds are watching their flocks at night, a certain man named Mab appears. The shepherds, knowing him, are suspicious. They put Mab in the center of the circle when they lie down to sleep. When they begin to snore Mab jumps up and steals a sheep. In that time sheep stealing was a crime punishable by death. When Mab reaches home, therefore, with his sheep, his wife is alarmed and hides the sheep in the baby's cradle. The shepherds come to find it, but are warned not to wake the baby. At last the sheep is discovered, Mab is threatened with death, but instead is tossed into the air from a canvas till the shepherds are tired out. It must be borne in mind that these illiterate people were like children. The incongruities did not trouble them. Their imaginations were powerful, if uncultivated, and overlooked the absurdities. They could weep at the Crucifixion and laugh at the Devil's pranks almost in the same breath. Moreover, they were not accustomed to mental effort, and the comic element, absurd and even irreverent as it seems, was necessary to relieve the strain of the more serious performance.
"Moral Plays," or "Moralities," were introduced in the fifteenth century. In these the virtues and vices were personified and the plays represented these powers of good and evil as engaged in a struggle for the soul of man. Such characters as Pride, Gluttony, Temperance, and Good Deeds appear. Everyman in the Castle of Perseverance was a type of man in his earthly life. Naturally enough the Morality Plays were less entertaining than the Mysteries. The Devil was retained, however, to enliven the action; and Vice came to be a prominent figure, acting the part of clown to the Devil. These two, the Devil and Vice, were the great favorites in the days of the Morality Play.
The next step leading inevitably toward the modern drama was the Interlude. This was nothing more nor less than a very short farce, comic, satirical, introducing current events and presented in the intervals of a banquet.
Miracle Plays are still performed in many Roman Catholic countries. The Passion Play performed once in ten years at Ober-Ammergau, Bavaria, is an example. This is purely a religious festival and presents none of the absurdities which characterized the Miracle Play of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in England.
On the other hand, while the Miracle Plays left no traces of themselves in our serious drama, the play of Punch and Judy looks very like an impoverished descendant of theirs.--Lowell.
Crude as these miracle plays were, enlivened as they were at times by a coarse and incongruous humour, they were the result of an honest effort to make a great theme real and living to simple and ignorant audiences.--Pancoast.