Medieval theatre

The distinguishing features of medieval drama are its Christian content and its didactic purpose. Vernacular plays typically dramatized the lives of the saints, stories from the Bible, or moral allegories.

The biblical cycle plays, sometimes called mystery plays, were originally performed under church auspices, but by the late 14th century they were produced under the supervision of craft guilds (misteres) and performed in public places on the feast of Corpus Christi or during Whitsuntide. Fairly complete texts survive for the English cities of York, Wakefield, Chester, and an unidentified fourth town; two pageants are extant from the Coventry cycle. Similar cycles dramatizing events from the fall of Lucifer to the Last Judgment were produced on the continent.

Although they contained Old Testament and nativity

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1500), an English work probably derived from a Dutch original, is less typical of the genre in that it omits the fall and life in sin and instead dramatizes Everyman's summons by Death to account for his sins. The influence of the form can be seen in Doctor Faustus (1588?) by Christopher Marlowe and in the Falstaff scenes of Shakespeare's Henry IV, as well as in other Renaissance plays. It is marked by occasional obscene humor and various kinds of direct interaction between the audience and the performers. sequences, the cycles were primarily devoted to portraying the life and passion of Christ, his harrowing of hell, his resurrection and appearances to his disciples and to the two Marys, and his ascension. Some cycles centered on the life of the Virgin, but these were suppressed in Protestant countries during the Reformation period.

The most famous morality play, Everyman (c. 1470) depicted the fall and life in sin of its protagonist in an often farcical manner. These moralities were performed by professional and traveling troupes. In the most elaborate of these, the Castle of Perseverance (c. They reached their greatest expansion in the 15th and early 16th centurties but in England were suppressed as "popish" in the 1570s.

Protestant antagonism also accounts for the disappearance of most of the miracle, or saints, plays. 1425), the soul of Humanum Genus resides in a castle that is encircled by the forces of good (God, His Angels, and other agents) and evil (the World, the Flesh, the Devil, Covetise and the other Seven Deadly Sins). Typically the plays adhered as closely as possible--given their "translation" into verse--to the biblical narratives; the most atypical are those based on episodes that had been left undeveloped in the Bible, such as the visit of the Shepherds or Balaam and his ass, or those derived from legendary sources, such as plays about the Antichrist.

Not all morality plays were solemn, however; Mankind (c.

The morality play was an allegory that depicted the fall of a representative Everyman, his life in sin and folly, and his eventual redemption.

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