What Exactly are the York Mystery Plays?
Siobhain Bowen
01/12/03
English Seminar
Mystery Plays
What Exactly are the York Mystery Plays?
An Approach?
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 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. 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. The cycle plays rarely made use of allegorical figures, although the historical persons depicted were often represented as moral types. 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. Only two such English plays are extant: the Conversion of Saint Paul is a straightforward narrative history similar to the biblical cycles; however, the Mary Magdalene combines elements of the biblical cycles with the framework of the morality.
The morality play was an allegory that depicted the fall of a representative Everyman, his life in sin and folly, and his eventual redemption. In the most elaborate of these, the Castle of Perseverance (c.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). The play follows his life, its climax being a battle in which the forces of good beat off the evil ones with a barrage of roses, symbols of Christ's passion.
Not all morality plays were solemn, however; Mankind (c.1470) depicted the fall and life in sin of its protagonist in an often farcical manner. It is marked by occasional obscene humor and various kinds of direct interaction between the audience and the performers.
The most famous morality play, Everyman (c.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. These moralities were performed by professional and traveling troupes. 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.
The mystery plays as defined in the encyclopaedia online is: mystery plays, cycle plays form of medieval drama that came from the dramatization of the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church. It developed from the 10th - 16th century., reaching tis height in the 15th century, The simple lyric character of the early texts, as shown in the Quem Quoeritis, was enlarged by the addition of dialogue and dramatic action. Eventually the performance was moved to the churchyard and the marketplace. Rendered in Latin, the play was preceded by a prologue or by a herald's salute. When a papal edicit in 1210 forbade the clergy to act on public stage, supervision and control of presenting the plays passed into the hands of the town guilds and various changes ensued. The vernacular language replaced Latin and scenes were inserted that were not from the Bible. The acting became more dramatic as characterization and detail became more important.
Based on the Scriptures from the creation to the Second Coming and on the lives of the saints, the plats were arranged into cycles, and were given church festival days; particularly the feast of Corpus Christi lasting from sunrise to sunset. Each guild was responsible for the production of a different episode. Wit simple costume and props, guild members, who were para actors, performed on stages equipped with wheels; each scene was given at one public square and drawn onto its next performance at another, while a different stage succeeded it.
Named after the town in ...
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Based on the Scriptures from the creation to the Second Coming and on the lives of the saints, the plats were arranged into cycles, and were given church festival days; particularly the feast of Corpus Christi lasting from sunrise to sunset. Each guild was responsible for the production of a different episode. Wit simple costume and props, guild members, who were para actors, performed on stages equipped with wheels; each scene was given at one public square and drawn onto its next performance at another, while a different stage succeeded it.
Named after the town in which they performed the principal English cycles are the York Plays (1430-40) the longest containing 48 plays; the Townley or Wakefield Plays (c1450 in Yorkshire) the Coventry Plays (1468) and the Chester Plays (1475-1500). The Passion Play is the chief modern example of the miracle plays.
The English mysteries and miracle plays in general for moralities, in this respect are to be judged from a somewhat fervent point of view and the plays of the former class combined in the 4 great cycles described below in particular, posses certain artistic features and qualities which entitle them to a place in out literature, not merely as interesting remains of a relatively remote phase of our natural civilised. They were written to please as well as to edify; and in some of them, which were almost indisputable from the hands of ecclesiastics, the literacy sense or instinct may occasionally be said to overpower what sense of propriety existed in the writers.
The great English collective mysteries are of course, differentiated by linguistic as well as literacy features; for while both the York and Townley Plays are written in the Nathumbrian dialect, which suits so many of their characteristics though it makes them by no means easy reading; we seem in the Chester and Coventry Plays to be moving on ground less remote from the more common forms of 15th century English. There is however a slose connection between te Townley and York Cycle Plays: there seems a recognition of the expediency of maintaingin the octosyllabic metre as the staple metre of the drama, though, as has already been noticed , the as and most conspicuous writer of all who has a hand in these plays enriched them by the introduction of a new and elaborate stanza of A.W. Pollards own work. 1
New Intro??/
Around 900 AD, the Catholic Church was losing in terms of the common people, mainly because the services were upheld in Latin, which was becoming less understood by the commoners. The Church did several things to regain peoples interests ; they added sculptures, paintings, images, frescoes, crucifixes, pictures windows and short biblical enactments.
The first of these enactments was the scene of the 3 Mry's to the sepulchre of Christ on Easter morning and in their interview with the angels. This scene consisted of 4 sentences in Latin. It as well received and the Church expanded this and added other scenes as part of the services. Eventually, many holidays on the church calendar had scenes from the bible assigned to them for which would be enacted on that day. For instance, on Christmas, the Gospel Stories of the Shepherds, the Magi, and the Slaughter of the Innocents were portrayed. As these "miracle plays" or "mystery plays" became more complex and popular and required more elaborate sets, cramming the audience to the back of the room, disorder and riots among the audience became a problem. This along with the excessive length of the developed plays forced the Church to move the plays audiences, in the church porch, church yard or public square. Once moved outside, the plays were subject to the cold and wet weather that was likely on Christma and Easter. It was no longer practical to hold the plays on holidays. Instead the performances were combined in May/June, known as Corpus Christi Day.
Before the play moved to Corpus Christi, many of the plays were beginning to be presented in the vernacular rather than in Latin. The plays were beginning to have a greater depth than just summaries of the biblical text. Characters and humour were emerging. The miracle plays, by strict delineation, depicted a miracle performed by some saints, his relics, or images, or the suffering and death of some martyr. This form allowed the writer considerable freedom as a literary art. The annual presentation of Corpus Christi represented the height of the mystery plays. This period lasted from roughly 1400-1600. The Church did not put on Corpus Christi; instead professional guilds were in charge of presenting the scenes. Each professional guild such as the tailors, butchers, carpenters, etc., was assigned a scene to produce. Each guild was bound under penalty to produce it's play "well under duty." The guilds took pride in impressive performances and often spent considerable money and manpower on their plays. With the separation of the plays from the Church, the primary goal became entertainment, although the content continued to be biblical. Comedy, entertainment and realism became essential parts of the plays. Small talk and other casual and realistic conversation was integrated into the play as well as vulgar and even blasphemous language. Characters that were barely mentioned in the Bible such as Mrs. Noah, were given large speaking parts, many of them for comic relief. Characters were also developed for dramatic effect, to create sympathy and other feelings.
The plays were performed in a "cycle", as the entire set is called. The first play would be Creation and the Fall of Satan, and the total set od from 18to42 plays would contain all the major scenes from the Bible, shown chronologically. The stage was a scaffold on wheels, a kind of 2-story float. The bottom story was curtained off for the actors to dress and wait for their entrance. The top story was an open stage that could be seen from all sides, with the set and props built into it. Such elaborate props as a fire spewing dragonhead were used. When the festivities began, the first scene would be role into the first "station" and perform their play. When they were done, they would role to the second station and perform again, the second scene taking their place at the first station and performing. It would go on like this until every station had been seen in the play.
The cycles appealed to all social classes, from royalty to peasants; they all came in to watch the plays. The festivities were announced throughout town and the neighbouring provinces. Cycles instilled a love of drama in the people. This popularity allowed for later forms of drama. Cycles originated the dramatical ideas of characterization, realism, and humor in English drama.
The decline of mystery plays can be attirbutedto2major factors. The popularity of the plays relied somewhat on the unwavering belief in the Bible and the Church. When loyalty to the Church began to break up, and different factions denounced the plays, their popularity waned, and their representations became sparse. Also, the guilds began requesting to be exempt, and even paying fines not to participate in plays, as presenting a scene was a costly affair.
The problem?
'The medieval drama best known as the mystery - the biblical plays customarily gathered into expanded cycles in celebration of the Feast of the Corpus Christi- remains indeed a mystery.' (Prosser, Drama and Religion in the English Mystery Plays; p.3) When first glanced, the paradox seems inexplicable. According to Prosser, the mystery cycles have been the province of historians, literary, social and theatrical. Apparently in Great Britain, where the life of the cycles are relatively "short" there is tremendously overwhelming evidence that the so called "common people" responded to the plays with an enthusiasm and devotion perhaps unmatched in the history of the theatre. When one considers the origin of the mystery plays within the medieval church, an origin without any thought of dramatic or histrionic effect, and when one considers also how these plays passed into the hands of very simple medieval people ... one can see their technique was inevitably naïve. (Prosser:7) `
The century that gave rise to the mystery cycles in Britain also saw a striking change in the graphic and plastic arts. (Prosser: 13) Symbolic representations of a radiant Christ and His Passion were characteristic of the thirteenth century. By the end of the 14th century however, Christ was portrayed as a human sufferer, rather than as triumphant king or teacher. The mystery cycles are a counterpart of this Late Gothic art with its unflinching realism. To the average modern Christian, the Crucifixion of Christ, is for the most part an abstraction, 'to be sure, with real meaning in human experience.' (Prosser:14) The dead body is conceived as symbol. In his meditations, does the modern Christian count the wounds, feeling each one as a physical fact? Does he picture the jostling raucous crowd below the cross? More pertinent, does he ever stop and think how exactly Christ was put on the Cross? The thought of the nails tearing through flesh, of sinews bursting from the weight of the sagging body, offends our sense of fitness. Is it not inevitable then, that modern critics, many of whom probably not class themselves as devout Christians, look with condescension on the childish people of the 14th and 15th centuries for needing the physical evidence of Christ's agony? (Prosser:14)
To the audiences at York, the biblical stories were factual history. The York crucifixion was more than culmination of a religious festival, more than the culmination of a religious festival, more than a colourful act of communal devotion, more than a historic pageant. It was living truth, both past and present. To the citizen of York, this was gis forefather Adam, his fall, his Christ whom he daily crucified again by his sin. The mystery plays flourished over two centuries, calling forth the money and energy, and the devoted enthusiasm of over ten generations of hardheaded beef eating Englishmen. One must fully understand that religion gave birth tot e drama of the middle ages. Gardiner has suggested a challenging touchstone: a sympathetic treatment of the mystery cycles "would enable him to feel how essentially right the arms of the Middle Ages was when he spoke of the Blissful passion. (Prosser: 15) As a result of modern prejudice, we have ignored the one key in which can unlock the medieval mystery; the religion which was, indeed, its lifeblood.
Approach
Such devoted scholars and directors such as E. Martin Browne and Glynne Wickham have provided the incentive for over half a dozen produtions of the cycles throughout Britain. Several producers attempted to recapture the original community spirit of festivity. Browne's production and approach of the York cycle for the Festival of Britain in 1951 opened the door on exciting prospects. (Prosser 43) For the mystery plays to be truly understood, a new approach must require that we analyze the plays plays with reference to their actual staging. This is a dramatic requirement valid for all drama. It is true that we can evaluate Oedipus Rex without reference to the Theater of Dionysis and still find it a powerful tragedy. It is indeed unjust to reject a play as "bad drama" because it does not meet certain standards or criteria that was irrelevant at the time of its creation. If the true potentialities of any drama are to be understood, the critic must identify himself with the audience watching a production under conditions that the playwright intended. (Prosser: 45) The medieval dramatist was concerned neither wih man in relation to his immediate physical environment nor with man in relation to the cosmic unknown,
By defining a play as any independent unit, one does not mean to imply that we suspend judgement. We may find that a single play produced on a pageant wagon is not a self contained drama but merely preparatory narration for a play to follow. If so, I submit that we shall be justified in labelling it a bad play. Similarly, we may find that a sequence of episodes produced on a stationary stage is really a collection of disjointed scenes. If so, we may be justified in criticizing it as an unfocused patchwork- again, a "bad play". (Prosser: 56)
Given, then, a single mystery play, what critical standards can we apply? It has generally been assumed that none is relevant to medieval drama. The argument is threefold: 1) the plays are a product not of conscious authorship but of folk growth; 2) the plays were religion not drama, devised for the purpose of worship not entertainment; and 3) since the plays were based on fixed subject matter, the author was nor free to exercise selectivity and thus could not create art. The arguments are persuasive but are they tenable? (Prosser: 56) The first is the easiest to answer A medieval cathedral is also a product of folk growth, a basic structure that was modified by the work of many artisans, yet it can be judged as a work of architecture despite the modifications and accretions of individual craftsman over the centuries. Remiss Cathedral stands completed and is evaluated as a completed work of art. Unless we assume that revisions in a mystery play were unconscious accidents, surely the analogy is relevant. The completed work of art stands. (Prosser: 56)
The second argument can also be answered by analogy. If religious purpose makes aesthetic evaluation irrelevant, should the critic dismiss Giotoo's Adoration of the Magi as a mere historical artefact of the Church? No one has ever argued that religious purpose makes a painting makes a play non-drama on these grounds. ... Let us grant the medieval playwrights their primary motive, noting of course, that as critics of drama we are still completely free to judge their results on aesthetic not religious grounds.
The third and most common argument is that the medieval playwright was not free to be a selective artist. One must try and grant the possibility that the plays may be a result of the conscious artistry. It is said to be true that the biblical story of Cain automatically determined the plot of all of Cain's plays, we would see no reason to analyse the plot of a given play. Can a play present a conflict resolved? All good drama is unified by some central dramatic question posed in human terms that capture the audience's interest. (Prosser: 59) Most plays present us with a plot but do they also present us with a story? According to Prosser, the story is merely the series of chronological happenings, merely the playwright's raw material while plot, on the other hand, is the way in which a given playwrights develops the story. The "what" happens is only the beginning; its up to the playwright to develop and determine the "when," "where," and "how." There is much confusion at this point and is probably why scholars have not looked for evidence of conscious technique on the mysteries. For instance, the biblical story of Cain, was in a sense, a "foxed story" but a "fixed story" does not detemine a fixed plot. The dramatic role is not less to say concerned with the given narrative instead he is concerned with the playwright's skill in showing how and why events happen. He is concerned with the playwrights skill in showing how and why events happen.
Given the play, does it mold the occurrences of the story into a play, into a tightly interrelated casual sequences? We may say of all drama that it is bad when it is episodic, when the playwright merely transcribes unrelated events chronologically without fitting them into a sequence of causes and consequences. (Prosser: 59) One may say that of all drama that it is good only when the "plot incidents are so closely knit together that nothing in the structure could be either removed or transposed without marring the total effect."
"Mystery Play". Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2003.Encyclopedia Britannica Premium Service. 26 November, 2003 http://www.britannica.com
