Netta Syrett

“ By the stir and noise in the crowd below, it was evident that the Shepherds’ play was awaited with great eagerness. There was a pushing and scrambling in the throng, which had greatly increased in numbers. Many people who had strolled away to get something to eat and drink had returned, and were trying to recover their lost places.
“Is this a funny play?” asked Colin.
“Yes,” said Master Gyseburn. “The Shepherds’ play, or at any rate the first part of it, is always expected to be amusing. It is an old custom, and the people would be very disappointed, and perhaps angry, if it were changed. ”

“ It may be delightful to find them still growing here and there, but just as some flowers belong to the spring and cannot live into the summer, so the real miracle plays which flourished in the spring-time of our country’s history have died away now that the country’s life is older.
There is in Europe at the present day only one important religious play to which, as in olden times, thousands of people flock, and that is called the Ober Ammergau Passion Play, and is given once in ten years. ”

“ As some of you may have noticed, the miracle plays to which long ago Colin and Margery listened were for the most part badly written, in such rough, uncouth verse, that a great deal of each play may be described as mere doggerel. Very few of them have any claim to be called literature. They are just rhyming stories, often very badly rhymed, to be acted before uncritical people, thousands of whom were poor and simple folk who, if the stories were sufficiently exciting and the actors well enough dressed, neither knew nor cared that the words were poor. ”

“ Little pink clouds like feathers were floating in the sky, across which flights of birds were winging their way to nests in the trees round the city.
“Giles will soon be home!” said Mistress Harpham. “If there’s time for one more play this evening I shall be mistaken. It will soon be dark.”
“Do they stop when it gets dark?” asked Margery.
“But there are lots more to come!” objected Colin, looking at the “pageant book” which Master Gyseburn held open on his knee. ”

“ The glover’s house was at the corner of the market-place, and the windows of all the houses surrounding it were hung with gay cloths, and packed from basement to roof with people.
Below, in the cobble-paved square, with a babel of noise and confusion, the poorer folk crowded.
“There won’t be any room when the play does come!” exclaimed Colin.
“The heralds will clear the way,” said Giles. “Last night it was such fun to watch them! They rode through all the town reading the proclamation. That’s a warning, you know, for every one to behave properly to-day.” ”

“ Some of the spectators sat on benches in front of the platform, and all the windows looking into the courtyard were filled with people, just as the windows overlooking that market-place in York were crowded, when miracle plays were acted long ago. And just as some of those plays began with the coming of a herald to explain what was going to take place, so this play of Everyman began with the appearance of a messenger or doctor. ”

“ So, though the play had been very sad, it ended with beautiful sights and sounds, and before the people in the audience moved, the Messenger stood once more alone upon the stage, warning them to bear the moral of Everyman in mind:
“Forsake pride (he said) , for he deceiveth you in the end;
And remember Beauty, Five Wits, Strength, and Discretion:
They all at the last do Everyman forsake,
Save his Good Deeds, there doth he take.
But beware, and they be small
Before God he hath no help at all....
For after death amends may no man make.” ”

“ He was looking down into the market-place, where a great square was marked out by gay banners stuck at intervals into the ground between the cobble-stones. Each banner had the arms of the city painted upon it, and all the flags fluttered bravely in the wind.
“They’re to mark the place where the pageant is to stand,” said Giles. “It’s arranged like that all over the town. Wherever a platform is to be placed, the banners are put to show the exact position.”
29
“Is Giles telling you all about it?” asked Master Harpham, leaning over the shoulders of his friends at the window to pat Margery’s head. ”

“ Just as Christian, the “Pilgrim,” 101 stands for any human being born into this world and passing through it on his way to another life, so Everyman means just what the word says. Every man or woman of us. Everyone, in fact; since every one of us is born into this world and, after journeying through life, has to pass out of it at the gate of death.
Though the play is so old (it was first written and acted, perhaps, in the reign of Henry V) , it remains true for people who live nowadays, and for the people who will live after us. ”

“ Very few men except those who belonged to the Church studied at all. Thousands of the rest could neither read nor write.
Now very naturally the Church considered that religion at least must in some way be taught and explained to these masses of ignorant folk. Whatever else they knew, or did not know, it was necessary that they should understand the faith they professed. They called themselves Christians, yet how were people who could not read, to learn even the Bible stories, or anything at all about the teaching of Christ? ”

“ Shortly after the fall of Lucifer, the curtains of the pageant closed upon the scene of God enthroned, surrounded by the good angels singing their praises to the one and only deity.
Margery, who had looked and listened in amazed delight, drew a long breath when this first play was over. Colin, no less excited, began at once to talk and to ask questions.
“Look! they are dragging the stage away!” he exclaimed, “There’s the man you called Robin Coke, and there’s Master Smith, pulling with all his might. Where are they going to take it now?” ”

“ Stepping down from the niche, it went out to seek the robbers who were hidden just outside the church. So terrified were they at the approach of a living saint when as they thought, only a statue had watched their theft, that they immediately restored the treasure, and tremblingly followed S. Nicholas into the church. The heathen, overjoyed and full of awe and wonder, fell at the saint’s feet. Then S. Nicholas bade him become a Christian, and worship the true God.
So the play ended, and the interrupted service went on. ”

“ Others watched their flock, wide awake and talking amongst themselves.
Suddenly, while interested and curious the congregation looked on, a blast of trumpets rang out, and before the startling sound had died away, echoing through the aisles and the arches, an angel in a robe of rose colour, with big white wings, appeared in the pulpit. Very sweet and clear his voice sounded as he announced tidings of great joy. Christ was born in Bethlehem. ”

“ But though this simple and beautiful old play is sometimes acted nowadays, and though many people are interested and touched whenever it is performed, yet, at any rate in England, the time for miracle plays has gone by.
If not wiser, the world has at least grown older since the days when crowds of simple and unlearned folk assembled in market-places, or on village-greens, to be taught the Bible history which they can now read for themselves. ”

“ Margery, who had never been to any big town before, looked about her with delight and amazement as they rode towards the inn where Dobbin and Jock were to be left in the stables till the evening. The narrow streets were paved with cobble-stones, and lined with houses which compared with the little cottage at home, seemed to her marvellously grand and imposing. ”

“ King Herod, the Wise Men, and the Massacre of the Innocents
That the children should long to see the pageant in which Herod appeared was no wonder, for he was a very well-known character in the miracle plays. Just as in some fairy tales the wicked giant is well known, and is always expected to be as wicked as possible, so in these plays Herod was always represented as a furious tyrant and a great boaster, who raged and stormed and used such exaggerated language that he seemed more like a madman than a sane human being. ”

“ For the “sepulchre” holds not death, but life—the lovely life of flowers.
This, you see, is another way of teaching people the meaning of the Resurrection.
The first plays, then, were religious plays, and they were acted in churches. But soon they grew so popular, and so many people crowded to see them, that the churches were not large enough to contain the throng, and by degrees the custom grew up of acting them outside the church, so that they might be seen by a much larger audience than the building itself could hold. ”

“ Roaring and stamping and raving, as he said of himself, the king rushed down the pageant steps and “raged” in the market-place amongst the people, to the delight of the grown-up folk and the terror of the children in the crowd. ”

“ But Margery was not happy till, having pushed their way out of the throng in the courtyard, they found themselves on the way to their kinswoman’s dwelling.
Master Harpham’s house appeared very grand to the children. It had a big carved doorway leading to the shop, and the rooms above seemed to them magnificently furnished, with their big oak chests, and their high-backed chairs with leather seats, and the ornamented beams across the ceiling. Mistress Harpham, a stout, rosy-faced dame, greeted them very kindly, and called to her son to come and be introduced to his little cousins. ”

“ You remember that William I conquered England in 1066—eight hundred years ago. Well, from the time that he and his followers came to this country the English race has been gradually growing into the nation to which we belong and into the sort of people we see round us every day. Even the very poorest English children nowadays go to school and can read and write. Children whose parents are not so poor learn much besides reading and writing, and thousands of the sons and daughters of rich or fairly well-to-do people go to college, and spend years of their life in study. ”

“ Margery said. She did not mind talking for a little while now, for there were no more painted scenes to look at, and she scarcely understood the speech which followed the command for “cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth” to come into existence.
In a moment however, her attention was again arrested, for the curtains were drawn, the pageant was pulled away, and, before it had disappeared, a new one, the third, had come into sight.
“This is the Cardmakers’ play,” said Giles, consulting his pageant book. “It is about God the Father creating Adam and Eve.” ”

“ It was a difficult problem, yet the monks and clergy conquered it. They thought of a way of teaching for which no books were necessary. A way moreover, by which hundreds of people could learn at the same time, merely by using their eyes and their ears. The life of Christ, the lives of the Saints, the whole Bible history, they discovered, could be shown to the people in the form of plays or acted stories. The clergy should write the plays, they agreed, and the clergy themselves should act them! ”

“ And when the grave covered both of them, Knowledge came near, and bending over it, said:
“Now hath he suffered that we all shall endure;
The Good Deeds shall make all sure.
Now hath he made an ending.”
She paused, listening, and in a joyful voice added:
“Methinketh that I hear angels sing,
And make great joy and melody,
Where Everyman’s soul received shall be.”
And indeed, almost before Knowledge had finished speaking, there appeared on the balcony, high above the stage, an angel with long wings of rose-colour ”

“ Then Fellowship, more than ever afraid, absolutely refused to go on a journey commanded by Death. If Everyman had wanted him to eat and drink with him, or to help him in any of his pleasures, he would never have forsaken him, he declared. Even if he had wanted him to commit murder he would have been ready to serve him. But this request was an impossible one, so impossible that he would not even accompany him as far as the town gates. ”

“ Thus it happened that by the end of the thirteenth century, about the time when Edward I was king, the clergy had left off acting, except at Christmas-time and at Easter, when, as usual, the Nativity scene, and the scene of the Resurrection were performed in the churches. Every other sort of religious play was henceforward acted by the laity (that is, by people who, whatever they may be by trade or profession, are not clergy) . So a class of men grew up who were paid for acting, and often gained their living in this way alone ”

“ All through those years which are known as the Middle Ages it was the custom for men who belonged to the same trade to form themselves into a society, or guild as it was called, to protect and help one another in their own particular work. Each trade had its own guild, and its own special saint as guardian. ”

“ Ober Ammergau is a village in Bavaria, and the play, acted by the villagers, deals with the last days of Christ on earth, and is so wonderful and so beautiful that it has become very celebrated.
In a far-away German village like Ober Ammergau, where the natives are simple folk living apart from the great world, such a performance as this is still possible, and still a beautiful thing. Nevertheless it remains true that for the great mass of people the age of miracle plays is over. ”

“ What is this, Giles?”
“Still the Creation. The earth is made now, and the birds and fishes and all the animals. This is the Plasterers’ pageant. Yesterday John Wiseman showed me all the pigeons he had got for it.”
“Pigeons?” echoed Colin.
“You’ll see,” said Giles, nodding. “I wonder whether I ought to go?” he added, looking back anxiously at his mother. “They’ll be doing the third play now at Mikelgate, as the second one has just reached us.”
“Plenty of time,” declared Mistress Harpham, reassuringly. “You needn’t go for another hour yet, my boy.” ”

“ Then, greatest of all, and more beautiful and resplendent than the rest, came Lucifer.
On him the Almighty conferred dignity and honour above all the other spirits He had created. He was the Star of the Morning, the great and splendid archangel. ”

“ Though in the time of Queen Elizabeth miracle plays were growing rare, it is just possible that Shakespeare as a boy may have seen some of them, and when he makes Hamlet say that one of the actors in the play-scene “out-herods Herod,” he may have been thinking of the particular stamping and shouting Herod whom he himself had watched. But in any case, during the lifetime of Shakespeare the memory of the furious king must have lingered in the minds of old people at Stratford-on-Avon, many of whom as children must 78 often have seen him blustering and screaming and ordering people to be killed. ”

“ When they arrived at the grave, they found seated beside it an angel, who said, “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.”
Then the story as it is told in the Bible went on, acted by the clergy, till one of them, representing Christ Himself, appeared to the rest, announcing that He had risen from the grave. At this point the whole choir burst into songs of “Alleluia,” and the play ended.
Like the “manger scene,” a memory of this old play persists in some religious customs which still linger. ”

“ So Everyman put on the sad-coloured robe, and was preparing to set forward on his journey with the two beautiful women, when Good Deeds told him that three other people must go with them, their names being Discretion, Strength, and Beauty. ”

“ He is to be Isaac in the play of Abraham’s Sacrifice.”
Colin and Margery looked with awe and amazement upon their cousin. He was a pretty boy of twelve, with fair hair hanging to his shoulders, and a pale, delicate little face.
“Won’t you be frightened?” whispered Margery, gazing at him with breathless interest.
“No; not very,” he said, laughing. “I have been in the plays before. Last year I was an angel.”
26
“Take them to the window, Giles!” called his mother. “It’s time we were in our seats. Little ones in the front; grown-ups at the back!” ”