Miracle play

“ There is a palpable resemblance between the subject just quitted and that most characteristic product of the Middle Ages—the miracle play. It may be observed at the outset that instruction in those days, when reading was the privilege of the few, was apt to take the form of an appeal to the imagination rather than the reasoning faculty, and of all the aids of imagination none has ever been so effective as the drama. The Boy-Bishop celebration was not only the occasion of plays which sometimes necessitated the strong hand of authority for their suppression—it was distinctly dramatic in itself. ”

“ If one may believe, tens of thousands of [Pg 116] people used to tramp over the pathless downs to see a miracle-play, or a series of plays, performed in some natural amphitheatre. The plays speak for themselves. ”

“ As to the statement that the moral play arose, as if a new kind of play, from some modification of the miracle play, on the one hand by secular and comic interests, and on the other by allegorical motives and materials, I think that sufficient has been elsewhere said in this article to show that secular and comic interests existed in the miracle play without altering its essence, both before and after the moral had come into prominence, and that allegorical motives and materials had developed themselves into the moral pageant and play before the miracle was visibly affected by them. ”

“ Here, in the presence of God, Contemplation and the Virtues having appealed for an extension of mercy and forgiveness to man, Truth, Pity and Justice discuss the question of Redemption from their particular points of view until God interposes with his decision in its favour. Mention of this innovation in the Miracle Play seems advisable at this point, though its bearing on later drama will be more clearly seen in the next chapter.
Little need be said of the verse commonly used in Miracles, save to point out the preference for stanzas and for triple and quadruple rhymes. ”

“ The miracle play was a theatrical representation of scenes in the Scriptures, and it seemed to be popular in mediæval times, and the monks took part in it as active promoters. But there were some of these in every century after the third. In times when reading was impossible, and the fancy of the public was kept alive chiefly by the pictures and images in churches, it was natural that this cognate representation by means of actors on a stage should occur to those who catered for something like a recreation. ”

“ To complete the pedigree of this scene we must turn to the old poem, the "Cursor Mundi," which, written in the fourteenth century, the time when the northern miracle-plays were taking decisive shape, appears to have served their writers as a stock-book. The following passage is own brother to that in the York miracle-play:--
A ship must thou needs dight,
Myself shall be the master-wright. ”

“ A play such as this must have been a quaint and curious sight, and to us who live so many years after the people who gazed at it from some churchyard long ago, it seems childish and even occasionally horrible. But we are in many ways unlike those homely folk who used to stand open-mouthed in amazement before such a scene. We have read many books, and our ideas about religion have changed so much that it is difficult to imagine how greatly acting, even of this sort, must have impressed the simple minds of men and women who had read nothing, and were often full of fears and superstitions. ”

“ The hero of this play, who is represented as tinctured with nearly every crime which humanity can commit, has a miracle performed in his favour, and goes comfortably to Heaven after it, on account of his devotion to the cross. ”

“ The truth is, character and action, in the proper sense of the terms, were hardly thought of in the making of Miracle-Plays; the work aiming at nothing higher than a literal or mechanical reflection of facts and events; sometimes relieved indeed with certain generalities of popular humour and satire, but without any contexture of individual traits. The piece next to be noticed deserves remark, as indicating how, under the pressure of general dramatic improvement, Miracle-Plays tried to rise above their proper sphere, and still retain their proper form. ”

“ Miracle-plays become dramatic only when they become human. But the supernatural world, which the playwright does not bring before the foot-lights, may exist nevertheless in the minds of his characters and of his audience. ”

“ The dramatic exhibitions of the Middle Ages, which originated in the church, or were soon appropriated by the clergy, were of a religious cast, often composed by priests and monks who were frequently the performers of them in the convents. All the old religious plays called Mysteries were divided into Miracles, or Miracle plays, founded on Bible narratives or legends of the saints; and Moralities or Moral plays, which arose out of the former by the introduction of imaginary features and allegorical personages, the story being so constructed as to convey an ethical or religious lesson. ”

“ At the grave Knowledge stays outside, but Good-Deeds enters with Everyman, whose welcome to Heaven is announced directly afterwards by an angel. The epilogue, spoken by a Doctor, supplies a pious interpretation of the play.
Such are the stories of the two best known Moralities. From them we can judge how great a change had come over the drama. Nowhere is there any incident approaching the nature of 'The Sacrifice of Isaac', nowhere is there any character worthy to stand beside the Mary of the Miracle Play. Those are the losses. ”

“ The Guary miracle—in English, a miracle-play—is a kind of enterlude, compiled in Cornish out of some Scripture history, with that grossenes which accompanied the Romanes vetus Comedia. For representing it, they raise an earthen amphitheatre in some open field, having the diameter of his enclosed playne some forty or fifty foot. The country people flock from all sides, many miles off, to heare and see it, for they have therein devils and devices, to delight as well the eye as the eare ”

“ Through a course of Mysteries, Miracle-plays—illustrating Scripture, history, legend, and the sufferings of the martyrs,—Moralities, in which the vices were in antagonism against the virtues, and Chronicle-plays, which were history in dialogue, we finally arrive at legitimate Tragedy and Comedy. Till this last and welcome consummation, the Church as regularly employed the stage for religious ends, as the old heathen magistrates did when they made village festivals the means of maintaining a religious feeling among the villagers. ”

“ The names read like an enumeration of such personages as were ordinarily introduced into the Moral-plays of an earlier period—indeed, one of them seems to be derived from the still more ancient form of Miracle-plays, frequently represented with the assistance of the clergy. ”

“ This afterwards was extended to the representation of the passion of Christ and religious subjects generally, not only what appertained to the history of the Church but to what was theological, under the titles of miracle plays, mysteries, and moralities, to which a recent writer has felicitously given the general name of the monastic drama. ”

“ Richer. As a man is always in danger of talking nonsense in dealing with a subject concerning which his knowledge is superficial, I shall not undertake to pronounce upon the validity of the theory which is here advanced. The play is an inquiry into the significance and authenticity of miracles. Incidentally the theme is faith-healing, the hypnotic effect of prayer, and kindred phenomena. [Pg 82]
Pastor Sang, a clergyman in a remote parish of Northern Norway, is famed far and wide as the miracle-priest, and it is popularly believed that he can work wonders, as the apostles did of old. ”

“ In the same direction of advance various steps had also been taken by other saints' plays, purely legendary, like the Sancta Katharina already mentioned, and by such a 'marvel' as the Sacrament Play, or Miracle of the Host, which we shall presently describe. A movement in advance had, moreover, been made by our early secular drama, which comprised, besides the farce interlude prepared by scholars for profane consumption, like the Interludium de Clerico et Puella, certain popular festival plays, for instance, the Hox Tuesday and Robin Hood, and plays of saints turned national heroes like St. ”

“ Yet, although for generations the play remained religious in subject-matter and intent, it was inevitable that in time it should come to realize that its function was to body forth human life, unbounded by Bible themes: all that can happen to human beings on earth and between heaven and hell and beyond them, being fit material for treatment, since all the world's a stage, and flesh and blood of more vital interest to humanity at large than aught else. ”

“ The Play of the Mass has been wrought through centuries out of the finest intuitions, the loftiest aspirations, of a long succession of the most sensitively spiritual men of their time. Its external shell of superstition may fall away. But when that happens the play will gain rather than lose. It will become clearly visible as the Divine Drama it is, the embodied presentation of the Soul's Great Adventure, the symbolic Initiation of the Individual into the Spiritual Life of the World. ”

“ The acting of plays has been not only the one recreation of their life, otherwise hard-worked, sombre, and stern,—it has been their one channel for the two greatest passions of the human heart,—love of approbation and the instinct of religious worship; for the Oberammergau peasant, both these passions have centred on and in his chance to win fame, please his priest, and honor God, by playing well some worthy part in the Passion Play. ”

“ Those you have spoken of are no miracles at all. The operations of nature, even when most extraordinary, are not miracles. Miracles are above the power of nature, and contrary to her laws. All that you have brought forward is child's play, mere nonsense. ”

“ This entire manifested or out-breathed universe is, he says, the expression of the divine desire for holy sport and play. The Heart of God enjoys this myriad play of created beings, all tuned as the infinite strings of a harp for contributing to one mighty harmony, and all together uttering and voicing the infinite variety of the divine purpose. ”

“ They all lived within the compass of a century, and they all appeal to their personal knowledge, or the public notoriety, for the truth of a miracle, which was repeated in several instances, displayed on the greatest theatre of the world, and submitted during a series of years, to the calm examination of the senses.” He adds in a note that “the miracle is enhanced by the singular instance of a boy who had never spoken before his tongue was cut out.” ”

“ All the world was agog for great events—and nothing happened. It reminded me of a mystery play in which, after great preparation of dialogue, some great stage effect is going to be produced—a saint is going to ascend to heaven, or a mountain is to open and the devil spring out. ”

“ We took the idea as a motive for make believe, and if one plays at being a child, one must complete the game, turn loose the overworked horses of every day, Proof and Reason, and harness in their places Instinct and Belief, steeds who may be trusted to know the straightest road to happiness. As to the Maying part, that is a play also, and, at least in the New England country, a game of chance if you do not know the moves, but an ecstasy if the combinations fall right. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the world whereon she stood or floated—for our commonplace to them would be miraculous, while what we call miracle is there a daily happening—there was a stir and moving to and fro, as of leaves swayed by a sudden breeze. One of their number had willed to leave them, and seeking our earth—known to him as the theatre of the wondrous drama of redemption—to don our uniform of flesh and strike one good blow against sin. ”

“ Winning at games was considered to be done as a result of supernatural aid, which was invoked throughout the period of play. Bargaining, pleading, and threatening were all methods used to bring supernatural favor upon one’s activities and to dispel any unfavorable supernatural influences. ”

“ These plays were meant to teach just as the Miracles were meant to teach. But instead of teaching the Bible stories, they were made to show men the ugliness of sin and the beauty of goodness. When we go to the theater now we only think of being amused, and it is strange to remember that all acting was at first meant to teach.
The very first of our Moralities seems to have been a play of the Lord's Prayer. It was acted in the reign of Edward III or some time after 1327. ”

“ Play Fair. For fair play is truth and foul play is treachery.
Reverence the Great Spirit, and all worship of Him, for none have all the truth, and all who reverently worship have claims on our respect. ”