Notes on the English mystery plays
Kathleen Campbell
Early medieval drama
Formal drama largely disappears after the fall of the Roman Empire. Mime troops, small touring companies who performed vaudeville-type acts and short plays, continue to play, but theatre is largely frowned upon by the church. Almost every church council and synod issued some kind of warning to players and their audiences, and the little we know about the mimes suggests that their performances were often lewd and violent. In Procopius's The Secret History, written during the middle of the sixth century AD, the author describes an act performed by Theodora, a notorious performer who later became Empress of the Byzantine empire:
When more formal drama re-emerged, however, it grew under the sponsorship of the church. The earliest records of medieval drama are the tropes, significant sections of the mass which were elaborated until they became short liturgical dramas. The Easter trope, for example, known as "Quem Quaeritis," consisted of the few lines exchanged between the three Marys and the angel when they visit Christ's tomb. Several existing variations of this trope show the development of the trope into a short liturgical play with characters, additional dialogue, set, props, costumes, and stage directions. A similar trope developed for Christmas, with the manger replacing the sepulchre and the shepherds greeting the Christ child replacing the three Marys. The sighting of the star and the adoration of the wise men provided a drama for Twelfth Day. These tropes were performed in Latin, utilizing church vestments and church music.
We do not know if these tropes evolved into the mystery plays or if the latter developed independently. Some scholars argue that as these short liturgical dramas became more common and encompassed more subjects, problems arose concerning the propriety of enacting certain scenes, or of monks playing certain kinds of roles. The addition of the Massacre of the Innocents, for example, forced the monks to deal with several potential problems: how should such a character like Herod be portrayed? was it appropriate to enact such terrible crimes in the church? was it unseemly for a monk to enact an evil character? (Part of the solution in the mystery cycles, typically medieval and in defiance of Biblical accounts, was to make Herod a Moslem.) Eventually the difficulties posed by subjects such as this, along with the growing length and complexity of the plays, may have encouraged the development of more elaborate plays than could be accommodated within the structure of the liturgy. Others argue that the tropes, performed in Latin by clerics in church vestments and using sacred music, are unlikely to have evolved into the mystery plays, which were performed in English by secular performers in secular dress and accented by folk music and dance. In addition, the tropes never died out, but continued to be included in the mass even as the mystery cycles developed.
While the liturgical plays may have influenced the content of the mystery plays, scholars see another probable influence in the well-established tradition of processions, dances, mummings, and folk plays. In England these were included in festivities at Plough Monday (the first Monday after Twelfth Night). May-Day, Midsummer Day (June 24), Harvest Home, and Christmas. These performances were in English, utilized secular costumes created especially for the event, and were staged in the town streets, squares and great halls by amateur players. Click here for the text of a typical mumming about the English folk hero, St. George; follow the links from the script for more information on mummings and the St. George play.
The mystery cycles
While the religious plays may have developed individually, the idea of forming them into cycles may have developed along with the connection of the performances to the celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi. This feast was first ordered by Pope Urban in 1264, but did not become a major time of celebration until the early fourteenth century. It occurred on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday (in the late spring or early summer, between May 23 and June 24), and celebrated the redemptive power of Christ through the miracle of the Host. The feast was celebrated by a procession of religious orders who visited churches and holy sites. The long days would have allowed for the elaboration of the celebration. Not dedicated to a specific event or saint, the feast provided great latitude for celebration and gradually became the focus for the presentation of religious plays gathered together into expansive cycles which portrayed the history of the world from creation to the last judgment.. Precisely when or how these plays became structured into cycles is not known, but the cycles, expansive though they are, are focused on the story of Christ. The betrayal, death and resurrection of Christ form the central events of the cycle, and most of the other plays can be seen to either foreshadow the Passion of Christ or reveal its consequences.
The Corpus Christi festival also became the occasion for trade fairs in the various towns which hosted the performances, and the various trade guilds assumed an important role in the production of the plays. The overall organization of the production was probably handled by a religious guild, but the local craft guilds contributed to the staging by providing the pageant wagons used for sets, necessary props and, perhaps, actors for minor roles. The major roles would be taken by members of the religious guild, which usually would also provide the stage director/ prompter (although there are some records of communities hiring an individual to stage their production). The connection between guild and play is often obvious, as can be seen in a list of the guilds that staged the various plays of the York cycle: the shipwrights are in charge of Building the Ark, the bakers provide the Last Supper. Other associations in the York listing suggest the relationship between religious festival and trade fair: the goldsmiths, by providing appropriately elaborate props for the Adoration of the Kings, have an opportunity to demonstrate their craftsmanship to potential buyers. Even if the overall organization was provided by a religious guild, the trade guilds had a significant role in the preparation and presentation of the plays, so much so that they gave the cycles their name. Each guild was responsible for the "mastery" (pronounced mystery) of its craft, and thus the plays they helped to produce became known as mystery plays.
Although manuscripts survived for only four cycles (along with fragments for a few others), the production of the plays in the British Isles was widespread. Playscripts or other records indicate productions of at least some plays at Aberdeen, Bath, Beverly, Bristol, Brome, Canterbury, Chester, Coventry, Dublin, Ipswich, Leicester, Norwich, Northampton, Newcastle upon Tyne, Wakefield, Worcester, and York, and probably at Lincoln and London.
The four more or less complete cycles come from York, Chester, Wakefield, and an unknown location in the East Midlands, and have strong resemblances to each other. Together, they give some sense of the date and development of the cycles. The York cycle contains forty-eight plays, dating from as early as 1378, but with revisions as late as the mid-sixteenth century. At Chester, a play was performed as early as 1375 and by 1467 eight guilds were involved in productions. More guilds gradually participate: twenty-four in 1500 and twenty-eight in 1540. The fourth cycle, named for Coventry but probably not performed there, seems to have been compiled from existing plays and is similar to the other cycles in content.
The cycle of plays usually known as the Towneley cycle, but associated with the village of Wakefield, is perhaps the best known, though not the most complete, of the English mystery cycle. The Wakefield cycle includes thirty-two plays, five of which, including The Second Shepherds' Play, were written or revised by an unknown author known as the Wakefield Master who also worked on several other scripts in the cycle. These new plays, characterized by a distinctive nine-line stanza, were probably added to the cycle at about the time the extant manuscript was copied in the mid-fifteenth century. Of the remaining plays many are very old (Isaac and Jacob were probably about a hundred years old in 1450), and others may have been borrowed from other cycles. Six of the plays are almost identical to plays in the York cycle.
The disappearance of the mystery cycles
Productions of the mystery cycles died out in the mid-sixteenth century. Because of their association with popery, the playing of the mysteries was discouraged in England after the divorce of Henry VIII. Some plays were subjected to censorship, and some disappeared entirely after being called in for perusal by local censors. (The plays dealing with the death, assumption and coronation of the Virgin are missing from the Wakefield cycle.) The Reformation also contributed to the abandonment of the cycles. Interestingly, the Catholic Church, at the Council of Trent, also called for an end to productions of religious plays, which they considered secular and anti-clerical. The productions were expensive, and it may be that some towns ran into economic problems (Europe suffered from severe inflation after 1550.). They may also have seemed obsolete in comparison with other kinds of dramatic fare increasingly available through touring companies taking the latest London hits into the provinces. No record exists of production of the Wakefield cycle, for example, after 1576. (Which is, conveniently if not significantly, the date of the construction of the Theatre--the first building constructed to house a professional theatre company-- in London.)
The staging of the mystery plays
The mystery cycles were staged annually, the presentation occurring on the two or three days preceding the feast of Corpus Christi. Several systems for staging the mystery plays are known. In some locations, the plays were staged outside of town in a "round," a construction of circular earthworks. The major scenes were played on scaffolding erected at various locations around the circle; these platforms contained rather generic sets--a palace, a cottage, a hell's mouth, etc.--which could be used for any play that required that location. The players stood on the platforms or on the ground in front of them (the platea), while the audience stood in the center of the round or sat on the banks in the empty spaces between the scaffolding. A drawing for the staging of an early fifteenth-century morality play, The Castle of Perseverance, illustrates this type of staging. Another scheme, an example of which is provided by the sixteenth-century Valenciennes Passion Play, would place a series of similarly generic settings in a row, with players moving to the appropriate area for each play and, again, utilizing the space in front of the platforms as well. Note that the staging possibilities include upper levels, where God might appear in the heavens, and a boat sailing on what seems to be a pond of water (see more on special effects below). The use of pageant wagons, however, is the staging most commonly associated with the mystery plays. Each wagon contained the set for a play or plays (again, a palace might be used for any play which required one). Some plays require multiple locations, in which case more than one wagon may have been used. They were paraded through the streets at the beginning of the festival and then located at points around town, quite possibly around the town square, or in a "round" or open space suitable for the production. The audience could shift its focus from pageant to pageant as the cycle of plays unfolded. Alternately, the wagons may have been moved into place as required for the various plays.
The stage effects which accompanied the mystery plays could be complicated and spectacular. Golden wheels revolving in opposite directions or clouds which parted to reveal God were often part of the equipment available; actors could be lifted above the playing area or descend from the heavens, singly or in numbers. Firecrackers were used for lightning and hell effects; devils are described as belching fire from their mouths and horns. At Coventry, someone was paid four pence for minding the fire which was kept going in the Hell-mouth and stirring it when needed. For the same cycle, three worlds were constructed for the Last Judgment and then burned during the performance. Animals required were often played by men in appropriate costumes, but sometimes by models containing machinery which allowed necessary movement. Scenes of torture or martyrdom were achieved by a variety of effects, including ingenious methods of substituting dummies for living actors during the action. Water effects were not uncommon and some of the pageants could apparently provide spectacular floods for the Deluge, probably using painted cloth (but at least one cycle describes an elaborate system for providing a very wet deluge on cue). Copper sheets and rotating casks of stones provided thunder. Some cycles had special basins for scenes involving baptism or boats. All in all, the productions must have been spectacular.
For a look at a modern production of the entire York mystery cycle, staged at the University of Toronto in the summer of 1998, visit the York Cycle 1998 page.
(Read Martial Rose's introduction to The Wakefield Mystery Plays, pp 34-54 for more information on staging.)
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