After the fall of the Roman Empire in c.476 AD, came a period known as the “DARK AGES”.

The Church was the only stable “government”.

During the Medieval period:The Christian Church controlled almost all aspects of society and dictate how things should be done.

• The Church declares theatre is evil, sacrilegious, and immoral – actors were forbidden to take communion

• Almost all Medieval art (painting, theatre, and music) centered on religious subjects and was created for religious purposes, commissioned by religious people …

• Education becomes the exclusive right of the clergy and upper classes…

Eventually, the very institution that banished theatre brings it

back!

The huddled masses won’t be kept in the dark.

The mass must be “illuminated” through liturgical drama!

Terms to know…Liturgical drama - Trope – Mansion – Platea - Pageant wagon – Hellmouth - Mystery play – Secular drama - Morality play – Farce - Miracle play – Interlude - Guild -

Trope – a small theatrical embellishment added to the silent part of mass

**these are used to “explain” the Latin text that the parishioners would not have been able to understand

**tropes are performed inside the church, at the altar, by the monks

**Christian tropes will be much the same throughout western Europe… therefore, theatre will be basically the same in Holland, France, Italy, and England at this time.

As the tropes gain in popularity, performances move from the altar to mansion stages (sedes) and platea (acting areas) throughout the church.• Stories are presented in pieces with dialogue, costumes, etc.

• Monks, choir & other church officials play the parts

• Audience moves from stage to stage, as the stories are presented sequentially

Medieval performance spaces:

1. Altar2. Mansion stages in

the nave3. On the church

steps or in the churchyard (depending on the size)

4. Pageant wagons in churchyard or the town marketplace

5. Pageant wagons that traveled from city to city

Eventually, tropes gain such popularity & complexity… must

move out of the churches into the churchyards

Pageant wagons – mansion stages, on wheels, outside the church, built by the city guilds

Drama gains popularity & begins to function independently of the church; although, plots remain liturgy-focused

**Corpus Christi plays about transubstantiation

(communion) are popular at this time!!

The role of the guilds…• By the late 14th & early 15th

Centuries…Performances become so popular that local

GUILDS take on the productions

-Water-drawers = “Noah’s Flood”-Butchers = “The Temptation & The Woman

Taken in Adultery”-Shipwrights = “The Building of the Ark”

• In the 15th C…Elaborate CYCLES of plays develop (24-48

plays that tell a series of related stories) written by various playwrights & named after the towns they were associated with:-4 Cycles preserved: Chester, N-Town, Wakefield, York

These dramas had 3 characteristics in common:

1. Aimed to teach or reinforce Church doctrine (church laws).

2. Good rewarded; evil punished (THE MAIN THEME!!!!)

3. God and his plan were the driving forces, not the characters.

Cycle Plays

End of the 14th Century tradition dictated that…

• All the plays presented throughout the church year be combined into a single presentation

• That presentation was named after the town it originated in (Wakefield cycle – 32 plays, York cycle – 48 plays)

• Humor is used in the plays, usually centering on the wife character

The plays…3 types of plays develop…

Mystery plays – stories from the life of Jesus

Miracle plays – stories of the saints

Morality plays – allegories teaching right & wrong

The Actors…

At the start – monks & other religious people

Later, as the pageant wagons gain popularity – laymen/guild members (local, working-class people) – all amateurs

WOMEN = not onstage (few exceptions made in late 1400’s)

COSTUMES = contemporary, the actors’ own clothes

VIOLENCE = much was included and visible to audience

“SECRETS” = were the special effects of the time (smoke, fire, fountains, “flying,”

The decline of Medieval theatre…

Beyond liturgical drama, there were other plays produced during this time: secular drama (non-religious)

**most popular type was farce (bawdy, risque, dealt with humanity’s depravity)

**also, there was the interlude (short comic plays), performed for local nobles in their homes

And, the Renaissance arrives!!**social structure changes, increased interest in classical learning, actors/companies start becoming professionals, and with Q Elizabeth I forbade religious plays in 1559.