LITURGICAL DRAMA
. From the beginning, the liturgy of the medieval church had many dramatic
characteristics, but ceremonies that might be called dramas in their own right developed
only in the 10th century. One of the first steps in this development was the insertion of
tropes into the liturgy. These were short chanted texts that sometimes took the form of
dialogues. The Easter trope Quem quaeritis represented the dialogue between an angel
and the three Marys at the tomb of Christ; the earliest surviving text (ca. 923–34) is from
the monastery of Saint-Martial at Limoges. Though at first the trope was only sung, by
the end of the century we find it embedded in a short play, the Visitatio sepulchri, in
which the events of Easter morning were acted out. Some versions of the Easter play
include a scene in which Peter and John race to the tomb. Others add a scene in which the
risen Christ appears to his followers. These plays were usually inserted into the liturgy at
the end of Matins, and, in keeping with the character of the service, they were sung in
Latin.
A similar trope sung during the Christmas liturgy was at first a simple dialogue
between the three shepherds and the midwives at the manger. This trope, too, became
part of a short play, the Officium pastorum, though it was never as widespread as the
Easter play. Associated with the feast of Epiphany, the Officium stellae reenacted the
visit of the Magi to Bethlehem and seems to have had a much wider extension than the
shepherds play. Some versions of the Magi play add the character of Herod, a few
making him the center of the action. These were also sung in Latin, usually at the end of
Matins.
Though works of this kind continued to be performed in churches and monasteries all
over Europe throughout the Middle Ages, some dramas of a liturgical nature were played
outside the context of the liturgy. The richest collection of these is the so-called Fleury
playbook, a 12th- or 13th-century manuscript from the monastery of Fleury near Orléans,
today called Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire. Of the ten plays included, four are highly developed
versions of the Christmas and Easter plays, in addition to four St. Nicholas plays, a
Conversion of St. Paul, and a Raising of Lazarus, The sophistication of these works
suggests that they were conceived as theater independent of ritual, rather than as
embellishments of the liturgy.
Alan E.Knight
[See also: SPONSUS; THEATER; THEATER, LATIN]
Campbell, Thomas P., and Clifford Davidson, eds. The Fleury Playbook: Essays and Studies.
Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 1985.
Flanigan, C.Clifford. “The Liturgical Drama and Its Tradition: A Review of Scholarship 1965–
1975.” Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama 18 (1975):81–102; 19 (1976): 109–36.
Young, Karl. The Drama of the Medieval Church. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1933.
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