or episodes from the life of a saint during which miraculous events occur. Plays called
miracles were especially popular in France during the 13th and 14th centuries, a period
that corresponds not only with the growth of the cult of the Virgin Mary, but also with the
increase in the number of religious confréries and trade guilds, which were largely
responsible for performing these plays. Miracle plays had a double attraction: they were
religious works set in the real, secular world, and they were in essence dramatic, since by
definition their action led to a theatrical, supernatural climax.
Miracle plays in France form a bridge between liturgical drama and the mystery plays.
Latin liturgical drama included miracle-type plays, such as the Iconia sancti Nicolai, on
which legend vernacular plays were later written. After the 14th century, many so-called
mystery plays were based on material, like saints’ lives, that in the previous century
would have been called miracles by their authors. Thus, the label “miracle play,” both
then and now, corresponds not only to a type of dramatized material but also to a period.
The great majority of surviving miracle plays come from the 14th century, but two
13th-century texts, and a few from the 15th and 16th centuries, have also come down to
us. Jehan Bodel’s Jeu de saint Nicolas (Arras; 1194–1202; 1,538 lines) is arguably the
best and most original of all miracle plays. It dramatizes one of the several legends
associated with the saint—his power to protect, and even multiply, any treasure entrusted
to him—but sets the action in a crusading context. The Saracen king who announces that
his treasure is to be guarded merely by a statue of Nicolas is testing the claims of the only
survivor of a Christian army that his forces have been shown defeating. The thieves,
whose attempt to steal the treasure is thwarted by the brusque intervention of Nicolas,
appear as the cheating, drinking, gambling, and argumentative habitués of an Arras
tavern. The play, which has provoked many studies, is complex and many-layered:
serious yet comic, epic yet grotesque, exotic yet realistic. Rutebeuf’s Miracle de
Théophile (Paris; ca. 1260; 660 lines), a more uniform, poetic, even literary play,
dramatizes the legend of Théophile, who sells his soul to the Devil in order to regain a
bishopric he once turned down.
The collection of plays known as the Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages
(Paris; 1339–82; forty plays of 1,000–3,000 lines each), preserved in one fine illustrated
manuscript (B.N. fr. 819–20) is all that survives from the 14th century. A new play was
performed each year, early in December, by the Confrérie Saint Éloi, the patron of the
Guild of Parisian Goldsmiths, probably in the Guild Hall. The collection illustrates the
remarkable versatility of the miracle-play format: almost any secular narrative that
involves a man or woman who prays to the Virgin and who overcomes an obstacle in an
unexpected manner can be incorporated into a Miracle de Nostre Dame par personnages.
The variety of sources used by the authors of these plays is enormous; in every case, the
text is the dramatization of previously nondramatic narrative material. Thus, although
many plays are based on saints’ lives (Étienne, Panthaléon, Ignace, Valentin, Laurent,
Alexis), or on wellknown legends associated with the Virgin Mary, often drawn from
Gautier de Coinci (L’enfant voué au diable, Labbesse enceinte délivrée, La nonne qui
laissa son abbaye, Le paroissien excommunié), many others derive from secular
literature, such as epic (Ami et Amile), romance (La reine de Portugal, Robert le diable,
L’ impératrice de Rome, Le roi Thierry), or historical romance (Berthe femme du roi
Pépin, Le baptême de Clovis, La reine Bautheuch et ses fils). In one instance, the Enfant
ressuscité, the play is based on a “real” documented recent miracle.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1180