——. Voices and Instruments of the Middle Ages. London: Dent, 1987.
MYSTERY PLAYS
. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the French term mystère was frequently applied to
dramatic representations of sacred history and lives of the saints. The word derives from
the Latin ministerium and was a synonym of métier, meaning craft or trade. It was also
used to designate a liturgical office or service. In a dramatic context, it had the meaning
of representation or act and was thus analogous to the Italian sacra rappresentazione and
the Spanish auto sacramental. One of the earliest occurrences of the term in this sense is
found in the letters patent by which Charles VI established the Confrérie de la Passion
(1402) and granted its members the right to play misterres, tant de saincts comme de
sainctes, et mesmement [le] misterre le la Passion. Over the next two centuries, the term
mystère appears in the titles of a number of biblical and saint plays, such as Jean Michel’s
Mystère de la Passion and Jean Molinet’s Mystère de saint Quentin. The term was also
applied to the mimed scenes that were staged along the procession routes of noble entries.
Gradually, the term was generalized and applied to other types of serious drama. When in
1548 the Parlement de Paris banned the playing of mystères sacrés in that city, the
staging of mystères profanes was permitted to continue.
Alan E.Knight
[See also: MIRACLE PLAYS; PASSION PLAYS; THEATER]
Petit de Julleville, Louis. Les mystères. 2 vols. Paris: Hachette, 1880, Vol. 1, pp. 187ff., 412ff.
Runnalls, Graham A. “Form and Meaning in Medieval Religious Drama.” In Littera et Sensus:
Essays on Form and Meaning in Medieval French Literature Presented to John Fox, ed.
D.A.Trotter. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1989, pp. 95–107.
MYSTICISM
. Word now most often used for what would have been called “contemplation”
(contemplatio) in the medieval Latin tradition. In its narrowest meaning, mysticism
involves a personal experience of the unmediated presence of Absolute Reality or, to use
the Christian designation, God. Such an experience is described in the literature of
religious traditions throughout the world.
Much modern writing on mysticism has focused on “mystical experience,” the direct,
personal experience of the immediate presence of the divine, which often results in a
mental state in which the person is unaware of the ordinary world and aware of only the
divine presence (“ecstatic mysticism”). Mystics often describe a process, called the
“mystical way,” with a variety of stages leading up to the mystical experience. These
descriptions generally concern disciplines for the body and the mind to prepare an
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1234