manuscript (Clermont-Ferrand 189), which also contains the only extant text of the Vie de
saint Léger.
Thelma S.Fenster
Avalle, D’Arco Silvio. Cultura e lingua francese delle origini nella “Passion” di Clermont-
Ferrand. Milan: Ricciardi, 1962. [Edition and Italian translation.]
PASSION PLAYS
. Dramatizations, often on a large scale, of the life and especially the Passion of Christ,
performed throughout France during the late Middle Ages. The essential elements in any
mystery play called a “Passion” were the events of Holy Week, starting with Christ’s
entry into Jerusalem and concluding with his resurrection and appearances; but many
later plays extended this portrayal of Christ’s life backward, adding first his public life,
then his nativity and childhood; some include Old Testament episodes, especially the
Creation and the Fall. These longer “cyclical” Passions were often placed within the
framework of the Procès de paradis, the trial in Heaven in which God finally accedes to
the requests of Mercy to send his son to earth to save fallen humanity.
Passion plays were based on numerous sources, including, in addition to the Bible,
Gospel commentaries, and apocryphal gospels, especially the Gospel of Nicodemus, the
Legenda aurea, and the Meditationes beatae Mariae. But the most important source of
the earliest plays was a widely circulated narrative poem, the Passion des jongleurs,
which provided a lively account of the events of Holy Week and whose numerous
passages of dialogue lent themselves easily to dramatization.
The earliest complete Passion play, the Passion du Palatinus, dates from the end of
the 13th century, and Passion plays were still being written as late as 1549. More than a
hundred performances of Passions are recorded from the late 14th to the late 16th
century, in all parts of France. The later plays tend to be much longer than the early ones,
the shortest being about 2,000 lines and the longest about 60,000. The earliest plays were
performed in one session (one journée, or day); some took four or eight; the longest were
spread out over twenty to twenty-five journées of about 2,000 lines each. This increasing
length is due not only to the inclusion of pre-Passion Week material but to the expansion
of secondary episodes, the increase in the number of minor characters, more explicitly
didactic passages (sermons, prayers), and the introduction of popular or comic elements
(devils, torture scenes, fools). Whereas the earlier texts are content to show the public the
events upon which its faith is founded, later texts show a greater urge to explain or
moralize.
In spite of the frequency of recorded performances, barely a dozen complete or nearly
complete texts survive. A new text was not necessarily composed for each performance,
and manuscripts often circulated among towns in a given region. Several of the surviving
texts are related to others; this suggests that the normal practice was to revise, often
considerably, an existing Passion play rather than write an original one. Thus, only seven
Passion plays have survived, and even among these critics have traced varying degrees of
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