medieval drama
Medieval Drama
Jugglers, folk- plays, pageants:
The beginning of the Middle Ages started by the fall of the Roman Empire. The corrupt Roman drama had come to an end, and the actors became some disreputable jugglers and inferior minstrels who wandered all over the country. The performances of these social outcasts were crude and immoral. However, they continued for centuries, because they were the only source for dramatic spectacle.
Other sources of amusement too can be found in the country folk-plays, survivals of primitive heathen ceremonials, such as the harvest season. In England, the folk-plays took the form of energetic dances. Others of them took the form of rough fighting, a slight thread of dramatic action. Their characters gradually became a conventional set, or famous figures of popular tradition, such as St. George, Robin Hood and the Green Dragon. Other kinds of the folk-play were the 'mummings' and 'disguisings,' such as, among the upper classes that used to hold mask parties in which a group of persons in disguise attended a formal dancing party.
Later in the Middle Ages, there were the secular pageants, spectacular displays come to performance when a king or other person of high rank made formal entry into a town. They consisted of figures from allegorical or traditional history who engaged in some silent scenes, but with very little dramatic dialog, or none.
TROPES, LITURGICAL PLAYS, AND MYSTERY PLAYS:
The real drama of the Middle Ages grew up from the services of the Church, without a particular design. We must know that persons in the service of the church were grossly ignorant. Their faith was very superficial, and their emotions easily aroused to fever heat. So it was necessary that the service should be given a strongly spectacular and emotional character. However, no one tried to do that.
The great cathedrals and churches were much the finest buildings of the time, rich in sculptured stone and in painted windows that
Jugglers, folk- plays, pageants:
The beginning of the Middle Ages started by the fall of the Roman Empire. The corrupt Roman drama had come to an end, and the actors became some disreputable jugglers and inferior minstrels who wandered all over the country. The performances of these social outcasts were crude and immoral. However, they continued for centuries, because they were the only source for dramatic spectacle.
Other sources of amusement too can be found in the country folk-plays, survivals of primitive heathen ceremonials, such as the harvest season. In England, the folk-plays took the form of energetic dances. Others of them took the form of rough fighting, a slight thread of dramatic action. Their characters gradually became a conventional set, or famous figures of popular tradition, such as St. George, Robin Hood and the Green Dragon. Other kinds of the folk-play were the 'mummings' and 'disguisings,' such as, among the upper classes that used to hold mask parties in which a group of persons in disguise attended a formal dancing party.
Later in the Middle Ages, there were the secular pageants, spectacular displays come to performance when a king or other person of high rank made formal entry into a town. They consisted of figures from allegorical or traditional history who engaged in some silent scenes, but with very little dramatic dialog, or none.
TROPES, LITURGICAL PLAYS, AND MYSTERY PLAYS:
The real drama of the Middle Ages grew up from the services of the Church, without a particular design. We must know that persons in the service of the church were grossly ignorant. Their faith was very superficial, and their emotions easily aroused to fever heat. So it was necessary that the service should be given a strongly spectacular and emotional character. However, no one tried to do that.
The great cathedrals and churches were much the finest buildings of the time, rich in sculptured stone and in painted windows that