Mystery Plays

The plays originated as simple tropes, verbal embellishments of liturgical texts, and became slowly more elaborate. As these liturgical dramas became more popular, vernacular forms emerged, as traveling companies of actors and theatrical productions organised by local communities became more common in the later Middle Ages.

The Quem QuÐ*"ritis is the best known early form of the dramas, a dramatised liturgical dialogue between the angel at the tomb of Christ and the women who are seeking his body. These primitive forms were later elaborated with dialogue and dramatic action. Eventually the dramas moved from church to the exterior - the churchyard and the public marketplace. These early performances were given in Latin, and were preceded by a vernacular prologue spoken by a herald who gave a synopsis of the events.

In 1210 the Pope forbade clergy to act in public. So the organisation of the dramas was taken over by town guilds, and several changes followed. Vernacular texts replaced Latin, and non-Biblical passages were added along with comic scenes. Acting and characterization became more elaborate.

These vernacular religious performances were, in some of the larger cities in England such as York, performed and produced by guilds, with each guild taking responsibility for a particular piece of scriptural history. From the guild control they gained the name mystery play or just mysteries, from the Latin mysterium.

Mystery plays are now typically distinguished from Miracle plays, which specifically re-enacted episodes from the lives of the saints rather than from the Bible; however, it is also to be noted that both of these terms are more commonly used by modern scholars than they were by medieval people, who used a wide variety of terminology to refer to their dramatic performances.

The mystery play developed, in some places, into a series of plays dealing with all the major events in the Christian calendar, from the Creation to the Day of Judgment. By the end of the 15th century, the practise of acting these plays in cycles on festival days (such as Corpus Christi, performed on the Feast of Corpus Christi) was established in several parts of Europe. Sometimes, each play was performed on a decorated cart called a pageant that moved about the city to allow