ORIGIN OF MEDIÆVAL FARCE AND MODERN COMEDY.--HROTSVITHA.--MEDIÆVAL
NOTIONS OF TERENCE.--THE EARLY RELIGIOUS PLAYS.--MYSTERIES AND
MIRACLE PLAYS.--THE FARCES.--THE DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
There is still another branch of literature which, however it may have
been modified, has descended to us from the middle ages. It has been
remarked more than once in the course of this book, that the theatre
of the Romans perished in the transition from the empire to the middle
ages; but something in the shape of theatrical performances appears
to be inseparable from society even in its most barbarous state, and
we soon trace among the peoples who had settled upon the ruins of the
empire of Rome an approach towards a drama. It is worthy of remark,
too, that the mediæval drama originated exactly in the same way as that
of ancient Greece, that is, from religious ceremonies.
Such was the ignorance of the ancient stage in the middle ages,
that the meaning of the word _comœdia_ was not understood. The
Anglo-Saxon glossaries interpret the word by _racu_, a narrative,
especially an epic recital, and this was the sense in which it was
generally taken until late in the fourteenth or the fifteenth century.
It is the sense in which it is used in the title of Dante's great poem,
the "Divina Commedia." When the mediæval scholars became acquainted in
manuscripts with the comedies of Terence, they considered them only as
fine examples of a particular sort of literary composition, as metrical
narratives in dialogue, and in this feeling they began to imitate them.
One of the first of these mediæval imitators was a lady. There lived
in the tenth century a maiden of Saxony, named Hrotsvitha--a rather
unfortunate name for one of her sex, for it means simply "a loud noise
of voices," or, as she explains it herself, in her Latin, _clamor
validus_. Hrotsvitha, as was common enough among the ladies of those
days, had received a very learned education, and her Latin is very
respectable. About the middle of the tenth century, she became a nun
in the very aristocratic Benedictine abbey of Gandesheim, in Saxony,
the abbesses of which were all princesses, and which had been founded
only a century before. She wrote in Latin verse a short history of
that religious house, but she is best known by seven pieces, which are
called comedies (_comœdiæ_), and which consist simply of legends of
saints, told dialogue-wise, some in verse and some in prose. As may
be supposed, there is not much of real comedy in these compositions,
although one of them, the Dulcitius, is treated in a style which
approaches that of farce. It is the story of the martyrdom of the three
virgin saints--Agape, Chione, and Irene--who excite the lust of the
persecutor Dulcitius; and it may be remarked, that in this "comedy,"
and in that of Callimachus and one or two of the others, the lady
Hrotsvitha displays a knowledge of love-making and of the language of
love, which was hardly to be expected from a holy nun.[79]
[79] Several editions of the writings of Hrotsvitha, texts and
translations, have been published of late years both in Germany
and in France, of which I may point out the following as most
useful and complete--"Théatre de Hrotsvitha, Religieuse Allemande
du x^e siècle....par Charles Magnin," 8vo., Paris, 1845;
"Hrotsvithæ Gandeshemensis, virginis et monialis Germanicæ, gente
Saxonica ortæ, Comœdias sex, ad fidem codicis Emmeranensis
typis expressas edidit.... J. Benedixen," 16mo., Lubecæ, 1857;
"Die Werke der Hrotsvitha: Herausgegeben von Dr. K. A. Barack,"
8vo., Nürnberg, 1858.
Hrotsvitha, in her preface, complains that, in spite of the general
love for the reading of the Scriptures, and contempt for everything
derived from ancient paganism, people still too often read the
"fictions" of Terence, and thus, seduced by the beauties of his style,
soiled their minds with the knowledge of the criminal acts which are
described in his writings. A rather early manuscript has preserved a
very curious fragment illustrative of the manner in which the comedies
of the Romans were regarded by one class of people in the middle ages,
and it has also a further meaning. Its form is that of a dialogue in
Latin verse between Terence and a personage called in the original
_delusor_, which was no doubt intended to express a performer of some
kind, and may be probably considered as synonymous with _jougleur_. It
is a contention between the new jouglerie of the middle ages and the
old jouglerie of the schools, somewhat in the same style as the fabliau
of "Les deux Troveors Ribauz," described in a former chapter.[80] We
are to suppose that the name of Terence has been in some way or other
brought forward in laudatory terms, upon which the jougleur steps
forward from among the spectators and expresses himself towards the
Roman writer very contemptuously. Terence then makes his appearance to
speak in his own defence, and the two go on abusing one another in no
very measured language. Terence asks his assailant who he is? to which
the other replies, "If you ask who I am, I reply, I am better than
thee. Thou art old and broken with years; I am a tyro, full of vigour,
and in the force of youth. You are but a barren trunk, while I am a
good and fertile tree. If you hold your tongue, old fellow, it will be
much better for you."
_Si rogitas quis sum, respondeo: te melior sum.
Tu vetus atque senex; ego tyro, valens, adulescens.
Tu sterilis truncus; ego fertilis arbor, opimus.
Si taceas, o vetule, lucrum tibi quæris enorme._
Terence replies:--"What sense have you left? Are you, think you,
better than me? Let me see you, young as you are, compose what
I, however old and broken, will compose. If you be a good tree,
show us some proofs of your fertility. Although I may be a barren
trunk, I produce abundance of better fruit than thine."
_Quis tibi sensus inest? numquid melior me es?
Nunc vetus atque senex quæ fecero fac adolescens.
Si bonus arbor ades, qua fertilitate redundas?
Cum sim truncus iners, fructu meliore redundo._
And so the dispute continues, but unfortunately the latter part has
been lost with a leaf or two of the manuscript. I will only add that I
think the age of this curious piece has been overrated.[81]
[80] See p. 191 of the present volume.
[81] This singular composition was published with notes by M. de
Montaiglon, in a Parisian journal entitled, "L'Amateur de
Livres," in 1849, under the title of "Fragment d'un Dialogue
Latin du ix^e siècle entre Terence et un Bouffon." A few separate
copies were printed, of which I possess one.
Hrotsvitha is the earliest example we have of mediæval writers in this
particular class of literature. We find no other until the twelfth
century, when two writers flourished named Vital of Blois (_Vitalis
Blesensis_) and Matthew of Vendôme (_Matthæus Vindocinensis_), the
authors of several of the mediæval poems distinguished by the title of
_comœdiæ_, which give us a clearer and more distinct idea of what
was meant by the word. They are written in Latin Elegiac verse, a form
of composition which was very popular among the mediæval scholars, and
consist of stories told in dialogue. Hence Professor Osann, of Giessen,
who edited two of those of Vital of Blois, gives them the title of
eclogues (_eclogæ_). The name comedy is, however, given to them in
manuscripts, and it may perhaps admit of the following explanation.
These pieces seem to have been first mere abridgments of the plots of
the Roman comedies, especially those of Plautus, and the authors appear
to have taken the Latin title of the original as applied to the plot,
in the sense of a narrative, and not to its dramatic form. Of the two
"comedies" by Vital of Blois, one is entitled "Geta," and is taken from
the "Amphytrio" of Plautus, and the other, which in the manuscripts
bears the title of "Querulus," represents the "Aulularia" of the
same writer. Independent of the form of composition, the scholastic
writer has given a strangely mediæval turn to the incidents of the
classic story of Jupiter and Alcmena. Another similar "comedy," that
of Babio, which I first printed from the manuscripts, is still more
mediæval in character. Its plot, perhaps taken from a fabliau, for the
mediæval writers rarely invented stories, is as follows, although it
must be confessed that it comes out rather obscurely in the dialogue
itself. Babio, the hero of the piece, is a priest, who, as was still
common at that time (the twelfth century), has a wife, or, as the
strict religionists would then say, a concubine, named Pecula. She has
a daughter named Viola, with whom Babio is in love, and he pursues
his design upon her, of course unknown to his wife. Babio has also a
man-servant named Fodius, who is engaged in a secret intrigue with
his mistress, Pecula, and also seeks to seduce her daughter, Viola.
To crown the whole, the lord of the manor, a knight named Croceus, is
also in love with Viola, though with more honourable designs. Here is
surely intrigue enough and a sufficient absence of morality to satisfy
a modern French novelist of the first water. At the opening of the
piece, amid some by-play between the four individuals who form the
household of Babio, it is suddenly announced that Croceus is on his
way to visit him, and a feast is hastily prepared for his reception.
It ends in the knight carrying away Viola by force. Babio, after a
little vain bluster, consoles himself for the loss of the damsel with
reflections on the virtue of his wife, Pecula, and the faithfulness of
his man, Fodius, when, at this moment, Fame carries to his ear reports
which excite his suspicions against them. He adopts a stratagem very
frequently introduced in the mediæval stories, surprises the two lovers
under circumstances which leave no room for doubting their guilt, and
then forgives them, enters a monastery, and leaves them to themselves.
In form, these "comedies" are little more than scholastic exercises;
but, at a later period, we shall see the same stories adopted as the
subjects of farces.[82]
[82] To judge by the number of copies found in manuscripts,
especially of the "Geta," these dramatic poems must have enjoyed
considerable popularity. The "Geta" and the "Querulus" were
published in a volume entitled, "Vitalis Blesensis Amphitryon et
Aulularia Eclogæ. Edidit Fridericus Osannus, Professor Gisensis,"
8vo., Darmstadt, 1836. The "Geta" and the "Babio" are included
in my "Early Mysteries, and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and
Thirteenth Centuries."
Already, however, by the side of these dramatic poems, a real
drama--the drama of the middle ages--was gradually developing
itself. As stated before, it arose, like the drama of the Greeks,
out of the religious ceremonies. We know nothing of the existence of
anything approaching to dramatic forms which may have existed among
the religious rites of the peoples of the Teutonic race before
their conversion to Christianity, but the Christian clergy felt the
necessity of keeping up festive religious ceremonies in some form or
other, and also of impressing upon people's imagination and memory by
means of rude scenical representations some of the broader facts of
scriptural and ecclesiastical history. These performances at first
consisted probably in mere dumb show, or at the most the performers
may have chanted the scriptural account of the transaction they were
representing. In this manner the choral boys, or the younger clergy,
would, on some special Saint's day, perform some striking act in
the life of the saint commemorated, or, on particular festivals of
the church, those incidents of gospel history to which the festival
especially related. By degrees, a rather more imposing character was
given to these performances by the addition of a continuous dialogue,
which, however, was written in Latin verse, and was no doubt chanted.
This incipient drama in Latin, as far as we know it, belongs to the
twelfth century, and is represented by a tolerably large number of
examples still preserved in mediæval manuscripts. Some of the earliest
of these have for their author a pupil of the celebrated Abelard, named
Hilarius, who lived in the first half of the twelfth century, and is
understood to have been by birth an Englishman. Hilarius appears before
us as a playful Latin poet, and among a number of short pieces, which
may be almost called lyric, he has left us three of these religious
plays. The subject of the first of these is the raising of Lazarus
from the dead, the chief peculiarity of which consists of the songs of
lamentation placed in the mouths of the two sisters of Lazarus, Mary
and Martha. The second represents one of the miracles attributed to St.
Nicholas; and the third, the history of Daniel. The latter is longer
and more elaborate than the others, and at its conclusion, the stage
direction tells us that, if it were performed at matins, Darius, king
of the Medes and Persians, was to chant _Te Deum Laudamus_, but if it
were at vespers, the great king was to chant _Magnificat anima mea
Dominum_.[83]
[83] "Hilarii Versus et Ludi," 8vo., Paris, 1835. Edited by M.
Champollion Figeac.
That this mediæval drama was not derived from that of the Roman is
evident from the circumstance that entirely new terms were applied
to it. The western people in the middle ages had no words exactly
equivalent with the Latin _comœdia_, _tragœdia_, _theatrum_, &c.;
and even the Latinists, to designate the dramatic pieces performed
at the church festivals, employed the word _ludus_, a play. The
French called them by a word having exactly the same meaning, _jeu_
(from _jocus_). Similarly in English they were termed _plays_. The
Anglo-Saxon glossaries present as the representative of the Latin
_theatrum_, the compounded words _plege-stow_, or _pleg-stow_, a
play-place, and _pleg-hus_, a play-house. It is curious that we
Englishmen have preferred to the present time the Anglo-Saxon words
in _play_, _player_, and _play-house_. Another Anglo-Saxon word with
exactly the same signification, _lac_, or _gelac_, play, appears to
have been more in use in the dialect of the Northumbrians, and a
Yorkshireman still calls a play a _lake_, and a player a _laker_. So
also the Germans called a dramatic performance a _spil_, _i.e._ a play,
the modern _spiel_, and a theatre, a _spil-hus_. One of the pieces of
Hilarius is thus entitled "Ludus super iconia sancti Nicolai," and the
French _jeu_ and the English _play_ are constantly used in the same
sense. But besides this general term, words gradually came into use to
characterise different sorts of plays. The church plays consisted of
two descriptions of subjects, they either represented the miraculous
acts of certain saints, which had a plain meaning, or some incident
taken from the Holy Scriptures, which was supposed to have a hidden
mysterious signification as well as an apparent one, and hence the
one class of subject was usually spoken of simply as _miraculum_, a
miracle, and the other as _mysterium_, a mystery. _Mysteries_ and
_miracle-plays_ are still the names usually given to the old religious
plays by writers on the history of the stage.
We have a proof that the Latin religious plays, and the festivities
in which they were employed, had become greatly developed in the
twelfth century, in the notice taken of them in the ecclesiastical
councils of that period, for they were disapproved by the stricter
church disciplinarians. So early as the papacy of Gregory VIII., the
pope urged the clergy to "extirpate" from their churches theatrical
plays, and other festive practices which were not quite in harmony
with the sacred character of these buildings.[84] Such performances are
forbidden by a council held at Treves in 1227.[85] We learn from the
annals of the abbey of Corbei, published by Leibnitz, that the younger
monks at Heresburg performed on one occasion a "sacred comedy" (_sacram
comœdiam_) of the selling into captivity and the exaltation of
Joseph, which was disapproved by the other heads of the order.[86] Such
performances are included in a proclamation of the bishop of Worms, in
1316, against the various abuses which had crept into the festivities
observed in his diocese at Easter and St. John's tide.[87] Similar
prohibitions of the acting of such plays in churches are met with at
subsequent periods.
[84] "Interdum ludi fiunt in ecclesiis theatrales," &c.--_Decret
Gregorii_, lib. iii. tit. i.
[85] "Item non permittant sacerdotes ludos theatrales fieri in
ecclesia et alios ludos inhonestos."
[86] "Juniores fratres in Heresburg sacram habuere comœdiam de
Josepho vendito et exalto, quod vero reliqui ordinis nostri
prælati male interpretati sunt."--_Leibn., Script. Brunsv._ tom.
ii. p. 311.
[87] The acts of this synod of Worms are printed in Harzheim, tom. iv.
p. 258.
While these performances were thus falling under the censure of the
church authorities, they were taken up by the laity, and under their
management both the plays and the machinery for acting them underwent
considerable extension. The municipal guilds contained in their
constitution a considerable amount of religious spirit. They were
great benefactors of the churches in cities and municipal towns, and
had usually some parts of the sacred edifice appropriated to them,
and they may, perhaps, have taken a part in these performances, while
they were still confined to the church. These guilds, and subsequently
the municipal corporations, took them entirely into their own hands.
Certain annual religious festivals, and especially the feast of _Corpus
Christi_, were still the occasions on which the plays were acted, but
they were taken entirely from the churches, and the performances took
place in the open streets. Each guild had its particular play, and
they acted on movable stages, which were dragged along the streets in
the procession of the guild. These stages appear to have been rather
complicated. They were divided into three floors, that in the middle,
which was the principal stage, representing this world, while the upper
division represented heaven, and that at the bottom hell. The mediæval
writers in Latin called this machinery a _pegma_, from the Greek word
πῆγμα, a scaffold; and they also applied to it, for a reason which
is not is easily seen, unless the one word arose out of a corruption
of the other, that of _pagina_, and from a further corruption of these
came into the French and English languages the word _pageant_, which
originally signified one of these movable stages, though it has since
received secondary meanings which have a much wider application. Each
guild in a town had its pageant and its own actors, who performed
in masks and costumes, and each had one of a series of plays, which
were performed at places where they halted in the procession. The
subjects of these plays were taken from Scripture, and they usually
formed a regular series of the principal histories of the Old and New
Testaments. For this reason they were generally termed _mysteries_, a
title already explained; and among the few series of these plays still
preserved, we have the "Coventry Mysteries," which were performed by
the guilds of that town, the "Chester Mysteries," belonging to the
guilds in the city of Chester, and the "Towneley Mysteries," so called
from the name of the possessor of the manuscript, but which probably
belonged to the guilds of Wakefield in Yorkshire.
During these changes in the method of performance, the plays themselves
had also been considerably modified. The simple Latin phrases, even
when in rhyme, which formed the dialogue of the earlier _ludi_--as in
the four miracles of St. Nicholas, and the six Latin mysteries taken
from the New Testament, printed in my volume of "Early Mysteries and
other Latin Poems"--must have been very uninteresting to the mass of
the spectators, and an attempt was made to enliven them by introducing
among the Latin phrases popular proverbs, or even sometimes a song
in the vulgar tongue. Thus in the play of "Lazarus" by Hilarius, the
Latin of the lamentations of his two sisters is intermixed with French
verses. Such is the case also with the play of "St. Nicholas" by
the same writer, as well as with the curious mystery of the Foolish
Virgins, printed in my "Early Mysteries" just alluded to, in which
latter the Latin is intermingled with Provençal verse. A much greater
advance was made when these performances were transferred to the
guilds. The Latin was then discarded altogether, and the whole play
was written in French, or English, or German, as the case might be,
the plot was made more elaborate, and the dialogue greatly extended.
But now that the whole institution had become secularised, the want
of something to amuse people--to make them laugh, as people liked to
laugh in the middle ages--was felt more than ever, and this want was
supplied by the introduction of droll and ludicrous scenes, which are
often very slightly, if at all, connected with the subject of the play.
In one of the earliest of the French plays, that of "St. Nicholas," by
Jean Bodel, the characters who form the burlesque scene are a party
of gamblers in a tavern. In others, robbers, or peasants, or beggars
form the comic scene, or vulgar women, or any personages who could be
introduced acting vulgarly and using coarse language, for these were
great incitements to mirth among the populace.
In the English plays now remaining, these scenes are, on the whole,
less frequent, and they are usually more closely connected with
the general subject. The earliest English collection that has been
published is that known as the "Towneley Mysteries," the manuscript of
which belongs to the fifteenth century, and the plays themselves may
have been composed in the latter part of the fourteenth. It contains
thirty-two plays, beginning with the Creation, and ending with the
Ascension and the Day of Judgment, with two supplementary plays, the
"Raising of Lazarus" and the "Hanging of Judas." The play of "Cain and
Abel" is throughout a vulgar drollery, in which Cain, who exhibits
the character of a blustering ruffian, is accompanied by a _garcio_,
or lad, who is the very type of a vulgar and insolent horse-boy, and
the conversation of these two worthies reminds us a little of that
between the clown and his master in the open-air performances of the
old wandering mountebanks. Even the death of Abel by the hand of his
brother is performed in a manner calculated to provoke great laughter.
In the old mirthful spirit, to hear two persons load each other with
vulgar abuse, was as good as seeing them grin through a horse-collar,
if not better. Hence the droll scene in the play of "Noah" is a
domestic quarrel between Noah and his wife, who was proverbially a
shrew, and here gives a tolerable example of abusive language, as it
might then come from a woman's tongue. The quarrel arises out of her
obstinate refusal to go into the ark. In the New Testament series the
play of "The Shepherds" was one of those most susceptible of this sort
of embellishment. There are two plays of the Shepherds in the "Towneley
Mysteries," the first of which is amusing enough, as it represents,
in clever burlesque, the acts and conversation of a party of mediæval
shepherds guarding their flocks at night; but the second play of the
Shepherds is a much more remarkable example of a comic drama. The
shepherds are introduced at the opening of the piece conversing very
satirically on the corruptions of the time, and complaining how the
people were impoverished by over-taxation, to support the pride and
vanity of the aristocracy. After a good deal of very amusing talk, the
shepherds, who, as usual, are three in number, agree to sing a song,
and it is this song, it appears, which brings to them a fourth, named
Mak, who proves to be a sheep-stealer; and, in fact, no sooner have
the shepherds resigned themselves to sleep for the night, than Mak
chooses one of the best sheep in their flocks, and carries it home
to his hut. Knowing that he will be suspected of the theft, and that
he will soon be pursued, he is anxious to conceal the plunder, and
is only helped out of his difficulty by his wife, who suggests that
the carcase shall be laid at the bottom of her cradle, and that she
shall lie upon it and groan, pretending to be in labour. Meanwhile the
shepherds awake, discover the loss of a sheep, and perceiving that Mak
has disappeared also, they naturally suspect him to be the depredator,
and pursue him. They find everything very cunningly prepared in the
cottage to deceive them, but, after a large amount of roundabout
inquiry and research, and much drollery, they discover that the boy of
which Mak's wife pretends to have been just delivered, is nothing else
but the sheep which had been stolen from their flocks. The wife still
asserts that it is her child, and Mak sets up as his defence that the
baby had been "forspoken," or enchanted, by an elf at midnight, and
that it had thus been changed into the appearance of a sheep; but the
shepherds refuse to be satisfied with this explanation. The whole of
this little comedy is carried out with great skill, and with infinite
drollery. The shepherds, while still wrangling with Mak and his wife,
are seized with drowsiness, and lie down to sleep; but they are aroused
by the voice of the angel, who proclaims the birth of the Saviour. The
next play in which the drollery is introduced, is that of "Herod and
the Slaughter of the Innocents." Herod's bluster and bombast, and the
vulgar abuse which passes between the Hebrew mothers and the soldiers
who are murdering their children, are wonderfully laughable. The plays
which represented the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus, are all
full of drollery, for the grotesque character which had been given to
the demons in the earlier middle ages, appears to have been transferred
to the executioners, or, as they were called, the "tormentors," and
the language and manner in which they executed their duties, must have
kept the audience in a continual roar of laughter. In the play of
"Doomsday," the fiends retained their old character, and the manner
in which they joke over the distress of the sinful souls, and the
details they give of their sinfulness, are equally mirth-provoking. The
"Coventry Mysteries" are also printed from a manuscript of the middle
of the fifteenth century, and are, perhaps, as old as the "Towneley
Mysteries." They consist of forty-two plays, but they contain, on the
whole, fewer droll scenes than those of the Towneley collection. But
a very remarkable example is furnished in the play of the "Trial of
Joseph and Mary," which is a very grotesque picture of the proceedings
in a mediæval consistory court. The sompnour, a character so well
known by Chaucer's picture of him, opens the piece by reading from his
book a long list of offenders against chastity. At its conclusion,
two "detractors" make their appearance, who repeat various scandalous
stories against the Virgin Mary and her husband Joseph, which are
overheard by some of the high officers of the court, and Mary and
Joseph are formally accused and placed upon their trial. The trial
itself is a scene of low ribaldry, which can only have afforded
amusement to a very vulgar audience. There is a certain amount of the
same kind of indelicate drollery in the play of "The Woman taken in
Adultery," in this collection. The "Chester Mysteries" are still more
sparing of such scenes, but they are printed from manuscripts written
after the Reformation, which had, perhaps, gone through the process
of expurgation, in which such excrescences had been lopped off.
However, in the play of "Noah's Flood," we have the old quarrel between
Noah and his wife, which is carried so far that the latter actually
beats her husband in the presence of the audience. There is a little
drollery in the play of "The Shepherds," a considerable amount of what
may be called "Billingsgate" language in the play of the "Slaughter
of the Innocents," but less than the usual amount of insolence in the
tormentors and demons.[88] It is probable, however, that these droll
scenes were not always considered an integral part of the play in which
they were introduced, but that they were kept as separate subjects, to
be introduced at will, and not always in the same play, and therefore
that they were not copied with the play in the manuscripts.
[88] The editions of the three principal collections of English
mysteries are--1. "The Towneley Mysteries," 8vo., London,
1836, published by the Surtees Society; 2. "Ludus Coventriæ: a
Collection of Mysteries, formerly represented at Coventry on the
Feast of Corpus Christi," edited by James Orchard Halliwell,
Esq., 8vo., London, 1841, published by the Shakespeare Society;
3. "The Chester Plays: a Collection of Mysteries founded upon
Scriptural Subjects, and formerly represented by the Trades of
Chester at Whitsuntide," edited by Thomas Wright, Esq., 2 vols.
8vo., London, 1843 and 1847, published by the Shakespeare Society.
In the Coventry play of "Noah's Flood," when Noah has received the
directions from an angel for the building of the ark, he leaves the
stage to proceed to this important work. On his departure, Lamech comes
forward, blind and led by a youth, who directs his hand to shoot at a
beast concealed in a bush. Lamech shoots, and kills Cain, upon which,
in his anger, he beats the youth to death, and laments the misfortune
into which the latter has led him. This was the legendary explanation
of the passage in the fourth chapter of Genesis: "And Lamech said ...
I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt; if Cain
shall be avenged seven-fold, truly Lamech seventy and seven-fold." It
is evident that this is a piece of scriptural story which has nothing
to do with Noah's flood, and accordingly, in the Coventry play, we
are told in the stage directions, that it was introduced in the place
of the "interlude,"[89] as if there were a place in the machinery of
the pageant where the episode, which was not an integral part of the
subject, was performed, and that this part of the performance was
called an interlude, or play introduced in the interval of the action
of the main subject. The word _interlude_ remained long in our language
as applied to such short and simple dramatic pieces as we may suppose
to have formed the drolleries of the mysteries. But they had another
name in France which has had a greater and more lulling celebrity.
In one of the early French miracle-plays, that of "St. Fiacre," an
interlude of this kind is introduced, containing five personages--a
brigand or robber, a peasant, a sergeant, and the wives of the two
latter. The brigand, meeting the peasant on the highway, asks the way
to St. Omer, and receives a clownish answer, which is followed by one
equally rude on a second question. The brigand, in revenge, steals
the peasant's capon, but the sergeant comes up at this moment and,
attempting to arrest the thief, receives a blow from the latter which
is supposed to break his right arm. The brigand thus escapes, and the
peasant and the sergeant quit the scene, which is immediately occupied
by their wives. The sergeant's wife is informed by the other of the
injury sustained by her husband, and she exults over it because it will
deprive him of the power of beating her. They then proceed to a tavern,
call for wine, and make merry, the conversation turning upon the faults
of their respective husbands, who are not spared. In the midst of
their enjoyments, the two husbands return, and show, by beating their
wives, that they are not very greatly disabled. In the manuscript of
the miracle-play of "St. Fiacre," in which this amusing episode is
introduced, a marginal stage direction is expressed in the following
words, "_cy est interposé une farsse_" (here a farce is introduced).
This is one of the earliest instances of the application of the term
_farce_ to these short dramatic facetiæ. Different opinions have been
expressed as to the origin of the word, but it seems most probable
that it is derived from an old French verb, _farcer_, to jest, to make
merry, whence the modern word _farceur_ for a joker, and that it thus
means merely a drollery or merriment.
[89] "Hic transit Noe cum familia sua pro navi, quo exeunte, _locum
interludii subintret_ statim Lameth, conductus ab adolescente, et
dicens," &c.
I have just suggested as a reason for the absence of these interludes,
or farces, in the mysteries as they are found in the manuscripts,
that they were probably not looked upon as parts of the mysteries
themselves, but as separate pieces which might be used at pleasure.
When we reach a certain period in their history, we find that not only
was this the case, but that these farces were performed separately and
altogether independently of the religious plays. It is in France that
we find information which enables us to trace the gradual revolution
in the mediæval drama. A society was formed towards the close of the
fourteenth century under the title of _Confrères de la Passion_, who,
in 1398, established a regular theatre at St. Maur-des-Fossés, and
subsequently obtained from Charles VI. a privilege to transport their
theatre into Paris, and to perform in it mysteries and miracle-plays.
They now rented of the monks of Hermières a hall in the hospital of the
Trinity, outside of the Porte St. Denis, performing there regularly
on Sundays and saints' days, and probably making a good thing of it,
for, during a long period, they enjoyed great popularity. Gradually,
however, this popularity was so much diminished, that the _confrères_
were obliged to have recourse to expedients for reviving it. Meanwhile
other similar societies had arisen into importance. The clerks of
the Bazoche, or lawyers' clerks of the Palais de Justice, had thus
associated together, it is said, as early as the beginning of the
fourteenth century, and they distinguished themselves by composing
and performing farces, for which they appear to have obtained a
privilege. Towards the close of the fourteenth century, there arose
in Paris another society, which took the name of _Enfans sans souci_,
or Careless Boys, who elected a president or chief with the title
of _Prince des Sots_, or King of the Fools, and who composed a sort
of dramatic satires which they called _Sotties_. Jealousies soon
arose between these two societies, either because the sotties were
made sometimes to resemble too closely the farces, or because each
trespassed too often on the territories of the other. Their differences
were finally arranged by a compromise, whereby the Bazochians yielded
to their rivals the privilege of performing farces, and received in
return the permission to perform sotties. The Bazochians, too, had
invented a new class of dramatic pieces which they called _Moralities_,
and in which allegorical personages were introduced. Thus three
dramatic societies continued to exist in France through the fifteenth
century, and until the middle of the sixteenth.
These various pieces, under the titles of farces, sotties, moralities,
or whatever other names might be given to them, had become exceedingly
popular at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and a very
considerable number of them were printed, and many of them are still
preserved, but they are books of great rarity, and often unique.[90]
Of these the farces form the most numerous class. They consist simply
of the tales of the older jougleurs or story-tellers represented in a
dramatic form, but they often display great skill in conducting the
plot, and a considerable amount of wit. The story of the sheep-stealer
in the Towneley play of "The Shepherds," is a veritable farce. As
in the fabliaux, the most common subjects of these farces are love
intrigues, carried on in a manner which speaks little for the morality
of the age in which they were written. Family quarrels frequently
form the subject of a farce, and the weaknesses and vices of women.
The priests, as usual, are not spared, but are introduced as the
seducers of wives and daughters. In one the wives have found a means of
re-modelling their husbands and making them young again, which they put
in practice with various ludicrous circumstances. Tricks of servants
are also common subjects for these farces. One is the story of a boy
who does not know his own father, and some of the subjects are of a
still more trivial character, as that of the boy who steals a tart from
the pastrycook's shop. Two hungry boys, prowling about the streets,
come to the shop door just as the pastrycook is giving directions for
sending an eel-pie after him. By an ingenious deception the boys gain
possession of the pie and eat it, and they are both caught and severely
chastised. This is the whole plot of the farce. A dull schoolboy
examined by his master in the presence of his parents, and the mirth
produced by his blunders and their ignorance, formed also a favourite
subject among these farces. One or two examples are preserved, and,
from a companion of them, we might be led to suspect that Shakespeare
took the idea of the opening scene in the fourth act of the "Merry
Wives of Windsor" from one of these old farces.
[90] The most remarkable collection of these early farces, sotties,
and moralities yet known, was found accidentally in 1845, and
is now in the British Museum. These were all edited in Paris
as the first three volumes of a work in ten, entitled "Ancien
Théatre François, ou Collection des Ouvrages dramatiques les plus
remarquable depuis les Mystères jusqu'à Corneille, publié ... par
M. Viollet le Duc," 12mo., Paris, 1854. It is right to state that
these three volumes were edited, not by M. Viollet le Duc, but
by a scholar better known for his learning in the older French
literature, M. Anatole de Montaiglon.
The sotties and moralities were more imaginative and extravagant
than the farces, and were filled with allegorical personages. The
characters introduced in the former have generally some relation to
the kingdom of folly. Thus, in one of the sotties, the king of fools
(_le roy des sotz_) is represented as holding his court, and consulting
with his courtiers, whose names are Triboulet, Mitouflet, Sottinet,
Coquibus, and Guippelin. Their conversation, as may be supposed, is
of a satirical character. Another is entitled "The Sottie of the
Deceivers," or cheats. Sottie--another name for mother Folly--opens
the piece with a proclamation or address to fools of all descriptions,
summoning them to her presence. Two, named Teste-Verte and Fine-Mine,
obey the call, and they are questioned as to their own condition, and
their proceedings, but their conversation is interrupted by the sudden
intrusion of another personage named Everyone (_Chascun_), who, on
examination, is found to be as perfect a fool as any of them. They
accordingly fraternise, and join in a song. Finally, another character,
The Time (_le Temps_), joins them, and they agree to submit to his
directions. Accordingly he instructs them in the arts of flattery
and deceiving, and the other similar means by which men of that time
sought to thrive. Another is the Sottie of Foolish Ostentation (_de
folle bobance_). This lady similarly opens the scene with an address
to all the fools who hold allegiance to her, and three of these make
their appearance. The first fool is the gentleman, the second the
merchant, the fourth the peasant, and their conversation is a satire
on contemporary society. The personification of abstract principles is
far bolder. The three characters who compose one of these moralities
are Everything (_tout_), Nothing (_rien_), and Everyone (_chascun_).
How the personification of Nothing was to be represented, we are not
told. The title of another of these moralities will be enough to give
the reader a notion of their general title; it is, "A New Morality of
the Children of Now-a-Days (_Maintenant_), who are the Scholars of
Once-good (_Jabien_), who shows them how to play at Cards and at Dice,
and to entertain Luxury, whereby one comes to Shame (_Honte_), and
from Shame to Despair (_Desespoir_), and from Despair to the gibbet of
Perdition, and then turns himself to Good-doing." The characters in
this play are Now-a-Days, Once-good, Luxury, Shame, Despair, Perdition,
and Good-doing.
The three dramatic societies which produced all these farces, sotties,
and moralities, continued to flourish in France until the middle of
the sixteenth century, at which period a great revolution in dramatic
literature took place in that country. The performance of the Mysteries
had been forbidden by authority, and the Bazochians themselves were
suppressed. The petty drama represented by the farces and sotties
went rapidly out of fashion, in the great change through which the
mind of society was at this time passing, and in which the taste for
classical literature overcame all others. The old drama in France had
disappeared, and a new one, formed entirely upon an imitation of the
classical drama, was beginning to take its place. This incipient drama
was represented in the sixteenth century by Etienne Jodel, by Jacques
Grevin, by Rémy Belleau, and especially by Pierre de Larivey, the most
prolific, and perhaps the most talented, of the earlier French regular
dramatic authors.
These French dramatic essays, the farces, the sotties, and the
moralities, were imitated, and sometimes translated, in English, and
many of them were printed; for the further our researches are carried
into the early history of printing, the more we are astonished at the
extreme activity of the press, even in its infancy, in multiplying
literature of a popular character. In England, as in France, the
farces had been, at a rather early period, detached from the mysteries
and miracle-plays, but the word _interludes_ had been adopted here
as the general title for them, and continued in use even after the
establishment of the regular drama. Perhaps this name owed its
popularity to the circumstance that it seemed more appropriate to its
object, when it became so fashionable in England to act these plays at
intervals in the great festivals and entertainments given at court, or
in the households of the great nobles. At all events, there can be
no doubt that this fashion had a great influence on the fate of the
English stage. The custom of performing plays in the universities,
great schools, and inns of court, had also the effect of producing a
number of very clever dramatic writers; for when this literature was
so warmly patronised by princes and nobles, people of the highest
qualifications sought to excel in it. Hence we find from books of
household expenses and similar records of the period, that there was,
during the sixteenth century, an immense number of such plays compiled
in England which were never printed, and of which, therefore, very few
are preserved.
The earliest known plays of this description in the English language
belong to the class which were called in France moralities. They are
three in number, and are preserved in a manuscript in the possession
of Mr. Hudson Gurney, which I have not seen, but which is said to be
of the reign of our king Henry VI. Several words and allusions in them
seem to me to show that they were translated, or adapted, from the
French. They contain exactly the same kind of allegorical personages.
The allegory itself is a simple one, and easily understood. In the
first, which is entitled the "Castle of Perseverance," the hero is
_Humanum Genus_ (Mankynd), for the names of the parts are all given in
Latin. On the birth of this personage, a good and a bad angel offer
themselves as his protectors and guides, and he chooses the latter, who
introduces him to _Mundus_ (the World), and to his friends, _Stultitia_
(Folly), and _Voluptas_ (Pleasure). These and some other personages
bring him under the influence of the seven deadly sins, and _Humanum
Genus_ takes for his bedfellow a lady named _Luxuria_. At length
_Confessio_ and _Pœnitentia_ succeed in reclaiming _Humanum Genus_,
and they conduct him for security to the Castle of Perseverance, where
the seven cardinal virtues attend upon him. He is besieged in this
castle by the seven deadly sins, who are led to the attack by Belial,
but are defeated. _Humanum Genus_ has now become aged, and is exposed
to the attacks of another assailant. This is _Avaritia_, who enters
the Castle stealthily by undermining the wall, and artfully persuades
_Humanum Genus_ to leave it. He thus comes again under the influence
of _Mundus_, until _Mors_ (Death) arrives, and the bad angel carries
off the victim to the domains of Satan. This, however, is not the end
of the piece. God appears, seated on His throne, and Mercy, Peace,
Justice, and Truth appear before Him, the two former pleading for,
and the latter against, _Humanum Genus_, who, after some discussion,
is saved. This allegorical picture of human life was, in one form or
other, a favourite subject of the moralisers. I may quote as examples
the interludes of "Lusty Juventus," reprinted in Hawkins's "Origin
of the English Drama," and the "Disobedient Child," and "Trial of
Treasure," reprinted by the Percy Society.
The second of the moralities ascribed to the reign of Henry VI., has
for its principal characters Mind, Will, and Understanding. These are
assailed by Lucifer, who succeeds in alluring them to vice, and they
change their modest raiment for the dress of gay gallants. Various
other characters are introduced in a similar strain of allegory, until
they are reclaimed by Wisdom. Mankind is again the principal personage
of the third of these moralities, and some of the other characters in
the play, such as Nought, New-guise, and Now-a-days, remind us of the
similar allegorical personages in the French moralities described above.
These interludes bring us into acquaintance with a new comic character.
The great part which folly acted in the social destinies of mankind,
had become an acknowledged fact; and as the court and almost every
great household had its professed fool, so it seems to have been
considered that a play also was incomplete without a fool. But,
as the character of the fool was usually given to one of the most
objectionable characters in it, so, for this reason apparently, the
fool in a play was called the _Vice_. Thus, in "Lusty Juventus," the
character of Hypocrisy is called the Vice; in the play of "All for
Money," it is Sin; in that of "Tom Tyler and his Wife," it is Desire;
in the "Trial of Treasure" it is Inclination; and in some instances the
Vice appears to be the demon himself. The Vice seems always to have
been dressed in the usual costume of a court fool, and he perhaps had
other duties besides his mere part in the plot, such as making jests of
his own, and using other means for provoking the mirth of the audience
in the intervals of the action.
A few of our early English interludes were, in the strict sense of the
word, farces. Such is the "mery play" of "John the Husband, Tyb the
Wife, and Sir John the Priest," written by John Heywood, the plot of
which presents the same simplicity as those of the farces which were so
popular in France. John has a shrew for his wife, and has good causes
for suspecting an undue intimacy between her and the priest; but they
find means to blind his eyes, which is the more easily done, because
he is a great coward, except when he is alone. Tyb, the wife, makes a
pie, and proposes that the priest shall be invited to assist in eating
it. The husband is obliged, very unwillingly, to be the bearer of the
invitation, and is not a little surprised when the priest refuses it.
He gives as his reason, that he was unwilling to intrude himself into
company where he knew he was disliked, and persuaded John that he had
fallen under the wife's displeasure, because, in private interviews
with her, he had laboured to induce her to bridle her temper, and treat
her husband with more gentleness. John, delighted at the discovery
of the priest's honesty, insists on his going home with him to feast
upon the pie. There the guilty couple contrive to put the husband to a
disagreeable penance, while they eat the pie, and treat him otherwise
very ignominiously, in consequence of which the married couple fight.
The priest interferes, and the fight thus becomes general, and is only
ended by the departure of Tyb and the priest, leaving the husband alone.
The popularity of the moralities in England is, perhaps, to be
explained by peculiarities in the condition of society, and the
greater pre-occupation of men's minds in our country at that time
with the religious and social revolution which was then in progress.
The Reformers soon saw the use which might be made of the stage, and
compiled and caused to be acted interludes in which the old doctrines
and ceremonies were turned to ridicule, and the new ones were held up
in a favourable light. We have excellent examples of the success with
which this plan was carried out in the plays of the celebrated John
Bale. His play of "Kyng Johan," an edition of which was published by
the Camden Society, is not only a remarkable work of a very remarkable
man, but it may be considered as the first rude model of the English
historical drama. The stage became now a political instrument in
England, almost as it had been in ancient Greece, and it thus became
frequently the object of particular as well as general persecution.
In 1543, the vicar of Yoxford, in Suffolk, drew upon himself the
violent hostility of the other clergy in that county by composing and
causing to be performed plays against the pope's counsellors. Six years
afterwards, in 1549, a royal proclamation prohibited for a time the
performance of interludes throughout the kingdom, on the ground that
they contained "matter tendyng to sedicion and contempnyng of sundery
good orders and lawes, whereupon are growen daily, and are likely
to growe, muche disquiet, division, tumultes, and uproares in this
realme." From this time forward we begin to meet with laws for the
regulation of stage performances, and proceedings in cases of supposed
infractions of them, and it became customary to obtain the approval of
a play by the privy council before it was allowed to be acted. Thus
gradually arose the office of a dramatic censor.
With Bale and with John Heywood, the English plays began to approach
the form of a regular drama, and the two now rather celebrated pieces,
"Ralph Roister Doister," and "Gammer Gurton's Needle," which belong
to the middle of the sixteenth century, may be considered as comedies
rather than as interludes. The former, written by a well-known scholar
of that time, Nicholas Udall, master of Eton, is a satirical picture
of some phases of London life, and relates the ridiculous adventures
of a weak-headed and vain-glorious gallant, who believes that all
the women must be in love with him, and who is led by a needy and
designing parasite named Matthew Merygreeke. Rude as it is as a
dramatic composition, it displays no lack of talent, and it is full
of genuine humour. The humour in "Gammer Gurton's Needle" is none
the less rich because it is of coarser and rather broader cast. The
good dame of the piece, Gammer Gurton, during an interruption in the
process of mending the breeches of her husband, Hodge, has lost her
needle, and much lamentation follows a misfortune so great at a time
when needles appear to have been rare and valuable articles in the
rural household. In the midst of their trouble appears Diccon, who is
described in the _dramatis personæ_ as "Diccon the Bedlam," meaning
that he was an idiot, and who appears to hold the position of Vice in
the play. Diccon, however, though weak-minded, is a cunning fellow, and
especially given to making mischief, and he accuses a neighbour, Dame
Chat, of stealing the needle. At the same time, the same mischievous
individual tells Dame Chat that Gammer Gurton's cock had been stolen in
the night from the henroost, and that she, Dame Chat, was accused of
being the thief. Amid the general misunderstanding which results from
Diccon's successful endeavours, they send for the parson of the parish,
Dr. Rat, who appears to unite in himself the three parts of preacher,
physician, and conjurer, in order to have advantage of his experience
in finding the needle. Diccon now contrives a new piece of mischief.
He persuades Dame Chat that Hodge intends to hide himself in a certain
hole in the premises, in order, that night, to creep out and kill all
her hens; and at the same time he informs Dr. Rat, that if he will
hide in the same hole, he will give him ocular demonstration of Dame
Chat's guilt of stealing the needle. The consequence is that Dame Chat
attacks by surprise, and somewhat violently, the supposed depredator
in the hole, and that Dr. Rat gets a broken head. Dame Chat is brought
before "Master Bayly" for the assault, and the proceedings in the trial
bring to light the deceptions which have been played upon them all,
and Diccon stands convicted as the wicked perpetrator. In fact, the
"bedlam" confesses it all, and it is finally decided by "Master Bayly"
that there shall be a general reconciliation, and that Diccon shall
take a solemn oath on Hodge's breech, that he will do his best to find
the lost needle. Diccon has still the spirit of mischief in him, and
instead of laying his hand quietly on Hodge's breech, he gives him a
sharp blow, which is responded to by an unexpected scream. The needle,
indeed, which has never quitted the breeches, is driven rather deep
into the fleshy part of Hodge's body, and the general joy at having
found it again overruling all other considerations, they all agree to
be friends over a jug of "drink."
We cannot but feel astonished at the short period which it required
to develop rude attempts at dramatic composition like this into the
wonderful creations of a Shakespeare; and it can only be explained
by the fact that it was an age remarkable for producing men of
extraordinary genius in every branch of intellectual development.
Hitherto, the literature of the stage had represented the intelligence
of the mass; it became individualised in Shakespeare, and this fact
marks an entirely new era in the history of the drama. In the writings
of our great bard, nearly all the peculiarities of the older national
drama are preserved, even some which may be perhaps considered as its
defects, but carried to a degree of perfection which they had never
attained before. The drollery, which, as we have seen, could not be
dispensed with even in the religious mysteries and miracle-plays, had
become so necessary, that it could not be dispensed with in tragedy.
Its omission belonged to a later period, when the foreign dramatists
became objects of imitation in England. But in the earlier drama, these
scenes of drollery seem frequently to have no connection whatever with
the general plot, while Shakespeare always interweaves them skilfully
with it, and they seem to form an integral and necessary part of it.