Category Archives: Theater

The play in which King Herod interviews the Three Kings from the east is an interesting one because it probably used two wagons in tandem, each produced by a different guild. The Masons and the Goldsmiths cooperated in this play. … Continue reading →

There was one whole play about Joseph’s concerns when he found that his betrothed was pregnant. They didn’t make much of the Palestine-era custom of long betrothal that was like a quasi-marriage, since it wasn’t done that way in medieval … Continue reading →

“Noah and the Flood” was a good dramatic story with exciting stage effects, and it was also an image of God saving some of the world from sin, pointing to Christ, so it was a core part of the Mystery … Continue reading →

We have only a fragment of York’s Cain and Abel play; the guild duly submitted its script for the registry, but several pages in the middle were lost, so we have only the beginning and the end. It probably followed … Continue reading →

When York began to stage the Corpus Christi plays again in 2006, they faced the original problems of the medieval designers: how do you put the universe on a wagon? Specifically, how do you make the wagon’s base stable and … Continue reading →

Since the English Mystery Play Cycles for Corpus Christi developed from processions, they were expected to go through the center of the town and stop by many of the churches, as the procession had done. The procession had celebrated a … Continue reading →

The Feast of Corpus Christi was a new event for the medieval church, established in 1264 and promoted with more enthusiasm during the 1300s. Its purpose was to celebrate and educate about the meaning of the Host and the doctrine … Continue reading →

The biggest development in European medieval theater begins with a free-thinking scholar questioning how bread can become the literal body of Christ. When Berengar of Tours was himself a student, he studied under a former student of Gerbert of Aurillac, … Continue reading →

There are two medieval Daniel plays, both dating from the mid-1100s. One was written by Hilarius, a pupil of Abelard (which seems worth mentioning). The second is more famous, and it probably was based on Hilarius’s play. This one was … Continue reading →

During the 12th and 13th centuries, serious theater was gradually moving out of the church, into the street. One of the transitional works is the Fleury Playbook, whose plays are in Latin, so they seem more likely to have still … Continue reading →