Most early theatre in England was religious and evolved from the liturgical drama of the 10th and 11th centuries. Theatre became a truly popular
form when the clergy encouraged the staging of Mystery cycles in England from around 1350.
Mystery cycles and Miracle plays were written in the vernacular in order to teach ordinary people about the Bible and Christianity. Church services and religious books
were written in Latin and because most people did not receive an education they could neither read nor understand the Latin mass.
Mystery Cycles
Mystery plays were produced by local towns and were written in cycles. These followed the stories of the Bible from Creation
to Doomsday. They included dramatisations of the Fall of Lucifer, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, The Nativity, and the Passion
of Christ. Plays from only four town cycles still exist. These are from Wakefield (known as the Towneley cycle), Chester, Coventry and York. The largest was
the York Cycle which contained 48 pageants.
Miracle Plays
Miracle plays told the stories of the lives of different saints. At this time people believed in the power of the saints
to solve their problems. Holy relics supposedly taken from the bodies of the saints (e.g. bones, pieces of their hair, their clothing, and even their skin) were
kept by the church. People
paid money to the church to pray to these relics. The superstitious belief that seeing or touching a holy
relic would cure all your ills was commonplace and was promoted by the Catholic church.
Miracle plays were popular in the 14th and 15th centuries, but in the 16th century Henry VIII banned all drama that could pose a threat to Protestantism in an attempt
to stop any celebration of Catholic doctrine. As a consequence very few Mystery or Miracle play texts still exist.
Staging
Mystery and Miracle plays were often performed on pageant wagons in town squares or in the grounds of churches. Pageant wagons had a stage,
sometimes with two levels, which could be used with the ground in front of the wagon as another performance level. Pageant
wagons processed through the streets and stopped to perform at pre-arranged sites. In some towns, however, plays were acted in a set space or ‘place’ surrounded by fixed stages or ‘scaffolds’.
Plays were produced by Tradesman’s guilds. Guilds
would specialise in producing one or more plays that were appropriate
to their profession. For example the carpenters might perform Noah’s Ark and the Pinners (who made nails) The Crucifixion. The design of the costumes contained symbols to help the audience recognise
the characters, for example God wore a white coat and had a golden face.
The Tradesmen’s guilds raised the money for the plays by a system called Pageant silver.
All the workers in the guild were expected to contribute a set amount,
no matter how small their wages.
The Rise of Secular Drama
The Globe
