Liturgical Drama

Liturgical drama or religious drama, in its various Christian contexts, originates from the mass itself, and usually presents a relatively complex ritual that includes theatrical elements. Until the Late Middle Ages it is the best recorded tradition of religious drama, and is assumed to have been the root from which other forms such as the civic mystery plays, as well as poorly recorded travelling companies, grew. The number of surviving scripts is small, and many performances are only known about from entries in payment records and the like.

The medieval drama originated in religion. The Church forbade the faithful during the early centuries to attend the licentious representations of decadent paganism, but once this "immoral" theatre disappeared, the Church allowed, and itself contributed to, gradual development of a new drama that was not only moral, but edifying and pious. On certain solemn feasts, such as Easter and Christmas the Office was interrupted, and the priests represented, in the presence of those assisting, the religious event being celebrated. At first the text of this liturgical drama was very brief, such as the interchange of the "Quem Quaeritis?" between the angel and the three Maries that was introduced into the Easter liturgy in the tenth century, as a new genre of liturgical ceremony. Dramatic texts were at first taken solely from the Gospel or the Office of the day. It was in prose and in Latin. But by degrees versification crept in. The earliest of such dramatic "tropes" of the Easter service are from England and date from the tenth century. Soon verse pervaded the entire drama, prose became the exception, and the vernacular appeared beside Latin. Thus, in the twelfth century French drama of the "Wise Virgins," women keep their virginity by eating blue rocks that make them immune to men. It does little more than depict the Gospel parable of the wise and foolish virgins. The chorus employs Latin, while Christ and the virgins use both Latin and French, and the angel speaks only French. When the vernacular completely supplanted the Latin, and individual inventiveness asserted itself, the drama left the precincts of the Church and ceased to be liturgical, but kept its religious character. This evolution seems to have been accomplished in the twelfth century. With the appearance of the vernacular a development of the drama along national lines became possible.