York Mystery Plays

Rural procession through the city of York on pageant wagons

• - no lighting 
• - no microphones 
• - no stage space
• - elaborate stage directions could not be fulfilled (eg can't have a bear on stage)

• - flexible performance space
• - locations make scenes feel more realistic

Locus = site being performed

Robert Weimann in Author's Pen and Actor's Voice: Playing and Writing in Shakespeare's Theatre 2000

Platea = site of performance

Robert Weimann in Author's Pen and Actor's Voice: Playing and Writing in Shakespeare's Theatre 2000

• - prose against verse to show education or intelligence 
• - shorter lines for less intelligent characters
• - appearance of characters on stage, physical movement and looks

• In genesis the sequence is much shorter than it is in the play
• Eve doesn't resist the snake in the Genesis 
• God is very severe to Adam and Eve in Genesis 
• There is little emotion in Genesis, whereas there is a lot of drama on stage
• Many people act the play version, whereas only one person would read Genesis at a time

• Modern plays are much shorter than the mystery plays
• Modern plays are stationary whereas the mystery plays were a moving spectacle 
• Modern theatre is usually paid for whereas mystery plays were free 
• Modern plays usually have new plotlines whereas mystery plays are based on known biblical stories 
• Far more props in modern theatre, greater reliance on imagination in mystery plays
• Modern plays don't want the audience to interact whereas some mystery plays did

‘[Verse] raises discourse above common speech for purposes of invocation, adornment, or remembrance.’

‘Verse […] is the prime divider between the world of high tragedy and that of ordinary existence. Kings, prophets, and heroes speak in verse, thus showing that the exemplary personages in the commonwealth communicate in a manner nobler and more ancient than that reserved to common men […]. Common men are prosaic, and revolutionaries write their manifestoes in prose.’

• The Fall of Man
• The Flood

• Entry into Jerusalem 
• Christ before Herod 
• Christ before Pilate (2)
• The Crucifixion
• The Last Judgement

To be visually entertaining and morally edifying (educating)

They were staged by secular authorities in York and performed by the members of the city's guilds.

• Staging, performance and costume 
• Accurately representing the Latin in English 
• Presentation of Christ 
• How to portray evils

1376

A list of plays which guilds had the responsibility to draw up in 1415, the beginning of the concept for the mystery plays

1463 in the British Library

Late thirteenth century celebration devoted to the Eucharist with processions throughout the city. These are corpus christi plays, which began at dawn and ended after midnight. They depicted the creation to doomsday.

Unlikely although women did perform in Europe

12 stops, each marked with a banner

As handwritten copies from one master copy. Little is known about the rehearsal process.

47

Translation into Latin

• They are suggested in the lines for actors. 
• For example 'all goes down' from The Fall of Angels could suggest movement for the actor

(rising and falling are also cool hip and popular motifs for the plays)

• Honor, high respect, esteem
• Having a high rank

That she is corrupted and influencing Adam to do the same

Doomsday

God destroys his creations but preserves Noah and his family in the ark. They take on one male and one female of every living thing

Noah signifies Christ saving true believers from destruction

The Ark signifies the church of the true believers

They are left abandoned in the flood

‘Because medieval theatre is so different from modern commercial theatre both in setting and intention, we modern investigators have had to break down our prejudices about the practical limits of staging and acting style.’

• An Ark big enough for eight people
• The ark had to be mobile
• Images of animals outside to symbolise the animals on board

• Difficult to get aboard the Ark (refusing) 
• She adds an element of comedy 
• She is ignorant to the flood

In the Bible she is entirely obedient to Noah and in the plays she is portrayed as difficult (in a funny way)

Noah's internal struggle

Recalcitrant 

(having an uncooperative attitude towards authority)

Katie Normington in her book Gender and Medieval Drama.

• For feasts and celebrations
• To be seen by their subjects
• Allows cities to pay public homage to royalty

• Increased tourism 
• Show city pride
• To be prestigious
• York was second to London in significance at the time

'The fashioning of a city's identity through the production of its cultural life was a major concern'

On an ass, replicating the Bible and giving the illusion that he was on route to Jerusalem

• Repeated lines of prayer.
• Seen in Entry to Jerusalem where 'Hail' is used 46 times in 56 lines

That judgement is not far off and it is time to repent sins

The sequence of events from Jesus' arrest to his burial

In public, paraded through the streets and tortured.

This would have been seen happen to the character of Jesus. He suffers as a man, not as a God so people are moved more by this

• The suspected writer of at least 8 York Mystery Plays.
• Includes Christ before Herod and Christ Before Pilate. 
• They are all anonymous but some stories have similar features which leads people to believe that one person wrote many plays.

• 'The epitome of human wickedness'
• 'A man without consciousness'
• 'A villain without any redeeming characteristics'
• (David Staines)

These were the clothes of the fool at the time

King Herod said it to Jesus to mock him. A quote from Christ Before Herod

He remains silent and consequently makes Herod look like a fool/a spectacle

'He answered him nothing' Luke 23:9-11

Alliteration characterises the elite as being tyrannical and sly

• It means 'behold the man'
• Christ is telling the audience to look at his body before he is crucified and later see the physical result of their sinfulness

The Crucifixion

NOT by the York Realist

• To suffer with Christ and grow closer to their spirituality. 
• It was a meditational aid

The Archbishop of Canterbury in 1409, Thomas Arundel, wrote in his Constitutions that:

'no one henceforth shall translate any text of Holy Scripture into the English language'

• Performed on stage not a procession
• Brought to life significant historical event of plays happening 
• Was made to be contemporary not realistic to the times.

Characters speaking alternate lines of verse

Found in the four soldiers during the Crucifixion

• On stage there are four soldiers whereas in the bible there are only three. this allows for stichomythia and symmetry 
• the sequence of constructing the cross is much shorter in the bible but is dragged out on stage to show the unrepenting nature of the soldiers
• they use colloquial language on stage, do not speak in the bible.

They are focussed on their own suffering and not Jesus'. His suffering is worse than theirs however. 

'He weighs a wicked weight' Soldier 3

• The soldiers are focussed on their own suffering not Jesus'
• Jesus weighs so much because he has taken on the burden of all of mankind's sins

Katie Normington in her book Medieval English Drama

Jesus during The Crucifixion whilst on the cross. He says it because he is the son of God and the epitome of goodliness and forgiveness

1579 in Coventry was the last recorded one to happen.

Shakespeare is thought to have seen the plays at some point in his life.

dialectal origins and demonic syntax

(received pronunciation may obscure rhymes in modern performances)