The Mystery Play

"So Far So Good..."

The origins of this genre, shockingly enough, began with a minor conflict between the Church and its followers. Beginning around the 11th century, Europe had fallen into a period known as the "high Middle Ages", which lasted up until about the 13th century. As religious organizations were being established all over Europe, many grew to have such a large following that entire towns had been built around them. With their populations increasing, the Church decided to take on the role of being a unifying institution. The members of the liturgy began to not only focus on their own goals, but also served to bring the community together by introducing and supporting a multitude of various activities and systems, such as trade. However, there is one "unifier" that caused quite a dispute between the liturgy (Church) and the laity (congregation or general public): education.

While trade helped to bring the members of the community closer together, education worked to further the relationship between the people and the Church. At this point in time, the majority of hymns and scriptures utilized during any worship had been written in Latin, a language not widely practiced by the common people. This resulted in a moot point within the Church and its clergy members: should we provide our community with education? Despite their little knowledge of the now dead language, however, author Nicholas Orme argues that the public was not entirely unintelligent due to their experiences with trade: "'Wise merchants would keep records of their stocks, their orders and their sales, and if their trade was anything more than local it would involve correspondence with suppliers and the sending out of bills to customers.'" (Corbett 55). Furthermore, Orme suggests that trade became a major influence on the public's desire to be educated. And so, as Tony Corbett states, "Where the great cathedrals were founded, schools had developed."

The first and lowest levels of medieval schools became known as primary, or "reading" or "song" schools. From their beginnings of religious education, primary schools typically consisted of children ages seven to ten. For about three years, the children were taught by a cleric, or a parish priest if the school was located in a rural area. Students of these schools were usually taught how to sing the psalter, as well as "the ability to recognize the Latin alphabet and some Latin words" (55-56). Eventually, primary schools lead to the establishment of reading schools, grammar schools and later on, elementary schools. In her own studies, author J.A.H Moran found that education had become so widespread, that the number of schools in York at the time "increased from twenty-five to one hundred and eighty-five in the period from the eleventh century to 1558" (56). Unfortunately, an educated public spelled a bit of disaster for the Church and its devoted following as time progressed.

As the laity continued their pursuit of knowledge, many communities began to develop a bit of an ego. By learning how to read and translate the scriptures, the general public began to scoff at the idea of remaining under the intellectual supervision of the Church: "Why do we need them, if we are capable of understanding these great works on our own?" The ascending level of confidence within the community struck a slight fear into the hearts of the clergy, for what is a Church without its members? This anxiety about losing their level of power within their respective communities ultimately led to the exclusion of the laity from church functions. One of the major occurrences involved the congregation's exclusion from the Mass within the Catholic Church: "The laity, when receiving communion, was forbidden to touch the consecrated Host, or even the chalice" (58). Later on, the architecture of various churches and cathedrals began to reflect this desire to keep the public "in their place". For example, rood-screens were introduced for the purpose of separating the chancel from the nave during worship. After being turned away from a sanctuary which had once welcomed them with open arms, the congregation set out on their own and developed new ways to practice their faith over the next several years. Thus, the mystery plays were born. 

To be quite honest, I did not imagine that I would get this amount of information from just one source. That thought aside, I know that still have quite a ways to go and a few sources to run through yet. This does, however, make me feel more comfortable with where I’ve started and where to go. Furthermore, I am trying to take it section by section, so I figured the best bet would be to begin with where I intended to and go from there to discuss things like authorship, literary form, popular themes and dynamics, etc. While my current number of sources are minimal, I intend to search for more as my discussion topics come up. I chose to start small for the sake of avoiding information overload as I write. In short, as my title suggests, so far so good.