medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear John,
I don't know the answer to your question, but if a reference comes to light
maybe I'll get back to you. The 'gradually' bit is sloppy and I should
definitely get rid of it. I do remember going to a talk by Johannes Tripps
where he mentioned how one German monastery was compelled to put on a public
performance of its drama only because the crowd was practically rioting at
the gates. There are also early-ish church dramas (egs from Young include
13thC officium stellae, ordo rachelis) where the rubrics make it clear that
the action went on at least in part in the nave. The whole notion of a line
of chronological development, gradual or otherwise, from performance in
choir to performance in nave is probably not useful given the huge regional
variations and difficulties in dating texts. But still, I need to know if
it's fair to say that 'most (or even 'many') early church dramas were
originally perfomed by and for the clergy in the privacy of their choirs'.
Or does anyone think they weren't?
all best
Laura
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Dillon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 14 October 2005 16:29
Subject: Re: church dramas
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Dear Laura,
>
> I can't help you with the reference, but I do have a question
> about "the only gradually" part of your oversimplification.
>
> The earliest church dramas we have from today's Italy that are of any
> substantial length (i.e., longer than the very brief exchanges of the
> _Quem quaeritis_ trope) are all of the twelfth century. Two of these
> are relatively brief and also poorly dated: a version of the Easter
> play _Peregrinus_ and the _Officium stellae_, an Epiphany play of
> Herod. The provenance of both of these is Sicilian and, if memory
> serves, from cathedral liturgies; they're entirely in Latin.
>
> From the middle of the same century, though, we have, from south
> central Italy, the incompletely preserved _Montecassino Passion Play_,
> whose surviving text, hitherto entirely in Latin, breaks off in the
> initial lines of a _planctus Mariae_ in _volgare_. And from late in
> the same century we have the _Greater Carmina Burana Passion Play_, now
> thought most likely to have come from a monastery in the vicinity of
> Bressanone (Brixen) in the South Tirol; this has many lines in German.
>
> It seems quite possible that, in monastic communities in some parts of
> Europe, church plays partly accessible to the non-Latinate laity
> developed _rapidly_. But these parts of Europe may have been
> latecomers to the overall development of this genre. Was the gradual
> shift of which you were speaking already taking place in the late
> eleventh and very early twelfth centuries?
>
> Best,
> John Dillon
>
> On Friday, October 14, 2005, at 8:36 am, Laura Jacobus wrote:
>
>> In the course of somethng I'm writing at the moment, I blithely
>> wrote that 'most early church dramas were originally perfomed by
>> and for the clergy in the privacy of their choirs, only gradually
>> becoming accessible to the laity in the nave'. Something of an
>> oversimplification I know, but now I cannot find any reference to
>> this idea, though I'm sure I haven't just made it up! I thought I
>> got it from Young's Drama of the M/E Church, where I thought it
>> was coupled with the idea was that the dramas could be understood
>> as a form of participatory devotion- but can't find it there
>> now! Does this idea ring any bells?
>>
>> Laura
>
>
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