sacred text in personating the primitive appearance of our first parents, whom the spectators so nearly resembled in simplicity: and if this had not been the case, the dramatists were ignorant what to reject and what to retain. In the mean time, profane dramas seem to have been known in France at a much earlier period". Du Cange gives the following picture of the king of France dining in public before the year 1300. During this ceremony, a sort of farces or drolls seems to have been exhibited. All the great officers of the crown and the houshold, says he, were present. playes) into Englishe. The plays accord with this declaration, and attribute the authorship to one Don Rondall. A proclamation bound up with them, and bearing date 24th Henry VIII. (1533) assigns their first appearance to the mayoralty of John Arnwaie, though it contains the following notice of the author: "a play...was devised and made by one Sir Henry Frances sometyme Moonck of this monastery dissolved who obtayning and gat of Clemant then bushop of Rome a 1000 dayes of pardon and of the bushop of Chester at that tyme 40 dayes of pardon...to every person resorting in peaceable maner with good devotion to heare and see the sayd playes," &c. In all these accounts the tradition is consistent, that the mysteries originated during the mayoralty of Sir John Arnwaie; and, with the exception of the last-mentioned document, that they were written by Don Randall or Randoll Higden. To this assertion of the proclamation, we can oppose the decided testimony of the prologue to the plays; and Mr. Lysons has suggested an easy solution of the difficulty, by supposing Frances to have been instrumental only in procuring the indulgence from Pope Clement. This, if obtained of Clement VI. (as there is every reason to believe), must have occurred between the years 1342-1352; and the distance of time would account for the confusion of his labours with those of Higden. There is nothing improbable in the statement that Higden translated these plays from the Latin; though his journeys to Rome, enshrined as they are in the mystic number three, savour strongly of traditionary The exaggeration. Perhaps in this we have the counterpart to the narrative in the proclamation; for the equity of tradition rather delights in awarding reciprocal compensations, than in restoring to the contending claimants their original property.-EDIT.] u John of Salisbury, a writer of the eleventh century, speaking of the common diversions of his time, says, "Nostra ætas prolapsa ad fabulas et quævis inania, non modo aures et cor prostituit vanitati," &c. POLICRAT. i. 8. An ingenious French writer, Mons. Duclos, thinks that PLAYS are here implied. By the word Fabula, says he, something more is signified than dances, gesticulation, and simple dialogue. Fable properly means composition, and an arrangement of things which constitute an action. Mem. Acad. Inscr. xvii. p. 224. 4to. But perhaps fabula has too vague and general a sense, especially in its present combination with quævis inania, to bear so precise and critical an interpretation. I will add, that if this reasoning be true, the words will be equally applicable to the English stage.-At Constantinople it seems that the stage flourished much under Justinian and Theodora, about the year 540. For in the Basilical codes we have the oath of an actress un araxwguir as Togas. Tom. vii, p. 682. edit. Fabrot. Græco-Lat. The antient Greek fathers, particularly saint Chrysostom, are full of declamation against the drama: and complain, that the people heard a comedian with much more pleasure than a preacher of the Gospel. company was entertained with the instrumental music of the minstrells, who played on the kettle-drum, the flagellet", w, the cornet, the Latin cittern, the Bohemian flute, the trumpet, the Moorish cittern, and the fiddle. Besides there were "des FARCEURS, des jongleurs, et des plaisantins, qui divertisseoient les compagnies par leur faceties et par leur CoMEDIES, pour l'entretien." He adds, that He adds, that many noble families in France were entirely ruined by the prodigious expences lavished on those performers. The annals of France very early mention buffoons among the minstrells at these solemnities; and more particularly that Louis le Debonnaire, who reigned about the year 830, never laughed aloud, not even when at the most magnificent festivals, players, buffoons, minstrels, singers, and harpers, attended his table'. In some constitutions given to a cathedral church in France, in the year 1280, the following clause occurs. "Nullus SPECTACULIS aliquibus quæ aut in Nuptiis aut in Scenis exhibentur, intersitz." Where, by the way, the word Scenis seems to imply somewhat of a professed stage, although the establishment of the first French theatre is dated not before the w I believe, a sort of pipe. This is the French word, viz. Demy-canon. See Carpent. Du Cange, Gl. Lat. i. p. 760. * Dissertat. Joinv. p. 161. y Ibid. z Montfauc. Cat. Manuscrip. p. 1158. See also Marten. Thesaur. Anecd.tom.iv. p. 506. Stat. Synod. A.D. 1468. "Larvaria ad Nuptias, &c." Stowe, in his SURVEY OF LONDON, mentions the practice of acting plays at weddings. [A modern French antiquary (M. Roquefort) has claimed a much higher antiquity for the establishment or rather origin of the French stage; though upon principles, it must be allowed, which have a decided tendency to confound all distinctions between the several kinds of poetic composition. The beautiful tale of Aucassin and Nicolette, is the corner stone upon which this theory reposes; and which, as the narrative is interspersed with song, seems to have induced a belief, that the recitations were made by a single Trouvere, and the poetry chaunted by a band of attendant minstrels. Ad * year 1398. mitting this to be the case-yet for which no authority is offered the approximation to dramatic composition is equally remote as when left in the hands of a solitary declaimer. Upon this ground every ballad, or romantic tale, which is known to have been accompanied by music and the voice, might be styled 66 a monument of theatric art;" and by analogy the rhapsodists of Greece, who sang the Iliad at the public games, might be said to have "enacted the plays" of Homer. Nor is the argument in favour of the Jeux-partis, or such fabliaux as the deux Bordeors ribauds, in any degree more admissible. In all these pieces there is nothing more than a simple interchange of opinion, whether argumentative or vituperative, without pretension to incident, fable, or development of character. Indeed, if a multiplicity of interlocutors would alone constitute a drama, the claim of Wolfram von Eschenbach to be the founder of the German stage (as some of his countrymen have main The play of ROBIN and MARIAN is said to have been performed by the school-boys of Angiers, according to annual custom, in the year 1392a. A royal carousal given by Charles the Fifth of France to the emperor Charles the Fourth, in the year 1378, was closed with the theatrical representation of the Conquest of Jerusalem by Godfrey of Bulloign, which was ex tained) would be undeniable. In his "Krieg auf Wartburg," a singular monument of early (1207) improvisatorial skill, the declaimers in the first part are six and in the second three Master or Minne-singers. But this poem, like the Tensons of the Troubadours, is a mere trial of poetical ingenuity, and bears a strong resemblance both in matter and manner to the Torneyamens of the same writers. That it was not considered a play in earlier times, is clear from an illumination published by Mr. Docen; where the actors in this celebrated contest are represented seated and singing together, and above them is this decisive inscription: Hie krieget mit sange, Herr walther von der vogilweide, &c. Here bataileth in song, &c. However, should this theory obtain, Solomon, bishop of Constance in the tenth century, will perhaps rank as the earliest dramatist at present known: Metro primus et coram Regibus plerumque pro ludicro cum aliis certator. Ekkehardus de Casibus S. Galli, p. 49.-EDIT.] a The boys were deguisies, says the old French record: and they had among them un Fillette desguiseè. Carpent. ubi supr. V. ROBINET. PENTECOSTE. Our old character of MAYD MARIAN may be hence illustrated. It seems to have been an early fashion in France for schoolboys to present these shews or plays. In an antient manuscript, under the year 1477, there is mentioned "Certaine MoRALITE, OU FARÇE, que les escolliers de Pontoise avoit fait, ainsi qu'il est de coustume." Carpent. ubi supr. V. MORALITAS. The MYSTERY OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT is said to have been represented in 1424, by the boys of Paris placed like statues against a wall, without speech or motion, at the entry of the duke of Bedford, regent of France. See J. de Paris, p. 101. And Sauval, Ant. de Paris, ii. 101. [Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion, the piece alluded to in the text, has been analysed by M. le Grand in the second volume of his " Fabliaux et Contes." It is there called Le Jeu du Berger et de la Bergere, and by him attributed to Adan de le Hale, nicknamed le Boçu d'Arras. In this he is followed by M. Meon, the editor of Barbazan's Fabliaux, who also ascribes to the same author a play called Le Jeu du Mariage. M. Roquefort catalogues "Robin et Marion" among the works of Jehan Bodel d'Arras, the author of three plays called Le Jeu de Pelerin, Le Jeu d'Adam ou de la Feuillée, Le Jeu de St. Nicholas; and a mystery called Le Miracle de Theophile. This latter may be the same referred to below. Adan de la Hale appears to have lived in the early part of the thirteenth century (Roquefort, p. 103), and Jehan Bodel during the reign of Saint Louis (1226-70). These perhaps are the earliest specimens extant of any thing resembling dramatic composition in the French language. It is true M. de la Rue (Archæol. vol. xiv.) has noticed an early drama, which from finding it bound up with a sermon written by Langton, archbishop of Canterbury (in 1207), he is disposed to attribute to that prelate. But the outline he has given of its contents clearly shows it to be nothing more than a dramatic disposition of the same arguments, which fill the "Chateau d'Amour" quoted above. We have there seen, that the author professes to follow an original of some kind by Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, Langton's contemporary; and unless we choose to reject this statement as fictitious, M. de la Rue's conjecture as to the author of the drama becomes more than doubtful. The primate, who was a man of considerable learning, would hardly have dramatized for vulgar readers the mystic rhapsodies of his erudite suffragan, -EDIT.] hibited in the hall of the royal palace". This indeed was a subject of a religious tendency; but not long afterwards, in the year 1395, perhaps before, the interesting story of PATIENT GRISILDE appears to have been acted at Paris. This piece still remains, and is entitled Le MYSTERE de Grisildis marquise de Saluce. For all dramatic pieces were indiscriminately called MYSTERIES, whether a martyr or a heathen god, whether saint Catharine or Hercules was the subject. In France the religious MYSTERIES, often called Piteaux, or PITOUX, were certainly very fashionable, and of high antiquity: yet from any written evidence, I do not find them more antient than those of the English. In the year 1384, the inhabitants of the village of Aunay, on the Sunday after the feast of Saint John, played the MIRACLE of Theophilus, “ou quel Jeu avoit un personnage de un qui devoit getter d'un canon d" In the year 1398, some citizens of Paris met at Saint Maur to play the PASSION of CHRIST. The magistrates of Paris, alarmed at this novelty, published an ordonnance, prohibiting them to represent "aucuns jeux de personages soit de vie de saints ou autrement," without the royal licence, which was soon afterwards obtained. In the year 1486, at Anjou, ten pounds were paid towards supporting the charges of acting the PASSION of CHRIST, which was represented by masks, and, as I suppose, by persons hired for the purpose. The chaplains of Abbeville, in the year 1455, gave four pounds and ten shillings to the PLAYERS of the PASSIONS. b Felib. tom. ii. p. 681. It has been printed, more than once, in the black letter. Beauchamps, p. 110. & Carpentier, Suppl. Du Cange Lat. Gl. V. LUDus. e Beauchamps, ut supr. p. 90. This was the first theatre of the French: the actors were incorporated by the king, under the title of the Fraternity of the Passion of our Saviour. Beauch.ibid. See above, Sect. ii. p. 95. n. The Jeu de personages was a very common play of the young boys in the larger towns, &c. Carpentier, ut supr. V. PERSONAGIUM. But the French MYSTERIES And LUDUS PERSONAG. At Cambray mention is made of the shew of a boy larvatus cum maza in collo with drums, &c. Carpent. ib. V. KALENDE JANUAR. f" Decem libr. ex parte nationis, ad onera supportanda hujus Misterii." Carpent. ut supr. V. PERSONAGIUM. Carpent. ut supr. V. LUDUS. Who adds, from an antient Computus, that three shillings were paid by the ministers of a church, in the year 1537, for parchment, for writing LUDUS RESURRECTIONIS DOMINI. were chiefly performed by the religious communities, and some of their FETES almost entirely consisted of a dramatic or personated shew. At the FEAST of ASSES, instituted in honour of Baalam's Ass, the clergy walked on Christmas day in procession, habited to represent the prophets and others. Moses appeared in an alb and cope, with a long beard and rod. David had a green vestment. Baalam with an immense pair of spurs, rode on a wooden ass, which inclosed a speaker. There were also six Jews and six Gentiles. Among other characters the poet Virgil was introduced as a gentile prophet and a translator of the Sibylline oracles. They thus moved in procession, chanting versicles, and conversing in character on the nativity and kingdom of Christ, through the body of the church, till they came into the choir. Virgil speaks some Latin hexameters, during the ceremony, not out of his fourth eclogue, but wretched monkish lines in rhyme. This feast was, I believe, early suppressed". In the year 1445, Charles the Seventh of France ordered the masters in Theology, at Paris to forbid the ministers of the collegiate churches to celebrate at Christmas the FEAST of FOOLS in their churches, where the clergy danced in masques and antic dresses, and exhibited plusieurs mocqueries spectacles publics, de leur corps deguisements, farces, rigmereis, with various enormities shocking to decency. In France as well as England it was customary to celebrate the feast of the boy-bishop. In all the collegiate churches of both nations, about the feast of Saint Nicholas, or the Holy h See p. 43. i Marten. Anecd. tom. i. col. 1804. See also Belet. de Divin. offic. cap. 72. And Gussanvill. post. Not. ad Petr. Blesens. Felibien confounds La Fete de Fous et la Fete de Sotise. The latter was an entertainment of dancing called Les Saultes, and thence corrupted into Soties or Solise. See Mem. Acad. Inscript. xvii. 225, 226. See also Probat. Hist. Antissiodor. p. 310. Again, the Feast of Fools seems to be pointed at in Statut. Senonens. A. D. 1445. Instr. tom. xii. Gall. Christian. Coll. 96. "Tempore divini servitii larvatos et monstruosos vultus deferendo, cum vestibus mulierum, aut lenonum, aut histrionum, choreas in ecclesia et choro ejus ducendo," &c. With the most immodest specta cles. The nuns of some French convents are said to have had Ludibria on saint Mary Magdalene's and other festivals, when they wore the habits of seculars, and danced with them. Carpent. ubi supr. V. KALENDE. There was the office of Rex Stultorum in Beverley church, prohibited 1391. Dugd. Mon. iii. Append. 7. |