Sacred Players: The Politics of Response in the Middle English Religious Drama

2. Correcting Response in the Digby Conversion of Saint Paul

Chapter Two Correcting Response in the Digby Conversion of Saint Paul “Stabyll your syghtys” and “Spare your speche”1 IN RECASTING THE CHESTER CYCLE as a proto-Protestant text, the writers of the post-Reformation Banns attempted to ensure the survival of the cycle, given the change in England’s religious climate and accompanying reform efforts to rid the land of the errors of the earlier faith. Yet the inventive claim put forth in the Banns— that the cycle had in the past simply been misappropriated and misused by Catholic sponsors and audiences, and that this misuse could now be examined and overcome through the proper mechanisms of the true faith—may reflect other reform efforts to purge through a process other than overt destruction. As with the Chester cycle and its Expositor, the Digby Conversion of Saint Paul offers its audiences an address figure whose emphasis on scriptural authority asserts a 51 1. The quotation is from Baker, Murphy, and Hall (1982), 20, ll. 568 and 559. All future references are from this edition and will be cited parenthetically by line number . I have modernized some spellings throughout. 52 Reforming Response reception role that potentially conflicts with the one promoted by other elements of the performance that assume, for example, a spatial and physical immediacy with audience members. Reinterpreted as a play that has been misused by the earlier faith, The Conversion of Saint Paul becomes, like the Chester cycle, an arena for exposing the errors of the old religion and replacing them with the truths of the new religion. While, unlike the Chester cycle, this reinterpretation process is not directly attested to (as it is in the late Banns), The Conversion of Saint Paul contains several clues that indicate its immediate usefulness for a reformist program seeking to reveal the errors of one style of faith in order to replace them with the truths of the new style of faith. Although the main text of the manuscript of the Saint Paul dates approximately to 1500, the condition of the manuscript and a number of scribal tinkerings with the main text suggest that the play enjoyed continued attention and use throughout the sixteenth century . Not only is the cover sheet of the manuscript (f. 37) rather worn and dirty, but two distinct creases or folds in the manuscript indicate that it was carried around, perhaps folded into pockets.2 For Donald Baker, these manuscript details demonstrate a highly versatile play with a long performance life, adaptable to different performance situations (1989, 20–25). These details also point to the possibility that the play could suit alternative religious sensibilities, a flexibility supported by the probable performance of the Saint Paul (along with the Digby Mary Magdalene) in Chelmsford in 1562 (Coldewey, 1975). While the manuscript of the Digby Saint Paul predates the Reformation and must have been initially composed and produced to suit Catholic sensibilities, it was perhaps also later performed to suit an alternative theology. As records have demonstrated, saint plays seem to have been highly popular, possibly accounting for the most com2 . See Baker, Murphy, and Hall (1982) for manuscript information and for a discussion of staging (xv–xviii and xxv–xxx). See as well the Introduction to Baker and Murphy (1976, vii–xii). Baker (1989) also explores the possible performance history of the plays (21–25). Coldewey (1975) provides a strong case for the 1562 staging. See also Baker and Murphy (1967, 162–63). mon and numerous of all of the vernacular religious plays in medieval England.3 In the wake of the Reformation’s wholesale destruction of the genre,4 the sole survival of the Digby Saint Paul and its companion saint play, the Digby Mary Magdalene suggests that these two plays may well have been deemed salvageable, if not remarkably useful, to the new religion. The thematic foundation of the Conversion of Saint Paul is, of course, the act of conversion: of Paul’s recognition of his spiritual ignorance and his transformation from persecutor to disciple. As a fawning and eager agent of the evil temple priests, Caiphas and Anna, Paul undergoes his change while journeying to Damascus to root out the followers of Christ. Gaining a new spiritual understanding , he converts from the old faith (of the old Testament) to the new faith (of the New Testament). In his 1527–1528 The Obedience of a Christian Man, William Tyndale points specifically to...