Legendary Spectacles

Death by Drama and Other Medieval Urban Legends , by Jody Enders. 2002: University of Chicago Press

"Part of every legend is true." This conviction underlies Jody Enders's entertaining new book on the fabulous stories surrounding some medieval performances. But before she can explore these truths, Enders must suggest that part of every legend is also false. The central insight of Death by Drama is that modern urban legends—cautionary tales of the Alligator in the Sewer, the Kentucky Fried Rat, the Poodle in the Microwave, or the $250,000 Cookie Recipe—are not so far removed from certain kinds of medieval performance history. Scholars (including Enders herself) have eagerly repeated tales about the beheading of a convicted criminal during the play of Judith and Holofernes, the near-crucifixion of an actor performing Jesus on the cross, the off-stage insanity or despair of those playing mad or suicidal roles, or the diabolical effects of impersonating a devil. But the historical truth of these stories is hard to verify. Enders debunks the authority of the scholarly footnote as she shows that, more often than not, seemingly reliable research trails lead only to the unnamed "friend of a friend" who is the misty staple of legendary authority. She goes on, however, to show that although the truth these dramatic legends offer is not straightforward, they, like modern urban legends, do reveal something authentic about medieval performances.

Death by Drama itself constitutes an academic performance of an unusual and welcome kind. Among other things, Enders's book is a useful compendium of fascinating anecdotes from the medieval theater, retelling many legends in a colorful style that makes the book difficult to put down. Part 1, "Telling the Difference," relates a number of intriguing cases where theatrical illusion slipped into reality: the actress who was so convincingly saintly that she charmed an aristocrat in her audience into a marriage proposal; the young boy who played St. Barbara so well he received both offers of marriage and an invitation to prepare for the priesthood; rehearsals that were so lifelike they endangered—and even sometimes took—actors' lives; and the notorious "Eel" (M. Languille) of Melun, who mistook illusion for reality and screamed before the torturer began to pretend to flay him. In the book's second part, "Make-Believe," Enders explores the social and theological anxieties revealed by another group of legends, more devotionally motivated. In this context, we learn about "childish" crowds who laughed at the performances of their censorious preachers, anti-Semitic tales of host desecration and subsequent miracle, a quarry turned into a legendary theatrical space, the use of holy relics as props, and what kind of miracle actually can occur when actors faithfully represent Christ's multiplication of the loaves and fishes onstage.

The analogy with modern urban legends teaches Enders to treat these stories as both false and true. As folklorists have shown, the narratives circulating as urban legends are generally unusual enough to strike hearers as memorable (and repeatable), while plausible enough not to strain credibility to the breaking point. The power of the tale is that a liberated alligator could be in your sewer, even though the chances are slim. Whether or not events unfolded precisely as the story relates (a question to which Enders is particularly sensitive when her stories involve lives and deaths), such a legend is true in that it illuminates a field of cultural anxiety. Urban legends reflect truly what the society that has produced them most fears. But whereas modern legends often warn about the dangers of industrialization, mechanization, and urbanization—in short, modernity—the medieval legends Enders investigates instead explore the possibilities and dangers of theatrical representation. Why should medieval legends be concerned with this, above all? Enders finds some answers in the history of religious reformation, which depended in part...