The Laity, The Church and the Mystery Plays: A Drama of Belonging (review)

The Laity, the Church and the Mystery Plays: A Drama of Belonging by Tony Corbett is a highly specialized book about the role of English mystery plays in the laity’s lives during the Middle Ages. Corbett questions the commonly accepted belief that medieval English mystery plays were intended only for religious instruction of the masses; instead, he suggests that the plays functioned equally as tools of empowerment for the operantes—the term Corbett coins to refer to “the target audience, . . . the performers, producers, and all those involved with the production whose exposure to the dramatic and performance texts may have been more frequent than that of bystanders” (20). Using various examples from existing plays and religious literature from the Middle Ages, Corbett demonstrates how the mystery plays reflected the alternative spiritualities of the laity, whose catechisms often diverged from that of the institutional church.

In late medieval England, a new class of artisans emerged and became part of the urban elite. Ironically, the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 had defined Church laws to exclude laity from the Church’s liturgy “precisely at the time when many of the laity were becoming interested in aspects of their own devotional life” (17). As a result, the laity sought alternative ways to “belong” in the official Church, and participation in religious guilds was one way. Whereas some scholars view the playmaking activities of religious guilds merely as pious doings of the devout, Corbett sees them as a way for the newly emerging class to voice its spiritual and social concerns.

The book is divided into two major parts. The first is “Contexts,” in which Corbett explores the different models of spirituality in late medieval England, especially those that were not under the direct control of the official Church. In the second part, “Drama of Belonging,” the author uses specific texts to demonstrate how the laity’s representations of biblical figura—Erich Auerbach’s term for the presented figures in a drama—did or did not follow the syllabus of the Church.

The book’s first two chapters contextualize the English mystery plays in order to lay out Corbett’s argument. In “Religious and Cultural Contexts,” he focuses on various levels of conflict between the increasingly exclusive Church and the rising powers of the laity: whereas in the early Middle Ages one was encouraged to access God through private devotion, the Fourth Lateran Council had made it impossible for a lay person to access God without a priest’s mediation. While the majority of the laity accepted this change as a matter of course, small dissident groups attempted to overcome their powerlessness in the Church. Some engaged in heterodoxy and others in “orthodox protest” (17), whereby they demonstrated religious discontent through practices accepted by the Church. Corbett argues that participating in religious guilds was an example of the latter.

The second chapter, “English Guilds and Religious Practice,” explores the specific practices of various guilds. The foremost purpose of each guild—whether craft, trade, or religious in nature— was the unity of its members and the group’s advancement. Playmaking guilds were no exception. The plays they produced were among the few channels through which the laity could exercise civic control over the official liturgy. Toward the end of this chapter, Corbett suggests that the mystery plays were primarily a way for operantes to engage in spiritual dialogue and claim a sense of belonging in the Church. That the plays happened to be public activities and worked for the public good was a bonus, though not the chief purpose.

The book’s second part examines four topics: the Decalogue, the creeds and the Paternoster, Mary, and Christ. Corbett here takes a close look at those mystery plays that exhibit the laity’s alternative spiritualities. He contrasts the religiously orthodox N-Town plays, which are believed to have been controlled by priests...