The Durham Play of Mary and the Poor Knight: Sources and Analogues of a Lost English Miracle Play

The Durham Play of Mary and the Poor Knight: Sources and Analogues of a Lost English Miracle Play Stephen K. Wright Judging from the number of extant texts and documented performances, plays depicting the life and miracles of the Virgin delighted audiences across the breadth of medieval Europe for well over three centuries. Today the Marian miracle play is perhaps most commonly associated with fourteenth-century Paris due to the survival of the forty plays known collectively as the Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages in the famous Cangé manuscripts (Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 819 and 820). During the Middle Ages, however, the genre flourished throughout the Continent. Examples are preserved in libraries scattered from Sweden to the Mediterranean and from Spain to Poland. England is a notable exception. Despite evidence of vigorous local traditions of civic and ecclesiastical drama from as early as the twelfth century on, the English Marian miracle play is an all but vanished species whose very existence can only be inferred from a handful of tantalizing clues. The deliberate zeal of Protestant reformers, the unpredictable changes in the tastes of audiences and patrons, and the slow devastation of centuries of neglect have combined to obliterate nearly every trace of the English performances of the miracles of the Virgin. Because of the unique place of the Marian miracle play in medieval culSTEPHEN K. WRIGHT, Assistant Professor of English at The Catholic University of America, is currently working on comparative studies of medieval historical and hagiographical plays and studies of theatrical patronage in late medieval France and Germany. 254 Stephen K. Wright 255 ture, however, it is especially important to examine every scrap of available evidence in order to develop as clear a picture as possible of the life of the genre in England.1 Unfortunately, the few hints that have survived have attracted little scholarly attention. What is more, by reading the extant records in isola­ tion from their Continental sources and analogues, English critics have occasionally been led into serious misinterpretations. A case in point is the short text commonly known as the “Dur­ ham Prologue.” The “Durham Prologue,” which is preserved on the dorse of a volume which has been in the possession of the Durham Dean and Chapter since at least 1359 (MS. 1.2 Archdiac. Dunelm. 60), was composed not far from its present home in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century.2 The lines are apparently written in a monastic hand and may well have been intended for performance at Durham Priory itself, the site of numerous musical and dramatic entertainments throughout the Middle Ages.3 The thirty-six lines of the text constitute what is obviously the complete spoken prologue to a Marian miracle play. The speaker begins with a conventional appeal to the “lordyngs” of the audience for silence and then gives a brief synopsis of the dramatic action which is to follow. What is to be presented, we are told, is the tale of a rich and powerful knight who falls into abject poverty when fortune turns against him. While lamenting his lost wealth, the knight is approached by the devil, who offers to restore his riches if the knight will swear allegiance to him and his host of demonic powers. Al­ though the knight apparently agrees to the bargain, he never renounces his devotion to the Virgin. Eventually, Mary takes pity on the knight and prays to her Son for his redemption. Her request is granted—by what means we are not told—and the knight is released from his pact with the devil. Despite the relatively clear outline of the contents provided by the prologue, however, there has been considerable confu­ sion and uncertainty about the exact subject of the lost play ever since the fragment came to light over twenty years ago. June Cooling, the first editor of the prologue, declined to offer any speculation whatsoever on the nature of the play which she had discovered.4 The history of contradictory opinions about the play can be traced back to J. A. W. Bennett, who mentions the Durham fragment in a 1967 review of Beverly Boyd’s edition of The English Miracles...