Some Clerical Notions of Dramatic Decorum in Late Medieval England

COMPABATIVE drama 1 Volume 19 Spring 1985 Number 1 Some Clerical Notions of Dramatic Decorum in Late Medieval England Marianne G. Briscoe The pronouncements and regulations put forth by the late medieval Church, including those of English bishops, suggest that the religious establishment was quite opposed to theatrical performance. The tradition established by Tertullian and other early Christian Fathers provided a foundation for the Church’s views.1 But the decree of Pope Innocent III in 1207 shows that the hierarchy was responding to contemporary conditions, not just voicing traditional resistance to mimetic performance: From time to time theatrical games are produced in certain churches. Not only are imitations of devils introduced in parody; in truth, in certain festivals of the year that immediately follow Christ’s birth, deacons, presbyters, and subdeacons in turn present mad parodies with obscene gestures in the sight of the people. They thus tarnish the honor of the clergy who ought better, at that time, to be delighting people by preaching the word of God. The house of God mocks us and the reproaches seem to fall on us. Brothers, we command you to root out these customary paro­ dies and commend the observance of divine and holy orders in your churches. . . .2 MARIANNE G. BRISCOE, a specialist in late medieval English sermon literature and drama, is Associate Director of Development at the University of Chicago. 1 2 Comparative Drama Innocent followed this pronouncement with an even broader stricture at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215: Clerics, either in orders or in secular trade, must not in any way indulge in shameful things. They must not watch mimes, jesters, or actors, and they must especially avoid taverns, unless travel so requires. They must neither play at dice or gamble nor show interest in games of this sort.3 This impression of clerical dislike is further reinforced by the numerous prohibitions of games, particularly those enticing “fowle & unhonest pleyes,” found in English civic, monastic, parochial, and archidiaconal records dating from the thirteenth century and extending well beyond the Reformation.4 Is it possible to reconcile this anti-drama legislation and polemic with the enthusiastic and frequent performance of drama—often under the auspices of the parish churches them­ selves—in late medieval England? There was, assuredly, some room for honest differences of opinion about drama among medieval churchmen. But some of the evidence, I believe, only appears to be contradictory. Part of the difficulty probably arises from the vague and various meanings of the terms ‘play,’ ‘play­ ing,’ ‘game,’ and ‘ludus’ that drama historians encounter in medieval records and texts. It is sometimes easy to mistake a diatribe against gambling for a dyspeptic attack on miracle plays, nativity plays, or interludes. Other problems can arise when objections to certain kinds of plays or playing are taken as objections to all drama. Similarly, we must remember that edicts on the conduct of clergy were not generally meant to apply to the life of the laity. V. A. Kolve, in the opening chapter of his seminal book The Play Called Corpus Christi (Stanford, 1966), explained how closely intertwined and complex were the medieval ideas of “play” and “game.” Now I think it is appropriate to examine the differences between the two. To do so, we must read our sources very carefully, and to guide us we must find some medieval distinctions about what the term ‘ludus’ meant and what medieval writers thought about various sorts of plays and games. But there are few places to look for medieval definitions and distinctions about drama. Literary criticism as we know it was not a medieval habit of mind. Treatises such as the artes poetria are not at all medieval versions of Aristotle’s Poetics. Rather than dealing with the genres and species of drama and poetry, Marianne G. Briscoe 3 they treat figures of speech. Distinctions themselves, however, were a medieval habit of mind; they are the stuff of which medieval preaching, theology, canon law, and philosophy were made; and in this essay I shall explore some of the distinctions (and conflations) about ludi that appear in later medieval preaching materials. While ludus rarely served as the main topic for...