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The Miracle Play in England—Nomenclature
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
It is the purpose of this paper to make a critical inquiry into the actual use of the term Miracle Play in England from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The present state of opinion among most historians of the English drama is that the term there during that period came to include all religious plays. The trend of this view during the last sixty or seventy years, as it develops from conservative statement to absolute, sweeping generalization, forms an interesting chapter in the history of critical nomenclature.
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References
1 It is a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Manly for the thesis of this paper and for many helpful suggestions in connection with it.
2 J. H. Wylie, History of England under Henry IV, Longmans, Green and Co., 1884-1898, 4 vols., vol. iii, pp. 221-2. In support of his statement he gives, among others, from the cyclic plays two citations not mentioned by any of the other historians. So I take space to consider them here. The first is from the Chester Plays (loc. cit., pp. 113-5), The Salutation and Nativity Play. The following is the situation: Salome, one of the two midwives who came at Joseph's call, appeared after Mary had given painless birth to Christ, refused to believe that there had been a miracle in the birth, and attempted to find out “whether shee be cleane maie.” Her hand was miraculously made lifeless, but was healed again after she had done the bidding of an angel that appeared and told her to pray to Christ for forgiveness. The angel said:
This mirackle nowe, that thou seeiste here
Is of Godes owine power.
After this the Expositor spoke thus:
Lo, lordinges all, of this mirackelle here
Fre[r] Barthelemew, in good manere,
Beareth wittnes without were,
As plaied is you beforne;
Another mirackle, yf I maie,
I shall rehearse, or I goe awaie,
That befell that same daie
That Jesus Christe was borne.
Then he proceeded to tell of another that occurred at the time of Christ's birth.
The other passage cited by Wylie is from the York Plays (p. 362), the Mortificacio Christi. Caiphas mocks Jesus on the cross:
I calle 
be a coward to kenne,
be a coward to kenne,
bat meruaylles and mirakills made,
bou mustered enmange many menne,But, brothell, bou bourded to brede.
In both cases cited here, of course, the references are not to a type or dramatic form, but to the miraculous acts. For an analysis of this method in detail—with its attendant fallacies—as employed at length by another writer see my study, A New Theory Concerning the Origin of the Miracle Play (Banta, 1914), chap. i.
3 C. M. Gayley, Representative English Comedy (1907), p. xviii. Cf. also, among others, A. W. Ward, Hist. Eng. Dram. Lit. etc.; (1899) I, p. 57; A. H. Thorndike, Tragedy (1908), p. 23; F. E. Schelling, The Elizabethan Drama, (1908), i, p. 10.
4 Relative to the point of view of the playwright, the words of Brander Matthews are apt here (A Study of the Drama, p. 112): “Every student … must remember always that we have no right to assume that the author ever gave a thought to the specific name the historians of literature might one day bestow on his masterpiece.”
5 See, A New Theory, etc., passim. Richard Garnett (Eng. Lit., An Illustrated Record, i, p. 223) does state that the distinction, mysteries and miracle plays, made by historians of the drama is practically unimportant.
6 Vitae Abbatum St. Albani (London, 1684), p. 1007.
7 In this connection I give two other interesting references. The first is found in A Selection of Latin Stories from mss. of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Percy Society (London, 1842), vol. viii, pp. 99-100: “Anno Domini circiter millesimo cc° 66° apud Corinthum, metropolum Graeciae inferioris, quae Gallograecia dicitur, contigit in festo beatae Mariae Magdalenae, duos fratres minores de conventu supradicto post dormitionem meridianam exire in patriam, pro quibusdam expediendis, et dum in prato longissimo super fluvium elongati essent a civitate per duo miliaria, viderunt ante se in eodem prato maximam multitudinem hominum congregatam, quos nunc silentes, nunc acclamantes, nunc cachinnantes audiebant. Admirantes igitur quare in loco tali tanta esse hominum adunatio, estimabant ibi spectacula celebrare quae nos miracula appellare consuevimus.” The other reference is from a letter of Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln written to his archdeacons on the conduct of his priests. See Epistles of Robert Grosseteste (Rolls Series), epistle cvii, p. 317, under the date 1244: “Faciunt etiam, ut audivimus, clerici ludos quos vocant miracula, et alios ludos quos vocant Inductionem Maii, sive Autumni; et laici scotales; quod nullo modo vos latere posset, si vestra prudentia super his diligenter inquireret.” It should be mentioned here that the word miracula is missing in two of the three manuscripts of this letter. All the mss. are of the fifteenth century.
8 Mod. Phil., iv (1906-7), p. 585.
9 Ed. F. J. Furnivall, Roxburghe Club (London, 1862). Later ed., E. E. T. S., Original Series, Vols. 119, 123. I have not had access to the E. E. T. S. edition.
10 Op. cit., p. 3, 11. 56-75, esp. 11. 72-5, where he refers to the monastery at which he was staying when he made the translation:
Dane Felyp was mayster þbat tyme
þbat y began þbys englyssh ryme
þbe yeres of grace fyl þban to be
A þbousand and hundred and þpre.
hundred and þpre.11 I take here the statement of Creizenach (Cambridge Hist. Eng. Lit., v, pt. i, p. 45). The Manuel de Pechiez by Wadington was “composed, probably, about the end of the thirteenth century.”
12 An Old French scholar to whom I took this passage several years ago began at once pointing out errors in the text and correcting them. William of Wadington, and not the editor is to blame, and, furthermore, he makes due apologies. Manuel, pp. 413-4, 11. 12736 ff.:
De le franceis, ne del rimer,
Ne me doit nuls hom blamer,
Kar en engletere fu ne,
E norri, ordine, et aleue;
De une vile sui nome
Ou ne est burg ne cite.
… … .
De deu seit beneit chescun hom
Ky prie pur Wilham Wadigtoun.
13 Cf. Tretise on Miraclis Pleyinge (Mätzner, Alteng. Sprachpr. i, p. 228): “Also sithen it makith to se veyne Si
tis of degyse, aray of men and wymmen by yvil continaunse, eyther stiryng othere to letcherie, and of debatis …, wherfore it suffrith not a man to be holden enterly the 
erde of God over his heved, etc.”
14 The Seint ysidre (Seynt Ysodre of the Handlyng) is Isidore of Seville (c. 560-616, A. D.). The reference is to his Etymologiae and may refer to two passages. The first is Etym. xviii, 27 (Migne, P. L., 82, p. 653), De ludis circensibus: “Ludi circenses sacrorum causa, ac gentilium celebrationibus instituti sunt. Unde et qui eos spectant daemonum cultibus inservire videntur. Nam res equestris antea simplex agebatur, et utique communis usus reatus non erat, sed cum ad ludos coactus est naturalis usus, ad daemoniorum (sic) cultum translatas est.” The second is from Etym. xviii, 59, (Ibid., p. 659, De horum exsecratione): “Haec quippe spectacula crudelitatis, et inspectio vanitatum non solum hominum vitiis, sed de daemonum jussis instituta sunt. Proinde nihil esse debet Christiano cum circensi insania, cum impudicitia theatri, cum amphitheatri crudelitate, cum atrocitate arenae, cum luxuria ludi. Deum enim negat, qui talia praesumit, fidei Christianae praevaricator effectus, qui id denuo appetit quod in lavacro jam pridem renuntiavit, id est, diabolo, pompis et operibus ejus.” This last sentence pretty surely gives us the source of the last three or four lines of William of Wadington.
15 See Reliquiae Antiquae, ed. Th. Wright and J. O. Halliwell (London, 1843), vol. ii, pp. 42-57. Better edition by Eduard Mätzner, Altenglische Sprachproben (Berlin, 1867), Bd. i, Zweite Abth., pp. 222-242. Mätzner (pp. 222-224) gives a brief analysis of its contents, and discusses it briefly in relation to its period.
16 Mätzner, op. cit., p. 223.
17 Mätzner, pp. 231-232. Cf. Tobit 3, 16-17:
Tu scis Domine, quia numquam concupivi virum,
et mundam servavi animam meam ab omni
concupiscentia, Numquam miscui me, etc.
18 Mätzner, pp. 231-232. Cf. Gen. 21, 9 sqq.:
Cumque vidisset Sara filium Agar Aegyptiae
ludentem cum Isaac filio suo, dixit ad Abraham.
19 Mätzner, p. 237. Cf. Sam. ii, 2, 14-31.
20 Mätzner, pp. 238-239. Cf. Ex. 32, 6: “Et sedit populus manducere et bibere, et surrexerunt ludere.”
21 Mätzner, p. 241. Cf. Kings ii, 2, 23: “Ascendit autem in Bethel: cumque ascendit per viam, pueri parvi agressi sunt de civitate et illudebant ei, dicentes: Ascende, calve! ascende, calve! ”
22 Mätzner, p. 241. Cf. Kings ii, 6, 21-22: “Dixitque David ad Michal: Ante Dominum, qui elegit me potius quam patrem tuum, et quam omnem domum ejus …; et ludam et vilior fiam plus quam factus sum.”
23 A Wycliffite document of the same class as the Tretise is A Poem Against the Friars and their Miracle-Plays. (So entitled in Reliquiae Antiquae, I, pp. 322-323, but in Pol. Poems and Songs relating to English History, etc., London, 1859, Rolls Series, i, p. 268, entitled On the Minorite Friars). The term Miracle Play is not mentioned in the poem, and there is no reference to cyclic plays as such.
24 A case that is similar in some respects to this is found in the use of the word miraculorum in the Lichfield Statutes of Hugh de Nonant, 1188-98; (the following is quoted from A New Theory, etc., p. 3, footnote): “Item in nocte Natalis representacio pastorum fieri consueuit et in diluculo Paschae representacio Resurreccionis dominicae et representacio peregrinorum die lunae in septimana Paschae, sicut in libris super hijs ac alijs compositis continetur… . De officio succentoris … et providere debet quod representacio pastorum in nocte Natalis domini et miraculorum in nocte Paschae et die lunae in Pascha congrue et honorifice fiant.” Professor Creizenach (Geschichte des neueren Dramas, 1911, vol. i, p. 159) in a footnote to the following, cites this as a case of loose usage: “Im übrigen müssen wir, wenn in den Quellen von Mirakelspielen die Rede ist, uns stets daran erinnern, dass im mittelalterlichen Sprachgebrauch die dramatischen Gattungsbegriffe nicht streng auseinandergehalten werden.” On the contrary, the word miraculorum as employed here is not at all a case of loose usage. The correct interpretation is, as Professor Manly has suggested to me, that the term applied to the dramatic presentation is not miraculorum but representacio. Thus there is a “representacio pastorum … peregrinorum … miraculorum.” Miraculorum here refers to the marvels or miraculous events which formed the subject matter of the play. E. K. Chambers, also, (ii, p. 104 footnote) cites this as standing for “representacio,” but misquotes. His text reads “miraculum in nocte Paschae” instead of “miraculorum etc.”
25 For Carew see D. N. B., iii, pp. 969-71. The Survey was first printed in 1602. Fuller speaks of it as a “pleasant and faithful description” of Cornwall.
26 Richard Carew, Survey of Cornwall (1602), ed. 1723, pp. 71-72.
27 Edward Norris, Ancient Cornish Drama (Oxford, 1859), two vols., edited, with English translation.
28 Whitley Stokes, The Life of St. Meriasek, A Cornish Drama (London, 1872), edited, with English translation. For summary and comments see Creizenach, op. cit., i, pp. 347-8.
29 For a discussion of the Holy Rood-Tree legend see the introduction to A. S. Napier's History of the Holy Rood Tree, A Twelfth Century Version of the Cross Legend. E. E. T. S., Original Series, vol. 103.
30 Sir William Dugdale (1605-1686), antiquarian of Warwickshire, in his account of the Biblical plays given at Coventry, a place with which he was very familiar, affords an excellent illustration of confusion and lack of exactness similar to that of Carew. He “is the earliest authority for the belief that the Coventry Corpus Christi play told the story of both the Old and New Testament.” In writing of the Gray Friars of Coventry he says (Antiq. of Warwickshire, by Sir William Dugdale, 2nd ed., rev. etc. by William Thomas, D. D., London: 1730, vol. i, p. 183): “Before the suppression of the Monasteries, this city was very famous for the Pageants that were played therein, upon Corpus Christi day; which occasioning very great confluence of people thither from far and near, was of no small benefit thereto; which pageants … . contained the story of the [Old and] New Testament (not bracketed in the first edition, 1656. The passages do not differ otherwise in 1st and 2nd eds.), composed into old English Rithme, as appeareth by an antient ms. (in Bibl. Cotton sub effigie Vesp. D. 9(8) intituled Ludus Gorporis Christi, or Ludus Coventriae).
“I have been told by some old people, who in their younger years were eye witnesses of these Pageants so acted, that the yearly confluence of people to see that show was extraordinarily great, and yielded no small advantage to this city.” Quoted from Hardin Craig, The Coventry Corpus Christi Plays, E. E. T. S., Extra Series, 87 (London, 1902), pp. xxii-xxiii. The comments of Hardin Craig and E. K. Chambers with reference to the plays are to the point and cover the case as far as we are concerned: Craig (op. cit., xix), “There is nothing … . inconsistent in believing … . that at Coventry the Old Testament plays were never developed at all”; Chambers (The Mediaeval Stage, ii, p. 423), “It is noticeable that no Old Testament play can be established at Coventry.” Craig's discussion of the absence of Old Testament plays, see pp. xviii-xix, op. cit.
31 A case in point is that of William Revetour, a chantry priest and warden of the guild of Corpus Christi at York, who in that year willed a Creed Play to his fraternity. See Testamenta Eboracensia, vol. ii, pp. 116-117 (Surtees Society, 1855): Testamentum Domimi Willelmi Revetour Capellani. “Lego fraternitati Corporis Christi quemdam librum vocatum Le Crede Play cum libris et vexillis eidem pertinentibus.” This is not the place for a general discussion of mediaeval dramatic nomenclature, a study of which is much needed as a chapter in the history of the English drama.
32 The results of this research I expect to present in my next paper on the Miracle Play in England.