Mediæval London, Volume 2 by Walter Besant

Author:Walter Besant [Besant, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Medieval, History, Nonfiction, British
ISBN: 4064066310288
Publisher: e-artnow
Published: 2020-07-15T04:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER VIII

MIRACLE AND MYSTERY PLAYS

I have elsewhere spoken of the singular fact that no remains of a Roman theatre or amphitheatre have been found in London, and I have ventured to put forward a theory as to the site of one or both. One cannot, indeed, understand how there could be a theatre at Rutupiæ, or at Bath, and none at London. It is true that Augusta was, for the greater part of her Roman existence, a Christian City; but so was Bath; it is also true that the Church condemned the Theatre. But these facts did not destroy the Theatre. St. Augustine tells us how much he was attracted by the drama—rapiunt me spectacula theatrica. The total destruction of the Roman theatre in the country with the stage machinery and the stage traditions, we may be quite sure, was effected, not by the thunders of the Church, but by the coming of the Angles and the Saxons, and by the Desolation of Augusta. The drama had to begin again later on. As the mimetic instinct always survives every attempt at repression, the drama in some form was sure to revive. It began again in two forms: first, in the Church, the very place whence it had been denounced, and in the entertainments given by wandering mummers, minstrels, dancers, and tumblers. The wandering folk, the show folk, the ribauds, the people who cannot work, the men and women who can only earn their bread by making music and merriment, by telling stories, singing songs, performing tricks, dancing, turning somersaults, and pandering to the ever-present desire for pleasure,—these people cannot be suppressed; and they kept alive the art of acting. In England they flourished exceedingly in quiet times. What sort of rude play they performed it is not possible to ascertain. It was, I believe, a rough and ready farce, like that preserved in Rabelais, where the Farce of the Dumb Woman is presented. The people want to laugh. What do they mostly laugh at? The discomfiture of some one in some way. Enter the Dumb Woman—she makes great business with her broom; she knocks down one man with it and hits another over the nose; both men complain and suffer pain and indignity. Then the people laugh. Add music and a tumbling girl; add gestures unseemly and jokes unfit for repetition. Add, further, anything you please from the modern role of clown and pantaloon, and we shall understand the entertainment afforded by the show folk of the eleventh century. I suppose that they sometimes made fun of the priests—always a tempting subject—one reason for thinking so is that the more reverend a man wishes to be thought, the more he lays himself open to ridicule; another reason is that contemporary writers, as John of Salisbury, condemn actors with ecclesiastical plainness. They were in request, it would appear, at marriage feasts, and the nature of their entertainment is indicated by the order that any priests who were present were to get up and go away when the players began.

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