SONDERGAARD, Leif

Carnival is Festival.

My paper will deal with the ceremonies, rituals and dances of the guilds in Northern Europe during the Shrovetide period. Shrovetide is the primary season of the year for festivities in the guilds. The guild houses are decorated with ‘may’ (rubbish branches) and coal and candles are provided in order to establish a festive context for the guild’s eating and drinking, dancing and singing, talking and possibly fighting.

The guild members are requested to participate in the common public manifestations of the guild during Shrovetide: acting plays on pageants, dancing through the streets, performing sword dances, bow dances and other similar dances, riding summer and winter, tilting at the ring, Schoduwellopen, asking for money (pfanden), tossing people in a skin, ploughtrailing, pulling off the heads of cocks or geese, etc.

These activities are semi-dramatic and they serve to manifest the power, the prestige and the specific identity of various groups in society. In order to do so the performances have to take place in the streets or the market places where the population of the towns have the opportunity to attend the shows.

On the other hand groups of youngsters may show up at the banquets in order to perform in the guild house or at the inn where the guild members celebrate their feasts or to challenge people present to play dice-games (mommenschanz). This is the introvert part of the festivities aiming at the creation and the maintenance of good mutual relations between the guild members and the confirmation of their community.

PETTITT, Tom

Morphology of the Parade

ASHLEY, Kathleen

The Semiotics of Processional Performance

It is remarkable that procession - arguably the most ubiquitous and versatile performance mode in medieval and early modern societies - has received so little theoretical attention. Open any historical study of late medieval culture and you will find references to and even extended descriptions of public processions. Yet this form of social behavior has been so thoroughly naturalized in our accounts of European history that it merits little comment as a cultural choice. A primary purpose of this paper is to focus attention upon the crucial role of processions in the enactment of medieval and early modern cultures.

I will proceed by first defamiliarizing procession, estranging it somewhat through the conceptual language of semiotics in order to reflect upon the processional mode as a privileged vehicle for articulation in its society. Using semiotics allows us to regard the procession as a system of signs. According to Peter Manning, "the work of semiotics is to uncover the rules that govern the conventions of signfication whether these be in kinship, etiquette, mathematics, or art" - or, in our case, processional performance. Recent developments in "social semiotics" are particularly pertinent to theorizing processions since, unlike traditional semiotics (which is interested in the sign’s functioning within a closed system), they focus on the complex interrelations of semiotic systems in social practice.

RIGGIO, Milla (Trinity College, Hartford, CT)

The World Permanently turned upside down? Carnival as a world elsewhere

"Despising…the City, thus I turn my back. There is a world elsewhere."

Shakespeare, Coriolanus, 3.3.134-35

Carnival and the Carnivalesque have become virtual synonyms for moments of transgressive disorder. Key elements of the "carnivalesque," seen from this perspective, are liminality ("time out of time"), inversion ("the world upside down"), binomial oppositions ("Carnival vs. Lent"), riotous excess, and a kind of cleansing disorder. Under the influence of Mikhail Bakhtin and anthropologists like Victor Turner, "carnival" and the "carnivalesque" have been defined as dangerous but also seductive. A mode of parodic cultural inversion, Carnival is seen as a time when the "other" reigns over but also beckons the civilized "us" in what has been described as a "tenuous, subjunctive, paradoxical celebration" [Manning 1983]. Within this paradigm, the cultural function of Carnival has been much debated: Does it serve as a Marxist-tinged release valve, insuring safety and social continuity by letting out the steam of rebellion and revolt? Or is it subversively curative, working change to the social order through its moments of excess and its penchant for violence?

It is not my intention to enter this debate, though if I were to do so, it would be to say that the polysemous nature of Carnival dictates answers of "yes," "no," and "it depends" - on the location, the occasion, the time - to each of the contradictory questions above. The explosion of festivity in the pre-Lenten seasons of many cultures does - as those who participate almost always claim - "free up" its revelers, releasing them from the workaday world, from constraining rules of behavior, from middle class propriety. And it has also, at times, served as a vessel for ritualized, sometimes sublimated, sometimes overtly threatening violence. As Richard Schechner has argued, pre-Lenten Carnival is both a top-down and bottom-up festival-historically both elite (often in the form of fancy masquerade balls) and popular (street revelry, music, masquerading, theatricality). Wherever it occurs, Carnival elicits an ongoing tension between Respectability and Vagabondage, the real battles of Carnival not so much between Carnival and Lent as between propriety and vulgarity. This is, of course, why Carnivalesque festivities can occur at many different calendrical times: in England, on May Day or Midsummer; throughout the Americas, on Emancipation holidays, labor days, and other occasions in which the opposition between that which is deemed Respectable and the Vagabondage that challenges the very concept of respectability are ritually opposed to each other.

These, to me, are the givens of Carnival, whether in Europe or the Americas. What I want to dispute is the idea that, however you define it, Carnival is itself liminal. That in temporarily taking over the streets, it is suspending order, taking time out. Comparing Carnivals of the Americas, and especially the Carnival of Trinidad, with early European analgues, I will focus not on what Carnival negates but on what it affirms -- not on those elements of order and control that are suspended, inverted, or temporarily discarded but on its visible manifestation of "a world elsewhere."

In one sense the opposition I wish to define is inherent in Turner’s concepts of "societas" and "communitas," - societas as the world of public order, law, government, as the term implies "society," and "communitas" as that communal place where things "flow," in the midst of which one loses a sense of the boundaries drawn by society. These terms and concepts are useful, as they draw attention to the distinction between community and all that it represents (family, neighborhood, sometimes even ethnic ghetto) and the public world of vocation, government, enacted law and order. However, because Turner regards "communitas" as a liminal place, a threshold where the rituals of passage are enacted in a "time out of time" world, Turner’s concept is at bottom antithetical to mine. I want to turn his photo negative, in which "communitas" is always the dark shadow defined by its opposition to "societas," into a positive: to define the world enacted in Carnival not in terms of what it opposes but, more affirmatively, in its own terms, of what it enacts, to see history, as it were, not as the story of either the conquering or the subjugating of people by institutions but as the encoding and imprinting of genetic and cultural legacies.

There is no time to trace the history of Carnival in relationship to the growth and development of Industrialism in Europe and throughout the world "colonized" by Europeans, though that history is vital to the argument I am making. Carnival represents and exemplifies values that pre-date and were challenged by the development of the "clock," especially the time clock of factory work, the emergence of the "weekend" as a time of release from work, and of modern industrialized life. It belongs to the world of so-called "traditional" societies in which a man [or woman] "lives in remembrance of one festival and in expectation of the next," a place where time is measured not by the ticking of a clock but by the birth and growth of children, by eating, playing music, and generating mythic fantasies of many kinds, as well of course as finding ways to sustain life and provide food and shelter. In this sense, while this world must acknowledge the need for a means to livelihood, it is not itself defined by vocation or a commitment to sustaining public institutions.

On the other hand, this world is neither, at bottom, agrarian nor, in essence, Saturnalian. Carnival is not essentially rural. Though often celebrated in small villages in the countryside, it developed in and with urban culture. Nor did it originate in the Roman Saturnalias, despite a faux history that often "traces" such origins. In celebrating sexuality and fertility, Carnival celebrates the birth of children (often, it is said, by producing them; in what we may call "carnival culturals," birth rates are normally assumed to go up dramatically nine months after Carnival). Its violence, sometimes sublimated into competition and sometimes overtly territorial and real - at least as it is manifest in Trinidad and, I suspect, throoughout the Americas -, encodes the resistance of a community, or a communally bonded group, to outsiders. For example, those freed from enslavement may ritually rebel against their ex-masters (or, as in the 1881 and 1884 riots in Port of Spain against the Police that represented the British government, genuinely rebel). More locally, those that live on one side of Henry or French Street fight or compete against those that live on the other side. Sometimes such contests involve oppression and resistance; such resistance is famously part of the hidden agenda of Carnival in the Americas. At other times, rivalries are more like those in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, contests between territorially generated communities, motivated not by oppression but by the claims of family, neighborhood, or the need to protect a bounded territory. In Trinidad, such groups have always taken the form of what are called "bands," stickfighting bands, steel bands, masquerade bands, in a term that owes more to the paramilitary idea of a band as a territorial "gang" than to "band" as "performance group."

In the short time allotted to my paper, I will first acknowledge that the form of Carnival and its analogues differs from age to age and place to place (sometimes invested in drama, as in Uruguay; sometimes in specific forms of masking, and sometimes in masquerading that does not involves masks, as is often the case in Trinidad), but as far as I have observed, with consistent features: rituals of competition, an emphasis on sexuality and feasting, and an undertone of regulated or ritualized violence. Using Shakespeare’s "festive" plays, Corpus Christi celebrations, and modern Carnival in Trinidad, I will identify some common elements that affirm the essential values of community, present throughout the year, that Carnival manifests and to offer these as elements of a potentially new Carnival paradigm.

First, I will point to the infrastructure of Carnival itself. Overall, it is a highly organized, structured, financed, and for the most part economically controlled activity, despite the fact that there are always individuals fighting for recognition, making their own costumes, generating their individual "mas." Thus, Carnival has it own internal order, one that counters and even competes throughout the year with the [other?] capital enterprises at the base of most modern economies. Carnival is, to begin with, then, a multi-faceted industry of its own. And in Trinidad, it has become arguably the largest export of the country.

But it is not the economics of Carnival that I want to emphasize. Instead, I will point to the way in which Carnival simultaneously licenses excess and maintains order: its principles of internal decorum gounded in certain concepts of respect, of internal control, of a principle of order. People spend what they earn all year on a Carnival costume precisely because that costume manifests in itself a kind of value that is at base opposed to consumer society. I will focus on the nurture of children, on the community base of operations and camps (both very small and very large), on the rhythm of an event that begins on Three Kings Day and ends squarely on the stroke of midnight on Ash Wednesday but that is a culturally eclectic, not a Catholic, celebration.

The battle as it is being waged in Trinidad now is between the desire of many Trinidadians both to sustain their eclaimed ethos of Carnival ("Trini know how to party") and to claim their place in the world symbolized by multinational companies, the workaday world of time clocks and factories. As part of its triumph over the so-called "traditional" society, the forces that control the public world would, and have attempted to defuse this opposition by coopting Carnival, marketing it as the symbol of the nation. This paper will argue that such an effort in itself contradicts the basic nature of the festival. "Trini time," the refusal to work by the clock, is not simply a lazy disregard of that which matters. It is a time that runs by the sun, keyed not to rhythms of work but to that which still governs the Trinidad year: Seasons of festivity.

NOTE: Because of the time constraints of a conference paper and because of my wish to illustrate my paper with video, slide, and photographic exhibits, I will be forced to present the paper essentially as an abstract, fleshed out slightly in terms of the particulars of the manifest community.

KNIGHT, Alan (Pennsylvania State University)

Guild Pageants and Urban Stability in Lille

The annual procession in honor of Mary was probably the most important event in the civic and religious life of late medieval Lille. We know that for over a century biblical plays were performed on the day of the procession by the neighborhood youth groups of the city. Less familiar are the biblical tableaux vivants staged by the trade and craft guilds on pageant wagons that moved in the procession itself. First mentioned in the late fourteenth century, these tableaux became an annual display of the guilds' civic pride and a testimonial to their religious commitment.

The guilds were not the only ones to stage tableaux vivants on wagons in the procession. A group from the working-class parish of Saint Sauveur had the exclusive right to stage scenes from the Passion on wagons that immediately preceded the Marian reliquary, which was the focal point of the parade.

Until the early sixteenth century, the responsibility for organizing the biblical tableaux and awarding prizes for the best ones had been shared by the city aldermen and a group from the collegiate church of Saint Pierre. In the 1520s, however, in response to the spread of Lutheran ideas, the aldermen took full control of both the tableaux and the contest. In the 1530s, they rescinded Saint Sauveur's right to stage tableaux of the Passion and assigned those scenes to the guilds. Finally, the aldermen decreed that the tableaux would be arranged in a figural pattern, so that each Old Testament scene would immediately precede the New Testament scene that it prefigured. In this way the guild pageants were made into a systematic lesson in biblical history and typology. It would seem that the aldermen used this lesson to counteract the influence of the heterodox beliefs that they perceived as threatening the stability of the city.

The paper will detail the structure of the tableau sequence thus constituted and examine the historical context of the aldermen's radical reorganization of the procession.

BORGNET, Guy

La visualisation du message divin dans la Passion de Vienne, Passion allemande du XIVe siècle

La Passion de Vienne (Wiener Passionspiel) offre une contruction particulière que l’on ne retrouve nulle part ailleurs dans la tradition allemande. L’exposé se propose de démontrer comment la structure de cette Passion sert à rendre plus efficace la visualisation du message religieux. Cette structure se compose de trois blocs qui s’opposent. Le premier bloc établit l’existence de deux pouvoirs contraires, le pouvoir divin et le pouvoir infernal. Les deux autres blocs, la conversion de Marie-Madeleine et le "mandatum novum" de Jésus, proposent un moyen d’échapper à cette emprise.

L’exposé étudiera comment l’adaptateur construit cette structure en trois plans et quelle est la répercussion de cette construction cyclique sur la mise en scène.

DAVAUT, Nathalie

Religious symbolism and its signification in regards to the sacrament of penance

I propose to talk about visual representation on stage of religious symbolism and its signification in regards to the sacrament of penance in three French morality plays: Bien-Avise, Mal-Avise; Homme Juste et Homme Mondain; Homme Pecheur. The subject's interest is twofold: the religious symbolism used in the plays, through the characters' (all of them allegories) dialogues, and the use of stage space to visually represent this symbolism. Used as a medium of theological instruction, the morality plays mentioned above (though there are others) tried to convince people to go to confession on a regular basis so as to win salvation for their souls. The visual symbolism, key to all the plays along with the sacrament of penance, could only reinforce a text already striking for its allegory and teaching before an audience ready to be captivated and changed.

This could be of interest to various types of scholarly research: first and foremost, to help rehabilitate French moralities, which Werner Helmich stated in the second Colloquium of the SITM was 'a genre to be rediscovered,' by expanding the knowledge we can have of them; scholars don't feel unanimously about the value of morality plays, yet the early French religious moralities are as full of symbolism and teaching of Christian concepts as Mystères or Passion plays; the three moralities give a very specific idea of that theological teaching and the sacrament of penance back in those days; the same is true of the symbolism and the language used in the plays; finally, many comparisons can be found and made with plays from the same time, but different countries.

ARCANGELI, Alessandro

How to make a sermon visual: Giovanni da San Gimignano’s Liber de exemplio as a dictionary of symbols

The modern reader of a dictionary of symbols navigates by referring to a signifier (for instance, the subject matter of a dream), and verifying that which, in a variety of cultural and/or historical contexts, it may signify. The late medieval preacher had an opportunity to travel in the opposite direction (thus functioning, as it were, as Freudian "dream-work"): that is, to start from the message he wanted to transmit, and find an allegorical expression. This is the structure of the early-14^th-century Liber de exemplis ac similitudinis rerum by the Tuscan Dominican Giovanni da San Gimignano. While the topic of the book was, traditionally, the series of virtues and vices, its encyclopaedic way of treating it deserves special consideration. In the medieval world of resemblance between all things, it arranged a variety of similes and examples according to broad categories of signifiers, such as the mineral world, ground animals, birds and fish, human beings and artefacts. Within each of these books, though, it was the signified that determined the alphabetic order. For instance the first book, on elements and stars, offers entries where "accidia assimilatur Saturno", and "avaritia assimilatur umbre". By employing this rich stock of imagery, a preacher could transform a sermon into a visually evocative and spiritually effective form of communication.

Silvana Vecchio, "Giovanni da San Gimignano", in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (forthcoming).

MOORE, Jay

Guides to Salvation in French and Spanish Moral Theater

Readers have for some time noted generic similarities in French moralités and Spanish autos sacramentales. Some have even been tempted to say that they are the same thing. Thematically, both essentially seek to teach moral reform by dramatizing humankind’s fall and redemption. They also generally use a common mode of composition, personification allegory, to make concrete the abstract concepts their public must understand in order to accomlish their own salvation. Yet, they are distinct species within the tradition of late-medieval European moral drama, and that distinction, I assert, fundamentally lies with differing views on the salvation of one’s soul.

In this paper I propose to examine the evolving role of personifications of Reason, Faith and Love within the economy of salvation depicted in these plays. Reason, appearing in 6 moralités and nearly as many autos, follows Thomistic theology and constitutes a sure guide to the good in many early plays. In the later theater of the Reformation in France, however, Faith assumes the role of guide. Love, on the other hand, appears in 15 Spanish autos and usually represents Christ’s self-sacrificing love, reflected in the generically central sacrament of the Eurcharist. Love in French drama typically signifies fol amour, Reason’s mortal enemy.

If a strong belief in faith as the means to acquiring grace, the immediate agent of salvation, is characteristic of the Reformation moralités, the direct appeal to Christ’s love is usually the hallmark of later Spanish Counter-Reformation theater. Whereas the French plays continually strive to make salvation of one’s soul a personal matter gained through the interior guides of reason and faith to the act of penance, whether sacramental or not, Spanish sacramental theater attempts to bring its audience into a fuller apprehension of Christ’s love for humankind through the gift of the Eucharist. In very general terms, love resuces humanity in the Spanish plays; reason and faith guide it in the French.

KUNE, JH

Prager Abendmahlspiel

The text of the 'Prager Abendmahlspiel' only exists in one 15th century manuscript, which is in the 'Narodni Knihovna' in Prague (Sign. XXIII F 128). As we have no record of a performance of this play, it is unknown if it was intended for performance in a church or in a market place. On the basis of the text and its stage directions I wil interpret the way in which all the directions may have been used for a performance on the stage, where the locations of the 'mansions' may have been and which stage properties would have been necessary to produce the text on the stage and to visualize it for the audience.

EVERSMANN, Peter

DEMONSTRATION of the THEATRON PROJECT

(Virtual reconstruction of historic theatres / La reconstruction virtuelle de théâtres historiques)

TOUBER, Ton

Correspondence between Mysteries and the Arts

By the exact correspondence in all details between the mystery plays and preceding visual arts, it is obvious that the playwrights staged what they saw in the visual arts. It is a common phenomenon in the relation between medieval visual arts and drama in Italy, England, Franceand Germany. Two issues are to be studied: how was the verbal made visual and how was the visual made playable.

The paper will treat religious plays from Italy, England, France and Germany in their relation to the visual arts (and to each other ?).

HURLBUT, Jesse, Pamela SCHEINGORN, Robert CLARK

Visual Artifacts: Illustrated Drama Manuscripts

The three papers in this session will focus on incorporating the visual information found in drama manuscripts into the overall analysis of medieval performances. The presence of images in a manuscript always raises questions about the relationship between the images, the text, and the codices which preserve them. In the case of illuminated drama manuscripts, the visual records may be even more resistant to interpretation because they draw upon the mixed conventions of the dramatic and the pictorial arts. Certainly, the design and the function of illustration in these manuscripts differ from one document to another. Nevertheless, as contemporary (or near-contemporary) artifacts associated with early dramatic productions, each case merits closer examination for what it can reveal about early performance.

In most cases, it is difficult or impossible to link the images to actual staging practices. In some instances, however, one may argue that the program of miniatures constitutes in its own right a kind of performance of the play, particularly when viewed as part of a reading process. In this session, the presenters hope to move beyond a typology of manuscripts in order to explore which features of different illustrated drama texts contribute to the modern scholar's approach to performance issues, reception studies, reading practices, and textual hermeneutics. The texts to be considered are Gréban's Mystère de la Passion and Adam de la Halle's Jeu de Robin et Marion.

SMITH, Darwin, Xavier LEROUX, Idilko SERES, Garance GIRAUD:

Incarnation rhétorique et musicale du verbe divin (resp.: Passion de Gréban, Conception, Actes des Apôtres, Gringore: S.Louis)

(Pas de résumé disponible/ No summary available)

SULEWSKI, Robert Michael

Theatricality of Polish Processions

In keeping with the topics for the conference, my paper explores the rich theatricality of two processions for Palm Sunday from medieval Poland (thirteenth and fifteenth centuries). I am interested largely in the rhetoric of translation here. The scene is transformed from the biblical Jerusalem to a Polish medieval city, in which clerics respresent the people, acclaim Jesus in Latin, and toss flowers, not palms before the representation of Christ.

MAND, Anu

Scenarios for Guild Festivals in Livonian Towns

In the archives of merchants' associations in Riga and Reval (Tallinn), there survive documents that can be of considerable interest to historians, including theatre historians. These are three sets of regulations (or instructions) from around 1500, 1510 and 1514 for the merchants festivals at Christmas and Carnival. These regulations constitute a comprehensive description of, or rather a scenario for, the activities during each individual day of the two-week festivals. They include the outline for rituals, distribution of roles, speeches to be delivered by the guild alderman, the definition of plots for various activities, etc. Such regulations cannot be viewed as strict norms but rather as a kind of theatrical scenario. The texts are written in Middle Low German, and each one of them is more than 20 folios long. Although festival regulations, in particular Carnival regulations, are not unique in the European context, as far as I know, there is no other location which possesses information of such length and detail.

Medieval Livonia belonged to the German cultural sphere and the festival customs there had much in common with these in Northern Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. The aim of my paper is to discuss the content of the above mentioned regulations with a particular focus on their theatrical features, and also to point out the probable reasons why such sources are preserved from the former Livonia and not from elsewhere in the Baltic Sea region.

SPILEWSKA, Jolanta

Prayer Acts in Late Sixteenth Century Biblical Plays in Poland

(No summary available/Pas de résumé disponible)

LOMAGISTRO, Barbara

Processions and Royal Entries in Medieval Croatian Theatre

We shall discuss the question of the relationship between liturgy and some genres of medieval Croatian sacred drama, that had secondary importance, i. e. processions and royal entries. This genres as well as other aspects of Medieval Croatian theatre have never been adequately studied because of scarcity of witness on them. The scholars often are obliged to reconstruct a lot of details of the performance.

Even though the processions and the royal entries had no dominant importance during the performance, nevertheless an analysis of them may explain many questions of genesis of Croatian theatre. For instance, the comparative analysis of the royal entries that we find in Croatian Missals and in Serbian orthodox hagiographic texts may help us to comprehend the relationship between the Sacred representation (Prikazanja) and the liturgy.

By the light of this relationship we study some processions organised in Dubrovnik during Holy Week and the processions that the local fraternities organised in Dalmatia to commemorate saints.

GEORGE, J.A. & Anna SPACKMANN

In praise on Inauthenticity. Updating Mankind and The Mariage of Wit and Wisdom

Our proposal stems from the experience we have gained over the past seven years from producing and directing mediaeval and 16th century plays with the Mediaeval Drama group at the University of Dundee. For the last two years we have attempted to transpose these dramatic texts into other historical periods: as a result, we staged 'Mankind' as a Restoration comedy and translated 'The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom' into a Brechtian, 1930s-inspired environment. In this paper we should like to set out the reasons for these decisions and advocate, for the modern audience, this type of 'translation.' We shall illustrate some of our points through video clips of the two plays mentioned above. It is clear that the debates surrounding the modern staging of mediaeval plays are of major interest to scholars working on these texts. We hope to address these debates and offer our own responses to them in this paper.

POTTER, Robert

Everyman at the Millennium

The millennial year 2001 is a significant occasion for Everyman. Exactly 100 years ago, in July 1901, William Poel's London Production of Everyman brought medieval drama to the modern stage and made a world classic of this previously obscure anonymous English translation of Elckerlijke. What does this play mean to us today, 100 years after Poel and approximately half a millennium after its original composition?

The primary interpretive act of theatrical production is visualization. A script is made increasingly visible in the process of casting, costuming, scenography and three-dimensional performance, creating images which derive from the original script but strongly reflect the present circumstances, assuming their own actuality in the moment of performance, as contemporary events.

Three important professional productions of Everyman, staged in the final years of the twentieth century, offer strikingly varied images of the meaning of Everyman in our millennial context. The productions I will explore, and illustrate with production photographs, are the Los Angeles-based Cornerstone Theatre Company's production Everyman at the Mall (1994; revived 1997); Frank Galati's 1996 production of Everyman at the Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago; and the Royal Shakespeare Company's Everyman at The Other Place, Stratford-on-Avon in 1996, directed by Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni.

WALSH, Martin William

Moving Statues, Teleportation and Rape: some space/time and Prop-considerations in the Staging of Medieval Drama

Medieval dramaturgy and the mentality which informs it remain rather alien to the modern student of drama. This paper will focus on one aspect of this dramaturgy, the use of statues, and of actors embodying statues, together with the peculiar kinds of dramatic action that seem, not coincidentally, to develop out of them. These dramatic actions, in turn, reveal a good deal about the medieval outlook on space and time. It is curious how a statue in its shrine, surely a symbol of permanence, of sacred stasis, easily becomes activated in these plays to directly influence events at considerable removes in time and locale. These magical "activations" occur, moreover, in the context of major violations and displacements - heterosexual abduction, baby-snatching, homosexual rape.

My sample of plays employing moving statues will be taken from three languages (French, Cornish, Latin) and from as many centuries. There is a very active statue in the French miracle LA NONNE QUI LAISSA SON ABBAIE (The Nun Who Left Her Convent) of 1345. An episode in the late 15th-century Cornish BEUNANS MERIASEK (Life of St Meriasek) with the heading "Interlude of Mary and the Widow's Son," presents a curious "commodity exchange" of living and sculpted personae negotiated between Christian and pagan Celtic spaces. Finally I shall look at the 12th-century St. Nicholas plays where the saint's image plays a part in the action, the ICONIA SANCTI NICOLAI itself (later developed by Jean Bodel into LE JEU DE SAINT NICOLAS), and the FILIUS GETRONIS (Son of Getron), which has the most startling moving statue in the sampling. The practical question of how these statue-effects and their attendant actions were accomplished is also of interest.

What is offered here, then, are some theoretical considerations on medieval space-time in the theatre based on speculative reconstructions of original stagings.

GARCIA GUTTIEREZ, Armando

Adaptation d’un appareil scénique médiéval

Dans un passage de l’Apologética Historia, du célèbre Bartolomé de las Casas, nous trouvons la description d’une représentation de l’Assomption de la Vierge effectuée le 15 aôut 1538 dans une des premières chapelles bâties au couvent de Saint Francois à Tlaxcala, quelques années seulement après la Conquête et les dèbuts de la conversion religieuse entreprise par les frères franciscains dans le Nouveau Monde.

Le but de cette communication est d’idéntifier, en partant de cette description, les éléments scéniques de cette représentation qui ont leur origine dans le théâtre médiéval espagnol, notamment la solution technique de la assomption de la Vierge.

Nous essayerons ainsi de faire une reconstruction de l’évènement pour expliquer la manière dans laquelle les éléments importés du théâtre médiéval ont été adaptés à la realité socio-culturelle de la jeune Nouvelle Espagne, lors d’une représentation réligieuse interpretée par des indiens dans leur langue d’origine: le náhuatl.

Finalement, nous analyserons les particularités de la chapelle ouverte, qui a été le cadre architectonique de cette représentation.

DOHI, Yumi

A Table on a Stage: re-thinking how to produce the Last Supper

Approach: Based on comparative research into examples in the texts of the English cycle plays as well as of the French and the German Passion plays.

Interest for other scholars: I am ready to offer the result of my recent comparative study of the Last Supper scene in English, French and German plays (including Ludus breuiter in the Carmina Burana manuscript) and demonstrate various possibilities for productions. Since I have never taken part in productions of medieval plays, I cannot define precisely the interest for other scholars. Whoever has already produced this scene could support my presentation by suggesting more practical problems.

Summary: Discussions would start with the recently restored picture of da Vinci's "Last Supper" in Milan, comparing with the descriptions in the play texts taken from his contemporary manuscripts. Late medieval paintings and miniatures are to be used in order to get some general images of the scene. The text of Meditationes vitae Christi gives us its more concrete portrayal. So we have enough information of the visualised Last Supper, and yet, there are some practical problems when this scene should be brought on stage. For example, La Passion de Michel depicts the table of the supper and fix each disciple where to sit. According to this table plan, however, some disciples cannot put their hands into the plate placed in the centre of the table. Da Vinci pictured the scene untraditionally, lest any disciple should show his back. This constellation must be ideal for a stage performance, especially when we would like to see what Jesus and Judas are doing during the Announcement of the Betrayal. But this setting needs a very wide and not deep stage. Or, what should be on the table? Was it necessary to have a lamb, or at least its rest, on the table during the Eucharist is instituted? Where should be the Feet(Foot)-washing presented? The N-Town Cycle and some other plays suggest that the Feet-washing was held in another place/room. Where should it be? Such questions would be discussed both theoretically and practically.

RITCH, Janet

Verbal Made Visual (Trinity, God as stage character)

Since Christian theology defines God as a trinity in three persons, an actor impersonating Jesus Christ may also represent "God as a stage character". Playing God in the person of Christ is not necessarily to "present" the character in an allegorical mode. My paper will explore the possibility that an actor's degree of identification with such a role changes in proportion to his own and his society's conception of the individual's relationship to God. By examining Medieval theology in a selection of scholastic and popular texts, including French playtexts from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, I will seek a Medieval perspective on both God and the actor's role. May the frequent misunderstandings of Medieval theatre by modern or post-modern critics be ascribed to a major shift in philosophical-theological thinking which separates us from the Middle Ages?

Setting the theological underpinnings of Medieval dramaturgy in contrast with the dramatic theory of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which sought to alienate the actor from his role (Georg Fuchs, Bertolt Brecht), should serve to counter the excessive influence of the latter and justify Medieval practice in its own terms.

PULISELIC, Zrinka

When and How does God appear on the Croatian stage

It is very interesting that there's no drama written by anonymous authors that includes that character. The first author that placed the God on the stage was Marko Marulic in his "Play of the Last Judgement" at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. Even though medieval dramas were being written till the late 18th century, there aren't many examples of the God as a stage character, and when he appears it is almost only in the Last Judgement scene. The question is why. Why were the Croatian playwrights, especially those anonymous, affraid to include the God in their dramatis personae? Why does the God appear only in the Last Judgement scene? And, when the God is on the stage, how does it look like?

O’CONNELL, Michael

God the Father as a character in John Bale

Anomalously for subsequent Protestant practice, John Bale portrays God the Father, variously named as "Pater Coelestis" and "Deus Pater," as bodily present on stage. (Less surprisingly, he also portrays Christ in two of his plays drawn from the New Testament.) The dramatic representation of God the Father, while essential to the mystery cycles, would be considered trangressive in Protestant theater within a decade or so after Bale. The post-Reformation banns of the Chester Cycle, for example, apologizes for its representation of God, attributing it to primitive dramaturgy and insisting that an offstage voice would more worthily convey him. If Bale is the first insistently Protestant playwright in England, he can also be understood as the last medieval religious playwright, and it is possible that his portrayal of God may be more of function of the latter identity. But a difficulty with such an answer to the question of why Bale portrays God physically is that the anxiety about such physical representation comes of the Protestant attack on what it sees as Catholic "idolatry"; opposition to the traditional medieval religious drama stems quite directly from the attack on religious art. And no early Reformer in England would seem more vehement opposed to idolatry and more willing to assail it than Bale. What my paper will argue is that in making the verbal visual in his dramas that bring God on stage, Bale is also concerned to make the visual verbal, that his physical representations of God display an anxiety about the issue of idolatry - and therefore an anxiety about theater. Texts and textuality therefore become an issue in Bale’s theater

DOMINGUEZ, Véronique

Dieu comme personnage chez Gréban

La notion de Dieu comme personnage dramatique rencontre sur la scène des Passions théâtrales des écueils majeurs, leurs auteurs devant observer des exigences théologiques qui sont de l'ordre du paradoxe lorsqu'ils représentent des mystères de la foi. Dans la quatrième Journée de la Passion de Gréban (v. 32577-33141, éd. Jodogne), le Fils ressuscité annonce son Ascension, puis il s'élève pour rejoindre le Père au Paradis. Ces personnages doivent donc représenter la Résurrection et la Trinité. L'article mettra en évidence les éléments du système de la représentation théâtrale (deixis, didascalies, et surtout secretz propres au hourdement) qui tentent de rendre visibles les paradoxes du trois en un et de la vie après la mort. Montrant les limites de ce dispositif, il suggérera qu'elles ne témoignent pas d'un échec, mais sont une invitation à considérer autrement cette scène, par exemple comme le lieu d'une expérience proche de la vision mystique : le spectateur vit un face-à-face avec Dieu avant sa mort. La notion de personnage dramatique est alors éclairée moins par la "personnation" des concepts théologiques que par une lecture de l'image théâtrale comme Jugement Dernier en acte. La réception et le jeu s'y combinent pour créer, dans la temporalité de la scène théâtrale, une rencontre entre le chrétien et son Dieu.

MATEER, Megan

God as Stage Character in Everyman

Since William Poel's production of "Everyman" in 1901, this play has become a part of the modern theatre repertoire. That being the case, directors have found it necessary to find ways to portray God and make the character real and accessible to a wide audience. This paper will examine five different approaches to God as a stage character: William Poel's interpretation in 1901, "Jedermann" at the Salzburg Festival in 1920, Peter Arnott's puppet production in 1964, Frederick Franck's "Everyone" in 1970 and the Royal Shakespeare's production in 1998. Another stumbling block that directors face is the ever changing role of religion in society especially during the very turbulent 20th century.

The analysis presented in this paper of various directors' approaches to the portrayal of God as characterized in "Everyman" (one of the most distinguished of medieval moralties) may prove of interest to scholars as well as other theatre professionals when considering the production of a play that puts God on stage. It will also hopefully aid in the understanding that the image of God is not a single picture.

EISENBICHLER, Konrad

The Everyman Figure in the Theatre of Giovan Maria Cecchi

Half-way through the course of his long play-writing career, theFlorentine notary Giovan Maria Cecchi (1518-1587) switcheddramatically from writing secular comedies to writing religiousplays. While in the first case he adhered closely to the PlautoTerentian model that had been the vogue in the first half of the sixteenth century, in the second case he experimented liberally with various forms and subjects. He thus tried his hand atreligious comedies, sacred dramas, spiritual farces, moralities,and one-act plays; and drew his material from biblical,hagiographical, and historical sources, as well as from the earlier tradition of the sacra rappresentazione and morality plays. In this presentation I will examine Cecchi's use of the"Everyman" figure in several of his plays and determine how his experimentation with form and content reflected on the development of the figure of "Everyman" in his plays. I will examine in particular his newly discovered "Atto recitabile avanti che nella compagnia si dieno li panellini" (c.1560-64), his "Figliuol prodigo" (1570), and his "La Dolcina" (1584).

GONZALEZ, José Manuel

The Secularization of Christian Theology Through Visual and Comic Elements in Mankind

The morality play was a medieval drama of ideas. Its vision was strongly Christian providing a form of debate and discussion of religious principles and dogmas. In MANKIND the common places of homily and instruction books are transformed into what it makes sense in terms of drama. They are also popularised through comic realism in order to adapt them to the new cultural and historical context. Furthermore MANKIND detaches itself from the religious framework and begin to include philosophical and humanistic themes. The moral plays of Gil Vicente and Sánchez de Badajoz show a similar concern as they incorporate secular elements with a twofold aim: to reinforce Christian beliefs and to present a new kind of comedy.

KOVACS, Lenke

Repentance rewarded: the Catalan Plays on the parable of the Prodigal Son

The plays based on the parable of the Prodigal Son enjoyed a widespread popularity in sixteenth century Europe. Some of the primary issues in these plays are the generation conflict, marital quarrels and the lecherous lifestyle. In our paper we propose to analyse how the Biblical motif is dealt with in the Catalan drama of medieval tradition. Two plays on the subject (one of them inedited) are to be found in the important Llabrés manuscript (Ms. 1139, Biblioteca de Catalunya). It is our purpose to contrast these plays with later Catalan dramas on the same theme and to study the evolution of the drama, both from a textual and a scenic point of view. Moreover, we will take a closer look at the farcical elements and allegorical characters in these plays. Another aspect that will be touched upon in the process of our study is the analysis of the rich rubrics which are prone to shed some light on the performance of these Catalan plays which until present have attracted very little

scholarly attention.

DEBAX, J.-P

The Throne as Prop and Allegory in Tudor Drama: From the Throne of God to the Throne of Man

This paper intends to establish the central importance of the throne from the medieval Mystery Cycles to Elizabethan times. In Sacred Drama, the throne is situated ‘above’, and it rules, as it were, all the actions down below. In opposition, at ground level, the Mouth of Hell constitutes an ‘anti-seat’, and suggests areas still more ‘down-below’. Another ‘seat’ of infamy is constituted by the stocks, as worldly equivalent and humanization of Hell (Marriage of Wit and Wisdom, Hickscorner, Youth, Ane Satire, Impatient poverty). Linguistic presence of the gibbet, an exalted sort of Hell.

This bipolar setting can be contrasted with a multipolar one, hinting at a pluralist world, e.g. The Castle of Perseverance, with five scaffolds; Wisdom, illustrating the plurality within man.

Later interludes with Humanum Genus plots, and a Rex Humanitas as hero, stand for an intermediary situation: kings, at the origin otf the throne concept. still partake of divine power, and also embody the human condition (Pride of Life, Youth, Magnificence, Ane Satire).

A further step is Nature, in which two thrones face each other, emblematizing the growing concern with the human plane. Anti-models can be found in All for Money and The Play of the Weather.

To these ‘vertical’ dramas, we will oppose ‘circular’ ones (from the circle of the sword dance and popular rounds). In that category, debates (4PP, Gentleness and Nobility, Witty and Witless), farces (Interludium, Tom Tyler, Johan Johan, Pardoner and Frere), Prodigal son plays (Glass of Government, Nice Wanton, Wit and Science, Lusty Juventus) and Hybrid plays (Horestes, Cambises, Appius and Virginia).

The Vice is a paradoxical presence: a dramatic pole, and not an ideological centre; rather a source of disorder, a hero of the confines. In history plays thrones are but political seats.

The end of the story is plain man without a throne.

BALDWIN, Elizabeth

But where do they get the bears: animal entertainments in 16th and 17th-ventury Cheshire

Sports which involved animals, and often those which involved cruelty to animals, were popular in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. As with other forms of entertainment, there seems to have been a variation according to social level, although this does not correspond to greater concern with animal welfare on the part of the gentry. Horse-racing (often objected to for cruelty) and cock-fighting were particularly associated with the gentry, while bearbaiting seems to have had its main appeal lower down the social scale. This paper draws on material gathered for the Records of Early English Drama volume on Cheshire to consider how and where these different sports were practised, in particular looking at the problems surrounding bearbaiting. These include the provision of bears (including possible breeders), the practice of bearbaiting (and how it differs from bullbaiting), probable gambling associated with it, the potential dangers of riot which led to attempted suppression by the magistrates, and the potential advantages of bearbaiting, as a fundraising activity, to innkeepers and churchwardens, which might lead them to ignore the magistrates’ warnings. Animal entertainments as civic occasions (with particular reference to Congleton ‘Great Cockfight’ and Wakes, and Farndon races) will be considered, as well as the nuisance and danger posed by the bears in urban settings.

DRAGSTRA, Henk

Bowing to the Goddess of Beauty? Interlude, moresca, and Mask in a Twelfth Night Entertainment at Henry VIII’s Court

The 6^th of January 1515 saw a Twelfth Night entertainment at young Henry VIII's Richmond court that included an 'interluyt', a 'morescs', and masking, as is evident from reliable records. These include the 'revels account' by Richard Gybson, which by specifying payments made for the event gives important clues to the number of participants, roles, costume, and disguise.

John Payne Collier, the 19^th-century scholar, claimed to have seen another document, describing the performance from a spectator's point of view as a dramatic, musical and choreographic tribute to the power of 'Venus and the goddess Bewtye', to which even kings must 'bowe you downe, and doo your dutye'. Unfortunately Collier is a notorious fraud.

Collier's deification of Beauty is probably more Victorian than Henrician; but as the paper will argue, a moresca-style entertainment celebrating the triumph of Venus would have been highly fashionable at the turn of the 16^th century, for this popular late-medieval theme was bound to combine sooner or later with the moresca pattern of the same period, in which a number of men vied for the favours of a seductive young woman. Moreover the newly introduced vogue for masked dancing enhanced the attractions of the moresca contest with an element of additional suspense.

TERSTEEG, Jacques

The Verbal made Visual in the Bliscappen

(No summary available/Pas de résumé disponible)

CARVALHO, Manuela

Royal Festivities, Gil Vicente and Political Moralities

Though most of Gil Vicente’s plays were written to be performed at Court or were commissioned by the Court, one group of these plays was produced particularly to celebrate court social events, such as royal weddings, entries, diplomatic visits or the birth of a prince or a princess (rather than celebrating the seasonal feasts arising from the liturgical calendar). Usually these plays, that Thomas Hart calls "festival plays", were part of a more complex festival and other types of entertainment: sumptuous processions and symbolic ceremonies, prepared for the social occasion celebrated.

But these plays are not mere court pageants, with a strong visual effect combining the praise of the sovereign or of the royal house with folk traditions, mythological deities and stories, and allegorical characters; behind these apparent panegyrics and allegories, social and political comments and criticisms are voiced by the playwright. These comments even work as political propaganda. This is the case of a play such as the Templo d’Apolo, where behind the praise of Charles V and the Portuguese princess that he was marrying, the allegories and social types used voice a much deeper message, working as propaganda for the Portuguese Court’s position in relation to the Emperor’s policies and wars in Europe. Other plays also show Gil Vicente’s criticism of contemporary social abuses and behaviours, which proves that didacticism and instruction, whether spiritual, social or political, are always present in his plays.

A close reading of Vicente’s festival plays will be undertaken, in conjunction with the social and political events they were associated with. At the same time, parallels will be drawn between these vicentine plays and some Tudor interludes and Elizabethan Court pageants with the intention of teasing out similarities and differences between the Portuguese and the English plays and the impact they had on Manuel I and John III’s courts (and audience) on one hand, and on Henry VIII and Elizabeth’s court, on the other. Finally, this study will enable us to place Vicente’s court pageants in the context of the wider European theatrical production of the time.

KIPLING, Gordon

Are Royal Entries Political Propaganda?

Most studies of royal entries as a form of dramatic spectacle in the late Middle Ages consider them to be a species of political propaganda and think of them primarily as "a means of presenting a programme of political ideas" (Roy Strong, ART AND POWER, 4). To what extent, I wonder, is this sweeping generalization accurate, particularly as it is redolent of ahistorical modernist and Marxist ideology? Much depends, of course, on what one means by "political". Much commentary takes it for granted that the primary reason these spectacles were performed was to persuade viewers to adopt particular political positions taken by those in charge of designing the spectacles. But rarely has anyone produced any evidence to suggest that the viewers were ever persuaded to any view whatsoever by such spectacles. Another point of view is that such spectacles were primarily ritual theatre rather than political

agitprop. But such views are also political in the sense that they detail the theorizing and acting out of political relationships between rulers and their subjects. What I hope to be able to do is to suggest ways in which the political meanings of the royal entry can be discussed in more precise and interesting ways. I don't intend to decide between "good" and "bad" political commentary so much as I hope to investigate the possibilities by which political commentary has been assigned to these spectacles and to suggest ways that political commenatary in future might more securely be pursued.

SURTZ, Ronald

The Entry of Ferdinand the Catholic into Valladolid in 1509

Although scholars are beginning to consider the ways in which the Catholic Sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, combined spectacle and propaganda to legitimize a dynasty that some considered illegitimate, studies are needed of specific instances of royal use of such festivities. I plan to study Ferdinand the Catholic's entry into Valladolid from the perspective of its historical circumstances and its iconographic program.

After the death of Isabella, Ferdinand was marginalized from Castilian politics, for their daughter, Juana, became queen of Castile. However, in the face of the death of Juana's husband, Philip the Fair, and in light of Juana's deteriorating mental health, Ferdinand began to play an increasingly significant role in Castilian politics. His crushing of a revolt of the nobility in 1507 and his success in forming the League of Cambrai against Venice in 1508 considerably enhanced his prestige in Castile. Although technically only "governor" of Castile, Ferdinand's triumphant entry into Valladolid in 1509 amounted to a demonstration of his quasi-monarchical powers.

The iconography of the four triumphal arches erected for Ferdinand's entry use the allegorical figures of Fortune, the Seven Virtues, Fame, and Time to praise Ferdinand and to bolster his ambiguous position in Castile. Ferdinand becomes a messianic figure, destined to wrest the Holy Land from the infidels.

FERREIRA, José

The King, the Jew and the Moor. Portuguese late Middle Ages Festivals

This paper aims to study the role of the jew and moor comunities at the portuguese court festivals of the middle ages, looking at the data related with the context of their participation, at their production morphology, the interactional transactions with audience, and also the theatrical peculiarities of their work (the actor’s work, stage elements and technical procedures, as sound and musical effects, danse, mime and gesture). The aimed direction will lead to a concept of theatrical practice and to its function in the wider context of the Portuguese theatrical culture in early

modern period.

HUESKEN, Wim

Dead as a Door-nail? Allegorical Characters in the Plays of Cornelis Everaert

By the end of the 19th century, allegory was thought of as a burden to late medieval drama which authors such as Marlow and Shakespeare happily did away with. In more recent times scholars and performers have discovered through performing these plays that allegory does not prevent audiences from enjoying these plays. On the contrary, allegorical devices add to the intended meaning of the plays and more often than not confirm spectators' beliefs and ideas.

During the first half of the 16th century allegory was the dominating mode of characterization on the Dutch and Flemish stages. No living soul would question its effectiveness. In Bruges, Cornelis Everaert (c. 1480-1556) not only had his plays performed by allegorical characters but also used this device as a super-structure to teach viewers the moral and religious convictions of his days. When studying allegory in late medieval drama we cannot limit ourselves to looking at allegorical characters but we need to concentrate on allegory as a means of communication in general, enabling audiences to a better understanding of the message of the play. In my paper I will discuss the various methods of using allegory in plays written by Everaert. Staging and studying late medieval drama now leads to the inevitable conclusion that allegory should be regarded as everything else from being "dead as a doornail".

SCHOELL, Konrad

Les personnages-abstractions dans la farce francaise

Parmi les personnages des farces, beaucoup portent des prénoms répandus. D'autres, encore plus sans doute, ne sont désignés que par leur métier ou bien la situation civile ou sociale. Quelques personnages sont des types recourants comme le badin, d'autres sont désigné par un sobriquet placé en général à côté du prénom: Robin Mouton, George le Veau. Il y a des noms dépréciatifs pour des personnages dont on se moque, que ce soient des personnages de rang social supérieur ou inférieur (M. de la Hannetonnière, Mausouppé). Ce ne sont pas tant ces noms-là ni les personnages ainsi désignés qui m' intéressent dans ma communication, mais plutôt ceux qui ne semblent être que des personnifications de qualités et défauts, de traits de caractère ou de comportement comme Messieurs de Mallepaye et de Baillevent. Le Prix du marché n'est certainbement pas une allégorie, car seul le badin prend cette expression pour un nom. Mais qu'en est-il de Lavollée, de Léger d'Argent, de Pattes Ointes, de Cauteleux et de Barat? en quoi se distinguent-ils d'un Robin Mouton ou d'un George le Veau?

HINDLEY, Alan

Wheeling and Dealing: Figures of Fortune in the Old French Moralities

Already a key element in the Jeu de Saint Nicolas and Courtois d'Arras, the tavern transgression of gambling came also to represent in later medieval texts a lively counterpoint to more orthodox models of literary exchange, as Andrew Cowell's recent study has shown. The metaphor of Fortune and her Wheel, recognised as a significant unifying theme of Adam de la Halle's Jeu de la Feuillée, similarly re-emerges in a wide range of texts, from Boethius' Consolatio, to Jehan de la Mote's Voie d'Enfer and Jean Michel's Mistere de la Passion Jesuscrist. Both motifs are also extensively, and sometimes imaginatively, exploited in the French moralités, a genre whose allegories and personifications make visual sometimes complex moralising abstractions. This paper will consider the use of the related themes of gambling and Dame Fortune in a representative sample of the religious morality plays, including Bien Avisé Mal Avisé, L'Homme pecheur, L'Homme juste et l'Homme mondain, and La Moralité des Enfants de Maintenant. It will illustrate Fortune's Wheel and the plays' use of gambling episodes both as metaphors of Everyman's subjection to the powers of Fortune in a Christian context, and as themes that were exploited to considerable dramatic and comic effect. Aspects of iconography and staging technique will be examined, and analogies will be made to other contemporary literary forms and to such related motifs as folly in both dramatic and non-dramatic texts.

STRIETMAN, Elsa

The Allegory of War and Deprivation in the Plays of Louris Jansz. of Haarlem

The Haarlem playwright Lourisz Jansz. wrote some 20 plays of which a small number deal directly with the effects of war and deprivation in his own environment and time,that is to say, the Low Countries in the second half of the sixteenth century.The allegorical characters employed to represent these conditions and situations are varied but they are linked by a great awareness of the misery inflicted on the common man. I would like to investigate the precise nature of the allegorical characters in these plays in order to come to some insights about their efficaciousness in embodying and representing on the stage Jansz. views of the evils that beset him and his contemporaries.

SPIVACK, Charlotte

The Appearance of Evil

Clearly, there are definite theatrical conventions of the time which developed in connection with the evil characters, i.e. devils, vices, and deadly sins. One of these conventions had to do with fire, perhaps an outgrowth of a belief in hellfire. In The Play of Love the vice, appropriately named Neither Lover nor Loved, at one point comes on stage "carrying a copper tank full of burning squibs and crying ‘fire, fire’." In the morality All for Money one of the vices, called Damnation, has a ‘terrible vysard" on his face and his garment is "painted with flames of fire". One of the explanations of the fire theme is offered in Three Laws where the three sacred laws - of Nature, of Moses, and of Christ - are defiled by vices, who are accordingly punished with water, sword, and fire. The fire is thus symbolic of the corruption of Christ’s law. In addition to representing evil figure through visual images of fire, specific vices and sins are clothed symbolically, e.g.. Pride is dressed in fancy clothes, and Avarice carries money-bags. In an early example of evil’s allegorical appearance, the play of Wisdom, the masquers of Perjury wear double-faced masks. I will cite several examples of the visual appearance of evil on the medieval stage and suggest theoretical explanations.

RAFTERY, Margaret Mary

Incarnation of Evil in Mary of Nieuwmeghen

Within the context of the theme "The Verbal made Visual", I should like to propose a paper focusing on the Rederijker drama "Mariken van Nieumeghen" (with some cross-references to related texts, particularly the English prose version, "Mary of Nemmegen", which I edited for E.J. Brill in 1991).

My topic would be the nature of the dramatic and the theological "incarnation" of evil in these medieval texts, and specifically the rederijker play's dual conception of the Devil in the characters of Moenen and Masscheroen.

My approach is to view this "incarnation" as a conscious inversion, on the part of the author(s), of the Incarnation of Christ - the "Word made Flesh", who brings Salvation. This would seem to be suggested by the sometimes quite detailed information which devil-characters such as Moenen provide about their human or semi-human "disguises". So, too, the careful structuring of the "Mariken" by means of the progressive inversion of the sacraments of the Catholic Church (in the presentation of Mariken's initiation into the world of evil) seems to indicate that such persistent inversion is a conscious technique employed by the creator(s) of Mariken's story. The paper would investigate these aspects in some detail.

In addition, I should like to pay some attention to the related issue of Power, on various levels. Traditionally, Lucifer's "word" - "non serviam!" transforms angels, through a fall, into devils, demonstrating the power of the (evil) word. The power of the DRAMATIC word is all the greater, since it is made visible, almost tangible, to the audience. In the "Mariken", in particular, the issue of power is also highly relevant : the perceived power of certain words, or names, in daily life, for instance in prayer or in exorcism, or, indeed, in rhetoric; the eschatological powers of Good and Evil, with the former always ultimately triumphing; the issue of gendered power within the this-worldly representation of that eschatology, where both Good (the Church) and Evil are, ironically, male-identified, while the focus of their conflict, Mariken herself, is female, and so on. This issue would make up the second part of the proposed paper.

I should hope that such a paper would be interesting to other scholars in combining areas such as theology, "folk"-belief, and drama, thus adding to our understanding of the medieval "mentality" in terms of the subject-matter and message of "Mariken van Nieumeghen".

Johnston, Alexandra

Portrayal of Women in English Morality Plays

The Castle of Perseverance (1425) presents theological abstractions as characters in the psychomachia of the drama of the fall and salvation of Humanum Genus. Interestingly, the dramatist adds to the tension of the central conflict by choosing to present all but one of the vices (Lechery) as men but all of the virtues as women. This is a deliberate choice since the gender of all the vices in Latin is feminine. The virtues do battle with the vices and defeat them only to have Humanum Genus fall a second time to the wiles of Covetousness. Furthermore, the final fate of the soul is determined through the toughminded intellectual debate of the four Daughters of God. These portrayals of allegorical abstractions as strong not to say domineering women harks back to the character of Lady Philosophy in Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. Wisdom adds a twist to the portrayal of abstractions as women in the portrayal of the Soul as a woman whose relationship with God recalls the eroticism of the Song of Songs. My paper will explore the implications of this characterization considering, among other things, the fact that all the parts were probably played by men. I will also look at the interesting dynamics created in a modern production of Mankind where Mercy was portrayed as a woman.

CASE, Ellen

Transformations of Judith in the devout representation of Judith

(La devota rappresentazione di Iudith Ebrea)

The biblical widow enjoys a revered tradition as the poor, devout woman protected by God. In this play gender representation is blurred as traditional boundaries are transgressed. The gender dialectic of Judith in The Devout Representation of Judith (1519) might be described as androgynous, yet Judith's androgyny is sequential. The character of Judith metamorphosizes at will challenging the sacrosancts of male purview. This paper will examine gender imagery, focusing on the transformations of Judith in The Devout Representation of Judith. Our aim is to discuss how the drama may have been used as a vehicle to express religious and political views, and to support the gender status quo. This little-known Sacra Rapprestentazione is interesting because it reveals contemporary views of the biblical story of Judith and the way it was adapted and transformed.

TINER, Elza

Rhetorical Allegory and Scriptural Exegesis in the York Plays

This paper proposes to show how allegory operates as a technique of persuasion in the York Plays. To make an analysis possible, definitions of allegory must first be determined from texts available in 15th-century York, where the plays were probably composed.

Allegory operates on several levels in medieval rhetoric. As a figure of speech, allegory is classified as a trope (figure of transferred meaning) by grammarians and rhetoricians such as Donatus, Bede, the author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium, and Quintilian, all listed in the catalogue of the medieval library of the Augustinian Friary at York. Allegory is language which symbolizes something other than what it says, as a short phrase, a series of metaphors, or a system of critical analysis. As explained by Augustine in De utilitate credendi, section 5, also available in the medieval library of Augustinian Friary at York, allegory is one part of a fourfold system of biblical exegesis, in which one discovers the spiritual sense of sacred language.

Given these definitions of allegory, I propose to show how the York Plays apply allegory on two levels: the literal, as understood by the characters, and the figurative, as understood by the audience. This duality is most apparent in the trial sequence, where Christ's accusers testify to his miracles as they try to condemn him to death, but it also occurs in Play III, The Creation of Adam and Eve, where God refers to the need to create man from the simplest part of earth, to counterbalance his excessive pride; in Play XX, Christ and the Doctors, where Jesus speaks as the son of God/Christ the King as well as an intelligent child, referring to his eternal knowledge; and in Play XXXIX Christ's Appearance to Mary Magdalene, in which Jesus uses the allegory of Christ militant, admonishing Mary to clothe herself in spiritual armor. In the plays, Christ is the focal point of allegorical language, a way in to the mysteries of Sacred Scripture.

Through the duality of allegory, the audience is persuaded to look beyond the literal level of daily life to the spiritual level of their faith.

BEECHER, Don

Mankynde: The Iconography of Spiritual Thinking

(No summary available/Pas de résumé disponible)

EPP, Garett

Allegorical Bodies

In a sense, all theatre is allegory: an actual person in an actual place is understood by the audience to mean someone or something else, somewhere else. And all allegory is theatrical: words take on new meanings, new roles. Yet allegory is a notoriously slippery medium, particularly in the theatre. The personified concepts that people the morality plays of medieval and Tudor England can, in performance, never entirely escape being perceived as individual persons. The supposedly static, abstract and essentialized identities that are imposed upon characters - pure virtue, absolute vice; words made flesh - are inhabited by actual, fleshly bodies that are not so easily defined or contained. The same actual body, always and importantly male in early English theatre, might play both virtue and vice, in any given play. It might inhabit a male or a female role, or both. Moreover, vice can be played as a attractive and sympathetic character, undercutting the ostensible moral message of the play; much depends on the skill of the actor, as well as on his physical appearance and mood, and on the tastes, sensibilities, and past experiences of individual audience members.

Obviously, the extant text of a play can give only the slightest notion of the various effects of a performance of the "same" play. However, literary critics tend, necessarily, to depend only upon texts. In this paper I would like to examine what escapes from such an approach. In particular, I will deal with a variety of early English theatrical personifications of lust, since such characters, and even the presence of such characters, necessarily draws attention to the body, and to bodily and erotic desires. This in turn draws attention of the audience to the all too real, all too present body of the actor, and to any erotic desire they might themselves feel in relation to that body.

SCHERB, Victor

’Thynke and Remember’. Memory and Allegory in Mankind

Frequently studied as a social document and for its complex and sophisticated wordplay, the fifteenth-century play Mankind also explores late medieval attitudes towards drama, allegory, and memory. In essence, Mankind utilizes the possibility of live dramatization to interrogate medieval mnemonic practice and offer an alternative. The play in effect both acts as a mnemonic aid and calls into question the efficacy of such aids, suggesting that lists of precepts and other mnemonic devices are no substitute for experience. Mercy?s advice to the title character, while accurate, is ineffectual, and the same could be said about the "bagge [badge] of myn armys" (322) that Mankind affixes to his breast as a mnemonic aid. Both fail because the flesh is weak and easily distracted, precepts slip out of mind, and material supports to memory are easily lostand forgotten.

At the same time, as a morality play Mankind offered to its medieval spectators a kind of vicarious knowledge situated between abstract precept and actual experience. Employing an unusually fluid type of personification allegory, the drama capitalizes on both the stereotypical and individuating possibilities of the form. The play?s simple, uncluttered staging also erodes invisible barriers between the audience and performer, repeatedly insisting on the interchangeability of the play?s characters and the audience members. While never losing sight of the truths it endeavors to teach, the play alludes to contemporary issues, names local places, and discusses local citizens. In short, Mankind exploits the fluid potential of allegory to offer its audience memory images that are more efficacious because they approach lived experience.

DILLON, Janette

The rhetoric of spectacle in Hall's Chronicle

I would like to propose a topic which would fall into your third category, of processions and festivals, though it's not quite either. I am currently working on Hall's Chronicle, which, as most people know, is full of descriptions of masques and court entertainments. What I would like to present to the conference is an analysis of Hall's tendency to use the same rhetoric of spectacle in describing spectacles that are not primarily laid on for entertainment and have no fictional element (such as trials, high masses, signing of treaties, entry into cities etc). Hayden White's work on how historiography shapes its material into narrative structures is by now familiar to most scholars working on historical writings; but Hall's predisposition to write within a rhetoric of performance adds a new dimension to White's problematisation of the status of historical writing.

DEKEYZER, Brigitte

Typological Thinking in the Late Middle Ages: theoria versus praxis. Blijde Intredes and Street Theatre in relation to the Old Testament

The typological idea that sees the Old Testament as foreshadowing the New Testament, is characteristic of medieval thought and expresses itself in theological or filosofical texts as well as in literature. In the visual arts as well (especially in miniatures and in engravings of the late Middle Ages) scenes from Old and New Testament are confronted and interpreted according to symbolical, anagogical and tropological schemes. The question is whether that relationship also functions in other contexts. It is noteworthy that, at the occasion of Blijde Intredes in th Southern Netherlands there are quite often tableaux vivants that evoke Old Testament scenes. An explicit, visual relation with the New Testament often lacks, but my paper will show that the tableaux nonetheless funtion that way. The prince who makes his entry is placed within a long tradition, going back, amongst others, to the Old Testament. His visit is compared to that made by the Queen of Sheba to Salomon or a mariage is prefigured by the meeting of David and Abigail.

The paper will focus on Blijde Intredes, tableaux vivants and theater decors from Gent, Brussels and Bruges. In those cities existed a great interest in the Old Testament. Moreover, many sources (historical, literary and artistic) are still extant. After a short theoretical orientation of typological thought, we’ll investigate the practice (here understood as Blijde Intredes, tableaux vivants, theater decors). In that sense, this paper could be relevant to anyone specializing in medieval studies.

HARRIS, Max

Saint Michael and the Carnival Devils: a Bolivian AUTO Sacramental

Every year in Oruro, Bolivia, the twenty-three hour carnival parade includes several hundred elaborately masked and costumed devils and a few Saint Michaels; thousands of men and women disguised as black miners laden with silver and gold for their colonial Spanish masters; and a group that represents the first encounter of Spaniards and Incas. There are many others, but these are the oldest and most traditional carnival maskers.

On Carnival Monday, two days after the parade, several of the groups present plays to an audience of thousands. The most important is the play of Saint Michael and the Devils, believed to derive from an old auto sacramental imported from Spain. In it Saint Michael defeats Lucifer, seven Deadly Sins or Devils, and a female devil representing the temptation of the flesh. The text is in the style of a simple medieval morality play.

The performance lasts about 20 minutes and is excellent theatre in its own right. Its place in the overall carnival context, however, makes it even more interesting. Another play, the Death of Atahualpa, follows. In it we see enacted an indigenous gloss on diabolical sin. Avarice, anger, envy, and laziness are all displayed by the Spanish priests and soldiers rather than by the Indians. Atahualpa, speaking Quechua, is dignified and betrayed. The massed representation of enslaved African miners also provides an unexpected gloss of the Saint Michael play.

In its festive context, it becomes clear that the people of Oruro have not interpreted the play of Saint Michael and the Devils in the way that its clerical authors intended. Instead of seeing themselves as the ones tormented by sin, they have for centuries found the most pertinent expression of the demonic to be colonial oppression. The meaning of medieval drama depends on the context of its performance.

CARLSON, Marla:

Painful processions

In late medieval Europe, public punishment was a carefully choreographed public spectacle. Condemned prisoners were stripped of dignity and identity, dehumanized, and expelled from the human community. At the same time, the nature of the crime was made hyper-visible. Whether repentant or incorrigible, the criminal was the focus of a painful ritual. In addition to asking how this ritual might be productively read against other types of late medieval procession, I propose to examine the relation between the procession to the gallows and other bodily performances of suffering in fifteenth-century France, including the saint play. What role(s) did the body in pain play in creating France as a nation? How does the expulsion of a person from the community serve to produce communitas? In what ways do the cultural uses of pain during this period differ from earlier and later practices?

This paper engages with work by Esther Cohen, Jody Enders, Mitchell Merback, and others. Of particular interest are the fact that the route to the gallows sometimes traced in reverse the path used for a royal entrance, that a century later execution might have constituted part of the dramatic entertainment on the occasion of such an entrance (the much-discussed incident at Tournai), and that flagellant processions were not part of the cultural formation at issue.

HAPPE, Peter:

Processions and the Cycle Drama in England and Europe: some dramatic possibilities

In this paper I should like to explore some of the dramatic characteristics of processions in connection with cycle plays. I propose to divide the material into two parts. First, there are some dramatic events which were performed within a comprehensive procession and which therefore gained a dynamic from the processional structure, most simply seen in the succession of one event upon another. In this part I will discuss the York and Chester cycles in England, together with some continental examples. These should include the Bliscappen, performed at Whitsun in Brussels for more than a century, and the Künzelsau play which was given at Corpus Christi and featured a Rector Processionis. On the other hand many cycle plays were presented on fixed locations, and yet it is clear that these consciously involved the use of procession inside the acting area to great effect. In a sense these are entirely theatrical processions, circumscribed by the dramatic discourses embedded in the individual texts. For examples here I should like to discuss the third day of Gréban’s Passion and that part of N Town now known as the Passion Play. In this case a number of dramatic issues are in question including suspense, narrative complexity, the management of space, and, perhaps the most striking, the management of dramatic time. Though it would be premature to draw a conclusion at this point, it seems likely that in both types to be considered the processional organisation is a structural feature, and contributed a good deal to the type of dramatic event which could be presented. By the juxtaposition of these types the quality of each may be more clearly perceived.

McDONALD. Aileen

"Lo Jutgamen de Jhesu de Nazaret"

Lo Jutgamen de Jhesu de Nazaret is one of the plays which come early in the cycle of the Passion of Rouergue coming from near Albi in France and dated to late in the fifteenth century. It is a highly original piece, putting into dramatic form a sermon based on the Gospel of John, 19,7 (Nos legem habemus, et secundum legem debet mori) The idea expressed in scripture was that the Passion of Christ was necessary in order for Biblical prophecy to be fulfilled.The treatment of the subject in the fifteenth century makes for interesting study, going from being the matter of a sermon to an increasing theatricalization of the theme.The culminating point of the process is this play from the Rouergue cycle in which Jesus passes through three courts of law,defended by such abstract qualities personnified as Innocence and Fidelity and judged by various Old Testament figures, all of whom condemn him to undergo the Passion. This paper will trace the growing theatricalization of the theme of the necessary condemnation of Christ and the choice and process of putting on stage certain abtract qualities personnified and Old Testament figures such as Adam, Abraham, Noah and David to bring Scripture so vividly to life.Finally, the paper will hope to show some of the social and religious context against which the Rouergue Passion was conceived and produced and some insight into the inspiration and way of thinking of its author.

RAFFI-BEROUD, Catherine

Théâtre religieux en Nouvelle Espagne (Mexique) au XVIe siècle

Lorsque les Espagnols arrivèrent à ce que nous appelons aujourd’hui le Mexique et qu’ils baptisèrent Nouvelle Espagne, les peuples conquis ne connaissaient pas le théâtre tel qu’il était pratiqué alors en Europe. Les missionnaires se rendirent compte que les cérémonies religieuses s’accompagnaient de ‘représentations rituelles’ et que les ‘indiens’ aimaient le spectacle. Ils décidèrent alors d’exploiter les talents existants pour monter des pièces religieuses afin de propager le catholicisme.

Nous souhaiterions montrer comment les religieux espagnols choisirent certains sujets plutôt que d’autres et utlisèrent pour les visualiser certains espaces scéniques, en particulier pour célebrer Corpus Christi. De même nous voudrions montrer comment ils établirent une différence entre le théâtre ‘religieux’ pour un public déjà catholique et le théâtre ‘d’évangélisation’.

Il nous semble que ces différences si communes au monde hispanique immé-diatement après la conquête peuvent apporter une information complémentaire aux chercheurs plus spécialisés dans le théâtre médiéval européen, et en particulier montrer une remarquable adaptation des hommes à un nouvel environnement (physique et spirituel).

SALVADOR RAMOS, Asuncion

Interpersonal Meanings of Proverbs. The Case of the N-Town Corpus Christi Play

Proverbial Wisdom says that « action speaks louder than words », although in the case of proverbs we can observe a paradox. On one hand, the words that are contained in them speak louder than actions becausde of their particular linguistic strucutures that make them to be easily memorised for oral transmission in order to be used with argumentative functions in communicative processes. On the other hand, they are in fact « actions that speak louder than words », because they have very important communicative interpersonal meanings through the speech acts that they perform in the contexts they appear.

In this study we are going to focus attention on the proverbs from the N. Town Corpus Christi Play in order to exemplify their different types of fossilised linguistic partial structures that derive from quadripartite structures in which they express their ideas through logical semantics and to give the argumentative emphasis that speakers want to express. In addition, the contexts in which these proverbs appear will provide us with the occasion of analysing them within a literary and communicative process in which their speech acts are performed to express several speaker’s functional intentions on the stage.

PALLA, José Maria

Rôles du vêtement chez Gil Vicente

Dans l’oeuvre vicentine, le vêtement sur scène peut être neutre (le vêtement de la vie courante), stéréotypé (le berger, le cordonnier, le courtisan) ou figuré (figures allégoriques dérivant de la mythologie ou de l’Ecriture sainte, qui portent des costumes conventionnels fixés pour de longues périodes). La convention théâtrale veut que l’on voie autre chose que ce que l’on voit: la scène est le lieu d’un imaginaire réalisé, lequel puise dans un répertoire de schèmes partagés par un groupe ou une société et mobilise la capacité imaginative du spectateur. Du point de vue de la convention théâtrale, l’habillement courant signifie aux spectateurs: "nous sommes dans la vie courante, quotidienne", il parle de lui-même, il fonctionne comme un métalangage.

L’habillement stéréotypé renvoie à des situations stéréotypées, ce qui suppose qu’elles aient encore un sens dans le présent, qu’elles fonctionnent toujours. A l’effet de situation produit par le vêtement s’ajoute l’effet de grossissement propre à la scène. La présentation théâtrale surenchérit donc naturellement, sans que cela ne relève aucunement d’une intention, sur l’effet de marque ou l’effet symbolique du vêtement. Le mécanisme fait plus que situer la scène et l’action dans un lieu, un moment, un état. Il "parle", ou du moins suscite une attente. La distance ou l’opposition entre la ocnvention symbolisaée par le costume (les attributs plus ou moins mythiques d’une ocndition) et la réalité du personnage ainsi vêtu (ou la situation scénique en général) peut être source d’un effet satirique, comique, drmatique. Autrement dit, c’est une mise en scène du symbole, un jeu de code, grâce a la distance entre personnage et personne, entre convention et psychologie.

Le vêtement vicentin peut jouer plusieurs rôles: - un rôle moral, comme dans lAuto da Alma, où les vetements et leurs accessoires sont des signes de luxure et de vanité en opposition à un dépouillement complet; - un rôle comique, aiidant à stigmatiser les aberrations du travestissement masculin, comme celui du Juge dans la dernière pièce de notre auteur, la Floresta de Enganos; - un rôle tragique dans la scène où Maria Parda doit vendre sa mantille pour boire, ou bien dans la scène du Triunfo do Inverno montrant la vieille qui se hâte pieds nus et en perdant ses vêtements, pour traverser la montagne afin de rejoindre le jeune homme qui l’attend; - enfin un rôle symbolique et rituel: voir l’épingle, le foulard et la ceinture associ’es à des pratiques de fiançailles et de mariage.

Il reste une catégorie de vêtements dont nous pensons qu’ils peuvent appartenir à un répertoire commun à d’autres pays: les costumes allégoriques (par exemple, la Providence, la Justice) et les costumes religieux (pour les personnages de la Bible).

RUNNALLS, Graham

Le mystère de la Vendition de Joseph joué dans la region parisienne en 1560: un contrat pour la location des costumes

In this paper, I will discuss one of several legal documents that I have recently discovered in the Paris Archives Nationales and which throw light on performances of mystery plays at the end of the Middle Ages.This particular document is a 1560 contract for the hiring of about 200 costumes from a Parisian "fripier" for the performance of the mystery play known as the "Vendition de Joseph".

BOUHAIK-GIRONES, Marie

Le théâtre médiéval et l’espace parisien

Où jouait-on dans la ville de Paris? Quels sont les lieux, les espaces investis par le théâtre?

Il semble intéressant d’essayer de faire une cartographie, en utilisant les mentions de lieux de représentation qu’on peut trouver dans les archives et dans les textes, d’élaborer un plan de Paris où seront pointés les principaux espaces de jeu (le parcours des entrées royales, les églises, les tavernes, les collèges, les maisons des confréries, la Trinité, le Palais, etc.) afin de mieux cerner les différents quartiers investis par le théâtre.

On verra la spécificité de la ville de Paris, où l’importance de l’Université et du Parlement, les fonctions croissantes de la ville comme capitale et lieu de séjour de la royauté, donnent à la vie théâtrale parisienne un caractère particulier, avec une prépondérance du théâtre profane, due au nombre élevé d’écoliers et de jeunes clercs.

BOLDUC, Benoit

le décor composite de l'Arimène (1596)

L'Arimène ou Berger désespéré, représentée à la cour de Nantes le 25 février 1596, est une fête de cour au carrefour des traditions médiévales et humanistes. Bien que plusieurs historiens du théâtre se soient penchés sur les questions de scénographie soulevées par les descriptions exceptionnellement détaillées qui accompagnent le texte de la pastorale, deux aspects importants de la production ont été négligés : 1) l'apport de scénographes florentins, 2) la présence d'éléments décoratifs qui relèvent de la tradition du théâtre médiéval «à mansions», voire de l'«entremet» et de la momerie.

1) Ce qui a le plus attiré l'attention des chercheurs dans la description de la mise en scène de l'Arimène, c'est la présence de quatre « périactes » qui permettent des changements de décors à vue : il s'agit de prismes fixés verticalement au plancher de la scène, tournant autour d'un axe central, et dont les faces sont peintes différemment suivant les nécessités de la représentation. H. Lancaster croit qu'ils se trouvaient de chaque côté de la scène, deux à droite et deux à gauche, et qu'une toile couvrait le fond de la scène. Parce que les descriptions ne parlent jamais de toile de fond, T. Lawrenson est plutôt d'avis qu'ils étaient disposés suivant un arc de cercle, circonscrivant l'aire de jeu, et constituant à eux seuls la « perspective », c'est à dire l'illusion d'un espace en profondeur. Je montrerai, grâce à des images de synthèse produites par ordinateur, que l'hypothèse de Lawrenson n'est pas vraisemblable et que l'intuition de Lancaster est juste à condition d'évoquer les réalisations des scénographes italiens. La présence de Florentins à la cour de Nantes, et la diffusion par le texte et l'image des grandes fêtes médicéennes réalisées par Bernardo Buontalenti imposent, en effet, un rapprochement entre la description de la fête de Nantes et celles de Florence où de tels « périactes » étaient utilisés.

2) Certains éléments de la description indiquent clairement que l'aspect général de la scène, loin de l'effet unifié que peut produire le théâtre à l'italienne, est encore fidèle à la pratique médiévale du théâtre « à mansions » et que certains des éléments décoratifs, qui restent toujours à la vue des spectateurs, compromettent toute illusion perspective. Une grotte, d'un côté de la scène, et un « antique rocher », de l'autre, encadrent le décor pendant toute la représentation, que la scène représente une forêt ou la ville de Mycènes. Le rocher, par exemple, rappelle la décoration des banquets et des momeries de la cour de Bourgogne au XVe siècle. De plus, les périactes sont garnis de « fleurs meslez de lambrisseaux d'or » et portent « chacun quatre flambeaux alumez », éléments décoratifs qui compromettent en quelque sorte l'effet illusionniste d'ensemble. Leur fonction n'est pas tant de créer un effet de réel, mais de marquer le changement de lieu lors des intermèdes sans composer nécessairement un tableau cohérent et unifié. La représentation de l'Arimène marque une étape importante de l'histoire de la scénographie en France justement parce qu'elle tente un premier syncrétisme entre la tradition des banquets et des momeries et les nouvelles techniques scéniques italiennes.

HAMBLIN, Vicki

Conditions et techniques de représentation: le cas du Mystère du Siège d’Orléans

The "Mistere du siege d'Orleans" is a French mystery play whose text is interspersed with some 290 'didascalies' or prose pauses. In most instances those pauses incorporate standard staging needs; that is, they describe an actor's movement from one 'lieu' to another, they refer to required props or they describe various gestures. The presence of so many such prose pauses in the text is our best indication that this spectacle was actually performed at some point in the fifteenth century since no corroborative evidence of a performance of the extant text has survived. However, narrative passages from the play's sources - several historical chronicles that narrate the same events as does the mystery text - have also invaded the play's prose pauses. In some cases, then, the play's 'didascalie' include narrative features so unlike standard stage directions that scholars have suggested that they denote reenactments on the actual battle sites rather than staged simulations. Among the unusual features to be found in these pauses are: their length (some are as long as one page of 25 lines), their complexity (in directing multiple actions that have not been predicted by actors' speeches) and their use of past definite verb conjugations (transposed from the narrative sources). By examining the placement and nature of the various 'didascalie' in the "Siege" text, I believe that it is possible to reconstruct a performance arena and, at the same time, to propose a compilation history that explains the play's mix of performance and narrative features.

BROWNE, Mary Maxine

The Mystics and the Moralities of the Fifteenth Century: The Vision made Visible

The personifications of the virtue and vice of morality drama is generally discussed without a concrete medieval social context. Although commonly called a "theatrical hybrid" formed out of the medieval sermon and the Psychomachia, scholarship over the last ten years has drawn more and more connections between contemplative communities and medieval drama. This association is important, and as I hope to further demonstrate in this paper, the mystical theology and contemplative lifestyle practiced by the Christian mystics in fifteenth-century England and the Low Countries can be seen to provide a more satisfactory contextual background to the morality plays than has been previously suggested.

Not only do the production and provenance of the manuscripts point to contemplative communities, but the dramatic structure of the plays themselves also corresponds with elements of the contemplative life. This paper will show how the morality play can be understood as a "visible vision" through comparisons of fifteenth-century English and Dutch morality plays such as Castle of Perseverance, Mankind, and Elkerlijck with contemplative works such as the Ancrene Wisse, and the writings of Marguerite Porete, Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Julian of Norwich. All record visionary experiences that include dialogues of the soul with God; these "interior dramas," or "proto-plays," distinctly resemble the morality plays not only in their use of allegorical characters, but also in their lack of setting and time period and their use of crass imagery and metaphor.

This paper will show that the invisible holy time and space of contemplative and ascetic experience could be translated very well into the visible time and space of sacred and farcical theatre.

MILLS, David

‘Education, Education, Education: ‘Nice Wanton’ and the Allegorical Mode

To move from the English allegorical plays of the 15th century to those of the mid-16th is to change the context for human weakness, expressed in allegorical terms, from that of divine providence to that of society. The effect is to liberate the hero from his dramatically deterministic context, only to insist that he accord with the normative expectations of his own society. My paper explores some implications of this development in relation to the mid-16th-century play of "Nice Wanton", a play about the values of education which is usually held to have been written for child-actors. It seeks to position the play's dramatic mode between that of the Castell of Perseverance with its deterministic realisation of the human situation and that of Everyman, where the subjective and objective aspects of alllegory effectively combine. Modern critics of Nice Wanton respond variously, seeing it either as a didactic and exemplary piece on the value of education or as a melodramatic entertainment. I wish to argue that their uncertainty results from the play's failure to reconcile allegory with naturalism, determinism with freewill. It becomes a site where two dramatic languages meet and, as such, is a neglected but revealing play.

SCHEEL, Katja

Knights and Knighthood in late Medieval German Theatre

The paper would focus on the representation of the knight, and of knighthood as such, in late mediaeval German theatre, mainly in shrove tide plays. My concern is not only with the perspective of literary interpretation, but also with the sociological background of the way knighthood is brought on stage within a bourgeois conception. On closer inspection it becomes obvious that the plays in our scope aim far less than always at the derision of a rank that had outlived itself, but also at mocking bourgeois misbehaviour under the cover of knighthood. Instead of courtly love and fighting spirit these plays often display domesticality and merchant honour as the ideal virtues. Therefore it seems reasonable to rereflect upon the function of these plays, their moral statements not seeming to aim at the delimitation between social ranks but rather at the determination of moral rules within the bourgeois rank itself.

LUND NIELSEN, Orla

The Fictional Universe of the Fastnachtspiele

(No summary available/Pas de résumé disponible)