By what name are the biblical plays of the Middle Ages known?
"historical studies of England in the Middle Ages have never been so diverse as in the early 21st century. The period has also been used in a wide range of popular culture. William Shakespeare's plays on the lives of the medieval kings have proved to have had long lasting appeal, heavily influencing both popular interpretations and histories of figures such as King John and Henry V. Other playwrights have since taken key medieval events, such as the death of Thomas Becket, and used them to draw out contemporary themes and issues. The medieval mystery plays continue to be enacted in"
"Mystery play Mystery plays and miracle plays (they are distinguished as two different forms although the terms are often used interchangeably) are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They told of subjects such as the Creation, Adam and Eve, the murder of Abel, and the Last Judgment. Often they were performed together in cycles which could last for days. The name derives from ""mystery"" used in its sense of ""miracle,"" but an occasionally quoted derivation is from ""ministerium"", meaning"
"among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They developed from the 10th to the 16th century, reaching the height of their popularity in the 15th century before being rendered obsolete by the rise of professional theatre. The name derives from ""mystery"" used in its sense of ""miracle"", but an occasionally quoted derivation is from ""misterium"", meaning ""craft"", a play performed by the craft guilds. There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays from the late"
"are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They developed from the 10th to the 16th century, reaching the height of their popularity in the 15th century before being rendered obsolete by the rise of professional theatre. There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays from the late medieval period. The most complete is the ""York cycle"" of forty-eight pageants. They were performed in the city of York, from the middle of the fourteenth century"
"Le Jeu d'Adam Le Jeu d'Adam (Latin: ""Ordo representacionis Adae"", English: ""The Play of Adam"") is a twelfth-century liturgical drama written in the Anglo Norman dialect of Medieval French. While choral texts and stage directions are in Latin, the spoken text of the play is in the vernacular, which makes the Adam the oldest extant play written in any old French dialect. It is a dramatic representation of the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve, the story of Cain and Abel, and a series of prophets including Isaiah and Daniel. It is part of the medieval tradition of mystery"
"copied from an earlier manuscript. There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays from the late medieval period; although these collections are sometimes referred to as ""cycles,"" it is now believed that this term may attribute to these collections more coherence than they in fact possess. The most complete is the ""York cycle"" of forty-eight pageants. They were performed in the city of York, from the middle of the fourteenth century until 1569. There are also the ""Towneley plays"" of thirty-two pageants, once thought to have been a true 'cycle' of plays and most likely"
"Besides the Middle English drama, there are three surviving plays in Cornish known as the Ordinalia. These biblical plays differ widely in content. Most contain episodes such as the ""Fall of Lucifer"", the ""Creation and Fall of Man"", ""Cain and Abel"", ""Noah and the Flood"", ""Abraham and Isaac"", the ""Nativity"", the ""Raising of Lazarus"", the ""Passion"", and the ""Resurrection"". Other pageants included the story of ""Moses"", the ""Procession of the Prophets"", ""Christ's Baptism"", the ""Temptation in the Wilderness"", and the ""Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin"". In given cycles, the plays came to be sponsored by the newly emerging Medieval"
"Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They developed from the 10th to the 16th century, reaching the height of their popularity in the 15th century before being rendered obsolete by the rise of professional theatre. There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays from the late medieval period. The most complete is the ""York cycle"" of 48 pageants. They were performed in the city of York, from the middle of the 14th century until 1569. Besides the Middle English drama, there are"
"Play of Daniel The Play of Daniel, or ""Ludus Danielis"", is either of two medieval Latin liturgical dramas based on the biblical Book of Daniel, one of which is accompanied by monophonic music. Two medieval plays of Daniel survive. The first is one of the plays in the ""Fleury Playbook"", a 13th-century manuscript containing ten liturgical dramas; the text is by Hilarius, and no music accompanies it. The play itself dates from c. 1140. The second is a 13th-century drama with monophonic music, written about 1227 to 1234 by students at the school of Beauvais Cathedral, located in northern France."
"play is ""The Castle of Perseverance"" which depicts mankind's progress from birth to death. However, the most famous morality play and perhaps best known medieval drama is ""Everyman"". Everyman receives Death's summons, struggles to escape and finally resigns himself to necessity. Along the way, he is deserted by Kindred, Goods, and Fellowship – only Good Deeds goes with him to the grave. There were also a number of secular performances staged in the Middle Ages, the earliest of which is ""The Play of the Greenwood"" by Adam de la Halle in 1276. It contains satirical scenes and folk material such"
"The Brome play of Abraham and Isaac The Brome play of Abraham and Isaac (also known as The Brome “Abraham and Isaac”, The Brome Abraham, and The Sacrifice of Isaac) is a fifteenth-century play of unknown authorship, written in an East Anglian dialect of Middle English, which dramatises the story of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. In the opening scene, Abraham prays to God, thanking Him for His various blessings, most of all his favourite son, Isaac. Next, God reveals to an angel that he will test Abraham's faith by asking him to sacrifice Isaac. The angel conveys this"
"Medieval theatre Medieval theatre refers to theatrical performance in the period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century A.D. and the beginning of the Renaissance in approximately the 15th century A.D. Medieval Theatre covers all drama produced in Europe over that thousand-year period and refers to a variety of genres, including liturgical drama, mystery plays, morality plays, farces and masques. Beginning with Hrosvitha of Gandersheim in the 10th century, Medieval drama was for the most part very religious and moral in its themes, staging and traditions. The most famous examples of Medieval plays are the"
"Shakespeare's Globe in 2015 as ""The Mysteries"". In 2004, two mystery plays (one focusing on the Creation and the other on the Passion) were performed at Canterbury Cathedral, with actor Edward Woodward in the role of God. The large cast also included Daniel MacPherson, Thomas James Longley and Joseph McManners. Mystery play Mystery plays and miracle plays (they are distinguished as two different forms although the terms are often used interchangeably) are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They"
"Ordo Rachelis The Ordo Rachelis (Play of Rachel), Interfectio Puerorum (Murder of the Children), or Ludus Innocentium (Play of the Innocents) is a medieval dramatic tradition consisting in four plays and based on the Massacre of the Innocents, an event recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, and on the prophecy recorded in the Book of Jeremiah: ""A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not"" (31:15, KJV). The prophecy, which Matthew believed to be fulfilled when Herod the Great ordered the slaughter of"
"""Nativity"", the ""Raising of Lazarus"", the ""Passion"", and the ""Resurrection"". Other pageants included the story of ""Moses"", the ""Procession of the Prophets"", ""Christ's Baptism"", the ""Temptation in the Wilderness"", and the ""Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin"". In given cycles, the plays came to be sponsored by the newly emerging Medieval craft guilds. Having grown out of the religiously based mystery plays of the Middle Ages, the morality play is a genre of Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment, which represented a shift towards a more secular base for European theatre. In their own time, these plays were known as"
"period and some type of religious dramas were performed in nearly every European country in the Late Middle Ages. Many of these plays contained comedy, devils, villains and clowns. Morality plays emerged as a distinct dramatic form around 1400 and flourished until 1550. The most interesting morality play is ""The Castle of Perseverance"" which depicts mankind's progress from birth to death. However, the most famous morality play and perhaps best known medieval drama is ""Everyman"". Everyman receives Death's summons, struggles to escape and finally resigns himself to necessity. Along the way, he is deserted by Kindred, Goods, and Fellowship –"
"and one command between the Angels at Christ's tomb and the three Marys (Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the sister of Lazarus). Yet the concept of drama cannot adequately be used to describe the Quem Queritis, since drama as a concept is not found in the medieval sources themselves; using the term drama opens up a vast field of anachronistic misunderstandings. The Easter Plays were the core of medieval performance within the liturgy, but there were additional forms such as saints' plays, miracle stories, legends, and apocalyptic plays. The largest part of plot material is taken from the Bible"
"religious subjects. Goliardic poetry (four-line stanzas of satiric verse) was an art form used by some clerics to express dissent. The only widespread religious writing that was not produced by clerics were the mystery plays: growing out of simple tableaux re-enactments of a single Biblical scene, each mystery play became its village's expression of the key events in the Bible. The text of these plays was often controlled by local guilds, and mystery plays would be performed regularly on set feast-days, often lasting all day long and into the night. During the Middle Ages, the Jewish population of Europe also"
"there used to be six abele spelen because of the number of ""sotternieën"" belonging to them. http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/portal/libraries/Libraries.php?launch=1&country=Belgium&language=en&page=Treasures Abele spelen The abele spelen are a collection of four plays contained in the valuable ""Hulthemse Handschrift"". This manuscript dates from 1410 and is in the collection of the ""Koninklijke Bibliotheek"", the Royal Library in Brussels, Belgium, hs. 15.589-623. The word ‘abele’ means ‘noble’, and the ‘spelen’ means ‘plays’. In this sense the word ‘noble’ is used as the opposite of ‘religious’, i.e. 'profane'. The ""noble plays"" date from around 1350. They are the oldest plays of a worldly, non-religious nature known in"
"conversion. The ten works in the ""Fleury Playbook"" are written in the following order: Fleury Playbook The Fleury Playbook ( — Orléans, Bibliothèque Municipale MS. 201) is a medieval collection of Latin biblical dramas dating from around 1200 AD It was included in a composite volume of sermons, biblical texts, liturgical dramas, and hymns that was bound and kept at the library of Abbaye Saint Benoît de Fleury, a Benedictine monastery at Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, France, until after the French Revolution and is now housed in the Bibliothèque de la Ville (Municipal Library) at Orléans, France. The works in the playbook are"
"been told as a mystery play. St Methodius wrote the ""Banquet of the Ten Virgins"", a mystery play in Greek. ""Sponsus"", a mid-11th-century play, was performed in both Latin and Occitan. The German play ""Ludus de decem virginibus"" was first performed on 4 May 1321. There was also a Dutch play of the late Middle Ages. Parable of the Ten Virgins The Parable of the Ten Virgins, also known as the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins or the Parable of the ten bridesmaids, is one of the well known parables of Jesus. According to the Gospel of Matthew"
"Morality play The morality play is a genre of Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment. In their own time, these plays were known as interludes, a broader term for dramas with or without a moral. Morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of various moral attributes who try to prompt him to choose a godly life over one of evil. The plays were most popular in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. Having grown out of the religiously based mystery plays of the Middle Ages, they represented a shift towards a"
"Abele spelen The abele spelen are a collection of four plays contained in the valuable ""Hulthemse Handschrift"". This manuscript dates from 1410 and is in the collection of the ""Koninklijke Bibliotheek"", the Royal Library in Brussels, Belgium, hs. 15.589-623. The word ‘abele’ means ‘noble’, and the ‘spelen’ means ‘plays’. In this sense the word ‘noble’ is used as the opposite of ‘religious’, i.e. 'profane'. The ""noble plays"" date from around 1350. They are the oldest plays of a worldly, non-religious nature known in the Dutch language, and among the oldest known in West-European theatre. All four plays concern love, and"
"The Second Shepherds' Play The Second Shepherds' Play (also known as The Second Shepherds' Pageant) is a famous medieval mystery play which is contained in the manuscript HM1, the unique manuscript of the Wakefield Cycle. These plays are also referred to as the Towneley Plays, on account of the manuscript residing at Towneley Hall. The plays within the manuscript roughly follow the chronology of the Bible and so were believed to be a cycle, which is now considered not to be the case. This play gained its name because in the manuscript it immediately follows another nativity play involving the"
"the late 20th and early 21st centuries, there are many Passion Play enactments in Sri Lanka: The Church of Immaculate Conception in Bangkok and Chanthaburi holds an annual Passion Play on Good Friday. Passion Plays are biblical dramas that portray the Easter story. They depict the events of Jesus Christ’s trial, death and resurrection and may also extend to the events of his life, works and miracles. Today they are performed at Easter and often take place in public spaces such as city centres and town squares as free, community-led performances. Popular biblical dramas of the Middle Ages - including"
"N-Town Plays The N-Town Plays (also called the Hegge Cycle and the Ludus Coventriae cycle) are a cycle of 42 medieval Mystery plays from between 1450 and 1500. The manuscript is now housed in the British Library, London (BL MS Cotton Vespasian D.8). As its name might suggest, though, it was once the property of the 17th-century antiquarian Sir Robert Bruce Cotton and was housed in his large library. Cotton's librarian, Richard James, quickly examined the manuscript and erroneously assumed that it contained the Biblical plays performed in Coventry during the 15th and 16th centuries, thus naming them the Ludus"
"the Jewish poetry known as ""Tahkemoni"", dating back at least to Yehuda al-Harizi in 12th-century Spain. Al-Harizi's work contained dialogues between believer and heretic, man and wife, day and night, land and ocean, wisdom and foolishness, avarice and generosity. Such dialogues figured prominently in early Yiddish theatre. The origin of theatre in Christian societies in Europe is often traced to Passion Plays and other religious pageants, similar in some ways to the Purim plays. In the Middle Ages, few Jews would have seen these: they were often performed in the courtyards of Christian churches (few of which were near the"
"Ordinalia The Ordinalia are three medieval mystery plays dating to the late fourteenth century, written primarily in Middle Cornish, with stage directions in Latin. The three plays are Origo Mundi (The Origin of the World, also known as ""Ordinale de Origine Mundi"", 2,846 lines), Passio Christi (The Passion of Christ, also known as ""Passio Domini Nostri Jhesu Christi"", 3,242 lines) and Resurrexio Domini (The Resurrection of Our Lord also known as ""Ordinale de Ressurexione Domini"", 2,646 lines). The metres of these plays are various arrangements of seven- and four-syllabled lines. ""Ordinalia"" means ""prompt"" or ""service book"". The first play, called"
"Late Middle Ages, plays were produced in 127 towns. These vernacular Mystery plays often contained comedy, with actors playing devils, villains, and clowns. The majority of actors in these plays were drawn from the local population. Amateur performers in England were exclusively male, but other countries had female performers. There were a number of secular plays staged in the Middle Ages, the earliest of which is ""The Play of the Greenwood"" by Adam de la Halle in 1276. It contains satirical scenes and folk material such as faeries and other supernatural occurrences. Farces also rose dramatically in popularity after the"
"story of Abraham and Isaac: There is also another individual 15th-century English play on the binding of Isaac, the so-called ""Northampton Abraham"", which is sometimes also referred to as the ""Dublin Abraham"", as the manuscript is kept at Trinity College Library, Dublin. The subject also features in the first part of the Cornish language Ordinalia. The Brome play of Abraham and Isaac The Brome play of Abraham and Isaac (also known as The Brome “Abraham and Isaac”, The Brome Abraham, and The Sacrifice of Isaac) is a fifteenth-century play of unknown authorship, written in an East Anglian dialect of Middle"
"of towns, and this would lead to significant changes for theatre starting in this time and continuing into in the Late Middle Ages. Trade guilds began to perform plays, usually religiously based, and often dealing with a biblical story that referenced their profession. For instance, a baker's guild would perform a reenactment of the Last Supper. In the British Isles, plays were produced in some 127 different towns during the Middle Ages. These vernacular ""mystery plays"" were written in cycles of a large number of plays: York (48 plays), Chester (24), Wakefield (32) and Unknown (42). A larger number of"
"adaptation by Carol Ann Duffy, the Poet Laureate, with Chiwetel Ejiofor in the title role, was performed at the National Theatre (UK) from April to July 2015. Performances of plays outside of churches are frequent during the Christmas season with reenactments of the Nativity, and many Christian schools and Sunday school groups regularly performs scenes from the bible with children. The reenactment of the Passion of Christ is performed throughout the world in the late Lenten season. Medieval theatre Medieval theatre refers to theatrical performance in the period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century"
"performed around the Feast of Corpus Christi probably in the town of Wakefield, England during the late Middle Ages until 1576. The ""Ludus Coventriae"" (also called the N Town plays"" or ""Hegge cycle""), now generally agreed to be a redacted compilation of at least three older, unrelated plays, and the ""Chester cycle"" of twenty-four pageants, now generally agreed to be an Elizabethan reconstruction of older medieval traditions. These biblical plays differ widely in content. Most contain episodes such as the ""Fall of Lucifer"", the ""Creation and Fall of Man"", ""Cain and Abel"", ""Noah and the Flood"", ""Abraham and Isaac"", the"