CHAPTER XVI

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ORIGIN OF MEDIÆVAL FARCE AND MODERN COMEDY.--HROTSVITHA.--MEDIÆVAL NOTIONS OF TERENCE.--THE EARLY RELIGIOUS PLAYS.--MYSTERIES AND MIRACLE PLAYS.--THE FARCES.--THE DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

There is still another branch of literature which, however it may have been modified, has descended to us from the middle ages. It has been remarked more than once in the course of this book, that the theatre of the Romans perished in the transition from the empire to the middle ages; but something in the shape of theatrical performances appears to be inseparable from society even in its most barbarous state, and we soon trace among the peoples who had settled upon the ruins of the empire of Rome an approach towards a drama. It is worthy of remark, too, that the mediæval drama originated exactly in the same way as that of ancient Greece, that is, from religious ceremonies.

Such was the ignorance of the ancient stage in the middle ages, that the meaning of the word _comœdia_ was not understood. The Anglo-Saxon glossaries interpret the word by _racu_, a narrative, especially an epic recital, and this was the sense in which it was generally taken until late in the fourteenth or the fifteenth century. It is the sense in which it is used in the title of Dante's great poem, the "Divina Commedia." When the mediæval scholars became acquainted in manuscripts with the comedies of Terence, they considered them only as fine examples of a particular sort of literary composition, as metrical narratives in dialogue, and in this feeling they began to imitate them. One of the first of these mediæval imitators was a lady. There lived in the tenth century a maiden of Saxony, named Hrotsvitha--a rather unfortunate name for one of her sex, for it means simply "a loud noise of voices," or, as she explains it herself, in her Latin, _clamor validus_. Hrotsvitha, as was common enough among the ladies of those days, had received a very learned education, and her Latin is very respectable. About the middle of the tenth century, she became a nun in the very aristocratic Benedictine abbey of Gandesheim, in Saxony, the abbesses of which were all princesses, and which had been founded only a century before. She wrote in Latin verse a short history of that religious house, but she is best known by seven pieces, which are called comedies (_comœdiæ_), and which consist simply of legends of saints, told dialogue-wise, some in verse and some in prose. As may be supposed, there is not much of real comedy in these compositions, although one of them, the Dulcitius, is treated in a style which approaches that of farce. It is the story of the martyrdom of the three virgin saints--Agape, Chione, and Irene--who excite the lust of the persecutor Dulcitius; and it may be remarked, that in this "comedy," and in that of Callimachus and one or two of the others, the lady Hrotsvitha displays a knowledge of love-making and of the language of love, which was hardly to be expected from a holy nun.[79]

[79] Several editions of the writings of Hrotsvitha, texts and translations, have been published of late years both in Germany and in France, of which I may point out the following as most useful and complete--"Théatre de Hrotsvitha, Religieuse Allemande du x^e siècle....par Charles Magnin," 8vo., Paris, 1845; "Hrotsvithæ Gandeshemensis, virginis et monialis Germanicæ, gente Saxonica ortæ, Comœdias sex, ad fidem codicis Emmeranensis typis expressas edidit.... J. Benedixen," 16mo., Lubecæ, 1857; "Die Werke der Hrotsvitha: Herausgegeben von Dr. K. A. Barack," 8vo., Nürnberg, 1858.

Hrotsvitha, in her preface, complains that, in spite of the general love for the reading of the Scriptures, and contempt for everything derived from ancient paganism, people still too often read the "fictions" of Terence, and thus, seduced by the beauties of his style, soiled their minds with the knowledge of the criminal acts which are described in his writings. A rather early manuscript has preserved a very curious fragment illustrative of the manner in which the comedies of the Romans were regarded by one class of people in the middle ages, and it has also a further meaning. Its form is that of a dialogue in Latin verse between Terence and a personage called in the original _delusor_, which was no doubt intended to express a performer of some kind, and may be probably considered as synonymous with _jougleur_. It is a contention between the new jouglerie of the middle ages and the old jouglerie of the schools, somewhat in the same style as the fabliau of "Les deux Troveors Ribauz," described in a former chapter.[80] We are to suppose that the name of Terence has been in some way or other brought forward in laudatory terms, upon which the jougleur steps forward from among the spectators and expresses himself towards the Roman writer very contemptuously. Terence then makes his appearance to speak in his own defence, and the two go on abusing one another in no very measured language. Terence asks his assailant who he is? to which the other replies, "If you ask who I am, I reply, I am better than thee. Thou art old and broken with years; I am a tyro, full of vigour, and in the force of youth. You are but a barren trunk, while I am a good and fertile tree. If you hold your tongue, old fellow, it will be much better for you."

_Si rogitas quis sum, respondeo: te melior sum. Tu vetus atque senex; ego tyro, valens, adulescens. Tu sterilis truncus; ego fertilis arbor, opimus. Si taceas, o vetule, lucrum tibi quæris enorme._

Terence replies:--"What sense have you left? Are you, think you, better than me? Let me see you, young as you are, compose what I, however old and broken, will compose. If you be a good tree, show us some proofs of your fertility. Although I may be a barren trunk, I produce abundance of better fruit than thine."

_Quis tibi sensus inest? numquid melior me es? Nunc vetus atque senex quæ fecero fac adolescens. Si bonus arbor ades, qua fertilitate redundas? Cum sim truncus iners, fructu meliore redundo._

And so the dispute continues, but unfortunately the latter part has been lost with a leaf or two of the manuscript. I will only add that I think the age of this curious piece has been overrated.[81]

[80] See p. 191 of the present volume.

[81] This singular composition was published with notes by M. de Montaiglon, in a Parisian journal entitled, "L'Amateur de Livres," in 1849, under the title of "Fragment d'un Dialogue Latin du ix^e siècle entre Terence et un Bouffon." A few separate copies were printed, of which I possess one.

Hrotsvitha is the earliest example we have of mediæval writers in this

## particular class of literature. We find no other until the twelfth

century, when two writers flourished named Vital of Blois (_Vitalis Blesensis_) and Matthew of Vendôme (_Matthæus Vindocinensis_), the authors of several of the mediæval poems distinguished by the title of _comœdiæ_, which give us a clearer and more distinct idea of what was meant by the word. They are written in Latin Elegiac verse, a form of composition which was very popular among the mediæval scholars, and consist of stories told in dialogue. Hence Professor Osann, of Giessen, who edited two of those of Vital of Blois, gives them the title of eclogues (_eclogæ_). The name comedy is, however, given to them in manuscripts, and it may perhaps admit of the following explanation. These pieces seem to have been first mere abridgments of the plots of the Roman comedies, especially those of Plautus, and the authors appear to have taken the Latin title of the original as applied to the plot, in the sense of a narrative, and not to its dramatic form. Of the two "comedies" by Vital of Blois, one is entitled "Geta," and is taken from the "Amphytrio" of Plautus, and the other, which in the manuscripts bears the title of "Querulus," represents the "Aulularia" of the same writer. Independent of the form of composition, the scholastic writer has given a strangely mediæval turn to the incidents of the classic story of Jupiter and Alcmena. Another similar "comedy," that of Babio, which I first printed from the manuscripts, is still more mediæval in character. Its plot, perhaps taken from a fabliau, for the mediæval writers rarely invented stories, is as follows, although it must be confessed that it comes out rather obscurely in the dialogue itself. Babio, the hero of the piece, is a priest, who, as was still common at that time (the twelfth century), has a wife, or, as the strict religionists would then say, a concubine, named Pecula. She has a daughter named Viola, with whom Babio is in love, and he pursues his design upon her, of course unknown to his wife. Babio has also a man-servant named Fodius, who is engaged in a secret intrigue with his mistress, Pecula, and also seeks to seduce her daughter, Viola. To crown the whole, the lord of the manor, a knight named Croceus, is also in love with Viola, though with more honourable designs. Here is surely intrigue enough and a sufficient absence of morality to satisfy a modern French novelist of the first water. At the opening of the piece, amid some by-play between the four individuals who form the household of Babio, it is suddenly announced that Croceus is on his way to visit him, and a feast is hastily prepared for his reception. It ends in the knight carrying away Viola by force. Babio, after a little vain bluster, consoles himself for the loss of the damsel with reflections on the virtue of his wife, Pecula, and the faithfulness of his man, Fodius, when, at this moment, Fame carries to his ear reports which excite his suspicions against them. He adopts a stratagem very frequently introduced in the mediæval stories, surprises the two lovers under circumstances which leave no room for doubting their guilt, and then forgives them, enters a monastery, and leaves them to themselves. In form, these "comedies" are little more than scholastic exercises; but, at a later period, we shall see the same stories adopted as the subjects of farces.[82]

[82] To judge by the number of copies found in manuscripts, especially of the "Geta," these dramatic poems must have enjoyed considerable popularity. The "Geta" and the "Querulus" were published in a volume entitled, "Vitalis Blesensis Amphitryon et Aulularia Eclogæ. Edidit Fridericus Osannus, Professor Gisensis," 8vo., Darmstadt, 1836. The "Geta" and the "Babio" are included in my "Early Mysteries, and other Latin Poems of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries."

Already, however, by the side of these dramatic poems, a real drama--the drama of the middle ages--was gradually developing itself. As stated before, it arose, like the drama of the Greeks, out of the religious ceremonies. We know nothing of the existence of anything approaching to dramatic forms which may have existed among the religious rites of the peoples of the Teutonic race before their conversion to Christianity, but the Christian clergy felt the necessity of keeping up festive religious ceremonies in some form or other, and also of impressing upon people's imagination and memory by means of rude scenical representations some of the broader facts of scriptural and ecclesiastical history. These performances at first consisted probably in mere dumb show, or at the most the performers may have chanted the scriptural account of the transaction they were representing. In this manner the choral boys, or the younger clergy, would, on some special Saint's day, perform some striking act in the life of the saint commemorated, or, on particular festivals of the church, those incidents of gospel history to which the festival especially related. By degrees, a rather more imposing character was given to these performances by the addition of a continuous dialogue, which, however, was written in Latin verse, and was no doubt chanted. This incipient drama in Latin, as far as we know it, belongs to the twelfth century, and is represented by a tolerably large number of examples still preserved in mediæval manuscripts. Some of the earliest of these have for their author a pupil of the celebrated Abelard, named Hilarius, who lived in the first half of the twelfth century, and is understood to have been by birth an Englishman. Hilarius appears before us as a playful Latin poet, and among a number of short pieces, which may be almost called lyric, he has left us three of these religious plays. The subject of the first of these is the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the chief peculiarity of which consists of the songs of lamentation placed in the mouths of the two sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha. The second represents one of the miracles attributed to St. Nicholas; and the third, the history of Daniel. The latter is longer and more elaborate than the others, and at its conclusion, the stage direction tells us that, if it were performed at matins, Darius, king of the Medes and Persians, was to chant _Te Deum Laudamus_, but if it were at vespers, the great king was to chant _Magnificat anima mea Dominum_.[83]

[83] "Hilarii Versus et Ludi," 8vo., Paris, 1835. Edited by M. Champollion Figeac.

That this mediæval drama was not derived from that of the Roman is evident from the circumstance that entirely new terms were applied to it. The western people in the middle ages had no words exactly equivalent with the Latin _comœdia_, _tragœdia_, _theatrum_, &c.; and even the Latinists, to designate the dramatic pieces performed at the church festivals, employed the word _ludus_, a play. The French called them by a word having exactly the same meaning, _jeu_ (from _jocus_). Similarly in English they were termed _plays_. The Anglo-Saxon glossaries present as the representative of the Latin _theatrum_, the compounded words _plege-stow_, or _pleg-stow_, a play-place, and _pleg-hus_, a play-house. It is curious that we Englishmen have preferred to the present time the Anglo-Saxon words in _play_, _player_, and _play-house_. Another Anglo-Saxon word with exactly the same signification, _lac_, or _gelac_, play, appears to have been more in use in the dialect of the Northumbrians, and a Yorkshireman still calls a play a _lake_, and a player a _laker_. So also the Germans called a dramatic performance a _spil_, _i.e._ a play, the modern _spiel_, and a theatre, a _spil-hus_. One of the pieces of Hilarius is thus entitled "Ludus super iconia sancti Nicolai," and the French _jeu_ and the English _play_ are constantly used in the same sense. But besides this general term, words gradually came into use to characterise different sorts of plays. The church plays consisted of two descriptions of subjects, they either represented the miraculous acts of certain saints, which had a plain meaning, or some incident taken from the Holy Scriptures, which was supposed to have a hidden mysterious signification as well as an apparent one, and hence the one class of subject was usually spoken of simply as _miraculum_, a miracle, and the other as _mysterium_, a mystery. _Mysteries_ and _miracle-plays_ are still the names usually given to the old religious plays by writers on the history of the stage.

We have a proof that the Latin religious plays, and the festivities in which they were employed, had become greatly developed in the twelfth century, in the notice taken of them in the ecclesiastical councils of that period, for they were disapproved by the stricter church disciplinarians. So early as the papacy of Gregory VIII., the pope urged the clergy to "extirpate" from their churches theatrical plays, and other festive practices which were not quite in harmony with the sacred character of these buildings.[84] Such performances are forbidden by a council held at Treves in 1227.[85] We learn from the annals of the abbey of Corbei, published by Leibnitz, that the younger monks at Heresburg performed on one occasion a "sacred comedy" (_sacram comœdiam_) of the selling into captivity and the exaltation of Joseph, which was disapproved by the other heads of the order.[86] Such performances are included in a proclamation of the bishop of Worms, in 1316, against the various abuses which had crept into the festivities observed in his diocese at Easter and St. John's tide.[87] Similar prohibitions of the acting of such plays in churches are met with at subsequent periods.

[84] "Interdum ludi fiunt in ecclesiis theatrales," &c.--_Decret Gregorii_, lib. iii. tit. i.

[85] "Item non permittant sacerdotes ludos theatrales fieri in ecclesia et alios ludos inhonestos."

[86] "Juniores fratres in Heresburg sacram habuere comœdiam de Josepho vendito et exalto, quod vero reliqui ordinis nostri prælati male interpretati sunt."--_Leibn., Script. Brunsv._ tom. ii. p. 311.

[87] The acts of this synod of Worms are printed in Harzheim, tom. iv. p. 258.

While these performances were thus falling under the censure of the church authorities, they were taken up by the laity, and under their management both the plays and the machinery for acting them underwent considerable extension. The municipal guilds contained in their constitution a considerable amount of religious spirit. They were great benefactors of the churches in cities and municipal towns, and had usually some parts of the sacred edifice appropriated to them, and they may, perhaps, have taken a part in these performances, while they were still confined to the church. These guilds, and subsequently the municipal corporations, took them entirely into their own hands. Certain annual religious festivals, and especially the feast of _Corpus Christi_, were still the occasions on which the plays were acted, but they were taken entirely from the churches, and the performances took place in the open streets. Each guild had its particular play, and they acted on movable stages, which were dragged along the streets in the procession of the guild. These stages appear to have been rather complicated. They were divided into three floors, that in the middle, which was the principal stage, representing this world, while the upper division represented heaven, and that at the bottom hell. The mediæval writers in Latin called this machinery a _pegma_, from the Greek word πῆγμα, a scaffold; and they also applied to it, for a reason which is not is easily seen, unless the one word arose out of a corruption of the other, that of _pagina_, and from a further corruption of these came into the French and English languages the word _pageant_, which originally signified one of these movable stages, though it has since received secondary meanings which have a much wider application. Each guild in a town had its pageant and its own actors, who performed in masks and costumes, and each had one of a series of plays, which were performed at places where they halted in the procession. The subjects of these plays were taken from Scripture, and they usually formed a regular series of the principal histories of the Old and New Testaments. For this reason they were generally termed _mysteries_, a title already explained; and among the few series of these plays still preserved, we have the "Coventry Mysteries," which were performed by the guilds of that town, the "Chester Mysteries," belonging to the guilds in the city of Chester, and the "Towneley Mysteries," so called from the name of the possessor of the manuscript, but which probably belonged to the guilds of Wakefield in Yorkshire.

During these changes in the method of performance, the plays themselves had also been considerably modified. The simple Latin phrases, even when in rhyme, which formed the dialogue of the earlier _ludi_--as in the four miracles of St. Nicholas, and the six Latin mysteries taken from the New Testament, printed in my volume of "Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems"--must have been very uninteresting to the mass of the spectators, and an attempt was made to enliven them by introducing among the Latin phrases popular proverbs, or even sometimes a song in the vulgar tongue. Thus in the play of "Lazarus" by Hilarius, the Latin of the lamentations of his two sisters is intermixed with French verses. Such is the case also with the play of "St. Nicholas" by the same writer, as well as with the curious mystery of the Foolish Virgins, printed in my "Early Mysteries" just alluded to, in which latter the Latin is intermingled with Provençal verse. A much greater advance was made when these performances were transferred to the guilds. The Latin was then discarded altogether, and the whole play was written in French, or English, or German, as the case might be, the plot was made more elaborate, and the dialogue greatly extended. But now that the whole institution had become secularised, the want of something to amuse people--to make them laugh, as people liked to laugh in the middle ages--was felt more than ever, and this want was supplied by the introduction of droll and ludicrous scenes, which are often very slightly, if at all, connected with the subject of the play. In one of the earliest of the French plays, that of "St. Nicholas," by Jean Bodel, the characters who form the burlesque scene are a party of gamblers in a tavern. In others, robbers, or peasants, or beggars form the comic scene, or vulgar women, or any personages who could be introduced acting vulgarly and using coarse language, for these were great incitements to mirth among the populace.

In the English plays now remaining, these scenes are, on the whole, less frequent, and they are usually more closely connected with the general subject. The earliest English collection that has been published is that known as the "Towneley Mysteries," the manuscript of which belongs to the fifteenth century, and the plays themselves may have been composed in the latter part of the fourteenth. It contains thirty-two plays, beginning with the Creation, and ending with the Ascension and the Day of Judgment, with two supplementary plays, the "Raising of Lazarus" and the "Hanging of Judas." The play of "Cain and Abel" is throughout a vulgar drollery, in which Cain, who exhibits the character of a blustering ruffian, is accompanied by a _garcio_, or lad, who is the very type of a vulgar and insolent horse-boy, and the conversation of these two worthies reminds us a little of that between the clown and his master in the open-air performances of the old wandering mountebanks. Even the death of Abel by the hand of his brother is performed in a manner calculated to provoke great laughter. In the old mirthful spirit, to hear two persons load each other with vulgar abuse, was as good as seeing them grin through a horse-collar, if not better. Hence the droll scene in the play of "Noah" is a domestic quarrel between Noah and his wife, who was proverbially a shrew, and here gives a tolerable example of abusive language, as it might then come from a woman's tongue. The quarrel arises out of her obstinate refusal to go into the ark. In the New Testament series the play of "The Shepherds" was one of those most susceptible of this sort of embellishment. There are two plays of the Shepherds in the "Towneley Mysteries," the first of which is amusing enough, as it represents, in clever burlesque, the acts and conversation of a party of mediæval shepherds guarding their flocks at night; but the second play of the Shepherds is a much more remarkable example of a comic drama. The shepherds are introduced at the opening of the piece conversing very satirically on the corruptions of the time, and complaining how the people were impoverished by over-taxation, to support the pride and vanity of the aristocracy. After a good deal of very amusing talk, the shepherds, who, as usual, are three in number, agree to sing a song, and it is this song, it appears, which brings to them a fourth, named Mak, who proves to be a sheep-stealer; and, in fact, no sooner have the shepherds resigned themselves to sleep for the night, than Mak chooses one of the best sheep in their flocks, and carries it home to his hut. Knowing that he will be suspected of the theft, and that he will soon be pursued, he is anxious to conceal the plunder, and is only helped out of his difficulty by his wife, who suggests that the carcase shall be laid at the bottom of her cradle, and that she shall lie upon it and groan, pretending to be in labour. Meanwhile the shepherds awake, discover the loss of a sheep, and perceiving that Mak has disappeared also, they naturally suspect him to be the depredator, and pursue him. They find everything very cunningly prepared in the cottage to deceive them, but, after a large amount of roundabout inquiry and research, and much drollery, they discover that the boy of which Mak's wife pretends to have been just delivered, is nothing else but the sheep which had been stolen from their flocks. The wife still asserts that it is her child, and Mak sets up as his defence that the baby had been "forspoken," or enchanted, by an elf at midnight, and that it had thus been changed into the appearance of a sheep; but the shepherds refuse to be satisfied with this explanation. The whole of this little comedy is carried out with great skill, and with infinite drollery. The shepherds, while still wrangling with Mak and his wife, are seized with drowsiness, and lie down to sleep; but they are aroused by the voice of the angel, who proclaims the birth of the Saviour. The next play in which the drollery is introduced, is that of "Herod and the Slaughter of the Innocents." Herod's bluster and bombast, and the vulgar abuse which passes between the Hebrew mothers and the soldiers who are murdering their children, are wonderfully laughable. The plays which represented the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus, are all full of drollery, for the grotesque character which had been given to the demons in the earlier middle ages, appears to have been transferred to the executioners, or, as they were called, the "tormentors," and the language and manner in which they executed their duties, must have kept the audience in a continual roar of laughter. In the play of "Doomsday," the fiends retained their old character, and the manner in which they joke over the distress of the sinful souls, and the details they give of their sinfulness, are equally mirth-provoking. The "Coventry Mysteries" are also printed from a manuscript of the middle of the fifteenth century, and are, perhaps, as old as the "Towneley Mysteries." They consist of forty-two plays, but they contain, on the whole, fewer droll scenes than those of the Towneley collection. But a very remarkable example is furnished in the play of the "Trial of Joseph and Mary," which is a very grotesque picture of the proceedings in a mediæval consistory court. The sompnour, a character so well known by Chaucer's picture of him, opens the piece by reading from his book a long list of offenders against chastity. At its conclusion, two "detractors" make their appearance, who repeat various scandalous stories against the Virgin Mary and her husband Joseph, which are overheard by some of the high officers of the court, and Mary and Joseph are formally accused and placed upon their trial. The trial itself is a scene of low ribaldry, which can only have afforded amusement to a very vulgar audience. There is a certain amount of the same kind of indelicate drollery in the play of "The Woman taken in Adultery," in this collection. The "Chester Mysteries" are still more sparing of such scenes, but they are printed from manuscripts written after the Reformation, which had, perhaps, gone through the process of expurgation, in which such excrescences had been lopped off. However, in the play of "Noah's Flood," we have the old quarrel between Noah and his wife, which is carried so far that the latter actually beats her husband in the presence of the audience. There is a little drollery in the play of "The Shepherds," a considerable amount of what may be called "Billingsgate" language in the play of the "Slaughter of the Innocents," but less than the usual amount of insolence in the tormentors and demons.[88] It is probable, however, that these droll scenes were not always considered an integral part of the play in which they were introduced, but that they were kept as separate subjects, to be introduced at will, and not always in the same play, and therefore that they were not copied with the play in the manuscripts.

[88] The editions of the three principal collections of English mysteries are--1. "The Towneley Mysteries," 8vo., London, 1836, published by the Surtees Society; 2. "Ludus Coventriæ: a Collection of Mysteries, formerly represented at Coventry on the Feast of Corpus Christi," edited by James Orchard Halliwell, Esq., 8vo., London, 1841, published by the Shakespeare Society; 3. "The Chester Plays: a Collection of Mysteries founded upon Scriptural Subjects, and formerly represented by the Trades of Chester at Whitsuntide," edited by Thomas Wright, Esq., 2 vols. 8vo., London, 1843 and 1847, published by the Shakespeare Society.

In the Coventry play of "Noah's Flood," when Noah has received the directions from an angel for the building of the ark, he leaves the stage to proceed to this important work. On his departure, Lamech comes forward, blind and led by a youth, who directs his hand to shoot at a beast concealed in a bush. Lamech shoots, and kills Cain, upon which, in his anger, he beats the youth to death, and laments the misfortune into which the latter has led him. This was the legendary explanation of the passage in the fourth chapter of Genesis: "And Lamech said ... I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt; if Cain shall be avenged seven-fold, truly Lamech seventy and seven-fold." It is evident that this is a piece of scriptural story which has nothing to do with Noah's flood, and accordingly, in the Coventry play, we are told in the stage directions, that it was introduced in the place of the "interlude,"[89] as if there were a place in the machinery of the pageant where the episode, which was not an integral part of the subject, was performed, and that this part of the performance was called an interlude, or play introduced in the interval of the action of the main subject. The word _interlude_ remained long in our language as applied to such short and simple dramatic pieces as we may suppose to have formed the drolleries of the mysteries. But they had another name in France which has had a greater and more lulling celebrity. In one of the early French miracle-plays, that of "St. Fiacre," an interlude of this kind is introduced, containing five personages--a brigand or robber, a peasant, a sergeant, and the wives of the two latter. The brigand, meeting the peasant on the highway, asks the way to St. Omer, and receives a clownish answer, which is followed by one equally rude on a second question. The brigand, in revenge, steals the peasant's capon, but the sergeant comes up at this moment and, attempting to arrest the thief, receives a blow from the latter which is supposed to break his right arm. The brigand thus escapes, and the peasant and the sergeant quit the scene, which is immediately occupied by their wives. The sergeant's wife is informed by the other of the injury sustained by her husband, and she exults over it because it will deprive him of the power of beating her. They then proceed to a tavern, call for wine, and make merry, the conversation turning upon the faults of their respective husbands, who are not spared. In the midst of their enjoyments, the two husbands return, and show, by beating their wives, that they are not very greatly disabled. In the manuscript of the miracle-play of "St. Fiacre," in which this amusing episode is introduced, a marginal stage direction is expressed in the following words, "_cy est interposé une farsse_" (here a farce is introduced). This is one of the earliest instances of the application of the term _farce_ to these short dramatic facetiæ. Different opinions have been expressed as to the origin of the word, but it seems most probable that it is derived from an old French verb, _farcer_, to jest, to make merry, whence the modern word _farceur_ for a joker, and that it thus means merely a drollery or merriment.

[89] "Hic transit Noe cum familia sua pro navi, quo exeunte, _locum interludii subintret_ statim Lameth, conductus ab adolescente, et dicens," &c.

I have just suggested as a reason for the absence of these interludes, or farces, in the mysteries as they are found in the manuscripts, that they were probably not looked upon as parts of the mysteries themselves, but as separate pieces which might be used at pleasure. When we reach a certain period in their history, we find that not only was this the case, but that these farces were performed separately and altogether independently of the religious plays. It is in France that we find information which enables us to trace the gradual revolution in the mediæval drama. A society was formed towards the close of the fourteenth century under the title of _Confrères de la Passion_, who, in 1398, established a regular theatre at St. Maur-des-Fossés, and subsequently obtained from Charles VI. a privilege to transport their theatre into Paris, and to perform in it mysteries and miracle-plays. They now rented of the monks of Hermières a hall in the hospital of the Trinity, outside of the Porte St. Denis, performing there regularly on Sundays and saints' days, and probably making a good thing of it, for, during a long period, they enjoyed great popularity. Gradually, however, this popularity was so much diminished, that the _confrères_ were obliged to have recourse to expedients for reviving it. Meanwhile other similar societies had arisen into importance. The clerks of the Bazoche, or lawyers' clerks of the Palais de Justice, had thus associated together, it is said, as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century, and they distinguished themselves by composing and performing farces, for which they appear to have obtained a privilege. Towards the close of the fourteenth century, there arose in Paris another society, which took the name of _Enfans sans souci_, or Careless Boys, who elected a president or chief with the title of _Prince des Sots_, or King of the Fools, and who composed a sort of dramatic satires which they called _Sotties_. Jealousies soon arose between these two societies, either because the sotties were made sometimes to resemble too closely the farces, or because each trespassed too often on the territories of the other. Their differences were finally arranged by a compromise, whereby the Bazochians yielded to their rivals the privilege of performing farces, and received in return the permission to perform sotties. The Bazochians, too, had invented a new class of dramatic pieces which they called _Moralities_, and in which allegorical personages were introduced. Thus three dramatic societies continued to exist in France through the fifteenth century, and until the middle of the sixteenth.

These various pieces, under the titles of farces, sotties, moralities, or whatever other names might be given to them, had become exceedingly popular at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and a very considerable number of them were printed, and many of them are still preserved, but they are books of great rarity, and often unique.[90] Of these the farces form the most numerous class. They consist simply of the tales of the older jougleurs or story-tellers represented in a dramatic form, but they often display great skill in conducting the plot, and a considerable amount of wit. The story of the sheep-stealer in the Towneley play of "The Shepherds," is a veritable farce. As in the fabliaux, the most common subjects of these farces are love intrigues, carried on in a manner which speaks little for the morality of the age in which they were written. Family quarrels frequently form the subject of a farce, and the weaknesses and vices of women. The priests, as usual, are not spared, but are introduced as the seducers of wives and daughters. In one the wives have found a means of re-modelling their husbands and making them young again, which they put in practice with various ludicrous circumstances. Tricks of servants are also common subjects for these farces. One is the story of a boy who does not know his own father, and some of the subjects are of a still more trivial character, as that of the boy who steals a tart from the pastrycook's shop. Two hungry boys, prowling about the streets, come to the shop door just as the pastrycook is giving directions for sending an eel-pie after him. By an ingenious deception the boys gain possession of the pie and eat it, and they are both caught and severely chastised. This is the whole plot of the farce. A dull schoolboy examined by his master in the presence of his parents, and the mirth produced by his blunders and their ignorance, formed also a favourite subject among these farces. One or two examples are preserved, and, from a companion of them, we might be led to suspect that Shakespeare took the idea of the opening scene in the fourth act of the "Merry Wives of Windsor" from one of these old farces.

[90] The most remarkable collection of these early farces, sotties, and moralities yet known, was found accidentally in 1845, and is now in the British Museum. These were all edited in Paris as the first three volumes of a work in ten, entitled "Ancien Théatre François, ou Collection des Ouvrages dramatiques les plus remarquable depuis les Mystères jusqu'à Corneille, publié ... par M. Viollet le Duc," 12mo., Paris, 1854. It is right to state that these three volumes were edited, not by M. Viollet le Duc, but by a scholar better known for his learning in the older French literature, M. Anatole de Montaiglon.

The sotties and moralities were more imaginative and extravagant than the farces, and were filled with allegorical personages. The characters introduced in the former have generally some relation to the kingdom of folly. Thus, in one of the sotties, the king of fools (_le roy des sotz_) is represented as holding his court, and consulting with his courtiers, whose names are Triboulet, Mitouflet, Sottinet, Coquibus, and Guippelin. Their conversation, as may be supposed, is of a satirical character. Another is entitled "The Sottie of the Deceivers," or cheats. Sottie--another name for mother Folly--opens the piece with a proclamation or address to fools of all descriptions, summoning them to her presence. Two, named Teste-Verte and Fine-Mine, obey the call, and they are questioned as to their own condition, and their proceedings, but their conversation is interrupted by the sudden intrusion of another personage named Everyone (_Chascun_), who, on examination, is found to be as perfect a fool as any of them. They accordingly fraternise, and join in a song. Finally, another character, The Time (_le Temps_), joins them, and they agree to submit to his directions. Accordingly he instructs them in the arts of flattery and deceiving, and the other similar means by which men of that time sought to thrive. Another is the Sottie of Foolish Ostentation (_de folle bobance_). This lady similarly opens the scene with an address to all the fools who hold allegiance to her, and three of these make their appearance. The first fool is the gentleman, the second the merchant, the fourth the peasant, and their conversation is a satire on contemporary society. The personification of abstract principles is far bolder. The three characters who compose one of these moralities are Everything (_tout_), Nothing (_rien_), and Everyone (_chascun_). How the personification of Nothing was to be represented, we are not told. The title of another of these moralities will be enough to give the reader a notion of their general title; it is, "A New Morality of the Children of Now-a-Days (_Maintenant_), who are the Scholars of Once-good (_Jabien_), who shows them how to play at Cards and at Dice, and to entertain Luxury, whereby one comes to Shame (_Honte_), and from Shame to Despair (_Desespoir_), and from Despair to the gibbet of Perdition, and then turns himself to Good-doing." The characters in this play are Now-a-Days, Once-good, Luxury, Shame, Despair, Perdition, and Good-doing.

The three dramatic societies which produced all these farces, sotties, and moralities, continued to flourish in France until the middle of the sixteenth century, at which period a great revolution in dramatic literature took place in that country. The performance of the Mysteries had been forbidden by authority, and the Bazochians themselves were suppressed. The petty drama represented by the farces and sotties went rapidly out of fashion, in the great change through which the mind of society was at this time passing, and in which the taste for classical literature overcame all others. The old drama in France had disappeared, and a new one, formed entirely upon an imitation of the classical drama, was beginning to take its place. This incipient drama was represented in the sixteenth century by Etienne Jodel, by Jacques Grevin, by Rémy Belleau, and especially by Pierre de Larivey, the most prolific, and perhaps the most talented, of the earlier French regular dramatic authors.

These French dramatic essays, the farces, the sotties, and the moralities, were imitated, and sometimes translated, in English, and many of them were printed; for the further our researches are carried into the early history of printing, the more we are astonished at the extreme activity of the press, even in its infancy, in multiplying literature of a popular character. In England, as in France, the farces had been, at a rather early period, detached from the mysteries and miracle-plays, but the word _interludes_ had been adopted here as the general title for them, and continued in use even after the establishment of the regular drama. Perhaps this name owed its popularity to the circumstance that it seemed more appropriate to its object, when it became so fashionable in England to act these plays at intervals in the great festivals and entertainments given at court, or in the households of the great nobles. At all events, there can be no doubt that this fashion had a great influence on the fate of the English stage. The custom of performing plays in the universities, great schools, and inns of court, had also the effect of producing a number of very clever dramatic writers; for when this literature was so warmly patronised by princes and nobles, people of the highest qualifications sought to excel in it. Hence we find from books of household expenses and similar records of the period, that there was, during the sixteenth century, an immense number of such plays compiled in England which were never printed, and of which, therefore, very few are preserved.

The earliest known plays of this description in the English language belong to the class which were called in France moralities. They are three in number, and are preserved in a manuscript in the possession of Mr. Hudson Gurney, which I have not seen, but which is said to be of the reign of our king Henry VI. Several words and allusions in them seem to me to show that they were translated, or adapted, from the French. They contain exactly the same kind of allegorical personages. The allegory itself is a simple one, and easily understood. In the first, which is entitled the "Castle of Perseverance," the hero is _Humanum Genus_ (Mankynd), for the names of the parts are all given in Latin. On the birth of this personage, a good and a bad angel offer themselves as his protectors and guides, and he chooses the latter, who introduces him to _Mundus_ (the World), and to his friends, _Stultitia_ (Folly), and _Voluptas_ (Pleasure). These and some other personages bring him under the influence of the seven deadly sins, and _Humanum Genus_ takes for his bedfellow a lady named _Luxuria_. At length _Confessio_ and _Pœnitentia_ succeed in reclaiming _Humanum Genus_, and they conduct him for security to the Castle of Perseverance, where the seven cardinal virtues attend upon him. He is besieged in this castle by the seven deadly sins, who are led to the attack by Belial, but are defeated. _Humanum Genus_ has now become aged, and is exposed to the attacks of another assailant. This is _Avaritia_, who enters the Castle stealthily by undermining the wall, and artfully persuades _Humanum Genus_ to leave it. He thus comes again under the influence of _Mundus_, until _Mors_ (Death) arrives, and the bad angel carries off the victim to the domains of Satan. This, however, is not the end of the piece. God appears, seated on His throne, and Mercy, Peace, Justice, and Truth appear before Him, the two former pleading for, and the latter against, _Humanum Genus_, who, after some discussion, is saved. This allegorical picture of human life was, in one form or other, a favourite subject of the moralisers. I may quote as examples the interludes of "Lusty Juventus," reprinted in Hawkins's "Origin of the English Drama," and the "Disobedient Child," and "Trial of Treasure," reprinted by the Percy Society.

The second of the moralities ascribed to the reign of Henry VI., has for its principal characters Mind, Will, and Understanding. These are assailed by Lucifer, who succeeds in alluring them to vice, and they change their modest raiment for the dress of gay gallants. Various other characters are introduced in a similar strain of allegory, until they are reclaimed by Wisdom. Mankind is again the principal personage of the third of these moralities, and some of the other characters in the play, such as Nought, New-guise, and Now-a-days, remind us of the similar allegorical personages in the French moralities described above.

These interludes bring us into acquaintance with a new comic character. The great part which folly acted in the social destinies of mankind, had become an acknowledged fact; and as the court and almost every great household had its professed fool, so it seems to have been considered that a play also was incomplete without a fool. But, as the character of the fool was usually given to one of the most objectionable characters in it, so, for this reason apparently, the fool in a play was called the _Vice_. Thus, in "Lusty Juventus," the character of Hypocrisy is called the Vice; in the play of "All for Money," it is Sin; in that of "Tom Tyler and his Wife," it is Desire; in the "Trial of Treasure" it is Inclination; and in some instances the Vice appears to be the demon himself. The Vice seems always to have been dressed in the usual costume of a court fool, and he perhaps had other duties besides his mere part in the plot, such as making jests of his own, and using other means for provoking the mirth of the audience in the intervals of the action.

A few of our early English interludes were, in the strict sense of the word, farces. Such is the "mery play" of "John the Husband, Tyb the Wife, and Sir John the Priest," written by John Heywood, the plot of which presents the same simplicity as those of the farces which were so popular in France. John has a shrew for his wife, and has good causes for suspecting an undue intimacy between her and the priest; but they find means to blind his eyes, which is the more easily done, because he is a great coward, except when he is alone. Tyb, the wife, makes a pie, and proposes that the priest shall be invited to assist in eating it. The husband is obliged, very unwillingly, to be the bearer of the invitation, and is not a little surprised when the priest refuses it. He gives as his reason, that he was unwilling to intrude himself into company where he knew he was disliked, and persuaded John that he had fallen under the wife's displeasure, because, in private interviews with her, he had laboured to induce her to bridle her temper, and treat her husband with more gentleness. John, delighted at the discovery of the priest's honesty, insists on his going home with him to feast upon the pie. There the guilty couple contrive to put the husband to a disagreeable penance, while they eat the pie, and treat him otherwise very ignominiously, in consequence of which the married couple fight. The priest interferes, and the fight thus becomes general, and is only ended by the departure of Tyb and the priest, leaving the husband alone.

The popularity of the moralities in England is, perhaps, to be explained by peculiarities in the condition of society, and the greater pre-occupation of men's minds in our country at that time with the religious and social revolution which was then in progress. The Reformers soon saw the use which might be made of the stage, and compiled and caused to be acted interludes in which the old doctrines and ceremonies were turned to ridicule, and the new ones were held up in a favourable light. We have excellent examples of the success with which this plan was carried out in the plays of the celebrated John Bale. His play of "Kyng Johan," an edition of which was published by the Camden Society, is not only a remarkable work of a very remarkable man, but it may be considered as the first rude model of the English historical drama. The stage became now a political instrument in England, almost as it had been in ancient Greece, and it thus became frequently the object of particular as well as general persecution. In 1543, the vicar of Yoxford, in Suffolk, drew upon himself the violent hostility of the other clergy in that county by composing and causing to be performed plays against the pope's counsellors. Six years afterwards, in 1549, a royal proclamation prohibited for a time the performance of interludes throughout the kingdom, on the ground that they contained "matter tendyng to sedicion and contempnyng of sundery good orders and lawes, whereupon are growen daily, and are likely to growe, muche disquiet, division, tumultes, and uproares in this realme." From this time forward we begin to meet with laws for the regulation of stage performances, and proceedings in cases of supposed infractions of them, and it became customary to obtain the approval of a play by the privy council before it was allowed to be acted. Thus gradually arose the office of a dramatic censor.

With Bale and with John Heywood, the English plays began to approach the form of a regular drama, and the two now rather celebrated pieces, "Ralph Roister Doister," and "Gammer Gurton's Needle," which belong to the middle of the sixteenth century, may be considered as comedies rather than as interludes. The former, written by a well-known scholar of that time, Nicholas Udall, master of Eton, is a satirical picture of some phases of London life, and relates the ridiculous adventures of a weak-headed and vain-glorious gallant, who believes that all the women must be in love with him, and who is led by a needy and designing parasite named Matthew Merygreeke. Rude as it is as a dramatic composition, it displays no lack of talent, and it is full of genuine humour. The humour in "Gammer Gurton's Needle" is none the less rich because it is of coarser and rather broader cast. The good dame of the piece, Gammer Gurton, during an interruption in the process of mending the breeches of her husband, Hodge, has lost her needle, and much lamentation follows a misfortune so great at a time when needles appear to have been rare and valuable articles in the rural household. In the midst of their trouble appears Diccon, who is described in the _dramatis personæ_ as "Diccon the Bedlam," meaning that he was an idiot, and who appears to hold the position of Vice in the play. Diccon, however, though weak-minded, is a cunning fellow, and especially given to making mischief, and he accuses a neighbour, Dame Chat, of stealing the needle. At the same time, the same mischievous individual tells Dame Chat that Gammer Gurton's cock had been stolen in the night from the henroost, and that she, Dame Chat, was accused of being the thief. Amid the general misunderstanding which results from Diccon's successful endeavours, they send for the parson of the parish, Dr. Rat, who appears to unite in himself the three parts of preacher, physician, and conjurer, in order to have advantage of his experience in finding the needle. Diccon now contrives a new piece of mischief. He persuades Dame Chat that Hodge intends to hide himself in a certain hole in the premises, in order, that night, to creep out and kill all her hens; and at the same time he informs Dr. Rat, that if he will hide in the same hole, he will give him ocular demonstration of Dame Chat's guilt of stealing the needle. The consequence is that Dame Chat attacks by surprise, and somewhat violently, the supposed depredator in the hole, and that Dr. Rat gets a broken head. Dame Chat is brought before "Master Bayly" for the assault, and the proceedings in the trial bring to light the deceptions which have been played upon them all, and Diccon stands convicted as the wicked perpetrator. In fact, the "bedlam" confesses it all, and it is finally decided by "Master Bayly" that there shall be a general reconciliation, and that Diccon shall take a solemn oath on Hodge's breech, that he will do his best to find the lost needle. Diccon has still the spirit of mischief in him, and instead of laying his hand quietly on Hodge's breech, he gives him a sharp blow, which is responded to by an unexpected scream. The needle, indeed, which has never quitted the breeches, is driven rather deep into the fleshy part of Hodge's body, and the general joy at having found it again overruling all other considerations, they all agree to be friends over a jug of "drink."

We cannot but feel astonished at the short period which it required to develop rude attempts at dramatic composition like this into the wonderful creations of a Shakespeare; and it can only be explained by the fact that it was an age remarkable for producing men of extraordinary genius in every branch of intellectual development. Hitherto, the literature of the stage had represented the intelligence of the mass; it became individualised in Shakespeare, and this fact marks an entirely new era in the history of the drama. In the writings of our great bard, nearly all the peculiarities of the older national drama are preserved, even some which may be perhaps considered as its defects, but carried to a degree of perfection which they had never attained before. The drollery, which, as we have seen, could not be dispensed with even in the religious mysteries and miracle-plays, had become so necessary, that it could not be dispensed with in tragedy. Its omission belonged to a later period, when the foreign dramatists became objects of imitation in England. But in the earlier drama, these scenes of drollery seem frequently to have no connection whatever with the general plot, while Shakespeare always interweaves them skilfully with it, and they seem to form an integral and necessary part of it.

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