The Growth of English Drama | Page 2

to see how well-known young clerics, members of

local families, would demean themselves in this new duty. The
congregations increased, and earnest or ambitious churchmen were
incited to add fresh details to surpass previous tableaux.
But the Church is conservative. It required the lapse of hundreds of
years to make plain the possibility of action and its advantages over
motionless figures. Just before this next step was taken, or it may have
been just after, two of the scholarly few mentioned as having not quite
forgotten the Classical Drama, made an effort to revive its methods
while bitting and bridling it carefully for holy purposes. Some one
worthy brother (who was certainly not Gregory Nazianzene of the
fourth century), living probably in the tenth century, wrote a play called
Christ's Passion, in close imitation of Greek tragedy, even to the extent
of quoting extensively from Euripides. In the same century a good and
zealous nun of Saxony, Hroswitha by name, set herself to outrival
Terence in his own realm and so supplant him in the studies of those
who still read him to their souls' harm. She wrote, accordingly, six
plays on the model of Terence's Comedies, supplying, for his profane
themes, the histories of suffering martyrs and saintly maidens. It was a
noble ambition (not the less noble because she failed); but it was not
along the lines of her plays or of Christ's Passion that the New Drama
was to develop. It is doubtful whether they were known outside a few
convents.
In the tenth century the all-important step from tableau to dialogue and
action had been taken. Its initiation is shrouded in obscurity, but may
have been as follows. Ever since the sixth century Antiphons, or choral
chants in which the two sides of the choir alternately respond to each
other, had been firmly established in the Church service. For these,
however, the words were fixed as unchangeably as are the words of our
old Psalms. Nevertheless, the possibility of extending the application of
antiphons began to be felt after, and as a first stage in that direction
there was adopted a curious practice of echoing back expressive 'ah's'
and 'oh's' in musical reply to certain vital passages not fitted with
antiphons. Under skilful training this may have sounded quite effective,
but it is natural to suppose that, the antiphonal extension having been
made, the next stage was not long delayed. Suitable lines or texts

(tropes) would soon be invented to fill the spaces, and immediately
there sprang into being a means for providing dramatic dialogue. If
once answers were admitted, composed to fit into certain portions of
the service, there could be little objection to the composition of other
questions to follow upon the previous answers. Religious conservatism
kept invention within the strictest limits, so that to the end these
liturgical responses were little more than slight modifications of the
words of the Vulgate. But the dramatic element was there, with what
potentiality we shall see.
So much for dramatic dialogue. Dramatic action would appear to have
grown up with it, the one giving intensity to the other. The
development of both, side by side, is interesting to trace from records
preserved for us in old manuscripts. Considering the occasion first--for
these 'attractions' were reserved for special festivals--we know that
Easter was a favourite opportunity for elaborating the service. The
events associated with Easter are in themselves intensely dramatic.
They are also of supreme importance in the teaching of the Church: of
all points in the creed none has a higher place than the belief in the
Resurrection. Therefore the 'Burial' and the 'Rising again' called for
particular elaboration. One of the earliest methods of driving these
truths home to the hearts of the unlearned and unimaginative was to
bury the crucifix for the requisite three days (a rite still observed in
many churches by the removal of the cross from the altar), and then
restore it to its exalted position; the simple act being done with much
solemn prostration and creeping on hands and knees of those whose
duty it was to bear the cross to its sepulchre. This sepulchre, it may be
explained, was usually a wooden structure, painted with guardian
soldiers, large enough to contain a tall crucifix or a man hidden, and
occupying a prominent position in the church throughout the festival.
Not infrequently it was made of more solid material, like the carved
stone 'sepulchre' in Lincoln Cathedral.
A trope was next composed for antiphonal singing on Easter Monday,
as follows:
Quem quaeritis? Jhesum Nazarenum. Non est hic; surrexit sicut

praedixerat: ite, nuntiate quia surrexit a mortuis. Alleluia! resurrexit
Dominus.
Now let us observe how action and dialogue combine. One of the
clergy is selected to hide, as an angel, within the sepulchre. Towards