Medieval Drama

Miracle, mystery and morality plays (1 pagine formato doc)

Appunto di cherrylt
In the Middle Ages religious festivities and the services were only act of worship for the believers, but opportunities for entertainment as well.
During the great Christian festivals such as Christmas and Easter were represented in forms of dialogues sung between a priest and the chair. These stories from the Bible were held in Latin and first given dramatic form in the church. In England, such performance gradually moved out into the churchyard and then into other part of the town. In this way miracle and mystery plays came into being in the 13th century and developed over the next two hundred years. Mystery plays usually dealt with events of the Bible while miracle plays used stories from the lives of the saints.
Town guilds soon took change of the performances. The play were mainly performed outdoors as there were no proper theatres yet. In fact they were performed an moveable stages called pageants. These pageants were drawn by horses and stopped at prearranged places in town, often in the market place.