Downfall of the Classical Drama

DOWNFALL OF THE CLASSICAL DRAMA The end of the ancient classical drama has been already fore shadowed. The elements of dance and song, never integrally united with the dialogue in Roman tragedy, were now altogether sepa rated from it. While it became customary simply to recite trage dies to the small audiences who continued (or, as a matter of courtesy, affected) to appreciate them, the pantomimes com mended itself to the heterogeneous multitudes of the Roman theatre and to an effete upper class by confining the performance of the actor to gesticulation and dancing, a chorus singing the accompanying text. The species was developed with extraordi nary success already under Augustus by Pylades and Bathyllus; and so popular were these entertainments that even eminent poets, such as Lucan (d, A.D. 65), wrote the librettos for these fabulae salticae (ballets), of which the subjects were generally mytho logical, only now and then historical, and chiefly of an amorous kind. Comedy more easily lost itself in the cognate form of the mimes, which survived all other kinds of comic entertainments because of its more audacious immorality and open obscenity, Women took part in these performances, by means of which, as late as the 6th century, a mima acquired a celebrity which ulti mately raised her to the imperial throne, and perhaps occasioned the removal of a disability which would have rendered her mar riage with Justinian impossible.

Meanwhile, the regular drama had lingered on, enjoying in all its forms imperial patronage in the days of the literary revival under Hadrian (117-138) ; but the perennial taste for the spec tacles of the amphitheatre, which was as strong at Byzantium as it was at Rome, and which reached its climax in the days of Con stantine the Great (306-337), under whom the reaction set in, determined the downfall of the dramatic art. It was not abso lutely extinguished even by the irruptions of the northern bar barians; but a bitter adversary had by this time risen into power. The whole authority of the Christian Church had, without usually caring to distinguish between the nobler and the looser elements in the drama, involved all its manifestations in a consistent condem nation (as in Tertullian's De spectaculis, 200 c.), comprehended them all in an uncompromising anathema. When the faith of that Church was acknowledged as the religion of the Roman empire, the doom of the theatre was sealed. At Rome the last mention of spectacula as still in existence seems to date from the sway of the Ostrogoths, in the earlier half of the 6th century. In the capital and provinces of the Eastern empire the decline and fall of the stage cannot be similarly traced; but its end is authori tatively assigned to the period of Saracen invasions which began with the Omayyad dynasty in the 7th century. Gradually, how ever, as they lost all footing in the centres of civic life, the mimes and their fellows became a wandering fraternity, who doubtless appeared at festivals when their services were required, and van ished again into the depths of the obscurity which has ever cov ered the strollers' life. It was thus that these strange intermedi aries of civilization carried down such traditions as survived of the acting drama of pagan antiquity into the succeeding ages.

In the midst of the condemnation with which the Christian Church visited the stage, we find such works as the X pea res 7racTXwv (Passion of Christ), formerly attributed to St. Gregory Nazianzen, and the Querolus, long fathered upon Plautus himself, which were doubtless mostly written for educational purposes. The same was probably the design of the famous "comedies" of Hroswitha, the loth century Benedictine nun of Gandersbeim, in Eastphalian Saxony. While avowedly imitated in form from the comedies of Terence, these religious exercises derive their themes—martyrdoms (Gallicanus, part ii. ; Sapientia), and mirac ulous or otherwise startling conversions (Gallicanus, part i.; Callimaclius; Abraham; Paphnutius)—from the legends of Chris tian saints. Thus, from perhaps the 9th to the 12th centuries, Germany and France, and through the latter, England, became acquainted with the literary monastic drama. Thus the Play of St. Katharine was acted at Dunstable about the year I I 10 in "copes" by the scholars of Geoffrey, the Norman, afterwards abbot of St. Albans, and was certainly not regarded as a novelty.

From about the 6th to the i ith century the Latin and the Teutonic elements of mediaeval "minstrelsy," more or less im perceptibly, coalesced. The traditions of the disestablished mimus combined with the "occupation" of the Teutonic scop, who is found under this name or that of the "gleeman," in Anglo-Saxon literature, before it fell under the control of the Christian Church. How far these joculatores kept alive the usage of entertainments more essentially dramatic than the minor varieties of their per formances, we cannot say. In different countries these enter tainers suited themselves to different tastes, and to different literary tendencies. The literature of the troubadours of Prov ence, which communicated itself to Spain and Italy, came only into isolated contact with the beginnings of the religious drama; in northern France the jongleurs, as the joculatores were now called, were confounded with the trouveres (q.v.). As appointed servants of particular households they were here, and afterwards in England, called ntenestrels (from ministeriales) or minstrels. In England such accomplished minstrels enjoyed the favour of the Norman, Angevin and Plantagenet kings. But here, as else where, the humbler members of the craft spent their lives in strolling from castle to convent, from village-green to city-street, exhibiting their skill as dancers, tumblers, jugglers proper, and as masquers and conductors of bears and other dumb contribu tors to popular wonder and merriment.

Pagan Elements.

From the days of Gregory the Great, the Western Church tolerated and even attracted to her own festivals popular customs, which were in truth relics of heathen ritual. Such were the Mithraic feast of Dec. 25, or the egg of Eostre tide, and a multitude of Celtic or Teutonic agricultural cere monies of a semi-dramatic nature—such as processions of beasts or men in beast-masks, dressing trees with flowers, and the like, but above all ceremonial dances, of ten in disguise. The sword dance, recorded by Tacitus, of which an important feature was the symbolic threat of death to a victim, endured (though if is rarely mentioned) till the later middle ages, by which time it had attracted to itself a variety of additional features, and of characters familiar as pace-eggers, mummers, morris-dancers (probably of distinct origin). The dramatic "expulsion of death," or winter, by the destruction of a lay-figure—common through western Europe about the 8th century—seems connected with a more elaborate rite, in which a disguised performer (who per haps originally represented summer) was slain and afterwards revived (the Pfingstl, Jack in the Green, or Green Knight). This representation, after acquiring a comic complexion, was annexed by the character dancers, who about the 15th century took to adding still livelier incidents from songs treating of popular heroes, such as St. George and Robin Hood; which latter found a place in the festivities of May Day with their central figure, the May Queen. The feast of fools (or asses), which enjoyed the greatest popularity in France (though protests against it are on record from the iith century till the 17th), was well known from London to Constantinople. It was probably derived from the ancient Kalend feasts. In the i6th century the feast of fools was combined with the elaborate festivities of the 12 Christmas feast-days—the season when throughout the previous two cen turies the "mummers" especially flourished, who in their dis guisings and began as dancers gesticulating in dumb show, but ultimately developed into actors proper.

Christian Elements.

Thus the literary and the professional element, as well as that of popular festive usages, had survived to swell the main stream of the early Christian drama, which had its direct source in the liturgy of the church itself. The service of the l\Iass contains in itself dramatic elements, and at a very early period—certainly already in the 5th century—it was usual on special occasions to illustrate the Gospel narrative by living pictures accompanied by songs. The insertion, before or after sung portions of the service, of tropes, originally one or more verses of texts, usually serving as introits and in connection with the gospel of the day, and recited by the two halves of the choir, led to dialogue chanting; and this was frequently ac companied by illustrative action, such as drawing down the veil from before the altar.

This practice of interpolations in the offices of the church, which is attested by texts from the gth century onwards (the so-called "Winchester tropes" belong to the loth and iith), pro gressed till the liturgical mystery—the earliest form of the Chris tian drama—was gradually called into existence. As early as the loth century on great ecclesiastical festivals the priests per formed in the churches these offices (as they were called). The whole Easter story, from the burial to Emmaus, was thus pre sented, the Maries and the angel adding their lyrical planctus; while the surroundings of the Nativity—the Shepherds, the Inno cents, etc.—were linked with the Shepherds of Epiphany by a recitation of "Prophets," including Virgil and the Sibyl. Before long, from the I I th century onwards, mysteries, as they were called, were produced in France on scriptural subjects such as the Wise and Foolish Virgins, Adam (with the fall of Lucifer), Daniel, Lazarus, etc. These mysteries and miracles being as yet represented by the clergy only, the language in which they were usually written is Latin, the earliest example in the vernacular being the iith century mystery of the Resurrection.

Mysteries, Miracles and Moralities.

The productions of the mediaeval religious drama, it is usual technically to divide into three classes. The mysteries proper deal with scriptural events only, and set forth, with the aid of the prophetic history of the Old Testament and the fulfilling events of the New, the cen tral mystery of the Redemption of the world, as accomplished by the Nativity, the Passion and the Resurrection. But in fact these were not kept distinctly apart from the miracle-plays, or miracles, which are strictly speaking concerned with the legends of the saints. Thirdly, the moralities, or moral-plays, teach and illustrate the same truths allegorically, their characters being personified virtues or qualities.

As the plays grew more elaborate, and their spectators more numerous, they began to be represented outside as well as in side the churches, at first in the churchyards, and in the vulgar tongue. A Beverley Resurrection play (c. 1220) and some others are bilingual. Miracles were less dependent on this connection with the church services than mysteries proper; and lay associa tions, guilds in particular, soon began to act plays in honour of their patron saints in or near their own halls. Lastly, as some of these characters came to be depended on by the audiences for conventional extravagance or fun, every new Herod seeking to out-Herod his predecessor, and the devils asserting themselves as indispensable favourites, the comic element in the religious drama increased, and that drama itself grew more profane. The endeavour to sanctify the popular tastes to religious uses, which connects itself with the institution of the great festival of Corpus Christi 0264, confirmed 13 I I), when the symbol of the mystery of the Incarnation was borne in solemn procession, led to the closer union of the dramatic exhibitions (hence often called processus) with this and other religious feasts; but it neither limited their range nor controlled their development.

France.

In France, where dramatic performances had never fallen entirely into the hands of the clergy, the progress was speediest and most decided towards forms approaching those of the modern drama. The earliest play in the French tongue, how ever, the I2th-century Adam, supposed to have been written by a Norman in England (as is a fragmentary Resurrection of much the same date), still reveals its connection with the liturgical drama. Jean Bodel of Arras' miracle-play of St. Nicolas (be fore 1205) is already the production of a secular author, and has some realistic features. On the other hand, the Tlieopliilus of Rutebeuf (d. c. 1280) treats its Faust-like theme in a rather lifeless form but in a highly religious spirit, and belongs to the cycle of miracles of the Virgin, of which examples abound throughout this period. Easter or Passion plays were fully estab lished in the towns of France by the end of the 14th century; and in 1402 the Confrerie de la Passion obtained a royal privilege for their performance. Of these series of religious plays perhaps the most notable (c. 1450) is that by Arnoul Greban, a canon of Le Mans. Its revision, by Jean Michel (first performed at Angers in 1486), was very popular. Still more elaborate is the Rouen Christmas mystery of 1474, and the celebrated Mystere du vieil testament, produced at Abbeville in 1458, and performed at Paris in 1500. Most of the Provençal Christmas and Passion plays date from the 14th century, as well as a miracle of St. Agnes. The miracles of saints were popular in all parts of France, and the diversity of local colouring contributed materially to the growth of the early French drama.

The earliest known secular plays presented by university stu dents in France were moralities, performed in 1426 and 1431. These plays, depicting the struggle between good and evil in the human soul, become more frequent from about this time. Now it is (at Rennes in 1439) the contention between Bien-avise and Mal-avise; now, one between l'liomme juste and l'homme mon dain. Political and social problems are likewise similarly treated; the Mystere du Concile de Bale—an historical morality—dates back to 1432, and in 1507 we even meet with a hygienic or ab stinence morality (by N. de la Chesnaye) in which "Banquet" enters into a conspiracy with "Apoplexy," "Epilepsy" and the whole regiment of diseases.

From the beginning of the i4th century onwards the famous fraternity of the Basoche (clerks of the Parlement and the Chatelet) had been entrusted with the conduct of popular festi vals at Paris, and had performed plays. But after the Confrerie de la Passion had monopolized the religious drama, the basochiens confined themselves to moralities and farces, in which po litical satire found a place. A third association, the Enfants sans souci, had, apparently also early in the 15th century, acquired celebrity by their performances of short comic plays called soties, not very distinct from the farces of the Basoche. Other con fraternities and associations readily took a leaf out of the book of these devil-may-care good-fellows, and interwove their re ligious and moral plays with comic scenes and characters from actual life, thus unconsciously preparing the transition to the regular drama.

The earliest known example of a serious secular play written in the French tongue is the Estoire de Griseldis which is largely indebted to Petrarch. The Mystere du siege d'Orleans, on the other hand, written about half a century later, in the epic tediousness of its manner comes near to a chronicle history, and interests us chiefly as the earliest of many efforts to bring Joan of Arc on the stage. Jacques Milet's celebrated mystery of the Destruction de Troye la grant (145 2) seems to have been addressed to readers and not to hearers only. The beginnings of the French regular comic drama are more difficult to ascertain. But there is ample evidence that the most famous of all mediaeval farces, the immortal Maistre Pierre Pathelin (otherwise L'Avocat Pathelin), was written before 1470 and acted by the basochiens; and we may conclude that this delightful story of the biter bit and the profession outwitted typifies a multitude of similar comic episodes of real life, dramatized for the delectation of clerks, lawyers and students, and of all lovers of laughter.

Other Countries.

In the neighbouring Netherlands many Easter and Christmas mysteries are noted from the middle of the 15th century, and with them the celebrated series of the Seven Joys of Mary. To about the same date belongs the small group of abele spelen (as who should say plays easily managed), chiefly on chivalrous themes. The moralities were specially culti vated during this century by the Rederijkers (rhetoricians)— civic associations which cultivated learned poetry and took an active share in the festivals that formed one of the most char acteristic features of the life of the Low Countries. Among these moralities was that of Elckerlijk (printed 1495) which is regarded as the original of the finest of English moralities, Everyman.

In Italy traces of the liturgical drama are few, and confined to the north-east. The collective mystery, so common in other Western countries, is represented by a single example only—a Passione di Gesu Cristo, performed at Revello in Saluzzo in the 15th century; though there are some traces of other cyclic dramas of the kind. The Italian religious plays, called figure when on Old, vangeli when on New, Testament subjects, differ from those of northern Europe chiefly by the less degree of coarseness in their comic characters, and seem largely to have developed from the processional element in the festivals of the church. Besides such processions as that of the Three Kings at Epiphany in Milan, there were the penitential processions and songs (laude), which at Assisi, Perugia and elsewhere already contained a dra matic element; and at Siena, Florence and other centres these again developed into the so-called (sacre) rappresentazioni. Such a piece was the San Giovanni e San Paolo (1489), by Lorenzo the Magnificent; another was the Santa Teodora, by Luigi Pulci (d. 1487) ; San Giovanni Gualberto (of Florence) treats the religious experience of a latter-day saint ; Rosana e Ulimento is a love-story with a Christian moral. Passion plays were per formed at Rome in the Coliseum by the Compagnia del Gon falone; but there is no evidence on this head before the end of the 15th century. In general, the spectacular magnificence of Italian theatrical displays accorded with the growing pomp of the processions both ecclesiastical and lay—called trionfi already in the days of Dante; while the religious drama gradually ac quired an artificial character and elaboration of form assimilating it to the classical attempts, to be noted below, which gave rise to the regular Italian drama.

Remnants of the ancient popular drama survived in the im provised farces performed at the courts, in the churches (f arse spirituals), and among the people; the Roman carnival had pre served its wagon-plays, and various links remained to connect the modern comic drama of the Italians with the Atellanes and mimes of their ancestors. But the later comic developments will be noticed below.

In Spain hardly a monument of the mediaeval religious drama has been preserved. There is manuscript evidence of the I 1 th century attesting the early addition of dramatic elements to the Easter office; and a Spanish fragment of the Three Kings Epiphany play, dating from the 12th century, is one of the very earliest examples of the mediaeval drama in the vernacular. But that religious plays were performed in Spain is clear from the per mission granted by Alphonso X. of Castile (d. 1284) to the clergy to represent them, while prohibiting juegos de escarnio (mocking plays). The earliest Spanish plays which we possess belong to the end of the 15th or beginning of the i6th century, and already show humanistic influence. In 1472 the couplets of Mingo Revulgo (i.e., Domingo Vulgus, the common people), and about the same time another dialogue by the same author, offer ex amples of a sort resembling the Italian contrasts (see below).

The German religious plays in the vernacular, the earliest of which date from the i4th and 15th centuries and were produced at Trier, Wolfenbiittel, Innsbruck, Vienna, Berlin, etc., were of a simple kind; but in some of them, though they were written by clerks, there are traces of the minstrels' hands. The play of The Wise and the Foolish Virgins, in a Thuringian ms. thought to be as early as 1328, a piece of remarkable dignity, was evidently based on a Latin play. In the same century miracle-plays began to be performed, in honour of St. Catherine, St. Dorothea and other saints. The Corpus Christi plays, or Frohnleichnamsspiele, are notable, since that of Innsbruck (1391) is probably the earliest extant example of its class. The number of non-scriptural re ligious plays in Germany was much smaller than that in France; but the theme of the last judgment was common in Germany in the later middle ages. Of this theme Antichrist may be regarded as an episode, though in 1469 an Antichrist appears to have oc cupied at Frankfort four days in its performance. The earlier (12th century) Antichrist is unique of its kind; this political protest breathes the Ghibelline spirit of the reign (Frederick Barbarossa's) in which it was composed. While the Shrove Tuesday plays (Fastnachtsspiele) of the professional strollers (fahrende Leute) reproduced the practical fun of common life, they occasionally, as in the Lubeck Fastnachtsspiel of the Five Virtues, contained an element of the morality, but the main productivity of the writers of moralities and cognate productions falls into the periods of Renaissance and Reformation; and the religious drama proper survived far beyond either in Catholic Germany, and, in fact, was not suppressed in Bavaria and Tirol till the end of the 18th century.

The performance of miracle-plays is traceable in Sweden in the late 14th century; and the Germans who immigrated into the Carpathian lands, and into Galicia in particular, in the later middle ages, brought with them their religious plays. This fact is the more striking, as, though Czech Easter plays were per formed about the end of the 14th century, we hear of none among the Magyars, or among their neighbours of the Eastern empire.

Religious Drama in England.

Coming now to the English religious drama, we find that from its extant literature a fair general idea may be derived of the character of these mediaeval productions. The miracle-plays, miracles or plays (these being the terms used in England) of which we hear in London in the 12th century were probably written in Latin and acted by ecclesiastics; but in the following century mention is made—in the way of prohibition—of plays acted by professional players. In England as elsewhere, the clergy either sought to control the religious plays, which were occasionally acted in churches even after the Reformation, or else reprobated them, with or without qualifications. In Cornwall miracles in the native Cymric dialect were performed at an early date in extensive amphitheatres con structed for the purpose—one of which, at St. Just near Penzance, has been restored; but those which have been preserved are ap parently copies of English or French originals.

The flourishing period of English miracle-plays begins with the practice of their performance by trading-companies in the towns. Of this practice Chester is said to have set the example (1268-76), which was followed by many other towns. These towns with their neighbourhoods include, starting from East Anglia, where the religious drama was particularly at home, Wymondham, Nor wich, Sleaford, Lincoln, Leeds, Wakefield, Beverley, York, New castle-on-Tyne, with a deviation across the border to Edinburgh and Aberdeen. In the north-west they are found at Kendal, Lan caster, Preston, Chester ; whence they may be supposed to have migrated to Dublin. In the west they are noticeable at Shrews bury, Worcester and Tewkesbury; in the Midlands at Coventry and Leicester; in the east at Cambridge and Bassingbourne, Hey bridge and Manningtree; to which places have to be added Read ing, Winchester, Canterbury and London, in which last the per formers were the parish-clerks. Four collections, in addition to some single examples of such plays, have come down to us: the York plays, the so-called Towneley plays, which were probably acted at the fairs of Widkirk, near Wakefield, and those bearing the names of Chester and of Coventry. Their dates are more or less uncertain; that of the York seems to be earlier than that of the Towneley, which were probably put together about the middle of the 14th century ; the Chester may be ascribed to the i4th or early i 5 th ; the body of the Coventry to the i 5th or 16th. Many of the individual plays in these collections were doubtless founded on French originals; others are taken direct from Scripture, from the apocryphal gospels, or from the legends of the saints. Their characteristic feature is the combination of a whole series of plays into one collective whole, exhibiting the entire course of • Bible history from the creation to the day of judgment. The oldest of the series—the York plays—exhibits a fairly close parallel to the scheme of the Cursor mundi (q.v.). Among the isolated plays may be mentioned The Harrowing of Hell and several belonging to a series known as the Digby Mys teries, including Par f re's Candlemas Day (the massacre of the Innocents), and the miracle of Mary Magdalene. Of the so-called "Paternoster" and "Creed" plays (which exhibit the miraculous powers of portions of the church service) no example remains, though of some we have an account ; the Croxton Play of the Sacrament, the late 15th century ms. of which is preserved at Dublin, exhibits the triumph of the holy wafer over wicked Jewish wiles.

Each play was performed by the representatives of a particular trade or company, after whom it was called the fishers', glovers', etc., pageant; while a general prologue was spoken by a herald. As a rule the movable stage sufficed for the action, though we find horsemen riding up to the scaffold, and Herod instructed to "rage in the pagond and in the strete also." There is no evidence that the stage was, as in France, divided into three platforms with a dark cavern at the side of the lowest, appropriated respectively to the Heavenly Father and his angels, to saints, to mere men, and to souls in hell. But hell was frequently displayed in the English miracles, with or without fire in its mouth. The costumes were in part conventional—divine and saintly personages being dis tinguished by gilt hair and beards, Herod being clad as a Saracen, the demons wearing hideous heads, the souls black and white coats according to their kind, and the angels gold skins and wings. The plays contained an element of humour, often broadly farcical; but much that seems ludicrous or coarse to modern standards of taste would not have so struck contemporaries. The York Corpus Christi plays (48) are comparatively free from the tendency to jocularity and vulgarity observable in the Towneley; several of the plays concerned with the New Testament and early .,nristian story are however, in substance common to both series. The Towneley Plays or Wakefield Mysteries (32), composed by the friars of Widkirk or Nostel, are of a popular character ; and are superior in vivacity and humour to both the later collections. The Chester Plays (25) were indebted to the Mystere du testament and to earlier French mysteries ; they are less popular in character than the two earlier cycles, and on the whole un distinguished by pathos or humour. While these plays were per formed at Whitsuntide, the Coventry Plays (42) were Corpus Christi performances. They are far more effectively written than the Chester Plays, and occasionally rise to real dramatic force. In the Coventry series there is already to be observed an element of abstract figures, which connects them with the moralities.

English Moralities.

The moralities corresponded to the love for allegory which, while dominating the whole field of mediaeval literature, was nowhere more evident than in England. Moreover, a specially popular element was supplied to these plays in a character borrowed from the miracles and usually provided with a companion whose task it was to lighten the weight of such ab stractions as Sapience and Justice. These were the Devil and his attendant, the Vice; of whom the latter seems to have been of native origin, and, as he was usually dressed in a fool's habit, was probably suggested by the custom of keeping an attendant fool at court or in great houses. The Vice had many aliases (Shift, Ambidexter, Sin, Fraud, Iniquity, etc.), but his usual duty is to tease the Devil his master for the edification and diversion of the audience. He was gradually blended with the domestic fool, who survived in the regular drama.

The earlier English moralities—from the reign of Henry VI. to that of Henry VII.—usually allegorize the conflict between good and evil in the mind and life of man, without any side intention of theological controversy. Such also is still essentially the purpose of the extant morality, Magny f ycence, by Henry VIII.'s poet, the witty Skelton. Everyman (pr. c. 1529), per haps the most perfect example of its class, contains passages certainly designed to enforce the specific teaching of Rome. But its Dutch original was written at least a generation earlier, and could have no controversial intention. On the other hand, R. Wever's Lusty Juventus breathes the spirit of the dogmatic reformation of the reign of Edward VI. Theological controversy largely occupies the moralities of the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign, and connects itself with political feeling in Sir David Lyndsay's Satire of the Three Estaitis, written and acted (at Cupar, in 1539) on the other side of the border, where the religious drama proper had been extinguished by the Reforma tion. Only a single English political morality proper remains to us, which belongs to the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth (Albyon Knight). Another series connects itself with the ideas of the Renaissance rather than the Reformation, treating of intellectual progress rather than of moral conduct ; this extends from the reign of Henry VIII. to that of Elizabeth. Besides these, there remain some Elizabethan moralities which have no special theological or scientific purpose, and are none the less lively in consequence.

The transition from the morality to the regular drama in England was effected, on the one hand, by the intermixture of historical personages with abstractions—as in Bishop Bale's Kyng Johan (c. 1548)—which easily led over to the chronicle history; on the other, by the introduction of types of real life by the side of abstract figures. This latter tendency is observable in several of the i6th-century moralities; but before most of these were written, a further step had been taken by a man of genius, John Heywood (b. c. 1500, d. between and 1587), whose "inter ludes" were short farces in the French manner. Heywood's inter ludes dealt entirely with real—very real—men and women. Other writers, such as T. Ingeland, took the same direction; and the allegory of abstractions was thus undermined on the stage. Thus the interludes facilitated the advent of comedy, without having superseded the earlier form. Both moralities and miracle-plays survived into the Elizabethan age after the regular drama had already begun its course.