MYSTERIES AND XIRACLE-PLAYS were dramas founded on the historical parts of the Old and New Testaments, and the lives of the saints, performed during the middle aps, first in churches, and afterwards in the streets on fixed or movable stages. Myste ries were properly taken from biblical and mlraele-plays from legendary subjects, but this distinction in nomenclature was not always strictly adhered to. We have an extant spec:Mien of the religious play of a date prior to the beginning of the middle ages in the Christos Pasch%tit, assigned, somewhat questionably, to Gregory Nnzianzen, and written in 4th c. Greek. Next comes six Latin plays on subjects connected with the lives of die saints, by Roswitha, a nun of Gandersheim, in Saxony, which, though not very artisti cally constructed, possesses considerable dramatic power and interest; they have been lately published at Paris, with a French translation, The performers were at first the clergy and choristers, afterwards any layman might participate. The earliest recorded performance of a took place in England. Matthew Paris relates that Geoffroy, afterwards abbot of St. Albans, while a 'secular, exhibited at Dunstable the miracle play of St. Catherine, and borrowed copes froth St. Albans to dress his charac ters. This must have been at the end of the 11th or beginning of the 12th century. Fitzstephen, in his Life of Thonatx d Becket, 1183 A.D , describes with approval the repre sentation in London of the sufferings of the saints and miracles of the confessors. On the establishment of the Corpus Christi festival by Pope Urban IV. in 1264, miracle-plays became one of its adjuncts, and every considerable town bad a fraternity for their per formance. Throughout thel5th and following centuries, they continued in full force in England, and are mentioned sometimes approvingly, sometimes disapprovingly, by con writtloWeeNhliat fiTgoily.misisMsreliLktiCitissttittitki for the people, they had long More ihttkar ormation* far departed from their original character, as to be mixed up in many instances with buffoonery and irreverence, intentional or uninten tional, and to be the means of inducing contempt rather than respect for the church and religion. Remarkable collections exist of English mysteries and miracles of the 15th c.,
known as the Chester, the Coventry, and the Townley plays. The first two have been published by the Shakespeare Society, and the other by the Su•tees Society. The Town ley mysteries are full of the burlesque element, and contain many curious illustrations of contemporary manners.
Out of the mysteries and miracle-plays sprang a third class of religious plays called .1foralities, in winch allegorical personification of the Virtues and Vices were introduced as dramatis persome. These personages at first only took part in the play along with the Scriptural or legendary characters, but afterwards entirely superseded them. The oldest known English compositions of this kind arc of the time of Henry VI.; they arc mere elaborate and less interesting than the miracle-plays. Moralities continued in fashion till the time of Elizabeth, and were the immediate precursors of the regular drama.
Miracles and mysteries were as popoular in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy as in England. A piece of the kind yet extant. composed in France in the 11th c., is entitled the Mystery of the Wise and Foolish Firgins, and written partly in the Provencal dialect and partly in Latin. A celebrated fraternity, called the Confrorie de In Passion, founded in Paris in 1350, had a monopoly for the performance of mysteries and miracle-plays, which were of such a length, that the exhibition of each occupied several days. A large number of French mysteries of the the 14th c. are extant. In the alpine districts of Germany, miracle-plays were composed and acted by the peasants; these peasant-plays had less regularity in their dramatic form, were often interspersed with songs and pro cessions; and in their union of simplicity with high-wrought feeling were most character istic of a people in whom the religious and dramatic element are both so largely developed. In the early part of the last century, they began to partake to a limited extent of the bur lesque, which had brought the miracie-plays into disrepute elsewhere.