Medieval literature

As the Western Roman Empire started collapsing, many government positions were taken over by Christians who condemned drama for its making fun of religion, its debauchery and paganism. It is then in the 5th century that the medieval era began and miracle plays were established.

Medieval miracle plays, also known as Saints plays, are one of the three principal kinds of vernacular drama that emerged from the European Middle ages. A miracle play is based on incidents from the lives and works of the Saints. During this era people believed that the power of saints could solve their problems. Holy relics supposedly taken from the bodies of saints were kept by the church. The people believed that by praying to these relics it could cure illness. This genre originated and developed from religion, specifically Christianity as the church held the power of authority during the medieval era. The church only targeted the privileged few who were educated and understood Latin, which was the language the bible, was written in. In order to expand their followers the church decided to dramatize key Bible stories from the Creation of the Universe and the Last Judgment. The cycles were usually performed in connection with the new early summer feast of Corpus Christi, which was instituted in 1311.

The Mary plays consistently involve her in the role of deus ex machina, coming to the aid of all who invoke her, be they worthy or wanton. She saves, for example, a priest who has sold his soul to the devil, a woman falsely accused of murdering her own child, and a pregnant abbess. Typical of these is a play called St. John the Hairy. At the outset the title character seduces and murders a princess. Upon capture, he is proclaimed a saint by an infant. He confesses his crime, whereupon God and Mary appear and aid John in reviving the princess, which done, the murderer saint is made a bishop.

The Nicholas plays are similar, an example being Jean Bodel’s Le Jeu de Saint Nicolas (c. 1200), which details the deliverance of a crusader and the conversion of a Saracen king. Few English miracle plays are extant, because they were banned by Henry VIII in the mid-16th century and most were subsequently destroyed or lost.
Miracle plays started off as simple tropes. Tropes were simple verbal accompaniments of liturgical text. They slowly however, started to become more elaborate due to the demand of plays that were not only about biblical stories. The plays moved outside the church and were controlled by the people rather than the priests. Vernacular forms of these plays as well as morality plays emerged towards the end of the middle ages era and as a result the miracle play became less popular.

Geoffrey Chaucer who was considered as the greatest English poet of the middle ages is a fundamental figure in developing the legitimacy of the vernacular plays. He is best known as the writer of The Canterbury Tale which is a collection of stories told by fictional pilgrims on the road to the cathedral at Canterbury; these tales would help to shape English literature.
Miracle plays essentially became the spark to a fire that would be vernacular literature. It may have started off as tool to spread Christianity but due to its popularity it became a source of entertainment that the church had band when they came into power. Although many accounts of these plays were destroyed or lost, “we can destroy what we have written but we cannot unwrite it”

Bibliography

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/384847/miracle-play

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_play

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_literature

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/middleages/welcome.htm

http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info/famous-medieval-people/chaucer.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Chaucer

Notes

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What is a miracle play?
Where did it originate from?
What was the socio-political context of when literature emerged
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When was this era of literature established and why?

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Conclude
This literature still lives on
Research notes

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Examples of miracle plays
Mary plays
Nicholas plays

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How did this literature die out?
Who is Chaucer?
How did he contribute to this genre literature?