Medieval Drama

As the Western Roman Empire went through its downfall, Roman power
shifted to Constantinople and Eastern Roman Empire(Byzantine
Empire). Whatever records remain regarding the Byzantine Theatre, tell
us that mime, pantomime, recitations from genres like comedy, tragedy,
and other entertainment were popular. True contributions of the
Byzantine theatre remain their preservation of classical Greek text and
Suda(compilation of a massive encyclopaedia). Came to an end on the
orders of Emperor Justinian in the 6th Century.
Early followers of Church believed everything other than Christian to be
Satanic in nature. Records state the vast attempts of the Church to
reinforce its belief system by the act of destruction of non-Christian
literatures(Greek and Roman), conversion of Jews and Shutting down
the millennia old Platonic academy and theatres. For, they believed the
theatre to be diabolical and an instrument of satan in the act of
influencing souls to become satanic and thus, acting was considered a
sinful act, mocking the creation of God. Under this, the Church
excommunicated the Roman actors and went as far as stripping them of
their right to marriage and burial. Suddenly homeless, the people were
ordered not to welcome them and the clerics, not to let them perform
under their jurisdiction.
The 5th century marked the onset of the downfall of the Western Europe,
which lasted until the 10th century, by when, most organised theatre
activities disappeared. Though, there still existed, small nomadic
travellers that travelled and performed (crude scenes) wherever they had
an audience. They were labelled satanic and pagan and were banned
by the church, whilst the people advised not to watch them. But, by the
early middle ages, the Church itself began to perform dramatised
versions of biblical text on certain says to make lively the celebrations of
important biblical dates. Symbolic objects and actions- vestments, altars
and censers were performed by priests to represent events that rituals
celebrated, but, with a good amount of visual cues as to communicate

better to the mostly illiterate crowd of that time period. These

performance are what we refer to as Liturgical Drama, Whom Do You
Seek
being one of the earliest forms of this drama.
In the middle of the 11th century, liturgical drama spread from Russia to
Scandinavia to Italy (except Muslim occupied Spain, where it was
banned). The Feat of Fools was of specific importance to the
development of Comedy. It inverted the status of the lesser clergy and
allowed them to ridicule their superiors and their lifestyle(including
Church life). Burlesque and comedy started creeping into plays that were
beginning to become a part of the occasion.
Performance of religious plays outside of the church began in the 12th
century a traditional method of converting short plays into longer ones
and then into the vernacular and were performed by the laymen. The
mystery of Adam gives credence to the theory.
Morality plays emerged around 1400 and flourished until 1550. A notable
ones being Everyman and The castle of perseverence(depicting the life
of mankind from birth to death.)
There were a number of secular plays performed in the middle ages.
Earliest of which being The play of the Greenwood in 1276. IT contained
satirical references and fairies and the supernatural. Farces became
popular at the end of th 13th century and majority of them came from
France and Germany and were similar, emphasising sex and bodily
excretions. Best known playwright- Hans Sachs (1494-1576) . With his
work, John Heywood, marked the independent arrival of Farces in
England in the 16th century.
A important forerunner of the development of Elizabethan drama was
The Chambers of Rhetoric in the Low Countries, concerned with poetry,
music and drama and holding competitions for it.
At the end of late middle ages, professional actors began emerging in
England and Europe. Henry VII and Richard III kept them for company.

Their plays were performed in the spaces of the residence of the noble,
where a stage was raised for the audience at one end and a screen for
the performance. Mummers plays were performed during christmas
season and court masques. These masques became very famous under
Henry VIII, who set up- House of Revels and Office of Revels in 1545.
Elizabeth I forbid all religious plays in 1558 and the great Cycle plays
were silenced by the 1580s. Similarly, religious plays were banned in
Netherlands in 1539, Papal states in 1547 and in Paris in 1548. The
abandonment of these plays destroyed the international theatre that had
thereto existed and left countries with but one option, making their own
form of dramas. Also, it allowed dramatists to turn to secular plays and
the reviving interest in Greek and Roman theatre provided the perfect
opportunity to do so.