RECORDS OF PERFORMANCE

Information about the performance of biblical plays comes from two principal sources: the texts themselves which often include stage directions and instructions for the decor, and the records of churches, towns and community groups. Other sources include letters, contemporary or eye-witness descriptions, and decrees, both civic and canonical.

As the two previous chapters have indicated, these records offer a picture of flourishing and varied dramatic activity in towns and villages all over Europe. Religious subjects make up the greater part of the surviving repertory and dominate the records. They were performed in churches and palaces, streets, squares and graveyards. They might be staged in a single (often indoor) location; in a processional or stational mode; or on a multiple, fixed-location set. The organisation of these different types of play varied from country to country and from group to group, but in all cases a high proportion of the information comes from the financial records of town or court, confraternity, guild or church. For although most medieval drama was technically amateur, costumes, properties and often, though not always, scaffolds (the commonest medieval term for a raised stage) had to be provided for even the simplest plays.

Since it is impossible to consider this huge subject in detail, this chapter will be concerned mainly with three aspects related to the performing community: the interrelationship of audience and actors in the different kinds of staging; the financial organisation of the plays; and the place of women in the theatrical community.