Origins and character of the new situation-type

In the scenes treated so far the basic liturgical structure was still recognizable. Notwithstanding their historical ‘rôles’, the ‘actors’ behaved as liturgist and congregation, as Revealers and Recipients. Between the two parties no relationship existed other than that established by the act of Revelation.

The type of the Revelation scene was left behind for the first time when the encounter between Herod and the Magi was included in the eleventh century. Like the scenes previously discussed, this too has its liturgical forerunners, in this case the responsories:

and

These responsories accompany the Rouen Officium Trium Regum. They retain their narrative form and disregard the turn-taking of the speakers correspondingly. But the same office contains a completely ‘dramatized’ dialogue between the Magi and duo de maiori sede cum dalmaticis who have been introduced, as in other Officia Stella, in obvious analogy to the Midwives of the Officia Pastorum.

The Rouen texts which have come down to us do not go back beyond the thirteenth century, but there are earlier texts from other cities which not only are fully dialogued but also show a remarkable independence of the liturgy. In the eleventh-century text from Freising (Young, DMC, vol. 2, pp. 92–7), the variety of spatio-temporal and interpersonal relationships in the encounter between Herod and the Magi, the raging of Herod, and the orthodox hexameters clearly suggest non-liturgical influence.