CAIN AND ABEL

2- CAIN AND ABEL

3- PROPHET'S PLAY (foretelling coming of Christ) The dialog is in French but the stage directions and songs are in Latin. In part 3

the dialog has the scriptural part in Latin followed by paraphrasing that dialog in French.

Most Passion plays are not given every year (some every second year, some not for ten years.) All plays use music. Admission is not usually charged although some places have special seats for hire.

Almost all of the other religious dramas (we know of something over 400, all very short, no more than 200 lines) seem to have been performed in the monasteries and inside the cathedrals for Easter. They are various enlargements on the Trope*. Only three deal with the crucifixion: two are in the Carmina Burana ( a collection of plays and poems from a monastery in Germany) and one from this same date from Italy (about 320 lines long.) There are also a number of plays dealing with the Christmas season, mainly the Three Kings* and the Prophets Play*. Gradually the number, length and variety of subject matter increase. Other biblical events are dramatized. The longest and most complex is the Antichrist which is so full of diverse and elaborate scenes that it was probably a bardic performance piece and was not dramatized at all.

Production techniques in Medieval religious drama - (as we move outdoors, but still being performed by clergy, and occasionally with choir boys.) Costumes: which start out as church vestments, gradually pick up additions, like wings for angels. Soon, characters begin to have more elaborate costumes for such roles as the Wise Men (Three Kings.)

Props: as the plays expand to subjects beyond the Trope they begin to include the objects needed as symbols (the dove) and for practical identification of the characters (gifts from the Three Kings,) and, when lives of Saints are enacted, furniture and other objects.

Scenery: There is little attempt made to be elaborate in setting the scene until the plays pass in to hands of laymen.

1152 Frederick I Barbarossa* becomes king (in Germany). Henry (see below) marries Eleanor of Aquitaine*

1154 Henry II* (the one who married Eleanor) comes to the English throne and the Plantagenent line begins. He lays the foundations for English Common Law.

1158 Frederick I Barbarossa* issues a decree founding a protestant (that means non-religious at this point in time) university in Bologna*. This city has a tradition as a Roman municipality and escaps the grip of feudalism that plagues the rest of Europe. It has been republican for centuries and has a healthy independence of thought. The University of Bologna is the world's first really non-religious university, an educational institution free from rule of the church. It is under the protection of the emperor, free from papal interference, and situated in a republican, commercial city. It will attract students from all over. The University of Bologna immediately develops a reputation for legal instruction and starts the fastest growing of medieval professions, the lawyer. It is run by the students, who hire the teachers and set the rules.* The Arts faculty become controversial because they are most strongly influenced by all that new knowledge coming out of Spain.

1160 - What with all that crusading and the end of the century looming on the horizon, there's

a lot of interest in Jerusalem* and the millennia. Well, there's a lot about that in Revelations*, and somewhere over in Germany there is a terrific play called The Antichrist (performed in Latin by clerics.) The first part is all about that local celebrity Barbarossa* and the second part deals with the Antichrist and fighting him.

1163 Notre Dame* is built. 1167 Frederick I Barbarossa* is crowned Holy Roman Emperor*. In England, Oxford

University is founded. 1170 Thomas a Becket*, Henry II's* Archbishop of Canterbury, is murdered by four of

Henry's Norman knights. This really gets Henry* into hot water with the Pope and the church. c.1170 - Plays are being performed in England that deal with the lives of Saints (religious

chivalric knights.) 1171 In Egypt the Kurdish Ayyubids* depose the ruling Fatimid rulers and start their own

dynasty under Saladin*. They will extend their rule to Syria, Yemen and part of Iraq. They are Sunni* and consequently have lots of problems with the Shiite* remnants of the Fatimids. There is also a really extreme bunch called the Assassins* who run around terrorizing everybody. In order to keep things running smoothly they (the new rulers) make use of slave- warriors. Saladin replaces his African troops with Turks. These Turkish slave-warriors are called Mamluks* (meaning "something that is possessed".) They are captured, mainly from the Turkish Kipchak tribe (Crimea and southern Russian steppes.) These men are prized as terrific fighters with horse and short bow. They are converted to Islam, taught to read, write, and speak Arabic and can rise to be army commanders. The point of all this is that these Mamluks will take over the kingdom later and give the Europeans a lot of trouble.

1180 Philip II* comes to the throne of France. He reorganizes France and it begins to be the dominant power. We also hear of the first European references to a needle that points north. It will take a while to develop this into a workable compass and improve navigation.