UWINS)]
These religious plays or mysteries were a powerful means for instructing
the people; and if we had lived in mediaeval times, we should not have
needed to fly to Ober-Ammergau in order to witness a Passion Play. In
the streets of Coventry or Chester, York, or Tewkesbury, Witney, or
Reading, or on the Green at Clerkenwell, we could have seen the
appealing spectacle; and though sometimes the actors lapsed into
buffoonery, and the red demons carrying souls to hell's mouth created
merriment rather than terror, and though realism was carried to such a
pitch that Adam and Eve appeared in a state of nature, yet many of the
spectators would carry away with them pious thoughts and some grasp of
the facts of Scripture history, and of the mysteries of the faith.
Originally the plays were performed in churches, but owing to the
gradually increased size of the stage and the more elaborate stage
effects, the sacred buildings were abandoned as the scenes of mediaeval
drama. Then the churchyard was utilised for the purpose. The clergy no
longer took part in the pageants, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries the people liked to act their plays in the highways and
public places as at Clerkenwell. The guilds and fraternities in many
places provided the chief actors, and in towns where there were many
guilds and companies, each company performed part of the great drama,
the movable stage being drawn about from street to street.
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