The Middle Ages spans a period of 1000 years and, despite popular misconceptions, the later half of this period was as full of activity and creative accomplishment as any 500 year period of recorded history. This is as true of the theatre as it was of cathedral building.
Theatre of the Middle Ages was profoundly religious. It emerged, in fact, out of the liturgy of the Christian Church in the form of liturgical elaborations known as tropes. The most significant of these tropes was the Quem Queritis, which contained dialogue but not drama's impersonation of character.
The growing size and secular theatricality of liturgical dramas led to their removal from Church buildings in the thirteenth century. The establishment of a spring festival known as Corpus Christi provided a new context that was developing greater social and aesthetic dimensions outside the Church. The production of such plays, commonly known as Corpus Christi plays, passion plays, pageant plays, or cycle plays, became an opportunity for the involvement of the entire civic community. In scale and duration, they were often among the largest productions ever staged.
Pageant plays were performed in some areas on fixed stages and in processions on pageant wagons in others. At York, in England, the procession staging was coordinated by a town governing body. The staging of each individual play, however, was the responsibility of a trade guild, reflecting the rise of a civic and commercial bourgeoisie. With its numerous, elaborately decorated wagons, specialty performers, numerous actors, and various stops, the York procession drama would have resembled, in some aspects of its effect, the modern Rose Bowl Parade.
Overviewing the playlets The Creation and Fall of Lucifer and Man's Disobedience and Fall, from the York Cycle, provide insight into the verse, imagery, ideas, and staging of the cycle plays.
