Medieval Drama

Wynken de Worde played a crucial role in preserving and popularising A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode, one of the most important early Robin Hood texts. Although Richard Pynson printed the first known edition around 1495, de Worde's c.1506 Fleet Street edition became the version later used by Joseph Ritson and therefore central to modern Robin Hood scholarship. The Geste itself was probably not a fourteenth-century peasant protest poem, as earlier scholars suggested, but a late-fifteenth-century work connected to London guild culture, civic feasting, and commercial entertainment. De Worde was more than a printer: he was a skilled businessman, promoter of English literature, and patron of provincial printers such as Hugo Goes of York. His edition influenced later printings by Goes, Robert Copland, and Edward White. Through his press, generosity, and commercial instincts, de Worde helped transform Robin Hood from a medieval tale into a lasting printed tradition.

This thesis evaluates the cultural work of gestures in the religious life of late medieval England. It exposes a void in current scholarship to suggest that gestural performances lie at the centre of contemporary modes of learning, highlighting how embodied engagements with faith allow for a new analysis of the nature of late medieval religious practices and teaching. The study establishes a sustainable grammar of religious gestures in late medieval England, tracing sources of encouragement for embodied performance before examining how established corporeal regimes could be distorted and re-appropriated. The thesis begins with an introduction to the engagements with gestural politics that have emerged in medieval textual studies in recen t years to suggest that gestural studies may be a tangible, flowering field. I turn to the liturgy as the starting point for my own examination of the gestural culture of late medieval Christianity, exploring verbal and bodily engagement by preachers and congregants with generalised notions of gestural behaviour, while highlighting distortions of practice in relation to the liturgical year. The thesis then examines how the gestures of the Church are used and misused in contemporaly religious drama, noting the distinct mannerisms that are associated with particular saints and biblical figures, while outlining the gestural transgressions that occur, especially with relation to diabolic characters. The next section focuses on the relationship between gestures and the imagination in Nicholas Love's Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ and Margery Kempe's Book to highlight the individualistic possibilities of gestural performance in the fifteenth century. The final chapter examines the theological rebuke to this gestural culture, specifically in the crafting of the Book of Common Prayer, highlighting how reformers in the sixteenth century dealt with the corporeal engagement with God which had flourished previously, with specific relation to visual and material culture.

Jesus said, "From the days of John until now, the Kingdom of Heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force." (Matthew 11:12) We examine the positive and negative interpretations of this passage and apply these understandings to contemporary Christianity, comparing the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, and the Unification Church views on "faith versus works", a long-standing debate in Christendom. We emerge from this discussion with a call for seasoned wisdom, balancing humanistic and pious concerns in a global call for common sense in our time and in our faith practice.

"Vergessenes Erbe" widmet sich erstmals umfassend der Geschichte des Leipziger Instituts für Kunstgeschichte in der DDR (1946–1989). Hervorgegangen aus einem Forschungspraxisseminar mit Masterstudierenden, rekonstruiert der Band anhand bislang unerschlossener Archivquellen Karrieren, Debatten, institutionelle Entwicklungen und Alltägliches. Zwischen politischem Anspruch und wissenschaftlicher Eigenständigkeit entstand eine Forschung, die heutige Diskurse teilweise vorwegnahm. Während der erste Teil der Institutsgeschichte im engeren Sinne gewidmet ist, nimmt der zweite Teil DDR-typische Themen auf, die anhand der Leipziger Kunstgeschichte differenziert behandelt werden. Der Band hält dazu an, das wissenschaftliche Erbe der DDR neu zu bewerten und die Lücke zwischen den berühmten Anfängen des Leipziger Instituts – des zweitältesten in Deutschland – und der Gegenwart zu schließen.

A twelfth-century so-called liturgical drama (preserved in a unique copy of the thirteenth century, preserved in British Library, London), the Danielis ludus (Play of Daniel), based mainly on chapters 5 and 6 from the Book of Daniel has been much discussed in scholarship. It has been seen by scholars, not least Margot Fassler, as a (music) drama intended to establish a role model for young clerics in connection with ecclesiastical attempts at reforming the celebrations for New Year's in Beauvais, the so-called Feast of Fools. In this article, with consideration also of a recent discussion of the New Year's liturgy, I suggest to understand the Danielis ludus as a liturgical ritual transforming the (corporate) identity of the young clerics who were, undoubtedly, involved in its performance.

Personality disorders are characterized by thoughts and feelings about oneself and other people that have a significant adverse effect on an individual's ability to operate in many facets of life. The study aims to give an account of conditions of personality disorders such as narcissism and avoidance. The significance of the study is that people need to have education about people who suffer from personality disorders, their behaviors, and their actions. The main objective of the study is to describe the effects of personality disorders, including those that are connected, and how they might be linked to actions and thoughts of homicide. The study used an analytical and descriptive method to provide an account of the conditions of personality disorders based on the Duke of My Last Duchess poem. According to the study's findings, individuals who suffer from personality disorders are unable to control their haughtiness, conceit, and arrogance which leads them to commit crimes. The researcher recommends preventing and treating personality disorder conduct, as well as understanding the primary causes of symptoms.

Early medieval drama (in Latin) surprisingly focused very much on the theme of sexuality, as best illustrated by Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (10th century). She was most eager to compete with the Roman dramatist Terence and to create new Christian plays that were, on the one hand, basically determined by the theatrical strategies of Terence, and yet followed, on the other, early medieval Christian values as developed by the Church Fathers and desert hermits. Although Hrotsvit pursued strongly religious values throughout her works, she also revealed a keen interest in theatricality per se, irrespective of the religious paradigm characteristic of the Middle Ages. At the same time this tenth-century convent author demonstrated an incredible skill in exploring and utilizing a wide range of sexual themes in her plays and religious narratives. She consistently demonstrated a unique ability in creating theatrical works that aimed both for the basic entertainment of a convent audience and also for a fundamental clerical education that did not ignore the world of sexuality as a dangerous yet unavoidable aspect of human existence. 1

For anyone seeking to decide quickly whether to read, perform, or assign any of these hysterical plays, there are quick takes on all the farces I've translated thus in THE FARCE OF THE FART, HOLY DEADLOCK, IMMACULATE DECEPTION, TRIAL BY FARCE, and the forthcoming TRANSLATING TEACHER'S PEST. Stay tuned for the descriptions of 12 more in volume 6.

T. S. Eliot's conversion was especially a conversion to the truth of dogma. And, for Eliot, no dogma proved more decisive at the time of his conversion than the dogma of the Incarnation. In a particularly heightened way, the Ariel poems express the agony of journeying towards a confession of the Incarnation-a journey that Eliot himself made under the literary and theological tutelage of Bishop Lancelot Andrewes. The speaker of "A Song for Simeon" offers a counterpoint to Eliot's conversion. The speaker is unable to accept the radical truth of the Incarnation. Instead Eliot's Simeon concludes, "I am dying in my own death.

This Element explores how medieval devotional and disciplinary practices acted as 'immersive technologies' for producing presence and configuring emotions. Through the comparative analysis of Aelred of Rievaulx's De Institutione Inclusarum and the Ordo ad Faciendum Disciplinam of the lay confraternity of Santo Stefano in Assisi, it investigates how the devout subject projected themselves into an imaginal, affective space, where memory, posture, and sensory experience converged to enable a participatory encounter with the divine. Drawing on the concept of the 'avatar' as a psychosomatic projection of the self within visionary and ritual practices, the Element traces how the 'theatre of the mind' redefined the relationship between interior vision, exterior action, and affective identity. By examining the dramaturgies of presence articulated within these memorial plays, this Element sheds light on the role of sensory discipline and emotional posture in shaping embodied devotional experience in the Latin Middle Ages.

This study introduces a novel computational framework to analyze multi-modal antagonisms—semantic, emotional, and relational—in dramatic literature, specifically focusing on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Employing natural language processing (NLP) techniques, text embeddings, emotion classifiers, and network-based character analyses, we systematically extract and quantify antagonistic relationships within the play. Semantic antagonisms are identified through hierarchical clustering and dimensionality reduction of character embeddings, revealing rhetorical groupings aligned closely with narrative functions. Emotional antagonisms, captured via emotion distribution profiles and variance analysis, illuminate characters’ affective dynamics and their alignment with dramatic roles. Relational antagonisms are explored through co-occurrence networks, highlighting unexpected centrality of minor characters as critical mediators of conflict. Integrating these modalities with Hegelian dialectics and Nietzschean interpretations, our tri-modal analysis provides fresh insights into ideological tensions, character motivations, and narrative structure. This interdisciplinary approach demonstrates the effectiveness of AI-driven tools in enriching literary criticism opening new avenues for exploring conflict dynamics in canonical texts.

Purpose – This study aims to examine the managerial practices involved in the staging of the York Cycle of Mystery Plays (1376–1569), developed during a period of profound social and economic transformation. It
aims to contribute to the understanding of the historical evolution of cultural management and organization.
Design/methodology/approach – Research proceeded through three phases: defining core Western arts management functions, selecting the historical case using rigorous criteria and conducting extensive literature
review and archival research on the York Cycle.
Findings – The York Cycle production and staging required sophisticated organizational practices, compounded by the profound socio-economic changes which followed the Black Death. These practices are
reflective of persistent challenges in cultural production: securing funding, ensuring artistic quality, planning and managing complicated logistics and mediating between competing interests. They illuminate how
medieval guilds of York developed an organizational form that could endure uninterruptedly for two centuries, across widely varying conditions.
Research limitations/implications – The organizational innovations of the York Cycle indicate that these medieval cultural producers developed and implemented solutions to persistent problems in cultural
production. Future research should examine how these problems were negotiated in other historical and cultural contexts, to develop a more robust understanding of how sustainable structures for collective artistic
and cultural expression emerge.
Practical implications – The historical analysis of how arts and culture have been organized can reveal patterns that are relevant to contemporary arts management practice. The York Cycle endured for 200 years
thanks to a diversified funding model, adaptive governance and intentional and systematic community engagement. Arts and culture organizations of our time, facing similar turbulence and challenges, can be
inspired by how the problems of resource fragility, complex partnerships and fostering community engagement were tackled historically.
Social implications – Sophisticated cultural organization predates modern arts management by centuries. By examining how one medieval community developed organizational solutions to persistent challenges of
creative enterprise: diversified funding, adaptive governance and community engagement. The study suggests that using a similar methodological approach may yield a deeper understanding of cultural organization forms
and strategies.
Originality/value – While the DNA of artistic disciplines are well-documented, the historical analysis of cultural organization remains largely unexplored. This study demonstrates how examining organizational practices around cultural production through historical case studies can illuminate
collective solutions to coordination problems in cultural production. This provides a foundation for understanding cultural organization as an (evolving) response to persistent human expressive needs,
rather than to recent professional and environmental developments. The York Cycle provides a historical case study of medieval cultural organization that reveals challenges, patterns and solutions that can contribute to the understanding of how arts and cultural management and organization have
developed.

U okviru svoje teatrološke i dramske biblioteke Mansioni Hrvatski centar
ITI objavio je knjigu Iza starog zastora: Ogledi, portreti i crtice iz zagrebačke kazališne povijesti, u kojoj su po prvi put na jednom mjestu okupljeni kazališno-publicistički tekstovi Antonije Kassowitz-Cvijić, objavljivani od 1910. do 1934. godine. Riječ je o izboru ogleda, biografskih članaka i crtica anegdotalnoga karaktera o zagrebačkom kazališnom životu od sredine 18. stoljeća do kraja dvadesetih godina 20. stoljeća. Hrvoje Ivanković priređivač je ovoga vrijednoga izdanja, koje iz zaborava izvlači djelo važne kroničarke društvenoga i kulturnoga života Zagreba.

U Petrisovu zborniku (1468.) zapisan je oveći sklop legendarnih hagiografija, što je izniman slučaj jer su inače takve legende razasute po zbornicima. Prevedene su iz staročeškoga Pasionála, češke prerade Zlatne legende Jakoba de Voragine, zajedno s ostalim starohrvatskim neliturgijskim proznim prijevodima koji su nastali za boravka hrvatskih svećenika glagoljaša u praškom Emausu. U ovome radu posebnu pozornost posvećujemo tekstu o Svetoj Trojici te donosimo njegovu dosad neobjavljenu latiničnu transliteraciju i jezičnu analizu. Hrvatski tekst o Svetoj Trojici prema jezičnim značajkama morao bi biti preveden s češkoga jezika, i to iz nekoga starijega izvora od onih koji su sačuvani i koje analiziramo u tekstu. Smatramo da analizom hrvatskoga prijevoda i tekstološkom usporedbom s raspoloživim češkim tekstovima možemo pomoći u rekonstrukciji izvornoga češkog članka o Svetoj Trojici te odgovoriti na pitanje kada je nastao izvorni češki tekst o Svetoj Trojici. Ujedno se prijevodom članka o Svetoj Trojici potvrđuje prevoditeljska aktivnost hrvatskih svećenika glagoljaša do samoga kraja njihova boravka u Češkoj 1419. godine. Hrvatski su prijevodi zapisani u Petrisovu zborniku važni za razvoj češkoga Pasionála u cijelosti. // The Czech Pasionál, originally based on the Latin Legenda aurea, was only partially translated into Old Croatian and preserved in the Glagolitic Petris Manuscript from 1468 as a substantial collection of hagiographies. These translations are significant for both Croatian medieval literature and Czech philology, as Croatian versions can assist in reconstructing the development of the Old Czech Pasionál.
The Croatian translation of the article on the Holy Trinity is one of the texts translated from the Czech Pasionál, which exists in several manuscript versions and in two incunabula. The Czech text on the Holy Trinity, in the Dominican version, is preserved in manuscripts D and M and in the incunabulum PasIB from 1495. The Latin version did not exist in the original Legenda aurea text, as the feast of the Holy Trinity was introduced after the original Legenda aurea was written, but it clearly existed in later additions to the core text. We believe that the Croatian translator consulted the Latin text in addition to the Czech one for the translation.
Following the assumptions of Ivšić and Čermák that the Croatian text can help reconstruct the original Czech text of the article on the Holy Trinity—i.e., the text which Ivšić believes all Czech versions and the Croatian translation derive from—we compared the Old Croatian text to three versions of the Old Czech text: manuscripts D and M, and the incunabulum PasIB. In doing so, we also corrected previous claims in the literature that the oldest preserved version of the Czech text on the Holy Trinity is the one from PasIB (1495).
A comparison of the Croatian translation with Czech versions from manuscripts D and M and PasIB shows that the Croatian text most closely aligns with manuscript M. We believe, based on the comparison, that the Croatian text and the version from the Pasionál Martinský manuscript correspond the most closely, and that this Czech version is the closest to the original Czech text of the article on the Holy Trinity. Differences, such as the correction of the prophet Ezekiel’s name, indicate that the Croatian translator made informed decisions based on biblical knowledge.
The Croatian translation reflects theological positions associated with Hussitism, particularly the rejection of the filioque, implying that the translator may have been a Croatian priest aligned with Hussite ideas. This supports the possibility that the translation was made around or shortly after 1419, during or after the Glagolitic presence in the Emmaus monastery.
Linguistically, the Croatian text shows features of the northwestern Chakavian dialect, with Kajkavian influences, suggesting it was transcribed in the Ozalj area. The strong Czech lexical influence confirms the translation's literal nature and the translator’s reliance on Czech theological terminology.
Overall, the Croatian version confirms that the Czech text on the Holy Trinity was composed before previous assumptions on the date of its composition and plays a key role in tracing the evolution of the Czech Pasionál. Furthermore, the entire cycle of hagiographies from the Petris Manuscript could help identify textual variants and bring us closer to the Czech archetype.

This essay addresses the methodological challenges involved in the study of laude drammatiche, arguing for an approach that situates these texts within the broader framework of medieval devotional performance rather than interpreting them through modern notions of theatrical representation. Focusing on the confraternity of the Disciplinati of Santo Stefano in Assisi, the article examines the Good Friday officium disciplinae as a complex dramaturgical dispositif in which text, ritual action, chant, and bodily practice converge. Through a close analysis of statutory prescriptions, ritual ordines, Latin lectiones—notably the Planctus Magistrae Doloris—and vernacular laude, the study reconstructs the performative dynamics of the rite and its affective orientation toward compassion, imitation, and communal participation in the Passion of Christ. The essay challenges purely ecdotic or literary approaches to laudistic sources, proposing instead a perspective that understands manuscripts as witnesses to fluid performative traditions and historically situated practices of memory. By redefining “dramatic” in terms of Christian repraesentatio—understood as a participatory and experiential re-enactment of salvific events—the article contributes to a rethinking of medieval confraternal devotion as a form of embodied, ritual dramaturgy rather than proto-theatre.

Tekst analizira mjuzikl Jalta, Jalta Milana Grgića i Alfija Kabilja kao iznimno i vizionarsko glazbeno-scensko djelo koje kroz humor i glazbenu komediju obrađuje ozbiljnu političku temu – podjelu Europe nakon konferencije na Jalti. Umjesto fokusiranja na povijesne „velike igrače“, autori priču pričaju iz perspektive malih ljudi, sobara, čime naglašavaju univerzalne ljudske sudbine pogođene političkim odlukama. Središnji simbol mjuzikla je utopijska „Zelena livada“, mjesto mira, slobode i zajedništva, koje se može tumačiti kao metafora tadašnje neutralne Jugoslavije, sanjane hrvatske države, ali i današnje Europske unije. Autorica zaključuje da Jalta, Jalta ni nakon više od četrdeset godina nije izgubila aktualnost, već se pokazuje kao vizionarsko djelo koje nadilazi vrijeme i političke okvire.

Our understanding of the medieval Danse macabre is changing with the recent discoveries of a theatrical script from Savoy, and of a related Castilian poem. This collection of texts from the Burgundian realm, France and Savoy, England, Castile-Aragon and the Empire, also contains critical essays that examine these texts and contexts from the fourteenth to the late fifteenth centuries.
This volume re-examines the development and impact of the Danse macabre within broader considerations of performance and poetry that focus on Death as a protagonist. It includes texts never before studied or translated and moves beyond the traditional focus on Paris and London to reassess the wide dissemination of this tradition. The volume complements a collection of art-historical studies by the same editors (Oosterwijk, Ungeheuer and Léglu) of the visual tradition across Europe, from Burgundy to Finland, entitled 'Death and the Danse Macabre in Late Medieval Art: Dissemination, Reception, Evidence (due to be published 2026).

Ce travail propose l’étude des différentes formes d’activités dramatiques en latin, français et breton, qui ont pris place dans le Nord-Ouest de la France du XIIIe siècle au XVIIe siècle commençant. Il aborde le drame liturgique, le théâtre des mystères, des farces et des moralités, le théâtre des entrées solennelles et le théâtre humaniste, en combinant une approche à la fois littéraire, historique et sociale. Cette étude se fonde d’abord sur une importante recherche archivistique destinée à mettre à jour les connaissances sur les attestations du théâtre.This PhD research studies drama and the dramatic culture in Latin, French and Breton in northwestern France from the 13th century to the very beginning of the 17th century. It encompasses liturgical drama, mystery plays, farces, morality plays, civic entries and humanist drama, thanks to an interdisciplinary approach combining literary, historical and social elements.This analysis is primarily based on a thorough and comprehensive ...

Il "Giulè" è una commedia in versi inedita, scritta nel 1631, che si sarebbe dovuta rappresentare nella villa del Poggio Imperiale presso Firenze; ma la rappresentazione non ebbe luogo per la morte improvvisa della proprietaria, Maria Maddalena d’Asburgo, vedova del granduca Cosimo II. Si tratta di una commedia affatto singolare. La scena è una sala della villa: al centro un tavolo; intorno sono seduti tre cavalieri e tre dame; giocano a carte; la trama è costituita dalle vicende del gioco (il giulè, appunto). La "favoletta" fu poi rifusa negli anni quaranta nel più ampio spettacolo delle "Mascherate", che si dà in appendice.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s works glow with dozens of poetic cosmic passages. He mentions the stars, planets, spheres of the cosmos, and the zodiac signs throughout his works, sometimes in unexpected places. Studies in the last hundred years have often applied today’s fuller, post-Ptolemaic knowledge of the solar system to expose alleged ‘hidden schemes’ underlying Chaucer’s poetry, but I argue that aesthetics and poetics should be prioritized over scientific accuracy when reading his works. I demonstrate how Chaucer manipulated astronomical settings to suit his poetic outcomes as much as they may have reflected realities. Sometimes his astral passages are scientifically viable, but often playfully misleading. He tweaked his sources, manipulated motifs, invented constellations, bent the rules, and made the stars his own. The foundational data for this thesis is presented in the appendix where I identify each cosmic passage across Chaucer’s published works. This reveals larger patterns, specifically five distinct literary modes. These modes provide structure for the chapters, which I identify as chronographia (depictions of time), adornment (rhetorical decoration and ekphrasis), corporeality (bodiliness and the cosmos), play (instances of inventive creativity), and direct translation. I offer a fresh study of Chaucer’s astral poetics through close reading, art historical contextualization, new perspectives on famous passages, and historical research. Astronomy and astrology in Chaucer’s time were more expansive, accessible, and present than is often recognized, which I demonstrate through a materialist approach. Cosmic imagery in the material world, in the form of church portals, book illuminations, public sculptures, paintings, astronomical instruments and even table games, were part of everyday life in London at the end of the fourteenth century. How did prevalent cosmological theories and physical representations of these theories manifest in Chaucer’s works? Artists and craftsmen worked together with astronomers to create objects, and in a similar way Chaucer’s cosmic poetry presents a combination of craft and astronomy, and is the heart of this thesis.

in "Studi Danteschi", 89 (2024), pp. 283-298.

Il contributo intende fornire un nuovo apporto alla conoscenza e alla definizione della categoria lessicale degli "idiotismi danteschi", mettendo in luce il grado di aleatorietà che circonda la voce stessa "idiotismo" e la problematicità del suo uso in rapporto a determinate componenti della lingua della "Commedia". Innanzitutto, si ripercorre brevemente in diacronia l’evoluzione semantica del termine "idiotismo" (§ 2), a partire dai cultismi "ἰδιωτισμός" e "idiotìsmos" fino ad arrivare alla definizione di "idiotismo" nell’italiano contemporaneo. In seguito, si espongono alcune nozioni preliminari di natura teorica utili per affrontare un’indagine sugli "idiotismi danteschi" nello specifico (§§ 3, 4), sviluppate mediante la rielaborazione e l’integrazione di spunti forniti dagli studi pregressi. Infine, ci si dedica alla discussione di due lemmi danteschi esemplari, ossia "coppa" s.f. (§ 4.1) e "gora" s.f. (§ 4.2), etichettati rispettivamente come "idiotismo indeterminato" e "idiotismo settoriale".

Julius Caesar, one of Shakespeare finest tragedies, has baffled readers, critics and scholars alike for centuries. It still remains one of the most read plays written by William Shakespeare and it has been part of high school curriculum in many English speaking countries world-wide. One of the most important features of it is the ambiguous and ambivalent portrayal of its characters and this paper endeavors to elaborate on the kaleidoscopic characterization in Julius Caesar by exploring its main characters with a special focus on the two tragic heroes of this play: Caesar and Brutus. Also, the paper will deal with some other important aspects of the play such as its political implications, its characteristics as a problem play and a tragedy of moral choice by building upon a wide corpus of critical criticism on Julius Caesar, and finally it will attempt to work out the play's relevance to the 21 st century readers and audiences.

The Mystery of the Bocca della Verità: How Did It Become the Green Man? The Term "Green Man" The expression Green Man was first used in 1939 by Julia Somerset in an article referring to the stone and wood carvings found throughout medieval churches in Europe, depicting a human face covered with plants and leaves. Since then, countless articles and books have been published on the subject, most of them attempting to trace the origins of the Green Man. In this study, I do not intend to review, evaluate, or refute these works; rather, I will utilize the information they contain. My goal is to develop a new, concrete, and revolutionary theory compared to previous ones.

Coburgo-Gotha nell'edizione parigina del 1855 L e vite dei santi hanno offerto materia per una grande quantità di li- bretti di oratori e cantate soprattutto nel XVII e XVIII secolo. Molto più rara è la loro utilizzazione nel mondo dell'opera, anche se ci sono eccezioni come il Sant'Alessio di Stefano Landi, dato nel teatro Barberini a Roma nel 1631, alle origini del nuovo genere. Il motivo è da ricondurre alla mancanza dell'elemento dell'amore nei soggetti agiografici; elemento considerato indispensabile per la creazione di un melodramma. Anche la Giovanna d'arco di Verdi -che nel 1845 non era ancora né beata né santa, ma solo scagionata dall'accusa di eresia -vive sul palcoscenico per l'amore che ha idealmente provato per il re di Francia. Pertanto, ci è sembrato di un certo interesse prendere in considerazione un grand-opéra di Ernesto II di Sassonia-Coburgo-Gotha rappresentato all'Académie Impériale de Musique di Parigi nel 1855 ed intitolato Sainte-Claire. In effetti, Santa Chiara non è la protagonista del melodramma come sembra logico pensare, ma è il nome con il quale Charlotte di Wolfenbüttel, la infelice consorte dello zarevic Alexis Romanov, viene chiamata quando, secondo una leggenda, fuggì in Italia dopo la sua morte apparente nel 1715. E di conseguenza Charlotte alias Sainte Claire compare solo nel terzo ed ultimo atto dell'opera ambientato a Napoli. Per capire meglio la funzione di Santa Chiara in quest'opera è necessario esaminare più attentamente il libretto, valutare il significato politico che ebbe la rappresentazione parigina, individuare alcuni legami tra la Sainte-Claire e le vicende biografiche dell'autore, considerare la musica.

Sociological approaches to literature can be usefully adapted to medieval French drama. Theater in the Middle Ages is a preeminently social medium, more so than a literary one. Theater is often said to reflect (to ‘mirror’) the attitudes, beliefs and preoccupations of a community. But theater in the Middle Ages (like film and television today) is more than a ‘mirror’ of the values of its public; it also served to affirm, reinforce and modify those values. Its social functions are both passive (as a ‘mirror’) and active, as a ‘motor’ for change. Militant forms of medieval French drama traditionally described in the language of rhetoric and literary history (satire, polemic, literary propaganda) can be more usefully objectified by specifying the functions they performed in a given society at a particular time and place.
The traditional view of the 15th century in France: war, famine and plague; corruption and disorder in the political and ecclesiastical hierarchies; a moribund culture, a civilization in decline, a literary burial ground in which were laid to rest or toward which were declining the final enfeebled expressions or the decadent Medieval imagination. This image of the French 15th century, a battleground and graveyard separating the “Middle Ages” from the “Renaissance,” originates in the 16th century. Later elaborated and given an air of finality by Romantic and Positivist literary and cultural historiographers, this image was long pervasive in the fictions of literary-historical mythography. As a consequence, important aspects of the literary culture of the French 15th c. were inaccurately assessed and others remained largely unexplored. This was especially true of the drama.
More truly and closely than any other means of artistic expression, the drama in the 15th century reflects the aspirations, preoccupations and limitations of the society which portrays itself therein. And of all the developments in the literary culture of 15th century France, one of the most significant is the creation of an entirely new form of drama: the political morality play. An offshoot of the didactic morality play, it redefines the social function of the theater, perceived for the first time as an ideological instrument, a forum for the propagation of militant partisan religious and political doctrines.

Renewal of traditions, unbroken since Antiquity, rather than their “rebirth,” was the theme of Franco Simone’s view of the Renaissance in France (Il Rinascimento francese 1961, Eng. trans. 1969), a work that contributed decisively to the redefinition of the French 15th c. not as a period of decline and decadence, nor the end-point of the old (“medieval”) culture and the threshold of the new, but as a period of “creative syntheses” and energetic renewal.
The present study sketches a piece of the picture previously unexplored by Prof. Simone (my mentor in graduate school), the invention in the 15th c. of the political drama in France.
This history is now well established but it was not so in 1970 when Franco Simone, presiding over a colloquium at the Collège de France on L’originalité du 15e siècle, replied to a question from the eminent theater historian Raymond Lebègue regarding the conspicuous absence of the theater from any sessions at the conference: “Yes, the theater,” replied Franco Simone, “We’re not there yet.”
Well, we’re there now. Political theater, which R. Lebègue’s work had touched on, flourished in the 16th c. (and beyond) as a vehicle for the propaganda of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, but it began life in the 15th c. amidst the artistic and intellectual ferment characterizing what Franco Simone considered the hallmark of the period: recombinations and modifications of disparate elements from the traditions of antiquity and medieval Christianity in new syntheses appropriate to a new age, a Renaissance marked by intense questioning and turmoil, an age that did not simply renew and modify past tradition, but reinvented its political, religious and esthetic structures of thought and expression. Such was the case in the transformation of the medieval morality play into a vehicle of political persuasion. That reinvention took shape in a play titled Le Concil de Basle after the ecumenical Council of Basel (1431-1437). Le Concil de Basle is the earliest known example in French of the use of the theater for the propagation of partisan political and ecclesiastical doctrines. Written in 1434 by an anonymous French cleric, it combines the form and techniques of the morality play with the subject matter of the political and ecclesiological treatise. This combination, apparently simple, is unknown in medieval French drama prior to the Le Concil de Basle of 1434.
The purpose of the play was to promote partisan doctrines, those of the conciliarist reform movement in the Church and of the pro-French (anti-Angloburgundian) peace-commission of the Council. That commission was instrumental in negotiating the Paix d’Arras (1435) which ended the civil war in France (Armagnacs and Bourguignons, 1417-1435). The Paix d’Arras marked the beginning of the end of the Hundred Years War and the realization of the desire of the author for the restoration of peace. By its successful intervention in civil politics, functioning as a sort of medieval United Nations, and by the success it achieved in its struggle for administrative supremacy in the Catholic church, the Council of Basel is exemplary of the originality of the 15th century in civil and ecclesiastical politics. In implementing its radically expanded formulation of the “conciliar theses” – itself a tour de force of recombined juridical principles and precedents already existing in the traditions of civil and Canon law – the Council of Basel laid the theoretical foundations for, and achieved in practice, the first successful application on a large scale, of representative democratic constitutionalism. That approach to institutional governance effectively challenged and constrained a supreme monarchical authority, the papacy, without recourse to force of arms, for the first time in Western history. The subsequent impact and repercussions of Baslean conciliarism in secular political theory were far-reaching: to 1688, 1776, 1789 and beyond.
The present essay summarizes the major ingredients – literary, political, ecclesiological – entering into the composition of two exemplary 15th-c. “creative syntheses”: (1) the Council of Basel, less important for having deposed Eugene IV than for having negotiated the Paix d’Arras and for having furnished principles and precedents for later theoreticians of secular constitutional parliamentarianism, and (2) Le Concil de Basle, the oldest extant example of a partisan political dramatic work in French, less important for its particular subject matter than for having extended the expressive possibilities of the medieval drama. In the same way, philosophers, theologians and writers in other literary genres manifested the “originality of the 15th century” by renewal of selected aspects of tradition, and creative recombinations of elements from a thousand years of cultural heritage, remodeled in original configurations appropriate to the needs and aspirations of 15th-c. France, most notably a model for modern representative governments, within and outside the Church.

La violence dans les médias, et les effets sur les enfants (France, 16e siècle.) Divers historiens ont étudié les moyens de socialisation (endoctrinement, lavage de cerveau) par lesquels en France au 16e siècle les enfants et les adolescents, âgés souvent de 12 ans et moins, ont été amenés à participer à la violence confessionnelle des guerres de Religion depuis Vassy (1562) jusqu’au massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy (1572). En voici un écho, et une étude de cas: La farce joyeuse du maistre d’escolle, la mere et les troys escolliers” (éd. J. Beck, 1986, 2023). À Rouen, vers 1540, un mâitre d’école organise une bande de jeunes zélotes pour la défense de la foi catholique. Il leur enseigne « bonne doctrine et science » (antiluthérienne) pour les envoyer en raids de nettoyage contre les indésirables du lieu (« Je les ay envoyés sur les champs / Coriger un tas de meschans »). La morale de la pièce est clairement énoncée : la « pollution » luthérienne qui menace de détruire l’Église catholique doit être combattue activement, par tous les moyens.