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Christian educators, writers, communicators, and performers can learn valuable positive and negative lessons from medieval, storytelling history. During the Middle Ages religious stories were told primarily through plays. These productions portrayed Bible stories or conveyed church doctrine. The language of the Bible and of the church was Latin, not the common vernacular of the people. Thus, the people were dependent on the priests to teach them the Bible and church doctrine. Drama became an instructional tool in the hands of priests and choirboys to teach biblical stories and lessons of the church. Passion plays depicting the life of Christ were produced in chancels, which were at the front of the churches. Plays depicting the lives of saints were produced in naves, which were in the main interior of churches, closer to audiences. Then cycle plays were performed on outdoor stages at the entrances of churches for viewing by outside audiences. (Carlson 1990:118)
The typical stage upon which these plays were performed was a plain wooden platform. At one end were the pearly gates of Heaven and at the other were the flaming jaws of Hell. (Brockett 1996:91) At the conclusion of the play the good characters went into the gates of Heaven and the bad characters went into the gates of Hell. In time this stage was put on wheels to be made moveable. Thus, the first pageants and pageant wagons were created. The word pageant meant rolling platform. Guilds produced cycle pageant plays. In the hands of laymen, however, imaginative material was added. For example, Noah had great difficulty persuading his wife to come along in the cycle version of the story of Noah. Having put her aboard the ark, he came forward to urge the men in the audience to take their wives in hand early in their married life. Noah’s wife came forward, as well, to warn the ladies that if they were wise, they would not marry at all. The plays on pageant wagons drew great crowds. In some cases innkeepers saw this as a chance for business. Actors with these pageant wagons were probably enticed with food, drink, and lodging, if they would perform their plays in the courtyards of inns. However, the audiences in these environments would have been primarily interested in entertainment and in hilarity. Earlier audiences, who had come to the entrances of churches to see religious plays, came more out of reverence, worship, and desire to learn biblical truths. The audiences of plays on pageant wagons were often more entertained by the characters who went into the flaming gates of Hell than those who were righteous and went to Heaven. The players, who had freedom with changing and improvising their lines, began to accommodate to the entertainment interests of audiences. There was a gradual downward spiral in the presentation of great biblical characters, from models for religious education to performances of these characters as buffoons for amusement. Drama in the Middle Ages degenerated from an educational tool of the church to more of a vehicle for merriment. An historic pattern seems to have been repeated. Greek drama had declined from religious plays with great universal themes to amusing productions with more domestic, crude, situational comedy. Similarly, the religious drama of the Middle Ages declined to more coarse entertainment. The emphasis on theatre productions as forms of religious worship, teaching, and inspiration shifted to an emphasis on dramatic performance for entertainment and amusement. The Dark Ages were not totally dark, however, in storytelling history.
Simple, aesthetic performances were common in the forms of mime, improvisations, and
storytelling accompanied by music. Bible stories were recounted through drama. However,
aesthetic deterioration was facilitated, when performances were given in environments
where rowdy, sometimes drunken audiences reinforced coarse, comic elements.
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