Most remarkable of all is the history of the drama in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. The drama was clerical and not popular in its
origin, and when, in course of time, it passed out of the hands of the
clergy it is natural to suppose that it would find a new home at the
King's court or the baron's castle. It did nothing of the kind. It
passed from the Church to the people, and it was the artisan craftsmen of
the English towns, organised in their trade-guilds, to whom we owe the
great cycles of our miracle plays. The authors of these plays were
restricted to Bible story for their themes, but the popular character of
their work is everywhere apparent in the manner in which the material is
handled and the characters conceived. The Noah of the Deluge plays is an
English master joiner with a shrewish wife, and three sons who are his
apprentices. When the divine command to build an ark comes to him, he
sets to work with an energy that drives away "the weariness of five
hundred winters" and, "ligging on his line," measures his planks,
"clenches them with noble new nails", and takes a craftsman's delight in
the finished work:
This work I warant both good and true.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33