Notes on Medieval England

1400s-1500s
o Catholicism prevalent religion
o Cycle plays
Church Sponsored
Christ teachings/ lives of the saints
Enacted events like Palm Sunday
Performed 60 days after Easter
Scriptural history
Creation
Old Testament (Noah, Abraham and Isaac
New Testament(Annunciation, Herod and the Slaughter of the
Innocents)
o Guilds sponsored plays
Trained performers
Anachronism
Teaching the story and telling it through modern eyes
o Implied biblical history part of their own modern history
Morality Drama
Similar to Cycle plays- difference is use of symbolic allegory (a
story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a
hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.)
Examples The Castle of Perseverance (1425) Mankind
(1470) and Everyman (1500
Emphasized struggle with sin vs Cycle plays emphasized
history of Christianity
Both models nspired later playwrights
Cycles for staging
Moralities for psychological and moral conflict
o Pageant Wagons
Design symbolic
Utilized actual city streets, town, and audience interactions
o Inspired Reneissance Drama
Treats secular history in a design similar to the cycles
Treats characters in the symbolic (morality)
Uses/utilizes acting and sage space to create sense of immediacy
between actor and audience

o Renaissance London
2 most important dates
1567 when Red Lion was built by John Brayne
1642 plays and theatres closed/suspended due to civil war
outbreak
 Theatre mirror to society and politics (changes it went through
direct result of changes in the above)
o 1535- England became Protestant due to Henry VIII
Many other reasons (Class changes, religious issues, etc) but
crown extra alert on civil dissobediance (like theatre- Japan)
Censored plays
o 1572 Act for the punishment of vagabonds
Players couldnt go town to town, had to have noble patrons=
established professional companies housed in city
Companies owned by nobility
o The Stage: Different styles, seating reflected class/income
Public: Outdoor, used for other things (like Agora or Amphitheatre)
accommodated large audience
Private: Indoor, used only for theatre, kept small for elite audience
Public theatres diminished as companies focused on private
theaters cause of $$(1620s-1630s)
o Effect of theatre space
More plays could happen which means more plays could be written
Drama/Performance
o Roman plays and some greek found, taught in schools
Provided people like Shakespeare ideas (mistaken identity,
separated lovers, irreconcilable fathers, etc) come from this
o Plays tend to have many characters and points of focus vs Roman
o Used structure (poetry vs prose) to emphasize things
Women
o As usual, omitted from stage
o Boys played these parts
o Roles were very prominent, which brought focus onto women, but being
played by boys = heightened focus on gender (Shakespeare has many
women cross dress)
o Absence on stage sign of absence from society