The English Moral Plays 367 
the Reformation. Similar plays were produced by other reformers 
in Germany, Holland, and England." 
These Neo-Latin plays from Holland and Germany were known 
to Englishmen, and some of the most important were put into 
English. Bale translated the Pammachius, and the play in some 
version was produced at Cambridge.? Palsgrave translated the 
Acolastus in 1540, and other translators and imitators, among them 
John Foxe, followed. The English never used the dialogue as 
freely as did the Germans, but all the evidence indicates that they 
handled the allegorical drama with vigor and freedom in the re- 
ligious and political turmoil of the Tudor reigns. 
These controversial religious plays in England kept in the main 
within the bounds of the old morality type. The medieval mind 
recognized no innate disparity between the allegorical and the real ; 
medieval literature and art placed both in conjunction.t Hence the 
historical characters of the Reformation could easily be introduced 
side by side with abstractions, and the actual events of the struggle 
mingled with the imaginary episodes of the moral conflict. We 
have already seen how one play, The Three Laws, held pretty 
close to the old model, and how another by Bale, King ohn, marked 
a decided advance toward historical tragedy; the story of the 
development may here be continued. 
The title of Woodes’ long and tedious play, The Conflict of Con- 
science, reminds the reader that the original mof#f of our morality 
was not altogether forgotten when it was diverted from ethical in- 
struction into the swirl of doctrinal controversy. The scene is laid 
in England just after the restoration of Catholicism, and Hypocrisy, 
Avarice, and Tyranny are out in search of reformers. They meet 
a clergyman with a Scottish dialect extremely suggestive of the 
schismatic; but he readily proves his orthodoxy by a dense igno- 
rance, a contempt for the Testament, and a thorough familiarity 
with The Golden Legend. He informs, however, against a neighbor, 
Philologus, who is forthwith haled for trial before the Cardinal. 
There he states his reasons for doubting the primacy of Peter and 
the whole theory of Apostolic succession, and questions the Cardinal’s 
authority for the doctrine of the real presence, Hoc est corpus meum, 
with a Puritan’s readiness in disputation: 

1 Herford, 119-29. Creizenach handles the Latin drama (2. 1—181). 
There are monographs by Cloetta and Bahlmann. 
2 Herford, 129-32. See below. 
8 Herford, Chap. 3.  Schnaase, 1. 1. 96-97. 
