The English Moral Plays 395 
Obviously such processional features and such extensive ward- 
robes would be beyond the means of small-sized troupes entirely 
dependent upon the generosity of the playgoing public. But there 
would be no occasion for such elaborate staging as the plays lost 
their purely allegorical and homiletic content, and approached re- 
alism. A gorgeously colored feather gave Vanity in Liberality and 
Prodigality a feeling of assurance that he could be recognized at 
a glance. Pride appeared in Nature with a doublet “ on-laced be- 
fore,” a satin stomacher, and a short gown with wide sleeves, wear- 
ing his hair “half a wote” below the ears.t| Such humanized per- 
sonifications might best appear in the simple costumes of real life. 
So also a bit of costume for the controversial plays would suffice 
to differentiate Popish priest from Genevan doctor. But beyond 
these simple stage-effects the professional actor would not have to 
go in an age that tended to the representation of real life. Thus 
the limited resources that hampered the stage, manager furthered 
the advance of realism at the expense of allegory, just as the ne- 
cessity for abridgment resulted usually in the sacrifice of the “sad 
matter” and the retention of the comedy. In every respect, there- 
fore, the then existing condition of the theatrical art rendered in- 
evitable the secularization of the moral plays. 
As a final instance of the changed character and purpose of the 
late moral play, consider the historical development on the stage 
of the Devil and the Vice. That the dramatic conception of the 
Devil had its origin in theological literature, rather than in popular 
tradition, there can be no doubt. Clergy and laity alike had an 
unshaken confidence in the continued activity in the world of the 
demoniacal being who sought Job’s ruin, and assailed even Christ 
himself. In the miracle-plays, therefore, he appeared wherever the 
story demanded his presence—on the pageants, for example, represent- 
ing the fall of Lucifer, the temptation of Eve, and Doomsday. In 
the moralities he stood for the source of all evil, man’s great enemy, 
as God was his great friend. Thus the Devil appears at the end 
of The Pride of Life to carry the King’s soul to hell; and in The 

Self-love a Cassocke of rede satten of breges 
Skarsitie a womans Cassocke of Russett & satten of Breges 
The bad angell iij yardes of Kersey and winges for the good angell 
and the bad, iij thromd hattes and tenn dosson of Counters and 
what youe shall lake for the furniture hereof To provide and see them 
furnished. Respublica, Xv. 
- Of. 
