THE UNITY OF THE PASSION-PLA Y 263 



brought and bound over Christ's eyes, and then we 

 read : 



1st Tortor. Who smote the last ? 



2nd Tortor. Was it I ? 



3rd Tortor. He wote not I traw. 



Even in the recent Brixlegg play a game at Blindesel 

 was introduced. 



Lastly, we may notice the symbolic method of mark- 

 ing the agony endured in the crowning with thorns. The 

 crown being put on Christ's brow, is then pressed down 

 by means of two or three long stakes placed across the 

 head, upon the ends of which several ruffians throw 

 their weight, or push with all their power. The oldest 

 representation of this torture I have met with occurs 

 on a fourteenth-century wood panel from Landshut in 

 the National Museum at Munich (Saal III. 96). There 

 is another early one (c. 1400) in a typical Leben Jesu 

 from Meister Wilhelm's school at Cologne (No. 96 ; see 

 also No. 53). Then we have the sketch by the Elder 

 Holbein for the picture of the Paul's Basilica in the 

 Augsburg Gallery. A picture by the Elder Cranach at 

 Munich (Pinakothek, No. 749) deals with the same idea, 

 among several other scenes almost unequalled from the 

 passion-play standpoint. In woodcuts we have the 

 stakes' incident given with brutal force in the Schatz- 

 behalter (Fig. 72), in Diirer's Kleine Passion (Cut 18), 

 in Lukas Cranach's Passion (Cut 7), and his Passion 

 Christi und Antichristi (Cut 3), not to cite innumer- 

 able other instances. In such representations, we see 

 the very grouping and action which occurred in the 

 Brixlegg passion-play, and in most mediaeval plays 



