264 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



also. 1 But even in less legendary scenes from the 

 passion, such as the scourging, the nailing to the 

 cross, the burial, the descent into hell, and the resurrec- 

 tion, 2 we find the same close relation between the 

 graphic and dramatic representations. Indeed, in 

 my experience, the very best guide to a great German 

 mediaeval cathedral or museum is the text of a fully 

 developed passion-play, like the Egerer Fronleicli- 

 namsspiel. 



Having indicated the sympathy between playwright 

 and artist, we may turn to another point in which they 

 combine to illustrate the mediaeval spirit. We have 

 already noted that to the mediaeval mind all history was 

 a unity, a continuous drama, the chief movements in 

 which were the Fall of Man and the Atonement. Thus 

 every event which preceded the birth of Christ was 

 held to have some more or less direct bearing on the 

 incidents which follow that centre-point of the world- 

 drama. In this spirit every occurrence in the Old Testa- 

 ment was treated as ' prefiguring ' some incident in 

 Christ's life, or as foreshadowing some future event in 



1 See E, p. 220 ; F, pp. 201, 202 ; and B, ii. p. 300, etc. 



2 The illustrations of the resurrection are of peculiar interest, as in their 

 earlier form they throw much light on the church ritual of the Visitatio 

 Sepulchri. Compare the numerous examples in Hefner Alteneck's Trachten des 

 Mittelalters. Or, to take out of a sister art one of many instances, we may 

 mention the ten sculptures on the tympanum of the western door in the tower 

 of Higham Ferrers Church. Especially interesting is in this case the visit of 

 the three Maries to the sepulchre a coffin on an Early English trefoil arcade, 

 beneath which are the four watchers ; an angel is seated to the left. The very 

 priestly aspect of the three Maries not unnatural in the case of the church 

 ritual has lead to an amusing error in Parker's Architectural Notices of the 

 Archdeaconry of Northampton, 1849, where there is a woodcut of this sculpture 

 entitled 'Disciples at the Tomb.' The Higham Ferrers representation really 

 gives as good a notion of the Easter Visitatio Sepulchri as the miniature repro- 

 duced by Mone, B, i. p. 8. 



