THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 281 



places for dance, festival, and dramatic representation. 

 From this standpoint Jakob Grimm has accounted for 

 the existence of the religious drama by supposing that 

 the primitive heathen delight of the German folk in 

 semi-dramatic festival forced its way into the churches, 

 and that the old sacrificial gatherings, the May festivals, 

 the summer and winter myth plays, etc., must be looked 

 to as the real origin of the German drama. 1 It will be 

 well to consider the evidence in favour of this view 

 at some length, for it lets in a flood of light upon the 

 relation between primitive Teutonic Christianity and the 

 folk among whom it was afterwards to develop. 



That the old heathen religion was an essentially 

 dramatic one can scarcely be doubted ; we have proof 

 enough not only in written statements, but in a vast 

 number of dramatic folk -customs of heathen origin. 2 

 We find many cases in which heathen customs were 

 introduced into Christian churches. The German warriors 

 did not hesitate to sing in their new gathering-places 

 ancient war-songs in honour of their new hero Christ, 

 choruses of girls and youths chanted love-glees in the 

 same sacred places, 3 while later both monks and nuns 

 indulged in dances and masquerades directly connected 



1 Kleiner e Schriften, Bd. v. p. 281. 



2 See Deutsche Mythologie, 4th ed. pp. 35, 52, 214, 637, etc., and Wackernagel, 

 Gescliichte der deutschen Literatur, 22. 



3 See Wackernagel, loc. cit., and compare with Miillenhoff und Scherer, 

 Denkmdler deutscher Poesie und Prusa, 2nd ed. p. 363. The custom of dancing 

 in the churches survived in some places till the second half of the sixteenth and, 

 perhaps, into the seventeenth centuries : see Hartmann, Weihnacht-Lied u. Spiel, 

 pp. 44, 45. In a play published by Marriott in his Collection of English Mysteries 

 and dealing with the Massacre of the Innocents, we actually find in the poet's 

 epilogue an appeal to the minstrels to use their diligence and " A fore our depertyng 

 geve its a daunce " (p. 219). Possibly the reference to the virgins in the prologue 

 (p. 200), who are to "shewe sume sport and plesure," has some bearing on this. 



