THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 283 



themselves long joined in heathen scenic festivals which 

 had survived the introduction of Christianity. Thus in 

 Bohemia in the middle of the fourteenth century they 

 still took part in the heathen ritual of the Expulsion of 

 Death, accompanying the figure of Death cum rithmis et 

 ludis supersticiosis to the river, where it was drowned. 1 

 But although customs of the kind described, surviv- 

 ing through many centuries, demonstrate the strength of 

 the folk-passion for religious spectacles, and show how 

 it forced its way into the churches, neither Grimm nor 

 any of his successors have been able to point to a single 

 passage in the earliest of the mediaeval religious plays 

 which might be used to support the theory that they 

 have any formal or verbal relation to the old heathen 

 scenic festivals. It is this absence of direct relationship 

 which has led Milchsack, one of the most thorough 

 students of the mediaeval drama, to reject entirely 

 Grimm's theory. 2 There is, however, a method of recon- 

 ciling the views of Grimm and Milchsack which has 



excommunicationis. " See lii b and compare with m. vi b . The date of the 

 statute is 1374. According to Martene, De antiquis Ecdesiae Ritibus, Liber iv. 

 cap. 13. 11, the feasts of fools arose from the service being performed by 

 children on Innocents' Day. This seems hardly warranted by what we find in 

 the order issued by the Council of Basel in its twenty-first session, and printed 

 by Martene himself. It runs as follows : 



Turpem etiam ilium abusum in quibusdam frequentatum Ecclesiis, quo certis 

 anni celebritatibus, nonnulli cum mitra, baculo, ac vestibus pontificalibus, more 

 episcoporum benedicunt, alii ut Keges ac Duces induti, quod festum fatuorurn vel 

 Innocentium, seu puerorum in quibusdam regionibus nuncupatur ; alii larvales 

 ac theatrales jocos, alii choreas et tripudia marium et mulierum facientes, homines 

 ad spectacula et cachinnationes movent, alii comessatioues et convivia ibidem 

 praeparant, haec Sancta Synodus detestans, statuit et jubet (loc. cit.) 



The whole statute is of interest as showing the prevalence of heathen customs 

 the Mleili (p. 132) within the churches. 



1 See Loserth, Hus und Wiclif, p. 35, footnote 2. 



2 Milchsack, Osier- und Passionsspiele, p. 10, to be compared, however, with 

 Deutsche Mythologie, 4th ed. p. 657, etc. 



