286 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



the Magi not to return to Herod, and other events of the birth of 

 Christ. But what nowadays happens in many churches 1 Not a 

 customary ritual, not an act of reverence, but one of irreligion and 

 extravagance conducted with all the license of youth. The priests 

 having changed their clothes go forth as a troop of warriors ; there 

 is no distinction between priest and warrior to be marked. At an 

 unfitting gathering of priests and laymen the church is desecrated 

 by feasting and drinking, buffoonery, unbecoming jokes, play, the 

 clang of weapons, the presence of shameless wenches, the vanities of 

 the world, and all sorts of disorder. Earely does such a gathering 

 break up without quarrelling. 1 



This passage from Herrad's Hortus is a peculiarly 

 instructive one ; it not only shows us what in the 

 twelfth century was supposed to be the reason for the 

 dramatic ritual, its aim was to attract unbelievers but 

 it proves that even at that early date the plays, though 

 still acted in the churches, had advanced beyond the 

 customary ritual, and had attained to a considerable 

 fulness in dramatic details. What appears of still 

 greater interest, however, is the evidence, which Herrad's 

 words afford, that the heathen festivities, which in still 

 earlier days had been associated with the churches and 

 caused grave scandal to the higher ecclesiastics, were in 

 the twelfth century again manifest in connection with 

 the religious dramas acted inside the churches. The 

 views of the abbess of Hohenburg are fully confirmed 

 by a contemporary monk, Gerloh von Beichersberg, 

 (1095-1169), who was head of the chapter-school in 

 Augsburg, magister scholarum et doctor juvenum. He 

 writes with the greatest disapproval of the plays of 

 King Herod. 2 Thus we see that the first factor in the 



1 Engelhardt, loc. cit. p. 104. 

 2 Cited in Hartmann, Oberammergauer Passionsspiel, p. 98. 



