302 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



been added to the primitive ritual in the twelfth- 

 century mystery from Tours. 1 



In this play we see at once what an advance has 

 been made on the primitive ritual, which still, for several 

 centuries, remained current in various localities in its 

 original form. The Tours Mystery was still intended to 

 be given in the church (Maria Magdalene in sinistra 

 parte ecclesiae stans), and probably during the Easter 

 morning service, 2 yet the author has raised scenic ritual 

 to religious drama. Here, albeit in the language of 

 the Church, we have many touches which have won 

 a permanent place for themselves in the great folk 

 passion-plays. Here we find the first actually authenti- 

 cated case 3 of a comic incident in the treatment of the 

 mercator the later ' medicine-man '- who boasts the 

 wondrous properties of his drugs. " Come," he cries, 

 " buy this ointment, and you will do well " : 



Quod si corpus possetis ungere, 

 non amplius posset putrescere, 

 neque vermes possent commedere. 



Another salve possessed such wondrous potency that it 

 cannot be sold for a small price : 



Hoc unguentum, si multum cupitis, 

 unum auri talentum dabitis, 

 ne aliter unquam portabitis. 



This mercator is the prototype of Magister 

 Ypocras, whose salves possess the power of bringing 



1 Drames liturgiques, E. de Coussemaker ; and G, p. 97. 



2 It concludes, like the scenic rituals, with the Te Deum. Owing to the loss of 

 the first page of the manuscript, we do not know how it commenced. 



3 The Devil in the Elevatio ritual, and the race of Peter and John to the 

 sepulchre in the Visitatio ritual, would probably be regarded by the folk as 

 humorous, but we cannot assert that they were at first actually intended to be so. 



