310 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



of wild confusion arose round the sepulchre, which 

 Ulenspiegel noting 



removed himself opportunely, and ran out of the church and from 

 the village, and came not again that way. God show them where 

 to find another sacristan ! 



The above narrative putting on one side its farcical 

 termination is instructive. It shows us the general 

 arrangements and the character of the persons employed 

 in rural districts. We note that the time is the night 

 following Easter Eve, and thus the play was not invari- 

 ably given at Easter Matins, as supposed by Milchsack. 

 The angel is winged, 1 and the deity no longer represented 

 by a symbol, e.g. the cross. The parson, who carries a 

 banner the resurrection -banner with a cross on it 

 now acts the part of Christ. The gradual growth from 

 cross to banner and then to banner-bearer appears clear, 

 and this fossil, the cross-banner, remains not only in the 

 greater passion-plays, but in woodcuts and pictures. 2 



From the thirteenth to the fourteenth centuries we 

 find that the plays, although still acted in the churches, 3 



1 The angels in the Narbonne ritual (Martene, loc. tit. Liber iv. cap. 25. 

 9) are "induti albis et amictibus cum stolis violatis et sindone rubea in facies 

 eorum et alis in humeris." 



2 See for example both the larger and smaller woodcut passions of Albrecht 

 Diirer. This banner occurs not only in the resurrection, but also in the descent 

 into hell. It appears very early ; thus we find it in the descent into hell 

 in the Antiphonary of St. Peter's at Salzburg (1092 - 1120). In the Codex 

 Ottoburanensis (circa 1200) Christ is seen prodding the devil-dragon with the 

 end of the banner stock. Three centuries later, in the famous Cranach altar- 

 piece at Weimar, we find Christ trampling on Death and Devil, and thrusting 

 them down with the resurrection-banner. 



3 In 1303 Robert de Brunne translated an Anglo-French poem written about 

 1250, the Manuel de Pecht. We find therein the lines : 



He may yn the cherche, thrugh thys resun, 

 Pley the resurreccyun, 



which shows that the plays were then usually performed in church. 



