THE GROWTH OF THE PASSION-PLAY 311 



were more and more popularised owing to the changes 

 we have indicated in the nature of the dialogue and 

 the character of the participating personnel. The folk- 

 passion for theatrical representation had reasserted itself 

 in religion, even in the most sacred sphere of Church 

 ritual. The very instrument designed by the Church to 

 destroy the delight of the people in heathen spectacular 

 festivals was taken by the people into their own hands, 

 and used to supply a want which, although it arises 

 from the same emotions as produce popular religions, is 

 none the less scarcely ecclesiastical. The most striking 

 sign of this folk-influence was the growing use of the 

 vernacular. The Latin verses, sung or chanted, were 

 immediately followed by German translations (or often 

 amplifications) for the benefit of the unlettered. The 

 end of the thirteenth century and the fourteenth century 

 present us with extraordinary medleys ; portions of the 

 old scenic ritual, the noblest hymns of the Church, and 

 dramatised words of Scripture, were curiously inter- 

 mingled with the homeliest of folk-phrases and folk- 

 ideas. 1 



At such a period of transition a new factor of growth 

 seems to have come directly or indirectly into action. 



1 See L, vol. ii. pp. 272 et seq. Also the St. Gallen passion-play (B, vol. ii. 

 p. 72), wherein the actors first sing in Latin and then speak in German ; the 

 Maria Himmelfahrt and the Auferstehung Christi (A, particularly pp. 139 et seq.} ; 

 and even later in the Erlauerspiele (iii. and iv. of I). The Play of the Foolish 

 Virgins (see 0), composed about 1300, is peculiarly such a medley. The stage- 

 directions are all in Latin ; Latin responses, antiphones, and hymns, and slightly 

 altered Vulgate verses are frequent, but the body of the play is in a crude and 

 lame Thiiringian dialect. The customary Latin hymns and verses of the Easter 

 ritual, followed by German adaptations and expansions, occur in the Easter-play 

 printed by Schonemann (M, p. 149), etc. Precisely the same mixture of Latin 

 and vernacular occurs in the Bohemian plays from about 1400 (see U, pp. 26 

 etseq.) 



