THE STAGE OF THE PASSION-PLAY 325 



being hanged. The three crosses are frequently, and 

 stocks for the two thieves 1 occasionally, mentioned; the 

 scourging pillar and a table for the banquets are also 

 among the usual stage-accessories. 



Of the heavenly bodies sun and moon are referred 

 to, but we are not told how they set at the crucifixion. 2 

 The ' Star in the East,' however, one of the most 

 interesting of mediaeval religious symbols is a very 

 important stage -accessory. The Stella aurea always 

 precedes the Magi ; sometimes it is carried by one of 

 their servants, sometimes by an angel, sometimes by 

 Herod's chief captain, while not infrequently there is a 

 special actor termed the Stellafer or Sterntrdger. 3 The 

 star itself may be either a great painted mass of red and 

 gold, and even blue, or it may be embroidered on a 

 banner. In the pictures of the Hungarian peasant 

 Christmas-plays given by Flogel (loc. cit.) the star is of 

 the former kind, and the Stellafer, dressed in a blue 

 blouse and top boots, is able to flash the star about by 

 means of a gigantic pair of lazy-tongs. The mediaeval 

 importance of the Star in the East arose from its associa- 

 tion with the woman who, in the Book of Revelations 

 (chap, xii.), is mentioned as having the moon under her 

 feet. The Catholic Church has always interpreted this 



1 B, vol. ii. pp. 156, 184. 2 C, p. 199 ; B, vol. ii. p. 324. 



3 See I, p. 18. A wood-cut of the Fasciculus Temporum (Coin, 1480) also 

 represents the star as carried by a servant of the Three Kings. It is an angel in 

 K, p. 23. The Limoges ritual (Martene, loc. cit. Liber iv. cap. 14. 12) has a 

 stellam pendentem in filo. In Silesia the lads at Christmas still go about in 

 gold-paper crowns, with a great star carried on a pole (Q, p. 127), and the same 

 custom exists in Upper Bavaria, e.g. Oberammergau (see R, pp. 51, 59, 109). 

 The English clergy at the Council of Constance in 1417 gave a Nativity-play with 

 a great gold star suspended from a fine iron wire. Interesting information as to 

 the costumes and accessories of eighteenth-century Magi-plays will be found in 

 Flogel : Geschichte der Grotesk-Komischen, p. 246. 



