156 Charles Davidson — English Mystery Plays. 



me, is an additional argument for the author's resting his invention 

 upon all the recognized dramatic elements, suitable for his purpose, 

 in the liturgy. Furthermore, this view is reinforced by the fact that 

 the play did not have a fixed position in the Easter service, as it 

 would have had if developed from one only of the elements of the 

 service. Durandus says, as quoted by Milchsack :^ 



Quidam etiam f aciunt [sc. reprsesentationem] ad missam, cum dicitur seqnentia 

 ilia Victimce paschali, CTim dicitur versus Die nobis et sequentes. 



These five earliest plays, to which the one from Utrecht may be 

 added, are found in Germany .and France, and the question of 

 independent derivation from the church service, or of a common 

 source in some one earliest drama, becomes a matter of great inter- 

 est. If, as Milchsack^ believes, they spring from the New Testa- 

 ment directly, the fact that they rest upon Matthew and Mark, and 

 none of them upon Luke, distinctively argues for a single . author. 

 When we consider the many methods of possible dramatic develop- 

 ment of the common material, and note the evident agreement, it 

 seems difiicult to dispute Milchsack's conclusion^ that they sprang 

 from one form, the work of one author. These remains are not of 

 the same date. There is no lack of time within which the inmates 

 of one cloister, proud of its author and play, could carry the drama 

 in memory or in MS. in their visits to even distant cloisters. There 

 is, apparently, no valid objection to the theory, however reasonable 

 an independent development may seem to us. 



VII. 



THE DEVELOPED RESURRECTION PLAY. 



For comparison with the above plays we will take two plays of 

 Milchsack's fourth group.* Evidences that the redactor used Luke 

 are present in these plays, which are the most elaborate of the Latin 

 liturgical plays of the resurrection. This group contains, according 

 to Milchsack's classification, twelve plays. We will compare one of 

 Germany found in a MS. of the thirteenth century, at Einsiedeln — 

 the entire text is accompanied by music notes^ — and one of France 

 found in the Orleans MS. of the thirteenth century." 



1 Milchsack, p. 86. 2 Milchsack, p. 34. 3 Milchsack, p. 34. 



4 Milchsack, p. 64. 6 Mone, vol. 1, pp. 15-19. 6 Wright, pp. 32-36. 



