166 Charles Davidson — English Mystery Plays. 



to three days, but was often prolonged by the people to seven/ On 

 these days presents were sent to friends, the children held holiday, 

 and slaves had the privileges of freemen. 



The Roman church established the Nativity upon the Saturnalia, 

 and within the following week the Feast of St. Stephen, Holy Inno- 

 cents' Day, and Sunday within the Octave or the first Adv^ent Sun- 

 day, which answered to the Roman-heathen New Year, accepting 

 from the Eastern church the feast of the sixth of January for the 

 Adoration by the Magi. This made the whole time from Christmas 

 day until the Octave of Epiphany, the seventh day after the sixth 

 of January, a festival season. That in the minds of the people the 

 pagan tradition was unbroken is proved by the charge of the Mani- 

 chean Faustus^ that the Christians celebrated the solstitia with the 

 pagans, and by the complaint of Leo the Great that the Christians 

 still paid obeisance from some lofty eminence to the rising sun. 



These festivals passed directly into the church of France — which 

 may, however, have received the feast of Epiphany from the Greeks 

 — but the church of Germany was much slower in adopting them.^ 

 Advent was not given among the holy times by the synod of Mainz 

 in 813 A. D.,* and it seems certain that it was not generally recognized 

 as a church festival until late in the ninth century. 



As a result of this later adoption of the religious festivities by the 

 church of Germany, we find an original difference of custom in the 

 French and German churches regarding Christmas, instead of that 

 striking similarity exhibited by the Resurrection plays. With both 

 the plays sprang from the same source, the church ritual, but they 

 held from the first a different relation to the church festival days, 

 and received at an early date the stamp of the national life and 

 customs. 



France, like Italy, probably enjoyed from the first an uninterrupted 

 succession oi the Roman comedy as performed by jugglers, mimes, and 

 comic actors.^ The pagan festivities of the Saturnalia were, it would 



1 Neander, vol. 3, p. 419. 



2 Neander, vol. 3, p. 420, quotes Augustine 1. 20, c. Faustus. 



3 Neander, vol. 3, p. 420, quotes Leo, p, 26, c. 4. 



4 Weinhold, p. 44. 



5 a. It is said that Louis le Debonnaire (778-840) never laughed when thymelici, surrae, 

 mimi, came forward to amuse the people at festivals.— Hase, 210. 



b. Thomas Aquinas, Surama ii, 2, qu. 168, art. 3, as referred to by Hase, expounds the 

 ofiBce of a player as being serviceable for the enlivenment of men, and as not blame- 

 worthy if the players lead an upright life. 



c. Sed forte perconteris : fuerunt-ne Soeculis barbaricis inter publicos Ludos Tragoe- 

 dlas, aut saltern Comoediaj? Equidem in remotis Sasculis nullum apertum hujusce rei 

 vestigium hactenus offendi. Post Sajculum vero a Christo nato Undecimum aliquid 



