340 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters . 
jecture. From the Officium Stellce we have the additional in¬ 
formation that the Crib was sometimes erected at the door of 
the monastery. 1 The Rouen texts of this office seem to indi¬ 
cate that the Prwsepe was placed upon the altar, or was per¬ 
haps, the altar itself. The statuette of the Mother and Child 
seems to have been set upon the altar-table and surrounded by 
a curtain that was opened at the suitable dramatic moment. 2 
The Ordo Bachelis and the Benedictbeuern Christmas play pro¬ 
vide only the most meagre details. The Crib of the latter 
play contained a figure of the Child, 3 and that of the Ordo 
Bachelis from Freising may have been large enough to receive 
actors impersonating the holy family. 4 
For the origin of the Prwsepe as we find it employed in 
these liturgical plays, we turn, naturally, to the tradition of 
the Crib of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome. Down to the 
eleventh century, when we first encounter the .use of the 
Prwsepe in drama, no other source is at hand, except the re¬ 
stricted inventiveness of the liturgists themselves. The con¬ 
stant association of the dramatic Prcesepe with the church 
altar seems to link the mediaval mise en scene to the holy 
relics at Rome. 
On the other hand, however, neither the Roman tradition 
nor the dramatic practice would account satisfactorily for the 
amazing popularity of the Crib during the later middle ages ? 
in both public and private worship. This later and still flour¬ 
ishing cult of the Holy Manger received its chief impetus 
from an ecstatic episode in the life of St. Francis of Assisi. 
Although numerous writers have been misled into assigning to 
1 Prwsepe quod ad jauuas monasterii paratum erit, Orleans, MS. 
201 (olim 178), Du Meril, p. 163. 
2 Magi ... ad yrtiaginem Sancte Marie super Altare Crucis 
prius positam cantantes pergant . . . duo dalmaticati aperientes 
cor,tinam dicant: Ecce puer, Rouen, MS. 384 (Y. 110), Gaste, pp. 
49-52; Duo de maiori sede dalmaticis induti in utraque parte altaris 
stantes . . . operientes cortinam dicant: Ecce puer, Paris, Bibl. 
Nat., MS. lat. 904, Coussemaker, p. 244. 
* Adorent Puerum, Munich, Staatsbibl., Cod. lat. 4660, Du Mdril, p. 
204. 
4 Angelus. super presepe apparens, moneat Joseph fugere in Aegyp - 
turn cum Maria , Orleans, MS. 201 (olim 178), Du Meril, p. 176. 
