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Medieval Drama459
 
 

Medieval Drama

 

The history of German drama proper, as an increasingly more sophisticated form of poetic expression, does not begin until the seventeenth century. However, a considerable amount of ‘drama’ is found in the later Middle Ages, both in the form of religious performances («geistliches Drama») and secular celebrations («weltliches Drama»). These two forms of medieval German drama developed alongside each other.     During the Christian era, the echoes of the old fertility rites continued to live on in the pre-Lenten activities (carnival) in the Latin countries and in the «Fastnacht» of the urban centers of late medieval Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. To this day—in Cologne, Munich, Mainz, and Basel—they are as lively as ever. The glorious anticipation of the coming spring manifests itself in dances, rituals, and unrestrained parades in which colorful and grotesque masks have always dominated. As soon as the rites became more articulate, the shrovetide plays, or «Fastnachtspiele», made their appearance. Originally, they consisted of rhymed characterizations of particular masks or figures (ridiculing a certain type or profession); later, they used literary anecdotes or hardened into political satires determined by the conflicts of the time (anti-Turkish or anti-Catholic skits). It was true popular entertainment in its origins as well as in audience participation, and although literary materials were used at times, the mode of presentation always remained crude, if not vulgar, and delighted in the physiological and scatological aspects of human life. Drunkards, gluttons, shrews, and betrayed husbands recur with a certain monotony and predictability. There is little plot; instead, a revue-like structure of repetitive motifs is preferred.     Surviving as an element within literary comedy, the shrovetide plays were rediscovered by the generation of the «Sturm und Drang» and transmitted to the Romantics who employed them as formal possibilities for their literary satires. In the early twentieth century, the German youth movement opposed what it termed the middle-class ossification of the contemporary theater, resuscitated the popular and ‘realistic’ qualities of the shrovetide plays once again, and staged the old texts with a great deal of artless enthusiasm. The developing «Laienspielgruppen» who stressed the collective participation of untrained actors in homespun performances carried the heritage of the «Fastnachtspiel» into the youth groups of both the radical Left and the Right. Brecht’s «Lehrstücke» may owe as much to these impulses as do the «Spielscharen» of the Hitler Youth.     The «geistliche Drama», originated more or less in the antiphonal tropes (interpolations of a passage or phrase into the service of the mass) of the Easter liturgy, known as the "Quem quaeritis"-trope1 and is illustrated below by the excerpts from the Osterspiel von Muri. The Easter plays («Osterspiele») were originally short scenes at the sepulcher of Christ and were presented before the main altar or in a side chapel. The dialogue was in Latin and the play’s chief interest for the lay audience probably lay in their music. Later the Easter plays were gradually expanded so that they took in not only the Nativity («Weihnachtsspiel», «Dreikönigsspiel»), the Passion of the Lord, and the Resurrection but often the entire life of Christ and events from the Old Testament which prefigured it. Comic scenes were also introduced, of which the best known are the «Salbenkrämer» (‘ointment merchant’), or «Quacksalber» (‘quack’) scene, 460 Medieval Drama: Osterspiel von Muri   in which the selling of the ointment to the three Marys is accompanied by slapstick comedy, and the boasting of the soldiers who guard the sepulcher. Only men were permitted to participate as actors. Before their full development and probably as a result or their increasingly profane character, the plays were moved outside the church, since it was important for those who produced the plays that they be presented to a large audience.     The Passion plays consist of a series of scenes whose unity is provided by the Christian doctrine they illustrate and which are best understood when interpreted allegorically. They were often called cycles and the best known are the Alsfelder (c.1500), the Donaueschingen (c.1500), the Luzern (c.1476), and the Frankfurt (1493). It should be remembered that the growth of these plays was a long process of additions and modifications. None of these plays has survived due to the secularizing influence of Humanism. However, they were resuscitated to a degree during the Baroque period, especially in the Catholic southern regions, and passion plays of Obermmergau, Erl, and Selzach near Solothurn are still performed today. There are also shorter plays on one theme, such as the Spiel von den klugen und törichten Jungfrauen (1322), the only play in which the intervention of the Virgin does not save a sinner, and the play of Theophilus about a priest who sold his soul to the Devil but repented and was saved by the Virgin.

 

ostersp.
Osterspiel von Muri

Medieval Drama: Osterspiel von Muri 461

 

 
 
 

Osterspiel von Muri

(c.1250)

The Osterspiel von Muri (c.1250) represents the oldest religious play written entirely in German. The play was discovered at the monastery of Muri³ in Switzerland in 1840, hidden between the wooden covers of a bible, hence its Alemannic characteristics.⁴ Unfortunately, both the beginning and the end are missing. The work still echoes the style and imagery of the courtly epic; it employs realistic devices, for instance the replacement of the chorus of women and the chorus of angels by individuals, Maria Magdalena and ‘die andere‘ Maria, resp. ‘Der’ Engel. The selection excerpted below clearly illustrates its provenience: the Easter trope, Quem quaeritis, which probably was originally intoned by two choirs.
 

(V)

Maria Magdalena:⁵
Lieber Krämer, / hast du etwa leere Büchsen, / dann gib uns Salböl hinein / und frische Spezereien⁶
(100) von einem Pfund Gewicht, / reichlich und nicht weniger! / Wir wollen sie dir gut bezahlen.

Der Krämer:
Die drei Büchsen, die sind gefüllt / (das sage ich bei meiner Treu’)⁷
(105) mit der frischen Salbe da. / Wenn ihr sie kaufen wollt, / so will ich, daß ihr zahlt / dafür als Preis / mir zwanzig Schillinge.
(110) Ich lasse davon kein Stück nach.

Maria Magdalena:
Wir wollen deinen Preis nicht mindern: / nimm hin die ganzen Pfennige / und gib uns her die Büchsen! / Wir müssen weiterkommen.

 

462 Medieval Drama: Osterspiel von Muri

Medieval Drama: Osterspiel von Muri 463

 

Der Krämer:
(115) Ihr Frauen, ich will euch beschenken: / ich will damit zufrieden sein, / doch ich habe es nicht dafür bekommen.

Maria Magdalena:
O weh, jetzt naht uns Sorge / heute an diesem frühen Morgen!

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(120) wie wir allein (den Stein) abheben sollen /—wir sind ja zu schwach—, / der auf dem Grabe liegt, / er ist schwer und groß: / wie soll er von der Stelle gebracht werden?
(125) Denn von keinem Menschen / will uns Hilfe kommen.

Eine andere Maria:
Gott wird uns zu Hilfe kommen; / im Vertrauen darauf wollen wir gehen []
 

(VI)

Maria Magdalena:

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und sind so schwach unsere Kräfte, / daß ich mich sehr fürchte. / Doch müssen wir deiner Weisung / folgen und dürfen nicht verzagen.
(5) Habe ich doch stets sagen gehört, / wer immer sich auf Gottes Huld verläßt, / daß der ein sanftes Leben hat.

Der Engel:
Ihr guten Frauen, wen suchet ihr / (das sollt ihr mir sagen)⁸
(10) so früh an diesem Grabe / mit solchen Klagen? / Geht weiter und verzaget nicht, / denn durch mich geschieht euch nichts: / euere Bitte soll erfüllt werden.

 

464 Medieval Drama: Osterspiel von Muri

Medieval Drama: Osterspiel von Muri 465

 

Maria Magdalena:
(15) Jesus von Nazareth, / den unsere Fürsten gefangennahmen / und an das Kreuz schlugen. / Heute ist es der dritte Tag, / daß er in Todesbanden lag,⁹
(20) obwohl den Tod er nicht verdiente; / den suchen wir zusammen hier, / wie ich dir erzählt.

Der Engel:
Davon kann ich wohl berichten. / Da es sich so verhält,
(25) fürchtet euch nicht und seid froh! / Denn der, den ihr so begehrt / und den ihr hier sucht: der [] ist heute erstanden / von des Todes Banden.
(30) Das ist die rechte Wahrheit. / Seht, wohin man ihn gelegt! / Eilends sollt ihr gehn, / das sollt ihr dem Petrus wissen lassen, / und berichtet ihm besonders
(35) und auch den anderen das Wunder, / daß Jesus erstanden¹⁰ ist: / sie sollen kommen ohne Säumen / nach Galiläa []