Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan Part 14

_Marie._

Il plait a Dieu qu'ainsy se face."

At last Christ is born, welcomed by the song of the angels, adored by His mother. In the heathen temples the idols fall; h.e.l.l mouth opens and shows the rage of the demons, who make a hideous noise; fire issues from the nostrils and eyes and ears of h.e.l.l, which shuts up with the devils within it. And then the angels in the stable worship the Child Jesus. The adoration of the shepherds was shown with many nave details for the delight of the people, and the performance ended with the offering of a sacrifice in Rome by the Emperor Octavian to an image of the Blessed Virgin.{19}

The French playwrights, quite as much as the English, love comic shepherd scenes with plenty of eating and drinking and brawling. A traditional figure is the shepherd Rifflart, always a laughable type. In the strictly mediaeval plays the shepherds are true French rustics, but with the progress of the Renaissance cla.s.sical elements creep into the pastoral scenes; in a mystery printed in 1507 Orpheus with the Nymphs and Oreads is introduced. As might be expected, anachronisms often occur; a peculiarly piquant instance is found in the S. Genevieve mystery, where Caesar Augustus gets a piece of Latin translated into French for his convenience.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

THE SHEPHERDS OF BETHLEHEM.

From "Le grant Kalendrier compost des Bergiers"

(N. le Rouge, Troyes, 1529).

(Reproduced from a modern broadside published by Mr. F. Sidgwick.)]

141 Late examples of French Christmas mysteries are the so-called "comedies" of the Nativity, Adoration of the Kings, Ma.s.sacre of the Innocents, and Flight into Egypt contained in the "Marguerites"

(published in 1547) of Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, sister of Francois I. Intermingled with the traditional figures treated more or less in the traditional way are personified abstractions like Philosophy, Tribulation, Inspiration, Divine Intelligence, and Contemplation, which largely rob the plays of dramatic effect. There is some true poetry in these pieces, but too much theological learning and too little simplicity, and in one place the ideas of Calvin seem to show themselves.{20}

The French mystery began to fall into decay about the middle of the sixteenth century. It was attacked on every side: by the new poets of the Renaissance, who preferred cla.s.sical to Christian subjects; by the Protestants, who deemed the religious drama a trifling with the solemn truths of Scripture; and even by the Catholic clergy, who, roused to greater strictness by the challenge of Protestantism, found the comic elements in the plays offensive and dangerous, and perhaps feared that too great familiarity with the Bible as represented in the mysteries might lead the people into heresy.{21} Yet we hear occasionally of Christmas dramas in France in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. In the neighbourhood of Nantes, for instance, a play of the Nativity by Claude Macee, hermit, probably written in the seventeenth century, was commonly performed in the first half of the nineteenth.{22} At Clermont the adoration of the shepherds was still performed in 1718, and some kind of representation of the scene continued in the diocese of Cambrai until 1834, when it was forbidden by the bishop. In the south, especially at Ma.r.s.eilles, "pastorals" were played towards the end of the nineteenth century; they had, however, largely lost their sacred character, and had become a kind of review of the events of the year.{23} At Dinan, in Brittany, some sort of Herod play was performed, though it was dying out, in 1886. It was acted by young men on the Epiphany, and there was an "innocent" whose throat they pretended to cut with a wooden sword.{24}

142 An interesting summary of a very full Nativity play performed in the churches of Upper Gascony on Christmas Eve is given by Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco.{25} It ranges from the arrival of Joseph and Mary at Bethlehem to the Flight into Egypt and the Murder of the Innocents, but perhaps the most interesting parts are the shepherd scenes. After the message of the angel--a child in a surplice, with wings fastened to his shoulders, seated on a chair drawn up to the ceiling and supported by ropes--the shepherds leave the church, the whole of which is now regarded as the stable of the Divine Birth. They knock for admittance, and Joseph, regretting that the chamber is "so badly lighted," lets them in. They fall down before the manger, and so do the shepherdesses, who "deposit on the altar steps a banner covered with flowers and greenery, from which hang strings of small birds, apples, nuts, chestnuts, and other fruits.

It is their Christmas offering to the cure; the shepherds have already placed a whole sheep before the altar, in a like spirit." The play is not mere dumb-show, but has a full libretto.

A rather similar piece of dramatic ceremonial is described by Barthelemy in his edition of Durandus,{26} as customary in the eighteenth century at La Villeneuve-en-Chevrie, near Mantes. At the Midnight Ma.s.s a _creche_ with a wax figure of the Holy Child was placed in the choir, with tapers burning about it. After the "Te Deum" had been sung, the celebrant, accompanied by his attendants, censed the _creche_, to the sound of violins, double-ba.s.ses, and other instruments. A shepherd then prostrated himself before the crib, holding a sheep with a sort of little saddle bearing sixteen lighted candles. He was followed by two shepherdesses in white with distaffs and tapers. A second shepherd, between two shepherdesses, carried a laurel branch, to which were fastened oranges, lemons, biscuits, and sweetmeats. Two others brought great _pains-benits_ and lighted candles; then came four shepherdesses, who made their adoration, and lastly twenty-six more shepherds, two by two, bearing in one hand a candle and in the other a festooned crook. The same ceremonial was practised at the Offertory and after the close of the Ma.s.s. All was done, it is said, with such piety and edification that 143 St. Luke's words about the Bethlehem shepherds were true of these French swains--they "returned glorifying and praising G.o.d for all the things they had heard and seen."

In German there remain very few Christmas plays earlier than the fifteenth century. Later periods, however, have produced a mult.i.tude, and dramatic performances at Christmas have continued down to quite modern times in German-speaking parts.

At Oberufer near Pressburg--a German Protestant village in Hungary--some fifty years ago, a Christmas play was performed under the direction of an old farmer, whose office as instructor had descended from father to son.

The play took place at intervals of from three to ten years and was acted on all Sundays and festivals from Advent to the Epiphany. Great care was taken to ensure the strictest piety and morality in the actors, and no secular music was allowed in the place during the season for the performances. The practices began as early as October. On the first Sunday in Advent there was a solemn procession to the hall hired for the play. First went a man bearing a gigantic star--he was called the "Master Singer"--and another carrying a Christmas-tree decked with ribbons and apples; then came all the actors, singing hymns. There was no scenery and no theatrical apparatus beyond a straw-seated chair and a wooden stool.

When the first was used, the scene was understood to be Jerusalem, when the second, Bethlehem. The Christmas drama, immediately preceded by an Adam and Eve play, and succeeded by a Shrove Tuesday one, followed mediaeval lines, and included the wanderings of Joseph and Mary round the inns of Bethlehem, the angelic tidings to the shepherds, their visit to the manger, the adoration of the Three Kings, and various Herod scenes.

Protestant influence was shown by the introduction of Luther's "Vom Himmel hoch," but the general character was very much that of the old mysteries, and the dialogue was full of quaint navete.{27}

At Brixlegg, in Tyrol, as late as 1872 a long Christmas play was acted under Catholic auspices; some of its dialogue was in 144 the Tyrolese _patois_ and racy and humorous, other parts, and particularly the speeches of Mary and Joseph--out of respect for these holy personages--had been rewritten in the eighteenth century in a very stilted and undramatic style. Some simple shepherd plays are said to be still presented in the churches of the Saxon Erzgebirge.{28}

The German language is perhaps richer in real Christmas plays, as distinguished from Nativity and Epiphany episodes in great cosmic cycles, than any other. There are some examples in mediaeval ma.n.u.scripts, but the most interesting are shorter pieces performed in country places in comparatively recent times, and probably largely traditional in substance. Christianity by the fourteenth century had at last gained a real hold upon the German people, or perhaps one should rather say the German people had laid a strong hold upon Christianity, moulding it into something very human and concrete, materialistic often, yet not without spiritual significance. In cradle-rocking and religious dancing at Christmas the instincts of a l.u.s.ty, kindly race expressed themselves, and the same character is shown in the short popular Christmas dramas collected by Weinhold and others.{29} Many of the little pieces--some are rather duets than plays--were sung or acted in church or by the fireside in the nineteenth century, and perhaps even now may linger in remote places. They are in dialect, and the rusticity of their language harmonizes well with their nave, homely sentiment. In them we behold the scenes of Bethlehem as realized by peasants, and their mixture of rough humour and tender feeling is thoroughly in keeping with the subject.

One is made to feel very vividly the amazement of the shepherds at the wondrous and sudden apparition of the angels:--

"_Riepl._ Woas is das fur a Getummel, I versteh mi nit in d'Welt.

_Jorgl._ Is den heunt eingfalln der Himmel, Fleugn d'Engeln auf unserm Feld?

_R._ Thuen Sprung macha _J._ Von oben acha! 145 _R._ I turft das Ding nit noacha thoan, that mir brechn Hals und Boan."[74]{30}

The cold is keenly brought home to us when they come to the manger:--

"_J._ Mei Kind, kanst kei Herberg finden?

Muest so viel Frost leiden schoan.

_R._ Ligst du under kalden Windeln!

Lagts ihm doch a Gwandl oan!

_J._ Machts ihm d'Fuess ein, Hullts in zue fein!"[75]{31}

Very homely are their presents to the Child:--

"Ein drei Eier und ein b.u.t.ter Bringen wir auch, nemt es an!

Einen Han zu einer Suppen, Wanns die Mutter kochen kann.

Giessts ein Schmalz drein, wirds wol guet sein.

Weil wir sonsten gar nix han, Sind wir selber arme Hirten, Nemts den guten Willen an."[76]{32}

One of the dialogues ends with a curious piece of ordinary human kindliness, as if the Divine nature of the Infant were quite forgotten for the moment:--

"_J._ Bleib halt fein gsund, mein kloans Liebl, Wannst woas brauchst, so komm ze mir.

_J._ Pfuet di Got halt! 146 _R._ War fein gross bald!

_J._ Kannst in mein Dienst stehen ein, Wann darzu wirst gross gnue sein."[77]{33}

Far more interesting in their realism and naturalness are these little plays of the common folk than the elaborate Christmas dramas of more learned German writers, Catholic and Lutheran, who in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries became increasingly stilted and bombastic.

The Italian religious drama{34} evolved somewhat differently from that of the northern countries. The later thirteenth century saw the outbreak of the fanaticism of the Flagellants or _Battuti_, vast crowds of people of all cla.s.ses who went in procession from church to church, from city to city, scourging their naked bodies in terror and repentance till the blood flowed. When the wild enthusiasm of this movement subsided it left enduring traces in the foundation of lay communities throughout the land, continuing in a more sober way the penitential practices of the Flagellants. One of their aids to devotion was the singing or reciting of vernacular poetry, less formal than the Latin hymns of the liturgy, and known as _laude_.[78] These _laude_ developed a more or less dramatic form, which gained the name of _divozioni_.[79] They were, perhaps (though not certainly, for there seems to have been another tradition derived from the regular liturgical drama), the source from which sprang the gorgeously produced _sacre rappresentazioni_ of the fifteenth century.

The _sacre rappresentazioni_ corresponded, though with considerable differences, to the miracle-plays of England and France. Their great period was the fifty years from 1470 to 1520, and 147 they were performed, like the _divozioni_, by confraternities of religious laymen.

The actors were boys belonging to the brotherhoods, and the plays were intended to be edifying for youth. They are more refined than the northern religious dramas, but only too often fall into insipidity.

Among the texts given by D'Ancona in his collection of _sacre rappresentazioni_ is a Tuscan "Nativita,"{36} opening with a pastoral scene resembling those in the northern mysteries, but far less vigorous.

It cannot compare, for character and humour, with the Towneley plays.

Still the shepherds, whose names are Bobi del Farucchio, Nencio di Pucchio, Randello, Nencietto, Giordano, and Falconcello, are at least meant to have a certain rusticity, as they feast on bread and cheese and wine, play to the Saviour on bagpipe or whistle, and offer humble presents like apples and cheese. The scenes which follow, the coming of the Magi and the Murder of the Innocents, are not intrinsically of great interest.

It is possible that this play may have been the spectacle performed in Florence in 1466, as recorded by Machiavelli, "to give men something to take away their thoughts from affairs of state." It "represented the coming of the three Magi Kings from the East, following the star which showed the Nativity of Christ, and it was of so great pomp and magnificence that it kept the whole city busy for several months in arranging and preparing it."{37}

An earlier record of an Italian pageant of the Magi is this account by the chronicler Galvano Flamma of what took place at Milan in 1336:--

"There were three kings crowned, on great horses, ... and an exceeding great train. And there was a golden star running through the air, which went before these three kings, and they came to the columns of San Lorenzo, where was King Herod in effigy, with the scribes and wise men. And they were seen to ask King Herod where Christ was born, and having turned over many books they answered, that He should be born in the city of David distant five miles from Jerusalem. And having heard this, those three kings, crowned with golden crowns, holding in their hands golden cups with gold, incense, 148 and myrrh, came to the church of Sant' Eustorgio, the star preceding them through the air, ... and a wonderful train, with resounding trumpets and horns going before them, with apes, baboons, and diverse kinds of animals, and a marvellous tumult of people.

There at the side of the high altar was a manger with ox and a.s.s, and in the manger was the little Christ in the arms of the Virgin Mother.

And those kings offered gifts unto Christ; then they were seen to sleep, and a winged angel said to them that they should not return by the region of San Lorenzo but by the Porta Romana; which also was done. There was so great a concourse of the people and soldiers and ladies and clerics that scarce anything like it was ever beheld. And it was ordered that every year this festal show should be performed."{38}

How suggestive this is of the Magi pictures of the fifteenth century, with their gorgeous eastern monarchs and retinues of countless servants and strange animals. No other story in the New Testament gives such opportunity for pageantry as the Magi scene. All the wonder, richness, and romance of the East, all the splendour of western Renaissance princes could lawfully be introduced into the train of the Three Kings. With Gentile da Fabriano and Benozzo Gozzoli it has become a magnificent procession; there are trumpeters, pages, jesters, dwarfs, exotic beasts--all the motley, gorgeous retinue of the monarchs of the time, while the kings themselves are romantic figures in richest attire, velvet, brocade, wrought gold, and jewels. It may be that much of this splendour was suggested to the painters by dramatic spectacles which actually pa.s.sed before their eyes.

I have already alluded to the Spanish "Mystery of the Magi Kings," a mere fragment, but of peculiar interest to the historian of the drama as one of the two earliest religious plays in a modern European language. Though plays are known to have been performed in Spain at Christmas and Easter in the Middle Ages,{39} we have no further texts until the very short "Representation of the Birth of Our Lord," by Gomez Manrique, Senor de Villazopeque (1412-91), acted at the convent at Calabazanos, of which the author's sister was Superior. The characters 149 introduced are the Virgin, St. Joseph, St. Gabriel, St. Michael, St. Raphael, another angel, and three shepherds.{40}

Touched by the spirit of the Renaissance, and particularly by the influence of Virgil, is Juan del Encina of Salamanca (1469-1534), court poet to the Duke of Alba, and author of two Christmas eclogues.{41} The first introduces four shepherds who bear the names of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and are curiously mixed personages, their words being half what might be expected from the shepherds of Bethlehem and half sayings proper only to the authors of the Gospels. It ends with a _villancico_ or carol. The second eclogue is far more realistic, and indeed resembles the English and French pastoral scenes. The shepherds grumble about the weather--it has been raining for two months, the floods are terrible, and no fords or bridges are left; they talk of the death of a sacristan, a fine singer; and they play a game with chestnuts; then comes the angel--whom one of them calls a "smartly dressed lad" (_garzon repcado_)--to tell them of the Birth, and they go to adore the Child, taking Him a kid, b.u.t.ter-cakes, eggs, and other presents.

Infinitely more ambitious is "The Birth of Christ"{42} by the great Lope de Vega (1562-1635). It opens in Paradise, immediately after the Creation, and ends with the adoration of the Three Kings. Full of allegorical conceits and personified qualities, it will hardly please the taste of modern minds. Another work of Lope's, "The Shepherds of Bethlehem," a long pastoral in prose and verse, published in 1612, contains, amid many incongruities, some of the best of his shorter poems; one lullaby, sung by the Virgin in a palm-grove while her Child sleeps, has been thus translated by Ticknor:--