The ‘Twelve days’ of the Christmas season are no less important than Easter itself in the evolution of the liturgical drama. I have mentioned in the last chapter a Christmas trope which is evidently based upon the older Easter dialogue. Instead of Quem quaeritis in sepulchro, o Christicolae? it begins Quem quaeritis in praesepe, pastores, dicite? It occurs in eleventh- and twelfth-century tropers from St. Gall, Limoges, St. Magloire, and Nevers. Originally it was an Introit trope for the third or ‘great’ Mass. In a fifteenth-century breviary from Clermont-Ferrand it has been transferred to Matins, where it follows the Te Deum; and this is precisely the place in the Christmas services occupied, at Rouen, by a liturgical drama known as the Officium Pastorum, which appears to have grown out of the Quem quaeritis in praesepe? by a process analogous to that by which the Easter drama grew out of the Quem quaeritis in sepulchro⁠[156]? A praesepe or ‘crib,’ covered by a curtain, was made ready behind the altar, and in it was placed an image of the Virgin. After the Te Deum five canons or vicars, representing the shepherds, approached the great west door of the choir. A boy in similitudinem angeli perched in excelso sang them the ‘good tidings,’ and a number of others in voltis ecclesiae took up the Gloria in excelsis. The shepherds, singing a hymn, advanced to the praesepe. Here they were met with the Quem quaeritis by two priests quasi obstetrices⁠[157]. The dialogue of the trope, expanded by another hymn during which the shepherds adore, follows, and so the drama ends. But the shepherds ‘rule the choir’ throughout the Missa in Gallicantu immediately afterwards, and at Lauds, the anthem for which much resembles the Quem quaeritis itself⁠[158]. The misterium pastorum was still performed at Rouen in the middle of the fifteenth century, and at this date the shepherds, cessantibus stultitiis et insolenciis, so far as this could be ensured by the chapter, took the whole ‘service’ of the day, just as did the deacons, priests, and choir-boys during the triduum⁠[159].

If the central point of the Quem quaeritis is the sepulchrum, that of the Pastores is the praesepe. In either case the drama, properly so called, is an addition, and by no means an invariable one, to the symbolical ceremony. The Pastores may, in fact, be described, although the term does not occur in the documents, as a Visitatio praesepis. The history of the praesepe can be more definitely stated than that of the sepulchrum. It is by no means extinct. The Christmas ‘crib’ or crèche, a more or less realistic representation of the Nativity, with a Christ-child in the manger, a Joseph and Mary, and very often an ox and an ass, is a common feature in all Catholic countries at Christmas time⁠[160]. At Rome, in particular, the esposizione del santo bambino takes place with great ceremony⁠[161]. A tradition ascribes the first presepio known in Italy to St. Francis, who is said to have invented it at Greccio in 1223⁠[162]. But this is a mistake. The custom is many centuries older than St. Francis. Its Roman home is the church of S. Maria Maggiore or Ad Praesepe, otherwise called the ‘basilica of Liberius.’ Here there was in the eighth century a permanent praesepe⁠[163], probably built in imitation of one which had long existed at Bethlehem, and to which an allusion is traced in the writings of Origen⁠[164]. The praesepe of S. Maria Maggiore was in the right aisle. When the Sistine chapel was built in 1585-90 it was moved to the crypt, where it may now be seen. This church became an important station for the Papal services at Christmas. The Pope celebrated Mass here on the vigil, and remained until he had also celebrated the first Mass on Christmas morning. The bread was broken on the manger itself, which served as an altar. At S. Maria Maggiore, moreover, is an important relic, in some boards from the culla or cradle of Christ, which are exposed on the presepio during Christmas⁠[165]. The presepio of S. Maria Maggiore became demonstrably the model for other similar chapels in Rome⁠[166], and doubtless for the more temporary structures throughout Italy and western Europe in general.

In the present state of our knowledge it is a little difficult to be precise as to the range or date of the Pastores. The only full mediaeval Latin text, other than that of Rouen, which has come to light, is also of Norman origin, and is still unprinted⁠[167]. In the eighteenth century the play survived at Lisieux and Clermont⁠[168]. The earliest Rouen manuscript is of the thirteenth century, and the absence of any reference to the Officium Pastorum by John of Avranches, who writes primarily of Rouen, and who does mention the Officium Stellae, makes it probable that it was not there known about 1070⁠[169]. Its existence, however, in England in the twelfth century is shown by the Lichfield Statutes of 1188-98, and on the whole it is not likely to have taken shape later than the eleventh. Very likely it never, as a self-contained play, acquired the vogue of the Quem quaeritis. As will be seen presently, it was overshadowed and absorbed by rivals. I find no trace of it in Germany, where the praesepe became a centre, less for liturgical drama, than for carols, dances, and ‘crib-rocking⁠[170].’

Still rarer than the Pastores is the drama, presumably belonging to Innocents’ day, of Rachel. It is found in a primitive form, hardly more than a trope, in a Limoges manuscript of the eleventh century. Here it is called Lamentatio Rachel, and consists of a short planctus by Rachel herself, and a short reply by a consoling angel. There is nothing to show what place it occupied in the services⁠[171].

The fact is that both the Pastores and the Rachel were in many churches taken up into a third drama belonging to the Epiphany. This is variously known as the Tres Reges, the Magi, Herodes, and the Stella. It exists in a fair number of different but related forms. Like the Quem quaeritis and the Pastores, it had a material starting-point, in the shape of a star, lit with candles, which hung from the roof of the church, and could sometimes be moved, by a simple mechanical device, from place to place⁠[172]. As with the Quem quaeritis, the development of the Stella must be studied without much reference to the relative age of the manuscripts in which it happens to be found. But it was probably complete by the end of the eleventh century, since manuscripts of that date contain the play in its latest forms⁠[173].

The simplest version is from Limoges⁠[174]. The three kings enter by the great door of the choir singing a prosula. They show their gifts, the royal gold, the divine incense, the myrrh for funeral. Then they see the star, and follow it to the high altar. Here they offer their gifts, each contained in a gilt cup, or some other iocale pretiosum, after which a boy, representing an angel, announces to them the birth of Christ, and they retire singing to the sacristy. The text of this version stands by itself: nearly all the others are derived from a common tradition, which is seen in its simplest form at Rouen⁠[175]. In the Rouen Officium Stellae, the three kings, coming respectively from the east, north, and south of the church, meet before the altar. One of them points to the star with his stick, and they sing:

They kiss each other and sing an anthem, which occurs also in the Limoges version: Eamus ergo et inquiramus eum, offerentes ei munera; aurum thus et myrrham. A procession is now formed, and as it moves towards the nave, the choir chant narrative passages, describing the visit of the Magi to Jerusalem and their reception by Herod. Meanwhile a star is lit over the altar of the cross where an image of the Virgin has been placed. The Magi approach it, singing the passage which begins Ecce stella in Oriente. They are met by two in dalmatics, who appear to be identical with the obstetrices of the Rouen Pastores. A dialogue follows:

‘Qui sunt hi qui, stella duce, nos adeuntes inaudita ferunt.

Magi respondeant:

nos sumus, quos cernitis, reges Tharsis et Arabum et Saba, dona ferentes Christo, regi nato, Domino, quem, stella deducente, adorare venimus.

Tunc duo Dalmaticati aperientes cortinam dicant:

ecce puer adest quem queritis, Iam properate adorate, quia ipse est redemptio mundi.

Tunc procidentes Reges ad terram, simul salutent puerum, ita dicentes:

salve, princeps saeculorum.

Tunc unus a suo famulo aurum accipiat et dicat:

suscipe, rex, aurum.

Et offerat.

Secundus ita dicat et offerat:

tolle thus, tu, vere Deus.

Tercius ita dicat et offerat:

mirram, signum sepulturae.’

Then the congregation make their oblations. Meanwhile the Magi pray and fall asleep. In their sleep an angel warns them to return home another way. The procession returns up a side aisle to the choir; and the Mass, in which the Magi, like the shepherds on Christmas day, ‘rule the choir,’ follows.

In spite of the difference of text the incidents of the Rouen and Limoges versions, except for the angelic warning introduced at Rouen, are the same. There was a dramatic advance when the visit to Jerusalem, instead of being merely narrated by the choir, was inserted into the action. In the play performed at Nevers⁠[176], Herod himself, destined in the fullness of time to become the protagonist of the Corpus Christi stage, makes his first appearance. There are two versions of the Nevers play. In the earlier the new scene is confined to a colloquy between Herod and the Magi:

‘[Magi.] Vidimus stellam eius in Oriente, et agnovimus regem regum esse natum.

[Herodes.] regem quem queritis natum stella quo signo didicistis? Si illum regnare creditis, dicite nobis.

[Magi.] illum natum esse didicimus in Oriente stella monstrante.

[Herodes.] ite et de puero diligenter investigate, et inventum redeuntes mihi renuntiate.’

The later version adds two further episodes. In one a nuntius announces the coming of the Magi, and is sent to fetch them before Herod: in the other Herod sends his courtiers for the scribes, who find a prophecy of the birth of the Messiah in Bethlehem. Obviously the Herod scene gives point to the words at the end of the Rouen play, in which the angel bids the Magi to return home by a different way.

At Compiègne the action closes with yet another scene, in which Herod learns that the Magi have escaped him⁠[177].

‘Nuncius. Delusus es domine, magi viam redierunt aliam.

[Herodes. incendium meum ruina extinguam⁠[178].]

Armiger. decerne, domine, vindicari iram tuam, et stricto mucrone quaerere iube puerum, forte inter occisos occidetur et ipse.

Herodes. indolis eximiae pueros fac ense perire.

Angelus. sinite parvulos venire ad me, talium est enim regnum caelorum.’

In a Norman version which has the same incidents as the Compiègne play, but in parts a different text, the armiger is the son of Herod, and the play ends with Herod taking a sword from a bystander and brandishing it in the air⁠[179]. Already he is beginning to tear a passion to tatters in the manner that became traditionally connected with his name. Another peculiarity of this Norman version is that the Magi address Herod in an outlandish jargon, which seems to contain fragments of Hebrew and Arabic speech.

The play of the Stella must now, perhaps, be considered, except so far as mere amplifications of the text are concerned, strictly complete. But another step was irresistibly suggested by the course it had taken. The massacre of the Innocents, although it lay outside the range of action in which the Magi themselves figured, could be not merely threatened but actually represented. This was done at Laon⁠[180]. The cruel suggestion of Archelaus is carried out. The Innocents come in singing and bearing a lamb. They are slain, and the play ends with a dialogue, like that of the distinct Limoges planctus, between the lamenting Rachel and an angelic consolatrix.

The absorption of the motives proper to other feasts of the Twelve nights into the Epiphany play has clearly begun. A fresh series of examples shows a similar treatment of the Pastores. At Strassburg the Magi, as they leave Herod, meet the shepherds returning from Bethlehem:

This, however, is not taken from the Pastores itself, but from the Christmas Lauds antiphon⁠[181]. Its dramatic use may be compared with that of the Victimae paschali in the Quem quaeritis. In versions from Bilsen⁠[182] near Liège and from Mans⁠[183], on the other hand, although the meeting of the Magi and the shepherds is retained, a complete Pastores, with the angelic tidings and the adoration at the praesepe, forms the first part of the office, before the Magi are introduced at all.

The Strassburg, Bilsen, and Mans plays have not the Rachel, although the first two have the scene in which the nuntius informs Herod that the Magi have deceived him. A further stage is reached when, as at Freising and at Fleury, the Pastores, Stella and Rachel all coalesce in a single, and by this time considerable, drama. The Freising texts, of which there are two, are rather puzzling⁠[184]. The first closely resembles the plays of the group just described. It begins with a short Pastores, comprising the angelic tidings only. Then the scenes between the Magi and Herod are treated at great length. The meeting of the Magi and the shepherds is followed by the oblation, the angelic warning, and the return of the messenger to Herod. In the second Freising text, which is almost wholly metrical, the Pastores is complete. It is followed by a quite new scene, the dream of Joseph and his flight into Egypt. Then come successively the scene of fury at court, the massacre, the planctus and consolation of Rachel. Clearly this second text, as it stands, is incomplete. The Magi are omitted, and the whole of the latter part of the play is consequently rendered meaningless. But it is the Magi who are alone treated fully in the first Freising text. I suggest, therefore, that the second text is intended to supplement and not to replace the first. It really comprises two fragments: one a revision of the Pastores, the other a revision of the closing scene and an expansion of it by a Rachel.

As to the Fleury version there can be no doubt whatever⁠[185]. The matter is, indeed, arranged in two plays, a Herodes and an Interfectio Puerorum, each ending with a Te Deum; and the performance may possibly have extended over two days. But the style is the same throughout and the episodes form one continuous action. It is impossible to regard the Interfectio Puerorum as a separate piece from the Herodes, acted a week earlier on the feast of the Innocents; for into it, after the first entry of the children with their lamb, gaudentes per monasterium, come the flight into Egypt, the return of the nuntius, and the wrath of Herod, which, of course, presuppose the Magi scenes. Another new incident is added at the end of the Fleury play. Herod is deposed and Archelaus set up; the Holy Family return from Egypt, and settle in the parts of Galilee⁠[186].

I have attempted to arrange the dozen or so complete Epiphany plays known to scholars in at least the logical order of their development. There are also three fragments, which fit readily enough into the system. Two, from a Paris manuscript and from Einsiedeln, may be classed respectively with the Compiègne and Strassburg texts⁠[187]. The third, from Vienne, is an independent version, in leonine hexameters, of the scene in which the Magi first sight the star, a theme common to all the plays except that of Limoges⁠[188]. I do not feel certain that this fragment is from a liturgical drama at all.

The textual development of the Stella is closely parallel to that of the Quem quaeritis. The more primitive versions consist of antiphons and prose sentences based upon or in the manner of the Scriptures. The later ones, doubtless under the influence of wandering scholars, become increasingly metrical. The classical tags, from Sallust and Virgil, are an obvious note of the scholarly pen. With the exception of that from Limoges, all the texts appear to be derived by successive accretions and modifications from an archetype fairly represented at Rouen. The Bilsen text and the Vienne fragment have been freely rewritten, and the process of rewriting is well illustrated by the alternative versions found side by side in the later Nevers manuscript. With regard to the place occupied by the Stella in the Epiphany services, such manuscripts as give any indications at all seem to point to a considerable divergence of local use. At Limoges and Nevers, the play was of the nature of a trope to the Mass, inserted in the former case at the Offertorium, in the latter at the Communio⁠[189]. At Rouen the Officium followed Tierce, and preceded the ordinary procession before Mass. At Fleury the use of the Te Deum suggests that it was at Matins; at Strassburg it followed the Magnificat at Vespers, but on the octave of Epiphany, not Epiphany itself. Perhaps the second part of the Fleury play was also on the octave. At Bilsen the play followed the Benedicamus, but with this versicle nearly all the Hours end⁠[190]. I do not, however, hesitate to say that the Limoges use must have been the most primitive one. The kernel of the whole performance is a dramatized Offertorium. It was a custom for Christian kings to offer gold and frankincense and myrrh at the altar on Epiphany day⁠[191]; and I take the play to have served as a substitute for this ceremony, where no king actually regnant was present.

There is yet one other liturgical play belonging to the Christmas season, which for the future development of the drama is the most important of all. This is the Prophetae⁠[192]. It differs from the Quem quaeritis, the Peregrini, the Pastores, and the Stella by the large number of performers required, and by the epical mode of its composition. Its origin, in fact, is to be sought in a narrative, a lectio, not a chant. The source was the pseudo-Augustinian Sermo contra Iudaeos, Paganos et Arianos de Symbolo, probably written in the sixth century, but ascribed throughout the Middle Ages to the great African⁠[193]. A portion of this sermon was used in many churches as a lesson for some part or other of the Christmas offices⁠[194]. The passage chosen is in a highly rhetorical vein. Vos, inquam, convenio, O Iudaei cries the preacher, and calls upon the Jews to bear witness out of the mouths of their own prophets to the Christ. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Moses, David, Habakkuk, Simeon, Zacharias and Elisabeth, John the Baptist;—each in turn is bidden to speak, and each testimony is triumphantly quoted. Then: Ecce, convertimur ad gentes. Virgil—poeta facundissimus—is pressed into the service, for the famous line of his fourth eclogue:

Nebuchadnezzar, who saw four walking in the furnace, and finally the Erythraean Sibyl, whose acrostic verses on the ‘Signs of Judgement’ first appear in the writings of Eusebius⁠[196].

The dramatic form of this lectio possibly led to its being chanted instead of read, and distributed between several voices in the manner of the Passions from Palm Sunday to Good Friday⁠[197]. At any rate in the eleventh century there appears in a Limoges manuscript a metrical adaptation in which it has been wholly converted into a dramatic dialogue⁠[198]. This Limoges Prophetae follows the sermon pretty closely in its arrangement. A Precentor begins:

He addresses a couplet each Ad Iudaeos, Ad Gentes, and then calls in turn upon each of the prophets, who reply, Virgil pronouncing his line, the Sibyl the Iudicii Signum, and the others a couplet or quatrain apiece. They are nearly identical with the personages of the sermon: Israel is added, Zacharias disappears, and the order is slightly different. Finally the Precentor concludes:

Two later versions, belonging respectively to Laon⁠[199] and to Rouen⁠[200], diverge far more from the model. They are at much the same stage of development. In both the play is ushered in with the hymn Gloriosi et famosi, the verses of which are sung by the prophets, and the refrain by the choir⁠[201]. The costumes and symbols of the prophets are carefully indicated in the rubrics. The Precentor of Limoges is represented by two singers, called at Laon Appellatores, and at Rouen Vocatores. The dialogue is amplified beyond that of Limoges. Sex Iudaei and sex Gentiles, for instance, take parts: and the Vocatores comment with the choir in an identical form of words on each prophecy. The Laon text is a good deal the shorter. The prophets are practically the same as at Limoges, with one remarkable exception. At the end is introduced Balaam, and to his prophecy is appended a miniature drama, with the angel and the ass: thus—

‘Hic veniat Angelus cum gladio. Balaam tangit asinam, et illa non praecedente, dicit iratus:

quid moraris, asina,

obstinata bestia?

iam scindent calcaria

costas et praecordia.

Puer sub asina respondet:

angelus cum gladio,

quem adstare video,

prohibet ne transeam;

timeo ne peream.’

The Rouen text adds quite a number of prophets. The full list includes Moses, Amos, Isaiah, Aaron, Jeremiah, Daniel, Habakkuk, Balaam, Samuel, David, Hosea, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Ezekiel, Malachi, Zacharias, Elisabeth, John the Baptist, Simeon, Virgil, Nebuchadnezzar, and the Sibyl. In this version, also, the part of Balaam is expanded into a drama.

‘Duo missi a rege Balac dicant:

Balaam, veni et fac.

Tunc Balaam, ornatus, sedens super asinam, habens calcaria, retineat lora et calcaribus percutiat asinam, et quidam iuvenis, habens alas, tenens gladium, obstet asinae. Quidam sub asina dicat:

cur me cum calcaribus miseram sic laeditis.

Hoc dicto, Angelus ei dicat:

desine regis Balac praeceptum perficere.’

Here, too, another little drama is similarly introduced. This is the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, which, with an imago for the brethren to refuse to worship and a fornax for them to be cast into, attaches itself to the vocatio of Nebuchadnezzar.

In the Limoges manuscript the Prophetae is followed by the words Hic inchoant Benedicamus⁠[202]. As has been pointed out in the case of the Bilsen Pastores, this is not conclusive as to the hour at which the performance took place. The day was probably that of Christmas itself. But even the day would naturally vary with the variable position of the lectio out of which the Prophetae grew. At Lincoln it was likewise Christmas day. But at Rouen the processio asinorum was on Christmas eve, and took the place of the ordinary festal procession after Tierce and before Mass⁠[203]. And at St. Martin of Tours the Prophetae was on New Year’s day, performances being given both at Matins and Vespers⁠[204].

The question naturally suggests itself: What was the relation of these liturgical plays of the Christmas season to the Feast of Fools and other ecclesiastical ludi of the Twelve nights, which were discussed in the first volume? At Rouen, the Prophetae received the name of processio asinorum and took place at a festum asinorum, a name which we know to have been elsewhere synonymous with festum fatuorum. At Tours, it was played at a reformed festum novi anni, with a Boy Bishop and at least traces of expelled disorder. So, too, with the other plays. The Rouen Pastores was infected by the fifteenth century with the stultitiae et insolentiae of the triduum. At Bilsen the Stella was performed before a rex, who can hardly have been any other than a rex fatuorum of Epiphany. At Autun the regnum Herodis was considered a Feast of Fools⁠[205]. Probably in both churches the rex acted Herod in the play. I think it must be taken for granted that the plays are the older institution of the two. They seem all to have taken shape by the eleventh century, before there is any clear sign that the Kalends had made their way into the churches and become the Feast of Fools. The plays may even have been encouraged as a counter-attraction, for the congregation, to the Kalends outside. On the other hand, I do not hold, as some writers do, that the riotous Feasts of Asses were derived from the pious and instructive ceremony so called at Rouen⁠[206]. On the contrary, Balaam and his ass are an interpolation in the Prophetae both at Rouen and, more obviously, at Laon. Balaam, alone of the Laon performers, is not from the pseudo-Augustine sermon. Is he not, therefore, to be regarded as a reaction of the Feast of Fools upon the Prophetae, as an attempt to turn the established presence of the ass in the church to purposes of edification, rather than of ribaldry⁠[207]? I think the explanation is the more plausible one. And I find a parallel reaction of the turbulence of the Feast of Fools upon the Stella, in the violence of speech and gesture which permanently associated itself at a very early stage with the character of Herod. The view here taken will be confirmed, when we come to consider certain ecclesiastical criticisms passed upon the liturgical plays in the twelfth century.

Whatever the exact relation of the divine and profane ludi at Easter and Christmas may be, it seems to have been, in the main, at these two great seasons of festivity that what may be called the spontaneous growth of drama out of liturgy took place. There are yet a fair number of Latin plays to be spoken of which are in a sense liturgical. That is to say, they were acted, certainly or probably, in churches and during intervals in the services. But of these such a spontaneous growth cannot be asserted, although it cannot also, in the present state of the evidence, be confidently denied. Their metrical and literary style is parallel to that of the Easter and Christmas plays in the latest stages of development; and, until further data turn up, it is perhaps permissible to conjecture that they were deliberately composed on the model of the Quem quaeritis and the Stella, when these had become widespread and popular. Indeed, some such derivation of the Peregrini from the Quem quaeritis and of the Stella itself, at least in part, from the Pastores, has already appeared probable.

In dealing with this new group of plays, we come, for the first and only time, upon an individual author. As might be expected, this author is a scholaris vagans, by name Hilarius. It would even be doing him no great injustice to call him a goliard. What little is known of Hilarius is gathered from his writings, which exist in a single manuscript. He may have been an Englishman, for a large proportion of his verses are addressed to English folk. He was a pupil, about 1125, of the famous Abelard at his oratory of Paraclete in a desert near Nogent-sur-Seine. Afterwards he made his way to Angers. Many of his verses are of the familiar goliardic type, amorous and jocund; but amongst them are three plays⁠[208]. Two of these are comparatively short, and contain each a few stanzas of French interspersed amongst the Latin. The subject of one is a miracle wrought by St. Nicholas⁠[209]; of the other, the Suscitatio Lazari⁠[210]. The third play, wholly in Latin, falls into two parts, and gives at considerable length the story of Daniel⁠[211]. I take it that these plays were not written for any church in particular, but represent the repertory of a band of wandering clerks. At the end, both of the Daniel and of the Suscitatio Lazari, is a rubric or stage-direction, to the effect that, if the performance is given at Matins, the Te Deum should follow; if at Vespers, the Magnificat. Evidently the connexion with the church service, so organic in the plays of the more primitive type, has become for Hilarius almost accidental. As to the place of the plays in the calendar, the manuscript gives no indication, and probably Hilarius and his friends would be willing enough to act them whenever they got a chance. But the St. Nicholas play would come most naturally on the day of that saint, December 6. The Suscitatio Lazari would be appropriate enough as an addition to the Quem quaeritis and the Peregrini in Easter week. The story is told, indeed, in the Gospel for Friday in the fourth week in Lent; but that does not seem a very likely date for a play. The Daniel perhaps grew, as we have seen a Balaam and a Nebuchadnezzar growing, out of a Prophetae; and may have been a substitute for a Prophetae at Christmas.

These dates are borne out, or not contradicted, by other similar plays, which have more of a local habitation. For no one of Hilarius’ three stands quite alone. Of Latin plays of St. Nicholas, indeed, quite a little group exists; and the great scholastic feast evidently afforded an occasion, less only than Easter and Christmas, for dramatic performances. The earliest texts are from Germany. Two are found in a Hildesheim manuscript of the eleventh century⁠[212]; a third in an Einsiedeln manuscript of the twelfth⁠[213]. The thirteenth-century Fleury play-book contains no less than four, two of which appear to be more developed forms of the Hildesheim plays. The theme is in every case one of the miraculous deeds which so largely make up the widespread legend of the saint⁠[214]. Nicholas restores to life the three clerks

and whom the greed of an innkeeper has slain⁠[215]. He provides with a dowry the daughters of a poor gentleman, who are threatened with a life of shame⁠[216]. He brings back from captivity the son of his wealthy adorer⁠[217]. His image preserves from housebreakers the riches of a Jew⁠[218]. Alone of the extant Latin plays, these of St. Nicholas are drawn from outside the Biblical story. Each of the Fleury versions introduces at the end one of the anthems proper to St. Nicholas’ day, and their connexion with the feast is therefore clear.

A second Lazarus play, which includes not only the Suscitatio but also the episode of Mary Magdalen in the house of Simon, is likewise in the Fleury play-book⁠[219]. A second Daniel, composed by the iuventus of Beauvais, occurs in the same manuscript which contains the Office of the Circumcision for that cathedral⁠[220]. It was perhaps intended for performance on the day of the asinaria festa. Other plays seem, in the same way as the Daniel, to have budded off from the Prophetae. A fragment is preserved of an Isaac and Rebecca from Kloster Vorau in Styria⁠[221]. A twelfth-century mention of an Elisaeus⁠[222] and an eleventh-century one of a Convivium Herodis⁠[223], which suggests rather the story of John the Baptist than that of the Magi, point to an activity in this direction of which all the traces have possibly not yet been discovered.

Three plays, each more or less unique in character, complete the tale. The Fleury play-book has a Conversio Beati Pauli Apostoli, doubtless designed for the feast on January 25⁠[224]. The shorter, but highly interesting collection from Limoges, has a play of the wise and foolish virgins, under the title of Sponsus⁠[225]. This has attracted much attention from scholars, on account of the fact that it is partly in French, or more strictly in a dialect belonging to the Angoumois, and slightly affected by Provençal. As it is therefore of the nature of a transitional form, it may be well to give a somewhat full account of it. It opens with a Latin chorus beginning

The angel Gabriel then addresses the virgins, and warns them in four French stanzas to expect ‘un espos, Sauvaire a nom.’ Each stanza has a refrain, probably sung chorally:

Then comes a lyric dialogue, in which the Fatuae, who have wasted their oil, attempt in vain to get some, first from the Prudentes, and then from some Mercatores, whose presence here recalls the unguentarius in the Prague versions of the Quem quaeritis⁠[226]. This dialogue is in Latin, but with a French refrain:

Then comes the Sponsus, to whom the Fatuae finally appeal: