This stage direction, together with an allusion in the opening lines of the Sponsus to the ‘second Adam,’ link this remarkable, and, I venture to think, finely conceived little piece to the Christmas play of Adam to be discussed in the next chapter. It has essentially an Advent theme, and must have been performed either in Advent itself or at the Christmas season, with which Advent is prophetically connected⁠[227].

Finally, there is a play which was almost certainly performed at Advent⁠[228]. This is the Tegernsee play of Antichristus⁠[229]. It is founded upon the prophecy in St. Paul’s second epistle to the Thessalonians of the homo peccati, filius perditionis, who shall sit in the temple of God until the Christ shall slay him with the breath of his mouth, and destroy him with the glory of his advent⁠[230]: and it is an elaborate spectacle, requiring for its proper performance a large number of actors and a spacious stage, with a temple of God and seven royal sedes, together with room for much marching and counter-marching and warfare⁠[231]. It must have taken up the whole nave of some great church. It begins with a procession of Emperor, Pope, and Kings, accompanied by personages emblematic of Gentilitas, Sinagoga and Ecclesia with her attendants Misericordia and Iustitia. The first part of the action represents the conquest of the four corners of Christendom by the Emperor and his championship of Jerusalem against the King of Babylon. Ecclesia, Gentilitas, and Synagoga punctuate the performance with their characteristic chants. Then come the Hypocrites, sub silentio et specie humilitatis inclinantes circumquaque et captantes favorem laicorum. They are followed by Antichrist himself, who instructs Hypocrisy and Heresy to prepare the way for his advent. Presently Antichrist is enthroned in the temple and gradually saps the Empire, winning over the King of the Greeks by threats, the King of the Franks by gifts, and the King of the Teutons, who is incorruptible and invincible, by signs and wonders. He marks his vassals on the brow with the first letter of his name. Then the Hypocrites attempt to persuade Synagoga that Antichrist is the Messiah; but are refuted by the prophets Enoch and Elijah. Antichrist has the rebels slain; but while he is throned in state, thunder breaks suddenly over his head, he falls, and Ecclesia comes to her own again with a Laudem dicite deo nostro.

The author of the Antichristus is not only a skilled craftsman in rhyming Latin metres; he is also capable of carrying a big literary scheme successfully to a close. His immediate source was probably the tenth-century Libellus de Antichristo of Adso of Toul⁠[232]. Into this he has worked the central theme of the Prophetae and the debating figures from that very popular débat or ‘estrif,’ the Altercatio Ecclesiae et Synagogae⁠[233]. His work differs in several obvious respects from the comparatively simple, often naïve, liturgical dramas which have been considered. It is ambitious in scope, extending to between four and five hundred lines. It introduces allegorical figures, such as we shall find, long after, in the moralities. It has a purpose other than that of devotion, or even amusement. It is, in fact, a Tendenzschrift, a pamphlet. The instinct of the drama, which sways the imaginations of men perhaps more powerfully than any other form of literature, to mix itself up with politics is incorrigible: Antichristus is a subtle vindication, on the one hand, of the Empire against the Papacy, on the other of the rex Teutonicorum against the rex Francorum. It probably dates from about 1160, when Frederick Barbarossa was at the height of his struggle with Alexander III, who enjoyed the sympathies of Louis VII of France. And it is anti-clerical. The Hypocrites who carry out the machinations of Antichrist are the clerical reformers, such as Gerhoh of Reichersberg⁠[234], who were the mainstay of the papacy in Germany.

It is improbable that the few and scattered texts which have come to light represent all the liturgical plays which had made their appearance by the middle of the twelfth century. Besides the lost Elisaeus and Convivium Herodis, there is evidence, for example, of scholars’ plays in honour, not only of St. Nicholas, but of their second patron, the philosophical St. Catharine of Alexandria. Such a ludus de Sancta Katarina was prepared at Dunstable in England by one Geoffrey, a Norman clerk who had been invited to England as schoolmaster to the abbey of St. Albans. For it he borrowed certain choir copes belonging to the abbey, and had the misfortune to let these be burnt with his house. Deeply repentant, he took the religious habit, and in 1119 became abbot of St. Albans. From this date that of the ludus may be judged to be early in the twelfth century⁠[235].

It cannot, of course, be assumed that every play, say in the fifteenth century, which although probably or certainly written in the vernacular was performed in a church, had a Latin prototype⁠[236]. Many such may have been written and acted for the first time on existing models, when the vernacular drama was already well established. But there are certain feasts where it is possible to trace, on the one hand, the element of mimetic ceremony in the services, and on the other, perhaps, some later representation in the dramatic cycles, and where a Latin text might at any time turn up without causing surprise. With a few notes on some of these this chapter must conclude. A highly dramatic trope for Ascension day, closely resembling the Quem quaeritis, has already been quoted from the tropers of Limoges⁠[237]. An Ordinarium of St. Peter’s of Lille directs that, after the respond Non vos relinquam, the officiant shall mount a pulpit and thence appear to ascend towards heaven from the top of a mountain⁠[238]. Fifteenth-century computi speak of this or of a more elaborate performance as a mysterium, and include amongst other items payments for painting the scars on the hands of the performer⁠[239]. On Whit-Sunday it was the custom at St. Paul’s in London and many other churches, during the singing of the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus at Tierce, to open a hole in the roof and let down symbols of the Pentecost; a dove, a globe of fire, bits of burning tow to represent tongues of fire, a censer, flowers, pieces of flaky pastry⁠[240]. This same hole in the roof sometimes served a similar purpose at a mimetic representation of the Annunciation. The Gospel for the day was recited by two clerks dressed as Mary and the angel, and at the words Spiritus Sanctus supervenit in te a white dove descended from the roof. This can hardly be called a drama, for, with the exception of a short fifteenth-century text from Cividale, only the words of the Gospel itself seem to have been used; but obviously it is on the extreme verge of drama. A curious variant in the date of this ceremony is to be noted. In several Italian examples, of which the earliest dates from 1261, and in one or two from France, it belongs to the feast of the Annunciation proper on March 25⁠[241]. But in later French examples, and apparently also at Lincoln⁠[242], it has been transferred to the Advent season, during which naturally the Annunciation was greatly held in remembrance, and has been attached to the so-called ‘golden’ Mass celebrated ten days before Christmas during the Quatuor Tempora⁠[243]. It thus became absorbed into the Christmas dramatic cycle.