then festivals, vows to Pan, bacchanal rites,
public dances by women, the appearance of men dressed as women, or of
women dressed as men, and the use of comic, tragic, or satyric masks.
All the Dionysiac rites had been forbidden long before. These canons
prove that those rites were still observed. These clerical rules and
canons do not represent the mores and they never overruled the mores at
Constantinople. They only bear witness to what existed in the mores late
in the seventh century, and they were an attempt to purify the usages
which had been taken over by compromise from heathenism. In the sixth
century in the West dances in church were often forbidden. The only
stock of ideas in the eighth and ninth centuries were fantastic notions
of nature, heaven and hell, history, supernatural agents, etc., which
notions the ecclesiastics had an interest to teach. Dramatic
representation was a means of teaching. The external action corresponded
closely with the mental concept or story. From the time of Charlemagne
pantomimes, tableaux, etc., set forth incidents of biblical stories and
the resurrection, ascension, etc. The mores of the age seized on these
modes of representation and gave method and color to them. All the
grossness, superstition, and bad taste of the age were put into them.
Satan and his demons were realistically represented, and the mass was
travestied by ecclesiastics in a manner which we should think would be
deeply offensive to them.[2086] It was another case of conventionality
for a limited time and place. Some of the clergy no doubt enjoyed the
fun; others had to tolerate what was old and traditional. The folk drama
reawakened as burlesque, parody, satire. The evil characters in the
Scripture stories (Pharaoh, Judas, Caiaphas, the Jews) all fed this
interest. All persons and institutions which pretended to be great and
good and were not such provoked satire (clergy, nobles, warriors,
women). The drama, introduced to show forth religious notions, served
also to set forth others (social, political, city rivalry, class
antagonisms). The "mass of fools" was a complete parody of the mass,
with mock music and vestments and burlesque ceremony. In the "mass of
innocents" children took the place of adults and carried out the
ceremony as a parody. At the "feast of the ass" an ass was led into
church and treated with mock respect. This last degenerated into
obscenity, indecency, and disorder. Bulls and edicts against