led the blank created by the disappearance of the _chansons
de geste_. The survivals of the drama of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries are few; the stream, as we know, was flowing, but it ran
underground.

The religious drama had its origin in the liturgical offices of the
Church. At Christmas and at Easter the birth and resurrection of the
Saviour were dramatically recited to the people by the clergy, within
the consecrated building, in Latin paraphrases of the sacred text;
but, as yet, neither Jesus nor His mother appeared as actors in the
drama. By degrees the vernacular encroached upon the Latin and
displaced it; the scene passed from the church to the public place
or street; the action developed; and the actors were priests supported
by lay-folk, or were lay-folk alone.

The oldest surviving drama written in French (but with interspersed
liturgical sentences of Latin) is of the twelfth century--the
_Representation d'Adam_: the fall of man, and the first great crime
which followed--the death of Abel--are succeeded by the procession
of Messianic prophets. It was enacted outside the church, and the
spectators were alarmed or diverted by demons who darted to and fro
amidst the crowd. Of the thirteenth century, only two religious pieces
remain. Jean Bodel, of Arras, was the author of _Saint Nicholas_.
The poet, himself about to assume the cross, exhibits a handful of
Crusaders in combat with the Mussulmans; all but one, a supplicant
of the saint, die gloriously, with angelic applause and pity;
whereupon the feelings of the audience are relieved by the mirth and
quarrels of drinkers in a tavern, who would rob St. Nicholas of the
treasure entrusted to his safeguard; miracles, and general
conversion of the infidels, conclude the drama. The miracle of
_Theophile_, the ambitious priest who pawned his soul to Satan, and
through our Lady's intercession recovered his written compact, is
by the trouvere Rutebeuf. These are scanty relics of a hundred years;
yet their literary value outweighs that of the forty-two _Miracles
de Notre Dame_ of the century which followed--rude pieces, often
trivial, often absurd in their incidents, with mystic extravagance
sanctifying their vulgar realism. They formed, with two exceptions,
the dramatic repertory of some mediaeval _puy_, an association
half-literary, half-religious, devoted to the Virgin's honour; their
rhymed octosyllabic verse--the special dramatic form--at times
borders upon