ordinary medium of
dramatic speech, where song was effectually ousted by recitation and
dialogue, and where finally, though the emancipation was on this head
nowhere absolute, the religious drama gave place to the secular.

France.

In France, where dramatic performances had never fallen entirely into
the hands of the clergy, the progress was speediest and most decided
towards forms approaching those of the modern drama. The earliest play
in the French tongue, however, the 12th-century _Adam_, supposed to have
been written by a Norman in England (as is a fragmentary _Resurrection_
of much the same date), still reveals its connexion with the liturgical
drama. Jean Bodel of Arras' miracle-play of _St Nicolas_ (before 1205)
is already the production of a secular author, probably designed for the
edification of some civic confraternity to which he belonged, and has
some realistic features. On the other hand, the _Theophilus_ of Rutebeuf
(d. c. 1280) treats its Faust-like theme, with which we meet again in
Low-German dramatic literature two centuries later, in a rather lifeless
form but in a highly religious spirit, and belongs to the cycle of
miracles of the Virgin of which examples abound throughout this period.
Easter or Passion plays were fully established in popular acceptance in
Paris as well as in other towns of France by the end of the 14th
century; and in 1402 the _Confrerie de la Passion_, who at first devoted
themselves exclusively to the performance of this species, obtained a
royal privilege for the purpose. These series of religious plays were
both extensive and elaborate; perhaps the most notable series (c. 1450)
is that by Arnoul Greban, who died as a canon of Le Mans, his native
town. Its revision, by Jean Michel, containing much illustrative detail
(first performed at Angers in 1486), was very popular. Still more
elaborate is the Rouen Christmas mystery of 1474, and the celebrated
_Mystere du vieil testament_, produced at Abbeville in 1458, and
performed at Paris in 1500. Most of the Provencal Christmas and Passion
plays date from the 14th century, as well as a miracle of St Agnes. The
miracles of saints were popular in all parts of France, and the
diversity of local colouring naturally imparted to these productions
contributed materially to the growth of the early French drama. The
miracles of Ste Genevieve and St Denis came directly home to the
inhabitants of Paris, as that of St Martin to the citiz