ens of Tours;
while the early victories of St Louis over the English might claim a
national significance for the dramatic celebration of his deeds. The
local saints of Provence were in their turn honoured by miracles dating
from the 15th and 16th centuries.

It is less easy to trace the origins of the comic medieval drama in
France, connected as they are with an extraordinary variety of
associations for professional, pious and pleasurable purposes. The _ludi
inhonesti_ in which the students of a Paris college (Navarre) were in
1315 debarred from engaging cannot be proved to have been dramatic
performances; the earliest known secular plays presented by university
students in France were moralities, performed in 1426 and 1431. These
plays, depicting conflicts between opposing influences--and at bottom
the struggle between good and evil in the human soul--become more
frequent from about this time onwards. Now it is (at Rennes in 1439) the
contention between _Bien-avise_ and _Mal-avise_ (who at the close find
themselves respectively in charge of _Bonne-fin_ and _Male-fin_); now,
one between _l'homme juste_ and _l'homme mondain_; now, the contrasted
story of _Les Enfants de Maintenant_, who, however, is no abstraction,
but an honest baker with a wife called Mignotte. Political and social
problems are likewise treated; and the _Mystere du Concile de Bale_--an
historical morality--dates back to 1432. But thought is taken even more
largely of the sufferings of the people than of the controversies of the
Church; and in 1507 we even meet with a hygienic or abstinence morality
(by N. de la Chesnaye) in which "Banquet" enters into a conspiracy with
"Apoplexy," "Epilepsy" and the whole regiment of diseases.

Long before this development of an artificial species had been
consummated--from the beginning of the 14th century onwards--the famous
fraternity or professional union of the Basoche (clerks of the Parlement
and the Chatelet) had been entrusted with the conduct of popular
festivals at Paris, in which, as of right, they took a prominent
personal share; and from a date unknown they had performed plays. But
after the _Confrerie de la Passion_ had been allowed to monopolize the
religious drama, the _basochiens_ had confined themselves to the
presentment of moralities and of farces (from Italian _farsa_, Latin
_farcita_), in which political satire had as a matter of course when
possible found a place. A third association, calling th