nturies saw a progressive supplanting of
Latin by the common speech, until, in the great cycles, only a few scraps
of the church language were left to tell of the liturgical origin of the
drama. The process of popularization, the development of the plays from
religious ceremonial to lively drama, was probably greatly helped by the
_goliards_ or vagabond scholars, young, poor, and fond of amusement, who
wandered over Europe from teacher to teacher, from monastery to
monastery, in search of learning. Their influence is shown not merely in
the broadening of the drama, but also in its passing from the Latin of
the monasteries to the language of the common folk.

A consequence of the outdoor performance of the plays was that Christmas,
in the northern countries at all events, was found an unsuitable time for
them. The summer was naturally preferred, and we find comparatively few
mentions of plays at Christmas in the later Middle Ages. Whitsuntide and
Corpus Christi became more popular dates, especially in England, and the
pieces then performed were vast cosmic cycles, like the York, Chester,
Towneley, and "Coventry" plays, in which the Christmas and Epiphany
episodes formed but links in an immense chain extending from the Creation
to the Last Judgment, and representing the whole scheme of salvation. It
is in these Nativity scenes, however, that we have the only English
renderings of the Christmas story in drama,{9} and though they |129|
were actually performed not at the winter festival[42] but in the summer,
they give in so striking a way the feelings, the point of view, of our
mediaeval forefathers in regard to the Nativity that we are justified in
dealing with them here at some length.

As the drama became laicized, it came to reflect that strange medley of
conflicting elements, pagan and Christian, materialistic and spiritual,
which was the actual religion of the folk, as distinguished from the
philosophical theology of the doctors and councils and the mysticism of
the ascetics. The popularizing of Christianity had reached its climax in
most countries of western Europe in the fifteenth century, approximately
the period of the great "mysteries." However little the ethical teaching
of Jesus may have been acted upon, the Christian religion on its external
side had been thoroughly appropriated by the people and wrought into a
many-coloured polytheism, a true reflection of their minds.

The figures of the drama are contempor