It may seem unusual to take as the starting point for astudy which focuses upon twentieth-century Germandrama the late medieval English Everyman—in full title The Summoning ofEveryman—the more so because that workitself not only is a translation but also dependsupon other writings—earlier allegorical moralityplays, sermons, and texts in the tradition of theart of achieving a good death, the ars bene moriendi, literally“of dying well.” Although there has been over theyears some debate on the matter, the English workseems with some certainty to be a translation of theDutch Elckerlijc, likethe English text also in rhymed verse, assumed to beby Peter van Diest (perhaps Petrus Dorlandus, aCarthusian, 1454–1507), and written probably in thelast decade of the fifteenth century. Its full titlein Dutch is Den spyeghel dersalicheyt van Elckerlijc, “the mirror ofthe salvation of Everyman,” and early prints have asingle woodcut of Death killing Everyman. The modernEnglish translation of the work by Adriaan vanBarnouw (1877–1968), which appeared after thetranslator's death, has a moving introduction thatinvokes the excesses of death in the two World Warsof the twentieth century.

The English Everymansurvives in a handful of printed texts from theearly part of the sixteenth century, most notablythat printed in London by John Skot (Scott) in1528–29, with a woodcut frontispiece depictingEveryman and Death. (A later printing contains asecond woodcut of other characters.) The earliest(fragmentary) print dates to 1510. The somewhatcomplex textual history of the two full and twofragmentary texts is not of particular relevancehere, nor indeed is the relationship to its source,Elckerlijc. TheEnglish text was not printed again until theeighteenth century, but there were Latin extendedadaptations of the Dutch original in the sixteenthcentury that do merit some attention, one byChristian Ischyrius (Sterck, precise dates unknown)with the title Homulus in 1536, and one by Georgius Macropedius(Joris van Lanckvelt, 1487–1558) in 1539, its titlethat of the eponymous central figure, Hecastus.