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The Paternoster Play and the Origin of the Vices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2021

Tempe E. Allison
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Extract

The lost morality, the Paternoster Play, has been a subject for speculation among many writers upon early English drama. Although no finding can lay claim to the last word upon the question, each additional bit of evidence helps toward a more accurate definition of the play. It is the purpose of this paper to call attention to the possible relation of this play to sermons upon the Oratio Domini among the treatises of Hugo of Saint Victor. Before embarking upon this discussion, it seems desirable to summarize briefly the facts and theories concerning the play now current. The material is of two sorts: information in regard to the morality to be derived from documents contemporaneous with it, and speculations as to its origin and nature which have been put forward by various scholars.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , December 1924 , pp. 789 - 804
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1924

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References

Notes

1 English Works of Wyclif, E.E.T.S., Or. Ser. 74, p. 429.

2 English Gilds, ed. J. Toulmin Smith, Or. Ser., 40, p. 137.

3 Op. cit., p. 138.

4 Lucy Toulmin Smith, York Plays, 1885, p. xxix.

5 Op. cit., pp. xxix-xxx.

6 Op. cit., p. xxix.

7 A. F. Leach, “Some English Plays and Players,” in An English Miscellany, 1901, p. 221.

8 Op. cit. p. 223.

9 Geschichte des Neueren Dramas, 2nd ed.

10 Op. cit. p. 468n.; cf. Schönbach, Sitzungsberichte Wien. Akad. d. Wissensch. Phil.-Hist. Klasse, XCIV, p. 191 and Anmerkung, p. 220. In his second edition Creizenach recognizes that the German sermon to which he refers was based on Hugo of St. Victor.

11 Chambers, The Mediœval Stage.

12 The Nation, N. Y., May 13, 1917, p. 563.

13 A. F. Leach, “Some English Plays and Players,” An English Miscellany, p. 223.

14 Patrol. Lat. CLXXV, xxv. ff.

15 Ibid., cols. 400-410 and cols. 767-790. The editors of the Patrologia place a part of the allegory among the Exegetica Dubia and the remainder among the Exegetica Genuina. For the present study the authencity of the first section is not of special moment, as the two parts are very similar and either presents the idea fully. In all probability both were regarded as genuine in earlier times.

16 Patrol. Lat. CLXXV, col. 780.

17 Ibid., col. 781 and col. 400.

18 Ibid., col. 775 and col. 403.

19 Ibid., cols. 783-784 and 406.

20 Ibid. cols. 788 and 404.

21 Ibid. cols. 400 and 784.

22 Leach, op. cit., p. 221.

23 Mediœval Stage, II, 154.

24 Skelton's Magnyfycence, E.E.T.S., Ex. Ser. XCVIII, cliii-cliv.

25 The N.E.D. (sub “vicious”) cites “bi her viciose lijf” in the Sel. Eng. Works of Wyclif, III, 430, and “fleschely, vayne, and vecyous” in the Prose Treatises of Richard of Hampole (E.E.T.S.).

26 Eckhardt, to be sure, lays it down as an invariable rule: “Der Vice ist in den englischen Moralitaten immer nur eine einzelne Person” ( lustige Person im älteren engl. Drama, Palaestra XVII, p. 112). But this statement, though it may be true of characters designated “the Vice,” of which the earliest example is Mery Report in Heywood's Weather (1533), surely does not apply to characters which appear in the rôle of vices. For example, Ramsay (op. cit., pp. xcvii ff.) has shown that in Magnyfycence both Fancy and Folly definitely present vice rôles. Certainly in the Paternoster Play, when an entire pageant was devoted to “viciose,” there would be nothing surprising in a plurality of vices.

27 For example, by Hugo of St. Victor himself (Patrol Lat. CLXXV, cols. 683 ff.).

28 Patrol. Lat. CLXXVI, col. 525.

29 Cf. also the definition of “vitium” by the editors of Migne's Patrologia (CCXX, cals. 849-850) where the same distinction is drawn.

30 Cf. the O. E. text of Bede's Eccl. Hist., ed. E.E.T.S., p. 82, line 19: “uncysta.” In the Old Eng. Homilies, First Ser., E.E.T.S., at p. 205 we find “fule unþeawes” (foul vices) but at p. 25 “heafsunne” and at p. 103 “heafodsunnan.”

31 Blickling Homilies, ed. E.E.T.S., p. 19.

32 Cf. Galatians 5:17-26; I. Cor. 3:12; II. Cor. 12-30; Eph. 4-5-8; 5-34.

33 Thus cf. the list of “VIII Principalia vitia” in Twelfth Cent. Homilies, ed. A. O. Belfaur, E.E.T.S., Or. Ser. 137, p. 40; in Early Engl. Homilies (12th cent.) ed. Rubie D. N. Warner, E.E.T.S., Or. Ser. 152, p. 16; and in Old Eng. Homolies First Ser., ed. Rich. Morris, E.E.T.S., p. 100.

34 Cf. Old Eng. Homilies, First Ser., E.E.T.S., p. 204: “I have made my five wits for entrance of vices (‘fule unþeawase‘) pride, desire of praise, wrath, leasing, envy, perjury, unfaithfulness, cursing, backbiting, and flattery.” In the treatise, Vices and Virtues (ed. Holthausen, E.E.T.S., Or. Ser. 89), written about 1200, practically the same vices are listed, some with Latin names attached.

35 Ramsay, op. cit., p. cliv.

36 Ed. Furnivall and Pollard, Macro Plays, E.E.T.S., Ex. Ser. XCI, 77ff.

37 Op. cit., p. 91. Veynglory is mentioned at v. 467, but has no lines in the extant text of the play. Moreover, he is missing from the “nomina ludorum”, but, as the editors have noted, the “summa” calls for 36 actors, whereas the list shows only 35.

38 Stultitia, it is true, is mentioned in a stage direction on p. 134, as accompanying Mundus and Cupiditas, but no lines are given to him in this scene.

39 Macro Plays, E.E.T.S., Ex. Ser. XCI, lff.

40 Walter K. Smart (“Some Notes on Mankind,” Mod. Philol. XIV, 45ff. and 293 ff.) dates this play between 1465 and 1474.

41 Macro Plays, E.E.T.S. p. 35 ff.

42 Pollard dates it circa 1460; Walter K. Smart (Some English and Latin Sources for the Morality, Wisdom, Menasha, Wis. 1912, pp. 87 ff.) dates the play 1460-3.

43 Macro Plays, p. 65, vv. 913-914. There follows the stage direction: “Here rennyt owt from wnydr þe horrybyll mantyll of þe Soull, vi small boys in þe lyknes of Dewyllys & so retorne ageyn.”

44 Walter K. Smart, op. cit, p. 71.

45 Dodsley's Old English Plays, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, Lond. 1874. 46 Ed. John S. Farmer, Recently Recovered ‘Lost’ Tudor Plays with some Others, 1907, pp. 43 ff.

47 Ed. F. I. Carpenter, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1902.

48 L. W. Cushman, The Devil and Vice in English Dramatic Literature before Shakespeare (Morsbach's Studien zur Engl. Phil. VI), pp. 61-63.

49 See Cushman's Tables, op. cit., pp. 55 ff.

50 Op. cit., pp. 70-72. Cushman's view that the rôle of the Vice was not originally humorous has been rejected by Eckhardt (“doch erscheint er schon gleich von Anfang an mit Komischen Zügen ausgestattet,” op. cit., p. 111) as well as by Ramsay (op. cit., pp. civ-cv).

51 E. F. Williams, Comic Element in Wakefield Mysteries, Univ. of Cal., 1914.

52 Macro Plays, E.E.T.S., p. 93, vv. 523-4. Cf. also Folly and Lust-and-Lykyng in Mundus et Infans and Delight in the morality fragment from Norfolk (Mod. Philol. XIV. 6).

53 Macro Plays, p. 100, v. 779; p. 128, vv. 1227, 1236.

54 Op. cit. pp. 97-98, vv. 671-95.

55 Op. cit. p. 129, vv. 1740-1.

56 Op. cit., p. 130, vv. 1779-80.

57 Op. cit., p. 131, v. 1824.

58 Ibid., p. 132, vv. 1852-1852.

59 Note the stage directions on the entrance of these characters (pp. 58, 59 and 60).

60 Macro Plays, p. 4, vv. 76-77.

61 Ibid., p. 6, vv. 130 ff.

62 Ibid., p. 10, vv. 238 ff.

63 Ibid., p. 11, vv. 268-9.

64 Ibid., p. 13, vv. 328 ff.

65 Ibid., p. 14.

66 A. F. Leach, “Some English Plays and Players,” p. 205 ff.

67 Chambers, The Mediœval Stage, II, Appendix W, p. 352.

68 Ibid., p. 141.