¹ Grass quoted in Nagler, A. L., The Medieval Religious Stage: Shapes and Phantoms (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1976), p. 3Google Scholar.

² Grass, Karl, ed., Das Adamsspiel, Anglo-normannisches Mysterium des XII, Jahrhunderts, 3rd rev. ed. (Halle: Niemeyer, 1928);Google ScholarStuder, Paul, ed., Le Mystère D'Adam: An Anglo Norman Drama of the Twelfth Century (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1918):Google ScholarCohen, Gustave, Histoire de la mise en scène dans le théâtre religieux du Moyen Age (Paris: Librairie Honore Champion, 1926), pp. 51–62Google Scholar. These scholars based much of their reconstruction of the staging of the Adam play on the previous work of Marius Sepet, Le Drame Chretien au Moyen Age (Paris: Didier et cie, 1878)Google Scholar.

³ Frank, Grace, “The Genesis and Staging of The Jeu D'Adam,” PMLA, 59 (1944), 7–17;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMathieu, Michel. “Le mise en scène du Mystère d'Adam,” Marche Romane, 16 (1966), 47–56;Google ScholarEbel, Uda, ed., Das Altfranzösische Adamspiel (Munich: W. Fink, 1968);Google Scholar and Greisenegger, Wolfgang, “Religiöses Schauspiel als politisches Instrument: Beobachtungen am altfranzöisischen Adamsspiel,” Maske und Kothurn, 21 (1975), 1–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ M. Sepet was the first to deduce that paradise was stage right and hell stage left (quoted in Studer, p. xxiv). Greisenegger stresses the polarity apparent in the staging (pp. 9–10), but provides no feasible ground plan to reconcile his various suggestions.

⁵ Frank refers to nine French cathedrals built after 1200 as possible performance sites (p. 12, n. 11) to support her notion that the Adam play was performed on the porch of the southern transept. While these churches may have provided later performance spaces, they are inappropriate in considering the initial staging.

⁶ Studer's dates for the dialogue (p. xxx) have not been challenged, but he provides no dates for the didascalia, assuming, as have later scholars, that they were written at the same time. The difficulty in dating the Latin stems from the simplicity of the grammatical constructions and the many mistakes made by the copyist in the Tours MS. See Aebischer, Paul, Le Mystère d'Adam, Textes Littéraires Français (Paris: Librairie Minard, 1964), pp. 8–9Google Scholar.

⁷ Stone, Edward Noble, trans., Adam: A Religious Play of the Twelfth Century, Univ. of Washington Publications in Language and Literature, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1926), pp. 159, 184.Google Scholar Subsequent references to the didascalia will be cited with Stone's name and the page number in the text; references to specific lines of dialogue by a simple 1. or 11. and the number. Although the Axton, Richard and Stevens, John translation of the drama in Medieval French Plays (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1971), pp. 7–44Google Scholar is generally more accessible, it omits the prophet section of the play. For the original Latin of the stage directions, I have relied on Aebischer's edition.

⁸ Frank, Grace, The Medieval French Drama (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1960), p. 68.Google Scholar Frank's reference here is to liturgical drama, but there is no reason the Adam play, written for clerical actors, might not have enjoyed the same treatment.

⁹ Hodges, C. Walter, The Globe Restored (London: Ernest Benn, 1953), pp. 86–88Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Other historians of medieval staging practices on the continent have used hypothetical ground plans with some success. See, for example, Marshall, F. W., “The Staging of the Jeu de Saint Nicolas: An Analysis of Movement,” Australian Journal of French Studies. 2 (01—03 1965), 3–28;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMichael, Wolfgang, “The Staging of the Bozen Passion Play,” The Germanic Review, 25 (1950), 178–195;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Konigson, Elie, L'Espace Théâtral Médiéval (Paris: Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique, 1975)Google Scholar, passim. Marshall's reconstruction of the staging of the Saint Nicolas play is of particular interest because of its similarity to my own notion of the staging of the Mystère d'Adam.

¹¹ The first to suggest this was Marius Sepet (quoted in Studer, p. xxiv) and Grass, Cohen, Mathieu, and Greisenegger have subsequently agreed.

¹² “The Genesis and Staging of the Jeu D'Adam,” p. 12.

¹³ For pictorial evidence of large, pre-1174 churches in Normandy, see Gieure, Maurice, Les Eglises Romanes en France (Paris: Editions du Louvre, 1954)Google Scholar, passim; Musset, Lucien, Normandie Romane: La Basse Normandie (Paris: Zodiaque, 1967);Google Scholar and Stoddard, Whitney, Monastery and Cathedral in France: Medieval Architecture, Sculpture, Stained Glass, Manuscripts, the Art of the Church Treasuries (Middleton, Connecticut: Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1966), pp. 31–68.Google Scholar For evidence relating to English churches, see Batsford, Harry and Fry, Charles, The Cathedrals of England, 6th ed. (London: B. T. Batsford, 1934)Google Scholar, passim; and Bond, Francis, The Cathedrals of England and Wales, 4th ed. (London: B. T. Batsford, 1912), pp. 22–28, 52–55, 67–72, et passim.Google ScholarPorter, Arthur Kingsley, Medieval Architecture: Its Origins and Development (New York: Baker and Taylor, 1909), I, 240–284Google Scholar provides pictures of both English and Norman churches. The evidence on English churches is somewhat unreliable since most of them have undergone numerous additions since 1174. I have surveyed only large churches and cathedrals in Normandy and England since I assume only a cleric with access to the human and scenic resources of a substantial church organization would have attempted to produce the Adam play.

¹⁴ The single exception I have found is St. George de Bocherville, pictured in Porter, I, 264, which contains both a porch and a short flight of stairs. Greisenegger, criticizing Ebel's assumption that the play took place “on the steps” (Ebel, p. 57), notes that the scenery of the Adam play “could only have been accommodated on one of the monumental Baroque staircases” (p. 9, n. 25).

¹⁵ Stage Direction in France in the Middle Ages (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1910), pp. 33–34Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Grass, Cohen, and Studer again followed Sepet's suggestion in this regard which demanded “un echafaud très eléve” (quoted in Studer, p. xxiv), for paradise.

¹⁷ “The Genesis and Staging of the Jeu D'Adam,” p. 12. Frank objects to a platform of any sort for earthly paradise, suggesting instead that loco eminenciori means the porch of the church.

¹⁸ Calin, William C., “Cain and Abel in the Mystère d'Adam,” Modern Language Review, 58 (04 1963), 173CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ Ibid. p. 174.

²⁰ Kaske, R. E., “The Character ‘Figura’ in Le Mystère D'Adam,” in Medieval Studies in Honor of Urban Tignor Holmes, Jr., eds. Mahoney, John and Keller, John Estern, Univ. of North Carolina Studies in Romance Languages and Literature, No. 56 (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1965), pp. 108–109.Google Scholar Other pertinent sources on the derivation and meaning of the Adam play are Steadman, John M., “Adam's Tunica Rubea: Vestiary Symbolism of the Anglo-Norman Adam,” Modern Language Notes, 72 (11 1957), 497–499;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWoolf, Roşemary, “The Fall of Man in Genesis B and the Mystère d'Adam,” in Studies in Old English Literature in Honor of Arthur G. Brodeur, ed. Greenfield, Stanley B. (Eugene, Oregon: Univ. of Oregon Books, 1963), pp. 187–199;Google Scholar and Hunt, Tony, “The Unity of the Play of Adam (Ordo representacionis Ade)—II,” Romania, 96 (1975), 497–527CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²¹ Other theatre historians, among them Sepet, Frank, and Greisenegger, have reached the same conclusion without, however, relating the placement of paradise to the meaning and derivation of the play. As Allardyce Nicoll has pointed out, geographical and right and left directions were invested with a variety of symbolic meanings and no universal interpretation of their significance evolved during the Middle Ages. See Masks, Mimes and Miracles: Studies in the Popular Theatre (New York: Cooper Square, 1963), p. 196Google Scholar.

²² Frank, “The Genesis and Staging and the Jeu D'Adam,” following Grass, comments: “No fewer than ten or a dozen de´ils must have been involved, perhaps more” (p. 17, n. 21). If there were only two ministers and the devils were kept to ten, the minimum number of actors involved, without doubling, would be twenty-eight.

²³ See Studer, p. xiv. This derivation is congruent with Kaske's belief that the play was based on the first three verses of Hebrews since both the sermon and Hebrews 1:3 are centrally concerned with the resurrection of Christ.

²⁴ The scamnum, according to Frank (“The Genesis and Staging of the Jeu D'Adam,” p. 15), is a moveable bench used in celebrating mass large enough to accommodate three people.

²⁵ Hunt underlines the qualities of evil apparent in Eve, concluding, “There is no denying … that the Adam playwright, who was familiar with the exegetical tradition, gives prominence to Eve as the instigator of disaster and to her weakness” (p. 513). I cannot agree, however, with Hunt's supposition that the Adam play was performed inside a church. Without examining the ramifications, Hunt asserts that the ecclesia mentioned in the didascalia indicates a scenic mansion opposite a mansion for the Jews of the synagogue rather than the church itself (p. 526). First of all, even if these hypothetical mansions did exist, it is extremely unlikely that they would be paired in opposition to each other since the adversaries of the Jews are the prophets and no mansion is indicated for them. Furthermore, a prophets' mansion is difficult to conceive because it would eliminate the need for a scamnum and also lead to impossible crowding within the mansion before the entrances of the eleven prophets and the animal. Although it might be possible to put up several screens within a church to mask the prophets in their mansion and later to mask everyone who cannot be contained in hell, the difficulty of such an arrangement militates against the notion. Indeed, it may be that the complexities of such problems and the consequent need for a large, neutral backstage area led the playwright-director to mount his production outside.

²⁶ Greisenegger, following Ebel, calls for mansions for Cain and Abel in addition to the other scenic units and properties (p. 10). While a locus for each brother is mentioned in the didascalia, these places need not have been separate scenic units. The author of the Seinte Resurreccion, another twelfth-century drama, distinguishes between maisuns (houses) and lius (places) in his stage directions. Kahrl, Stanley J., Traditions of Medieval English Drama (Pittsburgh, Penn: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1974), p. 30Google Scholar notes this distinction in his discussion of the Seinte. Very likely, locus in the Adam play designates the same use of space—a place for an actor to stand—as lius in the Seinte.

²⁷ Although the evidence is far from complete, it is more likely that the Adam play was performed in Normandy than in England. The manuscript, which contains not only the play but also a Norman poem, was discovered in Tours. Even if the author were Anglo-Norman, as appears possible from the insular traits of the language (Grass, p. lxxii), it is probable he wrote it for performance in France. As one critic has pointed out, it would make little sense to perform a play written in Anglo-Norman before a predominately Anglo-Saxon audience a mere hundred years after the conquest (Frank, “Genesis and Staging of the Jeu d'Adam,” citing Creizenach, p. 10, n. 7).

²⁸ See Musset (p. 54) for the dimensions of St. Etienne. My survey of the dimensions of large churches in Normandy before 1150 (see n. 13) indicates the following ranges: width of western facade, 15 to 27M; width of central portal, 2 1/2 to 7M; distance between central and side portals, 1/2 to 7M.

²⁹ Musset is my primary source for St. Etienne and I have followed his practice.

³⁰ Marius Sepet combined the two images, calling for “a square tower, with platform and battlements, that has a grated window and, by way of a door, an enormous dragon mouth which opens and closes by itself” (quoted in Studer, p. xxv). The scantiness of the stage directions and the absence of suggestive dialogue allow for a wide variety of reconstructions of hell.

³¹ Wickham, Glynne, The Medieval Theatre (New York: St. Martins Press, 1974), p. 26Google Scholar.

³² Commenting on the characterization and costuming of the Adam play, Kaske and Steadman reach similar conclusions (see n. 20). Nagler, too, discovers a formal acting style in the stage directions: “The presentational gestures (beating the breast and thigh as expressions of grief, the persistent pointing to paradise) and the instruction ‘to speak composedly’ and to pronounce everything clearly are in accord with the liturgical choral chanting emerging from the church” [p. 2].

³³ Studer, pp. xviii-xix; Hunt, p. 501; Calin, p. 175.

³⁴ Auerbach, Eric, “Adam and Eve,” Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Traske, Willard R. (1953; rpt. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1957), pp. 127, 131Google Scholar.