Mystery and Miracle plays

Mystery plays

The plot and characters were drawn from the books of the bible, it was the major form of medieval drama
The best examples are the cycle plays of england. The york cycles contained 48 short plays and took around 14 hours to perform

The stories come from the old testament and the new testament

The wakefield cycle or The Passion Play dramatises the last week of christ's life - from his triumphal entry on palm sunday through his ascension into heaven

The mystery plays represented biblical subjects, developed from plays performed in Latin by churchmen on the premises of churches and portrayed subjects such as the Creation, Adam and Eve, the murder of Abel and the Last Judgement


Miracle plays


Built its plot around the lives and the works of the saints

They were usually performed on the saint's feast day

Some of the scripts were biblical, others were not

A miracle play presents a real or false account of the life, miracles, or martyrdom of a saint.

The genre evolved from liturgical offices developed during the 10th and 11th centuries to enhance calendar festivals.

By the 13th century they had become vernacularized and filled with non ecclesiastical elements.

They had parted from church services and were performed at public festivals.

Almost all surviving miracle plays concern either the Virgin Mary or St. Nicholas, the 4th-century bishop of Myra in Asia Minor.

Both Mary and Nicholas had active cults during the Middle Ages, and belief in the healing powers of saintly relics was widespread. In this climate, miracle plays flourished.
Explanation of St. George and the dragon


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