Untitled

204 LITURGICAL DRAMA
with two consolatrices, who support her when she is about to fall. 1
This extensive scene, in verse, is an extraordinary patchwork: free
composition, lines found also in the Freising version, and actually a
tenth-century sequence of Notker's. It is skilfully unified, though, and
the seams are not apparent. In unique fashion a 'happy ending' is
contrived. The angel appears again, singing the antiphon 'Sinite
parvulos' (* Suffer little children'), whereupon the victims are restored
to life, rise and enter the choir singing a liturgical piece. Then in
dumb-show Herod is dethroned, to be succeeded by Archelaus.
Finally the angel summons back the Holy Family, to what is probably
original music. An antiphon concludes the drama, which takes place
apparently at Matins, though the actual day remains uncertain. In
spite of a high proportion of borrowings we have here an attractive
music-drama, with ample details of costume and action.
Some mention must be made of a piece of dramatic pageantry
known as Ordo Prophetarum, the time and date of performance
during the Twelve Days of Christmas varying in different places.
This *
Procession of the Prophets' was a dramatization of a section
of a famous sixth-century sermon (erroneously ascribed to St. Augus
tine) in which the preacher calls on various Biblical personages
Moses, Isaiah, David, Jeremiah, and a number more for utterances
concerning the coming of Christ. Even pagan witnesses, Virgil and
the Sibyl, are cited. The dramatic possibilities of the Ordo Prophetarum
were obvious, but the resultant metrical adaptations were few
in number and of no great interest from either a dramatic or a musical
point of view.
We have found that three of the Christmas themes those of the
Shepherds, the Magi, and the Innocents tend to fuse into single
compositions. This tendency towards unwieldiness, which we have
already seen in the Easter group, must at times have strained the
resources of ecclesiastical space, time, and patience. It is not sur
prising to find that further combination seems to be confined to one
famous example, the so-called 'Christmas Play' from the Carmina
Burana, dating from the thirteenth century. 2 This drama may be the
product of the monastery, or perhaps one of the efforts of thegoliards,
the wandering scholars, who contributed other compositions to the
collection. It displays a great deal of theological and classical learning,
frequently to the detriment of its dramatic elements. It is altogether
1 The mourning Rachel as a dramatic subject is found as early as the eleventh century.
(Cf. Paris, BibL Nat. lat. 1139, fol. 32 v -33.) Herplanctus has the precedent of a wealth
of similar laments of the Virgin.
8
Munich, Staatsbibl. lat 4660, fo. 99-104\