by Tim Rayborn
[The farces] had often … sought to disturb the public peace, and to bring disgrace on private families, and the old Oscan farce, once a wretched amusement for the vulgar, had become at once so indecent and so popular, that it must be checked by the Senate’s authority.
The plays were banned in Italy by 28 CE, but obviously, this prohibition did not last very long, since who can resist a good naughty satire? Indeed, such a ban probably only increased their appeal. Imperial resistance was only temporary, anyway; we know that Emperor Hadrian (76–138 CE) enjoyed them at banquets, and was presumably the one who arranged for them to be performed in the first place.
The other great dramatic tradition of Rome was mime. This word may call to mind images of Marcel Marceau or annoying men in white face paint creeping out people in local parks, but Roman mimes had many qualities that were different from those of their contemporary counterparts. There were two different types of performers, the mime and the pantomime.
Mimes were generally itinerant players who could set up a makeshift stage anywhere where there was a paying audience. Their routines included singing, dancing, juggling and other acrobatics, and performing short skits with humorous and vulgar themes: satires of public figures and institutions, physical comedy, and burlesques were popular. Stories were often improvised, but might focus on mocking country life and its ways, or even lampooning the gods, always a controversial and risky choice. Needless to say, these performers were among the lowest of the low in social class, but over time they did gain limited respectability, and some mimes were even employed by wealthy and noble families.
The pantomime was on another level of quality and esteem, and has a bit more in common with our modern concept of mimes. Such performers always worked solo, remained silent, and took on every role in the production. This involved the wearing of different masks and being something of a quick-change artist with costumes. They were accompanied by musicians and a chorus, who recited or sang the story (usually with tragic or mythic themes), while the pantomime acted and danced out the events and characters in silence. It was a curious blend of drama and a kind of primitive ballet, and was highly prized, worlds away from the street theater of the mimes. Emperors such as Nero and Domitian enjoyed these performances; one can imagine Nero wanting to take part, since he was enamored of all things musical and dramatic.
Mimes persisted for several centuries as everyday entertainment for the lower classes and a guilty pleasure that the rich liked to indulge in once in a while. The emperor Aurelian (214/15–275 CE) is said to have taken “a strange delight in mime,” while the truly horrible Emperor Carinus (d. 285 CE) was reported to have filled his palace with mimes, singers, and prostitutes. The wonderfully named Emperor Heliogabalus (ca. 203–222 CE) apparently decided that mimes’ simulated sexual activity during shows simply would not do, so he ordered them to actually have sex onstage while performing. Well, I suppose it’s a job perk. However, Roman biographies of Heliogabalus are notoriously suspicious. In his short, eighteen-year life, he was said to have married and divorced five women, as well as one man, but his portrayal as a degenerate may have been a political hatchet job by his enemies after his assassination. Regardless, the mimes of the time were undoubtedly only too happy to incorporate him into their future farcical performances, live sex acts notwithstanding.
3
The Middle Ages and Renaissance
Things didn’t go so well for the Romans beginning in the third century. All the usual culprits of a civilization’s failure gradually came into play: poor leadership, economic problems, population issues, food shortages, and so on. The empire watched as its borders gradually shrunk; increasingly worried Romans also noticed that there were quite a few angry people on the other side of those borders—“barbarians” they called them—that were eager to have a bit of the Roman good life, whether by assimilating into the empire or taking it by force.
Even Rome’s gods weren’t safe, as a new religion, Christianity, took root, especially among the poor and dispossessed. While offering a more egalitarian vision of life and simpler religious rituals devoted to a single deity, this new belief was quite a bit stricter about personal conduct. Its adherents didn’t like what they saw everywhere: moral laxity, violence, corruption, vulgarity, and general nastiness. Pastimes like popular music and drama were natural targets for indignant Christian attacks; fart jokes and public shagging simply weren’t going to be okay in this new worldview.
Christian writers such as Tertullian (ca. 155–ca. 240 CE) believed that the very practice of acting was devoted to the creation of lies, and therefore was hated by God:
Will God be pleased with the man who alters his appearance with a razor [mimes frequently shaved their heads], betraying his own face…. Again I ask whether this business of masks in fact pleases God, who forbids the making of any likeness … when in his law he ordains that the man who wears female dress is accursed, how will he judge the pantomime actor who sways around in imitation of a woman?
Despite this opposition, and even as Christianity grew in political power over the next two hundred years, actors continued their activities, entertaining the masses and being praised for their talents. With the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the advances of barbarian tribes into the former Roman territories of Italy, France, and Spain, one would think that players and entertainers of all kinds would be the last thing on people’s minds; fleeing from large, unwashed men with big, sharp weapons would tend to become a priority. But this image of the “Dark Ages” is incomplete and inaccurate. Various archeological digs have revealed that at least some areas seem to have seen little violence. Towns were often fortified and then apparently carried on as they always had. The barbarian tribes did not so much want to destroy Rome as claim it for themselves, and eventually a succession of Germanic tribal leaders were proclaimed Roman emperors.
It’s an interesting thought that the need to be entertained does not subside even in the face of tragedy. A modern example would be how Hollywood boomed during World War II; people wanted an ever-increasing supply of movies to take their minds off the grim events of the world, even if just for a few hours. It probably would not have been all that different in the decades and centuries after Rome’s fall. Those who could make people laugh, wow them by juggling and tumbling, or take them to a fantastic place with a story or a drama would probably have been highly valued, regardless of any religious opposition. Such performers probably couldn’t travel around a lot, and certainly didn’t make much (if any) money, but they must have existed in some form.
This is not to say that music and drama flourished in the early Middle Ages; the records are too sparse for us to have a clear picture. But there are probably ancient Roman elements to later forms of medieval and Renaissance entertainments, and it’s highly unlikely that these diversions died out only to suddenly spring back to life several centuries later.
Entertainers were described by many different words in early medieval writings, but these were not used with any consistency, so it’s difficult to tell if the writer is speaking of musicians, jugglers, players, or some combination. Much of the evidence that we do have comes in the form of religious prohibitions; always look for what was banned to find out what was popular! For instance, the Council of Rome in 382 warned English clergy not to permit celebrations and plays (ludos), while the Council of Clovesho in 747 warned that monasteries should not host traveling performers of any kind. An account from about the year 835 mentions that Emperor Louis I (778–840), despite being nicknamed “the Pious,” was entertained by mimi (mimes) at a banquet. King Edgar of England (943–975) noted with some irritation that the mimi of his time mocked monks and religion openly during their shows in marketplaces. This sounds very similar to a mime performance in Rome from nearly a thousand years earlier.
So some forms of dramatic entertainment seem to have persisted in the long centuries after Rome. These were not the serious, well-plotted dramas of the Greeks and high-brow Romans, but c
ertainly they were the popular entertainments that the common people would continue to flock to, regardless of political circumstances, what religion they were told to obey, or what invader was knocking at the doors.
Speaking of religion, one important genre of medieval drama was the liturgical play. As the name implies, these plays were church-sanctioned performances of biblical scenes presented in churches and usually given at specific feasts and holidays (Christmas, Easter, and so on). Though performed in Latin, these plays were obviously of great use for instructing the largely illiterate populace (rather like the images in stained glass), and they grew over time to become lavish productions, with their own sets, costumes, props, and music.
Religious dramas found their way into the streets as well, in the form of mystery plays. These weren’t religious whodunnits, but rather depictions of scenes from the Bible, staged during religious feast days at various times of the year in vernacular languages for the benefit of the common people. In England especially, they were hugely popular, being presented on pageant wagons that became portable stages, hauled out into the streets for all to see. A series of plays is known as a cycle, and different cities each had their own versions of these cycles, which were based around biblical stories, such as the nativity and the passion. They were typically scenes from the Bible with extra dialogue added in. A number of town craft guilds were responsible for various stagings of the plays, which could be elaborate and detailed. The term “mystery play” probably derives from the Latin ministerium, meaning “occupation,” which links the plays to the guilds. These performances were a matter of civic pride, and the cycles flourished in England (with varying degrees of Church approval) up until the Reformation.
Given the nature of the plays performed in this period—street theater improvised by unlettered players and liturgical dramas written anonymously for the glory of God—the identities of specific medieval playwrights are mostly unknown, though there are some exceptions as the Middle Ages progressed into the Renaissance. We will look at a few of these individuals in this chapter, along with some of the key medieval genres and forms, and the requisite revolting, violent, and funny stories that frequently went with them.
Jacopone da Todi (ca. 1230–1306)
Saddled up
Jacopone was a Franciscan monk who had been born into a wealthy noble family. He studied law at the University of Bologna and then began a successful practice of screwing clients, thirteenth-century style. He married a noble lady, Vanna, and seemed to have it all, except that his wife wasn’t so impressed with his amoral behavior and took to wearing an itchy hair shirt in an attempt to hurt herself to atone for his sins. Sometime shortly after they were married, she died at a tournament when the stand where she was situated collapsed. Jacopone rushed to help her but found her dying and discovered her less-than-fashionable underwear.
Realizing that she was doing this on his behalf, he eventually gave away all of his possessions and became a wandering ascetic, gaining a reputation for being quite mad; in fact, “Jacopone” is a nickname basically meaning “crazy James.” He tried to live up to it, once crawling around the square of his hometown on all fours while wearing a saddle on his back and a bridle in his mouth. On another occasion, he showed up at his brother’s wedding covered head to toe in tar and feathers. Once, someone asked him to carry two capons (castrated roosters) to his home, but Jacopone took them instead to the man’s family tomb, telling him that this was his true home. Ah yes, dear old crazy James, always good for a laugh!
After a decade of this nonsense—during which no one apparently did much about him—he was able to gain admission to the Franciscan order; they apparently weren’t overly worried about his brand of crazy. In the next few decades he wrote a large number of laudi, Italian religious songs. These vernacular poems evolved into dialogues that took on the form of dramatic interaction between different speakers. They were effectively early Italian religious plays. One in particular, Donna de Paradiso, is all dialogue and concerns the passion of Christ. Some of his other laudi include Que fai, anema predata, a conversation between a poet and a dead nun who laments that she has been damned, causing the poet to worry about his own fate (this might be a good plot for a horror story), Audite una entenzone, wherein the rich converse with a poor and elderly man, and O Christo pietoso, a drama about the Last Judgment featuring a cast of Christ, Satan, and various angels. Such works were performed first behind the closed doors of the order, but value was seen in bringing them to the people, and instead of only being sung, they were sometimes recited, laying the groundwork for early Italian drama. Jacopone’s minidramas, along with other laudi, helped it all happen when wandering Franciscans took them to towns and popularized them by performing them for laypeople.
He didn’t fare so well in other areas, however. Being part of an extreme branch of the Franciscans that practiced absolute poverty and asceticism—the Spirituals—he denounced Pope Boniface VIII and was promptly imprisoned and excommunicated. Though released in 1303, he was broken and died only a few years later.
The fabliaux: scandalous minidramas (ca. 1200–ca. 1340)
All the naughty bits, and then some!
Obscene, irreverent, violent, scatological, offensive—and these were just the good points! The fabliaux had them all and much more. These wonderfully scandalous and comic stories in poetic form circulated widely in medieval France and were enjoyed by everyone from the humblest peasant to the snootiest noble (even though they weren’t supposed to like such things). They could be heard anywhere from market fairs and street corners to the dining halls of the wealthy and powerful. The heyday of the fabliaux was in northern France during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but their themes and plots would influence writers like Boccaccio, Chaucer, Rabelais, and Molière for centuries to come.
Written versions survive in many manuscripts, but the real fun would have been in hearing them performed live. Jongleurs (medieval poets and musicians) and out-of-work clerks included these tales in their repertoires and recited them for whoever would listen. They might have played an instrument like a fiddle at various points for added effect. But these recitals wouldn’t have been bland poetry readings. A number of scholars now believe that fabliaux poems were in fact miniplays, with the narrator taking on different voices for different characters, acting out scenes of humor and violence, and generally bringing these earthy fancies to vivid life. It’s also entirely possible that more than one performer may have been involved, with each taking one or more character roles, thus turning the stories into true plays.
So what about them was so shocking? Oh, plenty. Even by modern standards, some of these tales will make a listener blush. Rather than recounting the heroic deeds of ancient superheroes or the endless relationship problems of the upper classes, the fabliaux are firmly set in the real world of working people, but not in a sympathetic way. Peasants are crude and stupid, husbands are jealous fools, wives are deceitful and prone to adultery, the clergy and monks are lustful and greedy, and those who attempt to rise above their social stations fail and are severely punished. These negative portrayals obviously amused those with more money and standing, but they were also popular with the peasantry, who didn’t appreciate their fellows trying to improve their lot in life. The poems weren’t just for entertainment, though; they always had a moral and showed how those who indulged in greed, corruption, and sin were made to pay for it.
The language was uncensored; the equivalent of the word for “fuck” appears in at least twenty-five poems; “cunt” is equally popular. One story was known as “The Knight Who Made Cunts Talk,” and the plot was exactly about that! These words were probably not particularly offensive at the time and only became so later on as tastes changed. Sexual activity appears frequently, though in a controlled way; the missionary position is predominant, oral sex hardly ever happens, and any descriptions of homosexual behavior are accidental encounters between two ignorant male characters, used for comic effect.
&
nbsp; Violence in the form of mutilations was also popular, with castration being a source of much mirth. One story, “The Crucified Priest,” tells of how said priest is having an affair with a woman whose husband is a carver of crucifixes. The husband comes home while the adulterous couple are eating (a common setup in these stories for later sex), so the already-naked priest runs and hides in the carver’s workshop before he is discovered, but the husband knows what’s up. He goes to his work area and sees the priest, motionless and stretched out on a cross, pretending to be a large crucifix. The husband expresses dismay that he has made such a fine Christ figure but accidentally added genitals to it, so out comes the knife and off come the priest’s “three hanging ornaments.” The priest runs away, but is caught and brought back, and forced to pay money to the wronged husband. So the story ends, and much amusement was had. The moral was that clergymen need to keep to themselves, or they will lose much more than their dignity. The corrupt priest is such a common stock character in these stories that many believe they were a real and common problem.
Another tale worth knowing is a ridiculously ribald fantasy about the gullibility of peasants and the duplicitous nature of their wives, “The Four Wishes of Saint Martin.” In this poem, a farmer in Normandy is devoted to Saint Martin, who appears to him and rewards him with four wishes for his faithfulness. The man rushes home in excitement to tell his wife that their troubles are over and that they will soon be rich, as they can wish for anything. The wife asks that he let her make one of the four wishes. He reluctantly agrees, and the lustful wife then wishes that he be endowed with penises everywhere, so that she may take pleasure in them all. With her words, the transformation begins,
with pricks appearing on his beak
