Religious Drama, Theatrical Architecture and the Battle for Power in Late Medieval England

Résumé En

From the plain and didactic liturgical drama of the twelfth centuiy to the elaborate theatrical productions of the sixteenth centuiy, the birth and early development of theatre as a literaiy genre has entailed a displacement of the performing context that finally resulted in the creation of theatres as architectural units. The numinous archi- lecture of the church or cathedral , the free open space of the street, and finally buildings dedicated exclusively to the art of comedy have successively provided various types of performance with settings largely depending on and thus representing institutions or pressure groups. The actors’ quest for a home reflects the question of the place of theatre in society — and the place of man in the universe. The solutions left by the authorities reflect their desire to keep a potentially subversive profession under control. In the process of settlement , theatre lost some of its freedom. Playwrights were limited to a single architectural space that also sensed as sceneiy, but on the other hand, these physical constraints are also largely responsible for the dynamism of theatrical creation at the beginning of the sixteenth centuiy. This paper focuses on a process that began in the Middle Ages and led to the birth of indoor and open-air theatres as architectural entities in sixteenth-centwy England. The influence of religious and secular authorities on the creation of these spaces, and the consequential writing constraints as stage shows moved from one place to the other, will be the main issues of this study.