de Passione' serves for a prologue, as it were, to an elaborate 'Quem quaeritis,' and includes events from the preparation of the Passover to the Burial. It is for the most part in dumb show, but in it the 'planctus ' of the Virgin occupies a conspicuous place.
Meanwhile the Easter trope had been imitated for the Christmas office: 'Quem quaeritis in praesepe, pastores, dicite?' Originally an introit trope for the 'magna Missa,' it was subsequently, like its prototype, transferred to matins, a position in which a dramatic 'Officium Pastorum' is found in at least one use. And just as the Easter play attached itself to the sepulchre, so that of Christmas attached itself to the 'praesepe' or 'creche.' A boy 'in similitudine angeli' perched 'in excelso' sang the good tidings, others 'in uoltis ecclesiae' took up the 'Gloria in excelsis.' Five of the clergy, representing the shepherds, advanced to
iv. 623 note, 636-7. A minute investigation has also appeared by Karl Young, 'Publications of the Modern Language Association of America,' 1910, xxv. 309. Both writers, however, express themselves very guardedly. Taylor concludes: 'Whatever the truth may be in other languages as regards the origin and development of the passion-plays, when considered in connection with the English plays as we have them, this theory cannot be accepted without at least certain qualifications.' Young sums up thus: 'Although it may be true that the planctus provided the first tangible impulse towards a dramatising of the Passion, the true passion-plays actually written seem, in general, to rest firmly upon the passio and to use the planctus only incidentally.' Neither of these criticisms seems to me to touch the point. Like a good deal of modern, particularly American, work they ignore the distinction between the origin of a literary form and the sources of actual texts. Young's article is, however, of very great importance as regards the dialogued passio.
