Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/23

MIRACLE CYCLES. n trace pretty clearly their spontaneous growth out of the liturgy itself, in that of the others such growth cannot be asserted, though neither, in the present state of our knowledge, can it be confidently denied. I refer to those plays founded on the legends of saints or on isolated episodes of the biblical narrative, which have the appearance of being deliberate imitations of the already developed liturgical dramas proper. Such are the three plays of the vagrant scholar Hilarius, the pupil of Abelard, dealing in mixed French and Latin with St. Nicholas, Daniel, and Lazarus, which by their rubrics are explicitly if loosely connected with the offices of the Church. They belong to the first half of the twelfth century. Through a fortunate accident of fire we learn of a ' miracle ' of St. Catherine prepared by the scholars of a school at Dunstable about noo. Other plays seem to be recorded on all the themes treated by Hilarius, as likewise on Isaac and Rebecca, Elisha, Salome, and the conversion of St. Paul. Finally, we have two important pieces less closely connected with the liturgy, though still clearly intended to be acted in church and to take their places in the ritual cycle of the year. One of these is the ' Sponsus,' a play, partly in French, based on the parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, which by its subject is closely connected with the Advent or Christmas season. The other is the long and elaborate Tegernsee 'Antichrist/ a remarkable anti-papal and anti-clerical composition, introducing alle- gorical figures, which was probably written about 1 1 60, and is extant in a manuscript only some half