Morality PlayBackground notes

What is a “morality play”?

Morality PlayAllegory

a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy.Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.

an allegorical form of the drama current from the 14th to 16th centuries and employing such personified abstractions as Virtue, Vice, Greed, Gluttony, etc.

Morality Plays

♦ Teach a moral lesson

♦Involve a battle between good and evil

♦Performed any time of the year, not tied to any Christian events or characters, but rooted in Christian ideals

Characteristics Illustrates the way to live a pious life Characters are personified

abstractions of vices and virtues For instance, characters named

Mercy and Conscience might work together to stop Shame and Lust from stealing Mr. Poorman's most valuable possession, a box of gold labeled Salvation.

The protagonist often has a name that represents universality, such as "Everyman," "Mankind," "Soul," "Adam," etc.

Everyman The most famous morality play is probably

Everyman, a fifteenth-century drama in which a grim character named Death summons Everyman to judgment. On his way to meet Death, Everyman discovers that all his old buddies are abandoning him except one. His friend Good Deeds is the only one that will accompany him to meet Death, while Beauty, Fellowship, Kindred, Knowledge, and Strength fall by the wayside on his journey.

14th Century England The Little Ice Age Brought harsh, cold temperatures to

England The colder weather impacted

agriculture, health, economics, social strife, emigration, and even art and literature.

The Black Death Bubonic Plague present in two forms: one that infected

the bloodstream, causing the buboes and internal bleeding, and was spread by contact; and a second, more virulent pneumonic type that infected the lungs and was spread by respiratory infection. The presence of both at once caused the high mortality and speed of contagion.

Bubonic Plague Quick death No medical knowledge No cure Easily spread People buried in mass graves – no time for

individual funerals and burials Believed to have come from fleas on rats

in sailing ships from the East (China) Estimated 20 million deaths in Europe

Social Consequences from The Black Death Economic: inflation, shortage of labor,

peasant strikes, Behavioral: lawlessness, debauchery,

despair, obsession with death Loss of faith in God

Life in Medieval England

The one thing the peasant had to do was to pay out money in taxes or rent. He had to pay rent for his land to his lord; he had to pay a tax to the church called a tithe.

Peasants also had to work for free on church land; the power of the church was such that no-one dared break this rule as they had been taught from a very early age that God would see their sins and punish them.

Medieval Peasant Life

At night, any animal you owned would be brought inside for safety. Reasons: wild animals roamed the countryside. England still had wolves and bears in the forests and these could easily have taken a pig, cow or chickens. The loss of any animal could be a disaster but the loss of valuable animals such as an ox would be a calamity.

Water Water had a number of purposes for peasants –

cooking, washing etc. Unfortunately, the water usually came from the same source. A local river, stream or well provided a village with water but this water source was also used as a way of getting rid of your waste at the start of the day. It was usually the job of a wife to collect water first thing in the morning. Water was collected in wooden buckets.

Towns needed a larger water supply. Water could be brought into a town using a series of ditches; lead pipes could also be used. Water in a town would come out of conduit which was similar to a modern day fountain.

Bathing Bathing was a rarity even for the rich. A rich

person might have a bath just several times a year but to make life easier, several people might use the water before it was got rid of!

It was said that a peasant could expect to be fully bathed just twice in their life; once, when they were born and when they had died! Face and hand washing was more common but knowledge of hygiene was non-existent. No-one knew that germs could be spread by dirty hands.

Families and Children

Families would have cooked and slept in the same room. Children would have slept in a loft if the house was big enough.

The lives of peasant children: They would not have attended school. Very many would have died before they were six months old as disease would have been very common. As soon as was possible, children joined their parents working on the land. They could not do any major physical work but they could clear stones off the land – which might damage farming tools – and they could be used to chase birds away during the time when seeds were sown. Peasant children could only look forward to a life of great hardship.

For all peasants, life was "nasty, brutish and short."

Houses

The houses would have had none of the things we accept as normal today – no running water, no toilets, no baths and washing basins. Soap was unheard of and as was shampoo. People would have been covered with dirt, fleas and lice. Beds were simply straw stuffed mattresses and these would have attracted lice, fleas and all types of bugs. Your toilet would have been a bucket which would have been emptied into the nearest river at the start of the day.

Traveling Actors Went from town to town and performed

their plays – moved on when there was no more money to be made

Male actors – often playing more than one part

Carried all of their props and costumes on a pageant wagon, which could be converted into a stage

Tonsure ton·sure noun 1.the act of cutting the hair or

shaving the head. 2.the shaving of the head or of some part

of it as a religious practice or rite, especially in preparation for entering the priesthood or a monastic order.

3.the part of a cleric's head, usually the crown, left bare by shaving the hair.

4.the state of being shorn.