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Giving voice to women: Teaching feminist approaches to the mystery plays
College Literature, Spring 2001 by Normington, Katie
If women appeared rarely in the medieval theatre this was not because it was thought shameful: rather was this so because of factors that were particular to the theatre of the Middle Ages. In the first place, responsibility for the organization of the Corpus Christi drama rested with bishops, canons, and city fathers: this exclusively male hierarchy then delegated executive responsibility to guilds, religious and commercial, that were open to men. Liturgical music drama, moreover, having relied for generations on choir-boys and junior clergy to take treble roles-provided an example to be imitated in the Corpus Christi drama. The quality of these voices suggests another and more practical reason for continuing to employ them rather than to recruit women-audibility in an open-air auditorium. (Wickham 1987, 93-94)
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I quote at length from Glynne Wickham's The Medieval Theatre because it raises some interesting problems that are encountered when trying to formulate a feminist approach to the English mystery plays. In this article I would like to examine the challenges that are encountered when teaching feminist approaches to the mystery plays and offer some suggestions as to how classroom activities can provide a fruitful exploration of these issues. If women's activity is to be given a voice within the classroom, then it is essential that pedagogical methods take steps in order to nullify the crippling affect of Wickham's opening statement.
One of the first problems that must be overcome when teaching a feminist approach to the mystery plays is the lack of appropriate resources. Wickham is, in fact, one of the few authors of a standard college textbook to include references to women. The majority of course books in print, which an undergraduate might encounter when studying medieval drama, omit anything but a cursory reference to women. Even the Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, which contains an excellent bibliography, fails to offer anything other than a passing reference to women.' Recent scholarship has produced a handful of articles that explore the role of women within the plays, although these are not necessarily easily accessible for an undergraduate.When teaching medieval drama from a feminist perspective the first hurdle that must be overcome is the lack of appropriate resources.
Many of the challenges that must be faced when developing a feminist pedagogical approach are identified in Wickham's opening comments. He suggests three major reasons as to why women were excluded from the medieval stage. He first argues that the lack of female performance in the mystery plays was brought about by the production methods of the plays.The church, civic, and guild authorities responsible for bringing forth the dramas were male institutions. Wickham implies that this patriarchal control in effect excluded women from involvement with the dramas. Second, Wickham postulates that the model of performance established through the tradition of liturgical drama influenced the mystery plays. Church music drama was predominately performed by men, and it was thought that medieval theatre developed from this model of performance.2 Finally, Wickham hypothesises that women did not perform in the English mystery plays because their voices were not as powerful as those of men, and that they would not have been audible in the open streets which formed the performance arena for the dramas.
Wickham's observations highlight some of the important methodological issues which shape teaching and research practices within the field of medieval drama. The majority of standard textbooks are still influenced by approaches inherited from the 1903 writings of EX Chambers. Chambers's thesis views medieval drama as part of an evolutionary development from Latinate Church drama towards Renaissance theatre (1967, 126). However, the validity of this viewpoint has been questioned; Chambers's views are based on a Darwinian notion of evolution and progression.3 His emphasis on the importance of the influence of Church drama on the mystery plays has been vigorously questioned.4 Davenport, inspired by the 1933 work of Geoffrey Owst, Literature and the Pulpit, suggests that the cycle texts "before... were created by educated literary men in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries out of a combination of existing traditions of drama and religious material in sermons, instruction-books, scriptural summaries and paraphrases, commentaries, and lyrics" (1982, 1).
Recent academic thought has begun to explore the influence of other festive, civic and religious practices upon the development of the cycles. It is generally accepted that the plays developed from the Feast of Corpus Christi, held annually to celebrate the Eucharist and the act of transubstantiation.5 This rethinking has allowed a variety of new perspectives to be articulated. For example, Martin Stevens argues that it is more likely that "the drama of the church existed side by side with the Corpus Christi cycles performed in the heart of the city" (1987, 42). Wickham's hypothesis that the non-performance by women on the medieval stage was determined by the precedent set by liturgical drama is, therefore, tenuous.
