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"The Worlde and the Chylde," issued by the press of Wynkyn de Worde in 1521, is one of the very earliest plays published in England. It also has very considerable interest for its adaptation of the ages of man iconography, which is extensively treated in the introduction, notes and illustrations.

Each essay covers a unique topic in the study of the Playbook, utilizing a diverse set of methodological tools and interdisciplinary approaches for subjects which have not heretofore received adequate scholarly attention. The topics at hand are each of significant interest to the field at large.

This book examines the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century engagement with a crucial part of Britain's past, the period between the withdrawal of the Roman legions and the Norman Conquest. A number of early modern plays suggest an underlying continuity, an essential English identity linked to the land and impervious to change. This book considers the extent to which ideas about early modern English and British national, religious, and political identities were rooted in cultural constructions of the pre-Conquest past.

Transcriptions were all designed for performances by the Society for Old Music, and were used in concerts for the local community, the International Congress on Medieval Studies. Concerts ranged from medieval chant and monophonic song to polyphonic choral works, and each concert focused on a particular topic.

Wasson here provides the basic tools necessary to transcribe documents, without regard for the historical development of alphabets, letter forms, and the like. This manual will be of great interest to scholars of the arts in need of a guide for their journeys into the archives.

Clifford Davidson's newly revised and expanded edition of A Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge makes available the longest and most significant text of dramatic criticism in Middle English.

Contributions to this volume recognize that early drama depended on specific developments in material culture in order to achieve its effects, which included both visual and auditory means of appealing to audiences. . Of special interest is Mary Remnant's survey of musical instruments; she is the recognized expert on medieval English instruments.

The radical Protestantism that led to the suppression of religious drama in England also destroyed perhaps the majority of ecclesiastical art in the country. The essays in this book provide analysis of the intellectual and religious motivation as well as new historical information concerning this phase of iconoclasm.

This richly illustrated book surveys representations of the stage and acting from manuscript illuminations, stained glass, sculpture, woodcarving, wall paintings, and the woodcuts that appear in playbooks produced by the first English printers.

Despite the paramount importance of confraternities (especially to males) in medieval European society, scholars have tended to neglect not only the social role they played but also the influence they had on the art, drama, music, and thinking of the society in which they not only existed but thrived.

A close study of eight plays and the elements Robinson considers essential to performance: playwright, sponsors, location, plot, script, players, and audience.

In his foreward to the volume, Clifford Davidson praises Guilfoyle's application of the concept of scenic form in her study of Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear, and her exposition of historical consciousness. Any student of Shakespeare will benefit from the nuanced study of his imagery and how it colors his characters and the action in his plays.

Mary of Nemmegen, a prose condensation in English of the play Mariken van Nieumeghen, is a prime example of Dutch literature imported in the early sixteenth century.

Accessible to scholars whose specialties lie outside of technical music theory, keeping in mind especially the aesthetician but also general medieval scholars, and even the general reader.

Essays addressing issues in the study of medieval art, literature, and drama. The topics covered include scatological illustration in Gothic manuscripts, connections between word and picture in religious art, perceived relationship between divine and human creativity and an exploration in the phenomenology of space and time in medieval theater.

The study of popular hymnody is remote not only from contemporary experience but also from very many contemporary scholars. The first English study of the form. Illustrated, including musical notation and black-and-white plates.

This illustrated volume provides a much-needed introduction to what may have been the most popular variety of drama in the Middle Ages: the saint play. A comprehensive and collaborative survey is provided with an emphasis on interdisciplinary study rather than only literary analysis.

The medieval cycle plays from such cities as York and Chester culminated in a drama about the end of time, the Last Judgment. David Bevington and the other contributors to this book look at this final event of history as depicted in pre-modern times.

Included here are the texts, translations, musical transcriptions, and facsimiles of the Swedish music-dramas for Holy Week and Easter: Depositio, Elevatio, and Visitatio Sepulchri.

The Fool in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period was either a person who capitalized on his natural deficiencies, which were then considered amusing, or a professional entertainer who specialized in clowning. His role is best known to us through the plays of Shakespeare. Indispensable analyses of the Fool from a number of different perspectives.

Gesture and movement on stage in drama of the Late Middle Ages have previously received very little attention in scholarship. The present collection of essays is the first book to present sensible, penetrating, and wide-ranging discussions of the gestural effects that were integral to the early stage.

This full-length study investigates how sermons and vernacular religious drama worked as media for public learning, how they combined this didactic aim with literary exigencies, and how plays acquired and reflected authority. The interrelation between sermons and vernacular drama, formerly assumed to be a close one, is addressed from historical connections, performative aspects, and the portrayal of penance. The work demonstrates the subtly different purposes and contents and outlines the unique ways in which they operate within late medieval England.

The five essays study the contents of the manuscript in order to understand the provenance of its most famous piece, the Jeu d'Adam.