HUMA 1125 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Wakefield Mystery Plays, Towneley Family, York Mystery Plays
28 Nov 2016
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Thesis: it was a dramaturgy serving the city and religion at once, in very mingled ways: the urban setting. 1 noah and mystery plays: the functions of religion, here we are in town. Interesting to be here as so far in the course, abelard aside, we have been distinctly courtly, what with hrothgar and charglemagne and mark. Fighting men and hangers-on, and war and hunt as central. So far towns have been vague backdrop paris, dublin, and townsmen have been bit players. But we know that towns are rising, and busy. Gottfried is after all from strassburg, a city near the rhine. A different political regime, a different way of life, not fiefs but urban tenure, less relative, less encumbered, and an artisanal economy of making and selling. The church was very real, with its clergy, officials, lands and buildings, its own courts for marriage matters, vows, and other church affairs.
