The Rule of the Tudors 1485 - 1603

Family and Friends: Religion And Society In Early Tudor England

At midsummer in many English towns and villages in the later middle ages, pageant wagons rolled
through the narrow streets, stopping along the procession way. On these wagons actors played God,
Christ, the Virgin Mary, Noah and his wife, and, dressed as demons, they danced among the people.
The mystery plays, put on by the craft guilds of the towns, were the most popular drama ever staged
in England. Most towns played only a single biblical scene, but in some, like York, Chester and
Wakefield, the greatest cycles of the mystery plays told the whole of salvation history from the
Creation to th Last Judegement. Play by play, all day long, the divine plan was revealed, the events
of the Old Testament prefiguring the New. This was a society in which devotion to God and belief
in the elements of the Christian faith were assumed; in which there were sanctions, worldly and
otherworldly, against those who did not give visible witness of their faith; in which membership
of the Church and obedience to its teachings were profound social duties. These plays spoke to
the unlettered, the unlearned, and to all Christians, and taught them what they must believe.
The mystery plays begin and end in heaven. First, God the Father appears and defines Himself:
first and last, without beginning or end, maker unmade, Three in One, Almighty. He creates heaven.
Enter Satan, the fallen angel who, in his pride, has rebelled against God and is cast out of heaven.
Creating the world by His Word, God sets in an earthly paradise the first man and the first woman,
Adam and Eve, formed in the divine likeness. In the Garden of Eden, Eve is tempted by the serpent
and eats the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge and she tempts Adam to do the same. For their
disobedience, the original sin, they are cast out of Paradise and from the divine presence, and their
first sin is transferred to their descendants forever. The Fall of Man is complete when Cain kills
his brother Abel. From this abyss of evil, mankind can be saved only by God's intervention and
mercy. He sends the Flood to drown the sinful world, and then from the destruction saves some.
Noah, his wife and family, and two animals of each kind, board an ark as the waters rise. Noah is a
man who walks with God, obedient to His command. So is Abraham who agonizingly, unquestioningly, prepares to kill his innocent son, Isaac, a willing sacrifice and prophetic of the
greatest sacrifice in the world.
In the East Anglian 'play called Corpus Christi', which was written down sometime after 1468, a
debate is staged in the parliament of heaven. It enshrines the understanding of man's salvation
and redemption prevailing at the end of the middle ages. According to the figure of Justice, man's
offence against God is endless and so must be the punishment. Should man be saved? 'Nay, nay,
nay!' Yet according to Mercy, 'Endless sin God endless may restore.' Man cannot be restored to divine favour until satisfaction has been made, but in his wretchedness he has nothing to offer to compensate
for so great an offence, and all that he has is God's anyway. Only God has the power to satisfy the
debt, but it is mankind that owes it. In a play a council is held among the Trinity, and Christ offers
Himself, willing self-sacrifice, to atone to His Father for mankind's offence and redeem mankind:
'Father, he that shall do this must be both God and man  . . . I am ready to do this deed'. Archangel
Gabriel is sent to tell Mary, blessed among women, that she, although a virgin, will bear God's son -
mother and maiden. His salutation - 'Hail Mary, full of grace' - is the one that all Catholics will
use to her forever after. The Christ-child is born in a stable, poor and lowly, and shepherds and kings
come to adore Him, their joy suffused with sorrow as they contemplate His suffering to come.
The late medieval preoccupation with Christ's human nature led to a devotion to His mother, the
Virgin Mary. The play tells in parallel the story of her life, and that of the cousins and aunts, family
and friends whom Christ gained when He was made man. All the mystery plays lead to 'such sorrow'
that will pierce 'even through his mother's heart'; to a mother grieving at the foot of the Cross.
At the heart of the mystery plays was the Passion Play, for it was above all Christ's Passion which
was the focus of late medieval spirituality: not Christ in majesty, but Christ in His vulnerable humanity suffering on the Cross, His body broken, bleeding, dying. The plays depicted the extremity
of Christ's suffering, and showed Him tempted, betrayed, mocked and tortured; hanging on a cross,
crowned with thorns, His arms outstretched in compassionate self-immolation. Since Christ has
taken upon Himself a human nature, He suffers human doubt and desolation; feels Himself forsaken.
Without sin Himself, he has come to take mankind's sin upon Him and to redeem the human race.
He tells His mother from the Cross:

And, woman, thou knowest that my Father of heaven me sent
To take this mankind of thee, Adam's ransom to pay.

He dies to save those who torment and crucify Him, the sublime example of loving one's enemies.
From the tragedy of His Passion comes mankind's salvation.