by Royce Radcliffe

Created on: May 02, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

The medieval age was the peak of drama in the church's history and thus it is only fitting that their dramatics would be appropriately enhanced. This reflection of the energy of the times had a profound effect on the arts in general and helped base for the formation for the theater as we know it today.

In this period many church rituals were expanded into such productions. There were great festivals where people would celebrate their faith through such means on multiple stages throughout. They would reenact things like the Nativity and the Resurrection. At first these were mainly symbolic plays but soon enough they grew into full fledged productions akin to the theater we think of today.

These were called "miracle plays" at the time and were exceedingly popular.The only problem with them, really, was that these plays were in Latin,t he language of traditional church sessions at the time.

Soon these methods of reaching the public spilled over to the street as performers felt the need to express themselves beyond the confines of the church itself. This soon became an independent marketplace and that is where the transformation ocurred. The model for the theaters and street performances was now in place.

Especially in the theaters in Paris, a new wave of theater that was non-religious in nature was experimented with and when this style grew just as popular it was maintained ever after. But without the powerful church working toward this end the model would surely have taken many more centuries to develop. So in this regard we can trace a lot of our modern entertainment back to actions of the medieval church.

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