Table Of ContentMEDIUM ÆVUM MONOGRAPHS
NEW SERIES III
LITURGY AND DRAMA
IN THE
ANGLO-NORMAN ADAM
By
LYNETTE R. MUIR
Published for the Society for the
Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literature
by Basil Blackwell, Oxford
© 1973 Lynette R. Muir
S.B.N. 0 631 15520 1
Printed in Great Britain
Lithographic Reproduction by
Oxford & Cambridge Schools
Examination Board,
Els fie Id Way, Oxford
PREFACE
The starting point for this study of Adam was the production
in 1%7 of the integral text, in English, under the title of the Tale
of Adam. In the course of preparation and rehearsal, many quest
ions were raised which could not be satisfactorily answered in
the light of previous work on the play. It is my hope that future
students of the Ordo representacionis Ade, whether readers, actors
or spectators, will find the answers to at least some of their
queries in this book which may perhaps best be described as a
Companion to Adam or Glossa Adae.
After the last performance of an amateur production, it is
customary for the producer to thank ‘all those boys and girls back
stage who have worked so hard to make the play a success.’ No
such speech was made after the Tale of Adam, so it may not be
inappropriate to express my gratitude first and foremost to the
clergy and people of St. Aidan’s church Leeds, with whom I have
been privileged to share so much of both liturgy and drama.
I am also indebted to many colleagues and friends for advice,
suggestions and references; a few are mentioned in the Notes: the
majority must remain anonymous. An especial debt of gratitude is
owed to Professor Rothwell of Manchester, who first encouraged
me to write this book and to the Reverend J.A. White for much help
with the liturgical and theological material. The book was typed
by Mrs. Winter, Miss Midwood and Miss Smith and proof-read by
Miss Harry: to these four my sincerest thanks; I must also express
my gratitude to Mrs. Fairpo for preparing the Bibliography. Last,
but by no means least, I would like to thank the editorial staff of
the Medium Aevum monograph series, and especially Dr. Kathleen
Chesney and Mr. R.C.D. Perman who made many useful suggestions.
For all the faults that, nevertheless, remain, ‘n’en ai raison....
que peccheriz culpable ne me rende.’
For AD A IVI
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1
The Triple play 3
Section One: Sources and Parallels
I The Bible and liturgy 6
II Latin and vernacular drama 16
III The temptation of Adam and the Old English Genesis 18
The Originality of Adam 21
Section Two: Staging and Production 23
I Time and place of performance 24
II The Décor 29
III Costumes 34
IV Speech, mime and music 42
The Iconography of Adam 47
Section Three: Theme and Structure 51
I The Fall of Man 54
1) The forging of the bond 54
2) The breaking of the bond 61
3) The punishment 77
4) Cain and Abel 83
II The Prophets of Redemption 93
The Unity of Adam 113
i) Feudal Unity: Covenant and Bond 113
ii) Theological Unity: the classic doctrine of the
Atonement 114
iii) Formal Unity: Word and Image 116
Conclusion
Author and Audience 118
A classical Christian tragedy 120
Notes
Introduction 122
Sources and Parallels 125
Staging and Production 135
Theme and Structure 154
Conclusion 171
Tables 173
Bibliography 177
LITURGY AND DRAMA IN THE ANGLO-NORMAN ADAM 1
INTRODUCTION
Adam is one of the best known and most neglected
masterpieces of French literature. Although it has been
consistently acclaimed by scholars and amateurs of medieval
drama1, since it was first edited in 1854, there is still no
definitive edition of the unique MS2. Translations and adapta
tions, particularly of the first act, have proliferated in both
French and English3; numerous productions have been mount
ed in Europe and the United States, over the last forty years;
yet not one full-scale study of the play has ever appeared.
To claim that Adam has been neglected is not to over
look the very lengthy Bibliography of articles and chapters
devoted to the play, but rather to emphasise that, with few
exceptions, these studies have either dealt with it as part
of a dramatic tradition, liturgical or vernacular, or have
concentrated on only one or two different aspects of the
work - language, style, literary qualities, sources, unity or
staging4.
One possible reason for this regrettable state of affairs
is the exceptional character of the work. It belongs wholly
neither to liturgical nor secular drama, neither to France nor
to England. It may have been written by a Frenchman or an
Englishman, in Anglo-Norman or Norman-French; half sung
and half acted, perhaps by clerks and perhaps by laymen,
partly inside and partly outside a church somewhere in
England or in France5.
The very title of the piece is ambiguous and untransla
table; Ordo represcntacionis Ade cannot really be rendered
Jeu d'Adam or Play of Adam which would suggest the Latin
ludus; Order, Office and Ordinal seem equally inappropriate;
mystère and mystery-play did not come into use until some
centuries later6.
Whether it be described as transitional, semi-liturgical
or an early example of cycle-making; a farsed responsory or
an extraordinary office, always there has to be a special
category in which to place this étrange monstre of which we
LITURGY AND DRAMA IN THE ANGLO-NORMAN ADAM 2
might indeed say: “tout irrégulier qu’il est, il faut qu’il
ait quelque mérite___puis qu’il a surmonté l’injure des
temps et qu’il parait encore sur nos théâtres.”7
The Triple Play
In the medieval legend of the Holy Rood, the cherub at
the gates of Paradise gives to Seth three pips from the
Forbidden Fruit and commands him to bury them in the mouth
of his father, Adam. From the grave there grow up three
verges and these in course of time fuse into a single tree
from which eventually the Cross is made. These three
different rods of cedar, cypress and pine“senefient Trinité,
Les iii persones en i Deu.”8 They can also be used as an
allegory of Adam, which is a fusion of three plays, or rather
three types of theatrical experience.
The structure of Adam has usually been considered
tripartite: a play of Adam and Eve, a play of Cain and Abel,
and a prophet play; this emphasis on a ‘vertical’ division of
the text has obscured the threefold ‘horizontal’ division into
a Latin play, a mime play and a French play. The different
forms of these three ‘rods’ may be characterised as ‘opera’,
‘ballet’ and ‘drama’.
The Latin ‘opera’ tells the whole story of the play.
Read as a consecutive sequence, the lection and responsories
of the Adam and Cain scenes contain every essential of the
Genesis story of the Fall of Mai>^(the eating of the Apple,
though not described, is clearly implied). Similarly, the
lection and prophecies in the second wing of the diptych
give the essentials of the prophet play, since we may reason
ably assume that the lection would include at least the
introductory paragraph of the Sermon in which the Jews are
summoned: “Let there come forth then from your Law, not
merely two but many witnesses of Christ and let these con
found them that be hearers of the Law but not doers thereof.”9
Although I have used the term ‘opera’ to characterise
the Latin play, it is obvious that only the responsories were
necessarily sung; the prophecies were to be pronounced
