Dorothea Freise. Geistliche Spiele in der Stadt des ausgehenden Mittelalters: Frankfurt--Friedberg--Alsfeld. GÖ¶ttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2002. 624 pp. EUR 66.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-525-35174-1.

Reviewed by Glenn E. Ehrstine (Department of German, University of Iowa)
Published on H-German (October, 2004)

Devotional Theater Meets Social History

By bringing a much-needed sociohistorical perspective to the Hessische Passionsspielgruppe, arguably the most central complex of German-language passion play texts from the late Middle Ages, Dorothea Freise has produced an essential study for all those interested in late medieval piety and its various cultural expressions. The book focuses on three centers of play production in Hessen: Frankfurt, whose director's scroll (Dirigierrolle) from the first half of the fourteenth century represents the digested version of an early play that forms the basis for all other texts of the Hessian group, including the "Younger" Frankfurt Passion Play of 1493; Friedberg, which has a rich archival record of annual performances from the mid-fifteenth century through the 1520s, but whose play text is extant only in excerpts from the nineteenth century; and Alsfeld, from which a frequently revised performance text survives, together with a director's book, three part books, a fragmentary list of participating actors and their roles, and one of the few surviving late medieval stage plans. The play texts have long attracted the interest of Germanists, but Freise is the first to undertake a thorough analysis of local archival records to reach conclusions on the status of the plays and their performers in their varying urban contexts.

Drawing on the research of Roger Chartier and Miri Rubin, Freise Analyzes the "cultural use" of religious plays in each of the three cities under investigation (p. 29). Although she considers the performance texts in her analysis, her main focus concerns the participants in the "role play" of public spectacle, which encompasses not only actors, but also sponsors and spectators (pp. 37-38). A large portion of the study thus treats the groups behind the performances, providing fresh insights on late medieval confraternities. Here, Freise not only identifies the participants according to their social rank, but also addresses their reasons for uniting in a Spielgesellschaft with the express purpose of regularly producing passion plays for their neighbors. The result is a nuanced picture of each community of performance, in which the dynamics between players, local clergy, and town authorities vary in all three cases. Based on the differing circumstances of each location--at times with, at times without the participation of the upper social ranks--Freise provides the most thorough refutation to date of the thesis that late medieval religious plays were Volksschauspiele, performed by and for an ostensibly homogenous group of laity.

The study is divided into five main sections, each with several subdivisions. Following a general introduction and a discussion of medieval and early modern views on devotional theater, Freise turns to the three centers of play production in her third section, entitled "Spiele und Spielinitiativen in spätmittelalterlichen Städten: Frankfurt--Friedberg--Alsfeld." For each city, she provides an overview of local political, and religious institutions, discussing the relations between town council, clergy, laity, and emperor or local lord, before moving on to an analysis of the archival record. Given the virulent antisemitism of the plays, the focus of much recent research, Freise also treats the status of the Jewish community in each city. The fourth section, "Die Texte der Passionsspiele," focuses on select aspects of the plays themselves, such as the contemplation of the passion as a devotional exercise or the numerous liturgical elements of the performances, in which Freise argues against the commonly held belief that the plays Increasingly lost their ecclesiastical ties over time. The study's findings are summarized in a fifth and final section, followed by an appendix with three groupings of archival material: an edition of the Alsfeld players list (Darstellerverzeichnis); biographical information on these actors as found in local archives; and corrected dates and folio numbering for the Friedberg documentation as edited by Bernd Neumann, based on the recent restoration of the documents' original order by the Stadtarchiv Friedberg.[1] A final bibliography lists Freise's sources. There is no index, a regrettable omission given the length and detail of the book.

Freise traces the development of each city's performance tradition from the earliest surviving local records through the first decades of the sixteenth century, when support for the plays withered due to religious reform or council opposition. For Frankfurt, records begin with the Dirigierrolle, which provides evidence for at least two passion play performances prior to 1350, likely sponsored by the local Bartholomäusstift, in whose library the manuscript resided. Following a gap of approximately one hundred years, the records of the town council document additional performances for the years 1456, 1467, 1468, and 1469, culminating in 1470 in a supplication requesting the council's assistance in founding a confraternity for the annual performance of a passion play and procession. Freise argues convincingly that a confraternity-like grouping of laypersons and clergy from the Bartholomäus- and Leonhardsstift had formed for the productions of 1468 and 1469, and now wished to institutionalize their undertaking. Although the council declined this request, by 1492 a confraternity had apparently formed, and the council proved well disposed towards their subsequent efforts. The passion play productions of 1492, 1498, and 1506 represent the zenith of the Frankfurt tradition, with four-day performances during Pentecost that required over two hundred actors and costly expenditures by the city for scaffolds and security. These plays took place before the Römer, the town hall, with space reserved at the Römer's windows or on the roof of the opposite Nikolaikirche for council members and official guests of the city.

Following the performances, the councilors dined in the Antoniterhof at the invitation of the play confraternity. Nonetheless, as Freise notes, the relations between council and players were not always free of friction. The magistrates kept a sharp eye on the expenditures of the group and were reluctant to grant the players' repeated request to participate in the city's annual procession on the Feast of Mary Magdalene (July 22), doing so only once in 1498. Indeed, Freise argues that the plays were only briefly attractive to the city's elite. Whereas prestigious roles were often reserved for council members in other cities, the Frankfurt performances in her assessment were an initiative of the lower social classes and clergy. The local tradition ended in 1515, when the council declined a request for a renewed passion play performance, apparently concerned that the production might aggravate existing tensions between the laity and members of the Bartholomäusstift as well as exacerbate simmering aggression against the local Jewish community.

In contrast, the passion play and procession of Friedberg enjoyed widespread support among all classes and served as a vehicle for the social integration of the city's inhabitants in a common undertaking. This included the imperial Burggraf and residents of the neighboring Reichsburg, which often imposed its will in local affairs upon the town council. The smaller size of the city also likely fostered the integrative function of the plays; Freise estimates that 7 to 10 percent of the local populace participated in some measure. Dramatic performances occured in Friedberg as early as 1419, but the origins of the city's annual Corpus Christi procession, of which the passion play was a part, lie sometime around 1465, when Adolf von Nassau, Archbishop of Mainz, confirmed the Confraternity of St. Michael (Michaelsbruderschaft) and granted a forty-day indulgence for all active or passive participants in the procession. The group's success inspired imitation, and in 1475 Adolf's successor Diether von Isenburg gave his blessings to a second like-minded confraternity, the Sebastiansbruderschaft. Together, these two groups established the procession and its accompanying play as the central festival of the city, so much so that in 1482 the council received ecclesiastical permission to reschedule the city's parish fair from Trinitatis to the Sunday after Corpus Christi, the annual performance date. Since the parish fair was also the occasion of a Jahrmarkt that drew many visitors from the surrounding countryside, the performances allowed the city to engage in self-representation before its guests. Freise convincingly argues that the council consciously sought to exploit the popularity of the procession economically to compensate for the decline of the local textile industry at the end of the fifteenth century. The undertaking became so well-established that city records date events in reference to the processien tag or spil even when they stood in no direct relation to the performance. Most telling for the institutionalization of the play are the council's efforts on behalf of the Michaels- and Sebastiansbruderschaft: in contrast to the Frankfurt councilors, who were reluctant to grant the local players equal status alongside the guilds in the city's annual procession on Mary Magdalene, the Friedberg magistrates had to ensure that the candlemakers and bakers met their financial obligations for their traditional scenes. As more and more local residents embraced Reformation theology in the 1520s, however, civic solidarity surrounding the plays dissolved. After events of the Peasants' War dictated an interruption of performances in 1525, the last regular occurrence of play and procession took place in 1529. The procession seems to have continued for a few years after this date, but without the participation of the new Protestant pastor, who refused to perpetuate Catholic ritual.

Since the records of the Alsfeld town council do not survive for the beginning of the sixteenth century, Freise is less able to reconstruct the position of the city's three passion play performances of 1501, 1511, and 1517 within the dynamics of local political and ecclesiastical institutions. However, based on the fragmentary Alsfeld players list from one of the later productions, she can provide rich demographic detail on some seventy-five local performers, a substantial portion of the approximately two hundred original participants. This larger number represented a good 10 percent of local residents, much as in Friedberg, but since women were prohibited from assuming roles, participation lay around 20 percent of the male population. All age groups were represented, as were all social ranks, ranging from one-time mayor Johannes Coppersmedt to the cowherd Concz Fynck. Several performers were related or dealt with each other on a regular basis through their work. Perhaps most interesting is Freise's analysis of the intersections between the actors' roles both on stage and off. Performers of all ages and rank assumed roles with pejorative connotations, such as the plays' numerous demons. However, Freise postulates that it was necessary for representatives of the city's elite to assume some negative roles so that the members of the lower classes would not be stigmatized by playing such characters. The reverse, however, was not true, i.e., prestigious roles such as that of Pilate seem to have been reserved for members of the upper social ranks (the names of the actors who played Christ and the apostles, unfortunately, do not survive in the manuscript). This may have been more a factor of education than of conscious discrimination: actors who assumed larger roles were required to memorize large passages of text and needed at least some familiarity with Latin. Although no record of a play confraternity exists for Alsfeld, Freise argues that an organization of laity and clergy existed, planning and staging the three-day performances during Easter week much as a confraternity would have. As indicated by the play's herald, the mayor himself demarcated the playing area at the opening of the performance, and the participation of actors from all strata of society supports Freise's conclusion that the local council actively supported this group.

Freise's study thus offers much historical detail, and the juxtaposition of three case studies illuminates a broad range of political, social, and economic functions for late-medieval devotional theater while guarding against reductive generalizations. However, as the author herself acknowledges, the focus on the archival record has its price, namely the treatment of the play texts as historical rather than literary documents (p. 45). When primary passages from the plays appear, they are rendered as block quotes, not as lines of verse, although the latter approach would have admittedly lengthened an already weighty book. There is similarly little discussion of the plays' performative aspects, which will leave many theater historians wanting more. Still, Freise by no means neglects literary research on her topic, and she is able to revise the pronouncements of Germanists such as Hansjürgen Linke, Gerhard Wolf, Karl Konrad Polheim, and Winfried Frey on the function and intended audience of religious plays. She is also remarkably attentive to Anglo-American studies, addressing the research of Neil C. Brooks, Matthew Heintzelman, Gail McMurray Gibson, and Mervyn James, as well as that of Miri Rubin, as mentioned above. In addition, she gives some overdue attention to the work of Rainer Warning, largely ignored by Germanists until recently, even if she ultimately rejects his thesis of the plays' paganization of Christian ritual.[2] Freise's conclusions on play confraternities and their social milieu are essential reading for anyone working on late-medieval theater, particularly given the interdisciplinary approach necessary for any true appreciation of the genre.

A final assessment of Freise's contribution to the field is made difficult by the near simultaneous appearance of two additional publications equally fundamental for any future research on the Hessian play group: Klaus Wolf's commentary on the Frankfurt Director's Roll and Passion Play, and Johannes Janota's edition of the Alsfeld Passion Play, both of which belong to Janota's larger edition of the complete Hessian texts.[3] As might be expected, there is much overlap between Freise's study and these volumes. Freise acknowledges Wolf's study, which she consulted in manuscript form following the completion of her original dissertation, but she was understandably unable to make significant changes to her own arguments while revising them for publication. While the two authors find themselves in agreement on many points, such as the likely performance of the full play of the Dirigierrolle on the south side of the Bartholomäuskirche, it should be noted that Wolf's conclusions at times diverge from those of Freise.

This applies particularly to the attitude of the Frankfurt town council towards the plays. Where Freise sees the council at times distancing itself from the players, based in particular on their unsuccessful attempts to gain access to the city procession on the Feast of Mary Magdalene, Wolf argues for active council sponsorship during the period 1492-1506, placing greater weight on the evidence of the play text of 1493, recorded by the city's own legal secretary (Gerichtsschreiber) in a style resembling official city documents of this period. Wolf also refrains from assuming the existence of an officially constituted play confraternity for Frankfurt, although he postulates the existence of a confraternity-like organization much as Freise does for Alsfeld.[4]

Given that Freise bases her discussion of the Frankfurt tradition on Janota's edition of the "Frankfurt Director's Scroll and Passion Play" from 1996, in which he discusses the planned editions for Alsfeld and Heidelberg, it is odd that she did not at least point to his forthcoming edition of the Alsfeld material. Nonetheless, a comparison of Freise's edition of the Alsfeld Darstellerverzeichnis with that of Janota reveals essentially identical texts, with Janota noting any alternative readings proposed by Freise. The forthcoming commentary on the Alsfeld Passion Play by Klaus Vogelsang, Ergänzungsband 2 in Janota's multi-volume project, will be able to provide a much more thorough assessment of Freise's theses on the Alsfeld tradition than has been possible here.

Notes

[1]. Bernd Neumann, Geistliches Schauspiel im Zeugnis der Zeit. Zur Aufführung mittelalterlicher religiöser Dramen im deutschen Sprachgebiet, Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters 84-85, 2 vols. (Munich: Artemis, 1987).

[2]. Rainer Warning, Funktion und Struktur: Die Ambivalenzen des geistlichen Spiels (Munich: Fink, 1974). Recently translated into English as The Ambivalences of Medieval Religious Drama, trans. Steven Rendall (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001).

[3]. Klaus Wolf, Kommentar zur "Frankfurter Dirigierrolle" und zum "Frankfurter Passionsspiel", Ergänzungsband 1 of Die Hessische Passionsspielgruppe. Edition im Paralleldruck (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2002). Johannes Janota, ed., Alsfelder Passionsspiel. Frankfurter Dirigierrolle mit den Paralleltexten--Weitere Spielzeugnisse--Alsfelder Passionsspiel mit den Paralleltexten, melodies edited by Horst Brunner, vol. 2 of Die Hessische Passionsspielgruppe. Edition im Paralleldruck (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2002).

[4]. Wolf, pp. 362-372.

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Citation: Glenn E. Ehrstine. Review of Freise, Dorothea, Geistliche Spiele in der Stadt des ausgehenden Mittelalters: Frankfurt--Friedberg--Alsfeld. H-German, H-Net Reviews. October, 2004.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9842

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