ures, the latter from legends
and lives of the Saints and of the Virgin. Early and interesting
specimens of the miracle are to be found in the _Theophile_ of
Ruteboeuf and in the _Saint Nicholas_ of Jean Bodel d'Arras, both
belonging to the same (thirteenth) century[120]. But the most remarkable
examples of the miracle-play are to be found in a manuscript which
contains forty miracles of the Virgin, dating from the fourteenth
century. Selections from these have been published at different times,
and the whole is now in course of publication by the Old French Text
Society[121]. As the miracles were mostly concerned with isolated
legends, they did not lend themselves to great prolixity, and it is rare
to find them exceed 2000 lines. Their versification is at first somewhat
licentious, but by degrees they settled down into more or less regular
employment of the octosyllabic couplet. Both in them and in the
mysteries the curious mixture of pathos and solemnity on the one side,
with farcical ribaldry on the other, which is characteristic of
mediaeval times, early becomes apparent. The mysteries, however, as they
became more and more a favourite employment of the time, increased and
grew in length. The narrative of the Scriptures being more or less
continuous, it was natural that the small dramas on separate subjects
should by degrees be attracted to one another and be merged in larger
wholes. It was another marked characteristic of mediaeval times that all
literary work should be constantly subject to _remaniement_, the facile
scribes of each day writing up the work of their predecessors to the
taste and demands of their own audience. In the case of the mysteries,
as in that of the _Chansons de Gestes_, each _remaniement_ resulted in a
lengthening of the original. It became an understood thing that a
mystery lasted several days in the representation; and in many
provincial towns regular theatres were constructed for the performances,
which remained ready for use between the various festival times. In the
form which these representations finally assumed in the fifteenth
century, they not only required elaborate scenery and properties, but
also in many cases a very large troop of performers. It is from this
century that most of the mysteries we possess date, and they are all
characterised by enormous length. The two most famous of these are the
_Passion_[122] of Arnould Greban, and the _Viel Testament_[123], due to
no certain a