g for dances and festive
processions. In the churchyard itself, or within the boundaries of some
castle, were heard the sounds of noisy pleasure; and the sun-burnt
women of the band slipped secretly through side doors into the castle
or the priests' house.

Only some of the practices of these vagrants deserve special mention.
The influence which these musicians exercised on the progress of epic
and lyrical popular poetry, has been already mentioned; it is even now
discerned in heroic poetry, for the players often endeavoured to
introduce fellows of their own class into the old poetry, and took care
that they should play no contemptible role. Thus in the Nibelungen, the
brilliant form of the hero Volker the fiddler, is the representation of
a musician; similar figures, grotesque in appearance, but rougher and
coarser, hectored in the later poems and popular legends, as for
example the monk Ilsan in the Rosengarten.

But it was not only in the German epos, that the strollers smuggled in,
beautiful copies of their own life; despised as they were, they
contrived, with all the insolence of their craft, to introduce
themselves into the nave and choir of the church, though almost
excluded from its holy rites. For even in the first strict
ecclesiastical beginnings of the German dramas, they crept into the
holy plays of the Easter festivals. Already in the beginning of the
middle ages the history of the crucifixion and resurrection had assumed
a dramatic colouring; alternate songs between Christ and his disciples,
Pilate and the Jews, were sung by the clergy in the church choir; a
great crucifix was reverently deposited in an artificial grave in the
crypt, and afterwards there was a solemn announcement, on Easter
morning, of the resurrection, songs of praise by the whole
congregation, and the consecration of psalms. They began early to bring
forward more prominently, individual roles in dramatic songs, to put
speeches as well as songs into their mouths, and to distinguish the
chief roles by suitable dress and particular attributes. On other
Church festivals the same was done with the legends of the saints, and
already in the twelfth century whole pieces were dramatically performed
in the German churches, first of all in Latin, by the clergy in the
choir. But in the thirteenth century the German language made its way
into the dialogue; then the pieces became longer, the number of roles
increased, the laity began to join in it,