t be suppressed. The folk-drama in such
forms as the Feast of Fools found its way, as we shall see, even into the
sanctuary, and--most remarkable fact of all--the Church's own services
took on more and more a dramatic character.

While the secular stage decayed, the Church was building up a stately
system of ritual. It is needless to dwell upon the dramatic elements in
Catholic worship. The central act of Christian devotion, the Eucharist,
is in its essence a drama, a representation of the death of the Redeemer
and the participation of the faithful in its benefits, and around this
has gathered in the Mass a multitude of dramatic actions expressing
different aspects of the Redemption. Nor, of course, is there merely
symbolic _action_; the offices of the Church are in great part
_dialogues_ between priest and people, or between two sets of singers. It
was from this antiphonal song, this alternation of versicle and respond,
that the religious drama of the Middle Ages took its rise. In the ninth
century the "Antiphonarium" traditionally ascribed to Pope Gregory the
Great had become insufficient for ambitious choirs, and the practice grew
up of supplementing it by new melodies and words inserted at the
beginning or end or even in the middle of the old antiphons. The new
texts were called "tropes," and from the ninth to the thirteenth century
many were written. An interesting Christmas |123| example is the
following ninth-century trope ascribed to Tutilo of St. Gall:--

"Hodie cantandus est nobis puer, quem gignebat ineffabiliter ante
tempora pater, et eundem sub tempore generavit inclyta mater. (To-day
must we sing of a Child, whom in unspeakable wise His Father begat
before all times, and whom, within time, a glorious mother brought
forth.)

Int[errogatio].

Quis est iste puer quem tam magnis praeconiis dignum vociferatis?
Dicite nobis ut collaudatores esse possimus. (Who is this Child whom
ye proclaim worthy of so great laudations? Tell us that we also may
praise Him.)

Resp[onsio].

Hic enim est quem praesagus et electus symmista Dei ad terram
venturum praevidens longe ante praenotavit, sicque praedixit. (This
is He whose coming to earth the prophetic and chosen initiate into
the mysteries of God foresaw and pointed out long before, and thus
foretold.)"

Here followed at once the Introit for the third Mass of Christmas Day,
"Puer natus est nobis, et