ece performed
probably on Holy Innocents' Day.{7} This later coalesced with the
"Stella," as did also the play of the shepherds, and, at a still later
date, another liturgical drama which we must now consider--the
"Prophetae."

This had its origin in a sermon (wrongly ascribed to St. Augustine)
against Jews, Pagans, and Arians, a portion of which was used in many
churches as a Christmas lesson. It begins with a rhetorical appeal to the
Jews who refuse to accept Jesus as the Messiah in spite of the witness of
their own prophets. Ten prophets are made to give their testimony, and
then three Pagans are called upon, Virgil, Nebuchadnezzar and the
Erythraean Sibyl. The sermon has a strongly dramatic character, and when
chanted in church the parts of the preacher and the prophets were
possibly distributed among different choristers. In time it developed
into a regular drama, and more prophets were brought in. It was, indeed,
the germ of the great Old Testament cycles of the later Middle Ages.{8}

An extension of the "Prophetae" was the Norman or Anglo-Norman play of
"Adam," which began with the Fall, continued with Cain and Abel, and
ended with the witness of the prophets. In the other direction the
"Prophetae" was extended by the addition of the "Stella." It so happens
that there is no text of a Latin drama containing both these extensions
at the same time, but such a play probably existed. From the
mid-thirteenth to the mid-fourteenth century, indeed, there was a
tendency for the plays to run together into cycles and become too long
and too elaborate for performance in church. In the eleventh century,
even, they had begun to pass out into the churchyard or |128| the
market-place, and to be played not only by the clergy but by laymen. This
change had extremely important effects on their character. In the first
place the vulgar tongue crept in. As early, possibly, as the twelfth
century are the Norman "Adam" and the Spanish "Misterio de los Reyes
Magos," the former, as we have seen, an extended vernacular "Prophetae,"
the latter, a fragment of a highly developed vernacular "Stella." They
are the first of the popular as distinguished from the liturgical plays;
they were meant, as their language shows, for the instruction and delight
of the folk; they were not to be listened to, like the mysterious Latin
of the liturgy, in uncomprehending reverence, but were to be understanded
of the people.

The thirteenth and fourteenth ce