The York Mystery Plays and Genesis

The Old Testament York Mystery Plays are an interesting instance of expansion upon limited information being used to make a commonly known story more ‘accessible’ to the common folk for whom the plays were intended. In doing so the York Mystery Plays, in particular the ones discussed in class and which I will be considering here, allow a personalizing glimpse into what might otherwise be a distant and remote world. 

To start, I would like to examine the nature of religion in Medieval Europe, with reference to claims made by Rodney Stark in The Triumph of Faith. We have to consider that although the vast majority of Medieval Europeans were Christians, they did not always express that faith in ways we would recognize. Often, Medieval Christians would skip church, or if they did go would be drunk, half-asleep, would get into fights or would be otherwise distracted and indisposed. Many Medieval Christians are said to not have known that there even were written Scriptures, with most having some basic idea of the Christian story but lacking any detailed knowledge. To the extent that they did know the Scriptures, they would have generally known them as lines to recite or which were recited to them. Christianity, in that era, more often than not expressed itself as a folk religion which syncretized pre-existing Pagan rituals and practices with Christian symbolism and stories. In short, the Scriptures were quite distant from the lives of Medieval Christians.

Next, let us consider that the York Mystery Plays, in their presentation, appealed to the tastes of the people to whom they were being performed. They were performed at street level, by actors who milled about among the spectators on what we might call a ‘low budget’ - costumes and setpieces which were both cheap and made no particular effort to be historically accurate. We might shirk at this method of presentation, but its strength is in its ‘accessibility’ - its ability to articulate distant and impersonal stories in a way that is understandable for the commoners of Medieval Europe.

The Fall of Man play presents a good example of how the York Mystery Plays, especially relating to the Old Testament, made the Biblical narrative more accessible to Medieval people. The play, which is mostly a dialogue between Eve and the serpent, expands greatly upon the somewhat limited account presented in Genesis. 

Genesis is quite succinct in its depiction of the exchange between Eve and the serpent:  “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it” (Genesis 3:4-6). Here, we get a symbolic or representative version of what a real conversation would look like, with Satan making his argument and Eve immediately convinced. The purpose of this exchange, in my view, is to explain Satan’s basic ‘argument’ and the sinful reaction to it, not to depict a conversation as it would occur in reality.

The York Mystery Play, on the other hand, dwells on this scene for longer, and includes a more substantial ‘back-and-forth’ between Satan and Eve. A piece of this exchange is as follows:

“Satan: Who eats the fruit, of good and ill, shall have knowing as well as he.

Eve: Why, what-kin thing art thou that tells this tale to me?

Satan: A worm, that wotteth well how that ye may worshipped be.

Eve: What worship should we win thereby? To eat thereof us needeth it nought, we have lordship to make mastery of all things than on earth is wrought.” (York Mystery Plays, 10).

This scene is, of course, lengthier than the Genesis account, but it also includes a much more inquisitive and suspicious Eve, rather than the gullible one we sometimes see depicted. We also see Satan lying in an interesting way: he describes himself as a worm rather than a snake or a serpent. It is a believable lie, since his form resembles one, but one which is intended to make him appear less threatening or menacing. Interestingly, Satan here attempts to convince Eve by suggesting that Adam and Eve could not only have God-like knowledge but could be worshiped as well.

Furthermore, the use of vernacular language and local dialects made the stories more accessible to the audience. The plays were performed in the everyday language of the people, rather than in Latin, which was the language of the Church and the educated elite. This made the stories more understandable and relatable, bridging the gap between the sacred texts and the everyday experiences of the audience.

In conclusion, the York Mystery Plays, through their dramatic expansion of biblical narratives like the Fall of Man, made the distant and often abstract stories of the Scriptures vivid and accessible to medieval audiences.. This not only reinforced the moral and spiritual lessons of the Bible but also ensured that these timeless stories were passed down in a way that was meaningful and memorable for generations. The communal and performative nature of the plays created a powerful vehicle for religious and cultural transmission, making the divine narratives a living part of medieval life. The York Mystery Plays stand as a testament to the enduring power of storytelling and its ability to make the distant and divine accessible and relevant to everyday life.

-LJM