In _Das Geistliche Spiel des europäischen Spätmittelalters_, ed. Wernfried Hofmeister and Cora Dietl, Jahrbuch der Oswald von Wolkenstein-Gesellschaft 20 (Wiesbaden, Reichert Verlag), 2015
This essay offers a critical analysis of the tendency to treat medieval crowds, and by extension ... more This essay offers a critical analysis of the tendency to treat medieval crowds, and by extension medieval audiences, as inherently unruly and undisciplined. I reject the thesis that the behavior of spectators at public executions offers an appropriate point of comparison to the likely comportment of attendees at religious plays. I offer an alternate model based on the chronicle accounts of annual reliquary displays, such as those in Nuremberg, which regularly drew app. 100,000 visitors, and the documented prayer postures of audience members at play performances.
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This English-language essay reconstructs the performance context for the reliquary crucifix. The German-language essay "Crux Interpretationis" considers the broader theater historical implications of the play's substitution of a (transcendent) prop for an actor.
The pdf file here includes handwritten corrections of minor errata in the original publication, including the misidentification of the Zerbst "plebanus," or "Leutpriester."
This English-language essay reconstructs the performance context for the reliquary crucifix. The German-language essay "Crux Interpretationis" considers the broader theater historical implications of the play's substitution of a (transcendent) prop for an actor.
The pdf file here includes handwritten corrections of minor errata in the original publication, including the misidentification of the Zerbst "plebanus," or "Leutpriester."