Liturgical+Theater

Liturgy: A form of public worship; ritual.
 * Liturgical Theater**

Liturgical theater, also reffered to as religious drama because of its christian background, was originally created in France during the era of the early Middle Ages.

As the word liturgy states, this type of theater are rituals celebrating a christian figure on a given christian holidays such as Easter or Chrismtas, and would always have the goal to motivate christians to praise their religion even further or to motivate those who are not christians to join the religion.



The first liturgical theater piece played was one written by an Anglo- Norman author in the twelth century whose name is unkown. The play was called "Adam" and it was about the fall in the terrestrial paradise to the time of the prophets who foretell the redemeer, relationg in passing the history of Cane and Abel. It was written in french though the directions to the actors were in latin. It was originally played at the church gates.
 * 12th century**

Later in the beggining of the thirteenth century plays like the "Play of St. Nicholas" by Jean Bodel and the "Miracle of Theophilus" by Rutebeuf both created by french directors as well were one of the most representatives of this genre in this time period.
 * 13th century**

during the fourteenth century save for the play of Griseldis whose main character is a heroine who represents poor shepherdess. She is married to the Marquis de Saluces, is subjected to cruel trials by her husband, and through the protection of St. Agnes triumphs over all obstacles, the entire dramatic activity of the fourteenth century was devoted to the miracles of this play. The author or authors of this work are unknown.
 * 14th century**


 * 15th ****century **[[image:http://www.oceansbridge.com/paintings/german/Francesco_di_Stefano_Pesellino_002_OBNP2009-Y07312.jpg width="189" height="205"]]

This century refers to the century of the "mysteries" in liturgical theatre and this was the time during when this type of theatre was at its most influential point. At first these dramas that where reasonably short became very long. Arnoul Greban, canon of the church of Le Mans, wrote about a "Passion" consisting of about 35,000 verses.This play was still further developed more than thirty years later by a physician of Angers, Jean Michel, whose work was the most famous and the best of its kind. Greban and his brother Simon, a monk of St. Riquier, also composed together a huge mystery of the "Acts of the Apostles", consisting of nearly 62,000 verses which had a unbearably long performance of 40 days.