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Cornell University Library 
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 School drama. 
 
 3 1924 027 169 808 
 
THE SCHOOL DRAMA 
 
 INCLUDING 
 
 PALSGRAVE'S INTRODUCTION TO ACOLASTUS 
 
 BY 
 
 James L. McConaughy, Ph.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION AND ENGLISH AT 
 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 CONTRIBUTIONS TO EDUCATION, NO. 57 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 EtutiivxB OlolUgp. CHalumbta ItttnfrBttg 
 
 NEW YORK CITY 
 
 I9I3 
 
 A- 
 J/. 
 
Copyright, 1913 
 
 BY 
 
 James L. McConaughy 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter I. The School Drama 
 
 Chapter II. The School Drama in England . 
 
 Chapter III. The School Drama and the Eliza- 
 bethan Drama .... 
 
 Chapter IV. The School Drama in Germans 
 
 Chapter V. The Jesuit School Drama 
 
 Chapter VI. Acolastus 
 
 Appendix. Palsgrave's Introduction to Acolastus 
 
 Index . . . . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 7 
 
 17 
 
 36 
 
 48 
 
 68 
 
 77 
 106 
 
 "3 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This study is the result of the suggestion and 
 inspiration of Professor Paul Monroe, of Teachers Col- 
 legCi to whom, were it worthier, it would be dedicated. 
 The author is also indebted to Professor Ashley H. 
 Thorndike and Librarian William D. Johnston, of Co- 
 lumbia, to Professors Chauncey B. Tinker and William 
 Lyon Phelps, of Yale, who first awoke a desire for fur- 
 ther study in English, to President William DeWitt 
 Hyde, of Bowdoin, whose kindness made possible the 
 absence from the Bowdoin Faculty during which the 
 study was begun, and to numerous fellow students and 
 colleagues. 
 
 The author is, doubtless, more conscious than the 
 reader, of the faults and incompleteness of this study. 
 Although many fields of English Literature have been 
 studied exhaustively, almost nothing has been written 
 in English upon the School Drama. Further study is 
 needed, in particular, upon the relations between the 
 boy companies and the School Drama, the educational 
 aspect of the University Plays, the Prodigal Son theme 
 in English dramas and the English plays of student life; 
 the author hopes later to do more work on these, and 
 similar topics ; he welcomes other investigators in this 
 untrodden field. Meanwhile, this study is presented as 
 an introduction to the whole topic. J. L. McC. 
 
 May fifteen, Nineteen Thirteen, 
 
 Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 THE SCHOOL DRAMA 
 
 The School Drama is that dramatic activity which had a definite 
 educational aim ; it includes both the writing and acting of plays. In 
 the early period this use of dramatic works for pedagogical purposes 
 was probably an unconscious method of teaching; at its height it was 
 clearly recognized as a means to an end ; while today the educational 
 value of our school dramatics is largely neglected, and, in practice, 
 the School Drama hardly exists. In theory, many today urge its use ; 
 this study may suggest an historical basis for their recommendation. 
 Although most influential during the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies, evidences of the pedagogical use of the drama can be found 
 throughout nearly all the history of education. Its chief activity and 
 most loyal supporters were found in England and Germany, but many 
 other countries of Europe made some use of it. The reason for its 
 existence changed as educational methods advanced; its aims were 
 diverse and changing. In addition to its educational importance, it 
 was influential in the dramatic history of England and Germany, and 
 the Elizabethan drama owes it a decided debt. All in all, the School 
 Drama presents an interesting and, it is hoped, a profitable subject 
 for study. 
 
 No nation has ever more fully recognized the value of the drama — 
 aesthetic, religious and educational — than the Greeks. The Greek 
 youths recited Homer in their schools;^ they witnessed — if necessary 
 at the State's expense — the plays of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschy- 
 lus; they were taught that oratory was the goal of education, and ac- 
 cordingly were trained for it. These and other poetic dramas fur- 
 nished much of the material for the schools. In The Republic Plato 
 discusses and condemns these plays for the very objection which was 
 later raised against the School Drama, their immoral influences." 
 Likewise the Romans made use of the drama for educational pur- 
 poses ; Livius Andronicus, the Greek whose broken leg meant so much 
 for Roman education, translated the Greek dramas, which, says Wil- 
 
 1 Cyclopedia of Education, il., 361 
 
 2 Bookiii., 68-82, (Jowett ed., I 
 
8 The School Drama 
 
 kins, became important as texts for school room use.' In the Dark 
 Ages all education waned, and for centuries little attention was paid 
 to the educational value of the drama. True, some of the Church 
 Fathers wrote "adages" in the form of recitations, thus recognizing 
 the value of the expressional side of education. Ausonius, a fourth 
 century teacher, composed the Ludus Septem Sapientum, ("Play of 
 the Seven Wise Men"), which Hoole elaborated in his text books 
 some twelve centuries later. These, however, were probably all used 
 simply as material for classroom work; there is no evidence that 
 there were dramatic performances in the schools until the tenth cen- 
 tury, when Hrotsvitha, the Benedictine abbess of Gandersheim, in 
 Saxony, wrote comedies in Terentian form, which were probably per- 
 formed in her convent school.'' Dr. Ward considered it probable that 
 religious plays were presented in the English convent schools in the 
 twelfth century; in mo a play in honor of St. Catherine was acted 
 by scholars at Dunstable, and there are scattered references to these 
 Saints' plays down to the fifteenth century." Probably the earliest 
 contemporary evidence of the School Drama is found in the account 
 of the play of St. Catherine, referred to above, which was produced 
 by a school teacher at Dunstable with the aid of vestments for cos- 
 tumes, loaned by the sacrist of St. Albans.' Warton mentions a play 
 by school boys in 1392, and one by choir boys in 1487,' and Chambers 
 sums the whole matter up by stating that "it is probable that in 
 schools the habit of reciting verse, and verse dialogue, had never 
 died out since the time of the Empire."' 
 
 Whether the performances during the Middle Ages were in Latin 
 or not we cannot definitely tell; certainly from the middle of the fif- 
 teenth until well into the sixteenth centuries, practically all School 
 Dramas were in Latin. The reason for this is very evident — the 
 School Drama became a means of teaching Latin ; the School Drama 
 for the older pupils and the colloquy for the elementary classes were 
 the chief methods of transforming boys into "little Latins." Latin 
 was the language of the Church, the State, all professions and litera- 
 ture; the aim of education must, accordingly, be to give all an abso- 
 
 s Soman Education, 21, 25. 
 
 4 Cambridge History of English Literature, v., 6, 
 
 5 Ibid, 7. ., 
 
 6 Leach, Educational Charters, 78-79. 
 
 7 Warton, History of English Poetry, lii., 308, 310. 
 
 8 Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, il., 212. 
 
The School Drama 9 
 
 lute mastery of it, so that the pupils might read, talk and write Latin. 
 Hence conversation or dialogue was an important means. The com- 
 edies of Terence and Plautus had recently become popular ; they fur- 
 nished much better material for use than did Cicero or the poets ; 
 hence they became the chief subjects of study for the school boy; 
 they were dramatic — ^why not act them as well as study them ? Reci- 
 tation had always been a part of education, and accordingly these 
 Latin comedies were first recited by one boy while another acted in 
 pantomime; gradually parts were assigned, and the dramatic side of 
 the work increased. Objections soon arose to Plautus and Terence 
 and the schoolmen forthwith began to write neo-Latin plays modeled 
 on these Roman authors, but better adapted for school use. Chief 
 among these is Gnapheus' Acolastus. Such, in brief, is the history of 
 the Latin School Drama, extending from about 1475 on for over a 
 century, gradually developing, as an offshoot, a vernacular School 
 Drama (Udall's Ralph Roister Doister, the first English comedy) and 
 finally, when Latin lost its hold, slowly waning, until today the West- 
 minster Latin Play alone remains. 
 
 Anyone familiar with educational history demands no proof of the 
 importance of Latin in the schools at the time of the Renaissance. 
 Baker-Penoyre says that the first Latin plays were the "natural re- 
 sult of the omnipresence of the Latin language.'" Hoole wrote, even 
 later when Latin was losing its importance, that "speaking Latin is 
 the main end of grammar study." The founder of Christ's College, 
 Cambridge, demanded that its scholars learn Latin because of its 
 necessity in practical life." The Bishop of Exeter abused the school- 
 masters under him who paid any attention to teaching the vernacular, 
 and the great men of the age preferred Latin names to their good 
 vernacular originals — Morus for More, Camdenus for Camden, Ful- 
 lonius for de Voider and so on. Elyot had to defend the use of Eng- 
 lish in his Governour, and Mulcaster, although he permitted English 
 to be taught at Merchant-Taylors', urged in his Defense of Good 
 Women, that all girls should be able to speak Latin before they were 
 twenty." The choir boys had to know Latin, for all the church ser- 
 vice, perhaps even the sermon, was in Latin. Boys, like Montaigne, 
 were often taught Latin at home before learning to speak the vernac- 
 ular ; it was the universal language which made it possible for Eras- 
 
 9 Special Reports on Educational Subjects, ii., 320. 
 
 10 MuUinger, History of Cambridge, 126. 
 
 11 Page Eiiii of MS. in British Museum. 
 
10 The School Drama 
 
 mus from Holland and Vives from Spain to feel "at home'' in any 
 
 land; Watson calls it not the goal, but the starting point of study. 
 
 He gives an interesting collection of Grammar School statutes which 
 
 require that all scholars always speak Latin when at school, upon pain 
 
 of punishment." To enforce this rule "custodes'' were appointed, 
 
 who were "it" until they caught another boy using English, when he 
 
 became the victim." Latin speech, accordingly, was the chief aim of 
 
 the schools." Sixteenth century teachers soon learned what modern 
 
 language teachers are now emphasizing, that the best way to learn to 
 
 speak a language is to actually speak it. Accordingly they ceased to 
 
 consider Cicero as the most important Latin writer, and turned to 
 
 Plautus and Terence instead. Sargeaunt says: "As Latin was not 
 
 tnerely an instrument of education, but the medium through which all 
 
 ( knowledge was to be acquired, it must be known colloquially, and to 
 
 ijbe known colloquially it must be studied in the comedians."" These 
 
 /■ furnished a model of spoken Latin rather than the Latin of the orator 
 
 \ or poet; they afforded training in exactly the kind and style of Latin 
 
 / speech which was then in demand. Vives said that Terence was "of 
 
 importance for daily conversation;" Erasmus recommended that 
 
 j Terence be learned by heart, and that Latin be taught by the daily 
 
 ' use of Terence and by selections from Plautus.*" When a Latin play 
 
 is studied with the aim of developing the Latin speech of the scholar, 
 
 the most natural way to accomplish this is to actually perform it ; the 
 
 Latin is then spoken, and the phrases learned by heart for future use. 
 
 The school room use of Plautus and Terence, accordingly, is one of 
 
 the chief reasons for the great importance of the Latin School Drama. 
 
 Later chapters will consider the relation of Terence and Plautus to 
 
 the Elizabethan drama and the German drama, and the use of their 
 
 comedies by the Jesuits. 
 
 Neo-Latin plays were soon written, largely by schoolmen, to sup- 
 plant Terence and Plautus as School Dramas. Objections to the 
 morality of these old Roman humorists, and a desire to introduce 
 other material, — such as, in Gnapheus' case, the story of the Prodigal 
 Son, — led to a large number of imitations and adaptations of the 
 
 12 Watson, English Grammar Schools to 1660, 316-318. 
 18 Maxwell-Lyte, Eion, 147. 
 
 14 Consult Strong, History of Secondary Education in England, 41, 45, 46, 
 
 49, I39n- 
 
 15 Annals of Westminster School, 48, 
 
 16 Woodward, Erasmus, 112, So, 163. 
 
The School Drama ii 
 
 classic dramas. In chapters III and IV reference will be made to the 
 most significant neo-Latin School Dramas in England and Germany. 
 It must not be imagined, however, that the Latin School Drama was 
 confined to these two countries. Symonds, writing of Italy, says: 
 "Toward the close of the fifteenth century it was common to recite 
 plays of Plautus and Terence in Latin."" Holland was, in many 
 ways, the home of the School Drama ; Erasmus, one of the chief sup- 
 porters, came from there, as did Gnapheus, perhaps the most signifi- 
 cant of the neo-Latin School Dramatists; Ascham writes of the in- 
 terest in the Drama in Antwerp;" the Acts of the Dutch Synods re- 
 fer to the use of Latin plays in the schools under the Synod's care;" 
 in the history of the Academy at Lyden there is an account of plays 
 performed there during the sixteenth century." In France, two 
 authors of neo-Latin School Dramas deserve mention. In the late 
 fifteenth century Ravius Textor, professor of rhetoric at the College 
 of Navarre, Paris, and also rector of the University, wrote Latin 
 dialogues for his students to act; one was acted at Cambridge in 1543, 
 and there are evidences of the extensive use of Textor in England.'" 
 Two of his farces had considerable influence upon the Elizabethan 
 drama; his Ther sites was adapted into an English version by 1537, 
 and another dialogue was the source for Ingeland's The Disobedient 
 Child; still a third is significant as the source for an early English 
 play on the Prodigal Son,'" of interest to any student of Gnapheus' 
 Acolastusj" Textor is considered to be the first continental play- 
 wright to influence the Bhglish stage ; this influence came through his 
 School Plays.'" George Buchanan, a famous Scotch historian and 
 dramatist — (whose most popular composition, probably, is the phrase 
 which he coined "A fool and his money are soon parted") — was 
 driven to France by religious persecution in 1539. As professor of 
 Latin at the College of Bordeaux he recognized the value of teaching 
 Latin by the use of the drama, and he therefore wrote four neo-Latin 
 School Dramas for his pupils to act. Two are merely adaptations of 
 Euripedes; but Jephthes, a work showing considerable dramatic art, 
 
 17 SAort History of the Renaissance in Italy, 263. 
 
 18 Rache, Die Deutsche SchulkomSdie, 1$. 
 
 19 Knottel, Acta, vi., 8. 
 
 20 Schotel, De Academic Leiden, 321. 
 
 21 Cambridge History of English Literature, v., 121 ; Schelling, Elizabethan 
 
 Drama, ii., 137. 
 
 22 Malone Society Collections, i., 27-30, ii., 106-7. 
 
 23 See Ch. vi. 
 
 24 Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, ii., 193. 
 
12 The School Drama 
 
 is the first classical tragedy written north of the AIps.^" With the 
 Baptistes it helped to inaugurate the idea of treating Biblical material 
 in Senecan style." 
 
 A point of particular interest in the relation of Buchanan to the 
 School Drama is found in the praise accorded him by Montaigne, one 
 of his pupils at Bordeaux." The French essayist refers most warmly 
 to his old teacher, and tells of taking part in Buchanan's School 
 Dramas, with both pleasure and profit; he considers his teacher to 
 have been one of the best Latin poets of the time. The history of the 
 School Drama should include references to the many famous men 
 who have taken part in it; lack of space here forbids, but mention 
 should be made of the fact that Oliver Cromwell when a school boy at 
 Huntingdon played the part of Tactus, the sense of feeling, in a 
 School Drama on the Five Senses. The authority for this statement, 
 his early biographer Heath, adds that such plays were "generally the 
 custom in all great free schools." 
 I For over a century the chief aim of the School Drama was to teach 
 ', Latin, hence, of course, the dramas used by the schools were in Latin ; 
 I either those of Terence or Plautus or the many neo-Latin dramatists. 
 Gradually, however, Latin ceased to be the most important language 
 ; for education; the Reformation brought in more appreciation of the 
 j vernacular, French superseded Latin as the international language, 
 and there developed literatures in English, French and German. 
 Latin-speaking was no longer the chief aim of education, and conse- 
 quently, although the Latin School Drama was still important in the 
 humanistic and conservative institutions, the School Drama would 
 probably have ended in the seventeenth century if new aims for it 
 had not been discovered. Udall, by some chance stroke of genius 
 which thus gave birth to the Elizabethan drama, wrote a Christmas 
 Play at Eton in English instead of Latin; in a few decades nearly all 
 School Dramas in England, and, later, in Germany, were in the ver- 
 nacular. But Udall and the schoolmasters discovered that when the 
 I School Drama no longer gave facility in Latin speech, it might give 
 'I training in the English tongue. Lord Bacon well sums up the aims 
 of the vernacular School Drama as being the development of the 
 memory, voice, good pronunciation, decent carriage of the body, ges- 
 ture, and assurance. As the Latin School Drama waned when Latin 
 
 2B Cambridge History of English Literature, v., 34; Thorndike, 'Tragedy, 39. 
 
 26 Herford, Literary Relations of England and Germany, 98, 114. 
 
 27 Essays, i., 215, (Hazlitt ed.); Jusserand, Shakspere en France, 6. 
 
The School Drama 13 
 
 lost its importance, these other more modern aims superseded the old 
 ones and continued the career of the School Drama for two centuries 
 or more. These oratorical and elecutionary aims were most signifi^^ 
 leant in England; the aims of the German School Drama were quite 
 different. There the religious motive was felt, and the School Drama, , 
 in either Latin or German, was used to teach a moral lesson to the ' 
 scholars by vividly sho\Ying them the fall of vice and the triumph of 
 virtue. The School Drama became more popularized in Germany, 
 and appealed to the masses as religious spectacles. Educators also 
 recognized its value as a means of interesting their pupils. In some 
 districts in Gerftiany where admission fees were charged the School 
 Drama served to raise part of the teacher's salary. Schmidt sums up 
 the aims of the School Drama as follows: to gain a mastery of the 
 Latin language, to develop the pupil's oratorical powers, to vividly '/., 
 picture moral truths, to interest pupils, parents and townspeople, to 
 help pay the teacher's salary and sometimes to develop a knowledge 
 and love of the dramatic arts." These varied aims appeared at dif- 
 ferent times during the history of the School Drama and in different 
 countries; only the Jesuits continued to strive exclusively for ability 
 in Latin-speaking from the use of the School Drama ; all other schools 
 found some better, more modern aim by which to justify its existence. 
 Although less dramatic than the School Drama, the colloquy served 
 for beginners much the same purpose that Plautus and Terence and 
 neo-Latin and vernacular School Dramas did for the more advanced 
 pupils. The aim of all was the same — ^to train in conversational Latin^^-^ 
 and the methods were much alike. Mosellanus refers to the colloquies 
 as "little scenes" by which the pupil may be prepared in good Latin 
 for the use of Terence. Those who used the colloquies were termed 
 "young actors." Oral instruction was supreme in the schools of that ;^ 
 age, and the youthful pupil who was to learn to speak Latin was in- 
 structed orally by actual training in speaking simple Latin phrases. 
 These phrases and questions for pupil and teacher on familiar sub- 
 jects, formed the material for the colloquy with which Latin instruc- 
 tion nearly always began. The colloquy as an educational device ex-;'— 
 tends over many centuries, and enlisted as authors such men as Eras-j 
 mus, Mosellanus, Vives, and Corderius. One of the early Renascence 
 colloquies refers to the truth that "things are more faithfully re- 
 tained if they are explained in the form of dialogue." Erasmus refers 
 to his famous colloquies as "conversations." Centuries ago the mod^ 
 
 28 Schmidt, Die Buhmenverkdltnisse des deutschen Schuldramas, 19. 
 
14 The School Drama 
 
 ern ideas of direct language teaching by the conversational method, — 
 
 now so popular in French and German, and, also, with Dr. Rouse of 
 
 Cambridge, in Latin instruction, — had already been begun. At that 
 
 time all of a pupil's training in Latin included the dramatic, either in 
 
 the conversational dialogues, called colloquies, or the dramatic recita- 
 
 / tions, termed School Dramas. Added interest was given to the col- 
 
 <; loquies by the subjects tbey discussed, nearly all of which were com- 
 
 ) raon to the pupil's experience ; they serve as interesting commentaries 
 
 on the school life of the time. 
 
 The School Drama is sometimes taken to mean those plays which 
 are upon-schoql-lifp ; this ^efinitioq. is surely too narrow. During the 
 sixteeiifh centugt^^^igl^Y'SSJ'c many such plays, from Rastell's inter- 
 lljd'e of The Nature' ofithTIFsm^ Elements to Hawkins' Apollo Shro- 
 ving; these, however, are a^art from our study.™ Still another 
 limited definitioii. is to mg^ke the School Drama apply to the plays, of 
 which there are many strange exihrplesf- wrhich attempted to put text 
 books in dramatic form. The earl)[ "adages" were works of this sort ; 
 in 1678 Samuel Shaw wrote a drame^zed rhetoric, and in 1737 Jdjm 
 Holmes had his "Gentlemen of the Publick Grammar School at Holt 
 in Norfolk" perform a History of England." The most interesting 
 attempt to dramatize school studies, -howCver, is the little known work 
 of- John Amos Comenius, the Schota -Ludus, or ■ dramatized Janua 
 {"Gate of Tongues Unlocked") . No English edition^pf this work is 
 known, and little attention has been paid to it,, although Comenius 
 seems to have considered the dramatic method of teaching nearly 
 equal to the pictorial, which he had just before followed in his Orhis 
 Pictus. Although, as he tells us in the preface, the Ludus failed at his 
 school at Patak, it proved very successful elsewhere, and was en- 
 joyed by the pupils who took part and by the parents who witnessed it. 
 This preface was written for the second edition, published at Amster- 
 dam, 1657, for which Comenius revised the text of the play. His aim, 
 he says, is to interest the boys, and teach them good Latin in place of 
 the prevalent "barbarous Latinity." Believing that school work 
 should be made pleasant, this appealed to him as one means. The 
 School Drama he declares should be used in every stage of school 
 work, but great care must be taken to avoid immoral plays. The dedi- 
 
 29 Consult Schmidt, Die JComodien vom Studentenleben ; Herford, Literary 
 Relations of Germany and England, 155-164; Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, 
 i., 63-66. 
 
 30 Cyclopedia of Education, ii., 365. 
 
y^ 
 
 The School Drama 15 
 
 had been given before the Princess and court of Hungary. This 
 seems hard to believe when one tries to read the play; there are five 
 acts, twenty-one scenes, and fifty-four characters, such as Water, 
 Hand, Foot, Geographer and so forth. No more severe punishment 
 could be imagined today than performing or witnessing this play ! 
 Comenius had good ideas about the construction of school plays; he 
 wrote : "Put edifying matter into school plays. There are seven con- 
 ditions to be satisfied in a school play. There must be movement, 
 spontaneity, sociability, friendly emulation, distinct rules, good exam- 
 ple, and relaxation of mind." Like many others, in this at least, 
 Comenius preached better than he practiced. He also dramatized the 
 history of the philosophers in a School Drama called Diogenes Cyni- 
 cus. Daniel G. Morhof, writing soon after Comenius' School Dramas 
 appeared, refers to the way "schooling can be advanced by the acting 
 of plays."" 
 
 Although the School Drama, with a few exceptions, had ended by 
 1700, we catch sight of it occasionally even after that. Some of the 
 great English public schools, notably Winchester, continued their 
 School Plays. The Spectator in 171 1, refers to the fact that school 
 boys "sometimes join in acting a scene of Terence, Sophocles, or our 
 own Shakespeare."''' The Jesuit Drama continues today, and visitors 
 to the College at Montreal may witness humanistic presentations of 
 the Latin School Drama that would have pleased any of its sixteenth 
 century advocates. There is also evidence that modern educators are 
 beginning to realize, as their predecessors did centuries ago, that rep- 
 resentation by acting is perhaps the surest way to fix words or actions 
 or moral examples in the memory. "Drama" really means action 
 (APAfi). Both the play impulse and the expressive side of modern 
 education indicate that more pedagogic value may be found in school 
 dramatics than the average teacher discovers in them. The girls' 
 school in Boston which has successfully performed Elizabethan com- 
 edies and modern morality plays, and the Children's Theatre in New 
 York are indications of what may become a general educational prac- 
 tice." Bernard Shaw says that the success of the theatre is due to 
 the arousal of interest, the captivating of attention, the raising of the 
 sympathies, and the annihilation of selfishness; these surely are 
 
 31 Consult German edition, Die Sckule als Spiel; Cyclopedia of Education, 
 ii., 138, 365; Graves, Great Educators, 31; Laurie, Comenius, 24-25, 194, 206. 
 82 The Spectator, 230, (Morley ed.). 
 38 The Outlook, xcviii, 658. 
 
1 6 The School Drama 
 
 worthy educational aims, which the use of the drama in our schools 
 may help to accomplish. The history of the School Drama indicates 
 that it served as a most important educational method for over two 
 centuries, that it aided religion, formed part of the basis of the Eng- 
 lish and German dramas, and furnished new material, such as the 
 Prodigal Son plays, and new authors and actors for these dramas. 
 Should not an educational institution so prominent in past history, 
 occupy a position of some importance today? 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE SCHOOL DRAMA IN ENGLAND 
 
 In the previous chapter reference has been made to the popularity 
 of the School Drama in England, where evidences of it can be traced 
 back to the Middle Ages, and where, at one time, probably nearly 
 every school used it as an educational device. Although the School 
 Drama doubtless attained a like importance in Germany, our" evidence 
 for it is not as convincing. The educational history of the two lands 
 presents many differences, and the School Drama, which greatly in- 
 fluenced both England and Germany in the sixteenth centuries, left 
 very different effects and influences upon their educational aims and 
 practices. Germany was soon torn asunder by the Reformation, and 
 its whole educational system shattered, to be reorganized and rebuilt 
 very slowly. The School Drama there became the tool of the reform- 
 ers, and merged into the polemic drama which, coming from men like • 
 Kirchmayer, reflects little credit on German taste and patriotism. 
 Education in Germany was popularized; except in the centers of 
 humanism, Latin lost much of its importance, and vernacular plays 
 suited for the populace gradually replaced the works of Plautus and 
 Terence and the neo-Latin dramatists. The School Drama in Eng- 
 land developed along other lines ; it was seized upon as an educational 
 method in many prominent schools, which, unlike German schools, 
 present a continued history down to modern times; the educational 
 theorists of the time commented upon the value of the School Drama ; 
 it had no relation to the Reformation in England, which was more of a 
 state affair, but did profoundly influence the rise and development of 
 the English drama, by furnishing to it models and authors and actors. 
 Accordingly, the importance of the School Drama in England can 
 best be realized by considering the use which was made of it in the 
 great English Public Schools, around which the education of the time 
 centered; by discovering the attitude toward it held by the important 
 English educational theorists of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies; and, in chapter III, by showing its relation to the Elizabethan 
 drama. The nine great Public Schools, because of the lack of any im- 
 portant change in their curricula and the extensive histories which 
 
1 8 The School Drama 
 
 have been written concerning them, present the best examples of the 
 use of the School Drama in English schools. However it must not be 
 thought that the School Drama was unknown in the hundreds of 
 Grammar Schools; where our records are complete, there are evi- 
 dences of almost as much use of the comedies of Plautus and Terence 
 as in the so called Public Schools. Says one writer : "In the days of 
 Elizabeth the Annual Play was no special mark of the School (West- 
 minster), for acting was generally regarded as a part of education: 
 perhaps there was no school which did not put on frequent dramas of 
 Plautus and Terence, and the dull Latin comedies of the age.'" 
 Chambers and Fleay comment similarly upon the extensive use of the 
 School Drama in the English Grammar Schools. Carlisle, in his 
 work on the Endowed Grammar Schools, refers to many which show 
 evidences of having School Plays; the Grammar School at Reading, 
 for example, was to have a special performance every third year, to 
 which three noted visitors were to be invited according to the school 
 Statute, — the Vice Chancellor of Oxford, the President of St. John's 
 and the Warden of All Soul's Church." The Statutes for the Gram- 
 mar School at Sandwich directed "at every Christmas time, if the 
 Master do think mete, to have one comedie or tragedie of chaste mat- 
 ter in Latin to be played, the partes to be divided to as many scholars 
 as may be, and to be learned at vacant time."" Froude refers to the 
 performance of a School Play in the school at Greenwich, as early as 
 1527.'' Wolsey, in his Statutes for the Ipswich School, recommended 
 the use of plays to develop ability in Latin speaking," and the Orders 
 for the Grammar School at Southwark directed that "the highest 
 Form shall declaim and some of the inferior Forms act a scene of 
 Terence.'" At Southampton the town, in 1576, paid the master of 
 the Grammar School for a tragedy performed by his boys.' The 
 Scotch schools also made use of the School Drama.' Watson sums 
 up the extent of the use of the School Drama by stating that "play 
 
 acting was an established teaching method for Latin speaking 
 
 in the well organized schools." 
 
 1 Sargeaunt, Annals of Westminster School, 48. 
 
 2 Carlisle, Endowed Grammar Schools, i., 37. 
 
 s Watson, The English Grammar Schools to 1660, 319. 
 
 * Froude, History, i., 75. 
 
 6 Leach, English Schools at the Reformation, 107. 
 
 6 Watson, 315. 
 
 7 Wafson, 324. 
 
 8 Hutchinson, The High School of Stirling, 23. 
 
The School Drama In England 19 
 
 The most famous School Play in England is at Westminster School, 
 which still presents a play of Plautus or Terence annually on the sec- 
 ond Tuesday in December and on the Monday preceding and follow- 
 ing ; it is the only School Play that has an unhroken history, even con- 
 tinuing through the Puritan times.' Westminster alone contains a 
 Charter provision for a School Play ; this Charter, given by Elizabeth 
 some years after the founding of the School, reads (translating the 
 Latin) : "As to Comedies and Plays to be shown at Christmas. That 
 the youth may spend Christmastide with better result, and the better 
 become accustomed to proper action and pronunciation, we decree 
 that every year, within twelve days after Christmas day, or afterward 
 with the leave of the Dean, the Master and Usher together shall 
 cause their pupils and the choristers to act, in private or public, a 
 Latin comedy or tragedy in Hall ; and the choristers' Master, an Eng- 
 lish one. And if they do not each do their part the defaulter shall be 
 fined 10 shillings."" This Charter proviso closely resembles that 
 given by Elizabeth for Trinity College, where the performance of 
 Latin plays was required annually. A Westminster Latin Statute, of 
 1560, directs that "the boys shall never play without the leave of the 
 Dean, or, in his absence, the vice regent and the Schoolminister, and 
 then only in the afternoon." Dean Nowell, headmaster from 1543 to 
 about 1554, was much interested in the acting of plays; he probably 
 introduced -Terence to the school, as it is said of him, that "when he 
 was Master of Westminster School he brought in the reading of Ter- 
 ence for the better learning of the pure Roman style." He was fol- 
 lowed by Nicholas Udall, who had already been connected with the 
 School Drama during his headmastership at Eton." Probably he 
 added Greek to the Westminster curriculum. Some critics have be- 
 lieved that Ralph Roister Doister was written during his Westminster 
 headmastership, but there is stronger evidence for the statement that 
 it was a product of his career at Eton. Certainly he helped in de- 
 veloping and continuing the School Play at Westminster. 
 
 There is every reason to believe that the Westminster School Play^ 
 had a definitely educational aim, unlike most modern school and col- \ 
 lege dramatics. The Play was selected and produced under the man- 
 
 9 On the Westminster Play consult: Sargeaunt, Annals of Westminster School; 
 Ludus Alieri Westmonastenenses ; Forshall, Westminster School, Past and Pres- 
 ent; rieay, Chronicle History of the London Stage, 32. 
 
 10 Leach, Educational Charters, xlv., 518-9. 
 " Pg. 25- 
 
20 The School Drama 
 
 agement of the faculty, who were fined if they neglected this part of 
 their duty; was always in Latin; no stage tricks were allowed; and 
 the boys gained ability in Latin speaking and in the graces of oratory. 
 Many of Westminster's "sons" who have won her fame in public life 
 have professed their deep obligation to the early training in the Play. 
 The Play was, and still is, performed in Hall, rather than in an out- 
 side theatre ; the dormitory was crowded with the eager audience who 
 perched on boxes or window sills. In 1564 Elizabeth attended a per- 
 formance of the Westminster Play; that year she contributed £8 
 toward the expenses of the St. Paul's Play and for "playes by the 
 gramer skole of Westmyster." The expense account of this Play 
 (the performance included a play of Terence and the Miles Gloriosus 
 of Plautus) amounted to sps. pd., and includes many humorous items, 
 and many of which have a surprising modern sound. Among the 
 expense items are: sugar candy, cartage, dressing the "children," 
 frankincense, rent of armour, and of a drum, writing "great letters" 
 and "man going up and down in diverse places in London" (evi- 
 dently advertising), beards and rushes, beer for the hoarse children, 
 and a copy of Plautus as a gift to the Queen." 
 
 The Westminster Charter provided for the performance of a Latin 
 play by the regular scholars and of an English play by the choir 
 boys. There were two elements in these great English Public 
 Schools; regular pupils, and choir boys who took part in the church 
 service and who were generally charity pupils from the town (of 
 special importance during the period when the education was by 
 priests, who also conducted the regular masses and services). For 
 these two student bodies different plays were assigned, and conse- 
 quently the history of the School Drama at any school soon becomes 
 confused. The performances by St. Paul's School boys and the choir 
 boys of St. Paul's are particularly hard to separate. At Westminster 
 it seems universally true that the real School Play, by the scholars 
 who lived in Hall, was always in Latin, and always given in Hall. 
 As an outgrowth of the English play given by the school's choir boys 
 came a town play, in English, not at the school, and sometimes enroll- 
 ing actors who had no connection with the school. It was probably 
 a company of Westminster choir boys that "took to the road" toward 
 the end of the century, and appeared at Blackfriars in London, as one 
 of the companies of child actors that received such abuse from Shake- 
 speare and Jonson and other professional playwrights and actors. 
 
 12 Scott, Athenaeum, I903, 220. 
 
The School Drama In England 2 1 
 
 Certainly it was the choir boys, or town students, who played Con- 
 greve's Morning Bride in 171 7, and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in 
 1727 in the Haymarket Theatre; quite likely it was they who per- 
 formed one of Dryden's plays in 1695. In modern times the choir 
 boys have continued to present plays in English, aimed more for a 
 popular audience. 
 
 Plautus and Terence still provide the material for the scholars' 
 Westminster Play; even the Eunuchus and Amphrito, in spite of the 
 protests against their immorality, are today acted by school boys at 
 Westminster. At present a cycle of four plays is followed; Terence 
 seems to be the most popular. In earlier times some of the neo-Latin 
 plays were given ; Gager's insufferably dull Latin comedies were pre- 
 sented there, perhaps because he probably was an alumnus of the 
 school. Although we have no complete account of the titles of every 
 performance, it seems clear that the Westminster School Play has 
 been performed every year since Elizabeth's time, with six exceptions, 
 when the death of King or of the headmaster made it necessary to 
 omit the Play. When it was suggested, a few decades ago, that the 
 Play be given up, the alumni and friends of the School made such 
 strenuous objection that no such action was possible. They point with 
 just pride to the importance of the Play in the past, to the great men 
 who have been trained by it (Jonson and Booth as examples) and the 
 educational value it has had and still retains. The performance of 
 the School Play has become for Westminster almost as important an 
 occasion as our Commencements ; alumni throng back and the week is 
 made a gala one. Since 1758 scenery has been used, and in 1839 the 
 headmaster inaugurated the custom of using costumes appropriate to 
 the period of the play; during the last century ladies were, for the 
 first time, admitted to the audience. Among the spectators royalty 
 are often included. Since 1704 a prologue and epilogue have been 
 added to the Play; these have become increasingly important, and 
 furnish the humor for the occasion; although delivered in classic 
 Latin they discuss some modern question of school or national inter- 
 est. Nearly all of these speeches have been preserved and they afford 
 an amusing side light on the School's history. The modern West- 
 minster Play demands much preparation; carpenters must build the 
 stage in the Seniors' Houses, and prepare the scenery ; Lower Form- 
 ers must provide their boxes and corners from which perches they 
 serve as "gallery gods ;" the headmaster must approve the caste — and 
 happy is the boy who is chosen for the part his father played before 
 
22 The School Drama 
 
 him; the masters must coach the actors for many weary weeks; a 
 band is engaged to furnish music ; — and all in all, it is the grand event 
 of the year. The expense of the Play amounts to about $1500, which 
 is met by passing a "cap" among the audience, and woe to the Prince 
 of Wales or rich alumnus who does not do his share ! Although the 
 modern Westminster Play may be far removed from the sixteenth 
 century School Drama, it still retains much of the early educational 
 aim, and presents an interesting example of the survival of a once al- 
 most universal school practice. 
 
 At Winchester the School Drama was probably used as often as at 
 Westminster in the sixteenth century, but the Puritan controversy 
 drove the Play from the school, and it was not revived." The Stat- 
 utes of 1550 direct that on Fridays the boys are to have no supper, but 
 are to "read" a play of Terence. Christopher Johnson, once head- 
 master of the School, wrote a Latin poem about the customs and tra- 
 ditions at Winchester, one couplet of which may be translated : 
 "The comic scene is ready to a 't,' 
 By the poor reader there is seen no tea." 
 That "reading" meant what we now call acting is evident from the 
 fact that it was the custom to read these Latin dramas, and illus- 
 trate them with gestures and action, either by the reader himself or 
 by some other scholar. By 1574, at least, the "reading" meant an 
 actual performance of the play, for the Account Book for that year 
 refers to the expense of moving the organ from the Chapel to the 
 Hall for the Play, and gives the payments made for the scaffolding 
 and candles used "for the plays of tragedies and comedies." In 1583 
 the total expense of the Play was £3 3s. lod. 
 
 St. Paul's School was closely connected with the school for the 
 choir boys of St. Paul's Cathedral. Long before Colet's foundation 
 in 1510 we have evidence that the choristers at St. Paul's were in- 
 structed by their Choir Master in the elementary branches, and were 
 engaged in acting religious plays. The similar names, kindred aims 
 and practices make it difficult to separate the history of the two 
 schools, particularly where dramatic performances are concerned. 
 Leaving, until later in the chapter, a discussion of the St. Paul's choir 
 boys and the drama, we can find many evidences of the use of the 
 School Play at St. Paul's School." While Colet makes no direct 
 
 13 Leach, A History of Winchester School. 
 
 14. McDonnell, The History of St. PauPs School; Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, 
 ii., 196; Froude, History, i., 75-76; Cambridge History of English Literature, 
 v., loi. 
 
The School Drama In England 23 
 
 reference to the Play, he lays stress on the use of conversational 
 Latin, and training in manners, which served as the motives for 
 School Drama. What is probably the earliest actual performance of 
 a School Drama of which we now have record, was given by St. 
 Paul scholars before Henry VIII in 1527. Their performance was 
 under the direction of John Rightwise, son-in-law of William Lily, 
 the first headmaster, whom he succeeded. Rightwise was more suc- 
 cessful as a dramatist and manager than as a headmaster, and it was 
 probably he who started the School Drama at St. Paul's. He prob- 
 bly wrote the masque, referred to above, which was acted by his stu- 
 dents before Henry and the French Ambassador, in November, 1527, 
 at Greenwich. This play was an attack on Luther, and is full of 
 vituperative abuse of the "herrytyke Lewtar," who appeared on the 
 stage dressed "lyke a frer, in rosset damaske." This is the first rep- 
 resentation of an historical personage on the English stage. The 
 king's expense account for the month indicates that Rightwise re- 
 ceived 45s. for his services as author, manager and producer ; 6s. was 
 spent for the hire of six boats to carry the "children" down to Green- 
 wich. In 1528 Rightwise had his pupils present Phormio before Wol- 
 sey and the Venetian Ambassador, who was surprised at the excel- 
 lence of the performance; Menaechimi had been given by them 
 earlier. In 1532, with Wolsey again as the special guest, they gave an 
 original Latin play of Rightwise's, Dido, which, although now lost, 
 may have served as a model for Gager's and Marlowe and Nash's 
 later plays on this theme. A play on the Pope's captivity was given 
 at court by Rightwise and his charges. Although Rightwise ended 
 his headmastership under a cloud, he left behind him deserved fame 
 as a dramatist and as one of the first school teacher-managers. Dur- 
 ing the headmastership of Richard Jones, St. Paul's scholars took part 
 in the religious processions and masques connected with Anne 
 Boleyn's marriage. Holinshed refers to the dramatic performances 
 at St. Paul's School, and tells of one on St. Bartholomew's evening 
 when three schools, St. Paul's, St. Anthony's, and Christ's Hospital, 
 presented rival plays. In 1554 the scholars of St. Paul's acted before 
 Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth at Hatfield. By this time Terence 
 had become a part of the curriculum, and his plays were "read" in the 
 fifth form. Richard Mulcaster was made headmaster at the end of 
 the century; he was already famous for the plays given by the Mer- 
 chant-Taylors' School boys when he was headmaster there. During 
 his career at St. Paul's the professional actor was gradually taking 
 
24 The School Drama 
 
 the place of the choir boys, or school boys, for Court performances, 
 but "Master Mulcaster's Children from St. Paul's" nevertheless ap- 
 peared before the Queen occasionally; for example, his masque 
 Sapientia was acted by them before her Court. In 1611 the scholars 
 gave an English tragedy, Abuses, before James I, "in which the king 
 took great delight." As is true of so many other School Plays, the 
 Puritan epoch killed the St. Paul's Play, and few traces of it remain 
 today. 
 
 Mulcaster made Merchant-Taylors' School famous for its School 
 Plays, but, like many another educational reformer, he met with op- 
 position to his ideas regarding the use of this educational device. At 
 the beginning of his long headmastership he encouraged the use of 
 the School Drama, and plays were frequent and well done." This 
 high evaluation of the School Drama he doubtless gained when he 
 was a pupil under Udall at Eton. One of his own scholars. Sir James 
 Whitelocke, wrote that Mulcaster "yeerly presented some plays at the 
 Court in which his scholars were the only actors, and I among them, 
 and by that means taught them good behaviour and audacitye."" 
 These Court performances pleased Elizabeth greatly, and she urged 
 Mulcaster to continue, and give more plays than he had formerly, 
 "for the better accustoming of the boys to correct action and elocu- 
 tion." The Merchant-Taylors' Company, however, objected, and in 
 1573 resolved "that no more plays be suffered to be played in this our 
 Common Hall." Whether Mulcaster disobeyed this injunction is not 
 known; at least he and his children appeared again in IS73, 1575, *od 
 1583; in 1586 he had to resign the headmastership. Among his 
 scholars at Merchant-Taylors' were the dramatists Lodge and Kyd, 
 and the poet Spenser. For two hundred years no play was allowed at 
 the school, and even when Garrick urged a performance in 1763, the 
 Company still objected. 
 
 Eton generally claims the earliest School Drama, for there are evi- 
 dences of performances in the School at Christmas time as early as 
 1525." The accounts for that year indicate that los. was paid for 
 "ornaments for Christmas play." This play at Eton may have been 
 
 15 Wilson, History of Merchant- Taylors' School; Minchin, Our Public 
 Schools, 185. 
 
 16 Liber Famelicus, Camden Society Reprint, 1858. 
 
 IT Cust, A History of Eton; Maxwell Lyte, History of Eton College; Sterry, 
 Annals of Eton College; Collins, Etoniana, Ancient and Modem; Chambers, 
 Mediaeval Stage, ii., 196. 
 
The School Drama In England 25 
 
 an outgrowth of the Boy Bishop custom, by which a mock bishop was 
 elected by the scholars before November 13. But the Play soon came 
 to have an educational value, and Statute XXXI of the School ap- 
 proves of the custom. The headmaster was in charge of the play, 
 and he was required each year to choose, by St. Andrew's Day (No- 
 vember 30), a Latin play which the boys were to act at Christmas 
 time in the Hall. The performance was prepared very seriously, and 
 a large part of December was devoted to memorizing parts, practicing 
 delivery, and rehearsing. The costumes used by the players were 
 kept by the headmaster; one inventory included "cassocks, of redde 
 silke garded with blue, II women's cassocks of whyte silke, th' one ope 
 before, th' other close, VI payer of showes." Occasionally the 
 scholars appeared at Court. Thomas Cromwell gave headmaster 
 "Woodall" (probably Udall) £5 for playing before him. Udall is the 
 most important headmaster in Eton's early history." He did much 
 to popularize Latin and improve the methods of teaching it; to this 
 end he developed the Latin School Drama. His seven years head- 
 mastership, 1534-1541, were marked by a growth of the school, in 
 spite of his reputation as a terrible flogger. Although he was expelled 
 from his position, and thrown into prison for immorality, his friends 
 at Court were able to free him, and gain for him the headmastership 
 of Westminster, 1554-1556. Udall is less to be remembered for his 
 teaching than for his writing; his Latin text books were much used, 
 and his Ralph Roister Doister is the first real English comedy. Our 
 knowledge of this is slight; some even doubt his authorship; but 
 critics now incline to date this comedy as coming from his pen during 
 the Eton headmastership, at least prior to 1551.'° It seems fair to 
 assume that Udall conceived the brilliant idea of writing a comedy in 
 English instead of Latin for the Christmas performance at Eton. 
 Whether or not this epoch-making play was performed under Udall 
 at Eton, at least the Eton School Play continued to be an important 
 event of the year. The headmaster in 1560 wrote "the actor's art is a 
 trifling one, but for action in oratory and proper gestures and the 
 movements of the body, there is nothing like it." As the language 
 changed from Latin to English, the School Drama could no longer 
 serve its original purpose of training in conversational Latin, but it 
 could still have an educational value as a training for oratory and 
 
 18 Cyclopedia of Education, v. 
 
 19 Hales argues for the Westminster period, Englische Studien, xviii, 408-21. 
 
26 The School Drama 
 
 manners. The Audit Books for the school contain repeated evidence 
 of the School Play : 
 
 1551 — To Mr. Usher for interlude plaid in haule, 6s., 8d. 
 
 1553 — Beards for players, 5s., 8d. 
 
 1556 — For minstreles and bringing apparel, 8s., 4d. 
 
 1558 — To Mr. Schoolmaster for Play, 4s., gd. 
 
 1566 — Play, 20s. 
 
 1567 — Two plays (special occasion), £3, 8s., 8d. 
 
 1569 — Candles, 5s., 6d. 
 Latin and English plays have both been given, but since the Puritan 
 opposition, the School Play at Eton has been only occasionally per- 
 formed; there has been none since 1869. The headmaster has often 
 wished that his graduates spoke as well as did the Westminster boys, 
 whose superiority, he considered, came from their training in the 
 School Play. 
 
 Shrewsbury School, which Camden refers to as the largest school 
 in England, had a School Play which was of importance, and of 
 which we have specially full contemporary accounts." For decades 
 it had probably been customary to present mysteries and moralities 
 in the Quarry near the Severn. The St. Augustine Friars had used 
 it for their mysteries, and town performances were common before 
 the school was founded; in 1556 the Town Bailiff's Account states 
 that a play on Julian the Apostate was given in the Quarry. This 
 natural open air theatre may still be seen; although Churchyard im- 
 plies that it was hollowed out for the purpose, he was probably in 
 error, and it simply was the remains of an old quarry, which served as 
 a suitable place for outdoor dramatic performances. Churchyard has 
 thus described it in his Worthies of Wales : 
 
 "There is a ground neu made theator wyse 
 Both deepe and hye in goodlie auncient guise ; 
 Where well may sit ten thousand men at ease. 
 And yet the one the other not displease. 
 
 A ground most apt and they that sit above 
 
 At once in viewe all this may have for love ; 
 
 At Aston's playe, who had beheld thys then 
 
 Might well have been there twentie thousand men." 
 
 20 Fisher, Annals of Shrewsbury School; Anon., History of Shrewsbury 
 School. 
 
The School Drama In England a 7 
 
 In his further description of the spot he says it was used for "wres- 
 tling, bull baiting, bear baiting, cock fighting and plays." Shakespeare 
 probably visited Shrewsbury when "on the road" with his company, 
 and doubtless played in this Quarry." This far-famed Quarry and 
 the town performances in it drew Thomas Ashton to Shrewsbury, and 
 in 1561 his play The Passion of Christ was given, and the Bailiffs en- 
 tertained him royally. Dramatic opportunities certainly attracted 
 him, for his taste and talents were in that line, and in 1562 he became 
 the first headmaster of the newly-founded School. During the nine 
 years he remained at Shrewsbury dramatic performances were both 
 frequent and popular. The Bailiffs' Ordinance for 1577 directed that 
 "everie thursdaie the Schollars of the first forme shall for ex- 
 ercise declame and plaie one acte of a comedie." Many of these were 
 written by Ashton himself ; his Julian the Apostate was repeated and 
 seems to have gained much fame for the author and the school ; Eliza- 
 beth, in her "progresses" for 1575, tried to get to Shrewsbury to see 
 it, but sickness in a nearby town prevented. In 1566 agaiA she had 
 set out to witness the Shrewsbury School Play but she was detained 
 at Coventry. The 1569 production was a notable one; Ashton's Pas- 
 sion of Christ, already popular, was performed before an audience 
 numbering possibly 20,000 ; the town Corporation contributed £25, the 
 Drapers' Company £5, and the Mercers' Company 30s. The accounts 
 for this period contain many quaint items concerned with the play's 
 expenses : "Paid for mending hell mouth, 2d. ; for keeping fire in hell 
 mouth, 4d. ; for setting world on fire, Sd." Ashton's plays seem to 
 have been numerous, resembling the form of the mystery ; five manu- 
 scripts of his plays remain; all' are in English, and they include Noah, 
 Histories of Lot and Abraham, Play of Shepherds and Slaughter of 
 the Innocents. ' When Ashton left, the interest in the School Drama 
 waned; there are no records of any performance after 1610. How- 
 ever, during the height of its fame for dramatic productions, Shrews- 
 bury furnished a majority of the famous actors at Cambridge, as did 
 Westminster for the Oxford University Plays. 
 
 The school established by Ralph Radclif in the Carmelite Monastery 
 at Hitchin no longer exists, but during Radclif's leadership it held an 
 important place as an example of the pedagogic value of the School 
 Drama; as his plays were in English, improvement in manners and 
 delivery was his aim. Radclif converted the monastery refectory 
 into a theatre, where his pupils acted regularly. John Bale visited his 
 
 21 Lee, Shakespeare, 41. 
 
28 The School Drama 
 
 school and witnessed a number of performances; he was much im- 
 pressed with the religious, educational and dramatic value of the 
 work, and accordingly handed down to posterity a list of some of 
 Radclif's plays."* This indicates the strongly Biblical nature of the 
 plays, as the titles include Job's Sufferings, Jonas, and The Burning 
 of Sodom; one is a religious polemic Reformation play on the burn- 
 ing of John Huss, which Bale refers to as "De Joannis Huss Bohemie 
 nati condemnatione." 
 
 Mention has already been made of the importance of the boys from 
 the choir schools; St. Paul's is perhaps the most striking example. 
 The church ceremonies and liturgy demanded large choirs, and in 
 mediseval times the service itself was quite dramatic. The origin of 
 the practice of using choir boys must have been of an early date. As 
 the demands upon the choir boy increased, it was natural that the 
 Church should oifer him some education, as he was prevented from 
 gaining any elsewhere. Singing was then of much greater educa- 
 tional importance than it is now ; elementary instruction, according to 
 Watson, was largely included in it, and he adds, "the most important 
 
 type of Elementary School before the Reformation was the 
 
 Song School."" Furthermore, nearly all these Song Schools were 
 connected with a church; the teachers were usually chantry priests, 
 and the scholars generally took part in the church service as choir 
 boys. Accordingly the chief subject taught was music; in the early 
 period some grammar may have been included."* As the great Pub- 
 lic Schools, and town Grammar Schools were founded, the Song 
 School simply trained in reading, writing and singing. After the 
 Reformation, says Watson, nearly all' the Song Schools were con- 
 nected with the cathedrals. As the Grammar Schools and Public 
 Schools gradually demanded ability to read and writ4 for entrance, 
 the educational importance of the Song School increased. Merchant- 
 Taylors' School, in 1561, by Statute decided that no boy should be ad- 
 mitted who could not "read perfectly and write competently;" St. 
 Paul's School and many others did likewise. Meanwhile, owing to the 
 Reformation, the chantries support had been abolished, and the choir 
 boy had, perhaps, become less necessary; at least the cathedral Song 
 Schools could no longer supply the needed elementary education, and 
 there sprang up Dame Schools and private elementary schools taught 
 
 22 Bale, Index Britanniae Scriptorum, 333, (igo2 ed.) . 
 
 23 Watson, The English Grammar Schools to 1660, I42. 
 
 24 Watson, 142. 
 
The School Drama In England 29 
 
 by "Tailors, Weavers, Shopkeepers, Seamsters and such others;'' 
 schools that were for so long a disgrace to England's educational 
 system. Throughout the Elizabethan period, however, the important 
 Song Schools for choir boys continued to give elementary instruction. 
 We have many examples of the employment of an "Usher" or teacher 
 for the choir boys; and the Choir Master at St. Paul's Cathedral in 
 1584 directed that after the boys had learned to read, write and sing 
 "then suffer them to resort to St. Paul's School that they may learn 
 
 the principles of Grammar and the Catechism in Latin 
 
 and other good books taught in said school."" In addition to the 
 Song Schools for the choir boys at the cathedrals, mention should be 
 made of those maintained for the private chapels of the nobles. The 
 Earl of Northumberland had a "Maister of the childre" of his chapel ; 
 Edward IV had a master to teach his chapel-choir boys "to prick song, 
 to grammar and other virtuous things;" Elizabeth was particularly 
 fond of the children of her chapel, who frequently appeared before 
 her. 
 
 These Song Schools for choir boys, both of cathedrals and private 
 chapels, accordingly, were definitely educational institutions; what 
 was their importance dramatically? In the old sacred dramas, the 
 mysteries and moralities, which were given in close connection with 
 the Church, the choir boys had served as actors; indeed the whole 
 church service was dramatic in its mystic symbolism. The institution 
 of the Boy Bishop, probably begun by the choir boys,"" developed this 
 spectacular and dramatic side of their education, and it is but natural 
 to find the choir boys used as actors for both religious and secular 
 plays. That choir boys of St. Paul's had been prominent in dramatic 
 activities is evident from their petition to Richard II, in 1378, "pray- 
 ing him to prohibit the ignorant and inexperienced from acting re- 
 ligious plays."" Warton tells of a performance before Henry VII at 
 Westminster Castle in 1487, by the choir boys of the Abbey and 
 Priory at Winchester." The Children of the Chapel Royal acted at 
 Court in 1506; the performance before Henry VIII in 1528 was prob- 
 ably given by the choir boys of St. Paul's." These two choirs were 
 
 as Churton, Life of Nowell, 190. 
 
 26 Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, i., 336-371 ; Leach, Fortnightly Review, 1896, 
 128. 
 87 Collier, History of English Dramatic Poetry, i., 17. 
 
 28 History of English Poetry, iv., 47. 
 
 29 Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, ii., 193. 
 
30 The School Drama 
 
 the most important dramatic performers in the early years of Eliza- 
 beth, who seems to have been particularly fond of the boy actors. 
 Soon the Children of the Chapel Royal and the Children of St. Paul's 
 were organized into semi-professional companies. Each had its 
 regular place of performance in the city, either the Song School itself, 
 or some special theatre. Burbage's theatre, 1576, probably the first 
 permanent stage in London,"" seems to have been built chiefly for the 
 use of these "children;" the theatre at Blackfriars was also used by 
 them, and the private theatre at Whitechapel was frequently the 
 scene of plays by "Paul's Children." Gradually the theatrical import- 
 ance of these choirs increased, and, as Schelling points out, the task 
 of the Choir Master must have been no mean one as he was organist, 
 choir leader, writer of plays, manager of a company, coach of his 
 actors, and perhaps also their teacher in the elementary branches. 
 
 Some of the Choir Masters have left names that are noteworthy in 
 the history of the English drama. Richard Edwards, Master of the 
 Queen's Chapel Children, 1561-1567, was classed by a contemporary, 
 Puttenham, as among "the most commended writers in our English 
 Poesie"" and his tragicomedy Damon and Pithias is a significant ad- 
 vance in dramatic composition. By some critics Misogonus is as- 
 signed to him.°^ His successor, William Hunnis, 1567-1597, is sup- 
 posed to have written thirteen plays which were played by his chil- 
 dren before the Queen: for each he received about £5; in 1583 he 
 petitioned for an increase of his salary of £40, which he said was too 
 small to maintain his children, and pay an usher to teach and manage 
 them, "and a woman servant to keep them clean."" At his death 
 Nathaniel Giles was made Master of the Chapel Children : in addition 
 to their Court performances they were trained by Giles as profes- 
 sional actors at Blackfriars. Elizabeth's high evaluation of these 
 Children is attested by the warrant she gave him (and his namesake, 
 Thomas Giles, Master of the Children of St. Paul's) to take from any 
 cathedral, collegiate church, parish church, or chapel, such children 
 
 as were "apt and meet for the better service of her Majesty's 
 
 Chapel." Although this right of impressing choir boys was not new, 
 these two Choir Masters seem to have abused their privilege, and 
 even taken boys from schools, and apprentices from their masters, so 
 
 80 Lawrence, Elizabethan Playhouse, Appendix. 
 
 31 Art of English Poesie, 73, 77, (Arber ed.) . 
 
 32 Fleay, Chronicle History of the London Stage, 60, 
 
 S3 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, (1581-1590), 123. 
 
The School Drama In England 31 
 
 that the royal council finally had to interfere. John Lyly wrote all 
 his plays for children to act; in the eighties he probably held the po- 
 sition of Vice-master of the Children of St. Paul's." His earliest 
 dramatic attempt, Campaspe, 1580-1581, was played, first at Black- 
 friars and later at the Court, by the two Boy Companies, Chapel 
 Royal and St. Paul's, as was his second play, Sapho and Phao; his 
 third, Gallathea, 1584, was performed by the boys of St. Paul's, who 
 also presented his greatest success, Endimion, 1585. Although other 
 later dramatists, notably Peele and Nash, wrote for children's com- 
 panies, their importance waned as the professional companies of adult 
 actors (Leicester's, Strange's, Carey's, King's, Queen's, Admiral's 
 and Pembroke's) increased in importance, and this was due largely to 
 the fact that each Company had to be licensed by some nobleman. 
 For reasons not fully known, both companies of children were fre- 
 quently inhibited, the Children of the Chapel Royal from 1583-1591, 
 and St. Paul's boys from 1590-1600; their later plays were private, in 
 the Singing School or their own theatre. 
 
 It is evident that just as the English schools helped to give birth to 
 the English drama, just as their teachers furnished the first play- 
 wrights, so their pupils, either in Public School or Song School, fur- 
 nished the first actors. The boy actor was an important element in 
 the drama during Elizabeth's reign; too often the dramatists forgot 
 their debt to these youthful actors, for, as managers also, they felt 
 k^nly the competition between their own professional companies and 
 the popular boy companies. Two of the greatest dramatists have 
 voiced their anger in their plays. In Act III, Scene 2 of Hamlet 
 (probably written in 1601, when the Children of the Chapel Royal 
 were very popular) Shakespeare makes Rosencrantz say of the dra- 
 matic situation in "the city" : "But there is, sir, an eyrie of children, 
 little eyases, that cry out on the top of the question and are most 
 tyrannically clapped f or't : these are now the fashion." Jonson wrote 
 in a like humor in his Staple of News, Act III, Scene 2, although he 
 seems to refer to the use of the drama in the schools themselves: 
 "They make all their scholars play boys. Is't not a fine sight, to see 
 all our children made interluders? Do we pay our money for this? 
 We send them to learn their grammar and their Terence and they 
 learn their, play books!" Even Jonson, however, could applaud the 
 boy actor when he acted well, and his verses of appreciation indicate 
 
 34 Bond, Lyly, i., 33, 34, ii., 309-3"- 
 
32 The School Drama 
 
 a reason for their popularity, and suggest that some, at least, were 
 actors of considerable ability. His Epigram CXX, an "Epitaph on 
 Salathiel Pavy, a child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel" includes these 
 lines : 
 
 "Years he numbered scarce thirteen 
 When fates turn'd cruel. 
 
 Yet three fiU'd zodiacs had he been 
 The stage's jewel; 
 
 And did act, what now we moan. 
 Old men so duly, 
 
 As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one. 
 He played so truly." 
 The sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries produced in England 
 a number of important education theorists and writers, among whom 
 Ascham, Milton, Mulcaster, Bacon, Elyot, Hoole and Brinsley would 
 probably be accounted the chief. Nearly all of these men refer to 
 the School Drama in their writings, and accord it high praise as an 
 educational method. The fact that no more mention is made of it is 
 explained in two ways : most of these men were more interested in 
 the aims, objects and material of education, than in methods; jind, like 
 all educational writers, they devoted more attention to urging needed 
 reforms than to commenting upon present practices ; none of them, at 
 least, found anything to criticize in the School Drama. 
 
 Roger Ascham is one of the most important writers on English edu- 
 cation ; he is a thorough humanist, and believes grammar, when right- 
 ly taught, to be the center of education. His most important recom- 
 mendation, perhaps, is double translation, which would be aided by 
 such a work as Plasgrave's Acolastus. He was warm in his commen- 
 dation of Terence, but he said the teacher should "avoid Plautus' im- 
 proper words.'"" He was cordial in his references to Sturm, who, as 
 Ascham must have known, made the School Drama one of his import- 
 ant educational methods. In his epistles he refers to the excellent 
 dramatic performances in the school in Antwerp, probably one of the 
 Hieronymians', and states that he himself had translated a Greek 
 play, Philoctetes, into Latin, quite possibly for school use." He be- 
 lieved that any such dramatic work should very closely follow the 
 classic models, and wrote, praising one and condemning another: 
 
 &5 Scholemaster, II, 14, 19, 72, 92, (Arbered.); Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, 
 ii., 19511. 
 
 S6 Hazlitt, Manual, 179. 
 
The School Drama In England 33 
 
 "Whan M. Watson in S. Johns College at Cambridge wrote his excel- 
 lent Tragedie of Absalon, M. Cheke, he and I, had many pleas- 
 ant talkes together" about the necessity for following the dramatic 
 precepts of Aristotle, Euripides, Sophocles and Seneca. Of all the 
 plays that Ascham knew "onely two, M. Watson's Ahsalon and Geor- 
 gius Buckananus Jephthe is able to abyde the trew touch of Aristotles 
 preceptes and Euripides examples." One man in Cambridge had 
 written tragedies "well liked by many, but best liked of him selfe," 
 which violated these classic principles in their misuse of the various 
 kinds of . verse, and hence received Ascham's severest criticism." 
 Absalon was probably a University Play, but Jephthes was written by 
 Buchanan for his boys to perform at his school at Bordeaux, and 
 hence is a School Play." 
 
 Thomas Elyot, in his Governour, makes a defence of Latin com- 
 edies as material for school-room use. The attack was made upon 
 them, he says, because of their apparent immorality, and in a discur- 
 sive reply, too long to quote, he shows that the modern interludes 
 likewise contained immoralities, and no outcry was raised against 
 them ; even the sermons of the time, says he, are often as immoral as 
 any Latin dramatist ! Furthermore, he urges that these plays contain 
 much that is undeniably good ; they serve as models for modern dram- 
 atists, and give a pure Latin vocabulary to the scholar who uses them. 
 Hence Elyot defends their presence in the school, and since at that 
 time they were largely used as School Dramas, he can be enrolled 
 among the supporters of this pedagogic device." References from 
 the literature of the time might be quoted to show how extensive was 
 the dramatic use of Latin comedies in Henry VHI's reign ; More, in 
 the Utopia, speaks of the "playing of a commedye of Plautus,"" and 
 Skelton, in two of his poems, makes a similar reference." 
 
 Francis Bacon was intimately connected with the Elizabethan 
 drama ; he contrived the "showes" for a Senecan tragedy while still a 
 student; he was famous for his assistance in the court masques; he 
 expended $10,000 on one such masque which he wrote himself; and he 
 wrote an essay called Of Masques and Triumphs" Furthermore, he 
 
 37 Scholemaster, 139, (Arbered.). 
 
 38 Herford, Literary Relations of Germany and England, 98 
 
 39 Governour, 123, 128, (Crofted.). 
 *o Utopia, 58, (Roper ed.). 
 
 *i Speke Parrot, line 181, and Garlands of Lawrell, line 353. 
 *2Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, i., 102, ii., 107, 117. 
 
34 The School Drama 
 
 definitely placed his stamp of approval upon the School Drama. He 
 wrote: "In modern states playacting is esteemed but a toy, except 
 when it is too satirical and biting, but among the ancients it was used 
 as a means of educating men's minds to virtue." Again, when prais- 
 ing the Jesuits for their use of the School Drama, he says: "It is a 
 thing indeed, if practiced professionally, of low repute; but if it be 
 made a part of discipline, it is of excellent use. I mean stage playing ; 
 an art which strengthens the memory, regulates the tone and effect of 
 the voice and pronunciation, teaches a decent carriage of the counte- 
 nance and gesture, gives not a little assurance, and accustoms young 
 men to bear being looked at."** 
 
 Richard Mulcaster showed his approval of the School Drama by the 
 great dramatic activity in which he engaged while headmaster of 
 Merchant-Taylors' and St. Paul's Schools. His emphasis upon the 
 vernacular may have aided in inspiring Spenser to write English 
 poetry, and Lodge and Kyd to write English plays : they were among 
 his pupils. His Positions does not discuss many points of class-room 
 method and hence omits the School Drama, which in practice, how- 
 ever, was one of his hobbies. Milton, on the other hand, commends 
 the School Drama in theory, although he had no actual experience 
 with it in practice. In his Tractate he recommends that the pupils in 
 the Academy learn and act the great classic tragedies, "which if they 
 were not only read, but some of them got by memory, and solemnly 
 pronounc't with right accent, and grace, as might be taught, would 
 endow them (the pupils) even with the spirit and vigor of Demos- 
 thenes, or Cicero, Euripides or Sophocles."" 
 
 John Brinsley, in his Ludus Literarius, urges the use of Terence, 
 and Terence Christianus, which should be studied and used "for 
 Latin speaking."" Charles Hoole, in his various books on methods 
 in the Grammar School, refers definitely to the value of the School 
 Drama. Terence is the first Latin author he recommends as "the 
 very quintessence of familiar Latins;" the matter is moral, and mod- 
 ern, and therefore the pupils are to use Terience so thoroughly "as to 
 make him wholly their own." Continuing, he says : "When you meet 
 with an act or scene that is full of affection and action, you may cause 
 some of your scholars — after they have learned it — to act it first in 
 
 43 Z)e Augmentis Scientiarum, Bk. ii., ch. xiii., and Bk. vi., ch. iv.; Barnard, 
 English Pedagogy, 92. 
 ** Tractate, 1$, (Cambridge Press ed.). 
 *s Ludus Literarius, 221. 
 
The School Drama In England 35 
 
 private amongst themselves, and afterwards in the open school before 
 their fellows. Herein you must have a main care of their pronuncia- 
 tion and acting every gesture of the very life. This acting of a piece 
 of comedy or a colloquy sometimes will be an excellent means to pre- 
 pare them to pronounce orations with a grace, and I have found it an 
 especial remedy to. expel that subrustic bashfulness and unresistible 
 timorousness which some children are naturally possessed withal, and 
 which is apt in riper years to drown many good parts in men of sin- 
 gular endowments." 
 
 We have seen that the School Drama in England prevailed as an 
 educational method in probably nearly all of the schools of this 
 period, that the leading educational writers commended it, that it fur- 
 nished the authors for the early Elizabethan drama, and the first 
 companies of actors. This close relation between the School Drama 
 in England and the early English drama will next be considered. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE SCHOOL DRAMA AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 
 
 The purpose for which the School Drama was established gradually 
 vanished; the famous schools which had caused their pupils to act in 
 Latin plays, in order that they might learn the language, lost sight of 
 the aim in their enthusiasm for the means. The populace soon de- 
 manded a vernacular drama, and the Latin drama quickly fell into 
 disrepute, even losing its pedagogical importance in the school. In 
 its response to this attitude of the people, England differs markedly 
 from Germany, where the Latin drama continued until the time of 
 Lessing.' The greatest contribution of the School Drama will prob- 
 ably be found in its relation to the larger field of the English drama. 
 One enters here upon a problem which presents many difficulties; the 
 Elizabethan drama sprang from diverse causes, catered to diverse 
 audiences, was written by men of diverse training and attitude, and 
 presents a very diverse development. With the exception of scat- 
 tered references, in Creizenach, Schelling, Herford and the Cam- 
 bridge History, very little attempt has been made to trace out the re- 
 lationship of the School Drama and the English drama of the six- 
 teenth century. 
 
 The first fact which must strike any student of this period is the 
 great sway of Latin." At a time when they read only the classics, 
 strove to converse in classical Latin, and wrote Latin only, it is no 
 wonder that the Latin drama was held up as the model for all bud- 
 ding dramatists. The development of dramatic art during this period 
 can be traced by noting the way in which classical models are first 
 blindly imitated in Latin, and then gradually adapted to the vernacu- 
 lar; finally the true Elizabethan drama emerges toward the close of 
 the century through those dramatists who had learned to utilize the 
 best of the past for the good of the present. As Boas points out, this 
 development in England was nearly a century behind that in Italy.' 
 But this is to be expected when one remembers that the influence of 
 the classics spread over Italy much earlier than over England. The 
 
 1 Scherer, Geschichte des Ehasses, 300. 
 
 2 Morley, English Writers, viii., 86. 
 
 3 Cambridge History of English Literature, v., 68. 
 
The School Drama and the Elisahethan Drama 37 
 
 whole humanistic movement developed first in Italy, thence spreading 
 to Germany, and Holland, which contributed the great leader of the 
 English revival, Erasmus. 
 
 The Elizabethan drama undoubtedly has its origin in the ancient 
 church ceremonies, and the mysteries and moralities. These were 
 most definitely "popular ;" a guild of carpenters, for instance, acted out 
 some Biblical scene, after which the leather workers did their "turn." 
 The actors were, of course, untrained; the plays themselves, if such 
 they may be called, were authorless compilations and literary evolu- 
 tions ; the stage was a market place, or a cart ; no scenery was used ; 
 the unities were unknown ; there was no division into acts ; and little 
 individualization of character. These productions, however, contrib- 
 uted two traditions which were effective in moulding the unformed 
 Elizabethan drama: the drama was for the public, understood by 
 them, shared with them, produced by them, and it also had a definite 
 motive.* The early religious aim (still evident to the devout specta- 
 tor at Oberammergau) joined with the educational purpose (which 
 promoted the School Drama) and produced the Prodigal Son plays, 
 and the numerous moral plays of later date. The Protestant drama 
 of the type of Kirchmayer's, is the fullest development of this double 
 aim." As the true function of the drama became evident, the authors 
 of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries strove to amuse 
 the populace with a possible moral lesson underlying, for him who 
 sought for it. The slowness of the dramatic development in Germany 
 and the tenaciousness of the Latin drama there may largely be ex- 
 plained by the absence of the first factor mentioned above, the popular 
 aim, which soon ended the career of the Latin drama in England and 
 fostered the vernacular plays for and of the people.' 
 
 To this inheritance from the mysteries and moralities and the 
 church ceremonies came the classical influence. The chief results of 
 this union were the appreciation of action "on and off" the stage, di- 
 vision into acts, definite scenes in place of various "stations" on one 
 set scene, the use of ghosts and horrors, prologues and epilogues, def- 
 inite characterization, soliloquies, the decorum of style and the unities.' 
 A natural result of this classical influence is seen in the shorter plays. 
 
 * Thorndike, Tragedy, 27. 
 
 5 Thorndike, Tragedy, 37. 
 
 6 Herford, Literary Relations of England and Germany, 70; Jundt, Die 
 Dramatischen Auffuhrungen im Gymnasium zu Strassburs;, 5. 
 
 7 Thorndike, Tragedy, 35; Cambridge History of English Literature, v., 98. 
 
38 The School Drama 
 
 complete in one performance, and in fewer actors. (Seneca observes 
 the rule of three actors.)' A better appreciation of what was suitable 
 for stage presentation also developed. 
 
 The influence of Plautus and Terence is first evident; their dramas 
 all being comedies, are intimately connected with the School Drama 
 which itself is largely comedy. The discovery, by Nicholas of Treves 
 in 1429, of the twelve lost comedies of Plautus, gave an impetus to 
 this humanistic revival. Terence, however, probably inspired more 
 imitators in the earlier decades. Among these may be mentioned 
 Wimpheling's Stylpho, played by students at Heidelberg in 1470 while 
 the author was still a student there,' which is probably the first 
 School Drama of which we have definite information ; the anonymous 
 Codrus; and, in spite of its brief career, Reuchlin's Sergius^' Again 
 the discovery in 1501 of the attempts by the Nun of Gandersheim to 
 give Terence a Biblical setting, added more interest in the classical 
 revival. The Henna (or Scenica Progymnasmata)^ of Reuchlin, 
 1497, was the first really successful use of modern material in a play 
 which is classic in form and language."" The epilogue is in true 
 Terentian style." Too little importance has been given to the 
 Henno ; in Germany it received the praise of Melancthon, and Eras- 
 mus approves the author's style." It was produced at Dalburg by 
 May, 1498, with much success, and the author and patron received the 
 thanks of the city, while the actors, probably students, gained a more 
 material reward in the form of gold rings." German translations, or 
 adaptations, were made by Hans Sachs, 1531," Georg Wagner, 
 1547," and Jorg Wickram, 1555." A work of this sort, which Her- 
 ford justly calls "epoch-making," must have influenced England also : 
 
 8 Cunliffe, TAe Influences of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy, 39. 
 
 9 Herford, Literary Relations of England and Germany, 77. Not referred 
 to in Von Raumer, or Schwarz, Jacob Wimpheling, or Freundgen, Jacob Wim- 
 pheling padagogische Sckriften. Scherer is wrong in claiming it is lost. 
 
 10 Geiger, Reuchlin, 81. 
 
 11 Herford, Literary Relations of England and Germany, 80; Geiger, Reuch- 
 lin, 82-90. 
 
 12 Based on Blanchet Maitre Pathelin, a French farce of about 1470. 
 
 13 Goedeke, Grundriss, i., 304. 
 
 1* Erasmus, Ciceronianus, i., 852, (ed. of 1540) . 
 15 Letter of John Bergmaun of Olpe, May, 1498, 
 
 i« Gottsched, Nothiger Vorrath zur Gesckichte der deutschen dramatischen 
 Dichtkunst, 61. 
 
 17 Grimm, Gesckichte der deutschen National- Literatur, ii., 339. 
 
 18 Kurz, Deutsche Bibliothek, vii. ,206. 
 
The School Drama and the EUsahethan Drama 39 
 
 its keen satirical touches prepared the way for those in Ralph Roister 
 Doister and Gammer Gurton's Needle; the heahhy tone of the 
 Henno," in contrast to the lascivious and immoral scenes in Terence, 
 prepared the way for Acolastus, Asotus, and Misogonus, where Bibli- 
 cal material is treated in classic style. The Dutch School, represented 
 by such school men as Gnapheus, Macropedius, and Crocus, strove to 
 Christianize Terence, and their School Dramas combine the Teren- 
 tian influence and the new use of the Prodigal Son motif, which was 
 so powerful in Germany,^" and which may be seen in England in 
 Palsgrave's translation of the Acolastus, Redford's Play of Wit and 
 Science, Ingeland's The Disobedient Child, Nice Wanton, Misogonus, 
 and Gascoigne's Glass of Government. The translations of the plays 
 of Terence, which follow naturally after imitations, were numerous 
 in the first half of the sixteenth century. Among many may be men- 
 tioned a German edition in 1499, a translation at Paris in 1500, and in 
 1577 one in Spanish; in England Rastell published a translation of at 
 least a part of the plays; Terence in English was published in 1530 
 and Udall's Flowers from Terence appeared in 1534; in these two 
 latter we have examples of Terence used as a play,"" and as a school 
 book for learning Latin. 
 
 The influence of Plautus upon the Elizabethan drama can be more 
 directly traced ; like Terence he influenced the early humanistic dram- 
 atists (nearly all of whom were school men) in Holland and Ger- 
 many, and thence, England. But due either to the newness of his 
 plays, for even the sixteenth century was interested in "a new thing," 
 or to the greater adaptability of his style and subjects to the drama 
 of the time, the Plautine influence can be much more directly traced 
 in the English drama itself. Gosson, writing in 1579, said that the 
 first English comedies "'smelt of Plautus.'"' All these scholastic 
 leaders of the age, including Erasmus, More, Ascham, Elyot, Mulcas- 
 ter, Sturm, Melanchthon and Luther, urged the study and use of his 
 works. In 1520 an edition of Plautus appeared," but there were 
 practically no English translations in the sixteenth or seventeenth 
 centuries, except the Menaechmi of W. W. (William Warner?) in 
 
 19 Note also prologue to Sergius. 
 
 20 On the general subject, see Francke, Terenz und die Latein Schulko- 
 modie in Deutschland; Ballentine edition of Terence's Hauton, pgs., vii.-xviii. 
 
 21 Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, i., 82. 
 
 22 School of Abuse, 20, (ed. of 1841). 
 28 Brandl, Quellen, Ixxi. 
 
40 The School Drama 
 
 159s, which Shakespeare may have used in manuscript for his 
 Comedy of Errors. The Miles Gloriosus, with its braggart soldier, 
 can be traced very definitely in Udall's Ralph Roister Doister, prob- 
 ably our first English comedy and one of the most significant of the 
 School Dramas. Brandl points out the influence of Plautus in the 
 School Play Thersites, 1537, and in Jack Juggler, which used the ma- 
 terial made famous in Amphitro." Shakespeare at least took the 
 names Tranio and Grumio from Plautus' Mostellaria, and Ben Jon- 
 son amalgamated two of the Latin dramatist's plots into his The Case 
 is Altered. Thersites, an interlude of 1537, claims a relationship with 
 i^lautus' famous soldier through Textor's edition." Holinshed re- 
 fers to the playing of "a goodly comedy of Plautus" at the court in 
 1520,* and More shows conclusively that such plays were far from 
 unusual, and were often interfered with by the populace who ob- 
 jected to the Latin." That many of the school plays of Eton, West- 
 minster and Shrewsbury were closely modeled on Plautus, has al- 
 ready been indicated."" 
 
 The influence of Seneca came later, but was probably more exten- 
 sive than that of Terence or Plautus. As it is more closely related to 
 English tragedy than comedy, it is less connected with the School 
 Drama. By 1581 all of Seneca's tragedies had been translated into 
 English, for use on the stage, probably at schools and universities. 
 The Italian Renaissance had reveled in Seneca," and Saintsbury 
 claims that Seneca held the French drama captive until the time of Vol- 
 taire.'" One of our earliest School Dramas by an Englishman, Buchan- 
 an's Baptistes, 1543, is the first treatment of tragedy north of the Alps." 
 It doubtless inaugurated the "Christian Seneca," those plays in which 
 Hebrew history was served up with fittingly Senecan gore. Frischlin 
 and Brulow led this movement in Germany, which was of a far more 
 lasting importance than that of the Christianized Terence." Of 
 Latin imitations of Seneca in England, Grimald's Archipropeta, 1547, 
 is probably chief, in addition to being the best neo-Latin play pro- 
 
 2* Hid., Ixxi. 
 
 25 Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, ii., 465. 
 
 2« Chronicles, ill., 850, (ed. of 1587). 
 
 27 Utopia, 58, (Roper's trans.). 
 
 28 Pg. ai. 
 
 29 Klein, Geschichte des Dramas, v., 236. 
 
 so Preliminary note to Grosart's Daniel, viii. 
 SI Thorndike, Tragedy, 37. 
 82 Pg. 64. 
 
The School Drama and the EUsahethan Drama 41 
 
 duced in England." Gorboduc, popularly called our first English 
 tragedy, 1562, is an excellent example of the combination of Seneca's 
 style and British mythical history. The Misfortunes of Arthur, 1587, 
 Locrine, 1586, and Kyd's Spanish Tragedy are merely examples of the 
 Senecan craze. Indeed it spread so rapidly that choleric Nash was 
 driven to hope, in 1589, that Seneca "at length must needs die to our 
 stage."" Ascham" and Hoole" are only two of the many school- 
 men who recommended his tragedies for school use. Nor is this ex- 
 treme popularity surprising when we realize that the Elizabethans 
 had almost no direct knowledge of Greek tragedy and hence received 
 from Seneca their chief ideas of the drama as an art. Webbe, Put- 
 tenham and Sydney, in their discourses on contemporary English lit- 
 erature, ^U pointed out the importance of Seneca." Cunliffe shows 
 that the following characteristics of Seneca naturally promoted his 
 popularity with the Elizabethans : "he is modern, cosmopolitan, intro- 
 spective, sensational, rhetorical, descriptive and reflective." His most 
 marked contributions were decorum of style, suitableness of charac- 
 ters (substitution, generally, of high for low life), five acts, and the 
 unities." If Terence and Plautus influenced early English dram- 
 atists by suggesting style and material, Seneca aided later in fashion- 
 ing the drama when it became a conscious art. 
 
 It remains to show the relation of this all important classic in- 
 fluence to the School Drama, and school practice. Did the introduc- 
 tion of Terence, Plautus and Seneca into the school and university 
 curricula, and the presentation of these plays, bring about this classic 
 revival? If not, what did? At a time when learning and knowledge 
 of the classics were synonymous, when the drama was being produced 
 by, first, schoolmen, then university wits, and finally by the profes- 
 sional actors themselves, the schools must have done much to shape 
 the course of the drama at its start, which is exactly the period when 
 classic influence is felt. To begin with, we note that during the late 
 fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries Terence and Plautus were very 
 generally introduced into the schools. When Colet founded St. Paul's 
 
 ss Herford, Literary Relations of England and Germany, 70. 
 s* Preface to Greene's Menaphon. 
 ^^ Scholemaster, 140, (Arbered.), 
 
 36 New Discovery, 8; and Cambridge History of English Literature, v., 90. 
 
 37 Cunliffe, Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy, ii. 
 
 38 Thorndike, Tragedy, 40; Cunliffe, 32-46; Miller, Tragedies of Seneca, 
 (Manly's introduction) . 
 
42 The School Drama 
 
 in 1512 he demanded that "pure Latin like Terence" be taught.°* 
 Ward refers to the "charmed life which Terence led in the darkest 
 ages of learning."" Melanchthon, Sturm, Luther, Ascham and Eras- 
 mus unite in recommending Terence and Plautus, and the references 
 of Ratke and Comenius, in the next century, attest to the universality 
 of their use. Poor Lope de Vega had to struggle hard to get away 
 from the influence of Plautus and Terence and write vernacular 
 dramas." Baynes believes that the Stratford Grammar School, 
 which is typical, taught Shakespeare Terence, Plautus and Seneca." 
 Hoole says that pupils should read these dramatists, and learn to imi- 
 tate them." Actors, whether boys or professionals, were supposed to 
 be familiar with these plays, which they had first met in their school 
 days; Polonius says of the actors in Hamlet "Seneca cannot be too 
 heavy, nor Plautus too light" for them." What the schools gave 
 their students certainly influenced those students in their after life, 
 particularly when they actually took part in presenting a play, instead 
 of grinding out a translation of it, as we do today. Although until 
 the time of Erasmus classical plays were merely read or recited in the 
 school, with perhaps an actor or two going through a pantomime," 
 this practice had gradually disappeared by the time of the School 
 Drama. If the early Elizabethan drama was largely written by 
 scholars, and if the bulk of scholarship in that age was classical, and 
 Terence, Plautus and Seneca formed a large part of this material at 
 this particular period, is it not evident that the influence of these 
 Latin dramatists upon our English drama comes largely through the 
 medium of the schools? If the use of these plays in the schools was 
 frequently, if not generally, by the presentation of them," is not the 
 debt of the Elizabethan drama to the School Drama evident? 
 
 A further point in support of this claim is found in the fact that a 
 very large number, if not a majority, of the early Elizabethan drama- 
 tists were school men," many of whose works were produced for a 
 
 39 Carlisle, Endowed Grammar Schools, ii., 77. 
 
 *o Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, ii., 207. 
 
 *l Jusserand, Shakspere en France, 177. 
 
 *2 What Shakespeare Learned at School. 
 
 *3 Cambridge History of English Literature, v., 90. 
 
 *4 Act II, Scene 2, line 420. 
 
 *5 Thorndike, Tragedy, 23. 
 
 *8 Pg. 10. 
 
 47 Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, i., 94. 
 
The School Drama and the Elizabethan Drama 43 
 
 definite pedagogical purpose. As has already been stated, the actor 
 playwright was a later development in the English drama; the cour- 
 tier as a dramatist is probably a result of Elizabeth's desire for dra- 
 matic entertainments at her court and on her "progresses."'" Her 
 great love for the classics naturally favored the imitation, by her 
 courtier dramatists, of the Latin models. Her annual visits to the 
 universities, where some play was produced before her by the stu- 
 dents, under the direction of a Gager or a Peek, and her interests in 
 the Public Schools, all helped to promote a union between the drama 
 and the scholarly institutions and interests of the day. Ralph Rad- 
 cliffe, whom Bale enjoyed visiting at his school in the old Hitchin 
 Monastery, was primarily a schoolmaster, and incidently one of the 
 earliest and chief of the Latin dramatists in England. A zealous de- 
 fender of the old method of pronouncing Greek, he made his school 
 (1546-59) a home of humanistic classicism. Bale refers to ten Latin 
 plays which Radcliffe wrote for his scholars to present on the im- 
 provised stage once used as a dining room by the Carmelite monks. 
 On the same authority we learn that Radcliffe wrote on educational 
 topics, such as De Puerorum Institutione." Nicholas Grimald, whose 
 Archipropheta (1547) is the best of the Latin plays produced in Eng- 
 land, and for the rediscovery of which our thanks are due to Her- 
 ford," spent some years of his life as a lecturer at Christ Church, 
 Oxford. It was during this period that his two known Latin plays 
 were written, one of which, at least, seems to have been played at 
 Oxford." Wood informs us that Grimald was a translator of the 
 classics, notably Virgil.''' His poems, in Tottel's Miscellany, are well 
 known. George Buchanan,"' who, like Bale, was forced to flee from 
 England because of the religious controversy, was a teacher nearly 
 all his life, as a tutor to royalty, college professor, and principal. His 
 elegy on his life at St. Andrews is one of our most interesting sources 
 for that university and his Latin version of Linacre's Grammar at- 
 tained considerable popularity in the schools. His four Latin trage- 
 dies, written 1540-43 at Bordeaux for the use of his pupils (among 
 whom was Montaigne), are among the earliest by an English hand. 
 
 48 Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, i., I45. 
 *9 Bale, Scriptorum Britanniae, 700. 
 
 50 Herford, Literary Relations of England and Germany, 109. 
 
 51 Ibid., 113; Goedeke, Grundriss, 113, No. 30. 
 
 52 Athenae Oxonienses, i., 407-11, (Bliss ed.). 
 
 ss Irving, Life of Buchanan; Works, (Ruddiman ed., 1715)- 
 
44 The School Drama 
 
 and were instrumental in substituting classic models for, the then pop- 
 ular allegories, and in showing the possibility of using Biblical ma- 
 terial for contemporary drama. As already pointed out, they are sat- 
 urated with Seneca, and Euripides. Herford accords the Jephthes 
 high praise." John Rightwise, who succeeded his father-in-law, 
 Lyly, as head master of St. Paul's, 1522, is remembered for his work 
 on Lyly's famous Grammar, and his Latin play of Dido, "out of Vir- 
 gil," given by his boys before Henry VIII, 1527, one of our earliest 
 known School Dramas in England.'' As we have said, his educational 
 career, like Udall's, is not particularly praiseworthy ; he was removed 
 from his position in 1531." Nicholas Udall holds a prominent place 
 in the dramatic and educational history of the sixteenth century. 
 Ralph Roister Doister is our first so-called English comedy; it is one 
 of the most successful combinations of dramatic art and pedagogical 
 intent which the School Drama affords. Probably written during 
 Udall's headmastership at Eton (1534-1541), it was possibly presented 
 before the queen." It is also highly significant that Udall first in- 
 troduced a vernacular play into the annual presentation of Plautus or 
 Terence given at Eton, November 30. He is famous for flogging," 
 for editions of Terence and of Erasmus' New Testament Paraphrase, 
 for Tractates on religious problems of the day, for Latin poems, and 
 for Esekias (an English play produced before the queen at Cam- 
 bridge, "by King's College men only")." Thomas Watson, whose 
 plays Ascham approved and considered equal to Buchanan's," was 
 on the Cambridge faculty for many years." Thomas Preston, author 
 of Cambises (1569), was another university professor, who served as 
 Vice Chancellor of Cambridge, 1589-90; in 1564 his acting in Gager's 
 Dido had attracted the approval of the queen, on her annual visit to 
 the university, and he had been granted a pension." "Woodall, the 
 schoolmaster at Eton," produced a play before Cromwell in 1538, 
 
 54 Literary Relations of England and Germany, 98; note Mitchell's transla- 
 tion (1900). 
 
 55 Hid., 107; Collier, English Dramatic Poetry, i., 105, (ed. 1831). 
 
 56 Gardiner, Register of St. PauPs School, 20. 
 
 57 Fliigel, Furnivall Miscellany, 82; Cooper, Athenae Cantabrigenses ; Intro- 
 duction to Ralph Roister Doister, i. (Shakespeare Society ed.) . 
 
 58 Tusser, Good Husbandrie, (157S). 
 
 69 Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, i., 211, (Bliss ed.). 
 
 60 Scholemaster, 139, (Arber ed.) . 
 
 61 Ibid.; also Bridgett, Watson. 
 
 62 Nichols, Progresses, iii., 71, 131 ; Fleay, History of the English Stage. 
 
The School Drama and the Elisabethan Drama 45 
 
 using, as customary, the scholars for actors, but whether this play was 
 by him or not, we cannot tell." Thomas Legge, author of the Latin 
 Richardus Tertius which was acted at Cambridge in 1579, was one of 
 the leading professors at that university, 1568 to 1593. Fleay states 
 that a play on the destruction of Jerusalem, by Legge, was acted at 
 Coventry, 1577." John Christopherson taught at Trinity, Cam- 
 bridge, 1546-1554, during which time he wrote his Latin-Greek trag- 
 edy, Jephthes (now lost)," and translated many old Latin plays. 
 The insufferable Latin plays of William Gager (notably Dido, re- 
 ferred to above) could only have been produced by a dry-as-dust 
 classical university professor; he was at Oxford from 1577 to 1598, 
 at least. Our chief interest in him lies in his connection with Peele, 
 and his controversy with Rainolds over stage morality." John Lyly 
 represents a combination of the schoolmaster and courtier as a dram- 
 atist." John Palsgrave, the introduction to whose translation of 
 Acolastus is given in the Appendix, was a famous tutor, a writer on 
 French Grammar, and a student at both universities. 
 
 Although possibly somewhat beyond the field of the actual School 
 Drama and its influence on the Elizabethan drama, reference should 
 be made to the university plays." The Latin drama was never as 
 popular in England as it was in Germany, and soon its only hold was 
 ill Oxford and Cambridge, where Latin plays continued until the ftiid- 
 dle of the seventeenth century. The royal visits usually formed the 
 occasions for such productions, and men of the type of Gager rest 
 their claims for fame upon these dull dramas. The Returns from 
 Parnassus, at the end of the century, mark the rise of the vernacular ; 
 they also are examples of the plays upon school life, of which we have 
 many examples in England and Germany. Apollo Shroving, acted by 
 scholars at the Free School of Hadleigh in 1626, is perhaps the most 
 successful treatment of this material in English. The audience fre- 
 quently objected to the use of Latin in such plays. The old Latin 
 dramas were presented at Oxford" and Cambridge;" Grimald's 
 
 68 Lyte, History of Eton, i Jl. 
 
 64 Chronicles of the English Stage, 43. 
 
 65 Chamber, Mediaeval Stage, ii., 195, nl. 
 
 66 Woods, Athenae Oxonienses, ii., 87-9, (Bliss ed.). 
 
 67 Bond, Lyly. 
 
 68 Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, ii., 50-92. 
 
 69 Boase, Oxford, 194. 
 
 TO Mullinger, Cambridge, ii., 73. 
 
46 ' The School Drama 
 
 neo-Latin plays won favor at Oxford;" Cambridge students were 
 fined in 1546 for not taking their parts in these productions;" Ham- 
 let was given at both universities, and also Jonson's Volpone'^' 
 Ascham writes at length of his pleasures from attending these uni- 
 versity plays," and frequent mention is made of the extravagant 
 productions, such as the Dido, of Gager, with its snow, "all strange, 
 marvelous and abundant,"" and the mechanical devices on which 
 Francis Bacon was employed. The university drama forms a topic in 
 itself, but there is evident a close connection, particularly in the neo- 
 Latin period, with the School Drama. 
 
 Reference has already been made to the connection between the 
 School Drama and the boy companies," which flourished so exten- 
 sively that Shakespeare was forced to object to the "little eyases that 
 cry out on the top of the question."" The Song Schools, from which 
 most of the boy companies originated, were to train choir boys for the 
 church services; in every case they taught also the elementary school 
 subjects. Indeed nearly all elementary education in England at this 
 period was given by the Church. Accordingly the boy companies 
 are, at origin, really an offshoot of the boy actors of the School 
 Drama. The famous schools, such as Westminster, St. Paul's, and 
 Merchant-Taylors', which gained a reputation for their boy actors, 
 probably began with the motive which prompted the School Drama. 
 Richard Mulcaster, at Merchant-Taylors', 1561-1586, urged that 
 boys gain ability in English speech as well as in Latin, and Spenser, 
 Kyd, and Lodge may have all received their first inspiration from 
 acting under him." All of Lyly's, and one of Peele's best plays were 
 written for boy actors." 
 
 The School Drama, finally, contributed new material to the Eliza- 
 bethan drama. The Dutch humanistic school, represented by Gnaph- 
 eus, Macropedius, and Crocus, first used the Prodigal Son material 
 for dramatic purposes. In Germany this plot was used by many 
 
 71 Register of Oxford, i., 298. 
 
 72 Boase, 194. 
 
 73 Lee, Shakespeare, 224. 
 
 '^^ Scholemaster, 139, (Arbered.). 
 
 75 Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, i., 88, (Bliss ed.). 
 
 76 Pgs. 28-30. 
 
 77 Hamlet, iii., 2. 
 
 78 Schelling, English Literature during the Lifetime of Shakespeare, 45. 
 
 79 Schelling, Elizabethan Drama, i.,85, 112-117; Cambridge History of Eng- 
 lish Literature, vi., Ch. xi. 
 
The School Drama and the Elizabethan Drama 47 
 
 dramatists, including Waldis, Stymmelius, Wickram and others of 
 less importance.™ As is pointed out in the discussion of the influence 
 of Palsgrave's Acolastus" this translation seems to have intro- 
 duced to English dramatists the Prodigal Son motif, which is used in 
 The Nice Wanton, The Disobedient Child, Misogonus, Glass of Gov- 
 ernment, and Histriomastix ; while the Prince Hal and Falstaff story 
 shows the later adaptation of this material by a genius. 
 
 We may then summarize the influence of the School Drama on the 
 Elizabethan drama by stating that it brought in the classic style and 
 material of Terence, Plautus, and Seneca; provided a large number 
 of the early English dramatists; developed the boys as actors and 
 furnished the Prodigal Son material. This is a debt which we may 
 well afford to recognize. 
 
 80 Holstein, Das Drama vom Verlorenen Sohn; Schmidt, Die Komodien votn 
 Studentenleben ; Spengler, Das Drama vom Verlorenen Sohn. There is no dis- 
 cussion of this in English, 
 
 81 Ch. vi.; Brandl, Quellen, Ixxviii. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 THE SCHOOL DRAMA IN GERMANY 
 
 Germany was the most fruitful soil for the School Drama; here 
 Reuchlin, Wimpfeling and others began it in the fifteenth century; 
 here its greatest representatives, Gnapheus, Macropedius, Frischlin 
 and Sachs, wrote and taught; here its chief supporters, Luther, Mel- 
 anchthon and Sturm, urged its use ; here its sway continued long after 
 the rise of the Elizabethan drama in England had practically ended 
 the Latin School Drama there. The contribution which the English 
 School Drama, in its somewhat meteoric development, made to our 
 vernacular drama must be one of the principal claims upon which it 
 demands our study; the German School Drama, however, demands 
 attention for itself alone. It lasted fully two centuries, was one of the 
 most characteristic pedagogic schemes of the German school reform- 
 ers, became a weapon of the Reformation leaders, and gradually de- 
 veloped the popular vernacular drama of the people. 
 
 As in England, the German School Drama grew from the classic 
 revival of the fifteenth century. This revival centered around the 
 plays of Plautus and Terence, which received from the school reform- 
 ers of that time praise so intense that it shocks us today. Reference 
 has been made, in the preceding chapters, to the need which schoolmen 
 felt of giving their pupils drill and practice in conversational Latin, 
 which they found could best be gained through study of these two 
 Latin dramatists. From the study of a play to its actual acting is but 
 a step, and German schoolmasters made the change even earlier than 
 did their English neighbors. German translations appeared early; in 
 i486 the Eunuchus of Terence was translated by Nythart; in 1499 
 Grunynger translated all the plays of Terence; in 1511 two of the 
 Plautine comedies were put into German by Albrecht von Eyb;* and 
 during the sixteenth century the translations were numerous. Many 
 Latin editions of the plays also appeared, notably those of Melanch- 
 thon and Sturm." 
 
 1 Francke, Terenz und die Latein Schulkomddie\in Deutschland, 35; Rache, 
 Die deutsche Schulkomodie, II, 12. 
 
 2 Jundt, Die dramatischen Auffuhrungen im Gymnasium nu Strassburg, 18. 
 
The School Drama In Germany 49 
 
 The Hieronymians were probably the first German school teachers 
 to use Plautus and Terence as texts; they soon learned their peda- 
 gogic value as school plays.° Often trained in Italy, these teachers 
 had an intense love for Latin and strove to give their pupils, — among 
 whom were Erasmus, Thomas a Kempis and Gnapheus, — linguistic 
 ability in this ancient tongue; hence their use of Latin dramas was 
 one of the characteristic features of their method of education. By 
 the early sixteenth century, however, every school in Germany of any 
 importance had added the study of Terence and Plautus to its curric- 
 ulum and usually also demanded that these comedies, or, later, neo- 
 Latin imitations of them, be acted by the pupils. Francke, writing on 
 Terence, and Reinhardstoettner' on Plautus, both indicate that this 
 custom was common to nearly all the schools of Germany. Plays that 
 had the heartiest approval of such leaders as Erasmus, Luther, Mel- 
 anchthon, Sturm, and Trotzendorf naturally found favor in the insti- 
 tutions which these men inspired and directed." One of the earliest 
 actual performances of Terence was at Zwickau' where, at a special 
 celebration in 1518, Eunuchus was played, with a German farce be- 
 tween the acts of the Latin. Creizenach' is wrong, however, in his 
 statement that the Zwickau School Ordinance of 1523 is the first which 
 demands the performance of Terentian comedies in the schools; the 
 Nordlingen Ordinance of 1522 claims that title." Here the rector was 
 directed to "expound Terence, in the first session, in the afternoon." 
 At Zwickau many of the plays of both Plautus and Terence were to 
 be learned by heart in the third class. Similar directions are given in 
 the Eisleben School Ordinance of 1525, and in that of Nuremberg, 
 1526. Agricola was rector of the newly- founded Eisleben Latin 
 School, and the use of these dramas there was doubtless due to the 
 advice which Melanchthon gave him; Agricola wrote in 1536 (pub- 
 lished 1543) a Latin-German edition of Andria; he promised to bring 
 out more editions of the plays of Terence, but did not, possibly owing 
 
 s Straumer, Die Geschichte der Schulkomodie bei den Deutschen, 13. 
 
 * Plautus, Ch. I. 
 
 5 Rachfi, 12. 
 
 « Mertz, Das Schulwesen der deutschen Reformation, 296-7. 
 
 7 Geschichte des neuerern Dramas, ii., 91. 
 
 8 For School Ordinances on Terence and Plautus see: RacW, 12-15; Mertz, 
 347; Schmidt, Die Buhnenverhaltnisse des deutschen Schuldramas, 8-10 ; 
 Holstein, Die Reformation im Spiegelbilde der dramatischen Litteratur, Ch. 3 ; 
 Janssen, History of the German People, xiii., 166-170; Creizenach, ii., 88-92. 
 
so The School Drama 
 
 to the criticism of Luther, who said that the Latin plays must remain 
 in Latin, and not be spoiled by translation into uncouth and unadapted 
 German. Melanchthon also probably dictated the Nuremberg course 
 of study, as the Gymnasium was in charge of two of his pupils. The 
 famous Saxony School Plan, drawn up by this great preceptor of 
 Germany, 1528, directs that the children learn by heart all of Ter- 
 ence, and the pure fables of Plautus. The Hamburg Ordinance of 
 1529, of which Luther's friend Bugenhagen was the probable author, 
 approves the use of Terence, and orders "comedien spelen." At Wit- 
 tenberg, in 1533, the highest class was directed to declaim Terence 
 one day, and explain the grammatical constructions on the day fol- 
 lowing. At the university one hour on four days of the week was to 
 be devoted to "Terenz-lekture ;'' Frederick the Wise, a great lover of 
 the Latin authors, had, in 1502, founded a professorship in Terence 
 at this new university. In 1529 the students in the affiliated Pedagog- 
 ium had performed one of Terence's comedies with much success. 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main, in its Ordinance of 1537, directed that the 
 third class study and use Terence. Sturm's famous Strassburg School 
 Plan, of the following year, gives the fullest program for the use of 
 Latin plays that we find anywhere in Germany ; three classes were to 
 perform these plays at least once every week. The duchy of Schles- 
 wig-Holstein, in its School Plan for 1542, recommended the reading 
 of Terence; according to the custom of the time this would include 
 some acting by the pupils as they read their parts.' Similar orders 
 are found in the School Plans of Diisseldorf, 1545, Goldberg, 1546, 
 (drawn up by Trotzendorf), Magdeburg, 1553, Augsburg, 1553, 
 Wurtemburg, 1564, Breslau, 1570, (by which Terence is made the 
 chief study of the second class, who are to be assigned parts in the 
 plays, and act them, paying particular attention to pronunciation and 
 gesture), Gandersheim, 1571, Wesel, 1585, and many others.^" 
 
 The change from the reading and study of a drama to its presenta- 
 tion in true theatrical form was but a matter of a few years develop- 
 ment. To have one boy read the part, while another student acted it 
 in pantomime, must have seemed far inferior to combining the two, 
 and dividing the task by assigning a different part to each boy, and 
 having him both read, or recite, and act. This custom probably de- 
 veloped in the first half of the century, although many of the School 
 
 9 Thorndike, Tragedy, 37. 
 
 10 Consult Monumenta Germaniae Paedagogicae, i., vi., viii. 
 
The School Drama In Germany 5 1 
 
 Laws demanding it come later. The Zwickau Ordinance of 1523 is 
 the first to prescribe the acting by the boys of the various parts ; Ham- 
 burg, 1529 and 1537, Schleswig-Holstein, 1542, Giistrow, 1552, Mag- 
 deburg, 1553, Brandenburg, 1564, Breslau, 1570, Frankfort-on-the- 
 Main, 1579, Saxony, 1580, Brieg, 1581, and Nordhausen, 1583 — all of 
 these School Ordinances insist not only upon the study and memoriz- 
 ing of Terence (and sometimes Plautus) but also on the actual per- 
 formance of the plays. The Giistrow Ordinance says : "There shall 
 also be acted every half year one Latin comedy from Plautus or Ter- 
 ence by the pupils in the school, so that the boys may learn good 
 Latin." Breslau recommends acting "not only because the boys 
 learned good pronunciation and gestures by this means, and good 
 manners and morals were formed in them, but also because, as we 
 who have taught long years in schools know from experience, those 
 boys whom neither words nor rod could induce to study have been so 
 roused and excited by the lively action of the characters in plays, that 
 they have acquired quite a liking for study." At Nordhausen fjerman 
 plays were also recommended ; the burghers and the whole town might 
 attend. The revised School Code at Saxony, 1580, directed that "the 
 comedies of Terence and Plautus they (the teachers) shall cause the 
 boys to perform throughout the year, and in this way accustom them 
 to speak Latin with elegance." The Nordhausen Ordinance directed 
 that three days in Lent be given to dramatic performances in the 
 school, one of Terence, and two in German, one being on a Biblical 
 subject; the rector was to conduct rehearsals on Wednesdays, but not 
 to allow the play to interfere with other school work. 
 
 The career of the School Drama at Leipsig may be taken as fairly 
 typical of its use in the German schools of the sixteenth century." 
 In 1515 Eunuchus of Terence was played by the scholars, who re- 
 ceived ten florins as a gift; on March 7, 1517, a comedy of Plautus, 
 and in 1519 a comedy of Reuchlin's were performed before the City 
 Council, which was renowned for its humanistic interest. Mosellanus, 
 the classmate of Gnapheus and friend of Luther and Melanchthon, 
 while teacher of Latin and Greek at the university, 1518, strongly 
 urged the acting of Terence by his pupils, for it would "strengthen 
 their minds and develop their characters." Performances were fre- 
 quent from that time ; in 1535 Euripides and Aristophanes were added 
 
 11 ICaemmel, Geschichte des Leifsiger Schulwesens, 15, 28, 138, 269; Holstein, 
 37- 
 
52 The School Drama 
 
 to the Latin dramatists. The purpose of these presentations was that 
 the scholars might learn correct pronunciation, develop their memory 
 and gain oratorical ability. The rector also adapted parts of the New 
 Testament for such dramatic performances. The Council contributed 
 toward the acting of a Terentian comedy by the pupils of the Thomas- 
 schule in 1555; this was on Shrove Tuesday, which later became the 
 annual date for a School Play. Plays are recorded for 1591, 1603, 
 1606, 161 1, 1614, usually at Easter time. This custom continued into 
 the eighteenth century. 
 
 Magdeburg was the chief Reformation stronghold of Germany ; the 
 School Drama was urgently supported by the Reformation leaders, 
 particularly Luther and Melanchthon, and eventually became almost a 
 polemic drama of denunciation of the Catholics and anti-Lutherans. 
 Hence we naturally find the School Drama prominent at Magde- 
 burg." Casper Cruciger, a pupil of Melanchthon, opened the Gym- 
 nasium in 1525, and carried out, during his brief rectorship, many of 
 his great teacher's ideas, including those on the value of the School 
 Drama. Georg Major, his successor, (1529-1536), was especially in- 
 terested in these School Plays, and in 1534 took part with his scholars 
 in one of the Magdeburg performances. His School Ordinances are 
 lost, but we may be sure that he often made his boys act Latin and 
 neo-Latin plays. Pratorius drew up a new course of study in 1553, 
 which recommends School Plays as profitable in developing the pupil's 
 character, increasing the interest in school work, and giving facility 
 in Latin. Some plays in German also were given in the school. In a 
 prologue of a 1561 play Salomonis refers to the school performances 
 at Magdeburg, before the Council House, in the open air, and remarks 
 upon the enjoyment of a large crowd, who appreciated the acting al- 
 though the Latin was lost upon them. By this time the Magdeburg 
 School Drama had become a public function, much like our modern 
 Commencement exercises, when proud parents listen to the meaning- 
 less words of wisdom from their graduating sons. Georg Rollenha- 
 gen, a later rector, was well known as a dramatist; his Abraham was 
 frequently acted. In an introduction to one of the editions of this 
 play Rollenhagen refers to the Greek and Latin plays which had been 
 presented at Magdeburg almost every year ; he considers Terence the 
 best for pupils to use, and quotes Erasmus' words of praise for this 
 Latin dramatist. He says it is his wish and the aim of all his labors 
 
 12 Holstein, 38-42; RachS, 22, 23; Janssen, xiii., 169. 
 
The School Drama In Germany 53 
 
 that "Terence should stick like tar to the hands of the schoolboys." 
 The School Ordinances and Statutes for his rectorship direct that 
 comedies and tragedies in both Latin and German shall be presented. 
 In 1592 his boys acted all six of the plays of Terence. In that year 
 he wrote: "We have always read Terence in our schools, and also 
 learned him by heart, and so often acted his plays on holiday after- 
 noons that now nearly the whole school have him at their fingers' 
 ends, and when called upon can recite or act to perfection any play 
 that may be chosen." 
 
 Strassburg, however, was the real home of the German School 
 Drama." This is chiefly due to the great impetus which Sturm gave; 
 but both by its location and its relation to the Reformation the city 
 was destined to be important in the development of this movement. 
 Here we find all types of the School Drama represented, all materials 
 used, plays in both Latin and the vernacular, polemic plays, and the 
 pageants and vernacular drama of the people which were outgrowths 
 of the School Drama. The first presentation dates back to 1512, when 
 a play by Brants, called Hercules am Scheideweg, was produced in 
 the Miinster School. The next year saw the performance of another 
 play, whose title we do not know, and probably such performances 
 were fairly frequent until the school was moved in 1524. In 1529 the 
 rector spoke of "the custom of playing comedies and tragedies." In 
 1538 three schools were combined, and the famous Gymnasium of 
 Sturm was started, to continue under his direction for forty-five years. 
 At the dedication of the new school the pupils presented a comedy, 
 Lazarus, written by Sapidus, the teacher of the fourth class. For 
 nearly half a century Sturm continued to use the School Drama as 
 one of his chief pedagogic methods ; often plays were presented every 
 week in the school theatre. In March, 1580, just before Sturm was de- 
 posed, the School Ordinance directed that the School Plays, which for 
 two years had been neglected, should be revived, and that the teachers 
 must consider it part of their duty to direct and rehearse these plays. 
 The Directors state that the Strassburg School Play had made the 
 city famous throughout the world, and that students had come to the 
 Gymnasium because of the fame of the Play; princes and emperors 
 had seen the performances. For these reasons the Gymnasium ap- 
 pealed to the City Council for money to erect a stone stage, with tiers 
 
 IS Holstein, 42-44; Schmidt, Jl; Rachfe, 16; Janssen, xiii., 169-170; Jundt, 
 Die Dramatischen AuffRhrungen im Gymnasium zu Strassburg. 
 
54 The School Drama 
 
 of seats arranged around it in amphitheatre fashion; but the request 
 was not granted. In 1583 a wooden theater was erected, and its dedi- 
 cation in October was made a grand occasion; a comedy of Plautus 
 was performed, the nine muses appeared to do glory to the city of 
 Strassburg, the three graces sang the praises of the Gymnasium 
 teachers, and the whole school recited verses ''zu ehre Jesu Christi." 
 In 1598, 1599, 1603, 1615, 1616 and 1617 there were plays by the 
 scholars in honor of visiting palsgraves and dukes; the Strassburg 
 play continued indeed until the Thirty Years War. Jundt" catalogs 
 the different plays performed between 1538 and 1621 as follows : seven 
 ancient plays; two Greek; five Latin (many repetitions); twenty- 
 seven School Plays, seventeen on Biblical subjects, of which only two 
 are on New Testament incidents or characters, one on Church his- 
 tory, one on a romance, eight on "profangeschichtliche Stucke/' of 
 which six are on ancient history; and two German. Jundt also gives 
 (page 28) two interesting pictures of the Strassburg Gymnasium of 
 1629 and 1634, in both of which is seen the "Theatrum" — an open 
 court before a covered stage, similar to the Elizabethan theatres. 
 Toward the last of the sixteenth century the Orations became more 
 prominent; these enabled every boy to show his Latin ability, and 
 could always be open to the public; gradually also the city dramatic 
 performances gained in strength, and pageants and vernacular plays 
 were performed in the Council Hall or market place, the school boy 
 actors became part professionals, the didactic aim was entirely lost, 
 and the public, having paid an admission fee, demanded plays that it 
 could understand and enjoy. Gradually the Strassburg School Drama, 
 like all others, died out. 
 
 The most amazing fact which strikes any student of the School 
 Drama is that plays like those of Plautus and Terence should have 
 even been permitted in the schools of that day ; today their obscenities 
 and immoralities would make them forbidden books to school boys; 
 then they were text books ; actions of meretrices and procurers, and 
 speeches unprintable today, were reproduced by boys of six, or even 
 by the schoolmasters themselves, who were held up as the ideals for 
 boyish imitation." Standards have certainly changed in four cen- 
 turies, and for the better. Even then in Germany, when almost every 
 school boy was required by Statute to act such plays, and the leading 
 
 14 Ibid., 48. 
 
 15 Von Raumer, Geschickte der Padagogik, i., 272. 
 
The School Drama In Germany 55 
 
 Reformation divines placed their strongest approval upon them, there 
 were some voices raised in protest. Some of the School Ordinances 
 state that only "moral" plays from Plautus are to be used, and Sturm, 
 in 1565, printed parts of six of Plautus' plays, which, he said in his 
 preface, were respectable, although he admits that much of the au- 
 thor's work is indecent; Terence he approved in toto. Wimpheling 
 had long before raised his lonely protest against Terence, which, he 
 urged, should be kept away from school boys. One of the earliest 
 protests was contained in the School Ordinance of the Gymnasium of 
 the Gray Cloister, which prohibited Terence, and condemned the other 
 School Dramas for their immorality. By 1589 Terence had been ban- 
 ished from the Latin School at Memmingen, and a pupil wrote his 
 grandfather: "Even if Terence, as you say, contains much that is 
 charming, there is much in him also that is very filthy and scandalous, 
 so that he helps more to the corruption than to the implanting and 
 building up of good morals." The last decade of the century, when 
 the commendations of Luther, Melanchthon and Sturm had less effect, 
 must have heard many protests at these immoralities. When Mar- 
 burg school men objected that it was unseemly for boys in school to 
 act the parts of public prostitutes, a professor at the university, Ru- 
 dolf Goclenius, answered: "It is not unseemly for men to imperson- 
 ate public women, when the object is to show up the vices of these 
 women ; it is only indecorous to put on the habits, not the clothes, of a 
 prostitute." There must have been many then, as there are now, who 
 doubted such an argument. In 1602 Junglinghausen, rector of the 
 Gymnasium of St. Andrews, Hildesheim," objected very strongly to 
 the custom of scholars producing such immoral plays. One of his 
 pupils, Joachim Oppermann, wrote in his diary that the fruits of these 
 plays were drink, bad company, over-eating, immoral lives, disobed- 
 ient scholars, unfaithful husbands, imprisoned scholars, school work 
 neglected, examinations unpassed, no memory training, time wasted 
 on rehearsals and making of costumes, money wasted on stage set- 
 ting, scepters, crowns and so on, energy wasted on the whole per- 
 formance; therefore Oppermann urged that School Plays be stopped. 
 Such protests among Protestants are, however, few and far between ; 
 the Jesuits had a much keener moral sense, and prohibited the acting 
 of any immoral play by their boys." The depths of indecency to 
 
 16 Fischer, Geschickte des Gymnasium Andreanum, 13- 14. 
 
 17 Ch. V. 
 
56 The School Drama 
 
 which the neo-Latin and vernacular plays, most of which were writ- 
 ten for school use, finally sank, is suggested later. The age was rough 
 and crude — ^witness the incidents in Platter's autobiography — and the 
 moral sense which our generation prides itself upon, sometimes un- 
 duly, had not fully developed; there was frankness without prudery; 
 today we have prudery without frankness. Furthermore, as has been 
 suggested, the Latin comedies of Plautus and Terence furnished ex- 
 actly the training in conversational Latin which that age desired, and 
 which the other ancient authors could not offer; they were, seem- 
 ingly, the only means to aid the scholars toward their goal. One final 
 explanation of the sway of these immoral plays in the schools is seen 
 in the hearty approval which the three religious and scholastic leaders 
 of the century accorded to Plautus and Terence, for Luther, Melanch- 
 thon and Sturm were the most vigorous supporters of the German 
 School Drama. 
 
 Luther may have taken part in school plays at Eisenach or Erfurt ; 
 at least he was well acquainted with them and their aims." He rec- 
 ommends all kinds of plays except Passion Plays, for it seemed to him 
 that no man should try to enact the sufferings of Christ; his most 
 cordial approval falls upon the Latin plays, rather than the vernacu- 
 lar, and he disapproved of the translation into German of Plautus and 
 Terence. His views on this topic are chiefly found in his correspon- 
 dence and Table Talk. On February 16, 1525, at Wittemberg, he in- 
 vited his friend Spalatin to accompany him on the following Sunday 
 evening to see "einem Komodienspiele der Studententen" which was 
 to be given in the Augustine Cloister ; the friend is directed to bring a 
 reward for the young actors. On April 2, 1530, he wrote to Haus- 
 mann, in Zwickau, expressing the wish that Christ's deeds might be 
 acted in Latin or German plays in every school. His famous letter to 
 Dr. Cellarius, who wrote him asking advice about the use of School 
 Plays in Dresden, follows : "The acting of comedies must not be for- 
 bidden to boys at school, but allowed and encouraged ; first because it 
 is good exercise for them in the Latin language, and secondly because 
 in comedies which are artistically constructed, written and represented 
 those persons by whom the world is instructed, and indeed every in- 
 dividual in turn, will be reminded of the duties of his office and sta- 
 tion, and of what is becoming for a servant, a gentleman, for young 
 
 18 Rachfe, 8-10; Schmidt, 6-7; Reinhardstoettner, 32-33; Straumer, 17; Hol- 
 stein, 18-25, 33. 
 
The School Drama In Germany 57 
 
 fellows and for the old, and what they all ought to do Besides 
 
 which in these plays we find written down and described the cunning 
 tricks and the frauds of bad people; also what are the duties of par- 
 ents and children ; how children and young people are to be attracted 
 to matrimony when they are of a suitable age, and kept faithful to it ; 
 how children are to be obedient to their parents and how they are to 
 
 carry on courtship And Christians must not altogether shun 
 
 plays, because there are sometimes coarseness and adulteries in them; 
 for that reason they would have to give up the Bible also. Therefore 
 this is no argument against the plays, and no reason for forbidding 
 Christians to read and act them."" In his Table Talk of May 29, 
 1538, he defends the plays on much the same ground, explaining that 
 the immoral element is in life anyway, and justifying a play which 
 holds a mirror up to life. Yet he warned teachers that Terence and 
 the Bible should be used in a different manner, for different ends. He 
 urges that Bible matter be adapted into religious plays; in his trans- 
 lation of the Old Testament and Apocrypha, 1534, he says: "The 
 books of Judith and Tobias were nothing more than fine poems and 
 dramas ; the Jews had a great many such, and performed them for the 
 
 instruction and edification of the people The text of Susanna, 
 
 of Bel, Habakkuk, and the Dragon was like beautiful religious poetry, 
 as were Judith and Tobias." From Luther's recommendation grew 
 the extensive German religious drama, on Biblical themes. In 1543 
 he wrote to Count Georg von Anhalt, at Dassau, urging the value of 
 School Plays, particularly upon subjects taken from the Bible. Lu- 
 ther's attitude toward these plays, whether of Plautus and Terence, or 
 the later ones with less immorality and more scriptural setting, is thus 
 evident ; he held that they were valuable for every school boy, to train 
 him in Latin, and to develop his character." 
 
 Melanchthon, the great preceptor of Germany, agreed with Luther 
 on the question of the School Drama." He had learned Terence at 
 the school at Pforzheim, as a boy of ten, and had also taken part in 
 the dramatic presentations of his work. While there he first learned 
 and acted the Henno of Reuchlin, his grandmother's brother, who 
 
 19 Translated from Luther's Table Talk, Forstemann, iv., 592-593- 
 
 20 Consult: DeWette, Luther-Briefe, ii., 626, iii., 566, v., 105,553; Walch, 
 Luthers Sdmtlicke Schriften, xiv., 83, 89, 92; Corp. Ref., v., 86. 
 
 2iHolstein, 25-31; RacW, II; Straumer, 15-16; Barnard, German Teachers, 
 162, 164, 170. 
 
58 The School Drama 
 
 took an interest in the young scholar, and Latinized his German name, 
 Schwarzerd, (black earth). Melanchthon's teacher in this school 
 published an edition of Henna with a commentary. His devotion to 
 Terence continued; in 1516 he produced a metrical translation of the 
 Latin author, which was expanded in the edition of 1525. In the 
 preface to this second edition Melanchthon refers to Terence as more 
 worthy than any other author to be put in the hands of schoolboys. 
 Terence, he said, was better than all the rest, "first, because his pieces 
 are free from obscenities, and secondly, because they are more rhe- 
 torical. I advise all educationalists to recommend this author urgent- 
 ly to the study of the young, for he appears to me better adapted than 
 most philosophical writers to form in the young a right judgment of 
 the world. And no other author teaches greater purity of expression, 
 nor accustoms the boys to a method of speech which can stand them 
 in such good stead." In his private school, which he opened at Wit- 
 tenberg in 1521, Terence was the chief subject of Latin study; he had 
 his boys present the comedies of Terence, Plautus, Euripides and Sen- 
 eca. He wrote the prologues for these performances, and many are 
 still extant. Writing, January 22, 1525, to his friend Camerarius, he 
 refers to one of these prologfues to a "ludus scenici." He considered 
 these plays of special value (in addition to the Latin drill) in develop- 
 ing the ability of the boys to study and understand characters, and 
 correctly portray them on the stage; to help the students he some- 
 times took part himself in the plays. The moral value of such dra- 
 matic productions, which show the rewards of vice and virtue, ap- 
 pealed to Melanchthon as it did to Luther. In 1528 he drew up his 
 famous Visitation Articles, in which he recommends the plays of Ter- 
 ence, and the "harmless" plays of Plautus, for the children who are 
 learning their Latin grammar; Terence is to follow Aesop. The 
 third group of children, who are ordered to speak Latin only, are to 
 play Latin dramas suitable for them. When, later, the orations by 
 the scholars gradually superseded these dramatic performances, Mel- 
 anchthon's Orations were frequently used. The Preceptor, again like 
 Luther, urged the performance of plays on Biblical themes, but for- 
 bade Passion Plays, chiefly because of the death of four men in one 
 of these plays, whereby it was believed that God had set His mark of 
 disapproval on these dramatizations. Melanchthon, furthermore, in- 
 spired some of the best School Dramas which were written in Ger- 
 many during the century. In 1545 his pupil Stymmel wrote Studentes, 
 
The School Drama In Germany 59 
 
 a Terentian comedy of school life, which was twice played before 
 Melanchthon in Wittenberg, to his great pleasure. The 1576 edition 
 contains three letters from him praising the play. His chief influence 
 in developing the educational system of Germany is seen in the School 
 Ordinances, many written by him, others by his pupils, and a number 
 formed from suggestions contained in his correspondence. The im- 
 portant place of the School Drama in these Ordinances has already 
 been shown; much of this, undoubtedly, was due to Philip Melanch- 
 thon.'' 
 
 Sturm's influence was felt principally in one place, Strassburg." 
 His education, like Melanchthon's, had included acting in the School 
 Drama, probably in the school of the Hieronymians ; he tells us that 
 he took the part of Geta in Terence's Phormio as a boy of fifteen. 
 The School Drama appealed to him, when he became rector of the 
 Strassburg Gymnasium, 1538, as a splendid means of training boys in 
 Latin and strengthening their characters, though, being a typical 
 humanist, and a vigorous opponent of the vernacular in the school, he 
 aimed first at the Latin training. For this reason, largely, very few 
 neo-Latin or German plays, on secular or Biblical subjects, were pre- 
 sented on the Strassburg stage; Walther's Ndbal, played 1562, is one 
 of these. Plautus, Terence, Euripides and Seneca were the authors 
 most used. The high value placed upon these performances is shown 
 by the fact that Sturm urged Strassburg's dramatic success as one of 
 the chief claims of his school upon the favor of Maximillian. He sur- 
 passed all other German educators in the systematic plan for the pre- 
 sentation of plays in his school. In the Classic Letters of 1578, which 
 g[ve his course of study, the three upper classes are to have regular 
 dramatic performances.. Later the fourth class was included, and 
 Sturm could boast that boys of six acted in Latin plays at Strassburg. 
 In the School Inspection Statutes of 1565 he had ordered the teachers 
 of the upper classes to study, with the boys, the plays they were to act, 
 and to strive for as finished a production as possible. Much was to be 
 left to the initiative of the boys themselves, who were to be spurred 
 on to harmless rivalry in the perfecting of their parts. The parts 
 
 22 Consult: Werke, xi., 151, {k\ii^.eA..');Yja<^, MelanchthonsScTtola Privata, 
 32, 56, 67-81; Corp. Ref., xx., 70, xix., 657, v., 467, i., 722. 
 
 as Jundt, 16-28; Straumer, 14-15; Holstein, 42; Herford, I02; Rach6, 16-17; 
 Janssen, xiii., 169; Barnard, 204, 205, 206, 217, 218, 221; Schmidt, Geschichte 
 der Erziehung, ii., 363, v., pt. I, I-59. 
 
6o The School Drama 
 
 were to be divided among the boys ; each was to have some share, and 
 the long parts were to be given to more than one boy, in order that 
 none should be too heavily taxed. Plautus, Terence and Aristophanes 
 were to be acted; Strassburg initiated the acting of Greek plays in 
 Germany. Some latitude was given to the scholars in choosing the 
 plays. It was Sturm's desire that the theatre in the school should 
 never be idle for a week, and that all of Plautus and Terence should 
 be acted each half year. Another suggestion which he made to his 
 teachers was that the school be divided into decuria, and each have 
 its own plays ; thus more boys would take part, and the performances 
 would be more frequent. In the Classic Letters Sturm wrote the fol- 
 lowing to his teachers :. "To Boschius, teacher of the third class : the 
 comedies of Plautus and Terence are to be acted, and the boys are to 
 try to surpass the upper classes ; to Renard, second class : the scholars 
 in this class are to act with greater perfection and, later, they are to 
 try a play of Aristophanes, Euripides or Sophocles, which the teacher 
 shall first expound to them, afterwards, they may act any they wish; 
 to Goelius, first class : every week a play is to be performed, and much 
 attention should be given to the deliniation of character." By this 
 process Sturm hoped that German boys might eventually grow as pro- 
 ficient in Latin as the Roman youth, who however, had "the great ad- 
 vantage of hearing Latin always, and often seeing Latin tragedies and 
 comedies acted." He wished to "call up Plautus, Terence and Cicero 
 from the shades, to talk Latin with the boys." This program of a play 
 a week, however, was too much for the boys, who objected to the daily 
 practice at the expense of their play-time; accordingly the rector 
 changed his demand to a play a month; but, again, in 1568, the stu- 
 dents said too much of their time was taken by these plays. In 1572 
 the practice was extended over a larger period, and there was only 
 one play every half year ; more boys, including the youngest, were en- 
 rolled in the productions, which were somewhat like a pageant. By 
 this time the Strassburg play had gradually become more of a city 
 than a school function; the Council and their wives attended; grad- 
 ually the public was admitted, and the play moved to the City Hall or 
 the church or market place. In 1565 Sturm's request for the use of 
 the church was refused, and the play was performed out of doors on 
 the campus much the fashion of the Coburn players of today. The 
 boys took part in the city pageants, and the Council paid part of the 
 expenses of the School Play. Sturm was called upon to write a Ger- 
 
The School Drama In Germany 6i 
 
 man play on a Biblical subject, for the people grew tired of listening 
 to dramas in a foreign tongue; although he promised to write it, we 
 have no record of the play. As the language changed from Latin to 
 German, the place from the school theatre to the market place, and 
 the audience from scholars only to the general public, the early didac- 
 tic purpose of the Strassburg School Play was lost, and it became 
 merely a spectacle, generally on a religious subject, with scholars and 
 townspeople joined as actors, and the City Council supporting the 
 production. The plays were generally held on the Tuesday after 
 Easter, instead of every Thursday afternoon; the luxury of the pro- 
 duction increased, and the old School Play vanished. In its place, at 
 the time of promotion from one class to a higher, came the orations, 
 which are still a feature of our Commencement exercises. As the 
 city plays developed, outside authors and actors were employed, and 
 the religious drama, which was so popular in Germany during the 
 seventeenth century, resulted. 
 
 Although Plautus and Terence were defended by such leaders as 
 Luther, Sturm and Melanchthon, a neo-Latin, and, later, a vernacular. 
 School Drama developed. Schoolmasters who felt the inappropriate- 
 ness of these immoral plays, and who were fired with Reformation 
 ideas, soon began to write Latin plays in Terentian style on Biblical 
 subjects. The principal dramatic productions of Germany during the 
 sixteenth century were such School Dramas. Imitations of Terence 
 had begun in the preceding century, before the Reformation suggested 
 Biblical material." Wimpheling probably wrote the first imitation, 
 Stylpho, a prose drama, played by boys at Heidelburg in 1470 while 
 the author was still a student there; the Terentian influence is not 
 strong, and the play is really a student's jeu d'esprit. Reuchlin, in 
 1498, produced Sergius, which was withdrawn because of objections 
 to its unsavory attack on relic mongers; the epoch-making Henno 
 soon followed, and showed, for the first time, how a modern comedy 
 subject, of healthy tone and moral plot, could effectively be made the 
 basis of a Latin play, which might be performed by school boys. 
 Reuchlin promised in his prologue: 
 
 "Non hie erit lasciviae aut libidini, 
 Meretricise aut tristi senum curae locus 
 Sed histrionum exercitus et scommata." 
 This was one of the most popular of the neo-Latin School Plays in 
 
 2* Herford, Literary Relations of England and Germany, Ch. iii. 
 
62 The School Drama 
 
 Germany. The anonymous Codrus, now known only in manuscript, 
 was the earliest of the comedies of school life, which became so popu- 
 lar as an outgrowth of the Prodigal Son dramas. The latter, fostered 
 chiefly by two Netherlanders, Gnapheus and Macropedius, are exam- 
 ples of Biblical material treated in the style of Terence; there were 
 plays galore upon this theme. The Old Testament characters also 
 furnished material for Latin School Plays; Luther was very em- 
 phatic in his commendations of these dramas, which taught the boys 
 Latin, gave them Biblical history, and developed their characters. 
 The Joseph, of Crocus, 1535, is one of the earliest. Although a Jesuit, 
 Crocus served as a model for numerous Protestant School dramatists, 
 notably Gart and von Riite. At Strassburg the plays of Briilow and 
 Calamnius attained much popularity. The Terentius Christianus, of 
 Schonaeus, another Dutch schoolmaster, was an attempt to Christian- 
 ize Terence; it had a tremendous vogue in both Germany and Eng- 
 land. Schronaeus also wrote Latin dramas on Joseph, Susanna, Judith 
 and other Old Testament characters.'" 
 
 In developing the School Drama two elements entered: the classic 
 element, which aimed at the spread of Latin speech, and which was 
 represented by Plautus and Terence and their numerous imitators; 
 and the pageant element, a relic of the Fastnachtsspiele, and other re- 
 ligious festivals. The Reformation, attacking ceremonies, wiped out 
 all such productions, but they had won favor in the popular mind for 
 so long that some substitute seemed necessary. Accordingly we find 
 the School Drama gradually becoming more of a public spectacle with 
 less of the scholastic element and more of the pageant style. This op- 
 portunity commended itself strongly to the German dramatists, who, 
 instead of writing School Plays, composed religious dramas, which 
 were first presented in the schools but later drew away to the more 
 public City Halls, and continued, during the seventeenth century, as 
 city presentations, with little relation to the schools. The pedagogic 
 aim was now entirely lacking, but the School Drama must be given 
 credit for aiding in the development of this religious drama." In 
 these plays often three hundred characters were employed; like the 
 old mystery plays they frequently lasted for three or four days, and 
 
 25 Goedeke, Grundriss, ii., 143; JFrancke, Terenze und die Lutein Schulko- 
 mSdie in Deutschland, 70. 
 
 2« Creizenach, Geschichte der neueren Dramas, ii., 109-12I; Janssen, xii., 
 Ch. i. 
 
The School Drama In Germany $3 
 
 the audiences were numbered by the thousands. The popularity of 
 the Passion Plays, even in the face of the objections of Luther and 
 Meianchthon, indicates the hold which these productions had upon the 
 German people. Scholars, clergy, guilds and public officials partici- 
 pated ; sometimes the actors were paid ; often the Council contributed 
 toward the expenses and loaned the properties for the production. 
 Hans Sachs, teacher and poet of Gorlitz, was probably the most pro- 
 lific dramatiser of Bible material; he is said to have turned half the 
 Scriptures into plays, of which he wrote nearly a hundred and fifty." 
 Practically all the kings from Saul to the time of Daniel became , 
 heroes in some one of these tiresome plays, which, it would seem, 
 must have bored both the players and the audience. In Munich these 
 dramas were particularly popular; Ziegler, rector of the Gymnasium 
 about 1550, composed plays on such subjects as Isaac, Herod, the 
 Ten Virgins, and his pupils, aided often by amateur actors from the 
 city, presented them in public. Another schoolman, Edelpock, writing 
 on the birth of Christ, said that by such presentations "the common 
 people would be instructed in a sight knowledge of Holy Writ, for 
 what is seen by the eye is much more strongly impressed on the hearts 
 and minds of simple folk than what is only heard by the ear. Many a 
 pious heart might derive no small consolation from this play; young 
 people inclined to all sorts of sin and vice would recognize in it a mir- 
 ror of their defects, and the old would learn from it their neglect in 
 the education of the young." This pious ideal of the author is hardly 
 carried out in the play, in which sacred characters are made very 
 earthly. Joseph, before departing for Egypt, refuses to leave until 
 his flask is taken, and Mary herself does not seem to be unacquainted 
 with wine. This same lack of decorum characterizes many of the 
 German religious dramas. The apostles, in Schmeltzl's School Play 
 of 1542, all have their ever-ready flasks, yet his seven Biblical dramas 
 are far less vulgar than most of those written during this age. Al- 
 though Rebhun, the schoolmaster at Kahla, wrote his Susanna for his 
 boys to play in order that they might "be stimulated to what is good," 
 is could not be put upon the stage today. Julius, of Brunswick, later 
 treated the same Biblical material in the most obscene manner, yet the 
 court, which witnessed the play, accorded it great praise. Joseph, first 
 dramatized by Crocus, was another popular character for religious 
 diamas; Potiphar's wife is usually pictured in far too seductive 
 
 27 Holstein, 70. 
 
64 The School Drama 
 
 colors, and the way in which Voigt, a Lutheran pastor at Drubeck) 
 writing for school presentation, describes the scene between Joseph 
 and Potiphar's wife is unquotable. One wonders what moral result 
 must have come to the boy or burgher who took these unseemly partdi 
 No wonder Prsetornis, rector at Nuremberg in 1574, considered that 
 these plays hurt the boys far more than they helped them. 
 
 The Reformation contributed a polemic theme to the School Dramd. 
 Attacks upon Catholics, and, later, upon anti-Lutherans, frequently 
 formed the material for these plays; in rather marked contrast the 
 Jesuit drama usually avoided such methods in its plays. We have al- 
 ready seen that one of the earliest School Dramas in England was an 
 attack upon Luther."" The first treatment of the Prodigal Son story 
 in German, by Waldis, simply uses the Bible material as a cloak fof 
 bitter polemics. The tragic career of Frischlin indicates the sway of 
 satire and invective in the life and literature of the time. A Univef''* 
 sity professor at 20, a writer and a fighter, who was dashed to death 
 in trying to escape from prison after a brief success as a teacher, he 
 left as his principal contribution to the German drama a ■Variety of 
 plays in which his opponents, religious and intellectual, are lampooned. 
 Julius Redivius, a play of Caesar's impressions upon visiting Germany, 
 is probably his best known work." The greatest of all these polem- 
 ical satirists, Kirchmayer, wrote his terrible Pammachius, 1538, fof 
 "the good of the tender innocent young;" his play of 1545 abusing the 
 Pope was "for the benefit of the dear children." Six Birck, the Augs- 
 burg schoolmaster, wrote against the Catholics in many of his plays 
 on Biblical subjects. In 1560, at the Strassburg Gymnasium of Sturm 
 a tragedy was acted which attacked all those who did not follow the 
 Lutheran faith. Frischlin, who should be numbered among the chief 
 dramatists of the period, occupied nearly all of his . Latin comedy, 
 Phasma (acted in 1580 at Tiibingen, where he was then a Latin pro- 
 fessor), with a defense of the Lutheran doctrine; every other faith is 
 regulated to hell as the work of the devil. Luther and Zwingli were 
 characters in the drama. 
 
 As these plays became popularized and no longer simply school pro- 
 ductions, the audience demanded that German be used in place of 
 Latin. Although Luther and Melanchthon opposed vernacular plays, 
 and Sturm was criticized for his exclusive devotion to the Latin com- 
 
 28 Pg. 23. 
 
 89 Herford, 79; Strauss, Frischlins Leben und Schriften. 
 
The School Drama In Germany 65 
 
 edies, gradually the pleas of the people prevailed, and a vernacular 
 drama developed, at first largely religious and polemic. Indeed, the 
 audience began to be quite dictatorial as to the plays which it would 
 witness. The most sacred religious themes were often enjoyed only 
 for their "jokes and buffoonery, their excitement, scuffling and 
 laughter." RoUenhagen, rector at Magdeburg, complains in his Laza- 
 rus that the common people often behaved in a rowdy manner, even 
 upsetting the actors, and breaking benches and tables, and insulting 
 and threatening the performers. Wickram ,in Tobias, 1551, starts his 
 play by a plea to the audience to keep quiet, and Schlays, in Joseph, 
 iS93i used the same plea, but intensified it. In the face of these ob- 
 jections, the dramatists who desired to please the crowd soon adopted 
 the vernacular; many of the plays of Frischlin, Sachs, and the other 
 later school dramatists are in German. 
 
 The demand for vernacular plays served the schoolmen one good 
 purpose : it brought in money." Although these plays no longer gave 
 training in Latin speaking, and only served in a small degree for de- 
 velopment of character or improvement in pronunciation, this new 
 aim commended itself to the ill-paid teachers of that age. If the peo- 
 ple would not have Latin plays, and would have, and pay for, German 
 plays, the natural result was that German plays were written and per- 
 formed. In many cases the City Council contributed a sum to the 
 teacher for producing these plays ; gradually this became a fixed part 
 of his salary; from 1607 on the Liineberg Council, for instance, gave 
 about five dollats for each play. The boys also received gifts for 
 their part in the performance. Eventually this became such a custom 
 that the money and gifts were forth-coming even if the play, for some 
 good reason, had to be omitted. Later, admission fees were charged, 
 or voluntary contributions received from the audience at the door. At 
 Ulmer these fees are referred to as early as 1552-3; in Saxony, 1580, 
 it was decided that the presents for the boy actors be given chiefly to 
 those who were poor; one half of the entire sum was to go to them, 
 and the other half to the teachers. The opportunity of making money 
 by dramatic performances appealed to men outside the schools, and in 
 1580, at Konigsberg, the school masters were forced to urge that the 
 City Council limit these productions to the school only, but the re- 
 quest was not granted and professional actors and companies gradual- 
 ly took the place of the school boys managed by their masters. 
 
 80 Schmidt, 13-15. 
 
66 The School Drama 
 
 In the face of this demand for the presentation of vernacular plays, 
 a demand backed by the all-powerful clink of money, only a few 
 schoolmasters remained true to the Latin plays. Gigas, rector at 
 Schulpforta, demanded that "only Latin plays, especially those of Ter- 
 ence, should be acted." At Ulm, in 1585, there were protests against 
 the rector, who introduced the acting of German plays. An injunc- 
 tion from the magistrate at Munich prohibited the rector of St. 
 Peter's School from acting any but Latin plays, "in order that the 
 young might be benefited by the acting." At Mecklenburg, in 1552, 
 German plays were to be acted by the school boys only when the Duke 
 gave special permission. Occasionally we discover a School Ordi- 
 nance which forbids German plays, but the majority of them, at least 
 by the end of the century, decree that both Latin and German dramas 
 be enacted by the scholars. The Jesuit dramas, however, were almost 
 always in the ancient tongue, and there were enough schoolmen who 
 loved Latin, and wrote in it, and made their pupils act Latin plays, to 
 keep the Latin drama alive in Germany long after it had vanished 
 from England, except for an occasional University Play. 
 
 An interesting picture of the German School Drama in the middle 
 of the sixteenth century is given in the diary of Felix Platter, the son 
 of the famous schoolmaster:" "There was a play acted in the col- 
 lege. The Resurrection of Christ; my father's boarders made a num- 
 ber of fools, and there were also devils' clothes among the stage prop- 
 erties On June 6, 1546, the play. The Conversion of Paul, 
 
 made by Valentin Boltz, was performed in the corn market. The 
 burgomaster of Brun was Saul, Balthasar Han was the Lord God in 
 a round heaven, hanging over the stage, out of which there flashed a 
 furious rocket, which, as Saul fell from his horse, set fire to his hose. 
 Rudolf Fry was the captain; he had about 100 burghers under his 
 banner, all wearing his colors. The thunder was made in heaven with 
 barrels filled with stones and rolled over. Long before Ulrich Coccius 
 had played the Susanna in the fish market. The wooden platform was 
 on the fountain, to which a tin case, in which Susanna washed herself, 
 had been adapted. My father played in the school the Hippocrisis, in 
 which I was one of the Graces. They dressed me in Herwagen's 
 daughter Gertrude's clothes, which were too long for me, and in going 
 about through the town I could not hold them up, so they were greatly 
 damaged. The affair went off very well, but the rain came at last and 
 
 31 Boos ed., 143-144. 
 
The School Drama In Germany 67 
 
 spoiled the play. They often held plays in the Crypt of the Augustin- 
 ians' churches. Whenever the new rector gave the meal, the Students 
 invited him with fifes and drums into the hostel, with the Regent, and 
 a comedy was acted. Those which I saw in this manner were, first, 
 the Resurrection of Christ, secondly, Zacchaeus, a comedy which Dr. 
 Pantaleon wrote and acted, thirdly, the comedy of Haman; when the 
 executioner was going to hang the Son of Haman, the latter made a 
 false step, and so remained suspended, and if the hangman had not at 
 once cut the rope he would have been strangled; he had a red mark 
 around his neck in consequence." 
 
 The two fundamental aims of the German School Drama were 
 common to the School Drama of all countries: to develop power in 
 conversational Latin, and to train in pronunciation and gesture." 
 Luther added a moral aim of developing the boys' character, by see- 
 ing life as in a mirror and actually beholding the right performance 
 of duty. Many schoolmen recognized in the School Drama a means 
 of interesting the boys in their school work, and stirring up whole- 
 some rivalry. Not only did it train in pronunciation and gesture, it 
 also gave the future orator pose and a good stage presence. It stocked 
 his head with Latin phrases and idioms, which would be valuable in 
 later life. Finally, in many cases it helped to pay the meager salary 
 of the teacher. At Strassburg at least it seems to have developed in 
 the boys some knowledge and love for dramatic art and poetry, and an 
 ability to delineate characters. Even if all of these aims were not ac- 
 complished, at least the School Drama must be considered an import- 
 ant part of the school practice in Germany during the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 The School Drama also made a marked contribution to the German 
 drama. Through it came the classic influence, which, while probably 
 not as far reaching as in English dramatic history, certainly did much 
 to mould the early German dramatic performances. It became the 
 tool of the Reformation, and developed the polemic drama which so 
 strongly appealed to the Teutonic mind. Combining with the older 
 religious festivals, it produced the religious drama. It supplied the 
 earliest actors and dramatists. From both the pedagogic and dram- 
 atic standpoints the School Drama deserves attention in any study of 
 early German school methods or hterary history. 
 
 32 Jundt, 11; Schmidt, 15-19; Straumer, 7; GescMchte des deutchen Volk- 
 schullehrerstandes, 33. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE JESUIT SCHOOL DRAMA 
 
 The Jesuits furnish the best example of the use of the School 
 Drama as an educational method. No teachers have clung so tena- 
 ciously to Latin, none have striven more sincerely to make every part 
 of their instruction a moral stimulus to the scholar, and few have 
 found such pedagogic value in the splendor and pomp which soon 
 characterized the School Drama in Germany. Paulsen quotes the 
 leading authority on Jesuit school history when he says that two vol- 
 umes could be filled with accounts of Jesuit School Plays. They ex- 
 tend from 1539, or earlier, until the present day; the Passion Play of 
 Oberammergau is but an outgrowth of the Jesuit School Drama, and 
 today, in Montreal and elsewhere, Latin School Plays are acted in the 
 Jesuit Colleges. Every country which felt the influence of the Jesuit 
 movement had its Jesuit School Drama.' At the time when Protest- 
 ants were commending the immoral plays of Terence and Plautus, and 
 demanding in their School Ordinances that their scholars act these 
 questionable parts, the Jesuits were taking a very different attitude. 
 The first Ratio Studiorum of the Order prohibited the reading of any 
 classical work which contained obscenities, until it was expurgated; 
 Plautus and Terence were expressly mentioned; Jesuit teachers tried 
 to prepare editions which contained only matter proper for the youth.' 
 The Ordinance of 1540 stated that Jesuit teachers "were to abstain as 
 much as possible from using as text books Greek and Latin works 
 likely to have an injurious effect upon the young.'" The Plan of 
 Study for 1599 urged that every Provincal take care that "books by 
 poets and other authors that might injure good morals should be kept 
 
 1 On the Jesuit School Drama consult: Baumgartner, Geschichte des Weltlit- 
 eratur, iv., 623-637; Paulsen, Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts, i., 358, 418; 
 Janssen, History of the German People, xiii., 185-208; Schwickerath, Jesuit Ed- 
 ucation, 164-171; Duhr, Die Studienordnung des Gesellschaft Jesu, 136-144; 
 Rochemonteix, Collige de Jisuits aux 17-18 Siecle, iii., 189-206, 215-353; 
 Pachtler, Ratio Studiorum et Institutiones Scholasticae Societate Jesu, Vols, i., 
 ii., iii., iv.; Catholic World, i., 577-786; Cyclopedia 0/ Education, iii., 361. 
 
 2 Pachtler, i., 153. 
 
 3 Ibid,, i., 58. 
 
The Jesuit School Drama 69 
 
 out of the schools until they had been purged of unclean matter and 
 language; if this was impossible, as with Terence, it would be better 
 for them to remain unread, rather than that the nature of their con- 
 tents should stain the purity of the boys."* Attempts to expurgate 
 Terence, or prepare "Terentian formulae" seem to have been rather 
 unsuccessful ; Terence does not appear at all in the early curricula or 
 lists of school books." It is not until 1622 that Terence is referred to 
 as a possible model for Jesuit School Plays.' 
 
 The dramatic element in Jesuit education is not confined to the ; 
 School Drama. All their class room exercises were dramatic; the 
 division of the class into two parties — Greek and Trojan, or East and 
 West — and the questioning and answering back and forth made their\/ 
 elementary instruction serve as a natural preparation for the later 
 actual dramatic performances. There were frequent oral "disputa- ■; 
 tiones" between these two sides, even in the lowest classes. In the ( 
 student societies or "academies" debates were popular, often upon dia- i 
 lectical and theological questions. These, and the "concertations" be- 
 tween the two "camps," served to make supremely important the oral, / 
 semi-dramatic method of instruction. 
 
 The Jesuit School Drama responded much later than the Protestant' 
 to the demand that performances be given in the vernacular. The 
 rules of 1557 stated that "plays were to be exclusively in Latin ;"' the 
 Ratio of 1599 also decreed that Latin alone was to be used." Grad- 
 ually, however, the vernacular grew in favor, and by 1700 a majority 
 of the plays were in perman or French." When Latin plays were 
 given, a synopsis was often distributed among the people, sometimes 
 at a small charge; in one or two instances there were productions in 
 both languages, first a scene in German, followed by the same scene in 
 Latin." In France French plays were common in Jesuit School 
 theaters by 1679, although Latin continued to be the language of the 
 chief performances." In the .1832 Rules for the resurrected Order, 
 
 * Jiiti., ii., 263. 
 
 s Pachtler, i., 213, 231, 317; Duhr, 188. 
 
 6 Pachtler, iv., 205. 
 
 T Ibid., i., 129. 
 
 8 Ibid., ii., 272-3. 
 
 » Duhr, 136; Rach£, 24. 
 
 10 RacW, 24, 25. 
 
 11 Rochemonteix, 190. 
 
70 The School Drama 
 
 vernacular plays were officially approved, although Latin was still 
 preferred."' 
 
 The low moral tone of the Protestant School Drama was seldom 
 found in School Drama of the Jesuits. Nearly every reference to 
 their plays insisted that they be "respectable" and "decorous."" A 
 large majority of them (in the early years, practically all) were on 
 Biblical subjects. In every case no play was to be performed unless 
 the master had approved it." Holstein, Francke and Reinhardstott- 
 ner, in discussing the School Drama, all point out this striking differ- 
 ence between the Protestant and Jesuit; one sank as the other rose. 
 Although the Jesuits used their plays for a religious and moral pur- 
 pose, they would not permit them, as did the Protestants, to be per- 
 formed in church." Nor were church vestments, or ceremonies, or 
 hymns to be permitted in these productions." In the early Rules 
 female roles of all kinds were prohibited, for fear that the boys who 
 took such parts might be harmed. 
 
 Still another point of contrast is found in the fact that the Jesuit 
 School Drama very seldom stooped to invectives against non-Catho- 
 lics." When scores of the Lutheran religious School Plays were 
 filled with the bitterest vituperation, it is remarkable that the Jesuits, 
 who commanded nearly as large a following, and whose plays were 
 more popular with the general public, did not sink to the depths of re- 
 plying "in kind." The few examples of polemic Jesuit plays are those 
 which attacked the Jensenists in France, who violently opposed the 
 use of the drama in education." 
 
 In their use of material, again, the Jesuits showed an attitude to- 
 ward the School Drama different from that held by the Protestants. 
 When the latter were producing plays on secular themes, often im- 
 moral in their treatment, with the pleasure of their audience as their 
 aim, the Jesuits continued for some decades to confine their plays al- 
 most exclusively to Biblical subjects, treated in a highly moral man- 
 ner, with a very definite ethical and religious aim. The chief sources 
 for these plays were Bible characters, Old Testament incidents, and 
 
 12 Pachtler, iv., 388, 413, 479. 
 
 13 Hid., i., 129, ii., 273, iv., 208. 
 
 1* Md., ii., 278, iii., 343. 344, iy-, 186, 208. 
 
 IB J^ia., i., 129. 
 
 16 JdU, i., 274, ii,, 273. 
 
 IT Reinhardstottner, Zar Geschichte des Jesuitendramas in M&nchen, 59. 
 
 18 Rochemonteix, 198. 
 
The Jesuit School Drama 71 
 
 stories of the early Church Fathers. These latter, with the legends 
 that had grown up around them, continued for centuries to be the 
 basis of Jesuit School Dramas of unusual beauty, often even touching 
 and morally ennobling." In the seventeenth century secular themes 
 were used, but with a moral aim ; plays were even acted upon events 
 of history, such as the Peace of Ryswick. Jouvancy, regretting this 
 tendency, wrote in his Text Book on education for the use of all 
 Jesuit schools : "Any pieces produced in the school theater, any plots 
 of plays written, should be religious in tone, and be drawn from sacred 
 history of the past, rather than from profane."™ 
 
 A further point of partial contrast may be noted between Protestant 
 and Jesuit School Dramas. At Strassburg and many other Protestant 
 schools, these productions were frequent; in the Jesuit schools they 
 were held rarely, on special occasions; they were never to interfere 
 with, but merely to supplement the class-room work. All of the early 
 Rules refer to having these plays produced "rarissime" or "sehr sel- 
 ten.'"' The 1560-61 regulations of the German province, which per- 
 mitted two plays a year, are, accordingly, unusual.'* The Statutes of 
 1832 advise that these plays be performed only rarely. When, in 1560, 
 the religious comedy presented by the College at Prague had been re- 
 peated three times, to satisfy the thousands who wished to see it, the 
 rector -finally had to silence the petitions by pointing out that the So- 
 ciety only wished to exhibit comedies occasionally, and had other 
 work to do. The usual time for these presentations was in the spring 
 (after the examinations), or the fall; the occasion corresponded 
 somewhat to our Commencement. The Rules for 1664, for the Prov- 
 ince of the Rhein, decreed the exact date and procedure." Further- 
 more, dramas which required a long time in producing were not at 
 first permitted; the 1593 Rules limit the length of these School Plays 
 to four hours." 
 
 The aim of both the Protestant and Jesuit School Drama was fun- 
 damentally much the same ; each strove to develop, by this means, the 
 pupil's ability in Latin, his oratorical powers, and thereby to improve 
 his character. The Jesuits held much more closely to these aims. 
 
 19 Paulsen, i., 418. 
 
 20 Corcoran, Studies in the History of Classical Teaching, 177. 
 31 Pachtler, i., 129, 274, ii., 273, iv., I43, 474. 
 
 22 Hid., i., 167-8. 
 28 Ibid., iii., 399. 
 2* Ibid., i., 313. 
 
72 The School Drama 
 
 Their dramas served to give to the pupils training in actual eloquent 
 delivery. But more important was the moral aim. School Dramas 
 served as a warning against bad morals, and as an example for good 
 morals ; sin was made hateful, and virtue easy. Even in the treatment 
 of secular material the Jesuit dramatists made the plot teach a moral 
 lesson; comic scenes were to satirize the foibles of life, but even 
 there no vulgar jesting was permitted; tragic scenes were to warn and 
 instruct. Again, these public presentations gave parents an oppor- 
 tunity of actually seeing what their sons had accomplished ; the Ratio 
 of 1586 expressly mentions this purpose of the School Drama.'" The 
 Jesuits considered healthy rivalry a much stronger motive than the 
 fear of punishment; and the School Drama furnished the boys with 
 an excellent opportunity of vieing with one another in the perfecting 
 of their memory, and the presentation of their parts. The 1602-3 
 Rules at Antwerp state that often boys will be spurred on to do the 
 seemingly impossible, by use of "sacris comoediis." Prizes were pub- 
 licly awarded to those who had done the best. In an interesting ac- 
 count of a visit to a Jesuit College in Germany about 1645, John Dury, 
 a Puritan divine, wrote as follows concerning the Jesuit School 
 Drama, and its aims : "There is acted a Tragedy of about an houres 
 durance of about 10 or 12 parts by those of the higher Classes, and 
 the Actors come privately to be instructed therein by the Regent, to 
 whose charge the business is committed (The prizes are an- 
 nounced) at the end of the Great Tragedy, whereof the Regent of the 
 first class is to be the Author. There are commonly 60 actors of the 
 better ranks taken out of all Classes, and each of these, besides the 
 charge of clothes, gives 10 pence apiece for fitting the Theater with 
 pictures of the subject of the Tragedy, etc. To this Tragedy, which 
 'dures commonly 4 or 5 houres, all the Gentry of the Country resort, 
 more especially the Parents of the Schollers and Actors in it. At the 
 end of the Tragedy all that deserved the Praemia are called up upon 
 the Theater, and there sett in a chaire and crowned with a laurell 
 wreath before the whole company present, where it is publicly de- 
 clared that they for their diligence in the whole preceeding yeare, for 
 their witt, and particularly for their last exercise (the Tragedy), have 
 most deservedly received that honor and reward."" 
 Like the Protestant School Drama, that of the Jesuits changed its 
 
 25 /did., ii., 178. 
 
 26 SUan MS., British Museum, (Corcoran, 236-247) . 
 
The Jesuit School Drama 73 
 
 character to some extent during the seventeenth century. The spec- 
 tacular element increased, and the impression on the populace became 
 an important aim. Accordingly, during this century the plays were 
 more frequent, and resembled pageants ; they were the most spectacu- 
 lar dramas of the age. The gorgeous Catholic religious festivals of 
 earlier days merged naturally into these dramatic performances, 
 
 which were often marked with unusual splendor. "The Jesuits 
 
 clothed the imposing matter" (mystery plays in Latin and German) 
 "in all the splendor of the most gorgeous stage appurtenances.'"" A 
 caste of a thousand was sometimes employed in these pageants, and 
 College and City or State combined. Often the performances were in 
 honor of dukes, emperors, or kings; such as that given before Louis 
 XIII in 1614." Audiences of tremendous size attended; at Prague 
 8000 were sometimes counted at one time. The courts, particularly at 
 Munich, contributed to make the spectacles as brilliant as possible; 
 when Esther was presented in 1577 at Munich the Duke loaned his 
 most precious jewels and trinkets to the actors, and his 160 vessels 
 and plates of solid gold and silver were used in the banquet scene, 
 "for the delight of the eye." Stage properties were constructed for 
 the plays and special costumes made ; these were to be kept by the rec- 
 tor.^ Sometimes these properties, such as "burning hell," were lent 
 for productions elsewhere." Realism was also striven for, and stories 
 are told of actors who were nearly killed from over-realistic cruci- 
 fixions or hangings." 
 
 The splendor of these dramas and the excellent impression which 
 they made upon the people called forth praise from Catholic and 
 Protestant alike. The Jesuit priests realized their religious value, 
 and often morning prayers were curtailed in order that the people 
 might attend, or the bells were not rung, so that nothing would inter- 
 fere with the acting. Archduchess Eleonora, of Graz, took the veil 
 because of the impression made upon her by a Jesuit play of 1603. 
 Gifts of large size followed the 1581 and 1583 productions at Cologne. 
 One of the Munich plays resulted in a religious awakening in the 
 Bavarian court, "most of the spectators trembled ; a hundred sermons 
 
 27 von Eichendorif, Zur Geschichte des Dramas, 23. 
 
 28 Rochemonteix, 96-99. 
 
 29 Pachtler, iii., 274. 
 
 so Goedeke, Grundriss, i., 149. 
 81 Catholic World, i., 586. 
 
74 ^^^ School Drama 
 
 could not have had such an effect."" No wonder that impressive pro- 
 ductions like these received praise. An Italian doctor, Hippolytus 
 Guarinoni, wrote in the Tyrol in 1610 concerning the Jesuit Drama 
 that "many a godless, corrupt, erring man, by the mere sight of such 
 
 a play is moved and influenced to lead a better and godlier life; 
 
 high potentates look on these plays with special interest and delight, 
 go to great expense in erecting stages, provide the best and most 
 
 beautiful apparatus, yea, verily, they hasten from distant lands 
 
 in order to see these performances."" Protestants bewailed the hold 
 which these plays had upon the populace. In 1594 a preacher com- 
 plained: "High personages, princes and counts, no less than towns- 
 people and rustics take delight in the dramas of the Jesuits, contribute 
 money to them, and honor the actors ; these plays are a great instru- 
 ment in the hands of their party and one which we Protestants almost 
 wholly lack ; thus the Jesuits have an opportunity of propagating their 
 idolatry, and of gaining the good will even of the evangelicals them- 
 selves." A reporter of the 1585 play at Coblentz praised it highly, and 
 said it "was a spur to the scholars to make more earnest endeavors." 
 Bacon commended the Jesuits for using "play acting; therein, as I 
 think, judging well; if made a part of discipline, it is of excel- 
 lent use."°^ Heywood, the famous Elizabethan dramatist, sent his son 
 to a Jesuit College, possibly because of the dramatic opportunities." 
 Joost van den Vondel, writing a defense of the stage, in the seven- 
 teenth century, referred to the Jesuits, "whose skill and excellence in 
 the guidance, management, and moral training of the studious young, 
 were universally recognized."" 
 
 Although the authors of a very large number of the Jesuit Dramas 
 are unknown, some have risen to fame in dramatic history. Crocus, 
 already referred to, was prominent in both school and dramatic cir- 
 cles. James Bidermann, of Munich, is perhaps the most significant 
 dramatist among the Jesuits ; he spent the largest part of his life as a 
 teacher at Munich, and there developed the Jesuit School Drama 
 much as Sturm had done with the Protestant Drama at Strassburg. 
 A thorough humanist, and devout Jesuit, he shows in his plays both 
 the classic and religious influences. His dramas were collected and 
 
 82 Reinhardstottner, 143. 
 38 Janssen, xiii., 194. 
 
 34 Z>e Argmentis Scientiarum, vi., pg. iv. 
 
 35 Cambridge History of English Literature, v., 100, 162. 
 
 36 Baumgartner, 234. 
 
The Jesuit School Drama 75 
 
 frequently used in schools outside of Munich, although they were not 
 published until 1605. The moral tone of his dramas is very evident; 
 his Joseph, 1615, is one of very few on this theme which does not 
 dwell at length on the episode with Potiphar's wife. His masterpiece 
 is Cenodoxus, the Doctor of Paris, a play of a doctor who is a puffed- 
 up student, but who finally repents of his wasted life. It must have 
 been impressive to the boys who acted it, and the audience which wit- 
 nessed it. Even before Bidermann came to Munich, the Jesuit Col- 
 lege there was famed for its dramatic productions. Open air pageants 
 were performed in 1574, 1577 and 1597. Father George Agricola, 
 president of the College, wrote them, and his pupils, augmented by 
 devout burghers to the number of 1000, took part in the plays. Prob- 
 ably the most splendid drama was that of 1597, when the Jesuit 
 Church of St. Michael was consecrated. 
 
 The Jesuit Drama, stretching from the sixteenth to twentieth cen- 
 turies, is too extensive for one to even suggest a complete list of titles. 
 Rochemonteix" gives a list of 78 dramas played at one college in 
 France between 1608 and 1761, fairly evenly divided between French 
 and Latin and sacred and secular subjects. Janssen"" gives a list of 
 some of those in German colleges between 1582 and 1618; six are on 
 Biblical subjects, eighteen on sacred legends, and eleven are secular; 
 the majority are in German. 
 
 To summarize the results of the Jesuit School Drama is difiicult : it 
 undoubtedly developed in the pupils greater power in Latin and must 
 have also stimulated their characters to higher purity and religion. 
 Expanded into the Jesuit pageants of the seventeenth century, it un- 
 doubtedly had a profound influence upon the life and belief of the 
 common people. Educationally, Dr. Ward says, it had "a big influence 
 upon Germany's educational life through a long succession of genera- 
 tions." Janssen, who appreciates the dangerous immoralities of the 
 Protestant School Drama, says of the Jesuit Plays: "On the young 
 they could not fail to exercise a moral and educative influence." From 
 the dramatic standpoint Trantmann well says that "what the Jesuits 
 contributed to the field of stage technique can only be described as 
 grandiose." Van Reinhardstottner adds: "The Jesuits, when they 
 took over the barren humanistic drama and pressed into its service the 
 whole company of arts, did invaluable service to their century, and to 
 
 ST 215-223. 
 
 S8 xjii., 196-197, 
 
76 The School Drama 
 
 the cause of culture, and kindled and kept alive the taste and feelings 
 for the theater and its arts. The Jesuit Drama is entitled to take an 
 honorable place in the history of German culture and literature." 
 Wagner saw in the Jesuit Drama the "joint stock company of all the 
 arts combined." Goethe wrote: "Just as this great spiritual society 
 has its organ builders, its sculptors, and its gilders, so there seem to be 
 some who, by nature and inclination, take to the drama; and as their 
 churches are distinguished by pleasing pomp, so these prudent men 
 have seized on the sensibility of the world by a decent theater.'' 
 Whatever may be our personal opinions regarding the Jesuit belief 
 and methods, "it would be sheer ingratitude to undervalue what they 
 have effected by their drama." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 ACOLASTUS 
 
 Acolastus, written by Gnapheus, one of the best known Dutch 
 school-masters, is the most important of all the School Dramas. It 
 was the first play to combine the merits of Terentian Latinity with 
 Biblical material, it inspired a large number of imitations, went 
 through fifty editions in sixty years, was translated into German, 
 French and English, won praise in Italy, and serves as the material 
 for Palgrave's English school book edition. 
 
 The author was born in 1493 at the Hague.' He received an em- 
 barrassing number of names during his lifetime, due chiefly to his 
 classical devotion, which made him long for Greek and Latin names, 
 beside those in the vernacular. Willera de Voider (sometimes spelled 
 Voller), or van de Voldergraft was his Dutch name; from his birth- 
 place he is also called Willem von Haghen, Hagis, Haga, or Hagien- 
 sis. The family name is our Fuller, or cloth dresser; consequently 
 his Greek name was naturally the word for a fuller, Gnapheus. In 
 Latin his name became Gulielmus Fullonius. Of his home and par- 
 ents we know nothing. He received his education probably at the 
 Hague in one of the houses — Fratrum Domi — of the "Brethern of the 
 Common Life," the educational institutions founded some two cen- 
 turies earlier by Gerhard Groot at Deventer, which had spread rapid- 
 ly over Western Europe. He probably entered this school with the 
 idea of becoming a priest. This training was significant to Gnapheus 
 in two ways : Religiously, it was based upon the original Gospels, and 
 laid much emphasis upon sincere devotions. Men trained in these 
 schools tended to join the Reformation ranks, as did Gnapheus ; near- 
 
 1 For the life of Gnapheus consult: Allgemeine Deutsche Biogi-aphie, ix., 279- 
 280; Bolte's ed. of ^(:o/(7j^»j, xi.-xiii. ; Morley, English Writers, viii., 89-91 ; 
 Krafft, Briefe und Documente aus der Zeit der Reformation, 84-85, 192; Hart- 
 knock, Prussische Kirchen-Historia, 295-304; Holstein, Die Reformation im 
 Spiegelbilde der dramatischen Literatur des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, 54-57, 
 {in Schriften fUr Reformations-Geschichte,TLiv., xv. ); Holstein, Das Dramavom 
 verlomen Sohn, 4; Foppens, Bibliothecae Belgicae, 402; Biographisch Woor- 
 denboek der Nederlander, ii., "G", 65; Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren Dra- 
 mas, ii., 75-76. 
 
78 The School Drama 
 
 ly all of his later life was bound up with his religious views, and the 
 persecutions which he suffered for holding them. Furthermore, these 
 "Brethern" Schools were famous for their use of School Dramas; 
 there is little doubt that Gnapheus took part in these Latin produc- 
 tions, probably of Terence and Plautus, while in school, and there 
 became acquainted with the form of literature, and pedagogic method, 
 in which he later reigned supreme. From this school Gnapheus prob- 
 ably went to the University of Lyden (Lowen) ; the Matriculation 
 Records for 1486-1527 are lost. Certainly he attended the University 
 of Cologne; on May 26, 1511, he registered in the Faculty of Arts, 
 and in November, 15 12, he received his B.A.^ with Peter Mosellanus, 
 who was later a leader in educational and religious circles. The short 
 length of his residence strongly points to previous university study. 
 
 While at Cologne Gnapheus studied at the Montaner Burse, with 
 such men as Heresbach, later prominently connected with Melanch- 
 thon's educational work, and Glareanus, another Reformation leader. 
 Dr. Cellarius, to whom Luther wrote his approval of School Plays," 
 was probably one of his teachers. Armed with his B.A. degree he 
 followed the course that so many "B.A.'s" have since followed, and 
 started as a teacher, receiving in 1522 a position in his home at the 
 Hague. Meanwhile his religious views had been changing and by 
 1523 he had published attacks upen monastic life and the empty cere- 
 monials of the Catholic Church; the influence of Luther was begin- 
 ning to show itself. In this same year he suffered under the Papal 
 Inquisition at Delft for forty days ; this was followed by an imprison- 
 ment for three months in a monastery. Because of a second attack 
 on cloister life, Gnapheus was again imprisoned from May to Septem- 
 ber, 1525. His companion in prison, Jan de Baker (Pistorius) was 
 burned at the stake September 15, 1525, as the first Reformation 
 martyr in Holland; later Gnapheus wrote his biography. He prob- 
 ably owed his own life and freedom to the intervention of the States 
 of Holland. Meanwhile his teaching had continued, and it was doubt- 
 less due to his success in this line that the officials prevented his 
 death. His first, and greatest, Latin School Drama, Acolastus, was 
 written about 1525, and played by his school boys at the Hague. It 
 was not printed, however, until 1529, after his flight from his home. 
 During Lent, 1528, Gnapheus was away from home on a journey, pos- 
 
 2 "26 — Moi 15 II: Wilhelmus Hagis ad artes iuravit et solvit quatuor albus." 
 For November, 1512: "Wilhelmus de Haga comitum." 
 
 3 Pg. 56- 
 
Acolastus 79 
 
 sibly for some educational purpose. During his absence his family 
 was accused by the officials of offending the regulations for the ob- 
 servance of Lent, his mother was put in irons, his sister thrown into 
 jail, and armed soldiers quartered in his house. Gnapheus, returning, 
 decided that flight was inevitable, and accordingly, probably with his 
 mother and sister, fled to Elbing, in East Prussia, where other Hol- 
 land Protestants had already found protection. On Michlemass Day, 
 I53S> at the request of the Council at Elbing, he opened a Gymnasium 
 in an old cloister, which flourished under his rectorship until 1541. 
 Religious persecution, however, continued, with the ultra-Lutherans 
 this time as his enemies. The Bishop of Ermeland, John Dantisco, 
 finally drove him from Elbing, and in 1541 he sought the protection of 
 Duke Albrecht of Prussia, in Konigsberg. The Duke seems to have 
 been fond of Gnapheus, and in his subsequent religious controversy at 
 Konigsberg, defended the schoolmaster almost single-handed for some 
 time. He gave Gnapheus a position in his Council, and also utilized 
 his educational ability by making him, in 1544, a professor (or docent) 
 in the newly founded University of Konigsberg, and rector of the 
 Associated Pedagogium. On November 29, 1542, shortly after Gnaph- 
 eus' arrival in Konigsberg, John Brismann wrote confidentially to 
 Luther, telling of the arrival of "Doctor Guilhelmi Gnaphaef Hol- 
 landorum," who brought letters of introduction, and was accompanied 
 by his wife's family and his sister. Brismann, whom Gnapheus 
 wrongly judged to be his friend, even then suggests his Lutheran 
 disapproval of some of the Hollander's views, specially regarding 
 purgatory; he does not believe he should be allowed to lecture on 
 theology. The prospects at the University of Konigsberg seemed 
 bright, and Gnapheus must have hoped that now, at last, his persecu- 
 tions were over, and he might live out his life quietly, as a teacher. 
 The other teachers were friendly to him at first, and when the chair 
 of theology became vacant Gnapheus offered to explain the Gospels 
 to the students twice a year on fast days. Gnapheus believed in de- 
 mocracy in education and he strove to make this new University as 
 free to all as possible. Consequently he soon clashed, as Hartknoch 
 tells us, with another leader on the University faculty, one Philoplu- 
 tus, who took more fees from his pupils than was right. This Midas- 
 like individual replied to Gnapheus' attacks by criticizing the Hol- 
 lander's religious' views, but found himself in the minority; Duke 
 
8o The School Drama 
 
 Albrecht supported his rector, and stood sponsor when Gnapheus' 
 youngest son was baptized. When criticism was made upon Gnaph- 
 eus' supposedly un-Lutheran ideas regarding the Sacrament, a Con- 
 vocation was calle.d, and Philoplutus failed to prove his allegations. 
 Staphylus, the powerful leader of the Lutheran party, however, be- 
 came opposed to Gnapheus, who was called upon to defend a Dispu- 
 tation before the Academic Senate, in which his religious views were 
 expressed in thirteen Latin theses. The Senate, now fully opposed to 
 the persecuted old teacher and supported by Staphylus, demanded a 
 statement of his philosophical beliefs also, which he gave in Septem- 
 ber, 1546, under fourteen headings. Gnapheus submitted this to Bris- 
 mann, who had already written Luther in disapproval of Gnapheus 
 but who the Hollander hoped was on his side; such did not prove to 
 be the case. There seems to have been little basis for all this attack 
 upon Gnapheus ; personal envy and spite must have been at the bottom 
 of it all. Staphylus, however, was too powerful an enemy ; Melanch- 
 thon and Camerarius were requested to judge upon Gnapheus' de- 
 fense, and Staphylus was angry when their report only mildly criti- 
 cized it. The Duke was called upon to help settle the controversy 
 and he appointed two representatives to decide Gnapheus' fate. We 
 can almost see the old rector standing before his judges defending 
 what he believes is right; after some slight modification of his state- 
 ments he is exonerated, much to the rage of his enemies. Staphylus 
 leads the latter in a final attack, he revives the trouble which forced 
 Gnapheus to leave Elbing, the question of the Sacrament, and attacks 
 his comedies, particularly Acolastus, in which, said the Lutheran 
 leader, the Scriptural story is misused. Surrounded on every side by 
 those already decided against him, not permitted to draw up any real 
 defense, Gnapheus broken-heartedly bewails the rigor and unfairness 
 of this Lutheran inquisition, comparing it with the less severe Papal 
 one which he underwent in Holland. He defends his belief in the 
 Sacrament, in the spirit, not the thing, and states that Staphylus has 
 misquoted him in the charges. He is finally adjudged a heretic and 
 fanatic, and threatened with all but execution. The Duke no longer 
 defends him against such odds, the University faculty unseats him, 
 and a Writ of Excommunication is posted on the Church, June 9, 
 1 547) with soldiers to defend it. Gnapheus fled, for the third time, to 
 East Friesland, with his wife and children, from whence he sent back 
 to the Duke a long Latin defense of his position, but to no avail. The 
 
Acolastus 8 1 
 
 worn-out old man, accordingly, recanted from his supposed heretical 
 beliefs, and was baptized again. 
 
 The last twenty years of his eventful life were spent in Emden, 
 among the followers of Zwingli, where upon the recommendation of 
 Joannes a Lasco, he was made Secretary of the Countess Anna of 
 East Friesland, and tutor of her son. At the age of seventy-five, on 
 September 29, 1568, he died, serving at that time as Treasurer of Nor- 
 den. He had a strong influence in the founding of the Latin School 
 in this place. Dr. Bolte says he was famed as an able schoolman and 
 scholar, an acute man of affairs, and a talented author. His youngest 
 son, Albert, was a well known jurist. 
 
 As far as we know, Gnapheus' activity as an author is, with one ex- 
 ception, confined to the Latin tongue. One year after his return to 
 the Hague, with Cornelius Hoen and Johannes Rode, he published a 
 new edition of the New Testament, in Dutch, (Amsterdam, 1523). In 
 1525 he wrote Een troost ende spiegel der siecken ende derghenen, die 
 in lyden zyn* which, like Bunyan's more famous book, was composed 
 while in prison. The edition of 1531 was published without Gnapheus' 
 knowledge. Later, 1547, this work was revised and named Tobias 
 ende (and) Lazarus. 1525 was evidently the year of his greatest lit- 
 erary activity; that fall, after being released from prison, he wrote 
 the life of his martyred companion, John Pistorius, under the title 
 Vita Johannis Pistorii. A Dutch translation appeared in 1649. There 
 is a possibility that he wrote, then or later, Apologiam pro captivo 
 Wordenate, known only in manuscript at Lyden. 1525 is also prob- 
 ably the date of the composition of Acolastus. 
 
 The strong approval accorded this Latin School Play led him to 
 write three other similaj plays, which, however, were far less suc- 
 cessful. Triutnphus Eloquentiae, written in Elbing, 1539, and per- 
 formed soon afterwards by Gnapheus' school boys there, was first 
 published in 1541. This is a play of "declamations and songs,". with 
 Mercury as the chief character, supported by the Greek gods. Jupi- 
 ter's marriage is discussed at length, and seventy-four school boys 
 appear in one scene as his warriors. The leading characters played 
 in disguise, and often appeared on horse back. Eloquence entered in 
 a triumphant chariot and in four hundred hexameter lines reproved 
 the wicked gods and goddesses. The play closed when Pcesie passed 
 
 4 A Comfort and guide to all who are ill and those who are diseased. 
 
82 The School Drama 
 
 around her horn as a drinking cup, and muses, gods, chorus and all 
 imbibed, and then sang together a farewell song. The dramatic quali- 
 ties, the excellent characterization, and forceful plot of Acolastus are 
 all lacking in this second attempt. Three editions of the Triumphus 
 Eloquentiae are known ; the title of the first is "Triumphus Eloquen- 
 tiae in bonarum literatum et doctae facundise commendationem car- 
 mine, redditus et item pleno omnium personarum equitatu Aelbingae 
 publice exhibitus, auctore Gulielmo Gnapheo Hagense, ludi literarii 
 apud Aelbingenses moderatore primario Gedani 1541."° Two later 
 editions appeared in 1543 and 1551. The oration of Mercury was first 
 published separately, in 1539, as "Parsenesis gratulatoria in bonarum 
 literarum et ludi literarii apud Elbingenses instituti commendationem 
 
 auctore Gulielmo Gnapheo." 
 
 A third Latin School Play, probably written just before leaving El- 
 bing in 1540, is entitled Morosophus. It is an elaboration of a poetic 
 dialogue which Gnapheus wrote early in the Elbing period, before be- 
 coming schoolmaster there; it must have been better as a poem than 
 as a School Play. Morus, a flutist, decides to become a learned as- 
 tronomer; he grows a beard as a disguise, and changes his name to 
 Morosophus. His study of the movements of the stars leads him to 
 think that he can control them, and also rain, and thereby become a 
 king. Thor shatters his dream, and Morosophus finally becomes his 
 pupil and follower. The old tale of the enchanted rain by which men 
 are made insane, is used here; Morosophus, who remains indoors, 
 finds himself so unhappy as a lone sane man, that he washes in the 
 rain water and joins his fellows. Creizenach' praises the meter and 
 language of Morosophus, but not its delineation of character; he 
 terms it a semi-farce-morality. The first edition, dedicated to Gnaph- 
 eus' friend the Duke, is entitled "Morosophus. De vera et personata 
 sapientia, Comcedia non minis festiva quam pia, Auctore G. Gnapheo. 
 Accesserunt et quaedam alia poematia in laudem illustri Principis Al- 
 bert!, Marchionis Brandenburgensis, lusa. Gendani, Fr. Rhodes, 
 1 541." A second edition followed in 1599; the Library of the Uni- 
 
 6 For the editions of Gnapheus' works consult: Bahlmann, £>ie lateinischen 
 Drameti, 39-45; Welter, Annalen der PoetUchen National- Literatur der 
 Deuischen, it., 314; Bolte's ed. o{ Acolastus, xxiv.-xxvii. ; Holstein, Das Drama 
 vom verlomen Sohn, 3; Goedeke, Grundriss, ii., 132. 
 
 6 ii., 176. 
 
Acolastus 83 
 
 versity of Konigsberg, which possesses one of the best collections of 
 Gnapheus' works, has a manuscript edition dated 1540. 
 
 The Greek gods also furnished the material for his fourth Latin 
 play, Hypocrisis, written 1544. It is in verse, with the customary five 
 acts. Psyche is called before the court of Jupiter because of her re- 
 lations with Cupid, Venus' sin-begotten son. Hypocrisis (Hypocrisy) 
 is involved in the trial, and is soon shown to be guilty, and receives 
 due punishment. Psyche, repentant, flees to Metanaea (Remorse), 
 confesses her sin, and is welcomed back to the heavenly throne. The 
 religious significance of the plot is much more in evidence than the 
 comedy element. The first edition was published in August, 1544, by 
 Bartholemew Westhemerus at Basil with the title "Hyprocrisis. De 
 Hyprocrisis falsa religione, ficta disciplina et supplicio, deque Psyches 
 colamatate et restitute illi per veram poenitentiam salute Tragicom- 
 edia, Hyprocrisis titulo inscripta, Auctore Gulielmo Gnapheo Hagi- 
 ense." A somewhat revised edition appeared in 1564, and a third in 
 1587. It will be noted that Moliere used much the same plot in his 
 drama Tartuffe. 
 
 The Misobarbarus referred to in the Bibliothecae Belgicae is prob- 
 ably a mistaken reference to the Morosophus. In 1553 Gnapheus' last 
 work appeared: Egnomion Cevitatis Aembdanae, of which Babucke 
 has made a metrical translation. 
 
 Gnapheus' fame as an author, or teacher, however, would be slight 
 if these were the only works which he produced. His epoch-making 
 work was Acolastus," a drama written in various Latin meters for his 
 school boys at the Hague, about 1525, and played under his direction 
 that year, and again during his rectorship at Elbing, 1536. It was 
 published first at Antwerp, July 23, 1529; a list of the known editions 
 follows : 
 
 I. Godfridus Dumaeus Antverpise ex cudebat. Anno M.D. XXIX, 
 Mense lulio. Cum gratia et Privilegio Imperial! ad triennium. On 
 page EiijB is: Excussum Antverpise in sedibus Martini Csesaris, ex- 
 penses Godfridi dumaei. Vicesima tertra Julij. On page EiijA is the 
 seal, or trade mark, of Martin De Keyser, the Antwerp printer, who 
 
 T On Acolastus consult: Introduction to Acolastus, Bolte's ed.; Holstein, Das 
 Drama vom verlornen Sohn, 3-6; Scliniidt, KomSdien vom Studentenleben, 7-10; 
 Morley, English Writers, viii., 92-94; Herford, Literary Relations of England 
 and Germany, chs. ill. and v.; The Library, x., 337-343; Spengler, Der Velor- 
 nen Sohn im Drama des xvi. Jahrhundrets, 17-30. 
 
84 The School Drama 
 
 printed the first French Bible in Belgium, an English Bible dedicated 
 to Anne Boleyn, a work of Erasmus, and four editions of Acolastus. 
 (See reproduction of title page and signet in Bolte's edition of Aco- 
 lastus). 2. Antverpiae, 1530. 3. Antverpias, 1530. 4. Lutetise, Paris, 
 1530. S- Colonise, 1530. 6. Coloniae, 1532. 7. Coloniae, 1533. 8. 
 Antverpiae, 1533. 9. Antverpiae, 1533. 10. Basilese, 1534. 11. Lipsiae, 
 1534. 12. Lutetiae, Paris, 1534. 13. Antverpiae, 1535. 14. Coloniae, 
 1535- IS- Coloniae, 1536. 16. Lipsise, 1536. 17. Roskildiae, 1537. 18. 
 Lipsiae, 1538. 19. Parisiis, 1539. 20. Antverpiae, 1540. 21. Coloniae, 
 1540. 22. Coloniae, iS4o(?). 23. Basilas, 1541, (in Comoedise ac trag- 
 oediae aliquot ex novo et vetere testamento desumptae). 24. Parisiis, 
 1542. 25. Lipsiae, 1543. 26. Colonise, 1544. 27. Antverpiae, 1545. 28. 
 Parisiis, 1546. 29. Coloniae, 1546. 30. Tremoniae, 1549. 31. Parisiis, 
 1550. 32. Parisiis, 1554, (with Dupreau's commentary). 33. Parisiis, 
 1554. 34. Colonic, 1554. 35. Antverpiae, 1555, (text revised by 
 Gnapheus). 36. Parisiis, 1556. 37. AntverpiK, 1560. 38. Argentinae, 
 1561. 39. Antverpiae, 1562. 40. Coloniae, 1563. 41. Antverpiae, 1568. 
 42. Coloniae, 1569. 43. Antverpiae, 1576. 44. Coloniae, 1577. 45. 
 Lyon, 1581. 46. Parisiis, 1584. 47. London, 1585. 48. In Cod. Lat. 
 Monacensis, 1587. 49. Berlin, 1891, (ed. by Bolte). Gcedeke (1886) 
 also gives the following, which later editors (Bolte, 1891, Bahlmann, 
 1893) do not include: Basil, 1547, (second edition of Comcediae ac 
 tragcediae aliquot). As is shown later there were also eleven editions 
 of the various German, French and English translations. During 
 Gnapheus' life-time his work appeared in fifty editions ; thirteen were 
 published at Antwerp, twelve at Cologne, twelve at Paris, four at 
 Leipsig and two at London. The Columbia University Library prob- 
 ably possesses more copies of the work than any other in America: 
 the Paris edition of 1554, the Cologne edition of 1569, (based on the 
 text revised in 1555), a facsimile of Palsgrave's translation, 1540, 
 and Bolte's edition, 1891. 
 
 It is to be doubted whether any other book, except the Bible, went 
 through so many editions during the sixteenth century. Holstein 
 says that it became a "Volksbuch" of the higher classes all over Eu- 
 rope ; Gcedeke calls it the most important drama of the century ; Bolte 
 says it ushers in a new dramatic era and the Allgemeine Deutsche 
 Biographic classes it among the most famous and influential of all 
 sixteenth century dramas. Guicciardini, in Italy, hailed Gnapheus as 
 
Acolastus 85 
 
 "primus apud inferiores Germanos poeta cotnicus." Acolastus was in- 
 tended for dramatic uses, chiefly in the schools, and, if our records of 
 the actual plays used in the English and European schools during this 
 period were more definite, we should surely find numerous examples 
 of its pedagogic use ; many a schoolboy must have developed his facil- 
 ity in Latin by playing Acolastus, Palargus, Philautus, or some other 
 character. In the prologue to his Latin version of Susanna, 1535, 
 Sixt Birck refers to Acolastus in a manner that indicates that his 
 whole audience was familiar with it. Four countries, at least, used it 
 as a school book. In England we know that the play was performed 
 at Cambridge in 1560, when it was referred to as "the celebrated 
 comedy;" probably this was the Latin version, rather than Palsgrave's 
 translation.' Nash in his Unfortunate Traveler or Jack Wilton' has 
 his hero, while in Wittenberg, see a performance of Acolastus, "the 
 Prodigal! Childe," which was "filthily acted, leathernly sete foorth;" 
 one actor shook the stage by his stamps and stride, another flung his 
 arms around so vigorously that Jack feared he would knock the can- 
 dles from their sockets. One parasite winked too much, another 
 danced "an antike.'' The only part of the play which was convin- 
 cingly done was the Prodigal's hunger ; master and servant ate acorns 
 as though they had been brought up on them, "slovenly and ravenous- 
 ly to cause sport." 
 
 The attempt which Gnapheus made, and in which he succeeded, was 
 to put a moral plot in Terentian style; he was the progenitor of this 
 particular type of scholastic-Biblical-neo-Latin drama, and his follow- 
 ers and imitators were legion. Doubtless he had played, as a boy, one 
 of the Terence or Plautus comedies; as a schoolmaster he soon real- 
 ized the great assistance which a School Play served in teaching a boy 
 conversational Latin. Yet Terence was neither moral nor Christian. 
 His deep religious nature undoubtedly made the immoralities of the 
 Latin authors repellent to him; it seemed dangerous to put such ma- 
 terial into the hands and mouths of school boys. By some flash of 
 genius the idea came to him of combining Biblical material with Ter- 
 entian style, and writing a new drama for presentation at his school 
 in place of the immoral Latin plays. The one Biblical incident which 
 exactly suited this purpose was the story of the Prodigal Son, with its 
 
 8 Eney. Brit, viii., 5 18. 
 ^ Pg. 7 1 -7* of Grosart ed. 
 
86 The School Drama 
 
 semi-picaresque tale of adventure, and its clear spiritual lesson of for- 
 giveness through faith. To clothe this material in the style of Ter- 
 ence was Gnapheus' task; he succeeded, and received the favorable 
 verdict of his age upon his work. As he tells us in the dedication to 
 Johannes Sartorius, of Amsterdam, dated "Kal. Octobr. anno 1528," 
 he had been struck by the neglect which the age was showing to com- 
 edies; it had its modern Ciceros, Tullies, Livies and Ovids, but no 
 Terences or Menanders. And much as he loved Cicero, that "imago 
 veritatis," he felt with Erasmus, that some other style of Latin must 
 be taught in the schools. He is the first, he writes, who has dared to 
 create a Biblical comedy, which he recommends as profitable for pub- 
 lic presentation. He announces that he hopes to write more such Latin 
 plays later. Even in this dedication there is a note of sadness, for he 
 tells us that his enemies have made life a burden, and taken him from 
 his studies ; he fears he will have to flee, and that more sufferings are 
 in store for him. He was a true prophet. 
 
 The debt of Acolastus to Terence is evident in the whole treatment 
 of the plot; furthermore the names Chremes and Sannio come from 
 him." Gnapheus uses Terentian parasites, slaves, meretrices and so 
 forth; the words "he wasted his substance in riotous living" are ex- 
 panded into two and a half acts, half the play; the treatment, how- 
 ever, is more refined than we could expect from Terence. Pantobalus 
 is a character in Horace's Satires, and Pelargus, Eubulus, Pamphagus 
 and Acolastus are taken from Aristotle. Through Gnapheus' use of 
 them, however, Acolastus, the prodigal, and Eubulus, the good coun- 
 sellor, have been handed down as character names. The names sug- 
 gest the characteristics of the actors ; Acolastus, unbridled ; Pelargus, 
 stork; Eubulus, good counsel; Philautus, selfish; Pantolabus, grasp 
 all; Pamphagus, eat all. Gnapheus takes over many phrases from 
 Terence, Plautus, Horace, Cicero, and Virgil." When Gnapheus re- 
 vised the text in 1555 he added a few more touches of the Terentian 
 style by smoothing the meter and making the dialogue more lively; 
 however, the first version is generally considered the better. In his 
 use of the Biblical material the author has made very little change; 
 the incident of the elder brother, who is merely referred to, is, how- 
 ever, omitted. In the hands of such a rigorous Reformation leader it 
 
 10 Schmidt, Komodien vom Studentenleben, 25-26, 
 
 11 Bolte's ed., Acolastus, xvi-xxiv. 
 
Acolastiis 87 
 
 is natural that the story takes on Reformation ideas : the sinner's at- 
 titude toward his father, the necessity for sincere repentance, and sal- 
 vation by faith rather than works. As a result this and all the other 
 works of Gnapheus were included by the Pope in the list of Prohib- 
 ited Books. In the Index of Pope Paul IV, 1559, Gulielmus Gnaphaeus 
 Hagien is among those "auctores, quorum libri et scripta omnia pro- 
 hibentur;" a similar entry is found in the 1564 Index, in the "Span- 
 ischen generalinquisitors Quiroga von 1583;" and the Index of Sixtus 
 
 V, 1590." 
 
 The play, of which the introduction of Palsgrave's translation is 
 found in this study, has four main divisions: Acolastus' departure 
 with his portion, which Pelargus permits upon the advice of Eubulus ; 
 his riotous living with his selfish parasitical friends, Pantolabus and 
 Pamphagus, aided by Sannio, the innkeeper, and Lais, the courtesan, 
 who force the Prodigal to waste his fortune upon them; his degreda- 
 tion and hunger, and labor for Chremes, the farmer; and finally, the 
 return of the penitent Acolastus to his father, who has long been wait- 
 ing for him and who runs to welcome him afar off with a kiss. The 
 play ends with a peroration to the spectators, pointing out the spirit- 
 ual lesson enacted before them. 
 
 Acolastus is interesting not alone from the standpoint of its educa- 
 tional aim, and its far-reaching influence ; even today, as one reads it, 
 the power of the play is felt. Gnapheus had a remarkable gift of 
 vividly picturing his scenes; can you not see the haughty Acolastus 
 as he rejects his father's wholesome advice, and throws away the 
 Bible which, in typically modern fashion, is given to the son just leav- 
 ing home ? The scene in the market when the parasites, attracted by 
 the bulge in the belt of the country boy — for there he has fastened his 
 "decem talenta" — , win his unsuspecting confidence, is happening every 
 day. The banquet scene, with the love making between Acolastus and 
 Lais, is perhaps the finest writing in the play ; here again the attitude 
 of the age is shown when even an educationalist, writing for school 
 boys, omits none of the details of the riotous living; the moral of the 
 scene was clearly pointed out. The game with loaded dice by which 
 Pamphagus completes the Prodigal's ruin, is much more modern in its 
 treatment. The soliloquies which the worn and wasted Acolastus ut- 
 
 12 Reusch, Die Indices Liborum Prohibitorum dcs sechzehnten Jahrhundrets, 
 187, 263, 407, 483. 
 
88 The School Drama 
 
 ters in his despair, stripped even of his clothes, are prophetic of many 
 of the later famous soliloquies in literature. Gnapheus was not only 
 a teacher ; he was a dramatist of remarkable ability. 
 
 It is impossible here to even briefly suggest the influence which this 
 dramatic treatment of the Prodigal Son material had upon both Eng- 
 lish and German literature. Even the works of Spengler, Holstein 
 and Herford," referred to already, merely outline the development 
 and extent of the Prodigal Son Dramas in Germany, where the actual 
 plot was used time after time, in Latin and German plays, and in Eng- 
 land, where this Biblical incident was soon treated in a more decidedly 
 English fashion. The popular plays of student life are also a direct 
 outgrowth of the Prodigal Son plot, using as a setting the rough life 
 of an educational institution. Gnapheus' play was probably written in 
 1525; it appeared in 1529 and is the first treatment of this Biblical 
 story in dramatic form. The only other claimant to the fame of start- 
 ing this great movement is Macropedius, master of the school at 
 Utrecht, a Catholic dramatist who wrote Asotus in 1507, but which 
 was not printed, or known at all extensively, until 1535, six years after 
 Acolastus appeared." Gnapheus did not know of it when he wrote. 
 It \s satirical, in part an imitation of Reuchlin, and is much more Ter- 
 entian in type than Biblical. Half the play is clumsily devoted to an 
 attempt to give a motive for the division of the inheritance ; the Prod- 
 igal leaves home because of an intrigue carried on with a slave in his 
 father's house; his repentance is conventional and unconvincing. 
 None of the graphic power which Gnapheus possessed is evident in 
 this work of Macropedius; however, unlike those of Gnapheus his 
 later works, Rehelles, Hecastus, etc., are a decided improvement on 
 his first dramatic attempt. 
 
 Three other early treatments of the Prodigal Son material are 
 sometimes urged in place of Gnapheus'. He himself refers, in the 
 dedication of the revised Acolastus, 1555 edition, to a doctor named 
 Goudanus who has told this story in prose. Of this we know nothing 
 more. A.bout 1510 Ravisius Textor" wrote, in Paris, a so-called dia- 
 
 ls See also Creizenach, Geschickte des neueren Dramas, il., 76-78, 121-128; 
 Goedeke, Grundriss, ii., pt. 2. 
 
 1* Herford gives for these dates, c. 1510 and 1537 ; Holstein (Z)iV Reforma- 
 tion im Spiegelbilde der dramatischen Liieratur, 57) is the authority for the 
 above, 
 
 IS Creizenach, Geschickte des neueren Dramas, ii., 60-66. 
 
Acolastus 89 
 
 logue "De Filio Prodigo." The treatment is entirely diflferent, with 
 practically no relation to the story in Luke XV ; the Prodigal's waste- 
 ful life starts when his father dies ; there is no return or forgiveness. 
 This work, as far as we know, was not published until 1536. In 1527 
 Barkard Waldis," in remote Riga, in Switzerland, produced a German 
 Verlorenen Sohn, which, in contrast to Textor, sticks too closely by 
 the original. There is no evidence of classic influence; indeed the 
 author deprecates the Terentian style, and prefers his rude, almost 
 boorish one ; few of his readers will agree with him in this. The play 
 is interminable, garrulous, and shows no skill on the author's part. 
 The prologue condemns those who are so diabolical as to disbelieve in 
 justification by faith, and the epilogue, summing up the whole play, 
 gives a chance for Waldis to say "I told you so" by pointing to the 
 Prodigal's history. Because of its lack of originality, its style, its 
 language (German) and its production far from the center of intel- 
 lectuality, this play cannot preempt the place of Acolastus, which 
 thus remains the first significant and successful dramatic treatment 
 of the Prodigal Son theme, and, to a greater or less extent, the model 
 for all later imitations. 
 
 In Germany the influence of Acolastus in originating and develop- 
 ing the Prodigal Son dramas can best be traced by referring to the 
 actual translations of the Hollander's play. The first was made by 
 Georg Binder, in Zurich, 1530." The title of the first edition reads 
 "Acolastus, ein Comoedia von dem Verlornen Sun, Luc. am XV ver- 
 ttitscht unnd gehalten zu Zurich im jar MDXXXV. Christoflfel 
 Froschoner." Other editions are: 2. Without Place, 1536. 3. With- 
 out Place, 1537. 4. Strassburg, c. 1543. 5. Zurich. 6. Basel, 1699. 7. 
 Reprint by Bachtold, Schweizerische Schauspiele des sechszehnten 
 Jahrhundrets, I, 171-271, 1890. This is a free translation of Gnaph- 
 eus, intended for use by Binder's school boys at Zurich ; in his preface 
 he gives hearty approval of the playing of Latin, Greek and German 
 comedies in the schools, which he says, will teach the youth to avoid 
 
 16 Goedeke, ii., pt. 2, 447; Creizenach, ii., 77; Janssen, History of the Ger- 
 man People, xii., 49-58. 
 
 17 On Binder's translation consult: Holstein, Die Reformation im Spiegelbilde 
 der dramatischen Literatur, 154, and. Das Drama vom verlornen Sohn, 16-21; 
 Weller, Das alte Volks-Theater der Schweiz, 136; Bachtold, Geschichte der 
 Deutscken Literaturin der Schweiz, 307; Creizenach, iii., 334-335! Goedeke, ii., 
 pt. 2, 347- 
 
90 The School Drama 
 
 vice, as comedy is a mirror in which both good and bad are shown. 
 Many changes can be noted; some scenes are entirely altered to gain 
 a more German atmosphere; a last act or "'appendix" is added, with 
 ten new characters, including the elder brother, whose anger at the 
 feast is vividly pictured. Binder made this translation in 1530, within 
 a year after the first publication of Acolastus, and intended to have 
 his boys present it at Easter time. Religious difficulties in the city 
 prevented, however, and it was not performed there until 1535, when 
 it was also published. The deeply Protestant tone of the play made 
 it popular among the followers of Zwingli. 
 
 In 1545 Wolfgang Schmeltzl"* brought out his Comedia des verlore- 
 nen Sons, at Vienna. Its debt to Acolastus is pointed out by both Hol- 
 stein and Spengler in their works on the Prodigal Son dramas. It is 
 hardly a translation of Gnapheus, but rather a re-treatment of the 
 material which Gnapheus introduced to these school dramatists. It 
 was intended for presentation before King Ferdinand at Vienna by 
 Schmeltzl's pupils, who had already played the original Latin version. 
 In 1618 Martin Bohme published his Acolastus, eine lustige Comedia 
 pom verlornen Sohne, Wittenberg. It is a close copy of Gnapheus. 
 The same is true of Historie von dem Verlornen Sohn, by Hanhart, 
 which was performed in Thurgau in 1627. 
 
 In addition to these four, which are fairly close imitations of the 
 original, at least ten other German dramas on the Prodigal Son theme, 
 all of which owe something to Acolastus, may be noted:" Johann 
 Ackermann, Ein Schones Geistliches und fast nutsliches Spiel, vom 
 verlornen Son, Zwichau, 1536; Jorg Wichram, Ein schones und evan- 
 gelisch Spit von dem verlornen Sun, Colmar, 1540; Andreas Scharp- 
 fenecker, Ein kurser ausssug, der Teutschen Comedien des Acolasti, 
 das ist, vom verlornen Son, 1544; Hans Sachs, Comedia, Mit Neun 
 personen, Der verlorn Son, 1556; Nicholaus Risleben, Asotus, Magde- 
 burg, 1586; Christean Schon, Asotus, Wittenberg, 1599; Ludwig 
 Halle, Eine Newe Comoedia vom Verlornen Sohn, 1603; Johannes 
 Schrader, Comoedia vom verlornen Sohn, Magdeburg, 1605; Johann 
 Neudorf, Asotus, Gosslar, 1608; Nicolaus Locke, Comoedia Vom Un- 
 gerathenen und Verlornen Sohn, Luneburg, 1619; also nine dramas 
 
 18 Creizenach, iii., 368. 
 
 19 See Holstein, and Spengler; Scherer, Die Anfange des Deutschen Prosaro- 
 maus, SO-54; Tittman, Die Schauspiele der Englishen Komodianten in Deutsch- 
 land, xxlv.-xxvi., 45-75; Goedeke, ii., 544. 
 
Acolastus 91 
 
 on this theme by unknown authors, from 1537 to the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 As has been suggested, the thought soon entered the minds of these 
 schoolmen dramatists that they might make the Prodigal a student 
 and have an educational institution as the setting for the temptations 
 which befall him; a double end would be gained, by the lesson from 
 the Prodigal, and the exposure of student wickedness; the comedy 
 element could also be further developed. Consequently Acolastus 
 served also as a source for the so-called Comedies of Student Life.*" 
 Macropedius' Rebelles, 1535, was one of the best of these dramas, al- 
 though the Studentes of Stymmelius, 1549, was more widely read, 
 (twenty-eight editions between 1579 and 1662) ; Herford has clearly 
 pointed out its debt to Acolastus. Among other plays of student life 
 which owe a like obligation are : Jorg Wichram, Der Jungen Knaben 
 Spiegell, Strassburg, 1554; Jos Murer, Der Jungen Mannen Spiegel, 
 Ziirick, 1560; Jacob Schertweg, Tragoedia von verlornen Sohne, 
 Basil, 1579-1580; Georg Pondo, Speculum Puerorum, Issleben, 1596; 
 Jacob Ayrer, Comedi, der Knaben Spigl; Martin Hayneccius, Alman- 
 sor, der Kinder Schulspiegel, Leipsig, 1578; Albert Wichgren, Cor- 
 nelius, Rostock, 1600; Georg Mauricius, Eine schone Comoedia von 
 dem Schulwesen, Leipsig, 1606; Joh. Georg Schoch, Comoedia vom 
 Studenten-Leben, Leipsig, 1657. 
 
 There were three Prodigal Son dramas produced in Italy during the 
 sixteenth century; whether they had any connection with Acolastus 
 is doubtful. Antonia Pulci, wife of the Florentine poet, wrote on "de 
 figlinol prodigo" by 1572; Castellano Castellani, another Florentine, 
 also wrote a play on this subject, and a third one was printed anony- 
 mously in Venice, 1585. In Spain Lope de Vega wrote on El Hi jo 
 Prodigo, 1604, as well as Jose de Valdurelso in 1622, and Manuel 
 Vidal y Salvador at an uncertain date. In the Netherlands, where the 
 first Prodigal Son drama was brought out, no drama was written on 
 this theme in the vernacular until the early seventeenth century; 
 Jacobus Conynenberg was the author. Sweden, in 1654, produced a 
 Latin Prodigal Son drama, Filius Prodigus, written by Samuel Brask, 
 a Latin schoolmaster. 
 
 20 Schmidt, JComSdien vom Studentenleben; Holstein, Das Drama vom verlor- 
 nen Sohn, 45-50; RacW, Die Deutsche SchulkomSdie nnd die Dramen vom 
 Schul-und Knabenspiegel; Janssen, Histoiy of the German People, xii., 147-155; 
 Herford, Literary Relations of England and Germany, ch. v. 
 
92 The School Drama 
 
 In France the principal Prodigal Son drama is the translation of 
 Acolastus, made by Antoine Tyron, published in 1564, under the title 
 Moralite de I' Enfant prodigue par personnages, translatee nouvelle- 
 ment du latin en francais, selon le texte de I' Evangile, Lyon and 
 Rouen. Nisard says the translation was made about 1540; Parfaicts 
 date it 1535. The names used by Gnapheus are omitted, and also the 
 characters termed pere, prodigue, maistresse, and so on; the transla- 
 tion is into poetry, of about fifteen hundred lines, (two hundred more 
 than Acolastus has), which has considerable dramatic and literary 
 merit. Nisard reproduces two of the pictures which appeared in the 
 1564 edition: 'Enfant Prodigue reduit a garder les pourceaux, and L' 
 Enfant Prodigfue de retour a le pere." Reference has already been 
 made to the edition of Acolastus in France in 1554, with a commen- 
 tary by Gabriel Dupreau to make the work more serviceable in the 
 schools. Nisard also refers to such an edition in 1548; if he is cor- 
 rect, this adds another to the already long list of editions of Acolastus. 
 
 In England the Prodigal Son dramas were never as popular as in 
 Germany; it is erroneous, however, to state that the theme was not 
 used by English dramatists. Thomas Ingeland's Disobedient Child 
 and The Nice Wanton both are English adaptions of the Prodigal 
 Son plot. Robert Greene's four so-called autobiographical novels are 
 simply variations upon this popular theme. The debt of Gascoigne's 
 Glass of Government, and Lyly's Euphues to Acolastus will be dis- 
 cussed later. 
 
 Of the many translations of Acolastus the one made by Palsgrave 
 in 1540 must be considered the most important at least from the stand- 
 point of English literature and pedagogy. Palsgrave's edition intro- 
 duces the Prodigal Son motif into English, and thereby becomes one 
 of the most significant of the pre-Elizabethan plays. The English 
 translation, the introduction of which is reproduced in this study, 
 gives an interesting and valuable side light upon the school methods 
 and practices of the day; Palsgrave was one of our earliest English 
 school reformers. 
 
 We know neither the date of birth or death of John Palsgrave.'' 
 
 21 Nisard, Historie des Livres Populaeres, ii., 217-226. 
 
 22 For references on Palsgrave's life consult : Cooper, Athenae Cantabrig- 
 ienses, i., 1 19, S45; Brewer, Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII., i., 
 926, ii., 93, 1 107, 115s, 1201, 1459 and 1460, iii., 1522, 1523, iv., 16,1989, 2403, 
 2561, 2593-2596, v., 621, vi., 529, XV., 431, xxi., 783; Boase, Register Univer- 
 
Acolastus 93 
 
 The biographical references to him are few, and the following is as 
 complete a "life" as can be written now, nearly four centuries since 
 he worked and wrote. He seems to have been born about 1480 in 
 London, where he received his elementary education. Of his family 
 we know nothing except that he was supporting his mother in 1529. 
 He received his B.A. from Cambridge, being a member of Corpus 
 Christi College and according to Anthony A. Wood, studying chiefly 
 logic and philosophy. The lure of France then attracted him to 
 Paris, where in addition to his studies he gained a thorough knowledge 
 of French, which served him well later. He received his Master's 
 degree while there. His ability in teaching French gained for him 
 the position of tutor to Princess Mary, the sister of Henry VHI. The 
 privy purse records for Henry VIII's reign contain the following 
 items: "1513, January 6, John Palsgrave, clerk, schoolmaster to my 
 Lady Princess, whole year's wages, £6, 13s. 4d." In March of the 
 same year he received 66s. 8d. In the fall of 1514 Princess Mary was 
 married to the gouty king of France, Louis XII, and Palsgrave was 
 sent to France to accompany her. Mary Tudor was then a beautiful 
 girl of eighteen, and it must have been a relief to her when her sickly 
 husband of fifty-two died, three months after the marriage. She had 
 always been of a studious mind, and Erasmus, who first saw her as a 
 child of four, makes reference to her- in his poem dedicated to her 
 father, Henry VII." She had been carefully instructed in French as 
 a young girl, and consequently Palsgrave's appointment as her per- 
 sonal tutor and, when necessary, interpreter, must have been a de- 
 cided honor. The young Queen was much interested in Palsgrave, 
 and when Norfolk dismissed her English retinue, her appeal to Wol- 
 sey shows how she missed her English companions, among whom, be- 
 sides Palsgrave, was, probably, the ill-starred Anne Boleyn. Shortly 
 before departing for France Palsgrave had entered the church, being 
 made Prebend of Portpoole, St. Paul's Cathedral, London, on April 
 sity of Oxford, i., 168; TAe Camden Miscellany, iii., last section, xxiil,, xxiv., 
 xxviiii., XXX.; Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, i., 121 (Bliss ed.). For general ref- 
 erences, consult (noting errors) : Dictionary of National Biography, xliii., 170; 
 Morley, English Writers, viii., 9; Baker, Biographia Dramatica, ii., 4, 560; 
 Beloe, Anecdotes of Literature, vi., 344; Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren 
 Dramas, ii., 85, iii., 549; Cyclopedia of Education, iv.; Watson, English Gram- 
 mar Schools to 1660, 319-321; Report of Commissioner of Education for igoz, 
 i., 486-490. 
 
 28 Printed in 1500 edition oi Adagia. 
 
94 The School Drama 
 
 29, 1514. This is generally used as his title in the correspondence 
 given by Brewer. Accordingly, after he had been sent back from 
 France, and while the young widow still in France wavered between 
 the proposals of Francis I and the Duke of Suffolk, she did not for- 
 get her faithful tutor. In her letter of the thirteenth of November, 
 1 5 14, she stated that she wanted Palsgrave to stay with her and 
 teach ; she did not want to have him discharged from her service and 
 now desired to do something for him, but "her fortune is not yet 
 made." On the third of April, 1515, she wrote from Paris to the all- 
 powerful Wolsey, urging that Palsgrave be given some church posi- 
 tion; she suggests a living in the diocese of Durham or the archdea- 
 conry of Derby. Probably because of her request Palsgrave's fortune 
 soon rose; he was made chaplain in ordinary to Henry VIII; re- 
 ceived, in 1516, a rich benefice in Leicestershire from the bishop of 
 Lincoln, who forced the executors of the former incumbent in 1523 
 to pay Palsgrave £68 for dilapidation; of which, however. Palsgrave 
 complained to Wolsey he had received only £23, 6s., 8d. He was 
 granted two rectories in Suffolk and one in Norfolk, from which he 
 received a comfortable living. Meanwhile he continued to teach 
 French to the young noblemen of the court. By 1517 he was moving 
 in the most learned circles in England, the friend of More and Eras- 
 mus. Early in that year More wrote from London to Erasmus that 
 Palsgrave was leaving for Louvain to study law, at the same time con- 
 tinuing his Greek and Latin. He carried with him an introduction to 
 Erasmus from More, and also some letters for Erasmus from Basle, 
 which More had been unable to forward earlier. On July 17 Eras- 
 mus replied from Louvain to Tunstal, a friend of More's, that Pals- 
 grave had started back to England. On December 15 More, appar- 
 ently not having heard directly from Erasmus, wrote to inquire 
 whether Palsgrave had delivered his letters to Erasmus. In 1523 
 Palsgrave engaged Richard Pynson, the king's printer, to print sixty 
 reams of paper for him at 6s., 8d. a ream ; what the title of the book 
 was we cannot be sure, though it has been supposed to be one of his 
 three undated Latin works, of which no copies are extant, and whose 
 titles are: Annotationes verborum, Annotationes participiorum, and 
 Epistolae ad diversos. It is more probable that this contract was for 
 the publication of Palsgrave's famous French Grammar, which he had 
 doubtless been working on for some years, as he taught that tongue 
 
Acolastus 95 
 
 to the youth of the court. The Grammar was not completed until 
 1530, but it is evident that Pynson printed at least the first part at an 
 earlier date. The stipulations in this contract that six copies are to be 
 given to the King, that none are to be sold without Palsgrave's per- 
 mission and that Palsgrave expects a privilege (copyright), indicate 
 that the French Grammar is referred to, as all of these arrangements 
 were carried out when it appeared. Furthermore the contract of 1523 
 is listed in Henry VIII's papers next to the contract with Pynson for 
 U Eclarcissement de la lange Francoys. There is also a second con- 
 tract, dated Jan. 15, 1524, written by Cromwell, with corrections by 
 Palsgrave, giving the same arrangements as the 1523 contract, and 
 actually referring to the French Grammar by title ; 750 copies are to 
 be printed, Pynson is to have none that he does not pay for though he 
 may have them at a reduced price ; Pynson is to print a sheet each day 
 on both sides and Palsgrave agrees to deliver corrected copy as fast 
 as needed. 
 
 Another court appointment now interrupted his authorship, and 
 Palsgrave was sent, in August 1525, as French and Latin tutor to 
 Henry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond, natural son of Henry VIII. 
 This commission, like his earlier royal one, called him away from 
 London and his friends; this time to English lands in the north, be- 
 yond the Trent, near Scotland. The King showed special affection 
 for the six year old boy, and a much larger retinue was provided for 
 him than for the legitimate successor to the throne, Henry's daughter 
 Mary. The young Duke was already Lord High Admiral of England, 
 and enjoyed an income of at least a quarter of a million dollars an- 
 nually. For his education, which had already been begun by Sir 
 Thomas More, the King selected Richard Croke, the famous Greek 
 scholar, and Palsgrave. The latter's position seems to have been a 
 flattering one, with three servants and an annual stipend of £13, 6s., 
 8d. The court gathered around the youthful lieutenant-governor at 
 Sheriff Hutton, and enrolled "Palgrave, Scolmastere" as one of the 
 "Counselores." Palsgrave was a member of the Council of the North 
 which reported to Wolsey as to the Duke's health and progress, and 
 such intimate problems as the New Year's gifts which the Duke 
 ' should present. In Brewer's Collection Palsgrave's signature appears 
 on at least six letters to Wolsey, orders of the Council, and other such 
 official documents. The young pupil seems to have shown scholarly 
 ability; at any rate his tutor's letters to his father, the King, and his 
 
96 The School Drama 
 
 mother, then Lady Elizabeth Talboys, abound in his praises. Pals- 
 grave wrote the Duke's mother of her son's especial "gifts of grace," 
 and expresses the hope that those who surround him will not too 
 greatly detract him from his education. "Madam," he wrote in 1529, 
 "to be plain with you, on my conscience, my Lord of Richmond is of 
 as good a nature, as much inclined to all manner of virtuous and hon- 
 orable inclinations as any babes living. Now is my room undoubted 
 great about him, for the King's grace said unto me, in the presence 
 of Master Parre and Master Page: 'I deliver,' quoth he, 'unto you 
 three, my worldly jewel; you twain to have the guiding of his body, 
 and thou Palsgrave, to bring him up in virtue and learning.' " (Wil- 
 liam Parr was the Duke's Chamberlain; Richard Page, his Vice 
 Chamberlain.) The same year Palsgrave wrote to the King in much 
 the same tone of praise; he promises "that according to (my) saying 
 to you in the gallery at Hampton Court, I do my uttermost best to 
 cause him to love learning and to be merry at it, insomuch that with- 
 out any manner fear or compulsion he hath already a great further- 
 ance in the principles grammatical both of Greek and Latin." Pals- 
 grave seems at that time to have been in entire charge of the Duke's 
 education, which had progressed particularly in Latin, including Vir- 
 gil, Quintillian and Erasmus. However the youth's poor Latin in- 
 struction before coming into Palsgrave's hands makes him pronounce 
 poorly, even almost lisping, but this the tutor hopes will stop when his 
 second set of teeth appear ! An interesting suggestion of Commenius' 
 Orbis Pictus is found here in 1529; for Palsgrave was an educator far 
 ahead of his age. He urges the King to attach a painter to the Duke's 
 court, and suggests the best means of finding a suitable one, in order 
 that his young pupil may learn to "know the nature of things by their 
 pictures ;'' indeed the absence of such a painter "causeth both him and 
 me to stay." A letter to More the same year asks his opinion, and 
 that of Rightwise, famous as a Latin dramatist, as to the wisdom of 
 teaching Greek to the young Prince, whose "wit" is again praised. 
 The sports and toys of the Court, Palsgrave fears, detract him greatly, 
 and More is asked to urge upon the King continued emphasis upon his 
 son's education. The strong opposition to study is an interesting side 
 light upon the education of the day, when many "would in no wise he 
 should be learned," and strove "to bring his mind from learning,'' say- 
 ing "that learning is a great hindrance to and displeasure to a noble- 
 man." Croke, the other tutor, who left the Prince's service in 1528, 
 
Acolastus 97 
 
 had had similar cause to bewail the attitude of the courtiers in helping 
 the Prince to neglect his studies, and to defy his tutor. Palsgrave 
 sends greetings to Mere's daughters, and regrets that he was not 
 present to hear them "dispute in philosophy afore the King's grace." 
 
 Although his income from his church positions, ^nd as tutor to the 
 Prince, must have been considerable, he seems always to be bewailing 
 his poverty, and is usually deep in debt, although he appears to have 
 had only himself and his mother to support. Cromwell's papers in- 
 clude at least four statements of Palsgrave's debts to him; one is for 
 £7, 6s., 8d. for Cromwell's procuring a papal bull for the union of the 
 parish church of Alderton, Norwich, to the prebend of Portpoole, St. 
 Paul's, which Palsgrave still held. To More he bewails "this horri- 
 ble monster, poverty," which is such an accustomed visitor to Pals- 
 grave that he is "ashamed;" he is more bound to More than to any 
 man, and now hesitates to come to him "with empty hand." In this 
 same year he wrote Mary, Queen dowager of France, that he had 
 hoped to have his salary raised, so that he might live suitably, and 
 that he still relied on her aid. During 1528, he tells her, six legal 
 attacks had been made against his honesty, and half his resources 
 were spent in his own defense; now he is broken-hearted, poor, and 
 has a "sore tertian fever." Whether this appeal was unsuccessful is 
 not known ; at least it was soon repeated, when Sir William Stevynson 
 was asked to urge again the tutor's cause upon Queen Mary and her 
 husband, the Duke of Suffolk. The tutor sums up his worldly pos- 
 sessions under eight heads; his income would seem to be about £110, 
 with debts of £92 ; Stevynson was instructed to borrow, if possible, £30 
 from Suffolk, and if this failed. Palsgrave threatened to resign and 
 come home (although this item is carefully crossed out!); some 
 changes must be made in his benefices, so Stevynson is to entreat 
 Cardinal Wolsey, for a letter, and if possible, collect £20 from them, 
 which he is to pay Palsgrave's mother in London at Easter ; above all, 
 he is to strive to have the Queen gain for him the benefice of "Kan- 
 ston, in Norfolk." \ 
 
 The French Grammar upon which he had been at work for some 
 years, and which had probably been in press off and on since 1524, 
 finally appeared in 1530. Of the three contracts with Pynson the 
 fullest refers to the work as "containing three sundry books, wherein 
 is showed how the said tongue (Francoys) should be pronounced in 
 reading and speaking, and also such grammatical rules as concern the 
 
98 The School Drama 
 
 perfection of the said tongue; with two vocabulists, one beginning 
 with English nouns and verbs expounded in French, and a general 
 vocabulist containing all the words of the French tongue expounded 
 in English.'' Whether the delay in publication was due to Palsgrave's 
 poverty, or failure to provide copy, or some trouble with Pynson, 
 we do not know. It is certain, however, that Pynson printed only 
 the first two parts, two sheets and a half, fifty-nine leaves. The 
 third part, or book, is separately numbered. The final printer was 
 John Haykys, from whose press it was issued July i8, 1530. No 
 other book is known to have come from this printer's hands. Dibdin, 
 in his Typographical Antiquities, Vol. II, does not include the L'es- 
 clarcissement de la Langue Francoyse in his extensive list of Pyn- 
 son's works. fThere is, however, conclusive proof, to the antiquarian 
 at least, of Pynson's part in the work, from the presence of one of his 
 "devices" between books one and two; Pynson is famous in typo- 
 graphical history for first introducing "devices," borders and figure- 
 cuts. There are very few copies of the original edition extant; Baker 
 knew of only two in 1764" and Lowndes" refers to seven, of which 
 some are imperfect; tlie Bodleian contains an excellent copy; the 
 British Museum, two, and the Mazarin Library, Paris, the only copy 
 in France. The work was republished in 1852, by M. Genin, at Paris, 
 Imprimerie National, in the French National Series entitled Docu- 
 ments Inedits sur I' Historic de France. 
 
 Two interesting items are noted in connection with the contracts 
 for publication. These contracts indicate that Pynson was to sell 
 copies only upon Palsgrave's order ; the book was not for popular sale. 
 The reason for this was Palsgrave's desire to protect himself from 
 other teachers ; with only one text book in the field, it is natural that 
 its author desired to keep it for the use of his pupils and his friends. 
 Stephen Vaughan, of Antwerp, English envoy to the Netherlands, 
 wrote Thomas Cromwell, asking him to get from Palsgrave a copy of 
 the French book, as Vaughan desired to learn French, and had found 
 that Pynson refused to sell copies except to those whom Palsgrave 
 names, lest his profit as a teacher should be "minished." Vaughan 
 would "esteem one of the books no less than a Jewel," and promises 
 to send Cromwell a gift in return. If Cromwell cannot get another 
 
 2* Baker, Biographia Dramatica, i., 325. 
 
 88 Lowndes, Biblios^-aphical Manual, vii., 1769. 
 
Acolastus 99 
 
 copy, Vaughan makes bold to hope that he will send his personal copy, 
 which Palsgrave gave him. The date of this letter, April 13, 1529, 
 raises an interesting question, as the only known edition is dated over 
 a year later; evidently some parts of the work at least, were published 
 before this 1530 edition; possibly the third part, which Pynson did not 
 print, appeared for the first time in 1530. In his contract Palsgrave 
 also provided that Pynson should "suffer the saide John Palsgrave, 
 or his assignes, to correct the proff or ever that he, for any hast, print 
 the hoole nomber off any off the said leuys." Although Pynson was 
 himself a Frenchman, the author thought it necessary to make this 
 special provision in order that greater accuracy might be secured; 
 printers in those days were usually the sole proof readers, and often 
 their products were almost unrecognizable by the author. 
 
 The title page reads: "L'esclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse 
 compose par maistre Jehan Palsgrave, Angloys natyf de Londres, et 
 gradue de Paris. Neque, luna, per, noctem. M.G.P. Anno verbi in- 
 carnati, M.D.XXX." The page following contains a neat Latin poem 
 by Leonard Cox, in praise of Palsgrave. The remainder of the book 
 is in English. The "authours epistell to the Kinges Grace,'' to whom 
 the book is dedicated, occupies nine pages, and narrates the study he 
 had put upon the topic; his presentation of his "two books," (probably 
 the first two sections of this work, not a separate book), to the King's 
 sister Mary, and her husband, Duke of Suffolk, who urged that the 
 honor of dedication be given to the King himself ; his investigation of 
 earlier grammars, notably the Greek grammar of Theodore Gaza ; and 
 his addition of a third book, in order that he might succeed in his de- 
 sire "to mary our tongue and the french togider." References, some- 
 what derogatory, are made to the works upon the same subject by 
 Barclay, Dewes, Vallensys and Troy. This dedication is followed by 
 the King's "special privilege" granted at Ampthill, September 2, 1530, 
 praising Palsgrave for his endeavor, his success with Queen Mary, 
 for printing the book at his own "great costes," and forbidding any 
 reprint in whole or part for seven years. 
 
 An interesting letter is also included in this introduction ; it is from 
 "Andrewe Boynton, to the Ryght Noble and excellent young gentle- 
 men, my lord Thomas Hawarde, my lorde Geralde, and maister 
 Charles Blont, sonne and heyre to the Lorde Montjoye, his late scole 
 felowes." This letter, written by one of Palsgrave's pupils to three 
 others, who were probably more powerful at court and more able to 
 
loo The School Drama 
 
 aid "our maister," praises the French Grammar, refers to many things 
 in it which will remind these gentlemen of Palsgrave and his teach- 
 ing, and includes this interesting passage: "After he had in com- 
 mandement by our most redoubted soveraygne, to instruct the duke of 
 Richemontes grace, in the latin tongue, he brought all the hole Anal- 
 ogie of the Romane speche, into IX letters, that is to say, theye fyve 
 vowells and M, N, R, S, consonantes, whiche thyng was never as yet, 
 of no clerke that he wotteth of afore his tyme observed." Of this 
 work on Latin we know no more, neither of the book of French Prov- 
 erbs, promised by Palsgrave in the French Grammar. 
 
 Palsgrave attempts at great length to give the rules for French 
 grammar and pronunciation, and includes an extensive vocabulary. 
 This was the first French grammar in any language. The author out- 
 lines the first two books in his "briefe introduction," stating that the 
 first will deal with pronunciation, such as "sounding of thyr vowelles, 
 diphthonges, consonantes, theyre trewe accent" and so on. "Boke 
 Second" is devoted to the nine parts of speech ; for some unexplained 
 reason, six pages are lacking in the numbering between the books, al- 
 though the work seems complete. The third book, nine times as long 
 as the first two, is probably the part added in the Haykys edition of 
 1530 ; it is an enlargement of the second book, with a dictionary of il- 
 lustrative words and phrases, forming practically a complete gram- 
 mar of the French language. Numerous French authors of note, in- 
 cluding Guillaume de Lorris, Jean le Maire, Lemaire de Beiges, Alain 
 Chartier and Octavien de St. Gelais, are quoted. Each of the three 
 books ends with an appeal to the student and a promise of ability to 
 speak French if he will be faithful in his use of the book; the last 
 page commends the work to the use of rich and poor alike, and states 
 that it "is very necessarye for all suche as intende to leame to speke 
 trewe frenche." 
 
 This work, which must have been of great importance in the study 
 of French when it appeared," now claims recognition because of its 
 record of early French pronunciation, and of obsolete English and 
 French words and phrases. As such it has received considerable 
 study.'" 
 
 We do not know exactly when Palsgrave left the Duke of Rich- 
 mond in the North and returned to London. Probably he accom- 
 
 26 Elyot refers in his Gouvemor to its popularity. 
 
 27 LUtgenau, yifa» Palsgrave und seine aussprache des Franziosischen. 
 
Acolastus loi 
 
 panied the Duke in August, 1529, when the latter was summoned to 
 take his place in the House of Lords. Late in 1529 Palsgrave wrote a 
 lengthy summary of Henry VIH's reign, possibly hoping that its laud- 
 atory tone would win him further preferment. His troubles, however, 
 continued; witness Gregory Chekying's letter to Cromwell protesting 
 against Palsgrave's methods of instruction with his son. In 1531 he 
 moved to Oxford, still desiring to continue his studies. In the Regis- 
 ter he is enrolled as supplicating for admission to the Master's degree, 
 and also as Bachelor of Divinity, in February, 1532; incorporated as 
 M.A., June 19, and received his B.D., June 27, of the same year; the 
 final disputations came in April and May, 1533. He wrote the father 
 of one of his pupils on October 28, 1532, praising the young man's 
 work, as usual, and urging that he be allowed to continue his studies 
 under him, because the boy is "such an inheritor," and that a suggested 
 visit to the boy's home be given up. He announces that he intends to 
 move by February from London, where he was then teaching, to 
 Blackf riars, Cambridge, whither he hopes the boy, and his three other 
 pupil^ (one a younger brother of Andrew Boynton'®), will accompany 
 him. His reasons for going to Cambridge were: "i. I am already 
 B.D. and hope to be D.D. 2. I could get a man to help me in teach- 
 ing, as the constant attendance hurts my health. And I go to Cam- 
 bridge rather than Oxford; because I have a benefice 16 miles off." 
 As there are no records of his entrance at Cambridge, we are in doubt 
 as to what happened ; probably he remained in London, simply going 
 to Oxford in the spring to go through the final formalities of the B.D. 
 degree. In the fall of 1533, October 3, Archbishop Crumer granted 
 him the benefice at St. Dunstan-in-the-East, London, and on the eigh- 
 teenth of that month dunned Palsgrave energetically for the money 
 due him, now "far behind hand." The next April the poor teacher is 
 still deep in debt; he writes Cromwell about the chances of getting 
 another benefice immediately. For nearly ten years we have no of- 
 ficial record regarding him, save a letter, written doubtless for a 
 parishioner, July 24, 1538, to a priest in Amiens regarding an orphan 
 there. Palsgrave was one of the signers of the famous document at 
 Westminster, July 9, 1540, "the judgment of the united convocations 
 of both provinces declaring null the marriage of Henry VIII to Anne 
 of Cleves." On November 7, 1545, he received the rectory of Waden- 
 
 28 Pg. 99 
 
102 The School Drama 
 
 hoe, Northamptonshire, to which the Crown added more lands on 
 December 6, 1546. He resided here until his death, which took place 
 before August 3, 1554, on which date a successor was appointed; on 
 September 12 his prebend at Portpoole, St. Paul's, was filled "per 
 mortem Joh. Palsgrave." 
 
 Our only personal evaluation of Palsgrave's character and abilities 
 comes from Pits who refers to him as one to whom nature had liber- 
 ally given her gifts, "a man of genius, unshakable memory, easy 
 speech, modesty and moderation of spirit, worthy of eulogies, distin- 
 guished by gravity, prudence and marvellous affability, appreciated 
 by all persons of distinction." 
 
 Palsgrave lived an eventful life of about seventy years; he was 
 twice a royal tutor, enjoyed the friendship of statesmen like Wolsey, 
 Cromwell and Cramner, scholars such as More and Erasmus, twice 
 received royal privileges for his books, wrote what is probably the 
 first full French grammar; yet, as Baker and others point out, his 
 chief fame rests upon his translation of the Acolastus, 1540. The im- 
 portance of this version of the play has already been suggested, and 
 mention has been made of its contribution to the Elizabethan drama. 
 Its greater interest lies in the light that it throws upon school methods 
 of the day. Baker refers to it as "a translation, for the use of chil- 
 dren." From the reference in the letter of Andrew Boynton* and the 
 references to Palsgrave's success in Latin with the young Richmond, 
 we can realize that he was perhaps fully as capable a teacher of Latin 
 as of French. As will be noted in his introduction, he heartily com- 
 mends Henry VIII's recent act (1540) by which Lyiy's Grammar was 
 made the official and exclusive Latin grammar of England. He justi- 
 fies this edition of the Acolastus from the lack of Latin books for the 
 young student to read and upon which he may apply his newly 
 acquired grammar rules. He denounces the poor Latin teachers, as 
 he had the inefficient French tutors ; he believes in learning grammar 
 by reading; in making the rules simple and plain; in both intensive 
 and extensive study ; in translation into English, which develops one's 
 power in both languages. Like his French Grammar he hopes that 
 this book will bring "an established marriage between the two 
 tongues," and also, as before, he promises that its use will save much 
 time and labor. Cromwell, to whom Palsgrave proposed to dedicate 
 
 29 Pg. 99 
 
Acolastus 103 
 
 it, urged that it be dedicated to the King, as was the work of 1530. 
 Palsgrave's translation is verbose, to say the least; three lines of 
 Latin sometimes receive five sentences in English. He discusses the 
 metre, the style of the drama and points out all figures of speech, or 
 passages particularly "elegans."" He justifies such an English trans- 
 lation of a Latin work (few such appeared before his, many such af- 
 terwards) on the ground that it gives pupils practice for their rules 
 of grammar, develops their English speech, and aids poor teachers. 
 He says Acolastus is the best play he could find to translate. Of the 
 original very few copies are known ; there is one in the Bodleian and 
 two, one imperfect, in the British Museum. Baker knew of only two 
 copies," and Lowndes"" refers to five, four appearing at sales between 
 1831 and 1844. 
 
 The last reference which we have to Palsgrave has recently been 
 discovered by Mr. H. R. Plomer in Repertory of Twelve of the Rec- 
 ords of the City of London. On November 26, 1550, occurs this state- 
 ment : "It is agreed that Mr. Wylforde & Mr. Garrard aldermen shall 
 peruse Mr. Palsgrave's book here exhibited this day concerning the 
 teaching of laten & frenche, and make report here how they do like it. 
 And also take order with him for the payment of those £6 13 4 that 
 the Court did here agree this day to lend him."" We do not know what 
 book is here referred to; doubtless the manuscript of a book he 
 planned to publish, probably combining the teaching methods sug- 
 gested in the Esclarissement, twenty years before, and Acolastus, ten 
 years before. It is evident that his old enemy, poverty, still pursued 
 him ; the City Council's generosity was doubtless very welcome in the 
 fight. 
 
 We seem justified in showing two definite examples of the contribu- 
 tions of this translation to English literature. Herford calls it "the 
 first definite sign of the new influence,'"* of a Latin drama adapted to 
 the needs of the scholars. George Gascoigne's Glasse of Government, 
 
 so For the Latin of the play see: Lateinische Literaturdenkmaler des XV. and 
 XVI. Jahrhundrets. Herausgeben von Max Herrmann und Siegfried Szamatol- 
 ski, i. Gulielmus Gnapheus Acolastus Herausgeben von Johannes Bolte, Ber- 
 lin, 1891. 
 
 81 Baker, Biographia Dramatica, i., 324. 
 
 32 Lowndes, Bibliographical Manual, ii., 849. 
 
 38 Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, vi., 25. 
 
 ^i Literary Relations of England and Germany, 109, 155-164. 
 
104 The School Drama 
 
 written, says Arber, by 1565, "stands absolutely alone in the English 
 dramatic literature of the century."* This play undoubtedly has a 
 didactic aim, possesses ethical contrasts, and chiefly uses scenes of 
 school or tavern life. The plot is that of four Prodigal Sons, with 
 the usual counselors, parasites, arid meretrix; the two older sons reap 
 rewards by public flogging and execution, while the younger ones, 
 repentant, become, respectively, a minister at Geneva, and a secretary 
 to the Palsgrave. It seems clear to Herford and to us that Gascoigne 
 gained his material from the Prodigal Son dramas, and their offshoot, 
 the Dramas of Student Life, referred to previously in this study. 
 Possibly Gascoigne became acquainted with these dramas on his visit 
 to Holland, 1572-3, although if Arber's date of the actual composition 
 of The Glasse of Government (first published 1575), is correct, it is 
 more likely that the medium was Palsgrave's school book, which Gas- 
 coigne may have labored over as a boy. If so, he made better use of 
 the material in his school books than do most modern students. 
 
 The striking similarity between Lyly's Euphues and Gnapheus' 
 Acolastus occurred to the writer even before reading the article by 
 John Dones Wilson," in which he suggests that the Holland school- 
 master through his English translator quite probably furnished the 
 material and plot for our first English novel. The story is that of an 
 intellectual Prodigal, Euphues, who falls upon evil days and over- 
 loving companions in Naples; his love affair there finally makes of 
 him a new man, sending him back to his life of study, and away from 
 his faithless Lucilla, alas, a harlot. The drama form is more evident 
 than that of the novel ; the work is simply a series of incidents, sharply 
 separated, in which the characters often speak before the author tells 
 us their names: the author missed the dramatis personae heading of 
 each scene in a play. Lyly himself admitted that his work was "com- 
 piled." That the source was quite possibly Acolastus is suggested 
 from the borrowing of the names Eubulus and Philautus, who serve, 
 in both productions, similar purposes. Lais, of Gnapheus, becomes 
 Lyly's Lucilla, with "Lilly cheeks dyed with Vermillion red," and her 
 ever-present, tempting cards. Euphues' prodigality is hinted at in 
 reference to his early history; he does "leave Athens the nourse of 
 wisdom, to inhabite Naples the nouresher of wantonnesse ;" he be- 
 
 as Introduction, Hazlitt's edition of Gascoigne. 
 36 The Library, x., 337-361. 
 
Acolastus 105 
 
 comes an "intellectualized prodigal." Surely Lyly owes a debt to 
 some of the Prodigal Son dramas, of which Acolastus is the most 
 likely source. Whether he took part in the production of it in Latin 
 during his college days, or first became acquainted with it in its school 
 book form, is uncertain. It is at least possible that one of the most 
 signficant Elizabethan dramas and the so-called "first English novel" 
 owe their origin to Palsgrave's school translation of Acolastus. 
 
APPENDIX 
 PALSGRAVES INTRODUCTION TO ACOLASTUS 
 
 lOANNIS PALS. 
 
 GRAVI LONDONIENSIS, 
 
 ECPHRASIS ANGLIC A IN CO. 
 
 MOEDIAM ACOLASTI. 
 
 The Comedy of Acolastus translated into our English tongue, 
 after such manner as children are taught in the grammar school, 
 first word for word, as the Latin lieth, and afterward according to 
 the sense and meaning of the latin sentences: by showing what 
 they do value and countervalne in our tongue, with adminition set 
 forth in the margin, as often as any such phrase, that is to say, 
 kind of speaking used of the latins, which we use not in our 
 tongue, but by other words, expressed the said latin manners of 
 speaking, and also adages, metaphors, sentences, or other figures 
 poetical or rhetorical do require, for the more perfect instructing 
 of the learners, and to lend them more easily to see how the expo- 
 sition goeth. And before the second scene of the first act, is a 
 brief introduction to some general knowledge of the diverse sorts 
 of meters used by our author in this comedy. And before Acolas- 
 tus's ballad is shown what kinds of meters his ballad is made of. 
 And before the sixth scene of the fourth act, is an explanation of 
 the Rhetorical composition used in that scene, and Certain other 
 after it ensueing. 
 
 Interpreted by John Palsgrave. 
 ANNO. M.D. XL. 
 
Palsgrave's Introduction to Acolastus 107 
 
 THE EPISTLE TO THE KING'S HIGHNESS. 
 
 TO THE MOST EXCELLENT PRINCE AND OUR MOST REDOUBTED SOVEREIGN 
 
 LORD, HENRY VIII. 
 
 By the grace of God, king of England and of France, defender of the faith, 
 lord of Ireland, and supreme head in earth immediately under Christ, of the 
 Church of England, his most humble and obedient Chaplain, John Palsgrave, 
 Bachelor of Divinity, desireth perfect felicity and prosperous success in all his 
 noble affairs. 
 
 When I consider with myself, most high and most redoubted Prince, and 
 to me of all your humble subjects most benign and gracious sovereign lord, 
 among others the great and weighty affairs which lie under the moderation of 
 your royal Scepter, how highly your grace doth tender the well bringing up of 
 your youth, in good letters, in so much, that whereas it is clearly perceived, by 
 your most prudent wisdom, how great a damage it has heretofore been, and 
 yet is, unto the tender wits of this yonr noble realm to be hindered and con- 
 founded with so many diverse and sundry sources of precepts grammatical; you 
 have for the redress thereof, willed one uniform manner of teaching of all those 
 Grammatical rules, to be used throughout all your highness's dominion, and 
 have committed the disposing of that matter unto such singular personages, 
 both of exact judgment, and also of excellent literary ability, that I for my part 
 do not a little rejoice therefore, and earnestly do I wish, that I at these present 
 days (which in that exercise have disspent no small time of my life) had ob- 
 served but some one valuable document to bring to this Gazohilacium, some- 
 thing to help to the furtherances of this your noble grace's so goodly, and there- 
 fore so godly and fruitful a purpose. Whereupon as it fortunateth that among 
 the loving and well wishing subjects, when they hear of any gracious and bene- 
 ficial purpose, by their sovereign lord intended, whereby his commonwealth 
 might perceive so great a furtherance and advancement, (specially tending to 
 any such effect as they themselves have been most exercised withall) . I there- 
 upon took occasion thus to reason and debate with myself. Now that the great 
 variety used before time in the teachings of the grammatical rules of the latin 
 tongue in this realm, whereby hitherto no final hinderance hath insued, shall 
 hereafter utterly cease and be put to silence. Whereby undoubtedly there 
 shall insue a great commodity and furtherance, both to the masters, and also 
 the young beginners, which shall hereafter succeed. For now is it intended, 
 that every school of your grace's realm, should begin to become one similar 
 school as far as those said principles do belong. But as yet unto my poor judg- 
 ment (seeming to be a thing very much required) for the more effectual and 
 speedy furtherance of your grace's said youth, I wish, that unto this much ex- 
 pedient reformation of your school masters unstayed liberty, which hitherto has 
 taught such grammar, and of the same so diverse and sundry source, as to ev- 
 eryone of them seemed best (and was to their fantasies most approved); might 
 therefore also follow and perceive one steady and uniform manner of interpreta- 
 
io8 The School Drama 
 
 tion of the latin authors into our tongue, after the latin principles were by your 
 grace's youth once surely conned and perceived. Upon the want and lack 
 thereof, besides the great and evident inconvenience (of which the effect is too 
 much in every place espied) that is to say, the plainly apparent ignorance and 
 want of the required sufficiency of many, which in private places take upon 
 themselves to teach, before they be themselves masters, to whom the best gram- 
 matical rules, that ever were oi could be devised, cannot be sufficient; I have 
 by experience learned, that there are diverse other occasions rising in the 
 school masters practice, whereby your grace's youth is not a little hindered. 
 For some instructors of your highnesses youth for want of a perfect judgment 
 in this behalf so much desire to seem affectedly curious, that having no due 
 consideration to the tender wits, which they take unto their charge to teach, in 
 the stead of pure English words and phrases, they declare to their children one 
 latin word by another, and confound the phrases of the tongues. And thus 
 they not a little hinder their young scholars, although they would seem for 
 their own part to have a knowledge and erudition above the common sort. And 
 some others there be, which having undoubtedly learning enough, valuable and 
 sufficient, yet while they by sundry ways and manners of speaking used in our 
 tongue labor to express such latin authors' minds as they do take upon them 
 for the time to interpret, and to seem therein more diligent than the common 
 sort, do spend in such manner the whole forenoons and afternoons, in the de- 
 claring of a few lines of such latin authors as they for that season have in hand 
 (for to confess the very truth, the school masters whole diligence tendeth 
 chiefly to this effect and purpose); thus they do by that means not only very lit- 
 tle furtherance for their young audience, but also by that ways do oppress and 
 over lay the tender wits, the which they would so fain further, with their mul- 
 titude of sundry interpretations, confusedly by them uttered. So that finally 
 their young scholars, to help their memory, are forced to gloss, or rather to 
 blot in their latin books, and as their childish judgment doeth for the time serve 
 them, of diverse words in our tongue being synonyms, or of diverse interpreta- 
 tion used by their master, they choose most commonly the very worst, and with 
 these scribble the books of their latin authors. And some other furthermore 
 there are, which though they have by their great study at your grace's Univer- 
 sities, so much profited in the Latin tongue, that to show an evident trial of 
 their learning, they can write an Epistle very latin like, and also speak latin, as 
 the time shall afford occasion very well, yes, and have also by their diligence 
 attained to a comely manner of making verses; yet, for all this, partly because 
 of the rude language used in their native countries, where they were born and 
 first learned (as it happened) their grammar rules, and partly because that com- 
 ing straight from these, unto some of your grace's universities, they have not 
 had occasion to become conversant with such places of your realm, where the 
 purest English is spoken, accordingly they are not able to express their con- 
 cept in their vulgar tongue, which is not sufficient to perfectly open the diver- 
 sity of phrases between our tongue and the latin (which in my poor judgment is 
 the very chief thing that the school master should travail in). Accordingly for 
 want of this sufficient perfection in our own tongue, I have known diverse of 
 
Palsgrave's Introduction to Acolastus 109 
 
 them, which have still continued their study in your grace's universities, that 
 after a substantial increase of good learning, by their great and industrious 
 study obtained, yet when they have been called to do any service in your 
 grace's commonwealth, either to preach in open audience, or have other ad- 
 ministration, requiring their assidious conversing with your subjects, they have 
 then been forced to read over our english authors, and by that means to pro- 
 vide a remedy for their evident imperfection in that behalf. And when it hath 
 happened to any such for their good name and estimation to be called from 
 your universities to instruct any of your grace's noblemen's children, then evi- 
 dently hath appeared their imperfection in that case to be notable, and that to 
 no small detriment and hinderance of such as they have taken charge to in- 
 struct and bring forward. Being therefore, for my part, desirous, that these in- 
 conveniences might also be provided for, and therefore taking occasion, more 
 attentively to bethink me upon this matter, then began the great difficulty of 
 the well achieving thereof the more plainly to appear unto me, not only because 
 the like thing hath not yet hitherto (that ever 1 could know of) been thoroughly 
 attempted of any clerk within this your grace's noble realm, but also forasmuch, 
 as that a translation into the mother tongue, of any latin authors, hath never 
 hitherto (so far as I can yet perceive) been assayed in any other region of 
 Europe; except perchance as some such as the latter, have for their own ease 
 and the more brief and speedy furtherance of their scholars, used such kind of 
 interpretation in their own tongue upon som e excellent latin author, which they 
 would never suffer to past the bounds of their private houses. The not at- 
 tempting of which kind of interpretation in other regions, hath not proceeded 
 of any notable perfection or furtherance, which the other regions have in their 
 languages, over and beyond your noble grace's subjects. For how much the 
 french tongue is different from the pure latin, may appear by a book of late 
 years made by Robertus Stephanus, which he entitled, De corrupte sermonis 
 emendatione. And how much the Spanish be with this same imperfection at- 
 tached, may appear by the testimony of Nebysensis, which with many words 
 doth lament the notable corruption of the latin tongue among his countrymen, 
 and earnestly doth exort them to be more diligent in the observence of the per- 
 fect and approved latin authors. And as for the Germans notwithstanding the 
 great excellency that they now of these days are come unto, yet is there no 
 doubt, but that there is no volgar phrase used within the bounds of Europe, 
 that more swerveth from the exact latin, than this doth. So when I consider, 
 by how earnest manner Bebelius called upon the Germans, to leave their own 
 phrase, (speach), and to take themselves to the assidious reading and observing 
 of the good latin authors, the which was but a little before Rheuclin's days, 
 and how prosperously the thing hath since that time among them succeeded, I 
 take, that Bebelius was in manner to the Germans, as was Laurence Valla unto 
 the Italians, by whose first exortation and setting on, so many excellent writers 
 have risen within the Italians within the time of memory. Being therefore in 
 this behalf not a little perplexed, whether I might be so bold to assay how this 
 thing might take effect, if it should fortune by me be attempted, I had resort 
 unto your noble grace's high counselor, and ever my singular good lord, the 
 
no The School Drama 
 
 lord pirvy seal, linto whom as the time and place did serve me, I declared my 
 pure desire, and with right humble instance besought him, that I might (to 
 make a trial of this my purpose) dedicate some latin author interpreted after 
 this manner, which I have here described, to his lordship, not only to make a 
 proof and experience of the thing, which I so much minded, but also to be a 
 testimony, and a recognizing on my part towards bis lordship, of the manifold 
 and singular humanity shown unto me, and that of no small continuance of 
 years. But his lordship willed me expressly, thereto adding both u right wish 
 and also honest consideration, to dedicate my poor labors unto your noble grace, 
 my most dread and redoubted sovereignlord, whereby my great solicitude and 
 care is now much more redoubled, than ever it was before, less I should in any 
 manner cause offense where I would fainest that my tender zeal should, accord- 
 ing as I do mean, most evidently and fruitfully appear. Howbeit, calling in 
 this behalf good hope unto me, for the manifold experiences that I have had, in 
 the great clemency and benignity, which I have ever found in your noble grace, 
 I have chosen for my latin author, to be Ecphrastes upon, the comedy entitled 
 Acolastus, not only because I esteem that little volume to be a very curious and 
 artifically compacted nosegay, gathered out of the most excellent and odorifer- 
 ous sweet smelling g arden of the most pure latin authors, but also becanse the 
 author thereof (a i far as I can learn) is yet living, thereby I would be glad to 
 move unto the hearts of your grace's clerks, of which your realm was never bet- 
 ter stored, some little grain of honest and virtous enty, which on my part to con- 
 fess the very truth unto your grace, hath continually in all the time of these my 
 poor labors, accompanied me, and stirred me onward to achieve this manner, in 
 this wise by me attempted. For this have I thought to myself shall Fullonius 
 an Hollander born, thus many hundred years after the decay of the latin tongue 
 by the Goths, Vandals, and Longobardes, III most barborons nations utterly 
 corupted, through the diligent observation of the pure latin authors, be able to 
 make so fine and so exact a piece of work, and I shall not be able at these years 
 of mine age, to do so much, as to declare what he meaneth in my native tongue? 
 Seeing that he (regarding his country) can challenge no more right to the latin 
 tongue, than I can, saving that through his great and industrious labor, he 
 hath, mastered the latinity, and so forced it to serve him, as to set forth to all 
 clerks his intent and purpose. Thus do I, my most redoubted lord, speak to 
 your grace, whose pure and clear judgment I wought most highly to fear, as 
 though I were fully persuaded to myself, that I have not wholly disspent my la- 
 bors in vain. But in very deed I shall think myself not only very well sufiSced. 
 but also most fortunate, if this mine enterprise, or at the least, first attempt, 
 may give occasion unto other of your grace's well learned clerks to fall in hand 
 with such of the latin authors as in the judgment of all men be most excellent, 
 and to this purpose most necessary and expedient. So that by their diligent la- 
 bors, may be made such an established marriage, between the two tongues, as 
 may be unto such of your grace's subjects, as shall succeed hereafter, not 
 only steady, agreed upon, and permanent, but also an incredible furtherance, 
 to attain the pure latinity by. So that though I have not obtained to the thing, 
 which I have desired, yet I do humbly wish of god, that mine ignorance and 
 
Palsgrave's Introduction to Acolastus 1 1 1 
 
 imperfection should be no hinderance, so that the thing itself should not go for. 
 ward, and have its prosperous effect. For however Minerva hath assisted and 
 aided me to my journey's end, yet still to persist in the opening unto your no- 
 ble grace of my poor and simple judgment in this behalf, I suppose verily that 
 among diverse other profits and advancements of your grace's subjects towards 
 good learning, there should ensue great and much valuable commodities from 
 this thing. First, for if this kind of interpretation may take effect, and be put 
 in execution, not only the speech of your grace's subjects should by that means 
 have a great advantage to wax uniform, throughout all your grace's dominions, 
 but also the English tongue, which under your grace's prosperous reign is come 
 to the highest perfection that ever hitherto it was, should by this occasion re- 
 main more steady and permanent in his endurance, not only by the well keep- 
 ing of his perfection obtained, but also have a great occasion to come to his 
 most highest estate, and there, by that means long to be perserved. Second, 
 for after this, there should never be no utterly bad school masters within your 
 grace's realm. For if such as would take upon them that office, were not bet- 
 ter in their english interpretation, yet the very same would drive them, so that 
 they should not be worse, unless they would stand in danger to be reproved of 
 their own scholars, which they were but young babes, yet might their parents 
 easily control them, which might well enough perceive, when they did notably 
 amiss. Thirdly, for then should the willing scholars, which had already gotten 
 their grammatical principles, be so evidently encouraged to go forward, that 
 they should be great prods unto their fellows, which by their negligence drag, 
 besides the masters themselves would have no small provacation, to use for 
 their own part a good diligence, lest their scholars of their own minds should 
 call for more of their author to be declared unto them, then perchance the 
 masters had prepared to read unto them before ; Whereas now the scholars, 
 be they never so willing to be furthered, they have no manner of remedy, but 
 have utterly and wholly to stay upon their masters mouth. Fourthly, for then 
 should all such as be already depart from the grammar school and afterward be 
 taken with a repentance of their youth negligently by them overpassed, which 
 aforetime were forced to dispair, though their wills afterwards waxed never so 
 good, now by this means easily recover themselves again. Fifthly, for then 
 should young scholars, with small pains, engros the whole argument of the 
 latin authors in their memories, whereas heretofore, after they have read the 
 latin author in the school, they have not perceived what matter they were treat- 
 ing with: Yes. and then their furtherance and speedy increase should be so 
 notable, that with pleasure in manner and with banashing of all servil rudeness 
 out of grammar school, they should ever be able perfectly to go, faster than 
 they could before time be able to creep. Sixthly, for then the school master, 
 and also the scholars, should by this means be eased in the manner of III parts 
 of their pain; then should the masters have both time and better occasion, to 
 open their further learning, and to show unto their scholars the great artifice 
 used by the authors, in the composition of their works, which aforetime they 
 have no such opportunity to do. But what mean I, my most redoubted sover- 
 ign lord, which knowing the inestimatable clearness of youi grace's judgment, 
 
112 The School Drama 
 
 seem here to be thus far abused, as to be about to show light unto the brightest 
 shining sun? I do therefore clearly and utterly submit myself, and these my 
 poor labors, unto your noble grace's disposition and order, valuing them no 
 more, nor none otherwise, but as by your noble grace they shall be approved; 
 only thus finishing my simple epistle, that it is and shall be to my last day 
 amongst the chiefest desires and wishes of almighty god, that I may receive of 
 him the grace and possibility to do the thing, that may be acceptable to your 
 noble grace, whose facility and prosperus success in all your noble affairs, I be- 
 seech almighty god, to maintain and increase, and with increasings, long to 
 continue. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adages,8 
 
 Admission Charges,6s 
 
 Apollo Shroving,i4 
 
 Ascham,32,33 
 
 Ashton,27 
 
 ^Allgemeine^eutsche Biographic, 77 
 
 Ascham, R-A'^ 
 
 B 
 Bacon,i2,33 
 BaIe,27-28,43 
 Biblical Plays,62,7i 
 Bidermann,75 
 Boy Bishop,2S,29 
 Boy Companies,28-30,46 
 Brinsley,34 
 Buchanan,! 1,33,43 
 Bachtold, E. F.,89 
 Bahlmann, L. D.,82 
 Baker, D. £.,93 
 Baker-Penoyre, J.,g 
 Bale, J.,28 
 Barnard, i?.,34,57 
 Baumgartner, A.,(& 
 Baynes, T. S.,g2 
 Beloe, W.,g3 
 
 Biographisch Woordenboek,jy 
 Boarse, C. W.,4S 
 Bond, R. W.,31 
 Brandl, A.,y) 
 Brewer, E. C.,g2 
 Bridgett, T. E.,44 
 Brinsley, /.,34 
 
 Cheke,33 
 
 Choir Boys,2o,27-3o 
 
 Choir Masters,29,30 
 
 Churchyard,26 
 
 Classic Influence,37 
 
 Colet,23 
 
 Colloquy,i3 
 
 Comenius,i4 
 
 Cromwell,i2 
 
 Cambridge History of English Lit- 
 erature,?, 
 
 Camden Miscellany,g^ 
 
 Carlisle, N.,i8 
 
 Catholic World,68 
 
 Chambers, E. K.,8 
 
 Cheke, H.,33 
 
 Churchyard, T.,26 
 
 Churton, R.,2g 
 
 Collier, J. F.,29 
 
 Collins, W. L.,24 
 
 Comenius, J. A.,i$ 
 
 Cooper, C. H.,44 
 
 Corcoran, T.,yi 
 
 Corpus Reformatorum,^y 
 
 Creisenach, PF.,49 
 
 Cunliffe, J. W.,z8 
 
 Cust, L.,24 
 
 Cyclopedia of Education,'/ 
 D 
 
 DeWette, W. M. L.,S7 
 
 Dictionary of National Biography, 
 85 
 
 *Words in italics are authors of works referred to in this study; the note on the 
 page indicated gives the complete title. 
 
114 
 
 The School Drama 
 
 Duhr, B.,68 
 
 E 
 Elizabeth, 1 9,20,43 
 Elyot,33 
 Eton Play,24-26 
 Encyclopedia Britanmca,85 
 
 F 
 
 France, 1 1 
 Fischer, K.,'i,'i 
 Fisher, G. W.,26 
 Fleay, F. G.,19 
 Flligel, E.,44 
 Foppeus, J. F.,TJ 
 For shall, F. H.,19 
 Forstemann, K. £.,57 
 Francke, /l.,39 
 Freundgen, 7.,38 
 Froude, J. A.,i8 
 
 G 
 
 Gager,4S 
 
 German Ordinances,49-54 
 Greeks,7 
 
 Gardiner, R. B.,44. 
 Geiger, L.,38 
 Goedeke, K.,38 
 Gottsched, J. C.,38 
 Graves, F. P., 15 
 Greene, R.,41 
 Grimald, N.,43 
 Grimm, J.,38 
 H 
 Henno,38 
 Hieronymians,49 
 Hitchin,27 
 Holland,! I 
 Hartknock, 'A. C.,'jy 
 Haslitt, W.,32 
 Herford, C. H„i^ 
 
 Holinshed, R.,40 
 Holstein, H.,47 
 Hoole, C.,41 
 Hutchinson, A. F.,18 
 
 I 
 
 Immorality,S4-56,6i,63,7c 
 Ipswich, 1 8 
 Italy,! I 
 Irving, D.,43 
 
 J 
 
 Jephthes,!! 
 
 Jonson,3!,32 
 Janssen, J.,4g 
 Jundt, A.,27 
 
 K 
 
 Jusserand, J. J. ,12 
 Kaemmel, 0.,^i 
 Klein, J. L.,40 
 Knottel, W. P. C.,ii 
 Koch, C. G.,59 
 Krafft, K.,77 
 Kurz, H.,T,8 
 
 L 
 
 Latin,9,io,36-37,42 
 
 Leipsig.S! 
 
 Luther,s6 
 
 Lyly,3i,45 
 Laurie, S. S.,i$ 
 Leach, A. F.,8,2g 
 Lee, S. L.,46 
 Library, The,io4 
 Lowdnes, W. T.,98 
 Lutgenau, F.,100 
 
 m 
 
 Magdeburg,S2 
 
 Melanchthon,57 
 
 Merchant-Taylors',23,24 
 
Index 
 
 "5 
 
 Milton,34 
 
 More,4o 
 
 Mulcaster,23,24,34 
 
 Maxwell- Lyte, H. C.,io 
 
 McDonnell, M. E. ] .,2,2 
 
 Merts, G.,49 
 
 Miller, F. J.,41 
 
 Minchin, J. G. C.,24 
 
 Monroe, P. ,7 
 
 More, T.,40 
 
 Morley, H.,36 
 
 N 
 
 Neo-Latin Plays, 1 0,61 
 Nowell.iQ 
 Nichols, /.,43 
 Nisard, C.,92 
 
 P 
 
 Passion Plays,63 
 
 Plato,7 
 
 Platter,66 
 
 Plautus,2i,38-4o,49-5i,5S 
 
 Polemic Drama,76 
 
 Prodigal Son Dramas,39,46,47,64 
 
 Protestant Drama,64 
 
 Pachtler, G. M.,68 
 
 Paulsen, F.,68 
 
 Sandwich School, 18 
 Schola Ludus,i4 
 Seneca,40,4i 
 Shaw, 1 5 
 Shakespeare,3i 
 Song School,28,46 
 Southampton School, 18 
 Spectator, 1 5 
 Strassburg,S3-S4,6o 
 St. Paurs,22 
 Sturm,59-6o 
 Sargeaunt, J. ,10 
 Schelling, F. £.,11,46 
 Scherer, ^^.,36 
 Schmid, K. ^.,59 
 Schmidt, P. £.,13,14 
 Schotel, G. D. /.,ii 
 Schwars, B.,38 
 Schwickerath, R.6B 
 Scott, E. J. L.,20 
 Spengler, F.,47 
 Sterry, IV.,24 
 Strong, A. A. ,10 
 Strauss, F.,64 
 Symonds, J. A.,ii 
 
 Radclifif,27,28,43 
 
 Ralph Roister Doister,2S,44 
 
 Reading School,i8 
 
 Religious Drama,37 
 
 Reuchlin,38 
 
 Rightwise,23,44 
 
 Rache, P. B.,ii 
 
 Reinhardstoettner, K.,4g 
 
 Reusch, F. H-.S? 
 
 Rochemonteix, E. de,68 
 
 Terence,2i,23,38,39,49-Si,S5 
 
 Textor,ii 
 
 Trinity,i9 
 
 Thorndike, A. H.,12 
 
 Tittmann, J., go 
 
 Transactions, Biographical, 103 
 
 U 
 
 Udall,i2,i9,25,44 
 University Plays,4S 
 
ii6 
 
 The School Drama 
 
 V 
 
 Vernacular,69 
 
 von Eichendorff, J., 73 
 
 von Raumer, K.,34 
 
 W 
 
 Westminster,i9,2i 
 
 Winchester,22 
 
 Wimpheling,37 
 
 Walch, J. G.,S7 
 Ward, A. W.,^ 
 Warton, T.,8 
 Watson, F:,io 
 Weller, E.,89 
 Wilkins, A. S.,8 
 Wilson, H. B.,24 
 Wood, A.,43