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I

Complex factors determine the transition from late medieval to Elizabethan drama.¹ We need to note first some significant shifts in the character of performance as a social occasion. The medieval plays . . . emerge from a community-based, large-scale organization of a recurrent and participatory nature. They are part of a perennial festival where plans are laid and expenses defrayed collectively through guilds and other associations. A substantial part of the purpose and pleasure of this theatre is likewise communal: there is a common involvement in a common project that aims to expound a common knowledge.² Though economic motives could nerve the festivals as potential sources of trade and prestige, they were not principally commercial ventures. Indeed, the large cost of mounting them at a time of economic difficulty for many late sixteenth-century towns may have contributed to their disappearance.³

While the influence of...

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1. Introduction
2. I
3. Ii
4. Iii
5. Iv
6. Copyright