Student Question
What are miracle and morality plays?
Quick answer:
Miracle and morality plays emerged in medieval Christianity after the church forbade priests from acting in 1210. Miracle plays dramatize the lives of saints, while morality plays provide moral lessons often drawn from Bible stories. Popular around the 16th century, morality plays served as a bridge between Biblical mystery plays and Renaissance secular plays, with "everyman" characters embarking on spiritual journeys.
Morality and Miracles play are an outflow of Christianity in the medieval period, when the church forbade priests from acting (1210 through a papal order). When this took place, miracle and morality plays began to be put on. Morality play were usually from stories of the bible, which lent themselves to moral lessons and the miracles plays usually surrounded around the life a saint.
The heyday of these plays were probably around the 16th century during the reign of Elizabeth. In the end, a common theme of the plays was the salvation of a person's soul. For more information, see the following link at the bottom of this post.
The morality play has been defined as a bridge between the Biblical mystery plays, moral dramatizations of saints' lives in the medieval period in the Roman Catholic Church and the secular plays of the Renaissance such as the plays of Christopher Marlowe and William...
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Shakespeare.
Although it has much less popularity in modern times, the morality play is still around, especially during the Lenten season prior to Easter as an allegorical "everyman" goes on a spiritual journey to moral attributes such as faith, etc. Also, the "everyman" who is influenced by others along his journey in other situations, eventually acquires integrity of character. In other words, both the miracle play and the morality play have moral lessons attached to them, but the miracle, or mystery play usually dramatizes a saint's life whereas the morality play is more allegorical.