fought for the possession of the most recent mounds as highest points of
vantage? Those whose dead lay buried there raised effectual outcries
against this desecration. To go back into the church seemed impossible.
The next move had to be into the street. It was at this point that there
set in that alienation of the Church from the Stage which was never
afterwards removed. Clerical actors were forbidden to play in the
streets. As an inevitable consequence, the learned language, Latin, was
replaced more and more by the people's own tongue. Soon the festivals
assumed a nature which the stricter clergy could not view with approval.
From miles around folk gathered together for merriment and trading.
There were bishops who now denounced public plays as instruments of the
devil.

Thus the drama, having outgrown its infancy, passed from the care of the
Church into the hands of the Laity. It took with it a tradition of
careful acting, a store of Biblical subjects, a fair variety of
characters--including a thundering Herod and a mischievous Devil--and
some measure of freedom in dialogue. It gained a native language and a
boundless popularity. But for many long years after the separation the
_Epiphany Plays_ continued to be acted in the churches, and by their
very existence possibly kept intact the link with religion which
preserved for the public Mysteries and Miracles an attitude of soberness
and reverence in the hearts of their spectators. The so-called _Coventry
Play_ of the fifteenth century is a testimony to the persistence of the
serious religious element in the final stage of these popular Bible
plays.

[Footnote 1: Mr. E.K. Chambers's translation.]

[Footnote 2: Mr. E.K. Chambers's translation.]