Tag Archives: medieval

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Props and Animals in the English Mystery Plays, 1906

The following comes from a 1906 master’s thesis by Allie V. Parks titled, “Stage Properties, Costumes, Scenery and Music of the English Miracle Plays” (see part 1 here and part 2 here). These were religious pageants performed in England from the 10th to the 16th centuries. I’ve reformatted the text a bit to make it a little more readable, since it is already challenging trying to decipher the Middle English text:

In the Crucifixion scene a cross seemed actually to be used. Chambers quotes on page 276 from “The Hall book of the Corporation at Leicester, 1504. Paid for mending the garment of Jesus and the cross painting“. In the Shakespeare Society Chester Plays, in the play ‘The Histories of Lot and Abraham’ p. 59. here the Messenger doth offer to Melchesadecke a standinge cupe and bredde, and again on page 61, Here Lotte dothe offer to Melchesadecke a goodly cupe. Undoubtedly a cup was part of the properties in this play. On page 72 Abraham is directed to “kisse his sonne Isaake, and bynde a charchaffe aboute his heade“. Page 49 of the same edition, in the ‘Noah’ play, the following directions regarding the building of the Ark occur: Then Noye with all his family shall make a signe as though the wroughte upon the shippe with diverse instruments, and after that God shall speake to Noye, sayinge,

This direction would seem to show that a sort of pantomimic performance was gone through with and not any real work in the Ark building.

I found one reference to the use of straw, on page 370 of Chambers ‘Mediaeval Plays’ in the accounts of the Trinity House at Hull, Yorkshire: “Straw, for Noah and his children ijd.”

The stage directions for the use of animals are very few. The Chester Plays of the Shakespeare Society give on page 74, Then let Abraham take the lambe and kille him, and on page 150, Then the kinges goe downe to the beastes and ryde aboute. It seems hardly probable that Abraham really offered a lamb in place of his son, but he may have gone through the motions of doing so. This is the only stage direction in any of the cycles which might lead to the supposition that a lamb was really used for the sacrifice.

I have already quoted the directions for the use of horses on page 150, Then the kinges goe down to the beastes and ryde aboute. There is one other reference to the use of horses on page 253 of this edition of the Chester Plays, in ‘The Entry Into Jerusalem,’ Here Cryst rydyth out of the place; The animal may have been an ass; there is nothing to indicate what animal he rode upon.

There is one stage direction regarding the use of fowls in the Coventry cycle. This occurs on page 178 as follows: and ther Mary offery the ffowlys onto the auterre, and seyth.

Parks, Allie V. “Stage Properties, Costumes, Scenery and Music of the English Miracle Plays.” Thesis. University of Illinois, 1906. Internet Archive, 29 Oct. 2013. Web. 18 Oct. 2016. <https://archive.org/details/stagepropertiesc00park>.

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Fire in the English Mystery Plays, 1906

The following comes from a 1906 master’s thesis by Allie V. Parks titled, “Stage Properties, Costumes, Scenery and Music of the English Miracle Plays” (see part 1 here). These were religious pageants performed in England from the 10th to the 16th centuries. I’ve reformatted the text a bit to make it a little more readable, since it is already challenging trying to decipher the Middle English text:

In regard to the use of fire on the Mystery stage, Mr. L. W. Cushman in “The Devil And The Vice,” says on page 24, “None of the great Mystery-cycles contain, in the stage directions, any mention of the use of fire. Sharp found in the account books only one entry for fire in hell-mouth and that of a late date; 1557, “Item payd for keeping of fyre at hell mouth iiijd.”

In the ‘York Plays,’ however, Lucifer complains at the time of his fall, of intollerable heat, “alyke hat,” 5/97 and again, he complains of the heat and smoke, which rolls up from below, “ye smore me in smoke, 5/117.” This statement may easily be disproved by the following stage directions, in the ‘Abraham and Isaac Play’ already quoted, p. 65, Heare Abraham taketh a sworde and fire, shows that fire was used on the stage.

On page 391 of Mediaeval Plays, Chambers gives stage directions of a very early play, at Cornwall, “Lucifer voydeth & goeth downe to hell apareled fowle with fyre about hem turning to hell and every degre of devylls of lether & spirytis on cordis runing into ye playne and so remayne ther.” In the stage directions of the Chester cycle by the Early English Text Society, p. 42, Then a flame shall Descende upon the sacrifice of abell.

Parks, Allie V. “Stage Properties, Costumes, Scenery and Music of the English Miracle Plays.” Thesis. University of Illinois, 1906. Internet Archive, 29 Oct. 2013. Web. 18 Oct. 2016. <https://archive.org/details/stagepropertiesc00park>.

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Properties of the English Miracle Plays, 1906

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The following comes from a 1906 master’s thesis by Allie V. Parks titled, “Stage Properties, Costumes, Scenery and Music of the English Miracle Plays.” These were religious pageants performed in England from the 10th to the 16th centuries. I’ve reformatted the text a bit to make it a little more readable, since it is already challenging trying to decipher the Middle English text:

We find in the stage direction mention of the stage properties as follows.

  • In the Coventry Mysteries page 249 — and ther xal be a lytil oratory with stolys and cusshonys clenly be- seyn plyche as it were a counsel-hous.
  • page 259- Here Petyr and John gon forth metyng with Symon leprows beryng a kan with watyr.
  • page 261- Here Cryst enteryth into the hous with his dispiclis, and ete the Paschas lomb.
  • page 277-  Here he takyth the basyn and the towaly-
  • p. 283 — and some dyagyaed in odyr garments with swerdys, gleynys, and other straunge wepons, with feyr and lanternys and torchis lyth.
  • p 296- Here thei xal bete Jhesus about the hed and the body— and settyn hym on a stol, and castyn a cloth ovyr his face-
  • p. 316 And qwhem he is skorgyd, thei put upon him a cloth of sylk, and settyn hym on a stol, and puttyn a kroune of thornys on hese hed with forkys; and the Jewys knelyng to Cryst, taking hym a septer and skorning him, and than thei xal pullyn of the purpyl clothe, and don on ageyn his owyn clothis; and leyn the crosse in hese necke to berynt, and drawyn hym forth with ropys.
  • p. 335– a ladder to take Cryst from the cross.
  • p. 337–  and leve the Maryes at the Sephulchere.
  • p. 336 Here thei shall leyn Cryst in his grave.

The last named reference would seem to indicate that some sort of grave or tomb was one of the stage properties of this play.

  • p. 332–Pylat, Annas and Cayphas go to ther skaffaldys.
  • p. 25- Then God douthe make the woman of the ribbe of Adam.

It would seem that a rib-bone was actually used in the creation scene. On p 388 of Chambers ‘Medieval Stage’ in the inventory of the Company of Grocers, Whitsun Plays, this item also relating to the rib occurs, A Rybbe colleyrd Red.

Another reference to the use of swords on the stage, occurs in the stage directions of the ‘Chester Plays,’ Early English Text Society edition, page 81.  “Here Abraham takes and binds his sonne Isaake upon the alter, and makes a signe as though he would cut of his head with the sword; then the angell comes and takes the ends and stayeth it saying”—

In the Chester Plays by the Shakespeare Society p. 65, Heare Abraham taketh a sword and fier. In this play also Abraham is directed to take a “sorde” and make as though he would cut of his son’s head.

Chambers in The Mediaeval Stage, p. 377, from “The Hall book of the Corporation of at Leicester” gives, 1546-7 Pd. for makynge of a sworde & payntinge of the same for Harroode. This sword was probably made of wood, as it required painting, and on page 345- For the hyre of a sworde. On page 345 are also items of expense, For two bagges of leder, and For gunpowder.

Parks, Allie V. “Stage Properties, Costumes, Scenery and Music of the English Miracle Plays.” Thesis. University of Illinois, 1906. Internet Archive, 29 Oct. 2013. Web. 18 Oct. 2016. <https://archive.org/details/stagepropertiesc00park>.

Useful Sites

Friday Links

Only 11 more days to enter the world’s greatest Prop Building Guidebook Contest! Don’t wait until the last minute! More importantly, starting this Monday (April 22), your friends, family and colleagues can vote for your entry. The prop with the most votes on April 30th will win $100 worth of Focal Press books. You can vote once a day, so be sure your friends know to vote early, and vote often. Now, onto the links:

Harrison Krix (of Volpin Props fame) has an article up at Tested.Com detailing the making of a mask from the video game Bioshock. It’s a great example of using “slices” to help make a precise carving, and the cracked paint treatment is an interesting technique as well.

Another replica prop maker, Bill Doran (of Punished Props fame) is doing a live Google Hangout tomorrow (Saturday, April 23rd, at 3:00pm EST) where he answers your prop-making questions. With a Google Hangout, you can watch live from your computer as it happens. You can also participate if you have a webcam and questions (Bill gives you the details in the post I linked to). Finally, the whole thing is recorded, so you can watch the whole thing on YouTube after it finishes (I’ll post the link in the comments once it goes up).

Here is a blog of random medieval imagery, mostly taken from manuscripts.

Awake the Trumpet’s Lofty Sound, ca 1283-1300 BCE
Awake the Trumpet’s Lofty Sound, ca 1283-1300 BCE

Finally, Chris Schwartz ruminates on technical perfection when building something, and whether it is necessary.

 

Education

Why the term “prop master”?

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Why do we use the term “property master”? In our modern world of “directors”, “managers”, and “heads”, why use the word “master”? Where does it come from?

The term “property master” is in reference to the old European guild systems. In a guild, a person would apprentice to a master for several years, learning the trade. He (or she) would then become a journeyman, traveling from one master to the next, practicing their craft in exchange for housing and a daily wage. Finally, one would apply to the guild for membership, often having to complete a masterpiece showing competence in your given trade. Only a master could run their own shop. Thus, a props master denotes one who is proficient in the craft of props, and is qualified to run a props shop.

Did props people actually belong to a guild in the Middle Ages? Probably not; as seen in my previous post, guilds supplied the props for Medieval pageants. Thus, the bread was supplied by the master bakers, and the ships provided by master shipwrights. A “property-master” would be redundant. It would appear that the term did not exist while guilds were predominant in Europe.

The term “property” was used in a theatrical sense since at least 1425 A.D. We have evidence of what these properties are from the late Middle Ages on through the Elizabethan Period. We know that the companies accumulated and stored props, that they commissioned special props from the guilds, and that the actors themselves would supply a lot of the more personal props. However, we don’t know the term for the person who would head the organization of all these props. Perhaps there was none, and the duties were split between the owners, managers, and artists of the company.

We first hear about a general “property-man” in 1749. W.R. Chetwood’s A General History of the Stage describes a property-man as “the person that receives a bill from the prompter for what is necessary in every play; as purses, wine, suppers, poison [etc.]”. The earliest occurrence of the term “property-master” I could dig up is in England in 1831. This sentence appears in “The Royal Lady’s Magazine”:

The other parts were filled as usual, Curioni being the Idreno, and Lablache the Assur. Curioni makes a woful [sic] mistake in dressing himself like a Cherokee Indian: somebody should instruct him, that there is more than one India, and that he errs in thinking he is king of that which is in the west. Talking of costume, cannot the property-master find something more resembling a crown than the bottomless tin-pot which is at present stuck on Arsace’s head.

The Royal Lady’s Magazine. July, 1831 (pg. 56)

It would appear than that the head property-man began to be called a property master well after the guilds had begun their decline. This terminology is also confusing because a props shop does not operate as a guild in the legal sense. Some occupations, such as electricians or contractors, are required to be licensed, which is similar to the requirement that a crafts-person belong to a guild in order to participate or run a shop. A property master does not need a license nor any specific schooling or degrees to operate.

Unofficially of course, a props career still operates like a guild in many ways. I began as an “apprentice in props”, followed by a property carpenter journeyman position at the Santa Fe Opera. The Actors Theatre of Louisville where I once worked also hires journeyman. (Check out “The Wanderers“, an interesting look at the modern revival of journeymen artisans in Europe.) The idea, if not the name, of journeyman can be seen in the career paths of many theatre artisans as they travel from theater to theater taking a variety of seasonal and over-hire positions to build their resumes and portfolios.

You don’t hear a lot about formal apprenticeships anymore, where a beginner spends five to seven years cleaning the shop of a master in exchange for knowledge and housing. Many theaters have apprentice programs (sometimes called “internships”) which last for a season or a year, some of which are quite good. There are of course, many other theaters which hire apprentices and interns and use them merely as cheap labor, imparting no guidance or knowledge whatsoever. We all like the satisfaction of solving a problem on our own, but the value of being taught the basics in the beginning cannot be underestimated. It is highly inefficient for so many people to be reinventing the wheel every year in theatre, especially when there so many more worthy prop challenges.

But I digress. What I’ve described here is the most reasonable sounding theory I’ve heard on why the head of a props department is called a “property-master”. If you’ve ever heard your own theories, or heard additional evidence either for or against this one, let me know!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2006/jul/15/careers.work5