The paper reads George Buchanan’s tragedy Baptistes (in the printed version, which is a palimpsest of the original version written in exile) as a companion-piece to his polemic dialogue De Jure Regni apud Scotos. Both texts are directed against contemporary ‘tyrants’ and false councillors, and the latter explicitly against the royal secretary William Maitland. The paper discusses the tensions between Calvinist critique against theatre and Buchanan’s play that reveals an aggressive rhetoric far beyond the expectations of a school play. The fact that the Calvinist Reformation remained vitally adept in the deployment of dramatic device is finally realized in the highly dramatic dialogue De Iure Regni apud Scotos.

Scholars have long been puzzled by the ‘liturgical drama’ representing the journey of the magi in the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Nouv. acq. lat. 1235; many analyses have interpreted the confusing aspects of the material as scribal errors. Through a close reading of the material, this paper argues that it is possible — and even reasonable — to understand all details of the scribal work as accurate and valid. Doing so offers a broader understanding of how such biblical narratives and representations were incorporated into the liturgical practices of Nevers.

Funcklin, Jakob, Die Bühne als Kanzel — Das Spiel vom reichen Mann und armen Lazarus (1550) — Das Spiel von der Auferweckung des Lazarus (1552), ed. by Max Schiendorfer, 2 vols (Glenn Ehrstine) Henri de Barran, Mankind Justified by Faith. Tragicomedy (1554), introduction and English verse trans. by Richard Hillman (Cora Dietl) Le théâtre néo-latin en France aux xvie siècle: Études et anthologie, ed. by Mathieu Ferrand, in collaboration with Sylvie Laigneau-Fontaine (Dinah Wouters) John Lydgate, The ‘Dance of Death’, and its Model, the French ‘Danse Macabre’, ed. by Clifford Davidson and Sophie Oosterwijk (Lenke Kovács) Kathryn Dickason, Ringleaders of Redemption: How Medieval Dance Became Sacred (Philip Knäble) Staging History: Essays in Late Medieval and Humanist Drama, ed. by Peter Happé and Wim Hüsken (Roberta Mullini) Chanita Goodblatt, Jewish and Christian Voices in English Reformation Biblical Drama: Enacting Family and Monarchy (Cora Dietl) Jill P. Ingram, Festive Enterprise: The Business of Drama in Medieval and Renaissance England (Elisabeth Dutton)Matthew Sergi, Practical Cues and Social Spectacle in the Chester Plays (Mark Chambers) Daisy Black, Play Time: Gender, Anti-Semitism and Temporality in Medieval Biblical Drama (Chanita Goodblatt) Good Tidings Made Visible: Re-Enactments of the Nativity from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. by Lenke Kovács and Francesc Massip (Josefa Fernández Martín) Laura Mier, El amor a escena (1520–1535) (Elena Moncayola Santos)

What is theatricality in Versus de Unibove? Is there a theatre of situations in this text? Can the folklore, the remote inspiration of this poem, be linked to some form of theatricality? This article analyses the theatricality of Versus de Unibove, often emphasised by many scholars, but never exhaustively addressed.

In the richly diverse cultural scene of medieval and early modern Yorkshire West Riding, music predominates. This paper, using ongoing research for the REED collection of records of performance in this county, provides a selective survey of musical activity in abbeys, noble households, towns, villages, schools, alehouses, and private homes. The survey must go beyond the county, for West Riding musicians toured the region and noblemen imported instruments, hired music teachers from elsewhere, and rewarded players along the routes from Yorkshire to London and back.

The contribution explores an iconic object used in German Passion plays related to the Passion of Christ: the sudarium. Veronica emerged as a very popular saint in the later Middle Ages. Her shroud showing Christ’s face was similarly popular. Its theatrical visualization is related to a practice of piety that prefers a visual approach to holy things. The figure and the artefact gain importance in late medieval plays, where Veronica appears as a preaching figure, providing access to God by her shroud. The paper focusses on the Frankfurt Passion Play and the Alsfeld Passion Play, which reveal different ways of framing the presence of Christ by verbal commentary and underlining the pictorial mode of the sudarium.

This paper investigates how the performance of devotion and faith by female elites in fifteenth-century francophone Metz contributed to the creation of community narratives and cultural memory. Concentrating on Catherine Gronnaix, a wealthy patrician and key patron of the parish church of St-Martin, it embeds her personal religious practices and those of her peers within this space and its material culture. Analysis of the sculpture, murals, and windows of the Notre Dame chapel reveals that, over time, use of these images shaped a local paradigm of women’s performance in which female practice was elevated on the basis of a gendered capacity to nurture and bring forth sanctity.