Volume 11, Issue 2 - Special Issue: New Perspectives on Biblical Drama; Guest Editors: Sarah Fengler and Dinah Wouters

This contribution offers a survey of the field of biblical drama research and of several approaches. It makes a plea for a transnational approach of studying early modern drama, especially biblical drama. Such a transnational approach is a continuation of many of these earlier approaches, makes use of some and breaks with others. The contribution also shows that it is important to include Neo-Latin drama in the study of early modern drama at the cost of losing sight on a crucial constituent part of the development of this drama and this theatre. Neo-Latin drama contributed to the knowledge and reception of the Bible among the elites and among the ordinary people who attended performances of these plays or of one of the many translations and adapations.

This paper examines a ground-breaking innovation to medieval Easter plays: the creation of the extra-biblical merchant scene, in which the Marys purchase spices prior to their Visitatio Sepulchri . The patron of its earliest known representation was the female religious leader Uta von Kirchberg. An illuminated roundel in the Uta Codex she commissioned towards the end of her term as abbess of Niedermünster (1002–25), depicts the Holy women purchasing spices from a spice merchant. Until the twelfth century, this remained the only representation of an Easter merchant scene, visual or textual. The only textual Easter merchant scene predating the thirteenth century is within the twelfth-century Latin/Catalan Ludus Paschalis of Vic Cathedral, near Barcelona, a highly influential Easter text whose transnational impact has been traced in numerous later Easter texts across Europe, including many with merchant scenes. Around 2000, musicologists David Wulstan and Constant Mews suggested the renowned composer and poet Heloise (c. 1090s–1164) as its author. Widely accepted by musicologists, their attribution’s significance for the female impact on the merchant scene is barely acknowledged. Here, I ask: ‘how did women influence the creation, promotion and development of the merchant scene’s visual, textual and performative manifestations?’ By repeatedly reattributing responsibility for decisive input into the development of the merchant scene from anonymous male scribes to identified female religious leaders, my interdisciplinary analysis moves women to the centre of this creative process.

Chambers of Rhetoric in Flanders, Brabant, Holland and Zeeland opened themselves up to the new religious ideas, especially in the 1530s. These were discussed among their members and the Scriptures were read and conversed upon. The results of their reflections were written down and performed in allegorical plays ( spelen van sinne ), biblical plays, refrains and songs. In this essay particular attention will be paid to how the staging of biblical figures and stories was not only a means to propagate the new “evangelical” ideas among the audience, but also a way to criticize the persecution of the same by the imperial and ecclesiastical authorities. To that purpose a closer analysis is offered of a play entitled De Bekeeringe Pauli ( The Conversion of Paul ), which was based upon Acts 9:1–19. Most probably the play was created by the Chamber of Rhetoric De Goudbloem ( Marigold ), which was active in Vilvoorde near Brussels. The essay will further illustrate how these “religiously-politically incorrect” plays induced the authorities to take increasingly stringent measures against the performance of rhetoricians’ plays in the Low Countries.

This article studies a way in which Lope de Vega used biblical theatre as a vehicle for historiographical interpretation. The article does so by situating elements from a number of Lope’s religious comedias in the context of what has recently been described as Golden Age Spain’s “aesthetic-historical culture.” The study begins with an analysis of intersections of history and the Bible in Lope’s La hermosa Ester . The second half comprises a reconstruction of the role of the Bible in Lope’s poetics. Via this two-pronged strategy, the article makes a case for seeing a feature of Lope’s biblical comedias as part of said aesthetic-historical culture of early modern Spain and proposes a way to understand the historiographical profile of Lope’s biblical drama. This leads to the claim that Lope’s biblical drama effectively contributed to the attribution of a new generic mixture to understandings and interpretations of the course of history itself. This interpretation invites a highly open-ended approach to the end of time between ruin and redemption.

This article examines the shift in popularity from religious to historical and political drama from the late sixteenth century onward, particularly focusing on plays about the patriarch Joseph. The study explores how new historiographical approaches influenced the portrayal of biblical narratives, transforming them to reflect contemporary interests in politics and court life. By analyzing a selection of primarily Jesuit plays, the article demonstrates how the biblical story of Joseph was adapted to align with the baroque fascination for ancient history and the emerging trend of political drama. The shift in Jesuit drama during the baroque period from biblical to more secular subjects is evident in the dramatizations of Joseph’s story, which often incorporate elements of historical exegesis and elaborate depictions of ancient societies, particularly that of Egypt. These plays illustrate how the story of Joseph was recontextualized within a framework of international politics, war, and court intrigue, introducing new characters, plotlines, and subplots. This intermixing of genres reflects a broader tendency in early modern drama to blend sacred and secular elements, resulting in hybrid forms that straddled the line between biblical drama and history plays. The article concludes that this blending not only revitalized biblical drama but also helped bridge the gap between declining religious plays and the rising popularity of political and historical narratives.