Conflict resolution in the medieval morality plays

Abstract

From the dawn of history the drama has been one of society's principal mechanisms for resolving social and psychological conflicts. Dramatic narrative straightens out and simplifies a confused situation; it purifies and channels the release of conflicting emotions. Drama addresses itself to three general types of conflicts: 1) conflicts between socioeconomic classes or political factions; 2) conflicts between the individual and society or god; 3) intrapsychic conflicts. Although for the elite, staged indoors and employing themes of interest only to the well-educated, may deal successfully with the second and third types of conflicts, a truly whose audience is comprised of all segments of the community has a more far-reaching practical effect in treating social or political conflicts. In England, the last great age of popular theater was the late Middle Ages. The mystery plays, vernacular presentations of the Biblical history of the world from the Creation to Doomsday, staged in the streets of scores of towns by members of the craft guilds, attracted large audiences from about 1350 until suppressed by the Reformation in about 1575 for political reasons. This universal popularity with all segments of the population over a period of two hundred years, without any change in the scripts, is unsurpassed by any other form of drama in English. The morality plays enjoyed a similar popularity from about 1400 to 1600. These moralities centered on the life of the individual Christian, portrayed as a generalized type-figure such as Mankind or Everyman, and emphasized his fall from grace, his death, and his eventual salvation through the intercession of a divine figure, usually Christ or the Virgin. Unlike the mystery plays, which employed amateurs and did not charge admission, the morality plays, were acted by troops of wandering professional players who performed in innyards or on specially-constructed outdoor stages before paying audiences of country people, sometimes running as large as four thousand (Southern, 1958, pp. 58-59). Both the mystery and morality plays are interesting vehicles for the solution of both social and intrapsychic conflicts among the uneducated or partially-educated bulk of the population.

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