IMC 2020: Sessions

Can we clearly distinguish between audiences, participants, performers and producers of medieval religious plays? Are there any borderlines drawn and crossed? Paper (a) asks about the relation between performers and audiences as it is reflected not only in the plays, but especially in records about the plays. Thereby the paper compares English parish plays (organised by small communities) and in city processional plays (i.e. large community ceremonies), with a special focus on York, Chester, and Coventry. Paper (b) compares civic confraternal festivals in Seville, Bruges, etc., with their medieval origins. It focusses on the performative nature of confraternal membership as it is recorded in the late Middle Ages and can be witnessed now. Thereby it considers the deployment of exclusive sign-systems during the festival and looks at how they gesture towards broader, valued and durable social meanings. Paper (c) discusses the role of those, who do not have a described role, but are still considered in medieval liturgical ceremonies as 'homines circumstantes'. The paper focusses on the Bordesholmer Marienklage (1476). It contains a preface, which insists on the fact that this is neither a play nor an entertainment, and still describes who should take which role, and where the 'circumstantes' should be.