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The Medieval Prompter: A Reinterpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2010

William L. Tribby
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Extract

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, on the stages of England and France, there appeared a figure whose presence gives to the period a certain uniqueness. The prompter, usually functioning in other capacities and holding additional names, would seem to have been established in the theatre at this time; for the scholarship on the Greek and Roman theatre has, as yet, revealed no such person. Nor is there any suggestion of the presence of the prompter in liturgical drama. None of this, of course, rules out the possibility of the use of such a person; however, even if used in Athens, Rome, or the cathedral, he undoubtedly never held the prominence he enjoyed in that brief period of what we have been told was onstage glory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , May 1964 , pp. 71 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1964

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References

NOTES

1 “Three Notes on the Medieval Theatre,” Theatre Notebook, XVI (Winter, 1961–62), p. 61.

2 In Richard Carew of Antony; The Survey of Cornwall, ed. Frank. E. Halliday (London: Andrew Melrose, 1953), p. 25.

3 Ibid., p. 77.

4 Ibid., p. 57.

5 Ibid., p. 145.

6 Mysteries' End (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946), p. 72.

7 Clarke, Sidney W., The Miracle Play in England (London: William Andrews and Co., 1897), pp. 63–64.Google Scholar

8 Wickham, Glynne, Early English Stages (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959), vol. I, p. 297.Google Scholar

9 The Medieval Theatre in the Round (London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1957), p. 87.

10 Clarke, p. 59.

11 Wickham, p. 306.

12 “Notes sur L'Organisation des Représentations Théâtrales en France au Moyen-Âge,” Mélanges d'Histoire du Théâtre du Moyen-Âge et de la Renaissance Offerts à Gustave Cohen (Paris: Librairie Nizet, 1950), p. 213.

13 The Medieval French Drama (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), p. 170.

14 Sadron, p. 213.

15 Le Livre de Conduite du Régisseur et le Compte des Dépenses pour le Mystère de la Passion Joué à Mons en 1501 (Strasbourg: Librairie Istra, 1925), p. cv.

16 Wickham, pp. 302–305.

17 Cohen, p. lxxii.

18 Cohen, , Études d'Histoire du Théâtre en France au Moyen-Âge et à la Renaissance, 7th ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1956), p. 51.Google Scholar

19 Norris, Hubert, Church Vestments: Their Origin and Development (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1949), p. 161.Google Scholar

20 Trans. J. E. L. Oulton (London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1932), vol. II, p. 103.

21 Butler, Alban, Butler's Lives of the Saints, rev. and ed. by Thurston, Herbert and Attwater, Donald (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, Ltd., 1956), vol. I, p. 286.Google Scholar

22 Julleville, Louis Petit de, Histoire due Théâtre en France: Les Mystères (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1880), vol. II, pp. 531–533.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., pp. 504–506.

24 Cohen, , Le Livre, pp. xlvii–xlviii.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., p. xcv.

26 A History of Theatrical Art in Ancient and Modern Times, vol. II: The Middle Ages and the Renaissance, trans. Louise von Cossel (London: Duckworth and Co., 1903), p. 65.

27 Chambers, Edmund K., The Medieval Stage (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903), vol. II, p. 140.Google Scholar

28 Nagler, Alois M., A Source Book in Theatrical History (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1952), p. 51.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., p. 52.

30 Ibid., p. 51.

31 As reproduced in Southern's The Seven Ages of the Theatre (New York, Hill and Wang, 1961), plate 4.