Theatre in the Middle ages covered a wide variety of genres and subject matter. Some of the most popular genres of plays in the Middle Ages include morality plays, farces, masques and drama. Medieval drama began with religious and moral themed plays. An early prominent Medieval playwright was Hrotsvit of Gardensheim of the 10th century.Some other famous examples of Medieval plays include the N-Town plays, the morality play, Everyman, Hildegard of Bingen’s play set to music, OrdoVirtutum.

The early Medieval period provides few surviving records of Medieval plays due to the low literacy rate of the general population. The clergy was also opposed to some types of performance. Drama began to thrive in the late medieval period, and more records of performances and plays exist from this time.

Theater in the Early Middle Ages

In the early Middle Ages, churches began to stage dramatized versions of important biblical events. The churches were faced with explaining a new religion to a majorly illiterate population, so these dramas visualized what would later be able to be read in the Bible. These productions also celebrated annual religious events. These productions evolved into liturgical dramas. The earliest known liturgical drama is the Easter trope, Whom do you Seek, which dates circa 925. Liturgical drama did not involve actors impersonating characters, but it did involve singing by two groups.

An important playwright in early Medieval times was Hrotsvit, a historian and aristocratic canoness from northern Germany in the 10th century. Hrotsvit wrote six plays which she modeled after Terence’s comedies. Though Terence’s comedies show ordinary human subjects and situations involving