Plays as Play: A Medieval Ethical Theory of Performance and the Intellectual Context of the Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge

"Plays as Play: A Medieval Ethical Theory of Performance and the Intellectual Context of the Tretire of Miraclis Pleyinge." Within the larger history of the medieval church's attitude toward drama and performance lies a distinct scholastic theory that conceives of performance in the context of an ethical approach to playing. The theory is developed within the medieval reception of the Nicomachean Ethics, principally through the treatment of the Aristotelian virtue of eutrapelia in the commentaries of Albert and Thomas, and also within more explicitly Christian distinctiones on play. The theory judges playing on the basis of moral rather than formal criteria and thus often mentions performance alongside non-dramatic kinds of play. Understanding this habit of mind allows one to see how the two parts of the Middle English Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge cohere, and it makes Lawrence M. Clopper's recent reinterpretation of "miracle" unnecessary in order to establish the work's unity. The theory also seems embedded in some of the cycle drama's reflexive references to play, particularly in the Towneley passion sequence.