Another popular folk tradition was re-enacting stories of the lives of the saints, especially if they were martyred, in what were called miracle plays. Here we see the suffering and death of one of the early saints persecuted by the Romans, recreated by a group of vigorous working men sometime in the late Middle Ages. Think of it as "St. Bridget Gets into Bondage." Note the long tongs, perhaps for teeth extraction. Obviously the players really get into the action portion of the presentation. The two solemn figures standing behind poor Bridget probably represent a Roman judge and the angel of the Lord. The folk tradition reminds us that vigorous physical action is important in Shakespeare's drama - lots of blood and bodies and severed heads.

Look at the audience. Even in this painting it's clear that they are active, including one guy in the back who holds what appears to be the same air horn you hear at Oakland A's games. Not everyone is paying attention; many are probably waiting to "go on" themselves to perform their skit. Furthermore, there doesn't seem to be any separation between the stage and audience. Nothing sets the actors apart, except their participation in an imaginary event. Much of this same spirit infused the Elizabethan theater where people clustered around the stage. In fact if a person were willing to pay a high price and wanted a really good seat, he could have a chair right on the stage for the performance!

The third root of Shakespeare's dramas came from an early form of the theater popular among the upper classes in the late Middle Ages. These stylized dramas, called morality plays, treated serious religious themes allegorically, having characters represent abstract concepts, such as "salvation" or "vice." They played out fundamental issues of moral conduct in melodramatic action with richly designed costumes and settings, as we see here. It's no surprise that the evil characters were often more vivid than the good guys.

The morality play kinds of characters are still found sometimes in Shakespeare. The rather bland figure of Richmond in Richard III is a kind of allegorical alternative to Richard's bad guy. Shakespeare's great comic character, Sir John Falstaff, has a lot of similarities to the figure of Vice in the old morality plays.