Bit Part or Leading Role? Confraternal Drama Studies in the Academy

Abstract

As one who has written on confraternal plays in churches in fifteenth-century Florence – but only on the Left Bank – I am aware of the absurdity of claiming that the study of confraternal drama is absolutely centre stage in the humanities curriculum. Even so, I shall work from the premise that research on confraternities and confraternal drama is relevant to institutional and national research priorities, and I shall argue that the trend towards “scholarship in teaching” is making it more possible than ever to break away from the literary canon and out of the literary exegesis mould of Language and Literature departments to bring exciting new research to students in programs of medieval or Renaissance or performance studies as well as to those in the traditional disciplines. For this short exploration of some recent trends and future directions, I shall examine drama in a context that includes all forms of public and private confraternal and gild performance ranging from purposeful ritual to carnival entertainment,1 and I am looking at a long Renaissance, from the very-early-modern fourteenth century through to the late seventeenth century. Confraternities preserved the trappings of late medieval lay piety through the rediscovery of antiquity and well into the sixteenth century and in some cases beyond the Council of Trent. They adapted the old subjects and the old forms to new exigencies and opportunities; they adopted new technologies to achieve spectacular effects;2 they developed new devotions and new performances.