The Christus Redivivus of Nicholas Grimald and the Hegge Resurrection Plays

Abstract

The three scholars, J. M. Hart, F. S. Boas, and L. R. Merrill, who have in recent years done most to call the Christus Redivivus to the attention of general readers and scholars have without exception emphasized especially the element of the Miles Gloriosus utilized in the early drama by Grimald with astonishing elaborateness and effectiveness. The four soldiers stationed by Pilate to guard the sepulchre of Christ are used by Grimald in apparently a more original manner than in any other single situation in the religious drama of the sixteenth century in England. Hart merely calls attention to the presence of the Miles Gloriosus elements in the play. Boas makes a great deal of it, emphasizing Grimald's ability to vary his style to suit the changing speakers and occasions. He gives an elaborate description of the most interesting scenes of the play in which the four bragging soldiers appear. “It would be interesting,” he says, “to know whether Grimald confided to Airy that he had later models than Plautus, and that in his tragi-comic treatment of a Biblical theme he had been influenced by at least one of the continental humanist playwrights, Barptholomaeus Lochiensis, whose Christus Xylonicus, first published at Paris in 1529, had been re-issued at Antwerp in 1537, and by Johan Gymnicus at Cologne in 1541. . . . . The action of Christus Xylonicus ends with the burial in the garden tomb, . . . .” Merrill in his very valuable contribution to the Grimald field of scholarship lays considerable emphasis upon the element of the bragging soldiers around the grave of Christ, and points out convincing evidence of the indebtedness of one of Sebastian Wilde's plays to this portion of the Christus Redivivus.