_Early Drama._--Before passing to the prose writers of the middle ages, we have to take some notice of the dramatic productions of those times--productions of an extremely interesting character, but, like the immense majority of medieval literature, poetic in form. The origin or the revival of dramatic composition in France has been hotly debated, and it has been sometimes contended that the tradition of Latin comedy was never entirely lost, but was handed on chiefly in the convents by adaptations of the Terentian plays, such as those of the nun Hroswitha. There is no doubt that the mysteries (subjects taken from the sacred writings) and miracle plays (subjects taken from the legends of the saints and the Virgin) are of very early date. The mystery of the _Foolish Virgins_ (partly French, partly Latin), that of _Adam_ and perhaps that of _Daniel_, are of the 12th century, though due to unknown authors. Jean Bodel and Ruteboeuf, already mentioned, gave, the one that of _Saint Nicolas_ at the confines of the 12th and 13th, the other that of _Theophile_ later in the 13th itself. But the later moralities, soties, and farces seem to be also in part a very probable development of the simpler and earlier forms of the fabliau and of the tenson or jeu-parti, a poem in simple dialogue much used by both troubadours and trouveres. The fabliau has been sufficiently dealt with already. It chiefly supplied the subject; and some miracle-plays and farces are little more than fabliaux thrown into dialogue. Of the jeux-partis there are many examples, varying from very simple questions and answers to something like regular dramatic dialogue; even short romances, such as _Aucassin et Nicolette_, were easily susceptible of dramatization. But the _Jeu de la feuillie_ (or _feuillee_) of Adam de la Halle seems to be the earliest piece, profane in subject, containing something more than mere dialogue. The poet has not indeed gone far for his subject, for he brings in his own wife, father and friends, the interest being complicated by the introduction of stock characters (the doctor, the monk, the fool), and of certain fairies--personages already popular from the later romances of chivalry. Another piece of Adam's, _Le Jeu de Robin et Marion_, also already alluded to, is little more than a simple throwing into action of an ordinary pastourelle with a considerable number of songs to music. Nevertheless later criticism has seen, and not unreasonably, in these two pieces the origin in the one case of farce, and thus indirectly of comedy proper, in the other of comic opera. Profane drama.