Again, the laicization of the drama was accompanied by a further development of the secular and even comic elements, of which the germs already existed in the plays. A more human and less distinctively ecclesiastical handling became possible[298]. The figure of Herod offered a melodramatic type of ranting tyrant which the tradition of the stage did not readily forget. The life of the unconverted Magdalen _in gaudio_ gave the dramatist his opportunity to paint scenes of wholly secular luxury and romance. Naturally the comic developments attached themselves largely to personalities not already defined in the Testament narratives. The _Mercator_, for instance, whose domesticities with his wife and his apprentice do so much to enliven the later German plays, is a thoroughly characteristic production of the mediaeval folk spirit, for the delectation of which Rutebeuf wrote the _Dit de l’Erberie_[299]. It is not, perhaps, altogether unjustifiable to trace a relation between him and the inveterate quack doctor of the spring folk drama itself[300]. This would not be the only point of contact between the _ludi_ of the Church and those of the folk. The significance, from this point of view, of Balaam’s ass has already been touched upon[301]. And in the growth of the devil scenes, from their first beginnings in the _Sponsus_ or in the devil-deacon of the _Tollite portas_[302], to their importance in the _Adam_ or the various treatments of the Fall of Lucifer and the Harrowing of Hell, may we not trace the influence of those masked and blackened demon figures who from all time had been a dear scandal of the Kalends and the Feast of Fools[303]? It is certain that the imps who sallied amongst the spectators and haled the Fathers off to their limbo of clashed kettles and caldrons must have been an immensely popular feature of the _Adam_; and it is noteworthy that in more than one place the _compagnies joyeuses_ who inherited the Feast of Fools joined forces with more serious _confréries_ and provided comic actors for the religious plays[304].