was allowed to perform on condition of avoiding any 'chose contre Dieu'. In 1549 the scholars played a comedy of Terence in a meadow, and received a gift of two crowns for a banquet. In 1551 the council forbade the recitation of a ballade by Abel Poupin at a banquet, but sanctioned a 'petite farce de joyeuseté' for recreation's sake. In 1558 the seigneurs of Berne paid a visit to Geneva and one Maître Enoch proposed a play on a subject taken from the Berne armoiries of Jupiter and Europa, and another on the execution of five Berne scholars at Lyons. This application was referred to Calvin for a report. In 1560 the reprinting of Beza's tragedy of Abraham's Sacrifice was approved by the consistory. In 1561 Conrad Badius's comedy of Le Pape Malade was performed in the college hall and afterwards printed, and permission was also given for a comedy by Jerome Wyart, 'si M. Calvin est de cet avis'. An interval of some years without plays followed, until in 1568 the series was resumed with Jacques Bienvenu's comedy of Le Monde Malade et Mal Pansé.[1] It is hardly necessary to carry the record further, since the proof is sufficient that, whatever the private opinions of some of the ministers may have been, the actual working of the theocracy was not inconsistent with the production, under a careful censorship, of academic or bourgeois plays, or even, although more rarely, of entertainments of the type afforded by a professional tragechieur. It was not until 1572 that the Synod of Nîmes passed a constitution for the whole of the French reformed churches, by which all plays, other than those of a strictly educational character, were forbidden.[2]
It must be doubtful whether even this decree would have fully met the views of Michel Cop and his supporters. At any rate, it is possible to trace the growth of a sentiment amongst English theologians of the Calvinistic persuasion,
- ↑ Calvin, Opera, xxi. 406, 450, 684, 734; Roget, ii. 238, 243; iii. 139; vi. 192; Doumergue, iii. 579, sqq.
- ↑ Discipline des Églises Réformées, ch. xiv, art. 28 (Bulletin de la Soc. de l'Hist, du Protestantisme, xxxv. 211), 'Il ne sera aussi permis aux fidèles d'assister aux comédies, tragédies, farces, moralités et autres jeux, joués en public ou en particulier, vu que de tout temps cela a été défendu entre chrétiens, comme apportant corruption de bonnes mœurs, mais surtout quand l'Écriture sainte est profanée; néanmoins, quand, dans un collège, il sera trouvé utile à la jeunesse de représenter quelque histoire, on la pourra tolérer pourvu qu'elle ne soit comprise en l'Écriture sainte, qui n'est pas donnée pour être jouée, mais purement prêchée, et aussi que cela se fasse rarement et par l'avis du Colloque qui en verra la composition.' The original decree of the Synod of Poitiers in 1560, to which this was an addition, only laid down that 'les momeries et batelleries ne seront point souffertes, ni faire le Roi boit, ni le Mardi gras'.
