Note 338 — Chapter XX · THE SECULARIZATION OF THE PLAYS
Reading edition
The provincial C. of Sens (1460), c. 3 (Labbé, xiii. 1728), while confirming the Basle decree, allowed ‘aliquid iuxta consuetudines ecclesiae, in Nativitate Domini, vel Resurrectione ... fiat cum honestate et pace, absque prolongatione, impedimento, vel diminutione servitii, larvatione et sordidatione faciei’; cf. the Toledo decree of 1473 quoted vol. i. p. 342. The C. of Compostella (1565), c.c. 9-11 (Aguirra Conc. Hispan. v. 450, 460), forbade ‘actus sive repraesentationes’ during service in church; they might take place with leave of the bishop, or in his absence the chapter, before or after service. Devotional ‘actus’ were allowed in Passion week on similar conditions. The Corpus Christi procession ‘semel tantum subsistat, causa horum actuum vel representationum in eo loco extra ecclesiam quem Praelatus aut [capitulum] idoneum iudicabit.’ On the other hand the C. of Seville (1512), c. 21 (Aguirra, v. 370), had forbidden priests or monks to perform or give a ‘locus’ for such ‘actus’: ‘Sumus informati, quod in quibusdam Ecclesiis nostri Archiepiscopatus et Provinciae permittitur fieri nonnullas repraesentationes Passionis Domini nostri Iesu Christi, et alios actus, et memoriam Resurrectionis, Nativitatis Salvatoris nostri, vel alias repraesentationes. Et quia ex talibus actibus orta sunt, et oriuntur plura absurda, et saepe saepius scandala in cordibus illorum qui non sunt bene confirmati in nostra sancta fide Catholica, videntes confusiones, et excessus, qui in hoc committuntur....’ Cf. also the Langres licence of 1408 (p. 97).