1. Medieval Drama
After the fall of the Roman Empire 476AD, small nomadic bands traveled around performing wherever there was an audience.
This was a sin. So the powerful Catholic Church stamp out and converted the entertainers.

2. But, drama overcomes all, so after getting rid of the sinning performers. The Church decided that the best way to spread the good word was with stories and performances.

3. Tropes
The tropes was a verbal embellishment, an insertion into the liturgical text of the Mass. For example, Quem Quaeritis, "Whom Seek Ye," which was probably originally sung, in Latin, by two sections of the choir.

4. Quem Quaeritis Tropes
Interrogatio. Quem quaeritis in sepulchro, o Christicolae?
Responsio. Jesum Nazarenum crucifixum, o caelicolae.
Angeli. Non est hic; surrexit, sicut praedixerat. Ite, nuntiate quia surrexit
de sepulchro
Translation:
Question [by the Angels]: Whom do ye seek in the sepulcher, O followers of
Christ?
Answer [by the Marys]: Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified, O heavenly ones.
The Angels: He is not here; he is risen, just as he foretold. Go, announce that he is risen from the sepulchre.
—John Gassner, editor, Medieval and Tudor Drama.

5. Within approximately 40 years, this short playlet is being performed not by the choir, but by priests. This sparked the first Liturgical Drama written by Bishop Ethelwold: Regularis Concordia, a book of rules and advice for the English Benedictines, but gave directions on how to stage the action.

6. Liturgical Drama:
Is a play acted within or near the church and relating stories from the Bible.

7. Liturgy A liturgy is a set form of ceremony or pattern of worship
The term liturgy is used to mean public worship in general

9. Stories dramatized Mary visiting Christ’s tomb
Daniel in the lion’s den
Lazarus raised from the dead

10. Mansions or Station
Scenes set up at different locations in a church, to perform the acts of a Liturgical Drama

11. The Plateau
The plateau was the neutral playing area on which the actors performed.

14. Moving out of Church
Once the plays got to big, they went outside and insead of priest for actor the laymen took over.
This gave birth to two things:
The change from Latin to vernacular
Secular trade guilds still controls by the church

15. Pageant Wagon
A pageant wagon held the mansion, the plateau, and a dressing area on one structure. This wagon stage would then be moved from one gathering of audience to the next, much like a float in a parade.

18. 3 Types of Plays
Mystery Play
Miracle Play
Morality Play

19. Mystery Plays
The plot and characters were drawn from the books of the Bible. It was the major form of Medieval drama. The York Cycle (14th century) contained forty-eight short plays and took approximately 14 hours to perform.

20. Miracle Plays
Built its plot around the lives and the works of the saints. They were usually performed on the saint's feast day. Some of the scripts were biblical, others were not.

21. Morality Plays
These dramas were based on the spiritual trials of the average man. The plays were allegories about the moral temptations which beset every man.
Allegory, an expression by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation.

22. Tableaux
short for tableau vivant (from French, literally, living picture: a depiction of a scene usually presented on a stage by silent and motionless costumed participants

23. Tableaux (con’t)
Sometimes players would arrange tableaux vivants on the pageant wagons and use these scenes to draw an audience

24. tableaux vivants

25. Cycle Plays or Mystery Cycles:
These plays were intended to instruct a largely illiterate public about morality and their place in the Christian world. 
These dramas were not performed in Latin but were instead either vernacular.

26. Morality Drama:
didactic plays that display a symbolic allegory of the Christian’s spiritual journey through life.

27. Didacticism
is an artistic philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art.

28. Other words to know for the Middle Ages
Minstrels - one of a class of medieval musical entertainers
Jesters - a performing fool to provide casual entertainment and commonly dressed in motley with cap, bells, and bauble
Troubadour - one of a class of lyric poets and poet-musicians often of knightly rank Entertainment