ABSTRACT
So, a first caveat should be formulated here: how can we be sure we are really speaking of theatre, of plays? As many forms of literature in the thirteenth century have a marked performanceaspect, how and why do we (as modern scholars) determine what is theatre and what is not, for a period in which the theatrical was not conceptualised as it is nowadays (Zumthor 1987)? Or do we just follow nineteenth-century scholarship (see Koopmans and Smith 2010)? The question automatically implies a critical review of sources – but in this chapter, the point will be illustrated by just one example, a major example, the “Play of the Bower”, the Jeu de la Feuillée by Adam de La Halle (1276). A second important question is, of course, to what extent the manuscripts we have are representative of any kind of dramatic reality; in other words, what are they? Do they bear witness to anything dramatic or are they just manuscripts in which we recognise something we would call dramatic? Do they represent, on the other hand, a more or less reliable witness to dramatic activities in the region in those days, or are they just recording incidental or anecdotal instances? What percentage of dramatic culture do the Arras texts represent, and thus what can be their weight as information? These are, of course, standard questions common to all types of research into medieval history and literature, but it is not totally unnecessary to reformulate them here, as historians of drama have been, so far, remarkably naïve in this regard. Before coming to that argument, however, it may be of some use to set the context.
