ABSTRACT
The Middle Ages were periods in which elite literacy and popular orality moved in complex relationships. Jesse Gellrich's theory of emergence of textuality in ideas such as “the Book of Nature” that encapsulated core literate structures into the holistic and repetitive mnemonic structures of popular orality provides an explanation for the very different ideas of history operating throughout this period. The structuring of ideas of time, action, and character in the repetitive mnemonic forms of medieval dramas is functionally similar to the epics as Havelock explained them and formed the context for the later development of commercial drama and the emergence of the tragic plot as a model for reconfiguring the perception of time.
