Pageant Wagon - History

History

As long as the medieval religious plays were allowed to stay within the churches, special stages were erected for them.

Pageant comes from the archaic word for the wagon stage, "pagyn.” It is a word used to describe the movable stage on which a scene of the processional religious play was performed.

The origin of the religious play began in medieval churches. The dramas began as a simple way to impart the message of the Bible to the people. They then grew and developed their own conventions. They brought to the common person a pageantry and entertainment so necessary to relieve the people from the monotony of the every day task.

During these monotonous times, in places like St. Gall, Switzerland in the 10th Century, the church put on shows at their Easter masses. Pantomimes would take place in the church depicting Christ’s Resurrection to the attendants of the mass. A few centuries later in Florence, Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) began to create theatrical depictions of religious texts and see them as a potential work of art.

It wasn’t until 1493 however, that the Sacra Rappresentazione, an earlier form of the Mystery Play, was presented on a scaffold in the church in which “hundreds of lights encircled the ‘Throne of God.”

This new form of spectacle based theatrical representation of both Old and New Testament texts spread throughout Europe and encompassed North and Central Europe, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, and England. As the plays became more than mere pantomimes of biblical stories, they took on bigger texts and were performed at Christmas, Corpus Christi, and numerous other religious saints days or feasts.

As the drama of the production became more ambitious the playing spaces also grew. The plays originally were performed on the altar of the church but grew to encompass the entirety of the front of the church. Eventually the plays grew beyond the capacity of the interior of the church and moved its front steps while also making use of the length and width of the streets. The performances sometimes even enveloped the public square just beyond the church steps. Since there was little space in these areas to provide a backdrop for scenery the people created “mansions” or wooden stages on which to create the play. Eventually these stages would evolve into movable wagons as the troupes playing on them began to take their shows throughout the towns and play to different audiences.