"The category of 'medieval theatre' is vast, covering dramatic performance in Europe over a thousand-year period."
The theater of the Middle Ages, which includes liturgical dramas, mystery plays, and morality plays. These plays were often performed by church groups and were used to teach morals and biblical stories to the illiterate masses.
"A broad spectrum of genres needs to be considered, including mystery plays, morality plays, farces and masques."
"The themes were almost always religious."
"The most famous examples are the English cycle dramas, the York Mystery Plays, the Chester Mystery Plays, the Wakefield Mystery Plays, and the N-Town Plays, as well as the morality play known as Everyman."
"One of the first surviving secular plays in English is The Interlude of the Student and the Girl (c. 1300)."
"Due to a lack of surviving records and texts, low literacy in the general population, and the opposition of the clergy, there are few surviving sources from the Early and High Medieval periods."
"However, by the late period, performances began to become more secularized; larger number of records survive."