Marionettes in the Middle Ages
Brief Background
As far as I know, there is no existing marionette from the Middle Ages. There are extant examples from much further back (think BCE). Marionettes in the Middle Ages were used as story tellers, first in the church, but as they became too silly and irreverent, they were removed from the church. In the streets and at fairs their popularity grew and the stories they told became more bawdy and secular rather than sacred. They would perform great works of art and were full of action and music. The subject matter was bold, satirical and parodied popular drama (Joseph 21). Puppets were more versatile than actors and needed only few to do what would otherwise take many actors and stage crew. At one point the puppets became more popular than live actors and the actors tried to have them shut down. Puppets could also perform impersonations of kings and high officials and were not imprisoned or punished. They were seen as not important enough to silence. That is one reason that they are difficult to document, they were too unimportant to write much about even laws. They ended up saving theater later and employing many actors when the church decided to shut down all the live theaters. Only the puppets were allowed to keep the stage and the actors could provide the voices and scripts. It is difficult to be certain of which type of puppet was used in this time period exactly because the word marionette is often synonymous with puppet, which could refer to glove puppets. There is reference to a very early German theater that was used for marionettes and I think it is most likely that they were used in the churches and theaters. But the mention of wires is peppered around enough that it would not have been impossible to have seen them in the open fairs and street markets. Most marionettes mentioned were made out of wood and had “invisible” strings or wires. |
What did you do? The early years
In 2007, I started my very first ever research for the SCA. I was in way over my head, but I was excited and people were encouraging. My goal was to find out about the types of marionettes and what kind of performances they enacted. I also wanted to create a set of usable marionettes that are portable and easy to work with. I wanted them to look period and be generic enough to use for a variety of acts without much re-dressing.
I think that instinctively I knew I was going to do it wrong for what the SCA usually requires, so I started with the hardest thing first. I made a marionette. He was wooden, and pretty cute and I made him with power tools. I read as many books as I could and tried not to do anything overly modern looking. I didn’t know much about performing with puppets or how to write documentation about such things, so I sang a song that I knew was from the appropriate time period called “Weep weep, mine eyes” by John Wilbye. A madrigal. Because of course I did. The puppet did dramatic crying while I sang. He was a very special puppet named Knotte Hede. The knot in his forehead made a hole that I threaded his hand strings through so he could cover his face with his hands when I pulled those strings. It was very silly, but well received by the audience. It was not quite right for the judges.
So, that was Dragon's Laire's baronial bardic competition in December which I followed up with a new performance at their baronial A&S competition less than two months later with a new song, and a new puppet and a new stage. I took that same performance to the kingdom level competition for An Tir about a month later. I was on a roll. This was where I learned many things. I got some positive and useful feedback. By that summer I had built this glorious dragon puppet with wings so that my puppets could do St. George and the Dragon, a most medieval tale. This lead to another baronial competition with new marionettes and more kingdom entries as I attempted to make my own version of the glove puppet and stage set-up as seen in illuminations on the Glove Puppet page. I had still not managed to bring my audience a completely authentic performance. Learning to do research and then extrapolate and explain it in such a way as to convince others that it is accurate is very difficult.
I had checked out every library book on puppets that I could get my hands on and scoured Google Books for any old references to puppets that may have existed. That is how the Marionette Timeline came to be.
In 2007, I started my very first ever research for the SCA. I was in way over my head, but I was excited and people were encouraging. My goal was to find out about the types of marionettes and what kind of performances they enacted. I also wanted to create a set of usable marionettes that are portable and easy to work with. I wanted them to look period and be generic enough to use for a variety of acts without much re-dressing.
I think that instinctively I knew I was going to do it wrong for what the SCA usually requires, so I started with the hardest thing first. I made a marionette. He was wooden, and pretty cute and I made him with power tools. I read as many books as I could and tried not to do anything overly modern looking. I didn’t know much about performing with puppets or how to write documentation about such things, so I sang a song that I knew was from the appropriate time period called “Weep weep, mine eyes” by John Wilbye. A madrigal. Because of course I did. The puppet did dramatic crying while I sang. He was a very special puppet named Knotte Hede. The knot in his forehead made a hole that I threaded his hand strings through so he could cover his face with his hands when I pulled those strings. It was very silly, but well received by the audience. It was not quite right for the judges.
So, that was Dragon's Laire's baronial bardic competition in December which I followed up with a new performance at their baronial A&S competition less than two months later with a new song, and a new puppet and a new stage. I took that same performance to the kingdom level competition for An Tir about a month later. I was on a roll. This was where I learned many things. I got some positive and useful feedback. By that summer I had built this glorious dragon puppet with wings so that my puppets could do St. George and the Dragon, a most medieval tale. This lead to another baronial competition with new marionettes and more kingdom entries as I attempted to make my own version of the glove puppet and stage set-up as seen in illuminations on the Glove Puppet page. I had still not managed to bring my audience a completely authentic performance. Learning to do research and then extrapolate and explain it in such a way as to convince others that it is accurate is very difficult.
I had checked out every library book on puppets that I could get my hands on and scoured Google Books for any old references to puppets that may have existed. That is how the Marionette Timeline came to be.