... the common man i.e. the artisan and working guilds with the words of God. But as these plays became more and more popular and elaborate, vernacular elements were introduced and the laity also began to participate in the performances. Soon these liturgical dramas became increasingly secularized, and they began to be performed entirely in the local dialects, abandoning Latin, and eventually moved out of the church and into the churchyard, and then into the nearby marketplace. When the production and performance of these plays were taken over by the professional guilds, each guild took the responsibility for a particular episode or set of episodes from scriptural history. One guild, for example, might present the Fall of Lucifer, another the Killing of Abel, and yet another the Crucifixion and so on. To maintain the interest of the performers as well as the audience, which was chiefly the trade guilds as well, ...

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