Defining Medieval Theater. Because most early playwrights and performers were wandering minstrels, they were suspect in the eyes of local authorities and the Church. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, however, these groups began to find powerful patrons, and eventually even cities and the craft guilds in them sponsored performances of plays. Medieval theater took many forms that were quite different from most modern conceptions of drama and staging. In fact, many early plays were essentially chanted poetry or set pieces in which the figures on stage did not move while a narrator explained, in poetic meter, the significance of the scene being portrayed. For example, at Easter a play concentrating on the adoration of the cross might have several individuals kneeling before a cross staring worshipfully at Jesus. (Nativity plays in which the birth of Jesus is illustrated with living figures, who...