"This volume demonstrates that the tenth-century liturgical play results from the rapid integration of feudalism. Goldstein's analysis points to the ways in which the liturgical drama arose in a period of rapidly integrating feudalism. The Church, a great landowner, exploited large numbers of peasants. The awareness of the contradiction between the communalistic Eucharist and the Church's exploitation of the peasants diminished faith, inducing the clergy to attempt to revitalize it by creating new theology, new music, new prayers, tropes, new rituals, and the drama. The latter was an enactment of the Quem quaeritis trope, a text that represents the central dogma of Christian faith, the Resurrection with its eschatological hope of salvation."--BOOK JACKET.