Arnoul Gréban

Gréban, Arnoul (c.1425-c.1495). Author of the most influential of medieval Passion plays. Born probably in Le Mans, Gréban studied theology and music in Paris; he was the organist at Notre-Dame, when he composed his Passion in about 1450. He later worked for Charles duc du Maine until 1473, when he went to Italy as a musician.

His four-day, 30, 000-line Passion play is generally recognized to be the masterpiece of the genre; exceptionally, several identical complete manuscripts of the play have survived. It was borrowed and reworked, directly or indirectly, by many later fatistes (mystery-play compilers). Jehan Michel expanded the second and third days, and versions of the complete play were performed in Troyes in the 1490s and in Mons in 1501; large sections of it appear in the two Passions de Valenciennes of 1547 and 1549. Gréban followed the model of the Passion d'Arras, using the Procès de Paradis as the framework for four days dramatizing respectively the childhood of Christ, his public life, the Passion proper, and the Resurrection; but he preceded this with a Création abrégée. Gréban's writing is more supple than his predecessors'; his success is attributable not only to his rapidity of movement and his skilful versification, but also to his incorporation of numerous learned sources, including Nicolas de Lire, pseudo-Bonaventure, and a narrative Passion composed for Isabeau de Bavière, the result of which is to emphasize the role of the Virgin Mary.

[Graham Runnalls]