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bible but not its structure. For example the “principes” recount the whole plot just at the beginning of the play. But Ludus Danielis also integrates the apocryphal story of prophet Habakuk from “Bel and the Dragon” (Ogden 78) who gets sized by the hair by an angel and carried to the lion´s den to provide Daniel food. Moreover, at the end Daniel prodicts that the “Holy One comes” and after an angel harrolds the birth of Jesus Christ by singing “Nuntium uobis fero de supernis”, the only piece originally from the liturgy (Young 301). What can be said now about the creators of the play? By consulting the facsimile of our play we already gain three important pieces of information by decoding the first four lines: “Ad honorem tui Christe. Danielis ludus iste. In beluaco est inuentus. Et inuenit hunc iuuentus” (Odgen appendix). Apparently, Ludus Danielis was composed in Belvaco (today: Beauvais; The British Museum) by the youth to honour Jesus Christ. This leads immediately to the question of the identity of these young people. Most of the sources assume here that they were pupils of the cathedral school in Beauvais (Bulst and Bulst-Thiele 9; Young 290; Meyer 55; Ogden 77). Though, this is not confirmed and as Arlt examines there is not enough known to get a clear impression of the spiritual life of the cathedral (32-33) and Young notes that “illuminating information concerning the cathedral school of Beauvais for the twelth and thirteenth centuries seems not to be available” (486). In contrast, Peter Dronke, notes that the term “iuventus” was used for all people from 20 to 50 years (110-111). However, in the light of the low life expectancy in the Middle Ages this statement does not seem to be very plausible.

In addition, Smoldon points out that there is no clear evidence that the play was even performed (Music 227) though it is likely that it was played in the “Basse-Œuvre”, the Romanesque cathedral in Beauvais (Ogden 11). Unfortunately, most of it was destroyed in the late 12 ^th and early 13 ^th century and only the western end is preserved, standing today beside the large Gothic cathedral. Therefore it is hard to imagine how it was staged but

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architectural historian Émile Chami gives us some hints: Apparently, at least for its time the “Basse-Œuvre” was rather large with a height of 19 meters in the nave, a length of 65 meters with especially a long choir and a total width of around 20 meters with the two aisles (qtd. in Ogden 13-14).

However, I have to question the assumption that it was played in the Romanesque cathedral if we assume that the date (between 1227 to 1234) of the manuscript in which Ludus Danielis is preserved is true. I will elaborate on the problem of dating later but at least the homepage of the Cathédrale de Beauvais and a French page about religious occidental architecture (Architecture Religieuse en Occident) inform us that the Basse-Œuvre was already destroyed by a fire in 1225 and not in the late twelth century as Ogden assumes by refering to Stephen Murray. Apparently, Ogden made here a mistake because Murray clearly states that the construction works for the new Gothic cathedral begun in 1225 and points to an error made earlier in scholarship which was overlooked by the next scientist and adopted in many other secondary sources (Murray 533).

Unfortunately, we also do not have much knowledge about the performers and the instruments they used. For the singers it is very likely that even the female roles were played by men as in most liturgical dramas (Burkholder, Grout, and Palisca 564). Concerning the instruments we also have no evidence that it was performed a cappella as the sheet music does not call for any instrumental accompaniment. However, Smoldon alludes to the two text passages which mention instruments: First, it says that King Darius is conducted by cytharistae (harp players) at his first appearance. Secondly, the princes call for “tympana; cytharistae... musicorum organa” (drums, harpists and all instruments in hand) to praise King Darius (Music 253). It is very likely that the players actually used these instruments, though, as Smoldon correctly observes, it could also be “no more than poetic colouring” (254). As the term of a liturgical drama is sometimes mixed up with the term of mysterious or mythical

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plays Smoldon underlines their completely different character and that the instrumental accompaniment used for the latter might differ to a big extent from the first:

It is interesting that Smoldon nevertheless designates Ludus Danielis as an opera (“What is Daniel but an opera? It deserves no less a name”, Ludus 13), a notion which is taken up by many other articles, especially in the context of modern performances. So for example the term of a “medieval opera” is used in a review of the play (Schönenberger) and by the dramaturgy of two modern adaptions (Ludus Danielis; Bieler 27). Johannes Reitmeier, impresario of the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern and stage director of their adaption comments on the use of this term: “Schließlich hat das Stück von seinem ganzen Aufbau her - mit arienhaften Nummern, rezitativischen Abschnitten, Ensembles und Chören - die Form einer Oper” (Bieler 18). There is no denying of this structure; actually we even can see clear differences in the “arias” of Daniel, who has the longest solo, the Queen and Belshazzar which could be seen as an attempt of character depiction: Interestingly, as Mathias Bielitz observes, Belshazzar sings syllabic, the Queen melismatic and Daniel's songs change between syllabic and melismatic (Bulst and Bulst-Thiele 135). Be that as it may though an opera includes beside “continuous or nearly continuous music [also]… scenery, costumes and action” (Burkholder, Grout, and Palisca A13). How far can we say that it was not an “medieval oratorio” - a play on a “[religious subject]... combining narrative dialogue and commentary through arias, recitiatives, ensembles,