Mystery Plays were used to instruct the Great Unwashed in acts of submission to the Holy Mother Church, which held Europe in an iron grip for 2,000 years without an army to back up its demands … just fear. And for 2,000 years it worked, until Italian Fascist dictator Mussolini broke the power of the Vatican in 1929, with the Lateran Pact, making the church subordinate to the Italian Fascist government.
During most of that 2,000 years, the Great Unwashed was kept mostly under control by keeping the people ignorant, unable to read and write in particular, which kept them from studying other ideologies and ideas that were not part of the church’s doctrine and control.
Okay, so how to brainwash — I mean instruct — the People, if they can’t read, write or otherwise communicate?
Answer: Mystery Plays. They instruct, admonish, demonstrate punishment for those who break with tradition and cultural conditioning, and every so often, someone gets hit in the face with a pie.
Here’s one example of this type of Medieval Instructable:
And another:
With your kind permission, gentlemen and ladies, attend this:
Yet one more, if it please your worships: