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Certain basic principles of medieval staging have their origin in the employment of the chancel and the nave as theatrical spaces. Fortunately, in a limited number of instances it is possible to bring together play text and the precise area for which it was conceived. Here we can reconstruct rather accurate patterns of movement by the actors, and we can determine the placement of scenic elements. Of some eight hundred texts of the music-drama which I have examined, approximately a dozen texts or groups of texts can be assigned on internal evidence to a particular church where medieval architectural details are known. 1 The rubrics of these