In medieval Christian services, there were other forms of instruction to help learn about the faith if you didn’t learn at mass. According to Madigan, there were many ways to do this including memorizing texts, preaching, musical liturgy, visual expression through arts and writing icons, and liturgical drama (Madigan, 300). The way that these other forms of instruction were successful, especially liturgical drama, is that the “visible clues would have been important in a religious culture in which the parishioners were ignorant of the ecclesiastical language and unable to read books” (Madigan, 302). Madigan states that “No parishioner, even the simplest, could have failed to apprehend the broad meaning of these performances” (Madigan, 302). The Annunciation Play and the Play of Adam are perfect examples of these alternative ways of instruction.

These plays are used to underline “the importance of indicating the meaning or importance of a particular scene through expressive gestures” (Madigan 302). These means of nonverbal worship are an effective way for instructing Christian’s faith because most couldn’t even understand the language of worship, which was Latin. Even though the whole congregation in mass are considered to be “participants”, it was difficult for the laity to do so because of the barrier in language and comprehension. Thus a lack of participation from the laity developed. They became “witnesses” instead of “participants” (Madigan, 301). These plays offered the laity a chance to participate in mass instead of letting the priest and clergy celebrate and participating while they just partook in witnessing. More specifically, the Annunciation presentation has a specific purpose of reinforcing basic Christian beliefs such as the Incarnation of Christ, Mary as the Theotokos (Mother of God), and all those who believe in the things promised by God will be blessed (cf. Lk 1:45). So these liturgical drams not only offered a chance to participate in the liturgy, but to also be confident that their sacrifice would be accepted (Madigan 301).

While the Annunciation Play was generally done at some point in an intercession during mass, The Play of Adam was done on raised stages in public and the middle of town for all to see. This could have been done to continue teaching the faith not just during mass, since Christianity is a “practice” and not just a faith (Madigan, 299). This could be an affective way to instruct Christians through visual representation and understanding of the various beliefs, theology and doctrine that are not covered during mass. The Christian views of original sin, obedience to God, the sufferings of life, and the role of Jesus in God’s plan for human salvation are reinforced in this play by mainly, the characters of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden when they were instructed to obey God’s rule which was to not eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. However, through the temptation from the devil, Adam and Eve ended up tasting the fruit and began experiencing the consequences of their disobedience to God, which was the suffering of life and being banished from Paradise. This part of the story connects the belief that Jesus came to this earth in the form of man to be a sacrifice for all of humanity to be able to have salvation. The Play of Adam also highlights the medieval view of women. According to Madigan “Aristotelian biology famously held that women were incomplete or deformed men; It also asserted that the woman was the passive partner in reproduction; thus the male had the entire role to play in embryonic development” (275).  When Eve is the first one to fall to temptation after Adam already resisted temptation from the devil just one scene before, It is depicting the inferiority that women have. Since this view was accepted, it poured over into any social or religious role a women could or couldn’t have, because they were considered to be inferior. Which could have had a negative affect on medieval women’s religious experience.