[4] As McCall wrote in 2007:Western Europe was effectively without mainstream drama from the moment that Christianity gained political influence in the fourth century.
As early as the second century, the decadence of late Roman drama and the reputed immorality of its practitioners had made the theater one of the professions that had to be abandoned before receiving baptism.
[5]By using the liturgical drama theory, authors like Young and Chambers had imposed the Darwinian model of evolution on medieval performance culture, argued O.B.
By examining factors such as "historiography, etymology, source study, and analysis" of the texts themselves, Clifford Flanagan and, most recently, Michael Norton, have shown that the term liturgical drama is problematic.
While narrative structures abound in several part of the Mass and its readings, liturgies may also convey visual impressions, solemn processional entries, complex tableaux or lyrics.
The example of Cistercian nuns crowning Marian statues in their monastic enclosure at Wienhausen shows the limits of "liturgical drama".