The folk theatre began with the end of the Roman drama and theatre troupes. Wandering minstrels and jugglers, although social outcasts, remained popular in parts of Europe for long after the end of the Medieval period. Along with the minstrels came folk plays, possibly remnants of pre-Christian ceremonies. The modern tales of Robin Hood and Maid Marion are believed to have derived from these Medieval folk plays.
The mystery or liturgy plays grew out of the Roman Catholic Church. Because the bulk of most congregations at the time were largely illiterate in any language, and understood none of the Latin in which scripture was written or read at the time, and because their knowledge of Christianity was superficial at best, plays taught the stories of the Bible. These began with pageants at Easter and Christmas and gradually developed to cover other Christian holidays and festivals. After these came plays to dramatize other biblical stories, such as Noah and the Flood and the story of Adam and Eve.
Following the popularity of the liturgy plays, and at about the time they began to decline in popularity, the morality plays created a way to teach Christian values or how to live a good Christian life in modern times, with modern in this sense meaning the Middle Ages. These plays typically featured a hero character who represented mankind in a variety of circumstances, and supernatural characters such as God and the Devil or the Seven Deadly Sins. In the plays, the hero character would be forced to choose between virtue and vice. These morality plays emerged during the Reformation to dramatize Protestants disagreements with the Roman Catholic Church.
The Interludes appeared in the late Medieval period, in the early 16th century. They developed out of the morality plays and were referred to at the time as the "Moral Interludes." The interludes were more farcical than the morality plays, a forerunner of modern comedy. They were to amuse more than teach. "The Vice," a regularly featured character in interlude plays at the time, slowly developed into the modern clown.