Overview

A daring and theatrically bold melodrama set in the Middle Ages at a time when a lord fell in love with one of the country women of the manor, and sought to exercise his "droit du seigneur" or the right to her marriage bed on the night of her wedding. The husband and his friends protest, and wrath fully raise the peasants in revolt. The lord will not relent, for he truly loves the maiden, and she herself has fallen for his charms. Now torn between two loves, and wishing to end a bloody revolution, she falls upon a scythe in the field and dies. The husband and lord meet and fight over her body with scythe and sword. And each is killed. Now comes a wandering monk, who is besought by a bereaved mother to untangle the tragedy, anoint the bodies, and give them the burial denied by the Church. The monk arrives at the opening of the curtain, and all the vibrant tapestry of events is unfolded before him with glittering theatrical effectiveness.