SOURCE: "The 'Terentian' Comedies of a Tenth-Century Nun," The Classical Journal, Vol. XXIV, No. 7, April, 1929, pp. 515-29.

[In the following essay, Coulter investigates the extent to which Hroswitha's dramas may be called "Terentian," concluding that "Hrotsvitha's independent contribution to mediaeval Latin literature is far more important than her connection with Terence."]

Modem discussions of mediaeval drama are very likely to include the name of Hrotsvitha and some mention of her debt to Roman comedy. Creizenach, in the early pages of his Geschichte des Neueren Dramas, takes up her plays with special interest because they are the one isolated example of the imitation of Terence in the Middle Ages.¹ Chambers, in his account of the influence of classical drama on the interlude, quotes Dr. Ward's statement that Terence "led a charmed life in the darkest ages of learning," mentions Notker Labeo, who at the beginning of the eleventh century wrote that he had been commissioned to turn the Andria into German, and then says, "Not long before, Hrotsvitha, a Benedictine nun of Gandersheim in Saxony, had taken Terence as her model for half a dozen plays in Latin prose, designed to glorify chastity and to celebrate the constancy of the martyrs."² And the introductory chapter of C. M. Gayley's Plays of our Forefathers contains the sentence: "Terence, the dear delight of the mediaeval monastery, was in the tenth pruned of his pagan charm and naughtiness, and planted out in six persimmon comedies by a Saxon nun of Gandersheim, Hrotsvitha,—comedies of tedious saints and hircine sinners and a stuffy Latin style."³ In view of such statements as these, it may be worth while to examine the plays of Hrotsvitha, to see just how great her indebtedness to Terence was.⁴

A writer of the period in which Hrotsvitha lived could hardly have found a more stimulating environment than the duchy of Saxony.⁵ Three famous Ottos of the Saxon line, elected in turn to the headship of the Holy Roman Empire, dreamed of making Germany a world power and reëstablishing the empire of Charlemagne. The marriage of Otto the Great to Adelaide, princess of Burgundy and widow of the king of Italy, broadened the interests of the Saxons and gave a cosmopolitan tone to the capital; scholars from Italy, Ireland, France, and Greece thronged to the imperial court; and monastic and cathedral schools, under the leadership of humanists like Otwin and Bernward, bishops of Hildesheim, amassed libraries, multiplied manuscripts, and handed on to the younger generation the highest ideal of scholarship that they knew.

One of the notable monasteries of this period was Gandersheim, a Benedictine abbey founded about the middle of the ninth century by Duke Luidolf of Saxony and his wife Oda. The duke's own daughter was the first abbess, and for the next two hundred and fifty years most of the abbesses were drawn from the Saxon royal house. The nuns were of gentle birth and delicate breeding. Gerberga, who became abbess sóme time after 954, was a niece of Otto the Great and a granddaughter of Arnolf, Duke of Bavaria, and during Gerberga's primacy a sister of Otto III took the veil.

About the same time that Gerberga entered the monastery, there came to Gandersheim the lady Hrotsvitha. The first syllable of her name is connected with the modern German Ruhm, the second with geschwind, Schwindsucht, and the like; and the whole name means "a mighty shout,"—as Hrotsvitha herself suggests when, in the Preface to her plays (p. 113), she speaks of herself as "Clamor Validus Gandeshemensis"—a strangely incongruous name for one of her gentle modesty.

All our information about Hrotsvitha comes from dedicatory verses and epistles prefaced to the different sections of her works, and from the internal evidence of the works themselves. From these sources we learn that she was a diligent student, at first under the direction of the nun Rikkardis later as a pupil of Gerberga, who, although Hrotsvitha's junior in age, was her senior in knowledge and passed on to her sister nun the instruction which she herself had received from eminent scholars (a sapientissimis, pp. I f.), perhaps at the monastery of St. Emmeram in Regensburg. Hrotsvitha does not mention her textbooks, but the content and diction of her works show that she must have read the Peristephanon, or Book of Martyrs, of Prudentius, and many other legends of the saints; Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and his treatises on arithmetic and music; some writings of the church fathers; and at least Vergil and Terence of pagan authors.⁶ A large part of her time must have been given to composition in verse—an exercise to which the deacon Thangmar gave special attention in the training of Bernward⁷—and the proficiency which she gained shows in the lengthy hexameter and elegiac poems that form a large part of her collected works.

She tried her hand at original composition, secretly at first (clam cunctis et quasi furtim, p. 1), for fear that critics, recognizing the crudities of her style, might deter her from writing altogether. The compositions of this early period are in both hexameter and elegiac verse, and comprise a life of the Virgin Mary; an account of the Ascension of the Savior; and six saints' legends, including the story of St. Pelagius of Cordoba, which Hrotsvitha got from eye-witnesses, and the martyrdom of St. Agnes, drawn from a biography ascribed to Ambrose. These verses (carminula, as the author modestly calls them) were presented to Gerberga with the request that she read and correct them (p. 3):

Et, cum sis certe vario lassata labore,
 Ludens dignare hos modulos legere,
Hanc quoque sordidolam tempta purgare
 camenam
 Ac fulcire tui flore magisterii,
Quo laudem dominae studium supportet
 alumnae
 Doctricique piae carmina discipulae.

Encouraged by the approval of the abbess, Hrotsvitha now turned to an entirely new form of composition. Her motives for this departure are interestingly stated in the Preface to Liber Secundus of her works:

There are many Catholics, and we cannot entirely acquit ourselves of the charge, who, attracted by the polished elegance of the style of pagan writers, prefer their works to the holy scriptures. There are others who, although they are deeply attached to the sacred writings and have no liking for most pagan productions, make an exception in favor of the works of Terence, and fascinated by the charm of the manner, risk being corrupted by the wickedness of the matter. Wherefore 1, the strong voice of Gandersheim, have not hesitated to imitate in my writing a poet whose works are so widely read, my object being to glorify, within the limits of my poor talent, the laudable chastity of Christian virgins in that same form of composition which has been used to describe the shameless acts of licentious women … If this pious devotion gives satisfaction I shall rejoice; if it does not, either on account of my own worthlessness or of the faults of my unpolished style, I shall still be glad that I made the effort.⁸

Just how extensive her first dramatic attempts were we do not know; but some of her plays must have been circulated among her intimate friends at the monastery and then submitted to certain scholars outside; for an epistle of later date addressed Ad Quosdam Sapientes Huius Libri Fautores thanks these scholars most humbly for their commendation of her work (mei opusculum vilis mulierculae) and begs them to criticize the compositions which she encloses:

I have been at pains (she concludes), whenever I have been able to pick up some threads and scraps torn from the old mantle of philosophy, to weave them into the stuff of my own book, in the hope that my lowly ignorant effort may gain more acceptance through the introduction of something of a nobler strain … I hope you will revise it with the same careful attention that you would give to a work of your own, and that when you have succeeded in bringing it up to the proper standard you will return it to me. (St. John, pp. xxviii-xxx.)

Still later she composed in hexameter verse two long poems on contemporary subjects: an account of the deeds of Otto I, and a history of the monastery of Gandersheim down to the year 919. At what date her death occurred we do not know.

For us, by far the most significant portion of Hrotsvitha's work is the dramas, and these are particularly interesting because, standing as they almost certainly do in order of composition, they give clear indications of the development of her technique. There are six plays altogether (Creizenach suggests that she intended them to be, in number as well as in subject-matter, an "Anti-Terenz"),⁹ and the material is in every case drawn from legends of the saints.

The first play of the series offers interesting material for comparative study, since it has come down to us in two other mediaeval versions, one of which is practically contemporary with Hrotsvitha herself: a life of St. Constantia (or Constantina) in a Visigothic manuscript of the eleventh century,'¹⁰ and the story of St. John and St. Paul, as related in The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine (c. 1245).¹¹ These two versions agree in the main outlines of the story, which runs as follows:

Constantia, the daughter of the Emperor Constantine, had two provosts, named John and Paul. Gallicanus, the commander of the imperial army, was about to set out against the barbarians, and asked that Constantia be given to him in marriage as a reward. Constantine himself was willing, but knew that his daughter had taken a vow of virginity; she, however, told her father that if Gallicanus gained the victory the marriage might be considered; she asked to have the two daughters of Gallicanus dwell with her, and delivered to him John and Paul to go with him to battle. Gallicanus was besieged by the barbarians, and John and Paul told him, "Make a vow to the God of heaven, and you shall conquer." He did so, and there appeared to him a young man carrying a cross on his shoulder, who said to him, "Take your sword and follow me." The young man led him to the king of the opposing army, whom he slew; and the army straightway surrendered. On returning to Rome, he told the emperor that he had taken a vow of chastity, and asked to be released from his engagement to Constantia. His two daughters were also converted, and he gave all his goods to the poor and served God. Gallicanus suffered martyrdom under Julian; and John and Paul, who had inherited Constantia's property, were put to death by Julian's emissary Terentianus. Terentianus's son was seized with madness; but when Terentianus confessed his sin and became a Christian, the son was healed.

This story Hrotsvitha reproduces faithfully, the only essential difference between her version and that of the legends being that hers is in dialogue instead of in narrative form. The opening scene presents Constantine in conversation with Gallicanus; Constantine explains the urgent reasons why Gallicanus should take the field against the barbarians; and the general agrees to do the emperor's bidding but asks for the hand of Constantia as a reward; Constantine hesitates but promises to consult his daughter. In the second scene Constantine tells her of Gallicanus' wishes, and she protests that she would rather die than break the vow of virginity that she has taken. He appreciates her feeling, but reminds her of the disaster that may befall the state if he does not grant his general's request. She proposes a plan: that Constantine shall pretend to agree to Gallicanus' conditions and shall persuade Gallicanus to leave his two daughters with Constantia during his absence, Gallicanus himself taking as his companions in the war Constantia's chamberlains, John and Paul. "But if he returns victorious, what shall we do?" asks Constantine. "We must call upon almighty God," says Constantia, "to change Gallicanus's heart." The third scene (a scant dozen lines) shows Gallicanus in anxious consultation with other nobles, wondering what the outcome of Constantine's conference will be. In the fourth, he is summoned into the imperial presence, as follows:

Constantinus. Gallicane!
Gallicanus. Quid dixit?
Principes. Procede, procede; vocat te!
G. Dii propitii, favete!
C. Perge securus, Gallicane, ad bellum;
   reversurus enim accipies, quod desideras,
   praemium.
G. Illudisne me?
C. Si illudo.
G. Me felicem, si unum scirem!
C. Quid unum?
G. Eius responsum.
C. Filiae?
G. Ipsius.

So the story proceeds, through a total of twenty-two scenes. The two daughters of Gallicanus are brought to Constantia; Gallicanus, with John and Paul, departs for war; the soldiers arm themselves to meet the foe; there is a spirited battle scene, in which we are at one moment on the Roman side, hearing the defeatist counsel of the tribunes and witnessing Gallicanus' vow, and at the next are in the midst of the panic-stricken enemy, as they drop their arms and sue for mercy.

Gallicanus returns to Rome, performs his devotions at St. Peter's, tells the emperor the story of the battle, and renounces his claim to Constantia. And then suddenly we are in the reign of Julian the Apostate, who is ordering a confiscation of Christian goods. The persecution of John and Paul, the madness and restoration of Terentianus' son, all follow in due course; and the play ends with a prayer of thanksgiving by Terentianus.

The defects of the drama are obvious. There is practically no plot, no entanglement to be resolved; the characters have little individuality; and the interest, instead of being unified, centers on Gallicanus in the first part and on John and Paul in the second. But all these defects were undoubtedly in Hrotsvitha's sources; and if she has followed them with too great fidelity, the fault is surely pardonable in one who was working in an unfamiliar medium and had not yet mastered her craft. And in reshaping the legend of Gallicanus, Hrotsvitha has actually contributed something of her own. Out of the shadowy figure of the emperor's daughter she has made a really appealing character, sweet and docile with her father, gentle and affectionate with her maiden companions; and her description of the "young man of lofty stature, bearing a cross on his shoulders," who appeared to Gallicanus, and of the heavenly host who thronged about him on the right hand and on the left, has an imaginative quality far beyond anything in the legends of the saints.

The plays which follow show a marked advance in technique. Dulcitius, the next in order, has only fourteen scenes, as compared with the twenty-two of Gallicanus; Calimachus and Abraham each have nine. And the structure of these dramas is much firmer. In Dulcitius, the Emperor Diocletian reasons with three Christian maidens—Agapes (Love), Chionia (Purity), and Hirena (Peace)—trying to induce them to renounce their faith and wed three young nobles of the court. When they refuse, he orders them thrown into prison, under the custody of Dulcitius; and they are accordingly taken to a cell, in the antechamber of which certain cooking utensils are stored. At night, as they are singing hymns, Dulcitius approaches the cell, intending to embrace the maidens. They pray, "Deus nos tueatur!" Then a great rattling of pots and pans is heard; and the maidens, peering through a crack, see Dulcitius clasping the grimy cooking utensils to his bosom and imprinting kisses upon them. Then, blackened with soot, he returns to his soldiers, who stare at him in consternation and cry, "Quis hic egreditur? Daemoniacus. Vel magis ipse diabolus. Fugiamus!" Diocletian orders the maidens put to death; Agapes and Chionia are placed upon a pyre, where, however, neither their hair nor their garments are injured by the flames, and their spirits pass quietly from their bodies. Orders are given for Hirena to be taken to a brothel; but two supernatural beings rescue her from the soldiers and lead her to a hill-top, where an arrow from a soldier's bow ends her life, but only after she has uttered this triumphant hymn:

Hinc mihi quam maxime gaudendum, tibi vero dolendum, quia pro tui severitate malignitatis in tartara dampnaberis; ego autem, martirii palmam virginitatisque receptura coronam, intrabo aethereum aeterni regis thalamum; cui est honor et gloria in saecula.

Calimachus has more dramatic interest than either of the preceding plays, and shows increased skill in character-drawing. It also approaches more closely than either of its predecessors to the Terentian type of plot, in that the entire action of the play is motivated by the love of Calimachus for Drusiana. In the opening scenes Calimachus, like Chaerea in the Eunuchus, tells his friends of his passion, which has not yet been revealed to its object; they declare that his hopes are vain, for Drusiana has been baptized and has devoted herself so completely to the service of God that she will not even visit the couch of her own husband. He nevertheless approaches her and declares his love:

C. Sermo meus ad te, Drusiana, praecordialis
   amor.
D. Quid mecum velis, Calimache, sermonibus
   agere, vehementer admiror.
C. Miraris?
D. Satis.
C. Primum de amore.
D. Quid de amore?
C. Id scilicet, quod te prae omnibus diligo.
D. Quod ius consanguinitatis, quaeve legalis
   conditio institutionis compellit te ad mei
   amorem?
C. Tui pulchritudo.
D. Mea pulchritudo?
C. Immo.
D. Quid ad te?
C. Pro dolor! hactenus parum, sed spero, quod
   attineat postmodum.
D. Discede, discede, leno nefande; confundor
   enim diutius tecum verba miscere, quem
   sentio plenum diabolica deceptione.

When he has withdrawn, Drusiana, overwhelmed at the thought of the ruin which her beauty has wrought, prays for death. Her prayer is answered and she is laid away in the tomb. But even this catastrophe does not release Calimachus from the torture of love; he goes to the tomb and bribes the guard to allow him access to the body. But as Calimachus enters the sepulcher, the guard cries out in terror at a horrible serpent; the guard is killed by the serpent's bite, and Calimachus is miraculously struck dead. In the next scene, Drusiana's husband and St. John, approaching the tomb, hear a voice from heaven promising the resurrection of Drusiana and of one who lies near her; John utters a long prayer, and then in the name of Christ calls upon Calimachus to rise and confess his sins. The restored and penitent lover now swears devotion to Christ alone, and Drusiana's resurrection follows. The guard is also called back to life; but after a few hasty inquiries about the situation, he declares: "If what you say is true, if Drusiana has raised me from the dead and Calimachus believes in Christ, I scorn life and gladly choose death. I prefer not to live rather than to see so much grace and virtue in them." So the others commit him to the fires of everlasting torment, and end with thanksgiving to God.

Abraham (or The Fall and Conversion of Mary, Niece of the Hermit Abraham) has some exquisite touches. In the opening dialogue Abraham tells his fellow-monk Effrem of the little niece (neptis tenella), bereft of both father and mother, whom he would like to win to a life of celibacy. Mary is called in, agrees to her uncle's plan for her, and is established in a little cell next to Abraham's own, through the window of which he plans to instruct her in the psalter and other pages of Holy Writ. Some years later Abraham, bowed down with grief, comes to Effrem and tells him a sad tale: a lover in monk's garb has come to Mary's window and persuaded her to flee with him; then, her honor lost, she has in despair given herself up to a life of vanity. Word comes to her uncle that she has taken up her abode in the house of a certain procurer to whom she brings much gain. Then, by a ruse similar to that of Chaerea in the Eunuchus, but of course with quite a different purpose, Abraham disguises himself as a soldier, with a cap over his tonsured head, and journeys to the place. Mary shows the supposed stranger gentle reverence, kisses his gray head, and kneels beside him to unfasten his boots. Then he throws off his disguise, and calls upon his adopted child, by the love that he has borne her and all her years of holy living, to repent and turn from her sins. She falls prostrate to the earth; but as he encourages her with the hope of forgiveness, she rises, leaves her ill-gotten gains behind, and goes forth with him, in the early morning light, to return to her little cell.¹²

The two remaining plays must have been the ones that Hrotsvitha had particularly in mind when she spoke so proudly of weaving in "threads from the mantle of Philosophy"; but unfortunately these threads only detract from the dramatic value of the plays. Pafnutius deals with the conversion of the courtesan Thais—a theme which was treated in the nineteenth century by Anatole France and, through his story, passed over into modern opera.¹³ In a long opening scene, Pafnutius explains to his disciples that, just as the maior mundus is composed of four opposing elements, so man, the minor mundus, is composed of body and spirit, opposed to one another. He discourses on dialectic, the quadrivium, and the harmony of music; and finally explains that he is sad because of the evil life of Thais; he plans to visit her in the guise of a lover and asks for the prayers of his disciples. The scene which follows bears a general resemblance to the one in which the disguised Abraham visits the prostitute Mary, but is much less moving. Pafnutius convinces Thais of her wrongdoing; she repents and makes a huge bonfire of the "mammon" that she has collected from her lovers. He then conducts her to a monastery, and the abbess places her in a small cell, through the opening of which she may receive food; she shrinks from the darkness and the prospect of filth, but Pafnutius sternly bids her remember the fires of hell. He then tells her to pray, not with words, but with tears, and to say only, "Qui me plasmasti, miserere mei." When three years of penance have passed, Pafnutius learns that a disciple of the monk Antonius has had a vision of the marvelous glory in heaven awaiting Thais; he then visits her and predicts her death within fifteen days. He is with her in her last hour, as she prays, "Qui plasmasti me, miserere mei"; and himself offers a prayer for her departing spirit.

The scene of the last play, Sapientia, is laid in Rome in the time of Hadrian, but the principal characters (Wisdom and her three daughters, Faith, Hope, and Charity) are allegorical, and the philosophical element so predominates that there is little of the dramatic left. Sapientia and the three maidens are examined before the emperor; and Sapientia, in giving the ages of the three children (eight, ten, and twelve years), goes through an elaborate discourse on number, based on the Institutio Arithmetica of Boëthius. Hadrian orders them all to worship the gods of Rome and, on their refusal, puts them into custody; later, he bids Fides sacrifice to Diana and, when she remains steadfast, has her flogged and burned; Spes meets with a similar fate; Karitas is told merely to say "Magna Diana" but refuses to do even this. She is thrown into a fiery furnace, where, although the flames are so intense that they kill 5,000 men, she is seen walking about uninjured, with three shining ones beside her. She is then beheaded, and Sapientia and other matrons take the three bodies and bury them at the third milestone from the city. Sapientia offers a long prayer and then dies.

Clearly there is little in these six plays which, from our point of view, can justly be called Terentian. A faint hint of Terence's themes may be traced in the importance of the courtesans' rôles in Abraham and Pafnutius, and in the prominence of the love element in some of the other plays, particularly in Calimachus, where passionate love is the dominant force in the action. Even here, however, as she warned us in the Preface, Hrotsvitha has deliberately set herself to supplant Terence, by showing the inferiority of earthly to heavenly love and by leading the two courtesans back to the fold. The disguise-motif, as it appears in Abraham and Pafnutius, is somewhat like that in the Eunuchus; but whereas Chaerea dons the eunuch's clothes for the purpose of gaining access to the girl with whom he has fallen in love, the two monks in Hrotsvitha's plays disguise themselves as lovers in order to save the souls of the women whom they visit. The humorous element may also be discovered in her plays, in the saucy replies of some of the youthful martyrs to their inquisitors (which, as a recent translator has remarked, strike the same note as speeches of the Christians in Androcles and the Lion),¹⁴ in the characterization of the guard in Calimachus, who would rather stay dead than see virtue spreading itself, and, most notably, in the encounter of the amorous Dulcitius with the sooty pots and pans.¹⁵ More definitely Terentian are certain tricks of vocabulary and phrasing—the exclamations hercle, edepol, euax, pro dolor, hem; and idiomatic expressions like non flocci facio and di te perdant. Winterfeld, in his edition of Hrotsvitha's works, lists in the notes a few phrases which may even have a more direct connection with passages in Terence's plays—Gall. p. 119, paucis te volo, for instance, which repeats And. 29; Gall. p. 122, illudisne me, similar to Ad. 697, num ludis tu me? and Dulc. p. 142, nigellis panniculis obsitum, like Eun. 236, pannis annisque obsitum.¹⁶

But when all this has been said, the connections with Terence remain few in number, and the one outstanding similarity is that in both authors a story is developed by means of dialogue. That this dialogue could be acted seems never to have occurred to Hrotsvitha; Terence's plays had long since ceased to be given on the stage and were regularly read in private, or at most recited in the monastic schools. It was as reading-drama that Hrotsvitha thought of Terence's plays, and as reading-drama that she planned her own. If there could be doubt in anyone's mind on this point, an attempt to produce a play like Gallicanus, with its lightning changes of scene and its sudden leaps in time, should quickly dispel the doubt.¹⁷

The form in which Hrotsvitha cast her dramas was probably the nearest approach possible for her to the form of Terence's plays. To her, as to other readers of the Middle Ages, Terence's lines appeared to be prose, but prose of a peculiar elegance; and she therefore chose for her dramas a particularly elaborate form of prose composition, in which short phrases are balanced against one another, with the ends of the clausulae marked by rhyme."¹⁸ Some of the speeches quoted earlier in this paper have shown the peculiar qualities of this Reimprosa, but the prayer of Drusiana from Cali-machus may be given as a further example:

Intende, domine, mei timorem; intende, quem patior, dolorem! Quid mihi, quid agendum sit, ignoro: si prodidero, civilis per me fiet discordia; si celavero, insidiis diabolicis sine te refragari nequeo. lube me in te, Christe, ocius mori, ne fiam in ruinam delicato iuveni!

In actual fact, Hrotsvitha's independent contribution to mediaeval Latin literature is far more important than her connection with Terence. It took real inspiration to see that the saints' legends which she and everyone else up to this time had handled in narrative form could be given as well, or better, in dialogue. And in adapting her material to the dramatic form, after the first awkward attempts in Gallicanus, she shows a rare gift for seizing on the great moments of a story and presenting them strikingly.¹⁹ The sympathetic insight into the minds of her characters, and the deftness and sureness of the character-drawing in the best of her plays, are remarkable in one who had spent most of her mature years within convent walls. And whether her plays are to be regarded as an isolated phenomenon, without influence on later Latin literature, or whether, as Professor Coffman suggests, they may conceivably have furnished a hint for the later miracle plays,²⁰ this gentle nun of Gandersheim, who had the genius and the courage to attempt an entirely new literary type, deserves all honor.

Notes

¹ W. Creizenach, Geschichte des Neueren Dramas²: Halle, Niemeyer (1911), I, p. 16.

² E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage: Oxford, Clarendon Press (1903), II, p. 207.

³ New York, Duffield (1907), p. 2.

⁴ References in this article are to the Teubner text of Hrotsvitha's works, ed. K. Strecker, Leipzig, 1906; there is also an edition by P. Winterfeld in the series Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum: Berlin, Weidmann (1902), which is particularly valuable for the literary parallels cited in the notes. An English version has recently been published under the title, The Plays of Roswitha, translated by Christopher St. John: London, Chatto and Windus (1923). M. Manitius's Geschichte der Lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters: München, Beck (1911), I, pp. 619-32, gives an admirable summary of the facts of Hrotsvitha's life and a critical estimate of her work. For a full bibliography of recent articles in English, including several translations, see O. R. Kuehne, "Recent Literature Concerning Hrotsvitha," in Class. Wk. XX (1927), 149 f.

⁵ See the illuminating article by G. R. Coffman, "A New Approach to Mediaeval Latin Drama," in Mod. Phil. XXII (1925), 239-71, from which much of the material in this paragraph is drawn.

⁶ Cf. Manitius, Lat. Lit. des Mittelalters, I, 631 f., and the notes in Winterfeld's edition.

⁷ See the section from the life of Bernward paraphrased by Coffman in Mod. Phil. XXII (1925), 251.

⁸ The quotation is from St. John's translation, pp. xxvi-xxviii.

⁹ Creizenach, op. cit., I, p. 17.

¹⁰ C. Narbey, Supplément aux Acta Sanctorum pour des Vies de Saints de l'Epoche Mérovingienne: Paris, Welter (1899-1900), II, pp. 131-52. M. Narbey believes that this manuscript is an authentic copy of a life of St. Constantia written by a contemporary, of which we find traces in other saints' legends.

¹¹ Th. Graesse, Jacobi a Voragine Legenda Aurea: Dresden and Leipzig, Arnold (1846), pp. 364-67. The first part of the story is also given in the Acta Sanctorum collected by the Bollandists, under date of June 25, and the latter part under June 26.

¹² It is rather striking that this play, which marks the high point of Hrotsvitha's dramatic technique, should also contain the largest number of Vergilian reminiscences. The phrase which Abraham uses in speaking of Mary's age (p. 163, vitali aura vesceretur) is a blend of two in the Aeneid (I, 387, auras vitales carpis; and III, 339, vescitur aura); and he uses the words of Aeneas (Aen. II, 54) and of the unhappy shepherd of the first Eclogue (I, 16) when he tells of the dream that might have warned him of Mary's ruin, "si mens nonfuisset laeva" (p. 167). He places her on his horse, "ne itineris asperitas secet teneras plantas" (p. 176; cf. Gallus's words to Lycoris in Ecl. x, 49), and Mary cries out in wondering gratitude, "O, quem te memorem?" (p. 176; cf. Aen. I, 327). Most of these parallels are noted by Winterfeld.

¹³ On the origin and growth of the legend, see O. R. Kuehne, A Study of the Thais Legend with Special Reference to Hrothsvitha's "Paphnutius ": Philadelphia, privately printed (1922). On p. 76 of this book the author notes several additions and changes made by Hrosvitha in the legend, and on pp. 99 f. he points out that the scholastic discussion at the beginning of the play and the introduction of the abbess in a later scene may have suggested similar features in the novel of Anatole France.

¹⁴ St. John, op. cit., Pref., p. xix.

¹⁵ H. E. Wedeck, "The Humor of a Mediaeval Nun, Hrotsvitha," in Class. Wk. XXI (1928), 130 f., comments on several other scenes. Personally, I do not feel that the finespun arguments of Pafnutius and Sapientia were humorous to the author.

¹⁶ We need to use caution in dealing with these verbal similarities. The phrase panniculis obsitum is practically the same as obsita pannis in vs. 19 of The Phoenix, ascribed to Lactantius, and may have been familiar to Hrotsvitha from other sources than Terence; and phrases like memoriae fixum teneo (p. 118), on which Winterfeld cites And. 40, in memoria habeo, and immo aliud (p. 118; cf. And. 30, immo aliud) are too common in Latin literature to warrant any certain conclusions. The actual number of citations from Terence in Winterfeld's notes is less than from Boethius, Prudentius, or the Vulgate.

¹⁷ For an emphatic statement of this point of view, see Coffman in Mod. Phil. XXII (1925), 262. The fact that some of the plays have been produced in recent years does not invalidate the argument. Cf. St. John, The Plays of Roswitha, Pref., p. xxiii, for performances of Calimachus and Pafnutius in London theaters, and C. J. Kraemer, Jr., in Class. Wk. xx (1927), 198, for performances of Abraham, Calimachus, and Dulcitius at the Lawren Theatre Studio in New York City.

¹⁸ Manitus, Lat. Lit. des Mittelalters, I, p. 628, defines it as "die Form, die im 10. Jahrhundert in der Prosa beliebt wurde, die Reimprosa, wo aufeinanderfolgende Stückchen der Rede miteinander gereimt sind, doch ohne dass Umfang und Rhythmus gleich sein mussten." C. S. Baldwin, Mediaeval Rhetoric and Poetic: New York, Macmillan (1928), p. 144, gives other examples of tenth-century rhymed prose; the extract from a ceremonious letter which he quotes in n. 41 is very similar, in tone and style, to the epistles prefixed to different sections of Hrotsvitha's works. In her plays, the use of balance and rhyme is most marked in passages of a heightened emotional tone, particularly in the prayers. To one familiar with mediaeval hymnody, there is a rather striking similarity between these prayers and the "transitional" sequences of the tenth and eleventh centuries, of which the famous Victimae Paschali is the best example; and it seems possible that these passages may have been influenced to some extent by the church liturgy. For a parallel situation at a later date, when the cadences of the collects affected the style of twelfth- and thirteenth-century sermons, cf. Baldwin, op. cit., pp. 223-27.

¹⁹ Cf. Creizenach, op. cit., I, p. 18, "Besser als die Dramatiker des späteren Mittelalters versteht sie es, aus der überlieferten Begebenheit die Hauptmomente herauszugreifen."

²⁰ Coffman in Mod. Phil. XXII (1925), 263 f.