Woman under Monasticism
In the introduction to her plays Hrotsvith appeals to the judgment of powerful patrons, but she does not give their names; in her history, as mentioned above, she asks for criticism from Wilhelm, archbishop of Mainz, who was the illegitimate son of Otto I, and a leading prelate of the time. This exhausts what we know of friends outside the convent; probably the abbess Gerberg was the chief critic throughout and had more influence on her than any other. It was she who introduced Hrotsvith to the works, classical and other, which she had herself studied under learned men, and she was always ready to encourage her able pupil and supply her with materials to work upon.
The library at Gandersheim, to which Hrotsvith had access, contained the writings of a number of classical and theological authors. Among the classical writers with whom the nun is thought to have been directly acquainted were Virgil, Lucan, Horace, Ovid, Terence, and perhaps Plautus; among the Christian writers Prudentius, Sedulius, Fortunatus, Marianus Capella, and Boethius479. Ebert, who has analysed the sources from which Hrotsvith drew the subject matter of her legends and dramas, considers that at this time Greek authors were read at Gandersheim in Latin translations only. Another writer, arguing from the fact that the nun frequently uses words of Greek origin, considers that she had some knowledge of Greek480. This latter opinion has little in its favour. However we know that Greek teachers were summoned from Constantinople to instruct Hedwig, Gerberg’s sister, who was to have married the Emperor Constantine. The match fell through, but the Saxon royal family aimed steadily at securing an alliance with the court of Constantinople, and ultimately attained this object by the marriage of Otto II to the Greek princess Theofanu (971).
After Hrotsvith had mastered the contents of the library at Gandersheim she was moved to try her hand at writing Latin verse; she cast into metrical form the account of the birth and life of the Virgin Mary contained in a gospel which in some manuscripts is ascribed to St James, the brother of Christ481. The story is well told, and the incidents described follow each other naturally; the poem exceeds nine hundred lines in length. She supplements the original text with some amplifications of a descriptive nature and a panegyric on Christ, with which she closes the poem.
The diffidence Hrotsvith felt at first in writing is described in the introduction which she prefixed to the complete collection of her legendary poems and addressed to a wider public482.
‘Unknown to others and secretly, so to speak, I worked by myself’; she says, ‘sometimes I composed, sometimes I destroyed what I had written to the best of my abilities and yet badly; I dealt with material taken from writings with which I became acquainted within the precincts of our monastery of Gandersheim through the help of our learned and kindly teacher Rikkardis, afterwards through that of others who taught in her place, and finally through that of the high-born abbess Gerberg, under whom I am living at present, who is younger than I am in years but more advanced in learning as befits one of royal lineage, and who has introduced me to various authors whom she has herself studied with the help of learned men. Writing verse appears a difficult and arduous task especially for one of my sex, but trusting to the help of divine grace more than to my own powers, I have fitted the stories of this book to dactylic measures as best I could, for fear that the abilities that have been implanted in me should be dulled and wasted by neglect; for I prefer that these abilities should in some way ring the divine praises in support of devotion; the result may not be in proportion to the trouble taken and yet it may be to the profit of some.’
The nun is filled with the consciousness that her undertaking is no mean one. ‘Full well I know,’ she says, addressing the Virgin, ‘that the task of proclaiming thy merits exceeds my feeble strength, for the whole world could not celebrate worthily that which is a theme of praise among the angels.’ The poem on the life of the Virgin is written in leonine hexameters, that is with rhymes at the middle and the end of the line. This form of verse was sometimes used at that period, and Hrotsvith especially in her later historical poems handled it with considerable skill.
Hrotsvith afterwards added to the account of the Virgin a poem of a hundred and fifty lines on the Ascension of Christ483. In this, as she tells us, she adapted an account written by John the Bishop, which had been translated from Greek into Latin.
This poem also is simple and dignified, and gives proof of considerable power of expression on the part of the nun. Her vocabulary however has certain peculiarities, for she is fond of diminutives, a tendency which in the eyes of her editor is peculiarly feminine484.
The poem on the Ascension closes with the following characteristic lines: ‘Whoever reads this let him exclaim in a forbearing spirit: Holy King, spare and have mercy on the suppliant Hrotsvith and suffer that she who here has been celebrating thy glorious deeds may persevere further in holy song on things divine!’
The next subject which engrossed the nun’s attention was the history of Gongolf485, a huntsman and warrior of Burgundy, who lived in the time of King Pipin. He was credited with performing wonders such as calling up a fountain; he was a pious Christian and was put to a cruel death by his faithless wife and her lover. This poem is over five hundred lines in length and contains some fine descriptive passages. The version of the story Hrotsvith made use of being lost, we cannot tell how far she drew upon her own powers of narrative486.
But the next legend she wrote left full scope for originality of treatment. It describes the experiences and martyrdom of Pelagius, a youth who had been recently (925) put to death by the Saracens at Cordova in Spain; the event, as she herself informs us, had been described to Hrotsvith by an eye-witness. The story opens with an enthusiastic description of the beauties of Cordova. Pelagius, the son of a king of Galicia, persuaded his father to leave him as hostage with the Caliph. But the Caliph, enamoured by the youth’s physical beauty, persecuted him with attentions, and meeting with contempt ordered him to be cast down from the city walls. The young man remained unharmed, and was then beheaded and his head and body thrown into the river. Fishermen picked them up and carried them to a monastery, where their identity was ascertained by casting the head in the fire, which left it untouched. The head and body were then given solemn burial.
The next legend has repeatedly been commented on as the earliest account in verse of a pact with the devil and as a precursor of the many versions of the legend of Faust487. The ‘Lapse and conversion of Theophilus488’ may have had special attractions for Hrotsvith since the incident of the devil forced to return his bond was connected, as mentioned above, with her namesake Hrotsvith, abbess of Gandersheim. The story of Theophilus which Hrotsvith expanded and put into verse had recently been translated from Greek into Latin, as Ebert has shown. The story runs as follows.
Theophilus, nephew of a bishop of Cilesia (of uncertain date), had been educated in the seven liberal arts, but he held himself unworthy of succeeding his uncle, and considered the office of ‘vice-domus’ more suited to his powers. His popularity however drew on him the hatred of the newly appointed bishop, who robbed him of his post. Thirsting for revenge the young man went for advice to a certain Hebrew, ‘who by magic art turned away many of the faithful,’ and who led him at night through the town to a dark place ‘full of phantasms that stood in white clothes holding torches in their hands’ (line 99). Their demon king was at first indignant that a Christian claimed his assistance and jeered at the Christians’ ways, but at last he promised to help Theophilus on condition that he should sign an agreement by which he pledged himself to be one of the ghastly crew to all eternity. The young man agreed to the condition, and on his return home was favourably received by the bishop and reinstated in his dignity. But his peace of mind had deserted him; again and again he was seized by qualms of conscience and affrighted by agonising visions of eternal suffering which he forcibly describes in a monologue. At last he sought to escape from his contract by praying to the Virgin Queen of heaven in her temple, and for forty days consecutively prayed to her to intercede in his favour with God. The Virgin at last appeared to him, told him that he was free and handed him the fatal document. On a festal day he confessed his wrong-doing before all the people and burnt the parchment in their presence. In the very act of doing so he appeared as a changed man before their eyes and was instantly overtaken by death.
To this legend Hrotsvith attached a little prayer of eight lines which is a grace for use at meals. This prayer is in no way connected with the legend, and its presence here indicates that the legends were originally intended to be read aloud during meals in the refectory, and the reading to be closed with a prayer.
Having written so far Hrotsvith collected her legendary poems together with the poem on the Virgin and dedicated them in the form of a little book to her teacher, the abbess Gerberg. Evidently the stories attracted attention beyond the limits of the convent, and Hrotsvith was encouraged to continue in the path she had chosen. Accordingly she wrote a second set of legends, in composing which she was mindful of a wider public and that not exclusively of her own sex. For in the opening lines of the first of these legends which treats of the conversion of Proterius by Basilius, bishop of Caesarea, she begs that those who peruse this story ‘will not on account of her sex despise the woman who draws these strains from a fragile reed489.’
The story of this conversion, like that of Theophilus, treats of a pact with the evil one, but with a difference. For in the one story the man signs away his soul to regain his position, in the other he subscribes the fatal bond for the purpose of securing the hand of the bishop’s daughter. The bishop however intercedes with God in his behalf and regains his liberty for him. The poem is neither so complete nor so striking as that of Theophilus.
Two more legends are grouped with it. One of them describes the Passion of Dionysius490, who suffered martyrdom at Paris, and who at an early date was held identical with Dionysius the Areopagite. The hand of this saint had been given as a relic to King Heinrich the Fowler, and had been deposited by him at Quedlinburg – an incident which made the saint’s name familiar in Saxon lands.
The passion of Dionysius is described according to a prose account written by Hilduin († 814), but Hrotsvith abbreviated and altered it491. She describes how Dionysius witnessed an eclipse of the sun at Memphis at the time when Christ was put to death, how he returned to Athens and there waited to hear something of the new god. The apostle Paul arrived and preached, and Dionysius followed him to Rome. From Rome he was despatched into Gaul to preach the new faith, and while there he was first cast into the flames which did not burn him, and then thrown before wild beasts which refused to touch him. He was finally beheaded during the persecutions under Diocletian. In this poem there is an especially fine passage in which we hear how Dionysius after being beheaded rose to life and took up his head, which he carried away down the hill to the spot where he wished to be buried, – a story similar to that told of many saints.
The last legend which Hrotsvith wrote treats of the Passion of St Agnes, a virgin saint of Rome, whose fortitude in tribulation and stedfast adherence to Christianity and to the vow she had taken made her story especially suitable for a convent of nuns492. The story has often been put into writing from the 4th century downwards; Hrotsvith took her account from that ascribed to Ambrosius († 397), which she followed closely. She prefaces it with an address to maidens vowed to God, who are exhorted to remain steadfast in their purpose. Like most of these legendary tales it is between four and five hundred lines in length.
Throughout her legends Hrotsvith, as she herself says in a few remarks which stand at the conclusion of the legends, was bent on keeping close to the original accounts from which she worked. ‘I have taken the material for this book, like that for the one preceding it, from ancient books compiled by authentic authors (certis nominibus), the story of Pelagius alone is excepted… If mistakes have crept into my accounts, it is not because I have intentionally erred but because I have unwittingly copied mistakes made by others493.’
Ebert, commenting on the spirit of the legends generally, remarks on the masterly way in which the nun has dealt with her material, on her skill in supplying gaps left by earlier writers, on her deft handling of rhyme and rhythm, on the right feeling which guides her throughout her work, and on the completeness of each of her legends as a whole494.
The lines in which the second set of legends are dedicated to Gerberg bear witness to the pleasure Hrotsvith derived from her work. ‘To thee, lady Gerberg,’ she says, ‘I dedicate these stories, adding new to earlier ones, as a sinner who deserves benevolent indulgence. Rejoicing I sing to the accompaniment with dactylic measures; do not despise them because they are bad, but praise in your gentle heart the workings of God495.’
Having so far worked along accepted lines and achieved success therein, the nun of Gandersheim was moved to strike out a new path. Conscious of her powers and conscious of a need of her time, filled with admiration for the dramatic powers of classical writers while disapproving of their tendencies, she set to work to compose a series of plays on the model of Terence, in which she dramatised incidents and experiences calculated to have an elevating influence on her fellow-nuns.
How she came to write plays at all and what determined her in the choice of her subject, she has described in passages which are worth quoting in full. They show that she was not wanting either in spirit or in determination, and that her conviction that the classical form of drama was without equal strengthened her in her resolve to make use of that form as the vehicle for stories of an altogether different tenor. The interest of the plays of Terence invariably turns on the seduction of women and exposure of the frailty of the sex; the nun of Gandersheim determined to set forth woman’s stedfast adherence to a vow once taken and her firm resistance to temptation. Whatever may be thought of these compositions, the merit of originality can hardly be denied to them. They were intended for perusal only, but there is nothing in the dialogue or mechanism that makes a dramatic representation of them impossible.
‘There are many Christians,’ says the nun496, ‘from whom we cannot claim to be excepted, who because of the charm of finished diction prefer heathen literature with its hollowness to our religious books; there are others who hold by the scripture and despise what is heathen, and yet eagerly peruse the poetic creations of Terence; while delighting in his flow of language, they are all polluted by the godless contents of his works. Therefore I “the well known mouthpiece of Gandersheim” have not hesitated in taking this poet’s style as a model, and while others honour him by perusing his dramas, I have attempted, in the very way in which he treats of unchaste love among evil women, to celebrate according to my ability the praiseworthy chasteness of godlike maidens.
‘In doing so, I have often hesitated with a blush on my cheeks through modesty, because the nature of the work obliged me to concentrate my attention on and apply my mind to the wicked passion of illicit love and to the tempting talk of the amorous, against which we at other times close our ears. But if I had hesitated on account of my blushes I could not have carried out my purpose, or have set forth the praise of innocence to the fulness of my ability. For in proportion as the blandishments of lovers are enticing, so much greater is the glory of our helper in heaven, so much more glorious the triumph of those who prevail, especially where woman’s weakness triumphs and man’s shameless strength is made to succumb. Certainly some will allege that my language is much inferior, much poorer, and very unlike that of him whom I try to imitate. It is so, I agree with them. And yet I refuse to be reproached on this account as though I had meant to class myself with those who in their knowledge are so far above my insufficiency. I am not even so boastful as to class myself with the least of their pupils; all I am bent on is, however insufficiently, to turn the power of mind given to me to the use of Him who gave it. I am not so far enamoured of myself that I should cease from fear of criticism to proclaim the power of Christ which works in the saints in whatever way He grants it. If anyone is pleased with my work I shall rejoice, but if on account of my unpolished language it pleases no one, what I have done yet remains a satisfaction to myself, for while in other writings I have worked, however insufficiently, only in heroic strophe (heroico strophio), here I have combined this with dramatic form, while avoiding the dangerous allurements of the heathen.’
Those passages in which Hrotsvith speaks of her modest hesitation are especially worthy of notice and will not fail to appeal to those women now-a-days, who, hoping to gain a clearer insight into the difficulties with which their sex has to contend, feel it needful to face facts from which their sensibilities naturally shrink. They will appreciate the conflicting feelings with which the nun of Gandersheim, well-nigh a thousand years ago, entered upon her task, and admire the spirit in which she met her difficulties and the courage with which she carried out her purpose, in spite of her consciousness of shortcomings and derogatory criticism.
As she points out, the keynote of her dramas one and all is to insist on the beauties of a steadfast adherence to chastity as opposed to the frenzy and the vagaries of passion. In doing so she is giving expression to the ideas of contemporary Christian teaching, which saw in passion, not the inborn force that can be applied to good or evil purpose, not the storage of strength which works for social advantage or disadvantage, but simply a tendency in human nature which manifests itself in lack of self-restraint, and the disturbing element which interferes with the attainment of calmness and candour.
As Hudson, one of the few English writers who has treated of this nun and her writings497, remarks: ‘It is on the literary side alone that Hrotsvitha belongs to the classic school. The spirit and essence of her work belong entirely to the middle ages; for beneath the rigid garb of a dead language beats the warm heart of a new era. Everything in her plays that is not formal but essential, everything that is original and individual, belongs wholly to the christianised Germany of the 10th century. Everywhere we can trace the influence of the atmosphere in which she lived; every thought and every motive is coloured by the spiritual conditions of her time. The keynote of all her works is the conflict of Christianity with paganism; and it is worthy of remark that in Hrotsvitha’s hands Christianity is throughout represented by the purity and gentleness of woman while paganism is embodied in what she describes as ‘the vigour of men (virile robur).’
For the nun does not disparage marriage, far from it; nor does she inculcate a doctrine of general celibacy. It is not a question with her of giving up a lesser joy for a greater, but simply of the way to remain true to the higher standard, which in accordance with the teaching of her age she identified with a life of chastity. Her position may appear untenable; confusion of thought is a reproach which a later age readily casts on an earlier. But underneath what may seem unreasonable there is the aspiration for self-control. It is this aspiration which gives a wide and an abiding interest to her plays. For she is not hampered by narrowness of thought or by pettiness of spirit. Her horizon is limited, we grant; but she fills it entirely and she fills it well.
Passing from these generalities to the plays themselves, we find ourselves in a variety of surroundings and in contact with a wide range of personalities. The transition period from heathendom to Christianity supplies in most cases the mental and moral conflicts round which centres the interest of these plays.
The plays are six in number, and the one that stands first is divided into two separate parts. Their character varies considerably. There is the heroic, the romantic, the comic and the unrelieved tragic element, and the two plays that stand last contain long disquisitions on scholastic learning. A short analysis of their contents will give the reader an idea of the manner in which Hrotsvith makes her conceptions and her purpose evident.
‘Gallicanus,’ the play that stands first498, is in some ways the most striking of all. A complex theme is ably dealt with and the incidents follow each other rapidly; the scene lies alternately in Rome and on the battle-field. The Emperor Constantine is bent on opposing the incursions of the Scythians, and his general Gallicanus claims the hand of the emperor’s daughter Constantia as a reward for undertaking so dangerous an expedition. Constantia is a convert to Christianity, Gallicanus is a heathen. In an interview with her father the girl declares she will sooner die than be united to a heathen, but with a mixture of shrewdness and confidence in her faith she agrees to marry him on his return on condition that the Christians John and Paul shall accompany him on his expedition, and that his daughters shall meanwhile be given into her keeping. The manner in which she receives the girls is at once proud and dignified. ‘Welcome my sisters, Attica and Artemia,’ she exclaims; ‘stand, do not kneel, rather greet me with a kiss of affection.’ There is no development of character in the course of the play, for Hrotsvith is chiefly bent on depicting states of mind under given conditions. The characters in themselves are forcibly drawn: witness the emperor’s affection for his daughter, the general’s strength and determination, Constantia’s dignified bearing and the gentleness of the Christian teachers. The sequel of events bears out Constantia’s anticipations. The daughters of Gallicanus are easily swayed in favour of Christianity and their father is converted. For Gallicanus is hard pressed by the Scythians on the battle-field and despairs of success, when the Christian teachers urge him to call upon their God for help. He does so, overcomes the Scythians and takes their leader Bradan prisoner. In recognition of his victory he is rewarded by a triumphal entry into Rome. But he is now a convert to Christianity; he describes to the emperor how Christ Himself and the heavenly host fought on his side, and he approaches Constantia and his daughters and thus addresses them: ‘I greet you, holy maidens; abide in the fear of God and keep inviolate your virgin crown that the eternal King may receive you in His embrace.’ Constantia replies: ‘We serve Him the more readily if thou dost not oppose us.’ Gallicanus: ‘I would not discourage, prevent or thwart your wishes, I respect them, so far that I would not now constrain thee, beloved Constantia, whom I have secured at the risk of my life.’ But he admits that his resolve costs him much, and he decides to seek solace in solitude for his grief at having lost so great a prize.
The sequel to this play is short, and describes the martyrdom of the Christian teachers, John and Paul, who had accompanied Gallicanus on his expedition. Gallicanus is no more, the Emperor Constantius is dead, and Julian the Apostate reigns in his stead and cruelly persecutes the Christians. No woman appears in this part of the play. We first witness the martyrdom of the Christians who are put to death by Terentian, one of the emperor’s generals. Terentian’s son is then seized by a terrible illness, and his unhappy father goes to the grave of the martyrs, where he becomes a convert to Christianity and prays for their intercession with God in behalf of his son. His prayer finds fulfilment and the boy is restored to health. Hrotsvith took this story from the Acts and the Passion of the saints John and Paul, but, as Ebert has shown, the development is entirely her own499. Though working on the model of Terence the nun is quite indifferent to unities of time and place, and sacrifices everything to the exigencies of the plot, so that the transition from scene to scene is often sudden and abrupt.
