The directory «Plots»

Hrotswitha von Gandersheim
(935—1002)

Hrotswitha von Gandersheim was a Benedictine nun in the monastery at Gandersheim in Saxony, which was administered by abbesses of noble rank. Hrotswitha was probably of noble birth and certainly was more well-traveled and worldly than your average tenth Century nun. (She was perhaps a "canoness".)
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She wrote a history of Otto II Holy Roman Emperor who may have been her uncle. She also composed eight sacred legends and two historical epic poems in Latin. She wrote as well six short plays. Paphnutius, Sapientia, Gallicanus, Dulcitius, Calimachus, and Abraham. She also wrote prefaces to her plays in which she justifies her emulation of the pagan Terence on the grournds that the pagan writers are preferred to Holy Scriptures since the former are more polished and elegant. She wanted to emulate Terence's style so that others might not risk moral corruption because of the wickedness of the origirnal...

Hrotswitha used as her source material the Acta Sanctorum, the Apochrypha and Christian legends which she merely dramatized. She did not invent new material using these sources as inspiration.

Her stories are thematically moral and Christian, as Chambers notes, "designed to glorify chastity and to celebrate the constancy of the martyrs." But they were also very dramatic, funny and theatrical. While her plays may never have been performed in her time, they have been successfully performed in our time by Sister Mary Marguerite Butler of Mercy College, and are demonstrably stage-worthy.

In Dulcitius (probably the most farcical and theatrical of the lot) Emperor Diocletian orders Dulcitius-evil governor-to torture three virgins: Agape, Chionia and Irena, to obtain their denial of Christ and their eventual consent to marriages he had arranged. The virgins, of course, will not capitulate to such nefarious goings on. Dulcitius, with lust in his heart, goes to the virgins in their "apartment prison" but is foiled by a minacle and instead of raping the lovely trio has at the greasy pots and pans instead. Diocletian orders Dulcitius the dull-witted to surrender the virgins to Sisinnus for punishment Again heaven intercedes but Sissinus eventually succeeds in executing Agape and Chionia and a soldier's arrow, kills Irena soon after, so all three virgins are martyred virgo intacta-a real Medieval crowd-pleaser.

In Paphnutius, a pious hermit converts the notorious Alexandrine courtesan Thais, which story (in the form of a marionette lay) inspired Anatole France's novel, Thais, which in turn inspired Massenet's opera. Hrotswitha's Paphnutius is much more dignified that her Dulcitius, but it includes some sly humor as well. After some lengthy theologizing by the title character, one of Paphnutius' disciples asks, "where did you acquire all this knowledge with which you have just wearied us?" The plot centers on the salvation of Thais' immortal soul. To secure her salvation, Paphnutius has the grande horizontale cloistered in a narrow cell with "no entrance, no access but a small window through which she may receive a portion of food, which you must give her sparingly on certain days at specified hours." He explains, "a grievous fault demands a severe remedy." The cure, of course, ends up killing her, but again (another Medieval crowd-pleaser) "…this same Thais may rise again in a perfect body as she was, and be at home among the snow-white lambs and be led into the joys of Eternity…world without end."

German Federal Republic, 1973, «R» Motif

German Federal Republic, 1973.05.25, Bonn. Roswitha von Gandersheim