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Early Medieval Latin Poetry of Mary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Walter Berschin
Walter Berschin*
Affiliation:
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, Heidelberg
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Extract

In the tenth century Gandersheim was a small, proudly independent principality ruled by women. All who belonged to Gandersheim (except for the servants) were of noble birth, taking vows as canonesses - that is, free to leave the abbey, if they wanted. Hrotsvit, born around 935, was one of these canonesses. She was well aware of her talent for writing Latin and - as she confessed later in a rhyming prose-preface - ‘was not to lie sluggish in the heart’s dark cavern and be destroyed by the rust of negligence, but rather struck by the hammer of unfailing diligence, was to echo some small ringing note of divine praise.’ ‘In complete secrecy’ she began to write poems based on writings she had found in the library of Gandersheim.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 39: The Church and Mary , 2004 , pp. 112 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2004

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References

1 Cf. Goetting, H., Das rekhsunmittetbare Kanonissenstift Gandersheim, Germania Sacra, ns 7 (Berlin and New York, 1973)Google Scholar.

2 There is a new Teubner-edition of her works: Hrotsvit: Opera omnia, ed. Walter Berschin (Munich and Leipzig, 2001).

3 Hrotsvit, Liber I: Legendae, praef. (ed. Berschin, 2). The English translations of the Maria below are cited from Gonsalva Wiegand, The Non-dramatic Works of Hrosvitha (St Louis, MO, 1936), 14-65.

4 Hrotsvit’s principal source was the so-called Protevangelium lacobi (or Pseudo-Matthaeus): Liber de ortu beatae Mariae et infantia salvatoris, ed. C. Tischendorf, Evangelia apocrypha, 2nd edn (Leipzig, 1876), 51-111. For other editions see M. Geerard, Clavis apocryphorum Novi Testament! (Turnhout, 1992), no. 51.

5 Venantius Fortunatus, Pange, lingua, gloriosi proelium certaminis (carm.II 2) str.9: Flecte ramos, arbor aha…

6 The text given here represents the older form of the poem; later it was slightly extended: mater misericordiae and dulcis vino Maria.

7 Lowth, R., De sacra poesi Hebraeorum (Oxford, 1753; repr. London, 1995)Google Scholar. German trans lation by J.D. Michaelis, Roberti Lowth A.M., collegii novi socii et poeticae publici praelectoris, De sacra poesi Hebraeorum praelectiones (Göttingen, 1758).

8 Cf. Jungmann, J.A., Missarumsollemnia, I, 3rd edn (Vienna, 1952), 480 Google Scholar.

9 Johannes Trithemius (d.1516), Chronica insignis monasterii Hirsaugiensis ad a.1047, in Johannis Trithemii opera historica, ed. M. Freher, 2 vols (Frankfurt, 1601), 2:50-1.

10 Jacobus de Voragine (d.1299), Legenda aurea, c. 177 (181), ‘De sancto Pelagio papa’: ed. G.P. Maggioni, 2 vols, Millennio medievale, 6 (Florence, 1998), 2:1272; ed. T. Graesse, 3rd edn (Breslau, 1890), 836.

11 Alberich of Trois-Fontaines (d. after 1252), Chronica ad a.i 130: P. Scheffer-Boichorst, ‘Albrici monachi Triumfontium Chronicon’, MGH Scriptores, 23 (Hanover, 1874), 828.

12 Johannes Eremita, Vita (IV) S.Bernardi, II.7 (PL 185, col. 544). For this Life in the context of the other biographies of St Bernard, W. Berschin, Biographie mid Epochenstil im lateinischen Mittelalter, 4/ii (Stuttgart, 2001), 326.

13 Oesch, H., Berno und Hermann von Reichenau ah Musiktheoreliker (Berne, 1961), 149–50 Google Scholar.

14 Here our first instance is trie Legenda aurea, c. 177 (181); see n. 1 o.

15 Cf. Berschin, W., Eremus und Insula. St.Gatlen and die Reichenau im Mittelalter - Modell eitier laleinischen Literaturlandschaft (Wiesbaden, 1987), 17–18 Google Scholar.

16 B. Klein-Ilbeck, Antidotum vitae. Die Sequenzen Hermanns des Lahmen (Dissertation, University of Heidelberg, 1992; microfiche 1998). The Latin text of the sequence is from this dissertation. Previous edn: C. Blume and Dreves, G.M., Hymnographi latini: lateinische Hymnendichter des Mittelalters, Analecta Hymnica, 48, 50 (Leipzig, 1905-7), 2:313–15 Google Scholar.

17 F. Saxl and H. Meier, Verzeichnis astrologischer und mythotogischer ilhislrierler Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters, 3 (1953), 287-8, and pl. 55 (ill. 141). For the date of the drawing see Vaughan, R., Matthew Paris (Cambridge, 1958), 230 Google Scholar.

18 Edited in J. Drecker, ‘Hermannus Contractus: Uber das Astrolab’, Isis, 16 (1931), 200-19. Many manuscripts are cited by Oesch, Berno und Hermann, 162-4. Somewhat speculative is A. Borst, Astrolab und Klosterreform an derjahrtausendwende (Heidelberg, 1989).

19 ‘Bertholdi annates, a. 1054-1080’, MGH Scriptores, 5 (Hanover, 1844), 267.

20 ‘corporis salutem sine magna sapientia vel maximam scientiam cum corporis inbecillitate’: Bodley, MS Digby 174, fol. 21 ov, printed by Borst, Astrolab, 91. Another legend of this type was edited from Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 111 (twelfth century), by J. Handschin, ‘Hermannus Contractus-Legenden - nur Legenden?’, Zeitschrifl fiir deutsches Altertum, 72(1935), 1-8.

21 ‘Reichenau… has a virtual monopoly of the Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin in the surviving manuscript art of the Ottonians’: H. Mayr-Harting, Ottoman Book Illumination. An Historical Study, 2 vols, 2nd edn (1999), 1:145.

22 The best introduction to the form of the sequence is the preface which Notker Balbulus of St Gall (d.912) wrote to his Liber hymnorum, ed. W. von den Steinen, Notker der Dichter und seinegeistige Welt, 2 vols (Berne, 1948), 2:8-10.

23 Dronke, P., The Medieval Lyric, 2nd edn (London, 1978), 44–5 Google Scholar.