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532 whereof the first consists of poems on the lives of the Virgin and certain other saints (the grotesque legend of Gengulphus of Toul is among them), the second of six so-called comedies, the third of a short epic on Otto I: another, on the origins of Gandersheim, is preserved separately. The comedies are the unusual feature. They are written in no strict metre but in a rhythmical prose, and treat of episodes from saints' lives. They are avowedly intended to extol chastity, as a counterblast to the mischievous writings of Terence. We have here the earliest of Christian dramas (dramatic only in form, for Hrotsvitha would never have sanctioned the acting of them) and as such they would in any case be interesting; but they are not without merit. Short and easily read, their plots are not ill-chosen, and the dialogue moves quickly. There is even a touch of humour here and there, as when, in Dulcitius, the Roman persecutor makes love to the pots and pans in the kitchen, under the illusion of their being Christian girls, and gets covered with soot.

In one or two cases the sources employed are interesting. The first poem of the first book deals with the life of the Virgin and the Infancy of Christ, and is drawn from an apocryphal Gospel, in a text usually fathered upon Matthew, but here upon James the Lord's brother. The second, on the Ascension, is from an unidentified Greek text translated by a bishop John. One of the plays is an episode from the Acts of St John the Evangelist.

It must be said once again that this chapter is not a text-book or a history, but a survey, of the literature of two centuries. So far it has been mainly occupied with what by a stretch of language might be called belles lettres: but these form only a small fraction of the whole bulk of writings which have come to us from the years 800 to 1000. To leave the rest unglanced at would be outrageous. Five headings seem to comprise the greatest part of what it is really essential to notice: Theology, Hagiography leading over to History, the Sciences and Arts, and books in vernacular languages.

In the enormous department of Theology we find two great categories, Commentaries on the Scriptures and controversial writings. Liturgy and Homiletics we must leave untouched. From the commentators we have a huge bulk of material, but with very few exceptions, it is wholly unoriginal. Like Bede, these men compiled from earlier authors. The Glossa Ordinaria, already noticed, is typical. Angelomus of Luxeuil, Haymo of Halberstadt, Raban Maur, are compilers of this class. For anything like originality we must look to John the Scot and to Christianus "Druthmarus" of Stavelot, who wrote (in 865) on St Matthew's Gospel: but even he is distinguished rather by good sense than by brilliancy.

Five principal controversies occupied the minds and pens of the church writers. At the beginning of our period we have two: the Adoptionist, in which Elipandus and Alcuin were the foremost figures, and the Iconoclastic. The latter produced a remarkable group of books. The Icono-