342 Elbert N. S. Thompson 
The comparative frequency of these other themes, therefore, in the 
few extant early plays should not lead to the displacement of the 
Psychomachia from the position to which its general historical im- 
portance, its influence on the earliest known morals, as it has been 
shown, and its evident influence upon this whole dramatic type, 
have raised it, in favor of these other religious topics which were 
added to the fundamental theme to extend and diversify it. 
The debate, which should be regarded as the least direct of these 
secondary influences, came to the Middle Ages from the secular 
literature of classical antiquity. In the pastoral poetry of Theocritus 
and Virgil it had become a stereotyped form, and in the work of 
the philosophers a recognized means of instruction. This alone 
would have given it the seal of authority for the Latinists of the 
Middle Ages, who ranked Virgil so highly. But the debate was 
handed on not alone through the channel of established literary 
tradition, but also along the devious paths of popular minstrelsy.? 
This type of poem, therefore, was widely disseminated through 
Europe, both in the formal literature that would bow to the tradition 
of Virgil or the philosophers, and in the popular poetry that re- 
sponded to the tastes of the people. One understands, then, how 
certain themes, like the debates between the Body and the Soul, 
Winter and Summer, and Wine and Water, made their way into 
so many different literatures; and one can easily see that this sort 
of poetic dialogue, as adapted especially by the minstrels, would 
unquestionably figure in the renaissance of the drama. 
The universal vogue of the debate in medieval literature causes 
some scholars to regard it as the broad type of which the moral 
combat was only a specialized form.’ Between the two, indeed, 
existed a sort of kinship in dramatic potentiality, and an adaptability 
for allegory. But the inspiration of Prudentius came in matters of 
literary form from the classical epic, in spirit from the New Testa- 
ment and the Fathers; and as long as the theme of allegorical 
combat retained its original seriousness, it withstood noticeable 
modifications from the debate. The two literary traditions were 
advancing along closely adjacent, but parallel, courses. Only when 
the machinery of the Psychomachia was applied to themes more 
and more trivial was cross influence felt. This is not plain in 
the Lataille des Sept Arts, for at a time when ignorance as well 
as sin were attributed to Adam’s fall, Henri of Andeli’s theme was 

b dlenetcderle Beal 2 Ebid. 22: 
3 Gaston Paris, 176-77. 
