THE UNITY OF THE PASSION-PLA Y 259 



perverted fact ; its value lies in the spiritual idea of a 

 unity in history, of a continuous development of life 

 even as in a drama. The student of evolution to-day 

 is really working at the same idea, albeit with better 

 tools and a wider knowledge of facts. 



The view of history taken by the passion-play writers 

 is, of course, characteristic of all mediaeval historians. They 

 seek a unity of the world-drama in the story of man's fall 

 and redemption. The reader must not, however, imagine 

 that historical knowledge remained stagnant in the "Dark 

 Ages." There is as great an advance from the twelfth- 

 century rhymed chronicle of the Kaisers - - with its 

 unbroken line of Eoman Emperors from Julius Caesar to 

 Rudolf von Hapsburg to the fifteenth-century Ntirn- 

 berg Chronicle of Schedel, as there is from the latter 

 work itself to any nineteenth-century Weltgescliiclite. 

 History did not stand still, even if all historians accepted 

 the fundamental idea that the unity of history was to be 

 found in the great Christian drama, the real passion- 

 play. 



In this spirit Herrad von Landsberg, abbess of 

 Hohenburg, wrote towards the end of the twelfth cen- 

 tury her Hortus Deliciarum, a compendium of history 

 and science for the nuns committed to her charge. 

 Therein, by word and by picture, she carried her sisters 

 from the creation of the world even to the perpetual 

 damnation of the wicked, who popes, bishops, emperors, 

 nobles, and common folk descend in a long line into 

 hell. Hartmann Schedel started with the creation of 

 the angels, and concluded with the resurrection of the 

 dead and the final day of judgment in the valley of 



