ROSWITHA THE NUN 



made to two of them the Passion of St. 

 Pelagius of Cordova, and the FaUL_and Conver- 

 sion of Theophilus since their subject matter 

 is of value to us to-day. The one interests us 

 because, in relating that the story was told her 

 by an eye-witness of the martyrdom in A.D. 925 

 (Acta SS. Jun. V.), she shows that communica- 

 tion existed between that great intellectual 

 centre, Cordova, and Germany, a fact that 

 must have had considerable influence on art and 

 literature ; the other as being the story out of 

 which the Faust legend was developed. 



After these legends, we turn to her panegyric 

 on the Emperor Otho. This she opens by 

 acknowledging her debt to the Abbess Gerberg, 

 niece of Otho the Great, for aiding her in her 

 literary work with her superior knowledge, and 

 for giving her the necessary information con- 

 cerning the royal doings. Then by humbly 

 likening her mental perplexity and fear on 

 entering upon so vast a subject to the feelings 

 of one who has to cross a forest in winter when 

 snow has obliterated the track, she in a few 

 words pictures for us the natural wooded sur- 

 roundings of the convent. Her poem for such 

 it really is then sets forth the personal history 

 of this monarch and his predecessors, rather than 

 public events, and is thus of value more on 

 account of its poetical than its historical quality. 

 But one episode, picturesque in its quaint setting, 

 and interesting historically because its stirring 

 details are not to be found elsewhere, is worthy 



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