ROSWITHA THE NUN 



in the bent-back furrows, hidden beneath the wings of Ceres. 

 Hither and thither forsooth he traversed the very spot where 

 she lay, burdened with no little fear, and although, with great 

 effort, he essayed with outstretched spear to part the corn 

 around, yet he discovered not her whom by the grace of Christ 

 it concealed. 



From the sheltering corn Adelheid effects 

 her escape, and after weary wandering, reaches 

 the Castle of Canossa, the stronghold of the 

 Counts of Tuscany. Any one who has visited 

 this now ruined castle, some twenty miles from 

 Parma, will remember the threadlike way 

 between rocks covered with brambles, by 

 which its eyrie height is approached. Up this 

 steep track the queen, fearful of any pause, 

 hastens, and finds a welcome and ready help. The 

 Count becomes her champion, and appeals on 

 her behalf to the Emperor Otho. The latter, 

 glad of an excuse to further his cause in Italy, 

 descends with his troops into the Lombard plain, 

 weds the beautiful Adelheid, and receives the 

 formal cession of the so-called kingdom of Italy 

 from Berengarius and his son, whose power had 

 ebbed away in their futile attempts to control 

 their feudatories. 



Roswitha's thrilling narrative is amplified 

 by the graphic account recorded by St. Odilo, 

 Abbot of Cluny, Queen Adelheid's friend and 

 one-time confessor. In this he tells us that 

 during Adelheid's imprisonment in a castle on 

 the Lago di Garda, her chaplain Martin succeeds 

 in making a hole in the wall, through which the 

 queen and her maidservant, disguised as men, 



