OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN 



The subject which dominates her horizon is 

 that of Chastity. Treated by her with didactic 

 intent, this really resolves itself into a conflict 

 between Christianity and Paganism, in other 

 words, between Chastity and Passion, in which 

 Christianity triumphs through the virtue of 

 Woman. But at the same time Roswitha 

 neither contemns marriage nor generally ad- 

 vocates celibacy. She merely counsels, as the 

 more blessed, the unmarried state. Yet even 

 so, we feel that beneath her nun's garb there 

 beats the heart of a sympathetic woman, whose 

 emotional self-expression is but tempered by the 

 ideals of her time and her surroundings. 



Another important element to be taken into 

 account in her plays is the part she assigns to 

 the supernatural. It is impossible to develop 

 character with any continuity when the super- 

 natural, like some sword of Damocles, hovers 

 continually overhead, ready to descend at any 

 moment and sever cause from effect. Such a 

 sword was the Divine Presence to Roswitha. 

 When her plot requires it, she introduces a 

 miracle, converting a character, at a moment's 

 notice, and in a way that no evolution could 

 possibly effect, into one of a totally different 

 kind. Still to her audience such a denoue- 

 ment would be quite satisfactory. With her, 

 sudden changes and conversions but reflect the 

 ideas which possessed the minds of her con- 

 temporaries, who realised God more in deviations 

 from, than in manifestations of, law and order. 



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