#by roman standards of chastity i think this would work.

[garland-on-thy-brow]

Catilina's defence on the Vestal case: She was pegging, your honour!

[dwellordream]

“…In modern English, we often use oath and vow interchangeably, but they are not (usually) the same thing. Divine beings figure in both kinds of promises, but in different ways. In a vow, the god or gods in question are the recipients of the promise: you vow something to God (or a god). By contrast, an oath is made typically to a person and the role of the divine being in the whole affair is a bit more complex.

…In a vow, the participant promises something – either in the present or the future – to a god, typically in exchange for something. This is why we talk of an oath of fealty or homage (promises made to a human), but a monk’s vows. When a monk promises obedience, chastity and poverty, he is offering these things to God in exchange for grace, rather than to any mortal person. Those vows are not to the community (though it may be present), but to God (e.g. Benedict in his Rule notes that the vow “is done in the presence of God and his saints to impress on the novice that if he ever acts otherwise, he will surely be condemned by the one he mocks.” (RB 58.18)). Note that a physical thing given in a vow is called a votive (from that Latin root).

(More digressions: Why do we say ‘marriage vows‘ in English? Isn’t this a promise to another human being? I suspect this usage – functionally a ‘frozen’ phrase – derives from the assumption that the vows are, in fact, not a promise to your better half, but to God to maintain. After all, the Latin Church held – and the Catholic Church still holds – that a marriage cannot be dissolved by the consent of both parties (unlike oaths, from which a person may be released with the consent of the recipient). The act of divine ratification makes God a party to the marriage, and thus the promise is to him. Thus a vow, and not an oath.)

…Which brings us to the question how does an oath work? In most of modern life, we have drained much of the meaning out of the few oaths that we still take, in part because we tend to be very secular and so don’t regularly consider the religious aspects of the oaths – even for people who are themselves religious. Consider it this way: when someone lies in court on a TV show, we think, “ooh, he’s going to get in trouble with the law for perjury.” We do not generally think, “Ah yes, this man’s soul will burn in hell for all eternity, for he has (literally!) damned himself.” But that is the theological implication of a broken oath!

So when thinking about oaths, we want to think about them the way people in the past did: as things that work – that is they do something. In particular, we should understand these oaths as effective – by which I mean that the oath itself actually does something more than just the words alone. They trigger some actual, functional supernatural mechanisms. In essence, we want to treat these oaths as real in order to understand them.

So what is an oath? To borrow Richard Janko’s (The Iliad: A Commentary (1992), in turn quoted by Sommerstein) formulation, “to take an oath is in effect to invoke powers greater than oneself to uphold the truth of a declaration, by putting a curse upon oneself if it is false.” Following Sommerstein, an oath has three key components:

First: A declaration, which may be either something about the present or past or a promise for the future.

Second: The specific powers greater than oneself who are invoked as witnesses and who will enforce the penalty if the oath is false. In Christian oaths, this is typically God, although it can also include saints. For the Greeks, Zeus Horkios (Zeus the Oath-Keeper) is the most common witness for oaths. This is almost never omitted, even when it is obvious.

Third: A curse, by the swearers, called down on themselves, should they be false. This third part is often omitted or left implied, where the cultural context makes it clear what the curse ought to be. Particularly, in Christian contexts, the curse is theologically obvious (damnation, delivered at judgment) and so is often omitted.

While some of these components (especially the last) may be implied in the form of an oath, all three are necessary for the oath to be effective – that is, for the oath to work.

A fantastic example of the basic formula comes from Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (656 – that’s a section, not a date), where the promise in question is the construction of a new monastery, which runs thusly (Anne Savage’s translation):

These are the witnesses that were there, who signed on Christ’s cross with their fingers and agreed with their tongues…”I, king Wulfhere, with these king’s eorls, war-leaders and thanes, witness of my gift, before archbishop Deusdedit, confirm with Christ’s cross”…they laid God’s curse, and the curse of all the saints and all God’s people on anyone who undid anything of what was done, so be it, say we all. Amen.”

So we have the promise (building a monastery and respecting the donation of land to it), the specific power invoked as witness, both by name and through the connection to a specific object (the cross – I’ve omitted the oaths of all of Wulfhere’s subordinates, but each and every one of them assented ‘with Christ’s cross,’ which they are touching) and then the curse to be laid on anyone who should break the oath.

…With those components laid out, it may be fairly easy to see how the oath works, but let’s spell it out nonetheless. You swear an oath because your own word isn’t good enough, either because no one trusts you, or because the matter is so serious that the extra assurance is required.

That assurance comes from the presumption that the oath will be enforced by the divine third party. The god is called – literally – to witness the oath and to lay down the appropriate curses if the oath is violated. Knowing that horrible divine punishment awaits forswearing, the oath-taker, it is assumed, is less likely to make the oath. Interestingly, in the literature of classical antiquity, it was also fairly common for the gods to prevent the swearing of false oaths – characters would find themselves incapable of pronouncing the words or swearing the oath properly.

And that brings us to a second, crucial point – these are legalistic proceedings, in the sense that getting the details right matters a great detail. The god is going to enforce the oath based on its exact wording (what you said, not what you meant to say!), so the exact wording must be correct. It was very, very common to add that oaths were sworn ‘without guile or deceit’ or some such formulation, precisely to head off this potential trick (this is also, interestingly, true of ancient votives – a Roman or a Greek really could try to bargain with a god, “I’ll give X if you give Y, but only if I get by Z date, in ABC form.” – but that’s vows, and we’re talking oaths).

…Not all oaths are made in full, with the entire formal structure, of course. Short forms are made. In Greek, it was common to transform a statement into an oath by adding something like τὸν Δία (by Zeus!). Those sorts of phrases could serve to make a compact oath – e.g. μὰ τὸν Δία! (yes, [I swear] by Zeus!) as an answer to the question is essentially swearing to the answer – grammatically speaking, the verb of swearing is necessary, but left implied. We do the same thing, (“I’ll get up this hill, by God!”). And, I should note, exactly like in English, these forms became standard exclamations, as in Latin comedy, this is often hercule! (by Hercules!), edepol! (by Pollux!) or ecastor! (By Castor! – oddly only used by women). One wonders in these cases if Plautus chooses semi-divine heroes rather than full on gods to lessen the intensity of the exclamation (‘shoot!’ rather than ‘shit!’ as it were). Aristophanes, writing in Greek, has no such compunction, and uses ‘by Zeus!’ quite a bit, often quite frivolously.

Nevertheless, serious oaths are generally made in full, often in quite specific and formal language. Remember that an oath is essentially a contract, cosigned by a god – when you are dealing with that kind of power, you absolutely want to be sure you have dotted all of the ‘i’s and crossed all of the ‘t’s. Most pre-modern religions are very concerned with what we sometimes call ‘orthopraxy’ (‘right practice’ – compare orthodoxy, ‘right doctrine’). Intent doesn’t matter nearly as much as getting the exact form or the ritual precisely correct (for comparison, ancient paganisms tend to care almost exclusively about orthopraxy, whereas medieval Christianity balances concern between orthodoxy and orthopraxy (but with orthodoxy being the more important)).”

- Bret Devereaux, “Oaths! How do they Work?”

[pamphletstoinspire]

Saint John Berchmans - Feast Day: November 26th - Latin Calendar

Born: March 13, 1599, Diest, Belgium

Joined the Jesuit Order: September 24, 1616 (aged 17)

Died: August 31, 1621 (aged 22)

Beatified: 1865 (244 years later)

Canonized: 1888 (23 years after that)

Patron Saint: Altar Servers

Feast Day: November 26

John Berchmans (note, the final “s” is part of the name) was born and grew up in a Flemish-speaking area of present-day Belgium. His short life (he was only 22 when he died of a sudden fever) was marked by extraordinary piety, even by the standards of the day, which were much higher than our own.

Pray and Work

At the age of 7, John would get up at 5 am and serve 2 or 3 Masses, carefully listening to the sermons (in those days every priest had to say his own Mass every day - it was not enough to concelebrate the Mass of another priest.) For this reason, perhaps, John was later made the patron saint of altar servers. At the age of 9, he would spend hours every day with his mother, who was bedridden with a long illness. His parish priest, Fr. Emmerick noticed all this and remarked that Our Lord would “work wonders in the soul of the child.” John was always especially devoted to Mary, our Blessed Lady, and loved the Rosary, which he would often pray whilst walking along.

Not only did John throw himself into religious devotions with great enthusiasm, he would also try to do more than his share of the chores, or try to take the most arduous and difficult ones. Later, in the Jesuit order, he was the novice who tried hardest to fulfill all the rules. After studying for two years in Belgium, taking his first vows and starting philosophy studies in Antwerp, he set out for Rome to continue his Jesuit philosophy training there. Today this is a comfortable 90 minute flight or an arduous 15 hour drive; John did the journey (due to the Alps a road distance of around 1000 miles) on foot! He had a burning ambition to give his all for Christ, and even to become a saint: “If I do not become a saint when I am young," he said, "I shall never become one.” Perhaps he had a premonition of his early death, or perhaps he realized how creature comforts can paralyse spiritual life in adulthood. Portraits usually depict him holding a crucifix, a rosary and his Shell road atlas Jesuit rule-book.

What his life means to us today

The fierce, passionate “muscular” Christianity of John Berchmans seems unreal, even horrifying to many of today's Catholics brought up on soft-focus posters, self-affirming books and the belief that Christian love means primarily kindness - but let us not be deceived. Jackie Pullinger, who as a young woman preached and lived the gospel in the deadly slums of Hong Kong, famously said that Christians need “soft hearts” but “hard feet.” The seventeenth century was a cruel time all round, with no punches pulled and no anaesthetics. But Catholics like John had the hardest feet imaginable, and besides fortitude (“guts”) and self-sacrifice, they excelled in virtues that the 21st century West ignores or treats almost as a joke, such as humble obedience, temperance, diligence and chastity. Hence St John’s value to us as a guide today lies in his youthful, clear vision in areas where our own times have gaping blind spots.

***

Another Story:

St. John Berchmans was born the eldest son of a shoemaker in 1599 at Diest, Belgium. At a very young age he wanted to be a priest, and when thirteen he became a servant in the household of one of the cathedral canons at Malines. After his mother's death, his father and two brothers followed suit and entered religious life. In 1615 he entered the Jesuit college there, becoming a novice a year later. In 1618 he was sent to Rome for more study and was known for his diligence and piety, and his stress on perfection even in small things. That year his father was ordained and died six months later. John was so poor and humble that he walked from Antwerp to Rome. He died at the age of 22 on August 13. Many miracles were attributed to him after his death; he was canonized in 1888 and is the patron saint of altar boys.

Although he longed to work in the mission fields of China, he did not live long enough to permit it. After completing his course work, he was asked to defend the "entire field of philosophy" in a public disputation in July, just after his exit examinations. The following month he was asked to represent the Roman College in a debate with the Greek College. Although he distinguished himself in this disputation, he had studied so assiduously that he caught a cold in mid-summer, became very ill with with an undetermined illness accompanied by a fever, although some think it now to have been dysentery, and died a week later. He was buried in the church of Saint Ignatius at Rome, but his heart was later translated to the Jesuit church at Louvain.

So many miracles were attributed to him after his death at the age of 22, that his cultus soon spread to his native Belgium, where 24,000 copies of his portrait were published within a few years of his death. He was known for his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to Our Lady, to whom he composed a Chaplet in honor of her Immaculate Conception.

Our true worth does not consist in what human beings think of us.

What we really are consists in what God knows us to be.

To merit the protection of Mary, the smallest act of veneration would be enough, provided that it is performed with constancy.

If I do not become a Saint when I am young, I shall never become one.

[In fact, he died at the early age of twenty-two and he had, without any doubt, reached his goal of sanctity.]

As he was dying, he pressed to his heart his Crucifix, his Rosary, and the Book of Rules, saying: These are my three treasures; with these I shall gladly die.

***

Another Story:

Saint John Berchmans - Jesuit Saint - by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

John Berchmans, I thought I would cover all the young Jesuit saints to make sure that I didn't slight any of them. St. John Berchmans was born in 1599 in Berbont, Belgium and died in Rome in 1621 at the ripe age of twenty-two. Unlike Saints Stanislaus and Aloysius who were members of the nobility, aristocratic, wealthy – John was from a very ordinary family. His father was a shoemaker, which I think is quite ordinary. His mother was never well, which mainly explains why he was brought up by a Premonstratensian priest by the name of Father Peter Emerick who taught him his religion, other subjects, and was in the habit of visiting shrines of which there are quite a few in northern Europe. At thirteen, as the younger children were coming along, the father told John to leave school, stop his education, and work in the shoemaking shop. John protested that he wanted to become a priest and shoemaking is not the usual apprenticeship to the priesthood. In any case the father compromised by getting John a job working in a rectory, cleaning, waiting on table, washing dishes and being paid for his education at a local seminary. The priest in charge of the rectory was quite different from Father Emerick. This one didn't take him to shrine; he took him out hunting. In any case, John, in 1615 – that would be the age of sixteen – entered the Jesuit college at Maleen in Belgium. In reading, however, the seminary where he was, there was a risk between the officials of the seminary and the Jesuits for having taken this bright, young, promising seminarian from their hands. A year later he applied for the Jesuits – his father objected, but, let him go. By now you are used to Jesuit's writing. John Berchmans wrote many letters. We have a copy of the letter he wrote to his mother and father asking them to visit him which was quite a distance, even though Belgium is a small country by modern standards. "I humbly ask you" he says "dear father and mother to be so good as to come here on Wednesday evening" – he told them when to come, even suggested how to travel, certain coach or a certain wagon – "so that I may say welcome and goodbye to you and you to me, so you can give your son back to the good Lord, who gave me to you." This reminds me that when I entered the Jesuits after finishing my university education, with a widowed mother, I thought to myself – this would be cruel, leaving her all alone. When I told her, she gave me a piece of her mind, 'you go.' "Okay, mother, I'll go, I just figured maybe you wanted me to be around." I came back to visit her in our home in Cleveland seven years later. John Berchmans never saw his parents again. His model from the novitiate days on, really became the standard of his life and in one short sentence summarizes his whole outlook on Christianity, 'set great store on little things', 'set great store on little things.' He was in the habit from his novitiate days having been encouraged to do so, to write. He wrote, for example, a long analysis (I think I saw a copy of Alphonosus Rodriquez’ “Principles of Christian Perfection.” I think they're on your shelf there – there are three big volumes.) Anyhow, among other things John Berchmans wrote a nice synthesis analysis of those three volumes for his future reference. His mother died shortly after he entered the novitiate. His father then went on to study for the priesthood and was ordained and proceeded to die shortly after his ordination. By this time he had taken his first vows which is – you know in the Society of Jesus we never speak of temporary vows because we don't take them; our first vows after two years in the novitiate are perpetual. We are the only order in the Catholic Church that have been given the rare privilege of never taking temporary vows. I have the draft of the proposed forthcoming Code of Canon Law to be published, most likely, so the latest word is, first Sunday of Advent. In any case, John Berchmans took his first vows which were perpetual and because he was to start his philosophy studies after taking his first vows and the studies were to be made in Rome – how do you get to Rome from Antwerp in Belgium. He was told, 'you walk.' It took him ten weeks. He made it which partially explains his short life. He did his studies under a famous Father Chipovy in Rome, his first letter, John Berchmans first biographer.

The report on his talent or ability shortly after his death by those who were his teachers was that he had extraordinary ability, intellectual ability, capable of taking and mastering several subjects at once that his enthusiasm for studies was unequaled. Now, my friends, having spent so many years in studies, having taught so many Jesuits for so many years, anyone who has enthusiasm about his studies deserves to be canonized.

Another of his fellow Jesuits who knew him observed that 'after Saint Aloysius, I never knew a young man of more exemplary life, purer conscience or greater perfection than John Berchmans. In other words, he had a reputation for being a very holy person already at a young age. Number twenty in my notes, it just keeps me from mixing things up. Here's a quotation from St. John Berchmans that every Jesuit has memorized. Let me give you the Latin first. It sounds so nice—“meus maxime mortificatsio est vita communis.” --my greatest mortification is community life. I repeat there is no statement of any saints that a Jesuit will not agree with more heartily than that one, that his heaviest mortification, his worst penance, is community life. That doesn't mean you don't like your brethren, but, being human, being oneself and living with other human beings, community life is indeed a great mortification.

Again, John Berchmans wanted to make sure that he never exercised his own will contrary to the directives of superiors. So I memorized and jotted down this little vignette: I wish to let myself be ruled like a baby, one day old. I'm not sure what difference it makes, whether a baby is one day or one year old, in any case, John Berchmans figures, let's make the child one day old. In other words, complete childlike submission to those who are in charge of him. John Berchmans was a very zealous student. What he came from, what we would call the low countries, which for our purpose would be Belgium – the climate in Belgium is somewhat like the more temperate climate in say, northern United States, Maine, Vermont, northern Michigan, Minnesota. In any case, Berchmans was not used to the stifling summer weather in Rome. Yet he took his final examinations in May, 1621 and the heat that summer, and the Roman summer starts early, the heat was intense. He prolonged his studies for his exams, did brilliantly, but took sick. He had just worked too hard. So he was laid up in bed, became deathly sick. As he was dying his confessor asked him, “do you have anything on your conscience that you think deserves to be confessed before you die.” He spoke in Latin, as young Jesuits are to always talk in Latin except in recreation. He said, "Mehil omeno" – absolutely nothing on my conscience, a moment before he died. He died on August the 13th of that year 1621. After his death and even before his burial, miracles were reported throughout Rome. Print of course was already discovered and engravings were made of John Berchmans shortly after his death and copies were printed. In a few days, twenty- four thousand of these engravings were sold in his native country in Belgium.

When he was canonized, the Holy Father who canonized him declared regarding the Jesuit rules, 'if you can prove to me that someone had faithfully lived up to this rule, I'll canonize him.' Berchmans was canonized for being an obedient religious. He was buried with his rosary and rule book in his hands.

Now something about his spirit. I would say the first prominent feature of his spirituality was his simplicity of life. There are no reports of ecstasies or raptures. There was not even a report of anything extraordinary that he ever did. You might say he was a 'little flower' before his time; she a Carmelite, he a Jesuit. The implication for us, if we think about them, are breath taking. The secret is to see God's will in everything. Now that everything in Berchmans vocabulary meant not just, well, the things that occur in a given day, I somehow say 'yes, of course, God must be behind it' but, watch this, and he wrote enough and over the years I've read enough of Berchmans to be able to talk for a couple of hours about his spirituality. For him, seeing God's will in the circumstances in everyday life went down to the smallest, even trifling details. We at table don't have set persons across from whom or with whom we sit, say at table, so the fact that it should be so and so and not such and such. It is God's will known and planned from all eternity. For example, what I am saying, that of all places I should be – what is today, August the 24th – a thousand miles from New York in a place called, is it Lake Villa? and that you should be here – thanks for being in Chapel, too – and that of all the yokels that should be saying whatever I might be saying, it would be me, at least to try your patience, in His name, everything. I stubbed my toe, that's God's providence. I lose something, that's God's providence. While I was putting the finishing touches on my notes, when I got a phone call that was an important call, so I was late, four minutes. That is God's will. That you should have had some charitable thought on why I was late or good for my humility in not being exactly on time; that everything is down to the time of the day, the temperature outside, how 'my body feels, what's crossing my mind. Berchmans saw God in everything. In other words, simplicity which must have twenty meanings for him meant; 'I have only one role in life – God's will.' And where is God's will; how do I know God's will; what books do I read; what speeches do I listen to; what novenas do I have to make. You can spare yourself. What is God saying to you, here and now at this moment? How does He want you to act and react, to His will?

Second feature of Berchmans' spirituality. The rule of St. Ignatius, we don't usually call it a rule because of our constitution, but that rule what's composed over a period of years, much prayer, frequent revelations, especially from Our Lady, much study, analyzing different rules of life written before Ignatius' time. It is a very precise and detailed rule. We have, for example, the rules of modesty; we're told, exactly told, how to use our eyes. Ignatius prescribed how we are to use our hands. I'm sure it's one of the least known rules of St. Ignatius. We are forbidden by rule to touch another person's body unless, either necessity or charity required it. This rule, Berchmans kept. We don't want to say to the letter, because that would cheapen it, but he kept it with perfection, so much so that the Vicar of Christ on his own testimony canonized him because of his fidelity to that minute rule of life and mind you, this is a rule for men, do you know what I'm saying, well, the last thing that man, masculine gender, paid that much attention to his detail, the self discipline and the sacrifice that it takes from a man to be faithful to Ignatius rule only one who tries to live that rule can appreciate. Ignatius was a soldier and he knew battles of won or lost by attention to detail.

John Berchmans' spirituality reflects something that I think we very seldom advert to each other … sort of take it for granted. We say correctly that God's grace builds on human nature. Not that God's grace is different in the sense that it's a different grace – no, for different people, but, God is justice, Himself, as far as we can use the verb, adjust for God. For example, the graces that He gives to women I know are different that he gives to men, I know. God just talks a different language. And so with different people of different temperaments. The robust man of steel, the Andrew Bobola, remember? they just couldn't put him to death. God's grace to sanctify him was of one kind, the gentle but firm and faithful Berchmans, another kind of a grace. This is very important in properly appraising God's will in our lives or how we deal so differently with different people. With some, God seems, to coin an expression, to love and to get away with – pardon the expression – you finish the sentence, you know what. Lord! well, God knows what He's dealing with – with others He is severe.

Berchmans came from northern Europe; Berchmans was not from Italy or Spain. I tried to carry on a conversation with four Spaniards this noon in Kenosha, Wisconsin; a priest, a brother, (oh, three people) a priest, a brother and a sister. Well, some English they knew, not much, some Italian that I know, not much, a bit of Latin and Spanish and we managed. I was inquiring about their rule of life. They are called the Lumen Dei, isn't that beautiful? the light of God, a new community just coming into existence, two hundred members – God's grace adjusting itself to the Spanish mentality – different. There is something about the teutonic, because we are talking about the teutonic temperament here, that it's precise, proper, just so. All right, God's grace will be just so. Am I making sense? And that we don't either expect God – what a mistake – to deal with even two of us in the same way. Never compare yourself – or better, never compare the way God deals with others with the way he seems to be dealing with you. Berchmans knew, he was here. There is an individuality about each saint which is completely different from everyone else.

Then, community life. I quote of a famous passage, we learned this in the novitiate and we quote it to our dying day, because it is so, so painfully true: my greatest mortification is community life. That doesn't mean, of course, not that we make other members of the community conscious of the fact that they are a source of penance to make – no. Nor does it mean, it cannot mean, that we somehow regret or wish it were different. Community life is meant, for most people, to be a great source of sanctification. I know what I'm talking about because being the only child of a widowed mother – my father died when I was a year old, he was 26. I never had any brothers or sisters and of the things I knew that drew me to the Society of Jesus before I heard John Berchmans phrase, I thought to myself, "what a break, what a gift, I will inherit a hall full of brothers, people that I can live with and, well, they'll be brothers to me and I hope I'll be a brother to them." I may somewhere along the line, I may have told you, after my first week in the novitiate I went to complain to the novice master – I'd heard about people snoring, but I'd never heard anybody snoring – Mother had her bedroom, I had mine. Though we were living in a dormitory and the noise was deafening, I couldn't sleep. So I told the novice master, "father, could I have a different room?" He said, 'sit down, what's wrong?' I told him. All I remember is two words, "get out." And because I was so dead tired, I finally fell asleep, snoring or no snoring.

God made us different from the moment of conception. Each one of us, the moment we are conceived in our mother's womb, God has to create a soul – our parents don't give us our souls – they must be individually created by God and God creates each soul different. We are different nine months before we're born, put together. One reason, no doubt, is to give us some idea of His own infinite, you might say, bewildering variety of attributes. It gives us, and this is what Berchmans meant: it gives us the glorious opportunity for the practice of charity. I'm not speaking of people being offensive or hurting our feelings or being difficult to live with. I don't mean anything that is morally wrong, just because he is he or she is she and I am me, living with other people places demands on our mutual love which God in His infinite wisdom planned, that's why He made us so different. The word that Berchmans used was mortification, meaning that it's a precious way of not only practicing charity, but of expiating our sins, of making reparation for the sins of others, especially in doing penance for the crimes against love often committed in the name of love in our modern mad world. The 1981 figures of the United Nations for the world were fifty million abortions. Someone, someone, must propitiate a just God for these crimes of hatred, masking – what a mockery – under the name of love. Well, we don't have to go far to search out opportunities for the expiatory love, being gentle, understanding, thoughtful. Being as ready to excuse the actions of others as we are so prone to excuse our own. All of this is locked up in what we so casually call, community life.

Let us ask St. John Berchmans to give us some of his great attention to the little things in life being so important in the eyes of God. St. John Berchmans, pray for us.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[hrosvitha-von-gandersheim]

Hrosvitha

The name Hrosvitha in German can be translated into as “one with a strong voice.” Hrosvitha of Gandersheim was a medieval play write from the tenth century. She had a very strong opinionated voice and was not one to skirt away from sharing her ideas. Her personal life is unknown and full of controversies but her ideas and voice live on through the scripts, poetry, and essays that she is accredited with writing. Hrosvitha wrote about Christian women and the themes of her work are feministic and liberating for women of the time. She is believed to hold influence with her works during the Ottonian Empire and speculated that they were performed for the Ottonian courts. Hrosvitha’s works also had a direct influence on the ladies residing in the abbey alongside Hrosvitha. She worked hard not only to empower women in the church but also spread the message to the women of that time. 

Hrosvitha’s personal life is lost history. Not much was recorded about her personal life as she grew up but what we know comes from the records in the abbey’s and her found surviving works. It is speculated that she was born sometime around the early 930s and lived past the 970s, as that is her last found dated work. All we know is what she wrote in the prefaces of her plays. “Within her last epic, Primorida, she states that Otto I died long before her birth and that she was older than her abbess and friend, Gerberga. This does not provide us with her actual date of birth, but places it well after 912 and sometime before 940.” (Bonds 8) We know that Hrosvitha was at the abbey in Gandersheim, a small village today located in Germany. During that time it was a part of the Ottonian empire. “It had been established in the 9th century by Duke Liudolf and his wife and her mother as a "free abbey," not connected to the hierarchy of the church but to the local ruler.  In 947, Otto I freed the abbey completely, so that it was also not subject to a secular rule.”(Jone Johnson Lewis) The abbey itself had ties to the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I the Great but it unclear if Hrosvitha herself had any royalties or upbringing.  As Hrosvitha stayed in the abbey her life was very free. She was a canoness of the abbey and not a nun. Her vows were that of chastity and devotion but not one of poverty. She enjoyed all the luxuries one living in a convent could enjoy. From an analysis of her works, one could assume that she was well taught and read lots of works.

Her plays are known by many differently translated names but the six discovered plays are mainly known as Abraham, Callimachus, Dulcitis, Gallicanus, Paphnutius, and Sapienta. Almost all of her works focus around Women and their standard roles in society. Tara Bonds talks about Hrosvitha in her doctoral dissertation and states that Hrosvitha’s works were revolutionary for her time.

“She wanted to present stories that she hoped women of her time would want to read; stories of women they could admire... Hrotsvit rendered stories with female subjectivity. Her female characters were the polar opposites of their counterparts in Terence’s plays; they knew autonomy of spirit, righteous confidence in their words and deeds, and due respect paid to their thoughts and opinions. (Bonds 128)”

Hrosvitha tried hard to change the way women were viewed in her works. Her works were only showed to the women in her abbey and she tried to change the way the women in the abbey viewed themselves. Not as silent background characters to a man's story, but to view themselves as martyrs, people who have a voice worth hearing. Thoughts are meant to be spoken and shared, not kept in the minds where they originate.

Most Christian ladies in stories of this time and before portrayed women to be dependent on a man, women who could only gain strength or knowledge from their father or their husband. All of her female characters are strong in their own right regardless of their interaction with men in the plays. The strength of the female characters come from upholding their vows and unwavering faith in Christianity.

Hrosvitha was also known for her comedy aspects of her plays. In her play Dulcitius one of the male characters goes insane with lust for the females. But instead of pursuing the ladies in the other room, the character Dulcitius becomes entranced by the kitchen's pots and pans.

Irena. Oh, look! He must be out of his senses! I believe he thinks that he is kissing us.

Agape. What is he doing?

Irena. Now he presses the saucepans tenderly to his breast, now the kettles and frying pans! He is kissing them hard! (Dulcitius, 39)

The humor of the time is very slap-stick and situational. Most compare it directly to the influences and comedy of Terence. Historians assume that there was a collection of his plays in the abbey that Hrosvitha worked off of. She simply improved upon them to be more relatable and greater roles for the women in the plays.

All of her works are recorded down in Latin, as this was the universal language for scholars at the time. “Because of allusions in the writing to Ovid, Terence, Virgil, and Horace, we can conclude that the convent included a library with these works.”(Jone Johnson Lewis) Hrosvitha is credited with writing the history of the abbey, six plays and eight poems. One of those poems was to honor Otto The Great. Historians assume that her works were only written for the enjoyment of those inside of the Abbey but others think they could have been performed for the royal court.

The abbey that gave her the freedom to write her thoughts can also be attributed to her works not circulating. The abbey of Gandersheim that Hrosvitha lived and worked in burned down around the year 971.  All her writing was lost and all the books she had read to advance her knowledge was also lost in the fire. Due to this tragic event, her works were not spread to those outside of the abbey during her time on earth. Hrosvitha works were rediscovered in the fifteen hundreds, but they were not translated from the original Latin to English until the nineteen-twenties. Hrosvitha works are not recognized today as the revolutionary works of the tenth century.

Hrosvitha was not given the credit that she deserved. Her works today are recognized for their greatness and an inspiration to Christan women. Her works hold classic morals the still survive to translate well today. Her plays should be performed and enjoyed by women audiences today outside of just Hrosvitha’s Gundersheim abbey.