Hrotsvit's Influence On Medieval Theatre

After the fall of the Roman Empire there was a lot of political turmoil. The church was the only stable “government.” There is little known about the theatre between 600-1000 A.D, but it is known that just about everything dealing with theatre was deemed bad and denounced. It is also known that between 925-975 A.D Christian ceremonies were done and according to Trumbull, that is “where theatres seem to have been ‘reborn.’” Theatre was “reborn” within the very institution that helped shut it down. This paper will examine the role liturgical theatre played in Europe during the medieval period. “The earliest Christian drama is that which arose spontaneously as part of a much wider process of elaborating and ornamenting the services appropriate

She was a historian and an aristocratic canoness from Northern Germany in the 10th century. Hrotsvit was the first recorded female and Christian playwright. She wrote six plays which were all modeled after the comedies of Terence. Her works attempt to “disinfect drama of it paganism.” Though Terence’s comedies show ordinary human subjects and situations involving marriage, sex and love, Hrostvit put a moral and religious spin on Terence’s plays in order to avoid criticism from the church. Her works were first published in 1501 and had a large influence on religious drama on the sixteenth century. Following Hrotsvit was another female playwright, Hildegard von Bingen, writer of Ordo Virtutum. Ordo Virtutum is a liturgical

There were two main areas for plays to take place, mansions (small scenic structures for indicating location) and platea (general acting area, adjacent to the mansion). The church structure usually served as the mansions. Machinery was also used to fly Christ up to heaven, and for angels to come down. By 1200 some of these plays were being performed outside, and by 1350 they were done in the vernacular, rather in Latin. Liturgical dramas spread across Europe and Russia throughout the Middle Ages. Muslim-occupied Spain was the only area in which liturgical dramas were not present. At first the church had control of the drama outside the church, but then it gradually became more controlled by the secular