s solicitude of Roswitha for the welfare
of frail and all too human mankind recalls St. Bernard's condemnation,
some hundred and fifty years later, of all carving in church or
cloister, when he says, "one reads with more pleasure what is carven
in stones than what is written in books, and would rather gaze all day
upon these singular creations than meditate upon the Divine Word."

It has been maintained that the classic theatre decayed and
disappeared as Christianity became all-powerful in Europe, and that
the modern theatre seemingly arose in the twelfth century out of the
services of the Church, and owed no debt to the past. But neither
Nature nor Art works in this way except to our own unperceiving minds.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, and the consequent disruption of
society, classic civilisation gradually withdrew into the security of
the religious communities, seeking, like distraught humanity, shelter
and protection. It was in such tranquil atmosphere as this that Latin
drama, though condemned in substance, was fostered and favoured as an
education in style. Roswitha's plays may, as has been said, have been
the last ray of classical antiquity, but if so, it was a ray, like the
pillar of fire, bright enough to guide through the dark night of
feudalism to the coming day.

Whether her dramatic efforts were an isolated phenomenon or not, must
remain undecided, but it is reasonable to assume that any work
surviving to the present day is but a sample of much else of the same
sort that has disappeared in the course of time. Still all we would
claim for them, apart from their intrinsic value and interest, is that
they helped to keep up continuity in the tradition of drama. The
gradual movement in the Church towards elaboration in its services
which began in the ninth century,--a movement which led to the
dramatising of the Mass, out of which the liturgical drama, and
eventually the miracle-play, were evolved,--was a popular movement. To
a people ignorant of Latin, yet fond of shows, it provided instruction
and diversion alike. Roswitha, on the other hand, avowedly wrote for
the literary world, and with a special end in view as regards that
world. To attain this end, she set before her, as her master in style,
Terence, who himself had aimed at a high ideal of artistic perfection,
and of whom it has been said that he perpetuated the art and genius of
Menander just as a master engraver perpetuates the designs of a gre