it were
long vain. It was popular as a relief from restraint.[2087] It continued
the function of the Saturnalia, which had been a grand frolic and
relaxation. The ecclesiastics tolerated these outbursts, perhaps because
they saw that the lines could not be drawn very tightly without such
relaxation. From the eleventh century the ecclesiastics opposed any
automatic figure. They construed the making of such a figure as an
attempt to call the saints, etc., to life again. The skill employed also
seemed to them like sorcery.[2088] "There was not an ecumenic, national,
or diocesan council in whose canons may not be found severe and
peremptory reproofs of all sorts and qualities of drama, of actors, and
of those who run to see plays."[2089] This became the orthodox attitude
of the church to the theater. There were complaints of the attendance of
clerics and people at theatrical exhibitions until the tenth century.
Then they cease because the church ceremonies were more interesting and
better done.[2090] The Christian drama reached the height of its
hieratic development between the ninth and twelfth centuries.[2091]

+651. Hrotsvitha.+ Klein[2092] puts as the next important literary work
of dramatic composition after the _Pseudo-Querolus_ the works of the nun
Hrotsvitha. In the tenth century she wrote six comedies in Latin, in
imitation of Terence, her purpose being to show the superiority of the
conventual conception of love to the worldly theory, and of religious
passion to erotic passion. In the introduction she apologizes for her
realistic descriptions of erotic passion, which she says was necessary
for the argument implicit in her plays. She introduces God as a
character, and miracles as a means of bringing about the denouement at
which she wants to arrive. It became the custom in mediaeval drama to
reach, by introducing a miracle, the moral result which current dogma
required.[2093] The situations and intrigue are generally very
unedifying. To our taste the plays seem very unfit to be acted by nuns
before nuns.

+652. Jongleurs. Processions.+ In the eleventh century abbeys and
cathedrals were built. At the beginning of the century the basilicas of
the churches were repaired throughout Latin Christendom.[2094] The
Jongleurs of the twelfth century were the popular minstrels. "Poet,
mountebank, musician, physician, beast showman, and to some extent
diviner and sorcerer, the jongleur is also the orator of the public
market