Hrotsvit's Sapientia: Rhetorical power and women of wisdom

Renascence, Winter 2003 by Richmond, Colleen D

Hrotsvit apparently has a purpose beyond that, however, because instead of retelling a saint's life as she does in other plays, here she makes her virgin martyrs also the allegorical figures of faith, hope, and charity. One of the earlier of Hrotsvit's six plays, The Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Agape, Chionia, and Hirena, also uses allegorical figures, there representing love, endurance, and sacrifice. However, that play seems to portray the historical martyrdom of three virgins in Thessalonica during the reign of Diocletian (Wilson, A Florilegium, 45 fn 2); whereas Sapientia does not have a clear historical analogue.2 Because of this, it is possible that part of Hrotsvit's purpose in her last play was to validate the triumphant power of the Christian virtues. It is these virtues, given and strengthened by God, that give Sapientia and her daughters their persistent power.

The first way, then, that Hrotsvit celebrates the rhetorical and intellectual power of women is to create female characters who are proactive even within a restrictive environment. Several of her plays particularly look at the value of chastity, but the focus of Sapientia seems to go beyond that in affirming the value of women as empowered Christians. This is true first of all because chastity is not really the issue in the play. Sapientia wants her daughters' chastity to survive, but what Hadrian threatens is their faith, not their virginity. Next, the females of the play use intellectual, verbal, and physical strength to counteract Hadrian, not deceit or trickery. In Dulcitius, the second play in Hrotsvit's collection, three virgin sisters must protect their chastity from an oppressive ruler. Gold recognizes in Dulcitius "the power of the three sisters to charm and delude their male antagonists" (Gold 53). In contrast, there are no tricks or charm in Sapientia; here the female protagonists vivify the Christian virtues whose names they bear, and use spiritual, intellectual and verbal power to conquer their oppressors.

Instead of being deceitful or charming, then, Sapientia and her daughters seem the intellectual superiors to the men. Early in the story, Hadrian asks Sapientia the ages of her children, and in reply she gives him a brief lecture on number theory. In this mathematics lesson, Hadrian is clearly Sapientia's student, and not a very good one at that. After Sapientia first answers his question about the ages of her daughters, he exclaims, "Your reply leaves me totally ignorant as to the answer to my question" (129), and he calls her explanation of the numbers "a thorough, perplexing lecture" (132).3 Further, even when Sapientia and her daughters are not talking about mathematics, Hadrian has trouble understanding things they say. For example, when twelve-year-old Fides calls his rule "a foolish Imperial Command; worthy of nothing but contempt," he is confused. Either he does not hear well or does not understand well, because he says to Fides, "What are you mumbling in derision; / whom are you mocking with your wry expression?" (135). The problem continues later when Hadrian complains to Sapientia who is praying aloud for Spes, "What are you mumbling, standing there with your eyes upturned to your dead child's body?" (140). In each case, Hadrian seems the intellectual inferior to his captives.