Hrotsvit's Sapientia: Rhetorical power and women of wisdom

Renascence, Winter 2003 by Richmond, Colleen D

Hrotsvit also proves the potential of women by exhibiting her own extensive knowledge and literary skill in Sapientia. First of all, Hrotsvit illustrates her own understanding of Boethius's philosophy and mathematical theory in her works. As William Provost suggests, Boethius's picture of a divinely ordered universe was very influential on medieval writers (Provost 71-78). In De Insitutione Arithmetica, Boethius examined various characteristics of numbers to show how mathematical properties reflect the Creator of a carefully ordered universe. In his 1983 translation of Boethius's work, Michael Masi explains that Boethius's writing on number theory was important as a foundation for medieval study of music, architecture, literature, and moral philosophy.5

WHILE structure and use of numerical balance have been considered overall in the corpus of Hrotsvit's work, only limited consideration has been given to Sapientia. Katherina Wilson6 and Daniel A. Frankforter7 have carefully shown Hrotsvit's complex structuring of the corpus of her work, explaining how the eight legends of saints' lives are balanced by and intertwine with the six plays Hrotsvit wrote and how the plays themselves interrelate. Wilson has looked particularly at the structure of another of the plays, Paphnutius (Wilson, "Mathematical Learning" 99-112), which tells the story of the conversion of the prostitute, Thais. Wilson summarizes the intention and accomplishment of Hrotsvit's use of mathematical theory:

God's creation of the universe is depicted as an act of arithmetical ordering; man's ability to understand mathematics, the practice of computing, ordering and mathematically arranging, is his tool for unravelling the patterns of the Divine mysteries. This understanding, in turn, aids man in his effort to live in concordance with the harmony of the Divine plan. (Wilson, "Mathematical Learning 102)

Peter Dronke believes that Hrotsvit's application of this understanding is both profound and pioneering: "In the harmonies of theme and structure that she succeeded in establishing, she achieved the boldest and most elaborate compositional design in Carolingian or Ottonian literature and art, at least as far as the surviving monuments can show" (Dronke 64).

Despite Dronke's recognition of Hrotsvit's accomplishment, Sapientia still merits a closer look because here Hrotsvit illustrates both her understanding of Boethian mathematical theory and an ability to use it to structure her work. When Hadrian asks the ages of Fides, Spes, and Karitas, Hrotsvit uses Boethian number theory to present him with a puzzle about the girls' ages. She explains various types of numbers, eventually giving enough clues that he can determine that her daughters are eight, ten, and twelve. Sapientia leaves Hadrian puzzled because she explains that Karitas is eight, which is a "diminished evenly even [even times even] number;" Spes is ten, a "diminished evenly uneven [even times odd] number," and Fides is twelve, an "augmented unevenly even [odd times even] number" (129).8 Hrotsvit here is referring to the properties of the numbers and explaining classifications of numbers based upon the factors which each number can be divided by. Eight and twelve, in fact, are the examples used by Boethius in De Institutione Arithmetica to define diminished and augmented numbers.9