Yesterday, in a surprising rout, Phillips Brooks was relegated to the O Little Town of Lent Madness Infamy, as Marguerite d'Youville trounced him 70% to 30% to advance to the Saintly Sixteen. She'll face the winner of Damien of Molokai vs. Pandita Ramabai in the next round.
But life, like Lent, moves on. And today we offer: Five syllables. Eleven consonants. Two saints. That's what you get when the Supreme Executive Committee concocts the Clash of the Consonants. Will the winning saint need to buy a vowel? We're not sure. But either Hrotsvitha or Gobnait will emerge victorious over the next 24 hours to secure her place in the Saintly Sixteen.
Hrotsvitha
Though she’s not well known today, the tenth-century German canoness Hrotsvitha has been called “the most remarkable woman of her time.”
A Benedictine nun at Gandersheim Abbey in Lower Saxony, Germany, Hrotsvitha is regarded as the first female German poet and the first known female playwright. Popular YouTube channel Crash Course also has credited her with “sneaking” theater back into the Christian world.
Hrotsvitha’s plays, known as “sacred comedies,” are more dialogue than drama—likely meant to be read rather than performed, to be a Christian alternative to bawdy classical works, lest readers be “corrupted by the wickedness of the matter.” They include comedies based on the works of Roman playwright Terence, many on the theme of chastity. Crash Course host Mike Rugnetta jokingly called this “medieval slut shaming,” but he also said the emphasis on chastity suggests to modern readers it was “one of a very few ways women could wield power in the Middle Ages.”
Perhaps best known among the sacred comedies is “Gallicanus” in which the clever Constance tricks a suitor into converting and taking a vow of chastity so that she does not have to marry him. Or there’s “Dulcitius,” which tells the story of three sisters whose prayers confuse the play’s titular character so that he ends up kissing and groping pots and pans rather than the women. It ends with the women being martyred rather than renounce Christianity. Hilarious.
There’s debate over whether any of Hrotsvitha’s plays were performed during her lifetime. The earliest known performance of her work wasn’t until 1888 in Paris. As recently as 2006, a feminist theater company offered the First Annual Hrosvitha Award to any professional company that scrapped plans to produce “yet another production of a Greek tragedy” for one of hers.
Hrotsvitha also wrote narrative poems based on Christian legends, the life of Otto the Great and the history of the convent she called home. She wrote about life as a woman in the early Middle Ages. And she reinterpreted her own name, which meant “strong honor” to mean “loud cry” or “clarion call.”
Collect for Hrotsvitha
O God, you have brought us near to an innumerable company of angels, and to the spirits of just men made perfect: Grant us during our earthly pilgrimage to abide in their fellowship, and in our heavenly country to become partakers of their joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Gobnait
Gobnait is an example of those numerous individuals who could slip through the cracks of history, but the memory of their faithfulness causes them to be remembered for generations. Gobnait’s memory is preserved by the local practices and memory of the Christian communities of Ireland and passed on to us today.
With her brother, Saint Abban, she founded a convent and served as its abbess in the sixth century. They came to that location while fleeing from violence in their home community of County Clare.
Most of the stories of Gobnait center around her protection of the community in which she lived and served.
In one account, raiders were approaching to attack the village. Gobnait sent out bees from her hives, and the bees drove off the attackers. In another tale, Gobnait walked around the village, using her staff to successfully mark a line of protection around the village from an impending plague. In still another story, a foreign invader sought to build a fortress across the valley from the convent. Every night when the workers were done, Gobnait threw a metal ball at the construction site, destroying their work each day until they left in frustration.
In her youth, Gobnait was directed to the site of the convent (Ballyvourney, County Cork) by a vision that told her that the location would be the place of her resurrection. She is buried in Ballyvourney, and every year on her feast day of February 11, pilgrims come to drink from the healing waters of her well. The cemetery in which Gobnait is buried is littered with crutches, a sign of the enduring faith in her gifts of healing.
In art, Gobnait is usually depicted along with bees. They were her companions and her charge at the convent, and their honey was likely used in medicines and cures for those who came to her for care.
Gobnait’s memory serves to remind us of how faithful service leaves a lasting impression on the communities we serve and on the world.
Collect for Gobnait
O God, by whose grace your servant Gobnait, kindled with the flame of your love, became a burning and a shining light in your church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of your love and discipline, and walk before you as children of the light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen
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202 comments on “Hrotsvitha vs. Gobnait”
Gobnait has a little too much quasi-fabulous hagiography for my taste. But Hrotsvitha reminds me (and John Cabot) of Hildegard of Bingen, about 150 years later than Hrotsvitha, who was similarly hailed as the first female composer of note (no pun intended). There must have been something about medieval Germany that fostered creative women who attained historical recognition (and maybe others who didn't).
Since some of Hildegard's works were morality plays set to music, this is another link to Hrotsvitha through dramatic work.
Gotta go with the Irish. But I am surprised to see a vote between two with names even harder to pronounce than mine. I hadn't thought that would be possible.
Phrygia was an ancient nation in what is now Turkey. Edgar Allan Poe wrote a short story called "Ligeia." You don't want to know what happens to the heroine. But you do get to choose various pronunciations, all with interesting historical roots.
Lygia is also the name of the heroine of the novel (and film) Quo Vadis. Might you have been named for her?
I love that movie!
Hmm. The deep rooted prejudice/presupposition hidden inside my subconscious was revealed today. For unknown reasons, I had assumed that both of these previously unheard of saintly folk were men. I chose to vote for Hrotsvitha because I didn't like the malicious mischief in Gobnait's story. If only she converted the invader instead.
Hrotsvitha, the voice of womanhood in the 10th century. Yeeeoow!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4okVCtPQifw
Hot Svitha, indeed!
https://youtu.be/4okVCtPQifw
https://www.youtube.com/embed/4okVCtPQifw
Sorry: technical glitch. I was able to embed the video last time.
I’ve become Svitha’s sixth YouTube subscriber.
"Jesus saves"!!! Bwahahahaha! Thank you, Linda S.! Hilarious!
Love them both but my mom's nickname was Bee. What else can i say?
Gobnait it is. Her activism and pragmatism are steller. And her use of bees is a welcome activity in a world that has bees on the run as a species.
Another difficult pairing! The names alone make them worthy of support.
Bees vs. knee-slappers about chastity . . . tough choice.
My love of theatre cast my vote for Hrotsvitha; however, the allure of pagan Irish folktales dressed up as Christian history makes for an outstanding theatre of the imagination as well. Very nice mashup for a Wednesday morning.
Pretty sure Gobnait will win, and I would probably have voted for her if I hadn't taught Roswitha's (yet another spelling of her name) plays in a college course on ancient and medieval women writers. My favorite among them is Callimacjhus--a bit more plot than most, with even a hint of predestination.
I love Gobnait’s icon and I love learning about both of these women, having never before heard of either. Voting is a toss-up. I just have to say that their names suggest to me characters that could have been created by Tolkien!
Ooops! Callimachus!
Either way, Mary C., I am impressed that you have actually studied her work!
I went with Gobnait. Bees and Faithful service FTW
I finally have a patron Saint. I am born on Feb. 11. Go Gobnait!
Difficult choice. I have been voting strategically for women!
Not sure why either of these made it into the bracket unless it was just quirkiness. I went with Hrotsvitha just because her story sounds more believable. The other seems made of fantasy stories.
I'm still reeling from Marguerite the Slavedriver's routing of Phillips Brooks yesterday. Glad to have a lighter, indeed downright whimsical matchup today. I'm going with Hrotsvitha because she sounds like she'd be an absolute hoot at a dinner party.
Speaking of Hrotsvitha and dinner party: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/hrosvitha
Thank you, Barbara. What a wonderful link! I am glad for the detailed explanation; at first I thought the plate was covered with a giant head of garlic! Great find indeed.
I must go with she of the unspellable name. I am amazed that there was a period in history when plays could cause chastity and cure men's baser instincts.
I have been a Hrotsvitha fan since I studied her in theater history 50 years ago! But those history books weren’t as thorough as this introduction; I’m looking forward to finding and reading the pots and pans comedy.However, what’s this with the collect that doesn’t even have her name in it?
Today’s matchup is so unfair. I love both these ladies! In the end though, I go with Hrotsvitha. A writer, poet, playwright and comedian. And the pots and pans story won me over.
Gobnait it is . . . in honor of my own Irish heritage, because she used bees as an effective weapon, she drew a line in the sand/dirt, and I'm curious to know if she was the first shotputter (throwing iron balls).
This one was a toughy! But bees pushed Gobnait just a little further for me. I just have a soft spot for our poor bees!!
I still attend the pilgrimage on Gobnait's feast day, have a sister named for her and 'pay the pattern' everytime I pass through Ballyvourney. The latter is a hang over from my youth when my mother, obviously with a considerable amount of divine intervention, made 5 recalcitrant teenagers pay the quite lengthy pattern (a pattern or round is the sequence of site specific prayers & ritual actions unique to each pilgrimage in Ireland) every time we drove to Cork which was pretty often as it was our market centre. She used to tell us "well you can do it now & get it over with or do it on the way back with an extra Rosary for Granny........" Got us every single time.
I remember seeing The Harry Clark depiction of Gobnait for the first time at about and that representation of unapologetically powerful elegant beauty superceded my previous image of a grumpy auld one! So I have to give my vote to Gobnait.
As a theatre lover, I had no choice but to go with Hrosvitha, despite my own Irish ancestors, as well as enjoyment of honey.
And the Tony Award for Best Medieval Play goes to........
Everyman, of course.
I had to go with the theater lady.
As a (retired) drama teacher and (retired) film and theater) critic, I should have voted for Hrosvitha. However, I’m also a fan of the extravagant legends in medieval hagiography from the British Isles-as one skeptical contributor to an Oxford Movement series of lives of the saints like this: “This is all, and indeed rather more than all, that is known to men of the life of St. Neot, but certainly not more than is known to the angels in Heaven.” So Gobnail it is! Truth to tell, she had me as soon as I saw the window by Harry Clarke, whose book illustrations are on the short list of the greatest in the world—if y’all don’t know about them, check out his illustrations for the 1923 edition of Edgar Allan Poe, “Tales of Mystery and Imagination”!
Another difficult choice, but my vote goes to Hrotsvitha who used imagination and humour to challenge and inspire. But please do something about the collect for her.
Looks grim for Hrotsvitha, which is a shame. The Episcopal Church's calendar is singularly lacking in 10th century saints (there's only Dunstan of Canterbury), and its brain trust is desperate to add more women. A pioneering female playwright would be a good addition.
Mobilizing bees and throwing balls at walls...you go Gobnait!
Gobnait and her holy wrecking ball!!
I'm sulking because Phillips Brooks didn't advance yesterday. Couldn't get too excited about today's matchup, but Gobnait and her bees seemed the best choice.
Joining you in the sulks, Peggy. It may be a personal failing on my part that I need inspiration and encouragement to persevere - Brooks does that for me. And I voted for the Irish bees too.