Chapter 38 – Neo-Latin Drama

Jan Bloemendal

Introduction

In Italy around 1300 and in Germany around 1500 a new genre arose that would flourish for

centuries: Neo-Latin drama.1 It was a pan-European genre — even stretching to the colonies!

— that was written by both Roman Catholic and Protestant humanists; that included some

subgenres, ranging from comedy to tragicomedy, from plays on school life to saints’ dramas

and historical pieces, and from rather simple colloquies to elaborate tragedies; and that was

practised by headmasters of Latin schools and university teachers, by laymen and clerics and

by famous humanists and hardly known schoolmasters. Its importance varied from part of the

school curriculum in most European countries to the only dramatic genre permitted and

therefore serving as a vehicle for wide-ranging ideas in Hungary. It could praise and blame,

mock, satirize and glorify, and treat religious, philosophical or historical themes. Hundreds

and hundreds of plays were written, many of them by Jesuits, who recognized their value and

1 For this survey I used, among other works: Philip Ford and Andrew Taylor (eds.), The Early Modern Cultures

of Neo-Latin Drama (Louvain: Universitaire Pers Leuven, 2013) Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia, 32;

Jozef IJsewijn and Dirk Sacré, Companion to Neo-Latin Studies. Part II: Literary, Linguistic, Philological and

Editorial Questions (Leuven: Leuven University Press,1998 [1977]) Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia, 14;

Volker Janning Der Chor im neulateinischen Drama. Formen und Funktionen (Münster: Rhema, 2005)

Symbolische Kommunikation und gesellschaftliche Wertesysteme: Schriftenreihe des Sonderforschungsbereichs

496, 7; Frank Pohle, Glaube und Beredsamkeit. Katholisches Schultheater in Jülich-Berg, Revenstein und

Aachen (1601-1817) (Münster: Rhema, 2010); Wolfram Washof, Der Bibel auf der Bühne. Exempelfiguren und

protestantische Theologie im lateinischen und deutschen Bibeldrama der Reformationszeit (Münster: Rhema,

2007); Jan Bloemendal and Philip J. Ford (eds.), Neo-Latin Drama. Forms, Functions, Receptions (Hildesheim,

Zürich, New York: Georg Olms, 2008) Noctes Neolatinae, Neo-Latin Texts and Studies, 9; Jan Bloemendal and

Howard B. Norland (eds.), Neo-Latin Drama and Theatre in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2013) Drama

and Theatre in Early Modern Europe, 3; Jan Bloemendal, Spiegel van het dagelijks leven? Latijnse school en

toneel in de noordelijke Nederlanden in de zestiende en de zeventiende eeuw (Hilversum: Verloren, 2003) Zeven

Provinciën Reeks, 22; Jan Bloemendal, Hoe moet ik het me voorstellen? Lijnen in de Latinistiek (Amsterdam:

Vossiuspers UvA, 2007).

instructional, missionary and propagandistic possibilities. The genre started with the

rediscovery of Plautus and Terence as poetic and dramatic authors, fit for the schools. Soon

the teachers began to write plays themselves, either because they thought Roman comedy too

lascivious for the young students’ minds or because the variety of plays was too limited to

remain attractive.

The Mediaeval Tradition

In the Middle Ages, Greek tragedy and comedy were hardly known.2 Senecan tragedy still

had to be rediscovered, whereas Roman comedy was known but considered to be prose

dialogue instead of poetic drama, and the plays were considered to have been recited while

mime-players performed them in silence. There were other forms of drama, mostly chanted

music-drama, which was intended as an act of worship and was liturgical in nature.

However, early Christian theologians had condemned pagan theatre, and for this

reason, theatre ‘as an organized social and literary institution ceased to exist in Western

Europe between the sixth and tenth centuries’.3 In the tenth century, however, perhaps as a

result of the innovations of the Carolingian period, drama re-emerged. Some examples of this

theatre are the Ludus de nativitate from the thirteenth-century Carmina Burana manuscript,

the Ordo virtutum by the abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) and the Ludus de

Antichristo (c. 1160) from the monastery of Tegernsee in Bavaria. As early as the tenth

century, the canoness Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim (c. 935-c. 975) wrote six dialogues in the

form of Roman comedies. They were meant to replace the works of Terence with their tricks

and eroticism with plays on female chastity in the curriculum of her convent. As in the case of

the plays of Terence, the question is whether these plays were performed. However, her

2 See Stephen K. Wright, ‘Drama’, in Medieval Latin. An Introduction and Bibliographical Guide, ed. by F. A.

C. Mantello and A. G. Rigg (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), pp. 574-581.3 Wright, ‘Drama’, p. 574.

dramas were in prose and not in verse, as the metrical nature of Roman drama was not

recognized. Other classical forms and types of drama were hardly written or not at all. Two

plays, both dating from the twelfth century, received some acclaim and dissemination through

the school curricula and in florilegia: the Geta of Vitalis of Blois (fl. 1150-1160) and the

anonymous Pamphilus.

The humanists changed and some of them even rejected mediaeval theatre, but others

used features of mediaeval traditions, for instance in the rhyming verses of the choral songs or

in subjects or themes, like mediaeval farces, the themes of Everyman and Tundalus,4 dances

of death, and devices such as little devils (cacodaemones). IJsewijn and Sacré list some

accomplishments of Neo-Latin theatre: the humanists brought back to life the classical

repertoire, introduced new heroes and heroines on the stage, and made use of the principle of

contamination of two or more stories to create new effects in biblical subjects. Moreover, they

created new genres and advocated the diffusion of themes and plays from vernacular plays or

they wrote plays that served as models for vernacular plays.5

The Classical Models: Terence and Plautus, Seneca and Greek Tragedy

As we saw, a Senecan tragedy was the first modern play written: Ecerinis by Alberto

Mussato. Many more Senecan tragedies would be composed. Most of these plays had a five-

act structure, like the ten tragedies ascribed to the Roman philosopher and statesman Lucius

Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC-AD 65), of which the first four acts were ended by a choral song.

Their style was lofty, pointed and pathetic, with intricate sentences and many sententiae

(aphorisms). Atrocious scenes were narrated or depicted on stage, in dialogues or long, 4 The Everyman-theme was adapted to the Latin stage by Macropedius in his Hecastus (1539), by Thomas

Naogerogus in his Mercator seu Iudicium (1540) and by Christianus Ischyrius in his Euripus (1548). Jacob

Bidermann’s Cenodoxus is a variation on the theme of man’s consolation in the hour of death, viz. the use of

knowledge in that final hour. For the theme of Tundalus, see Georg Bernardt, Tundalus Hiberniae Miles

redivivus (1622), based on the mediaeval vision of afterlife Visio Tundali.5 IJsewijn and Sacré, Companion to Neo-Latin Studies, vol. 2, pp. 145-147.

sometimes even long-winded monologues and rapid stichomythia. In the Middle Ages these

tragedies were hardly known, but existed in devout anthologies that did not indicate whether

they were in verse or prose. One manuscript of the tragedies circulated. They became better

known through another manuscript (Etruscus) that contained nine of the ten plays (Octavia is

absent), with different titles, which was rediscovered at the end of the thirteenth or the

beginning of the fourteenth century. The discovery roused interest and enthusiasm for Seneca,

evidenced by a great number of commentaries. The most famous one was written by Martin

Antonio del Rio (1551-1608).

However, most authors used the seven comedies by Terence (Publius Terentius Afer,

c. 195/190-159 BC) as their models. The plays (fabulae palliatae, i.e., plays in a Greek style

or in a Greek setting) were known in the Middle Ages, but, as stated above, were considered

to be prose works, declaimed and mimed. The first printed edition of these comedies appeared

in Strasbourg in 1470, and the performance of Terence’s Andria in Florence in 1476 was the

first staging of one of his plays since antiquity. His plays were considered important models

for style, refinement and morals. In the Renaissance period his dramatic oeuvre was printed

time and time again, in formats ranging from huge folio volumes to small duodecimo

booklets.6 In most instances the commentaries by the fourth-century Roman grammarian

Donatus and the De fabula or De comoedia by the same Donatus or Euanthius were included.

There were also illustrated editions, for instance the famous Terentius cum quinque

commentis, including the commentaries by Donatus, Guido Juvenalis, Ioannes Calphurnius,

Badius Ascensius and Servius. A peculiar commentary on Terentian drama was composed by

the German physician, philologist and scholar Jodocus Willichius (1501-1552): Commentaria

in omnes Terentii fabulas compendiosa, quibus per singulas scenas ratio inventionis,

6 See, for instance, Jan Bloemendal, ‘In the shadow of Donatus. Observations on Terence and Some of his Early

Modern Commentators’, in Neo-Latin Commentaries and the Management of Knowledge in the Late Middle

Ages and the Early Modern Period (1400-1700), ed. by Karl A. E. Enenkel and Henk J. M. Nellen (Leuven:

Leuven University Press, 2013) Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia, 33, pp. 295-323.

dispositionis et eloquutionis, cum quorundam locorum obscuriorum explanatione ostensa,

studiosis auditoribus primarum artium proponitus (Cologne, 1555). In this commentary,

Willich presented a full rhetorical commentary on each scene of each play. The reception of

Terence is shown, for instance, in the choice of names in Neo-Latin comedy, which are often

Greek or coined in a Greek manner, such as ‘Mystotum’ for the priest in Macropedius’s Aluta.

The humanists also looked at the twenty comedies (often fabulae togatae, i.e., in

Roman style) by Plautus (Titus Maccius Plautus, c. 254-184 BC).7 He is reputed to have

written around 130 plays of which twenty complete plays survived in the early modern period.

In the fourteenth century, only eight plays were known, but in 1425 Nicolaus Cusanus

discovered a Cologne manuscript with twelve previously unknown plays. This manuscript,

presented to Cardinal Giovanni Orsini, was the basis of the editio princeps of 1472. The

editions of Plautus’s comedies and the commentaries on them are far less numerous than in

the case of Terence. An important commentary (1552) was written by the French philologist

Dionysius Lambinus (1520-1572). The Chrysis (1444) of Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (Pope

Pius II, 1405-1464) was an adaptation of Plautine comedy to the Neo-Latin stage. Some titles

of plays were reminiscent of Plautine comedies, such as Pendularia (1620) by the Flemish

Jesuit Nicolaus Susius (1572-1619), recalling Plautus’s Aulularia or Mostellaria.

Greek tragedy and comedy were less known because the language was an obstacle,

and the structure and metre of Greek tragedy, with its episodia and stasima and its unfamiliar

metres, were more intricate than those of Seneca’s plays. Greek plays circulated in Latin

translations, for instance, Euripides’ Hecuba and Iphigenia in Aulide by Erasmus (1466-

1536). George Buchanan (1506-1582) was the most famous playwright to imitate Greek

tragedy with a Christian context in his Jephthes sive votum (Jephthah or the Vow, 1554) and

7 See Richard F. Hardin, ‘Encountering Plautus in the Renaissance. A Humanist Debate on Comedy’,

Renaissance Quarterly, 60 (2007), 789-818 and ‘Plautus in the Renaissance’, The Oxford Dictionary of the

Renaissance, ed. by Gordon Campbell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 622-623.

Baptistes sive Calumnia (John the Baptist or Calumny, 1576). He also translated Greek

tragedies, viz. Euripides’ Medea (1544) and Alcestis (1556). Plays of Sophocles and

Aeschylus, translated for instance by the Croatian humanist Mathias Garbitius (d. 1559) and

the French philologist Joannes Sanravius (fl. 1555), were compiled in Tragoediae selectae

Aeschyli, Sophoclis, Euripides (Paris, Henricus Stephanus, 1567). A famous playwright who

followed Greek models is Hugo Grotius (1583-1645). His Excerpta ex tragoediis et comoediis

Graecis (1626) and his own dramas bear witness to his acquaintance with Greek tragedy,

although his three tragedies were also written in the Senecan style. In Poland, it was Simon

Simonides (1558-1629) who oriented his tragedies Castus Ioseph (1535) and Pentesileia

(1618) on Euripides’ Hippolytus and classical tragedy in general, structured in parodos,

episodia, stasima and an exodos.

A Brief Literary History of Neo-Latin Drama

Neo-Latin drama began in Italy. Ecerinis (1315) was the first secular tragedy after those of

Seneca in the first century AD. This play on the tyrannical rule of Ezzelino III da Romano

was written by the Italian politician, historian and poet Albertino Mussato (1261-1329). In c.

1335 Petrarch (1304-1374) was the first to write a comedy, Philologia, which is now lost. It

was only in the late fourteenth century that further tragedies with heroic and mythological

themes were composed, with Antonio Loschi’s Achilles (c. 1388) and Gregorio Correr’s

Progne (c. 1429), and comedies like Leonardo de Serrata’s Poliscena (c. 1405) and Antonio

Barzizza’s Cauteraria (c. 1425).8 In the northern parts of Europe, the first plays to be written

were Jakob Wimpheling’s Stylpho (1580) and Johann Kerckmeister’s Codrus (1585), but

these were semi-dramatic prose dialogues. They were in some way performed just like other

colloquies, for instance those of Desiderius Erasmus. The actual beginning of German Neo-

8 See Gary R. Grund, Humanist Tragedies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011); and ibid.,

Humanist Comedies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).

Latin drama was in 1497, when Johann Reuchlin staged his Scaenica progymnasmata, or

Henno. The first tragedy in Latin that was composed in Germany was Jacob Locher’s Historia

de Rege Frantie (1495). Reuchlin had a successor in the Low Countries, in Georgius

Macropedius, who expressly acknowledged his indebtedness to Reuchlin for his farces Aluta

and Rebelles (1515). In the course of the sixteenth century the shift between Protestants and

Roman Catholics also divided Latin drama, although sometimes Protestants attended the

performance of a Roman Catholic (Jesuit) play, and vice versa,especially after the Societas

Jesu in 1540 entered the scene. Inspired by the Protestant German gymnasia, its members

wrote and staged thousands of plays at their colleges all over Europe, until 1773 when the

Order was suppressed by Pope Clement XIV.

Neo-Latin drama was a pan-European phenomenon. Yet there were regional

differences. In the Nordic countries, hardly any drama in Latin existed, whereas in Germany

and the Low Countries both Protestant and Catholic drama flourished. In the United

Kingdom, university drama prevailed, while English Jesuits wrote their plays mainly for their

schools on the continent, viz. in the Low Countries and France. Italy saw a rich production of

tragedies and comedies, written as literary exercises, such as those by Pietro Paolo Vergerio

(c. 1498-1565) and Enea Silvio Piccolomini (1405-1464); plays written for special occasions

such as festivals, for instance those of Tito Livio Frulovisi (fl. 1430s-1440s); and farcical

plays. In France, particularly, Jesuit theatre flourished. Only a few Protestant humanist

dramas were written, the most famous author being the Scottish humanist George Buchanan,

who worked in Bordeaux. In all these countries, Latin drama existed in the context of a

flourishing drama in the vernacular, which affected its importance. In Hungary, however,

school drama was the only type of drama allowed, so it had a more central place in literature.

In Italy various religious forces acted against drama in any form: Archbishop Carlo Borromeo

banned the performance of religious plays in his diocese, whereas in other parts of Italy and in

other countries all forms of drama were suppressed.9 Plays continued to be written also in the

period of confessionalisation. Protestants and Roman Catholics wrote plays, either stressing

the differences and attacking ‘the other side’, or attempting to bridge the gap in an irenic tone.

The changing times brought changing themes and tones: in the seventeenth century,

Franciscus van den Enden wrote a Philedonius (1657) that has been related to the philosophy

of Benedictus Spinoza. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the ideas of the

Enlightenment were also reflected in Neo-Latin drama.

The Aims and Functions of Neo-Latin Drama

Humanists employed drama and theatre in their curriculum for several purposes.10 The

principal goals were didactic, that is linguistic and rhetorical instruction. Reading Latin

dramas, acting and witnessing them enhanced fluency in speaking and reading Latin for

conversation. The Dutch playwright and rector Georgius Macropedius (1487-1558) therefore

included several synonyms in his plays, for instance words for boy and son such as filius,

paedium, puellus and parvulus and names of Bacchus such as Bacchus, Iacchus, Bromius,

pater Liber and Priapus in his farce Aluta (1515), to increase their copia verborum. In the

preface to this play, Macropedius distinguished between younger students who could acquire

eruditio from plays, ‘middle’ students who would derive benefit for honesta studia, and the

older ones who — just like the others — would be guided to virtus. But the humanists also

wished to give religious and moral instruction. Many of their plays were biblical plays. One of

the most frequent themes was that of the prodigal son, which gave the authors the opportunity

to show abhorrent examples of a sinful life and the power of God’s grace. Roman Catholic

authors also made use of saints’ lives as examples of virtuous conduct. Plays could also be

9 See Erika Fisher-Lichte, History of European Drama and Theatre, transl. by Jo Riley (London – New York:

Routledge, 2004), p. 48.10 For this section, see Anneke Fleurkens, ‘Meer dan vrije expressie. Schooltoneel tijdens de Renaissance’,

Literatuur, 5 (1988), 75-82; and Bloemendal, Spiegel van het dagelijks leven, pp. 64-68.

used to show how to interpret biblical stories, in a typological or allegorical, a tropologic or

moral, and an anagogical (metaphysical, ecclesiastical or eschatological) sense. Obviously

this religious instruction, directed towards both the players and the audience, could also be

employed in the confessional struggles between Protestants and Roman Catholics.

Besides these loftier aims, there were also more practical aims, intended for the actors.

Students who acted in plays also learned to speak and move in public with a good posture and

to memorize texts. Staging plays had as an additional advantage the public relations of the

school: such a performance could be a stimulus for authorities to fund the school and for

parents to send their children to this school or university. The parents and the teachers could

look with pride to the achievements of their children and pupils, and the authors — who often

presented themselves very modestly in the prefaces — aroused their sense of honour. Finally,

drama, including these types of Neo-Latin drama, is entertainment, by telling and showing,

with words and often with music, with props and costumes, with serious and humorous parts.

Latin drama also had a function in public life outside the schools. Plays were written

and performed at special occasions. For instance, when the Polish Prince Palatine Albertus a

Lasco visited Oxford in 1583, he was entertained with a comedy, Rivales, and a tragedy,

Dido, both written by the Oxford-trained jurist Wiliam Gager (1555-1622), whereas

Nicodemus Frischlin (1547-1590) wrote his Phasma (Dream, 1580) on the occasion of the

fiftieth anniversary of the Confessio Augustana.11

The Theoretical Frameworks

An author who wanted to write a drama had several theoretical treatises to guide him, which

offered him a fragmentary image. In the first place, he could read Horace’s Ars poetica, which

contained (ll. 193-250) advice for playwrights about the greater effectiveness of showing

rather than telling, although atrocious scenes were narrated rather than shown; about the role

11 For both examples, see IJsewijn and Sacré, Companion to Neo-Latin Studies, vol. 2, p. 142.

of the chorus which ought to play an integral part and not be merely an entr’acte; about the

accompaniment of the flute and the lyre at some parts of a drama; and about tragedy followed

by a satyr play. A second major theoretical framework was given by Donatus or Euanthius in

De fabula / De comoedia. Here a humanist author could read about the division of plays into

protasis, epitasis and katastasis. In the beginning of the treatise, it ascribed an ethical function

to drama: ‘in tragedy the life is shown that should be avoided, in comedy, the life that should

be embraced’; and somewhat later: ‘Comedy is a play [...] through which one learns what is

useful in life and what, on the contrary, is to be shunned.’ Furthermore, it defined comedy,

quoting Cicero, as ‘a representation of life, a mirror of custom, an image of truth’. 12 This

treatise was available in print since 1470 and it was included in most of the editions of

Terence’s plays. Therefore its influence can hardly be exaggerated. The Poetics of Aristotle

was available relatively late in the Latin translation by Giorgio Valla (editio princeps 1498),

and in the Greek original (from 1508 onwards), and was reintroduced in the mid-1500s. By

then, the standard of comedy had already been shaped by the observations of Horace, Donatus

and the commentaries on Terence. Aristotle’s main contributions to dramatic theory are the

notions of literature being imitatio (representation) of daily life, the peripeteia (reversal,

which had been rendered by Donatus/Euanthius as katastasis or katastrophe), the katharsis, or

purgation, of the emotions of pity and fear, and the anagnorisis, or recognition. It is important

to note that only the part on tragedy of Aristotle’s Poetica has survived. That is one of the

reasons why De comoedia by Donatus or Euanthius could retain its importance.

Like some of his contemporaries, Julius Caesar Scaliger in his influential Poetices

libri septem (1561) stresses the moral-didactic purpose of drama: imitatio is not the aim of

literature, as Aristotle had stressed, but a means to doctrina iucunda (teaching with delight).

This can be accomplished by, among other things, aphorisms (sententiae), which are the

12 Aelius Donatus, Commentum Terenti, V, 1; ed. by Paul Wessner (Leipzig: Teubner, 1962), I, p. 22.

‘pillars of literary construction’. In tragedy kings and other lofty persons should act, and the

plot should centre on their reversal of fortune, viz. their fall.

Types and Themes of Neo-Latin Drama

We can divide Neo-Latin drama in several ways, according to their form and structure, which

are often related to the model that was followed; according to the way the humanists

themselves perceived their plays; and according to their subject.

When we look at their form, we can discern comedy, tragedy and tragicomedy. First

and foremost, humanists wrote comedies in the vein of Roman comedy, although they also

wrote dialogues. Especially in the beginnings of Latin drama in the German-speaking

countries, they experimented with several forms. The Terentian model, however, prevailed,

with plays in iambic trimeters or the senarius (differing in the licence of changings). In most

cases, these plays were divided into five acts and these acts into scenes, as the authors read in

their editions of Terence. Plautus also served as a model, but his plays were considered to be

more improper. In the style of their predecessors, the verses of the comedies did not rhyme,

except for the choral songs, in some instances. The main characteristic of a comedy is that it

ends well. Its characters often belong to middle and lower classes of society.

Besides the Terentian type, authors wrote tragedies in the vein of Seneca. These, too,

were most often modelled on a five-act structure, with a choral song closing the first four acts.

This type allowed some differences in style, from very intricate to more intelligible Latin, and

in form: the choral songs could be written in stanzas, or in stichic forms, rhyming or not. The

main characteristic of tragedy is its sad ending, showing the reversal of fortune of kings and

princes.

The humanists also developed a mixed form, the tragicomedy. This term indicated

either a tragedy with several comic elements, or a tragedy (or play with tragic heroes) with a

happy ending. The term had been coined by Plautus in his Amphitryon, in which he presented

both kings and servants. The first tragicomedy to be written was Fernandus servatus (1493)

by Carlo and Marcellino Verardi. Inversely, they wrote ‘comic tragedies’, with characters

from middle or lower classes meeting with a calamitous end.

Other new forms by the humanists were the ludus pastoralis and the dialogismus.

Pastoral plays like Sarbiewski’s Silviludia drama and Virgil’s eclogues (of which some are

dialogic) are mixed. Dialogismi are something between a dialogue and a soliloquy, in which

the protagonist in an inner dialogue addresses imaginary witnesses, such as Heroinarum

dialogismi (1541) by the Leuven professor Petrus Nannius (1496-1557).13

The authors often labelled their plays as comoediae or tragoediae, often

complemented with the word nova (new). Generally, this indicated plays with a happy ending

or an exitus infelix. They also used the more neutral term fabula. To this indication several

adjectives could be added to recommend or specify the play: nova (new), lepida (charming),

iucunda (pleasing), ludicra (amusing and belonging to the theatre), or sacra (sacred, i.e.,

taken from the Bible). The latter indication was often used north of the Alps to make the play

acceptable.

When one looks at the themes and subjects, several types of Neo-Latin drama can be

discerned. Many of them were biblical dramas with subjects from the Old and the New

Testament. The themes of Joseph of Egypt (his seduction by Potiphar’s wife and his rise to

viceroy of Egypt), Jephtha and that of the prodigal son14 were especially beloved, but also

13 See IJsewijn and Sacré, Companion to Neo-Latin Studies, vol. 2, p. 146.14 For the Joseph theme see Jean Lebeau, Salvator Mundi. L’‘exemple’ de Joseph dans le théâtre allemand au

XVIe siècle, 2 vols (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf Publishers, 1977). There were plays on Joseph by, among others, the

Amsterdam schoolmaster Cornelius Crocus, the Haarlem rector Cornelius Schonaeus, and the Polish poet Simon

Simonides. A famous example of a Jephthah play is George Buchanan’s Jephthes, sive votum. The Prodigal Son

is the subject of plays by, among others, Guilielmus Gnapheus (1529), Georgius Macropedius (written 1517,

printed 1537) and William Mewe (1626).

other parables, such as the good Samaritan and the lost sheep, and the exodus of the Israelites

from Egypt, are treated in Latin dramas.

The Jesuits, especially, wrote many saints’ and martyrs’ dramas and legend dramas.15

Their lives could be good examples for school boys to lead a pious life. Beloved saints were

Catharine of Alexandria, the Syrian saint Alexius, the Italian Jesuit, Aloysius of Gonzaga, and

the founder of the Jesuit Order, Ignatius of Loyola.

School and academic life and education were beloved themes for school dramas, too.

Naughty schoolboys were the protagonists of Macropedius’s Rebelles: because their mothers

were too indulgent, the two boys will turn bad, but fortunately, it is the school master with his

rod who saves them. This theme could be linked to the battle between mediaeval and

humanist Latin and good latinitas: in Johann Kerckmeister’s Codrus (1485), Codrus is

characterized by speaking bad Latin.16 The same theme is present in George Ruggle’s

Ignoramus (1614), a parody on ignorance, legal Latin and pedantry.

Comedies could also treat scenes from daily life, such as peasants, for instance in

Macropedius’s Aluta (1515), and markets, as in Thomas Naogeorg’s Mercator (1539), which

combines the theme of the merchant with the final judgment. Some pieces on daily life were

in fact Shrovetide plays, such as Macropedius’s Bassarus (1540), about a meat-stealing

sacristan.

Both remote and recent history could be thematised in a play, in most instances a

tragedy. The Ghent playwright Jacobus Zevecotius (1596-1642) wrote a play on Mary Stuart

(Maria Stuarta) which he reworked into a play on a Byzantine empress, Maria Graeca

15 For martyr dramas see Elida M. Szarota, Künstler, Grübler und Rebellen. Studien zum europäischen

Märtyrdrama des 17. Jhrts (Bern-Munich: Francke, 1967).16 See also Christel Meier Staubach, ‘Humanist Values in the Early Modern Drama’, in Medieval and

Renaissance Humanism. Rhetoric, Representation and Reform, ed. by Stephen Gersh and Bert Roest (Leiden:

Brill, 2003), pp. 149-165.

(1623/1625).17 The French poet Marc-Antoine Muret staged Caesar’s death in his Iulius

Caesar (1552), just as Michael Virdung did in his Brutus (1596/1609).18 Johannes Narssius

(1580-1637) even wrote about contemporary events, such as the wounding of Gustaf Adolph

II of Sweden in his tragedy Gustavus saucius (1628), while the Leiden student Daniel

Heinsius (1580-1655) staged the murder of William of Orange in 1584 in his Auriacus, sive

Libertas saucia (1602).19

The Use of the Chorus

The humanists reinvented the chorus, so to speak.20 In the beginning they mainly imitated the

comedies of Plautus and Terence, which do not contain any choral songs. These plays had

canticles, parts recited with flute accompaniment, but had other features besides the chorus.

Perhaps under the influence of the choral songs they saw in the plays of Seneca, some of them

reintroduced the chorus in their plays. But whereas Seneca employed the chorus entirely in

long stichic verse, humanists either employed strophic ones, often with rhyming stanzas in the

mediaeval manner, in their comedies, or stichic ones in Senecan style in their tragedies. The

chorus could comment on the action or give an emotional or moralistic reaction on what

happened in the rest of the play. Other authors refrained from the use of a chorus in comedy

— in faithful imitation of Roman comedy — and only employed them in tragedy, following

the example of Seneca. Choral songs can be considered as interludes between the acts, mainly

17 Edition made by Jozef IJsewijn, ‘Jacobus Zevecotius. Marcia Stuarta / Maria Graeca, Tragoedia. A Synoptic

Edition of the Five Extant Versions’, Humanistica Lovaniensia, 22 (1973), 256-319.18 See Andreas Hagmeier, M.A. Muret, Iulius Caesar, M. Virdung, Brutus. Zwei Neulateinische Tragödien, Text,

Übersetzung und Interpretation (Munich: K.G. Saur, 2006). Other dramatizations of Julius Caesar’s life and

death were made by Nicodemus Frischlinus (1585) and Casparus Brülovius (1616).19 Daniel Heinsius, Auriacus, sive Libertas saucia (1602), ed. by Jan Bloemendal (Voorthuizen: Florivallis,

1997), doctoral thesis, Utrecht.20 See Janning, Der Chor im neulateinischen Drama; and Lia van Gemert, Tussen de bedrijven door? De functie

van de rei in Nederlandstalig toneel 1556-1625 / Between the Acts? The Function of the Chorus in Dutch Drama

1556-1625 (Deventer: Sub Rosa, 1990), doctoral thesis, Utrecht.

outside the action, or as the last part of an act, more closely linked to the action, or even

interacting with other characters. In most cases, the chorus consisted of about fourteen

schoolboys, but of course more or fewer boys could be employed, dependent on the number

of boys available for such a role. Thus the chorus was also a way of engaging more — often

younger — pupils in the staging of a drama. Some authors, such as Johannes Reuchlin

(Capnio) and Georgius Macropedius, set their choral songs to music. In any case, the chorus

became a means of steering the interpretations of the action. The direction may concern

general, ageless aspects of human life, as well as confessional conflicts, conditions of human

life and religious and political tensions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The choruses may act as phlegmatic commentators and instructors, as in the dramas of

the German teacher and Roman Catholic priest Jacob Schöpper (1512/1516-1554). The

chorus may also become the main element of plays, such as in the tragedies by Jacobus

Cornelius Lummenaeus a Marca (c. 1580-c.1625), who wrote pathetic choral songs longer

than the texts of the monologues and dialogues.

Performances — Theatre in Action — Actors

Most Neo-Latin dramas were meant to be both read and staged.21 Such a performance added

to the impact of a play by means of the spoken word as well as decor and props. Often plays

were printed only after the performance, whereas many remained in manuscript form. Those

manuscripts contained the entire play, or ‘roles’, viz. the text to be spoken by one actor.

Performances — either full performances or declamations — often took place in the

open air, in marketplaces, courts of colleges and the like, or in town halls, halls of the nobility

or palaces of kings or popes. In order to perform a play, actors had to rehearse it. This

21 See Bloemendal, ‘Reception and Impact. Early Modern Latin Drama, its Effect on the Audience and its Role

in Forming Public Opinion’, in Bloemendal and Ford (eds.), Neo-Latin Drama, pp. 7-22; and Bloemendal and

Norland, ‘Introduction’, in idem (eds.), Neo-Latin Drama and Theatre, pp. 1-24.

happened mostly during school time. Since girls did not have access to higher education, all

roles were played by boys, even the female roles. Students of the highest classes studied and

performed the plays, since they had knowledge of Latin and enough fluency. If there were

insufficient players from the highest classes, pupils of the lower classes took smaller roles or

participated in the chorus. The number of actors could vary from about eight to more than

twenty-five. Often performances were accompanied by (vocal and instrumental) music.

Choral songs were sung, flutes played, or trumpets sounded.

Performances took place before an audience. This could vary from very few at a

private performance, to thousands at the performance of a Jesuit play. The audience often

consisted of fellow pupils or students, schoolmasters or professors, and parents. Not every

spectator knew Latin. They could follow the play by the acting, the gestures and intonation,

and the costumes used, but in some plays their need were also met by prologues, epilogues or

other parts of the play in the vernacular. The Jesuits employed programme leaflets, periochae,

which contained the title of the play, the characters (and sometimes the actors) and a summary

for each act, either in the vernacular or in both the vernacular and Latin.

At the beginnings of Neo-Latin drama, there were no fixed stages. Therefore the

theatre stage was quite simple, consisting of a scaffold or just a wagon. The rest of the mise

en scène was also simple. The different places of the action may have been indicated merely

by a sign with the name of the town where the action took place or by what can be called

spoken stage settings. The costumes, too, may have been quite simple, being contemporary

rather than historically justified.

Performances began in the afternoon, at the occasion of religious celebrations,

especially in June, when the weather tended to be fairly good, days were long, and people

were on the move for a kermis or other festivals. But also on Shrovetide, in February, or in

November, St. Martin’s day, or during Christmas, plays were performed. The number of

productions varied, but often a play was staged twice a year.

Jesuit Theatre

Both Protestants and Roman Catholics wrote and produced plays, and on the Catholic side

there were more religious Orders that practised Latin drama, such as the Benedictines and the

Augustinians. However, it was the Jesuits who wrote most Latin dramas, most of them

tragedies, but also comedies and tragedies with comical elements.22 The Jesuits even made the

staging of dramas part of their official curriculum and gave rules for it in the Ratio studiorum

(Plan of Studies, 1599). The aim of the Jesuits was the training of the mind, of which the

Ratio gives evidence, particularly in the field of humanities, whereas natural sciences and

mathematics were given less emphasis.

The plays were products of the learned oral culture and rhetorical and pedagogic

practice of the Jesuit Order, or Societas Jesu. It was founded in 1539 as an Order of regular

clergymen by Ignatius of Loyola. The main aim of the apostolically oriented Order was the

care of souls. They did so in the schools they soon founded. The curriculum often was copied

from the Protestant gymnasia in Germany, which included the writing and staging of plays.

Most of the plays were written and produced as products of the company, which often

suppressed the names of individual authors in favour of the collective pedagogical strength of

the Order or the college. Most of the plays remained in manuscript form, and only a minority

was printed. Of many performances the periochae, or programmes, remain. Such manuscripts,

prints or periochae are the written remnants of multimedia shows. This means, for instance, 22 For this section, see, besides the contributions of Jean-Frédéric Chevalier and Fidel Rädle to Bloemendal and

Norland (eds.), Neo-Latin Drama and Theatre in Early Modern Europe, Jean-Marie Valentin, Les jésuites et le

théâtre (1554-1680). Contribution à l’histoire culturelle du monde catholique dans le Saint-Empire romain

germanique (Paris: Desjonquères, 2001); Ruprecht Wimmer, Jesuitentheater. Didaktik und Fest. Das Exemplum

des ägyptischen Joseph auf den deutschen Bühnen der Gesellschaft Jesu (Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann,

1982); Pohle, Glaube und Beredsamkeit.

that the corpus of plays that survive is the result of choices of librarians of the Order. This

also implies a fundamental impossibility to form a canon of the main authors, although

individual authors such as Nicolaus Avancini (1611-1686), Jacob Balde (1604-1668), Jacob

Bidermann (1578-1639), Jacob Masen (1606-1681) and Joseph Simons (1594-1671) are

known by name. However, they too were bound to the rules and habits of the Order, so one

may question how individual these authors were. From the first Jesuit performance of Levinus

Brechtus’s Euripus in 1555 to the suppression of the Order by Pope Clement VII in 1773, and

even after that, thousands of plays were written and performed at Jesuit colleges.

The staging of plays was thus related to the pedagogical purposes of the Order, but

also to the aims of the Counter-Reformation. With this missionary movement and attitude the

Church tried to regain ground after the successes of several Reformation movements. This

kind of drama was used in this programme in two ways. First, Jesuits were trained in rhetoric,

to be able to convince and persuade people to return to the Church, and second, in their

themes and content plays showed the advantages of returning to the Roman Catholic faith.

This message was made attractive in text, music and dance, and with theatrical devices such

as fireworks, so that a Jesuit performance was really a ‘multi-media show’.23

Latin and Vernacular Drama

In many countries, Latin drama existed in the context of vernacular theatre. The two types of

drama were in some instances linked, often by means of translations. Vernacular plays such as

Elckerlijc / Everyman were translated or rather transposed in a Latin guise by Macropedius in

his Hecastus and Christianus Ischyrius in his Homulus. In Hungary, the French classicist

dramas of Corneille were staged in Latin translation. Conversely, Latin dramas were turned

into vernacular ones, or creative imitations were made, such as Jacob Duym’s Moordadich

23 Barbara Bauer, ‘Multimediales Theater. Ansätze zu einer Poetik der Synästhesie bei den Jesuiten’, in

Renaissance-Poetik, ed. by Heinrich F. Plett (Berlin – New York: Walter De Gruyter, 1994), pp. 197-238.

Stuck van Balthasar Gerards (1606), which is an adaptation in Dutch of Heinsius’s Latin

Auriacus (1602). The famous Dutch playwright Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679) translated

Buchanan’s Jephthes into Jeptha (1659), and Hugo Grotius’s Adamus exul (1601) and

Sophompaneas (1635) as Adam in ballingschap (1664) and Sofompaneas (1635).

In Latin plays, vernacular words or phrases could be used for comic purposes, often in

imitation of Plautus’s Poenulus. In that play, the protagonist utters some words and sentences

in his Punic mother tongue. Macropedius in his Bassarus (1540) made one of his characters

use Dutch: ‘Hein leefdi noch? Adhucne vives?’ (‘Hein, are you still alive?’), and the answer

is: ‘Wie solt mi doot hen? Quis me necuerit?’ (‘Who would have killed me?’).24 Sacré and

IJsewijn also point out some other instances, viz. an anonymous Shrovetide play in Bruges

written in Latin but containing many passages in Dutch and some in French, and Gregorius

Cnapius’s Latin plays Philopater and Faelicitatis, which contain Polish choral songs.

Moreover, they mention linguistic confusion or polyglottism as a comic element, for instance

in William Mewe’s Pseudomagia (Cambridge, c. 1625/1627), where Spanish and French are

used to expose a false magician.25 In the course of time the Jesuits wrote more and more plays

in the vernacular, even when the title was in Latin. This was done in order to be understood

by an audience of parents who did not know Latin. In other instances authors made two

versions of their plays, one in Latin and one in their mother tongue, for an audience who knew

Latin and for an audience who did not. A famous example is the Augsburg playwright Sixtus

Betuleus, or Sixt Birck, who wrote a German Susanna in 1532 and a Latin version five years

later.26 A curious example is the Italian heretic Franciscus Niger Bassanensis, or Francesco

Negri (1500-c. 1564), who wrote a Tragedia di Libero Arbitrio (1546), an allegorical and 24 Georgius Macropedius, Bassarus, ed. by Rudolf C. Engelberts (Tilburg: Gianotten, 1968), doctoral thesis,

Utrecht.25 IJsewijn and Sacré, Companion to Neo-Latin Studies, vol. 2, p. 148. For the Bruges play, see also Gilbert

Tournoy and H. Wittouck, ‘Een meertalig Brugs Vastenavondspel uit de zestiende eeuw’, Koninklijke Academie

voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde. Verslagen en Mededelingen (1988), Afl. 3.26 IJsewijn and Sacré, Companion to Neo-Latin Studies, vol. 2, p. 148.

satirical tragedy, in which ‘[t]he subjects of Free Will start a revolution in Rome which ends

with the victory of Grace’.27 Negri wrote it in Italian, and there were translations into French

(1558 and 1559) and English (1572), whereas Negri himself made a Latin version in 1559.28

Conclusion

Neo-Latin drama had its Sitz im Leben mainly in humanist education and thus was mainly a

man’s affair. The humanists at first also had their pupils play ancient dramas — Latin

comedies of Terence, Plautus and tragedies assigned to Seneca, and Greek plays in a Latin

translation — but soon they started to write their own pieces. The classical reception

influenced the character of Neo-Latin drama, which was mainly a kind of reception of ancient

Roman theatre and to a lesser extent of ancient Greek drama. Particularly in the beginnings of

this drama, which lay in the Trecento in Italy and in the end of the fifteenth century in the

European countries north of the Alps, it combined mediaeval and classical forms, moulding

several themes into the five-act structure that humanists read in their editions of Terence,

Plautus and Seneca. This form was a vehicle for transferring humanist values through

education in Latin and rhetoric, morals, and religious and political ideas. It also served in the

struggle between Protestants and Roman Catholics either to stress the differences or to bridge

the gap between the parties. For instance, Guilielmus Gnapheus’s Acolastus (1529), a

Lutheran play but with conciliatory tones, was also popular at Catholic schools.

Neo-Latin drama was staged by pupils and students for their peers and parents, as well

as for the schoolmasters and citizens. As such it also served the public relations of the

institution that provided for the production. Performances often were related to school life,

such as prize-giving ceremonies or the church year, for instance Shrovetide, Corpus Christi

and Christmas. It could also be staged at other occasions, such as the Joyous Entries or other

27 Ibid.28 Ibid.

visits of kings and princes. Thus it could also serve other public purposes, such as the

celebration of the fall of Granada in 1492 in Carolus Verardus’s Historia Baetica. The genre

flourished for centuries and thousands of plays were written, staged and — to a lesser extent

— printed.

Further Reading

Bloemendal, Jan, and Philip J. Ford (eds.), Neo-Latin Drama. Forms, Functions, Receptions

(Hildesheim, Zürich, New York: Georg Olms, 2008) Noctes Neolatinae, Neo-Latin Texts

and Studies, 9.

Bloemendal, Jan, and Howard B. Norland (eds.), Neo-Latin Drama and Theatre in Early

Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2013) Drama and Theatre in Early Modern Europe, 3.

Ford, Philip, and Andrew Taylor (eds.), The Early Modern Cultures of Neo-Latin Drama

(Louvain: Universitaire Pers Leuven, 2013) Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia, 32.

IJsewijn, Jozef, and Dirk Sacré, Companion to Neo-Latin Studies. Part II: Literary,

Linguistic, Philological and Editorial Questions (Leuven: Leuven University Press 1998

[1977]) Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia, 14.

Janning, Volker, Der Chor im neulateinischen Drama. Formen und Funktionen (Münster:

Rhema, 2005) Symbolische Kommunikation und gesellschaftliche Wertesysteme.

Schriftenreihe des Sonderforschungsbereichs 496, 7, doctoral thesis, Münster.

McCabe, S.J., William H., An Introduction to the Jesuit Theater. A Posthumous Work, ed. by

Louis J. Oldani, S.J. (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1983) Series 3, Original

Studies, 6.

Meier-Staubach, Christel, ‘Humanist Values in the Early Modern Drama’, in Stephen Gersh

and Bert Roest (eds.), Medieval and Renaissance Humanism. Rhetoric, Representation and

Reform (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 149–165.

Pohle, Frank, Glaube und Beredsamkeit: Katholisches Schultheater in Jülich-Berg,

Ravenstein und Aachen (1601–1817) (Münster: Rhema, 2010) Schriftenreihe des

Sonderforschungsbereichs 496, 29.

Washof, Wolfram, Die Bibel auf der Bühne: Exempelfiguren und protestantische Theologie

im lateinsichen und deutschen Bibeldrama der Reformationszeit (Münster: Rhema, 2007)

Symbolische Kommunikation und gesellschaftlichen Wertesysteme. Schriftenreihe des

Sonderforschungsbereichs 496, 14, doctoral thesis, Münster.