While the Medieval Age is considered the pinnacle of drama in the church, the history between the two began in a much earlier and "Darker" Age. As the Gospels took form in 100-200 A.D., so did anti-theatrical musings from the early church. In 195 A.D. Tertullian's document De Spectaculus condemned theatrical activity. Under Roman control, Greek precedents of Aristotelian tragedy and comedy degenerated into pagan circus, low comedy, and bloody tournament. Often, Christians were made the butt of satiric jokes or were forced into colloseums to face death by lions or other gladiator sports. The early relationship between the church and the theatre was condemingly and violently confrontational. As Emperor Constantine converted the Roman Empire to Christianity(312 A.D.) and rebel forces in Eurpoean colonies threatened social stability, theatre became as barbaric as the forces that would eventually sack Rome. By the time Rome fell at the hands of Alaric the Visigoth in A.D. 410, the stage had likewise fallen into the "Dark Ages" (Wickham, 54). While some dramatic texts by Seneca, Terence and Horace were salvaged, memories of Graeco-Roman drama were dimmed in the struggle to rebuild society and Christianize Europe.

In the tenth-century, a spark of dramatic activity from a nun named Hroswitha shed light on the development of drama between the Dark and Medieval Ages. From the abyss of dramatic history, this canoness wrote six dramas in the style of Terence. Since the manuscripts' rediscovery in 1493, historians have been compelled to ask how Hroswitha came to the knowledge and skill of dramatic theory.

The subject of how dramatic tradition survived and was passed from the East to the West is the subject of Joseph S. Tunison's book Dramatic Traditions of the Dark Ages. Tunison argues that while the western Imperial Roman Empire shirked dramatic influence of the Greek "Golden Age," its eastern half, the Byzantine Empire, respected and preserved its Hellenistic culture. At the border of the Byzantine Empire , the "barbaric" Goth (Germanic) people gained power in Italy. Tunison notes that Italy's first Gothic king Theodoric "sought to abolish the brute entertainments," while "players and musicians were secured from Constantinople to teach Goths and Romans the the Byzantine dramatic art" (147-148). While this "art" was far removed from the Greek tragedies of the Platonic period, it is also supposed that they were more advanced than those of the western Roman Empire. Tunison notes that among the Byzantines the word "theater" came to mean "a crowded church," while among Romans the word "theatrum" was a general term meaning "marketplace" or an "ancient ruin" (Tunison 149-150). Certainly, the Byzantine and subsequent Gothic and Germanic cultures were better poised to revitalize dramatic literature, particularly Christian drama, than was the Western Roman Empire.

According to Tunison, The Abbey of Gandersheim illustrates how the "marriage" of the Byzantine and Germanic cultures brought about Hroswitha's pioneering Christian plays. Gandersheim was under the rule of the Ottonian Empire. This empire was valued for both its orthodox and humanistic tendencies. These traits united with Byzantine influences when Otto II (co-emperor 967; sole emperor 973-983) married the Greek princess Theophano. Theophano brought the culture of the Byzantines marked by an appreciation of the Hellenistic period. Hroswitha was a dear friend to Otto II, a pupil of his cousin the Abbess Gergerga, and a fellow nun to his daughter Sophia. Through this influential circle of friends, Hroswitha was educated in the ways of Christian orthodoxy, as well as the literature of the Hellenic culture. Tunison writes,"it must be said that she [Hroswitha] was, so far as her comedies were concerned, a direct product of the historical Byzantine theater. She knows what she does about the stage and stage business, because she is the humble friend of a great lady [Theophano] to whom those things were once familiar....Theophano could tell her instantly that Terence was barely more than a translation of Greek plays" (167). During the Dark Ages, the Byzantine culture preserved the spirit and literature of the Hellenic "Golden Age." This literature included theater and its "stage business."

Certainly, Hroswitha's manuscripts point toward dramatic activity in the Dark Ages. Whether this activity moved beyond the literary, however, is the subject of argument. In his article "Were Hrovitha's Dramas Performed During Her Lifetime," Edwin H. Zeydel expresses the need to study Hroswitha's dramas as "acting plays" to determine their influence in dramatic development. As in Zeydel's article, it is not the intent of this introductory essay to engage in the debate of whether Hroswitha's plays were "staged" in her lifetime, but to study the arguments of the controversy in order to determine the "stage" of dramatic development in the tenth century and into the early medieval period.

Confusion over the interpretation and scope of "performance" dominates discussions of Hroswitha's works. Many critics apply modern standards to the term "performance" when speaking of Hroswitha's plays. Zeydel notes that after seeing a marionette performance of two plays, Anatole France was "convinced that productions of Hrosvitha's plays took place in the convent of Gandersheim, that productions were frequent, and that nuns themselves, wearing false beards, took even the male parts" (444) . Charles Mangin's division of the original text into scenes, twentieth century productions of Hroswitha's plays and the performability of her work contribute to these perceptions. However, these perceptions assume a knowledge of technical theatre beyond what was available to Hroswitha. Tunison notes that :

[W]e must remember that such a thing as a legitimate theatrical performance, or anything more varied than the declamation of Virgil on the one hand, or the Herod interlude in the church service on the other...had been unknown in western Europe for centuries. Two hundred years were yet to pass before the ecclesiastical drama become popular anywhere outside of Byzantium....She [Hroswitha] has never seen a stage; possibly she never saw a description of one, unless there happened to be a manuscript of Vitruvius at Gandersheim. Hence she had no experience as to the needs of acting a play. Yet competent critics agree that her dramas could be acted as they were written. (167-167)

Because Hroswitha's plays are performable in modern terms, the possibility for performance in her time is also often evaluated in modern terms. Because her plays could not have been performed by modern standards in the tenth century, they are said to never have been "performed." However, Zeydel asks, "Do Hrosvitha's plays,...not deserve treatment against the background of her own age and as a manifestation of a tenth-century effort in the field of dramatic writing, despite their late discovery?" (Zeydel 447). If the "performance" of Hroswitha's plays is evaluated in terms of presentation in the tenth century, it becomes evident and probable that Hroswitha's dramas were "performed."

Most critics agree that Hroswitha's plays may have been read aloud to members of Gandersheim. Tunison reminds us that reading before the advent of the printing press was not a "silent" occupation, "thus, in tracing dramatic traditions as distinguished from the proper history of the drama, one may justly insist on finding them among writings which were not intened for the stage: among rhetoricians, who never became actors; among performers in spectacles; in phrases and formulas that passed from theater to church to elsewhere..." (ix). Indeed, Tunison acknowledges that poetical tournaments were becoming popular in the tenth century.

Zeydel notes that Hroswitha's monnicer "the strong voice of Gandersheim" suggests that she herself was an "elocutionist." He cites evidence to suggest that Terence was recited in the early Middle Ages. He suggests that the report of Monk Reinurus of St. Laurentius in 1180 mentions a "scenica lectio of Terence" and that "a dramatic colloquy of verses between Jeronimus... and Terence... may date anywhere between the seventh and eleventh centuries" (Zeydel 449). He argues that " we know at least that dramatic readings, whether they be by a single reader, a mime, or a group of readers, are established for the period. Certainly such readings of Hrotvitha's plays in the inner circle of her sister nuns...is not out of the question" (Zeydel 449). Other scholars who dispute that Hroswitha was "performed" agree that her plays may have been read aloud.

It is importanant to note that this very method of "recitation" would have been considered "dramatic performance" in Hroswitha's time. Zeydel cites critics Creizenach and Hartl as stressing that "in her day the erroneous view prevailed that in ancient times a drama was always presented by a single recitator (we should say 'reader'), assisted by mutes who merely gestured. Probably this notion grew out of the prevalence, at the time, of the itinerant mime...such a one-man show was the only form of dramatic representation known in the tenth century" (Zeydel 448). If Hroswitha's plays were presented in this manner, therefore, they should be considered "performed" within the dramatic traditions of the tenth, and not later, centuries.
Perhaps the success of early modern marionette productions of Hroswitha suggest that her plays were originally written for the "reader" and the "mime."

Furthermore, Hroswitha's dialogue suggests visual representation. Zeydel suggests Hroswitha's frequent use of "ecce," translated as "I see" as his argument for visible manifestation of her text. For example:

[I]n Calimachus Fortunas escorts the hero to Drusiana's tomb. Catching sight of her body, he exclaims: 'Ecce corpus...'...In the next scene a divine messenger appears to Johannes and Andronichus, ad the former says" 'Ecce, invisibilis Deus nobis apparet visibilis' Again, when Drusiana is restored to life, Johannes exclaims: "Ecce, aperto sepulcro corpus Drusiane foras est ejectum' Later Calimachus, struck dead, is resurrected and Andronichus says" 'Ecce, vitales auras carpit.' So too in Abraham. Abraham's friend, bidden to bring a disguise speaks: 'Ecce, omina.' And in the inn Maria, called out by the innkeeper at Abraham's request responds: 'Ecce, venio.' Similarly in the scene in Paphnutius where Thais burns her treasures, the nature of the action seems to demand acting and stage business. This technique of immediacy, as we might call it, is thoroughly characteristic of the ingrained dramatist. It makes the action so vivid that we constantly see the performers acting it out before our eyes (451).

Zeydel asserts that the frequent use of "ecce" is commentary on the physical action occuring on the stage. Indeed, one can see how the "dramatic techniques" of the tenth century, the "dumb-show," could be applied to Hroswitha's plays.

While some critics agree that Hroswitha's plays could technically have been "performed" in the tenth century, they counter that the Church would not have allowed such representation in the convent. Hermann Reich argues that "although her dramas fairly cry for performance and she herself...would have welcomed their production, her superiors would have vetoed any suggestion to have such sacred materials presented by profane jugglers and mimes, the only possible media of representation before spectators at that time" (Zeydel 445). These critics suppose that Hroswitha's manuscripts might have been presented before Abbess Gerberga, but dismissed. Other critics argue that Hroswitha may have written her plays because sacred material was needed for performance. Zeydel remarks that while Terence's subject matter would have forbade "performance" in the monastery, the nature of Hroswitha's drama would have enabled performance and may have been written for that purpose. Tunison would ask us to remeber that Gandersheim was a community where the sacred and secular powers interacted and that Otto III "renewed Theodoric's attempt domesticate an imitation of the Greek Drama in the West" during the period that Hroswitha resided in Gandersheim (150). Furthermore, while conventional scholarship dates Christmas and Easter plays as beginning in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, earlier theorists, as well as more recent scholars, find strains of Easter plays beginning in the tenth century (Zeydel 455). Although Charlemagne, ancestor to the Ottos, forbid clerics to attend plays in the ninth century, by the tenth century Hroswitha's works reveal that the church state was becoming enlightened to dramatic developement.

Further dramatic development in the early to primary medieval ages followed two strains proposed by Hans Urs Von Balthasar in his book Theo-Drama: 1) the strain of "Precarious Neutrality" which, as exemplified by Hroswitha, "felt its way back from the theatre of life (Terence) to the Christian drama," in other words, Christianized secular humantistic drama and 2) the strain of "Mystery to Drama," with the Eucharist as its center, unfolding through the course of the year and culminating in Holy Week (111, 105). While the second strain would culminate in the Quem quaertis liturgy of the twellfth century, the first strain had its origins in the plays of Hroswitha. Although Hroswitha's plays may not have directly influenced the saint plays of the fifteenth century, they illustrate that the influences which created the saint plays were not spontaneous to later centuries, but had their origin and were preserved and practiced through the Dark Ages. While it may never be known if Hroswitha's plays were indeed performed in her lifetime, the possibility of performance and the fashion in which her dramas could have been presented in the tenth century illustrate that dramatic activity likely continued in the Dark Ages and set the "stage" for further development in the Middle Ages.