THEATER, LATIN
. Secular Latin plays were produced in the 12th century alongside religious and liturgical
drama. Their appearance seems to depend on two factors, the high standard of learning in
the period and the change in conception of the value of the human being, epitomized in
Anselm of Bec’s Cur Deus homo and exemplified in the autobiographies of Guibert de
Nogent and Peter Abélard. Latin being a learned language, these plays were associated
almost entirely with the schools, particularly those of the Loire Valley. Only comedies
are extant, the earliest of which (ca. 1130) would appear to be the anonymous Panphilus,
based loosely on an Ovidian theme and written in Ovidian style. As if to assert the real
origins of comedy, Vitalis of Blois wrote two plays: Geta (ca. 1150), an update of
Plautus’s Amphytrion, and Aulularia (ca. 1155), based on the pseudo-Plautine comedy of
the same name. Geta, with its satire of the rival Parisian schools and Abélard’s
philosophy, was an enormous success and immediately became a set-text studied in all
the schools of Europe; almost a hundred manuscripts are extant. Vitalis’s success inspired
others to follow his example. While in Sicily in 1168, William of Blois wrote the Alda,
an updated version of a play by Menander with a Norman setting. Other teachers from the
Loire region tried different sources. Matthieu de Vendôme’s Milo is based on an eastern
motif; the plays of his archenemy Arnulf of Orléans, the Lydia and the Miles gloriosus
(despite its Plautine title), are more closely linked to fabliau material. Among the
remaining “comedies” whose links with the theater are not so obvious, but which might
be more accurately termed “dramatic monologues,” one deserves mention: Panphilus,
Glycerium et Birria, associated with an episcopal or royal court in Normandy, combines
a vernacular interlude structure with the characters of Roman comedy, thus firmly stating
its theatrical nature.
Although limited in time (ca. 1130–80), probably because of changes in the French
educational system, these comedies continued to have an influence elsewhere in Europe,
first in England, where the Babio (ca. 1175) stands out as a supreme example of Latin
récupération of the vernacular, and then in Italy in the 13th century with texts like the
Uxor Cerdonis and De Paulino et Polla. The Panphilus was also to influence the
vernacular, especially the English Dame Siriz and the Spanish La Celestina. Even
religious drama was not immune. The Beauvais Ludus Danielis (ca. 1175) acquired the
synopsis and prologue of comedy that are absent from the earlier Historia Danielis (ca.
1140) of Hilarius.
Keith Bate
[See also: LITURGICAL DRAMA; THEATER]
Bertini, Ferruccio, ed. Commedie Latine del XII e XIII secolo. 6 vols. Genoa: Istituto di Filologia
Classica e Medievale, 1976–.
Elliott, Alison G., trans. Seven Medieval Latin Comedies. New York: Garland, 1984.
Bate, Keith. “Twelfth-Century Latin Comedies and the Theatre.” In Papers of the Liverpool Latin
Seminar: Second Volume, 1979, ed. Francis Cairns. Liverpool: School of Classics, 1979, pp.
249–62.
Roy, Bruno. “Arnulf of Orleans and the Latin ‘Comedy.’” Speculum 49(1974):258–66.
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