Drama and Debate: Hildegard of Bingen’sOrdo virtutumin the Context of Allegorical Debate Literature

Abstract

Hildegard of Bingen’s (1098-1179) musical drama Ordo virtutum is unlike every other liturgical drama we know, most of all because it employs personifications of the soul and the virtues. It has been anachronistically likened to much later traditions of allegorical drama. This article reads the drama in the context of allegorical literary debates. Particularly, it discusses its affinities with Ambrosius Autpertus’ Conflictus vitiorum atque virtutum and Werner of Basel’s Paraclitus. Besides offering a new perspective on the Ordo virtutum, the article wants to suggest, more generally, that the study of debate poetry holds promise for the research of medieval Latin drama.