Remaining Friends: A Reappraisal of a Passage in the St. Trudperter Hohelied

Recent work on the St. Trudperter Hohelied provides a welcome opportunity to revisit a previous attempt at interpreting this early example (from the twelfth century) of the use of friendship in the context of writing about and for women.

Petrus W. Tax was kind enough to share with me privately his thoughts about a reading of the St. Trudperter Hohelied that I put forth in these pages a number of years ago (Jeep). Occasion for the following reconsideration was provided, in addition to Tax’s careful look at the passage in question, by the appearance of a long-overdue new edition and translation into modern German of the St. Trudperter Hohelied (Ohly), the Early Middle High German translation and commentary on the Old Testament Song of Songs. Ohly’s commentary on this work represents a singular and masterful accomplishment (see Jaffe 382–83n26). Tax has since published more recent thoughts on the St. Trudperter Hohelied (2006) in its relation to a Latin Pentecost Sequence. In the following, I revisit the relevant passages from my earlier essay in an effort to reassess the early evidence of friendship among women.

The passage in question reads in the original German: “die zôch dir dîn muotir zu gemahelen / unde ze spiln unde ze liebin vriundinnin” (Ohly 16, lines 16–17). Ohly translates this into German as “Die zog dir deine Mutter auf zu Bräuten und zu Gespielinnen und zu lieben Freundinnen” (53)—“Your [i.e., Jesus’s] mother raised them for You as brides and [female] companions and dear [female] friends.”

Ohly’s commentary on this passage, for which, he concludes, there appears to be no direct source (theological or other), is that the nuns are portrayed as becoming brides of Christ through Mary’s intervention (611). In the larger context (see 9–28), employing typological undertones, a comparison is drawn between women in the Old Testament, educated by Eve, and those of the New Testament, raised in a superior fashion by Mary. The use of the triad of roles supports with numerological persuasion the superiority of the work of Mary over that of Eve, represented by four desires (Ohly 611). Three new gifts (“pure life,” “much virtue,” and “Your full love”; see Ohly 16, lines 16–17) correspond in number to the three roles. While bride and woman friend are common in the Song of Songs, the reference to companions (spiln) would be worthy of study. For the purpose of this piece, the focus will remain on friendship.

My own translation of this passage—“Your mother taught them to become Your bride and to enjoy and to love their women friends” (Jeep 4)—is thus revised. It remains to be shown whether this improvement leads to an essentially different interpretation of the text.

The use of female friends is conspicuous here, since the source text, Williram’s commentary on the Song of Songs, employs adolescentulae (1, 2), translated as iúnkfróuvon, or “virgins” (Schützeichel and Meineke 44–46, 265, 321). As suggested in my earlier essay, the use of the term may have been influenced by the intended audience of young women. The shift from virgins to (female) friends can be seen as anticipating the use of amica (friuntin) some twelve times in the Song of Songs and in the St. Trudperter Hohelied. On this, and further discussion, I refer to my earlier essay, with citations and secondary sources.

I would like to further supplement my arguments with more recent findings of D. H. Green, who locates the text in its setting with an audience of women, probably at the double monastery Admont, highlighting the first example in German of a newly emerging (once Patristic) reading of the Song of Songs with a focus on the individual women (16, 139– 40, 203, 247, 251). Presuming the location within a double monastery, it seems plausible that the use of the notion of friendship serves the function of preparing the women within the community both to be friends of Jesus (as repeatedly stated in the text that follows) and to be...