Medieval “Date Rape”
in the Carmina Burana?

Lora L. Holland (University of North Carolina, Asheville)

In the 13^th century collection of poems and songs popularly known as the Carmina Burana, a German and Latin poem (no. 185, in the manuscript, fol. 72v) is accompanied by one of the eight colored miniatures in the manuscript. The poem is a young girl’s lament for the loss of her virginity. Though it is one of the more poignant poems in the collection, it is not often presented for Latin students to read, both because of its macaronic nature, and perhaps also because of its content, which is graphic at times. Walsh notes, however, for poems such as this one “the Latin stanzas can be legitimately detached from the German supplements and evaluated as autonomous creations” (Love Lyrics from the Carmina Burana, Chapel Hill and London, 1993, p. xiv). It is, therefore, a text of considerable interest to Latinists. In the poem, a girl is lured by a young cleric to a copse of linden trees “to play a game” (ut ludum faciamus), and is deflowered there. There is a great deal of word play on flos in the poem, and the accompanying illustration depicts a young man presenting a bouquet of flowers to a young woman. It will be argued that these are, in fact, linden tree flowers. The linden tree generally has a positive association with romantic and passionate love during the Middle Ages (A. Hatto “The Lime-Tree and Early German, Goliard and English Lyric Poetry,” The Modern Language Review 49, 1954: 193-209), but in this poem’s refrain the trees are cursed by the young lady (maledicantur tilie | iuxta viam posite). Did the trees betray her trust in some way? I will argue that she curses them because of the flowers they produce.

Herbalists and practitioners of folk medicine have long used various parts of the linden tree for medicinal purposes, including producing a calming tea from its flowers. Recent medical studies of the linden-tree flower confirm that they contain a sedative chemical. As it turns out, the pharmacological property in the flowers of the linden tree that causes sedation is part of a class of modern drugs called benzodiazepines, an example of which is Rohypnol, a notorious drug slipped into a woman’s drink to incapacitate her during a sexual assault. The presence of the same sedative chemical in linden-tree flowers and these drugs sheds new light on the content of the poem and its illustration, and suggests that the young lady was an early victim of “date rape.”

A handout will include text and translation of the entire poem, as well as bibliography.