Cenodoxus

Cenodoxus is one of several miracle plays by Jacob Bidermann, an early 17th-century German Jesuit and prolific playwright. Jacob Bidermann's treatment of the Legend of the Doctor of Paris is generally regarded as one of the inspirations for Goethe's Faust.

Published in 1602 at a Jesuit seminary in Augsburg, and with earlier handwritten drafts available prior to 1600, Cenodoxus found its first performances by the seminary students there, put on principally for the benefit of the many students residing at the institute. The initial performance in July 1602 was so well received that it was performed a second time the next day.

Far from being inaccessible to the typical theatergoer, the performances of Cenodoxus in Latin were so enthusiastically received that the choice of the language had the effect of making the play one of the hottest hits in Europe. Especially noteworthy performances were recorded in Munich and Lucerne in 1609, after the conclusion of which fourteen young men immediately asked to enter the Jesuit order. The play was also performed with comparable results in Pruntrut in 1615, in Ingolstadt in 1617, in Paris in 1636, and both Ypern and Hildesheim in 1654. Considering all these performances, it is no surprise that there are a fair number of copies of Cenodoxus surviving to this day, but the earliest such copies date back to 1610 or 1611, and are, to this day, preserved as such in a convent in Kelheim. The attention given to this work by the wealthy nobility eventually filtered down to the common people, leading to a German vernacular translation by Joachim Meichel in 1635.

Bidermann's plays were not printed as a single work until 1666, when they were collected under the title of Ludi Theatrales — still in Latin — some 27 years after his death.

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