Hrosvitha biography

German secular canoness, dramatist, and poet

"Roswitha" redirects here. For other uses, see Roswitha (disambiguation).

Hrotsvitha (c. 935–973) was a secular canoness who wrote drama and Christian poetry under the Ottonian dynasty.

She was born in Bad Gandersheim to Saxon nobles and entered Gandersheim Abbey as a canoness.^[1] She is considered the first female writer from the Germanosphere, the first female historian, the first person since the Fall of the Roman Empire to write dramas in the Latin West,^[2] and the first German female poet.^[3]

Hrotsvitha's six short dramas are considered to be her most important works.^[3] She is one of the few women who wrote about her life during the early Middle Ages, making her one of the only people to record a history of women in that era from a woman's perspective.^[4] She has been called "the most remarkable woman of her time",^[5] and an important figure in th