Hrotsvitha

(c930-1002) Germany writer. Hrotsvitha was a Saxon dramatist and chronicler. The body of her works were completed by 973 AD.

Hrotsvitha Birth:

Hrotsvitha is believed to have been born of the aristocracy sometime around 930 AD.

Hrotsvitha Education :

Hrotsvitha joined the Benedictine nunnery at Gandersheim, which had been founded in the 10th century. There, she became a canoness, which allowed her to travel.

In the preface to her legends, Hrotsvitha writes: "...I strove according to my ability... to complete a composition from the thoughts in the writing... first through the instructive guidance of our learned and kindly teacher Rikkardis... then through the gracious consideration of the royal Gerberga."

She continues: "Though she is younger than I in years than I am, yet as befits a niece of the Emperor, she is farther advanced in learning, and she it was who right kindly instructed me in those various authors from whom she herself studied under the guidance of learned teachers."

Hrotsvitha Literary Achievements: Hrotsvitha wrote eight metrical legends of the saints, six plays, three prose prefaces, several dedications, a thirty-five line poem on The Revalation of St. John, as well as "Panagyric Oddonum," and "Primordia Coenobii Gandershemensis."

She said, "Sometimes I compose with great effort, again I destroyed what I had poorly written...[so that] the slight talent...given me by Heaven should not lie idle in the dark recesses of the mind and thus be destroyed by the rush of neglect."