Christian History Home > Issue 30 > Women in the Medieval Church: A Gallery of Christian Women Writers of the Medieval World
Women in the Medieval Church: A Gallery of Christian Women Writers of the Medieval World
Dr. Katharina M. Wilson is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Georgia and editor of Medieval Women Writers (Georgia, 1984). | posted 4/01/1991 12:00AM
Hrotsvit von Gandersheim
Christianity’s first known playwright
Hrotsvit lived in the tenth century (932–1002) as a canoness of the Imperial Saxon Abbey of Gandersheim (Germany). She can best be described by a catalogue of pioneering achievements: she is the first known dramatist of Christianity; the first Saxon poet; the first female Transalpine [north of the Alps] historian; and the author of the only extant Latin epics written by a woman.
According to her own testimony she objected to the great popularity of [Roman author] Terence’s plays, which depicted lascivious pagan women frolicking in the pleasures of the flesh. She wanted to compose dramas substituting the heroines of Christianity: beautiful, chaste virgins, firmly resisting the insidious advances of pagan men. To show “frail Christian virgins” triumph with Christ’s aid was her stated dramatic intent.
Hrotsvit is a polished stylist who doesn’t lack a sense of humor, either. In one of her plays, Dulcitius, the protagonist is a pagan ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
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