The 10th-century Saxon canoness Hrotsvit of Gandersheim called herself “the strong voice of Gandersheim”. She had numerous firsts to her credit: first medieval playwright, first female playwright, first female German poet and first female German historian.
Dedicating her works to various family members of Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Great, Hrotsvit was highly educated in both the quadrivium (music, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy) and the trivium (grammar, rhetoric and logic), as well as key writings by Christian theologians. Hrotsvit was also well-versed in Roman pagan authors, whose immoral comedies featured love affairs and women of suspect reputation, embodying the worst of misogynist beliefs. Hrotsvit took these well-plotted, but immoral, plays and turned them into admirable dramas featuring worthy women and weak men. Girls stood up to those who did not let them lead the lives they chose.
Hrotsvit put to vellum the first-known dramas since the classical period. Her plays extol females, from strong virgins to prostitute saints, willing to sacrifice themselves for God. What could have been happier for a devout medieval Christian than to end up in heaven? Her heroines include young girls, one as young as eight, who
