♀️ Feminist Friday ♀️ Hrotsvitha Hrosvitha is the earliest.. (OnlyFans)

♀️ Feminist Friday ♀️

Hrotsvitha

Hrosvitha is the earliest-known woman poet in Germany, and some scholars even consider her the first dramatist, or playwright, since ancient times. The various spellings of her name include Hroswitha, Hrosvit, Hroswitha, and Roswitha, but recent research indicates the spelling she used was Hrotsvit, derived from the Saxon words that translated to Clamor Validus in Latin (“For ceful Testimony” in English), a reference to her authorship of stories about Christianity and its saints. During her lifetime, Hrosvitha divided her own works into three manuscripts: Book of Legends, Book of Drama, and Epics (dates uncertain). The legends and plays still exist, but the two works included in Epics are lost.

Very few details are known about Hrosvitha’s life and those that are known are often disputed. We do know that she was a nun, or canoness, at the Benedictine monastery of Gandersheim in Saxony (modern-day Germany). Gandersheim was founded in 852 as a monastery for the nobility, and so it is assumed that Hrosvitha was of noble Saxon birth. In the introduction to her works, Hrosvitha identified Princess Gerberga II, the Abbess, or superior nun at Gandersheim, as one of her teachers. She probably entered the monastery at a relatively you ng age although some scholars believe she spent a good portion of her childhood at the Ottonian court, based on similarities between her work and the work of writers who frequented the Ottonian court during the early part of her lifetime.

Most of Hrosvitha’s writings recount the lives of martyrs, praising those who lead ascetic lives, forgoing sumptuous meals, material possessions, and sexual pleasure in the pursuit of spiritual goals. The lost Epics comprised a history on the life of Otto I, the King of the Germans and Holy Roman Emperor who lived from 912 to 973, and a history of Gandersheim Abbey as it existed between the years of 846 and 919. Hrosvitha’s works are impressive in their expository scope, referencing the works of Virgil, Ovid, and other ancient poets. A woman ahead of her time, Hrosvitha’s last work was completed in 973, and not until two hundred years after her death was medieval drama again composed.

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Disclaimer: It is important to remember that some of the women you will read about during Feminist Friday will have done unsavory, bad, and sometimes even terrible or unforgivable things during their lives. I have decided to include any women found to be problematic rather than disregard them entirely because I believe that it would be a disservice to do otherwise. The different women discussed here have lives that span over thousands of years during which life on Earth and humanity in general changed immensely and unrecognizably. Some of their values will be outdated. Some will be laughable. Some offensive. However, I implore you to try and look at these women as individual members of a world made to tame, shame, shackle, subjugate, abuse, and kill them. Do not ignore the horrors of the past. You are free to dislike them (I dislike many!) but recognize their achievements within the context of their time and place in the world.