Dhuoda (also known as Dodana) is the only known female Carolingian poet and one of the few lay poets whose work has survived from the period. Her place of birth is not known, but her name suggests a northern Frankish connection. She wrote her Liber Manualis (Handbook, 843), a book of advice for her son William, in Latin, but her style shows the influence of Germanic half lines and stress patterns. It is likely that her first language was a Germanic one and that she wrote in Latin because most learning and literature of the time were carried on in that language.

Dhuoda's writing reveals the sort of education that could only have been afforded by a noble family. Her first documented activity is her marriage to Bernard, Duke of Septimania, at the imperial palace at Aachen on 29 June 824. Bernard was well connected through his father, Wilhelm of Gellone...