HROTSVIT (c. 935–c. 1000, alternate spellings include Hrotswitha and Hrosvitha) was canoness in the Abbey of Gandersheim in tenth-century Saxony. Hrotsvit is known today as Europe's first woman playwright, indeed the first known dramatist of Christian Europe. Her six extant plays, written in rhymed Latin prose, offer a Christian response to the Roman comedies of Terence (c. 190–159 BCE), incorporating the traditions of medieval hagiography. Blending comic intrigue and disguise motifs with conflicts between pagan and Christian values, Hrotsvit's plays typically feature strong-willed female protagonists who undergo physical ordeals and achieve redemption. Hrotsvit also created a parallel sequence of eight poetic saint's legends and two historical verse epics.

The appearance of such a figure in the "dark ages" of the tenth century may seem surprising, but the social and intellectual contexts of Hrotsvit's life reveal that she grew up in privileged circumstances, at the height of what is known today...