Long considered to be out of the mainstream of early Germanic authors, Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (also known as Hrotswit, Hrotswitha, and Roswitha) has now been placed firmly in the tradition of medieval Benedictine spirituality. While her hagiographic plays are without precedent in tenth-century European literature, her efforts at the didactic utilization of hagiography are not. In fact, Hrotsvit's dramatization of legendary materials bears testimony to the prominent role that hagiographic lectiones played in the Benedictine office.

All that is known of Hrotsvit's biography has to be gleaned from her dedicatory letters and prefaces. She was probably born in the fourth decade of the tenth century, is likely to have been of noble Saxon descent, lived as a canoness in the Imperial Abbey of Gandersheim under Gerberga II's rule, and probably died at the turn of the millennium. It is evident from her work that she considered the eremetic...