The current series is The First Woman. In every series, I have bonus episodes available on Patreon. They are a steal at $5 a piece, or $4 a month for access to all of them, but it’s women’s history month, so we’re celebrating with putting this bonus episode here free of charge.

Listen in your favorite podcast app.

Theater was big in the ancient world, and it would surprise me if it was really true that no ancient woman ever tried her hand at writing a play, but if she did, it’s lost. Every ancient play that I’m aware of, be it Greek or Roman or whatever, was written by a man. Then the classical world collapsed (at least in the West), and theater went into a steep decline for hundreds of years.

A Medieval Women’s Powerhouse

The first female playwright that I can find was born in about the year 930, in or near Gandersheim. That’s now in north central Germany, but there was no unified Germany at the time. Just a lot of semi-independent states joined up together in the Holy Roman Empire.

This woman’s name was Hrotsvit, which is in various places transliterated as Hroswith or Hroswitha or Roswitha, without the ‘h.’ I am pleased to report that however you say or spell it, it is derived from two Old Saxon words meaning Strong Voice (Wilson, 31). Maybe she named herself.

As per usual in this time period, we know a lot less about Hrotsvit than we would like to know. Not even who her parents were. But Hrotsvit herself tells us that she joined the Abbey of Gandersheim, probably while she was quite young.

If you hanker after medieval female empowerment, then the Abbey of Gandersheim is a shining light. The women there were secular canonesses, which is a term that requires explanation. They were not nuns because they took no monastic vows. That’s where the word secular comes in, but they were still religious. In the Abbey of Gandersheim, they kept the Liturgy of the Hours, which means they prayed at specific times of day, including during the night. But they didn’t take a vow of poverty, and they were allowed to leave.

The Abbess of Gandersheim was an important and powerful figure in the region. She had her own army, her own courts, her own coined money, and a seat in the imperial diet. The imperial diet was not a weight-loss program; it was the legislative body of the Holy Roman Empire (Wilson, 31). For a medieval woman, it really didn’t get much better than that, and I haven’t even yet mentioned that the Abbey had a school, a library, and hospital.

So even if you were not the Abbess, but you were a member of the abbey, it was still very cushy by medieval standards. Basically, if you preferred books to men, this was the place to be.

A Theater Critic

Hrotsvit thrived in all this environment. She knew Latin for sure and probably Greek. She read classic authors like Ovid and Virgil. She also read more recent Christian authors like the Venerable Bede and St Jerome. She read the apocryphal gospels that that the Roman Catholic church rejected.

You may notice that all the authors I just listed are male. Hrotsvit appears to have noticed that as well. And she was annoyed.

In particular, she was annoyed by the plays of Terence, a 2nd century BCE Roman playwright, whose comedies were still widely read and taught in Hrotsvit’s time, much the way Shakespeare is still taught now. Hrotsvit didn’t like Terence, and she had a point.

I’m not going to criticize his abilities as a writer, but let’s just say that his female characters leave a lot to be desired.

For example, in his play The Mother-in-Law, the leading man Pamphilus starts by raping an unknown girl and tearing a ring from her finger. He gives the ring to his girlfriend Bacchis. Then Pamphilus’s father forces him into a marriage with the girl down the street named Philomena. Philomena agrees because she is hoping that a quick marriage will conceal the fact the fact that she has been recently raped by an unknown assailant. I’ll bet you can guess where this is going.

Anyway, Pamphilus will not sleep with his new wife because he wanted to be with his girlfriend Bacchis. But over time he changes his mind and decides he’s in love with his wife after all. (What joy for her.) Philomena has already realized she was pregnant, but she conceals it, especially from her mother-in-law. She even moves back home to her parents’ house, so she can hide it, but of course the truth comes out. Pamphilus knows the baby isn’t his. The timing is all wrong. So his wife has been unfaithful and he’s gonna divorce her because somehow he thinkss he’s the one who has been cheated on here, and he loves her, remember? But then Philomena and her mother realize that Bacchis is traipsing about with Philomena’s ring on her finger! The whole story comes out, so now it’s clear that the unknown rapist was Pamphilus, and the baby is his after all. No one’s honor is besmirched, and that’s somehow okay?. The little family is reunited, presumably to live happily ever after. The End. (Terence)

Right, so I have objections to this so-called comedy, and so did Hrotsvit. She said that many people (even Catholics!) “read the worldly stories of Terence rather frequently, and as they delight in the sweetness of his style, they are stained by the wickedness of his subject matter. Therefore I, the Strong Voice of Gandersheim, have not found it objectionable to imitate him in composition… so that in the very same form of composition through which the shameless acts of lascivious women were depicted, the laudable chastity of sacred virgins may be praised within the limits of my little talent” (Wilson, 38).

Now I would not have phrased my objections quite like that. Certainly someone was lascivious in that plot I just summarized for you, but I don’t think it was any of the women.

However, the point remains that neither I, nor Hrotsvit, wanted the women to be there as sex objects and nothing but sex objects.

A Theater Playwright

Terence wrote six plays and so did Hrotsvit. In all of hers, the women are heroes for refusing to accept their role as sex objects. For example, in her first play the Roman general Gallicanus is promised that if he wins the war, he’ll get to marry the princess Constantia. He wins the war, but Constantia is a Christian, and she’s taken a vow of chastity. She insists she cannot marry him. Angels and divine messengers come down and convert Gallicanus, whereupon he agrees that chastity is best and they both live happily ever after, unmarried, virginal, and serving God. The End.

Hrotsvit could do comedy too. Her play Dulcitius takes place during the Diocletian persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. Three virgin sisters are to be executed for their faith. Their executioner imprisons them in the kitchen so he can rape them before he kills them the next day. But it’s dark when he arrives and he cannot see. He is deluded into thinking that the pots and pans are the sisters. He kisses and embraces them passionately, but they are dirty from the fire, and when he emerges, he is so covered in soot from that fireplace that the soldiers mistake him for the devil and drive him out of the palace (Wilson, 34). Chastity is preserved.

It is certainly true that Hrotsvit places a little too much value on eternal virginity for most modern audiences. Her plays definitely give early Catholic saintly martyr vibes.

But there is another way to read it. In the world Hrotsvit lived in, the only way to maintain your independence as a woman was to ignore men and join the abbey. Sure, there was a religious element, but there was also a feminist element. If what Hrotsvit knew of men came from Terence’s plays, then small wonder if she thought a woman’s best life lay in virginity. I would think so too.

One big question is whether Hrotsvit had her plays staged. Authorities disagree on that. It’s possible, but not confirmed. One intriguing possibility is that they were read—as in read aloud, maybe before audiences—but not staged—as in acted out with sets and scenery and all. As I said before, theater was not big in the early Middle Ages. In fact Hrotsvit probably never saw Terence staged either. She only mentions reading his plays. Not seeing them (Wilson, 40).

Besides the six plays, Hrotsvit also wrote fables, epic poetry, and a history of the Gandersheim Abbey. That last is unfortunate for me, as I’ve already written up an episode on Anna Komnena, the first female historian, who lived later. (Oops.)

Anyway, we know none of the other circumstances of Hrotsvit’s life or death, but we do have enough extant copies of her work to be sure that her writings were preserved by multiple people over the centuries and rediscovered with delight more than once.

But I wouldn’t say she was a bestseller. A lot of people probably had not heard of her plays, not even as the Christian morality play became a very big, very popular form in the late Middle Ages. That’s what ushered in the Renaissance of theater as an art form.

You will not be surprised to hear that most of the playwrights involved were men, but Hrotsvit can claim quite a list of firsts. She is the first female playwright in the historical record. But she is also the first medieval playwright of any gender. She’s also the first Germanic poet. She’s pretty impressive.

This bonus episode was typical of many because it’s on a woman that I just didn’t have enough source material on to do a full episode. I have lots of others on Patreon, which you can purchase individually for $5, but it’s a better deal to sign up as a supporter. However you can support, you are much appreciated. Thanks!

Selected Sources

Roswitha, Gasquet, and Christopher St John. The Plays of Roswitha Translat. By Christopher St. John with an Introduction by Cardinal Gasquet and an Critical Preface by the Translator. London, 1923.

Terence. “The Comedies of Terence.” Edited by George Colman. Gutenberg.org, 2026. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/22695/pg22695.txt.

Wilson, Katharina M. Medieval Women Writers. Athens: The University Of Georgia Press, 1984.