A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Hroswitha

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HROSWITHA,

(Helena Y. Rossen,) a nun of the Benedictine order, was born in Saxony, and died at Gandershein, in 984. She is known as a religious poetess through her "Comædia Sacrce VI.," edited by Schurzfleisch. These plays were written by her to suppress the reading of Terence, then a very popular author among the literary clergy of the age. She also composed a poetic narrative of the deeds performed by Otho the Great, to whom she was related, and a number of elegies. She wrote altogether in Latin. Her works were printed in Nuremberg, in 1601.