Biography of hroswitha and hildegarde
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Hroswitha
A celebrated nun-poetess of the tenth century, whose name has been given in various forms, ROSWITHA, HROTSWITHA, HROSVITHA, and HROTSUIT; born probably between 930 and 940, died about 1002. The interpretation of the name as clamor validus contains no doubt a reference to the bearer herself; this accounts for her being also called "the mighty voice" and sometimes even the "Nightingale of Gandersheim". In all probability she was of aristocratic birth; her name appears on an old wood engraving as "Helena von Rossow." She seems to have been still in her earliest ungdom when she entered the convent of Gandersheim, then highly famed for its asceticism and learned pursuits. Her extraordinary talents funnen here wise and judicious cultivation, first under guidance of her teacher Rikkardis, then beneath the special care and direction of Gerberg, a niece of Otto inom and the most accomplished woman of her time, who was later to become her abbess (959-1001). The latter took particular in
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In all, Hildegard comes across as something of a world-maker, the inventor of a richly appointed fantasy realm. She goes so far as to fashion her own language—the “Lingua Ignota,” or “Unknown Tongue”—which has a vocabulary of more than a thousand words. God is “AIGONZ”; the Devil is “diuueliz”; tongue is “ranzgia”; womb is “veriszoil.” The purpose of the Lingua remains obscure, but Sarah Higley, in a monograph on the subject, plausibly describes it as an attempt at “making the things of this world divine again through the alterity of new signs.” In the antiphon “O orzchis Ecclesia,” Hildegard interpolates invented words into a Latin text:
O immense [orzchis] Church
girded by divine arms
and ornamented in jacinth
Thou art the fragrance [caldemia]
of the wounds of peoples [loifolum]
The blurring of meaning into sound has the effect of pulling language into the nocturnal landscape of music, where, in Hildegard’s view, ultimate truth resided.
Modern musical notation stemmed
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Hrosvitha
(b. circa 935, possibly Lower Saxony, Germany; d. circa 1000, Gandersheim, Germany)
Hrosvitha is the earliest-known woman poet in Germany, and some scholars even consider her the first dramatist, or playwright, since ancient times. The various spellings of her name include Hroswitha, Hrosvit, Hroswitha, and Roswitha, but recent research indicates the spelling she used was Hrotsvit, derived from the Saxon words that translated to Clamor Validus in Latin (“Forceful Testimony” in English), a reference to her authorship of stories about Christianity and its saints. During her lifetime, Hrosvitha divided her own works into three manuscripts: Book of Legends, Book of Drama, and Epics (dates uncertain). The legends and plays still exist, but the two works included in Epics are lost.
Very few details are known about Hrosvitha’s life and those that are known are often disputed. We do know that she was a nun, or canoness, at the Benedictine monaster