Hrotsvit in Context: Convents and Culture in Ottonian Germany

Abstract

Hrotsvit's works demonstrate both the strength and limitations of Ottonian culture. She shares its aristocratic perception of the noble and heroic, which is as clearly witnessed in Gongolf or Gesta Ottonis as it is in Waltharius or Beowulf ; though in Hrotsvit, male heroism must share center stage with feminine piety and wisdom and with the tsocial ideal, in which an aristocratic habit of gentilezza blended with Christian love of one's neighbours,t as Peter Dronke expresses it. The author finds that she resembles other writers of her time in that thistoryt means either royal genealogy or the representation of political change tracing the golden thread of God's purposes in the world. She is the product of an era in which Saxons, Anglo-Saxons, and Franks alike were profoundly aware of the continued might and cultural pre-eminence of Byzantium, though sometimes she was bitterly ambivalent about it. Keywords:Christian Greek culture; Hrotsvit; material culture; ottonian dynasty; Ottonian Germany

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