religion

Friday Hoyden: Héloïse d’Argenteuil

The second in my set of Three Wise H’s. Poor, tragic Heloise was one of the great minds of the twelfth century. Eventually Abbess of the Oratory of the Paraclete, she was not a nun by vocation, but through the medieval systems of sexual repression and ultra-strict gender role enforcement, along with a good sized dollop of bad luck.

Friday Hoyden: Hrotsvit von Gandersheim

Hrotsvit, whose name is also recorded as Roswitha, and in other variations, lived in the Abbey of Gandersheim, which is in the region known today as Saxony, in the second half of the tenth century. The dark ages may not have been quite so dark if you were a noble-born, highly educated nun, with a rather quirky sense of humour.