Hrotsvitha (c. 935–973) was a secular canoness who wrote dramas and poems under the Ottonian dynasty. She was born in Bad Gandersheim to Saxon nobles and entered Gandersheim Abbey as a canoness. She is considered the first female writer from the German Lands, the first female historian, the first person since antiquity to write dramas in the Latin West, and the first female poetess in Germany. Little is known about Hrotsvitha's personal life. All of her writing is in Latin. Her works were rediscovered in 1501 by the humanist Conrad Celtis and translated into English in the 1600s.