The Annals of Quedlinburg: Rare Example of Female Scholarship in Medieval Europe

Mention medieval scholarship, and the first image that most people will have would probably be that of a monk with a quill in his hand and an open book before him. The most well-known scholars of Medieval Europe were males likely to have been in one of the various monastic orders. Female scholars during Medieval Europe were rare, and even if they existed, they are seldom are heard of today. However, there is a piece of writing which was once thought to have been written by a male, but is now recognized as authored by a female scholar. This work is known in Latin as the Saxonicae Annales Quedlinburgenses, which translates into English as the ‘Annals of Quedlinburg.’