AVA. - She is the first German poetess whose name is known to us. Towards the end of the 11th century and at the beginning of the 12th, she composed a poetic history of the New Testament dealing with the life of Jesus, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the Last Judgment, which has come down to us in a manuscript originating from Vorau in Styria. In another manuscript, the prehistory of Giovanni Battista is also added. Ava’s work, composed exclusively for the purpose of spiritual edification, is merely a concise and colourless narration of the Gospel events, without artistic pretensions and without exegetical additions, but with much genuine warmth of religious feeling.
A. was identified by Diemer, who first published her works in 1849, as a recluse nun who died on 8 February 1127 near Göttweig in Austria. She had apparently already been married before taking the veil, and had two sons who became ecclesiastics, from whom she received, as she herself states, the material for the two poems.