AVA. – She is the first German poetess whose name has come down to us. Around the end of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th century, 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. This work has survived in a manuscript from Vorau in Styria. In another manuscript, the prehistory of John the Baptist is also appended. A.’s work, composed solely for the purpose of spiritual edification, is nothing more than a concise and somewhat colorless narration of the Gospel events, without artistic pretensions or exegetical additions, yet imbued with a sincere 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 is said to have been married before taking the veil and to have had two sons who became ecclesiastics, from whom, as she herself affirms, she received the material for her two poems.