Saint Kassiane, hymnographer, poet and nun

This is a page dedicated to Saint Kassiani, the 9th Century Byzantine abbess, poet, composer, and hymnographer. 

St Kassiani's secular name is Kassia.  Her saint name has a variation of spellings:   Kassiane, Kassiani, Casia, Ikasia, Cassia, Cassiane, Kassiana, or Eikasia.  

St Kassiane's feast day is September 7, and she is also remembered on the Sunday of Orthodoxy for her part in the defense of the holy icons.

 St Kassiane is one of the first medieval composers whose scores are both extant and able to be interpreted by modern scholars and musicians.  Sometimes Hildegard von Bingen is credited by Western scholars with being the first, but since St. Kassiane lived two centuries before her, it is St. Kassiane who is indeed the first.

 Approximately fifty of St Kassiane's hymns are extant and twenty-three are included in Orthodox Church liturgical books. The exact number is difficult to assess, as many hymns are ascribed to different authors in different manuscripts and are often identified as anonymous.  

In addition, some 789 of her non-liturgical verses survive. Many are epigrams or aphorisms called "gnomic verse", for example, "I hate the rich man moaning as if he were poor."  

In acadamia, St. Kassiane is notable as one of only two Byzantine women to write in their own names during the middle ages.