Schurman, Anna Maria van (1607–78)

The first woman to attend a Dutch university, Schurman studied ancient languages and theology. Her Latin treatise on the expedience of scholarship for women made this ‘Star of Utrecht’ the most famous female intellectual in seventeenth-century Europe. She was among the few women to publish views on Counter-Reformation controversies concerning predestination and transubstantiation. Her autobiography served as an apology for the Pietist sect, Labadism.