Christabella Rogers (b. 1618? - ?) was a 17th century English poet and author of an untitled song addressed to Cupid.[1]
Records indicate the christening of a “Christobel Rogers” in Shropshire, England in the year 1618.[2] That this Rogers is the poet Rogers is not certain, however. Other than this, very little is known about Rogers. As Alison Shell states in Early Modern Women’s Manuscript Writing: “Christobella Rogers and Alice Fennel [her cousin], remain for the moment as obscure as most early modern women.”[3]
Shell identifies Rogers and her cousin Fennel as part of a scribal circle centering around the Feilding family, “one of the most prominent aristocratic dynasties in seventeenth-century England.” In a letter addressed to “Lady” Christabella Rogers, a “Frances Feilding” (herself an ambiguous figure) praises Rogers’ skill, writing, “then talke not of ben jonson skill / nor yet of homers soareing quill.” This letter not only tells us that Rogers was a member of the aristocracy (“Lady”) but also suggests a greater body of work than the meager writings we have today. Indeed, though very little of her work survives today, Rogers was apparently author of “substantial quantities of verse.”[4] With what little knowledge we have, then, we can place Rogers in an aristocratic literary community in the mid-seventeenth century.