Nor must it be supposed that these examples of learning in the cloisters of nuns were confined to those communities which had caught their tone from the little knot of literary women educated by St. Boniface. It was the natural and universal development of religious life. We have but to glance back a century or two, and we shall find foundations of purely French origin, those of St. Cesarius of Arles, in which the nuns were to be seen reading even over their work, and busy at the transcription of the Sacred Books. And we might quote the account of St. Cesaria’s death, written by one of her devout children, which M. Guizot hesitates not to rank among the gems of literature. Or we might turn to the Latin poems of St. Radegundes, the Queen of Clothaire I., and the friend of Venantius Fortunatus, who composed his celebrated hymn “Vexilla regis” on occasion of the translation to her monastery at Poitiers of a relic of the true Cross. This royal nun of the sixth century was accustomed to read the Greek and Latin Fathers, and as her biographer tells us, was not only vultu elegans, but litteris erudita. She liked her disciples to be as learned as herself, insisted that all should be able to read, and should learn the Psalter by heart, and gathered together more than two hundred daughters of noble families, in whose company and instruction she took such passing great delight, that, says Baudoniva, one of them whom she had educated from a child and who afterwards wrote her life, she would address them in the tenderest terms, calling them her light, her life, and her chosen little plants.[111]
The picture of St. Cesaria in the sixth century, and of St. Lioba in the eighth, is reproduced in that of St. Adelaide of Gueldres, abbess of Cologne in the tenth. She had enjoyed a learned education, and took great delight in collecting around her young virgins to whom she communicated her lessons with a truly maternal care. Every day she showed herself in the school, and propounded grammatical subtleties to her disciples; rewarding the diligent with caresses, and punishing the slothful with a severity for which her tender heart was wont afterwards often to reproach her. In fact, were I to repeat all that her biographer relates of her zeal in the matter of correction, I might convey the impression that the pupils of the abbess Adelaide lived under a rather terrible taskmistress. She sometimes visited the offenders with rods, and sometimes with a good box on the ear. The latter chastisement was even inflicted in choir when her pupils sang out of tune; but her biographer adds, it was never found necessary to administer it a second time, for the touch of her saintly hand had such power in it, as to cure all defects of voice and ear for the future.[112] But yet she was a tender and a loving mother, and when she had punished any one, would conjure some of her sisters to go and console the poor victim whom she immediately began to compassionate. Nay, her love went so far, that besides the incessant thought she bestowed on providing her children with good food and raiment, she would steal into their dormitory in the winter nights, to find out if any were suffering from cold feet, and would warm them by rubbing them with her hands.
These examples are all of religious women; but we have direct evidence that even those who embraced a secular life were expected to receive a certain amount of education. Amalarius, of Metz, whose great work on the “Ecclesiastical Offices” appeared in the year 820, requires that young girls should learn the Psalter, the Books of Job and Proverbs, the Four Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles. Perhaps there is no more interesting and decisive testimony as to the amount of learning to be found among the laity in the Dark Ages, than the curious will of Count Eberhard, of Terouanne, who died in 860, and left behind him a precious library, equalling in extent many of those possessed by religious houses. He directed that this library should, after his death, be divided among his children in the manner prescribed by his will. The four sons and four daughters each received their share, though the boys, naturally enough, obtained the lion’s share. Among the books named in the catalogue are treatises on law, military affairs, history, and natural philosophy, besides religious works.[113] One of the books bequeathed to Gisla, is the “Enchiridion” of St. Augustine. We have besides incidental notices occurring in the biographies of the time, which represent mothers writing to their sons and conveying to them sound practical advice, and noble ladies keeping up a correspondence with learned ecclesiastics, who seem to have directed their studies. There was certainly no difficulty in the way of ladies obtaining an education if they chose, for the convents of Chelles, Farmoutier, Brie, and Andelys, all had excellent schools, and often enough English mistresses, whose teaching was held in special esteem. And Theodulph, of Orleans, does not seem to have been giving the princess Gisella a piece of advice at all out of harmony with the manners and ideas of the age, when he counselled her to divide her time equally between reading and the homely cares of the household, concluding his admonitions with the two following lines:
Assidue si ores, tibi si sit lectio crebra,
Ipsa Deo loqueris, et Deus ipse tibi.
An attentive study of the history of the following centuries will convince us that if the dames and spinsters of the Middle Ages were not exactly blue-stockings, they perfectly understood the value of Theodulph’s counsels, and that they were often not only learned themselves, but the cause of learning in others. For not a few of the learned foundations in England owe their existence to the munificence of noble ladies, who, in this country at least, have ever shown themselves the nursing mothers of polite letters. But of this there will be more to say in its proper place.