[895] Times Educational Supplement (Sept. 4, 1919). This seems to be taken from Fosbroke, Brit. Monachism, II, pp. 6-7, who takes it from Sir H. Chauncey’s Hist. and Antiqs. of Hertfordshire, p. 423; it is the first appearance of dancing; as Fosbroke sapiently argued, “The dancing of nuns will be hereafter spoken of and if they dance they must somewhere learn how.”
[896] Journ. of Education, 1910, p. 841. Mr Hamilton Thompson sends me this note: “Probably, so far as any systematic teaching went, they were taught ‘grammar’ and song, which would vary in quality according to the teacher. These are the only two elements of which we regularly hear in the ordinary schools of the day. I do not see any reason to suppose that they were taught more or less. Song (i.e. church song) takes such a very prominent part in medieval education that I think it would not have been neglected; it was also one of the things which nuns ought to have been able to teach from their daily experience in quire. Bridget Plantagenet’s book of matins (see below) would be an appropriate lesson book for both grammar and song, as nuns would understand them.”
[897] An Alphabet of Tales (E.E.T.S. 1905), p. 272, from Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialog. Mirac. ed. Strange, I, p. 196.
[898] See e.g. the Knight of La Tour Landry, p. 178, “Et pour ce que aucuns gens dient que ilz ne voudroient pas que leurs femmes ne leurs filles sceussent rien de clergie ne d’escripture, je dy ainsi que, quant d’escryre, n’y a force que femme en saiche riens; mais quant a lire, tout femme en vault mieulx de le scavoir et cognoist mieulx la foy et les perils de l’ame et son saulvement, et n’en est pas de cent une qui n’en vaille mieulx; car c’est chose esprouvee.” Quoted in A. A. Hentsch, De la littérature didactique du moyen âge s’addressant spécialement aux femmes (Cahors, 1903), p. 133. So Philippe de Novare († 1270) refuses to allow women to learn reading or writing, because they expose her to evil, and Francesco da Barberino († 1348) refuses to allow reading and writing except to girls of the highest rank (not including the daughters of esquires, judges and gentlefolk of their class); both, however, make exception for nuns. Ib. pp. 84, 106-7.
[900] Archaeologia, XLIII (1871), p. 245 (Redlingfield and Bruisyard).
[902] Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, II, pp. 213-7.
[903] Quoted Gasquet, Hen. VIII and the Eng. Monasteries (1899), p. 227.
[904] The Catechism of Thomas Bacon, S.T.P., ed. John Ayre (Parker Soc. 1894), p. 377.