The writings of these nuns were inspired by that great mystic movement which then prevailed in various parts of Europe and are among the most impassioned productions of the age. For this reason they still have a special claim on the attention of students of art and literature, as well as those of theology and mysticism. Impressed by the similarity of their ideas and descriptions as compared with those found in Dante's great masterpiece, there are not wanting scholars who contend that the prototype of the Matelda in the earthly paradise of the Purgatorio was none other than one of the Matildas of the famous convent of Helfta.[45]
The writings of Hroswitha, Hildegard, Herrad, Gertrude and the Matildas, to speak of no others, are the best evidence of the studious character of the nuns of mediæval times, and of their devotion to the cause of education. They command, likewise, our admiration for the system of training which made such development possible, and show that, in certain departments, the schools as then conducted were on as high a plane as any we have to-day.[46] They show us, too, that nuns and convent-bred women of the age in question were of quite different mental calibre from that of the "gentle lady of chivalry living in her bower, playing upon her lute and waiting patiently for the return of her triumphant knight," and quite different, too, from that of the castle lady-loves—whose sole attractions were often no more than youth and beauty—who inspired the impassioned lyrics of troubadour and minnesinger.
A recent writer sums up in a few words the status and the accomplishments of the lady of the abbey in the following paragraph:
"No institution of Europe has ever won for the lady the freedom and development that she enjoyed in the convent in early days. The modern college for women only feebly reproduces it, since the college for women has arisen at a time when colleges in general are under a cloud. The lady-abbess, on the other hand, was part of the two great social forces of her time, feudalism and the Church. Great spiritual rewards and great worldly prizes were alike within her grasp. She was treated as an equal by the men of her class, as is witnessed by letters we still have from popes and emperors to abbesses. She had the stimulus of competition with men in executive capacity, in scholarship, and in artistic production, since her work was freely set before the general public; but she was relieved by the circumstances of her environment from the ceaseless competition in common life of woman with woman for the favor of the individual man. In the cloister of the great days, as on a small scale in the college for women to-day, women were judged by each other as men are everywhere judged by each other, for sterling qualities of head and heart and character."[47]
Nor is this all. Never was woman more highly honored, never was her power and influence greater than during the period of conventual life extending from Hilda of Whitby to Gertrude and the Matildas of Helfta, and especially during that golden period of monasticism and chivalry when cloister and court were the radiant centers of learning and culture. Abbesses took part in ecclesiastical synods and councils and assisted in the deliberations of national assemblies. In England, they ranked with lords temporal and spiritual, and had the right to attend the king's council or to send proxies to represent them, while in Germany, where they held property directly from the king or emperor, they enjoyed the rights and privileges of barons and, as such, took part in the proceedings of the imperial diet either in person or through their accredited representatives. In Saxony, the abbesses had the right to strike coins bearing their own portraits, notably the abbesses of Gandersheim and Quedlinburg. In England they were invested with extraordinary powers, and in certain cases owed obedience to none save the Pope. In Kent abbesses, as representatives of religion, came immediately after bishops.
Possessing such power and prestige, it is not surprising to learn that abbesses wielded great influence in temporal as well as spiritual matters; that it pervaded politics and extended to the courts of kings and emperors. Thus, Matilda, the abbess of Quedlinburg, together with Adelheid, the mother of Otto III who was but three years old at the time of his father's death, practically ruled the empire. At a later period during the prolonged absence in Italy of Otto III, the control of affairs was entrusted to the abbess alone; and so successful was her administration, and so vigorous were the measures which she adopted against the invading Wends, that she commanded the admiration of all. In view of these facts, the learned authoress of Woman Under Monasticism is fully warranted in declaring as she does "The career open to the inmates of convents in England and on the Continent was greater than any other ever thrown open to women in the course of modern European history."[48]
"The educational influence of convents during centuries," continues the same writer, "cannot be rated too highly. Not only did their inmates attain considerable knowledge but education in a nunnery, as we see from Chaucer and others, secured an improved standing for those who were not professed."[49] It prepared the way for, if it did not train, those highly educated women who appeared during the time of the transition between the Middle Ages and what is now designated as the Modern Period.
Among these were Christine de Pisan, who was a prolific writer on many subjects in both prose and verse, and who, it is said, was the first woman to earn a livelihood by her pen.[50] There were also some of those remarkable women who lectured on law in the University of Bologna, among whom were Bettina Gozzadini,[51] who, some writers will have it, occupied the chairs of law in her alma mater as early as 1236, and the celebrated Novella d'Andrea, of the following century, who frequently acted as a substitute for her father, a professor of canon law in the university, and who, by reason of her varied and profound knowledge, held a prominent place among the most learned men of her time. Both of these noted women were worthy prototypes of that long list of learned Italian women who, during the Renaissance, won such honor for themselves and such undying glory for their country. Not less remarkable were several women of the school of Salerno, who, during its palmiest days, distinguished themselves as teachers, writers and medical practitioners,[52] and the still more remarkable daughters of one Mangord, a professor of Paris, whose daughters taught Sacred Scripture.[53] There were few in number, it is true, but they were the worthy prototypes of those learned and brilliant women who achieved such distinction and glory for their sex during that most interesting period of history known as the Renaissance.
WOMAN AND EDUCATION DURING THE RENAISSANCE
By the Renaissance we understand not only a phase in the development of the nations of Europe but also that period of transition between the mediæval and the modern world during which the latent spiritual energies of the Middle Ages developed into the intellectual forces and moral habits of thought which now pervade the civilized world. Various dates are assigned for its starting point. Among them is the fall of Constantinople in 1453, when there was a great influx of scholars from the famed metropolis on the Bosphorus to the Italian peninsula, who brought with them those forgotten treasures of science and literature which were so instrumental in producing that interesting phenomenon known in history as the Revival of Learning. But whatever date be assigned for the beginning of the Renaissance, whether it be the year when Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turk or the fateful millennial year which was to witness the termination of all things, there certainly was never at any period a distinct breach of historical continuity between the old order and the new.