Woman in Science / With an Introductory Chapter on Woman's Long Struggle for Things of the Mind

by J. A. Zahm

[44] Cf. Hortus Deliciarum, by Herrad de Lansberg, folio with one hundred and ten plates, Strasburg, 1901, and Herrade de Landsberg, by Charles Schmidt, Strasburg.

The erudite academician, Charles Jourdain, says of Herrad's great work "L'encyclopédie qu'on lui doit, l'Hortus Deliciarum, embrasse toutes les parties des connaissances humaines, depuis la science divine jusqu'à l'agriculture et la métrologie, et on s'étonne à bon droit qu'un tel ouvrage, qui supposait une érudition si variée et si méthodique, soit sorti d'une plume féminine. Quelle impression produirait aujourd'hui l'annonce d'une encyclopédie qui aurait pour auteur une simple, religieuse? Parlerons-nous des femmes du monde? Il n'existe d'elles, au XX^e siècle, non plus que dans les siècles précédents aucun ouvrage comparable à l'Hortus Deliciarum." Excursions Historiques et Philosophiques, p. 480, Paris, 1888.

[45] See Revelationes Mechtildianæ ac Gertrudianæ, edit, Oudin, for the Benedictines at Solesmes, 1875.

[46] In her scholarly work on Woman Under Monasticism, p. 479, Lina Eckenstein writes as follows regarding the studies pursued in the convents of the Middle Ages:

"The contributions of nuns to literature, as well as incidental remarks, show that the curriculum of study in the nunnery was as liberal as that accepted by the monks, and embraced all available writing whether by Christian or profane authors. While Scripture and the writing of the Fathers of the Church at all times formed the groundwork of monastic studies, Cicero at this period was read by the side of Boethus, Virgil by the side of Martianus Capella, Terence by the side of Isidore of Seville. From remarks made by Hroswitha we see that the coarseness of the Latin dramatists made no reason for their being forbidden to nuns, though she would have seen it otherwise; and, Herrad was so far impressed by the wisdom of the heathen philosophers of antiquity that she pronounced this wisdom to be the 'product of the Holy Spirit also.' Throughout the literary world, as represented by convents, the use of Latin was general, and made possible the even spread of culture in districts that were widely remote from each other and practically without intercourse."

[47] The Lady, p. 71, by Emily James Putnam, New York, 1910.

[48] Eckenstein, op. cit., p. 478.

[49] Ut. Sup., 479-480.

[50] See Womankind in Western Europe, p. 288 et seq., by Thomas Wright, London, 1869.

[51] "Pertinere videtur ad hæc tempora Betisia Gozzadini non minus generis claritate quam eloquentia ac legum professione illustris.... Betisiam Ghirardaccius et nostri ab eo deinceps scriptores eximiis laudibus certatim extulerunt." De Claris Archigymnasii Bononiensis Professoribus a Sæculo XI usque ad Sæculum XIV, Tom. I, p. 171, Bologna, 1888-1896.