"Et du cours des étoiles et de la lune luisant
Savoit moult plus que fame de chest siècle vivant."
If any woman between the time of Hypatia and Galileo deserved such high praise for her astronomical knowledge it was certainly Saint Hildegard, the famous Benedictine abbess of Bingen on the Rhine. She has well been called "the marvel of the twelfth century," not only on account of her sanctity, but also on account of her extraordinary attainments in every branch of knowledge then cultivated.
When treating of the sun, Hildegard tells us that it is in the center of the firmament and holds in place the stars that gravitate around it, as the earth attracts the creatures which inhabit it. This view of a twelfth century nun is indeed remarkable. For, in her time, the earth was by everyone considered as the center of the firmament, while universal gravitation—the sublime discovery of Newton—had not as yet entered into the scientific theories of that epoch.
Hildegard likewise anticipates subsequent discoveries regarding the alternation of the seasons. "If," she writes, "it is cold in the winter time on the part of the earth which we inhabit, the other part must be warm, in order that the temperature of the earth may always be in equilibrium." That she should have arrived at this conclusion before navigators had visited the southern hemisphere is truly astonishing.[135]
"The stars," she continues, "have neither the same brightness nor the same size. They are kept in their course by a superior body." Here again is her idea of universal gravitation.
These stars, she further declares, are not immovable, but they traverse the firmament in its entirety. And to make clearer her conception of the motion of the stars, she compares this motion to that of the blood in the veins. To hear one of this early period speaking of blood coursing through the veins and thus traversing the whole body of man seems to presage, in a remarkable manner, the beautiful discoveries of Cesalpino and Harvey regarding the circulation of the blood.
The most celebrated astronomer of the early Renaissance was John Müller, of Königsburg, better known as Regiomontanus. In his observatory in Nuremberg he was ably assisted by his wife who exhibited a special interest in astronomy. At the end of the sixteenth century, Sophia Brahe, the youngest sister of Tycho Brahe, following in the footsteps of her illustrious brother, attained great celebrity as an astronomer.
More distinguished for her astronomical work than either of these two women was Maria Cunitz, a Silesian, who, from her tenderest years, displayed extraordinary zeal for study and who eventually became mistress of seven languages, among which were Latin, Greek and Hebrew. She also cultivated poetry, music and painting; but her favorite studies were mathematics and astronomy. At the solicitation of her husband, she undertook the preparation of an abridgment of the Rudolphine Tables. Her work, under the name of Urania Propitia, was published after her death by her husband, and gained for the talented authoress the name of "The second Hypatia."[136]
Shortly after the completion of Urania Propitia, a French woman, Jeanne Dumée, distinguished herself by writing a work on the theory of Copernicus entitled Entretiens sur l'Opinion de Copernic Touchant la Mobilité de la Terre. So far as known, this work was never published, but the original manuscript is still preserved in the National Library of Paris. The authoress deems it necessary it apologize for writing on a subject that is usually considered foreign to her sex and to explain why she was ambitious to discuss questions to which the women of her time never gave any thought. It was that she might "prove to them that they are not incapable of study, if they wish to make the effort, because between the brain of a woman and that of a man there is no difference."[137]
How often before had not women endeavored to prove the equality of brain power of the two sexes, and how often since have they bent their efforts in this direction! And yet the majority of men still remain skeptical about such equality.