After Saint Clare, the best known woman of the Thirteenth Century is undoubtedly Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, of whom the world knows some pretty legends, while the serious historian recognizes that she was the first settlement worker of history. As a child she wandered down from the castle walls in which she lived and saw the poor in their suffering. She felt so much for them that she stripped herself of most of her garments and finally even of her shoes in order to clothe them. When she was taken to task for this, she said that she had suffered whatever inconvenience there was in it only for a few minutes while the poor had suffered all their lives. She became [{325}] the wife of the Duke of Thuringia, and there were three years of ideal happiness with her husband and her children. When he went away on the Crusade she gave herself up to the care of the poor. When he died, though she was only twenty, and according to tradition one of the handsomest women of her time, she devoted herself still more to her poor and even went to live among them. She tried to teach them, as do the settlement workers of the modern time, something of the true significance of life, to bring them to realize to some degree at least, that so many of the things they so vainly desire are not worth thinking about, but that happiness consists in lopping off one's desires rather than trying vainly, as it must ever be, to satisfy them. It is no wonder that throughout all Germany she came to be called "the dear St. Elizabeth." Literally thousands of women since her time have turned to read the story of her beautiful devotion to charity, and have been incited by her example to do more and more for the poor around them. Those who know it only through Kingsley's, "The Saint's Tragedy," though this is disfigured by many failures to understand parts of her career and her environment, can scarcely fail to realize that hers was one of the world's sublimely beautiful characters. All she attempted in the thorny paths of charity was accomplished in such a practical way that the amount of good done was almost incalculable. The simple recital of what she did as it has often been told, is the story of a great individuality that impressed itself deeply upon its generation and left the example of a precious life to act as a leaven for good in the midst of the social fermentations of succeeding generations.
Yet Elizabeth succeeded in accomplishing all this in spite of the fact that she was born the daughter of a king and married the reigning prince of one of the most important ducal houses in Germany. One would expect to find that her life had been long, so many traditions have gathered around her name. She was twenty when her husband died, and she survived him only four years. Literally she had accomplished a long space in a short time and her generation in raising in her honor the charming Gothic Cathedral at Marburg, one of the most [{326}] beautiful in Germany, was honoring itself nobly as well as her. It is the greatest monument to a woman in all the world.
The next great woman of the century also belonged to a reigning family and is for obvious historical reasons better known, perhaps, than her Saint contemporaries. This was Blanche, daughter of the King of Castile, but intimately related to the English royal family. Married to Louis VIII of France she is known principally as the mother of Louis IX. She ruled France for many years while her boy was a minor and when he came to the age, when he might ordinarily assume the reins of government, he voluntarily permitted his mother to continue her regency for some time longer. France was probably happier under her than under any ruler that the country has ever had with the possible exception of her son Louis. She succeeded in suppressing to a great extent the quarrels so common among the nobility, she strengthened and centralized the power of the crown, she began the correction of abuses in the administration of justice which her son was to complete so well, she organized charity in various ways, and the court was an example to the kingdom of simple dignified life, without any abuse of power, or wealth, or passion. No wonder that when Louis went on the Crusade, he left his mother to reign in his stead confident that all would go well. If one needed a demonstration that women can rule well there is an excellent example in the life of Blanche.
Personally she seems to have had not only an amiable but a deeply intellectual character. She encouraged education and beautiful book-making and the Gothic architecture which was developing in France so wonderfully during her period. Of course she also worshipped her boy Louis, but how much her motherly tenderness was tempered with the most beautiful Christian feeling can be understood from the famous expression attributed to her on good authority, that she "would rather see her boy dead at her feet, than have him commit a mortal offense against his God or his neighbor." One might almost say that it is no wonder that Louis became a saint. As a matter of fact he attributed to his mother whatever of goodness there was in himself. There is a touch of humanity in the picture, however, a trait that shows, that Blanche was a woman, [{327}] though it is a fault which draws our sympathy to her even more surely than if she were the type of perfection she might have been without it. She did not get on well with her daughter-in-law and one of the trials of Louis' life, as we have said, was to keep the scales evenly balanced between his mother and his wife, both of whom he loved very dearly. After Blanche's life there could be no doubt that a woman, when given the opportunity, can manage men and administer government quite as well as any masculine member of the race, and the Thirteenth Century had given another example of its power to bring out what was best in its fortunate children.
One of the most interesting women of the Thirteenth Century was neither a Saint nor a member of the nobility, but only the wife of a simple London merchant. This was Mabel Rich, the mother of Saint Edmund of Canterbury. Edmund is one of the striking men of a supreme century. He had been a student at Paris, and later a professor at Oxford. Then, he became the treasurer of the Cathedral at Salisbury about the time when, not a little through his influence, that magnificent edifice was receiving the form which was to make it one of the world's great churches for all time. Later he was the Archbishop of Canterbury and while defending the rights of his church and his people, came under the ban of Henry III, and spent most of the latter years of his life in exile on the continent. Edmund insisted that he owed more to his mother than to any other single factor in life. With her two boys, aged ten and fourteen, Mabel Rich was left to care for the worldly concerns of the household as well as for their education. When they were twelve and sixteen, with many misgivings she sent them off to the University of Paris to get their education. Edmund tells how besides packing their linen very carefully she also packed a hairshirt for each of them, which they were to wear occasionally according to their promise to her, to remind them that they must not look for ease and comfort in life, above all must not yield to sensual pleasures, but must be ready to suffer many little troubles voluntarily, in order that they might be able to resist temptation when severer trials came. Mabel Rich believed in discipline, as a factor in education, and thought that character was formed by habits of fortitude in resisting [{328}] petty annoyances until, finally, even serious troubles were easy to bear.
Both of her sons proved worthy of her maternal solicitude. Edmund tells how the poor around her home in London blessed her for her charity. All during his life the thought of his mother was uppermost in his mind, and in the immortality that has been given his name, because of the utter forgetfulness of self which characterized his life, his mother has been associated. Unfortunately details are lacking that would show us something of the manner of living of this strong woman of the people, but we know enough to make us realize that she was a fine type of the Christian mother, memory of whose goodness means more not only for her children but for all those who come in contact with her, than all the sermons and pious exhortations that they hear, and often, such is the way of human nature, even than the divine commandments or the personal conscience of those whom she loves.
There were noble women among the gentlewomen of England at this time too, and though space will not let us dwell on them, at least one must be mentioned. This is the famous Isabella, Countess of Arundel, who with a dignity which, Matthew Paris says, was more than that of woman, reproached Henry III (1252), when he sought to browbeat her. She made bold to tell the king, "You govern neither us nor yourself well." On this the king, with a sneer and a grin, said with a loud voice, "Ho, ho, my lady countess, have the noblemen of England granted you a charter and struck a bargain with you to become their spokeswoman because of your eloquence?" She answered, "My liege, the nobles have made no charter, but you and your father have made a charter, and you have sworn to observe it inviolably, and yet many times have you extorted money from your subjects and have not kept your word. Where are the liberties of England, often reduced to writing, so often granted, so often again denied?" [Footnote 27]
[Footnote 27: Medieval England, English Feudal Society, from the Norman Conquest to the Middle of the Fourteenth Century, by Mary Bateson.]
The question of womanly occupations apart from their household duties will be of great interest to our generation.