Among these women must be numbered Matilda († 1118) the wife of Henry I of England, the daughter of St Margaret and the sister of St David of Scotland, whose education and marriage have been discussed above in connection with Romsey. Highly as Matilda was esteemed by her contemporaries, she has never been accepted as a saint, and no day is given to her in the Calendar. This omission is perhaps due to the fact that she left her nunnery against the wishes of some of the clergy, perhaps owing to her husband’s quarrels with the Pope, for Matilda was beloved by high and low and early writers are unanimous in praise of her. Map speaks of her as the holy queen Matilda (sanctae Matildis reginae)[769].
This estimate is based on the fact that Matilda was so moved by pity towards lepers that she overcame the repugnance commonly felt towards them. A well-authenticated story is told of how her brother David, coming into her apartment, found it full of lepers. She proceeded to lay aside her robe and with a towel girt about her washed and dried their feet and then kissed them, and when her brother objected she replied that in kissing the feet of lepers she was kissing the feet of the Eternal King. Ailred of Rievaux recounts the story, which he had from David, who repeatedly spoke of it to him[770].
This generous disposition is borne out by the fact that soon after her marriage Matilda founded the hospital of St Giles in the East for the maintenance of forty lepers, a chaplain, a clerk and a messenger[771]. It was commonly known for a long time afterwards as the hospital of Matilda. It was founded in 1101, and Matthew Paris saw it a hundred and fifty years later and made a sketch of it which is still extant[772]. With the exception of the house founded by Lanfranc in Herbaltown, the inmates of which were not styled lepers at the time, the hospital of St Giles, the foundation of ‘good Queen Maud,’ was the first institution of its kind in England and for a long time remained quite the most important.
But we must study the records of foreign countries to find the majority of those women who were actively beneficent to the sick, and who for this reason are officially accepted as saints. Probably leprosy, or the diseases collected under this designation, showed greater virulence on the Continent than they ever did in England, and the miseries of those who were repulsively disfigured were extreme, when in the first half of the 13th century a small group of women personally related to each other took pity on them. The field of their labours was in Central and South Germany and the adjoining countries, which were at that time brought under German influence.
All the women who were actuated by this new philanthropic spirit were members, either by birth or marriage, of the powerful and influential family of the Counts of Andechs and Meran[773]. The scientist Virchow has remarked that this family, which was once most prosperous and widely spread, practically extinguished itself through its extreme ascetic tendencies[774]. Its men joined the Crusades, and any who returned dedicated their sons to the celibacy of the bishopric and their daughters to that of the cloister; and in this way the family ceased to exist after a few generations.
Whence the first impulse towards charitable deeds came to them we know not, but we find them sometimes taking the initiative in philanthropic enterprises, and sometimes uniting their efforts to those of others who were working on similar lines to their own. Some members of the family acted as patrons to the Cistercian order,—others invited and encouraged the settlement of the Teutonic or Red Cross Knights in their lands. Others again were strongly attracted by the teachings of the Dominican and Franciscan friars, who were very influential in the first half of the 13th century. Various tendencies were represented in the different countries of Europe by the followers of St Francis of Assisi. This divergence arose partly because the rule of life promulgated in 1209 was supplanted by another in 1221, and partly from the varied interests of each country. In South Germany it was the influence of the Franciscans which primarily encouraged charitable zeal and self-denial.
Hedwig, daughter of Count Berthold, of the family of Andechs and Meran, first claims our attention on account of her charitable deeds. She married Heinrich the Bearded († 1238), first duke of Silesia, Poland and Croatia. These districts were occupied by people of the Slav race, and it was at this time that they were first brought into contact with German influence and civilization. Christianity had been introduced in the 12th century, but there were very few churches, and the conditions of life were unsettled and insecure owing to the continued feuds of the barons. Heinrich checked internal dissensions with a high hand; he was zealous in introducing German law and in encouraging German immigration, and in this way gave solidarity to this part of the Empire. His marriage with the daughter of a family which was among the wealthiest and most influential in South Germany is a proof of his German sympathies.
Hedwig is the recognised patron saint of Silesia. Grünhagen says[775]: ‘If we call to mind how far the numerous churches and charitable foundations which are referred to the Duchess Hedwig influenced civilization at that period, how the monks and nuns whom Hedwig summoned spread German culture in these districts; if we further remember how powerfully at that time the example of unselfish piety and sympathy, emanating from the throne, took hold of the mind of the people; we shall be obliged to accept as well founded the veneration Hedwig generally enjoyed, although we may not feel attracted by the traits of exaggerated asceticism insisted on by her legend.’
Hedwig[776] was born in 1174 and sent for her education to Kizzingen, an ancient convent foundation situated in Franken on property belonging to her family. In 1186, when not yet thirteen, she was taken from the convent to be married. She brought with her into Silesia a dower of thirty thousand marks, which was forthwith devoted to religious and charitable purposes, for Hedwig appears throughout to have been filled by the belief, which she shared with her husband, that religious settlements and colonies were alone capable of introducing culture and establishing civilization in the land.
The monastic orders had only recently gained a foothold in these districts. In 1139 a band of Benedictine monks had settled near Breslau, the centre of the country, and in 1175 at the instigation of Boleslaus, the father of Hedwig’s husband, some Cistercians had come to Leubus. These Cistercians were now helpful in constructing a nunnery at Trebnitz near Breslau, which Hedwig founded soon after her marriage. She summoned thither nuns from the Cistercian nunnery at Bamberg, where her sister Mathilde, afterwards abbess of Kizzingen, was being educated, and entrusted the rule of the new convent to Pietrussa († 1214), a nun from the convent of Kizzingen. The abbess and convent of Trebnitz are mentioned as early as 1202. The house was intended to promote education among girls of both noble and lowly parentage, and among them was Agnes, daughter of the king of Bohemia, of whom we shall hear more. It soon numbered a hundred inmates, and at the time when Hedwig’s life was written, that is towards the close of the 13th century, it contained a hundred and twenty women.