The reason for these changes lay not altogether with those who professed religion in convents, they were part of a wider change which remoulded society on an altered basis. For the system of association, the groundwork of mediæval strength and achievement, was altogether giving way at the time of the Reformation. The socialistic temper was superseded by individualistic tendencies which were opposed to the prerogatives conferred on the older associations. These tendencies have continued to the present with slight abatements, and have throughout proved averse to the continuation of monasticism which attained greatness through the spirit of association.
Repelled through the violence and aggressiveness of the reformers, and provoked by the narrowness of Protestantism generally, some modern writers take the view that the Reformation was throughout opposed to real progress, and that mankind would have been richer had the reformers left undisturbed many of the institutions they destroyed. The revenues of these institutions would now have been at the disposal of those who would put them to public and not to personal uses. As far as convents, especially those of women, are concerned, I cannot but feel sceptical on both points. Granting even that these houses had been undisturbed, a possibility difficult to imagine, experience proves that it is hardly likely they could now be used to secure advantages such as they gave to women in the past. Certainly it is not in those districts where women’s convents have lived on, securing economic independence to unmarried women as in North Germany, nor where they have lingered on along old lines as in Bavaria, that the wish for an improved education has arisen among women in modern times, nor does it seem at all likely that their revenues will ever be granted for such an object. It is in those countries where the change in social conditions has been most complete, and where women for a time entirely forfeited all the advantages which a higher education brings, and which were secured in so great a measure to women by convents in the past, that the modern movement for women’s education has arisen.
APPENDIX
(to accompany [p. 253]).
Rhythmus Herradis Abatissae per quem Hohenburgenses virgunculas amabiliter
salutat et ad veri sponsi fidem dilectionemque salubriter invitat.
Salve cohors virginum
Hohenburgiensium,
Albens quasi lilium
Amans dei filium.
Herrat devotissima,
Tua fidelissima,
Mater et ancillula,
Cantat tibi cantica.
Te salutat millies
Et exoptat indies,
Ut laeta victoria
Vincas transitoria.
O multorum speculum,
Sperne, sperne seculum,
Virtutes accumula,
Veri sponsi turmula.
Insistas luctamine,
Diros hostes sternere,
Te rex regum adjuvat,
Quia te desiderat.
Ipse tuum animum
Firmat contra Zabulum.
Ipse post victoriam
Dabit regni gloriam.
Te decent deliciae,
Debentur divitiae,
Tibi coeli curia,
Servat bona plurima.
Christus parat nuptias
Miras per delicias,
Hunc expectes principem
Te servando virginem.
Interim monilia
Circum des nobilia,
Et exornes faciem
Mentis purgans aciem.
Christus odit maculas,
Rugas spernit vetulas,
Pulchras vult virgunculas,
Turpes pellit feminas.
Fide cum turturea
Sponsum istum reclama,
Ut tua formositas
Fiat perpes claritas.
Vivens sine fraudibus
Es monenda laudibus,
Ut consummes optima
Tua gradus opera.
Ne vacilles dubia
Inter mundi flumina,
Verax deus praemia
Spondet post pericula.
Patere nunc aspera
Mundi spernens prospera.
Nunc sis crucis socia,
Regni consors postea.
Per hoc mare naviga,
Sanctitate gravida,
Dum de navi exeas
Sion sanctam teneas.
Sion turris coelica
Bella tenens atria,
Tibi fiat statio,
Acto vitae spatio.
Ibi rex virgineus
Et Mariae filius
Amplectens te reclamet
A moerore relevet.
Parvi pendens omnia
Tentatoris jocula,
Tunc gaudebis pleniter
Jubilando suaviter.
Stella maris fulgida,
Virgo mater unica,
Te conjugat filio
Foedere perpetuo.
Et me tecum trahere
Non cesses praecamine,
Ad sponsum dulcissimum
Virginalem filium.
Ut tuae victoriae,
Tuae magnae gloriae,
Particeps inveniat
De terrenis eruat.
Vale casta concio,
Mea jubilatio,
Vivas sine crimine,
Christum semper dilige.
Sit hic liber utilis,
Tibi delectabilis
Et non cesses volvere
Hunc in tuo pectore.
Ne more struthineo
Surrepat oblivio,
Et ne viam deseras
Antequam provenias.
Amen Amen Amen
Amen Amen Amen
Amen Amen Amen
Amen Amen Amen.