But it may be said that these women who showed themselves worthy of holding converse with such great men read and wrote Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and belonged to the highest Roman society. There are no women who are not noble. The church opened schools for women where they received the same instructions as men. [Footnote 238]
[Footnote 238: Dom Pitra, Histoire de St. Léger, vi.]
There is, from the time of the illustrious patrician ladies who followed St. Jerome into the desert, St. Paula, St. Eustochium, etc., [Footnote 239:] an uninterrupted list of nuns, of abbesses, whom the church reveres as saints, and who might be claimed by the literary world on account of their attainments. For example, St. Radegonde, (in the sixth century,) who introduced into the monastery of St. Croix, at Poitiers, the rule of St. Caesarius, which obliged all the nuns to the study of letters, that is to say, Latin, the fathers, canonical law, history, cosmography, etc., to devote two hours a day to reading besides that which they listened to during labor and their meals, and to the transcribing of books, etc. etc.; Lioba, at Bischofsheim, in Germany, the mistress of a school in a barbarous country who only left her books to pray; [Footnote 240]
[Footnote 239: And Marcella, Blezilla, Paulina. Fabiola, (of the family of Fabii,) Furia, (of the family of Camillus, Melania, Marcellina, etc.)]
[Footnote 240: See Dom Pitra, ib. He mentions St. Aldegondes, St. Anstrude, etc. The monastery of Lioba, he says, was like a normal school with respect to the other schools springing up in Germany.]
St. Bertille, at Chelles; St. Gertrude, in Belgium, (seventh century,) who sent to Ireland and to Italy for books; and those poor women who studied theology under St. Boniface, (eighth century;) and Roswitha, whose dramatic works display not only the inventive imagination of the poet, but a learning rare among women of any age, shown by her quotations from the ancient poets, the historical facts she mentions, her knowledge of foreign languages, etc. [Footnote 241] A Gerbert and a Roswitha are sufficient to redeem a whole century from the charge of ignorance and barbarism; and if nuns in the heart of Germany made such attainments in literature, what must have been the women of the age of Charlemagne, of St. Bernard, and of St. Louis? Then the daughters and nieces of the emperor took lessons of Alcuin: a queen sang the sweet serenity of the cloister in graceful Latin verse; [Footnote 242] a young girl of Paris had for her teacher one of the most celebrated professors of her time; [Footnote 243] and then was drawn up a course of studies in which were prescribed, such as these: [Footnote 244]
[Footnote 241: Spanish particularly, proved by the Hispanismes in her style, pointed out by her learned editor, Magnin.]
[Footnote 242: Richarde, wife of Charles le Gros.]
[Footnote 243: Heloïse, and doubtless she was not the only one among the bourgeoisie of Paris. Recall also the learned nun mentioned in the beginning of Du Guesclin's life, who, in predicting his success, removed, as it were, the obstacles to his glorious career.]