cation, and even
reading and writing were the accomplishments of but a small part of
the people, the monastic orders conserved some notion of scholarship.
Unfavorable as were the times to productive thought, scholars of no
mean ability nevertheless flourished, and among men and women alike
there was a desire for learning. To his female scholars the monk
Anghelm dedicated his works: _De Laude Virginitatis_. Certain Saxon
ladies of leisure occupied themselves with the study of Latin, which
they came to read and write with some ease. The literary antecedents
of the brilliant women of the sixteenth century are to be found in
that little group of studious women of the Anglo-Saxons, of whom
the Abbess Eadburga and her pupil Leobgitha, with both of whom Saint
Boniface corresponded in Latin, were the most notable.

The nuns were a class apart. The separation of the monks and the nuns
in the monastic establishments was gradually brought about by Church
regulations and the rules of the orders. By the end of the seventh
century the separate monasteries had effected the separation of the
men and the women, and in the eighth century the erection of double
monasteries was forbidden. Long before this time, however, the
more earnest of the ladies in superintendence of the monasteries
had prohibited the admission of men to the female side of the
establishments, excepting such men as the sainted Cuthbert and the
venerable Bede. These regulations were very strict and almost put an
end to the scandalous allegations about the religious establishments.
The charge that the priests resorted to the monasteries for mistresses
probably had no better foundation than the fact that many of the
priests continued to marry, in spite of the rule of celibacy. Whatever
truth there is in the assertion that kings obtained their mistresses
from the ranks of the nuns must be laid to the civil interference
and claims of jurisdiction over religious institutions. But while the
headship of convents was frequently offered to women of high rank and
low morals, whom it was convenient thus to get rid of, and in this way
certain institutions became debauched, the monastic system itself did
not become corrupt, and there were monasteries of notable purity and
great worth.

The story of Eadburga, the widow of Beorthric, King of Kent,
illustrates the hardships inflicted upon the monasteries, through the
assumption of royal personages to appoint their heads. Eadburga was