d mediaeval
literature, if we try to estimate it reasonably, gives a quite
pleasing impression of womankind, whether we turn to some of the royal
ladies who presided over brilliant Courts, where learning was
encouraged and poets made welcome, or to the lady of lesser degree,
who reigned supreme in her castle, at any rate when her lord was away,
as was often the case in time of war or during attendance at Court, or
to the abbesses who governed the religious houses they were set over,
to their material and mental well-being, proving thus their genius for
administration, and, in many instances, their rare intellectual
attainments. A record in a chartulary of the Benedictine nunnery of
Wherwell in Hampshire, now in the British Museum (Egerton MS., 2104),
and accessible to all in translation in the second volume of the
_Victoria History of the County of Hampshire_, may be mentioned in
passing, since it gives such a charming picture of mediaeval convent
life. It recounts the life and work of the Abbess Euphemia, who
presided over the house from 1226 to 1257. Amongst her many good
deeds, it is told of her that "with maternal piety and careful
forethought, she built, for the use of both sick and sound, a new and
large infirmary away from the main buildings," and that, besides
caring thus for the bodily wants of her community, "she built there a
place set apart for the refreshment of the soul, namely a chapel of
the Blessed Virgin." The writer adds that "in numberless ways she
provided for the worship of God and the welfare of the sisters," and
that "she so conducted herself with regard to exterior affairs, that
she seemed to have the spirit of a man rather than of a woman." The
account is altogether delightful and informing, and should be read by
any who would go in spirit to a mediaeval convent. It is therefore not
surprising that in the late Middle Ages a regard and reverence for
womanhood gradually arose--a regard and reverence for woman not merely
as the weaker vessel, but as the principle of all good and of moral
elevation. This attitude was also in large measure due to the
inevitable fusion of the cult of the Virgin and the cult of woman,
which in the thirteenth century developed into a faith. Then was it
that religion and chivalry, in combination, formed the solvent that
disintegrated the layer of selfishness--the outcome of the worship of
brute force--that had settled over man's nobler instincts, and by
their appeal to