ife as our eyes grow
accustomed to the dimness, and our minds get attuned to the days that
knew their living representatives, so these women of whom we are
speaking may live again for us if only we treat their works as human
documents, and not as archaeological curiosities. The following pages
tell of six such women who lived between the tenth century and the
first half of the fifteenth--Roswitha, a nun of Germany; Marie de
France, a lady at the Court of Henry the Second of England; Mechthild
of Magdeburg, mystic and beguine; Mahaut, Countess of Artois, a
great-niece of St. Louis; Christine de Pisan, an Italian by birth,
living at the Court of Charles the Fifth of France; and Agnes Sorel,
the Mistress and inspirer of Charles the Seventh.

In trying to evoke the women of these days of long ago, it is hardly
possible to do more than portray them in outline. Yet even so, if the
outline be true, we may remember, for our consolation, that it has
been said that we shall never, except in outline, see the mysterious
Goddess Truth.

[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._

ROSWITHA PRESENTING HER POEM TO THE EMPEROR OTHO I., THE ABBESS OF
GANDERSHEIM STANDING AT HER SIDE.

A. Duerer, 1501.

_To face page 1._]

A TENTH-CENTURY DRAMATIST, ROSWITHA THE NUN

In this age of personal curiosity, politely called psychological
interest, when personalities are analysed with all the thoroughness of
the dissecting theatre, it seems almost courting failure to try to
call to remembrance one whose personality has long since faded away,
and of whom, apparently, no contemporary writer has made mention. Of
Roswitha, the woman, we know but little, and this little is gathered
from her own writings.[3] Presumably the date of her birth was about
A.D. 935, and that of her death about A.D. 973. There is a tradition
that she was connected with the royal house of Germany, at that time
represented by the enlightened Otho the Great. Be this as it may, her
life for us begins when, probably at an early age, she entered the
Convent of Gandersheim. Gandersheim was a Benedictine nunnery in the
Harz Mountains, founded in the ninth century by Liudolf, Duke of
Saxony, and important enough to entitle its Abbess to a Seat in the
Imperial Diet, a right perhaps never exercised except by proxy. The
story of its foundation, as told by Roswitha in the unique MS. of her
works, is of strange beauty. Listen to her own words as she tells the
tale:--

[