hing to see young virgins so "nouzled"
and trained in the study of letters that they willingly set all other
vain pastimes at nought for learning's sake.' It is melancholy to
reflect how soon the gates of the kingdom were to be closed again, and
its trees guarded by the flaming sword of theological certainty
mistaking itself for truth.

Besides marriage, almost the only vocation open to women in the
fifteenth century was the monastic life. It was not uncommon for
several daughters in a family to embrace religion: parents, apart from
higher considerations, regarding it as a sure method of providing for
girls who did not wish to marry, or for whom they could not find
husbands. As heads of religious houses women held positions of great
dignity and influence, and discharged their duties worthily. Within
convent walls, too, it was possible for some women to become learned;
though in later times the achievements of Diemudis were never
rivalled. She was a nun at Wessobrunn in Bavaria at the end of the
eleventh century, and during her cloistered life her active pen wrote
out 47 volumes, including two complete Bibles, one of which was given
in exchange for an estate.

We also hear of women of means, usually widows, dispensing hospitality
on a large scale to the needy and deserving. Wessel of Groningen, as
we saw, was adopted by a wealthy matron, who saw him shivering in the
street on a winter's day and fetched him into her house to warm.
Erasmus describes to us a Gouda lady, Berta de Heyen, whose kindness
he repeatedly enjoyed in his early years; and in addition to her
general charities mentions that she was wont to look out for promising
boys in the town school who were designing to enter the Church,
receive them into her family amongst her own children, and when their
courses were completed, bestir herself to procure them benefices--an
indication of the possession of influence outside her own home. He
goes on to say that when widowhood came to her, she refused to think
of a second marriage, and almost rejoiced to be released from the
bonds of matrimony, because she found herself free to practise her
liberality. But we must not lay too much stress on these latter
utterances. They come from a funeral oration composed after the good
lady's death, and addressed to her children, some of whom were nuns:
to whom therefore the conventional representation of the Church's
attitude towards marriage would be acceptable. Butzbach describ