died at
the age of sixty-three, on September 14, 1510.

The careers of these three women illustrate in a very satisfactory way
the various channels through which the religious life of the time found
its expression. The life of Catherine of Bologna was practically apart
from the real life of her time; Catherine of Pallanza was sought out by
people who were in need of her help, and she was able to give them wise
counsel; Catherine of Genoa, representing the more practical side of the
Christian spirit, went among the poor, the sick, and the needy, doing
good on every hand. Membership in these women's orders was looked upon
as a special and sacred office whereby the nun became the mystic bride
of the Church, and it was no uncommon thing for the sisters, when racked
and tortured by the temptations of the world, to fall into these
ecstatic contemplative moods wherein they became possessed with powers
beyond those of earth. In that age of quite universal ignorance, it is
not to be wondered at that the emotional spirit was too strongly
developed in all religious observances, and, as we have seen, it
characterized, equally, the convent nun, the priestess of the mountain
side, and the sister of mercy. The hysterical element, however, was
often too strongly accentuated, and the nuns were often too intent upon
their own salvation to give heed to the needs of those about them. But
the sum total of their influence was for the best, and the examples of
moderation, self-control, and self-sacrifice which they afforded played
no little part in softening the crudities of mediaeval life and paved the
way for that day when religion was to become a rule of action as well as
an article of faith.

Chapter IV

The Women of the Midi

It must have been part of the plan of the universe that the sunny
southern provinces of France should have given to the world a gay,
happy, and intellectual society wherein was seen for the first time a
concrete beginning in matters of social evolution. There the sky is
bright, the heavens are deep, the sun is warm, mountainous hills lend a
purple haze to the horizon, and the air is filled with the sweet perfume
of thyme and lavender; and there came to its maturity that brilliant
life of the Midi which has been so often told in song and story, and
which furnished inspiration for that wonderful poetry which has come
down to us from the troubadours. During the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries in particul