in
the cloister, and the favorite of the abbess. Thence she was sent by the
will of Boniface to Germany and placed at the head of the cloister of
Bischofsheim. From all parts of Germany young women went to her cloister
to learn virtue and wisdom from the holy woman. When Boniface prepared
himself for his last missionary expedition to the pagan Frisians, he
commended his pious sister to his successor, exhorted her not to weary
in her holy work, and directed that her body after death should be
placed with his own in one grave, that they should both await the day of
resurrection after they had served Christ in the same endeavor and
aspiration during their lives. When Boniface had found the martyr's
death in Frisia, Lioba worked on for many years with beneficent activity
in the Christianization of Germany. Venerated by all she was an especial
favorite of Charlemagne and his consort Hildegard, yet she preferred at
all times the atmosphere of her cloister to the luxurious life at the
court. She died A. D. 780, sanctified by the Church, and many miracles
are related by Rudolf as having happened at her grave.

There are scores of similar legends in the Latin literature of the time,
for, from the eighth century on, Germany is filled with holy women and
maidens, promoters of the Church, founders of cloisters. The nun's
garment is revered everywhere; the veiled, consecrated maids of God owe
their high appreciation to their virgin state for which as already
especially mentioned the Germans felt a deeply ingrained veneration. The
"Maria-cult" had constantly grown in importance since the fifth century.
Goethe's "eternal feminine" celebrated its apotheosis in the new faith
as it had in the old belief in Freya and the Valkyries. Mary's
motherhood was sacred, but sacred only because it was motherhood with
virginity, eternal virginity. Yet the ideal of womanly beauty and
fascination is not at all lacking. Scherr translates a description given
by the Church Father Epiphanius as early as the fourth century of the
Holy Virgin as the ideal of pure womanhood. And, though the memory of
Olympus is apparent everywhere in the description, Epiphanius from
Palestine pictures Mary, the Mother of Christ, as a truly German ideal
of beauty: a golden-haired, blue-eyed Madonna. "The most beautiful of
women, gloriously formed, neither too short nor too long. Her form was
white, finely colored and immaculate; her hair was long, soft,
gold-colored. Under a