ith many renowned men. Christopher
Scheurl, "The Cicero of Nuernberg," said that in all his life he had
known only two women, the pious Cassandra of Venice and Charitas of
Nuernberg, who, "for their gifts of mind and fortune, their knowledge and
high station, their beauty and their prudence could be compared with
Cornelia, the mother of Laelius and Hortensius." In a letter to
Charitas, Scheurl praises her for "preferring the book to the wool and
the pen to the spindle."

These literary preferences, however, did not spoil Charitas Pirkheimer
for practical life. As abbess of Saint Clare's she showed great
administrative ability. Her annual reports of receipts and expenditures
are models of clearness and accuracy. To manage, without serious
friction, a large nunnery composed wholly of aristocrats (only the
daughters of Nuernberg patricians and nobles were eligible as members)
was no easy task. But Charitas seems to have made herself beloved and
respected by every sister. She kept her nuns busy with such good result
that Saint Clare tapestries became famous throughout Europe, and orders
from private and civic patrons poured in faster than they could be
filled.

No more splendid fight was ever made by any woman for conscience' sake
than that of Charitas Pirkheimer to preserve the integrity of her
convent after the storm of the Reformation broke over Germany. And in
the fight she conquered. The Lutherans succeeded in closing the houses
of every other conventual order, both male and female, in Nuernberg; but
Saint Clare's, through the valor of its abbess, remained intact until
the last nun died late in the century. But it was a long, a bitter, and,
often, a humiliating fight that Mother Charitas waged. Persecution was
continued for years. The abbess and her nuns were denied the sacraments
and confession. Three Lutheran preachers in turn, one of them a coarse,
vile man, were installed at Saint Clare's. Spies were placed in the
convent to see that the nuns "did not put cotton into their ears to shut
out the preaching." The convent school was broken up and all revenues
ceased. Poverty sorely pinched the women of the convent. Insulting
rhymes and obscene pictures were flung over the walls of the garden. The
maids sent out to buy bread were hooted and even roughly handled by
brutal men and fanatical women. A letter which Charitas wrote to Jerome
Emser, thanking him for his Defence of the Faith, was printed with
scurrilous margina