OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

WITH

A NOTE ON MEDIAEVAL GARDENS

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
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TORONTO

J ».»* *»/ ' 'tj', Tf rf Bib. del" Arsenal, Parix.

POET DECLAIMJN,G,TOreACX;QM5ANIM'ENT OF VIOL.

**•»•*»»*»',» ' J ' r rr ' Frontispiece.

OF SIX

MEDIEVAL WOMEN

TO WHICH IS ADDED

A NOTE ON

MEDIEVAL GARDENS

BY

ALICE KEMP-WELCH

WITH INTRODUCTION AND ILLUSTRATIONS

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

COPYRIGHT

AUTHOR'S NOTE

THE Author's acknowledgments are due to the
Editor of The Nineteenth Century and After for
his kind permission to reprint such of the
following studies as have already appeared in
that Review, and also to " George Fleming "
(Miss Constance Fletcher) for her rendering, on
page 146, of four verses of Christine de Pisan's
poem on Joan of Arc.

280067

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION ..... xi

A TENTH- CENTURY DRAMATIST, ROSWITHA THE

NUN ...... i

A TWELFTH-CENTURY ROMANCE-WRITER, MARIE

DE FRANCE . . . . .29

A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY MYSTIC AND BEGUINE,

MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG . . -57

A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY ART-PATRON AND PHIL-
ANTHROPIST, MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS 83

A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY FEMINISTE, CHRISTINE DE

PISAN . . . . . .116

AGNES SOREL . . . ... . 147

A NOTE ON MEDIEVAL GARDENS . . 173

vn

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACE PAGE

Poet declaiming to accompaniment of Viol . Frontispiece
Roswitha presenting her Poem to the Emperor Otho I.,

the Abbess of Gandersheim standing at her

side. A. Durer, 1501 . . . . I

Cover of St. Emmeran Gospels. loth century . 7

Marriage of Otho II. and Theophano. Byzantine,

loth century ..... 7

Lady playing Harp. Add. MS. 38117, Brit. Mus. . 32
Add. MS. 10293, Brit. Mus. . . . .34

Boat with Knights and Lady. Add. MS. 10294,

Brit. Mus. . . . . .49

Glaukos and Polyeidos in Tomb. Greek Vase, Brit.

Mus. ...... 52

Statue of Mahaut in Abbey of La Thieuloye, near

Arras, now destroyed. From a Drawing, now

in Brussels, made in 1602 . . .99

Marriage of Charles le Bel and Marie of Luxemburg.

Grandes Chrons. de France. Bib. Nat. . 100

Thirteenth-Century Treatise on Surgery, in French.

Sloane MS. 1977 .... 103

ix

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

FACE ft

Banquet, with Minstrels playing, and Room hung with
Embroidery. MS. Romance of Alexander,
I4th century. Bodleian, Oxford . .104

Harl. MS. 4425, Brit. Mus. . . . .105

Christine de Pisan . . . . .119

Lady in Horse- Litter, returning from Tournament.

Harl. MS. 4431, Brit. Mus. . . .132

La Cit<§ des Dames . . . . .138

Setting out for Poissy. Harl. MS. 4431, Brit. Mus. . 140
Tomb of Agnes Sorel . . . .158

Book of Hours of Etierfne Chevalier . . .162

Book of Hours of Etienne Chevalier . . .163

Book of Hours, French, I4th century. Brit. Mus. . 176
Harl. MS. 4425, Brit. Mus. . . . .177

Flemish Master, I5th century. Stephenson Clarke

Collection . . . . .181

MS. Romance of Alexander, I4th century . .183

Rhenish Master, C. 1420, Frankfort Hist. Mus. . 185

Harl. MS. 4425, Brit. Mus. . . . .186

INTRODUCTION

THE recent researches of scholars and students
have brought the study of mediaeval times
within the range of almosf any one who
cares to live in imagination in the past. No
part of this study has been more advanced
and made more informing to us than
that which regards the individual. This is
specially true of womankind, of whom we have
learnt somewhat, in some instances from their
own writings, and in others from allusions to
their work in those of contemporary and later
writers, and also, incidentally, from the vast
storehouse of didactic literature, which is so
suggestive in itself, reflecting through successive
centuries, as it seems to do, the standard of
conduct of the large majority. But on this
subject — a very large one, and only partially
explored — light can only be thrown gradually.
For this there are various reasons. One is that,
until comparatively recent times, the small details
of everyday life which go so largely to make

xi

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

up a woman's life, have generally been taken
for granted by writers. Then the few mediaeval
historiographers and chroniclers were principally
engaged in recounting the deeds of kings and
feats of arms. Then again, although probably
many MSS. of the time still lie undiscovered in
libraries, those that are known to us are scattered
far and wide. Furthermore, self-advertisement
was not a mediaeval fashion. It is perhaps
difficult for us nowadays to understand a spirit
of self-effacement. Self-esteem, which may de-
velop for either good or ill, has perhaps always
existed in the human breast, but certainly since
the time of the Renaissance, when it seemed to
have its own special revival, it has grown apace,
and is to-day like unto the Mustard Tree of
Holy Writ. But it is not proposed to contrast
this our modern attitude with the impersonal
one, if so it may be called, of the Middle Ages,
because, whilst there were many humble, zealous
workers then, just as there are now, it is possible
there were other and perhaps more potent factors
to account for this apparently humble attitude.
In mediasyal days, the subject of a narrative or
didactic work was considered so important, that
an author would scarcely venture on any inde-
pendent treatment of a theme for fear of incurring
censure for a contempt of authority, or, if he did
so venture, he would probably deem it wiser to

XII

INTRODUCTION

do so anonymously, or by ascription to some
departed celebrity, who was obviously not in a
position to gainsay him. The writer was of
much less interest than his ideas and sentiments.
Then again there was the intense localisation of
life. Localities were very independent of one
another. Each was complete in itself, and
within it there was no need for self-advertisement.
It was the same in the wider life of associated
religious communities, such as Benedictines,
Cluniacs, and Cistercians, who had so much to
do with the building of abbeys and cathedrals.
Within a fraternity, the specially gifted craftsman
was known, and wherever work was going on
within the Order, was made use of as needs be,
not as Brother This, or Brother That, but simply
as scribe, or as artificer in Madonnas or gargoyles,
or whatever else was wanted. The glorification
of the community as a whole, and not the
advertisement of the individual, was the desired
goal. This self-effacement was not so much
humility, though of course that too existed, as
the special form which communal feeling took
at that time. Now if this suppression of the
individual was true of men, how much more
true must it have been of women', who seldom
ventured beyond town, or castle, or convent
walls. In truth, women hardly appear on the

scene, and English women least of all. It is

xiii

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

only women who were prominent through their
high official positions, either political or religious,
such as Blanche of Castile, or St. Catherine of
Siena, or the Abbess Hildegarde, or women like
the Blessed Angela of Foligno,1 or Julian,
anchoress of Norwich,2 or some other of the
devout women of mediaeval Italy, who inter-
preted the mysteries of divine love to mediaeval
society, having in fact, as it were, religious
salons, from whom the veil has been withdrawn,
and even amongst such as these it has sometimes
been only very slightly lifted. With these
saintly and political women must be mentioned
the women doctors of Salerno — Trothula, Abella,
Mercurialis, and others — who played so important
a part both as professors and practitioners when
this school of medicine was at its zenith in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, and who left
behind them, as evidence of their learning,
treatises which are of interest to-day as showing
mediaeval methods in medicine.

Still, even so, the records are scanty. In
order, therefore, to form some idea and estimate
of women generally in the Middle Ages, we
must perforce fall back on reasoning from the

1 The Book of the Divine Consolation of the Blessed Angela of
Foligno. The New Mediaeval Library.

2 Revelations of Divine Love recorded by Julian, Anchoress of
'Norwich, 1373.

xiv

INTRODUCTION

known to the unknown, and, by studying the
few who are recorded in written history, judge
of that great majority who, though nameless,
have yet so largely helped to make up the world's
unwritten history. Just as many a flower blooms
and dies unseen, so many a woman must have
lived her life, serviceable to her special environ-
ment, but wholly unrecorded. Just as, in the
course of ages, the seeds of some humble plant
have been carried by wind or water from some
lonely region to one less remote, and made to
serve a purpose by adding to the sum-total of
beauty and usefulness, so the thoughts and deeds
of many an unremembered woman have doubtless
passed into the great ocean of thought, encircling
us to-day, and influencing us as a living force.

Thus we have the women who figure in
history, and whom we must take as types of the
influential woman of the time, and the women
whom history has not so honoured. Of the
former, even when only portrayed in outline, we
can learn something, but how are we to learn
anything of the latter, whether living in the
seclusion of religious houses or in the world ?
Of those living in religious houses, we know
from records that, besides attending to their own
spiritual and mental education and tending the
sick, they conducted the cloister schools and
taught in them needlework, the art of con-

xv b

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

fectionery, surgery, writing, and drawing. They
also wove, and embroidered, and added their mite
to the sum-total of beauty by transcribing and
illuminating MSS. of the Gospels and of the
lives of the Saints. But sometimes such a
limited sphere of activity was enlarged, and it is
to an anonymous Anglo-Saxon nun of the eighth
century, to whom the experiences were related,
that we owe one of the earliest and most
interesting accounts extant in Northern Europe
of a journey to Palestine.

To learn something of those living in the
world, who were the inspirers, the helpmates,
and the companions of men in everyday life, we
must turn to the poems and romances. These
form the key to the domestic life of the time.
Though ordinary life may be somewhat idealised
in them, still it is ordinary life on which they
are based. Moreover, many of the MSS. in
which they are written down contain miniatures
— a legacy of exceeding worth to the student.
But if we seek some knowledge of mediaeval life
from miniatures, it is not necessary to confine
our researches to MSS. of romances. Tran-
scripts of the classics, of the moralised Bible, and
of other religious works also supply many
pictures of everyday life, adapted quite regard-
less of incongruity, for one of the characteristics
of the Middle Ages was a profound incapacity

xvi

INTRODUCTION

to picture to itself anything but itself, or to
reconstitute in any way, as we do to-day, times
and scenes not its own. This was owing partly
to its vitality and its youthfulness, which grasped
at anything and everything without discernment,
and partly to its lack of reliable material. The
whole aspect of life, too, was changed and
enlarged, and for the moment over-charged, for
the flood - gates of the East, hitherto only
partially opened, had been rent asunder by the
traveller and the crusader.

Before we attempt to arrive at some idea of
the manner of life of the women of the Middle
Ages, it will be well, if possible, to modify what
seems to be a general and perhaps a distorted
impression of these women of bygone days, as
regards their want of loyalty in their domestic
relations, and all the deceit and cunning such
a want led to. Without attempting to justify
what is fundamentally wrong, let us go if we
can into the region of fact, and in that region
there is quite enough romance without intro-
ducing it from outside.

In the first place, so much more, as a rule, is
heard of vice than of virtue. " La voix de la
beaute parle bas : elle ne s'insinue que dans les
ames les plus eveillees." Then the standard of\/
life in those days was very different from what
it is to-day. Manners and customs which were

xvn

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

accepted facts of everyday life then, would strike
us as strangely rude and repellent now. Take,'
for instance, the attitude towards his queen of a
king we have all been taught to revere — Arthur,
the semi - saint, and the so - called pattern of
courtesy. When Guinevere deserts him, and
some of his knights are slain, his remark — not
whispered into the ear of a confidant, but uttered
aloud in the presence of all around him — is, ".I
am sorrier for my good knights' loss than for the
loss of my fair Queen, for queens I might have
enow." Such a sentiment, expressed in public,
does not seem quite up to our modern standard
of courteous, or even civilised, conduct, and yet
here we have the sentiments of the Prince of
Chivalry, as conceived by the poets of the
thirteenth century. So it is obvious that before
passing judgment upon the standard of life of
the mediaeval woman, we must endeavour to
arrive at the truth by thinking and living in
imagination on the same plane, as near as may
be, as she did.

I Then again, it is largely owing to certain
stories in the Middle Ages that the women of
those times have been defamed. If we consider
the sources and the transcribers of these stories,
we shall perhaps find a reason for their distorted
outlines, filled in with so much imperfectly
understood detail. Many of these tales originated

xvin

INTRODUCTION

in the East, and particularly in India, where
the conditions of domestic life led to and
favoured intrigue, and many of them also were
mere allegory, in which the Eastern sought to
hide great truths. These the less meditative
Western interpreted literally, mistaking the
outward form for that which it concealed. So
in passing to the West, Eastern ideas and
Eastern exaggeration, misconstrued, became
caricature. Moreover, the compilers of these
stories were often monks or minstrels who vied
with each other for popular favour, the monk
introducing into his legends material which he
hoped would rival the often shameless out-
pourings of the minstrel, whilst the minstrel,
for his part, tried to adorn his story with some
moral. Naturally neither class of such purveyors
was in the least capable of judging woman
with respect, or indeed of judging woman at all.
On the other hand, however, it must be
remembered that there are stories that tell a
very different tale, a tale of self-sacrifice and
devotion in face of grievous trial, as, for instance,
that of Eric and Enide, sung by Chretien of
Troyes, and made familiar to us by Tennyson's
poem of " Geraint and Enid." It is impossible
that such a conception should have been the mere
outcome of the poet's imagination, since a poet,
whilst he may transform, focuses and reflects the

xix

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

ideas of his time. In truth, we find mediaeval
literature, if we try to estimate it reasonably,
gives a quite pleasing impression of womankind,
whether we turn to some of the royal ladies who
presided over brilliant Courts, where learning
was encouraged and poets made welcome, or to
the lady of lesser degree, who reigned supreme
in her castle, at any rate when her lord was
away, as was often the case in time of war or
during attendance at Court, or to the abbesses
who governed the religious houses they were set
over, to their material and mental well-being,
proving thus their genius for administration, and,
in many instances, their rare intellectual attain-
ments. A record in a chartulary of the Bene-
dictine nunnery of Wherwell in Hampshire, now
in the British Museum (Egerton MS., 2104),
and accessible to all in translation in the second
volume of the Victoria History of the County oj
Hampshire^ may be mentioned in passing, since
it gives such a charming picture of mediaeval
convent life. It recounts the life and work of
the Abbess Euphemia, who presided over the
house from 1226 to 1257. Amongst her many
good deeds, it is told of her that " with maternal
piety and careful forethought, she built, for the
use of both sick and sound, a new and large
infirmary away from the main buildings," and

that, besides caring thus for the bodily wants of

xx

INTRODUCTION

her community, " she built there a place set
apart for the refreshment of the soul, namely a
chapel of the Blessed Virgin." The writer
adds that " in numberless ways she provided for
the worship of God and the welfare of the
sisters," and that " she so conducted herself with
regard to exterior affairs, that she seemed to have
the spirit of a man rather than of a woman."
The account is altogether delightful and inform-
ing, and should be read by any who would go in
spirit to a mediaeval convent. It is therefore
not surprising that in the late Middle Ages a
regard and reverence for womanhood gradually
arose — a regard and reverence for woman not
merely as the weaker vessel, but as the principle"
of all good and of moral elevation. This attitude
was also in large measure due to the inevitable
fusion of the cult of the Virgin and the cult of
woman, which in the thirteenth century de-
veloped into a faith. Then was it that religion
and chivalry, in combination, formed the solvent!
that disintegrated the layer of selfishness — the
outcome of the worship of brute force — that had
settled over man's nobler instincts, and by their
appeal to his better nature decided the position
that woman, not only as an individual, but also
as a class, was thenceforth to take in the civilised
world.

Let us now turn, first to the woman of the

xxi

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

Romances and then to the woman of History.
Each completes and is completed by the other.
For the woman of the Middle Ages there were
practically only two alternatives — to enter into
the bonds either of Holy Matrimony or of Holy
Church. In both Cases the vows were, as a rule,
taken early, especially in the case of marriage, so
that the woman of the Middle Ages knew little
of the joys of girlhood, with all its romantic
castle - building and fondly fostered illusions.
From playing with dolls, the child of twelve
or even younger often suddenly found herself
transformed into a wife. Although the Church
had decreed that no girl should be wedded
before the age of fifteen, this mandate was often
ignored in noble families, where, through death,
large fiefs had been left without a male repre-
sentative and protector. In such a case the
over-lord considered it necessary to assert his
authority, and compel the marriage of some
young girl of perhaps only twelve, so as to
secure for her vassals and retainers a qualified
leader, and for himself the needful and pledged
military service. Still these marriages of con-
venience were often really happy arrangements,
for the girl-wife had been trained to altruism,
and its principles were the very essence of her
daily life. Love, moreover, is a subtle sprite,
and just as surely as he can spread his wings and

xxn

INTRODUCTION

fly away, so he can come, as if at unconscious
bidding, and make for himself a dwelling-place.

To get any true insight into the life of the
woman of the Middle Ages, we must study the
small everyday affairs, and to this end go, in
imagination, to some castle, and see how the
day is passed there by its lady. Perhaps it is a
day in late spring. The watchman on the tower,
heralding the day, has sounded his horn, and
soon all the castle is astir. Leaving her cur-
tained bed, she first offers a shprt prayer at the
small shrine hanging close by with its flickering
light. Then the bath, the water scented with
aromatic roots and covered with rose-petals, is
taken. Mass and the morning broth follow, and
the day is considered fitly begun. The poor, or
any sick and sorry folk, are the first to be con-
sidered, or perhaps there is some wounded
knight, who has sought shelter within the
protecting walls of the castle, for whom sooth-
ing potions or healing salves have to be com-
pounded. This latter service was generally the
work of the lady of the castle, who as a rule
possessed sufficient surgical knowledge to bind a
broken limb. To beguile the weary hours of
convalescence, she sings to the lute, tells stories,
recounts legends, or reads aloud a romance lately
bought from some wayfaring packman. Little
is it to be wondered at that the convalescence is

xxiii

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

protracted, or that the knight delays his de-
parture from day to day, sometimes to his own
and the lady's undoing.

Beside such varied ministrations, the woman
of the Middle Ages rode to the chase, went out
hawking, snared birds with nets, ferreted rabbits,
spun, wove, and embroidered. Embroidering
was a really formidable occupation, for the great
hall, and each room, had its special hangings,
and on fete-days every inch of wall-space was
covered. One set would picture an Arthurian
legend, and others again were made bright with
flowers, lilies, roses, and columbines. The lady
and her maidens — often girls of noble birth,
whom it was customary to send to some castle
to complete their education — worked at the
countless yards such decoration involved, and
chatted the while, it may be, of some coming
marriage or tourney, or perchance one among
them would tell a story, and so time passed
merrily enough. Then for the educated woman,
of whom there were many, Latin verse offered a
wide field of delight, and the woman of the
Middle Ages read and loved her Virgil just as
we of to-day read and love our Shakespeare.
When the daylight had faded, there was always
chess-playing, dancing the carole, and singing,
and by the thirteenth century little pastoral ballets,

in which a knight, and a shepherdess and her

xxiv

INTRODUCTION

lover, took part, began to be produced for the
diversion of castle-folk. For daily entertain-
ment, every castle of any pretension had its own
minstrel or minstrels, whilst in the smaller castles
a wandering singer was warmly welcomed.
Sometimes the lady gave audience to a poet,
who read his latest idyll, a minstrel, to the
accompaniment of his viol, singing the inter-
spersed lyrics. • Such a scene may be found
depicted in miniatures, and suggests how such a
story as " Aucassin and Nicolette," and many
another, partly in prose, partly in verse, was
rendered. One such miniature shows a lady re-
clining on a couch, with a lordling seated beside
her, the poet, with his small parchment leaflets,
declaiming his story, the minstrel waiting to
take up the theme in song. It is of interest
to note that in this particular miniature the
gown of the lady is ornamented with heraldic
devices. By such means we are enabled not
only to identify the person represented — since
portraiture, even if there was anything worthy of
the name, was in a very rudimentary condition —
and thus arrive at the approximate date of the
picture, but also to verify a custom, and a stage
in social life. It was not until the end of the
twelfth century, when some sort of heraldic
system became necessary owing to the introduc-
tion of the closed helmet, that armorial bearings,

xxv

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

hitherto mere personal badges, became attached
to noble families. By the thirteenth century,
when the bourgeoisie had become rich, they
were worn by the sumptuously attired wife of
the lord to distinguish her from the equally
sumptuously attired wife of the wealthy burgher.

Such, in mere outline, was the daily life of
the mediaeval lady. Descriptions of the lady
herself seem to be mere replicas of an admired
and fixed type, for there is in them such a same-
ness of delineation, that we can only imagine
that poets sang of qualities that pleased, and did
not attempt to individualise. All are good and
gracious, beautiful, and slight of figure, with
delicate hands and tapering fingers, small feet,
fine and glossy hair, and grey eyes, laughing and
bright. Only occasionally are these attractions
varied and enhanced by the telling of beauty
unaided by paint and hair dye.

It is hardly necessary to speak, save very
generally, of woman's dress, for much has already
been written on the subject. For everyday use,
garments of wool or linen, according to the
season, and with much fur in winter, were worn.
At weddings or tournaments, or on any other kind
of fete-day, the ladies vied with each other in
rich cloth of gold and silver, in silks woven with
threads of gold and patterned with conventional
design, and in all kinds of iridescent silken stuffs

xxvi

INTRODUCTION

from the East. From Mosul, on the banks of
the Tigris, whence the material we call muslin
takes its name, was brought a fine silk gossamer,
something like our crepe de Chine. This was
used for the finely plaited underdress seen at the
neck and foot of mediaeval costume. Perhaps
the best representation of this, although stone
seems hardly the most favourable medium for
the delineation of so delicate a fabric, can be
seen in the long slim figures of the queenly ladies
standing in the niches on either side of the west
door of Chartres Cathedral.

But when we have contemplated this gorgeous
and dainty apparel, and all the other personal
luxury that accompanied it, such as enamelled
and jewelled gold circlets for the head, jewelled
girdles with each jewel chosen for its own special
virtue, carved ivory combs, tablets and hand-
mirrors, and the like, we are forced to wonder
how all this refinement and beauty could go
hand in hand with so much that is unpleasing.
If we turn to consider the manners of the men,
we find the same contrasts — on the one hand
the maximum of gallantry and courtesy, and on
the other a corresponding churlishness and
brutality. Metaphorically and actually, the
lance and the battle-axe were still rivalling each
other in the warfare of daily life. Although
the battle-axe must eventually yield to the lance,

XXVll

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

still strange extremes have flourished side by
side all down the ages. Turning to but com-
paratively recent times, the coarseness we associate
with much of the reign of Charles II. stands
out in glaring contrast with the delicate, graceful
poetry that found expression then. And coming
still nearer to our own days, we think of the
unseemly manners in the reigns of George III.
and IV. and the dainty miniatures such as those
painted by Cosway, and wonder how these could
exist together. Might we not just as well
wonder why the olive tree has a gnarled, dis-
torted stem, whilst its delicate, symmetrical leaves,
of the tenderest green grey, glisten in the sunshine
like silvery shells fresh from ocean's bed ?

Renan, amongst the many thinkers on life's
mysteries, tells us that " Life is the result of a
conflict between contrary forces." But to philo-
sophise is useless, and it is still more useless to
question life's seeming anomalies. We can only
bow in silence before " what Time in mists
confounds."

As has been already said, it is only a general
idea of the women of the Middle Ages that can
be gleaned from the Romances. For something
to bring us into more real touch with them, and
to reveal more of their personality, we must
consider some who have made themselves known
to us through their work, since history, until

xxviii

INTRODUCTION

we come to the fourteenth century, is almost
silent about them. Thus it is that as we study
these women, it almost seems at first as if we
were looking at some faded frescoes in a dimly
lighted church. But just as the half-obliterated
figures take form and life 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, ij: 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.

xxix

Photo. Macbeth.

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

A. Diirer, 1501.

To face page i

r*v* •

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 dis-
secting 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.1 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. Ganders-
heim was a Benedictine nunnery in the Harz
Mountains, founded in the ninth century by
Liudolf, Duke of Saxony, and important enough

1 The authenticity of these has been called in question by some
critics, but apparently upon insufficient data.

I B

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

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 : —

At that time there was, nigh unto the Monastery,1 a little
wood, encircled by shady hills, those same hills by the which
we ourselves are surrounded. . And there was, moreover, in the
wood a small farm where the swineherds of Liudolf were wont
to dwell, and within the enclosure of which the men, during
the hours of night, composed to rest their weary bodies until
the time when they must needs drive forth to pasture the pigs
committed to their care. Here, on a time, two days before
the Feast of All Saints, these same herdsmen, in the darkness
of the night, saw full many bright lights glowing in the wood.
And they were astonished at the sight, and marvelled what
could be the purport of this strange vision of blazing light
cleaving the darkness of the night with its wondrous brilliance.
And all trembling with fear, they related unto their Master
that which they had seen, showing unto him the place which
had been illumined by the light. And he, desiring by very
sight thereof to put to proof that which he had heard tell,
joined them without the building, and began the following
night, without sleeping, to keep watch, closing not his eyes
though they were weighed down by the desire of slumber.
And after a while he saw the kindling lights, more in number
than afore, once again burn with a red glow, in the same place
forsooth, but at an hour somewhat earlier. And this glad
sign of happy omen he made known so soon as Phoebus shed
his first rays from the sky, and the joyous news spread every-
where. And this could not be kept back from the worthy
Duke Liudolf, but swifter than speech did it come to his
ears. And he, carefully observing on the hallowed eve of the
approaching festival whether perchance some further like
heavenly vision would clearly show it to be an omen, with
much company kept watch on the wood all the night long.

1 The first foundation, afterwards removed to Gandersheim.

2

ROSWITHA THE NUN

And straightway when black night had covered the land with
darkness, everywhere throughout the wooded valley in the
which the very noble temple was destined to be built, many
lights were perceived, the which, with the shining splendour
of their exceeding brightness, cleft asunder the shades of the
wood and the darkness of the night alike. And thereupon,
standing up and rendering praise to God, they all with one
accord declared it meet that the place should be sanctified to
the worship of Him who had filled it with the light. And,
moreover, the Duke, mindful of his duty to Heaven, and with
the consent of his dear consort Oda, forthwith ordered the
trees to be felled and the brushwood cut away, and the valley
to be completely cleared. And this sylvan spot, aforetime
the home of fauns and monsters, he thus cleared and made
fitting for the glory of God. And then, before obtaining the
money needful for the work, he at once set out the lines of
a noble church as traced by the splendour of the red light.1

In suchwise was the building of our second Monastery to
the glory of God begun. But stone suitable for the structure
could not be found in those parts, and thus the completion of
the sanctuary which had been begun, suffered delay. But the
Abbess Hathumpda, trusting to obtain all things from the
LorcTby faith, oft-times, by serving God both night and day
with holy zeal, wore herself out with too abundant labour.
And with many of those placed under her care, she besought
the solace of speedy help from Heaven, lest the work so well
begun should be left unfinished. And of a sudden she became
aware that the divine grace which she sought was present,
ready to have compassion on her longings. For as she lay one
day prostrate nigh unto the altar, fasting and giving herself up
to prayer, she was bidden of a gentle voice to go forth and
follow a bird she would see sitting on the summit of a certain
great rock. And she, embracing the command with ready
mind, went forth, putting her trust in it with all her heart.
And taking with her very skilled masons, she sped swiftly
whither the kindly Spirit led her, until she was come to the
noble sanctuary which had been begun. And there she saw,
seated on the lofty summit of the self-same rock, a white dove,

1 For other instances of churches laid out on lines said to have
been revealed in dreams or visions, .see Didron, Christian Iconography,
vol. i. (1886) pp. 381, 382, 460, and Sta. Maria Maggiore, Rome.

3

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

the which, flying with outspread wings, straightway went
before her, tempering its flight in unwonted way so that the
virgin, walking with her companions, might be able to follow
in a straight course its aerial track. And when the dove in
its flight had come to the place which we now know was not
wanting in great stones, it descended, and with its beak pierced
through the ground,1 where, beneath the soil, many stones
were disclosed. And assured by this sight, the very worthy
virgin of Christ bade her companions clear away the heavy
mass of earth, and lay the spot bare. And this done, supernal
and devout piety presiding over the work, a great wealth of
mighty stones was brought to view, whence all the needful
material for the walls of the monastery already begun, and of
the church, could be obtained. Then, striving ever more and
more with all their heart, the builders of the temple destined
to be consecrated to the glory of God, laboured at the work
by night and by day.

Thus does Roswitha tell how the work of
the new Foundation was begun, the Duke
Liudolf and his wife having already journeyed
to Rome to ask of the Pope his blessing, as well
as to beg of him, as a token of his favour, some
sacred relics to deposit there. The Pope, giving
them his blessing, thus makes answer to their
request : —

There were here, aforetime, two mighty rulers — the most
holy Anastasius who presided over this See, and his co-apostle,
the holy Innocent. These, through their services to the
Church, were the most famous next after St. Peter and

1 The intervention of a bird to aid in discovery was a favourite
tradition derived from antiquity. We may recall, amongst many
variants of the theme, the story of the celebrated expedition of the
Athenians to the Island of Scyros to find and recover the body of
Theseus. Theseus, being a hero, the agent employed in the quest
must likewise be distinguished, and so the eagle, Zeus's bird, is
alone thought worthy to peck the earth and indicate the resting-
place of the demi-god.

4

ROSWITHA THE NUN

St. Paul. With such care have the illustrious bodies of these
two been heretofore preserved by all the rulers of this city,
that never has any one been permitted to carry away the least
portion of them, and thus their sacred limbs remain un-
diminished. But forasmuch as it is meet that I yield to your
pious request, I will grant you, without recompense, tokens
from both these sacred bodies, cut before your very eyes from
off the sacred bodies themselves, if so be that you will make
solemn oath to me to venerate these relics in your community,
of the which you have made mention, preserving them for all
time within your Church, sacred hymns being there sung by
night and by day, and a light being alway kept burning. And
of our apostolic right we ordain, according to your request,
that your community be of our See, to the end that it may be
secured from all secular rule.

And Liudolf, with glad heart, made promise
of this, and returned home with the coveted
relics.

The MS., now at Munich, which tells this
fascinating story of love and faith, was, it is
considered, written about A.D. 1000, and was
fortunately preserved in the Benedictine convent
of St. Emmeran, Ratisbon, where the scholar
and poet, Conrad Celtes, discovered it at the
end of the fifteenth century. It also includes
metrical legends, a fragment of a panegyric on
the Emperor Otho, and six dramas. Of such
worth were these latter counted, that when
Celtes published the MS. in 1501, Albert Durer
received a commission for an ornamental title-
page, and for a frontispiece to each of the
plays. It is by these dramas that Roswitha has
distinguished herself in the world of letters ;
for although the legends contain points of
interest, and are treated with skill, they are

5

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

naturally not so unique as the dramas, nor do
they reflect her personality in the same way.
She herself tells us that the plays were written
in imitation of the manner, but not of the matter,
of Terence, and that her only desire in writing
them was " to make the small talent given her
by Heaven to create, under the hammer of
devotion, a faint sound to the praise of God."

But before considering her work, let us glance
at her own life, and the life of contemporary
Saxon nunneries.

Nearly one hundred and fifty years before
the supposed date of Roswitha's birth, the
hitherto untamed and warlike Saxons had been
finally defeated by the mercenaries of Charle-
magne, and, as one of the signs of submission,
forced to embrace Christianity. But having
submitted, they forthwith, and with an aptitude
suggestive of the spirit of the modern Japanese,
set themselves to appropriate, assimilate, and
remodel for their own use, the rudiments of the
civilisation with which they found themselves
brought into contact. So speedy and so thorough
was the transformation, that scarce a century
passed ere the once powerful Prankish kingdom
of Charlemagne bowed down before the strenuous
Saxons, to whom the supreme power was trans-
ferred. Their Chief was elected king of the
Germans, and some fifty years later their king,
Otho the Great, after being crowned at Aix-la-
Chapelle, the former centre of Prankish rule,
received the Imperial Crown from the Pope in

6

COVER OF ST. EMMERAN GOSPELS.
Tenth Century.

Royal Library, Munich

To face page 7.

ROSWITHA THE NUN

Rome. This displacement of the political
centre was naturally followed by a complete
displacement of artistic centres. Both these
sides of life were fostered by Otho with a keen
personal interest — the building up of his empire
and the encouragement of art going hand in
hand. Moreover, owing to his close ties with
Italy and the East, and the element of classic
tradition inevitably induced by such ties, art
received an added stimulus and grace. Oriental
monks were to be found in the monasteries.
Learned men and artists were summoned from
Italy and Constantinople. The number and
influence of these were increased when Otho's
son, afterwards Otho the Second, married
Theophano, a Greek princess, who, bringing
many compatriots in her train, sought to reflect
in her German home something of the learning
and splendour of the Byzantine Court. The
ivory, shown in illustration, commemorating
this marriage, is an example of the work of
some Byzantine craftsman in her employ, whilst
the jewelled and gold-wrought cover of the
Gospels of St. Emmeran (now at Munich)
shows to how high a level the goldsmith's art
of the time had been raised by the influences
alluded to.

Perhaps the one place which retains in the
most varied and concentrated form the traces
of this wave of artistic development then
passing over Germany, is Hildesheim. This is
of interest here because the bishops of Hildesheim

7

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

were specially appointed to perform the office
of consecration of nuns at Gandersheim. It
seems hardly possible that Roswitha could have
seen its gifted bishop Bernward, himself a
painter, and a worker in mosaic and metals,
though owing to the uncertainty of the date of
her death — one chronicler making it as late as
1002 — it is just possible that she may have done
so. Bernward's learning and artistic nature
attracted the attention of the princess Theophano,
who appointed him tutor to her son, the boy-
emperor Otho the Third. Brought thus into
touch with the many gifts presented on special
occasions to the young Emperor by Greek and
Oriental princes, as well as by u Scots " (i.e.
Irish missionaries and emigrants settled in
Germany), he, by taking with him to Court,
from the School of Art established in his palace
at Hildesheim, apt and talented youths, made
use of these rare and beautiful offerings for the
encouragement of the study of divers arts.
Students also accompanied him when he went
farther afield for study, for it is said of him
that there was no art which he did not attempt,
even if he failed to attain perfection.1 Hildes-
heim thus became famous as a working-centre
of fine art, especially in metals, and remained so
down to the end of the Middle Ages. After
a lapse of nearly a thousand years, the result ot
the labours of this artistic prelate and his pupils

1 Thangmarus, "Vita Sti. Bernwardi," Migne, Patroi. Lat. 140,
col. 397. 6.

8

ROSWITHA THE NUN

may still be seen in situ as it were. Besides
jewelled service-books, there are chalices, incense
burners, a gold candelabrum, and a jewelled
crucifix, fashioned, if not in part by him, at
least under his supervision. The entrance to
the Cathedral is beautified with delicately
wrought bronze doors, modelled, it may be,
from those of Sta. Sabina, Rome, themselves
considered to be of Oriental origin,1 and in the
transept rises a column adorned with bronze
reliefs from the life of Christ, probably designed
by the bishop either after his pilgrimage to
Rome in 1001, when he had seen Trajan's
column, or, as a recent writer suggests, from
the "Juppiter and giant columns" of Roman
Rhineland.2

We are tempted to recall other princesses
whose marriages, and even more whose person-
alities, have influenced art and letters, but two
must suffice us — the one, the beautiful and
cultivated ^Anne _of Bphemia^-wife of Richard
the Second, whose bridal retinue was in reality
a small Court of literary and artistic personages ;
the other, the brilliant Valentine Visconti of
Milan, sister-in-law of King Charles the Sixth
of France, whose influence in matters of art and
literature alone, at a time when England and
France were so intimately associated, makes her
of special interest to us..

1 Michel, Histoire de I' Art, 1905, Tome I. i. p. 258.

2 Journal of Roman Studies, vol. i. part i., 1911, article by
E. Strong, p. 24.

9

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

But what bearing, it may be asked, had
Court life on the life of the nun Roswitha in
the convent of Gandersheim ? To answer this
question we must recall briefly the position of
the early religious houses, and especially those
of Saxony. Many of the foundations were royal,
and, in return for certain privileges, were obliged
to entertain the king and his retinue whenever
he journeyed. Such sojourns naturally brought
a store of political, intellectual, and other in-
formation to the favoured house. Added to
this, the abbess of such a house, generally a
highborn and influential woman, was, in her
position as a ruler of lands as well as of com-
munities, brought into direct contact with the
Court and with politics. To her rights of over-
lordship were attached the same privileges and
duties as in the case of any feudal baron. She
issued summonses for attendance at her Courts,
at which she was represented by a proctor, and,
when war was declared, she had to provide the
prescribed number of knights. In some cases
her influence was supreme, even in imperial
affairs, extending also to matters social and
literary. Roswitha tells us how much she
herself owed to the two successive abbesses
under whose rule she lived, for suggestion,
information, and encouragement in her literary
work.

The convents of Saxony, as many elsewhere
in the tenth and eleventh centuries, were centres
of culture in the nature of endowed colleges.

10

ROSWITHA THE NUN

In some of them women resided permanently,
and besides their religious exercises, devoted
themselves to learning and the arts, for the
Church of the Middle Ages took thought for
the intellect as well as for the soul. In others,
no irrevocable vows were made, and if desire or
necessity arose, the student inmate was free to
return to the world. In others again, though
residence was permanent, short leave of absence
from time to time was granted by the abbess,
and the nun was able to sojourn with her friends,
or to visit some sister community. But at
Gandersheim the rule was strict, and a nun, her
vows once taken, had to remain within the
convent walls. Yet even so, life there was
perhaps far less circumscribed than in many a
castle, where the men gave themselves up to
war and the chase, and the women perforce spun
and embroidered and gossiped, since to venture
without the walls was fraught with difficulty
and sometimes with danger. Even if there
were some who cared to read, and who would
fain go in imagination to other scenes and times,
MSS. were difficult to come by, and costly
withal. Wholly different was it in the religious
houses. In these, women associated with their
equals, with whom they could interchange ideas,
and the library was well furnished with MSS. of
classical and Christian writers. One of the first
cares of St. Benedict, in the case of every newly
founded house, was the formation of the library.
So held in honour did this tradition become, and

1 1

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

so assiduously was it pursued, that the status of
a monastery or a convent, as a centre of learning,
came to be estimated by its wealth in MSS.
Besides the mass of transcribing which such
rivalry occasioned, there was illuminating to be
done, musical notation to be studied and prepared
for the services of the Church, chants and choir-
singing to be practised, and the needful time to
be devoted to weaving and embroidery — a part
of every woman's education. Weaving had of
necessity to be done in every convent in order to
provide the requisite clothing for its inmates,
and the large and often elaborate hangings used
for covering the walls. Embroidery, on the
other hand, was no mere occupation, or even a
craft, but in truth a fine art. The few specimens
still preserved give some idea of the quality of
the work, whilst old inventories attest the
quantity. Illuminated MSS. of the Gospels and
the Apocalypse were lent from royal treasuries,
and their miniatures were copied, with needle
and silk, to adorn vestments and altar hangings.
Then at Gandersheim, as we have already said,
the occasional visits of princely travellers brought
interest and diversion from the outside world.
It was in an atmosphere such as this that
Roswitha passed her days.

Of her work, the metrical legends seem her
earliest effort. In these, though they are mainly
based on well-known themes, Roswitha shows
much originality in description. Whilst they
need not detain us, passing reference may be

12

ROSWITHA THE NUN

made to two of them — the Passion of St.
Pelagius of Cordova, and the FaUL_and Conver-
sion of Theophilus — since their subject matter
is of value to us to-day. The one interests us
because, in relating that the story was told her
by an eye-witness of the martyrdom in A.D. 925
(Acta SS. Jun. V.), she shows that communica-
tion existed between that great intellectual
centre, Cordova, and Germany, a fact that
must have had considerable influence on art and
literature ; the other as being the story out of
which the Faust legend was developed.

After these legends, we turn to her panegyric
on the Emperor Otho. This she opens by
acknowledging her debt to the Abbess Gerberg,
niece of Otho the Great, for aiding her in her
literary work with her superior knowledge, and
for giving her the necessary information con-
cerning the royal doings. Then by humbly
likening her mental perplexity and fear on
entering upon so vast a subject to the feelings
of one who has to cross a forest in winter when
snow has obliterated the track, she in a few
words pictures for us the natural wooded sur-
roundings of the convent. Her poem — for such
it really is — then sets forth the personal history
of this monarch and his predecessors, rather than
public events, and is thus of value more on
account of its poetical than its historical quality.
But one episode, picturesque in its quaint setting,
and interesting historically because its stirring
details are not to be found elsewhere, is worthy

13

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

of record. It centres round Adelheid, the young
and beautiful widow of Lothair, a Lombard king.
Taken prisoner by his successor, the tyrant
Berengarius, she is immured in a castle on the
Lago di Garda, and threatened with a forced
marriage with the son of her oppressor. This
threat seems to endow her with superhuman
power. Bidding defiance to all difficulty and
danger, she contrives gradually to dig a secret
way through the soft earth, and suddenly finds
herself free. Dawn is just breaking. But how
can she make use of her freedom before her
guards awake and discover her escape ? Quickly
is her mind made up. But let Roswitha herself
tell the story : —

As soon as black night yielded to the twilight, and the
heavens began to pale before the rays of the sun, warily hiding
herself in secluded caves, now she wanders in the woods, now
lurks in the furrows amongst the ripe ears of Ceres, until
returning night, clothed in its wonted gloom, again veils the
earth in darkness. Then once more is she diligent to pursue
her way begun. And her guards, not finding her, all-trembling
make it known to the officer charged with the safe keeping of
the lady. And he, struck to the heart with the terror of
grievous fear, set forth with much company to make diligent
search for her, and when he failed, and moreover could not dis-
cover whither the most illustrious queen had turned her steps,
fearful, he made report of the matter to King Berengarius.
And he, at once filled with exceeding wrath, forthwith sent
his dependants everywhere around, commanding them not to
overlook any small place, but cautiously to examine every
hiding-place, lest perchance the queen might be lying hid in
any an one. And he himself followed with a band of stout-
hearted troops as if to overcome some fierce enemy in battle.
And rapidly did he pass on his way through the self-same
corn-field in the which the lady whom he sought was lurking

14

ROSWITHA THE NUN

in the bent-back furrows, hidden beneath the wings of Ceres.
Hither and thither forsooth he traversed the very spot where
she lay, burdened with no little fear, and although, with great
effort, he essayed with outstretched spear to part the corn
around, yet he discovered not her whom by the grace of Christ
it concealed.

From the sheltering corn Adelheid effects
her escape, and after weary wandering, reaches
the Castle of Canossa, the stronghold of the
Counts of Tuscany. Any one who has visited
this now ruined castle, some twenty miles from
Parma, will remember the threadlike way
between rocks covered with brambles, by
which its eyrie height is approached. Up this
steep track the queen, fearful of any pause,
hastens, and finds a welcome and ready help. The
Count becomes her champion, and appeals on
her behalf to the Emperor Otho. The latter,
glad of an excuse to further his cause in Italy,
descends with his troops into the Lombard plain,
weds the beautiful Adelheid, and receives the
formal cession of the so-called kingdom of Italy
from Berengarius and his son, whose power had
ebbed away in their futile attempts to control
their feudatories.

Roswitha's thrilling narrative is amplified
by the graphic account recorded by St. Odilo,
Abbot of Cluny, Queen Adelheid's friend and
one-time confessor. In this he tells us that
during Adelheid's imprisonment in a castle on
the Lago di Garda, her chaplain Martin succeeds
in making a hole in the wall, through which the
queen and her maidservant, disguised as men,

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

creep. He does not recount the episode of the
hiding in the corn, but relates another equally
stirring adventure. He tells us that, in fleeing
from their persecutor to the safety of Canossa,
the fugitives become involved in a swamp.
After two days, they are rescued from their
perilous position by a fisherman who, passing
near by, and hearing sounds of distress, goes to
their aid. Their deliverer, finding them faint
with hunger and cold, lights a fire with the
flint he carries in his wallet, and cooks some
small fish, the only food he has to offer them.
Once more they start on their way, and eventually
reach Canossa. But hardly do they gain ad-
mittance, ere the castle is surrounded by the
soldiery of the outwitted and wrathful Beren-
garius. A knight, carrying a message from the
Emperor Otho of promised deliverance, essays
to enter the castle, but finding this impossible
owing to the hostile troops encamped around,
he fastens the letter to an arrow, and shoots it
over the wall. A strong force sent by Otho
is near at hand, and speedily puts the enemy to
flight. Adelheid is rescued, and is brought
with rejoicing to Pavia, her dower city, which
had already opened its gates to the Emperor, and
she and the Emperor enter the city together in
triumph. Much has been written of the illus-
trious Adelheid, but perhaps she would best like
to be remembered by the eulogy of hex confessor
— the saintly Odilo — that she never forgot a
kindness, or remembered an injury.

16

ROSWITHA THE NUN

It is in a spirit far different from that of her
panegyric on the emperor Otho that Roswitha
writes her dramas. Fear and mental perplexity
no longer possess her. Though humbly begging
the reader not to " despise these strains drawn
from a fragile reed," she has no misgiving, for
she feels that herein lies her mission. She
explains her reason for using the dramatic form,
and for taking Terence as her model. There
are many, she says, — and she does not entirely
exonerate herself, — who, beguiled by the elegant
diction of the Classics, prefer them to religious
writings, whilst there are others who, though
generally condemning heathen works, eagerly
peruse the poetic creations of Terence because
of the special beauty of his language. She
further expresses the hope that by trying to
imitate his manner, and by at the same time
dramatising legends calculated to edify, she
may induce readers to turn from the " godless
contents of his works " to the contemplation
of virtuous living. Emboldened by this pious
hope, Roswitha shrinks from no difficulties
or details, details which might well have made
her hesitate, and which, betraying a knowledge
of the world, have raised the question as to
whether she made her profession as early as was
customary. This solicitude of Roswitha for the
welfare of frail and all too human mankind
recalls St^Bernard's condemnation, some hundred
and fifty years later, of all carving in church or
cloister, when he says, "one reads with more

17 c

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

pleasure what is carven in stones than what is
written in books, and would rather gaze all day
upon these singular creations than meditate upon
the Divine Word."

It has been maintained that the classic
theatre decayed and disappeared as Christianity
became all - powerful in Europe, and that the
modern theatre seemingly arose in the twelfth
century out of the services of the Church, and
owed no debt to the past. But neither Nature
nor Art works in this way except to our own
unperceiving minds. After the fall of the
Roman Empire, and the consequent disruption
of society, classic civilisation gradually with-
drew into the security of the religious com-
munities, seeking, like distraught humanity,
shelter and protection. It was in such tranquil
atmosphere as this that Latin drama, though con-
demned in substance, was fostered and favoured
as an education in style. Roswitha's plays may,
as has been said, have been the last ray of classical
antiquity, but if so, it was a ray, like the pillar
of fire, bright enough to guide through the
dark night of feudalism to the coming day.

Whether her dramatic efforts were an
isolated phenomenon or not, must remain
undecided, but it is reasonable to assume that
any work surviving to the present day is but a
sample of much else of the same sort that has
disappeared in the course of time. Still all we
would claim for them, apart from their intrinsic
value and interest, is that they helped to keep

18

ROSWITHA THE NUN

up continuity in the tradition of drama. The
gradual movement in the Church towards
elaboration in its services which began in the
ninth century, — a movement which led to the
dramatising of the Mass, out of which the
liturgical drama, and eventually the miracle-
play, were evolved, — was a popular movement.
To a people ignorant of Latin, yet fond of shows,
it provided instruction and diversion alike.
Roswitha, on the other hand, avowedly wrote
for the literary world, and with a special end
in view as regards that world. To attain this
end, she set before her, as her master in style,
Terence, who himself had aimed at a high ideal
of artistic perfection, and of whom it has been
said that he perpetuated the art and genius of
Menander just as a master engraver perpetuates
the designs of a great painter whose works have
since perished. Still, in spite of the glamour
of the style to which she aspires, and poetess
though she is by nature, her plays reflect the
handiwork of the moralist rather than that of
the artist, for though beauty charms her by the
way, her goal is moral truth, and to this all else
must yield. If we would see the beauty of
holiness as she saw it, we must enter in spirit
within the shrine of her thought and feeling,
just as the traveller, standing without the simple
brick exterior of the tomb of Galla Placidia, at
Ravenna, must penetrate within if he would
know of the beauty there enshrined. " II faut
etre saint, pour comprendre la saintete."

19

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

The subject which dominates her horizon is
that of Chastity. Treated by her with didactic
intent, this really resolves itself into a conflict
between Christianity and Paganism, — in other
words, between Chastity and Passion, — in which
Christianity triumphs through the virtue of
Woman. But at the same time Roswitha
neither contemns marriage nor generally ad-
vocates celibacy. She merely counsels, as the
more blessed, the unmarried state. Yet even
so, we feel that beneath her nun's garb there
beats the heart of a sympathetic woman, whose
emotional self-expression is but tempered by the
ideals of her time and her surroundings.

Another important element to be taken into
account in her plays is the part she assigns to
the supernatural. It is impossible to develop
character with any continuity when the super-
natural, like some sword of Damocles, hovers
continually overhead, ready to descend at any
moment and sever cause from effect. Such a
sword was the Divine Presence to Roswitha.
When her plot requires it, she introduces a
miracle, converting a character, at a moment's
notice, and in a way that no evolution could
possibly effect, into one of a totally different
kind. Still to her audience such a denoue-
ment would be quite satisfactory. With her,
sudden changes and conversions but reflect the
ideas which possessed the minds of her con-
temporaries, who realised God more in deviations
from, than in manifestations of, law and order.

20

ROSWITHA THE NUN

Were her plays ever performed ? To this
question no certain answer can be given, since
no record has yet been found of their perform-
ance, and the best critics are at variance on the
subject. But judging from analogy, there seems
to be no reason why they should not have been.
We know that as early as the fifth and sixth
centuries the monks played Terence, probably
on some fete-day, or before their scholars as a
means of instruction, and doubtless Roswitha's
plays were also acted on special occasions, such as
when the Emperor sojourned at Gandersheim,
or the Bishop made a visitation. As they were
written in Latin, the literary language of the
time, this in itself, even if their themes had
appealed to the people, would have prevented
them from being performed save before the
educated few. So if we would picture to
ourselves a performance of one of them by her
companion nuns in the Chapter House, or it
may be in the refectory, it must be before the
Bishop and his clergy, and perhaps also some
members of the Imperial family, and lords and
ladies of the Court. How refreshing must
such an entertainment have been to this dis-
tinguished company as it found itself* carried
away into an atmosphere of poetry and passion,
of movement and colour, in place of the sobriety
induced by the stiff liturgical dramas that
probably formed the usual diversion ! Such a
drama was that of The Wise and Foolish
Virgins^ a specially favourite old-world dramatic

21

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

exercise, dispensed as a sort of religious tonic
to womankind, calculated to arouse slumbering
souls, or to quicken to still further effort those
that did not slumber. For us, its chief interest
lies in the antiphonic arrangement of the
dialogue, in which we may trace the first germs
of characterisation, and in the music, the refrains
of which contain the first suggestions, as far as
we know, of the principle of the leitmotiv, a
principle carried to its most complete develop-
ment by Wagner. Although the earliest known
MS. of it is of the eleventh century, so finished,
yet so simple, are its dialogues and refrains, that
it seems not unreasonable to infer that the form
of the play was well known, either through
some earlier MS. or through oral tradition.
It is only a slight development of the elegy in
dialogue which was performed in A.D. 874, at
the funeral of Hathumoda, the first abbess of
Gandersheim. This dialogue takes place be-
tween the sorrow - stricken nuns, who speak
in chorus of their loss, and the monk Wichbert,
who acts as consoler. Although its form is
liturgical, its subject entitles it to be considered
the earliest known mediaeval dramatic work
extant.

Of Roswitha's dramas, three seem to stand
out as of special interest — Abraham^ Callimachus^
and Paphnutius. All of these are more or less
patchwork adaptations from the legendary debris
of antiquity. The first appears to have been
taken by Roswitha from a Latin translation of a

22

ROSWITHA THE NUN

fourth-century Greek legend.1 Whilst she does
not display any originality in elaborating the
story, but keeps carefully to the text — so much
so that at times she merely transcribes — she
reveals her artistic as well as her psychological
instinct by concentrating the essentials, thereby
transforming a rather discursive composition into
a poignant picture. The subtle touches, the
sentiment, and the dialogue so pathetic and so
true to nature, make this drama verily her
masterpiece, and ^ one worthy of a place beside
the delicate and dramatic miniatures of the time.
In a few words, here is the story. A holy man,
by name Abraham, has abandoned a life of soli-
tude in order to take care of his young orphaned
niece. After a few years, she is tempted to a
house of ill fame. Some two years later, her
uncle, having discovered her whereabouts, deter-
mines to exchange his hermit garb for that of a
man of the world, and go to the house in the
guise of a lover, so as to get an opportunity of
speaking with his niece alone. Of course she
does not recognise him in his change of costume,
and when he asks for a kiss, she puts her arms
round his neck, and suddenly detects a strange
perfume. Instantly a change comes over her.
The scent recalls to her her former unsullied life,
and tears fill her eyes. At the fitting moment
the uncle makes himself known, and showing
her with sweet words of sympathy and encourage-
ment that sin is natural to humanity, and that

1 Migne, Patrol. Lat. Ixxiii.
23

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

what is evil is to continue in it, takes her back
with him to begin afresh the simple good life.

The second play recounts an incident taken
from the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, sup-
posed to take place in the first century. A young
heathen, Callimachus, falls in love with a young
married woman, a Christian. She dies, and is
buried the same day. That night Callimachus
goes to the grave, and with the help of a slave
disinters the body. Holding it in his arms, and
triumphing in the embrace denied to him in life,
he suddenly falls dead. In the morning the
husband and St. John, coming to the cemetery
to pray for her soul, see the rifled grave and the
two dead bodies. St. John, at the command of
Christ, who appears for but a moment, restores
them both to life, and brings to repentance the
young man, who, in further amendment of his
ways, becomes a Christian. This mere outline of
the play is given to suggest points of resemblance
between it — the first sketch of this kind of drama
of passion, the frenzy of the soul and senses — and
the masterpiece of this type, Romeo and Juliet.

Many passages in the plays of Roswitha
remind us of Shakespeare, but it is not possible
to deal adequately with them here, nor does it
seem material to do so. There is no reason why
Shakespeare should not have seen a printed
collection of her dramas. He, like Dante,
seems to have had the power of attracting
aterial from every ppssible source, and it should
not be forgotten what a sensation was caused by

24

ROSWITHA THE NUN

Celtes printing in 1501 Roswitha's MS. But,
on the other hand, the similarities we notice
may be a mere coincidence, or, as is much more
likely, the details in each case may have been
common property handed down from one genera-
tion to another.

In her play of Paphnutius, Roswitha made
use of a story taken from the His form Monachorum
of Rufinus, a contemporary of St. Jerome, who
had journeyed through Palestine and Egypt to
visit the Hermits of the Desert. The mention,
too, at the beginning of Rufmus's account, of a
musician who tells of his retirement to a hermit-
age in order to change the harmony of music
into that of the spirit, evidently suggested to her
a discussion on music and harmony, probably
adapted from Boethius's De Musica. In this
discussion lies the chief interest of the play as
giving us some idea of the sort of intellectual
exercises probably practised by women in con-
vents in the tenth century. The play opens
with a truly mediaeval scene, — a disputation
between a hermit and his disciples on the ques-
tion of harmony between soul and body, suggested
by the want of it in the life of the courtesan
Thais. Such harmony should exist, says the holy
man, for though the soul is not mortal like the
body, nor the body spiritual like the soul, we
shall, if we follow the method of the dialecticians,
find that such differences do not necessarily
render the two inharmonious. Harmony cannot
be produced from like elements or like sounds,

25

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

but only by the right adjustment of those which
are dissimilar. This discussion on harmony
naturally leads to one on music, which is divided,
according to the then received writers on the
subject, into three kinds — celestial, human, and
instrumental. Music, in the Middle Ages, was,
for dialectical purposes, treated in accordance
with the Pythagorean theory as interpreted by
Cicero in his Somnium Scipionis, who represented
the eight revolving spheres of heaven — the
Earth being fixed — as forming a complete
musical octave. Such celestial music forms the
subject of the argument in Roswitha's play, the
music of Earth being merely touched upon.
Why, it is asked, do we not hear this music of
the spheres if it exists ? To this comes the
answer that some think it is because of its con-
tinuity, others because of the density of the
atmosphere, and others again because the volume
of sound cannot penetrate the narrow passage of
the human ear. And so with subtle argument,
the music of Heaven was often drowned in the
din of Earth. Dante, in the Paradiso^ lifted the
idea once more from Earth to Heaven, and
clothed it in a wealth of gorgeous imagery.
But it is Shakespeare who, with the magic of a
few words, has given the thought immortality.

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,

Such harmony is in immortal souls ;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
26

ROSWITHA THE NUN

In judging of Roswitha's dramatic work it
must be remembered that, in true mediaeval
spirit fearing to profane what she venerates, she
allows herself but little licence with the legends
she dramatises. Nevertheless, as has been said,
she from time to time shows, in psychological
touches, a capacity for originality quite pheno-
menal for her time and for the literature of the
cloister. Still her plays express but a very small
part of the whole gamut of human emotions and
experiences, just as her life was lived in an
intellectual world narrow from the point of view
of to-day or of the great intellectual age of
antiquity. Many causes contributed to this.
Intellectually, the Christian world shrank as
Paganism was superseded by Christianity, a
supersession by no means complete in Roswitha's
day. Of course this nascent Christianity was
inconsistent with much of the intellectual life of
the ancient world, which was either inextricably
interwoven with Paganism, or essentially anti-
religious. With its task of laying afresh the
foundations of education, politics, and morality,
it had to take root and become established in a
relatively narrow intellectual field, the boundaries
of which had gradually to be broken down,
sometimes with violence.

Time, like some lens which clears our vision,
makes it an easy task to criticise and condemn a
phase of religious life which, having essayed to
tranquillise and sweeten existence, was, under
altered conditions of civilisation, bound to pass

27

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

away. We of to-day pride ourselves on a wider
view of life, on a higher conception of duty,
expressed in lives dedicated to public work as
a necessary complement to private virtue. Still,
if we would judge fairly this age of contem-
plation and faith within the convent walls, and
all that, even if done mistakenly and imperfectly,
it aspired to do, we must realise, as best we can,
the world without those walls. One of our
poets has vividly reflected it for us when he
speaks of man's life as made up of "whole
centuries of folly, noise, and sin." So bitter was
life then and even later, that by the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, when mysticism had
claimed many votaries, eternal rest, even at the
cost of personal annihilation, was the whispered
desire of many devout souls.

" A Simple Stillness." " An Eternal Silence."
These are the words that float across the cen-
turies to us, like echoes from troubled, longing
hearts. These are the words that give us the
key to the understanding of the choice of
vocation of the mediasval woman. The spiritual
need for harmony and peace may have been
great ; the practical need was perhaps even
greater ; for in its accomplishment the spiritual
found its consummation.

28

A TWELFTH-CENTURY ROMANCE-
WRITER,
MARIE DE FRANCE

" MARIE ai nom, si sui de France." Thus, more
than seven centuries ago, wrote Marie de France.
What an unpretentious autobiography ! Yet
these few simple words, which seem to tell so
little, but in reality suggest so much, are the
counterpart of her work, and form its fitting
crown.

But who was this modest writer, and why does
her work interest us to-day ? Around Marie de
France there must always remain an atmosphere
of doubt and mystery, since she is only men-
tioned by an anonymous thirteenth-century poet,
and by one of her contemporaries — an Anglo-
Norman poet, Denys Pyramus by name — who
speaks of her in the most flattering terms, and
from whom we learn that her lays were much
appreciated by the noblesse, especially the ladies.
That these should take rare delight in them
may well be, seeing how monotonous life must
have been to many a woman shut up with her
maidens and her needlework in a dismal castlj

29

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

or perhaps in but one tower of it, whilst her
lord went forth to the chase or to war, his
home-coming meaning merely the wine-cup
and war-songs, or tedious epic. Many a one
must have read or listened to Marie's love idylls,
and longed, and perhaps even hoped, as in the story
of" Yonec," that a fair and gentle knight, in the
form of some beautiful bird, might fly in at her
window and bring her some diversion from the
outside world. With nothing before us but her
own poems and the scant recognition of Denys
Pyramus, she seems like some old portrait in
which the delicate pigments that once glowed in
the face and made it live have, owing to their
very delicacy, long since faded away, leaving
behind only the stronger and less volatile colours
of the dark background from which we in vain
try to wrest more than one or two fragments of
the secret it holds.

Judging from internal evidence, it would seem
that Marie was born in Normandy, about the
middle of the twelfth century, but settled in
England, where since the Conquest, and indeed
since the time of Edward the Confessor, many
Norman families had made their home. Not only
does she make occasional use of English words,
and translate from English into French the fables
known as ^Esop's, but in the prologue to her
Lays, which she dedicates to " the noble King/'
generally considered to be Henry the Second,
she expresses fear lest her work should not find
favour in a foreign land. In this prologue she

30

MARIE DE FRANCE

also gives her reason for abandoning classical
translation, which, as a Latin scholar, she had
contemplated making, not only for the use of the
less learned, but also, as she tells us, for personal
discipline, since " he who would keep himself
from sin, should study and learn and undertake
difficult tasks. In suchwise he may the more
withdraw him and save himself from much
sorrow." The twelfth century was a time of
extraordinary intellectual activity, and Marie
tells us that she suftered from what we are apt
to regard as a special evil of our own day — the
overcrowding of the literary market. So she
wisely turned aside from the Classics and the
crowd, and set herself to give literary expression
to the old Celtic folk-lore, hitherto perhaps
unrecorded save in song.

Of Marie's work that has come down to
us we have The Fables^ already mentioned,
dedicated to Count William, surnamed Long-
sword, and son of Henry the Second and Fair
Rosamond ; * The Lays, dedicated to the king,
Henry the Second, and doubtless read by Fair
Rosamond in her retreat at Woodstock ; and
The Purgatory of St. Patrick^ translated from the
Latin at the request of an anonymous bene-
factor. Of these only The Lays need here con-
cern us, as it is in them that our interest lies,

1 Marie thus refers to Count William : —

" Pur amur le cumte Willaumc,
Le plus vaillant de cest royaume,
M'entremis de cest livre feire,
E de PAngleiz en Roman treire."

31

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

since they are perhaps among the first stories,
given literary form, which tell of love ce for
love's sake only," — love unqualified and un-
questioning. They form, perhaps, the only
collection of lays now extant, and it is to them,
therefore, that we must turn to get some idea of
the style of narration that gradually replaced the
taste for the epic as Norman influence grew and
spread in England. Beside the sensualism of the
Chansons de Geste^ the sentiment expressed in
them may seem naive ; beside the gallantry of
the Provenfal poetry, it may seem primitive ;
but nevertheless it is, in its very simplicity, the
profoundest note that can be struck in this world
of men and women. Marie makes no pretence
to originality, but even if she did not possess the
supreme gift of creating beauty, she at least
possessed the lesser gift of perceiving it where
it existed and of making it her own, and her
stories glow with colour, and enchant by. their
simple yet dramatic appeal to the imagination.
She declares that The Lays were made " for
remembrance " by " Le ancien Bretun curteis,"
and that " Folks tell them to the harp and the
rote, and the music is sweet to hear." Doubt-
less it was this sweet music which both soothed
and thrilled even before the words were under-
stood, for on sad and festive days alike, the sweet
lays of Brittany were always to be heard.

La reine chante doucement,
La voiz acorde a 1'estrument :
Les mains sont belles, li lais bons,
Douce la voiz et bas li tons.
32

<£r a iiccr t^o it aiuncnr tlt£r
cftwmcne^ctnnc ftr

a rfrus

nnumc0
14 fr ficmr enop0 cdatf cres *
ticrtcut* ce0 f Mt|rt> etttour

tnctt «igr Cutce toua ^pquotil

LADY PLAYING HARP.

Add. MS. 38117, Brit. Mus.

To face page 32.

MARIE DE FRANCE

Whether Marie was connected with the
Court of Henry the Second and his brilliant
and artistic queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, where
learned men and poets congregated, we do not
know, but it seems a very fair conjecture that
she was. Not only does she dedicate her
principal work to the king and his son, Count
William, but her stories are coloured with the
courtly life and ideas of her time, notwith-
standing the simplicity of the fundamental
theme. It is doubtful whether any one un-
acquainted with the teaching of the Courts of
Love, such as they were in the twelfth century,
would have made the compulsory quest of love
the keynote of a story, as, for instance, Marie
does in the " Lay of Guigemar." These Courts of
Love, though not so elaborate, yet seemingly as
imperious, as those of the fourteenth century,
formed one of the semi-serious pastimes of the
Middle Ages, and although it may be that they
were often mere forms of entertainment, no self-
respecting person could afford to disregard their
rules or decisions. The cardinal doctrine was
that love was necessary to a man's moral, social,
and aesthetic training. Hence if it did not arise
of itself, it must be sought for, and, like its
counterpart in the spiritual world, come at, if
needs be, through much tribulation.

Owing to Henry's possessions in France
through inheritance, marriage, and the many
ties of relationship which united the royal
families of both countries, England and France

33 D

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

were never more closely allied than they were at
that time. French was established by them as
the speech of the cultured and the high-born.
The Norman Conquest had made us more
cosmopolitan in both manners and ideas. May
we not look on the victory at Hastings as a
symbol as well as a reality ? Did it not mean
for us a spiritual as well as a material conquest,
since, mingled with the clashing of battle-axes,
was to be heard the chanting of the Chanson de
Roland I Moreover, through a desire to bring
about uniformity of sentiment and service, the
Church, though perhaps unconsciously, aided
this good work of general enlargement of out-
look by appointing outsiders to control our
abbeys and religious foundations. Thus, in the
latter half of the twelfth century, the romantic
movement which characterised late mediaeval
literature stirred in England and France alike,
and Marie was one of its truest and daintiest
exponents. Although what she relates may be
fiction intermingled with myth and magic, she
all the same pictures on her somewhat small
canvases the ideas of her time, and so helps to

/make history.
Marie's readers and hearers were naturally to
\v be found amongst castle-folk. That these were
many we may conclude from the fact that the
number of castles had already come to be
regarded as a menace to the central government,
and a royal command had gone forth for the
demolition of many of them. That her stories

34

l

ADD. MS. 10293, BRIT. Mus.

Photo. Macbeth.

To face page 34.

MARIE DE FRANCE

were read and prized for at least a century and
more is evident from the manuscripts — five in
number, and all of the thirteenth, or the beginning
of the fourteenth, century — which still exist.
Her renown, too, had travelled even beyond the
seas, for in about A.D. 1245 a translation of
her lays into Norse was made by order of the
king, Haakon the Fourth. The fact that their
popularity began to wane after a hundred years
or so is in no wise an adverse criticism of their
intrinsic worth, for in the fourteenth century
English was, in high places, beginning to take
the place of French, and naturally the demand
created a supply. But even if this had not been
so, Marie's work had served its purpose, and of
necessity passed into the crucible of human
thought and expression, to be resolved into
matter suited to other needs and conditions. As
has been well said, " les siecles se succedent, et
chacun porte son fruit, qui n'est pas celui du
siecle precedent : les livres sont les fruits des

moeurs."

Of the five manuscripts still extant, two are
in the British Museum. One of these is the
most complete that has come down to us, seeing
that, in addition to its including the largest
number of lays — twelve in all, — it alone contains
the prologue, in which for a moment the illusive
Marie lifts, as it were, her all-enshrouding veil.
It is a small manuscript, beautifully inscribed,
and even after its seven hundred years of
existence, as fresh as is the love enshrined in

35

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

its parchment pages. How strange a feeling
possesses us as we turn over its leaves, leaves
across which the shadows of readers of bygone
days still seem to flit ! Could these pages speak,
of what would they tell ? Of desires that die
not, of longings that are immortal, of love en-
throned.

When first read, these stories, so simply are
they told, may seem somewhat slight and super-
ficial. But this is the general characteristic of
mediaeval literature, which, for the most part,
recognised things in outline only, and sought,
and perhaps possessed, but little knowledge of
the hidden springs of motive. The writers of
those times troubled as little about moral, as
the early painters did about physical, anatomy.
Still, in spite of this indifference to what has
become almost a craze in our own day, Marie's
lays are so full of charming detail, deftly handled,
that they give much the same sense of delight as
do delicate ivories or dainty embroidery. Some-
times, it is true, she scarcely, despite all this
outward charm, seems to touch the world of
fact. Yet in this ideal atmosphere which she so
essentially made her own, she contrives to con-
vey such a sense of reality, that for the moment
we are wholly possessed by it and carried away,
without questioning, into her fairyland. And a
beautiful fairyland it is, where love triumphs for
the most part, not in heedless ecstasy along
flower-bestrewn ways, but through self-sacrifice
and suffering mutually accepted and mutually

MARIE DE FRANCE

endured. Listen to the words spoken to the
knight Guigemar, wounded by a chance arrow
as he rides through a wood. " Never shalt thou
be healed of thy wound, not even by herb, or
root, or leach, or potion, until thou art healed by
her who, for love of thee, shall suffer such great
pain and sorrow as never woman has suffered
before : and thou shalt bear as much for her."
Equality in love ! Such is the vital note struck
amid the artificial and soul-enfeebling atmo-
sphere of mediaeval love-poetry ! This is the
note which Marie set ringing down the centuries
whilst her manuscripts lay unused on library
shelves. This is Marie's gift to the world, and
this it is that gives her stories immortality.
Not only do they possess this immortality in
themselves, but they have also been immortal-
ised by poets and writers both in days long past
and in those more within our ken. All who
know her stories will recall Chaucer's indebted-
ness to incidents and descriptions in them, and
coming to our own time, we find Sir Walter
Scott taking his ballad of " Lord Thomas and
Fair Annie " from the lay of " The Ash Tree,"
although it is possible, as has been suggested,1
that his ballad may have been founded on some
Scotch folk-song having a common origin with
Marie's lay. When her lays were first published
in Germany in 1820, Goethe wrote thus : " The
mist of years that mysteriously envelops Marie
de France makes her poems more exquisite and

1 Warnke. Die lais der Marie de France, p. Ixiii.
37

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

precious to us." Yes, it is this all-pervading
mystery which, though so tantalising, is yet so
attractive. It is in vain that, in studying them,
we try to penetrate somewhat beyond our
normal atmosphere, for we only find ourselves
lost in vague possibilities and hazy distances.
Brittany has kept her secret concerning such of
these lays as were hers just as jealously as she
has kept her secret of the long avenues of great
lichened stones which make Carnac look like
the burial-place of some giant host. Marie's
lays are stories of deep meaning, which each
reader must interpret for himself.

It is impossible to do more here than just
touch upon Marie's ideal conception of love, for
to realise it fully it is necessary to read the
stories themselves.1 Allusion has been made to
the wounded knight in the " Lay of Guigemar,"
who can only be healed through mutual love
sanctified by mutual suffering. In the lay of
"The Ash Tree" a maiden of noble birth,
abandoned in infancy and brought up in a
convent, is loved by a lord, and returns his love,
and goes with him to his castle. After a time
the knights who owe him fealty complain that
as through his love for his mistress he has
neither wife nor child, he does them wrong, and
protest that if he does not wed some noble lady,
they will no longer serve him or hold him for

1 Marie de France, Seven of her Lays, trans. E. Rickert, 1901;
Warnke, Die lais der Marie de Franc e^ Halle, 1885 ; Hertz, Spiet-
mannsbuch^ 1905.

38

MARIE DE FRANCE

lord. The knight has to yield to their demands
and to consent to accept in marriage the daughter
of a neighbouring noble who had made it known
that he desired him for son-in-law. Neither
lover utters any complaint or reproach, and the
needful sacrifice is about to be made. But
fortune, sometimes kind, intervenes ere it is too
late, and reveals the noble birth of the loved
one. The knight weds her with great joy, and
to complete this happy picture we read that the
other lady returned with her parents to her
own domain, and was there well bestowed in
marriage.

This idea of mutual sympathy and sacrifice
gives meaning also to the lay of " The Two
Lovers," and to that of " Yonec," but perhaps it
is most simply, yet forcibly, summed up in the
lay of " The Honeysuckle," an episode taken
from the Tristan story. Tristan, hearing that
Isolde is to ride through a certain wood on her
way to Tintagel to attend the Pentecostal Court
held by the King, hides in the wood. Here he
cuts a branch of hazel round which honeysuckle
has twined, and carving his name and certain
letters on it, he lays it in the way by which the
Queen must pass, knowing that she will recognise
it as a sign that her lover is near, since they
have met before in suchwise. The import of
the writing is that he has long been waiting to
see her, since without her he cannot live, and
that they two are like the hazel branch with
the encircling honeysuckle, the which, as long

39

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

as they are intertwined, thrive, but as soon as
they are separated, both perish. Says Tristan,
" Sweet Love, so is it with us — nor you without
me, nor I without you."

But besides this conception of love which
Marie had simply found awaiting expression,
when we turn to examine the stories somewhat
in detail, we find legend and poetry, Eastern
magic and Christian symbolism, mingled with
strange ingenuity. Whence came all these
divers threads which Marie has so dexterously
interwoven ? It is very difficult to tell whether
we are wholly in a world of romance, accepted
by her without question, or whether she had
some understanding of the divers matters she
touches upon, and shaped them into a new form
to suit new hearers. The answer to this question
seems to depend on whether Marie recounted
the lays from hearsay, or whether they had been
already written down, and were merely retold
by her, she colouring them with the atmosphere
of her time, which was charged with strange
incongruities of religion and magic. To this
we can give no certain answer, since Marie
herself gives no hint, and only tells us that the
ancient Bretons made the lays. But whatever
may have been her contribution, Christian or
otherwise, to the original matter she worked
upon, we cannot help feeling that we have
before us the remains of some primitive
mythology overlaid and interpenetrated with
Eastern lore, especially that of India, which, in

40

MARIE DE FRANCE

the Middle Ages, was spread broadcast in the
West. This Indian thought, itself borrowed in
a measure from Egypt, had also been tempered
by the Hellenism which, after the conquests of
Alexander the Great in Asia, had filtered through
India, and had on the way become tinged with
its colour and its mystery. It was from the
matter of these Indian stories that so much was
learnt, for whilst, in the West, the national epic
and the chivalrous romance had been alone
considered worthy of record, in the Indian stories
all social conditions were revealed, and poets
thus learnt little by little to observe and portray
the manners and sentiments of the people gener-
ally, changing social conditions also acting in
the same direction. All such influences must be
taken into consideration in studying mediaeval
literature generally, but particularly the occult
element in Oriental thought which presents
such difficulties to the less meditative Western
mind, and has in consequence given rise to
much misconception.

In the "Lay of Guigemar," which we take first
because it is the first in the manuscript, we find
Marie making use of a subject, in gorgeous
setting, of Christian symbolism, but using it
apparently so unconsciously that it is only from
one or two details that we realise what is really
lurking in disguise. Guigemar, the wounded
knight already referred to, to whom naught but
love, and sorrow endured for love, can bring any
alleviation, sets forth for his healing. He comes

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

across a ship into which he enters, and which
by unseen means carries him to the desired
haven. As we read the description of the ship,
our thoughts at once revert to the picture of the
barge in which Cleopatra goes to meet Antony.
Marie tells us that the fittings are of ebony, and
the unfurled sail of silk. Amid the vessel is a
bed on to which the wounded knight sinks in
anguish. This is of cypress and white ivory
inlaid with gold, the quilt of silk and gold
tissue, and the coverlet of sable lined with
Alexandrian purple.1 All this we might regard
as merely a poet's fancy were it not that we go
on to read that there were set two candlesticks
of fine gold with lighted tapers. Here we have
the clue. Doubtless the ship, a favourite theme
of Christian symbolism, and one which delighted
poets and painters and workers in mosaic alike,
represented the Church. It is not to be
necessarily inferred that Marie, when giving
her hero so rare a means of transit, had in her
mind all the elaborate symbolism connected
with it ; but she had probably read or heard
tell of it, and made use of it simply for the
enhancement of her story. It is in such ways
that we find mysteries embedded, the real signi-
ficance of them being lost or misunderstood or
unheeded, just as the Renaissance painters, with-
out any knowledge of Arabic characters, and
solely on account of the ornamental quality of the

1 Compare with this the bed of " King Fisherman " described in
Holy Grail, vol. i. p. 137, trans. Sebastian Evans, 1898.

42

MARIE DE FRANCE

lettering, used texts from the Koran, and distorted
into mere design the sayings of Mahomet.

In the lay of " The Two Lovers " we again
find Christian symbolism in disguise. Here is
the old theme of a difficult task to be accom-
plished by the lover before he can win his lady.1
The undertaking imposed is the carrying of the
loved one to the top of a hill, and our interest
in it is enhanced by the fact that the trial was
to be made near Pitres, a few miles from Rouen,
where there is a green hill, still known as " La
Cote des Deux Amans." In Rouen there lived
a king who had an only daughter, very fair and
beautiful, whose hand was sought in marriage
of many. Loath to part with her, he bethought
him how he could thwart her suitors. To this
end he caused it to be proclaimed far and wide
that he would have for son-in-law only him
who could carry his daughter to the top of the
hill without pausing to rest. Many came, but
each in turn failed, greatly to the content of the
princess, since secretly she loved, and was loved
by, a young knight who frequented her father's
Court. At last, constrained by love, the knight,
though with much misgiving, determines to
undertake the adventure. Before allowing him
to do this, the maiden, in order to ensure his
success, and herself fasting meanwhile, bids him
go to Salerno,2 near Naples, a school of medicine

1 Hertz, op. fit. p. 396.

2 This mention of Salerno is of interest on account of the
reference to women practising there as medical experts. The
origin of the School remains in obscurity, and it is not until the

43

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

famous in the Middle Ages, and ask of her
kinswoman there, who was well practised in
medicine, a draught to give him the needful
strength for his task. Returned with this
potion, he makes the attempt, but so great is his
desire to reach the goal quickly, that he will
not slacken his speed to drink from the phial
carried by his Love, but hastens forward, only
to fall dead as he reaches the summit of the
hill.

ninth century, when the names of certain Salerno physicians appear
in the archives, that we get any definite information with regard
to it. It seems to have been a purely secular institution, but it is
quite possible that its development was aided by the Benedictines,
who became established there in the seventh century, and who
made medical science one of their principal studies. Before the
middle of the eleventh century there were many women there
who either practised medicine or acted as professors of the science,
and some of the latter even combined surgery with medicine in
their teaching and treatises. These women doctors were much
sought after by the sick, and were much esteemed by their brother-
professionals, who cited them as authorities. That the sexes were
on an equal footing we infer from the fact that the title of " master"
(Magister) was applied to men and women alike, the term "doctor"
not having come into use, apparently, before the thirteenth
century. Besides the general practitioners and the professors,
there were others who fitted themselves specially for military
service, as well as priests who added medical knowledge to their
holy calling. The teaching followed that of Hippocrates and Galen,
and the Salerno school was world-renowned in the art of drug
preparation. In the thirteenth century, however, Arab medical
writings began to be known in Europe through Latin translations,
and Arab practice in medicine, though based on Greek teaching,
initiated a new departure. As a result of this, the glory of Salerno
waned. Another cause of its decline in fame and popularity was
the founding by the Emperor Frederick the Second of a school of
medicine at Naples, which he richly endowed, and the rise, un-
encumbered by old traditions — for medicine, like scholasticism,
could be hampered by dialectical subtlety — of the school of
Montpelier.

44

MARIE DE FRANCE ^

In this strength -giving potion we may ^
perhaps see the expression of a Christian, and "s
the survival of a pre-Christian belief, where the'J" v
getting of strength and life is only possible^ ^
through a direct act of communion, either^* 'o
material or spiritual, with the god. Such world-r^ fc£
old beliefs, in which the supernatural intervenes^ 3*
to help the natural, are also intimately connected,\v~-'
even if they are not identical, with the magic of
philtres and charms.

We pass from Christian symbolism to magic
in the lay of " Yonec." The delightful ease
with which mediaeval folk turned from magic
to religion, or vice versa, shows how simply they
accepted what they did not understand. At the
same time it proves how intermingled the two
were, and that what some are inclined to separate
now, were once regarded as one and the same
thing, the eccentricities and impositions which
have developed in both being of mere external
growth, and to be treated accordingly. In the
lay of " Yonec " a young wife, passing fair, is
shut up by her jealous old husband in a great
paved chamber in a tower of his castle, to which
no one save an ancient dame and a priest has
admittance. After seven years of this isolation
and uncongenial company, the lady remembers
that she has heard tell that means have been
found to rescue the unhappy, and she wishes
with all her heart that deliverance may come
to her. Suddenly a shadow comes across the
window, and into her chamber there flies a

45

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

falcon, which forthwith changes into a knight.
As soon as the lady has recovered from her
surprise, the knight tells her that he has long
loved her, but could not come until she wished
for him. Here we have an incident, borrowed
direct from Oriental magic, in which a modern
believer in psychical phenomena might find an
element of telepathy. The will, as in all magic,
is the motive power which acts sympathetically
on the object of desire, that object being in a
receptive condition. Quickly we turn from
magic, and the story goes on to tell that the
lady, before accepting the knight as her lover,
makes it a condition that he believes in God,
and the knight offers to prove his belief by
taking the Sacrament. This demand is evidently
in the nature of a protective test. It was very
usual to try some means of discovering whether
a person was in league with the powers of evil
or not ; for if any one unworthy touched holy
things, retribution came at once, either by death
or some dire visitation. But how is the priest
to administer the Sacrament without seeing the
knight ? The latter tells her that he will make
himself like her in appearance ; in other words,
that he will hypnotise the priest, and make him
see what he, the knight, wishes him to. The
ruse succeeds, and for a time all goes well ;
then comes discovery, despair, and death. The
whole story is a most extraordinary medley of
fairy-lore, religion, and magic, and most charac-
teristic of the mediaeval mind.

46

MARIE DE FRANCE

The lay of " Eliduc," the last in the manu-
script, is also the longest and most elaborate.
Marie unfolds her story with so certain yet so
subtle a hand, that the reading of it is like the
unwinding of some finely illuminated parchment-
roll where miniature follows miniature, each
perfect in itself, yet all needful to the whole.
To the charm of its pictures of mediaeval life,
with the fine scene between the two women,
and their final reunion in the same convent,
there is added an incident which gives special
interest and importance to the story, since it
brings us into touch with one of the oldest and
most widespread of traditions — the restoration
to life, from apparent death, by means of a
flower. There are few pursuits more fascinating
than the tracing of traditions, except, it may be,
that of symbols, with which they have so much
in common. We find the same traditions, just
as we find the same symbolic figures, common
to the most widely separated peoples, and the
real interest in the case of each lies in trying to
discover how and why in the course of their
migrations their form and their significance
have been varied or modified. But before
considering the tradition, let us first hear the
story.

Eliduc, a knight of Brittany, whose wife,
Guildeluec, was very dear to him, had for over-
lord one of the kings of Brittany, with whom,
owing to faithful service, he had gained high
favour. Being defamed on this account by

47

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

envious tongues, he was banished from Court,
and thereupon determined to quit his country
for a while and seek service in the West of
England. With many promises to his wife to
be faithful to her, he set out for Totnes, where
he found many kings ruling in the land, all at
war with one another. One of them, a very old
man, was ruler in the province of Exeter, and at
war with a neighbouring king on account of
his refusal to give to the latter his daughter,
Guilliadun, in marriage. So Eliduc determined
to offer his services to the old king, by whom
they were accepted, and by his tact and prowess
he soon proved himself worthy of the trust re-
posed in him. Through a skilful ambush,
planned and conducted by him, he defeated the
enemy. Guilliadun, hearing of his deeds, sought
an interview with him, and at once fell in love
with him, and after certain maidenly reserve and
hesitation, made her love known to him. This
Eliduc secretly returned, but, troubled at the
remembrance of his wife and of his pledge to
her, his courage failed him to confess that he
was already wedded. In order to escape from
his dilemma, he sought and obtained the per-
mission of the old king to avail himself of the
entreaty of his liege-lord to return to his own
country to fight against the enemies who were
desolating the kingdom. This permission was
granted under his promise to come back if his
services were again required. After pledging
himself to Guilliadun to do this on such a day

48

cc vnc t> AmoUxic ftiduoas eti-j-netf
cc pcttheuol Uic vnes Uroes-

BOAT WITH KNIGHTS AND LADY.
Add. MS. 10294, Brit. Mus.

To face page 49.

MARIE DE FRANCE

as she should name, Eliduc, having exchanged
rings with her, and she having named the day for
his return, departed. Having speedily reduced
the enemies of his liege-lord to submission, he
came once more to England, and immediately
sent to Guilliadun to apprise her of this, and to
beg her to be ready to start on the morrow.
Guilliadun secretly left the castle the next night
and joined her lover, and together they hurried to
Totnes, whence they at once set sail. But as
they were nearing land, a violent storm arose.
Finding that prayers were of no avail, one of
the company cried out, " We shall never make
the land, for you have a lawful wife, and you
are taking with you another woman, setting at
naught God, the law, and uprightness. Let us
cast her into the sea, and anon we shall get to
land." On hearing these words Guilliadun fell
as one dead, whereupon Eliduc in anger struck
the esquire on the head and hurled him into
the sea. When the ship was brought to port
Guilliadun showed no sign of life. So Eliduc,
believing her to be dead, lifted her in his arms,
carried her ashore, and, mounting his horse,
sadly bore her to a small chapel in a forest
adjoining his own lands. Here he laid her in
front of the altar, and covered her with his cloak,
and then returned to his home. Filled with sad-
ness, he arose early each morning and went to
the chapel to pray for her soul, marvelling
nevertheless to find that the face of his Love
suffered no change except to become a little

49 E

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

paler. His wife, made anxious by his melan-
choly and silence, and wondering whither he
went, had him watched, and soon discovered
the truth. Taking a varlet with her, she went
to the chapel, and there discovered the beautiful
maiden, looking like a new-blown rose, and at
once guessed the cause of her husband's sadness
and gloom. As she sat watching and weeping
out of sheer pity, a weasel ran from behind the
altar and passed over the body of Guilliadun,
and the varlet struck it with a stick and killed
it. Then its mate came in and walked round it
several times, and rinding that it could not rouse
it, made sign of great sorrow and ran out into
the wood, and returning with a red flower
between its teeth put it into the mouth of its
dead companion, which within an hour came
to life again. Guildeluec, seeing this, seized the
flower and laid it in the mouth of the maiden,
who after a short time sighed and opened her
eyes. Then she fold Guildeluec that she was
a king's daughter, and had been deceived by a
knight called Eliduc, whom she loved, and who
returned her love, but who had hidden from her
that he was already married. Guildeluec there-
upon made known to her who she was, and sent
at once for her husband. When he came, she
begged him to build a nunnery, and to allow
her to retire from the world, as she would fain
give herself to the service of God. When the
nunnery was ready, Guildeluec took the veil,
with some thirty nuns, of whom she became the

50

MARIE DE FRANCE

Superior. Then Eliduc wedded his love, and
after some years of happiness they too resolved
to retire from the world, Guilliadun joining
Guildeluec, who received her as a sister, and
Eliduc going to a monastery which he had
founded near by.1

In this charming romance, given here in
epitome only, the two most interesting points,
after noting the mutual suffering of the lovers
for love's sake, are the episode of the sacrifice
to the sea, and that of the weasel and the life-
giving flower. Both these incidents point to
the great antiquity of the fundamental theme
of the story, which Marie, possibly like many
another before her, merely reclothed in garments
suited to the fancy of the time. In most stories
where the sea has to be appeased by the sacrifice
of some one, it is the guilty person who is thrown
overboard, or if the offender is not known, lots
are cast to determine who shall be the one to
make expiation to the god. In the present
instance Eliduc is clearly the wrong-doer, but
he is the hero, and must be treated as such, and
accordingly the hostile voice is the one to be
silenced in the depths of the sea.

The other incident — the restoration to life by
means of a flower or a herb — frequently occurs

1 M. Gaston Paris (Poesie du Moyen Age^ vol. ii.), in recalling
various legends of "Le Mari aux deux femmes," suggests that the
present story, borrowed by Marie from Celtic tradition, is probably
of Occidental, and not Oriental, origin, since in the polygamous
East the story of two wives would not have furnished a sufficient
motive for a special narration.

51

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

in classical stories and folk-lore.1 Perhaps the
most familiar example, and, owing to the recent
excavations in Crete, the most interesting one,
is that connected with Glaucos, son of Minos,
king of Crete. In the story (Apollod. iii. 3)
Glaucos when a boy fell into a cask of honey
and was smothered. His father, ignorant of his
fate, consulted the oracle to ascertain what had
become of him, and the seer Polyeidos of Argos
was named to discover him. When he had
found him, Minos shut Polyeidos up in the
tomb with the dead body of the boy until
he should restore the latter to life. Whilst
Polyeidos was watching the body, a serpent
suddenly came towards it and touched it.
Polyeidos killed the serpent, and immediately a
second one came, which, seeing the other one
lying dead, disappeared and soon returned with
a certain herb in its mouth. This it laid on the
mouth of the dead serpent, which immediately
came to life again. Polyeidos seized the herb
and placed it on the mouth of the dead boy,
who was thereupon restored to life.

This story is most graphically depicted on a
fifth-century Greek vase in the British Museum,
and, whatever its real interpretation may be, it
has gained in significance since the life of the
distant past of the island has been laid bare, and
large jars, which in all probability were used for
storing wine and honey and other necessaries,
and from their size and contents might well

1 Warnke, op. cit. civ. ; Hertz, op. cit. p. 409.
52

MARIE DE FRANCE

have proved a snare to a venturesome and greedy
boy, have been discovered in situ. After a lapse
of many centuries we find this idea of the life-
giving plant reappearing in mediaeval garb,
daintily fashioned by Marie de France.

Marie, in her story, tells us that the weasel
brings a red flower. This was possibly the
verbena, well known in folk-medicine as vervain,
and much used in the Middle Ages. According
to one writer, the weasel uses vervain as a
preservative against snake-bites, and this idea of
its effect might easily have been extended to
include death. Even so great an authority as
Aristotle mentions that the weasel understood
the potent effects of certain herbs. The inter-
vention of a weasel instead of the usual serpent
opens up the further interesting question as to
whether this weasel incident was not imported
from India, where Greek stories had become
alloyed with Indian lore. Even to-day, in
India, a mongoose, a species of weasel, is some-
times taken on expeditions by any one fearful
of snakes, and kept at night in the tent as a
protection against them.

In addition to the choice of a weasel as
medium, the unusual colour of the flower is also
of interest. Giraldus Cambrensis, writing in
the twelfth century on the subject of weasels,
after remarking that they have more heart than
body (plus cordis habens quam corporis), goes on
to say that they restore their dead by means of a
yellow flower, and in the still earlier record of

53

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

the Lydian hero Tylon, where a serpent is the
intermediary — and serpents are often credited
with a knowledge of life-giving plants, — refer-
ence is made to a golden flower.1 This may
possibly be connected with the idea of the life-
giving power of the god, since the golden flower
is dedicated to Zeus. Professor J. G. Frazer
thinks that a red flower may perhaps have been
chosen to suggest a flow of blood — an infusion
of fresh life into the veins of the dead. It is
also possible that red and yellow may have been
interchangeable terms, just as they are to-day
amongst the Italian peasantry. The choice of
colour may, however, have been derived from
the red anemone, which is said to have sprung
from the blood of Adonis, with whom love and
life are traditionally associated. There are some,
on the other hand, who ascribe to the story a
deep spiritual .meaning. With them it is not
the flower itself which brings about resurrection
from apparent death, but the spiritual truth of
which the flower is but the outward symbol.
It may be that the red blossom represents the
joys of earth which Eliduc's wife voluntarily
renounces, and which, surrendered to her rival,
in time became like a burning thing whose fiery
touch awakens to life the sleeping conscience.
In a story .such as this, which has evidently
travelled far and wide before we find it in
England in the eleventh century, it is possible
that any or all of these surmises may be true.

1 J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attls, Osiris, p. 98.
54

MARIE DE FRANCE

The whole of this incident of the weasel and the
flower, read in the original, is of extraordinary
interest and beauty. What a touching picture
of animal sensibility is the account of the despair
of the weasel on finding its dead mate, and its
tender display of solicitude and sympathy, raising
the lifeless head and trying to reanimate the
small inert body ! Only one who loved animals
and knew their habits well could have told thus
tenderly and graphically a story so simple, yet
so suggestive, of the love of two sentient things,
a love which runs like a thread of gold through
all creation and makes it one.

The twelfth century was an age of humanism
as well as feudalism. As often happens in times
of comparative peace, a growth of interest in
the individual was springing up and finding
expression in lyric poetry and stories. The day
of epics was waning. Those vast and involved
poems, like to huge and complex frescoes, found
little favour at a time when men and women, or
at least women, had more leisure and inclination
to try to get below the surface of things. Heroes
had been glorified till they had almost become
deified, and something more personal, more
individual, was wanted, f By the side of modern
romance, where the most sacred and secret intri-
cacies of human nature are, as it were, displayed
under the microscope, Marie's narrations may
seem somewhat artless. But in putting into
words the dawning desires of her time she
gave form and impetus to feeling and thought

55

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

struggling for expression, and gained for her
work a definite place in the development of
human utterance. Evolution, whether of the
spirit or of matter, is the supreme law of things.
Marie struck a spark from the ideal which poets
and writers down the ages have fanned into a
flame.

A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY MYSTIC

AND BEGUINE,
MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

THE triumphant ecclesiasticism of the thirteenth
century, manifested in the forms of political
power, material wealth, splendid architecture,
and worldly positions sufficiently commanding to
satisfy even the most ambitious, was, perhaps
naturally, accompanied by a gross materialism.
Against this the truly pious-minded revolted,
thereby causing a reaction towards mysticism.
Whilst before the eyes of some there floated, as
the ideal, the material ladder leading to fame
and power, before those of others there arose, as
in a vision, the " Ladder of Perfection," each
rung of which gained brought them nearer
to the object of their quest — Divine Reality.
These latter, whether of great, or lesser, or even
of no renown, and amongst whom women played
a great and very notable part, were scattered far
and wide ; but each one cultivated some little
corner of the mystic garden. One such garden
was the Cistercian convent of Helfta, near
Eisleben, in Saxony, in the thirteenth century a

57

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

centre of mystic tendencies. It was here that,
harassed and ill, Mechthild of Magdeburg took
refuge, and entered as a nun in 1270. But we
are anticipating.

Mechthild, at first a beguine, and afterwards
a nun, but a visionary from the days of her
childhood, was born, most probably of noble
parents, in the diocese of Magdeburg, in 1212.
That she is perhaps better known to the general
reader than are other contemplatives of her day
is probably due to the suggestion that she may
be the Matilda immortalised by Dante in the
"Earthly Paradise" (Purg. xxviii. 22 seq.),
rather than to her own writings. This may be
partly because the personality of that supreme
visionary and poet tended, as does all superlative
genius, to cast a shadow over the lesser lights of
both earlier and later times, and partly because,
although Mechthild's works were early trans-
lated into Latin, she wrote in Low German.
Though this original MS. has not yet been
found, there exists one, translated into High
German in 1345 at Basle (a centre of the
" Friends of God ") by the Dominican, Heinrich
von Nordlingen, by which Mechthild's work
has been made known to us, but the language
even of this proves a very real stumbling-block
to the most strenuous student. Still, by record-
ing her thoughts and visions in the language
of her country and her day, she gained a lay'
audience, a result which would have been hardly
possible if she herself had been a classic. But

58

MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

though no classic — for she says Latin was diffi-
cult to her — she evidently, as her work shows,
[grew up under the influence of courtly life, and
tnew the language of minstrels. She tells us
that her mind was turned to the spiritual life
when she was but twelve years of age, and that
from that time worldly glory and riches became
distasteful to her. Like the visionary and Saint,
Theresa of Avila, of 300 years later, she took
into her confidence her younger brother, Baldwin,
who later, perhaps under her influence, became
a Dominican. What we know of her, we know
from her writings, which exist in the above-
mentioned unique MS. (No. 277) now in the
monastery Library of Einsiedeln, a foundation
south of the Lake of Zurich, and still one of the
most famous of pilgrim resorts. In seeking to
know more of the history of this MS. we get a
most interesting and intimate glimpse of the
methods in religious centres in bygone days,
when MSS. were few. In quite early times —
how early is not known — there dwelt in the
valleys round a!bout Einsiedeln certain devout
women-recluses, who later lived, as a community,
in four houses, and, ultimately, in a convent.
They were called " Forest Sisters/' a name
which may well express the poetry and peace
of their life and surroundings. Whilst they
were still living in the detached houses, the
MS. was, through Heinrich von Rumerschein of
Basle, sent by Margaret of the Golden Ring, a
beguine of that town, to the one called " The

59

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

Front Meadow." Heinrich addresses the gift
" To the Sisters in the Front Meadow." " You
shall know that the book that is sent by her
of the Golden Ring is called The Light of the
Godhead^ and to this you shall give good heed.
It shall also serve in all the houses of the wood,
and shall never leave the wood, and shall remain
a month in each house. Also it shall go from
one to another as required, and you shall take
special care of it. Pray for me who was your
Confessor, though, alas, unworthy."

In 1235, at the age of twenty - three,
Mechthild — not without many a heart-pang, and
prompted to this determination by a troubled
conscience, a determination doubtless brought
about by the preaching of the Dominican friars,
who were stirring all classes by their impassioned
zeal — left her home and went to Magdeburg,
where she entered a settlement of beguines.
These settlements, semi-monastic in character,
were provided to afford some protection, by
living in community, for women who, whilst
devoting themselves to a religious life, did not
wish to separate themselves wholly from the
world. It was at the time of the Crusades,
when the land teemed with desolate women,
that their numbers increased so greatly, and the
first beguinage was founded about the beginning
of the thirteenth century. The beguine took no
vows, could return to the world and marry if
she so desired, and did not renounce her pro-
perty. If she was without means, she neither

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MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

asked nor accepted alms, but supported herself
by manual labour or by teaching the children of
burghers, whilst those who were able to do so
spent their time in taking care of the sick or in
other charitable offices. Each community, with
a " Grand-Mistress " at its head, was complete in
itself, and regulated its own order of living,
though, later, many of them adopted the rule of
the Third Order of St. Francis.

Mechthild tells us that she knew but one
person in Magdeburg, and that even from this
one she kept away for fear lest she might waver
in her determination. In this very human way
she indicated that her spiritual adventure was
no easy matter to her, as, indeed, it could not be
so long as her temperament and ideals were at
variance. But gradually, she says, she got so
much joy from communion with God that she
could dispense with the world. As has been
well said, " La loi des lois c'est que tout morceau
de Tunivers venu de Dieu retourne a Dieu et
veut retourner a lui."

The book of her writings, which, under
divine direction as she opens by saying, she calls
The Flowing Light of the Godhead* is com-
posed of seven parts, of which six appear to have
been written down during the time she was a
beguine at Magdeburg, and were collected and
arranged by a Dominican friar, Heinrich von

1 P. Gall. Morel, Offenbarungen der Schwester Mechthild von
Magdeburg^ oder das fliessende Licht der Gottheit^ Regensburg,
1869.

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OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

Halle, whilst the seventh, consisting of sundry
visions and teachings during the last years of her
life, was put together just before her death at
Helfta in 1282, and, as she pathetically adds,
" by strange eyes and hands." In all of these,
whilst reflecting in them her inmost feelings, she
expresses her entire dependence on spiritual help
and inspiration. " The writing of this book," she
says, " is seen and heard and felt in every limb.
I see it with the eyes of my soul, and hear it with
the ears of my eternal spirit, and feel in every
part of my body the power of the Holy Ghost."
The general tenor of her writings is con-
templative and prophetic. Whilst, as a contem-
plative, she reminds us of Suso, as a reformer,
proclaiming her prophetic warnings, she recalls
to us St. Hildegarde, though the latter was a
more astute and powerful reasoner. It would
seem as if, in general, there are two conflicting
tendencies in minds such as Mechthild's, a tend-
ency to tradition — in her case, of course, church
tradition — and a tendency to definite self-expres-
sion. With Mechthild it was certainly that of
self-expression which predominated, for whilst,
with her, both co-operated to make a beautiful
whole, it was in detail and ornament, so to
speak, rather than in the design itself, that she
showed her special qualities and gifts. Further,
as a mystic, she may be classed with those " for
whom mysticism is above all things an intimate
and personal relation, the satisfaction of a deep
desire," and who therefore fall back " upon

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MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

imagery drawn largely from the language of
earthly passion," as opposed to the mystic whose
" longing is to go out from his normal world in
search of a lost home, a better country," as well
as to the one whose " craving is for inward
purity and perfection." l

In order to enter into the spirit of her
writings, and particularly the prophetic ones,
it is necessary to consider how the character and
style of her work was induced and affected, on
the one hand by her environment and her time,
and on the other by her saintly nature and
poetic temperament, as well as by her intimate
and personal attitude towards things touching
the inner life.

The world, in Mechthild's day, was in a
state of unrest and of looked-for change. Man-
kind was ever haunted by forebodings of the
approaching happening of something momentous.
Whole-hearted faith in the Church was waning,
and although outward conformity still prevailed,
there existed very diverse opinions, tolerated so
long as they did not become too obtrusive.
Prophetic writings, giving expression to the
yearnings of the time — yearnings fomented and
fostered by the prevailing misery caused, in no
small degree, by the wars between Pope and
Emperor — taught that the world was on the
brink of a new era. One of the most influential
of these writings, entitled The Eternal Gospel,

1 For the suggestive elaboration of this threefold classification,
see Evelyn Underbill, Mysticism, chap. vi. p. 151 seq.

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

and said to embody the revelations of Abbot
Joachim of Flora (1130—1202), proclaimed that
the dispensations of God the Father and God
the Son — the first two eras of the Church —
were past or passing, and that these would be
succeeded by a third era — that df the Holy
Ghost — when men's eyes would be opened by
the Spirit, and when there would be a time of
perfection and freedom, without the necessity
of disciplinary institutions. In this fair age it
was the hermits, monks, and nuns who, whilst
not superseding the rulers of the Church, were
to lead it into new paths, for to Joachim the
visible Church could not, where all is moving,
remain unchanged, and his counsel was, to keep
pace with the advancing world. Naturally such
sentiments aroused ecclesiastical alarm, and, later,
were condemned by the fourth Lateran Council
(1215), though Dante, withal a good son of the
Church, made bold to see in Paradise the
" Abbott Joachim, endowed with prophetic
Spirit" (Par. xii. no).1 When Mechthild
wrote her predictions on the last days, Joachim's
teachings, owing to the stir which their un-
orthodoxy had created — not only in the Church
and amongst the preaching friars, but also in the
University of Paris, whence all manner of
polemical discussions freely circulated — were
well known in Germany, and there can be but
little doubt that Mechthild knew of them, prob-

1 Cf. Edmund G. Gardner, Joachim of Flora and the Everlasting
Gospel. Franciscan Essays, Bri. Soc.of Fran. Studies, extra series, vol.i.

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MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

ably from the Dominicans, who found special
favour in her sight, anM that they greatly
influenced her own prophetic warnings to the
Church.

From these objective conditions which, whilst
influencing Mechthild's own thoughts and works,
might and did, however differently, influence
the work of others as well, we turn to the
consideration of her work as the expression of
her own poetic soul, welling up from depths
filled with love for the highest and most divine
things. Before all else we recognise how richly
endowed she was with visionary powers and
poetic feeling. She revels in beautiful fantasies,
as, for instance, when she says, " If I were to
speak one little word of the choirs of heaven, it
would be no more than the honey that a bee can
carry away on its feet from a full-blown flower."
With rapture she touches upon the deepest
questions of the soul's life, and the highest
truths and mysteries of belief, so that in her
flights of contemplation her prose becomes
poetry, impelled, like some torrent, by the rush
of her emotion.

O thou God, out-pouring in thy gift !
O thou God, o'erflowing in thy love !
O thott God, all burning in thy desire !
O thou God, melting in union with thy body !
O thou God, reposing on my breast !
Without Thee, never could I live.

But even so, she does not lose the sense of form
or of the picturesque. Some of her writings are
clothed in language recalling the Song of Songs,

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OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

and are, perhaps, echoes of St. Bernard's sermons
on that wondrous allegory of the Spiritual Bride-
groom and Bride, as when, in a transport, and
attempting to express how God comes to the
Soul, she exclaims —

I come to my Beloved
Like dew upon the flowers.

Others suggest reflections of courtly life and
poetry, and at the same time seem to anticipate
pictures of the Celestial Garden, bright and
blossoming, where Saints tread in measured
unison, symbolic of their spiritual felicity and
harmony. So with her didactic writings, or
with her predictions concerning the decay and
corruption in the Church, in which, like some
prophet of old, she declaims against such evils in
no sparing terms, all alike are fraught with a
special grace. In them all the most intimate
and the most sublime meet in one expression —
the expression of a soul which sees God in all
things, and all things in God.

During the thirty years which Mechthild
spent as a beguine at Magdeburg, she lived an
austere life, and one beset with difficulties,
largely created by the fearless way in which she
warned and denounced those in* high places
in the Church. In such denunciations she was
not alone, or without good example, for — to
name two only of those who stand out pre-
eminently on account of their positions and
personalities — St. Bernard and St. Hildegarde

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MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

had both sternly denounced the evils in the
Church. " The insolence of the Clergy," says
St. Bernard, " troubles the earth, and molests
the Church. The Bishops give what is holy to
the dogs, and pearls to swine." But the poor
beguine, Mechthild, was not in the same powerful
position to stay, or even to modify, the resent-
ment which her attacks occasioned. " For
more than twenty years was I bound with thee
on a hideous gridiron," she writes, likening her
anguish to that of St. Lawrence. Nevertheless
solace came to her troubled spirit, for, having
been warned that it had been said of her writings
that they deserved to be burnt, she tells how she
prayed to God, as had been her wont when in
trouble, and that He told her not to mistrust her
powers, since they were from Him, and that no
one can burn the Truth.

In many passages Mechthild dwells on the
clergy, and her reflections — some very practical,
others, to those not versed in symbolism, very
quaint — seem to suggest how grievously lacking
she considered them to be. Writing in God's
name to a canon, she begins by saying that we
should, in common with all men, give thanks to
our Heavenly Father for the Divine gift which
day by day, and without ceasing, pours forth
from the Holy Trinity into sinful hearts, and
then she quaintly adds, " For that it soars so
high, the Eagle owes no thanks to the Owl."
Furthermore, she calls upon the priest to pray
more, to pay his debts in full, and to live

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OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

simply, and thus, with humble heart, to set a
good example, and, with many other admoni-
tions, she also counsels him to have two rods
by his bedside, so that he may chastise himself
when he awakes. Mechthild adds that she
asked of God how such an one could keep
himself without sin in this earthly state, and
that God made answer : " He shall keep himself
always in fear, like a mouse that sits in a trap
and awaits its death. When he eats, he shall be
frugal and meek, and when he sleeps, he shall
be chaste, and alone with Me."

Touching upon some of the duties of a prior
— and here she shows herself eminently practical
— she writes : " Thou shalt go every day to the
infirmary, and soothe the sick with the solace
of God's word, and comfort them bounteously
with earthly things, for God is rich beyond all
richness. Thou shalt keep the sick cleanly, and
be merry with them in a godly manner. Thou
shalt also go into the kitchen, and see that the
needs of the brethren are well cared for, and that
thy parsimony, and the cook's laziness, rob not our
Lord of the sweet song of the choir, for never
did starving priest sing well. Moreover, a hungry
man can do no deep study, and thus must God,
* through such default, lose the best prayers."
From advice to the priesthood, Mechthild turns
to warning, and pours forth her reproaches
and forebodings with poetic intensity. " Alas,
O thou Crown of Holy Christendom, how
greatly hast thou lost lustre ! Thy jewels are

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MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

fallen out, since thou dost outrage and bring
dishonour on the holy Christian vows. Thy
gold has become tarnished in the morass of
unchastity, for thou art become degenerate, and
art lacking in true love. Thy abstinence is
consumed by the ravenous fire of gluttony, thy
humility is drowned in the slough of the flesh,
thy word no longer avails against the lies of the
world, the flowers of all the virtues have fallen
from thee. Alas, O thou Crown of the holy
Priesthood, how diminished thou art, and verily
thou now possessest naught but priestly power,
with the which thou fightest against God and
His elect. For this will God humble thee, ere
thou learnest wisdom. For thus saith the Lord :
' My shepherds of Jerusalem have become mur-
derers and wolves, for that they slay before My
very eyes the white lambs, and the sheep are all
sickly for that they may not eat .of the whole-
some pasture that grows on the high mountains,
the which is godly love and holy doctrine.' He
who knows not the way that leads to Hell, let
him give heed to the unholy clergy, who, with
wives and children and many heinous sins, go
straightway thither/'

Whilst condemning the priesthood, Mecht-
hild eulogises nunnery life in an allegory entitled
" The Ghostly Cloister," in which she pictures
the virtues as dwelling. " Charity " is the abbess,
who with zeal takes care of the congregation in
both body and soul ; " Godly Humility " is the
chaplain ; " The Holy Peace of God " is the

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OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

prioress ; and " Loving Kindness " is the sub-
prioress. " Hope " is the chantress, filled with
holy, humble devotion, that the heart's feebleness
may sound beautiful in song before God, so that
God may love the notes that sing in the heart ;
" Wisdom " is the schoolmistress, who with all
good -will teaches the ignorant, so that the
convent is held holy and honoured ; " Bounty >!
is the cellaress ; " Mercy " the stewardess ; and
" Pity " the sick-nurse. The provost, or priest,
is " Godly Obedience," to whom all these
virtues are subject. " Thus does the convent
abide in God, and happy are they who dwell
therein."

From this spiritual abode of the virtues we
turn to one of Mechthild's earliest recorded
visions — that of Hell, with its flame and flare.
Whilst Death was perhaps man's first mystery,
the Hereafter has been his endless pre-occupa-
tion. Whatever his country or his time, he has
ever sought to lift the veil which hides the
future, portraying his vain efforts in symbol.
In Mechthild's time her world was engrossed
with thoughts and speculations concerning the
Hereafter, for Death, which at the end of
the next century was to take dramatic and
pictorial form in the weird and all-embracing
" Dance of Death," although its earliest known
poetic form is of 1160, ever hovered near in
pestilence, war, and tumult. Whilst some ex-
pressed themselves in carved stone, or on painted
wall, others, as did Mechthild, realised their

70

MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

visions and ideas in a wealth of word-pictures.
Such visions and ideas had accumulated adown
the ages, varying but slightly one from another,
and Mechthild, in making use of this stereotyped
material, only took from, or added to, the general
sum. Yet even so, she contrives to make her
personality felt. She begins : " I have seen a
place whose name is Eternal Hatred." Lucifer,
farthest removed from the source of Light, forms
the foundation-stone, and around him are arranged
the deadly sins. Above him are the Christians,
then the Jews, and, farthest removed from Hell's
dire depths, the Heathen. Horror upon horror
follows, like those pictured a hundred years
before by Herrad von Landsperg, abbess at
Hohenburg, in Alsace, and, fifty years later, by
Dante, and when she concludes by saying that,
after seeing the terrors of Hell, all her five senses
were paralysed for three days, as if struck by
lightning, it is significant that Dante tells that,
overwhelmed with sorrow for the lovers, doomed
for ever to be borne upon the winds, he " fainted
with pity . . . and fell, as a dead body falls."

It is with a sense of relief that we leave such
sad scenes, to glance at her vision of Paradise,
although it does not follow in this sequence in
her recorded revelations, for, as seems fitting, it is
one of the very latest. Calling it " a glimpse of
Paradise," she says that "of the length and breadth
of Paradise there is no end." Then she continues
— and this is especially interesting because it is in
this opening that some commentators have seen

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

the connecting link with Dante 1 — that between
this world and it, she came to a spot — the Earthly
Paradise — where she saw trees and fresh grass
and no weeds. Some of the trees bore apples,
but most of them sweetly scented leaves. Swift
streams flowed through it, and warm winds were
wafted from the north. The air was sweeter
than words can tell. Here, she adds, there were
no animals or birds, for God has reserved it for
mankind alone, so that he may dwell there un-
disturbed. This seems to strike a strange note
coming from the poetess Mechthild. How
different is her sentiment from that of her
brother-mystic, St. Francis, to whom the birds
were his " little sisters," and who " loved above
all other birds a certain little bird which is called
the lark." But though, with apparent satisfaction,
Mechthild saw no birds, she did see Enoch and
Elias, and greeted the former by questioning him
as to how he came there. Holy Writ has sup-
plied the only answer, " He walked with God,
and he was not,, for God took him." Having
spoken thus of the Earthly Paradise, Mechthild
goes on to tell of the Heavenly, where she sees,
" floating in rapture, as the air floats in the
sunshine," the souls which, though not deserving
of Purgatory, are not yet come into God's
kingdom, and to whom rewards and crowns
come not until they enter that kingdom. She

1 The tendency of present-day Italian scholarship seems in
favour of identifying Mechthild of Hackeborn, rather than
Mechthild of Magdeburg, with Dante's Matelda.

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MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

then concludes by saying that " all the kingdoms
of this world shall perish, and the earthly and
the heavenly Paradise shall pass away, and all
shall dwell together in God " —the Empyrean
of Dante, where he " saw ingathered, bound by
love in one volume, the scattered leaves of all
the universe ; substance and accidents and their
relations, as though together fused, after such
fashion that what I tell of is one simple flame."
In her very varied writings many beautiful and
suggestive thoughts are to be found, as, for instance,
when " Understanding " converses with " Con-
science," and accuses Conscience of being at the
same time both proud and humble, and Conscience
explains that she is proud because she is in touch
with God, and humble because she has done so
few good works. And again, when " Understand-
ing " and " the Soul " hold converse. Under-
standing, desirous of knowing everything, asks
the Soul why such brilliant light radiates from
her, and the Soul replies by inquiring why
Understanding asks this, seeing that she is so
much wiser than the Soul. When Under-
standing would still penetrate the unspeakable
secrecy between God and the Soul,, the Soul
refuses to answer, since, as she explains, to her
alone is given union with God, to which Under-
standing can never attain. Or, again, when
Mechthild, telling how the Soul, no longer led
by the Senses, but leading them to the desired
goal, says, " It is a wondrous journey along
which the true soul progresses, and leads with it

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OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

the senses, as a man with sight leads one who
is blind. On this journey the soul is free and
without sorrow, since it desires naught but to
serve its Lord, who orders all things for the
best."

Of Prayer, which to her was " naught else
but yearning of soul," she says, " It makes a
sour heart sweet, a sad heart merry, a poor
heart rich, a dull heart wise, a timid heart bold,
a weak heart strong, a blind heart seeing, a cold
heart burning. It draws the great God down
into the small heart, it drives the hungry soul
out to the full God, it brings together the two
lovers, God and the soul, into a blissful place,
where they speak much of love."

Again, in a spirit of self- examination, she
writes : " What most of all hinders the
spiritually-minded from full perfection is, that
they pay so little heed to small sins. I tell
you, of a truth, that when I abstain from a
laugh that would hurt no one, or hide some
soreness of heart, or feel a little impatience at
my own pain, my soul becomes so dark, and my
mind so dull, and my heart so cold, that I am
constrained to pray heartily and long, and humbly
to make confession of all my faults. Then grace
comes again to wretched me, and I creep back
like a beaten dog into the kitchen."

But all these and kindred thoughts pale
before her discourses on love. Love was the
keynote of her life. She was born a poetess ;
she became a saint. How sorely she strove

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MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

towards this end, and spent herself in conflict
between self-control and ecstasy, no words can
tell. It was only when Purgation's way was
partly trod, and she had " found in Pain the
grave but kindly teacher of immortal secrets,"
that she could say, " Lord, I bring Thee my
treasure, which is greater than the mountains,
wider than the world, deeper than the sea,
higher than the clouds, more beautiful than
the sun, more manifold than the stars, and
which outweighs all the earth." Then asks
the voice of God : " How is this thy treasure
called, oh Image of my Divinity? "

" Lord, it is called my heart's desire. I
have withdrawn it from the world, kept it to
myself, and denied it to all creatures. Now no
longer would I carry it. Lord, where shall I
lay it ? "

" Nowhere shalt thou lay thy heart's desire
save in My own Divine heart. There only
wilt thou find comfort."

Love and knowledge, the two aspirations of
the soul after ultimate truth, are her frequent
theme. Sometimes she contrasts Love with the
knowledge of the understanding : " Those who
would know much, and love little, will ever
remain at but the beginning of a godly life.
So we must have a constant care how we may
please God therein. Simple love, with but
little knowledge, can do great things " ; some-
times with the knowledge of the heart — " To
the wise soul, love without knowledge seems

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OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

darkness, knowledge without fruition, the very
pain of Hell. Fruition can be reached only
through Death." In one of her visions she,
in an exquisite simile, describes how love flows
from the Godhead to mankind, penetrating both
body and soul. " It goes without effort," she
says, " as does a bird in the air when it does not
move its wings." In the same vision she sees
the Holy Mother, with uncovered breasts,
standing on God's left hand, and Christ on the
right, showing his still -open wounds, both
pleading for sinful humanity, and she adds that
as long as sin endures on earth, so long will
Christ's wounds remain open and bleeding,
though painless, but that after the Day of
Judgment they will heal, and it will be as though
there was a rose-leaf instead of the wounds.1
Of Love, as she conceived it in relation to

1 The first of these subjects — the Holy Mother and Christ
pleading for sinners — is to be found in a miniature in King Henry
VI. 's Psalter (Brit. Mus. Cotton MS. Domitian. A. xvii. circ.
1430, fol. 205), and the two intercessions separately form two of the
subjects in the Speculum Humanae Salvationis (fourteenth century).
Though the S.H.S. is of later date than the time of Mechthild
the literary source of the subject appears to be a passage in the
De laudibus B.M.V. of Arnaud of Chartres, abbot of Bonneval
1138-1156 (J. Lutz and P. Perdrizet, Spec. Hum. Sal. vol. i.,
Mulhouse, 1907), which might quite well have been known to
her, especially if, as Messrs. Lutz and Perdrizet consider, the S.H.S.
was written by a Dominican, who would naturally make use of
Dominican teaching and tradition, and we know that Mechthild,
even if not, as has been suggested, a tertiary of that Order, was
in constant and close touch with it. The second subject, the
reference to rose-leaves and Christ's wounds, seems to be a purely
original thought, and one amongst the many fascinating ideas that
have centred round the rose ever since Aphrodite anointed the
dead body of Hector with rose-scented oil (Iliad, xxiii. 186).

MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

herself individually, she can never write enough.
" I also may not suffer that any single comfort
move me, save my love alone. I love my
earthly friends in a heavenly fellowship, and I
love my enemies with a holy longing for their
salvation. God has enough of all good things,
save of union with the soul."

But where Mechthild seems to strike an
original note for her time is in her insistence
on God's craving for the soul, as well as the
soul's craving for God. We find the same
insistence in Meister Eckhart, who followed
her closely in time, and perhaps, in this respect,
in thought also. " God needs man," says
Eckhart, quite simply. And again, " God can
do as little without us as we without Him."
With Mechthild it is from ecstasy to ecstasy
that " heart speaks to heart." Says the soul of
Mechthild : "Lord, Thou art ever sick of love for
me, and that hast Thou Thyself well proved. Thou
hast written me in the Book of the Godhead.
Thou hast fashioned me after Thine own image.
Thou hast bound me hand and foot to Thy side.
O grant it to me, Beloved, to anoint Thee."

" Where wilt thou get thine ointment, dear
one ? "

" Lord, I will tear my happy heart in twain,
and lay Thee therein."

" It is the most precious ointment thou
couldest give Me, that I should evermore hover
in thy soul."

Further God says : " I longed for thee ere

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the world was. I long for thee, and thou
longest for me. When two burning desires
come together, then is love perfected/'

Sometimes the loving soul traverses a dark
way, and cries out in desolation and despair :
" Lord, since Thou hast taken from me all that
I had of Thee, yet of Thy grace leave me that
gift which every dog has by nature — that in
my distress I may be true to Thee, without any
ill-will. This do I truly desire more than all
Thy heavenly kingdom."

And Divine Love makes answer : " Sweet
Dove, now list to me. Thy secret seeking must
needs find me, thy heart's distress must needs
compel me, thy loving pursuit has so wearied
me, that I long to cool myself in thy pure soul
in the which I am imprisoned. The throbbing
sighs of thy sore heart have driven my justice
from thee. All is right between me and thee.
I cannot be sundered from thee. However far
we are parted, never can we be separated. I
cause thee extreme pain of body. If I gave
myself to thee as oft as thou wouldst, I should
thus deprive myself of the sweet shelter I have
in thee in this world."

Again the soul cries out — but now discomfited
by the Divine Love from whose tireless quest
there is no escape — "Thou hast pursued and
captured and bound me, and hast wounded me
so deeply that never shall I be healed. Thou
hast given me many a hard blow. Tell me,
shall I ever get whole from Thee ? Shall I

78

MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

not be slain by Thee ? Thus would it have
been better for me if that I had never known
Thee."

Then answers Love : " That I pursued thee
gave me delight. That I made thee captive
was my desire. That I bound thee was my
joy. When I wounded thee, then did I become
one with thee. Thus I give thee hard blows
so that I may be possessed of thee. I drove
Almighty God from His heavenly kingdom, and
took from Him His mortal life, and have restored
Him with honour to His Father. How canst
thou, poor worm, save thyself from me ? "

Of all Mechthild's visions, there is none
that seems to reach a greater height of supreme
beauty than that in which the loving soul learns
the way to its Divine Lover. It is strangely
reminiscent of courtly life and courtly poetry,
translated into the ecstatic state, and etherealised
into the very perfume of spirituality as the soul
becomes one with God. Having passed the
distress of repentance, the pain of confession,
and the labour of penance, and having overcome
the love of the World, the tempting of the
Devil, and its own self-will, the soul, weary,
and longing for her Divine Lover and God,
cries out : " Beautiful Youth, I long for thee.
Where shall I find thee ? "

Then says the youth : " I hear a voice which
speaks somewhat of love. Many days have I
wooed her, but never have I heard her voice.
Now I am moved. I must go to meet her.

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OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

She it is who bears grief and love together.
In the morning in the dew is the most intimate
rapture which first penetrates the soul."

Then speak her Chamberlains, which are the
five senses : " Lady, thou must adorn thyself.
We have heard a whisper that the Prince comes
to meet thee in the dew, and the sweet song of
the birds. Tarry not, Lady."

So she puts on a shift of gentle humility, so
humble that nothing could be more so, and over
it a white robe of pure chastity, so pure that
she cannot endure thoughts, words, or desires
which might stain it. Then she wraps herself
in a cloak of holy desire, which she has wrought
in gold with all the virtues. So she goes into
the wood, which is the company of holy people.
The sweetest nightingales sing there, day and
night, of the right union with God. She tries
to join in the festal dance, that is, to imitate
the example of the elect. Then comes the
youth and says to her : " Thou shalt dance
merrily even as my Elect." And she answers :
" I cannot dance, Lord, if Thou dost not lead
me. If Thou wilt that I leap joyfully, Thou
must first Thyself sing. Then will I leap for
love, from love to knowledge, from knowledge
to fruition, from fruition to beyond all human
senses. There will I remain, and circle ever-
more."1

1 It may be recalled that Dante (Par. xxiv.) sees the Saints in
Paradise as circling lights from whence issues divine song, and
again (Par. xxv.) " wheeling round in such guise as their burning
love befitted."

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MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG

Then speaks the youth : " Thy dance of
praise is well done. Thou shalt have thy will,
for thou art heartily wearied. Come at mid-day
to the shady fountain, to the bed of love. There
shalt thou be refreshed."

Then, weary of the dance, the soul says to
her Chamberlains, the senses : " Withdraw from
me, I must go where I may cool myself."

Then s,ay the senses : " Lady, wilt thou be
refreshed with the loving tears of St. Mary
Magdalene ? They may well suffice thee."

" Be silent, sirs ; you know not what I mean.
Hinder me not. I would drink for a space of
the unmingled wine."

" Lady, in the Virgin's chastity the great
love is reached."

"That may be. For me it is not the
highest."

" Lady, thou mightst cool thyself in the
martyrs' blood."

" I have been martyred many a day, so that
I have no need to come to that now."

" Lady, bright are the angels, and lovely
in love's hue. Wouldst thou cool thyself, be
lifted up with them."

"The bliss of the angels brings me love's
woe unless I see their Lord, my Bridegroom."

" Lady, if thou comest there, thou wilt be
blinded quite, so fiery hot is the Godhead, as
thou thyself well knowest, for the fire and the
glow which make heaven and all the holy
ones burn and shine, all flow from His divine

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OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

breath, and from His human mouth, through
the wisdom of the Holy Ghost. How couldest
thou endure it for an hour ? "

And the soul answers : " The fish cannot
drown in the water, the bird cannot sink in the
air, gold cannot perish in the fire, where it
gains its clear and shining worth. God has
granted to each creature to cherish its own
nature. How can I withstand my nature ?
I must go from all things to God, who is my
Father by Nature, my Brother through His
Humanity, my Bridegroom through Love, and
I am His for ever."

Silenced by this wondrous flight of holy
passion, we bid farewell to Mechthild. She
lived for her time, and she lives for us, as one
of " humanity's pioneers on the only road to
rest." " Out of the depths," she cried to Heaven.
We leave her in the music of the spheres.

82

A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY

ART-PATRON AND PHILANTHROPIST,

MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

IT has been well said that " out of things
unlikely and remote may be won romance and
beauty.'' Perhaps the truth of this reflection
has never been more signally exemplified than
in the case of Mahaut, Countess of Artois and
Burgundy, the record of whose life, in the
absence of any contemporary biographer, has
been ably deciphered from such commonplace
material as the household accounts of her
stewards.1 This great lady, one of the greatest
patrons of art of her time, lived at the end of the
thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth
century. She was a great-niece of St. Louis.
No poet has sung of her. It is merely through
the prose of daily expenditure that she is made
known to us. She stands before us, not the
ideal creation of the mediaeval romancer, but a
real woman, with her virtues and failings, her

1 Richard (Jules Marie), Une Petite Niece de S. Louis : Mahaut,
Comtesse d* Artois.

Dehaisnes (M. le Chanoine), V Histoire de Fart dam la Flandre,
r Artois, et le Hainaut avant le XVme siecle.

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OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

joys and sorrows, real by very reason of this
union of contrasts, a woman trying to grapple
with difficulties forced upon her by her position,
and by an age when intrigue and cunning were
as freely resorted to, and as deftly handled, as
the sword and the lance.

Mahaut was the daughter of Robert the
Second, Count of Artois, a valiant and chivalrous
man, and of Amicie de Courtenay, of whom it
was said that she was esteemed whilst she lived,
and mourned of all when she died. Her brother,
Philip, predeceased his father, leaving one son,
Robert. In accordance with local custom,
Mahaut, on the death of her father, inherited
Artois, but her nephew, Robert, on attaining
his majority at the age of fourteen, set up a
counter-claim. This family feud was a constant
source of trouble and vexation to her, since
Robert again and again returned to the attack,
not only appealing to the king to consider his
cause, and fabricating spurious documents as a
means of gaining his end, but also employing
unscrupulous agents to spread false charges
against her. He further took advantage of the
growing discontent amongst the nobles, who
were gradually realising that their power was
waning, to attach them to his cause, and to
induce them to join him in harassing Mahaut
by making raids upon her lands and her
castles. She, however, through her extra-
ordinary personality, was able to triumph over
all this opposition, which, far from marring,

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MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

only seemed to add lustre to the work she had
set herself to do.

Mahaut was religious, artistic, and literary.
All these characteristics, together with the
circumstance of wealth, she inherited, and right
well did she make use of her inheritance.

Being religious, and living in an age when the
frenzy for crusading had subsided and when archi-
tecture was the ruling passion, she expended her
zeal in building religious houses and hospitals.

Being artistic, she made her favourite castle
at Hesdin, and the town around its walls, a
centre of art life. Here, seemingly, she favoured
all the arts, including to a certain extent music,
then still in its infancy, for although she
apparently had no regular minstrel or minstrels
in her employ as was customary in the houses
of the noblesse, she seems to have engaged them
for Church festivals and sundry fetes, and we
know that on one occasion she hired a minstrel
to soothe her sick child with the sweet soft
music of the harp, thus suggesting that she
herself had felt the power of music to minister
to both body and soul.

Being literary, Mahaut collected what MSS.
and books she could, and the list of them serves
to show what might be found in a library of the
early fourteenth century. Her religious books
included a Bible in French,1 a Psalter, a Gradual,
various Books of Hours for private devotion,

1 The Bible was first translated into French, and reduced in size
so that it could be carried in the hand, between 1200 and 1250.

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OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

Lives of the Saints and of the Fathers, and the
Miracles of Our Lady. Philosophy was repre-
sented by a French translation of Boethius
(probably a copy of a translation made by order
of King Philip le Bel, by Jean de Meun, the
writer of the second portion of The Romance of
the Rose), Law by a verse translation of the laws
of Normandy, History by the Chronicles of the
Kings of France, and Travel by The Romance
of the Great Kan, known to us as The Travels
of Marco Polo. But by far the largest category
consisted of Romances, such as that of Oger le
Danois from the national Epic, and another of
Tancred, a hero of the first Crusade, the Romance
of Troy, Percival le Gallois, Tristan, Renart, and
the Violet, the story which forms the chief
episode in the play of Cymbeline. Of course
there was no great choice, but that Mahaut read
them and loved them we may be certain, since
we know that she took some with her on her
journeyings, and to preserve them from the wear
and tear of travel, had leather wallets made to
protect them. Mahaut was, in truth, the first
wealthy individual of the age to spend her
substance with the express purpose of surround-
ing herself with beauty of every kind. The
foremost thought of a man in a like case would
probably have been to add to his power. Her
thought was of beauty, a quality much more far-
reaching and less transient, and one which, even
like Time itself, triumphs over the changes of
fame and fortune.

36

MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

Though Mahaut did not live the allotted
three score years and ten, she lived long enough
to see seven kings on the throne of France, two
of whom — Philip the Fifth and Charles the
Fourth — were her sons-in-law. She was a mere
child when her great-uncle, King Louis, died in
1270. In 1285, the year in which Philip the
Fourth, surnamed le Bel, ascended the throne,
she wedded Otho, Count Palatine of Burgundy,
a widower of forty-five, a companion in arms of her
father, and a brave and generous man, who died
fighting for his country, but one absolutely in-
capable in administration, and, as a consequence,
always in debt and in the clutches of the usurer.
There are few documents to throw any light on
her life until after Otho's death in 1303. This
may be due partly to the fact that she only came
into her great possessions on her father's death in
1302, and partly to the circumstance that the
careless and luxurious expenditure of her husband
in no small degree dissipated her resources, and
naturally prevented, for the time, any material
encouragement of art. Doubtless also much of
her time was spent in superintending the educa-
tion of her children — two daughters who were
destined to marry kings of France, and a son who
was born a peer of the realm, and inheritor of
one of its richest territories. But adverse fate,
by the disgrace of one of her daughters, and the
death of her son, intervened to darken these
brilliant prospects, and forms a grey background
to her otherwise wonderful and glorious career.

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OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

The more the life of this remarkable woman
is studied, the more apparent it becomes that
what gives it its peculiar charm and worth is
the sense she possessed of the value of all human
endeavour, whether in great things or in simple.
To her the humblest matters of home life, and
the affairs connected with the administration of
her domains, had each their particular signifi-
cance. The ordering of a small grooved tablet
on which her little boy could arrange the letters
of the alphabet claimed her attention equally
with the founding and arranging of a hospital.
In her capacity as ruler we see the same wide
and reasonable outlook on life, for whilst strict
as an administrator, in personal relations she
was charitable and sympathetic. Sometimes a
rebellious baron was deprived of his fief and
banished, or was condemned to expiate his mis-
deed by making a pilgrimage to sundry shrines.
But Mahaut was practical withal, and recognised
human frailty, and as the pilgrimage was for
correction, no pardon was granted unless the
offender brought from each of the sanctuaries
a certificate that his vow had been fulfilled.
On the other hand, if any were sick or in
trouble, she was solicitous for their relief, and
even aided them personally where possible. She
thus put into practice the charge of her saintly
kinsman, King Louis the Ninth, who always
counselled those about him to have compassion
on all mental or physical suffering, since the
heart may be stricken as well as the body.

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MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

As Mahaut had no biographer, and contem-
porary history merely treats her as if she were
one of many pawns on a chessboard, her
stewards' entries furnish the only materials from
which we can weave some outline of her life,
an outline, nevertheless, which enables us to
reason somewhat concerning her inner life, the
pattern, as it were, that is not wrought for the
world.

When, in 1 302, Mahaut took over the reins of
government in Artois, Paris was the great centre
of art and literature as well as of the science of
the day, a condition largely due to the genius
of Philip Augustus, and fostered by succeeding
kings. Thither, from far and near, flocked
scholars, poets, and artists alike. Some of these
took up their abode permanently within its
walls. Others passed to and fro, thus creating
that constant interchange of thought which is
essential to vitality, so that it was said that u the
goddess of Wisdom, after having dwelt in Athens
and Rome, had taken up her abode in Paris."
There, at least twice a year, came Mahaut to
her sumptuous dwelling, the Hotel d'Artois,
situated near the Temple, and extending with
its gardens and its outbuildings to the walls
built by Philip Augustus. Here all who loved
the arts and learning were made welcome, and it
is interesting to think it possible, nay even prob-
able, that during one of her many sojourns there
she may have met and talked with Dante.

Amongst the special treasures to be found

89

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

there, mention is made of four figure-pictures,
one of which is said to have been of Roman
workmanship, and round in form — certainly, as
far as is known, a rarity at that time. We also
find a record of finely wrought embroideries and
tapestries on the walls, and of windows painted
either with armorial bearings and figures, or with
simple foliage like the delicate ivy and haw-
thorn to be seen enriching the pages of Books
of Hours of the fourteenth century. Special
mention is made of a window, evidently over
the altar in the private Chapel, in which was
represented the Crucifixion. In the large hall
were tables on trestles, easily removed before the
dance began or minstrels or jugglers displayed
their skill, dressers to hold the gold and silver
plate and from which to serve the banquet, and
settles with footboards so necessary when the
rushes were only renewed at lengthy intervals.
But if the hall was somewhat sparsely furnished,
its ceiling and walls (the latter on occasions
hung with embroideries carried from castle to
castle as the Countess journeyed) were made
bright with colour, and beautiful with design.
How bright, and how beautiful, we can infer
almost with certainty from examples in the
Castle of Chillon of thirteenth and fourteenth
century decoration lately rescued from under a
coat of whitewash,1 and from the comparison
made by Brunette Latini (1230-1294), in his
Tesoro, of the Italian with the French feudal

1 Chillon, Albert Naef, Geneve, 1908.
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MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

castle, in which he says of the one that it is only
built for war, with ditches, palisades, and high
towers and walls, and of the other that it lies in
the midst of meadows and gardens, with large
painted chambers.

Mahaut's cousin, the cold and impersonal
Philip le Bel, was on the throne. For the
most part war had ceased in the land, but still
there was war in high places, for Philip,
avaricious by nature, and finding himself a
king under altering conditions — the Papacy
fallen into disregard, the Nobility weakened,
and the Nation growing, but without any adequate
provision made to meet the needs of this growth
—left no stone unturned to supply this want
and gratify his greed. On the question of the
subsidies of the clergy and the relation between
things spiritual and temporal, he quarrelled with
the Pope, Boniface the Eighth, and brought
about the removal of the Holy See from
Rome to Avignon. He robbed and ruined the
Templars, and despoiled the Jews and Lombards,
the financiers of the day. With him no trickery
was too base, no cruelty too cold-blooded.
Gold was his God. Dante, who was his con-
temporary, refers (Purg. vii. 109) to "his wicked
and foul life " (la vita sua viziata e lorda]^ and
(Par. xix. 118) to his "debasement of the
coinage " (falseggiando la moneta)^ as well as to
his self-seeking greed. Such, with the added
glamour of art and learning, was the courtly
atmosphere of the Time. The bourgeoisie,

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

encouraged by the king who sought to aggrand-
ise the monarchy at the expense of the nobles,
was growing rich, and politically gaining in
power, and Philip ere long discovered that he
had helped merely to change the centre of
power, and not to crush it.

But Paris does not seem to have attracted
Mahaut as did her castle at Hesdin. Here she
was in the midst of her own domains, surrounded
by her liegemen and retainers, and able to be in
constant touch with her artificers and workers,
whatever their art or industry. By the thirteenth
century the dwelling of the Noble was no longer
a grim castle, suggestive only of a place of
defence, with narrow slits in the walls for the
admission of air and light and for the discharge
of arrows, but was more like a fortified country-
house. The encompassing walls enclosed a wide
area, within which was sheltered a village and
everything necessary to the growth and develop-
ment of a community.

From Hesdin Mahaut journeyed constantly
through her County of Artois, visiting her
castles, the towns or villages around them, and
the various religious houses and hospitals she
had founded, and attending in general to the
well-being of her subjects. For her it was not
enough that she was born to reign. She realised
that, without administration, reigning through
the accident of birth is mere puppet's work, and
leads to naught. Her daily life was the visible
expression of this belief, as she herself was an

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MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

example of the woman who comprehends the
just proportion between personal and public
work. That her subjects responded to her
sympathy, and held her in affectionate regard,
is proved by their kindly and sympathetic con-
cern if she were ill or on a journey, and by the
offerings they made to her on special anniver-
saries and other festive occasions. We read of
gifts not only of herrings, sturgeon, game, wine,
dogs, peacocks, swans, pasties, and whipped cream,
but also of the strangely assorted tribute of a
dead bear and twelve cheeses, as well as of one
which must have contrasted pleasantly with this
sundry and singular good cheer — a parrakeet in
a beautifully painted cage. Mahaut, as we have
said, was a constant traveller, and though travel-
ling was then no easy matter, the roads could
not have been over-much beset with difficulties
seeing that she journeyed in all weathers, either
on horseback or in a horse-litter, or in a chariot
without springs, and with no mean retinue. In
truth, her following was like a glorified Canter-
bury pilgrimage. First came the Countess, ac-
companied by one or more knights, her ladies-
in-waiting, her chaplain and confessor, her
physician, her secretary, her treasurer and
steward, and sundry petty officers of her house-
hold. Then followed the servants, the cook
with his scullions, the shoemaker who could
also do necessary repairs to the harness, the
laundress riding astride as was the manner of
serving - women, and a score of lackeys and

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OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

dependants of all sorts in charge of the carts
containing the necessaries of travel. These
necessaries were generally packed in wooden
coffers, some of which were simple chests,
whilst others opened like a cupboard and were
fitted with drawers. To preserve such coffers
from damp and damage, they were put into osier
cases covered with cow-hide. And with all this
motley company and baggage, there are but few
records of accidents. The accounts tell of a
small occasional expenditure in consequence of
the breakdown of a chariot, or the fall of a valet
from his horse, or the upsetting into a river of a
cart conveying the Countess's wardrobe. But
such misadventures were not taken very seriously
by these folk, seasoned to discomfort. Valet or
chariot was mended, or the floating garments
were recovered, and on went the easy-going
company, singing by the way, and with horns
blowing as they neared some castle or village
where a halt was to be made for the night.
The absence of any mention of the removal of
furniture from castle to castle during these
periodical wanderings, save a small bed for
Mahaut's own use, leads us to infer that greater
luxury then prevailed than in the days of her
great-uncle, Louis the Ninth, when even Royalty
itself thought it no hardship to have beds and
other necessary pieces of furniture carried by
beasts of burden from place to place according
to the movements of the Court. This frugal
ind homely custom on one occasion very nearly

94

MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

ended in a tragedy. The devout Isabelle, Louis's
sister, was praying in the early morning, as was
her wont, within her curtained bed, and either
lost in prayer or overcome with fatigue by the
length of her orisons, did not notice the arrival
of the packers, who rolled up the bed without
drawing the curtains, and the praying Princess
within must have been smothered had not her
lady-in-waiting, Agnes de Harcourt, heard her
stifled cries, and hastened to her rescue. This
quaint episode so amused Louis, that he ever
after recounted it when telling of the piety of
his sister.

Let us now go in imagination to the Castle
of Hesdin, and see something of its treasures and
of the daily life of the Countess Mahaut.

Soon after her accession to Artois, her two
daughters married sons of King Philip le Bel,
and her little son, Robert, then became her
principal care. A little boy of noble family had
been chosen as his companion to share in his
education and to join with him in play. It would
seem that the two were treated on an absolute
equality, even to having their doublets cut from
the same piece of cloth, and their tunics and
cloaks trimmed with the same fur. Beyond
their ordinary lessons, they were early taught
the games of tables and chess, both of which
were considered essential to a knight's education.
They also rode to the chase and attended tourna-
ments, and at the age of fourteen themselves
held the lance as part of their training in the art

95

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

of war. Robert seems to have been of a most
inquiring and intelligent nature, but when he
had scarce passed his seventeenth year, Mahaut,
with scant warning, saw this her only son
stricken in death just as he was about to enter
the ranks of knighthood. In the archives of
Arras, the Capital of Artois, may be found a
discoloured parchment containing the inventory
of the equipment provided for the youthful
Robert in anticipation of his initiation. What
sorrow is enshrined in these faded pages ! It is
not sorrow for death, but the bitterer sorrow for
something that has never lived, or, rather, that
has lived only in the heart, like spring blossom
blighted ere fruiting-time. In the Church of
St. Denis, where modern restoration has but
emphasised the transitoriness and vanity of
human glory, there can still be seen the tomb of
this youth, carved soon after his death by Pepin
de Huy, and once painted, as was all such carved
work. Even to the mere student it is interesting
as being the only existing monument that can
with certainty be attributed to this celebrated
sculptor, and also as being, in Gothic art, one of
the first essays in portraiture in recumbent figures
of the dead, as contrasted with mere effigy. For
the deeper thinker it has even greater signifi-
cance. Of all the good and great works that
Mahaut conceived and initiated — the churches,
castles, hospitals, which she built and enriched
for the glory of God and the safety and solace of
mankind — all have passed away. This simple

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MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

tomb alone remains. But its very simplicity
is eloquent, for around it there seems to hover
that never-dying spirit of love and goodness and
beauty to which, throughout her life, Mahaut
contributed in such large measure, and which
was her real and lasting gift to the world.

Life as mirrored in the Castle records gives
little else than a pleasing picture of Mahaut's
relations with all her dependants, as well as with
those with whom she was connected, whether
by ties of friendship, of politics, or of the
common courtesies of life. Her immediate
household was naturally her first care. Twice a
year, at Easter and All Saints, a distribution was
made of cloth and furs. Some of these, fine and
costly, were for those in personal attendance on
the Countess, whilst others were in the nature
of liveries. Others, again, of still coarser make,
such as Irish serge, with sheep or rabbit skin for
warmth in winter, were given to those of lowly
service or who had specially rough work to
perform. Her ladies-in-waiting, of whom there
were always two or three, appear to have received
for their services no money payment, but, over
and above the cloth and fur already alluded to,
gifts, on special occasions, of girdles and satchels
(very often jewelled), gold chaplets, and gold
and silver braid, jewelled, and used for twining
in the hair. In addition to this, presents of
jewels and silver cups were made to them by the
noble ladies who came to stay with the Countess,
just as she, on her part, presented similar gifts to

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OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

those who accompanied her guests. How well
we can picture to ourselves these maidens (for
such is all they were), decking themselves in
their girdles and jewelled braid, comparing their
gifts, and perhaps even standing on some oaken
bench the better to get a view of their finery,
for the mirrors were small, and the girdles were
long, and could not otherwise be seen in all
their glory. When they married, the Countess
made gifts to them without stint, not only of
the beautiful and the needful for their wardrobes,
but also of household goods, and sometimes,
when she knew their parents or kinsmen to be
too poor to provide the usual dowry, even of a
sum of money. To the retainers also we find
the same kind and helping hand held out. If
any were sick they were taken care of, and, if
needs be, sent to some place where they could
the better be cured, as we read of one who,
suffering from gout, was sent to take healing
waters. To another retainer was given the
necessary money to pay for his son on entering
a monastery, another receiving the wherewithal
to go to his native village to attend his mother's
burial. Old servants, past work, were cared for
in the monasteries or hospitals, or given some
post suitable to their years. To a poor knight
was given money to enable him to buy a good
horse and armour, for poverty of purse was no
disgrace in the thirteenth century. At the
beginning of winter a distribution, organised by
the clergy and stewards of the rural communities

98

MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

in Artois, but superintended by the Countess
herself, was made to the poor of blankets,
garments, and shoes, and so arranged that the
same person did not receive the like gift two
years in succession. In truth, no details seemed
too small, none too onerous, for Mahaut's un-
tiring solicitude. She had heart and brain for
everything. It is these intimate touches which
make the time so living and present to us, and
which seem, as it were, to place this wonderful
woman in a charmed and tranquil circle, in spite
of the trouble and turmoil incidental to her life
and her position.

Amongst Mahaut's many good works was
the keeping in repair of existing religious houses,
hospitals, and lazar-houses, and the building and
maintenance of new ones. Of all the religious
houses which she founded, her special care was
for the Dominican convent of La Thieuloye,
near Arras, the equipment of which, as set out
in the accounts, may well serve as an example of
that of the others. The items for the furnish-
ing and instalment of the house and chapel
include everything needful for the community,
from gold and silver vessels, silver-gilt images of
St. Louis, the Trinity, and St. John, for the
sanctuary, and samite and velvet for chasubles,
down to the bowls and platters for the nuns,
the woollen material for their garments, and all
the simple necessaries of everyday life. In the
chapel of this nunnery was preserved a kneeling
statue of Mahaut, representing her as foundress,

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in the habit of the Order strewn with the arms
of Artois. Jean Aloul, of Tournai, has been
suggested as the sculptor, since it is known
from the accounts that he was working for the
Countess at Arras in 1323. This statue (known
to us through a drawing, now at Brussels, made
in 1602) is of interest to-day because, judging
from the character expressed in the face, it
seems probable that it was a portrait, and not
simply imagery. This conjecture seems all the
more likely when we compare the statue with a
miniature painted more than a hundred years
later by Jean Fouquet in Les Grandes Chroniques
de France (Bib. Nat.), portraying the marriage
of King Charles the Fourth with his second
wife, Marie de Luxembourg. In this picture a
lady, heavily coiffed, and with features suggestive
of those of the statue, but with anguish written
upon them, turns away from the ceremony as if
it were all too painful. If this unwilling guest
represents Mahaut, her woeful look is intelligible
when we recall the sad story connected with
Charles's first wife, Mahaut's daughter Blanche,
married when she was but fifteen, and whose
beauty was so dazzling that Froissart records
that " she was one of the most beautiful women
in the world. " Accused of an intrigue with a
gentleman of the Court, she was imprisoned in
the Chateau-Gaillard, where she remained, with
^shorn head, until, shortly after Charles ascended
the throne, the Pope declared the marriage null.
Then, whilst the, king wedded another, the sad

100

MARRIAGE OF CHARLES LE BEL AND MARIE OF LUXEMBURG.

Grandes Chrons. de France, Bib. Nat.

To face page too.

MAHAUT, COUNTfeSS D'f

Blanche exchanged her castle prison-house for a
convent one, where she died a year after she had
taken the vows. There is no reason for suppos-
ing that Mahaut was at the wedding of Blanche's
successor save in the imagination of the artist ;
but for him the inclusion of such a tragic figure
would add a dramatic touch to the representation
of an otherwise conventional ceremony.

It almost takes us aback to read that in
Mahaut's domain of Artois there were at least
eighty hospitals and thirty lazar-houses, without
counting those attached to the monasteries. But
these numbers will not surprise us so much
when we remember that almost every small
community had its little hospital, used not only
for the sick and as a lying-in hospital, but also
as a shelter for the poor and the pilgrim. In
the towns they were often built and supported
by the Corporations or by rich merchants.
Evidently some were in the nature of hospitals
for incurables, for there were special clauses
in the deeds of gift providing that a certain
specified number of beds were to be kept for
the sick until they were either cured or released
by death. Besides building two hospitals in
the County of Burgundy in fulfilment of the
dying wishes of her husband, Mahaut built and
maintained two in her own County of Artois.
The one at Hesdin was the more important,
and we can get some idea of it from the docu-
ments of the time. The deed relating to it
tells that over the large entrance gate there was

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OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

carved in stone a figure of St. John, the patron
of hospitals and of the needy generally, with a
poor man and woman on either side of him.
The principal ward was 160 feet long and
34 feet wide, with walls 16 feet high ending in
a gabled roof, with two windows in each gable,
and this, coupled with the fact that the sick
were sometimes laid on cushions by the open
windows, goes to show that what we pride
ourselves on as a special discovery in modern
hygiene — the benefit of fresh air — was known
and applied even in what we are wont to con-
sider a very benighted age in such matters.

Whilst touching upon such a subject as this,
it may be a surprise to some to learn that in
large towns baths were provided for those who
could not afford to have them in their own
homes, and that there were also professional
women hair-washers.

But to return to the hospital. On one side
of the ward were ten windows, each four feet
square, and on the opposite side was a large
door leading into the cloister with its garden,
where the convalescents and the old people,
whilst sheltered, could enjoy the sunshine and
see the flowers and the birds. In addition to
this there was a smaller ward for women, a
chapel, a kitchen, and a room for the matron,
as well as accommodation for the resident doctor,
Maitre Robert, and the serving-women. It is
some consolation to think that these poor suffer-
ing folk of centuries ago were even thus well

102

THIRTEENTH-CENTURY TREATISE ON SURGERY, IN FRENCH.
Sloane MS. 1977.

To face page 103.

MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

tended, but when we look at contemporary
representations of the surgery of the day,1 we
tremble at the mere thought of the heroic
methods adopted. Besides the actual necessaries
which she provided for the hospital at Hesdin,
Mahaut constantly sent gifts of fish, game, and
wine. Similar gifts she likewise made to the
hospitals in Artois generally, as well as to those
in Paris, and, on fete-days, to the poorer religious
houses.

From her beneficence to the sick and sorry,
the aged and the poor, we turn to her hospitality
to her relations and friends, and to all those in
spiritual or temporal authority in the towns
or villages of Artois. The Castle of Hesdin,
destroyed in the sixteenth century — only a few
stones remaining to mark the site, — was situated
a few miles from the present modern town of
Hesdin. It must have been not only a scene
of constant festivity and social intercourse, and
a treasure-house withal, but also a veritable hive
of industry, with workers and workshops within
the Castle enclosure as well as in the town
nestling beneath its walls. Here might be
found artists and craftsmen of all sorts and
degrees — sculptors and workers in stone, ivory-
workers, wood-carvers, carpenters, artificers in
silver and precious stones as well as in copper,
forgers of iron, painters of wall-decoration,
stonework, saddle-bows, and even masquerading-

1 Sec Roger of Parma, Treatise on Surgery. French thirteenth
century. Brit. Mus., Sloane MS., 1977.

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OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

masks, illuminators of MSS., workers and
painters of glass, harness-makers, armourers,
tailors, and embroiderers — the whole forming a
rare and remarkable centre of activity for a
woman to have developed and ruled and made
into a living force.

It is a fete-day within the Castle. The
horns have sounded. The feast is ready. To
the great hall repair the knights and the ladies,
the esquires and the damsels, two and two,
according to their rank, dipping their hands,
as they pass in, into silver basins of rose-water.
They are gorgeously apparelled in silken garments
and cloth of gold and silver, upon which are
embroidered their coats of arms, for by the
end of the thirteenth century armorial bearings,
which by then had become attached to families,
were used as a sign of nobility and rank.
Mahaut, as hostess, takes her seat last. Adown
the table are specimens of silver-plate, some the
work of her own craftsmen, others the offerings
of friendship or of courtesy. They are fashioned
variously, and used for sweetmeats of all kinds,
spices, almonds, and dainties made of orange
and pomegranate. A favourite form is that of
a ship, such as may be seen in Les Tres Riches
Heures of Jean, Due de Berri, at Chantilly, in a
representation of a feast given by the Duke.
There are, besides, salt-cellars and sauce-boats,
flagons and drinking-cups, and a bowl between
every two guests, from which they eat, handing

104

t pozrua iofte Uu qiu hartemcna mtftnt
fcautifc part? cftm ^ Ca fuer ^ImiC

BANQUET, WITH MINSTRELS PLAYING, AND ROOM HUNG
WITH EMBROIDERY.

MS. Romance of Alexander, I4th century, Bodleian, Oxford.

To face page 104.

HARL. MS. 4425, BRIT. Mus.

. Macbeth.
To face page 105.

MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

each other dainty morsels. Such, with a knife
and a spoon for each, is their equipment for the
meal, for none, save the carver, has both knife
and fork. In a corner of the hall is a basket
for the broken-meats destined for the poor, a
leathern sack being also provided for foods with
gravy or sauce. Neither at festivals nor in
daily life would a meal have been considered
complete if the poor were not remembered.
Perhaps a messenger arrives during the feast
with the news of a birth or a marriage in
Mahaut's circle of relations or friends, and he
is rewarded with a gift of money, and possibly
receives a silver cup to carry back to the nurse,
or a jewelled chaplet to take to the bride.
Meanwhile the music of trumpets, drums, viols,
and flutes resounds from the minstrels' gallery.
Later, when the feast is ended, and before the
company disperses to walk in the garden if it
is spring or summer, or to look at the beautiful
things in the castle, or to dance or sing or play
chess if it be winter, some one perchance chants
a plaintive ditty to the music of the regal, or
some knight tunes his harp and sings of valiant
deeds, or, may be, of some peerless lady.

But let us look at the rooms of the Castle
and their beautiful contents — the paintings and
embroideries on the walls, the ivories, and the
illuminated Psalters and MSS. And let us go
first into the Countess's own room, which doubt-
less was near the chapel. We can form some
idea of its decoration and contents from the

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OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

accounts, and of its probable arrangement from
contemporary plans, illuminated MSS., and
pictures. Its walls were adorned with a frieze
composed of heads of the kings of France,
moulded in plaster and surmounted by crowns
of gilded or lacquered tin, below which, on a
coloured ground, were fastened fleurs-de-lis,
likewise of tin similarly treated. At the end of
the room was a bed, a large wooden structure
surrounded by a footboard and laced across with
cords on which were laid mattresses, a feather
bed (sometimes, if we may judge from miniatures,
used during the day as a seat on the floor),
many cushions, linen or silk sheets, and a fur-
lined coverlet. From rods on the ceiling hung
curtains which completely enclosed it at night,
but which were drawn back and looped up
during the day, when the bed was used as a
divan. At night a small oil lamp with a float-
ing wick was hung within the curtains, and
near the bed was a benitier. At the side,
separated by a narrow space, there were fixed
seats for the accommodation of those who inter-
viewed the Countess before she rose. There
was a large open fireplace with a bench in front
of it which had a movable back, so that the
occupant could sit either facing the fire or with
his back to it. Close by were wickerwork fire-
screens, capable of being raised or lowered at
will. Against the walls there were carved
chests, enriched with colour, and chairs with
leather seats and wickerwork backs, as well as

1 06

MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

three-legged and folding stools, were placed
about the room. At one side of the room was
a large oak chair of state with a cushioned seat,
and possibly canopied, and close to it a lectern,
with hinged candle-brackets, from which Mahaut
could the more easily read her MSS., which
were often rolled, and difficult to manipulate.
In front of this seat was a table, at which any
messengers or retainers stood when they sought
an interview, or the Countess demanded one.
Here also she transacted with her stewards and
other agents the business connected with her
various castles and her many philanthropic
undertakings. Other rooms were painted in
plain colour, and hung on special occasions with
embroideries and tapestries. Others, again, were
decorated with set designs, square or zigzag, in
imitation of brickwork, such as may be seen in
the Chapel of St. Faith, Westminster Abbey, or
with subjects or colour after which they were
named. Thus we find mention of the " Parra-
keet " room, from the birds painted on the walls,
the " Blue " room, from its colour, the rooms of
" Roses/' of " Vines," and of " Fleurs-de-lis,"
the room of " Shields," from its frieze of
armorial bearings, and that of " Song," from
verses traced on the walls, taken from the
favourite pastoral of " Robin and Marion," and
probably associated with little scenes from the
same idyll. The ceilings, with beams and joists
painted red, were coloured either green or blue,
and strewn with tin stars coated with yellow or

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OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

white varnish to simulate gold or silver. The
lower portions of the walls were often painted
in imitation of short curtains, sometimes of but
one colour, sometimes gorgeously decorated,
but in either case reminiscent of the real
draperies hung on festal days. Immediately
above there might have been, as in other
examples, a border painted with coats of arms,
or with a foliated design interspersed with
mottoes.

During Mahaut's lifetime this decorative
work seems to have been undertaken principally
by one special family or community of artists
from Boulogne, of which a certain "Jacques"
was the leading spirit. In those days artist
and craftsman were one and the same. It was
the quality, and not the particular subject, of
the work that mattered, and thus we find that
the painting of a parrot's cage, or of the shafts
of a litter, was not considered derogatory for
even the most skilled to undertake. From the
accounts it would seem that linseed oil was used
to mix with the colours, cherry gum or white
of egg being added to make them dry more
quickly. Payment for work was made three
times a year — at Candlemas, Ascension-tide, and
All-Saints — or by the day or piece, the last
being the form preferred by the business-like
Mahaut. Besides such payment, presents were
occasionally given for specially fine work, and,
if a man was married, a gift to his wife of a
gown, or of a cloak with fur, was sometimes

108

MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

added. One of this company of Boulogne artists
later on became Court-painter to the Dukes of
Burgundy, and took with him not only his
trained apprentices from the towns and villages
of Artois, and from those bordering on Flanders,
but also, doubtless, certain traditions. It is such
early migrations of artists, when schools were
forming, that have helped to create the difficult
problems which confront the student of all early
schools of art.

Of embroidery there was such profusion
that it is indeed no exaggeration to say that the
needle vied with the sword. There were not
only wall and bed hangings, embroidered with
flowers to brighten winter days, cloaks, gowns,
and tunics patterned with gold thread and
coloured silks, and beaver hats wrought with
gold lace and pearls and sometimes precious
stones, but also girdles, satchels, purses, and
pennons resplendent with heraldic device, and
caparison and harness for the horses. From the
East were brought velvets, silks, and stuffs inter-
woven with gold and silver thread, and used not
only for personal adornment, but also for vest-
ments, Church-hangings, and the coverings of
litters. As regards tapestry as we understand
it — i.e. woven in a high warp loom — there is
apparently no definite mention of its being made
at Arras before 1313, so that the numerous
allusions to tapestry must refer to stuffs woven
in the low warp loom. These stuffs would
seem to have been of two kinds, the one woven

109

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

with some simple pattern, the other with
heraldic designs of animals or other conventional
forms copied from Oriental models. Hence the
term " Saracenic " applied to both the workers
and their handiwork.

In order to realise the Ivories which were
probably to be seen in the Castle of Hesdin, we
must go to the Louvre or the British Museum,
where may be found a few rare examples of the
work of the period, such as caskets carved with
scenes from the life of Christ or the Virgin if
they were to hold some sacred treasure, or with
scenes from some Romance or from daily life if
to contain jewels or other mundane objects. In
addition to such caskets, often painted, Mahaut
had, to hang from her girdle, as was customary
with all ladies in the Middle Ages, a daintily
wrought ivory writing-tablet, and a small mirror
in an ivory case. These mirror -cases were
generally carved with a scene from some love-
story, such as two lovers playing chess, or going
a -hawking, or some detail from the favourite
romance of Tristan and Isolde. Possibly amongst
these treasures was a saddle-bow, with a wondrous
wealth of carving, or chess-men finely modelled,
and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, or a triptych
with scenes from the Passion, represented under
Gothic arches of most superb and delicate work-
manship. But it is perhaps in the Chapel that
we must seek the finest work, for here both
Mahaut and her father, Count Robert, were
lavish with unsparing hand. One Jean le

1 10

MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

Scelleur, of Paris, a carver of combs and toilet
articles as well as of crucifixes and Virgins, is
named as her principal craftsman. Mention is
made of a Cross carved by him in cedar-wood
with an ivory figure of the Christ, and of two
ivory figures of the Virgin, one under a canopy,
and the other with the Holy Child poised upon
the hip, that sublime motive belonging more
especially to the thirteenth century. The chapel
itself was beautified with carved work in stone.
Over the Altar, and in front of it, were painted
panels, enriched with gold, and translucent
enamel over colour. If we could picture to
ourselves the manner of the sculptor's work we
may recall the " Vine-Capital " in Rheims
Cathedral, where the very stone itself seems
to have been metamorphosed into tender foliage
by the unknown artist.

Of wood-carving, the accounts tell of Choir-
stalls, presses for vestments and various vessels
and ornaments, and also of Angels, gilded and
painted and bearing the emblems of the Passion,
for standing round the High Altar. These are
described as being raised on slender columns,
connected by a bar on which were laced fringed
silk curtains, thus forming a recess for the Altar.
We can get some idea of the simple beauty of
this arrangement from a drawing, still preserved
in the sacristy of Arras Cathedral, of the High
Altar in the old Cathedral, and fortunately made
before the latter, with all its contents, was
destroyed in the sixteenth century. It accords

1 1 1

OF SIX MEDI/EVAL WOMEN

in every detail with the inventory record of the
Chapel of Hesdin. We may also compare a
picture (No. 783, "The Exhumation of St.
Hubert ") in the Flemish room in the National
Gallery, where a somewhat similar scheme is
shown.

Of the MSS. and Illuminations only brief
mention can be made. Surviving examples, and
the records of the time, testify to the splendour
and the sum of them. At the beginning of
the thirteenth century, the French miniature
was influenced in no small degree, both in
technique and in colour, by glass painting.
Towards the end of the century this influence
yielded to the prevailing enthusiasm for archi-
tecture and sculpture, and in Bibles and Psalters
alike there appear scenes with figures as in
bas-relief, with architectural backgrounds and
decorative details. The same spirit that evolved
tender foliage out of the hard stone of cathedral
and church evolved also the delicate hawthorn-
leaf enriching the initial letter of the MS. It
mattered little whether the material worked on
was stone or parchment. Each was but a means
for giving expression to a newly discovered
scheme of beauty — the beauty of Nature. In
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries a re-
newed impetus had been given to the arts of
writing and illumination. This was partly
because a demand had arisen for a secular litera-
ture to supersede the tiresome and time-worn
recitations of minstrels, and partly because, in

112

MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

the fourteenth century, Books of Hours, instead
of the Psalter alone as had hitherto been custom-
ary, came into general use in private devotion.
This created a fresh want, and at the same time
supplied a number of new subjects in which
the artist could reveal his skill. Arras was one
of the chief centres of this new movement,
a movement which Mahaut continued and
stimulated. She employed artists to illuminate
both sacred and secular works for her own use
as well as for gifts — gifts counted beyond
compare and beside which even precious stones
were deemed of less worth. To Mahaut this
desire for beauty was a very lode-star. To
glance at a list of the gold- and silver-smiths'
work — the jewelled and enamelled chaplets of
gold, the jewelled girdles, and buckles, and
braids for the hair, and the cups, some of
silver with crystal covers or wrought with
enamel and precious stones, and others of jasper
mounted with silver work — reads like a fantasy
of hidden treasure in some fairy tale. Even her
chess-boards — and she was a devotee of the
game — were of silver or ivory, and one, we read,
was of jasper and chalcedony mounted with
silver and gems, the chess-men being of jasper
and crystal.

For the younger folk about her there was
tennis, and also games of hazard with forfeits
of girdles and coifs to the ladies. In the Castle
garden were certain mechanical contrivances
which, by their sudden and unexpected action,

113 i

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

fits.

were supposed to amuse the unwary guests.
One sprinkled them with water, another with
black or white powder, as they passed by, and
yet another, in the form of a monkey, struck
them with a stick, whilst in a bower might be
seen a mirror wherein all who looked saw only
the distorted semblance of themselves. These
unwelcome pleasantries were a part of the
miscellaneous borrowings from the East. But
for the easily amused folk of the Middle Ages,
time passed merrily enough in the midst of
such pastimes, and only the shadow on the dial
seemed to mark its flight.

But Mahaut, amid the manifold claims on
her time and talent, had seen the shadow
lengthening. From time to time she had been
attacked by illness, to which blood-letting and
other remedies of the day had brought relief.
But on the 25th November 1329, when in
Paris, she was seized with a sudden sickness, so
sudden that sinister rumours were noised abroad.
Human aid was of no avail. Two days later
there was general lamentation. The shadow had
lengthened into the night. Mahaut was dead.
In accordance with her wishes, she was buried
at the foot of her father's grave in the Abbey of
Maubuisson, near Paris, her heart being placed
in the Church of the Franciscans in Paris,
beside the remains of her son, whose tomb there
was afterwards removed to St. Denis. Her
possession of Artois, for which she had laboured
devotedly, became annexed to the Duchy of

114

MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

Burgundy through the marriage of her grand-
daughter with its Duke.

Here, though only a tithe has been told, we
must take leave of this cultivated woman of the
fourteenth century, a type of the time and for
all time. Her aim was the aim of all culture —
the attainment of as complete a life as possible.
To this she aspired, and to this in large measure
she attained. What more can be said of even
those we count the greatest ?

A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY FEMINISTS,
CHRISTINE DE PISAN

CHRISTINE DE PISAN, Italian by birth, French
by adoption, may be regarded not merely as a
forerunner of true feminism, but also as one of
its greatest champions, seeing that in her judg-
ment of the sexes she endeavours to hold the
scales evenly. Possessed of profound common
sense and of a generous -hearted nature, she
is wholly free from that want of fairness in
urging woman's claims which is so fatally pre-
judicial to their just consideration. Although,
strictly speaking, Christine was not original, she
was representative, and interests us for that very
reason. She was perhaps one of the most
complete exponents of the finer strain of thought
of her time. She stands before us, at the dawn
of the fifteenth century, Janus-headed, looking
to the past and to the future, a woman typical
of a time of transition, on the one hand showing,
in her writings, a clinging to old beliefs, and on
the other hand asserting, in her contact with
real life, independence of thought in the dis-
cussion of still unsolved questions.

116

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

Christine was born at Venice in 1363, where
her father, Thomas de Pisan, of Bologna, dis-
tinguished for his knowledge of medicine and
astrology, had settled on his marriage with a
daughter of one of the Councillors of the
Republic. When five years of age, she was
taken by her mother to Paris to join her father,
who had been summoned thither some time
before by the King, Charles the Fifth, to serve
as his astrologer. At the end of the fourteenth
century astrology played a very real and import-
ant part in men's lives. Before wars or journeys
were undertaken, or additions to castle or chapel
made, or even a new garment put on, the stars
were consulted for the propitious day and hour.
So deeply was Charles the Fifth imbued with a
belief in the efficacy of this occult art that
when he wished to confer some special honour,
or to express his gratitude for some service
rendered to him or to the State, he sought to
enhance his bounty by sending an astrologer
as part of his gift. By the time little Christine
arrived in Paris her father had gained the
confidence and esteem of the King, and was
settled at Court with substantial maintenance.
Here she was brought up as a maiden of quality,
surrounded by much magnificence, for Charles
loved beautiful things, and never stayed his hand
to procure them, even when the gratification of
his desires involved hardship to his people. He
possessed many virtues, but economy was not
one of them. The dismal castle of the Louvre,

117

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

which had been the home of the French kings
since the days of Philip Augustus, found no
favour in his sight as a place of residence, and
he quickly set about building the sumptuous
Hotel de St. Paul, in what is now known as the
" Quartier de TArsenal." The Louvre he destined
for official functions, for an arsenal, and for his
library. To form a library was no new thing in
Paris. Some thirty years earlier Richard de
Bury, Bishop of Durham (1333) and sometime
Chancellor of England, speaks of his frequent
ambassadorial visits to " Paris, the Paradise of
the World, with its delightful libraries, where
the days seemed ever few, for the greatness
of our love." And he adds, " unfastening our
purse-strings, we scattered money with joyous
heart, and purchased inestimable books." But
whilst it is true that Charles's predecessors had
collected books, none before had thought of
forming a library for public use, and Charles's
work, as M. Delisle remarks, was really the
first germ of the Bibliotheque Nationale.1
To collect books was one of his greatest delights,
and he spared no trouble or money to make his
library as complete as possible. This taste for
books he may have inherited from his father,
King John, who, learning to read from a beautiful
Book of Hours, early acquired a love of books
from his mother, Jeanne of Burgundy. Charles
also loved to lend or make presents of books,

1 L. Delisle, Recherches sur la Rbraire de Charles V, Paris,
1907.

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and among his many gifts, one — an offering to
Richard the Second — may be seen in the British
Museum (Royal 20, B VI.). The library was
considerably depleted during the reign of Charles
the Sixth, when it was used as a sort of store-
house from which presents were made to prince
and prelate, or to any to whom it was desired
to make a gift, or a recognition of services
rendered. On the death of Charles the Sixth,
in 1425, it was bought by the Duke of Bed-
ford, Regent of France, and doubtless some
of its treasures were transferred by him into
England. Those that were left, and some that
gradually found their way back to France, may
now be seen in the Bibliotheque Nationale and
in other libraries of France, and also in various
libraries in other countries, but out of the 1 200
books collected by Charles the Fifth, rather less
than a hundred are now known to us.

To increase the usefulness of his library,
Charles employed a number of translators, not
only of Greek and Latin authors, but also of the
most important Arabic writings, thus bringing
both the classics and the science of the day
within the reach of the many students privileged
to make use of it. It was in this library that
Christine spent long days reading and meditating
on the thoughts of the greatest minds, thus fitting
herself for the part she had to play when life
had ceased to be a gay dream. We can get
from a miniature in a Book of Hours, now at
Chantilly, and painted by the brothers Limbourg

119

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

for Jean, Due de Berri, a brother of the King,
some idea of what this old residence of the
Louvre was like. In this miniature we see
represented a square grim castle, with' a large
tower at each corner and narrow slits for
windows, suggestive more of a place of refuge
in time of war and tumult than the home of a
peace-loving, enlightened king. When Charles
determined to beautify this sombre structure,
statues were set up without and tapestries hung
within. One of the towers was fitted up for the
library, panelled with rare woods and furnished
with some thirty small chandeliers and a large
central silver lamp, kept lighted both night and
day so that work could go on at all hours. In
the courtyard an outside circular staircase (one
of the earliest, if not the earliest, of the kind)
was added to give, as was said, a note of gaiety.
But the idea of gaiety seems somewhat ironical
when we learn that as it was difficult to get a
sufficient number of large slabs quarried quickly,
headstones from the cemetery of the Holy
Innocents were taken for the purpose !

Christine, as a child, showed an extra-
ordinary capacity for learning, and this her
father zealously fostered and developed. At
the age of fifteen she married, and married for
love, the King's notary and secretary, Etienne
de Castel, a gentleman of Picardy. Her happi-
ness and well-being seemed assured, but Fortune,
whose wheel is ever revolving, though some-
times so slowly as to lull us into forgetfulness,

120

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

had decreed otherwise. For Christine it re-
volved all too quickly. Two years after her
marriage the King died (1380), and her husband
and father lost their appointments. Gradually
anxiety and sorrow crept like some baneful
atmosphere into the once happy home. First
she lost her father, and then, two or three
years later, her husband died, leaving her, at the
age of twenty-five, with three children to provide
for. Like many another, she turned to letters
as both a material and a mental support. En-
dowed with an extraordinary gift of versification,
she began by writing short poems, chiefly on
the joys and sorrows of love, expressing some-
times her own sentiments, sometimes those of
others for whom she wrote. But she tells us
that often when she made merry she would fain
have wept. How many a one adown the
centuries has re-echoed the same sad note !

" Men must work and women must weep."
So says the poet. But life shows us that men
and women alike must needs do both. And so
the sad Christine set to work to fit herself, by
the study of the best ancient and modern writers,
to produce more serious matter than love-ballads,
turning, in her saddest moments, to Boethius
and Dante for inspiration and solace. " I betook
myself," she says, " like the child who at first is
set to learn its ABC, to ancient histories from
the beginning of the world — histories of the
Hebrews and the Assyrians, of the Romans, the
French, the Bretons, and diverse others — and

121

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

then to the deductions of such sciences as I
had time to give heed to, as well as to a study
of the poets." Her master was Aristotle, and
she made his ethics her gospel. " Ancelle de
science/' she calls herself, and remains a humble
worshipper at the shrine of knowledge, for
knowledge, she says, is " that which can change
the mortal into the immortal." We can picture
her to ourselves at work in the library of the
Louvre, amidst its 900 precious MSS., and in
the library of the University of Paris, to which
she had access through her friend Gerson, the
renowned Chancellor. In a miniature at the
beginning of one of her MSS. she is seen seated,
in a panelled recess, on a carved wooden bench,
dressed in a simple blue gown and a high white
coif. She is working at a folio on a large table
covered with tapestry, with a greyhound lying
at her feet. It is quite possible that this may be
either a conventional setting, or one due to the
imagination of the artist, but as the miniaturists
of those days were, as far as they could be,
realists, it is more than possible that we here see
her represented at work in her favourite nook in
the Louvre library, together with the favourite
dog who shared her lonely hours. Gradually
solace came to her through work, and having
found so precious a treasure for herself, she, like
our own modern sage, never tired of preaching
to others the gospel of its blessedness.

Whilst Christine wrote and lived her student
life — " son cuer hermit dans Termitage de

122

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

Pensee" — her fame went forth, and princes
sought, by tempting offers, to attach her to
their courts, but without success. Of these,
Henry the Fourth of England, already acquainted
with her poems, and Gian Galleazo Visconti,
Duke of Milan, were the most importunate, and
particularly the former, who was unaccustomed
to rebuff and failure. But Christine, with
repeated gracious thanks and guarded refusals,
remained firm. No reason for her decision is
recorded, but it may well be believed that her
patriotism would not allow her, even with the
certainty of ease and emolument, to quit France
at that critical time, or to serve the enemy of
her adopted country.

Although Christine's reading was very varied
and extensive, there were two subjects — the
amelioration of her war-distraught country, then
in the throes of the Hundred Years' War, and
the championship of the cause of womankind
—which specially appealed to her as a patriot
and a woman, and for which she strove with
unceasing ardour. In all her writings she so
interweaves these two causes that it is only by
approaching them in the same way that we can
understand her view of their psychological unity.
To Christine these interests were essentially
identical, for she recognised how paramount is
woman's influence in the making or marring of
the world — how, in truth, in woman's hand lies
a key which can unlock a Heaven or a Hell.

There was sore need of a patriot, and in

123

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

Christine one was found. It has been well said
of her, and by a Frenchman too, that " though
born a woman and an Italian, she alone at the
Court of France seemed to have manly qualities
and French sentiments." France was in a sorry
plight. There was war in the land, there was
war in the palace. The sick King suffered more
and more from attacks of madness, and during
these periods the Dukes of Orleans and Burgundy
fought for the regency. Christine began her
patriotic work by fervent appeals to Isabella, the
Queen (to whom she offered a MS. now in the
British Museum),1 to use her influence to put
an end to these dissensions which so greatly
added to the troubles of the kingdom. She also
lost no opportunity of proclaiming in her various
writings the duties and responsibilities of kings
and nobles to the people, and the necessity, if
there was ever to be peace and prosperity, of
winning their regard. At the command of
Philip le Hardi, Duke of Burgundy, and uncle
of the King, she wrote in prose, from chronicles
of the time and from information obtained from
many connected with the King's household, Le
Livre des fa its et bonnes mceurs du roi Charles V^
recounting his virtuous life and deeds and their
advantage to the realm, and introducing a
remarkable dissertation on the benefit to a
country of a strong middle-class. She, of course,
reasoned from Aristotle. The subject is a
commonplace one now, but in the case of any

1 Harley, 4431.
124

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

one living at the beginning of the fifteenth
century, and brought up, as Christine had
been, at a magnificent Court, it shows rare
independence and breadth of thought to have
grasped and proclaimed with such firmness and
clearness as is displayed in her treatise the germ
of the policy of all modern civilised nations —
that a middle-class is essential to bring into
touch those placed at the opposite extremes, the
rich and the poor.

To Christine belongs an honour beyond that
of having been a patriot and a champion of her
sex — the honour of having revealed Dante to
France.1 Scattered up and down her writings
are many allusions to the Divina Commedia^
showing how real a place it must have filled in
her soul's life. She especially recommends it
for profitable study in the place of the " hateful "
Romance of the Rose, concerning which she gave
the warning to her son :—

Se bien veulx et chastement vivre,
De la Rose ne lis le livre.

Like Dante, sad and lonely — " souvent seulete
et pensive, regretant le temps passe " — like him
she also realised the thirst for knowledge as an
ever-present want of the soul, and that its ulti-
mate perfection is only to be attained by follow-
ing after virtue and knowledge. Although, as
regards profundity, her conception of the world
and of life cannot be compared with that of her

1 A. Farinelli, Dante e la Francia, vol. i. p. 192, 1908.
125

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

great prototype, or even with that of such an
one as St. Hildegarde, still she had read with
unflagging diligence a vast number of profane
and ecclesiastical writers, and seems to have been
well versed in the varied knowledge of her time,
especially history. But whilst it is possible to
criticise her learning, tempered as this was by
her character and the needs of her day, it is
at the same time possible to acknowledge that
in spite of flaws and an often over-elaborated
setting, moral truth sparkles gemlike throughout
her writings. One of her biographers speaks
of her thus : " Her morale is so pure and so
universally human that not only does it remain
true to-day, but it will retain imperishable value
as long as ever human society is based on a pure
and healthy moral foundation."

In her poem Le Chemin de long Estude — a
title taken from Dante's appeal to Virgil at the
opening of the Inferno — Christine begins by
acknowledging her debt to the immortal poet,
saying that much that she has to tell has already
been told by " Dante of Florence in his book."
Virgil as guide is replaced by the Cumean Sibyl,
who appears to Christine in a dream, and offers
to conduct her to another and a more perfect
world, one where there is no pain and misery.
To this Christine consents on condition that
" sad Hades, whither ^Eneas once was taken," is
not included in the journey. The Sibyl there-
fore promises to reveal to her, instead, in what
manner misfortune came upon earth, whilst at

126

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

the same time showing her on the way all that
is worth seeing in this world, from the Pillars
of Hercules, " the end of the world," to distant
Cathay. However exhausting this programme
may appear to us, Christine, knowing the real
passion of the late Middle Ages for travel — for
even those who could not travel in reality did so
in imagination, — makes use of it as a setting for
the introduction of a discussion on the qualities
most necessary to good government. This she
does, even at the risk of incurring displeasure in
high quarters, recalling how Dante's patriotism
led to banishment and death in exile, but she
adds, " Qui bien ayme, tout endure." She pours
forth her classical examples in a chaotic stream,
but when she leaves earth, and ascends to the
celestial regions, she not only shows herself
versed in the astronomy of the time, but also
expresses some beauty of thought. The order
of the firmament, where all obey law without
ceasing, so that harmony ensues " like sweet
melody," reminds her of Pythagoras and Plato,
and suggests to her what life on earth might be
if good laws were made and observed. In
furtherance of her idea, she appeals to Reason,
who presides over the Virtues or Divine Powers,
to interrogate the three earthly disputants,
Nobility, Riches, and Wisdom. In the end
Reason awards the prize to Wisdom, con-
demning Riches as the great enemy of mankind.
Thereupon Wisdom appeals to the verdicts of
Juvenal, Boethius, St. Jerome, and others to

127

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

establish that it is Virtue alone that is of worth,
and ennobles a man, and then sets forth the
qualities of a good sovereign. But as this leads
to some difference of opinion, Christine, who
was withal a courtly lady, descends to earth in
order to ask the King, Charles the Sixth, to
decide the matter. This dream - poem she
dedicates to her royal master for his diversion in
his saner moments, and thus once again intro-
duces into high places the subject so near to her
heart. She lets it be seen that she herself, like
Dante, did not believe in the blending of the
spiritual and the temporal powers. And as
regards temporal power she adds — perhaps
borrowing the idea from Dante's De Monarchia,
and anticipating Napoleon's dream — that in
order to ensure peace on earth, it is necessary
that one supreme ruler should reign over the
whole world. " La sua volontade e nostra pace,"
sang a soul in Dante's heaven of the Moon — the
lowest in the celestial system — when questioned
whether it was content with its lowly place.
The poet therefore adds, " ogni dove in cielo e
paradise." Christine, echoing these thoughts,
would fain apply them to life on earth, giving
them their deepest and fullest meaning.

Though she laboured so unceasingly for the
good of her country, she also did her utmost to
defend her sex from the indiscriminate censure
which had been heaped upon it, for the evil
spoken seemed to her far to outweigh the good.
A century before, Dante had also idealised

128

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

woman — even if, as some think, he personified
some abstract quality — and placed her in heaven
beside the Deity. Chivalry had also idealised
woman, but in an exotic, exaggerated manner,
which was bound to reach its zenith, and bound
also to have its darker side. So we find that to
speak good or ill of womankind became a con-
ventionalism in the Middle Ages. Black or
white was the tone chosen by the artist in
words. There was no blending, no shading.
Women were either deified, or held to be evil
incarnate. The material side of life men under-
stood, and could depict with some exactness, but
to grasp in any way its subtler aspects required
an education which could be attained only by
slow degrees, since it meant the gradual modi-
fication of the long-cherished illusion that brute
force is the world's only weapon. A want of
capacity to discern is often responsible for a
depreciatory opinion, and we can but ascribe
this strangely narrow - minded and superficial
attitude towards woman to some such want.
Christine set herself the task of trying to remedy
this evil, not by shouting in the market-place,
but by studying men and women as God made
them and as she found them. Before she began
her work, a new day seemed to be dawning.
Just as, when classicism was in full decadence,
Plutarch wrote De mulierum virtutibus (of the
virtue of women), so, in the fourteenth century,
Boccaccio gave to the world De claris mulieribus
(of right-renowned women). We do not expect

129 K

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

to find woman treated on a very high plane by
Boccaccio, but we recognise that, in a way, this
work forms a fresh starting-point in the eternal
controversy. Perhaps we should not have had
this curious collection of stories of women,
virtuous and vicious, mythological and historical
— stories which are certainly very inferior as
art to those of the Decameron — had not a
crisis occurred in Boccaccio's life. One day a
Carthusian monk came to him with a warning
message from the dead, and, much troubled in
mind, he resolved to try to begin life afresh.
But he was a better story-teller than a moraliser.
He would fain save his soul, but he liked and
courted popularity, and knew well the deeper
meaning of the proverb, " A terreno dolce,
vanga di legno." And so he mingles virtue and
vice, hoping, as he says, that "some utility
and profit shall come of the same." To us of
to-day, the chief interest of this work is that
Boccaccio's fame perhaps gave a definite im-
petus to the discussion of the sex, instead of
wholesale assertion, and also that it probably
suggested to Chaucer the idea for his Legend of
Good Women. How refreshing to find ourselves
in the atmosphere of the kindly Chaucer ! Let
us pause for a moment, and recall what he says
of women, he who was not only a knightly
Court -poet, but also a popular singer, well
versed in the practical wisdom of life. In the
prologue we read, " Let be the chaf, and wryt
wel of the corn," and in allusion to his library

130

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

of sixty books, old and new, of history and love-
stories, he says that for every bad woman,
mention was duly made of a hundred good ones.
Time and experience in no way dull this appre-
ciation, for when, later, The Canterbury Tales
appear, his estimate has risen ten-fold, since in
the prologue to " The Miller's Tale " we read,
" and ever a thousand gode ageyn one badde."
From this time onwards, literature on the sub-
ject increases almost ad infinitum. Treatises and
imaginary debates seem to vie with each other for
popularity. All these make intensely interesting
reading, for these fanciful discussions, which are
supposed to take place, sometimes between a
man and a woman, sometimes between a mixed
company in a garden or villa or some bath resort
where many are gathered together, are really a
record of the intellectual amusements of the late
Middle Ages and the Renaissance. " Que devez-
,vous preferer, du plaisir qui va vous echapper
bientot, ou d'une esperance toujours vive, quoique
toujours trompee ? " " Which sex loves the more
easily or can do the better without love ? " " It is not
enough to know how to win love, but one must
also know how to keep such love when it has been
won." Such-like were the subtle problems which
on these occasions folk set themselves to solve.

But whilst love problems could be treated as
a pastime, they also had their serious side. Of
this there is an example in Christine's story of
The Duke of True Lovers. Although much in
its narration is evidently the mere invention of

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

the poetess, it is quite possible, nay even
probable, that it has some historical basis.
Christine begins her story by saying that it had
been confided to her by a young prince who
did not wish his name to be divulged, and who
desired only to be known as " The Duke ot
True Lovers." It has been suggested, with
much likelihood, that this is in truth the love-
story of Jean, Due de Bourbon, and of Marie,
Duchesse de Berri, daughter of the famous
Jean, Due de Berri, and the inheritor of his MSS.
When the story opens, the heroine of it, who-
ever she may have been, is already wedded.
Hence all the difficulties of the hero, and indeed
of both. Christine, with her womanly sympathy
and psychological insight,, makes all so intensely
real that we are quite carried away in imagina-
tion'to the courtly life of the fifteenth century.
We read of the first meeting ; of the Duke's
love at first sight ; of Castle daily life ; of a
three days' tournament given in honour of the
lady ; of devices for secret meetings and the
interchange of letters ; of the inevitable scandal-
monger ; of a letter from a former gouvernante
— whose aid as go-between had been sought —
containing a most comprehensive and remarkable
treatise on feminine morality, the dangers of
illicit love, and the satisfaction of simple wifely
duty ; of the separation which the position of
the lady, and the gallantry of her lover, alike
demanded ; of meetings at intervals ; of the
mutual solace of short love-poems ; and then

132

?, Macbeth.

LADY IN HORSE-LITTER, RETURNING FROM TOURNAMENT.

Harl. MS. 4431, Brit. Mus.

To face page 132.

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

the story, perhaps to evade identification, ends
vaguely. But as we finish the story, we cannot
help feeling that even if Christine's setting is
fiction, she yet gives us a glance of real life.

When Christine turned to her serious work
in the cause of womankind, she began by
attacking two books, Ovid's Art of Love, and
The Romance of the Rose, both of which, in the
Middle Ages, it was deemed wellnigh sacri-
legious to decry. Her challenge, L'Epistre au
Dieu a" Amours, took the form of an address to the
God of Love, professing to come from women
of all conditions, imploring Cupid's aid against
disloyal and deceitful lovers, whose base be-
haviour she largely attributes to the false teach-
ing of these two books. This argument appeared
in 1399, and she soon discovered that she had
stirred up a hornet's nest. But she had attacked
advisedly and fearlessly, and was quite prepared
for any counter onslaught. Her position was
considerably strengthened by the alliance and
co-operation of her staunch friend Gerson, the
Chancellor, who himself, in the name of the
clergy, took up arms against the flagrant scur-
rility to be found in the portion of The Romance
of the Rose contributed by Jean de Meun. Other
powerful allies joined the cause, and, to help to
crystallise their efforts, species of " Courts of
Love " were instituted, not alone for discourse
on love, as heretofore, but also in the defence
of women. All who united in this meritorious
fellowship undertook to wear a distinctive badge,

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

and thus proclaim their confession of faith.
Among these Orders one was styled " L'Escu
vert a la dame blanche," another, " L'Ordre de la
Rose," and so on, suggestive of their purport.
The first-named was founded by the brave
soldier Jean le Meingre, Marechal de Boucicaut,
whose portrait may be seen in his superb Book of
Hours, painted between 1399 and 1407, now
in the Musee Jacquemart-Andre, Paris.1 Its
membership was restricted to thirteen knights,
who swore to defend the honour of women
against all detractors. To distinguish them
from others less gallantly disposed, they wore
on the sleeve an ornament in the shape of a
small shield, enamelled green on the outside,
and with the representation, on the underside,
of a woman, enamelled in white.

. . . Vous portez la dame en verde targe
Pour demonstrer que de hardi visage
Vous vous voulez pour les dames tenir
Contre ceulz qui leur porteront dommage !

Of the Order of the Rose and its foundation,
Christine, in one of her poems, gives most
picturesque and interesting particulars, interest-
ing because they are evidently taken from an
actual scene, though Christine, in her role as
poetess, feels it necessary to add touches
suggestive of fairyland rather than of real life.
A numerous assembly, with goodwill at heart,
has met together in the magnificent dwelling

1 "Le Mus6e Jacquemart-Andre," Gazette des Beaux -Arts,
August 1912.

134

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

of Louis, Duke of Orleans, the King's brother,
Christine being one of the number. Suddenly
there comes into their midst one personifying
the Goddess Venus, surrounded by maidens

farlanded with roses and carrying golden bowls
lied with them. The bowls placed on the
table, the Goddess proceeds to announce the
rules of the Order, above all enjoining those
present to avoid envy, and in no way to perjure
themselves, since this would be a most heinous
and hateful sin. The badge chosen is a fresh
rose, but if any member of the Order should
happen to be in a country where such is not
attainable, or when the season is unpropitious,
then a rose fashioned in gold or silver, or one
embroidered in silk, will suffice. With pledges
of loyalty,

A bonne amour je fais veu et promesse
Et a la fleur qui est rose clam6e,
A la vaillant de Loyaute deesse,
Par qui nous est ceste chose informee,
Qu'a tous jours mais la bonne renommee
Je garderay de dame en toute chose
Ne par moy ja femme n'yert diffamee :
Et pour ce prens je L'Ordre de la Rose,1

all the company deck themselves with roses.
The charter is given by the Goddess into the
safe-keeping of Christine, who describes it as
written on fine parchment in letters of azure,
and fastened with a silken cord of the same
colour. From this cord hangs a rare gem, on
one side of which their patroness, the Goddess

1 "Le Dit de la Rose," 197-204, (Euvres poe'tiques de Christine
de Pisan, t. ii., pub. par Maurice Roy, 1891.

135

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

of Love, and on the other Cupid, with his feet
on a leopard, are depicted. This moral and
literary contest is perhaps the most brilliant of
the many discussions that took place in the
Middle Ages in honour of women. The
highest and the wisest in the land joined in it,
but all the honour must be given to Christine
for having, by her brave and reasonable attitude,
caused the problem, which henceforth was to
evolve like truth itself, to be treated on a
rational basis. " Toute la foy remaint en une
femme," says Christine. Were not her words,
nearly 500 years later, echoed by Renan when
he says, " Apres Jesus, c'est Marie de Magdale
qui a le plus fait pour la fondation du Chris-
tianisme " ?

UEpistre au Dieu ct 'Amours is an extraordinary
product of worldly wisdom and common sense,
seasoned with satire. One of the complaints
against disloyal suitors, and one which strikes
a singularly modern note, is that they make
protests of love, and false promises, which must
be either paid for dearly, or rejected with scorn.
Then the hero, if he has won the day, proclaims
his victory in taverns and other places of resort,
and even in mixed company. Or if, as is more
often the case, he has lost it, he still tries, by
suggestive hints, to appear to his fellows a
successful gallant. Surely the worldling of to-
day does not seem to differ very essentially from
his brother of the fifteenth century, or to have
progressed any farther along the path of loyalty !

136

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

Christine's line of argument is that the many
must not be condemned for the shortcomings of
the few, and that even when God made the
angels, some were bad. To the charge that
books are full of the condemnation of women,
she replies with the simple remark that books
were not written by women. Where is the
shade of the worthy Christine to-day ? Does
it walk the earth with a flag of triumph or a
laurel wreath whilst its sisters in the flesh are
writing on every subject in heaven and earth
and sea ? " De nos jours, le monde est aux
femmes."

Is it marvellous, asks Christine, that a
woman — " une chose simplete, une ignorante
petite femmellette," as she expresses it — should
be betrayed by man, when even the great city of
Troy was, and when all the books and romances
are full of the betrayal of kings and kingdoms ?
And if a woman is not constant by nature, why
should Jean de Meun, in The Romance of the Rose,
devise so many tricks to deceive her, seeing
that it is not necessary to make a great assault
upon a feeble place ? Then she deftly turns the
tables on the other sex, reminding each that he
is the son of his mother, and that

Se mauvaise est il ne peut valor rien,
Car nul bon fruit de mal arbre ne vient.

And so on to the end, all is argument and banter.
The repute of her letter must have travelled
quickly, for whilst Christine was still combating

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

with dissentients, an epitomised rendering of it
appeared (1402) in English from the pen of
Hoccleve, the pupil of Chaucer, entitled The
Lettre of Cupide, God of Love.

Later, Christine, with Boccaccio's De claris
mulieribus before her, writes La Cite des Dames^
an account of the building of an imaginary city
which is to shelter within its strong ramparts
the women of all times and all countries who
have distinguished themselves by good and
heroic deeds. This has been aptly called " The
Golden Book of Heroines." It may certainly
be considered her masterpiece on her favourite
subject. She urges that philosophers and poets,
with one accord, have defamed women, and she
appeals to God, asking why such a thing should
be, seeing that He Himself made them and gaVe
them such inclinations as seemed good to Him,
and that in no way could He err. She maintains
that God created the soul, and made it as good
in woman as in man, and that it is not the sex,
but the perfection of virtue, that is material.
Combating the suggestion that women are not
fit to plead in Court because they have not
sufficient intelligence to apply the law when
they have learnt it, she refers to history to prove
that women who have had the management of
affairs have shown that, far from lacking in-
telligence and judgment, they have possessed
both in large measure. At the same time,
whilst defending their capability when necessity
arises, she does not think it necessary for women

138

LA CITE DES DAMES.

. Royale, Munich.
To face page 138.

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

to interfere in matters which seem essentially
man's business. Her remarks on the subject of
marriage are certainly practical, and at the same
time disclose a strange unloveliness in con-
temporary manners. She is not of St. Paul's
opinion that it is better not to marry, but all
the same she suggests that, unless without
means, that woman is happier who does not
marry a second time, seeing that the life of a
married woman is often worse than if she were
in the hands of the Saracens — the terror of the
Middle Ages, — and that frequently after her
husband has been out enjoying himself, her only
supper, on his return, is a beating. She counsels
the education of women, and condemns those
who suggest that this will conduce to unseemly
ways. In truth, her wonderful sense of justice,
and her enlightened opinions generally, make it
a marvellous resume of statesmanship as far as it
goes. It is a real Utopia. Perhaps to Christine
it was a glimpse of the Promised Land ! As
we read her views on the education of boys and
girls together, in this happy city, we feel that
she might be discussing with us the problems
of to-day. She says that if boys and girls are
taught the same subjects, girls can, as a rule,
learn just as well, and just as intelligently, as
boys, and so on. In this conclusion she fore-
stalls the learned Cornelius Agrippa, a doctor
and philosopher of the sixteenth century, and
one of the most original and remarkable men of
his time, who boldly asserts that sex is merely

139

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

physical, and does not extend to soul or rational
power. She sums up by strongly advocating
study and learning, both for self-improvement
and as a consolation and possession for all time.

Of her poetical writings on love and the
sexes, perhaps the most enchanting is Le Livre
du Dit de Poissy. In it she takes us, on a bright
spring morning, with a joyous company, from
Paris to the royal convent of Poissy, where her
child is at school. She describes all the beauties
of the country, the fields gay with flowers, the
warbling of the birds, the shepherdesses with
their flocks, the willow-shaded river bank along
which they ride, the magic of the forest of St.
Germain, a little world apart of greenery and
shade, filled with the song of the nightingales.
Laughing and singing by the way, they reach
the convent gate. Then follows a description
of the beautiful carved cloisters, the chapter-
house, the nuns' dress and their dormitory, the
garden scented with lavender and roses, with one
part, where small animals are allowed to run
wild, left uncultivated, and the ponds well
stocked with fish. As the day wanes, they bid
farewell to the nuns, who offer them gifts of
purses and girdles embroidered in silk and gold,
worked by their o,wn hands. They return to
the inn where they are to spend the night, and
after supper wander forth to listen to the night-
ingales, then dance a carole, and so to bed.
The ride back to Paris in the morning, during
which a discussion on love matters is introduced,

140

ILj

>C

SETTING OUT FOR POISSY.
Harl. MS. 4431, Brit. Mus.

fort). Macbeth.

To face page 140.

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

is painted with the same impressionist touch,
and it is with real regret that we take leave of
these happy folk as they alight in Paris city
from their stout nags.

Another similar discourse, Le Debat de deux
amants^ has for setting a gala entertainment,
taking place, like the founding of the " Order of
the Rose," under the auspices of Louis, Duke of
Orleans, who ever extended a princely protection
to Christine. Louis had married Valentine
Visconti, daughter of Gian Galleazo Visconti,
founder of the Certosa, near Pavia, a princess
well versed in art and letters, and withal in
pomp and splendour. It is on a day in May,
the garden gay with gallants and fair ladies.
We hear the minstrels play, and watch some of
the company, decked with garlands, dancing
under the trees. In the palace there is music
and singing. Christine is seated in a tapestried
hall with one or two esquires who prefer to
discourse of love to joining in the jollity. After
a time the talk turns on fickle men, and Christine
brings forth from her vast storehouse of know-
ledge classical and mediaeval examples. As she
mentions Theseus, and recalls his baseness to
Ariadne, she points to the tapestry on the wall
before them, where the story is woven. This
little touch makes the scene very real to us, for
the record of the purchase of this tapestry, with
the price of twelve hundred francs paid for it,
may still be found amongst the royal inventories.

There is such a volume and variety of works

141

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

from Christine's pen that it is no easy task to
make a fair selection. One of the most significant,
since it deals with a subject which permeated
mediaeval thought, and on which she was wont
to dwell, is La Mutation de fortune ', " Fortune
more inconstant than the moon," says Christine.
In it she writes with her heart in her hand, as it
were, telling first of the sore havoc Fortune has
wrought amongst those most dear to her. Yet
though her own heart has been torn on the
Wheel of Fortune, she stands before her fellow
sufferers like some figure of Hope pointing up-
ward, where, she says, wrong is surely righted.
And thus she turns to the world in general, not
in the spirit of the pessimist, but rather in that
of the philosopher. She well knows that
Fortune is no blindfolded goddess turning writh-
ing humanity on a wheel, but a something
rooted in ourselves, and she has pity for " la
povre fragilite humaine." Though so inde-
pendent and advanced in thought, she is still
found clinging in her writings to mediaeval forms.
As a setting for her thoughts on Fortune's
changes, she makes use of the favourite simile of
a castle — here the Castle of Fortune — as re-
presenting the world, wherein the rich and the
poor, the strong and the weak, jostle one another.
She criticises all men, from the prince to the
pauper, but not women, since these have been
sufficiently criticised and decried. It is like the
prelude to a Dance of Death. Then she tells of
the paintings on the walls of this imaginary

142

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

castle, and uses this mediaeval fancy, itself
borrowed from the classics (Met. ii. 5. 770),
to give what is really a history of the world
as she knew it, written to demonstrate the in-
stability of all earthly conditions.

Once again, with her versatile gifts, she turns
from philosophy to a treatise on military tactics
and justice, Le Livre des faits (farmes et de
chevalerie. However devoid of interest, except
as a landmark in the history of military strategy
and customs, this work may be to-day, it was
thought of sufficient importance in the reign
of our Henry the Seventh for the king to com-
mand Caxton to translate and print it (1489)
with the title of The Book of Faytes of Arms^
a book still sought after by our bibliophiles.
It was further honoured by being quoted as an
authority in the reign of Henry the Eighth.
Considering the nature of its contents, this
seems quite an extraordinary tribute to the
judgment and ability of the writer.

But the misery of France is ever increasing.
Ceaseless civil war and foreign invasion im-
poverish the people, and make desolate the
land. The dissolute Court is extravagant and
filled with discord. Christine, fired with
patriotic fervour, once more makes an effort,
which proves to be her final one, to arouse the
pleasure-loving nobility to some sense of its
obligations to the nation. Le Livre des trots
vertues, and Le Livre de la paix^ appear one
after the other. In the former, which she

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

dedicates to the Dauphine, Margaret of
Burgundy, she merely adds another to the long
list of discourses for the guidance of women
which, in Christian times, begins as early as
the second century.1 This theme forms the
subject of so considerable a didactic literature
that it can only be hinted at here. Whether
treated from a religious or from a social point
of view, or the two combined, the sum-total
of the teaching is moral training with a view
to self-restraint and subordination. Christine
addresses herself to all women, from the highest
to the lowest, but her principal theme is the
influence a princess may and should have on
Court life. She further counsels not princesses
alone, but all well-born women, not to attach
too much importance to the things of this world,
to be charitable, and to see to the education of
their children, and so to inform themselves
that they may be capable of filling their
husbands' place when they are obliged to be
absent at war or at the Court. She adds a plea
for the country, that war should be opposed, and
one for the poor, that pity should be shown to
them. Then she addresses herself to the towns-
woman, advising her to see to her household,
not to fear to go into the kitchen, and to avoid
all luxury ; then to servants, counselling them
on no account to take bribes, adding the practical
touch that as God is everywhere, and only asks

1 A. A. Hentsch, De la litterature didactique du moyen age
s'adressant specialement aux femmes, Cahors, 1903.

144

CHRISTINE DE PISAN

of each a good heart, it is not necessary for them
to go to Mass every day ; then to the wife of
the labourer, bidding her to guard well her
master's flocks and to encourage her husband
to work ; and, finally, she has a word of sympathy
for the poor, holding out to them hope of
recompense in heaven for misery endured here,
and exhorting them to have patience meanwhile.
From this patriotic and practical advice to
women she turns to men, and in Le Livre de la
Paix sets forth the duties of princes and of those
in power to the people, importuning them to
exercise clemency, liberality, and justice.

But it is too late. The sand in the hour-
glass is running low. Disaster follows disaster,
until the final blow is struck at Agincourt (1415),
where the flower of the French nation is cut
off, and princes of the blood are carried away
into exile. Christine, with bleeding heart, and
worn with trouble and disappointment, retires
to the convent of Poissy, " un tres doux paradis,"
perchance to find peace and consolation within
its tranquil walls, and to implore Heaven's aid
for her sore -stricken country. For fourteen
years no sound from her reaches the outside
world. Then, inspired by the glorious advent
and deeds of Joan of Arc, with all her old passion
she pours forth a final hymn of praise and
thanksgiving to the woman who has at last
aroused France to patriotism, and so dies in
peace at the solemn moment of Charles the
Seventh's consecration at Rheims.

145 L

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

O Thou ! ordained Maid of very God !
Joanna ! born in Fortune's golden hour,
On thee the Holy Spirit pours His Flood
And His high grace is given thee for dower.
Now all great gifts are thine : — O blessed be He
That lent thee life ! — how word my grateful prayer ?
— No prayer of thine was spoken fruitlessly,
O Maid of God ! O Joan ! O Virgin rare !

Mark me this portent ! strange beyond all telling !

How this despoiled Kingdom stricken lay,

And no man raised his hand to guard his dwelling,

Until a Woman came to show the way.

Until a Woman (since no man dare try)

Rallied the land and bade the traitors fly.

Honour to Womankind ! It needs must be

That God loves Woman, since He fashioned Thee !

O strange ! This little maid sixteen years old
On whom no harness weigheth overmuch.
So strong the little hands ! enduring hold
She seemeth fed by that same armour's touch,
Nurtured on iron — as before her vanish
The enemies of her triumphal day ;
And this by many men is witnessed ;
Yea, many eyes be witness of that fray !

Castles and towns, she wins them back for France,

And France is free again, and this her doing !

Never was power given as to her lance !

A thousand swords could do no more pursuing.

Of all staunch men and true she is the Chief,

Captain and Leader, for that she alone

Is braver than Achilles the brave Greek.

All praise be given to God who leadeth Joan !

146

AGNES SOREL

So much glamour has attached, and rightly so,
to Joan of Arc, the soldier-saviour of Charles the
Seventh of France, that another woman, Agnes
Sorel — Charles's good angel of a less militant
order — has been almost entirely overlooked, and
where she has been remembered, has been treated
by the few with the honour due to her, and by
the many merely as Charles's mistress. But to
her it was given to be a great inspirer of Charles,
and much of the good that this weak king and
ungrateful man did for his country may assuredly
be in large measure attributed to her influence,
just as the greatest merit that can be recorded of
him personally was his devotion to her whilst
she lived, though the memory of her availed
naught after she had passed away. Agnes Sorel
came as it were between the ebb and flow of the
late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when
chivalry, not as a passing emotion but as an
education, still lingered in men's relation with
women. Respect for womankind grew in the
Middle Ages in France under the double influence
of religion and chivalry, of which the cult of the
Virgin and the cult of woman were the outcome.

147

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

In honour of both, men strove in tournament
and fought in battle. With the cry, " For our
Lady/* or " For God and my Lady," men hurled
themselves into the thick of the strife as if the
goddess, whether divine or human, in whose
name they ventured, had made her champions
invulnerable. And, in a manner as it would
seem of action and re-action, the goddess became
humanised and the woman deified. The former
tendency may be traced in miracles attributed to
the Virgin, and, later, in the " Mysteries," and
the latter in tales of chivalry, where love is
treated as a gift from Heaven, and the recipients
of it are idealised. Stories which seem to con-
tradict this, and to refute all accepted ideas of
chivalry and honour, are frequently original only
in details, the bases being borrowed from Oriental
tales. Buddha's country, the land of the Zenana,
supplied much material of an exaggerated nature
which in the West became mere travesty.

It is always difficult to determine exactly the
origin of anything so subtle as a sentiment,
especially one which gradually pervades and
influences a people. It is, in its way, at first
like a soft breeze, of which we can only see the
effect. But as we try to discover some definite,
if only partial, reason for this interchange of
simple human relations between the Virgin and
her votaries, we remember that St. Francis, the
embodiment of exalted human sentiment, had
lived, and that scholasticism, in that phase of it
which treated the dialectical subtleties of words

148

AGNES SOREL

as paramount, was on the wane. Hence spirit,
which had so long been restrained, and which is
ever in conflict with form, again prevailed, and
mankind discovered that a loving Mother had
taken the place of a stately Queen in the Heavens.
This attitude towards the Virgin is revealed in
the miracles attributed to her agency. It is also
shown in one of the greatest works of piety of
the thirteenth century, the Meditations on the Life
of yesus Christ^1 which, through the medium of
the " Mysteries," introduced into sacred pictorial
art some of its most dramatic and appealing
scenes. Where is there to be found anything
more tenderly human than the incident of
" Christ taking leave of His Mother " before
His journey to Jerusalem to consummate His
mission ?

This note of the womanly element in its
fairest form, gradually insinuating itself more
and more, and permeating life, art, and litera-
ture, is the key to the right understanding of
the position which woman had attained in the
civilised world.

Before turning our special attention to Agnes
Sorel, let us recall the condition of France at the
beginning of the fifteenth century.

When the lunatic King Charles the Sixth
died in 1422, and Charles, his son, at the age
of nineteen, succeeded under the title of "King

1 These meditations, attributed in the past, and by some even
now, to St. Bonaventura, are considered by other scholars to be
of Cistercian inspiration. P. Perdrizet, La Vierge de Mistricorde,
1908, p. 15.

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OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

of Bourges," Paris was held by the Burgundians,
who were in league with the English. The
Dukes of Burgundy and of Brittany were alike
vacillating in their policy, being at one time
attached to the king's party, and at another
allied to the English. With the exception of
a few castles, the strongholds of lords loyal to
the Crown, the English possessed the whole of
France north of the Loire, from the Meuse to the
Bay of Mont St. Michel. Hither the Duke of
Bedford was sent as regent for the English king,
Henry the Sixth, then ten months old, who, by
the terms of the Treaty of Troyes (1420), was
the lawful king, the right of succession having
been conferred on his father, Henry the Fifth,
when he married Catherine, the daughter of
Charles the Sixth of France.

Charles the Seventh divided his time between
Bourges and Poitiers, where the government
was carried on, and Loches, Chinon, and Tours,
the places he dearly loved, and in which he
sought the solitude he craved for. But even in
these seemingly peaceful retreats his lethargy
and indolence were disturbed by perpetual
intrigues, which it must be admitted were
largely fostered by his own caprices and fickle
affections. Meanwhile a cry of misery was
arising from the war-devastated land. Churches
and convents, castles and cottages, were all fallen
into ruin, and brambles grew on the unfilled
land where once golden corn had waved.
Peasants hid their horses during the day and

150

AGNES SOREL

brought them out to graze at night. As Alain
Chartier wrote at the time, "Les pays champestres
sont tournez a Testat de la mer, ou chascun a
tant de seigneurie comme il a de force." Men
of all conditions, from the proudest lord to the
poorest peasant, joined in spasmodic and detached
efforts to drive out the English, but with the
result that they did little else than harass them.
Want of cohesion was the characteristic of the
national resistance until, from a small village in
the east of France, there appeared a deliverer in
the person of Joan of Arc. Instantly, as if her
sword were a magic wand, all the fighting men,
impelled and inspired by the strength of her
personality, rallied around her, and victory was
assured.

The story ot the siege and surrender ot
Orleans, of the crowning of Charles in Rheims
Cathedral, of Joan subsequently falling into the
hands of the Burgundians, who sold her to their
allies, the English, of her shameful trial and
cruel death, are facts so well known that they
may well be passed over here as briefly as
possible. Suffice it to say, that, except for a
time, even the triumph of this maiden-patriot
did little to rouse the indolent king, who
speedily returned to his selfish life in Touraine.
War, pillage, and anarchy again devastated
France. But gradually a change came over
Charles. He seemed to awake as from a stupor.
Dissolute and self-seeking favourites were dis-
missed, and the king was surrounded by able

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

and high-minded men. He bestirred himself
to make a final peace with Burgundy and
Brittany, and to take part in the war which
was still smouldering, though there were signs
of its approaching end.

What was the secret of such a change ?
That it was due, in the first instance, partly
to the wise influence of his mother-in-law,
Yolande of Aragon, and partly also to that of
his wife, Marie of Anjou, sister of the good
Duke Rene, seems almost certain, but that it
was intensified when Agnes Sorel came into
his life, there can be no doubt. When we
consider the king's earlier life, and what it
was whilst he was under the influence of Agnes,
and his relapse into indolence and debauchery
after her death, we can only attribute much
of this change to her sympathetic and wise
guidance. Joan of Arc had represented the
popular element, Agnes Sorel represented the
aristocratic. Joan of Arc aroused the people
to united action by her enthusiasm and success,
Agnes Sorel, in her time, helped to complete
the consolidation of the kingdom, by inspiring
and sustaining the king. Perhaps no one man
could have accomplished such a revolution. It
took two women to do this, and what they
did was not of mere passing worth. Phoenix-
like, France arose from the ashes of the
Hundred Years' War, and it was Agnes Sorel,
as priestess, who stirred the embers which hid
the new life.

152

AGNES SOREL

Voltaire, generally more ready to scoff than
to approve, wrote thus of Agnes Sorel :

Le bon roi Charles, au printemps de ses jours,

Avait trouve, pour le bien de la France,
Une beaute, nominee Agnes Sorel.

Was it for the good of France ? Let us disregard
prejudices, and examine facts. Even then, if all
that is known of her were written, it could only
bear to this rare personality the resemblance
which a faint reflection does to reality.

Agnes Sorel was probably born about 1420 or
1422, in the Castle of Fromenteau in Touraine.1
Her father, Jean Soreau, or Sorel, was Lord of
Coudon, and belonged to the lesser nobility.
It was in this beautiful country of forest and
meadow-land, of silvery rivers and meandering
streams, that Agnes spent her early years, her
education being principally religious, for religion
naturally held the first place in a society which
still retained faith in the supernatural. It was
customary at that time for girls of noble birth
to complete their education either at Court or
at the castle of some princely person, for such
places were considered excellent schools of
courtesy and other virtues for the daughters
as well as for the sons of the nobility.

1 Both the date and the place of her birth seem uncertain.
Some writers suggest 1415, and some 1420 or 1422, as the date ;
whilst Froidmantel, in Picardy, is conjectured by some, and
Fromenteau, in Touraine, by others, as the place. (Du Fresne de
Beaucourt, Hist, de Charles PI I, t. iv. p. 171, note 4.)

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OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

Though the date is uncertain, it was at the
Court of Lorraine that Agnes became maid-of-
honour to the Duchess Isabelle, wife of Rene,
Duke of Anjou and Lorraine, and Count of
Provence, a prince distinguished for chivalry
and learning. This intellectual and chivalrous
atmosphere must have been peculiarly congenial
to the sympathetic and versatile nature of Agnes
Sorel. We can picture her listening to the
Duke Rene reading his latest poem to one or
two of his brother-poets in the castle pleasaunce,
or discoursing on philosophy or statecraft, or
attending some brilliant pageant or sumptuous
fete. Chivalry, though dead as an institution,
still survived as a recreation, and as an appeal
from the past to the cultured imagination, and
Rene, mediaeval knight that he was in sentiment,
dearly loved the gorgeous spectacle of a tourna-
ment, with the knight jousting in honour of his
chosen lady. At this Court Agnes also came
under the influence of Yolande of Aragon,
widow of Louis, King of Naples and Sicily,
great-granddaughter of King John of France,
mother of the Duke Rene, and mother-in-law
of King Charles the Seventh, a woman renowned
for her extraordinary political capacity. All
these ties, and the remembrance of the French
blood in her veins, emphasised Yolande's domi-
nant passion — the love of France, — and it may
well be that in this patriotic atmosphere Agnes
Sorel became imbued with a like passion, which
later she was to develop in all its perfection,

i54

AGNES SOREL

rivalled only by her devotion to the well-being
and glory of her royal lover.

Patriotism was a virtue of recent growth in
France, for, in order to thrive, it requires unity
of idea, and during the Middle Ages the only
idea common to all was Christianity, which,
from the nature of its teaching of humility and
fraternity, does not make for patriotism. It
may cement the structure, but it does not form
the basis. It was only after years of suffering
and unrest that men learned to sink their
individual and local interests in those of the
nation as a whole. Then, and only then, could
patriotism arise, and only under such conditions
could it flourish.

How long Agnes lived at the Court of
Lorraine (one of the most refined and cultured
Courts of the time), and how her first meeting
with the king came about, is uncertain. It has
been considered likely that between 1 43 1 and 1 43 5
Isabelle of Lorraine went to Chinon to beseech
the king to use his influence to obtain the release
of her husband, imprisoned by his cousin, a rival
claimant to the duchy of Lorraine. It is possible
that Agnes, even if only born in 1422, may have
accompanied her, but even if she did not, this
visit of Isabelle's may, indirectly, have led to
the meeting between the king and Agnes.
Whilst still a prisoner, Rene succeeded to the
crown of Naples on the death of his brother,
Louis d'Anjou, and as the country was in a
disturbed condition it was deemed prudent for

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

Isabelle, his wife, to act as his substitute, and,
as lieutenante generate^ she set forth to establish
his claim. History is silent on the point as to
whether Agnes accompanied her or not. It
may be, as some seem to think, that she
remained in Anjou with Isabelle's eldest
daughter, Marguerite, afterwards Queen of
England. We should like to think that it
was during this time that she attracted the
notice of Charles, for this would lend additional
interest to the exquisite miniature in the
Musee du Louvre (at one time in the Book of
Hours of Etienne Chevalier, now for the most
part at Chantilly), which it seems probable
represents Agnes Sorel as a youthful shepherdess,
with the Castle of Loches in the background
and Charles the Seventh riding towards her.
As we have already suggested elsewhere,1 this
may have been a poetical rendering of their
first meeting. However this may be, it seems
probable that it was soon after the year I4352
that she first attracted the notice of Charles,
and that, later, she took up her residence in
Touraine, no doubt gaining her influence over
the king at first by her beauty, which all her
contemporaries proclaim, and afterwards by that
mysterious combination of ability and grace, of
intelligence and physical vitality, which held
him captive for many years. During this time
she, like a true woman, and no ordinary place-

1 Athenteum, June 25, 1904.
2 Du Fresne de Beaucourt, Hist, de Charles VII, t. iii. p. 286.

AGNES SOREL

hunter, made his devotion to her react upon
himself, for the good of his country and to his
own honour. She not only counselled him
wisely herself, but persuaded him to surround
himself with wise counsellors.

Of these counsellors, and the able and devoted
men who served the king in divers ways, some
few stand out more prominently than the rest,
because of their position of intimacy in the royal
circle, and their special and enduring friend-
ship with Agnes Sorel. Such were Etienne
Chevalier, Treasurer of France ; Pierre de Breze,
of a noble Angevin family, and Senechal of
Normandy after the expulsion of the English ;
and Jacques Cceur, the king's superintendent of
Finance, whose house at Bourges, with its angel-
ceiled chapel, still delights the traveller.

Etienne Chevalier was for some time secretary
to the king, and after filling one or two smaller
posts connected with finance, was made Treasurer
of France, and member of the Grand Council.
In addition to administrative capacity, he pos-
sessed a brilliant intellect and a great love of
art. It is to his initiative that we owe the
only suggestions in portraiture of Agnes Sorel.
It was to him also that the king confided the
supervision of the erection of the monuments to
her memory at Jumieges and Loches — Jumieges
where she^ died in 1449, and where her heart
was buried, and Loches her favourite place of
sojourn, and to whose church and chapter she
had made large gifts. To Loches her body was

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

borne in royal splendour, and there laid to rei
in the choir of the church in a simple tomb.
We can imagine the loving care with which
Etienne Chevalier watched the sculptor, and
possibly even gave him suggestions, as he
fashioned in alabaster her recumbent effigy
representing her with hands clasped as if in
prayer, her feet resting against two lambs, and
her head guarded by two angels with out-
stretched wings. Perhaps this stone effigy was
the one true portrait of Agnes, but the head and
face were partially destroyed during the Revolu-
tion, and restored in their present form in 1806,
so that little of the original now remains.

This tomb, which to-day may be seen in a
small vestibule of the Chateau Royale (now the
Sous-Prefecture), has a strange and chequered
history. Perhaps scarce another has suffered
such singular vicissitudes, so many removals, or
more ruthless violations. Soon after the death
of Charles the Seventh (1461), the canons of
Loches, whom Agnes had largely endowed and
of whom she asked naught save to be re-
membered in their prayers, petitioned Louis the
Eleventh for its transfer to a side chapel, since
they considered it unfitting for the dust of such
an one to repose in the choir. Louis, using his
subtlety to better purpose than was his wont,
replied that if they removed the tomb, they
must return her gifts. Naturally these worthy
ecclesiastics silenced their consciences and kept
the tomb where it was. However, in the year

158

AGNES SOREL

1777, in the reign of Louis the Sixteenth, the
priestly conscience again awoke to the enormity
of its presence within the choir, and, with the
king's consent, it was removed to the nave. '
Before re-burial the coffin was opened in the
presence of various church dignitaries and State
officials. Among the latter was a doctor who
left an authoritative account of the proceedings,
from which we can approximately surmise the
height of La Dame de Beaute, and verify the
record of her abundant fair hair. The exterior
coffin of oak was only 5 feet 6 inches long.
Within this, and protected by another of lead,
was a shell of cedar wood in which, after the
lapse of more than three centuries, lay all that
was mortal of Agnes Sorel. Her fair hair was
plaited in a long tress, and two curls rested on her
forehead. As one of those present, more curious
than his fellows, stretched out his hand to touch,
all fell to dust. Death and Time were her
guardian angels. But even this desecration did
not suffice to drain the cup of unmerited
vengeance. In 1793 the tomb was rifled, the
sculptured features, so lovingly wrought,
defaced, and her dust cast to the winds. But
what matter ? Agnes had done her work —
work which had to be done, and which she
alone could do.

Another of the little band of chosen spirits
of which Agnes was the soul and centre, was
Pierre de Breze, Lord of Varenne and Brissac,
who early showed himself a man of affairs,

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

and was admitted to the King's Council when he
was but twenty-seven. In war, administration,
and finance, he proved himself equally trust-
worthy and skilful, and to these qualities he
added others of a brilliant intellectual nature.
He advanced from one post of trust to another,
until the king himself presented him with the
keys of the city and castle of Rouen. Thus he
became Senechal of Normandy, an honour which
remained in his family. One of his grandsons,
Louis de Breze, a son of Charlotte, daughter of
Agnes Sorel and Charles the Seventh, was the
husband of Diane de Poitiers.

Jacques Cceur, whose life was so intimately
associated with the Court during Agnes's life-
time, and so sadly marred .and ended after her
death, was the son of a simple merchant of
Bourges. Following in the wake of many
adventurous and ambitious merchants of the
time, he journeyed to the East and amassed a
large fortune, which he placed at the disposal
of the king. This enabled Charles to carry on
the war in spite of his impoverished exchequer,
and to make a final and successful effort against
the English. But, like many another on whom
Fortune has smiled, evil tongues and envious
hearts began, ere long, their vampire work, and
after the death of his friend and patroness, Agnes
Sorel, Charles made no effort on his behalf, but
left him at the mercy of his calumniators in the
same base and heartless way in which he had
abandoned Joan of Arc. Jacques, his f goods

1 60

AGNES SOREL

confiscated, and his life in danger, was obliged
to fly the country, and died fighting, in the
Pope's service, against the Turk.

Of the beauty of Agnes Sorel there can be
no doubt, for all contemporary chroniclers and
poets tell of it. Even the Pope, Pius the Second,
allowed himself to add his tribute of praise to
the general homage. Considering that there
are so many types of physical beauty, appealing
to as many different temperaments, there must
have been something rare and remarkable in
Agnes to have attracted and held bound all who
came in contact with her. We can but conclude
that this unanimous judgment could only have
been the result of that mysterious union, so
illusive, so indefinable, of spiritual with physical
beauty. The records of the time merely tell us
that she had blue eyes, and fair hair in abund-
ance. The only picture, and this not done from
life, by which we can judge her — for the minia-
tures by Fouquet, at Chantilly, from Etienne
Chevalier's Book of Hours, though exquisite in
delicacy, are too minute for much characterisa-
tion— is, even if we accept it as the original
from Fouquet's hand, an overcleaned work in
the Museum at Antwerp.1 This, or the original
painting, formed a wing of the so-called diptych
painted to adorn the tomb of Etienne Chevalier
and his wife in the Cathedral of Melun, the
other wing — now in the Royal Museum, Berlin

1 Du Fresne de Beaucourt, Hist, de Charles VII, t. iv. p. 171^
note 2.

M

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

— representing Etienne Chevalier himself, in the
attitude of prayer, his patron saint, St. Stephen,
beside him. There seems reason, however, to
suppose that this offering of Etienne's was in
fact a triptych, and that the missing wing
pictured his young wife, then lately dead (1452).
If this was so, Etienne and his wife would have
appeared in adoration on either side of the
Queen of Heaven, here personated by Agnes
Sorel, thus bringing the panel with Etienne's
portrait into harmony with the central panel,
which otherwise it fails to be.

Of the miniatures at Chantilly, the whole
series of which forms a most tender and rare
tribute to wife and friend, only brief mention
can here be made of those concerning Agnes.
The most simple and beautiful in sentiment and
design is that of the Annunciation , in which the
seated Virgin, in the likeness of Agnes Sorel,
with bowed head receives the angel's message.
The scene is laid in a Gothic chapel (perhaps
the Sainte Chapelle with slight adaptations to
suit the artist's fancy),1 with statues of the
Prophets all around, and Moses, holding the
Books of the Law, as the central figure of the
group. This assemblage of Old Testament
seers certainly typified the Old dispensation,
whilst the Annunciation prefigures the New,
and to us the whole may not unfitly form an
allegory of the new order which Agnes Sorel
was to help to bring about. In another minia-

1 Cf. Grandes Chroniques de France, fol. 292, Bib. Nat.
162

Mitse'e de Chantilly^

BOOK OF HOURS OF ETIENNE CHEVALIER.

To face page 162.

•

BOOK OF HOURS OF ETIENNE CHEVALIER.

To face page 163.

AGNES SOREL

ture — the Visit of the Magi — Charles the Seventh,
accompanied by his Scottish guard, and with the
Castle of Loches in the background, himself
kneels as one of the kings before the Virgin,
here also represented in the likeness of Agnes.
And so on, throughout the series, in many of
the scenes of the Virgin's life we find her bearing
the features of Agnes until an older and sadder
type becomes necessary in the Crucifixion, the
Entombment, and the Announcement of the Death
and the Death of the Virgin. When, however,
death has transfigured age and sorrow, the like-
ness of Agnes reappears in the Assumption,
and Coronation, and, the crowning glory, the
Enthronement of the Virgin.

In a Book of Hours, at Munich, painted
about 1500 A.D. for Jacques Coeur's grandson
(in part perhaps by Jean Bourdichon, the artist
of the superb Book of Hours of Anne de
Bretagne now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, or
at least by some pupil or follower of his), there
are three miniatures that seem of special interest
in connection with Agnes Sorel. One is a
representation of the Virgin of the Annunciation,
and another that of the Madonna with the Holy
Child. In both these the features of the Virgin
Mother appear to faintly echo those of Agnes as
we know her, as the crowned and ermined queen
in the picture at Antwerp. Still more interest-
ing is the third miniature, giving a view — here
used as a setting for the Procession to Calvary —
of the front of Jacques Coeur's stately dwelling

163

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

at Bourges. Here doubtless many a time Agnes
and the king were entertained. Hither Jacques
returned from sundry journeys to the East, laden
with treasures to beautify his surroundings.
Hence he fled, the victim of success. Over the
principal entrance is a canopied recess, once
sheltering an equestrian statue destroyed during
the Revolution. This now empty space once
held a statue of King Charles the Seventh, armed
cap-a-pie on a galloping caparisoned charger, as
he may be seen represented on medals of the
period. It is not a little significant of this
thankless monarch that he here seems to be
turning his back on the house of his faithful
servant and supporter, and to be riding away.
Other details worthy of mention in this Book of
Hours are the realistic background to the picture
of the Visit of the Magi^ with its snow-covered
village church, houses, and fields ; the Italian
drug-pot in the Magdalen's hands in the scene
of the Crucifixion, showing the intimate inter-
course with Italy ; and the Mater Dolorosa
seated alone at the foot of the Cross, — a tragic
note taken from the Mystery of the Passion.

There is only one unanimous opinion con-
cerning Agnes Sorel, and that is as to her beauty.
For the rest, it would seem as if prejudice and
flattery held the scales. The mean is difficult
to discover, and perhaps it is only possible to
get somewhere near it by studying results — the
remarkable change, as already noticed, in Charles's
life and conduct whilst under her influence.

164

AGNES SOREL

In the face of conflicting records it is no easy
matter to determine when Agnes Sorel first
became the king's mistress. In 1435, when
the Treaty of Arras was concluded between
Charles and the Duke of Burgundy, Cardinal de
Sainte-Croix (afterwards Pope Pius the Second)
was Papal legate at the French Court, and aided
in the negotiations. He tells in his memoirs
that the relation between Charles and Agnes
was known publicly at the time, and that the
king could do nothing without her, even having
her at his side at the royal councils. The trust-
worthiness of this statement has, however, been
so questioned, that it seems safer to endeavour to
arrive at the truth from other sources, although,
if the statement can be relied on, it seems to
follow, almost as a matter of course, that Agnes
must have been born earlier than 1422. It is
an admitted fact that between 1433 and 1438
the manner of Charles's life entirely changed.
In the year 1433 the infamous and once all-
powerful favourite, La Tremoille, who had been
the king's evil genius for six years, and was
largely responsible for the king's treatment
of his wife, Marie of Anjou, was dismissed at
the instance of the politic Yolande. Yet even
so, the king often relapsed into indolence and
apparent indifference to his kingly duties, and it
was not till after 1438, when he summoned a
national Council at Bourges, that Charles showed
himself to be a new man. It is also not long
after this that we read of favours granted by the

165

OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN

king to Agnes's relations. From that time,
Charles ceased to spend his time in dreamland,
as it were, in the sweet Touraine country, and
engaged himself in affairs of State, listening to
and accepting wise counsels, favouring the
restoration of schools and universities — which,
in the uncertain state of the country, had almost
ceased to exist — and encouraging the final efforts
to expel the national enemy, even at times
personally joining in the fight. If we see in
this, in a measure at all events, the guiding
spirit of Agnes, the secret of her influence is not
very difficult to discover. Apart from her
beauty, which, with Charles, would be a potent
factor, Agnes had a woman's insight and skill in
her relation with him, ever holding up to him
the glory and obligations of kingship, at the
same time herself entering, with all the vitality
of her extraordinary nature, into his favourite
pastimes. We know that in one or other of
her many residences near Chinon or Loches, she
and the king often spent the evening playing
piquet or chess (the latter being his favourite
game), and then, on the morrow, rode forth
together to the chase. So the days were passed
in work and simple outdoor pleasures, Agnes
taking no recognised public part in the king's
life, but devoting herself heart and soul to the
task she had in hand. But besides these relaxa-
tions of peace, there was also the reality of war ;
for the war still lingered on, though feebly.
The English had lost their ally, the Duke of

1 66

AGNES SOREL

Burgundy, as well as Bedford, the able Regent,
and there was no fit man to take the latter's
place. Paris opened her gates to Charles in
1436, and in the following year Charles, after
having reigned for fourteen years, made his first
State entry into the capital of his kingdom,
mounted on a white charger, the sign of
sovereignty. In 1444 a treaty was concluded
at Tours with the English, and, to make the
compact doubly sure, Margaret of Anjou, a
niece of the king, was married to Henry the
Sixth of England. For about a month the
Court and its princely visitors gave themselves
up to fetes and pageants, and it was during this
time of rejoicing that the position of Agnes was
officially recognised. She was made lady-in-
waiting to the queen, and took a prominent
part throughout the festival. Charles gave her
the royal castle of Beaute, on the Marne, near
the Bois de Vincennes, " le plus bel chastel et
joly et le mieux assis qui fust en 1'Isle de France,"
desiring, as was said, that she should be " Dame
de Beaute de nom comme de fait." From the
time of her public recognition she appeared with
the king at all the brilliant festivities celebrated
in honour of treaties and marriages. She also
sat in the royal council, a position which, as a
king's mistress, she was the first to occupy,
though we know that Henri II. took no step
without first conferring with Diane de Poitiers,
and that Madame de Maintenon sat in Louis
the Fourteenth's privy council.

167

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

The change which came over France after
the Treaty of Tours was marvellous, alike in
its extent and its rapidity. Commerce was
again resumed between the two nations ; men
and women once again ventured without the
city walls, to breathe, as it were, the fresh air
of liberty ; and those who had been called
upon to fight, returned to their work in the
fields or the towns. We cannot better voice
the feeling of the people than by borrowing the
song of a poet of the day :

Le temps a laisse son manteau
De vent, de froidure et de pluie,
Et s'est ve'tu de broderie,
De soleil rayant> clair et beau ;
II n'y a beste ne oiseau

gu'en son jargon ne chante ou crie :
e temps a laisse son manteau.

Now that Agnes had assumed a definite
role at Court, she lived principally at Loches,
where the king assigned to her " son quartier de
maison " within the castle, and also gave her a
residence without the walls. Here she shone
like a radiant star ; for although the king did
not have much personal influence on the move-
ment in art and letters, his Court was the
meeting - place of many distinguished and in-
tellectual men. Among them we find the
name of Alain Chartier, the poet, and sometime
secretary to the king, and one of the ambassadors
who went to Edinburgh to ask the hand of the
little Margaret of Scotland for the Dauphin.
We remember him now chiefly in connection

168

AGNES SOREL

with the charming story told of this girl-wife
of the Dauphin Louis. Betrothed to Louis
when she was a child of three, and sent to
France to be brought up at the Court, she was
married at twelve to this boy of thirteen, who
could not possibly appreciate her simple, sweet
nature which endeared her to all others. One
day as she was passing with her ladies through
a room in the castle, she saw Alain Chartier
lying on a bench asleep. She approached
quietly, and kissed him, much to the surprise of
her attendants that she should " kiss so ugly a
man." And she made answer : " I did not
kiss the man, but the precious mouth whence
so many beautiful and fair words have issued."
Poor little poetess ! Fortunately her life was
a short one. She died when she was just
twenty-one, with these words on her lips : " Fi
de la vie de ce monde, ne m'en parlez plus."
The scientific historian of to-day is inclined to
dismiss this story as a pleasing though rather
foolish romance. But even so, Alain Chartier
may be remembered as a poet and philosopher,
as well as a brave and wise patriot during some
of France's darkest hours — a worthy contem-
porary of Agnes Sorel and Joan of Arc. Fearing
neither the nobles nor the people, he blames
the former for their love of luxury and personal
indulgence, and exhorts both to think of the
public good, and to aid in their country's
defence, instead of allowing themselves to be
engrossed with their private affairs. Then,

169

OF SIX MEDIAEVAL WOMEN

whilst acknowledging that as he has not the
strength to bear arms, it is only with his pen
and his speech that he can serve his country, he
reminds them that it was the historian's pen
and the orator's harangue, just as much as the
warrior's lance, that made the glory of the
Romans.

Louis the Dauphin, come to man's estate, and
self-seeking and treacherous, was no friend to
Agnes, who had incurred his hatred by her
fearless disclosure to the king from time to
time of conspiracies against his person, in
which Louis was the prime mover. After
repeated reconciliations, the king in despair
finally banished him to his domain of Dauphine.
The traitor, quitting the royal presence for
what he deemed exile, swore to be avenged on
those who had driven him forth, and if some
of the records of the time speak truly, four
years later his opportunity came, and he kept
his oath.

The last scene of Agnes's life was pathetic-
ally interesting. Her end came almost sud-
denly. The king, listening to advice, had
resolved to continue the war in Normandy,1
and, at the instigation of Agnes, if we may believe
the words of a courtly writer of the time, had
himself gone to the front. Rouen was taken,
and Charles entered in triumph. The streets
were decked with flowers and branches, and the
houses hung with rich draperies, and everywhere

1 Lavisse, Hist, de France, vol. iv. part 2, p. 229, footnote.

AGNES SOREL

the leopards and quarterings of England had
been replaced by the fleur-de-lis. Charles,
preceded by a gorgeous procession of archers,
each company arrayed in the livery of its lord,
and carrying his special banner, followed, under
a canopy, on a horse caparisoned to the ground
with blue cloth sprinkled with fleurs-de-lis of
gold, surrounded by princes and the principal
captains and officers of the Crown. With his
wonted observance of religious duty, slowly he
made his way to the cathedral through the
shouting multitude, and to the sound of many
fiddles and the fanfare of trumpets. There -he
descended, kissed the relics as he knelt beneath
the great portal, and then entered its hushed
and solemn dimness to return thanks. But
scarce had the air ceased to ring with the
plaudits of the people, when the report of a plot
against the king, devised by the Dauphin, is
said to have come to the ears of Agnes, and she
hastened to the king at Jumieges, whither he
had retired for a short rest during the unusual
and inclement winter. Here, stricken by a
mysterious sickness, by some thought to be
typhoid fever, by others attributed to poison
administered at the instigation of Louis, she
died in February 1450, in her manor of Mesnil,
near the Abbey of Jumieges. The king was
with her to the end, and could only be induced
to withdraw when her lifeless form sank back
in his arms. So died this wonderful and fasci-
nating woman who had lived and laboured for

171

OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN

her country through perhaps the most critical
period of its history.

It is impossible to entirely ignore what has
been written to Agnes's personal discredit, though
much of it may well be looked upon as exaggera-
tion, and open to suspicion. That the king
was not her only lover may be true, but in the
absence of satisfactory documentary evidence of
this, perhaps the various intrigues attributed to
her may, for the most part at least, be regarded
as the creations of scandal. Still, bearing in
mind the condition of France at the time of her
accession to power, the extent of the influence
she admittedly exercised in the councils of the
king, and the great change which came over
the royal fortunes and the fortunes of the country
during the years of her ascendancy, it is scarcely
possible to refuse to her some right to share in
the recognition so lavishly bestowed upon the
other great woman of that time — Joan of Arc.
The one may be said to have been the com-
plement of the other. Both were necessary to
the needs of the day, and the glory of successful
accomplishment should be shared between them.

172

A NOTE ON MEDIEVAL GARDENS

173

MEDIEVAL GARDENS1

No one can study French mediaeval lore, or
Gothic cathedral, or Book of Hours, without
realising how great a love of Nature prevailed
in the late Middle Ages. The poems tell of
spring, " the season of delight," of gardens which
suffice " for loss of Paradise," and of birds " with
soft melodious chant." In the dim stillness of
the cathedral, Nature is expressed in infinite
variety. Foliage grows in the hollows of the
mouldings, and sometimes, as at Chartres, even
the shafts, as they tower into the gloom, end in
half-opened leaves, suggestive of spring, of hope,
and of aspiration. Many a sunny fa9ade shows
us scenes of rural life — sowing, reaping, vine-
dressing, and so forth — fashioned as a calendar
in stone, and many a peasant must have rejoiced
as he saw himself and his occupation thus
represented in effigy. Fortunately for the poor
toiler, the Church not only taught that " to
labour is to worship," but further honoured
work by thus representing it at the very entrance

1 The quotations from the Roman de la Rose are taken from
Mr. F. S. Ellis's translation, published by Messrs. J. M. Dent & Co.
in the "Temple Classics."

175

MEDIEVAL GARDENS

to the sanctuary, so making it, as it were, the
" open sesame " to higher things.

In Books of Hours and illuminated MSS.,
before the complete border of flowers, birds, and
small grotesques was developed, we find orna-
mental flourishes, like the growth of ivy and
hawthorn, splendidly free in design, and painted
with evident joy even in the minutest bud or
tendril. Everywhere may this love of Nature
striving for expression be seen. But we must
turn to the poems and romances if we would
fully realise it in all its simplicity and truth,
since it is in these alone that we get at the
actual mediaeval feeling unalloyed with all that
we ourselves have, perhaps unwittingly, read
into it.

" All hearts are uplifted and made glad in the
time of April and May, when once again the
meadows and the pastures become green." So
says one of the old romancers. And this joy
in returning spring seems to have pervaded
mediaeval thought and expression. Little is
this to be wondered at when we call to mind the
long dreary winters spent in cold and ill-lit
castles, or in dark, draughty houses and hovels.
Before glass, long regarded as a luxury, came into
general use in dwellings, the only protection
from rain and cold consisted in wooden shutters,
or movable frames with horn slabs (necessarily
small)," or varnished parchment. In truth, the
only warm, bright place was the chimney
corner, and here, as near as might be to the

176

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. •

BOOK OF HOURS.

French, I4th Century, Brit. Mus.

Photo. Macbeth.

To face page 176.

HARL. MS. 4425, BRIT. Mus.

Photo. Macbeth.
To face page 177.

MEDIEVAL GARDENS

blazing logs, the long days of winter were spent
in chess-playing, broidery, lute-playing, and love-
making, the monotony of this only occasionally
broken by the arrival of some wandering minstrel
who sang of war and love, or of some packman
laden with sundry wares prized of womankind.
But in winter such wayfarers were rare, and life
was, perforce, one of boredom and discom-
fort. Thus there was exceeding joy when
" woods and thickets donned their rich green
mantling of resplendent sheen."

It is generally of springtime in a garden — a
garden of green glades and alleys, fruit-trees and
flowers, such as was very dear to the medieval
soul — of which we read. The Roman de la
Rose opens with a description of a garden,
hemmed round with castle wall — a pleasaunce
within a fortress — and planted with trees " from
out the land of Saracens," and many others, to
wit, the pine, the beech (loved of squirrels) , the
graceful birch, the shimmering aspen, the hazel,
the oak, and many flowers withal — roses and
violets and periwinkle, golden king-cups, and
pink-rimmed daisies. The poet describes with
careful detail the design of the garden :

The garden was nigh broad as wide,
And every angle duly squared ;

how the trees were planted :

Such skilful art

Had planned the trees that each apart
Six fathoms stood, yet like a net
The interlacing branches met ;

177 N

MEDIEVAL GARDENS

and how " channelled brooks " flowed from clear
fountains through u thymy herbage and gay
flowers."

The debt which the mediaeval world owed
to the East is shown both in the fruits. and the
spices which are described as growing in the
garden, and in the pastimes said to have been
enjoyed in its cool shade. We read of pome-
granates, nutmegs, almonds, dates, figs, liquorice,
aniseed, cinnamon, and zedoary, an Eastern plant
used as a stimulant. When the poet would tell
of dance and song, he goes by

A shaded pathway, where my feet,
Bruised mint and fennel savouring sweet,

to a secluded lawn. Here he sees one whose
name is " Gladness " :

Gently swaying, rose and fell

Her supple form, the while her feet

Kept measured time with perfect beat :

While minstrels sang, the tambourine
Kept with the flute due time I ween.

Then saw I cunning jugglers play,
And girls cast tambourines away
Aloft in air, then gaily trip
Beneath them, and on finger-tip
Catch them again.

In every garden there was a fountain or sheet
of water with a small channelled way carrying
the water to the castle and through the women's
apartment. Sometimes these waterways were
made use of by the lover as a means of com-
munication with his beloved, as we read in the

178

MEDIAEVAL GARDENS

romance of Tristan and Isolde^ where Tristan,
to apprise his mistress that he is at their tryst-
ing-place in the garden, drops into the water
small pieces of bark and twigs, which are
quickly carried to the chamber where Isolde is
waiting and watching. And one eventide a
perilous encounter befalls. Tristan has been
banished the Court, for evil tongues have
whispered in King Mark's ear of his love for
Isolde, and have further whispered of secret
meetings in the garden, beside the fountain.
Now near the fountain is a pine-tree, into which
King Mark resolves to climb, and perchance to
discover the meeting of the lovers. As daylight
fades, Tristan scales the wall, and hastens to
throw into the water the little signals for his
lady. But as he stoops over the pool he sees,
reflected in its clear surface, the image of the
king, with bow ready bent. Can he stop the
floating twigs as they are hurried along on their
mission ? No. The water carries them away
out of sight, and Isolde must come. She comes,
but Tristan does not go to meet her as was his
wont, but remains standing by the water. She
wonders at her lover's seeming unconcern, but
as she approaches him, suddenly, in the bright
moonlight, she, too, sees in the water the
reflection of the king, and the lovers are saved.

A pine-tree is so often mentioned as a special
feature in a mediaeval garden that one is led to
think that its use may either have been a survival
from the days of Tree Worship, seeing that the

179

MEDIAEVAL GARDENS

tree was sacred to Adonis, Attis, and Osiris l (all,
perhaps, varying forms of one and the same
divinity), or have been suggested by some
northern Saga. It makes its appearance in the
Chanson de Roland, which has come down to
us in a thirteenth-century form, incorporating
the earlier Epic of Roland, probably composed
towards the end of the eleventh century. In
this we find mention of it when Charlemagne,
after he is said to have taken Cordova, retires to
a garden with Roland and Oliver and his barons,
the elder ones amusing themselves with chess
and tric-trac, and the younger ones with fencing,
the king meanwhile looking on, seated under a
pine-tree. Later in the day tents are set up, in
which they pass the night, and in the early
morning Charlemagne, after hearing mass, again
sits under the pine-tree to take counsel of his
barons.

In the Roman de la Rose, the fateful
fountain of Narcissus is described as being
beneath a pine-tree, which is represented as
being taller and fairer than any that mortal eye
had seen since the glorious pine of Charlemagne's
time, showing that here at least the poet is
making use of tradition.

But to make our way into a mediaeval
garden, and see all that grows therein, we must
needs get within the precincts of the castle, for
inside its fortified enclosure the castle, like a
small village, was self-contained. And this was

1 J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 1906.
1 80

Photo. Briickmann.

FLEMISH MASTER.
Fifteenth Century. Stephenson Clarke Collection. Tofac€page l8l.

MEDIEVAL GARDENS

no easy matter, if we may judge from the vivid
description to be found in Huon de Bordeaux,
a poem concerning a Bordelais lord of the ninth
century. After sundry adventures, Huon sets
out on a journey to Babylon, and seeks an
audience with the Emir. He tells of his
arrival at what he describes as the castle, and
how, after long parley with the porter, the
drawbridge is let down and the great gate
opened, and he finds himself in an arched way,
with a series of portcullises showing their teeth
overhead. After further parley, and further
opening of gates, he enters a large courtyard,
and goes thence into the garden, which is
planted with every kind of tree, aromatic herb,
and sweet-scented flower. In the garden is a
fountain with its little channelled way, supplied
with water from the Earthly Paradise. This
description may seem a little fantastic, but it is
only the poet's way of telling us what we might
ourselves experience if we would go in imagina-
tion to some thirteenth- or fourteenth-century
castle, and seek to gain admittance.

Sometimes the garden was within the castle
fortifications. It was then necessarily circum-
scribed, and would, more or less, be laid out
with formal pathways and stone-curbed borders,
also with trees cut in various devices (a reminder
of Rome's once far-reaching influence), and a
tunnel or pergola of vines or sweet-scented
creepers running the length of the wall to form
a covered walk for shelter against sunshine or

181

MEDLEVAL GARDENS

shower. But where the garden was without the
fortifications, but yet within the castle enclosure,
as was always the arrangement if possible, oppor-
tunity was afforded for wooded dell and flowery
slope, as well as for the orchard with its special
patch for herb-growing.

The herb-plot was one of the most important
items in a medieval garden ; for here were
grown not only herbs and roots for healing, but
also sweet-scented mint and thyme for mingling
with the rushes strewn on the floors. Some-
times the rushes themselves were fragrant, and
such, lemon-scented when crushed, may even
to-day be found in the neighbourhood of Oxford,
probably growing in the very place which at
one time supplied many a college hall with its
carpet of fresh green.

In the larger gardens might also be found
labyrinths and aviaries, with bright-plumaged
birds from the East. Here, too, were often
enclosures for wild beasts, much prized by the
lord of the castle, to whom they may have been
proffered as peace-offerings, or as friendly gifts
from some neighbouring lord. Strange beasts
were royal gifts ; for kings, we read, made such
offerings to each other. Even as early as the
ninth century, Haroun al Raschid sent an
elephant to Charlemagne. It was brought to
Aix-la-Chapelle by Isaac the Jew, and survived
its long walk seven years, and it would be
interesting to know by what route it journeyed
thither in those days. These private zoological

182

MEDIEVAL GARDENS

gardens may possibly account for the compara-
tive accuracy with which the early miniaturists
painted such beasts as lions, bears, and leopards,
which otherwise they might have had no chance
of studying.

One of the greatest delights of the garden
was the bower in which the warm months were
passed. Here meals were taken, and merry
pastimes enjoyed, as long as daylight lasted.
Hither came tumblers and dancing-girls, and
sometimes performing animals. A poor captive
bear would be made to stumble over the rough
roads for miles in order to go through its
grotesque antics before some joyous company
of dames and gallants. But spring and youth
was the time to be gay, and nothing came amiss
to these light-hearted folk.

The bower was also the " privy playing
place," and all care was taken to make its leafy
screen grow close and thick. Perhaps one of
the most interesting references to a green arbour
— interesting because of the romance which was
the cause of its mention — is in a poem by King
James I. of Scotland, telling of sad years in prison,
which ended in love and liberty. James, whilst
still a young man, was imprisoned in Windsor
Castle, and writing to solace himself with some-
thing more tangible than the mere contemplation
of his beloved one, and to while away time,
describes the garden with " herbere green,"
which he saw through the barred window of
his prison-house. Leaning his head against the

183

MEDIEVAL GARDENS

cold stone wall, by night he gazed at the stars, by
day at the garden. And weary and woe-begone
as he was, he says, " to look, it did me good."

Now there was made fast by the tower wall
A garden fair, and in the corners set
A herbere green, with wands so long and small
Railed all about : and so with trees close set
Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knit
That no one though he were near walking by
Might there within scarce any one espy.

So thick the branches and the leafage green
Beshaded all the alleys that there were,
And 'midst of ev'ry herbere might be seen
The sharp and green sweet-scented juniper,
Growing so fair with branches here and there,
That, as it seemed to any one without,
The branches spread the herbere all about.

And on the slender green-leaved branches sat
The little joyous nightingales, and sang
So loud and clear, the carols consecrat
To faithful love.1

This " garden fair " was the scene of the romance
which solaced this royal prisoner, and helped
him to bear his irksome lot, and to be able to
exclaim, after nearly eighteen years' captivity —
a captivity since boyhood :

Thanks be to the massive castle wall,

From which I eagerly looked forth and leant.

Looking from his window he espied, notwith-
standing " hawthorne hedges " and " beshaded
alleys/' Lady Johanna Beaumont (whom he
wedded on his release) walking in the garden.
Neither poet nor historian tells how they found

1 King's Quair, verse 3 I seq.
184

MEDIAEVAL GARDENS

means to communicate with one another, but
tradition, which is sometimes twin-brother to
truth, has handed down the story of a go-between
who conveyed missives and tokens.

In the accompanying picture we see a corner
of a mediaeval garden, hemmed round with castle
wall. In it the artist has adapted an everyday
scene to a religious purpose, by giving my lady
a crown, and the baby an aureole, to suggest the
Holy Mother and Child, whilst one of the
gentlemen-in-waiting is provided with wings, so
as to make him more in harmony with such
saintly company. But this is only what might
have been seen on any bright morning in late
spring or summer, in some castle pleasaunce.
My lady reads a book, whilst her maidens amuse
themselves, one holding a psaltery on which the
child tinkles, to its evident delight and wonder-
ment ; another, with a perverted sporting instinct,
seems to be trying to catch fish with a ladle (note
the usual little channelled way, on which a bird
is perched, refreshing itself), whilst a third is
picking fruit. The three squires are doubtless
talking of the chase, for, in my lady's presence,
love would hardly be their theme. And all
around are beautiful flowers — roses, lilies, and
irises. Over against the enclosing wall is the
usual bank of earth, faced with wood to keep it
the necessary height, and planted with many
flowers. This raised portion enabled those in
the garden to get a view over the surrounding
country, and to have a point of outlook in case of

185

MEDIEVAL GARDENS

attack. It also served as a seat ; for at intervals,
between the flowers and sweet-scented herbs,
portions were covered with turf.

Of all the flowers in the garden the rose
" red and pale " was the greatest favourite, and
many different sorts were planted there. To so
many purposes were they put, and so great was
the demand for them, that large quantities of
roses frequently served as the payment of vassals
to their lord. They were used for strewing the
floor at the wedding-feast, or at the entertaining
of some great baron. The fresh petals were
sprinkled over the surface of the water in the
bath, and were distilled to make the rose-water
with which the knights and ladies washed their
hands and faces when they left their much-
curtained beds. Further, they were specially
prized for garlands, the making of which was
one of the favourite occupations of the ladies of
the Middle Ages. Dante, who sums up the
spirit of the Middle Ages from the simplest
reality to the sublimest ideal, alludes to garlands
and garland-making as amongst the joys of the
Earthly Paradise. In his poet's vision of the
pageant of the Church Militant he sees the last
company wreathed with red roses, emblems to
him of Charity or Love. Boccaccio, in a more
mundane atmosphere and a less august assemblage,
also introduces us to this mediaeval love of
garlands. In a preamble to one of his tales he
gives a dainty picture of the manners and pastimes
of the gay folk of his day. Of the merry com-

186

HARL. MS. 4425, BRIT. Mus.

Photo. Macbeth.

To face page 186.

MEDLEVAL GARDENS

pany, which his fancy makes to quit plague-
stricken Florence for the country, where they tell
stories to prevent monotony, he relates that, after
dining in the cool shade, and before the story-
telling begins, " the gentlemen walked with the
ladies into a goodly garden, making chaplets and
nosegays of divers flowers, and singing silently
to themselves/' Both sexes wore them on festive
occasions, and in summer young girls wore no
head-covering save a garland. The knight at
the tournament decked his helm with a chaplet
of some chosen flower, deftly woven by the fair
one in whose name he made venture ; and many
a merry company, wreathed with flowers or
foliage, rode forth on May-day, with trumpets
and flutes, to celebrate the festival.

Another favourite flower for garlands was the
cornflower, as we learn from the poets, who tell
of ladies dancing the carole (a popular dance in
which all moved slowly round in a circle, singing
at the same time), their heads crowned with
garlands of cornflower. Violets and periwinkles,
and meadow flowers, white, red, and blue, were
also gathered to indulge this pretty fancy.

The gillyflower is another flower frequently
mentioned. This name has been applied to
various flowers, but originally it belonged to the
carnation, and was used for such in Shakespeare's
time. In the Roman de la Rose it is called the
gillyflower-clove, thus definitely defining it. One
of its virtues, according to an old writer, was
" to comfort the spirites by the sence of smelling,"

187

MEDIEVAL GARDENS

and also " to be of much use in ornament."
But indeed most flowers were not only used
for chaplets, and for strewing on the floor, but
were also painted on the chamber walls, and
embroidered on the hangings, to serve in winter
days as sweet memories and as sweeter hopes.

Apparently the earliest records of gardens,
after Roman times, date from the ninth century,
and are mostly to be found amongst monastic '
archives. A garden was an important, and even
essential, annex of a monastery, not only because
of the " herbularis " or physic garden, from the
herbs of which the monks compounded salves
and potions for the wounded knight or the
plundered wayfarer who might take shelter
within its protecting walls, but also because of
the solace which the shady trees and the gay
flowers brought to the sick, for a monastery was
generally a hospital as well. St. Bernard of
Clairvaux, speaking of an abbey garden, gives
a charming picture of one of these cloistered
pleasaunces for the sick and the aged. He
says :

Within the enclosure of this wall many and various trees,
prolific in various fruits, constitute an orchard resembling a
wood, which, being near the cell of the sick, lightens the
infirmities of the brethren with no moderate solace, while it
affords a spacious walking place to those who walk and a
sweet place for reclining to those who are overheated. Where
the orchard terminates the garden begins. Here also a
beautiful spectacle is exhibited to the infirm brethren : while
they sit upon the green margin of the huge basin, they see
the little fishes playing under the water and representing a
military encounter by swimming to meet each other.

188

MEDIAEVAL GARDENS

This warlike note seems strange and almost dis-
cordant in the midst of the peace of the cloister;
but many, before seeking shelter there, had been
doughty knights, and St. Bernard, man of the
world as he was, would realise that even this
mimic warfare might bring diversion to their
tranquil seclusion.

What a contrast to all this joy in the Middle
Ages in gardens and flowers are the sober reflec-
tions of Marcus Aurelius ! Philosopher as he
was, he would have us learn from plants the
lesson of cause and effect, the continuity of life.
He says :

The destruction of one thing is the making of another ;
and that which subsists at present is, as it were, the seed of
succession, which springs from it. But if you take seed in the
common notion, and confine it to the field or the garden, you
have a dull fancy.

It is with a sense of relief that we turn from
the thoughts which a garden suggests to this
stoic, to those not less profound, though perhaps
more simple, of a Chinese writer of the fourth
century :

Ah, how short a time it is that we are here ! Why then
not set our hearts at rest, ceasing to trouble whether we remain
or go ? What boots it to wear out the soul with anxious
thoughts ? Let me stroll through the bright hours as they
pass in my garden among my flowers.

Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.

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