THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
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sorted to for education by kings and princes as well as by the “old cowherd Caedmon” (q.v.), who under Hilda’s tuition became the father of English poetry. Her successor Elfleda, like all cloistered Anglo-Saxon princesses, took a passionate interest in the affairs of her race and country, and did much to mitigate the jealousies of kings and bishops. Abbesses administered the communion in their convents up to the ninth century, and in England in the tenth century four abbesses sat in Parliament as peers. The authority of such persons was enormous. As feudal lords they had the right of ban, sent their contingents of armed knights to the field, gave judgment in courts, and in Germany (as in England) were summoned to the imperial diet. Certain German abbesses had even the right to mint coin.
During all these centuries when the business of men was war, and princes were not disgraced by total illiteracy, women-ruled institutions became centers not only of philanthropy but of intellectual life, training the sons and daughters of kings and nobles for public life, and contributing much to the progress of learning. In the tenth century the Saxon monastery at Gandersheim was especially distinguished for the brilliant learning and the dramatic productions of the nun Roswitha (q.v.). In the eleventh century women of exalted position, whether cloistered or otherwise, felt the stirrings of that national consciousness which was marked by the struggle between pope and emperor. In this struggle more than one woman took an active part, notably Matilda, Countess of Tuscany (q.v.), who, at her castle at, Canossa, more than indirectly contributed to that “peace of the Church” during which letters were revived and the progress of science fostered.
During this and the following centuries religious houses had fallen into great disorder, especially through luxury. Not until the twelfth century did
nuns become entirely cloistered; up 2. In to this time they had enjoyed great
Philan- freedom of action, and only by degrees
thropy and had a conventual costume become ob-
Literature. ligatory. Both these changes were in
the direction of reform. The sisterhood of the Poor Clares (see Cuare, SAINT, AND THE Poor Ciarss) had great influence in correcting the evils of monastic life. The sisters also nursed the sick, especially lepers. A contemporary of the founder of the order was Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia (q.v.), whose service to the Church was far larger than the charities for which she is famous in legend. The hospitals which she founded were of lasting social importance, and her friendship for the Franciscans was hardly less so. The work of founding hospitals took a new impulse during this period, chiefly as a result of the changes in monastic life. Many notable women left the convent to create voluntary associations for charity and philanthropy, forming the “ active ” or “ secular orders,” within the Church but bound by no vows, devoted to prayer, the service of the poor, the sick, orphans, widows, and weaker brethren and sisters. Conspicuous among these were the Tertiaries of St. Francis (see Francis, Saint, oF Assisi) and St.
Dominic (see Dominic, Sarnr), the Sisters of the Common Life (see Common Lirz, BRETHREN OF THE, § 5), and the Beguines of Flanders (see BeGHarps, Breauines). This last order was a protest against formalism and useless repression, and an assertion of the right of spontaneous self-expression in work. In the thirteenth century a wave of mysticism swept over the Church, in which women had a large part. Much mystic literature, some of it held to be divinely inspired, was contributed by nuns. The convent of Helfta near Eisleben was a center of this activity, and in this convent four women, the Abbess Gertrude, her sister Saint Matilda of Hackeborn, the beguine Matilda of Magdeburg, and Gertrud the Great (qq.v.) were conspicuous. Their writings were characterized by great elevation, impassioned fervor, intense realism, and high inspiration. The beguine Matilda (who joined the convent later) was one of the earliest writers in German. Her work, ‘The Flowing Light of Divinity,’”’ in seven books has been republished (ed. G. Morel, Regensburg, 1869, and selected passages in Germ. transl. by S. Simon, Berlin, 1907). It is a serious inquiry into the nature of the soul and its relation to God, and it paved the way for more rational views than had prevailed in the earlier mysticism. Matilda of Hackeborn’s “ Book of Special Grace ”’ (best ed., by the Benedictines of Solesmes, Revelationes Gertrudis ac Mathildiane, ii. 1-421, Paris, 1877), a series of visions and revelations, often translated and frequently reprinted, was notable in that class of literature which had its culmination in Dante.
The abuses which unquestionably sullied monastic life in the centuries preceding the Reformation were in large part attributable to concentration of
interest upon the care of the individual 3- Decline soul—the effort to attain personal in Culture. sanctity by prayer, fasting, and later by discipline. Moral disorders ultimately resulted from this ideal. Education was maintained, but its scope was narrowed, its chief purpose being to fit the young for cloistered life. Still, intellectual pursuits were cherished in some German nunneries even into the fifteenth century. But a growing indifference to the intellectual occupations of women and the education of girls was evident, and the Humanists of the period, in their far-reaching plans for an improved system of education, left girls entirely out of account. The development of Universities (q.v.) (in which the existence of women was ignored) resulted in a serious lowering of the educational standard of the convent. The separation of the sexes and the stricter confinement of women, in the interests of morality, cut off the nuns from secular learning and from those public interests in which they had formerly been active. Thus the high ideals with which woman’s service had been claimed and rendered in the early days became entirely obscured. Later monasticism was unable to make the lavished treasures of woman’s love and self-sacrifice useful to the world, and woman lost her practical place in the service of the Church.
The decline of monasticism was inevitable so
soon as the idea that virginity was in itself pleasing