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NUNS' SCHOOLS

[CH.

a girl should be taught to sew and not to read, unless one wishes to make a nun of her."

An account of the courtly education of ladies will be found in a later chapter. Throughout the mediaeval period, the education of the great majority of girls and women was of a similarly practical kind, both in aim and method. "Schooling" formed but a very small part of it, and was limited to religious instruction for the greater number; in all probability, this was the sole teaching afforded to boys and girls in the "parish," "canonical" or priest's schools1. Some, probably not a large proportion, learned to read; still fewer learned to write. But girls and women who could read and write greatly increased in number during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the earlier centuries, learning to read meant learning to read Latin and consequently involved the ability to read any other language known to the reader and written in Roman or similar characters. It appears from advice tendered during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to English anchoresses (i.e. recluses living apart from convents) that these women often turned their houses into schools for children; the practice was condemned as incompatible with the strictly religious obligations of the recluse.

This principle also condemned those nuns who turned their convents into places of general education. The exact part played by the mediaeval nunneries in this connexion is hotly disputed; a dispassionate review of the evidence goes to show that any general statement respecting the education given in convents, or the persons who received it, is valueless apart from the consideration of period, place and nunnery in question. It is perhaps safe to assert that there was an understanding, not always observed, that the nuns themselves should be able to read their Psalter (which, of course, they knew by heart) and "divine letters," that is, the Bible and the writings of the Fathers, all in Latin. As early as 507 the “ 'Rule" of St Cesarius of Arles says: "Let all learn letters; in every season, two hours, that is from dawn to the second hour, should be free for reading."

When we pass to writing, the ground is less certain; but even in early days some nuns in some convents spent much time in transcribing or illuminating manuscripts. Miss Eckenstein quotes

1 See p. II above.

I]

LEARNED NUNS

23

from the Acta Sanctorum of Bollandus a description of the instruction given in a Flemish convent to two girls, not nuns, during the ninth century, which may be fairly regarded as representing the standard of education commonly expected from the mediaeval nun who belonged to a well-ruled community.

They were instructed in reading, in chanting, in singing the psalms and also in what now-a-days [850-880] is deemed wonderful, in writing and in painting, a task laborious even for men. Likewise they were carefully trained in every department of work such as is done by women's hands, in various designs in different styles; so they attained a high standard of excellence in spinning, weaving, designing, sewing and embroidering with gold and jewels on silk1.

But the correspondence of St Boniface with certain English nuns, living in their English homes or presiding over houses which he had established in Germany, shows that these ladies of the eighth century were sufficiently masters of Latin to make it the language of their letters. One of them at least, Leobgith of Bischofsheim, learned to write Latin verse under Eadburg, Abbess of Minster in Thanet, another of Boniface's correspondents. Leobgith had been a great reader from her childhood. Another of these Englishwomen settled on German soil has left one of the earliest narratives of travel (not her own) in Palestine 2.

The Danish raids and conquests destroyed many English convents which were never restored; and later times did not repeat this eighth-century birth of learning in English nunneries. But the tradition survived in some foreign houses. The splendidly illuminated twelfth-century manuscript called Hortus Deliciarum, which perished at Strasbourg under the Prussian fire in 1870, was an encyclopaedia compiled in the convent of Hohenburg in the Vosges either by the abbess, Herrad, or under her direction. While its interest is chiefly aesthetic, it is evidence also of an appreciation of knowledge not strictly confined to "divine letters." The growth of universities put an end to monastic centres of advanced learning; but, whereas monks might, and in some cases did, take advantage of university teaching, nuns were quite unable to avail themselves of it.

1 Woman under Monasticism, p. 231.

2 L. Eckenstein, op. cit., pp. 140 ff.

3 Cp. J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, vol. 1. p. 537.

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The account of Boniface's correspondents who employed Latin freely may be contrasted with the following statement made by Miss Bateson in reference to the period 1250-1350:

The evidence goes to show that in knowledge of Latin the nuns had greatly fallen behind. Their visitations, rules, accounts are more often French than Latin, and some could not even speak French. A case is known in which special application was made to admit one "neither lettered nor brought up in the French tongue." The mystical works which Richard Rolle of Hampole [d. 1349] translated from Latin for nuns were all put into English. (Mediaeval England, p. 342.)

But granted that some nuns at some periods were well instructed in the learning of their day, what evidence is there that they taught girls who were not destined to become nuns themselves? In the early period, it is known that members of royal and noble houses, whose families had founded, or were great benefactors of, particular convents, were bred in those convents. But this only means that the feudal superiors regarded the nunneries as appanages of their estates which offered very convenient retreats in which to place their daughters, either permanently as abbesses, or temporarily as boarders. It is very different from regarding them as places of education open to all. Matilda, queen of Henry I, is said to have been highly educated in Romsey Abbey; but the original intention had been to make her a nun. Peter of Cluny, writing to Héloïse in reference to Abelard's recent death (1142), speaks of the studies which she prosecuted before taking the veil. But he adds that "it is scarcely possible to find a foothold for philosophy (pes sapientiae) even amongst virile minds-I will not say amongst the feminine sex, from which it has been dismissed with contumely."

CHAPTER II

THE RISE OF UNIVERSITIES

As a result of the Norman Conquest two Priors of Bec, both North Italians, occupied in immediate succession the archbishop's chair at Canterbury. Lanfranc (1005-1089) and Anselm (10331109) were both in complete agreement with the papal view respecting the relations of the spiritual and secular powers, which were matters of the keenest controversy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. By their policy and in their own persons they did much to knit more closely the intellectual life of their adopted country to the ecclesiastical and educational institutions then being developed on the Continent. During the twelfth century, English students swelled the throngs which, attracted by the fame of individual teachers, found their way to Paris, Chartres, Orleans and other French cathedral schools.

Amongst them was Becket's friend, John of Salisbury, one of the most able scholars of the Middle Ages. John was born at Salisbury about 1115-1120, served for some years as a clerk" in the household of Archbishop Theobald, accompanied Becket, Theobald's successor, into exile, became Bishop of Chartres in 1176 and died in 1180. He has left an account of his later education in France which is of great interest, since it tells at first hand of teaching and learning which issued in the institution of a new educational organization, the university, it gives the writer's opinions respecting his teachers, expresses his literary sympathies and his distrust of the study of logic when pursued as an end in itself, and, generally, describes the higher education of the first half of the twelfth century from a personal point of view. It should be added that John's twelve years of studentship preceded his entry into Theobald's household.

The account itself is to be found in some pages of John's Metalogicus, here slightly abridged; its characteristic rhetorical style suffers by translation.

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JOHN OF SALISBURY'S

[CH.

When, being but a youth, I first went to Gaul for the purpose of study in the year [1136] after the illustrious king of England, Henry, the lion of justice, passed beyond human affairs, I betook myself to the Aristotelian of Palais1, a famous teacher who at that time was presiding to the admiration of all on Mont Ste Geneviève. There, at his feet, I received the first rudiments of this art [of dialectic] and, so far as my moderate intelligence permitted, whatever fell from his lips I took up with all the avidity of my mind. Then, after his retirement [1136], which seemed to me over hasty, I attached myself to Master Albericus, who shone amongst the rest as a renowned dialectician, and who was in truth a most keen opponent of the school of the Nominalists. For a space of nearly two years thus dwelling upon the Mount, I employed as my teachers Albericus and Master Robert of Melun, as he was called when presiding meritoriously in the schools, although by nationality he was an Englishman. Of these two, Albericus was scrupulous in everything where he found room for question, so that he would discover some small obstacle upon a surface as level as you please; as they say, for him a bulrush was not free from knots. For even there he would demonstrate what ought to be made plain. But Robert, most ready in answering an opponent, never by seeking a subterfuge failed to join issue, but would either choose the contradictory side or, having exposed the complexity of the argument proposed, would teach that the reply to it was not a single one. So that Albericus was subtle and copious in questioning, Robert perspicacious, brief and apt in responding. If there had been any one who united in himself the qualities of these two, his equal would not have been found amongst the disputants of our time. For they were both men of keen intellect and determined perseverance; and in my opinion they might have shone forth as great and pre-eminent men in natural knowledge, if they had relied upon the great base of letters, and had followed in the steps of the ancients as much as they applauded their own inventions. This was true for the time during which I was attached to them. For afterwards, one of them went to Bologna and unlearned what he had taught, and returned and untaught it. Whether this was better, let them judge who heard him before and afterwards. Then the other [Robert], making progress in divine letters, pursued the glory of a more renowned name attached to a more eminent philosophy [i.e. theology].

Under these men I was exercised throughout two years [1136–8], and I grew habituated to the marked passages, to the rules and to the other elements of rudimentary learning with which boyish minds

1 Peter Abelard (1079-1142), born at Palais in Brittany. "The Mount" is the Parisian hill now crowned by the Panthéon and the church of St Etienne du Mont.