Woman in Science — Woman's Long Struggle for Things of the Mind, Part 4

WOMAN AND EDUCATION DURING THE RENAISSANCE

By the Renaissance we understand not only a phase in the development of the nations of Europe but also that period of transition between the mediaeval and the modern world during which the latent spiritual energies of the Middle Ages developed into the intellectual forces and moral habits of thought which now pervade the civilized world.

Various dates are assigned for its starting point.

Among them is the fall of Constantinople in 1453, when there was a great influx of scholars from the famed metropolis on the Bosphorus to the Italian peninsula, who brought with them those forgotten treasures of science and literature which were so instrumental in producing that interesting phenomenon known in history as the Revival of Learning.

But whatever date be assigned for the beginning of the Renaissance, whether it be the year when Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turk or the fateful millennial year which was to witness the termination of all things, there certainly was never at any period a distinct breach of historical continuity between the old order and the new.

This is particularly true of Italy where the Renaissance had its origin.

For here, during the entire mediaeval period, there never was a time when the study of antiquity was completely neglected; when the traditions of the old Roman culture had died out, or when the art and the literature of the classical ages of the past had ceased to exert an influence on artists and scholars.

Ozanam was, then, right when he declared that the night of the Dark Age, which in Italy intervened between "the intellectual daylight of antiquity and the dawn of the Renaissance," was, in reality, like "one of those luminous nights in which the fading brightness of evening is prolonged into the first beaming of the morning."

[54] So much, indeed, was this the case that those who have made the most profound study of the Middle Ages recognize a first Renaissance in the twelfth century, which was not less real than the Renaissance _par excellence_ of the fifteenth century, a renaissance which counts such masters of Latinity as Abelard, John of Salisbury and Hildebert of Tours, and such schools as that of Chartres, where classical Latin was taught with as much thoroughness as in the great universities of Europe during the brilliant age of the humanists.

It was then, as Rashdall truly observes, that "a revival of architecture heralded, as it usually does, a wider revival of Art.

The schools of Christendom became thronged as they were never thronged before.

A passion for enquiry took the place of the old routine.

The Crusades brought different parts of Europe into contact with one another and into contact with the new world of the East--with a new religion and a new philosophy, with the Arabic Aristotle, with the Arabic commentators on Aristotle, and eventually even with Aristotle in the original Greek."

[55] Roughly speaking, the Renaissance attained its culmination during the second half of the fifteenth century.

It was during this period that gunpowder and printing with movable types were invented--the first completely revolutionizing the methods of warfare and the second marvelously facilitating the diffusion of knowledge.

And it was during the same period also that Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope, that Columbus crossed the Sea of Darkness and that Copernicus laid the foundation of modern astronomy.

But this wonderful half-century constituted only a small portion of the period embraced by the Renaissance.

From the fall of Constantinople until it attained the highest phase of development in England, the Renaissance covers a period of nearly two centuries.

The progress of the intellectual and moral movement which it represented, from the land of its birth, to the northern and western parts of Europe, was comparatively slow.

Thus, while Italy was exhibiting the full effulgence of the re-birth, England was still in the feudal condition of the Middle Ages.

A striking illustration of this truth is seen in the fact that "a brother of the Black Prince banqueted with Petrarch in the palace of Galeazzo Visconti--that is to say, the founder of Italian humanism, the representative of Italian despotic state-craft, and the companion of Froissart's heroes met together at a marriage feast."

"In Italy," as Symonds has shown, "the keynote was struck by the _Novella_, as in England by the drama."

[56] The supreme exponents of the Renaissance as manifested in literature were, without doubt, Ariosto in Italy, Rabelais in France, Cervantes in Spain, Camoens in Portugal, Erasmus in the Netherlands and Shakespeare in England.

Considering the splendid achievements of men during the Renaissance in every department of intellectual activity, one would imagine that women also would have attained to a somewhat proportionate distinction, at least in literature and the arts.

But, outside of Italy, this was far from being the case.

In France, Spain, Portugal and England there were, it is true, a certain number of women who won distinction by their talents and learning, but these were the exceptions which but served to throw into greater relief the prevailing ignorance of the great mass of their sex, which had few, if any, of the advantages of instruction, even in the most elementary branches of knowledge.

The Italian women, as we have already seen, had commanded marked recognition for their talents and learning even before the close of the Middle Ages.

The most famous of these were among those who, having obtained the doctorate, became lecturers and professors in the great university of Bologna.

The existence and accomplishments of some of these may, perhaps, be more or less legendary, but there can be no doubt that many of them, some before the time of the Renaissance, had gained a European reputation for the breadth and variety of their attainments.

But it was during the Renaissance that the remarkable flowering of the intellect of the Italian woman was seen at its best.

While the women in the other parts of Europe, especially in England and Germany, were suffering the ill effects consequent on the suppression of the convents, which, for centuries, had been almost the only schools available for girls, the women of Italy were taking an active part in the great educational movement inaugurated by the revival of learning, and winning the highest honors for their sex in every department of science, art and literature.

Not since the days of Sappho and Aspasia had woman attained such prominence, and never were they, irrespective of class-condition, accorded greater liberty, privileges or honor.

The universities, which had been opened to them at the close of the Middle Ages, gladly conferred upon them the doctorate, and eagerly welcomed them to the chairs of some of their most important faculties.

The Renaissance was, indeed, the heydey of the intellectual woman throughout the whole of the Italian peninsula--a time when woman enjoyed the same scholastic freedom as men, and when Mme.

de Stael's dictum, _Le genie n'a pas de sexe_, expressed a doctrine admitted in practice and not an academic theory.

It would require a large volume, or rather many volumes, to do justice to the learned women of Italy who conferred such honor upon their sex during the period we are considering.

Suffice it to mention a few of those who achieved special distinction and whose memories are still green in the land which had been made so illustrious by their talent and genius.

That which the modern reader finds the most surprising in the Italian women of the Renaissance is their enthusiasm for the _literae humaniores_--the Latin and Greek classics--and the proficiency which so many of them, even at an early age, attained in the literature and philosophy of antiquity.

It was no uncommon thing for a girl in her teens to write and speak Latin, while many of them were almost equally familiar with Greek.

[57] Thus Laura Brenzoni, of Verona, had such a mastery of these two languages that she wrote and spoke them with ease, while Alessandra Scala was so familiar with them that she employed them in writing poetry.

Lorenza Strozzi, who was educated in a convent and eventually became a nun, was distinguished for her great versatility, for her profound knowledge of science and art, as well as for her proficiency in Latin and Greek.

Her Latin poems were so highly valued that they were translated into foreign languages.

Livia Chiavello, of Fabriano, was celebrated as one of the most brilliant representatives of the Petrarchan school.

Her style was so pure and noble that, had Petrarch not lived, she alone would have upheld the honor of the vulgar tongue.

So successful was Isotta of Rimini in the cultivation of the Muses that she was hailed as another Sappho.

Cassandra Fedele, of Venice, deserved, according to Polizian, the noted Florentine humanist, to be ranked with that famous universal genius, Pico de la Mirandola.

So extensive were her attainments that in addition to being a thorough mistress of Latin and Greek, she was likewise distinguished in music, eloquence, philosophy and even theology.

Leo X, Louis XII of France, and Isabella of Spain were eager to have her as an ornament for their courts, but the Venetian senate was so proud of its treasure that it was unwilling to have her depart.

Catarina Cibo, of Genoa, was another prodigy of learning; for, besides a knowledge of Latin and Greek, philosophy and theology, she was well acquainted with Hebrew.

Donna Felice Rasponi, of Ravenna, devoted herself to the study of Plato and Aristotle, of Scripture and the Fathers.

But, for the extent and variety of her attainments, Tarquinia Molza seems to have eclipsed all her contemporaries.

She had as teachers the ablest scholars of an age of distinguished scholars.

Not only did she excel in poetry and the fine arts, but she also had a rare knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, Latin, Greek and Hebrew.

And so great was the esteem in which she was held that the senate of Rome conferred on her the singular honor of Roman citizenship, transmissible in perpetuity to her descendants.

The Sovereign Pontiff and the flower of the Roman prelacy begged her to take up her residence in the Eternal City, but she could not be prevailed upon to leave the land of her birth.

In the arts of sculpture and painting the women of Italy, during the Renaissance, were no less illustrious than they were in science, literature and philosophy.

Indeed, many of the treasures in the Italian churches and art galleries that still delight all lovers of the beautiful are from the chisel and the brush of women who achieved distinction between three and four centuries ago.

[58] Probably the most famous sculptress was Properzia de Rossi, whose ability was so remarkable that she excited the envy of the men who were her competitors.

[59] Among painters there was Suor Plantilla Nelli, who was a nun and prioress in the convent of Santa Catarina in Florence.

Both Lanzi and Vasari bestow high praise on her work and declare some of her productions to be of rare excellence.

There were also Maria Angela Crisculo, of whose splendid work many examples are still preserved in the churches of Naples, and Lavinia Fontana of Bologna, who exhibited such extraordinary ability as an artist that some of her pictures passed for the work of her great contemporary, Guido Reni.

[60] Still more remarkable were the achievements of four sisters of the noted family Anguisciola of Cremona.

So admirable was the work of the eldest sister, Sofonisba, that Philip II invited her to his court in Spain, where she excited the amazement of every one by the splendid canvases which she executed for her illustrious patron and for the members of the royal family.

Of the fifty female poets who flourished in Italy during the Renaissance the most eminent were Gaspara Stampa, Veronica Gambara, and Vittoria Colonna.

Of such merit and exquisite finish were the productions of their Muse that they are still read with never failing pleasure.

So highly did Cardinal Bembo,--the famous "dictator of letters"--value the scholarship and critical acumen of Veronica Gambara that he never published anything without previously submitting it to her judgment.

But far more eminent as a poet was the noble and accomplished Marchesa of Pescara, Vittoria Colonna, who, on account of her talents and virtues, was named _La Divina_.

The friend and adviser of scholars and the confidante of princes, she represented, as has truly been said, "the best phases of the Renaissance, its learning, its intelligence, its enthusiasm, its subtle Platonism, combined with a profound religious faith and the trace of the mysticism of a simpler age."

The chorus of universal praise which was sung by her contemporaries is well echoed by Ariosto when he writes of her: "She has not only made herself immortal by her beautiful style, of which I have heard not better, but she can raise from the tomb those of whom she speaks or writes and make them live forever."

But it was as the friend and inspirer of Michaelangelo that she is best known to us to-day.

"Without wings," he writes to her, "I fly with your wings; by your genius I am raised to the skies; in your soul my thought is born."

Among those who specially distinguished themselves for their profound scholarship, as exhibited in the halls of universities, were Dorotea Bucca, who occupied a chair of medicine in the University of Bologna, where, by reason of her rare eloquence and learning, she had students from all parts of Europe; Laura Ceretta, of Brescia, who, during seven years, gave public lectures on philosophy; Battista Malatesta, of Urbino, who taught philosophy with such marked success that the most distinguished professors of the day were forced to recognize themselves as her inferiors; and Fulvia Olympia Morati, who "at the age of fourteen wrote Latin letters and dialogues in Greek and Latin in the style of Plato and Cicero," and who, when she was scarcely sixteen, "was invited to give lectures in the University of Ferrara on the philosophical problems of the _Paradoxes of Cicero_."

So great, indeed, was her knowledge of the ancient languages that she was offered the professorship of Greek in the University of Heidelberg; but death cut short her brilliant career before she could enter upon her duties in this famed institution of learning.

It was female professors of this type--masters of Greek and Latin letters, who in the words of a recent writer, "sent forth from Italy such students as Moritz von Spiegelberg and Rudolph Agricola, to reform the instruction of Deventer and Zwoll and prepare the way for Erasmus and Reuchlin."

In the preceding list of learned women--and but a few only have been named of the many who in every city of importance conferred undying glory on their sex--it is clear that the Renaissance in Italy was, indeed, the golden age of women.

Never in history had they greater freedom of action in things of the mind; never were they, except probably in the case of the English and German abbesses of the Middle Ages, treated with more marked deference and consideration or fairness;

never were their efforts more highly appreciated or more generously rewarded, and never was their success more highly and enthusiastically applauded.

Temporal and spiritual rulers, princes and cardinals, Popes and emperors vied with one another in paying just tribute to woman's genius as well as to woman's virtue.

The nun in the cloister as well as the lady in the palace shared in the general enthusiasm for learning, and they enjoyed throughout the peninsula the same opportunities as men and received the same recognition for their work.

Everywhere the intellectual arena was open to them on the same terms as to men.

Incapacity and not sex was the only bar to entrance.

But the men of those days, especially scholars of the type of Bembo, Politian and Ariosto, were liberal and broad-minded men, who never for a moment imagined that a woman was out of her sphere or unsexed because she wore a doctor's cap or occupied a university chair.

And far from stigmatizing her as a singular or strong-minded woman, they recognized her as one who had but enhanced the graces and virtues of her sex by the added attractions of a cultivated mind and a developed intellect.

Not only did she escape the shafts of satire and ridicule, which are so frequently aimed at the educated woman of to-day, but she was called into the councils of temporal and spiritual rulers as well.

Woe betide the ill-advised misogynist who should venture to declaim against the inferiority of the female sex, or to protest against the honors which an appreciative and a chivalrous age bestowed upon it with so lavish a hand.

The women of Italy, unlike those of other nations, knew how to defend themselves, and were not afraid to take, when occasion demanded, the pen in self-defense.

This is evidenced by numerous works which were written in response to certain narrow-minded pamphleteers--_miseri pedanti_, pitiful pedants,--who would have the activities of women limited to the nursery or the kitchen.

[61] A striking characteristic of these learned women was the entire absence of all priggism or pedantry.

Whether lecturing on law or philosophy, or discoursing in Latin before Popes and cardinals, or taking part in discussions on art and literature with the eminent humanists of the day, they ever retained that beautiful simplicity which gives such a charm to true greatness of mind and is the best index of true scholarship and noble, symmetrical womanhood.

Nor did the rare intellectual attainments of these daughters of Italy destroy that harmony of creation which, some will have it, is sure to be jeopardized by giving women the same educational advantages as men.

So far was this from being the case that there were never more loyal and helpful wives nor more devoted and stimulating mothers than there were among those women who wrote verses in the language of Sappho, or delivered public addresses in the tongue of Cicero.

Still less did their serious and long-protracted studies entail any of the dangers we hear so much of nowadays.

The large and healthy families of many of them prove that intellectual work, even of the highest order, is not incompatible with motherhood; and still less that it, _per se_, conduces, as is so often asserted, to race-suicide.

These facts are commended to the consideration of our modern opponents of the higher education of women and to those militant conservatives and old-time reactionaries who are still averse to opening the doors of some of our older universities to women--even such universities as Oxford, several of whose colleges were founded on the revenues derived from suppressed educational institutions which had been built and used for generations for the sole behoof of women.

But distinguished as were the women of Italy for their culture and scholarship, they were yet more distinguished as patrons of learning, as leaders and inspirers of the eminent men who were the chief representatives of the Renaissance.

Reference has already been made to the influence of Vittoria Colonna on Michaelangelo--"who saw with her eyes, acted by her inspiration, was lifted by her beyond the stars"--but this is only one of many similar instances that might be adduced.

Indeed, to the student of the Italian Renaissance, the most interesting feature of it was, not its women doctors and professors, but those noble and accomplished ladies who made the courts of Ferrara, Mantua, Milan and Urbino the most noted intellectual centers of Europe.

The most beautiful ornaments of the first three courts were Renee, duchess of Ferrara; Isabella d'Este, marchioness of Mantua, and Beatrice d'Este, duchess of Milan.

They were all women of exceptional learning and culture, and each was the center of a galaxy of talent such as is rarely witnessed in any one place.

Among the men attracted to their courts were the most illustrious scholars, artists, poets and musicians of the Renaissance.

Here they found congenial homes and breathed an atmosphere made fragrant by the appreciation shown by their charming hostesses for their power and genius.

Here they found inspiration and a stimulus that spurred them on to their greatest achievements.

In Ferrara, where it was said that "there were as many poets as there were frogs in the country round about," were gathered the most gifted poets of the Renaissance who had been attracted there to recite their latest masterpieces.

Among them were Clement Marot, the first poet of modern France, and Ariosto, the immortal author of _Orlando Furioso_.

There were the great painters, Titian and Bellini, and the illustrious poet, Torquato Tasso, whose love subsequently immortalized Renee's youngest daughter Leonora.

A similar artistic and intellectual supremacy was held by Isabelle d'Este.

For portrait painters she had Titian and Leonardo da Vinci, while, as decorators of her home, she had Bellini and Perugino, whose compositions she herself arranged, even in the minutest details.

So it was likewise in the gay and brilliant court of Beatrice d'Este, in Milan,--a place where artists and scholars of all nationalities were always sure of a cordial welcome.

But the ideal center of intellectual culture was the court of Urbino, the central figure of which was the learned and accomplished Elizabetta Gonzaga.

This picturesque city of the eastern slope of the Apennines was then to Italy what Athens had been to Greece in the days of Pericles;

and Elizabetta was to its court what Aspasia was in her own matchless salon--the magnet which attracted all the artists and men of letters of the age.

Castiglione, whose great work, _The Courtier_, was partly written as a memorial of the peerless woman who inspired it, gives us a vivid picture of "the fair ladies, with their quick intelligence and ready sympathy," discussing questions of art, literature, philosophy and Platonism, with the most eminent scholars and artists of Europe.

But Castiglione confesses that he is unable to give us more than the mere outline of the picture.

"To paint the polished society of Urbino," as has been well said, "we should need colors no palette contains--transparencies of the Grecian sky, the indigo of certain seas, the liquid azure of certain eyes.

For more than a century the court of Urbino was regarded as the supreme exemplar.

In the seventeenth century, the Hotel de Rambouillet was still striving to make itself a copy of it; unluckily such things as these are not easily copied."

[62] We are not surprised, then, at being told that "men moulded by Italian ladies"--such ladies as graced the court of Urbino--"could be distinguished among a thousand."

Still less are we surprised to note the immense difference between the refined and brilliant discussions of _The Courtier_ as compared with the coarse tales of the _Decameron_ and _Heptameron_.

And we can understand the marvelous influence which Castiglione's matchless work--inspired by the beloved Duchess Elizabetta--had upon the masters of English literature--on Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Spenser, Marlow, Shelley.

Cardinal Bembo, who was one of the most assiduous frequenters of this famous court, in writing of Elizabetta, does not hesitate to declare: "I have seen many excellent and noble women, and have heard of some who were as illustrious for certain qualities, but in her alone among women, all virtues were united and brought together.

I have never seen nor heard of any one who was her equal, and know very few who have even come near her."

It was Castiglione's experience at the court of Urbino, where he was a daily witness of the irresistible influence of Elizabetta, that made him give expression to the sentiment, "Man has for his portion physical strength and external activities; all doing must be his, all inspiration must come from woman."

It was also this keen student of the mysterious workings of woman's genius and of her secret, all-pervading influence, at times and in places least suspected, who penned the notable statement--worthy of the Renaissance--"Without women nothing is possible, either in military courage, or art, or poetry, or music, or philosophy, or even religion.

God is truly seen only through them."

Only a few words are necessary to tell of the learned women of the Renaissance outside of Italy.

On account of its intimate connection with the Italian peninsula, Spain was the second country in Europe to experience the effects of the new intellectual movement.

Among the educated Italians whom Isabella, the Catholic, had attracted to her court were the brothers Geraldini, whom she appointed as teachers of her children.

Of her daughter, Juana, Juan Vives, the eminent Spanish scholar, says she was able to make impromptu speeches in Latin, while Catherine, who became the wife of Henry VIII, excited the admiration of Erasmus by the extent and accuracy of her knowledge.

It was from Salamanca that Isabella summoned her own teacher of Latin, the learned Beatrix Galindo,[63] who was a professor of rhetoric in the university long before Elizabeth of England had studied the language of Virgil under Ascham.

Then there was Francisca de Lebrixa who often filled the chair of her father, who was professor of history and rhetoric in the University of Alcala, and Isabella Losa, of Cordova, who, among her other acquirements, counted a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew.

To his learned daughters, Gregoria and Luisa, Antonio Perez, minister of Philip II, wrote saying: "Do not imagine, when you are writing to me, that you are addressing Cicero or some Greek author; lower your style to my level."

There were also Isabella de Joya, who commented on Scotus Erigena;

Catherine Ribera, the bard of love and faith; Dona Maria Pacheco de Mendoza; Bernarda Ferreyra, to whom, on account of her rare scholarship, Lopez de Vega dedicated his beautiful elegy _Phillis_; Juana Morella, who, besides having a profound knowledge of music, philosophy, divinity and jurisprudence, was the mistress of fourteen languages; Juana de la Cruz, the famous Mexican nun whose poetry of superior merit, as well as her exceptional attainments in many branches of knowledge, won for her the epithet of the "Tenth Muse"; Luisa Sigea, who besides being a poet was a mistress of the classical and several oriental languages, including Hebrew and Syro-Chaldaic, and other learned women whom "no one was astonished to see taking by main force the first rank in the spheres of literature, philosophy and theology."

So profoundly had the Renaissance affected the women of a limited circle in England, that Erasmus could declare without exaggeration: "It is charming to see the female sex demand classical instruction.

The queen is remarkably learned and her daughter writes good Latin.

The home of More is truly the abode of the Muses."

The queen of whom Erasmus speaks is Catherine of Aragon, who was educated in Spain, who was a pupil of Vives, and who, besides having a thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek, was well acquainted with several modern languages.

The daughters of Sir Thomas More were among the most learned women of their time and were, indeed, worthy of dwelling in "the home of the Muses."

Lady Jane Grey read Plato in the original at the age of thirteen.

[64] Anne, Margaret and Jane Seymour were likewise celebrated for their knowledge of the classics, as were Anne Boleyn and Mary Stuart, who both received their education in France, and especially Queen Elizabeth, who was not only one of the most learned women of her time but was probably also the most learned queen England has ever produced.

There were, however, no university professors or poets of eminence among the English women, as there were in Italy and Spain, and their creative work was practically nothing.

Since the time of Hroswitha, Gertrude, the Matildas and Hildegard, the learned woman has never been the ideal woman in Germany.

When Olympia Morati was on her way from Ferrara to Heidelberg to take the chair of Greek, she found the daughters of professors and humanists devoting themselves to sewing and embroidery instead of art and literature.

Anna, the eldest daughter of Melanchthon, was almost alone among the German women of the Renaissance who had a knowledge of Latin.

In France the most learned woman of her time was undoubtedly Margaret of Angouleme, queen of Navarre.

So great was her knowledge and so enthusiastic was she in promoting the study of the Latin and Greek classics that Michelet, with something of exaggeration, perhaps, calls her "the amiable mother of the Renaissance in France."

[65] She was noted for her devotion to the study of Scripture and theology as well as Greek and Hebrew.

She always had around her, or was in correspondence with, the most distinguished scholars, poets, artists, philosophers and theologians of the age, and undoubtedly did much, as a patroness of men of letters, toward furthering the literary movement in France.

She is, however, chiefly known to modern readers by her _Heptameron_--a work which reveals too clearly the tastes of her associates and the manners and customs of the time.

With the exception of Margaret of Navarre, there were but few literary women of more than ephemeral reputation during the French Renaissance.

Among these Louise Labe deserves mention, as she was the most distinguished poetess in France during the sixteenth century.

[66] She, like Margaret, was the center of a coterie of men of letters; but the reunions over which she presided, as well as those of the author of the _Heptameron_, were entirely lacking in the dignity and refinement of those of the polished court of Urbino in the days of the peerless Elizabetta Gonzaga.

From what has been said respecting the rare learning of the women of the Renaissance, one might infer that women in general enjoyed special educational facilities during this period of intellectual activity.

Paradoxical as it may seem, the very contrary was the case.

For, as history tells us, the education of the Renaissance was essentially aristocratic.

It was only for the women of the nobility and for the wives and daughters of scholars, while the great majority of the sex remained in a state of complete illiteracy.

The environment of the daughters of scholars was peculiarly favorable to their intellectual development, and learning was in a certain measure their natural heritage.

They did not receive their education in schools, for there were then few or no schools for girls, but from their fathers or from the men of letters who frequented their homes.

A typical home of this kind was that of the noted savant, Robert Estienne of Paris, printer to Francis I. Here the language of conversation was Latin, not only for the members of the family but also for the servants as well.

[67] Under such conditions we are not surprised to be informed that the girls, as well as the boys, learned to speak Latin as well as their mother tongue.

And listening, as they did, to the daily discussions on art and literature by the most learned men of a most learned age, it was inevitable that they should acquire those vast stores of knowledge on all subjects that so excite the astonishment of our less studious women of to-day.

With the daughters of the nobility it was the same.

In their youth they had, under the paternal roof, the benefit of the instruction of the most eminent masters of the time.

And as they grew up their constant intercourse with learned men and the part they took in all literary and social assemblies, which were so prominent a feature of the period, enabled them to complete their education under the most favorable auspices, and to have, before they were out of their teens, a fund of information on all subjects that could not be obtained so well, even in the best of our modern institutions of learning.

It was to these daughters of the elite--_ingenuae puellae_--that Erasmus and Vives addressed their treatises on education.

They were the privileged class at whose disposition were placed all the treasures of Greek and Latin letters.

It was, then, an easy matter for them to write poetry and dissertations in the languages of Horace and Plato.

And it was often a necessity for them to speak Latin, for it was then the universal language of the learned--the language that was understood everywhere--in England as in Italy, in Germany as in France, in Flanders as well as in Spain and Portugal.

It was then that The Republic of Letters was a reality as never before;

that the man of letters was, of a truth, "a citizen of the world"; that his country was wherever the cult of letters had priests or devotees.

He was what the ballad singer was during the Middle Ages, but with more dignity and seriousness.

He was the agent and representative of intellectual life, the living symbol of the unity and solidarity of the human mind.

And as in time he linked the past to the present so likewise in space he bound all peoples together and belonged equally to all.

Such was Erasmus of Holland, who was equally at home in France and Switzerland, in Italy and England--everywhere received with the honor accorded to princes of the blood royal.

Such was Vives, of Spain, the teacher of Catherine of Aragon, of Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII--at one time professor in Louvain, at another in Oxford--always and everywhere an ardent exponent of humanism for women as well as for men.

Such was Politian and such were scores of his contemporaries, who carried the torch of knowledge from castle to castle and from court to court, where maidens equally with youths enjoyed all the advantages derivable from the lessons of such distinguished teachers and such eminent leaders of culture.

For it was a peculiarity of the scholar of the Renaissance that he was a great traveler--seeking knowledge wherever it was to be found--and carrying it with him whithersoever he went.

He journeyed from university to university, everywhere exchanging views with his intellectual compeers, and everywhere diffusing the knowledge he had so laboriously acquired.

The consequence was a wonderful uniformity of education among the higher classes--among women as well as among men--something that was never known before.

Through the generally diffused knowledge of Latin, the common literary medium of communication, all the nations of Europe, even those at war with one another, were brought together in an intellectual brotherhood and in a way which gave scholarship a power and a prestige that accrued to the benefit of women and men alike.

But the educational advantages enjoyed by the women of the Renaissance were not for the bourgeoisie--not for the daughters of peasants, tradesmen and artisans.

They were solely, as has been stated, for the benefit of the children of princes or of scholars--of those only who could claim either nobility of birth or nobility of genius.

[68] Even the most zealous of the humanists would have been surprised if they had been asked to diffuse a portion of their light among the women of the masses.

For education, as they viewed it, was something solely for the elect--for ladies of the court and not for women of a lower condition.

So far as the rest of womankind was concerned, their occupation was limited, according to a Breton saying, to looking after altar, hearth, and children--"_La femme se doit garder l'autel, le feu, les enfants_."

It was about this time, too, that men began, especially in France and Germany, to revive the anti-feminist crusade which had so retarded the literary movement among the women of ancient Greece and Rome.

They refused to hear women and intellect spoken of together.

The Germans recognized no intelligence in them apart from domestic duties, and seemed to belong to that strange race, that has not yet died out, which believes woman to be "afflicted with the radical incapacity to acquire an individual idea."

"What the Italians called intelligence a German would call tittle-tattle, trickery, the spirit of opposition.

They rejected such gratifications and had no intention of allowing Delilah to shear them."

[69] In the estimation of Luther, the intellectual aspirations of women were not only an absurdity, but were also a positive peril.

"Take them," he says, "from their housewifery and they are good for nothing."

He treated the humanist Vives, preceptor of Mary Tudor, as "a dangerous spirit," because the learned Spaniard was an ardent advocate of the higher education of women.

As to abstract and severe studies they were for girls, according to one of Luther's contemporaries, but "vain and futile quackeries."

For an accomplished woman to quote the Fathers or the ancient classical writers was to provoke ridicule, because to do so was considered an indication of pedantry or affectation.

Montaigne gave expression to the age-old prejudice against woman by refusing to regard her as anything but a pretty animal, while Rabelais, the coryphaeus of the French Renaissance, declared that "Nature in creating woman lost the good sense which she had displayed in the creation of all other things."

Such being the views of the great leaders of thought and formers of public opinion respecting the mental inferiority of woman--views which, outside of Italy, had, with few exceptions, the cordial approval of the supercilious, cockahoop male--is it necessary to add that the Renaissance did nothing for popular education?

The masses of women, especially after the suppression of the convent schools in England and Germany, were, in many parts of Europe, and notably in the two countries mentioned, in a worse condition than they were during the Dark Ages.

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