These educated women of the Renaissance were particularly noted for the application of their education to the concerns of their home.
Their artistic taste was exercised, as we have already shown, in selecting various ornaments for it and in directing artists in its decoration. They did not have many art objects around them, but what few there were had been made as a rule by distinguished artists and represented something of the personality of the mistresses of the household. But it must not be thought that they devoted themselves exclusively to the cult of beauty in things. They realized their influence for good over the men of their time and exercised it. The example of Vittoria Colonna is often cited in this regard, but not because it is exceptional, rather what was characteristic. These educated women of the Renaissance were model wives and mothers. They were sedulous for the education of their children, and the poetry that we have from them, or the letters that have been preserved, and which show very clearly their high intellectual development, were meant for their children or for their relatives. Their homes were evidently always their first thought. They planned their own dresses, often executed some of the decoration for them, or had them designed or made under their direction, bought beautiful books for the home, encouraged the illuminators and the embroiderers and beautiful needleworkers of the time, and in general proved to be ready and able to help through their households to give opportunities for the artists, but also for the artisans and the arts and crafts workers of the time.
We find a number of their names on the list of Aldus" {322} regular customers at Venice, his subscribers, who made it possible by a.s.suring him at least the cost of his books to go on with his magnificent editions of the cla.s.sics. We have letters in which they complain of the cost of these first editions because there were other household expenses to be met, but undoubtedly they were always greatly helpful in the educational cause.
Most interesting perhaps of all that they did is the beautiful gardens, which, now that our generation through better transportation facilities is able to live out of town, are coming to be more properly appreciated than before. The Renaissance gardens have been the subject of much writing and ill.u.s.tration in our magazines and books in recent years, and it must not be forgotten that we owe them above all to the women of the Renaissance. They invited artists and architects, who designed them, and trained landscape gardeners to execute them, but it was their interest that was most important. Their gardens came to be an enlargement of their houses, and in the sunny land of Italy afforded many refuges for pleasant living, even in the warmest weather, and for the privacy of even their crowds of guests, which made their homes welcome repairs for the n.o.bility of the time.
Perhaps the best criterion of the thoroughness of the education given women at this time is the influence exerted by the women of the period on art and artists and literary men of the time, and above all the cultivated taste displayed in their homes. A typical example is afforded by Isabelle D"Este whose _camerini_, her private apartments, are reproduced at South Kensington and described in one of their manuals on Interior Decoration in Italy in the fifteenth century and the sixteenth century. As these decorations for the dowager d.u.c.h.ess D"Este were made just about the middle of Columbus" Century, the authoritative description of them will be the best doc.u.ment. The Museum of South Kensington has had one side of her painting room reconstructed, and it shows, as no mere description could, the beauty of the apartment and the taste of its owner.
A quotation from the description of the three rooms as given in the South Kensington Art Handbook "Italian Wall Decorations of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries" will {323} serve better than any praise to give an idea of the charming retreat that Isabella made for herself when her position as Dowager d.u.c.h.ess gave her the leisure as well as the opportunity to devote herself to the construction of a retreat which should reflect her personality.
"The "Grotta," on the ground floor of the old Palazzo Bonnacolsi, remained set apart for her collections of art and for receptions; princes on their travels, amba.s.sadors on their missions, travellers of distinction and artists came to visit her. She acc.u.mulated in it statues and rare objects, and even added a "Cortile," with fountains playing during the summer. But the three new rooms at the top of the "Paradiso" became the object of her predilection, and it is amidst such surroundings, the real "paradise" of Isabella D"Este, that historians must place her portrait.
"The first room was dedicated to music, the favorite pursuit of Isabella. The cupboards were filled with beautiful instruments: mandolines, lutes, clavichords inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and made specially for her by Lorenzo of Pavia; and here stood the famous organ by the same master, the description of which is to be found in the princess"s correspondence. Round the walls of this first room were reproduced views of towns in "intarsia" of rare woods, and on one of the panels figured a few bars of a "Strambotto," composed by Okenghem to words dictated by Isabella, and signed by that famous singing master. On the ceiling was the "Stave," which exists in the coat-of-arms of the House of Este, and along the cornices friezes were formed of musical instruments carved in the wood.
"In the second room, devoted to painting and also to study, six masterpieces by the greatest painters of the time adorned the walls above the panelling.
"The third room was reserved for receptions. Everywhere in the ceiling, in the compartments, in the friezes (delicately carved in gilded stucco upon an azure background) are found the devices commented on at length by the humanists of her court: "Alpha and Omega" and the golden candlestick with seven branches, on which a single light has resisted the effects of the wind, with the motto, _"Unum sufficit in tenebris;"_ and {324} everywhere is to be read the mysterious motto of which she was so proud, _"Nec Spe nec Metu,"_ the highest resolution of a strong mind, which henceforth "without hope, without fear," ended in solitude a tormented life. In the recess of the thick wall slightly raised above the floor, Isabella placed her writing table within reach of the shelves containing her favorite books; while she read there or wrote those letters addressed to the poets and artists of Italy, overflowing with enthusiasm for arts and letters, when she lifted her eyes beyond the tranquil waters at the mouth of the Po, towards Governolo, she would see coming the gilded Bucentaur with the coat-of-arms of Ferrara, which brought her news of her family, D"Este, and that of Aragon."
Lucretia Borgia at Ferrara not only continued the tradition of aesthetic good taste so characteristic of the D"Este family into which she had married, but even her years as mistress of the palace at Ferrara mark an epoch in its history. She succeeded in securing the services of some of the greatest of the artists of this wonderful period, who came and contributed to the decoration of her private apartments. Unfortunately her _camerini,_ private apartments, in the Castello Rosso of Ferrara were destroyed by fire in 1634. They had been adorned with paintings by Bellini, t.i.tian and Dosso Dossi, fitted into recesses of white marble carved by Antonio Lombardi. These rooms as elsewhere were of small size, real living rooms, reflecting the character of the personal taste of the owner. They were sanctuaries of art and of literature with selected libraries of chosen volumes in fine bindings and of music with beautiful musical instruments.
Many of these women of the Renaissance in Italy were famous for their devotion to works of charity. Indeed I know nothing that is more admirable than the story of their care for the ailing poor. It is often presumed that between their interest in education and literature and the artists of the time, and above all their devotion to the pleasures of dress and decoration, silks and jewels and perfumes, then coming in so rapidly from the East, these women must have had very little time for anything but selfish display of their personal beauty or intellectual talent. The rapid acc.u.mulation of wealth, {325} proportionally at least as great as in our time, might very readily be supposed to direct them as it has many other generations from the more serious side of life. The actual story of their lives is very different. There were exceptions, who have unfortunately attracted more attention than others, of whom little that is good can be said.
The proportion, however, who devoted themselves with a n.o.bility of soul that deserves to be commemorated to unselfish care for those who needed it was very large. Mr. Staley in his "Heroines of Genoa" (p.
225) has a paragraph on this subject which well deserves to be recalled, for it refers almost entirely to the women of Columbus"
Century, and it must not be forgotten that Genoa was much more of a commercial city, with a more rapid rise in wealth, than any other in Italy except possibly Venice, and the beautiful spirit of personal service for the poor is therefore all the more admirable.
"Women in every age and land are p.r.o.ne much more to works of mercy and religion; of such surely was "the crown of daughters of Genoa"--so-called by many writers. Benedettina Grimaldi, "chaste, self-denying, amiable, charitable, moderate in dress and personal pleasures," a munificent patroness of the great Ospedale di Pammatone, nursed patients suffering from plague and leprosy and endowed beds for their treatment and alleviation; Argentina, daughter of Signore Opicio Spinola, and wife of the Marchese di Monferrato: Violanta, daughter of Signore Gianandrea Doria; and Isabella, daughter of Signore Luca Fiasco, and wife of Luchino, Prince of Milan, were contemporaries in the beneficent field of charity. Devoted to the offices of religion, they proved the sincerity of their faith by their eleemosynary services to sick and dying men and women in prison and to debased mariners in port.
Benevolent inst.i.tutions were founded and endowed, under the style of "Le Donne di Misericordia," in 1478 and in 1497, "La Campagnia del Mantiletto"--"Wearers of the Veil," by the munificence of n.o.ble-hearted women. All these threw open to the suffering objects of their regard the healthful pleasure grounds of their villas, and it was no rare sight to find a lady, fashionably attired, seated under the {326} colonnade of a temple, or beneath a shady tree, talking to and cheering poor and friendless sufferers."
The names of the princesses who were prominent in the feminine education of this time have led many to conclude that only women of the higher cla.s.ses were given the chance to be educated at this time.
To a certain extent this is true, but at all times it must be true, for they alone have the leisure for the intellectual life. To recall what the n.o.bility of Italy were at this time is to appreciate better the real situation. They were the successful merchant-bankers and their descendants (as the House of Medici), leaders of victorious armies, the scions of old families, who had made their influence felt in the politics of their cities for from three, sometimes even less, to ten, rarely more generations, the children of great navigators or admirals, even of successful traders and manufacturers--as the gla.s.s makers of Murano and the merchant princes of Genoa--in a word they represented exactly the same elements of the population as our better-to-do cla.s.ses of to-day. It was the daughters of these who were accorded and took so well at this time the opportunity for education and culture.
Besides these there were not a few of what may be called the lower cla.s.ses who became famous for their scholarship. This had always been true in Italy particularly. Catherine of Siena was a dyer"s daughter.
Dante"s inamorata and her companions, whom we think of as cultured because of the poems addressed to them, were the daughters of men in trade. But in the Renaissance the opportunities even for the comparatively poor to obtain education were greatly widened, and it is evident that any of the young women of the time who had the ambition for learning might obtain it and undoubtedly many of them did. The tradition created by Vittorino da Feltre, according to which women and those of less means might obtain education, maintained itself and proved the seed of further developments in the liberal provision of opportunities for education for all cla.s.ses.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PINTURICCHIO, HOLY FAMILY (SIENA)]
The names of a number of women scholars have come down to us who did not belong to the higher n.o.bility, and some of {327} their achievements have become a part of the great tradition of scholarship of the time. Alessandra Scala and Ca.s.sandra Fedele, for instance, were among the most learned correspondents of Politian and were looked upon as ladies with whom deep questions of scholarship might be discussed seriously. Domitilla Trivulzio delivered Latin orations before thronged a.s.semblies and women orators were quite common. The tradition that women should not speak in public did not obtain at all at this time in Italy and we hear much of their eloquence. The impression so prevalent at the present moment, that this is the first time in history that women have dared to proclaim their rights publicly, is quite erroneous and is founded on a deep ignorance of realities, with a corresponding characteristic presumption of knowledge. Isotta of Verona took part in public controversies with regard to the relative value of men and women in life. It is strangely familiar to find that, for instance, one of the subjects which she discussed was whether man or woman was most to be blamed for what happened in the Garden of Eden, and still more familiar to find that her argument was that man was the responsible party. These learned women, however, were touched also by the tender pa.s.sion, and one of the most distinguished of the feminine scholars, Veronica de Gambara, comes down to us in history as a pattern of conjugal faithfulness, while Gaspara Stampa, the distinguished poetess, according to tradition, died of love.
One of the little known scholars among the Women of the Renaissance, who deserves a better fate than oblivion, is Olympia Morata, a veritable prodigy of learning. She received most of her education at the court of d.u.c.h.ess Renee at Ferrara. When she came, at the age of twelve, to be the companion of the d.u.c.h.ess"s daughter, she was already familiar with Greek and Latin literature. This is surprising enough, but her subsequent progress is even more remarkable. "At fourteen she wrote Latin letters and essayed to imitate the dialogues of Cicero and Plato. At sixteen she lectured at the University of Ferrara on the Ciceronian Paradoxes" (Sandys). At twenty she married a good German, of whom almost the only thing we know is that he was her husband, and she {328} died at the early age of twenty-nine at Heidelberg. When her literary remains were collected they were dedicated to one who was reputed "the most learned lady of her age, Queen Elizabeth of England."
The movement for the education of women of this time would have been quite incomplete, however, if the women themselves had not taken part in the organization of feminine education. In treating of "The Women of the Century" I have already suggested that this important element of feminine education was not lacking. There is abundant evidence of the presence and enduring work of at least one great woman educator, in the sense of an organizer of educational methods, whose influence has been continuously felt in many parts of the world ever since and whose work is not only alive in our time but has shown its power to adapt itself even to the needs and demands of the twentieth-century woman. This is, after all, only what might be expected of an educator of this time, since the other accomplishments of her contemporaries have proved so lasting in their effects.
This very interesting woman of Columbus" Century, whose life is comparatively little known, though her work occupies a very important place in the history of education ever since, was Angela Merici, the foundress of the Ursulines. When twenty years of age this daughter of the lesser Italian n.o.bility became convinced that the great need of that time was the better instruction of young girls in Christian doctrine and their training in a thoroughly Christian life. She converted her home into a school, where at certain hours of the day she gathered all the little girls of her native town of Desenzano, a small munic.i.p.ality on the southwestern sh.o.r.e of Lake Garda in Lombardy, and gave them lessons in the elements of Christianity. The work, thus humbly begun, proved to have so many factors of worth in it that it very soon attracted attention. Before long she was invited to the neighboring city of Brescia to establish a similar school, but on a much larger scale and more ambitious scope. She did so all the more willingly because one day during her earlier life in the small town of Desenzano she had had a vision in which it was revealed to her that she was to found an a.s.sociation of young women {329} who would take vows of chast.i.ty and devote their lives to the religious training of young girls.
After years of patient waiting and thoughtful consideration of the subject of organizing the education of young women and providing for continuance of her work--the delay mainly due to the fact that Angela feared that she might not be capable of accomplishing it properly--she came to the establishment of a religious order that would take up this service. When the const.i.tutions which she had written were presented to Paul III, the Pope, who in spite of his resolve not to increase the number of religious orders, had felt compelled to approve the Jesuits after reading their const.i.tutions because, as he said, he perceived "the finger of G.o.d is here"; also found himself forced to approve of those written by Angela Merici, saying to St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, as he did so, "I have given you sisters." What the Jesuits did for the education of young men during the next two centuries, the Ursulines did for the young women. They spread rapidly until they had communities in all the Catholic countries of Europe, and then houses were established beyond the seas in the Latin-American countries and almost wherever missionaries succeeded in founding churches. Mother Incarnation came to Quebec and is one of the most wonderful women in the early history of the continent. That was before the end of the seventeenth century. At the beginning of the eighteenth (1726) they established a house in New Orleans.
When persecutions came the Ursulines were, as a rule, picked out as an object of special enmity by those who sought to injure the Church.
During the French Revolution they were the special b.u.t.t of the intolerance of the French Republic and gave many martyrs to the cause of religion. When the Kulturkampf came in Germany they were as specifically selected for banishment as the Jesuits, and indeed they have nearly always shared the fate of the Jesuits in times of trial.
They have not been without special distinction by persecution even here in America. Their convent was burned down at Charlestown in Ma.s.sachusetts during the bitter wave of feelings against the religious orders that had been aroused among Protestants in 1835. Their house was the very centre of {330} danger in the "Know Nothing" riots in Philadelphia some twenty years later.
To-day, four centuries after their foundation, the inst.i.tute is still actively alive and doing its work in every part of the world. When the first sisters elected Angela as their superior they asked that the name of the inst.i.tute should be the Angelines, after her own name. She was shocked and insisted that, as their superior, she would require them to take the name of Ursulines in honor of St. Ursula. With all this humility, her personality was so pervasive that it still lives in all her houses. There are schools for young women in many of the States of the Union and in many parts of Canada. They are to be found in distant Alaska, teaching within the Arctic Circle. There are Ursulines under the equator, both on this continent, in Brazil and in Africa. This is only another example of the sort of work that the wonderful characters of Columbus" Century accomplished. Whatever they did had a vital force in it that made it live and prove a stimulus and an example to the generations and the centuries down to our own time.
Angela of Merici, though almost unknown outside of the Catholic Church, was one of the very great women of the Renaissance. Probably no woman of the time, not even St. Teresa, has had so wide and deep an influence over succeeding generations as the retiring Angela of Merici.
As might well be expected, the movement for feminine education which was felt so strongly in Italy affected France to a scarcely less degree. Indeed, there were much more intimate relations between the n.o.bility of the two countries and among the scholars of the time all over Europe than is usually supposed. As all the scholarly writing was done in Latin, the barrier of language was removed and educational interests readily became very widely diffused. Early in Columbus"
Century, Queen Anne of Bretagne is famous for her insistence on education for the women of the French Court. There was a school of Latin at which they all attended, but besides they were expected to know Italian as well as French, and while doing their needlework books were read to them that were calculated to enrich their memories and enhance their literary taste. Queen Anne believed very thoroughly in the fullest of {331} intellectual development for women, and yet insisted also on their duties as managers of their households, and above all as home-makers in the best sense of the term. She knew the dangers of merely intellectual education, and expressions of hers on this subject are often quoted.
The court of Queen Marguerite of Navarre was at least as intellectual as that of Queen Anne, and besides it had the advantage of the deeper knowledge of the cla.s.sics that had come in the meantime. Marguerite encouraged literature, and herself contributed to it. She had the large tolerance of mind of the educated woman and used it to protect some of those who had fallen under the suspicion, so rife at the time because of the religious troubles in Germany, of favoring or attempting to teach heretical doctrines. As a consequence, she has herself fallen under the suspicion of leanings towards heresy and sympathy with the reformers. This was only, however, to the extent in which that sympathy was shared by Erasmus and others of the time, who saw the abuses that needed correction and hoped that the reform movement would correct them, but who broke with it at once when they realized that revolution and not true reformation was intended. The correspondence between Vittoria Colonna and Marguerite is evidence at once of the intimate relations of the learned women of different countries and also of the sympathy existing between these two scholarly women whose influence over their contemporaries meant so much for the intellectual life of the time. The education given Mary Queen of Scots, which is mentioned later in this chapter, shows how much intellectual development was appreciated for the ruling cla.s.ses of the time in France.
There are certain expressions from some of these educated women, especially those without much to do, that are wonderful antic.i.p.ations of some of the things that are heard very commonly now as regards the att.i.tude of educated women toward man"s suppression of her in the preceding time. How strangely familiar are these words from Louise Labe, the French poetess of the middle cla.s.s, one of whose poems of pa.s.sion will be found in the chapter on French literature. "The hour has now struck," she declared, "when man can no {332} longer shackle the honest liberty which our s.e.x has so long yearned for, when women are to prove how deeply men have hitherto wronged them." That expression is not, however, any more familiar than one of the comments of a masculine contemporary on this occupation of the educated women of the time with political ideas, which is quoted by Miss Sichel in her "Men and Women of the French Renaissance": "Political women go on chattering as if it were they who did everything."
The women of the time, however, occupied themselves with practical work of many kinds, and not merely with book-learning or political scheming. There is a tradition of a feminine architect of the Tuileries--Mlle. Perron (Porch) being her not inappropriate name. Many Frenchwomen were particularly interested in the diffusion of education among the poorer cla.s.ses, and we have the story of many school foundations. Mlle. Ste. Beuve, who founded a school and took up her residence opposite to it, became very much interested in the pupils, whom she called her "bees," and whom she encouraged by prizes and distinctions of various kinds. After her death, by the request of the scholars her place was set at table in their midst for the occasions on which she used to come to them, for they felt that her spirit was still with them. Mlle. Saintonge wanted to take up the work of education, but was opposed by her father. She was very much misunderstood, and at one time was stoned by the children on the street. She began with the teaching of five little girls in a garret.
Ten years later she was brought in procession by all the people to the great new convent school erected for her, because they realized now how much her work was to mean and how thoroughly unselfish was her devotion to the cause of education and uplift for their children. In the course of the single century after the beginning of our period over three hundred Ursuline schools were opened in France for the education of girls, and the opportunities for education were greatly extended.
Perhaps the greatest surprise for most people in our time is the fine development of feminine education that took place in Spain during this period. English-speaking people have, {333} as a rule, inherited English prejudices with regard to Spain and are likely to be somewhat in the position of asking, Has any good ever come out of Spain? As a matter of fact, the century just after Columbus" Century belongs to Spain for achievement in every department of intellectual and artistic culture. Her literature, her painting, her philosophy, her educators ruled the world of thought and aesthetics. For those who know something of the high worth of Spanish achievement it is no surprise to learn that education reached a high standard of development in the peninsula during Columbus" Century and that, above all, feminine education was magnificently organized, so that the intellectual achievements of the women of this time deserve a high place in the world"s history. All this is mainly due to the influence of Isabella of Castile, and has been known for as long as the history of this period has been properly understood.
In his "History of Ferdinand and Isabella" Prescott has told the story of the education and scholarship of Spain with words of high praise.
With regard to the feminine education of the time he said in the chapter on "Castilian Literature" (Vol. II):
"In this brilliant exhibition, those of the other s.e.x must not be omitted who contributed by their intellectual endowments to the general illumination of the period. Among them the writers of that day lavish their panegyrics on the Marchioness of Monteagudo, and Dona Maria Pacheco, of the ancient house of Mendoza, sisters of the historian, Don Diego Hurtado, and daughters of the accomplished Count of Tendilla, who, while amba.s.sador at Rome, induced Martyr to visit Spain and who was grandson of the famous Marquis of Santillana, and nephew of the Grand Cardinal. This ill.u.s.trious family, rendered yet more ill.u.s.trious by its merits than its birth, is worthy of specification, as affording altogether the most remarkable combination of literary talent in the enlightened court of Castile. The queen"s instructor in the Latin language was a lady named Dona Beatriz de Galindo, called from her peculiar attainments _La Latina_. Another lady, Dona Lucia de Medrano, publicly lectured on the Latin cla.s.sics in the University of Salamanca. And another, Dona Francisca de Lebrija, {334} daughter of the historian of that name, filled the chair of rhetoric with applause at Alcala. But our limits will not allow a further enumeration of names which should never be permitted to sink into oblivion, were it only for the rare scholarship, peculiarly rare in the female s.e.x, which they displayed in an age comparatively unenlightened. Female education in that day embraced a wider compa.s.s of erudition, in reference to the ancient languages, than is common at present; a circ.u.mstance attributable, probably, to the poverty of modern literature at that time, and the new and general appet.i.te excited by the revival of cla.s.sical learning in Italy. I am not aware, however, that it was usual for learned ladies, in any other country than Spain, to take part in the public exercises of the gymnasium, and deliver lectures from the chairs of the universities. This peculiarity, which may be referred in part to the queen"s influence, who encouraged the love of study by her own example as well as by personal attendance on the academic examinations, may have been also suggested by a similar usage, already noticed among the Spanish Arabs." [Footnote 28]
[Footnote 28: While Prescott"s information with regard to the education of Spanish women is very interesting, certain parts of this pa.s.sage are amusing because they represent mid-nineteenth century ideas with regard to the Renaissance period. Prescott talks of the age as "comparatively unenlightened," but then at that time we had not taken to imitating Renaissance architecture, studying Renaissance literature and art, copying Renaissance book-making and binding, admiring the marvellous workers of the Renaissance in every department and wondering how we could get some of the superabundant intellectual and artistic life of that time into ours. Prescott"s complacency is typically American of two generations ago. Since his time we have learned much more of the old-time phases of feminine education as I have reviewed them briefly at the beginning of this chapter. We have learned that every country in Europe had a corresponding feministic movement to that of Spain, with learned ladies in profusion everywhere. His innuendo at the end of his paragraph on the subject that the Spanish development was probably due to similar Arabian customs is of a piece with that marked tendency in his time to find any source for good except Christianity. The Christian nations were supposed to have done nothing worth while till the Reformation. The Middle Ages were still the dark ages and men were supposed to have accomplished nothing. I need scarcely say that we have changed all that and that now the later Middle Ages are looked upon as one of the most productive periods of human history.]
{335}
The English ladies of the Renaissance are quite as distinguished as their sisters of Italy, France and Spain for their interest in education and the intellectual life. The first one who deserves mention was, though a Queen of England, a Frenchwoman by birth. This was Margaret of Anjou, the wife of the unfortunate Henry VI. If her husband had possessed half the spirit or administrative ability of his wife, the future history of England might have been very different. As it was, the failure of Margaret to secure the throne either for her husband or her children, left it to the Tudors with all that their tyranny meant for England and with the unfortunate religious disturbances which came as a consequence of the headstrong ways of the pa.s.sionate descendants of the Welsh knight. Margaret founded Queen"s College, Cambridge, just about the beginning of Columbus" Century and gave that example of enlightened patronage of learning which was to bear ample fruit among the Englishwomen of the Renaissance during the succeeding centuries. One of her successors, Queen Elizabeth Woodville, who refounded Queen"s College when it was threatened with disaster because of the impairment of its endowment and efficiency by the Wars of the Roses, is another of the enlightened patronesses of learning at this time.
About the middle of Columbus" Century, Margaret Beaufort founded the Divinity Lectureships of Oxford and Cambridge, since known as the Margaret Lectureships. She refounded Christ"s College and St. John"s College in Cambridge a few years later. She also founded a free school at Wymbourn in Dorsetshire. Her own intellectual abilities and education are attested by her translation of the "Imitation of Christ"
at this time. Her wise counsellor in all of her efforts for the benefit of education was the martyred Bishop Fisher, who has left us a panegyric of her which enables us to appreciate her place as one of the distinguished learned women of the Renaissance. Like nearly all of these women, she was interested not only in books, but also in artistic work of many kinds and believed that an educated woman"s first duty must be the decoration of the home. She excelled in ornamental needlework at a time {336} when a great many of the n.o.ble ladies were accustomed to do this sort of art work and when many beautiful examples of it were produced. Another member of the n.o.bility who became well known for her intellectual attainments was Mary, Countess of Arundel, the compiler of "Certain Ingenious Sentences," a collection of proverbial expressions that had a wide popularity at this time.
Toward the end of our Century came the women on whom the Renaissance had a more direct influence. A great many of the daughters of the n.o.bility were given the opportunity for the highest education, and many of them took it very brilliantly. The names of the distinguished women scholars, or at least of women who were noted for their attainments, are numerous and include many even of royal blood.
Evidently feminine education had become the fashion, and many others must have been interested in it since it affected the great ladies so deeply. It would be quite impossible to think that what occupied so much the attention of the daughters of the highest n.o.bility would not also prove a great attraction for many others. Perhaps the best known of the "blue stockings" of the time is Lady Jane Grey, of whose attainments we have so sympathetic an account from Roger Ascham. He says that she was deeply read in philosophy, and that she knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldaic, Arabic and French. We are told that she cared much more to read her Greek authors than to go to routs and parties, or even to go hunting, which was the most fashionable amus.e.m.e.nt of the time. Besides, she knew music well and was particularly skilled in needlework. Indeed, there is none of these distinguished scholarly women of England of whose devotion to needlework we do not hear.
Mary Queen of Scots comes at the very end of the century, and French rather than English or Scotch influence was at work in her education, but the roll of her distinguished teachers shows how seriously the question of proper education for the future queen was taken at this period. George Buchanan was her professor of Latin, she studied rhetoric with Fauchet, history with Pasquier and poetry with Ronsard.
We have at least one very interesting Latin poem that has been {337} attributed to her, and if the attribution be correct it is excellent evidence for her scholarliness. [Footnote 29]
[Footnote 29: "O Domine Deus!
Speravi in te; O care mi Iesu!
Nunc libera me: In dura catena, In misera poena Desidero te; Languendo, gemendo, Et genuflectendo Adoro, imploro, Ut liberes me!"
Her rival, Elizabeth, was only seventeen years of age when the century closed, but this was also the age of Lady Jane Grey, when she was put to death, yet we hear much of her attainments and Elizabeth was one of her great scholarly rivals. Like Lady Jane, Elizabeth is said to have known five languages and to have studied music, philosophy, rhetoric and history to such good purpose that her accomplishments were much more than mediocre or conventional. With these examples before us there can be no doubt at all of the fashionableness of the higher education for women, and whatever is fashionable attracts the attention of all cla.s.ses of women.
Probably the best example of the provision of opportunities for even the highest education for women is to be found in Sir Thomas More"s household. He thought that his girls should share equally with his boys in their opportunities for the new learning. His daughter Margaret is quite famous for her attainments, Erasmus and others having praised her so highly. She had a thorough knowledge of Greek and Latin and much more than a pa.s.sing or superficial acquaintance with philosophy, astronomy, physics, arithmetic, logic, rhetoric and music. The affection of her father for her, his encouragement of her studies and the intimate relations between them have made her ill.u.s.trious not only in the history of feminine education, but in world history. While near the end of his life More was Lord Chancellor, his family was not of the higher n.o.bility, and he himself, as practically a self-made man, belonged only to the professional cla.s.ses of the time. It seems not far-fetched, then, to conclude that a good many of the daughters of lawyers and physicians at this time must have had abundant opportunities afforded them for as much education as they cared to have, though of course they would {338} not have the advantages of More"s children, which were due, however, not to his political importance, but to his friendship for the great scholars of the time. While Margaret is so well known it must not be forgotten, though we hear so much less of them, that More"s two other daughters were also very well educated. Leland, the antiquary, wrote of "the three learned nymphs, great More"s fair progeny." If so little is known of More"s other daughters, it is probable that there were not a few others who had similar advantages to theirs, though no record of it is in history.
Among the many demonstrations that this intellectual movement among women was not confined to Italy, nor even to the Southern nations, is the career of Charitas Pirkheimer, the Abbess of the Convent of the Poor Clares in Nuremberg. She became famous as an educated woman with whom many of the distinguished scholars of the Renaissance were proud to be a.s.sociated. Her brother Wilibald, who was her guide and teacher, appreciated her so much that he dedicated several of his books to her, and in the preface of one, "On the Delayed Vengeance of the Deity," a Latin translation of Plutarch"s treatise, he praises her education and her successful devotion to study. More disturbed than astonished, she protested that she was only the friend of scholars, but not herself a scholar. When Conrad Celtes published his collection of the works of Roswitha, he presented one of the first copies of the book to Charity Pirkheimer, and in a eulogy written on that occasion lauds her as one of the glorious ornaments of the German Fatherland. He enclosed a volume of his poems at the same time, and the good abbess very candidly asked him to devote himself rather to the study of the sacred books and the contemplation of high things than to the study of the sensual and low in the ancients. She was a great friend of Johann Butzbach and of Albrecht Durer. Christopher Scheurl dedicated to her his book on "The Uses of the Ma.s.s," In his article in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Klemens Loffler says of her: "But all the praise she received excited no pride in Charitas; she remained simple, affable, modest and independent, uniting in perfect harmony high education and deep piety. It was thus she resisted the severe temptations which hung over the last ten years of her life."