OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN 



ideas of his time. In truth, we find mediaeval 

 literature, if we try to estimate it reasonably, 

 gives a quite pleasing impression of womankind, 

 whether we turn to some of the royal ladies who 

 presided over brilliant Courts, where learning 

 was encouraged and poets made welcome, or to 

 the lady of lesser degree, who reigned supreme 

 in her castle, at any rate when her lord was 

 away, as was often the case in time of war or 

 during attendance at Court, or to the abbesses 

 who governed the religious houses they were set 

 over, to their material and mental well-being, 

 proving thus their genius for administration, and, 

 in many instances, their rare intellectual attain- 

 ments. A record in a chartulary of the Bene- 

 dictine nunnery of Wherwell in Hampshire, now 

 in the British Museum (Egerton MS., 2104), 

 and accessible to all in translation in the second 

 volume of the Victoria History of the County oj 

 Hampshire^ may be mentioned in passing, since 

 it gives such a charming picture of mediaeval 

 convent life. It recounts the life and work of 

 the Abbess Euphemia, who presided over the 

 house from 1226 to 1257. Amongst her many 

 good deeds, it is told of her that " with maternal 

 piety and careful forethought, she built, for the 

 use of both sick and sound, a new and large 

 infirmary away from the main buildings," and 



that, besides caring thus for the bodily wants of 



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