INTRODUCTION 



we come to the fourteenth century, is almost 

 silent about them. Thus it is that as we study 

 these women, it almost seems at first as if we 

 were looking at some faded frescoes in a dimly 

 lighted church. But just as the half-obliterated 

 figures take form and life as our eyes grow 

 accustomed to the dimness, and our minds get 

 attuned to the days that knew their living 

 representatives, so these women of whom we 

 are speaking may live again for us if only we 

 treat their works as human documents, and not 

 as archaeological curiosities. The following 

 pages tell of six such women who lived between 

 the tenth century and the first half of the 

 fifteenth Roswitha, a nun of Germany ; Marie 

 de France, a lady at the Court of Henry the 

 Second of England ; Mechthild of Magdeburg, 

 mystic and beguine ; Mahaut, Countess of 

 Artois, a great-niece of St. Louis ; Christine de 

 Pisan, an Italian by birth, living at the Court of 

 Charles the Fifth of France ; and Agnes Sorel, 

 the Mistress and inspirer of Charles the Seventh. 

 In trying to evoke the women of these days 

 of long ago, ij: is hardly possible to do more 

 than portray them in outline. Yet even so, if 

 the outline be true, we may remember, for our 

 consolation, that it has been said that we shall 

 never, except in outline, see the mysterious 



Goddess Truth. 



xxix 



