OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN 



encouraged by the king who sought to aggrand- 

 ise the monarchy at the expense of the nobles, 

 was growing rich, and politically gaining in 

 power, and Philip ere long discovered that he 

 had helped merely to change the centre of 

 power, and not to crush it. 



But Paris does not seem to have attracted 

 Mahaut as did her castle at Hesdin. Here she 

 was in the midst of her own domains, surrounded 

 by her liegemen and retainers, and able to be in 

 constant touch with her artificers and workers, 

 whatever their art or industry. By the thirteenth 

 century the dwelling of the Noble was no longer 

 a grim castle, suggestive only of a place of 

 defence, with narrow slits in the walls for the 

 admission of air and light and for the discharge 

 of arrows, but was more like a fortified country- 

 house. The encompassing walls enclosed a wide 

 area, within which was sheltered a village and 

 everything necessary to the growth and develop- 

 ment of a community. 



From Hesdin Mahaut journeyed constantly 

 through her County of Artois, visiting her 

 castles, the towns or villages around them, and 

 the various religious houses and hospitals she 

 had founded, and attending in general to the 

 well-being of her subjects. For her it was not 

 enough that she was born to reign. She realised 

 that, without administration, reigning through 

 the accident of birth is mere puppet's work, and 

 leads to naught. Her daily life was the visible 

 expression of this belief, as she herself was an 



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