OF SIX MEDIEVAL WOMEN 



dedicates to the Dauphine, Margaret of 

 Burgundy, she merely adds another to the long 

 list of discourses for the guidance of women 

 which, in Christian times, begins as early as 

 the second century. 1 This theme forms the 

 subject of so considerable a didactic literature 

 that it can only be hinted at here. Whether 

 treated from a religious or from a social point 

 of view, or the two combined, the sum-total 

 of the teaching is moral training with a view 

 to self-restraint and subordination. Christine 

 addresses herself to all women, from the highest 

 to the lowest, but her principal theme is the 

 influence a princess may and should have on 

 Court life. She further counsels not princesses 

 alone, but all well-born women, not to attach 

 too much importance to the things of this world, 

 to be charitable, and to see to the education of 

 their children, and so to inform themselves 

 that they may be capable of filling their 

 husbands' place when they are obliged to be 

 absent at war or at the Court. She adds a plea 

 for the country, that war should be opposed, and 

 one for the poor, that pity should be shown to 

 them. Then she addresses herself to the towns- 

 woman, advising her to see to her household, 

 not to fear to go into the kitchen, and to avoid 

 all luxury ; then to servants, counselling them 

 on no account to take bribes, adding the practical 

 touch that as God is everywhere, and only asks 



1 A. A. Hentsch, De la litterature didactique du moyen age 

 s'adressant specialement aux femmes, Cahors, 1903. 



144 



