86 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



literary training; but there are not wanting instances in 

 which the nuns took the lead in education and had the 

 direction of schools which gave to the church priests and 

 bishops of recognized scholarship. 



Practically the only schools for girls during the Middle 

 Ages were the convents. Here were educated rich and 

 poor, gentle and simple. And in these homes of piety and 

 learning the inmates enjoyed a peace and a security that 

 it was impossible to find elsewhere. They were free from 

 the dangers and annoyances that so often menaced them 

 in their own homes and were able to pursue their studies 

 under the most favorable auspices. 



Among the first convent schools to achieve distinction 

 were those of Aries and Poitiers in Gaul, in the latter part 

 of the sixth century. The Abbess of Poitiers is known to 

 us as St. Radegund. She not only had a knowledge of 

 letters rare for her age, but wrote poems of such merit 

 that they were until recently accepted as the productions 

 of her master, the poet Fortunatus, 1 who subsequently be- 

 came bishop of Poitiers. 



Far more notable, however, than the convents of Aries 

 and Poitiers was the celebrated convent of St. Hilda at 

 Whitby. Hilda, the foundress and first abbess of Whitby, 

 was a princess of the blood-royal and a grand-niece of 

 Edwin, the first Christian king of Northumbria. Her con- 

 vent and adjoining monastery for monks soon became the 

 most noted center of learning and culture in Britain. And 

 so great was her reputation for knowledge and wisdom 

 that not only priests and bishops, but also princes and 

 kings sought her counsel in important matters of church 

 and state. 



As to the monks subject to her authority, she inspired 

 them with so great a love of knowledge, and urged them 

 to so thorough a study of the Scriptures, that her monas- 



*See Histoire de Sainte Radegonde, Seine de France, in Chap. 

 XX, par Em. Briand, Paris, 1897. 



