WOMAN'S LONG STRUGGLE 53 



highly. Not only did their inmates attain considerable 

 knowledge but education in a nunnery, as we see from 

 Chaucer and others, secured an improved standing for 

 those who were not professed." * It prepared the way for, 

 if it did not train, those highly educated women who ap- 

 peared during the time of the transition between the Mid- 

 dle Ages and what is now designated as the Modern Period. 

 Among these were Christine de Pisan, who was a prolific 

 writer on many subjects in both prose and verse, and who, 

 it is said, was the first woman to earn a livelihood by her 

 pen. 2 There were also some of those remarkable women 

 who lectured on law in the University of Bologna, among 

 whom were Bettina Gozzadini, 3 who, some writers will 

 have it, occupied the chairs of law in her alma mater as 

 early as 1236, and the celebrated Novella d 'Andrea, of the 

 following century, who frequently acted as a substitute for 

 her father, a professor of canon law in the university, and 

 who, by reason of her varied and profound knowledge, held 

 a prominent place among the most learned men of her 

 time. Both of these noted women were worthy prototypes 

 of that long list of learned Italian women who, during the 

 Renaissance, won such honor for themselves and such un- 

 dying glory for their country. Not less remarkable were 

 several women of the school of Salerno, who, during its 

 palmiest days, distinguished themselves as teachers, writers 

 and medical practitioners,* and the still more remarkable 



iUt. Sup., 479-480. 



2 See Womankind in Western Europe, p. 288 et seq., by Thomas 

 Wright, London, 1869. 



3 ' ' Pertinere videtur ad haee tempora Betisia Gozzadini non minus 



generis claritate quam eloquentia ac legum professione illustris 



Betisiam Ghirardaccius et nostrl ab eo deinceps scriptores eximiis 

 laudibus certatim extulerunt. ' ' De Claris ArcMgymnasii Bononiensis 

 Professoribus a Sceculo XI usque ad Sceculum XIV, Tom. I, p. 171, 

 Bologna, 1888-1896. 



*L'Ecole de Salerne, p. 18, par C. Meaux, Paris, 1880. Among 

 the most noted of these women was Trotula, who, about the middle 



