ilst there were many humble, zealous
workers then, just as there are now, it is possible there were other
and perhaps more potent factors to account for this apparently humble
attitude. In mediaeval days, the subject of a narrative or didactic
work was considered so important, that an author would scarcely
venture on any independent treatment of a theme for fear of incurring
censure for a contempt of authority, or, if he did so venture, he
would probably deem it wiser to do so anonymously, or by ascription
to some departed celebrity, who was obviously not in a position to
gainsay him. The writer was of much less interest than his ideas and
sentiments. Then again there was the intense localisation of life.
Localities were very independent of one another. Each was complete in
itself, and within it there was no need for self-advertisement. It was
the same in the wider life of associated religious communities, such
as Benedictines, Cluniacs, and Cistercians, who had so much to do with
the building of abbeys and cathedrals. Within a fraternity, the
specially gifted craftsman was known, and wherever work was going on
within the Order, was made use of as needs be, not as Brother This, or
Brother That, but simply as scribe, or as artificer in Madonnas or
gargoyles, or whatever else was wanted. The glorification of the
community as a whole, and not the advertisement of the individual, was
the desired goal. This self-effacement was not so much humility,
though of course that too existed, as the special form which communal
feeling took at that time. Now if this suppression of the individual
was true of men, how much more true must it have been of women, who
seldom ventured beyond town, or castle, or convent walls. In truth,
women hardly appear on the scene, and English women least of all. It
is only women who were prominent through their high official
positions, either political or religious, such as Blanche of Castile,
or St. Catherine of Siena, or the Abbess Hildegarde, or women like the
Blessed Angela of Foligno,[1] or Julian, anchoress of Norwich,[2] or
some other of the devout women of mediaeval Italy, who interpreted the
mysteries of divine love to mediaeval society, having in fact, as it
were, religious salons, from whom the veil has been withdrawn, and
even amongst such as these it has sometimes been only very slightly
lifted. With these saintly and political women must be mentioned the
women doctors of Salerno--Trothula, A