from
Paris, on the river Marne, many famous persons, both men and women,
received their education. Among them was a Northumbrian princess,
Hereswith, whose sister was Hild, the most famous of English abbesses.

The prevalence and influence of the double monastery in England may
perhaps be better understood by a reference to the position of women
generally in Anglo-Saxon society. Nothing astonished the Romans more
than the austere chastity of the Germanic women, and the religious
respect paid by men to them, and nowhere has their influence been more
fully recognised or more enduring than among the Anglo-Saxons. This fact
largely accounts for the extreme importance attached by them to marriage
alliances, particularly those between members of royal houses.[16] These
unions gave to the princess the office of mediatrix; in Beowulf she is
called Freothowebbe, "the peace-weaver."[17] From this rose the high
position held by queens. Their signatures appear in acts of foundation,
decrees of councils, charters, etc. Sometimes they reigned with full
royal authority, as did Seaxburg, Queen of the West Saxons, after the
death of her husband.[18] From the beginning of Christianity in England,
the women, and particularly these royal women, were as active and
persevering in furthering the Faith, as their men. "Christianity," says
Montalembert,[19] "came to a people which had preserved the instinct
and sense of the necessity for venerating things above," and "they at
least honoured the virtue which they did not themselves always
practise."

Consequently, when the young Anglo-Saxon women, having been initiated
into the life of the cloister abroad, returned to England to found
monasteries in their own land, they were received by their countrymen
with reverence and respect. This respect soon expressed itself in the
national law, which placed under the safeguard of severe penalties the
honour and freedom of those whom it called the "Brides of God."

Princesses, royal widows, sometimes reigning queens, began to found
monasteries, where they lived on terms of equality with the daughters of
ceorls and bondmen; and perhaps it is fair to say that it was not the
lowest in rank who made the greatest sacrifice.

But the influence of these women did not cease with their retirement to
the cloister. When one of them, by the choice of her companions, or the
nomination of the bishops, became invested with the right of governing
the community, she w