really able to become a learned person. Such cases
were extremely rare, however, for the true position of woman in society
was far from being understood. Schools for women were unknown; indeed,
there were few schools of any kind, and it was only in the monasteries
that men were supposed to know how to read and write. Even kings and
queens were often without these polite accomplishments, and the right of
the sword had not yet been questioned. Then, it must be taken into
consideration that current ideas regarding education in Italy in this
early time were quite different from what they are to-day. As there were
no books, book learning was impossible, and the old and yellowed
parchments stored away in the libraries of the monasteries were
certainly not calculated to arouse much public enthusiasm. Education at
this time was merely some sort of preparation for the general duties of
life, and the nature of this preparation depended upon a number of
circumstances.

To make the broadest and most general classification possible, the women
of that time might be divided into ladies of high degree and women of
the people. The former were naturally fitted by their training to take
their part in the spectacle of feudal life with proper dignity; more
than that, they were often skilled in all the arts of the housewife, and
many times they showed themselves the careful stewards of their
husbands' fortunes. The women of the people, on the other hand, were not
shown any special consideration on account of their sex, and were quite
generally expected to work in the fields with the men. Their homes were
so unworthy of the name that they required little care or thought, and
their food was so coarse that little time was given to its preparation.
Simple-minded, credulous, superstitious in the extreme, with absolutely
no intellectual uplift of any kind, and nothing but the sordid drudgery
of life with which to fill the slow-passing hours, it is no wonder that
the great mass of both the men and the women of this time were
hopelessly swallowed up in a many-colored sea of ignorance, from which,
with the march of the centuries, they have been making slow efforts to
rise. So the lady sat in the great hall in the castle, clad in some
gorgeous gown of silk which had been brought by the patient caravans,
through devious ways, from the far and mysterious East; surrounded by
her privileged maidens, she spun demurely and in peace and quiet, while
out in