Bernardo Gallegos
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Bernardo Gallegos
Page 01 - Part C
The early part of the Middle Ages also
witnessed a remarkable development of convents for women, these receiving
a special development in Germanic lands. Filled with the same aggressive
spirit as the men, but softened somewhat by Christianity, many women of
high station among the German tribes founded convents and developed
institutions of much renown. This provided a rather superior class of
women as organizers and directors, and a conventual life continued,
throughout the entire Middle Ages, to attract an excellent class of women.
This will be understood when it is remembered that a conventual life
offered to women of intellectual ability and scholarly tastes the one
opportunity for an education and a life of learning. The convents, too,
were much earlier and much more extensively opened for instruction to
those not intending to take the vows than was the case with the
monasteries, and, in consequence, it became a common practice throughout
the Middle Ages, just as it is to-day among Catholic families, to send
girls to the convent for education and for training in manners and
religion. Many well-trained women were produced in the convents of Europe
in the period from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries.
The instruction consisted of reading, writing, and copying Latin, as in
the monasteries, as well as music, weaving and spinning, and needlework.
Weaving and spinning had an obvious utilitarian purpose, and needlework,
in addition to necessary sewing, was especially useful in the production
of altar-cloths and sacred vestments. The copying and illuminating of
manuscripts, music, and embroidering made a special appeal to women (R.
56), and some of the most beautifully copied and illuminated manuscripts
of the mediaeval period are products of their skill. [16] Their
contribution to music and art, as it influenced the life of the time, was
also large. The convent schools reached their highest development about
the middle of the thirteenth century, after which they began to decline in
importance.
Source: THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION, by ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
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[ Part E ]
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