countenance:

deep trance of devotion in which she seemed lost, and the unearthly glow that overspread her beautiful Alas," cried he to the attendant priest, and burst into tears, "soon must this blessed rose wither soon shall this lovely bird take her flight." The prediction was fulfilled within forty days, and Editha, ere she had completed her twentythird year, slumbered beside the high altar. In accordance with the superstition of the times, her canonization soon followed; and the grateful nuns invoked her, together with our Lady and St. Bartholomew, to watch over the abbey of Wilton.*

Romsey Abbey, to which Christina, the aunt of Maude, retired, and of which, according to some writers, she became abbess, was built by Edward the elder, and dedicated to the Virgin and St. Elfleda. This abbey was gifted with many great and especial privileges, and amongst them the rare and most anomalous right of "la haute justice," or "gallows tree t;" a privilege, however, of which we have no record that any use was ever made; and to this already wealthy establishment the Norman conquest seems to have brought additional wealth and dignity.

In these two convents did Maude receive her education-an education which, although not strictly literary, yet, according to the concurrent testimony of every contemporary historian, well qualified her to become an enlightened and munificent patroness of letters.

* The abbess of this convent was one of the four Lady abbesses who were baronesses in their own right, and, as such, took their places at the King's court.

↑ Vide Monasticon.

On many of the most interesting subjects of research, the antiquary has occasion to lament the very scanty degree of information with which even the most sedulous inquiry will furnish him; and on few points is our information more scanty, than in all that relates to conventual education at this period. Thus far we know, that while the conventual establishments of the Saxon monks were stigmatized as being the abodes of sloth and gluttony, no syllable of censure is recorded against any one of the Saxon nunneries; and when to this negative testimony the positive proofs derived from the favourable notices of noble and royal Saxon women who must have received their education in these female conventual establishments are added, we shall be inclined to admit that, although certainly not equal to those later convent schools in which the illustrious daughters of our Plantagenets received instruction, they yet were foundations well adapted for that most important of all the purposes for which convents were erected the education of young females.

It would be an interesting task to trace the outline of the plan of instruction pursued in these schools. But here we must lament the extreme scantiness of our materials. From some very amusing remarks of Alfred of Rieviesby, a contemporary, we learn that very young children were sometimes admitted, and that the nuns displayed toward them an almost maternal affection.* These children were taught reading, for which purpose many small books were

* Vide Fosbroke.

kept; and it is probable, in most instances, writing. Music also was an important part of conventual education, since all the scholars were expected to take their parts in the seven daily services of the church. As musical notation was at this period, and indeed for two centuries after, unknown, the tunes must all have been learned by the ear, and as it is probable that singing in parts was practised, a musical education in those days would present nearly as many difficulties as in the present. Among the musical instruments most used by the Saxons, we find the harp and the organ the last mentioned instrument was probably never met with met with except in churches; it was, however, there sometimes played by women; and among Mr. Strutt's useful collection of plates we find one of a female seated at an organ on which she plays with her right hand, while blowing a short curved horn, which she holds in her left. To the harp, that favourite instrument of all the northern nations, the Saxons were peculiarly attached. For centuries it was the custom among them, on festive occasions, to hand it round; and in their love to it, the conquered natives had one common feeling at least with their more refined victors.

To fine needlework the Saxon ladies always paid great attention. In periods long subsequent to this, the convent schools still retained their former celebrity, and broidered vestments and altar cloths, wrought by the diligent fingers of the convent maiden, were gifts which monarchs might offer, and even the sovereign Pontiff receive. So celebrated,

indeed, were our countrywomen for their labours of the loom and of the needle, that the Conqueror's chaplain expressly alludes to their skill, and especially to their exquisite embroidery in gold, in his extravagantly laudatory encomium on the wealth and productions of England. According to the learned Muratori, the fame of this "fine needlework" extended throughout all Europe, and the phrase "Opera Anglica" was used by every writer to designate works either surpassingly rich or surpassingly beautiful. To the fair embroiderer of the 19th century, such high commendations of what she would probably consider very inferior work, may appear surprising; and she may point to the rude figures of the men and horses in that most curious relic of the skill of the Saxon embroiderer, the Bayeux tapestry,* and ask to what degree of praise, as a work of art, such a specimen is entitled. It is important, therefore, to remark, that, while every attempt to imitate the human figure, whether in sculpture, in tapestry, or in painting, is most rude and skilless, the arabesques of this period (and it was arabesque patterns that were chiefly employed) are singularly rich and elegant. The capital letters of many a manuscript, the carving of many a column, even the few remains of goldsmith's work which time has spared, display patterns from which the carver or the decorator of the present day might not refuse to copy. A general character of high finish, too, pervades these works; and we may well suppose that the fair embroiderer, whose skill was so highly prized, and * Vide Note 4, Appendix.

whose fame was so widely extended, did not, in her sphere, rank below her fellow-workmen.*

Another important branch of convent education, was a knowledge of medicine and surgery. In an age when "the church" was the grand depository of science and learning, and when so great a portion of the pharmacopoeia consisted of charms derived from texts of holy writ, of invocations, prayers, and exorcisms, the fair inhabitant of the cloister naturally became, in the eyes of a marvelling people, the appropriate ministering priestess of those rites. The superstition of the northern nations, too, had always invested woman both with prophetic powers and with the gift of healing; no wonder therefore was it, that, when both Pagan and Christian superstition combined in viewing the nun as skilful in leechcraft, she should sedulously devote herself to its practice. For all those diseases whose seat was in the mind, there was the psalm and the prayer, the aspersion of holy water, or the pilgrimage to the saintly shrine; while for those more active diseases which refused to yield to religious formulæ, the long catalogue of indigenous herbs would, in most cases, afford a medicine, and perhaps a cure; nor is it improbable that many a herb-tea and many a diet-drink, still employed in the more remote parts. of the land, are the venerable remains of conventual medical skill.

*From the length of time bestowed on many of these works, we may well imagine the degree of finish bestowed on them. Three and four years for embroidering a mantle was no uncommon time, and the Lady of Shalot" sits seven long years, intent upon her beautiful work, ere the faithless Lancelot, who is to release her from her task, appears.