To complete the conversion and civilisation of the country, Boniface conceived the plan of bringing over some religious women from England, and establishing them in various parts, that they might provide the means of education to their own sex. Othlonus, in his history, names Chunihilt and her daughter Berathgilt as the first Englishwomen who passed over into Germany at the invitation of Boniface, and calls them _valde eruditæ in liberali scientia_. But their renown has been eclipsed by that of St. Lioba, to whom the archbishop naturally turned as the likeliest of his English friends to aid him in his great designs. In fact, there were many at Wimbourne disposed to enter heart and soul into the interests of the German mission. Lioba and her cousin Thecla were nearly related to the archbishop, and Walburga was sister to his two companions, Winibald and Wilibald. He knew that their acquirements qualified them to teach others. They had all been carefully trained by the abbess Tetta, and were skilful, not merely in the womanly art of the needle, but likewise in sacred literature. Lioba’s accomplishments may be truly called surprising, when we remember that their owner was a nun, living in the middle of the eighth century in a remote abbey of a half-barbarous land. Instructed from her childhood in grammar, poetry, and the liberal arts, she had increased her treasure of learning by assiduous reading. She had attentively studied the Old and New Testaments, and committed a great part of them to memory. She was familiar with the writings of the Fathers, and with the decrees and canons of the Church--grave sort of reading for so fair a student--(and I do not use the epithet in a conventional sense, for her biographer tells us she was named Lioba, or the _beloved one_, because of her exceeding beauty); but in those days lighter literature there was none. As we have seen, she could write in the Latin tongue with a graceful simplicity, both in prose and verse. When not engaged in study she worked with her hands, as was enjoined by the rule, but she greatly preferred reading, or hearing others read, to manual employments. Indeed, it was not easy to satisfy her in this respect. When abbess, she insisted on all those under her charge taking that midday repose allowed by the rule of St. Benedict, chiefly, as she said, because the want of sleep takes away the love of reading. But when she herself lay down at these times to rest, she had some of her pupils to read the Scriptures by the side of her couch, and they could not omit or mispronounce a word without her correcting it, though apparently she might be asleep. Yet all this learning was accompanied with a modesty and humility that made her seek in all things to be regarded as the least in the house. There was nothing of arrogance in her behaviour, nothing of bitterness in her words, says her biographer, Ralph of Fulda. “She was as admirable in her understanding as she was boundless in her charity. She liked