With the end of this stormy period comes the dawn of the Age of Chivalry, and from that time forward until the Reformation, woman enjoyed a portion at least of her rightful position. It is said that "Chivalry not only bestowed upon the woman perfect freedom in the disposal of hand and heart, but required of the knight who should win her, devoted and lengthened service"; this may be, however, a rather idealised view of the situation; but there is no doubt that the Court and the Cloister became the two centres of women's lives, and an intimate connection was maintained between the two. Nearly all women of gentle birth were educated in nunnery schools, and by the eighth century we find that these schools had attained a high standard of learning, which increased and developed in the succeeding centuries. The convent afforded a shelter to the woman who did not marry and to whom the marriage state did not appeal; there she was able to a certain extent to follow the career she desired, at the same time her personal safety was assured. "The scholar, the artist, the recluse, the farmer, each found a career open to him; while men and women were prompted to undertake duties within and without the religious settlement, which make their activity comparable to that of the relieving officer, the poor law guardian, and the district nurse of a later age."[6] It is perhaps of interest to us to note that the first hospital for lepers in England was founded by a woman, "good Queen Maud," in 1101 at S. Giles' on the East. The rule of an abbey or a priory called for no mean business capacity on the part of their heads, and as a rule the abbess and prioress were women of great business and administrative ability. Before the Norman Conquest nearly all the nunneries founded in England were abbacies, subsequently priories were the most usual foundations, as according to feudal law women were unable to hold property. The latter half of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are renowned throughout history for their women, who, occupying foremost positions in the government, were clever, cultured, and liberal-minded. One has but to mention the names of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the "Lady Margaret" of Oxford and Cambridge; of Leonore d'Este, the mother of equally famous daughters, Isabella and Beatrice d'Este; Marguerite de Valois, sister of Francis I., and Isabella of Castile, to conjure up before one's eyes the whole procession of the proud and capable women of these days. "One and all have been fruitful as successive stages of growth, yet they can never recur, and only the fanatic or visionary could wish that they should recur, for each is narrow and insufficient from the standpoint of a later age."