Simplicity of dress was another part of instruction: but there was to be no lack of jewels of price and other splendid ornaments on festive occasions, and, consistently with the general magnificence of religious worship of the age, maidens were commanded to wear their gorgeous robes at church, and not merely at courtly festivals. There was a gravity about chivalry which accorded well with the recommendation for women not quickly to adopt new dresses introduced from strange countries. Modesty of attire was the theme of many a wise discourse, and every castle had its story of the daughter of a knight who lost her marriage by displaying too conspicuously the graces of her figure, and that the cavalier who was her intended suitor preferred her sister who had modesty, though not beauty, for her dower.[208] [Sidenote: Knowledge of medicine.] All the domestic oeconomy of the baronial mansion was arranged by these young maidens: and the consideration which this power gave them was not a little heightened by their sharing with the monks in the knowledge which the age possessed of vulnerary medicaments. This attribute of skill over the powers of nature was a clear deduction from that sublime, prophetic, and mysterious character of women in the ages which preceded the times both of feudalism and chivalry. The healing art was not reduced to an elaborate system of principles and rules, for memory to store and talent to apply, but it was thought that the professors of medicine enjoyed a holy intercourse with worlds unknown to common minds. The possession of more than mortal knowledge was readily ascribed to a pure, unearthly being like woman, and the knight who felt to his heart of hearts the charm of her beauty was not slow in believing that she could fascinate the very elements of nature to aid him. There are innumerable passages in the various works which reflect the manners of chivalric times on the medicinal practice of dames and damsels. A pleasing passage of Spenser illustrates their affectionate tendance of the sick. "Where many grooms and squires ready were To take him from his steed full tenderly; And eke the fairest Alma met him there With balm and wine and costly spicery, To comfort him in his infirmity. Eftesoones she caus'd him up to be conveyed, And of his arms despoiled easily: In sumptuous bed she made him to be laid, And, all the while his wounds were dressing, by him stay'd."[209]