"The contributions of nuns to literature, as well as incidental remarks, show that the curriculum of study in the nunnery was as liberal as that accepted by the monks, and embraced all available writing whether by Christian or profane authors. While Scripture and the writing of the Fathers of the Church at all times formed the groundwork of monastic studies, Cicero at this period was read by the side of Boethus, Virgil by the side of Martianus Capella, Terence by the side of Isidore of Seville. From remarks made by Hroswitha we see that the coarseness of the Latin dramatists made no reason for their being forbidden to nuns, though she would have seen it otherwise; and, Herrad was so far impressed by the wisdom of the heathen philosophers of antiquity that she pronounced this wisdom to be the 'product of the Holy Spirit also.' Throughout the literary world, as represented by convents, the use of Latin was general, and made possible the even spread of culture in districts that were widely remote from each other and practically without intercourse." [47] _The Lady_, p. 71, by Emily James Putnam, New York, 1910. [48] Eckenstein, op. cit., p. 478. [49] Ut. Sup., 479-480. [50] See _Womankind in Western Europe_, p. 288 et seq., by Thomas Wright, London, 1869. [51] "Pertinere videtur ad haec tempora Betisia Gozzadini non minus generis claritate quam eloquentia ac legum professione illustris.... Betisiam Ghirardaccius et nostri ab eo deinceps scriptores eximiis laudibus certatim extulerunt." _De Claris Archigymnasii Bononiensis Professoribus a Saeculo XI usque ad Saeculum XIV_, Tom. I, p. 171, Bologna, 1888-1896. [52] L'Ecole de Salerne, p. 18, par C. Meaux, Paris, 1880. Among the most noted of these women was Trotula, who, about the middle of the eleventh century, wrote on the diseases of women as well as on other medical subjects. Compare the attitude of the school of Salerno towards women with that of the University of London, eight hundred years later. When, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, women applied to this university for degrees in medicine, they were informed, as H. Rashdall writes in _The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages_, Vol. II, Part II, p. 712, Oxford, 1895, that "the University of London, although it had been empowered by Royal Charter to do all things that could be done by any University, was legally advised that it could not grant degrees to women without a fresh Charter, because no University had ever granted such degrees." Cf. also Haeser's _Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medicin_, Band I, p. 645, et seq., Jena, 1875. Verily, the so-called dark ages have risen up to condemn our vaunted age of enlightenment!