Beyond the fireside and the docile domestic slave, however, there was another medieval ideal of womanhood, a _religieuse_ who prayed and sang hymns in the cloister. Aside from this, it was her special mission to help the poor, care for the sick, console the sorrowful, and advance the interests of the church. But these women of the cloister, who had the altar without the home, found a possible outlet for their imprisoned intellects, if they had sufficient natural force. The Roman Church, which had always frowned upon any exercise of a woman’s mental gifts in a worldly sphere, was glad to avail itself of them in its own interest, and there were a few women more or less distinguished both as leaders of religious organizations and counselors of ecclesiastics, who kept alive the prestige of their sex through centuries of darkness. It was one of the strange paradoxes of that age, as of many others, that a woman is an irrational being, too fragile to bear distinction of any sort, except when her talents make for the glory of men or the church. Activity in public affairs, so long as they were religious ones, was not considered unwomanly, notwithstanding the conservative opinions of St. Paul. No one took it amiss when Catherine of Siena used her wisdom and eloquence in persuading the Pope to return from Avignon to Rome after men’s counsels had failed. No one found fault because her emotional exaltation was tempered by a vigorous intellect. She was a thinker and seer, and wrote ably on political as well as ecclesiastical questions. Her style was simple and classic; indeed, she was altogether phenomenal, and had strange influence over the popes and kings to whom she did not hesitate to tell unpleasant truths. It was quite fitting that she should devote these gifts to the interests of her church and incidentally of her country. Men honored her for it, and canonized her. This was a hundred and fifty years or so before the beautiful Isabella of Cordova, who was more learned and less mystical, gave up mundane pleasures for the classics and a degree in theology; and Isabella Rosera devoted herself to the conversion of the Jews, dazzled multitudes with her eloquence in the cathedral at Barcelona, and expounded the subtleties of Duns Scotus before prelates and cardinals at Rome. But in that interval women had made great strides in intelligence, and the talents that shone so conspicuously in great moral and religious movements had become a powerful factor in other directions. Bitisia Gozzadina had multitudes of successors to her honors. III