so associated her charities with the Church, by the teachings of which her impulses were trained. The saints' days were customarily observed by especial and important contributions for the poor. Were it not for the manors, the Middle Ages would lack almost altogether poetry and literature other than that of the monkish chroniclers. Literature and poetry in this period were chiefly centred around the women of the nobility. It was probably due to the fondness of Henry I. for letters that a literary taste was excited among his queens. The earliest specimens existing of vernacular poetry are some verses addressed to Henry's second spouse, Adeliza. Feminine taste and royal patronage combined to free poetry from the pollution of the minstrel and his circle of vulgar auditors, to cause it to be cultivated by studious men and women, whose tastes had become refined by the study of the Latin classics, and who were themselves emulous of gaining a literary reputation by the cultivation of the art of serious composition. Vernacular poetry, having the sanction and esteem of the higher circles of life, came to be generally appreciated; and the mind, which is naturally responsive to matters of good taste, was willing to throw aside the incubus of low stories, dependent for their interest upon prurient situations, and to rise to the acceptance of literature whose interest centred around persons and situations that made their appeal by reason of worthiness or dignity. The patronage of letters by the nobility led many, especially ecclesiastics, to develop their talents in that direction. Wace, a canon of Bayeux and a prolific rhymester, expressly states that his works were composed for the "rich gentry who had rents and money." Even the stormy reign of Stephen seems to have been no impediment to the cultivation of the literary taste which had its beginning in the court of Henry I. and in the patronage of his queens. The vernacular histories were either written or rendered into the popular tongue, and in this way became the intellectual property of the female world; they were not infrequently inspired by the wish of some lady--a wish which became the law of the lay or clerical writer.