INTRODUCTION
we come to the fourteenth century, is almost silent about them. Thus it is that as we study these women, it almost seems at first as if we were looking at some faded frescoes in a dimly lighted church. But just as the half-obliterated figures take form and life as our eyes grow accustomed to the dimness, and our minds get attuned to the days that knew their living representatives, so these women of whom we are speaking may live again for us if only we treat their works as human documents, and not as archæological curiosities. The following pages tell of six such women who lived between the tenth century and the first half of the fifteenth—Roswitha, a nun of Germany; Marie de France, a lady at the Court of Henry the Second of England; Mechthild of Magdeburg, mystic and beguine; Mahaut, Countess of Artois, a great-niece of St. Louis; Christine de Pisan, an Italian by birth, living at the Court of Charles the Fifth of France; and Agnes Sorel, the Mistress and inspirer of Charles the Seventh.
In trying to evoke the women of these days of long ago, it is hardly possible to do more than portray them in outline. Yet even so, if the outline be true, we may remember, for our consolation, that it has been said that we shall never, except in outline, see the mysterious Goddess Truth.
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