churches, and, still later, in some places girls' schools were
established in the convents.

In the eleventh century, the successful struggle which had been made by
Gregory VII., with the aid of the Countess Matilda, for the principle of
papal supremacy exerted a marked influence upon the religious life of
the time and gave an undoubted impetus to the idea of conventual life
for women, as during this period many new cloisters were established. It
will be readily understood that the deeds of the illustrious Tuscan
countess had been held up more than once to the gaze of the people of
Italy as worthy of their emulation, and many women were unquestionably
induced in this way to give their lives to the Church. In the Cistercian
order alone there were more than six thousand cloisters for women by the
middle of the twelfth century.

It was during this same eleventh century, when a woman had helped to
strengthen the power of the Church, that the influence of the
Madonna--of Mary, the mother of Christ--began to make a profound
impression upon the form of worship. A multitude of Latin hymns may be
found which were written in honor of the Virgin as far back as the
fifth century, and in the mediæval romances of chivalry, which were so
often tinged with religious mysticism, she often appears as the Empress
and Queen of Heaven. All through the mediæval period, in fact, there was
a constant endeavor to prove that the Old Testament contained allusions
to Mary, and, with this in view, Albertus Magnus put together a
_Marienbibel_ in the twelfth century, and Bonaventura edited a
_Marienpsalter_. Therein, the gates of Paradise, Noah's ark, Jacob's
ladder, the ark of the Covenant, Aaron's rod, Solomon's throne, and many
other things, were held up as examples and foreshadowings of the coming
of the Blessed Virgin; and in the sermons, commentaries, and homilies of