Modern popular culture and even some scholarship exaggerates the degree to which women were forcibly excluded from intellectual life in medieval Europe. Some t

Modern popular culture and even some scholarship exaggerates the degree to which women were forcibly excluded from intellectual life in medieval Europe. Some time ago, I was perusing some late-medieval illuminated manuscripts and came across a picture presenting a philosophy class at the university of Paris. The scene showed the professor on a podium, addressing about two dozen students at bench desks. About half the students were women.