ABSTRACT
Hali Meidenhad (or Hali Meiðhad) was written by an unknown author to encourage girls to enter into religious life. His arguments are drawn from an ancient Christian tradition. In the early days of the hermitic movement in the fifth century, when Jovinian argued that the celibate’s life was not necessarily better than that of a married person, Jerome directed against the heretic an angry tract that was still being quoted in the days of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath. In a similarly violent tone the Middle English preacher attacks marriage in order to defend virginity.
