ABSTRACT
Nicholas Udall addressed this encomium to Catherine Parr. By contrast, Margaret Roper (1505-1544) was still very young;2 she was scarcely a public figure, and her connections, while crucial, were not with royalty or the Court but with the humanistic movement, through her father, Erasmus, and oth ers.3 Vives praised Margaret and her sisters in his Instruction o f a Christian Woman (1523).4 And two years earlier, Erasmus told Bude that their educa tion had convinced him of the value of education for women.5 Still livelier ev idence comes from Erasmus’ colloquy between the abbot and the learned woman, probably based upon Margaret Roper.6 The young Magdalia easily refutes the abbot’s notion that “learning doesn’t fit a woman,” arguing that true pleasures are those of the mind and that the good wife needs wisdom. She also points to several exemplars: the “More girls” in England, the Pirckheimers and Blauers in Germany.7
