Note 7 — Chapter VI · THE BIRTH OF CHIVALRY

It is a curious fact, and somewhat difficult for the Western mind to realise, that just at this darkest moment of European history—or at any rate during the three later centuries of the period—the woman of Japan "held a higher social and intellectual rank than she then did in any other part of the world."

In an interesting work on "Feudal and Modern Japan," by Arthur May Knapp, occur the following arresting passages:—

"Aston also, in speaking of the fact that the author of this classic" (the "Jôsa Nikki") "professes to write as a woman, calls attention to the extraordinarily preponderant influence of woman in the field of ancient Japanese literature. It has long been recognised that woman occupies a much higher place in Japan than in any other Oriental country, but it is none the less surprising, especially in view of the supposed lack of intelligence among the sex in Japan to-day, to be told that by far the larger number of works of the best age of Japanese literature were of feminine authorship."

The writer quotes from the transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan to the same effect: "that a very large proportion of the best writings of the best age of Japanese literature was the work of women."

This golden age in Japan was from the eighth to the eleventh century. During that time the men were chiefly engaged in pedantic studies in Chinese, while the women were developing a native and living literature. And during that time and for centuries before, the women of the West had not so much as arrived at the possession of human rights worthy the name!