It is also remarked by Wright that the names given to women indicate a high respect for womanhood: such as the names of Eadburga—the citadel of happiness; Ethelburga—the citadel of nobility; Edith (Eadgythe)—the gift of happiness; Elfgiva-the gift of the fairies; Elfthrida—the strength of the fairies, or the spiritual strength; Godiva (Godgifa)—the gift of God.
There are, so far as I know, no traditions of any nunnery in London before the Conquest. The name Mincing Lane, which is certainly Mincheon Lane or Nuns’ Lane, points probably to property belonging to a nunnery. Perhaps there was a nunnery within the City before the occupation by the Danes. If so, it perished and was forgotten. Just as men were required to fight and not to lead monastic lives, so women were required to become mothers of fighting men, and not to enter a cloister. I think there may have been a nunnery, because London did not escape the wave of religious revival, and also because one was necessary for the education of girls. At nunnery schools the girls were educated with far greater care than our own girls till the last twenty years or so. They learned Latin, rhetoric, logic, and, according to Wright, “what we call popular science.” They also learned embroidery. “From the statements of the Anglo-Saxon writers, we are led to believe that the Anglo-Saxon nuns had no objection to finery themselves, and they are accused of wearing white and violet chemises, tunics, and veils of delicate tissue, richly embroidered with silver and gold, and scarlet shoes.” (Wright, p. 86.)
The evening of the ordinary man was not wholly given up to drinking. The musicians came in and played on harp and trumpet, pipes, horn, and fiddle. The gleemen sang and recited; the tumbling-girls played their tricks.
The Anglo-Saxon love of music and poetry gives us a higher opinion of the people than we might form from all that we have learned. Applying all his qualities, good or bad, to the Londoner, it will be found that he has transmitted them to the generations coming after him. For he was a lover of freedom, valiant in the field; a lover of order and justice; impatient under ecclesiastical control, yet full of religion; fond of music, poetry, singing and playing; given to feasting and addicted to drunkenness. These attributes distinguished the Londoner in the tenth century, and they are with him still after a thousand years.