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THE SCHOOL OF SALERNO. 201
faith. At a later period many priests were found amongst
the teachers of medicine there, of whom some attained
to high dignity in the Church. But these never gained
the exclusive right to teach as was the case in most
of the other high schools of the middle ages. The institution
throughout maintained that lay character which it had
had from the beginning.
In Salerno, women were admitted to the profession of
teaching and some of them became prominent also as
medical authors. Among the female doctors the best known
was TROTULA the authoress of a frequently quoted work
on the diseases of women and the treatment of them before
during and after labours. In her writings she discusses all
branches of pathology even the diseases of the male sexual
organs—a truly painful subject for female sensibility. Her
colleague ABELLA wrote de natura seminis humani.
COSTANZA CALENDA the daughter of the Prior (Principal)
of the medical school, distinguished alike for her beauty
and her talents, and MERCURIADE and REBECCA GUARNA
belong to a later period.
In the early times of the School of Salerno the.teachers
were probably dependent for their pay upon the fees which
students gave them for instruction. Afterwards they received
regular stipends, differing in amount and in some
cases producing a yearly income of 12 ounces of gold ; in
course of time the stipends were naturally increased.
Teachers enjoyed freedom from taxes also and sometimes
the usufruct of houses and ground property as well.*
Many teachers were engaged in giving medical instruction
at the same time, as is evident from the list of them given
by S. DE RENZI.t To their lectures representatives of all
nations had access; neither sex nor religion raised any
impediment. Jewish students were very numerously
* DE RENZI : Collect. Salern. i, 366 et seq.—Storia docum. op. cit. Appendix
Docum. No. 296 et seq.
t DE RENZI : Collect. Salernit. 1,517. iii, 326 el seq. It contains 340 names
in a period of about 1000 years.