Is the VMS a work of female authors ?

[bi3mw]

Only a few studied ones could actually read and write.

Well, whether women could read and write probably depended primarily on their social status. Many nuns could read and write, that is sufficiently proven. Women of higher social status (nobility) were also not illiterate. In the emerging cities, women will have been active at least in the commercial sector.
Among the lower class (peasants), of course, it was different. Mostly neither men nor women could read and write. Illiteracy is therefore less of a gender-specific problem here.