Woman's work in the church : historical notes on deaconesses and sisterhoods

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WOMAN'S WORK IN

THE CHURCH.

ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER

London 148 Strand

Edinburgh 35 Hanover Street

Dublin %^ Middle Abbey Street

WOMAN'S WORK IN
THE CHURCH

l^ijftorical Botejl on ©eacone^j^ej^ anb ;§)i3^tcrt)Oob^

BY

JOHN MALCOLM^LUDLOW

jT PRINCSTOIT
f MAY 14 1880
TMEOLOGICAL

ALEXANDER STRAHAN, PUBLISHER

148 STRAND, LONDON
1865

EDINBURGH :

PRFNTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPAKT,

PAUL'S WORK.

To

The Reverend

the

Free Chtirch Presbytery of Strathhogiey N.B.y

who

" Overtured''

the General Assembly

of the

Free Church of Scotland

concerning the Romanising tendencies of

Two Articles in Good Words,

extracted fro jn the present Worky

I ti£tiicate

the Work itself

for their better infortnation*

PREFACE.

The following work, although but a portion of it
has appeared in print already, is not a new one.
Some explanation is perhaps due of its publication,
after various other works bearing more or less on
the same subject, and in particular after Dr How-
son's " Deaconesses" (London, 1862).

In the year 1847, having been led to the subject
through personal acquaintance with the Paris Dea-
conesses' Institute and personal friendship with its
late worthy founder, I wrote for the Edinburgh Re-
view^ under the title, " Deaconesses or Protestant
Sisterhoods," an article which was published in May
1848, and of which Dr Howson (who admits him-
self to have been unaware of, or to have forgotten
it till recently), has said that it " anticipated much
which is now accepted by public opinion."*

* See a reprint of this paper in A]-)pendix G, p. 248.

viii Preface.

The article attracted some attention amongst
clergymen and others. In the latter part of the
year 185 1, having been pressed by a friend to
lecture at a Mechanics' Institute in Berkshire, I
mentioned the subject as one which I should be
glad to have an occasion of working up more
thoroughly, and eventually agreed with him to
deliver a course of three lectures upon it. The
present work substantially represents the lectures
in question, as prepared in the course of 1852.

Shortly, however, before the time fixed for de-
livering the lectures above mentioned, my friend
wrote to me to say that, through the influence of
a clergyman, who aftenvards became a dignitary of
the Church, the subject had been tabooed by the
Committee. An attempt to secure a hearing for
me in the lecture hall of another Mechanics' Insti-
tute was equally defeated by clerical influence.

The subject having, however, somewhat taken
hold of my mind, I worked it up still further, and
in the course of the year 1853 offered to a publisher
the result of my labours in a volume under its
present title of " Woman's Work in the Church."
It was declined, on the ground that whilst the work
would be valuable to those who were already in-

Pre/ace. ix

terested in the question, the public at large were
not likely to share any such interest.

Perhaps the Crimean War, and the successive
publications in reference to the subject which fol-
lowed it, such as Miss Stanley's " Hospitals and
Sisterhoods" (1854); Mrs Jameson's "Sisterhoods
of Charity Abroad and at Home," and her " Com-
munion of Labour" (1855 and 1859), shewed that
the signs of the times had been misunderstood.
Occupied, however, by other matters, I made no
fresh attempt to bring the work before the public,
simply lending the MS. from time to time to two
or three private readers.

Latterly, however, the subject being one which
appeared fit to be brought before the readers of
Good Words, I was led to epitomize my collected
matter in two articles, which appeared in that peri-
odical in the months of February and July 1863,
under the respective titles of " The Female Dia-
conate in the Early Church," and " Sisterhoods."

These papers, however, having fallen under the
ban of the no doubt very well-meaning and estim-
able gentlemen to whom I have ventured to dedi-
cate this work, it appeared to me that the best
answer to their strictures would be the publication

X Preface,

of the text from which the articles in question were
extracted.

Hence the present work, which, it will be seen
from what precedes, is in the main not less than
twelve years old. I can truly say that the lapse
of that period has not induced me to alter in it a
single conclusion, or scarcely to modify a statement.

I have, indeed, in consequence of the abundant
mass of detail now before the public in reference
to contemporary efforts in the direction of female
diaconal labour, both abroad and at home, espe-
cially in Dr Howson's work, suppressed nearly the
whole of what I had originally written on that
branch of the subject. A preliminary chapter, con-
taining some general considerations on the work of
women, has been probably rendered needless by
Mrs Jameson's lecture on the " Communion of
Labour," * Some concluding hints as to the possible
developments of the principle of Sisterhoods have
also been omitted, as well as some controversial
matter which the greater maturity of the subject

* I may indeed add, that the MS. of this portion has
itself disappeared in the hands of a borrower, and that I
have not felt disposed to re- write it from some *' heads"
which alone remain.

Preface. xi

seemed to me to have rendered superfluous. Some
slight amount of additional matter, the result of
further research and information, has on the other
side been introduced.

I will now say that I felt much gratified, on look-
ing into Dr Howson's work, to see how nearly his
conclusions approached on all points to my own,
after we had laboured completely apart from each
other. I owe to him the reference to Baronius for
a mention of the female diaconate in the tenth cen-
tury, and have also borrowed from him (with
acknowledgment) a i^-^ statements in the last
chapter. Beyond this, the perusal of his work has
suggested neither addition to nor alteration of what
I had written long before, so that, wherever we
agree, the testimony of each must be considered
as a wholly independent one.

I must add, that if, in the present text, I have
not referred to modem German writers on the sub-
ject, it is not for want of having consulted several
of them, but because, with the exception of Nean-
der, I have literally found nothing in them hitherto
on the subject but theories rough-riding the facts —
sometimes with a glaring perversion of references —
or in the absence of such, a mass of learned incon-

xii Preface.

clusiveness. The older work of Caspar Ziegler,
on the other hand, quoted by Dr Howson at the
head of his Qiiarteiiy Review article, (de diaconis
et diaconissis veteris ecclesice, 1678), has not fallen
into my hands. A dislike to quote or discuss
opinions where facts are needed has equally led me
to strike out references to the views of the " Critici
Sacri," and other more modern commentators.

I cannot help, lastly, referring here to Mr Maurice's
article " On Sisterhoods," which appeared in the
Victoria Magazine for August 1863. Sharply as it
criticises the " separate Sisterhoods" which it refers
to as now growing up in England, I do not know
that it enunciates one single view which clashes
with my own. " I do not dispute," says Mr Maurice,
" the benefit of organization in this or any work,
I dispute only the benefit of organizing bodies of
women on the principle that separation from men
makes them more capable of work." Not only do
I adopt every word of the passage to the utter-
most, but the following pages will probably shew
that what he "disputes," I deny. The present
work will have been written in vain if it fails to
impress my conviction that the collective diaconate
of the Sisterhood rests upon that of the individual

Preface. xiii

woman, man's foreordained helpmeet in the Church
as in the world, and is mainly valuable so far as it
re-evolves the latter. Every Sisterhood, to be
really useful, to be really harmless, must, in my
opinion, have at its head not only a man, but a
married man.

Lincoln's Inn, December 1864.

ERRATUM.

At page 164, line 8 from top, for "lately improved away,"
read, "about to be improved away."

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE DEACONESSES OF THE EARLY CHURCH.

PAGE

§ I. The Female Diaconate in Apostolic Times . i

§ 2. The Church-Widows, Church- Virgins, and

'ZvvelaaKTOi ...... 7

§3. The Female Diaconate in the "Apostolical

Constitutions" 14

§ 4. Early Notices of the Female Diaconate in the

Greek and Latin Churches till the Days of

Chrysostom 23

§ 5. Chrysostom and his Deaconess Friends . . 32

§ 6. The Greek Female Diaconate in the Fifth

Century 46

§ 7. The Greek Female Diaconate in the Codes and

later Councils, till its disappearance . . 51

§ 8. Latest Notices of the Female Diaconate in the

Western Church 6^

§ 9. Conclusion : Lessons of the Historical Female

Diaconate ..,,,,. 72

xvi Contents.

CHAPTER XL

EARLY FEMALE MONACHISM AND THE BEGUINES.

PAGB

§ I. Church- Virginship, and the Doctiine of the
Spiritual Marriage of the Individual with

Christ 77

§ 2. Early Female Monachism as Compared with

Church- Virginship . , . . , 85

§ 3. The Social Principle, the Mainstay of Monachism 93

§ 4. Sketch of the History of Monachism till the

Eleventh Century 96

§ 5. Female Monachism till the Eleventh Century . 106
§6. The Beguines , , , , , . 114

CHAPTER III.

THE SISTERHOODS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME,

§ I. Early Romish Charitable Fellowships — Mendi-
cants and their Tertiarians .... 124

§ 2. Struggle between the Free and the Monastic

Charitable Fellowships 134

§ 3, The Tertiarian Nuns — Hospitallers — Alexians 141

§ 4. Early Educational Fellowships — the Gerardins 147

§ 5. The Jesuits and Female Educational Orders,

Ursulines, &c. . ., . . . . 1 51

§ 6. The later Charitable Sisterhoods and Reforma-
tory Orders — Sisters of Charity, &c. . . i6l

§ 7. Persistency of Romish Diaconal Sisterhoods . 1 81

Contents.

xvu

CIIArXER IV.

DEACONESSES AND SISTERHOODS IN REFERENCE TO THE
REFORMED CHURCHES.

§ I. Deaconesses and Female Monacliism among the

Reformed Churches in the Sixteenth and

Seventeenth Centuries
§ 2. Deaconesses' Institutes and Protestant Sister

hoods in the Nineteenth Century
§ 3. Special Characteristics of the Protestant Dea

conesses' Institute .....
§ 4. Conclusion .......

193

207
214

APPENDIX.

A. — The Coptic Apostolical Constitutions

B. — The Canons of the Councils of Nicaca, Laodicea,

and Carthagje

C. — The Marriage of the Soul with Christ, a Doc

trine not countenanced by St Paul
D. — The Church- Virgins, and the Transition of the

Institution into Monachism .
E. — The Hospitallers of St Martha in Burgundy
F. — Translation of one of the later Bdguine Rules
G.— " Deaconesses or Protestant Sisterhoods"
H. — Miss Sellon's Sisterhood of Mercy . ,

219

223

227

234
240
242

24S
2'J3

CHAPTER I.

THE DEACONESSES OF THE EARLY CHURCH.

§ I. The Female Diaconate in Apostolic Times.

" T COMMEND unto you Phcebe our sister,
which is a ser^'ant of the church which is
at Cenchrea," (Rom. xvi. i.) If the Greek
word (didx.ovo)') here translated " servant " had
been rendered as in the 6th chapter of Acts,
the 3d of the First Epistle to Timothy, and in
many other passages of the apostolic writ-
ings, the verse would have run thus : "I
commend unto you Phoebe our sister, which is
a beacon of the church which is at Cenchrea,"
and the name at least of a female diaconate

would have remained familiar to us. It is one

A

2 The Women-Deacons

of those too frequent instances in our translation
of the same word being differently rendered,
which often give a wholly different complexion to
passages closely akin in the original, — as the 13th
chapter of the First Epistle to Corinthians,
where St Paul's glorious eulogy of " charity" loses,
so to speak, its brotherhood with St John's oft-
repeated lessons on " love," the Greek word
(aya'nri) being the same in the teachings of both
apostles; discrepancies which for some — I may
speak at least for myself — render a revision of the
authorised version a matter of deep and serious in-
terest. Reserving therefore all questions as re-
spects the functions of the persons whom the
word designates, but adhering to the form which
is nearest to the Greek, we may say that undeni-
ably there is mention of female deacons, or dea-
conesses, as I shall mostly henceforth call them
(Greek, i) dtdxovog, diaxcvicffa — Latin, diacoiiissa^
diaco?ia,) in the New Testament. The deacon
Phoebe must, moreover, have been a person of
some consideration. St Paul begins with her
name the list of his personal recommendations
or salutations to the Roman Church, and recom-
mends her at greater length than any other per-
son : " That ye receive her in the Lord, as be-
cometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever
business she liath need of you : for she hath been

of the New Testament. 3

a succourer of many, and of myself also." Evi-
dently this " servant of the church," this " suc-
courer" of apostles, could have been no mere
pew-opener, no filler of a purely menial office.

Turn now to the 3d chapter of St Paul's First
Epistle to Timothy, where the apostle gives suc-
cessively those noble pictures of the Christian
bishop, of the Christian deacon. " A bishop," he
says, " must be blameless, the husband of one
wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to
hospitality, apt to teach ; not given to wine, no
striker, not gi'eedy of filthy lucre ; . . . one that
ruleth well his own house, having his children in
subjection with all gravity." Proceeding next to
the deacons : " Likewise must the deacons be
grave, not double-tongued, not given to much

wine, not greedy of filthy lucre Even so

must their wives'^ (yvval-ztag ooffavrug) — so says our
translation — " be grave, not slanderers, sober, faith-
ful in all things. Let the deacons be the husbands
of one wife, ruling their children and their own
house."

Many, no doubt, will have been stnick by the
circumstance, that v/hilst the deacons' wives are
mentioned in the above passage, there is no paral-
lel injunction as to the wives of bishops, although
the former are treated obviously as married men
and fathers of families, in precisely similar terms ;

4 TJie Women-Deacons

whereas if the example of a deacon's wife be of
sufficient moment to deserve a special apostolic
exhortation, that of a bishop's wife must need it
far more. Accordingly, Calvin and some others
have held that the w^ord rendered "their wives"
means the wives of the bishops as well as of the
deacons, — an interpretation which would itself do
violence to our text, and which certainly accuses
St Paul of hasty and slovenly writing. For, if he
had meant this, surely he would more naturally
have inserted the verse at the end of the whole
exhortation, after the present ver. 13, than have
"thrown in" — to use an expression of Chr)^sos-
tom's in a comment to be presently referred to —
something about bishops' as well as deacons' wives
at once in a passage referring to deacons, both be-
fore and after. This interpretation, at all events,
seems to have been entirely foreign to the early
Church. Two meanings only appear to have been
put upon the passage till the Reformation : one
which referred it to women generally; the other,
which referred it to the female diaconate.

Both these senses rest indeed upon the literal
text. It will be observed that the word " their,"
in ver. 11, is printed in italics, indicating insertion
at the hands of our translators. The Greek word,
on the other hand, translated "wives," signifies
primarily " women." Literally, therefore, the verse

of the Nezv Testament. 5

might run tlius : " Even so must women be grave,
not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things." Ac-
cordingly, the Latin Vulgate translates by the equi-
valent for "women," (;;«//z>r^j-) not for "wives;"
our own Wycliffe following in its wake, and writ-
ing, " also it bihoveth wyimnen to be chast," &c.
Upon this construction Chrysostom, in his homilies
on this epistle, (the nth,) observes as follows : —
" Some say that this is spoken of women generally ;
but it is not so. For why should he have thrown
in something about women amongst the things
which he has been saying % But he speaks of those
that have the dignity of the diaconate." If, there-
fore, ''^ womeii-^ckaconsy are meant, the sense is
plain. Just as the men-deacons must be grave,
not double-tongued, &c., even so must the women-
deacons be grave, not slanderous, &c. Thus, to
sum up the argument, if the wives of the deacons
be intended, the omission of all mention of bishops'
wives seems unaccountable; if the wives of bishops
and deacons alike are meant, the reference to the
former is strangely thrown in amidst injunctions
specially referring to the diaconal office ; if women
generally, the injunction is thrown in still more
strangely; but if "women-deacons" be really
meant, instead of either an unaccountable omis-
sion or an illogical insertion, we have a command
strictly sufficient, strictly logical, and in strict ac-

6 Wo7?ien-Deacons

cordance, as I shall presently shew, with the facts
of Church history.*

Let me obser^-e here at once, that whatever may
appear hereafter to have been the functions of the
deaconess in the ministrations of charity, they had
in them nothing exclusive of the active develop-
ment of every Christian grace in other female dis-
ciples, to whom the title is not attributed. Side
by side with Phcebe, we find mention of " Mar)',
who bestowed much labour on us," "Tr}-phena
and Tr}-phosa, Avho labour in the Lord," "the
beloved Persis, which laboured much in the
Lord" (Rom. xvi. 6, 12); whilst in another epistle
the same apostle speaks again of " those women
which laboured with me in the gospel" (Phil. iv. 3).
Thus is continued that bright chain of female
excellence, beginning with those holy women who,
with the apostles, followed the Saviour in all His
joumeyings, and ministered to Him of their sub-

* Several modem critics, especially German, infer from
Tit. ii. 3, the existence of a cla>s of female presbyters, in-
vested with a sort of magisterial functions, — a class of per-
sons of which some traces, indeed, are to be found later in
schismatical bodies, but never in the Church (at least till a
much later period). I cannot say how strongly I feel that
our translators are upon this point entirely in the right, and
that the apostle has simply in view a contrast of age between
"aged men" and "aged women" on the one hand, and
"young men" and "young women" on the other. Female
bishops there were avowedly none.

and Church' Widows. 7

stance, the Marys, anfl Joannas, and Susannas
(Luke viii. 2, 3), and which then Hnks itself on to
the above-mentioned names through JJorcas, " full
of good works and alms-deeds " (Acts ix. 3O); and
above all, through that remarkable personage of the
apostolic age, Priscilla, the wife of Aquila, the Jew
of Pontus, whom the Acts shew us with him, ex-
pounding the way of God more perfectly to
ApoUos (Acts xviii. 26); the husband and wife,
both " helpers" of J'aul " in Christ Jesus," who had
for his life " laid down theirnecks ; unto whom not
only" he gave " thanks, but also all the churches of
the Gentiles" (Rom. xvi. 3, 4). The female dia-
conate must therefore have been, from the first,
like every other office in the Christian Church,
only the full developed type, and not the excep-
tional monopoly of a woman's function and work.

§ 2. TJic CJnu'ch-WidowSy CJmrch- Virgins ^ and

XvvdcraKTOi.

One great cause of the obscurity in which the
history of the female diaconate has been involved
has been the existence in the early Church, from
the apostolic age, of another class of women in
later times frequently confounded with female
deacons, and who indeed seems eventually in the
West to have merged into one body with them.

8 The New Testament Widows

" Honour widows that are widows indeed," says St
Paul (i Tim. v. 3, ^/ se^.) ; " but if any widow have
children or nephews, let them learn first to shew
piety at home, and to requite their parents, for that
is good and acceptable before God. Now she that
is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God,
and continueth in supplications and prayers night
and day. . . . Let not a widow be taken into the
number under threescore years old, having been
the wife of one man, well reported of for good
works; if she have brought up children, if she
have lodged strangers, if she have washed the
saints' feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she
have diligently followed every good work. ... If
any man or woman that believeth hath widows,
let them relieve them, and let not the church be
charged, that it may relieve them that are widows
indeed."

What does the picture here given amount to?
Surely it is that of the almstvomen of the primitive
Church; persons free from all family ties ("if any
widow have children or nephews"), and at the
same time destitute of all lamily support ("slie
that is a widow indeed, and desolate," ... "if
any man or woman that believeth hath widows,
let them relieve them"), who, after a life of Chris-
tian usefulness (" well reported of for good works,"
'Sec), were thought worthy of being provided for

not Women- Deacons. 9

by the Church ("let not the church be charged,
that it may relieve them that are widows indeed ")
in their old age (" let not a widow be taken into
the number under threescore years"), being released
from all duties of active benevolence (" she that is
a widow indeed . . . continueth in supplications
and prayers night and day"). Now, the details of
this picture are very much the reverse of what is
implied in the word deacon, i.e.^ man or maid-ser-
vant, (glorious humility of the Christian Church,
which knows no higher titles than these of " ser-
vant," " elderly man," " overlooker !"). As the
primary function of the deacon was one of a purely
ministerial nature, to "serve tables" — and let it be
remembered that the very necessity for the office
arose from the neglect of the Greek "widows" in
the "daily ministration" (the original Greek word
is " diaconate," diaKovicf) — so we may at once as-
sume that the female deacon's duties must have
been active ones. We can hardly suppose, for
instance, that a widow of sixty, such as St Paul
describes, would, like the deacon Phoebe, have
undertaken a long journey under all the difficul-
ties of ancient navigation, charged, if a tradition
accepted by our translators speaks true, with the
care of the epistle in which she is mentioned.
And shall we be far from the truth if, judging from
St Paul's commendation of Phoebe, we conjecture

lo The Church-Widows

that the female deacon was what the widow had
been, a bringer-up of children, a lodger of stran-
gers, a reliever of the afflicted, a diligent follower
of every good work % If so, it would easily follow
that aged female deacons would be adopted into
the class of widows ; that women who had actively
ministered to the Church during the working time
of their lives should in turn be ministered to by the
Church in their old days, and allowed to devote
themselves to prayer and contemplation. And
thus the two ideas might in time run into one.

Two classes of women, then, appear from the
apostolic writings to have formed part of the ear-
liest order of the Church, — the one ministering,
the other ministered to, — the one fulfilling an office
of active duty, the other rewarded for their past
services by the privilege of an honourable provi-
sion in their old age. But there is also another
class of females, who, although the canonical writ-
ings certainly do not exhibit them as forming part
of the order of the Church, yet seem treated of with
peculiar minuteness by St Paul. We remember
his judgment concerning virgins, as to whom he
had "no commandment of the Lord" (i Cor. vii.
25); how he told the Corinthians that "he that
standeth steadfast in his heart, having no necessity,
but hath power over his own will, and hath so
decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin,

and the Vii'gins. 1 1

doeth well ; so then, he that giveth her in marriage
doeth well, but he that giveth her not in marriage
doeth better" (i Cor. vii. 37, 38'^). It might na-
turally be expected, after such an intimation of the
great apostle's private opinion — not to speak of a
passage in the First Gospel (Matt. xix. 12), — that
virginity would be had in favour in the early Church,
particularly having reference, as the apostle him-

* To avoid unnecessary controversy on a point not directly
concerning my subject, I adopt the common interpretation,
which applies the whole passage to virgins generally, and to
those who have parental or quasi-parental authority over
them. At the same time, a view of it is entertained by a
very dear and respected friend of mine, the Rev. F. D.
Maurice, — my obligations to whom for the light which he
has thrown upon many of the truths I have contended for in
this work it were idle to number, — which places the passage
in an altogether new aspect. He looks upon it, from v, 25 to
V. 38 of I Cor. vii., as being the answer to a particular case
put to the apostle by the Corinthians, as to the duties of a
guardian towards his female ward. Not only is the absence
of all mention of parental authority very remarkable in the
passage, as well as the continuous reference to the marriage
of men in a passage "concerning virgins," but it certainly
contains a verse which it is most difficult to explain on any
other view : "But if any man think that he behaveth himself
uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age,
and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not :
let them mar)y.^^ A plural pronoun very strange and unex-
pected, if the girl's marriage alone is referred to, or if her
husband be some undefined person, — but perfectly con-
sistent with the text, if the marriage spoken of is that of two
definite individuals placed in a special relation towards
each other.

1 2 The later Church- Vii

mils.

self points out, to the "present distress" (i Cor.
vii. 26), to the perplexities and persecutions which
lasted, let us never forget it, — with intervals it is
true, but yet so as never to lose the character of
a " present distress " — for at least nine consecutive
generations of human beings.- But although St
Paul clearly speaks only of virgins who are in the
power of their parents or guardians, — what would
become of females thus devoted to celibacy, as age
wore on, as family ties were snapped asunder? If
deprived of their parents, would they not be about
equally helpless and "desolate" with the widows
themselves % Would it not become equally incum-
bent on the Church to take them wholly or partly
in its charge, by allowing them, for instance, like
the widows, to continue "in supplications and
prayers night and day," — or again, by assigning
to them active duties to fulfil in the Church?
We may thus imagine how easy would be the
growth of a distinct class of church-virgins — in
effect prominent in later Church history — analo-
gous to that of church-widows in some respects,
to the deaconesses in others, and liable to be con-
founded alternately with both.

But again, there is another class of women
whom we must be prepared to see grow up in
Church records out of a mistaken interpretation of
that passage of St Paul, in which, by our transla-

The Sister-Women, 13

tion, he is made to ask, " Have we not power to
lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other
apostles?" (i Cor. ix. 5), but which in the original
may equally bear the sense of " Have we not
power to lead about a sister-woman, as well as
other apostles'?" These "sister-women," — ^wslaa-/.-
Toi, as the Greeks most usually term them ; sudin-
trodiidce, as the Latins translate the term — became
in corrupt times, and with the growth of the idea
of celibacy, persons answering to priests' " house-
keepers," (S:c., in many Roman Catholic countries,
— too often, in plain words, the mistresses of the
clergy; or if grosser sin was avoided, yet still the
occasion of extreme scandal and wilful temptation.
The decrees of councils, the works of the fathers,
are full of denunciations of these private adoptive
fraternities between male members of the clergy
and persons of the other sex.

All the four classes of women I have men-
tioned, — the Deaconesses and Widows, both
belonging to the apostolic days, — the Virgins,
dating from a scarcely later period, the gu^ziguktoi
for sister-women, a mere corruption of later days,
— as well as the female elders or presbyters of
some schismatical churches, — have more or less
been confounded together at some time or
other by the views or practice of particular
churches, and the so-called labours of commen-

1 4 The Fe77tale Deacons of

tators ; and the history of the true female diaco-
nate has to be disentangled from a mass of mis-
conceptions and misapplications of texts, wilful,
stupid, or ignorant, filling the pages of the best
books of reference, repeated without inquiry from
author to author, till they seem to borrow some-
thing of the weight of each, almost incredible to
any one who has not traced passage after passage
to its source. For myself, I have invariably re-
ferred to the original text, whenever it was acces-
sible to me ; and I give fair notice that no array of
modem names with or without Latin endings to
them, against any of the distinctions of classes
which I have laid down, will have any weight with
me against these distinctions, when supported by
one text of Scripture or of an early authority.

§ 3. The Female Diacoiiate in the " Apostolical
Constitutions P

Let us now turn to a work of which many vary-
ing judgments have been held by men of learning
and weight — for some a clumsy forger)^ for others
a precious and genuine relic — the so-called " Apos-
tolical Constitutions." Observe that, if they be
forgeries, they are forgeries of an early age, and as
such, possessed of real historical value. For every
literary forgery must bear the impress of the time

the " Apostolical ConstittUions!' 15

at which it was got up ; it must look backward
always, never forward ; some vestiges of past
reality must linger in it, and by those vestiges we
may often complete a subsisting fragment of reality
itself; somewhat as, by the footprints of some
long-perished creature, left on the soft sand or clay,
which the lapse of ages has turned into stone, the
naturalist may piece out some fragment of its fossil
skeleton, itself insufficient to reveal to us the entire
creature.

Now, in the " Apostohcal Constitutions," the
female Deacon or Deaconess, the Widow, the Vir-
gin, all come before us as distinct types ; the first
as invested with an office ; the second as the ob-
ject of affectionate regard and support ; the third
of religious commendation. Of the Deaconess (as
I shall call her henceforth) it is provided (Bk.
vi. c. 17), that she shall be "a pure virgin," or
otherwise " a widow once married, faithful and
worthy ;" a very natural provision, since the cares
of a family would prevent a married woman from
concentrating her whole energies on her diaconal
functions. She was wanted, says an early consti-
tution, for many purposes (Bk. iii. c. 15). At ser-
vice, whilst the " door-keeper " was to stand and
watch at the men's entrance to the church, the
deaconess was in like manner to stand (Bk. ii. c.
57) at the women's entrance (a function which

1 6 The Female Deacons

indeed, in a constitution of the eighth and latest
book, is ascribed to the sub-deacon), and was,
moreover, to act in the same manner as the male
deacon with respect to placing females in the con-
gregation, whether poor or rich (Bk. ii. c. 58). She
was also to fulfil the duties of a male deacon in
those cases where " a man-deacon cannot be sent
to some houses towards women on account of un-
believers" (Bk. iii. c. 15), i.e., to prevent scandal.
Lastly, her most important offices were those re-
lating to the baptizing of women (Bk. iii. cc. 15,
16), the necessity for which has been obviated in
later times by the discontinuance of the practice of
baptism by immersion, or the practice of immer-
sion under a form which the early Church would
not have recognised as valid. It is even provided
that " no woman shall approach the deacon or the
bishop without the deaconess " (Bk. ii. c. 26).
And it said generally, in a constitution concerning
the deacons, that " the woman " (an expression
strongly recalling i Tim. iii. 11, and aftbrding addi-
tional ground for construing it as relating to the
deaconesses) " should be zealous to serve women ;"
whilst " to both pertain messages, journeys to
foreign parts, ministrations, services" (Bk. iii. c.
19), The traditional journey of Phoebe to Rome
with St Paul's Epistle avouUI thus be strictly witliin
the limits of her functions.

ordained to their Office. 1 7

Towards fulfilling these duties, the deaconess is
represented as receiving an ordination from the
bishop, under a simple and beautiful form of ser-
vice attributed to the Apostle Bartholomew (Bk.
viii., cc. 19, 20) : —

" Touching the deaconess, I Bartholomew do
thus ordain : O bishop, thou shalt lay on her thy
hands, in the presence of the presbyter)^, of the dea-
cons, and of the deaconesses, and thou shalt say : —

" O everlasting God, Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, Creator of man and woman, who didst fill
with Thy Spirit Mary and Deborah, and Hannah
and Hulda : who didst not disdain to cause Thine
only-begotten Son to be born of a woman ; who
didst admit into the tabernacle of the testimony
and into the temj^le the women guardians of Thy
holy gates : Thyself look down even now upon
Thy serv^ant now admitted into the diaconate, and
give to her Thy Holy Spirit, and cleanse her from
all pollution of thy flesh and spirit, that she may
worthily fulfil Thy work thus intmsted to her, to
Thy glory, and to thy praise of Thy Christ, with
whom to Thee be glory and worship, and to the
Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen."*

* Two other foiTns of service for the ordination of dea-
conesses (besides a Nestorian one), I believe, exist — one in the
" Liturgy of Basil and Chrysostom," the other in the *' Ordo
Roman us."

B

1 8 The ^^Apostolical Constitutions''

Some may feel shocked at the idea of the ordi-
nation of a woman, of the Holy Ghost being in-
voked upon her. A distinction has even been
made by some Protestant, as well as Romish
writers, between the imposition of hands as a
ceremonial benediction and a real ordination. The
original word certainly affords not the slightest
gi'ound for such a distinction, which other writers,
like Bingham, wholly repudiate. But it seems to
me that the laying on of hands upon a deaconess
was eminently characteristic of the faith of early
times. It was because men felt still that the Holy
Ghost alone could give power to do any work to
God's glory, that they deemed themselves con-
strained to ask such power of Him, in setting a
woman to do church work. Nor did such ordina-
tion in the least interfere with any needful distinc-
tions of ofifice. " The deaconess," it is said, " does
not give the tjlessing, nor does she fulfil any of the
functions of the presbyters or of the deacons, be-
yond the guarding of doors, and the supplying the
place of the presbyters in the baptizing of women"
(Bk. viii., c. 28). In other words, she was ordained
not to preach, not to bless, exactly as others were
ordained to preach and to bless. From other pro-
visions, it may be seen that the deaconess ranked
after the presbyter and deacon, and at least on a
par with, if not before, the sub-deacon (Bk. viii. pas-

on Widows and Virgins. 19

si7?i). Her position indeed is, in the earlier part
of the work, set forth in language absolutely blas-
phemous to our ears, the bishop being likened to
God the Father, the deacon to Christ, the dea-
coness to the Holy Ghost, as " doing naught nor
saying without the deacon, even as the Comforter
speaketh nor doeth aught of Himself, but glorifieth
Christ, and attendeth to His will" (Bk. ii., c. 26).

Very different is the language of these Constitu-
tions respecting widows. The eight first chapters
of the third book treat of these, and breathe en-
tirely the spirit of the Pastoral Epistle, though
eked out and diluted, as it seems to me, into in-
tolerable verbiage. They are represented as pro-
vided for by the Church, with no other duty than
that of prayer, as well for their benefactors as for
the whole Church. Mention is made of some who
''ask without shame, and take without stint, and
have already made the many lukewarm to give."
Elsewhere it is said expressly, " The widows should
be grave, obedient to the bishops, and to the
priests, and to the deacons, and also to the dea-
conesses" (Bk. iii., c. 7). And it is specifically
stated that " the widow is not ordained" (Bk. viii.,
c. 25).

On the subject of virgins, the Constitutions only
exhibit this departure from the language of St
Paul, that they treat the virgin as having dedicated

20 What the Constitutions

herself io Christ, not as having been dedicated by
others. It is specifically stated of her, as of the
widow, that she is " not ordained " (see Bk. viii.,
c. 24). The virgins are not yet represented as
forming a distinct class, nor are even spoken of
with widows as persons to be relieved, although
" orphans " are in one or two places.

The contrast between the ordained deaconess
and the non- ordained widow or virgin illus-
trates well the typical, universal character which
belongs to the offices of the Christian Church.
Deaconesses were ordained, because the Dia-
conate was the type of that universal duty of
serving one another, which our Lord so specially
inculcated in the washing of His disciples' feet.
Widows were not ordained, because widowhood
and virginity are not offices, but mere conditions
of life ; because they have nothing of a universal
character, but are merely exceptional in their
nature. So with, as it seems to me, perfect con-
sistency, are sub-deacons and readers included in
the ordained clergy, whilst confessors and exorcists
are excluded (Bk. viii. passifn).

Let us pause for a moment over the evidence of
the "Apostolical Constitutions." Grant that they
are not apostolical. Grant even that they do
not represent the actual discipline of the Church
at any period of her existence. Still they prove to

may be held to shew. 2 1

us beyond a doubt that there was a time in the
history of the Church when a clear idea was held
by some writer of the office of the female deacon,
as essential to that discipline, and as being wholly
distinct from the position of the widow,- the alms-
woman, as I have already called her, -of the Church.
If, therefore, at any future period of our inquiries,
we should find the two ideas growing together in
any portion of the Church, we shall, at least, be
able to say that the Constitutions represent an
older view of the church system. But the teach-
ings of the "Apostolical Constitutions" on this sub-
ject, I must say, appear to me quite in accordance
with the view now perhaps most generally enter-
tained, that they represent the condition of the
Greek Church at some period of the second cen-
tury.*

* I should be the last, indeed, to deny that the Constitu-
tions appear to be of very unequal antiquity. As respects
the particular subject in question, I think the earlier consti-
tutions are indicated by the use of the older form 7} SiaKovos
(Bk. ii., cc. 25, 26, 57, 58; Bk. iii., cc. 7, 15, 16, 19), the
later by that of the form diaKovia-a-a, unknown to the New
Testament, (Bk. iii., c. il; Bk. vi., c. 17; Bk. viii., cc. 13,
19, 28, 31). There is a complete opposition of tone between
ch. 15 of lik. iii., which says that " we need a woman-dea-
con for many purposes," and ch. 28 of Bk. viii., which re-
duces her functions to door-keeping and ministering at
female baptisms ; between ch, 26 of Bk. ii., which compares
her to the third person of the Trinity, and ch. 31 of Bk.
viii., which gives her, out of eight parts in the eulogies or

2 2 The Coptic Constitutions,

We possess, indeed, other collections of the
Apostolical Constitutions, to one of which the late
Baron Bunsen, in his " Hippolytus," has ascribed a
higher authority than to the Greek — the Coptic,
edited and translated a few years since by Arch-
deacon Tattam. My own opinion, I must say, is
that the Coptic collection, in its present shape,
whatever early fragments may be imbedded in it,
is, on the contrary, later than the Greek.* The

consecrated bread, only one in common with sub-deacons,
readers, and singers. Evidently, in the older Constitutions,
the deaconess's office is far more real and more honour-
able.

* Without pretending to any Coptic scholarship, I cannot
but observe that the Coptic collection introduces, without a
sinf^le exception, I believe, not by way of translation, but as
imported forms, all the terms of Greek Church language, —
episcopos, presbitieros, diacomis, ecclesia, and even to anagnos-
ies for reader, and chera for widow. This is surely, to begin
with, a token that it belongs to a period when, amongst the
Greeks, all these simple words of overlooker, elder, servant,
assembly, reader, widow, had, in church-language, already
slid away from their usual significance in daily life, and had
become "words of art," as our old jurists would have said,
to express the special Church functions which they represent.
Next it seems to me but fair to infer that this period is one
later than that of the fixing of the Latin Church langiiage,
when, although the words episcopus^ presbyto-, diacomis^
ecclesia^ were embodied as they are into it, yet the names
of lower offices or conditions in the Church^ those of the
reader, the singer, the widow, were simply translated.
Lastly, many of the passages of the Greek collection, — some
even naming the deaconesses,— are repeated in the Coptic,
and in particular it contains, almost unchanged, the eighth

The P setido'Ignatia^t Epistles. 23

passages in it relating to our subject, are, at any
rate, confused and discrepant, and do little more
than shew that the Coptic Church, like the Greek,
deemed the appointment of ministering women an
essential feature in the organisation of the Church.*

§ 4. Early Notices of the Female Diaconate i?i the
Greek and Latin Churches till the days of C/uys-
ostom.

Except in the "Apostolical Constitutions,'* up to
the latter end of the fourth century, there is little
of real moment, less of real interest, to be found
in Eastern Church writers respecting our subject,
although Hermas, as once mentioned by Principal
Tulloch in Good Words, indicates the existence of
women who seem to have had authority over the
widows and orphans. The epistles falsely attri-
buted to Ignatius, whilst referring to the deaconesses
as "keepers of the holy gates," bear witness of
their later date, by the far greater prominence they
give to virgins, — treating them as "priestesses of
Christ," — holding them up to veneration, — and
confounding them, according to one text at least,
with the widows. Not to speak of a doubtful pas-

and avowedly latest book of the latter, attributed to Ilip-
polytus.

* See Appendix A.

24 Origen, Pliny.

sage in Clement of Alexandria (150-220),— gene-
rally interpreted of the deaconesses, but by some
of the deacons' wives — Origen, an Egyptian -writer
of slightly later date (184-253), in commenting on
Phoebe and her mission, speaks of the ministry of
women in the Church as both existing and neces-
sary.

If we turn now to the Western Church, — a re-
markable passage from the letters of the Younger
Phny (Bk. x., ch. 97), writing for advice to Trajan,
how to deal with the Christians, shews tliat it was
upon two deaconesses* that the elegant letter-
writer — the Chestei-field of antiquity — sought to
prove by torture the truth of those strange confes-
sions of the Christians, " that they were wont on a
stated day to meet before dawn, and repeat among
themselves in alternate measure a song addressed
to Christ, as to a god ; and by their vow to bind
themselves, not to the committing of any crime,
but against theft, and robbery, and adultery, and
breach of faith, and denial of trust, after which it
was their custom to depart, and again to meet for
the purpose of taking food." In the Latin Church,
however, the distinction between the deaconess

* Ex duabus ancillis, qtca viinistrcv dicebantur. The word
'* ministra" is the term applied to Phoebe, both in the old
Italic version and in the Vulgate. Hence, probably, the use
of the word "servant," rather than "deacon," by our own
translators.

Tcrtullian. 25

and the Church-widow, and between the latter and
the Church-virgin, appears to have become early
obliterated. Neander, indeed, shews well that the
more stringent separation of the sexes in the East-
em Church created a more permanent necessity
there for the peculiar services of the deaconess,
whilst more exalted notions of priestly privileges
tended in the West to impart a something offensive
to her position as a recognised member of the
ordained clergy. Tertullian (150-226, or there-
about) supplies us with the first Western instance
of growing confusions ; inveighing indeed (De Virg.
^•el. c. 9) against that between the widow and the
\'irgin, but in terms which indicate the presence in
his mind of a feeling that the widow, whilst receiv-
ing maintenance from the Churchy is one engaged
in the active duties of religion, and holding a place
of actual honour. Another passage of his, how-
ever, which has been relied on as a staple authority
for the identity of the two characters of deaconess
and widow, if interpreted by earlier records, will
be found, I think, on the contrary, to bear an
exactly opposite construction.*

* As an argument against second marriage, he urges that
"the apoiitolical injunctions lorbid tlie twice married to
be bishops, nor suffer a widow to be received to (or se-
lected for) ordination — ailcgi in ordinationem — except she
has been the wife of one husband only ; for the altar of God
must be exhibited without spot " (Ad Ux., Bk. i., c. 7). The

26 Councils of Nicea^ etc,

A century later, a canon of the Nicene Council
(326) bears witness to the existence of an ordained
female diaconate amongst the Paulianist heretics,
and by implication also in the Church itself, although
it has been strangely interpreted to forbid altogether
the ordination of deaconesses. A canon of the
Council of Laodicea (360 to 370) has been still
more strangely pressed into this service, although
it only forbids the appointment of female elders in
the Church. In the Fourth Synod or Council of
Carthage (398), — whose canons have been con-
sidered to be, in fact, a collection of those of
many African Councils — we find, again, passages
which have been used, without the slightest testing
of their weight, as authorities in treating of the
female diaconate, whilst in fact they only shew us
widows and consecrated virgins invested with some
of the functions of the deaconess.* The students

above passage may, of course, refer only to i Tim. iii. 2, and
V. 9 ; but the singularity of the expressions " allegi in ordi-
nationem," as applied to the latter verse, entirely disappears
if we refer it to chap. 17 of the 6th book of the " Apostolical
Constitutions," which embraces both injunctions, requiring, as
before mentioned, the deaconess to be "a widow once mar-
ried,"— the "ordination" in question being, as I view it,
simply that of the widow as deaconess.

We shall not, of course, attribute any weight to a supposed
decree of Pope Soter, quoted by Baronius in his annals for
the year 179, bearing "that no deaconess is to touch the
consecrated pall, or place incense in the Holy Church."

* See Appendix B.

Fourth Co2cncil of Carthage. 27

of Church history will recollect that we have now
attained to the days of female monachism/one of
the earliest records of which is a well-known letter
from Augustine to the nuns of Carthage, only a
few years later than this period. TertuUian and
Cyprian, two African fathers, had written suc-
cessively in enthusiastic praise of female virginity.
It was but natural that we should find their exhor-
tations bearing fmit on the African soil, and the
"religious virgins" (sanctimoniales — the moiiiales
or nuns of later times) thus invested by the African
Church, along with widows, with diaconal func-
tions, and the ascetic spirit already embodied in a
system of religious communities, composed of
women who had professed celibacy.*

The latter half of the fourth, and former half of
the fifth centuries form, however, the period during

* I cannot help pointing out that as, in the Greek, the
female deacons may often be spoken of together with the
male under the epicene term didKovoi, so they may be also in
Latin under the curious form diacones, which I believe occurs
in some of the oldest Latin MSS. of the New Testament,
and which is especially frequent in Cyprian (martyred 258).
I believe, indeed, that in the former case it is sometimes used
where none but male deacons can be meant ; in Cyprian on
the other hand, so far as I have observed, never but where
the context might include both sexes. The introduction of
this barbarous-looking epicene form in place of the more
natural, but specially masculine diaconi, certainly might seem
to have been prompted by the very purpose of including
both.

28 Eajdy Eastern Deaconesses.

which the female diaconate of the East appears to
have attained its highest importance. All the
leading Greek fathers and Church writers of the
age — Basil"" (326-379), Gregory of Nyssa (died
396), Epiphanius (died 403), Chrysostom (344-
407), Theodoret (393-457), Sozomen (fifth cen-
tury) refer to it, and notices of individual dea-
conesses become frequent in Church annals, whilst
everywhere the female diaconate is spoken of as
an honourable office, and one filled by persons of
rank, talent, and fortune. Thus Sozomen, in his
Ecclesiastical History (Bk. iv., ch. 24), relates howthe
Synod of Rimini (latter half of the fourth century)
deposed a certain Elpidius for having, amongst
other things, conferred the honours of the diaconate

* Basil is another writer who has been most strangely made
to vouch for the identity of the deaconess and the widow. In
one of his rules or canons (Epist. cc. can, 44), he enforces
absolute chastity upon the deaconess. In another (Epist.
cxcix. can. 2) he excommunicates a widow "inscribed in the
number of widows, that is, vmiistered imto by the Churchy
{rT]v 5iaKovovjui,hr]v vtto tt^s ^KKXTjaias), who marries again, ad-
mitting however, that, if she be inscribed under 60, " ours is
the fault, not the woman's," In order to wrest this passage
into an authority for the identity of the two classes, the ex-
pression biaKovovfiiv-qv viro ttjs eKKXrjaias has actually been in-
terpreted by some "exercising the functions of deaconess in
the Church." It would, on the contrary, as it seems to me,
be impossible to find a stronger instance than it supplies of
the difference between the ministering deaconess and the
miaistered-unto widow.

PiLblia and yttlian. 29

upon one Nectaria, who had been excommunicated
for breaches of confidence and perjury. Theodoret
(Bk. iii., ch. 14) tells of a deaconess in the time of
Julian, how she " evangelised " the son of a hea-
then priest, encouraged him to stand fast under
persecution, and to disobey his earthly rather than
his heavenly Father, and sheltered him from his
father's ^vrath. He subsequently gives a chapter
to the story of " Publia the deaconess, and her
godly boldness;" who, "being with the choir of
the perpetual virgins, dwelt continually praising
God the Creator and Saviour. Now the Emperor
chancing one day to pass, they began more lustily
with one accord to sing forth, deeming the wretch
worthy of all contempt and ridicule; and chiefly
they sang those psalms w^hich deride the impotence
of idols ; and with David they said, * The idols of
the nations are silver and gold, the work of men's
hands.' And after setting forth the uselessness of
idols " (see Ps. cxv.) " they proceeded, ' They that
make them are like unto them, and so is every one
that trusteth in them.' The Emperor, hearing
these songs, and being thereby stung to the quick,
bade them be silent while he passed. But she,
holding cheap his commands, filled the choir with
greater boldness, and again, as he passed by, bade
them sing, * Let God arise, and let his enemies be
scattered' (Ps. Ixviii). When he, bitterly wroth,

30 Roinana.

bade the mistress of the choir be brought before
him, . . . and shewing neither pity for her gray-
hairs, nor respect for her virtue, ordered one of his
guards to strike her on both cheeks, covering his
hands with her blood. But she, taking this shame
for sovTan honour, withdrew into her cell, and still
continually pursued him with her spiritual songs,"
— as David was wont to still the evil spirit of Saul,
adds the author ; an odd comparison, seeing that,
by his own account, Publia instated Julian's evil
passions instead of soothing them. The fvmction
of the deaconess, as head of the Church-virgins, is
referred to in other contemporary authorities.*

A deaconess named Romana figures again in the
history of Pelagia, the famous actress of Antioch
in the fifth century, who afterwards became a no
less celebrated hermit and saint. In her life by
James the Deacon, who seems to have been per-
sonally acquainted with her, this Romana, fie-
scribed as "the holy lady Romana, first of the
deaconesses," is mentioned as having been de-
puted to receive Pelagia when she became con-

* Thus Gregory of Nyssa, in his hfe of his sister Macrina,
speaks of one Lampadia, a virgin placed at the head of the
virgins' choir, and in the rank of deaconess. Sozomen, in
like manner, commends the modesty of Nicarete, a noble
Bithynian lady, who declined the diaconate and the ruling
over the Church-virgins, although often pressed by Chryso-
stom to undertake the oiTice.

Epiphaniits. 31

verted, and as having become her " spiritual
mother."*

Epiphanius, earlier in date than either Sozomen
or Theodoret, but treating of his own times, in
combating the heresy of the Collyridians, who
intruded women into the priesthood (Adv. Haer.,
Bk. iii., tom. ii., Adv. Coll. c. 3), and again in his
"Summary of the Faith" {Ibid. c. 21), sets forth
specifically the institution and certain of the prin-
cipal functions of the deaconesses, declaring that
they exist " in nowise for priestly purposes," {ovx'
£i; rh /soarsuiiv.) " It is to be specially observed,"
he says elsewhere, " that the needs of the Church
system only stretched as far as the deaconess,
and that it named widows, and of these the still
older ones aged women, but never estabhshed
elderesses or priestesses." t In his statement of the

* I quote from Cotelerius (*' Patres Apostolici," vol. i., p.
290, note 2), who himself refers to Rosweyde, " Vitoe Patrum,"
Bk. i., ch. 8, — a work which I have not had the opportunity
of consulting. I may mention here that a practice is said to
have prevailed of ordaining deaconesses the wives of married
priests, when the latter were promoted to the episcopate ;
and Theosebia, the wife of Gregory of Nyssa, is quoted as an
instance of the practice. I have been unable, however, to
verify the fact.

+ "Axpi- ^LO-KovLoaQiv iMvov t6 eKKKr}(na(TTi.Kbv iirederjOr] rd-yp-a,
XVP^^ '^^ tit'O/xacre, Kal rovrwv rds ?rt ypaor^pas irpea^vrlSas,
ovdafioO dk TTpea^vrepioas i) lepovaas Trpoa^ra^e. By supplying
the pronoun avras to the sentence XOP^^ ^^ uvS/Macre, whilst
overlooking the distinctive to&tuv in the next, it has been

32 Chry SOS torn and his

functions of the deaconess, especially as to the
baptizing of women, Epiphanius agrees with the
" Apostolical Constitutions."

But it is Chrysostom's history in particular which
is interwoven with that of the female diaconate. As
it supplies us with the most complete picture still
extant of that institution during the second period
of its existence, we may find it worth while to
dwell upon the prelate's relations with his dea-
coness friends in some detail.

§ 5. Chrysostom and his Deaconess Friends.

No less than six deaconesses occur by name
amongst those who appear to have enjoyed the
intimacy of Chrysostom.

Nicarete has been named already in a note. On
the persecution of Chrysostom's adherents under
his successor Arsacius after his expulsion (404),
Sozomen mentions, amongst otlier sufierers, this
Nicarete, of a noble family of Nicomedia, famous
for her perpetual virginity and holy life, who

construed as meaning "named them widows,'''' and so turned
into another of the stock authorities for the identity of the
deaconess and widow. It will be seen from the story of
Chrysostom how impossible it is to suppose Epiphanius to
have been ignorant of the distinction between the two. His
confining of the irpea^vrides of St Paul to the hi ypadrepai
among the widcnvs is indeed remarkable.

Deaconess Friends. 33

" sought always to remain hidden, so that she strove
not to advance to the honour of the diaconate,
nor, although often exhorted thereto by John"
(Chr}'sostom), " to rule over the virgins of the
Church."

Sabiniana, mentioned in Letter 13 to Olympias,
is identified by Tillemont and by Montfaucon (in
his " Life of Chrysostom ") with a deaconess of the
same name, said by Palladius (see Montfaucon's
note) to have been Chrysostom's aunt. "There
came also," he writes from exile, " my lady Sabi-
niana the deacon, the same day on which we came
there also, broken down indeed and worn out, as
being at that age when it is painful to move ;
youthful nevertheless in mind, and feeling nothing
of her sufferings, since she said she was ready to
go forth even to Scythia, the nniiour prevailing
that we were to be taken away thither. And she is
ready, she says, not to return yet at all, but wher-
ever we may be, there to tarry. She was received
by those of the Church with much zeal and good-
will."

Three letters are vrntten to " Ampruda the dea-
con and those with her " (96, 103, 191). They turn
chiefly on one of the staple topics of Chrysostom's
correspondence, consolation under religious perse-
cution, such as his adherents were subject to. " For
we bear you about every^vhere in our understand-

C

34 The Deaconesses Ainp7^ucla,

ing," he says, "wondering at the immutableness
of your mind, and your great manliness" (96).
" Although distant," he says elsewhere, " we have
heard of your manly virtue and excellence not less
than if we were present, and greatly did we sym-
pathise with your manliness, your patience, your
immutable resolution, your steadfast and adaman-
tine understanding, your freedom of speech and
boldness" (103). The last letter (191), probably
earliest in date of the three which have been pre-
served, whilst without historical bearing, is one of
the pleasantest and most life-like in the collection.
The lady, it seems, had been the first to open the
con-espondence, and was still confounding herself
in excuses for having ventured to do so. Chrysos-
tom writes back to her one of those caressing letters
in which he is a master, and which go far to
explain the extraordinary influence which he evi-
dently possessed over the minds of women : "I
say again the same thing to you, do not call it
boldness, to have been the first to leap into a cor-
respondence with us, neither deem that a sin which
is your greatest praise." He then goes on to tell
her what pleasure he derives from hearing of the
welfare of his friends, and bids her " send him
storms of letters" {vKpddag ycafx/xuTU'J), giving tid-
ings of her health.

The names of " Pcntadia and Proda the deacon-

Pentadia, and Procla. 35

esses " occur in close connexion with that of Olym-
pias. The former, who was the widow of the
consul Timasius, had her share in the persecu-
tions of Chrysostom's friends. Three of his letters
are addressed to her, 94, 104, 185 ; and her name,
moreover, occurs in one of the letters to Olympias
(14), with reference to a certain Bishop Heraclides,
whose case, writes Chrysostom, "although it did
not do much good, yet I shewed to my lady Pen-
tadia, that she might shew him all her zeal, if she
could imagine any consolation to his misfortune."
In his letters to her he takes very much the same
tone as we shall see him do with Olympias : " Our
greatest consolation, although dwelling in such a
wilderness, is that of your manliness, your presence
of mind, your immutable resolution, your great
prudence, your freedom of speech, your lofty bold-
ness, whereby you have both put to shame your
enemies, and given a deadly wound to the devil,
and have comforted '(literally, anointed)' those
that fight for the truth, — raising, like a noble chief
in war-time, a splendid trophy, and carrying off a
brilhant victor)^, — whilst filling us with so much
pleasure, that we think ourselves no longer in a
strange and foreign land, neither in the wilderness,
but to be present yonder, to be with yourselves,
and to take pride in your soul's virtue. . . . For
what artifice have they omitted % what manner of

36 Pentadia.

engine have they not set in motion, endeavouring to
beguile your steadfast soul, true to God (yvrioia
ku)V) yea, rather your noble and most manly soul?
They carried you away to the Agora, you who
knew nothing more than the church and your
room, from the Agora to the tribunal, from the
tribunal to the prison. . . . They set all in motion,
that they might compel and force you by fear to
say what was contrary to what you knew. And
like as an eagle soaring on high, so did you, rend-
ing their nets asunder, rise to your due height of
freedom, suffering not yourself to be deceived in
these things, but shewing themselves to be false
accusers in this charge of the burning [of St
Sophia], whereon they, miserable wretches, seemed
most to pride themselves " (94).

In the winter following these events, Pentadia
seems to have wished to leave Constantinople,
Chrysostom's next letter dissuades her from so
doing : " Since I have learned that you meditate
expatriating yourself, and removing from thence, I
exhort your honour (craoaxaXw gov rr^v ri/Morr/Tu) to
think of or meditate no such thing. First of all for
this, that you are a bulwark of the city where you
are, and a wide harbour, and a prop, and a firm
wall to those who labour wearily." Health is
another consideration which he urges upon her :
" You know the weakness of your body, and how

Olympias. 37

it is not easy for you to move in such cold weather

and such a winter."

In the third letter he complains of her 'not

writing, which cannot be because she is cast down :

" For I know your great and lofty soul, which can

sail, as with a fair wind, through many tempests, and

»
in the midst of the waves enjoy a white calm.

And this you have shewn in these very affairs, and
to the very end of the world has fame gone forth,
bearing your achievements; and all loudly praise
you for being able, fixed in one spot, to animate
by your piety those who are afar off, and make
them of a better courage."

But the most devoted of all Chr)^sostom's followers
was Olympias^ the Mathilda (shall we so call her X)
of one whose character offers perhaps more than
one trait of resemblance to Hildebrand. She was
an orphan of good birth, who had been mar-
ried when young, but her husband died twenty
months after her marriage. The emperor The-
odosius then sought to marry her to Elpidius,
one of his own kindred, and on her refusal
(prompted by ascetic motives) he directed the
prefect of the city to take her fortune in ward till
she were thirty, and forbade her speaking to the
bishops or going to church ; but after the war
against Maximus, he ordered her goods to be

38 The Persecution of

restored.* She is described by Sozomen (Bk. viii.,
c. 9) as having been, although a young widow,
ordained by Nectarius a deacon {hid-Mvav ^h^oto-
vjjo-f). Her unbounded liberaHties drew upon her
the reproof of Chrysostom, who exhorted her to
moderate her ahns as a wise steward ; and this
counsel is assigned by the historian as one of the
motives for the deep hatred of the greedy priest-
hood of the metropolis towards the saint. On
Chrysostom's expulsion from the episcopate, he is
represented as going into the baptistery, and call-
ing " Olympias, who never departed from the
Church, together with Pentadia and Procla, the
deaconesses, and^Silvina, late the wife of the
blessed Nebridius, who adorned her widowhood
by her comely life," and exhorting them not to fail
of their goodwill towards the Church, and that
whosoever should reluctantly be brought to ordi-
nation, by consent of all, not seeking it, they
should bow their heads to him as to John himself;
for there cannot be a church without a bishop.t
During the persecution which followed, Sozomen
(Bk. viii., c. 24) praises the "manly" conduct
of Olympias, who, being brought before the pre-
fect on a charge of having set fire to the church of

* See ralladius, Dialog, in Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. xi. ;
and Montfaucon's Chrysostom, vol. xiii.
t Tallad. c. 10.

Chrysostoms Female Adherents. 39

St Sophia, replied, by referring to her past Hfe,
and the spending of her large fortune " for the re-
newing of God's temples." But there being no
witnesses for the charge, the prefect passed on to
another, reproaching her and the other women for
their folly in refusing the new bishop's communion,
whilst they were yet free to repent, and be quit of
the affair. The other women having yielded,
Olympias held out, saying that it was not right
that a woman taken through sycophancy in the
multitude, and convicted in the court of no offence
whereof she is accused, should be driven to defend
herself on points not in issue, and claiming per-
mission to bring forvvard witnesses as to the former
accusation. The prefect remanded her under
colour of letting her consult with counsel; but
had her brought up again the next day, and fined
her in a large sum, hoping thus to make her change
her mind. But she refused to yield, and having
left Constantinople, withdrew to Cyzicum. One
letter of Chrysostom's seems to imply that she was
expelled.

The relation of Chrysostom to 01)aiipias appears
to have been peculiarly intimate. She is repre-
sented by Palladius as having looked after his
daily food whilst he was in Constantinople. No
less than eighteen of Chrysostom's letters are
addressed to " my lady the deaconess (diw/Muj)

40 CJirysostonis Letters

Olympias, most worthy and beloved of God." It
would not be possible here to epitomise them all,
and most tedious if it were so, as there is great
sameness in them; but I shall give copious ex-
tracts, that from them we may realise the spiritual
portrait of the pattern deaconess of the fifth cen-
tury, as sketched by the great Greek saint of the
age.

After saying that he will not dwell on her alms-
giving, " whereof thou boldest the sceptres, and
didst bind on the crown of old," he proceeds :
" For who should tell thy varied, manifold, and
many-sided endurance, and what speech should
be sufficient for us, what measure for our history,
if one should enumerate thy sufferings from thy
earliest age until now : those from members of
thy household, those from strangers, those from
friends, those from enemies, those from persons
connected with thee by blood, those from persons
in nowise connected with thee, those from men in
power, those from the prosperous, those from the
rulers, those from the common people, those from

men reckoned in the clergy But if one

should turn also to the other forms of this virtue,
and should go througli no more thy sufferings re-
ceived from others, but those which thou hast con-
trived for thyself, — what stone, what iron, what
adamant shall he not find conquered by thee ?

to Olympias. 41

For having received a flesh so tender and delicate,
and nourished up in all kinds of luxury, thou hast
so conquered it by various sufferings, that it lies
no better than slain, and thou hast brought upon
thyself such a swarm of diseases as to confound
the physician's skill, and the power of medicine,
.... and to live in perpetual fellowship with
pain.*

" For thy self-control as respects the table, and
thy continence, and thy steadfastness in night-
watchings, if any should choose to set it forth at
length, how many words will he need ! Rather
thou hast not allowed it to be called continence
any more, nor yet self-control in thee, but we must
seek out some other much greater name for these
virtues. For we call that man continent and self-
controlled, when he is pressed by some desire and
conquers it ; but thou hast not what thou mayest
conquer ; for having blown from the first with
great vehemence upon the flesh, thou hast extin-
guished all its desires. . . . Insensibility alone

remains to thee Thou hast taught thy

stomach to be content with so much food and
drink as not to perish. . . . That desire being

* In other places indeed (see Bk. 4) he exhorts her not to
" neglect taking care of herself," — to '* employ various and
experienced doctors, and remedies capable of setting these
things to rights."

42 The Atisterities of

quenched, the desire to sleep was quenched with
it ; for food is the nourishment of sleep. And in-
deed thou didst also destroy sleep in another way,
having from the beginning done violence to thy
nature, and spending whole nights without sleep ;
latterly, by constant custom, making a nature of
the habit. For as sleep is natural to others, so is
watching to thee. . . . But if any should examine
the time, and how these things took place in un-
ripe age, and the want of teachers, and the many
that laid stumbling-blocks, and that from an un-
godly house thou hast come now of thyself to the
truth in thy soul, and that thine was a woman's
body, and one delicate through the nobility and
luxury of thy ancestors, how many seas of wonders
will he find opening out at every point ! . . . Will-
ingly would I tarry over these words, and sail over
a boundless sea, or seas rather, following the many-
branched tracks of each virtue of thine, whereof
each track should bring forth a sea again, if
I were to dwell on thy patience, and thy humi-
lity, and thy many-shaped almsgiving, which has
stretched to the very ends of the world, and on
thy charity, that hath outdone ten thousand fur-
naces, and on thy boundless prudence, full of
grace, and surpassing the measures of nature. . . .
But I will endeavour to shew the lion by his claw,
by saying a few words of thy dress, of the gar-

the Pattern-Deaconess, 43

ments that hang simply and at haphazard around
thee. This indeed seems a lesser achievement
than others ; but if any should view it diligently,
he will find it very great, and needing a philosophic
soul, which tramples upon all the things of life,
and takes flight to the very heaven. . . . For I do
not only marvel at the unspeakable coarseness of
thy attire, surpassing that of the very beggars, but
above all at the shapelessness, the carelessness of
thy garments, of thy shoes, of thy walk ; all which
things are virtue's colours."*

He then says that his object has not been to
praise, but to console her, in order that, " ceasing
to consider this man's sin and that man's fault,
thou mayest bear in mind perpetually the struggles
of thy endurance, thy patience, thy abstinence, thy

* Chiysostom indeed does not descend to sucli details as
Palladius, himself a contemporary of Olympias, who tells us
that " she abstained from animal food, and went for the most
part unwashed ; but if she were compelled by infirmity to
bathe (for she suffered constantly from the stomach), she de-
scended into the water in her tunic." Her model in these
respects is said to have been one Salvia or Silvia, who told
the panegyrist of Olympias, when past sixty, whilst he was
taking her from Jerusalem to Egypt, that she had never
washed either her face or her feet, nor any other part of her
body except her hands, which she washed to receive the
sacrament ; that, though often ill, and ordered to bathe, she
had never done so, nor had slept in a bed, nor been carried
in a litter. Tillemont, Mem. Eccl., vol. xi. ; "Ste Olym-
piade," p. 4 17.

44 Chrysostoms Method

prayers, thy holy night-long watches, thy contin-
ence, thine almsgiving, thy hospitality, thy mani-
fold and difficult and frequent trials. Reflect how,
from thy first age until the present day, thou hast
not ceased to feed Christ when a-hungered, to give
Him drink when thirsty, to clothe Him when
naked, to take Him in when a stranger, to visit
Him when sick, to go unto Him when bound.
Consider the sea of thy charity, which thou hast
opened so, that by thy great efforts it hath reached
the very ends of the earth. For thy house was not
only open to all who came, but everywhere, by
land and sea, many have enjoyed thy liberality,

through thy love of strangers Be

proud (Vf'J^a) and rejoice in the hope of these
crowns and these rewards." ....

Let it not be supposed that this " sea" of pane-
gyric (to use Chrysostom's favourite image) was
poured forth once for all. On the contrary, it flows
again and again. " Rejoice and be glad," he ex-
claims in the next letter (3), " to have followed this
gainful road, loaded with ten thousand crowns, from
thy earliest age, and through constant and frequent
sufferings. For bodily disease, various, of all kinds,
harder than ten thousand deaths, hath not ceased
constantly to besiege thee; and storms of insults and
contumelies and calumnies have unremittingly been
brought against thee, and frequent and constant

of Consolation. 45

faintings and fountains of tears have troubled thee
at all times." Again he compliments her (Ep. 6) on
her fortitude in time of persecutions : " And this is
wonderful, that without rushing forth into the market-
place, nor proceeding through the midst of the city,
but seated in a small narrow room and on a bed,
thou nervest and anointest those who stand. . . .
A woman, clothed with a thin weak body,* after
having borne so many assaults, not only hast thou
suffered nothing like so much [as others,] but thou
hast hindered many others from suffering." Again
(7) : "Thou hast lost country, house, friends, rela-
tives ; thou hast gone into banishment, thou hast
not ceased to die daily." Again : " Thou hast
known as well how to inhabit great and populous
cities as the wilderness" (i7). He finds a new
subject of praise (16), in commending her for get-
ing through legal proceedings without either giving
way in an unmanly manner or suffering herself to
be entangled with the mischief of litigation; fol-
lowing a middle course, she has shewn in every-
thing her great wisdom, and long-suffering, and en-
durance, and patience, and undeceivable prudence.
The 15th letter is also stuffed with praise.

I do not wish to soften one line of this most

* A/saxi'wSes, an expression explained by that in another
letter (17) : 'Ev ywaiKeicf ado/xari kuI dpaxvioju aad^veaT^pif, i.e.,
weaker than a spider's web.

46 Degeneracy of

painful picture. It is due indeed to Olympias to
say, that she herself appears in one of her letters
to have disclaimed Chrysostom's extravagant eulo-
gies. But what hope was there for the Eastern
Church, when self-complacency could thus be held
out as the main ground of Christian consolation?
Even the sword of the Mussulman, preaching that
"God is God," carried with it surely a nobler
gospel than this.

§ 6. The Greek Female Diacojiate in the Fifth
Century.

We see now what the female diaconate had be-
come in the Greek Church of the fifth century, —
how far it had departed from the model of the
apostolic times, or at least of those early ages to
which, by the very contrast, it will be felt now that
the "Apostolical Constitutions" must surely belong.
The days are gone when Phoebe travelled forth
from land to land in charge of an apostle's letters.
The days are gone when the deaconess went from
house to house, carrying the good tidings into the
seclusion of the women's apartments. The demon
of ascetic self-righteousness has entered in, and is
fostered by the preachings even of one of the
greatest men, the most exemplary prelates of the
age. The deaconesses do not " depart from the

the Female Diaco7iate. 47

Church.'' Profuse in almsgiving they may be, but
how httle can they be effectual " succourers of
many," when by their austerities they ruin their
health, when it is one of the features of Chrysos-
tom's panegyric of Olympias, that she has brought
upon her such a swarm of diseases as to defy all
means of cure? No wonder that Epiphanius,
Chrysostom's contemporary, mainly dwells upon
that one duty of theirs, of assisting in the baptiz-
ing of women. Such easy, stay-at-home functions
were the only ones now fit for them. No wonder
that he adds a third to the classes from which the
deaconesses are to be selected. They are to be,
he says, either continent, by which he means
virgin-wives, once married, or once-married widows,
or perpetual virgins. The " Apostolical Constitu-
tions " know of no such monstrosity as voluntary
virgin-wives. They do not say that the "pure
virgins" who may be made deaconesses are to be
perpetual ones.

There has grown up, moreover, a real analogy of
character, if not of position, between the deaconess
and the apostolical widow. I say the apostolical
widow j not by any means the person known by
that name in the age of Chrysostom, one of whose
achievements was the reform of the Church-widows,
and from whose writings it is palpable that this
class, instead of having been raised to the level of

48 Chrysosto7n on the Widows.

the deaconesses, had, on the contrary, fallen far
below its own original station;* that the respectable
almswoman had degenerated into the clamorous
pauper ; nay, that the still greater abuse had crept
in of allowing the young and well-to-do to usurp
the place of the aged and the destitute. In the
third book of his work on the priesthood (c. i6),
speaking of the difficulties of a bishop's work, he
asks whether he shall first consider his duties to-
wards the widows, or towards the virgins, or his
judicial functions. The care of the widows, he
says, is that which appears easiest; yet is it
thought to be nothing more than looking after
their maintenance % Not so ; but in the first place,
there needs much scrutiny before inscribing them
on the register, as otherwise a thousand mischiefs
have ensued. You may find that they have ruined

■* *' As there are now choirs of virgins," he says (on
I Tim. V. 9 ; Works, by Montfaucon, vol. iii., p. 311), "so
were there of old choirs of widows, nor was it lawful for them
to be simply registered among the widows. He speaks not
therefore of the one who liveth in poverty and needeth succour,
but of the one who is a widow by choice." From which
Tillemont bhmderingly, but I believe not dishonestly, con-
cludes that Chrysostom maintains the widows of St Paul to
have been deaconesses. Such an idea, I believe, never
entered Chrysostom's head. His younger contemporary
Theodoret, at all events, expressly denies that the Pauline
widows fulfilled any Church office : — Tas yey-qpaKvla^ ovtcjs
tbuofiaacv, ov ras Xeirovpyias rtz'os rj^tco/x^vas (quoted in Suicer,
Thesaurus, * ' Atax^j'tacra et 77 5td/covos").

Widows not Deaconesses. 49

their families, have broken their marriage-vows,
have been guilty of thefts and other disorders.
Not only must you not admit these, but none who
are able to support themselves." Again and again
he speaks of poverty as characteristic of them.
" Widows," he says, " are a soi^t of persons who,
both through poverty, and through age, and
through their nature also, use a kind of un-
bounded freedom of speech ; . . . they clamour
out of season, they make vain complaints, they
lament themselves over things for Avhich they
ought to be thankful." He proceeds for a long
time in this strain, and speaks even of their being
obliged to beg their bread, and to beg it insolently.
Too many clergymen will surely have been re-
minded by Chrysostom's details of scenes enacted
week by week before their vestry-door. To con-
found, up to this period, the " widows " so-called
of the Greek Church with those women who en-
joyed the " honour of the diaconate," is surely
about as correct as to identify the receiver of
bread and coal tickets with the lady-visitor who
relieves her. But, on the other hand, the true
pattern at this period of the apostolical widow,
continuing in supplications and prayers day and
night, was obviously exhibited by deaconesses
such as Olympias or Pentadia. Nothing was
more natural than that the laity at least should

D

50 The Female Diaconate

confound the two, and should endeavour to im-
pose upon the latter all the restrictions — as to
age for instance — which St Paul laid down for the
former.*

* Another of Chrysostom's reforms was the attempted
suppression of the practice of the spiritual brotherhoods of
the avpeiaaKTOi, both men and women ; denouncing, on the
one hand, men who took professed virgins to their homes to
live with them as their sisters,' — and, on the other hand,
those women under the Church rule who lived with men as
such (see Pallad. Dialog,, c. l8, and Montfaucon's Chrysos-
tom, vol. i). This is the proceeding to which Gibbon ap-
parently refers ( " Decline and Fall," Bk. xxxii. ), when he says
that "Chrysostom had condemned, from the pulpit, the do-
mestic females of the clergy of Constantinople, who, under
the names of servants or sisters, afforded a perpetual occasion
either of sin or of scandal," There appears no colour what-
ever for the assertion that the women in question bore the
name of servants. The word (rvveicraKTOt has never been
so interpreted ; and the relation, as described by church
writers, is anything but a servile one on the part of the
women. On the contrary, they make merry with the man as
waiting on the woman, holding the distaff and the spindle.
But the use of the term by Gibbon has led some writers to
suppose that the deaconesses, the servants of the Church,
were the class spoken of. On the contrary, I find nothing
whatever to shew that the abuse in question had yet crept
into their body (though it certainly did at a later period).
They are never mentioned in Chrysostom's two treatises on
the subject, but the term irapdevoL is used in those treatises
almost generally ; so that I am inclined to tliink that the
Church-virgins were really the class who, at this period, were
alone liable to the reproach in question.

in the Codes, 5 1

§ 7. The Greek Female Diaconate in the Codes
and later Councils^ till its disappearance.

From the fifth century downwards, the female
diaconate comes no more before us in the same
life-Uke form which we have seen it assume in the
days of Chrysostom. Its later history consists
mainly of the efforts of the State to subject the
institution to the disabilities of actual monachism.
The Theodosian Code (438), plainly applying to
the deaconesses the Apostle's words respecting
widows, fixes at sixty, " according to the precepts
of the Apostle," the age of their ordination (Bk.
xvi., tit. ii., 1. 27). On their entering into the
diaconate, if they have children under age, a
guardian is to be appointed, the mother retaining,
however, the income of her lands, with full power
to alienate them for value or otherwise, whether
by deed inter vivos, or testamentary disposition.
But she may not expend for religious purposes any
part of her jewels, furniture, gold, silver, or family
statues, all of which must be transmitted by her to
her children, relations, or such other parties not
under disability, as she may think fit. (This pro-
hibition was, however, removed — by Ambrose's
influence, Baronius says — scarcely two months
later as to alienations inter vivos, by the very next
law, which speaks of the former one as promul-

52 The Theodosiaii Code and

gated concerning "deaconesses or widows;" Bk.
xvi., tit. ii., 1. 28.) She cannot at her death institute
for her heir any church, or any clerical or indigent
person. No secret trust will avail for this purpose,
whether by letter, codicil, donation, will, or other-
wise j nor will any appeal lie to justice, in case of
any violation of the law in this respect, but the
parties may at once enter into possession. From
this stringent law of mortmain, if we may so call
it, it may at once be gathered that the honours of
the female diaconate had been already used by the
growing spirit of priestcraft, as a means of diverting
into the Church's coffers the fortunes of wealthy
females.

It is worthy of remark that the above provisions,
embodied in the Theodosian Code, are in reality
those of a constitution of the Emperors Valentinian,
Theodosius, and Arcadius, dated from Milan in
the year 390. It is perhaps but reasonable to sup-
pose that they bear the impress rather of Latin
confusion respecting the two characters of dea-
conesses and widows, than of Greek accuracy re-
specting them. Certain it is that the Church at
once protested against the confusion, and that it
succeeded, in the long run, in overcoming it, and
in fixing the age of admission to the female dia-
conate according to its own canons. For instance,
the fifteenth canon of the Council of Chalcedon,

the Cowicil of Chalcedoii, 53

almost contemporary Avith the promulgation of the
Theodosian Code (451), enacts, that "the dea-
coness shall not be ordained before her 40th year,
and this with the utmost deliberation ; but if, re-
ceiving the imposition of hands, and remaining
some time in the ministry, she gives herself over to
marriage, doing despite to the grace of God, let
her be accursed, together with her paramour."
Clearly, since the Council cannot be presumed
deliberately to have rescinded an apostolic com-
mand contained in a Pastoral Epistle, this fixing
the ordination of deaconesses at forty is a proof
that they were not deemed yet, by the heads
of the Church, to be the widows of St Paul. By
the time of Justinian, the State, after endeavouring
for a while to split the difterence as to the age of
ordination of the deaconess, finally gives in, as we
shall presently see, at all points to the Church.

In transferring to the new Code the provision
of the Theodosian one, as to the age of ordination,
the word fifty is substituted for sixty (the " precept
of the apostle " being, however, absurdly retained
as an authority), and the whole latter portion of
the law, restrictive of alienation, is omitted (Bk.
L, tit. iii., 1. 9). Nor is this all. In a constitu-
tion (Bk. i., tit. iii., 1. 20), ascribed to Theo-
dosius and Valentinian (a.d. 434) — earlier than
the promulgation of the Theodosian Code, and

54 The Code of yusiinian

which therefore must be considered as having been
tacitly abrogated by the former, but now revived —
it is provided, that where a priest, deacon, dea-
coness, sub-deacon, or clerk of any other rank,
monk or woman devoted to a solitary life, shall
die intestate and without next of kin, their goods
shall go to the Church or monastery to which they
were attached. Another constitution includes gifts
of yearly rents to monasteries, or to ascetic women,
or to deaconesses, &c., amongst those which it was
forbidden to compound for {Ibid., 1. 46). A later
constitution of the year 455, ascribed to the Em-
perors Valentinian and Marcian, on " the last will
of a woman devoted to God" (Bk. i., tit. ii., 1. 13),
enacts, that if any widow, or deaconess, or virgin
devoted to God, or religious woman, or any other
female bearing any name of religious honour or
dignity, shall have made any bequest, by will other-
wise executed in due form, of the whole or any
part of her fortune to any church, shrine, clerk,
monk, or to the poor, such bequest shall be valid.
The clear distinction here exhibited between
virgins, widows, and deaconesses, appears equally
in a much later constitution of Justinian himself,
A.D. 533 (Bk. i., tit. iii., 1. 54), as to the capital
punishment of heinous offences against the honour
of "virgins, widows, or deaconesses, devoted to
God." It is provided that where the offence is

and the Novels. 55

committed against a virgin living in a house of
exercise or " ascetery," or in a convent, whether
she shall have been constituted deaconess or not,
the property of the culprit is to pass to the convent
or ascetery where she shall have been consecrated,
on the terms of giving her sufficient maintenance
during her life. But if the victim be deaconess of
any church, but so constituted neither in a convent
nor ascetery, and living alone, the offender's sub-
stance is to go to the church of which she is a
deaconess, she, however, retaining the usufmct
during her life.

The second edition of Justinian's Code was
published, and the whole confirmed, in the year
534. In the following year (535), by the Third of
the " Novels" (or laws passed subsequently to the
enactment of the Code), which has for object the
limiting the number of the clergy of the metro-
politan church, and of the other churches of Con-
stantinople, in order to release the churches from
the burden of debt which they had incurred by
too large an increase of their clerical staff, the
number of deaconesses in the church of St Sophia
is fixed at 80, to 100 male deacons ; whilst as
respects the other churches, the then present num-
ber of priests, male and female deacons, sub-
deacons, &c., was not to be exceeded (cc. i, 3).
Tlie Sixth Novel (same year), on the ordination of

56 The State gives in

bishops and other clerks, and on the expenses of
the churches, has a chapter specially devoted to
the ordination of deaconesses, not under fifty years
of age (c. 6). They are to be neither young nor
in the prime of life, nor of an age of itself prone
to sin, but beyond the middle time of life ; either
widows of one husband or professed virgins ; of a
life not only well-famed, but not even suspected.
If any should of necessity be ordained before the
prescribed age, she is to remain in some ascetery.
The deaconess is to live either alone, or only with
her parents and her children, or her brothers, or
otherwise with such persons as to whom any suspi-
cion of scandal would appear of itself silly and im-
pious, but not with any other relative, or any of
those persons who are called " beloved." On her
ordination she is to be admonished, and to hear the
holy precepts in presence of the other deaconesses
already in functions. If she leave the ministry to
enter into marriage, or choose any other mode of
life, she is subject to the penalty of death, and her
property is to be applied to the use of the church,
or convent, in which she is ; the same penalties
being incurred by her husband or seducer, with
the exception that his property is to be confis-
cated for the benefit of the State.

The 1 23d Novel exhibits the final surrender by the
State of the point still at issue between it and the

to the CJmrch. 57

Church as to the age of the deaconess's ordination.
Whilst the age of ordination is fixed for priests at
thirty, for deacons or sub-deacons at twenty-five,
and for readers at eighteen, " a deaconess is not to
be ordained in the holy church below forty years
of age, or who shall have been married a second
time" (c. 13). In other chapters of this Novel,
deaconesses are included in the provisions for
giving the jurisdiction to the bishop in case of
legal proceedings against clerical or (as our an-
cestors would have called them) religious persons,
and for limiting the amount of fees payable by
such persons in the above case (cc. 21, 28). A
special chapter " on the deaconesses " (30) renews
the prohibition of a former law against their living
with any man, from whose company any suspicion
of impropriety may arise.* On the admonition of
the priest who is over her, the deaconess is to ex-
pel any such man from her house, otherwise to be
deprived of her ecclesiastical functions, and of her
emoluments, and to spend the remainder of her
days in a convent. If she has children, her for-

* Whilst this chapter, and the 6th of the 6th Novel, before
referred to, shew that the deaconesses were liable to the
dangers of spiritual brotherhoods, the immediately preceding
one (29) of the 123d Novel, " 7V> clerici mulieres siibintro-
ductas in propriis doniibtcs habeant^ episcopi vero mdlas,''^
affords additional proof that the two classes of women were
generically distinct, though both characters might meet in one.

58 The Greek Deaconess

tune is to be divided between her and them per
capita^ and the convent is to receive her share, on
the terms of maintaining and looking after her;
but if she have no children, all her property is to
be divided equally between the convent to which
she is sent, and the church in which she formerly
held office.

Another chapter (37) exhibits a remarkable in-
stance of the way in which the ascetic spirit was
overriding the old civil law. It provides, that
where property shall have been left to a man or a
woman on condition of marriage, and such person
shall enter a monastery, or join the clergy, if a
man, or if a woman, become a deaconess, or an
ascete, the condition is to be void, and the clergy-
men or deaconesses of the Church are to enjoy
the property, on condition of spending or leaving
it to pious uses. Another chapter (43) somewhat
increases the stringency of a previous law as to in-
fractions of chastity by or against deaconesses or
other consecrated women.

At this period, therefore (first half of the sixth
century), the office of deaconess in the Eastern
Church has become purely sacerdotal, forming a
sort of connecting link between tl:e secular and
the regular clergy. The honour of the office has
not departed. There is not, even at this late
period of which we are treating, the smallest trace

ill the Sixth Century. 59

in the authorities of a generic difference between
the ordination of the deaconess and that of the
other members of the clergy, the word ordination
(see for instance Nov. 6) being strictly rendered in
the Greek version by the technical one of yjio^okcia^
laying on of hands. The same terms of "most
reverend" and "venerable" are applied to deacon-
esses, as to the bishops and other clergy (see
Novs. 3, 6); the rules respecting them are com-
prised in the same ordinances of the civil power
(Cod., Bk. i., tits. 2, 3 ; Novs. 3, 6), and their rank
clearly fixed on a par with that of the deacons, and
before the sub-deacons and other inferior clergy
(Nov. 3); and they are the only class of females
who are thus ranked in the clergy, the virgins,
widows, nuns, being clearly not included with
them in this respect, although assimilated to them
in others. Their functions, as far as they are
spoken of, are those of "coming to the holy
ministry, ministering to the adorable ceremonies
of baptism, and assisting at the other mysteries,
which are lawfully celebrated by them in the
venerable ministrations" of the Church (Nov. 6).
On the other hand, the deaconess is included, in
the heading of one law (Nov. 123, c. 43), under
a name {sandimonialis) which in later days is
synonymous with " nun." So nearly does her con-
dition approach to that of actual monachism, that

6o Latest Notices of

the punishment, as we have seen, for the marriage
of a deaconess is death against both parties, the
legislator not being ashamed to quote as an au-
thority the Pagan one of the Vestal Virgins, —
though indeed the repeated provisions on this
head seem to shew that there was considerable
difficulty in enforcing these ascetic rules on the
deaconesses. There are now, moreover (see Cod.,
Bk. ii., tit. iii., c. 54), two classes of deaconesses,
those residing in convents or in asceteries (ths
"skeets" of contemporary Russia), and those
attached to churches, and living alone. The for-
mer must obviously have become almost identified
with the nuns among whom they lived ; the latter
alone could have answered in somewise still to the
old Church deaconess, " servant" of the Church.

From this period I am aware of but two or three
scattered notices as to the female diaconate in the
East. The Synod of Constantinople in Trullo,
691-2, again enacts (Can. 40) that forty shall be the
age for ordaining deaconesses, as twenty-five shall
be that for ordaining deacons. It still keeps up, in
the clearest manner, the distinction between the
deaconess and the widow, between the ordination
of the one and the selection of the other. After
referring to St Basil's canon as to virgins, whose
example, the fathers say, they have folloA\^d "as
to widows and deaconesses," they proceed : " For

the Greek Deaconesses, 6i

it is written in the divine apostle, that a widow is to
be chosen in the church at sixty years of age ; but
the holy canons have decreed that a deaconess is to
be ordained at forty years." The "Limon," or " Spi-
ritual Meadow" of John Moschus, (end of seventh
century), as quoted by Cotelerius, alludes to the
deaconess's office in reference to female baiDtism.
The monk Theophylact, of Gaza, who flourished
toward 1070, mentions the existence of an interpre-
tation of Titus ii. 3, which would apply it to the
women-deacons, but holds himself to the simpler
meaning of " aged women." *Balsamon, patriarch
of Antioch, writing towards the end of the twelfth
century, as quoted by Suicer, treats the office as
nearly extinct. No deaconesses, he says, are now
ordained, though some of the "ascetes" may be
improperly so termed. And the way in which he
speaks of them shews that the institution had be-
come lost and stifled in female monachism. "As
virgins," he writes, "they were received by the
Church, and guarded according to the command
of the bishop, as consecrated to God, except that
they wore the garb of the laity, . . . and at

* Michael Attaliotes, Theophylact's contemporary, men-
tions, just before Nicephorus Botoniates' advent to the throne,
the monstrous birth, at Constantinople, of a one-eyed, goat-
footed infant, which was exposed "in the public porch of
the Deaconesses," and cried (poor thing!) "like a child."
— See his histor}', in Corpus Script. Ilistor. Byzant.

62 The Female Diaconate

forty years old they received ordination as deacon-
esses, being found qualified in all respects." Mat-
thew Blastar, a Basilian monk, who in 1335 com-
pleted an alphabetical collection of constitutions
relating to the Church, writes finally as follows :
" What ministry the women-deacons then fulfilled
in the Church, scarcely any one now knows ; ex-
cept that some say that they ministered in the
baptizing of women " (quoted in note to Cotelerius,
vol. ii., p. 290). The same Matthew Blastar ap-
pears, however, to have preserved to us (I quote
from Moreri) the ceremonies used in the deacon-
ess's ordination. It was the same as that of the
deacon. She was presented to the bishop in front
of the sanctuary, her neck and shoulders covered
with a small cloak called " Marforium." After a
prayer, beginning with the words, "The grace of
God," she bent her head without bowing her
knees, and the bishop then laid his hands on her,
pronouncing the accustomed prayer. Among the
Jacobites, however, the institution seems to have
lingered till a still later period.* In modern Greek

* August! Derkwurdigkeiten — a not very trustworthy
authority. (See, however, now the preface to Dr Howson's
"Deaconesses," quoting Assemani, from whom it would ap-
pear that Jacobite deaconesses existed till the sixteenth cen-
tury,— i.c.^ till almost the period when, as will be seen here-
after, the institution was restored for a time by the Protestant
Churches of the Low Countries.)

in the Western C/iureh. 62,

parlance, I believe, the hoLxLuGm is simply the
deacon's wife.

§ 8. Latest Notices of the Female Diaconate in the
Western Church.

If we turn now back from the Eastern to the
Western Church, we cannot fail to be struck by
the almost total absence of all mention of the
female diaconate as a living institution, still more
of individual deaconesses, in the writings of the
Latin fathers. The passage of Origen before re-
ferred to, speaking of the ministry of women in
the church as necessary, has indeed come down to
us only in a Latin translation by Rufinus (fourth
century), without a word of comment to modify its
authority. But in the great Latin fathers of the
fourth and fifth centuries — Ambrose, 340-397 ; Je-
rome, 340-420 j Augustin, 354-436 — the contem-
poraries of Basil, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, scarce-
ly a word is to be found on the subject. That
the existence of the institution in the East at least
was familiar to them, we can have no doubt.
Thus, Epiphanius, in a letter to be found amongst
those of Jerome (60), and extant, I believe, only
in the Latin translation there given, writes to the
latter (probably as a " skit " against Chrysostom
and his devoted deaconess friends) : " Never have

64 The Pscndo-Jej^orne.

I ordained deaconesses, or sent them to other pro-
vinces, nor done aught to divide the Church."
These fathers, at least, indicate no confusion be-
tween the deaconess and the widows. Jerome
(see Letters 79, 123, &c.) treats frequently of
widows, without ever referring to any diaconal
function as exercised by them ; nay, with indica-
tions quite as clear as those of Chrysostom him-
self, of the position occupied by the widows of the
Church, as objects of charity merely (Letter 123 ;
Bk. 2, adv. Jovin., c. 14). "The widows spoken
of by St Paul," he says, " are those who are desti-
tute of all help from their own kindred, who are
incapable of labouring with their hands, weakened
with poverty, broken with age ; who have God for
their hope, and whose whole business is prayer."

But the confusion above spoken of breaks out
in a work, of the exact date of which I am not
aware, but which I should suppose to be of the fifth,
or at latest of the sixth century, the commentary
on the Pauline epistles falsely ascribed to Jerome.
The author (who is considered to have been a
Pelagian heretic) plainly admits the existence of a
contemporary female diaconate in the East, whilst
by implication treating it as obsolete in the West.
" As even now," he notes in reference to Rom.
xvi. I, "in the East women called deaconesses ap-
pear to minister in baptism, or in the ministry of

The Gmilish Synods, 65

the word, since we find women to have taught
privately, as Priscilla." Again upon i Tim. iii.,
II, which he understands correctly of the female
deacons : " He orders them to be chosen as the
(male) deacons. Whence we may understand
that he says it of those whom even noAv in the
East they call deaconesses," But he applies i
Tim. c. V. expressly to the selection of deaconesses
(" eligl diacoJiissas — ministerio diaconatiis'").

But a curious feature now presents itself on the
outskirts of the Latin church. The female diacon-
ate, confounded with Church widowship, suddenly
makes its appearance under its own name in the
decrees of Gaulish Councils of the fifth and sixth
centuries, but invariably to be denounced and pro-
hibited. The Synod of Orange, 441, exhibits the
first outbreak of Western aversion to the ofiice, by
absolutely forbidding (can. 26) the ordination of
deaconesses {diacojiissce om7iimodis non ordinandce,)
The Synod of Epaone, 517, interdicts wholly (can.
21) within its jurisdiction the consecration of
"widows who are called deaconesses" {vidnartnn
, . . qims diaconas vocitant); if they wish to be con-
verted, they are only to receive the penitential
blessing. The Synod of Orleans, 533, enacts the
excommunication of " any woman, who, having
received hitherto the blessing of the diaconate
against the interdicts of the canons, shall have

66 The Story of

married again" (can. 17); a text, indeed, which
shews that, in spite of previous prohibitions, the
practice of ordaining deaconesses still existed.

The explanation of this prominence in Gaul of
the female diaconate in the fifth century I take to
be this : Southern Gaul was always one of the
great battle-fields between Eastern and Western
feelings. Massilia-Marseilles was an old Greek
colony; the relations between "the Province"
and Greece, intimate in the days of Caesar, were
intimate still in the early days of the Christian
Church ; Irenasus, one of the earliest Greek
fathers, was Bishop of Lyons in the second cen-
tury. New relations were opened between the
two countries in the fifth century, through the
settlement in Provence of the Basilian monks, and
the foundation of the great monasteries of Southern
Gaul (St Faustin, founded 422). Now the fifth
century, as we have seen, was, in point of honour,
the golden age of the female diaconate in the
Eastern Church ; and it would be almost un-
accountable if, amidst the new tide of Greek in-
fluence brought in at this period into Southern
Gaul, the female diaconate, in its then half-monas-
tic state, should not have been sought to be re-
vived or re-introduced.

At any rate, it is about this period, and even
later than the last interdiction of the female diaco-

Si Radegund. 67

nate (544), that we meet with the most interesting
incident connected with it to be found in the
annals of the Western Church. It occurs in the
stor}' of St Radegund, a Thuringian princess, wife
of the Merovingian Chlothar I. of Neustria, form-
ing the fifth narrative * in that most dehghtful of
histories, most truthful of tale-books, Augustin
Thierry's " Narratives of Merovingian Times."
After a long period of domestic wretchedness by
the side of a brutal husband, and after seeing at last
her only surviving brother, a hostage at Chlothar's
court, put to death by his orders, the queen fled
to St Medard, bishop of Noyon.t As he was in
his church officiating at the altar, " ' Most holy
priest,' she cried, ^ I must leave the world, and
change my garments ; I entreat thee, most holy
priest, do thou consecrate me to the Lord.' The
bishop hesitated. He was called upon to dis-
solve a royal marriage, contracted according to
the Salic law, and in conformity with Germanic
customs, which the Church, while detesting them,
was yet constrained to tolerate. . . The Frankish
lords and warriors who had followed the queen
began to surround them, and to cry aloud, with
threatening gestures, ' Beware how thou givest the
veil to a woman who is married to the king ! priest,

* Drawn from Vcnantius Fortunatus.

t The St Swithin of France, as respects rain-givinrj.

68 Late Western Notices of

refrain from robbing the prince of his solemnly-
wedded queen!' The most furious among them,
throwing hands upon him, dragged him violently
from the altar-steps into the nave of the church,
whilst the queen, affrighted with the tumult, was
seeking with her women a refuge in the vestry.
But here, collecting herself, . . she threw a nun's
dress over her regal garments, and thus disguised,
proceeded towards the sanctuary where St
Medard was sitting. ... * If thou shouldst delay
consecrating me,' said she with a firm voice, ' and
shouldst fear men more than God, thou wilt have
to render thy account, and the Shepherd shall re-
quire of thee the soul of His sheep.' . . . He
ceased to hesitate, and of his own authority dis-
solved Radegund's marriage, by consecrating her
a deacon through the laying on of hands {mami
superposita consecravit diaco?iam). The Frankish
lords and vassals, carried away in their turn by
the same feelings, durst no more take forcibly
back to the royal residence one who in their
eyes bore from henceforth the twofold character
of a queen and of a woman consecrated to God's
service." She subsequently formed, as we shall
see hereafter, a sort of free convent, where the
pleasures of literary society, even with men, were
combined with devotional exercises and good
works. The above narrative points us to a start-

the Female Diaconate, 69

ling fact, which has no parallel in Eastern annals,
that ordination to the female diaconate in the
West was by this time considered equivalent to
divorce.

In spite of all prohibitions, indeed, the idea of
a female diaconate seems to have lingered nearly
as long, within a century or tsvo, in the West as
in the East According to Moreri (Art. " Diaco-
nisse"), the institution subsisted longer in Spain
than in Gaul. There seems, indeed, amidst the
confusions produced by the barbaric invasions, to
have gro^vn up beside it the utterly uncanonical
institution of female presbyters. Thus we find, in
the canons of the Council or Synod of Rome
(720 or 721), anathemas pronounced against who-
soever should marry a female presbyter {presby-
ieram), deaconess {diaco?ia??i), or "nun whom we
call servant of God" {inojiacham quam Dei aii-
cillam vocamtis), — the last expression seeming to in-
dicate that the true diaconal functions had by this
time passed away from the deaconess, still invested
with an honorific ofiice, into the hands of a certain
class of nuns. Again, the canons of the Cour.cil
of Worms, in the ninth century, repeat an earlier
canon against the re-marriage of deacones'^es. In
the Roman Ordinal, sent to Charlemagne by
Adrian I. (772-795), and other rituals in use
about the ninth century, will be found, it is said,

70 S^ Nihis and the Deaconess,

a service for the ordination of a deaconess. This
is especially to be remarked, as otherwise, in some
of the latest mentions of deaconesses, the word
might be taken to be used, as Bingham shews it
to have been by one Gaulish Council, in the
modern Greek sense of wife of a deacon.

The Augustinian monk. Christian Wolf, w^ho,
under the name of Lupus, published a Latin col-
lection of the decrees of councils, refers to the
Life of Leo III., by Anastasius, as shewing that
there were still deaconesses at Rome under that
Pope (795-816). Even in the tentli century they
seem to have subsisted in Southern Italy, probably
under Greek influence, since this part of Italy was
the one that remained longest subject to the By-
zantine emperors. Baronius, under the year 991,
but treating of an earlier period in the same cen-
tury, tells, from Leo Ostiarius, a story of a reproof
addressed by St Nilus to "a certain deaconess,
the head of a monastery " (of women), who came
to meet him with "her priest," a lusty young
cousin of hers, in the flower of his age, and the
convent virgins. "What!" exclaimed the saint,
"are ye ignorant that this is a man? and is he
ignorant that ye are women ?" The very next day,
says the legend, the scandalous relations in which
the deaconess and the priest were living were dis-
covered.

Extinction of the Office, 71

We may perhaps conclude from this tale — which
indeed fitly winds up the history — that the extinc-
tion of the ofiice in the West must have nearly
coincided with that great victory of the Romish
system in the eleventh century, when God's order
of the family was finally expelled from the minis-
try of His Church (Gregory VIL, 1073-1085).
Still, Richard, in his " Analyse des Conciles "
(vol. iii. p. 627, Art. "Diaconesses"), writing a few
years before the outbreak of the great French
Revolution, notices some vestiges of the ofiice
then yet subsisting, according to him, in France ;
and in Milan also similar traces of it were, at an
earlier period indeed, thought by Moreri to have
survived. I must say, however, that the facts
these authors mention, however curious, hardly
seem to connect themselves with any orthodox
tradition as to the functions of the deaconess.*

* The chief authorities with respect to the deaconesses of
the early Church will be found collected in Bingham's Anti-
quities, Bk. ii., c. xxii, ; Suicer, Thesaurus, Art. AiaKomcra-a
et 7/ Ata/coi'os ; Christian Lupus, Councils, vol. ii. ; Richard,
Analyse des Conciles ; Cabassutius, Notitia de Conciliis
S. Eccles. (a work to which I have not had access) ;
and in the Second Letter on *' Sisters of Charity," in the
Educatio7ial Magazine for 1 84 1. They are also summed
up in the Third Report of the Deaconesses' Institute of
Echallens, and in the "Appeal" on behalf of the deaconesses
of Paris, — in the latter with various misprints in the refer-
ences. The confusion between deaconesses and widows ap-
pears, however, to pervade them all. Lastly, Dr Howson'

7 2 Why the Female

§ 9. Cofichisiojt : Lessons of the Historical Femak

Diaconate.
There is surely a lesson for us in this history.
Of what the female diaconate did, we know little.
But knowing so httle, it is sufficiently wonderful
that we should find traces of its existence, both in
the East and West, for from nine to twelve cen-
turies—about two-thirds, in fact, of the Christian
era. This strange obscure persistency indicates,
either that it did far more work than is recorded of
it, and lived thereby, or that its title to existence
was in itself so unquestionable that even its own
impotency barely sufficed to extinguish it.

Why did it perish? Evidently through the
growth in the Church of the false ascetic principle,
and in particular of the practice of religious celi-
bacy,— to which, according to its original consti-
tution, it must have been a serious obstacle, — by
which it suffered itself to be overlaid. The scope
of the female diaconate in the primitive Church
was, as we have seen, to afford a full development
to female energies for religious purposes ; to asso-

work, referred to in my Preface, travels over much the same
ground as mine. I have a strong impression that the subject
is not exhausted, and that a closer investigation of Church-
records and Church-literature, during the six first centuries
at least, would add much to our knowledge, and clear many
of our doubts.

Dia collate died out. 73

date women, as far as possible, in rank and prac-
tice with men, while preserving to each sex its
distinct sphere of activity; to the one the supre-
macy of the head, to the other that of the heart ; to
the one power, to the other influence ; to the one
the office of public preaching, exhortation, relief,
to the other that of private exhortation, consola-
tion, helpfulness; yet each acting under the in-
spiration of that Holy Spirit who was invoked alike
over the head of deacon and deaconess at their
ordination. True in this was the Church to the
laws of man's being, as displayed progressively
throughout Holy Scripture, from Genesis to Reve-
lation. By a pre-ordained and eternal marriage,
man and woman must be one, in order to fulfil the
great destinies of humanity.* Genesis shews us
how it is not good for man to be alone, how
woman is made a helpmeet for him. The New
Testament discovers to us the deep spiritual ground
of this relation, by shewing us Christ as the Holy
Bridegroom of His hallowed Bride the Church.
History confirms the lesson from age to age, from
country to country, by shewing how, if you deprive
either sex of its free action, of its free influence

* The German language, in its greater richness, allows us
to express this through its very forms. It is man and woman
(Ma7nt ttud Weib) that make up the complete human bemg
{das Mcjisch).

74 The Vow of Celibacy

over the other, the result is national sterility ; the
man a savage, the woman a fool. Restore Eastern
women to their rights, and the whole Eastern
world will rise up new-born.

Now, there is one most subtle way of sterilising
that eternal wedding. It is, without wholly de-
basing either sex in the other's eyes, to teach them
to live apart, think apart, love apart, for the greater
glory of God and of themselves — as if they were
different species of one genus, the union of which
could produce nothing but hybrids. Where thus
marriage assumes in the eyes of the candidate for
superhuman sanctity the shape of a fleshly pollu-
tion,— where woman ceases to be man's earthly
helpmeet, — where, in violation of God's first ordin
ance, it has become good for man to live alone,
— the familiar mingling of the sexes in the active
ministrations of religion, unfettered and untram-
melled, is impossible. The deaconess should be
free as the deacon himself to leave her home at
any time for those ministrations ; she should be in
constant communication with her brethren of the
clergy. But place her under a vow of celibacy,
she dare no longer forget herself in the abundance
of her zeal ; her seeming self-sacrifice is really an
enthronement of self; her piety has a personal
object, most contrary to active charity; every
fellow-man becomes to her a tempter whom she

kills the Female Dzaconate. 75

must flee from ; an enemy when near, — if a brother
at all, a brother only when afar off, — to be loved,
when present, only when most unlovely or least
lawful to be loved, in age or loathsome sickness,
or when morally cut off from her by a like vow
with her own; by special permission, under jealous
restrictions, beneath the Damoclean sword of tre-
mendous penalties; but, above all, to be loved
when absent, impersonally, in the abstract, with
that vague humanitarian love so characteristic at
once of effete piety and effete irreligion. Hence
the high walls of the nunnery, in which eventually
we find the deaconess confined ; hence the vanish-
ing away of her office itself into monachism.*

The further working of this falsehood we shall
presently see. In the meanwhile, let us not
overlook the wide difference existing between the
Deaconesses' Institute of our days and what is
recorded of the early female diaconate. That was
essentially individual ; and the only analogy to it
lies in the " parish-deaconess," who goes forth from
Kaiserswerth, or elsewhere, to devote herself to a
particular congregation; although even she is far

* The monk Wolf (an honest and painstaking writer)
thus naively accounts for the extinction of the female dia-
conate : *' For the deaconess led an active life, of which it is
certain that women are incapable" {Ciijtts constat fccmmas
non esse ra paces).

76 The Female Diaconate.

from holding that position as a member of the
clergy {cleros) which is assigned to her by the re-
cords of Church history.

In the gap between the two lies the " sister-
hood" of later times. Let us now see how this
grew up.

CHAPTER II.

EARLY FEMALE MONACHISM AND THE BEGUINES,

§ I. CJmrch Virginship, a?id the Doctrine of the
Spiritual Marriage of the Individual with Christ.

TN endeavouring to sketch out the somewhat
dim history of the female diaconate in the
early Church,, I have shewn that it fell through
the introduction of a principle inconsistent with
its freedom and individuality, that of religious
cehbacy. Let us not attribute the introduction of
that principle to the Church of Rome as such. It
was in the institution of the Church-virgins that
it took its rise.

Now it is indeed clear, as Bingham observes,
and as a passage from Cyprian especially shews,*
that long after the idea of professed virginity had
* Ep. Ixii. ad Pompon, de Virg.

78 The Fa fliers Eulogies

rooted itself in men's minds, yet the marriage of a
Church-virgin, with whatever disdivour it might be
looked upon, was yet vaHd in itself. And it was
the State, and not the Churcli, which, if I mistake
not, first gave the example of the severe measures
against the marriage of professed virgins, wliicli be-
came aftenvards the law of Romish monacliism.

Neverllieless, I am bound to say that the institu-
tion of Church-virginship appears to me to have
borne, in what many would call the early Church, —
in the fourth and fifth centuries for example, — quite
as flilse a character as the later one of Romish
female monachism, without even producing those
fruits which the adoption into the latter of the prin-
ciple of sisterhoods afterwards realised. Eveiy-
where the exceptional condition of the virgin is
made a character of special excellence; everywhere
the false centre of human self-will is set up by the
early Fathers, unconsciously to themselves, wliilst
recommending an act of peculiar self-renounce-
ment. They carefully disclaim speaking in dispar-
agement of maiTiage; frequently warn the virgin
not to boast herself against the wife; yet at the
same time they openly tell her how much holier is
her condition, urge her vehemently to persevere in
it, reprove her passionately if she decline from it,
declare virginity to be the choicest ornament, the
chief glory of the Church. Athanasius for instance.

on Vivyhiity. 79

^ihe great Protestant saint, as he has been called,
— in his Apology to the ?>mperor Constance, says
of the virgins : " Whom therefore, when the Greeks
see, they marvel at them, as being the temple of the
Lord For with no one truly is this reverend and
heavenly doctrine practised, save with us Christians
only. For this above all is a great sign, that with
us is real and true piety." When, indeed, the sub-
ject falls into the hands of rough fanatics like
Jerome, or coarse declaimers like Tertullian, their
foul utterances in urging to peculiar sanctity are,
I suppose, hardly to be exceeded in the pages of
Peter Dens.

Now what was the pivot of these exhortations ?
A doctrine, as I verily believe, only second, in
unscriptural falsehood, in social danger, to Mari-
olatry itself, — that of the marriage of the individual
soul with Christ The New Testament knows hvX
of one Bride, the Church, — of but one marriage
to the Bridegroom, the wedding of the Lamb,'^ —
in respect of which every individual member of
the Church, considered apart from the body to
which he belongs, is but one of those " friends of

* I say this, not forgetting Rom. vii. 4, where the breadth
of the original, *' that ye should belong to another" (yiveaOai
(Hp({)) ha.s been narrowed by our translators into "that ye
should be married to another." Sec further on this point,
Appendix C.

8o The Sotu's Marriage,

the Bridegroom" (John iii. 29), — those "children
of the bridechamber " (Matt. ix. 15 ; Luke v. 34),
who stand by, and hear, and rejoice to hear the
Bridegroom's voice, — who have a right, with St
Paul, to be jealous over the Bride "with a godly-
jealousy," knowing that she is espoused as a
chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor. xi. 2); or, in a
lower type, one of those guests of the wedding
(Matt, xxii.), gathered in from highways and by-
ways, and who may be cast out for want of a wed-
ding garment; one of those virgins (Matt, xxv.),
wise or foolish, who have to wait the Bridegroom's
coming. When once we feel that Christ belongs
really to His Church, and to His Church only, we
feel also as a usurpation, as a robbery, no less than
as an impossible absurdity, the craving to have
Him each for ourself alone. Can we fancy a living
head, joined to an ann or a leg only? Or do we
think that the highest type of bodily form is that
of a star-fish, with every limb branching out from
that miserable remnant of what is a head in higher
creatures, a something made up of mouth and
belly 1 But if we feel that we are really members
of one another, — that it is through the Church and
in the Church that we are joined unto Christ, — we
shall feel also that there is no real remoteness from
Him in that union, — nay, that we are far more
truly His, and can fulfil His will far more perfectly

The Body and the Members. 8 1

by means of it, than by any individual and exclu-
sive bond. If we look at this body of ours, the
fearfully and wonderfully made, which our Lord
and His apostles have consecrated as the earthly
type of His Church, we shall see that the most
distant joints are as really united to the head as
the nearest, fulfil its behests as instantaneously —
nay, are chosen as the special instruments of its
will in touch and motion, far above those nearest ;
while all work together, none hindering, all help-
ing one another. We have but to will it, and our
finger moves without our being aware, in the slight-
est degree (whilst the body is healthy), of the trans-
mission of the tide-wave of nervous energy from
the brain to the extremity of the hand ; so perfect
is the harmony of that marvellous fellowship. But
let disease once mvade that fellowship, and then
may indeed begin the day of individual action for
the members, of individual union with the head.
The finger may move at the head's bidding, and so
inflict agony on the whole inflamed arm, or flash
back a pang to the fevered head itself; one finger
may move alone, and all its fellows drop powerless.
Even so, I believe, is it with the Church, when
its members are seeking individual fellowship only
with its Head, — when the virgins waiting for the
Bridegroom wait for their own sakes, and dream
each of taking her place as bride at the marriage-

F

82 The Virgin treated

feast, — when by one little subtle change of a single
word in a blessed utterance of deepest truth, it is
no longer " the Spirit and the Bride," but " the
Spirit and the Bridegroom," who say — Come !
The individual members may yet move in glad
obedience to the Head ; this faithful soul or that
may yet present a pattern of Christian piety and
love ; but hundreds will wither around in palsy ;
the holiness of the one will be the agony of the
many.

This idolatrous worship of Christ as an indivi-
dual Bridegroom, as it is more subtle and abiding
than Mariolatry itself, so it is also more ancient.
Indeed I look upon Mariolatry as having been
rather its outgrowth and necessary complement
than anything else. For, after all, the idea of the
marriage of the individual with Christ is one which
the ineradicable instincts of sex will prevent from
ever being popular with men ; which, when taken
in by them, will be found in general to stamp their
character with a strange effeminacy ; which adapts
itself especially to the nature of women. When
once the feeling had crept in, that earthly mar-
riage was not a sufficient emblem of the Lamb's
wedding, that there was to be a spiritual marriage
apart from it, the worship of a glorified female
nature became for men a natural counterpart to
the worship of a glorified male nature by women ;

as the Spouse of Christ. Zt^

perhaps a refuge from something unhealthier, un-
hoHer even than itself.

Now we cannot open those pages of the Fathers
which treat of virginity, without finding them in-
sisting above all on the consideration, that the
virgin is the spouse of Christ.* How attractively
was this view presented, to youthful and enthu-
siastic minds, by writers like Chrysostom ! Who
can read without a momentary fascination passages
like the following, taken from his description of
one who is " a virgin indeed " — " For when she
walks, it is as through a wilderness ; if she sits in
the church, it is in the deepest silence ; her eye sees
none of those present, women nor men, but the
Bridegroom only, as present and appearing. When
she enters again her home, she has conversed with
Him in her prayers, she has heard His voice alone
through the Scriptures. And when she is in her
house, let her think on the longed-for One alone,
let her be a stranger, a sojourner, a wayfarer, let
her do all as becometh one strange to all things
here below "H

The first falsehood had, been told, on which a
whole edifice of falsehood was to be built up.
The vow of virginity came thus to be considered

* See, for instance, Basil, Epist. cxcix., can. 2 ; Cypr,,
Epist Ixii. ad Pomp., &c., &c.

t Montf. Chrys. " Quod regulares foeminae viris cohabitare
nondebeant," c. 7.

84 The Vow of Celibacy,

as answering precisely to the vow of marriage ;
espousing the woman to Christ, as to a spiritual
husband ; bearing the same consequences, to be
guarded by the same penalties, as the human
marriage-tie. A remarkable passage of St Basil*
shews that it was with the female sex that this
practice of vowing perpetual celibacy took its
origin : " She is called a virgin," he says, " who
hath willingly offered herself to the Lord, and re-
nounced marriage, and preferred a life of sanctifi-
cation. . . . One who is above sixteen or seven-
teen years old, being mistress of her thoughts,
when she shall have been examined, and found
steadfast, and shall have besought for admission
with supplications, is then to be inscribed on the
list of virgins, and her profession is to be held
good." And after blaming the bringing of young
girls to make profession by parents, brothers, and
relatives, before the required age, and against
their will, he goes on to say : " As to professions
by men, we know nothing of them, except that if
any have joined themselves to the monastic order,
they appear, without wojrd spoken, to have thereby
adopted celibacy." t It is certain, however, that
long after Basil's time a monk's marriage was held
valid.

* 2d Canon. Epist., can. i8.
+ Ibid, can. 19.

Early Female Monachism, 85

§ 2. Early Female Monachism as Compared with
C liter ch Virgins hip.

Female monachism, therefore, not only must
not be confounded with the institution of the
Church-virgins, but was rather a reaction against
it. The ''perpetual virgins" almost lose them-
selves in antiquity ; female monachism is not by
its eulogists traced farther back than Syncletica,
contemporary with the Eg}^ptian hermits of the
third or fourth century, if not indeed herself an
allegorical personage.* Whilst the Church-virgin
belonged to a particular congregation, and was
dependent upon the Church for support, monks
on the contrary (I am speaking of both sexes) be-
longed to no particular church. They were essen-
tially dwellers in the wilderness, men or women
who fled wholly from the world to solitude ; as is
shewn in the saying of one of the early hermits,
that " the wilderness was as natural to a monk, as
water to a fish." Thus, even when recognised as
a part of the Church system, monachism lay at first
as it were only on its outskirts ; and in the com-
plete renouncement of the world which it em-
bodied, celibacy, as the passage from St Basil
shews, was a mere detail, implied rather than ex-
pressed in the embracing of the monastic life.
« c^„ Baillet, Vies des Saints, vol. ii., 5th January.

86 TJie Worth of

Hence, in the enumeration of the different kinds
of vows by St Augustin, the absence of all con-
nexion between the vow of virginity, and the
vow " to leave all one's goods for distribution to
the poor, and to go into community of life, into
the society of saints," by which clearly the monas-
tic life is meant.*

I must say of early monachism, that whatever
may have been its extravagancies, there was never-
theless throughout it a spirit of most real, unmis-
takable Christian piety, more alien than can be
conceived, before it is examined, from the un-
healthy sentimentalism, the calculating and often
dishonest policy of later Romish times. I believe
that in monachism, more than anywhere else, the
Church found the thews that thrcAv the world of
Northern barbarism. The wild self-sacrificing
energy, the dare -man, dare -brute, dare-devil
strength of an Anthony or a Syncletica, going forth
to live alone amidst the tombs, — not to consort
with evil spirits and obscene creatures, like the
possessed of old, but to baffle and subdue them,
and make a mock of them through the cross of
Christ, — was surely just the kind of religious heroism
which would act most powerfully on those rude
Northern minds, by the exhibition of a divine Ber-
serk fury, as it would seem to some of them, in-
* Aug , Enarr. in Ps. Ixxv. c. 26.

Early Mo7iachism. 87

finitely nobler than their own. And I have no
doubt tliat this influence very soon made itself
felt Chrysostom is contemporary with the great
Gothic conqueror Alaric : the one sacks Rome ;
the other is found writing a religious letter (ccvii.)
to certain " Gothic monks."

But early monachism — the monachism of the
wilderness and of the tombs — was above all the
monachism of men; and you will find a dozen
Pauls, and Anthonys, and Pambos, for one Syncle-
tica. Monachism was no eleemosynary institution
at this time. The thousand monks of Serapion
used to go out reaping in harvest-time for hire,
and, after storing up enough for themselves out of
the wheat which they received for pay, to give the
rest freely to other monks who might be in need
of it.* Women could not, in any number, face
such labours, such a life. But whilst female
monachism is at first completely overshadowed
by male, we can discern in it already that minis-
tering character which is its redeeming feature in
all ages, whenever it can be brought out; the
need of manual . labour being, nevertheless, as
fully recognised for the nun as for the monk. I
have already said that in the African Church the
" sanctimonial virgin" — i.e., nun — is found towards
the close of the fourth century fulfilling many of
* Soz., bk. vi. c. xxviii.

88 Jerome and AiLgttstin

the functions of the deaconess. Jerome, in one of
his letters (io8) to Eustochium, — a poor girl who
figures frequently in his correspondence, and is the
object of some of his most notable outpourings of
holy filth, — speaks of a convent founded by Paula,
her mother, which was divided into three bodies,
each with a "mother" at the head, though all
wore one dress, and in which the inmates worked
to make clothes for themselves or others. Chry-
sostom* speaks of the young girls, not yet twenty
years of age, and richly brought up, who had taken
to a monastic life ; how they worked far harder
than maid-servants, receiving the sick to be
tended, carrying beds, washing others' feet, and
even cooking. Augustin, in his book "On the
Manners of the Church" (bk. i., c. 68), says of
the " sanctimonial" women ("nuns" we may in-
deed call them already, since the word " nonna "
occurs in Jerome), that they " exercise and main-
tain the body by cloth-weaving, and hand over the
garments themselves to the brethren, receiving in
turn from them their necessary maintenance."
This passage points, I may observe, to a practice
of which traces occur again and again, and which
bears involuntary homage to the true relation be-
tween the sexes, — though carrying with it the most
awful temptations, — the establishment of monas-
♦ Chrys. in Epist. ad Eph., c. iv., Iiom. xiii.

on the Early Nuns, 89

teries for women in close proximity to, and con-
nexion with, monasteries for men. Again, he says
of the monastic communities : " Many widows and
maidens, dwelling together, and seeking a living
by the weaving of wool and thread, have at their
head the most reverend and well-approved among
them; women able and ready, not only to form
and regulate the conduct of others, but also to
instruct their minds " (c. 70). Lastly, in his cele-
brated letter to the nuns {ad sa?icti?noniaks), — the
most abundant source of information as to the
condition of early female monachism, — the neces-
sity of manual labour is incidentally pointed out
in the words that "in the monastery, as far as
possible, the rich become laborious." His chief in-
junctions are, however, to concord, the renounce-
ment of private property, and submission to the
apportionment of food and clothing by the supe-
rior {pj'ceposiia), who seems to have had a presby-
ter over her, like the director of a Romish con-
vent*

Thus, whilst one at least of the Fathers (Basil,
in his book on Virginity) would exclude the
younger virgins from all services of active charity,

* The term prctposiia occurs in the story of the tenth cen-
tury quoted from Baronius, as appHed to the deaconess, the
head of a nunnery, who forgot herself with her {suo) presby-
ter. Both names and organisation appear thus to have re
mained the same since Augustin's time.

90 Church- Virginship inferior

for fear of the temptations of the flesh, — female
monachism was at first active, self-devoted. It
had, moreover, a further superiority over Church-
virginship, in its social character. Not that this
can have been wholly absent from the latter. The
celibate girls attached to particular churches, and
maintained in a special building, would scarcely
fail to become, in some way or other, a com-
munity,— forming, in fact, the often-spoken-of
" choir of the perpetual virgins." Those who were
not so attached or maintained would find spiritual
help, and material comfort and economy, in living
together, and are indeed expressly recommended
to do so by a religious writer of the time.* Female
monachism, however, was social from the be-
ginning. Syncletica, the earliest female hermit,
was followed into the desert by other women, who
sought to strengthen themselves by her counsel and
example. So surely, under God's good providence,
does brotherhood hunt out monachism into its
wildest dens, and correct by social influences some
at least of its evils and excesses ! For strange it
is, but true, that whilst by its title {monac/ws,
jHonac/ia, solitary) monachism seems the breaking-
up of the social principle, no set of men or women
in the world have ever been so contagiously gre-

* The author of the treatise on Virginity, ascribed to
Athanasius.

to Kemale Monachism, 9 1

garious as these solitaries. The divine wisdom of
the words, " It is not good for man to be alone,"
cannot be more strongly shewn than by the fact,
that no hermit in the Christian Church ever at-
tained to peculiar sanctity without drawing others
round him. In the deserts of Egypt, or amid the
perpetual snows of the Alps, everywhere we find
these flocks of solitaries, practically proving how
much mightier in man is the social principle than
the separating one, and under what difficulties
men will still endeavour to realise that idea of
brotherhood which is perpetually haunting them.
Accordingly, the greater Fathers, such as Basil
and Jerome (who had himself been a hermit),
soon declared themselves opposed to solitary
monachism'" (for the pleonasm becomes indispens-
able). Thus monachism, which, I repeat it, seems
the breaking-up of the social principle, in fact soon
becomes one of the strongholds of that principle,
and carries it at once to its extremest conse-
quences, by proclaiming all things common among
the brethren. For monks and nuns of all ages
have been, as we ought all to know, sad com-
munists, and the rights of private property have
been most audaciously denied Avithin almost every
convent door. From the earliest period, nothing

* See, amongst other things, Hieron. Epist. cxxv. ad Rus-
ticum.

92 The Social Principle

is more invariable than the renouncement of all
private wealth by the monks of either sex, — those
of the Egyptian laurce, for instance, even when
they did not dwell in a single building, but in an
agglomeration of separate cells. Not a trace of.
this feeling, so far as I am aware, is perceptible
in the notices which have been preserved to us of
the Church-virgins, although I have endeavoured
to shew how naturally they would become com-
munities, and although it appears to me very
likely that such was the origin of many of the
Greek convents of later ages.

And thus all tends to shew that the idea of spe-
cial brotherhoods and sisterhoods grew in a mar-
vellous way — by a divine contradiction — out of
the solitude of monachism. To confine ourselves
to the special subject before us,^the Church-virgins
sang together, walked together in procession, sat to-
gether in the church. The nuns might do all this,
but, instead of being governed by the presbyter or
bishop, they were governed by one of themselves ;
instead of being maintained by the Church, they
maintained themselves ; instead of being paupers,
they had all things in common. Who can fail to
see that the one institution had a bond of union,
a living principle, which the other wanted, forced
as it was to rely on the individual condition of its
members, as professing virginity?

the Mainstay of Monachism, 93

§ 3. The Social Principle, the Mainstay of
Monachism.

The social principle, embodied in the effort to
reahse a brotherhood or sisterhood, is therefore the
mainstay of monachism in either sex, and the ques-
tion must not be thrust aside, — How far is the
attempt a lawful one? Christ has told us, "Ye
are all brethren ;" how then can any number of
men or women say among themselves. We are
brothers, — We are sisters, — and define the condi-
tions of admission to such brotherhood or sister-
hood, as if it depended on them to fix them?
Must there not at all times be something unnatural,
artificial, meretricious, false, in any such system?
There must indeed, if the aim of the community
be to make a brotherhood, and not to manifest
one. But if it be clearly felt that the whole human
race is called in Christ to the adoption of sons, so
that no outer and visible brotherhood can ever be
but a type and shadow, a partial recognition and
embodiment of that brotherhood which is spiritual
and universal; — if the few who call themselves
brothers or sisters do so in no spirit of exclusion
towards the many, but simply in order to shew the
many, by palpable marks and signs, the reality of
that large family of which they are all called to be
members, and to glorify the better the name of

94 The Vow of Celibacy

that Elder Brother who hath sealed the covenant
of adoption with His blood, — then, I for one be-
lieve that such brotherhoods and sisterhoods may
be used to strengthen and develop, instead of con-
travening, the universal brotherhood of the Church,
to afford constantly a living witness for its truth.
But they will bear that witness, just in proportion
as they do not seek their perfection in themselves,
but out of themselves ; as, instead of raising walls
of adamant between the brothers and sisters on
the one hand, and the great world without on the
other, they on the contrary devote the whole
strength of their united efforts continually towards
promoting the regeneration of that outer world,
through all works of self-sacrifice and of love. The
more secluded the cloister, the falser the brother-
hood; the freer it is, the more perfect are its
labours. And therefore the vow of celibacy,
especially in the female sex, is most contrary to
the healthy efficacy of the brotherly principle.

Corrupted by this falsehood, the history of
female monachism becomes indeed, in gi-eat mea-
sure, the history of female idleness, of female
sterihty and uselessness, of the utter frustration
through man's self-will of all God's gracious pur-
poses with reference to one -half of the human
race. But it is not wholly such a history. By the
aid of the social and brotherly principle, it has

mid the Sisterhood, 95

rendered, and renders still, in spite of all perpetual
vows, and galling observances, and doctrines
which are but the traditions of men, many signal
services to the Church. In other words, I believe
that whatever good has been done, or has seemed
to be done by female monachism, it is sisterhood
tliat has done it, not monachism itself

For, whilst the vow of celibacy must kill well-
nigh altogether the freedom and usefulness of the
ordained diaconate of the individual woman, it is
obvious that it could yet consist with a large develop-
ment in various directions of what I may call the
natural diaconal functions of women, as soon as
these were gathered together in communities.
Over such, a surveillance could be exercised, both
from without and from within, — the latter the more
jealous of the two, — and by the creation of a little
holy inner world, joined only perhaps to the great
outer wicked one by a single grated door, it be-
came possible for the caged saints to serve that
great wicked world without receiving much pollu-
tion from it. Such is one whole side of the sad
story of female monachism, — a great yearlong, life-
long, agelong struggle of the loving female heart
to be as useful as it can, without endangering that
awful vow. And I think it will be found that, pre-
cisely in proportion as that vow is slackened or
deferred, so does the work of women, even in the

96 The Collective Female Diaconate.

Romish Church, become freer, wholesomer, more
perfect in every way.

Female monachism therefore, under that aspect
of its nature in which it develops itself as a collective
fejnale diaconate, becomes now the subject of our
investigation. But its growth is so essentially con-
nected with that of male monachism, that a short
sketch of the progress of the latter becomes indis-
pensable towards the due comprehension of its
history. Before proceeding to trace such a sketch,
I may, however, observ^e that, by the date of Jus-
tinian's Code in the sixth century, Church-virginship
seems for all practical purposes to have melted
into female monachism, — the virgin, to whose de-
signation the epithet sanctimonialis seems joined or
not indifferently, the widow, and the deaconess,
being now the only three classes of women dis-
tinctly spoken of in connexion with the Church, or
as dedicated to God, instead of the four which
were known a century previously.*

§ 4. Sketch of the History of Monachism till the
Eleve?ith Century. \

Monachism, as it first grew up in the so-called

♦ See, for instance, Code, bk. i., tit. iii., 1. 54 (a.d. 533).
See also Appendix D.

t See, for many of the views set forth in this chapter, Gui-
zot's "History of Civilisation in France."

The Rule of St Basil. 97

Eg}-ptian Laura^ was literally a collective hermit-
hood — the first solitary being followed into the
wilderness by others, who built their cells around
his own, seeking to follow the example of his
sanctity, and to govern their devotions by his
teaching. There was no written rule. Obedience
there was, and of the strictest, but obedience to a
man, to the most worthy. It was the age, so to
speak, of monastic hero-worship, when all the
histoiy of the institution was concentrated in that
of the ruling saint of the day. The only point
which made monachism a system as yet, was the
simple fact of the building up of many cells in one
place. Where men had lived, worked, prayed,
fought beasts and devils for long years under the
government of one holy man, there it was natural
that they should still remain, and at his death seek
out the next holiest to fill his place.

The first step onwards in the system was the
creation of the Rule. The earliest rule is that
bearing the name of St Basil — remodelled indeed,
as we now have it, but which appears to have ex-
isted, in some shape or other, in the latter half of
the fourth century. A very different rule, indeed,
from the later ones ; proceeding by question and
answer, and thereby less a rule than a catechism,
less a law than an instruction ; but acknowledged
by the Romish Church as one of the four great

98 The Early

rules, and followed to this day, probably the most
extensively of any, — throughout the whole Eastern
world in particular, from Russia to Abyssinia.
From the hour when it was given, the personal
character of the abbot of the day was no longer
all ; there was a written standard by which he
and every member could be judged ; there was a
monachism independent of any individual monks.

The next step taken in the West was the estab-
lishment of the monastery or convent. I do not
mean to say that the practice of dwelling under a
common roof, instead of in separate hermitages,
never obtained in the East before the Basilian rule
went forth into Gaul. But whilst in the East
monachism grew up of itself, it was transplanted
thence full-grown into the West, together with the
rule, and appears at once there under its conven-
tual form. We do not hear first of particular her-
mits, but of the monastery itself, — and this not
in the savage wilderness, but sometimes in cities,
sometimes near them, or if far, in spots of agree-
able resort, such as Lerins in the Hyeres islands.
Thus, whilst in the East men first became monks
for the sake of solitude, they became such in the
West for the sake of society. And while silence
was a noted characteristic of the early Egyptian
monks, — so that it was said of it as of the wilder-
ness itself, that a monk lived in silence as a fish in

Western Convents. 99

water, — the early monasteries of Gaul (except, in-
deed, the two first, founded by St Martin on the
banks of the Loire) became the great centres of
intellectual activity in the religious world during
the fifth and sixth centuries, or as Guizot calls
them, " the philosophical schools of Christianity."*
Hence a new work for conventual monachism,
which will occupy it, say, till the thirteenth century;
the preserv'ation and communication of knowledge.
So long as there is still some security for property
and person, some exchange of thought, the monas-
tery will be a school of learning, and such we see
it to be both in the East and West during the
fifth century. When the barbarians are everywhere
abroad, and the ways are no longer safe, and there
is much ado to provide food and shelter for the
inmates, the monastery becomes a mere deposi-
tory for such books and such knowledge as may
chance to be stored up within it, with perhaps some
poor chronicler (like Fredegarius) writing within it
the sad tale of his own times in consciously bar-
baric language, and complaining sorrowfully that
the lamp of knowledge has gone out.

* Not, indeed, that theological discussion and intellectual
activity appear by any means to have been foreign to early
Eastern monachism, — the Egyptian monks, for instance,
being noted as specially addicted to the Origenic heresies.
But in the East monachism became controversial ; in the
West, amidst the society of the convent, it began by being so.

lOO The Rule of

Perhaps, indeed, the early intellectual develop-
ment of Western monachism was in part premature
and factitious. At all events, the next great step
in its history was taken only after it had sought
renovation at its fountain-head of collective her-
mithood. The rule of St Basil having been felt to
be unsuited in many respects to Western habits
and to a Western climate, and, indeed, too austere,
various alterations were made in it by different
founders of monasteries, so that a great variety of
particular rules appear to have grown up in the
West, in the course of the fifth and beginning of
the sixth century. These all were, however, gra-
dually swallowed up in the first great rule indi-
genous to the West, that of St Benedict, the her-
mit of Subiaco. Given in 528, by 543 it had
spread throughout a large portion of Europe; it
had been carried to Sicily, to Spain, to Northern
France. By the end of the sixth century most
monasteries had adopted it. By the ninth, Char-
lemagne had to inquire whether any other were
anywhere followed.

The Benedictine rule may be considered as the
real starting-point of Western monachism as an or-
ganised system. It had produced hitherto clever
disputants, orthodox or heterodox, — Faustus, Hono-
ratus, Cassian, and the like. It now sent forth
great missionaries, such as Austin and Boniface.

St Benedict. lor

Issued between the age of the Gothic and Prank-
ish invasions and that of the Lombards, — soon to
be followed (seventh to tenth century) by Arabs,
Hungarians, and Northmen, — the Benedictine rule
founded wathin its convents a discipline so strong
and stern, as to brace men against almost every
calamity. Not only is it characterised by the joint
obligation of manual labour and learning, but it
substitutes, for the mere Basilian " profession," the
three solemn vows of chastity, poverty, and obedi-
ence. It was now that the word " religion," as
Guizot observes, began to be applied peculiarly to
monachism, so that " to enter into religion" meant
henceforth to take the monastic vows, and monks
and nuns became emphatically " the religious " in
Christendom.

In the first half of the seventh century a new
change takes place, by the progressive incorpora-
tion of the monastic class into the clergy. For
the first few centuries, the monks had been con-
sidered as mere laymen. But as the system de-
veloped itself, a struggle commenced as to whether
monasteries, both of men and women, should not
be subject to episcopal jurisdiction ; which was now
decreed by councils, that of Aries, for instance, in
554, a few years after Benedict's death. At first
the investing the monks with the clerical character
acted as a restriction of their freedom; and Guizot

I02 The Monks and the Clergy.

notes the beginning of the eighth century as a period
of episcopal tyranny over the monasteries, which
had (supported often by kings and popes) to wring
charters from their bishops, as commimes and
boroughs had, a few centuries later, to wring them
from their feudal lords. But the change sprang
from the strength of monachism, not from its weak-
ness. The time had come when the number of its
followers, the endowments of its monasteries, the
reverence of the people for its sanctity, the real
services rendered by it as the great educator of the
age, made it wholly unsafe to leave it out of the
clerical pale. Hoav soon, when once introduced,
it leavened the whole ecclesiastical body, may be
judged from the establishment* of the cathedral
system, by which the canons or cathedral clergy
were subjected to an actual rule, to a common
discipline, and compelled to dwell and take their
meals together, though retaining the use of pri-
vate property. A like advance in power, shew-
ing through a seeming curtailment of freedom, is
visible at the beginning of the ninth century, in
the establishment of monachism as a civil institu-
tion. These are the days of Charlemagne, or the
early ones of his son Louis, when the union of
Church and State is complete, and the latter, strong,

* By Chrodegand, bishop of Metz, a.D. 760, in the first
instance.

The Order Founded. 103

enjoying the best earned title to Church sup-
port, exercises in turn over the Church a wiUingly-
accepted control. Imperial capitularies now treat
of monachism, as decrees of councils did erewhile ;
imperial commissioners {inissi doviinict) are required
to receive complaints against bishops, abbots, ab-
besses ; to examine whether in monasteries of
men or women the religious live according to rule.
The rule of the canons and canonesses is embodied
in one capitulary (816); the first great reform of
Benedictine monachism, by Benedict of Aniane,
in another.

One other step, however, needs to be taken
before the monastic system, as such, is complete.
Celibacy — the Convent — the Rule — the Solemn
Vows — the assumption of the Clerical character —
State recognition — such has been the progress of its
development hitherto. The Order remains yet to
be founded. Although the rule of St Benedict may
have been universally adopted in the West, as that
of St Basil in the East, yet monastery has yet no
definite relation with monastery ; monks and nuns,
out of their respective seats of discipline, form but
a class, not an organised body. But in the begin-
ning of the tenth century the reforms of Abbot Odo
of Cluny (926-942), in his own monastery and
others, are crowned by the uniting of all the re-
formed bodies, under papal authorisation, into one

I04 Clerical Celibacy.

congregation. There is henceforth a Benedictine
Order, as well as a Benedictine Rule. Monachism
thus assumes the catholicity of the Church itself;
nor is one surprised to find it, by the end of the
tenth century, endeavouring on all sides to shake
oft" episcopal jurisdiction, and to place itself in
immediate spiritual dependence on the Pope.

Complete henceforth in itself, monachism has to
achieve its last triumph ; it has to transform the
whole clergy into its own image. The monk Hil-
debrand. Pope Gregory VII., consummates that
victory, by enforcing the celibacy of the so-called
secular clergy itself Plenceforth we can only un-
derstand the Romish Church by viewing its clergy
as a great monastic order, with the Pope for gene-
ral. What other term could the early Church have
used to designate their priests and deacons, vowed
to estrangement from all family ties but that of
iiova-xol — monks or solitaries? Monachism might
seem conquered when the monks entered the ranks
of the clergy, submitted to episcopal jurisdiction.
Look at the Church three centuries later, — none but
monks really remain in these ranks. The false
centre has been fully set up; tlie exceptional con-
dition has been made the rule; Christendom has
organised its Pharisees; the priest, to be priest,
must differ from other men.

Observe, however, once more how the social

Developmen t of MonacJi ism . 105

principle has conquered the individual, in the
bosom of monachism itself; how each successive
triumph of the latter over the world without has
only been achieved by the strength, not of separa-
tion and individualism, but of union and brother-
hood. A man fled to the wilderness for soHtude.
Others follow his example, and the cells cluster
together, and abbots are chosen, to whom obedi-
ence is to be paid. But separately-built dwellings
are felt to interfere with the brotherhood of the
monastic community ; the great monasteries of the
West rise up to embody a social pui*pose, and
Western monks learn from the first to live under
the same roof. Again, where obedience is paid
only to a man, the tie of brotherhood seems to be
dissolved with the death of every abbot; the rule
is given, and the monastic community acquires a
life of its own ; allegiance is due to the law, not to
the man. Then a claim is put forth on behalf of
the community over the whole man, who must be
bound down by solemn vows, — to chastity, which
prevents his ever issuing forth from the monastic
brotherhood into a wider one, — to poverty, which
makes all the brethren equal by the world's great
standard of wealth, — to obedience, by which at
least a mockery of family life can always be realised.
Lastly, the order is founded ; the monastic brother-
hood must not be confined to a single convent, it

io6 Nuns of St Ccsarius.

must stretch from city to city, from province to
province, from realm to realm ; it must reckon by
the thousand, instead of by the hundred. Nay —
last and worst juggle of all — the two sexes may be
combined henceforth in this false brotherhood ; a
community of interests, of traditions, of government,
may be wrought out between local brotherhoods
here and local sisterhoods there, which shall call
themselves by the same name, though every mem-
ber of the one perhaps shall be forbidden to see
any member of the other.

§ 5. Female Monachis7n till the Eleventh Century.

Until about the eleventh century, female monach-
ism can hardly be distinguished from male. There
are Basilian nuns and Benedictine nuns ; nunneries,
like monasteries for men, become schools or store-
houses of learning, sometimes even centres of in-
tellectual activity. At the beginning of the sixth
century, the nunnery founded by St Cesarius at
Aries contained two hundred nuns, mostly em-
ployed in copying books. Their rule bound them
to learn " human letters " for two hours a day, and
to work in common, either in transcribing or in
female labours, especially in making cloth for their
garments, so that they should not be obliged to
purchase from without. Such a body was Bene-

Queen RadeginicT s Convent, 107

dictine before Benedict, nor can we be surprised
at its later adoption of the Benedictine rule.*

In the seventh century (640) Bede shews us
Earconberth, King of Kent, sending his daugh-
ter, to Abbess Fara at Brie, in the region of the
Franks ; " for at that time, many monasteries not
having been yet built in the region of the Angles,
many from Britain, for the sake of monastic con-
versation, used to go to the monasteries of the
Franks or of the Gauls, and to send their daugh-
ters there to be taught, and to be married to the
Heavenly Bridegroom." t

But two nunneries must be especially noted as
instances of intellectual activity. One is that
founded at Tours in the sixth century by Queen
Radegund the deaconess, whose earlier story I
have told ere this, to whom Fortunatus, the poet
of the age, and the last Latin poet who has any
title to the name, was chaplain, as well as almoner
to the convent. Augustin Thierry has given us a
charming account of this pleasant little community,
and of the literary relations between Radegund and
Sister Agnes, the superior of the convent, on the
one hand, and the poet on the other ; while the
graver Guizot has not disdained to dwell on their

* Guizot ; Helyot, Histoire des Ordres Monastiques, Pt.
IV., vol. v., c. iv.
t Eccl. Hist, Bk. iii., c. 8.

io8 Hrotsvitha of Gandesheim,

poetical Intercourse, as indicating, perhaps, the
origin of what we now call occasional poetry, — or,
as the French say, vers de societe. Fortunatus ad-
dresses his female friends in verse on subjects such
as violets, flowers placed on the altar, flowers sent
to the ladies, chestnuts, milk, eggs, plums, delicate
little feasts. Not a shadow of scandal floats over
the Avhole affair. Radegund was one of the most
exemplary personages of the age, and closed in
this pleasant monastic retreat a life of the severest
trials. The gay verse-maker died a bishop at the
beginning of the seventh century.

Again, in the Swabian nunnery of Gandesheim
there flourished, in the latter half of the tenth cen-
tury, the glory of female monachism during the
Middle Ages, the poetess Hrotsvitha (whose dra-
matic works have been edited and translated into
French, within the last few years, by M. Magnin*),
herself not the first authoress of her convent.
From her writings we find that she was instructed
in all the Benedictine learning of the age, in the
Holy Scriptures, and the works of ancient authors.
Nay, in this German nunnery, which we have no
reason to suppose peculiar in its constitution, it is
clear that women in the tenth century were fami-
liar with the works of Virgil and Terence, and able

* Theatre de Hrotsvitha, Religieuse Allcmandc du lO'
Si^cle, par Charles Magnin. Paris, 1845,

and her Poetical Works. 109

to converse in Latin metre; that it was con-
sidered in no wise contrary to the rehgious pro-
fession for a nun to write comedies, as she says
herself, in imitation of Terence ; that she did so
amidst the universal applause of the learned;
and, indeed, that, judging from internal evidence,
her plays were actually performed in the con-
vent. Let us tarr)^ for a moment over this literaiy
phenomenon.

Hrotsvitha composed eight poems : On the Nati-
vity of Mary; On the Ascension of our Lord; On
the Passion of St Gandolf ; On the Martyrdom of
St Pelagius ; On the Fall and Conversion of Theo-
philus the Archdeacon ; On the Conversion of a
Young Slave, exorcised by St Basil ; On the Pas-
sion of St Denis; and On the Passion of St
Agnes. Her six comedies bear the titles of Galli-
canus, Dulcitius, Callimacus, Abraham, Paphnu-
tius, and Sapientia. All of them, although with
the most delicate handling, turn upon the one sub-
ject of chastity and its temptations, and scenes of
real pathos at times occur in them. In the
" Abraham," for instance, which represents to us
a hennit going in secular costume to rescue from
perdition a niece whom he had brought up in a
neighbouring cell, and who, having been seduced,
had sunk to the lowest depths of vice, nothing can
be more tender, more truly Christian in feeling,

no The Sacred Dra^nas

even when not in thought, than the old man's
conduct towards the fallen one. " Why hast thou
despised me?" he asks of her; "why hast thou de-
serted me % Why didst thou not tell me that thou
wert lost, so that I and my dear Ephrem" (a fel-
low-hermit) "might do worthy penance for thee?"
When she reproaches herself, he asks, " Who ever
was exempt from sin, save only the Son of the
Virgin?" he bids her believe in his love, reminds
her of what he has done for her in leaving the
wilderness, in giving up the rule, in mingling with
the dissolute, and uttering jests" {Jocularia verba).
" Distrust not, despair not," he exclaims again ;
"... have pity on the fatigue which I have un-
dergone for thee, lay aside that dangerous despair,
• — a heavier weight, I know, than all thy committed
sins. . . . On me be thy unrighteousness, so only
thou return to the place whence thou earnest forth,
and begin again that life which thou hast aban-
doned." When she yields at last to his entreaties,
" Now art thou really mine own daughter, whom
I nourished up ; now will I love thee above all
things."* They start on their journey, and she says
she will follow him. " Not so," he answers ; " but
I will go afoot, and place thee on my horse, lest
the rough road cut thy tender feet." The treat-

* Nunc fateor te vere meam, quam nutrivi, filiam, nunc
censeo te per omnibus fore diligendam.

of Hrotsvitha. n i

ment of the same subject in another piece,
" Paphnutius," is less pleasing, owing to the severity
with which the hermit behaves towards Thais, and
the truly monkish horrors of the penitence which
he imposes on her. But from the midst of these
imperfections there bursts forth at last a glorious
protest of Christian lowliness. Paul, a disciple of
St Anthony, sees in a vision " a bed strewn splen-
didly in heaven with white garments, over which
four radiant virgins preside, and seem to guard it
by their presence." He thinks it must be for " his
father and lord, Anthony;" but he is told by a divine
voice, " Not, as thou hopest, for Anthony, but for
Thais, the harlot, is this glory reserved." And
the piece concludes by the prayer of Paphnutius
for Thais at her dying hour, that at the resurrec-
tion " she may rise again a perfect man as she was,
to be placed amongst the white sheep, and to be
led to the joy of eternity." Could there be words
which should cut more against the grain of all
monastic self-righteousness % Hrotsvitha, at least,
was no hooded Pharisee.

In the " Paphnutius," as well as in the last piece,
the "Sapientia," there occur, along with much child-
ishness, some equally noble and Christian passages
as to the value of knowledge. " All knowledge that
can be known," says Paphnutius, " offends not
God, but the unrighteousness of him that know-

112

Hivtsvithas Merits,

eth."* " And to whose praise," he says again,
" can tlie knowledge of the arts be turned more
worthily and justly than to His, who made that
which may be known, and gave knowledge ? For
the more wonderful the law through which we re-
cognise God to have constituted all things by
number, measure, and weight, the more fen^ent
we grow in His love."

I have not dwelt upon the strictly speaking
dramatic merits of Hrotsvitha, which, perhaps,
only grow upon the reader, as he considers the
time and place of her writing, the difficulties of
writing in what must, after all, have been only an
acquired language to her, and the novelty of her
attempt to frame sacred dramas on classical
models. Perhaps the most striking scene is that
of her last piece, in which the aged mother, Wis-
dom, after witnessing the martyrdom of her three
daughters— Faith, Hope, and Charity— prays for
death, and receives it. The symbolic poetry of
this conception it is impossible to mistake, but it
is not to be attributed to the nun herself. She
found the legend ready-made to her hand, and
told the tale as of real flesh and-blood martyrs.
But the real interest of Hrotsvitha's work lies in
this, that, amidst much of pedantry and awkward-
ness, a true woman's heart is felt beating in the

* Nee scientia scibilis Dcum ofiendit, seel injustitia scientis.

Growth of Female Monachism, 1 13

nun's breast. The subjects which she has chosen
shew the germs still dormant, but most living, of
that charity which several centuries later will take
visible form in many an asylum for the reformation
of female sinners. The nun in her convent is yet
engrossed with the spiritual miseries of her sex in
the wide world, and the loving words which she
puts in her heroes' mouths express the true spirit
of a Christian penitentiary.

I have only to add, that in its development, as
in its application, female monachism closely fol-
lowed in the wake of male j receiving necessarily
the rule, the solemn vow, the clerical character;
entering with it into the order, — female Benedic-
tines soon succeeding to male, canonesses spring-
ing up almost as soon as canons. There is evidence
even that in the incorporation of the monastic body
into the clergy the female sex often aspired to pres-
byteral functions ; so that the Council of Autun,
in 670, had to forbid women from ascending to
the altar; the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 816,
which gave the rule to religious women, had to
decree that abbesses should not give the veil, nor
usurp sacerdotal functions ; the Council of Paris,
in 824, to forbid them again from taking the veil
themselves, from serving at the altar, from giving
the body and blood of Christ. In short, during
the whole of this period, so far is female monach-

H

114 The Age of the Crusades

ism from having yet found a place in the Romish
system as a collective diaconate, that it seems in
danger of being a mere mimic of the male.

§ 6. The Bcguiiics.

A period, however, now opens (eleventh to thir-
teenth centuries) in which not only does woman's
activity take the advance of man's, and make to
itself a vast sphere of exercise in the field of
charity, but the idea of fellowship is found striv-
ing, above all in the female sex, to set itself free
from the grasp of mbnachism, and to stand forth
in its simplicity before the world.

It was the age of the Crusades. The last of the
barbarians, the Northmen, had ceased to be pirates,
and had settled down into conquerors, in France,
England, Sicily, Russia. The world had recovered
from the fear of destruction which had ovenvhelmed
it towards the end of the tenth century. Feudalism
was beghmning to organise itself, and where the
feudal lord was wise enough only to rob his neigh-
bours, and not his own vassals, to shew here and
there little patches of comparative security and
civilisation. In the plains of Belgium and North-
em Italy in particular, where security could only
be obtained by the massing of numbers, where
man had to rely on the wit and courage and good

and the Begiime Sisterhoods. 1 1 5

faith of his brother-men, rather than on the strength
of the natural fastnesses of crag or gorge, centres of
industry, trade, freedom, were growing up in the
towns, under repubhcan forms of government.

Above all, through the gradual evangelisation of
all the Teutonic, and some even of the Sclavonic
tribes, and in the face of Mohammedan conquests,
there had sprung up the feeling of a Christendom, a
fellowship among all Christian nations. In the Cru-
sades that feeling found an object and a reaUsation,
however imperfect, for the man. But the same
religious fervour, the same instincts of fellowship,
which threw Europe upon Asia, and united hos-
tile sovereigns under the banner of the Cross, were
at work in the breasts of women. Some went forth
with their loved ones to the wars ; many entered
the cloister till their return; — what more natural
than to pray Heaven for safety and victory on be-
half of those dear ones, to unite in peaceful fellow-
ships, as they in warlike ?

But monachism, it cannot be doubted, had by
this time fallen in general far in arrear of the reli-
gious fervour of the age. The Benedictines — the
dominant order of the West — represent mainly the
passive principle of monachism. Quiet, stay-at-
home folk, very apt to settle on their lees, requir-
ing frequent reform,* by these very reforms they

* Those of Benedict of Aniane, of Odo of Cluny, of

1 1 6 The Age of the Crusades

shew the difficulty they have in satisfying the wants
of the time. From the latter part of the eleventh
century other orders spring up to supply their de-
ficiencies,— each combining convents of men and
of women, — Carthusians (1086), Bernardins (1098),
Trappists (1140), Mathurins (1197), Carmelites
(1207) — most of them aiming at increased aus-
terity, all eleemosynary in their constitution. As
the Crusades proceed, each more hopeless, more
ruinous, — as the patrimony of the lord passes into
the hands of Jews, Lombards, enriched serfs, or
burghers hardly less despised, — the dowerless
widow, the portionless orphan, the ruined wife and
daughters, and, still more, the families of the ob-
scure dependents who perish in Syria or Eg}^pt, find
ever more and more difficulty in obtaining admis-
sion into the old-established houses, — rich, idle, cor-
rupt, grasping. The new orders are indeed open
to them, and their austerities may seem grateful to
those \\\\o have lost all earthly hope. But what of
those who seek only a temporary asylum during an
absence which they fondly hope is but temporar}^?
What of the unmarried daughters? What of all
who, however willing to employ themselves with
the utmost zeal for God's service, yet shrink from

Robert de Molcme at Citeaux, the second reform of Cluny,
and the great reform of St Bernard,— the last three all in the
course of the eleventh century.

and the Bcgtune Sista^Jioods. 1 1 7

separating themselves wholly from their kind?
The cloister will not suit these, even if rich enough
to buy admission, or strong enough to bear all
austerities.

There was a form of life already in practice,
which answered this need, that of the Begiiine
sisterhoods, of which a full account is given in a
posthumous Latin work of Mosheim's, on the "Be'g-
hards and Be'guines."* The origin of their name
appears clearly to be the Teutonic heg^ or pray,
used once in no unfavourable sense ; so that beg-
hards and be'guines vv'ere simply "praying" men
and "praying"' women. The term "beguine" is
the earliest, and Mosheim shews it to have been
used in Germany and Belgium as early as the tenth
century, to designate widows or unmarried girls,
who, without renouncing the society of men or
the business of life, or vowing poverty, perpetual
chastity, or absolute obedience, yet led, either at
their own homes or in common dwellings, a life of
prayer, meditation, and labour. The example of
these sisterhoods was followed about the twelfth
century by young men in Belgium and France. In
the thirteenth century these brotherhoods and sis-
terhoods flourished greatly. Matthew Paris men-
tions it as one of the wonders of the age for the
year 1250, that "in Germany there rose up an in-
* "De Beghardis etBegiiinabus Commentarius," Lips., 1790.

1 1 8 Characters of

numerable multitude of those continent women,
who wish to be called Be'guines, to that extent that
Cologne was inhabited by more than looo of
them." Indeed, by the latter half of this century,
there seems to have been scarcely a town of any
importance without them in France, Belgium,
Northern Germany, and Switzerland.

The first of these fellowships was composed of
weavers of either sex; and so diligent were they
with their work, that their industry had to be re-
stricted, lest they should deprive the weavers'
guilds of their bread. Wholly self-maintained at
first, they rendered moreover essential service in
the performance of works of charity. As soon as
a Bcgiiinage became at all firmly established, there
were almost invariably added to it hospitals or
asylums for the reception, maintenance, or relief of
the aged, the poor, the sick. To this purpose were
devoted the greater part of the revenues of the sis-
terhood, however acquired, another portion going
to the maintenance of the common chapel. The
sisters received moreover young girls, chiefly
orphans, to educate; went out to nurse and con-
sole the sick, to attend death-beds, to wash and lay
out the dead ; were called in to pacify family dis-
putes. In short, there is perhaps none of the
natural diaconal functions of women which they
did not fulfil.

the Bcgiiine Institute. 119

Those who were received among the Beguines
were required to be of blameless character; but
girls were often received in childhood, and in-
vested with the habit; they were not, however,
called sisters, nor did they take any pledge of
obedience to the mistress, till the age of fourteen.
Great disorders seeming to have flowed from this
practice, we find the Archbishops of Mentz and
Magdeburg restricting to forty the age of admis-
sion; in one case (13 10), remarkably enough, by
reference to the first Pastoral Epistle respecting
widows. The Be'guine promised obedience to the
mistress, and chastity, but not monastic, since she
was free to marry at any time. The mistress de-
livered to each, on her reception, the Be'guine's
dress, and the veil with which she was to cover
her head in public and at religious services : the
dress scarcely diftering from that in ordinary use
by respectable women, but coarse and without
ornament; in colour varying with each establish-
ment, but generally blue, gray, or brown ; the veil
invariably white.

In France and Gennany the Beguinage usually
consisted of a single house, distributed into sepa-
rate cells, but with a common refectory and dormi-
tory ; in Belgium, on the contrary, as we may see
still, there were nearly as many small houses as
sisters (thus recalling the clustered hermitages of

1 20 The Bco-uinc Institute.

tlie early monks); the largest and highest buildings
being devoted to common purposes, and including
particularly the chapel, the hospital, and the infir-
mary for sick sisters, which was distinct. The mis-
tress had usually a sub-mistress under her ; in the
larger beguinages, numbering thousands of inmates,
there were two or more mistresses.

The Be'guines had no community of goods, no
common purse for ordinary needs. Nevertherless,
those among them who were wholly destitute, or
broken dowoi with infirmities, were maintained at
the public expense, or out of the poor fund ; mendi-
cancy was never allowed, unless in the extremely
rare case of the establishment not being able to
relieve its poorest members.

As contrasted with the deaconess, it will be seen,
the Beguine formed no part of the clergy ; received
no imposition of hands ; took no part in baptism.
Her office was merely the general diaconal office of
the female sex, but carried on by means of a fellow-
ship, and no longer typified in the individual ; yet
fulfilled with a singular amount of individual free-
dom, as contrasted with the nun. For if we find
many female monastic orders, properly so called,
engaged in works of charity, either within or with-
out the convent, it will be by virtue of a rule, of
a vow, at least of a fixed engagement. Now it
scarcely appears tliat, under any circumstances, tlie

a Collective Female Diaconate. 121

Begiiine was compelled to go out visiting the sick,
by the rule of the beguinage. If she did so, it was
rather by virtue of a general understanding that, in
order to entitle herself to public countenance, re-
spect, and assistance, she was to shew herself really
helpful to the needy ; or it was as a public func-
tionary', nominated, and presumably paid by the
town ; whilst again, the striking feature occurs of
her self-maintenance by labour, thus recalling the
healthiest days of early monasticism.

It would thus appear that the Beguine movement
really offers the first complete realisation of the
idea of a collective female diaconate, in the shape
of free sisterhoods of women. Nor can I omit to
point out amongst what populations the institution
arose and took root ; precisely in those great cities
of Northern Europe, the original nurseries of its
freedom, its trade and industry, the very centres of
the civilisation of the age ; spreading over the low
countries — Flemish and German France, North
Germany, Switzerland ; almost the whole range of
those populations over which Protestantism spread
itself two or three centuries later ; almost the whole
family of our proper continental kindred.*

* I owe to the writer of the papers on Sisters of Charity
in the Educational Magazine, ah-eady referred to, both the
idea of the importance of the Beguine movement, in con-
nexion with my subject, and the use of Mosheim's somewhat
rare posthumous work. Mosheim's Protestant testimony is.

122 The Umiliati

I should observe, moreover, that there is a body
which appears to me to present remarkable analo-
gies to the Beghard and Beguine brotherhoods and
sisterhoods in the south of Europe, and which is
treated of by Helyot with a wariness so strongly
suggestive of reticence, that I suspect its history
would deserve at least as close a scrutiny as Mos-
heim has carried into that of the Beghards and
Beguines. I speak of the Umiliati, who are said
to have been originally Lombard gentlemen taken
prisoners by the Emperor Henry V., and released
on condition of penitence, towards 1117, about the
same time, consequently, as the rise of the Beguines.
Like the Roman monks and nuns spoken of by St
Augustin, they are said to have established woollen
factories, in which they both worked themselves,
and employed many poor artisans, their wives also

however, quite confirmed by that of the Encyclopedist of
Monachism, Father Helyot, in his " Histoire des Ordres
Monastiques, ReHgieux, Chevaleresques et Militaires," who
opens with the Beguines the sixth part of his work, which
treats of "Congregations of either sex, and militai^^ and
knightly orders not subject to any religious rule," and tells
us that, '* of all secular congregations and communities, there
are none older than those of the Beguines;" although, in-
deed, he only traces them to Lambert le Begue, a rich inhabi-
tant of Liege, towards the end of the twelfth century, — an
origin quite disproved by Mosheim. The good father, in-
deed, claims elsewhere all true Beghards and Beguines as
Tertiarians (or, as the English translator of Mosheim calls
them, Tertiaries) of St Francis.

of Northc7ni Italy. 123

working with them, and spinning the wool which
the men afterwards wove into cloth. They lived
upon the produce of their labour, and gave the rest
to the poor. But in 1 134, by the advice of St
Bernard, they are said to have left their wives, and
to have founded their first monastery at Brera.
The order was finally suppressed by Pius V. in

1570.

We have here all the leading features of Be'guine-
ism, — industrious and charitable fraternities, without
celibacy ; springing up, moreover, precisely in those
busy, populous, warlike, independent cities of Lom-
bardy, the very centres of civilisation in Southern
Europe, as the Flemish cities in Northern.

CHAPTER III.

THE SISTERHOODS OF THE CHURCH OF ROME.

§ I. Early Romish Charitable Fellowships — Mendi-
cants and their Tertiarians.

'TpHERE has now to be told the struggle of
Romish monachism with the Be'guine move-
ment ; how it overcame it, how it appropriated to
itself the idea of charitable fellowship, and did it
so completely that to this day we Protestants can
hardly imagine of a religious fellowship that shall
not be Romish.

To the end of the eleventh century, it would
seem, we must ascribe the first, strictly speaking,
charitable monastic foundation of the Romish
Church, that of the Augustinian Hospitallers of
St John of Jemsalcm, fellowships both of men
and women, established to provide for the neces-

TJic Romish Sisterhoods. 125

sities of poor pilgrims to the Holy Land. The
example was largely followed, and the charity of
the Hospitallers soon extended beyond the wants
of pilgrims only. Cardinal Jacques de Vitry, who
died towards the middle of the thirteenth century,
says (as referred to by Father He'lyot, vol. iii., c.
22) that there were a great many congregations of
men and of women, who, renouncing the world,
lived, without property and in common, in leper
and other hospitals, under the rule of St Augustin,
to serve the sick and the poor, obeying a superior,
and promising perpetual continence. The men
dwelt apart from the women, not even eating to-
gether with them, but both sexes were present at
religious services ; and in large houses, when the
number of brothers and sisters was great, they met
together frequently in chapter, to acknowledge pub-
licly their faults and to do penance. Books were
read to them during meals ; they kept silence in
the refectory, and at other fixed times and places,
and had several other observances. The cardinal
especially remarks, that some of them suffered with
joy the foul smells, the filth and infection of the
sick, things so unbearable that no other kind of
penance seemed to him fit to be compared with
this martyrdom. Father Helyot supposes that the
cardinal must have had chiefly in view the nuns of
the oldest Paris hospital, the Hotcl-Dieu, where

126 The Franciscan and

there were in 1217-23 thirty-eight Augustinian
monks and twenty-five nuns. But I think we can-
not mistake here the results of the Beguine move-
ment, nor fail to see here a class of stricter Beg-
hards and Be'guines, — the great charitable impulse
of the age putting on, not unnaturally, looser forms
in free, democratic Belgium, stiffer in feudal and
regal France. At any rate, the long noviciate — at
first of twelve years — indicates at least a protracted
period during which the members were free to with-
draw and marry, and differed only from the true
Beguines in not earning their own livelihood ; and
it is certain that in later times there were Hospi-
taller foundations which could be distinctly traced
to the Beguines. (See Appendix E.)

But the true parallel, and eventually the success-
ful conqueror of the Beguines of the North, is to
be found in the institute of the Tertiarians, or
Third-rule Regulars. Let us stop an instant to
survey the remarkable movement in the Romish
world of which they formed a part.

The origin of the Franciscans and Dominicans
(1208, 1 2 15) is ascribed by the writers of the
Middle Ages to two causes : to the necessity of
combating heresy, on the one hand ; to th^ apathy
of the clergy and monks of the day, on the other.
" At this time," says a writer, speaking of the thir-
teenth cenfury, " there rose up two religions" {i.e.^

Dominican Orders. 127

orders) " in the Church, namely, of the Minor Breth-
ren" (Franciscans) "and Preachers" (Dominicans),
" which were perhaps approved of for this reason,
that two sects had formerly risen up in Italy, which
still subsist, of which the one calls itself the Humi-
liati, the other the Poor of Lyons."* In the Hu-
miliati we recognise at once the woollen-cloth-
weaving fraternities to which I referred above
(p. 122); the Poor of Lyons, as is well known,
are the Waldenses. Another writer says : " When
priests and monks had, as it were, grown wholly
cold to the love of God and of their neighbour,
and had fallen away from their first estate, then
came the better mode of life of St Francis and St
Dominic." t

With them begins the new era of missionary
monachism. Not that monks had never been
missionaries \ on the contrary, very many of the
noblest missionaries of the early Church amongst

* Chron. Ursperg. ad ann. 12 1 2, quoted in Charpentier,
"Essai sur I'HistoireLitteraireduMoyen-Age:" *'Eo tempore
exortse sunt dure religiones in Ecclesia, videlicet, minorum
fratrum et prcedicatorum, qucc forte hac occasione sunt appro-
batse, quia olim dure sectce in Italia exortre, adhuc perdurant,
quarum alii humiliates, alii pauperes de Lugduno se nomi-
nant."

+ Quando clerici et monachi quasi ex toto a caritate Dei
et proximi refrigerati fuerunt, et declinavenmt a priori statu
sue, tunc melior fuit modus vivendi S. Francisci et S. Do-
minici. Mur. Script, rer. Ital., t. ix., p.450; Charpentier
ibid.

128 The Era of

the barbarians, — Patrick, the apostle of Ireland;
Columban, the Irish apostle of Northern France;
Austin, the apostle of the Anglo-Saxons ; Boniface
or Winifred, the Anglo-Saxon apostle of North Ger-
many— to quote two instances only of the mode in
which every seed of Christianity bore fruit in that
fertile soil, and the convert race of yesterday be-
came a converting one on the morrow, — had all
passed through the monastic training. But mon-
achism itself was still spiritually, if not materially,
a fleeing from the outer social world. St Benedict
was a hermit, whom others sought unto ; Francis
and Dominic, on the contrary, went forth, as
monks, to conquer the world for Rome, and
trained their respective orders to do the same.
The cloister was not suppressed ; on the contrary,
new and unheard-of austerities were practised. But
the world was invited, called, almost ordered to
enter into it. Even in the person of the holy
Francis, monachism still behaved in the spirit of
a conscious mastership over the Church ; how
much more so in the person of the persecuting
Dominic ! Thus, however different might be the
characteristic modes of action of the two leaders,
the one overflowing with boundless charity, the
other with gloomy, persecuting zeal, both had the
same aggressive mission; both, instead of pre-
serving, as it were, in Christian receptacles, like

Missionary Monachism. 129

the Benedictines, the depot of ancient learning,
went forth abroad to teach, and to teach in the
vulgar tongue, — for this is the mark of the new
movement.

During this, the aggressive period of its history,
monachism will have to enter into wholly new re-
lations with the outer world. The order will more
and more take precedence of the monastery;
a fellowship of work will substitute itself for the
fellowship of outward life ; the social principle will
disentangle itself more and more from the conven-
tual system. Monachism will thus receive its first
great blow; for put the hermit among men, and
he is but a man after all ; and yet it will parry the
blow so skilfully that it shall seem a triumph. As
the first ascetic of the desert gathered round him a
crown of tyros, eager to follow the pattern of his
austerities, long unable to do so, but always look-
ing up to him as their leader ; so the strict monastic
order will gather round it a number of " congrega-
tions," as they are mostly termed, only half or
three-quarters monastic, bound perhaps by simple,
i.e., releasable vows, instead of solemn ; or by
mere temporary engagements, or by engagements
not involving the now essential monastic principle
of celibacy; and yet always looking up to the
stricter order, receiving from it their disciphne,
tending ever more and more to approximate to its

I

130 Foitndation of the

own ; till every order almost shall have its Third-
rule regulars, or Tertiarians. What we have seen of
the Be'guines and the Umiliati, however, must have
shewn us that this softening of the more rugged
features of monachism arose in reality from influ-
ences without, and not within ; that monastic
brotherhoods only linked on to themselves non-
monastic congregations, because non- monastic
congTegations had been in a fair way of growing
up without them altogether. The first Tertiarians
of St Francis are later, not by years, but by cen-
turies, than the sisterhoods of Beguines, the brother-
hoods and sisterhoods of the UmiHati; although
the most flourishing age '. for both Beguines and
Tertiarians alike is the thirteenth century.

I abridge from Helyot (vol. ii., c. 29) the follow
ing account of the foundation of the first Tertiar-
ians, those of St Francis : —

When St Francis had instituted the order of
Minor Brethren, and that of the Clarissans, or Poor
Ladies (12 12)* — doubting whether he should con-
tinue to preach, or withdraw into solitude — he
asked his brethren to pray for him, and sent two
of them to St Clara and to the hermit Sylvester,

* The rule of the Clarissans, who take their name from
St Clara, was very strict. As is the case in almost all in-
stances of genuine monastic reform, they were bound to
labour in common. — (Ilclyot, vol. vii., c. 25).

Third Rule of St Francis. 1 3 1

to solicit their prayers for his enhghtenment, not
deeming himself worthy to implore God on his
own behalf. On the messengers' return he washed
their feet, kissed them, and kneeling down, with
bended head and crossed arms, asked what was
the will of God % " God had not called him to
think only of his o\vn salvation, but also to labour
for that of his neighbours, by preaching the gospel,
and by a holy example." St Francis rose up : " In
the name of the Lord, brethren, let us go forth."
So he and the two brethren went forth from Assisi,
not knowing whither. Reaching the small town
of Camerio, two leagues off, Francis preached
repentance with such effect that the people were
about to leave their goods and their families, and
to withdraw into cloisters and solitudes. But he
dissuaded them from doing so, promising to give
ere long a form of life which they might follow
without quitting the state to which God had called
them. This was the Third Rule of St Francis
(122 1), which spread rapidly through Tuscany, and
soon formed congregations in Florence itself.

Before reception as a Tertiarian, male or female,
the candidate was examined to see if there should
be any scandal about him, if he possessed aught of
another's goods, if he had any unreconciled enemy.
The husband was not admitted without the consent
of the wife, nor the wife without that of the hus-

1 3 2 Characters of the

band, " z/he were a faithful Catholic and obedient
to the Roman Church." A noviciate of one year
was required; after admission, none could leave
the order, except to take the solemn vows of re-
ligion. The dress of the members was coarse and
without ornament, neither quite white nor quite
black. They were not to bear arms, except in
defence of Church or country, or by permission of
the superiors, who could also give dispensations as
to dress. They were forbidden to be present at
feasts, plays, balls, or dances, and were to see that
no members of their family contributed to the ex-
pense of such entertainments. Besides various
obligations as to temperance, fasting, and religious
exercises, they heard every month in common a
solemn mass and the preaching of the Word of God,
and took the communion thrice a year, after recon-
ciliation and restitution of unjustly-acquired pro-
perty. They were to avoid solemn oaths, except
for the pledging of faith, the repelling of calumny,
the giving witness in courts of justice, and the
authorising of sales. Every member was to accept
and faithfully fulfil any office which might be as-
signed to him by the brotherhood, but all functions
were temporary only. The brethren were to pre-
serve peace as far as possible, both among them-
selves and with the world outside ; to avoid and
conciliate litigation. Sick brethren were visited

Terti avian Fellowships. 133

once a week, and their wants supplied, if necessary,
from the common stock ; the funeral of one was
attended by all. A general assembly and visitation
was held once a year or oftener, when those who,
after three warnings, were found incorrigible were
expelled. The Tertiarians were sometimes offici-
ally charged with charitable duties. At Milan, a
body of them, including members of both sexes,
were invested with the administration of all pious
foundations and the laying out of charitable lega-
cies. And although the brethren " Del Consorte,"
as they were termed, were for a time deprived of
their office, in 1477 the Milanese requested it to
be given back to them. — (H^lyot, vol. vii., c. 45).
I cannot say whether St Francis knew anything
of the Bdguine fellowships ; what he knew of the
Umiliati. But it will be seen at once how nearly
the Third Rule of St Francis answers to the former ;
goes seemingly beyond them in its social character.
Active duties of charity are, as with the Beguines,
closely connected with a religious life ; marriage is
not forbidden ; men and women join alike the
institution — are not even compelled to leave their
homes. Some may think such monachism no
monachism at all. No more it would be, if the
Third Rule of St Francis had been the First. But
the First Rule with all its austerities must exist,
that the Third may become possible. The Third

1 34 Struggle of the Free

Rule only subsists to subordinate brotherhood to
monachism, charity to asceticism, and so turn the
great danger of the age.

§ 2. Struggle between the Free and the Monastic
Charitable Fellowships.

There was essential antipathy between the free
fellowships and the monastic orders, especially the
Mendicants. Not only did they see the Beguines
drawing to themselves a large portion of the liber-
alities which they would otherwise have mono-
polised, but a larger. The people had taken into
their heads that God would rather listen to the
prayers of busy and laborious, as well as pious,
women, whom they saw mixing with them in their
daily life, freely submitting their conduct to the
scrutiny of others, than to those of monks and
nuns confined in cloisters, living upon charity, nor
even seldom in vice. So gifts and bequests came
freely in from the rich, for the sake of the Beguines'
prayers, whilst they shared with the religious orders
their most important civil privilege — exemption
from taxation. The Beguine, indeed, as Mosheim
observes, was exempt from almost all the incon-
veniences of a conventual life, whilst enjoying
almost all its advantages. Like the nun, she
shared the economies of a common management,

and Monastic Fellowships. 135

and to some extent of a common household. Un-
like the nun, she retained her individual freedom ;
could purchase and hold property, and, subject to
certain restrictions, could trade and make money.
The authority of the mistress only extended to the
maintenance of order and decency, and to the
providing for the care of the poor and of the
chapel. Was it in human nature for the cloistered
saints not to feel jealous of these free lances, so
to speak, of ecclesiastical charity % Still worse was
it when the Tertiarian fraternities grew up, so
closely resembling the Beguines in their discipline.
There was, indeed, no friction at first, for the Be-
guine movement belonged mainly to the North, and
Italy was the theatre of Francis's reforms. But as
the new tide of monastic fervour swelled by the
estabhshment of new orders — Dominicans (12 15),
Celestins (1270), Augustinians (1276), &c. — all
eleemosynary, all with affiliated female communities,
all with more or less the same proselytising mis-
sionary character, — several of them (Dominicans,
Augustinians, and other minor bodies, such as the
Carmelites, Servites, Brethren of the Redemption
of Captives, Brethren of our Lady of Mercy, &c.),
with Tertiarian congregations clustered round
them, — collision between the free and the monas-
tic fraternities became imminent, and a conflict
indeed broke out about the middle of the thir-

136 Persectttion of

teenth century, which lasted till the middle of the
fifteenth.* Council after council, bull after bull,
now denounced and excommunicated Beghards
and Beguines as heretical. And with every allow-
ance for monkish jealousies and Romish intoler-
ance,— with all due abhorrence for the stake and
the rack, and other coercive means by which the
extermination of Beghards and Beguines was pur-
sued,— I cannot but feel that the institution fell,
like every other, by its own fault. The free fellow-
ships departed from the spirit of their own founda-
tion. In place of the self-supporting industry and
active charity which at first characterised them,
there crept in the very opposites of these, — reli-
ance upon others' alms, and indifference to good
works. t So complete was the change, that the

* The Augustinians must have especially distinguished
themselves in this struggle as the Beguines' opponents, for
in a German wine-song, apparently of the early part of the
fourteenth century, the poet, addressing the " wine, wine of
the Rhine, clear, bright and fine," says : "Thou reconcilest
those who are wont to be always foes — the Augustinian and
the Beguine. Thou canst part them both irom sorrow and
pain, that they shall forget German and also Latin." (See
Vilmar's " Geschichte der deutschen National-Literatur,'*
vol. i., p. 403).

+ Two bulls of Pope Clement V,, of the year 13 ii, the
one against Beghards and Beguines, the other against the
Beguines only, exhibit most plainly the extravagances which
had given an occasion to the persecution, and in some sense
an excuse for it. These are for the most part the excesses of

B^eghards and B'cguines. 1 3 7

very name of " Beghard," pray-er, surviving in our
" beggar," has come to designate clamorous pauper-
ism, and the name '''' Begiitta^' synonymous with
" Beguine," sui-viving in our " bigot," to designate
narrow fanaticism.

Thus, in the first condemnation of these institu-
tions by the Provincial Council of Mentz in its
canons, 1259, we find it ordained "that the sect
and habit, as well as the conventicles of Be'ghards,
who cry in the squares and streets of cities, towns,
and villages, ' Broth dorch Gott,' that is, Bread
thro' God, or Bread from God, or Bread for God's
sake, and whatever other singularities are not re-
ceived in God's holy Church, be wholly reproved ;"
the Council going on to require all rural deans in
the province of Mentz to admonish the Beghards
publicly on three Sundays or fast-days, and to
expel them in default of their obeying such ad-
monition; concluding, "and we do ordain the
same concerning the pestiferous Beguines." A
bull of John XXI I. (13 17 or 13 18) renews the
interdicts in a more specially ecclesiastical spirit,
and is chiefly directed against the uncanonical

gnosticism and mysticism ; a belief that man can become
wholly impeccable in this life, so as to require no more
prayer nor fasting, nor obedience to any law ; good works
being considered as a mark of imperfection, and the indul-
gence of natural instincts on the contrary as not being a sin,
especially if given way to under temptation.

138 Toleration of the

assumption of a new religious habit by Beghards
and Be'guines, the formation of congregations and
conventicles, the election of superiors, the recep-
tion of numerous members, the construction or
acquisition of places where they might live in
common, and the begging in public, "as if their
sect were one of the religions" (?>., orders) "ap-
proved of by the apostolic see." Observe this
latter clause, which is very characteristic. To
make religious begging a privilege, to license for
its own benefit a great economic evil, to muster
and discipline a whole army of social Arabs,
detached not only from family ties, but from all
the cares and decencies of a home and an honest
industry; ready for any mission, hardened by a
rough and roving life ; accustomed to live by their
wits and by their tongue, with all the obedience of
a cloistered monk, and all the check of a sturdy
beggar, has been — not the master-stroke, that were
hard to fix— but one of the master-strokes of po-
licy of the monastic Church ; yet, like all master-
strokes of policy, one most likely to fall back on
the designer's head, when met by any earnest
living assertion of God's righteousness. A stroll-
ing friar like Tetzel was the fittest instrument for
the dirty work of selling indulgences; but that
dirty work gave the signal for our glorious refor-
mation, and Tetzel's infamy is for ever bound

B^gtiine Sisterhoods. 1 39

up with the brightness of Luther's most blessed
name.

But the Be'guine sisterhoods of the North were
too numerous, too useful, too much in harmony
with the spirit of their age and country, too deeply
rooted in the affections of the people, to perish be-
fore the canons of a council, or a Papal bull. Nor,
indeed, it was soon seen, did Rome's safety require
that they should perish. The existence of free
brotherhoods w^as, indeed, inconsistent with that of
Romanism itself; for eveiy community of men,
not bound by rule or vows, not subject to a clerical
head, must be, of necessity, an asylum of free
thought, such as a monastic church with an infal-
lible head could not, without the greatest danger,
allow. Sisterhoods, on the other hand, although
equally unbound by vow or rule, might safely be
tolerated ; since, through the priestly director or
confessor, generally an essential part of the
organisation of any beguinage, they could be
kept in dependence, tempted on into monachism.*
And thus, parallel with the current of censure
against Bcghardism and Be'guinism as a system,
there begins to flow another current of toleration,
and even, as the danger diminishes, approval, for

* See appendix F for a translation of one of the later
Eeguine rules (end of the thirteenth century), where the sister-
hood is under Dominican direction.

140 The Begtcmes adopted

those " faithful women, who, having vowed conti-
nence, or even without having vowed it, choose
honestly to do penance in their hospitals, and serve
the Lord of virtues in the spirit of humility" (Bull
of Clement v., 1311).*

By little and httle the Beguine sisterhoods are

* So a bull of John XXII. (13 iS), after denouncing
Beguine errors, absolves, in like manner, "many women,"
who, in many parts of the world, "being in like manner
commonly called Beguines, either secluded in their parents'
houses, or their own, or sometimes also in those of others, or
living together in common houses which they have hired,
lead an honest life, frequent churches devoutly, and reve-
rently obey the diocesans of the place, and the rectors of the
parish church, in nowise arrogate to themselves curious dis-
putations, or any kind of authority or rather temerity," &c.,
adding, however, with curious wariness, that this exemption
is not to be construed into an approval of their condition.
See also a letter addressed by the same pope in the same
year to John, bishop of Strasburg, who had complained to
him that as well prelates as rectors, by reason of the Cle-
mentine bull, were ejecting recluse women from their seclu-
sion, in which they had dwelt for about fifty years in a praise-
worthy manner, and were compelling them to lead a secular
life, to the gross scandal and disturbance of the faithful.
Another bull of the same pope, dated 1326, is addressed to
the patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops of Italy, for the
special protection of the orthodox Beguines in Lombardy
and Tuscany — shewing how far the institute had spread. A
bull of Boniface IX. (1395), addressed to the German clergy,
and letters of Albert, archbishop of Magdeburg, add further
injunctions against disturbing the orthodox Beghards or
Beguines. The Beguines were finally absolved from censure
by the Council of Constance, 1414. — (See Mosheim, op. cit.
passim.)

into the Monastic System. 141

adopted into the monastic system ; in the course
of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries they are
found growing up in close proximity to Franciscan
and Dominican monasteries, taking Dominicans
and Franciscans for spiritual directors, receiving
rules from them, and becoming mere Tertiarian
bodies in connexion with the monastic orders, till
He'lyot, as before observed, at last claims them all
as Franciscan Tertiarians. The name, indeed, grew
to be applied in common parlance to all religious
bodies existing for purposes of active charity, and
thereby almost necessarily living under a larger
rule. Helyot relates that in France some b^gui-
nages subsisted as late as the beginning of the
seventeenth century. There was in his days
(first half of the eighteenth) a flourishing one at
Amsterdam, besides a large one at Malines, con-
taining more than 1500 or 1600 sisters, not reckon-
ing boarders ; whilst almost every traveller in Flan-
ders has visited one or both of the two surviving
ones at Ghent or Bruges.

§ 3. The Tertiarian Nuns — Hospitallers — Alexians.

And now, when the danger of the free charitable
fellowships had been turned by means of tlie Ter-
tiarian fraternities, there appears the inevitable ten-
dency of these latter sham-free bodies, in a nion-

142 Tertim'ian Ntms.

astic church, to become monastic, by pronouncing
the three solemn vows. The Third Rule of St
Francis soon had its professed nuns, of whom St
Elizabeth of Hungary is reckoned as the founder,
though she is admitted not to have observed strict
seclusion, since from the cloister, where she span
wool, she was wont to go forth to tend the poor in
the hospital which she had established. Here,
indeed, we travel on that border-line between
monachism and pure fellowship, where so much of
usefulness mingles with the falsehood of professed
celibacy, that we know not often whether to blame
or praise. When we read of these communities of
Tertiarian Hospitaller nuns, — some leaving their
convents to succour the sick, to console the dying,
to bury the dead; others exercising hospitality
without leaving the cloister, — ^^ve may think that
all this devotedness might have found another field,
might have been exercised in another manner, with-
out spilling all abroad that veiy precious ointment
of spikenard, the family affections of a woman's
heart, — without those fearful vows which are, as it
were, the breaking of the alabaster box itself But
still a voice whispers, " Why trouble ye the woman?
for she hath wrought a good work upon Me." The
worship of these nuns may not be the highest and
best, but it is surely genuine. Not upon them be
the blame, but upon that Church which misdirects

Hospitallers. 143

it, and offers them up as holocausts to its idol of
Heaven-conquering pride.

To the end of the thirteenth and to the four-
teenth century, I suspect, belong mainly the Ter-
tiarian convents proper, and the chief foundations
of Hospitaller nuns. At Paris, for instance, He-
lyot tells us, at the " Hotel-Dieu de Sainte Cathe-
rine," there were, in 1328, nuns as well as monks
for the service of the poor. The chief duties of
these nuns, as they were finally established in
1558, were to receive, for three days running, poor
women and girls coming to Paris, and to bury the
bodies of persons dying in certain prisons, or found
murdered in the streets, or drowned in the river.
At the "Hotel-Dieu de Saint Gervais" there were
four professed nuns as early as 1300, whose chari-
table obligations were the same towards men as
those of the nuns of St Catherine towards women.
It would be idle, indeed, to enumerate the various
communities of women bound to charity under the
general name of Hospitallers, or popularly, " Filles-
Dieu." Their mission is simply told in the words
of the beautiful vow of the Hospitaller nuns of
Pontoise : "To be all their life, for the love of
Christ, the servants of the sick poor, so far as in
them lay, to do and to hold until death." — (He'lyot,
vol. ii., c. 43).

But the real successors of the Beguines were the

144 1^^^^ Alcxiaii Fellowships,

so-called Alexian brotherhoods and sisterhoods;
and the passage from the one to the other is so
gradual, that in one bull of Boniface IX. (1395) we
are in doubt which are meant. Its design is to
screen from the penalties denounced on the Beg-
hards and Be'guines " poor persons of both sexes,"
who live " apart, that is, the men together in their
houses, and the women in theirs, without mutual
communication, humbly and honestly, in poverty
and continence, under the spirit of humility ; de-
voutly frequent churches ; reverently obey the
Roman Church, and their prelates and curates,
in all things ; receive poor and miserable per-
sons, on request, into their hospitals, and exercise
other works of charity according to their power,
— that is, visit the sick, and, if need be, keep
and nurse them in their sickness, when haply re-
quired so to do ; and carry, on request, the bodies
of the faithful departed to church-burial, in the
places where they live." The careful repetition of
the words "on request," &c., in the above passage,
is strongly characteristic of the Be'guine institute,
as pointing out that the diaconal charities of these
brotherhoods and sisterhoods were customary and
spontaneous, and not compelled by rule ; the state-
ment that they lived "in poverty" varies, however,
from the Bt'guine character. A bull of Eugenius
IV. (143 1) exliibits, on the other hand, the Alexian

The '* Grey Sisters!' 145

fellowships in their full-developed type, under the
name of the " poor of voluntar}^ poverty." They
live, it says, — in terms but slightly varying from
those of the last-quoted document, — " the men by
themselves, and the women by themselves, in sepa-
rate houses, without mutual intercourse, in poverty
and continence ; frequent churches devoutly in
humbleness of spirit ; reverently obey the Church
of Rome, and their ordinaries, prelates, rural deans,
rectors, and curates in all things ; freely receive
distressed and other worthy persons into their
houses, for hospitality's sake ; take charge of the
sick, on request; carry the bodies of the faithful
departed to church-burial, even in time of furious
pestilence, and exercise other works of piety and
charity ; give to the poor out of the fruits of their
labour and of the alms which they receive ; live in
common ; and, through their faith in Christ, are
surrounded with much popular zeal, favour, and
affection." Although we have here the new feature
of a community of life, we can hardly doubt that
we have before us still Beguines, only become
stricter and more monastic.

At a later period, these Alexian (or Cellite) sister-
hoods are treated of by Hdlyot as Tertiarian nuns
or Hospitallers, under the still familiar title of
" Grey Sisters." Without revenues of their own,
they lived by alms, and served the sick out of

K

146 The *' Grey Sisters"

doors, — the name of " Hospitallers " belonging
properly* to those who merely exercised hospi-
tality at their convents, whether towards the sick
or towards pilgrims. The Grey Sisters, properly
so called, were so named from their grey-white
dress. In 1483, common statutes were received
by the Grey Sisters of most of the Flemish and
Northern French houses. They were to be kept to
work whilst in the house ; to go out two and t^vo
together, without separating; not to watch more
than three days in the same house. By Helyot's
time several houses — Amiens, Montreuil, St Quen-
tin, Mons, &c. — had become cloistered, though
some still exercised hospitality towards the sick or
towards pilgrims. Sometimes the change was not
effected without a struggle. At Beauvais, in 1627,
the municipal authorities tried to prevent the claus-
tration of the Cellite Sisters, which, however, was
authorised by the provincial parliament, the nuns
retaining their convent-house, an old be'guinage.
At Nancy, in 1696, the Bishop of Toul tried to
compel the claustration of the Grey Sisters of the
city. This time, however, on appealing to the
provincial parliament, they obtained leave to re-

* But not invariably. Thus, the *' Hospitalieres de la
Faille" of St Omer, Hesdin, Abbeville, and Montreuil, went
out with a round hood {ini rond de chaperon) over their faces
to take care of the sick, and especially of the pLigue-stricken,
at :heir homes.

Eai'ly Edticational Fellowships. 147

main as they were (Hel. vii., cc. 38, 40.) It is
impossible to doubt that the bulk of Helyot's
" Grey Sisters," and of some " Black Sisters,"
whom he also speaks of as Cellites or Collestines,
— uncloistered nuns, who made a vow to assist
the sick even in time of plague, and in some cases
took care of penitents ; some having hospitals of
their own, whilst others went out to private houses
to nurse ; most of them being under the rule of the
Alexian provincials (vol. iii., c. 54), — are monasti-
cised Beguines. The works on which they are en-
gaged, the localities in which they flourish, are the
same ; and surely it was the old healthy B^guine
spirit which spoke out in that successful protest
of the Nancy Grey Sisters against claustration, and
in their appeal for help to the civil power.

§ 4. Early Educational Fellowships — the Gerardins.

It is observable that, although the mission of the
male Franciscans and Dominicans was specially
one of preaching and teaching, the religious im-
pulse given by Francis and Dominic took shape
among women in offices of physical charity rather
than of instruction. No doubt the stricter female
communities in connexion with the new mission-
ary orders, especially when cloistered, took in
young girls to educate \ for the strictest claustra-

148 The GerardinSy

tion generally allows in the long run this outlet to
the affections of the nun's poor heart. But edu-
cational labours did not form in the thirteenth cen-
tury, as they did two centuries later, a prominent
part of the nun's or Tertiarian sister's vocation.
Perhaps the first indication of an educational im-
pulse occurs in the foundation by Nicolas Orsini,
Count of Spoleto, towards 1354, in a Clarissan
convent at Genoa, of a " college of canonesses," to
bring up young girls in piety till they should be in
a condition to choose their caUing. The com-
munity appears to have consisted of three classes
— the canonesses, the scholars educated by them,
and "convert sisters" (a class frequently found
in Romish convents), for the ordinary household
labours (He'lyot, vol. vii., c. 48).

But it is a remarkable fact that the origin of the
great educational movement of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, as that of the great charitable
movement of the twelfth and thirteenth, belongs
to free religious fellowships, which flourished in
the same regions as those of the Beghards and
Beguines, and took up their work, — the Brother-
hoods and Sisterhoods of the " Clerks of the Com-
mon Life," or Gerardins, founded in the fourteenth
century by Gerard Groot of Deventer. The male
members of this institute lived together in common
houses, took no vows, but had a common table, a

or Clerks of the Common Life. 149

community of goods, and earned their livelihood by
teaching the young and copying manuscripts. The
sisters lived under the same rule, teaching young
girls, and occupied in other womanly labours. In
course of time, these "Clerks of the Common
Life" divided themselves into two classes — the
Lettered Brethren or Clerks, properly so-called,
and the Illiterate Brethren, the two bodies living
separate, but under the same rule. The Clerks
then devoted themselves to study and education,
composing works, and establishing schools ; whilst
the Illiterate Brethren worked with success in the
mechanical arts. It was in the fifteenth century
that these bodies chiefly flourished in Holland,
North Germany, and the adjacent provinces, and
from their schools proceeded the leading restorers
of letters of those countries during this and the
next century, Erasmus, Alexander Hegius, John
Mummelius, &c.*

The fact of these persons living together a reli-
gious and industrious life was enough to make the
people call them Beghards and Beguines ; enough
also to draw upon them the hostility of the regular
clergy to those names. Mosheim's work on the
Be'ghards and Beguines contains in its appendices

* Mosheim, Eccl. Hist., vol. iii., fifteenth century, pt. 2,
c. ii., § xxii. ; the same, "De Beghardis et Beguinabus," p.
70, &c.

150 The Gerardins.

some curious details on this point, shewing us how,
in 1398, the Gerardins consulted the jurists of
Cologne to know if their institute were legal ; how
some years afterwards the Dominican, Matthias
Grabon, who had lived at Groningen, and had
seen them surrounded with all the consideration
which a monk might desire, without vows or rule,
denounced them to Pope Martin V., asserting that
none but a monk, and one subject to a rule which
had been approved of by the Holy See, could
embrace without sin the three " Evangelical coun-
sels," as he called them, of "poverty, obedience,
and chastity ;" that, consequently, " those women
who lead a common life and dwell together, com-
monly called Begutts" (synonymous with Beguinae),
" whilst holding or preaching no erroneous doctrine,
or otherwise suspected of error or heretical wicked-
ness, are daughters of eternal damnation, and their
state is forbidden and damned." But the great
Gerson took up the defence of the Gerardins, and
the Council of Constance (1414) finally acquitted
them, in common with the Alexians, and the true
B^ghards and Beguines (now mere mendicant fra-
ternities), of the accusations brought against them.
And now came the era of the Reformation, and
of the prodigious intellectual development which
accompanied it, growing always more and more
away from Romanism, until that intellectual dc-

The Jesttits. 1 5 1

velopment was in part turned again to the profit of
the monastic church, through the rise of the Jesuits,
and of the female educational orders.

§ 5. The Jesuits and Female Educational Orders^
Ursulines, c^c.

With Ignatius, — whose work, in fact, bears the
same protest against monastic ignorance in the
period immediately preceding the Reformation, as
that of Francis and Dominic against monastic sloth
and corruption in the eleventh and twelfth cen-
turies,— the tree of monachism, I firmly believe,
bore its last fruit. How marvellous, indeed, its
growth, from the Egyptian Laura, planted deep in
the wilderness, to the fellowship of the professed
Jesuit, distinguished by no outer garb, subject to
no seclusion, freed from all monkish penances and
observances, mingling freely in the world, bound
to his rhonastic brethren only by the invisible link
of the common order ! * How the principle of
fellowship has fought its way, as it were, even to
the very centre of the monastic citadel ! The
change seemed vast, when the hermit, surrounded
against his will by imitators of his sanctity, was
succeeded by the vast material organisation of the
convent, by the catholic federation of the order.
* See "Constitutions desjesuites." Paris: Paulin, 1843.

152 Jcsiutism the last

The change seemed vast, when, from the secluded
convent, offering still in the bosom of its visible,
every-day fellowship, a refuge from the outer world,
the Franciscan or Dominican went forth to con-
quer that world for the Church. But now all
brick-and-mortar signs of outer fellowship have dis-
appeared, or if they remain, they remain no longer
for the sake of the professed Jesuit himself, but of
those upon whom he labours; the seminary has
succeeded the monastery. He is free to encloister
others; except at the bidding of his superior he
is no longer bound to cloister himself. The sole
barriers henceforth between him and his fellow-
men are, celibacy, which is the ground of his sepa-
ration, and common obedience, which links the
seceders together. Is there anything more which
can be given up? Can men, who are separated
from others on one point, approximate to them
more closely upon others % Can the essential false-
hood of their separation be exhibited more nakedly?
Why is it, that of all forms of monachism, Jesuitry
has alone become a universal byword % Why is it,
that from country to country, Jesuits have been
followed by execration, and suspicion, and con-
tempt, beyond all monastic orders put together?
Why is it, that from country after country, they
have been expelled by Romanist sovereigns and
Romish popes ? And yet, why are they found at

term of Moiiachism. 153

work still on all sides, bound up more and more
with the fates of the Romish Church itself, leaven-
ing it more and more, more and more identified
with it in the popular mind, crushed with it when
it is crushed, rising again with it when it lifts its
head once more ?* Why, but because Jesuitism is
at once the only form in which monachism can
henceforth make head, and the form in which it is
most certainly unbearable? Why, but because
every shape of social and family order is slipping
on all sides from the gi'asp of the monastic church,
and it can only maintain itself by perpetually in-
vading every state, ever}^ community, every house-
hold *? Why, but because, v/here men are united
to a false centre by no other link than that of a
common obedience, that obedience must be of the
most awful, penetrating, demoralising, deadly char-
acter? The Jesuit is bound to obey, not as a
living man, but as a dead body ; not as an intelli-
gent and moral creature, but as a stick in aged
hands. It has been indeed well observed, that simi-
lar expressions occur in other rules, the Benedictine
for instance. W^hy have they not produced the
same effect upon other orders % Why do they not
excite the same aversion in us, in the one case as
in the other % Surely it is because this blind, un-

* See as to this, the remarkable French clerical novel,
•* Le Maudit." Paris, 1863.

154 yesuit Obedience.

reasoning obedience was not elsewhere the sole
pivot of monastic life ; because the practical fellow-
ship of the monastery laid hold upon the monk's
heart with a thousand ties of personal reverence,
and affection, and courtesy, and custom, whilst the
abstract fellowship of the Jesuit order, made only
more hateful by the espionage of the single socius^
only appealed to his intellect ; because when the
worst came to the worst, the Benedictine's obedi-
ence had to be exercised mostly within four walls,
amidst a limited circle of temptations, whereas the
Jesuit might be sent forth into the wide world, the
wide beautiful world with all its witcheries, always
calling him to forbidden pleasures, to forbidden
duties, alas ! with nothing but his vow and his
socius to keep him from its snares ; " sent forth to
fail wretchedly, if he do not conquer %

Heirs to all past monastic experience, the Jesuits
did not forego the means of aggrandisement of
which the Franciscans had set the first example,
by the affiliation of laymen as " coadjutors," per-
haps even as "professed;" at least as members of
"congregations" formed around or in connexion
with Jesuit " houses" or "colleges.'l What is per-
haps most remarkable, it is only as members of some
affiliated congregation, or of some female religious
order closely analogous to, but not identical with,
that of the Jesuits, that women have been found

Jcsiiitesses Impossible. 155

able to serve the purposes of Jesuitism. Twice
were Jesuitesses established, and twice in vain.
Ignatius confessed that "the governing of these
women gave him more trouble than all the com-
pany ; for there was no end of perpetually solving
their questions, curing their scruples, listening to
their complaints, and terminating their differences."
So that the first community of Jesuitesses, founded
in 1545, was put an end to in 1547 ; and when the
attempt was renewed in the next century, Pope
Urban VIII. had again to put them down in 1631
(Helyot, vol. vii., c. 61). In other words, Jesuitism
in its typical form — monachism in its last develop-
ment— is so utterly inhuman, that woman cannot
be moulded to it.

But the true counterpart to the rise of Jesuitism
is to be found in that of the female educational
and missionary orders. The "Angelicals" of the
sixteenth century used at first to accompany the
regular clergy in their missions, seeking to convert
women, as the latter, men, — thus recalling the la-
bours of the early deaconesses. Cardinal Ximenes,
at the beginning of the same century (1504, 1511),
founded in Spain, at Alcala and Toledo, convents
composed of a limited number of nuns, with an-
nexed communities of young girls, who were to be
brought up till marriage or profession, and endowed
in case of marriage. Another similar institution was

156 Female Ediuational Orders.

founded by the Count of Afuentes, at the place of
that name ; and many others rose up in Spanish
America, for the benefit of the young Indian girls,
who were educated by four and five hundred at a
time (Helyot, vol. vii., c. 48). The first great
female educational order is, however, that of the
Ursulines, founded in 1537 by Angela of Brescia,
though not, in fact, for educational purposes. She
insisted that all the girls of her congregation should
remain in the world each in her parents' house,
from whence they should go forth to seek out the
afflicted for comfort and instruction, to assist the
poor, visit the hospitals, tend the sick, and for any
work of charity which might offer. Although the
founder soon died (1540), the order spread rapidly.
It seems to have first assumed its educational char-
acter in 1575, when the Ursulines of Parma and
Foligno were established to instruct little girls gra-
tuitously in reading, writing, and the catechism.
By 17 15, there were 350 Ursuline houses, divided
among several "congregations," each with a his-
tory of its own,* each with some peculiarities of

* E.g., when Fran9oise de Saintonge founded the first Ur-
suline educational establishment at Dijon, she was hooted
in the streets ; and her father called together four doctors
learned in the law, to make sure that the teaching of females
was not a work of the devil. Twelve years after, through
those same streets, she was almost carried in triumph. See
Mrs Jameson's Sisters of Charity, &c., p. 26.

Ursiclines. 157

constitution and discipline. Thus the " Paris Con-
gregation," numbering more than eighty convents,
had sprung from the gathering together at Avignon,
in 1574, of some twenty to twenty-five young
women for purposes of instruction. In 1594, they
began to live in common ; fell into disorder ; were
reformed by Madame de Ste. Beuve ; transferred to
Paris; erected into a monastic body in 16 12, under
a bull of Paul V. They pronounced, besides the
three solemn vows, a fourth, to instruct little girls.
Nuns were admitted at fifteen, after two years' no-
viciate; and each house received as many as it
could support, and as many more as could guaran-
tee their expenses. In the smaller Toulouse con-
gregation, numbering eight or ten houses, the nuns
used to employ part of their Sundays and holidays
in the instruction of female servants and working
people. Both this and the large Bordeaux congre-
gation (one hundred houses) had affiliated fellow-
ships (also called "congregations") of ladies, for
visiting and succouring the sick, the poor, and
prisoners, the instructing of servants in the fear of
God and in tlie principles of Christianity, or the
teaching of trades to poor girls. The congrega-
tions of Lyons (seventy-four houses) and Tulle (six)
took no vow of instruction. ' The Ursulines of the
county of Burgundy, approved of by Innocents X.
and XI. (1648, 1677), were not even nuns, as

158 Urs7illnes and

making no solemn — i.e., perpetual — vows, but
only simple — i.e., releasable — ones of chastity, po-
verty, obedience, and " stability." All were bound
to labour for the sanctification of their sex; they
brought servants together on Sundays and holidays
for religious instruction. A three years' noviciate
was required ; and the directors were Jesuits. The
Ursulines of Santa Rufina and Santa Seconda, at
Rome, lived in like manner uncloistered, and with-
out vows (Helyot, vol. iv., pt. iii., cc. 20-32).

Augustinians and others soon followed in the
wake of the Ursulines, as might be shewn in
tedious detail. Of the educational establishments
thus founded, several are (as above shewn in refer-
ference to the Ursulines) uncloistered, or free from
perpetual vows ; others are distinguished by a long
noviciate ; most are connected with the outer world
by means of secular associates for out-of-doors
purposes. As an instance of the pure sisterhood,
I may mention the " Daughters of the Infant Jesus,"
founded at Rome, in 1661 (Augustinians), who were
limited in number to thirty-three, (in memory of the
years of the Saviour's life). They underwent three
years' probation, and might withdraw for any just
cause, including marriage. They instructed board-
ers in manual labour, needlework, drawing, paint-
ing, music, and singing ; prepared girls for confir-
mation, and for the monastic life, and afforded

A 7ig7istinians. 159

"retreats" to girls and women. Another, but
cloistered, Aiigustinian body, founded at La
Rochelle in 1664, under the strange and blasphe-
mous title of " Congregation of St Joseph of the
Created Trinity " (/.^., Jesus, Mary, and Joseph),
consisted of houses limited in like manner to
thirty-three members each. Its purpose was that
of teaching poor girls from the age of eight or nine
to that of fifteen or sixteen, when they were put
out to service ; supernumerary members were re-
ceived at 400 livres a year for maintenance, half
of which went to the objects of their charity. The
secular associates of this institute, who were bound
to give half their goods to the orphans instructed
by the congregation, were admitted at the age of
twenty, after three months' probation and two of
noviciate. (He'lyot, vol. iv., c. 54, &c.) To the
nun, be it observed, belongs generally the home-
work of teaching; to the secular associate, the
out-of-door work of relief Thus monachism uses
the lever of free fellowship to move the world.

Existing female orders, if reformed in the six-
teenth century, generally adopted education for
their purpose, or new foundations were established
with this view. When a convent of Capucines or
strict Clarissans was founded at Rome in 1575, en
the old Franciscan basis of manual labour, it was
made at the same time a school for young girls

i6o Port- Royal.

(Helyot, vol. vii., c. 27). When the order of " Our
Lady," ranked as Benedictine, was founded at
Bordeaux in 1608, its especial object was the edu-
cation of young women, and the counteraction of
the mischief caused by the schools of the heretics,
whilst the order itself was modelled on that of the
Jesuits. Indeed from this period, whatever be the
primaiy purpose of any female religious order,
education comes almost invariably to be super-
added to it. Thus the Philippines of St Filippo
Neri, in Italy, originally Franciscan Tertiarians,
took, on their reformation, for office, the bringing-
up of young girls till marriage or profession. About
1647, the celebrated abbey of the " Daughters of
the Holy Sacrament " at Port Royal was reformed
for the (to us) blasphemous purpose of the per-
petual adoration of the Host. Yet, in addition to
many works of charity which he enumerates, their
contemporary historian, the French poet, Racine,
particularly specifies the excellent education given
by the nuns, who sought to render their pupils
equally capable of becoming "perfect nuns or
excellent mothers of families."* And one of the
most ruinous blows afterwards aimed at them by
their Jesuit persecutors was the forbiddance to take

* The readers of Victor Hugo's " Miserable.? " will recol-
lect the precisely similar instance of the Benedictine-Bernar-
dines of Picpus, whose economy he has so vividly described.

Damsels of Charity of Sedan. 1 6 1

in young girls as boarders. It should, indeed, be
observed that in time a distinction grew up, which
still subsists, between those foundations for religi-
ous education, which exist really for the sake of
the poor and the destitute, and those which are
simply religious boarding-schools, — sometimes very
costly ones, — for the education of girls, not only
of the middle but of the very highest classes.*

§ 6. The later Charitable Sisterhoods and Reforma-
tory Orders — Sisters of Charity, &>€.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, —
whether stimulated or not by the example of a
short-lived Protestant society of women, of which
rather too much has, I think, been made by Pro-
testant partizans of the female diaconate, the
" Damsels of Charity" of Se'dan, founded in 1560,
by Prince Henry Robert de la Mark, for succour
ing at their own homes the aged and sick poor
(seemingly only a somewhat strongly-constituted
Ladies' Visiting Society),t — a new tide began to

* Such are at Paris, for instance, the celebrated convents
of the " Sacre Coeur " (an institute modelled on that of the
Jesuits), of the " Oiseaux," &c.

f This society had neither rule, vow, cloister, nor distinct-
ive dress. Its members were chosen amongst the unmar-
ried, took the engagement to spare no pains for the relief of
misfortune, and, subject to certain general regulations, exer-

L

1 62 Vincent dc Panic

flow in female monachism. Education was no
longer alone considered; physical suffering reas-
serted its claim ; and there shone forth a spirit of
womanly tenderness to the fallen, embodying itself
in the female reformator}- orders. To this period
belong the development or reformation of various
houses of hospitallei-s, and, above all, the founda-
tion of the Sisters of Charity, " servants of the
sick poor."

Vincent de Paule, preaching at Chatillon-les-
Dombes in Bresse, recommended a poor family so
strongly to his hearers that many persons went to
visit them. Hence arose a charitable fraternity for
the succouring of the sick (1617), with which he
was so much pleased that he resolved to found
congregations for the like purpose wherever he
should go, or should send missionaries — (he was
already the founder of the " Missionary^ Priests '*
Pretrcs de la Mission). Though the plan was at
first devised for the countr}- alone, a congi-egation
was founded at Paris, and soon the example was

cised their duties of active charity in the localities specially
assigned to them. Though I once, when less conversant
with the subject, thought otherwise, I cannot now conceive
this foundation to have established any claim of priority for
Protestantism over Romanism in respect of diaconal sister-
hoods. If anterior by sume seventy or eighty yeai-s to the
bodies founded by Vincent de Paule, the " Damsels of
Charity " were certainly anticipated by centuries by the Ter-
itarian fellowships, as these had been by the Beguines.

and Mdle. Legras. 163

followed in so many towns that, in spite of all the
visiting of Vincent and of his priests, the "Confreries
de Charite" would have wanted direction, but for
the exertions of a widow lady, Mademoiselle Le-
gras,* to whom, by 1629, he was obliged to dele-
gate the charge of them.

Mademoiselle Legras had originally wished to
enter a convent, but from seeing Vincent de Paule's
example had resolved to devote herself wholly to
the poor. It is related of her that, before starting
on any of her visitation tours, she always took
written instructions from him, and received the
sacrament on the day of her departure. She was
generally accompanied by some pious ladies, all
together travelling roughly and faring poorly, in
order the better to sympathise with the poor. At
first, in the villages and small towns where the
"fraternities of charity" originated, the female
members relieved personally the wants of the poor,
made their beds, and prepared their food and medi-
cines. But when several had been established at
Paris, — ladies of high rank entering into them, " who
could not," says He'lyot, "render personally to the
poor the required services," — country girls were
sought out as "servants of the poor," of whom
many offered themselves for life. Vincent de

* It will be remembered that at this period the term
*' Madame " was confined to ladies of rank.

1 64 The Sisters of Charity^

Paule sought to form them into a community, and
placed several with Mademoiselle Legras, who noAV
organised a system which spread far and wide.

A few extracts from He'lyot, some of which may
provoke a smile, will enable us better to realise
the progress of this movement. He tells us that
Mile. Legras's first thought was to relieve the sick
at the "Hotel-Dieu" (lately "improved" away),
who were found to want m.any comforts. She
therefore got together meetings of ladies, who re-
solved to give every day to the sick of the hospital
jams, jellies, and other sweetmeats by way of col-
lation, to be distributed by each lady in turn, to-
gether with spiritual consolation. After some
time, however, Vincent de Paule obseiTed that it
was difficult for the same persons to employ them-
selves in works of bodily and spiritual mercy, and
so — making divorce between religious consolation
and the jams and jellies — he had fourteen ladies
selected every three months to visit the poor, two
by two, on appointed days of the week, and to
speak to them on religious matters. Mile. Legras,
on the other hand, gave some of the young women,
whom she was bringing up as " servants of the
poor," to make purchases, prepare the articles re-
quired, and help the ladies in visiting and distri-
buting their collations. What between the sweet-
meats and the religious exhortations, we are told,

Serva7its of the Pcor. 165

this new female mission converted 700 heretics
and some infidels. The same ladies subsequently
undertook not only the carrying out of the system
throughout all the kingdom, but also sent missions
to heathen countries.

Whilst this general society of ladies from all
quarters of Paris was occupied at the " Hotel-
Dieu," the particular fraternities of ladies which
were formed in the different parishes to visit sick
and poor artisans at their own homes, composed
of the ladies of the parish, under the direction of
the parish priest, had also recourse to the girls of
Mile. Legras's community.'""

Thus the work divided into two branches : these
communities of women, mostly of the working
classes, the true "Sisters of Charity, servants of
the poor," and the visiting societies of ladies,
mostly employing one or more " Sisters of Charity"
under them. The fonner institute was, however,
as such, quite independent of the latter. As the
number of the " Sisters " went on always augment-
ing. Mile. Legras bought a house at La Chapelle,
and established herself there in May 1636. She
was in the habit of teaching the catechism herself
to women and girls on Sundays and holidays, and

* Before, indeed, being formed into a community, the "ser-
vants of the poor" had been at first solely dependent on the
ladies of the parish fraternities.

1 66 Sisters of Charity ;

had schools besides, where her girls taught children
of their own sex. In 1641 she came into Paris,
to the Faubourg St Denys, opposite St Lazare,
where Vincent de Paule had his priests (now known
as " Lazarists").

The " servants of the poor " received successively
the charge of the Foundling Hospital (another
creation of Vincent de Paule), and of two other
charitable establishments in Paris, and, through
their branches, of several provincial hospitals;
were sent to the army, for the care of the sick and
wounded soldiers ; or, on the Queen of Poland's
request, as far as to Poland, where they received
the charge of the plague-stricken in Warsaw (1652),
and afterwards that of an asylum for orphan or
deserted girls. When He'lyot wrote, in 17 19, they
had 290 establishments in France, Poland, and
the Netherlands, comprising more than 1500
women. The sisters had generally no property;
their very lodgings were held consecrated to the
poor. They were maintained by the hospitals
where they served, and received a very trifling
sum for extra expenses. Candidates were ad-
mitted to the seminary of the establishment, after
strict inquiry into their character, on payment of a
small sum for dress and furniture ; being entitled
to take away whatever they brought in, should they
leave the institution. At the lapse of six months

Characters of their Instittite. 167

they received the sisters' dress, and began to be
instructed ; when deemed competent, they were
sent out as required. After five years' probation,
they took simple vows, renewable annually. From
time to time they were called back to the seminary,
for an eight days' " retreat." The superior, elected
for three years, was re-eligible for three more.
But Mile. Legras was elected for life. (He'lyot,
vol. viii., pt. 6, c. 14).

I have dwelt upon the institute of the " Sisters of
Charity" at greater length probably than its in-
trinsic merits required. But, confounded as it
generally is by Protestants with many other similar
bodies, although itself forming but a prominent
detail in the history of Romish charities, it em-
bodies probably for many all that they know of
those charities. Viewed in itself, with its class-
distinctions,* it seems to me far inferior in spiri-
tual beauty to Be'guinism, or to several forms of
Romish sisterhoods. It exhibits, indeed, a further
disentanglement in the Romish Church of the
principle of fellowship from the monastic system.
The Sisterhoods of Charity do not, like the Ter-
tiarian fellowships, look up to a First or a Second
Rule. The very ground of their formation is found
in the recoil of Mile. Legras from the temptation

* Which have, indeed, disappeared in modern times, when
many of the sisters are ladies by birth.

1 68 Sislers of Si Joseph.

of the cloister. And thus, instead of the charitable
fellowship being a mere outside appendage, bul-
wark ornament, and at the same time highway to
the cloister, it becomes a centre itself, round which
clusters again the larger growth of a visiting society.
Second only to the "Sisters of Charity" is the
"Congi-egation of the Sisters of St Joseph," founded
by the Bishop of Puy in 1650. The purposes of
this institute included all works whatsoever of
charity and mercy ; the management and nursing
of the sick in hospitals, the direction of refuges
for penitents, the care of houses for poor orphan
girls; schools for the education of little girls,
wherever no sisterhoods bound by solemn vows
were at hand to hold them ; the daily visiting of
the sick and of prisoners. In most of their houses
they had a pharmacy, containing the most usual
and needful dmgs. The sisters looked especially
after poor girls in danger of losing their honour,
trying to find lodgings and work for them ; sought
to establish charitable fraternities (" Congregations
de la Misericorde ") of married and unmarried
women where none existed ; held once a month a
ladies' meeting for the visiting of the sick poor of
the parish ; besides private Sunday and saints' day
meetings, of widows, married women, and girls
separately, to converse on religious or charitable

Hospitallc7's of St Joseph. 169

subjects. After two years' noviciate, the sisters
made simple vows of poverty, chastity, obedience,
humility, and charity. They were authorised to
form in villages small communities of three or four
affiliated sisters, who only pronounced the three
first vows, and were dependent on the superior of
the nearest house of their congregation (He'lyot,
vol. viii., pt. vi., c. 24).

The " Hospitallers of St Joseph," — distinct from
the above sisterhood of that name, — were at first a
secular congregation, formed by a few women who
went to the hospital of La Fleche to take care of the
poor. After they had been working for eight years,
they pronounced, in 1643, simple vows of chastity,
poverty, and obedience, and of devoting themselves
to the service of the poor, taking engagements for
three years, or some other definite time. Amongst
the ladies of rank who joined them is mentioned
Mile, de Melun, Princess of Epinay, whose father
was Hereditary Constable of Flanders, and Sene-
schal of Hainault. They had hospitals in several
large French towns, a large estabUshment in
Canada, at Montreal, and others besides, and ex-
changed their simple vows for solemn ones, under
a bull of Alexander VII., in 1667, although con-
tinuing to take in "associate sisters" under simple
vows. If any house of this institute became poor,

I 70 The Sistei'Jwod and the Order ;

it was part of the rule for the others to assist
it rather than found another, and all the houses
were to correspond from time to time with one
another.

Observ-e that the two great sisterhoods of " Cha-
rity" and of the " Congregation of St Joseph" pro-
nounced only simple — i.e,^ releasable — vows, and
the former only from year to year and after a long
noviciate. It will be found, I think, almost invari-
ably, that female monachism in its strictest fomi
only exercises Christian charity within the four
walls of its convents ; that its sphere of usefulness
is mainly confined to the education of infants and
young girls, the reformation of the erring, perhaps
the care of the female sick ; that as soon as its
charity, even towards the sick, expands to reach
the other sex, a long noviciate becomes indispens-
able, simple vows are substituted for solemn. In
other words, as the usefulness of female monachism
extends, so must its monastic character sit the
looser upon it, and the " sisterhood " take more
and more the place of the " order." Would you
know how the two principles struggle together?
In 1628, the Hospitallers of Toulouse wished to
found a hospital for receiving the sick. The coun-
cil of the order forbade them. It was enough for
them to share in the charity which the Knights, to
whom they were affiliated, practised with so much

Which is the more Effective f 171

edification at the hospital of Malta."" So these
poor souls, longing to devote themselves to active
charity, were put off with the dry husks of a ficti-
tious participation in the merits of others' good
works. Would you note the superior efficacy, for
active duties, of the comparatively free sisterhood %
A secular congregation, that of the Hospitallers of
Dijon and Langres, under simple vows, and with
a five years' noviciate, w^as placed in charge of the
hospitals of Dijon in 1668, after a body of nuns
(those of the Holy Ghost of Montpellier) had
failed to give satisfaction. (Helyot, vol. viii., pt.
vi., c. 31). Would you see how the free sisterhood
gradually loses its efficiency by becoming monas-
ticised % In the order " of the Visitation of our
Lady," founded by Frangois de Sales at the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century, the sisters, whilst
uncloistered, and pronouncing simple vows, used to
devote themselves to ordinary works of mercy, such
as visiting, relieving, and nursing the sick. In 1626,
they became, as the term is, a " religion," changing
their simple vows for solemn ; attempted the refor-
mation of women, and were intrusted with the direc-
tion of the prison of the Madelonnettes at Paris, for
female offenders ; and they were received in Poland

* Helyot, vol. iii., c. 15 : " Le conseil de la religion s'y
opposa, et on leur repondit qu'il suffisait qu'elles partici-
passent a la charite que les chevaliers pratiquaient avec tant
d'edification dans I'hopital de Malte."

172 Charitable Ordei^s.

upon similar terms. Yet in Poland the purpose of
their institute was eventually changed to the mere
instructing of little girls ; in France, they had to
give up the charge of the prison which had been
intrusted to them, and in He'lyot's time their main
work had sunk to the almost passive one of giving
an asylum to infirm women and girls (Helyot, vol.
ii., c. 50; vol. iv., cc. 43, 44).

Not, however, that solemn vows themselves
could altogether stifle the active charities of wo-
men in this age, although undoubtedly the main
strength of the Romish charitable movement
lay in the "congregations," as distinct from the
"religions." Several orders of Hospitaller nuns
were founded in the seventeenth century; the
Hospitallers of St Thomas de Villanueva, Ter-
tiarians of St Augustin (latter part of the cen-
tury), who had charge of most of the hospi-
tals of Brittany (Helyot, vol. iii., c. 11); the
Hospitallers of Loches, Augustinians (1621), who
took, besides the three vows of charity, poverty,
and obedience, a fourth to serve the poor unclois-
tered (He'lyot, vol. v., c. 49) ; the Bethlehemites
of Guatemala (1668), (He'lyot, vol. iii., c. 48); the
Hospitallers of the Charity of our Lady (1624), for
the reception of sick women only, and these only
under certain limitations, including that of their
not being unconverted heretics (He'lyot, vol. v., c.

Reformatory Orders. 173

48). To the beginning of the seventeenth century-
belongs also the great retorm by " Mother Gene-
vieve Bouquet," a goldsmith's daughter, of the
Paris Hospitallers. Of the Hospitaller nuns of the
Hotel-Dieu, He'lyot says, with an emotion beyond
his usual gossipy manner : " There is no one who,
seeing the nuns of the Hotel-Dieu not only dress
and clean the sick and make their beds, but in the
midst of winter break the ice of the river which
passes through the midst of the hospital, and enter
it as far as their middle to wash clothes full of filth
and horror, will not consider them as so many holy
victims." It should not, however, be overlooked,
that the noviciate in this order, although reduced,
after 1636, from twelve years, which" it had been in
the old Be'guine days, to seven, was still unusually
long (Helyot, vol. iii., c. 22).

The new charitable work of female monachism
in the seventeenth century was, however, that of the
reformation of erring women. Of the female orders
founded for this special purpose I will only men-
tion a few.

That of " Our Lady of the Refuge " was estab-
lished in 1624 by a lady, Marie Elizabeth de la
Croix, whose history, a romance in itself, compris-
ing a forced marriage with a husband whose cruelty
to her was incredible, the passion of a physician
who used sorcery to obtain her affections, and a

174 '^^^^ Rcfomnatory Oi'ders

period of demoniacal possession, is given at length
by Helyot. She began by taking two women from
the streets into her own house, then others, till the
number rose to twenty ; she herself with her three
daughters waiting upon them, one cooking, another
serving at table, the third reading to them. When
the establishment was finally organised in 1634,
the honourable and the penitent formed still but
one body, alike in dress and life, except that the
virtuous were always to be chosen as superiors,
and for offices of responsibility ; but lest the insti-
tute should ever degenerate into an ordinary con-
vent, the penitents were always to forni two-thirds
of the whole number. The community was thus
divided into three classes : those sisters who de-
voted themselves entirely to the work of reforma-
tion ; the penitents, who, being deemed really
converted, were admitted to the same profession
as the virtuous sisters ; and those who were not yet
deemed awake to religious feelings. No maried
woman was admitted unless separated from her hus-
band, or with his consent (He'lyot, vol. v., c. 47).

Very beautiful also is the institute of the
" Daughters of the Good Shepherd," a much later
foundation, established by Madame de Combd,
for penitents of all countries, who were freely
maintained, beyond the expense of the first dress.
The sisters were received at twenty-three, after two

of the Seventeenth Century. 175

years' probation, wore the same dress as the peni-
tents, and were lodged and fed the same. Every
sister on her reception kissed all the penitents,
waited on them at dinner, and kissed their feet
afterwards (Helyot, vol. viii., pt. vi., c. 32).

There is somewhat less of absolute self-abnega-
tion in the order of " Our Lady of Charity." Father
Eudes, brother of Me'zerai the historian, collected
a few penitents together, and placed them with a
woman named Madeleine L'Amy, who instructed
them, taught them to work, and supplied their
wants out of the funds which were collected for
her. She incited Eudes to establish at Caen a
House of Refuge, where the penitents were at first
instructed by young women who did not leave their
families. As the zeal of these, however, soon fell
off, a community was established in 1642 by royal
letters patent, and afterwards confirmed by a bull
of Alexander VII. in 1666. The members took,
besides the three solemn vows, a fourth to labour
for the instruction of penitent women and girls.
But no penitent was ever to become a nun in the
order (Helyot, vol. vi., c. 53).

Many other bodies — mostly of a mixed charac-
ter, partly educational, partly for purposes of physi-
cal relief, or again, of moral reformation — were
founded during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, most of them under simple vows only,

I "j^ The Reformatory Orders.

the history of Avhose establishment offers often
noble instances of female self-devotion.*

The community of the " Santa Croce " of Rome
was founded for the reception of dissolute women,
and the instruction of young girls, the sisters, how-
ever, having power to marry (Helyot, vol. iii., c. 51).
The congregation of the " Filles de la Croix " took
its origin in the infamous crime of a schoolmaster
of Roye in Picardy, on the person of one of his
female scholars (1625), when four poor seam-
stresses offered themselves to the parish priest to
teach girls under his direction. After some time
they seem to have been persecuted, took refuge at
Paris (1636), and were placed at Brie-Comte-
Robert by a lady, Madame de Villeneuve, who soon
joined them, as well as the original director, the
Cure Guerin. But soon a difference arose between
the patroness and the director on the management
of the house, and especially on the question of
vows, of which the priest was sensible enough to
disapprove. They were, however, established as a
congregation by Archbishop Gondy in 1640, and
by royal letters patent in 1642, and Madame de
Villeneuve and the young women who sided with

* It is a remarkable fact, that if a list of Romish female
sisterhoods contained in "Hospitals and Sisterhoods " can be
tiiisted, all such sisterhoods founded since 16S5 are " active,"
none contemplative.

Sisterhood of '' la Providence. " 177

her took simple vows of charity, poverty, obedience,
and stabihty ; others, however, remained with
Gue'rin at Brie-Comte-Robert, without taking vows.
Both branches of the congregation appear to have
spread in France and in Canada. Their common
rule was to exercise spiritual charity towards
women, especially towards the poor, and to keep
open house for their reception, both towards spiri-
tual instruction and exhortation (Helyot, vol. viii.,
pt. vi., c. 17).

Somewhat similar to the above is the institute of
the " Filles de la Providence de Dieu," founded
by Mme. Polaillon, widow of a councillor of
State, and established by royal letters patent in
1643, as an asylum for young girls endangered in
their honour by their beauty, their poverty, the
desertion or ill conduct of their parents. Their
association was renewed in 1652. They laboured
not only for the instruction of youth, but also for
the conversion of female Jews and heretics. Sisters
were received at twenty, after two years' probation,
and took simple vows of chastity, of obedience, of
serving their neighbour according to the constitu-
tions of the institute, and of perpetual stability in
the house. They received also, for a yearly sum,
unmarried women of good character, without re-
quiring them to engage themselves to the com-
munity. The girls received for instruction must

M

T 78 The " Union ChrUienner

be wholly destitute, and must not exceed the age
of ten. There was also an inferior class of " given
sisters " {smirs do?i?iees) for the rough work of the
house. (He'lyot, vol. viii., pt. vi., c. 19).

The "Filles et Veuves des Seminaires del'Union
Chretienne " were a community, — of which the first
idea belonged also to Mme. Polaillon, — formed
in 1661. The duties of the institute — one of
which (as in the case of the last-named body)
recalls the old diaconal function of the "Ang^I-
iques " of the sixteenth century — were threefold —
ist, The conversion of heretic women and girls;
2d, The reception of girls and widows of good birth
who were without resources or protection ; 3d, The
bringing up of young girls in virtue and piety, and
the teaching to them reading, writing, and women's
work generally. Many houses of the institute
were soon founded; a branch of it, called "La
petite Union," devoted itself specially to the bring-
ing up of servant-girls, and the receiving them
when out of place. The members of the congre-
gation were bound to teach little girls gratuitously,
to endeavour to reconcile women's quarrels, and
generally to do all the good that might fall within
their power. The probation term was two years,
after which they made simple vows of chastity,
obedience, and poverty, and a fourth of union
amongst themselves (Hclyot, vol. viii., pt. vi.,c. 20).

The ' ' Miramio7ies. " 179

The "Filles de Ste Genevieve," or " Miramiones,"
were founded by Mme. de Miramion, a widow,
born in 1629, who in her youdi had been carried
away by the notorious Bussy Rabutin. As a
private person, she maintained twenty httle girls
in a house, and paid mistresses for their instruc-
tion, and would often wait on the sick at the
Hotel-Dieu. And here comes in a trait charac-
teristically Romish. Her director, we are told, ex-
horted her to make a " retreat" for a year, in order
to devote herself entirely to her own perfection,
without exercising her charity towards her neigh-
bour.* After this, as " treasurer of the poor " for
a Parisian parish, she is related in time of civil
war to have distributed more than 2000 cups of
broth in a day. Her ordinary resources failing,
she sold a pearl necklace for 20,000 livres, then
her plate, and with the produce established mis-
sions, schools, charities for the sick poor of the
country districts. She learned herself to bleed, to
dress wounds, to compound salves, &c., and kept
a pharmacy in her house. After the marriage
of her daughter, she devoted herself entirely to
pious objects, and, amongst other labours, founded

* " Son diiecteur I'engagea a une retraite d'un an, pour
vaquer uniquement ^ sa perfection, sans s'adonner aux exer-
cices de piete a I'egard du prochain, dont on ne hii permii
Vexercice qiia la Jin de Fann^e,^^

i8o ** Miramiones',' &c.

the community of young women above mentioned,
who were to hold schools in the countr)^ districts,
dress wounds, and assist the sick. There was
already in existence a " Community of St Gene-
vieve," founded in 1661 by Mile. Blosset, to visit
the sick, acquire religious influence over women,
receive young girls for a yearly maintenance, hold
elementary schools and conferences, and receive
women to "retreats." The two bodies united in
1665, and were afterwards joined by other com-
munities formed with somewhat similar objects.
The Filles de St Genevieve, as definitively con-
stituted, taught little girls to read, write, and work,
and instructed them in their religious duties; re-
ceived schoolmistresses to train, or went to train
them in the country; held familiar religious con-
ferences for women, received "retreats," helped
the sick, the poor, and wounded of the parishes
where they were established, and were able to
bleed, and dress wounds. They were admitted at
twenty, after two years' probation, and made no
vows. Associate sisters were also admitted after
one year's probation. (Hdlyot, vol. viii., pt. vi.,
c. 29.) Let me mention also the congregation of
the " Filles de Ste Agnbs " of Arras, and of the
" Holy Family of Douay," established to bring up
deserted orphan girls till they should be of 3
marriageable age, and who pronounced only the

'' Ro sines.'' i8i

three simple vows.* (Helyot, vol. viii., pt. vi.,
C.31.)

§ 7. Persistency of Romish Diaconal Sisterhoods.

I shall not attempt to carry down the story from
where He'lyot leaves it, before the middle of the
eighteenth century.t Since then, old orders have

* By the side of these various charitable communities
stands out with an interest quite its own the institute of the
"Rosines" of Turin (founded 1740, by Rosa Govemo, who
had been a servant), an account of which will be found in
Mrs Jameson's "Communion of Labour," p. 124. These
have no vows or seclusion ; they are a genuine working asso-
ciation of women, only with a strong religious element infused
in their work. Here Mrs Jameson found nearly 400 women,
from fifteen years of age upwards, gathered together in an
assemblage of buildings, where they carry on tailoring, em-
broidery, especially of military accoutrements for the army,
weaving, spinning, shirt-making, lace-making, every trade,
in short, in which female ingenuity is available. They have
a large well-kept garden, a school for the poor children of
the neighbourhood, an infirmary, including a ward for the
aged, a capital dispensary, with a small medical library.
They are ruled by a superior elected from among themselves;
the work-rooms are divided into classes and groups, each
under a monitress. The rules of admission, and the interior
regulations are strict ; any inmate may leave at once, but
cannot be re-admitted. Finally, they are entirely self-sup-
porting, and have a yearly income of between 7o,ooof, to
8o,ooof.— ;;{^2Soo to ;^3200. No female organisation is more
pregnant with hopes for the future than this.

t It may, indeed, be thought, that as Helyot's details, at
least of later foundations, are in great measure confined to

1 8 2 Persistency of Romish

become decayed or been reformed : new ones have
been founded. But I have yet to learn that any
new development of monachism has taken place.
On the contrary, the real wonder is to find such a
general identity between the picture drawn a hun-
dred and more years ago, and the original as we
see it now. In vain did the great French Revolu-
tion remodel the whole of European society, and
nearly the whole map of Europe. In vain did
religion seem for a while dead in France and
throughout much of the Continent. Still, through-
out every Roman Catholic country is the educa-

France, the field of study would be greatly enlarged could we
have as fiill a survey of the rest of the Romish world. I
think not. France, especially since the Reformation, is the
very heart of Romanism, even though Rome may be its direct-
ing head. When France is lukewarm, all Romanism lan-
guishes; when France is zealous, Romanism is aggressive.
Where would the Papacy have been by this time, but for
French piety, French eloquence, French gold, and French
steel ? The semi-Protestantism of the Gallican Church has
almost alone kept alive the intellectual activity of Romanism
in the last three centuries, even amongst its most virulent op-
ponents, and every brightest light of the Romish Church since
Ignatius and Xavier has been, by birth or language, a French-
man. In studying, therefore, female monachism in France,
we may rest assured that we study it in its most typical and
striking forni. In Mrs Jameson's *' Sisterhoods of Charity,"
and her " Communion of Labour," will be found, however,
details as to German and Italian sisterhoods, especially as
to the "Elizabethan Sisters" of Germany, who, with the
Beguines, were excepted from the general suppression of
religious communities by the Emperor Joseph II.

Diaconal Sisterhoods. 1 83

tion of girls mainly or wholly in the hands of female
communities. Still are " Sisters of Charity " or
" Mercy," of " St Joseph," &c., at work in almost
every Romish hospital, and earning, by their self-
devotion and skill, the praise of every English
surgeon who studies in foreign wards. Still are
" Grey Sisters " sought for as private nurses through-
out all their olden haunts, from the Channel to the
heart of Switzerland. Still is almost every Roman
Catholic refuge, reformatory, penitentiary, prison
(for females at least), under the control of religious
sisterhoods — as, for instance, the well-known Asy-
lum of the Good Shepherd at Hammersmith. The
Papacy may tremble on its base, but the Collective
Female Diaconate of the Romish Sisterhood is
rooted in almost all lands.*

The evidence of the vitahty of such institutions
which is afforded by the general identity of the
picture traced more than a century ago by the en-
cyclopaedist of monachism, with the original such
as it may be seen at the present day, is so remark-
able that it deserves to be illustrated by an instance
or two.

* See, for instance, in the Appendix to "Hospitals and
Sisterhoods," the list of houses of " Sisters of Charity" now
in existence. It appears elsewhere, from the same work, that
since the beginning of this century there had been founded,
by the date of its publication, twelve new female sisterhoods,
all for purposes of active charity.

i8j. Romish Sistcj^hoods

In the year 1854 (apparently), an Anglican
clergyman of decided Romanistic leanings, being
compelled to leave his parish for change of air and
scene, determined to examine into the practical
working of the "sister Church" — /.<?., the Roman
Catholic — in France. He has consigned the re-
sults of his experience in a little work, published in
1855, under the title of "A Glance beyond the
Grilles of Religious Houses in France," in which
will be found much curious and interesting detail
on this little-known subject, mixed with many a
most painful page to any reader of honest Pro-
testant feelings, and some careless libelling of the
French Protestant Church. His tour was one
simple enough. Crossing to Calais, he reached
Paris, via St Omer, Douai, Arras, and Amiens,
returning by Boulogne.

At Arras, he finds seventeen sisters of St Vin-
cent de Paule — /.<?., the " soeurs de charite" proper,
in charge of the St Louis hospital, tending the
sick as they might have done in the seventeenth
century ; in charge, again, of an orphan-house for
the poorest children of both sexes, as they were at
Warsaw in the eighteenth. He finds the Ursu-
lines educating young girls — here indeed of the
upper classes — in their convent, as they might
have done towards the end of the sixteenth. Nuns
of the Good Shepherd are engaged in their old

in the Present Day. 185

work of receiving penitents, though they have
added to it an orphanage. He finds branches of
the Franciscan nuns, — of the community of the
" Holy Family," — of a seemingly new institute (of
which more hereafter), the " Little Sisters of the
Poor." By the side of these diaconal bodies the
Benedictines of the Holy Sacrament keep up their
perpetual vigil before the altar j the Clarissans ad-
here to their strict discipline of old. He goes on
to Douai, and finds again a Fever-hospital and
Poor-house under the charge of Sisters of Charity.
He finds these sisters still under the direction of
the missionary priests, now known as Lazarists,
whose monastery he visits at Douai, and whose
" Superior General " is the common head of both
the male and female orders.

In Paris, lastly, he finds himself in the centre of
Romish practical monachism. Sisters of Charity
are every^vhere, — at the Infirmary of the " Inva-
lides," at the Foundling Hospital, the Hospital for
Sick Children, &c., &c., with institutions of their
own in each of the twelve arrondissements of Paris.
In connexion with the sisterhood have been revived
those charitable associations of ladies from which,
as has been shewn, it in fact originally sprang.
Thus, he tells us that in 1840 was founded a society
of ladies under the general of the Lazarists, for
visiting the sick at their homes, especially in the

1 86 Sisters of Charity.

most densely-peopled districts, and those most
distant from ordinary means of succour; only — by a
change which shews the democratic tendencies of
the day, — whereas formerly it was the ladies who or-
dered, and the "servants of the poor" who obeyed;
the ladies now " associate themselves with the sis-
ters of St Vincent, and go with them or under their
direction, to carry assistance to the sick, in money,
soup, medicine, and other necessaries, and at the
same time to take advantage of their state of health
to influence them for good ; to teach the Catechism
to those who have never learned, or who have for-
gotten it." Another secular association of the
" Ladies of Charity" is also in connexion with the
sisters of St Vincent, and " there are associations
of these dames in a great number of parishes in
Paris, of which M. le Cure is always president,"
— just as in the days of Louis XIV. The sisters
themselves are 12,000 in number (an increase, it
will be observed, of 800 per cent, since Helyot's
days), scattered all over the world, carrying on
their old work of nursing the sick, visiting the poor,
instructing the young. — Cloistered Franciscans
educate gentlemen's children, but remain faithful
to their old habit of manual labour, so far as doing
needlework for churches and for the poor. — Ladies
of St Thomas of Villanueva have charge of another
hospital for sick children, and (having seemingly

'' Little Sisters of the Poor!' 187

coalesced with or revived the congregation of the
" Good Shepherd ") of a female reformatory, with a
preventive branch for educating young girls

It would be tedious to go on with these details.
Two recent foundations must, however, be noted,
not, indeed, as shewing any new development of
monachism, but as exliibiting the powers of self-
sacrifice which it knows yet how to discipline, and
to adapt to new social wants.

The "Little Sisters of the Poor" renounce all
worldly possessions before entering the institute,
so that every need whatsoever, down to the wear-
ing apparel of the sisters, has to be begged for.
Twelve of them have charge of one hundred and
seventy-one poor people, all above sixty year^ of
age, some utterly infirm and helpless. Three times
a-day two of the sisters go forth, in all weathers,
basket in hand, to provide for the maintenance of
the whole community, — - begging everywhere, at
gentlemen's houses, at hotels, cafes ^ shops, market-
stalls. Of the broken victuals which they receive,
the best are dressed for the inmates of the house ;
what remains they eat themselves, the very hardest
crusts out of the special "crust-drawer" being
saved for their own eating.*

* See in "Hospitals and Sisterhoods," p. ii6 and fol-
lowing, the account of the rise of the " Little Sisterhoods,"
whose institute, founded, it '.vould seem, in 1839, numbered

1 88 *' Blind Sisters of St Paul:

Another beautiful institute is that of the " BHnd
Sisters of St Paul," of which the objects are : —

I St. The reception as pensioners, subject to a
rule of labour and study, of adult blind girls who
have no means of livelihood, and who may even-
tually be received into the community : *

2d. The education of blind children, six years
old and upwards ;

3d. The education and teaching in some trade
of a certain number of girls not blind, who may
become the guides and instructors of the bhnd ;

4th. The reception, for a very moderate sum, as
free boarders, of blind ladies ;

5 th. The carrying on of all available efforts for
the moral, intellectual, and physical improvement
of the blind.

So much for the vitality of Romish diaconal
monachism in the female sex within its old haunts.
Let us see an instance of that vitality in a quite
different field, in a land where it has no adventitious
aids to rely upon, where it stands exposed to the
fiercest glare of public scrutiny, where it must rely
on its practical worth alone for support. Miss

in 1854 between five hundred and six hundred sisters, work-
ing in thirty-three houses.

* "The blind are thus," said the author's guide to him,
** raised to the dignity of spouses of Jesus Christ " (<f la dig-
nile cV'epoiises de Jisiis Christ). The old soul-destroying
falsehood is thus rampant till now.

Romish Sisterhoods in America. 189

Bremer, in her " Homes of the New World
(1853)," speaks thus of the Romish convents of St
Louis, Missouri : —

..." I visited various CathoHc asyhmis and
religious institutions under the care of nuns. It
was another aspect of female development which
I beheld there. I saw in two large asylums for
poor orphan children, and in an institution for the
restoration of fallen women (the Good Herder's*
Asylum), as well as at the hospital for the sick, the
women who call themselves ' sisters,' living a true
and great life as mothers of the orphan, as sisters

and nurses of the fallen and the suffering

I must observe, that CathoUcism seems to me at
this time to go beyond Protestantism in the living
imitation of Christ in good works Con-
vents are established in the New World in a re-
novated spirit. They are freed from their unmean-
ing existence, and are effectual in labours of love.

" These convents here have large, light halls,
instead of gloomy cells; they have nothing gloomy
or mysterious about them ; eveiything is calculated
to give life and light free course. And how lovely
they were, these conventual sisters, in their noble,
worthy costume, with their quiet, fresh demeanour
and activity. They seemed to me lovelier, fresher,

* Obviously the "Good Shepherd." The translator should
have known better.

IQO Lessons of the

happier than the greater number of women hving
in the world whom I have seen. I must also re-
mark that their nun's costume, in particular the
head-dress, was, with all its simplicity, remarkably

becoming and in good taste I do not know

why beauty and piety should not thrive well to-
gether The sight of the sisters here would

assuredly make a sick person well." — (Vol. ii., p.

344).*

Surely there is a meaning for us in all this, and
especially in the permanence of an institution on
one point so utterly at war with human nature
itself.

I do not know if others feel as I do the strange-
ness of its history, — that curious interweaving of
the false with the true in seemingly indestructible
vitality, — that marvellous marriage of solitude with
society, — the tremendous power acquired by that
which is spiritually the very type of individualism,
solely through the adoption of every means and
appliance of practical fellowship. For at bottom
monachism, in its most social form, monachism in
the shape of a vast order of thousands of men and
women spread over the whole world, gathered into
common societies in each town, in constant com-
munication with one another, subject to one rule,

* See also the Appendix to " Hospitals and Sisterhoods"
for a list of the Sisterhoods of Charity in the United States.

History of Monachism. 191

obedient to one general freely elected by the suf-
frages of all, is spiritually nothing but one collective
hermit, who has made the wilderness his dwelling,
who has fled the common brotherhood of humanity.
And yet all the strength of that hermit lies surely
in this — that he is a collective hermit; that the false
monastic order mimics the true human order. How
was it, for instance, that the monks ever triumphed
over the secular clergy, but that they were united
and the others scattered? Bishops, priests, deacons,
had to be gathered into synods and councils before
they could act in common ; but each monastery
was a perpetual synod, a perpetual council. So
that whilst singly the monk was probably never a
match for the priest, the monks as a class were
always able to overbear the priesthood, even when
not by the force of numbers, yet still by the habit
of united action.

And how is it in like manner that convents and
monastic seminaries, considered as places of edu-
cation, have always, amongst a Roman Catholic
population, that is to say, upon equal terms, taken
the lead in the long run of private lay teaching, so
long as it was not connected with the principle of
a religious reformation % And how is it that mo-
nastic or semi-monastic bodies of women (I do not
say of men) have in like manner invariably outshone
private nurses in the care of the sick, private matrons

192 Strength of the Sisterhood,

or female turnkeys in the management and reforma-
tion of the female outcast or criminal % Not surely
through this, that they were estranged in life from
the whole of the other sex, and in spirit from the
remainder of their own, by a vow of ceHbacy, — I
trust to have shewn ere this that by far the greater
portion of the active charities of the female sex in
the Romish Church are exercised either without
vows, or under releasable ones; — but through this,
that they were bound together as one body, by
common ties, common hopes, common objects, a
common life often, a common point of honour, and
perhaps the common stigma of a hated name and
a ridiculed dress. Surely, once more, it is the
brotherly principle which has done the work of
monachism, its really vast work, and not the selfish,
separating, individual one."^

* In the last appendix to Dr Howson's work will be found
a slight account of some existing " Sisterhoods of Mercy" in
the Greek Church, the origin of which, however, is not men-
tioned. I should suspect them to be copies of the Romish
ones, but owing to the far less monastic character of the Greek
Church, capable of much healthier life than the originals.
Their constitution appears to me quite unexceptionable.

CHAPTER IV.

DEACONESSES AND SISTERHOODS IN REFERENCE TO
THE REFORMED CHURCHES.

§ I. Deaconesses and Female Monachism among the
Reforj7ied Churches m the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries.

T

HERE would now remain to be considered
what efforts have been made, in the Re-
formed Churches, to reproduce either the typical
institutions of the early Church or the later develop-
ments of Romanism, or to substitute new forms for
those older ones, towards the consecration of female
zeal and usefulness to the service of the Church,
either individually or in bodies. I shall not, how-
ever, attempt to do more than give a few hints for
the purpose.

One of the most curious branches of the subject,
though one which I have not had leisure to follow
out is that of the connexion of female monachism

194 Fo7tale Monachism

with the Reformation. Those who are at all
famihar with the histoiy of the sixteenth century,
must be well aware by how much the spirit had
preceded the practice of religious reform; how,
when all the principles had been already pro-
claimed, which sapped at its base the old Romish
world, the fabric of that old world remained still
standing, and the "evangelical doctrine" was re-
ceived by and preached in many a convent of
either sex, without seemingly a suspicion that it
was soon to be deemed incompatible with their
existence. As late as 15 21, when the controversy
as to celibacy was already beginning, we find Luther
writing thus to Melancthon (9th September), in a
letter which exhibits, with invaluable candour and
openness, the struggle then going on in his own
mind : — " If with a free and evangelical mind thou
takest vows, and of thy free will makest thyself a
slave, it is just that thou do keep and pay thy
vow," — thus admitting the possible compatibility
even of perpetual celibacy with " a free and evan-
gelical mind."

Of the Be'guines, and of what remained of the
Be'ghards untainted by Antinomian heresy, and
unruined by persecution, it is related by Mosheim
that they embraced almost everywhere the doc-
trines of the Reformation.* The German B^guine

* See first appendix to Mosheim's work " De Beghardis "

and the Reformation, 195

sisterhoods (known in Germany under the name of
seekn-weiber, " soul-women ") appear indeedto have
disappeared, their hospitals passing into the hands
of the State ; but the last notices we have of them
are pleasant ones, — accounts by old Lutheran
ministers of how, as children, they used to go to
the Beguinage, and learn beautiful hymns from the
aged Beguines, which they could still repeat with
delight.

Monastic foundations however, strange to say,
subsisted to a much later period in connexion with
Lutheranism. Thus Helyot, speaking of his own
time (vol. v., pt iv., c. 35), tells us of a Cistercian
abbey of Fraunberg in Westphalia, partly Roman-
ist and partly Lutheran, and of which the abbesses
were of both denominations alternately; adding
that there were various other abbeys in the same
country, both of men and of women, which were
wholly Lutheran. Of the " secular canonesses," —
a body closely analogous to the Beguines, — he
tells us (vol. vi., pt. iv., cc. 50-53) that at St
Stephen of Strasburg they were Zwinglian from
the middle of the sixteenth century to the year
1689; that at Gandersheim, Quedlinburg,* Her-

&c., with reference to the Beguines of Gorlitz and Rochhtz
in Lusatia, and the seven Beguinages of Lubeck.

* So utterly perverted, however, were these institutions
from their original purposes, that we find the notorious

196 Deaconesses of

ford (?), and elsewhere in Germany, they were
Lutherans in his time. And he speaks in hke
manner (vol. vi., pt. iv., c. 55) of some Danish
convents where the nuns had, although embracing
Reformed doctrines, continued to live in com-
munity under a superior, such as those of St Do-
minic at Copenhagen.*

The Reformation, however, exhibits several at-
tempts to revive the type of the early deaconess, and
this amongst the bodies furthest removed from the
Romish Church, least enslaved by its traditions.
The authoress of a pamphlet on " The Institution
of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine" (London, 1851)
tells us, that " in the first general synod of the
Evangelical Church of the Lower Rhine and the
Netherlands, at Wesel, 1568, we find the office of
deaconesses recommended, and in the Classical

Aurora von Koenigsmark, the mistress of Frederic Augustus,
Elector of Saxony, and afterwards King of Poland, obtaining
a canoness's stall at Quedlinburg Abbey, — See ''Maurice de
Saxe," by M. St Rene Taillandier, in the Revue des Deux
Mondes for May i, 1864.

* I believe some of these lay abbeys for gentlewomen in
Holstein formed, under the head of "Stiften," one of the
elements in the late Dano-German imbroglio.

It seems not worth while to do more than mention the
so-called " Protestant Nunnery," or " Arminian Nunnery,*
of Nicholas Ferrar (died 1637), at Little Gidding, Hunting-
donshne, whicli was in fact nothing more than an attempt to
subject a paiticular household to a conventual discipline.

early Protestantism. 197

Synod of 1580, expressly established." Amongst
ourselves, we find recorded in Neal's " History of
the Puritans" (vol. i., c. 6., edit. 1822), amongst
the celebrated " Conclusions " of Cartwright and
Travers, one " Of collectors for the poor, or
deacons," which runs as follows : —

" Touching deacons of both sorts, — viz., men and
7V0f?ien — the church shall be admonished what is
required by the apostle ; and that they are not to
choose men of custom or course, or for their
riches, but for their faith, zeal, and integrity ; and
that the church is to pray in the meantime to be
so united, that they may choose them that are
meet. Let the names of those that are thus
chosen be published the next Lord's -day, and
after that their duties to the church, and the
church's duty towards them; then let them be
received into their office with the general prayers
of the church."*

The Puritan doctors seem on this subject to
have been considerably better read in ecclesiasti-
cal antiquity than Hooker, who thus alludes to it
(Eccles. Pol., bk. v.), not only confounding, as
indeed did Cartwright also, the widow with the
deaconess, but utterly ignorant of the indisputable
fact of the deaconess's ordination : " Touching

* It is obvious that Cartwright and Travers apply i Tim.
iii. 1 1 to the female deacons.

198 Deaconesses of

widows, of whom some men are persuaded, that if
such as St Paul describeth may be gotten, we
ought to retain them in the church for ever \ cer-
tain mean services there were of attendance, as
about women at the time of their baptism, about
the bodies of sick and dead, about the necessities
of travellers, wayfaring men, and such-like, wherein
the church did commonly use them when need
required, because they Hved off the alms of the
church, and were fittest for the purpose. . . .
Widows were never in the church so highly
esteemed as virgins. But seeing neither of them
did or could receive ordination, to make them
ecclesiastical persons were absurd." Altogether a
rather unfavourable sample of the "judicious"
Hooker, and one on which, in consideration of
the many wise and noble things he has elsewhere
said, I shall forbear further comment.

The tough old Puritans however persisted, at
least for a time, in their notions about the revival
of a female diaconate ; for we find in one of the
memorials of the Pilgrim Fathers, Governor Brad-
ford's Dialogue, a description (which has been
often quoted of late years) of the Church of
Amsterdam "before their division and breach,"
wherein we are told that there were three hun-
dred communicants, two pastors and teachers, four
ruling elders, "three able and godly men for

early Protestantism, 199

deacons, one ancient widow for a deaconess^ who
did them service many years, though she was
sixty years of age when she was chosen. She
honoured her place, and was an ornament to the
congregation ; she usually sat in a convenient
place in the congregation, with a little birchen rod
in her hand, and kept little children in great awe
from disturbing the congregation; she did fre-
quently visit the sick and weak, especially women,
and, as there was need, called out maids and
young women to watch and do them other helps
as their necessity did require ; and if they were
poor, she would gather relief for them of those
that were able, or acquaint the deacons, and she
was obeyed as a mother in Israel and an officer
of Christ." — (Young's " Chronicles of the Pilgrim
Fathers," c. 26.) With the exception of the " little
birchen rod" and the "great awe of little chil-
dren,"— Puritan attributes of which I find no trace
among the records of the early deaconesses, — I
must say that this appears to me a most faithful
reproduction of most of the functions of the
original office. Nor was the Amsterdam deacon-
ess a solitary instance. It has been shewn by Dr
Fliedner (I quote here from Dr Howson's work)
that at Wesel, in the Low Countries, there was a
female diaconate at least from 1575 to 161 o, and
that amon.ETst other causes which led to its extinc-

200 Deaconesses Institutes

tion were the restricting the appointment to
women above sixty, and the employment of mar-
ried women — in other words, that confusion between
the deaconess and the widow, against which I have
so often protested in these pages, and therewith a
second departure from the practice of the early
Church. All these various attempts, however, to
inweave into the organisation of the Reformed
Churches the agency of the diaconal functions of
women appear in time to have died out, and,
strange to say, without leaving anything in their
place, at least in this country, beyond the exercise
of private charity. For it is a remarkable fact,
that the great development of visiting and other
local charitable societies, mainly worked in prac-
tice, as we all well know, by women, is of very late
date indeed. The Strangers' Friend Society, now
chiefly Wesleyan, was founded towards the end
of the last century; the first parochial visiting
societies, I am assured, are scarcely more than
thirty or forty years old ; the Metropolitan District
Visiting Society dates only from 1842-3.

§ 2. Dcaco?iesses' Institutes a7id Protesta7it Sisterhoods
in the nineteenth century.

It is only within the present century that the
question of organising women's labours in the ser-

and Protestant Sisterhoods. 201

vice of the Church lias been seriously considered
amongst Protestants. It appears certain, indeed,
that the subject was mooted at least as early in Eng-
land as in any other country, though we have pro-
ceeded with characteristic slowness to act upon the
appeals made to us, from more than one quarter,
even before the French Revolution of 1830. In
the Educational Magazine for 1840, I find mention
and strong commendation of a pamphlet entitled
" Protestant Sisters of Charity," published in 1826,
in the shape of a letter to the Bishop of London,
and ascribed to the Rev. A. Dallas. Two years
after the date of the above pamphlet, Southey, in
his " Colloquies," gave an account of his visit to
the Ghent Be'guinage in 18 15, calling it an insti-
tution " in itself reasonable and useful, as well as
humane and religious;" recording the fact that "no
instance of a Be'guine withdrawing from the order
had ever taken place." In 1840, a series of papers
on " Sisters of Charity" appeared in the Educa-
tional Magazi?ie, written by a valued friend of my
own, lately principal of a great training college,
and to which I owe many a hint that I have since
endeavoured to work out. But meanwhile Pastor
Fliedner had already (in 1833) begun with his wife
and a female friend that work of female reformation
which was to result in the great Deaconesses' Insti-
tution of Kaiserswerth, Pastor Fliedner acknow-

202 Dcaconessei Institutes

ledges himself to have received his first impulse
toward the reformation of erring women from Mrs
Fry. She in turn, after witnessing in Germany the
working of the Kaiserswerth Institute, — especially,
one may conjecture, of its hospital, — ^was moved to
set up, in conjunction with other ladies, the " In-
stitution for Nursing Sisters," still in existence in
Devonshire Square, Bishopsgate. The Paris Dea-
conesses' Institute next followed, in 1841; that of
Strasburg in 1842 ; that of Echallens (now St Loup)
in Switzerland in 1843. Dr Wordsworth, in his
" Diary in France," 1845, seems to have been
the first to mention the Paris deaconesses amongst
ourselves.* An article by myself in the Edin-
burgh Review J on " Deaconesses or Protestant Sis-
terhoods," called attention to the general subject
in 1848, dwelling chiefly on the Paris Insti-
tute, with which I was personally acquainted,
but referring also to Kaiserswerth, Strasburg, and
Echallens. (See Appendix G.) Whilst it was
passing through the press, was established, under
episcopal patronage, the " Training Institution for
Nurses," known as St John's House, which com-
prises a class of " Sisters," being persons " wiUing
to devote themselves to the work of attending the
sick and poor, and of educating others for their

♦ I was unaware of tlxis fact till I met \\\\\\ it in Dr How-
son's book.

and Protestant Sisterhoods. 203

duties."* The Sisterhood of the House of Mercy at
Clewer, and that of Wantage, both of them for the
reformation of fallen women, were founded in 1849;
Miss Sellon's " Sisterhood of Mercy," in which so
much of folly has been mixed up with so much of
self-devotion, about the same time or earlier. (See
Appendix H.) The Paris Deaconesses' Institute
was emphatically commended by the late Bishop
of London in his charge of Nov. "2, 1850. Kaisers-
werth and its doings were specially set forth to the
Enghsh public (185 1) in a pamphlet printed by the
inmates of the London Ragged Colonial Training
School, under the title of " The Institution of
Kaiserswerth on the Rhine," by a lady who had
spent some time there herself, and who was des-
tined ere long to win for herself an imperishable
name as Florence Nightingale ; they have since
formed the subject of one or two other special
publications. The Crimean war, however, may be
said to be that which first popularised the subject
amongst ourselves, partly by bringing Englishmen

* I may observe that the head nurse of a ward in Bartholo-
mew's, Guy's, and probably other London hospitals, is
termed "sister." I have asked of medical men in vain
hitherto the explanation of this fact, and believe it to be a
tradition handed down from the days of Romanism, when
hospital nursing in England was the work of religious sister-
hoods. I cannot find that at present any religious import
whatever is given to the name in these cases.

204 Deaconesses hislitutes

into contact with the flourishing colonies of German
deaconesses in the East ; but, above all, through
the* need which it shewed to exist for the minister-
ing labours of women even in connexion with that
terribly manly work of fighting, and through the
special value which experience stamped there upon
those labours, when prompted by unworldly motives
and duly discipHned beforehand. Then Miss
Stanley's " Hospitals and Sisterhoods " indicated
to the English public the extent of the diaconal
labours of Romish sisterhoods. Mrs Jameson's
"Lecture on the Communion of Labour," 1856,*
set forth that view of the relation between the
sexes which appears to me indispensable as a
groundwork to the wholesomeness of any diaconal
work by women. Dr Howson of Liverpool mooted

* Strange as it may seem, both the works just mentioned
only came to my hands whilst finally preparing the present
one for the press in 1 864, though I was aware of their respec-
tive purports. The few details which I have adopted from
them I have inserted in notes referring to them, but I have not
otherwise in the most trifling manner modified my text.

Agreeing as I do most heartily in the central idea of Mrs
Jameson's "Communion of Labour," I do not think it worth
while to point out here various inaccuracies (arising from a
too implicit following of Romish authorities) in her " Sisters of
Charity," especially as respects the Beguines. I cannot how-
ever but say that both authoresses, by starting from the
Romish sisterhood, ajjpear to me to have missed the true
point of view from which "Woman's Work in the Church"
oueht to be considered.

a7id Protestant Sisterhoods. 205

in 1858 the usefulness of deaconesses in reference
to the teaching of the poor, and in i860 published
in the Quarterly Review an article which, in an
expanded shape, was republished in 1862, and
which contains, so far as I am aware, the fullest
extant account of modem deaconesses' institutes ;
whilst the Rev. W. F. Stevenson, addressing a
wholly different public, ^\Tote for Good IVords
(i86i) these articles on the " Blue Flag of Kaisers-
werth," which, expanded, form one of the most
interesting portions of his volume entitled " Pray-
ing and Working " (1862)."'"

I shall not attempt to enumerate the various in-
stitutions which in the meanwhile have sprung up
amongst us, with or without the use of the names
of " deaconess " or " sister," for the better organisa-
tion of \voman's work in the Church. Most of
them, especially of those in connexion with the
Church of England, will be found noticed in Dr
Howson's work above referred to. A great differ-
ence, however, has till of late years been visible
between such attempts abroad and at home.

* I do not pretend here to have given an exhaustive list of
publications on the subject, but have simply pointed out a
few of the most important. The bibhography of Miss Sel-
lon's sisterhood would of itself form a chapter, and a very
painful one, in any work which should aim at treating the
subject with any degree of completeness. Some considera-
tions respecting it will be found in Appendbc H.

2o6 Greater CoinpreJiensiveness

Whilst the Continental Deaconesses' Institutes
have from the first endeavoured to bring together
as many various branches of female charity as it
was possible to compass, we, with a characteristic
English lack of synthesis, started at first — with the
unlucky exception, indeed, of Miss Sellon's sister-
hood — only from single objects. Devonshire
House and St John's House only dealt with the
care of the sick ; Clewer, Bussage, Wantage, with
that of the penitent. From 1858 to 1861, however,
the subject of woman's work was considered in the
Convocation of Canterbury, and latterly with un-
expected largeness; and, probably as a result of
the growing ripeness of opinion amongst the clergy
of the Church of England on the question, insti-
tutions on the wider Continental plan have been
founded of late years at Middlesborough in York-
shire, and again at the North London Deaconess
Institution (1861).

Kaiserswerth, of course, remains still at the head
of the movement — the true Protestant counterpart
of the Vincent de Paule sisterhoods of the Romish
Church. " At present," writes Mr Fleming Steven-
son, " the colony (for such it must be called) con-
sists of an hospital for men, women, and children ;
a lunatic asylum for females ; an orphanage for
girls ; a refuge for discharged female convicts ; a
Magdalen asylum; a normal seminary for gover-

of the Foreign Ins 1 1 lutes. 2*07

nesses ; an infant school ; a chapel ; two shops ; a
pubhshing office ; a museum ; a residence for the
deaconesses; and a home for the infirm. . . .
Besides, as the property of the institution, there
are — a home for maid-servants in Berhn; an
orphanage at Altdorf ; the deaconess home at Jer-
usalem ; the seminary at Smyrna ; the hospital at
Alexandria ; and the seminary at Bucharest. The
number of these Christian women is about 320, of
whom upwards of 100 are at Kaiserswerth, or at
private service, and the rest scattered over 74 sta-
tions in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Up-
wards of 800 teachers have been sent out to educate
many thousand children." And the growth of the
work at large is sufficiently shewn by the statement
quoted by Dr Howson from the " Jubilee Report "
of Kaiserswerth, that there are now 27 mother-
houses, with a total of 1200 sisters, carrying on
their labours in all parts of the world.

§ 3. Special Characteristics of the Protestant
Deaconesses Institute.

The Protestant Deaconesses' Institute has, it is
obvious, much more in common with the sisterhood
of the Church of Rome than with the original
female diaconate of the Church, and the term
"deaconess" has been, perhaps, rather hastily em-

2o8 special Characteristics

ployed in reference to its inmates. Freed, how-
ever, as it is, or should always be, from the vow or
obligation of celibacy, — and thereby, it is to be
trusted, from the aspiration to a perfection higher
than the holiness of ordinary life, and, above all,
from the deadly dream of a special union of woman
with Christ as a Bridegroom, — it assumes a new
character of its own, as a normal school of female
charity and moral usefulness.

Considered in this light, a Deaconesses' Institute
will be seen to derive its value, not from the mag-
nitude of the charitable foundations connected with
it, nor from the number of resident sisters at the
"mother-house," but from the extent of the field
which it offers for the due training of women in
those ministering functions which have their root
in woman's own nature as the best of nurses, the
gentlest of almsgivers, the tenderest of educators
for the young of both sexes, the great trainer and
moral reformer of her o\vn. The Protestant Dea-
conesses' Institute, therefore, instead of in anywise
estranging its members from the common hfe of
mankind, should simply and solely aim at fitting
them the better to take part in it ; it should glory
rather in sending better women out, than in taking
the very best in. Like the Church of which it is
an instrument, it exists for the world and not for
itself; it has to help in conquering the world for

of the Deaconesses I^istihite, 209

its true King, not to open secure refuges where a
few of that King s subjects may pay their respects
to Him undisturbed.

The Deaconesses' Institute of our days is there-
fore, I repeat it, a new thing in the history of the
world, a new development of the Church's energies
under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Yet, if it
keeps steadily before it the essential truth, that the
ministering functions of woman are only then truly
and wholesomely fulfilled, whilst she remains wedded
to man by the perpetual wedding of constant com-
munication, free intercourse, the fullest interchange
of the gifts and graces of each, it will not be in vain
that such institutions will have recalled to mind
the name of the female diaconate. Although I
would fain see the name of deaconess reserved for
those women who are officially called by the Church
to minister to its diaconal purposes, it is such that
the Deaconesses' Institute aims at sending out as
the finished results of its training ; and the female
deacon of the early Church has indeed, as I have
before observed, been virtually re-evolved from the
Protestant institutes, in. the person of the so-called
" parish deaconess," sent forth from Kaiserswerth
or elsewhere to minister in particular parishes.*

* The so-called High Churchmen amongst ourselves have
been the first to reproduce a similar type in the "sisters"
attached of late years to certain parishes, and their example

0

2 lo The Past and its Lessons :

If the early Church selected deaconesses without
previously training them for their functions, that is
no reason why the Church of the nineteenth cen-
tury should not so train them. It would be pure
pedantry to condemn Kaiserswerth because Phoebe
was never trained there.
V For the Present only can be propagated by slips
and grafts ; the Past, only by seedlings. We shall
lose time and pains if we plant the dead sticks of
the Past, and expect them to grow ; yet the driest
boughs will often bear the ripest seeds. Let us
sow these in faith, and let God give them a body
as it shall please Him., and to eveiy seed its own
body. I believe myself that the old Church-lore
will afford us many a hint, if we study it lovingly,
faithfully, and freely, amid the perplexities of the
present. But if some should think to revive the
female diaconate by investing it with the precise
functions, limiting it by the precise restrictions,
which it had and was bound by of old, they will be
merely planting a dead stick, which cannot grow.
If, however, we feel that it is the duty of the Church
to call forth the ministering energies of its female
members, to give them regular direction, to invest

has extended to other fractions of the English Church. The
use of the word "sister" is, however, in such cases, quite a
misnomer, and, where there is no "sisterhood," singularly
absurd.

How they shoiild be Used. 2 1 1

them with solemn sanctions, — if we cannot rest
satisfied with the dty schemes of ladies' committees
and penny clubs, with the casual labours of women
otherwise engaged, bestowing upon the Church the
mere crumbs of their leisure, taking up the work
and then setting it dow^n again, sometimes as a
source of religious excitement, sometimes as a
mere praisew^orthy and perhaps hereditary occupa-
tion, sometimes as a means of introducing them-
selves into a particular society; — then perhaps
we shall find a seed of life in the idea of the old
Church deaconess, the unmamed female, or the
widow^, devoting herself for the time being freely
but wholly to the needs of others, solemnly conse-
crated to her oflice by the invoking upon her of
that Holy Spirit w^hich alone can enable her to
fulfil it, whether in the care of the rich, the visiting
of the poor or the prisoner, the reformation of the
erring, or the training of the young ; and we shall
rejoice to think that institutions like Kaiserswerth
or Paris, Strasburg or St Loup, Middlesborough or
London, afford such varied and admirable fields of
training, and selection for labourers so efficient and
precious.

Nor shall we, I think, stumble over the circum-
stance that some such institutions may adopt the
title, or may reproduce many of the characters, of
the " sisterhoods" of the Church of Rome. If, as

212 Past and Present.

I tmst to have shewn, the sisterhood, though in-
dispensable to the charitable machinery of that
Church, yet belongs to her no more than the indi-
vidual female diaconate, but has, on the contrary,
been persecuted by her whenever it has sought to
exist as a free organisation, then are both insti-
tutions freely open to adoption by Protestant
churches : the real question being, as it seems to
me, how far they should be combined, how far
modified, in reference to the wants of the time.
For indeed the seeds of the Past can only bear
fruit if planted with a full knowledge of the Pre-
sent, of its wishes and of its needs, of its good and
of its evil. The poverty, vice, ignorance of one
age are not the poverty, vice, ignorance of another.
The source may be the same, but the form is
wholly different. As I am told it has been ob-
served in India that, at each successive visitation
of the cholera, the treatment has to be varied, the
specifics of former days proving powerless now,
whilst other remedies, before inoperative, take
effect, — so it is with the successive visitations of
moral evil. No stock remedies will avail ; no
closet treatment can be devised ; we must go and
meet the evil face to face, study it, grapple with it,
fail repeatedly, till we wring its secret from it at
last ; and when we have succeeded for the time,
know yet that the subtle foe will reappear under

Hozu the Past bcai^s Fruit. 2 1 3

another form, and that new energies will have to
be exerted, new powers of observation applied to
wring out a new secret, new remedies employed
with success, which we perhaps have had to throw
away as useless.

And yet, if we have faithfully laboured, our
labour, we know, will not be vain before the
Lord. The branch we are tending with such care,
which is now so green and flourishing, may, — nay,
must wither ; but it may bear fruit a hundredfold.
What remains at Joppa in visible shape, of the
good works and alms-deeds which Dorcas did?
What a picture is presented to us by the events of
late years of the material and spiritual state of
Syria ! Fierce bigotry between Mussulman, Druse,
and Christian, — the fierceness surviving in the
first, even when the bigotry is dead. Fraud and
bigotry, mutual hatred, and too often treacherous
cowardice, among the various Christian communi-
ties as between themselves. Yet who shall say
that the seed which Dorcas sowed has not borne
fruit even a thousandfold % Who can say how
many Christian women, in every age, in every
communion, under every sky, — in continents un-
thought of when Dorcas lived, — have not been in-
cited by her example to spend themselves for the
good of their poorer brethren ?

214 General Conchisions

§ 4. Conclusion.

Let me now endeavour to sum up the conclu-
sions of the above inquiry.

1. The early Church, from the apostles' own
times, set the seal upon the ministering functions
of women, by the appointment of a Female Dia-
conate, strictly excluded from the priestly functions
of public teaching and worship, but nearly coequal
with the male diaconate as respects the exercise of
active charity, and to which, in the records of the
second century, we find women solemnly ordained.
The individual female diaconate, however, lan-
guished and disappeared with the growth of pro-
fessed celibacy, which makes the familiar mingling
of the sexes impossible. •

2. The IndividuaJr-or. -typical Deaconess is, like
the deacon, attached to the service of a particular
congregation. As primary objects of her charity
at once and her authority, it may be observed,
there are to be found beside her in the early Church
two classes of persons of her sex, — aged widows,
destitute of all family support, who, having de-
served well of their fellow-parishioners by a life of
active piety, are in their old age provided for by
the church, — and young girls, often probably equally
destitute of support, and maintained in like man-
ner.

from the History of the Past. 2 1 5

3. Though the Individual Female Diaconate dies
out with the monasticising of the Church, the need
for the diaconal activities of women does not.
On the contraty, as the family life of the congrega-
tion languishes, and the members of each particu-
lar church cease to be of one heart and of one
mind, the field of destitution — physical, intellec-
tual, moral — must widen on all sides, requiring
the Church more and more to concentrate her
energies, multiply and develop her appliances for
its counteraction; whilst with the growing in-
equality of fortunes amongst the members of
/Christian congregations, and the compulsory or
{voluntary celibacy of many, there is set free a

mass of active charity, especially in the female
sex, peculiarly available for the purpose of such
counteraction. But, deprived of its pivot and
fitting place in the constitution of the Church,
this charity has to seek its standing-ground in
the Church principle of fellowship ; and there grow
up thus fellowships of either sex, but particularly
of the female, devoted to one or more works of
religious love. Among the early Beguines in par-
ticular, these charitable Sisterhoods, free from the
vow of celibacy, adequately fulfil the office of a
Collective Female Diaconate, after the disappear-
ance or suppression of the individual one.

4. These Free Sisterhoods, being wholly incom-

2 1 6 General Conclusions

patible with the Romish Church -system, are by
that Church suppressed or reduced into subjection,
whilst others are estabHshed for similar purposes,
but in connexion with its monastic orders.

5. Even in the Romish Sisterhoods proper, how-
ever, it is found that in proportion as the diaconal
functions are active and many-sided, so they
require to be free; the monastic principle is
nearly as poisonous to the collective, as to the
individual female diaconate, and always tends to
drive the fomier back upon such works of charity
as can be carried on within four walls, more espe-
cially the education of girls.

6. After the restoration of the Bible to the laity,
and the abolition of the vow of celibacy, or, in
other words, after the unmonasticising of the
Church, the need of a Female Diaconate soon
manifests itself — with us at first, chiefly among
the Puritans.

7. That need asserts itself with renewed energy
in our own days, in various attempts either to
restore the early Deaconesses, or to copy the
Romish Sisterhoods. The attempt meets with
signal success on the Continent, among both the
Lutheran and Reformed (or Calvinistic) bodies,
till the so-called Deaconesses' Institutes spread
over nearly the whole Protestant world, and even

from the History of the Past. 2 1 7

succeed at last in establishing a footing amongst
ourselves.

8. Closely examined, these institutions are
found to represent a new principle, that of the
Training of Women for works of charity, whether
as recognised members of the staff of the Church
or not; a principle involved indeed in all the
freer Romish sisterhoods, but crushed there by
the monastic tendencies of the Church to which
they belong.

9. They are thus fit nurseries for a genuine
Female Diaconate kindred to that of the early
Church, and have proved the fact by the sending
out of the so-called " parish deaconesses " of Ger-
many.

10. The chain of Catholic tradition, in respect
of woman's work in the Church, which the Church
of Rome had snapped, has thus by Protestant
hands been practically restored, and the new
Female Diaconate needs but a franker and more
general recognition, and a more solemn consecra-
tion, at the hands of the Reformed Churches of
Christendom, to bear, as I beheve, yet more
abundant fruit.

APPENDIX A.

The Coptic Apostolical Constitutions* (See p. 23.)

The remarkable feature of the Coptic Constitutions
— in the earher portions especially — is the promin-
ence given to the Widow. She is introduced in the
very first page, where Christ is represented as
directing His apostles to " appoint the orders for
bishops, stations for presbyters, and continual ser-
vice for deacons; prudent persons for readers,t
and blameless for widows." After the provision
relating to the appointment of bishops, presbyters,
and deacons, the following passage occurs (c. 21):

* See "The Apostolical Constitutions ; or, Canons of the
Apostles in Coptic, with an English Translation. By Henry
Tattam, Archdeacon of Bedford. London : O. T. F., 1848."

t I may observe that the least genuine portions of the
Greek collections contain, to my knowledge, nothing so
audacious as this ascribing to our Lord Himself the appoint-
ment of the "Reader's" office, — valuable though I deem
it in itself.

2 2 o Appendix A .

" Cephas said, Let three widows be appointed ;
two, that they may give their whole attention to
prayer for any one who is in temptations, and that
they may render thanks to Him whom tliey follow.
But the other one should be left constantly with
the women who are in sickness, ministering well"
(the original is esdiaconhi); "watching and telling
to the presbyters the things which take place. Not
a lover of filthy lucre ; not given to drink ; that she
may be able to watch, that she may minister in the
night. And if another one desires to help to do
good works, let her do so according to the pleasure
of her heart ; for these are the good things which
the Lord first commanded." This is followed by
another provision concerning deacons, and one
concerning the laity ; after which, we meet with the
following singular passage (c. 24) : " Andrew said,
It is a good thing to appoint women to be made
deaconesses." (c. 25) "Peter said. We have first
to appoint this concerning the Eucharist, and the
body and blood of the Lord : we will (then) make
known the thing diligently." (c. 26) "John said,
Have you forgotten, O my brethren, in the day that
our Master took the bread and the cup He blessed
them, saying. This is my body and my blood 1 You
have seen that He gave no place for the women,
that they might help with them. (Martha answered
for Mary, because He saw her laughing : Mary
said, I laughed not.) For He said to us, teaching,
that the weak shall be liberated by the strong."
(c. 27) "Cephas said, Some say it becomes the

Coptic Apostolical Constitutions. 221

women to pray standing, and that they should not
cast themselves down upon the earth." (c. 28)
"James said, We shall [not?] be able to appoint
women for a service, besides this service only, that
they assist the indigent."

In the second book, after provisions respecting
bishops, presbyters, deacons, confessors, readers,
and subdeacons, there occurs one respecting
widows (c. 37), who are not to be ordained, but
chosen by name, if their husbands have been dead
for a long time, and are to undergo a probation
even when old. The widow is to be appointed, it
is repeated, by word only, without laying on of
hands, " because she shall not put on the Eucharist,
neither shall she perform public service ; but . . .
is appointed for prayer, and that is of all." The
next chapter in like manner (c. -^^Z) provides that
" they shall not lay hands on a virgin, for it is her
choice alone that makes her a virgin." It is pro-
vided further on that widows and virgins are to fast
often, and pray in the church (c. 47); and a provi-
sion occurs similar to one in the Greek collection,
as to giving a supper to the widows by way of
charity (c. 52).

The fourth book contains a provision that, " con-
cerning the subdeacons, and readers, and deacon-
esses, we have before said that it is not necessary
to ordain them" (c. 67); it repeats, in nearly the
same terms, the former provisions as to the non-
ordination of virgins and widows (c. 69, 70), using
as to the latter the words, that if " she has lived

2 2 2 Appendix A .

pmdently, and they have not found any fault
against her, and has taken care of those of her
house well, as Judith and Anna, women of purity,
let her be appointed to the order of widows."
The fifth book, on the other hand, repeats the pro-
visions already quoted from the third and eighth
books of the Greek as to the deaconesses not bless-
ing, nor doing any of those things which the pres-
byters and the deacons do, but helping the doers
only, and ministering to the presbyters at the time
of the baptism of women; as to their excommuni-
cation by a deacon, but not by a subdeacon ; and
their sharing a quarter of the eulogies with the
subdeacons, readers, and singers (c. 73, 75).

The passages above quoted from the first book
are the only ones on the subject which appear to
me to have any mark of originality. But I think,
it is difficult to resist the impression that they have
been tampered with. Nothing can surely be
stranger than the discussion between Andrew,
Peter, and John on the appointment of deacon-
esses ; and the sentence about Martha and Mary
seems hopelessly corrupt. With reference to the
widows also, the limiting of their number takes us
very far away from the apostolic view; since, if
widows are objects of charity, as St Paul ti;eats
them, it is impossible a priori to fix how many of
them there shall be in the church.

Appendix B,

Canons of the Councils of Nicea, Laodicea, and
Carthage. (See p. 26.)

The nineteenth article (Labbe, vol. ii., p. 677) of
the Canons of the Nicene Council, "concerning
the Paulianists, who aftenvards have taken refuge
in the Catholic Church," after providing for the re-
baptizing of bishops, &c., or their deposition if
unworthy, proceeds as follows, in a passage which
has been the subject of much controversy, and
which I translate literally : " Likewise also as to
the deaconesses, and generally as to all who are
ranked in the clergy (sy tCj Kami) the same form
shall be observed. But we bore in mind those
deaconesses who are ranked in the habit Qv tuj
Gyj,<La7i)^ since they have not even any ordination,
that they should be ranked wholly amongst the
laity." There is clearly here an opposition between
deaconesses h ru) xai^o'v/ and iv tOj cyJuj^aTi, which
appears to me to indicate that the Paulianists had
honorary deaconesses (analogous to certain of the
Romish canonesses of later times), who put on
the dress without binding themselves to any duties,
and consequently received no ordination.* Yet

* The above use of the word <jxw^ is, I think, illustrated
by c. 44 of the 123d Novel, forbidding the use of the
monastic garb {iiii schemate inonachi^ atit monastka:) by
laymen, and especially on the stage. Compare the earlier

2 24 Appendix B.

the passage has been construed as a general for-
biddance of the ordination of deaconesses, by the
unscrupulous Romanist Baronius and others — a
class of writers indeed to whom the idea of a female
diaconate is essentially repugnant. The older in-
terpreters, as Balsamon and Zonaras, Bingham
justly observes (Antiq., Bk. ii., c. 22), confine the
article, according to its title and natural construc-
tion, to the Paulianist deaconesses.

I am almost ashamed of referring to the Canon
of the Council of Laodicea, Tlio) rov /x,^ diJv ra;
Xi-yofisvag rr^sGJSur/dag, yjroi 'Trpoxadri/Ji^siiag, iv iXTtXrjaicc
'/.adiffraGdat, " That one ought not to establish in the
Church the women called 'TPi6l3uridag or presidents,"
— rendered in the Latin, both by Dionysius Exiguus,
and the later Hervetus, " presbyters," " praesiden-
tes," whilst only the untrustworthy Isidorus Mercator
gives the gloss, " Mulieres quag apud Grsecos pres-
byterae appellantur, apud nos autem viducs se?tiores"

The Canons of the fourth Council of Carthage
are certainly remarkable for the prominence they
give to the religious virgin (sanctimonialis virgo)
and widow, whilst omitting all mention of the
deaconess. The virgin, when "presented to her
bishop for consecration," is to " w^ar such raiment
as she is to wear always hereafter, .suited to her
profession and sanctity" (c. 11). On the other
hand, those widows or religious women (viduae vel
sanctimoniales) who are selected for the office of

Code, Bk. i., Tit. iv,, 1. 4, forbidding the use of the virgin's
dress (here termed habitus) by the same classes of persons.

Canons of the Eaidy Co2cncils. 225

baptizing women, are to be qualified for their func-
tions, so as to be able to instruct by apt and whole-
some discourse any ignorant and rustic women at
the time of baptism, how they should answer the
questions of the baptizing minister, and what life
they should lead after receiving baptism. This
passage is one of the main authorities relied upon
by later writers for the complete identity of the
widow and deaconess. To be consistent, it should
be argued that it proves equally the identity of both
with the sancthnonialis^ the nun {inonialis) of later
days. But it is clear from history that the canon
is absolutely valueless as respecting the practice
of the whole Eastern Church at least, at the very
period to which it belongs.

By later canons of this Council it is provided
that "young widows, infirm of body, are to be
maintained at the expense of the Church of Avhich
they are widows" (c. 10 1). Again, that "widows
who are maintained at the expense of the Church
are to be so assiduous in the work of God as to
help the Church by their merits and prayers" (c.
103). Another lengthy canon is against their
second marriage. Widows who, whether so left in
youth or in mature age, have devoted themselves
to the Lord, and, throwing off their lay dress, have
appeared in a religious garb under witness of the
bishop and the Church, if they contract a "worldly"
marriage, are treated as guilty of a worse adultery
than the unfaithful wife.

I should infer from the above passages, that any

P

2 26 Appendix B.

clear perception of the office of a female diaconate
had by this time died out in the African Church.
We see instead of it, as I have said, widows and
consecrated virgins invested with a peculiar garb,
devoting themselves to God in the presence of
the bishop and of the Church, fulfilling some
diaconal functions, but receiving no imposition of
hands, and subject, not directly to the bishop, as
in the Apostolical Constitutions, but to some
member of the clergy ; since the ninety-seventh
canon bears that " the person " (in the mas-
culine) " to be put at the head of the religious
women shall be proved by the bishop of the
place." (Qui religiosis foeminis prseponendus est,
ab episcopo loci probetur.) The confusion between
the widow and the deaconess, which is evinced in
the requirement, that the "widows maintained at
the expense of the Church should be assiduous in
the work of God, so as to help the Church by
their merits and prayers," has led to the direct in-
fringement of the apostolic command, in burthen-
ing the Church with the maintenance of younger
widows, and again in forbidding them to marry,
although left widows in their youth. The whole
spirit of later Romish conventualism may be
traced in these canons, and especially in that
most offensive passage, which treats as adulterous
the second marriage of a widow consecrated to
God.

(Two passages from Lucian and Libanius, of very
doubtful application to the female diaconate, but

Appendix C, 227

which are among the stock quotations on the sub-
ject, I merely mention here, to shew that they have
not been overlooked).

C.

T/ie marriage of the sou/ with Christ, a doctrine not
countenanced by St Paid. (See p. 79.)

Nothing is more remarkable than the divine cau-
tion, for I can use no other term, with which St
Paul shuns the idea of the marriage of the indi-
vidual with Christ, even when seemingly led natur-
ally on to it by the current of the illustration he
may happen to be following up.

Take, for instance, that chapter (vii.) of the
First Corinthians, which chiefly recommends vir-
ginity : " He that is unmarried careth for the things
that belong to the Lord, how he may please the
Lord (ver. 32). . . . The unmarried woman careth
for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy
both in body and in spirit" (ver. 34). Here,
although the contrast is actually with the husband
who "careth for the things of the" world, how he
may please his wife" (ver. 33), and the wife, who
" careth for the things of the world, how she may
please her husband" (ver. 34), the Apostle, as it
were, pointedly refrains from suggesting that the
Lord is in any special manner the husband of the
human being who thus becomes devoted to Him.

228 Appendix C.

Take another passage, in which the idea of mar-
riage to Christ is actually set forth, 2 Cor. xi. 2 :
"For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy :
for I have espoused you to one husband, that I
may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ."
How carefully the idea of the unity of the Church
is preserved ! We are "espoused to one husband,"
but " as a chaste virgin," not " as chaste virgins."
True, it is only the Corinthian Church which is
spoken of; but who does not see that the part is
here taken in the name of the whole ? that if St
Paul were addressing a " Catholic" epistle to all the
Churches throughout Christendom, he would still
speak of presenting them, one and all, " as a chaste
virgin" to the One Bridegroom of the One Bride?

Take again Rom. vii. 4 : " Wherefore, my breth-
ren, ye also are become dead to the law by the
body of Christ; that ye should be married to
another, even to him who is raised from the dead,
that we should bring forth fruit unto God." I have
already pointed out that " married to another" is a
very narrow interpretation of yiveodai ke^'f) — in fact
an unconscious begging of the question now at
issue. But is it for nothing that the plural is used?
Is it — let the expression be allowed me — a poly-
gamic plural? or does it not express essentially the
idea of the marriage of the CJmrch with Christ ? It
is "ye" — the disciples in general — who have been
married to the law, who have to "be married to
another" (ygvEcr^Joc/ hiiaq £rf|w); it is "we" — St Paul
with them — who have to "bring forth fruit unto

Marriage of the Soul. 229

God." Surely St Paul well knew that the idea of
the marriage of the individual with Christ would be
a dividing of Christ Himself, as well as of His
Church; a profaning of the one eternal wedding, as
it were by a thousand petty acts of spiritual poly-
gamy, as false to man's glorified nature in Christ
Jesus as the divided caresses of a Solomon or an
Ahasuerus. I shall be grieved if these words give
pain ; but I believe the evil to be a deadly one,
and I cannot deal gently with it. Face the idea in
itself, and you will see that the worship of Christ
as an individual bridegroom is in reality the wor-
ship of Him, not as the representative of humanity,
but as a male human being, capable (to repeat
words just used) of spiritual polygamy. Many a
time have I sickened over the expressions of
Romish writers, speaking of nuns as " the spouses
of Christ," so completely did their language re-
mind one of an Eastern harem, from which was
wanting not one of the precautions of Mohamme-
dan libertinism, even to the eunuch, spiritual at
least, in the shape of a Father Confessor. And I
know that this foul prurient talk is being now dinned
into the ears of many and many an English girl by
Romanists, conscious or unconscious, open or con-
cealed, then most dangerous when they least mean
it, and that many a one already has been prevailed
upon to leave father and mother, and friends, and
fellow-creatures, and to plunge herself into the
depths of a convent, in hopes of uniting herself
there, by the most solemn of marriage vows, to a

230 Appe7idix C.

Bridegroom who will never forsake her. And I
feel that ever}^ such act is a contemning of Christ's
earthly body and heavenly bride, the Church, a
real offence against her unity, since we cease to
love our fellow-creatures as we ought, when we
grow to believe that we can be united to Christ
otherwise than with them, and as members of that
common body.

As respects women, indeed, although more na-
tural in a sense, the idea of the marriage of the
individual with Christ is still more unscriptural
than as respects men. St Paul is express to this
point. See i Cor. xi. v. 3 : " The head of every
man" [irdvTog dvdsog, not avSpc^Trov] " is Christ, and
the head of the woman is the man" [6 dvripj, "and
the head of Christ is God." If the relation of the
head to the body is here treated as identical with
that of marriage (a position which would involve
the utterly repugnant one of Christ being married
to God), then all the spiritual marriages of Romish
nuns fall to the ground, since Christ is only the
head of the man, and the woman cannot be united
with Him except through the man.

Yet whilst to Romanism belongs the peculiar
form of this error which has reference to the
female sex, and all the material developments of
that form in art and in daily life, from a Raffaelle's
" Marriage of St Catherine," to the latest reception
of an English nun, such as we see advertised in
our newspapers sometimes cheek-by-jowl with a
lecture by Gavazzi, Mr Spurgeon, or Mr Bellew,

Marriage of the Soitl. 2 3 1

— the doctrine is one, as we well know, as rife in
Protestant as in Romanist countries, — pervading
English and German hymn-books alike,* — often
characteristic of the most fervid forms of devotion
amongst the Dissenting bodies, — and which can
be carried without violence or difficulty, as I shall
presently shew, quite out of the pale of all Chris-
tian orthodoxy.

Now I can understand the argument : If the
whole Church be married to Christ, then must
eveiy member of Christ be married to Him also.
It needs, I believe, to be completed by the words
" as such member," in order to shew that not an
individual mamage is meant, but a participation
in that of the Church itself But it should be
observed that what is celebrated by mystics of all
creeds is simply the marriage of the soiiL Where
is there a hint of such a marriage in the Bible'?
Surely it is the whole human nature which is
united with Christ, — body, soul, and spirit. Christ
is said to be the Head of man, not of man's soul,
— the Head of "every man," not of this or that
soul of man which chooses to accept His head-
ship. In this view, I do not hesitate to say that
the materialistic Romanist error of the mamage
of the woma7i with Christ, does not so far depart
from the truth as the more specially Protestant
one of the marriage of the soicl with Him.

* See for instance the beautiful GeiTnan hymn, **Seelen-
briiutigam," composed by Adam Drese, 1630-1718.

232 Appendix C.

Now it is a remarkable fact that this tenet has
never been more seductively set forth in our days,
than by a ^vriter who fully admits himself to have
travelled quite out of the region of orthodox Chris-
tianity. Let me quote a passage or two from
the chapter on the "Loves of the Soul," in Part
III. of " The Soul, her Soitow and her Aspira-
tions," by Professor F. W. Newman : —

"If thy soul is to go on into higher spiritual
blessedness, it must become a woman; yes, how-
ever manly thou be among men Spiritual

persons have exhausted human relationships in
the vain attempt to express their full feeling of
what God (or Christ) is to them — Father, Brother,
Friend, King, Master, Shepherd, Guide, are com-
mon titles But what has been said will

shew why a still tenderer tie has ordinarily pre-
sented itself to the Christian imagination as a
more appropriate metaphor, that of marriage.
. . . . Those in whom these phenomena have
been sharply marked, so as to make a new crisis
of the life, seem instinctively to compare the
process which they thus undergo to a Spiritual
Marriage. We have seen the longings of the soul
to convert God's transitory visits into an abiding
union, and how it is eager above all things to
make this union mdissoliible. On getting a clear
perception that it is asking that which He de-
lights to grant, it believes that its prayer is

answered It is therefore very far indeed

from a gratuitous phantasy, to speak of this as a

Marriage of the Soul. 233

marriage of the soul to God : no other metaphor
in fact will express the thing." ^

It is then certain that the doctrine of the soul's
marriage is compatible with the most avowed
heterodoxy. There needs hardly to be pointed
out that it is no less so with sheer heathenism.
Those w^ho are in anywise conversant with Hin-
dooism, must be aware that it is really the cardinal
idea of the w^orship of Krishna. And although
one leading Hindoo myth illustrating the doctrine
cannot well be repeated here, it is certain that
page after page of professedly Christian utterances
in reference to it, both in verse and prose, would be
accepted as strictly orthodox by the most learned
worshippers of the glorified spouse of the Gopis.

To decaying Hindooism, I own, I would fain
consign a doctrine which seems to me utterly false
to the spirit of the Bible, — avowedly emasculating
to its professors, — utterly offensive to all who have
obtained but one glimpse of that greatest mystery
of the social life of humanity, the Marriage of the
Lamb with the Bride.

* With his characteristic candour, INIr Newman admits
that "the Hebrew prophets, especially of the latter school,
habitually represent the relation of the Israelitish Church
collectively to Jehovah as that of a wife to a husband ; but
this does not seem to be applied to individuals." He speaks
of St Paul (2 Cor. xi. 2) as having "first set the example of
concentrating the similitude on parts of the Church." I
have shewn above that the verse in question, instead of
warranting the further application of the idea to the indi-
vidual soul, testifies most strongly against such an inference.

234 Appendix D,

D.

The CJmrch- Virgins and the transition of the institu-
tion into monachism, (See p. 96.)

The history of the Church-Virgins appears to me
to have been far less clouded by commentary than
that of the female diaconate. Those who are
curious on the matter, I will refer to Bingham's
Antiquities, where it is, so far as I am able to
judge, treated of with the author's usual soundness
and candour ; observing, in the first place, that I
cannot find any trace of any special offices having
been assigned to the professed virgins as a body.
I have shewn already how naturally the virgins
would grow to fulfil all the characters of destitu-
tion assigned by St Paul to the " widow indeed,"
and thereby acquire similar claims on the Church
for support; and accordingly we find that there
was a register of such virgins, similar to that of
the widows ; that they were supplied with victuals
like the widows and the ministering clergy, at the
expense of the Church at first, and after Constan-
tine of the state, unless when Pagan or Arian
persecution"! interfered to stop their maintenance
(see for instance Theodoret, Bk. i., c. 11; or
Athanasius, Encyclic to the Bishops, c. 4). There
was, at least sometimes, a special residence or
Parthenon assigned to them; thus, the author of
the life of Anthony, ascribed to Athanasius, speaks
(c. 3) of his having placed his sister in a Parthenon

The CJi iL I'ch - Virgi?is. 235

to be brought up, before embracing the monastic
life. A certain number of Church -Virgins, as well
as of Church -Widows, appear throughout the East
to have made part of the organisation of every
individual church ; and the outrages and violences
exercised towards such virgins, as well as towards
the ministers of the Church, form — in the works of
Athanasius for example, — an invariably recurring
detail in the history of every fresh persecution
against the Church. Of the identity of position
which thus greAv up between the Church -Widow
and the Church- Virgin, a single instance will suffice.
Chrysostom, in a letter (207) to Valentinus from
his exile at Cucusum, begs his correspondent to
fonvard some money, on the ground that "the
most honourable presbyter Domitianus, who has
the direction of the widows and virgins of this
place," had informed him that they were well-nigh
reduced to starvation (a.d. 404).

In the early Church, it is clear that the pro-
fession of virginity, like that of widowhood, was
not by any means essentially connected with the
relinquishment of home or family duties, or with
dependence on the Church. The two subjects, of
widowhood and virginity, are generally treated of
together, or in close sequency, by the Fathers, the
two vows frequently mentioned as it were in the
same breath (see for example August. Enarr. in
Ps. Ixxv., c. 16). The connexion between the
two ideas is instanced in a striking manner, in
a treatise on Virginity, attributed falsely to Athan-

236 Appendix D.

asius, of which the author exhorts a virgin to good
works, by telHng her that she will receive "the
honour of the good widow," r/^aj^i/ tyu xaX^s- %^fa5
(Athan. de virg., c. i.), referring at length to i Tim.
5, 6, and the following verses, so as clearly to im-
ply that the virgin is to be " well reported of for
good works," to "lodge strangers," to "wash the
saints' feet," &c. But in the praises of virginity
and of widowhood which occur in the works of per-
haps every church father — in Cyprian and in Am-
brose, in Augustin, in Jerome, in Chrysostom, — the
profession itself is treated as something altogether
individual, and neither giving /<?r se a claim on the
Church for support, nor requiring the professor to
embrace either the solitary or the cenobitic life.

Of the process by which the Church -Virgin
passed into the Nun, it would serve no purpose
here to give the detail. It will be sufficient to say
that the Codes and Novels exhibit that process
actually going on, and to shew it from them by a
few samples.

Up to the middle of the fifth century, the dis-
tinction between the Church-Virgin and the Nun is
clear at law. Thus a constitution of the year 455,
referred to in the body of this work, and ascribed
to the Emperors Valentinian and Marcian, speaks
of the widow, the deaconess, the virgin devoted to
God, and the sancti??io?iialis or religious woman, as
separate classes : Sive vidua, sive diaconissa, vel
virgo Deo dicala, vel sanctimonialis itiulier. — Cod.
Lib. i. j Tit. ii., 1. 13.

The CImrch - Virgins. 237

By the time of Justinian, although the distinc-
tion reappears at times, there is, to say the least,
a tendency to consider the '' sanctimonialis virgo"
as the general type, of which the "monastria,"
" ascetria," and even tlie deaconess, are individual
specimens, and in which the Church -Virgin is
merging; see for instance Cod., Bk. i.. Tit. iii.,
c. 54 (a.d. 533). The notion of the distinction
between the Church-Virgin and the sanctimonialis
had not however died out ; see Cod., Bk. ix..
Tit. xiii. The last passage that I am aware of
in which the Church- Virgin is spoken of as distinct
from the ntm is the 79th Novel , though even here
it seems implied that she resides in a monasteiy,
and the title includes her under the term " as-
cetria " as generic :

" Apud quos oporteat causas dicere monachos et
ascetrias. C. i. Propterea igitur sancimus, si quis
quamcumque habuerit causam cum aliquibus vene-
rabilibus sanctimonialibiis^ aiit sacris virginibus,
aut imdieribus omnino ifi monasieriis consistcntibus.
.... Epilogus. Hac valente lege, si quis cum
aliquo revere ndissimorum monachorum aut vir-
gi?ium aut mulieriun onmino sacrarum et in ve?tera-
bilibus vionasteriis habitantibus habuerit causam." . .

It is difficult to imagine in what the distinction
between the two classes of women at this time
may have consisted; except that perhaps the
Church-Virgins, although residing in convents, were

* This word seems here to apply to "monks" of both
sexes, if we may so use the term.

238 Appendix D.

according to tradition maintained by some particu-
lar Church, whilst the ordinary ascctria or monastria
depended on the resources of the convent itself.
I notice at least that in a law forbidding com-
position being taken for rent -charges bequeathed
to pious uses, the deaconesses and ascetricE are the
only two classes of females referred to as objects
of special charity (Cod., Tit. iii., c. 46); but the
word may have been used here also as including
the Church-virgins.

After this no distinction occurs but between the
Deaconess (sole remnant of the old Church-system
as respects females) and the ascctria ^nd other
types of the new monastic Church-system which
was growing up. Thus in the 123d Novel: "Si
quis contra aliquem clericum, aut monachum,
aiit diaconissain^ aiit monastriam^ aiit ascetriam
habeat aliquam actionem (c. 21). . . , Sportu-
larum viro nomine omnem personam in quo-
cunque ecclesiastico officio constitutam, et ad hoc
diaconissain et mo?iacha7n, aut ascetriam, aut mon-
astriavi (c. 28). . . . Sancimus, si personae talibus
conditionibus subject^e, sive masculi, sive foeminae,
monasteria ingrediantur, aut clerici, aut diaco?iisscs,
aut as cct rice fient (c. 37). . . . Si quis rapuerit, aut
sollicitaverit, aut corruperit ascetriam, aut diaco-
7iissajn, aut monacham, aut quamlibet aliam foemi-
nam venerabilem habitum habentem" (c. 43). . . .

What was the difference between the ascctria
and the monastria, and whether the latter was in
all points the same as the monacha, it is difficult

The CJm7^ch-Virgins. 239

to say. Compilers of ecclesiastical digests use
" monasterium " and "asceterium" as synonymous,
which I feel strongly convinced they were not.
Judging from etymology, the "monastery" was
a mere depot of monachism, the "ascetery" its
field of battle. In the one monks or nuns
simply resided together, in the other they "exer-
cised" their faith by privations and austerities.
But there might be "ascetes" in a monastery;
thus the 123d Novel forbids the dragging of a
" monastria" or " ascetria" from the monastery (non
tamen vwnastnavi^ atit ascetriam monasterio ab-
strahi; c. 27), in the case of judgments involving
execution against the person.

The " most reverend " canonesses, cajioiiiccB^ are
another class of religious females who make their
appearance in common with the ascetria, in one
law only (Nov. 59), — a sumptuary law for fune-
rals. It appears from it that these ascetricB and
canoniccB had some duty to perform in relation to
funerals in the xenodochia^ or hospitals for the
reception of strangers : " Eo quod ascetria. ad
hoc ministrantes opus sub xenodochiis per tem-
pus memoratorum venerabilium xenodocorum
constitutae sunt" (c. 3) These women used to
precede the bier and chaunt : " Sancimus singulo
lecto gratis dato unum asceterium dari, ascetri-
arum ant canonicariun non minus octo mulierum
praecedentium lectum et psallentiim" (c. 4).

240 Appendix E.

The Hospitallers of St Martha in Burgundy . (See
p. 126.)

An admitted offshoot from the tree of Beguinism
was the congregation of the Hospitallers of St
Martha in Burgundy, founded at Beaune in 1445
by the Chancellor of Duke Philippe le Bon, with
six Beguines from Malines. Helyot gives a descrip-
tion of the noble foundation directed by them, such
as it was in his days. There was a very long ward,
common to the sick poor of all nations, with a
chapel at the east end, so disposed that all the
sick might hear and see the religious ser^dces.
Behind the altar was another ward for the more
dangerous cases, with its special offices ; and be-
hind this again the dead-room, with washing places
and great stone tables. Along the great ward to
the south ran a large square court, surrounded by a
higher and lower gallery. The higher gallery was
what we should call a sanatarium, containing
twenty apartments for persons in easy circum-
stances, to which gentlemen and rich "bourgeois"
would come in to be treated both from the town
and from a distance of several leagues. Each suite
of apartments consisted of a bed-room, ante-room,
dressing-room, and retiring-room, and contained
three beds, to change the sick persons, besides
being richly and completely furnished. The pa-
tients here had to provide themselves with food,

The Hospitallers of St Martha. 241

and to pay for medicine, but not for the furniture
or the service of the sisters, although there were
few who left no gratuity behind at their departure.
The lower galleries contained rooms for poorer
people, who were tended and treated at the expense
of the hospital, like the sick of the common ward ;
although if they required fires, meat, or nurses for
their special service, they had to pay for them. A
small river ran through the courtyard, and was
carried by conduits into all the services, so that all
was kept fresh and sweet.* At a similar founda-
tion at Chalons-sur-Saone, we are told that in
winter it was the practice to burn perfumes in the
wards to avoid bad smells, and in summer to have
vases full of flowers suspended from the ceilings.
I believe the introduction of flowers into hospital
wards is still nearly a novelty amongst us, and one
that has been found very beneficial. Christian
charity in the sixteenth century was thus far before-
hand with medical science in the nineteenth. In
the Chalons hospital, also, there were four lofty
rooms, tapestried and richly furnished, with private
kitchens, for patients of rank. And "the two Bur-
gundies" (the duchy, and the county) contained,
we are told, many other hospitals, all served by
sisters. — (He'lyot, vol. viii., pt. vi., c. ii.)

There is something, perhaps, which offends our

* It is most remarkable to find in Mrs Jameson's lecture
on " Sisters of Charity Abroad and at Home," an accoimt of
the Beaune Hospital tallying almost precisely with the above.
It remains still under the care of the same sisterhood.

Q

242 AppcndiiX F.

feelings, in the aristocratic distinctions of treatment
between tlie persons of rank and the poor in these
hospitals. I cannot help thinking, however, tliat
it is good to bring class with class together under
one roof in a hospital, and that, let the rich
patient's room be as splendidly furnished as it
might, there was a lesson of humiHty for him in the
near presence of his poorer fellow-sufferers, and in
tlie sharing with them of the same Christian charity,
which does not reach him so easily, to say the
least, in our days, through two or three strata of
nurses, flunkeys, and maids in a I)elgra\ian or
Tyburnian mansion.

F.

Translation of one of the later Bcguine Rules (see
P- 139)-

The following is a translation of the rule of tlie
Be'guines of Innenheim at Strasburg, given by
Mosheim. It will be observed that it belongs to
the latter period of the B<fguine movement, when
these sisterhoods were sinking under the influence of
the Mendicant orders, — the confessor being a Do-
minican, and being invested with a power of dis-
pensing from the observance of the rule itself, by
counsel of the Prior of the Dominican convent.
The rules were, moreover, the same as those of two
other similar houses in the same city, — the " Offen-

A Beguine Rule. 243

burg" house and the "House at the Tower," —
Ijoth, like the other, situate in the neighbourhood
of Dominican monasteries, by the monks of which
they were directed, and in the churches or chapels
of which the sisters attended divine worship : —

"In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost, Amen. We, Mechtildis (Ma-
tilda) mistress, Adelheidis (Adelaide) sub-prioress,
and the other sisters assembled in the house called
of Innenheim in Strasburg, whose names are as
follows : — Gertrude, Elizaljeth, Willeburgis, Anna,
Catherine, Ellckint, and her sister Gisela, to the
honour of our Lord J. C., wishing to flee all grounds
of a suspicious and painful dissolution, and to be
coerced to a commendable discipline, by counsel
and consent of our confessor, brother Frederic,
called of Ersthem, of the order of the Preacher-
brothers of Strasburg, do ordain these things
amongst us, and by plighted faith publicly avow
that we will inviolably observe them.

" We have ordained therefore, and by the plight-
ing of our corporal faith have promised to observe,
that whosoever shall come to us to take our habit,
and to remain with us, if in any year, changing
her design, she shall depart from us, she shall be
free to resume whatever, whether in movables or
immovables, she shall have brought in, yet so
that, in lieu of expenses or victuals, she do render
for every month sixty deniers ; and, moreover, that
if she have received anything in clothes or for her
other necessities from the sisters, she do refund it;
nor shall there be reckoned in diminution thereof

244 Appendix F.

either services, if any were performed during her
bearing the habit, nor her labour, nor the profit
proceeding from what she brought in, nor that
which might have resulted from it.

" But if she have been invested with the habit
when little, at whatever time before the age of
fourteen she may have departed, she may depart,
as it is said above ; but if she die after coming to
the sisters, and though she may not yet have been
invested, whatever she may have brought, shall re-
main to the sisters.

" So, if after the age of fourteen, having pledged
by faith of hand that she will obey, she shall after-
wards recede from such her will, either for an
honest cause, as, for instance, that she will remain
in the seclusion of a prison (/;/ rechisorio carceris .?)
or otherwise, that she will pass to an honest society,
of all the things brought in with her, whether im-
movable or movable, she shall not be able to
carry anything out with her, except clothing and
bed-gear, unless the benevolence of the sisters
choose to do her larger favour. So if she will enter
a cloister, she only receives five pounds of her
goods brought in with her.

"//<?w. We will and ordain, and by giving of faith
we guarantee {vallamus)^ that if any shall fall into a
snare of the flesh, or shall be convicted of having
introduced a man during the hours of night, or,
during the hours of day, shall have been found with
one in a secret and suspicious place, she alone with
him alone, the other sisters being ignorant, or shall
have some suspicious familiarity with men or

A Begnine Riilc. 245

women, which, on the third or fourth admonition
she shall not have chosen to eschew, and shall
have received letters from them, and hid them, or
shall have failed to obey the command of the mis-
tress, or shall have scorned to obey her, or shall
have continually troubled her fellow-sisters of the
same house, palliating her trespasses by the tres-
passes of others, reproaching others with their
faults, or telling foul things to them, or shall have
refused to bear the penalties enjoined for her tres-
passes, that for every such cause alone she be from
our house ejected, expelled, and extruded, nor of
the things brought in with her, whether movable
or immovable, shall carry aught away, or cause
aught to be carried away ; so that, being excluded
from all her goods, she carry nothing nor take
aught away, not even her clothes which she had at
the time ; nor shall any pretext of the entreaties of
relations and next of kin, nor of any friends or near
ones, avail to commute aught herein, but so that
those whom the fear of God recalls not from evil
be at least coerced by bodily penalty.

" Ite?n, We will and ordain, and by giving of faith
do guarantee, that if anything of the premises be
called in question by denial of the outgoer, suffi-
cient proof shall be had by testimony of the mis-
tress and sub-prioress, and of the more part of the
sisters, and whatever they shall affirm concerning
the things aforesaid shall be deemed a testimony
efficacious and immutable.

" Moreover, we choose not that any be received
so that she have not power to inherit by any title

246 Appendix F.

in goods paternal, maternal, or acquisitions by
donation or purchase, save by our renouncement
in any case.

"//cv//, We ordain, that if any one amongst us in
the fellowship of sisters do depart this life, or not
being rejected by us, shall leave of herself for any
above-expressed cause, honest or not honest, that
neither the party leaving shall demand any of the
things brought in by her, nor any of her next of
kin, heirs or friends, either in his own name or in
that of the deceased; so that what is not lawful
by one way, shall not be admitted fraudulently by
another.

" ^Moreover, if in any event it shall happen tliat
we should be separated, by reason of poverty or
any other misfortune, we ordain that of all things
which we then possess, whether movable or im-
movable, every one do receive her share by an
equal division.

^^ Item, We ordain and promise, by pledge of
faith, that in those things which shall be ordained
and corrected concerning our state, we will obey
our mistress and sub-prioress, and him who for the
time being shall be assigned to us for confessor;
and we do submit ourselves to them from this
present ordinance so far as respects these things
and all above mentioned and ordained, so even
that our confessor, by consent of the Prior of the
Preacher - brothers, may in any article of this
schedule give us dispensation, if he shall see fit.

" Whosoever, therefore, being about to be re-
ceived, after that the premises shall have been

A Begtnne Ride. 247

read and expounded to her, shall choose to keep
the things promised and shall so promise, and by-
pledge of faith shall confirm the same so to be
kept, let her be received for a sister of our con-
gregation. But if she refuse to pledge her faith
for the keeping of these things, let her never be
received into our fellowship, neither for prayer or
price, so long as she shall not promise to observe
all and singular the same.

" We will also, in order to preclude any matter
for future contention, that if any one, although not
asked touching the aforesaid articles, whether she
will keep them, shall have dwelt beyond the year
(with us), that from and after the expiration of the
first year she shall be held confessed and obliged
to the hearing of all the aforesaid articles, and shall
otherwise have no petition touching her goods, as
if she had for her own trespass been excluded from
our house and fellowship.

" But in order that all these things be held con-
firmed, we have made the present letters on our
petition to be confirmed by the seals of our Lord
the Judge in the Bishop's causes, and of our Lord
Herman, the venerable Prior, and also Treasurer
of Strasburg.

" We, the Judge of the Strasburg Court and the
Treasurer of Strasburg, do publicly avow all the
premises to have been ordained in our presence,
and the present -vvriting to have been, on the peti-
tion of the aforesaid ladies, confirmed by our seals.
Done and given at Strasburg, a.d. 1276, KaL
May."

148 Appendix G,

" Deaconesses, or Protesiaiit Sisterhoods^'' (see
p. 202.)^

[The following paper represents the last author's
"revise" of an article under the above title
which appeared in the Edinbwgh Review for
April 1848. For the text as printed in the
Review I must henceforth disclaim all respon-
sibility. I did indeed at the editor's sugges-
tion forward a P.S. on the Training Institution
for Nurses, but the concluding paragraph of
the article on the subject represents neither
what I wrote nor what I thought in the matter.]

1. Etahlissernejit des Soetirs de Charite Protestantes

en France. Paris: Delay, 1841.

Instittdion des Diaconesses des Eglises Evangeliques
de France; Etats de Situation, 1842 to 1847.
Paris.

An Appeal on behalf of the Institution of the Deacon-
esses, established in Paris. By tlie Rev. A.
Vermeil. London, 1846.

2. Etablissement des Diaco?iesses de Strasbourg; Rap-

ports Annuels, 1844-5. Strasburg.

3. Etablissement des Diaconesses d'Echallens; Rap-

ports, 1843 ^^ 1S45, Echallens {Pays de Vaud).

4. Neunterjahresbericht i'lbcr die Diakonissen-Anstalt

^ Any notes on the present Appendix, marked with as-
terisks, belong to the original article. Notes marked with
numerals have been subsequently added.

Protestant Sisterhoods. 249

zu Kaisasivcrih am Rhcin. Kaiserswerth,
1846.
5. Report of the German Hospital^ Dahion. Lon-
don, 1846.

At the eastern extremity of Paris, close to the
Barriere de Charenton, which leads to the French
"Bethlehem," — on the outskirts of the Faubourg
St Antoine, one of the great workshoj^s of Parisian
industry, — in a quarter which, though poorly
peopled, is elevated, wide, and airy, and in one
of the widest and airiest streets of that quarter, in
the Rue de Reuilly, — is situate an institution
which has attracted no small share of attention
amongst the more earnest and philanthropic por-
tion of French society, together with not a little
envy and calumny, and which, as a necessary con-
sequence, has awakened enthusiastic sympathy and
support ; the Institute of Deaconesses, or Protestant
Sisters of Charity. "The Institute of Deaconesses"
(we quote from the ist Article of its Statutes) "is
a free association, having for its object the instruct-
ing and directing, in the practice of active charity,
of such Protestant women as shall devote them-
selves within its bosom to the relief of bodily and
spiritual misery, and particularly to the care of the
sick, the young, and the poor."

Its existence dates now from the year 1841.
Its foundation is owing to one of the most distin-
guished ministers of the Reformed (Calvinistic)
French Church, — a child of the quick-minded,

250 Appendix G.

warm-hearted south, — the Rev. Antoine Vermeil,^
who, after fulfilhng for many years the arduous and
conspicuous functions of the Protestant ministry at
Bordeaux, at last, some years back, accepted func-
tions still more arduous and conspicuous at Paris.
Here it was that he was enabled to realise a long-
cherished idea, and to do so in conjunction with a
worthy minister of the Lutheran Church (one bor-
rowed indeed, as it were, by her from her Calvin-
ist sister), the Rev. M. Vallette. The institution
has since grown up, under the joint and harmoni-
ous patronage of the two established Protestant
churches of France (represented in its council, the
one by a President, M. Vermeil ; the other by a
Vice-president, M. Vallette) ; swelling from a mere
house to a vast establishment ; from a Refuge for
Female Penitents to a complete Normal School of
Female Charity, which embraces at once the three
great works of Education, Physical Relief, and
Moral Reformation.

It was in the year 1844 that the Institute as-
sumed its present development. Already was its
then home, — its now adjunct, — a house in the
neighbouring "Rue des Trois Sabres," too small
for its inmates, and its council had been for two
years on the look-out for larger premises, when
those now occupied fell vacant. They had pre-
viously been used as a school for 200 children ;
the grounds covered a space of two French acres
(of 100 square rods), and were surrounded by high
walls. But how was it possible to acquire such a
^ Dead, alas ! witliin the last few months.

Protestant Sisterhoods. 251

property, for which 100,000 fr. (£4000) were asked,
with a yearly income not yet reaching the quarter
of that sum % A lease for a long term of years, with
a right of purchase at a fixed price, was, however,
proposed, and had been nearly accepted by the
owner, when suddenly the news came that a Roman
Catholic community, somewhat analogous in pur-
pose, had agreed to the original terms, and that the
purchase was to be concluded the very next day !
By one of those happy temerities which are justified
to vulgar eyes by the success which sometimes be-
falls them, to reflecting minds by the earnest faith
which alone can inspire them, the President of the
poor and struggling Protestant Institute hastened
the very next morning to wait upon the owner,
won back the once rejected bargain (assuming,
moreover, on himself, the whole costs attending
the transaction), and found himself the owner of a
huge property, with a personal debt of iio,ooofr.,
of which 40,000 to be paid down immediately, and
with scarcely a few hundred francs of ready money !
In two days 75,ooofr. had been lent by a few Pro-
testant friends (including the honoured names of
the Andres, the Delesserts, the Eynards, the Hot-
tingers, the Mallets); other sums have since been
lent from time to time; a sum of £6000 has been
or will have to be expended on new buildings,
fittings, and alterations ; while the yearly income
of the Institute has risen from about 21,000
fr. in 1842-3 to upwards of 80,000 fr. in 1846-7!
Never did seeming madness prove greater wis-
dom.

252 Appendix G.

The present buildings, we have said, are exten-
sive ; a good frontage on the street, two long wings,
and a very large garden behind. To the facade
and wings correspond respectively, more or less
exactly, the three great divisions of the Institute —
the Hospital, the School, and the Penitentiary.
To the left stands the School, which, together with
the "Creche" its adjunct, provides, in various de-
partments, for the early care and education of
infants of both sexes, for the complete education
and training of girls until the age of eighteen.
The Creche is small; the Infant School, on the
other hand, numbers 200 children of both sexes on
its lists, of whom from 90 to 120 are daily present;
singularly plain-looking generally to an English
eye, but for the most part fat and happy. Next
comes the Upper School, for girls only, on the
monitorial system, comprising about 90 pupils, of
whom about 60 are day scholars, and the remain-
ing 30 belong to the different branches of the
establishment. Here not only the general prin-
ciples of religion, but its distinctive dogmas begin
to be taught. Nevertheless, many Roman Cathohc
mothers have been so struck with the advantages
which their children have derived from the Infant
School, that they have solicited their admission to
the Upper School ; making so many conversions
from Romanism, not by any proselytising spirit,
but by the mere influence of a good and holy
example. No child, it may be added, is admitted
to either the Infant or the Upper School without

Protestant Sisterhoods. 253

the written consent of the parents; if Roman
CathoHcs, testifying that they are aware of the
Protestant character of the Institute. And yet, of
the infant pupils, upwards of three-fourths belong
to Roman Catholic families.

Beyond the Upper School is the " Atelier d'Ap-
prentissage" for girls only, who are trained up,
from the age of thirteen to that of eighteen, either
as servants or as workwomen ; their intellectual
and religious education keeping pace with their
apprenticeship to labour. "One of the greatest
moral dangers for young workwomen in Paris,"
says M. Vermeil (" Appeal," p. 6), " is to be found
in those ' Ateliers d'Apprentissage,' where so many
evil examples attend them, so many temptations,
so many pernicious influences; and that parti-
cularly at the period when religious education is
usually imparted." The same evils are deeply felt
in London.

A link between the School and the Hospital is
afforded by the Infirmary for scrofulous children.
The effects produced in this department of the
establishment by pure air, wholesome and abund-
ant food, and kind attention, are perfectly mar-
vellous. The education of the children is carried
on, as far as practicable, at the Upper School.

Next comes a small Hospital, occupying the
street -frontage of the establishment, containing
separate wards for men, women, and children, and
to which 115 patients were admitted in 1846-7, be-
sides the dispensing of gratuitous advice to out-

2 54 Appendix G.

door patients, and the vaccination of children, all,
of course, by competent medical officers. So long
as Protestant Sisters are excluded from those hos-
pitals which Protestant money contributes to sup-
port, so long will this branch of the establishment
(which is not, however, proposed to be much ex-
tended) be absolutely necessary, for the training of
the " Diaconesses" to those functions which alone
have sufficed to render famous the Roman Catholic
" Soeurs de Charite," of hospital and family nurses.
The Hospital is not entirely gratuitous, but the
poor are admitted at reduced prices, descending as
low as I fr. a day, although the average cost of each
patient is 3fr. a day. An ingenious system has,
however, been established, that of the patronage of
beds ; by which fifteen or twenty subscribers agree
to give, if called upon, 2fr. each a month; this,
with the slight retribution almost invariably given
by the patient himself, or by his special protector,
is sufficient to make up the total expenditure.

Passing through a pleasant little chapel, where
divine service is performed every Sunday, and a
Sunday School is held, you enter the Penitentiary,
if we may so call it, itself divided into three en-
tirely distinct parts, — the Refuge, the Retreat,
{Rete?uic), and the School of Discipline {Discip-
Hnai?'e). The former, containing twenty-five cells,
is destined to penitent females of the Protestant
persuasion on their dismissal from prison, or who
wish of themselves to abandon the path of prosti-
tution, and who are admitted on payment of a

Protestant Sisterhoods. 255

yearly sum of 300 fr. (£12). The last " Report"
contains some interesting details as to the general
results of this branch of the work of moralization.
About one-third of those who have left the estab-
lishment have fallen away again into vice ; about
another third have kept aloof from outward shame;
while the remainder may be confidently considered
as restored to virtue. However, to give more cer-
tainty to their work of reformation, the committee
have decided upon admitting penitents, not as here-
tofore for two years certain, but for an indefinite
period. And as they are to be formed not for
solitude, but for society, it has been thought proper
to employ some of them, when practicable, in the
laundry of the establishment ; a hazardous, but
necessary test of their sincerity.

The second branch is that of the " Retenue,"
destined originally to girls under age, convicted by
a judicial sentence, or (by a peculiar provision of
the French law'"') confined judicially on their

* Code Civil, art. 375. "A father who shall have cause
for very severe displeasure with respect to the conduct of his
child, has the following means of correction : —

376. " If the child has not entered its sixteenth year, the
father may have it confined during one month at most, for
which purpose the President of the ' Tribunal d'Arrondisse-
ment' shall, on his demand, give the warrant of arrest.

377. " From the commencement of the sixteenth year till
majority or emancipation, the father may only demand the
confinement of his child during six months at most ; he will
have to apply to the President of the aforesaid tribunal, who,
after having conferred with the ' Procureur du Roi,' will
give or refuse the warrant of arrest, with power in the former

256 Appendix G.

parents' demand. But an asylum for the former
class of minors having been opened at Ste Foy (a
reformatory institution on the model of that of
Mettray, for Protestants), it is intended from hence-
forth to confine the efforts of the Deaconesses to
the latter class of girls, who were hitherto sent to
the Roman Catholic establishment of St Michel.

The " Disciplinaire" again is intended to hold
25 girls of from 7 to 15 years of age, of vicious or
stubborn dispositions. No branch of the work of
the " Diaconesses" is so toilsome and unattractive
as this. The poor children admitted to this de-
partment are mostly narrow-minded as well as evil-
hearted ; and the Sisters observe that " the germs
of sin are marvellously fostered by a certain want
of intellectual development." " Narrow-mindedness
tends to wickedness," our own Arnold somewhere

case to abridge the time of confinement demanded by the
father."

Tlie same rule obtains, under arts. 380 and 382, where the
father is married to a second Avife, the child being the issue
of a former marriage ; also where the child is possessed of
private property, or is in the exercise of a calling ; and that,
although in any of the above cases the child be under fifteen.

In case the child misconduct himself again after liberation,
a further period of confinement may be ordered ; and so, we
presume, toties qiioties (art. 379).

The mother surviving and not having married again can only
require her child to be confined with the consent of the two
nearest of kin, and under the provisions of art. 327 (381).

Lastly, by art. 468, a guardian, with the consent of the
•' Conseil de Famille," exercises the same authority as the
father in analogous cases.

Protestant Sistc7'hoods. 257

observ^es, in a letter to his favourite pupil and since
biographer.

In addition to their various household functions,
of the multiplicity of which the foregoing pages will
have given an idea, the Sisters, where they find
time, pay charitable visits (to which their various
schools afford superabundant opening); they dis-
tribute, in kind almost universally, 3000 fr. worth
of relief, besides Bibles, tracts, and useful books.
Already around them other Protestant establish-
ments, charitable or otherwise, are springing up ; a
higher Protestant girls' school, a primary school for
Protestant boys, a cheap lodging-house for the poor,
a home for Protestant servants out of place. All
these are unconnected except by sympathy with the
Institute ; but within its bosom are formed already
a class of pupils, who, without seeking to become
Deaconesses, come to study in the different fields
of charitable activity which it opens to them, and a
class of nurses for the sick, of a lower order than
the actual Deaconesses.

It is almost incredible to state that the whole of
these various functions are performed \yy 2. personnel
of eighteen Sisters, of whom six are candidates,
or " aspirantes." Nevertheless, the Institute has
already been able to send forth Deaconesses from
time to time, to direct charitable institutions in the
provinces ; a Hospital, in particular, at Montpellier,
a to\vn which, since the good Sister's arrival, figures
for a much higher sum in the subscription list, in
full proof of the benefits derived from her stay.

258 Appendix G.

But of course, with a central development so great,
there are scarcely ever any Sisters to spare to appli-
cations which are constantly made to the Institute
from the provinces.

The Sisters belong to all ranks of society ; there
are farm-servants and teachers, shepherdesses and
ladies by birth. They come from various parts of
France, though most of them from the south.
Provence furnishes the admirable Directing Sister,
one of the two master-minds of the establishment.
One Sister already is an Englishwoman,

We have said that the Institution is supported
by the two established Protestant churches of
France, every minister of both of which at Paris
(one only excepted) — sometimes after several years
of opposition or reluctance — has at last acknow-
ledged the usefulness of its aim, and the sincere
piety of its direction.'"" Beyond the pale of French
Protestantism, the clergymen of both Anglican con-
gregations of Paris have expressed themselves, by
subscription or otherwise, in its favour, as well as
a worthy Wesleyan minister of Paris. From the
municipal body of Paris it has obtained the highest
testimony. In a Report of the Prefect to the
Municipal Council, in 1846, that functionary says :
— " I have inspected the establishment of Deacon-
esses in all its details, and observed everywhere
that an intelligent directing spirit had presided over

* The lamented Frederic Monod, a Protestant of the Pro-
testants, was nursed by deaconesses on his death-bed (1863),
and was deeply sensible of the value of their services.

Protestant Sisterhoods. 259

its organisation — over the separation of its different
works — over the excellent distribution of the various
functions. I saw that everything had been ordered
after a thoughtful study of those improvements
which have been introduced into other establish-
ments, so as to facilitate the surveil/ance of any
part of the institution, to spare time and trouble
to servants, and to procure all possible economy;
although nothing has been omitted for the material
comfort of the different persons who are called to
profit by the advantages of this important asylum.
. . . The Institute of Deaconesses is so well
ordered as to be worthy of serving as a model
to other establishments of a similar nature, which
might be founded upon a larger scale."

In concluding his report, the Prefect solicited
from the body over which he presided, a first grant
of 1000 fr. (^40.) Some months afterwards, a
committee named by the Municipal Council came
unexpectedly to visit the Institute, and after a three
hours' investigation, in their report proposed a grant
of 1500 fr. By the rarest of liberalities, the Muni-
cipal Council outbid its own committee, and by a
unanimous vote, granted 3000 fr.

The general administration of the Institute- is
vested in a Directing Council, composed of two
ministers of either church, of the Directing Sister,
and of from four to six ladies, and superintended
itself by a " Co mite dc surveillance^^'' composed of
from three to five lay members. Beneath this
central government, the three great branches of

26o Appendix G.

the institution form, as it were, so many federate
states, each directed by a separate committee of
ladies.

The Directing Sister constitutes, so to speak, the
executive power as respects the other Sisters, to-
wards whom she represents the association, and
from whom obedience is due to her. The Sisters
are admitted between the age of twenty-one and
that of thirty-five years (subject to extraordinary
exceptions), and only with the consent of their
families ; unless they should be orphans, widows
since a year at least, or more than thirty years of
age ; they must, in all cases, be free from special
family duties. On their admission they are first
received as candidates {aspirantes), then as assist-
ants (adjointes), such period of trial lasting eighteen
months. Every Sister must in turn go through all
the various functions of the establishment, from the
kitchen upwards ; but after her final reception as
Deaconess, she devotes herself to that branch for
which she feels the most decided vocation.

During the eighteen months of their noviciate,
the Sisters have to pay a yearly sum of 400 fr., be-
sides bringing in with them a " trousseau;'' but,
in exceptional cases, gratuitous or semi-gratuitous
admissions may be granted (funds permitting) by
the Directing Council, After her admission as
Deaconess, every Sister is maintained in all points,
in health and in sickness, during her years of
labour and in her old age, by the association, to
which she is reckoned to cost 300 fr. a year. All

Protestant Sisterhoods. 261

retribution for her labour and services belongs, in
the meanwhile, to the association, which, never-
theless, leaves her the entire control of her capital.
There are provisions for indemnifying Deaconesses
who are dismissed by the Council, or withdraw from
the association for reasons to be approved of by
the Council (marriage being one of these), after
four years' service at least. All are free to leave
at any time, although a moral obligation of service
for a definite period, or of otherwise indemnifying
the association, is considered to lie on those who
have received gratuitous or semi-gratuitous ad-
mission.

The total expenditure of the institution amounts
to 87,000 fr., or somewhat more than its receipts ; —
yet a small sum, surely, when we consider the
magnitude of the establishment, with its three great
divisions, its seven distinct yards or gardens, its 127
rooms, 148 beds, of which upwards of 100 are
nightly occupied, and the 300 persons who are
daily received beneath its roof for purposes of in-
struction or relief; and this, besides the occupation
of another house — itself of large dimensions for
any ordinary purpose — the original birthplace of
the Institute, and still the private home, as it were,
of the Sisters themselves. Add to this, however, a
debt of about 250,000 fr. (;^io,ooo), cost of the
present establishment, of which 186,000 fr. owing
on loan to various friends of the society, 25,000 fr.
still due on the purchase-money, and 40,000 fr. for
repairs and alterations.

262 Appendix G.

We have been thus particular in describing the
nature and arrangements of the Paris Institute of
Deaconesses, both as offering the most accessible
example, and at the same time, the most complete
and systematically-organised of existing institutions
of a similar nature. The question, indeed, arises,
Why pursue so many objects at once % why join in
one so many different branches of charity % There
surely must be confusion, conflict of wants and
interests, charitable bickerings and jealousies. It
might be a sufficient answer, that nothing as yet
appears of all this, after six years' trial, every year
almost bringing with it a new foundation. But the
very raising of the objection implies a misconcep-
tion of the purposes for which the Institute exists.
It is not a hospital, nor a school, nor a penitentiary ;
it is, we repeat it, a great Normal School of Female
Charity. Neither the good education afforded
within its bosom to the young, nor the care to the
sick, nor the wise discipline to the vicious, can ever
constitute its real end, its essential perfection ; but
the full development and wise training of all those
impulses of the female mind, which may best serve
to promote and fulfil those several aims. Con-
sidered in this light, variety of field is an indispen-
sable condition of its existence. The same minds
will recoil from the often loathsome duties of attend-
ance on the sick, which will delight in the teaching
of children ; other women, again, patient watchers
beside a sick-bed, are incapable of sympathising
with the noisy exuberance of animal spirits in

Protestant Sistcr/ioods, 263

childhood. The duties of superintendence over
the penitent female, over the perverted child, are
different from either of the former ones, and differ-
ent between themselves; whilst other characters
again shev,' themselves most useful in the details of
household administration. And yet the same spirit
of humble, heavenward faith can inspire all alike,
and bind them together by the golden link of
heartfelt sisterhood. Thus the variety of human
character can only be brought to bear its most effi-
cient results, by supplying it with a variety of ob-
jects. How far the great axiom of Fourierist
socialism, " Les attractions sont proportionnelles
aux destinees," will ever be realised on a large scale
in society, the future alone can shew. On a small
scale, certainly, there is no surer index to success.
" A man's inclination to a calling," says Dr Arnold,
writing to a former pupil, " is a great presumption
that he is or will be fit for it. . . . My advice to
you would be to follow that line for which you seem
to have the most evident calling ; and surely the
sign of God's calling, in such a case, is to be found
in our own reasonable inclination, for the tastes
and faculties which He gives us are the marks of
our fitness for one thing rather than another."

As to the spiritual character of the Institute, the
consideration of which would need far more space
than we can here give to it, suffice it to say, that it
is thoroughly Protestant. No vows, no poverty, no
monastic obedience, no cehbacy, no engagements,
even temporary, no claustral seclusion, no vain

264 Appendix G.

practices, no domination over conscience, no
tyranny over the will, — such are the " fundamental
principles," which, with appropriate develojDments,
stand at the head of its Statutes/"'

The establishment of Deaconesses, founded by
M. Vermeil, is not the only one in France. At
Strasburg, that old focus of Protestantism, the Rev.
M. Haerter stands at the head of a similar Institute,
since October 1842. The germ of the Strasburg
Institute arose amongst those young persons who
had received their religious instruction from its
founder; already in 1837 they had formed them-
selves into an association — which seems to have
been but a stricter kind of visiting society — the
members of which, without in anywise renouncing
the ties of family or social life, devoted themselves
to the relief of the poor. We have not the latest
details on this establishment, but we see that in
1845 it already numbered twenty-four Sisters; one
Superior Sister, three Conducting Sisters at the head
of the different departments, eight Acting Sisters
{saurs se7'va7ites)^ two Affiliated Sisters {sceiirs
agregces), and ten novices. It confines itself, as

* The above description of the Paris Institute is still sub-
stantially sufficient, except that the "atelier d'apprentissage"
has l)een discontinued, whilst on the other hand there has
been added a " Preparatory School for Deaconesses. " There
were in 1864 30 Sisters and 20 pupils, some 15 Sisters being
employed outside of the " mother-house" in Paris, in the
provinces, or at Geneva. The expenditure remains about the
same {95,CXX) fr.), and keeps unfortunately still ahead of the
receipts.

Protestant SisterJioods. 265

yet, to the two branches of education and physical
rehef, and devotes separate premises to each. The
Hospital received in 1844-5 sixty patients, while
the School, divided into the infant school for either
sex, the lower and superior girls' school, numbered
in its different divisions 80, 60, and 30 scholars
respectively. Besides the Sisters in active employ
at Strasburg itself, both within and without the In-
stitute, there were five in charge of the Hospital at
Mulhouse (which can receive as many as 200 sick),
and two at Guebwiller, one as teacher in a parish
girls' school, numbering 40 scholars, the other as
administrator of a charitable foundation.

The growth of the Strasburg Institute has been
proportionately as rapid as that of the Paris one.
Its first location was in a small house, which, it
was reckoned, would suffice for all purposes during
three years. The year was not out, when removal
to a larger establishment became indispensable.
This, in turn, proved insufficient, and in September
1845 took place the dedication of a new house,
for purposes of education only, the Hospital being
confined to the former premises. The receipts of
the Institute in 1844-5, which about balanced the
expenditure, were somewhat above 30,000 fr.
(^1240), the greater part, or about 23,500 fr., re-
sulting from subscriptions.

The constitution of this Institute is somewhat
less ecclesiastical than that of the Paris one, the
founder, M. Ha^rter, exercising the cure of souls
merely, whilst the whole administration is vested

266 Appendix G.

in a committee of ladies, aided by a consulting
committee of gentlemen. It is not to be considered
as having attained its full development, since, by
art. 2 of its Statutes, it has for its object " to offer
to those Christian women who wish to devote them-
selves to the Lord's service the means of qualifying
themselves, either to become teachers in infant
schools and lower girls' schools, or nurses for the
sick in hospitals, sanatoria, and private houses, or
again to exercise the functions of supenntendents
in prisons, asylums, houses of refuge, and other
charitable establishments where their services may
be required."

Let us now proceed to Switzerland. There are
several Deaconesses' Institutes in this country ; at
Echallens* in the Pays de Vaud, one founded by
the Rev. M. Germond ; at Boudry, in Neuchatel,
one by the Rev. M. Bovet, and, we believe, others
besides. Of the first-named alone have we any
details. Its opening followed closely upon that of
the Strasburg Institute, as it dates from the ist of
January 1843. It is the smallest of the establish-
ments which we shall have to consider in this ar-
ticle, and is confined strictly to the training of
nurses for the sick. But we must say, that of the
various Reports before us, there are none that
breathe a more simple, earnest, unaffected faith, a
gentler and a larger-minded charity, than those of
M. Germond. The third Report, in particular,
contains a painstaking and interesting account of
* ISow St Loup.

Protcsta7it Sisterhoods. 267

the Deaconesses of the early Church; pointhig out,
at the same time, the difference between the ori-
ginal institution, as specially annexed to individual
congregations, and its revival in the shape of
distinct communities at the present day.

The field of labour of the Deaconesses of Echal-
lens is thus set forth by its founder. First, the
care of the sick at their own homes ; — a depart-
ment the importance of which would be specially
felt in times of epidemic. For services of this kind,
the demand constantly exceeds the supply; and
although the Director of the establishment natur-
ally prefers the affording in-door relief, where
practicable, one Deaconess out of six, who are
usually attached to the parent Institute, is set apart
for out-door nursing. Secondly, the care of the
sick in, or at the expense of, private charitable
foundations, of which many appear to have been
created in Switzerland of late years ; five of these,
besides one at Lyons for the Protestant sick, em-
ploy seven Sisters. " May we not hope," says M.
Germond, " that as Christianity shall receive a
more practical direction, similar establishments will
become multiplied, till there shall be no more a
single town in our land without its small infirmary,
served by a Deaconess, and ready to receive those
sick persons who could not without danger be
transported to a greater distance." Thirdly, the
care of the sick in public hospitals, which em-
ploys the remaining Sisters, — making in all fifteen
Deaconesses received, and one who had completed

268 Appendix G.

her noviciate, and Avas already in active service,
but without having been definitely admitted. Two
Deaconesses of Echallens have, since November
1844, replaced, at the asylum of Abendberg, in
Berne, for the care and education of " cretin"
children, some Roman Catholic " soeurs grises"
from Friburg, whom Dr Guggenbuhl had been com-
pelled to admit, for want of qualified Protestant
nurses. " If the number of Deaconesses were
doubled or even trebled, employment could im-
mediately be found for all." (Second Report,
Echallens.)

Situated in a mixed commune, the Institute of
Echallens rents of the Municipality a wing of the
former Chateau of the place. The number of sick
whom it received in 1844-5, was 159, of whom
134 gratuitously. Though placed in the midst of
an agricultural population, far from any large town,
and notwithstanding the vicinity, at no more than
three leagues' distance, of a Cantonal Hospital, it
is impossible for its Directors to comply with all
the demands for admission that are addressed to
them. Its receipts, in 1844-5, were under 12,000
fr. (;^48o), its expenditure under 7000 fr., — the
difference being owing to the endeavour to raise
funds for purchasing a suitable house.

The Statutes of the Institute are similar to those
of Paris and Strasburg. "The Deaconesses of
Echallens are a free corporation, which devotes it-
self, for the Saviour's love, to the service of the
unfortunate, and especially of the sick." There is,

Protestant Sisterhoods. 269

as yet, no internal hierarchy amongst the Sisters,
who are placed under the authority of the worthy
minister and his wife, as Directors. A superintend-
ing committee has been named to examine the
accounts, and to provide for the maintenance of
the establishment in the event of the founder's
death.

We cannot forbear quoting from M. Germ-ond's
second report the account of the Deaconesses' day
at Echallens. They rise at five in summer, six in
winter ; pray in private ; pay the first attentions to
the sick ; do their own rooms ; breakfast upon a
" soupc," or upon coffee and bread; then assemble
for family prayer. At seven or eight o'clock the
doctor makes his rounds and gives his instructions;
he is followed by Madame Germond. Medicines
are given, and the Sisters read to such of the sick
as wish for it, and finish the house work. Twelve
is the dinner hour, the meal being composed of
soup, meat, and vegetables, one dish of each. The
Sisters are then free to choose their own occupa-
tions till two, when they meet to work at their
needle. At four there is a " gouter," — what with
our own working classes would be tea, — here con-
sisting of " cafe' au lait," milk, or milk and water.
Then the Director makes his rounds, celebrates
divine service for the whole establishment, and
pays pastoral visits to those sick who are detained
in bed. The Sisters now take a walk for half an
hour in summer, this short period of relaxing exer-
cise being transferred in winter immediately after

270 Appendix G.

dinner-time. At eight o'clock "soupe" is again
served out ; nine is bed-time. Where watching is
required, the Sisters take it by turns ; one till mid-
night, one from that hour, whilst the men patients
are watched over by a male nurse, or " infinnier."
The food is the same for all inmates, unless the
doctor should prescribe otherwise ; the same table
unites patients and nurses. Few of the former re-
main untouched by the kindness with which they
are treated, and, in general, as soon as they begin
to recover their strength, they show themselves
most anxious to make themselves useful. Letters
are frequently received from them after they have
left, and some will go leagues out of their way to
visit again '■'- les bonnes soeiirs.'' Observe, that these
patients form a mixed assemblage of Swiss, French,
Sardinians, and Germans ; the Roman Catholics
being in the proportion of about one to six Pro-
testants.

We now come to the oldest and most consider-
able of existing Deaconesses' Institutes, that of
Kaiserswerth, on the Rhine, founded by the Rev.
Th. Fliedner,* the ninth yearly report of which
alone, for 1846, is unfortunately now before us.
Like the Paris Institute, it commenced by a
Refuge for females, comprising, apparently, those
only who have undergone judicial sentence of con-
viction, and who are admitted on leaving prison.
Although connected with the general foundation,

* Dead even whilst this work was passing through the
press, — at only a few weeks' interval from M. Vermeil.

Protestant Sisterhoods. 271

separate accounts are kept of the receipts and ex-
penditure of the Refuge, and separate reports pub-
lished. It was, in 1846, in the thirteenth year of
its existence, and had received during the first
twelve years 130 female criminals. Its results are
so far satisfactory, that of that number fifteen had
married, two had become teachers, and many more
had regained at least outer respectability, although
but few, perhaps, could be considered as having
received a thorough moral reformation.

The Institute of Kaiserswerth numbers no less
than 10 1 sisters, of whom sixty-seven are conse-
crated Deaconesses and thirty-four Candidate
Sisters. The labours of these are distributed
amongst public institutions, the service of particu-
lar communes, the care of the sick in private houses,
and the various departments of the main establish-
ment at Kaiserswerth. The first-mentioned class
con-iprises forty-five Sisters, employed in various
Hospitals, Lunatic Asylums, Poor-houses, and
Orphan-houses at Berlin, Marsberg, Kirchheim,
Elberfeld, Barmen, Kreuznach, Saarbriick, Worms,
Wetzlar, Frankfort -on- the -Mayn, Cologne, and
Soest, at the Deaconesses' Institute of Dresden,
and at the Pastoral Aid Institute at Duisburg (a
greatly analogous institution for the male sex).
The second class,, that of Commune-deaconesses
(Gemeinde-diakonissen) numbered, in 1846, but
five sisters, who were employed at Cleves, Neuwied,
and Unterbamien, but more were shortly to be sent
out to Cologne, to Duisburg, &c. From fifteen to

272 Appendix G,

twenty Sisters were engaged out of doors as private
nurses, while the remainder, or about one-third of
the whole number, find ample employment in the
Asylum, the Orphan-house, and Normal Schools,
and the other branches of the parent institution, or
"Mother-house" {Mutterhaus). A new hospital,
on a large scale, has moreover been constituted at
Berlin, to be placed under (we believe) the exclu-
sive care of Deaconesses. The lady who has been
designated to take charge of this establishment,
herself the bearer of a name and title well know^n
in history, and the early friend of the present
Duchess of Orleans, was last year in London and
Paris, carefully visiting the charitable foundations
of either city, and spent a day with her foreign
sisters at the Paris Institution.

The most interesting feature, perhaps, of the
labours, of the German Deaconesses is the recently-
developed one of parochial activity i^gemeindepfiege).
It is the exact reproduction of the functions of the
early Christian Deaconesses, or Servants of the
Church, of whom Phcebe of Cenchrea is, by name
at least, the apostolical type. The Parish, or,
rather, Commune deaconess, has to visit the poor
and the sick at their homes, to procure for them,
as far as possible, work and clothing, to work for
them at her needle, instruct poor children in sew-
ing and knitting, either singly, or in classes where
practicable, giving a regular account of her labours
to the clergyman, the diaconate, and the Ladies*
Charitable Society, where such exists. But even

Protestant Sisterhoods. 273

without being regularly attached to a particular
parish or congregation, Deaconesses are able,
from their experience in the care of the sick, and
in household management, to render the most im-
portant public services in times of epidemic.
Look, for instance, at the following picture : —

An epidemic nervous fever was raging in two
communes of the circle of Duisburg, Gartrop, and
Gahlen. Its first and most virulent outbreak took
place at Gartrop, a small, poor, secluded village of
scarcely 130 souls, without a doctor, without an
apothecary in the neighbourhood, while the clergy-
man was upon the point of leaving for another
parish, and his successor had not yet been ap-
pointed. Four Deaconesses, including the Superior
{vorsfeherin?t), Pastor Fliedner s wife, and a maid,
hastened to this scene of wretchedness, and found
from twenty to twenty-five fever patients in the
most alarming condition, — a mother and four chil-
dren in one hovel, four other patients in another,
and so on, — all lying on foul straw, or on bed-
clothes that had not been washed for weeks, almost
without food, utterly without help. Many had died
already; the healthy had fled; the parish doctor
lived four German leagues off, and could not come
every day. The first care of the Sisters, who
would have found no lodging but for the then
vacancy of the parsonage, was to introduce clean-
liness and ventilation into the narrow cabins of the
peasants; they washed and cooked for the sick^
they watched every night by turns at their bedside,

S

2 74 Appendix G.

and tended them Avitli such success, that only four
died after their arrival, and the rest were left con-
valescent after four weeks' stay. The same epi-
demic having broken out in the neighbouring
commune of Gahlen, in two families, of whom
eight members lay ill at once, a single Deaconess
was able, in three weeks, to restore every patient
to health, and to prevent the further spread of the
disease. What would Dr Southwood Smith, or Mr
Chadwick, not give for a few dozen of such .hard-
working, zealous, intelligent ministers in the field
of sanitary reform 1

The Hospital at Kaiserswerth is, in itself, not of
inconsiderable magnitude, and received in 1845-6
568 patients (an increase of 147 on the preceding
year), for the most part men, and of all religious
persuasions, Protestants, Roman Catholics, — who
are attended by a Roman Catholic chaplain, — and
Jews ; nearly 200 of these were treated gratui-
tously. The mortality seems very small as com-
pared with the whole number of patients — only
sixteen. The effects of care and a wholesome diet
upon scrofulous children are observed, as in the
Paris institution, to be most remarkable, both as
to bodily health and moral improvement. The
number of children patients is about 100 a year;
a school is open for their instruction, and they re-
sort to it with the greatest delight, those who are
able to attend being most zealous to communicate
the learning they acquire to those of their com-
panions whom their ailments keep away. In addi-

Protestant Sisterhoods. 275

tion to their intellectual training, the children are
employed as much as possible in industrial labours.
The elder boys are taught to make baskets, lace,
nets, rugs, slippers, various articles of pasteboard,
(S:c. f^ach boy has also, where his health allows
of it, some small department of household work to
attend to, so as to help in keeping the children's
wards and school-rooms in order and cleanliness.
The very young children make lint, paper cuttings
for pillows (!) &c., while the girls, again, sew and
knit. Even older patients are provided as much
as possible with employment, which is found to
produce the most cheering effects on their dispo-
sition. Nay, moreover, when the renewal of the
year draws nigh, "a great Christmas tree, with
bright, glittering wax tapers," lights up the refec-
tory for the sick, who crowd around it, young and
old, "some borne aloft on others' arms, some lean-
ing on crutches," and sing hymns to the child
" Immanuel."

The Christmas tree seems, indeed, to be almost
an article of faith with the good Deaconesses
of Kaiserswerth, both within and without the
" Motherhouse." " It was a subject of peculiar
joy ta us," says Pastor Fliedner, " to find that the
prevailing endeavour of the Sisters in most of the
institutions where they are employed was to confer
pleasure on the sick and other objects of their
care, and greater pleasure than they had ever yet
enjoyed. Thus (quite without our suggestion)
they have almost everywhere, of their own impulse,

2/6 Appendix G,

procured Christmas presents to be given for their
charges, even where this had never taken place
before; they have themselves collected in the
town the money, clothes, and other gifts, set up
the ' trees of Christ,' gladdened the sick; the poor,
and the wretched with the bright glittering light,
such as they had never seen before, with the pretty
songs, with the presents of food, and drink, and
clothes, so that they would often weep tears of joy
in their surprise, and cry, ' No, never, in all our
lives, did such a thing happen to us ! Never yet
had we such a pleasure ! You are making us too
happy ! You are doing too much for us ! ' "*

Exquisitely German and childish this. Qusere,
though, whether, as a piece of political wisdom, it
may not turn out better than forbidding p^um-
pudding in workhouses % t

After the Hospital comes the Normal School
for female teachers, of whom upwards of fifty are
sent out every year. Different in this from the
other institutions which we have as yet examined,
the Institute of Kaiserswerth has scarcely so wide
a home field for practical teaching as might at first
sight be expected from its general magnitude. Thus
its Infant-school only numbers about forty children;

* Within the last few months, our London newspapers
have duly recorded the Christmas tree of 1847, set up at the
German Hospital of Dalston — an offshoot, as will presently
be shewn, of the Kai^rswerth Institute — in the presence of
H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge.

+ This alludes to a fact of recent occurrence before the
publication of the above article, but probably impossible now.

Protestant Sisterhoods. 277

its Hospital-school, we presume, contains but a
comparatively small proportion of the hundred
juvenile patients, and its Orphan-house, to which
we shall presently advert, reckons about twenty
inmates. The anomaly is explained, if we do not
mistake some passages in the report, by the circum-
stance that the Sisters and pupils are admitted to
the parochial schools of the town. Their theoretical
education appears, also, to take a wider scope than
in any other kindred establishments. The course
of instruction lasts four months for Infant-school
teachers (can this be enough?), and one year for
teachers in Elementary Schools. Most of the
pupils also attend the children's wards in the
Hospital for a few weeks, to familiarise themselves
with the management of children when sick.

The demand for teachers from the Institution,
as from any other Deaconesses' Institute, greatly
exceeds its capabilities of supply, and it is in-
tended to give a great extension to the Normal
Schools, by a sort of joint-stock company, or,
rather, joint-stock loan {adietiplan). May we
venture to observe, however, that, in assuming
the character of an ordinary normal school, the
Institute impairs, to our mind, the completeness
of the idea of a female Diaconate, by confining
the functions of the latter to the care of the sick
and the household management of charitable in-
stitutions ? In the list of Deaconesses, we do not
find one who is devoted to the work of education.
Why is this to be left a mere secular calling, and

278 Appendix G.

not hallowed by the bond of a religious fellowship?
The mission of the educator is, above all others,
the nearest to that of the minister of religion ; and
if it be the highest to which a woman should aspire
in spiritual matters, this affords but a reason the
more for surrounding it with all practicable respect
and religious honour. That a Deaconesses' Insti-
tute should contain within itself a Normal School
for female teachers, not Deaconesses, is most de-
sirable; but we miss as yet from Kaiserswerth the
high ideal of the Christian Sister, devoted to edu-
cation by her own free choice, without prospect of
earthly reward, and linked with a community of
other devoted women, not by mere gratitude for
the attention of a few months', or even a twelve-
months' stay, but by every tie of present and future
support, comfort, and fellowship.

It is true that this deficiency, if any such exist,
is in progress of being to some extent supplied by
the last branch of the Kaiserswerth Institute, the
Orphan-house, intended for the orphan daughters
of clergymen, teachers, and others of the educated
classes, or even for the daughters of missionaries
still living in foreign countries ; these receive an
education which shall fit them for the middle ranks
of life, mingled, however, with a thorough training
to all household duties. About twenty children
are here brought up, according to their disposi-
tions, either to housekeeping, education, the care
of the sick, or that of the poor, and form, at once,
a seminary for the development of the various

Protestant Sisterhoods. 279

modes of female activity, and especially one for
the supply and maintenance of the Deaconesses'
Institute itself. We fear, however, that even this
will not wholly supply the want which we just now
pointed out, of regular Deaconess teachers. If
such were only to be admitted from among the
pupils of the Orphan-house, it is to be feared that
too great a sameness would be imparted to its edu-
cational system ; that it would lose the advantages
to be derived from a constant infusion of new
blood, by the admission from without of grown-up
members, earnest and zealous; that it would be-
come stereotyped in spirit, like many a Roman
Catholic educational convent, which is recruited
but from among its own pupils.

We might here translate many interesting ex-
tracts from the accounts sent in by the Infant-
school teachers who have been trained in the In-
stitute. When, indeed, was there the report of an
Infant-school which might not be made the most
attractive and touching of tale-books % One
teacher, who says, with great judgment, that she
pays far less attention to the learning by rote than
to exercises in narration and reflection, mentions
that she is now telling histories out of the Old
Testament, " which, however, the children do not
seem to hear with such pleasure, nor yet to retain
so well, as those out of the New. I often reproach
myself for this (she says), as if it arose from my
mode of narration, and redouble my efforts to do
it well. But, in spite of all, when I think I have

28o Appendix G.

told them ever so well the story of Joseph's bre-
thren, or that of Moses, and ask again, of an after-
noon, ' Children, what did I tell you of this morn-
ing 1 ' I always receive for answer, * Of the Lord
Jesus !' Two days back, I said to little Emma,
who has a peculiar feeling for these tales, * Now,
tell me, how comes it that you behave now so ill,
and of an afternoon don't know any longer what I
told you of in the morning?' 'I don't know,
aunty, but I am always thinking of the dear Lord
Jesus, and am so glad to be told of Him ; and so
I always think you have told us of Him this very
morning.' A fortnight back, this child was to go
with her mother to Elberfeld. When I asked her
whether she were glad to make the journey, she
said, ' Yes ; but I would much rather go, some day,
to Bethlehem. How far is it from here ? What a
pretty place it must be ! When you next go there,
you will take me with you, Avon't you V I don't
know how it happens, but the children have come
to think that I have been there often, and must be
well known there. They even think that I must
often have spoken with the Lord Jesus, and stayed
with Him all His life through. And they will not
be persuaded out of this idea. I am, myself, as
happy as a child could be, to think that Advent is
coming, when I shall be able to begin again the
New Testament regularly."

Not a word of cavil over this little nan-ative,
most learned, most refined, most philosophical
reader ! This is the true spirit of the educator, to

Protestant Sisterhoods. 281

be so absorbed in his work as to be " happy as a
child could be" over the recurrence of some
favourite lesson. In like manner did Arnold, in
his own higher sphere, when asked " whether he
did not find the repetition of the same lessons irk-
some to him?" answer, "No; there was a constant
freshness in them ; he found something new in
them every time that he went over them." In like
manner did he write on the kindred subject of
private tuition : — " If you enter upon it heartily,
as your life's business, as a man enters upon any
other profession, you are not in danger of grudg-
ing every hour you give to it, ... . but you take
to it as a matter of course, making it your material
occupation, and devote your time to it, and then
you find that it is in itself full of interest, and keeps
life's current fresh and wholesome, by bringing you
in such perpetual contact with all the sj^ring of
youthful liveliness."

Another infant-school teacher from Kaiserswerth
says, " A little girl of four years was ill, and taken
with brain fever. She begged her mother that
aunty might come to her. I found her lying
quietly on her little bed ; the pain had somewhat
abated. But, above all, she was very patient in
her sufferings, so that her mother had never yet
heard her utter a cry of pain. I asked her, '■ Caro-
line, my child, have you still a bad headache?'
' Yes,' said she, ' my head often hurts me very
much ; but I think that dear Lord Jesus had a
much worse pain in His head than I have, when

282 Appendix G,

the wicked people put the cro\ATi of thorns on His
head ; and my head, too, does not bleed yet, like
that of the Lord Jesus.'"

The material magnitude of the Kaiserswerth estab-
lishment is of course considerable. It has several
gardens, an ice-cellar, a bakehouse, a laboratory,
baths on the Rhine, two large bleaching-grounds,
a dairy, with four cows, &c. It has to provide
daily food for three hundred persons. Its income
in 1845-6 was 17,303 ths. (under ;^2524), less by
upward of 2000 ths. than its expenditure; whilst
its debt amounts by this time, if the estimate of
the Report before us be correct, to upwards of
6000 ths. (;£875.)

Its influence has been most extensive. Not only
have similar institutions, either offsets from it, or
framed upon its pattern, sprung up in divers parts of
Germany — at Dresden, at Berlin, and elsewhere —
but it has sent Deaconesses to Gennan Switzerland,
to St Petersburg, to London ; and in the course of
next spring, its Director intends crossing the At-
lantic, with several Sisters, to found a new Kaiser-
swerth among the German colonists of Pennsyl-
vania.* Several Sisters are already in London, in
charge of the German Hospital at Dalston, which
a late unfortunate broil between its physician and

♦ See new anfe, 206, 207. To quote one instance of the
peculiar reproductive power of Kaiserswerth, the German
Deaconesses' Home of Jerusalem now includes a hospital,
orphan house, and schools. See Pressense's *' Pays de
VEvangile," (1854,) p. 156.

Protesta7it Sisterhoods. 283

council has probably brought more prominently
into notice than two previous years of silent use-
fulness. This institution, founded in 1845, occu-
pies the former premises of the Infant Orphan
Asylum, since removed to Wanstead ; it is large
and airy, and with a very extensive garden, and
situate in the immediate neighbourhood of the
class which furnishes it with the greatest number
of patients — the sugar-bakers of Bethnal Green.
There may be seen, in their especial sphere of ac-
tivity, the Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth ; cleanly,
quiet, healthy-looking Germans, going about their
work in the most orderly and noiseless manner;
never haggling for higher wages, since they have
none to receive ; trained to obedience, and yet
fully conversant with their duties ; in fact at all
points the very antipodes of a Mrs Gamp, that
odious, and we fear often but too true type of the
common nurse. The number of Deaconesses in
the German Hospital of London was three at first ;
it is now five, of whom one has been appointed ma-
tron, and has the superintendence over the others.
And now the question arises, — Is an Institute of
Deaconesses required ; is it practicable in Protes-
tant England ? We must not here omit to state,
that the foundation of one, confined, indeed, to
the purpose of forming nurses for the sick, was
already attempted in this country, more than eight
years ago, by the late Mrs Fry, but we believe it
has since been given up.* And yet it must be a
* A complete error. See ante^ p. 202.

284 Appendix G.

subject of comfort and thankfulness to those who
first projected such an institution amongst our-
selves, to think that their then unsuccessful efforts
contributed not a little to the growth of the now
flourishing Institute of Paris. At the very open-
ing page of M. Vermeil's first pamphlet of 1841,
(Etablissement des Soeurs de Charite Protestantes
en France), an account then recently given, in a
French Protestant newspaper, of Mrs Fry's founda-
tion, is made use of in explanation of his own pro-
ject, and as an argument of its success. So true is it
that " one soweth and another reapeth," that the
seed which a man casts into the ground will
" spring and grow up, he knoweth not how."

But then, perhaps, the cuckoo cry will be raised :
The Church in danger ! The Papists are coming !
Because half-a-dozen single women will have agreed
to live in one house, put on one dress, and throw
their earnings and efforts into one fund for the re-
lief of some acknowledged social evil, the whole
Apocalypse will be ransacked for the millionth
time, to prove that the mark 'of the beast is upon
them ! Grant that it were a new thing in Protes-
tantism to form a female community; is that a
reason for condemning it? Bible societies, nor
Tract societies, nor Missionary societies, can trace
their pedigree to the Apostles, nor yet to the early
lleformers. And what are they in themselves,
but the lower manifestations of that spirit of (to
use a much-abused word) socialism, of which re-
ligious communities are a higher manifestation;

Protestant Sisterhoods. 285

that growing spirit of socialism which will be the
most mighty worker of evil, if we make it not the
most mighty instrument of good ; the most ruth-
less of tyrants if not the most intelligent of minis-
ters for every wise and holy purpose % If it be
lawful for half-a-dozen people to meet together
year after year, and week after week, on the com-
mittee of an hospital, why should it be unlawful
for the same number of persons to spend their
lives together as nurses in that hospital, for the
same purpose of glory to God and good will to-
wards men? Does uniformity of dress offend
you? Who does not know that wherever economy
is sought after, such uniformity is a necessary
means towards realising that end ? Is it not still
more necessary, where the question is how to as-
sociate "in one and the same work, under the
same direction, for the same purposes, with the
same rights, persons of different classes ? " " We
have to receive Sisters of all ranks," continues
M. Vermeil (6th Report, p. 18.), " from the hum-
ble farm-servant in sabots, to the young lady clad
in silk and velvet." And least of all surely can
such an argument be urged in a country like this,
where uniformity of costume is enforced more than
in any other ; where the workhouse has its livery
like the prison^ and the college or school like the
footman's hall ; where bishops are perennially
cumbered with the apron, and barristers with the
wig ; where the cleaning of the hideous cauliflower
of a marquis's coachman can be the subject of a

2 86 Appendix G,

judicial action, and charity (whose left hand should
not know what her right hand doeth) takes plea-
sure in dressing out her scholars as the most un-
graceful of merryandrews throughout every parish
in the kingdom.

But the great objection to a deaconesses' insti-
tute is, no doubt, not formal, but radical. " We
would not mind the community of life, nor the
costume, nor the charitable purpose, if Romanism
had not given the example of such Sisterhoods.
It is an imitation of Romanism," Let M. Ger-
mond of Echallens answer. "An imitation of
Roman Catholicism % God forbid ! but of a work
which should have borne fair fruit in the bosom of
Catholicism? why not? where would be the sin?
Does not the Holy Scripture command us to 'prove
all things,' to 'hold fast that is good?' You will
say, perhaps, that the Church of Rome holds no
more anything worth holding fast. Ah ! we repel
with all our strength those blind prejudices of party
spirit, which estrange hearts from one another,
chain down all progress; we are persuaded that
there is, on the contrary, no section of Christianity
which is utterly deprived of God's graces; we
should feel happy to hasten by our example, as we
do by our wishes, that blessed time when the vari-
ous Churches, divesting themselves at last of their
mutual jealousies, shall come to exchange freely
with one another all that each has of really good,
and pure, and lovely, and Christian !"

It is incorrect, however, to say that an order of

Protestant Sisterhoods. 287

Deaconesses is but a copy of Romanism ; it is not
so even in outward form. It would be easy to
shew that in that particular branch which it has
shot forth as yet in Germany alone, the Parish-
deaconess, it exactly reproduces, as we have already
stated, the Deaconess or " servant of the church,"
(A/ax&i7ff(Ta, 55 A/a'^cofo?, diaconissa, diacona), of the
earliest times, an institution which seems to have
subsisted in the Eastern Church at least till the
eleventh century. Whereas, in its more general
form, of an association of females for all purposes
of charity, it is not only not Roman Catholic, but
historically Protestant in its origin,* since eighty
years before the institution of the "Filles," or
" Soeurs de Charite," by St Vincent de Paule, a
Protestant prince, Henry Robert de la Marck,
sovereign prince of Sedan, "in 1560, instituted in
his dominions a society of 'Demoiselles de Charite,'
for assisting at their own homes the poor, the aged,
and infirm, and supplied it with the needful funds
for rendering it permanently efficient. The mission
of these new servants of the Church was one wholly
of free-will ; they pronounced no vows, and were
chosen from among those persons who were free
from the marriage-tie, and the duties which it en-
tails. The only engagement which they took was
that of devoting themselves to works of mercy."
In our own country, indeed, it may be said that an

* This is quite wrong. I was writing at this time with too
slight acquaintance with the subject of Romish Monachism.
See ante, p. i6i.

288 Appendix G,

institute of Deaconesses will only be, as it were,
the crystallised precipitate of those numberless
ladies' charitable societies, amongst which all its
elements float already dissolved and shapeless.

But let us not, however, haggle about these
miserable questions of outward form, of historical
precedence. Look to the spirit of the continental
Deaconesses. No vows, no poverty, no monastic
obedience, says the founder of the Paris Institute.
"We took as the ground of our efforts, not the
pretence of salvation by works, but the duty of
witnessing by works our love to Him who came
down from heaven to save us." And such is the
testimony of every one of his fellow-labourers. If
you want further proofs, look to the hatred of
Romanism for the institution, wherever it has
sprung up. What calumnies have not been lavished
on the Deaconesses of Paris by the Romanist papers
of that capital ! Ask M. Germond of Echallens,
whose establishment receives so many Roman
Catholic patients, how many donations he has re-
ceived from the Roman Catholics of Switzerland !
Ask the founders of the German Hospital in Lon-
don how the idea of introducing Sisters from
Kaiserswerth was at first received by the German
Roman Catholics of our own metropolis !

To prove their utter want of connexion with
Romanism and Romanising feelings, the friends of
Protestant Deaconesses' Institutes have indeed
sometimes assumed, to our taste, almost, too mili-
tant a position. Thus, we regret to see the most

Protestant Sisterhoods, 289

complete and original in its constitution of exist-
ing Institutes, and certainly not the least liberal
and charitable in its spirit, in its appeal to the
English public, address itself especially, through
its title at least, to the anti-popery of Exeter Hall :
"An appeal on behalf of the Institution of the
Deaconesses, established in Paris, for the purpose
of supporting and extending French Protestantism
against the efforts of the Papists." Protestantism
has other means of conversion, — were it only its
yearly millions of Bibles, — than through its present
or future Deaconesses ; nor have we the slightest
wish to see our Protestant Sisters, like their Roman
Catholic namesakes, become an engine of religious
propagandism, instead of confining themselves to
their cardinal object, that of practically setting
forth that faith which is " shewn by works," which
" worketh by love." Let them convert by example^
that is enough.

It would take us too long in this place to shew,
as we think we could, that in England as elsewhere
the Sisters, and not the priests, are the main agents
in those conversions to the Roman Catholic Church
which, we are sorry to say, do take place amongst
our lower classes ; and that against their stealthy
advances the surest, perhaps the only, barrier is
the creation of similar orders in our own churches.
God forbid, indeed, that disclaiming the fundamental
principle of Protestantism, the fallibility of human
reason, and its inevitable consequence, the right

T

290 Appendix G.

of private judgment,'"' we should seek for a moment
to deny to others that freedom which we claim for
ourselves. Let the last fragment of the penal laws
be swept to the winds ! Let Roman Catholicism
not be furnished by persecution with the cloak of
darkness, but, by the conferment of equal civil and
political rights, be dragged forth into the searching
light of publicity ! Wherever we can see it plainly,
we fear it not. Convinced as we are that the great-
ness of England is the greatness of Protestantism,
we ask in good English phrase, but for " a fair
field and no favour." But so long as through pre-
judice, through indolence masked in the garb of
religious conservatism, through cunning indifterence
joined in chorus with every shape of blindest zeal,
we allow Romanism to usurp one Christian virtue,
to monopolise one useful institution, to do one
good work which we leave unattempted, so long is
the field unfair, are the weapons unequal. Rome
wields no more powerful weapon than that of her
religious Sisterhoods. Can we not wrest it from
her? When Lutheran Germany and Calvinist
France agree in saying Yes, shall England say No,
— or say nothing ?

One word more. Years have clasped since one,
whose memory is now surrounded with more of

* The above passage represents a stage of thought which
is far from being my present one. I did not then see that
Protestantism is essentially relative, and implies a Catholic
truth and faith, against all, or at least some, deviations from
which it "protests."

Protestant Sisterhoods. 291

personal respect and love, — even from those who
knew him not, or misknew him when living, —
than perhaps any other contemporary name; one
whose thoughts have frequently recurred to us (far
oftener than we have cared to recall them to our
readers) whilst writing these pages, — wrote as fol-
lows in the introduction to his " Christian Life, its
Cause, its Hindrances, and its Helps" : — " The
true Church of Christ would offer to every faculty
of our nature its proper exercise, and would entirely
meet all our wants. No wise man doubts that the
Reformation was imperfect, or that in the Romish
system there were many good institutions, and
practices, and feelings, which it would be most
desirable to restore amongst ourselves. Daily
church services, frequent communions, memorials
of our Christian calling, continually presented to
our notice in crosses and wayside oratories ; com-
memorations of holy men of all times and coun-
tries ; the doctrine of the communion of saints
practically taught, religious orders^ especially of
wofne?i, of differejit kinds, and imder different rtiles,
delivered only fro?n the snare and sin of perpetual
voius ; — all these, most of which are of some effi-
cacy for good even in a corrupt church, belong no
less to the true Church, and would there be purely
beneficial."

Such were the words of one whose life was spent
in warfare with Romanising tendencies, Avho, to
use one of his most characteristic expressions,
would have rejoiced " in fighting out the Judaisers,

292 Appendix G.

as it were in a saw-pit !" And yet of that long
catalogue of " institutions, practices, and feelings,"
which would be "purely beneficial to the true
Church," not one has yet been realised, or gene-
rally adopted by his own. And ourselves, in
presenting this sketch of a few continental religious
orders of Protestant women, delivered " from the
snare and sin of perpetual vows ;" and in urging
their introduction into this countr}--, we feel that
we have been but working out one passing hint
given by that great and good man, Dr Arnold.

[The above article having been republished a
year or two later in a French translation (which
I have not seen) in the Revue Britannique of
Paris, exception was taken to that passage of it
which recorded the fact of the Paris Deaconesses'
Institute having been approved of by every single
minister of both the Established Protestant churches
of Paris, one only excepted, — i.e., M. Coquerel —
by Count M. Agenor de Gasparin, in a long
letter addressed to the Editor, and which was for-
warded on to me by the latter. Hence a note,
substantially by myself, which will be found at the
close of the number of the Edinburgh Review for
January 185 1, pointing out the hteral correctness
of the statement, but also that since the date of
the article had taken place the disruption of the
French Reformed Church, resulting in the forma-
tion of the French " Eglise Libre," the members
of which were then (although many of them have

Miss Sellouts Sisterhood. 293

long ceased to be) in open opposition to the In-
stitute. It should be observed that not only was
M. Agenor de Gasparin the real leader of the
French disruption, but that his wife, Madame de
Gasparin, the now celebrated authoress, has written
a book against such institutions, the very title of
which implies a libel on them (" Des Corporations
Monastiques au Sein du Protestantisme," Paris,
1855).]

H.

Afiss Sellouts Sista-Jiood of Mercy, (see p. 203.)

The Devonport Sisterhood is prudently preter-
mitted by Dr Howson in his work. This is hardly
fair as respects an institution which has been the
first boldly to introduce the idea of sisterhood
practically amongst us, and which for years gave,
as it were, a very battlefield to opposing parties in
the Church.

At the time when this work was first prepared,
I had carefully read up the whole (as far as I had
been able to procure them) of the publications
issued on the subject. Since then, I have only
read Miss Goodman's work on " Sisterhoods in the
Church of England" (London, 1863), which, how-
ever, was sufficient to shew me that the character
of the institution was substantiallv the same as

294 Appendix H.

when I first judged it. I shall, therefore, simply
reproduce here in an abridged form what I wrote
in 1852 : —

Let us hear from Miss Sellon's own lips how her
institution arose. In 1848, she tells us, she was
in — she had well-nigh written happy ignorance —
of the state of the lower classes in large towns ;
when one evening, accidentally glancing over a
newspaper, her eye fell upon a letter of the Bishop
of Exeter's, setting forth the spiritual destitution
and utterly demoralised condition of the towns of
Devonport and Plymouth, and appealing for help.
She could not forget the picture, and in about a
fortnight's time she was in Devonport, with the one
hope that she might be permitted by God to help
in alleviating some part of its misery. About four
months aftenvards she was joined by another lady,
and the two soon arrived at the conclusion, " that
the work before them could only be effectually
done, if at all, by entire devotion to it;" that "it
was not only the children who were neglected, and
who had to be gathered into schools, but their
parents had to be taught, to be raised step by
step, as they would bear it, out of the deep moral
degradation and spiritual darkness in which they
were living;" that "nothing less than the great
principles of civilisation and Christianity had to be
taught and worked out amongst them, and that
nothing less than this would effectually serve
them."

Miss Scllons Sistei'Jiood. 295

The " Sisterhood of Mercy " had now come into
existence. Miss Sellon, as its Superior, went to
the Bishop, and asked him for the blessing of the
Church upon herself and the work which she then
contemplated. She returned home for a few days,
to bid her friends farewell ; and then, with the other
sister, returned to lodgings in Devonport. They
had then three schools, and visited the poor only
in Morice Town and Devonport. A short time
after, being joined by two or three more young
women, who aftenvards entered into the Sister-
hood, they left their lodgings for a little house in
Mitre Place. Here the adoption of a common
dress, the use of the cross, some womanly fond-
ness for flowers in religious services, first drew
upon them the suspicion of Romanism.

In 1849 the cholera came, and the Sisters were
occupied unceasingly in tending the sick in or out
of the Hospitals, and were indeed the means of
first staying the scourge. It left them unthinned
in numbers, but much weakened in bodily strength,
three of them falling seriously ill for a length of
time. During the autumn an Industrial School
was founded. The court-yard, and part of the
garden, were covered in for children's school-
rooms ; a large bam was got to provide for the
still increasing number of little scholars ; houses
were taken for parents, and let out as lodgings,
schools being opened in them for the children,
and reading-rooms for the men, and a moral and
religious discipline being introduced ; a good sized

296 Appendix H.

meeting-house was turned into the Industrial
School for the young women who were without
proper protection and employment; two houses
were converted into a college for boys who were
homeless in the streets, in order to educate them
for the sea ; a large building in Devonport became
a kitchen, where a hundred poor could have their
dinners, and have their cases inquired into ; besides
a small room in Plymouth partly for the same pur-
pose. In the space of four years, the Sisterhood
could reckon " among our own people " about a
thousand souls, including children as well as men
and women; and the Superior could write (Jan. 14,
1852) that "the experiment had proved that the
poor could be reformed, that old as well as young
could be educated, that their moral character could
be greatly raised, and that they would submit, as
a body, to rules of moral and religious govern-
ment."

Of this number of a thousand, there were twenty-
seven orphan girls, of whom the greater number had
lost both parents, in training for servants. The
little college had room for twenty-six sailor boys,
though there was not that number yet. The lodging-
houses for families, or Houses of Hoi:)e, were eight
in number, the applicants on the list for admission
always exceeding the number of rooms, and con-
tained in all 152 inhabitants. They included also
reading-rooms, and two schools for elder girls and
infants, into which were admitted children from
the poor of the district visited by the Sisters, —

Miss Se lions Sisterhood. 297

fifty-six girls in all, and fifty-three infants. The
elder girls of the school were allowed, as a reward,
to join the little evening working-school in these
houses, where they received small wages, and were
employed in making clothing, which was sold after-
wards to the inhabitants and others at a moderate
price, which they were permitted to pay by instal-
ments. The families in these houses could of
course be helped with clothing and food, and re-
lieved in time of sickness, far more effectually than
the poor outside. To the reading-rooms strangers
of respectable character were also admitted on
paying a small subscription, and being balloted
for by the members. At the soup-kitchen in
Devonport from eighty to a hundred persons were
daily fed with soup and bread, eaten in the kitchen ;
hot puddings being moreover given " to families
we kitow, who are church-goers, every Sunday," — a
little unconscious trait of the Lady Bountiful, at
which we can well afford a smile. Fifty or sixty
persons received relief in the same way in Ply-
mouth. The House for Destitute Children, not
necessarily orphans, contained nine of these ; the
House of Peace for elder girls, fourteen ; the In-
dustrial School numbering eighty-five in all. Finally,
there were three old men maintained, and the wife
of one of them ; thus completing the " motley com-
pany," which the Sister supplying these details thus
particularises, — " orphan girls, little and big, from
three years old to fifteen ; sailor boys, old men, little
destitute children, and young women of various

298 Appendix H.

ages, from twelve to twenty-five years." There
were also " very little offshoots at Bristol and
Portsmouth, too young to deserve notice." *

Such was the rise of the famous Sisterhood of
Mercy of Devonport or Plymouth, an institution of
which it is impossible to consider the history with-
out the most painfully mingled feelings. On the
one hand, I cannot mistake the spirit of deep,
earnest, ardent piety, which gave rise to the insti-
tution, and bore fruit in an abundant crop of noble
charities. " It has been my lot in life," ^^Tote Mr
Hetling, a medical man who had taken orders in
the Church of England, to the Bishop of Exeter,
" for one quarter of a century, to have seen and
borne an active part in very much of suffering,
pain, and death ; — formerly, in medical practice, I
have seen the whole course of cholera in London,
Paris, and . Bristol, and lastly here in my office of
deacon, I have beheld many acts of self-devotion to
its sufferers and victims, yet never have I witjiessed
ajiything that surpassed^ or eve?i equalled, the self-
abandonment and self-sacrifice of these lowly Sisters. ^^
But, on the other hand, whilst most fully crediting
Miss Sellon's attachment to the Church of England,
and her desire to make her Sisterhood a very bulwark
against Rome, I am bound to say that the attentive
consideration of her statements, and of those which
have been put forward in her favour, impresses me

* See a letter of Miss Sellon's to the Rev. Edward Cole-
ridge, not published; also, "A Letter to Miss Sellon," by
Henry, Lord Bishop of Exeter; John Murray, 1852.

Miss Selloiis Sisterhood. 299

with the conviction, that the spirit and tendency of
her institution are essentially Romish, and if not
diverted into quite different channels, will inevit-
ably, sooner or later, land the Sisterhood in actual
and professed Romanism. I am not going to dis-
cuss such trifles as flowers and rosaries, crossings
and canonical hours. I feel on these points, I own,
as Luther did of old; who, when told in full
Reformation, as a very awful piece of Popery, that
a minister had preached in a surplice, answered
simply, — Let him put on two, if he pleases. But I
address myself, I repeat it, to the spirit of the insti-
tution, and what do I find in it 1 That it is the
Romish spirit of depreciating God's natural order
of the family, and exalting some spiritual one, rest-
ing upon practical, if not yet avowed celibacy.
What else means this title of Mother, taken by the
Superior? What does the gospel know of such a
title 1 " Call no man your father upon earth, for one
is your Father which is in heaven." Does not this
forbid titular and nominal motherhood, as well as
fatherhood? just as the words almost immediately
preceding, " Ye are all brethren," afford, on the
contrary, the scriptural consecration of religious
sisterhoods as well as brotherhoods. It is this
title, this dangerous, deadly title of a spiritual
mother, which enables Miss Sellon, nay, which
compels her, — to exact that conventual obedience
which bids the Sisters, — grown women, individually
responsible to God, — not only fulfil the commands
of the spiritual mother, but " banish from their

300 Appendix H.

mind any question as to the wisdom of the com-
mand given them," — neither ask for nor receive
anything without permission, — read such books
and editions only as are approved of by the spiri-
tual mother, — speak to no one out of the society,
except with her permission, — give no messages nor
commissions, receive no letters nor send replies,
without direction or permission. It is this title
which has cheated her into the fancy that there was
no dishonesty of the heart in telling a daughter
that " she did not think it would be at all wrong
for her to see her (Miss Sellon) without her
mother's knowledge, unless she had absolutely for-
bidden her," and that " she did not think it need-
ful to ask." It is this title which has seemed to
justify her in reminding a Sister who had separated
from her, that " the ties which are spiritual and not
natural are eternal," as if the God-given ties of
nature, the blessed relations of parent and child,
brother and sister, husband and wife, the sole per-
fect types of the Fatherhood of the Almighty Father,
of the Brotherhood of the Elder Brother, of the
Marriage of the Lamb with His Holy Bride, were
unspiritual and temporal ! It is this title, finally,
which has led her into a breach of all church order
and tradition so glaring, that I cannot erxpress my
wonder at the slight insistance which has been
placed upon it, in those admission services and
others, in which the Mother Superior is made to
fulfil actual presbyteral functions of exhortation,
and to perform certain acts which look very like

Miss Sc lions Siste^^hood. 301

ordination; and above all in that benediction
which she is stated to give to the Sisters, — an act
expressly forbidden by the early Church to the
ordained deaconess.

I have thus plainly expressed my sense of the
dangerous tendency of Miss Sellon's Institution.
I have now to state as plainly what I conceive to
be the cause of evil. I deem it to be this mainly,
that there is no man in the institution. I believe
that for Sisterhoods of Mercy or Deaconesses' In-
stitutes to be really honest and healthy, to preserve
their due relation to the family order of the Church,
to strengthen instead of weakening it, it is abso-
lutely necessary that they should be under the
direction of a man, and that one who is, or at least
has been, a husband. Left to the direction of an
unmarried woman, it seems absolutely impossible
that they should not gradually merge into ascetic
celibacy, — Romish celibacy, — that celibacy which is
an insult to marriage, to motherhood, and which
sooner or later only sustains itself by the polygam-
ous figment of a special union of the individual
Sister with Christ. I can see the germ of this feel-
ing already in those words of one of Miss Sellon's
letters, in which she uses the expression, " Called
to a close union with the Beloved, the chief among
ten thousand, you may not adorn yourself for other
eyes." The one thing that has been wanting to make
the Devonport Sisterhood of Mercy a true normal
school for all English female charity, from whence
Christian women should issue forth to all quarters

302 Appendix II.

of our country to battle with all the evils of our
social state, has been that the proud and noble
spirit of its founder should have owed obedience
to an earthly husband — through the joys and woes
and trials of real motherhood, should have learned
the hollowness and the blasphemy of a so-called
spiritual one.*

* Miss Goodman's evidence, after making full allowance for
the personal bitterness which visibly tinges her statements,
abundantly confirms the conclusions which I had come to on
this subject twelve years ago. Perhaps the most remarkable
fact which she mentions, is the superior freedom and cheer-
fulness of the genuine Romish Sisterhoods to what is found
in these wrong-headed Anglican ones.

INDEX,

Adrian I., Pope, 69.

Age of ordination for Dea-
conesses, 51, 53, 57, 61,
62, 260.

of admission of Widows,

8.

do. of Beguines, 119.

Agnes, Daughters of St, I So.

Aix la Chapelle, Council
of, 113.

Alexander VII,, Pope, 169,

175-

Alexians, 144 and foil., 150.

America, see " Spanish,"
"United States," "Can-
ada," "Guatemala."

Amprucia the deaconess,

33, 34-
Amsterdam, Former beguin-

age of, 141.

, Deaconesses at, 198-9.

Andrew, see St Andrew.
Angela of Ihescia, 156.
Angelicals, 155.
Aniane, Benedict of, 103,

115, n.
Apostolical Constitutions, see

Constitutions.
Aries, Council of, loi.
, Nunnery of St Cesarius

at, 107.
Arnold, Dr, referred

263, 280-1, 290-1.

Airas, Daughters of St Agnes

at, 180.

, Sisters of charity at, 184.

Asceteries and ascetrice, 54,

55, 60, 238-9.
Athanasius referred to, 78-9,

234-6.
Attaliotes, Michael, referred

to, 61, n.
Augusti referred to, 62.
Augustin referred to, 27,

86, 88-9, 235.
Augustinians, 1 24-6, 135-6,

158-9, 172.
their Tertiarians, 135,

172.
Autun, Council of, 113.

B

Baillet refeiTed to, 85.

Balsamon referred to, 61,
224.

Baptism, Functions of dea-
conesses in, 16, 32, 47,
59, 62, 222.

Baronius referred to, 26, n.,
51, 70, 89.

Bartholomew, see St Bar-
tholomew.

Basil referred to, 28, 60, ^t,^
84, 89, 91.

andChrysostom, Liturgy

of, 17, n.

, Monks of St, in Gaul, 66.

304

Index.

Basil, Rule of St, 97-8,100-1.

, Nuns of, 106.

Beaune, Hospitallers of,
240-2.

Beauvais, Grey Sisters of» re-
sist claustration, 146.

Bede referred to, 107.

synonymous with
beghard, 137.

Begging, treated as a religious
privilege, 138.

Beghards, 117, 122, 136-7,
149, 194.

Beguinages, 1 1 8, 119, 141,
195, 201.

Beguines, 1 1 7and foil. 215-16.

their struggle with fe-
male monachism 134, and
foil.

condemned by Councils

and Popes, 137-9.

adopted into monastic

system, 140-1.

merge partly into Alex-

ians, 144-5.

• or Gerardins, 149 -50.

excepted from suppi-es-

sion by Joseph II., 182, n.

at the Reformation,

194-5.

, A i-ule of, translated, 242

and foil.

Benedict, and Benedictines,
rule of St, loo-i ; re-
formed, 103, 1 15-16, n.

, Order of, 104, 115.

, Nunsof, 106-7, 160,185.

Bernard, St, 116, n., 123.

Bernard ines, 116.

, Benedictine, 160, n.

Bethlehemites of Guate-
mala, 172.

Bigot from Begutta, 137.

Bingham referred to, 18, 70,
71, n., 77, 224, 234.

Black Sisters, 147.

Blastar, Matthew, referred
to, 62.

Blind Sisters of St Paul, 189.

Blosset, Mile., 180.

Boniface IX., 140, n., 144.

Bordeaux, Ursuliues of, 157.

, Order of «* Our Lady"

of, 160.

Boudry, Deaconesses' Insti-
tute of, 266.

Bouquet, Mother Genevieve,

173-

Bovet, Pasteur, 266.

Bradford, Governor, his dia-
logue, 198-9.

Bremer, Miss, referred to,
189.

Brera, Monastery of Umili-
ati at, 123.

Brotherhood, The principle
of, 93-4, 191-2.

Bruges, Beguinage of, I41.

Burgundy, Ursulines of, 157.

, Hospitallers of, 240-2.

Bussage, Sisterhood of, 206.

Caen, House of Refuge of
Our Lady of Charity at,

175-

Calvin referred to, 4.

Canada, Sisterhoods in, 169,
177.

Canonesses, College of, at
Genoa, 148.

, Lutheran and Zwin-

glian, 195-6.

in Justinian's Code, 230.

Canons, see Councils, BasL,
rule of the, 102-3.

Capitularies regulating Mon-
achism, 103.

Index.

305

Capucines, see '* Clarissans."

Carmelites, 116.

their Tertiarians, 135-

Carthage, Fourth council
of, 26, 224-6.

nuns of, 27, n.

Carthusians, 116.

Cartwright and Travers,
" Conclusions," 197.

Catherine, St, Hospitallers
of, 143-

Celestins, 135.

Celibacy, the vow of, 74-5>
77 and foil., 214.

. do, , consistent with fe-
male monachism, 95.

enforced on the clergy,

104.

Beguines not bound

to, 119.

nor Tertiarians, 133.

female diaconate must

be free from vow of, 208.

CelUtes, see "Alexians."

Cesarius, St, nunnery of,
106, 115.

Chalcedon, Council of, 52, 53.

Chalons-sur-Saune, Hospi-
tallers of, 241-2.

Charitable Sisterhoods, see
" Beguines," " Tertiari-
ans," &c.

the later, 161 and foil.

Charity, Damsels of, 161.

■ Sisters of, 162 and foil.,

183-6.

of our Lady, order of

the, see "Our Lady."

Charlemagne, 69, 100, 102-3.

Choir of the Perpetual Vir-
gins, 29-30, 48, n.

of the Widows, 48, n.

Christ, marriage of the soul
with, 79 and foil., 227 and
foil.

Christmas-tree, German dea-
conesses and the, 275-6.

Chrodegand, bishop of Metz,
102.

Chrysostom, on the New Tes-
tament deaconesses, 5.

his relations with various

deaconesses, 32-46.

reforms the Church

widows, 47-50-

reforms the " Sister-
women, 50, n.

his praise of virginity, 83.

his letter to Gothic

monks, 87.

on the nuns, 88.

and see 235.

Chui-ch, progress of monach-
ism in the, 96 and foil.,
126 and foil., 151 and foil.

Virgins of the, (see

^' Virgins,") institute of^ 77
and foil., 234 and foil.

compared with early

nuns, 85 and foil.

in the Code, 96, 236-9.

Widows of the, in the

New Testament, 7-10.
in the Greek Apostoli-
cal Constitutions, 19.

in the Coptic do., 219

and foil.

in Basil's Canons, 28, n.

in the Council of Car-
thage, 225-6.

in Chrysostom's days,

47-49, 235.

in the Codes, 52, 54.

in Jerome, 64.

Hooker confounds them

with deaconesses, 198-0.

Clara, St, and Clarissans,
130, 148, 159.

Clement of Alexandria re-
ferred to, 24.

u

3o6

Index.

Clement V., Pope, 136, n.,

140.
Clergy, the deaconess part

of, 59-

the monks incorporated

in the, 101-2.

Celibacy enforced on,

104.

Beguines not part of,

120.
Clerks of the Common Life,

148-50.
Clewer, House of Mercy of,

203, 206.
Code, Civil, 255-6; theTheo-

dosian, 51, 52.

of Justinian, 53-55, 96,

236-7.

Collective Female Diaconate,

96, 183.
CoUestines, 147.
Cologne, Beguines at, 117.
Combe, Madame de, 174.
Common Life, Clerks of the,

148-50.
Communism, Monastic, 91-2.
Confreries de Charite, 163.
Congregations affiliated to

orders, 129, 134.

the Ursuline, 157-8.

of St Joseph, 1 68- 1 70.

and see 171, 172, 178,

&c.
Consorte, Brotherhood of the,

133-

Constance, Council of, 140,
n., 150.

Constantinople, the deacon-
esses at, 55.

Synod of, in TruUo,

60-61.

deaconesses' porch at,

61, n.

Constitutions, the (Greek)
Apostolical, 14 and full.

Constitutions, the Coptic, 22,

23, 219 and foil.

the Jesuit, 151, n.

Convocation considers the

question of Woman's Work

in the Church, 206.
Copenhagen, Protestant nuns

of, 196.
Coptic Apostolical Constitu-
tions, 22-3, 219 and foil.
Coquerel, M^, opposed to

Paris deaconesses, 292.
Cotelerius referred to, 31, n,

61-2.
Councils of Nicea and Lao-

dicea, 26.

of Carthage, 26, 27.

of Chalcedon, 52-3.

of Worms, 69.

of Aries, loi.

Councils of Autun, 113; Aix-

la-Chapelle, ibid. ; Paris,

ibid.
• Provincial, of Mentz,

137-

of Constance, 140, n.,

150.

and see Synods,

Crimean war, its bearing on

the diaconal work of

women, 203-4.
Croce, the Santa, Community

of, 176.
Croix, Marie Elizabeth de la,

173-

Fillcs de la, 176.

Crusades, the, develop sister-
hoods, 1 14-7.

Cyprian referred to, 27, 77,
83, n.

DAMSELSof Charity of Sedan,
161.

Index.

307

Deaconesses or female dea-
cons, mentioned in the New
Testament, I -6; not the same
as widows, 9, 10, 19, 20,
47-49, 54, 60, 6 r.

in the (Greek) Aposto-

hcal Constitutions, 15-19.

ordination of, 17, 18.

in Hermas, the pseudo-

Ignatian Epistles, Clement,

Origen,

23, 24.

in Pliny junior, 24,

in Tertullian, 26.

in the Nicene and other

Councils, 26, 223-6.

in the Fathers of the

4th and 5th centuries, 28
and foil.

in the history of Chryso-

stom, 32, and foil.
Deaconesses, their condition in

the 5th century, 46 and foil.
in the Theodosian Code,

51-2.
in Justinian's Code, 53-

55, 60, 236-8.
in the Novels, 55-60,

237-8.

their condition in the

6th century, 58-60,

in the 7th, 60, 61.

Last Greek notices of,

61-3.

in the later Latin

Church, 63-70.

of early Protestantism,

196-200.
Institutes, 200 and foil.

or "Protestant Sister,

hoods" (article on), 248
and foil.

Deacons in Apostolical Con-
stitutions, 15 and foil.

Male, take precedence

of deaconesses, 19.

Deacons, female, see " Dea-
conesses."

Denmark, Lutheran nuns in,
196.

Devonport, Miss Sellon's
Sisterhood of Mercy at,
293 and foil .

Devonshire House, Nursing
Sisters of, 202, 206.

Diaconate, the female (see
"Deaconesse.-i"); why it died
out, 72 and foil.

revived at the Reforma-
tion, 196 and foil.

Diacones, the form, 27, n.

Dijon, Ursulines of, 156, n.

and Langres, Hospital-
lers of, 171.

Dominic and Dominicans,

126-8, 141, 150.
their Tertiarians, 135.

Lutheran nuns of St,

196.

Douay, Community of the
Holy Family of, 180.

Sisters of Charity at,

185.

Dramas, sacred, of Hrots-
vitha, 108-13.

Earconberth, King of
Kent, 107.

Echallens, see " St Loup."

Edinburgh Review, article in,
referred to, 202 ; repro-
duced, 248 and foil.

Educational communities,
early, 147 and foil.

Orders, Female, 155

and foil.

Magazine, the, 71, n.,

121, n^ 201.

3o8

Index.

Elizabeth, St, of Hungary,
142.

Elizabethan Sisters, 182, n.

Epaone, Synod of, 65,

Epidemics, services of Ger-
man deaconesses in, 272-3.

of Miss Sellon's sisters

in, 294 and foil.

Epiphanius, referred to, 28,

3i» 63-4-
Erasmus, educated by Ger-

ardins, 149.
Eudes, Father, 175.
Eugenius IV., Pope, 144-5.
Eulogies, the, 21, n., 222.
Exorcists not ordained, 20.

Fara, Abbess, 107.

Faustin, St, Monasteiy of,
66.

Female Diaconate, see
" Deaconesses," " Diaco-
nate."

Monachism, see ' ' Mon-

achism."

Ferrar, Nicholas, 196, n.

Fliedner, Dr, referred to,
199, 201, 270 and foil.

Fortunatus, Venantius, re-
ferred to, 67, 107-8.

Foundling- Hospital, V. de
Panic's, 166, 185.

France, Beghards in, 117.

Beguines in, 119 and

foil., 141.

the heart of Romanism,

182, n.

Monachism in modern,

184 and foil.

Francis, St, 127-31.

Franciscans, 126-9, 141, 185,
186.

Franciscans, Tertiarian, 130,

and foil.
Fran9ois de Sales, see Sales.
Fraunberg, Abbey of, paitly

Lutheran, 195.
Fry, Mrs, 202, 203, 283.

Gandesheim, nunnery of,

108.
Lutheran canonesses

of, 195.
Gasparin, INI. and Mme. A.

de, 292-3.
Gaul, female diaconate in,

65-9-
Early monasteries of, 66,

98-9.,
Genevieve, Daughters of St,

179-80.

Community of St, 180.

Genoa, Canonesses of, 148.
Gerardins, 148-50.
German Hospital, 276, 282-3.
Germany, Beguines in, 117

and foil.
Germond, Pasteur, referred

to, 266 and foil., 285.
Gerson, defends Gerardins,

150.
Gervais,

143-
Ghent,

201.
Gibbon,

St, Hospitallers of,
Beguinage of, 141,

referred to, 50, n.
Good Shepherd, Daughters of

the, 174-5, 187.

Asylum of the. 183.

in America, 189.

Goodman, Miss, referred to,

293, 301, n.
Gothic Monks, 87.
Govemo, Rosa, 181, n.

Index,

309

Grabon, Matthias, denounces

Gerardius, 150.
Greek Ghurcli, deaconesses

more needed in, 25.
the female diaconate in

the, 2S-63.
Sisterhoods of mercy in,

192, n.
Gregory of Nyssa, referred to,

28, 30, n., 31, n,

VII., Pope, 71, 104.

Grey Sisters, 145-7, 183.

Groot, Gerard, 148.

" Grilles, A Glance Beyond

the," referred to, 184 and

foil.
Guatemala, Bethlehemites of,

172.
Guerin, Cure, 176-7.
Guizot, referred to, 96, 99,

loi, 107.

H

H^RTER, Pasteur, 264-5.

Helyot, Father, referred to,
107, n, 122, 125, 130, 133,
141, 143, 145-8, 154-60,
163-81, 195-6, 241.

Hermas, referred to, 23.

Hermits, the early, 85-7.

Hetling, Rev. Mr, his testi-
mony in favour of Miss
Sellon's sisters, 297.

Hildeljrand, see Gregory
VII.

Hippolytus, Bunsen's, re-
ferred to, 22.

Holy Family, Community of
the, 185.

Sacrament, Daughters

of the, 160.

Hooker, referred to, 197-8.

Hospital, head - nurses in,
called sisters, 203, n.

Hospital, and see "German."
Hospitallers of St John of

Jerusalem, 124-5.
Tertiarian, 142.

nuns, various convents

of, 143, 146, 173.

of St Joseph, 169-70.

of Toulouse, 170.

of Dijon and Langres,

171.

reform of the Paris,

172-3-

of St Martha, 240-2.

"Hospitals and Sisterhoods,"

referred to, 176, n., 183, n.,

187, n., 190, n., 204.
Hotel-Dieu, 125, 164-5, 173.
de Ste. Catherine, 143 ;

de St Gei-vais, ibid.
Howson, Dr, referred to, 62,

n., 71, n., 192, n., 199,

204, 205, 207, 293.
Hrotsvitha, the nun, 108-31.
Hugo, Victor, referred to,

160, n.

Ignatius, the epistles attri-
buted to, on the deacon-
esses, 23.

Loyola, 151, 155.

Infant Jesus, Daughters of
the, 158-9.

Innenheim, Rule of Beguines
of, 242, and foil.

Innocent, X., Pope, 157;
XI., ibid.

Italic version, 24, n.

Jacobite Deaconesses, 62, n.
Jameson, Mrs, refened to,

3IO

Index.

156, n., 181, n., 182, n.,

204, 241, n.
Jerome, referred to, 64-5, 88,

91.
Jerusalem, Hospitallers of St

John of, 124.
German deaconesses at,

282.
Jesuitesses, 155.
Jesuits, 1 5 1-5, 158.
John XXII., Pope, 137-8,

140, n.
Bishop of Strasburg,

140, n.; and see "St John."
Joseph II., exempts Beguines

and Elizabethan Sisters

from suppression, 182, n.
of the created Trinity,

Congregation of St, 159.

Sisters of, 168-9, 183.

Hospitallers of, 169-70.

Julian the Apostate, 29, 30.
Justinian, see " Code, "

"Novels."

K

Kaiserswertii, referred to,
201-3, 205-7, 270 and foil.
Krishna, worship of, 233.

Lampadia, Deaconess, 30, n.
L'Amy, Madeleine, 175.
Laodicea, Council of, 26, 224.
Latin Church, Deaconesess

in the, 24, 25, 63 and foil.
its language, 22, 24,

27.
Laura, the, 92, 97.
Lazarists, 162-3, 166, 1S5.
Legras, Mile., 163-7.

Leo Ostiarius, referred to, 70

IIL, Pope, 70.

Libanius, 226.

Limon, the, of John Mos-
chus, 61.

Little Sisters of the Poor,
185, 187.

Loches, Hospitallers of, 172.

Lombardy, Umiliati of, 122-3.

Beguines in, 140, n.

Loup, see "St Loup."

Loyola, 151, 155.

Lubeck, B^'guinages of, 195, n,

Lucian, 226.

Lupus, see "Wolf."

Luther, quoted, 194.

Lutheran Abbeys, 195-6.

Deaconesses, see Kais-
erswertii.

Lyons, Ursulines of, 157.

M

Marines, former beguinage

of, 141.
Marforium, the, 62.
Mariolatry, 82-3.
Mark, Henry Robert de la,

161, 287.
Marriage of the deaconess,

when forbidden, 56, 60, 66.

of the church-widow,

28, n.

of the church-virgin,

77-8-.
dissolved by ordination

of deaconess, 68.
of the soul with Christ,

unscriptural, 79 and foil.,

227 and foil.

of monks, 84.

not forbidden to Bc-

gume, 119,
— nor to Tertiarian,

'33-

Index.

^^artha, St, Hospitallers of,

240-2.

and Mary, 220.

^Tartin V., Pope, 150.

Mathurins, 1 1 6.

Maurice, Mr, referred to,

II, n.
Medard, St, 67-8.
Melun, Mile, de, 169.
Mendicant orders, the, 126

and foil.
Mentz, Provincial Council of,

137.

Mercy, Miss Sellon's Sister-
hood of, 203, 292.

Metropolitan District-Visit-
ing Society, 200.

M iddlesborough institution,
206.

Ministra, the term, 24, n.

Miramion, Madame de, and
Miramiones, 179-80.

Missionary Priests, see " La-
zarists."

INIissouri, Convents in, 189-90.

Molcme, Robert de, 116, n.

Monachism, early female, 85
and foil.

■ the social principle of,

90 and foil.

female, as a collective

diaconate, 96.

sketch of history of, till

nth century, 96 and foil.

history of female, till

lilh century, 106 and foil.

missionary, 127-9.

Jesuitism, the last term

of, 151 and foil.

and the Reformation,

193 and foil.

female contemporary,

182 and foil.

Monasteries, early, in south-
ern France, 66, 98-9.

Monks, the early, 86-7, 91.

Monod, Pasteur Fiederic,
258, n.

Moreri, referred to, 62, 69, 71.

Moschus, John, referred to,
6r.

Mosheim, his work on the
Beghards and Beguines,
117, 149, &c., 194, 242 and
foil.

his Ecclesiastical His-
tory, referred to, 149.

Motherhood, spiritual, un-
christian, 299.

N

Nancy, Grey Sisters of, re-
sist claustration, 146.

Neal's " History of the Puri-
tans" referred to, 197.

Neander, referred to, 25.

Nectaria, deaconess, 29.

Nestorian Deaconesses, 1 7, n.

Newman, Professor, F. W.,
referred to, 232-3.

Niccea, the Council of, 26,
223-4.

Nicarete, deaconess, 30, n.,

32, 33-
Nightingale, Florence, 203.
her pamphlet reierred

to, 196, 203.
Nilus, St, 70.
Nonna, the word, 88.
Normal school of female

charity, the Deaconesses'

Institute a, 208, 262.
North London Deaconess'

Institution, 204.
Novels, the, 55 and foil.,

223, n., 237-9.
Noviciate, long, essential to

diaconal orders, 95, 126,

158, 173-

12

Index.

Nuns, the African, 27, 87,
224-6.

spoken of by Jerome,

Chrysostom, and Augus-
tus, 88-9.

of St Cesarius at Aries,

106.

of Brie, 107, of Tours,

ibid.

of Gandesheim, 108.

of St Augustin, 124-6.

Tertiarian and Hospi-
taller, 142-3,

less efficient than sisters,

171.

Protestant, 195-6.

and see Monachism.

Nurses, Training Institution
for, see "St John's House, ' '
and see " Deaconesses,"
*' Sisterhoods," &c.

NursingSisters, Institution for,
see " Devonshire House."

Nyssa, see "Gregory."

O

Odo, Abbot, of Cluny, 103,

115, n.
Olympias the Deaconess, 37

and foil.
Orange, Synod of, 65.
Order, the monastic, 103-4.

and see " Benedict,"

" Francis," " Dominic,"
&c.

Ordinal, the Roman, 1 7 n,, 69.
Ordination of Deaconesses,

17, 26, 38, 51, 53, 56, 57,

59, 62, 64, 68-70.

forbidden, 65.

of Queen Radegimd, 68,

none, of widows, vir-
gins, confessors, exorcists,
19, 20, 221.

Origen, referred to, 24, 63,
99, n.

Orleans, Synod of, 65,

Orsini, Nicolas, founds col-
lege of canonesses, 148.

Our Lady, Order of, 160.

Order of the Visitation

of, 171.

Hospitallers of the,

Charity of, 1 72.

of the Refuge, order

of, 173-4.

of Charity, order of, 175.

Palladius, referred to, 33, 38,

"., 39^ 43, n., 50, n.
Paris, Council of, 113.

Ursulines of, 157.

Hospitallers of, 125-6 ;

reformed, 173.
Romish Sisterhoods in,

at the present day, 185-

6.
Deaconesses' Institute

of, 202-3.
account of do. in 1848,

249 and foil.
Matthew, referred to,

1 1 7-8.
Parish-deaconess, the, 75,217,

272 and foil.
Parma and Foligno, Ursulines

of, 156.
Parthenon of church-virgins,

234-5-
Past, how to be used, 210-2.

how it bears fruit, 213.

Paul, St, see St Paul.

v., Pope, 157.

Paule, Vincent de, 162-6.
Sisterhoods of St V. dc,

see " Chanty."

hidcx.

Paulianist Deaconesses, 26,
223-4.

Pelagia, 30.

Pentadia, Deaconess, 34-38.

Perpetual Virgins, see
*' Church- Virgins."

Peter, see St Peter.

Philippines, 160.

Phoebe the deacon, i, 3, 9,
16, 24, 46.

Pius v.. Pope, 123.

PHny junior, tortures two
deaconesses, 24.

Polaillon, Madame, 177-8,

Poland, Sisters of Charity in,
166.

Nuns of the Visitation

in, 171-2.

Pontoise, Hospitallers of, 143.

Popes ; Soter, 26, n. ; Adrian
I., 69; Leo III., 70; Gre-
goryVIL, 71, 104; PiusV.,
123 ; Clement v., 136, n. ;
John XXII., 137-8, 140,
n. ; Boniface IX., 140, n.,
144; Eugenius IV., 144-5 ;
Martin V., 150; Urban
VIII., 155; Paul v.. In-
nocents X. and XL, 157;
Alexander VIL, 169, 175.

Porch, the Deaconesses', at
Constantinople, 61, n.

Port Royal, 160.

Proeposita, the, 89,

"Praying and Working,"
referred to, 205-6.

Presbyters, Female, none in
the New Testament, 6, n.

forbidden by Council of

Laodicea, 26, 224.

their existence denied

by Epiphaniup, 31.

in the 8th century, 69.

Presbyteral functions for-
bidden to women, 113.

Pressense, M. de, referred to,

282, n.
Procla, deaconess, 34, 38.
Profession, the church-vir-
gins', 84.
Protestant nuns, 195-6.
Deaconesses' Institute,

its special characteristics,

207 and foil.
Sisters of Charity

(pamphlet,) referred to,

201.
Providence of God, Daughters

of the, 177.
Publia, deaconess, 29, 30.
Puritans, their views of the

female diaconate, 197 and

foil.

Qzmrterly Review referred to,

205.
Quedlinburg, Lutheran can-

onesses of, 195-6.

R

Racine, referred to, 160.
Radegund, St, story of, 67-9.

her nunneiy, 107-8.

Readers, 20, 22, 219, 221-

2.
Reform of the Benedictines,

10^ 1 1 5-6.
of the Par-is Ursulines,

of the Paris Llospital-

lers, 173.

Reformation, the, 150.

and female monachism,

194-6.

revives the female

diaconate, 196-9.

3H

Index.

Reformatory sisterhoods, 1 73
and foil.

Reformed (Calvin istic)
Church, sanctions deacon-
esses' institutes, 258.

Refuge, Order of our Lady of
the, 173-4.

Religion and religious, mon-
astic sense of these terms,
loi, 171-2,

Richard, referred to, 71.

Rimini, Synod of, 28.

Rochelle, Augustinians of La,

159.
Romana, deaconess, 30, 31.
Rome, Synod or Council of,

69.
deaconesses at, 70.

Ursulines and Augus-
tinians of, 158.

Capucines of, 159.

the Santa Croce com-
munity of, 176.

, Church of, her early

sisterhoods, 124 and foil. ;
her educational orders,
151 and foil. ; her later
charitable sisterhoods and
reformatory orders, 161
and foil. ; her diaconal
sisterhoods at the present
day, i8i and foil.

Rosines, 181, n.

Rule, the, of St Basil, 97.

of St Benedict, 100.

of the Canons, 10^-3.

of the Clarissans, 130, n.

Third, of St Francis,

130 and foil.

• Beguine, translated, 242

and foil.

Sabiniana, deacones

Sacre Coeur, Convents of the.
161, n.

Salvia or Silvia, 43, n.

Sanctimoniales, the, 27, 59,
87-89, 224-5, 236 and foil.

St Andrew, in Coptic Apos-
tolical Constitutions, 220.

Bartholomew, Greek

Constitution attributed to,

17-

James, in Coptic Apos-
tolical Constitutions, 221.

John, in Coptic Aposto-
lical Constitutions,

John's House, 202, 206.

Louis (Missouri), con-
vents at, 189-90.

Loup, (Echallens,)

Deaconesses' Institute of,
202, 226 and foil.

Paul, mentions deacon-
esses, I, 3.

on Midows, 8.

on virgins, 10, ii, 227.

no authority for mar-
riage of soul with Christ,
227 and foil.

Blind Sisters of, 189.

Peter, in Coptic Apos-
tolical Constitutions, 219-
20.

St Stephen of Strasburg,
see "Strasburg."

Ste. Beuve, Madame de, 157.

Saintonge, Francoise de, 156,
n.

Sales, Francois de, 171.

Salvia or Silvia, the model of
Olympias, 43, n.

Santa Croce, Community of
the, 176.

Rufina and Santa

Seconda, Ursulines of, 158.

Sedan, Damsels of Charity
of, 161 -2.

Index,

315

Seelen-weiber, title given to

Beguines, 195.
Sellon, Miss, her sisterhood,

referred to, 203, 205, n.,

206.

account of rise of, 293

and foil.

Serapion, 87.

Servants of the poor, 163 and
foil.

Sisterhoods, the principle of,
93-4, 299 ; disentangled
from monachism, 167; and
see 212, 285 and foil.

the beguine, 117 and

foil.

early Romish charitable,

131 and foil.

later do., 161 and foil.

modern do., 181 and

foil.

of the daughters of the

Infant Jesus, 154.

of Charity, 165-8.

of St Joseph, 168-9.

of Mercy, Miss Sellon's,

203, 205, n., 206, 293 and

foil.
Sisters more efficient than

nuns, 1 71 -2.

in London hospitals,

203, n.

parochial, 209, n.

Sister-women or avfeicraKToi,

13, 50, n-. 57.

Social principle, the main-
stay of monachism, 90 and
foil.

■ its progress in monach-
ism, 104-6, 129-30, 15 1 -2.

Sophia, Deaconesses of St,

55-
Soter, Pope, 26, n.
Soul, Marriage of the, 79

and foil., 227 and foil.

Southey's Colloquies, 201.

Sozomen, referred to, 28, 30,
n., 32, 38, 39-

Spain, deaconesses in, 69.

convents in, 155-6.

Stanley, Miss, see " Hospi-
tals and Sisterhoods,"

Stevenson, Rev. W. F., see
"Praying and Working."

Strangers' Friend Society,
200.

Strasburg, Zwinglian canon-
esses of, 195.

rule of Beguines of, 242

and foil.

Deaconesses' Institute

of, 202, 264-6.

Sub-deacons, 18, 20, 221-2.
Suicer, referred to, 48, n.,

71, n.
Syncletica, 85-6, 90.
Synods of Rimini, 28.

of Constantinople, in

Trullo, 60, 61.

of Orange, Epaone,

Orleans, 65.

of Rome, 69.

of Wesel, 196-7.

and see "Councils."

Tattam, Archdeacon, his
edition of the Coptic Apos-
tolical Constitutions, 22,
219 and foil.

Terence, studied by nuns,
108-9.

Tertiarians of St Francis,
130-4.

Tertiarians of St Dominic,
&c., 155.

(nuns,) 142, and foil.

Tertullian, referred to, 25, 26.

3i6

Index.

Theodoret, referred to, 28,
29, 48, n., 234.

Theodosian Code, 51, 52.

Theophylact, referred to, 61.

Thierry, Augustin, referred
to, 67-9, 107.

Third Rule of St Francis, see
" Tertiarians."

Thomas de Villanueva, Hos-
pitallers of St, 172, 186-7.

Tillemont, referred to, 48, n.

Toulouse, Ursulines of, 157.

Hospitallers of, 170-1.

Tours, Radegund's nunnery

at, 107.
Trappists, 116.
Trullo, see "Constantinople."
Tulle, Ursulines of, 157.
Tulloch, Principal, referred

to, 23.
Turin, Rosines of, 181, n.
Tuscany, Beguines in, 140, n.

U

Umiliati, the, 122-3, I30-
Union Chretienne, Com-
munity of the, 1 78.
United States, Convents in,
189-90.

Protestant deaconesses

in the, 282,

Urban VHL, Pope, 155.
Ursulines, 156-8, 184.

Vermeil, Pasteur, founds
Paris Deaconesses' Insti-
tute, 250 and foil.

Villanueva, Order of St
Thomas of, 172, 186-7.

Villeneuve, Madame de,

Vilmar, referred to, 136, n.

Virgil, studied by nuns, 108.

Virgins in the New Testa-
ment, 10-12.

in the (Greek) Aposto-
lical Constitutions, 19, 20.

in the pseudo-Ignatian

epistles, 23.

ruled by deaconesses, 30.

in the early Church

generally, 234 and foil.

in Justinian's code and

Novels, 54, 55, 236-8.

in the Coptic Aposto-
lical Constitutions, 221.

in the Council of Car-
thage, 224-5,

Virginity praised by the
Fathers, 78-9, 83, 236.

the Profession of, 84.

Visitation of our Lady, Order
of the, 171.

Vitry, Cardinal Jacques de,
125.

Vows of perpetual celibacy,
84.

solemn, the three, loi.

simple, 129, 158, 167.

of the Hospitallers of

Pontoise, 143.

of the Ursulines, 157-8.

Luther on, 194,

incompatible with Pro-
testant Deaconesses' Insti-
tute, 287, 291-2.

Vulgate, referred to, 5, 24, n.

\V

Wantage, Sisterhood of,

203, 206.
Warsaw, Sisters of Charity

at, 166.

76-7.

I Wesel, Synod of, 196.

Index.

zn

Wesel, Protestant deaconesses

at, 199-200.
widow, see "Church."
Wine-song, German, referred

to, 136, n.
Wolf, Christian, referred to,

70, 71, n., 75, n.
Woman, as to ordination of,

18, 20.
• relation of, to man, 73

and foil.

do. , to Christ, 230.

her natural ministering

functions, 208.
her work in the Church,

conclusions as to, 214 and

foil.
Wordsworth, Dr, referred to,

Wycliffe, referred to, 5.

Xenodochia, 239.
Ximenes, Cardinal, 155.

Young's " Chronicles of the
Pilgrim Fathers," referred
to, 198-9.

ZoxARAS, referred to, 224.
Zwinglian canonesses, 195.

Ballantyne and Company ^ Printers^ Edinhip'gh.

My, 1865.

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