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WOMAN   UNDER   MONASTICISM. 


aoiiDon:    C.   J.   CLAY  and   SONS, 

CAMBRIDGE   UNIVERSITY   PRESS   WAREHOUSE 

AVE   MARIA   LANE. 

©Inagoto:    263,  ARGYLE  STREET. 


Ueipjifl:    F.   A.   BROCKHAUS. 
l^rto  Igork:   MACMILLAN  AND  CO. 


WOMAN    UNDER   MONASTICISM 


^ 
^ 


CHAPTERS    ON 

SAINT-LORE     AND     CONVENT     LIFE 

BETWEEN   A.D.  500   AND   A.D.  1500 


BY 


LINA    ECKENSTEIN. 


'  Quia  vita  omnium  spiritualium  hominum  sine  litteris  mors  est.' 

Acta  Murensis  Monasterii. 


CAMBRIDGE:  |    la 

AT    THE    UNIVERSITY    PRESS. 
1896 

\^All  Rights  reserved.'\ 


Cambrilige : 

PRINTED   BY  J.  &  C.   F.   CLAY, 
AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS. 


TO 
MY  FRIENDS 


KARL    AND    MARIA    SHARPE    PEARSON. 


/' 


PREFACE. 


THE  restlessness,  peculiar  to  periods  of  transition,  is  a  charac- 
teristic of  the  present  age.  Long-accepted  standards  are 
being  questioned  and  hitherto  unchallenged  rules  of  conduct 
submitted  to  searching  criticism.  History  shows  us  that  our 
present  social  system  is  only  a  phase  in  human  development,  and 
we  turn  to  a  study  of  the  past,  confident  that  a  clearer  insight  into 
the  social  standards  and  habits  of  life  prevalent  in  past  ages  will 
aid  us  in  a  better  estimation  of  the  relative  importance  of  those 
factors  of  change  we  find  around  us  to-day. 

Monasticism  during  the  ten  centuries  between  A.D.  5(X)  and 
A.D.  1500  exhibits  phases  of  vital  significance  for  the  mental  and 
moral  growth  of  Western  Europe.  However  much  both  the  aims 
and  the  tone  of  life  of  the  members  of  the  different  religious  orders 
varied,  monasticism  generally  favoured  tendencies  which  were 
among  the  most  peaceful  and  progressive  of  the  Middle  Ages.«^ 
For  women  especially  the  convent  fostered  some  of  the  best  sides 
of  intellectual,  moral  and  emotional  life.  Besides  this  it  was  for 
several  centuries  a  determining  factor  in  regard  to  women's 
economic  status. 

The  woman-saint  and  the  nun  are  however  figures  the  import- 
ance of  which  has  hitherto  been  little  regarded.  The  woman-saint 
has  met  with  scant  treatment  beyond  that  of  the  eulogistic  but  too 
often  uncritical  writer  of  devotional  works  ;  the  lady  abbess  and 
the  literary  nun  have  engrossed  the  attention  of  few  biographers. 
The  partisan  recriminations  of  the  Reformation  period  are  still 
widely  prevalent.      The  saint  is  thrust  aside  as  a  representative  of 


viii  Preface. 

gross  superstition,  and  the  nun  is  looked  upon  as  a  slothful  and 
hysterical,  if  not  as  a  dissolute  character.  She  is  still  thought  of 
as  those  who  broke  with  the  Catholic  Church  chose  to  depict  her. 

The  fact  that  these  women  appeared  in  a  totally  different  light 
to  their  contemporaries  is  generally  overlooked  ;  that  the  monk  and 
the  nun  enjoyed  the  esteem  and  regard  of  the  general  public 
throughout  a  term  bordering  on  a  thousand  years  is  frequently 
forgotten.  Even  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  when  religious 
contentions  were  at  their  height,  the  nun  who  was  expelled  from 
her  home  appeared  deserving  of  pity  rather  than  of  reproach  to 
her  more  enlightened  contemporaries.  As  part  of  an  institution 
that  had  outlived  its  purpose  she  was  perhaps  bound  to  pass  away. 
But  the  work  she  had  done  and  the  aims  for  which  she  had  striven 
contributed  their  share  in  formulating  the  new  standards  of  life. 
The  attitude  of  mind  which  had  been  harboured  and  cultivated 
in  the  cloister,  must  be  reckoned  among  the  most  civilizing 
influences  which  have  helped  to  develop  mental  and  moral  strength 
in  Western  Europe. 

The  social  value  of  cloistered  life  in  itself  may  be  disputed. 
To  the  Protestant  of  the  i6th  century  a  profession  which  involved 
estrangement  from  family  ties  appeared  altogether  harmful.  More- 
over monasteries  and  religious  houses  were  bound  up  in  the 
reformer's  mind  with  the  supremacy  of  Rome  from  which  he  was 
striving  hard  to  shake  himself  free.  Wherever  the  breach  with 
Rome  was  effected  the  old  settlements  were  dissolved  and  their 
inmates  were  thrust  back  into  civic  life.  To  men  this  meant 
much,  but  it  meant  less  to  them  than  to  women.  In  losing  the 
possibility  of  religious  profession  at  the  beginning  of  the  i6th 
century,  women  lost  the  last  chance  that  remained  to  them  of  an 
activity  outside  the  home  circle.  The  subjection  of  women  to  a 
round  of  domestic  duties  became  more  complete  when  nunneries 
were  dissolved,  and  marriage  for  generations  afterwards  was 
women's  only  recognised  vocation. 

But  even  in  some  of  these  same  Protestant  countries  where 
nunneries  were  summarily  dissolved,  the  resulting  complete  sub- 
jection of  women  has  in  modern  times  been  felt  to  have  outlived 
its  purpose.  How  far  this  subjection  was  a  needful  stage  of  growth 
which  has  helped  to  develop  a  higher  standard  of  willing  purity  and 
faithfulness  need  not  now  be  discussed.  In  certain  countries, 
however,  where  the  monastic  system  with  all  the  privileges  it 
conferred  on  women  was  swept  away,  we  now  find  a  strong  public 


Preface.  ix 

opinion  against  the  restriction  of  women's  activity  to  the  domestic 
circle,  and  these  countries  were  among  the  first  to  break  down  the 
artificial  barriers  imposed  on  woman's  influence  and  grant  her 
some  share  in  the  intellectual  and  political  life  of  the  community. 

The  right  to  self-development  and  social  responsibility  which 
the  woman  of  to-day  so  persistently  asks  for,  is  in  many  ways 
analogous  to  the  right  which  the  convent  secured  to  womankind  a 
thousand  years  ago.  The  woman  of  to-day,  who  realises  that  the 
home  circle  as  at  present  constituted  afifords  insufficient  scope  for 
her  energies,  had  a  precursor  in  the  nun  who  sought  a  field  of 
activity  in  the  convent.  For  the  nun  also  hesitated,  it  may  be 
from  motives  which  fail  to  appeal  to  us,  to  undertake  the  customary 
duties  and  accept  the  ordinary  joys  of  life.  This  hesitation  may  be 
attributed  to  perversion  of  instinct,  it  can  hardly  in  the  case  of  the 
nun  be  attributed  to  weakness  of  character,  for  she  chose  a  path  in 
life  which  was  neither  smooth  nor  easy,  and  in  this  path  she 
accomplished  great  things,  many  of  which  have  still  living  value. 

It  is  with  a  view  to  the  better  appreciation  of  the  influence  and 
activity  of  women  connected  with  the  Christian  religion  that  the 
following  chapters  have  been  written.  They  contain  an  enquiry 
into  the  cult  of  women-saints,  and  some  account  of  the  general 
position  of  woman  under  monasticism.  These  subjects  however 
are  so  wide  and  the  material  at  the  disposal  of  the  student  is  so 
abundant  that  the  analysis  is  confined  to  English  and  German 
women. 

At  the  outset  an  enquiry  into  the  position  of  women  among  the 
Germans  of  pre-Christian  times  appeared  necessary,  for  early 
hagiology  and  the  lives  of  women  who  embraced  the  religious 
profession  after  Christianity  was  first  introduced,  recall  in  various 
particulars  the  influence  of  woman  and  her  association  with  the 
supernatural  during  heathen  times.  The  legends  of  many  saints 
contain  a  large  element  of  heathen  folk-tradition,  together  in  some 
cases  with  a  small,  scarcely  perceptible  element  of  historical  fact 
In  order  therefore  to  establish  the  true  importance  of  the  Christian 
women,  whose  labour  benefited  their  contemporaries,  and  who  in 
recognition  of  their  services  were  raised  to  saintship,  the  nature  of 
early  women-saints  in  general  had  to  be  carefully  considered. 

In  the  chapters  that  follow,  the  spread  of  monasticism  is  dealt 
with  in  so  far  as  it  was  due  to  the  influence  of  women,  and  some  of 
the  more  representative  phases  of  convent  life  are  described.  Our 
enquiry  dealing  with    monasticism  only  as  affecting  women,  the 


X  Preface. 

larger  side  of  a  great  subject  has  necessarily  been  ignored.  There 
is  a  growing  consciousness  now-a-days  of  the  debt  of  gratitude 
which  mankind  as  a  whole  owes  to  the  monastic  and  religious 
orders,  but  the  history  of  these  orders  remains  for  the  most  part 
unwritten.  At  some  periods  of  monasticism  the  life  of  men  and 
that  of  women  flow  evenly  side  by  side  and  can  be  dealt  with 
separately,  at  others  their  work  so  unites  and  intermingles  that  it 
seems  impossible  to  discuss  the  one  apart  from  the  other.  Re- 
garding some  developments  the  share  taken  by  women,  important 
enough  in  itself,  seemed  to  me  hardly  capable  of  being  rated  at  its 
just  value  unless  taken  in  conjunction  with  that  of  men.  These 
developments  are  therefore  touched  upon  briefly  or  passed  over 
altogether,  especially  those  in  which  the  devotional  needs  of  the 
women  are  interesting  chiefly  in  the  effect  which  they  had  in 
stimulating  the  literary  productiveness  of  men.  Other  phases  are 
passed  over  because  they  were  the  outcome  of  a  course  of  develop- 
ment, the  analysis  of  which  lies  beyond  the  scope  of  this  work. 
This  applies  generally  to  various  continental  movements  which  are 
throughout  treated  briefly,  and  especially  to  convent  life  in  the 
Netherlands,  and  to  the  later  history  of  mysticism.  The  history 
of  the  beguines  in  the  North  of  France  and  the  Netherlands  is  full 
of  interesting  particulars,  marked  by  the  inclusion  in  the  Acta 
Sanctorum  of  women  like  Marie  of  Oignies  (-f-  c.  12 13),  Lutgardis  of 
Tongern  (-j*  1246)  and  Christine  of  Truyen  (-f-  1224),  whose  fame 
rests  on  states  of  spiritual  ecstasy,  favoured  and  encouraged  by  the 
Dominican  friars.  So  again  the  women  in  Southern  Germany, 
who  cultivated  like  religious  moods  and  expressed  their  feelings  in 
writing,  were  largely  influenced  by  the  Dominicans,  apart  from 
whom  it  seemed  impossible  to  treat  them.  In  England  the 
analysis  of  writings  such  as  the  'Revelations'  of  Juliana  of 
Norwich  and  of  Margery  Kempe  necessitates  a  full  enquiry  into 
the  influence  and  popularity  of  Richard  Rolle  (f  1349)  and  Walter 

Hylton(ti395)- 

During  the  later  Middle  Ages  the  study  of  the  influences  at 
work  in  the  convent  is  further  complicated  by  the  development  of 
religious  associations  outside  it.  Pre-eminent  among  these  stands 
the  school  of  Deventer  which  gave  the  impulse  to  the  production 
of  a  devotional  literature,  the  purity  and  refinement  of  which  has 
given  it  world-wide  reputation.  These  associations  were  founded 
by  men  not  by  women,  and  though  the  desire  to  influence  nuns 
largely  moulded  the  men  who  wrote  for  and  preached  to  them, 


Preface.  xi 

still  the  share  taken  by  women  in  such  movements  is  entirely  sub- 
ordinate. 

It  is  needless  to  multiply  instances  of  the  chapters  on  convent 
life  which  are  here  omitted  ;  in  those  which  I  place  before  the  reader 
it  has  been  my  aim  not  so  much  to  give  a  consecutive  history  of 
monasticism  as  it  affected  women,  as  to  show  how  numerous  are 
the  directions  in  which  this  history  can  be  pursued.  Having 
regard  to  the  nature  of  the  subject  I  have  addressed  myself  in  the 
first  place  to  the  student,  who  in  the  references  given  will,  I  trust, 
find  corroboration  of  my  views.  In  quoting  from  early  writings  I 
have  referred  to  the  accounts  printed  in  the  Acta  Sanctorum 
Bollandorimi  and  to  the  edition  of  Latin  writings  published  under 
the  auspices  of  Migne  in  the  '  Patrologiae  Cursus  Completus,' 
except  in  those  few  cases  where  a  more  recent  edition  of  the  work 
referred  to  offered  special  advantages,  and  regarding  the  date  of 
these  writings  I  have  been  chiefly  guided  by  A.  Potthast,  Weg- 
weiser  durch  die  Geschichtswerke  des  europdischen  Mittelalters,  1 862. 
In  accordance  with  a  division  which  has  been  adopted  by  some 
histories  of  art  and  seems  to  me  to  have  much  in  its  favour,  I  have 
taken  Early  Christian  times  to  extend  to  the  close  of  the  loth 
century;  I  have  spoken  of  the  period  between  icxx)  and  1250  as 
the  Earlier,  and  of  that  between  1250  and  I5(X)  as  the  Later 
Middle  Ages.  The  spelling  of  proper  names  in  a  work  which 
extends  over  many  centuries  has  difficulties  of  its  own.  While 
observing  a  certain  uniformity  during  each  period,  I  have  as  far 
as  possible  adhered  to  the  contemporary  local  form  of  each  name. 

While  addressing  myself  largely  to  the  student,  I  have  kept 
along  lines  which  I  trust  may  make  the  subject  attractive  to  the 
general  reader,  in  whose  interest  I  have  translated  all  the  passages 
quoted.  There  is  a  growing  consciousness  now-a-days  that  for 
stability  in  social  progress  we  need  among  other  things  a  wider 
scope  for  women's  activity.  This  scope  as  I  hope  to  show  was  to 
some  extent  formerly  secured  to  women  by  the  monastic  system. 
Perhaps  some  of  those  who  are  interested  in  the  educational 
movements  of  to-day  may  care  to  recall  the  history  and  arrange- 
ments of  institutions,  which  favoured  the  intellectual  development 
of  women  in  the  past. 

I  cannot  conclude  these  prefatory  remarks  without  a  word  of 
thanks  to  those  who  have  aided  me  by  criticism  and  revision. 
Besides  the  two  friends  to  whom  I  have  dedicated  this  book,  I 
have  to  cordially  thank  Mrs  R.  W,  Cracroft  for  the  labour  she  has 


xii  Preface. 

sjicnt  on  the  literary  revision  of  my  work  in  manuscript.  To 
Dr  H.  F.  Heath  of  Bedford  College  I  am  indebted  for  many 
suggestions  on  points  of  philology,  and  to  Robert  J.  Parker,  Esq. 
of  Lincoln's  Inn  for  advice  on  some  points  of  law  and  of  general 
arrangement.  Conscious  as  I  am  of  the  many  defects  in  my  work, 
I  cannot  but  be  grateful  to  the  Syndics  of  the  University  Press, 
for  the  assistance  they  have  rendered  me  in  its  publication,  and  I 
trust  that  these  defects  may  not  deter  readers  from  following  me 
into  somewhat  unfrequented  paths,  wherein  at  any  rate  I  have  not 
stinted  such  powers  of  labour  as  are  mine. 

LINA   ECKENSTEIN. 

December,  1895. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Preface vii 


CHAPTER   I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

§  I.     The  Borderland  of  Heathendom  and  Christianity  .        .        .        .         i 

§  2.     The  Tribal  Goddess  as  a  Christian  Saint 15 

§  3.     Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint 28 


CHAPTER    n. 

CONVENTS   AMONG   THE   FRANKS,   A.D.  550 — 650. 

§  I.    At  the  Prankish  Invasion 45 

§  2.     St  Radegund  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers 51 

I  3.     The  Revolt  of  the  Nuns  at  Poitiers.    Convent  Life  in  the  North      65 

CHAPTER   in. 

CONVENTS   AMONG   THE   ANGLO-SAXONS,   A.D.  630 — 73O. 

§  I.     Early  Houses  in  Kent 79 

§  2.    The  Monastery  at  Whitby 88 

§  3.     Ely  and  the  influence  of  Bishop  Wilfrith 95 

^  4.     Houses  in  Mercia  and  in  the  South 106 


xiv  Contents. 

CHAPTER   IV. 

ANGLO-SAXON   NUNS   IN   CONNECTION    WITH    BONIFACE. 

§  I.    The  Women  corresponding  with  Boniface ii8 

§  2.    Anglo-Saxon  Nuns  abroad 134 

CHAPTER   V. 

CONVENTS  IN  SAXON  LANDS  BETWEEN  A.D.  800 — 1000. 

§  I.    Women's  Convents  in  Saxony 143 

§  2.     Early  History  of  Gandersheim 154 

§  3.     The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her  Writings 160 

CHAPTER   VI. 

THE  MONASTIC   REVIVAL  OF   THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 

§  I,     The  new  Monastic  Orders <jS4 

§  2.     Benedictine  Convents  in  the  Twelfth  Century         ....     2QI>' 
§  3-    The  Order  of  St  Gilbert  of  Sempringham 213 

CHAPTER   VII. 

ART   INDUSTRIES    IN   THE   NUNNERY. 

§  1.     Art  Industries  generally 222 

§  2.     Herrad  and  the  'Garden  of  Delights' 238 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

PROPHECY   AND    PHILANTHROPY. 

§  I.     St  Hildegard  of  Bingen  and  St  Elisabeth  of  Schonau  .        .        .     256 
§  2.     Women-Saints  connected  with  Charity  and  Philanthropy      .         .     285 

CHAPTER   IX. 

EARLY    MYSTIC   LITERATURE. 

§<j.     Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England 305 

§  2.     The  Convent  of  Helfta  and  its  Literary  Nuns        ....     328 


Contents.  xv 


CHAPTER   X. 

SOME   ASPECTS   OF   THE   CONVENT   IN    ENGLAND   DURING   THE 
LATER   MIDDLE  AGES. 

§  I.     The  external  Relations  of  the  Convent 354 

§  2.     The  internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent 3^S.Jr 

§  3.     The  Foundation  and  internal  Arrangements  of  Sion      .        .        .     383 


CHAPTER  XI. 

MONASTIC    REFORM    PREVIOUS    TO   THE    REFORMATION. 

§  I.    Visitations  of  Nunneries  m  England 398 

§  2.     Reforms  in  Gennany 414 

CHAPTER   Xn. 

THE   DISSOLUTION. 

§  I.     The  Dissolution  of  Nunneries  in  England 432 

§  2.     The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckheimer 458 


Conclusion .    477 

Appendix.    The  Rhyme  of  Herrad 485 

Index 488 


ERRATA. 

Page    23,  note  i,  date  of  St  Ida  in  A.  SS.  Boll,  should  be  Sept.  4  instead  o{  June  ^o. 
,,       26,  line    7,  read  tilth  instead  ol  silk. 
,,     162,   ,,     21,  read  il/ar/ia««j  instead  of  J/arM!«MJ. 
,,     190,    ,,     32,  read  1240  as  the  date  of  Jacobus  di  Vitriaco's  death. 
„     241,   „       8,  read  Bergen  instead  oi  Berg. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

'Die  mit  dem  goldenen  Schuh  und  dem  Geiger  ist  auch  eine  Muttergottes. ' 

Bavarian  Saying. 

%  I.     The  Borderland  of  Heathendom  and  Christianity. 

In  order  to  gain  an  insight  into  the  causes  of  the  rapid 
development  of  monasticism  among  the  German  races,  it  is 
necessary  to  enquire  into  the  social  arrangements  of  the  period 
which  witnessed  the  introduction  of  Christianity,  and  into  those  sur- 
vivals of  the  previous  period  of  social  development  which  German 
Christianity  absorbed.  Among  peoples  of  German  race  monastic 
life  generally,  and  especially  monastic  life  which  gave  scope  for 
independent  activity  among  women,  had  a  development  of  its  own. 
Women  of  the  newly-converted  yet  still  barbarian  race  readily 
gathered  together  and  dwelt  in  religious  settlements  founded  on 
their  own  initiative  and  ruled  independently  of  men.  A  reason 
for  this  must  be  sought  in  the  drift  of  contemporary  life,  which 
we  shall  thus  have  to  discuss  at  some  length. 

During  the  period  of  declining  heathendom — for  how  long, 
measuring  time  by  centuries,  it  is  not  yet  possible  to  say — the 
drift  of  society  had  been  towards  curtailing  woman's  liberty  of 
movement  and  interfering  with  her  freedom  of  action.  When  the 
Germans  crossed  the  threshold  of  history  the  characteristics  of  the 
father-age  were  already  in  the  ascendant ;  the  social  era,  when  the 
growing  desire  for  certainty  of  fatherhood  caused  individual  women 
and  their  offspring  to  be  brought  into  the  possession  of  individual 
men,  had  already  begun.  The  influence  of  women  was  more  and 
more  restricted  owing  to  their  domestic  subjection.  But  traditions 
of  a  time  when  it  had  been  otherwise  still  lingered. 

Students  of  primitive  history  are  recognising,  for  peoples  of 
German  race  among  others,  the  existence  of  an  early  period  of 
development,  when  women  played  a  greater  part  in  both  social 
E.  I 


The  Borderland  of  [chap,  t 


and  tribal  life.  Folk-lore,  philology,  and  surviving  customs 
yield  overwhelming  evidence  in  support  of  the  few  historic  data 
which  point  to  the  period,  conveniently  called  the  mother-age, 
when  women  held  positions  of  authority  inside  the  tribal  group 
and  directly  exercised  influence  on  the  doings  of  the  tribe*. 

This  period,  the  mother-age,  is  generally  looked  upon  as  an 
advance  from  an  earlier  stage  of  savagery,  and  considered  to  be  con- 
temporaneous with  the  beginnings  of  settled  tribal  life.  It  brought 
with  it  the  practice  of  tilth  and  agriculture,  and  led  to  the  domesti- 
cation of  some  of  the  smaller  animals  and  the  invention  of  weaving 
and  spinning, 'achievements  with  which  it  is  recognised  that  women 
must  be  credited. 

In  matters  of  polity  and  sex  it  established  the  paramount 
importance  of  the  woman  ;  it  is  she  who  regulates  the  home,  who 
notes  the  changes  of  the  seasons,  who  stores  the  results  of  ex- 
perience, and  treasures  up  the  intellectual  wealth  of  the  community 
in  sayings  which  have  come  down  to  us  in  the  form  of  quaint 
maxims  and  old-world  saws.  As  for  family  arrangements,  it 
was  inside  the  tribal  group  and  at  the  tribal  festival  that  sex  unions 
were  contracted  ;  and  this  festival,  traditions  of  which  survive  in 
many  parts  of  Europe  to  this  day,  and  which  was  in  its  earliest 
forms  a  period  of  unrestrained  license  for  the  women  as  well  as  the 
men,  was  presided  over  by  the  tribal  mothers,  an  arrangement 
which  in  various  particulars  affords  an  explanation  of  many  ideas 
associated  with  women  in  later  times. 

The  father-age  succeeding  to  the  mother-age  in  time  altogether 
revolutionised  the  relations  of  the  sexes ;  transient  sex  unions, 
formerly  the  rule,  were  gradually  eliminated  by  capture  and  re- 
tention of  wives  from  outside  the  tribal  group.  The  change  marks 
a  distinct  step  in  social  advance.  When  men  as  heads  of  families 
succeeded  to  much  of  the  influence  women  had  held  in  the  tribe, 
barbarous  tendencies,  such  as  blood  sacrifice,  were  checked  and  a 
higher  moral  standard  was  attained.  But  this  was  done  at  the  cost 
of  her  prerogative  to  the  woman  ;  and  her  social  influence  to  some 
extent  passed  from  her. 

It  must  be  granted  that  the  character  of  the  mother-age  in 
some  of  its  bearings  is  hypothetical,  but  we  can  infer  many  of  the 
social   arrangements   of  the  period   from   surviving  customs   and 

'  The  literature  on  this  subject  is  daily  accumulating.  Among  older  authorities  are 
Bachofen,  Das  Mutterrecht,  1861;  Zmigrodski,  Die  Mutter  bei  den  Volkern  des 
arischen  Stamntes,  1886;    Pearson,  K.,  Ethic  of  Free  Thought,   1888. 


SECT,  i]  Heathendom  and  Christianity.  3 

usages,  and  its  organisation  from  the  part  woman  played  in  tradition 
and  saga,  and,  as  we  shall  see  later,  from  folk-traditions  preserved 
in  the  legends  of  the  saints.  And  further,  unless  we  admit  that  the 
social  arrangements  of  the  earlier  period  differed  from  those  of  the 
later,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  veneration  in  which  woman 
was  held  and  for  the  influence  exerted  by  her  as  we  confront  her 
on  the  threshold  of  written  history.  When  once  we  grasp  the 
essentials  of  these  earlier  arrangements,  we  hold  the  clue  to  the 
existence  of  types  of  character  and  tendencies  which  otherwise 
appear  anomalous. 

For  at  the  time  when  contact  with  Christianity  brought  with  it 
the  possibility  of  monastic  settlements,  the  love  of  domestic  life  had 
not  penetrated  so  deeply,  nor  were  its  conditions  so  uniformly 
favourable,  but  that  many  women  were  ready  to  break  away  from 
it.  Reminiscences  of  an  independence  belonging  to  them  in  the 
past,  coupled  with  the  desire  for  leadership,  made  many  women  loth 
to  conform  to  life  inside  the  family  as  wives  and  mothers  under 
conditions  formulated  by  men.  Tendencies  surviving  from  the 
earlier  period,  and  still  unsubdued,  made  the  advantages  of  married 
life  weigh  light  in  the  balance  against  a  loss  of  liberty.  To  con- 
ceive the  force  of  these  tendencies  is  to  gain  an  insight  into  the 
elements  which  the  convent  forthwith  absorbs. 

(\  In  the  world  outside  the  convent  commanding  figures  of  woman- 
kind become  fewer  with  outgoing  heathendom,  and  the  part  played 
by  women  becomes  of  less  and  less  importance.  There  is  less 
room  left  for  the  Gannas  of  history  or  for  the  Kriemhilds  of  saga, 
for  powerful  natures  such  as  the  Visigoth  princess  Brunihild,  queen 
of  the  Franks,  or  Drahomir  of  Brandenburg,  queen  in  Bohemia, 
who  gratify  their  passion  for  influence  with  a  recklessness  which 
strikes  terror  into  the  breasts  of  their  contemporaries.  As  the  old 
chronicler  of  St  Denis  remarks,  women  who  are  bent  on  evil  do  worse 
evil  than  men.  But  in  the  convent  the  influence  of  womankind 
lasted  longer.  Spirited  nuns  and  independent-minded  abbesses 
turn  to  account  the  possibilities  open  to  them  in  a  way 
which  commands  respect  and  repeatedly  secures  superstitious 
reverence  in  the  outside  world.  The  influence  and  the  powers 
exerted  by  these  women,  as  we  shall  see  further  on,  are  altogether 
remarkable,  especially  during  early  Christian  times.  1'  But  we  also 
come  across  frequent  instances  of  lawlessness  among  the  women 
who  band  together  in  the  convent, — a  lawlessness  to  which  the 
arrangements  of  the  earlier  age  likewise  supply  a  clue.     For  that 

I — 2 


The  Borderland  of  [chap,  i 


vtxy  love  of  independence,  which  led  to  beneficial  results  where  it 
was  coupled  with  self-control  and  consciousness  of  greater  responsi- 
bility, tended  in  the  direction  of  vagrancy  and  dissoluteness  when 
it  was  accompanied  by  distaste  for  every  kind  of  restraint. 

In  this  connection  we  must  say  a  few  words  on  the  varying 
status  of  loose  women,  since  the  estimation  in  which  these  women 
were  held  and  the  attitude  assumed  towards  them  affected 
monasticism  in  various  particulars.  It  is  true  that  during  early 
Christian  times  little  heed  was  taken  of  them  and  few  objections 
were  raised  to  their  influence,  but  later  distinct  efforts  were  made 
by  various  religious  orders  to  prevent  women  from  drifting  into  a 
class  which,  whatever  may  have  been  its  condition  in  past  times, 
was  felt  to  be  steadily  and  surely  deteriorating. 

The  distinction  of  women  into  so-called  respectable  and  dis- 
reputable classes  dates  from  before  the  introduction  of  Christianity. 
It  arose  as  the  father- age  gained  on  the  mother-age,  when  appro- 
priated women  were  more  and  more  absorbed  into  domesticity,  while 
those  women  outside,  who  either  resented  or  escaped  subjection, 
found  their  position  surrounded  by  increasing  difficulties,  and  as- 
persion more  and  more  cast  on  their  independence.  By  accepting 
the  distinction,  the  teachers  of  Christianity  certainly  helped  to  make 
it  more  definite  ;  but  for  centuries  the  existence  of  loose  women,  so 
far  from  being  condemned,  was  hardly  discountenanced  by  them. 
The  revenues  which  ecclesiastical  courts  and  royal  households 
derived  from  taxes  levied  on  these  women  as  a  class  yield  proof 
of  this\  Certainly  efforts  were  made  to  set  limits  to  their  practices 
and  the  disorderly  tendencies  which  in  the  nature  of  things  became 
connected  with  them  and  with  those  with  whom  they  habitually 
consorted.  But  this  was  done  not  so  much  to  restrain  them  as  to 
protect  women  of  the  other  class  from  being  confounded  with  them. 
Down  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  the  idea  that  the  existence 
of  loose  women  as  a  class  should  be  discountenanced  does  not 
present  itself,  for  they  were  a  recognised  feature  of  court  life  and  of 
town  life  everywhere.  Marshalled  into  bands,  they  accompanied  the 
king  and  the  army  on  their  most  distant  expeditions,  and  stepped  to 
the  fore  wherever  there  was  question  of  merrymaking  or  enter- 
tainment. Indeed  there  is  reason  to  believe,  improbable  though  it 
may  seem  at  first  sight,  that  women  of  loose  life,  as  we  come  across 
them  in  the  Middle  Ages,  are  successors  to  a  class  which  had  been 
powerful   in   the   past.     They   are   not   altogether   depraved   and 

'  Kriegk,  G.  L.,  Deutsche!  Biirgerthutn  im  Mittelalter,  1868,  ch.  12-15. 


SECT,  i]  Heathendom  and  Christianity.  5 

despised  characters  such  as  legislation  founded  on  tenets  of 
Roman  Law  chose  to  stamp  them.  For  law  and  custom  are 
often  at  variance  regarding  the  rights  and  privileges  belonging 
to  them.  These  rights  and  privileges  they  retained  in  various 
particulars  till  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  which  indeed  marks 
a  turning  point  in  the  attitude  taken  by  society  towards  women 
generally. 

Different  ages  have  different  standards  of  purity  and  faithfulness. 
The  loose  or  unattached  women  of  the  past  are  of  many  kinds  and 
many  types  ;  to  apply  the  term  prostitute  to  them  raises  a  false  idea 
of  their  position  as  compared  with  that  of  women  in  other  walks  of 
life.  If  we  would  deal  with  them  as  a  class  at  all,  it  is  only  this 
they  have  in  common, — that  they  are  indifferent  to  the  ties  of 
family,  and  that  the  men  who  associate  with  them  are  not  by  so 
doing  held  to  incur  any  responsibility  towards  them  or  towards 
their  offspring. 

If  we  bear  in  mind  the  part  these  women  have  played  and  the 
modifications  which  their  status  has  undergone,  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  subject  is  one  which  nearly  affects  monasticism.  For  the 
convent  accepted  the  dislike  women  felt  to  domestic  subjection  and 
countenanced  them  in  their  refusal  to  undertake  the  duties  of  married 
life.  It  offered  an  escape  from  the  tyranny  of  the  family,  but  it  did 
so  on  condition  of  such  a  sacrifice  of  personal  independence,  as  in 
the  outside  world  more  and  more  involved  the  loss  of  good  repute. 
On  the  face  of  it,  a  greater  contrast  than  that  between  the  loose 
woman  and  the  nun  is  hard  to  conceive ;  and  yet  they  have  this  in 
common,  that  they  are  both  the  outcome  of  the  refusal  among 
womankind  to  accept  married  relations  on  the  basis  of  the  sub- 
jection imposed  by  the  father-age. 

In  other  respects  too  the  earlier  heathen  period  was  not 
without  influence  on  the  incoming  Christian  faith,  and  helped  to 
determine  its  conceptions  with  regard  to  women.  In  actual  life 
the  sacerdotal  privileges,  which  tribal  mothers  had  appropriated 
to  themselves  at  the  time  of  the  introduction  of  Christianity, 
were  retained  by  the  priestess ;  while  in  the  realm  of  the  ideal  the 
reverence  in  which  tribal  mothers  had  been  held  still  lived  on  in  the 
worship  of  the  tribal  mother-divinity.  It  is  under  this  twofold 
aspect,  as  priestess  and  as  tribal  mother-goddess,  that  the  power  of 
women  was  brought  face  to  face  with  Christianity;  the  priestess 
and  the  mother-goddess  were  the  well-defined  types  of  heathen 
womanhood  with  which  the  early  Church  was  called  upon  to  deal. 


The  Borderland  of  [chap 


We  will  show  later  on  how  the  ideal  conception  prevailed, 
and  how  the  heathen  mother-goddess  often  assumed  the  garb 
of  a  Christian  woman-saint,  and  as  a  Christian  woman-saint  was 
left  to  exist  unmolested.  Not  so  the  heathen  priestess  and  prophet- 
ess. From  the  first  introduction  of  Christianity  the  holding  of 
sacerdotal  powers  by  women  was  resented  both  within  and  without 
the  Church,  and  opprobrium  was  cast  on  the  women  who  claimed 
to  mediate  between  the  human  and  the  divine. 

At  the  time  of  the  advent  of  Christianity  the  Gannas  and 
Veledas  of  the  Roman  period  are  still  a  living  reality  ;  they  are  the 
'wise  women'  who  every  now  and  then  leave  their  retreat  and 
appear  on  the  stage  of  history.  A  prophetess  in  gorgeous  apparel 
makes  her  entry  into  Verdun  in  the  year  547,  drawing  crowds 
about  her  and  foretelling  the  future.  She  is  in  no  way  intimidated 
by  the  exorcisms  of  prelates,  and  presently  leaves  to  betake 
herself  to  the  court  of  the  Prankish  queen  Fredegund.  Again  in 
577  we  find  the  Frankish  king  Guntchramm  in  consultation  with  a 
woman  soothsayer,  and  other  cases  of  the  kind  are  on  records 

In  the  ninth  century  the  Church  more  effectually  exercised  her 
influence  in  the  case  of  the  woman  Thiota,  who  coming  from 
Switzerland  inflamed  the  minds  of  the  folk  in  Mainz ;  for  she  was 
accused  of  profanity  and  publicly  scourged""*.  But  for  all  the 
attacks  of  the  Church,  the  folk  persisted  in  clinging  to  its  priestesses 
and  in  believing  them  gifted  with  special  powers.  Grimm  shows 
how  the  Christian  accusers  of  soothsaying  women  made  them  into 
odious  witches';  Wuttke  and  Weinhold,  both  well-known  students 
of  folk-lore,  consider  that  witches  were  originally  heathen  priestesses^ 
The  intrinsic  meaning  of  the  word  Jiexe^  the  German  designation 
for  witch,  points  to  some  one  who  originally  belonged  to  a 
group  living  in  a  particular  manner,  but  whose  practices  made  her 
obnoxious  to  those  who  had  apprehended  the  higher  moral 
standard  of  a  later  social  period.  But  the  Church  failed  to 
stamp  even  the  witch  as  wholly  despicable ;  for  in  popular 
estimation  she  always  retained  some  of  the  attributes  of  the 
priestess,  the  wise  woman,  the  bona  domma,  the  *  white  witch '  of 
tradition  ;  so  that  the  doctrine  that  the  soothsaying  woman  is 
necessarily  the  associate  of  evil  was  never  altogether  accepted. 

^  Gregorius  Tur.,  Hist.  Eccles.  5,  ch.  14,  16,  19. 

2  Grimm,  J.,  Deutsche  Mythologie,  1875,  p.  78.  *  Ibid.  p.  881  ff. 

*  Wuttke,  Deutscher  Volksaberglaube,  1869,  p.  141  ;  Weinhold,  K.,  Deutsche  Frauen, 
1882,  vol.  I,  p.  73. 


SECT,  i]  Heathendom  and  Christianity.  7 

Even  now-a-days  incidents  happen  occasionally  in  remote  districts 
which  show  how  the  people  still  readily  seek  the  help  of 
women  in  matters  of  wisdom,  of  leechcraft,  and  of  prescience.  It 
was  only  under  the  influence  of  a  scare  that  people,  who  were  ac- 
customed to  consult  the  wise  woman  in  good  faith,  could  be  brought 
to  abhor  her  as  a  witch.  It  was  only  during  the  later  Middle 
Ages  that  the  undisputed  and  indisputable  connection  of  some 
'  wise  women'  with  licentious  customs  gave  their  traducers  a  weapon 
of  which  they  were  not  slow  to  avail  themselves,  and  which  enabled 
them  to  rouse  fanaticism  of  the  worst  kind  against  these  women. 

The  practices  and  popularity  of  witchcraft  were  in  truth  the 
latest  survivals  of  the  mother-age.  The  woman,  who  devised  love- 
charms  and  brewed  manifold  remedies  for  impotence  and  for 
allaying  the  pangs  of  childbirth,  who  pretended  to  control  the 
weather  and  claimed  the  power  to  turn  the  milk  of  a  whole  village 
blue,  carried  on  traditions  of  a  very  primitive  period.  And  her 
powers,  as  we  shall  see,  always  had  a  close  parallel  in  those  attributed 
to  women-saints.  For  example  St  Gertrud  of  Nivelles  has  left  a 
highly  prized  relic  to  womankind  in  the  form  of  a  cloak  which  is 
still  hung  about  those  who  are  desirous  of  becoming  mothers* ;  and 
the  hair  of  a  saint,  Mechthild,  is  still  hung  outside  the  church  at 
Toss  in  Switzerland  to  avert  the  thunderstorm*';  and  again  St  Gunt- 
hild  of  Biberbach  and  others  are  still  appealed  to  that  they  may 
avert  the  cattle  plague'.  What  difference,  it  may  be  asked,  is  there 
between  the  powers  attributed  to  these  saints  and  the  powers  with 
which  witches  are  usually  credited }  They  are  the  obverse  and 
reverse  of  woman's  connection  with  the  supernatural,  which  in  the 
one  case  is  interpreted  by  the  sober  mind  of  reverence,  and  in  the 
other  is  dreaded  under  the  perturbing  influence  of  a  fear  en- 
couraged, if  not  originated,  by  Christian  fanatics. 

In  the  Christian  Church  the  profession  of  the  nun  was  accepted 
as  holy,  but  an  impassable  gulf  separated  her  from  the  priestess. 
During  early  Christian  times  we  come  across  the  injunction  that 
women  shall  not  serve  at  the  altar^  and  that  lady  abbesses  shall 
not  take  upon  themselves  religious  duties  reserved  to  men  by  the 
Church.    When  we  think  of  women  gathered  together  in  a  religious 

*  Rochholz,  E.  L.,  Drei  Gaugottinnen,  1870,  p.  191. 
^  Menzel,  Christliche  Sytubolik,  1854,  article  'Haar.* 
8  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Gunthildis,  Sept.  12. 

*  Bouquet,  Rectteil  Ilisl.,  vol.  5,  p.  690.     Capitulare  incerti  anni,  nr  6,  '  ut  mulieres 
ad  altare  non  ingrediantur.' 


8  The  Borderland  of  [chap,  i 

establishment  and  dependent  on  the  priest  outside  for  the  performing 
of  divine  worship,  their  desire  to  manage  things  for  themselves  does 
not  appear  unnatural,  encouraged  as  it  would  be  by  traditions  of 
sacerdotal  rights  belonging  to  them  in  the  past.  And  it  is  worthy 
of  notice  that  as  late  as  the  13th  century,  Brother  Berthold,  an 
influential  preacher  of  south  Germany,  speaks  ardently  against 
women  who  would  officiate  at  divine  service  and  urges  the  mischief 
that  may  result  from  such  a  course. 

Turning  to  the  question  of  how  far  these  obvious  survivals  from 
a  heathen  age  are  determined  by  time  and  place,  we  find  broad 
lines  of  difference  between  the  heathen  survivals  of  the  various 
branches  of  the  German  race,  and  considerable  diversity  in  the 
character  of  their  early  Christianity  and  their  early  women- 
saints.  This  diversity  is  attributable  to  the  fact  that  the  heathen 
beliefs  of  these  various  peoples  were  not  the  same  at  the  time  of 
their  first  contact  with  Christianity,  and  that  they  did  not  accept 
it  under  like  circumstances. 

For  while  those  branches  of  the  race  who  moved  in  the 
vanguard  of  the  great  migration,  the  Vandals,  the  Burgundians 
and  the  Goths,  readily  embraced  Christianity,  it  was  Christianity 
in  its  Arian  form.  Arianism,  which  elsewhere  had  been  branded  as 
heresy  and  well-nigh  stamped  out,  suddenly  revived  among  the 
Germans ;  all  the  branches  of  the  race  who  came  into  direct 
contact  with  peoples  of  civilized  Latinity  readily  embraced  it. 
Now  one  of  the  distinguishing  features  of  Arian  belief  was  its  hatred 
of  monasticism\  The  Arian  convert  hunted  the  monk  from  his 
seclusion  and  thrust  him  back  to  the  duties  of  civic  life.  It  is 
not  then  among  Germans  who  adopted  Arian  Christianity  that  the 
beginnings  of  convent  life  must  be  sought.  Indeed  as  Germans 
these  peoples  soon  passed  away  from  the  theatre  of  history ;  they 
intermarried  and  fell  in  with  the  habits  of  the  people  among  whom 
they  settled,  and  forfeited  their  German  language  and  their  German 
traditions. 

It  was  otherwise  with  the  Franks  who  entered  Gaul  at  the  close 
of  the  fourth  century,  and  with  the  Anglo-Saxons  who  took  posses- 
sion of  Britain.  The  essentially  warlike  character  of  these  peoples 
was  marked  by  their  worship  of  deities  such  as  Wodan,  a  worship 
before  which  the  earlier  worship  of  mother-divinities  was  giving  way. 
Women  had  already  been  brought  into  subjection,  but  they  had  a 
latent  desire  for  independence,  and  among  the  Franks  and  Anglo- 
'  Montalembert,  Monks  of  the  West,  i,  p.  359. 


SECT,  i]  Heathendo77t  and  Christianity.  9 

Saxons  women  of  the  newly  converted  race  eagerly  snatched  at 
the  possibilities  opened  out  by  convent  life,  and  in  their  ranks 
history  chronicles  some  of  the  earliest  and  most  remarkable 
developments  of  monasticism.  But  the  Franks  and  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  in  leaving  behind  the  land  of  their  origin,  had  left  behind 
those  hallowed  sites  on  which  primitive  worship  so  essentially 
depends.  It  is  in  vain  that  we  seek  among  them  for  a  direct 
connection  between  heathen  mother-divinity  and  Christian  woman- 
saint  ;  their  mother-divinities  did  not  live  on  in  connection  with 
the  Church.  It  is  true  that  the  inclination  to  hold  women  in 
reverence  remained,  and  found  expression  in  the  readiness  with 
which  they  revered  women  as  saints.  The  women-saints  of  the 
Anglo-Saxons  and  the  Franks  are  numerous,  and  are  nearly  all 
known  to  have  been  interested  in  convent  foundations.  But  the 
legends,  which  in  course  of  time  have  crystallised  round  them,  and 
the  miracles  attributed  to  them,  though  containing  certain  elements 
of  heathen  folk-tradition,  are  colourless  and  pale  compared  with  the 
traditions  which  have  been  preserved  by  saint  legend  abroad.  It  is 
in  Germany  proper,  where  the  same  race  has  been  in  possession  of 
the  same  sites  for  countless  generations,  that  the  primitive  character 
of  heathen  traditions  is  most  pronounced  and  has  most  directly 
determined  and  influenced  the  cult  and  the  legends  of  women-saints. 

Besides  the  reminiscences  of  the  early  period  which  have 
survived  in  saint  legend,  traditions  and  customs  of  the  same 
period  have  lived  on  in  the  worship  of  the  Virgin  Mary.  The 
worship  of  the  Virgin  Mary  was  but  slightly  developed  in 
Romanised  Gaul  and  Keltic  Britain,  but  from  the  beginning  of 
the  sixth  century  it  is  a  marked  feature  in  the  popular  creed 
in  those  countries  where  the  German  element  prevailed. 

As  Mrs  Jameson  says  in  her  book  on  the  legends  of  the 
Madonna :  '  It  is  curious  to  observe,  as  the  worship  of  the  Virgin 
mother  expanded  and  gathered  in  itself  the  relics  of  many  an 
ancient  faith,  how  the  new  and  the  old  elements,  some  of  them 
apparently  most  heterogeneous,  became  amalgamated  and  were 
combined  into  the  earlier  forms  of  art...*.' 

Indeed  the  prominence  given  to  the  Virgin  is  out  of  all  propor- 
tion to  the  meagre  mention  of  her  in  the  gospels.  During  the 
early  Christian  period  she  was  largely  worshipped  as  a  patron  saint 
in  France,  England  and  Germany,  and  her  fame  continued  steadily 
increasing  with  the  centuries  till  its  climax  was  reached  in  the 

^  Jameson,  Legends  of  the  Mculonna,  1857,  Introd.  xix. 


lo  The  Borderland  of  [chap,  i 

Middle  Ages,  which  witnessed  the  greatest  concessions  made  by  the 
Church  to  the  demands  of  popular  faith. 

According  to  Rhys*  many  churches  dedicated  to  Mary  were 
built  on  spots  where  tradition  speaks  of  the  discovery  of  a  wooden 
image,  probably  a  heathen  statue  which  was  connected  with  her. 

In  the  seventh  century  Pope  Sergius  (687-701)  expressly 
ordered  that  the  festivals  of  the  Virgin  Mary  were  to  take  place  on 
heathen  holy  days  in  order  that  heathen  celebrations  might  become 
associated  with  her*.  The  festivals  of  the  Virgin  to  this  day  are 
associated  with  pilgrimages,  the  taste  for  which  to  the  Frenchman 
of  the  Middle  Ages  appeared  peculiarly  German.  The  chronicler 
Froissart,  writing  about  1390,  remarks  'for  the  Germans  are  fond  of 
performing  pilgrimages  and  it  is  one  of  their  customs^' 

Mary  then,  under  her  own  name,  or  under  the  vaguer  appellation 
of  Our  Lady  (Unser  Hebe  frau,  Notre  Dame,  de  heilige  maagd), 
assimilated  surviving  traditions  of  the  heathen  faith  which  were 
largely  reminiscences  of  the  mother-age  ;  so  that  Mary  became  the 
heiress  of  mother-divinities,  and  her  worship  was  associated  with 
cave,  and  tree,  and  fountain,  and  hill-top,  all  sites  of  the  primitive 
cult. 

'Often,'  says  Menzel^  'a  wonder-working  picture  of  the  Madonna 
is  found  hung  on  a  tree  or  inside  a  tree  ;  hence  numerous  appella- 
tions like  "  Our  dear  Lady  of  the  Oak,"  "  Our  dear  Lady  of  the 
Linden-tree,"  etc.  Often  at  the  foot  of  the  tree,  upon  which  such  a 
picture  is  hung,  a  fountain  flows  to  which  miraculous  power  is 
ascribed.' 

In  the  Tyrol  we  hear  of  pictures  which  have  been  discovered 
floating  in  a  fountain  or  which  were  borne  to  the  bank  by  a  river^ 

As  proof  of  the  Virgin  Mary's  connection  with  festivals,  we  find 
her  name  associated  in  Belgium  with  many  pageants  held  on  the 
first  of  May.  Throughout  German  lands  the  Assumption  of  the 
Virgin  comes  at  the  harvest  festival,  and  furnishes  an  occasion  for 
some  pilgrimage  or  fair  which  preserves  many  peculiar  and  per- 
plexing traits  of  an  earlier  civilization. 

The  harvest  festival  is  coupled  in  some  parts  of  Germany  with 

*  Rhys,  J.,  Lectures  on  the  origin   and  growth  of  religion  as   illustrated  by   Celtic 
Heathendom,  1888,  p.  102. 

*  Frantz,  C,  Versuch  einer  Geschichte  des  Marten  und  Annencultus,  1854,  p.  546". 

'  Froissart,  Chronicle,  c.  162,  in  English  translation;  also  Oberle,  K.  A.,  Ueberreste 
germ,  Heidenttims  im  Christentiim,  1883,  p.  153. 

*  Menzel,  Christ.  Symbolik,  1854,  article  'Baum.' 

"  Oberle,  K.  A.,  Ueberreste  germ.  Heidenttims  im  Christentutn,  1883,  p.  144. 


SECT,  i]  Healkendom  and  Christianity.  ii 

customs  that  are  of  extreme  antiquity.  In  Bavaria  the  festival 
sometimes  goes  by  the  name  of  the  'day  of  sacred  herbs,'  krdiiter- 
weiktag;  near  Wiirzburg  it  is  called  the  'day  of  sacred  roots,' 
wiirzelweihtag,  or 'day  of  bunch-gathering,'  biisclulfranentag^.  In 
the  Tyrol  the  15th  of  August  is  the  great  day  of  the  Virgin, 
grosse  frcuientag,  when  a  collection  of  herbs  for  medicinal  purposes 
is  made.  A  number  of  days,  franentage,  come  in  July  and  August 
and  are  now  connected  with  the  Virgin,  on  which  herbs  are  col- 
lected and  offered  as  sacred  bunches  either  on  the  altar  of  Our 
Lady  in  church  and  chapel,  or  on  hill-tops  which  throughout 
Germany  are  the  sites  of  ancient  woman-worship*.  This  collecting 
and  offering  of  herbs  points  to  a  stage  even  more  primitive  than 
that  represented  by  offerings  of  grain  at  the  harvest  festival. 

In  a  few  instances  the  worship  of  Mary  is  directly  coupled  with 
that  of  some  heathen  divinity.  In  Antwerp  to  this  day  an  ancient 
idol  of  peculiar  appearance  is  preserved,  which  women,  who  are 
desirous  of  becoming  mothers,  decorate  with  flowers  at  certain 
times  of  the  year.  Its  heathen  appellation  is  lost,  but  above  it 
now  stands  a  figure  of  the  Virgin  ^ 

Again  we  find  the  name  of  Mary  joined  to  that  of  the  heathen 
goddess  Sif  In  the  Eiffel  district,  extending  between  the  rivers 
Rhine,  Meuse  and  Mosel,  a  church  stands  dedicated  to  Mariasif,  the 
name  of  Mary  being  coupled  with  that  of  Sif,  a  woman-divinity  of 
the  German  heathen  pantheon,  whom  Grimm  characterizes  as  a 
giver  of  rain^  The  name  Mariahilf,  a  similar  combination,  is 
frequently  found  in  south  Germany,  the  name  of  Mary  as  we 
hope  to  show  further  down  being  joined  to  that  of  a  goddess  who 
has  survived  in  the  Christian  saint  Hilp^ 

These  examples  will  suffice  to  show  the  close  connection 
between  the  conceptions  of  heathendom  and  popular  Christianity, 
and  how  the  cloak  of  heathen  association  has  fallen  on  the  shoulders 
of  the  saints  of  the  Christian  Church.  The  authorities  at  Rome  saw 
no  occasion  to  take  exception  to  its  doing  so.  Pope  Gregorius  II. 
(590-604)  in  a  letter  addressed  to  Melitus  of  Canterbury  expressly 

1  Menzel,  Christl.  Symbolik,  1854,  article  *  Himmelfahrt.' 

2  Ibid.,  article  •  Frauenberg ' ;  also  Oberle,  K.  A.,  Ueberreste  germ.  Heidentums  im 
Christentutn,  1883,  p.  38. 

»  Rochholz,  Drei  Gaugottinnen,  1870,  p.  81,  calls  it  Walburg;  Reinsberg-Duringsfeld, 
Traditions  et  legendes  de  la  Belgiqtie,  1870,  p.  286,  calls  it  Fro  or  Frigg. 

<  Simrock,  K.,  Handbuch  der  deutschen  Mythologie,  1887,  p.  379  ;  also  Grimm,  J., 
Deutsche  Mythologie,  1875,  p.  257. 

'  Comp.  below,  p.  35. 


12  The  Borderland  of  [chap,  i 

urged  that  the  days  of  heathen  festival  should  receive  solemnity 
through  dedication  to  some  holy  martyr^  The  Christian  saint 
whose  name  was  substituted  for  that  of  some  heathen  divinity 
readily  assimilated  associations  of  the  early  period.  Scriptural 
characters  and  Christian  teachers  were  given  the  emblems  of  older 
divinities  and  assumed  their  characteristics.  But  the  varying  nature 
of  the  same  saint  in  different  countries  has  hardly  received  due 
attention.  St  Peter  of  the  early  British  Church  was  very  different 
from  St  Peter  who  in  Bavaria  walked  the  earth  like  clumsy  good- 
natured  Thor,  or  from  St  Peter  who  in  Rome  took  the  place  of 
Mars  as  protector  of  the  city.  Similarly  the  legends  currently  told 
of  the  same  saint  in  different  countries  exhibit  markedly  different 
traits. 

For  the  transition  from  heathendom  to  Christianity  was  the 
work  not  of  years  but  of  centuries;  the  claims  made  by  religion 
changed,  but  the  underlying  conceptions  for  a  long  time  remained 
unaltered.  Customs  which  had  once  taken  a  divine  sanction 
continued  to  be  viewed  under  a  religious  aspect,  though  they  were 
often  at  variance  with  the  newly-introduced  faith.  The  craving  for 
local  divinities  in  itself  was  heathen  ;  in  course  of  time  the  cult  of 
the  saints  altogether  re-moulded  the  Christianity  of  Christ.  But 
the  Church  of  Rome,  far  from  opposing  the  multitude  of  those 
through  whom  the  folk  sought  intercession  with  the  Godhead, 
opened  her  arms  wide  to  all. 

At  the  outset  it  lay  with  the  local  dignitary  to  recognise  or 
reject  the  names  which  the  folk  held  in  veneration.  Religious 
settlements  and  Church  centres  regulated  days  and  seasons 
according  to  the  calendar  of  the  chief  festivals  of  the  year,  as 
accepted  by  the  Church  at  Rome ;  but  the  local  dignitary  was  at 
liberty  to  add  further  names  to  the  list  at  his  discretion.  For 
centuries  there  was  no  need  of  canonisation  to  elevate  an  individual 
to  the  rank  of  saint ;  the  inscribing  of  his  name  on  a  local  calendar 
was  suflficient.  Local  calendars  went  on  indefinitely  swelling  the 
list  of  saintly  names  till  the  Papal  See  felt  called  upon  to  interfered 
Since  the  year  1153  the  right  to  declare  a  person  a  saint  has  lain 
altogether  with  the  authorities  at  Rome^ 

Considering   the   circumstances   under   which    the   peoples   of 

*  Bede,  Ecclesiastical  History,  i,  ch.  30. 

'  On  English  calendars,  Piper,  F.,  Kalendarien  und  Martyrologien  der  Angelscuhsen, 
1862;  Stanton,  R.,  Menology  of  England  and  Wales,  1887. 

*  Stadler  und  Heim,  Vollsldndigts  Heiligenlexicon,  1858-62,  vol.  2,  Einleitung. 


SECT,  i]  Heathendom  and  Christianity.  13 

German  race  first  came  into  contact  with  Christianity,  it  is  well  to 
recall  the  fact  that  a  busy  Church  life  had  grown  up  in  many  of  the 
cities  north  of  the  Alps,  which  were  centres  of  the  Roman  system 
of  administration  previous  to  the  upheaval  and  migration  of 
German  heathen  tribes,  which  began  in  the  fourth  century.  Legend 
has  preserved  stories  of  the  apostles  and  their  disciples  wandering 
northwards  and  founding  early  bishoprics  along  the  Rhine,  in  Gaul 
and  in  Britain  \  The  massacres  of  Christians  in  the  reign  of 
Diocletian  cannot  be  altogether  fabulous;  but  after  the  year  313, 
when  Constantine  at  Rome  officially  accepted  the  new  faith,  until 
the  German  invasion,  the  position  of  Christianity  was  well  secured. 

A  certain  development  of  monastic  life  had  accompanied  its 
spread.  In  western  Gaul  we  hear  of  Martin  of  Tours  (t400)  who, 
after  years  of  military  service  and  religious  persecution,  settled  near 
Poitiers  and  drew  about  him  many  who  joined  him  in  a  round  of 
devotion  and  work.  The  monastic,  or  rather  coenobite,  settlement 
of  his  time  consisted  of  a  number  of  wattled  cells  or  huts, 
surrounded  by  a  trench  or  a  wall  of  earth.  The  distinction 
between  the  earlier  word,  coenobium,  and  the  later  word,  mona- 
steriimi,  as  used  in  western  Europe,  lies  in  this,  that  the  coenobium 
designates  the  assembled  worshippers  alone,  while  the  monastery 
presupposes  the  possession  of  a  definite  site  of  land^.  In  this 
sense  the  word  monastery  is  as  fitly  applied  to  settlements  ruled 
by  women  as  to  those  ruled  by  men,  especially  during  the  early 
period  when  these  settlements  frequently  include  members  of  both 
sexes.  St  Martin  of  Tours  is  also  credited  with  having  founded 
congregations  of  religious  women^  but  I  have  found  nothing 
definite  concerning  them. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  Christian  life  of  the  British  is  very 
limited  ;  presumably  the  religious  settlement  was  a  school  both 
of  theology  and  of  learning,  and  no  line  of  distinction  divided  the 
settlements  of  priests  from  those  of  monks.  From  Gildas,  a 
British  writer,  who  at  the  time  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  invasion  (c.  560) 
wrote  a  stern  invective  against  the  irreligious  ways  of  his  country- 
men, we  gather  that  women  lived  under  the  direction  of  priests,  but 
it  is  not  clear  whether  they  were  vowed  to  continence*.     But  as  far 

'  For  France,  Guettee,  Histoire  de  V&glise  de  France,  1847-55,  ^ol-  '»  P-  ' »  for 
England,  Bright,  W.,  Early  English  Church  History,  1878,  pp.  i  ff. ;  for  Germany, 
Friedrich,  Kirchengeschichte,  1867,  vol.  i,  pp.  86  ff. 

"  Ducange,  Glossarium  :  '  coenobium.' 

^  Dupuy,  A.,  Histoire  de  S.  Martin,  1852,  p.  176.  *  Gildas,  Epistle,  c.  66. 


14  The  Borderland  of  [chap,  i 

as  I  am  aware,  there  is  no  evidence  forthcoming  that  before  the 
Saxon  invasion  women  lived  in  separate  religious  establishments, 
the  rule  of  which  was  in  the  hands  of  one  of  their  own  sex\ 

The  convent  is  of  later  date.  During  the  early  centuries  of 
established  Christianity  the  woman  who  takes  the  vow  of  conti- 
nence secures  the  protection  of  the  Church  but  does  not  necessarily 
leave  her  home-surroundings. 

Thus  Ambrosius,  archbishop  of  Milan  (-f-  397),  one  of  the  most 
influential  supporters  of  early  Christianity,  greatly  inflamed 
women's  zeal  for  a  celibate  life.  But  in  the  writings  of  Ambrosius, 
which  treat  of  virginity,  there  is  no  suggestion  that  the  widow  or 
the  maiden  who  vows  continence  shall  seek  seclusion  or  solitude^ 
Women  vowed  to  continence  moved  about  freely,  secure  through 
their  connection  with  the  Church  from  distasteful  unions  which 
their  relatives  might  otherwise  force  upon  them.  Their  only  dis- 
tinctive mark  was  the  use  of  a  veil. 

Similarly  we  find  Hilarius  (t369),  bishop  of  Poitiers,  addressing 
a  letter  to  his  daughter  Abra  on  the  beauties  of  the  unmarried  state. 
In  this  he  assures  her,  that  if  she  be  strong  enough  to  renounce 
an  earthly  bridegroom,  together  with  gay  and  splendid  apparel,  a 
priceless  pearl  shall  fall  to  her  shared  But  in  this  letter  also  there 
is  no  suggestion  that  the  woman  who  embraces  religion  should  dwell 
apart  from  her  family.  It  is  well  to  bear  this  in  mind,  for  after  the 
acceptance  of  Christianity  by  the  peoples  of  German  race,  we 
occasionally  hear  of  women  who,  though  vowed  to  religion,  move 
about  freely  among  their  fellows  ;  but  Church  councils  and  synods 
began  to  urge  more  and  more  emphatically  that  this  was  productive 
of  evil,  and  that  a  woman  who  had  taken  the  religious  vow  must  be 
a  member  of  a  convent. 

To  sum  up  ; — the  peoples  of  German  race,  at  the  time  of  their 
contact  with  Christianity,  were  in  a  state  of  social  development 
which  directly  affected  the  form  in  which  they  accepted  the 
new  faith  and  the  institutions  to  which  such  acceptance  gave 
rise.     Some  branches  of  the  race,  deserting  the  land  of  their  birth, 

'  In  Ireland  we  hear  of  nunneries  founded  by  St  Bridget  in  the  fifth  century,  the  chief 
of  which  was  at  Kildare ;  also  that  this  saint  crossed  the  Irish  Sea  and  founded  nunneries 
at  Glastonbury  in  England  and  at  Abemethy  in  Scotland.  The  accounts  of  the  work  of 
Bridget  are  numerous,  but  have  not  been  subjected  to  criticism.  Comp.  A.  SS.  Boll., 
St  Brigida,  Feb.  i,  and  Lanigan,  Eccles.  History  of  Ireland,  1829,  i,  pp.  377  ff. 

^  Ambrosius,  Opera  (edit.  Migne,  Patrol.  Cursus  Comp.  vol.  16),  Devirginibus,  p.  187  ; 
(vol.  17)  Ad  virginem  devotam,  p.  579. 

'  Hilarius,  Opera  (edit.  Migne,  vol.  10),  Ad  Abram,  p.  547. 


SECT,  i]  Heathendo7n  and  Christianity.  15 

came  into  contact  with  peoples  of  Latin  origin,  and  embraced 
Christianity  under  a  form  which  excluded  monasticism,  and  soon 
lost  their  identity  as  Germans.  Others,  as  the  Franks  and  Anglo- 
Saxons,  giving  up  the  worship  of  their  heathen  gods,  accepted 
orthodox  Christianity,  and  favoured  the  mode  of  life  of  those  who 
followed  peaceful  pursuits  in  the  monastery,  pursuits  which  their 
wives  especially  were  eager  to  embrace.  Again,  those  peoples  who 
remained  in  possession  of  their  earlier  homes  largely  preserved 
usages  dating  from  a  primitive  period  of  tribal  organization, 
usages  which  affected  the  position  of  their  women  and  determined 
the  character  of  their  women-saints.  It  is  to  Germany  proper  that 
we  must  go  for  the  woman-priestess  who  lives  on  longest  as  the 
witch,  and  for  the  loose  women  who  most  markedly  retain  special 
rights  and  privileges.  And  it  is  also  in  Germany  proper  that  we 
find  the  woman-saint  who  is  direct  successor  to  the  tribal  mother- 
goddess. 

§  2.    The  Tribal  Goddess  as  a  Christian  Saint. 

Before  considering  the  beginnings  of  convent  life  as  the  work  of 
women  whose  existence  rests  on  a  firm  historic  basis,  we  must 
enquire  into  the  nature  of  women-saints.  From  the  earliest  times 
of  established  Christianity  the  lives  of  men  and  women  who  were 
credited  with  special  holiness  have  formed  a  favourite  theme  of 
religious  narratives,  which  were  intended  to  keep  their  memory 
green  and  to  impress  the  devout  with  thoughts  of  their  saintliness. 

The  Acts  of  the  Saints,  the  comprehensive  collection  of  which  is 
now  in  course  of  publication  under  the  auspices  of  the  Bollandists, 
form  a  most  important  branch  of  literature.  They  include  some 
of  the  most  valuable  material  for  a  history  of  the  first  ten  centuries 
of  our  era,  and  give  a  most  instructive  insight  into  the  drift  of 
Christianity  in  different  epochs.  The  aims,  experiences  and  suffer- 
ings of  Christian  heroes  and  heroines  inspired  the  student  and  fired 
the  imagination  of  the  poet.  Prose  narrative  told  of  their  lives, 
poems  were  written  in  their  praise,  and  hymns  were  composed  to  be 
sung  at  the  celebration  of  their  office.  The  godly  gained  confidence 
from  the  perusal  of  such  compositions,  and  the  people  hearing 
them  read  or  sung  were  impressed  in  favour  of  Christian  doctrine. 

The  number  of  men  and  women  whom  posterity  has  glorified  as 
saints  is  legion.  Besides  the  characters  of  the  accepted  and  the 
apocryphal   gospels,   there   are   the   numerous   early  converts   to 


1 6  T^ie   Tribal  Goddess  as  [chap,  i 

Christianity  who  suffered  for  their  faith,  and  all  those  who  during 
early  Christian  times  turned  their  energies  to  practising  and  preach- 
ing the  tenets  of  the  new  religion,  and  to  whose  memory  a  loving 
recollection  paid  the  tribute  of  superstitious  reverence.  Their 
successors  in  the  work  of  Christianity  accepted  them  as  patron 
saints  and  added  their  names  to  the  list  of  those  to  whose  memory 
special  days  were  dedicated.  Many  of  them  are  individuals  whose 
activity  in  the  cause  of  Christianity  is  well  authenticated.  Friends 
have  enlarged  on  their  work,  contemporary  history  refers  to  their 
existence,  and  often  they  have  themselves  left  writings,  which  give 
an  insight  into  their  lives.  They  are  the  early  and  true  saints  of 
history,  on  whose  shoulders  in  some  cases  the  cloak  of  heathen 
association  has  fallen,  but  without  interfering  with  their  great  and 
lasting  worth. 

But  besides  those  who  were  canonised  for  their  enthusiasm  in 
the  cause  of  early  Christianity,  the  Acts  of  the  Saints  mention  a 
number  of  men  and  women  who  enjoy  local  reverence,  but  of 
whose  actual  existence  during  Christian  times  evidence  is  wanting. 
Among  them  are  a  certain  number  of  women  with  whom  the 
present  chapter  purposes  to  deal,  women  who  are  locally  wor- 
shipped as  saints,  and  whose  claims  to  holiness  are  generally 
recognised,  but  whose  existence  during  Christian  times  is  hypo- 
thetical. Their  legends  contain  a  small,  in  some  cases  a  scarcely 
sensible,  basis  of  historic  fact,  and  their  cult  preserves  traits  which 
are  pre-Christian,  often  anti-Christian,  in  character. 

The  traveller  Blunt,  during  a  stay  in  Italy  in  the  beginning  of 
this  century,  was  struck  with  the  many  points  which  modern  saints 
and  ancient  gods  have  in  common.  He  gives  a  description  of  the 
festival  of  St  Agatha  at  Catania,  of  which  he  was  an  eye-witness, 
and  which  to  this  day,  as  I  have  been  told,  continues  little  changed. 
The  festival,  as  Blunt  describes  it,  opened  with  a  horse-race,  which 
he  knew  from  Ovid  was  one  of  the  spectacles  of  the  festival  of  the 
goddess  Ceres ;  and  further  he  witnessed  a  mummery  and  the 
carrying  about  of  huge  torches,  both  of  which  he  also  knew  formed 
part  of  the  old  pagan  festival.  But  more  remarkable  than  this  was 
a  great  procession  which  began  in  the  evening  and  lasted  into  the 
night;  hundreds  of  citizens  crowded  to  draw  through  the  town 
a  ponderous  car,  on  which  were  placed  the  image  of  the  saint 
and  her  relics,  which  the  priests  exhibited  to  the  ringing  of  bells. 
Among  these  relics  were  the  veil  of  Agatha,  to  which  is  ascribed 
the  power  of  staying  the  eruption  of  Mount  Aetna,  and  the  breasts 


SECT,  ii]  a  Christian  Saint.  ly 

of  the  saint,  which  were  torn  oflf  during  her  martyrdom^  Catania, 
Blunt  knew,  had  ahvays  been  famous  for  the  worship  of  Ceres,  and 
the  ringing  of  bells  and  a  veil  were  marked  features  of  her  festivals, 
the  greater  and  the  lesser  Eleusinia.  Menzel  tells  us  that  huge 
breasts  were  carried  about  on  the  occasion  ^  Further,  Blunt  heard 
that  two  festivals  took  place  yearly  in  Catania  in  honour  of 
Agatha ;  one  early  in  the  spring,  the  other  in  the  autumn,  exactly 
corresponding  to  the  time  when  the  greater  and  lesser  Eleusinia 
were  celebrated.  Even  the  name  Agatha  seemed  but  a  taking 
over  into  the  new  religion  of  a  name  sacred  to  the  old.  Ceres  was 
popularly  addressed  as  Bona  Dea,  and  the  name  Agatha,  which  does 
not  occur  as  a  proper  name  during  ancient  times,  seemed  but  a 
translation  of  the  Latin  epithet  into  Greek. 

The  legend  of  Agatha  as  contained  in  the  Acta  Sanctorum 
places  her  existence  in  the  third  century  and  gives  full  details 
concerning  her  parentage,  her  trials  and  her  martyrdom  ;  but  I 
have  not  been  able  to  ascertain  when  it  was  written,  Agatha  is 
the  chief  saint  of  the  district  all  about  Catania,  and  we  are  told 
that  her  fame  penetrated  at  an  early  date  into  Italy  and  Greece^. 

It  is  of  course  impossible  actually  to  disprove  the  existence  of 
a  Christian  maiden  Agatha  in  Catania  in  the  third  century.  Some 
may  incline  to  the  view  that  such  a  maiden  did  exist,  and  that  a 
strange  likeness  between  her  experiences  and  name  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  cult  of  and  epithet  applied  to  Ceres  on  the  other, 
led  to  the  popular  worship  of  her  instead  of  the  ancient  goddess. 
The  question  of  her  existence  as  a  Christian  maiden  during  Christian 
times  can  only  be  answered  by  a  balance  of  probabilities.  Our 
opinion  of  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  the  traditions  concerning  her 
rests  on  inference,  and  the  conclusion  at  which  we  arrive  upon 
the  evidence  must  largely  depend  on  the  attitude  of  mind  in  which 
we  approach  the  subject. 

The  late  Professor  Robertson  Smith  has  insisted  that  myths  are 
latter-day  inventions  which  profess  to  explain  surviving  peculiarities 
of  ritual.  If  this  be  so,  we  hold  in  the  Eleusinia  a  clue  to  the 
incidents  of  the  Agatha  legend.  The  story  for  example  of  her  veil, 
which  remained  untouched  by  the  flames  when  she  was  burnt,  may  be 
a  popular  myth  which  tries  to  account  for  the  presence  of  the  veil  at 

•  Blunt,  J,  J.,  Vestiges  of  Ancient  Manners  in  Italy  and  Sicily,  1843,  pp.  56  ff, 
2  Menzel,  W.,  Christl.  Symbolik,  1854,  article  'Brust,'  makes  this  statement.    I  do  not 
see  where  he  takes  it  from. 

«  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Agatha,  Feb.  5. 

E.  2 


1 8  The   Tribal  Goddess  as  [chap,  i 

the  festival.  The  incident  of  the  breasts  torn  off  during  martyrdom 
was  invented  to  account  for  the  presence  of  these  strange  symbols. 

Instances  of  this  kind  could  be  indefinitely  multiplied.  Let  the 
reader,  who  wishes  to  pursue  the  subject  on  classic  soil,  examine 
the  name,  the  legend  and  the  emblem  of  St  Agnes,  virgin  martyr 
of  Rome,  who  is  reputed  to  have  lived  in  the  third  century  and 
whose  cult  is  well  established  in  the  fourth;  let  him  enquire 
into  the  name,  legend  and  associations  of  St  Rosalia  of  Palermo, 
invoked  as  a  protectress  from  the  plague,  of  whom  no  mention 
occurs  till  four  centuries  after  her  reputed  existence\ 

I  have  chosen  Agatha  as  a  starting  point  for  the  present 
enquiry,  because  there  is  much  evidence  to  hand  of  the  prevalence 
of  mother-deities  in  pre-Christian  Sicily,  and  because  the  exami- 
nation of  German  saint-legend  and  saint-worship  leads  to  analogous 
results.  In  Germany  too  the  mother  divinity  of  heathendom  seems 
to  survive  in  the  virgin  saint;  and  in  Germany  virgin  saints,  in 
attributes,  cult  and  name,  exhibit  peculiarities  which  it  seems 
impossible  to  explain  save  on  the  hypothesis  that  traditions  of  the 
heathen  past  survive  in  them.  So  much  is  associated  with  them 
which  is  pre-Christian,  even  anti-Christian  in  character,  that  it 
seems  legitimate  to  speak  of  them  as  pseudo-saints. 

I  own  it  is  not  always  possible  to  distinguish  between  the 
historical  saint  and  the  pseudo-saint.  Sometimes  data  are  wanting 
to  disprove  the  statements  made  by  the  legend-writer  about  time 
and  place ;  sometimes  information  is  not  forthcoming  about  local 
traditions  and  customs,  which  might  make  a  suggestive  trait  in 
saint-legend  stand  out  in  its  full  meaning.  In  some  cases  also, 
owing  to  a  coincidence  of  name,  fictitious  associations  have  become 
attached  to  a  real  personage.  But  these  cases  I  believe  are  com- 
paratively few.  As  a  general  rule  it  holds  good  that  a  historical 
saint  will  be  readily  associated  with  miraculous  powers,  but  not  with 
profane  and  anti-Christian  usages.  Where  the  latter  occur  it  is 
probable  that  no  evidence  will  be  forthcoming  of  the  saint's  actual 
existence  during  Christian  times.  If  she  represents  a  person  who 
ever  existed  at  all,  such  a  person  must  have  lived  in  a  far-distant 
heathen  past,  at  a  time  which  had  nothing  in  common  with 
Christian  teaching  and  with  Christian  tenets. 

There  is  this  further  peculiarity  about  the  woman  pseudo-saint 
of  Germany,  that  she  is  especially  the  saint  of  the  peasantry ;  so 
that  we  rarely  hear  more  of  her  than  perhaps  her  name  till  centuries 

*  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Agnes,  Jan.  21  ;  St  Rosalia,  Sept.  4. 


SECT,  ii]  a  Christian  Saint.  19 

after  her  reputed  existence.  Early  writers  of  history  and  biography 
have  failed  to  chronicle  her  doings.  Indeed  we  do  not  hear  of  her 
at  all  till  we  hear  of  her  cult  as  one  of  long  standing  or  of  great 
importance. 

It  is  only  when  the  worship  of  such  saints,  who  in  the  eyes  of 
the  common  folk  are  the  chief  glory  of  their  respective  districts, 
attracts  the  attention  of  the  Church,  that  the  legend-writer  sets  to 
work  to  write  their  legends.  He  begins  by  ascribing  to  the  holder 
of  a  venerated  name  human  parentage  and  human  experiences,  he 
collects  and  he  blends  the  local  traditions  associated  with  the  saint 
on  a  would-be  historical  background,  and  makes  a  story  which 
frequently  offers  a  curious  mixture  of  the  Christian  and  the  profane. 
Usually  he  places  the  saint's  existence  in  the  earliest  period  of 
Christianity;  sometimes  at  a  time  when  Christianity  was  unknown 
in  the  neighbourhood  where  she  is  the  object  of  reverence. 

Moreover  all  these  saints  are  patronesses  of  women  in  their 
times  of  special  trial.  Their  cult  generally  centres  round  a  cave,  a 
fountain  of  peculiar  power,  a  tree,  or  some  other  site  of  primitive 
woman-worship.  Frequently  they  are  connected  with  some  peculiar 
local  custom  which  supplies  the  clue  to  incidents  introduced  by  the 
legend-writer.  And  even  when  the  clue  is  wanting,  it  is  sometimes 
possible  to  understand  one  legend  by  reading  it  in  the  light  of 
another.  Obscure  as  the  parallels  are  in  some  cases,  in  others 
they  are  strikingly  clear. 

The  recognised  holiness  of  the  woman  pseudo-saint  is  in  no 
way  determined  by  the  limit  of  bishopric  and  diocese ;  she  is 
worshipped  within  geographical  limits,  but  within  limits  which  have 
not  been  marked  out  by  the  Church.  It  was  mentioned  above  that 
separate  districts  of  Germany,  or  rather  tribes  occupying  such  dis- 
tricts, clung  to  a  belief  in  protective  mother-goddesses  (Gaumiitter). 
Possibly,  where  the  name  of  a  pseudo-saint  is  found  localised  in 
contiguous  districts,  this  may  afford  a  clue  to  the  migration  of  tribes. 

The  Acta  Sanctorum  give  information  concerning  a  large  number 
of  pseudo-saints,  but  this  information  to  be  read  in  its  true  light 
needs  to  be  supplemented  by  further  details  of  local  veneration  and 
cult.  Such  details  are  found  in  older  books  of  devotion,  and  in 
modern  books  on  mythology  and  folk-lore.  Modern  religious 
writers,  who  treat  of  these  saints,  are  in  the  habit  of  leaving  out  or 
of  slurring  over  all  details  which  suggest  profanity.  Compared 
with  older  legends,  modern  accounts  of  the  saints  are  limp  and 
colourless,  and  share  the  weak  sentimentality,  which  during  the 

2 — 2 


20  The  Tribal  Goddess  as  [chap,  i 

last  few  centuries  has  come  to  pervade  the  conceptions  of  Catholic 
Christianity  as  represented  in  pictorial  art. 

The  names  of  a  number  of  women  whom  the  people  hold  in 
veneration  have  escaped  the  attention  of  the  compilers  of  the  Acta 
Sanctonnn,  or  else  they  have  been  purposely  passed  over  because 
their  possessors  were  held  unworthy  of  the  rank  of  saint.  But  the 
stories  locally  told  of  them  are  worth  attention,  and  the  more  so 
because  they  throw  an  additional  light  on  the  stories  of  recognised 
saints. 

The  larger  number  of  recognised  pseudo-saints  are  found  in  the 
districts  into  which  Christianity  spread  as  a  religion  of  peace,  or  in 
remoter  districts  where  the  power  of  the  Church  was  less  immediately 
felt.  They  are  found  most  often  north  of  the  Danube  and  east  of 
the  Rhine,  especially  in  the  lake  districts  of  Bavaria  and  Switzerland, 
in  the  marshy  wilds  of  the  Low  Countries,  and  in  the  remote  forest 
regions  of  the  Ardennes,  the  Black  Forest,  the  Spessart  or  the 
Vosges.  Where  Christianity  was  established  as  the  result  of  political 
subjection,  as  for  example  among  the  Saxons,  the  woman  pseudo- 
saint  is  hardly  found  at  all.  Perhaps  the  heathenism  of  the  Saxons 
differed  from  the  heathenism  of  other  German  folk  ;  perhaps,  like 
the  Anglo-Saxons  in  England,  the  Saxons  were  conquerors  of  the 
land  they  inhabited  and  by  moving  out  of  their  old  homes  had  lost 
their  local  associations  and  their  primitive  cult.  But,  however  this 
may  be,  it  is  not  where  Christianity  advanced  at  the  point  of  the 
lance,  but  in  the  districts  where  its  spread  was  due  to  detached 
efforts  of  missionaries,  that  the  woman  pseudo-saint  is  most  fre- 
quently met  with. 

Wandering  away  into  forest  wilds,  where  scattered  clearings  lay 
like  islets  in  an  ocean,  the  missionary  sought  a  retreat  remote  from 
the  interference  of  government,  remote  also  from  the  interference 
of  the  episcopate,  where  he  could  realise  his  hope  of  living  a  worthier 
life.  Naturally  his  success  largely  depended  on  his  securing  the 
goodwill  of  the  people  in  whose  neighbourhood  he  settled.  He  was 
obliged  to  adapt  himself  to  their  mode  of  thought  if  he  would  win 
favour  for  his  faith,  and  to  realise  their  views  if  he  wished  to  modify 
them  in  the  direction  of  his  own.  To  bridge  over  the  abyss  which 
separated  his  standard  of  life  from  theirs,  he  was  bound  to  defer 
whenever  he  could  to  their  sentiments  and  to  their  conceptions  of 
holiness. 

How  far  these  holy  men  ignored,  how  far  they  countenanced, 
the  worship  of  local  divinities,  necessarily  remains  an  open  question. 


SECT,  ii]  a  Christian  Saint.  21 

Rightly  or  wrongly  popular  tradition  readily  coupled  the  names  of 
these  early  Christians  with  those  of  its  favourite  women-saints. 

Thus  Willibrord,  the  Anglo-Saxon  missionary  who  settled 
abroad  in  the  eighth  century,  is  said  to  have  taken  up  and 
translated  relics  of  the  woman-saint  Cunera  and  to  have  recognised 
her  claim  to  veneration  ;  her  cult  is  localised  in  various  places  near 
Utrecht.  The  life  of  Willibrord  (t  739),  written  by  Alcuin  (f  804), 
contains  no  mention  of  Cunera,  for  the  information  we  have 
concerning  Willibrord's  interest  in  her  is  to  be  found  in  the 
account  of  her  life  written  centuries  later*.  This  account  offers 
such  a  picturesque  medley  of  chronological  impossibilities  that 
the  commentators  of  the  Acta  Sanctorum  have  entirely  recast  it. 

The  gist  of  the  legend  as  told  in  the  beginning  of  the  14th 
century  is  as  follows^  Cunera  was  among  the  virgin  companions 
of  St  Ursula,  and  the  date  of  her  murder,  near  Coin,  is  given  as 
387,  or  as  449.  Before  the  murder  Cunera  was  borne  away  from 
Coin  by  King  Radbod  of  Friesland,  who  covered  her  with  his  cloak, 
an  ancient  symbolic  form  of  appropriation.  Arrived  at  Renen  he 
entrusted  her  with  the  keys  of  his  kingdom,  which  incensed  his 
wedded  wife  to  such  an  extent  that  she  caused  Cunera  to  be 
strangled  and  the  body  hidden  away.  But  the  site  where  the 
saint  lay  was  miraculously  pointed  out,  and  the  wicked  queen  went 
mad  and  destroyed  herself  In  vain  we  ask  why  a  king  of  the 
Frisians,  who  persistently  clung  to  their  heathendom,  should  be 
interested  in  a  Christian  virgin  and  carry  her  off  to  preside  over 
his  household,  and  in  vain  we  look  for  the  assertion  or  for  the  proof 
that  Cunera  was  a  Christian  at  all.  The  Acta  Sanctorum  reject 
the  connection  between  Cunera  and  St  Ursula  of  Coin,  but  the 
writer  Kist,  who  considers  her  to  have  been  a  real  Christian 
individual,  argues  in  favour  of  it.  In  the  12th  century  we  find 
a  certain  Adelheid  swearing  to  the  rightfulness  of  her  cause  on  the 
relics  of  St  Cunera  at  Renen '. 

Similarly  the  story  goes  that  Agilfrid,  abbot  of  the  monastery  of 
St  Bavon  in  Flanders,  afterwards  bishop  of  Li6ge  (765 — 787),  about 
the  year  754  acquired  the  relics  of  the  woman-saint  Pharaildis 
and  brought  them  to  Ghent  ^  When  the  Northmen  ravaged 
Flanders  in  846  the  bones  of  Pharaildis  were  among  those  carried 

'  A,  SS.  Boll,,  St  Cunera,  June  12. 

^  Kist,  N.  C,  in  Kerkhistoriich  Archiv,  Amsterdam,  1858,  vol.  2,  p.  70. 

'^  Vita  St  Meinwerci,  bishop  of  Paderborn  (1009-39),  written  about  11 55  (Potthast), 

c.  37-  -     -- 

*  Hautcoeur,  Actes  de  Ste  FharailJe,  1882,  Introduction,  p.  xc. 


2  2  The  Tribal  Goddess  as  [chap,  i 

away  to  St  Omer  by  the  Christians  as  their  most  valued  possession, 
and  in  939  they  were  brought  back  to  Ghent  ^ 

The  legend  of  Pharaildis  gives  no  clue  to  the  Christian  interest 
in  her,  nor  to  the  veneration  of  her,  which  is  localised  at  Ghent, 
Hamm,  Steenockerzeel,  and  Loo.  We  hear  that  she  was  married 
against  her  inclination,  that  she  cured  her  husband  who  was  a 
huntsman  of  a  wound,  and  that  after  his  death  she  dwelt  in  solitude 
to  an  advanced  age,  and  that  occasionally  she  wrought  miracles. 
Further,  in  popular  belief,  she  crossed  the  water  drj'shod,  she  chased 
away  geese  from  the  corn,  and  she  struck  the  ground  and  the  holy 
fountain  at  Bruay  welled  up  for  the  benefit  of  the  harvesters — 
incidents  which  are  not  peculiar  to  her  legend.  The  festival  of 
Pharaildis  is  kept  on  different  dates  at  Ghent,  Cambray,  Maastricht 
and  Breda.  At  Ghent  it  is  associated  with  a  celebrated  fair,  the 
occasion  for  great  rejoicings  among  the  populace.  At  the  church  of 
Steenockerzeel  stones  of  conical  shape  are  kept  which  are  carried 
round  the  altar  on  her  festival",  in  the  same  way  as  stones  are 
kept  elsewhere  and  considered  by  some  writers  to  be  symbols  of 
an  ancient  phallic  cult.  The  legend  explains  the  presence  of  these 
stones  by  telling  how  the  saint  one  day  was  surreptitiously  giving 
loaves  to  the  poor,  when  her  act  would  have  been  discovered  but 
that  by  intercession  the  loaves  were  transformed  into  stones.  This 
incident,  the  transformation  of  gifts  secretly  given  to  the  poor, 
is  introduced  into  the  legends  of  other  women-saints,  but  only  in 
this  case  have  I  found  it  mentioned  that  the  transformed  food  was 
preserved.  We  shall  have  occasion  to  return  to  Pharaildis,  whose 
legend  and  cult  offer  nothing  to  support  the  view  that  she  was  an 
early  Christian. 

There  are  numerous  instances  of  a  like  connection  between  holy 
missionary  and  woman  pseudo-saint.  A  fair  example  is  yielded 
by  Leodgar  (St  Leger)  bishop  of  Autun  (f  ^y%),  a  well-defined 
historical  personality ',  whom  tradition  makes  into  a  near  relative  of 
Odilia,  a  saint  widely  venerated,  but  whose  reputed  foundation  of 
the  monastery  on  the  Hohenburg  modern  criticism  utterly  discards*. 

But  it  is  not  only  Christian  missionaries  who  are  associated 
with  these  women-saints.  Quite  a  number  of  saints  have  been 
brought  into   connection    with   the   house   of  the    Karlings,   and 

^  A.  SS.  Boll.,  Gloria  posthuma  St  Bavonis,  Oct.  i,  p.  261. 

'  Wauters,  A.,  Histoire  des  environs  de  Bruxelles,  1852,  vol.  3,  pp.  iii,  123  ff. 

»  A.  SS.  Boll.,  Vita  St  Leodgarii,  Oct.  ^. 

*  Roth,  K.  L.,  *St  Odilienberg '  in  Alsatia,  1856,  pp.  91  ff. 


SECT,  ii]  a  Christian  Saint.  23 

frequently  Karl  the  Great  himself  figures  in  the  stories  told  of 
them.  I  do  not  presume  to  decide  whether  the  legendary  accounts 
of  these  women  are  pure  invention ;  some  historic  truth  may  be 
embodied  in  the  stories  told  of  them.  But  judging  by  the 
material  at  hand  we  are  justified  in  disputing  the  existence  of 
St  Ida,  who  is  said  to  have  been  the  wife  of  Pippin  of  Landen 
and  ancestress  of  the  Karlings  on  the  sole  authority  of  the  life 
of  St  Gertrud,  her  daughter.  This  work  was  long  held  to  be 
contemporary,  but  its  earliest  date  is  now  admitted  to  be 
the  nth  century'.  It  is  less  easy  to  cast  discredit  on  the 
existence  of  the  saints  Amalberga,  the  one  a  virgin  saint,  the 
other  a  widow,  whom  hagiologists  find  great  difficulty  in  distin- 
guishing. Pharaildis,  mentioned  above,  and  the  saints  Ermelindis, 
Reinildis  and  Gudila,  are  said  to  be  Amalberga's  daughters,  but 
together  with  other  saints  of  Hainault  and  Brabant  they  are  very 
obviously  pseudo-saints.  The  idea  of  bringing  Karl  the  Great  into 
some  relation  with  them  may  have  arisen  from  a  twofold  desire  to 
justify  traditions  concerning  them  and  to  magnify  the  Emperor's 
importance. 

In  this  connection  it  seems  worth  while  to  quote  the  passage  in 
which  Grimm Mescfibes  the  characteristic  traits  of  the  German  god- 
dess in  his  German  Mythology,  and  to  consider  how  these  traits  are 
more  or  less  pronounced  in  the  women  we  have  called  pseudo-saints. 

'  It  seems  well,'  he  says,  in  the  opening  of  his  chapter  on 
goddesses,  *  to  treat  of  goddesses  collectively  as  well  as  individually, 
since  a  common  conception  underlies  them  all,  which  will  thus 
stand  out  the  more  clearly.  They  are  conceived  essentially  as 
divine  mothers,  travelling  about  and  visiting  mortals,  from  whom 
mankind  learn  the  ways  and  arts  of  housekeeping  and  tilth:  spinning, 
weavifig, guarding  the  Jiearth,  sowing  ^lX^^.  reaping'  (the  italics  are  his). 

The  tendency  of  the  goddess  to  wander  from  place  to  place 
is  reflected  in  many  women  pseudo-saints  who  are  represented 
in  their  legends  as  inhabiting  at  various  periods  of  their  lives 
different  parts  of  the  district  in  which  they  are  the  object  of 
veneration.  Verena  of  northern  Switzerland  dwelt  first  at 
Solothurn,  where  a   cave,  which  was  her  dwelling-place,  is  now 

^  Bonnell,  H.  E.,  Anfdnge  des  karolingischefi  Houses,  1866,  pp.  ^i,  149  etc.  It  is 
noticeable  that  another  woman-saint  Ida  {A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Ida,  Jui»-«o)  figures  as 
ancestral  mother  of  the  Liudolfings,  who  became  kings  in  Saxony  and  emperors  of  Germany, 
comp.  ^izxKz,  Jahrbiicher  des  daitschen  Reichs  unter  Heinrich  I.  1863,  Nachtrag  I. 

'  Grimm,  J.,  Dmische  Mythologie,  1875,  p.  207. 


24  The  Tribal  Goddess  as  [chap,  i 

transformed  into  a  chapel.  Later  she  took  boat  to  the  place  where 
the  Aar,  Reuss  and  Limmat  meet,  where  she  dwelt  in  solitude,  and 
her  memory  is  preserved  at  a  spot  called  the  cell  of  Verena 
(Verenazell).  Later  still  she  went  to  dwell  at  Zurzach,  a  place 
which  was  celebrated  for  a  fair,  called  Verena's  fair,  of  which  more 
anon.  All  these  places  are  on  or  near  the  river  Aar,  at  no  in- 
considerable distance  from  each  other.  The  legend,  as  told  by 
Stadler,  takes  them  all  into  account,  explaining  how  Verena  came 
to  be  connected  with  each  \ 

Similarly  the  legend  of  the  saint  Odilia^  referred  to  above 
in  connection  with  the  Hohenburg,  explains  how  the  saint  comes 
to  be  worshipped  on  both  sides  of  the  Rhine,  a  cruel  father 
having  driven  her  away  from  home.  On  the  eastern  side  of  the 
river  there  is  a  hill  of  St  Odilia,  Odilienberg,  where  there  is  a 
fountain  which  for  its  healing  powers  is  visited  twice  a  year  and 
the  site  of  which  is  guarded  by  a  hermit.  At  Scherweiler  there  is 
also  a  site  hallowed  to  her  worship,  and  local  tradition  explains 
that  she  stayed  there  as  a  child ;  according  to  another  version  she 
was  discovered  floating  in  a  wooden  chest  on  the  waterl  Finally 
she  is  said  to  have  settled  on  the  Hohenburg  west  of  the  Rhine 
and  to  have  founded  a  monastery.  The  critic  Roth  has  written 
an  admirable  article  on  Odilia  and  the  monastery  of  Hohen- 
burg. He  shows  that  the  monastery  was  ancient  and  that  at 
first  it  was  dedicated  to  Christ  and  St  Peter,  though  afterwards 
their  names  were  supplanted  by  that  of  St  Odilia*.  Here,  as 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine,  the  folk  celebrate  her  festival  by 
pilgrimages  to  a  fountain  which  has  miraculous  healing  power, 
and  by  giving  reverence  to  a  sacred  stone,  on  which  Odilia  is  said 
to  have  knelt  so  long  in  prayer  for  the  soul  of  her  wicked  father, 
that  her  knees  wore  holes  in  if. 

We  hear  that  other  saints  travelled  about  and  stayed  now 
at  one  place,  now  at  another.  St  Notburg  visited  different  parts 
of  the  Neckar  district*,  Godeleva  of  Ghistelles'  passed  some  time 
of  her  life  in  the  marshy  district  between  Ostend  and   Bruges. 

^  Stadler  und  Heim,  Vollstdndiges  Heiligenlexicon,  1858-82. 

*  Lebensgeschichte  der  heil.  Othilia.     Freiburg,  1852. 
^  Alsatia^  1858-60,  p.  268,  contains  local  stories. 

■•  Roth,  K.  L.,  'St  Odilienberg'  in  Alsatia,  1856,  p.  95. 
'  Menzel,  Christliche  Symbolik,  article  'Knieen.' 

•  Du  Bois  de  Beauchesne,  Madame  Ste  Notburg,  1888,  pp.  85,  197  etc.     Stadler  und 
Heim,  Vollstdndiges  Heiligenlexicon,  and  A.  SS.  Boll,  so  far,  omit  her. 

^  Lefeburc,  F.  A.,Ste  Godeleine  et  son  culte,  1888.    A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Godelewa,  July  6. 


SECT,  ii]  a  Christian  Saint.  25 

This  Godeleva  is  addressed  in  her  litany  as  the  saint  of  marriage  ; 
she  was  buried,  we  are  told,  in  a  cave,  which  was  held  holy  as  late 
as  the  present  century.  The  pond,  into  which  she  was  thrown  after 
death,  for  which  act  no  reason  is  given,  obtained,  and  still  retains, 
miraculous  healing  powers*.  Her  legend  in  other  respects  offers 
the  usual  traits.  She  is  Godeleva  in  some  parts  of  the  country; 
in  others  she  is  Godeleina,  and  her  life  according  to  Potthast  was 
written  in  the  i  ith  century  by  Drago,  a  monk  of  Ghistelles. 

It  is  a  curious  trait  in  German  saint-legend  that  the  saint  is 
often  spoken  of  as  coming  from  afar — from  across  the  sea,  from 
Britain,  from  Ireland,  even  from  the  Orkney  Isles.  It  is  thus 
with  Ursula  of  Coin,  Christiane  of  Dendermonde  (Termonde), 
Lucie  of  Sampigny  and  many  others.  The  idea  had  taken  root 
at  a  very  early  date  that  St  Walburg,  whose  cult  is  widespread, 
was  identical  with  a  sister  of  the  missionaries,  Wilibald  and 
Wunebald,  who  went  from  England  to  Germany  under  the 
auspices  of  the  prelate  Boniface  in  the  eighth  century.  We  shall 
return  to  her  further  on*.  It  is  sufficient  here  to  point  out  that 
there  is  little  likeness  between  the  sober-minded  womeji-mis- 
sionaries  of  Boniface's  circle  and  the  woman-saint  who  is  localised 
under  such  different  aspects,  sometimes  as  a  saint  whose  bones 
exude  oil  of  miraculous  power,  sometimes  as  a  valkyrie  who 
anoints  warriors  for  battle,  sometimes  as  a  witch  who  on  the  first 
of  May  leads  forth  her  train  to  nightly  riot  on  hill  tops'. 

Again  the  love  of  home  industry,  which  Grimm  claims  for 
mother  goddesses,  is  reflected  in  the  legends  of  many  saints,  to 
whose  real  existence  every  clue  is  wanting.  This  holds  good 
especially  of  spinning  and  of  weaving.  Lufthildis,  whose  date 
and  whose  very  name  are  uncertain,  is  represented  as  dwelling 
on  a  hill-top  near  a  village  and  marking  the  limits  of  her  district 
by  means  of  her  spindle,  which  is  preserved  and  can  be  seen  to 
this  day  in  the  chapel  of  Luftelberg,  the  hill  which  is  connected 
with  her*.  Lucie  of  Sampigny,  to  whose  shrine  women  who  are 
sterile  make  a  pilgrimage  in  order  to  sit  on  the  stone  consecrated 
to  her' ;  Walburg,  referred  to  above  ;  Germana,  whose  cult  appears 
at    Bar-sur-Aube®;    and   one    of  the   numerous    localised    saints 

'    Wonderlyk  Leven.     Cortryk  1800,  anon.,  pp.  42,  45  etc. 

^  Comp.  below,  ch.  4,  §  2. 

'  Rochholz,  L.,  Drei  Gaitgottinnm,  1870,  pp.  26,  80  etc. 

*  Simrock,  K.,  Handbuch  der  deutschen  Mythologie,  p.  389. 

"  Clouet,  Histoirede  Verdun,  p.  180;  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Lucie,  SepL  9. 

«  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Germana,  Oct.  i  ;  Husenbeth,  F.  C,  Emblems  of  the  Scunts,  1881. 


26  The   Tribal  Goddess  as  [chap,  i 

Gertrud',  are  all  connected  with  the  distaff.  In  the  church  of 
Frauenkirchen,  which  stands  near  the  site  of  the  celebrated  old 
abbey  of  Lach,  St  Genovefa  of  Brabant,  whose  legend  is  most 
picturesque  and  who  is  in  some  degree  akin  to  Genevieve  of 
Paris,  is  believed  to  be  sitting  behind  the  altar  from  which  the 
buzz  of  her  spinning-wheel  is  audible^ 

Again  the  protective  interest  in  silk  and  agriculture,  which 
Grimm  claims  for  the  German  goddess,  comes  out  in  connection 
with  the  pseudo-saint.  The  harvest  festival,  so  often  associated 
with  the  Virgin  Mary,  is  frequently  also  associated  with  the  name 
of  a  pseudo-saint.  Thus  we  find  these  saints  represented  with  ears 
of  corn,  as  Mary  too  has  been  represented ^  The  emblem  of  the 
three  ears  of  corn  was  probably  accepted  owing  to  Roman  influence. 
Verena  of  Zurzach,  Notburg  of  Rottenburg,  and  Walburg,  are 
all  pictured  holding  a  bunch  of  corn  in  one  hand.  Through 
the  intercession  of  Walburg  full  barns  are  secured,  while  Notburg 
or  Nuppurg  of  Rottenburg,  one  of  the  chief  saints  of  Bavaria,  to 
whose  shrine  many  pilgrimages  are  made,  holds  a  reaping  hook 
as  well  as  a  bunch  of  corn,  and  throughout  the  Tyrol  is  looked 
upon  as  patron  saint  of  the  peasantry*. 

At  Meerbeck  in  Brabant  corn  is  blessed  before  it  is  sown  under 
the  auspices  of  the  saint  Berlindis,  who  protects  tree  planting. 
She  is  a  saint  of  many  associations  and  we  shall  hear  more  of  her 
later'.  In  some  parts  of  Brabant  seed  sown  at  the  time  of  the  new 
moon  in  the  month  of  June  is  protected  by  the  saint  Alena.  We 
know  little  of  Alena  except  that  her  arm  was  torn  off  in  expiation 
of  an  unknown  trespass  and  is  kept  as  a  relic  in  the  church  of 
Voorst,  and  that  the  archduchess  Maria  Anna  of  Spain  sent  for 
this  relic  in  1685  in  the  hope  of  securing  a  son  by  means  of  the 
saint's  intercession*.  To  the  shrine  of  Lufthildis  corn  is  also 
brought  as  an  offering  to  be  distributed  among  the  poor,  while 
St  Gertrud  in  Belgium  protects  bean  and  pea  sowing^ 

*  Rochholz,  L.,  Drei  Gaugbttinnen,  p.  164. 

^  Zacher,  J.,  St  Genovefa  Pfahgrdfin,  i860,  p.  55. 

'  Menzel,  Christliche  Symbolik,  article  '  Aehre,'  refers  to  Notre  Dame  de  trots  ipis  in 
Elsass. 

*  Stadler  und  Heim,  Vollstdndiges  Heiligenlexicon,  St  Nothburga,  nr  2. 

'  Wauters,  A.,  Histoire  des  environs  de  Brtixelles,  i,  p.  302  ;  Coremans,  L'annee  de 
Pancienne  Belgique,  1844,  p.  76. 

*  A.SS.  Boll.,  St  Alena,  June  19;  Menzel,  W.,  Christliche  Sytnbolik,  1854,  article 
'Arm.'     Coremans,  L'antu'e  de  Pancientte  Belgique,  1844,  June  19. 

'  Coremans,  IJami^e  etc.,  p.  77. 


SECT,  ii]  a  Christian  Saint.  27 

Further  traits  in  saint  worship,  which  suggest  woman's  con- 
nection with  the  beginnings  of  settled  civilization,  are  found  in  the 
pseudo-saint's  frequent  association  with  cattle  and  dairy  produce. 

Peasants,  men  and  women,  may  be  seen  to  this  day  touching  in 
reverence  the  udder  of  the  cow  which  a  rudely  cut  relief  in  wood 
represents  by  the  side  of  the  saint  Berlindis  at  Meerbeck^ 
Gunthild,  the  patron  saint  of  Biberbach  in  Wurtemburg*,  is 
represented  holding  in  her  hand  a  milk-jug,  the  contents  of  which 
were  inexhaustible  during  her  lifetime.  The  connection  of  saints 
with  butter-making  is  frequent.  St  Radiane,  otherwise  called 
Radegund,  is  chiefly  worshipped  at  Wellenburg  near  Augsburg, 
and  her  intercession  secures  milk  and  butter  in  plenty  to  her 
worshippers.     She  was  torn  in  pieces  by  wolves'. 

Judging  by  her  cult  and  her  legends  the  pseudo-saint  practises 
and  protects  in  endless  ways  the  early  arts  of  settled  agriculture 
and  civilization.  She  herds  cattle,  she  guards  flocks  of  sheep,  she 
weaves  and  she  spins,  and  she  is  careful  of  the  dairy.  In  her 
representations  she  is  associated  with  '  emblems '  which  point  to 
these  various  interests,  and  we  find  her  holding  corn,  a  reaping- 
hook,  or  a  spindle.  Domestic  animals  are  pictured  by  her  side, 
most  frequently  sheep,  geese,  cows  and  dogs.  The  cat  appears 
rarely^  perhaps  because  it  was  associated  with  the  evil  side  of 
woman's  power.  The  besom  too,  the  ancient  symbol  of  woman's 
authority,  is  rarely,  if  ever',  put  into  the  saint's  hands,  perhaps 
for  a  similar  reason. 

One  other  peculiarity  remains  to  be  mentioned,  which  also  has 
its  counterpart  in  the  witches'  medicinal  and  curative  power.  The 
pseudo-saint's  relics  (after  death)  exude  oil  which  is  used  for 
medicinal  purposes.  This  peculiarity  is  noticed  of  the  bones  of 
the  saints  Walburg^  Rolendis^  and  Edigna^  but  it  is  also  noticed 
in  connection  with  the  relics  of  historical  saints. 

But  over  and  above  these  traits  in  the  character  of  the  pseudo- 
saint,  legend  often  points  to  a  heathen  custom  in  connection  with 

^  Reinsberg-Duringsfeld,  Traditions  et  legendcs  de  la  Belgique,  1870,  vol.  i,  p.  99. 
2  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Gunthildis,  Sept.  22. 

'  Imagines  SS.  Augustanorum,  1601 ;  also  Stadler  and  Heim,  Vollstiindiges  Heili^n- 
lexicon,  St  Radegundis,  nr  3. 

*  Pharaildis  has  been  depicted  with  one,  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Pharaildis,  Jan.  4 ;  also 
Verena,  comp.  below. 

**  Husenbeth,  F.  C,  Emblems  of  the  Saints,  1870,  mentions  one  instance. 

•  Rochholz,  Drei  Gaugiittinnen,  1870,  p.  7. 

'  Stadler  und  Heim,  Vollstdndiges  Heiligenlexicon ;  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Rolendis,  May  13. 
8  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Edigna,  Feb.  16. 


28        The   Tribal  Goddess  as  a  Christian  Saint,    [chap,  i 

her  of  which  we  have  definite  information.  Tacitus  tells  how 
the  image  of  the  German  goddess  Nerthus  was  carried  about  on 
festive  occasions  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  cows.  The  pseudo-saint 
either  during  her  lifetime  or  after  her  death  was  often  similarly 
conveyed.  Sometimes  the  animals  put  themselves  to  her  chariot 
of  their  own  accord,  frequently  they  stopped  of  their  own  accord  at 
the  particular  spot  which  the  saint  wished  to  be  her  last  resting- 
place.  Legend  tells  us  of  such  incidents  in  connection  also  with 
historical  saints,  both  men  and  women,  and  we  hear  further  that 
the  relics  of  saints  sometimes  and  quite  suddenly  became  so  heavy 
that  it  was  impossible  to  move  them,  a  sure  sign  that  it  was  safest 
not  to  try. 

So  far  the  parallels  between  mother-goddess  and  woman  pseudo- 
saint  recall  the  practices  of  the  heathen  past,  without  actually 
offending  against  the  tenor  of  Christianity.  But  the  pseudo-saint 
has  other  associations  of  which  this  cannot  be  said,  associations 
which  are  utterly  perplexing,  unless  we  go  back  for  their  explana- 
tion to  the  ancient  tribal  usages  when  the  meeting  of  the  tribe  was 
the  occasion  for  settling  matters  social  and  sexual.  These  asso- 
ciations introduce  us  to  an  aspect  of  the  cult  of  the  saints  which 
brings  primitive  usages  into  an  even  clearer  light,  and  shows  how 
religious  associations  continued  independently  of  a  change  of 
religion. 

§  3.     Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint. 

The  Church,  as  mentioned  above,  had  put  every  facility  in  the 
way  of  transforming  heathen  festivals  into  its  own  festal  days. 
The  heathen  festival  in  many  ways  carried  on  the  traditions  of  the 
tribal  festival ;  the  tribal  festival  was  connected  with  the  cult 
of  tribal  goddesses.  If  we  bear  in  mind  the  many  points 
mother-goddess,  witch,  and  woman  pseudo-saint  have  in  common, 
the  association  of  the  pseudo-saint  with  practices  of  a  profane 
character  no  longer  appears  wonderful.  Both  in  the  turn  saint 
legend  takes,  and  in  the  character  of  festivities  associated  with  the 
saint's  name,  we  discern  the  survival  of  ideas  which  properly 
belong  to  differently  constituted  family  and  social  arrangements, 
the  true  meaning  of  which  is  all  but  lost. 

On  looking  through  the  legends  of  many  women-saints,  it  is 
surprising  how  often  we  find  evil  practices  and  heathen  traditions 
associated  with  them,  practices  and  traditions  which  the  legend 
writer  naturally  is  often  at  a  loss  to  explain  in  a  manner  acceptable 


SECT.  Ill]     Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint.     29 

to  Christianity.  Thus  the  father  of  St  Christianc  of  Dender- 
monde  is  said  to  have  set  up  a  temple  where  girls  did  service  to 
Venus*;  doing  service  to  Venus  being  the  usual  way  of  describing 
licentious  pursuits. 

In  the  metrical  life  of  Bilihild,  patron  saint  of  Wurzburg  and 
Mainz,  a  description  is  introduced  of  the  marriage  festival  as  it  was 
celebrated  by  the  Franks  in  the  Main  district  about  the  year  600, 
as  this  account  would  have  it.  Dances  took  place  and  unions 
were  contracted  for  the  commencing  year.  The  Christian  woman 
Bilihild  was  present  at  the  festival,  though  we  are  of  course  told 
that  she  found  it  little  to  her  taste  and  determined  to  abolish  it^ 
The  legend  of  Bilihild  has  very  primitive  traits  and  is  wanting  in 
historical  foundation  and  probability ;  and  it  is  at  least  curious  that 
her  name  should  be  coupled  with  a  festival  which  Christian  religion 
and  morality  must  have  condemned. 

Again  it  is  curious  to  find  how  often  these  women-saints  die  a 
violent  death,  not  for  conscience  sake,  nor  indeed  for  any  obvious 
reason  at  all.  Radiane  of  Wellenburg,  as  mentioned  above,  was 
torn  to  pieces  by  wolves';  Wolfsindis  of  Reisbach,  according  to  one 
account,  was  tied  to  wild  oxen  who  tore  her  to  pieces,  according 
to  another  version  of  her  story  she  was  tied  to  a  horse's  tail*. 
St  Regina  of  Alise,  in  the  bishopric  of  Autun,  is  sometimes  repre- 
sented surrounded  by  flames,  sometimes  in  a  steaming  caldron' 
which  recalls  the  caldron  of  regeneration  of  Keltic  mythology. 

Frequently  the  saints  are  said  to  have  been  murdered  like  Cunera 
of  Renen',  and  St  Sura  otherwise  Soteris  or  Zuwarda  of  Dordrecht^; 
sometimes  their  heads  are  cut  off  as  in  the  case  of  Germana 
worshipped  at  Beaufort  in  Champagne^;  sometimes  like  Godeleva 
they  are  strangled,  and  sometimes  burnt;  but  Christianity  is  not 
the  reason  assigned  for  their  painful  deaths.  For  even  the  legend 
writer  does  not  go  so  far  as  to  bring  in  martyrdom  at  a  period 
and  in  districts  where  suffering  for  the  Christian  faith  is  altogether 
out  of  the  question. 

»  A.SS.  Boll.,  St  Christiane,  July  26. 

'  Rochholz,  L.,  Drei  Gaugiitiinnen,  p.  37. 

'  Stadler  und  Heim,  Vollstdndiges  Heiligenlexicon,  1858-82,  St  Radegundis,  nr  3. 

*  Ibid.,  Appendix,  p.  998,  footnote. 

^  Stadler  und  Heim,  Vollstdndiges  HeiligenUxicon,  1858,  St  Regina,  nr  4. 

•  Kist,  N.  C,   'Reenensche  Kuneralegende '  in  Kerkhistorisch  Archiv,  Amsterdam, 
1858,  vol.  2,  p.  5. 

^  Stadler  und  Heim,  Vollstdndiges  HeiligenUxicon,  1858,  St  Sura. 
8  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Germana,  Oct.  i. 


30       Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint,     [chap.  i. 

Panzer  tells  us  about  a  group  of  three  women-saints,  to  whom 
we  shall  presently  return.  He  says  in  some  churches  masses  are 
read  for  their  souls  and  prayers  offered  for  their  salvation.  Though 
reverenced  by  the  people  in  many  districts  of  Germany,  they  are 
as  often  said  to  have  been  hostile  to  Christianity  as  favourably 
disposed  towards  it\ 

We  find  immoral  practices  and  violence  ascribed  to  some  of  the 
English  women-saints  by  Capgrave  in  the  15th  century.  He  says 
of  Inthware  or  luthware,  who  perhaps  belongs  to  Brittany,  that 
she  was  accused  of  being  a  harlot  and  put  to  death.  Similarly 
he  says  of  Osman  or  Oswen  that  she  was  accused  of  being  a  witch, 
but  when  brought  before  a  bishop  she  consented  to  be  baptized ^ 
Stanton  notifies  of  luthware  that  her  translation  was  celebrated 
at  Shirbourne^  Winifred  too,  who  is  worshipped  in  Shropshire, 
had  her  head  cut  off  and  it  rolled  right  down  the  hill  to  a  spot 
where  a  fountain  sprang  up,  near  St  Winifred's  well.  The  head 
however  was  miraculously  replaced,  Winifred  revived  and  lived 
to  the  end  of  her  days  as  a  nun*.  The  want  of  information  about 
these  women  makes  it  impossible  to  judge  how  far  their  existence 
is  purely  legendary ;  certainly  their  stories  are  largely  coloured 
by  heathen  traditions.  The  names  luthware  and  Oswen  are 
probably  not  Germanic ;  and  the  fact  of  Winifred's  living  on  the 
confines  of  Wales  makes  it  probable  that  she  is  a  Keltic  rather 
than  a  Germanic  saint. 

In  connection  with  the  festivals  of  some  women  pseudo-saints 
we  find  celebrations  of  a  decidedly  uproarious  character  taking 
place  at  a  comparatively  recent  time.  The  feast  of  St  Pharaildis, 
called  locally  Fru  Verelde,  used  to  be  the  chief  holiday  at  Ghent, 
and  was  the  occasion  for  much  festivity  and  merrymaking^  At 
Liittich  (Liege)  stood  a  chapel  dedicated  to  St  Balbine,  who 
is  said  to  have  been  venerated  far  and  wide  in  the  14th  century. 
On  her  day,  the  first  of  May,  there  was  a  festival  called  Babilone  at 
which  dancing  was  kept  up  till  late  at  night*.  The  festival  of 
St  Godeleva  kept  at  Longuefort  maintained  even  in  the  i8th 
century  a  character  which  led  to  a  violent  dispute  between  the 

^  Panzer,  F.,  Beitrag  zur  dmtschen  Mythologie,  1848,  pp.  5  ff.,  272  ff. 
'  Capgrave,  Catalogus  SS.  Angliae,  15 16. 

*  Stanton,  R.,  Menology  of  England  and  Wales,  1887. 

*  Capgrave,  Catalogus  SS.  Angliae,  1516.     Comp.  Surius,  Vitae  SS.  1617. 
'  HautccEur,  Actes  de  Ste  Pharailde,  1882,  Introd.  cxxviiii. 

*  Reinsberg-Diiringsfeld,  Traditions  et  Ugendes  de  la  Belgique,  1870,  vol.  i,  p.  288. 


SECT.  Ill]     Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint.     31 

populace  and  the  Church  dignitaries,  who  were  determined  to  put  it 
down^  Coincident  with  the  festival  known  as  the  day  of  St  Ber- 
lindis,  a  saint  frequently  referred  to  as  a  protectress  of  the  peasantry, 
there  is  a  festival  called  the  Drunken  Vespers,  in  which  as  early  as 
the  1 6th  century  the  archbishop  forbade  his  clergy  to  take  part*. 

But  by  far  the  most  striking  and  the  most  conclusive  instances 
of  the  pseudo-saint's  association  with  heathen  survivals  are  afforded 
by  St  Verena  of  Switzerland  and  St  Afra  of  Augsburg,  whose 
worship  and  history  we  must  examine  more  closely. 

Verena's  association  with  various  rites  has  already  been  referred 
to  ;  she  is  represented  sometimes  with  ears  of  corn,  sometimes  ac- 
companied by  a  cat,  and  sometimes,  which  is  even  more  suggestive, 
she  is  brought  into  connection  with  a  brothel.  The  procession  of 
St  Verena's  day  from  Zurzach  to  a  chapel  dedicated  to  St  Maurice 
passed  an  old  linden  tree  which,  so  the  legend  goes,  marked  the 
spot  where  the  saint  used  to  dwell.  Hard  by  was  a  house  for 
lepers  and  a  house  of  ill  fame,  where  on  the  same  day  the  district 
bailiff  (landvogt)  opened  the  fair.  He  was  obliged  by  old  custom 
to  pass  this  tree,  at  which  a  loose  woman  stood  awaiting  him,  and 
to  dance  round  the  tree  with  her  and  give  her  money^ 

The  legend  of  St  Verena  written  between  1005  and  1032*  does 
not  explain  these  associations.  We  are  told  of  a  woman  who 
came  from  the  east  with  the  Theban  legion,  which  is  generally 
supposed  to  have  been  massacred  in  287.  She  is  said  to  have 
made  her  home  now  in  one  district  now  in  another,  and  one 
modern  writer  goes  so  far  as  to  suggest  that  she  was  zealous  in 
converting  the  Allemans  to  Christianity  before  the  coming  of  Irish 
missionaries. 

According  to  folk-custom  in  districts  between  the  Aar  and  the 
Rhine,  girls  who  have  secured  husbands  sacrifice  their  little  maiden 
caps  to  Verena.  At  Zurzach  married  couples  make  pilgrimages 
to  the  Verenastift  in  order  to  secure  offspring.  Several  dukes 
of  the  Allemans  and  their  wives  made  such  pilgrimages  in  the 
9th  and  loth  centuries.  It  would  lead  too  far  to  enumerate  the 
many  directions  in  which  Verena  is  associated  with  heathendom. 
Her  day,  which  comes  at  the  harvest  festival,  was  a  time  of  un- 

*  Lefebure,  Sie  Godeleine  et  son  culte,  p.  209. 

*  Wauters,  A.,  Histoire  des  environs  de  Bruxelles,  1852,  vol.  i,  p.  304. 

*  Rochholz,  Drei  Gaugbttinnen,  1870,  p.  154. 

*  Potthast,  Wegweiser  durch  die  Geschichtswerke  des  europ.  Mittelalters,  1862  ;  Roch- 
holz, loc.  cit.,  p.  108,  prints  an  early  poetic  version  of  the  story  in  the  vernacular. 


32      Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint,      [chap,  i 

restrained  license  in  Zurzach,  a  fact  on  which  the  Acta  Sanctorum 
cast  no  doubt. 

Rochholz  considers  Verena  to  be  a  tribal  mother  of  heathen- 
dom ;  Simrock  in  his  mythology  considers  her  to  be  identical  with 
the  goddess  Fru  Frene,  in  whom  he  sees  a  kind  of  German  Venus\ 
Grimm  tells  how  the  version  of  the  Tannhauser  saga,  current  in 
Switzerland,  substitutes  the  name  Frau  Frene  for  that  of  Frau 
Venus',  The  hero  Tannhauser,  according  to  mediaeval  legend, 
wavers  between  a  baser  and  a  higher  interpretation  of  love ;  the 
acceptance  of  the  name  Frene  as  representative  of  sensuousness 
shows  the  associations  currently  preserved  in  connection  with  this 
so-called  saint. 

A  similar  association  occurs  in  Belgium,  where  a  saint  Vreken 
{Sint  Vreke),  otherwise  Vrouw  Vreke,  in  mediaeval  legend  is  the 
representative  of  sensual  as  opposed  to  spiritual  love.  Coremans 
describes  how  in  the  version  of  the  saga  of  the  faithful  Eckhardt 
{Van  het  trouwen  Eckhout)  current  in  Belgium,  the  hero  wavers 
between  spiritual  love  of  Our  Lady  and  sensual  love  of  Vreke. 
Among  the  folk  Vrouw  Vreke  is  a  powerful  personage,  for  the 
story  goes  that  the  Kabauters,  evil  spirits  who  dwell  on  the 
Kabauterberg,  are  in  her  service.  In  the  book  Reta  de  Limbourg, 
which  was  re- written  in  the  17th  century,  the  Kabauterberg  becomes 
a  Venusberg,  and  Vreke  is  no  longer  a  great  witch  {eene  grote  Jieks) 
but  a  goddess  with  all  the  alluring  charms  of  Venus'.  Grimm  in- 
cludes a  Fru  Freke  among  his  German  goddesses^  She  retains 
her  old  importance  among  the  folk  as  a  protective  saint  and 
presides  over  tree-planting*. 

Like  the  saints  Verena  and  Vreke,  St  Afra  of  Augsburg 
is  associated  with  licentiousness ;  Wessely  expressly  calls  her  the 
patron  saint  of  hetairism^  Her  legend  explains  the  connection 
in  a  peculiar  manner;  as  told  by  Berno,  abbot  of  Reichenau 
(■}-i048),  it  is  most  picturesque.  We  hear  how  Afra  and  her 
mother  came  from  Cyprus,  an  island  which  mediaeval,  following 
the  classical  writers,  associated  with  the  cult  of  Venus,  and 
how  she  settled  at  Augsburg  and  kept  a  house  of  ill  fame  with 

1  Simrock,  K.,  Handbuch  der  deutschen  Mythologie,  1887,  p.  393. 
'  Grimm,  J.,  Deutsche  Mythologie,  1875,  p.  254,  footnote. 
'  Qoiimxns,,  Lannie  de  Vancienne  Belgique,  pp.  61,  113,  158. 
*  Grimm,  J.,  Deutsche  Mythologie,  1875,  p.  252. 

'  Coremans,  Uannkde  Fancienne  Belgique,  p.  76;  Stadler  und  Heim,  VoHstdndiges 
Heiligenlexicon,  and  the  A,  SS.  Boll,  pass  her  over. 

"  Wessely,  J.  G.,  Iconographie  Gottes  und  der  Heiligen,  1874. 


SECT.  Ill]     Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint.     33 

three  companions.  Here  they  entertained  certain  Church  dignitaries 
(otherwise  unknown  to  history)  who  persuaded  the  women  to 
embrace  Christianity  and  give  up  their  evil  practices.  They 
became  virtuous,  and  when  persecutions  against  Christians  were 
instituted  they  all  suffered  martyrdom ;  Afra  was  placed  on  a  small 
island  and  burnt  at  the  stake'.  The  legend  writer  on  the  basis  of 
the  previous  statement  places  the  existence  of  these  women  in  the 
early  part  of  the  fourth  century  during  the  reign  of  Diocletian. 
Curiously  enough  the  legend  of  Afra  is  led  up  to  by  a  description 
of  the  worship  of  the  heathen  goddess  Zisa,  a  description  to 
which  Grimm  attaches  great  importance^  This  goddess  was 
worshipped  at  or  near  Augsburg.  Velserus^  who  in  the  i6th 
century  compiled  a  chronicle  of  Augsburg,  gives  us  a  mass  of 
information  about  traditions  connected  with  her  and  her  worship, 
as  he  also  does  about  St  Afra.  There  is  in  his  mind  of  course 
no  shadow  of  a  suspicion  of  any  connection  between  them.  But 
he  informs  us  that  the  Zizenberg,  or  hill  of  Zisa,  and  the  Affen- 
wald  which  he  interprets  as  Afrawald  or  wood  of  Afra,  are  one 
and  the  same  place. 

Berno  also  wrote  a  life  of  Ulrich  (St  Udalricus),  bishop  of 
Augsburg  (i*973),  who  boldly  defended  the  town  at  the  time  of 
the  invasion  of  the  Hungarians.  In  this  life  the  bishop  has  a 
miraculous  vision  of  St  Afra,  who  takes  him  on  a  pilgrimage 
by  night  and  points  out  the  site  where  he  afterwards  founded 
a  monastery,  known  to  later  ages  as  the  monastery  of  St  Ulrich 
and  St  Afra.  The  worship  of  Afra  is  referred  to  by  the  poet  For- 
tunatus  as  early  as  the  sixth  century ;  the  story  of  the  saint's 
martyrdom  is  older  than  that  of  her  conversion.  The  historian 
Rettberg  is  puzzled  why  so  much  stress  should  be  laid  on  her 
evil  ways* ;  but  the  historian  Friedrich,  regardless  of  perplexing 
associations,  sees  the  beginnings  of  convent  life  for  women  in 
Augsburg  in  the  fact  of  Afra  and  her  companions  dwelling  to- 
gether between  their  conversion  and  martyrdom*. 

There  are  other  traits  in  saint  legend  which  point  to  the 
customs  and  arrangements  of  a  more  primitive  period,  and  tempt 

1  A.  SS.  Boll,  St  Afra,  Aug.  5. 

*  Grimm,  J.,  Deutsche  Mythologie,  1875,  p.  341. 

'  Velserus,  Antiqua  monumenta.  Chronica  der  Stcuit  Augsp.  1595;  pp.  4,  14,  17, 
32. 88. 

*  Rettberg,  F.  W.,  Kirchengeschichte,  1846,  vol.  i,  p.  147. 
'  Friedrich,  Kirchengeschichte,  1867,  vol.  i,  p.  413. 

E-  3 


34      Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint,      [chap,  i 

thie  student  to  fit  together  pieces  of  the  past  and  the  present  which 
appear  meaningless  if  taken  separately. 

It  seems  probable  that  in  early  times  the  term  mother  was 
applied  to  a  number  of  women  of  a  definite  group  by  all  the 
children  of  the  group,  and  that  the  word  had  not  the  specialized 
meaning  of  one  who  had  actually  borne  the  children  who  termed 
her  mother. 

The  story  of  a  number  of  children  all  being  born  at  once  by  one 
woman  is  possibly  due  to  a  confused  tradition  dating  from  this 
period.  In  local  saga,  both  in  Germany  and  elsewhere,  there  are 
stories  in  which  a  woman  suddenly  finds  herself  in  the  possession 
of  a  number  of  offspring,  and  often  with  direful  consequences  to 
herself,  because  of  the  anger  of  her  husband.  The  same  incident 
has  found  its  way  into  saint  legend.  Thus  Notburg,  patron  saint 
of  Sulz,  had  at  a  birth  a  number  of  children,  variously  quoted  as 
nine,  twelve  and  thirty-six.  Stadler  says  that  she  is  represented 
at  Sulz  holding  eight  children  in  her  arms,  a  ninth  one  lying  dead 
at  her  feet\  Lacking  water  to  christen  these  children,  she  pro- 
duced from  the  hard  rock  a  fountain  which  even  to  the  present  day 
is  believed  to  retain  the  power  to  cure  disease. 

A  similar  story  is  told  of  Achachildis,  popularly  known  as 
Atzin,  who  is  held  in  veneration  at  Wendelstein  near  Schwabach. 
She  bore  her  husband  five  children  at  once  and  then  took  a  vow 
of  continence.  Her  legend  has  never  been  written,  but  she  enjoys 
a  great  reputation  for  holiness,  and  a  series  of  pictures  represent 
various  incidents  in  her  life*. 

Images  of  women  sheltering  children,  usually  beneath  their 
cloaks,  are  frequently  found  abroad  built  into  the  outer  wall  of  the 
church,  the  place  where  Christian  teachers  felt  justified  in  placing 
heathen  images^  Students  of  pictorial  art  will  here  recall  the 
image  of  St  Ursula  at  Coin  sheltering  ii,cx)0  virgins  under  her 
cloak. 

Again  there  are  other  emblems  in  saint  worship  which  cannot  be 
easily  accounted  for,  such  for  instance  as  the  holy  combs  of  Verena 
and  Pharaildis,  which  remind  one  of  the  comb  with  which  the 
witch  Lorelei  sat  combing  her  hair,  or,  on  classic  soil,  of  the  comb 
of  the  Venus  Calvata ;  or  the  holy  slippers  of  St  Radiane,  which 

'  Stadler  und  Heim,   Vollstandiges  Heiligenlexicon,  1858,  St  Notburg,  nr  i.     A.  SS. 
Boll.,  St  Notburga,  Jan.  ■26. 

'  Stadler  und  Heim,  Vollstandiges  Heiligenlexicon,  1858,  Appendix,  St  Achachildis. 
'  Birlinger,  A.,  Schwdbische  Sagen,  vol.  2,  p.  34I. 


SECT.  Ill]     Further  Peailiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint.     35 

are  preserved  to  this  day  in  the  church  of  Wellenburg  and  which, 
as  Stadler  informs  us,  had  been  re-soled  within  his  time\  SHppers 
and  shoes  are  ancient  symbols  of  appropriation,  and  as  such  figure 
in  folk-lore  and  at  weddings  in  many  countries  to  this  day.  The 
golden  slipper  was  likewise  a  feature  at  the  witches'  festival,  in  which 
the  youthful  fiddler  also  figured*.  Both  the  golden  slipper  and  the 
youthful  fiddler  form  important  features  in  the  legend  of  the  saint 
Ontkommer  or  Wilgefortis.  The  images  and  legend  of  this  saint 
are  so  peculiar  that  they  claim  a  detailed  account. 

It  is  evident  from  what  has  been  said  that  the  legends  and 
cult  of  many  women  pseudo-saints  have  traits  in  common  ;  indeed 
the  acts  ascribed  to  different  saints  are  often  exactly  similar.  The 
stories  of  Notburg  of  Rottenburg,  of  Radiane  of  Wellenburg,  and 
of  Gunthild  of  Biberbach,  as  Stadler  remarks,  are  precisely  alike ; 
yet  it  is  never  suggested  that  these  saints  should  be  treated  as 
one ;  each  of  them  has  her  place  in  the  Acta  Sanctorum  and  is 
looked  upon  as  distinct  from  the  others. 

There  is,  however,  a  set  of  women-saints  whose  images  and 
legends  have  features  so  distinctive  that  hagiologists  treat  of  them 
collectively  as  one,  though  they  are  held  in  veneration  in  districts 
widely  remote  from  each  other,  and  under  very  dissimilar 
names. 

The  saint,  who  is  venerated  in  the  Low  Countries  as  Ont- 
kommer or  Wilgefortis,  is  usually  considered  identical  with  the 
saint  Kummerniss  of  Bavaria  and  the  Tyrol ;  with  the  saint  Livrade, 
Liberata  or  Liberatrix  venerated  in  some  districts  of  France  as 
early  as  the  9th  century  when  Usuard,  writing  in  the  monastery  of 
St  Germain-des-Pres,  mentions  her ;  with  Gehulff  of  Mainz ;  with 
Hilp  of  the  Hulfensberg  at  Eichsfelde ;  and  with  others  called 
variously  Regenfled,  Regenfrith,  Eutropia,  etc.^  The  name  Maria- 
hilf,  which  is  very  common  in  south  Germany,  is  probably  a  com- 
bination of  the  name  of  the  Virgin  Mother  with  that  of  St  Hilp  or 
St  Gehulff. 

The  legends  of  this  saint,  or  rather  of  this  assembly  of  saints, 
are  characterized  by  Cuper  in  the  Acta  Sanctorum  as  an  endless 
labyrinth*.  Whatever  origin  be  ascribed  to  them,  when  once  we  ex- 
amine them  closely  we  find  explanation  impossible  on  the  hypothesis 

*  Stadler  und  Heim,  Vollstdndiges  Heiligenlexicon,  1858,  St  Radegundis,  nr  3. 
'  Grimm,  J.,  Deutsche  Mythologie,  1875,  p.  896. 

*  Stadler  und  Heim,  Vollstcindiges  Heiligenlexicon,  1858,  St  Kumernissa. 

*  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Liberata,  July  so. 

3—2 


36     Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint.      [chap,  i 

that  they  relate  to  a  single  Christian  woman  living  during  Christian 
times. 

A  considerable  amount  of  information  on  this  group  of  saints 
has  lately  been  collected  by  Sloet,  who  deals  also  with  their  icono- 
graphy\  The  peculiarity  of  the  images  of  Ontkommer  or  Kum- 
merniss  consists  in  this,  that  she  is  represented  as  crucified,  and  that 
the  lower  part  of  her  face  is  covered  by  a  beard,  and  her  body  in 
some  instances  by  long  shaggy  fur.  Her  legend  explains  the 
presence  of  the  beard  and  fur  by  telling  us  that  it  grew  to  protect 
the  maiden  from  the  persecutions  of  a  lover  or  the  incestuous  love 
of  her  father ;  such  love  is  frequently  mentioned  in  the  legends  of 
women  pseudo-saints. 

The  fact  that  Ontkommer  or  Kummerniss  is  represented  as 
crucified  might  be  explained  on  the  hypothesis  that  the  common 
folk  could  not  at  first  grasp  the  idea  of  a  god  and  looked  upon 
Christ  as  a  woman,  inventing  the  legend  of  the  woman's  persecution 
and  miraculous  protection  in  order  to  account  for  the  presence  of  the 
beard.  But  other  accessories  of  the  representations  of  Ontkommer 
or  Kummerniss  lead  us  to  suppose  that  her  martyrdom,  like  that 
of  other  saints,  has  a  different  origin  and  that  she  is  heiress  to 
a  tribal  goddess  of  the  past^ 

In  many  of  her  representations  Ontkommer  or  Kummerniss 
is  seen  hanging  on  the  cross  with  only  one  golden  slipper  on,  but 
sometimes  she  wears  two  slippers,  and  a  young  man  is  sitting 
below  the  cross  playing  the  fiddle.  Legend  accounts  for  the 
presence  of  this  young  man  in  the  following  manner.  He  came 
and  sat  at  the  foot  of  the  image  and  was  playing  on  his  fiddle,  when 
the  crucified  saint  suddenly  awoke  to  life,  drew  off  a  slipper  and 
flung  it  to  him.  He  took  it  away  with  him,  but  he  was  accused  of 
having  stolen  it  and  condemned  to  death.  His  accusers  however 
agreed  to  his  request  to  come  with  him  into  the  presence  of  the  holy 
image,  to  which  he  appealed.  Again  the  crucified  saint  awoke  to  life 
and  drew  off  her  second  slipper  and  flung  it  to  the  fiddler,  whose 
innocence  was  thereby  vindicated  and  he  was  set  free.  Where 
shall  we  go  for  a  clue  to  this  curious  and  complicated  legend } 
Grimm  tells   us  that   a   young   fiddler  was   present  at  a  festival 

^  Sloet,  De  heilige  Ontkommer  of  Wilgeforthis,  1884. 

^  I  cannot  account  for  the  presence  of  the  beard ;  St  Paula,  venerated  at  Avila  in  Spain, 
is  also  represented  with  one  (Stadler  und  Heim).  Macrobius  (,Sat.  bk  3,  c.  8)  tells  us  that 
the  Venus  Barbata  was  represented  in  Cyprus  in  the  form  of  a  man  with  a  beard  and 
wearing  female  clothing,  which  shows  that  goddesses  of  this  type  were  venerated  during 
heathen  times. 


SECT.  Ill]     Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint.     2>7 

of  the  witches,  and  that  he  played  at  the  dance  in  which  he 
was  not  allowed  to  take  part.  Grimm  also  tells  us  that  one  of 
the  witches  on  this  occasion  wore  only  one  golden  slipper'.  The 
association  of  Kummerniss  with  a  golden  slipper  is  deep-rooted, 
especially  in  Bavaria,  for  the  saying  goes  there  that  *  She  with 
the  golden  slipper  and  with  the  youthful  fiddler  is  also  a  mother 
of  God  I' 

Many  years  ago  Menzel  wrote' :  '  Much  I  believe  concerning 
this  saint  is  derived  from  heathen  conceptions.'  Stories  embody- 
ing heathen  traditions  are  preserved  in  connection  with  this  saint 
in  districts  abroad  that  lie  far  apart. 

Thus  the  image  of  her  which  is  preserved  in  North  Holland 
is  said  to  have  come  floating  down  the  river,  like  the  images  of  the 
Virgin  referred  to  above.  At  Regensburg  in  Bavaria  an  image 
is  preserved  which  is  said  to  have  been  cast  into  the  water  at 
Neufarn.  It  was  carried  down  by  the  river  and  thrown  on  the  bank, 
and  the  bishop  fetched  it  to  Regensburg  on  a  car  drawn  by  oxen. 
In  the  Tyrol  the  image  of  the  saint  is  sometimes  hung  in  the  chief 
bed-room  of  the  house  in  order  to  secure  a  fruitful  marriage,  but 
often  too  it  is  hung  in  chapel  and  cloister  in  order  to  protect  the 
dead.  Images  of  the  saint  are  preserved  and  venerated  in  a 
great  number  of  churches  in  Bavaria  and  the  Tyrol,  but  the  ideas 
popularly  associated  with  them  have  raised  feelings  in  the  Church 
against  their  cult.  We  hear  that  a  Franciscan  friar  in  the  begin- 
ning of  this  century  destroyed  one  of  the  images,  and  that  the 
bishop  of  Augsburg  in  1833  attempted  in  one  instance  to  do  away 
with  the  image  and  the  veneration  of  the  saint,  but  refrained  from 
carrying  out  his  intention,  being  afraid  of  the  anger  of  the  people*. 

It  has  been  mentioned  above  that  associations  of  a  twofold 
character  survive  in  connection  with  Verena  and  Vreke,  who  are 
to  this  day  popularly  reckoned  as  saints,  but  who  are  introduced  in 
mediaeval  romance  as  representatives  of  earthly  love  as  contrasted 
with  spiritual.  Associations  of  a  twofold  character  have  also  been 
attached  to  the  term  Kummerniss.  For  in  the  Tyrol  Kummerniss 
is  venerated  as  a  saint,  but  the  word  Kummerniss  in  ordinary 
parlance  is  applied  to  immoral  women*. 


^  Grimm,  J.,  Deutsche  Mythol.  1875,  p.  896. 

'^  Sloet,  De  heilige  Ontkommer  of  Wilgeforthis,  1884,  p.  36. 

'  Menzel,  W.,  Christl.  Symbolik,   1854,  article  '  Bart.' 

*  Sloet,  De  heilige  Ontkommer  of  Wilgeforthis,  1884,  pp.  31,  33,  36,  41  etc. 

*  Ibid.  p.  32. 


38      Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint,      [chap,  i 

Other  heathen  survivals  are  found  attached  to  the  Ontkommer- 
Kummerniss  group  of  saints.  At  Luzern  the  festival  of  the  saint 
was  connected  with  so  much  riotous  merrymaking  and  licentious- 
ness that  it  was  forbidden  in  1799  and  again  in  1801.  The  story 
is  told  of  the  saint  under  the  name  Liberata  that  she  was  one  of 
a  number  of  children  whom  her  mother  had  at  a  births 

Sloet,  on  the  authority  of  the  philologist  Kern,  considers  that 
the  various  names  by  which  the  saint  is  known  in  different  districts 
are  appellatives  and  have  the  same  underlying  meaning  of  one 
who  is  helpful  in  trouble.  According  to  him  this  forms  the 
connecting  link  between  the  names  Ontkommer,  Kummerniss, 
Wilgefortis,  Gehulff,  Eutropia,  etc.,  of  which  the  form  Ontkommer, 
philologically  speaking,  most  clearly  connotes  the  saint's  character, 
and  on  this  ground  is  declared  to  be  the  original  form.  The  saint 
is  worshipped  at  Steenberg  in  Holland  under  the  name  Ont- 
kommer, and  Sloet  is  of  opinion  that  Holland  is  the  cradle  of  the 
worship  of  the  whole  group  of  saints"^.  But  considering  what  we 
know  of  other  women-saints  it  seems  more  probable  that  the  saints 
who  have  been  collected  into  this  group  are  the  outcome  of  a 
period  of  social  evolution,  which  in  various  districts  led  to  the 
establishment  of  tribal  goddesses,  who  by  a  later  development 
assumed  the  garb  of  Christian  women-saints. 

The  cult  of  women-saints  under  one  more  aspect  remains 
to  be  chronicled.  Numerous  traditions  are  preserved  concerning 
the  cult  of  holy  women  in  triads,  who  are  locally  held  in  great 
veneration  and  variously  spoken  of  as  three  sisters,  three  ladies, 
three  Marys,  three  nuns,  or  three  women-saints. 

The  three  holy  women  have  a  parallel  in  the  three  Fates  of 
classic  mythology  and  in  the  three  Norns  of  Norse  saga,  and  like 
them  they  probably  date  from  a  heathen  period.  Throughout 
Germany  they  frequently  appear  in  folk-lore  and  saga,  besides 
being  venerated  in  many  instances  as  three  women-saints  of  the 
Church. 

In  stories  now  current  these  three  women  are  conceived  some- 
times as  sisters  protecting  the  people,  sometimes  as  ladies  guarding 
treasures,  and  sometimes  as  a  group  of  three  nuns  living  together 

*  Stadler  und  Heim,  Vollstdndiges  Heiligenkxicon,  1858,  St  Liberata,  footnote,  p.  807. 

"  Sloet,  De  keilige  Ontkommer  of  Wilgeforthis,  1884,  pp.  5,  50  etc.  Ellis,  H., 
Original  Letters,  series  III,  vol.  3,  p.  194,  quotes  the  following  sentence  from  Michael 
Woddes,  Dialogues,  1554  :  '...if  a  wife  were  weary  of  her  husband  she  offered  Otes  at 
Poules  (St  Paul's)  at  London  to  St  Uncumber,'  a  proof  that  the  veneration  of  Ontkom- 
mer had  found  its  way  into  England. 


SECT.  Ill]     Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint.      39 

and  founding  chapels  and  oratories,  and  this  too  in  places  where 
history  knows  nothing  of  the  existence  of  any  religious  settlement 
of  women. 

Panzer  has  collected  a  mass  of  information  on  the  cult  of 
the  triad  as  saints  in  southern  Germany^ ;  Cordmans  says  that  the 
veneration  of  the  Three  Sisters  {dry-stisters)  is  widespread  in 
Belgium*,  but  the  Church  has  sanctioned  this  popular  cult  in  com- 
paratively few  instances. 

The  story  is  locally  current  that  these  three  women  were 
favourably  disposed  to  the  people  and  bequeathed  to  them  what 
is  now  communal  property.  Simrock  considers  that  this  property 
included  sites  which  were  held  sacred  through  association  with 
a  heathen  cult'.  *In  heathen  times,'  he  says,  'a  sacred  grove  was 
hallowed  to  the  sister  fates  which  after  the  establishment  of 
Christianity  continued  to  be  the  property  of  the  commune.  The 
remembrance  of  these  helpful  women  who  were  the  old  bene- 
factresses of  the  place  remained,  even  their  association  with 
holiness  continued,'  By  these  means  in  course  of  time  the  cult 
of  the  three  goddesses  was  transformed  into  that  of  Christian 
saints. 

Besides  bequeathing  their  property  to  the  people  it  was  thought 
that  these  three  women-saints  protected  their  agricultural  and 
domestic  interests,  especially  as  affecting  women.  In  Schlehdorf 
in  Lower  Bavaria  pilgrimages  by  night  were  made  to  the  shrine  of 
the  triad  to  avert  the  cattle  plague  ;  the  shrine  stood  on  a  hill  which 
used  to  be  surrounded  by  water,  and  at  one  time  was  the  site  of 
a  celebrated  fair  and  the  place  chosen  for  keeping  the  harvest 
festival*.  At  Brusthem  in  Belgium  there  were  three  wells  into 
which  women  who  sought  the  aid  of  these  holy  women  cast  three 
things,  linen-thread,  a  needle  and  some  corn*.  Again  in  Schildturn 
in  Upper  Bavaria  an  image  of  the  three  women-saints  is  preserved 
in  the  church  which  bears  an  inscription  to  the  effect  that  through 
the  intercession  of  these  saints  offspring  are  secured  and  that  they 
are  helpful  at  childbirth*.  In  the  same  church  a  wooden  cradle  is 
kept  which  women  who  wished  to  become  mothers  used  to  set 


*  Panzer,  F.,  Beitrag zur  deutschen  MythologU,  1848,  pp.  sff.,  171  ff. 
^  Coremans,  Vannee  de  fancunne  Belgtque,  1844,  p.  149. 

'  Simrock,  K.,  Handbuch  der  deutschen  Myth.,  1887,  p.  344. 

*  Panzer,  F.,  Beitrag  zur  deutschen  Myth.,  1848,  p.  23. 

*  Coremans,  Lannie  de  Tancienne  Belgique,  1844,  p.  148. 
'  Panzer,  P\,  Beitrag  zur  deutschen  Myth.,  1848,  pp.  69  ff. 


40      Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint.      [chap,  i 

rocking.  A  second  cradle  which  is  plated  is  kept  in  the  sacristy, 
and  has  been  substituted  for  one  of  real  silver'. 

In  some  districts  one  of  these  three  saints  is  credited  with  special 
power  over  the  others  either  for  good  or  for  evil.  The  story  goes 
that  one  of  the  sisters  was  coloured  black  or  else  black  and  white*. 

In  many  places  where  the  triad  is  worshipped  the  names  of  the 
individual  sisters  are  lost,  while  in  districts  far  apart  from  one 
another,  as  the  Tyrol,  Elsass,  Bavaria,  their  names  have  consider- 
able likeness.  The  forms  generally  accepted,  but  liable  to  fluctuation, 
are  St  Einbeth,  St  Warbeth  and  St  Wilbeth^  The  Church  in  some 
instances  seems  to  have  hesitated  about  accepting  these  names,  it 
may  be  from  the  underlying  meaning  of  the  sufiix  beth  which  Grimm 
interprets  as  holy  site,  ara,  fanum,  but  Mannhardt  connects  it  with 
the  word  to  pray  (beten)*.  Certainly  the  heathen  element  is  strong 
when  we  get  traditions  of  the  presence  of  these  women  at  weddings 
and  at  burials,  and  stories  of  how  they  went  to  war,  riding  on 
horses,  and  achieved  even  more  than  the  men^  Where  their  claim 
to  Christian  reverence  is  admitted  by  the  Church,  the  stories  told 
about  them  have  a  very  different  ring. 

According  to  the  legend  which  has  been  incorporated  into  the 
Acta  Sanctorum^  St  Einbetta,  St  Verbetta,  and  St  Villbetta  were 
Christian  maidens  who  undertook  the  pilgrimage  to  Rome  with 
St  Ursula,  with  whose  legend  they  are  thus  brought  into  connection. 
The  three  sisters  stayed  behind  at  Strasburg  and  so  escaped  the 
massacre  of  the  iiooo  virgins^ 

The  tendency  to  group  women-saints  into  triads  is  very  general. 
Kunigund,  Mechtund  and  Wibrandis  are  women-saints  who  belong 
to  the  portion  of  Baden  in  the  diocese  of  Constance'.  The  locus  of 
their  cult  is  in  separate  villages,  but  they  are  venerated  as  a  triad  in 
connection  with  a  holy  well  and  lie  buried  together  under  an  ancient 
oak  I  We  hear  also  of  pilgrimages  being  made  to  the  image  of 
three  holy  sisters  preserved  at  Auw  on  the  Kyll  in  the  valley  of 
the  Mosel.   They  are  represented  as  sitting  side  by  side  on  the  back 

^  Cradles  are  frequently  kept  in  churches  in  Bavaria,  and  form,  I  am  told,  part  of  the 
furniture  which  was  formerly  used  at  the  celebration  of  the  Nativity  play  at  Christmas 
(Weihnachtskrippenspiel). 

^  Panzer,  F.,  Beitrag  zur  deutschen  Myth.,  1848,  p.  273. 

'  Simrock,  Y^.,  Handbuch  der  deutschen  Myth.,  1887, pp.  344,349,giveslistsoftheirnames. 

*  Grimm,  Wbrterbuch,  'Bett';  Mannhardt,  W.,  Gertnanische  Mythen,  1858,  p.  644. 
'  Panzer,  F.,  Beitrag  zur  deutschen  Mythol.,  1848,  p.  180. 

«  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Einbetta,  Sept.  16. 
'  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Kunegundis,  June  16. 

*  Panzer,  Beitrag  zur  deutschett  Myth.,  1848,  p.  379. 


SECT.  Ill]     Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint.      41 

of  an  ass(?),  one  of  them  having  a  cloth  tied  over  her  eyes.  The 
three  sisters  in  this  case  are  known  as  Irmina,  Adela  and  Chlotildis, 
and  it  is  said  they  were  the  daughters  or  sisters  of  King  Dagobert*. 
Irmina  and  Adela  are  historical ;  they  founded  nunneries  in  the 
diocese  of  Trier. 

In  another  instance  the  sisters  are  called  Pellmerge,  Schwell- 
merge  and  Krischmerge,  merg  being  a  popular  form  of  the  name 
Mary  which  is  preserved  in  many  place-names*. 

I  have  been  able  to  discover  little  reference  to  local  veneration 
of  saints  in  a  triad  in  England.  But  there  is  a  story  that  a  swine- 
herd in  Mercia  had  a  vision  in  a  wood  of  three  women  who,  as 
he  believed,  were  the  three  Marys,  and  who  pointed  out  to  him 
the  spot  where  he  was  to  found  a  religious  settlement,  which  was 
afterwards  known  as  Evesham. 

A  curious  side-light  is  thrown  on  the  veneration  of  the  three 
women-saints  abroad  by  recalling  the  images  and  inscriptions  about 
Mothers  and  Matrons,  which  are  preserved  on  altars  fashioned  long 
before  the  introduction  of  Christianity  under  heathen  influence. 

These  altars  have  been  found  in  outlying  parts  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  especially  in  the  districts  contiguous  to  the  ancient  boundary 
line  which  divided  Roman  territory  from  Germania  Magna.  They 
bear  inscriptions  in  Latin  to  the  effect  that  they  are  dedicated  to 
Mothers  and  Matrons,  and  sometimes  it  is  added  that  they  have 
been  set  up  at  the  command  of  these  divine  Mothers  themselves. 
The  words  imperio  ipsarum,  '  by  their  own  command,'  are  added  to 
the  formula  of  dedication,  and  as  it  seems  that  they  never  occur  on 
altars  set  up  and  dedicated  to  specified  Roman  or  Gallo-Roman 
divinities,  they  yield  an  interesting  proof  of  the  wide-spread 
character  of  the  worship  of  tribal  goddesses^ 

At  one  time  it  was  supposed  that  these  altars  were  of  Keltic 
origin,  but  some  of  the  tribes  mentioned  in  their  inscriptions  have 
been  identified  with  place-names  in  Germany.  Altars  found  in 
outlying  parts  of  the  Empire  primarily  served  for  the  use  of  the 
soldiery,  for  sacrifice  at  the  altar  of  the  gods  was  a  needful  pre- 
liminary to   Roman   military  undertakings.     The  view  has  been 

1  Menck-Dittmarsch,  Des  Moseltkals  Sagen,  1840,  pp.  178,  258. 

'  Grimm,  WiirUrbuch,  '  Marge.' 

»  Lersch,  Cmtralmuseum  rheitil.  Inschriften,  vol.  i,  p.  23 ;  also  JahrbiUher  des 
Vereins  von  AUertumsfreunden  im  Rheinlande,  Bonn :  J.  1851,  Freudenbei^, '  Darstellun- 
gen  der  Matres  oder  Matronae  ' ;  J.  1853,  '  Neue  Matronensteine ' ;  J.  1857,  Eick,  •  Matro- 
nensteine' ;  J.  1858,  Becker,  '  Beitrage'  etc. 


42       'Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint,      [chap,  i 

advanced  that,  as  the  altars  dedicated  to  pagan  divinities  served  for 
the  devotions  of  the  Roman  and  Gallo-Roman  troops,  it  is  possible 
that  these  other  altars  dedicated  to  Mothers  served  for  the  devotions 
of  the  German  heathen  soldiery,  who  were  drafted  from  districts 
beyond  the  Rhine,  and  at  an  early  date  made  part  of  the  Roman 
legions. 

The  parallels  between  the  mothers  of  the  stones  and  the  three 
women-saints  are  certainly  remarkable. 

Where  a  representation,  generally  in  rude  relief,  occurs  on  the 
altar  stones,  the  Mothers  are  represented  in  a  group  of  three, 
holding  as  emblems  of  their  power  fruit,  flowers,  and  the  spindle. 
These  recall  the  emblems  both  of  the  heathen  goddess  of  mythology 
and  of  the  pseudo-saint.  Moreover  one  of  the  Mothers  of  the  altars 
is  invariably  distinguished  by  some  peculiarity,  generally  by  a  want 
of  the  head-dress  or  head-gear  worn  by  the  two  others,  perhaps 
indicative  of  her  greater  importance.  This  has  its  parallel  in  the 
peculiar  power  with  which  one  member  of  the  saint  triad  is  popu- 
larly credited. 

The  erection  of  the  altars  belongs  to  a  time  before  the  intro- 
duction of  Christianity ;  our  information  about  the  three  women- 
saints  dates  back  earlier  than  the  12th  century  in  a  few  cases  only ; 
it  chiefly  depends  on  stories  locally  current  which  have  been  gleaned 
within  the  last  hundred  years.  If  the  hypothesis  of  the  mother-age 
preceding  the  father-age  holds  good,  if  the  divine  Mothers  imaged 
on  the  stones  are  witnesses  to  a  wide-spread  worship  of  female 
deities  during  the  period  of  established  Roman  rule,  these  tales 
told  of  the  triad  carr}'  us  back  nearly  twenty  centuries.  The  power 
ascribed  to  tribal  goddesses  in  a  distant  heathen  past  survived  in  the 
power  ascribed  to  Christian  women-saints ;  the  deep-rooted  belief 
in  protective  women-divinities  enduring  with  undying  persistence  in 
spite  of  changes  of  religion. 

In  conclusion,  a  few  words  may  be  acceptable  on  the  names  of 
pseudo-saints,  which  I  believe  to  be  largely  epithetic  or  appellative. 
Grimm  holds  that  the  names  of  the  German  goddesses  were  origin- 
ally appellatives.  In  a  few  cases  the  name  of  the  goddess  actually 
becomes  the  name  of  a  saint.  Mythology  and  hagiology  both  lay 
claim  to  a  Vrene  and  a  Vreke;  but  from  the  nature  of  things 
these  cases  are  rare.  The  conception  of  the  protective  divinity  is 
ancient ;  her  name  in  a  philological  sense  is  comparatively  new. 

With  {q\v  exceptions  the  names  are  German;  sometimes  in  con- 
tiguous districts  variations  of  the  same  name  are  preserved.     The 


SECT.  Ill]     Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Sainl.     43 

saint  Lufthildis  is  sometimes  Linthildis* ;  Rolendis  is  sometimes 
Dollendis*;  Ida,  Itta,  Iduberga,  Gisleberga  are  saints  of  Brabant 
and  Flanders,  whom  hagiologists  have  taken  great  trouble  to  keep 
separate.  In  some  cases  the  name  of  a  real  and  that  of  a  fictitious 
person  may  have  become  confounded.  The  names  are  all  cognate 
with  the  word  itis,  an  ancient  term  applied  to  the  woman  who  ex- 
ercised sacred  functions. 

The  attempt  to  connect  the  group  Ontkommer-Wilgefortis  by  the 
underlying  meaning  of  the  several  names  has  been  mentioned.  It 
has  also  been  mentioned  that  this  saint  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as 
a  mother  of  God.  Similarly  St  Genevieve  of  Paris  is  worshipped 
as  Notre-Dame-la-petite,  and  again  the  saint  Cunera  of  Reenen 
is  popularly  known  as  Knertje,  which  signifies  little  lady^ 

On  every  side  the  student  is  tempted  to  stray  from  the  straight- 
forward road  of  fact  into  the  winding  paths  of  speculation.  The 
frequent  association  abroad  of  female  deities  with  hill  tops  suggests  a 
possible  explanation  why  the  word  berg,  which  means  remoteness 
and  height,  so  often  forms  part  of  the  name  of  the  woman  pseudo- 
saint,  and  of  women's  names  generally.  For  the  beginnings  of  tilth 
and  agriculture  are  now  sought  not  in  the  swampy  lowlands,  but  on 
the  heights  where  a  clearance  brought  sunlight  and  fruitfulness. 
Hill  tops  to  this  day  are  connected  with  holy  rites.  Is  it  possible 
that  the  word  berg,  designating  hill  top,  should  have  become  an 
appellative  for  woman  because  the  settlements  on  the  hills  were 
specially  connected  with  her } 

Philology  hitherto  has  been  content  to  trace  to  a  common  origin 
words  cognate  in  different  languages,  and  on  the  conceptions 
attaching  to  these  words,  to  build  up  theories  about  the  state  of 
civilization  of  various  peoples  at  a  period  previous  to  their  dis- 
persion from  a  common  home.  But  the  study  of  local  beliefs  and 
superstitions  in  western  Europe  tends  more  and  more  to  prove 
that  usages  pointing  to  a  very  primitive  mode  of  life  and  to  a  very 
primitive  state  of  civilization  are  indissolubly  connected  with  certain 
sites  ;  and  that  the  beginnings  of  what  we  usually  term  civilization, 
far  from  being  imported,  have  largely  developed  on  native  soil. 

Thus,  at  the  very  outset  of  our  enquiry  into  saint-worship  and 
the  convent  life  of  the  past,  we  have  found  ourselves  confronted  by 
a  class  of  women-saints  who  must  be  looked  upon  as  survivals  from 

1  Stadler  und  Heim,  Vollstdndiges  HeiligenUxicon,  1858,  St  Lufthildis. 

2  Ibid.  St  Rolendis. 

3  A.SS.  Boll.,  St  Cunera,  June  i%. 


44     Further  Peculiarities  of  this  Type  of  Saint.      [chap,  i 

heathen  times,  and  who  are  in  no  way  connected  with  the  begin- 
nings of  Christianity  and  of  convent  life ;  their  reputation  rests  on 
their  connection  with  some  hallowed  site  of  the  heathen  period  and 
the  persistence  of  popular  faith  in  them.  But  the  feeling  underlying 
the  attribution  of  holiness  to  them,  the  desire  for  localized  saints, 
yields  the  clue  to  the  ready  raising  to  saintship  of  those  women 
who  in  England,  in  France,  and  in  Germany,  showed  appreciation 
of  the  possibilities  offered  to  them  by  Christianity,  and  founded 
religious  settlements.  In  some  cases  superstitions  of  a  heathen 
nature  which  are  of  value  to  the  hagiologist,  if  not  to  the  historian, 
cling  to  these  women  also,  but  fortunately  a  considerable  amount 
of  trustworthy  material  is  extant  about  their  lives.  These  women 
during  the  earliest  period  were  zealous  in  the  cause  of  Christianity, 
and  it  is  to  them  that  our  enquiry  now  turns. 


CHAPTER   II. 

CONVENTS  AMONG  THE  FRANKS,  A.D.   550— 650. 

*  Sicut  enim  apis  diversa  genera  florum  congregabat,  unde  mella  conBciat,  sic  ilia  ab 
his  quos  invitabat  spirituales  studebat  carpere  flosculos,  unde  boni  operis  fructum  tam  sibi 
quam  suis  sequacibus  exhiberet. ' 

The  nun  Baudonivia  on  St  Radegiind  {Vi/a,  c.  13). 

§  I.     At  the  Prankish  Invasion'. 

The  great  interest  of  early  monastic  life  among  the  Franks  h*es 
in  the  conversion  of  this  hardy  and  ferocious  people  to  Christianity 
just  at  the  moment  of  their  emergence  from  a  state  of  barbarism. 
Fierce,  warlike  and  progressive,  the  Franks  were  brought  face  to 
face  with  cultured  Latinity.  The  clerical  student  who  claimed 
direct  descent  from  the  Gallo-Roman  rhetorician,  and  the  bishop 
who  was  in  possession  of  the  municipal  government  of  the  town, 
found  themselves  confronted  by  shaggy-haired,  impetuous  men  from 
forest  wilds.  At  the  outset  an  all  but  immeasurable  distance 
separated  the  social  and  intellectual  development  of  the  Gallo- 
Roman  from  that  of  these  strangers.  Compared  with  the  cultivated 
man  of  letters  and  with  the  veteran,  grown  grey  in  imperial  service, 
the  German  invader  was  little  more  than  a  savage  ;  nevertheless  he 
succeeded  in  holding  his  own.  At  first  his  standards  of  life  and 
conduct  gave  way  before  those  of  the  Gallo-Romans.  The  lives 
of  early  Frankish  princes,  as  their  contemporary,  the  historian 
Gregory  of  Tours,  depicts  them,  are  marked  by  ceaseless  quarrels 
and  feuds,  by  numberless  instances  of  murder,  perjury  and  violence. 
The  bonds  of  union  among  them  were  forcibly  relaxed,  as  often 
happens  in  those  periods  of  history  when  restraint  and  responsibility 
are  broken  through  by  a  sudden  and  overwhelming  inrush  of  new 
ideas.     A  prey  to  intemperance  and  greed,  the  descendants  of  the 

^  Fustel  de  Coulanges,  Vinvasion  germanique,  1891  ;  (l^rard,  P.  A.  P.,  Histoire  des 
Francs  W Austrasie,  1864;  O/anam,  Civilisation  chrHienne  chez  Us  Francs^  1855. 


46  At  the  Prankish  Invasion.  [chap,  ii 

g^eat  Merovech  dwindled  away.  But  other  men  of  the  same  race, 
stronger  than  they  in  mind  and  less  prone  to  enervating  luxury, 
pressed  in  from  behind.  And  after  the  temporary  mental  and 
moral  collapse  which  followed  upon  the  occupation  of  Gaul  by  the 
Franks,  the  race  rose  to  new  and  increased  vigour.  New  standards 
of  conduct  were  evolved  and  new  conceptions  of  excellence  arose, 
through  the  mingling  of  Latin  and  German  elements.  For  the 
g^reat  Roman  civilization^  a  subject  of  wonder  and  admiration  to 
all  ages,  was  in  many  of  its  developments  realized,  appropriated,  and 
assimilated  by  the  converted  Germans.  Three  hundred  years  after 
their  appearance  in  Gaul,  the  Franks  were  masters  of  the  cultivated 
western  world  ;  they  had  grasped  the  essentials  of  a  common  nation- 
ality and  had  spread  abroad  a  system  of  uniform  government. 

The  Franks  at  first  showed  a  marked  deficiency  in  the  virtues 
which  pagan  Rome  had  established,  and  to  which  Christianity  had 
given  a  widened  and  spiritualized  meaning.  Temperance,  habitual 
self-control  and  the  absorption  of  self  in  the  consciousness  of  a 
greater,  formed  no  part  of  this  people's  character.  These  virtues, 
together  with  peaceableness  and  a  certain  simplicity  of  taste,  laid 
the  groundwork  of  the  monasticism  which  preceded  the  invasion. 
Persons  who  were  vowed  to  religion  were  averse  to  war,  because  it 
disturbed  study  and  industry,  and  they  shrank  from  luxury  of  life, 
because  it  interrupted  routine  by  exciting  their  appetites.  An  even 
tenor  of  life  was  the  golden  mean  they  set  before  themselves,  and 
in  some  degree  they  had  realized  it  in  Roman  Gaul  before  the 
barbarian  invasion. 

The  Frank  at  first  felt  little  tempted  in  the  direction  of  monastic 
life.  His  fierce  and  warlike  tendencies,  love  of  personal  predomi- 
nance and  glory,  and  impatience  of  every  kind  of  restraint,  were 
directly  opposed  to  the  uniform  round  of  devotion  and  work  to 
which  the  religious  devotee  conformed. 

_The  attitude  of  Frankish  men  towards  monastjcismwas  at  best 
passive;  on  the  other  hand  convent  life  from  the  first^rMTnrToyffi- 

pathy  among  Frankish  women. Prinr.p«;sp«^  of  pnrp  airman  h1r^r.r^ 

_and  of  undisputed  German  origin  left  the  royal  faring.  "^1^'>^  iv^*-^  the 
^ourt  residences  of  the  period,  and  repaired  to  the  religious  houses, 
to_deyote  themselves  to  religion  and  to  the  learning  of  cultured 
Latinitv.  Not  one  of  the  princes  of  the  royal  Frankishrace  entered 
jLConven^of  his  own  accord,  but  their  wives,  widows,  and  daughters 
readilyJoTned  houses  ot  religion. 

Meekness  and  devotion,  selWenial  and  subservience  are  not  the 


SECT,  ij  At  the  Prankish  Invasion,  47 

most  prominent  features  in  the  character  of  these  women.  The 
wives  and  daughters  of  men  to  whom  Macaulay  attributes  all  vices 
and  no  virtues,  are  of  a  temper  which  largely  savours  of  the  world. 
What  distinguishes  them  is  quick  determination  and  clear-sighted 
appreciation  of  the  possibilities  opened  out  to  them  by  the  religious 
life.  Fortunately  the  information  which  we  have  concerning  them 
is  not  confined  to  the  works  of  interested  eulogists.  Accounts  of 
women  whom  posterity  estimated  as  saints  lay  stress  on  those  sides 
of  their  character  which  are  in  accord  with  virtues  inculcated  by  the 
Church.  But  we  have  other  accounts  besides  these  about  women 
who  had  taken  the  vows  of  religion,  but  whose  behaviour  called 
forth  violent  denunciations  from  their  contemporaries.  And  over 
and  above  these,  passages  in  profane  literature  are  extant  which 
curiously  illustrate  the  worldly  tone  and  temper  of  many  women 
who  had  adopted  religion  as  a  profession. 

These  women  were  driven  to  resort  to  convents  chiefly  as  the 
result  of  their  contact  with  a  great  civilization,  which  threw  open 
unknown  and  temptmg  possibilities  to  men,  but  raised  many 
difficulties  in  the  way  ol  women. 

The  resources  of  the  districts  acquired  by  the  Franks  were 
irhmeasurably  greater  than  those  of  the  lands  they  had  left.  Wealth 
and  intemperance  readily  join  hands.  The  plurality  of  recognised 
and  unrecognised  wives  in  which  the  Frankish  princes  indulged 
resulted  in  great  family  difficulties.  The  royal  farms  and  the  ancient 
cities,  where  these  petty  kings  resided,  were  the  scenes  of  continual 
broils  and  squabbles  in  which  royal  wives  and  widows  took  the 
leading  parts.  From  the  chequered  existence  which  this  state  of 
things  implies,  convent  life  alone  afforded  a  permanent  refuge. 
Sometimes  a  princess  left  home  from  a  sense  of  the  indignities  she 
was  made  to  suffer;  sometimes  a  reverse  of  fortune  caused  her  to 
accept,  willingly  or  unwillingly,  the  dignified  retirement  of  the 
cloister. 

During  the  centuries  preceding  the  Frankish  conquest  the 
development  of  religious  and  monastic  life  in  Gaul  had  been 
considerable,  for  the  Church  had  practically  appropriated  what 
was  left  of  the  Roman  system  of  organization,  and  since  this 
system  had  been  chiefly  municipal,  the  municipal  bodies  were 
largely  composed  of  bishops  and  clerks. 

The  monastic  life  of  men  in  Gaul  had  a  number  of  independent 
centres  in  the  western  provinces,  due  to  the  enthusiastic  zeal  of 
St  Martin  of  Tours  (t  400),  to  whom  reference  has  been  made. 


48  At  the  Prankish  Invasion.  [chap,  ii 

In  the  beginning  of  the  6th  century  a  settlement  of  nuns  was 
founded  in  the  south,  where  monasteries  already  existed,  perhaps 
as  the  result  of  direct  contact  with  the  east.  A  rule  of  life  was 
drafted  for  this  convent  shortly  after  its  foundation, 

Caesarius,  bishop  of  Aries  (501-573),  had  persuaded  his  sister 
Caesaria  to  leave  Marseilles,  where  she  dwelt  in  a  convent  associated 
with  the  name  of  Cassian,  His  plan  was  that  she  should  join  hirri 
at  Aries,  and  preside  over  the  women  who  had  gathered  there  to 
live  and  work  under  his  guidance. 

Caesarius  now  marked  out  a  scheme  of  life  for  his  sister  and 
those  women  whom  she  was  prepared  to  direct.  He  arranged  it, 
as  he  says  himself,  according  to  the  teachings  of  the  fathers  of  the 
Church  and,  after  repeated  modifications,  he  embodied  it  in  a  set 
of  rules,  which  have  come  down  to  us '.  Great  clearness  and 
directness,  a  high  moral  tone,  and  much  sensible  advice  are 
contained  in  these  precepts  of  Caesarius.  'Since  the  Lord,'  he 
says,  addressing  himself  to  the  women,  '  has  willed  to  inspire  us 
and  help  us  to  found  a  monastery  for  you,  in  order  that  you  may 
abide  in  this  monastery,  we  have  culled  spiritual  and  holy  injunc- 
tions for  you  from  the  ancient  fathers;  with  God's  help  may  you  be 
sheltered,  and  dwelling  in  the  cells  of  your  monastery,  seeking  in 
earnest  prayer  the  presence  of  the  Son  of  God,  may  you  say  in 
faith,  "  we  have  found  him  whom  we  sought."  Thus  may  you  be 
of  the  number  of  holy  virgins  devoted  to  God,  who  wait  with 
tapers  alight  and  a  calm  conscience,  calling  upon  the  Lord. — Since 
you  are  aware  that  I  have  worked  towards  establishing  this  monas- 
tery for  you,  let  me  be  one  of  you  through  the  intercession  of  your 
prayer.' 

Caesarius  goes  on  to  stipulate  that  those  who  join  the  com- 
munity, whether  they  be  maidens  or  widows,  shall  enter  the  house 
once  for  all  and  renounce  all  claims  to  outside  property.  Several 
paragraphs  of  the  rule  are  devoted  to  settling  questions  of 
property,  a  proof  of  its  importance  in  the  mind  of  Caesarius. 
There  were  to  be  in  the  house  only  those  who  of  their  own 
accord  accepted  the  routine  and  were  prepared  to  live  on 
terms  of  strictest  equality  without  property  or  servants  of  their 
own. 

Children  under  the  age  of  six  or  seven  were  not  to  be  received 


1  A.   SS.   Boll.,  St  Caesaria,  Jan.    \i,    Regiila,  pp.   730-737;  also  A.    SS.  Boll., 
St  Caesarius  episcopus,  Aug.  ■27, 


SECT,  i]  Ai  the  Frankish  Invasion.  49 


at  all, '  nor  shall  daughters  of  noble  parentage  or  lowly-born  girls 
be  taken  in  readily  to  be  brought  up  and  educated.' 

This  latter  injunction  shows  how  the  religious  at  this  period 
wished  to  keep  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from  artistic  and 
intellectual  training  in  their  own  community.  They  had  no  des[re 
for  the  spread  of  education,  which  forms  so  characteristic  a  feature 
of  the  religious  establishments  of  a  later  date. 

After  their  safe  housing  the  instruction  of  the  nuns  at  Aries 
was  the  most  important  matter  dealt  with  in  the  '  rule.'  Consider- 
able time  and  thought  were  devoted  to  the  practice  of  chants 
and  to  choir-singing,  for  the  art  of  music  was  considered  especially 
fitted  to  celebrate  God.  In  an  appendix  to  the  rule  of  Caesarius 
the  system  of  singing  is  described  as  similar  to  that  adopted  in 
the  coenobite  settlement  at  Lerins^  Apparently  following  Keltic 
usage,  the  chant  was  taken  up  in  turn  by  relays  of  the  professed, 
who  kept  it  up  night  and  day  all  the  year  round  in  perpetual 
praise  of  the  Divinity.  At  this  period  melody  and  pitch  were  the 
subjects  of  close  study  and  much  discussion.  The  great  debt 
owed  by  the  art  of  music  to  the  enthusiasm  of  these  early  singers 
is  often  overlooked. 

The  women  who  joined  the  community  at  Aries  also  learned 
reading  and  writing  ('  omnes  litteras  discant ').  These  arts  were 
practised  in  classes,  while  domestic  occupations,  such  as  cook- 
ing, were  performed  in  turns.  Weaving,  probably  that  of 
church  hangings,  was  among  the  arts  practised,  and  the  women 
also  spun  wool  and  wove  it  into  material  with  which  they  made 
garments  for  their  own  use. 

There  are  further  injunctions  about  tending  the  infirm,  and 
stern  advice  about  the  hatefulness  of  quarrels.  Intercourse  with 
the  outside  world  is  restricted,  but  is  not  altogether  cut  off. 

'  Dinners  and  entertainments,'  says  the  rule, '  shall  not  be  pro- 
vided for  churchmen,  laymen  and  friends,  but  women  from  othei 
religious  houses  may  be  received  and  entertained.' 

In  the  year  506  Caesarius,  the  author  of  this  rule,  was  present 
at  the  synod  of  Agde  at  which  it  was  decreed  that  no  nun  however 
good  in  character  should  receive  the  veil,  that  is  be  permanently 
bound  by  a  vow,  before  her  fortieth  year*.  This  decree,  taken 
together  with   the   rule,  proves   the   .sober  and   serious   spirit   of 

*  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Caesaria,  Jan.  12,  Regula,  c.  66. 

*  Guett^e,  Histoire  de  r Eglise  de  France,  1847,  vol.  3,  46;  Labb^,  Scur.  Com.  CoUtc- 
do.  Cone.  Agathense,  canon  nr  19. 


50  At  the  Prankish  Invasion.  [chap,  it 

these  early  settlements  and  the  purpose  which  their  founder  set 
before  him. 

The  teaching  of  Caesarius  generally  reflects  the  spirit  of 
cautious  reserve  characteristic  of  the  rule  instituted  by  the  great 
St  Benedict  of  Nursia  for  the  monks  he  had  assembled  together 
on  Monte  Casino  in  Central  Italy.  His  efforts  like  those  of 
Caesarius  were  directed  to  the  creation  of  conditions  favourable 
to  the  devoutly  disposed,  not  to  the  leavening  of  the  outside 
world  by  the  spread  of  Christian  doctrine. 

It  was  part  of  the  plan  of  Caesarius  to  secure  independence 
to  the  communities  he  had  founded  ;  for  in  his  capacity  as  bishop 
he  addressed  a  letter  to  Pope  Hormisda  (-f*  523)  in  which  he  asked 
the  Pope's  protection  for  his  monasteries,  one  of  which  was  for 
men  and  one  for  women,  against  possible  interference  from  outside. 
He  also  begged  that  the  Pope  would  confirm  the  grants  of  pro- 
perty which  had  already  been  made  to  these  establishments.  In 
his  reply  to  this  letter  the  Pope  declared  that  the  power  of  the 
bishop  in  regard  to  these  settlements  should  be  limited  to  visi- 
tation \ 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Aries  and  the  southern  parts 
of  Gaul  were  overrun  by  the  Goths,  who  inclined  to  Arianism 
and  opposed  the  Church  of  Rome.  Fear  of  this  heresy  induced 
the  prelates  of  the  Church  to  favour  Prankish  rule.  After  the 
alliance  of  the  Prankish  kings  with  the  Church  the  religious 
establishments  in  the  land  remained  undisturbed,  and  numerous 
new  monasteries  were  founded. 

It  is  evident  from  what  we  know  of  the  nuns  at  Aries,  and  of 
other  bands  of  women  whom  the  Church  took  under  her  protection, 
that  they  readily  accepted  life  on  the  conditions  proffered  and 
were  content  to  be  controlled  and  protected  by  men.  It  is  only 
when  the  untamed  German  element  with  its  craving  for  self-asser- 
tion came  in,  that  difficulties  between  the  bishops  and  heads  of 
nunneries  arose,  that  women  of  barbarian  origin  like  Radegund, 
Chrodield,  and  others,  appealed  to  the  authority  of  ruling  princes 
against  the  bishop,  and  asserted  an  independence  not  always 
in  accordance  with  the  usual  conceptions  of  Christian  virtue  and 
tolerance. 

*  GueU^e,  Histoire  de  T ^glise  de  France,  1847,  vol.  2,  p.  109. 


SECT,  it]    S^  Radegtmd  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers.    5 1 

§  2.     St  Radegund  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers. 

Certain  settlements  for  women  in  northern  France  claim  to 
have  existed  from  a  very  early  period,  chiefly  on  the  ground  of  their 
association  with  Genevieve,  patron  saint  of  Paris,  and  with  Chrothild 
(Clothilde,  ■}-  545),  wife  of  the  first  Christian  king  of  the  Franks. 
The  legend  of  St  Genevieve  must  be  received  with  caution'; 
while  bands  of  women  certainly  dwelt  at  Paris  and  elsewhere 
previously  to  the  Frankish  invasion,  under  the  protection  of  the 
Church,  it  is  doubtful  whether  they  owed  their  existence  to  Gene- 
vieve. 

A  fictitious  glamour  of  sanctity  has  been  cast  by  legendary 
lore  around  the  name  and  the  doings  of  Queen  Chrothild,  because 
her  union  with  King  Clovis,  advocated  by  the  Gallo-Roman 
Church  party,  led  to  his  conversion  to  Christianity*.  In  the  pages 
of  Gregory's  history  the  real  Chrothild  stands  out  imperious, 
revengeful  and  unscrupulous.  It  is  quite  credible  that  she  did 
service  for  a  time  as  deaconess  (diacona)  at  the  church  of  Tours, 
and  that  she  founded  a  religious  hou.se  for  women  at  the  royal 
farm  Les  Andelys  near  Rouen,  but  we  can  hardly  believe  that  the 
life  she  lived  there  was  that  of  a  devout  nun. 

Radegund  of  Poitiers  and  Ingetrud  of  Tours  are  the  first 
Frankish  women  who  are  known  to  have  founded  and  ruled  over 
nunneries  in  France.  Their  activity  belongs  to  the  latter  half  of 
the  6th  century,  which  is  a  date  somewhat  later  than  that  of  the 
official  acceptance  of  Christianity,  and  one  at  which  the  over- 
lordship  of  the  Franks  was  already  well  established  throughout 
France.  The  settlements  they  founded  lay  in  close  proximity 
to  cities  which  were  strongholds  of  Church  government.  Poitiers 
had  become  an  important  religious  centre  through  the  influence  of 
St  Hilary,  and  Tours,  to  which  the  shrine  of  St  Martin  attracted 
many  travellers,  was  of  such  importance  that  it  has  been  called  the 
centre  of  religion  and  culture  in  France  at  this  period. 

The  historian  Gregory,  afterwards  bishop  of  Tours,  to  whom 
we  are  largely  indebted  for  our  knowledge  of  this  period,  was 
personally  acquainted  with  the  women  at  Tours  and  at  Poitiers. 
He  probably  owed  his  appointment  to  the  bishopric  of  Tours  in 
573  to  the  favour  he  had  found  with  Radegund\     He  has  treated 

'  Keller,  Ch.,  Etude  critique  sur  It  texte  de  la  vie  de  Ste  Genevitve,  1881 ;  also  A.  SS. 
Boll.,  St  Genovefa,  Jan.  3. 

••'  Darboy,  Mgr,  Sainte  Clothilde,  1865;  also  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Chrothildis,  June  3. 
'  Giesebrecht,  W.,  Fraukische  Geschichte  des  Gregoiius,  1851,  Einleitung  xviii. 

4—2 


.1 


52    5*/  Radegund  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers,    [chap,  ii 

of  her  in  his  history  and  has  written  an  account  of  her  burial  at 
which  he  officiated',  whilst  a  chapter  of  his  book  on  the  Glory  of 
Martyrs  praises  the  fragment  of  the  Holy  Cross^  which  had 
been  sent  to  Radegund  from  Constantinople  and  from  which  the 
nunnery  at  Poitiers  took  its  name. 

Besides  this  information  two  drafts  of  the  life  of  Radegund 
are  extant,  the  one  written  by  her  devoted  friend  and  admirer 
the  Latin  poet  Fortunatus,  afterwards  bishop  of  Poitiers,  the 
other  by  the  nun  Baudonivia,  Radegund's  pupil  and  an  inmate 
of  her  nunnery^  Fortunatus  has  moreover  celebrated  his  inter- 
course with  Radegund  in  a  number  of  verses,  which  throw  great 
light  on  their  interesting  personal  relations*. 

A  letter  is  also  extant  written  by  Radegund  her.self  and  pre- 
served by  Gregory  in  which  she  addresses  a  number  of  bishops  on 
the  objects  of  her  nunnery.  She  begs  the  prelates  of  the  Church 
to  protect  her  institution  after  her  death  and,  if  need  be,  assist 
those  who  are  carrying  on  life  there  in  her  spirit  against  hin- 
drance from  without  and  opposition  from  within.  The  letter  is 
in  the  usual  wordy  style  of  the  Latin  of  that  day. 

'  Freed  from  the  claims  of  a  worldly  life,  with  divine  help  and 
holy  grace,  I,'  she  says,  '  have  willingly  chosen  the  life  of  religion 
at  the  direction  of  Christ ;  turning  my  thoughts  and  powers 
towards  helping  others,  the  Lord  assisting  me  that  my  good 
intentions  towards  them  may  be  turned  to  their  weal.  With  the 
assistance  of  gifts  granted  me  by  the  noble  lord  and  king  Clothacar, 
I  have  founded  a  monastery  (monasterium)  for  maidens  (puellae) ; 
after  founding  it  I  made  it  a  grant  of  all  that  royal  liberality  had 
bestowed  on  me ;  moreover  to  the  band  assembled  by  me  with  Christ's 
help,  I  have  given  the  rule  according  to  which  the  holy  Caesaria 
lived,  and  which  the  holy  president  (antistes)  Caesarius  of  Aries 
wisely  compiled  from  the  teachings  of  the  holy  fathers.  With 
the  consent  of  the  noble  bishop  of  this  district  and  others,  and 
at  the  desire  of  our  congregation,  I  have  accepted  as  abbess  my 
sister,  dame  Agnes,  whom  from  youth  upwards  I  have  loved  and 
educated  as  a  daughter;  and  next  to  God's  will  I  have  conformed 

'  Gregorius  Tur.,  De  Gloria  Confessorum,  ch.  io6  (in  Migne,  Patrol.  Curms  Comple- 
tus,  vol.  71). 

*  Gregorius  Tur.,    De  Gloria  Martyntm,  ch.   5  (in  Migne,  Patrol.   Ciirsus  Compl., 
vol.  71). 

'  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Radegundis,  Aug.  13  (contains  both  these  accounts). 

*  Fortunatus,  Opera  poetica,  edit.  Nisard,  1887. 


SECT,  ii]    ^V  Radegtind  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers.    53 

to  her  authority.  I  myself,  together  with  my  sisters,  have  followed 
the  apostolic  example  and  have  granted  away  by  charter  all  our 
worldly  possessions,  in  fearful  remembrance  of  Ananias  and 
Sapphira,  retaining  nought  of  our  own.  But  since  the  events  and 
duration  of  human  life  are  uncertain,  since  also  the  world  is  drawing 
to  its  close  (mundo  in  finem  currente),  many  serving  their  own 
rather  than  the  divine  will,  I  myself,  impelled  by  the  love  of  God, 
submit  to  you  this  letter,  which  contains  my  request,  begging 
you  to  carry  it  out  in  the  name  of  Christ  \' 

Radegund  was  one  of  an  unconquered  German  race.  Her 
father  was  Hermafried,  leader  of  the  Thuringians,  her  mother  a 
grandniece  of  the  great  Gothic  king,  Theodoric.  She  was  captured 
as  a  child  together  with  her  brother  in  the  forest  wilds  of  Thiiringen 
during  one  of  the  raids  made  into  that  district  by  the  Prankish 
kings  Theuderic  (Thierry)  of  Metz,  and  Clothacar  (Clothair)  of 
Soissons.  Clothacar  appropriated  the  children  as  part  of  his 
share  of  the  booty  and  sent  Radegund  to  a  '  villa '  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Aties,  in  what  became  later  the  province  of  Picardie, 
where  she  was  brought  up  and  educated.  '  Besides  occupations 
usual  to  those  of  her  sex,'  her  biographer  says,  '  she  had  a  know- 
ledge of  letters '  (litteris  est  erudita).  From  Aties  she  vainly 
tried  to  make  her  escape,  and  at  the  age  of  about  twelve  was 
taken  to  the  royal  farm  near  Soissons  and  there  married  to 
Clothacar^.  In  the  list  of  King  Clothacar's  seven  recognised  wives 
Radegund  stands  fifth'. 

From  the  first  Radegund  was  averse  to  this  union.  She  was 
wedded  to  an  earthly  bridegroom  but  not  therefore  divided  from 
the  heavenly  one^  Her  behaviour  towards  her  husband  as  de- 
scribed by  her  biographers  can  hardly  be  called  becoming  to  her 
station  as  queen.  She  was  so  devoted  to  charitable  work,  we  are 
told,  that  she  often  kept  the  king  waiting  at  meals,  a  source  of 
great  annoyance  to  him,  and  under  some  pretext  she  frequently 
left  him  at  night.  If  a  man  of  learning  came  to  the  court 
she  would  devote  herself  to  him,  entirely  neglecting  her  duty 
to  the  king^  Quarrels  between  the  couple  were  frequent,  and  the 
king  declared  that  he  was  married  to  a  nun  rather  than  to  a 
queen*.     The  murder  of  her  younger   brother  finally  turned  the 

*  Gr^orius  Tur.,  Hist.  Fratu.  bk  9,  ch.  42. 

-  Gregorius  Tur.,  Hist.  Franc,  bk  3,  ch.  7;  Fortunalus,  Vita,  ch.  2-4. 

*  Giesebrecht,  W.,  Frdnkische  Geschichte  des  Gregorius,  1851,  apiiendix. 

*  Fortunatus,  Vita,  ch.  3.  •  Ibid.,  ch.  10.  *  Ibid.,  ch.  5. 


54    ^^  Radegiind  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers,    [chap,  ii 

balance  of  the  queen's  feelings  against  the  king.  With  fearless 
determination  she  broke  down  all  barriers.  She  was  not  lacking  in 
personal  courage,  and  had  once  calmly  confronted  a  popular  uproar 
caused  by  her  having  set  fire  to  a  sacred  grovel  Now,  regardless 
of  consequences,  she  left  the  court  and  went  to  Noyon,  where  she 
sought  the  protection  of  Bishop  Medardus  (f  545),  who  was  in- 
fluential among  the  many  powerful  prelates  of  his  day'.  But  the 
bishop  hesitated,  his  position  was  evidently  not  so  assured  that  he 
could,  by  acceding  to  the  queen's  request,  risk  drawing  on  himself 
the  king's  anger-'.  However  Radegund's  stern  admonition  pre- 
vailed :  'If  you  refuse  to  consecrate  me,'  she  cried,  *a  lamb  will 
be  lost  to  the  flock*.'  Medardus  so  far  consented  as  to  consecrate 
her  a  deaconess,  a  term  applied  at  the  time  to  those  who,  without  be- 
longing to  any  special  order,  were  under  the  protection  of  the  Church. 

In  the  oratory  of  St  Jumer  Radegund  now  offered  up  the 
embroidered  clothes  and  jewelry  she  was  wearing,  her  robe  (indu- 
mentum), her  precious  stones  (gemma),  and  her  girdle  weighty 
with  gold.  Both  her  biographers'*  lay  stress  on  this  act  of  self- 
denial,  which  was  the  more  noteworthy  as  love  of  gorgeous  apparel 
and  jewelry  was  characteristic  of  early  Prankish  royalty.  Kings 
and  queens  were  content  to  live  in  rural  dwellings  which  were  little 
more  than  barns ;  life  in  cities  was  altogether  uncongenial  to  them, 
but  they  made  up  for  this  by  a  display  of  sumptuous  clothes  as  a 
mark  of  their  rank.  Already  during  her  life  with  the  king  Rade- 
gund is  described  as  longing  for  a  hair-cloth  garment  as  a  sign 
of  unworldliness.  She  now  definitely  adopted  the  raiment  of  a 
nun,  a  dress  made  of  undyed  wool. 

She  subsequently  wandered  westwards  from  Noyon  and  came 
into  the  district  between  Tours  and  Poitiers,  where  she  settled  for 
some  time  at  a  '  villa '  her  husband  had  given  her  called  Sais^  She 
entered  into  friendly  relations  with  the  recluse  Jean  of  Chinon 
(Johannes  Monasteriensis^),  a  native  of  Brittany,  who  with  many 

'  Baudonivia,  Vita,  ch.  2. 

"^  A.SS.  Boll.,  St  Medardus,  June  8. 

"  Commentators  are  much  exercised  by  this  summary  breaking  of  the  marriage  tie ; 
some  urge  that  Radegund's  union  had  not  been  blessed  by  the  Church.  In  the  A.  SS.  it 
is  argued  that  the  GalHc  bishop  Medardus  in  pronouncing  her  divorce  acted  in  ignorance 
of  certain  canons  of  the  Church. 

*  Fortunatus,  Vita,  c.  10. 

*  Ibid.,  ch.  11;  Baudonivia,  Vita,  ch.  6. 

*  Ibid.,  Vita,  ch.  12. 

^  Stadler  und  Heim,  Vollstiindiges  Heiligmlexicoii,  Johannes,  nr  52;  Gregorius  Tur., 
De  Gloria  Con/essontm,  ch.  23. 


SECT,  ii]    6V  Radegund  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers.     55 


other  recluses  like  himself  enjoyed  the  reputation  of  great  holiness. 
Jean  of  Chinon  is  represented  as  strengthening  Radegund  in  her 
resolution  to  devote  herself  to  religion,  and  it  is  probable  that 
he  helped  her  with  practical  advice. 

Radegund  now  devoted  herself  to  the  relief  of  distress  of  every 
kind,  her  practical  turn  of  mind  leading  her  to  offer  help  in  physical 
as  well  as  in  mental  cases.  Her  biographer  tells  us  how — like 
a  new  Martha,  with  a  love  of  active  life — she  shrank  from  no 
disease,  not  even  from  leprosy'. 

When  she  saw  how  many  men  and  women  sought  her  relief 
the  wish  to  provide  permanently  for  them  arose.  She  owned 
property  outside  Poitiers  which  she  devoted  to  founding  a  settle- 
ment for  women  ;  in  all  probability  she  also  had  a  house  for 
men  near  it*.  Various  references  to  the  settlement  show  that  it 
extended  over  a  considerable  area.  Like  other  country  residences 
or  '  villae,'  it  was  surrounded  by  walls  and  had  the  look  of  a  fortress, 
although  situated  in  a  peaceful  district.  As  many  as  two  hundred 
nuns  lived  here  at  the  time  of  Radegund's  death'.  When  the  house 
was  ready  to  receive  its  inmates,  they  entered  it  in  a  procession 
starting  from  Poitiers.  We  hear  that  by  this  time  the  doings  of 
Radegund  '  had  so  far  increased  her  reputation  that  crowds  collected 
on  the  roofs  to  see  them  pass.' 

King  Clothacar,  however,  did  not  calmly  submit  to  being 
deserted  by  his  wife ;  he  determined  to  go  to  Poitiers  with 
his  son  to  find  her  and  to  take  her  back.  But  the  queen,  firm 
in  her  resolve,  declared  she  would  sooner  die  than  return  to  her 
husband.  She  notified  this  resolution  to  Bishop  Germanus  of  Paris, 
who  besought  the  king  not  to  go  to  Poitiers.  His  entreaties 
were  successful.  Clothacar  left  his  wife  unmolested,  and  seems  to 
have  come  to  some  kind  of  agreement  with  her.  In  her  letter 
to  the  bishops,  Radegund  speaks  of  him  as  the  noble  lord.  King 
Clothacar,  not  as  her  husband. 

Radegund  did  not  herself  preside  over  the  women  in  her 
nunnery.  With  their  consent  the  youthful  Agnes,  the  pupil  of 
Radegund,  but  by  no  means  her  intellectual  equal,  was  appointed 
abbess.  Diflficulties  very  soon  occurred  between  Radegund  and 
the  bishop  of  Poitiers,  who  was  probably  jealous  of  her  attracting 

*  Fortunatus,  Vita,  ch.  26. 

*  Lucchi,  Vii  de  Venantms  Fortutiatus,  ch.  85  (in  Fortunatus,  Opera  poetica,  edit. 
Nisard,  1887). 

*  Gregorius  Tur.,  De  Gloria  Cotifessortiin,  ch.  106. 


56    St  Radegund  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers,    [chap,  ti 


religious  women  from  himself.  Radegund  is  said  to  have  gone  to 
Aries  in  order  to  learn  about  the  life  of  the  women  gathered  to- 
gether there.  Against  the  accuracy  of  this  statement  it  is  urged' 
that  a  written  copy  of  the  rule,  together  with  an  eloquent  ex- 
hortation to  religious  perfection  and  virtue,  was  forwarded  from 
Aries  by  the  Abbess  Caesaria  (t  c.  560),  the  second  of  that 
name. 

The  rule  was  established  in  Poitiers  in  559.  In  the  previous 
year  King  Clothacar,  Radegund's  husband,  through  the  death  of 
his  brothers  and  their  sons,  had  become  sole  king  of  France*.  His 
monarchy  thus  included  the  whole  of  what  is  now  called  France, 
the  contiguous  districts  of  Burgundy  and  Thiiringen,  and  the  lands 
which  had  been  taken  from  the  Goths  in  Italy  and  Spain.  This 
great  kingdom  remained  united  for  a  few  years  only.  In  561  Clotha- 
car died  and  his  realm  was  divided  by  his  four  sons,  with  whose  reigns 
a  tempestuous  period  begins  in  the  history  of  the  Franks.  During 
more  than  forty  years  the  rivalry  and  jealousy  of  the  monarchs, 
aggravated  by  the  mutual  hatred  of  the  queens  Brunihild  and 
Fredegund,  overwhelmed  the  country  with  plots,  counterplots,  and 
unceasing  warfare. 

An  eloquent  appeal  to  the  kings  was  called  forth  from  the 
historian  Gregory  by  the  contemplation  of  this  state  of  things.  It 
is  contained  in  the  preface  to  the  fifth  book  of  his  history.  Calling 
upon  them  to  desist  from  the  complications  of  civil  war,  he  thus 
addresses  them  : 

'  What  are  you  bent  on  }  What  do  you  ask  for  ?  Have  you 
not  all  in  plenty  "i  There  is  luxury  in  your  homes  ;  in  your  store- 
houses wine,  corn,  and  oil  abound ;  gold  and  silver  are  heaped  up 
in  your  treasuries.  One  thing  only  you  lack  ;  while  you  have  not 
peace,  you  have  not  the  grace  of  God.  Why  must  the  one  snatch 
things  from  the  other }    Why  must  the  one  covet  the  other's  goods  } ' 

Living  at  Poitiers  Radegund  was  close  to  the  scene  of  these 
turmoils.  The  cities  of  Tours  and  Poitiers  had  fallen  to  the  share 
of  Charibert.  When  he  died  in  562  his  kingdom  was  divided 
between  his  three  brothers  by  cities  rather  than  by  districts.  Tours 
and  Poitiers  fell  to  Sigebert  of  Rheims,  who  was  comparatively 
peace-loving  among  these  brothers.  But  his  brother  Chilperic  of 
Soissons,  dissatisfied  with  his  own  share,  invaded  Touraine  and 
Poitou  and  forced  Poitiers  to  submit  to  him.     He  was  subsequently 

'  Fortunatus,  Opera poetica,  edit.  Nisarcl,  1887,  note  in,  3,  p.  214. 

■■*  Gerard,  P.  A.  F.,  Histoire  des  Francs  d' Auslrasie^  1864,  vol.  i,  p.  272. 


SECT.  II ]    Si  Rcu^egund  and  tlie  Nunnery  at  Poitiers.     57 

made  to  give  way  to  Sigebert,  but  this  did  not  bring  their  feuds  to 
an  end.  In  575  Sigebert  was  raised  on  the  shield  and  proclaimed 
king  of  Neustria  (the  western  part  of  France),  but  on  being  lifted 
down  from  the  sliield  he  was  forthwith  assassinated.  New  com- 
plications resulted  and  new  factions  were  formed.  In  the  interest 
of  her  son,  Brunihild,  the  powerful  widow  of  Sigebert,  pursued  with 
inveterate  hatred  Chilperic  and  his  wife,  the  renowned  Fredegund, 
for  she  looked  upon  Fredegund  as  the  assassin  of  Sigebert  her 
husband  and  of  Galesuith  her  sister. 

Radegund  had  close  relations  with  these  impetuous,  head- 
strong and  combative  persons.  King  Sigebert  was  throughout 
well  disposed  towards  her. 

'  In  order  to  show  his  love  and  affection  for  her/  says  Gregory', 
'he  sent  a  deputation  of  ecclesiastics  to  the  Emperor  Justinus  II 
and  his  wife  Sophia  at  Constantinople.'  The  Franks  entertained 
friendly  relations  with  the  imperial  court,  and  the  surviving  members 
of  Radegund's  family  had  found  a  refuge  there.  In  due  course  gifts 
were  sent  to  Radegund, — a  fragment  of  the  Holy  Cross  set  in  gold 
and  jewels,  together  with  other  relics  of  apostles  and  martyrs.  These 
relics  arrived  at  Tours  some  time  between  566  and  573-.  It  was 
Radegund's  wish  that  they  should  be  fetched  from  Tours  to  her 
nunnery  by  a  procession  headed  by  the  bishop  of  Poitiers.  But 
Bishop  Maroveusj  who  was  always  ready  to  thwart  the  queen, 
forthwith  left  for  his  country  seat  when  he  heard  of  her  requests 
Radegund,  much  incensed,  applied  in  her  difficulty  to  King  Sige- 
bert, and  Eufronius,  bishop  of  Tours,  was  ordered  to  conduct 
the  translation. 

Radegund's  adoption  of  the  religious  profession  in  no  way 
diminished  her  intercourse  with  the  outside  world  or  the  influence 
she  had  had  as  queen.  We  find  her  described  as  living  on  terms 
of  friendship  with  Queen  Brunihild  '  whom  she  loved  dearly.'  Even 
Queen  Fredegund,  Brunihild's  rival  and  enemy,  seems  to  have 
had  some  kind  of  intimacy  with  her.  Fortunatus  in  one  of  his 
poems  suggests  that  Fredegund  had  begged  Radegund  to  offer 
prayers  for  the  prosperity  of  her  husband  Chilperic. 

It  seems  that  Radegund's  word  was  generally  esteemed,  for 
in  a  family  feud  when  a  certain  Gundovald  claimed  to  be  the  son 
of  Clothacar  and  aspired  to  the  succession,  we  find  him  coupling 

*  Gregorius  Tur.,  Hist.  Franc,  bk  9,  ch.  40. 

*  Fortunatus,  Opera  poetica,  edit.  Nisard,  1887,  note  II,  i,  p.  76. 
'  Gregorius  Tur.,  Hist.  Franc,  bk  8,  ch.  40. 


58    St  Radegund  and  the  Nunnery  at  ^oitiers.    [chap,  ii 

the  name  of  Radegund  with  that  of  Ingetrud  in  asseveration  of  his 
statements. 

'  If  you  would  have  the  truth  of  what  I  declare  proven,'  Gundo- 
vald  exclaimed,  'go  and  enquire  of  Radegund  of  Poitiers  and  of 
Ingetrud  of  Tours ;  they  will  tell  you  that  what  I  maintain  is 
the  truths' 

In  an  age  of  endless  entanglements,  Radegund  evidently  did 
her  best  to  mediate  between  contending  parties.  *  She  was  always 
favourable  to  peace  and  interested  in  the  weal  of  the  realm  what- 
ever changes  befell,'  writes  the  nun  Baudonivia*.  *  She  esteemed 
the  kings  and  prayed  for  their  welfare,  and  taught  us  nuns  always 
to  pray  for  their  safety.  If  she  heard  that  they  had  fallen  out  she 
felt  troubled :  and  she  appealed  in  writing,  sometimes  to  one,  some- 
times to  another,  in  order  that  they  should  not  fight  and  war 
together,  but  keep  peaceful,  so  that  the  country  might  rest  securely. 
Similarly  she  exhorted  the  leaders  to  help  the  great  princes  with 
sensible  advice,  in  order  that  the  common  people  and  the  lands 
under  their  rule  might  prosper.' 

What  is  here  said  of  her  peace-loving  disposition  is  corroborated 
by  traits  in  her  character  mentioned  by  Gregory  and  Fortunatus. 
The  friendly  intercourse  between  Radegund  and  Fortunatus  ne- 
cessitates a  few  remarks  on  the  life  and  doings  of  this  latter-day 
Roman  poet  before  he  came  to  Poitiers  and  entered  the  Church. 

F'or  years  Fortunatus  had  lived  the  life  of  a  fashionable  man 
of  letters  at  Ravenna,  but  about  the  year  568  the  occupation  of 
that  city  by  the  Langobards  forced  him  to  leave  Italy.  He 
wandered  north  from  court  to  court,  from  city  to  city,  staying 
sometimes  with  a  barbarian  prince,  sometimes  with  a  Church- 
prelate,  who,  one  and  the  other,  were  equally  ready  to  entertain  the 
cultivated  southerner.  In  return  for  the  hospitality  so  liberally 
bestowed  on  him  he  celebrated  his  personal  relations  to  his  bene- 
factors in  complimentary  verses.  He  has  good  wishes  for  prelates 
on  the  occasion  of  their  appointment,  flattering  words  for  kings, 
and  pleasant  greetings  for  friends.  In  some  of  his  poems  he  gives 
interesting  descriptions  of  the  districts  through  which  he  has 
travelled,  his  account  of  a  part  of  the  Rhine  valley  being  specially 
graphic'.  He  glorifies  the  saints  of  the  Church  in  terms  formerly 
used  for  celebrating  classic  divinities,  and  addresses  Bishop  Me- 

'  Gregorius  Tur.,  Hist.  Franc,  bk  7,  ch.  .^6. 

*  Baudonivia,  Vita,c.  it. 

•*  Fortunatus,  Opera  poetica,  edit.  Nisaid,  1887,  bk  10,  nr  y. 


SECT,  ii]    St  Radcgutid  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers.     59 

dardus  of  Noyon  as  the  possessor  of  Olympus*.  He  even  brings 
in  Venus  to  celebrate  a  royal  wedding,  and  lets  her  utter  praises 
of  the  queen  Brunfhild*. 

Besides  these  poetical  writings  Fortunatus  has  left  prose  ac- 
counts of  several  of  his  contemporaries.  An  easy-going  man  of 
pleasant  disposition,  he  combined  in  a  curious  way  the  traditions  of 
cultured  Latinity  with  the  theological  bent  peculiar  to  the  Christian 
literature  of  the  day.  His  poems,  though  somewhat  wanting  in 
ideas,  show  a  ready  power  of  versification  and  a  great  facility  in 
putting  things  politely  and  pleasantly.  He  wrote  some  hymns  for 
church  celebration  which  became  widely  known.  The  one  beginning 
'  Pange,  lingua,  gloriosi '  was  adopted  into  the  Roman  Liturgy  for 
the  adoration  of  the  Cross  on  Good  Friday,  and  it  was  repeatedly 
modified  and  re-written  during  the  Middle  Ages.  Another  hymn 
written  by  him  is  the  celebrated  'Vexilla  regis  prodeunt,'  the  words 
of  which  are  comparatively  poor,  but  the  tune,  the  authorship  of 
which  is  unknown,  has  secured  it  world-wide  fame\ 

The  relic  of  the  Holy  Cross  kept  at  Poitiers  may  have  in- 
spired Fortunatus  with  the  idea  of  composing  these  hymns ;  in 
a  flattering  epistle,  written  obviously  at  Radegund's  request,  he 
thanks  Justinus  and  Sophia  of  Constantinople  for  the  splendour 
of  their  gift  to  her*. 

Fortunatus  had  conie  to  Tours  on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  shrine 
of  St  Martin,  to  whose  intercession  he  attributed  the  restoration 
of  his  eyesight.  Passing  through  Poitiers  he  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Radegund,  who  at  once  acquired  a  great  influence  over  him. 

'  Radegund  wished  me  to  stay,  so  I  stayed,'  he  writes  from 
Poitiers  to  some  friends^,  and  he  enlarges  on  the  superiority,  intel- 
lectual and  otherwise,  of  the  queen,  whose  plain  clothing  and  simple 
mode  of  life  greatly  impressed  him.  Naming  Eustachia,  Fabiola, 
Melania,  and  all  the  other  holy  women  he  can  think  of,  he  describes 
how  she  surpasses  them  all.  '  She  exemplifies  whatever  is  praise- 
worthy in  them,'  he  says ;  '  I  come  across  deeds  in  her  such  as  I 
only  read  about  before.  Her  spirit  is  clothed  with  flesh  that  has 
been  overcome,  and  which  while  yet  abiding  in  her  body  holds  all 
things  cheap  as  dross.  Dwelling  on  earth,  she  has  entered  heaven, 
and  freed  from  the  shackles  of  sense,  seeks  companionship  in  the 

1  Fortunatus,  Opera  poetka,  edit.  Nisarcl,  bk  i,  nr  i6. 

2  Ibid.,  bk  6,  nr  i. 

*  Mone,  1'".  J.,  Lateinisclie  Hyiiiuen  Jes  Mittelalters,   1S53-5,  vol.    i,    101  ;    Fortu- 
natus, Opera  poet'ua,  edit.  Nisard,  note,  p.  76. 

*  Fortunatus,  Opera  poetka.  Appendix,  nr  1.  •  Ibid.,  bk  8,  nr  i. 


6o    S/  Radegund  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers,    [ciiap.  it 


realms  above.  All  pious  teaching  is  food  to  her;  whether  taught  by 
Gregory  or  Basil,  by  bold  Athanasius  or  gentle  Hilary  (two  who 
were  companions  in  the  light  of  one  cause);  whether  thundered 
by  Ambrose  or  flashed  forth  by  Jerome  ;  whether  poured  forth  by 
Augustine  in  unceasing  flow,  by  gentle  Sedulius  or  subtle  Orosius. 
It  is  as  though  the  rule  of  Caesarius  had  been  written  for  her. 
She  feeds  herself  with  food  such  as  this  and  refuses  to  take  meat 
unless  her  mind  be  first  satisfied.  I  will  not  say  more  of  what  by 
God's  witness  is  manifest.  Let  everyone  who  can  send  her  poems 
by  religious  writers ;  they  will  be  esteemed  as  great  gifts  though 
the  books  be  small.  For  he  who  gives  holy  writings  to  her  may 
hold  himself  as  giving  to  the  accepted  temples  (templa)  of  God.' 

Judging  from  this  passage,  Nisard,  the  modern  editor  of 
Fortunatus,  thinks  it  probable  that  Radegund  was  acquainted  with 
Greek  as  well  as  with  Latin \  a  statement  which  one  cannot  endorse. 

The  queen  was  much  interested  in  the  poet's  writings.  '  For 
many  years,'  he  writes  in  one  poem,  '  I  have  been  here  composing 
verses  at  your  order ;  accept  these  in  which  I  address  you  in  the 
terms  you  merit'^' 

Radegund  too  wrote  verses  under  Fortunatus'  guidance.  '  You 
have  sent  me  great  verses  on  small  tablets,'  he  writes.  *  You  succeed 
in  giving  back  honey  to  dead  wax  ;  on  festal  days  you  prepare 
grand  entertainments,  but  I  hunger  more  for  your  words  than  for 
your  food.  The  little  poems  you  send  are  full  of  pleasing 
earnestness  ;  you  charm  our  thoughts  by  these  words'.' 

Among  the  poems  of  Fortunatus  are  found  two  which  modern 
criticism  no  longer  hesitates  in  attributing  to  Radegund.  They 
are  epistles  in  verse  written  in  the  form  of  elegies,  and  were  sent 
by  the  queen  to  some  of  her  relatives  at  Constantinople.  Judging 
by  internal  evidence  a  third  poem,  telling  the  story  of  Galesuith, 
Queen  Brunihild's  sister,  who  was  murdered  shortly  after  her 
marriage  to  King  Chilperic,  was  composed  by  her  also ;  though 
Nisard  claims  for  her  not  the  form  of  the  poem  but  only  its  inspira- 
tion*. *  The  cry,'  he  says, '  which  sounds  through  these  lines,  is  the 
cry  of  a  woman.  Not  of  a  German  woman  only,  who  has  in  her 
the  expression  of  tender  and  fiery  passion,  but  a  suggestion  of  the 
strength  of  a  woman  of  all  countries  and  for  all  time.'  The  lament 
in  this  poem  is  intoned  by  several  women  in  turn.     Whoever  may 

*  Fortunatus,  Opera  poetica,  note  y,  p.  213. 

^  Ibid.,  Appendix,  nr  16.  ^  Ibid.,  nr  31. 

*  Nisard,  Ch.,  Des  poesies  de  Kndegondi  attribuees  jusqu^ici  h  Fortunate  1889,  p.  5. 


SECT,  ii]    S/  Radeptnd  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers.     6i 


have  composed  it,  the/ depth  of  feeling  which  it  displays  is  certainly 
most  remarkable.       / 

One  of  these  poems  written  by  Radegund  is  addressed  to 
her  cousin  Hermalafred,  who  had  fled  from  Thuringen  when 
Radegund  was  captured,  and  who  had  afterwards  taken  service  in 
the  imperial  army  of  Justinian'.  Hermalafred  was  endeared  to 
Radegund  by  the  recollections  of  her  childhood,  and  in  vivid 
remembrance  of  events  which  had  made  her  a  captive  she  begins 
her  letter*  in  the  following  strain  : 

'Sad  is  condition  of  war  !  Jealous  is  fate  of  human  things  !  How 
proud  kingdoms  are  shattered  by  a  sudden  fall !  Those  long- 
prosperous  heights  (culmina)  lie  fallen,  destroyed  by  fire  in  the  great 
onset.  Flickering  tongues  of  flame  lapped  round  the  dwelling 
which  before  rose  in  royal  splendour.  Grey  ashes  cover  the 
glittering  roof  which  rose  on  high  shining  with  burnished  metal. 
Its  rulers  are  captive  in  the  enemy's  power,  its  chosen  bands  have 
fallen  to  lowly  estate.  The  crowd  of  comely  servants  all  dwelling 
together  were  smitten  to  the  dust  in  one  day;  the  brilliant  circle, 
the  multitude  of  powerful  dependents,  no  grave  contains  them, 
they  lack  the  honours  of  death.  More  brilliant  than  the  fire  shone 
the  gold  of  her  hair,  that  of  my  father's  sister,  who  lay  felled  to  the 
ground,  white  as  milk.  Alas,  for  the  corpses  unburied  that  cover 
the  battle-field,  a  whole  people  collected  together  in  one  burial 
place.  Not  Troy  alone  bewails  her  destruction,  the  land  of 
Thuringen  has  experienced  a  like  carnage.  Here  a  matron  in 
fetters  is  dragged  away  by  her  streaming  hair,  unable  to  bid  a  sad 
farewell  to  her  household  gods.  The  captive  is  not  allowed  to 
press  his  lips  to  the  threshold,  ncy  turn  his  face  towards  what  he 
will  never  more  behold.  Bare  feet  in  their  tread  trample  in  the 
blood  of  a  husband,  the  loving  sister  passes  over  her  brother's 
corpse.  The  child  still  hangs  on  its  mother's  lips  though  snatched 
from  her  embrace;  in  funeral  wail  no  tear  is  shed.  Less  sad  is  the  fate 
of  the  child  who  loses  its  life,  the  gasping  mother  has  lost  even 
the  power  of  tears.  Barbarian  though  I  am,  I  could  not  surpass 
the  weeping  though  my  tears  flowed  for  ever.  Each  had  his 
sorrow,  I  had  it  all,  my  private  grief  was  also  the  public  grief 
Fate  was  kind  to  those  whom  the  enemy  cut  down  ;  I  alone  survive 
to  weep  over  the  many.  But  not  only  do  I  sorrow  for  my  dead 
relatives,  those  too  I  deplore  whom  life  has  preserved.     Often  my 

'  Fortunatus,  Opera poetica,  edit.  Nisard,  1887,  note  ill,  1,  3,  etc.,  p.  184. 
-  Ibid.,  'De  Excidio  Thoringiae,'  Appendix,  nr  i. 


62    S/  Radegimd  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers,    [chap,  it 

tear-stained  face  is  at  variance  with  my  eyes ;  my  murmurs  are 
silenced,  but  my  grief  is  astir.  I  look  and  long  for  the  winds  to 
bring  me  a  message,  from  none  of  them  comes  there  a  sign.  Hard 
fate  has  snatched  from  my  embrace  the  kinsman  by  whose  loving 
presence  I  once  was  cheered.  Ah,  though  .so  far  away,  does  not 
my  solicitude  pursue  thee }  has  the  bitterness  of  misfortune  taken 
away  thy  sweet  love }  Recall  what  from  thy  earliest  age  upwards, 
O  Hermalafred,  I,  Radegund,  was  ever  to  thee.  How  much  thou 
didst  love  me  when  I  was  but  an  infant ;  O  son  of  my  father's 
brother,  O  most  beloved  among  those  of  my  kin  !  Thou  didst 
supply  for  me  the  place  of  my  dead  father,  of  my  esteemed  mother, 
of  a  sister  and  of  a  brother.  Held  by  thy  gentle  hand,  hanging  on 
thy  sweet  kisses,  as  a  child  I  was  soothed  by  thy  tender  speech. 
Scarce  a  time  there  was  when  the  hour  did  not  bring  thee,  now 
ages  go  by  and  I  hear  not  a  word  from  thee  !  I  wrestle  with  the 
wild  anguish  that  is  hidden  in  my  bosom  ;  oh,  that  I  could  call  thee 
back,  friend,  whenever  or  wherever  it  might  be.  If  father,  or 
mother,  or  royal  office  has  hitherto  held  thee,  though  thou  didst 
hasten  now  to  me,  thy  coming  is  late.  Perhaps  'tis  a  sign  of  fate 
that  I  shall  soon  miss  thee  altogether,  dearest,  for  unrequited 
affection  cannot  long  continue.  I  used  to  be  anxious  when  one 
house  did  not  shelter  us ;  when  thou  wast  absent,  I  thought  thee 
gone  for  ever.  Now  the  east  holds  thee  as  the  west  holds  me  ;  the 
ocean's  waters  restrain  me,  and  thou  art  kept  away  from  me  by  the 
sea  reddened  by  the  beams  of  the  sun  (unda  rubri).  The  earth's 
expanse  stretches  between  those  who  are  dear  to  each  other,  a 
world  divides  those  whom  no  distance  separated  before.' 

She  goes  on  to  speculate  where  her  cousin  may  be,  and  she  says 
if  she  were  not  held  by  her  monastery  she  would  go  to  him  ;  storm 
and  wind  and  the  thought  of  shipwreck  would  be  nothing  to  her. 
The  fear  of  incriminating  her,  she  says,  was  the  cause  of  the  death 
of  her  murdered  brother.  Would  that  she  had  died  instead  of 
him !  She  beseeches  Hermalafred  to  send  news  of  himself  and 
of  his  sisters,  and  ends  her  letter  with  these  words :  '  May 
Christ  grant  my  prayer,  may  this  letter  reach  those  beloved  ones, 
so  that  a  letter  indited  with  sweet  messages  may  come  to  me  in 
return !  May  the  sufferings  wrought  by  languishing  hope  be 
alleviated  by  the  swift  advent  of  sure  tidings ! ' 

This  poem  expresses  great  and  lasting  affection  for  her  race. 
But  her  relatives  were  a  source  of  continued  grief  to  the  queen. 
She  received  no  reply  to  her  letter  to  Hermalafred,  and  later  she 


SECT,  it]    S/  Radegknd  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers.    63 

_____ __^ ^ 

heard  of  his  death.  (She  received  this  news  from  his  nephew 
Artachis,  who  sent  h)br  at  the  same  time  a  present  of  silk,  and 
Radegund  then  wrc^te  another  letter*  which  is  addressed  to 
Artachis  and  is  even/sadder  in  tone.  In  it  she  deplores  the  death 
of  Hermalafred,  and/asks  the  boy  Artachis  to  let  her  have  frequent 
news  of  himself  sent  to  her  monastery. 

It  is  pleasant  to  turn  from  the  sad  side  of  Radegund's  life 
which  these  poems  exhibit  to  her  friendly  intercourse  with  For- 
tunatus,  which  was  no  doubt  a  source  of  great  comfort  to  her 
during  the  last  years  of  her  life.  With  the  exception  of  short 
intervals  for  journeys,  the  Latin  poet  lived  entirely  at  Poitiers, 
where  he  adopted  the  religious  profession,  and  dwelt  in  constant 
communication  with  Radegund  and  the  abbess  Agnes,  in  whose 
society  he  learned  to  forget  the  land  of  his  birth.  The  numerous 
poems  and  verses  which  he  has  addressed  to  these  ladies  throw  a 
strong  light  on  his  attitude  towards  them  and  their  great  affection 
for  him. 

Radegund  was  wont  to  decorate  the  altar  of  her  church  with  a 
profusion  of  flowers*.  Again  and  again  the  poet  sends  her  flowers, 
accompanying  his  gift  with  a  few  lines.  With  a  basket  of  violets 
he  sends  the  following^ : 

'  If  the  time  of  year  had  given  me  white  lilies,  or  had  offered 
me  roses  laden  with  perfume,  I  had  culled  them  as  usual  in  the 
open  or  in  the  ground  of  my  small  garden,  and  had  sent  them,  small 
gifts  to  great  ladies.  But  since  I  am  short  of  the  first  and  wanting 
in  the  second,  he  who  offers  violets  must  in  love  be  held  to  bring 
roses.  Among  the  odorous  herbs  which  I  send,  these  purple 
violets  have  a  nobleness  of  their  own.  They  shine  tinted  with 
purple  which  is  regal,  and  unite  in  their  petals  both  perfume  and 
beauty.  What  they  represent  may  you  both  exemplify,  that  by 
association  a  transient  gift  may  gain  lasting  worth.' 

The  interchange  of  gifts  between  the  poet  and  the  ladies 
was  mutual,  the  nuns  of  Ste  Croix  lacked  not  the  good  things 
of  this  world  and  were  generous  in  giving.  Fortunatus  thanks 
them  for  gifts  of  milk,  prunes,  eggs,  and  tempting  dishes*.  On 
one  occasion  they  send  him  a  meal  of  several  courses,  vegetables 
and  meat,  almost  too  much  for  one  servant  to  carry,  and  he 
describes  his  greedy  (gulosus)  enjoyment  of  it  in  graphic  terms*. 

*  Fortunatus,  Opera  poetica.  Appendix,  nr  3.  -  Ibid.,  bk  8,  nr  8. 

=*  Ibid.,  bk  8,  nr  6.  *  Ibid.,  bk  1 1,  nr  10. 

*  Ibid.,  bk  II,  nr  9. 


64    S^  Radegund  and  the  Nunnery  at  Poitiers,    [chap,  ii 

Are  we  to  take  the  lines  literally  which  tell  us  that  when  they  en- 
tertained him  at  dinner  the  table  was  scarcely  visible  for  the  roses 
with  which  it  was  strewn,  and  that  the  foliage  and  flowers  spread 
about  made  the  room  into  a  bower  of  greenery^? 

Sometimes  a  fit  of  indigestion  was  the  result  of  the  too  liberal 
enjoyment  of  what  his  friends  so  freely  provided ^  The  poet  was 
evidently  fond  of  the  pleasures  of  the  table,  and  accentuates  the 
material  rather  than  the  spiritual  side  of  things.  Once  addressing 
Agnes  he  tells  her  that  she  shines  in  the  blending  of  two  things, 
she  provides  refreshment  for  the  poet's  mind  and  excellent  food  for 
his  body'. 

But  the  6th  century  poet  is  generally  somewhat  plain-spoken 
on  delicate  topics.  In  a  poem  addressed  to  Radegund  and 
Agnes  he  openly  defends  himself  against  the  imputation  that  the 
tone  of  his  relations  to  them  is  other  than  is  signified  by  the  terms 
mother  and  sister  by  which  he  is  wont  to  address  them^  Still 
these  platonic  relations  do  not  preclude  the  use  of  expressions 
which  border  on  the  amorous,  for  he  tells  them  that  they  each 
possess  one  half  of  him^  and  he  calls  Radegund  the  light  of  his 
eyes*. 

'  My  dear  mother,  my  sweet  sister,'  he  writes,  *  what  shall  I  say, 
left  alone  in  the  absence  of  the  love  of  my  heart '^P...'  And 
again*,  'May  a  good  night  enfold  my  mother  and  my  sister; 
this  brings  them  the  good  wishes  of  a  son  and  a  brother.  May  the 
choir  of  angels  visit  your  hearts  and  hold  sweet  converse  with  your 
thoughts.  The  time  of  night  forces  me  to  be  brief  in  my  greetings; 
I  am  sending  only  six  lines  of  verse  for  you  both  !' 

The  vocabulary  used  to  denote  the  different  kinds  of  human 
affection  contains,  no  doubt,  many  terms  common  to  all,  and  if  the 
poems  of  Fortunatus  sometimes  suggest  the  lover,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  as  poems  of  friendship  they  are  among  the 
earliest  of  their  kind.  They  are  throughout  elegant,  graceful,  and 
characterized  by  a  playful  tenderness  which  a  translator  must 
despair  of  rendering. 

Radegund  died  in  the  year  587,  and  her  death  was  a  terrible 
loss  to  the  inmates  of  her  settlement.  Gregory,  bishop  of  Tours, 
who  officiated  at  the  burial,  gives  a  detailed  description  of  it,  telling 

*  Fortunatus,  Opera poetica,  bk  11,  nr  11.  ^  Ibid.,  bk  11,  nr  22. 
»  Ibid.,  bk  1 1,  nr  8.                                                *  Ibid.,  bk  1 1,  nr  6. 

*  Ibid.,  Appendix,  nr  21.  •'  Ibid.,  bk  ii,  nr  2. 

^  Ibid.,  bk  II,  nr  7.  8  \\y^^,^  Appendix,  nr  15. 


SECT.  Ill]  Convent  Life  in  the  North.  65 

how  some  two  hundred  women  crowded  round  the  bier,  bewailing 
her  death  in  such  word^as  these' : 

'To  whom,  mother, Jhast  thou  left  us  orphans?  To  whom  then 
shall  we  turn  in  our  distress  ?  We  left  our  parents,  our  relatives 
and  our  homes,  and  we  followed  thee.  What  have  we  before  us 
now,  but  tears  unceasing,  and  grief  that  never  can  end  ?  Verily, 
this  monastery  is  to  us  more  than  the  greatness  of  village  and  city.... 
The  earth  is  now  darkened  to  us,  this  place  has  been  straitened 
since  we  no  longer  behold  thy  countenance.  Woe  unto  us  who 
are  left  by  our  holy  mother!  Happy  those  who  left  this  world 
whilst  thou  wast  still  alive.-..!' 

The  nun  Baudonivia  says  that  she  cannot  speak  of  the  death  of 
Radegund  without  sobs  choking  her.  Her  account  was  written 
some  time  after  Radegund's  death  during  the  rule  of  the  abbess 
Didimia  to  whom  it  is  dedicated  ;  Didimia  probably  succeeded 
Leubover,  who  witnessed  the  serious  outbreak  of  the  nuns  at 
Poitiers.  This  outbreak  throws  an  interesting  light  on  the  temper 
of  professed  religious  women  at  this  period,  and  illustrates  how 
needful  it  was  that  a  religious  establishment  should  be  ruled  by 
a  woman  of  character  and  determination  at  a  time  when  the 
monastic  system  was  only  in  its  infancy. 

§  3.     The  Revolt  of  the  Nuns  at  Poitiers'.     Convent 
Life  in  the  North. 

The  revolt  of  the  nuns  at  Poitiers,  which  happened  within  a 
few  years  of  the  death  of  Radegund,  shows  more  than  anything 
else  the  imperious  and  the  unbridled  passions  that  were  to  be 
found  at  this  period  in  a  nunnery.  Evidently  the  adoption  of  the 
religious  profession  did  not  deter  women  from  openly  rebelling 
against  the  authority  of  the  ministers  of  the  Church,  and  from 
carrying  out  their  purpose  by  force  of  arms.  The  outbreak  at 
Poitiers,  of  which  Gregory  has  given  a  description,  shows  what 
proud,  vindictive,  and  unrelenting  characters  the  Prankish  convent 
of  the  6th  century  harboured. 

Already  during  Radegund's  lifetime  difficulties  had  arisen. 
King  Chilperic  had  placed  his  daughter  Basina  in  the  nunnery, 
and  after  a  time  he  asked  that  she  should  leave  to  be  married. 
Radegund  refused  and  her  authority  prevailed,  but  we  shall  find 

'  Gregorius  Tur.,  De  Gloria  Confessorum,  ch.  io6. 

'  Gregorius  Tur.,  Hist.  Franc.^  bk  9,  chs.  39 — 44  ;  bk  10,  chs.  15 — 17,  20. 

E.  5 


66  The  Revolt  of  the  Nuns  at  Poitiers.      [chap,  ii 

this  Basina  taking  an  active  part  in  the  rebellion.  Other  incidents 
show  how  difficult  it  was  for  Radegund  even  to  uphold  discipline. 
A  nun  escaped  through  a  window  by  aid  of  a  rope  and,  taking 
refuge  in  the  basilica  of  St  Hilary,  mc.de  accusations  which 
Gregory,  who  was  summoned  to  enquire  into  the  matter,  declared 
to  be  unfounded.  The  fugitive  repented  and  was  permitted  to 
return  to  the  nunnery;  she  was  hoisted  up  by  means  of  ropes  so 
that  she  might  enter  by  the  way  she  had  gone  out.  She  asked  to 
be  confined  in  a  cell  apart  from  the  community,  and  there  she 
remained  in  seclusion  till  the  news  of  the  rebellion  encouraged  her 
to  again  break  loose. 

Agnes  the  abbess  appointed  by  Radegund  died  in  589.  The 
convent  chose  a  certain  Leubover  to  succeed  her,  but  this  appoint- 
ment roused  the  ire  of  Chrodield,  another  inmate  of  the  nunnery. 

Chrodield  held  herself  to  be  the  daughter  of  King  Charibert, 
and  relying  on  her  near  connection  with  royalty  persuaded  forty 
nuns  to  take  an  oath  that  they  would  help  her  to  remove  the  hated 
Leubover  and  would  appoint  her,  Chrodield,  as  abbess  in  her  stead. 
Led  by  Chrodield  who  had  been  joined  by  her  cousin  Basina,  the 
daughter  of  Chilperic  mentioned  above,  the  whole  party  left  the 
nunnery.  '  I  am  going  to  my  royal  relatives,'  Chrodield  said, 
'  to  inform  them  of  the  contumely  we  have  experienced.  Not  as 
daughters  of  kings  are  we  treated  but  as  though  we  were  lowly 
born\' 

Leaving  Poitiers  the  women  came  to  Tours  where  Chrodield 
applied  for  assistance  to  the  bishop  and  historian  Gregory.  In 
vain  he  admonished  her,  promising  to  speak  to  Bishop  Maroveus 
of  Poitiers  in  her  behalf,  and  urging  her  to  abide  by  his  decision,  as 
the  penalty  might  be  excommunication. 

The  feeling  of  indignation  in  the  women  must  have  been 
strong,  since  nothing  he  could  say  dissuaded  them  from  their 
purpose.  '  Nothing  shall  prevent  us  from  appealing  to  the  kings,' 
said  Chrodield,  '  to  them  we  are  nearly  related.' 

The  women  had  come  on  foot  from  Poitiers  to  Tours,  regardless 
of  hardships.  They  had  had  no  food  and  arrived  at  a  time  of  year 
when  the  roads  were  deep  in  mud.  Gregory  at  last  persuaded  them 
to  postpone  their  departure  for  the  court  till  the  summer. 

Then  Chrodield,  leaving  the  nuns  under  the  care  of  Basina, 
continued  her  journey  to  her  uncle,  King  Guntchram  of  Orleans, 

'  Gregorius  Tur.,  Hist.  Franc,  bk  9,  cli.  39. 


SECT.  Ill]  Convent  Life  in  the  North.  67 

who  at  the  time  was  resiaing  at  Chal6ns-sur-Sa6ne.  She  was  well 
received  by  him  and  came  back  to  Tours  there  to  await  the 
convocation  of  bishops  who  were  to  enquire  into  the  rights  of  her 
case.  But  she  found  onf  her  return  that  many  of  her  followers  had 
disbanded,  and  some  had  married.  The  arrival  too  of  the  bishops 
was  delayed,  so  that  she  felt  it  expedient  to  return  with  her 
followers  to  Poitiers  where  they  took  possession  of  the  basilica  of 
St  Hilary. 

They  now  prepared  for  open  hostility.  '  We  are  queens,'  they 
said,  *  and  we  shall  not  return  to  the  monastery  unless  the  abbess 
is  deposed.' 

At  this  juncture  they  were  joined  by  other  dissatisfied  spirits, 
'murderers,  adulterers,  law-breakers  and  other  wrong-doers,'  as 
Gregory  puts  it*.  The  nun  too  who  had  previously  escaped  and 
been  taken  back,  now  broke  loose  from  her  cell  and  returned  to  the 
basilica  of  Hilary. 

The  bishop  of  Bordeaux  and  his  suffragan  bishops  of  Angou- 
leme,  Perigueux,  and  Poitiers,  now  assembled  by  order  of  the  king 
(Guntchram),  and  called  upon  the  women  to  come  into  the  monas- 
tery, and  on  their  refusal  the  prelates  entered  the  basilica  of  St 
Hilary  in  a  body  urging  them  to  obey.  The  women  refused,  and 
the  ban  of  excommunication  was  pronounced,  upon  which  they 
and  their  followers  attacked  the  prelates.  In  great  fear  the 
bishops  and  clergy  made  off  helter-skelter,  not  even  pausing 
to  bid  each  other  farewell.  One  deacon  was  so  terrified  that  in 
his  eagerness  to  get  away  he  did  not  even  ride  down  to  the  ford, 
but  plunged  with  his  horse  straight  into  the  river. 

King  Childebert  (f  596),  the  son  and  successor  of  King  Sigebert, 
now  ordered  Count  Macco  to  put  an  end  to  the  rebellion  by  force 
of  arms,  while  Gondegisel,  bishop  of  Bordeaux,  sent  a  circular 
letter  to  his  brethren,  describing  the  indignity  to  which  he  had  been 
exposed.  Chrodield's  chance  of  success  was  evidently  dwindling, 
when  she  determined  to  carry  her  point  by  a  bold  assault,  the 
account  of  which  may  fitly  stand  in  the  words  of  Gregory*. 

'  The  vexations,'  he  says,  '  which  sown  by  the  devil  had  sprung 
up  in  the  monastery  at  Poitiers,  daily  increased  in  troublesomeness. 
For  Chrodield,  having  collected  about  her,  as  mentioned  above, 
a  band  of  murderers,  wrong-doers,  law-breakers,  and  vagrants  of 
all  kinds,  dwelt  in  open  revolt  and  ordered  her  followers  to  break 
into  the  nunnery  at  night  and  forcibly  to  bear  off  the  abbess.     But 

*  Gregorius  Tur.,  Hist.  Franc. ^  bk  9,  ch.  41.  '  Ibid.,  bk  10,  ch.  15. 

5—2 


68  The  Revolt  of  the  Nuns  at  Poitiers.        [chap,  ii 

the  abbess,  on  hearing  the  noise  of  their  approach,  asked  to  be 
carried  in  front  of  the  shrine  of  the  Holy  Cross,  for  she  was 
suffering  from  a  gouty  foot,  and  thought  that  the  Holy  Cross  would 
serve  her  as  a  protection  in  danger.  The  armed  bands  rushed  in, 
ran  about  the  monastery  by  the  light  of  a  torch  in  search  of  the 
abbess,  and  entering  the  oratory  found  her  extended  on  the  ground 
in  front  of  the  shrine  of  the  Holy  Cross.  Then  one  of  them,  more 
audacious  than  the  rest,  while  about  to  commit  the  impious  deed  of 
cutting  her  down  with  his  sword,  was  stabbed  by  another,  through 
the  intercession  I  believe  of  Divine  Providence.  He  fell  in  his  own 
blood  and  did  not  carry  out  the  intention  he  had  impiously  formed. 
Meanwhile  the  prioress  Justina,  together  with  other  sisters,  spread 
the  altar-cover,  which  lay  before  the  cross,  over  the  abbess,  and 
extinguished  the  altar  candles.  But  those  who  rushed  in  with 
bared  swords  and  lances  tore  her  clothes,  almost  lacerated  the 
hands  of  the  nuns,  and  carried  off  the  prioress  whom  they  mistook 
for  the  abbess  in  the  darkness,  and,  with  her  cloak  dragged  off  and 
her  hair  coming  down,  they  would  have  given  her  into  custody  at  the 
basilica  of  St  Hilary.  But  as  they  drew  near  the  church,  and  the 
sky  grew  somewhat  lighter,  they  saw  she  was  not  the  abbess  and 
told  her  to  go  back  to  the  monastery.  Coming  back  themselves 
they  secured  the  real  abbess,  dragged  her  away,  and  placed  her 
in  custody  near  the  basilica  of  St  Hilary  in  a  place  where  Basina 
was  living,  and  placed  a  watch  over  her  by  the  door  that  no  one 
should  come  to  her  rescue.  Then  in  the  dark  of  night  they  returned 
to  the  monastery  and  not  being  able  to  find  a  light,  set  fire  to  a 
barrel  which  they  took  from  the  larder  and  which  had  been  painted 
with  tar  and  was  now  dry.  By  the  light  of  the  bonfire  they  kindled, 
they  plundered  the  monastery  of  all  its  contents,  leaving  nothing 
but  what  they  could  not  carry  off.  This  happened  seven  days 
before  Easter.' 

The  bishop  of  Poitiers  made  one  more  attempt  to  interfere. 
He  sent  to  Chrodield  and  asked  her  to  set  the  abbess  free  on  pain 
of  his  refusing  to  celebrate  the  Easter  festival.  '  If  you  do  not 
release  her,'  he  said,  '  I  shall  bring  her  help  with  the  assembled 
citizens.'  But  Chrodield  emboldened  by  her  success  said  to  her 
followers :  '  If  anyone  dare  come  to  her  rescue,  slay  her.' 

She  seems  now  to  have  been  in  possession  of  the  monastery ;  still 
we  find  defection  among  her  party.  Basina,  who  throughout  had 
shown  a  changeable  disposition,  repented  and  went  to  the  im- 
prisoned   Leubover,   who    received    her   with    open    arms.      The 


SECT.  Ill]  Convent  hife  in  the  North.  69 

bishops,  mindful  of  the  treatment  they  had  received,  still  refused 
to  assemble  in  Poitiers  while  the  state  of  affairs  continued. 
But  Count  Macco  with  his  armed  bands  made  an  attack  on  the 
women  and  their  followers,  causing  'some  to  be  beaten  down, 
others  struck  down  by  spears,  and  those  who  made  most  strenuous 
opposition  to  be  cut  down  by  the  sword.' 

Chrodield  came  forth  from  the  nunnery  holding  on  high  the 
relic  of  the  Cross  ;  '  Do  not,  I  charge  you,  use  force  of  arms  against 
me,'  she  cried,  '  I  am  a  queen,  daughter  to  one  king  and  cousin  to 
another.  Do  not  attack  me,  a  time  may  come  when  I  will  take 
my  revenge.'  But  no  one  took  any  notice  of  her.  Her  followers 
were  dragged  from  the  monastery  and  severely  chastised.  The 
bishops  assembled  and  instituted  a  long  enquiry  into  the  grievances 
of  Chrodield,  and  the  accusations  brought  against  Leubover  by 
her.  They  seem  to  have  been  unfounded  or  insignificant. 
Leubover  justified  herself  and  returned  to  the  monastery.  Chro- 
dield and  Basina  left  Poitiers  and  went  to  the  court  of  King 
Childebert. 

At  the  next  Church  convocation  the  king  tendered  a  request 
that  these  women  should  be  freed  from  the  ban  of  excommuni- 
cation. Basina  asked  forgiveness  and  was  allowed  to  return  to  the 
monastery.  But  the  proud  Chrodield  declared  that  she  would  not 
set  foot  there  while  the  abbess  Leubover  remained  in  authority. 
She  maintained  her  independence  and  went  to  live  in  a  'villa' 
which  the  king  had  granted  her,  and  from  that  time  she  passes  from 
the  stage  of  history. 

'  The  revolt  of  the  nuns  at  Poitiers,  which  for  two  years  defied 
the  efforts  of  churchmen  and  laymen,  is  the  more  noteworthy  in 
that  it  does  not  stand  alone.  Within  a  year  we  find  a  similar 
outbreak  threatening  the  nunnery  at  Tours  where  a  certain 
Berthegund,  similarly  disappointed  of  becoming  abbess,  collected 
malefactors  and  others  about  her  and  resorted  to  violent  measures. 
The  circumstances,  which  are  also  described  by  Gregory,  differ 
in  some  respects  from  those  of  the  insurrection  at  Ste  Croix \ 

Ingetrud,  the  mother  of  Berthegund,  had  founded  a  nunnery 
at  Tours  -blose  to  the  church  of  St  Martin,  and  she  urged  her 
daughter,  who  was  married,  to  come  and  live  with  her.  When 
Berthegund  did  so,  her  husband  appealed  to  Gregory,  who 
threatened  her  with  excommunication  if  she  persisted  in  her 
resolve.     She  returned  to  her  husband,  but  subsequently  left  him 

*  Gr^orius  Tur.,  Hist.  Franc. y  bk  9,  ch.  33;  bk  10,  ch.  \%. 


yo  The  Revolt  of  the  Nuns  at  Poitiers.      [chap,  ii 

again  and  sent  for  advice  to  her  brother  who  was  bishop  of 
Bordeaux.  He  decreed  that  she  need  not  live  with  her  husband  if 
she  preferred  convent  h'fe.  But  when  this  bishop  of  Bordeaux  died, 
his  sister  Berthegund  and  her  mother  Ingetrud  quarrelled  as  to  the 
inheritance  of  his  property,  and  Ingetrud,  much  incensed  against 
her  daughter,  determined  at  least  to  keep  from  Berthegund  her  own 
possessions  at  the  nunnery  and  succession  to  her  position  there. 
She  therefore  appointed  a  niece  of  hers  to  succeed  her  as  abbess 
after  her  death.  When  she  died  the  convent  of  nuns  looked  upon 
this  appointment  as  an  infringement  of  their  rights,  but  Gregory 
persuaded  them  to  keep  quiet  and  abide  by  the  decision  of  their 
late  abbess.  Berthegund  however  would  not  agree  to  it.  Against 
the  advice  of  the  bishop  she  appealed  to  the  authority  of  King 
Childebert,  who  admitted  her  claim  to  the  property.  '  Furnished 
with  his  letter  she  came  to  the  monastery  and  carried  off  all  the 
moveable  property,  leaving  nothing  but  its  bare  walls,'  Gregory 
says.  Afterwards  she  settled  at  Poitiers,  where  she  spoke  evil 
of  her  cousin  the  abbess  of  Tours,  and  altogether  '  she  did  so  much 
evil  it  were  difficult  to  tell  of  it  all.' 

From  the  consideration  of  these  events  in  central  France  we 
turn  to  the  religious  foundations  for  women  in  the  northern  districts. 
With  the  beginning  of  the  7th  century  a  change  which  directly 
influenced  convent  life  becomes  apparent  in  the  relations  between 
the  Frankish  rulers  and  the  representatives  of  Christianity.  In- 
fluential posts  at  court  were  more  and  more  frequently  occupied  by 
prelates  of  the  Church,  and  kings  and  queens  acted  more  directly 
as  patrons  of  churches  and  monasteries.  Hitherto  the  centres  of 
religious  influence  had  been  in  southern  and  central  France,  where 
the  Gallo-Frankish  population  and  influence  predominated,  and 
where  monasteries  flourished  close  to  cities  which  had  been  strong- 
holds of  the  Roman  system  of  administration.  New  religious 
settlements  now  grew  up  north  of  the  rivers  Seine  and  Marne, 
where  the  pure  Frankish  element  prevailed  and  where  Chris- 
tianity regained  its  foothold  owing  to  the  patronage  of  ruling 
princes. 

Whatever  had  survived  of  Latin  culture  and  civilisaticvn  in  these 
districts  had  disappeared  before  the  influence  of  the  heathen  invaders; 
the  men  whose  work  it  was  to  re-evangelise  these  districts  found  few 
traces  of  Christianity.  Vedast  (St  Vaast,  f  540),  who  was  sent  by 
bishop  Remigius  (St  Remy)  of  Rheims  (f  532)  into  the  marshy  dis- 
tricts of  Flanders,  found  no  Christians  at  Arras  about  the  year  500, 


SECT.  Ill]  Convent]  Life  in  the  North.  71 

and  only  the  ruins  of  one  ancient  church,  which  he  rebuilt*.  The 
author  of  the  life  of  Vedast  gives  the  ravages  made  in  these  districts 
by  the  Huns  as  the  reason  for  the  disappearance  of  Latin  culture 
and  of  Christianity.  But  the  author  of  the  life  of  Eleutherius, 
bishop  of  Tournai  (i*  531),  holds  that  the  Christians  had  fled  from 
these  districts  to  escape  from  the  inroads  of  the  heathen  Franks^ 

It  was  chiefly  by  the  foundation  of  monasteries  in  these  districts 
that  Christianity  gained  ground  during  the  7th  century.  '  Through 
the  establishment  of  monasteries,'  says  Gdrard^  'the  new  .social 
order  gained  a  foothold  in  the  old  Salic  lands.'  Among  the  names 
of  those  who  took  an  active  part  in  this  movement  stand  the 
following:  Wandregisil  (St  Vandrille,  t665)  founder  of  the  abbey 
of  Fontenelle ;  Waneng  {^  c.  688)  founder  of  Fecamp ;  Filibert 
(•f684)  founder  of  Jumieges;  Eligius  bishop  of  Noyon  (f  658)  and 
Audoenus  (St  Ouen,  \  683)  archbishop  of  Rouen.  These  men 
were  in  direct  contact  with  the  court  and  were  much  patronised 
by  the  ruling  princes,  especially  by  the  holy  queen  Balthild. 
Early  and  reliable  accounts  concerning  most  of  them  are  extant*. 

With  regard  to  political  events  the  7th  century  is  the  most 
obscure  period  of  Frankish  history,  for  the  history  of  Gregory  of 
Tours  comes  to  an  end  in  591.  Feuds  and  quarrels  as  violent  as 
those  he  depicts  continued,  and  important  constitutional  changes 
took  place  as  their  result.  The  vast  dominions  brought  under 
Frankish  rule  showed  signs  of  definitely  crystallising  into  Austrasia 
which  included  the  purely  Frankish  districts  of  the  north,  and 
Burgundy  and  Neustria  where  Gallo-Frankish  elements  were 
prevalent. 

The  latter  half  of  the  life  of  the  famous  Queen  Brunihild'*  takes 
its  colouring  from  the  rivalry  between  these  kingdoms  ;  during  fifty 
years  she  was  one  of  the  chief  actors  in  the  drama  of  Frankish 
history.  At  one  time  she  ruled  conjointly  with  her  son  Childebert, 
and  then  as  regent  for  her  grandsons,  over  whom  she  domineered 
greatly.  In  the  year  613,  when  she  was  over  eighty  years  old,  she 
was  put  to  a  cruel  death  by  the  nobles  of  Austrasia. 

The  judgments  passed  on  this  queen  are  curiously  contradictory. 
Pope  Gregory  (f  604)  writes  to  her  praising   her   great   zeal    in 

»  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Vedastus,  Feb.  6. 

*  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Eleutherius,  Feb.  ^o■,  Vita  I,  ch.  3  (Potthast,  Wegweiser:  *VUa 
auctore  anonym 0  sed  antiquo^). 

*  Gerard,  P,  A.  F.,  Histoire  des  Francs  d' Auslrasie,  1864,  vol.  i,  p.  384. 

*  Comp.  throughout/^.  5'5".  Boll.,  St  Wandregisilus,  July  2-2 ;  St  Waningus,  Jan.  9,  etc. 
'  Drapeyron,  L.,  La  reine  Brunehilde,  1867. 


72  The  Revolt  of  the  Nuns  at  Poitiers.      [chap,  ii 

the  cause  of  religion,  and  thanks  her  for  the  protection  she  has 
afforded  to  Augustine  on  his  passage  through  France,  which  he 
considers  a  means  to  the  conversion  of  England*.  On  the  other 
hand  the  author  of  the  life  of  St  Columban^  whom  she  expelled 
from  Burgundy,  calls  her  a  very  Jezebel';  and  the  author  of  the 
life  of  Desiderius,  who  was  murdered  in  608,  goes  so  far  as  to 
accuse  her  of  incestuous  practices  because  of  her  marriage  with 
her  husband's  nephew*.  Indirect  evidence  is  in  favour  of  the 
conclusion  that  Queen  Brunihild  disliked  monasticism  ;  she  was 
by  birth  of  course  a  princess  of  the  Gothic  dynasty  of  Spain 
who  had  accepted  Christianity  in  its  Arian  form. 

During  the  reign  of  Brunihild's  nephew  Clothacar  II  (t  628), 
under  whose  rule  the  different  provinces  were  for  a  time  united,  a 
comprehensive  and  most  interesting  edict  was  issued,  which  affords 
an  insight  into  the  efforts  made  to  give  stability  to  the  relations 
between  princes  and  the  representatives  of  religion.  In  this  edict, 
under  heading  18,  we  are  told  that  'no  maidens,  holy  widows 
or  religious  persons  who  are  vowed  to  God,  whether  they  stay  at 
home  or  live  in  monasteries,  shall  be  enticed  away,  or  appropriated, 
or  taken  in  marriage  by  making  use  of  a  special  royal  permit  (prae- 
ceptum).  And  if  anyone  surreptitiously  gets  hold  of  a  permit,  it 
shall  have  no  force.  And  should  anyone  by  violent  or  other  means 
carry  off  any  such  woman  and  take  her  to  wife,  let  him  be  put  to 
death.  And  if  he  be  married  in  church  and  the  woman  who  is 
appropriated,  or  who  is  on  the  point  of  being  appropriated,  seems 
to  be  a  consenting  party,  they  shall  be  separated,  sent  into  exile, 
and  their  possessions  given  to  their  natural  heirs'.' 

From  these  injunctions  it  can  be  gathered  that  the  re-adjust- 
ment of  social  and  moral  relations  was  still  in  progress ;  women 
who  were  vowed  to  a  religious  life  did  not  necessarily  dwell  in  a 
religious  settlement,  and  even  if  they  did  so  they  were  not  neces- 
sarily safe  from  being  captured  and  thrown  into  subjection.  Clo- 
thacar II  had  three  wives  at  the  same  time  and  concubines 
innumerable  ;  plurality  of  wives  was  indeed  a  prerogative  of  these 
Frankish  kings. 

*  Gregorius,  Papa,  Epistolae,  liber  9,  epist.  109  (in  Migne,  Patrol.  Cursus  Compl. 
vol.  77). 

*  St  Columban  who  went  abroad  and  died  in  615  should  be  kept  distinct  from  St 
Columba  who  died  in  597,  sometimes  also  called  Columban.  Both  of  them  wrote  rules  for 
monks  (cf.  Dictionary  of  Nat.  Biography). 

'  Bouquet,  Kecueil  Hist.,  vol.  3,  p.  478.  **  A.  SS.  Boll..,  St  Desiderius,  May  13. 

*  Guett^e,  Histoire  de  r Rglise  de  France,  vol.  i,  p.  317. 


SECT.  Ill]  Co7tveni  Life  in  the  North.  y;^ 

Monastic  life  in  northern  France  at  this  period  was  also  in 
process  of  development.  It  has  been  mentioned  how  Radegund 
adopted  the  rule  of  life  framed  and  put  into  writing  by  Caesarius 
at  Aries.  The  rule  contemporaneously  instituted  by  Benedict  at 
Nursia  in  central  Italy  spread  further  and  further  northwards, 
and  was  advocated  by  prelates  of  the  Romish  Church.  It  served 
as  the  model  on  which  to  reform  the  life  of  existing  settlements'. 

During  the  first  few  centuries  religious  houses  and  communities 
had  been  founded  here  and  there  independently  of  each  other,  the 
mode  of  life  and  the  routine  observed  depending  in  each  case 
directly  on  the  founder.  Many  and  great  were  the  attempts  made 
by  the  advocates  of  convent  life  to  formulate  the  type  of  an  ideal 
existence  outside  the  pale  of  social  duties  and  family  relations, 
in  which  piety,  work  and  benevolence  should  be  blended  in  just 
proportions.  The  questions  how  far  the  prelates  of  the  Church 
should  claim  authority  over  the  monastery,  and  what  the  respective 
positions  of  abbot  or  abbess  and  bishop  should  be,  led  to  much 
discussion. 

During  the  period  under  consideration  the  rules  drafted  by 
different  leaders  of  monastic  thought  were  not  looked  upon  as 
mutually  exclusive.  We  are  told  in  the  life  of  Filibert  (t  684), 
written  by  a  contemporary^  that  he  made  selections  from  '  the 
graces  of  St  Basil,  the  rule  of  Macarius,  the  decrees  of  Benedict 
and  the  holy  institutions  of  Columban.'  Eligius,  bishop  of  Noyon, 
says  in  a  charter  which  he  drafted  for  the  monastery  founded  by 
him  at  Solemny  that  the  inmates  of  the  settlement  shall  follow 
the  rules  of  St  Benedict  and  of  St  Columban'. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  6th  century  Columban  came  from 
Ireland  into  France  and  northern  Italy  and  founded  a  number  of 
religious  settlements.  What  rule  of  life  the  inmates  of  these 
houses  followed  is  not  quite  clear,  probably  that  drafted  by 
Columban,  The  convents  in  Elsass,  Switzerland  and  Germany, 
which  considered  that  they  owed  their  foundation  to  Irish  monks, 
were  numerous  and  later  became  obnoxious  to  the  Church  in 
many  ways.  For  in  after  years,  when  the  feud  arose  between  the 
Romish  and  the  Irish  Churches  and  the  latter  insisted  on  her  in- 
dependence, the  houses  founded  by  Irishmen  also  claimed  freedom 

'  Opioions  differ  as  to  the  original  form  of  the  rule  of  St  Benedict.     Comp.  Benedic- 
tus,  Opera,  pp.  104  ff.  (in  Migne,  Patrologiae  Cursus  Complete  vol.  66). 
•■'  A.  SS  BoU.,  St  Filibertus,  Aug.  20. 
'  Roth.  P.,  Geschichte  dts  Beru/uialwesms,  1850  Appendix,  gives  the  Charter, 


74  The  Revolt  of  the  Nuns  at  Poitiers.       [chap,  ii 

and  remained  separate  from  those  which  accepted  the  rule  of 
St  Benedict. 

The  property  granted  to  religious  foundations  in  northern 
France  went  on  increasing  throughout  the  7th  century.  The 
amount  of  land  settled  on  churches  and  monasteries  by  princes 
of  the  Merovech  dynasty  was  so  great  .that  on  Roth's  computation 
two-thirds  of  the  soil  of  France  was  at  one  time  in  the  hands  of 
the  representatives  of  religion  \  Under  the  will  of  Dagobert,  who 
first  became  king  of  Austrasia  in  628  and  afterwards  of  the  whole 
of  France,  large  tracts  were  given  away.  Through  the  gifts  of  this 
king  the  abbey  of  St  Denis  became  the  richest  in  France,  and  his 
great  liberality  on  the  one  hand  towards  the  Church,  on  the  other 
towards  the  poor  and  pilgrims,  is  emphasized  by  his  biographer. 
His  son  Chlodwig  II,  king  of  Neustria  and  Burgundy,  followed  in 
his  footsteps.  He  was  a  prince  of  feeble  intellect  and  his  reign  is 
remarkable  for  the  power  increasingly  usurped  by  the  house-mayor, 
who  grasped  more  and  more  at  the  substance  of  royal  authority 
while  dispensing  with  its  show. 

Chlodwig  II  was  married  to  Balthild,  who  is  esteemed  a  saint 
on  the  strength  of  the  monastery  she  founded  and  of  the  gifts  she 
made  to  the  Church.  There  are  two  accounts  of  her  works ;  the 
second  is  probably  a  re-written  amplification  of  the  first,  which 
was  drafted  within  a  short  period  of  her  death^  As  these  accounts 
were  written  from  the  religious  standpoint,  they  give  scant  infor- 
mation on  the  political  activity  and  influence  of  the  queen,  which 
were  considerable.  They  dwell  chiefly  on  her  gifts,  and  concern 
the  latter  part  of  her  life  when  she  was  in  constant  communication 
with  her  nunnery. 

Balthild  was  of  Anglo-Saxon  origin,  and  her  personality  and 
activity  form  the  connecting  link  between  the  women  of  France 
and  England.  It  is  supposed  that  she  was  descended  from  one 
of  the  noble  families  of  Wessex,  and  she  favoured  all  those  re- 
ligious settlements  which  were  in  direct  connection  with  princesses 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race. 

She  had  been  captured  on  the  north  coast  of  France  and  had 
been  brought  to  Paris  as  a  slave  by  the  house-mayor  Erchinoald, 
who  would  have  married  her,  but  she  escaped  and  hid  herself. 
Her  beauty  and  attractions  are  described  as  remarkable,  and  she 
found  favour  in  the  eyes  of  King  Chlodwig  II  who  made  her  his 

'  Roth,  P.,  Geschichte  des  Beneficialwesens,  1850,  p.  249. 

^  A,  SS.  Boll.,  St  Bathildis,  Jan.  26  (contains  both  accounts). 


SECT.  Ill]  Convent  Lmfe  in  the  North.  75 

wife.  The  excesses  of  this  k-Ing  were  so  great  that  he  became 
imbecile.  Balthild  with  Erchimoald's  help  governed  the  kingdom 
during  the  remainder  of  her  Husband's  life  and  after  his  death  in 
the  interest  of  her  little  sons.  From  a  political  point  of  view 
she  is  described  as  'administering  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom 
masculine  wise  and  with  gr^eat  strength  of  mind.'  She  was  es- 
pecially energetic  in  oppoj^^ing  slavery  and  forbade  the  sale  of 
Christians  in  any  part  of  France.  No  doubt  this  was  due  to  her 
own  sad  experience.  She'  also  abolished  the  poll-tax,  which  had 
been  instituted  by  the  Ro  mans.  The  Prankish  kings  had  carried 
it  on  and  depended  on  it/  for  part  of  their  income.  Its  abolition 
is  referred  to  as  a  most  irnportant  and  beneficial  change'. 

During  the  lifetime  of  Chlodwig  and  for  some  years  after  his 
death  the  rule  of  Balthild  seems  to  have  been  comparatively  peace- 
ful. The  house-mayor  'Erchinoald  died  in  658  and  was  succeeded 
by  Ebruin,  a  man  whose  unbounded  personal  ambition  again 
plunged  the  realm  in.to  endless  quarrels.  In  his  own  interest 
Ebruin  advocated  th^e  appointment  of  a  separate  king  to  the 
province  Austrasia,  aind  the  second  of  Balthild's  little  sons  was 
sent  there  with  the  /house-mayor  Wulfoald.  But  the  rivalry  be- 
tween the  two  kingd(pms  soon  added  another  dramatic  chapter  to 
the  pages  of  Franki.^  history.  At  one  time  we  find  Ebruin  ruling 
supreme  and  concyemning  his  rival  Leodgar,  bishop  of  Autun, 
to  seclusion  in  the/  monastery  of  Luxeuil.  An  insurrection  broke 
out  and  Ebruin  Aimself  was  tonsured  and  cast  into  Luxeuil. 
But  his  chief  antagonist  Leodgar  was  murdered.  Ebruin  was  then 
set  free  and  again  became  house-mayor  to  one  of  the  shadow 
kings,  roisfal'""^7its,  the  unworthy  successors  of  the  great  Merovech. 
His  career  th,-  ^ghout  reflected  the  tumultuous  temper  of  the  age ; 
he  was  finally  assassinated  in  the  year  680. 

Queen  Balthild  had  retired  from  political  life  long  before  this. 

She  left  the  court  in  consequence  of  an  insurrection  in  Paris  which 

led  to  the  assassination  of  Bishop  Sigoberrand,  and  went  to  live  at 

a  palace  near  the  convent  of  Chelles,  which  she  had  founded  and 

which  she  frequently  visited.     In  the  account  of  her  life  we  read 

of  her  doing  many  pious  deeds*.     'A  fond  mother,  she  loved  the 

nuns  like  her  own  daughters  and  obeyed  as  her  mother  the  holy 

abbess  whom  she  had  herself  appointed  ;  and  in  every  respect  she 

did  her  duty  not  like  a  mistress  but  like  a  faithful  servant.     Also 

^  Roth,  P.,  Geschichte  des  Bene/icialwesens,  1850,  p.  86. 
«  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Bathildis,  Jan.  26 ;  Vita  n.,  ch.  14. 


\ 

76  TAe  Revolt  of  the  A^u7is  at  Poitiers.       [chap,  ii 

with  the  humility  of  a  strong  mind^she  served  as  an  example ;  she 
did  service  herself  as  cook  to  the  nums,  she  looked  after  cleanliness, 
— and,  what  can  I  say  more, — the  pmrest  of  pearls,  with  her  own 
hands  she  removed  filth's  impurities.. I..' 

At  various  times  of  her  life  Ba  Ithild  had  been  in  friendly 
intercourse  with  many  of  the  chief  prebates  and  religious  dignitaries 
of  the  day.  She  had  taken  a  special  interest  in  Eligius,  bishop  of 
Noyon,  who  was  a  Frank  by  birth  anei  the  friend  and  adviser  of 
King  Dagobert. 

We  hear  how  Eligius  took  a  special  interest  in  monastic  life  ; 
how  at  Paris  he  collected  together  three  hundred  women,  some  of 
whom  were  .slaves,  others  of  noble  origin;  h  ow  he  placed  them  under 
the  guidance  of  one  Aurea ;  and  how  at'=  Noyon  also  he  gathered 
together  many  women ^  "i 

On  receiving  the  news  that  Eligius  was  ^  dying,  Balthild  hurried 
with  her  sons  to  Noyon,  but  they  came  too  late  to  see  him.  So 
great  was  her  love  for  him,  that  she  would"  have  borne  away  his 
body  to  Chelles,  her  favourite  settlement,  but  her  wish  was 
miraculously  frustrated.  The  writer  of  the^  life  of  Eligius  tells 
that  the  holy  man's  body  became  so  heavy  that  it  was  impossible 
to  move  it.  ^ 

When  Eligius  appointed  Aurea  as  presideht  of  his  convent  at 
Paris  she  was  living  in  a  settlement  at  Pavilly  which  had  been 
founded  by  Filibert,  an  ecclesiastic  also  associated  with  Queen 
Balthild.  On  one  occasion  she  sent  him  as  an  bfifering  her  royal 
girdle,  which  is  described  as  a  mass  of  gold  and^  jewels*.  It  was 
on  land  granted  to  him  by  Balthild  and  her  s6ns  that  Filibert 
founded  Jumieges,  where  he  collected  together  a'"  many  as  nine 
hundred  monks.  At  his  foundation  at  Pavilly  ove.'^ three  hundred 
women  lived  together  under  the  abbess  Ansterbert'.* 

It  is  recorded  that  Ansterbert  and  her  mother  Framehild 
were  among  the  women  of  northern  France  who  catoe  under  the 
influence  of  Irish  teachers.  The  same  is  said  of  Fara  (t  657)*,  the 
reputed  founder  of  a  house  at  Brie,  which  was  known  as  Faremou- 
tiers,  another  settlement  indebted  to  Queen  Balthild's  i.nunificence. 
Similarly  Agilbert  and  TheodohiW  (t  c.  660)  are  su^pposed  to 
have  been  taught  by    Irish  teachers   who   had  collected   women 

about  them   at  Jouarre   on  the   Marne.     This  house   at  Jouarre 

\ 

'  A.  SS.  Boll.,  ibid.,  St  Aurea,  Oct.  4. 

'^  Ibid.,  St  Filibertus,  Aug.  20,  Vita,  ch.  5.  »  Ibid.,  St  Austrebertii,  Feb.  10. 

*  Regnault,  Vie  de  Ste  Fare,  1626.  "  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Teclechildis,  lOct.  lo. 


SECT.  Ill]  Convent  Life  in  the  North.  77 

attained  a  high  standard  of  exc  ellence  in  regard  to  education,  for 
we  are  informed  that  Balthild  summoned  Berthild'  from  here,  a 
woman  renowned  for  her  learning,  and  appointed  her  abbess  over 
the  house  at  Chelles. 

Yet  another  ecclesiastic  must  be  mentioned  in  connection  with 
Balthild,  viz.  Waneng,  a  Frank  by  birth.  He  was  counsellor  for 
some  time  to  the  queen  who  gave  the  cantle  of  Normandy,  the 
so-called  Pays  de  Caux,  into  his  charge.  He  again  founded  a 
settlement  for  religious  women  at  Fecamp  which  was  presided 
over  by  Hildemarque. 

The  foundation  and  growth  of  so  many  religious  settlements 
within  so  short  a  period  and  situated  in  a  comparatively  small 
district  shows  that  the  taste  for  monastic  life  was  rapidly  develop- 
ing among  the  Franks. 

'  At  this  period  in  the  provinces  of  Gaul,'  says  a  contemporary 
writer,  '  large  communities  of  monks  and  of  virgins  were  formed, 
not  only  in  cultivated  districts,  in  villages,  cities  and  strongholds, 
but  also  in  uncultivated  solitudes,  for  the  purpose  of  living  together 
according  to  the  rule  of  the  holy  fathers  Benedict  and  Columban*.' 

This  statement  is  taken  from  the  life  of  Salaberg,  a  well  written 
composition  which  conveys  the  impression  of  truthfulness.  Sala- 
berg had  brought  up  her  daughter  Anstrud  for  the  religious  life. 
Her  husband  had  joined  the  monastery  at  Luxeuil  and  she  and 
other  women  were  about  to  settle  near  it  when  the  rumour  of 
impending  warfare  drove  them  north  towards  Laon  where  they 
dwelt  on  the  Moris  Clavatus.  This  event  belongs  to  the  period 
of  Queen  Balthild's  regency.  It  was  while  Anstrud  was  abbess 
at  Laon  that  the  settlement  was  attacked  and  barely  escaped 
destruction  in  one  of  the  wars  waged  by  the  house-mayor  Ebruin. 
This  event  is  described  in  a  contemporary  life  of  Anstrud'. 

It  is  intere>ting  to  find  a  connection  growing  up  at  this  period 
between  the  religious  houses  of  northern  France  and  the  women  of 
Anglo-Saxon/  England.  We  learn  from  the  reliable  information 
supplied  by  iBede  that  Englishwomen  frequently  went  abroad  and 
sometimes''^ttled  entirely  in  Frankish  convents.  We  shall  return 
to  this  sub/iject  later  in  connection  with  the  princesses  of  Kent 
and  East  Anglia,  some  of  whom  went  to  France  and  there  became 
abbesses.  ,  The  house  at  Brie  was  ruled  successively  by  Saethrith 

»  A.  SS.  Boll.,  .St  Berlilia,  Jan.  3. 

"^  Ibid.,  .St  Salaberga,  Sept.  22,  Vila,  ch.  8. 

■'  Ibid.,  St  Austrudis,  Oct.  17. 


78  The  Revolt  of  the  Nuns  at  Poitiers.       [chap,  ii 

(St  Syre),  and  Aethelburg  (St  Aubierge),  daughters  of  kings 
of  East  Anglia,  and  Earcongotha,  a  daughter  of  the  king  of 
Kent.  About  the  same  time  Hereswith,  a  princess  of  Northumbria, 
came  to  reside  at  Chelles\ 

We  do  not  know  how  far  the  immigration  of  these  women  was 
due  to  Balthild's  connection  with  the  land  of  her  origin,  nor  do  we 
hear  whether  she  found  solace  in  the  society  of  her  countrywomen 
during  the  last  years  of  her  life.  Her  death  is  conjectured  to 
have  taken  place  in  680. 

With  it  closes  the  period  which  has  given  the  relatively  largest 
number  of  women-saints  to  France,  for  all  the  women  who 
by  founding  nunneries  worked  in  the  interests  of  religion  have 
a  place  in  the  assembly  of  the  saints.  They  were  held  as  bene- 
factors in  the  districts  which  witnessed  their  efforts,  and  the  day 
of  their  death  was  inscribed  in  the  local  calendar.  They  have 
never  been  officially  canonised,  but  they  all  figure  in  the  Roman 
Martyrology,  and  the  accounts  which  tell  of  their  doings  have 
been  incorporated  in  the  Acts  of  the  Saints. 

^  Bede,  Hist.  Eccles.,  bk  3,  ch.  8 ;  bk  4,  ch.  23.     Comp.  below,  ch.  3,  §  i. 


CHAIPTER   III. 

/ 

CONVENTS   AMONG   TH|E  ANGLO-SAXONS,   A.D.   63O-73O. 

*  Ecce  catervim  glomerant  ad  bella  phalanges 
Justiliae  comite;s  et  virtutum  agmina  sancta.' 

Ealdhelm,  De  laude  Virginuni. 

§  I.     Early  Houses  in  Kent. 

The  early  history  of  the  convent  life  of  women  in  Anglo-Saxon 
England  is  chiefly  an  account  of  foundations.  Information  on  the 
establishment  of  religious  settlements  founded  and  presided  over 
by  women  is  plentiful,  but  well-nigh  a  century  went  by  before 
women  who  had  adopted  religion  as  a  profession  gave  any  insight 
into  their  lives  and  characters  through  writings  of  their  own.  The 
women  who  founded  monasteries  in  Anglo-Saxon  England  have 
generally  been  raised  to  the  rank  of  saint. 

'  In  the  ^^r^<t  number  of  convents  as  well  as  in  the  names  of 
female  saints  among  the  Anglo-Saxons,'  says  Lappenberg*,  '  we 
may  recognise  t »  y  same  spirit  which  attracted  the  notice  of  the 
Roman  army  among  the  ancient  Germans,  and  was  manifested  in 
the  esteem  and  honour  of  women  generally,  and  in  the  special 
influence  exerc'^'^d  by  the  priestess.' 

A  great  pr.,  ortion  of  the  women  who  founded  religious  houses 
were  members  jf  ruling  families.     From  the  first  it  was  usual  for 


a  princess  to  jeceive  a  grant  of  land  from  her  husband  on  the 
occasion  of  htr  marriage,  and  this  land  together  with  what  she^ 
inherited  from  her  father  she  could  dispose  of  at  will.  She 
often  devotee  this  property  to  founding  a  religious  house  where 
she  established  her  daughters,  and  to  which  she  retired  either 
during  her  husband's  lifetime  or  after  his  death.  The  great 
honour  paid  by  Christianity  to  the  celibate  life  and  the  wide  field 

»    ^istory  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  transl.  Thorpe,  1845,  vol.  i,  p.  247. 


\ 

80  Early  Ho.uses  in  Kent.  [chap,  hi 

of  action  opened  to  a  princess  %n  a  religious  house  were  strong 
inducements  to  the  sisters  and  daughters  of  kings  to  take  the  veil. 

We  have  trustworthy  informavtion  about  many  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  women  who  founded  and  presided  over  religious  settle- 
ments and  whom  posterity  reverernced  as  saints ;  for  their  work 
has  been  described  by  writers  vvhc»  either  knew  them,  or  gained 
their  information  from  those  who  did.  But  there  are  other  women 
whose  names  only  are  mentioned  in  (charters,  or  correspondence,  or 
in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle.  Historians  however  welcome  such 
references  as  chronological  evidence  and  as  proofs  of  these 
women's  real  existence ;  without  theim  they  would  have  nothing 
to  rely  upon  but  accounts  dating  from  a  later  period  and  often 
consisting  of  little  more  than  a  series  o\f  incidents  strung  together 
in  order  to  explain  the  miracles  with  which  the  saints'  relics  were 
locally  credited.  There  is  a  certain  similarity  between  these  later 
accounts  and  those  we  have  of  pseudo- saints,  but  they  differ  from 
those  of  an  earlier  date,  for  the  writers  of  the  8th  and  9th 
centuries  were  not  actuated  like  those  of  a  later  period  by  the 
desire  to  give  a  miraculous  rendering  of  fact.  Bede  (f  735)  stands 
pre-eminent  among  the  earlier  writers,  and  our  admiration  for 
him  increases  as  we  discover  his  immense  superiority  to  other 
early  historians. 

Most  of  the  women  who  were  honoured  as  saints  in  England 
belong  to  the  first  hundred  years  after  the  acceptance  of 
Christianity  in  these  islands.  A  few  other  'wom'^n  have  been 
revered  as  saints  who  lived  in  the  loth  century  and  came  under 
the  influence  of  the  monastic  revival  which  is  i?  ociated  with  the 
name  of  Dunstan  (f  988).  But  no  woman  livng  during  Anglo- 
Norman  times  has  been  thus  honoured,  for  the  desire  to  raise 
women  to  saintship  was  essentially  Anglo-Saxon  and  was  strongest 
in  the  times  which  immediately  followed  the  acce.  ance  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

It  was  more  than  two  hundred  years  after  tht  Anglo-Saxons 
first  set  foot  on  British  shores  that  they  accept-d  Christianity. 
The  struggles  between  them  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  island  had 
ended  in  the  recognised  supremacy  of  the  invaders,  and  bands  of 
heathen  Germans,  settling  at  first  near  the  shore,  foi  the  sake  of 
the  open  country,  had  gradually  made  their  way  up  the  fruitful 
valleys  and  into  adjoining  districts  till  they  covered  the  land  with 
a  network  of  settlements.  After  the  restlessness  of  inv^asion  and 
warfare  the   Anglo-Saxons   settled    down    to    domesti*    life   and 


\) 


\ 


SECT,  i]  Early  Houses  in  Kent  8i 

agriculture,  for  compared  with  the  British  they  were  eminently 
tillers  of  the  soil.  Under  their  regime  the  cities  built  by  the 
Romans  and  the  British  fastnesses  alike  fell  into  decay.  The 
Anglo-Saxons  dwelt  in  villages,  and  the  British  either  lived  there 
in  subservience  to  them  or  else  retired  into  districts  of  their  own 
which  were  difficult  of  access. 

The  re-introduction  of  Christianity  into  these  islands  is 
associated  with  the  name  of  Pope  Gregory.  Zealous  and  resolute 
in  his  efforts  to  strengthen  the  papal  power  by  sending  forth 
missionaries  who  were  devoted  to  him,  he  watched  his  opportunity 
to  gain  a  foothold  for  the  faith  in  Kent. 

Tradition  connects  the  first  step  in  this  direction  with  the  name 
of  a  Prankish  princess,  and  Bede  in  his  Church  History  tells  how 
the  marriage  of  Berhta,  daughter  ol  King  Charibert  of  Paris 
(c;6i-i;67T~t(r"Kmg  Aethelberht  otKent  (586-616)  brought  an 
.ecclesiastic  to  Canterbury  who  took  possession  of  the  ancient 
British  church  of  St  Martin :  this  event  was  speedily  followed 
by  the  arrival  of  other  ecclesiastics  from  Rome,  who  travelled 
across  France  under  the  leadership  of  Augustine. 

At  the  time  of  Augustine's  arrival  the  position  of  Kent  was 
threatened  by  the  growing  supremacy  of  Northumbria.  Through 
the  activity  both  of  Aethelfrith  (•|'6i7)  and  of  Eadwin  his 
successor,  the  land  extending  from  the  Humber  to  the  Firth  of 
Forth  had  been  united  under  one  rule ;  Northumbria  was  taking 
the  lead  among  the  petty  kingdoms  which  had  been  formed  in 
different  parts  of  the  island.  The  king  of  Kent  strengthened 
his  independent  position  by  accepting  the  faith  which  had  proved 
propitious  to  the  Franks  and  by  entering  into  alliance  with  his 
neighbours  across  the  Channel ;  and  it  was  no  doubt  with  a  view 
to  encouraging  peaceful  relations  with  the  north  that  Aethelburg 
the  daughter  of  Aethelberht  and  Berhta  was  given  in  marriage 
to  King  Eadwin  of  Northumbria  during  the  reign  of  her  brother 
Eadbald  (616-640). 

Again  the  marriage  of  a  Christian  princess  was  made  an 
occasion  for  extending  the  faith  ;  an  ecclesiastic  as  usual  followed 
in  her  train.  Paulinus,  the  Roman  chaplain  who  came  north 
with  Aethelburg,  after  various  incidents  picturesquely  set  forth 
by  Bede,  overcame  King  Eadwin's  reluctance  to  embrace  Chris- 
tianity and  prevailed  upon  Viim  to  be  baptized  at  York  with 
other  members  of  his  household  on  Easter  day  in  the  year  627. 
The  event  was  followed  by  an  influx  of  Christians  into  that  city, 
E.  6 


82  Early  Houses  in  Kent.  [chap,  hi 

for  British  Christianity  had  receded  before  the  heathen  Angles, 
but  it  still  had  strongholds  in  the  north  and  was  on  the  alert 
to  regain  lost  ground.  The  city  of  York,  during  Roman  rule, 
had  been  of  great  importance  in  affairs  of  administration.  The 
Roman  Eboracum  nearly  died  out  to  arise  anew  as  Anglian 
Eoforwic.  King  Eadwin  recognised  Paulinus  as  bishop  and  a 
stone  church  was  begun  on  part  of  the  ground  now  occupied  by 
the  Minster\ 

Bede  loves  to  dwell  on  the  story  of  this  conversion,  which 
was  endeared  to  all  devout  churchmen  by  many  associations. 
Eanflaed,  the  child  of  Eadwin  and  Aethelburg,  whose  baptism  was 
its  immediate  cause,  was  afterwards  a  staunch  supporter  of  Roman 
versus  British  Church  tendencies.  She  was  the  patron  of  Wilfrith, 
in  his  time  the  most  zealous  advocate  of  the  supremacy  of  Rome. 

Among  the  members  of  Ead win's  household  who  were 
baptized  on  the  same  Easter  day  in  627  was  Hild,  a  girl  of 
fourteen,  who  afterwards  became  abbess  of  Whitby.  She  was 
grand-niece  to  Eadwin  through  her  father  Hereric,  who  had  been 
treacherously  made  away  with  ;  her  mother  Beorhtswith  and  her 
sister  Hereswith  were  among  the  early  converts  to  Christianity. 
Hereswith  afterwards  married  a  king  of  the  Angles,  and  at  a  later 
period  was  living  in  the  Prankish  settlement  of  Chelles  (Cala),  where 
her  sister  Hild  at  one  time  thought  of  joining  her.  Nothing  is 
known  of  the  life  of  Hild  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  thirty- 
four,  but  evidently  she  had  not  dwelt  in  obscure  retirement,  for  the 
Scottish  prelate  Aidan  in  647,  knowing  that  she  was  living  in 
the  midlands,  begged  her  to  return  to  the  north.  It  is  a 
noteworthy  circumstance  if,  in  an  age  when  marriage  was  the 
rule,  she  remained  single  without  taking  the  veil,  but  she  may 
have  been  associated  with  some  religious  settlement". 

It  was  only  a  few  years  after  the  acceptance  of  Christianity 
at  York  that  the  days  of  King  Eadwin's  reign, '  when  a  woman 
with  her  babe  might  walk  scatheless  from  sea  to  sea,'  came  to  an 
abrupt  close.  Eadwin  was  slain  in  633  at  the  battle  of  Hatfield, 
a  victim  to  the  jealousy  of  the  British  king  Caedwalla,  who 
combined  with  the  heathen  king  Penda  of  Mercia  against  him. 

'  Raine,  Historians  of  the  Church  of  York.     Rolls  series,  vol.  i,  Preface,  p.  xxiii. 

^  It  is  probable  such  settlements  existed.  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  vol.  3,  p.  302,  holds 
a  religious  foundation  to  have  existed  in  Tinmouth  founded  6 1 7-33,  but  in  Bede,  Life  of 
Ctithhert,  transl.  Stevenson,  T.,  1887,  ch.  3,  it  is  referred  to  as  a  monastery  formerly  of 
men,  now  of  '  virgins.' 


SECT,  i]  Early  Houses  in  Kent.  83 

Queen  Aethelburg  with  her  children  and  Paulinus  fled  from  York 
to  the  coast  and  went  by  sea  to  Kent,  where  they  were  welcomed 
by  her  brother  King  Eadbald  and  by  Archbishop  Honorius. 

At  the  beginning  of  his  reign  Eadbald  of  Kent  had  been  in 
conflict  with  the  Church  owing  to  his  marriage  with  his  father's 
relict,  a  heathen  wife  whom  Aethclberht  had  taken  to  himself  after 
the  death  of  Berhta.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  position  held  at 
first  by  Christian  prelates  in  England  that  they  depended  entirely 
on  the  ruling  prince  for  their  position.  Paulinus  fled  from  York  at 
the  death  of  Eadwin,  and  Eadbald's  adherence  to  heathen  customs 
temporarily  drove  the  Kentish  prelate  abroad.  The  king  of  Kent 
had,  however,  found  it  well  to  repudiate  his  heathen  wife  and  to 
take  a  Christian  princess  of  the  Franks  in  her  stead.  This  act 
restored  him  to  the  goodwill  of  his  prelate,  who  returned  to  English 
shores. 

Eadbald  had  settled  a  piece  of  land  at  Folkestone  on  his 
daughter  Eanswith,  and  there  about  the  year  630  she  founded 
what  is  held  to  be  the  first  religious  settlement  for  women  in 
Anglo-Saxon  England  \  The  fact  of  this  foundation  is  un- 
disputed, but  all  we  know  of  Eanswith's  life  is  in  the  account  given 
of  her  by  Capgrave,  an  Augustinian  monk  who  lived  in  the 
15th  century*.  He  tells  us  how  she  went  to  live  at  Folkestone  and 
how  a  king  of  Northumbria  wished  to  marry  her,  but  as  the  king 
was  a  heathen,  she  made  their  union  conditional  on  his  prevailing 
upon  his  gods  to  manifest  their  power  by  miraculously  lengthening 
a  beam.  In  this  he  failed  and  consequently  departed.  There 
follows  a  description  how  Eanswith  made  a  stream  to  flow 
'  againste  the  hylle,'  from  Smelton,  a  mile  distant  from  Folkestone, 
possibly  by  means  of  a  well-levelled  water  conduit.  Capgrave 
also  describes  how  she  enforced  the  payment  of  tithes. 

Eanswith's  settlement  was  in  existence  at  the  close  of  the 
century,  when  it  was  destroyed  or  deserted  during  the  viking 
invasion.  A  charter  of  King  Athelstane  dated  927  gives  the  land 
where  '  stood  the  monastery  and  abbey  of  holy  virgins  and  where 
also  St  Eanswith  lies  buried '  to  Christ  Church,  Canterbury,  the 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Folkestone,'  vol.  i,  p.  451. 

*  Hardy,  Th.  D.,  Descriptive  Catalogue  of  Materials,  i86a,  vol.  i,  p.  226  :  '  the  life  of 
Eanswith  cannot  be  traced  to  any  earlier  authority  than  John  of  Tinmouth  (tc.  1380) 
whose  account  Capgrave  (ti484)  embodied  in  his  collection  of  saints'  lives.'  The  work 
of  Capgrave,  Catalogus  SS.  Angliae,  was  printed  in  15 16;  the  Kalendre  of  the  nnoe 
Legmde  of  Euglatide,  printed  15 16  (Pynson),  from  which  expressions  are  quoted  in  the 
text,  is  an  abridged  translation  of  it  into  English. 

6 — 2 


84  Early  Houses  in  Kent.  [chap,  in 

house  having  been  destroyed  by  the  '  Pagans*.'  Capgrave  says 
that  its  site  was  swallowed  by  the  sea,  perhaps  in  one  of  the 
landslips  common  to  the  coast ;  the  holy  woman's  relics  were 
then  transferred  to  the  church  of  St  Peter.  A  church  at  Folke- 
stone is  dedicated  conjointly  to  St  Mary  and  St  Eanswith,  and  a 
church  at  Brensett  in  Kent  is  dedicated  solely  to  her*. 

Queen  Aethelburg  coming  from  the  north  also  settled  in  Kent 
at  a  place  called  Liming'.  Bede  knows  nothing  of  her  after  her 
departure  from  the  north,  and  we  have  to  depend  on  Canterbury 
traditions  for  information  concerning  her  and  the  religious  house 
she  founded.  Gocelin,  a  monk  of  Flanders  who  came  into  Kent  in 
the  nth  century,  describes  Queen  Aethelburg  as 'building  and  up- 
raising this  temple  at  Liming,  and  obtaining  the  first  name  there 
and  a  remarkable  burial-place  in  the  north  porch  against  the 
south  wall  of  the  church  covered  with  an  arch^'  Modern  research 
has  shown  that  the  buildings  at  Liming  were  so  arranged  as  to 
contain  a  convent  of  monks  as  well  as  of  nuns.  The  church  is  of 
Roman  masonry  and  may  have  been  built  out  of  the  fragments  of 
a  villa,  such  as  the  Anglo-Saxons  frequently  adapted  to  purposes 
of  their  own,  or  it  may  have  been  a  Roman  basilica  restored. 

Queen  Aethelburg,  foundress  of  Liming,  is  not  usually  reckoned 
a  saint ;  she  has  no  day'  and  collections  of  saints'  lives  generally 
omit  her.  The  identity  of  name  between  her  and  Aethelburg 
(•f  c.  ^y&),  abbess  of  Barking  at  a  somewhat  later  date,  has  caused 
some  confusion  between  them^  Gocelin  mentions  that  both  Queen 
Aethelburg  and  '  St  Eadburga '  were  buried  at  Liming^  A  well 
lying  to  the  east  of  the  church  at  Liming  is  to  this  day  called 
St  Ethelburga's  well,  and  she  is  commonly  held  to  be  identical 
with  Queen  Aethelburg®. 

At  a  somewhat  later  date  another  religious  settlement  for 
women  was  founded  at  Sheppey  in  Kent  by  Queen  Sexburg,  the 
wife  of  Earconberht  of  Kent  (640-664),  the  successor  of  Eadbald. 

*  Dugdale,  MonasHcon,  '  Folkestone,' vol.  i,  p.  451,  nri. 

-  Smith  and  Wace,  Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography,  1880,  'Eanswitha';  also 
A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Eanswida,  Aug.  31. 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Liming,'  vol.  i,  p.  452. 

*  Jenkins,  R.  C,  in  Gentleman's  Magazine,  i86a,  August,  p.  196  quotes  this  state- 
ment ;  I  do  not  see  where  he  takes  it  from. 

'  .Stanton,  R.,  Menology  of  England  and  Wales,  1887,  p.  144. 

*  Hardy,  Th.  D.,  Descriptive  Catalogue  of  Materials,  1862,  vol.  i,  p.  475. 

'  Gocelinus,  Vita  St  Wereburgae,  c.  i  (in  Migne,  Patrol.  Cursus  CompL,  vol.  155). 
^  Bright,  W.,  Early  English  Church  History,  1878,  p.  130  footnote. 


SECT,  i]  Early  Houses  in  Kent.  85 

We  know  little  of  the  circumstances  of  the  foundation  ^  Sexburg 
was  a  princess  of  East  Anglia,  where  Christianity  had  been 
accepted  owing  to  the  influence  of  King  Eadwin  of  North- 
umbria  •  and  where  direct  relations  with  France  had  been 
established, 

'  For  at  that  time,'  says  Bede,  writing  of  these  districts',  '  there 
being  not  yet  many  monasteries  built  in  the  region  of  the  Angles, 
many  were  wont,  for  the  sake  of  the  monastic  mode  of  life,  to  go 
from  Britain  to  the  monasteries  of  the  Franks  and  of  Gaul  ;  they^ 
also  sent  their  daughters  to  the  same  to  be  instructed  and  to  be 
wedded  to  the  heavertly  spouije,  cTuefly  in  the  monasteries  of  Brie 
(Faremoutiers),  Chelles,  and  Andelys.' 

Two  pnncesses  of  Anglia,  Saethrith  and  Aethelburg,  who  were 
sisters  or  half-sisters  to  Sexburg,  remained  abroad  and  became 
in  succession  abbesses  of  Brie  as  mentioned  above.  Sexburg's 
daughter  Earcongotha  also  went  there,  and  was  promoted  to  the 
rank  of  abbess.  Both  Bede  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  speak 
in  praise  of  her.  For  her  other  daughter  Eormenhild,  who  was 
married  to  Wulfhere,  king  of  Mercia,  Queen  Sexburg  of  Kent 
founded  the  house  at  Sheppey ;  she  herself  went  to  live  at  Ely 
in  her  sister  Aethelthrith's  convent. 

The  statement  of  Bede  that  women  at  this  time  went  abroad 
for  their  education  is  borne  out  by  the  traditional  records  of 
Mildthrith.  first  abbess  of  a  religious  settlement  in  Thanet  which 
rose  to  considerable  importance  ^  A  huge  mass  of  legend  supple- 
ments the  few  historical  facts  we  know  of  Mildthrith,  whose  in- 
fluence, judging  from  the  numerous  references  to  her  and  her  wide- 
spread cult,  was  greater  than  that  of  any  other  English  woman-saint. 
Several  days  in  the  Calendar  are  consecrated  to  her,  and  the  site 
where  her  relics  had  been  deposited  was  made  a  subject  of  con- 
troversy in  the  nth  century.  As  late  as  1882  we  find  that  some 
of  her  relics  were  brought  from  Deventer  in  Holland  to  Thanet, 
and  that  Pope  Leo  XIII  granted  a  plenary  indulgence  on  the 
occasion".     Churches  in    London,  Oxford,  Canterbury  and   other 


*  Dugdale,  Alonasticon,  '  Sheppey,'  vol.  2,  p.  49. 

■-*  Bright,  W.,  Early  English  Church  History,  1878,  p.  123. 
^  Bede,  Hist.  Eccles.,  bk  3,  ch.  8,  transl.  Gidley,  1870. 

*  Dugdale,  Monaslicon,  'Thanet,'  vol.  i,  p.  447;  Hardy,  Th.  D.,  Descriptive 
CcUalogue  of  Materials,  1861,  on  lives  of  St  Mildred,  vol.  i,  p.  376;  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St 
Mildreda,  July  13. 

'  Stanton,  R.,  Menology  of  England  and  Wales,  1887,  July  13. 


86  Early  Houses  in  Kent.  [chap,  hi 

places  are  dedicated  to  St  Mildred*,  and  Capgrave,  William 
of  Malmesbury  and  others  give  details  of  her  story,  which  runs 
as  follows : 

Her  mother  Eormenburg,  sometimes  called  Domneva,  was 
married  to  Merewald,  prince  of  Hacanos,  a  district  in  Hereford- 
shire. King  Ecgberht  (664-673)  of  Kent  gave  her  some  land  in 
Thanet  as  a  blood-fine  for  the  murder  of  her  two  young  brothers, 
and  on  it  she  founded  a  monastery.  She  asked  for  as  much  land 
as  her  tame  deer  could  run  over  in  one  course,  and  received  over 
ten  thousand  acres  of  the  best  land  in  Kent*. 

Besides  Mildthrith  Eormenburg  had  two  daughters,  Mildburg 
and  Mildgith,  and  a  boy,  the  holy  child  Merwin,  who  was  translated 
to  heaven  in  his  youth.  Mildburg  presided  over  a  religious  house 
at  Wenlock  in  Shropshire,  and  her  legend  contains  picturesque 
traits  but  little  trustworthy  information'.  We  know  even  less  of 
the  other  daughter  Mildgith.  It  is  doubtful  whether  she  lived  in 
Kent  or  in  the  north,  but  she  is  considered  a  saints  An  ancient 
record  says  that  '  St  Mildgith  lies  in  Northumbria  where  her 
miraculous  powers  were  often  exhibited  and  still  are,'  but  it  does 
not  point  out  at  what  place^ 

According  to  her  legend,  Mildthrith,  by  far  the  best  known 
of  the  sisters,  was  sent  abroad  to  Chelles  for  her  education,  where 
the  abbess  Wilcoma  wished  her  to  marry  her  kinsman,  and 
on  the  girl's  refusal  cast  her  into  a  burning  furnace  from  which 
she  came  forth  unharmed.  The  girl  sent  her  mother  a  psalter 
she  had  written  together  with  a  lock  of  her  hair.  She  made 
her  escape  and  arrived  in  England,  landing  at  Ebbsfleet.  'As 
she  descended  from  the  ship  to  the  land  and  set  her  feet  on 
a  certain  square  stone  the  print  of  her  feet  remained  on  it,  most 
life-like,  she  not  thinking  anything  ;  God  so  accomplishing  the 
glory  of  his  handmaid.  And  more  than  that ;  the  dust  that 
was  scrapen  off  thence  being  drunk  did  cure  sundry  diseases*.' 
It  appears  that  a  stone  to  which  a  superstitious  reverence  was 
attached  was  walled  into  the  Church  of  St  Mildred  in  Thanet. 

1  Smith  and  Wace,  Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography,  article  '  Mildred '  by  Bishop 
Stubbs. 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Thanet,'  vol.  i,  p.  447. 

»  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Milburga,  Feb.  13. 

•*  Ibid.,  St  Mildwida,  Jan.  17. 

'  Stanton,  R.,  Menology  of  England  and  lVales,]an.  17. 

'  'Lives  of  Women  Saints'  (written  about  1610)  p.  64,  edited  by  Horstman  for  the 
Early  Engl.  Text  Hoc,  London,  1887. 


SECT,  i]  Early  Houses  in  Kent.  87 

Other  incidents  told  of  her  influence  are  not  without  their 
humorous  side.  One  day  a  bell-ringer,  forgetful  of  his  duties,  had 
dropped  asleep,  when  Mildthrith  appeared  to  him  and  gave  him 
a  blow  on  the  ear,  saying,  '  Understand,  fellow,  that  this  is  an 
oratory  to  pray  in,  not  a  dormitory  to  sleep  in,'  and  so  vanished. 

Thus  writes  the  author  of  her  legend.  The  fact  remains 
that  Mildthrith  was  presiding  over  a  settlement  in  Kent  towards 
the  close  of  the  7th  century.  For  in  a  charter  of  privileges 
granted  between  696  and  716  by  King  Wihtred  and  Queen 
Werburg  to  the  churches  and  monasteries  of  Kent  granting 
them  security  against  interference,  her  name  is  among  those  of  the 
five  lady  abbesses  who  place  their  signatures  to  the  document'. 
These  names  stand  after  those  of  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury 
and  the  bishop  of  Rochester  and  are  as  follows ;  '  Mildritha, 
Aetheldritha,  Aette,  Wilnotha  and  Hereswytha.'  The  settlements 
mentioned  in  the  body  of  the  charter''  as  being  subject  to  them 
are  Upminstre  (or  Minstre)  in  Thanet,  afterwards  known  as  St 
Mildred's,  Southminstre,  a  colony  of  Minstre,  Folkestone,  Liming 
and  Sheppey,  the  foundation  of  which  has  been  described. 

Thus  at  the  close  of  the  7th  century  there  existed  in  the 
province  of  Kent  alone  five  religious  settlements  governed  by 
abbesses  who  added  this  title  tcTtheir  signatureSj^nr  who,  judging 


__from  the  place  given  to  them,  ranked  in  dignity  below  the  bishops 
but  above  the  presbyters  (presbyteri),  whose  names  follow  theirs 
in  the_list.  From  the  wording  ot  the  charterwe  see  that  men  who 
accepted  the  tonsure  and  women  who  received  the  veil  were  at 
this  time  classed  together.  Those  who  set  their  signatures  to  the 
charter  agreed  that  neither  abbot  nor  abbess  should  be  appointed 
without  the  consent  of  a  prelate. 

The  charter  is  the  more  valuable  as  it  establishes  the  existence 
of  the  Kentish  convents  and  their  connection  with  each  other  at 
a  period  when  we  have  only  fragmentary  information  about  the 
religious  houses  in  the  south.  We  must  turn  to  the  north  for  fuller 
information  as  to  the  foundation  and  growth  of  religious  settle- 
ments presided  over  by  women  during  the  early  Christian  period. 

*  Haddon  and  Stubbs,  Councils  and  Ecclesiastical  Documents,  1869,  vol.  3,  p.  240. 
'  '  Upmynstre,  Suthmynstre,  Folcanstan,  Limming,  Sceppeis.' 


88  The  Monastery  at  Whitby.  [chap,  hi 


§  2.     The  Monastery  at  "Whitby^ 

A  temporary  collapse  of  the  Christian  faith  had  followed  the 
death  of  King  Eadwin  of  Northumbria,  but  the  restoration  of 
King  Oswald,  who  was  not  so  strong  as  his  predecessor  in  adminis- 
trative power  but  whose  religious  fervour  was  greater,  had  given  it 
a  new  impulse  and  a  new  direction. 

Oswald  had  passed  some  time  of  his  life  in  lona  or  Hii,  the 
great  Scottish  religious  settlement  and  the  stronghold  of  British 
Christianity  in  the  Hebrides.  Here  he  had  made  friends  with  the 
ecclesiastic  Aidan,  who  became  his  staunch  supporter.  Soon  after 
his  accession  Oswald  summoned  a  monk  from  lona  '  to  minister 
the  word  of  the  faith  to  himself  and  to  his  people,'  and  when 
it  was  found  that  the  monk  made  no  progress,  Aidan  was  moved 
to  go  among  the  Angles  himself.  In  preference  to  York  he 
chose  the  island  Lindisfarne  for  his  headquarters,  but  he  spent 
much  of  his  time  with  Oswald,  helping  him  to  set  the  practice  and 
teaching  of  religion  on  a  firmer  footing. 

It  was  during  this  part  of  Aidan's  career  that  he  consecrated 
Heiu^,  according  to  Bede  'the  first  woman  who  took  the  vow  and 
the  habit  of  a  nun  in  the  province  of  Northumbria.'  Heiu  pre- 
sided over  a  congregation  of  women  at  Hartlepool  in  Durham, 
from  which  she  removed  to  Calcaria  of  the  Romans,  which  is 
perhaps  identical  with  Healaugh  near  Tadcaster,  where  apparently 
Heiu's  name  is  retained.     Further  details  of  her  career  are  wanting. 

Aidan's  labours  were  interrupted  for  a  time.  Again  the  fierce 
and  impetuous  King  Penda  of  Mercia  invaded  Northumbria,  and 
again  the  Christian  Angles  fled  before  the  midland  heathens. 
King  Oswald  fell  in  battle  (642)  and  Aidan  retired  to  his  rocky 
island,  from  which  he  watched  the  fires  kindled  all  over  the 
country  first  by  the  raids  of  Penda,  and  afterwards  by  civil  strife 
between  the  two  provinces  of  Northumbria,  Deira  and  Bernicia. 
This  arose  through  the  rival  claims  to  the  throne  of  Oswiu, 
Oswald's  brother,  and  Oswin,  who  was  King  Eadwin's  relative. 

An  understanding  was  at  length  effected  between  them  by 
which  Oswiu  accepted  Bernicia,  while  Oswin  took  possession  of 
Deira,  and  Aidan,  who  found  a  patron  in  Oswin,  returned  to  his 
work.. 

'  Dugdale,  Monaslicon,  'Whitby,'  vol.  i,  p.  405. 

-  Bede,   Eccl.    Hist,,  bk   4,    ch.    2^   transl.    Gidley,    1870.      Dugdale,    Monasdcon, 
'Hartlepool,'  vol.  6,  p.   1618,  places  the  foundation  about  the  year  640. 


SECT,  ii]  The  Monastery  at  Whitby.  89 

He  now  persuaded  Hild*,  who  was  waiting  in  Anglia  for  an 
opportunity  to  cross  over  to  France,  where  she  purposed  joining  her 
sister,  to  give  up  this  plan  and  to  return  to  the  north  to  share  in 
the  work  in  which  he  was  engaged.  Hild  came  and  settled  down 
to  a  monastic  life  with  a  few  companions  on  the  river  Wear.  A 
year  later,  when  Heiu  retired  to  Calcaria,  Hild  became  abbess 
at  Hartlepool.  She  settled  there  only  a  few  years  before  the 
close  of  Aidan's  career.  He  died  in  65 1  shortly  after  his  patron 
Oswin,  whose  murder  remains  the  great  stain  on  the  life  of  his 
rival  Oswiu. 

A  12th  century  monk,  an  inmate  of  the  monastery  of  St  Beeves 
in  Cumberland,  has  written  a  life  of  St  Bega,  the  patron  saint  of 
his  monastery,  whom  he  identifies  on  the  one  hand  with  the 
abbess  Heiu,  consecrated  by  Afdan,  and  on  the  other  with  Begu, 
a  nun  who  had  a  vision  of  Hild's  death  at  the  monastery  of 
Hackness  in  the  year  680.  His  narrative  is  further  embellished 
with  local  traditions  about  a  woman  Bega,  who  came  from  Ireland 
and  received  as  a  gift  from  the  Lady  Egermont  the  extensive 
parish  and  promontory  of  St  Beeves,  which  to  this  day  bear  her 
name*. 

There  has  been  much  speculation  concerning  this  holy  woman 
Bega,  but  it  is  probable  that  the  writer  of  her  life  combined  myths 
which  seem  to  be  Keltic  with  accounts  of  two  historical  persons 
whom  Bede  keeps  quite  distinct.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
Bede's  statements  in  this  matter  or  in  others  concerning  affairs 
in  the  north,  for  he  expressly  affirms  that  he  '  was  able  to  gain 
information  not  from  one  author  only  but  from  the  faithful  asser- 
tion of  innumerable  witnesses  who  were  in  a  position  to  know  and 
remember  these  things ;  besides  those  things/  he  adds,  '  which  I 
could  ascertain  myself.'  He  passed  his  whole  life  studying  and 
writing  in  the  monasteries  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul,  two  settlements 
spoken  of  as  one,  near  the  mouth  of  the  river  Wear,  close  to  where 
Hild  had  first  settled.  He  went  there  during  the  lifetime  of  Bennet 
Biscop  (t  690),  the  contemporary  of  Hild  and  a  shining  represen- 
tative of  the  culture  the  Anglo-Saxons  attained  in  the  7th  century. 

Hild  settled  at  Hartlepool  about  the  year  647.  Eight  years 
later  Oswiu  finally  routed  the  army  of  Penda,  whose  attacks  had 
been  for  so  many  years  like  a  battering  ram  to  the  greatness  of 
Northumbria.     And  in  fulfilment  of  a  vow  he  had  made  that  the 

»  Bede,  Eccl.  Hist,  bk  3,  chs.  24-15  ;  bk  4,  chs.  23-24. 

*  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  B^a,  Sept.  6 ;  Tomlinson,  G.  C,  Life  ami  Miraclts  of  St  BegUt  1839. 


90  The  Monastery  at   Whitby.  [chap,  hi 

Christian  religion  should  profit  if  God  granted  him  victory,  he  gave 
Hild  the  charge  of  his  daughter  Aelflaed  'who  had  scarcely  com- 
pleted the  age  of  one  year,  to  be  consecrated  to  God  in  perpetual 
virginity,  besides  bestowing  on  the  Church  twelve  estates.'  Ex- 
tensive property  came  with  the  child  into  the  care  of  Hild,  perhaps 
including  the  site  of  Streaneshalch*,  which  is  better  known  as 
Whitby,  a  name  given  to  it  at  a  later  date  by  the  Danes.  Bede 
says  that  Hild  here  undertook  to  construct  and  arrange  a  monastery. 

Bede  thus  expresses  himself  on  the  subject  of  Hild's  life  and 
influence  during  the  term  of  over  thirty  years  which  she  spent  first 
as  abbess  of  Hartlepool  and  then  as  abbess  of  Whitby' : 

'  Moreover,  Hild,  the  handmaid  of  Christ,  having  been  ap- 
pointed to  govern  that  monastery  (at  Hartlepool),  presently  took  care 
to  order  it  in  the  regular  way  of  life,  in  all  respects,  according  as 
she  could  gain  information  from  learned  men.  For  Bishop  Aidan, 
also,  and  all  the  religious  men  who  knew  her,  were  wont  to  visit 
her  constantly,  to  love  her  devotedly,  and  to  instruct  her  dili- 
gently, on  account  of  her  innate  wisdom,  and  her  delight  in  the 
service  of  God. 

'  When,  then,  she  had  presided  over  this  monastery  for  some 
years,  being  very  intent  on  establishing  the  regular  discipline, 
according  as  she  could  learn  it  from  learned  men,  it  happened 
that  she  undertook  also  to  construct  and  arrange  a  monastery 
in  the  place  which  is  called  Streanshalch ;  and  this  work 
being  enjoined  on  her,  she  was  not  remiss  in  accomplishing  it. 
For  she  established  this  also  in  the  same  discipline  of  regular 
life  in  which  she  established  the  former  monastery  ;  and,  indeed, 
taught  there  also  the  strict  observance  of  justice,  piety,  and  chastity, 
and  of  the  other  virtues,  but  mostly  of  peace  and  charity,  so  that, 
after  the  example  of  the  primiiive  Church,  there  was  therein  no 
one  rich,  no  one  poor;  all  things  were  common  to  all,  since 
nothing  seemed  to  be  the  private  property  of  any  one.  More- 
over, her  prudence  was  so  great  that  not  only  did  ordinary 
persons,  but  even  sometimes  kings  and  princes,  seek  and  receive 
counsel  of  her  in  their  necessities.  She  made  those  who  were 
under  her  direction  give  so  much  time  to  the  reading  of  the  Divine 
Scriptures,  and  exercise  themselves  so  much  in  works  of  righteous- 
ness, that  very  many,  it  appeared,  could  readily  be  found  there, 

'  Carthularium  abbathiae  de  Whiteby,  publ.  Surtees  Soc,  1879. 

-  Bede,  Eccles.   History,  hk   4,  ch.    23,  translat.  Gidley,    1870,    with   additions  and 
alterations. 


SECT,  ii]  The  Monastery  at   Whitby.  91 

who  could  worthily  enter  upon  the  ecclesiastical  grade,  that  is 
the  service  of  the  altar.' 

In  point  of  fact  five  men  who  had  studied  in  Hild's  monastery 
were  promoted  to  the  episcopate.  Foremost  among  them  is  John, 
bishop  of  Hexham  (687-705)  and  afterwards  of  York  (f  721),  the 
famous  St  John  of  Beverley,  a  canonised  saint  of  the  Church,  of 
whose  doings  Bede  has  left  an  account.  In  this*  we  hear  of  the 
existence  of  another  monastery  for  women  at  Watton  (Vetadun) 
not  far  from  Whitby,  where  Bishop  John  went  to  visit  the  abbess 
Heriburg,  who  was  living  there  with  her  '  daughter  in  the  flesh,' 
Cwenburg,  whom  she  designed  to  make  abbess  in  her  stead. 
We  hear  no  more  about  Watton  till  centuries  later,  but  Bede's 
remark  is  interesting  as  showing  how  natural  he  felt  it  to  be  that 
the  rule  of  a  settlement  should  pass  from  mother  to  daughter. 

Cwenburg  was  suffering  from  a  swollen  arm  which  John  tells  us 
was  very  serious,  '  since  she  had  been  bled  on  the  fourth  day  of  the 
moon,'  '  when  both  the  light  of  the  moon  and  the  tide  of  the  ocean 
were  on  their  increase.  And  what  can  I  do  for  the  girl  if  she  is 
at  death's  door  t '  he  exclaims.  However  his  combined  prayers  and 
remedies,  which  were  so  often  efficacious,  helped  to  restore  her. 

Aetla,  another  of  Hild's  scholarly  disciples,  held  the  see  of 
Dorchester,  though  perhaps  only  temporarily  during  the  absence 
of  Aegilberht.  A  third,  Bosa,  was  archbishop  of  York  between 
678  and  686 ;  Bede  speaks  of  him  as  a  monk  of  Whitby,  a  man 
of  great  holiness  and  humility.  Oftfor,  another  of  Hild's  monks, 
went  from  Whitby  to  Canterbury,  to  study  *  a  more  perfect ' 
system  of  discipline  under  Archbishop  Theodore  (t  690),  and 
subsequently  became  bishop  of  Worcester. 

The  career  of  these  men  shows  that  the  system  of  discipline 
and  education  under  Hild  at  Whitby  compared  favourably  with 
that  of  other  settlements.  At  the  outset  she  had  followed  the 
usages  of  the  Scottish  Church,  with  which  she  was  familiar  through 
her  intercourse  with  Aidan,  but  when  the  claims  for  an  independent 
British  Church  were  defeated  at  Whitby,  she  accepted  the  change 
and  adopted  the  Roman  usage. 

The  antagonism  which  had  existed  from  the  first  appearance 
of  Augustine  in  England  between  Roman  Christianity  and  British 
Christianity  as  upheld  by  the  Scottish  and  Welsh  clergy  took  the 
form  of  open  disagreement  in  Northumbria.  On  one  side  was 
the  craving  for  ritual,  for  refinement  and  for  union  with  Rome; 

'  Bede,  EccUs.  History,  bk  5,  ch.  3. 


92  The  Monastery  at   Whitby.  [chap,  hi 

on  the  other  insistence  by  the  Scottish  clergy  on  their  right  to 
independence. 

Aidan  had  been  succeeded  at  Lindisfarne  by  Finnan,  owing 
to  whose  influence  discussion  was  checked  for  the  time  being.  But 
after  his  death  (66 1)  the  latent  antagonism  came  to  a  head  over 
the  practical  difficulty  due  to  the  different  dates  at  which  King 
Oswiu  and  Queen  Eanflaed  kept  Easter.  Thus  the  way  was 
cleared  for  the  Whitby  synod  (664),  a  '  gathering  of  all  orders  of 
the  Church  system/  at  which  the  respective  claims  of  Roman 
and  of  British  Christianity  were  discussed. 

The  British  interest  was  represented  among  others  by  Colman, 
Finnan's  successor  at  Lindisfarne,  who  temporarily  held  the  see 
at  York,  and  by  Aegilberht,  bishop  of  Dorchester.  The  opposite 
side  was  taken  by  the  protege  of  Queen  Eanflaed,  Wilfrith,  abbot 
of  Ripon,  whose  ardour  in  the  cause  of  Rome  had  been  greatly 
augmented  by  going  abroad  with  Bennet  Biscop  about  the  year 
653.  Besides  these  and  other  prelates,  King  Oswiu  and  his  son 
and  co-regent  Ealhfrith  were  present  at  the  synod.  The  abbess 
Hild  was  also  there,  but  she  took  no  part  in  the  discussion. 

The  questions  raised  were  not  of  doctrine  but  of  practice.  The 
computation  of  Easter,  the  form  of  the  tonsure,  matters  not  of  belief 
but  of  apparently  trivial  externals,  were  the  points  round  which  the 
discussion  turned.  Owing  chiefly  to  Wilfrith's  influence  the  decision 
was  in  favour  of  Rome,  and  a  strong  rebuff  was  given  for  a  time 
to  the  claim  for  an  independent  British  Church  in  the  north. 

The  choice  of  Whitby  as  the  site  of  the  synod  marks  the 
importance  which  this  settlement  had  attained  within  ten  years 
of  its  foundation.  Those  who  have  stood  on  the  height  of  the 
clifi"  overlooking  the  North  Sea  and  have  let  their  gaze  wander 
over  the  winding  river  course  and  the  strand  below  can  realize 
the  lordly  situation  of  the  settlement  which  occupies  such  a  dis- 
tinguished place  among  the  great  houses  and  nurseries  of  culture 
at  Hexham,  Wearmouth,  Jarrow,  Ripon  and  York. 

The  property  which  the  monastery  held  in  overlordship  ex- 
tended along  the  coast  for  many  miles,  and  the  settlement  itself 
consisted  of  a  large  group  of  buildings ;  for  there  are  references  to 
the  dwellings  for  the  men,  for  the  women,  and  to  an  outlying  house 
for  the  sick.  These  dwellings  were  gathered  round  the  ancient  British 
Church  of  St  Peter,  which  was  situated  under  the  shelter  of  the  brow 
of  the  cliff  where  King  Eadwin  lay  buried,  and  which  continued 
to  be  the  burial-place  of  the  Northumbrian  kings.    Isolated  chapels 


SECT,  ii]  The  Monastery  at   Whitby,  93 


and  churches  with  separate  bands  of  religious  votaries  belonging 
to  them  lay  in  other  parts  of  the  monastic  property,  and  were 
subject  to  the  abbess  of  Whitby.  We  hear  of  a  minor  monastery 
at  Easington  (Osingadun)'  during  the  rule  of  Aelflaed,  Hild's 
successor,  and  at  Hackness  (Hacanos)  on  the  limit  of  the  monastic 
property,  thirteen  miles  south  of  Whitby,  a  monastery  of  some 
importance  had  been  founded  by  Hild*.  Bands  of  men  and  of 
women  dwelt  here  under  the  government  of  Frigith,  and  it  was 
here  that  the  nun  Begu  had  a  vision  of  Hild  on  the  night  of  her 
death,  when  she  saw  her  borne  aloft  by  attendant  angels^ 

The  name  of  Hild  and  the  monastery  at  Whitby  are  further 
endeared  to  posterity  through  their  connection  with  Caedmon, 
the  most  celebrated  of  the  vernacular  poets  of  Northumbria  and 
the  reputed  author  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  metrical  paraphrases  of 
the  Old  Testament*.  It  was  his  great  reputation  as  a  singer  that 
made  Hild  seek  Caedmon  and  persuade  him  to  join  her  commu- 
nity. Here  the  practice  of  reading  Holy  Scripture  made  him 
familiar  with  the  stories  of  Hebrew  literature  in  their  grand  and 
simple  setting,  and  he  drank  of  the  waters  of  that  well  to  which 
so  many  centuries  of  creative  and  representative  art  have  gone 
for  inspiration. 

Caedmon's  power  of  song  had  been  noticed  outside  the 
monastery. 

'And  all  concluded  that  a  celestial  gift  had  been  granted  him 
by  the  Lord.  And  they  interpreted  to  him  a  certain  passage  of 
sacred  history  or  doctrine,  and  ordered  him  to  turn  it  if  he  could 
into  poetical  rhythm.  And  he,  having  undertaken  it,  departed, 
and  returning  in  the  morning  brought  back  what  he  was  ordered 
to  do,  composed  in  most  excellent  verse.  Whereupon  presently 
the  abbess,  embracing  heartily  the  grace  of  God  in  the  man, 
directed  him  to  leave  the  secular  habit,  and  to  take  the  monastic 
vow ;  and  having  together  with  all  her  people  received  him  into 
the  monastery  associated  him  with  the  company  of  the  brethren, 
and  ordered  him  to  be  instructed  in  the  whole  course  of  sacred 
history.  And  he  converted  into  most  sweet  song  whatever  he 
could  learn  from  hearing,  by  thinking  it  over  by  himself,  and, 

1  Bede,  Life  of  St  Cuthbert,  ch.  lo;  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  vol.  i,  p.  in^  mentions 
Easington  only  as  a  manor  of  Durham. 

*  Dugdale,  Mofiasticon,  '  Hackness,'  vol.  3,  p.  633. 
'  Bede,  EaUs.  History,  bk  4,  ch.  23. 

*  Dictionary  of  Nat.  Biography,  article  '  Caedmon  '  by  Henry  Bradley. 


94  ^^  Monastery  at   Whitby.  [chap,  hi 

as  though  a  clean  animal,  by  ruminating ;  and  by  making  it 
resound  more  sweetly,  made  his  teachers  in  turn  his  hearers\' 

These  passages  are  curious  as  showing  that  a  singer  of  national 
strains  was  persuaded  to  adapt  his  art  to  the  purposes  of  religion. 
The  development  of  Church  music  is  usually  held  to  have  been 
distinct  from  that  of  folk-miisic,  but  in  exceptional  cases  such  as 
this,  there  seems  to  have  been  a  relation  between  the  two. 

Excavations  recently  made  on  several  of  the  sites  of  ancient 
northern  monasteries  have  laid  bare  curious  and  interesting  re- 
mains which  add  touches  of  reality  to  what  is  known  about  the 
houses  of  the  north  during  this  early  period*.  In  a  field  called 
Cross  Close  at  Hartlepool  near  Durham  skeletons  of  men  and 
women  were  found,  and  a  number  of  monumental  stones  of  peculiar 
shape,  some  with  runic  inscriptions  of  women's  names.  Some  of 
these  names  are  among  those  of  the  abbesses  inscribed  in  the  so- 
called  *  Book  of  Life  of  Durham,'  a  manuscript  written  in  gold  and 
silver  lettering  in  the  early  part  of  the  9th  century^  Again,  an 
ancient  tombstone  of  peculiar  design  was  found  at  Healaugh ; 
and  at  Hackness  several  memorial  crosses  are  preserved,  one  of 
which  bears  the  inscription  of  the  name  Aethelburg,  who  no  doubt 
is  the  abbess  of  that  name  with  whom  Aelflaed,  Hild's  successor 
at  Whitby,  in  705  travelled  to  the  death-bed  of  King  Ealdfrith*. 

Finally  on  the  Whitby  coast  on  the  south  side  of  the  abbey 
a  huge  kitchen-midden  was  discovered.  A  short  slope  here  leads 
to  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  and  excavations  on  this  slope  and  at  its 
foot,  which  was  once  washed  by  the  tide,  have  revealed  the  facts 
that  the  denizens  of  the  original  monastery  were  wont  to  throw 
the  refuse  of  their  kitchen  over  the  cliff,  and  that  the  lighter 
material  remained  on  the  upper  ledges,  the  heavier  rolling  to  the 
bottom. 

Among  the  lighter  deposits  were  found  bones  of  birds,  oyster, 
whelk  and  periwinkle  shells,  and  two  combs,  one  of  which  bears 
a  runic  inscription.  Among  the  heavier  deposits  were  bones  of 
oxen,  a  few  of  sheep,  and  a  large  number  of  the  bones  and  tusks 
of  wild  swine,  besides  several  iron  pot-hooks  and  other  imple- 
ments ;  a  bone  spindle  and  a  divided  ink-horn  are  among  the 
objects  specified.     An  inscribed    leaden  bulla  found   among   the 

^  Bede,  Eccles.  History,  bk  4,  ch.  24,  transl.  Gidley,  1870. 

'  Haigh,  D.  H.,  'On  the  monasteries  of  St  Heiu  and  St  Hild,'   Vorksh.  Archaeolog. 
Journal,  vol.  3,  p.  370.    I  do  not  know  on  what  authority  Haigh  designates  Heiu  as  saint. 
"  Gray,  de  Birch,  Fasti  Monastici  Ami  Saxnnici,  1872,  p.  15. 
■*  Comp.  below,  p.  106. 


SECT,  ii]  The  Monastery  at   Whitby.  95 

refuse  is  declared  by  experts  to  be  earlier  than  the  8th  century; 
it  is  therefore  proof  that  these  remains  were  deposited  during 
the  earlier  period  of  the  existence  of  Hild's  monastery,  possibly 
during  her  lifetime. 

Hild  died  after  an  illness  of  several  years  on  November  17, 
680.  Would  that  there  were  more  data  whereby  to  estimate  her 
personality !  The  few  traits  of  her  character  that  have  been  pre- 
served, her  eagerness  to  acquire  knowledge,  her  success  in  impart- 
ing it  to  others,  her  recognition  of  the  need  of  unity  in  the  Church, 
the  interest  she  took  in  one  who  could  repeat  the  stories  of  the 
new  faith  in  strains  which  made  them  intelligible  to  the  people, 
are  indicative  of  a  strong  personality  and  of  an  understanding 
which  appreciated  the  needs  of  her  time. 

Various  myths,  of  which  Bede  knows  nothing,  have  been 
attached  to  her  name  in  course  of  time.  According  to  a  popular 
legend  she  transformed  the  snakes  of  the  district  into  the  am- 
monites familiar  to  visitors  to  those  parts.  And  it  is  said  that 
at  certain  times  of  the  day  her  form  can  be  seen  flitting  across 
the  abbey  ruins\ 

At  her  death  the  rule  of  the  settlement  passed  to  Aelflaed,  the 
princess  who  had  been  given  into  her  care  as  a  child.  After  King 
Oswiu's  death  in  670  Queen  Eanflaed  joined  her  daughter  in  the 
monastery.  The  princess  and  abbess  Aelflaed  proved  herself 
worthy  of  the  influence  under  which  she  had  grown  up,  and  we 
shall  find  her  among  the  persons  of  importance  who  took  up  a 
decided  attitude  in  regard  to  the  disturbances  which  broke  out 
through  the  action  of  Bishop  Wilfrith.  The  beginnings  of  these 
difficulties  belong  to  the  lifetime  of  Hild  :  we  do  not  know  that  she 
took  any  interest  in  the  matter,  but  judging  from  indirect  evidence 
we  should  say  that  she  shared  in  the  feeling  which  condemned  the 
prelate's  anti-national  and  ultra-Roman  tendencies. 

§  3.     Ely  and  the  influence  of  Bishop  Wilfrith. 

The  further  history  of  the  monastery  of  Whitby  and  the  history 
of  the  foundation  of  Ely  are  closely  connected  with  the  prelate 
Wilfrith,  and  for  this  reason  his  actions  and  attitude  claim  our 
attention.  In  him  we  recognise  a  direct  advocate  of  the  principle 
that  a  queen  could  if  she  chose  leave  her  husband  and  retire  to 
a  religious  settlement,  and  that  such  a  course  would  secure  her 
the  favour  of  the  Church. 

'  Charlton,  L.,  History  of  Whitby,  1779,  p.  33. 


96     Ely  and  the  influence  of  Bishop   Wilfrith.     [chap,  hi 

It  has  been  said  of  him  that  he  was  the  most  important  man 
in  Northumbria  for  forty  years  after  the  Whitby  synod'.  He 
owed  his  education  to  Queen  Eanflaed,  whose  attention  he  had 
attracted  when  quite  a  youth,  and  who  had  sent  him  into  Kent 
to  complete  his  education ;  there  he  imbibed  strong  Roman  sym- 
pathies. He  lived  for  some  years  in  France  and  Italy  in  the 
society  of  Bennet  Biscop,  and  he  was  already  held  in  high  esteem 
at  the  time  of  the  Whitby  synod,  which  he  attended  in  the  character 
of  abbot  of  the  monastery  at  Ripon,  a  house  he  had  founded  with 
the  help  of  Ealhfrith. 

When  Colman  and  his  adherents  beat  a  rapid  retreat  to  the 
north  in  consequence  of  the  decision  of  the  synod,  Wilfrith  be- 
came bishop  of  York,  an  appointment  which  meant  ecclesiastical 
supremacy  over  the  whole  vast  province  of  Northumbria.  His 
intellectual  brilliancy  gained  him  many  admirers,  but  an  innate 
restlessness  of  disposition  and  a  wilful  determination  to  support 
the  power  of  Rome  to  the  national  detriment  launched  him  into 
repeated  difficulties  with  temporal  and  spiritual  rulers.  He  was 
at  the  height  of  prosperity  and  popularity  when  Ecgfrith  succeeded 
Oswiu  in  670  after  the  death  of  Ealhfrith.  Wilfrith  had  hitherto 
been  on  good  terms  with  Ecgfrith,  but  a  breach  in  their  relations 
soon  occurred,  partly  owing  to  the  conduct  of  Ecgfrith's  wife, 
Aethelthrith,  whom  Wilfrith  supported  against  the  king. 

Aethelthrith,  known  to  a  later  age  as  Etheldred  or  Awdrey, 
was  the  daughter  of  King  Anna  of  the  East  Angles  (635-645), 
whose  province,  including  the  present  shires  of  Norfolk  and  Suffolk, 
was  removed  from  direct  intercourse  with  others  by  the  almost  im- 
passable reaches  of  the  fens.  Anglia  has  not  left  any  annals  of  her 
own,  and  we  have  to  depend  for  the  names  and  dates  of  her  kings 
on  the  slight  information  which  other  provinces  have  preserved. 

Written  legends  generally  consider  Anna  as  the  father  also  of 
Sexburg,  the  foundress  of  Sheppey,  and  of  Aethelburg  and  Saeth- 
rith,  two  princesses  who  had  settled  in  France,  as  well  as  of  Wihtburg, 
a  woman-saint  of  whom  very  little  is  known,  and  who  was  associated 
with  a  religious  foundation  at  East  Dereham  in  Norfolk-.  We  further 
learn  from  legend  that  King  Anna  was  married  to  Hereswith, 
sister  of  Hild  of  Whitby,  and  Aethelthrith  is  spoken  of  as  niece 

*  Raine,  Historians  of  the  Church  of  York.,  Rolls  series,  vol.  i,  Preface  p.  xxvii.  This 
volume  contains  reprints  of  several  accounts  of  the  life  of  Wilfrith,  including  the  one  by 
Eddi. 

'  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Withburga,  March  17  ;  Dugdale,  Motuisticon, '  East  Dereham,'  vol. 
2,  p.  176. 


SECT.  Ill]     Ely  and  the  influence  of  Bishop   Wilfrith,     97 

to  the  great  abbess  Hild.  But  this  connection  is  discredited  by 
a  statement  in  Bede  which  suggests  that  Hild's  sister  Hereswith 
was  married  not  to  King  Anna  but  to  his  successor  King  Aethel- 
here  (654-664).  It  is  difficult  to  decide  to  which  of  the  kings  of 
the  East  Angles  Hereswith  was  married,  but  Anna  was  certainly 
not  her  husband*. 

The  princess  Aethelthrith  at  the  time  of  her  marriage  with 
the  king  of  Northumbria  was  the  widow  of  Tunberht  prince  of  the 
South-Gyrvi,  or  fen-country  men.  Anglia  stood  at  this  time  in  a 
relation  of  dependence  to  Northumbria,  and  in  664,  four  years 
before  the  Whitby  synod,  Aethelthrith  a  woman  of  over  thirty 
was  married  to  Ecgfrith  a  boy  of  fifteen,  the  heir-apparent  to  the 
throne  of  Northumbria.  The  marriage  was  no  doubt  arranged  for 
political  reasons. 

The  consequences  which  followed  render  these  facts  worthy  of 
notice.  For  Aethelthrith  on  her  arrival  in  the  north  at  once  con- 
ceived a  great  admiration  for  the  prelate  Wilfrith,  while  she  treated 
her  husband  with  contumely.  She  bestowed  on  Wilfrith  the  ex- 
tensive property  at  Hexham  which  she  had  received  from  her 
husband,  and  on  which  Wilfrith  built  the  church  which  was 
spoken  of  in  his  days  as  the  most  wonderful  building  on  this 
side  of  the  Alps*.  Judging  from  what  Wilfrith  himself  told 
him  about  the  queen's  attitude  Bede  says  '  the  king  knew  that  she 
loved  no  man  more  than  Wilfrith.' 

The  events  that  followed  bear  out  this  statement,  for  after  living 
about  ten  years  with  the  king,  Aethelthrith  left  him  and  repaired 
to  the  monastery  of  Coldingham  (Coludesburg)  in  Berwickshire, 
which  had  been  founded  and  was  ruled  over  by  Aebbe,  sister,  or 
perhaps  half-sister,  of  the  kings  Oswald  and  Oswiu'.  King  Ecgfrith 
may  or  may  not  have  agreed  to  this  step.  Eddi,  the  friend  and 
biographer  of  Wilfrith,  maintains  a  judicious  silence  on  the  re- 
lations of  the  king  and  queen,  while  Bede  represents*  that  Aethel- 
thrith had  always  had  an  aversion  to  the  married  state  and 
describes  how  he  had  been  told  by  Wilfrith  himself  that  Ecgfrith 

^  Haigh,  D.  H.,  'On  the  monasteries  of  St  Heiu  and  St  Hild,'  Yorkshire  Archaeol. 
Journal^  vol.  3,  p.  352,  decides  in  favour  of  Aethelric. 

2  Bright,  W.,  Early  English  Church  History,  1878,  p.  235. 

^  Uugdale,  Monasticon,  'Coldingham,'  vol.  6,  p.  149.  The  promontory  of  St  Abb's 
Head  retains  her  name.  She  is  believed  to  have  founded  another  religious  settlement  at 
a  place  in  Durham  on  the  river  Derwent  called  Ebbchester,  and  the  village  church  there 
is  dedicated  to  her  (Diet,  of  A' at.  Biog.). 

*  Bede,  Eccles.  History,  bk  4,  ch.  19. 


98     Ely  and  the  influence  of  Bishop   Wilfrith.     [chap,  hi 

promised    much   land  and  money  to  the  prelate  if  he  persuaded 
the  queen  to  allow  him  conjugal  rights. 

At  Coldingham  Wilfrith  gave  Aethelthrith  the  veil ;  this  act  in- 
volved her  breaking  all  marital  ties.  But  she  cannot  have  deemed 
her  position  secure,  for  she  presently  left  Coldingham,  which  was 
within  her  husband's  territory,  and  went  to  Ely,  the  island  in  the 
fens  which  her  first  husband  Tunberht  had  bestowed  on  her. 

Under  the  date  673  stand  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  these 
words :  'And  Aetheldryth  began  the  monastery  at  Ely.*  It  was 
situated  on  a  hill  prominent  above  the  flatness  of  the  surrounding 
fen-land,  which  at  that  time  consisted  of  a  wilderness  of  marsh  and 
water.  Men  and  women  readily  flocked  thither  to  live  under  the 
guidance  of  the  queen.  We  hear  that  she  received  material  aid 
from  her  cousin  King  Ealdwulf  of  Anglia,  that  Hunna  acted  as 
her  chaplain,  and  that  Bishop  Wilfrith  stayed  with  her  on  his 
passage  from  Northumbria  to  Rome.  Thomas  of  Ely  (fl.  c.  1174) 
has  embellished  the  account  of  Aethelthrith's  flight  and  journey 
south  by  introducing  into  the  story  various  picturesque  incidents, 
which  Bede  does  not  mention.  She,  with  her  companions  Sewenna 
and  Sewara\  was  saved  from  her  pursuers  by  water  rising  round 
a  rock  on  which  they  had  taken  refuge,  and  she  was  sheltered 
by  an  ash-tree  which  grew  in  one  night  out  of  her  pilgrim's  staff 
and  which  can  still  be  seen  at  a  place  called  Etheldredstowe'.  As 
Aethelthrith  of  Ely  is  a  favourite  saint  of  English  legend  it  is  in- 
teresting to  find  water  and  the  tree  miraculously  associated  with  her. 

Shortly  after  Aethelthrith's  departure  Ecgfrith  summoned  The- 
odore, archbishop  of  Canterbury,  to  the  north  to  divide  the  diocese 
of  York  into  three  separate  districts.  Wilfrith  resented  these  pro- 
ceedings as  an  infringement  of  his  rights,  but  as  he  was  unable  to 
influence  the  king  he  determined  to  seek  the  intervention  of  the  Pope 
and  set  out  for  Rome.     His  absence  extended  over  several  years. 

It  was  at  this  time,  Bede  tells  us,  that  Aethelthrith  'having 
built  a  monastery  at  Ely  began  both  by  example  and  by  admoni- 
tion of  heavenly  life  to  be  a  virgin  mother  of  very  many  virgins  V 
The  particulars  he  gives  of  her  life  show  that  she  had  renounced 
the  splendours  which  constituted  so  essential  a  feature  of  royalty 
and  had  willingly  devoted  herself  to  humility  and  self-denial.  She 
wore  no  linen,  only  wool,  rarely  used  a  warm  bath,  save  on  the 

»  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Etheldreda  June  23,  Thomas  of  Ely,  Vita  ch.  41. 
*•'  Bright,  W.,  Early  English  Church  History,  1878,  p.  252  footnote. 
'  Bede,  Eccles.  History,  bk  4,  ch,  19. 


SECT.  Ill]     Ely  and  the  influence  of  Bishop   Wilfrith.     99 

eve  of  great  festivals,  and  assisted  at  the  washing  of  others. 
When  she  fell  ill  of  a  tumour  in  her  throat,  she  told  the 
physician  Cynefrith,  who  lanced  it,  that  she  looked  upon  it  as  a 
chastisement  for  her  love  of  wearing  necklaces  in  her  youth.  And 
on  her  death-bed  she  desired  to  be  buried  in  a  wooden  coffin  in 
the  nun's  ordinary  cemetery. 

The  fame  of  Aethelthrith  spread  rapidly.  She  was  looked 
upon  as  a  virgin,  and  her  name  with  the  epithet  virgin  was  in- 
scribed at  an  early  date  in  both  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  Roman 
Calendars,  and  to  this  day  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer.  Later  writers  of  her  legend  say  that  she  lived  with  Ecg- 
frith  '  not  as  a  wyfe  but  as  a  lady,'  and  add  as  a  fitting  pendant 
to  this  story  that  she  maintained  similar  relations  with  her  first 
husband  Tunberht*.  She  died  in  the  year  679,  having  presided 
over  her  monastery  only  six  or  seven  years,  but  during  that  time 
it  had  gained  marked  importance.  Many  women  had  come  to  live 
there  with  her,  and  among  them  her  sister  Sexburg,  widow  of  the 
king  of  Kent,  who  had  founded  the  monastery  at  Sheppey  and 
now  succeeded  Aethelthrith  as  abbess  of  Ely. 

The  chief  event  of  Sexburg's  rule  at  Ely  was  the  exhumation 
of  the  bones  of  Aethelthrith  in  695,  which  were  transferred  to 
a  stone  coffin  of  antique  workmanship  which  had  been  opportunely, 
or  miraculously  as  contemporaries  thought,  discovered  at  the  old 
Roman  colony  of  Grantchester  near  Cambridge".  This  translation 
took  place  on  the  17th  of  October,  a  day  on  which  the  relics  were 
again  transferred  in  1 106,  and  which  is  the  date  of  the  important 
fair  of  Ely^ 

In  a  supplement  to  the  History  of  Ely  by  Bentham,  Essex 
gives  an  account  of  the  ruins  of  the  conventual  church  begun  by 
Aethelthrith ^  Judging  from  his  investigations  the  church  con- 
sisted of  two  parts,  the  nave  and  the  choir,  the  windows  of  the 
nave  outside  being  ornamented  with  pillars  and  arches,  and  the 
choir  being  arched  with  stone.  Traces  were  still  left  of  the  apart- 
ments of  the  abbess  from  which  she  could  enter  the  church  in  a 
private  manner,  and  of  a  building  opposite  of  equal  dimensions 
which  served  as  a  dormitory  for  the  nuns.  At  a  little  distance 
the  remains  of  another  large  building  were  discovered,  one  room 

'  Kaltndre  of  the  newt  Legcnde  of  Englande,  printed  1516  (Pynson)  fol.  39  b. 

'  Bede,  Eccles.  History,  bk  4,  ch.  19. 

'  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  '  Etheldreda,  Saint.' 

*  Bentham,  History  of  Ely,  181 7,  p.  9. 

7—2 


loo    Ely  and  the  influence  of  Bishop   Wilfrith.  [chap,  tit 

of  which,  near  the  entrance  to  the  settlement,  was  a  parlour  for 
the  reception  of  strangers,  and  the  apartment  over  it  a  dormitory 
for  the  men. 

We  know  little  more  than  the  name  of  the  next  abbess  of  Ely. 
She  was  Sexburg's  daughter  Eormenhild,  wife  of  King  Wulfhere 
of  Mercia,  who  had  hitherto  dwelt  in  the  monastery  of  Sheppey. 
Eormenhild  in  her  turn  was  succeeded  by  her  daughter,  the  cele- 
brated St  Werburg  of  Chester,  who  was  never  married.  Various 
stories  are  preserved  about  Werburg's  influence,  but  without  re- 
ference to  her  work  at  Ely.  We  are  indebted  to  Gocelin  for  the 
oldest  account  of  her\  He  tells  us  that  her  uncle  King  Aethelraed 
of  Mercia  entrusted  her  with  the  care  of  all  the  monasteries  in  his 
kingdom,  that  she  had  founded  religious  houses  at  Trentham  and 
at  Hanbury,  besides  turning  a  palace  at  Wedon-le-Street  into  a 
monastery^.  He  speaks  of  her  as  a  person  of  great  cheerfulness 
and  benevolence,  and  of  a  peaceful  and  happy  disposition.  Several 
accounts  of  her  are  extant  in  manuscripts  of  different  dates,  and 
as  late  as  the  15th  century  her  life  was  made  the  subject  of  a  most 
graceful  metrical  epic  by  the  poet  Henri  Bradshaw  (t  15 13)'. 

We  are  told  that  Werburg  died  at  Trentham  and  that  the 
society  of  that  place  wished  to  keep  her  body,  but  the  nuns  of 
Hanbury  carried  it  off  by  force  and  enshrined  it  at  Hanbury 
where  the  day  of  her  deposition  was  kept*.  During  the  viking 
invasion  in  875  the  body  for  the  sake  of  safety  was  conveyed  to 
Chester,  of  which  town  St  Werburg  then  became  patron  saint. 
This  incident  gave  rise  at  a  later  date  to  the  story  that  the  saint 
had  founded  the  monastery  and  the  chief  church  at  Chester  on 
land  given  to  her  by  her  father.  Livien  mentions  that  nine 
churches  in  England  are  dedicated  to  St  Werburg,  who  appears 
to  have  been  a  person  of  considerable  importance^ 

Once  more  we  must  return  to  the  north  and  to  the  work  of 
Bishop  Wilfrith,  as  he  came  into  contact  with  various  other  religious 
women.    When  he  returned  to  England  after  an  absence  of  several 


^  Gocelinus,  Vita  St  Werehurgae  (in  Migne,  Patrol.  Cursus  Compl.  vol.  155). 

^  Stanton,  R.,  Menology  of  England  and  Wales,  1887,  p.  49,  calls  it  Weedon  in 
Northamptonshire;  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Wedon,'  vol.  6,  p.  1051,  doubts  its  existence. 

^  Life  of  St  IVerburgh,  152 1,  reprinted  for  the  Early  Engl.  Text  Soc,  1887. 

*  Stanton,  R.,  Menology  of  England  and  Wales,  1887,  p.  49. 

'  Livien,  E.,  'On  early  religious  houses  in  Staffordshire,' yb«r«a/  0/  the  British 
Archaeolog.  Assoc.,  vol.  29,  p.  329.  (The  widespread  cult  of  St  Werburg  may  be  due 
to  there  having  been  several  saints  of  this  name  ;  comp.  Stanton,  R.,  Menology.) 


SECT.  Ill]   Ely  and  the  influence  of  Bishop   Wilfrith.    loi 

years  Aethelthrith  was  dead,  but  King  Ecgfrith's  hatred  of  him 
had  not  abated.  Insulted  in  his  person  and  nation  he  caused 
Wilfrith  to  be  thrown  into  prison,  offering  to  give  him  back  part 
of  his  bishopric  and  other  gifts  if  he  would  submit  to  royal 
authority  and  disclaim  the  genuineness  of  the  document  brought 
from  Rome\  Queen  Eormenburg,  whom  Ecgfrith  had  taken  to 
wife  in  place  of  Aethelthrith,  further  embittered  the  king  against 
the  unlucky  prelate.  She  appropriated  the  reliquary  Wilfrith  had 
brought  from  Rome  and  wore  it  as  an  ornament.  For  nine  months 
the  prelate  was  kept  imprisoned,  and  the  story  how  he  regained 
his  liberty  brings  us  back  to  Aebbe,  abbess  at  Coldingham,  who 
had  formerly  sheltered  Aethelthrith  ^ 

According  to  the  account  of  Eddi,  Wilfrith's  biographer,  the 
king  and  queen  of  Northumbria  were  staying  at  Coldingham 
when  the  queen  was  suddenly  taken  ill.  'At  night  she  was  seized 
like  the  wife  of  Pilate  by  a  devil,  and  worn  out  by  many  ills, 
hardly  expected  to  see  the  day  alive.'  The  abbess  Aebbe  went 
to  King  Ecgfrith  and  represented  to  him  that  the  reason  of  this 
seizure  was  their  treatment  of  Wilfrith. 

'And  now,  my  son,'  she  said,  'do  according  to  the  bidding  of 
your  mother ;  loosen  his  bonds  and  send  back  to  him  by  a  trusty 
messenger  the  holy  relics  which  the  queen  took  from  him  and  like 
the  ark  of  God  carried  about  with  her  to  her  harm.  It  were  best 
you  should  have  him  as  your  bishop,  but  if  you  refuse,  set  him  free 
and  let  him  go  with  his  followers  from  your  kingdom  wherever  he 
list.  Then  by  my  faith  you  will  live  and  your  queen  will  not  die ; 
but  if  you  refuse  by  God's  witness  you  will  not  remain  unpunished.' 

Aebbe  carried  her  point  and  Wilfrith  was  set  free.  He  went 
into  Mercia  which  was  at  war  with  Northumbria,  but  he  was  not 
suffered  to  stay  there,  for  Queen  Ostrith,  the  sister  of  King 
Ecgfrith,  shared  her  brother's  hatred  of  him.  Forced  to  fly  from 
Mercia  he  went  into  Wessex,  but  King  Centwin's  wife  prevented 
him  from  staying  there.  It  is  curious  to  note  the  hatred  with  which 
these  married  women  pursued  him  while  lady  abbesses  were  his 
friends.  At  last  he  found  protection  among  the  south  Saxons, 
who  fifteen  years  before  had  nearly  killed  him,  but  their  king 
Aethelwalch  (f  686)  had  lately  been  converted  to  Christianity  and 
gave  him  a  friendly  reception.     Wilfrith  is  represented  as  joining 

*  Eddi,  Vita,  c.  34  (in  Raine,  Historians  of  the  Church  of  York,  Rolls  series). 

*  Bright,  W.,  Early  English  Church  History,   1878,  p.  300,  casts  discredit  on  this 
story,  which  is  told  by  Eddi,  Vita,  c.  38. 


I02    Ely  and  the  influenck  oj\  Bishop    Wilfrith.   [chap,  hi 

his  civilizing  influences  to  those  of  the  Irish  monks  who  had 
settled  on  the  coast.  An  interesting  episode  of  his  sojourn  here 
was  his  intercourse  with  Caedwalla,  afterwards  king  of  Wessex 
(685-688),  who  at  the  time  was  living  as  an  outlaw  in  the  forests  of 
Sussex  \ 

We  get  further  glimpses  of  Aebbe  and  the  settlement  at  Cold- 
ingham.  She  entertained  a  great  admiration  for  the  holy  man 
Cuthberht  (t  687),  one  of  the  most  attractive  figures  among  the 
evangelizing  prelates  of  the  north,  of  whom  Bede  has  left  an 
account. 

Cuthberht  was  brought  both  by  birth  and  education  under 
Scottish  influences.  He  was  prior  at  Melrose  before  the  Whitby 
synod,  but  after  it  came  to  Lindisfarne  where  his  gentleness  of 
temper  and  sweetness  of  disposition  won  over  many  to  accept  Roman 
usages.  Overcome  by  the  longing  for  solitude  and  contemplation 
which  was  so  characteristic  of  many  early  Christian  prelates,  he 
dwelt  as  a  recluse  on  the  desert  island  of  Fame  from  676  to  685. 
There  are  many  accounts  of  his  life  and  of  his  wanderings^ 

At  the  time  when  Cuthberht's  fame  was  spreading,  Aebbe  of 
Coldingham  '  sent  to  this  man  of  God,  begging  him  to  come  and 
condescend  to  edify  both  herself  and  the  inmates  of  her  monastery 
by  the  grace  of  his  exhortation.  Cuthberht  accordingly  went  thither 
and  tarrying  for  some  days  he  expounded  the  ways  of  justice  to  all ; 
these  he  not  only  preached,  but  to  the  same  extent  he  practised*.' 

It  is  recorded  that  during  his  stay  at  Coldingham  Cuthberht 
went  at  night  to  pray  on  the  deserted  beach,  and  the  seals  came 
out  of  the  water  and  clustered  around  him. 

The  first  instance  mentioned  by  Bede  of  a  lapse  of  monastic 
discipline  was  at  Coldingham  where  disorders  occurred  during 
Aebbe's  rule*.  An  Irish  monk  who  was  on  a  visit  to  the  monastery 
had  a  vision  of  its  destruction  by  fire,  and  when  questioned  about 
it  by  the  abbess  interpreted  it  as  an  impending  retribution  for 
the  tenor  of  life  of  those  assembled  there. 

'  For  even  the  dwellings,'  he  said,  '  which  were  built  for  praying 
and  reading  are  now  converted  into  places  of  revelling,  drinking, 
conversation  and  other  forbidden  doings ;  the  virgins  who  are 
vowed  to  God,  laying  aside  all  respect  for  their  profession,  whenever 

'  Bright,  W.,  Early  English  Church  History,  1878,  pp.  301  ff. 

*  Hardy,  Th.  D.,  Descriptive  Catalogue  of  Materials,  1862,  vol.  1,  pp.  397  flF. 
»  Bede,  Life  of  St  Cuthbert,  ch.  10. 

*  Bede,  Eccles.  History,  bk  4,  ch.  25. 


SECT.  Ill]   Ely  and  the  inflivftici^  of  Bishop   Wilfrith.    103 

— y- 

they  have  leisure  spend  all  their  time  in  weaving  fine  garments 
with  which  they  adorn  themselves  like  brides,  to  the  detriment  of 
their  condition,  and  to  secure  the  friendship  of  men  outside.' 

Through  Aebbe's  efforts  things  somewhat  improved,  but  after 
her  death,  the  date  of  which  is  uncertain,  the  monastery  really  was 
destroyed  by  fire\  The  story  is  told  that  Cuthberht  at  Lindisfarne 
forbade  women  to  cross  the  threshold  of  his  conventual  church  on 
account  of  the  life  of  the  nuns  at  Coldingham^,  but  another  version 
of  his  doings  considers  that  his  attitude  was  due  to  an  episode  with 
a  Scottish  king's  daughter  which  turned  him  against  the  sex^ 

Cuthberht  was  also  the  friend  of  Aelflaed,  abbess  of  Whitby, 
who  entertained  unbounded  reverence  for  him.  On  one  occasion* 
she  had  fallen  ill  and,  as  she  herself  told  the  monk  Herefrid, 
suffered  so  from  cramp  that  she  could  hardly  creep  along.  '  I 
would,'  she  said,  '  I  had  something  belonging  to  my  dear  Cuth- 
berht, for  I  believe  and  trust  in  the  Lord  that  I  should  soon 
be  restored  to  health.' 

In  compliance  with  her  wish  the  holy  man  sent  her  a  linen 
girdle,  which  she  wore  for  a  time  and  which  entirely  cured  her. 
Later  a  nun  by  the  help  of  the  same  girdle  was  relieved  of  a  head- 
ache, but  after  that  the  girdle  of  miraculous  power  miraculously 
disappeared.  The  reason  given  for  this  disappearance  illustrates 
naTvely  enough  how  divine  power  was  considered  to  be  justified  in 
making  itself  manifest  with  a  reservation.  '  If  this  girdle  had  re- 
mained present,'  Bede  argues,  'the  sick  would  always  flock  to  it ;  and 
whilst  some  one  of  these  might  not  be  worthy  to  be  healed,  its 
efficacy  to  cure  might  have  been  denied,  whereas  their  own  un- 
worthiness  was  perhaps  to  blame.  Therefore,  as  was  said  above, 
Heaven  so  dealt  its  benevolence,  that,  after  the  faith  of  believers 
had  been  confirmed,  then  immediately  the  opportunity  for  de- 
traction was  entirely  withdrawn  from  the  malice  of  the  un- 
righteous.' 

Contemporary  witnesses  bear  testimony  to  the  wisdom  and 
prudence  of  the  abbess  Aelflaed  of  Whitby,  for  Bede  says  in  the 
life  of  Cuthberht  that '  she  increased  the  lustre  of  her  royal  lineage 

*  The  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  gives  679  as  the  date  of  the  fire;  Eddi's  account 
represents  Aebbe  as  alive  in  681.  Perhaps  she  died  in  680;  comp.  Smith  and  Wace, 
Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography,  1877,  Ebba,  nr  1  ;  also  Bright,  W.,  Early  English 
Church  History,  1878,  p.  300,  footnote. 

*  Bright,  W.,  ibid.,  p.  255,  footnote. 

'  Hardy,  Th.  D.,  Descriptive  Catalogue  of  Materials,  1862,  vol.  i,  p.  312. 

*  Bede,  Life  of  St  Cuthbert,  ch.  23. 


I04   E^y  CL^d  tlie  influence  c/  Bishop   Wilfrith.    [chap,  hi 

with  the  higher  nobility  of  a  more  exalted  virginity ' ;  whilst  Eddi 
speaks  of  her  as  '  the  most  virtuous  virgin  who  is  actually  a  king's 
daughter,'  and  in  another  passage  characterizes  her  as  '  ever  the 
comforter  and  best  counsellor  of  the  whole  province.' 

We  find  her  in  Cuthber)it's  society  on  more  than  one  occasion. 
Once  he  met  her  at  the  monastery  of  '  Osingadune '  (Easington) 
where  he  went  to  dedicate  the  church,  and  while  sitting  by  her  at 
table  he  had  a  prophetic  vision  of  the  death  of  one  of  her  servants\ 

The  abbess  Aelflaed  directly  appealed  to  this  prophetic  insight 
of  Cuthberht's  when  troubled  in  her  mind  about  her  brother  King 
Ecgfrith,  whose  expedition  against  the  Picts  filled  her  with  appre- 
hension". In  the  words  of  Bede:  'At  another  time,  the  same 
most  reverend  virgin  and  mother  of  Christ's  virgins,  Aelflaed, 
sent  to  the  man  of  God,  adjuring  him  in  the  name  of  the  Lord 
that  she  might  be  allowed  to  see  him,  to  converse  on  some 
pressing  affairs.  Cuthberht  accordingly  went  on  board  ship,  ac- 
companied by  some  of  the  brethren,  and  came  to  the  island  which 
from  its  situation  opposite  to  the  river  Coquet  receives  its  name, 
and  is  celebrated  for  its  community  of  monks ;  there  it  was  that 
the  aforesaid  abbess  had  requested  him  to  meet  her.  When  she 
was  satisfied  with  his  replies  to  her  many  enquiries,  on  a  sudden, 
while  he  was  yet  speaking,  she  fell  at  his  feet  and  adjured  him 
by  the  sacred  and  venerable  Name  of  the  Heavenly  King  and  His 
angels,  to  tell  her  how  long  Ecgfrith,  her  brother,  should  live  and 
rule  over  the  kingdom  of  the  Angles  ;  "For  I  know,"  she  said,  "that 
you  abound  in  the  spirit  of  prophecy,  and  that  you  can  tell  me  this, 
if  you  will."  But  he,  trembling  at  her  adjuration,  and  yet  not 
wishing  openly  to  reveal  the  secret  which  she  asked  for,  replied, 
"  It  is  marvellous  that  you,  a  woman  wise  and  well-instructed 
in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  should  speak  of  the  term  of  human 
life  as  if  it  were  long,  seeing  that  the  Psalmist  says,  '  Our 
years  shall  be  considered  as  a  spiderV  and  that  Solomon  warns  us 
that,  'If  a  man  live  many  years  and  have  rejoiced  in  them  all, 
he  must  remember  the  darksome  time  and  the  many  days,  which, 
when  they  shall  come,  the  things  passed  shall  be  accused  of  vanity*.' 
How  much  more  then  ought  he,  to  whom  only  one  year  of  life 
remains,  to  be  considered  as  having  lived  a  short  time,  when  death 
shall  stand  at  his  gates } " 

»  Bede,  Life  of  St  Cuthbert,  ch.  34.  »  Ibid.,  ch.  -24. 

■■'  Psalm  Ixxxix.  10  (The  Vulgate  here  follows  the  Lxx.  ;  it  would  be  interesting  to 
know  what  sense  they  or  indeed  Bede  gave  to  the  passage). 
*  Eccles.  xi.  8. 


SECT.  Ill]    Ely  and  the  influence'i  of  Bishop   Wilfrith.    105 

'The  abbess,  on  hearing  this,  lamented  the  dreadful  prophecy 
with  floods  of  tears,  and  having  wiped  her  face,  with  feminine  bold- 
ness she  adjured  him  by  the  majesty  of  the  sovereignty  of  God  to 
tell  her  who  would  be  the  heir  of  the  kingdom,  since  P2cgfrith  had 
neither  sons  nor  brothers.  Cuthberht  was  silent  for  a  short  time, 
then  he  replied,  "  Say  not  that  he  is  without  heirs,  for  he  shall  have 
a  successor  whom  you  may  embrace  with  sisterly  affection  as  you 
do  Ecgfrith  himself"  But  she  continued  :  "  Tell  me,  I  beseech  you, 
where  he  is  now."  And  he  said,  "  You  see  this  mighty  and  wide 
ocean,  how  it  abounds  with  many  islands.  It  is  easy  for  God  from 
one  of  these  to  provide  a  ruler  for  the  kingdom  of  the  Angles." 
Then  she  understood  that  he  spoke  of  Ealdfrith  (Aldfrid)  who  was 
said  to  be  the  son  of  Ecgfrith's  father,  and  who  at  that  time  lived 
in  exile,  in  the  islands  of  the  Scots,  for  the  sake  of  studying  letters.' 

This  meeting,  if  we  credit  the  historian,  took  place  in 
684,  and  Aelflaed's  forebodings  were  realized.  Ecgfrith  lost 
his  life,  and  part  of  his  kingdom  was  taken  by  the  Picts.  In 
consequence  of  his  defeat  the  settlement  Whithern,  set  up  as  a 
religious  outpost  in  the  territory  south  of  the  Firth  of  Forth,  was 
destroyed.  Trumwin  who  had  been  entrusted  with  it  was  forced 
to  fly.  He  and  his  friends  sought  refuge  at  Whitby  where  he 
remained  and  had  much  intercourse  with  Cuthberht  and  Aelflaed. 
Bede  says  that  the  abbess  found  '  great  assistance  in  governing 
and  also  comfort  for  her  own  life'  in  Trumwin'. 

Northumbria  had  now  passed  the  zenith  of  her  greatness  as 
a  political  power,  for  the  territory  in  the  north  which  was  lost 
through  Ecgfrith's  defeat  was  not  regained,  while  in  the  south 
the  province  of  Mercia  began  to  shake  off"  the  Northumbrian  yoke. 
King  Ecgfrith  had  been  succeeded  by  his  half-brother  Ealdfrith 
(t  705)  and  owing  to  his  attitude  Wilfrith's  exile  came  to  an  end. 
Theodore,  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  wrote  a  letter  in  his  behalf 
to  Ealdfrith  and  also  one  to  Aelflaed  of  Whitby  begging  her  to 
be  at  peace  with  him-.  The  prelate  left  Sussex  for  the  north, 
where  he  remained  for  five  years  in  undisturbed  possession  of  his 
see^  But  again  the  old  quarrels  revived,  and  Wilfrith  in  con- 
sequence of  a  council  assembled  by  order  of  Ealdfrith  at  Eastre- 
field  was  robbed  of  his  episcopal  dignity  and  reduced  to  his  abbacy 
at  Ripon.  He  again  insisted  that  the  king  and  bishops  should 
submit  to  the  Pope,  and  at  the  age  of  well-nigh  seventy  he  under- 

»  Bede,  EccUs.  Hist.,  bk  4,  ch.  16.  ^  Eddi,  Vita,  c.  43. 

'  Bright,  W.,  Early  English  History,  1878,  p.  448,  from  686-691. 


io6    Ely  and  the  influence  of  Bishop   Wilfrith.    [chap,  hi 

took  another  journey  to  Rome.  But  it  was  in  vain  he  sent  envoys 
to  the  king  on  his  return.  Ealdfrith  was  determined  not  to  relent, 
but  afterwards  approaching  death  intimidated  him.  Feeh'ng  his 
end  draw  nigh  he  sent  for  Aelflacd  of  Whitby,  who  with  the 
abbess  Aethelburg  (probably  of  Hackness)  came  to  where  he  lay 
ill  at  Driffield  in  the  East  Riding.  Aelflaed  received  the  king's 
dying  words,  and  at  a  council  of  prelates  subsequently  assembled 
on  the  river  Nidd  bore  testimony  that  he  had  spoken  in  favour  of 
making  peace.  Wilfrith  regained  part  of  his  influence  but  remained 
in  retirement  at  his  monastery. 

Aelflaed  outlived  him  and  her  friend  Cuthberht  who  died  in 
687.  It  is  probable  that  she  assisted  at  the  translation  of  Cuth- 
berht's  body  in  698,  for  in  the  inventory  of  the  church  at  Durham 
one  of  the  linen  cloths  or  outer  envelopes  of  his  body,  which  was 
taken  from  it  in  1 104,  is  described  as  'a  linen  cloth  of  double 
texture  which  had  enveloped  the  body  of  St  Cuthbert  in  his  grave ; 
Elfled  the  abbess  had  wrapped  him  up  in  it^' 

Aelflaed  is  the  last  abbess  of  Whitby  known  by  name.  Her 
death  is  supposed  to  have  taken  place  in  713.  Her  monastery, 
like  so  many  houses  in  the  north,  which  had  grown  to  prosperity 
with  the  rising  power  of  Northumbria,  sank  into  insignificance 
with  the  decadence  of  that  power.  This  decline  was  partly  due 
to  political  reasons,  but  the  dislike  which  the  later  kings  of 
Northumbria  felt  towards  monasteries  may  have  had  something 
to  do  with  it.  For  as  we  shall  see  later  on  the  example  Queen 
Aethelthrith  had  set  was  probably  followed  by  two  other  Northum- 
brian queens,  Cyneburg,  the  wife  of  Ealhfrith,  and  Cuthburg,  wife 
of  Ealdfrith  (t  705),  who  returned  to  their  own  countries  and  there 
founded  monasteries. 

§  4.     Houses  in  Mercia  and  in  the  South. 

From  the  north  we  turn  to  Mercia  and  Wessex,  the  central 
and  south-western  provinces  of  England.  Mercia  had  clung  longest 
to  her  heathen  beliefs,  for  Christianity  was  not  accepted  there  till 
after  the  defeat  of  Penda  in  655  when  Northumbria  gained  supre- 
macy. Penda,  king  of  Mercia,  remained  faithful  to  his  gods  to 
the  end  himself,  but  his  children  adopted  the  new  faith.  His  son 
Peada  had  already  been  baptized  in  Northumbria  by  Finnan  who 

'  Haigh,  D.  H.,  'On  the  monasteries  of  St  Ileiu  and  St  Hild,'   Yorksh.  Archaeol. 
Journal,  vol.  3,  p.  375. 


vSECT.  iv]       Houses  in  Mercta  and  in  the  South.  107 

sent  four  ecclesiastics  back  with  him  to  evangelise  the  Midlands,  and 
Wulfhere  (c.  658-675)  Peada's  brother  and  successor  was  married 
to  the  Christian  princess  Eormenhild  of  Kent,  for  whom  Queen 
Sexburg  had  made  the  religious  foundation  at  Sheppey.  Peada 
had  founded  a  religious  settlement  at  Burh  or  Medehampstead 
which  is  better  known  as  Peterborough,  a  name  bestowed  on  it 
after  its  restoration  in  970.  The  charter  of  the  foundation  of  Burh 
is  dated  664,  and  besides  the  signatures  of  Wulfhere  and  other 
princes  and  thanes  it  bears  those  of  Wulfhere's  sisters  Cyneburg 
and  Cynesvvith\ 

Cyneburg  and  Cyneswith  were  esteemed  as  saints  on  the  strength 
of  their  religious  foundations  at  Castor,  a  village  some  miles  distant 
from  Peterborough ;  the  name  Cyneburg  is  held  by  the  local  his- 
torian to  survive  in  the  appellations  of  Lady  Connyburrow  Walk 
and  Coneygreve  Close*.  Cyneburg  had  been  married  to  Ealhfrith, 
who  was  for  some  time  co-regent  of  Northumbria,  but  little  is 
known  of  him  after  his  presence  at  the  synod  of  Whitby  in  664. 
The  charter  of  the  Medehampstead  foundation  above  referred  to 
establishes  beyond  a  doubt  that  Cyneburg  had  left  her  husband  to 
found  and  preside  over  her  monastery ;  for  she  is  designated  as 
'  formerly  a  queen  who  had  resigned  her  sway  to  preside  over  a 
monastery  of  maidens^'  Her  legend,  which  is  not  older  than  John 
of  Tinmouth*,  enlarges  on  this  fact,  and  like  Aethelthrith  of  Ely, 
Cyneburg  together  with  her  sister  Cyneswith  has  found  a  place 
in  the  Calendar  as  a  virgin  saint®. 

The  legend  which  tells  of  Cyneburh  and  Cyneswith  also  refers 
to  St  Tibba  or  Tilba,  their  kinswoman,  who  dwelt  at  Ryhall  not  far 
from  Castor.  The  same  day  was  kept  in  commemoration  of  all 
these  three  saints  at  Peterborough,  to  which  place  their  bodies  were 
transferred  at  an  early  date.  For  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  (972) 
says  of  Aelfsi,  abbot  of  Peterborough  :  '  And  he  took  up  St  Kyne- 
burg  and  St  Kyneswith  who  lay  at  Castor,  and  St  Tibba  who  lay 
at  Ryhall,  and  brought  them  to  Burh,  and  offered  them  all  to  St 
Peter  in  one  day.'     Camden®  speaks  of  Tibba  as  a  '  saint  of  inferior 

^  Dugdale,  Monastuon,  '  Peterborough,'  vol.  i,  p.  377,  nr  2,  prints  the  charter. 
'  Gough,  R.,  Parochial  History  of  Castor,  18 19,  p.  99. 

*  '  Cum  beatissimis  sororibus  meis  Kyneburga  et  Kyneswida,  quarum  prior  r^na 
mutavit  imperium  in  Christi  ancillarum  praesidens  monasterio...etc.' 

*  Hardy,  Th.  D.,  Descriptive  CcUalogue  of  Materials,  1862,  vol.  i,  p.  370. 

*  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Kineburga  et  St  Kineswitha,  virgines,  March  6,  argue  the  existence 
of  a  third  sister. 

®  Camden,  Britannia,  edit.  1789,  vol.  1,  pp.  219,  213. 


io8  Houses  in  Mercia  and  in  the  South.       [chap,  hi 

order,  who  was  worshipped  as  another  Diana  by  fowlers,  a  patroness 
of  hawking,'  and  adds  information  which  shows  that  she  was  popu- 
larly connected  with  heathen  survivals. 

Mercia  was  the  birthplace  of  many  picturesque  legends  about 
the  conversion  of  members  of  the  ruling  family  and  about  their 
religious  foundations.  When  once  Christianity  was  accepted  the 
activity  which  kings,  queens  and  prelates  displayed  in  its  favour  was 
great,  but  the  historical  information  we  have  about  them  is  meagre. 

Thus  Repton  (Repandune)  in  Derbyshire,  a  monastery  for 
women,  had  gained  considerable  importance  when  the  noble  youth 
Guthlac  repaired  thither  in  694  to  devote  himself  to  learning  under 
the  abbess  Aelfthrith\  Nothing  is  known  about  the  beginnings 
of  the  house,  and  if  the  abbess  Aelfthrith  founded  it  she  has  not 
on  this  account  been  accepted  as  a  saint  like  the  founders  of  other 
houses.  This  omission  may  however  be  due  to  the  difficulties 
which  arose  between  Aelfthrith  and  the  prelates  of  Mercia.  We  do 
not  know  their  nature,  but  in  705  a  council  of  Mercian  clergy  as- 
sembled to  consider  the  re-admission  of  Aelfthrith  to  Church  privi- 
leges*. A  letter  is  also  extant  from  Bishop  Waldhere  of  London 
to  Archbishop  Brihtwald  of  Canterbury  in  which  he  mentions  that 
a  reconciliation  has  taken  placed 

The  noble  youth  Guthlac  who  came  to  study  at  Repton  after- 
wards became  famous,  and  many  accounts  of  his  life  have  been 
written'*.  The  earliest  version,  drafted  by  his  friend  Felix,  supplies 
some  interesting  details  of  the  life  at  Repton  and  the  studies  there^ 

We  are  told  that  Guthlac's  progress  was  wonderful.  '  When 
he  had  been  there  two  years  he  had  learnt  the  psalms,  the  canticles, 
the  hymns  and  prayers  after  the  ecclesiastical  order,'  but  he  met 
with  disapproval  in  the  monastery  by  refusing  to  drink  wine.  The 
accounts  which  he  read  of  the  solitary  life  of  the  older  monks  filled 
him  with  a  longing  for  solitude,  and  he  left  Repton  and  wandered 
about  till  he  found  the  place  of  his  heart's  desire  at  Crowland  in 
the  fen  country,  where  he  determined  to  settle.  He  had  received 
the  tonsure  at  Repton  and  returned  there  on  a  visit  before  finally 
settling  at  Crowland.    He  did  not  break  his  connection  with  Repton, 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Repton,'  vol.  6,  p.  419 ;  the  abbesses  he  mentions  should 
stand  in  this  order  :  Alfritha,  Edburga. 

'^  Haddon  and  Stubbs,  Councils  and  Eccles.  Documents,  1869,  vol.  3,  p.  273. 
^  Ibid.,  vol.  3,  p.  274. 

*  Birch,  W.  de  Gray,  Memorials  of  St  Guthlac  of  Crowland,  1881. 
6  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Guthlac,  April  11  ;  Felix,  Vita,  c.  12. 


SECT,  iv]       Houses  in  Mercia  and  in  the  South.  109 

for  we  hear  that  the  abbess  Ecgburh  who  succeeded  Aelfthrith 
sent  him  as  a  gift  a  coffin  made  of  wood  and  lead,  together  with  a 
linen  winding-sheet,  and  asked  who  should  be  warden  of  the  place 
after  him,  as  though  she  regarded  Crowland  as  a  dependency  of 
Repton'. 

The  abbess  Ecgburg  was  the  daughter  of  King  Ealdwulf  of 
East  Anglia  (f  7I4)S  and  an  eloquent  letter  which  is  quoted  later 
in  my  account  of  Boniface's  correspondents  was  probably  written 
by  her'. 

In  connection  with  Guthlac's  solitary  life  we  hear  of  a  woman 
Pega,  who  had  also  chosen  a  retreat  in  the  fen  country,  at  a  place 
afterwards  known  as  Peykirk,  which  is  now  situated  on  a  peninsula 
formed  by  the  uplands  of  Northamptonshire  and  connected  with 
the  mound  on  which  Guthlac  dwelt  by  a  ridge  of  gravel,  but  which 
at  that  time  formed  an  islands  One  version  of  Guthlac's  life  tells 
how  '  he  had  a  sister  called  Pega  whom  he  would  not  see  in  this 
life,  to  the  intent  that  they  might  the  rather  meet  in  the  life  to 
come';  and  another  manuscript  life  says  that  the  Evil  One  ap- 
peared to  the  saint  in  the  form  of  Pega.  Mr  W.  de  Birch  Gray 
who  has  reprinted  these  accounts  notices  that  the  tone  in  which 
Florence  of  Worcester  speaks  of  Pega  suggests  that  to  him  at  least 
she  appeared  more  famous  than  Guthlac*. 

Different  accounts  of  Guthlac  agree  that  at  his  death  his  com- 
panions at  once  departed  to  fetch  Pega.  In  the  celebrated  series 
of  drawings  of  the  12th  century,  which  set  forth  the  story  of 
St  Guthlac,  the  holy  woman  Pega  is  depicted  twice®.  In  one 
picture  she  steps  into  the  boat,  in  which  the  companion  of  Guthlac 
has  come  to  fetch  her,  and  in  the  other  she  is  represented  as 
supporting  the  saint,  who  is  enveloped  in  his  shroud. 

The  connection  between  Guthlac  and  Pega  is  at  least  curious, 
and  the  authority  she  at  once  assumed  is  noteworthy.  '  For  three 
days'  space  with  sacred  hymns  of  praise  she  commended  the  holy 

*  Felix,  Vita,  c.  33. 

"^  Ibid.,  'Egburgh  abbatissa,  Aldulfi  regis  filia';  Smith  and  Wace,  Dictionary  of 
Christian  Biography,  iSt;,  call  her  '  Eadburga  (nr  3)';  two  abbesses  Ecgburh  occur  in 
the  Durham  list  of  abbesses,  comp.  Gray,  W.  de  Birch,  Fasti  Monastici  Aevi  Saxonici, 
1872,  p.  70. 

'  Comp.  below,  ch.  4,  §  i. 

*  Holdich,  B.,  History  of  Crowland  Abbey,  1816,  p.  1. 

*  Gray,  W.  de  Birch,  Memorials  of  St  Guthlac  of  Crmuland,  1881,  Introd.  p.  1,  footnote. 

*  Brit.  Mus.  M?>.  Harleian  Roll,  Y  6,  reproduced  Gray,  W.  de  Birch,  Memorials  of 
St  Guihiac  of  Crowland,  1881,  pp.  14,  16  etc. 


no  Houses  in  Mercia  and  in  the  South.       [chap,  hi 

man  to  God,'  says  the  Anglo-Saxon  prose  version  of  his  life'. 
And  further,  'After  his  death  when  he  had  been  buried  twelve 
months  God  put  it  into  the  heart  of  the  servant  of  the  Lord  that 
she  should  remove  the  brother's  body  to  another  tomb.  She 
assembled  thither  many  of  the  servants  of  God  and  mass-priests, 
and  others  of  the  ecclesiastical  order....  She  wound  the  holy  corpse, 
with  praises  of  Christ's  honour,  in  the  other  sheet  which  Ecgbriht 
the  anchoress  formerly  sent  him  when  alive  for  that  same  service.' 

The  Acts  of  the  Saints  give  an  account  of  St  Pega  or  Pegia 
and  tell  us  that  she  went  to  Rome  where  she  died*.  Her  repu- 
tation for  holiness,  as  far  as  it  is  preserved,  is  based  chiefly  on  her 
connection  with  Guthlac,  but  these  accounts  leave  room  for  much 
that  must  necessarily  remain  conjecture. 

Other  women-saints  who  were  reputed  to  have  lived  about  this 
period,  and  who  were  brought  into  connection  with  the  rulers  of 
Mercia,  claim  a  passing  attention,  although  their  legends  written 
at  a  much  later  date  supply  the  only  information  we  have  about 
them.  Thus  there  is  St  Osith'  of  Colchester,  whose  legend  written 
in  the  13th  century  is  full  of  hopeless  anachronisms.  The  house 
of  Augustinian  canons  at  Chich*  in  the  12th  century  was  dedicated 
conjointly  to  the  saints  Peter  and  Paul  and  to  the  woman-saint 
Osith  ;  a  canon  of  this  house,  Albericus  Veerus,  probably  wrote  her 
legend.     Perhaps  St  Osith  of  Aylesbury  is  identical  with  her'. 

Our  information  is  equally  untrustworthy  concerning  St  Frides- 
with,  patron  saint  of  Oxford,  for  it  dates  no  further  back  than  the 
1 2th  century*.  The  chief  interest  in  her  legend  is  that  its  author 
establishes  a  connection  between  incidents  in  the  life  of  Frideswith, 
and  the  dread  which  the  kings  of  England  had  of  entering 
Oxford;  a  dread  which  as  early  as  1264  is  referred  to  as  an  'old 
superstition\' 

All  these  women  are  credited  in  their  legends  with  founding 
monasteries  and  gaining  local  influence,  and  excepting  in  the  case 
of  St  Tibba,  I  have  come  across  no  coupling  of  their  names  with  pro- 
fane cults.     Other  women-saints  who  may  perhaps  be  classed  with 


'  Goodwin,  C.  W.,  The  Anglo-Saxon  version  of  the  life  of  St  Guthlac,  1848,  p.  93. 
a  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Pega  sive  Pegia,  Jan.  8.  »  ^_  ^^,  ^^//^^  st  Ositha,  Oct.  7. 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Chich  Priory,'  vol.  6,  p.  308. 

*  Hardy,  Th.  D.,  Descriptive  Catalogue  of  Materials,  vol.  i,  pp.  524  ff. 

"  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Frideswida,  Oct.  19;  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Christ  Church,'  vol. 

1,  p.  134- 

^  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  Frideswide. 


SECT,  iv]       Houses  in  Mercia  and  in  the  South.  1 1 1 

them,  though  little  survives  except  their  names,  are  St  Osburg  of 
Coventry\  St  Modwen  of  Strenhall  in  Staffordshire  and  Burton-on- 
Trenf*,  and  St  Everhild  of  Everingham  in  Yorkshire*. 

Other  names  which  occur  in  local  calendars  will  be  found  in 
the  Menology  of  Stanton,  who  has  compiled  a  very  complete  list  of 
men-  and  women-saints  in  England  and  Wales  from  a  number  of 
local  calendars. 

In  contrast  to  the  uncertainty  which  hangs  about  the  settle- 
ments under  woman's  rule  in  the  Midlands  and  around  their 
founders,  two  houses  founded  in  the  south  of  England  during  the 
7th  century  stand  out  in  clear  prominence.  Barking  in  Essex,  and 
Wimbourne  in  Dorsetshire,  attained  a  considerable  degree  of 
culture,  and  the  information  which  has  been  preserved  concerning 
them  is  ample  and  trustworthy. 

Bede  has  devoted  several  chapters  of  his  history  to  stories 
connected  with  Barking*.  It  owed  its  foundation  to  Earconwald 
sometime  bishop  of  London  (675-693)  who,  after  founding  a  settle- 
ment at  Chertsey  in  Surrey  under  the  rule  of  an  abbot,  in  6€^ 
made  a  home  for  his  sister  Aethelburg  at  Barking'  where  *he 
established  her  excellently  in  the  regular  discipline.'  Aethelburg 
appears  to  have  been  an  energetic  person,  and  has  been  raised  to 
the  rank  of  saint".  Her  settlement  included  men  as  well  as  women, 
and  young  children  seem  to  have  been  entrusted  to  her  care  for 
their  education. 

Bede  says  that  *  having  taken  the  rule  of  the  monastery  she 
showed  herself  worthy  of  her  brother  the  bishop  in  all  respects, 
both  by  living  rightly  herself,  and  by  the  pious  and  prudent  course 
she  took  to  rule  those  who  were  subject  to  her;  this  was  proved 
by  celestial  miracles.' 

A  number  of  these  miracles  are  described  by  him  with  con- 
siderable  power.     Between  664  and  684,  a  great  pestilence,  the 

^  Stanton,  R. ,  Menology  of  England  and  Wales,  1887,  p.  137  :  'we  have  no  records 
of  Osburg  till  14 10.' 

^  Ibid.,  p.  310:  'there  is  much  obscurity  in  the  history  of  St  Modwenna.  It  seems 
that  she  must  be  distinguished  from  one  or  perhaps  two  other  Irish  saints...'  Also 
Livien,  E.,  'On  early  religious  houses  in  Staffordshire'  in  Journal  of  the  British 
Archaeol.  Association,  vol.  29,  p.  333;  Hardy,  Th.  D.,  Descriptive  Catalogue  of  Mate- 
rials, pp.  94  ff. 

"  Stanton,  R.,  Menology  of  England  and  Wales,  1887,  p.  328. 

*  Bede,  Eccles.  Hist.,  bk  4,  chs.  7-10. 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Barking,'  vol.  i,  p.  436. 

«  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Ethelbui^a,  Oct.  11  ;  Stanton,  R.,  Menology  of  England  and 
Wales,  p.  485. 


1 1 2  Houses  in  Mercia  and  in  the  South.       [chap,  hi 

earliest  on  record  in  Christian  times,  visited  England  and  carried 
off  many  of  the  inmates  of  Barking.  First  a  boy  of  three  years 
fell  ill  and  in  dying  called  by  name  the  nun  Eadgith,  who  presently 
died.  Another  nun  called  Torctgith^  also  had  a  vision  of  im- 
pending death.  '  One  night  at  the  beginning  of  dawn,  having 
gone  forth  from  the  chamber  in  which  she  abode,  she  saw  plainly 
as  it  were  a  human  body,  which  was  brighter  than  the  sun,  carried 
up  on  high,  wrapped  in  fine  linen,  and  lifted  apparently  from  the 
house  in  which  the  sisters  were  usually  placed  to  die.  And  when 
she  looked  more  intently  to  see  by  what  means  the  apparition 
of  a  glorious  body  which  she  beheld  was  raised  on  high,  she  saw 
that  it  was  lifted  up  into  the  upper  regions  as  it  were  by  cords 
brighter  than  gold,  until  being  introduced  into  the  opening  heavens 
it  could  no  longer  be  seen  by  her.' 

This  imagery  foretold  the  death  of  Abbess  Aethelburg,  who 
was  carried  off  by  the  pestilence.  She  was  succeeded  at  Barking 
by  Hildelith,  whom  Boniface  refers  to  as  a  very  estimable  person 
and  who  has  also  found  a  place  among  the  saints-.  Capgrave 
speaks  of  her  having  been  educated  in  France,  whence  she  came 
to  Barking  at  the  desire  of  Bishop  Earconwald  to  help  in  establish- 
ing the  foreign  system  of  discipline. 

It  was  for  the  abbess  Hildelith  and  her  companions  at  Barking 
that  the  scholar  Ealdhelm  (t  709)  wrote  his  great  treatise  on 
Virginity,  a  long  and  elaborate  composition  which  sets  before 
these  women  the  beauties  of  the  virgin  life  with  a  mass  of  illustra- 
tion taken  from  religious  and  classical  literature.  From  the  point 
of  view  of  women's  religious  life,  it  is  worth  while  to  describe  this 
treatise  at  some  length,  for  it  shows  what  a  high  degree  of  culture 
had  been  attained  at  Barking  towards  the  close  of  the  seventh 
century. 

Ealdhelm,  born  of  noble  parentage  about  the  year  640,  is 
the  representative  in  southern  England  of  the  classical  revival 
which  was  about  this  time  engrafted  on  Christian  teaching.  He 
studied  first  at  Malmesbury  under  the  learned  Scot  Maidulf  and 
then  at  Canterbury  where  Archbishop  Theodore  and  Abbot  Hadrian 
were  attracting  many  students,  and  where  he  perfected  his  Latin 
and  musical  studies  and  acquired  in  some  measure  the  rare  and 
much  esteemed  knowledge  of  Greek.  'A  wonder  of  erudition  in 
liberal  as  well  as  in  ecclesiastical  writings,'  Bede  calls  him'.     From 

'  Stanton,  R.,  Menology,  calls  her  Theorigitha  but  says,  p.  36,  that  she  has  no  day. 
*  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Ilildelitha,  March  24.  »  Bede,  Eccks.  Hist.,  bk  5,  ch.  18. 


SECT,  iv]       Houses  in  Mercia  and  in  the  South,  1 1 3 

Canterbury  he  returned  to  Malmesbury,  which  owing  to  his  in- 
fluence attained  a  fame  which  it  kept  till  the  Middle  Ages.  In  705 
when  Wessex  was  divided  into  two  bishoprics,  Ealdhelm  was 
made  bishop  of  the  see  of  Sherbourne. 

The  interest  Ealdhelm  took  in  women  was  so  great  that  posterity 
pictured  him  as  continually  in  their  society\  Besides  his  great 
treatise,  passages  in  his  other  works  bear  witness  to  this  interest. 
In  a  letter  addressed  to  Sigegith^  he  gave  advice  about  the 
baptism  of  a  nun  who  had  been  received  into  her  community 
while  still  a  heathen  ;  to  another  nun  whose  name  is  not  mentioned 
he  sent  a  letter  together  with  several  poems'.  He  composed  verses 
in  praise  of  a  church  which  Bugga,  a  daughter  of  King  Centwin 
(670-685),  had  built*.  And  besides  the  prose  treatise  on  virginity 
addressed  to  the  sisterhood  of  Barking,  he  wrote  a  long  poem  in 
heroic  hexameters  on  the  same  subject  called  the  'Praise  of  Virgins' ; 
it  has  a  preface  addressed  to  the  abbess  Maxima,  and  is  followed  by 
a  poem  on  the  '  Eight  chief  Sins,'  likewise  intended  for  the  perusal 
of  nuns^ 

Ealdhelm  opens  his  prose  work  on  virginity®  with  thanks  to 
the  women  of  Barking  for  the  writings  they  have  sent  to  him. 
Hildelith,  Justina,  Cuthburg,  Osburg,  Ealdgith,  Scholastica,  Hid- 
burg,  Burngith,  Eulalia  and  Tecla  are  addressed  by  name.  He 
praises  them  as  gymnosophists,  as  scholars  and  as  fighters  in  the 
arena  of  discipline  (c.  2).  Like  unto  bees,  he  says  (c.  4),  they  collect 
everywhere  material  for  study. 

Sometimes,  he  says,  you  study  the  Prophets,  sometimes  the 
Books  of  the  Law,  '  now  skilfully  tracking  the  fourfold  wording  of 
the  gospel  story,  expounded  in  the  mystic  commentaries  of  the 
Catholic  fathers,  and  spiritually  bared  to  the  kernel,  and  disposed 
fitly  according  to  the  four-square  pattern  of  ecclesiastical  usage, 
namely  according  to  the  letter,  allegory,  tropology  and  anagogy'; 
now  carefully  searching  into  the  writers  of  history  and  into  the 

^  Capgrave,  T.,  Catalogus  SS,  Angliae,  1516,  fol.  10,  b. 

2  Monumenta  Moguntina,  edit.  Jaflfe,  Epist.  nr  2,  written  between  675  and  705  ; 
Giles  (Aldhelm,  Opera  Omnia,  1844,  p.  90)  calls  her  Osgith,  a  name  which  occurs  several 
times  in  the  Durham  '  Liber  Vitae.' 

2  Aldhelm,  Opera,  edit.  Giles,  1844,  P-  loS-  *  Ibid.,  p.  115,  De  Basilica,  etc, 

"  Ibid.,  p.  135,  De  Laudibus  Virginum  (it  is  not  known  over  which  house  Maxima 
presided) ;  p.  203,  De  octo  Principalibus  Vitiis. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  I,  Dd  Laudibus  Virginitatis  (chapter  references  in  the  text  are  to  this 
edition). 

^  Mediaeval  exegesis  interpreted  in  these  four  ways,  comp.  Cassian  Erem.,  De  Spiritu 
Sc,  c.  8. 

E.  8 


1 14  Houses  in  Mercia  and  in  the  South.       [chap,  hi 

collections  of  chronographers,  who  have  handed  down  the  changing 
events  of  the  past  in  wording  that  impresses  the  mind.  Some- 
times you  carefully  examine  the  rules  of  grammarians,  the  laws 
of  accentuation  measured  by  tone  and  time,  fixed  in  poetic  feet 
by  marks  of  punctuation,  that  is  divided  into  parts  of  verse  con- 
sisting of  two  and  a  half  and  three  and  a  half  feet,  and  changed  in 
endless  varieties  of  metre.' 

Ealdhelm  then  enlarges  on  the  beauties  of  the  virgin's  life,  and 
dwells  especially  on  the  charms  of  peaceful  companionship  which 
it  secures.  Again  in  their  dwelling  and  working  together  the 
women  are  likened  to  bees. 

The  charms  of  the  virgin's  life  are  then  set  forth  in  language 
redundant  of  imagery,  verbose  and  grandiloquent  in  the  extreme. 
We  are  told  of  the  temptations  which  those  who  have  adopted  a 
religious  life  must  guard  against  (c.  ii).  There  are  eight  sins 
as  to  which  they  are  especially  warned ;  the  chief  of  these  is 
pride.  Women  are  then  directed  as  to  the  books  they  should 
make  a  special  subject  of  study,  and  are  recommended  to  peruse 
the  works  of  Cassian  (who  in  the  5th  century  wrote  the  *  Duties  of 
Monastic  Life ')  and  the  '  Moralities '  of  Gregory  the  Great  (which 
contain  reflections  suggested  by  the  book  of  Job),  and  they  are 
advised  to  study  the  Psalms  to  avoid  unhappiness  (c.  14).  With  the 
love  of  contrast  peculiar  to  early  writers,  Ealdhelm  shows  how  the 
women  who  serve  God  and  those  who  do  not  are  different  in 
their  bearing  and  outward  appearance,  and  enlarges  on  the  relative 
value  of  different  estates  (c.  17):  virginity  is  of  gold,  chastity  is 
of  silver;  marriage  (jugalitas)  is  of  brass ;  and  again  :  virginity  is 
wealth,  chastity  is  sufficiency,  marriage  is  poverty,  etc. 

He  then  displays  the  wide  range  of  his  learning  by  adducing 
many  writers  in  support  of  his  views  (c.  20-40),  in  passages  which 
are  elaborate  and  instructive  but  wearisome  through  their  re- 
iterations. He  enumerates  all  the  women  famous  for  their  re- 
ligious lives.  The  Virgin  Mary  comes  first  and  she  is  followed  by 
many  women-saints  of  Italy  and  the  East,  on  whom  there  is  in  some 
cases  much,  in  others  little,,  comment.  In  this  list  we  in  vain  look 
for  the  names  of  religious  women  living  on  this  side  of  the  Alps. 
Helen  the  mother  of  Constantine  (c.  48)  is  referred  to,  but  her 
British  origin  is  not  mentioned  and  the  idea  of  it  had  probably 
not  arisen  in  Ealdhelm's  time. 

The  writer  again  turns  to  those  who  are  devoted  to  religion, 
and  in  passages  which  are  full  of  interest  as  a  study  of  the  times 


SECT,  iv]       Houses  in  Mercia  and  in  the  South.  1 1 5 

complains  of  the  personal  appearance  of  the  clergy  and  of  those 
women  who  have  chosen  religion  as  a  profession.  These  passages 
are  among  the  most  instructive  in  regard  to  women  and  clearly 
show  how  completely  life  in  a  nunnery  at  the  beginning  of  the  8th 
century  differed  from  what  it  was  later  on. 

'  It  shames  me,'  he  says,  '  to  speak  of  the  bold  impudence  of 
conceit  and  the  fine  insolence  of  stupidity  which  are  found  both 
among  nuns  (sanctimoniales)  who  abide  under  the  rule  of  a 
settlement,  and  among  the  men  of  the  Church  who  live  as  clergy 
under  the  rule  of  the  Pontiff.  These  act  contrary  to  canonical 
decrees  and  to  the  rule  of  regular  life,  for  with  many- 
coloured  vestments*  and  with  elegant  adornments  the  body  is 
set  off  and  the  external  form  decked  out  limb  by  limb.  The 
appearance  of  the  other  sex  agrees  with  it ;  a  vest  of  fine  linen 
of  a  violet  colour  is  worn,  above  it  a  scarlet  tunic  with  a  hood, 
sleeves  striped  with  silk  and  trimmed  with  red  fur;  the  locks  on 
the  forehead  and  the  temples  are  curled  with  a  crisping  iron,  the 
dark  head-veil  is  given  up  for  white  and  coloured  head-dresses 
which,  with  bows  of  ribbon  sewn  on,  reach  down  to  the  ground ; 
the  nails,  like  those  of  a  falcon  or  sparrow-hawk,  are  pared  to 
resemble  talons'....  This  state  of  things  Ealdhelm  strongly  con- 
demns. But  he  adds  the  remark  that  he  is  addressing  no  one 
in  particular,  evidently  to  avoid  any  umbrage  his  women  friends 
might  take  at  these  remarks.  His  reference  to  luxurious  clothing 
does  not  stand  alone.  The  description  Bede  gives  of  the  women 
at  Coldingham  has  been  quoted,  and  Boniface  in  a  letter*  to  Cuth- 
berht  of  Canterbury  speaks  of  '  the  adornment  of  clothes,  trimmed 
with  wide  edging  of  purple,'  which,  he  says,  is  deteriorating  the 
young  men  in  the  monasteries,  and  foretells  the  coming  of  Anti- 
christ. Sumptuous  clothes  as  vestments  during  religious  service 
remained  in  use,  but  in  all  other  respects  they  were  condemned 
as  prejudicial  to  the  welfare  of  those  who  were  vowed  to 
religion. 

Ealdhelm's  work  on  virginity  closes  with  an  affectionate  greet- 
ing to  his  women  friends  in  which  he  addresses  them  finally  as 
'  Flowers  of  the  Church,  sisters  of  monastic  life,  scholarly  pupils, 
pearls  of  Christ,  jewels  of  Paradise,  and  sharers  of  the  eternal  home.' 

His  work  was  greatly  prized  and  widely  read  both  by  his  own 

•  I  take  •  crustu  '  to  go  with  '  crusta,'  comp.  Ducange. 
**  Momimenta  Mogtintitia,  edit.  Jaffe,  Epist.  nr  70. 


ii6  Houses  in  Mercia  and  in  the  South.       [chap,  hi 

and  by  later  generations.  It  is  extant  in  several  copies  of  the 
8th  century\  and  maintained  its  reputation  throughout  the  Middle 
Ages.  William  of  Malmesbury  (t  1 141)  in  his  account  of  Ealdhelm 
specifies  the  work  on  virginity  as  one  'than  which  nothing  can 
be  more  pleasing^'  It  still  held  its  own  when  printing  was  intro- 
duced, for  it  was  published  at  Deventer  in  Holland  in  15 12,  and  has 
since  been  reprinted  for  devotional  purposes  ^ 

Among  those  on  whom  the  book  made  a  profound  impression 
was  Cuthburg,  sister  of  King  Ina  of  Wessex  (688-725).  She  was 
at  one  time  an  inmate  of  the  Barking  settlement  and  was  probably 
one  of  those  to  whom  the  work  was  addressed. 

Cuthburg  was  held  as  a  saint  for  founding  a  settlement  at 
Wimbourne  in  Dorset*,  where  the  cult  of  her  sister  Cwenburg 
was  associated  with  hers,  Cuthburg  as  mentioned  above  was  said 
to  have  left  her  husband  Ealdfrith  of  Northumbria  (t  705)  from 
religious  motives.  Her  being  held  in  veneration  as  a  virgin  saint 
may  be  due  to  her  name  being  coupled  with  that  of  a  virgin  sister". 
Missals  printed  at  Rouen  in  15 15,  and  at  Paris  in  15 19  and  1529, 
have  an  office  prescribed  for  Cuthburg  as  a  virgin ^  The  state- 
ment that  she  was  the  mother  of  Osred,  afterwards  king  of 
Northumbria  (706-717),  is  perhaps  unfounded. 

There  is  no  doubt  as  to  Ealdhelm's  friendly  relations  both  with 
Cuthburg  and  her  husband.  He  dedicated  his  enigmas  to  Eald- 
frith under  the  title  'Adcircius^'  and  in  a  letter  dated  705  he 
declares  that  liberty  of  election  is  granted  to  all  congregations 
under  his  government  including  that  called  *  Wimburnia,'  over 
which  Cuthburg,  the  king's  sister,  presides^  A  manuscript  of 
the  14th  century,  preserved  in  the  nunnery  of  Romsey,  contains  a 
collection  of  saints'  lives,  and  gives  a  full  account  of  a  conversation 
Cuthburg  had  with  her  husband  previous  to  their  separation'.  It 
further  relates  how  she  placed  the  basilica  of  her  settlement  under 
the  protection  of  the  Mother  of  God,  and  was  herself  buried  in  it.  She 
died  some  time  between  720  and  730,  probably  nearer  the  earlier 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Sherboume,'  vol.  i,  p.  331,  footnote  K. 

^  Will,  of  Malmesbury,  History,  c.  31.  ^  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biography ,  'Aldhelm.' 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Wimbourne,'  vol.  2,  p.  88. 
^  A.SS.  Boll.,  St  Cuthberga,  Aug.  31. 

"  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Wimbourne,'  vol.  i,  p.  88. 

'  Opera  edit.  Giles,  1844,  p.  216;  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biog.,  *  Aldfrith,'  he  is  sometimes 
called  Alfred. 

^  Dugdale,  Monastieon,  'Wimbourne,'  vol.  2,  p.  89,  nr  2. 
»  Brit.  Mvs.  MSS.  Lansdoivne,  436  f.,  38  b, 


SECT,  iv]       Houses  in  Mercia  and  in  the  South.  1 1 7 

date,  for  several  abbesses  are  said  to  have  ruled  between  her  and 
Tetta.  The  name  of  Tetta  has  been  brought  into  connection  with 
a  place  named  Tetbury,  but  we  know  nothing  definite  concerning  a 
monastery  there^  As  abbess  of  Wimbourne  she  was  the  teacher 
of  Lioba,  called  also  Leobgith,  who  went  abroad  at  the  desire  of 
Boniface  as  we  shall  see  further  on. 

In  the  life  of  Lioba  we  get  a  description  of  the  settlement  of 
Wimbourne*,  which  may  be  somewhat  coloured  to  show  the  result 
of  Tetta's  strict  and  beneficent  rule,  but  which  deserves  attention 
as  yielding  a  fair  example  of  the  arrangements  which  in  the  eyes 
of  its  author  appeared  desirable  for  a  monastery  of  women.  The 
author,  Rudolf  of  Fulda,  was  a  monk  who  wrote  between  800 
and  850,  and  who  compiled  his  work  from  notices  which  Magno 
(■f-c.  838)  had  collected  from  women  pupils  of  Lioba*. 

'There  were  two  settlements  at  Wimbourne,  formerly  erected 
by  the  kings  of  the  country,  surrounded  by  strong  and  lofty 
walls  and  endowed  with  ample  revenues.  Of  these  one  was 
designed  for  men,  the  other  for  women ;  but  neither,  for  such 
was  the  rule  of  their  foundation,  was  ever  entered  by  any  member 
of  the  other  sex.  No  woman  had  permission  to  come  among  the 
congregation  of  the  men,  no  man  to  enter  into  the  dwellings  of 
the  women,  with  the  exception  of  the  priests  who  entered  to  cele- 
brate mass  and  withdrew  at  once  when  service  was  over.  If  a 
woman,  desirous  of  quitting  the  world,  asked  to  be  admitted  to 
the  sisterhood  (collegium),  she  joined  it  on  condition  that  she 
should  not  leave  it  unless  a  reasonable  cause  or  a  special  occasion 
took  her  out  with  the  leave  of  the  abbess.  The  abbess  herself, 
when  she  gave  orders  in  affairs  of  the  settlement  or  tendered 
advice,  spoke  through  a  window  and  there  gave  her  decision....' 

Wimbourne  stands  last  in  the  list  of  well  authenticated  monastic 
foundations  made  by  women  during  the  early  Anglo-Saxon  period; 
of  such  foundations  more  than  twenty  have  been  mentioned  in  the 
course  of  this  chapter.  Others  no  doubt  existed  at  this  time, 
but  we  only  hear  of  them  at  a  later  date.  We  find  among  them 
some  of  the  centres  most  influential  in  enabling  the  Anglo-Saxons 
to  attain  a  high  degree  of  culture  within  a  hundred  years  of  their 
conversion  to  Christianity. 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Tetbury,'  vol.  6,  p.  1619. 
"  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Lioba,  Sept.  38,  c.  2. 

'  Aradt,  W.,  Introd.  to  translation  into  German  (in  Pertz,  Geschichtsschreiber  der 
deutschen  Voraeil,  Jahrhundert  8,  Band  2),  p.  xix. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

ANGLO-SAXON    NUNS   IN   CONNECTION   WITH    BONIFACE. 

'  Et  ut  dicitur,  quid  dulcius  est,  quam  habeas  ilium,  cum  quo  omnia  possis  loqui  ut 
tecum?'     Eangith  to  Boniface. 

§  I.     The  Women  corresponding  with  Boniface. 

In  the  course  of  the  6th  and  7th  centuries  a  number  of  men 
left  England  and  settled  abroad  among  the  heathen  Germans, 
partly  from  a  wish  to  gain  new  converts  to  the  faith,  partly 
because  a  change  of  affairs  at  home  made  them  long  for  a  dif- 
ferent field  of  labour.  Through  the  influx  of  the  heathen  Anglo- 
Saxons,  the  British  Christians  had  been  deprived  of  their  influence, 
and  when  Christianity  was  restored  it  was  under  the  auspices  of 
princes  who  were  favourably  inclined  towards  Rome.  Men  who 
objected  to  the  Roman  sway  sought  independence  among  the 
heathens  abroad  in  preference  to  dependence  on  strangers  at  home, 
and  it  is  owing  to  their  efforts  that  Christianity  was  introduced 
into  the  valleys  leading  up  from  the  Rhine,  into  the  lake  districts 
of  Bavaria,  and  into  Switzerland. 

A  century  later  the  Church  had  so  far  extended  the  limits  of 
her  power  that  it  was  felt  desirable  at  Rome  that  these  Christian 
settlers  should  be  brought  into  subjection.  For  the  tenets  which 
they  held  and  the  traditions  which  had  been  handed  down  to 
them  differed  in  many  ways  from  what  Rome  could  countenance. 
They  were  liberal  in  tolerating  heathen  practices,  and  ignorant  of 
matters  of  ritual  and  creed  which  were  insisted  on  in  the  Church 
of  Rome.  The  bishops,  who  were  self-appointed,  were  won  over 
by  the  promise  of  recognising  the  title  to  which  they  laid  claim, 
but  the  difficulty  remained  of  weaning  them  from  their  objection- 
able practices.     Efforts  were  accordingly  made  to  reconvert  the 


SECT,  i]     TJie   Wo»ien  corresponding  with  Boniface.       1 1 9 

converted  districts  and  to  bring  some  amount  of  pressure  to  bear 
on  the  clergy. 

The  representative  of  this  movement  in  South  Germany  was 
Boniface,  otherwise  called  Wynfred,  on  whom  posterity  has  be- 
stowed the  title  Apostle  of  Germany,  in  recognition  of  his  services 
in  the  twofold  character  of  missionary  and  reformer.  He  was  a 
native  of  Wessex,  and  his  mission  abroad  has  an  interest  in  con- 
nection with  our  subject  because  of  the  friendly  relations  he  enter- 
tained with  many  inmates  of  women's  houses  in  England,  and 
because  he  invited  women  as  well  as  men  to  leave  England  and 
assist  him  in  the  work  which  he  had  undertaken. 

Boniface  had  grown  up  as  an  inmate  of  the  settlement  of  Nutshal- 
ling  near  Winchester  and  first  went  abroad  in  716,  but  proceeded  no 
further  than  Utrecht.  Conjecture  has  been  busy  over  the  difficulties 
which  took  him  away,  and  the  disappointments  which  brought  him 
back.  Utrecht  was  an  old  Roman  colony  which  had  been  captured 
from  the  Franks  by  Adgisl,  king  of  the  Frisians,  who  gave  a  friendly 
reception  there  to  Bishop  Wilfrith  in  678.  But  King  Radbod,  his 
successor,  was  hostile  to  the  Franks  and  to  Christianity,  and  it  was 
only  in  deference  to  the  powerful  Frankish  house-mayor  Pippin  that 
he  countenanced  the  settling  of  Willibrord,  a  pupil  of  Wilfrith,  with 
eleven  companions  in  692.  However,  owing  to  Radbod's  enmity 
the  position  of  these  monks  was  such  that  they  were  obliged  to 
leave,  and  it  is  possible  that  Boniface  when  he  went  to  Utrecht 
was  disappointed  in  not  finding  them  there. 

Two  years  later  Boniface  went  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Rome,  where 
the  idea  of  bringing  his  energies  to  assist  in  the  extension  of  Papal 
influence  originated.  The  Pope  furnished  him  with  a  letter*  in 
which  he  is  directed  to  reclaim  the  faithless,  and  armed  with  this 
he  travelled  in  the  districts  of  the  Main.  But  as  soon  as  the  news 
of  the  death  of  Radbod  the  Frisian  (t  719)  reached  him  he  went 
to  Utrecht,  where  Willibrord  had  returned.  We  do  not  know 
what  afterwards  prompted  him  to  resume  his  work  in  Germany, 
but  perhaps  the  proposal  of  Willibrord  that  he  should  settle  with 
him  altogether  awakened  Boniface  to  the  fact  that  he  was  not  work- 
ing for  the  Pope  as  he  proposed.  His  reception  at  Rome,  where  he 
again  went  in  722,  and  the  declaration  of  faith  he  handed  in,  are 

*  Epist.  nr  12.  The  only  edition  of  the  letters  of  Boniface  which  attempts  chrono- 
logical order  is  that  of  Jaffe,  Ph.,  Montimenta  Moguntina,  1866,  the  numeration  of  which 
I  have  followed.  Additional  remarks  on  the  dates  of  some  of  the  letters  are  contained  in 
Hahn,  H.,  Bonifaz  und  Lull,  ihre  angelsdchsischen  CorresponJenten,  1883. 


I20    The   Women  corresponding  with  Boniface,    [chap,  iv 

in  favour  of  this  view.  But  Gregory  II  who  was  aware  of  the 
abilities  of  Boniface  forgave  him,  and  on  the  strength  of  his  declara- 
tion provided  him  with  further  letters.  One  of  these  was  ad- 
dressed to  the  Christians  of  Germany,  to  the  representative  clergy  • 
and  to  the  Thiiringians,  and  another  to  the  house-mayor,  Karl 
Martel,  who  had  succeeded  Pippin  ;  both  letters  commanded  that 
the  authority  of  Boniface  was  to  be  everywhere  recognised. 

From  this  time  for  a  period  of  over  thirty  years  Boniface  devoted 
his  energies  to  extending,  organizing  and  systematizing  the  power 
of  Rome  in  Germany.  His  character  appears  in  different  lights 
varying  with  the  standpoint  from  which  he  is  regarded.  Judging 
from  his  letters  he  is  alternately  swayed  by  doggedness  of  purpose, 
want  of  confidence  in  himself,  dependence  on  friends,  and  jealous 
insistence  on  his  own  authority.  He  has  a  curious  way  of  represent- 
ing himself  as  persecuted  when  in  fact  he  is  the  persecutor,  but  his 
power  of  rousing  enthusiasm  for  his  work  and  for  his  personality 
is  enormous. 

His  biographer  Wilibald  describes  this  power  as  already  peculiar 
to  him  during  his  stay  at  Nutshalling,  where  many  men  sought 
him  to  profit  by  his  knowledge,  '  while  those  who  on  account  of 
their  fragile  sex  could  not  do  so,  and  those  who  were  not  allowed 
to  stay  away  from  their  settlements,  moved  by  the  spirit  of  divine 

love,  sought  eagerly  for  an  account  of  him  ^ ' 

JThe ^interest  Boniface  had  aroused  at  home  accompanied  him 
on  his  travels  He  lemaiiied  ill  "fnendly  communication~~\^ith 
many  persons  in  England,  to  whom  he  wrote  and  who  wrote  to 
him.  ^Among  the  friends  and  correspondents  whose  letters  ajre 
preserved  are  churchmen,  princes,  abbesses,  clerics  of  various 
degrees,  and  nuns.  From  the  pomt  ol  view  ot  this  book  the  letters 
addressed  to  women  are  of  special  interest,  since  tjiey_bring  us 
into  personal  contactso"to  speak  with  the  abbesses  and  inm^t£5.of 
English  convents,  and  we  hear  for  the  first  time  what  they  per- 
sonally have  to  tell  us  of  themselves. 

Among  Boniface's  early  friends  and  correspondents  was  Ead- 
burg^  abbess  of  the  monastery  in  Thanet.  She  was  a  woman  of 
great  abilities,  zealous  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  and  her  influence 
secured  several  royal  charters  for  her  settlement.    She  had  probably 

*  Willibaldus  presb.,  Vita  Bonifacii,  edit.  Jaffe,  Ph.,  Monumenta  Moguntina,  1866, 
pp.  422-506,  c.  2. 

2  Whether  Eadburg  of  Thanet  is  identical  with  St  Eadburga  buried  at  Liming  (comp. 
p.  84),  is  uncertain. 


SECT,  i]     TJie   Women  corresponding  with  Boniface.       121 

succeeded  Mildthrith,  but  at  what  date  is  not  known.  Her  letters 
to  Boniface  unfortunately  have  not  been  preserved,  but  the  letters 
he  wrote  to  her  are  full  of  interesting  matter.  The  earliest  of 
these  was  written  between  718  and  719;  in  it  Boniface  does  not 
yet  address  her  as  abbess*. 

In  this  letter  Boniface  in  compliance  with  a  wish  Eadburg  had 
expressed,  describes  a  vision  of  the  future  life  which  a  monk  living 
at  Mildburg's  monastery  at  Wenlock  had  seen  during  a  state  of 
suspended  animation.  Boniface  had  first  heard  of  this  vision  from 
the  abbess  Hildelith  of  Barking,  and  he  writes  a  graphic  and  elo- 
quent account  of  it,  parts  of  which  are  put  into  the  mouth  of  the 
monk  himself.  The  account  gives  curious  glimpses  of  that  imagery 
of  the  future  life  which  early  Christians  dwelt  upon  and  elaborated 
more  and  more.  Nuns  at  this  time  as  well  as  later  took  a  special 
interest  in  the  subject. 

First  the  monk  is  carried  aloft  through  flames  which  enwrap 
the  world.  He  sees  many  souls  for  the  possession  of  which  angels 
and  devils  are  fighting.  Impersonations  of  his  sins  confront  and 
accost  him,  but  his  virtues  arise  also  and  enter  into  conflict  with 
the  sins.  The  virtues  are  supported  by  angels  and  the  fight  ends  to 
the  monk's  advantage.  He  also  sees  fiery  waters  flowing  towards 
hell :  and  souls  like  black  birds  which  hover  over  waters  from 
whence  proceed  the  wails  of  the  damned.  He  sees  Paradise, 
and  a  river  of  pitch  over  which  a  bridge  leads  to  Jerusalem,  and 
souls  are  trying  to  cross  it.  Among  others  suffering  torments  he 
catches  sight  of  King  Ceolred  of  Mercia.  At  last  the  angels  cast 
the  monk  down  from  the  height  and  he  re-awakens  to  life. 

Such  descriptions  of  a  future  life  multiply  as  one  nears  the 
Middle  Ages.  By  the  side  of  the  one  which  Boniface  sent  to 
Eadburg  should  be  read  another  by  him,  a  fragmentary  one,  which 
supplements  it^  The  sufferers  in  hell  mentioned  in  this  are  Cuth- 
burg,  Ceolla  and  Wiala  (of  whom  nothing  is  known),  an  unnamed 
abbot  and  Aethelbald,  king  of  Mercia  (t  756). 

The  description  of  the  after  life  given  by  Boniface  agrees  in 
various  ways  with  one  contained  in  the  works  of  Bede.  According 
to  this  account  there  was  a  man  in  Northumbria  named  Drycthelm, 
who  died,  came  to  life  again,  and  described  what  he  had  seen  of 
the  world  to  come. 

The  other  letters  which  Boniface  addressed  to  Eadburg  are  of 

*  Epist.  nr  lo.  '  Epist.  nr  iii. 


122     The   Women  corresponding  with  Boniface,    [chap,  iv 

later  date  and  were  written  when  he  had  settled  abroad  and  was 
devoting  his  energies  to  converting  the  Hessians  and  Thuringians, 
At  this  time  he  asked  her  to  send  him  through  the  priest  Eoban 
the  letters  of  the  apostle  Peter,  which  she  was  to  write  for  him  in 
gold  characters.  '  Often/  he  says,  '  gifts  of  books  and  vestments, 
the  proofs  of  your  affection,  have  been  to  me  a  consolation  in 
misfortune.  So  I  pray  that  you  will  continue  as  you  have  begun, 
and  write  for  me  in  gold  characters  the  epistles  of  my  master,  the 
holy  apostle  Peter,  to  the  honour  and  reverence  of  holy  writ  before 
mortal  eyes  while  I  am  preaching,  and  because  I  desire  always 
to  have  before  me  the  words  of  him  who  led  me  on  my  mission....' 
He  ends  his  letter  by  again  hoping  that  she  will  accede  to  his  re- 
quest so  'that  her  words  may  shine  in  gold  to  the  glory  of  the 
Father  in  heaven  \' 

The  art  of  writing  in  gold  on  parchment  was  unknown  to 
Scottish  artists  and  had  been  introduced  into  England  from  Italy. 
Bishop  Wilfrith  owned  the  four  gospels  '  written  in  purest  gold 
on  purple-coloured  parchment,'  and  a  few  of  the  purple  gospels 
with  gold  writing  of  this  period  have  been  preserved.  The  fact 
that  women  practised  the  art  is  evident  from  the  letter  of  Boniface. 
Eadburg  must  have  had  a  reputation  for  writing,  for  Lul,  one  of 
Boniface's  companions,  sent  her  among  other  gifts  a  silver  style 
{graphium  argenteum)  such  as  was  used  at  the  time  for  writing  on 
wax  tablets ^ 

Boniface  received  frequent  gifts  from  friends  in  England. 
Eoban,  who  carried  his  letter  asking  Eadburg  for  the  Epistles  of 
St  Peter,  was  the  bearer  of  a  letter  to  an  Abbot  Duddo  in  which 
Boniface  reminding  him  of  their  old  friendship  asked  for  a  copy 
of  the  Epistles  of  St  Paull  Again  Boniface  wrote  asking  Abbot 
Huetberht  of  Wearmouth  for  the  minor  works  {opusculd)  of  Bede*, 
and  Lul,  who  was  with  him,  wrote  to  Dealwin  to  forward  the  minor 
works  of  Ealdhelm,  bishop  of  Sherbourne,  those  in  verse  and  those 
in  prose". 

Judging  from  the  correspondence  the  effective  work  of  Boniface 
resulted  in  the  execution  of  only  a  small  part  of  his  great  schemes. 
His  original  plan  was  repeatedly  modified.  There  is  extant  a 
letter  from  the  Pope  which  shows  that  he  hoped  for  the  conversion 
of  the  heathen  Saxons  and  Thuringians®,  and  the  idea  was  so  far 

*  Epist.  nr  32,  written  735  (Jaffe) ;  after  732  (Hahn). 

'  Epist.  nr  75.  '  Epist.  nr  31.  *  Epist.  nr  62. 

*  Epist.  nr  76.  *  Epist.  nr  22,  written  732  (Jaff6). 


SECT,  i]     The   Women  corresponding  with  Boniface.       123 

embraced  by  Boniface  that  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  bishops,  priests, 
abbots  and  abbesses  in  England  asking  them  to  pray  that  the 
Saxons  might  accept  the  faith  of  Christ*.  But  the  plan  for  their 
conversion  was  eventually  abandoned. 

At  this  period  belief  in  the  eflficacy  of  prayer  was  unbounded, 
and  praying  for  the  living  was  as  much  part  of  the  work  of  the 
professed  as  praying  for  the  dead.  Settlements  apparently  com- 
bined for  the  purpose  of  mutually  supporting  each  other  by  prayer. 
A  letter  is  extant  in  the  correspondence  of  Boniface  in  which  the 
abbot  of  Glastonbury,  several  abbesses  and  other  abbots  agree 
to  pray  at  certain  hours  for  each  other's  settlements*. 

In  his  times  of  trouble  and  tribulation  Boniface  wrote  to  all 
his  friends  asking  for  prayers.  '  VVe  were  troubled  on  every  side,' 
he  wrote  to  the  abbess  Eadburg,  quoting  Scripture*,  '  without  were 
fightings,  within  were  fears.'  She  was  to  pray  for  him  that  the 
pagans  might  be  snatched  from  their  idolatrous  customs  and  un- 
believers brought  back  to  the  Catholic  mother  Church. 

Eadburg  had  liberally  responded  to  his  request  for  gifts.  '  Be- 
loved sister,'  he  wrote*,  '  with  gifts  of  holy  books  you  have 
comforted  the  exile  in  Germany  with  spiritual  light !  For  in 
this  dark  remoteness  among  German  peoples  man  must  come  to 
the  distress  of  death  had  he  not  the  word  of  God  as  a  lamp  unto 
his  feet  and  as  a  light  unto  his  paths^  Fully  trusting  in  your  love 
I  beseech  that  you  pray  for  me,  for  I  am  shaken  by  my  short- 
comings, that  take  hold  of  me  as  though  I  were  tossed  by  a 
tempest  on  a  dangerous  sea.'  This  consciousness  of  his  short- 
comings was  not  wholly  due  to  the  failure  of  his  plans,  for  Boniface 
at  one  period  of  his  life  was  much  troubled  by  questions  of  theo- 
logy. The  simile  of  being  tempest-tossed  is  often  used  by  him.  In 
a  letter  addressed  to  an  unnamed  nun  he  describes  his  position  in 
language  similar  to  that  in  which  he  addresses  Eadburg.  This  nun 
also  is  urged  to  pray  for  him  in  a  letter  full  of  biblical  quotations®. 

Among  the  letters  to  Boniface  there  are  several  from  nuns 
and  abbesses  asking  for  his  advice.  Political  difficulties  and  the 
changed  attitude  of  the  ruling  princes  of  Northumbria  and  Mercia 
towards  convents  brought  such  hardships  to  those  who  had  adopted 
the  religious  profession  that  many  of  them  wished  to  leave  their 
homes,  and  availed  themselves  of  the  possibility  of  doing  so  which 
was  afforded  by  the  plan  of  going  on  pilgrimage  to  Rome. 

*  Epist.  nr  39.  ■'  Epist.  nr  46.  *  Epist.  nr  72,  1  Cor.  vii.  5. 

*  Epist.  nr  73.  •  Comp.  Ps.  cxix.  105.         '  Epist.  nr  87. 


124     '^^^  Women  corresponding  with  Boniface,     [chap,  iv 

The  wish  to  behold  the  Eternal  City  had  given  a  new  direction 
to  the  love  of  wandering,  so  strong  a  trait  in  human  nature.  The 
motives  for  visiting  Rome  have  been  different  in  different  periods  of 
history.  To  the  convert  in  the  8th  and  9th  centuries  Rome  appeared  as 
the  fountain-head  of  Christianity,  the  residence  of  Christ's  representa- 
tive on  earth,  and  the  storehouse  of  famous  deeds  and  priceless  relics. 
Architectural  remains  dating  from  the  period  of  Roman  rule  were 
numerous  throughout  Europe  and  helped  to  fill  the  imagination  of 
those  dwelling  north  of  the  Alps  with  wonder  at  the  possible  sights 
and  treasures  which  a  visit  to  Rome  itself  might  disclose.  Prelates 
and  monks  undertook  the  journey  to  establish  personal  relations 
with  the  Pope  and  to  acquire  books  and  relics  for  their  settlements, 
but  the  taste  for  travelling  spread,  and  laymen  and  wayfarers  of 
all  kinds  joined  the  bands  of  religious  pilgrims.  Even  kings  and 
queens,  with  a  sudden  change  of  feeling  which  the  Church  magnified 
into  a  portentous  conversion,  renounced  the  splendour  of  their  sur- 
roundings and  donned  the  pilgrim's  garb  in  the  hope  of  beholding 
the  Eternal  City  in  its  glory. 

Among  the  letters  which  are  preserved  in  the  correspondence 
of  Boniface  there  is  one  from  Aelflaed,  abbess  of  Whitby,  in  which 
she  writes  to  the  abbess  Adolana  (probably  Adela)  of  Pfalzel 
(Palatiolum)  on  the  Mosel  near  Trier,  recommending  to  her  care 
a  young  abbess  who  is  on  her  way  to  Rome,  This  letter  shows 
that  Aelflaed  was  well  versed  in  writing  Latin.  The  name  of  the 
abbess  in  whose  behalf  the  letter  was  penned  is  not  known,  but 
she  may  be  identical  with  Wethburg,  who  lived  and  died  at  Rome\ 

*  To  the  holy  and  worshipful  abbess  Adolana,  a  greeting  in  the 
Lord  of  eternal  salvation. 

'  Since  we  have  heard  of  your  holiness  from  those  who  have 
come  from  your  parts,  and  from  widespread  report,  in  the  first  place 
I  pray  for  your  warm  affection,  for  the  Lord  has  said :  This  is  my 
command,  that  ye  love  one  another-. 

'  Further  we  make  humble  request  that  your  holy  and  fervent 
words  may  commend  us  worthily  to  God  Almighty,  should  it  not 
be  irksome  to  you  to  offer  devotion  in  return  for  ours;  for  James 
the  Apostle  has  taught  and  said :  Pray  for  one  another,  that  ye 
may  be  saved. 

*  Epist.  nr  8;  written  between  709  and  712  (Hahn).  Boniface  is  known  to  have 
travelled  in  the  district  of  the  Mosel ;  there  is  no  other  reason  why  this  letter  should  be 
included  in  the  correspondence. 

-  John  XV.  12. 


SECT,  i]     The   Women  correspondhig  with  Boniface.      125 

'Further  to  your  great  holiness  and  usual  charity  we  humbly 
and  earnestly  commend  this  maiden  vowed  to  God,  a  pious  abbess, 
our  dear  and  faithful  daughter,  who  since  the  days  of  her  youth, 
from  love  of  Christ  and  for  the  honour  of  the  apostles  Peter  and 
Paul,  has  been  desirous  of  going  to  their  holy  threshold,  but  who 
has  been  kept  back  by  us  until  now  because  we  needed  her  and  in 
order  that  the  souls  entrusted  to  her  might  profit.  And  we  pray 
that  with  charity  and  true  kindness  she  may  be  received  into  your 
goodwill,  as  well  as  those  who  are  travelling  with  her,  in  order 
that  the  desired  journey  with  God's  help  and  your  willing  charity 
may  at  last  be  accomplished.  Therefore  again  and  again  we 
beseech  that  she  may  be  helped  on  her  way  with  recommendations 
from  you  to  the  holy  city  Rome,  by  the  help  of  the  holy  and 
signbearing  leader  (signifer)  of  the  apostles  Peter ;  and  if  you  are 
present  we  hope  and  trust  she  may  find  with  you  whatever  advice 
she  requires  for  the  journey.  May  divine  grace  watch  over  your 
holiness  when  you  pray  for  us.' 

The  desire  to  go  southward  was  strengthened  among  religious 
women  by  the  increasing  difficulties  of  their  position  at  home. 
Monastic  privileges  were  no  longer  respected  by  the  kings  of 
Mercia  and  Northumbria,  and  the  Church  lacked  the  power  of 
directly  interfering  in  behalf  of  monks  and  nuns.  There  is  in  the 
correspondence  a  letter  which  Boniface  wrote  in  his  own  name  and 
in  that  of  his  foreign  bishops  to  Aethelbald,  king  of  Mercia  (716- 
756) ;  he  sharply  rebukes  him  for  his  immoral  practices  and 
urges  on  him  the  desirability  of  taking  a  lawful  wife.  He  accuses 
the  king  of  indulging  his  wicked  propensities  even  in  monasteries 
and  with  nuns  and  maidens  who  were  vowed  to  God  ;  following 
the  example  of  Tacitus,  he  praises  the  pure  morals  of  the  heathen 
Germans.  The  passages  which  bear  on  the  subject  are  worthy  of 
perusal,  for  they  show  how  uncertain  was  the  position  of  monas- 
teries and  how  keenly  Boniface  realized  the  difficulties  of  nuns. 
He  tells  the  king  '  that  loose  women,  whether  they  be  vowed  to 
religion  or  not,  conceive  inferior  children  through  their  wickedness 
and  frequently  do  away  with  them.'  The  privileges  of  religious 
houses,  he  says,  were  respected  till  the  reign  of  King  Osred  (706-17) 
of  Northumbria,  and  of  King  Ceolred  (709-16)  of  Mercia,  but 
'these  two  kings  have  shown  their  evil  disposition  and  have 
sinned  in  a  criminal  way  against  the  teaching  of  the  gospels  and 
the  doings  of  our  Saviour.  They  persisted  in  vice,  in  the  seduction 
of  nuns  and  the  contemptuous  treatment  of  monastic  rights.    Con- 


126     The   Women  corresponding  with  Boniface,     [chap,  iv 

demned  by  the  judgment  of  God,  and  hurled  from  the  heights  of 
royal  authority,  they  were  overtaken  by  a  speedy  and  awful  death, 
and  are  now  cut  off  from  eternal  light,  and  buried  in  the  depths 
of  hell  and  in  the  abyss  of  the  infernal  regions*.'  We  have  seen 
that  in  the  letter  written  by  Boniface  to  Eadburg,  Ceolred  is  de- 
scribed as  suffering  torments  in  hell,  and  that  King  Aethelbald  at 
a  later  date  is  depicted  in  the  same  predicament. 

With  his  letter  to  Aethelbald  Boniface  forwarded  two  others 
to  the  priest  Herefrith,  probably  of  Lindisfarne''',  and  to  Ecgberht 
(archbishop  of  York,  732-66),  requesting  them  to  support  him 
against  Aethelbald.  '  It  is  the  duty  of  your  office  to  see  that  the 
devil  does  not  establish  his  kingdom  in  places  consecrated  to  God,' 
he  wrote  to  Ecgberht,  *  that  there  be  not  discord  instead  of  peace, 
strife  instead  of  piety,  drunkenness  instead  of  sobriety,  slaughter 
and  fornication  instead  of  charity  and  chastity^'  Shortly  afterwards 
he  wrote  to  Cuthberht,  archbishop  of  Canterbury  (740-62),  telling 
him  of  the  statutes  passed  at  the  Synod  of  Soissons*,  and  severely 
censuring  the  conduct  of  the  layman,  '  be  he  emperor,  king  or  count, 
who  snatches  a  monastery  from  bishop,  abbot,  or  abbess.' 

These  admonitions  show  that  the  position  of  the  religious 
houses  and  that  of  their  rulers  depended  directly  on  the  temper 
of  the  reigning  prince.  In  the  correspondence  there  are  several 
letters  from  abbesses  addressed  to  Boniface  bearing  on  this  point, 
which  give  us  a  direct  insight  into  the  tone  of  mind  of  these 
women.  Their  Latin  is  cumbersome  and  faulty,  and  biblical 
quotations  are  introduced  which  do  not  seem  always  quite  to  the 
point.  The  writers  ramble  on  without  much  regard  to  con- 
struction and  style,  and  yet  there  is  a  genuine  ring  about  their 
letters  which  makes  the  distress  described  seem  very  real. 

One  of  these  letters  was  written  by  an  abbess  named  Ecgburg, 
probably  at  an  early  period  of  Boniface's  career'.  Her  reference 
to  the  remoteness  of  her  settlement  suggests  the  idea  that  it  was 
Repton,  and  that  she  herself  was  identical  with  Ecgburg,  daughter 
of  Ealdwulf  king  of  the  East  Angles,  the  abbess  whom  we  have 
noticed  in  connection  with  Guthlac.  If  that  be  so  her  sister 
Wethburg,  to  whom  she  refers,  may  be  identical  with  the 
young  unnamed  abbess  whom  Aelflaed  sped  on  her  journey  to 
Rome. 

'  Epist.  nr  59 ;  written  745  (Hahn).  '^  Epist.  nr  60. 

^  Epist.  nr  61.  *  Epist.  nr  70;  written  after  748  (Hahn). 

"  Epist.  nr  13,  written  717-19  (Hahn). 


SECT,  i]     The  Women  corresponding^  with  Boniface.       1 2  7 

*  Since  a  cruel  and  bitter  death,*  she  writes,  *  has  robbed  me  of 
him,  my  brother  Osher,  whom  I  loved  beyond  all  others,  you  I  hold 
dearer  than  all  other  men.  Not  to  multiply  words,  no  day,  no 
night  passes,  but  I  think  of  your  teaching.  Believe  me  it  is  on 
account  of  this  that  I  love  you,  God  is  my  witness.  In  you  I 
confide,  because  you  were  never  forgetful  of  the  affection  which 
assuredly  bound  you  to  my  brother.  Though  inferior  to  him  in 
knowledge  and  in  merit,  I  am  not  unlike  him  in  recognizing  your 
goodness.  Time  goes  by  with  increasing  swiftness  and  yet  the 
dark  gloom  of  sadness  leaves  me  not.  For  time  as  it  comes  brings 
me  increase  of  indignities,  as  it  is  written  "  Love  of  man  brings 
sorrow,  but  love  of  Christ  gladdens  the  heart."  More  recently  my 
equally  beloved  sister  Wethburg,  as  though  to  inflict  a  wound  and 
renew  a  pang,  suddenly  passed  out  of  my  sight,  she  with  whom  I  had 
grown  up  and  with  whom  I  was  nursed  at  the  same  breast;  one  mother 
she  and  I  had  in  the  Lord,  and  my  sister  has  left  me.  Jesus  is  my 
witness  that  on  all  sides  there  is  sorrow,  fear,  and  the  image  of  death*. 
I  would  gladly  die  if  it  so  pleased  God,  to  whom  the  unknown  is 
manifest,  for  this  slow  death  is  no  trifle.  What  was  it  I  was  saying  ? 
From  my  sister  not  a  sudden  and  bitter  death,  but  a  bitterer  sepa- 
ration, divides  me  ;  I  believe  it  was  for  her  happiness,  but  it  left  me 
unhappy,  as  a  corpse  laid  low,  when  adopting  the  fashion  of  the 
age  she  went  on  a  pilgrimage,  even  though  she  knew  how  much 
I  loved  and  cherished  her,  whom  now  as  I  hear  a  prison  confines  at 
Rome.  But  the  love  of  Christ,  which  is  strong  and  powerful  in  her,  is 
stronger  and  more  binding  than  all  fetters,  and  perfect  love  casteth 
out  fear.  Indeed,  I  say,  he  who  holds  the  power  of  divination,  the 
Ruler  of  high  Olympus,  has  endowed  you  with  divine  wisdom,  and  in 
his  law  do  you  meditate  night  and  day*.  For  it  is  written  :  "  How 
beautiful  are  the  feet  of  them  that  preach  the  gospel  of  peace,  and 
bring  tidings  of  good  things^")  She  has  mounted  by  a  steep  and 
narrow  path,  while  I  remain  below,  held  by  mortal  flesh  as  by 
irons  upon  my  feet.  In  the  coming  judgment  full  of  joy  she,  like 
unto  the  Lord,  will  sing :  "  I  was  in  prison  and  ye  came  unto  me*." 
You  also  in  the  future  life,  when  the  twelve  apostles  sit  on  their 
twelve  seats",  will  be  there,  and  in  proportion  to  the  number  of 
those  whom  you  have  won  by  your  work,  will  rejoice  before  the 

'  Jaffe,  Ph.,  loc.  cit.,  footnote,  p.  64,  quotes  the   lines  V'irg.  Aen.,  11.  369-70,  of 
which  this  sentence  seems  an  adaptation. 

2  Comp.  Psalm  i.  1.  *  Romans  x.  15.  *  Matth.  xxv.  36. 

'  Comp.  Matth.  xix.  38. 


128     The  Women  corresponding  with  Boniface,     [chap,  iv 

tribunal  of  the  eternal  King,  like  unto  a  leader  who  is  about  to  be 
crowned.  But  I  living  in  the  vale  of  tears  as  I  deserve,  shall  be 
weeping  for  my  offences,  on  account  of  which  God  holds  me  unfit 
to  join  the  heavenly  hosts.  Therefore,  believe  me,  the  tempest- 
tossed  mariner  does  not  so  much  long  for  the  haven,  the  thirsty 
fields  do  not  long  so  much  for  rain,  the  mother  on  the  winding 
shore  does  not  so  anxiously  wait  for  her  son,  as  I  long  to  rejoice  in 
your  sight.  But  oppressed  by  sins  and  innumerable  offences,  I 
so  long  to  be  freed  from  imminent  danger,  that  I  am  made 
desperate;  adoring  the  footsteps  of  your  holiness  and  praying  to 
you  from  the  depths  of  my  heart  as  a  sinner,  I  call  to  you  from 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  O  beloved  master;  as  my  anxious  heart 
prompts,  raise  me  to  the  corner-stone  of  your  prayer,  for  you  are 
my  hope  and  a  strong  tower  invisible  to  the  enemy.  And  I 
beg  as  consolation  to  my  grief  and  as  limit  to  the  wave  of  my 
sorrow,  that  my  weakness  may  be  supported  by  your  intercession 
as  by  a  prop.  I  entreat  that  you  will  condescend  to  give  me  some 
comfort  either  in  the  form  of  a  relic  or  of  a  few  words  of  blessing, 
written  by  you,  in  order  that  through  them  I  may  hold  your 
presence  secure.' 

By  the  side  of  this  letter  must  be  quoted  another  written  by  an 
Abbess  Eangith,  describing  similar  difficulties  in  a  similar  strain \ 
We  do  not  know  over  which  settlement  Eangith  presided,  but  her 
name  and  that  of  her  daughter  Heaburg  of  whom  she  speaks  are 
inscribed  in  the  Durham  'Liber  Vitae^' 

'  Beloved  brother  in  the  spirit  rather  than  in  the  flesh,'  she 
writes,  'you  are  magnified  by  the  abundance  of  spiritual  graces, 
and  to  you  alone,  with  God  as  our  sole  witness,  we  wish  to  make 
known  what  you  see  here  spread  out  before  you  and  blotted  by 
our  tears :  we  are  borne  down  by  an  accumulation  of  miseries  as 
by  a  weight  and  a  pressing  burden,  and  also  by  the  tumult  of 
political  affairs.  As  the  foaming  masses  of  the  ocean  when  the  force 
of  the  winds  and  the  raging  fury  of  the  tempest  lash  up  the  great 
sea,  carry  in  and  carry  out  again  the  heaving  billows  dashing  over 
rocks,  so  that  the  keels  of  the  boats  are  turned  upwards  and  the 
mast  of  the  ship  is  pressed  downwards,  so  do  the  ships  of  our  souls 
groan  under  the  great  press  of  our  miseries  and  the  great  mass 

'  Epist.  nr  14,  written  719-22  (Jaffe).  Haigh,  D.  H.,  'On  the  monasteries  of  St 
Ileiu  and  St  Hild,'  in  Yorkshire  Archaeol.  Journal,  vol.  3,  p.  377,  speaks  of  her  as 
Cangith  and  holds  her  to  have  been  abbess  of  Hackness. 

'  Birch,  W.  de  Gray,  Fasti  Monastici  Aevi  Saxonici,  1872,  p.  68. 


SECT,  i]     The   Women  corresponding  with  Boniface.      129 

of  our  misfortunes.  By  the  voice  of  truth  has  it  been  said  of  the 
heavenly  house :  "  The  rain  descended  and  the  floods  came,  and 
the  winds  blew  and  beat  upon  that  houseV*  etc. 

'  First  and  before  all  noteworthy  of  the  things  that  affect  us  from 
without,  must  be  mentioned  the  multitude  of  our  offences  and  our 
want  of  full  and  complete  faith,  due  not  so  much  to  care  for 
our  own  souls  but,  what  is  worse  and  more  oppressive,  to  care  for 
the  souls  of  those  of  either  sex  and  of  every  age  which  have  been 
entrusted  to  us.  For  this  care  involves  ministering  to  many 
minds  and  to  various  dispositions,  and  afterwards  giving  account 
before  the  supreme  tribunal  of  Christ  both  for  obvious  sins  in 
deeds  and  words,  and  for  secret  thoughts  which  men  ignore  and 
God  alone  witnesseth  ;  with  a  simple  sword  against  a  double-edged 
one,  with  ten  thousand  to  meet  twenty  thousand  warriors'.  In 
addition  to  this  care  of  souls  we  have  difficulties  in  our  domestic 
affairs,  and  various  disagreements  which  the  jealous  enemy  of  all 
good  has  sown,  namely,  he  who  fills  the  impure  hearts  of  men  with 
malice  and  scatters  it  everywhere,  but  chiefly  in  the  settlements  of 
monks  and  nuns ;  but  it  is  said  "  the  mighty  shall  be  mightily 
tormented*."  Moreover  the  poverty  and  scantiness  of  our  temporal 
possessions  oppress  us,  and  the  smallness  of  the  cultivated  part 
of  our  estate ;  and  the  hostility  of  the  king,  for  we  are  accused 
before  him  by  those  who  envy  us,  as  a  wise  man  has  said  :  "  the 
bewitching  of  vanity  obscureth  good  things*."  Similarly  we  are 
oppressed  by  service  due  to  the  king  and  the  queen,  to  bishop 
and  prefect,  officers  and  attendants.  It  would  take  long  to  enumerate 
those  things  which  can  be  more  easily  imagined  than  described. 

'  To  all  these  evils  is  added  the  loss  of  friends,  connections,  and 
relatives  by  alliance  and  by  blood.  I'  have  neither  son  nor 
brother,  neither  father  nor  father's  brother,  none  but  an  only 
daughter  who  is  bereft  of  all  that  was  dear  to  her ;  and  a  sister 
who  is  old,  and  the  son  of  our  brother,  who  too  is  unhappy  in  his 
mind,  for  our  king  holds  his  family  connections  in  great  contempt. 
There  is  no  one  else  for  us  to  rely  on  ;  God  has  removed  them 
all  by  one  chance  or  another.  Some  have  died  in  their  native 
land,  and  their  bodies  lie  in  the  grimy  dust  of  the  earth  to  rise 
again  on  the  day  of  doom,  when  the  Master's  trumpet  shall  sound, 
and  the  whole  race  of  man  shall  come  forth  from  dark  tombs  to 

*  Matth.  vii.  25.  *  Comp.  Luc.  xiv.  31. 

'  Wisdom  vi.  7  (Vulgate).  *  Wisdom  iv.  n  (Vulgate). 

'    There  are  some  diiiiculties  in  this  passage. 

E.  9 


130     The   Women  corresponding  with  Boniface,     [chap,  iv 

give  account  of  themselves  ;  when  their  spirits,  borne  upwards  in 
angels'  arms,  shall  abide  with  Christ ;  when  all  sorrow  shall  end,  and 
envy  be  worn  out,  and  grief  and  mourning  shall  vanish  in  sight 
of  the  saints.  Again  others  have  left  their  native  shores,  and 
trusted  themselves  to  the  wide  seas,  and  have  sought  the  threshold 
of  the  holy  apostles  Peter  and  Paul  and  of  all  those  martyrs, 
virgins  and  confessors,  whose  number  God  alone  knows. 

'  For  these  and  other  like  causes,  hardly  to  be  enumerated  in 
one  day  though  July  and  August  lengthen  the  days  of  summer,  we 
are  weary  of  our  present  life  and  hardly  care  to  continue  it.  Every 
man  uncertain  of  his  purpose  and  distrustful  of  his  own  counsel, 
seeks  a  faithful  friend  whose  advice  he  follows  since  he  distrusts  his 
own  ;  and  such  faith  has  he  in  him  that  he  lays  before  him  and 
reveals  to  him  every  secret  of  his  heart.  As  has  been  said,  what 
is  sweeter  than  having  someone  with  whom  one  can  converse  as 
with  oneself?  Therefore  on  account  of  the  pressing  miseries  we 
have  now  insisted  on  to  the  full,  we  needs  must  find  a  true  friend, 
one  whom  we  can  trust  more  than  ourselves ;  who  will  treat 
our  grief,  our  miseries  and  our  poverty  as  his  own,  who  will 
sympathize  with  us,  comfort  us,  support  us  by  his  words,  and  raise 
us  up  by  wise  counsel.  Long  have  we  sought  him.  And  we 
believe  that  in  you  we  have  found  the  friend  whom  we  longed  for, 
whom  we  wished  for,  whom  we  desired. 

'  Would  that  God  had  granted  to  us  that,  as  Habakkuk  the 
prophet  was  sped  with  food  into  the  lion's  den  to  the  seer  Daniel', 
or  that  as  Philip  one  of  the  seven  deacons  was  sped  to  the 
eunuch*,  we  also  were  sped  and  could  come  to  the  land  and  to  the 
district  where  you  dwell ;  or  that  it  were  possible  for  us  to  hear 
living  words  from  your  lips.  '  How  sweet  are  thy  words  unto  my 
palate,  O  Lord,  sweeter  than  honey  to  my  mouth'.' 

'  But  since  this  is  not  vouchsafed  to  us  and  we  are  divided  from 
you  by  a  wide  expanse  of  land  and  of  sea  and  by  the  boundaries 
of  many  provinces,  because  of  our  faith  in  you  referred  to  above 
we  will  tell  you,  brother  Boniface,  that  for  a  long  time  we  have 
entertained  the  design  like  so  many  of  our  friends,  relatives  and 
others,  of  visiting  Rome,  the  mistress  of  the  world,  there  to  seek 
forgiveness  of  our  sins  as  many  others  have  done  and  are  now 
doing;  so  especially  I  (wish  to  do)  since  I  am  advanced  in  age, 
and  have  erred  more  than  others.  Wala,  at  one  time  my  abbess 
and  spiritual  mother,  was  acquainted  with  my  wish  and  my 
'  Daniel  xiv.  33  (Vulgate).  *  Acts  viii.  26.  ^  Ps.  cxix.  103. 


SECT,  i]     The   Women  corresponding  with  Boniface.       131 

intention.  My  only  daughter  at  present  is  young,  and  cannot 
share  my  desire.  But  because  we  know  how  many  there  are 
who  scoff  at  this  wish  and  deprecate  this  desire,  and  support  their 
view  by  adducing  what  the  canons  of  the  synods  enjoin,  that 
wherever  anyone  has  settled  and  taken  his  vow,  there  shall  he 
remain  and  there  serve  God  ;  for  we  all  live  in  different  ways 
and  God's  purposes  are  unknown,  as  the  prophet  says:  'Thy 
righteousness  is  like  the  great  mountains,  thy  judgments  are  a 
great  deep,  O  Lord*';  and  because  His  sacred  will  and  desire  in 
these  things  is  hidden, — therefore  we  two,  both  of  us  in  our  diffi- 
culty, call  on  you  earnestly  and  reverently:  be  you  to  us  as  Aaron,  a 
mountain  of  strength,  let  your  prayer  be  our  help,  swing  the  censer 
of  prayer  with  incense  in  sight  of  the  Divine,  and  let  the  lifting 
up  of  your  hands  be  as  the  evening  sacrifice^  Indeed  we  trust 
in  God  and  beg  of  your  goodness  that  by  supplication  of  mouth 
and  inward  prayer  it  may  be  revealed  to  you  what  seems  for  us 
wise  and  useful  :  whether  we  are  to  live  at  home  or  go  forth  on 
pilgrimage.  Also  we  beg  of  your  goodness  to  send  back  your 
answer  across  the  sea,  and  reply  to  what  we  have  scratched  on  these 
leaves  in  rustic  style  and  with  unpolished  wording.  We  have  scant 
faith  in  those  who  glory  in  appearance  and  not  in  heart',  but  faith 
in  your  love,  your  charity  in  God  and  your  goodness.' 

It  is  not  known  whether  Eangith  carried  out  her  intention  and 
went  to  Rome. 

Boniface  had  another  correspondence  with  an  abbess  named 
Bugga,  but  though  Eangith  states  that  her  daughter  Heaburg 
was  sometimes  called  by  that  name,  it  is  not  probable  that  they 
were  the  same,  for  Boniface  writing  to  Bugga  makes  no  mention 
of  Eangith's  plan,  which  he  would  hardly  have  omitted  to  do  if 
Heaburg  had  been  his  correspondent*. 

Bugga  was  afterwards  abbess  of  a  monastery  in  Kent,  She 
too  sent  gifts  to  Boniface,  and  later  entertained  the  idea  of  going 
to  Rome.  In  early  days  the  prelate  wrote  to  her  telling  her  how 
he  had  been  mercifully  led  through  unknown  countries,  how  'the 
Pontiff  of  the  glorious  see'  Gregory  II  had  inclined  to  him,  and 
how  he  had  cast  down  '  the  enemy  of  the  Catholic  Church,  Radbod,' 
the  Frisian. 

In  reply  she  assures  him  of  her  continued  affection  and  makes 
some  remarks  on  books  they  have  exchanged.     The  Passions  of 

•  Ps.  xxxvi.  ().  ■■'  Cp.  Ps.  cxli.  a.  '  Cp.  i  Cor.  v.  \%. 

*  The  name  Bugga  occurs  frequently  during  this  period. 

9—2 


132     The   Women  corresponding  with  Boniface,     [chap,  iv 

the  Martyrs  which  he  has  asked  for  she  has  not  yet  procured,  but 
she  will  forward  them  as  soon  as  she  can.  '  But  you,  my  friend,' 
she  writes,  '  send  me  as  a  consolation  what  you  promised  in  your 
kind  letter,  your  extracts  from  the  holy  writings.  And  I  beseech 
you  to  offer  the  oblation  of  the  holy  mass  for  one  of  my  relatives 
whom  I  loved  beyond  all  others.  I  send  you  by  the  bearer  of 
this  letter  fifty  gold  coins  (solidi)  and  an  altar  cloth,  better  gifts  I 
cannot  procure.  They  are  truly  signs  of  a  great  affection  though 
of  insignificant  appearanceV' 

Bugga  does  not  style  herself  abbess,  but  Boniface  addresses 
her  as  such  in  acknowledging  the  receipt  of  her  gifts  and  advising 
her  about  going  to  Rome.  On  another  occasion  he  wrote  to  ex- 
press concern  at  her  troubles,  which  he  heard  from  many  people 
had  not  diminished  since  she  retired  from  rule  for  the  sake  of 
quiet*.  The  letter  in  which  he  advises  her  about  going  to  Rome 
is  worth  quoting'. 

'  Be  it  made  known  to  you,  dearest  sister,'  he  writes,  '  regarding 
the  advice  which  you  asked  for  in  your  letter,  that  I  do  not  presume 
to  forbid  you  the  pilgrim's  journey,  neither  would  I  directly  advise 
it.  I  will  explain  why.  If  you  gave  up  the  charge  you  had  of  the 
servants  of  God,  of  his  virgins  (ancillae),  and  your  own  monastic 
life,  for  the  purpose  of  securing  quiet  and  the  thought  of  God,  in 
what  way  are  you  now  bound  to  obey  the  words  and  the  will  of 
seculars  with  toil  and  wearing  anxiety .-'  Still  if  you  cannot  find 
peace  of  mind  in  your  home  in  secular  life  among  seculars  it  seems 
right  that  you  should  seek  in  a  pilgrimage  freedom  for  contempla- 
tion, especially  since  you  wish  it  and  can  arrange  it ;  just  in  the 
way  our  sister  Wethburg  did.  She  told  me  in  her  letter  that  she 
had  found  the  quiet  she  longed  for  near  the  threshold  of  St  Peter. 
In  reference  to  your  wish  she  sent  me  a  message,  for  I  had  written 
to  her  about  you,  saying  that  you  must  wait  till  the  attacks, 
hostility  and  menaces  of  the  Saracens  who  have  lately  reached  the 
Roman  States  have  subsided,  and  that  God  willing  she  would  then 
send  you  a  letter  of  invitation.  I  too  think  this  best.  Prepare  your- 
self for  the  journey,  but  wait  for  word  from  her,  and  then  do  as  God 
in  his  grace  commands.  As  to  the  collection  of  extracts  for  which 
you  ask,  be  considerate  to  my  shortcomings.  Pressing  work  and 
continuous  travelling  prevent  my  furnishing  you  with  what  you 
desire.     As  soon  as  I  can  I  will  forward  them  to  please  you. 

^  Epist.  nr  16,  written  710-21  (JafK) ;  I  think  somewhat  later. 
*  Epist.  nr  86.  =  Epist.  nr  88. 


SECT,  ij     The   Women  corresponding  with  Boniface.       133 

'  We  thank  you  for  the  gifts  and  vestments  which  you  have 
sent,  and  pray  to  God  Almighty,  to  put  aside  a  gift  for  you  in  return 
with  the  angels  and  archangels  in  the  heights  of  heaven.  And  I 
beseech  you  in  the  name  of  God,  dear  sister,  yea  mother  and  sweet 
lady,  that  you  diligently  pray  for  me.  F"or  many  troubles  beset 
me  through  my  shortcomings,  and  I  am  more  distressed  by  un- 
certainty of  mind  than  by  bodily  work.  Rest  assured  that  our 
old  trust  in  each  other  will  never  fail  us.' 

Bugga  carried  out  her  intention  and  went  to  Rome,  where  she 
met  Boniface,  who  was  the  Pope's  guest  about  the  year  737.  He 
had  achieved  a  signal  success  in  reconverting  the  Hessians,  and 
was  now  appointed  to  constitute  bishoprics  in  Bavaria  and  to  hold 
councils  of  Church  dignitaries  at  regular  intervals^  At  Rome 
Bugga  and  Boniface  walked  and  talked  together,  and  visited  the 
churches  of  the  holy  apostles.  A  letter  from  Aethelberht  H,  king 
of  Kent,  to  Boniface  refers  to  their  meeting*.  Bugga  had  come 
back  to  her  old  monastery  and  had  given  the  king  a  description 
of  her  visit.  She  attained  a  considerable  age,  for  she  was  ad- 
vanced in  years  before  her  pilgrimage,  and  about  twenty  years 
later  Bregwin,  archbishop  of  Canterbury  (759-765),  wrote  to  Lul 
informing  him  of  her  deaths 

Boniface  made  provision  at  Rome  for  the  women  in  whom  he 
was  interested.  A  certain  deacon  Gemmulus  writes  to  him  from 
Rome  to  inform  him*  that  'the  sisters  and  maidens  of  God  who 
have  reached  the  threshold  of  the  apostles '  are  there  being  cared 
for  by  himself  and  others  as  Boniface  has  desired. 

The  readiness  with  which  Anglo-Saxon  nuns  went  abroad 
eventually  led  to  a  state  of  things  which  cast  discredit  on  religion. 
Boniface  addressed  the  following  remarks  on  these  pilgrimages  to 
Cuthberht  of  Canterbury  in  the  letter  written  after  the  synod  of 
Soissons'. 

'I  will  not  withhold  from  your  holiness,'  he  says,  '...that  it 
were  a  good  thing  and  besides  honour  and  a  credit  to  your 
Church  and  a  palliation  of  evils,  if  the  synod  and  your  princes 
forbade  women,  and  those  who  have  taken  the  veil,  to  travel  and 
stay  abroad  as  they  do,  coming  and  going  in  the  Roman  states. 
They  come  in  great  numbers  and  few  return  undefiled.  For  there 
are  very  few  districts  of  Lombardy  in  which  there  is  not  some 

1  Epist.  nrs  37,  38,  39. 

'  Epist.  nr  103,  written  shortly  after  740  (Hahn). 

*  Epist.  nr  113.  *  Epist.  nr  53.  *  Epist.  nr  70. 


134     '^^   Women  corresponding  with  Boniface,     [chap,  iv 

woman  of  Anglian  origin  living  a  loose  life  among  the  Franks 
and  the  Gauls.  This  is  a  scandal  and  disgrace  to  your  whole 
Church....' 

The  difficulty  of  exercising  more  control  over  those  who  chose 
to  leave  their  settlements  was  only  partly  met  by  stricter  rules  of 
supervision.  For  there  were  no  means  of  keeping  back  monk  or 
nun  who  was  tired  of  living  the  monastic  life.  In  the  9th  century 
Hatto  bishop  of  Basel  (t  836)  wrote  to  the  bishop  of  Toul  enjoining 
that  no  one  should  be  suffered  to  undertake  a  pilgrimage  to  Rome 
without  leave,  and  provisions  of  a  much  later  date  order  that 
houses  shall  not  take  in  and  harbour  inmates  from  other  settle- 
ments. 

In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  find  Lul,  who  had  settled 
abroad  with  Boniface,  excommunicating  an  abbess  Suitha  because 
she  had  allowed  two  nuns  to  go  into  a  distant  district  for  some 
secular  purpose  without  previously  asking  permission  from  her 
bishop*.  The  women  who  settled  in  Germany  under  Boniface  were 
brought  under  much  stricter  control  than  had  till  then  been 
customary  in  either  France  or  England. 


§  2.     Anglo-Saxon  Nuns  abroad. 

Among  the  women  who  came  to  Germany  and  settled  there 
at  the  request  of  Boniface  was  Lioba,  otherwise  Leobgith,  who 
had  been  educated  at  Wimbourne  in  Dorset,  at  no  very  great 
distance  from  Nutshalling  where  Boniface  dwelt,  and  who  left 
England  between  739  and  748.  She  was  related  to  him  through 
her  mother  Aebbe,  and  a  simple  and  modest  little  letter  is  extant 
in  which  she  writes  to  Boniface  and  refers  to  her  father's  death  six 
years  ago ;  she  is  her  parents'  only  child,  she  says,  and  would  recall 
her  mother  and  herself  to  the  prelate's  memor}^ 

'  This  too  I  ask  for,'  she  writes  in  this  letter,  '  correct  the  rusti- 
city of  my  style  and  do  not  neglect  to  send  me  a  few  words  in 
proof  of  your  goodwill.  I  have  composed  the  few  verses  which 
I  enclose  according  to  the  rules  of  poetic  versification,  not  from 
pride  but  from  a  desire  to  cultivate  the  beginnings  of  learning,  and 
now  I  am  longing  for  your  help.  I  was  taught  by  Eadburg  who 
unceasingly  devotes  herself  to  this  divine  art.'     And  she  adds  four 

^  Epist.  nr  126. 


SECT,  ii]  Anglo-Saxon  Nuns  abroad.  135 

lines  of  verse  addressed  to  God  Almighty  as  an  example  of  what 

she  can  do^ 

As  mentioned  above  we  are  indebted  for  an  account  of  Lioba's 
life  to  the  monk  Rudolf  of  Fulda  (t  865).  From  this  we  learn  that 
Lioba  at  a  tender  age  had  been  given  into  the  care  of  the  abbess 
Tetta  at  Wimbourne''.  '  She  grew  up,  so  carefully  tended  by  the 
abbess  and  the  sisters,  that  she  cared  for  naught  but  the  monastery 
and  the  study  of  holy  writ.  She  was  never  pleased  by  irreverent 
jokes,  nor  did  she  care  for  the  other  maidens'  senseless  amuse- 
ments ;  her  mind  was  fixed  on  the  love  of  Christ,  and  she  was  ever 
ready  to  listen  to  the  word  of  God,  or  to  read  it,  and  to  commit 
to  memory  what  she  heard  and  read  to  her  own  practical  ad- 
vantage. In  eating  and  drinking  she  was  so  moderate  that  she 
despised  the  allurements  of  a  great  entertainment  and  felt  content 
with  what  was  put  before  her,  never  asking  for  more.  When  she 
was  not  reading,  she  was  working  with  her  hands,  for  she  had 
learnt  that  those  who  do  not  work  have  no  right  to  eat.' 

She  was  moreover  of  prepossessing  appearance  and  of  engaging 
manners,  and  secured  the  goodwill  of  the  abbess  and  the  affection 
of  the  inmates  of  the  settlement.  A  dream  of  hers  is  described 
by  her  biographer  in  which  she  saw  a  purple  thread  of  indefinite 
length  issuing  from  her  mouth.  An  aged  sister  whom  she  con- 
sulted about  it,  interpreted  the  dream  as  a  sign  of  coming  influence. 

To  Lioba,  Tecla  and  Cynehild,  Boniface  addressed  a  letter 
from  abroad,  asking  in  the  usual  way  for  the  support  of  their 
prayers^  Lioba's  biographer  tells  us  that  when  Boniface  thought 
of  establishing  religious  settlements,  '  wishing  that  the  order  of 
either  sex  should  exist  according  to  rule,'  he  arranged  that  Sturmi, 
who  had  settled  at  Fulda,  should  go  to  Italy  and  there  visit 
St  Benedict's  monastery  at  Monte  Casino,  and  he  'sent  envoys 
with  letters  to  the  abbess  Tetta  (of  Wimbourne)  begging  her  as  a 
comfort  in  his  labour,  and  as  a  help  in  his  mission,  to  send  over 
the  virgin  Lioba,  whose  reputation  for  holiness  and  virtuous 
teaching  had  penetrated  across  wide  lands  and  filled  the  hearts 
of  many  with  praise  of  her*/ 

'  Epist.  nr  23  ;  the  verse  runs  as  follows : 

'  Arbiter  omnipotens,  solus  qui  cuncta  creavit, 
In  regno  Patris  semper  qui  lumine  fulget, 
Qua  jugiter  flagrans  sic  regnat  gloria  Christi, 
Inlacsum  servet  semper  te  jure  perenni.' 

*  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Lioba,  Sept.  18,  Vita,  ch.  9. 

'^  Epist.  nr  91,  written  between  737-41  (Hahn).  *  VUa,  ch.  13. 


136  Anglo-Saxon  Nuns  abroad.  [chap,  iv 

This  request  shows  that  Boniface  thought  highly  of  the  course 
of  life  and  occupations  practised  in  English  nunneries  and  that  he 
considered  English  women  especially  suited  to  manage  the  settle- 
ments under  his  care.  In  a  letter  written  from  Rome  about  738 
Boniface  refers  to  the  sisters  and  brothers  who  are  living  under 
him  in  Germany*.  Parties  of  English  men  and  women  joined 
hitn  at  different  times.  One  travelled  under  the  priest  Wiehtberht, 
who  sent  a  letter  to  the  monks  of  Glastonbury  to  inform  them 
of  his  safe  arrival  and  honourable  reception  by  Boniface,  and  he 
requests  that  Tetta  of  Wimbourne  may  be  told  of  this*.  Perhaps 
Lioba,  who  was  Tetta's  pupil,  was  one  of  the  party  who  travelled 
to  Germany  with  Wiehtberht. 

'  In  pursuance  of  his  plan,'  says  Lioba's  life',  '  Boniface  now 
arranged  monastic  routine  and  life  according  to  accepted  rule,  and 
set  Sturmi  as  abbot  over  the  monks  and  the  virgin  Lioba  as 
spiritual  mother  over  the  nuns,  and  gave  into  her  care  a  monastery 
at  the  place  called  Bischofsheim,  where  a  considerable  number  of 
servants  of  God  were  collected  together,  who  now  followed  the 
example  of  their  blessed  teacher,  were  instructed  in  divine  know- 
ledge and  so  profited  by  her  teaching  that  several  of  them  in 
their  turn  became  teachers  elsewhere ;  for  few  monasteries  of 
women  (monasteria  foeminarum)  existed  in  those  districts  where 
Lioba's  pupils  were  not  sought  as  teachers.  She  (Lioba)  was  a 
woman  of  great  power  and  of  such  strength  of  purpose  that 
she  thought  no  more  of  her  fatherland  and  of  her  relations  but 
devoted  all  her  energies  to  what  she  had  undertaken,  that  she 
might  be  blameless  before  God,  and  a  model  in  behaviour  and 
discipline  to  all  those  who  were  under  her.  She  never  taught 
what  she  did  not  practise.  And  there  was  neither  conceit  nor 
domineering  in  her  attitude ;  she  was  affable  and  kindly  without 
exception  towards  everyone.  She  was  as  beautiful  as  an  angel ; 
her  talk  was  agreeable,  her  intellect  was  clear ;  her  abilities  were 
great;  she  was  a  Catholic  in  faith ;  she  was  moderate  in  her 
expectations  and  wide  in  her  affections.  She  always  showed 
a  cheerful  face  but  she  was  never  drawn  into  hilarity.  No  one 
ever  heard  a  word  of  abuse  (maledictionem)  pass  her  lips,  and 
the  sun  never  went  down  on  her  anger.  In  eating  and  drinking 
she  was  liberal  to  others  but  moderate  herself,  and  the  cup  out 
of  which  she  usually  drank  was  called  by  the  sisters  '  the  little  one 
of  our  beloved  '  (dilectae  parvus)  on  account  of  its  smallness.     She 

'  Epist.  nr  34.  '  Epist.  nr  98,  written  733-747  (Hahn).  *   Vita,  ch.  14. 


SECT,  ii]  Anglo-Saxon  Nuns  abroad.  137 

was  so  bent  on  reading  that  she  never  laid  aside  her  book  except 
to  pray  or  to  strengthen  her  sh'ght  frame  with  food  and  sleep. 
From  childhood  upwards  she  had  studied  grammar  and  the  other 
liberal  arts,  and  hoped  by  perseverance  to  attain  a  perfect  know- 
ledge of  religion,  for  she  was  well  aware  that  the  gifts  of  nature 
are  doubled  by  study.  She  zealously  read  the  books  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments,  and  committed  their  divine  precepts  to 
memory ;  but  she  further  added  to  the  rich  store  of  her  knowledge 
by  reading  the  writings  of  the  holy  Fathers,  the  canonical  decrees, 
and  the  laws  of  the  Church  (totiusque  ecclesiastici  ordinis  jura).  In 
all  her  actions  she  showed  great  discretion,  and  thought  over  the 
outcome  of  an  undertaking  beforehand  so  that  she  might  not 
afterwards  repent  of  it.  She  was  aware  that  inclination  is  neces- 
sary for  prayer  and  for  study,  and  she  was  therefore  moderate  in 
holding  vigils.  She  always  took  a  rest  after  dinner,  and  so  did 
the  sisters  under  her,  especially  in  summer  time,  and  she  would 
not  suffer  others  to  stay  up  too  long,  for  she  maintained  that  the 
mind  is  keener  for  study  after  sleep.' 

Boniface,  writing  to  Lioba  while  she  was  abbess  at  Bischofs- 
heim,  sanctions  her  taking  a  girl  into  the  settlement  for  purposes 
of  instruction.  Bischofsheim  was  on  the  Tauber  a  tributary  of 
the  river  Main,  and  Boniface,  who  dwelt  at  Mainz,  frequently 
conferred  with  her  there.  Lioba  went  to  stay  with  Boniface  at 
Mainz  in  757  before  he  went  among  the  Frisians^;  he  presented 
her  with  his  cloak  and  begged  her  to  remain  true  to  her  work 
whatever  might  befall  him.  Shortly  after  he  set  out  on  his  ex- 
pedition he  was  attacked  and  killed  by  heathens.  His  corpse 
was  brought  back  and  buried  at  Fulda,  and  Lioba  went  to  pray 
at  his  grave,  a  privilege  granted  to  no  other  woman. 

Lioba  was  also  in  contact  with  temporal  rulers.  Karl  the 
Great  gave  her  presents  and  Queen  Hildegard  (f  783)  was  so 
captivated  with  her  that  she  tried  to  persuade  her  to  come  and 
live  with  her.  '  Princes  loved  her,'  her  biographer  tells  us, 
'  noblemen  received  her,  and  bishops  gladly  entertained  her  and 
conversed  with  her  on  the  scriptures  and  on  the  institutions  of 
religion,  for  she  was  familiar  with  many  writings  and  careful  in 
giving  advice.'  She  had  the  supervision  of  other  settlements  be- 
sides her  own  and  travelled  about  a  good  deal.  After  Boniface's 
death  she  kept  on  friendly  terms  with  Lul  who  had  succeeded 
him  as  bishop  of  Mainz  (757-786),  and  it  was  with  his  consent 

'  Epist.  nr  93. 


138  Anglo-Saxon  Nuns  abroad.  [chap,  iv 

that  she  finally  resigned  her  responsibilities  and  her  post  as  abbess 
at  Bischofsheim  and  went  to  dwell  at  Schornsheim  near  Mainz 
with  a  few  companions.  At  the  request  of  Queen  Hildegard  she 
once  more  travelled  to  Aachen  where  Karl  the  Great  was  keeping 
court.  But  she  was  old,  the' fatigues  of  the  journey  were  too  much 
for  her,  and  she  died  shortly  after  her  return  in  780.  Boniface  had 
expressed  a  wish  that  they  should  share  the  same  resting-place 
and  her  body  was  accordingly  taken  to  Fulda,  but  the  monks  there, 
for  some  unknown  reason,  preferred  burying  her  in  another  part 
of  their  church. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  the  women  who  by  the  appointment 
of  Boniface  directed  convent  life  in  Germany,  remained  throughout 
in  a  state  of  dependence^  while  the  men,  noticeably  Sturmi  (t  779) 
whom  he  had  made  abbot  at  Fulda,  cast  off  their  connection  with 
the  bishop,  and  maintained  the  independence  of  their  monasteries. 
Throughout  his  life  Sturmi  showed  a  bold  and  determined  spirit, 
but  he  was  not  therefore  less  interesting  to  the  nuns  of  Boniface's 
circle.  His  pupil  and  successor  Eigil  wrote  an  account  of  his  life 
at  the  request  of  the  nun  Angiltrud,  who  is  also  supposed  to  have 
come  from  England  to  Germany'. 

We  know  little  concerning  the  other  Anglo-Saxon  women  who 
settled  abroad,  for  there  are  no  contemporary  accounts  of  them. 
The  '  Passion  of  Boniface,'  written  at  Mainz  between  1000  and 
1050,  tells  us  that  as  Lioba  settled  at  Bi-schofsheim  so  Tecla  settled 
at  Kizzingen,  where  'she  shone  like  a  light  in  a  dark  place'.'  No 
doubt  this  Tecla  is  identical  with  the  nun  of  that  name  whom 
Boniface  speaks  of  in  his  letter  to  Lioba^  She  has  a  place  among 
the  saints*,  but  it  seems  doubtful  whether  she  founded  the  monas- 
tery at  Kizzingen  or  the  one  at  Oxenfurt. 

The  names  of  several  other  women  are  given  by  Othlon,  a 
monk  of  St  Emmeran  in  Bavaria,  who  in  consequence  of  a  quarrel 
fled  from  his  monastery  and  sought  refuge  at  Fulda.  While  there, 
between  1062  and  1066,  he  re-wrote  and  amplified  Wilibald's  life 
of  Boniface.     In  this  account  he  gives  a  list  of  the  men  who  came 

'  Epist.  nr  126;  also  Epist.  nr  68,  written  748  (from  the  Pope  on  the  consecration  of 
abbot  and  abbess). 

*  Vila  St  Sturmi  in  Pertz,  Mon.  Germ.  Script.,  vol.  2,  p.  365. 
"  In  Jaffe,  Ph.,  Monumenta  Mogitntina,  1866,  p.  475. 

■•  Comp.  above,  p.  135. 

*  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Tecla,  Oct.  15,  casts  discredit  on  Tecla's  settling  at  Kizzingen  and 
ai^es  in  favour  of  Oxenfurt.  Kizzingen  existed  in  the  15  c.;  nothing  is  known 
concerning  the  later  history  of  Oxenfurt. 


SECT,  ii]  Anglo-Saxon  Nuns  abroad.  139 

into  Germany  from  England,  the  correctness  of  which  has  been 
called  in  question.  He  then  enumerates  the  women  who  came 
abroad  and  mentions  'an  aunt  of  Lul  called  Chunihilt'  and  her 
daughter  Berthgit^  Chunitrud  and  Tecla,  Lioba,  and  Waltpurgis 
the  sister  of  Wilibald  and  Wunebald'.'  The  only  mention  of 
Waltpurgis  is  her  name,  but  he  describes  where  the  other  women 
settled,  some  in  the  district  of  the  Main,  others  in  Bavaria. 

This  woman  Waltpurgis  has  been  the  subject  of  many  con- 
jectures ;  writers  generally  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  the  sister 
of  Wunebald  and  Wilibald  is  identical  with  the  saint  who  was  so 
widely  reverenced.  But  St  Waltpurgis,  popularly  called  Walburg, 
is  associated  with  customs  and  traditions  which  so  clearly  bear  a 
heathen  and  profane  character  in  the  Netherlands  and  in  North 
Germany,  that  it  seems  improbable  that  these  associations  should 
have  clustered  round  the  name  of  a  Christian  woman  and  a  nun*. 

In  face  of  the  existing  evidence  one  of  two  conclusions  must  be 
adopted.  Either  the  sister  of  Wunebald  and  Wilibald  really  bore 
the  name  Waltpurgis,  and  the  monk  Wolfhard  who  wrote  an  ac- 
count of  a  saint  of  that  name  whose  relics  were  venerated  at 
Eichstatt  (between  882  and  912)  took  advantage  of  the  coincidence 
of  name  and  claimed  that  the  Walburg,  who  bears  the  character  of 
a  pseudo-saint,  and  the  sister  of  Wunebald  and  Wilibald  were 
identical ;  or  else,  desirous  to  account  for  the  veneration  of  relics 
which  were  commonly  connected  with  the  name  Walburg,  he  found 
it  natural  and  reasonable  to  hold  that  Walburg  had  belonged  to 
the  circle  of  Boniface,  and  identified  her  with  the  sister  of  Wune- 
bald and  Wilibald'. 

Nothing  is  preserved  concerning  this  sister  except  a  reference 
to  her  existence,  which  is  contained  in  the  accounts  of  the  acts  of 
Wilibald  and  Wunebald  written  by  a  nun  at  Heidenheim,  whose 
name  also  is  not  recorded*.     These  accounts  offer  many  points  of 

'  Hahn,  11.,  Bonifaz  wui  Lull,  Hire  angelsdchsischen  Correspondenten,  1883,  p.  138, 
footnote  4,  considers  her  identical  with  the  Cynehild  of  the  correspondence. 

-  Two  letters,  nrs  148,  149,  in  the  correspondence  are  written  by  '  Berthgyth,'  ap- 
parently a  nun  in  England  who  wished  to  go  abroad,  to  her  brother  Baldhard,  but  judging 
by  their  contents  ('I  have  been  deserted  by  my  parents,'  etc.)  it  is  improbable  that  she 
is  identical  with  the  nun  referred  to  above. 

'  Jaffe,  Ph.,  Monumenta  Moguntina,  1866,  p.  490. 

*  Comp.  above,  p.  25. 

'  Comp.  the  attempt  to  identify  Chunihilt  with  St  Gunthildis,  A,  6'6\  Boll.,  Sept.  u. 

*  Edit.  Canisius,  H.,  'I'hesaurtts,  17*5,  vol.  2  ;  this  anonymous  nun  is  sometimes  con- 
sidered identical  with  the  sister  of  Wilibald  and  Wunebald,  and  therefore  with  St  Walbui^. 


140  Anglo-Saxon  Nuns  abroad.  [chap,  iv 

interest.  The  nun  who  wrote  them  was  of  Anglo-Saxon  origin ; 
her  style  is  highly  involved  and  often  falls  short  of  the  rules  of 
grammar,  but  she  had  possession  of  interesting  information,  and 
she  was  determined  to  impart  it.  It  has  been  noticed  that  her 
writing  varies  according  ta  whether  she  is  setting  down  facts  or 
dilating  on  them  ;  for  she  is  concise  enough  when  it  is  a  question  of 
facts  only,  but  when  it  comes  to  description  she  falls  into  the  spirit 
of  Anglo-Saxon  literature  and  introduces  alliteration  into  her  Latin 
and  launches  forth  into  panegyric.  She  came  from  England  to 
Germany,  as  she  tells  us,  shortly  before  the  death  of  Wunebald 
(c.  765),  and  experiences  of  an  unpleasant  nature  led  her  to  expect 
that  her  writings  would  not  pass  without  criticism. 

'  I  am  but  a  woman,'  she  says\  '  weak  on  account  of  the  frailty 
of  my  sex,  neither  supported  by  the  prerogative  of  wisdom  nor 
sustained  by  the  consciousness  of  great  power,  yet  impelled  by 
earnestness  of  purpose,'  and  she  sets  to  work  to  give  a  description 
of  the  life  of  Wilibald  and  the  journey  which  he  made  to  Palestine, 
parts  of  which  she  took  down  from  his  dictation,  for  at  the  close 
of  her  account  she  says  that  she  wrote  it  from  Wilibald's  narrative 
in  the  monastery  of  Heidenheim  in  the  presence  of  deacons  and 
of  some  of  Wilibald's  pupils  who  were  witnesses  to  the  fact.  *  This  I 
say,'  she  adds,  '  that  no  one  may  again  declare  this  to  be  nonsense.' 

The  account  she  gives  of  Wilibald's  experiences  contains  one 
of  the  earliest  descriptions  written  in  northern  Europe  of  a  journey 
to  Palestine,  and  modern  writers  have  commented  on  it  as  a  curious 
literary  monument  of  the  time.  Interest  in  descriptions  of  the 
Holy  Land  was  increasing.  Besides  early  references  to  such 
journeys  in  the  letters  of  St  Jerome  who  described  how  Paula 
went  from  Rome  to  Jerusalem  and  settled  there  in  the  4th  century, 
we  hear  how  Adamnan  came  to  the  court  of  King  Ealdfrith  of 
Northumbria  about  the  year  701  and  laid  before  him  his  book 
on  Holy  Places''  which  he  had  taken  down  from  the  narrative 
of  bishop  Arculf  who  had  made  the  pilgrimage,  but  of  whom  we 
know  nothing  more.  But  Adamnan's  account  is  bald  and  its 
interest  is  poor  compared  to  this  description  of  the  adventures 
of  Wilibald  and  of  what  he  saw  on  his  travels. 

The  nun  prefaces  her  account  of  the  journey  by  telling  us  of 
Wilibald's  origin.     She  describes  how  he  fell   ill  as  a  child,  how 

1  Vita  St  Willibaldi  (also  called  Hodoeporicon),  edit.  Canisius,  H.,  Thesaurus, 
1715,  vol.  2,  ch.  a. 

2  Bede,  Hist.  Eccles.,  bk  5,  ch.  15. 


SECT,  ii]  Anglo-Saxon  Nuns  abroad.  141 


his  parents  vowed  him  to  a  reh'gious  life  if  he  were  spared,  and 
how  in  conformity  with  their  promise  they  took  him  to  the  abbey 
of  Waltham  at  the  age  of  five,  where  Wilibald  continued  studying 
till  manhood.  We  are  not  told  to  what  his  love  of  travel  was 
due.  He  determined  to  go  south  and  persuaded  his  father  and 
his  brother  Wunebald  to  accompany  him.  We  hear  how  they 
and  their  companions  took  boat  and  arrived  at  Rouen,  how  they 
travelled  on  till  they  reached  Lucca  where  the  father  fell  ill  and 
died,  and  how  the  brothers  pursued  their  journey  to  Rome  where 
they  spent  the  winter.  We  hear  how  the  heat  and  bad  air  of 
summer  drove  them  away  from  Rome  and  how,  while  Wunebald 
remained  in  Italy,  Wilibald  with  a  few  companions  pushed  on 
by  way  of  Naples  and  Reggio  and  reached  Catania  in  Sicily, 
where  he  took  boat  for  Ephesus  and  Syria.  We  get  a  good  deal 
of  information  by  the  way  on  saints  and  on  relics,  and  hear  of  the 
veil  of  St  Agatha  which  stayed  the  eruptions  of  Mount  Aetna,  and 
of  the  Seven  Sleepers  of  Ephesus,  The  travellers  experienced 
all  kinds  of  hardships ;  thrice  they  were  cast  into  prison  and 
liberated  before  their  feet  trod  on  holy  ground.  Then  they  visited 
Nazareth  and  Ghana  ;  they  gazed  upon  Lake  Tiberias,  they  bathed 
in  the  river  Jordan,  and  finally  they  reached  Jerusalem  where 
they  made  a  long  stay,  broken  however  by  several  long  ex- 
peditions. Each  site  is  described  in  turn,  and  its  connection  with 
scriptural  history  is  pointed  out.  We  hear  a  good  deal  about 
Jerusalem,  about  Mount  Sion,  the  site  of  the  Ascension  of  the 
Virgin,  and  about  the  site  of  the  Nativity  at  Bethlehem.  It  was 
'  once  a  cave,  now  it  is  a  square  house  cut  into  the  rock,'  over  which 
a  little  chapel  is  built.  We  also  hear  of  various  monasteries  where 
the  travellers  stayed  in  coming  and  going.  Finally  they  travelled 
to  Tyre,  where  they  took  boat  to  Constantinople.  There  they 
made  a  lengthy  stay  and  then  journeyed  on  to  Italy  and  visited 
the  Isle  of  Lipari,  where  Wilibald  desired  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the 
crater,  which  is  designated  as  hell,  the  thought  of  which  called 
forth  a  fine  piece  of  description  from  the  nun. 

'  And  when  they  arrived  there  they  left  the  boat  to  see  what 
sort  of  a  hell  it  was.  Wilibald  especially  was  curious  about  what 
was  inside  the  crater,  and  would  have  climbed  the  summit  of  the 
mountain  to  the  opening ;  but  he  was  prevented  by  cinders  which 
rose  from  the  black  gulf  and  had  sunk  again  ;  as  snow  settles 
falling  from  the  sky  and  the  heavenly  heights  in  white  thick  masses, 
so  these  cinders  lay  heaped  on  the  summit  of  the  mountain  and 


142  Anglo-Saxon  Nuns  abroad.  [chap,  iv 

f)revented  Wilibald's  ascent.  But  he  saw  a  blackness  and  a  terrible 
column  of  flame  projected  upwards  with  a  noise  like  thunder  from 
the  pit,  and  he  saw  the  flame  and  the  smoky  vapour  rising  to  an 
immeasurable  height.  He  also  beheld  pumice-stone  which  writers 
use^  thrown  up  from  the  crater  with  the  flame,  and  it  fell  into  the 
sea  and  was  again  cast  up  on  the  shore ;  men  there  gathered  it 
up  to  bring  it  away.' 

When  Wilibald  and  his  companion  Tidberht  reached  Rome 
they  had  been  absent  seven  years,  and  their  travels  had  made 
them  personages  of  such  interest  that  the  Pope  interviewed  them. 
Wilibald  at  the  Pope's  suggestion  agreed  to  join  Boniface  in 
Germany.  Wunebald,  the  brother  whom  he  had  left  in  Italy,  had 
met  Boniface  in  Rome  in  738  and  had  travelled  back  with  him. 
Wilibald  also  settled  in  Germany  and  was  made  bishop  of  the 
new  see  of  Eichstatt.  Here  he  came  across  the  nun,  who  was  so 
fired  by  his  account  of  his  travels  that  she  undertook  to  record  them. 

After  she  had  finished  this  work  she  was  moved  to  write  a  short 
account  of  the  life  of  Wunebald  I  It  is  written  in  a  similar  style 
and  contains  valuable  historical  information,  but  it  has  not  the 
special  interest  of  the  other  account.  Wunebald  on  coming  into 
Germany  had  first  stayed  at  Mainz,  then  he  travelled  about  with 
Boniface,  and  finally  he  settled  at  Heidenheim  where  he  made  a 
clearance  in  the  midst  of  a  wooded  wilderness  and  dwelt  there  with 
a  few  younger  men.  He  was  active  in  opposing  idolatrous  customs, 
but  does  not  appear  to  have  been  satisfied  with  his  work.  He  died 
about  the  year  765,  and  his  brother  Wilibald,  bishop  of  Eichstatt, 
and  his  sister,  of  whom  mention  is  now  made  for  the  first  time, 
came  to  his  monastery  to  assist  at  the  translation  of  his  corpse. 
The  sister  took  charge  of  his  settlement,  apparently  for  a  time  only, 
for  the  monastery  at  Heidenheim  continued  to  be  under  the  rule 
of  an  abbot  and  there  is  no  evidence  that  women  belonged  to  it. 

It  was  from  this  sister  that  the  nun  received  her  information 
about  Wunebald.  The  theory  has  been  put  forward  that  she  was 
the  same  person  as  a  nun  who  came  to  Heidenheim  and  was  there 
miraculously  cured.  However  that  may  be,  this  literary  nun  is  the 
last  Anglo-Saxon  woman  of  whom  we  have  definite  information 
who  came  abroad  in  connection  with  Boniface.  Her  name  is  lost, 
it  is  as  the  anonymous  nun  of  Heidenheim  that  she  has  come 
down  to  posterity, 

^ '  For  erasing  writing  from  parchment. 
-     '   Vita  St  Wunehaldi,  edit.  Canisius,  II.,  Thesaurus,  1725,  vol.  t. 


CHAPTER   V. 

CONVENTS  IN    SAXON    LANDS   BETWEEN   A.D.   8oo — lOOO. 
'  Nee  scientia  scibilis  Deum  offendit,  sed  injustitia  scientis.'    Hrotsvith. 

§  I.     Women's  Convents  in  Saxony. 

Some  account  has  been  given  in  the  preceding  chapters  of  the 
form  which  monastic  settlements  of  women  took  among  the  Franks 
and  the  Anglo-Saxons  during  the  first  centuries  after  the  accept- 
ance of  Christianity.  Features  similar  to  those  which  appear  in 
France  and  England  characterised  the  first  period  of  monastic 
development  among  the  continental  Saxons,  the  last  branch  of 
the  German  race  to  accept  Christianity  as  a  nation.  Here  also  we 
find  highborn  and  influential  women  as  abbesses  at  the  head  of 
establishments  which  were  important  centres  of  contemporary 
culture. 

The  convent  in  Saxon  lands,  as  elsewhere,  was  a  place  of  resi- 
dence and  a  training  school  for  women  of  the  ruling  classes.  Girls 
came  there  to  be  educated,  and  either  considered  the  convent  as 
their  permanent  home  or  left  it  to  be  married ;  the  widow 
frequently  returned  to  it  later  in  life.  But  some  of  the  Saxon 
settlements  of  women  gained  an  additional  importance  in  the  lOth 
and  I  ith  centuries  owing  to  their  close  connection  with  the  political 
affairs  and  interests  of  the  time.  The  abbess  was  frequently  a  member 
of  the  royal  or  imperial  family.  In  one  case  she  was  appointed  as 
the  guardian  of  the  Emperor,  in  another  she  became  representative 
of  the  Emperor  during  his  absence  in  Italy. 

The  story  of  the  spread  of  monastic  life  into  Saxony  is  closely 
connected  with  the  history  of  the  conquest  of  the  country  and  the 
subsequent  growth  of  national  independence.    The  Saxons  occupied 


144  Wometis  Convents  in  Saxony.  [chap,  v 

the  districts  of  northern  Germany,  Westphalia,  Eastphalia  and 
Engern,  of  which  Westphalia  bordered  on  lands  occupied  by  the 
Franks.  Between  the  6th  and  the  9th  centuries  the  Franks  had 
sometimes  fought  against  the  Saxons  and  had  sometimes  made 
common  cause  with  them  against  their  mutual  enemies  the  people 
of  Thiiringen.  But  the  Saxons  were  warlike  and  ferocious,  insen- 
sible to  the  influence  of  Christianity,  and  ready  at  any  moment  to 
begin  hostilities.  They  became  more  and  more  dreaded  by  the 
Franks,  who  looked  upon  them  as  dangerous  neighbours,  and  who 
attacked  them  whenever  opportunity  offered.  Karl  the  Great 
(1814),  king  of  the  Franks,  and  Roman  Emperor  of  the  German 
nation,  received  the  war  against  the  Saxons  as  part  o(  his  heritage, 
but  repeated  inroads  into  Saxony  and  a  cruelty  bordering  on 
vindictiveness  were  needed  before  he  could  speak  of  the  conquest 
of  the  Saxons  as  an  accomplished  fact.  In  785,  after  a  prolonged 
struggle,  Widukind,  the  Saxon  leader  in  whom  the  spirit  of 
Arminius  lived,  was  finally  defeated ;  and  he  and  his  followers 
accepted  Christianity  as  part  of  their  subjection. 

The  Frankish  Emperor  and  the  Church  now  united  in  extending 
a  uniform  system  of  government  over  the  lands  of  the  Saxons. 
The  count  {graf  or  comes)  was  made  responsible  for  the  mainten- 
ance of  peace  in  the  separate  district  {gau  or  pagus)  entrusted  to 
him,  and  bishoprics  were  founded  as  dependencies  of  the  ancient 
archiepiscopal  sees  of  Coin  and  Mainz.  At  the  same  time  colonies 
of  monks  migrated  into  the  conquered  districts  from  the  west  and 
south.  Their  settlements  developed  rapidly,  owing  to  the  favour 
which  monastic  life  found  with  the  newly  converted  Saxons. 

The  subjection  of  the  Saxons  was  not  however  of  long  duration. 
The  supremacy  of  the  Western  Empire  culminated  under  the  rule 
of  Karl  the  Great ;  the  union  under  one  rule  of  many  peoples  who 
were  in  different  stages  of  civilization  was  only  possible  at  all 
through  the  rare  combination  of  commanding  qualities  in  this 
emperor  ;  at  his  death  the  empire  at  once  began  to  crumble  away. 
This  brought  a  returning  sense  of  self-confidence  to  those  peoples 
on  whom  the  yoke  of  subjection  had  been  forcibly  thrust.  Fifty 
years  after  Karl's  death  a  warlike  chief  of  the  old  type  was 
established  among  the  Saxons  as  duke  {herzog  or  dux) ;  a  hundred 
years  later  and  a  Saxon  duke  was  chosen  king  of  the  Germans  by 
the  united  votes  of  Frankish  and  Saxon  nobles.  The  supreme 
authority  now  passed  from  the  Franks  to  the  Saxons  ;  a  change 
which  the  Saxon  historian  of  the  loth  century  associated  with  the 


SECT,  i]  Women  s  Convents  in  Saxony.  145 

transference  of  the  relics  of  St  Vitus  from  France  to  Saxon  soil'. 
The  present  age  seeks  the  explanation  of  the  removal  of  the  centre 
of  authority  in  less  romantic  causes,  and  finds  it  in  the  altogether 
extraordinary  aptitude  which  the  Saxons  showed  for  assimilating 
new  elements  of  civilization,  and  for  appropriating  or  remodelling 
to  their  own  use  institutions  of  rule  and  government  into  which 
they  breathed  a  spirit  peculiarly  their  own. 

The  history  of  the  attainment  to  political  supremacy  by  the 
Saxons  helps  us  to  understand  the  spirit  which  animated  the 
Church  and  monastic  institutions  of  the  time.  The  bishoprics 
which  Prankish  overlordship  had  established  were  soon  in  the 
hands  of  men  who  were  Saxons  by  birth,  and  a  similar  appropria- 
tion took  place  in  regard  to  monastic  settlements.  Corvei,  a  religious 
colony  founded  on  Saxon  soil  by  monks  from  La  Corbie  in  northern 
France,  a  lifetime  after  the  conversion  numbered  Saxon  nobles 
among  its  inmates.  Settlements  of  women  were  also  founded  and 
rapidly  gained  importance,  especially  in  the  eastern  districts  where 
they  rivalled  the  episcopal  sees  in  wealth  and  influence. 

A  reason  for  the  favour  with  which  monastic  life  was  regarded 
during  the  period  of  political  subjection  lay  in  the  practical 
advantages  which  these  settlements  offered.  The  nobleman  who 
turned  monk  was  freed  from  the  obligations  thrust  upon  him  by 
the  new  regime  ;  he  was  exempt  from  fighting  under  the  standard 
of  his  conqueror,  and  the  property  which  he  bestowed  on  the 
religious  settlement  was  in  a  way  withdrawn  from  the  enemy.  But 
when  the  people  regained  their  independence  the  popularity  of  the 
convent  still  remained.  For  the  Saxons  were  quick  in  realizing  the 
advantages  of  a  close  union  between  religion  and  the  state,  and  the 
most  powerful  and  progressive  families  of  the  land  vied  with  each 
other  in  founding  and  endowing  religious  settlements. 

The  political  interest  of  the  period  centres  in  the  career  of 
Liudolf,  who  was  styled  duke  by  his  people,  but  count  by  the 
Emperor.  Liudolf  rapidly  rose  to  greatness  and  became  the 
progenitor  of  a  family  which  has  given  Germany  many  remarkable 
men  and  her  first  line  of  kings.  His  son  Otto  (t9i2)  was  renowned 
like  his  father  for  personal  valour,  and  success  in  every  way  favoured 
the  undertakings  of  his  grandson  Heinrich  the  Fowler  (t936),  first 
king  of  the  Saxon  line.  Heinrich  became  the  favourite  hero  of  the 
national  poet  on  account  of  the  triumphs  he  gained  over  the  Slavs 

*  Widukind,  AnnaKum  libri  tres,  year  934. 
E.  10 


146  Women's  Convents  in  Saxony.  [chap,  v 

and  Magyars,  who  at  this  time  threatened  the  lands  occupied  by 
Germans  at  every  point  between  the  Baltic  and  the  Adriatic. 
Again  Heinrich's  successes  were  reflected  in  those  of  his  son 
Otto  I  (t  973).  surnamed  the  Great,  who  added  the  lustre  of 
imperial  dignity  to  his  father's  firmly  established  kingship.  Emu- 
lating the  fame  of  Karl  the  Great,  Otto  was  crowned  emperor  by 
the  Pope  in  Rome.  During  the  reign  of  his  son,  Otto  II  (1982), 
and  of  his  grandson.  Otto  III  (t  1002),  the  Saxon  court  remained 
the  meeting-place  of  representatives  of  the  civilized  world.  It  was 
there  that  envoys  were  received  from  England  and  Italy,  and  it  was 
from  thence  that  messengers  were  sent  out  to  Constantinople  and 
Cordova.  The  elective  crown  of  the  German  Empire  remained 
hereditary  in  the  Saxon  dynasty  for  over  a  hundred  years,  and  it  is 
with  this  period  that  the  Germans  associate  the  first  development 
of  their  national  life  on  national  soiP. 

At  this  time  the  kingdoms  founded  in  other  parts  of  Europe  by 
peoples  of  the  German  race  were  much  enfeebled.  During  the  9th 
and  loth  centuries  the  Prankish  princes  were  wanting  in  that  unity 
of  purpose  which  alone  could  prevent  the  appropriation  of  fruitful 
tracts  of  their  territory  by  the  vikings.  In  England  a  period  of 
returning  difficulties  had  followed  the  reign  of  King  Aelfraed,  so 
brilliant  in  many  ways.  The  personal  valour  of  his  children,  the 
intrepid  Lady  Aethelflaed  (t9i8)  and  King  Eadward  (1925)  her 
brother,  had  not  stayed  the  social  changes  which  prepared  the  way 
for  the  rule  of  the  Dane.  It  is  in  Saxony  only  that  we  find  the 
concentration  and  consolidation  of  power  which  make  the  advance 
and  attitude  of  a  nation  conspicuous  in  history.  The  sword  was 
here  wielded  to  good  purpose  and  likewise  the  pen.  The  bishoprics 
of  Hildesheim,  Halberstadt,  and  Magdeburg  had  become  centres  of 
artistic  activity,  and  the  monastery  of  Corvei  rivalled  the  time- 
honoured  settlements  of  St  Gallen  and  Fulda  in  intellectual  im- 
portance. The  Saxon  historian  Widukind  (f  after  973)  was  at 
work  in  Corvei  in  the  loth  century;  this  author  is  for  Saxon 
history  what  Gregory  is  for  Prankish  and  Bede  for  Anglo-Saxon 
history.  Monasteries  for  women,  especially  those  of  Herford, 
Gandersheim,  and  Quedlinburg,  had  rapidly  developed  and  exerted 
a  social  and  intellectual  influence  such  as  has  rarely  fallen  to  the 
lot  of  women's  religious  settlements  in  the  course  of  history. 

The  first  religious  house  for  women  of  which  we  have  definite 

'  Giesebrecht,  W.,  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Kaiserzeif,  4  ed.  1873,  vol.  r. 


SECT,  i]  Women  s  Convents  in  Saxony.  147 

information  is  Herford,  which  was  situated  close  to  Corvei  in 
Westphalia  and  had  originally  been  founded  as  a  dependency  of  it. 
Two  small  settlements  for  women  existed  at  an  early  period  in 
Eastphalia,  but  our  knowledge  of  them  is  slight.  The  story  is  told 
that  the  heathen  Saxon  Hessi,  having  been  defeated  by  Karl  the 
Great  in  775,  went  to  live  in  the  monastery  of  Fulda,  and  left  his 
daughter  Gisela  in  possession  of  his  property,  which  she  devoted 
to  founding  two  little  monasteries  (monasteriola)  for  her  daughters. 
This  information  is  preserved  in  an  account  of  Liutberg,  a  Saxon 
girl  of  noble  parentage  who  was  brought  up  in  one  of  these  little 
monasteries,  but  afterwards  left  it,  as  she  preferred  to  dwell  as  a 
recluse  in  a  neighbouring  cell.  Here  she  was  visited  by  Theotgrim, 
bishop  of  Halberstadt  (t  840),  and  by  the  writer  to  whom  we  owe 
our  account  of  her^  Wendhausen,  one  of  the  little  monasteries 
spoken  of  in  this  account,  was  in  existence  a  century  later,  for  an 
attempt  was  then  made  to  transfer  its  inmates  to  Quedlinburg.  The 
fame  of  Liutberg's  virtues  was  great  during  her  lifetime  but  appa- 
rently did  not  secure  her  recognition  as  a  saint.  The  cell  in  which 
she  had  lived  was  afterwards  granted  to  Quedlinburg  by  charter  (958). 
We  have  abundant  information  about  Herford,  the  dependency 
of  Corvei.  In  838  a  certain  Tetta  was  abbess,  who  came  from 
Soissons  and  regulated  the  settlement  at  Herford  on  the  plan  of  the 
house  she  had  left  I  The  Saxon  element  asserted  itself  here  also. 
In  854  the  abbess  was  Addila,  who  was  of  Saxon  parentage  and 
probably  the  widow  of  a  Saxon  nobleman.  Again  in  858  we  hear 
of  another  abbess,  Hadewy,  probably  the  niece  of  Warin,  who  was 
abbot  of  Corvei  and  a  relation  of  Duke  Liudolf.  During  her  rule 
the  relics  of  the  woman-saint  Pusinna  were  sent  to  Herford  by  the 
Saxon  nobleman  Kobbo  as  a  gift  to  his  sister  the  abbess  Hadewy. 
The  Sax^^ns  had  no  traditions  or  relics  of  early  Christians  who  had 
lived  among  them,  and  so  they  were  obliged  to  import  relics  to  form 
a  centre  for  their  worship.  King  and  bishop  alike  set  an  extra- 
ordinary value  on  relics  and  paid  exorbitant  prices  for  them.  So 
great  an  importance  was  attached  to  the  arrival  of  the  relics  of 
Pusinna  at  Herford  that  a  contemporary  monk  wrote  a  detailed 
account  of  the  event'.    But  it  is  characteristic  of  the  author's  dispo- 

'  Ex  Vita    Liutbergae  in   Pertz,   Mon.    Germ.    Script.,  vol.   4,    p.   158   (Potthast, 
Wegweiser,  written  about  870). 

•  Diimmler,  E.,  Geschichte  des  ostfrdnkischen  Reichs,  1865,  vol.  i,  p.  348. 

*  Translatio  St  Pusinnae  in  A.  SS.  Boll.,  April  23  (Potthast,   IVegvteiser,  written 
probably  by  a  monk  of  Corvei  between  860-877). 

10 — 2 


148  IVontens  Convents  in  Saxony.  [chap,  v 

sition  that  he  tells  us  nothing  of  the  life  and  the  works  of  Pusinna, 
who  but  for  this  account  is  unknown  to  history. 

A  side-light  is  thrown  on  the  material  prosperity  and  the 
national  sympathies  of  the  settlements  of  Corvei  and  Herford  in  889. 
Egilmar,  bishop  of  Osnabriick  (885-906),  lodged  a  complaint  with 
the  Pope,  contending  that  these  settlements,  besides  appropriating 
other  rights,  drew  so  many  tithes  from  his  diocese  that  his  income 
was  reduced  to  a  quarter  of  what  it  should  be.  But  Egilmar  got 
scant  reward  for  his  pains,  no  doubt  because  those  in  authority  at 
Corvei  and  Herford  were  family  connections  of  Duke  Liudolf, 
whom  it  was  felt  dangerous  to  cross.  For  the  Saxon  duke  had 
gained  in  influence  as  the  Franks  relaxed  their  hold  on  Saxon 
affairs,  and  while  he  nominally  remained  a  dependent,  pressure 
from  outside  was  not  brought  to  bear  on  him.  In  refusing  to 
interfere  in  Egilmar's  behalf,  which  would  have  involved  his 
coming  into  conflict  with  Liudolf,  the  Pope  was  acting  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  policy  which  the  Franks  pursued  in  Saxon 
lands^ 

At  an  early  date  the  abbey  of  Herford  was  renowned  as  an 
educational  centre,  and  it  long  maintained  its  reputation.  Ha- 
thumod,  a  daughter  of  Duke  Liudolf,  was  educated  there  previous 
to  becoming  abbess  at  Gandersheim,  as  we  shall  see  later  on.  A 
hundred  years  later  Queen  Mathilde  (1968)  of  the  race  of  the 
warrior  Widukind,  and  wife  of  Heinrich  the  Fowler,  was  brought 
up  at  Herford,  her  grandmother  being  abbess  at  the  time. 

The  foundation  of  Gandersheim  in  Eastphalia  followed  upon 
that  of  Herford.  Gandersheim  was  founded  by  Duke  Liudolf  and 
remained  the  favourite  settlement  of  the  women  of  his  family; 
we  shall  return  to  it  later  on.  Two  other  important  abbeys  ruled 
by  women  in  connection  with  royalty  were  Essen  and  Qu'  dlinburg. 
Essen  was  founded  by  Altfrid,  bishop  of  Hildesheim  (827-874),  a 
Saxon  by  birth^,  and  Quedlinburg  at  the  instigation  of  Queen 
Mathilde,  who  as  mentioned  above  had  been  educated  at  Herford. 
For  centuries  the  abbess  of  Quedlinburg  remained  a  person  of 
marked  importance,  in  her  influence  both  on  politics  and  on  matters 
social  and  literary.  Essen  and  Quedlinburg  afterwards  became 
centres  of  art  industry ;  all  these  early  monastic  foundations  main- 
tained their  importance  down  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation. 

The  favour  found  by  these  institutions  is  explained  when  we 

*  DUramler,  E.,  Geschichte  des  ostfrdnkischen  Reichs,  1865,  vol.  2,  p.  336. 

*  Luentzel,  Geschichte  der  Diocese  und  Stadt  Hildesheim,  1858,  vol.  i,  p.  22. 


SECT,  i]  Wometis  Convents  in  Saxony.  149 

come  to  consider  the  uncertainty  of  the  times  and  the  changeful 
political  events  which  accompanied  the  growth  of  Saxon  independ- 
ence. The  age,  judged  by  a  later  standard,  may  well  be  called  an 
age  of  violence.  For  the  country  was  in  the  hands  of  a  number  of 
overlords  who  were  frequently  at  war  together,  and  who  dwelt  in 
isolated  castles  in  a  thickly  wooded  district  in  which  only  a  patch 
here  and  there  had  been  brought  under  cultivation. 

The  monotony  of  life  in  the  castles  or  burghs  of  this  period 
can  hardly  be  exaggerated.  Means  of  communication  were  few 
and  occasions  for  it  were  rare.  When  the  master  and  his  men  were 
absent,  engaged  in  some  private  broil,  or  else  summoned  by  the 
arriere-ban  to  attend  the  duke  or  the  king,  weeks  and  months 
would  go  by  without  a  reminder  of  the  existence  of  the  world 
outside ;  weeks  and  months  when  the  arrival  of  a  traveller  offered 
the  one  welcome  diversion.  The  young  nobleman  followed  his 
father  to  camp  and  to  court,  where  he  tasted  of  the  experiences 
of  life ;  the  young  noblewoman  stayed  at  home,  cut  off  from  inter- 
course with  those  of  her  age  and  standing,  and  from  every  possi- 
bility of  widening  her  mental  horizon. 

\X.  is  with  the  daughters_of^  these  families  that  the  religious 
house  first Jbund  fkvmui\__Settlements  such  as  Herford,  Ganders-       '  iltJ^ 
heinn,  Essen,  and  Quedlinburg  ofiered  the  companionship"  of  equals,  )r^ 
and  gave  a  domestic  and^intellectual  training  which_was3He]^st    ^  \^J^ 
of  its  kind.    ^^ater_ages^ere  wont  to  look  upon^jhe  standard  of    y     kVa 
education  attained   at   Gandersheim   and  Quedlinburg   as  exem-   >**^_.a 
plary^     The  word  collegejcolleglunnr  which   e"arIy~writers~oIten 
apply  to  these  settlements  in  its  Iriodern  "sense  ol  a  learning  and 
a  teaching^body,  aptly  designates  their  character.     For  the  re- 
ligious settlement  was  a"h  endowed  college  where  girls  were  re- 
ceiveJ2to_5e~Trained,  and   where  women  who  wished  to  devote 
themselves  to  learning  andthe  arts  permanentlyjresided. 
""      TTie  age  at  which  girls  were  received  iiTuiese  settlements  can 
be  determined  by  inference  only ;  some  were  given  into  their  care 
as  children,  others  joined   them  later  in   life.     Probably  here  as 
elsewhere  girls  came  at  about  the  age  of  seven,  and  remained 
till  the  age  of  fourteen,  when  they  left  if  marriage  was  to  be  their 
destiny.    The  responsibilities  of  married  and  of  unmarried  life  were 
undertaken  at  this  period  by  persons  of  extreme  youth.    Hathumod 
was  made  abbess  of  Gandersheim  when  she  was  between  twelve  and 
thirteen  years  of  age;  and  Mathilde,  as  abbess  of  Quedlinburg,  at 
the  age  of  twelve  received  her  dying  grandmother's  injunctions 


ffA^r^'^ 


150  Women  s  Convents  in  Saxony.  [chap,  v 

together  with  valuable  documents\  but  in  her  case  the  chronicler 
notes  that  she  had  developed  early''. 

It  remains  an  open  question  at  what  period  in  history  the 
inmates  of  these  settlements  took  vows.  Fritsch,  who  has  written 
a  detailed  history  of  the  abbey  of  Quedlinburg,  holds  that  its  in- 
mates never  took  a  permanent  vow,  since  not  a  single  case  of  the 
defection  of  a  nun  is  on  record',  but  this  view  is  disproved  by 
accounts  of  consecrations  during  the  early  period  in  other  houses. 
Luther  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation  noted  that  the  nuns  of 
Quedlinburg  were  bound  by  no  vow*.  Probably  the  inmates  took 
vows  at  first,  and  the  custom  afterwards  lapsed.  Harenberg,  to 
whom  we  owe  many  learned  dissertations  on  Gandersheim,  says 
that  the  women  there  lived  at  first  according  to  the  rule  of  St 
Benedict;  but  after  the  12th  century  became  Austin  canonesses*. 
Engelhausen,  a  writer  of  the  15th  century,  speaking  of  the  inmates 
of  .Saxon  houses  generally,  says  that  they  lived  as  Austin  canon- 
esses*.  Early  writers  in  speaking  of  the  inmates  of  Saxon  convents 
use  the  familiar  terms  nuns  (sanctimoniales)  and  virgins  (virgines) ; 
the  term  canoness  (canonissa),  which  designates  a  woman  who  took 
residence  without  a  permanent  vow,  came  into  general  use  only  at 
a  later  date^  It  seems  simplest  therefore  throughout  to  retain 
the  familiar  term  nun  when  speaking  of  the  inmates  of  Saxon 
settlements,  though  it  must  be  understood  with  a  reservation,  for 
we  are  not  certain  of  the  exact  meaning  of  the  word  at  different 
periods. 

Engelhausen,  the  writer  referred  to  above,  adds  that  abbeys 
for  women  in  Saxony  were  founded  '  in  order  to  help  the  noblemen 
who  fought  for  the  faith  of  Christ  and  were  killed  by  the  heathens ; 
so  that  their  daughters  might  not  be  reduced  to  begging  (men- 
dicare)  but  might  live  in  these  monasteries  (monasteria),  and  when 
they  had  attained  a  marriageable  age,  might  leave  to  be  married.' 

The  range  of  subjects  taught  in  the  Saxon  nunnerywas  wide. 
It  included  the  study  of  religious  as  well  as  of  classical  writers. 
Spinning,  weaving,  and  embroidery  were  also  taught  and  pra:cti5ed. 
We  shall  see  later  on  that  the  nuns  a.ssembled  at  Quedlinburg 

*  Vita  Mathildis  Reg.  (in  Pertz,  Man.  Germ.  Script.,  vol.  4,  p.  283  ff.),  c.  26. 
'  Annates  Quedliburgenses,  year  999. 

'  Fritsch,  Geschichte  des  Reichstifts  Quedlinburg,  1826,  vol.  i,  p.  45. 

*  Luther,  An  den  Adel  christl.  Nation,  t520,  edit.  Knaake,  vol.  6,  p.  440. 

*  Harenberg,  Historia  Ecclesiae  Gandersh.,  1734,  vol.  i,  p.  529. 

'  Engelhausen,  Chronicon  (in  Leibnitz,  Scriptores  rer.  Brunsv.  1 707,  vol.  2),  p.  978. 
7  Comp.  below,  ch.  6,  §  i . 


SECT,  i]  Women  s  Convents  in  Saxony.  151 

wove  large  and  elaborate  hangings.  Pefprpnrg  is  also  made  tp 
the  study  of  law,  and  it  is  said  that  Gerberg  II,  abbess  at  Gap- 
dershemT  (t  lOOi),  instructed  her  niece  Sophie  in  convent  discipline 
and  in  common  law.  An  early  chronicle  in  the  vernacular  says 
that  the  princess  Sophie,  a  woman  of  determined  character,  so 
mastered  these  subjects  that  she  was  able  to  enter  into  disputation 
with  learned  men  and  successfully  opposed  them'. 

Where  the  inmate  of  a  convent  was  consecrated  to  the  office 
of  nun,  this  was  done  by  the  bishop  of  the  diocese ;  but  a  curious 
story  is  told  in  connection  with  the  consecration  of  the  above- 
named  princess  Sophie^  Sophie  was  the  daughter  of  the  emperor 
Otto  II,  and  had  been  educated  at  Gandersheim,  but  she  refused 
to  be  consecrated  by  the  bishop  of  Hildesheim,  who  usually  per- 
formed this  office  at  the  convent,  and  declared  that  she  must  have 
the  archbishop  of  Mainz,  whose  dignity  was  more  in  keeping  with 
her  station.  The  compromise  that  both  prelates  should  assist  at 
the  consecration  was  at  last  agreed  upon.  But  Sophie  was  not 
satisfied.  She  left  Gandersheim  for  the  court  of  her  brother, 
and  only  returned  at  the  death  of  the  abbess,  whom  she  succeeded. 
Endless  quarrels  occurred  during  the  term  of  her  rule.  On  one 
occasion  she  allowed  her  nieces,  Sophie  and  Ida,  who  were  con- 
secrated nuns,  to  depart  on  a  visit  to  her  friend  the  archbishop 
of  Mainz,  but  when  they  sent  word  from  Mainz  that  they  did 
not  intend  to  return  to  Gandersheim,  she  applied  to  her  old  enemy 
the  bishop  of  Hildesheim,  and  forced  him  to  interfere  with  the  arch- 
bishop and  bring  back  her  nuns.  They  returned,  but  only  for  a  time, 
for  they  were  appointed  abbesses  at  other  convents. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  how  large  a  number  of  princesses  of 
the  ruling  dynasty  were  unmarried,  and  remained  in  convents. 
Five  daughters  of  Duke  Liudolf  spent  their  lives  at  Gandersheim, 
of  whom  only  one  as  far  as  we  know  had  been  betrothed.  At 
a  later  period  Mathilde,  the  only  daughter  of  Otto  I,  was  from  her 
cradle  upwards  appointed  to  become  abbess  of  Ouedlinburg ;  and 
her  cousin  Gerberg,  daughter  of  Heinrich,  duke  of  the  Bavarians 
(t  955),  was  abbess  of  Gandersheim.  In  the  next  generation 
Mathilde,  daughter  of  Prince  Liudolf  (f  957),  was  abbess  at 
Essen  (t  loii),  and  her  two  cousins,  Adelheid  and   Sophie,  the 

^  Luentzel,  Geschichte  der  Diocese  und  Stadt  Hildesheivt,  1858,  vol.  i,  p.  67,  quoting 
•  Reimchronik,' 

'  Dat  Bog  segt,  dat  se  so  vele  Wisheit  konde, 

'  Dat  se  ok  wol  gelerden  Meistem  wedderstunde. ' 

*  Harenberg,  Historia  Ecdesiae  Gandersh.,  1734,  vol.  i,  p.  626  ff. 


SV. 


152  Women  s  Convents  in  Saxony.  [chap,  v 

daughters  of  Otto  II,  embraced  the  religious  profession  at  the 
wish,  it  is  said,  of  their  mother.  Adelheid  was  abbess  at  Qued- 
linburg  (999-1040),  and  Sophie,  the  princess  alluded  to  above, 
was  abbess  at  Gandersheim  (1001-1039).  When  Sophie  died  her 
sister  Adelheid  planned  to  unite  in  herself  the  rule  of  both 
houses,  but  death  put  a  stop  to  her  ambition  \  The  princess 
Mathilde,  another  daughter  of  Otto  II,  had  married  Ezo,  son  of 
the  Palgrave  of  Lothringen,  to  whom  she  bore  seven  daughters; 
six  of  these  embraced  convent  life  and  in  course  of  time  attained 
to  the  rank  of  abbess  ^ 

These  details  are  not  without  significance.  They  suggest  that 
it  was  probably  for  the  interest  of  the  royal  family  that  its  prin- 
cesses should  remain  in  the  convent  in  preference  to  contracting 
matrimonial  alliances  which  might  involve  their  relatives  in 
political  difficulties.  On  the  other  hand  they  suggest  that  life 
in  these  settlements  must  have  been  congenial  in  more  ways 
than  one. 

As  abbess  of  one  of  the  royal  houses  the  princess  certainly 
held  a  place  ofauthority  second  to  that  of  no  woman  in  the  land. 
To  gather  together  a  few  items  of  this  power  :  she  held  the  abbey 
of  the  king  and  from  the  king,  which  precluded  a  dependent 
relation  on  lords  spiritual  or  temporal,  and  made  her  abbey  what 
is  termed  a  free  abbev  {freies  reichstift).  Her  rights  of  overlord- 
ship  sometimes  extended  over  many  miles,  and  the  property  of 
Gandersheim  is  described  as  enormous^ 

As  holding  the  place  of  a  feudal  lord  the  abbess  had  the  right 
of  ban  ;  she  issued  the  summons  when  war  had  been  declared 
and  sent  her  contingent  of  armed  knights  into  the  field :  and  she 
also  issued  the  summons  to  attend  in  her  courts,  where  judgment 
was  given  by  her  proctor  jvo^t).     In  short  she  had  the  duties  and 

privileges    of  a    harnn    wtin    hf^lH    hi'g    prr.pprfy    nf  tVif»    Vi'ng     qQrj^ac 

such  she  was  summoned  to  the  Imperial  Diet  {reichstafcX  She 
may  have  attended  in   person    during    early   times,  the  fact  ap- 

^  Luentzel,  Geschichte  der  Diocese  und  Stadt  Hildesheim,  vol.  i,  p.  319. 

*  'De  fundatione  Brunswilarensis '  (in  Pertz,  Mon,  Germ.  Scriptores,  vol.  11,  p.  394 
footnote);  Adelheid  was  abbess  of  Nivelles,  Mathilde  of  Villich  and  Diedenkirchen, 
Theofanu  of  Essen,  Hedwig  of  Neuss  ;  Sophie  and  Ida,  to  whom  reference  has  been  made 
in  the  text,  are  said  by  Pertz  to  have  presided  over  Gandersheim  and  St  Maria  at  Coin  ; 
Sophie  certainly  did  not  become  abbess  at  Gandersheim,  perhaps  she  went  to  Mainz  ;  Ida 
probably  presided  over  the  convent  of  St  Maria  on  the  MUnzenberg,  a  dependency  of 
Gandersheim. 

*  Waltz,  G.,  Deutsche  Verfassungsgeschichte,  1868,  vol.  7,  p.  258. 


SECT,  i]  Women  s  Convents  in  Saxony.  153 

pears  doubtful ;  but  in  the  i6th  century  she  was  only  represented 
there*. 

Similar  rights  and  privileges  devolved  on  those  abbesses  in 
England  who  were  baronesses  in  title  of  the  land  they  held.  But 
these  abbesses  never  secured  some  of  the  rights  enjoyed  by  their 
sisters  in  Saxony,  for  example  the  right  of  striking  coin  which  the 
abbess  of  Quedlinburg  secured  under  Otto  I*.  Coins  also  are 
extant  which  were  struck  by  abbesses  of  Gandersheim,  whose 
portraits  they  bear'. 

In  addition  to  these  advantages  of  position,  the  abbesses  of 
the  chief  Saxon  houses  in  the  loth  and  nth  centuries  were  ^ 
direct  contact  with  the  court  and  with  politics.  During  the  minority 
of  Otto  III,  who  was  three  years  old  when  his  lather  died  m  Italy 
(983 ).  his  mother  Adelheid  t'^p<^thfr  '^''<-^  ^'g  ^"nt  Mathiide.  abbess 
_of  Quedlinburg,  practically  ruled  the  empire.  Later  when  this 
emperor  went  to  Italy  for  a  prolonged  stay  in  997  the  manage- 
ment of  affairs  was  given  to  the  abbess  Mathiide,  who  is  praised 
for  the  determined  measures  she  took  to  oppose  the  invading 
Wends.  In  999  she  summoned  a  diet  at  Dornberg  on  her  own 
authority*. 

The  so-called  free  abbeys  were  under  the  obligation  of  enter- 
taining the  king  and  his  retinue  in  return  for  privileges  granted 
to  them,  and  as  the  king  had  no  fixed  place  of  residence  he  stayed 
at  his  various  palaces  (palatia)  in  turn,  and  usually  spent  holiday 
time  at  one  of  the  religious  centres.  Frequent  royal  visits  to  Qued- 
linburg are  on  record ;  the  court  was  also  entertained  at  Ganders- 
heim. These  visits  brought  a  store  of  political  information  to  the 
abbess  of  which  she  made  use  in  her  own  way.  Thus  Mathiide, 
abbess  of  Quedlinburg,  is  thought  to  have  supplied  the  annalist 
of  Quedlinburg  with  the  information  which  gives  his  chronicle  its 
special  value,  and  she  was  so  far  interested  in  the  history  of  her 
own  time  that  Widukind  forwarded  his  history  of  the  Saxons  to 
her  book  by  book  for  approval*.  The  abbess  Gerberg  of  Gan- 
dersheim was  similarly  in  contact  with  politics.  As  we  shall  see 
she  supplied  the  nun  Hrotsvith  with  the  materials  for  writing  the 
history  of  Otto  the  Great. 

^  Reichstage,  1 548-1 594. 

"  Fritsch,  Geschichte  des  Reichstifts  Quedlinburg,  1828,  vol.  1,  p.  359. 

'  Luentzel,  Geschichte  der  Diocese  und  Stadt  Hildesheim,  1858,  vol.  i,  p.  67. 

*  Fritsch,  Geschichte  des  Reichstifts  Quedlinburg^  1828,  vol.  i,  p.  84. 

•  Ebert,  Ad.,  Geschichte  der  Litteratur  des  Mittelalters,  1887,  vol.  3,  p.  429  footnote. 


154  Early  History  of  Gander sheim.  [chap,  v 


§  2.     Early  History  of  Gandersheim^ 

From  these  general  remarks  we  turn  to  the  foundation  and 
early  history  of  Gandersheim,  one  of  the  earliest  and  wealthiest 
ot'  Saxon  houses,  which  claims  our  attention  as  the  home  of  the 
nun  Hrotsvith.  It  was  situated  on  low-lying  ground  near  the 
river  Ganda  in  Eastphalia  and  was  surrounded  by  the  wooded 
heights  of  the  Harz  mountains.  It  owed  its  foundation  to  Liudolf 
himself,  the  great  Saxon  duke  and  the  progenitor  of  the  royal 
house  of  Saxony.  At  the  close  of  a  successful  political  career, 
Liudolf  was  persuaded  by  his  wife  Oda  to  devote  some  of  his 
wealth  and  his  influence  to  founding  a  settlement  for  women  in 
Eastphalia,  where  his  property  chiefly  lay. 

Oda  was  partly  of  Prankish  origin,  which  may  account  for  her 
seeking  the  aggrandisement  of  her  family  in  a  religious  foundation 
at  a  time  when  there  were  very  few  in  Saxon  lands.  It  is  note- 
worthy that  this  foundation  was  to  be  for  women  and  that  all  the 
daughters  of  Liudolf  and  Oda  went  to  live  there.  Information 
about  the  early  history  of  Gandersheim  is  abundant.  There  are 
extant  a  life  of  Hathumod,  its  first  abbess,  which  was  written  by 
her  friend  the  monk  Agius  (-|-  874),  and  an  elegy  on  her  death  in 
which  Agius  tries  to  comfort  her  nuns  for  the  loss  they  have 
sustained  ;  both  these  compositions  are  written  in  a  very  attractive 
style'"*.  A  century  later  the  nun  Hrotsvith  was  busy  at  Gandersheim 
describing  the  early  history  of  the  settlement  in  a  poem  in  which 
she  celebrates  both  it  and  the  family  of  its  founder'.  In  many 
ways  this  is  the  most  beautiful  and  finished  of  the  nun's  com- 
positions ;  a  work  which  reflects  credit  alike  on  her  powers  as  a 
poetess,  and  on  the  settlement  with  which  her  name  and  fame 
are  indissolubly  linked. 

From  these  accounts  we  gather  that  Oda's  mother,  Ada,  had 
already  had  a  vision  of  the  future  greatness  of  her  family.  Hrots- 
vith tells  how  St  John  the  Baptist  appeared  to  her  clad  in  a  gar- 
ment made  of  camel's  hair  of  bright  yellow,  his  lovely  face  of 
shining  whiteness,  with  a  small  beard  and  black  hair.     In  giving 

*  Harenberg,  Historia  Ecclesiae  Ganders.,  1734;  also  Luentzel,  Geschichte  der  Dio- 
cese und  Stadt  Hildesheim,  1858,  vol.  i,  pp.  33  ff.,  63  ff. 

^  Agius,  Vita  et  Obitus  Hathumodae  (in  Pertz,  Man.  Germ.  Scriptores,  vol.  4, 
pp.  166-189). 

^  Hrotsvith,  'Carmen  de  Primordiis  Coenobii  Gandersh.,'  in  Opera,  edit.  Barack, 
1858,  p.  339  ff. 


SECT,  ii]  Early  History  of  Gandersheim.  155 

these  details  of  the  saint's  appearance  the  nun  was  doubtless  de- 
scribing a  picture  she  had  before  her  at  Gandersheim. 

It  was  in  852  that  a  plan  was  formed  for  transferring  a  small 
congregation  of  women,  who  had  been  living  at  Brunshausen,  to 
some  property  on  the  river  Ganda.  A  suitable  site  had  to  be 
sought  and  a  fitting  centre  of  worship  provided.  Liudolf  and 
Oda  undertook  a  journey  to  Rome  and  submitted  their  scheme 
to  Pope  Sergius  II  (844-847),  begging  him  for  a  gift  of  relics. 
They  received  from  him  the  bodies  of  the  saints  Anastasius  and 
Innocentius,  which  they  carried  back  with  them  to  Saxony. 

On  the  night  before  All  Saints'  Day  a  swineherd  in  Liudolfs 
employ  had  a  vision  of  lights  falling  from  heaven  and  hanging 
in  the  air,  which  was  interpreted  as  a  heavenly  indication  of  the 
site  of  the  settlement.  A  clearance  was  accordingly  made  in  the 
densely  wooded  district  and  a  chapel  was  built. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Hathumod,  the  eldest  daughter  of 
Liudolf,  was  living  in  Herford.  From  childhood  her  bent  had 
been  serious,  and  her  friend  Agius  tells  us  that  '  of  her  own 
free  will  she  desired  to  be  admitted  to  serious  studies  to  which 
others  are  driven  even  by  force'.'  She  left  her  father's  residence 
for  Herford,  where  she  was  so  happy  that  in  after  years  she  often 
longed  to  be  back  there.  In  852  at  the  age  of  twelve  she  was 
taken  away  to  Gandersheim  to  preside  over  the  new  settlement. 
This  settlement  was  to  be  an  improvement  on  existing  institutions 
of  the  kind,  for  Agius  tells  us  that  its  members  were  not  allowed 
to  have  separate  cells  or  to  keep  servants.  They  slept  in  tene- 
ments (villula)  in  the  neighbourhood  till  their  'spiritual  mother' 
was  able  to  provide  them  with  a  suitable  dwelling.  Curious  side- 
lights are  thrown  on  other  religious  institutions  by  the  following  re- 
marks of  Agius  on  the  nuns  of  Hathumod's  convent :  *  They  shared 
everything,'  he  says* ;  '  their  clothes  were  alike,  neither  too  rich 
nor  too  poor,  nor  entirely  of  wool.  The  sisters  were  not  allowed 
to  dine  out  with  relatives  and  friends,  or  to  converse  with  them 
without  leave.  They  were  not  allowed  like  other  nuns  (sancti- 
moniales)  to  leave  the  monastery  to  stay  with  relatives  or  visit 
dependent  estates  (possessiones  subjectae).  And  they  were 
forbidden  to  eat  except  at  the  common  table  at  the  appointed 
times  except  in  cases  of  sickness.  At  the  same  hour  and  in  the 
same  place  they  partook  of  the  same  kind  of  food.  They  slept 
together  and  came  together  to  celebrate  the  canonical  hours  (ad 

'  Agius,  Vita  et  Obitus  HcUhumodae,  ch.  3.  ^  Ibid.  ch.  5. 


156  Early  History  of  Gandersheim.  [chap,  v 

canonicos  cursus  orandi).     And  they  set  to  work  together  when- 
ever work  had  to  be  done.' 

Agius  draws  a  beautiful  picture  of  the  gentleness  and  dignified 
bearing  of  Hathumod,  who  was  at  once  strong  and  sensitive. 
She  was  always  greatly  cheered  by  signs  of  goodness  in  others, 
and  she  was  as  much  grieved  by  an  offence  of  a  member  of  the 
community  as  if  she  had  committed  it  herself.  Agius  tells  us 
that  she  was  slow  in  making  friends  but  that  she  clung  faithfully 
through  life  to  those  she  had  made. 

Her  literary  acquirements  were  considerable.  'No  one  could 
have  shown  greater  quickness  of  perception,  or  a  stronger  power 
of  understanding  in  listening  to  or  in  expounding  the  scriptures,' 
he  says',  and  the  scriptures  always  remained  her  favourite  reading. 

It  is  difficult  to  form  an  idea  of  the  standard  of  life  in  these 
religious  settlements.  The  age  was  rough  and  barbarous  in  many 
ways,  but  the  surroundings  of  the  Saxon  dukes  did  not  lack  a 
certain  splendour,  and  traces  of  it  would  no  doubt  be  found  in  the 
homes  they  made  for  their  daughters.  In  these  early  accounts 
nothing  transpires  about  their  possessions  in  books  and  furniture, 
but  it  is  incidentally  mentioned  that  the  abbess  Hathumod  owned 
a  crystal  vessel  in  the  form  of  a  dove,  which  contained  relics  and 
hung  suspended  by  her  bedside^ 

The  plan  was  formed  to  build  a  stone  church  for  Gandersheim 
an  unusual  and  difficult  undertaking.  No  suitable  stone,  however, 
could  be  found  till  one  day,  as  Hathumod  was  praying  in  the 
chapel,  she  was  divinely  moved  to  walk  forth  and  follow  a  dove 
which  was  awaiting  her  outside.  The  bird  led  the  way  to  a 
spot  where  the  underwood  was  removed  and  masses  of  stone 
which  could  be  successfully  dealt  with  were  laid  bare.  '  It  is  the 
spot  barren  through  its  huge  masses  of  stone,  as  we  know  it  now- 
a-days,'  Hrotsvith  the  nun  wrote  a  hundred  years  later'. 

The  densely-wooded  character  of  the  neighbourhood  is  fre- 
quently referred  to  by  early  and  later  writers.  Lingering  super- 
stitions peopled  the  forest  with  heathen  fantasies,  with  'fauns 
and  spirits,'  as  Hrotsvith  designates  them.  The  settlement  lay 
in  the  midst  of  the  forest  and  was  at  all  times  difficult  of  access, 
but  especially  so  in  winter  when  the  ground  was  covered  with 
snow.  In  the  introduction  to  her  history  of  Otto  the  Great 
Hrotsvith  likens  her  perplexity  and  fear  in  entering  on  so  vast 

'  Agius,  Vita  et  Obitus  Hathumodae,  ch.  9.  '  Ibid.  ch.  15. 

^  '  Carmen  de  Primordiis  Coenobii  Gandersh.,'  line  273. 


SECT,  ii]  Early  History  of  Gander sheim.  157 

a  subject  to  the  state  of  mind  of  one  who  has  to  cross  the  forest 
in  nnid  winter,  a  simile  doubtless  suggested  by  the  surroundings 
of  the  convent*.  Her  feelings,  she  says,  were  those  of  '  someone 
who  is  ignorant  of  the  vast  expanse  of  the  forest  which  lies  before 
him,  all  the  paths  of  which  are  hidden  by  a  thick  covering  of 
snow ;  he  is  guided  by  no  one  and  keeps  true  to  his  direction  only 
by  noticing  the  marks  pointed  out  to  him ;  sometimes  he  goes 
astray,  unexpectedly  he  again  strikes  the  right  path,  and  having 
penetrated  half  way  through  the  dense  interlacing  trees  and  brush- 
wood he  longs  for  rest  and  stops  and  would  proceed  no  farther, 
were  he  not  overtaken  by  some  one,  or  unexpectedly  guided  by 
the  footprints  of  those  who  have  gone  before.' 

Neither  Liudolf  the  founder  of  Gandersheim  nor  his  daughter 
Hathumod  lived  to  see  the  stone  church  completed.  He  died 
in  866,  and  the  abbess  in  874  at  the  age  of  thirty-two.  She  was 
surrounded  by  her  nuns,  among  whom  were  several  of  her  sisters, 
and  her  mother  Oda,  who  had  also  come  to  live  at  Gandersheim. 
The  monk  Agius,  who  was  a  frequent  visitor  at  the  home,  was 
often  with  her  during  her  last  illness,  and  after  her  death  he  com- 
posed an  elegy  in  dialogue  to  comfort  the  nuns  under  the  loss 
they  had  sustained.  This  poem  is  full  of  sweetness  and  delicacy 
of  feeling,  and  is  said  to  have  been  written  on  the  model  of  the 
eclogues  of  Virgil.  Alternate  verses  are  put  into  the  mouths  of 
the  nuns  and  of  Agius ;  they  describe  their  sorrow,  and  he  dwells 
on  the  thoughts  which  might  be  a  consolation  to  them.  It  opens 
in  this  strain  : 

'  Sad  were  the  words  we  exchanged,  I  and  those  holy  and 
worthy  sisters  who  watched  the  dying  moments  of  the  sainted 
abbess  Hathumod.  I  had  been  asked  to  address  them,  but  somehow 
their  recent  grief  made  it  impossible  for  them  to  listen  to  me,  for 
they  were  bowed  down  by  sorrow.  The  thoughts  which  I  then  ex- 
pressed I  have  now  put  into  verse  and  have  added  somewhat  to 
them.  For  they  (the  sisters)  asked  me  to  address  them  in  writing, 
since  it  would  comfort  them  to  have  before  their  eyes,  and  to  dwell 
upon,  the  words  which  I  then  spoke  in  sadness.  Yielding  to  their 
wish  and  entreaties,  I  have  attempted  to  express  the  thoughts 
which  follow.  Thou,  O  reader,  understand  that  I  am  conversing 
with  them,  and  follow  us  if  thou  wilt  in  our  lament' 

He  then  directly  addresses  the  nuns  and  continues :  '  Certainly 
we  should  weep  for  one  who  died  before  her  time  in  the  bloom 

*  'Carmen  de  Gestis  Oddonis  I,'  in  Opera,  edit.  Barack,  1858,  p.  302. 


1^8  Early  History  of  Gander sheim.  [chap,  v 

of  youth.     Yet  grief  also  has  its  limits;  your  sorrowful  weeping 
should  be  within  bounds.     'Tis  natural  you  should  be  unhappy, 
still  reason  commands  moderation  in  all  things,  and   I   therefore 
entreat  you,  O  beloved  and  holy  sisters,  to  stay  your  weeping  and 
your  tears.     Spare  your  energies,  spare  your  eyesight  which  you 
•are  wearing  out  by  excess  of  grief.     "  Moderation  in  all  things  "  has 
been  said  wisely  and  has  been  said  well,  and  God  Himself  com- 
mands that  it  should  be  so.'    The  nuns  make  reply  in  the  following 
words  :  '  What  you  put  before  us  is  certainly  true.     We  know  full 
well    that    God    forbids    excess,    but    our    grief    seems    not    ex- 
cessive, for  it  falls  so  far  short  of  what  her  merit  claims.     We  can 
never  put  into  words  the  wealth  of  goodness  which  we  have  lost 
in  her.     She  was  as  a  sister  to  us,  as  a  mother,  as  a  teacher,  this 
our  abbess  under  whose  guidance  we  lived.     We  who  were  her 
handmaids  and  so  far  beneath  her  shared  her  life  as  her  equals  ;  for 
one  will  guided  us,  our  wishes  were  the  same,  our  pursuits  alike. 
Shall  we  not  grieve  and  weep  and  lament  from  our  hearts  for  her 
who  made  our  joy  and  was  our  glory,  and  in  whom  we  have  lost 
our  happiness }     There  can  be  no  excess  of  tears,  of  weeping  and 
of  grief,  for  in  them  only  we  find  solace  now  that  we  shall  never 
more  behold  her  sweet  face.'     Agius  replies :  '  I  doubt  not  that 
your  grief  is  well  founded,  or  that  your  tears  rightly  flow.     But 
weeping  will  not  undo  you  altogether,  for  the  body  has  powers 
of  endurance ;  you  must  bear  this  great  anguish,  for  it  has  come 
to  you  through  the  will  of  God.     Believe  me,  you  are  not  alone  in 
this  grief,  I  too  am  oppressed  by  it,  I  too  am  suffering,  and  I  cannot 
sufficiently  express  to  you  how  much  I  also  have  lost  in  her.     You 
know  full  well  how  great  was  her  love  for  me,  and  how  she  cherished 
me  while  she  lived.     You  know  how  anxious  she  was  to  see  me 
when  she  fell  ill,  with  what  gladness  she  received  me,  and  how  she 
spoke  to  me  on  her  deathbed.     The  words  she  spoke  at  the  last 
were  truly  elevating,  and  ever  and  anon  she  uttered  my  name.' 
Agius  tries  to  comfort  himself  with  dwelling  on  Hathumod's  gentle- 
ness and  sweetness,  and  urges  the  nuns  as  they  loved  their  abbess 
in  the  flesh  now  to  continue  loving  her  in  the  spirit.     This  alone, 
he  says,  will  help  the  work  to  grow  and  increase  which  she  began 
and   loved.     '  To  dwell  on   grief,'  he  says,  '  brings  weeping  and 
weakness ;   to  dwell   on    love  cheers   and    brings   strength.      The 
spirit  of  your  abbess  is  still  among  you,  it  was  that  which  you 
most  loved  in  her,  and  it  is  that  which  you  have  not  lost.' 

There  is  a  curiously  modern   ring   in   much   that  the   monk 


SECT,  ii]  Early  History  of  Gandersheim.  159 

urges.  His  poem  sets  forth  how  the  nuns  at  last  took  heart, 
and  requested  Agius  to  visit  them  again  and  help  them  with  his 
advice,  which  he  promised  to  do. 

On  her  deathbed  Hathumod  in  talking  to  Agius  compared  her 
monastery  to  a  plant  of  delicate  growth  and  deplored  that  no  royal 
charter  sanctioning  its  privileges  had  as  yet  been  obtained  ^  This 
charter  and  further  privileges  were  secured  to  the  settlement 
during  the  abbacy  of  Gerberg  I  (874-897),  sister  and  successor 
of  Hathumod,  a  woman  of  determined  character  and  full  of  en- 
thusiasm for  the  settlement.  She  was  betrothed  at  one  time  to 
a  certain  Bernhard,  against  whose  will  she  came  to  live  at  Gan- 
dersheim, and  refused  to  leave  it.  He  had  been  summoned  to  war, 
and  departed  declaring  that  she  should  not  remain  in  the  convent 
after  his  return.  But  opportunely  for  her  wishes  he  was  killed 
and  she  remained  at  Gandersheim.  She  ruled  as  abbess  more 
than  twenty  years  and  advanced  the  interests  of  the  settlement 
in  many  ways.  The  stone  church  which  had  been  begun  during 
Hathumod's  rule  was  completed  during  that  of  Gerberg  and  was 
consecrated  in  881,  on  All  Saints'  Day.  The  bishop  of  Hildesheim 
officiated  at  the  ceremony  of  consecration,  many  visitors  came 
to  assist,  and  the  assembled  nuns  for  the  first  time  took  part  in 
the  singing  of  divine  service. 

The  abbess  Gerberg  was  succeeded  by  her  sister  Christine, 
who  ruled  from  897  to  919.  Kopke,  one  of  the  chief  modern 
historians  of  this  period,  considers  that  these  three  sisters, 
Hathumod,  Gerberg  and  Christine,  abbesses  of  Gandersheim, 
were  among  the  most  zealous  advocates  of  culture  and  civilizing 
influences  in  Saxony  during  the  9th  century*.  The  settlement 
became  a  centre  of  interest  to  the  whole  ducal  family.  After  the 
death  of  Liudolf  his  widow  Oda,  who  is  said  to  have  attained 
the  age  of  one  hundred  and  seven  years,  dwelt  there  altogether. 
She  outlived  her  son,  Duke  Otto,  who  died  in  912  and  was  buried 
at  Gandersheim,  and  it  is  said  that  she  lived  to  hear  of  the  birth 
of  her  great-grandson  Otto  (913),  who  was  destined  to  become 
king  and  emperor. 

After  the  death  of  the  abbess  Christine  the  settlement  of 
Gandersheim  drifts  for  a  time  into  the  background  ;  Quedlinburg, 
founded  by  Heinrich  I  at  the  instigation  of  his  wife  Mathilde, 
takes  its  place  in  ducal  and  royal  favour.     Scant  notices  are  pre- 

*  Agius,  Vita  et  Obitus  Hathumodae,  ch.  1 1 . 

'■'  Kopke,  R.,  Deutschlands  dlttste  Dichterin,  1869,  p.  17. 


i6o  Early  History  of  Gandersheim.  [chap,  v 

served  of  the  abbesses  who  ruled  during  the  first  half  of  the  lOth 
century.  We  hear  of  the  abbess  Hrotsvith  {^  927)  that  she  was 
distinguished  like  her  namesake  of  later  date  for  literary  acquire- 
ments^  and  that  she  wrote  treatises  on  logic  and  rhetoric  which 
are  lost.  And  '  what  is  more,'  says  an  early  writer*,  '  she  forced 
the  devil  to  return  a  bond  signed  with  blood  by  which  a  youth  had 
pledged  away  his  soul' 

Her  writings  may  have  perished  in  the  fire  which  ravaged  the 
settlement  without  permanently  interfering  with  its  prosperity 
during  the  rule  of  Gerberg  II  (959-1001).  Contemporary  writers 
concur  in  praise  of  the  learning,  the  powers  of  management  and 
the  educational  influence  of  this  princess,  who  was  the  daughter  of 
Heinrich,  duke  of  the  Bavarians  (t  955).  Heinrich  for  many  years 
was  the  enemy  and  rival  of  his  brother  Otto  I ;  and  the  final  recon- 
ciliation and  lasting  friendship  between  these  princes  formed  an 
important  episode  in  the  history  of  the  time.  We  do  not  know 
what  prompted  Gerberg  to  embrace  convent  life ;  perhaps  she 
became  a  nun  at  the  wish  of  her  father.  She  was  appointed  abbess 
at  the  age  of  nineteen  when  her  father  was  dead  and  her  mother 
Judith  was  ruling  in  Bavaria  in  the  interests  of  her  young  son. 
Gerberg  ruled  at  Gandersheim  for  forty-two  years ;  she  has  a 
special  claim  on  our  interest  because  she  was  the  friend,  teacher, 
and  patron  of  the  nun  Hrotsvith, 


§  3.     The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her  "Writings^ 

The  nun  Hrotsvith  occupies  a  unique  position  in  monastic  life 
and  among  unmarried  women  generally.  '  This  fruitful  poetic 
JaJentr'^say^^ the  writerJEbert^^^jiich  lacks  not_thgJnspiratiQn_arid_ 
the  courage  of  genius  to  enter  upon  new  ground,  evinces  how  the 
Saxon  element  was  chosen  to  guide  the  ^erman  nation  m  the 
domain  of  art.'  The  literary  work  of  Hrotsvith  can  be  grouped 
under  three  headings.  To  the  first  belongs  the  writing  of  metrical 
legends  which  were  intended  for  the  perusal  and  the  edification  of 
inmates  of  convents ;  to  the  second,  the  composition  of  seven 
dramas  written   in  the  style  of  Terence  ;    and  to  the  third,  the 

^  Harenberg,  Historia  Ecclesiae  Gandersh.,  1734,  p.  589. 

*  Meibom,  H.,  Reritm  German.  Script.,  1688,  vol.  i,  p.  706,  quoting  Selneccer. 
^  Hrotsvith,  Opera,  edit.  Barack,  1858;  Ebert,  KA.,  AUgemeine  GeschichU  der  Litteratur 
des  Abendlandes,  1887,  vol.  3,  p.  2856". 


-K' 


Mj 


SECT.  Ill]     TAe  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings.        i6i 

writing  of  contemporary  history  in  metrical  form.  Each  kind  of 
work  has  merits  of  its  own  and  deserves  attention.  But  while 
Hrotsvith  as  a  legend  writer  ranks  with  other  writers  of  the  age, 
and  as  a  historical  writer  is  classed  by  the  modern  historian  Giese- 
brecht  with  Widukind  and  Ruotger,  as  a  writer  of  Latin  drama 
she  stands  entirely  alone.  We  have  no  other  dramatic  com- 
positions except  hers  between  the  comedies  of  classic  times  and 
the  miracle  plays,  which  at  first  consisted  only  of  a  few  scenes 
with  bald  dialogue. 

It  can  be  gathered  from  Hrotsvith's  writings  that  she  was  born 
about  the  year  932 ;  anB~the  fa"cr  of  her  entering  a  nunnery  is 
proof  of  her  gentle  birth.  It  is  uncertain  when  she  came~~to 
TJandersheim,  probably  at  a  very  early  age.  She  owed  her  edu- 
cation there  partly  to  Rikkardis,  to  whom  she  refers  in  her  writings, 
but  chiefly  to  the  abbess  Gerberg,  who,  she  says,  was  somewhat 
younger  than  herself 

Judging  from  Hrotsvith's  writings  she  worked  diligently  and 
soon  attracted  attention  beyond  the  limits  of  her  convent.  The 
following  facts  in  regard  to  time  are  of  importance.  The  first 
of  her  two  sets  of  legends  was  put  together  and  dedicated  to     '^^   jjJJ 

T 


Gerberg  as   abbess,  that   is  after   the  year  959;   she  wrotg_ajpd  \j) 
submitted  part_jf  not  the  whole  of  herjiistory  of  Otto  the  Great     wl^ 
to  Wilhelm,  archbishop  of  Mainz,  before  the  year  968,  in  which       ^     ih) 
the  prelate  died.     How  the  composition  of  her  dramas  is  related     lJr\ 
in  point  of  time  to  that  of  the  legends  and  the  historical  poems     yjM^ 
cannot  be  definitely  decided ;  probably  the  dramas  were  written      '^  6^ 
in  the  middle  period  of  Hrotsvith's  life.     For  the  legends  bear 
marks  of  being  the  outcome  of  early  effort,  while  the  historical 
poems,  especially  the  one  which  tells  of  the  early  history  of  Ganders- 
heim,  were  written  in  the  full  consciousness  of  power.     We  do  not 
know  the  date  of  Hrotsvith's  death ;  an  early  chronicle  says  that 
she  wrote  a  history  of  the  three  Emperors  Otto,  in  which  case  she 
must  have  lived  till  1002,  that  being  the  year  of  Otto  Ill's  death. 
But  the  annalist  to  whom  we  owe  this  remark  may  have  been 
misinformed ;  only  a  part  of  the  history  of  the  first  emperor  is 
extant,  and  we  cannot  argue  from  any  references  in  her  other 
works  that  she  wrote  a  continuation  of  it\     The  nun  and  her 
writings  soon  ceased  to  attract  attention,  and   there  are  few  re- 
ferences to  her  in  any  writings  for  nearly  five  hundred  years.     At 
the  beginning  of  the  i6th  century,  however,  the  humanist  Conrad 
*  Opera,  edit.  Barack,  Einleitung,  p.  6. 
E.  II 


1 62  The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings,     [chap,  v 

Celtes  came  across  a  copy  of  her  dramas,  which  seemed  to  him 
so  remarkable  that  he  had  them  printed.  And  since  then  they 
have  repeatedly  been  published,  and  excellent  translations  have 
been  made  of  them  into  German  and  French \ 

In  the  introduction  to  her  plays  Hrotsvith  appeals  to  the 
judgment  of  powerful  patrons,  but  she  does  not  give  their  names ; 
in  her  history,  as  mentioned  above,  she  asks  for  criticism  from 
Wilhelm,  archbishop  of  Mainz,  who  was  the  illegitimate  son  of 
Otto  I,  and  a  leading  prelate  of  the  time.  This  exhausts  what  we 
know  of  friends  outside  the  convent ;  probably  the  abbess  Gerberg 
was  the  chief  critic  throughout  and  had  more  influence  on  her  than 
any  other.  It  was  she  who  introduced  Hrotsvith  to  the  works, 
classical  and  other,  which  she  had  herself  studied  under  learned 
men,  and  she  was  always  ready  to  encourage  her  able  pupil  and 
supply  her  with  materials  to  work  upon. 

The  library  at  Gandersheim,  to  which  Hrotsvith  had  access, 


contaTned~tKe"'wntingsof  a  nuniber  of  classical  arid  theological 
^  authors.  Among  the  classical  writers  with  whom  the  nun  is 
,|hought  ^  have  beendirectly  acquarnted~~were  Virgil,  Lucan, 
Horace.  Ovid,  Terence,  and  perhaps  Plautusj  airibng  the  Chrlstjan 
writers  Prudentius,.  Sedulius,  ^Fortunatus,  Marianus  Capella,  and 
Boethjiisl — -Ebert,  who  has  analysed  the  sources  from  which 
Hrotsvith  drew  the  subject  matter  of  her  legends  and  dramas, 
considers  that  at  this  time  Greek  authors  were  read  at  Ganders- 
heim in  Latin  translations  only.  Another  writer,  ^rguing_from 
the  fact  that  ^e^  nun  frequently  uses  words  of^Greek^rigin^on- 
siders  that^e  had_jonieJcnowledge  of  Greek".  This  latter  opinion 
has  little  in  its  favour.  However  we  know  that  Greek  teachers 
were  summoned  from  Constantinople  to  instruct  Hedwig,  Gerberg's 
sister,  who  was  to  have  married  the  Emperor  Constantine.  The 
match  fell  through,  but  the  Saxon  royal  family  aimed  steadily  at 
securing  an  alliance  with  the  court  of  Constantinople,  and  ultimately 
attained  this  object  by  the  marriage  of  Otto  II  to  the  Greek 
princess  Theofanu  (971). 

After  Hrotsvith  had  mastered  the  contents  of  the  library  at 
Gandersheim  she  was  moved  to  try  her  hand  at  writing  Latin 
verse ;  she  cast  into  metrical  form  the  account  of  the  birth  and 
life  of  the  Virgin  Mary  contained   in  a  gospel   which   in   some 

*  Piltz,  O.,  Die  Dramen  der  Roswitha,  no  date;  Magnin,  Thidtre  de  Hrotsvitka,  1845. 
'  Kopke,  R.,  Deutschlands  dlteste  Dichterin,  1869,  p.  28. 

*  Hrotsvith,  Opera,  edit.  Barack,  Einleitung,  p.  54. 


SECT.  Ill]     The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her  Writings.        163 

manuscripts  is  ascribed  to  St  James,  the  brother  of  Christ*.  The 
story  is  well  told,  and  the  incidents  described  follow  each  other 
naturally ;  the  poem  exceeds  nine  hundred  lines  in  length.  She 
supplements  the  original  text  with  some  amplifications  of  a  de- 
scriptive nature  and  a  panegyric  on  Christ,  with  which  she  closes 
the  poem. 

The  diffidence  Hrotsvith  felt  at  first  in  writing  is  described  in 
the  introduction  which  she  prefixed  to  the  complete  collection  of 
her  legendary  poems  and  addressed  to  a  wider  public^ 

'  Unknown  to  others  and  secretly,  so  to  speak,  I  worked  by 
myself;  she  says,  'sometimes  I  composed,  sometimes  I  destroyed 
what  I  had  written  to  the  best  of  my  abilities  and  yet  badly ;  I  dealt 
with  material  taken  from  writings  with  which  I  became  acquainted 
within  the  precincts  of  our  monastery  of  Gandersheim  through 
the  help  of  our  learned  and  kindly  teacher  Rikkardis,  afterwards 
through  that  of  others  who  taught  in  her  place,  and  finally  through 
that  of  the  high-born  abbess  Gerberg,  under  whom  I  am  living  at 
present,  who  is  younger  than  I  am  in  years  but  more  advanced 
in  learning  as  befits  one  of  royal  lineage,  and  who  has  introduced 
me  to  various  authors  whom  she  has  herself  studied  with  the  help 
of  learned  men.  Writing  verse  appears  a  difficult  and  arduous 
task  especially  for  one  of  my  sex,  but  trusting  to  the  help  of  divine 
grace  more  than  to  my  own  powers,  I  have  fitted  the  stories  of 
this  book  to  dactylic  measures  as  best  I  could,  for  fear  that  the 
abilities  that  have  been  implanted  in  me  should  be  dulled  and 
wasted  by  neglect ;  for  I  prefer  that  these  abilities  should  in  some 
way  ring  the  divine  praises  in  support  of  devotion ;  the  result  may 
not  be  in  proportion  to  the  trouble  taken  and  yet  it  may  be  to  the 
profit  of  some.' 

The  nun  is  filled  with  the  consciousness  that  her  undertaking 
is  no  mean  one.  '  Full  well  I  know,'  she  says,  addressing  the 
Virgin,  *  that  the  task  of  proclaiming  thy  merits  exceeds  my  feeble 
strength,  for  the  whole  world  could  not  celebrate  worthily  that 
which  is  a  theme  of  praise  among  the  angels.'  The  poem  on  the 
life  of  the  Virgin  is  written  in  leonine  hexameters,  that  is  with 
rhymes  at  the  middle  and  the  end  of  the  line.  This  form  of  verse 
was  sometimes  used  at  that  period,  and  Hrotsvith  especially  in  her 
later  historical  poems  handled  it  with  considerable  skill. 

Hrotsvith  afterwards  added  to  the  account  of  the  Virgin  a 

'  Opera,  edit.  Bamck,  p.  3. 

II — 2 


164         The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings,     [chap,  v 

poem  of  a  hundred  and  fifty_lines  on  the  ^scension  of  Christ*. 
In  this,  as  she  tells  us,  she  adapted  an  account  written  by  John 
the  Bishop,  which  had  been  translated  from  Greek  into  Latin. 

This  poem  also  is  simple  ^jid  dignified,  and  gives ^roof  of 
considerable  power  of  expression  on  the  part  of  the  nun.  Her 
vocabulary  however  has  certam  peculiarTtTes^^'Ior^he  is^fond  of  di- 
minutives, a  tendency  which  in  the  eyes  of  her  editor  is  peculiarly 
feminine*. 

The  poem  on  the  Ascension  closes  with  the  following  character- 
istic lines :  '  Whoever  reads  this  let  him  exclaim  in  a  forbearing 
spirit :  Holy  King,  spare  and  have  mercy  on  the  suppliant  Hrots- 
vith and  suffer  that  she  who  here  has  been  celebrating  thy  glorious 
deeds  may  persevere  further  in  holy  song  on  things  divine ! ' 

The  next  subject  which  engrossed  the  nun's  attention  was  the 
history  of  Gongolf,  a  huntsman  and  warrior  of  Burgundy,  who 
lived  in  the  time  of  King  Pipin.  He  was  credited  with  performing 
wonders  such  as  calling  up  a  fountain ;  he  was  a  pious  Christian 
and  was  put  to  a  cruel  death  by  his  faithless  wife  and  her  lover. 
This  poem  is  over  five  hundred  lines  in  length  and  contains  some 
fine  descriptive  passages.  The  version  of  the  story  Hrotsvith  made 
use  of  being  lost,  we  cannot  tell  how  far  she  drew  upon  her  own 
powers  of  narrative*. 

But  the  next  legend  she  wrote  left  full  scope  for  originality 
of  treatment.  It  describes  the  experiences  and  martyrdom  of 
Pelagius,  a  youth  who  had  been  recently  (925)  put  to  death  by 
the  Saracens  at  Cordova  in  Spain ;  the  event,  as  she  herself  informs 
us,  had  been  described  to  Hrotsvith  by  an  eye-witness.  The 
story  opens  with  an  enthusiastic  description  of  the  beauties  of 
Cordova.  Pelagius,  the  son  of  a  king  of  Galicia,  persuaded  his 
father  to  leave  him  as  hostage  with  the  Caliph.  But  the  Caliph, 
enamoured  by  the  youth's  physical  beauty,  persecuted  him  with 
attentions,  and  meeting  with  contempt  ordered  him  to  be  cast 
down  from  the  city  walls.  The  young  man  remained  unharmed, 
and  was  then  beheaded  and  his  head  and  body  thrown  into  the 
river.  Fishermen  picked  them  up  and  carried  them  to  a  monastery, 
where  their  identity  was  ascertained  by  casting  the  head  in  the 


*  'Ascensio  Domini,'  Opera,  p.  37. 

^  Opera,  edit.  Barack,  Einleitung,  p.  48.  '  *  Gongolf,'  Opera,  p.  43. 

*  Ebert,  Allgemeine  Geschichte  der  Litteratur  des  Abendlandes,  1887,  vol.  3,  p.  290. 
'  '  Pelagius,'  Opera,  p.  63. 


SECT.  Ill]     The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings.        165 

fire,  which  left  it  untouched.  The  head  and  body  were  then  given 
solemn  burial. 

The  next  legend  has  repeatedly  been  commented  on  as  the 
earliest  account  in  verse  of  a  pact  with  the  devil  and  as  a  precursor 
of  the  many  versions  of  the  legend  of  Faust \  The  '  Lapse  and 
conversion  of  Theophilus*'  may  have  had  special  attractions  for 
Hrotsvith  since  the  incident  of  the  devil  forced  to  return  his  bond 
was  connected,  as  mentioned  above,  with  her  namesake  Hrotsvith, 
abbess  of  Gandersheim.  The  story  of  Theophilus  which  Hrotsvith 
expanded  and  put  into  verse  had  recently  been  translated  from 
Greek  into  Latin,  as  Ebert  has  shown.  The  story  runs  as 
follows. 

Theophilus,  nephew  of  a  bishop  of  Cilesia  (of  uncertain  date), 
had  been  educated  in  the  seven  liberal  arts,  but  he  held  himself 
unworthy  of  succeeding  his  uncle,  and  considered  the  office  of 
'  vice-domus '  more  suited  to  his  powers.  His  popularity  however 
drew  on  him  the  hatred  of  the  newly  appointed  bishop,  who  robbed 
him  of  his  post.  Thirsting  for  revenge  the  young  man  went  for 
advice  to  a  certain  Hebrew,  '  who  by  magic  art  turned  away  many 
of  the  faithful,'  and  who  led  him  at  night  through  the  town  to 
a  dark  place  '  full  of  phantasms  that  stood  in  white  clothes  holding 
torches  in  their  hands'  (line  99).  Their  demon  king  was  at  first 
indignant  that  a  Christian  claimed  his  assistance  and  jeered  at 
the  Christians'  ways,  but  at  last  he  promised  to  help  Theophilus 
on  condition  that  he  should  sign  an  agreement  by  which  he 
pledged  himself  to  be  one  of  the  ghastly  crew  to  all  eternity. 
The  young  man  agreed  to  the  condition,  and  on  his  return  home 
was  favourably  received  by  the  bishop  and  reinstated  in  his 
dignity.  But  his  peace  of  mind  had  deserted  him  ;  again  and 
again  he  was  seized  by  qualms  of  conscience  and  affrighted  by 
agonising  visions  of  eternal  suffering  which  he  forcibly  describes 
in  a  monologue.  At  last  he  sought  to  escape  from  his  contract 
by  praying  to  the  Virgin  Queen  of  heaven  in  her  temple,  and  for 
forty  days  consecutively  prayed  to  her  to  intercede  in  his  favour 
with  God.  The  Virgin  at  last  appeared  to  him,  told  him  that 
he  was  free  and  handed  him  the  fatal  document.  On  a  festal 
day  he  confessed  his  wrong-doing  before  all  the  people  and  burnt 
the  parchment  in  their  presence.     In  the  very  act  of  doing  so  he 


1  Ebert,  Allgenuine  Geschichte  der  Litteratur  des  Abendlandes,  1887,  vol.  3,  p.  295. 
'  'Theophilus,'  Opera,  p.  79. 


1 66         The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her  Writings,     [chap,  v 


appeared  as  a  changed  man  before  their  eyes  and  was  instantly 
overtaken  by  death. 

To  this  legend  Hrotsvith  attached  a  little  prayer  of  eight  lines 
which  is  a  grace  for  use  at  meals.  This  prayer  is  in  no  way 
connected  with  the  legend,  and  its  presence  here  indicates  that 
the  legends  were  originally  intended  to  be  read  aloud  during  meals 
in  the  refectory,  and  the  reading  to  be  closed  with  a  prayer. 

Having  written  so  far  Hrotsvith  collected  her  legendary  poems 
together  with  the  poem  on  the  Virgin  and  dedicated  them  in  the 
form  of  a  little  book  to  her  teacher,  the  abbess  Gerberg.  Evidently 
the  stories  attracted  attention  beyond  the  limits  of  the  convent, 
and  HrotsvTth^was  encouraged  to  Continue  in  Th^ 'path"~she~Tiad 
chosen.  Accordingly  she  wrote  a  second  set  of  legends,  in  com- 
J^sing  which  she  was  mindful  oLa-wider^publicand  thatjiot  ex- 
clusiveiy  of  her  own  sex. _  Foil  in  the  opening  lines  of  the  first 
of^  these  legends  which  treats  of  the  conversion  of  Proterius  by 
BasiliusT^isHop  of  CaesareaTshe  begs  that  those  who  peruse  this 
story  *  will  not  on  account  of  her  sex  despise  the  woman  who  draws 
these  strains  from  a  fragile  reed\' 

The  story  of  this  conversion,  like  that  of  Theophilus,  treats  of 
a  pact  with  the  evil  one,  but  with  a  difference.  For  in  the  one 
story  the  man  signs  away  his  soul  to  regain  his  position,  in  the 
other  he  subscribes  the  fatal  bond  for  the  purpose  of  securing  the 
hand  of  the  bishop's  daughter.  The  bishop  however  intercedes 
with  God  in  his  behalf  and  regains  his  liberty  for  him.  The  poem 
is  neither  so  complete  nor  so  striking  as  that  of  Theophilus. 

Two  more  legends  are  grouped  with  it.  One  of  them  describes 
the  Passion  of  Dionysius*,  who  suffered  martyrdom  at  Paris,  and 
who  at  an  early  date  was  held  identical  with  Dionysius  the 
Areopagite.  The  hand  of  this  saint  had  been  given  as  a  relic 
to  King  Heinrich  the  Fowler,  and  had  been  deposited  by  him  at 
Quedlinburg — an  incident  which  made  the  saint's  name  familiar 
in  Saxon  lands. 

The  passion  of  Dionysius  is  described  according  to  a  prose 
account  written  by  Hilduin  (-f-  814),  but  Hrotsvith  abbreviated 
and  altered  it^  She  describes  how  Dionysius  witnessed  an  eclipse 
of  the  sun  at  Memphis  at  the  time  when  Christ  was  put  to 
death,  how  he  returned  to  Athens  and  there  waited  to  hear  some- 
thing of  the  new  god.     The  apostle  Paul  arrived  and  preached, 

^  'Proterius,'  Opcra^  p.  97.  *  'Dionysius,'  Opera,  p.  107. 

'  Ebert,  Allgeiiiehie  Geschichte  der  Litteratitr  des  Abendlandes,  1887,  vol.  3,  p.  300. 


SECT.  Ill]     The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her  Writings.        167 

and  Dionysius  followed  him  to  Rome.  From  Rome  he  was 
despatched  into  Gaul  to  preach  the  new  faith,  and  while  there  he 
was  first  cast  into  the  flames  which  did  not  burn  him,  and  then 
thrown  before  wild  beasts  which  refused  to  touch  him.  He  was 
finally  beheaded  during  the  persecutions  under  Diocletian.  In 
this  poem  there  is  an  especially  fine  passage  in  which  we  hear  how 
Dionysius  after  being  beheaded  rose  to  life  and  took  up  his  head, 
which  he  carried  away  down  the  hill  to  the  spot  where  he  wished 
to  be  buried, — a  story  similar  to  that  told  of  many  saints. 

The  last  legend  which  Hrotsvith  wrote  treats  of  the  Passion  of 
St  Agnes,  a  virgin  saint  of  Rome,  whose  fortitude  in  tribulation 
and  stedfast  adherence  to  Christianity  and  to  the  vow  she  had 
taken  made  her  story  especially  suitable  for  a  convent  of  nuns\ 
The  story  has  often  been  put  into  writing  from  the  4th  century 
downwards ;  Hrotsvith  took  her  account  from  that  ascribed  to 
Ambrosius  (-f*  397),  which  she  followed  closely.  She  prefaces  it 
with  an  address  to  maidens  vowed  to  God,  who  are  exhorted  to 
remain  steadfast  in  their  purpose.  Like  most  of  these  legendary 
tales  it  is  between  four  and  five  hundred  lines  in  length. 

Throughout  her  legends  Hrotsvith,  as  she  herself  says  in  a  few 
remarks  which  stand  at  the  conclusion  of  the  legends,  was  bent 
on  keeping  close  to  the  original  accounts  from  which  she  worked. 
'  I  have  taken  the  material  for  this  book,  like  that  for  the  one  pre- 
ceding it,  from  ancient  books  compiled  by  authentic  authors  (certis 
nominibus),  the  story  of  Pelagius  alone  is  excepted....  If  mistakes 
have  crept  into  my  accounts,  it  is  not  because  I  have  intentionally 
erred  but  because  I  have  unwittingly  copied  mistakes  made  by 
others  ^' 

Ebert,  commenting  on  the  spirit  of  the  legends  generally,  re- 
marks on  the  masterly  way  in  which  the  nun  has  dealt  with  her 
material,  on  her  skill  in  supplying  gaps  left  by  earlier  writers,  on 
her  deft  handling  of  rhyme  and  rhythm,  on  the  right  feeling  which 
guides  her  throughout  her  work,  and  on  the  completeness  of  each 
of  her  legends  as  a  whole^ 

The  lines  in  which  the  second  set  of  legends  are  dedicated  to 
Gerberg  bear  witness  to  the  pleasure  Hrotsvith  derived  from  her 
work.  '  To  thee,  lady  Gerberg,'  she  says,  '  I  dedicate  these  stories, 
adding  new  to  earlier  ones,  as  a  sinner  who  deserves  benevolent 
indulgence.     Rejoicing  I  sing  to  the  accompaniment  with  dactylic 

*  'Agnes,'  Opera,  p.  117.  '^  Opera,  p.  133. 

'  Ebert,  Allgemeine  Geschichte  der  Littcratur  des  Abendlandes,  1887,  ^o'-  3»  P*  S®*' 


1 68         TJie  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings,     [chap,  v 

measures  ;  do  not  despise  them  because  they  are  bad,  but  praise 
in  your  gentle  heart  the  workings  of  God'.' 

Having  so  far  worked  along  accepted  lines  and  achieved 
success  therein,  the  nun  of  Gandersheim  was  moved  to  strike  out 
a  new  path.  Conscious  of  her  powers  and  conscious  of  a  need  of 
her  time,  filled  with  admiration  for  the  dramatic  powers  of  classical 
writers  while  disapproving  of  their  tendencies,  she  set  to  work  to 
compose  a  series  of  plays  on  the  model  of  Terence,  in  which 
she  dramatised  incidents  and  experiences  calculated  to  have  an 
elevating  influence  on  her  fellow-nuns. 

How  she  came  to  write  plays  at  all  and  what  determined  her 
in  the  choice  of  her  subject,  she  has  described  in  passages  which 
are  worth  quoting  in  full.  They  show  that  she  was  not  wanting 
either  in  spirit  or  in  determination,  and  that  her  conviction  that 
the  classical  form  of  drama  was  without  equal  strengthened  her 
in  her  resolve  to  make  use  of  that  form  as  the  vehicle  for  stories 
of  an  altogether  different  tenor.  The  interest  of  the  plays  of 
Terence  invariably  turns  on  the  seduction  of  women  and  exposure 
of  the  frailty  of  the  sex  ;  the  nun  of  Gandersheim  determined  to 
set  forth  woman's  stedfast  adherence  to  a  vow  once  taken  and 
her  firm  resistance  to  temptation.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of 
these  compositions,  the  merit  of  originality  can  hardly  be  denied 
to  them.  They  were  intended  for  perusal  only,  but  there  is  nothing 
in  the  dialogue  or  mechanism  that  makes  a  dramatic  representation 
of  them  impossible. 

'There  are  many  Christians,'  says  the  nun^,  'from  whom  we 
cannot  claim  to  be  excepted,  who  because  of  the  charm  of  finished 
diction  prefer  heathen  literature  with  its  hollowness  to  our  religious 
books ;  there  are  others  who  hold  by  the  scripture  and  despise 
what  is  heathen,  and  yet  eagerly  peruse  the  poetic  creations  of 
Terence  ;  while  delighting  in  his  flow  of  language,  they  are  all 
polluted  by  the  godless  contents  of  his  works.  Therefore  I  "the 
well  known  mouthpiece  of  Gandersheim"  have  not  hesitated  in 
taking  this  poet's  style  as  a  model,  and  while  others  honour  him 
by  perusing  his  dramas,  I  have  attempted,  in  the  very  way  in 
which  he  treats  of  unchaste  love  among  evil  women,  to  celebrate 
according  to  my  ability  the  praiseworthy  chasteness  of  godlike 
maidens. 

'  In  doing  so,  I  have  often  hesitated  with  a  blush  on  my  cheeks 
through  modesty,  because  the  nature  of  the  work  obliged  me  to 

1  opera,  p.  95.  *  Opera,  p.  137. 


SECT.  Ill]     The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings.        169 

concentrate  my  attention  on  and  apply  my  mind  to  the  wicked 
passion  of  illicit  love  and  to  the  tempting  talk  of  the  amorous, 
against  which  we  at  other  times  close  our  ears.  But  if  I  had 
hesitated  on  account  of  my  blushes  I  could  not  have  carried  out 
my  purpose,  or  have  set  forth  the  praise  of  innocence  to  the  ful- 
ness of  my  ability.  For  in  proportion  as  the  blandishments  of 
lovers  are  enticing,  so  much  greater  is  the  glory  of  our  helper  in 
heaven,  so  much  more  glorious  the  triumph  of  those  who  prevail, 
especially  where  woman's  weakness  triumphs  and  man's  shameless 
strength  is  made  to  succumb.  Certainly  some  will  allege  that  my 
language  is  much  inferior,  much  poorer,  and  very  unlike  that  of 
him  whom  I  try  to  imitate.  It  is  so,  I  agree  with  them.  And 
yet  I  refuse  to  be  reproached  on  this  account  as  though  I  had 
meant  to  class  myself  with  those  who  in  their  knowledge  are  so 
far  above  my  insufficiency.  I  am  not  even  so  boastful  as  to  class 
myself  with  the  least  of  their  pupils ;  all  I  am  bent  on  is,  however 
insufficiently,  to  turn  the  power  of  mind  given  to  me  to  the  use 
of  Him  who  gave  it.  I  am  not  so  far  enamoured  of  myself  that 
I  should  cease  from  fear  of  criticism  to  proclaim  the  power  of 
Christ  which  works  in  the  saints  in  whatever  way  He  grants  it. 
If  anyone  is  pleased  with  my  work  I  shall  rejoice,  but  if  on  account 
of  my  unpolished  language  it  pleases  no  one,  what  I  have  done 
yet  remains  a  satisfaction  to  myself,  for  while  in  other  writings  I 
have  worked,  however  insufficiently,  only  in  heroic  strophe  (heroico 
strophio),  here  I  have  combined  this  with  dramatic  form,  while 
avoiding  the  dangerous  allurements  of  the  heathen.' 

Those  passages  in  which  Hrotsvith  speaks  of  her  modest 
hesitation  are  especially  worthy  of  notice  and  will  not  fail  to 
appeal  to  those  women  now-a-days,  who,  hoping  to  gain  a  clearer 
insight  into  the  difficulties  with  which  their  sex  has  to  contend, 
feel  it  needful  to  face  facts  from  which  their  sensibilities  naturally 
shrink.  They  will  appreciate  the  conflicting  feelings  with  which 
the  nun  of  Gandersheim,  well-nigh  a  thousand  years  ago,  entered 
upon  her  task,  and  admire  the  spirit  in  which  she  met  her  diffi- 
culties and  the  courage  with  which  she  carried  out  her  purpose,  in 
spite  of  her  consciousness  of  shortcomings  and  derogatory  criticism. 

As  she  points  out,  the  keynote  of  her  dramas  one  and  all  is 
to  insist  on  the  beauties  of  a  steadfast  adherence  to  chastity  as 
opposed  to  the  frenzy  and  the  vagaries  of  passion.  In  doing  so 
she  is  giving  expression  to  the  ideas  of  contemporary  Christian 
teaching,  which  saw  in  passion,  not  the  inborn  force  that  can  be 


170         The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her  Writings,     [chap,  v 

applied  to  good  or  evil  purpose,  not  the  storage  of  strength  which 
works  for  social  advantage  or  disadvantage,  but  simply  a  tendency 
in  human  nature  which  manifests  itself  in  lack  of  self-restraint, 
and  the  disturbing  element  which  interferes  with  the  attainment 
of  calmness  and  candour. 

As  Hudson,  one  of  the  few  English  writers  who  has  treated 
of  this  nun  and  her  writings^  remarks  :  '  It  is  on  the  literary  side 
alone  that  Hrotsvitha  belongs  to  the  classic  school.  The  spirit 
and  essence  of  her  work  belong  entirely  to  the  middle  ages ;  for 
beneath  the  rigid  garb  of  a  dead  language  beats  the  warm  heart 
of  a  new  era.  Everything  in  her  plays  that  is  not  formal  but 
essential,  everything  that  is  original  and  individual,  belongs  wholly 
to  the  christianised  Germany  of  the  loth  century.  Everywhere 
we  can  trace  the  influence  of  the  atmosphere  in  which  she  lived  ; 
every  thought  and  every  motive  is  coloured  by  the  spiritual  con- 
ditions of  her  time.  The  keynote  of  all  her  works  is  the  conflict 
of  Christianity  with  paganism ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that 
in  Hrotsvitha's  hands  Christianity  is  throughout  represented  by 
the  purity  and  gentleness  of  woman  while  paganism  is  embodied 
in  what  she  describes  as  '  the  vigour  of  men  (virile  robur).' 

For  the  nun  does  not  disparage  marriage,  far  from  it ;  nor 
does  she  inculcate  a  doctrine  of  general  celibacy.  It  is  not  a 
question  with  her  of  giving  up  a  lesser  joy  for  a  greater,  but  simply 
of  the  way  to  remain  true  to  the  higher  standard,  which  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  teaching  of  her  age  she  identified  with  a  life 
of  chastity.  Her  position  may  appear  untenable;  confusion  of 
thought  is  a  reproach  which  a  later  age  readily  casts  on  an  earlier. 
But  underneath  what  may  seem  unreasonable  there  is  the  aspira- 
tion for  self-control.  It  is  this  aspiration  which  gives  a  wide 
and  an  abiding  interest  to  her  plays.  For  she  is  not  hampered 
by  narrowness  of  thought  or  by  pettiness  of  spirit.  Her  horizon 
is  limited,  we  grant ;  but  she  fills  it  entirely  and  she  fills  it  well. 

Passing  from  these  generalities  to  the  plays  themselves,  we  find 
ourselves  in  a  variety  of  surroundings  and  in  contact  with  a  wide 
range  of  personalities.  The  transition  period  from  heathendom 
to  Christianity  supplies  in  most  cases  the  mental  and  moral  con- 
flicts round  which  centres  the  interest  of  these  plays. 

The  plays  are  six  in  number,  and  the  one  that  stands  first  is 
divided  into  two  separate  parts.  Their  character  varies  consider- 
ably.    There  is  the  heroic,  the  romantic,  the  comic  and  the  un- 

^  Hudson,  W.  H.,  *  Hrotsvitha  of  Gandersheim,'  English  Historical  Review,  x888. 


SECT.  Ill]     The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her  Writings.        171 

relieved  tragic  element,  and  the  two  plays  that  stand  last  contain 
long  disquisitions  on  scholastic  learning.  A  short  analysis  of  their 
contents  will  give  the  reader  an  idea  of  the  manner  in  which 
Hrotsvith  makes  her  conceptions  and  her  purpose  evident. 

'  Gallicanus,'  the  play  that  stands  first',  is  in  some  ways  the 
most  striking  of  all.  A  complex  theme  is  ably  dealt  with  and 
the  incidents  follow  each  other  rapidly  ;  the  scene  lies  alternately 
in  Rome  and  on  the  battle-field.  The  Emperor  Constantine  is 
bent  on  opposing  the  incursions  of  the  Scythians,  and  his  general 
Gallicanus  claims  the  hand  of  the  emperor's  daughter  Constantia 
as  a  reward  for  undertaking  so  dangerous  an  expedition.  Con- 
stantia is  a  convert  to  Christianity,  Gallicanus  is  a  heathen.  In 
an  interview  with  her  father  the  girl  declares  she  will  sooner  die 
than  be  united  to  a  heathen,  but  with  a  mixture  of  shrewdness 
and  confidence  in  her  faith  she  agrees  to  marry  him  on  his  return 
on  condition  that  the  Christians  John  and  Paul  shall  accompany 
him  on  his  expedition,  and  that  his  daughters  shall  meanwhile  be 
given  into  her  keeping.  The  manner  in  which  she  receives  the 
girls  is  at  once  proud  and  dignified.  '  Welcome  my  sisters,  Attica 
and  Artemia,'  she  exclaims ;  '  stand,  do  not  kneel,  rather  greet  me 
with  a  kiss  of  affection.'  There  is  no  development  of  character 
in  the  course  of  the  play,  for  Hrotsvith  is  chiefly  bent  on  depicting 
states  of  mind  under  given  conditions.  The  characters  in  them- 
selves are  forcibly  drawn :  witness  the  emperor's  affection  for  his 
daughter,  the  general's  strength  and  determination,  Constantia's 
dignified  bearing  and  the  gentleness  of  the  Christian  teachers.  The 
sequel  of  events  bears  out  Constantia's  anticipations.  The  daughters 
of  Gallicanus  are  easily  swayed  in  favour  of  Christianity  and  their 
father  is  converted.  For  Gallicanus  is  hard  pressed  by  the  Scythians 
on  the  battle-field  and  despairs  of  success,  when  the  Christian 
teachers  urge  him  to  call  upon  their  God  for  help.  He  does  so, 
overcomes  the  Scythians  and  takes  their  leader  Bradan  prisoner. 
In  recognition  of  his  victory  he  is  rewarded  by  a  triumphal  entry 
into  Rome.  But  he  is  now  a  convert  to  Christianity ;  he  describes 
to  the  emperor  how  Christ  Himself  and  the  heavenly  host  fought 
on  his  side,  and  he  approaches  Constantia  and  his  daughters  and 
thus  addresses  them  :  '  I  greet  you,  holy  maidens ;  abide  in  the 
fear  of  God  and  keep  inviolate  your  virgin  crown  that  the  eternal 
King  may  receive  you  in  His  embrace.'  Constantia  replies :  '  We 
serve  Him  the  more  readily  if  thou  dost  not  oppose  us.'    Gallicanus : 

^  'Gallicanus,'  Optra,  p.  143. 


1 72  The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings,     [chap,  v 

*  I  would  not  discourage,  prevent  or  thwart  your  wishes,  I  respect 
them,  so  far  that  I  would  not  now  constrain  thee,  beloved  Con- 
stantia,  whom  I  have  secured  at  the  risk  of  my  life.'  But  he 
admits  that  his  resolve  costs  him  much,  and  he  decides  to  seek 
solace  in  solitude  for  his  gripf  at  having  lost  so  great  a  prize. 

The  sequel  to  this  play  is  short,  and  describes  the  martyrdom 
of  the  Christian  teachers,  John  and  Paul,  who  had  accompanied 
Gallicanus  on  his  expedition.  Gallicanus  is  no  more,  the  Emperor 
Constantius  is  dead,  and  Julian  the  Apostate  reigns  in  his  stead 
and  cruelly  persecutes  the  Christians.  No  woman  appears  in 
this  part  of  the  play.  We  first  witness  the  martyrdom  of  the 
Christians  who  are  put  to  death  by  Terentian,  one  of  the  emperor's 
generals.  Terentian 's  son  is  then  seized  by  a  terrible  illness,  and 
his  unhappy  father  goes  to  the  grave  of  the  martyrs,  where  he 
becomes  a  convert  to  Christianity  and  prays  for  their  intercession 
with  God  in  behalf  of  his  son.  His  prayer  finds  fulfilment  and 
the  boy  is  restored  to  health.  Hrotsvith  took  this  story  from  the 
Acts  and  the  Passion  of  the  saints  John  and  Paul,  but,  as  Ebert 
has  shown,  the  development  is  entirely  her  own^  Though  work- 
ing on  the  model  of  Terence  the  nun  is  quite  indifferent  to  unities 
of  time  and  place,  and  sacrifices  everything  to  the  exigencies  of 
the  plot,  so  that  the  transition  from  scene  to  scene  is  often  sudden 
and  abrupt. 

The  next  play  is  '  Dulcetius,  or  the  sufferings  of  the  maidens 
Agape,  Chionia  and  Irene  I'  It  dramatises  a  story  which  was 
familiar  in  western  Europe  from  an  early  date  ;  Ealdhelm  mentions 
it  in  his  poem  on  Virginity.  Its  popularity  is  no  doubt  due  to 
the  juxtaposition  of  entirely  divergent  elements,  the  pathos  of 
martyrdom  being  in  close  company  with  scenes  of  broad  humour. 

During  the  persecutions  under  Diocletian  three  youthful  sisters 
are  brought  before  the  emperor,  who  thus  addresses  the  eldest : 

'  Diocletian.  The  noble  stock  from  which  you  spring  and  your 
extreme  beauty  demand  that  you  should  be  connected  with  our 
court  through  marriage  with  high  officials.  This  we  incline  to 
vouchsafe  you  if  you  agree  to  disown  Christ  and  offer  sacrifice 
to  our  most  ancient  gods. 

Agape.  O  spare  yourself  this  trouble,  do  not  think  of  giving 
us  in  marriage.  Nought  can  compel  us  to  disown  the  name  of 
Christ,  or  to  debase  our  purity  of  heart. 

*  Ebert,  Allgemeine  Geschichte  der  Litteratur  des  Abendlandes,  1887,  vol.  3,  p.  316. 
"  'Dulcetius,'  Opera,  p.  174. 


SECT.  Ill]     The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her  Writings.        173 

Diocletian.    What  is  the  object  of  this  madness  ? 

Agape.     What  sign  of  madness  do  you  see  in  us  ? 

Diocletian.     A  great  and  obvious  one. 

Agape.     In  what? 

Diocletian.  In  this,  that  casting  from  yourselves  the  observance 
of  the  ancient  faith,  you  follow  this  new  foolish  Christian  teaching. 

Agape.  Blasphemer,  fear  the  power  of  God  Almighty,  threaten- 
ing danger.... 

Diocletian.     To  whom  "i 

Agape.     To  you  and  to  the  realm  you  govern. 

Diocletian.     The  girl  is  crazy,  let  her  be  removed.' 

He  then  interviews  the  other  two,  but  with  similar  results ; 
threats  are  of  no  avail  and  the  girls  are  handed  over  to  the  general 
Dulcetius  to  be  summarily  dealt  with.  Dulcetius,  however,  is  so 
powerfully  impressed  by  their  beauty,  that  he  orders  them  to  be 
placed  in  a  chamber  beyond  the  kitchen,  hoping  to  take  advantage 
of  their  helplessness  and  induce  them  to  gratify  his  passion.  He 
repairs  at  night  to  the  chamber  in  spite  of  the  warning  of  his 
soldiers,  when  a  spell  falls  on  him,  he  misses  the  room,  and  his 
reason  so  utterly  forsakes  him  that  he  proceeds  to  fondle  and 
caress  the  pots  and  pans  which  he  seizes  upon  in  his  excitement. 
The  girls  are  watching  him  from  the  next  room  through  a  chink 
in  the  wall  and  make  merry  over  his  madness. 

*  Agape.     What  is  he  about .-' 

Hirena.  Why,  the  fool  is  out  of  his  mind,  he  fancies  he  has 
got  hold  of  us. 

Agape.     What  is  he  doing  ? 

Hirena.  Now  he  presses  the  kettle  to  his  heart,  now  he  clasps 
the  pots  and  pans  and  presses  his  lips  to  them. 

Chionia.     How  ludicrous ! 

Hirena.  His  face,  his  hands,  his  clothes  are  all  black  and 
sooty ;  the  soot  which  clings  to  him  makes  him  look  like  an 
Ethiopian. 

Agape.  Very  fitting  that  he  should  be  so  in  body,  since  the 
devil  has  possession  of  his  mind. 

Hirena.  Look,  he  is  going.  Let  us  wait  to  see  what  the 
soldiers  who  are  waiting  outside  will  do  when  they  see  him.' 

The  soldiers  fail  to  recognise  their  leader,  they  take  to  their 
heels.  Dulcetius  repairs  to  the  palace,  where  the  gatekeeper  scoffs 
at  his  appearance  and  refuses  him  admittance,  in  spite  of  his 
insisting  on  his  identity  and  speaking  of  himself  as  dressed  in 


174  T^ie  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings,     [chap,  v 

splendid  attire.  At  last  his  wife  who  has  heard  of  his  madness 
comes  forth  to  meet  him.  The  spell  is  broken  and  he  discovers 
that  he  has  been  the  laughing-stock  of  the  maidens.  He  then 
orders  them  to  be  exposed  naked  in  the  market-place  as  a  punish- 
ment. But  a  divine  power  causes  their  garments  to  cling  to  them, 
I  while  Dulcetius  falls  so  fast  asleep  that  it  is  impossible  to  rouse 
him.  The  Emperor  Diocletian  therefore  entrusts  the  accomplish- 
ment of  the  maidens'  martyrdom  to  Sisinnius.  Two  of  the  girls 
are  cast  into  the  flames,  but  their  souls  pass  away  to  heaven  while 
their  bodies  remain  without  apparent  hurt.  The  third  sister  is 
threatened  with  shameful  treatment,  but  before  it  is  carried  out 
she  is  miraculously  borne  away  to  a  hill-top.  At  first  the  soldiers 
attempt  in  vain  to  approach  her,  but  at  last  they  succeed  in  killing 
her  with  arrows.  The  youthful,  girlish  traits  which  appear  in  both 
the  mirth  and  the  sorrow  of  the  three  sisters  are  well  developed, 
and  form  a  vivid  contrast  to  the  unrelieved  brutality  of  Dulcetius 
and  Sisinnius. 

Quite  a  different  range  of  ideas  is  brought  before  the  reader 
in  the  next  play,  '  Calimachus,'  which  is  Hrotsvith's  nearest  ap- 
proach to  a  love  tragedy  \  She  took  its  subject  from  an  apocryphal 
account  of  the  apostles,  but  as  Ebert  remarks  she  handles  her 
material  with  considerable  freedom'*.  The  opening  scene  shows 
her  power  of  immediately  presenting  a  situation.  The  scene  is 
laid  in  the  house  of  Andronicus,  a  wealthy  Ephesian.  The  youth 
Calimachus  and  his  friends  enter. 

.  *  Calimachus.     A  few  words  with  you,  friends ! 

Friends.     We  will  converse  with  thee  as  long  as  thou  pleasest. 

Calimachus.     If  you  do  not  mind,  we  will  converse  apart. 

Friends.     Thou  biddest,  we  comply. 

Calimachus.  Let  us  repair  to  a  secluded  spot,  that  we  may  not 
be  interrupted  in  our  converse.' 

They  go  and  Calimachus  explains  how  a  heavy  misfortune  has 
befallen  him  ;  they  urge  him  to  unbosom  himself.  He  confesses 
he  is  in  love  with  a  most  beauteous,  most  adorable  being,  it  is 
a  woman,  the  wife  of  Andronicus ;  what  shall  he  do  to  secure  her 
favour.''  His  friends  declare  his  passion  hopeless,  Drusiana  is  a 
Christian  and  has  moreover  taken  the  vow  of  chastity ;  '  I  ask  for 
help,  you  give  me  despair,'  Calimachus  exclaims.  In  the  next 
scene  he  confronts  Drusiana  and  declares  his  passion.     Drusiana 

^  'Calimachus,'  Opera, ^.  191. 

*  Ebert,  Allgemeine  Geschichte  der  Litteratur  des  Abendlandes,  1887,  vol.  3,  p.  321. 


SECT.  Ill]     The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings.        175 


repudiates  his  advances  but  she  is  intimidated  by  his  threats,  and 
gfives  utterance  to  her  fears  in  a  monologue  in  which  she  declares 
that  she  would  rather  die  than  yield  to  him.  Sudden  death  cuts 
her  down  ;  and  the  apostle  John  is  called  in  by  her  husband  and 
undertakes  to  give  her  Christian  burial.  But  the  youth  Calimachus 
is  not  cured  of  his  passion.  At  the  instigation  of  his  companion, 
Fortunatus,  he  goes  with  him  by  night  to  the  vault  where  she  lies 
and  would  embrace  the  corpse,  but  a  serpent  of  terrible  aspect 
surprises  the  two  young  men  and  kills  them.  In  the  following 
scene  the  apostle  is  leading  Andronicus  to  the  vault :  when  they 
enter  they  come  upon  the  serpent  lying  by  the  side  of  the  youths. 
The  apostle  then  explains  to  Andronicus  what  has  happened  and 
gives  proof  of  his  great  power  by  awakening  Calimachus  from  the 
dead.  The  young  man  confesses  his  evil  intentions  and  explains 
how  he  came  there  at  the  suggestion  of  his  companion.  The 
apostle  then  recalls  Drusiana  to  life,  and  she  begs  that  Fortunatus 
also  may  be  restored,  but  the  apostle  refuses  on  account  of  the 
man's  wickedness.  Drusiana  herself  then  intercedes  in  his  behalf  and 
prays  to  God  for  his  restoration.  Her  wish  is  fulfilled,  Fortunatus 
comes  back  to  life,  but  he  declares  he  would  sooner  have  died  than 
have  seen  Drusiana  happy  and  his  friend  a  convert  to  Christianity. 
The  wounds  which  the  serpent  had  inflicted  at  once  begin  to 
swell,  and  he  expires  before  their  eyes,  and  the  apostle  explains 
that  his  jealousy  has  sent  him  to  hell.  A  great  deal  of  action  is 
crowded  into  this  play  and  we  are  abruptly  carried  on  from  scene 
to  scene.  It  closes  with  some  pious  reflections  on  the  part  of  the 
apostle. 

There  is  considerable  diversity  of  opinion  among  modern  writers 
on  the  merits  of  the  dramas  we  have  discussed  hitherto,  but  all 
concur  in  praise  of  the  play  called  'Abraham,'  which  dramatises 
the  oft  repeated  story  of  a  woman  who  yields  to  temptation  and 
is  reclaimed  from  her  wicked  ways.  The  interest  in  this  play 
never  flags  and  the  scenes  are  worked  out  with  a  breadth  of  con- 
ception which  gives  the  impression  of  assured  strength*. 

Hrotsvith  took  the  subject  of  this  drama  from  an  account, 
written  in  the  6th  century  by  Ephrem,  of  the  life  of  his  friend, 
the  hermit  Abraham.  The  story  was  written  originally  in  Greek 
and  is  preserved  in  that  language ;  the  translation  into  Latin  used 
by  Hrotsvith  is  lost^     The  plot  of  the  drama  is  as  follows : 

^  'Abraham,'  Opera,  p.  213. 

'  Ebert,  Allgenieine  Geschichte  der  Litteraiur  des  Abendlandes,  1887,  vol.  3,  p.  313. 


176  The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings,     [chap,  v 

The  devout  hermit  Abraham  consults  his  friend  the  hermit 
Ephreni  as  to  what  he  shall  do  with  his  niece,  Maria,  who  is  left 
to  his  care,  and  together  they  decide  that  she  shall  come  and  live 
in  a  cell  near  her  uncle.  Abraham  throughout  speaks  directly 
and  to  the  point,  while  Ephrem's  talk  is  full  of  mystic  allusions. 
He  talks  to  the  maiden  of  the  beauties  of  the  religious  vocation 
and  assures  her  that  her  name,  Maria,  signifies  'star  of  the  sea,' 
and  that  she  is  therefore  intended  for  great  things.  The  maiden 
is  surprised  at  his  words  and  naifvely  remarks  that  it  would  be  a 
great  thing  *  to  equal  the  lustre  of  the  stars.'  She  comes  to  dwell 
in  a  cell  close  to  that  of  the  two  hermits,  but  after  a  time  she  is 
enticed  away  and  disappears  from  the  sight  of  her  uncle,  who  is 
deeply  grieved  at  her  loss.  For  several  years  he  hears  nothing 
from  her;  at  last  a  friend  comes  and  tells  him  that  the  girl  has 
been  seen  in  the  city,  and  is  there  living  in  a  house  of  ill  fame. 
The  old  man  at  once  decides  to  go  forth  to  seek  his  niece  and  to 
reclaim  her.  He  dons  shoes,  a  traveller's  dress  and  a  large  hat, 
and  takes  with  him  money,  since  that  only  can  give  him  access  to 
her.  The  scene  then  shifts  from  the  sylvan  solitude  to  the  house 
where  Maria  is  living.  Abraham  arrives  and  is  received  by  the 
tavern-keeper,  whom  he  asks  for  a  night's  lodging,  offering  him  his 
*  solidus '  and  requesting  to  see  the  woman  the  fame  of  whose 
beauty  has  spread.  This  scene  and  the  one  that  follows  bring 
the  situation  before  the  reader  admirably.  Abraham  is  served 
with  a  meal  and  Maria  enters,  at  sight  of  whose  levity  he  scarce 
represses  his  tears.  She  entertains  him,  and  he  feigns  a  gaiety 
corresponding  to  hers,  the  tavern-keeper  being  present.  Of  a 
sudden  she  is  overcome  by  the  thought  of  the  past,  but  he  keeps 
up  his  assumed  character.  At  last  supper  is  over,  and  they  retire 
into  the  adjoining  chamber.  The  moment  for  disclosure  has  come, 
and  Hrotsvith  is  seen  at  her  best. 

'A bra/mm.  Close  fast  the  door,  that  no  one  enter  and  dis- 
turb us. 

Maria.  Be  not  concerned,  I  have  done  so;  no  one  will  find 
it  easy  to  get  in. 

Abraham,  The  time  has  come;  away,  deceitful  clothes,  that 
I  may  be  recognised.  Oh,  my  adopted  daughter,  joy  of  my  soul, 
Maria,  dost  thou  not  know  the  aged  man  who  was  to  thee  a  parent, 
who  vowed  thee  to  the  heavenly  king  ? 

Maria,  Oh  woe  is  me !  it  is  my  father,  my  teacher  Abraham, 
who  speaks. 


SECT,  m]     The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her  Writings.         I'j'j 

Abraham.     What  then  has  come  to  thee,  my  daughter? 

Maria.     Ah,  wretchedness ! 

AbraJiam.     Who  was  it  that  deceived  thee  ?    Who  allured  thee  ? 

Maria.     He  who  was  the  undoing  of  our  first  parents. 

Abraham.    Where  is  the  noble  life  thou  once  wast  wont  to  lead  ? 

Maria.     Lost,  lost  for  ever  ! 

Abraham.  Where  is  thy  virgin  modesty,  thy  wondrous  self- 
restraint  ? 

Maria.     Gone  from  me  altogether. 

Abraham.  If  thou  dost  not  return  to  thine  own  self,  what  reward 
in  the  life  to  come  canst  thou  expect  for  fasting,  prayer,  and  watch- 
ing, since  fallen  as  from  heaven's  heights  thou  now  art  sunk  in  hellish 
depths  ? 

Maria.     Woe,  woe  is  me  ! 

Abraham.  Why  didst  thou  thus  deceive  me?  why  turn  from 
me  ?  Why  didst  thou  not  make  known  to  me  thy  wretchedness, 
that  I  and  my  beloved  Ephrem  might  work  for  thy  repentance  ? 

Maria.  Once  fallen  into  sinfulness,  I  dared  not  face  you  who 
are  holy. 

Abraham.  But  is  there  any  one  entirely  faultless,  except  the 
Virgin's  Son  ? 

Maria.     Nay,  no  one.    , 

AbraJiam.  'Tis  human  to  be  frail,  but  to  persist  in  wickedness 
is  of  the  devil.  Not  he  who  falls  of  a  sudden  is  condemned,  but 
he  who,  having  fallen,  does  not  strive  forthwith  to  rise  again. 

Maria.     Woe  unto  me,  wretch  that  I  am  ! 

{^She  sinks  to  the  ground^ 

Abraham.  Why  dost  thou  sink?  why  lie  upon  the  ground? 
Arise  and  ponder  what  I  am  saying. 

Maria.  Fear  casts  me  down,  I  cannot  bear  the  weight  of  thy 
paternal  admonition. 

Abraham.     Dwell  only  on  my  love  and  thrust  aside  thy  fear. 

Maria.     I  cannot. 

AbraJiain.  Think,  was  it  not  for  thee  I  left  my  little  hermitage, 
and  so  far  set  aside  the  rule  by  which  I  lived  that  1,  an  aged 
hermit,  became  a  visitor  to  wantonness,  and  keeping  silence  as 
to  my  intent  spoke  words  in  jest  that  I  might  not  be  recognised  ? 
Why  then  with  head  bent  low  gaze  on  the  ground  ?  Why  hesitate 
to  give  answer  to  my  questions  ? 

Maria.     The  accusations  of  my  conscience  bear  me  down,  I 
dare  not  raise  my  eyes  to  heaven,  nor  enter  into  converse  with  thee. 
E.  12 


178  The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings,     [chap,  v 

Abraham.  Be  not  afraid,  my  daughter,  do  not  despair;  rise 
from  this  depth  of  misery  and  fix  thy  mind  on  trust  in  God. 

Maria.  My  sins  in  their  excess  have  brought  me  to  depths 
of  desperation. 

Abraham.  I  know  thy  sins  are  great,  but  greater  than  aught 
else  is  Heaven's  power  of  grace.  Put  by  thy  grief  and  do  not 
hesitate  to  spend  the  time  vouchsafed  to  thee  in  h'ving  in  re- 
pentance ;  divine  grace  overflows,  and  overflowing  washes  out  the 
horrors  of  wrong-doing. 

Maria.  If  I  could  entertain  the  hope  of  grace  I  should  not  be 
found  wanting  in  repentance. 

Abraham.  Think  of  the  weariness  that  I  have  suffered  for 
thee ;  leave  this  unprofitable  despair,  nought  in  this  world  is  so 
misleading.  He  who  despairs  of  God's  willingness  to  have  com- 
passion, 'tis  he  who  sins  hopelessly ;  for  as  a  spark  struck  from 
a  stone  can  never  set  aflame  the  ocean,  so  the  bitterness  of  sin 
must  ever  fail  to  rouse  sweet  and  divine  compassion. 

Maria.  I  know  the  power  of  grace  divine,  and  yet  the  thought 
of  how  I  have  failed  fills  me  with  dread  ;  I  never  can  sufficiently 
atone. 

Abraham.  Thy  feeble  trust  in  Him  is  a  reproach  to  me !  But 
come,  return  with  me  to  where  we  lived,  and  there  resume  the  life 
which  thou  didst  leave. 

Maria.  I  would  not  disobey  thee ;  if  it  be  thy  bidding,  readily 
I  yield. 

Abraham.  Now  I  see  my  daughter  such  as  I  would  have  her; 
I  hope  still  to  hold  thee  dearest  among  all. 

Maria.  I  own  a  little  wealth  in  gold  and  clothing ;  I  abide 
by  thy  decision  what  shall  be  done  with  it. 

Abraham.     What  came  to  thee  in  evil,  with  evil  cast  it  from  thee. 

Maria.  I  think  it  might  be  given  to  the  poor ;  or  offered  at 
the  holy  altars. 

Abraham.  I  doubt  if  wealth  acquired  in  wickedness  is  accept- 
able to  God. 

Maria.  Besides  this  there  is  nothing  of  which  the  thought 
need  trouble  us. 

Abraliam.  The  dawn  is  breaking,  the  daylight  shining,  let  us 
now  depart. 

Maria.  Lead  thou  the  way,  dear  father,  a  good  shepherd  to 
the  sheep  that  went  astray.  As  thou  leadest,  so  I  follow,  guided 
by  thy  footsteps ! 


SECT.  Ill]     The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings.        179 

Abraham.  Nay,  I  shall  walk,  my  horse  shall  bear  thee,  for 
this  stony  road  might  cut  thy  tender  feet. 

Maria.  Oh,  that  I  ever  left  thee !  Can  I  ever  thank  thee 
enough  that,  not  by  intimidation  and  fear,  but  by  gentle  per- 
suasion alone,  unworthy  though  I  am,  thou  hast  led  me  to 
repentance  ? 

Abraham.  Nought  do  I  ask  of  thee  but  this,  be  now  devoted 
to  God  for  the  remainder  of  thy  life. 

Maria.  Readily  I  promise,  earnestly  will  I  persevere,  and 
though  the  power  fail  me,  my  will  shall  never  fail. 

AbraJiam.  It  is  agreed  then — as  ardently  as  before  to  vanity, 
be  thou  now  devoted  to  the  will  divine. 

Maria.  Thy  merits  be  my  surety  that  the  divine  will  shall  be 
accomplished. 

Abraham.     Now  let  us  hasten  our  departure. 

Maria.     Yea,  hasten  ;  for  I  loathe  to  tarry  here.' 

They  return  to  the  hermitage  together,  and  Maria  resumes  her 
former  mode  of  life  in  hope  of  redeeming  the  past.  The  drama 
closes  with  a  scene  between  Abraham  and  Ephrem,  who  discourse  on 
the  beneficent  change  which  familiar  surroundings  are  already  work- 
ing in  Maria ;  the  angels  sing  rejoicing  at  the  conversion  of  the 
sinner,  says  Abraham ;  and  Ephrem  adds  that  the  repentance  of 
the  iniquitous  causes  greater  joy  in  heaven  than  the  perseverance 
of  the  just. 

This  play,  currently  known  as  'Abraham,'  but  which  would  be 
more  fitly  named  '  Maria,'  marks  the  climax  of  Hrotsvith 's  power. 
In  form  it  preserves  the  simple  directness  of  the  classic  model,  in 
conception  it  embodies  the  moral  ideals  of  Christian  teaching. 

The  last  two  plays  of  Hrotsvith  are  chiefly  of  historical  interest 
for  the  learned  disquisitions  they  contain ;  their  dramatic  value  is 
comparatively  small,  and  many  of  the  scenes  are  in  a  way  re- 
petitions of  scenes  in  other  plays.  In  '  Paphnutius'  we  again  have 
the  story  of  a  penitent  woman,  the  hetaira  Thais,  who  lived  in  the 
6th  century,  but  whose  conversion  has  little  of  the  interest  which 
attaches  to  that  of  Maria.  In  'Sapientia'  we  have  a  succession 
of  scenes  of  martyrdom  which  recall  those  of  the  play  '  Dulcetius.' 
The  Lady  Sapientia  and  her  three  daughters  Fides,  Spes  and 
Caritas  are  put  to  death  by  order  of  the  Emperor  Hadrian,  but 
the  horrors  of  the  situation  are  relieved  by  no  minor  incidents. 
The  learned  disquisitions  in  these  plays  are  however  extremely 
curious  because  they  show  on  the  one  hand  what  store  Hrotsvith 

12 — 2 


i8o  The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings,     [chap,  v 

set  on  learning,  and  on  the  other  they  give  an  idea  of  the  method 
of  study  pursued  at  Gandersheim  in  those  days. 

The  play  '  Paphnutius*'  opens  with  passages  which  Hrotsvith 
probably  adapted  from  two  works  of  Boethius :  '  On  the  teaching 
of  Aristotle/  and  '  On  the  study  of  music^'  The  philosopher  Paph- 
nutius  dilates  to  his  assembled  pupils  on  man  as  the  microcosm 
(minor  mundus)  who  reflects  in  himself  the  world,  which  is  the  macro- 
cosm (major  mundus),  and  then  explains  that  there  is  antagonism  in 
the  world,  which  is  striving  for  concord  in  accordance  with  the  rules 
of  harmony.  He  explains  how  a  similar  antagonism  exi.sts  in 
man  and  is  represented  by  body  and  soul,  which  can  also  be 
brought  into  agreement.  These  thoughts,  he  says,  have  been 
suggested  to  him  by  the  life  of  the  hetaira  Thais  whose  body  and 
soul  are  ever  at  variance.  Paphnutius  further  enlarges  on  the 
higher  course  of  study  known  as  the  'quadrivium  '  which  includes 
arithmetic,  geometry,  music  and  astronomy',  and  discourses  about 
music  and  the  influence  of  harmony.  His  pupils,  however,  object 
to  being  taken  along  such  devious  paths  and  having  such  knotty 
questions  propounded  to  them,  and  at  last  they  quote  Scripture 
in  defence  of  their  ignorance,  saying  that  God  has  chosen  the 
foolish  that  he  may  confound  the  wise.  This  rouses  indignation 
in  Paphnutius,  who  declares  that  'he  who  advocates  falsehood, 
be  he  a  fool  or  a  learned  man,  deserves  to  be  confounded  by 
God.'  And  he  further  utters  words  which  are  not  devoid  of  a 
deeper  significance :  '  It  is  not  the  knowledge  that  man  can  grasp 
which  is  offensive  to  God,  but  the  conceit  of  the  learned.' 

The  learned  disquisitions  of  the  play  'Sapientia'  are  presented 
in  a  form  still  less  attractive^  The  Lady  Sapientia,  who  speaks 
of  herself  as  one  of  noble  stock,  and  as  the  descendant  of  Greek 
princes,  dilates  on  the  relative  value  of  numbers^  to  the  emperor 
Hadrian  till  he  tires  of  it  and  commands  her  to  be  gone. 

It  is  sometimes  alleged  that  these  two  later  plays  were  the 
productions  of  earlier  years,  and    that   the  nun   added    them   to 

^  '  Paphnutius,'  Opera,  p.  237. 

2  Piltz,  O.,  Drainen  der  Roswitha  (no  date),  p.  178,  refers  to  Boethius,  In 
Categorias  Aristotelis,  Hber  i,  *de  substantia';   and  to  De  musica,  liber  i. 

2  The  ancient  course  of  university  study  included  the  seven  '  liberal  arts '  and  was 
divided  into  the  Trivinm  including  grammar,  dialectic  and  rhetoric,  and  the  Quadrivium 
including  arithmetic,  geometry,  astronomy  and  music.  The  Trivium  was  sometimes 
designated  as  logic  and  the  Quadrivium  as  physic. 

*  '  Sapientia,'  Opera,  p.  27. 

'^  Piltz,  Die  Dramen  der  Ronvithn,  p.  181,  refers  to  Boethius,  De  Arithmetica,  liber  i, 
cc.  9-22. 


SECT.  Ill]     The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her  WHtings.        i8i 

her  other  more  finished  productions  in  order  to  equal  the  number 
of  the  plays  of  Terence.  However  this  may  be,  they  were  pro- 
bably the  two  plays  which  she  submitted  to  the  criticism  of  three 
outside  but  now  unknown  patrons  with  a  letter  in  which  she  states 
that  she  has  taken  threads  and  pieces  from  the  garment  of  philo- 
sophy to  add  to  the  worth  of  her  work.  We  render  this  letter  in 
full,  since  it  throws  an  interesting  light  on  what  Hrotsvith  thought 
of  her  own  powers.  If  it  brought  advice  which  led  to  the  com- 
position of  the  other  plays,  we  must  commend  the  judgment  of 
those  who  counselled  her.  But  it  is  just  possible  that  the  ap- 
proval which  was  accorded  to  the  legends  was  denied  to  the  plays, 
— the  absence  of  the  name  of  the  abbess  Gerberg  in  connection 
with  them  is  remarkable, — and  that,  after  writing  a  number  of 
dramas  which  found  no  appreciation,  Hrotsvith  was  moved  to 
compose  '  Paphnutius '  and  '  Sapientia,'  introducing  learned  dis- 
quisitions in  hope  of  giving  them  a  more  solid  value. 

The  letter  runs  as  follows : 

'To  you,  learned  men\  who  abide  in  wisdom  and  are  unenvious 
of  another's  progress  and  well-disposed  towards  him  as  befits  the 
truly  learned,  I,  Hrotsvith,  though  I  am  unlearned  and  lacking 
in  thoroughness,  address  myself;  I  wish  you  health  and  unbroken 
prosperity.  I  cannot  sufficiently  admire  your  great  condescension, 
and  sufficiently  thank  you  for  the  help  of  your  liberal  generosity 
and  for  your  kindness  towards  me ;  you,  who  have  been  trained  in 
the  study  of  philosophy  and  have  perfected  yourselves  in  the  pursuit 
of  knowledge,  have  held  my  writings,  those  of  a  lowly  woman, 
worthy  of  admiration,  and  have  praised  with  brotherly  affection 
the  power  which  works  in  me.  You  have  declared  that  there  is 
in  me  a  certain  knowledge  of  that  learning  (scientiam  artium)  the 
essence  of  which  is  beyond  my  woman's  understanding.  Till  now 
I  have  dared  to  show  my  rude  productions  only  to  a  few  of  my 
nearest  friends,  and  my  work  along  these  lines  would  probably 
have  ceased,  for  there  were  few  who  understood  my  intentions, 
and  fewer  who  could  point  out  to  me  in  what  I  had  failed,  and 
who  urged  me  to  persevere.  But  now  that  threefold  approval  comes 
to  me  from  you  I  take  confidence  and  feel  strengthened  by 
your  encouragement  to  devote  my  energies  to  work  where  God 
permits,  and  to  submit  this  work  to  the  criticism  of  those  who 
are  learned.     And  yet  I  am  divided  between  joy  and  fear,  which 

*  '  who  favoured  and  improved  these  works  before  they  were  sent  forth,'  additional 
words  of  some  manuscripts ;  Opera,  edit.  Barak,  p.  140  footnote. 


i82         The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her  Writings,     [chap,  v 

contend  within  me ;  for  in  my  heart  I  rejoice,  praising  God  through 
whose  grace  alone  I  have  become  what  I  am ;  and  yet  I  am  fearful 
of  appearing  greater  than  I  am,  being  perplexed  by  two  things 
both  of  which  are  wrong,  namely  the  neglect  of  talents  vouchsafed 
,to  one  by  God,  and  the  pretence  to  talents  one  has  not.  I  cannot 
deny  that  through  the  help  of  the  Creator  I  have  acquired  some 
amount  of  knowledge,  for  I  am  a  creature  capable  of  learning, 
but  I  acknowledge  there  is  ignorance  in  me.  For  I  am  divinely 
gifted  with  abilities,  but  were  it  not  for  the  untiring  zeal  of  my 
teachers,  they  would  have  remained  undeveloped  and  unused 
through  my  want  of  energy  (pigritia).  Lest  this  gift  of  God  in 
me  should  be  wasted  through  neglect  I  have  sought  to  pluck 
threads  and  pieces  from  the  garments  of  philosophy,  and  have 
introduced  them  into  my  afore-mentioned  work  (praefato  opusculo), 
so  that  my  own  moderate  knowledge  may  be  enhanced  by  the 
addition  of  their  greater  worth,  and  God,  who  grants  power,  may  be 
praised  by  so  much  the  more  as  a  woman's  power  is  held  to  be  in- 
ferior. This  is  the  object  of  my  writing,  this  alone  the  purpose  of 
my  exertions,  for  I  do  not  conceal  from  myself  that  I  am  ignorant, 
and  had  it  depended  on  myself  alone,  I  should  know  nothing. 
But  as  you  urge  me  on  by  the  possibility  of  your  approval  and  by 
your  request  proffered  to  me  in  writing,  I  now  submit  to  your 
criticism  this  little  work  which  I  wrote  with  the  intention  of  send- 
ing it  to  you  but  which  I  have  hitherto  kept  concealed  on  account 
of  its  demerits,  hoping  you  will  study  it  with  the  intention  of  im- 
proving it  as  though  it  were  your  own  work.  And  when  you  have 
altered  it  to  a  correct  standard,  send  it  back  to  me  so  that  I  may 
profit  by  your  teaching  in  those  points  in  which  I  may  have  largely 
failed.' 

The  productions  of  Hrotsvith  in  the  domain  of  contemporary 
history  consist  of  a  poem  on  the  emperor  Otto  the  Great,  and 
a  history  of  the  monastery  of  Gandersheim.  The  history  of  Otto 
is  thought  to  have  been  over  sixteen  hundred  lines  in  length^  but 
only  a  fragment  of  about  nine  hundred  lines  is  preserved.  The 
nun  received  the  materials  for  this  history  chiefly  if  not  exclu- 
sively by  word  of  mouth  from  the  abbess  Gerberg,  whose  family 
feeling  it  seems  to  reflect  in  various  particulars,  for  among  other 
distinctive  traits,  the  quarrel  between  the  father  of  Gerberg  and  his 
brother  the  emperor  is  passed  over;  it  is  rather  a  history  of  the 
members  of  the  ruling  family  than  a  description  of  contemporary 

*  Ebert,  Allgemeine  Geschichte  der  Litteratiir  des  Abendlandes,  1887,  vol.  3,  p.  305. 


SECT.  Ill]     The  Nun  Hrotsvith  and  her   Writings.        183 

events'.  This  detracts  from  its  historic,  though  hardly  from  its 
poetical  value,  which  is  considerable.  Some  of  the  episodes,  such 
as  that  of  the  imprisonment  and  flight  of  Queen  Adelheid  in  Italy, 
are  admirably  told.  Adelheid  was  the  widow  of  the  king  of  the 
Langobards,  and  was  afterwards  married  to  Otto  I.  Her  flight 
and  imprisonment  in  Italy  previous  to  her  second  marriage  are 
unrecorded  except  by  Hrotsvith. 

The  last  work  of  the  nun  was  probably  that  on  the  foundation 
and  early  history  of  Gandersheim,  in  which,  as  in  the  history  of 
Otto,  Hrotsvith  enlarges  more  on  persons  than  on  events,  and  gives 
a  detailed  account  of  Duke  Liudolf,  his  wife  and  daughters.  Many 
details  referred  to  above,  in  our  chapter  on  the  early  history  of  the 
settlement,  are  taken  from  this  account,  which  is  in  many  ways  the 
most  finished  and  beautiful  of  Hrotsvith's  compositions. 

The  interest  in  Hrotsvith's  writings  lay  dormant  for  several 
centuries.  It  was  revived  at  the  close  of  the  1 5th  century  when  the 
learned  abbot  Tritheim  wrote  of  her,  and  the  poet  Celtes  caused  her 
dramas  to  appear  in  print.  During  the  last  thirty  years  many 
writers  have  treated  of  her,  an  appreciative  and  attractive  account 
of  her  was  written  by  Kopke^  and  different  views  have  been  ex- 
pressed as  to  her  merits  as  a  poet,  a  dramatist  and  a  historian ^ 
Whatever  place  be  ultimately  assigned  to  Hrotsvith,  the  reader  of 
her  writings  cannot  fail  to  be  attracted  by  her  modesty,  her  perse- 
verance, her  loftiness  of  thought,  and  the  directness  of  purpose 
which  underlies  all  her  work.  She  stands  nearly  alone  in  Saxony, 
and  by  her  very  solitariness  increases  our  respect  for  her  powers, 
and  for  the  system  of  education  which  made  the  development  of 
these  powers  possible. 

^  Ebert,  AUgemeine  Geschickte  der  Litteratur  des  Abettdlattdes,  1887,  vol.  3,  p.  311. 

*  Kdpke,  Die  altesle  deiUsche  Dichterin,  1869. 

'  Comp.  Allgenuine  Deutsche  Biographie,  article  '  Roswitha.' 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  MONASTIC   REVIVAL  OF   THE   MIDDLE  AGES. 

*  Pulchritudo  certe  mentis  et  nutrimentum  virtutum  est  cordis  munditia,  cui  visio  Dei 
spiritualiter  promittitur;  ad  quam  munditiam  nulliis  nisi  per  magnam  cordis  custodiam 
perducitur.'  Anselm  to  the  Abbess  of  St  Mary's. 

§  I.     The  new  Monastic  Orders. 

In  this  chapter  I  intend  to  give  a  description  of  the  different 
monastic  orders  which  were  founded  between  the  lOth  and  the 
1 2th  centuries,  and  to  enter  at  some  length  into  the  reasons  for 
their  progress.  A  mass  of  heterogeneous  information  must  be 
passed  in  rapid  review  with  occasional  digressions  on  outside 
matters,  for  it  is  only  possible  to  understand  the  rapid  progress 
of  monasticism  by  recalling  the  relation  in  which  it  stood  to  other 
social  developments. 

As  we  cross  the  borderland  which  divides  the  centuries  before 
the  year  looo  from  the  period  that  follows,  we  become  aware  of 
great  changes  which  about  this  time  take  definite  shape  throughout 
all  social  institutions.  In  the  various  strata  of  society  occupations 
were  becoming  more  clearly  differentiated  than  they  had  ever 
been  before,  while  those  who  were  devoted  to  peaceful  pursuits, 
whether  in  lay  or  religious  circles,  were  now  combined  together 
for  mutual  support  and  encouragement. 

In  connection  with  religion  we  find  the  representatives  of  the 
Church  and  of  monasticism  becoming  more  and  more  conscious 
of  differences  that  were  growing  up  between  them.  Monasticism 
Ifrom  its  very  beginning  practically  lay  outside  the  established  order 
jof  the  Church,  but  this  had  not  prevented  bishop  and  abbot  from 
working  side  by  side  and  mutually  supporting  each  other ;  nay, 
it  even  happened  sometimes  that  one  person  combined  in  himself  the 
two  offices  of  abbot  and  bishop.  But  as  early  Christian  times  passed 
into  the  Middle  Ages,  prelates  ceased  to  agree  with  headquarters 


SECT,  i]  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  185 

at  Rome  in  accepting  monasticism  as  the  means  of  securing  a  foot- 
hold for  reh'gion.  The  Church  was  now  well  established  through- 
out western  Europe,  and  her  ministers  were  by  no  means  pre- 
pared to  side  unconditionally  with  the  Pope  when  he  fell  out  with 
temporal  rulers.  The  monastic  orders  on  the  contrary  generally 
did  side  with  him,  and  by  locally  furthering  his  interests,  they 
became  strongholds  of  his  power. 

The  1 2th  century  has  been  called  the  golden  ap^e  of  monasticism, 
because  it  witnessed  the  increased  prosperity  of  existing  monasteries 
and  the  foundation  of  a  number  of  new  monastic  and  religious 
orders.  A  wave  of  enthusiasm  for  the  life  of  the  religious  settlement, 
and  for  the  manifold  occupations  which  this  life  now  embraced, 
passed  over  western  Europe,  emanating  chiefly  from  France,  the 
country  which  took  the  lead  in  culture  and  in  civilizing  influences. 

The  1 2th  century,  as  it  was  the  golden  age  of  monasticism, 
was  also  the  golderiage^Lchisiakyj  the  cloister  and  the  court  were 
the  representative  centres  of  civilized  life.  Under  the  influence 
of  the  system  of  mutual  responsibility  called  feudalism,  the  knight 
by  doughty  deed  and  unwavering  allegiance  to  his  lord,  his  lady 
and  his  cause,  gave  a  new  meaning  to  service ;  while  the  monk, 
devoted  to  less  hazardous  pursuits,  gave  a  hitherto  unknown  sancti- 
fication  to  toil.  The  knight,  the  lady,  the  court-chaplain  and  the 
court-poet  cultivated  the  bearings  and  the  formalities  of  polite 
intercourse  which  formed  the  background  of  the  age  of  romance, 
while  in  the  cloister  the  monk  and  the  nun  gave  a  new  meaning 
to  religious  devotion  and  enthusiasm  by  turning  their  activity  into 
channels  which  first  made  possible  the  approximation  of  class  to  class. 

This  period  knew  little  of  townships  as  centres  of  intellectual 
activity,  and  their  social  importance  remained  far  below  that  of 
cloister  and  court.  The  townsmen,  whose  possession  of  town  land 
constituted  them  burghers,  had  won  for  themselves  recognition  as 
an  independent  body  by  buying  immunities  and  privileges  from 
bishop  and  king.  But  the  struggle  between  them  and  the  newer 
gilds,  into  which  those  who  were  below  them  in  rank  and  wealth, 
formed  themselves,  was  only  beginning ;  the  success  of  these  newer 
gilds  in  securing  a  share  in  the  government  marks  the  rise  of  the 
township. 

The  diversity  of  occupation  in  the  different  kinds  of  gilds  was 
anticipated  by  a  similar  diversity  of  occupation  in  the  different 
monastic  orders.  The  great  characteristic  of  the  monastic  revival 
of  the  Middle  Ages  lay  in  the  manifold  and  distinct  spheres  of 


1 86  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  [chap,  vi 

activity  which  life  offered   inside  the  reh'gious  community.     The 

(studious,  the  educational,  the  philanthropic,  and  the  agricultural 
element,  all  to  some  extent  made  part  of  the  old  monastic  system. 
But  through  the  foundation  of  a  number  of  different  orders  which 
»  from  the  outset  had  separate  aims,  tastes  which  were  widely  dis- 
similar, and  temperaments  that  were  markedly  diverse,  met  with 
encouragement  in  the  religious  settlement.  The  scholar,  the  artist, 
the  recluse,  the  farmer,  each  found  a  career  open  to  him  ;  while 
men  and  women  were  prompted  to  undertake  duties  within  and 
without  the  religious  settlement  which  make  their  activity  com- 
parable to  that  of  the  relieving  officer,  the  poor-law  guardian  and 
the  district  nurse  of  a  later  age. 

To  gain  a  clear  idea  of  the  purposes  which  the  new  monastic 
and  religious  orders  set  before  them,  it  will  be  best  to  treat  of 
them  severally  in  the  chronological  order  of  their  foundation. 
Two  lines  of  development  are  to  be  observed.  There  are  the 
strictly  monastic  orders  which  sprang  from  the  order  of  St  Benedict, 
which  they  developed  and  amplified.  These  included  the  orders 
of  Clugni,  Citeaux,  Chartreuse,  and  Grandmont,  of  which  the  last 
two  toolnnr~areount  of  women.  On ~TKe  other  side  stand  the 
religious  orders  which  are  the  outcome  of  distinctions  drawn 
between  different  kinds  of  canons,  when  the  settlements  of  regular 
canons  take  a  distinctly  monastic  colouring.  Among  these  the 
Premonstrant  and  the  Austin  orders  are  the  most  important,  the 
members  of  which,  from  the  clothes  they  wore,  were  in  England 
called  respectively  White  and  Black  Canons. 

The  importance  of  canonical  orders,  so  far  as  women  are  con- 
rtcerned,  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  12th  century  witnessed  the  founda- 
)Ution  of  a  number  of  religious  settlements  for  both  sexes,  in  which 
the  men  lived  as  canons  and  the  women  as  nuns.  The  Pre- 
monstrant began  as  a  combined  order ;  the  orders  of  Fontevraud 
and  of  St  Gilbert  of  Sempringham  were  of  a  similar  kind.  Bearing 
these  distinctions  in  mind,  we  begin  our  enquiry  with  an  analysis 
of  the  Cluniac  and  the  Cistercian  orders,  which  have  their  root 
directly  in  the  monasticism  of  St  Benedict. 

As  remarks  in  the  previous  chapters  of  this  work  will  have 
shown,  monasteries  had  sprung  up  during  early  Christian  times 
independently  of  each  other  following  a  diversity  of  rules 
promulgated  by  various  teachers,  which  had  gradually  been  given 
up  in  favour  of  the  rule  of  St  Benedict.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  9th  century  this  rule  was  largely  prevalent   in   monasteries 


SECT,  i]  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  187 

abroad,  owing  to  councils  held  under  the  auspices  of  Karl  the 
Great  ("f-  814)',  and  in  England  it  gained  ground  through  the 
efforts  of  Aethelwold,  abbot  of  Abingdon  and  bishop  of  Win- 
chester (f  984).  Some  obscurity  hangs  about  the  subject,  for  a 
certain  number  of  houses  abroad,  and  among  them  some  of  the 
oldest  and  wealthiest,  clung  to  the  prerogative  of  independence 
and  refused  to  accept  St  Benedict's  rule,  while  in  England,  where 
this  rule  was  certainly  accepted  in  the  i  ith  century,  great  diversity  of 
routine  either  remained  or  else  developed  inside  the  different  houses. 
This  is  evident  from  the  account  which  Matthew  Paris  {'\  1259),  a 
monk  of  St  Albans,  gives  of  the  visitation  of  houses  in  the  year  1232^ 

The  order  of  Clugni"  owes  its  origin  to  the  desire  of  obviating 
a  difficulty.  As  time  wore  on  the  rule  of  St  Benedict  had  betrayed 
a  weakness  in  failing  to  maintain  any  connection  between  separate 
monasteries.  As  there  was  no  reciprocal  responsibility  between 
Benedictine  settlements,  a  lay  nobleman  had  frequently  been 
appointed  abbot  through  princely  interference,  and  had  installed 
himself  in  the  monastery  with  his  family,  his  servants  and  his 
retinue,  to  the  detriment  of  the  monastic  property,  and  to  the 
relaxation  of  discipline  among  the  monks.  The  evil  was  most 
conspicuous  abroad  in  the  eastern  districts  of  France  and  the 
western  districts  of  Germany,  and  in  910  the  order  of  Clugni  was 
founded  in  Burgundy  as  a  means  of  remedying  it. 

At  first  the  order  of  Clugni  was  the  object  of  great  enthusiasm, 
and  it  was  raised  to  eminence  by  a  series  of  remarkable  and 
energetic  men.  Powerful  patrons  were  secured  to  it,  master-minds 
found  protection  in  its  shelter.  The  peculiarities  of  its  organisation 
consisted  in  the  two  rules  that  the  abbot  of  the  Cluniac  house  should 
be  chosen  during  the  lifetime  of  his  predecessor,  and  that  the 
abbots  of  different  houses  should  meet  periodically  at  a  synod 
at  which  the  abbot  of  Clugni  should  preside.  The  Pope's  sanction 
having  been  obtained,  the  order  remained  throughout  in  close 
contact  with  Rome.  In  Germany  especially  this  connection  was 
prominent,  and  became  an  important  political  factor  in  the  nth 
century  when  the  Cluniac  houses  directly  supported  the  claim  of 
Rome  in  the  struggle  between  Pope  and  Emperor. 

The  order  of  Clugni  took  slight  cognizance  of  women,  and  the 

^  Labbe,  Sacror.  Concil.  Colkctio,  1763,  years  789,  804,  811;  Helyot,  Histoire  des 
ordres  monastiques,  1 7 1 4,  vol.  5,  p.  1 46  ff. 

'^  Matth.  Paris,  Historia  Major  Angliae,  sub  anno. 

'  Helyot,  Histoire  des  ordres  monastiques,  17 14,  vol.  5,  pp.  184  ff . ;  Ladewig,  Poppo 
von  Stablo  und  die  Klosterreform  unter  den  Saltern,  1883. 


i88  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  [chap,  vi 

nunneries  of  the  order  were  few  and  comparatively  unimportant. 
A  reason  for  this  may  be  found  in  the  nature  of  the  order's  origin, 
for  the  settlements  of  nuns  had  not  been  interfered  with  like  the 
settlements  of  monks  during  the  9th  and  lOth  centuries  by  the 
appointment  of  lay  superiofs,  and  were  untouched  by  the  conse- 
quent evils.  If  this  be  so  the  falling  away  from  discipline,  which 
called  for  correction  in  many  houses  of  men,  may  justly  be  referred 
to  a  change  thrust  on  them  from  without,  not  born  from  within. 

In  England  the  order  of  Clugni  was  not  officially  introduced 
till  after  the  Norman  Conquest,  and  then  under  circumstances 
which  set  a  peculiar  stamp  on  it.  The  seed  which  each  order 
scattered  broadcast  over  the  different  countries  was  the  same,  but 
the  nature  of  the  soil  in  which  it  took  root,  and  the  climate  under 
which  it  developed,  modified  the  direction  of  its  growth. 

During  the  9th  and  loth  centuries  England  had  been  the 
scene  of  great  social  and  political  changes.  The  powerful  kings 
who  arose  in  Wessex  and  eventually  claimed  supremacy  over  all 
the  provinces  were  unable  to  assert  their  authority  to  the  extent 
of  making  the  eastern  provinces  sink  all  provincial  differences 
and  jealousies,  and  join  in  organised  resistance  to  the  Danes. 
From  the  9th  century  onwards,  the  entire  seaboard  of  England, 
from  Northumberland  to  the  mouth  of  the  Severn,  had  been 
exposed  to  the  depredations  of  this  people.  Having  once  gained 
a  foothold  on  the  eastern  coasts  they  quickly  contracted  alliances 
and  adapted  themselves  to  English  customs,  thus  making  their 
ultimate  success  secure. 

The  heathen  invaders  were  naturally  indifferent  to  the  teachings 
of  the  Christian  Church,  and  to  the  privileges  of  monasteries,  and 
the  scant  annals  of  the  period  written  before  Knut  of  Den- 
mark became  king  of  England  in  1016,  give  accounts  of  the 
destruction  of  many  settlements.  Some  were  attacked  and  laid 
waste,  and  others  were  deserted  by  their  inmates.  To  realise  the 
collapse  of  Christian  institutions  about  this  time,  one  must  read  the 
address  which  Wulfstan,  archbishop  of  York  (1002-1023),  wrote 
to  rouse  the  English  to  consciousness  of  the  indignities  to  which 
their  religion  was  exposed'.  But  the  collapse  was  only  temporary, 
bishoprics  and  abbacies  stood  firm  enough  to  command  the  atten- 
tion of  the  invader,  and  as  the  heathenism  of  the  Dane  yielded 
without  a  blow  to  the  teaching  of  Christ,  the  settlements  that  were 
in  the  hands  of  abbot  and  monk  rose  anew. 

^   Wulfstan,  edit.  Napier,  Arthur,  Berlin  1883,  p.  156. 


SECT,  i]  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  189 

However,  it  was  only  after  the  establishment  of  William  of 
Normandy  in  England  (1066)  that  the  conditions  of  life  became 
settled,  and  that  the  tide  turned  in  favour  of  monasticism  ;  that  is 
to  say  in  favour  of  the  monastic  life  of  men,  but  not  of  women. 
Various  reasons  have  been  alleged  for  this  difference :  that  the 
better  position  of  the  wife  under  Danish  rule  made  women  loth 
to  remain  in  the  convent,  or  that  the  spread  of  the  system  of 
feudal  tenure  excluded  women  from  holding  property  which  they 
could  devote  to  the  advantage  of  their  sex.  So  much  is  certain, 
that  during  the  reign  of  William  many  Benedictine  houses  for 
monks  were  founded  or  restored,  but  we  do  not  hear  of  one  for  nuns. 

In  the  wake  of  the  Norman  baron,  the  Norman  prelate  had 
entered  this  country,  bringing  with  him  an  interest  in  the  order  of 
Clugni.  It  was  William  of  Warren,  son-in-law  of  the  Conqueror, 
and  earl  of  Surrey,  who  first  brought  over  Cluniac  monks,  whom 
he  settled  at  Lewes  in  Sussex.  He  did  so  at  the  suggestion  of 
Lanfranc,  a  Norman  monk  of  Italian  origin,  who  had  become  arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  (1070-1089).  Before  the  close  of  William's 
reign  Cluniac  monks  had  met  with  patrons  to  build  them  four 
monasteries  on  English  soil  besides  the  house  at  Lewes. 

The  Norman  barons  continued  to  make  liberal  endowments 
to  the  order,  but  its  popularity  remained  comparatively  small, 
partly  owing  to  the  distinctly  foreign  character  which  it  continued 
to  bear^  Thus  we  find  that  after  the  accession  of  Henry  II  (i  154), 
whose  reign  was  marked  by  a  rise  in  English  national  feeling,  only 
one  Cluniac  house  was  added  to  those  already  in  existence. 

From  the  order  of  Clugni  we  pass  to  that  of  Citeaux^,  the 
foundation  of  which  comes  next  in  point  of  time,  but  which  owed 
its  existence  to  a  different  cause,  and  was  characterised  by  widely 
dissimilar  developments. 

The  story  of  the  foundation  of  the  order  has  been  fully  told 
by  men  who  were  under  the  influence  of  the  movement ;  the  facts 
only  of  the  foundation  need  be  mentioned  here.  It  originated  in 
France  when  Robert,  abbot  of  Molemes,  roused  by  the  remonstrances 
of  one  Stephen  Harding,  an  English  monk  living  in  his  convent, 
left  his  home  with  a  band  of  followers  in  1098,  in  search  of  a  retreat 
where  they  might  carry  out  the  rule  of  St  Benedict  in  a  worthier 
spirit.     They  found  this  retreat  at  Citeaux.     From  Citeaux  and 

1  Tanner,  T.,  Notitia  monastica,  edit.  Nasmith,  1787,  Introduction,  p.  ix. 
-  Helyot,  Histoire  des  ordres  monastiques,   17 14,  vol.  5,  pp.  341  ff . ;    A.  SS.  Boll., 
St  Stephanus  abbas,  April  17. 


\ 


190  The  new  Monastic  Oi^ders.  [chap,  vi 

its  daughter-house  Clai'rvaux,  founded  in  11 13  by  the  energetic 
Bernard,  those  influences  went  forth  which  made  the  Cistercian 
order  representative  of  the  most  strenuous  devotion  to  toil  and 
the  most  exalted  religious  aspirations.  While  the  order  of  Clugni 
in  the  loth  century  secured  the  outward  conditions  favourable  to 
a  life  of  routine,  devoting  this  routine  chiefly  to  literary  and  artistic 
pursuits,  the  reform  of  Citeaux  exerted  a  much  wider  influence. 
It  at  once  gained  extensive  local  and  national  sympathy,  by 
cultivating  land  and  by  favouring  every  kind  of  outdoor  pursuit. 

The  agricultural  activity  of  the  Cistercian  has  called  forth  much 
enthusiastic  comment.  Janauschek,  a  modern  student  of  the  order, 
describes  in  eloquent  terms  how  they  turned  woods  into  fields,  how 
they  constructed  water-conduits  and  water-mills,  how  they  culti- 
vated gardens,  orchards,  and  vineyards,  how  successful  they  were 
in  rearing  cattle,  in  breeding  horses,  in  keeping  bees,  in  regulating 
fishing,  and  how  they  made  glass  and  procured  the  precious  metals^ 

A  comparison  of  their  temper  and  that  of  the  Cluniacs  offers 
many  interesting  points  ;  a  comparison  which  is  facilitated  by  a 
dialogue  written  by  a  Cistercian  monk  between  11 54  and  11 74  to 
exalt  the  merits  of  his  order  compared  with  those  of  the  order 
of  Clugni'-.  For  while  the  Cluniac  delighted  in  luxurious  surround- 
ings, the  Cistercian  afifected  a  simple  mode  of  life  which  added 
to  the  wealth  placed  at  his  disposal  by  his  untiring  industry. 
While  the  Cluniac  delighted  in  costly  church  decorations,  in 
sumptuous  vestments  and  in  richly  illuminated  books  of  service,  the 
Cistercian  declared  such  pomp  prejudicial  to  devotion,  and  sought 
to  elevate  the  soul  not  so  much  by  copying  and  ornamenting  old 
books  as  by  writing  new  ones ;  not  so  much  by  decorating  a  time- 
honoured  edifice  as  by  rearing  a  new  and  beautiful  building. 

Perhaps  the  nature  of  these  occupations  yields  a  reason  why 
the  Cistercian  order  at  first  found  no  place  for  women.  At  an 
early  date  Cardinal  de  Vitry  (Jacobus  di  Vitriaco,  f  1 144),  writing 
about  the  Cistercian  movement,  says  that  '  the  weaker  sex  at  the 
rise  of  the  order  could  not  aspire  to  conform  to  such  severe  rules, 
nor  to  rise  to  such  a  pitch  of  excellence^'  In  the  dialogue  referred 
to  above,  the  Cluniac  expresses  wonder  that  women  should  enter 
the  Cistercian  order  at  all. 

1  Janauschek,  L,,  Origines  Cisterciensium,  1877. 

*  Dialogus  inter  Clun.  et  Cist,  in  Martene  and  Durand's   Thesaurus  nov.  Anecdot. 
Paris,   17 1 7,  vol.  5,  p.   1568. 

'  Jacopo  di  Vitriaco,  Historia  Occidentalis,  1597,  c.  i-;. 


SECT,  i]  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  191 

The  first  Cistercian  nunneries  were  founded  at  Tart  in  Langres 
and  at  Montreuil-les-Dames  near  Laon'.  Hermann  of  Laon  (c.  1 1 50) 
describes  '  how  the  religious  of  Montreuil  sewed  and  span,  and 
went  into  the  woods  where  they  grubbed  up  briars  and  thorns,' — 
an  occupation  which  goes  far  to  equalise  their  activity  with  that 
of  the  monks^  In  Switzerland  and  Germany  there  is  said  to 
have  been  a  pronounced  difference  in  the  character  of  Cistercian 
nunneries,  due  to  the  various  conditions  of  their  foundation. 
Some  were  aristocratic  in  tone,  while  others  consisted  of  women 
of  the  middle  class,  who  banded  together  and  placed  themselves 
under  the  bishop  of  the  diocese,  following  of  their  own  accord  the 
rules  accepted  by  the  monks  of  Citeaux'. 

In  Spain  a  curious  development  of  the  order  of  Citeaux  is 
recorded,  fraught  with  peculiarities  which  recall  earlier  develop- 
ments. 

In  1 187  Alfonso  VIII,  king  of  Leon  and  Castille,  founded 
an  abbacy  for  nuns  of  the  order  of  Citeaux  at  Las  Huelgas  near 
Burgos,  the  abbess  of  which  was  declared  head  over  twelve  other 
nunneries.  In  the  following  year  the  king  sent  the  bishop  of 
Siguenza  to  the  general  chapter  at  Citeaux  to  obtain  leave  for  the 
abbesses  of  his  kingdom  to  hold  a  general  chapter  among  them- 
selves. This  was  granted.  At  the  first  chapter  at  Burgos  the 
bishops  of  Burgos,  Siguenza  and  Placenza  were  assembled  together 
with  six  abbots  and  seven  abbesses,  each  abbess  being  entitled 
to  bring  with  her  six  servants  and  five  horses.  The  power  of 
the  abbess  of  Las  Huelgas  continued  to  increase.  In  the  year  12 10 
she  had  taken  upon  herself  the  discharge  of  sacerdotal  functions. 
In  the  year  1260  she  refused  to  receive  the  abbot  of  Citeaux, 
whereupon  she  was  excommunicated.  After  the  year  1507  the 
abbess  was  no  longer  appointed  for  life,  but  for  a  term  of  three 
years  only.  Chapters  continued  to  be  held  under  her  auspices  at 
Burgos  till  the  Council  of  Trent  in  1545,  which  forbade  women  to 
leave  their  enclosures*. 

The  date  of  the  first  arrival  of  monks  of  Citeaux  in  England 
was  1 128,  when  William  Giffard,  bishop  of  Winchester  (■f'ii29), 
in  early  days  a   partisan  of  Anselm  against    Henry   I,  founded 

^  Helyot,  Histoire  des  ordres  monasliques,  17 14,  vol.  5,  pp.  375,  468  ff. 
'  Hermannus,  De  Mirac.  St  Mariae  Laudtin.  (in  Migne,  Patrol.  Cursus  contpUtus, 
vol.  156),  p.  1002. 

*  Brunner,  S.,  Ein  Cisterzienserbuch,  1881,  p.  612. 

*  Helyot,  Histoire  des  ordres  monastiques,  17 14,  vol.  5,  p.  376. 


192  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  [chap,  vi 

Waverley  in  Surrey  for  them*.  Shortly  afterwards  Walter  Espec, 
the  most  powerful  baron  in  northern  England,  granted  them  land 
at  Rievaulx  in  Yorkshire-.  About  the  same  time  the  foundation  at 
Fountains  repeated  the  story  of  Citeaux.  A  small  band  of  monks, 
burning  with  the  desire  to  simplify  conventual  life,  left  York  and 
retired  into  the  wooded  solitude  of  Fountains,  whence  they  sent  to 
Bernard  at  Clairvaux  asking  for  his  advice^ 

These  events  fall  within  the  reign  of  Henry  I  (i  icx)-i  135),  the 
peacefulness  of  which  greatly  furthered  the  development  of  monastic 
life.  The  pursuits  to  which  the  Cistercians  were  devoted  in  England 
were  similar  to  those  they  carried  on  abroad.  Here  also  their 
agricultural  successes  were  great,  for  they  ditched,  ridged  and 
drained,  wet  land,  they  marled  stiff  soils  and  clayed  poor  ones. 
The  land  granted  to  them,  especially  in  the  northern  counties, 
was  none  of  the  best,  but  they  succeeded  in  turning  wildernesses 
into  fruitful  land,  and  by  so  doing  won  great  admiration.  Similarly 
the  churches  built  in  this  country  under  the  auspices  of  these  monks 
bear  witness  to  great  purity  of  taste  and  ardent  imagination. 
The  churches  built  by  them  were  all  dedicated  to  the  Virgin 
•^     Mary,  who  was  the  patron  saint  of  the  order. 

y^  AH  these  early  settlements  of  the  Cistercian  order  were  for 
f  monks,  not  for  nuns,  for  Cistercian  nunneries  in  England  were 
j  founded  comparatively  late  and  remained  poor  and  unimportant. 
J  If  we  look  upon  the  Cistercians  as  farmers,  builders  and  writers,  this 
1  fact  is  partly  explained.  But  there  are  other  reasons  which  suggest 
/  why  the  number  of  Cistercian  nunneries  was  at  first  small,  and  why 
^the  Cistercian  synod  shrank  from  accepting  control  over  them. 

Convents  of  women  had  hitherto  been  recruited  by  the  daughters 
of  the  landed  gentry,  and  their  tone  was  aristocratic ;  but  a  desire  for 
y,  the  religious  life  had  now  penetrated  into  the  lower  strata  of  society. 
Orders  of  combined  canons  and  nuns  were  founded  which  paid 
special  attention  to  women  of  the  lower  classes,  but  they  en- 
countered certain  difficulties  in  dealing  with  them.  It  is  just 
possible  on  the  one  hand  that  the  combined  orders  forestalled  the 
Cistercians  in  the  inducements  they  held  out;  on  the  other,  that  the 
experience  of  the  combined  orders  made  the  Cistercians  cautious 
about  admitting  women. 

^  Birch,  W.  de  Gray,   Oti  the  Date  of  Foundation  ascribed  to  the  Cistercian  Abbeys 
of  Great  Britain,   1870. 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Kivaulx,'  vol.  5,  p.  274. 
^  Ibid.  '  Fountains,'  vol.  5,  p.  292,  nrs  I — XI. 


SECT,  i]  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  193 

Consideration  of  these  facts  brings  us  back  to  a  whole  group  of 
phenomena  to  which  reference  was  made  in  a  previous  chapter,  viz. 
the  disorderly  tendencies  which  had  become  apparent  in  connection 
with  loose  women,  the  greater  opprobrium  cast  on  these  women  as 
time  went  on,  and  the  increasing  difficulties  they  had  to  contend 
with.  The  founders  of  the  orders  of  combined  canons  and  nuns 
tried  to  save  women  from  drifting  into  and  swelling  a  class,  the 
existence  of  which  was  felt  to  be  injurious  to  social  life,  by 
preaching  against  a  dissolute  life  and  by  receiving  all  persons  into 
their  settlements  regardless  of  their  antecedents. 

The  earliest  and  in  many  ways  the  most  interesting  of  these 
combined  orders  is  that  founded  by  Robert  (-f*  1 1 17)  of  Arbrissel,  a 
village  in  Brittany.  Robert  had  begun  life  in  the  Church,  but  he 
left  the  clerical  calling  on  account  of  his  great  desire  to  minister  to 
the  needs  of  the  lower  classes,  and  as  a  wandering  preacher  he  gained 
considerable  renown*.  Men  and  women  alike  were  roused  by  his 
words  to  reform  their  course  of  life,  and  they  followed  him  about  till 
he  determined  to  secure  for  them  a  permanent  abode.  This  he  found 
in  an  outlying  district  at  Fontevraud.  He  organised  his  followers 
into  bands  and  apportioned  to  each  its  task.  The  men  were  divided 
into  clerics,  who  performed  religious  service,  and  lay  brothers,  who 
did  outdoor  work.  '  They  were  to  use  gentle  talk,  not  to  swear, 
and  all  to  be  joined  in  brotherly  affection.'  It  appears  that  the 
women  were  all  professed  nuns*;  unceasing  toil  was  to  be  their]  1 
portion,  for  they  were  to  hold  the  industrious  and  hardworking!/ 
Martha  as  their  model  and  take  small  account  of  such  virtues  as 
belonged  to  Mary. 

From  every  side  workers  flocked  to  the  settlements,  for  Robert 
opened  his  arms  to  all.  We  are  told  that  '  men  of  all  conditions 
came,  women  arrived,  such  as  were  poor  as  well  as  those  of  gentle 
birth  ;  widows  and  virgins,  aged  men  and  youths,  women  of  loose 
life  as  well  as  those  who  held  aloof  from  men.'  At  first  there  was 
a  difficulty  in  providing  for  the  numerous  settlers,  but  their  labours 
brought  profit,  and  gifts  in  kind  poured  in  from  outsiders,  a  proof 
that  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  the  settlements  supplied  an  obvious 
need.  Branch  establishments  were  founded  and  prospered,  so  that 
in  one  cloister  there  were  as  many  as  three  hundred  women,  in 

'  A.  SS.  Boll.,9,\.  Rol)ertus,  Feb.  ■25,  contains  two  accounts  of  his  life,  the  one  by  Baldric 
(tii3o),  the  other  by  Andrea.  Comp.  also  Helyot,  Hist,  des  ordres  nion.,  17 14,  vol.  6, 
pp.  83ff. 

^  Differing  from  settlements  of  the  Gilbertine  order,  in  which  there  were  lay  sisters  also. 

E.  13 


194  ^^  ^^^  Monastic  Orders.  [chap,  vi 

another  one  hundred,  and  in  another  sixty.  Robert  returned  to  his 
missionary  work,  after  having  appointed  Hersende  of  Champagne 
as  lady  superior  of  the  whole  vast  settlement.  Her  appointment  was 
decisive  for  the  system  of  government, — Fontevraud  remained  under 
the  rule  of  an  abbess.  It  was  for  her  successor,  Petronille,  that  the 
life  of  the  founder  Robert  was  written  soon  after  his  death,  by 
Baldric,  bishop  of  Dol  (f  1130).  Baldric  repeatedly  insists  on  the 
fact  that  no  one  was  refused  admission  to  these  settlements.  '  The 
poor  were  received,  the  feeble  were  not  refused,  nor  women  of  evil  life, 
nor  sinners,  neither  lepers  nor  the  helpless.'  We  are  told  that  Robert 
attracted  nearly  three  thousand  men  and  women  to  the  settlements ; 
the  nuns  (ancillae  Christi)  in  particular  wept  at  his  death. 

The  fact  that  Robert  had  the  welfare  of  women  especially  at 
heart  is  further  borne  out  by  a  separate  account  of  the  last  years  of 
his  life,  written  by  one  Andrea,  probably  his  pupil.  Andrea  tells  how 
Robert  at  the  approach  of  death  assembled  the  canons  or  clerics 
of  the  settlement  around  him  and  addressed  them  saying:  'Know 

ithat  whatever  I  have  wrought  in  this  world  I  have  wrought  as  a 
help  to  nuns.'  Fontevraud  occupied  a  high  standing,  and  we  shall 
find  that  nuns  were  brought  thence  into  England  when  the  nunnery 
of  Amesbury  was  reformed  in  the  reign  of  King  John.  The  order 
of  Fontevraud  made  great  progress  in  the  course  of  the  12th 
century,  and  next  to  it  in  point  of  time  stands  the  foundation 
of  the  order  of  Pr^montr^\  Fontevraud  lies  in  the  north-west  of 
France,  Pr6montr6  in  the  east,  and  the  efforts  of  Robert  have  here 
a  counterpart  in  those  of  Norbert  ("f"  1 1 34),  who  worked  on  similar 
lines.  Norbert  also  left  the  clerical  calling  to  work  as  a  missionary 
in  north-western  Germany,  especially  in  Westphalia,  and  he  also 
succeeded  in  rousing  his  listeners  to  a  consciousness  of  their  un- 
godly mode  of  life.  With  a  view  to  reform  he  sought  to  give  a 
changed  tone  to  canonical  life  and  founded  a  religious  settlement 
in  the  forest  of  Coucy,  which  he  afterwards  called  Pr6montr6 
from  the  belief  that  the  Virgin  had  pointed  it  out  to  him.  His 
efforts  were  likewise  crowned  with  success,  for  many  settlements 
were  forthwith  founded  on  the  plan  of  that  of  Prdmontr6.  Hermann 
of  Laon,  the  contemporary  of  Norbert,  praises  him  warmly  and 
remarks  that  women  of  all  classes  flocked  to  his  settlements,  and 
were  admitted  into  the  communities  by  adopting  the  cloistered  life. 

^  Helyot,  Histoire  des  ordres  monastiques ,  1714,  vol.  2,  pp.  156  ff.  'Leben  des  heil. 
Norbert'  (written  before  1155)  transl.  by  Hertel  in  Pertz,  Geschichtsschreiber  dcr  dentschen 
Vorzeit. 


SECT,  i]  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  195 

The  statement  is  made,  but  may  be  exaggerated,  that  ten  thousand 
women  joined  the  order  during  Norbert's  lifetime. 

Norbert  dififered  greatly  in  character  from  Robert;  his  personal 
ambition  was  greater,  and  his  restless  temperament  eventually 
drew  him  into  political  life.  He  died  in  1134,  and  in  1137  the 
chapter  at  Premontre  decided  that  the  women  should  be  expelled 
from  all  the  settlements  that  had  inmates  of  both  sexes,  and  that 
no  nuns  should  henceforth  be  admitted  to  settlements  ruled  by 
men.  The  reasons  which  led  to  this  resolution  are  not  recorded. 
The  nuns  thus  rendered  homeless  are  said  to  have  banded  together 
and  dwelt  in  settlements  which  were  afterwards  numbered  among 
Cistercian  houses,  thus  causing  a  sudden  increase  of  nunneries  of 
this  order.  However  a  certain  number  of  Premonstrant  houses,  / 
occupied  solely  by  nuns  and  ruled  by  a  lady  superior,  existedjl 
previous  to  the  decree  of  1 1 37.  These  remained  unmolested,  and 
others  were  added  to  them  in  course  of  timeS  It  can  be  gathered 
from  a  bull  of  1344  that  there  were  at  that  time  over  thirteen 
hundred  settlements  of  Premonstrant  or  White  Canons  in  exist- 
ence in  Europe,  besides  the  outlying  settlements  of  lay  brothers, 
and  about  four  hundred  settlements  of  nuns*.  The  settlements  of 
White  Canons  in  England  amounted  to  about  thirty-five  and  were 
founded  after  the  sexes  had  been  separated.  There  were  also  two 
settlements  of  Premonstrant  nuns  in  England  ^ 

A  third  order  of  canons  and  nuns,  which  in  various  ways  is 
akin  to  the  orders  of  Fontevraud  and  Pr^montr^  previously 
founded  abroad,  was  founded  at  the  beginning  of  the  12th  century 
in  England  by  Gilbert  of  Sempringham.  But  as  the  material  for 
study  of  this  order  is  copious,  and  as  it  marks  a  distinct  develop- 
ment in  the  history  of  women's  convent  life  in  England,  it  will  be 
discussed  in  detail  later*. 

The  canons  who  belonged  to  the  combined  orders  were  regular 
canons,  that  is  they  owned  no  individual  property,  and  further 
dififered  from  secular  canons  in  holding  themselves  exempt  from 
performing  spiritual  functions  for  the  laity.  Erasmus  at  a  later 
date  remarked  that  '  their  life  is  half  way  between  that  of  monks 
and  that  of  those  who  are  called  secular  canons^' 

'  Helyot,  Histoire  des  ordres  monastujues,  17  r4,  vol.  2,  p.   175;  Jacojx)  cH  Vitriaco, 
Historia  occidentalis,   1597,  ch.  15. 

"^  Gonzague,  Monasth-e  de  Storrine^ton,  1884,  p.  8. 

'  They  were  Brodholm  and  Irford.  <  §  3  of  this  chapter. 

'  '  Peregrinatio  Relig.  ergo.' 

13—2 


196  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  [chap,  vi 

As    to   the    distinction    between    the    two    kinds,    it    appears 
that    bands   of    canons   who    may    fitly   be   termed   regular    had 
existed    from    an   early   period ;    but   the   subject   is  shrouded  in 
some  obscurityV     In  the  nth  century  mention  of  them  becomes 
*i   frequent,  especially  in  France,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the   r2th 
\  century  their  position  was  defined  by  a  decree  published  by  Pope 
\   Innocent  II  at  the  Lateran   Council  (II39)^    By  this  decree  all 
those  canons  who  did  not  perform  spiritual  functions  for  the  laity 
were  designated  as  regular  and  were  called  upon  to  live  accord- 
ing to  the  rule  of  life  laid  down  by  St  Augustine  in  his  Epistle, 
number   109.     The   terms  Austin  canon  and   regular  canon  were 
henceforth  applied  indiscriminately,  but  many  independent  settle- 
ments of  unrecognised  canons  of  an  earlier  date  have  since  been 
included  under  this  term. 

A  few  words  are  here  needed  in  explanation  of  the  term  canoness 
or  Augdn  canongss^which  is  used  in  diverse  ways,  but  is  generally 
applied  to  women  of  some  substance,  who  entered  a  religious  com- 
munity and  lived  under  a  rule,  but  who  were  under  no  perpetual 
vivow,  that  is,  they  observed  obedience  and  celibacy  as  long  as  they 
^remained  in  the  house  but  were  at  liberty  to  return  to  the  world. 
These  stipulations  do  not  imply  that  a  woman  on  entering  a  convent 
renounced  all  rights  of  property,  an  assumption  on  the  strength  of 
which  the  Church  historian  Rohrbacher  interprets  as  applying  to 
canonesses  the  entire  chapter  of  directions  promulgated  at  Aachen 
in  816,  in  the  interest  of  women  living  the  religious  life^  But  the 
terms  used  in  these  provisions  are  the  ordinary  ones  applied  to  abbess 
and  nun''.  Helyot,  who  has  a  wider  outlook,  and  who  speaking  of  the 
canon  explains  how  this  term  was  at  first  applied  to  all  living  iji 
canone,  points  out  that  uncertainty  hangs  about  many  early  settle- 
ments of  women  abroad,  the  members  of  which  were  in  the  true 
sense  professed ^  It  seems  probable  that  they  at  first  observed  the 
rule  of  St  Benedict,  and  afterwards  departed  from  it,  as  has  been 
pointed  out  above  in  connection  with  Saxon  convents. 

The  tenor  of  the  provisions  made  at  Aachen  shows  that  the 
monastic  life  of  women  in  a  number  of  early  settlements  abroad 
rested  on  a  peculiar  basis,  and  points  to  the  fact  that  the  inmates 

'  Helyot,  Histoire  des  ordres  mpnastiques,  1714,  vol.  2,  pp.  11  ff. 

^  Tanner,  J.,  Notitia  Monastica  edit.  Nasmith,  1787,  Introd.  xi. 

'  Rohrbacher,  Histoire  universelle  de  VSglise  catholique,  1868,  vol.  6,  p.  1^2. 

*  Labbe,  C,  Sacror.  Cone.  Colkctio,  1763,  year  8t6,  part  2. 

•*  Helyot,  Histoire  des  ordres  monastiques,  1714.  vol.  2,  p.  55. 


SECT,  i]  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  197 

of  settlements  founded  at  an  early  date  were  in  some  measure 
justified  when  they  declared  later  that  they  had  always  held  certain 
liberties,  and  insisted  on  a  distinction  between  themselves  and  other 
nuns.  The  position  of  the  inmates  of  some  of  these  houses  continued 
different  from  that  of  the  members  of  other  nunneries  till  the  time 
of  the  Reformation.  In  England,  however,  this  difference  does  not 
seem  to  have  existed.  The  inmates  of  the  few  Austin  nunneries, 
of  which  there  were  fifteen  at  the  dissolution,  though  they  are 
frequently  spoken  of  as  canonesses  in  the  charters  that  are  secured 
by  them,  appear  to  have  lived  a  life  in  no  way  different  from  that 
of  other  nuns,  while  they  were  in  residence,  but  it  may  be  they 
absented  themselves  more  frequently. 

When  once  their  position  was  defined  the  spread  of  the  Austin 
Canons  was  rapid  ;  they  combined  the  learning  of  the  Benedictine 
with  the  devotional  zeal  of  the  Cistercian,  and  ingratiated  themselves 
with  high  and  low.  Of  all  the  settlements  of  the  Austin  Canons 
abroad  that  of  St  Victor  in  Paris  stands  first  in  importance.  It 
became  a  retreat  for  some  of  the  master  minds  of  the  age\  and  its 
influence  on  English  thinkers  was  especially  great*.  Austin  Canons 
came  from  France  into  England  as  early  as  1108.  At  first  their 
activity  here  was  chiefly  philanthropic,  they  founded  hospitals  and 
served  in  them;  but  they  soon  embraced  a  variety  of  interests.  In  the 
words  of  Kate  Norgate  speaking  with  reference  to  England':  'The 
scheme  of  Austin  Canons  was  a  compromise  between  the  old- 
fashioned  system  of  canons  and  that  of  monkish  confraternities ; 
but  a  compromise  leaning  strongly  towards  the  monastic  side,  tending 
more  and  more  towards  it  with  every  fresh  development,  and  distin- 
guished chiefly  by  a  certain  elasticity  of  organisation  which  gave 
scope  to  an  almost  unlimited  variety  in  the  adjustment  of  the 
relations  between  the  active  and  the  contemplative  life  of  the 
members  of  the  order,  thus  enabling  it  to  adapt  itself  to  the  most 
dissimilar  temperaments  and  to  the  most  diverse  spheres  of  activity.' 

Their  educational  system  also  met  with  such  success  that  before 
the  close  of  the  reign  of  Henry  I  two  members  of  the  fraternity  had 
been  promoted  to  the  episcopate  and  one  to  the  primacy.  In  the 
remarks  of  contemporary  writers  on  religious  settlements,  it  is 
curious  to  note  in  what  a  different  estimation  regular  canons  and 

^  Hugonin,    '  Essai  sur   la  fondation  de   I'ecole  St  Victor  k  Paris,'  printed  as  an 
introduction  to  Hugo  de  St  Victore,  Opera  (in  Migne,  Patrologiae  Cursus  Compl.  vol.  1 75). 
*  Comp.  below,  ch.  9,  §  i. 
'  Norgate,  Kate,  History  0/  the  Angevin  Kings,  1887,  vol.  1,  p.  66. 


198  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  [chap,  vi 

monks  are  held  by  those  who  shared  the  interests  of  court  circles. 
For  the  courtier,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  sympathised  with  the 
canon  but  abused  and  ridiculed  the  monk. 

Throughout  the  early  Christian  ages  the  idea  had  been  steadily 
gaining  ground  that  the  professed  religious  should  eschew  contact 
with  the  outside  world,  and  it  was  more  and  more  urged  that  the  moral 
and  mental  welfare  of  monk  and  nun  was  furthered  by  their  con- 
fining their  activity  within  the  convent  precincts.  Greater  seclusion 
was  first  enforced  among  women  ;  for  in  the  combined  orders 
the  nuns  remained  inside  the  monastery,  and  were  removed  from 
contact  with  the  world,  while  the  canons  were  but  little  restricted 
in  their  movements.  How  soon  habitual  seclusion  from  the 
world  became  obligatory  it  is  of  course  very  difficult  to  determine, 
but  there  is  extant  a  highly  interesting  pamphlet,  written  about  the 
year  1190  by  the  monk  Idung  of  the  Benedictine  monastery  of 
St  Emmeran  in  Bavaria,  which  shows  that  professed  religious 
women  in  the  district  he  was  acquainted  with  went  about  as 
freely  as  the  monks,  and  did  not  even  wear  a  distinctive  dress. 
The  pamphlet*  is  the  more  interesting  as  Idung  was  evidently  dis- 
tressed by  the  behaviour  of  the  nuns,  but  failed  to  find  an  authority 
on  which  to  oppose  their  actions.  He  admits  that  the  rule  as 
drafted  by  St  Benedict  is  intended  alike  for  men  and  women,  and 
that  there  are  no  directions  to  be  found  in  it  about  confining  nuns 
in  particular,  and  in  fact  the  rule  allowed  monks  and  nuns  to  go 
abroad  freely  as  long  as  their  superior  approved.  Idung  then  sets 
forth  with  many  arguments  that  nuns  are  the  frailer  vessel ;  and  he 
illustrates  this  point  by  a  mass  of  examples  adduced  from  classical 
and  Biblical  literature.  He  proves  to  himself  the  advisability  of 
nuns  being  confined,  but  he  is  at  a  loss  where  to  go  for  the  means 
of  confining  them.  And  he  ends  his  pamphlet  with  the  advice 
that  as  it  is  impossible  to  interfere  with  the  liberty  of  nuns,  it  should 
at  least  be  obligatory  for  them  when  away  from  home  to  wear 
clothes  which  would  make  their  vocation  obvious. 

No  doubt  the  view  held  by  this  monk  was  shared  by  others, 
and  public  opinion  fell  in  with  it,  and  insisted  on  the  advantages  of 
seclusion.  Many  Benedictine  houses  owned  outlying  manors  which 
were  often  at  a  considerable  distance,  and  the  management  of  which 
required  a  good  deal  of  moving  about  on  the  part  of  the  monks  and 
nuns  who  were  told  off  for  the  purpose.  We  shall  see  later  that 
those  who  had  taken  the  religious  vow  had  pleasure  as  their  object 

*  Idung,  De  quatuor  qtiestionibus  in  Pez,  B. ,  Thesaurus  anecdot.  ttov.  r?!!,  vol.  i. 


SECT,  i]  The  new  Monastic   Orders.  199 

as  much  as  business  in  going  about;  but  complaints  about  the 
Benedictines  of  either  sex  are  few  compared  with  those  raised 
against  the  Cistercian  monks.  For  the  Cistercians  in  their  capacity 
of  producers  visited  fairs  and  markets  and,  where  occasion  offered, 
were  ready  to  drive  a  bargain,  which  was  especially  objected  to  by 
the  ministers  of  the  Church,  who  declared  that  the  Cistercians  low- 
ered the  religious  profession  in  general  estimation.  Consequently 
orders  which  worked  on  opposite  lines  enjoyed  greater  favour  with 
the  priesthood  ;  such  as  the  monastic  order  of  Grand mont,  which 
originally  demanded  of  its  members  that  they  should  not  quit  their 
settlement  and  forbade  their  owning  any  animals  except  bees ;  and 
the  order  of  Chartreuse,  which  confined  each  monk  to  his  cell,  that 
is,  to  a  set  of  rooms  with  a  garden  adjoining^  But  these  orders  did 
not  secure  many  votaries  owing  to  their  severity  and  narrowness. 

Thus  at  the  close  of  the  12th  century  a  number  of  new  religious 
orders  had  been  founded  which  spread  from  one  country  to  another 
by  means  of  an  effective  system  of  organization,  raising  enthusiasm 
for  the  peaceful  pursuits  of  convent  life  among  all  classes  of  society. 
The  reason  of  their  success  lay  partly  in  their  identifying  themselves 
with  the  ideal  aspirations  of  the  age,  partly  in  the  political  unrest 
of  the  time  which  favoured  the  development  of  independent  institu- 
tions, but  chiefly  in  the  diversity  of  occupation  which  the  professed 
religious  life  now  offered.  The  success  obtained  by  the  monastic 
orders  however  did  not  fail  to  rouse  apprehension  among  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  established  Church,  and  it  seems  well  in  conclusion 
to  turn  and  recall  some  of  the  remarks  passed  on  the  new  orders  by 
contemporary  writers  who  moved  in  the  court  of  Henry  II  (i  1 54-89). 

It  has  been  pointed  out  how  the  sympathies  of  court  circles  at 
this  period  in  England  were  with  the  Church  as  represented  by  the 
priesthood;  courtier  and  priest  were  at  one  in  their  antagonism  against 
monks,  but  in  sympathy  with  the  canons.  Conspicuous  among  these 
men  stands  Gerald  Barri  (c.  1147-c.  1220),  a  Welshman  of  high 
abilities  and  at  one  time  court  chaplain  to  the  king.  He  hated  all 
monkish  orders  equally,  and  for  the  delectation  of  some  friends  whom 
he  entertained  at  Oxford  he  compiled  a  collection  of  monkish  scandals 
known  as  '  The  Mirror  of  the  Church^'  in  which  he  represents  the 
Cluniac  monk  as  married  to  Luxury,  and  the  Cistercian  monk  to 
Avarice ;  but,  in  spite  of  this,  incidental  remarks  in  the  stories  he 

'  Helyot,   Histoire  des  ordres  monastiques,  1714,  vol.  7,  pp.  366,  406.    Jacopo  di 
Vitriaco,  Historia  Occidentalism  '597»  c-  '5- 

*  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  Speculum  Ecclesiae,  edit.  Brewer,  1873. 


200  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  [chap,  vi 

tells  give  a  high  opinion  of  the  Cistercian's  industry,  hospitality 
and  unbounded  charity.  Gerald  mentions  as  a  subject  for  ridicule 
that  the  Cistercian  monk  lived  not  on  rent,  but  on  the  produce  of 
his  labour,  an  unaristocratic  proceeding  which  was  characteristic  of 
the  order.  Gerald's  attitude  is  reflected  in  that  of  Ralph  de  Glanvil 
(•}■  1 190),  justiciar  of  England  during  the  reign  of  Henry  II,  a  clever 
and  versatile  man  of  whom  we  know,  through  his  friend  Map,  that 
he  disliked  all  the  monkish  orders.  But  his  enthusiasm  for  religious 
settlements  was  not  inconsiderable,  and  several  settlements  of  the 
Premonstrant  or  White  Canons  were  founded  by  him. 

The  student  of  the  period  is  familiar  with  the  likes  and  dislikes 
of  Walter  Map  (f  c.  12 10),  great  among  poets  and  writers  of  the  age, 
who  disliked  all  monks,  but  especially  the  Cistercians'.  His  friend 
Gerald  tells  how  this  hatred  had  originated  in  the  encroachments 
made  by  the  monks  of  Newenham  on  the  rights  and  property  of 
the  church  he  held  at  Westbury.  For  the  perseverance  with  which 
Cistercian  monks  appropriated  all  available  territory  and  interfered 
with  the  rights  of  church  and  chapel,  made  them  generally  odious 
to  the  ministers  of  the  Church ;  their  encroachments  were  an  in- 
creasing grievance.  John  of  Salisbury,  afterwards  bishop  of  Chartres 
(t  after  1 180),  directly  censured  as  pernicious  the  means  taken  by  the 
monks  to  extend  their  power.  He  tells  us  they  procured  from  Rome 
exemption  from  diocesan  jurisdiction,  they  appropriated  the  right 
of  confession,  they  performed  burial  rites  ;  in  short  they  usurped 
the  keys  of  the  Church^  By  the  side  of  these  remarks  it  is  in- 
teresting to  recall  the  opinion  of  the  monkish  historian,  William  of 
Malmesbury,  who  a  generation  earlier  had  declared  that  the  Cis- 
tercian monks  had  found  the  surest  road  to  heaven. 

All  these  writers,  though  lavish  in  their  criticisms  on  monks, 
tell  us  hardly  anything  against  nuns.  The  order  of  St  Gilbert  for 
canons  and  nuns  alone  calls  forth  some  remarks  derogatory  to 
the  women.  Nigel  Wirecker,  himself  a  monk,  giving  vent  to  his 
embittered  spirit  against  Church  and  monkish  institutions  generally 
in  the  satire  of  Brunellus,  launches  into  a  fierce  attack  against  the 
tone  which  then  prevailed  in  women's  settlements^  He  does  not 
think  it  right  that  women  whose  antecedents  are  of  the  worst  kind 
should  adopt  the  religious  profession  and  that  as  a  means  of  pre- 
serving chastity  they  should  systematically  enjoin  hatred  of  men. 

'  Map,  W.,  De  Nugis  Curialium  (written  ii8'2-89),  1850,  p.  38. 
-  John  of  Salisbury,  Polycraticus,  edit.  Giles,  bk.  vii.  chs.  21-23. 
*  Wirecker,  N.,  Brunellus^  1662,  p.  83. 


SECT,  i]  The  new  Monastic  Orders.  20  r 

A  similar  reference  is  contained  in  the  poem  in  Norman  French 
called  the  'Order  of  Fair  Ease,'  which  is  a  production  of  the  13th 
century,  and  which  caricatures  the  different  religious  orders  by 
feigning  an  order  that  unites  the  characteristic  vices  of  all\  It  is 
chiefly  curious  in  the  emphasis  it  lays  on  the  exclusiveness  of 
monasteries  generally,  representing  them  as  reserved  for  the  aris- 
tocracy. It  contains  little  on  nunneries  and  only  a  few  remarks 
which  are  derogatory  to  the  combined  order  of  Sempringham. 

These  remarks  were  obviously  called  forth  by  the  fact  that  the 
combined  orders  in  particular  admitted  women  from  different  ranks 
of  life.  For  generally  nunneries  and  tlieir  inmates  enjoyed  favour 
with  churchman  and  courtier,  whose  contempt  for  the  monk  does 
not  extend  to  the  nun.  In  the  correspondence  of  Thomas  Beket, 
John  of  Salisbury,  Peter  of  Blois  and  others  there  are  letters  to 
nuns  of  various  houses  which  show  that  these  men  had  friends  and 
relatives  among  the  inmates  of  nunneries.  Indeed  where  members 
of  the  same  family  adopted  the  religious  profession,  the  son  habitu- 
ally entered  the  Church  while  the  daughter  entered  a  nunnery.  A 
sister  of  Thomas  Beket  was  abbess  at  Barking,  and  various 
princesses  of  the  royal  house  were  abbesses  of  nunneries,  as  we 
shall  presently  see.  They  included  Mary,  daughter  of  Stephen 
(Romsey);  a  natural  daughter  of  Henry  II  (Barking),  and  Matilda, 
daughter  of  Edward  I  (Amesbury) ;  Queen  Eleanor  wife  of  Henry 
III  also  took  the  veil  at  Amesbury. 

§  2.     Benedictine  Convents  in  the  Twelfth  Century. 

From  this  general  review  of  the  different  orders  we  pass  on 
to  the  state  of  nunneries  in  England  during  the  12th  century,  and 
to  those  incidents  in  their  history  which  give  some  insight  into 
their  constitution. 

Attention  is  first  claimed  by  the  old  Benedictine  settlements 
which  still  continued  in  prosperity  and  independence.  Of  these 
houses  only  those  which  were  in  connection  with  the  royal  house 
of  Wessex  remained  at  the  close  of  the  loth  century ;  those 
of  the  northern  and  midland  districts  had  disappeared.  Some 
were  deserted,  others  had  been  laid  waste  during  the  Danish 
invasions ;  it  has  been  observed  that  with  the  return  of  tran- 
quillity under  Danish  rule,  not  one  of  the  houses  for  women  was 
restored.  Secular  monks  or  laymen  took  possession  of  them,  and 
'  Goldsmid,  Political  Songs,  vol.  2,  p.  64. 


/     ' 


r 


202    Betiedictine  Convents  in  the  Twelfth  Century,   [chap,  vi 

when  they  were  expelled,  the  Church  claimed  the  land,  or  the 
settlement  was  restored  to  the  use  of  monks.  Some  of  the  great 
houses  founded  and  ruled  by  women  in  the  past  were  thus  appro- 
priated to  men.  Whitby  and  Ely  rose  in  renewed  splendour 
under  the  rule  of  abbots-;  Repton,  Wimbourne  and  numerous 
other  nunneries  became  the  property  of  monks. 

Various  reasons  have  been  given  for  the  comparatively  low  ebb 
at  which  women's  professed  religious  life  remained  for  a  time.  In- 
security during  times  of  warfare,  and  displacement  of  the  centres  of 
authority,  supply  obvious  reasons  for  desertion  and  decay.  A 
story  is  preserved  showing  how  interference  from  without  led  to 
the  disbanding  of  a  nunnery.  The  Danish  earl  Swegen  (•}■  1052), 
son  of  Earl  Godwin,  took  away  (vi  abstractam)  the  abbess  Eadgifu 
of  Leominster  in  Herefordshire  in  1048,  and  kept  her  with  him  for 
a  whole  year  as  his  wife.  The  archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  the 
bishop  of  Worcester  threatened  him  with  excommunication,  where- 
upon he  sent  her  home,  avenging  himself  by  seizing  lands  of  the 
monaster)'-  of  Worcester.  He  then  fled  from  England  and  was 
outlawed,  but  at  a  later  period  he  is  said  to  have  wanted  the  abbess 
back.  The  result  is  not  recorded,  for  Leominster  as  a  women's 
settlement  ceased  to  exist  about  this  time\  There  is  no  need 
to  imagine  a  formal  dissolution  of  the  settlement.  The  voluntary 
or  involuntary  absence  of  the  abbess  in  times  of  warfare  supplies 
quite  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  disbanding  of  the  nuns. 

About  the  same  time  a  similar  fate  befell  the  monastery  of 
Berkley-on-Severn,  in  spite  of  the  heroic  behaviour  of  its 
abbess.  The  story  is'  told  by  Walter  Map  how  it  was  attacked 
and  plundered  at  the  instigation  of  Earl  Godwin  ("f-  1053)  and  how 
in  spite  of  the  stand  made  by  the  abbess,  a '  strong  and  determined ' 
woman,  the  men  who  took  possession  of  it  turned  it  into  a  *  pan- 
theon, a  very  temple  of  harlotry^'     Berkley  also  ceased  to  exist^. 

The  monasteries  ruled  by  women,  which  survived  the  political 
changes  due  to  the  Danish  invasion  and  the  Norman  Conquest, 
had  been  in  connection  with  women  of  the  house  of  Cerdic ;  with 
hardly  an  exception  they  were  situated  in  the  province  of  Wessex 

^  Freeman,  Norman  Conquest,  y(\  edit.  1877,  vol.  2,  p.  609. 

^  Ibid.  p.  554;  Map,  De  Nugis  Curialium,  1850,  p.  201  (Freeman:  Map  like  other 
Norman  writers  speaks  very  ill  of  Godwin). 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  vol.  6,  p.  1618  (p.  1619  he  says  in  connection  with  the 
destroyed  nunnery  Woodchester  that  the  wife  of  Earl  Godwin  built  it  to  make  amends 
for  her  husband's  fraud  at  Berkley). 


SECT,  ii]    Benedictine  Convents  in  the  Twelfth  Century.     203 

within  the  comparatively  small  area  of  Dorset,  Wilts,  and  Hamp- 
shire. Chief  among  them  were  Shaftesbury,  Amesbury,  Wilton 
(or  Ellandune),  Romsey,  and  St  Mary  Winchester  (or  Nunna- 
minster).  With  these  must  be  classed  Barking  in  Essex,  one  of 
the  oldest  settlements  in  the  land,  which  had  been  deserted  at  one 
time  but  was  refounded  by  King  Edgar,  and  which  together  with 
the  Wessex  nunneries,  carried  on  a  line  of  uninterrupted  traditions 
from  the  9th  century  to  the  time  of  the  dissolution. 

The  manors  owned  by  these  settlements  at  the  time  of  the 
Conquest  lay  in  different  shires,  often  at  a  considerable  distance 
from  the  monastery  itself 

From  the  account  of  survey  in  the  Domesday  book  we  gather 
that  Shaftesbury  had  possessions  in  Sussex,  Wiltshire,  Dorset,  and 
Hampshire',  and  that  Nunnaminster  owned  manors  in  Hampshire, 
Berkshire,  and  Wiltshire^  Barking,  the  chief  property  of  which 
lay  in  Essex,  also  held  manors  in  Surrey,  Middlesex,  Berkshire,  and 
Bedfordshire^ 

These  monasteries  were  abbacies,  as  indeed  were  all  houses  for 
nuns  founded  before  the  Conquest.  The  abbess,  like  the  abbot,  \\ 
had  the  power  of  a  bishop  within  the  limits  of  her  own  house  and  il 
bore  a  crozier  as  a  sign  of  her  rank.  Moreover  the  abbesses  of 
Shaftesbury,  Wilton,  Barking,  and  Nunnaminster  '  were  of  such 
quality  that  they  held  of  the  king  by  an  entire  barony,'  and  by 
right  of  tenure  had  the  privilege  at  a  later  date  of  being  summoned 
to  parliament,  though  this  lapsed  on  account  of  their  sex*. 

The  abbess  as  well  as  the  abbot  had  a  twofold  income ;  she  \  1 
drew  spiritualities  from  the  churches  which  were  in  her  keeping,  *" 
and  temporalities  by  means  of  her  position  as  landlord  and  land-  ^ 
owner.    The  abbess  of  Shaftesbury,  who  went  by  the  title  of  abbess 
of  St  Edward,  had  in  her  gift  several  prebends,  or  portions  of  the 
appropriated  tithes  or  lands  for  secular  priests.     In  the  reign  of 
Henry  I  she  found  seven  knights  for  the  king's  service,  and  had 
writs  regularly  directed  to  her  to  send  her  quota  of  soldiers  into 
the  field  in  proportion  to  her  knights'  fees  ;  she  held  her  own  courts 
for  pleas  of  debts,  etc.,  the  perquisites  of  which  belonged  to  her*. 

To  look  through  the  cartularies  of  some  of  the  old  monasteries, 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon.,  'Shaftesbury,'  vol.  i,  p.  470. 

*  Ibid.  'Nunnaminster,'  vol.  i,  p.  451.  '  Ibid.  'Barking,'  vol.  i,  p.  436. 

*  Ibid.  'Shaftesbury,'  vol.  2,  p.  47a.     The  abbess  does  not  even  seem  to  have  been 
represented  (as  she  was  at  the  Diet  abroad). 

*  Ibid.  p.  472 ;  and  p.  473  footnote. 


/I 


204    Benedictine  Convents  in  the  Twelfth  Century,   [chap,  vi 

is  to  realise  how  complex  were  the  duties  which  devolved  on  the 
ruler  of  one  of  these  settlements,  and  they  corroborate  the  truth 
of  the  remark  that  the  first  requirement  for  a  good  abbot  was 
that  he  should  have  a  head  for  business.  Outlying  manors  were 
\  in  the  hands  of  bailiffs  who  managed  them,  and  the  house  kept  a 
clerk  who  looked  after  its  affairs  in  the  spiritual  courts ;  for  the 
management  and  protection  of  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the 
property  claimed  unceasing  care. 

The  Benedictine  abbesses  do  not  seem  to  have  been  wanting 
in  business  and  managing  capacity.  At  the  time  of  the  dissolution 
the  oldest  nunneries  in  the  land  with  few  exceptions  were  also  the 
wealthiest.  The  wealth  of  some  was  notorious.  A  saying  was 
I  current  in  the  western  provinces  that  if  the  abbot  of  Glastonbury 
I  were  to  marry  the  abbess  of  Shaftesbury,  their  heir  would  have 
I  more  land  than  the  king  of  England \  The  reason  of  this  wealth 
lies  partly  in  the  fact  that  property  had  been  settled  on  them  at 
a  time  when  land  was  held  as  a  comparatively  cheap  commodity ; 
but  it  speaks  well  for  the  managing  capacities  of  those  in  authority 
that  the  high  standing  was  maintained.  The  rulers  prevented 
their  property  from  being  wasted  or  alienated  during  the  12th 
and  13th  centuries,  when  the  vigour  or  decline  of  an  institution 
so  largely  depended  on  the  capacity  of  the  individual  repre- 
senting it,  and  they  continued  faithful  to  their  traditions  by 
effecting  a  compromise  during  the  14th  and  15th  centuries,  when 
the  increased  powers  of  the  Church  and  the  consolidation  of  the 
monarchical  power  threatened  destruction  to  institutions  of  the 
kind. 

It  is  worthy  of  attention  that  while  all  nunneries  founded  during 

W  Anglo-Saxon  times  were  abbacies,  those  founded  after  the  Conquest 

1  were  generally  priories.     Sixty-four  Benedictine   nunneries   date 

their  foundation  from  after  the  Conquest,  only  three  of  which  were 

^abbacies^  The  Benedictine  prioress  was  in  many  cases  subject 
to  an  abbot;  her  authority  varied  with  the  conditions  of  her 
appointment,  but  in  all  cases  she  was  below  the  abbess  in  rank. 
The  explanation  is  to  be  sought  in  the  system  of  feudal  tenure. 
iWomen  no  longer  held  property,  nunneries  were  founded  and 
Endowed  by  local  barons  or  by  abbots.  Where  power  from  the 
preceding  period  devolved  on  the  woman  in  authority,  she  retained 
it ;  but  where  new  appointments  were  made  the  current  tendency 
was  in  favour  of  curtailing  her  power. 

'  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  vol.  1,  p.  472.  ^  They  were  Godstow,  Elstow,  Mailing. 


SECT,  ii]    Benedictine  Convents  in  the  Twelfth  Century.     205 

Similarly  all  the  Cistercian  nunneries  in  England,  which 
numbered  thirty-six  at  the  dissolution,  were  without  exception 
priories.  The  power  of  women  professing  the  order  abroad  and 
the  influence  of  the  Cistercian  abbesses  in  Spain  and  France  have 
been  mentioned — facts  which  preclude  the  idea  of  there  being 
anything  in  the  intrinsic  nature  of  the  order  contrary  to  the  holding 
of  power  by  women.  The  form  the  settlement  took  in  each 
country  was  determined  by  the  prevailing  drift  of  the  time,  and 
in  England  during  the  nth  and  12th  centuries  it  was  in  favour 
of  less  independence  for  women. 

Various   incidents   in    the  history  of  nunneries    illustrate  the-7 
comparatively  dependent  position  of  these  settlements  after  the'^ 
Conquest.     At  first  Sheppey  had  been  an  abbacy.     It  had  been 
deserted  during  the  viking  period ;  and  at  the  instigation  of  the 
archbishop  of  Canterbury  about  the  year  1 1 30  nuns  were  brought 
there  from  Sittingbourne  and  the  house  was  restored  as  a  priory. 

Amesbury  again,  one  of  the  oldest  and  wealthiest  abbeys  in 
the  land  for  women,  was  dissolved  and  restored  as  a  priory,  de- 
pendent on  the  abbess  of  Fontevraud.  This  change  of  constitu- 
tion presents  some  interesting  features.  The  lives  of  the  women 
assembled  there  in  the  12th  century  were  of  a  highly  reprehensible 
character ;  the  abbess  was  accused  of  incontinence  and  her  evil 
ways  were  followed  by  the  nuns.  There  was  no  way  out  of  the 
difficulty  short  of  removing  the  women  in  a  body,  and  to  accomplish 
this  was  evidently  no  easy  undertaking.  Several  charters  of  the 
time  of  King  John  and  bearing  his  signature  are  in  existence. 
The  abbess,  whose  name  is  not  on  record,  retired  into  private  life 
on  a  pension  of  ten  marks,  and  the  thirty  nuns  of  her  convent  were 
placed  in  other  nunneries.  A  prioress  and  twenty-four  nuns  were 
then  brought  over  from  Fontevraud  and  established  at  Amesbury, 
which  became  for  a  time  a  cell  to  the  foreign  housed  This  connection 
with  France,  at  a  time  when  familiarity  with  French  formed  part  of 
a  polite  education,  caused  Amesbury  to  become  the  chosen  retreat 
of  royal  princesses.  During  the  wars  with  France  under  the  Edwards, 
when  many  priories  and  cells  were  cut  off  from  their  foreign  con- 
nection, Amesbury  regained  its  old  standing  as  an  abbacy. 

Several  of  the  Benedictine  nunneries  founded  after  the  Conquest 

'  Dugdale,  Monasticon ,  'Amesbury,'  vol.  ?,  p.  333;  Freeman,  History  of  the  Norman 
Conquest  (3rd  edit.  1877),  vol.  2,  p.  610  ;  the  event  is  dated  1177;  perhaps  the  letters  from 
John  of  Salisbury,  Epist.  edit.  Giles,  nrs  71,  74,  are  addressed  to  the  abbess  of  Amesbury, 
who  was  deposed. 


2o6    Benedictine  Convents  in  the  Tmelfth  Century,  [chap,  vi 

owed  their  foundation  to  abbacies  of  men.  Some  were  directly 
dependent  cells,  like  Sopwell  in  Hertfordshire,  a  nunnery  founded 
by  the  abbot  of  St  Albans,  who  held  the  privilege  of  appointing 
its  prioress.  So  absolute  was  this  power  that  when  the  nuns 
appointed  a  prioress  of  their  own  choice  in  1330,  she  was  deposed 
by  the  abbot  of  St  Albans,  who  appointed  another  person  in  her 
steads  Similarly  the  nunnery  at  Kilburn  was  a  cell  to  West- 
minster, its  prioress  being  appointed  by  the  abbot  of  Westminster^ 
But  as  a  general  rule  the  priories  were  so  constituted  that  the  nuns 
might  appoint  a  prioress  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  patron  of 
their  house,  and  she  was  then  consecrated  to  her  office  by  the 
bishop. 

Various  incidents  show  how  jealously  each  house  guarded  its 
privileges  and  how  needful  this  was,  considering  the  changes  that 
were  apt  to  occur,  for  the  charters  of  each  religious  house  were  the 
sole  guarantee  of  its  continued  existence.  From  time  to  time  they 
were  renewed  and  confirmed,  and  if  the  representative  of  the  house 
was  not  on  the  alert,  he  might  awake  to  find  his  privileges  en- 
croached upon.  In  regard  to  the  changes  which  were  liable  to 
occur  the  following  incident  deserves  mention.  In  the  year  1192 
the  archbishop  of  York  formed  the  plan  of  subjecting  the  nunnery 
of  St  Clement's  at  York^  a  priory  founded  by  his  predecessor 
Thurstan,  to  the  newly-founded  abbacy  for  women  at  Godstow. 
Godstow  was  one  of  the  few  women's  abbacies  founded  after  the 
Conquest,  and  owed  its  wealth  and  influence  chiefly  to  its  con- 
nection with  the  family  of  Fair  Rosamond,  at  one  time  the  mistress 
of  Henry  II,  who  spent  the  latter  part  of  her  life  there.  But^,the 
nuns  of  St  Clement's,  who  had  always  been  free,  would  not  obey 
the  abbess  of  Godstow,  and  they  saved  themselves  from  the  arch- 
bishop's interference  by  appealing  directly  to  the  Court  of  Rome. 

A  curious  incident  occurred  during  the  reign  of  Henry  III 
in  connection  with  Stanford,  a  nunnery  m  Northamptonshire. 
Stanford  was  a  priory  dependent  on  the  abbot  of  Peterborough 
who  had  founded  it.  It  appears  that  the  prioress  and  her  convent, 
in  soliciting  confirmation  of  their  privileges  from  Rome,  employed 
a  certain  proctor,  who,  besides  the  desired  confirmation,  procured 
the  insertion  of  several  additional  articles  into  the  document,  one 
of  which  was  permission  for  the  nuns  to  choose  their  own  prioress, 
and  another  a  release  from  certain  payments.     When  the  abbot  of 

*  Dugdale,  Afonasticon,  'Sopwell,'  vol.  3,  p.  362. 

'  Ibid.  'Kilburn,'  vol.  3,  p.  422.  ^  Ibid.  'St  Clement's,'  vol.  4,  p.  323. 


SECT,  ii]    Benedictine  Convents  in  the  Twelfth  Century.     207 

Peterborough  became  aware  of  these  facts  he  threatened  to  com- 
plain to  the  Pope,  whereupon  the  prioress  with  the  nuns'  approval 
carried  all  their  charters  and  records  of  privileges  to  the  archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  alleging  that  the  proctor  had  acted  against  their 
order.  They  renounced  all  claim  to  privileges  secretly  obtained, 
and  besought  the  primate  to  represent  their  conduct  favourably 
to  the  Pope  and  to  make  peace  between  them  and  their 
patrons'. 

Both  these  incidents  occurred  in  connection  with  Benedictine 
nunneries.  The  difficulties  which  occurred  in  Cistercian  nunneries 
are  less  easy  to  estimate,  as  they  were  not  daughter-houses  to 
men's  Cistercian  abbacies,  but  in  many  cases  held  their  privileges 
by  a  bull  obtained  directly  from  the  Pope.  Thus  Sinningthwaite 
in  Yorkshire^  founded  in  1160,  held  a  bull  from  Alexander  III 
which  exempted  the  nuns  from  paying  tithes  on  the  lands  they 
farmed,  such  exemption  being  the  peculiar  privilege  of  many  Cister- 
cian settlements.  Other  bulls  secured  by  Cistercian  nunneries  in 
England  are  printed  by  Dugdale^ 

A  few  incidents  are  recorded  in  connection  with  some  of  the 
royal  princesses,  which  illustrate  the  attitude  commonly  assumed 
towards  professed  nuns,  and  give  us  an  idea  of  the  estimation  in 
which  convents  were  held.  Queen  Margaret  of  Scotland  we  are 
told^desired  to  become  a  nun  ;  her  mother  and  her  sister  Christina 
both  took  the  veil,  and  her  daughters,  the  princesses  Matilda  and 
Mary,  lived  at  Romsey  for  some  years  with  their  aunt  Christina.  As 
Pope  Innocent  IV  canonised  (1250)  Queen  Margaret  of  Scotland  a 
few  words  must  be  devoted  to  her. 

Her  father  Edward,  the  son  of  Edmu^  Ironside  (■[•  1016), 
had  found  refuge  at  the  Scottish  court  when  he  came  from  abroad 
with  his  wife  Agatha  and  their  children,  a  son  and  two  daughters. 
Of  these  daughters,  Christina  became  a  nun ;  but  Margaret 
was  either  persuaded  or  constrained  to  marry  King  Malcolm 
in  1070,  and  having  undertaken  the  duties  of  so  august  a  station 
as  that  of  queen,  she  devoted  her  energies  to  introducing  reforms 
into  Scotland  and  to  raising  the  standard  of  industrial  art.  We 
possess  a  beautiful  description  of  her  life,  probably  written  by 
her  chaplain  Turgof,  and  her  zeal  and  high  principles  are  further 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Stanford,'  vol.  4,  p.  257. 
^  I^By  '  .Sinningthwaite,'  vol.  5,  p.  463. 

*  Ibid*  'Swine,'  vol.  5,  p.  494,  nr  1  ;  *  Nun-Cotham,'  vol.  5,  p.  676,  nr  2. 

*  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Margaret,  June  10. 


2o8    Benedictine  Convents  in  the  Twelfth  Century,    [chap,  vi 

evidenced  by  her  letters,  some  of  which  are  addressed  to  the 
primate  Lanfranc. 

Margaret's  two  daughters,  Matilda  and  Mary,  were  brought  up 
in  the  convent,  but  it  is  not  known  when  they  came  to  Romsey  in 
Wessex  ;  indeed  their  connection  with  Wessex  offers  some  chrono- 
logical difficulties.  Their  mother's  sister  Christina  became  a  pro- 
fessed nun  at  Romsey  in  1086^ ;  she  may  have  lived  before  in  a 
nunnery  in  the  north  of  England^,  and  there  advocated  her  niece 
Matilda's  acceptance  of  the  religious  profession  as  a  protection 
against  the  Normans.  If  this  is  not  the  case  it  is  difficult  to  fix 
the  date  of  King  Malcolm's  scorn  for  her  proposal  that  Matilda 
should  become  a  nun^  King  Malcolm  was  killed  fighting  against 
William  Rufus  in  1093,  Queen  Margaret  died  a  few  days  after- 
wards, and  the  princesses  Matilda  and  Mary,  of  whom  the  former 
was  about  thirteen,  from  that  time  till  i  lOO  dwelt  at  Romsey  in 
the  south  of  England.  In  the  year  1 100,  after  the  violent  death 
of  Rufus,  Henry,  the  younger  of  his  brothers,  laid  claim  to  the 
English  crown.  A  union  with  a  princess,  who  on  the  mother's 
side  was  of  the  house  of  Cerdic,  appeared  in  every  way  desirable. 
According  to  the  statement  of  William  of  Malmesbury  (f  c.  1 142) 
Henry  was  persuaded  by  his  friends,  and  especially  by  his  prelates, 
to  marry  Matilda.  '  She  had  worn  the  veil  to  avoid  ignoble 
marriages,'  says  William,  who  lived  close  to  the  locality  and  was 
nearly  a  contemporary,  *  and  when  the  king  wished  to  marry  her, 
witnesses  were  brought  to  say  she  had  worn  it  without  profession*,' 
This  is  borne  out  by  the  historian  Orderic  Vitalis  (-f-  1 142),  whose 
information  however  is  derived  at  second  hand,  for  he  enlarges 
on  the  princesses'  stay  with  the  nuns  at  Romsey,  and  on  the 
instruction  they  received  in  letters  and  good  manners,  but  he  does 
not  say  that  they  were  actually  professed  ^ 

The  fullest  account  of  the  event  is  given  by  Eadmer  (-f-  11 24), 
who  was  nearly  connected  with  the  primate  Anselm,  and  he 
naturally  puts  the  most  favourable  construction  on  Matilda's 
conduct.  According  to  him  she  wished  to  leave  the  convent  and 
went  before  Anselm  to  plead  her  cause. 

'  I  do  not  deny  having  worn  the  veil,'  the  princess  said.  '  When 
I  was  a  child  my  aunt  Christina,  whom  you  know  to  be  a  deter- 

'  Did.  of  Nat.  Biography,  Christina, 

^  Brand,  History  of  Newcastle,  vol,  i,  p,  •204, 

*  Freeman,  History  of  William  Rufus,  vol.  i,  pp,  596,  682. 

*  Will,  of  Malmesbury,  Gesta  Reg.  (Rolls  Series),  pp.  279,  470,  493. 

'  Orderic  Vitalis,  Eccles.  Hist.,  transl.  by  Forester,  1847,  vol.  3,  p.  i^. 


SECT,  ii]    Benedicthie  Convents  in  the  Twelfth  Century.     209 

mined  woman,  in  order  to  protect  me  against  the  violence  of  the 
Normans,  put  a  piece  of  black  cloth  on  my  head,  and  when  I 
removed  it  gave  me  blows  and  bad  language.  So  I  trembling 
and  indignant  wore  the  veil  in  her  presence.  But  as  soon  as  I 
could  get  out  of  her  sight  I  snatched  it  off  and  trampled  it  under- 
foot\'  In  a  lively  way  she  goes  on  to  describe  how  her  father 
seeing  the  veil  on  her  head  became  angry  and  tore  it  off,  saying  he 
had  no  intention  other  than  that  she  should  be  married.  Anselm, 
before  complying  with  the  wish  of  the  princess,  convened  a  chapter 
at  Lambeth,  but  after  hearing  their  decision,  he  declared  Matilda 
free  ahd  united  her  in  marriage  to  the  king. 

Anselm's  behaviour  is  doubtless  faithfully  represented  by 
Eadmer.  Curiously  enough  later  historians,  Robert  of  Gloucester, 
Matthew  Paris  and  Rudbone  (t  c.  1234),  represent  Matilda  as 
unwilling  to  leave  the  cloister  to  be  married ;  and  in  one  of  these 
accounts  she  is  described  as  growing  angry,  and  pronouncing  a 
curse  on  the  possible  offspring  of  the  union.  Walter  Map  goes 
so  far  as  to  say  that  the  king  took  to  wife  a  veiled  and  professed 
nun,  Rome  neither  assenting  nor  dissenting,  but  remaining  passive. 

Perhaps  the  validity  of  the  union  was  afterwards  for  political 
reasons  called  in  question.  At  any  rate  Mary,  Matilda's  sister, 
also  left  the  convent  to  be  married  to  Eustace,  Count  of  Boulogne, 
without  objection  being  raised. 

That  Matilda  did  not  object  to  leaving  the  cloister,  we  have 
conclusive  proof  in  her  great  and  continued  affection  for  Anselm 
as  shown  in  her  letters  to  him.  These  letters  and  the  charitable 
deeds  of  the  queen,  throw  light  on  the  Latinity  of  the  Romsey 
pupil  and  on  the  tastes  she  had  imbibed  there. 

We  shall  have  occasion  to  return  to  Matilda  again  in  connection 
with  the  philanthropic  movement  of  the  age,  and  we  shall  find  her 
founding  the  hospital  of  St  Giles  in  the  soke  of  Aldgate,  and 
bringing  the  first  Austin  Canons  from  France  into  England". 

All  her  life  she  retained  a  taste  for  scholarly  pursuits,  and 
patronised  scholars  and  men  of  letters.  Her  correspondence  with 
the  primate  Anselm'  yields  proof  of  her  own  studies  and  the 
freedom  with  which  .she  wrote  Latin. 

In   one   of  these   letters,   written   shortly   after   her   marriage 

*  Eadmer,  Historia  (Rolls  Series),  p.  122. 

*  Comp.  below,  ch.  8,  §  2. 

^  Anselm  of  Canterbury,  Epistolae  (in  Migne,  Patrol.  Cursus  computus,  vol.  159),  the 
numeration  of  which  is  followed  in  the  text. 

E.  14 


2 1  o    Benedictine  Convents  in  the  Twelfth  Century,    [chap,  vi 

(bk  3-  55),  Matilda  urges  the  primate  in  strong  terms  to  abstain 
from  the  severe  fasting  he  practises,  quoting  from  Cicero  '  on  Old 
Age,'  and  arguing  that  as  the  mind  needs  food  and  drink,  so  does 
the  body  ;  she  at  the  same  time  admits  the  Scriptures  enjoin  the 
duty  of  fasting,  and  Pythagoras,  Socrates  and  others  urge  the  need 
of  frugality.  Anselm  in  his  answer  incidentally  mentions  having 
joined  her  to  the  king  in  lawful  wedlock. 

Matilda's  next  letters  are  less  fraught  with  learning,  and  in 
unaffected  terms  express  grief  at  Anselm's  voluntary  exile,  which 
was  the  outcome  of  his  quarrel  with  the  king.  She  is  saddened 
by  his  absence  and  longs  for  his  return  (3.  93) ;  she  would  act  as 
intercessor  between  him  and  her  husband  (3.  96),  and  she  writes 
to  the  Pope  on  Anselm's  behalf  (3.  99).  The  queen  both  read  and 
admired  Anselm's  writings,  and  compares  his  style  to  that  of  Cicero, 
Quintilian,  Jerome,  Gregory  and  others  (3.  119)  with  whom  her 
reading  at  Romsey  may  have  made  her  acquainted. 

Anselm  is  not  slow  in  answering  that  the  king's  continued 
bitterness  is  to  him  a  source  of  grief,  and  in  expressing  the  desire 
that  the  queen  may  turn  his  heart.  It  is  good  of  her  to  wish  for 
his  return,  which,  however,  does  not  depend  on  himself;  besides 
'surely  she  wishes  him  to  act  in  accordance  with  his  conscience.' 
In  one  of  these  letters  he  accuses  the  queen  of  disposing  otherwise 
than  she  ought  of  the  churches  which  are  in  her  keeping  (3.  57, 
81,  97,  107,  120,  128). 

Anselm's  continued  absence  from  Canterbury,  which  was 
due  to  the  quarrel  about  investiture,  was  felt  to  be  a  national 
calamity,  and  many  letters  passed  between  him  and  those  among 
the  Church  dignitaries  who  sided  with  him  against  the  king. 

Among  Anselm's  correspondents  were  several  abbesses  of  Wessex 
settlements,  who  seem  to  have  been  in  no  way  prejudiced  against 
him  on  account  of  the  approval  he  gave  to  Matilda's  leaving  the 
cloister.  He  writes  in  a  friendly  strain  to  another  Matilda,  abbess 
of  St  Mary's,  Winchester  (Winton),  thanking  her  for  her  prayers, 
urging  her  to  cultivate  purity  of  heart  and  beauty  of  mind  as  an 
encouragement  to  virtue,  and  begging  her  to  show  obedience  to 
Osmund  (bishop  of  Winchester)  in  affairs  temporal  and  spiritual 
(3.  30).  To  Adeliz,  also  abbess  at  St  Mary's  (3.  70),  he  writes 
to  say  she  must  not  be  sorry  that  William  Giffard  has  left  his 
appointment  as  bishop  of  Winchester,  for  his  going  is  a  reason  for 
rejoicing  among  his  friends,  as  it  proves  his  steadfastness  in  reli- 
gious matters.     He  also  writes  to  Eulalia,  abbess  (of  Shaftesbury), 


SECT,  ii]    Benedictine  Convents  in  the  Twelfth  Century.    2 1 1 

who  was  anxious  for  him  to  come  back,  and  begs  her  to  pray  that 
his  return  may  prosper  (3.  125). 

The  references  to  the  Benedictine  nunneries  of  Wessex  con- 
tained in  this  correspondence  are  supplemented  by  information 
from  other  sources. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  12th  century  a  girl  named  Eva  was 
brought  up  at  a  convent,  but  which  she  left  to  go  to  Anjou,  since 
she  preferred  the  life  of  a  recluse  there  to  the  career  which  was 
open  to  her  in  the  English  nunnery.  Her  life  abroad  has  been 
described  in  verse  by  Hilarius  (f  c.  11 24)  who  is  the  earliest 
known  Englishman  who  wrote  religious  plays.  After  studying 
under  Abelard  Hilarius  had  taken  up  his  abode  at  Angers,  near 
the  place  where  Eva  dwelt,  and  was  much  impressed  by  her 
piety  and  devotions^ 

From  his  poem  we  gather  that  Eva  had  been  given  into  the 
care  of  the  nuns  at  St  Mary's,  Winchester  (Winton),  a  place'which 
he  designates  as  '  good  and  renowned.'  The  girl's  progress  in  learn- 
ing was  the  subject  of  wonder  to  the  abbess  and  her  companions, 
but  when  Eva  reached  the  age  at  which  her  enrolment  as  a  member 
of  the  community  was  close  at  hand,  '  she  turned '  in  the  words  of 
the  poet,  '  from  success  as  though  it  had  been  a  sinful  trespass,' 
and  left  the  nunnery  to  go  abroad. 

Her  admirer  Hilarius  has  celebrated  other  women  who  were 
devoted  to  religious  pursuits.  He  addresses  one  of  them  as 
*  Bona,'  and  praises  her  for  caring  little  for  the  religious  garb 
unless  good  works  accompany  it.  The  meaning  of  her  name  and 
that  of  other  religious  women  whom  Hilarius  also  addresses,  such 
as  *  Superba,'  and  'Rosa,'  gives  him  an  opportunity  for  compliments 
on  the  virtues  these  names  suggest.  His  poems,  though  insigni- 
ficant in  themselves,  add  touches  to  our  knowledge  of  women 
who  adopted  the  religious  profession. 

In  the  wars  which  ensued  after  the  death  of  Henry  I  (1134) 
the  nunneries  of  Wessex  witnessed  the  climax  and  the  end  of  the 
struggle.  The  Empress  Matilda,  daughter  of  Henry  I  and  Queen 
Matilda,  who  claimed  the  crown  on  the  strength  of  her  descent, 
finding  the  sympathies  of  London  divided,  approached  Winchester, 
and  was  received  by  two  convents  of  monks  and  the  convent  of 
nuns  who  came  forth  to  meet  her.  The  Empress  for  a  time  resided 
at  St  Mary's  Abbey,  and   there  received  a  visit  from  Theobald, 

*  Hilarius,    Versus  et  Ituti,   edit.    ChampoUion-Figeac,    1838,  p.   i.     (Champollion 
prints  Clinton,  which  he  no  doubt  misread  for  Winton.) 

14 — 2 


2  12    Benedictine  Convents  in  the  Twelfth  Century,    [chap,  vi 

archbishop  of  Canterbury\  During  the  fighting  which  followed 
the  nunnery  of  Wherwell  was  burnt'*,  and  perhaps  St  Mary's  Abbey 
at  Winchester  was  destroyed'.  Matilda  finally  yielded  to  Stephen, 
and  left  England  on  condition  that  her  son  Henry  should  succeed 
to  the  crown. 

The  nunnery  of  Romsey  continued  its  connection  with  royalty, 
and  we  find  the  daughter  of  Stephen,  Mary  of  Blois,  established 
there  as  abbess  previous  to  her  marriage.  Her  case  again  throws 
curious  side-lights  on  the  foundation  of  convents  and  the  possi- 
bilities open  to  women  who  adopted  the  religious  profession. 

The  princess  Mary  had  come  over  from  St  Sulpice  in  France 
with  seven  nuns  to  Stratford  at  Bow  (otherwise  St  Leonard's, 
Bromley  in  Middlesex),  when  the  manor  of  Lillechurch  in  Kent 
was  granted  to  the  nunnery  there  by  King  Stephen  for  her  own 
and  her  companions'  maintenance*.  But  these  women,  as  the 
charter  has  it,  because  of  the  '  harshness  of  the  rule  and  their 
different  habits'  could  not  and  would  not  stay  at  Stratford,  and 
with  the  convent's  approval  they  left  it  and  removed  to  Lille- 
church, which  was  constituted  by  charter  a  priory  for  them,  Mary 
removed  later  to  Romsey  where  she  became  abbess  some  time 
before  II59^  for  in  that  year  her  brother  William,  the  sole  sur- 
viving heir  of  Stephen,  died,  so  that  she  was  left  heiress  to  the 
county  of  Boulogne.  She  was  thereupon  brought  out  of  the 
convent  at  the  instigation  of  Henry  H,  and  married  to  Matthew, 
son  of  the  Count  of  Flanders,  who  through  her  became  Count  of 
Boulogne.  Thomas  Beket,  who  was  then  chancellor,  not  primate, 
was  incensed  at  this  unlawful  proceeding,  and  intervened  as  a 
protector  of  monastic  rule,  but  the  only  result  of  his  interference 
was  to  draw  on  himself  the  hatred  of  Count  Matthew^  It  is  said 
that  Mary  returned  to  Romsey  twelve  years  later.  Her  daughters 
were,  however,  legitimised  in  1189  and  both  of  them  married. 

Various  letters  found  here  and  there  in  the  correspondence 
of  this  period  show  how  women  vowed  to  religion  retained  their 
connection  with  the  outer  world.  Among  the  letters  of  Thomas 
Beket  there  is  one  in  which  he  tells  his  'daughter'  Idonea 
to  transcribe  the  letter  he  is  forwarding,  and  lay  it  before  the 

*  Milner,  J.,  History  of  Winchester,  1823,  vol.  i,  p.  213. 
^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Wherwell,'  vol.  2,  p.  634. 

'  Ibid.  'St  Mary's  Abbey,'  vol.  a,  p.  452. 

*  Ibid.  *  Lillechurch,'  vol.  4,  p.  378,  charter  nr  2. 
"  Ibid.  '  Rumsey, '  vol.  2,  p.  506. 

'  Norgate,  Kate,  History  of  the  Angevin  Kings,  1887,  vol.  r,  p.  469. 


SECT,  ii]    Benedictine  Convents  in  the  Twelfth  Century.    2 1 3 

archbishop  of  York  in  the  presence  of  witnesses*.  It  has  been 
nnentioned  that  a  sister  of  Thomas  Beket  was  in  1173  abbess  at 
Barking. 

Again,  among  the  letters  of  Peter  of  Blois  (t  c.  1200),  chaplain 
to  Henry  II,  are  several  addressed  to  women  who  had  adopted 
the  religious  profession.  Anselma  '  a  virgin '  is  urged  to  remain 
true  to  her  calling ;  Christina,  his  '  sister,'  is  exhorted  to  virtue, 
and  Adelitia  '  a  nun '  is  sent  a  discourse  on  the  beauties  of  the 
unmarried  lifel 


§  3.     The  Order  of  St  Gilbert  of  Sempringham^ 

The  study  of  the  order  of  St  Gilbert,  which  is  of  English  origin, 
shows  how  in  this  country  also  sympathy  with  convent  life  was 
spreading  during  the  12th  century,  and  how,  owing  to  the  protec- 
tion aftbrded  to  peaceful  and  domestic  pursuits  by  the  religious 
houses,  many  girls  and  women  of  the  middle  classes  became  nuns. 
From  an  intellectual  point  of  view  the  order  of  St  Gilbert  has  little 
to  recommend  it,  for  we  know  of  no  men  or  women  belonging  to 
the  order  who  distinguished  themselves  in  learning,  literature  or 
art.  As  a  previous  chapter  has  indicated,  its  purpose  was  chiefly 
to  prevent  women  from  drifting  into  the  unattached  and  homeless 
class,  the  existence  of  which  was  beginning  to  be  recognised  as 
prejudicial  to  society. 

The  material  for  the  study  of  the  order  is  abundant.  We  have 
several  accounts  of  the  life  and  work  of  Gilbert,  besides  minute 
injunctions  he  drafted  to  regulate  the  life  of  his  communities,  and 
there  are  references  to  him  in  contemporary  literature.  The  success 
of  his  efforts,  like  that  of  the  men  who  founded  combined  orders  of 
canons  and  nuns  abroad,  was  due  to  the  admission  of  women  into  his 
settlements  regardless  of  their  class  and  antecedents.  Like  Robert 
of  Arbrissel  his  interest  centred  in  women,  but  he  differed  from 
him  in  giving  the  supreme  authority  of  his  settlements  into  the 
hands  of  men.  For  the  settlements  which  afterwards  became 
double  originated   in   Gilbert's  wish   to   provide  for  women  who 

^  Beket,  Epistolae  (in  Migne,  Patrol.  Cursus  compL,  vol.  190),  nr  196. 

^  Petrus  Blesiensis,  Epistolae,  edit.  Giles,  letters  nrs  35,  36,  55,  239. 

'  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Gilbert,  Feb.  4,  contain  two  short  lives;  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  vol.  6 
inserted  between  pp.  946,  947,  contains  a  longer  account,  the  *  Institutiones,'  and  various 
references  to  Gilbert ;  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biography  refers  to  a  MS.  account  at  Oxford,  Digby, 
36,  Bodleian. 


214      The  Order  of  Si  Gilbert  of  Sempringham.     [chap,  vi 

sought  him  as  their  spiritual  adviser.  It  was  only  in  consequence 
of  the  difficulties  he  encountered  that  canons  were  added  to  the 
settlements. 

Helyot  likens  the  order  of  St  Gilbert  to  that  of  Norbert,  the 
founder  of  the  order  of  Premontrc*,  but  here  too  there  are  marked 
points  of  difference,  for  in  disposition  and  character  Gilbert  was  as 
unlike  Norbert  as  he  was  to  Robert ;  he  had  neither  the  masterful- 
ness of  the  one  nor  the  clear-sighted  determination  of  the  other. 
The  reason  of  his  popularity  lies  more  in  his  gentleness  and  per- 
suasiveness, and  these  qualities  made  him  especially  attractive  to 
women. 

Gilbert  was  a  native  of  Lincolnshire,  born  about  1083,  the  son 
of  a  wealthy  Norman  baron  and  an  English  woman  of  low  rank. 
His  ungainly  appearance  and  want  of  courtly  bearing  rendered  him 
unfit  for  knightly  service.  He  was  sent  to  France  for  his  education 
and  there  attained  some  reputation  as  a  teacher.  After  his  return 
home  he  devoted  his  energies  to  teaching  boys  and  girls  in  the 
neighbourhood.  His  father  bestowed  on  him  two  livings,  one  of 
which  was  at  Sempringham.  His  chief  characteristic  was  pity  for 
the  lowly  and  humble,  and  this  attracted  the  attention  among  others 
of  Robert  Bloet,  bishop  of  Lincoln  (t  1123).  For  a  time  Gilbert 
acted  as  a  clerk  in  Bloet's  house,  and  after  his  death  remained 
with  his  successor  Alexander  (f  1148)  in  a  like  capacity.  With 
Alexander  he  consulted  about  permanently  providing  for  those 
of  the  lower  classes  whom  his  liberality  was  attracting  to  Sem- 
pringham. 

The  first  step  taken  by  Gilbert  was  to  erect  suitable  dwellings 
round  the  church  of  St  Andrew  at  Sempringham  for  seven  women 
whom  he  had  taught  and  who  had  devoted  themselves  to  religion 
under  his  guidance,  and  as  they  were  not  to  leave  their  dwelling 
place,  lay  sisters  were  appointed  to  wait  on  them.  He  also  provided 
dwellings  at  Sempringham  for  the  poor,  the  infirm,  for  lepers,  and 
orphans. 

The  order  of  Gilbert  is  held  to  have  been  established  before 
1 135,  the  year  of  King  Henry  I's  deaths  The  author  of  his  life 
in  Dugdale  likens  Gilbert's  progress  at  this  time  to  the  chariot  of 
Aminadab  ;  to  it  clung  clerics  and  laymen,  literate  and  illiterate 
women,  and  it  was  drawn  by  Master  Gilbert  himself. 

Gilbert  had  entered  into  friendly  relations  with  the  Cistercian 

^  Helyot,  Histoire  dts  ordres  mon..,  17 14,  vol.  3,  p.  .190. 
''  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biography. 


SECT.  Ill]     The  Order  of  St  Gilbert  of  Sempringham.     215 

monks  who  were  then  gaining  ground  in  Yorkshire,  and  William, 
first  abbot  of  Rievaulx  (t  1 145-6),  was  among  them.  He  had  a 
good  deal  to  do  with  Ailred  (t  1 166),  a  notable  north-country  man 
who  came  from  Scotland  to  live  at  Rievaulx,  and  afterwards  became 
abbot  successively  of  Revesby  and  Rievaulx. 

At  this  time  there  were  no  nunneries  in  the  north  of  England, 
for  the  great  settlements  of  the  early  English  period  had  passed 
away  and  no  new  houses  for  women  had  been  founded.  The 
numbers  of  those  who  flocked  to  Gilbert  were  so  great  that  he 
felt  called  upon  to  give  them  a  more  definite  organisation.  His 
friendship  with  Cistercian  monks  no  doubt  turned  his  eyes  to 
Citeaux,  and  the  wish  arose  in  him  to  affiliate  his  convents  to  the 
Cistercian  order.  Having  placed  his  congregations  under  the  care 
of  the  Cistercians,  he  set  out  for  Citeaux  about  1 146. 

But  his  hopes  were  not  fulfilled.  At  Citeaux  he  met  Pope 
Eugenius  HI  (f  1153)  and  other  leading  men.  He  cemented  his 
friendship  with  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  and  entered  into  friendly 
relations  with  Malachy,  bishop  of  Armagh  (t  1 148),  who  had  intro- 
duced the  Cistercian  order  into  Ireland.  But  the  assembly  at 
Citeaux  came  to  the  conclusion  that  they  would  not  preside  over 
another  religious  order,  especially  not  over  one  for  women',  and 
Gilbert  was  urged  to  remain  at  the  head  of  his  communities  and 
Bernard  and  Malachy  presented  him  with  an  abbot's  staff. 

He  returned  to  England,  burdened  with  a  responsibility  from 
which  he  would  gladly  have  been  free,  and  obliged  to  frame  a 
definite  rule  of  life  for  his  followers.  As  one  account  puts  it,  *  he 
now  studied  the  rules  of  all  religious  orders  and  culled  from  each 
its  flowers.'  The  outcome  of  his  efforts  was  the  elaborate  set  of 
injunctions  which  now  lie  before  us. 

From  these  injunctions  we  can  see  how  Gilbert's  original  plan 
had  expanded,  for  his  settlements  consisted  of  bands  of  canons, 
lay-brethren,  nuns,  and  lay-sisters.  One  set  of  rules  is  drafted  for  the 
canons  who  observed  the  rule  of  St  Augustine  and  performed  reli- 
gious service  for  the  double  community,  and  a  separate  set  for  the 
laymen  who  acted  as  servants.  And  similarly  there  is  one  set  of 
rules  for  the  nuns  who  lived  by  the  rule  of  St  Benedict,  and  another 
for  their  servants  the  lay-sisters. 

These  rules  suggest  many  points  of  similarity  to  the  combined 
settlements  of  canons  and  nuns  previously  founded  abroad,  but 
there  are  also  some  differences. 

1  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Gilbert,  Feb.  4,  Vita,  nr  a,  ch.  3 ;  Dugdale,  Vita^  p.  xi. 


2i6     Tlie  Order  of  St  Gilbert  of  Sempritigham,     [chap,  vi 

In  the  Gilbertine  settlements  the  dwellings  of  the  men  and 
women  were  contiguous,  and  the  convent  precincts  and  the  church 
were  divided  between  them.  The  men's  dwelling  was  under  the 
rule  of  a  prior,  but  three  prioresses  ruled  conjointly  in  the  women's 
house.  The  arrangements  in  both  convents  were  alike,  and  the 
duties  of  prior  and  prioress  similar,  but  in  all  matters  of  impor- 
tance the  chief  authority  belonged  to  the  prior  who  was  at  the  head 
of  the  whole  settlement.  The  property  owned  by  Gilbertine  settle- 
ments apparently  consisted  largely  of  sheep,  and  among  the  men 
we  note  a  number  of  shepherds  and  a  *  procurator'  who  bought  and 
sold  the  animals.  The  ewes  were  regularly  milked  and  the  wool 
was  either  used  in  the  house  for  making  clothes,  or  sold.  The  lay- 
sisters  were  appointed  to  spin  and  weave  and  the  nuns  to  cut  out 
and  make  the  garments. 

There  was  one  cellar  and  one  kitchen  for  the  whole  settlement, 
for  the  cellaress  in  the  women's  house  acted  as  caterer  both  for  the 
canons  and  the  nuns.  Domestic  duties  fell  to  the  share  of  the 
women.  They  cooked  the  canons'  food  as  well  as  their  own  and 
handed  the  meals  into  the  men's  quarters  through  a  hole  in  the  wall 
with  a  turn-table,  through  which  the  plates  and  dishes  were  returned 
to  them.     They  also  made  clothes  for  the  whole  establishment. 

At  the  daily  chapter  held  in  the  women's  house  the  prioresses 
presided  in  turn,  with  a  companion  on  either  side.  The  cellaress 
reported  to  the  prioress,  who  settled  the  allowances  and  gave  out 
the  food.  She  received  information  also  from  the  'scrutatrices,'  the 
nuns  whose  duty  it  was  to  go  the  round  of  the  house  and  report 
disorders,  and  according  to  whose  reports  she  imposed  the  various 
penances. 

We  also  hear  in  the  women's  house  of  a  librarian  ('  precentrix* '), 
who  had  the  keys  of  the  book-case  (*  armarium '),  which  was  kept 
locked  except  during  reading  time  when  the  nuns  were  allowed  the 
use  of  the  books.  There  was  to  be  no  quarrelling  over  the  books  ; 
the  nun  like  the  canon  was  directed  to  take  the  one  allotted  to  her 
and  not  to  appropriate  that  given  to  another.  Simplicity  of  life 
was  studied.  Pictures  and  sculpture  were  declared  superfluous  and 
the  crosses  used  were  to  be  of  painted  wood.  Only  books  for  choir 
use  were  to  be  written  in  the  convent,  but  while  this  holds  good 
alike  for  the  women  and  for  the  men,  there  is  this  further  prohibi- 
tion with  regard  to  the  nuns,  that  talking  in  Latin  was  to  be  avoided. 

^  The  'precentrix'  is  strictly  speaking  the  leader  of  the  choir.     Cf.  below  ch.  lO  §  i. 


SECT.  Ill]      The  Order  of  St  Gilbert  of  Semprtngfiam.       1 1 7 

'  Altogether,'  says  the  ruIeS  '  we  forbid  the  use  of  the  Latin  tongue 
unless  under  special  circumstances.' 

The  cooking  was  done  by  the  nuns  in  turn  for  a  week  at  a  time 
in  compliance  with  a  regulation  contained  in  the  rule  of  St  Bene- 
dict. The  librarian  also  had  her  week  of  cooking,  and  when  she 
was  on  duty  in  the  kitchen,  gave  up  her  keys  to  another  nun.  We 
hear  also  of  the  mistress  appointed  to  teach  the  novices,  and  of  the 
portress  who  guarded  the  approaches  to  the  house. 

The  injunctions  drafted  for  the  canons  and  the  lay  members  of 
the  settlement  are  equally  explicit.  Directions  are  also  given  about 
tending  the  sick,  who  were  to  be  treated  with  tenderness  and  care. 

Girls  were  admitted  into  the  company  of  the  nuns  at  the  age  of 
twelve,  but  several  years  passed  before  they  could  be  enrolled 
among  the  novices.  At  the  age  of  twenty  the  alternative  was  put 
before  the  novice  of  joining  the  nuns  or  the  lay-sisters.  If  she 
decided  in  favour  of  the  latter  she  could  not  afterwards  be  pro- 
moted to  the  rank  of  nun  ;  she  was  bound  to  observe  chastity  and 
obedience  while  she  remained  in  the  house,  but  she  was  not  conse- 
crated. A  certain  amount  of  knowledge  of  the  hymns,  psalms  and 
books  of  service  was  required  from  the  novice  before  she  could  make 
profession. 

The  scheme  of  life  worked  out  by  Gilbert  met  with  success  and 
numerous  patrons  were  found  to  endow  settlements  on  the  plan  of 
that  at  Sempringham.  As  the  chronicler  says,  '  many  wealthy  and 
highborn  Englishmen,  counts  and  barons,  seeing  and  approving  of 
the  undertaking  the  Lord  had  initiated  and  holding  that  good  would 
come  of  it,  bestowed  many  properties  ("  fundos  et  praedia ' )  on  the 
holy  father  (Gilbert)  and  began  to  construct  on  their  own  account 
numerous  monasteries  in  various  districts.* 

The  greater  number  of  these  settlements  were  situated  in 
Lincolnshire  and  Yorkshire,  but  judging  by  the  extant  charters  the 
conditions  and  purposes  of  their  foundations  were  not  always  the 
same.  Sometimes  the  grant  is  made  conjointly  to  men  and  women, 
sometimes  reference  is  made  to  the  prior  only.  In  the  earlier 
charters  the  women  are  especially  noticed,  in  the  later  ones  more 
account  is  taken  of  the  men.  As  time  went  on  the  order  gradually 
ceased  to  have  any  attraction  for  women,  and  at  the  time  of  the 
dissolution  several  foundations  originally  made  for  men  and  women 
were  occupied  only  by  canons. 

'  Dugdale,  iHslitulwiies,  p.  Ixxxii. 


2i8      The  Order  of  St  Gilbert  of  Sempringham.      [chap,  vi 

Gilbert  himself  did  not  accept  a  position  of  authority  in  his 
order  but  became  a  canon  at  BuUington,  one  of  its  settlements.  He 
appears  to  have  been  influential  in  wider  circles  and  we  find  him 
several  times  at  court.  King  Henry  H  visited  him,  and  both  the 
i  king  and  Queen  Eleanor  made  grants  of  land  to  the  order.  Henry 
regarded  Gilbert  with  so  much  favour  that  when  he  was  summoned 
before  the  King's  Court  in  London  on  the  charge  of  having 
supported  Beket  in  his  exile,  the  king  sent  a  message  from  abroad 
ordering  his  case  to  be  reserved  for  royal  judgment,  which  practi- 
cally meant  his  acquittal. 

Rapidly  as  the  number  of  Gilbertine  houses  increased,  the 
order  did  not  remain  entirely  free  from  trouble,  for  even  in  Gilbert's 
lifetime  distressing  incidents  happened  which  justified  to  some 
extent  the  scornful  remarks  of  contemporary  writers.  One  of  these 
difficulties  arose  sometime  between  1153  and  11 66  in  connection 
with  a  girl  at  Watton.  A  full  account  of  the  affair  was  written  and 
forwarded  to  Gilbert  by  Ailred,  abbot  of  Rievaulx-.  This  account 
illustrates  pointedly  the  readiness  of  the  age  to  accept  a  miraculous 
rendering  of  fact,  and  gives  a  curious  insight  into  the  temper  of  a 
community  of  nuns.  Indeed  such  violence  of  conduct,  and  details 
of  such  behaviour  as  are  here  described  show  that  the  barbarity  of 
the  age,  which  so  often  strikes  us  in  connection  with  camp  and 
court,  was  reflected  in  the  monastery. 

Watton  was  among  the  older  Gilbertine  houses  and  had  been 
founded  before  1 148  by  a  nobleman  Eustace  Fitz-John  on  property 
which  had  belonged  to  a  nunnery  during  the  early  English  period*. 
The  settlement  was  among  the  larger  Gilbertine  houses  ;  it  owned 
property  to  the  extent  of  twenty  acres. 

The  girl  had  been  placed  under  the  care  of  the  nuns  of  Watton 
at  the  suggestion  of  Murdach,  abbot  of  Fountains  (t  1 153),  and  had 
given  endless  trouble  by  her  unbecoming  levity  and  hopeless 
laziness.  *  She  is  corrected  by  word  of  mouth  but  without 
result,  she  is  urged  by  blows  but  there  is  no  improvement,'  writes 
Ailred,  who  speaks  of  her  as  a  nun  without  telling  us  that  she  had 
actually  made  profession. 

She  made  the  acquaintance  of  one  of  the  lay-brothers  who  were 
engaged  in  repairing  the  women's  dwelling.     The  two  contrived  to 

*  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biography. 

'  Ailred,    Opera  (in  Migne,  Patrol.  Curstis  comp.^  vol.   195),  p.   789.     '  De  sancti- 
moniali  de  Wattun.' 

*  Oliver,  G.,  History  of  Beverley  and  Watton,  1829,  p.  520  ff.;  cf.  above,  p.  91. 


SECT.  II I J      The  Order  of  St  Gilbert  of  Semprmgham.      219 

meet  frequently  out  of  doors  until  at  last  the  nun's  condition  became 
obvious.  Her  fellow-nuns  were  so  incensed  at  this  discovery  that 
they  treated  her  with  barbarous  cruelty  and  would  have  put  her  to 
death  had  not  the  prioress  intervened  and  had  her  chained  and 
imprisoned.  The  anger  of  the  nuns  now  turned  against  the  lay- 
brother  who  had  brought  disgrace  on  their  convent,  and  with  a 
mixture  of  cunning  and  deceit  they  managed  to  discover  him 
and  have  him  terribly  mutilated.  '  I  do  not  praise  the  deed,  but 
the  zeal,'  says  Ailred  ;  '  I  do  not  approve  of  bloodshed,  but  for  all 
that  I  praise  the  virgins'  hatred  of  such  wickedness.'  The  esprit 
de  corps  among  the  nuns  and  their  indignation  evidently  went  far  in 
his  eyes  to  excuse  behaviour  which  he  would  not  describe  as  he 
did  if  he  had  not  felt  it  altogether  reprehensible. 

Meanwhile  the  nun  overcome  by  contrition  was  awaiting  her 
delivery  in  prison  ;  there  she  had  visions  of  abbot  Murdach  who 
had  died  some  years  before.  He  first  rebuked  her,  but  then 
miraculously  relieved  her  of  her  burden  and  restored  her  to  her 
normal  condition.  The  nuns  though  greatly  surprised  were 
convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  statement  concerning  the  miraculous 
doings  of  Murdach  because  they  found  the  nun's  chains  loosened. 
The  prior  of  Watton  sent  for  Ailred  to  enquire  more  closely  into 
the  matter.  Ailred  came,  collected  all  possible  evidence,  and  was 
convinced  that  there  had  been  divine  intervention  on  the  girl's 
behalf  He  wrote  an  account  of  what  had  happened  to  Gilbert, 
with  these  words  as  preface :  '  to  know  of  the  Lord's  miracles  and 
of  his  proofs  of  divine  love  and  to  be  silent  about  them  were 
sacrilege.'  What  became  of  the  girl  we  are  not  told.  For 
trespasses  such  as  hers  the  rule  of  Gilbert  decreed  life-long  incar- 
ceration, but  the  canon  for  a  like  trespass  suffered  no  punishment 
beyond  being  expelled  from  the  settlement. 

The  old  age  of  Gilbert  was  further  troubled  by  the  evil  conduct 
of  two  men,  Gerard  a  smith,  and  Ogger  a  carpenter.  He  had 
taken  them  into  the  order  out  of  charity,  but  they  greatly  abused 
his  kindness,  appropriated  the  revenues  of  the  order,  and  encouraged 
dishonesty  and  sexual  irregularities.  Their  behaviour  was  produc- 
tive of  such  results  that  it  called  forth  a  letter  from  Beket  to 
Gilbert  in  which  he  says  '  the  greater  our  love,  the  more  we  are 
troubled  and  perturbed  by  hearing  of  things  happening  in  your 
order,  which  are  a  grievance  not  only  before  the  eyes  of  men  but 
before  the  eyes  of  God.' 

However  letters  in  defence  of  Gilbert  were  written  by  Roger 


2  20      The  Order  of  St  Gilbert  of  Sempringham.      [chap,  vi 

archbishop  of  York  (f  i  i8i),  Henry  bishop  of  Winchester  (f  1171) 
and  William  bishop  of  Norwich  (f  1 174),  who  treat  the  occurrence  as 
a  misfortune  and  praise  the  order  generally  in  the  warmest  terms. 
Praise  from  other  quarters  is  not  wanting,  which  shows  that 
Gilbert's  work  was  considered  remarkable,  especially  with  regard 
to  the  influence  he  had  over  women.  William  of  Newburgh  wrote 
of  him  :  '  As  far  as  this  is  concerned,  in  my  opinion  he  holds  the 
palm  above  all  others  whom  w^e  know  to  have  devoted  their 
energies  to  the  control  and  government  of  religious  women*.' 

Gilbert  lived  to  an  advanced  age.  Walter  Map,  writing  between 
1 1 82  and  1 1 89,  speaks  of  him  as  over  a  hundred  and  well-nigh 
blind.  He  was  buried  at  Sempringham,  where  his  tomb  became 
the  goal  of  many  pilgrimages  and  the  scene  of  many  miracles.  He 
was  canonised  a  saint  of  the  Church  by  Pope  Innocent  H  in  1202. 
One  of  the  accounts  of  his  life,  written  shortly  after  his  death,  says 
that  the  order  at  that  time  numbered  thirteen  conventual  churches 
and  contained  seven  hundred  men  and  fifteen  hundred  women. 

The  East  Riding  Antiquarian  Society  has  recently  begun 
excavating  on  the  site  of  Watton  Priory,  one  of  the  oldest  Gilber- 
tine  settlements,  and  has  ascertained  many  particulars  about  the 
inner  arrangements  of  this  house ^  It  has  found  that  the  church, 
built  on  the  foundations  of  a  Norman  church  which  had  been 
destroyed  by  fire  in  1167,  was  divided  throughout  its  entire  length 
by  a  substantial  partition  wall  nearly  five  feet  thick.  The  church 
served  for  both  sexes  of  the  community,  which  were  kept  separate 
by  this  partition.  In  some  places  remains  of  this  wall  were  found 
up  to  the  height  of  four  feet;  this  was  part  of  the  solid  foundation 
upon  which,  above  the  height  of  the  eye,  was  erected  an  open  arcade 
which  made  it  possible  for  the  whole  community  to  hear  the  sermon 
preached  on  festal  days  from  the  pulpit.  The  parts  into  which  the 
church  was  divided  were  of  unequal  size.  Dr  Cox,  the  president 
of  the  Society,  who  read  a  paper  on  the  Gilbertine  statutes,  said 
that  the  full  complement  of  the  double  house  at  Watton  consisted 
of  a  hundred  and  forty  women  and  seventy  men,  and  that  the 
larger  part  of  the  church  was  appropriated  to  the  women  and  the 
smaller  to  the  men. 

It  was  further  shown  by  the  excavations  that  the  dividing  wall 
had  in  one  place  an  archway,  covering  the  door  which  was  opened 
for  the  great  processions  of  both  sexes  which  took  place  on  the  four- 

'  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  vol.  6,  p.  xcviii. 
'•*  Report  in  Athenaeum^  Oct.  7,  1893. 


SECT.  Ill]      The  Order  of  St  Gilbert  of  Sempringhatn.      221 

teen  great  festivals  of  the  year  and  at  funerals.  Remains  were  also 
found  of  an  opening  in  the  wall  with  a  turn-table,  so  arranged  that 
articles  could  be  passed  through  without  either  sex  seeing  the  other. 
Through  this  the  chalice,  when  the  canons'  mass  was  over,  would  be 
passed  back  and  restored  to  the  custody  of  the  nuns  ;  no  doubt 
this  was  constructed  on  the  same  plan  as  the  opening  through 
which  the  food  was  passed. 

The  cloister  of  the  nuns  lay  on  the  north  side  of  the  transept 
and  must  have  been  about  a  hundred  feet  square,  an  alley  of  ten 
feet  wide  surrounding  it.  It  is  thought  that  the  stone  of  which 
the  house  was  built  must  have  been  brought  up  the  Humber 
from  Whitby.  An  early  writer  tells  us  that  the  nuns'  dwelling  at 
Watton  was  connected  by  an  underground  passage  with  the  holy 
well  at  Kilnwick,  and  that  the  nuns  by  means  of  these  waters 
performed  wonderful  cures\ 

*  Oliver,  G.,  History  of  Beverley  and  fVaUon,  1829,  p.  531. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

ART   INDUSTRIES   IN   THE   NUNNERY. 

'  Spernere  mundum,  spernere  nullum,  spernere  sese, 
Spemere  sperni  se,  quatuor  haec  bona  sunt.'    Herrad. 

§  I.     Art  Industries  generally. 

From  consideration  of  the  nuns  of  different  orders  we  turn  to 
enquire  more  closely  into  the  general  occupations  and  productive 
capacities  of  nuns  during  early  Christian  times  and  the  Middle 
Ages.  It  seems  worth  while  collecting  the  information  scattered 
here  and  there  on  the  work  done  by  these  women,  since  the  group- 
ing together  of  various  notices  gives  some,  though  necessarily  an 
incomplete,  idea  of  the  pursuits  to  which  nuns  were  devoted  when 
not  engaged  in  religious  service.  The  work  done,  as  we  shall  see, 
includes  art  productions  of  every  kind,  weaving,  embroidery, 
painting  and  illuminating  as  well  as  writing,  which  during  the 
period  under  consideration  must  be  looked  upon  as  an  art. 

From  the  first  monastic  life  had  been  dominated  by  the  idea  that 
idleness  is  at  the  root  of  all  evil.  In  a  well  ordered  religious  house 
the  times  for  work  and  for  leisure,  for  eating,  sleeping  and  for  attend- 
ance at  divine  service  were  fixed  by  custom  and  were  enforced  by 
routine ;  we  shall  treat  later  of  the  way  in  which  the  day  was  divided 
by  the  canonical  hours.  The  purpose  of  the  ordinary  settlement, 
beyond  observing  the  hours,  was  to  educate  girls,  to  train  novices 
and  to  provide  suitable  occupation  for  the  nuns  of  the  convent. 
In  all  houses  reading  and  copying  books  of  devotion  was  included 
among  the  occupations,  and  in  some,  the  cultivation  of  art  in 
one  or  more  of  its  branches.  Between  the  8th  and  the  14th 
,  century  religious  settlements  were  the  centres  of  production  in 
handicrafts  and  in  art  industry ;  to  study  the  art  of  this  period,  it 
is  necessary  to  study  the  productions  of  the  monasteries. 


SECT,  i]  Art  Industries  generally.  223 

A  sense  of  joint  ownership  united  the  members  of  each  of  the 
religious  settlements,  and  this  was  especially  true  of  the  older  Bene- 
dictine houses  which  have  fitly  been  likened  to  small  republics. 
To  the  convent  inmate  the  monastery  was  the  centre  of  his  interests 
and  affections,  and  the  house's  possessions  were  in  a  sense  his  own. 
He  was  proud  of  them  and  proud  if  he  could  add  to  their  store. 
Increased  communication  with  the  south  and  the  east  brought 
books,  materials  and  other  beautiful  objects  which  the  inmates  of 
the  religious  settlement  zealously  copied  and  multiplied.  During 
times  of  political  and  social  unrest,  while  states  were  in  their 
making,  the  goldsmith,  the  scribe,  the  illuminator,  and  the  em- 
broiderer, all  found  protection  and  leisure  in  the  religious  house. 
The  so-called  dark  ages,  the  centuries  between  800  and  1200,  cease 
to  be  dark  as  soon  as  one  enquires  into  the  contents  of  monastic 
libraries,  and  the  monotony  of  convent  routine  ceases  to  appear 
monotonous  on  entering  one  of  the  old  treasuries  and  reflecting  on 
the  aims  and  aspirations  which  were  devoted  to  producing  this 
wealth  in  design  and  ornamentation,  the  bare  fragmentary  remains  of 
which  are  to  us  of  to-day  a  source  of  unending  delight  and  wonder. 

Some  of  the  houses  ruled  by  women  like  so  many  of  those 
ruled  by  men  became  important  centres  of  culture,  where  the 
industrial  arts  were  cultivated,  and  where  books  were  prized,  stored 
and  multiplied.  Nuns  as  well  as  monks  were  busy  transcribing 
manuscripts,  a  task  as  absorbing  as  it  was  laborious,  for  the 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  learning  to  write  can  hardly  be  over- 
estimated considering  the  awkwardness  of  writing  materials  and 
the  labour  involved  in  fabricating  parchment,  ink  and  pigment. 
But  as  the  old  writer  with  a  play  on  the  words  armarium,  book- 
case, and  armatorium,  armoury,  remarks,  '  a  monaster}'  without  its 
book-case  is  what  a  castle  is  without  its  armoury.'  And  all  houses, 
whether  for  monks  or  nuns,  took  rank  as  centres  of  culture  in 
proportion  to  their  wealth  in  books. 

Of  the  books  over  which  the  early  scribe  spent  so  much  time 
and  trouble,  comparatively  speaking  only  a  few  survive.  All  books 
are  worn  out  by  use,  especially  books  of  devotion  ;  many  were 
destroyed  when  printing  came  in  and  parchment  was  handy  to  the 
book-binder ;  many  when  the  Reformation  destroyed  convents. 
The  early  scribe  usually  omitted  to  add  his  name  to  the  book  he 
was  copying.  In  the  books  which  are  preserved  the  names  of  men 
scribes  are  few,  and  the  names  of  women  scribes  fewer  still,  though 
they  do  occasionally  occur.     Wattenbach,  a  student  of  manuscripts 


224  ^^^  Industries  generally.  [chap,  vii 

and  of  the  mediaeval  art  of  writing,  has  collected  a  number  of  names 
of  women  whom  he  has  found  mentioned  as  scribes.  He  gives 
them,  adding  the  remark  that  other  books  no  doubt  were  written 
by  nuns  where  mention  of  the  fact  is  omitted  ^ 

It  will  be  profitable  to  recall  these  names  and  examine  the 
references  to  work  done  by  nuns  as  calligraphists  and  miniature 
painters,  for  here  and  there  women  attained  great  proficiency  in 
these  arts.  The  amount  of  writing  done  in  women's  houses 
compared  with  that  done  by  men  was  no  doubt  small,  for  it  was 
not  in  this  direction  that  the  industry  of  the  nun  lay.  But  what 
remains  shows  that  where  scope  to  activity  was  given  talents  of  no 
mean  kind  were  developed. 

In  some  departments  of  art  industry,  especially  in  weaving  church 
hangings,  and  embroidering  altar  cloths  and  church  vestments,  nuns 
greatly  distinguished  themselves.  In  his  comprehensive  work  on 
church  furniture  Bock  is  eloquent  on  the  industry  of  nuns.  He 
first  praises  their  early  proficiency  in  the  art  of  weaving  and  passes 
on  to  the  art  of  embroidery.  '  This  art  also,'  he  says,  '  was  chiefly 
cultivated  in  religious  houses  by  pious  nuns  up  to  the  I2th  century. 
The  inmates  of  women's  establishments  were  especially  devoted  to 
working  decorations  for  the  altar.  Their  peaceful  seclusion  was 
spent  in  prayer  and  in  doing  embroidery.  What  work  could  seem 
worthier  and  nobler  than  artistic  work  intended  for  the  decoration 
of  the  altar?  It  is  in  the  nunnery  that  the  art  of  design  as  well  as 
the  technique  of  weaving  were  brought  to  their  highest  perfectionl' 

Owing  to  the  perishable  material  of  this  work  the  amount 
which  was  done  of  course  far  exceeded  what  has  been  preserved. 
We  often  come  across  remarks  on  such  work,  rarely  across 
remains  of  it,  and  we  are  obliged  to  take  on  trust  the  praise 
bestowed  by  early  writers  as  so  little  exists  by  which  we  can  judge 
for  ourselves.  But  enough  remains  to  bear  out  the  praise  which 
contemporaries  bestow  on  the  beauties  of  hangings  and  vestments 
manufactured  by  nuns,  and  to  give  us  the  highest  opinion  of  their 
industry  and  their  artistic  skill. 

Among  women  generally  embroidery  has  always  had  votaries, 
and  in  the  nunnery  it  found  a  new  development.  During  early 
Christian  ages  nuns  worked  large  hangings  for  decorating  the 
basilica  walls,  and  short  hangings  for  the  square  altar  ;  and  when  the 
Gothic  style  took  the  place  of  the  earlier  Byzantine  in  architecture, 

^  Wattenbach,  W.,  Schriftwesen  im  Mitielalter,  2nd  edit.  1875,  p.  374. 

*  Bock,  F.,  Geschichte  der  liturg.  GewdnJer,  3  vols.  1866-71,  vol.  i,  p.  214. 


SECT,  i]  Art  Industries  generally.  225 

rendering  such  hangings  superfluous,  they  devoted  their  energies  to 
working  church  vestments  and  furniture. 

The  proficiency  acquired  by  the  girl  in  the  convent  was  not  lost 
if  she  returned  to  the  world.  We  hear  a  good  deal  of  badges  and 
standards  worked  by  ladies  at  baronial  courts  during  the  age  of 
romance,  and  their  work  was  no  doubt  influenced  by  what  had 
been  evolved  in  church  decoration. 

In  studying  the  art  industry  of  the  convent,  we  needs  must 
treat  of  work  produced  with  the  brush  and  the  pen  side  by  side  with 
work  produced  with  the  needle.  At  two  periods  in  history,  the  8th 
and  13th  centuries,  England  takes  the  lead  in  art  industry,  and  at 
both  periods  there  is  reference  to  excellent  work  done  by  nuns. 

A  former  chapter  has  mentioned  how  Eadburg,  the  friend  of 
Boniface,  was  at  work  in  her  monastery  in  Thanet  in  the  8th 
century,  transcribing  scriptural  writings  on  parchment  in  gold 
lettering,  an  art  in  which  she  excelled \  Among  the  gifts  sent  to 
Boniface  by  lady  abbesses  in  England  vestments  and  altar-cloths  are 
mentioned  which  had  without  a  doubt  been  worked  in  the  houses 
over  which  these  ladies  presided  if  not  actually  made  by  themselves*. 

The  importance  and  the  symbolical  meaning  which  early 
Christians  attached  to  death  supplies  the  reason  why  the  abbess  of 
Repton  in  Mercia  sent  a  winding-sheet  to  St  Guthlac  during  his 
lifetime'.  Cuthberht  of  Lindisfarne  was  wrapped  in  a  shroud  which 
his  friend  Aelflaed,  abbess  of  Whitby,  had  sent*.  Both  were  of 
linen,  for  early  Christians,  who  were  content  to  wear  rough  woollen 
clothes  during  their  lifetime,  thought  it  permissible  to  be  buried  in 
linen  and  silk.  Thus  we  read  that  Aethelthrith  the  abbess  of  Ely 
sent  to  Cuthberht  a  present  of  silk  stuffs  which  she  decorated  with 
gold  and  jewels  and  which  were  shown  at  his  resting-place  at 
Durham  till  the  12th  century'.  The  silk  robe  on  which  the  body 
of  Wilfrith  (-j-  709)  had  been  laid  was  sent  as  a  present  to  an  abbess 
Cynethrith®. 

About  this  time  silk,  which  had  been  rarely  seen  north  of  the 
Alps,  was  frequently  sent  from  the  east  and  was  greatly  prized.  It 
has  been  mentioned  in  a  previous  chapter  how  Radegund  at  Poitiers 
received   a  gift  of  silk  from  a   relation   in   Constantinople',   and 

'  Cf.  above,  p.  122.  *  Cf.  above,  pp.  122,  132. 

^  Cf.  above,  p.  109.  *  Cf.  above,  p.  106. 

*  Michel,  F.,  £.toffes  de  soie  au  moyen  Age,  1852,  vol.  2,  p.  339,  contains  this  and 
other  references. 

•  Eddi,  Vita  VVilfrcdi,  c.  65  (it  is  unknown  over  which  house  she  presided). 
'  Cf.  above,  p.  63. 

E.  15 


226  Art  Industries  generally.  [chap,  vii 

among  the  charges  brought  by  the  turbulent  Chrodield  against  the 
abbess  Leubover  was  that  she  had  appropriated  part  of  an  altar- 
cloth  to  make  a  robe  for  her  niece.  Caesarius  of  Aries  in  his 
rule  for  women  forbade  their  working  embroidery  except  for  pur- 
poses of  church  decoration.  Repeated  complaints  were  made 
during  the  early  ages  in  fingland  against  nuns  for  wearing  em- 
broidery and  silks.  The  council  of  Cloveshoe  of  the  year  747 
censures  the  undue  attention  given  to  dress.  '  Time  shall  be 
devoted  more  to  reading  books  and  t6  chanting  psalms  than  to 
weaving  and  decorating  (plectendis)  clothes  with  various  colours  in 
unprofitable  richness^'  But  to  control  the  standard  of  clothes 
remained  a  standing  difficulty  in  all  convents,  and  especially  in 
those  of  women  ^ 

Apart  from  personal  decoration  the  arts  of  weaving  and 
embroidering  were  encouraged  in  every  way.  'Towards  the  lOth 
century  the  art  of  making  large  hangings  had  so  far  progressed 
in  England,'  says  Bock,  '  that  large  scenes  with  many  figures  were 
represented  ^' 

Inside  the  cloister  and  out  of  it  the  art  flourished,  and  the 
mention  of  gifts  of  hangings  becomes  frequent.  Thus  Ealdhelm  in 
his  '  Praise  of  Virginity '  (c.  7)  speaks  of  hangings  made  by  the 
nuns,  while  reference  is  made  to  secular  women  at  the  time  of  the 
Conquest  who  did  remarkable  work.  Among  them  were  Alwid 
and  Liwid  who  practised  the  air  of  embroidery  and  taught  it^. 
Emma,  otherwise  Aelfgifu  (11052),  after  her  marriage  to  King 
Knut,  made  a  gift  of  hangings  and  vestments  to  the  abbey  of  Ely, 
some  of  which  were  embroidered  with  gold  and  jewels  on  silk, 
others  of  green  and  purple  colour  were  of  such  splendour  that 
their  like  could  not  be  found  elsewhere  in  England'.  Again, 
Aelflaed,  the  wife  of  Edward  the  Confessor  (tio66),  made  hangings 
with  pictures  of  the  apostles  for  Frithstan  of  Winchester. 

'  We  know,'  says  Michel  in  his  work  on  silk  and  the  use  of  it  in 
embroidery^  '  that  the  women  of  England,  long  before  the  Conquest, 
worked  assiduously  at  weaving  and  embroidering,  and  that  they 
were  as  distinguished  in  this  branch  of  art  as  men  were  in  others.' 
Unfortunately  no  specimens  of  the  work  done  in  religious  settle- 

^   Haddon  and  Stubbs,  Councils  and  Ecclesiastical  Documents,  1869. 

^  Cf.  above,  pp.  103,  115,  198,  and  below,  ch.  11,  §  i. 

'  Bock,  F.,  Geschichte  der  liturg.  Gewdnder,  1866,  vol.  i,  p.  142. 

*  Michel,  F.,  Atoffes  de  sole  pendant  le  moyen  dge,  1852,  vol.  1,  p.  340. 
'  Wharton,  Anglia  Sacra,  vol.  i,  p.  607. 

*  Michel,  F.,  ^toffies  de  soie pendant  le  moyen  Age,  1852,  vol.  2,  p.  338. 


SECT,  i]  Art  Industries  generally.  227 

ments  during  this  early  period  have  been  preserved,  so  far  as  I  am 
aware.  We  do  not  know  what  artist  designed  and  executed  the 
famous  Bayeux  tapestry  which  is  worked  in  woollen  cross-stitch  on 
a  strip  of  linen  ;  but  it  was  certainly  not  the  work  of  nuns. 

The  references  to  weaving  and  embroidering  during  the  later 
period  are  fewer,  but  a  certain  amount  of  the  work  done  in  England 
has  been  preserved,  though  the  clue  as  to  where  and  by  whom  it 
was  done  is  generally  wanting.  While  weaving  and  embroidery 
were  throughout  important  branches  of  home  industry,  art-needle- 
work seems  to  have  owed  its  higher  development  to  nuns. 

In  connection  with  the  prioress  Christina  of  Mergate  we  hear 
that  she  had  worked  three  mitres  and  several  pairs  of  sandals  in 
wonderful  work  (operis  mirifici)  as  a  present  for  Pope  Hadrian  IV 
(tii59),  who  was  of  English  origin,  and  perhaps  known  to  her. 
Her  work  was  carried  to  Rome  by  the  abbot  of  St  Albans,  who  had 
affronted  Hadrian  in  early  days  and  wished  to  propitiate  him ;  we 
hear  that  the  Pope  was  so  delighted  with  the  work  that  he  could 
not  refuse  the  presents 

England  was,  indeed,  at  this  time  famous  for  its  embroidery, 
and  her  products  were  much  admired  abroad.  In  the  words  of  Prof. 
Middleton  : 

'Another  minor  branch  of  art,  in  which  England  during  the  13th 
century  far  surpassed  the  rest  of  the  world,  was  the  art  of  em- 
broidering delicate  pictures  in  silk,  especially  for  ecclesiastical 
vestments.  The  most  famous  embroidered  vestments  now  pre- 
served in  various  places  in  Italy  are  the  handiwork  of  English 
embroiderers  between  1250  and  1300,  though  their  authorship  is 
not  as  a  rule  recognized  by  their  present  possessors.  The  em- 
broidered miniatures  on  these  marvellous  pieces  of  needlework 
resemble  closely  in  style  the  illuminations  in  fine  Anglo-Norman 
manuscripts  of  the  13th  century  and  in  many  cases  have  obviously 
been  copied  from  manuscript  miniatures*.' 

A  conclusion  to  be  possibly  drawn  from  this  is  that  some  of  the 
early  work  which  has  come  back  to  this  country  from  Italy  may  in 
reality  be  English.  There  is  no  doubt  it  is  curiously  like  the  work 
done  in  England^  In  a  footnote  to  the  above  passage  Prof. 
Middleton  points  out  that  the  Popes  of  the  period,  on  sending  the 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'St  Albans,'  vol.  a,  p.  i86  footnote. 

«  Middleton,  J.  H.,  Illuminated MSS.y  1892,  p.  in. 

'  For  example  in  the  South  Kensington  Museum,  nr  594-1884,  Italian  chasuble;  nr 
1321-1864,  panel  of  canvas,  from  Bock's  Collection  {Descriptive  Catalogue  of  Tapestry 
and  Embroidery,  1888). 

15-2 


2  28  Art  Industries  generally,  [chap,  vii 

pall  to  a  newly  elected  English  archbishop,  suggested  that  they 
would  like  in  return  embroidered  vestments  of  English  work,  '  opus 
anglicum,'  a  term  at  one  time  applied  to  work  done  in  a  special 
style\  Its  peculiarity  seems  to  have  consisted  in  the  working  of 
figures  in  coloured  floss  silk  on  a  piece  of  material,  generally  linen  ; 
on  this  the  silk  was  worked  in  close-lying  chain  stitches,  which, 
following  the  contours  of  face  and  drapery,  entirely  covered  the 
material  just  as  the  strokes  of  a  brush  in  a  miniature  cover  the 
parchment.  The  background  to  these  figures  was  also  covered 
with  coloured  floss  silk,  but  this  was  not  worked  in  chain  stitch  but 
in  various  styles  of  straight  close-lying  stitches  in  diaper  pattern. 
Prof.  Middleton,  in  the  passage  quoted  above,  says  that  the  em- 
broiderer copied  the  miniature  painter;  in  composing  scenes  and 
arranging  figures  this  would  of  course  be  the  case.  But  considering 
the  styles  of  some  of  the  backgrounds,  it  seems  possible  that  in  his 
turn  the  miniature  painter  borrowed  from  the  embroiderer,  by 
taking  the  idea  of  filling  up  the  background  to  his  figures  with 
lines  and  diagonal  patterns,  which  lines  and  patterns  had  been 
suggested  to  the  embroiderer  by  the  texture  of  the  stuff"  he  was 
covering.  Gold  and  silver  threads  were  liberally  used  in  the  '  opus 
anglicum  V  and  even  jewels  may  have  been  introduced^  The  general 
effect  was  that  of  a  shining,  glossy  picture,  and  the  care  and  industry 
needed  to  produce  it  exceeded  even  that  required  in  miniatures. 

The  English  monk  Matthew  Paris  (+1259)  describes  an  incident 
illustrating  at  once  the  excellence  of  the  embroidery  done  in 
England  and  the  rapacity  of  Pope  Innocent  IV,  The  Pope  he 
tells  us  was  struck  by  the  splendour  of  the  embroidery  worn  by  the 
English  clergy  who  came  to  Rome  in  the  year  1246,  and  asked 
where  it  was  made.  '  In  England,'  he  was  told.  He  replied, 
*  England  is  really  a  storehouse  of  delight ;  truly  it  is  an 
inexhaustible  fountain,  and  where  there  is  so  much,  much  can  be 
taken.'  And  he  sent  letters  to  the  abbots  of  the  Cistercian  houses 
in  England,  ordering  them  to  forward  to  him  gold  embroidery  of 

^  Bock,  F.,  Geschichte  der  liturg.  Gewander,  1866,  vol.  i,  p.  209,  suggests  that  gold 
plaques  may  have  been  sewn  into  the  work. 

^  Cf.  South  Kensington  Museum,  nr  28-1892,  a  number  of  fragments  of  textile  linen 
worked  over  in  coloured  silks  and  gold  thread  with  scenes  taken  from  the  life  of  the 
Virgin.  English  work  of  the  14th  century  {Descriptive  Catalogue  of  Tapestry  and 
Embroidery,  1888). 

^  Michel,  F.,  Atoffes  de  soie  pendant  le  moyen  dge,  1852,  vol.  2,  p.  337,  points  out  that 
the  expression  'opus  anglicum'  was  applied  also  to  the  work  of  the  goldsmith;  comp. 
Ducange,  Glossarium,  'Anglicum.'  '  Loculus  ille  mirificus...argento  et  auro  gemmisque, 
anglico  opere  subtilitater  ac  pulcherrime  decoratus.' 


SECT,  i]  Art  Industries  generally.  229 

this  kind,  'as  though  they  could  get  it  for  nothing.'     Curiously 
enough  it  was  supplied  to  them  by  London  merchants*. 

A  certain  number  of  pieces  of  early  English  embroidery  now 
form  part  of  the  collection  of  art-needlework  on  view  at  South 
Kensington.  Among  them  is  a  cope,  nine  feet  seven  by  four  feet 
eight ;  it  is  considered  a  splendid  example  of  the  '  opus  anglicum,' 
and  as  is  suggested  '  may  have  been  worked  by  the  nuns  of  some 
convent  which  stood  in  or  near  Coventry*.'  There  was  no 
nunnery  in  Coventry  in  the  Middle  Ages,  the  nearest  nunnery  of 
importance  would  be  the  one  at  Wroxhall.  *  This  handsome  cope,* 
says  Dr  Rock,  '  so  very  remarkable  on  account  of  its  comparative 
perfect  preservation,  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  among  the  several 
liturgic  vestments  of  the  olden  period  anywhere  to  be  now  found  in 
Christendom'.'  It  is  made  of  linen  entirely  covered  with  em- 
broidery in  floss  silk.  The  space  is  divided  up  into  barbed 
interlacing  quatrefoils,  of  which  in  the  present  state  of  the  cope 
there  are  fifteen.  These  enclose  pictures  representing  Michael 
overcoming  Satan,  the  Crucifixion,  the  risen  Christ,  Christ  crowned 
as  King,  Christ  in  the  garden,  the  death  of  the  Virgin,  her  burial, 
and  single  figures  of  the  apostles  which  are  placed  in  the  quatre- 
foils along  the  lower  edge  of  the  cope.  Among  them  are  St  Philip, 
St  Bartholomew,  St  Peter  and  St  Andrew.  Other  pictures  of  the 
apostles  are  wanting,  for  the  lower  edge  in  some  places  is 
cut  away.  The  faces,  hands  and  coloured  draperies  of  these 
figures  are  worked  in  coloured  floss  silk  in  the  way  described 
above,  and  the  background  of  all  the  quatrefoils  is  in  diaper 
pattern,  worked  in  short  straight  stitches  in  a  dark  green 
colour.  The  spaces  between  the  quatrefoils  were  filled  with 
crimson  silk  which  has  faded  to  a  rich  brown,  and  in  each  of  these 
spaces  stands  a  winged  angel,  those  nearest  Christ  standing  on  a 
wheel.  Their  faces  and  draperies  are  worked  in  similar  style  to 
those  of  the  other  figures,  and  the  dividing  bands  which  mark  off 
the  quatrefoils  are  worked  in  a  variety  of  stitches  ;  sometimes  loose 
threads  are  laid  on  and  sewn  over,  sometimes  gold  thread  is  worked 
in.  In  spite  of  many  colours  having  faded  the  effect  of  the  work  is 
splendid  ;  no  textile  fabric  of  any  period  exceeds  it  in  evenness  and 
finish,  to  say  nothing  of  beauty  of  design. 

^  Historia  Major  Angliae,  sub  anno. 

'  South   Kensington  Museum,  nr  83-1864  {Descriptive  Catalogue  of  Tapestry  and 
Embroidery,  1888). 
»  Ibid.  p.  168. 


230  Art  Industries  generally.  [chap,  vii 

The  edge  of  the  cope  in  one  place  is  mended  by  cutting  and 
sewing  together.  A  band  of  embroidery  which  represents  a  suc- 
cession of  armorial  bearings  worked  in  small  cross-stitch  is  carried 
right  round  it.  This  band  is  considered  to  be  fifty  years  later 
in  date  than  the  cope,  and  is  somewhat  different  in  style.  Its 
addition  suggests  that  some  accident  happened  to  the  cope,  perhaps 
by  fire,  and  that  a  piece  had  to  be  cut  away  and  a  new  finish  given 
to  the  edge. 

At  the  time  of  the  dissolution  this  cope  was  in  the  possession 
of  the  nuns  of  Sion,  a  house  founded  under  peculiar  circumstances 
as  late  as  the  15th  century.  Its  inmates  left  England  in  a  body 
and  carried  the  cope  away  with  them  in  their  wanderings.  They 
finally  settled  at  Lisbon,  where  the  house  continued  to  be  recruited 
by  English  women.  At  the  beginning  of  this  century  they  returned 
to  England,  and  the  cope  was  acquired  by  the  Museum  authorities. 

In  looking  at  this  piece  of  work  it  is  distressing  to  think  of  the 
way  in  which  the  property  of  monasteries  in  England  was  ap- 
propriated, scattered,  and  destroyed  at  the  dissolution.  In  no 
European  country  was  the  heirloom  of  mediaeval  art  so  uniformly 
effaced  and  defaced.  The  old  inventories  give  some  idea  of  the  art 
treasures  that  had  accumulated  in  monasteries  in  the  course  of 
centuries,  but  very  few  fragments  were  saved  from  the  rapacity 
of  Henry  VIII  and  his  agents. 

From  England  we  pass  to  Germany  to  consider  the  remains 
of  decorative  work  done  by  nuns  in  various  departments  of  art 
between  the  8th  and  the  14th  centuries.  Influence  from  two  sides 
gave  a  new  direction  to  art-industry  ;  on  one  side  was  the  influence 
of  Roman  art  due  to  contact  with  France ;  on  the  other  the  influ- 
ence of  Byzantine  art  due  to  intercourse  with  the  East. 

A  high  standard  of  work  was  soon  attained  in  France ;  and  at 
Bourges,  early  in  the  7th  century,  we  hear  of  the  abbess  Eustadiola 
making  many  gifts  to  her  settlement,  vases  of  gold  and  silver 
ornamented  with  jewels,  crosses,  candelabra  and  chalices.  'Also 
she  made  holy  vestments,'  says  her  biographer^  '  and  decked  the 
altar  with  costly  hangings  which  with  her  own  hands  and  through  the 
help  of  her  women  she  embellished  with  embroidery  and  with  gold 
fringes ;  besides  the  hangings  with  which  she  decorated  the  walls.' 

This  active  interest  spread  from  France  into  the  convents  of 
the  Low  Countries  during  the  8th  century,  in  one  of  which  the 
sisters  Harlind  and  Reinhild  did  excellent  work,  which  is  highly 

1  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Eustadiola,  June  8.     Vita,  ch.  3. 


SECT,  i]  Art  Industries  generally.  231 

praised.  They  were  contemporaries  of  Boniface  and  Willibrord, 
who  visited  and  consecrated  them  in  their  settlement  at  Maaseyck. 

There  is  extant  an  account,  written  between  850  and  880,  of 
the  education  they  received  and  the  work  to  which  they  were 
devoted*.  We  learn  from  this  account  that  Harlind  and  Reinhild 
showed  a  serious  disposition  at  a  youthful  age,  and  that  their 
parents  were  persuaded  to  send  them  to  the  religious  house  for 
women  at  Valenciennes  on  the  river  Schelde,  where,  in  the  words 
of  the  9th  century  writer,  '  they  were  instructed  in  reading,  in 
chanting  (modulatione),  in  singing  the  psalms  and  also  in  what 
now-a-days  is  deemed  wonderful,  in  writing  and  in  painting  (scri- 
bendo  atque  pingendo),  a  task  laborious  even  to  men.  Likewise 
they  were  carefully  trained  in  every  department  of  work  such  as 
is  done  by  women's  hands,  in  various  designs,  in  different  styles ; 
so  that  they  attained  a  high  standard  of  excellence  in  spinning, 
weaving,  designing,  sewing,  and  embroidering  with  gold  and  jewels 
on  silk'.' 

When  their  education  was  finished  the  girls  returned  to  their 
parents,  but  they  found  no  scope  for  their  energies  at  home  and 
decided  to  devote  themselves  to  religion.  Their  parents  agreed 
to  found  a  settlement  for  them  at  Maaseyck,  where  at  first  they 
had  twelve  women  with  them.  But  many  noble  as  well  as  free- 
born  girls  placed  a  black  veil  on  their  heads,  as  the  biographer  says, 
and  came  to  them  hoping  to  be  taken  into  the  settlement. 

We  hardly  need  to  be  told  that  these  gifted  sisters  abhorred 
idleness  and  were  devoted  to  work.  Their  energies  were  given 
to  weaving,  embroidering  and  writing.  Among  other  things  they 
had  woven  with  their  own  hands  short  curtains,  intended  no  doubt 
for  the  altar,  which  were  splendidly  embroidered  with  a  variety  of 
designs^  These,  in  the  words  of  their  biographer,  *  the  holy  women 
embroidered  with  God  and  his  saints  ornate  with  gold  and  jewels, 
and  left  them  behind  them  in  their  house.  The  four  gospels,  which 
contain  the  words  and  actions  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  they 
transcribed  with  commendable  zeal.  Likewise  a  book  of  psalms, 
such  as  we  call  a  psalter,  they  worked  (stylo  texuerunt),  as  well  as 
many  other  holy  writings,  which  to  this  day  remain  in  that  same 
place,  and  are  resplendent  in  new  and  shining  gold,  and  glowing 

*  A.  SS.  Boll.,  SS.  Herlindis  et  Renild,  March  22,  ch.  5  (videlicet  nendo  et  texendo, 
creando  ac  suendo,  in  auro  quoque  ac  margaritis  in  seiico  componendo). 

^  Ibid.  ch.  12  (palliola...multis  modis  variisque  compositionibus  diversae  artis 
innumerabilibus  ornamentis). 


232  Art  Industries  generally.  [chap,  vii 

with  jewels,  so  that  the  work  might  almost  have  been  done 
to-day.' 

Thus  writes  the  9th  century  chronicler.  It  seems  from  a 
remark  made  by  Stadler  that  some  of  the  vestments  they  made 
were  sent  as  a  present  to  Boniface,  and  samples  of  their  work, 
it  is  not  stated  of  what  kind,  are  preserved  to  this  day  in  the  little 
church  of  Maaseyck^ 

A  previous  chapter  has  dealt  with  the  rapid  development  of 
women's  houses  in  Saxony  in  the  lOth  and  nth  centuries.  Re- 
ferences to  the  encouragement  of  art  in  these  convents  are  numerous; 
they  became  storehouses  of  wealth,  partly  through  gifts  bestowed 
on  them  by  their  abbesses  and  partly  owing  to  the  industry  of  the 
nuns.  The  marriage  of  Otto  II  with  a  Greek  princess  brought 
Greek  decorative  work  into  fashion,  and  workmen  came  from 
Greece  into  Germany,  where  they  were  patronised  by  bishops  and 
lady  abbesses. 

Thus  at  Essen,  one  of  the  great  Saxon  abbacies  for  women, 
the  art  treasury  to  this  day  contains  the  celebrated  bronze  cande- 
labra made  at  the  command  of  the  abbess  Mathilde  (t  ion)'*,  and 
a  golden  crucifix  of  Greek  workmanship  of  great  beauty  which, 
as  its  inscription  says,  was  the  gift  of  the  abbess  Theofanu  (1039- 
1054)'.  This  abbess  was  the  granddaughter  of  Otto  II  and  his 
Greek  wife,  and  her  appointment  to  the  abbacy  marks  a  great 
advance  in  the  prosperity  of  the  house.  The  treasury  at  Essen 
also  contains  a  Bible  cover  carved  in  ivory,  which  represents  the 
abbess  Theofanu  depositing  a  book  at  the  feet  of  the  Virgin*. 

An  account  of  the  great  power  and  wealth  of  the  abbey  at  Qued- 
linburg  has  already  been  given.  Its  treasury  (zither)  still  contains 
many  interesting  specimens  of  early  art  industry  collected  in  the 
days  of  its  prosperity^  The  splendid  cloak  worked  with  figures  from 
the  Apocalypse  belonging  to  Otto  III  was  probably  made  under 
the  direction  of  his  aunt  Mathilde,  abbess  of  Quedlinburg  (f  999). 
Somewhat  later  we  hear  of  another  sumptuous  cloak  which  the 
Empress  Kunigund  (t  1040)  had  made  for  her  husband  Heinrich  II, 
and  of  the  wonderful  embroidery  done  in  gold  on  purple  by  Hein- 
rich's  sister  Gisela  (t  1037),  the  wife  of  Stephen,  king  of  Hungary, 

^  Stadler  and  Heim,  Vollstdndiges  Heiligenkxicon,  1858,  'Harlindis.' 
^  Zeitschrift  filr  Christl.  Archaeologie,  edit.  Schnuetgen,    1856,  '  Munsterkirche  in 
Essen,'  i860,  Beitrage. 

^  Labarte,  Arts  industriels  au  moyen  dge,  1872,  vol.  i,  p.  341. 

*  Ibid.  vol.  I,  p.  84. 

*  Fritsch,  Geschichte  des  Reichstifts  Quedlinburg,  1828,  vol.  2,  p.  326. 


SECT,  i]  Art  Industries  generally.  233 

which  seems  to  have  been  embroidered  in  imitation  of  a  painting 
on  stuff  preserved  at  a  Benedictine  convent  near  Raab.  To  the 
present  day  this  embroidery  forms  part  of  the  Hungarian  corona- 
tion robes\  It  is  not  directly  stated  where  this  work  was  made, 
but  the  general  excellence  of  the  work  done  by  nuns*,  and  the 
connection  of  Saxon  princesses  with  convents,  suggest  the  possibi- 
lity that  the  work  was  done  in  convents. 

One  of  these  Saxon  princesses,  Hedwig  (f  994),  sister  of  the 
abbess  Gerberg  and  duchess  of  Swabia,  gave  the  monks  of  St  Gallen 
some  vestments  which  she  had  embroidered  herself^  Among  them 
was  a  white  stole  (stola)  on  which  were  worked  in  gold  a  series  of 
pictures  representing  the  '  Marriage  of  Philology  to  Mercury,'  a 
subject  taken  from  a  story  by  Martianus  Capella,  a  writer  of  the 
5th  century,  whose  works  were  much  read  in  nunneries.  The 
story  was  afterwards  translated  into  German  by  Notker  (f  1022), 
a  monk  of  St  Gallen. 

A  peculiar  interest  attaches  to  Agnes,  abbess  of  Quedlinburg 
(i  184-1203).  She  encouraged  art  industry  in  all  its  branches  and 
under  her  the  nuns  made  large  curtains  for  church  decoration. 
Some  of  these  are  still  in  existence,  and  Kugler,  the  art  student, 
considers  them  as  of  great  value  in  the  study  of  the  art  industry 
of  that  period.  Agnes  herself  wrote  an  account  of  the  property 
she  bequeathed  to  the  monastery,  and  in  it  she  mentions  a  golden 
cup,  several  silken  covers  (dorsalia),  and  hangings^  Her  chronicler 
credits  her  with  writing  and  illuminating  with  her  own  hands  books 
for  divine  service ;  and  a  copy  of  the  gospels,  said  to  have  been 
written  by  her,  is  still  preserved'.  But  the  great  work  of  her  life 
was  the  manufacture  of  wall-hangings,  which  she  and  her  nuns 
worked  together.  One  set  was  intended  for  the  Pope,  but  was 
never  forwarded  to  him.  Like  the  vestments  made  by  Hedwig, 
the  subject  taken  for  them  was  the  '  Marriage  of  Philology  to 
Mercury.' 

One  curtain  still  exists  measuring  twenty-four  feet  by  twenty ; 
it  is  of  a  coarse  woollen  material,  into  which  large  figures  are  woven, 
which  Kugler  thinks  must  have  been  designed  by  two  different 

^  Bock,  F.,  Geschichte  der  liturg.  Gewdnder,  1866,  vol.  i,  p.  155. 

^  Schultz,  A.,  Hbfisches  Leben  zur  Zeit  der  Minnesinger,  1889,  cites  many  passages 
from  the  epics  which  refer  to  embroidery  worn  by  heroes  and  heroines.  A  piece  of  work 
of  special  beauty  described  vol.  i,  p.  326,  had  been  made  by  an  apostate  nun. 

*  Ekkehard  IV.,  c.  10,  in  Pertz,  Mon.  Germ.  Scriptores,  vol.  2,  p.  113. 

*  Erath,  Codex  diplom.  Quedliburg.,  1764,  p.  109. 

'  Brunner,  S.,  Kunstgenossen  der  Klosterzellt^  1863,  vol.  2,  p.  555. 


234  ^^^  Industries  generally.  [chap,  vii 

hands.  '  While  some  of  the  work,'  he  says',  '  is  in  no  way  superior 
to  other  pictorial  representations  of  the  time,  and  only  here  and 
there  in  details  shows  superior  skill,  other  parts  though  retaining 
the  peculiar  style  of  Byzantine  art,  show  a  grace  and  dignity  in 
the  arrangement  of  the  figures,  and  a  perfection  in  the  drawing 
of  drapery,  which  in  works  of  such  an  early  period  arouse  admira- 
tion in  the  beholder.'  In  his  handbook  on  painting  Kugler  further 
says  that  we  probably  have  in  them  the  nearest  approach  of  the 
art  of  the  time  to  full  perfection. 

In  describing  the  curtain  he  tells  us  of  a  manly  bearded  figure 
with  raised  hand,  probably  intended  for  the  writer  Martianus  him- 
^  self;  near  him  stands  Mercury  half  covered  by  a  well-draped  toga, 
a  very  youthful  figure  in  accordance  with  the  author's  description. 
These  and  other  figures  hold  scrolls  on  which  their  names  are 
woven,  but  owing  to  the  worn  state  of  the  hanging  some  of  the 
names  are  gone  and  some  are  illegible.  Three  female  figures  are 
designated  as  *  Manticen,' — whom  Mercury  would  have  married 
had  she  not  preferred  Apollo  ;  *  Sichem,' — a  name  standing  for 
Psyche,  whom  Cupid  had  already  enticed  away  according  to 
Martianus;  and  'Sophia,' — whom  Mercury  likewise  desired  to 
marry  but  in  vain.  All  these  figures  are  described  by  Kugler 
as  splendid,  especially  that  of  '  Sichem '  whose  pose  and  drapery 
he  pronounces  most  beautiful. 

A  crowned  figure  of  a  man  comes  next,  with  a  scroll  bearing 
the  words  *  happy  in  wealth '  (qua  felix  copia  talis),  whom  Kugler 
supposes  to  be  Hymenaeus,  and  a  man  and  woman  joining  hands, 
who  are  designated  as  Mercury  and  Philology.  Similar  allegorical 
figures  fill  the  other  parts  of  the  curtain.  In  Kugler's  estimation 
the  figures  of  '  Prudentia '  and  '  Fortitude '  are  strikingly  grand ; 
while  others,  'Justitia,'  '  Temperantia,'  and  'Philologia'  with  her 
mother  *  Pronesis,'  are  of  inferior  design. 

There  is  another  set  of  hangings  preserved  at  Halberstadt, 
which,  if  the  remark  of  an  early  chronicler  may  be  believed,  was 
also  the  work  of  the  abbess  Agnes  and  her  nuns^  Kugler  how- 
ever, apparently  unacquainted  with  this  statement,  places  these 
hangings  at  a  somewhat  earlier  date,  since  they  are  of  less  finished 
workmanship,  but  he  admits  that  'in  spite  of  their  faded  colours 
and  their  roughness  of  design,  a  certain  severe  dignity  cannot  be 

^  Kugler,  F.,  Kleine  Schriften,  1853,  vol.  i,  pp.  635  ff. ;  part  of  the  hanging  is  given 
by  Muentz,  E.,  Tapisseries,  broderies  et  dentelles,  1890,  plate  2. 

^  Fritsch,  Geschichte  des  Rekhstifts  Qiiedlinburg,  1828,  vol.  i,  p.  121. 


SECT,  i]  Art  Industries  generally.  235 

denied  to  these  figures  which  with  wide-open  eyes  stare  at  the 
beholders' 

We  have  a  description  of  these  curtains  from  Biisching,  who 
travelled  in  quest  of  monastic  treasures  in  the  beginning  of  this 
century ^  They  measure  three-and-a-half  by  fifteen  feet.  On  the 
centre  piece  a  king  (God  .-')  is  represented  on  a  throne,  with  one 
hand  raised,  the  other  holding  a  sceptre;  Cato  and  Seneca,  each 
bearing  a  written  scroll,  sit  on  either  side.  Next  to  them  come  six 
apostles,  sitting  two  and  two  under  a  canopy,  each  bearing  a  scroll 
with  his  name — another  instance  of  how  readily  art  in  the  12th 
century  grouped  together  figures  of  Christian  and  classical  origin, 
where  it  was  an  object  to  unite  the  conceptions  of  religion  and 
philosophy ;  then  Christ,  pictured  under  a  rainbow  arch,  which  is 
supported  by  angels.  On  Christ's  further  side  come  the  other  six 
apostles  similarly  arranged,  and  then  follow  scenes  illustrating  Old 
Testament  history,  such  as  Jacob's  dream;  Abraham  visited  by 
angels  ;  the  sacrifice  of  Isaac ; — in  these  scenes  the  figures  are  com- 
paratively small  and  of  inferior  design  to  the  larger  ones.  Judging 
from  Busching's  description,  the  style  of  the  tapestry  is  the  same  as 
that  of  the  manuscript  illustrations  of  the  time.  The  background  is 
uniformly  of  one  colour,  and  the  contours  of  the  figures  and  their 
draperies  are  in  thick  brown  outline,  the  intervening  spaces  being 
filled  with  different  colours.  Kugler  compares  the  pictorial  effect 
of  these  hangings  with  that  of  the  miniatures  contemporaneously 
painted  in  the  abbey  of  Hohenburg  under  the  abbess  Herrad,  of 
whose  work  we  shall  speak  presently.  They  recall  the  dignified 
and  somewhat  sombre  character  of  Byzantine  art. 

There  is  plenty  of  information  from  the  Continent  to  show  that 
nuns  belonging  to  houses  of  different  religious  orders  were  equally 
industrious  at  the  loom  and  with  the  needle. 

Thus  at  Goss,  formerly  a  Benedictine  nunnery  near  Loeben 
in  Steier,  the  church  still  treasures  a  complete  set  of  vestments, 
'ornatus  integer,'  worked  by  the  nuns  between  1275  and  1300 
during  the  rule  of '  abbatissa  Chunegundis.'  Bock  describes  them 
as  most  curious  and  beautiful,  worked  on  linen  with  coloured  silks 
in  a  design  of  fantastic  animals  and  flowersl 

Again  at  Wienhausen  near  Celle  several  ancient  wall-hangings 
are  preserved  which  were  woven  by  the  nuns  of  the  Cistercian 
settlement  there,  and  show  their  industry  and  skill,  and  the  readi- 

1  Kugler,  F.,  KUine  Schri/ien,  1853,  ^o'*  *'  P-  540- 

*  Biisching,  F.  G.,  Reise  durch  einige  Miinsterkirchen,  1819,  p.  235. 

»  Bock,  F.,  Geschichte der  lUurg.  Gewdnder,  1866,  vol.  i,  p.  227. 


236  Art  Industries  generally.  [chap,  vii 

ness  with  which  secular  subjects  were  treated  in  the  convent.  On 
one  which  dates  from  the  14th  century  the  story  of  Tristan  and 
Isold  is  represented  ;  on  another  hunting  scenes ;  and  on  a  third 
the  figures  of  the  prophets \ 

At  Heiningen  near  Wolfenblittel,  a  house  of  Austin  nuns,  the 
inmates  wove  hangings  with  allegorical  figures  which  are  still  in 
existence.  At  Liine,  Wende,  Erfurt  and  at  the  Cistercian  house 
of  Ebsdorf  wall-hangings  were  made  which  are  still  preserved,  and 
show  the  ability  of  the  nuns  who  worked  at  the  loom  between  the 
13th  and  15th  centuries".  We  are  indebted  to  Bock  for  a  com- 
prehensive treatise  on  church  decoration  and  vestments.  He  also 
made  a  large  collection  of  specimens  of  such  work,  but  it  has 
apparently  been  scattered.  Some  part  of  it  has  been  acquired 
by  the  authorities  at  the  South  Kensington  Museum  where  it  is 
at  present  on  view. 

From  these  examples  of  art-needlework  and  tapestry,  we  must 
turn  to  the  art  of  writing  and  decorating  books.  We  hear  of  a 
woman  calligraphist  in  connection  with  one  of  the  ancient  monas- 
teries in  Bavaria,  the  fame  of  whose  industry  was  carried  on  through 
centuries  ^  The  monastery  of  Wessobrunn  had  been  founded  in 
the  8th  century ;  it  included  a  community  of  nuns  as  well  as  of 
monks,  the  dwelling  allotted  to  the  nuns  being  spoken  of  as  the 
Parthenon,  a  term  sometimes  applied  to  a  religious  house  for  women 
in  these  districts.  In  the  words  of  the  monkish  historian  who 
wrote  about  15 13:  'the  dwellings  of  the  monks  were  where  they 
are  now,  but  those  of  the  nuns  where  the  parish  church  now 
stands.'  Here  between  the  years  1057  and  11 30  Diemud  the 
nun  was  active  as  a  scribe,  the  amount  of  whose  work  in  the 
estimation  of  many  'exceeded  what  could  be  done  by  several 
men.'  She  had  become  a  professed  nun  at  an  early  age  and  '  was 
most  skilful  in  the  art  of  writing ;  for  while  she  is  not  known  to 
have  composed  any  work  of  her  own,  yet  she  wrote  with  her  own 
hand  many  volumes  in  a  most  beautiful  and  legible  character  both 
for  divine  service  and  for  the  library  of  the  monastery,  which  volumes 
are  enumerated  in  a  list  written  by  herself  in  a  certain  plenariics! 
This  list  which  is  extant  includes  works  to  the  number  of  forty-five, 
which  were  highly  prized  during  the  nun's  lifetime  and  had  a  con- 
siderable market  value.     We  find  in  the  list '  a  Missal  with  Gradual 


^  Bock,  F.,  Geschichte  der  liturg.  Geivdnder,  1866,  vol.  3,  pp.  201  ff. 

^  Ibid.  1866,  vol.  3,  p.  202. 

*  Hefner,  Oberbair.  Arckiv,  1830,  vol.  i,  p.  355. 


SECT,  i]  Art  Industries  generally.  237 

and  Sequences '  given  to  the  bishop  of  Trier,  and  a  *  book  of  Offices 
with  the  Baptismal  Service/  given  to  the  bishop  of  Augsburg.  A 
'  bibh'otheca,'  that  is,  a  Bible,  in  two  volumes,  written  by  Diemud, 
was  given  by  the  monastery  of  Wessobrunn  in  exchange  for  an 
estate  at  Peissenburg.  Besides  these  works  the  list  mentions 
another  Bible  in  three  volumes,  books  containing  the  gospels  and 
lessons,  writings  of  Gregory  and  Augustine,  and  the  Ecclesiastical 
History  of  Eusebius.  In  course  of  time  these  books  were  scattered, 
lists  of  those  which  remained  at  Wessobrunn  being  made  from 
time  to  time.  At  the  sequestration  of  the  monastery  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  19th  century  only  fifteen  volumes  written  by  Diemud 
remained,  which  were  taken  to  Munich.  They  are  said  to  be  of 
rare  beauty,  distinguished  by  highly  ornate  initial  letters  and  by 
small  writing  which  is  most  elegant*.  An  example  of  this  writing 
was  reproduced  by  Hefner  in  the  hope  that  it  might  lead  to  the 
identification  of  other  books  written  by  Diemud  which  may  have 
found  their  way  into  other  libraries  and  be  still  in  existence. 

Contemporaneously  with  Diemud  we  find  another  Bavarian  nun, 
Leukardis,  active  as  a  scribe  at  Mallersdorf ;  she  is  said  to  have 
been  of  Scottish  origin  and  she  knew  Scotch  (or  Irish  i*),  Greek, 
Latin,  and  German,  and  did  so  much  good  work  that  the  monk 
Laiupold,  who  was  also  devoted  to  writing,  established  an  anni- 
versary in  her  memory^. 

The  nuns  of  Admunt  in  Bavaria  are  also  spoken  of  as  devoted 
to  transcribing,  and  Wattenbach  comments  on  the  neat  and  elegant 
way  in  which  they  mended  the  parchment  leaves  of  their  manu- 
scripts with  coloured  silken  threads 

Again  a  manuscript  written  for  Marbach  about  the  year  1149 
by  Gutta  von  Schwarzenthan  is  described  as  splendid.  It  contains 
the  martyrology  of  Usuard,  the  Rule  of  St  Augustine  with  the 
comments  of  Hugo  of  St  Victor,  the  constitutions  of  Marbach  and 
a  homily  for  every  day  in  the  year*.  We  hear  of  Emo,  abbot  of 
Wittewierum  (1204-34),  a  Premonstrant  house  which  contained 
men  and  women,  that  '  not  only  did  he  zealously  encourage  his 
canons  (clericis)  to  write,  acting  as  their  instructor,  but  taking 
count  of  the  diligence  of  the  female  sex  he  set  women  who  were 
clever  at  writing  to  practise  the  art  assiduously'.'     Wattenbach 

*   Westennayer  in  Allgemeine  Deutsche  Biog.,  article  '  Diemud ' ;  Catalogus  Cod.  Lat. 
Bibliothecae  Reg.  Monac,  vol.  7,  1881,  nrs  140,  146 — 154. 

2  Wattenbach,  W.,  Schriftwesen  im  Mittdalter,  2nd  edit.  1875,  p.  374. 

^  Ibid.  p.  177.  *  Ibid.  p.  304.  *  Ibid.  p.  374. 


238  Art  Industries  generally.  [chap,  vii 

considers  that  nuris  were  especially  clever  in  copying  books  for 
choir  use,  and  in  decorating  them. 

These  notices  must  suffice.  They  prove  that  women  leading 
cloistered  lives  took  an  active  interest  in  art-industry  in  all  its 
branches  and  that  productiveness  in  their  houses  was  controlled  by 
the  same  causes  which  led  to  the  development  and  decay  of  art- 
industry  in  the  houses  of  men.  Excellent  work  was  done  in 
Benedictine  houses  during  early  Christian  times,  that  is  between  the 
8th  and  the  nth  centuries;  the  revival  of  monastic  life  in  the 
Middle  Ages  gave  a  new  impulse  to  art-industry  and  the  highest 
degree  of  excellence  was  reached  in  the  first  half  of  the  14th 
century.  After  that  there  are  signs  of  a  steadily  accelerated  decline. 
The  reason  of  this,  as  a  later  chapter  will  show,  lies  chiefly  in  the 
changed  conditions  of  life  outside  the  convent,  which  made  it  easier 
for  artisans  in  the  townships  to  practise  those  arts  and  crafts  which 
had  hitherto  been  practised  in  religious  settlements.  Writing, 
decorating,  and  book-binding\  as  well  as  weaving  and  embroider- 
ing^  were  taken  up  by  secular  workers  and  were  practised  by  them 
on  a  far  larger  scale ;  the  spread  of  education  in  lay  circles  and  the 
greater  luxury  in  home  surroundings  having  created  a  new  taste  and 
a  new  market  for  artistic  productions.  The  taste  of  this  wider  public 
naturally  influenced  the  character  of  the  work  which  was  produced  ; 
cheapness  and  splendour,  if  possible  the  combination  of  the  two, 
were  the  qualities  chiefly  aimed  at.  These  are  valuable  qualities 
no  doubt  in  their  way,  but  insistence  on  them  had  a  discouraging 
effect  on  the  productiveness  of  the  convent.  During  the  14th  and 
15th  centuries  convents  gave  up  their  artistic  pursuits.  The  self- 
denying  industry  and  unobtrusive  earnestness  which  set  the  stamp 
of  excellence  on  the  productions  of  the  old  hand-worker  were  no 
more,  for  the  spirit  which  looked  upon  the  production  of  things 
beautiful  as  a  matter  of  religion  had  died  out. 


§  2.     Herrad  and  the  '  Garden  of  Delights.' 

A  work  produced  at  Hohenburg,  a  nunnery  in  Elsass,  in  the 
1 2th  century  confirms  the  belief  that  given  favourable  conditions  it 
is  possible  for  women  to  produce  good  work  and  to  help  to 
accumulate  knowledge.    Herrad,  the  abbess  of  this  house,  conceived 

'  Middleton,  J.  H.,  Ilbitninated  MSS.,  1892,  p.  216. 

^  Michel,  F.,  Atoffes  de  soie pmdant  le  moyen  6ge,  1852,  vol.  2,  p.  350. 


SECT,  ii]     H err  ad  and  the  '  Garden  of  Delights.^  239 

the  idea  of  compiling  for  the  use  of  her  nuns  an  encyclopaedic  work 
which  should  embody,  in  pictures  and  in  words,  the  knowledge  of 
her  age.  The  importance  of  this  work  has  long  survived  the 
attainment  of  its  original  purpose,  for  with  its  hundreds  of  illustra- 
tions and  its  copious  text  it  has  afforded  a  wealth  of  information 
on  the  customs,  manners,  conceptions  and  mode  of  life  of  the  12th 
century,  to  which  many  students  of  archaeology,  art  and  philology 
have  gone  for  instruction  and  for  the  illustration  of  their  own  books. 
'  Few  illuminated  manuscripts  had  acquired  a  fame  so  well  deserved 
as  the  "Garden  of  Delights,"  the  Hortiis  Deliciaruvi,  of  Herrad,' 
says  the  editor  of  the  great  collection  of  reproductions  of  the 
pictures  which  illustrated  her  work\  For  the  work  itself  is  no 
more.  The  MS.  was  destroyed  in  the  fire  which  broke  out  in  the 
library  of  Strasburg  when  that  city  was  bombarded  by  the  Germans 
in  1870,  and  with  it  perished  a  complete  copy  of  the  text.  Our 
knowledge  of  the  work  is  therefore  limited  to  the  remarks  of 
those  who  had  studied  it  and  to  those  portions  of  it  which  had  been 
copied  or  transcribed  previous  to  its  destruction.  The  '  Society  for 
the  Preservation  of  the  Monuments  of  Elsass'  is  at  present  collecting 
and  publishing  a  reproduction  of  all  existing  tracings  and  copies 
of  the  pictures  or  of  parts  of  them,  and  this  collection  already 
numbers  nearly  two  hundred.  They  are  mere  fragments  of  course 
of  the  work  itself,  and  yet  they  are  of  the  highest  interest.  For 
Herrad's  '  Garden  of  Delights '  with  its  apt  illustrations  gave  a 
complete  picture  of  life  in  its  domestic  and  out-of-door  aspects  as 
it  presented  itself  in  the  12th  century.  It  showed  what  conceptions 
and  ideas  were  then  attractive  to  nuns  and  their  estimation  of 
knowledge,  and  it  has  given  greater  insight  than  any  other  pro- 
duction into  the  talents,  the  enthusiasm  and  the  industry  which 
were  found  at  this  period  in  a  nunnery. 

The  religious  settlement  at  Hohenburg^  was  an  ancient  founda- 
tion situated  on  the  flat  summit  of  a  spur  of  the  Vosges  mountains, 
which  here  rise  abruptly  to  a  height  of  over  two  thousand  five 
hundred  feet  from  the  wide  expanse  of  the  valley  of  the  Rhine 
below.  The  wooded  heights  on  either  side  of  the  Rhine  were  the 
favourite  haunts  of  missionaries  in  early  times,  who  settled  there 
and  appropriated  sites  in  close  proximity  to  the  castles  or  strong- 
holds of  the  landed  gentry.     At  one  time  there  were  as  many  as 

1  Reproductions  par  la  Sociiti  pour  la  conservation  des  monuments  de  P Alsace,  Sept 
livraisons  containing  Plates  1-53  inclusive  (till  1895). 

^  .Silbermann,  J.  A.,  Beschreibung  von  Hohetiburg,  1781. 


240        H err  ad  and  the  '  Garde7i  of  Delights'     [chap,  vii 

sixty  religious  settlements  in  the  Rhine  valley  between  Basel  and 
Mainz  and  over  a  hundred  castles  or  burgs.  The  nunnery  of 
Hohenburg  was  of  high  rank  among  these  religious  settlements 
owing  to  its  extensive  property  and  to  its  commanding  situation. 
The  summit  of  the  hill  was  surrounded  by  an  ancient  wall  dating 
from  pre-Christian  times  which  is  still  known  as  the  heathen  wall ; 
it  enclosed  a  wide  clearance  of  fields  and  meadows,  and  the 
numerous  buildings  of  the  convent  settlement.  This  height  was 
the  goal  of  numerous  pilgrimages  and  had  various  associations 
dating  from  heathen  times.  It  is  at  the  present  day  a  favourite 
health  resort  on  account  of  its  aspect  and  romantic  surroundings. 

From  historical  information  recently  collected  by  Roth^  we 
gather  that  a  religious  settlement  of  women  existed  on  the  Hohen- 
burg as  early  as  the  9th  century.  Judith,  the  wife  of  Ludwig  the 
Pious  (1840),  took  some  interest  in  it.  Legendary  lore  has  spun 
many  webs  about  the  religious  settlements  in  the  Rhine  district  in- 
cluding that  of  Hohenburg,  and  the  majority  of  modern  historians 
have  taken  no  trouble  to  unravel  them.  Legend^  tells  us  that  a  holy 
maiden  St  Odilia  fled  from  the  persecution  of  a  cruel  father  and  came 
to  the  Hohenburg,  where  she  settled  and  gathered  many  women  about 
her.  Various  stories  more  or  less  fanciful  are  told  of  her.  She  was 
cured  of  blindness  and  baptized  by  Archbishop  Hildulf  of  Trier  and 
Bishop  Erhard  of  Regensburg — who  are  unknown  to  history  ;  she 
was  carried  down  the  river  in  a  chest  and  educated  at  the  convent 
of  Beaume  or  Palma ;  and  she  has  been  given  as  a  relative  to  St 
Leodgar  bishop  of  Autun  (1678)  and  as  a  daughter  to  Eticho  duke 
of  the  Allemanni.  Besides  these  stories  we  find  the  name  Odilia 
locally  associated  with  a  cave,  a  well,  three  linden-trees  and  a  stone 
of  peculiar  shape  which  are  obviously  heathen  survivals,  and 
encourage  the  view  that  Odilia  is  the  representative  of  some  pre- 
Christian  divinity.  Roth  has  shown  that  the  name  Odilia  is 
nowhere  on  record  in  these  districts  before  the  loth  century,  and 
it  occurs  in  connection  with  Hohenburg  only  in  the  nth  century, 
that  is  three  or  four  hundred  years  after  the  saint's  reputed  founda- 
tion of  the  house.  When  Pope  Leo  IX  (1048-1054),  who  was  an 
Alsatian,  visited  his  home  he  was  presented  with  a  rhymed 
'  responsarium '  on  the  local  saints  of  the  district.  Among  them 
was  Odilia,  who  at  that  time  was  directly  associated  with  the 
nunnery.     A  hundred  years  later  when  the  convent  was  better 

1  Roth,  K.  L.,  *Der  Odilienberg'  in  Alsatia,  1856,  vol.  i,  pp.  91  ff. 
*  Comp.  above,  pp.  22,  24. 


SECT,  ii]     H err  ad  and  the  '  Garden  of  Delights'  241 

known  through  the  influence  and  activity  of  its  abbesses  Reh'nd 
and  Herrad,  St  Odilia  was  looked  upon  as  the  daughter  of  Duke 
Eticho  and  the  founder  of  the  house — this  will  be  shown  from 
pictures  preserved  in  Herrad's  work.  But  evidently  this  abbess 
had  no  knowledge  of  the  saint's  blindness  and  sufferings,  nor  of 
her  connection  with  St  Leodgar  and  other  prelates,  which  are  all 
described  in  her  legend  written  another  hundred  years  later. 

In  the  year  11 54  RelindS  abbess  of  Berg,  a  nunnery  near 
Neuburg  on  the  Danube,  was  appointed  abbess  at  Hohenburg  in 
accordance  with  the  wish,  it  is  said,  of  the  emperor  Friedrich 
Barbarossa  (i  152-1 190).  Her  influence  was  most  beneficial ;  many 
daughters  of  the  surrounding  gentry  came  to  study  under  her,  and 
among  them  Herrad  of  the  family  of  Landsperg.  The  term  nun 
must  be  applied  to  these  women  with  a  reservation ;  some  writers 
speak  of  them  as  Austin  canonesses  on  account  of  the  liberties  they 
enjoyed.  In  Herrad's  '  Garden  '  the  picture  of  her  nuns  represents 
them  wearing  clothes  that  differ  little  from  those  worn  by  women 
in  other  walks  of  life.  Their  dresses  are  of  different  colours,  their 
cloaks  are  generally  brown,  and  their  veils  are  always  brilliantly 
coloured,  some  red,  some  purple*.  The  only  detail  of  dress  which 
they  have  in  common  is  a  white  turban  or  head-dress,  over  which 
the  veil  is  thrown.  They  wear  no  wimples.  The  establishment  of 
the  house  under  Herrad's  rule  consisted  of  forty-seven  nuns  and 
thirteen  novices  (or  lay  sisters ,'')  who  are  represented  as  wearing 
clothes  similar  to  those  of  the  nuns. 

Herrad's  admission  to  the  house  furthered  its  prosperity  in 
every  way,  for  besides  literary  and  artistic  abilities  she  had  con- 
siderable powers  of  management.  She  succeeded  Relind  as  abbess 
in  1 167,  and  in  1181  she  founded  a  settlement  of  Austin  canons  at 
Truttenhausen,  and  later  another  at  St  Gorgon,  both  of  which  are 
situated  not  far  below  the  summit  of  the  hill.  The  canons  of 
these  settlements  took  it  in  turn  to  read  mass  in  the  women's 
chapel.  Roth  speaks  of  other  improvements  which  Herrad  carried 
out  with  the  help  of  her  diocesan,  the  bishop  of  Strasburg. 

The  consecration  of  a  church  at  Niedermiinster,  situated  below 
the  Hohenburg,  also  falls  within  the  term  of  Herrad's  rule.  A 
second  nunnery  was  founded  there  as  a  dependency,  which  was 
.separated  from  the  parent  house  probably  during  Herrad's  lifetime, 

*  Wiegand,  in  AUgemeine  Deutsche  Biographie,  article  'Relind.' 
2  It  is  possible  but  hardly  probable  that  the  miniaturist  in  colouring  the  picture  gave 
free  play  to  his  fancy. 

E.  16 


242        Herrad  and  the  '  Garden  of  Delights!     [chap,  vii 

owing  to  the  efforts  of  the  abbess  Edelind  (i  195-1200),  who 
according  to  Gerard  was  also  of  the  family  of  Landsperg*.  The 
claim  of  this  abbess  to  the  attention  of  posterity  rests  on  her 
having  been  the  possessor  of  a  still  extant  chased  case  several  feet 
high,  which  she  had  made  to  hold  a  fragment  of  the  Holy  Cross 
which  a  camel  was  alleged  to  have  brought  to  Niedermiinster  of 
its  own  accord  in  the  time  of  Karl  the  Great.  This  case  is  covered 
with  many  figures  worked  in  relief  and  is  praised  by  art  students 
as  a  curious  example  of  early  metal  work''. 

The  history  of  Hohenburg  and  Niedermiinster  in  the  sequel 
offers  much  that  is  interesting.  For  while  the  nuns  at  Nieder- 
miinster accepted  the  rule  of  St  Benedict,  the  nuns  on  the  Hohen- 
burg persisted  in  their  independent  course.  At  Niedermiinster  a 
stone  monument  is  still  to  be  seen  which  experts  declare  to  be  13th 
century  work,  and  which  gives  a  clue  to  the  association  of  St  Odilia 
with  Leodgar,  to  whom  the  church  at  Niedermiinster  was  dedicated. 
Three  sides  of  this  monument  are  covered  with  figures.  On  one 
stands  St  Leodgar ;  on  the  next  St  Odilia  with  long  tresses,  and 
Duke  Eticho ;  on  the  third  the  Virgin,  also  with  long  tresses,  and 
below  her  the  abbesses  Relind  and  Herrad  holding  a  book.  Both 
these  abbesses  are  designated  by  name,  and  wear  convent  garb  and 
wimples  utterly  different  from  the  clothes  worn  by  them  in  the 
pictures  of  Herrad's  book^ 

From  these  general  remarks  we  turn  to  the  great  work  of 
Herrad's  life,  to  which  she  herself  gave  the  title  of  the  '  Garden  of 
Delights.'  It  consisted  of  324  parchment  leaves  of  folio  size,  which 
contained  an  account  of  the  history  of  the  world  founded  on  the 
Biblical  narrative,  with  many  digressions  into  the  realm  of  philo- 
sophy, moral  speculation,  and  contemporary  knowledge — and  with 
numerous  pictures  in  illustration  of  it. 

The  book  was  so  arranged  that  the  pictures  stood  alongside  of 
the  text ;  and  the  pages  of  the  work  which  were  devoted  to  illus- 
trations were  in  most  cases  divided  into  three  sections  by  lines 
across,  so  that  the  pictures  stood  one  above  the  other.  The  figures 
in  each  picture  were  about  four  inches  high.  There  were,  however, 
a  certain  number  of  full-page  illustrations  with  larger  figures,  and 
it  is  among  these  that  the  greatest  proofs  are  given  of  Herrad's 
imaginative  powers  and  the  range  of  her  intellectual  abilities. 

^  Gerard,  Ch.,  Les  artistes  de  V Alsace,  1872,  p.  92. 

^  Ibid.;  Engelhardt,  Herrad  von  Landsperg  und  ihr  Werk,  1818,  p.  i6,  footnote. 
'  The   monument   is   represented   in   Schoepflin,  Alsatia  Illustrata,    1751,    vol.    i, 
ad  pag.   797. 


SECT,  ii]     Herrad  and  the  '  Garden  of  Delights'  243 

Engelhardt,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  the  fullest  description 
of  the  '  Garden  of  Deh'ghts,'  made  tracings  of  a  number  of  pictures 
and  copied  their  colouring*.  He  comments  on  the  brilliant  smooth- 
ness and  finish  of  the  original  miniature  paintings.  Only  the  silver, 
he  says,  was  tarnished  ;  the  gold  was  undimmed  and  all  the  colours 
preserved  their  full  brilliancy,  when  he  had  the  work  before  him  in 
the  early  part  of  this  century.  According  to  him  the  method  of 
painting  was  as  follows.  First  the  figures  were  drawn  in  dark 
outline,  then  the  colouring  was  filled  in  bit  by  bit ;  shadows  and 
high  lights  were  next  laid  on,  and  then  the  dark  outlines  were  again 
gone  over. 

The  question  has  naturally  arisen  whether  Herrad  did  the  whole 
of  the  work  herself.  The  text  which  stood  at  the  beginning  and  at 
the  end  of  it  referred  to  her  as  its  sole  author.  Students  are 
generally  agreed  that  the  outline  drawing  and  the  writing  were 
entirely  her  work,  but  the  colours  may  or  may  not  have  been  laid 
on  by  her.  For  the  work  was  wonderfully  complete  in  plan  and 
execution — the  conception  of  one  mind,  which  laboured  with 
unceasing  perseverance  to  realize  the  conception  it  had  formed. 

The  style  in  which  the  pictures  were  drawn  has  likewise  been  the 
occasion  of  much  comment.  We  are  here  on  the  border-land  be- 
tween the  conventional  Byzantine  and  the  realistic  Gothic  styles. 
'We  see  very  clearly,'  says  Woltman^  'how  the  new  ideas  which 
scholastic  learning  and  poetry  had  generated  required  new  modes 
of  expression,  and  led  to  conceptions  for  which  the  older  art  yielded 
no  models  and  which  had  to  be  taken  from  real  life.'  In  most  cases 
Herrad  no  doubt  had  a  model  before  her  and  adhered  to  the  tra- 
ditional rendering,  but  where  the  model  was  wanting  she  may  have 
drawn  on  her  powers  of  imagination  and  supplied  details  from  her 
surroundings.  Thus  incidents  of  Biblical  history  are  represented  by 
her  in  a  manner  familiar  to  the  student  of  early  Christian  art.  A 
grave  and  serious  dignity  which  recalls  the  wall  mosaics  at  Ravenna 
characterizes  the  figures  of  God,  Christ,  Mary,  and  the  angels; 
Engelhardt  has  pointed  out  the  close  similarity  of  Herrad's  picture 
of  the  Annunciation  to  that  contained  in  a  Greek  MS.  of  the  9th 
century'.  But  in  other  cases  Herrad  either  composed  herself  or 
else  drew  from  models  which  were  nearer  to  her  in  time  and  place. 

*  ^x\^e:\\\zxA\.,  Herrad  von  Landsperg  und  ihr  IVerk,  i8i  8,  with  sheets  of  illustrations, 
which  in  a  few  copies  are  coloured. 

*  Woltman,  in  Allgemeine  Deutsche  Biographie,  article  'Herrad.* 

*  Engelhardt,  Herrad  von  Landsperg  und  ihr  Werk,  1818,  Vorwort  p.  xi. 

16 — 2 


244        Herrad  and  the  *  Garden  of  Delights'     [chap,  vii 

Thus  the  picture  of  the  sun-god  Apollo  represents  him  in  a  heavy 
mediaeval  cart  drawn  by  four  horses,  and  the  men  and  women  in 
many  pictures  are  dressed  in  the  fashion  of  the  time.  The  pictures 
drawn  from  real  life  especially  delight  the  archaeological  student. 
A  water-mill  grinding  corn,  men  at  the  plough,  soldiers  on  the 
march  and  fighting,  are  drawn  with  minute  exactness  and  with 
considerable  skill.  Some  of  these  scenes  are  powerfully  realistic 
in  spite  of  a  certain  awkwardness  in  the  figures  ;  for  example,  that 
of  a  traveller  who  is  waylaid  by  robbers,  coupled  with  the  story  of 
the  good  Samaritan,  which  is  illustrated  by  a  series  of  pictures.  In 
the  first  of  these  a  man  is  depicted  lying  by  the  roadside ;  in  the 
second  we  see  him  on  a  horse  which  is  led  by  the  Samaritan,  and 
in  the  third  he  has  arrived  at  the  inn  and  is  being  lifted  down  from 
the  horse. 

Herrad  executed  her  work  between  1160  and  1170,  but  ad- 
ditional entries  were  made  as  late  as  1 190.  This  period  falls  in 
the  reign  of  the  emperor  Friedrich  Barbarossa  (1152-1190),  which 
followed  upon  that  of  the  luckless  Konrad  III,  and  was  one  of  com- 
parative quiet  and  prosperity  in  Germany.  The  power  of  the 
Pope  had  passed  its  climax,  there  was  schism  in  the  Papacy,  which 
was  greatly  aggravated  by  the  line  of  conduct  Friedrich  adopted, 
but  the  scene  of  their  struggle  had  shifted  to  the  cities  of  northern 
Italy.  We  shall  see  later  on  that  political  changes  were  watched 
with  much  interest  in  some  nunneries,  and  that  the  conduct  of  the 
Emperor,  the  Pope,  and  the  bishops  was  keenly  criticised  among 
nuns.  It  is  difficult  to  tell  how  far  events  affected  Herrad.  The 
prose  narrative  which  her  work  contained,  as  far  as  we  know,  has 
perished  and  we  have  no  definite  clue  to  her  interpretation  of  con- 
temporary affairs,  but  probably  she  was  content  to  devote  her 
energies  to  rearranging  and  interpreting  the  intellectual  wealth  of 
the  age  without  entering  into  party  conflicts.  The  illustrations 
of  the  'Garden  of  Delights'  which  have  been  preserved  are  in- 
valuable for  the  study  of  contemporary  life,  but  they  contain  no 
information  as  to  contemporary  events. 

The  study  and  enjoyment  of  the  work  in  its  original  form  were 
facilitated  by  the  addition  to  the  picture  of  the  name  of  every 
person  and  every  implement  in  Latin  or  in  German,  sometimes  in 
both ;  and  in  many  cases  an  explanatory  sentence  or  a  moral 
maxim  was  introduced  into  the  picture,  so  that  the  nun  who  studied 
the  work  naturally  picked  up  Latin  words  and  sentences.  Through 
the  industry  of  Engelhardt  all  these  sentences  and  words  have  been 


SECT,  ii]     Herrad  and  the  '  Garden  of  Delights'  245 

preserved,  and  the  coupling  of  implements  with  their  names 
forms  a  valuable  addition  to  our  knowledge  of  terms  as  applied 
in  early  mediaeval  times.  The  book  also  originally  contained 
a  continuous  history  in  Latin  for  more  advanced  students, 
but  unfortunately  that  is  lost.  Engelhardt  says  that  it  described 
the  history  of  the  world  from  the  Creation  to  the  coming  of 
Antichrist,  with  many  extracts  from  various  writers.  He  enu- 
merates twenty  writers  from  whose  works  Herrad  quotes.  Among 
them  are  Eusebius  Pamphili  (f  c.  350),  Jerome  (f  420),  Isidor  of 
Seville  (f  636),  Bede  (f  735),  Frechulf  (f  838),  and  others  who  were 
her  contemporaries,  such  as  Petrus  Lombardus  (-f-  1 164)  and  Petrus 
Comestor  (f  1 198).  When  quoting  from  secular  writers  the  abbess 
invariably  made  mention  of  the  fact.  In  one  instance  she  remarked 
that  'all  these  things  have  been  described  by  philosophers  by 
aid  of  their  worldly  wisdom  (per  mundanam  sapientiam),  but  this 
was  the  product  of  the  Holy  Spirit  also.' 

The  attitude  which  Herrad  assumed  towards  learning  generally 
can  be  studied  in  the  pictures  which  deal  with  abstract  conceptions. 
They  are  usually  of  folio  size  and  contain  illustrations  which  are 
instructive  to  the  student  of  mediaeval  scholasticism.  Two  pictures 
introduced  into  the  history  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  which  illustrate 
the  falling  away  from  true  faith  deserve  especial  attention.  The 
one  is  a  representation  of  the  *  Nine  Muses ' ;  on  it  female  heads  of 
quaint  dignity  in  medallions  are  arranged  in  a  circle.  The  other 
represents  the  '  Seven  Liberal  Arts,'  in  accordance  with  the  medi- 
aeval interpretation  of  the  teaching  of  Aristotle\  On  it  Philosophy, 
a  female  figure,  is  seated  in  the  centre  of  the  picture  wearing  a  crown 
with  three  heads.  These  heads  are  designated  as  '  ethica,  logica, 
phisica ' ;  by  means  of  these  three  branches  of  learning  philosophy 
adds  to  her  powers  of  insight.  Socrates  and  Plato,  who  are  desig- 
nated as  '  philosophers,'  sit  below,  and  from  the  figure  of  Philosophy 
'  seven  streams  of  wisdom  flow  which  are  turned  into  liberal  arts ' 
as  the  text  explains.  These  arts  are  personified  as  female  figures 
in  1 2th  century  dress,  and  are  so  arranged  that  each  figure  stands 
in  a  separate  division  forming  a  circle  round  Philosophy  and  the 
philosophers.  The  Liberal  Arts  are  robed  in  different  colours,  and 
each  holds  an  emblem  of  her  power.  '  Grammar,'  dressed  in  dark 
red,  has  a  book  and  a  birch  rod ;  '  Geometry,'  in  light  red,  has  a 
measuring  rod  and  a  compass  ;  '  Arithmetic,'  in  light  blue,  holds  a 
string  of  alternate  white  and  black  beads ;    '  Music,'  dressed  in 

^  Cf.  above,  p.  i8o. 


246        Herrad  and  tlie  *  Garden  of  Delights'     [chap,  vii 

purple,  has  a  lyre,  a  zither  and  a  hurdy-gurdy ;  '  Astronomy,'  in 
dark  green,  holds  a  measure  and  looks  up  at  the  stars ;  '  Rhetoric,' 
in  dark  blue,  has  a  stilus  and  a  writing-tablet  (tabula);  and 
'  Dialectic,'  in  light  green,  holds  the  head  of  a  howling  dog.  Each 
figure  is  encircled  by  a  sentence  explaining  the  special  nature  of 
her  power.  In  the  lower  part  of  the  picture  are  four  men,  seated  at 
desks,  with  books,  pens  and  penknives,  engaged  in  reading  and 
writing.  These  are  the  'poets  or  magi,  who  are  filled  with  a 
worldly  spirit ' ;  black  birds  appear  to  be  whispering  in  their 
ears. 

The  whole  of  this  picture  is  doubtless  traditional;  its  admission 
into  the  work  shows  that  Herrad's  conception  of '  profane '  learning 
was  one  of  distinct  appreciation.  The  idea  conveyed  by  means 
of  the  pictures  to  the  young  women  students  was  by  no  means 
superficial  or  derogatory  to  learning.  On  the  contrary,  we  see  them 
under  the  influence  of  a  teacher  through  whom  their  respectful 
attitude  towards  the  means  and  modes  of  knowledge  was  assured. 

Another  picture  of  folio  size,  called  'The  Ladder  to  Perfec- 
tion,' shows  that  Herrad  accepted  a  critical  attitude  towards 
the  members  of  religion.  A  ladder  is  drawn  diagonally  across 
the  page  and  a  number  of  figures  are  seen  ascending  it  on 
their  way  towards  heaven.  The  highest  rung  has  been  reached 
by  Christian  love  (Caritas)  personified  as  a  woman  to  whom 
a  crown  is  proffered  from  heaven.  Below  her  stand  the  repre- 
sentatives of  different  branches  of  the  religious  profession  and 
laymen  arranged  in  order  of  excellence,  and  with  each  is  given  a 
picture  of  the  temptation  which  prevents  him  from  ascending 
further  up  the  ladder.  Among  these  the  hermit  (heremita)  stands 
highest,  but  he  is  held  back  by  the  charms  of  his  garden.  Below 
him  stands  the  recluse  (inclusus),  whose  temptation  is  slothfulness, 
which  is  represented  by  a  bed.  Then  comes  the  monk  (monachus), 
who  leans  towards  a  mass  of  gold  ;  '  he  is  typical  of  all  false  monks,' 
says  Herrad,  'whose  heart  is  drawn  from  duties  by  the  sight  of 
money,  and  who  cannot  rise  above  greed.'  The  nun  (sanctimo- 
nialis)  and  the  cleric  (clericus)  have  reached  the  same  rung  on  the 
ladder.  She  is  the  representative  of  false  nuns  who  yield  to  the 
temptation  of  persuasion  and  gifts,  and  return  to  their  parents, 
never  attaining  the  crown  of  life ;  he  is  drawn  away  by  the 
allurements  of  the  table,  and  by  a  woman  (amica)  who  stands 
below.  There  are  also  figures  of  a  lay  woman  and  a  soldier  who 
are  respectively  attracted  by  the  charms  of  a  city  and   of  war. 


SECT,  ii]     Herrad  and  the  '  Garden  of  Delights!  247 

They  are  absorbed  by  vanities,  and  we  are  told  '  rarely  reach  the 
crown  of  life  through  contemplation,'  The  picture  is  further 
crowded  with  demons  who  are  attacking  and  angels  who  are 
defending  the  people  on  the  ladder.  The  devil  lurks  below  in  the 
form  of  a  dragon  ready  to  seize  upon  those  who  fall. 

In  further  illustration  of  Herrad's  attitude  towards  the  clergy, 
Engelhardt  cites  a  passage  from  her  work  in  which  she  severely 
censures  the  customs  which  the  clergy  tolerate  in  church  on  festal 
days.  In  company  with  laymen  and  loose  women  they  eat  and 
drink,  and  indulge  in  jokes  and  games  which  invariably  end 
in  uproariousness.  '  How  worthy  of  praise/  she  exclaims,  '  if  the 
spiritual  princes  of  the  Church  (principes  ecclesiae  spirituales) 
restored  the  evangelical  teaching  of  early  times  in  the  place  of 
such  customs  ^' 

From  these  general  remarks  we  turn  to  the  pictures  which 
illustrate  the  Biblical  narrative  in  a  number  of  scenes  containing 
a  store  of  imagery  and  a  wealth  of  design.  We  cannot  but  admire 
the  ready  brush  of  the  abbess  and  the  courage  with  which  she 
grappled  with  difficulties,  drawing  with  equal  skill  human  figures 
and  divine  personifications,  dramatic  incidents  and  allegorical  com- 
binations. 

The  pictures  which  illustrated  the  Creation  were  led  up  to  by 
a  number  of  diagrams  and  digressions  on  astronomy  and  geo- 
graphy, with  lists  of  technical  terms  in  Latin  and  their  German 
equivalents.  Among  these  was  a  picture  of  the  signs  of  the  zodiac 
and  a 'computus'  or  table  for  determining  the  festal  days  of  the 
year.  The  desire  to  fix  the  date  of  incidents  of  Old  and  New 
Testament  history  absorbed  much  attention  at  this  period,  and 
Herrad's  table  of  computation  was  looked  upon  as  so  im- 
portant that  it  was  recently  used  by  Piper  as  the  starting-point 
for  an  investigation  on  the  Calendar  generally*.  In  Herrad's 
table  the  date  of  Easter  was  worked  out  for  a  cycle  of  532  years, 
that  is  from  1175  till  1706;  leap-years  were  marked,  and  the  day 
of  the  week  on  which  Christmas  fell  was  given  for  the  whole 
period. 

The  history  of  the  Biblical  narrative  opens  with  a  picture  illus- 
trating the  creation  of  the  animals.  The  lion,  the  elephant,  the 
unicorn  and  the  giraffe  are  most  fantastic,  but  the  ox,  the  ass,  the 
horse,  the  domestic  fowl,  the  sylvan  animals  of  northern  latitudes, 

*  Engelhardt,  Herrad  von  Landsperg  und  ihr  Wcrk,  1818,  p.  104, 
"  Piper,  F,,  Kalendaricn  und  Martyrologien  der  Angehachsen,  1862. 


24S        Herrad  and  the  '  Garden  of  Delights'     [chap,  vii 

and  fish,  are  drawn  with  tolerable  correctness.  God  is  represented 
in  classical  robes  moving  slowly  across  a  wave  of  the  waters.  In 
another  picture  He  is  depicted  in  a  simpler  manner  seated  and 
fashioning  the  small  figure  of  Adam,  which  He  holds  between  His 
knees.  Again  He  is  seen  breathing  life  into  Adam's  nostrils,  and 
tXen  holding  in  His  hand  a  rib  out  of  which  projects  the  head 
of  Eve,  while  Adam  is  lying  asleep  on  the  ground.  There  is  a 
series  of  pictures  illustrating  the  temptation  and  expulsion  from 
Paradise.  A  full-sized  one  gives  the  Tree  of  Life,  which  has  many 
ramifications  out  of  which  human  faces  are  peeping.  Adam  and 
Eve  are  throughout  pictured  as  of  the  same  height  and  are  several 
times  drawn  in  the  nude.  There  is  a  very  graceful  picture  in  which 
Adam  is  seen  delving  while  Eve  spins. 

Poems  on  the  First  Man  and  on  the  Fall  accompanied  by 
musical  notation  are  here  introduced.  The  poems  are  preserved, 
the  music  is  apparently  lost ;  it  is  not  stated  whether  Herrad  wrote 
the  music  herself. 

The  story  of  Noah  and  his  sleeping  in  the  vineyard,  and  the 
building  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  are  illustrated  by  scenes  details  of 
which  are  presumably  drawn  from  real  life.  Here  we  see  wooden 
vats  and  buckets,  the  various  implements  used  in  the  vintage, 
pictures  of  masons  at  work  dressed  in  short  kirtles,  and  the  various 
implements  and  arrangements  for  building. 

After  the  pictures  on  secular  learning  above  referred  to  the 
thread  of  Biblical  narrative  is  resumed,  and  there  are  many 
scenes  from  the  lives  of  the  patriarchs,  such  as  Jacob  giving  his 
blessing,  a  picture  of  Jacob's  dream,  Pharaoh  seated  on  his  throne 
with  sumptuous  surroundings,  and  the  passage  over  the  Red  Sea, 
in  which  the  soldiers  are  clad  in  chain- mail  and  march  with 
standards  borne  aloft.  Soldiers  similarly  accoutred  are  drawn 
in  one  picture  fighting  under  the  leadership  of  Joshua ;  in  another 
picture  they  are  seen  attacking  a  city,  a  scene  taken  from  the  story 
of  the  assault  of  Dan.  The  adoration  of  the  golden  calf  gave 
occasion  for  a  picture  which  also  illustrates  contemporary  manners. 
Men  and  women  dressed  in  the  costume  of  the  day  are  seen 
joining  hands  in  a  ring  and  dancing  round  the  idol.  We  also 
have  pictures  of  the  Holy  Ark  and  of  the  Tabernacle ;  the  seven- 
branched  candlestick  is  most  elaborately  drawn,  and  the  twelve 
tribes  of  Israel  are  grouped  in  medallions  around  it. 

The  next  remarkable  picture  is  the  burial  of  Moses.  In  a 
solitary  rocky  surrounding  God  lays  the  patriarch  in  his  grave, 


SECT,  ii]     H err  ad  and  the  '  Garden  of  Delights'  249 

while  a  demon  holds  him  by  the  legs  and  is  pushed  away  by  an 
angel.  The  demon  was  obviously  a  living  reality  to  Herrad,  and 
he  frequently  appears  in  her  pictures  with  his  wide  mouth,  long 
nose,  pointed  ears  and  green-coloured  body,  a  figure  grotesque 
rather  than  terrible.  When  the  moment  of  death  is  represented 
he  invariably  puts  in  an  appearance  and  claims  the  soul,  which  in 
one  case  escapes  from  the  dying  person's  mouth  in  the  shape  of 
a  small  black  demon.  In  another  picture  the  soul  is  wrapped 
in  swaddling  clothes  and  is  borne  aloft  by  angels.  This  was  a 
pre-Christian  conception,  that  life  is  a  small  living  thing  which 
dwells  inside  a  human  being  and  escapes  at  death.  On  classic  soil 
one  comes  across  escaping  life  represented  as  a  babe  ;  in  German 
folk-lore  it  is  often  a  mouse  or  a  toad. 

The  story  of  Goliath  and  of  David  is  also  illustrated.  David 
is  a  diminutive  figure  wearing  a  kirtle,  Goliath  is  huge  and  clad 
in  chain-mail.  Another  picture  represents  David  playing  on  the 
harp.  There  were  also  a  number  of  scenes  from  the  books  of 
Kings,  of  Job,  and  of  Tobit ;  none  of  these  have  as  yet  been 
reproduced.  A  picture  of  the  prophets  has,  however,  been 
published,  in  which  a  number  of  figures  of  different  ages  are 
depicted  in  different  attitudes  standing  side  by  side.  One  of  the 
most  curious  and  dramatic  pictures  is  the  full-page  illustration 
of  Jonah  being  cast  up  by  the  fish.  The  fish  is  a  carp  of  huge  size, 
but  it  is  designated  as  a  whale. 

The  New  Testament  pictures  follow  on  the  Old  Testament, 
but  between  them  stand  several  which  illustrate  their  unity.  One 
is  an  allegorical  figure  with  two  heads,  the  one  the  head  of  Moses, 
the  other  that  of  Christ  There  is  also  a  picture  in  folio  size  of 
the  mystic  family  of  Christ.  At  the  bottom  is  Abraham,  who  holds 
the  mystic  vine  which  grows  upwards  and  divides  into  beautiful 
twisted  ramifications  forming  circles,  and  in  these  are  arranged 
the  heads  of  patriarchs,  kings,  and  groups  of  other  members  of 
Christ's  family.  A  picture  of  Leviathan  is  extremely  curious. 
He  is  depicted  floating  below.  God  stands  above  with  a  rod  and 
line,  and  uses  the  cross  as  a  fish-hook,  dragging  out  of  the  huge 
creature's  mouth  the  heads  of  the  prophets  which  are  strung  to- 
gether in  a  row. 

The  history  of  Christ  was  led  up  to  by  an  account  of  the  birth 
of  John  the  Baptist.  The  Nativity  was  celebrated  by  several  poems, 
the  words  of  which  have  come  down  to  us ;  the  music  which  accom- 
panied them  is  apparently  lost.     Among  the  most  realistic  pictures 


250        Herrad  and  the  '  Garden  of  Delights'     [chap,  yii 

preserved  is  that  of  the  '  Murder  of  the  Innocents ' ;  agony  is 
characteristically  expressed  in  the  attitude  and  faces  of  the  mothers 
who  watch  the  soldiers  fulfilling  their  task. 

Other  pictures,  copies  of  which  have  been  preserved,  illustrate  the 
arrival  of  the  three  kings  and  Christ's  baptism.  In  this  latter  picture 
the  Jordan  is  personified  as  a  river-god  sitting  in  the  water ;  the 
doors  of  heaven  above  are  wide  open  and  a  dove  drawn  in  the 
accepted  style  is  descending.  Christ's  parables  gave  the  abbess 
many  occasions  for  depicting  scenes  taken  from  real  life,  many  of 
which  in  their  simplicity  are  truly  delightful.  Biblical  stories  were 
supplemented  by  incidents  taken  from  legendary  history,  which  were 
likewise  accompanied  by  pictures,  few  of  which  seem  to  have  been 
preserved.  The  story  of  the  healing  power  of  the  statue  of  Christ, 
the  legend  of  the  Vernacle,  and  the  story  of  the  True  Cross  were 
all  illustrated.  There  was  Adam  planting  the  Tree  of  Life,  King 
Solomon  fetching  its  wood  to  Jerusalem  and  making  a  bridge  over 
the  river  with  it,  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba  coming  on  a  visit  and 
hesitating  to  cross  the  bridge. 

The  pictures  of  the  story  of  the  Agony,  the  Resurrection,  and 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  met  with  great  praise  from  all  who  saw 
them.  There  were  folio-sized  pictures  setting  forth  the  Univer- 
sality of  the  Church,  and  the  Contending  of  Virtues  and  Vices\ 
Of  this  latter  series  several  pictures  have  just  appeared  in  repro- 
duction ;  some  are  arranged  in  pairs,  facing  each  other.  The  chief 
Vices,  each  with  a  band  of  attendants,  are  depicted  confronting  and 
then  overcome  by  the  chief  Virtues  ;  all  are  represented  as  women. 
Thus  Pride,  '  Superbia,'  seated  on  horseback  on  a  lion's  skin  and 
brandishing  a  spear,  is  leading  a  band  of  women,  who  are  clad  in 
chain-mail  with  robes  flowing  about  their  feet  and  carrying  spears, 
against  a  band  of  Virtues  similarly  attired  but  carrying  swords.  A 
most  interesting  picture  is  that  of  Luxury,  *  Luxuria,'  who  is  seen 
with  fourteen  attendant  Vices  riding  in  a  sumptuous  four-wheeled 
car ;  Luxury  is  in  front  throwing  violets.  She  is  confronted  by  a 
band  of  Virtues  led  by  Temperance, '  Temperantia,'  who  are  in  front 
of  the  horses  and  hold  up  their  hands  in  reprobation.  On  the  next 
picture  the  car  of  Luxury  is  smashed,  the  horses  are  overturned,  and 
she  herself  is  under  the  wheels.  Of  her  attendants  '  Voluptas  '  has 
cast  aside  her  rings  and  ornaments  and  is  caught  in  a  briar-bush, 
'  Amor '    has   thrown    away   bow   and    quiver,   and    '  Avaritia '   is 

*  Apparently  following  the  '  Psychomachia '  of  Prudentius,  a  Christian  poet  of  the 
5th  century. 


SECT,  ii]     Herrad  and  the  '  Garden  of  Delights'  251 

seizing  upon  what  the  others  have  dropped.  On  another  picture 
Liberality,  '  Largitas,'  has  stripped  Rapine  and  Avarice,  and  has 
transfixed  Avarice  with  a  spear. 

Some  of  the  pictures  which  illustrate  Solomon  in  his  glory  and 
Solomon's  Vanity  of  Vanities  have  also  been  preserved.  Among 
them  is  Solomon  lying  on  a  sumptuous  couch  and  surrounded  by 
his  warriors.  A  representation  of  two  mannikins  occurs  among  the 
Vanities ;  these  mannikins  were  moved  by  threads,  exactly  like  a 
modern  toy.  The  pictures  illustrating  the  experiences  of  the 
Church,  the  position  of  her  members  from  Pope  to  cleric,  the 
means  of  repentance,  and  the  coming  of  Antichrist,  all  roused 
the  enthusiasm  of  those  who  saw  them ;  none  of  these  have  till 
now  been  reproduced.  Gerard,  who  was  probably  the  last  to 
see  and  handle  the  work  of  Herrad,  was  especially  struck 
by  the  pictures  of  the  Last  Judgment  and  of  Heaven  and  Hell. 
His  descriptions  of  them  were  lying  in  the  library  at  the  time 
of  the  bombardment,  and  were  only  rescued  by  the  devotion  of 
a  friend  \  On  the  strength  of  these  pictures  he  numbers  Herrad 
among  the  most  imaginative  painters  the  world  has  known.  Engel- 
hardt  also  was  greatly  struck  by  them.  He  describes  a  picture  of 
Hell  in  the  following  terms  (p.  51): 

'  A  mass  of  rocks  was  arranged  so  as  to  make  a  framework  to 
this  picture,  in  the  chasms  of  which  rocks  flames  were  flaring  and 
the  condemned  were  seen  suffering  torments.  Rivers  of  flame 
divided  the  inner  part  of  the  picture  into  four  divisions.  In  the 
lowest  of  these,  at  the  bottom  of  Hell,  sat  Lucifer  or  Satan  in 
chains  holding  Antichrist  in  his  lap.  Next  to  him  a  demon  carried 
along  a  covetous  monk,  whose  punishment  was  then  represented  : 
he  lay  on  his  back  without  clothes  and  a  demon  poured  molten 
gold  into  his  mouth.  In  the  second  division  counting  from  below 
two  boiling  caldrons  hung  suspended  :  in  the  one  were  Jews,  in 
the  other  soldiers  (the  text  says  '  milites  vel  armati ').  Demons 
stood  by  holding  men  of  either  kind  ready  to  add  them  to  those 
already  in  the  caldrons ;  other  demons  were  stirring  the  caldrons 
with  forks.  In  front  of  the  Jews'  caldron  a  demon  was  depicted 
holding  a  naked  sinner  to  whom  he  administered  punishment  by 
beating  him.  In  the  division  above  this  a  usurer  had  hot  gold 
poured  into  his  hand ;  a  slanderer  was  made  to  lick  a  toad ;  an 
eaves-dropper  had  his  ears  pinched ;  a  vain  woman  was  assisted 
at  her  toilet  by  demons  (they  seemed  to  be  lacing  her)  ;  the  woman 

1  Gerard,  Ch.,  Les  artistes  de  C Alsace,  1871,  Introd.  p.  xix.,  p.  46,  footnote. 


252        Herrad  and  the  '  Garden  of  Delights'     [chap,  vii 

who  had  murdered  her  child  was  forced  to  devour  it.  The  follow- 
ing peculiar  picture  filled  the  highest  division :  a  rope  was  drawn 
through  chasms  in  the  rocks  so  as  to  form  a  swing ;  on  this  a  grinning 
demon  sat  swinging.  At  the  ends  of  the  rope  which  hung  on  the 
other  side  of  the  rocks  two^sinners  were  hanging  bound  head  and 
foot  so  as  to  balance  each  other ;  demons  held  them  by  the  hair. 
Another  sinner  hung  suspended  by  his  feet,  with  a  block  of  stone 
hanging  from  his  neck  on  which  a  demon  was  swinging.  Sensual 
pleasures  personified  were  wound  around  and  bitten  by  snakes,  and 
a  man  who  had  committed  suicide  was  depicted  plunging  a  knife 
into  his  own  body.' 

These  pictures  illustrated  with  forcible  directness  conceptions 
which  were  current  throughout  the  religious  world  and  served  as 
a  means  of  teaching  the  lesson  of  reward  and  punishment  in  the 
world  to  come.  Later  on  in  treating  of  mysticism  we  shall  again 
see  these  conceptions  stimulating  the  imaginative  powers  of  women 
living  in  convents. 

Copies  of  the  last  pages  of  the  *  Garden  of  Delights,'  which 
are  devoted  to  a  representation  of  the  Hohenburg  and  of  its 
convent  of  women,  have  fortunately  been  preserved.  Here  we 
see  the  settlement  as  it  presented  itself  to  Herrad  and  the  thoughts 
she  associated  with  it.  The  picture  is  the  size  of  two  folio  pages. 
High  above  in  the  centre  stands  Christ  in  front  of  the  convent  church, 
holding  in  His  right  hand  a  golden  staff  which  is  touched  by  the 
Virgin  and  St  Peter,  and  the  end  of  which  is  supported  by  Duke 
Eticho,  whom  Herrad  looked  upon  as  the  father  of  St  Odilia.  St  John 
the  Baptist  and  St  Odilia  are  seen  standing  on  the  other  side  of 
Christ.  A  green  hill  is  represented  below  roughly  studded  with 
bushes  or  brambles, — this  is  the  hill  of  the  Hohenburg.  On  one 
slope  of  it  Duke  Eticho  is  seated,  and  he  hands  the  golden  key  of 
the  convent  to  St  Odilia,  who  advances  towards  him  followed  by 
a  band  of  women.  Relind,  Herrad's  teacher  and  predecessor,  also 
stands  on  the  hill  with  her  hand  resting  on  a  cross  on  which  are 
inscribed  verses  addressed  to  the  nuns.  The  fact  that  she  restored 
the  church  and  the  discipline  at  Hohenburg,  which  had  fallen  entire- 
ly into  decay,  is  commemorated  in  a  sentence  which  is  placed  on 
the  other  side  of  her.  Over  against  her  stands  Herrad  herself,  who 
also  holds  verses  addressed  to  the  nuns.  And  between  these  two 
abbesses  all  the  members  of  Herrad's  congregation  are  drawn,  six 
rows  of  women's  heads  placed  one  above  the  other.  There  is  no 
attempt  at  portraiture,  but  the  name  of  each  nun  and  each  novice 


SECT,  ii]     Herrad  and  the  •  Garden  of  Delights'  253 

is  added  to  her  picture.  Among  these  names  are  those  of  families 
of  the  surrounding  landed  gentry,  from  which  we  gather  that  the 
nunnery  was  chiefly  for  the  upper  classes.  The  nuns  in  the  picture 
address  lines  to  Christ  begging  Him  to  number  them  among  the 
elect. 

Such  in  rough  outline  was  the  '  Garden  of  Delights/  the  loss 
of  which  is  greatly  to  be  deplored,  both  from  the  point  of  view  of 
culture  in  general,  and  from  that  of  women  in  particular.  But  even 
in  its  fragments  the  work  is  a  thing  to  dwell  upon,  a  monument 
which  bears  the  stamp  of  wide  knowledge  and  lofty  thought.  It 
shows  how  Herrad  found  her  life's  interest  in  educating  the  young 
women  given  into  her  care,  how  anxious  she  was  that  they  should 
be  right-minded  in  all  things,  and  how  she  strove  to  make  their 
studies  delightful  to  them.  The  tone  which  she  took  towards  her 
congregation  is  apparent  from  the  words  in  which  she  directly 
addressed  them.  For  besides  occasional  admonitory  words,  two 
long  poems,  one  at  the  beginning,  the  other  at  the  end  of  the 
work,  are  devoted  to  the  admonition  of  the  nuns.  Herrad's 
poems  are  composed  in  different  metres ;  some  have  the  dignity 
of  the  hexameter,  some  the  easier  flow  of  shorter-lined  dactylic 
verse.  The  poems  addressed  to  her  nuns  are  of  the  latter  kind. 
Their  incisive  rhythm  and  ringing  rhyme,  in  which  their  value 
chiefly  lies,  make  a  translation  difficult.  Still  a  version  of  the 
first  of  these  poems  in  English  prose  will  help  to  give  the  reader 
some  idea  of  the  tone  of  the  abbess ;  the  form  of  address  is  neces- 
sarily determined  by  the  mode  of  expression  of  the  I2th  century, 
the  meaning  of  the  original  is  by  no  means  always  clear. 

This  is :  '  The  rhyme  of  Herrad,  the  abbess,  in  which  she 
lovingly  greets  the  young  maidens  (virgunculas)  of  the  Hohen- 
burg  and  invites  them  to  their  weal  to  faith  and  love  of  the  true 
Bridegroom. 

'  Hail,  cohort  of  Hohenburg  virgins,  white  as  the  lily  and  loving 
the  Son  of  God,  Herrad,  your  most  devoted,  your  most  faithful 
mother  and  handmaiden  sings  you  this  song.  She  greets  you  times 
countless  and  daily  prays  that  in  glad  victory  you  may  triumph 
over  things  that  pass.  O,  mirror  of  many  things,  spurn,  spurn  those 
of  time,  and  garner  virtues.  Band  of  the  true  Bridegroom.  Press 
on  in  the  struggle  to  scatter  the  dread  foe,  the  King  of  Kings  aids 
you  for  His  desire  is  towards  you.  He  Himself  strengthens  your 
soul  against  Satan  ;  He  Himself  will  grant  the  glory  of  His  king- 
dom after  victory.    Delights  await  you,  riches  are  destined  for  you, 


254        Herrad  and  the  '  Garden  of  Delights.'     [chap,  vii 

the  court  of  heaven  proffers  you  countless  joys.  Christ  prepares 
espousals  wondrous  in  delights,  and  you  may  look  for  this  prince 
if  you  preserve  your  chastity.  Mean  time  put  around  you  noble 
circlets  (?)  and  make  your  faces  to  shine  fair,  freed  from  mental  strife. 
Christ  hates  spot  or  stain,  He  abhors  time-worn  lines  (of  vice)  ;  He 
desires  beauteous  virgins  and  drives  forth  women  who  are  unchaste. 
With  a  dove-like  faith  call  upon  that  your  Bridegroom,  that  your 
beauty  may  become  an  unbroken  glory.  Living  without  guile,  be 
admonished  by  praisegiving,  so  that  you  may  complete  your  best 
works  of  ascent.  Do  not  hesitate  amidst  the  doubtful  currents  of 
the  world,  the  truthful  God  holds  out  rewards  after  danger.  Suffer 
hardships  now,  despising  the  world's  prosperity,  be  now  fellow  of 
the  cross,  hereafter  sharer  of  the  kingdom.  Steer  across  the  ocean 
freighted  with  holiness,  till  you  leave  the  bark  and  land  in  Sion. 
May  Sion's  heavenly  castle  with  its  beauteous  halls  be  your  home 
when  the  term  of  life  is  past.  May  there  the  virgin  Ruler,  Mary's 
Son,  receive  you  in  His  embrace  and  lift  you  up  from  sadness. 
Setting  aside  all  the  wiles  of  the  mean  tempter,  you  will  be  abun- 
dantly glad,  sweetly  rejoicing.  The  shining  Star  of  the  Sea,  the 
one  virgin  Mother  will  join  you  to  her  Son  in  bond  eternal.  And 
by  your  prayer  do  not  cease  to  draw  me  with  you  to  the  sweetest 
Bridegroom,  the  Son  of  the  Virgin.  As  He  will  be  partner  of  your 
victory  and  of  your  great  glory,  He  will  draw  you  from  earthly 
things.  Farewell,  chaste  band,  you  my  exceeding  joy,  live  without 
offence,  ever  love  Christ.  May  this  book  prove  useful  and  delightful 
to  you,  may  you  never  cease  to  ponder  it  in  your  breast.  May  for- 
getfulness  not  seize  you  like  the  ostrich  (more  Struthineo)',  and 
may  you  not  leave  the  way  before  you  have  attained.     Amen.' 

This  address  in  verse  was  followed  by  these  lines  in  prose — 
'  Herrad,  who  through  the  grace  of  God  is  abbess  of  the  church 
on  the  Hohenburg,  here  addresses  the  sweet  maidens  of  Christ 
who  are  working  as  though  in  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord  ;  may  He 
grant  grace  and  glory  unto  them. — I  was  thinking  of  your  happiness 
when  like  a  bee  guided  by  the  inspiring  God  I  drew  from  many 
flowers  of  sacred  and  philosophic  writing  this  book  called  the 
'  Garden  of  Delights ' ;  and  I  have  put  it  together  to  the  praise 
of  Christ  and  the  Church,  and  to  your  enjoyment,  as  though  into 
a  sweet  honeycomb.  Therefore  you  must  diligently  seek  your  sal- 
vation in  it  and  strengthen  your  weary  spirit  with  its  sweet  honey 

^  Probably  with  reference  to  Job  xxxix.,  14-15. 


SECT.  II j     Herrad  and  the  'Garden  of  Delights'  255 

drops  ;  always  be  bent  on  love  of  your  Bridegroom  and  fortified 

by  spiritual  joys,  and  you  will  safely  pass  through  what  is  transitory, 
and  secure  great  and  lasting  happiness.  Through  your  love  of  Christ, 
help  me  who  am  climbing  along  a  dangerous  uncertain  path  by 
your  fruitful  prayer  when  I  pass  away  from  this  earth's  experiences. 
Amen.' 

Thus  far  we  have  followed  Herrad  in  her  work  and  in  her  re- 
lations towards  her  nuns ;  the  question  naturally  arises,  What  inner 
experiences  prompted  her  to  her  great  undertaking  and  in  what 
spirit  did  she  carry  it  through  ?  It  has  been  noticed  that  a 
sombreness  is  characteristic  of  certain  parts  of  the  work,  and  is 
peculiar  to  some  of  her  poems  also.  Two  short  verses  which  occur 
in  the  work  seem  to  reflect  her  mental  state.  The  one  urges  great 
liberality  of  mind.  It  discusses  the  basis  of  purity,  and  comes  to 
the  conclusion  that  purity  depends  less  on  actions  than  on  the 
spirit  in  which  they  are  done.  The  other  follows  the  mind  through 
its  several  stages  of  development  and  deserves  to  be  chronicled 
among  the  words  of  wisdom.  It  runs  as  follows :  '  Despise  the 
world,  despise  nothing,  despise  thyself,  despise  despising  thyself, 
— these  are  four  good  things,' 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

PROPHECY   AND    PHILANTHROPY. 

*  Pauper  homo  magnam  stultitiam  habet  quando  vestimenta  sua  scissa  sunt,  semper 
in  alium  aspiciens,  considerans  quem  colorem  vestimentum  illius  habeat,  nee  suum  a 
sorde  abluit.'    Hildegard. 

§  I.     St  Hildegard  of  Bingen^  and  St  Elisabeth  of  Schonau*. 

From  the  peaceful  pursuits  of  mediaeval  nuns  we  turn  to  some 
of  the  women  who  were  interested  in  the  problems  of  the  day,  and 
whose  minds  were  agitated  by  current  difficulties  which  they  sought 
to  solve  in  their  own  way.  In  Germany  in  the  early  Middle  Ages 
the  struggle  between  Pope  and  Emperor,  and  the  interference  in 
temporal  matters  of  prelates  in  their  character  as  dependents  of 
the  Pope,  gave  rise  to  a  prolonged  struggle.  Much  criticism, 
reflection  and  speculative  energy  were  brought  to  bear  on  the 
relations  between  monarchical  and  ecclesiastical  power,  on  the 
duties  of  the  ministers  of  the  Church,  and  on  the  Pope's  efficiency 
in  controlling  them.  It  is  at  least  curious  to  find  among  the  voices 
that  are  raised  in  criticism  and  protest,  those  of  two  nuns,  who 
in  consideration  of  the  services  they  have  rendered  to  the  faith 
are  estimated  as  saints.  The  present  chapter  proposes  to  deal  in 
Aoutline  with  the  writings  of  St  Hildegard  of  Bingen  (1098-1178) 
jland  of  St  Elisabeth  of  Schonau  (c.  1 129-1 165).  These  two  women 
differed  somewhat  in  their  points  of  view,  but  they  were  equally 
zealous  in  supporting  the  Pope's  authority,  and  were  equally  in- 

'  Hildegardis,  Opera,  1882  (in  Migne,  Patrol.  Cursits  Compl.,  vol.  197,  which  contains 
the  acts  of  the  saint  reprinted  from  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Hildegardis,  Sept.  17;  her  life 
written  by  Godefrid  and  Theodor;  the  'Acta  Inquisitionis';  the  article  l)y  Dr  Reuss, 
and  the  fullest  collection  of  the  saint's  works  hitherto  published). 

'^  Roth,  F.  W.,  Die  Visionen  der  heil.  Elisabeth  und  die  Schriften  von  Ekbert  mid 
Emecho  von  Schonau,   1884. 


SECT.  i1  St  Elisabeth  of  Schonau.  257 


spind  by  the  belief  that  the  Church  could  and  should  maintain f 
a  lofty  and  universal  standing  and  act  as  a  regenerator  to  society^ 
The  exhortations  of  these  women  were  very  popular,  and  in  the 
year  1158,  when  they  were  in  the  full  exercise  of  their  power,  the 
annalist  wrote,  'in  these  days  God  made  manifest  His  power  through 
the  frail  sex,  in  the  two  maidens  Hildegard  and  Elisabeth,  whom 
He  filled  with  a  prophetic  spirit,  making  many  kinds  of  visions 
apparent  to  them  through  His  messages,  which  are  to  be  seen 
in  writing'.' 

The  attitude  of  these  women  and  the  tone  of  their  writings 
were  the  direct  outcome  of  contemporary  events.  They  were 
deeply  moved  by  the  instability  of  social  conditions  and  shared  the 
belief  of  other  great  reformers  of  the  age,  that  what  was  needed  to 
remedy  social  evils  was  a  livelier  faith  in  the  truths  of  religion  and 
a  higher  standard  of  morality  in  conduct. 

The    1 2th   century  is  the  age   when    national   feeling   in    the  "^ 
different   countries   of  Europe   first  asserted    itself  strongly,  and  \ 
when  consciousness  of  solidarity  within    made   possible   the  ap- 
prehension  of   ideas   which   lie   beyond    the   pale   of   immediate 
personal  and  national  advantage.     The  conception  of  knighthood,  \ 
hitherto   determined    only  by  land   ownership   and    loyalty   to   a  ' 
lord,  was  given  a  new  interpretation,  and  the  order   of  Knights 
Templars  was  founded,  which  held  knighthood  to  be  based  upon 
devotion    to   the   cause   of  religion   and    loyalty  to   the    Saviour. 
Similarly  love  of  war,  which  till  then  had  expended  itself  in  self- 
protective  and  aggressive  warfare,  was  turned  into  a  new  channelj 
and    the    thought   of    the    Crusade   roused    peoples   of    differentt 
nationalities  to  fight  side  by  side,  inspired  by  a  common  cause 
and  actuated  by  a  common  interest.     The  authority  of  the  PopeA 
as  a  temporal  ruler  had  reached  its  climax,  and  there  were  threaten-''^ 
ing  signs  of  its  decline,  but  when  this  power,  like  the  conception  of 
knighthood,  received   the  new  interpretation,  its  importance  had 
never  been  more  distinctly  emphasized. 

The  Popes  who  ruled  between  900  and  1000  had  been  absorbed 
by  party  squabbles  in  Rome  and  had  done  little  to  raise  the 
dignity  of  their  office  in  other  lands.  But  a  change  had  come 
through  Hildcbrand,  who  nominally  served,  but  practically  ruled, 
five  Popes  before  he  himself  sat  in  the  chair  of  St  Peter  as 
Gregory  VII  (1073-1085).  Owing  to  his  influence  the  papal 
power  rapidly  increased  and  took  a  universal  colouring,  for,  by 

•  '  Annales  Paliclenses'  in  Pertz,  Mou.  Germ.  Scrift.  vol.  i6,  p.  90. 
E.  17 


258  S/   Hildegard  of  Bingen  and        [chap,  viii 

identifying  himself  with  all  the  wider  and  higher  interests  of 
humanity,  the  Pope  succeeded  in  winning  for  himself  the  re- 
cognition of  his  supreme  authority  in  matters  both  spiritual  and 
temporal.  There  was  something  grand  and  inspiring  in  this  con- 
ception of  the  Pope  as  the  universal  peace-maker,  and  of  Rome 
as  the  central  and  supreme  court  of  appeal  of  the  civilized  world, 
but  it  could  not  last.  In  proportion  as  national  life  in  the  different 
countries  struggled  into  being,  this  overlordship  of  the  Pope  was 
felt  to  weigh  heavily  and  to  hamper  development,  and  criticisms 
arose  concerning  his  right  to  interfere  in  matters  that  did  not  apper- 
tain directly  to  the  Church.  At  the  time  we  are  .speaking  of — the 
/second  half  of  the  12th  century — there  were  indications  of  a  dis- 
jtinction  drawn  between  '  sacerdotium '  and  'imperium,'  between 
Ipriestly  and  imperial  status  considered  as  the  rightful  basis  of 
power,  with  a  consequent  loss  of  prestige  to  the  Church.  The  po- 
sition of  the  Papacy  was  moreover  seriously  affected  by  continued 
schism.  As  a  check  to  this  loss  of  prestige,  those  who  were  in  favour 
of  papal  supremacy  urged  that  the  Church  must  be  strengthened 
in  its  members,  and  they  sought  an  increase  of  influence  in  a  re- 
form of  the  life  of  the  clergy  generally. 

It  has  been  mentioned  above  how  from  the  loth  century  on- 
wards a  direct  connection  had  grown  up  between  the  Pope  and  the 
.  monastic  centres,  and  how  the  founders  of  new  religious  orders 
I  had  by  a  like  direct  connection  secured  a  safeguard  against  wilful 
\interference  with  their  prerogatives  by  prince  and  prelate.     Outside 
Italy  it  was  in  the  monastery  that  the  Pope  throughout  the  12th 
century  found    his  chief  advocates,  that  his  spiritual   supremacy 
was  most  earnestly  emphasized,  and  that  the  belief  was  fostered 
that  through  his  influence  a  re-organization  of  society  could  be 
obtained. 

In  this  connection   no  figure  of  the  age  is  more  remarkable 
than  that  of  Bernard  of  Clairvaux^  (i*  1153),  'the  simple  monk, 
clad  in  plain  clothes,  weakened   by  fasting,'  whose  power  is  felt 
in  religious  and  lay  circles  alike.     The  secret  of  Bernard's  influence 
lay  in  the  fact  that  he  was  in  one  direction  the  mouthpiece  of  the 
.ideal  aspirations  of  his  age — he  emphasized  the  spiritual  side  of 
|)religion  and  insisted  on  the  great  social  and  moral  advantages  to 
V^e  obtained  by  accepting  spiritual  direction  as  a  guide  in  prac- 
tical matters.     By  doing  so  he  at  once  increased  the   reverence 
felt  for  religion  and  gave  it  a  practical  value.     His  very  success 

*  Neander,  Der  heil.  Bernard  twd  seine  Zdt,  1848. 


SECT,  i]  Si  Elisabeth  of  Schonau.  259 

commands  admiration,  repellent  as  his  narrowness  appears  in  some 
particulars.  It  is  true  that  he  diminished  schism  by  persuading 
King  Louis  VI  of  France  to  recognise  Pope  Innocent  II  (1130-43), 
that  he  won  over  the  German  Emperor  Lothar  {\  1137)  to  the 
same  course ;  it  is  true  that  he  founded  the  order  of  the  Knights 
Templars,  gave  a  new  impulse  to  the  order  of  Citeaux,  and  preached 
the  Crusade ;  but  it  was  he  who  declared  the  writings  of  Abelard 
(•f"  1 142)  false,  and  who  had  Arnold  of  Brescia  expelled  from  Paris 
on  the  charge  of  heresy. 

Socially  and  politically  speaking  the  state  of  affairs  in  the 
German  Empire  during  the  first  half  of  the  12th  century  had 
taken  a  deplorable  turn  through  the  choice  of  Konrad  (•fii52) 
as  emperor.  His  vacillating  policy  left  party  hatred  rampant 
between  the  rival  houses  of  Welf  (Guelph)  and  Hohenstaufen.  On 
the  slightest  provocation  this  hatred  broke  out  in  warfare ;  it  was 
checking  all  possibility  of  material  progress  and  prosperity  when 
the  thought  of  a  crusade  offered  a  welcome  diversion  to  these 
turbulent  elements.  For  the  first  crusade  few  recruits  had  been 
drawn  from  any  districts  except  the  northern  provinces  of  France, 
but  the  second  assumed  very  different  proportions.  As  early  as 
1 145  Pope  Eugenius  was  granting  indulgences  to  those  who  joined 
it,  while  Bernard  took  up  the  idea  and  preached  it  with  great 
success  all  along  the  Rhine.  Disastrous  as  the  undertaking  itself 
proved  to  those  who  took  part  in  it,  its  immediate  effects  on  the 
countries  from  which  the  crusaders  were  drawn  were  most  beneficial. 
After  speaking  of  the  terrible  contentions  which  for  years  had 
set  the  ruling  powers  in  Poland,  Saxony  and  Bohemia  at  strife, 
Bishop  Otto  III  of  Freising  (i*  1158)  continues  in  this  strain: 
'  Suddenly,  through  the  counsel  of  the  Most  High,  a  speedy  change 
was  effected  ;  and  in  a  short  time  the  turmoils  of  war  were  quieted, 
the  whole  earth  seemed  restored  to  peace,  and  unnumbered  bands 
from  France  and  from  Germany  received  the  Cross  and  departed 
to  fight  against  its  enemies.' 

When  these  crusaders  had  been  sped  on  their  way — a  motley 
crowd  in  which  figured  emperor  and  king,  adventurous  knight, 
venturesome  woman,  and  vagrants  of  every  kind  and  of  both 
sexes — Pope  Eugenius,  whose  position  at  Rome  was  insecure  and 
who  had  been  staying  at  Clairvaux  with  Bernard,  journeyed  to 
Trier  at  the  request  of  the  archbishop  to  meet  in  council  the 
prelates  of  the  neighbouring  districts.  Among  them  was  Heinrich, 
archbishop  of  Mainz  (1142-53),  who  together  with  Wibald,  abbot 

17 — 2 


\ 


260  S^  Hildegard  of  Bingen  and        [chap,  viii 

of  Corvei,  had  been  appointed  representative  of  the  emperor  during 
his  absence.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  some  of  Hildegard's 
writings  were  first  submitted  to  the  Pope,  probably  at  the  request 
of  Archbishop  Heinrich.  Judging  from  what  Hildegard  says  herself, 
Heinrich  and  the  church  at  Mainz  had  accepted  her  writings, 
saying  that  *  they  had  come  through  God  and  through  that  power 
of  prophecy  by  which  the  prophets  had  anciently  written*.' 

These  writings  were  exhortations  to  faith  and  piety  set  forth  in 
the  form  of  revelations.  Hildegard  had  been  at  work  on  them 
for  the  past  six  years,  and  they  form  the  first  part  of  the  book 
'  Scivias '  (that  is  '  Sci  vias,'  Know  the  ways'^),  as  it  now  lies  before  us. 
The  life  of  Hildegard,  written  shortly  after  her  death,  tells  us  that 
Bernard  '  with  the  consent  of  others  urged  the  Pope  that  he  should 
not  suffer  so  obvious  a  light  to  be  obscured  by  silence,  but  should 
confirm  it  by  authority  ^' 

The  time  was  ripe  for  the  kind  of  literature  which  comes  under 
the  heading  of  prophecies.  At  the  time  of  the  Second  Crusade 
leaflets  containing  one  of  the  so-called  Sibylline  prophecies  had  had 
a  wide  circulation  and  had  greatly  inflamed  men's  minds  as  to 
coming  events*.  Simultaneously  with  Hildegard  the  abbot  Giovanni 
Gioachimo  (-p  after  1 2 1 5)  foretold  coming  events,  so  that  later  writers 
often  cited  Hildegard  and  Joachim  side  by  side.  There  was  some- 
thing earnest  and  yet  undefined,  something  fiery  and  suggestive  in 
these  writings,  which  appealed  to  the  restless  imagination  of  the 
age,  for  they  were  largely  founded  on  the  Apocalypse,  and  like  the 
Apocalypse  admitted  of  many  interpretations.  Their  very  vague- 
ness repels  the  exact  thinker,  but  attracts  the  mind  that  is  conscious 
of  quickened  sensibilities  and  roused  emotions,  without  being  able 
to  guide  them  into  practical  channels. 

Bernard  of  Clairvaux  unhesitatingly  accepted  the  divine  origin 
of  Hildegard's  writings,  and  in  a  letter  to  her,  which  seems  to  have 
been  written  while  the  Pope's  decision  was  pending,  he  addressed 
her  in  most  respectful  terms^ :  '  They  tell  us  that  you  understand 
the  secrets  of  heaven  and  grasp  that  which  is  above  human  ken 
through  the  help  of  the  Holy  Spirit,'  he  wrote  among  other  things. 
•  Therefore  we  beg  and  entreat  you  to  remember  us  before  God 
and  also  those  who  are  joined  to  us  in  spiritual  union.     For  the 

*  opera  {Vita,  c.  17),  p.  104.  ^  Opera,  'Scivias,  pp.  383-738. 
^  Ibid.  (  Vita,  c.  5),  p.  94. 

*  Giesebrecht,  W.,  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Kaiserzeit,  vol.  4,  p.  505. 

*  Opera  (Epist.  nr  29),  p.  189. 


SECT,  i]  S^  Elisabeth  of  Schonau.  261 

spirit  in  you  joining  itself  unto  God,  we  believe  that  you  can  in 
great  measure  help  and  sustain  us.'  Hildegard — with  a  mixture 
of  self-assurance,  and  eagerness  to  justify  that  assurance,  which 
is  thoroughly  characteristic  of  her — replied  to  Bernard  in  ecstatic 
terms',  praised  him  for  having  preached  the  Cross  and  spoke  of  him 
as  the  eagle  who  gazes  into  the  sun. 

The  correspondence''  of  Hildegard  is  voluminous,  for  from  the 
time  when  her  writings  first  gained  approval  from  the  Pope, 
many  lay  princes  and  dignitaries  of  the  Church,  bishops  and  abbots, 
abbesses  and  nuns,  wrote  to  her,  generally  asking  for  her  good  opinion 
or  for  advice,  but  sometimes  propounding  questions  of  speculative 
interest,  to  which  Hildegard  in  reply  sent  sometimes  a  few 
sentences,  sometimes  a  long  disquisition.  It  is  largely  owing  to 
this  correspondence  that  the  fame  of  the  abbess  has  spread  beyond 
the  confines  of  Germany.  Linde,  one  of  the  few  modern  students 
who  has  treated  of  Hildegard,  enumerates  many  manuscript  copies 
of  these  letters  which  are  preserved  in  the  libraries  of  German  cities, 
in  Paris,  London  and  Oxford.  The  genuineness  of  the  letters  has 
been  questioned  on  the  ground  that  all  those  addressed  to  Hildegard 
are  curiously  alike,  but  Linde,  after  examining  a  number  of  manu- 
script copies,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  letters  were  genuine^ 
In  their  present  arrangement  the  letters  do  not  stand  in  chrono- 
logical order  but  according  to  the  rank  of  the  correspondents,  so  that 
those  written  by  Popes  to  Hildegard  with  their  replies  stand  first, 
then  come  those  written  by  archbishops,  bishops,  emperors,  and  so 
on.  With  few  exceptions  there  is  only  one  letter  from  each  corre- 
spondent, an  arrangement  which  suggests  the  work  of  a  scribe,  who 
for  the  sake  of  uniformity  may  in  some  instances  have  selected  from 
or  summarized  his  material.  The  letters  printed  by  Migne  are  a 
hundred  and  forty-five  in  number,  but  Linde  refers  to  a  few  more 
in  his  list  with  the  remark  that  parts  of  the  correspondence  exist 
separately  and  are  sometimes  cited  as  separate  works*. 

These  letters  of  Hildegard 's,  as  well  as  her  other  writings, 
contain  many  references  to  herself;  she  never  fails  to  inform 
us  of  the  circumstances  which  led  her  to  begin  a  work.  She  tells 
us  that  she  was  middle-aged  when  she  first  wrote  an  account  of 
her  visions,  but  that  she  had  been  subject  to  these  visions  from 
her  earliest   childhood,   and   that   the   mental   agonies   she   went 

^  Opera  (Responsum),  p.  189.  '  Ibid.  'Epistolae,'  pp.  1-382. 

'  Linde,  Handschri/ten  der  k'dnigl.  Bibliothek  in  Wiesbaden,  1877,  pp.  19  ff. 
*  Ibid.  pp.  53  ff. 


262  .5"/  Hildegard  of  Bingen  mid        [chap,  viil 

through  before  she  sought  relief  in  writing  were  ever  present  to 
her  mind. 

Moreover  we  are  in  possession  of  an  account  of  her  life  written 
between  1181  and  1191,  of  which  the  first  part  is  by  Godefrid,  who 
introduces  extracts  from  the  book  '  Scivias.'  The  second  and  third 
parts  are  by  Theodor,  who  uses  an  autobiography  of  Hildegard  of 
which  we  have  no  other  mention.  It  appears  from  the  Acts  of 
Inquisition  of  the  year  1233  which  were  drafted  to  establish  Hilde- 
gard's  claim  to  canonization,  that  both  these  monks  had  stayed 
with  Hildegard. 

Summarizing  the  contents  of  these  different  accounts  and  the 
information  which  the  voluminous  writings  of  the  abbess  supply, 
we  gather  that  Hildegard,  at  the  time  when  the  Pope's  attention 
was  first  drawn  to  her,  was  between  forty  and  fifty  years  of  age ; 
that  she  was  a  daughter  of  one  of  the  landed  gentry,  and  that  she 
had  been  given  into  the  care  of  the  nuns  of  Disibodenberg  at  the 
age  of  seven  and  had  made  profession  at  fourteen.  Disibodenberg*, 
situated  on  the  river  Nahe,  was  a  monastery  of  some  importance 
and  has  preserved  annals  extending  from  831  to  1200  which  con- 
tain useful  contributions  to  contemporary  history.  The  house  was 
under  the  rule  of  an  abbot,  but  a  convent  of  nuns  had  been  lately 
added  to  it  when  Hildegard  came  there  ;  this  convent  was  under  the 
rule  of  the  '  magistra '  Jutta,  sister  of  Meginhard,  Count  of  Sponheim. 
From  Jutta  Hildegard  received  her  training,  which  included  a 
knowledge  of  books  of  devotion,  scripture  and  music.  Apparently 
she  could  not  write  German^  and  in  Latin  her  acquaintance  with 
grammatical  inflection  and  construction  was  limited'',  so  that  when 
she  began  to  write  she  availed  herself  of  the  help  of  a  monk  and 
afterwards  of  that  of  some  nuns  of  her  convent  who  helped  her 
to  polish  (limare)  her  sentences. 

During  the  years  she  spent  at  Disibodenberg  she  seems  to  have 
been  devoted  to  nursing*,  and  the  consecration  of  a  chapel  in 
the  infirmary  about  this  time  leaves  us  to  infer  that  there  were 
in  this  monastery  special  conveniences  for  the  sick'.  In  the  year 
1 1 36  she  succeeded  Jutta  as  lady  superior,  and  at  once  formed  the 
plan  of  leaving  Disibodenberg  and  settling  some  distance  away 

1  Schneegans,   W.,  Kloster  Disibodenberg;  Schmelzeis,  Das  Leben  und  Wirken  der 
heil.  Hildegardis,   1879,  PP- 45  ff- 

*  Opera  (Responsum  to  Bernard),  p.  190. 

3  Ibid.  (Vita  c.  14),  p.  101.  *  Ibid.  (Vita  c.  19),  p.  105. 

^  Schmelzeis,  Das  Leben  und  Wirken  der  heil.  Hildegardis,  1879,  P-  53- 


SECT,  i]  S^  Elisabeth  of  Sclwnau.  263 

on  the  Rupertsberg  near  Bingen  on  the  Rhine,  in  a  convent 
foundation  of  her  own.  But  at  first  Kuno  (-f-  1155),  abbot  of  Disi- 
bodenberg,  opposed  her  going  and  cast  doubts  on  the  vision  in 
which  she  declared  she  was  divinely  directed  to  do  so',  while  many 
who  did  not  belong  to  the  monastery,  and  among  them  the  parents 
of  girls  who  had  been  given  into  her  care,  disapproved  of  their 
daughters  being  taken  to  a  distant  and  desolate  neighbourhoods 
But  Hildegard  persisted,  for  the  accommodation  at  the  monastery 
was  insufficient  for  herself  and  her  numerous  pupils,  and  besides 
as  abbess  at  the  Rupertsberg  she  would  have  a  very  different 
standing.  She  fell  ill,  and  then,  chiefly  through  the  intercession 
of  friends  outside  who  made  grants  of  land  and  helped  her  towards 
the  erection  of  new  buildings,  the  abbot  was  brought  to  agree  to 
her  wishes.  Among  others  Heinrich,  archbishop  of  Mainz,  ad- 
vocated her  going,  and  about  the  year  1147  she  removed  to  the 
new  settlement  with  eighteen  young  women.  We  have  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  influence  she  exerted  over  these  girls,  her  spiritual 
daughters,  when  they  were  still  at  Disibodenberg.  In  the  new 
home  Hildegard  adopted  the  rule  of  St  Benedict,  but  she  met 
with  opposition,  for  some  of  the  young  women  objected  to  the 
greater  restrictions  put  upon  them  by  the  new  rule,  and  the  abbess 
needed  the  help  and  support  of  the  better  and  wiser  ones  amongst 
them  to  overcome  the  difficulty.  After  the  labour  of  moving 
Hildegard  fell  ill  and  lay  prostrate  for  several  years,  till  she  was 
strengthened  and  restored  by  visions  of  the  work  that  still  lay 
before  her. 

The  Acts  of  Inquisition  tell  us  that  there  was  accommodation 
on  the  Rupertsberg  for  fifty  professed  nuns  (dominae),  seven  poor 
women  and  two  priests^,  but  the  independence  of  the  nunnery  was 
not  easily  secured  and  Hildegard  repeatedly  travelled  to  Disiboden- 
berg to  settle  matters.  The  men's  convent  continued  to  supply  priests 
to  the  women  on  the  Rupertsberg,  but  as  late  as  11 70  difficulties 
occurred  in  regard  to  their  appointment,  and  we  find  Hildegard 
writing  to  Pope  Alexander  begging  him  to  admonish  the  abbot 
of  Disibodenberg  in  her  behalf^ 

A  considerable  portion  of  'Scivias'  was  written  before  Hildegard 
removed  to  the  Rupertsberg.  She  has  described  in  the  introduction 
to  the  book  how  she  was  led  to  write  it'. 

'   Opera  {^Vita  c.  11),  p.  106.  '  Ibid. 

*  Ibid.  (Acta  Inquisitionis),  p.  136.  *  Ibid.  (Epist.  nr  4),  p.  154. 

»  Opera,  p.  383. 


264  '^^  Hildegard  of  Bingen  and        [chap,  viii 

'  It  was  in  my  forty-third  year,  when  I  was  trembh'ng  in  fearful 
anticipation  of  a  celestial  vision,  that  I  beheld  a  great  brightness 
through  which  a  voice  from  heaven  addressed  me :  "  O  fragile 
child  of  earth,  ash  of  ashes,  dust  of  dust,  express  and  write  that 
which  thou  seest  and  hearest.  Thou  art  timid,  timid  in  speech, 
artless  in  explaining,  unlearned  in  writing,  but  express  and  write 
not  according  to  art  but  according  to  natural  ability,  not  under  the 
guidance  of  human  composition  but  under  the  guidance  of  that 
which  thou  seest  and  hearest  in  God's  heaven  above ;  what  thus 
thou  hearest  proclaim,  like  a  listener  who  understanding  the  words 
of  his  teacher,  as  this  teacher  wills  and  indicates,  so  gives  expression 
to  his  words  according  to  the  power  of  his  speech.     Thus  thou, 

0  child  of  earth,  proclaim  what  thou  seest  and  hearest,  and  put 
it  in  writing,  not  as  thou  or  others  will  it,  but  as  He  wills  who 
knows,  sees  and  disposes  of  all  in  the  depths  of  His  mysteries." 
Again  I  heard  a  voice  from  heaven,  saying :  "  Speak  these  wonder- 
ful things,  write  them  in  thy  unlearned  way,  proclaim  them."  And 
it  happened  in  the  year  1 141  of  Christ's  incarnation,  when  I  was 
forty-two  years  and  seven  months  old,  that  a  fiery  light  of  great 
brilliancy  streaming  down  from  heaven  entirely  flooded  my  brain, 
my  heart  and  my  breast,  like  a  flame  that  flickers  not  but  gives 
glowing  warmth,  as  the  sun  warms  that  on  which  he  sheds  his  rays. 
Then  of  a  sudden  I  had  the  power  of  explaining  Scripture,  that 
is  the  Psalter,  the  Gospels  and  the  other  Catholic  books  both  of 
the  Old  and  of  the  New  Testament  (Psalterium,  Evangeliorum  et 
aliorum  catholicorum  tam  Veteris  quam  Novi  Testamenti  volumina), 
though  I  did  not  understand  the  inflections  of  words,  their  division 
into  syllables,  their  cases  and  tenses.  I  had  been  conscious  from 
earliest  girlhood  of  a  power  of  insight,  and  visions  of  hidden  and 
wonderful  things,  ever  since  the  age  of  five  years,  then  and  ever 
since.  But  I  did  not  mention  it  save  to  a  few  religious  persons 
who  followed  the  like  observances  with  myself;  I  kept  it  hidden 
by  silence  until  God  in  His  grace  willed  to  have  it  made  manifest.' 

In  this  strain  she  tells  how  her  visions  came  to  her,  not  when 
she  was  asleep  or  when  she  was  dreaming  or  in  any  way  excited, 
but  in  the  most  serious  of  moods.  They  had  for  years  perturbed 
her,  and  she  had  shrunk  from  putting  them  into  writing,  when 
a  sudden  illness  came  upon  her  and  made  her  alter  her  mind. 
Then  in  her  own  words,  *  a  noble  high-born  girl  and  the  man  whom 

1  had  secretly  sought  and  consulted,  were  witnesses  to  how  I  set 
my  hand  to  the  task ' — that  is  to  the  composition  of  '  Scivias.' 


SECT,  i]  5/  Elisabeth  of  Schonau.  265 

It  would  lead  us  too  far  to  give  a  summary  of  the  contents 
of  this  extraordinary  book ;  it  is  divided  into  three  parts,  the  first 
containing  the  account  of  six,  the  second  of  seven,  and  the  third 
of  thirteen  visions,  all  of  which  seem  to  have  taken  place  in  the 
following  way.  Hildegard  is  confronted  by  a  bright  light,  which 
radiates  over  some  wonderful  piece  of  imagery,  a  mountain,  an 
abyss,  some  beast,  man,  or  building,  or  part  of  the  firmament,  which, 
with  the  figures  that  throng  around,  she  minutely  describes,  and 
then  she  gives  an  explanation  of  the  allegorical  meaning  of  this 
picture  vouchsafed  to  her  from  God  in  heaven.  The  real  and  the 
unreal  alike  supply  material  for  these  visions,  which  show  great 
powers  of  imagination ;  in  their  allegorical  application  they  dwell 
upon  the  Creed,  the  Scriptures,  the  Incarnation,  the  Trinity,  and 
life  hereafter,  and  other  questions  of  doctrinal  and  theological 
interest.  The  descriptions  are  highly  coloured  throughout,  but 
their  application  is  often  very  obscure.  A  translation  of  the 
opening  passages  of  one  of  the  visions,  which  turns  on  the  pro- 
tection afforded  to  the  faithful  against  the  wiles  of  the  devil,  will 
give  some  idea  of  the  character  of  their  imagery  ^ 

'Then  I  saw  a  shining  light,  wide  and  high  as  a  mountain, 
which  spreading  upwards  flashed  into  many  tongues  of  fire  (linguas). 
And  outside  it  stood  a  number  of  men  clad  in  white,  in  front  of 
whom,  like  a  veil,  transparent  crystal  extended  from  their  breasts 
downwards  to  their  feet.  But  before  this  band,  in  their  pathway, 
lay  a  dragon  (vermis)  of  huge  size  and  length,  of  such  terrible  and 
threatening  aspect  as  cannot  be  expressed.  On  his  left  was  as  it 
were  a  market-place  where  the  riches  of  this  world  lay  heaped, 
wealth  delightful  to  the  eye,  where  buying  and  selling  went  on ; 
some  people  passed  by  this  place  in  a  great  hurry  without  buying, 
while  others  drew  near  slowly  and  stayed  to  buy  and  sell.  The 
dragon  was  black  and  hairy,  and  covered  with  venomous  excres- 
cences, of  which  five  kinds  extended  from  his  head  over  his  body 
to  his  feet  in  the  shape  of  rings;  one  was  green,  one  white,  one 
red,  one  yellow,  one  black,  and  all  were  equally  charged  with 
deadly  venom.  His  head  was  broken,  causing  his  left  jaw  to  hang 
down.  His  eyes  were  red  and  flashed  fire ;  his  ears  were  round  and 
furred ;  his  nostrils  and  mouth  were  those  of  a  dragon  (vipera),  he 
had  the  hands  of  a  man,  the  feet  of  a  dragon,  and  below  a  short 
horrible  tail.    And  his  neck,  hands  and  feet  were  bound  by  a  chain 

*  Opera  (lib.  2,  visio  7),  p.  555. 


266  6"/  Hildegard  of  Bingen  and        [chap,  viii 

and  this  chain  was  fixed  to  the  abyss,  and  held  him  so  fast  that 
he  could  not  move  away  to  suit  his  wicked  will.  From  his  mouth 
poured  forth  four  streams  of  flame,  of  which  one  rose  aloft,  a 
second  spread  towards  the  children  of  this  world,  a  third  towards 
the  company  of  just  men,  the  last  towards  the  abyss.  The  flames 
which  rose  aloft  threatened  those  who  aspired  to  heaven,  who  move 
in  three  ranks,  one  touching  the  sky,  the  other  betwixt  heaven 
and  earth,  the  third  close  to  earth,  and  all  were  crying,  "  We  arc 
striving  to  reach  heaven."  But  some  of  them,  although  touched 
by  the  flames,  fell  not,  others  barely  kept  their  footing,  yet 
others  falling  again  to  earth,  gathered  themselves  up  and  went 
forth  anew. — The  flames  which  spread  towards  the  children  of 
this  world  reached  some  and  burnt  them  to  utter  blackness,  of 
others  they  took  hold,  turning  them  hither  and  thither ;  yet 
others  burst  away,  and  striving  towards  those  who  were  nearing 
heaven  shouted  out  aloud :  *'  Ye  faithful  ones,  give  us  help ! " 
But  some  remained  as  though  spell-bound. — The  flames  which  ran 
to  the  company  of  the  just  covered  some  with  blackness ;  the 
company  of  the  just  moved  in  six  ranks,  and  those  whom  the 
cruel  flames  wounded  not  were  tainted  by  the  poison  of  the  dragon 
which  issued  from  the  green,  white,  red,  yellow,  and  black  parts 
of  its  body. — The  flames  which  sought  the  abyss  carried  various 
punishments  to  those  who  had  not  been  cleansed  by  baptism,  who 
ignored  the  true  faith  and  worshipped  Satan  instead  of  God.  And 
I  further  saw  arrows  pouring  from  the  dragon's  mouth,  black  smoke 
issuing  from  his  body,  steaming  liquid  bubbling  from  his  sides,  and 
excretions  going  out  from  the  lower  part  of  his  body,  like  to  frogs 
that  are  disastrous  to  man,  and  which  bring  infection  to  many. 
And  a  black  mist  with  foul  odour  going  forth  contaminated  all. 
'  But  lo  and  behold  the  men  shining  in  brilliancy  advanced  to- 
wards this  dragon  to  fight  and  vex  it,  whom  it  could  harm  neither  by 
fire  nor  by  poison.  And  I  heard  a  voice  from  heaven  saying  unto 
me  :  "  God,  who  disposes  all  in  wisdom,  summons  His  faithful  band 
to  the  glory  of  their  heritage ;  the  old  deceiver  lies  in  wait  and  tries 
his  evil  powers,  but  he  is  overcome,  his  presumption  is  defeated  ; 
they  attain  their  heavenly  heritage,  and  he  suffers  eternal  disgrace. 
Therefore  dost  thou  behold  a  shining  light,  wide  and  high  as  a 
mountain,  flashing  upwards  into  many  tongues  of  fire,  which  is  the 
justice  of  God,  as  it  glows  in  the  faith  of  believers,  setting  forth  the 
breadth  of  His  holiness,  the  height  of  His  glory,  by  which  glory  are 
declared  the  wondrous  powers  of  the  divine  Spirit."' 


SECT,  i]  S^  Elisabeth  of  Schonau.  267 

All  the  visions  of  the  first  two  parts  of  the  book  are  written 
in  this  vague  indefinite  strain,  but  in  the  third  Hildegard,  conscious 
of  the  evils  that  had  come  upon  the  Church  through  the  schism  in 
the  Papacy,  became  more  outspoken  in  her  views,  and  enlarged 
on  the  true  faith  being  shaken,  on  Holy  Scripture  being  dis- 
regarded, and  on  the  great  works  of  learned  men  being  neglected. 
She  says  definitely  that  there  can  be  no  life  where  the  head  is 
severed  from  tl)e  limbs;  and  such,  in  her  estimation,  is  the  con- 
dition of  the  Church  while  schism  continues.  In  common  with 
a  current  view,  she  expected  that  things  would  go  from  bad  to 
worse  till  the  coming  of  Antichrist,  whose  appearance  and  in- 
fluence she  describes  in  eloquent  and  impressive  imagery \  The 
apprehensive  tone  of  these  descriptions  is  in  agreement  with  the 
growing  consciousness  of  wickedness  and  personal  responsibility, 
which  assumed  such  proportions  during  the  latter  half  of  the  12th 
century,  and  made  the  minds  of  many  prepared  for  the  altruistic 
doctrines  spread  abroad  by  the  orders  of  friars. 

The  last  vision  of  the  book  '  Scivias '  lays  stress  upon  the  final 
revolution  and  reconciliation  which  will  follow  the  reign  of  Anti- 
christ and  the  times  of  trouble,  and  in  this  vision  occur  passages 
in  dialogue,  cast  into  dramatic  form  and  called  a  symphony 
(symphonia),  which  rank  among  the  finest  productions  of  their 
kind".  The  subject  of  this  improvised  drama  is  'the  Progress  of 
the  Soul  on  her  way  to  heaven.'  It  opens  with  a  lament  of 
those  Souls  who  are  still  confined  in  the  body,  whereupon  one 
Faithful  Soul  (Fidelis  anima),  who  is  set  free,  raises  her  voice  in 
supplication,  calling  on  the  Virtues  or  Divine  Powers  (Virtutes) 
for  assistance.  They  respond  and  promise  help,  when  Divine 
Knowledge  (Scientia  Dei)  raises  her  voice  and  adds  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  helplessness  in  the  Faithful  Soul,  who  is  now  im- 
portuned on  one  side  by  Pride  or  the  Devil  (Diabolus)  and  on 
the  other  by  Humility  (Humilitas),  both  of  whom  are  striving  to 
gain  possession  of  her.  But  the  Virtues  urge  her  to  hold  by 
Humility  and  the  Devil  is  put  to  flight,  whereupon  the  Virtues 
guide  the  Faithful  Soul  upwards  to  Heaven  where  she  is  finally 
received  by  Victory  (Victoria).  The  whole  ends  with  a  hymn 
in  praise  of  Christ  which  is  sung  by  the  Virtues. 

It  is  probable  that  only  the  first  and  second  parts  of  the  work 
•Scivias*  were  laid  before  the  Pope  in  1146.  He  wrote  to  Hil- 
degard as  abbess  of  the  Rupertsberg,  and  the  letter  is  short  and 

»  opera  ^lib.  3,  visio  11),  p.  709.  »  Opera  (lib.  3,  visio  13),  p.  733. 


268  S/  Hildegard  of  Bingen  and        [chap,  viii 

curt'.  He  refers  to  her  wonderful  powers  and  then  continues  :  '  We 
congratulate  ourselves  in  this  grace  of  God,  and  we  congratulate  thee, 
but  we  would  have  thee  reminded  that  God  resisteth  the  proud,  but 
giveth  grace  to  the  lowly.  Take  good  care  of  this  grace  which  is 
within  thee  in  order  that  what  thou  art  spiritually  (in  spiritu)  urged 
to  proclaim,  thou  mayest  proclaim  with  caution.'  And  he  adds 
words  to  the  effect  that  he  confirms  the  settlement  she  has  founded. 

The  whole  of  the  lengthy  reply'  which  Hildegard  sent  to  this 
letter  was  written  in  an  admonitory  tone,  for  she  considered  herself 
the  chosen  mouthpiece  of  God  though  characterizing  herself  as  a 
poor  lowly  woman.  '  The  light  stays  with  me  and  glows  in  my 
soul  as  it  has  done  since  my  childhood,'  she  says  to  the  Pope, 
*  therefore  I  send  thee  these  words,  a  true  admonition  from  God.' 
A  mass  of  imagery  follows,  powerful  and  direct,  but  not  always 
clear  in  its  application. 

In  one  place  she  writes:  'A  jewel  lies  on  the  road,  a  bear 
comes,  and  deeming  it  beautiful  puts  out  his  paw  and  would 
treasure  it  in  his  bosom  '  (the  bear  is  the  German  Emperor)^  '  But 
suddenly  an  eagle  snatches  the  jewel,  wraps  it  in  the  covering  of 
his  wings  and  bears  it  upwards  to  the  royal  palace  '  (the  eagle 
represents  the  Pope,  the  palace  the  kingdom  of  Christ).  *  The 
jewel  gives  out  much  light  before  the  king,  so  that  he  rejoices  and 
out  of  love  of  the  jewel  gives  to  the  eagle  golden  shoes '  (the 
insignia  of  papal  authority),  '  and  praises  him  for  his  goodness. 
Now  do  thou,  who  art  sitting  in  the  place  of  Christ  in  care  of  the 
Church,  choose  the  better  part ;  be  as  the  eagle  overcoming  the 
bear,  that  with  the  souls  entrusted  to  thee  thou  mayest  decorate 
the  palace  of  the  Church ;  so  that  with  golden  shoes  thou  mayest 
rise  aloft  and  be  removed  from  thine  enemies.' 

Other  images  follow.  It  is  told  how  the  valleys  overtop  the 
hills  and  then  the  hills  overtop  the  valleys,  with  the  obvious  appli- 
cation that  no  order  is  maintained  in  the  Church,  since  the  lower 
clergy  presume  upon  and  the  higher  abuse  their  powers ;  each  one 
neglecting  to  do  his  duty,  and  class  being  envious  of  class.  '  The 
poor  man  is  very  foolish  who,  when  he  knows  that  his  garment 
is  soiled,  looks  at  others  and  reflects  on  the  appearance  of  their 
clothes,  instead  of  washing  and  cleaning  his  own There- 
fore, do  thou,  great  shepherd  called  upon  to  follow  Christ,  supply 

1  opera  (Epist.  nr  i),  p.  145.  ^  Opera  (Responsum),  p.  145. 

'  This  interpretation  is  given  by  Schmelzeis,  Das  Leben  und  Wirken  der  heil.  Hilde- 
gardis,  1879,  p.  157. 


SECT,  i]  S^  Elisabeth  of  Schonau.  269 

a  light  to  the  hills,  a  rod  to  the  valleys.  Give  to  the  teachers 
precepts,  bring  unto  the  lowly  discipline.'  And  further,  '  Make  all 
things  pure  and  have  thine  eyes  everywhere.' 

After  settling  near  Bingen  Hildegard  completed  the  book 
'Scivias '  and  then  engaged  on  the  compilation  of  two  books  on  medi- 
cine, one  of  which  has  never  been  published  ^  The  other  is  usually 
called  '  Physica ' ;  its  amplified  title  runs,  '  On  the  nature  of  man,  of 
the  various  elements  and  of  various  creatures  and  plants,  and  on 
the  way  in  which  they  are  useful  to  manV  This  book,  of  which  the 
printing  press  issued  several  editions  in  the  i6th  century,  has  been 
characterised  by  the  scientist  Virchow  as  an  early  '  materia  medica, 
curiously  complete  considering  the  age  to  which  it  belongs'.' 
Haeser,  in  his  history  of  medicine,  also  points  out  the  importance 
of  the  work,  saying  that  'it  contains  descriptions  of  the  medicinal 
properties  of  the  best-known  animals,  plants  and  minerals,  to- 
gether with  directions  how  to  improve  accepted  remedies  against 
illness  in  man  and  beast*.'  He  considers  that  the  book  has  an 
historical  value  because  it  is  an  independent  German  treatise 
based  chiefly  on  popular  experience,  for  no  writer  except  Isidor 
of  Seville  {"f  636)  is  made  use  of  in  it.  In  this  connection  it  has 
been  further  commented  on  by  Jessen*. 

The  book  consists  of  a  collection  of  terse  bits  of  description, 
of  sensible  advice,  and  of  old-world  superstitions.  It  is  so  arranged 
that  a  description  is  given  first  of  plants  (230  in  number),  and 
then  of  elements  (14),  trees  (60),  stones  (26),  fishes  (37),  birds  (72), 
animals  (43),  and  lastly  of  metals  (8).  The  German  term  for  each 
object  is  given  and  its  health-giving  or  obnoxious  properties  are 
mentioned.  Thus  the  description  of  the  mulberry  tree  is  followed 
by  the  information  that  a  decoction  of  its  leaves  forms  an  efficacious 
remedy  in  cases  of  skin  disease,  and  after  the  description  of  prunes 
comes  the  information  that  they  are  good  for  a  dry  cough.  When 
treating  of  the  pig  Hildegard  states  that  pork  is  indigestible  and 
should  be  avoided  in  cases  of  sickness.  While  some  descriptions 
are  excellent  and  obviously  based  on  direct  observation,  as  for 
example  that  of  the  properties  of  soda,  others  are  entirely  fabulous, 

*  Jessen,  *  Ueber  die  medic,  naturhist.  Werke  der  heil.  Hildegardis,'  in  Kaiserl.  Acttd. 
der  Wissenschaften,  Wien,  Naturwissensch.  Abth.  vol.  45  (1862),  pp.  97  flf. 

2  Opera,  'Physica,'  pp.  1117-1352. 

'  Virchow,  R.,  '  Zur  Geschichte  des  Aussatzes,  besonders  im  Mittelalter,'  in  Archiv 
fiir  pathol.  Anatomie,  vol.  18,  p.  •286. 

*  Haeser,  H.,  Lehrbuch  der  Geschichte  der  Medhin,  1875,  vol.  i,  p.  640. 
'  Jessen,  Botanik  der  Gegenwart  uttd  Vorzeit,  1864,  pp.  120-127. 


270  S^  Hildegard  of  Bingen  and        [chap,  viii 

such  as  that  of  the  unicorn.  We  get  the  savour  of  primitive 
leechcraft  in  the  statements  that  carrying  about  a  dead  frog  is 
good  for  the  gout,  that  drinking  water  out  of  a  cypress  bowl  rids 
one  of  devils  and  fantasies,  and  that  eating  raven's  flesh  should 
be  avoided  since  it  encourages  thieving  propensities.  In  regard 
to  diagnosis  of  disease  Hildegard's  ideas  are  necessarily  vague. 
The  illnesses  referred  to  are  chiefly  indigestion,  fevers,  coughs, 
delusions  and  leprosy.  Several  kinds  of  leprosy  are  distinguished, 
and  the  chief  remedies  prescribed  are  baths  in  decoctions  of  leaves 
and  other  less  savoury  preparations. 

In  the  light  of  information  such  as  is  contained  in  this  book, 
the  wonderful  cures  which  Hildegard  and  many  other  early  saints 
are  said  to  have  effected  take  a  new  meaning.  It  is  generally 
allowed  that  the  fame  of  monasteries  as  curative  centres  is 
founded  on  a  basis  of  fact  which  consists  in  their  healthy  situ- 
ation, abundance  of  pure  water,  and  regular  diet.  But  evidently 
there  is  more  than  this.  When  we  look  through  the  '  Physica,' 
compiled  under  Hildegard's  direction  if  not  directly  by  her,  we 
feel  that,  if  we  could  only  see  behind  the  veil  of  the  miraculous 
through  which  all  religious  writers  persist  in  looking  at  the  alle- 
viation of  physical  and  mental  suffering,  we  should  be  brought 
face  to  face  with  much  judicious  treatment  and  with  the  application 
of  a  considerable  amount  of  medicinal  knowledge. 

During  the  early  part  of  her  stay  on  the  Rupertsberg  Hil- 
degard also  wrote  a  book  of  Latin  texts  for  hymns  (before  11 53) 
which  are  accompanied  by  musical  notation  \ — certain  '  Expositions 
of  the  Gospels'  (before  1157)  for  the  use  of  her  nuns,  which  have 
not  been  printed^ — an  explanation  'of  the  rule  of  St  Benedict^' — 
and  another  'of  the  symbol  of  St  Athanasius*.'  In  the  opening 
sentences  of  this  last  work  she  describes  the  difficulties  she  had  to 
contend  with  in  founding  the  nunnery,  and  admonishes  the  nuns  to 
guard  against  division  and  discord  when  she  is  no  more.  Another 
work  entitled  *  Vitae  meritorum,'  consisting  of  moral  admonitions, 
was  written  between  11 58  and  1162,  but  has  not  been  printed ^    A 

^  Linde,  Handschriften  der  konigl.  Bibliothek  in  Wiesbaden,  iStj,  p.  83;  an 
example  of  the  musical  notation  as  an  appendix  in  Schmelzeis,  Das  Lebcn  und  IVirken 
der  hell.  Hildegardis,  1879. 

^  Linde,  Handschriften  der  konigl.  Bibliothek  in  Wiesbaden,  1877,  P-  /^j  'Exposi- 
tiones  Evangeliorum.' 

*  Opera,  '  Explanatio  regulae  St  Benedicti,'  pp.  1053-1069. 

*  Ibid.  *  Explanatio  symboli  St  Athanasii,'  pp.  1066-1093. 

*  Linde,  Handschriften  der  konigl.  Bibliothek  in  Wiesbaden,  1877,  p.  38. 


SECT,  i]  6"/  Elisabeth  of  Schonau.  2  7 1 

series  of  questions  was  forwarded  to  her  by  Guibert  of  Gembloux 
and  was  the  occasion  of  a  lengthy  reply,  sent  to  him  in  the  form 
of  a  letter ^  Hildegard  also  either  invented  or  perpetuated  in 
writing  a  glossary  of  words  of  a  secret  language,  each  term 
accompanied  by  its  equivalent  in  Latin  or  in  German,  sometimes 
in  both.  Scholars  look  upon  this  work  as  containing  words  in- 
vented by  members  of  the  convent  to  be  used  in  the  presence  of 
strangers  for  the  purpose  of  secret  communicationl 

These  writings  give  proof  of  Hildegard's  active  interest  in 
her  convent,  though  at  the  same  time  she  remained  keenly  alive 
to  events  outside.  The  choice  of  Friedrich  Barbarossa  (i  1 52-1 190) 
as  successor  to  Konrad  proved  favourable  in  many  respects  to 
German  lands,  but  the  position  of  the  Papacy  was  further  jeopar- 
dised when  Friedrich  fell  out  with  Pope  Hadrian  (1154-59).  After 
the  death  of  this  Pope  Friedrich  did  not  support  his  legitimate 
successor  Alexander  III  (i  159-81),  but  the  successive  Antipopes, 
Victor  IV  (f  1 164),  Paschalis  III  (f  1 168)  and  Calixtus  III  (resign- 
ed 1 178).  The  cities  of  northern  Italy  tried  to  secure  autonomy,  and 
plotted  against  the  Emperor.  Again  and  again  their  rebellion  obliged 
him  to  cross  the  Alps  and  devote  himself  to  their  subjection,  while 
several  of  his  powerful  German  prelates  at  home,  by  no  means  con- 
vinced of  the  rightfulness  of  his  cause,  sided  with  Pope  Alexander, 
some  secretly,  some  openly,  against  the  Antipope  and  the  Emperor. 
Hildegard  joined  this  party  and  charged  the  Emperor  with  being 
partly  responsible  for  the  continued  schism  and  for  the  diminished 
authority  of  the  Church.  With  these  views  she  wrote  a  letter  full 
of  adulation  to  Eberhard,  archbishop  of  Salzburg  (1147-1164), 
who  adhered  to  Alexander^,  and  sent  dark  forebodings  of  im- 
pending disaster  to  Arnold,  archbishop  of  Mainz  (i  153-1160*).  It 
would  lead  too  far  to  dwell  upon  the  numerous  letters  written 
during  these  years  by  the  abbess  who,  believing  herself  to  possess 
a  miraculous  insight  into  things,  wrote  sometimes  in  a  threatening, 
sometimes  in  an  admonitory,  and  sometimes  in  an  encouraging 
strain.  The  outside  world  generally,  including  many  clever  and 
cultivated  men,  held  her  to  be  divinely  enlightened.  Arnold  II, 
archbishop  of  Coin  (1151-1156),  wrote  to  entreat  her  to  send 
him  her  writings  whatever  their  state*.     The  abbot  of  Elwangen 

*  opera,  '  Solutiones  triginta  octo  quaestionum,'  pp.  1038-1053. 

2  Linde,  Handschriften  der  konigl.  Bibliothek  in  Wiesbcuien,  1877,  p.  79. 

'  Opera  (Epist.  nr  12),  p.  164.  *  Ibid.  (Epist.  nr  6),  p.  157. 

'  Ibid.  (Epist.  nr  11),  p.  163. 


272  S^  Hildegard  of  Bingen  and        [chap,  viii 

wrote  saying  that  she  could  '  speak  of  the  present,  uncover 
the  past,  and  foresee  the  future*,'  and  the  provost  and  clergy  of 
Trier  wrote  to  consult  her  in  their  trouble,  and  declared  her 
'  filled  by  the  Holy  Ghost  and  acquainted  with  things  which  are 
hidden  from  mankind  generally-.' 

Many  powerful  prelates,  abbots  and  abbesses  sought  confir- 
mation of  their  views  or  advice  in  tribulation  from  the  learned 
abbess.  Her  fame  spread  beyond  the  confines  of  Germany,  for 
we  find  the  patriarch  of  Jerusalem  addressing  a  letter  to  her,  in 
which  he  said  that  he  was  living  in  sad  straits  and  begged  for 
her  prayers,  and  Hildegard,  evidently  influenced  by  his  exalted 
position,  urging  him  to  remain  steadfast  and  assuring  him  that 
while  his  faith  is  firm  he  need  not  despair,^ 

Among  the  letters  which  refer  to  convent  matters  we  note 
one  addressed  to  Heinrich,  the  archbishop  of  Mainz.  In  early 
days  he  had  supported  Hildegard,  but  at  a  later  date  he  advocated 
against  her  wish  the  promotion  of  one  of  her  nuns  to  the  post  of 
abbess  in  another  convent,  thus  drawing  on  himself  Hildegard's 
scorn  and  anger.  The  nun  was  Hiltrud  of  Sponheim,  who  had 
helped  Hildegard  to  put '  Scivias '  into  writing  and  whose  loss  was 
a  serious  matter  to  her.  She  vented  her  anger  by  attacking  the 
bishop  and  threatening  him  with  ruin.  '  The  rod  you  raise  is  not 
raised  in  the  interest  of  God,'  she  wrote  to  him^,  and  ended  her 
letter  with  these  words  :  '  your  days  are  numbered,  remember  how 
Nebuchadnezzar  fell  and  lost  his  crown.  Many  others  who  pre- 
sumed that  they  would  attain  to  heaven  have  likewise  fallen.'  In 
point  of  fact  Heinrich  was  soon  afterwards  charged  with  wasting 
the  goods  of  the  Church,  was  deposed  and  died  in  exile. 

Another  nun,  who  had  also  helped  Hildegard  with  her  writing 
and  left  her  against  her  wish,  was  Richardis,  sister  of  Hartwich, 
bishop  of  Bremen  (1148-1168).  The  correspondence  includes  a 
letter  from  Hartwich  to  Hildegard,  telling  her  that  his  sister  died 
shortly  after  accepting  her  post  as  abbess,  that  she  always  regretted 
having  left  Hildegard  and  would  have  returned  to  her  if  she  had 
lived.  Hildegard  in  reply  speaks  warmly  of  the  virtues  of  Ri- 
chardis, and  says  that  she  finds  comfort  in  the  thought  that  God 
has  removed  her  from  the  vanities  of  this  worlds 

Abbesses  of  many  convents,  convinced  of  Hildegard's  being 

*  Opera  (Epist.  nr  62),  p.  ^Si.  ^  Ibid.  (Epist.  nr  49),  p.  253. 

^  Ibid.  (Epist.  nr  22),  p.  178.  *  Ibid.  (Epist.  nr  5),  p.  156. 

•^  Ibid.  (Epist.  nr  10),  p.  161. 


SECT,  i]  Si  Elisabeth  of  Schonau.  273 

divinely  inspired,  wrote  to  her  for  advice  concerning  personal 
matters.  Thus  the  abbess  of  Altwick  near  Utrecht  asked  if  she 
were  justified  in  resigning  her  post  and  becoming  a  recluse,  and 
Hildegard  in  reply  urged  her  not  to  yield  to  temptation  but  to  re- 
main in  charge  of  her  flocks  The  abbess  Sophie  of  Kizzingen  had 
the  same  wish  but  was  likewise  advised  to  persevere  in  her  vocation*. 
Among  numerous  other  letters  from  the  superiors  of  convents 
there  is  one  from  the  abbess  Adelheid  of  Gandersheim  (-f*  11 84) 
who  had  been  educated  by  Hildegard  and  who  wrote  begging  for 
news  and  saying  that  she  was  shortly  coming  on  a  visits 

Among  the  letters  bearing  on  Hildegard 's  religious  attitude 
is  one  addressed  to  Philip  von  Heinsberg,  an  earnest  adherent  of 
Pope  Alexander.  He  afterwards  became  archbishop  of  Coin,  and 
Hildegard  wrote  warning  him  of  the  dangers  to  be  apprehended 
from  a  sect  of  heretics,  doubtless  the  so-called  Cathari,  of  whom 
more  latere  This  sect  were  at  the  time  in  possession  of  a  well- 
planned  organization  in  the  Rhine  districts,  and  aroused  serious 
apprehension  in  religious  circles.  The  archbishop  of  Coin,  Reinald 
von  Dassel  (11 59-1 167),  disputed  with  them;  Ekbert,  a  monk  of 
Schonau  to  whom  we  shall  return,  directly  attacked  their  doctrines, 
and  in  1 163  a  number  of  them  were  burnt  to  death  at  Coin.  It  is 
interesting  to  note  what  fears  they  inspired  and  how  their  doctrines 
were  interpreted.  In  the  eyes  of  Hildegard  there  is  no  doubt  as  to 
their  being  altogether  evil. 

The  situation  of  the  Rupertsberg  near  the  Rhine,  the  highway 
of  communication  in  those  days,  kept  Hildegard  in  touch  with  the 
outside  world.  She  received  many  visitors  and  took  frequent 
journeys.  We  hear  of  her  going  to  Coin,  Trier,  Wurzburg,  Bam- 
berg and  to  many  monasteries  in  the  neighbourhood,  but  the  story 
that  she  went  as  far  as  Paris  and  Tours  is  unfounded — the  result 
of  a  misinterpreted  passage  in  the  account  of  her  life*.  Personal 
acquaintance  with  Hildegard  seems  only  to  have  confirmed  the 
belief  in  her  superior  abilities  and  her  direct  converse  with  the 
Godhead — a  curious  illustration  of  the  credulity  of  the  age,  with 
its  craving  for  signs  and  wonders. 

Her  clear-sightedness  and  consciousness  of  prophetic  power  in- 

»  Optra  (Epist.  nr  loo),  p.  3«i.         '  Ibid.  (Epist.  nr  loi),  p.  3«5. 

*  Ibid.  (Epist.  nr  96),  p.  317.  *  Ibid.  (Epist.  nr  48),  p.  243  ;  cf.  below,  p.  a8i. 

'  Ibid.  {Vita,  c.  44),  p.  in;  also  p.  142  (Reuss  here  misunderstands  the  Acta 
Inquisitionis,  p.  138),  comp.  Schmelzeis,  Das  Leben  und  Wirken  der  heil.  Hildegardisy 
«879>  PP-  538  ff- 

E.  18 


274  -^^  Hildegard  of  Bitigen  and        [chap,  viii 

creased  with  age,  and  there  is  the  strongest  evidence  of  them  in 
her  last  important  work,  which  bears  the  title  of  *  The  Book  of 
Divine  doings^'  It  was  written  between  1 163  and  1 170, '  when  the 
apostolic  see  was  most  seriously  oppressed,'  and  for  imaginative- 
ness, breadth  of  knowledgt?  and  power  of  generalization  ranks 
highest  among  Hildegard's  works. 

The  leading  idea  of  this  book  is  to  establish  parallels,  sometimes 
between  things  divine  and  human,  sometimes  between  the  physical 
and  the  spiritual  world,  sometimes  between  the  facts  of  the  Biblical 
narrative  and  their  allegorical  meaning,  with  a  view  to  glorifying  God 
in  His  works.  It  contains  vivid  bits  of  description,  valuable  glimpses 
of  contemporary  scientific  knowledge,  and  occasional  brilliant  similes, 
but  the  conceptions  among  which  it  moves  are  so  entirely  those  of 
a  past  age  that  it  is  often  difficult  to  grasp  their  import. 

Thus  in  the  first  vision  there  is  the  description  of  the  creation  of 
man  in  the  image  and  the  likeness  of  God,  which  is  supposed  to 
account  for  the  complexity  of  the  human  being.  In  another  vision 
the  heavenly  spheres  are  set  forth  according  to  the  accepted  astro- 
nomical theory,  and  their  movements  within  each  other  and  mutual 
interdependence  are  described.  In  each  of  these  spheres  resides  a 
spiritual  influence,  such  as  divine  grace,  good  works,  or  repentance, 
and  as  the  heavenly  spheres  influence  each  other,  so  these  spiritual 
influences  control  and  determine  the  nature  of  man.  Many  of  the 
parallels  are  extremely  curious,  such  as  those  between  things 
physical  and  physiological,  in  which  the  external  influences  of 
wind,  weather  and  the  constellations  are  treated  in  connection 
with  the  humours  of  the  human  body.  For  the  humours  in  the 
human  body  are  so  disposed  that  their  undue  pressure  on  heart, 
lungs  or  liver  upsets  the  balance  of  the  constitution  and  produces 
stomachic  disorders,  fevers,  pleurisy,  leprosy,  etc.,  thus  showing  that 
these  illnesses  are  indirectly  the  outcome  of  physical  surroundings. 

The  learned  abbess  also  draws  parallels  between  the  configura- 
tion of  the  surface  of  the  earth  with  its  heights  and  depths,  and 
human  nature  with  its  heights  of  virtue  and  depths  of  vice'.  Forced 
as  some  of  these  comparisons  appear  to  modern  ideas,  the  language 
in  which  they  are  given  shows  considerable  appreciation  of  pheno- 
mena in  nature.  Hildegard  amplifies  her  book  by  disquisitions  on 
passages  in  Job,  the  Psalms,  St  John,  and  the  Apocalypse,  which 
bear  on  the  relation  of  light  to  life,  of  the  spirit  to  the  word,  and  of 

^  Opera^  •  Liber  divinorum  Operum,'  pp.  739-1037. 
"  Ibid,  (visio  4),  pp.  807  flf. 


SECT,  i]  S^  Elisabeth  of  Schonau.  275 

mental  to  physical  darkness.  The  moments  of  the  Creation  are 
explained  in  their  allegorical  application,  and  give  rise  to  com- 
parisons such  as  this  * :  that  the  firmament  of  faith,  like  the 
firmament  of  nature,  is  illumined  by  two  kinds  of  light ;  the 
greater  light,  like  that  of  day,  comes  through  prelates  and  spiritual 
teachers,  the  lesser  light,  like  that  of  night,  through  kings  and 
secular  princes.  In  another  passage  man  is  likened  to  the  soul 
and  woman  to  the  body,  for  the  soul  is  of  heaven  and  the  body  of 
earth,  and  their  combination  makes  human  life  po.ssible*.  The 
wickedness  which  preceded  the  Flood,  the  falling  away  from  the 
true  faith,  and  the  manner  in  which  God  chastised  man  by  means 
of  water  and  fire,  are  described  in  very  impressive  language,  and 
together  with  a  description  of  the  Plagues  of  Egypt,  lead  up  to  the 
last  vision,  which  enlarges  on  the  evils  of  the  time  and  on 
coming  events.  Here  again  as  in  '  Scivias  *  we  have  a  description 
of  impending  changes,  of  threatening  disaster,  and  of  the  results 
of  the  coming  of  Antichrist ;  it  is  perhaps  as  emphatic  in  the 
way  of  prophecy  as  anything  that  has  ever  been  written.  Con- 
temporaries were  powerfully  impressed  by  this  part  of  the  book ; 
even  to  later  ages  it  appeared  truly  remarkable.  Again  and 
again  in  times  of  trouble  and  difficulty  men  have  gone  to  it 
and  found  corroboration  of  the  changes  which  were  taking  place 
around  them.  The  reader  can  judge  for  himself  how  men's  minds 
at  the  time  of  the  Reformation  were  likely  to  be  affected  by 
the  perusal  of  passages  such  as  those  which  follow,  in  which  the 
collapse  of  the  German  Empire — that  is  the  Roman  Empire  of 
the  German  nation — and  the  Papacy,  and  their  falling  asunder  had 
been  described  three  hundred  years  before  by  the  abbess  of  the 
Rupertsberg^ 

'  In  the  days  to  come  the  Emperors  of  the  Roman  See,  forfeiting 
the  power  by  which  they  had  up  to  that  time  firmly  upheld  the 
Roman  Empire,  will  become  feeble  in  all  their  glory,  so  that  the 
empire  that  has  been  given  into  their  hands  by  divine  power  will 
gradually  become  enfeebled  and  fail,  until  they  themselves,  be- 
coming sordid,  feeble,  servile  and  criminal  in  their  practices,  will  be 
altogether  useless,  and  yet  they  will  clafm  to  be  respected  by  the 
people ;  but  being  indifferent  to  the  people's  welfare,  they  cannot 
be  respected  or  held  high.     Then  the  kings  and  princes  of,  the 

»  opera  (visio  5,  c.  36),  p.  934. 
«  Ibid,  (visio  5,  c.  43),  p.  945. 
'  Ibid,  (visio  10,  c.  35),  p.  ioa6. 

18—2 


276  S^  Hildegard  of  Bingen  and        [chap,  viii 

various  peoples,  who  before  were  subject  to  the  Roman  Empire, 
will  cut  themselves  off  from  it  and  refuse  to  be  ruled  by  it.  And 
thus  the  Roman  Empire  will  sink  to  decay.  For  each  clan  and 
each  people  will  set  up  a  king  unto  themselves  whom  they  will 
respect,  alleging  that  the  greatness  of  the  Roman  Empire  was 
previously  more  an  encumbrance  to  them  than  an  advantage.  But 
after  the  Imperial  sceptre  in  this  way  has  been  divided,  never  to  be 
restored,  then  the  dignity  of  the  Apostolic  See  (infula)  will  be 
impaired  also.  For  neither  princes  nor  other  men,  of  the  religious 
or  the  lay  orders,  will  uphold  any  religion  in  the  name  of  the 
Apostolic  See,  and  they  will  violate  the  dignity  of  that  name. 
They  will  appoint  unto  themselves  other  teachers  and  archbishops 
under  some  other  name  in  the  various  districts,  so  that  the 
Apostolic  See  (apostolicus),  impaired  in  its  standing  through 
collapse  of  its  dignity,  will  barely  maintain  its  hold  on  Rome  and 
on  a  few  adjoining  districts.  This  will  come  about  partly  through 
the  irruptions  of  war,  partly  through  the  common  consent  and  unity 
of  religious  and  lay  folk,  who  will  demand  of  each  secular  prince 
that  he  fortify  and  rule  his  kingdom  and  his  people,  and  of 
whatever  archbishop  or  other  spiritual  teacher  who  is  appointed 
that  he  exert  discipline  over  those  who  are  subject  to  him,  lest 
they  again  experience  the  evils  which  by  divine  decree  they  ex- 
perienced once  before.' 

Various  interpretations  have  in  the  course  of  time  been  given 
to  Hildegard's  prophecies,  and  a  number  of  pamphlets,  some  con- 
sisting of  amplified  passages  of  her  works,  some  entirely  spurious, 
have  circulated  under  her  name.  In  the  13th  century  she  was  held 
to  have  indicated  the  threatened  downfall  of  the  Dominican  friars S 
and  even  in  England  in  the  'Creed  of  Piers  Ploughman'  we  are 
called  to  'hearken  to  Hildegardl'  At  the  time  of  the  Reformation 
the  attention  genuine  passages  from  her  writings  attracted  was  very 
considerable,  and  again  in  the  17th  century  they  were  interpreted 
as  foretelling  the  downfall  of  the  Jesuits^  Even  in  the  course  of 
the  present  century,  passages  taken  from  Hildegard's  writings  have 
been  explained  as  foretelling  the  revolt  of  Belgium^ 

Hildegard  lived  to  the  advanced  age  of  eighty-two.  Her  last 
writings,  which  were  purely  legendary,  were  a  life  of  St  Rupert,  the 

*  Linde,  Handschriften  der  konigU  Bibliothek  in  Wiesbaden^  18771  pp.  95  ff. 
^  Line  1401. 

*  Cf.  The  Nunns  prophesie... concerning  the  rise  and  doTvnfall  of  ...the... Jesuits,  1680. 

*  Pridictions  sur  la  revolution  de  la  Belpque.     Amsterdam,  1832. 


SECT,  i]  5/  Elisabeth  of  Sckonau.  277 

patron  saint  of  her  nunnery*,  and  a  life  of  St  Disibodus,  patron 
saint  of  the  monastery  she  had  left*.  As  for  Disibodus  Watten- 
bach  says  that  'there  is  no  mention  of  him  previous  to  the  12th 
century'.'  Indeed  Grimm  has  explained  the  name  '  Disiboden ' 
as  a  height  hallowed  to  holy  women  (idisi),  in  which  case,  if  an 
early  Christian  dwelt  there  at  all,  he  must  have  taken  his  name 
from  the  height.  In  1178  Hildegard  passed  away  after  a  short 
illness,  and  soon  after  her  death  an  enquiry  was  instituted  with 
a  view  to  her  official  canonization.  In  spite  of  renewed  efforts 
this  was  not  accomplished,  but  her  name  was  placed  on  the 
Roman  Martyrology  and  she  is  reckoned  among  the  accepted 
saints  of  the  Church*. 

Surely  it  is  curious  that  no  attempt  has  hitherto  been  made 
to  submit  the  writings  and  influence  of  Hildegard  to  a  detailed 
critical  examination.  The  few  accounts  which  tell  of  her,  such 
as  that  of  Schmelzeis*,  are  dictated  solely  by  the  wish  to  show  how 
divine  grace  was  made  manifest  in  her.  The  reprint  of  her  chief 
works  and  a  descriptive  account  of  the  extant  manuscript  copies 
of  her  writings,  and  of  genuine  and  supposititious  works*,  have 
now  brought  the  material  for  such  an  enquiry  within  reach  of  the 
student,  and  made  it  possible  to  obtain  an  analysis  of  the  aims  and 
character  of  a  woman  whose  influence  and  popularity  were  far- 
reaching,  and  on  whom  later  ages  in  recognition  of  her  powers 
have  bestowed  the  epithet  of  the  '  Sibyl  of  the  Rhine^' 

It  remains  to  cast  a  glance  at  the  writings  of  Elisabeth,  the 
nun  at  Schonau,  who  contemporaneously  with  Hildegard  was  held 
to  be  divinely  inspired,  and  who,  'while  Hildegard  acted  as  adviser 
to  Emperor  and  Pope,  in  humbler  wise  influenced  the  clergy  and 
the  peopleV  In  later  ages  the  names  of  Hildegard  and  Elisabeth 
were  frequently  coupled  together,  and  their  efforts  to  rouse  the 
representatives  of  the  Church  to  greater  consciousness  of  their 
responsibilities  were  looked  upon  as  a  proof  of  God's  wish  to 
restore  the  supreme  influence  of  the  Church.  The  nun  Elisabeth 
dwelt  in  the  women's  convent  which  was  attached  to  the  Bene- 

*  Opera,  'Vita  St  Rupertis,'  pp.  io8i-io9'2. 

2  Ibid.  'Vita  St  Disibodi,'  pp.  1093-1116. 

3  Linde,  Handschriften  der  kdnigl.  Bibliothek  in  Wiesbaden^  1877,  p.  75,  footnote. 
*■  opera,  p.  90;  A.  SS.  Boll.  St  Hildegardis,  Sept.  17. 

'  Schmelzeis,  Das  Leben  und  fVirken  der  heil.  Hildegardis,  1879. 

^  Linde,  Handschriften  der  kdnigl.  Bibliothek  in  Wiesbaden,  1877. 

^  Opera,  p.  140,  footnote. 

8  Roth,  F.  W.  E.,  Die  Visionen  der  heil.  Elisabeth  etc.  1884,  Vorwort,  p.  cv. 


278  vSV  Hildegard  of  Bingen  and        [chap,  viii 

dictine  monastery  of  Schonau  in  the  diocese  of  Trier.  She  went 
there  in  1141  at  a  youthful  age,  and  in  11 57  she  became  lady 
superior  (magistra).  Her  brother  Ekbert  (f  11 84)  while  a  canon 
at  Bonn  frequently  visited  her,  and  it  was  through  her  persuasion 
that  he  finally  became  a  monk  at  Schonau.  He  was  a  writer  of 
some  importance,  well  known  for  his  exhortations  against  the 
heretic  Cathari ;  he  had  been  educated  with  Reinald  von  Dassel, 
afterwards  archbishop  of  Coin,  and  with  him  adhered  to  the  cause 
of  the  Emperor  and  the  Antipope  Victor.  Elisabeth  was  inspired 
by  similar  political  sympathies.  For  unlike  Hildegard,  who  was 
an  ardent  supporter  of  Pope  Alexander,  Elisabeth  was  favourably 
inclined  towards  his  opponent  Pope  Victor — a  preference  which 
laid  her  open  to  calumny. 

The  'Visions'  of  Elisabeth  came  to  her  between  11 52  and 
1 1 60,  and  we  are  told  that  they  were  sent  her  in  the  first  place 
for  her  own  comfort,  direction  and  enlightenment.  They  are 
grouped  together  in  three  books,  but  there  is  a  later  work  entitled 
'  On  the  ways  of  God,'  which  is  sometimes  referred  to  as  a  fourth 
book  of  the  visions*.  She  also  wrote  '  Revelations  on  the  holy 
band  of  Virgins  at  Coin.'  Her  collected  works  fill  the  smaller 
half  of  a  moderately  sized  volume. 

It  is  supposed  that  Elisabeth  was  helped  by  her  fellow-nuns 
to  put  the  visions  of  the  first  books  into  writing,  and  that  her 
brother  Ekbert  assisted  in  their  circulation.  The  manuscript 
from  which  they  were  published  contains  an  introduction  by 
Ekbert  written  after  he  had  become  abbot  at  Schonau  (1167),  in 
which  he  says  he  has  collected  (conscripsi)  these  writings  and  other 
things  that  have  reference  to  them,  and  that  he  has  translated  into 
Latin  what  happened  to  be  in  German*. 

The  first  book  of  the  '  Visions '  contains  short  accounts  of  how 
on  certain  festal  days  during  religious  service  Elisabeth,  who  was 
delicate  and  apt  to  get  excited  at  the  mention  of  certain  saints, 
asserts  she  saw  them  before  her  bodily.  It  is  described  how  she 
was  liable  at  any  time  to  fall  into  trances,  in  which  she  lost  con- 
sciousness of  what  happened  around  her.  In  the  second  and  third 
books  the  accounts  of  the  visions  are  fuller  and  more  elaborate ; 
they  contain  interesting  bits  of  imagery  and  symbolism,  and  give 
us  occasional  glimpses  of  the  daily  life  in  the  convent.  It  is 
curious  to  note  how  the  fancied  visions  of  the  nun  were  in  various 

^  Roth,  Die  Visionen  der  heil.  Elisabeth  etc.  1884,  Vorwort,  pp.  cvii.  ff. 
2  Ibid.  'Liber  Visionum  primus,'  Prologus,  p.  i. 


SECT,  i]  S^  Elisabeth  of  Schonatt.  279 

particulars  accepted  by  her  contemporaries  as  manifestations  of 
the  divine  will.  The  party  in  the  Church,  who  were  desirous  of 
establishing  the  'Assumption  of  the  Virgin '  as  a  recognised  festival, 
greeted  Elisabeth's  vision  of  this  incident^  with  enthusiasm.  Other 
festivals  of  the  Church,  for  example  that  of  Corpus  Christi,  owed 
their  general  acceptance  to  inspired  visions  of  nuns.  For  the 
emotional  yearning  of  the  age  found  relief  in  representations  of 
religious  ideas,  and  the  Church  readily  ministered  to  the  desire 
by  elaborating  the  cult  of  relics  and  saint-worship. 

It  is  thought  that  Elisabeth's  book  *0n  the  ways  of  God^'  was 
written  after  she  became  acquainted  with  the  'Scivias'  of  Hilde- 
gard,  and  her  title  looks  like  an  imitation*.  This  work  consists 
also  of  visions,  but  these  are  given  in  the  form  of  admonitions 
(sermones)  addressed  to  different  classes  of  society ;  the  work  is 
wonderfully  complete  in  plan  and  execution.  In  simple  and  direct 
language  men  are  urged  to  mend  their  ways,  and  to  listen  to  the 
admonitions  which  the  Angel  of  the  Lord  has  vouchsafed  to  them 
through  the  mouth  of  the  nun. 

In  this  book  Elisabeth  sees  the  summit  of  a  lofty  mountain, 
on  which  stands  a  man  whose  face  is  luminous,  whose  eyes  shine 
like  stars  and  from  whose  mouth  goes  forth  a  sword.  She  sees 
three  paths  leading  up  this  hill ;  one  is  blue,  another  green,  and 
the  third  purple.  The  blue  path  indicates  the  use  of  contemplation, 
the  green  of  action,  and  the  purple  of  martyrdom.  But  afterwards 
other  paths  appear  which  also  lead  up  the  hill  towards  heaven  : 
these  are  the  paths  of  married  people  (conjugatorum),  of  celi- 
bates (continentium),  of  prelates  (prelatorum),  of  widows  (vidua- 
torum),  of  hermits  (heremitarum),  of  young  people  (adolescentum 
et  juvenum)  and  of  children  (infantum). 

'  I  was  resting  on  my  bed  but  not  asleep,'  says  Elisabeth, 
speaking  of  those  who  have  chosen  a  life  of  contemplation*,  '  when 
the  Angel  (spiritus)  of  the  Lord  visited  me  of  a  sudden  and  in- 
inspired  me  to  speak  as  follows :  "  Give  heed,  you,  who  have 
renounced  worldly  pleasures  and  who  have  chosen  to  follow  in  the 
footsteps  of  Him  who  has  summoned  you  into  His  beauteous  light 
and  who  Himself  calls  you  His  chosen  sons,  appointing  you  to  the 
end  of  time  to  judge  the  tribes  of  Israel.  Consider  among  your- 
selves in  what  way  you  should  live  in  humility,  obedience,  love, 

^  Ibid.  'Li1>er  Visionum  secundus,'  c.  31,  p.  53;  Anlage,  p.  153. 

*  Ibid.  '  Liber  Viarum  Dei,'  pp.  88- 11 2. 

»  Ibid.  Vorwort,  p.  cix.  *■  Ibid.  '  Liber  Viarum  Dei,'  c.  10,  p.  95. 


28o  5/  Hildegard  of  Bingen  and        [chap,  viii 

and  without  murmuring,  without  disparagement,  jealousy  and  pride, 
and  take  heed  that  you  keep  yourselves  from  other  vices !  Love 
one  another,  that  your  Father  in  heaven  be  not  blasphemed  in  you 
and  be  not  roused  to  anger  at  your  leaving  your  path,  the  path  of 
contemplation  ! "  Then  the  Angel  (angelus)  of  the  Lord  followed 
up  his  utterances  by  saying :  "  If  there  be  among  you  wranglings, 
quarrels,  disparagements,  complaints,  anger,  hatred  and  jealousy, 
spiritual  pride  (extollencia  oculorum),  desire  for  advancement, 
boasting,  ribaldry,  gluttony,  laziness,  incontinence,  idleness  and 
such  like,  in  all  of  which  you  walk  on,  sons  of  this  world,  what 
place  do  you  give  to  divine  contemplation  ? "  And  again  he  spoke 
and  said :  "  This  exhortation  of  God  is  addressed  to  you  who  have 
chosen  to  serve  God  whether  in  the  clerical  or  in  the  monastic  pro- 
fession. You  have  chosen  the  best  part,  but  take  heed  lest  it  slip 
from  you.  Studiously  avoid  the  sinfulness  of  those  who  outwardly 
bear  the  semblance  of  religion,  but  shame  its  worth  by  their  actions. 
With  their  lips  they  honour  God ;  by  their  ways  they  blaspheme 
Him,  Some  of  them  strive  for  knowledge  of  the  law,  but  they 
know  not  how  to  apply  it.  They  turn  their  back  on  truth,  and  yet 
they  boast  of  moving  in  the  path  of  contemplation.  They  make 
the  law  of  God  and  their  advocacy  of  it  serve  their  pride,  avarice 
and  desires,  and  from  those  who  dwell  in  Jesus  Christ  they  boldly 
snatch  wealth  and  honours,  and  cherish  their  foulness.  The 
sanctuary  of  God,  and  places  to  be  hallowed  by  angels,  they  visit 
with  pride  and  pollution,  and  raise  the  adorable  treasures  of  Christ's 
sacrament  in  irreverent  ministration  with  impure  hearts.  They  jeer 
at  him  who  rebukes  them  and  sadden  him  with  contempt  and 
persecution.  Those  among  them  who  are  less  wicked,  are  yet 
hateful  before  the  Lord.  For  they  walk  about  with  the  semblance 
of  humility,  but  their  hearts  are  far  removed  from  it.  They 
multiply  words,  but  of  what  use  are  these  when  in  their  hearts  they 
oppose  God,  neglect  brotherly  love,  envy  and  disparage  others,  and 
wrangle  about  position  .■*  They  profess  contempt  of  the  world,  but 
worship  that  which  is  of  the  world,  strut  about  boldly,  and  yield  to 
every  gust  of  their  desires.  They  have  cast  aside  the  customs  of 
their  fathers;  they  engage  in  the  business  of  this  world  and  fill  the 
Church  with  wranglings.  Thus  religion  suffers  contempt,  and  faith 
is  divided.  But  why  should  I  enlarge  on  such  doings,  saith  the 
Lord  "i  A  shout  is  raised  against  them,  but  they  listen  not  and 
repudiate  my  voice  of  admonition  in  contempt...."' 

And  it  is  not  only  those  of  the  religious  profession  whom  the 


SECT,  i]  S^  Elisabeth  of  Schd'nau.  281 

nun  admonishes.  The  address  to  married  people*  is  especially 
interesting,  not  only  on  account  of  her  conception  of  the  mutual 
obligations  of  husband  and  wife,  claiming  obedience  from  the  wife 
and  respect  for  his  wife's  feelings  from  the  husband,  but  because 
she  vehemently  attacks  women's  love  of  dress  and  men's  love  of 
indulgence.  The  Angel  of  God  informs  Elisabeth  that  now-a- 
days  men  in  large  numbers  degrade  their  desires  to  the  level 
of  women's  folly,  and  are  foolish  enough  to  adapt  themselves 
to  women's  stupidity.  '  The  love  of  dress,  which  thou  dost  hate 
and  despise  in  the  women  of  the  world  who  come  to  thee,  has 
grown  apace  on  earth,  and  has  become  a  madness,  and  brings  down 
the  wrath  of  God.  They  delight  in  walking  about,  their  steps 
hampered  by  the  mass  of  their  garments,  and  they  try  to  wear 
out  to  no  profit  what  the  poor  sorely  need.  O  wretchedness, 
O  blindness ! ' 

It  is  in  the  course  of  this  exhortation  that  Elisabeth  consults 
the  Angel  about  the  heretic  Cathari-,  who  she  states  are  said  to 
reject  marriage  while  teaching  at  the  same  time  that  only  those 
marriages  are  valid  where  both  parties  have  preserved  their  vir- 
ginity. The  Angel  cannot  deny  that  such  marriages  are  most 
acceptable  to  God,  but  declares  that  they  are  rare.  Yet  he 
announces  that  the  leaders  of  that  sect  are  of  Satan.  '  Then,' 
the  nun  continues,  '  I  said,  "  Lord,  what  and  of  what  kind  is  their 
faith  1 "  He  answered  :  "  Their  faith  is  contemptible,  their  works 
are  worse."  And  I  said  :  "  Yet  they  have  the  appearance  of  just  men 
and  are  praised  as  men  of  good  works."  "  Truly,"  he  replied,  "  they 
put  on  an  appearance  of  just  and  innocent  living,  through  which 
they  attract  and  convert  many,  and  yet  inwardly  they  are  full  of 
the  worst  madness." '  Considering  that  nothing  is  known  of  these 
early  dissenters  except  what  their  opponents  have  preserved,  these 
remarks  are  interesting  as  showing  that  though  Hildegard  treated 
the  Cathari  with  unhesitating  contempt  Elisabeth  was  perplexed 
about  them. 

Another  exhortation  addressed  to  the  ministers  of  the  Church 
is  eloquent  in  its  attacks  on  the  overbearing  conduct  of  the 
clergy,  and  on  the  way  they  neglect  their  flocks.  Widows  are 
then  admonished  to  cultivate  peace  of  mind  and  to  reflect  only 
on  spiritual  joys,  and  hermits  are  urged  not  to  carry  their  self- 
denying  practices  to  extremes,  since  immoderate  fasting  is  pro- 

*  Roth,  Die  Visionen  der  heil.  Elisabeth  etc.  1884,  'Liber  Viarum  Dei,'  c.  13,  p.  100. 
'  Ibid.  p.  104. 


282  S/  Hildegard  of  Bingen  and        [chap,  viii 

ductive  of  no  good  results.  The  book  seems  originally  to  have 
ended  here,  for  the  last  two  exhortations  are  evidently  the  result 
of  an  afterthought.  In  the  first  of  these  young  people  are  re- 
commended to  cultivate  seriousness  of  mind,  and  the  second  treats 
of  young  children,  but  only,  in  a  vague  way,  for  their  parents  are 
said  to  be  chiefly  responsible  for  their  behaviour.  The  book  ends 
with  a  paragraph  to  the  efifect  that  the  angel  appeared  and  ad- 
dressed the  bishops  of  Trier,  Coin  and  Mainz  telling  them  to 
amend  their  ways  and  accept  the  contents  of  the  book.  '  Read 
them,  and  hearken  to  their  divine  admonitions,'  it  saysS  'and 
receive  them  with  an  equable  mind.  Do  not  think  they  be  the 
fabrications  of  a  woman,  for  they  are  not ;  they  have  come  through 
God,  the  Almighty  Father,  who  is  the  source  and  origin  of  all 
goodness.' 

It  must  have  been  some  time  after  she  had  begun  to  write 
visions  that  Elisabeth  wrote  the  following  letter  to  Hildegard.  It 
is  preserved  in  the  third  book  of  her  visions,  and  also  in  the  corre- 
spondence of  Hildegard,  together  with  the  reply  sent  to  it^ 

'  What  you  said  had  been  revealed  to  you  concerning  me,  I  now 
write  to  confirm  ;  a  cloud  of  distrust  has  come  over  my  mind  owing 
to  the  foolish  sayings  of  some  people  who  are  ever  talking  of  me ; 
they  are  not  true.  The  talk  of  the  people  I  can  easily  bear,  but  not 
of  those  who  wear  clerical  garb,  they  bitterly  oppress  my  spirit.  For 
goaded  on,  at  whose  instigation  I  know  not,  they  ridicule  the  grace 
of  God  that  is  within  me,  and  do  not  hesitate  rashly  to  condemn 
what  they  do  not  understand.  I  hear  that  certain  letters  written  in 
their  spirit  are  circulating  under  my  name.  They  accuse  me  of 
having  prophesied  concerning  the  Day  of  Judgment,  which  I  surely 
never  have  presumed  to  do,  as  knowledge  of  its  advent  is  denied  to 
mortal  man.'  She  goes  on  to  explain  how  the  angel  of  God  had 
repeatedly  appeared  to  her,  saying  that  the  time  for  contrition  and 
repentance  had  come,  and  how  she  had  spoken  of  this  to  others.  But 
now  a  letter  is  circulated,  full  of  threats  against  the  abbot.  In  her 
distress  she  begs  that  Hildegard  will  accept  this  explanation,  offer 
prayers  in  her  behalf  and  write  her  some  words  of  consolation. 

In  her  reply  to  this  letter  Hildegard  admits  Elisabeth's  power 
of  prophecy.  She  also  is  a  trumpet  through  which  the  blasts  of 
divine  admonition  become  audible.  Another  letter  addressed  to 
Hildegard  by  Elisabeth  shows  that  they  remained  in  communi- 

^  Roth,  Die  Visionen  derheiU  Elisabeth  etc.  1884,  'Liber  Viarum  Dei,'  c.  10,  p.  iii. 
2  Ibid.  pp.  70,  178. 


SECT,  i]  Si  Elisabeth  of  Schonau.  283 

cation*,  though  their  different  church  and  political  sympathies 
naturally  precluded  a  closer  connection. 

The  last  book  Elisabeth  wrote  added  greatly  to  her  fame.  It 
consists  of  'Revelations  on  the  holy  band  of  virgins  of  Coin*,' 
the  companions  and  fellow-martyrs  of  St  Ursula,  the  origin  of 
which  legend  is  shrouded  in  some  obscurity*.  The  story  current 
in  Elisabeth's  time  in  various  versions  states  that  in  the  3rd  century 
Ursula,  a  British  princess,  went  on  pilgrimage  to  Rome  with  ii,cxx) 
virgin  companions,  and  that  on  their  journey  homewards  these  vir- 
gins together  with  many  followers  were  murdered  at  Coin,  either  by 
the  Huns  or  some  other  heathen  tribes.  The  name  Ursula,  however, 
does  not  occur  in  any  of  the  ancient  martyrologies,  and  therefore 
may  be  a  latter-day  addition  to  the  story,  while  the  extraordinary 
number  of  her  companions  is  held  to  have  originated  through  mis- 
reading an  inscription  which  refers  to  eleven  martyred  virgins 
(XI  M.  v.).  History  speaks  of  virgin  martyrs  at  Coin  at  an  early 
date. 

In  1 156  a  quantity  of  bones  were  found  in  an  ancient  cemetery 
outside  Coin,  and  this  led  to  the  revival  of  the  story,  which  now 
assumed  gigantic  proportions.  The  relics  of  one  of  the  virgins 
named  Cordula  were  brought  to  Schonau  by  Ekbert.  Elisabeth's 
imagination  was  roused,  the  progress  of  St  Ursula,  various  incidents 
of  her  journey  and  the  character  of  many  of  her  companions,  were 
made  manifest  to  her  in  a  series  of  visions  by  St  Verena,  also  one 
of  the  band,  who  repeatedly  appeared  to  Elisabeth  and  divinely 
enlightened  her  on  various  points  in  dispute.  With  the  help  of 
this  saint  Elisabeth  felt  enabled  to  explain  how  Pope  Cyriacus 
(otherwise  unknown  to  history)  came  to  be  of  the  party;  how  it 
was  that  archbishops,  cardinals  and  a  king  of  England  accompanied 
these  women,  and  what  caused  one  of  the  band  to  bury,  with  some 
of  the  dead,  tablets  inscribed  with  their  names,  which  tablets  had 
come  to  light  at  Coin.  The  whole  account,  which  Elisabeth 
promulgated  in  good  faith,  and  which  her  contemporaries  had  no 
hesitation  in  accepting  as  genuine,  forms  a  most  interesting  example 
of  mediaeval  religious  romance.  It  teems  with  chronological  and 
historical  impossibilities :  apart  from  these  it  bears  the  stamp  of 
truthfulness.     It  is  pure  romance,  but  it  is  romance  set  forth  in  a 

^  Ibid.  p.  74. 

"^  Ibid.  *  De  Sacro  Exercitu  Vii^num  Coloniensium,'  pp.  H3-I53. 

^  Ibid.  Vorwort,  pp.  cxi  AT.     Roth  discusses  the  history  of  the  development  of  this 

legend. 


284  ►S'/  Hildegard  of  Bingen  and        [chap,  viii 

spirit  of  conviction  and  with  a  circumstantiality  of  detail  thoroughly 
convincing  to  the  uncritical  mind. 

Throughout  the  Rhine  district  these  visions  were  greeted  with 
acclamation.  They  were  welcome  for  two  reasons  ;  they  increased 
the  interest  and  traffic  in  the  relics  at  Coin,  and  they  fell  in  with 
current  traditions  and  encouraged  the  revived  local  worship  of  the 
three  women-saints.  The  names  of  these  were  now  connected 
with  that  of  St  UrsulaS  and  the  legend  of  St  Ursula  became  the 
centre  of  many  floating  traditions,  and  has  proportionately  attracted 
the  attention  of  the  hagiologist  and  the  folk-lore  student.  Eleven 
thousand  became  the  accepted  number  of  Ursula's  followers  and 
the  compilers  of  the  Acta  Sanctorum  have  actually  succeeded  in 
making  out  a  list  containing  over  seven  hundred  names". 

In  literature  the  version  of  the  legend  as  told  by  Elisabeth  was 
accepted  in  preference  to  earlier  versions,  and  became  popular  not 
only  in  Germany,  but  also  in  England  and  France,  especially  in 
Normandy.  In  England  both  the  legend  and  the  visions  were 
known  as  early  as  1181  through  Roger,  a  monk  of  the  Cistercian 
abbey  at  Forde  in  Devonshire.  It  is  thought  that  he  came  into 
personal  contact  with  Elisabeth  at  Schonau,  and  references  are 
sometimes  made  to  him  as  the  compiler  of  the  '  Visions '  and  as 
the  author  of  the  legend  of  the  band  of  1 1,000  virgins'. 

Elisabeth  died  in  11 64  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-six,  and  her 
brother  Ekbert,  who  was  staying  with  her  at  the  time,  wrote  a  full 
account  of  the  last  days  of  her  life  to  three  nuns  of  the  convent  of 
St  Thomas  at  Andernach^  In  this  letter  he  describes  Elisabeth's 
thoughtful  care  and  tenderness  to  her  companions  on  her  deathbed, 
and  says  that  she  was  more  than  a  sister  to  him  and  that  his  grief 
is  proportionally  greater.  Like  Hildegard  Elisabeth  has  never 
been  officially  canonized,  but  her  name  also  was  inscribed  in  the 
Roman  Martyrology  compiled  by  Gregory  VIII,  by  which  she 
became  a  recognised  saint  of  the  Church  ^ 

A  later  age  witnessed  other  notable  nuns  who  were  divinely 
inspired  and  who  were  acknowledged  to  be  so  by  their  contem- 
poraries, but,  as  we  shall  see  later,  their  communings  with  God 
and  the  saints  were  chiefly  directed  to  intensifying  mystic  and 

^  Comp.  above,  p.  40. 
•^  A.SS.  Boll.,  St  Ursula,  Oct.  si. 

3  Roth,   Die    Visionen  der  heil.   Elisabeth  etc.   1884,    Vorwort,   p.   cxxiv;    Hardy, 
Th.  D.,  Descriptive  catalogue  of  MS.  material,  1858,  vol.  2,  p.  417. 
■•  Roth,  Die  Visionen  der  heil.  Elisabeth  etc.  1884,  p.  253. 
»  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Elisabetha,  June  18. 


SECT,  i]  S^  Elisabeth  of  Schbnau.  285 

devotional  feelings  in  themselves.  They  have  neither  the  hold  on 
outside  events  nor  the  wide  outlook  which  give  such  a  deep  interest 
to  the  writings  of  St  Hildegard  of  Bingen  and  St  Elisabeth  of 
Schonau. 


§  2.     Women-Saints  connected  with  Charity  and 
Philanthropy. 

The  last  section  showed  how  earnestly  the  religious  teachers 
of  the  1 2th  century  advocated  a  stricter  practice  of  the  precepts 
of  religion.  The  practical  outcome  of  this  advocacy  was  an  in- 
creased consciousness  among  those  of  the  upper  and  authoritative 
classes  of  society  of  the  needs  and  sufferings  of  humbler  folk,  and 
an  extraordinary  development  of  pity  and  tenderness  for  suffering 
generally.  It  can  be  noticed  that  everywhere  there  sprang  into 
life  the  desire  to  help  those  who  were  in  distress,  and  to  cultivate 
that  love  and  sympathy  which  is  indifferent  to  rank,  degree  and 
antecedents,  and  especially  so  with  regard  to  the  diseased,  despised 
and  shunned. 

The  representative  figures  of  this  movement  during  the  13th 
century  are  St  Francis  of  Assisi  (-f-  1226)  and  St  Elisabeth  of 
Thiiringen  (-f*  1231),  whose  fame  will  abide  wherever  the  precepts 
of  Christianity  in  the  direction  of  unselfishness  and  charitable  zeal 
are  cherished.  The  tendency  to  renounce  all  worldly  possessions, 
which  was  a  feature  of  the  13th  century,  culminated  in  them, 
and  their  example  was  followed  by  many  men  and  women  who 
on  account  of  their  altruistic  sympathies  are  numbered  among 
the  saints.  Since  the  practical  outcome  of  their  efforts  carries 
in  itself  the  beginnings  of  our  modern  charitable  institutions  of 
hospital,  almshouse  and  infirmary,  their  work  is  well  worth  a  some- 
what detailed  account,  but  such  an  account  must  necessarily  be 
preceded  by  a  few  general  remarks  on  the  development  of  charitable 
zeal  in  the  course  of  history. 

From  the  earliest  period  Christian  teachers  had  championed 
the  cause  of  the  poor  and  afflicted,  and  had  upheld  the  sanctity 
of  human  life  as  such,  whether  in  the  aged,  the  crippled,  or  the 
unborn.  Moreover  the  Church  throughout  ministered  to  poverty 
by  almsgiving,  and  looked  upon  the  destitute  as  having  a  special 
claim  on  her  care.  At  two  distinct  periods  in  history  these  self- 
imposed  duties  were  specially  requisite — at  the  breaking   up  of 


286  Women-Saints  connected  with         [chap,  viii 

the  Roman  Empire,  and  at  the  collapse  of  the  feudal  system.  For 
under  the  Roman  social  system  slavery  had  been  a  safeguard 
against  vagrancy,  but  when  slavery  was  discontinued  the  class 
of  homeless  outcasts  became  numerous.  And  again  under  the 
feudal  system  men  belonged  to  the  soil  they  were  born  on, 
but  in  proportion  as  serfdom  ceased,  beggars,  and  especially  the 
diseased,  increased  to  a  great  extent.  In  both  instances  efforts 
to  stay  the  consequent  evils  to  society  were  made  by  all  professing 
Christians,  but  the  attitudes  of  the  5th  and  the  12th  centuries  have 
distinct  points  of  difference  which  it  is  well  to  bear  in  mind. 

Glancing  back  along  the  vistas  of  time  to  the  5th  century 
we  find  Severin  bishop  of  Noricum  (f  482)  instituting  a  regular 
and  far-reaching  system  of  charitable  relief  which  has  been  de- 
scribed by  his  disciple  Eugippius^  In  connection  with  Magnericus 
of  Trier  (i*  596),  the  famous  opposer  of  idolatrous  practices,  the 
newly-developed  virtues  of  this  period  are  thus  summed  up  by  his 
biographer,  the  monk  Eberwein  (f  1047)^:  'With  him  (Magnericus) 
the  hungry  found  bread,  the  traveller  found  shelter,  the  naked  found 
clothing,  the  weary  found  rest,  and  the  stranger  found  hopefulness.' 
We  see  that  the  efforts  of  these  men  were  directed  to  ministering 
to  poverty  but  not  to  disease,  for  the  prevalent  attitude  of  Chris- 
tian society  towards  disease  continued  for  some  centuries  strongly 
self-preservative.  The  poor  were  fed,  but  the  diseased  were  shunned, 
especially  those  who  were  visibly  disfigured,  and  who  included  the 
vast  class  of  those  who  from  the  1 1  th  century  were  currently  spoken 
of  as  lepers  (leprosi). 

The  homogeneity  of  the  disease  lepra  in  this  application  has 
been  called  into  question,  and  it  has  been  shown  that  the  '  lepers ' 
of  the  Middle  Ages  included  those  suffering  from  cutaneous  erup- 
tion brought  on  by  St  Anthony's  fire,  from  gangrene  of  the  limbs, 
such  as  comes  through  protracted  use  of  bread  containing  rye 
spurred  or  diseased  with  ergot,  and  from  other  diseases  which 
produce  visible  disfigurement.  Scant  provision  was  made  for  such 
people  during  early  Christian  ages,  and  lepers  were  numbered 
among  social  outcasts,  not  from  fear  of  contagion — that  was  a 
comparatively  late  idea — but  simply  from  a  wish  on  the  part 
of  society  to  be  spared  a  sorry  sight.  The  diseased  member 
of  a  family  was  a  visible  burden  to  his  relations,  and  finding  him- 
self despised  and  shunned  by  his  associates  he  took  refuge  with 

*  A.  SS.  Poll.,  St  Severinus,  Jan.  8. 

'  A.  SS.  Boll.t  St  Magnericus,  July  25,  Vita,  c.  49. 


SECT,  ii]  Charity  and  Philanthropy.  287 

outlaws,  who  herded  together  and  lived  in  a  state  of  filth,  misery 
and  moral  degradation  terrible  to  recall. 

It  is  in  the  treatment  of  these  unfortunate  people  that  the  12th 
century  witnessed  a  revolution.  The  efforts  of  a  few  large-souled 
individuals  overcame  the  general  disgust  felt  towards  disease,  the 
restraints  of  a  more  barbarous  age  were  broken  through,  the  way  to 
deal  with  the  evil  was  pointed  out,  and  gradually  its  mitigation  was 
accomplished.  The  task  these  people  set  themselves,  as  so  often 
happens  in  the  course  of  social  reform,  absorbed  them  so  entirely 
that  they  thought  no  sacrifice  too  great  when  it  was  a  question  of 
carrying  out  their  ideas.  It  seems  therefore  rather  gratuitous  on 
the  part  of  the  modern  scientist  to  say  that  a  'halo  of  morbid 
exaggeration  surrounded  the  idea  of  leprosy  in  the  mediaeval 
religious  mind.  We  live  in  a  time  of  saner  and  better  proportioned 
sentiment,'  etc.^  In  point  of  fact  an  evil  is  removed  only  by  putting 
it  for  a  time  into  strong  relief,  when  it  comes  to  be  rightly  dealt 
with  and  so  is  gradually  checked.  In  early  Christian  times  nothing 
was  done  for  diseased  people  and  lepers,  but  in  the  12th  and  13th 
centuries  first  individuals,  then  the  masses,  became  interested  in 
them.  It  mattered  little  that  vagrants  of  the  worst  kind  felt  en- 
couraged to  call  themselves  lepers  because  as  such  they  could 
excite  more  pity,  could  gain  admission  into  hospitals,  or  were 
allowed  to  solicit  alms  under  royal  patronage.  The  movement 
once  set  going  in  the  right  direction  steadily  did  its  work  :  and  the 
class  of  lepers  so  prominent  in  the  nth  and  12th  centuries  were 
rapidly  disappearing  by  the  end  of  the  I3th^ 

From  the  earliest  period  monasteries  and  church  centres  offered 
some  alleviation  for  the  sick  and  distressed,  but  their  resources  were 
at  first  intended  for  the  relief  of  those  who  belonged  to  the  settle- 
ment. The  peaceful  pursuits  and  regular  occupations  of  the  monk 
naturally  prolonged  his  term  of  life,  and  as  Christianity  set  great 
store  by  a  peaceful  and  happy  death,  when  feebleness  and  sick- 
ness crept  on  the  member  of  a  convent  he  was  relieved  from 
his  duties  and  tended  in  an  outhouse  by  a  brother  told  off  for 
the  purpose.  The  guest-house  of  the  settlement,  called  hospitalis, 
generally  stood  near  this  outhouse  for  the  sick,  but  sometimes  it 
was  identical  with  it,  and  the  pilgrims  and  travellers  who  were  ill 
were  nursed  with  the  convent  inmates.  While  these  combined 
houses  for  guests  and  invalids,  attached  to  convents,  were  numerous 

*  Creighton,  C,  History  of  Epidemics  in  England,  vol.  i,  1891,  p.  85. 
2  Ibid.  p.  97. 


288  Women-Saints  connected  with        [chap,  viii 

from  the  first,  the  foundation  of  shelters  intended  primarily  for 
strangers  took  place  comparatively  late.  Among  them  must  be 
numbered  the  shelters  designated  as  hospitals  (hospitales),  founded 
in  outlying  districts  for  the  reception  of  pilgrims  (pro  susceptione 
peregrinorum)  such  as  the  Pope  urged  Karl  the  Great  (•f  814)  to  keep 
up  in  the  Alps\  Pilgrims  were  always  an  object  of  solicitude  to 
the  Church,  and  it  was  in  their  interest  that  the  earliest  independent 
road-side  shelters  and  hospitals  in  cities  were  founded.  These 
shelters  and  hospitals  often  consisted  of  no  more  than  the  pro- 
tection of  a  roof,  and  the  proctor,  or  brothers  and  sisters  who 
voluntarily  took  charge  of  the  house,  secured  the  needful  sustenance 
for  themselves  and  those  seeking  their  aid  by  going  about  begging. 

The  impulse  to  found  these  rests  or  hospitals  naturally  emanated 
from  Rome,  from  a  very  early  date  the  site  of  pilgrimages,  but  a 
new  impulse  was  given  to  the  movement  by  the  foundation  of  two 
important  guest-houses  at  Jerusalem  in  the  nth  century,  when 
that  city  also  was  a  frequent  resort  of  pilgrims.  Of  these  two  guest- 
houses or  hospitals^  one  was  intended  for  men  and  placed  under 
the  management  of  men,  the  other  was  for  women  and  placed 
under  the  management  of  women.  They  were  arranged  according 
to  an  elaborate  system  which  is  interesting  in  many  ways.  The 
men  were  divided  into  three  classes — the  knights  who  looked  after 
the  interests  of  the  house,  the  priests  who  attended  to  the  sick, 
and  the  lay-brothers  who  assisted  in  the  same  work.  The  knights 
formed  themselves  into  the  religious  order  of  St  John,  from  the 
name  of  the  church  near  which  their  headquarters  lay.  Similarly 
the  women's  house,  which  was  near  the  chapel  of  St  Mary  Magdalen, 
consisted  of  ladies,  nuns  and  lay  servants.  The  fact  that  St  John 
and  St  Mary  Magdalen  were  so  often  adopted  as  patron  saints  of 
similar  houses  elsewhere  was  due  to  the  chance  connection  of  these 
saints  with  the  hospitals  at  Jerusalem. 

Looking  after  pilgrims  and  nursing  the  sick  constituted  the 
chief  work  of  the  order  at  Jerusalem,  but  after  the  conquest  of  that 
city  in  1187,  when  the  knights  removed  to  Malta  and  the  ladies 
to  Spain,  the  care  of  those  not  belonging  to  their  body  ceased  to 
hold  the  foremost  place.  But  the  existence  of  the  hospitals  at 
Jerusalem  and  the  attention  they  had  attracted  in  the  different 

^  Muratori,  Antiquitates  Italiae,  1738.     Pope  Hadrian  I  to  Karl  the  Great,  vol.  3, 

p.  581. 

2  Salles,  F.,  Annales  dc  Vordre  de  Malte,  ou  des  hospitallers  de  St  Jean  de  Jerusalem, 
1880. 


SECT,  ii]  Charity  and  Philanthropy.  1289 

countries  of  Europe,  those  who  were  repulsively  disfigured  ^  their 
support,  indirectly  stimcst  half  of  the  13th  century  a  smalUtion  of 
similar  shelters  or  hospitaU.to  each  other  took  pity  on  the/ 

The  first  idea  of  independenttral  and  South  Gfto  England  from 
Rome,  when  Archbishop  Lanfranc  (f  1089),  a  native  of  Italy, 
founded  two  hospitals  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  one  inside, 
one  outside  Canterbury.  The  one  situated  inside  the  city  walls  is 
described  by  the  historian  Eadmer(-f- 1124)  in  the  following  terms'. 
'  He  divided  it  into  two  parts ;  men  who  were  sick  in  various 
ways  inhabited  the  one,  women  the  other  part.  He  gave  to  them 
clothes  of  his  own  and  daily  sustenance ;  and  ordered  that  there 
should  be  servants  and  masters  who  were  to  take  care  they  should 
want  nothing ;  the  men  had  no  access  to  the  women,  nor  the 
women  to  the  men.'  A  chapel  was  built  on  the  other  side  of  the 
way  and  given  into  the  care  of  canons,  who  were  to  attend  to  the 
spiritual  needs  of  the  sick  and  to  see  to  their  burial  after  death. 

The  other  hospital  founded  by  Lanfranc  was  at  Herbaltown, 
in  the  woods  of  Blean,  a  mile  away  from  Canterbury;  it  was  for 
those  who  were  afflicted  with  scrofula  (regia  valetudine  fluentibus), 
and  who  at  a  later  date,  in  the  confirming  charter  of  Henry  H, 
are  styled  lepers  (leprosi)^ 

These  accounts  of  Lanfranc's  foundations  are  especially  interest- 
ing as  they  give  us  some  of  the  earliest  well-authenticated  indi- 
cations of  a  changed  attitude  towards  lepers,  and  anticipate  the 
efforts  made  in  their  behalf  in  the  12th  century  by  the  founders 
of  the  orders  of  combined  canons  and  nuns,  and  in  the  13th 
century  by  a  number  of  women  who  on  this  account  are  numbered 
among  the  saints.  These  women,  as  we  shall  see,  not  only  felt 
interested  in  these  unfortunate  beings  but  unhesitatingly  tended 
them  with  their  own  hands.  They  knew  nothing  of  the  disgust 
usually  felt  towards  wretchedness  and  poverty,  and  found  their 
life's  happiness  in  vanquishing  sordidness  and  filth.  In  the  eyes 
of  some  of  their  contemporaries  they  were  chiefly  bent  on  seeking 
sorry  sights  and  coveting  painful  experiences,  but,  apart  from  the 
appreciation  they  found  among  those  to  whom  they  directly  minis- 
tered, others  were  generous  enough  to  recognise  the  heroism  of  their 
efforts. 

Among  these  women  must  be  numbered  Matilda  (f  1118)  the 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Hospital  of  St  Gregory,*  vol.  6,  p.  615,  nr  i. 
2  Dugdale,  Moftastkon,  '  Ilerbaldoun,'  vol.  6,   p.  653  ;   Creighton,  C,  History  of 
Epidemics f  vol.  i,  189 1,  p.  87. 

E.  19 


Women-Sainis  connected  with        rciiAP.  viii 


wife  ofhe  first,  the  foundation  of  shelters  intSt  Margaret  and  the 
sister  drs  took  place  comparatively  late.  Jxon  and  marriage  have 
been  di^  the  shelters  designated  as  ho.«with  Romsey.  Highly  as 
Matilda  was  'estif;ts  for  the  recepttemporarics,  she  has  never  been 
accepted  as  a  saint,  and  nolf^y  is  given  to  her  in  the  Calendar.  This 
omission  is  perhaps  due  to  the  fact  that  she  left  her  nunnery  against 
the  wishes  of  some  of  the  clergy,  perhaps  owing  to  her  husband's 
quarrels  with  the  Pope,  for  Matilda  was  beloved  by  high  and  low 
and  early  writers  are  unanimous  in  praise  of  her.  Map  speaks  of 
her  as  the  holy  queen  Matilda  (sanctae  Matildis  reginae)^ 

This  estimate  is  based  on  the  fact  that  Matilda  was  so  moved 
by  pity  towards  lepers  that  she  overcame  the  repugnance  com- 
monly felt  towards  them.  A  well-authenticated  story  is  told  of  how 
her  brother  David,  coming  into  her  apartment,  found  it  full  of  lepers. 
She  proceeded  to  lay  aside  her  robe  and  with  a  towel  girt  about 
her  washed  and  dried  their  feet  and  then  kissed  them,  and  when 
her  brother  objected  she  replied  that  in  kissing  the  feet  of  lepers 
she  was  kissing  the  feet  of  the  Eternal  King.  Ailred  of  Rievaux 
recounts  the  story,  which  he  had  from  David,  who  repeatedly 
spoke  of  it  to  him**. 

This  generous  disposition  is  borne  out  by  the  fact  that  soon 
after  her  marriage  Matilda  founded  the  hospital  of  St  Giles  in  the 
East  for  the  maintenance  of  forty  leper.s,  a  chaplain,  a  clerk  and 
a  messenger^  It  was  commonly  known  for  a  long  time  after- 
wards as  the  hospital  of  Matilda.  It  was  founded  in  iioi,  and 
Matthew  Paris  saw  it  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  later  and  made 
a  sketch  of  it  which  is  still  extant*.  With  the  exception  of  the 
house  founded  by  Lanfranc  in  Herbaltown,  the  inmates  of  which 
were  not  styled  lepers  at  the  time,  the  hospital  of  St  Giles,  the 
foundation  of  'good  Queen  Maud,'  was  the  first  institution  of  its 
kind  in  England  and  for  a  long  time  remained  quite  the  most 
important. 

But  we  must  study  the  records  of  foreign  countries  to  find  the 
majority  of  those  women  who  were  actively  beneficent  to  the  sick, 
and  who  for  this  reason  are  officially  accepted  as  saints.  Probably 
leprosy,  or  the  diseases  collected  under  this  designation,  showed 
greater  virulence  on  the  Continent  than  they  ever  did  in  England, 

*  Map,  W.,  De  Nugis  Curialium,  1850,  p.  228. 

"^  Ailred,  Opera  (in  Migne,  Patrol.  Cursus  Computus,  vol.  195),  p.  368. 
^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  St  Giles  in  the  Fields,'  vol.  6,  p.  635. 

*  Creighton,  C,  History  of  Epidemics  in  Englaml,  vol.  i,  1891,  p.  88. 


SECT,  ii]  Charity  and  Philanthropy.  291 

and  the  miseries  of  those  who  were  repulsively  disfigured  were 
extreme,  when  in  the  first  half  of  the  13th  century  a  small  group 
of  women  personally  related  to  each  other  took  pity  on  them.  The 
field  of  their  labours  was  in  Central  and  South  Germany  and  the 
adjoining  countries,  which  were  at  that  time  brought  under  German 
influence. 

All  the  women^ho  were  actuated  by  this  new  philanthropic 
spirit  were  members,  either  by  birth  or  marriage,  of  the  powerful 
and  influential  family  of  the  Counts  of  Andechs  and  Meran\  The 
scientist  Virchow  has  remarked  that  this  family,  which  was  once 
most  prosperous  and  widely  spread,  practically  extinguished  itself 
through  its  extreme  ascetic  tendencies ^  Its  men  joined  the 
Crusades,  and  any  who  returned  dedicated  their  sons  to  the  celi- 
bacy of  the  bishopric  and  their  daughters  to  that  of  the  cloister ; 
and  in  this  way  the  family  ceased  to  exist  after  a  few  generations. 

Whence  the  first  impulse  towards  charitable  deeds  came  to  them 
we  know  not,  but  we  find  them  sometimes  taking  the  initiative  in 
philanthropic  enterprises,  and  sometimes  uniting  their  efforts  to  those 
of  others  who  were  working  on  similar  lines  to  their  own.  Some 
members  of  the  family  acted  as  patrons  to  the  Cistercian  order, 
— others  invited  and  encouraged  the  settlement  of  the  Teutonic 
or  Red  Cross  Knights  in  their  lands.  Others  again  were  strongly 
attracted  by  the  teachings  of  the  Dominican  and  Franciscan  friars, 
who  were  very  influential  in  the  first  half  of  the  13th  century. 
Various  tendencies  were  represented  in  the  different  countries  of 
Europe  by  the  followers  of  St  Francis  of  Assisi.  This  divergence 
arose  partly  because  the  rule  of  life  promulgated  in  1209  was  sup- 
planted by  another  in  1221,  and  partly  from  the  varied  interests 
of  each  country.  In  South  Germany  it  was  the  influence  of  the 
Franciscans  which  primarily  encouraged  charitable  zeal  and  self- 
denial. 

Hedwig,  daughter  of  Count  Berthold,  of  the  family  of  Andechs 
and  Meran,  first  claims  our  attention  on  account  of  her  charitable 
deeds.  She  married  Heinrich  the  Bearded  (f  1238),  first  duke  of 
Silesia,  Poland  and  Croatia.  These  districts  were  occupied  by 
people  of  the  Slav  race,  and  it  was  at  this  time  that  they  were 
first  brought  into  contact  with  German  influence  and  civilization. 
Christianity  had  been  introduced   in  the  12th  century,  but  there 

*  Hormayr,  •  Die  Grafen  von  Andechs  und  Tyrol,'  Sdmtl.  Werke^  vol.  3. 

*  Virchow,  R.,  'Zur  Geschichte  des  Aussatzes,  besonders  in  Deutschland,'  in  Archiv 
fiir pathol.  Anatomie,  vol.  18,  article  3,  p.  311. 

19 — 2 


292  Women-Saints  connected  with        [chap,  viii 

were  very  few  churches,  and  the  conditions  of  life  were  unsettled 
and  insecure  owing  to  the  continued  feuds  of  the  barons.  Heinrich 
checked  internal  dissensions  with  a  high  hand ;  he  was  zealous  in 
introducing  German  law  and  in  encouraging  German  immigration, 
and  in  this  way  gave  solidarity  to  this  part  of  the  Empire.  His 
marriage  with  the  daughter  of  a  family  which  was  among  the 
wealthiest  and  most  influential  in  South  Germany  is  a  proof  of 
his  German  sympathies. 

Hedwig  is  the  recognised  patron  saint  of  Silesia.  Griinhagen 
says^ :  '  If  we  call  to  mind  how  far  the  numerous  churches  and 
charitable  foundations  which  are  referred  to  the  Duchess  Hedwig 
influenced  civilization  at  that  period,  how  the  monks  and  nuns 
whom  Hedwig  summoned  spread  German  culture  in  these  dis- 
tricts; if  we  further  remember  how  powerfully  at  that  time  the 
example  of  unselfish  piety  and  sympathy,  emanating  from  the 
throne,  took  hold  of  the  mind  of  the  people  ;  we  shall  be  obliged 
to  accept  as  well  founded  the  veneration  Hedwig  generally  enjoyed, 
although  we  may  not  feel  attracted  by  the  traits  of  exaggerated 
asceticism  insisted  on  by  her  legend.' 

Hedwig'  was  born  in  1174  and  sent  for  her  education  to 
Kizzingen,  an  ancient  convent  foundation  situated  in  Franken  on 
property  belonging  to  her  family.  In  11 86,  when  not  yet  thirteen, 
she  was  taken  from  the  convent  to  be  married.  She  brought  with 
her  into  Silesia  a  dower  of  thirty  thousand  marks,  which  was  forth- 
with devoted  to  religious  and  charitable  purposes,  for  Hedwig 
appears  throughout  to  have  been  filled  by  the  belief,  which  she 
shared  with  her  husband,  that  religious  settlements  and  colonies 
were  alone  capable  of  introducing  culture  and  establishing  civili- 
zation in  the  land. 

The  monastic  orders  had  only  recently  gained  a  foothold  in  these 
districts.  In  11 39  a  band  of  Benedictine  monks  had  settled  near 
Breslau,  the  centre  of  the  country,  and  in  1175  at  the  instigation  of 
Boleslaus,  the  father  of  Hedwig's  husband,  some  Cistercians  had 
come  to  Leubus.  These  Cistercians  were  now  helpful  in  construct- 
ing a  nunnery  at  Trebnitz  near  Breslau,  which  Hedwig  founded 
soon  after  her  marriage.  She  summoned  thither  nuns  from  the  Cis- 
tercian nunnery  at  Bamberg,  where  her  sister  Mathilde,  afterwards 
abbess  of  Kizzingen,  was  being  educated,  and  entrusted  the  rule 

^  Allgemeine  deuische  Biographie,  article  '  Hedwig.' 

*  Stenzel,  G.  A.  W. ,  Scriptores  rerum  Sties.,  Breslau  1835,  'Vita  St.  Hedwigis '  vol.  2, 
pp.  1-114;  also^.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Hedwig,  Oct.  17. 


SECT,  ii]  Charity  and  Philanthropy.  293 

of  the  new  convent  to  Pietrussa  (f  12 14),  a  nun  from  the  convent 
of  Kizzingen.  The  abbess  and  convent  of  Trebnitz  are  mentioned 
as  early  as  1202.  The  house  was  intended  to  promote  education 
among  girls  of  both  noble  and  lowly  parentage,  and  among  them 
was  Agnes,  daughter  of  the  king  of  Bohemia,  of  whom  we  shall 
hear  more.  It  soon  numbered  a  hundred  inmates,  and  at 
the  time  when  Hedwig's  life  was  written,  that  is  towards  the 
close  of  the  13th  century,  it  contained  a  hundred  and  twenty 
women. 

This  life  of  Hedwig,  written  some  time  after  her  death,  empha- 
sizes the  ascetic  habits  which  she  embraced,  and  in  agreement  with 
later  descriptions  and  pictures  represents  her  as  an  emaciated 
person  worn  thin  by  self-denial  and  fasting.  On  the  other  hand 
the  representation  of  her  on  her  sarcophagus,  which  is  of  an  earlier 
date,  represents  her  as  a  vigorous,  massive  and  comely  woman  ^ 
The  account  of  her  life  shows  that  she  advocated  new  ideas  through- 
out. '  By  marrying,'  it  says,  '  she  followed  her  parents'  will  rather 
than  her  own,  as  is  clearly  manifest  from  what  followed,  for  she 
checked  herself  by  self-restraint.  Bound  by  the  sacrament  she 
was  determined  to  live  her  married  life  as  the  apostle  has  taught, 
keeping  his  precepts  of  marriage  worthily.  She  hoped  to  secure 
eternal  life  by  giving  birth  to  children,  yet  she  wished  also  to  please 
God  by  chastity,  and  with  her  husband's  consent  practised  self- 
restraint.  Whenever  she  was  aware  that  the  duties  of  motherhood 
were  beginning,  she  avoided  her  husband's  proximity,  and  firmly 
denied  herself  all  intercourse  until  the  time  of  her  confinement. 
She  did  so  from  the  time  of  first  becoming  a  mother,  that  is  at 
the  age  of  thirteen  years  and  thirteen  weeks,  and  under  like  circum- 
stances ever  behaved  in  the  same  way.  When  she  had  become  the 
mother  of  three  sons,  Boleslaus,  Konrad,  and  Heinrich,  and  of  three 
daughters,  Agnes,  Sophie,  and  Gertrud,  she  altogether  embraced  a 
life  of  chastity.  The  like  observation  of  chastity  in  marriage  which 
Mother  Church  has  sanctioned  she  pressed  upon  every  one  she 
could.'  Her  conduct  appears  to  have  had  her  husband's  sanction. 
Heinrich's  sympathies  are  apparent  in  his  granting  property  to 
the  Cistercians  for  a  monastery  called  after  him  Heinrichsau,  in 
founding  an  important  hospital  in  Breslau  dedicated  to  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  in  making  a  foundation  for  canons  at  Neumarkt,  where  he 


^  Vereinfiir  das  Museum  schles,  Alterthiimer.,  edit.  Luchs,  H.,  1870.    Also  Luchs,  H.i 
Schksische  Fiirstenbilder,  1872. 


294  Women-Saints  connected  with        [chap,  viii 

erected  an  important  leper  hospital.  During  one  of  the  wars  which 
he  engaged  in,  he  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  heathen  Prussians, 
and  the  story  is  told  how  his  wife,  indifferent  to  every  danger,  went 
to  him  and  procured  his  release. 

It  was  in  connection  with  the  lepers  who  were  sheltered  at 
Neumarkt  that  Hedwig's  conduct  appeared  especially  wonderful 
to  her  contemporaries.  Her  biographer  tells  us  that  she  had  taken 
into  her  special  care  the  leprous  women  who  lived  there,  *  so  that 
she  sent  them  money,  food  and  game  (ferinas)  several  times  a 
week,  and  gave  them  liberally  clothes  and  other  necessaries  of 
life,  taking  care  of  them  as  though  they  had  been  her  own  daughters. 
With  wonderful  tenderness  she  attended  upon  those  who  were 
afflicted  with  bodily  ills,  and  her  affections  melted  towards  the 
poor  and  infirm,  whom  she  tended  with  great  love  and  helpfulness.' 

A  series  of  paintings  in  miniature  were  executed  at  an  early 
date  which  set  forth  the  work  of  the  pious  Hedwig  and  of  which  a 
copy  made  in  1353  is  extant*.  It  forms  a  valuable  monument  of 
early  painting,  and  in  archaeological  interest  compares  favourably 
with  the  work  of  Herrad.  In  these  pictures  we  repeatedly  see 
Hedwig  in  the  company  of  the  Trebnitz  nuns.  In  one  picture 
she  leads  the  nuns  into  the  convent,  in  another  she  shows  them 
the  church,  and  in  a  third  she  waits  on  them.  They  are  re- 
presented as  surrounding  her  in  her  trials  and  at  her  death,  and 
as  laying  her  in  her  tomb.  In  these  pictures  the  nuns  wear  grey 
or  blue  gowns  and  a  black  headdress,  no  wimples  (which  are  worn 
by  lay  women),  and  they  do  not  seem  to  share  the  same  dwelling, 
but  to  inhabit  separate  small  huts  which  are  pictured  standing 
side  by  side  round  the  church.  Hedwig  herself  wears  simple 
clothing  but  no  convent  garb.  In  these  pictures  a  legendary 
reading  is  given  to  some  incidents  of  her  life.  For  example  she 
is  represented  as  surrounded  in  her  hours  of  tribulation  by  hairy 
and  grotesque  demons. 

A  large  number  of  these  pictures  show  Hedwig's  charitable 
zeal.  There  is  one  in  which  she  is  depicted  urging  upon  her 
husband  the  cause  of  the  poor;  again  she  makes  the  gift  of  a 
house  to  them ;  she  washes  and  kisses  the  feet  of  lepers ;  she  feeds 
the  sick,  who  are  seen  lying  in  bed  ;  she  gives  food  to  the  poor ; 
she   ministers    to   a   prisoner;    and    she   distributes   gifts   among 

^  Virchow,  R.,  '  Zur  Geschichte  des  Aussatzes,  besonders  in  Deutschland,'  in  Archiv 
fiir pathol.  Anatomie,  vol.  i8,  article  2,  p.  275. 
'  Vi oMsVron,  Bilder  der  IledwigslegenJe,  1846. 


SECT.  II J  Charity  and  Philanthropy.  295 

pilgrims.  Men  who  are  in  the  stocks  and  doomed  to  death  also 
rouse  her  pity ;  and  she  insists  on  feeding  the  poor  with  her  own 
hands  before  she  can  be  persuaded  to  sit  down  to  meals.  In  these 
pictures  we  note  the  scarred  and  blotched  appearance  of  those  who 
are  designated  as  lepers,  the  wretched  appearance  of  the  poor,  and 
the  curiously  low  type  of  countenance  of  all  the  beggars. 

In  her  family  relations  Hedwig  was  most  unfortunate,  and  one 
can  but  hope  that  her  charitable  zeal  brought  her  solace  or  that 
the  different  basis  on  which  family  life  then  rested  made  her  feel 
the  sad  fate  of  her  relations  less  acutely  than  she  would  otherwise 
have  done.  Her  sister  Agnes  married  Philippe  Auguste,  king  of 
France  (1180-1223),  but  she  was  repudiated  in  consequence  of  the 
Pope's  attack  on  the  validity  of  her  marriage,  and  died  in  misery  in 
1 20 1.  Her  other  sister  Gertrud,  who  was  the  mother  of  St  Elisabeth 
of  Thiiringen,  married  Bela  III  of  Hungary,  and  was  assassinated 
in  1 2 14.  Hedwig's  daughter  Gertrud  was  betrothed  to  Otto  von 
Wittelsbach,  who  in  consequence  of  political  intrigues  was  tempted 
to  murder  Philip,  king  of  Swabia,  in  1208.  Heinrich  and  Ekbert, 
Hedwig's  two  brothers,  were  accused  of  being  his  accomplices, 
and  the  consequence  was  that  Heinrich  saw  his  castle  destroyed 
and  lived  for  years  in  banishment,  and  Ekbert,  who  was  bishop 
of  Bamberg  (1203-37),  was  obliged  to  fly,  though  he  was  after- 
wards reinstated  in  his  see.  When  Otto  the  king-murderer  was 
dead,  Gertrud,  his  prospective  bride,  entered  the  nunnery  at  Treb- 
nitz,  where  she  afterwards  succeeded  Pietrussa  as  abbess. 

In  the  year  12 16,  however,  Hedwig  had  the  joy  of  seeing  her 
son  Heinrich,  who  reigned  conjointly  with  his  father,  married  to 
Anna,  a  princess  of  Bohemia,  whose  tendencies  were  quite  in  ac- 
cordance with  her  own.  Indeed  Anna's  zeal  was  carried  yet  a 
step  farther  in  the  direction  of  self-imposed  lowliness  and  humility, 
she  readily  submitted  to  bodily  chastisement.  She  has  no  place 
among  the  saints,  but  we  are  in  possession  of  an  early  account  of 
her*  which  speaks  in  great  praise  of  her  charitable  deeds.  Conjointly 
with  her  husband  Anna  made  several  religious  foundations,  and 
greeted  the  Dominican  and  Franciscan  friars  as  brothers  in  the 
Lord.  Inmates  of  the  nunnery  of  the  order  of  St  Francis,  which 
she  had  founded  at  Breslau,  spoke  with  enthusiasm  of  her  goodness 
and  charity.  She  too  nursed  the  leprous  with  her  own  hands, 
distributed  food  among  the  poor,  and  was  to  '  forlorn  children  and 
orphans  a  protector  and  a  mother.' 

^  Stenzel.G.  A.  li.,Scriptoresrer.  5//^j.,  1835, 'Vita  AnnaedudssaeSil.' vol.  3,  p.  127. 


296  Women-Saints  connected  with        [chap,  viii 

History  has  preserved  an  account  of  the  courageous  manner  in 
which  she  opposed  the  Tartars,  at  whose  invasion  of  Breslau,  she. 
her  mother-in-law  Hedwig,  and  Gertrud,  the  abbess  of  Trebnitz, 
fled  to  Crossen.  Anna's  husband  was  killed  by  the  enemy  and  his 
head  was  set  on  a  stake  outside  the  town  to  induce  her  to  surrender, 
but  in  vain.  After  the  defeat  of  the  Tartars  the  women  returned 
to  Breslau,  where  they  found  their  nunnery  utterly  deserted.  The 
nuns  had  fled,  and  years  passed  before  the  settlement  regained  its 
standing — Hedwig  bestowed  her  property  Schawoine  on  it  in  the 
hope  that  this  would  help  it  to  recover. 

Hedwig  spent  the  last  years  of  her  life  in  close  connection  with 
Trebnitz.  She  died  in  1243  and  as  early  as  1267  was  canonized 
by  Pope  Clement  IV.  Her  daughter-in-law,  Anna,  lived  to  a  great 
age,  and  to  the  end  of  her  days  remained  interested  in  her  convent 
and  charitable  foundations.  In  1253  she  founded  a  hospital  at 
Kreuzberg  on  the  model  of  one  previously  founded  by  her  cousin 
St  Elisabeth.  This  hospital  and  the  one  founded  at  Neumarkt  by 
Hedwig  are  still  in  existence,  but  the  nunneries  founded  by  these 
women  have  long  since  passed  away. 

The  movement  Hedwig  had  inaugurated  in  Silesia  forthwith 
made  itself  felt  in  wider  circles,  and  we  find  the  princess  Agnes 
of  Bohemia,  Anna's  sister,  who  had  lived  for  several  years  at 
Trebnitz,  advocating  after  her  return  to  Prague  practices  similar 
to  those  with  which  she  had  come  into  contact  in  Silesia.  Agnes 
also  is  a  saint  of  the  Church \  and  her  fame  rests  on  her  charitable 
works  and  on  her  indifference  to  position  and  possessions  in  com- 
parison with  the  relief  of  suffering  humanity.  She  is  moreover  a 
virgin  saint.  For  she  was  to  have  married  the  emperor  Friedrich  II 
(■f- 1250)  against  her  wish,  when  her  father  opportunely  died,  leaving 
her  free  to  remain  single.  She  then  devoted  her  patrimony,  which 
was  considerable,  to  founding  a  nunnery  at  Prague  together  with 
an  important  hospital. 

Agnes  was  supported  at  home  by  her  brother,  the  king  of 
Bohemia,  and  by  the  bishop  of  Prague.  Pope  Gregory  IX  (-f- 1241) 
wrote  to  her  praising  her  resolution  to  remain  unmarried,  and  Clara, 
the  friend  of  St  Francis,  wrote  to  her  from  Assisi  to  encourage  her 
in  her  devotions.  Clara's  letters  are  extant,  and  afford  an  interesting 
glimpse  of  the  aims  which  these  women  set  before  them.  In  one 
letter  Clara  praises  Agnes  for  refusing  marriage  with  the  '  Caesar,' 

^  A,  SS.  Boll.,  St  Agnes 'de  Bohemia,  March  6,  print  two  accounts,  of  uncertain 
date. 


SECT,  ii]  Charity  and  Philanthropy.  297 

and  advises  her  rather  to  follow  blessed  poverty  and  devote  herself 
to  the  mortification  of  the  flesh.  Again  she  addresses  Agnes  as  a 
second  Rachel,  admonishing  her  to  turn  her  thoughts  to  eternity, 
and  likening  her  to  the  holy  St  Agnes  with  the  blessed  lamb^ 

The  Bohemian  princess  was  further  encouraged  in  her  aims  by 
the  gift  of  a  prayer-book,  a  veil,  a  platter  and  a  drinking-cup  which 
Clara  had  used.  The  accounts  we  have  of  Agnes,  consisting  of  a 
longer  and  a  shorter  record  lately  printed  from  MSS  preserved  at 
Prague,  give  a  full  description  of  the  willing  humility  this  holy 
woman  practised  in  the  convent  and  of  the  tenderness  she  showed 
towards  the  sick. 

*  There  you  might  see  her,'  says  the  longer  account",  '  the 
daughter  of  Premislaus  III,  king  of  Bohemia,  lighting  with  her  own 
hands  the  fire  for  the  sisters ;  the  sister  of  Wenceslaus  IV,  king  of 
Bohemia,  cleaning  out  the  dirty  rooms  ;  the  intended  spouse  of  the 
emperor  Friedrich  II  perspiring  in  the  kitchen  like  any  lowly  maid. 
And  while  she  did  so,  not  by  angry  expression  or  stern  face 
did  she  resent  it ;  filled  with  joy  she  worked  as  a  servant  of  Christ 
and  proved  it  to  those  who  saw  her  by  the  sweet  expression  she 
wore.  She  behaved  in  this  way  not  only  to  those  who  were  healthy, 
but  she  gladly  extended  her  kindness  to  those  who  were  ill ;  she 
spread  soft  beds  for  them,  she  carefully  removed  all  that  could 
distress  eyes  and  nose,  she  prepared  food  with  her  own  hands,  and 
cooked  it  that  it  might  be  served  to  taste,  with  untiring  energy, 
that  the  sick  might  be  freed  from  ill,  pains  diminish,  illness  yield 
and  health  return.  Such  were  her  occupations  inside  the  convent 
(parthenon),  but  she  was  not  confined  by  walls.  Throughout 
Prague  her  doings  were  apparent.'  We  find  her  visiting  women 
who  were  sick  or  in  trouble,  and  collecting,  mending  and  washing 
the  garments  of  lepers  with  her  own  hands. 

Agnes  lived  till  1282  and  is  accepted  as  a  saint,  but  has  never 
been  officially  canonized.  The  hospital  she  founded  at  Prague  is 
still  in  existence. 

The  fame  of  these  women,  great  and  abiding  as  it  is  in  the 
countries  they  lived  in,  has  not  penetrated  much  beyond  the 
districts  which  knew  them  during  their  lifetime.  It  is  different 
with  another  woman-saint  of  the  period  who,  within  the  span  of  a 
short  life,  acquired  such  fame  that  she  ranks  among  the  holy 
followers  of  Christianity  who  are  the  possession  of  all  countries 

^  A.  SS.  Boll. ,  Ibid. ,  print  these  letters. 
»  A.  SS.  Boll.,  Ibid.,  VUa  i,  ch.  32. 


298  Women-Saints  connected  with        [criAr.  viii 

and  of  all  ages.  St  Elisabeth,  landgravine  of  Thuringen,  a  princess 
of  Hungary,  combined  in  a  rare  degree  those  qualities  of  love, 
devotion,  and  unselfish  zeal  which  make  Christian  virtue  in  one 
aspect  so  attractive.  The  tendencies  of  those  among  whom  her  lot 
was  cast  and  her  own  sad  personal  experiences  throw  her  loveable 
qualities  into  even  greater  relief  All  the  qualities  in  Matilda, 
Hedwig,  Anna,  and  Agnes  which  made  them  beloved  and  vene- 
rated appear  to  meet  in  Elisabeth.  A  loving  wife,  a  pious  mother, 
a  faithful  widow,  the  comforter  of  the  sick  and  the  protector  of  the 
poor,  she  stands  on  the  threshold  of  a  new  era,  indifferent  to  the 
prejudices  of  her  age,  regardless  of  its  derogatory  criticism,  intent 
only  on  carrying  into  effect  the  promptings  dictated  by  a  keener 
sense  of  sympathy  with  suffering  and  a  closer' appreciation  of  the 
needs  of  others  than  her  contemporaries  could  generally  grasp. 
No  woman-saint  has  attained  a  fame  at  all  to  be  compared  with 
hers.  It  has  been  computed  that  before  the  middle  of  this  century 
over  a  hundred  versions  of  her  story  were  in  existence,  a  number 
which  has  since  been  more  than  doubled.  Of  these  accounts  some 
are  in  Latin,  others  in  French,  English,  Italian  and  Hungarian,  the 
mass  of  them  being  of  course  in  German.  Many  painters,  and 
among  them  some  of  the  greatest  Italian  masters,  Botticelli,  Fra 
Angelico,  Orcagna,  Memmi  and  Taddeo  Gaddi,  have  been  eager  to 
depict  incidents  of  her  life  or  to  introduce  her  into  their  pictures*. 

The  bulk  of  the  literature  which  celebrates  the  name  and 
fame  of  Elisabeth  has  scant  importance  from  the  historical  point 
of  view,  which  seeks  a  reasonable  basis  for  her  fame.  For  most 
versions  of  her  story  were  dictated  more  by  the  wish  to  dwell  on 
her  piety  than  to  encourage  discerning  appreciation  of  her  character. 
Among  the  legendary  accounts  composed  in  her  praise  there  is  a 
poetical  version  of  her  life  in  mediaeval  German,  which  extends  over 
four  thousand  five  hundred  lines  and  contains  much  that  is  attrac- 
tive^  There  is  also  in  existence  a  modern  German  prose  version 
of  her  story  which  has  considerable  charm ^  But  the  climax  of 
beauty  of  legendary  narrative  is  reached  in  her  case  by  the  account 
of  her  life  written   in   French  in   the  middle  of  this  century  by 

^  Montalembert,  C,  Histoire  de  Ste  Elisabeth  de  Hongrie,  duchesse  de  Thuringe, 
edition  de  luxe  1878,  with  preface  by  Gautier,  contains  reproductions  of  some  of  those 
pictures;  Potthast,  A.,  IVegwdser,  enumerates  a  number  of  accounts  of  the  life  of  St 
Elisabeth. 

2  Rieger,  L.,  prints  this  '  Leben  der  heil.  Elisabeth'  in  Literarisch.  Verein,  1843, 
and  discusses  early  ms  accounts  of  her  life. 

'  Justi,  C.  W.,  Elisabeth,  die  Heilige,  1797. 


/ 

I 

SECT,  ii]  Cfmrity  and iPhilatithropy.  299 

Montalembert^  It  is  widely  read  in  unadorned  and  in  sumptuous 
editions  in  the  French  original  and  in  its  German  translation.  On 
the  other  hand  its  exuberance  of  religious  colouring  and  legendary 
character  have  called  forth  an  account  based  solely  on  contempo- 
rary records,  which,  drawn  with  a  firm  hand  in  clear  outline,  gives 
a  picture  of  Elisabeth's  life  less  fantastic,  it  is  true,  but  more 
discerning  and  more  truly  beautiful^  In  the  light  of  this  work  it 
becomes  possible  to  fit  the  form  of  Elisabeth  to  the  background  of 
her  age,  and,  by  thus  placing  her,  to  appreciate  to  some  extent  her 
great  and  lasting  importance.  In  a  history  of  the  development  of 
philanthropic  endeavour  and  charitable  work  no  woman's  figure 
more  fitly  represents  the  beauty  of  unselfish  devotion. 

Born  at  Presburg  in  Hungary  in  1207,  Elisabeth  was  related 
both  to  St  Hedwig  of  Silesia  and  to  St  Agnes  of  Bohemia.  For 
her  father  King  Andreas  II  of  Hungary  (i*  1235)  was  uncle  to 
Agnes,  while  her  mother  Gertrud  was  sister  to  Hedwig,  so  that 
Elisabeth  was  cousin  to  one  saint  and  niece  to  the  other.  Her 
mother  Gertrud,  like  Hedwig  in  Silesia,  had  become  the  centre  of 
a  small  German  party  in  Hungary,  with  which  their  two  brothers 
Count  Heinrich  of  Andechs  and  Bishop  Ekbert  of  Bamberg  sought 
refuge  after  the  murder  of  the  king  of  Swabia  referred  to  above. 
After  several  years  Bishop  Ekbert  was  enabled  to  return  to  his  see 
chiefly  owing  to  the  influence  exerted  in  his  behalf  by  Hermann, 
landgrave  of  Thiiringen ;  it  was  no  doubt  owing  to  this  connection 
that  his  niece,  the  princess  Elisabeth,  at  that  time  a  child  of  four, 
was  betrothed  to  the  son  of  the  landgrave.  This  took  place  some 
time  in  the  year  121 1,  and  she  was  carried  from  Hungary  to  the 
Wartburg  in  Thiiringen,  there  to  receive  her  education. 

At  this  period  the  customs  at  the  court  of  Hungary  were 
comparatively  speaking  uncivilized,  and  struggles  were  frequent. 
In  1 2 14  Gertrud,  Elisabeth's  mother,  was  assassinated,  a  victim  of 
the  revolt  of  the  Hungarians  against  German  ascendency.  Thii- 
ringen and  the  Wartburg  on  the  contrary  were  the  seat  of  the 
greatest  refinement  of  which  the  age  of  romance  in  German  lands 
proved  capable.  Landgrave  Hermann,  a  prince  of  uncertain 
politics,  but  a  zealous  patron  of  art,  had  drawn  thither  the  lyric 
poets  of  the  age,  whose  brilliant  assemblies  and  contests  in  the  eyes 
of  posterity  are  surrounded  with  the  halo  of  a  tournament  in  song. 

'  Montalembert,  Q.,  Histoire  de  Sle  Elisabeth  de  Hongr it,  1836,  7th  edit.  1855. 
'  W^ele,  F.  X.,  •  Die  heil.  Elisabeth  von  Thiiringen'  in  Sybel,  Historische Zeitschrifty 
1861,  pp.  351-397)  which  I  have  followed  in  the  text. 


300  Women-Saints  ^xonnected  with        [chap,  viii 


But  the  temper  of  this  gay  throng  had  apparently  no  charm  for 
the  Hungarian  girl,  who  was  chiefly  conscious  of  the  levity  and 
laxity  which  characterized  it ;  conscious  too  that  this  outward 
brilliancy  could  not  compensate  for  the  hollowness  which  lurked 
beneath.  A  serious  girl,  thpugh  lively  at  times,  she  did  not  win 
general  favour,  least  of  all  that  of  the  landgravine  Sophie,  her 
prospective  mother-in-law.  When  the  news  came  of  reverses  at 
the  Hungarian  court,  Sophie  would  have  broken  off  the  match  and 
sent  Elisabeth  home  or  would  have  placed  her  in  a  nunnery.  But 
at  this  juncture  the  attraction  which  Ludwig,  the  betrothed  of 
Elisabeth,  felt  towards  her  asserted  itself.  He  was  conscious  of  a 
decided  preference  for  the  girl,  and  so  he  informed  the  noble 
knight  Vargila,  who  had  conducted  Elisabeth  from  Presburg  and 
who  all  along  remained  the  staunch  advocate  of  her  interests. 

Young  Ludwig  of  Thuringen,  a  gentle  and  loveable  character, 
of  strict  political  integrity,  is  regarded  as  a  saint  on  account  of  his 
numerous  religious  foundations  and  his  tragic  end.  His  chaplain 
has  left  an  account  of  his  life  which  throws  much  light  on  his 
relations  to  Elisabeth.  He  was  left  heir  to  his  father's  dominions 
in  1 216,  was  declared  of  age  by  the  emperor  Friedrich  H,  and,  in 
spite  of  the  advice  of  his  courtiers  and  against  his  mother's  wish, 
clung  to  Elisabeth  and  married  her  in  1221,  he  being  twenty  and 
she  fourteen  years  old  at  the  time. 

The  happy  married  relations  of  the  youthful  pair  are  established 
beyond  a  doubt.  Incidents  are  told  and  points  insisted  on  by 
kinsfolk  and  friends  which  prove  affection  and  tenderness  on  both 
sides,  and  directly  contradict  the  statements  of  interested  religious 
writers  of  a  later  date  who  maintain  that  life  in  a  convent  would 
have  been  more  to  Elisabeth's  taste.  On  the  contrary,  whatever 
thoughts  Elisabeth  may  have  had  afterwards  on  the  superiority  of 
a  life  of  sacrifice  to  a  life  of  domestic  happiness,  during  these  years 
she  appears  as  the  devoted  wife  and  loving  mother  who  combines 
the  fulfilment  of  domestic  duties  with  charitable  zeal.  There  is  a 
story  told  of  her  that  she  used  to  leave  the  Wartburg,  her  babe  in 
her  arms,  and  descend  into  the  town  of  Eisenach,  where  she  would 
visit  the  poor  and  the  sick.  Her  dress  on  these  occasions  would 
be  of  a  simple  woollen  material,  and  on  her  return  she  would  take 
it  off  and  have  it  given  to  some  poor  person.  We  hear  that  she 
frequently  travelled  about  with  her  husband,  and  that  she  was 
sorely  grieved  at  being  separated  from  him  when,  on  the  summons 
of  the  emperor,  he  went  to  Italy.     It  was  during  his  absence  there 


SECT,  ii]  Charity  and  Philanthropy.  301 

in  the  spring  of  1226  that  the  famine  occurred  during  which 
Elisabeth  distributed  food  with  so  lavish  a  hand  that  the  granaries 
of  the  castle  were  emptied  and  she  herself  was  severely  censured 
by  the  court  party,  which  had  no  sympathy  with  her  philanthropy. 
The  number  of  those  whom  she  fed  is  sometimes  quoted  as  three 
hundred,  sometimes  as  nine  hundred.  The  number  may  be  ex- 
aggerated, but  this  much  is  certain,  that  Elisabeth's  conduct 
attracted  attention  beyond  her  immediate  neighbourhood.  She 
had  also  opened  at  Eisenach  a  hospital  or  infirmary  for  twenty-four 
sick  people,  whom  she  partly  tended  herself  Writers  of  a  later 
date  tell  us  that  at  the  suggestion  of  Cardinal  Ugolino,  afterwards 
Pope  Gregory  IX,  St  Francis  of  Assisi,  hearing  of  Elisabeth's 
charitable  work,  sent  her  his  old  cloak  as  a  sign  of  appreciation ; 
but  the  story  needs  corroborative  evidence. 

When  Ludwig  returned  from  Italy  his  courtiers  were  loud  in 
their  complaints  of  his  spendthrift  wife,  but  he  listened  to  them 
with  good-humoured  indifference.  '  Let  her  continue  giving  to  the 
poor  if  God  so  wills  it,'  he  said,  *if  but  the  Wartburg  and  the 
Neuburg  remain  to  us.'  He  evidently  appreciated  and  shared  her 
philanthropic  zeal ;  for  he  founded  a  shelter  (xenodochium)  for 
the  poor,  the  weak  and  the  infirm  at  Reinhards.brunn,  assisted 
his  wife  m  lounding  a  hospital  at  Gotha,  and  encouraged  brothers 
of  the  nursing  order  of  St  Lazarus  to  settle  in  that  part  of  the 
countryV  The  interest  Elisabeth  felt  in  social  outcasts  evidently 
touched  a  sympathetic  chord  in  his  kindly  nature,  even  when  this 
interest  was  carried  to  an  extreme,  the  meaning  and  social  fitness 
of  which  it  is  not  easy  to  appreciate.  For  example,  the  story  is 
told  that  Elisabeth  when  staying  at  Neuburg  tended  a  leper  with 
her  own  hands  and  had  him  placed  on  her  husband's  bed,  an  action 
which  greatly  shocked  Sophie,  her  mother-in-law.  The  legend- 
writer  of  later  date, — not  satisfied  with  the  strong  impulsiveness  of 
feeling  which  alone  renders  such  an  action  possible  and  even  under 
certain  conditions  raises  it  above  criticism,  and  at  the  same  time 
unable  to  grasp  the  reasonableness  of  Sophie's  point  of  view, — tells 
us  that  the  leper  suddenly  assumed  the  form  of  Christ,  a  miracle 
by  which  her  doubts  were  confounded. 

In  1227  Ludwig,  in  answer  to  a  summons  from  the  emperor, 
took  the  cross  and  left  for  Italy,  never  to  return.  His  biographer 
says  that  having  received  the  cross  he  kept  it  in  his  pocket  instead 

^  Virchow,  R.,  'Zur  Geschichte  des  Aussatzes,  besonders  in  Deutschland,'  in  Archiv 
furpathol.  Anatomie,  vol.  i8,  article  2,  p.  313. 


302  Women-Saints  connected  with        [chap,  viii 

of  displaying  it  on  his  coat,  for  fear  of  distressing  his  wife,  who  was 
about  to  give  birth  to  their  third  child.  But  Elisabeth  came 
across  it  by  chance  and  was  bowed  down  by  grief  at  the  thought 
of  losing  him.  Together  with  others  she  started  him  and  his 
followers  on  their  journey,  and  travelled  on  with  him  yet  another 
day's  journey  to  delay  the  dreaded  moment  of  separation.  On 
her  return  to  the  Wartburg  she  devoted  herself  to  her  charitable 
work  with  increased  zeal,  and  her  inclination  to  self-denial  became 
more  accentuated  owing  to  contact  with  members  of  the  Franciscan 
order. 

The  attempt  of  the  Franciscan  friars  to  gain  a  foothold  in 
Germany  had  at  first  been  frustrated.  Ekbert,  bishop  of  Bamberg, 
Elisabeth's  uncle,  was  the  first  to  give  them  a  gracious  reception. 
From  Bamberg  they  spread  into  the  adjoining  districts,  and  Elisa- 
beth's favour  enabled  them  to  build  a  chapel  at  Eisenach.  Konrad, 
one  of  these  friars,  had  been  nominated  inquisitor  by  Pope  Inno- 
cent III,  and  coming  to  Eisenach  in  1226  soon  won  the  affections  of 
Ludwig  and  Elisabeth.  At  a  later  date  Konrad  of  Marburg  drew 
popular  hatred  on  himself  by  his  extreme  rigour  and  anti-heretical 
tf^aching,  and  suffered  a  violent  death  (1233).  But  in  earlier  years 
he  had  gamtu  «T<"ch  sympathy  by  preaching  the  views  of  St  Francis 
on  the  renunciation  of  worldly  goods  and  on  practising  unVinuted 
charity ^  When  Ludwig  departed  to  the  south,  he  entrusted 
Konrad  with  considerable  authority,  which  he  turned  to  account 
by  strengthening  the  ascendency  he  had  gained  over  Elisabeth. 
She  accepted  him  as  her  guide  in  all  things,  and  upheld  his  views 
that  to  levy  taxes  is  an  evil  and  that  each  person  should  earn  the 
food  he  requires  by  the  work  of  his  own  hands.  To  carry  this  into 
practice  she  refused  to  accept  any  tribute  and  tried  to  earn  money 
herself.  Within  a  short  time,  however,  came  the  news  that  Ludwig 
had  died  in  Italy  from  a  fever  before  setting  sail  for  the  East. 
The  news  came  to  Elisabeth  as  an  overpowering  shock.  '  Dead  ! ' 
she  exclaimed,  '  dead !  so  henceforth  to  me  is  the  world  and  all 
things  pleasant  it  contains.'  Trials  now  came  thick  upon  her. 
Her  husband's  brother,  Hermann,  with  a  usurper's  determination, 
seized  Ludwig's  possessions  and  expelled  Elisabeth,  whom  he  had 
always  looked  upon  with  disapproval.  She  was  forced  to  fly  from 
the  Wartburg  with  her  children,  and  in  the  depth  of  a  severe 
winter  she  paced  the  streets  of  Eisenach,  seeking  refuge  with  those 

*  Allgemeine  deutsche  Biographic,  article  '  Konrad  von  Marburg.' 


SECT,  ii]  Charity  and  Philanthropy.  303 

she  had  formerly  befriended,  but  no  one  dared  to  harbour  her. 

At  last  her  aunt  Mathilde,  abbess  of  Kizzingen,  sent  for  her  and 
for  her  two  faithful  waiting-women,  perhaps  for  the  children  also. 
Elisabeth  would  gladly  have  accepted  a  permanent  home  in  the 
convent,  but  her  uncle  Ekbert  interfered.  He  appointed  a  more 
suitable  dwelling-place — and  urged  upon  her  the  desirableness  of  a 
second  marriage.  Elisabeth  refused,  and  we  hardly  need  the 
assurance  of  the  legend-writer  that  it  was  because  she  had  taken 
the  vow  of  chastity,  considering  how  recently  her  husband  had 
died.  However  in  the  meantime  the  band  of  Ludwig's  followers 
returned  home  bringing  with  them  their  leader's  corpse,  and  a 
rapid  change  of  affairs  took  place  in  the  Wartburg.  Hermann  the 
usurper  was  forced  to  yield,  Elisabeth  was  reinstated  in  her  rights, 
and  was  fetched  back  to  the  castle  by  the  noble  Vargila.  But  her 
stay  there  was  not  of  long  duration.  Her  position  was  intolerable, 
and  she  felt  that  nothing  could  bring  her  solace  short  of  the 
renunciation  of  all  prerogatives  of  station  and  wealth.  She  would 
have  become  a  recluse  had  not  the  Franciscan  friar  Konrad 
prevented  this  excess  of  humility.  As  it  was  she  went  to  the 
Franciscan  chapel  at  Eisenach,  publicly  renounced  the  world  and 
its  claims,  and  removed  to  Marburg  in  Hessen  where  she  would  be 
near  Konrad  and  devote  herself  to  a  life  of  sacrifice.  She  refused 
to  live  in  the  castle,  and  with  the  two  waiting-women,  who 
throughout  remained  faithful  to  her,  dwelt  in  a  hut  on  the  hillside, 
devoting  all  her  property  to  constructing  a  hospital  in  the  town, 
where  she  spent  most  of  her  time  waiting  on  the  sick  and  infirm. 

Her  conduct  at  Marburg  filled  the  people  with  amazement  as 
it  had  done  at  Eisenach,  and  numbers  pressed  thither  to  see  her 
and  to  be  tended  by  her.  Considering  that  she  only  spent  about 
two  years  there,  the  impression  she  made  must  have  been  extra- 
ordinary, for  the  undying  memory  of  her  fame  continues  to  this 
day  among  the  people.  We  hear  a  good  deal  of  the  asceticism  she 
practised  under  Konrad's  guidance  during  these  last  years  of  her 
life ;  how  she  submitted  to  bodily  chastisement,  how  she  admitted 
that  her  own  children  were  not  dearer  to  her  than  those  of  others, 
how  she  expressed  regret  at  ever  having  been  married,  and  how  she 
suffered  her  faithful  waiting-women,  who  like  herself  had  adopted 
the  grey  dress  of  the  order  of  St  Francis,  to  be  removed  out  of  her 
sight.  She  died  in  1231  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-four.  In 
accordance  with  the  general  wish  she  was  canonized  within  a  few 
years  of  her  death  by  Pope  Gregory  IX  in   1235.     Immediately 


304  f^is  ^^(^  Philanthropy.       [chap,  viii 

after  her  death  ho.  constructed  on  the  plan  of  that  at  Mar- 

burg and  acknowledg.  St  Elisabeth  as  their  patron  saint  sprang 
up  in  many  cities.  With  all  the.se  facts  before  us  we  cannot  deny 
to  her  the  achievement  of  lasting  social  importance.  To  this  day 
hospitals  in  Germany  founded  both  under  Catholic  and  Protestant 
auspices  are  often  dedicated  to  her. 

The  loving  tribute  of  a  later  age  has  perpetuated  her  fame  in 
many  ways.  It  has  struck  medals  in  her  memory,  has  surmounted 
fountains  by  her  statue,  and  has  reared  to  her  memory  the  minster 
of  Marburg,  one  of  the  finest  monuments  of  German  mediaeval 
architecture.  In  spite  of  the  ravages  of  time  and  the  robberies 
perpetrated  during  warfare  her  sarcophagus  there  remains  a  won- 
drous achievement  of  the  art  of  the  goldsmith.  It  is  still  an  object 
of  pious  admiration  and  devout  pilgrimage,  both  to  the  faithful 
believer  and  to  the  appreciative  student  of  history  and  art. 

Our  age  has  witnessed  a  great  spread  of  philanthropic  interest 
and  charitable  zeal  among  women  of  the  educated  classes ;  a  wave 
of  feeling,  similar  to  that  which  swept  over  mankind  in  the  13th 
century,  bears  down  all  other  considerations  when  there  are  out- 
casts to  be  rescued  and  suffering  to  be  alleviated.  Nursing  the 
sick  has  become  a  distinct  and  a  respected  profession  ;  the  admin- 
istration of  charity,  an  education  in  itself,  is  absorbing  some  of  the 
best  energies  of  the  community,  and  women  who  seek  to  rescue 
suffering  humanity  are  at  last  enabled  to  do  so  by  the  guiding 
hand  of  science.  Certainly  circumstances  have  changed.  We  live 
no  longer  in  an  age  when  the  leper  need  display  his  sores  to  arouse 
pity,  nor  where  almsgiving  per  se  has  a  social  value.  And  yet  now 
as  then  the  success  of  charitable  work  depends  on  unselfish 
devotion  and  goodness  of  heart  in  the  individual,  and  it  is  in  this 
sense  that  the  charitable  work  of  the  women-saints  of  the  past 
retains  its  meaning.  It  is  not  by  imitating  their  deeds  that  a  later 
age  walks  worthily  in  their  footsteps  and  pays  them  the  tribute  of 
reverence,  but  by  accepting  and  furthering  the  spirit  in  which  these 
deeds  were  done. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

EARLY  MYSTIC  LITERATURE. 

'Die  tumpheit  behaget  ir  alleine  selbe, 
die  weisheit  kan  niemer  voile  leren.' 

{Mechthild  the  beguine.) 

§  I.     Mystic  writings  for  women  in  England. 

The  last  chapter,  in  dealing  with  some  of  the  women  who 
distinguished  themselves  in  the  cause  of  charity  and  philanthropy, 
has  suggested  in  what  direction  the  determining  feature  of  the 
religious  life  of  women  in  the  13th  century  must  be  sought. 
Outward  events,  stirring  political  changes,  and  awakening  con-l 
fidence  in  national  strength,  had  largely  increased  human  sym-' 
pathies  and  widened  the  mental  horizon.  In  regard  to  women, 
who  sought  their  vocation  outside  the  circle  of  home,  this  had 
led  on  the  one  hand  to  efforts  for  alleviating  human  want  and 
human  suffering,  on  the  other  to  a  stirring  of  the  imagination  in 
the  direction  of  speculation  on  the  value  and  the  help  afforded  by 
religious  belief. 

The  different  beauties  of  the  active  and  the  contemplative  life 
had  all  along  been  realized,  and  were  currently  represented  by 
the  figures  of  Mary  and  Martha,  types  of  divergent  tendencies 
which  were  attractive  in  different  ways.  The  busy  Martha  with 
her  charitable  devotion  was  the  ideal  of  many  women,  since 
rescuing  the  needy,  assisting  the  helpless,  and  ministering  to  the 
sick  constituted  the  vocation  of  women  in  a  special  sense.  But 
a  peculiar  charm  of  a  different  kind  hung  at  all  times  round  the 
thoughtful  and  studious  Mary,  who  set  the  claims  and  realities 
of  life  at  nought  compared  with  the  greater  reality  of  the  eternal 

E.  20 


3o6      Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England,     [chap,  ix 

life  hereafter.  At  the  beginning  of  the  13th  century,  when  the 
increase  in  religious  enthusiasm  deepened  yearnings  for  the  appre- 
hension of  the  divine,  men  in  their  individual  capacities  began  to 
seek  a  personal  and  closer  communion  with  God.  The  absorption 
by  things  spiritual  as  contrasted  with  things  material  took  a  new 
departure.  On  one  side  was  the  learned  thinker  who,  trained  in 
the  knowledge  of  the  schools,  sought  to  fathom  his  own  powers 
and  through  them  the  powers  of  mankind  so  as  to  transcend  the 
limits  of  sensible  existence,  and  who  gave  a  new  development  to 
mysticism  in  its  technical  sense.  On  the  other  side  was  the  large 
number  of  those  who,  no  longer  satisfied  with  the  mediation  of 
appointed  ministers  of  the  Church,  sought  a  personal  relation  to 
God,  the  effect  of  which  on  themselves  would  be  moral  regenera- 
tion. It  was  in  connection  with  these  that  a  number  of  writings 
were  composed  which  represent  mysticism  in  its  popular  sense : 
the  steps  by  which  the  divine  can  be  approached,  set  forth  under 
the  form  of  an  allegory. 

The  allegorical  mysticism  of  the  Middle  Ages  culminates  in 
Dante  (i 260-1 321).  It  is  well  to  bear  this  in  mind  in  the  presence 
of  minor  lights.  For  while  there  is  much  that  is  strangely  fascinat- 
ing in  the  13th  century  mystic,  and  touches  of  simple  good  faith  and 
of  honest  directness  of  purpose  abound,  the  conditions  under  which 
he  works  and  the  language  in  which  he  expresses  himself  cannot 
pass  without  criticism.  Cloistered  seclusion,  estrangement  from 
the  outside  world,  the  cult  of  asceticism,  and  insistence  on  the 
emotional  side  of  life,  if  judged  by  the  standard  of  to-day,  are  not 
conducive  to  mental  and  moral  welfare.  Moreover  a  later  age 
always  finds  it  difficult  to  understand  that  an  earlier  one  had 
its  own  notions  in  regard  to  the  fitness  and  beauty  of  the  sur- 
roundings it  made  for  itself  But  productive  genius  at  all  times 
freely  makes  for  itself  surroundings  that  cannot  be  called  absolutely 
healthy.  It  needs  a  certain  effort  to  realise  on  what  ground  the 
13th  century  mystic  stands.  But  when  once  we  are  able  to  follow 
him,  moving  in  his  world  is  like  walking  in  an  enchanted  garden, 
— enchanted  to  us,  but  real  to  him,  where  each  growing  sentiment 
and  each  budding  thought  has  its  peculiar  charm. 

It  is  the  same  with  regard  to  the  language  in  which  the  mystic 
expresses  himself  The  close  communion  he  seeks  with  the  God- 
head leads  him  to  use  terms  which  are  directly  adopted  from 
those  which  express  the  experiences  and  feelings  of  ordinary  life. 
There  is  in  him  no  shrinking  from  holding  God  and  the  saints 


SECT,  i]     Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England.         307 

as  personalities,  and  no  hesitation  in  expressing  desire  for  things 
spiritual  in  language  currently  used  for  expressing  the  promptings 
of  desire  for  things  of  this  world ;  for  he  is  a  realist  in  the  view  he 
takes  of  God  and  the  saints.  The  old  interpretation  of  the  Song 
of  Solomon  supplied  him  with  a  model  after  which  to  form  his 
conceptions,  and  by  a  further  adaptation  it  led  every  nun  to  greet 
her  bridegroom  in  Christ  and  every  monk  to  greet  his  bride  in  the 
Virgin.  Outside  the  convent  the  age  of  romance  had  brought  a 
new  element  into  the  relations  of  the  sexes  and  had  accepted  years 
of  service  and  continued  wooing  as  the  steps  which  led  to  the 
consummation  of  desire.  This  idea  transferred  to  spiritual  relations 
now  caused  the  mystic  to  dwell  on  the  steps  by  which  the  Divine 
can  be  approached.  The  poetry  of  romance  and  the  poetry  of 
mysticism  have  much  in  common  ;  both  appear  to  have  been  the 
outcome  of  the  same  sentiments  differently  applied  in  convent  and 
court.  And  as  the  language  of  real  life  made  it  possible  for  the 
mystic  to  formulate  his  feelings,  so  his  religious  aspirations  in 
their  turn  helped  to  spiritualise  the  relations  of  real  life. 

It  deserves  special  attention  that  some  of  the  writings  of  these 
early  mystics  are  in  the  vernacular  and  include  some  of  the  most 
beautiful  productions  in  Middle  English  and  in  early  German. 
Their  philological  interest  has  recently  led  to  their  publication, 
but  their  social  importance  is  equally  great.  For  in  them  we 
see  how  the  high  estimation  of  virgin  purity,  which  was  in  the 
fore-ground  of  the  moral  consciousness  of  the  age,  was  advo- 
cated by  the  leaders  of  thought  and  came  to  influence  the 
lives  of  individual  women,  and  how  the  asexual  existence  which 
hitherto  had  been  accepted  as  praiseworthy  was  extolled  as  virtue 
in  itself. 

Again  it  is  difificult  for  a  later  age  to  rate  this  conception  at 
its  just  value,  for  the  depreciation  of  the  relationship  of  sex  is  to 
the  modern  mind  not  only  misplaced  but  misleading.  It  is  only 
when  we  think  of  the  gain  this  depreciation  has  helped  to  secure 
in  self-control  and  self-respect  that  it  appears  at  all  reasonable. 

Of  the  early  productions  of  the  mystic  school,  which  are 
distinctly  moral  in  tendency  and  personal  in  tone,  none  offer 
greater  attractions  than  works  written  in  England  during  the  first 
half  of  the  1 3th  century  for  the  use  of  women  who  were  vowed  to 
religion.  All  these  writings,  some  of  which  will  here  be  con- 
sidered, are  in  the  vernacular,  and  owing  to  their  measured  grace 
and   tone   of  delicate  refinement  are  among  the  most  attractive 

20 — 2 


3o8      Mystic  Writings  for  Women  i7i  England,     [chap,  ix 

monuments  of  Middle  English.  They  are  chiefly  productions  of 
the  south  of  England  where  the  Saxon  element  had  been  preserved 
in  its  integrity.  Scholars  have  remarked  how  a  certain  roughness 
of  diction  and  a  heroic  element  opposed  to  softness  of  sentiment 
lingered  on  in  the  north  and  precluded  the  utterance  of  gentler 
strains,  while  the  south  used  a  language  of  combined  vigour  and 
grace  and  became  the  cradle  of  lyric  poetry.  Moreover  the  south 
at  this  period  cultivated  the  qualities  which  give  to  a  movement 
its  moral  stamina.  We  find  loyalty  to  the  king  coupled  with 
distaste  for  court  pleasures,  and  strong  religious  feeling  combined 
with  that  insistence  on  nationality  which  precluded  servile  sub- 
mission to  the  Pope.  The  south  was  also  in  connection  with  the 
best  intellectual  forces  of  the  age  as  represented  by  the  growing 
schools  at  Oxford,  and  Oxford  in  its  turn  was  in  direct  touch 
with  Paris,  which  remained  throughout  the  I2th  century  the  most 
important  centre  of  learning  and  education  in  Europe. 

A  few  words  must  be  given  to  this  connection  and  its  results, 
for  it  was  in  Paris  that  the  master-minds  of  Oxford  acquired  that 
enthusiasm  for  study  which,  applied  to  the  realities  of  life,  became 
zeal  for  reform  and  desire  for  moral  regeneration. 

Two  lines  of  study  are  apparent  in  Paris.  There  is  the  mys- 
ticism of  the  school  of  St  Victor,  represented  by  men  of  such 
mental  calibre  as  Hugo  (-f*  1141),  a  native  of  Germany,  and  his 
pupil  Richard  (f  11 73),  a  native  of  Scotland.  The  combined 
influence  of  these  two  men  on  the  English  mind  was  very  great, 
for  many  productions  of  the  English  mystical  school  were  inspired 
by  or  adapted  from  their  Latin  mystical  works.  The  writings 
of  Richard  translated  into  English  are  frequently  found  in  manu- 
scripts by  the  side  of  the  works  of  the  later  English  mystics, 
Richard  Rolle  (f  1349),  and  Walter  Hylton  (f  1395). 

On  the  other  hand  Paris  was  the  first  to  experience  the  vivifying 
influence  of  the  renewed  study  of  Greek  philosophy,  especially 
of  the  Aristotelian  corpus,  together  with  its  comments  by  Arabian 
philosophers,  especially  with  those  of  Averroes  (fl.  1150).  Jews 
from  the  south  of  France  had  introduced  these  writings,  which, 
repeatedly  condemned  but  as  often  advocated,  had  the  effect  on 
speculative  minds  of  the  introduction  of  a  new  science*.  Christian 
theology,  rising  to  the  occasion,  adopted  their  metaphysical  views, 
though  so  radically  divergent  from  its  own,  and  the  result  was  the 

'  Haur^au,  Histoire  de  la  philosophic  scolastique,  1850,  vol.  i,  pp.  319  ff. 


SECT,  i]     Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England.          309 

birth  of  scholastic  philosophy.  But  where  the  incompatibility  of 
the  union  was  felt  scholars  left  the  halls  of  discussion  and  turned 
their  energies  to  grappling  with  the  problems  of  active  life. 

In  Oxford  as  early  as  1133  Robert  Pullen,  who  had  studied  in 
Paris,  was  lecturing  on  week  days  and  preaching  on  Sundays  to 
the  people,  and  during  the  course  of  the  13th  century  a  number 
of  men  who  had  won  the  highest  distinctions  at  the  university, — 
such  as  Edmund  Rich  (-f  1240),  Adam  Marsh  (t  1257-8),  and 
Robert  Grosseteste  (afterwards  bishop  of  Lincoln,  -f*  1253),  followed 
in  his  footsteps.  Their  efforts  fell  in  with  those  of  the  newly 
founded  orders  of  friars,  and  they  greeted  as  brothers  in  the  spirit 
the  twelve  Dominicans  who  arrived  at  Oxford  in  1221  and  the 
Franciscans  who  came  in  1224.  These  maintained  an  utter  distrust 
of  learning,  which  led  to  much  argument  between  them  and  the 
students,  but  all  alike  were  zealous  in  working  for  the  welfare 
of  the  uneducated  classes. 

We  are  indebted  to  Thomas  de  Hales*  for  one  of  the  earliest 
and  most  beautiful  poems  written  for  the  use  of  a  nun.  He  was 
a  native  of  Hales  in  Gloucestershire,  studied  both  at  Oxford  and 
Paris,  and  was  under  the  influence  of  the  Franciscan  movement. 
Wadding  says  in  his  annals  of  the  Franciscan  order  that  '  Thomas 
de  Hales,  created  a  doctor  of  the  Sorbonne,  was  most  celebrated 
and  is  known  not  only  in  England,  but  also  in  France,  Germany, 
and  Italy.'  Thomas  was  on  friendly  terms  with  Adam  Marsh 
who  had  become  a  Franciscan  friar,  and  he  joined  this  order  him- 
self as  is  apparent  from  the  superscription  of  his  English  poem*. 
Various  facts  suggest  possibilities  as  to  his  career,  for  Hales  in 
Gloucestershire  was  the  home  also  of  Alexander  de  Hales  (-f-  1245) 
who  went  to  Paris  and  spent  his  energies  in  compiling  a  work 
on  scholasticism  which  secured  him  the  title  of  doctor  irrefragabilis. 
Moreover  in  1246  Hales  became  the  seat  of  a  Cistercian  monastery 
founded  by  Henry  IIL's  brother,  Richard,  earl  of  Cornwall,  who 
was  intimately  connected  with  the  circle  of  men  at  Oxford  and 
a  friend  and  patron  of  the  Franciscans.  It  is  possible  that  Thomas 
owed  encouragement  to  the  learned  Alexander  or  to  Earl  Richard. 
The  year  1250  is  accepted  as  the  date  when  he  flourished,  but 
his  English  poem  was  probably  written  somewhat  earlier.  This 
is  suggested  by  the  praise  bestowed  in  it  on  King  Henry  and  his 

*  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  article  '  Hales,  Thomas.* 

•*  'A  luve  ron,'  edit.  Morris,  Old  English  Miscellany,  p.  93,  for  the  Early  Engl. 
Text  See.  1872, 


310      Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England,     [chap,  ix 

wealth,  which  could  hardly  have  been  accorded  later  than  1240, 
for  it  was  then  that  the  king  began  to  alienate  his  people's 
affection  by  tampering  with  the  coinage  and  by  countenancing 
foreign  influences  at  court  and  in  the  Church,  in  compliance  with 
the  wishes  of  his  wife,  Eleanor  of  Provence. 

The  poem  of  Thomas  is  called  a  Luve  Ron,  that  is  a  love  song; 
it  consists  of  twenty-six  rhymed  stanzas  with  much  alliterative 
assonance.  Falling  in  with  the  tendencies  of  the  age  it  treats  of 
the  happiness  in  store  for  women  who  accept  Christ  as  their 
spouse.  Thomas  describes  how  he  came  to  advise  a  nun  in  her 
choice  of  a  lover.  As  the  translation  of  the  poem  into  modern 
English  rhyme  sacrifices  much  of  its  directness,  the  stanzas  which 
follow  have  been  rendered  as  prose. 

'  A  maid  of  Christ  bade  me  earnestly  to  make  her  a  love-song, 
That  she  might  best  learn  how  to  take  a  faithful  lover, 
Most  faithful  of  all,  and  best  suited  to  a  free  woman  ; 
I  will  not  refuse  her,  but  direct  her  as  best  I  can. 

Maiden,  thou  must  understand  that  this  world's  love  is  rare, 
In  many  ways  fickle,  worthless,  weak,  deceiving, 
Men  that  are  bold  here  pass  away  as  the  winds  blow; 
Under  the  earth  they  lie  cold,  fallen  away  as  meadow  grass. 

No  one  enters  life  who  is  certain  to  remain, 
For  here  man  has  many  sorrows,  neither  repose  nor  rest ; 
Towards  his  end  he  hastens,  abiding  but  a  short  time. 
Pain  and  death  hurry  him  away  when  most  he  clings  to  life. 

None  is  so  rich  nor  yet  so  free  but  he  soon  must  go ; 
Gold  and  silver,  pomp  and  ermine  give  him  no  surety; 
Swift  though  he  be,  he  cannot  escape,  nor  lengthen  his  life 

by  a  day. 
Thus,  thou  seest,  this  world  as  a  shadow  glides  past.' 

The  poet  then  enlarges  on  the  transitoriness  of  terrestrial  love. 
Where  are  Paris  and  Helen,  Amadis,  Tristram,  and  others  famous 
for  their  love }  '  They  have  glided  from  this  world  as  the  shaft  that 
has  left  the  bow-string.'  Wealth  such  as  King  Henry's,  beauty 
such  as  Absalom's  availed  them  nought.  But  the  poet  knows  of  a 
true  king  whose  love  abides. 

*  Ah  sweet,  if  thou  knewest  but  this  one's  virtues ! 
He  is  fair  and  bright,  of  glad  cheer,  mild  of  mood, 


SECT,  i]     Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England.  311 

Lovely  through  joy,  true  of  trust,  free  of  heart,  full  of  wisdom  ; 
Never  wouldst  thou  regret  it  if  once  thou  wert  given  into 
his  care. 

He  is  the  richest  man  in  the  land  as  far  as  men  have  the 

power  of  speech, 
All  is  given  into  his  hand,  east,  west,  north  and  south. 
Henry  the  king  holds  of  him  and  bows  to  him. 
Maiden,  to  thee  he  sends  the  message  that  he  would  be  beloved 

by  thee.' 

The  beauty  of  this  lover,  Christ,  is  thus  described,  and  the  fair- 
ness of  his  dwelling,  where  hate,  pride  and  envy  enter  not,  and 
where  all  rejoice  with  the  angels.  '  Are  not  those  in  a  good  way 
who  love  such  a  lord.-*'  the  poet  asks.  In  return  for  the  bliss 
Christ  grants.  He  asks  only  that  the  maiden  keep  bright  the  jewel 
of  maidenhood  which  He  has  entrusted  to  her.  The  poem  ends 
thus : 

'This  poem,  maiden,  I  send  thee  open  and  without  a  seal, 
Bidding  thee  unroll  it  and  learn  each  part  by  heart, 
Then  be  very  gracious  and  teach  it  faithfully  to  other  maidens. 
Who  knows  the  whole  right  well  will  be  comforted  by  it. 

If  ever  thou  sittest  lonely,  draw  forth  this  little  writing, 
Sing  it  with  sweet  tones,  and  do  as  I  bid  thee. 
He  who  has  sent  thee  a  greeting,  God  Almighty,  be  with  thee, 
And  receive  thee  in  his  bower  high  up  in  heaven  where  He  sits. 
And  may  he  have  good  ending,  who  has  written  this  little  song.' 

From  this  poem  we  turn  to  the  prose  works  written  at  this 
period  for  religious  women,  which  are  inspired  by  the  same  spirit 
of  earnest  devotion,  and  contain  thoughts  as  tender,  refined,  and 
gentle  as  the  poem  of  Thomas  de  Hales.  The  prose  treatise  known 
as  the  Ancren  Riwle^,  the  rule  for  recluses,  is  by  far  the  most  im- 
portant of  these  works,  and  from  the  present  point  of  view  deserves 
close  attention,  for  it  gives  a  direct  insight  into  the  moral  beauties 
of  the  religious  attitude,  and  enables  us  to  form  some  idea  of  the 
high  degree  of  culture  and  refinement  which  the  13th  century  mystic 
attained. 

A  few  words  of  criticism  on  the  purpose  of  the  book  and  on  its 
authorship  are  here  necessary.  We  have  before  us  a  work  written 
not  for  the  regular  inmates  of  a  nunnery,  not  for  nuns  who  lived 

1  Edit.  Morton  for  the  Camden  Soc.  1853. 


312      Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England,     [chap,  ix 

« 

under  the  rule  of  a  prioress  or  abbess,  but  for  religious  women  who, 
after  being  trained  in  a  nunnery,  left  it  to  continue  a  chaste  and 
secluded  life  outside.  The  Church  at  all  times  gave  most  honour 
to  those  monks  and  nuns  who  were  members  of  a  convent  and  lived 
under  the  rule  of  a  superior^ but  it  did  not  deny  the  credit  of  holy 
living,  or  the  appellations  monk  and  nun,  to  those  who  either  alone 
or  with  a  few  companions  devoted  themselves  to  religion,  and 
dwelt  sometimes  near  a  chapel  or  sanctuary,  sometimes  in  a  church- 
yard. From  the  earliest  times  the  people  had  held  such  male  and 
female  recluses  in  special  reverence,  and  the  Church,  yielding  to 
popular  feeling,  accepted  them  as  holy,  and  in  some  instances 
countenanced  their  being  ranked  as  saints. 

With  reference  to  the  distinction  made  from  the  earliest  period 
between  the  different  classes  of  those  who  professed  religion,  and 
their  respective  claims  to  holiness,  it  seems  well  to  quote  from  the 
introductory  chapter  of  the  rule  of  St  Benedict.  The  following 
passages  occur  in  all  the  prose  versions  of  the  rule  known  to  me, 
whether  written  for  the  use  of  men,  or  adapted  to  the  use  of  women. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  version  of  the  rule  of  St  Benedict  made  in 
the  lOth  or  nth  century,  which  is  based  on  the  version  written 
by  Aethelwold  about  the  year  961,  runs  thus':  'There  are  four 
kinds  of  monks,  niuneca ;  the  first  kind  are  those  in  monasteries, 
mynstermonna,  who  live  under  a  rule  or  an  abbot.  The  second 
kind  are  the  hermits,  ancrena,  that  is  settlers  in  the  wilds  {westen- 
setlend),  who,  not  in  the  first  fervour  of  religious  life,  but  after  pro- 
bation in  the  monastery,  have  learned  by  the  help  and  experience 
of  others  to  fight  against  the  devil,  and  going  forth  well  armed 
from  the  ranks  of  their  brethren  to  the  single-handed  combat  of 
the  wilderness,  are  able  without  the  support  of  others  to  fight  by 
the  strength  of  their  own  arm  and  the  help  of  God  against  the 
vices  of  the  flesh  and  their  evil  thoughts.  A  third  and  most  bane- 
ful kind  of  monk  are  the  self-appointed  ones,  sylfdemena,  who  have 
been  tried  by  no  rule  nor  by  the  experience  of  a  master,  as  gold  in 
the  furnace,  but  being  soft  as  lead  and  still  serving  the  world  in  their 
works,  are  known  by  their  tonsure  to  lie  to  God.  These,  in  twos 
or  threes  or  even  singly  without  a  shepherd,  not  enclosed  in  the 
Lord's  sheepfold,  follow  the  enjoyment  of  their  will  instead  of  a 
rule;  whatever  they  think  fit  or  choose  to  do  they  call  holy,  and 
what  they  like  not  they  condemn  as  unlawful.     There  is  a  fourth 

*  'Die  angelsachsischen   Prosabearbeitungen   der  Benedictinerregel,'  edit.   Schroer, 
1885  (in  Grein,  Bibliotkek  der  angels.  Prosa,  vol.  2),  p.  9. 


SECT,  i]     Mystic  Writings  f 01'  Women  in  England.  313 

kind  of  monk  called  wandering,  widscrithul,  who  spend  all  their 
life  wandering  about,  staying  in  different  cells  for  three  or  four  days 
at  a  time,  ever  roaming,  given  up  to  their  own  pleasures  and  the 
evils  of  gluttony,  and  worse  in  all  ways  than  the  self-appointed  ones.' 

In  the  English  versions  of  the  rule  for  women,  two  of  which, 
drafted  respectively  in  the  13th  and  in  the  15th  century,  are  extant, 
the  same  distinctions  are  drawn  between  different  kinds  of  nuns. 
The  13th  century  version  states*  that  there  are  the  nuns  living  in 
a  monastery  under  an  abbess,  inynecene, — a  kind  of  nun  called  ancre 
or  recluse, — the  self-appointed  nuns, — and  the  wandering  nuns 
who  are  declared  altogether  evil. 

The  difference  between  the  nun  and  the  ancre  is  made  clear 
by  these  passages.  The  ancre  or  recluse,  called  in  Latin  incbisa, 
is  the  nun  who  after  receiving  a  convent  education  lives  a  holy 
life  away  from  the  nunnery,  and  it  is  for  ancren  or  nuns  of  this 
kind  that  the  book  we  are  about  to  discuss  was  written.  For- 
tunately the  work  does  not  stand  alone  as  an  exhortation  to  women 
recluses.  We  are  in  possession  of  a  letter  from  Ailred  of  Rievaulx, 
written  between  1131  and  1161,  and  addressed  to  his  sister  (sic), 
which  was  written  for  a  similar  purpose  though  covering  very  much 
narrower  ground,  and  contains  advice  analogous  to  that  contained 
in  the  Ancren  Riwie.  The  original  is  in  Latin ^  and  in  this  form 
it  was  probably  known  to  the  author  of  the  Ancren  Riwle,  who 
refers  to  it,  saying  how  Ailred  had  already  insisted  that  purity 
of  life  can  be  maintained  only  by  observing  two  things,  a  certain 
hardness  of  bodily  life  and  a  careful  cultivation  of  moral  qualities. 

The  letter  of  Ailred  is  in  the  form  of  a  series  of  short  chapters 
and  is  divided  into  two  parts,  the  first  of  which  (c.  1-20)  treats  of 
the  outward  rule.  It  gives  advice  as  to  whom  the  inclusa  should 
converse  with,  and  whom  she  should  admit  into  her  presence ;  it 
tells  her  that  she  should  not  own  flocks,  which  leads  to  buying  and 
selling  ;  that  she  should  live  by  the  work  of  her  hands,  not  accepting 
as  a  gift  more  food  than  she  needs  for  herself  and  her  servants ; 
and  that  she  must  not  do  as  some  recluses  do,  who  busy  themselves 
with  '  teaching  girls  and  boys  and  turn  their  cells  into  a  school.' 
It  also  directs  her  about  divine  service,  and  about  her  food  and 
clothes. 

Having   so  far  dealt  with  outward   things  Ailred  (c.  21-46) 

*  Schroer,  JVinteiuy  Version  der  Regula  St  Benedicti,  1888,  p.  13. 
"  '  De  vita  eremetica'  (in  Migne,  Patrol.  Cursus  Cotnpl.,  vol.  32,  by  an  oversight  it 
is  included  among  the  works  of  St  Augustine),  p.  145. 


314       Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England,     [chap,  ix 

dwells  on  the  inward  life,  on  virginity,  on  the  dangers  of  temptation 
and  on  the  beauties  of  humility  and  love.  His  sentences  are  short 
and  are  illustrated  by  quotations  from  scripture,  by  reference 
to  the  holy  virgin  St  Agnes,  and  by  remarks  on  the  respective 
merits  of  Mary  and  Martha.  The  concluding  chapters  (c.  47-78) 
are  found  also  in  the  works  of  Anselm,  archbishop  of  Canterbury 
(•f- 1  I09)S  and  appear  to  have  been  borrowed  from  him. 

The  letter  of  Ailred  proves  that  the  conduct  of  the  recluse  was 
attracting  attention  in  the  12th  century.  Part  of  his  letter  was 
translated  into  Middle  English  by  one  Thomas  N.  in  the  13th 
century,  about  the  same  time  when  the  Ancren  Riwle  was  drawn 
up,  and  in  its  superscription  it  is  designated  as  the  '  information ' 
which  Ailred,  abbot  of  Rievaulx,  wrote  for  his  sister  the  inchcsa^. 
In  this  translation,  however,  the  opening  parts  of  the  work  which 
treat  of  the  outward  rule  (c.  1-20)  are  omitted,  evidently  because 
the  translation  was  intended  not  for  recluses  but  for  nuns,  to  whom 
directions  about  domestic  matters,  such  as  buying,  selling,  clothing 
and  eating,  would  not  apply. 

Further  evidence  can  be  adduced  to  show  that  women  recluses  in 
the  13th  century  occupied  public  attention  to  an  increasing  degree. 
Hitherto  they  had  been  left  to  dwell  where  they  pleased,  supported 
by  chance  gifts  from  the  people,  but  in  the  13th  century  it  became 
usual  to  leave  them  legacies.  A  mass  of  information  on  the  subject 
has  been  collected  by  Cutts^,  who  describes  how  women  recluses 
occupied  sometimes  a  range  of  cells,  sometimes  a  commodious 
house;  and  how  they  kept  one  or  more  servants  to  run  on  their 
errands.  In  1246  the  bishop  of  Chichester  issued  an  injunction 
which  shows  that  his  attention  had  been  drawn  to  these  women, 
and  that  in  his  mind  there  was  a  distinct  difference  between  them 
and  regular  nuns.  Under  the  heading  'On  recluses'  {incljisis)  it 
says*:  'Also  we  ordain  that  recluses  shall  not  receive  or  keep  any 
person  in  their  house  concerning  whom  sinister  suspicions  may 
arise.  Also  that  they  have  narrow  and  proper  windows;  and  we 
permit  them  to  have  secret  communication  with  those  persons  only 
whose  gravity  and  honesty  do  not  admit  of  suspicion.  Women 
recluses  should  not  be  entrusted  with  the  care  of  church  vestments  ; 

*  Anselm,    Opera    (in   Migne,   Patrol.    Cursus   Coinpl.,   vol.    158),    '  Meditationes  ' 
(nr  15-17),  pp.  786  ff. 

"  Edit.  Koelbing,  Englische  Studien,  vol.  7,  p.  304. 

'  Scents  and  characters  of  the  Middle  Ages^  1872,  pp.  93 — 151. 

*  Wilkins,  D.,  Concilia,  1737,  vol.  i,  p.  693. 


SECT,  i]     Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England.  315 

if  necessity  compels  it,  we  command  it  to  be  done  with  caution,  that 
he  who  carries  them  may  have  no  communication  with  the  recluses.' 

Taking  these  various  remarks  into  consideration  and  comparing 
them  with  what  is  said  in  the  Ancren  Riivle  itself,  the  author  of 
which  keeps  clear  in  his  mind  the  difference  between  recluse  and 
nun,  I  think  the  idea  that  this  work  was  originally  written  for  the 
Cistercian  nunnery  at  Tarent  in  Dorsetshire,  as  is  usually  alleged', 
will  be  abandoned.  This  assumption  is  based  on  the  superscription 
of  a  Latin  copy  of  the  book,  which  states  that  Simon  of  Ghent 
wrote  it  for  his  sisters  the  anchoresses  near  Tarent  (apud  Tarente). 
But  the  theory  that  the  book  was  originally  in  Latin,  and  that  it 
was  written  by  Simon,  archdeacon  at  Oxford  in  1284,  and  bishop 
of  Salisbury  between  1307-13 15,  has  long  been  abandoned.  The 
idea  that  it  was  written  for  the  nunnery  at  Tarent  may  also  be 
discarded,  for  Tarent  was  a  house  founded  by  Ralph  de  Kahaines 
in  the  time  of  Richard  I.  Therefore  at  the  time  when  Simon  lived, 
and  doubtless  also  at  the  time  when  the  book  was  written  (1225- 
1250),  the  settlement  must  have  consisted  of  more  than  three 
women  recluses  and  their  servants.  Women  recluses  might  be 
living  at  Tarent  as  elsewhere,  since  Simon  forwarded  the  book  to 
recluses  there,  but  they  would  not  be  members  of  the  Cistercian 
convent.  It  may  be  noticed  in  passing  that  the  other  Latin  copy 
of  the  rule,  which  was  destroyed  by  fire  in  173 1,  had  a  superscription 
saying  that  Robert  Thornton,  at  one  time  prior,  gave  it  to  the 
recluses  {clans tralibus)  of  Bardney,  which  is  a  Benedictine  abbey 
for  men  in  Lincolnshire. 

To  relinquish  the  idea  that  the  Ancren  Riwle  was  written 
originally  for  the  Cistercian  nunnery  at  Tarent  is  to  relinquish 
also  the  supposition  *  that  it  is  the  work  of  Richard  Poor,  dean  of 
Salisbury,  and  afterwards  bishop  successively  of  Chichester  and 
Durham  (■}-  1237),  for  the  theory  of  his  authorship  rests  only  on 
his  interest  in  this  nunnery,  to  which  he  added  a  chapel  and  where 
his  heart  lies  buried.  A  fuller  knowledge  of  the  English  writings 
of  the  time  may  reveal  by  whom  and  for  whom  the  book  was 
written.  The  dialect  proves  it  to  be  the  production  of  a  native  of 
the  south-western  part  of  England,  while  its  tone  reveals  a  con- 
nection with  Paris  and  Oxford.  The  writer  must  have  had  a  high 
degree  of  culture,  and  was  familiar  with  French,  with  court  poetry, 

*  Brink,  B.  ten.  Early  English  Literature^  trans.  Kennedy,  1883,  p.  505. 
'  First  advanced  by  Morton,  Ancren  Riwle,  Introd.  pp.  xii — xv;   it  is  supported 
neither  by  tradition  nor  by  documentary  evidence. 


;^i6      Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England,     [chap,  ix 

and  with  the  similes  so  frequent  in  the  stories  of  romance.  He 
had  a  sound  theological  training,  with  a  knowledge  of  the  works 
of  Jerome,  Augustine,  Gregory,  Anselm,  and  notably  of  Bernard, 
from  whom  he  frequently  quotes.  He  had  strong  religious  sym- 
pathies, but  imperfect  sympathy  with  the  established  church, — 
these  latter  facts  tend  to  prove  that  he  was  in  some  measure  con- 
nected with  the  friars.  His  references  to  '  our  lay  brethren,'  and 
his  description  of  the  *  hours '  as  said  by  them,  may  serve  as  a  clue 
to  his  identification'. 

The  Aticren  Riwle  or  rule  for  recluses,  fills  a  moderately  sized 
volume  and  is  extant  in  eight  manuscript  copies,  of  which  five  are 
.  in  English,  that  is  four  in  the  dialect  of  the  south  and  one  in  that 
^  of  the  north, — two  in  Latin,  and  one  in  French.  The  work  is 
divided  into  eight  parts,  a  short  analysis  of  which  will  give  an  idea 
of  the  importance  of  the  book  and  of  the  wide  range  of  its  author's 
sympathies.  As  he  says  himself  the  book  was  written  for  three 
sisters  who  in  the  bloom  of  their  youth  had  forsaken  the  world  to 
become  anchoresses,  but  he  expects  it  will  be  read  by  others.  He 
assumes  that  his  readers  know  Latin  and  French  as  well  as  English, 
a  fact  which  in  itself  proves  that  like  the  ancren  referred  to  above, 
the  ancren  here  addressed  had  received  their  education  in  a  nunnery. 

In  the  short  introduction  which  precedes  the  work  the  author 
says  he  will  accede  to  the  request  of  the  women  who  have  impor- 
tuned him  for  a  rule. 

'  Do  you  now  ask  what  rule  you  recluses  should  observe  1 '  he 
asks  (p.  5)'''.  'You  should  always  keep  the  inward  rule  well  with 
all  your  might  and  strength  for  its  own  sake.  The  inward  rule 
is  ever  alike ;  the  outward  varies....  No  recluse  by  my  advice  shall 
make  profession,  that  is  promise  to  keep  anything  commanded, 
save  three  things,  obedience,  chastity  and  stedfastness ;  she  shall 
not  change  her  home  save  by  need,  such  as  compulsion,  fear  of 
death  or  obedience  to  her  bishop,  or  her  master  (hcrre).  For  she 
who  undertakes  anything  and  promises  to  do  it  at  God's  command, 
is  bound  to  it  and  sins  mortally  in  breaking  her  promise  by  will  or 
wish.  If  she  has  not  promised  she  may  do  it  and  leave  it  off  as 
she  will,  as  of  meat  and  drink,  abstaining  from  flesh  and  fish  and 
other  like  things  relating  to  dress,  rest,  hours  and  prayers.  Let 
her  say  as   many  of  these  as  she  pleases,  and   in  what  way  she 

^  Dalgairas,  Introd.  to  Hylton,  Scale  of  Perfection,  1870,  thinks  it  possible  that  the 
author  was  a  Dominican  friar. 

-  Comp.  throughout  Ancren  Rhole,  edit.  Morton  for  the  Camden  Soc.  1853. 


SECT,  i]     Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England.  317 

pleases.  These  and  other  such  things  are  all  in  our  free  choice 
to  do  or  let  alone  whenever  we  choose,  unless  they  are  promised. 
But  charity,  that  is  love,  and  meekness  and  patience,  truthfulness 
and  keeping  the  ten  ancient  commandments,  confession  and  peni- 
tence, these  and  such  as  these,  some  of  which  are  of  the  old  law, 
some  of  the  new,  are  not  of  man's  invention.' 

He  then  goes  on  to  tell  them  that  if  asked  to  what  order  they 
belong,  they  must  say,  to  the  order  of  St  James,  who  was  God's 
apostle  (and  who  wrote  a  canonical  epistle).  He  dilates  upon 
early  Christian  hermits  and  recluses,  saying  that  they  were  of  the 
order  of  St  James,  for  in  his  mind  St  James  the  apostle  is  identical 
with  St  James  the  hermit. 

He  then  describes  the  contents  of  his  work,  saying  the  first  part 
only  shall  treat  of  the  outward  rule,  all  the  others  of  the  inward. 

The  first  part  accordingly  (pp.  15-48)  is  on  religious  service, 
and  in  it  the  women  are  advised  what  prayers  they  shall  say  and 
at  what  time  of  the  day :  '  Let  everyone  say  her  hours  as  she  has 
written  them,'  and  as  a  guide  take  what  '  hours '  are  kept  by  '  our 
lay  brethren.'  The  sick,  the  sorrowful,  prisoners,  and  Christians  who 
are  among  the  heathen  shall  be  called  to  mind.  The  tone  which 
the  author  occasionally  takes  has  the  full  personal  ring  of  13th 
century  mysticism,  (p.  35)  'After  the  kiss  of  peace  in  the  mass, 
when  the  priest  consecrates,  forget  there  all  the  world,  and  there 
be  entirely  out  of  the  body,  there  in  glowing  love  embrace  your 
beloved  spouse  (leofman)  Christ,  who  is  come  down  from  heaven 
into  the  bower  of  your  breast,  and  hold  him  fast  till  he  have  granted 
all  that  you  wish.'  Several  prayers  follow,  one  in  Latin  on  the 
adoration  of  the  cross,  and  several  in  English  which  are  addressed 
to  the  sweet  lady  St  Mary. 

Outward  observances  being  disposed  of,  the  author  then  advises 
the  women  how  to  keep  guard  over  the  heart,  'wherein  is  order, 
religion  and  the  life  of  the  soul,'  against  the  temptations  of  the  five 
senses  (pp.  48-1 17).  The  different  senses  and  the  dangers  attending 
them  are  discussed,  sometimes  casually,  sometimes  in  a  systematic 
manner.  In  connection  with  Sight  we  get  interesting  details  on 
the  arrangement  of  the  building  in  which  the  recluses  dwelt.  Its 
windows  are  hung  with  black  cloth  on  which  is  a  white  cross.  The 
black  cloth  is  impervious  to  the  wind  and  difficult  to  see  through  ; 
the  white  of  the  cross  is  more  transparent  and  emblematic  of  purity, 
by  the  help  of  which  it  becomes  safe  to  look  abroad.  Looking 
abroad,  however,  is  generally  attended  with  danger.    '  I  write  more 


3i8       Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England,     [chap,  ix 

particularly  for  others,'  the  author  here  remarks,  '  nothing  of  the 
kind  touches  you,  my  dear  sisters,  for  you  have  not  the  name,  nor 
shall  you  have  it  by  the  grace  of  God,  of  staring  recluses,  whose 
profession  is  unrecognisable  through  their  unseemly  conduct,  as 
is  the  case  with  some,  alas  ! ' 

Speech  too  should  be  wisely  controlled,  talking  out  of  church 
windows  should  be  avoided,  and  conversation  generally  should 
be  indulged  in  only  through  the  '  house '  window  and  the  parlour 
window.  '  Silence  always  at  meals,'  says  the  author,  and  quotes 
from  Seneca  and  Solomon  on  the  evil  effects  of  idle  prattling. 
Hearing,  that  is  listening  too  readily,  also  has  its  dangers,  for  it 
leads  to  spreading  untruths.  '  She  who  moves  her  tongue  in  lying 
makes  it  a  cradle  to  the  devil's  child,  and  rocketh  it  diligently 
as  a  nurse.'  In  passages  which  show  a  keen  insight  into  human 
nature  and  which  are  dictated  by  a  wise  and  kindly  spirit,  the 
author  among  other  examples  describes  how  anyone  seeking  the 
recluse's  sympathy  for  bad  ends  would  approach  her  in  plaintive 
strains,  deploring  that  he  is  drawn  to  her,  and  assuring  her  that 
he  desires  nothing  but  her  forgiveness,  and  thus  by  engrossing  her 
thoughts  more  and  more,  would  perturb  her  mind  by  rousing  her 
personal  sympathy. 

The  sense  of  Smell  also  has  its  dangers ;  but  in  regard  to  the 
fifth  sense,  Feeling,  there  is  most  need,  the  author  thinks,  of  comfort, 
'  for  in  it  the  pain  is  greatest,  and  the  pleasure  also  if  it  so  happen.' 
The  sufferings  of  Christ  are  analysed  and  it  is  shown  how  he 
suffered  in  all  his  senses  but  especially  in  feeling. 

The  next  part  of  the  work  (pp.  118-1 77)  contains  moral 
lessons  and  examples.  The  peevish  recluse  finds  her  counterpart 
in  the  pelican  which  kills  her  own  young  ones  when  they  molest 
her.  Like  the  bird,  the  recluse  in  anger  kills  her  works,  then 
repents  and  makes  great  moan.  There  are  some  fine  passages 
on  the  effects  of  anger  which  is  likened  to  a  .sorceress  (uorschup- 
pild)  and  transforms  the  recluse,  Christ's  spouse,  into  a  she-wolf 
(wulvene).  That  women  devotees  often  behaved  very  differently 
from  what  they  ought  is  evident  from  these  passages,  for  false 
recluses  are  likened  unto  foxes  who  live  in  holes  and  are  thievish, 
ravenous  and  yelping,  but  'the  true  recluses  are  indeed  birds  of 
heaven,  that  fly  aloft  and  sit  on  the  green  boughs  singing  merrily ; 
that  is,  they  meditate,  enraptured,  upon  the  blessedness  of  heaven 
that  never  fadeth  but  is  ever  green,  singing  right  merrily;  that 
is  in  such  meditation   they  rest  in  peace  and  have  gladness  of 


SECT,  i]     Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England.  319 

heart  as  those  who  sing.'  In  one  passage,  where  the  flight  of 
birds  is  described,  it  says,  'the  wings  that  bear  the  recluses 
upwards  are  good  principles,  which  they  must  move  unto  good 
works  as  a  bird  that  would  fly  moveth  its  wings.'  From  dumb 
animals  wisdom  and  knowledge  can  be  learnt,  says  the  author, 
giving  as  an  example  the  eagle,  which  deposits  in  his  nest  a 
precious  stone  called  agate,  which  wards  off"  harm,  and  thus  Jesus 
Christ  should  be  cherished  to  keep  off"  evil.  In  another  passage 
the  author  plays  on  the  words  ancrc  and  anchor,  saying  that  the 
ancre  or  recluse  is  anchored  to  the  Church  as  the  anchor  to  the 
ship,  that  storms  may  not  overwhelm  it.  The  reasons  for 
solitary  life  are  then  enumerated  under  separate  headings,  and 
passages  from  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament  are  freely  quoted 
in  illustration  and  corroboration  of  the  statements  made. 

The  fourth  part  of  the  book  (pp.  178-298)  dilates  on  temptation, 
in  regard  to  which  the  writer  holds  that  greater  holiness  brings 
increased  difficulties.  '  As  the  hill  of  holy  and  pious  life  is  greater 
and  higher,  so  the  fiend's  puff's  which  are  the  winds  of  temptation 
are  stronger  thereon  and  more  frequent'  Patience  and  meekness 
are  chiefly  required  to  resist  the  troubles  of  sickness,  and  wisdom 
and  spiritual  strength  must  resist  grief  of  heart,  anger  and  wrath. 
Again  the  recluses  for  whom  the  book  is  written  are  assured  that 
they  have  least  need  to  be  fortified  against  temptations  and  trials, 
sickness  only  excepted. 

The  imagery  in  which  the  author  goes  on  to  describe  the  seven 
chief  sins  is  graphic  and  powerful.  They  are  personified  as  the 
Lion  of  Pride,  the  Serpent  of  Envy,  the  Unicorn  of  Wrath,  the 
Bear  of  Sloth,  the  Fox  of  Covetousness,  the  Swine  of  Gluttony,  and 
the  Scorpion  of  Lust,  each  with  its  offspring.  Of  the  Scorpion's 
progeny  we  are  told  that  '  it  doth  not  become  a  modest  mouth 
to  name  the  name  of  some  of  them,'  while  the  Scorpion  itself 
is  a  kind  of  worm,  that  has  a  face  somewhat  like  that  of  a  woman, 
but  its  hinder  parts  are  those  of  a  serpent.  It  puts  on  a  pleasant 
countenance  and  fawns  upon  you  with  its  head  but  stings  with 
its  tail.  Again,  the  sins  are  likened  to  seven  hags  (heggen),  to 
whom  men  who  serve  in  the  devil's  court  are  married.  The  de- 
scription of  these  men  as  jugglers,  jesters,  ash-gatherers  and  devil's 
purveyors,  gives  interesting  details  on  the  characters  in  real  life 
by  which  they  were  suggested.  Of  the  comforting  thoughts 
which  the  recluse  is  to  dwell  upon  the  following  give  a  fine 
example. 


320       Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England,     [chap,  ix 

'  The  sixth  comfort  is  that  our  Lord,  when  he  suffereth  us  to 
be  tempted,  playeth  with  us  as  the  mother  with  her  young  darh'ng : 
she  fleeth  from  him  and  hides  herself,  and  lets  him  sit  alone,  look 
anxiously  around  calling  Dame,  dame  !  and  weep  awhile,  and  then 
she  leapeth  forth  laughing  with  outspread  arms  and  embraceth 
and  kisseth  him  and  wipeth  his  eyes.  Just  so  our  Lord  leaveth 
us  sometimes  alone,  and  withdraweth  his  grace  and  comfort  and 
support,  so  that  we  find  no  sweetness  in  any  good  we  do,  nor 
satisfaction  of  heart ;  and  yet  all  the  while  our  dear  father  loveth 
us  none  the  less,  but  doeth  it  for  the  great  love  he  hath  for  us.' 

In  times  of  tribulation  the  recluse  is  directed  to  meditate  on 
God  and  His  works,  on  the  Virgin  and  the  saints,  and  the  tempta- 
tions they  withstood,  such  as  are  related  in  an  English  book  on 
St  Margaret.  Again  and  again  the  writer,  who  does  not  tire  of 
this  part  of  his  theme,  dwells  on  the  various  sins  separately,  and 
on  the  best  way  of  meeting  them. 

The  next  part  of  the  book  (pp.  298-348)  is  devoted  to  an 
analysis  of  the  use  and  the  manner  of  confession,  the  theory  and 
practice  of  which  in  the  Church  of  Rome  are  ancient,  but  which 
the  religious  enthusiasm  of  the  Middle  Ages  elaborated  into  a  hard 
and  fast  system.  That  self-introspection  and  analysis  are  helpful 
in  developing  and  strengthening  conscientiousness  no  one  will 
deny,  but  the  habitual  disclosure  of  one's  thoughts  and  criticisms 
of  self  to  another,  though  it  may  still  afford  support  to  some,  has 
ceased  to  appear  generally  advisable.  Granted  that  the  practice  in 
the  past  served  a  good  purpose,  the  advice  given  in  this  book  for 
recluses  appears  dictated  by  a  strong  sense  of  fitness  and  modera- 
tion. The  author  considers  confession  powerful  in  three  direc- 
tions :  it  '  confoundeth  the  devil,'  it  gives  us  back  all  the  good  we 
have  lost,  and  it  '  maketh  us  children  of  God.'  Under  these  headings 
there  is  a  long  and  systematic  elaboration  of  the  sixteen  ways  in 
which  confession  should  be  made,  viz.  it  should  be  accusatory, 
bitter,  complete,  candid,  and  it  should  be  made  often,  and  speedily, 
humbly  and  hopefully,  etc.  Stories  out  of  the  Bible  and  parables 
of  a  later  age  are  introduced  in  corroboration  of  each  injunction. 
Under  the  heading  of  candid  confession  the  words  to  be  used  in 
self-accusation  are  interesting,  because  it  is  obvious  that  a  higher 
moral  standard  is  claimed  from  women  than  from  men.  The 
person  who  has  committed  sin  is  to  address  the  father  confessor 
(schrift  feder)  in  these  words :  '  I  am  a  woman,  and  ought  by  right 
to  have  been  more  modest  than  to  speak  as  I   have  spoken,  or 


SECT.  I J     Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England.  321 

to  do  as  I  have  done ;  and  therefore  my  sin  is  greater  than  if  a  man 
had  done  it,  for  it  became  me  worse.'  From  the  Gospels  and  the 
Fathers  the  writer  adduces  strings  of  wise  sayings  which  bear  on 
the  points  he  would  impress  upon  his  readers.  This  fifth  part  of 
the  book,  he  says,  belongs  to  all  men  alike,  not  to  recluses  in  par- 
ticular, and  he  ends  by  admonishing  the  sisters  in  this  way  :  '  Take 
to  your  profit  this  short  and  concluding  summary  of  all  mentioned 
and  known  sins,  as  of  pride,  ambition,  presumption,  envy,  wrath, 
sloth,  carelessness,  idle  words,  immoral  thoughts,  any  idle  hearing, 
any  false  joy  or  heavy  mourning,  hypocrisy,  the  taking  too  much 
or  too  little  meat  or  drink,  grumbling,  being  of  morose  counte- 
nance, breaking  silence,  sitting  too  long  at  the  parlour  window, 
saying  hours  badly  or  without  attention  of  heart  or  at  a  wrong  time, 
any  false  word  or  oath,  play,  scornful  laughter,  wasting  crumbs, 
or  spilling  ale  or  letting  things  grow  mouldy  or  rusty  or  rotten  ; 
leaving  clothes  not  sewed,  wet  with  rain,  or  unwashed  ;  breaking 
a  cup  or  a  dish,  or  carelessly  looking  after  any  thing  which  we 
own  and  should  take  care  of;  or  cutting  or  damaging  through 
heedlessness.'  These  in  the  writer's  eyes  are  the  likely  sins  among 
the  recluses  whom  he  addresses  and  against  which  he  warns  them 
to  be  on  their  guard.  If  they  have  committed  them  they  must 
forthwith  confess,  but  trivial  faults  should  be  wiped  away  by 
prayers  said  before  the  altar  the  moment  the  recluse  is  conscious 
of  them. 

Passing  from  the  subject  of  Confession  to  that  of  Penance 
(pp.  348-383)  the  author  as  he  says  borrows  much  from  the 
Sentences  of  Bernard,  the  general  drift  of  which  is  in  favour  of 
self-discipline  and  implies  mortification  of  the  flesh.  In  this 
context  comes  the  reference  to  Ailred's  (Seint  Aldret's)  advice  to 
his  sister,  who  also  was  directed  to  give  the  body  pain  by  fasting, 
watching,  and  discipline,  by  having  coarse  garments  and  a  hard 
bed,  and  by  bearing  evil  and  working  hard.  But  here  again  the 
recluses  addressed  are  told  that  in  the  eyes  of  their  adviser  they 
incline  rather  to  over-much  self-denial  than  to  over-much  self- 
indulgence. 

The  seventh  part  of  the  book  (pp.  384-410)  treats  of  the 
pure  heart  or  of  love  and  is  attractive  in  many  ways.  The  sen- 
timents developed  and  the  pictures  described  give  one  the  highest 
opinion  of  the  feelings  of  which  the  age  was  capable,  as  reflected 
in  this  writer's  innermost  being.  The  beautiful  parable  where 
Christ  woos  the  soul  in  guise  of  a  king  is  well  worth  repeating, 
E.  21 


322       Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England,     [chap,  ix 

for  there  we  see  the  courtly  attitude,  which  the  age  of  romance  had 
developed  in  real  life,  receiving  a  spiritual  adaptation. 

*  There  was  a  lady  who  was  besieged  by  her  foes  within  an 
earthly  castle,  and  her  land  was  all  destroyed  and  herself  quite 
poor.  The  love  of  a  powerful  king  was  however  fixed  upon  her 
with  such  boundless  affection  that  to  solicit  her  love  he  sent  his 
messengers  one  after  the  other,  and  often  many  together,  and 
sent  her  trinkets  both  many  and  fair,  and  supplies  of  victuals  and 
help  of  his  high  retinue  to  hold  her  castle.  She  received  them 
all  as  a  careless  creature  with  so  hard  a  heart  that  he  could  never 
get  nearer  to  her  love.  What  would'st  thou  more  }  He  came 
himself  at  last  and  showed  her  his  fair  face,  since  he  was  of  all 
men  the  fairest  to  behold,  and  spoke  so  sweetly  and  with  such 
gentle  words  that  they  might  have  raised  the  dead  from  death 
to  life.  And  he  wrought  many  wonders,  and  did  many  wondrous 
deeds  before  her  eyes,  and  showed  her  his  power  and  told  her 
of  his  kingdom,  and  offered  to  make  her  queen  of  all  that  he 
owned.  But  all  availed  him  nought.  Was  not  this  surprising 
mockery.?  For  she  was  not  worthy  to  have  been  his  servant. 
But  owing  to  his  goodness  love  so  mastered  him  that  he  said  at 
last :  "  Lady,  thou  art  attacked,  and  thine  enemies  are  so  strong 
that  thou  canst  not  without  my  help  escape  their  hands  that  thou 
mayest  not  be  put  to  a  shameful  death.  I  am  prompted  by  love 
of  thee  to  undertake  this  fight,  and  rid  thee  of  those  that  seek 
thy  death.  I  know  well  that  1  shall  receive  a  mortal  wound,  but 
I  will  do  it  gladly  to  win  thy  heart.  Now  I  beseech  thee  for  the 
love  I  bear  thee  that  thou  love  me  at  least  after  my  death,  since 
thou  would'st  not  in  my  lifetime."  Thus  did  the  king.  He  freed 
her  of  her  enemies  and  was  himself  wounded  and  slain  in  the  end. 
Through  a  miracle  he  arose  from  death  to  life.  Would  not  that 
same  lady  be  of  an  evil  kind  if  she  did  not  love  him  above  all 
things  after  this?' 

'The  king  is  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  who  in  this  wise 
wooed  our  Soul  which  the  devils  had  beset.  And  He  as  a  noble 
wooer,  after  many  messengers  and  many  good  deeds,  came  to 
prove  His  love  and  showed  through  knighthood  that  He  was  worthy 
of  love,  as  sometime  knights  were  wont  to  do.  He  entered  in  a 
tournament,  and  as  a  bold  knight  had  His  shield  pierced  every- 
where in  the  fight  for  His  lady's  love,' 

The  likeness  between  the  shield  and  Christ's  body  is  further 
dwelt  upon.     The  image  of  His  crucified  form  hangs  suspended 


SECT,  i]     Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England.         323 

in  church,  as  'after  the  death  of  a  valiant  knight,  men  hang  up 
his  shield  high  in  church  to  his  memory.* 

There  is  more  on  the  theme  of  love  that  is  very  fine.  The 
ideas  generated  by  knighthood  are  obviously  present  to  the  mind 
of  the  writer. 

Interesting  also  is  his  classification  of  the  different  kinds  of 
love.  The  love  of  good  friends  (gode  iueren)  is  first  mentioned, 
but  higher  than  that  is  the  love  between  man  and  woman,  and 
even  higher  still  that  between  mother  and  child,  for  the  mother 
to  cure  her  child  of  disease  is  ready  to  make  a  bath  of  her  blood 
for  it.  Higher  again  is  the  love  of  the  body  to  the  soul,  but 
the  love  which  Christ  bears  to  His  dear  spouse,  the  soul,  surpasses 
them  all. 

'  Thy  love,'  says  our  Lord,  '  is  either  to  be  freely  given  or  it 
is  to  be  sold,  or  it  is  to  be  stolen  and  to  be  taken  with  force.  If 
it  is  to  be  given,  where  could'st  thou  bestow  it  better  than  on  me } 
Am  I  not  of  all  the  fairest }  Am  I  not  the  richest  king }  Am  I 
not  of  noblest  birth  ?  Am  I  not  in  wealth  the  wisest  .<*  Am  I 
not  the  most  courteous }  Am  I  not  the  most  liberal  of  men } 
For  so  it  is  said  of  a  liberal  man  that  he  can  withhold  nothing ; 
that  his  hands  are  perforated  as  mine  are.  Am  I  not  of  all  the 
sweetest  and  most  gentle.^  Thus  in  me  all  reasons  thou  may'st 
find  for  bestowing  thy  love,  if  thou  lovest  chaste  purity  ;  for  no 
one  can  love  me  save  she  hold  by  that. — But  if  thy  love  is  not  to 
be  given  but  is  to  be  sold,  say  at  what  price  ;  either  for  other  love 
or  for  something  else  .-*  Love  is  well  sold  for  love,  and  so  love 
should  be  sold  and  for  nought  else.  If  thy  love  is  thus  to  be  sold, 
I  have  bought  it  with  love  surpassing  all  other.  For  of  the  four 
kinds  of  love,  I  have  shown  thee  the  best  of  them  all.  And  if 
thou  sayest  that  thou  wilt  not  let  it  go  cheaply  and  askest  for 
more,  name  what  it  shall  be.  Set  a  price  on  thy  love.  Thou 
canst  not  name  so  much  but  I  will  give  thee  for  thy  love  much 
more.  Wouldest  thou  have  castles  and  kingdoms  "i  Wouldest 
thou  govern  the  world  }  I  am  purposed  to  do  better ;  I  am 
purposed  to  make  thee  withal  queen  of  heaven.  Thou  shalt  be 
sevenfold  brighter  than  the  sun  ;  no  evil  shall  harm  thee,  no 
creature  shall  vex  thee,  no  joy  shall  be  wanting  to  thee ;  thy  will 
shall  be  done  in  heaven  and  on  earth  ;  yea,  even  in  hell.' 

And  in  a  further  development  of  this  idea  all  imaginable  good, 
Croesus'  wealth,  Absalom's  beauty,  Asahel's  swiftness,  Samson's 
strength,  are  held  out  as  a  reward  to  the  soul  who  responds  to 

21 — 2 


324      Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England,     [chap,  ix 

the  wooing  of  Christ  and  gives  herself  entirely  into  His  keeping. 
'  This  love/  says  the  author  in  conclusion,  *  is  the  rule  which  governs 
the  heart.' 

The  last  part  of  the  book  (pp.  410-431)  appears  to  be  appended 
as  an  after-thought,  as  it  treats  once  more  of  domestic  matters.  '  I 
said  before  at  the  beginning,'  says  the  author,  '  that  ye  ought  not, 
like  unwise  people,  to  promise  to  keep  any  of  the  outward  rules. 
I  say  the  same  still,  nor  do  I  write  them  save  for  you  alone.  I 
say  this  in  order  that  recluses  may  not  say  that  I  by  my  authority 
make  new  rules  for  them.  Nor  do  I  command  that  they  shall 
hold  them,  and  you  may  change  them  whenever  you  will  for  better 
ones.  Of  things  that  have  been  in  use  before  it  matters  little.' 
Practical  directions  follow  which  throw  a  further  light  on  the 
position  and  conduct  of  the  recluse,  and  which  in  many  particulars 
are  curiously  like  the  injunctions  which  form  the  opening  part 
of  the  letter  of  Ailred.  The  recluses  shall  partake  of  Communion 
on  fifteen  days  of  the  year ;  they  shall  eat  twice  a  day  between 
Easter  and  Roodmass  (September  14),  during  the  other  half  year 
they  shall  fast  save  on  Sundays ;  and  they  shall  not  eat  flesh  or 
lard  except  in  sickness.  '  There  are  recluses,'  says  the  writer,  '  who 
have  meals  with  their  friends  outside.  That  is  too  much  friend- 
ship ;  for  all  orders  it  is  unsuitable,  but  chiefly  for  the  order  of 
recluses  who  are  dead  to  the  world.'  A  recluse  shall  not  be  liberal 
of  other  men's  alms,  for  housewifery  is  Martha's  part  and  not  hers. 
'  Martha's  ofiice  is  to  feed  and  clothe  poor  men  as  the  mistress 
of  a  house ;  Mary  ought  not  to  intermeddle  in  it,  and  if  any  one 
blame  her,  God  Himself  the  supreme  defends  her  for  it,  as  holy 
writ  bears  witness.  On  the  other  hand  a  recluse  ought  only  to 
take  sparingly  that  which  is  necessary  for  her.  Whereof,  then, 
may  she  make  herself  liberal?  She  must  live  upon  alms  as 
frugally  as  ever  she  can,  and  not  gather  that  she  may  give  it 
away  afterwards.  She  is  not  a  housewife  but  a  Church  ancre. 
If  she  can  spare  any  fragments  to  the  poor,  let  her  send  them 
quietly  out  of  her  dwelling.  Sin  is  oft  concealed  under  the  sem- 
blance of  goodness.  And  how  shall  those  rich  anchoresses  who 
are  tillers  of  the  ground,  or  have  fixed  rents,  do  their  alms 
privately  to  poor  neighbours  .-•  Desire  not  to  have  the  reputation 
of  bountiful  anchoresses,  nor,  in  order  to  give  much,  be  too  eager 
to  possess  more.  Greediness  is  at  the  root  of  bitterness :  all  the 
boughs  that  spring  from  it  are  bitter.  To  beg  in  order  to  give 
away  is  not  the  part  of  a  recluse.     From  the  courtesy  of  a  recluse 


SECT,  i]     Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England.         325 

and  from  her  liberality,  sin  and  shame  have  often  come  in 
the  end.' 

This  idea,  that  the  recluse  shall  follow  the  example  of  Mary 
and  not  that  of  Martha,  occurs  also  in  Ailred's  letter,  though  it 
is  more  briefly  stated  (c.  41  fif.). 

'  You  shall  possess  no  beast,  my  dear  sisters,'  says  the  author 
of  the  Ancreji  Riwle,  'except  only  a  cat.  A  recluse  who  has  cattle 
appears  as  Martha  was.'  She  thinks  of  the  fodder,  of  the  herds- 
man, thoughts  which  bring  with  them  traffic.  '  A  recluse  who 
is  a  buyer  and  seller  (cheapild)  selleth  her  soul  to  the  chapman 
of  hell.'  Ailred  similarly  warned  his  'sister'  against  keeping 
flocks  (c.  5  ff".).  But  the  author  of  the  Rhvle  allows  the  recluse 
to  keep  a  cow  if  need  be.  '  Do  not  take  charge,'  he  says,  '  of 
other  men's  things  in  your  house,  nor  of  their  property,  nor  of  their 
clothes,  neither  receive  under  your  care  the  church  vestments  nor 
the  chalice,  unless  compelled  thereto,  for  oftentimes  much  harm 
has  come  from  such  caretaking.'  The  clothes  the  sisters  wear 
shall  be  warm  and  simple,  '  be  they  white,  be  they  black ;  only 
see  that  they  be  plain  and  warm  and  well-made.'  He  warns  them 
against  severe  discipline  by  the  use  of  hair-cloth  and  hedgehog- 
skins,  and  against  scourging  with  a  leathern  thong.  He  desires 
them  to  have  all  needful  clothing,  but  forbids  wearing  rings, 
brooches,  ornamented  girdles  and  gloves.  The  recluse  shall  '  make 
no  purses  to  gain  friends  therewith,  nor  blodbendes^  of  silk  ;  but 
shape  and  sew  and  mend  church  vestments,  and  poor  people's 
clothes.'  The  point  Ailred  in  his  rule  strongly  insisted  upon,  the 
command  that  the  recluse  shall  not  keep  a  school  as  some  recluses 
do,  is  reiterated  by  the  author  of  the  Ancren  Riwle,  for  the 
excitement  it  brings  and  the  personal  affection  it  creates  between 
teacher  and  pupil  are  felt  to  be  fraught  with  danger.  If  there  be 
a  girl  who  needs  to  be  taught,  the  recluse  shall  cause  her  to  be 
instructed  by  her  servant,  for  she  shall  keep  two  servants,  the  one 
to  stay  at  home,  the  other  to  go  abroad,  'whose  garments  shall 
be  of  such  shape  and  their  attire  such  that  their  calling  be  obvious.' 
The  recluse  shall  read  the  concluding  part  of  this  book  to  her 
women  once  a  week,  but  she  herself  is  to  read  in  it  daily  if  she 
have  leisure. 

Such  in  brief  outline  is  the  Ancren  Riwle^  a  book  which 
above  all  others  gives  an  insight  into  the  religious  life  as  appre- 

*  That  is  bands  or  ligatures  to  be  used  after  the  letting  of  blood. 


326      Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England,     [chap,  ix 

hended  in  the  13th  century  in  England;  a  book  which,  written 
for  women — the  number  of  whom  can  never  have  been  great, 
contains  much  that  remains  wise  and  instructive  to  this  day, 
owing  to  its  wide  outlook  and  liberal  spirit.  It  gives  the  very 
highest  opinion  of  the  aythor's  gentleness  and  refinement,  and 
of  the  exalted  sentiments  of  the  women  he  was  addressing. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  dwell  on  the  numerous  spiritual  love- 
songs  which  were  written  in  English  at  this  period  under  the 
influence  of  mystic  tendencies ;  but  it  must  be  pointed  out  that 
those  which  breathe  the  love  of  a  woman's  soul  to  Christ  were 
presumably  written  in  the  interest  of  nuns.  Among  them  is  one 
in  prose,  entitled  the  '  Wooing  of  Our  Lord*,'  written  by  its  author 
for  his  'sister,'  which  has  a  certain  likeness  to  the  '  Ancren  Riwle,' 
and  on  this  ground  has  been  ascribed  to  the  same  author.  Pro- 
bably it  is  a  paraphrase  of  part  of  it,  but  it  has  none  of  the 
harmonious  flow  of  the  treatise  itself,  and  its  tone  is  so  much 
more  emotional,  that  it  looks  like  the  production  of  a  later  age. 

The  idea  of  the  exaltation  of  virginity  at  this  period  further 
led  to  the  re-writing  in  English  of  the  legends  of  women-saints 
whose  stories  turn  on  the  might  of  virginity  in  conflict  with  the 
evil  powers  of  this  world.  Among  them  the  legends  of  St  Mar- 
garet, St  Juliana  and  St  Cecilia,  are  extant  in  a  manuscript  of 
about  the  year  1230.  Their  authorship  is  unknown,  but  they 
were  evidently  written  in  the  first  place  for  religious  women. 

In  conclusion  a  few  words  must  be  said  on  a  treatise  written 
about  the  same  time  called  *  Holy  Maidenhood  '  (Hali  Meidenhad), 
the  interest  of  which  lies  in  the  fact  that  while  advocating  the 
same  cause  as  the  writings  discussed  above,  it  is  quite  untouched 
by  their  spirit^  Here  also  the  advantages  of  the  love  of  Christ 
over  love  for  earthly  things  are  enlarged  on,  and  the  superiority 
of  the  '  free '  maiden  over  her  who  has  embraced  family  life  is 
upheld.  But  this  is  done  in  a  broad  familiar  strain  and  with 
repeated  fierce  attacks  on  marriage. 

The  author  ornaments  his  treatise  with  Biblical  quotations,  but 
he  possesses  none  of  the  courtly  grace  and  elegance  of  diction  of 
Thomas  de  Hales  and  the  author  of  the  Ancren  Riwle.  In  form 
the  treatise  answers  to  its  drift,  for  it  is  written  in  an  alliterative 
homely  style  which  gives  it  a  peculiar  interest  from  the  philological 

^  Old  English  Homilies,  First  Series,  edit.  Morris,  1867,  p.  268. 

*  Hali  Meidenhad^  edit.  Cockayne,  for  the  Early  English  Text  Soc. ,  1866. 


f 


SECT,  i]     Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England,  327 

point  of  view.  Looked  at  from  the  religious  standpoint  it  yields  a 
curious  example  of  what  the  tone  and  temper  would  be  of  one 
who,  grasping  the  moral  drift  of  the  age,  remained  a  stranger  to 
its  tenderer  strains.  At  the  same  time  its  author  is  not 
without  considerable  insight  into  the  realities  of  life  and  has  a 
sense  of  humour  usually  absent  in  mystic  writings.  The  following 
passage  which  dwells  on  some  of  the  annoyances  of  married  life 
give  a  good  example  of  this  (p.  37). 

'  And  how  I  ask,  though  it  may  seem  odious,  how  does  the 
wife  stand  who  when  she  comes  in  hears  her  child  scream,  sees 
the  cat  at  the  flitch,  and  the  hound  at  the  hide .''  Her  cake  is 
burning  on  the  stone  hearth,  her  calf  is  sucking  up  the  milk, 
the  earthen  pot  is  overflowing  into  the  fire  and  the  churl  is 
scolding.  Though  it  be  an  odious  tale,  it  ought,  maiden,  to  deter 
thee  more  strongly  from  marriage,  for  it  does  not  seem  easy  to 
her  who  has  tried  it.  Thou,  happy  maiden,  who  hast  fully  removed 
thyself  out  of  that  servitude  as  a  free  daughter  of  God  and  as 
His  Son's  spouse,  needest  not  suffer  anything  of  the  kind.  There- 
fore, happy  maiden,  forsake  all  such  sorrow  for  the  reward  reserved 
to  thee  as  thou  oughtest  to  do  without  any  reward.  Now  I  have 
kept  my  promise,  that  I  would  show  that  to  be  glozed  over  with 
falsehood,  which  some  may  say  and  think  of  as  true :  the  happiness 
and  sweetness  which  the  wedded  have.  For  it  fares  not  as  those 
think  who  look  at  it  from  the  outside ;  it  happens  far  otherwise 
with  the  poor  and  the  rich,  with  those  who  loathe  and  those  who 
love  each  other,  but  the  vexation  in  every  case  exceeds  the  joy, 
and  the  loss  altogether  surpasses  the  gain.' 

The  writer  then  recommends  Christ  as  a  spouse  and  gives  a 
graphic  description  of  pride,  which  he  considers  a  power  equal 
to  that  of  the  devil.  He  has  such  a  lively  horror  of  pride  and 
thinks  its  effects  so  baneful  that,  should  the  maidenhood  he  has 
been  extolling  be  touched  by  it,  its  prerogative,  he  says,  forthwith 
breaks  down.  '  A  maid  as  regards  the  grace  of  maidenhood  sur- 
passes the  widowed  and  the  wedded,  but  a  mild  wife  or  meek 
widow  is  better  than  a  proud  maiden,' — a  distinction  which  is 
curious  and  I  believe  stands  alone  at  this  early  period.  The  saints 
Catharine,  Margaret,  Agnes,  Juliana  and  Cecilia  are  quoted  as 
maidens  of  irreproachable  meekness. 

The  treati.se  *  Hali  Meidenhad '  exists  in  one  copy  only,  and 
there  is  no  evidence  as  to  how  much  it  was  read.  Its  obvious 
purpose  is  to  encourage  girls  to  become  nuns,  and   this   not  so 


328      Mystic  Writings  for  Women  in  England,     [chap,  ix 

much  on  account  of  the  beauties  of  convent  life,  as  because  of  the 
troubles  in  worldly  life  they  would  escape  by  doing  so. 


§  2.    The  Convent  of  Helfta  and  its  Literary  Nuns^ 

The  mystic  writings  with  which  the  present  chapter  has  hitherto 
dealt  are  works  written  for  nuns,  not  by  them,  for  of  all  the  English 
mystic  writings  of  the  13th  century,  womanly  though  they  often 
are  in  tone,  none  can  claim  to  be  the  production  of  a  woman.  It 
is  different  on  the  Continent,  where  the  mystic  literature  of  the 
13th  century  is  largely  the  production  of  nuns,  some  of  whom  have 
secured  wide  literary  fame.  Their  writings,  which  were  looked  upon 
-by  their  contemporaries  as  divinely  inspired,  are  among  the  most 
impassioned  books  of  the  age.  They  claim  the  attention  both  of 
the  student  of  art  and  the  student  of  literature.  For  strong  natures 
who  rebelled  against  the  conditions  of  ordinary  life,  but  were  shut 
out  from  the  arena  of  intellectual  competition,  found  an  outlet  for 
their  aspirations  in  intensified  emotionalism,  and  this  emotionalism 
led  to  the  development  of  a  wealth  of  varying  imagery  which  sub- 
sequently became  the  subject-matter  of  pictorial  art.  In  course 
of  time  the  series  of  images  offered  and  suggested  by  Scripture 
had  been  supplemented  by  a  thousand  floating  fancies  and  a  mass 
of  legendary  conceits,  which  were  often  based  on  heathen  concep- 
tions; and  the  13th  century  mystic  first  tried  to  fix  and  interpret 
these  in  their  spiritual  application.  His  endeavours  may  appear 
to  some  a  dwelling  on  fruitless  fancies,  but  since  this  imagery  in 
its  later  representations,  especially  in  painting,  has  become  a  thing 
of  so  much  wonder  and  delight,  the  writers  who  first  tried  to 
realise  and  describe  these  conceptions  deserve  at  least  respectful 
attention. 

The  convent  of  Helfta  near  Eisleben  in  Saxony  stands  out 
during  the  13th  century  as  a  centre  of  these  mystic  tendencies 
and  of  contemporary  culture,  owing  to  the  literary  activity  of  its 
nuns.  All  the  qualities  which  make  early  mysticism  attractive, — 
moral  elevation,  impassioned  fervour,  intense  realism  and  an 
almost  boundless   imagination, — are  here  found  reflected   in  the 

^  Comp.  Revelationes  Gertrttdianae  ac  Mechtildianae,  edit.  Oudin,  for  the  Benedictines 
of  Solesmes  1875,  2  vols.,  which  contain  the  works  of  these  three  nuns;  Mechthild 
von  Magdeburg,  Offenbartmgen,  oder  Das  Fliessende  Lichi  der  Gottheit,  edit.  Gall 
Morel,  1869;  Preger,  W.,  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Mystik  im  Mittelalter,  1874,  vol.  i, 
pp.  70—132- 


SECT,  ii]  The  Convent  of  He  If ta  and  its  Literary  Nuns.   329 

writings  of  three  women,  who  were  inmates  of  the  same  convent, 
and  worked  and  wrote  contemporaneously. 

The  convent  to  which  these  women  belonged  was  of  the  Bene- 
dictine order.  It  had  been  founded  in  1229  by  Burkhardt,  Count 
von  Mansfeld,  and  his  wife  Elisabeth,  for  the  use  of  their  two 
daughters  and  for  other  women  who  wished  to  join  them  in  a 
religious  life.  So  many  of  the  daughters  of  the  Thuringian  nobility 
flocked  thither  that  the  convent  was  removed  in  1234  to  more 
spacious  accommodation  at  Rodardesdorf,  and  again  in  1258  to 
a  pleasanter  and  more  suitable  site  at  Helfta. 

The  convent  was  then  under  the  abbess  Gertrud'  of  the  noble 
family  of  Hackeborn,  whose  rule  (1251-1291)  marks  a  climax  in 
the  prosperity  and  influence  of  the  house.  The  convent  numbered 
over  a  hundred  nuns,  and  among  them  were  women  distinguished 
in  other  ways  besides  writing.  In  the  annals  of  the  house  mention 
is  made  of  Elisabeth  and  Sophie,  daughters  of  Hermann  von 
Mansfeld ; — the  former  was  a  good  painter,  and  the  latter  tran- 
scribed numerous  books  and  held  the  office  of  prioress  for  many 
years  before  she  succeeded  Gertrud  as  abbess.  Reference  is  also 
made  to  the  nun  Mechthild  von  Wippra  (j- c.  1300),  who  taught 
singing,  an  art  zealously  cultivated  by  these  nuns. 

This  enthusiasm  for  studies  of  all  kinds  was  inspired  in  the 
first  place  by  the  abbess  Gertrud,  of  whose  wonderful  liberality  of 
mind  and  zeal  for  the  advance  of  knowledge  we  read  in  an  account 
written  soon  after  her  death  by  members  of  her  convent*.  She 
was  endlessly  zealous  in  collecting  books  and  in  setting  her  nuns 
to  transcribe  them.  '  This  too  she  insisted  on,'  says  the  account, 
'  that  the  girls  should  be  instructed  in  the  liberal  arts,  for  she  said 
that  if  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  (studium  scientiae)  were  to  perish, 
they  would  no  longer  be  able  to  understand  holy  writ,  and  religion 
together  with  devotion  would  disappear.'  Latin  was  well  taught 
and  written  with  ease  by  various  members  of  the  convent.  The 
three  women  writers  who  have  given  the  house  lasting  fame 
were  Mechthild, — who  was  not  educated  at  the  convent  but  came 
there  about  the  year  1268,  and  who  is  usually  spoken  of  as  the 
beguine  or  sister  Mechthild, — the  nun  and  saint  Mechthild  von 
Hackeborn,  the  sister  of  the  abbess  Gertrud,  who  was  educated 
in  the  convent  and  there  had  visions  between  1280  and  1300, — 
and   Gertrud — known   in   literature   as   Gertrud   the  Great.     Her 

*  Revelaliones,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  i,  Praefatio. 

*  Ibid.  vol.  I,  pp.  497  ff. 


.  330  The  Convent  of  Heifta  [chap,  ix 

name  being  the  same  as  that  of  the  abbess  caused  at  one  time  a 
confusion  between  them. 

The  writings  of  these  nuns  were  composed  under  the  influence 
of  the  same  mystic  movement  which  was  spreading  over  many 
districts  of  Europe,  and  therefore  they  contain  ideas  and  descrip- 
tions which,  forming  part  of  the  imaginative  wealth  of  the  age,  are 
nearly  related  to  what  is  contemporaneously  found  elsewhere.  In 
numerous  particulars  the  writings  of  these  nuns  bear  a  striking 
resemblance  to  the  imagery  and  descriptions  introduced  into  the 
Divine  Comedy  by  Dante.  Struck  by  this  likeness,  and  bent 
upon  connecting  Matelda  of  the  Pnrgatorio  with  a  real  person, 
several  modern  students  have  recognised  her  prototype  in  one  of 
the  writers  named  Mechthild'. 

The  writings  of  both  these  women  are  anterior  in  date  to  the 
composition  of  the  Divine  Comedy,  and  as  they  were  accepted  by 
the  Dominicans,  certainly  had  a  chance  of  being  carried  into 
distant  districts.  But  there  is  no  proof  that  Dante  had  either  of 
these  writers  in  his  mind  when  he  wrote  in  the  Pnrgatorio  of 
Matelda  as  appearing  in  an  earthly  paradise  to  the  poet  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river  Lethe. 

'  A  lady  all  alone,  she  went  along 
Singing  and  culling  flower  after  flower, 
With  which  the  pathway  was  all  studded  o'er. 
"Ah,  beauteous  lady,  who  in  rays  of  love 
Dost  warm  thyself,  if  I  may  trust  to  looks, 
Which  the  heart's  witnesses  are  wont  to  be, 
May  the  desire  come  unto  thee  to  draw 
Near  to  this  river's  bank,"  I  said  to  her, 
"  So  much  that  I  may  hear  what  thou  art  singing."  * 

It  is  she  who  makes  the  triumph  of  the  Church  apparent  to 
the  poet  while  Beatrice  descends  to  him  from  heaven. 

Without  entering  into  this  controversy,  it  is  interesting  to  note 
the  similarity  of  the  visions  in  which  Mechthild  von  Hackeborn 
describes  heaven,  and  those  which  Mechthild  of  Magdeburg  draws 
of  hell,  to  the  descriptions  of  the  greatest  of  Italian  poets. 

In  order  to  gain  an  idea  of  the  interests  which  were  prominent 
at  the  convent  at  Heifta  it  will  be  well  to  treat  of  the  lives,  history 

^  Comp.  Preger,  'Dante's  Matelda,' Acad.  Vortrag,  1873;  Paquelin  and  Scartazzini, 
'Zur  Matelda- Frage '  in  Jahrbuch  der  Dante  Gesellschaft,  Berlin,  1877,  pp.  405,  411; 
Lubin,  Osservazioni  sulla  Matilda  svelata,  1878. 


SECT,  ii]  and  its  Literary  Nuns.  331 

and  writings  of  its  three  women  writers  in  succession, — the  beguine 
Mechthild, — the  nun  Mechthild, — and  the  nun  Gertrud.  Their 
characters  and  compositions  bear  marked  points  of  difference. 

Mechthild  the  beguine'  was  born  about  12 12  and  lived  in 
contact  with  the  world,  perhaps  at  some  court,  till  the  age  of  twenty- 
three,  when  she  left  her  people  and  came  to  Magdeburg  to  adopt 
the  religious  life.  She  was  led  to  take  this  step  by  a  troubled 
conscience,  which  was  no  doubt  occasioned  by  her  coming  into 
contact  with  Dominican  friars.  At  this  time  they  were  making 
a  great  stir  in  Saxony,  and  Mechthild's  brother  Balduin  joined 
their  order.  Mechthild  lived  at  Magdeburg  for  many  years  in 
a  poor  and  humble  way  in  a  settlement  of  beguines,  but  at  last  she 
was  obliged  to  seek  protection  in  a  nunnery,  because  she  had  drawn 
upon  herself  the  hatred  of  the  clergy. 

The  origin  and  position  of  the  bands  of  women  called  beguines" 
deserve  attention,  for  the  provisions  made  for  them  are  evidently 
the  outcome  of  a  charitable  wish  to  provide  for  homeless  women, 
and  to  prevent  their  vagrancy  and  moral  degradation.  The  name 
given  to  these  women  lies  in  great  obscurity.  It  is  sometimes 
connected  with  a  priest  of  Liege  (Luttich)  Lambert  le  Begue 
(the  stammerer,  f  1172),  a  reformer  in  his  way  whose  work 
recalls  that  of  the  founders  of  orders  of  combined  canons  and 
nuns,  and  who  was  very  popular  among  women  of  all  classes  and 
advocated  their  association.  Many  settlements  of  beguines  were 
founded  in  the  towns  of  Flanders  and  Brabant,  some  of  which 
have  survived  to  this  day  ;  and  in  German  towns  also  the  plan  was 
readily  adopted  of  setting  aside  a  house  in  the  town,  for  the  use 
of  poor  women  who,  being  thus  provided  with  a  roof  over  their 
heads,  were  then  left  to  support  themselves  as  best  they  could,  by 
begging,  or  by  sick  nursing,  or  by  the  work  of  their  hands.  These 
women  were  not  bound  by  any  vow  to  remain  in  the  house 
where  they  dwelt,  and  were  not  tied  down  to  any  special  routine. 
This  freedom  led  to  different  results  among  them.  In  some 
instances  they  were  attracted  by  mysticism  ;  in  others  they  advo- 
cated ideas  which  drew  on  them  the  reproach  of  heresy  and  gave 
rise  to  Papal  decrees  condemning  them  ;  in  others  again  they 
drifted  into  ways  which  were  little  to  their  credit  and  caused 
them  to  be  classed  with  loose  women. 

*  Allgemeine  Deutsche  Biographic  article  *  Mechthild '  by  Strauch,  Ph. 
^  Keller,  L.,  Die  Reformation  und  die  iilteren  Keformparteitn,  1885,  pp.  39  ff.;  also 
Hallman,  E.,  Geschichte  des  Urspnmgs  der  Beguinen,  1843. 


332  The  Convent  of  Helfta  [chap,  ix 

In  one  of  the  houses  allotted  to  these  women  in  Magdeburg 
Mechthild  spent  the  years  between  1235  and  1268,  and  during 
that  time,  under  the  encouragement  of  the  Dominican  friars,  she 
wrote  prayers,  meditations,  reflections  on  the  times,  and  short 
accounts  of  spiritual  visions^  some  in  prose,  some  in  verse,  which 
had  a  wide  circulation.  The  fact  of  their  being  written  in  German 
at  a  time  when  writings  of  the  kind  in  German  were  few,  was  the 
cause  of  their  being  read  in  lay  as  well  as  in  religious  circles. 
These  writings  were  afterwards  collected,  presumably  in  the  order 
of  their  composition,  by  a  Dominican  friar  who  issued  them  under 
the  title  of  '  The  Flowing  Light  of  Divinity.'  Six  of  the  seven 
books  into  which  the  work  is  divided  were  composed  before  Mech- 
thild went  to  Helfta,  and  the  visions  and  reflections  she  wrote  after 
her  admission  were  grouped  together  in  the  seventh  book.  These 
writings  were  originally  issued  in  the  German  of  the  north,  but  the 
only  German  copy  now  extant  is  a  south  German  transcript,  which 
was  written  for  the  mystics  of  Switzerland.  The  work  was  trans- 
lated into  Latin  during  Mechthild's  lifetime  by  a  Dominican  friar, 
but  his  collection  only  contains  the  first  six  books,  the  contents 
of  which  are  arranged  in  a  different  order.  Both  the  German 
and  the  Latin  versions  have  recently  been  reprinted'. 

Among  these  writings  were  several  severely  critical  and  con- 
demnatory of  the  clergy  of  Magdeburg,  who  resented  these  attacks 
and  persecuted  Mechthild.  On  this  account  she  sought  admission 
at  Helfta,  which  was  not  far  distant  from  Halle,  where  her  special 
friend  the  Dominican  friar  Heinrich  was  living^  The  nuns  at 
Helfta  were  on  friendly  terms  with  the  Dominicans,  who  frequently 
visited  them',  and  it  appears  that  the  nun  Gertrud  the  Great  knew 
of  the  writings  of  the  beguine  and  advocated  her  admission  to  the 
nunnery.  She  came  there  in  1268  and  lived  there  for  about  twelve 
years ;  passages  in  the  writings  of  her  fellow  nuns  refer  to  her 
death  and  burial  ^ 

With  regard  to  her  writings  we  are  struck  by  their  diversified 
contents,  by  their  variety  in  form,  and  by  their  many-sided  sym- 
pathies.    The  '  Flowing  Light  of  Divinity '  (Fliessende  Licht  der 

^  Mechthild  von  Magdeburg,  Offenbarungen,  oder  Das  Fliessende  Licht  der  Gottheit, 
edit.  Gall  Morel,  1869;  the  abridged  Latin  version  in  Revelationes,  etc.  edit.  Oudin, 
vol.  2,  pp.  423-710. 

2  Heinrich  not  to  be  confounded  with  Heinrich  who  translated  her  work. 

'  Revelationes,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  2,  pp.  298,  329,  332,  etc. 

*  Ibid.  vol.  I,  p.  542;  vol.  2,  pp.  325,  330. 


SECT.  II J  and  its  Literary  Nuns.  333 

Gottheit),  consists  of  a  collection  of  shorter  and  longer  compo- 
sitions, some  in  poetry,  some  in  prose,  which  may  be  roughly 
classed  as  spiritual  poems  and  love-songs,  allegories,  visions,  and 
moral  reflections  or  aphorisms.  Against  mysticism  the  charge  has 
been  brought  that  it  led  to  no  activity  in  theological  thought  and 
did  not  produce  any  religious  reformation,  but  surely  enquiries 
into  the  nature  of  the  soul  and  its  relation  to  God  such  as  these 
are  full  of  speculative  interest,  and  have  played  no  small  part  in 
paving  the  way  towards  a  more  rational  interpretation  of  the 
position  of  man  with  regard  to  faith,  to  merit,  to  retribution  and 
to  the  other  great  questions  of  dogma. 

Turning  first  to  the  poems  which  treat  of  spiritual  love,  many 
are  in  dialogue,  a  form  much  used  by  the  Minnesingers  of  the  age 
but  rarely  by  its  religious  poets.  Among  them  is  a  dialogue* 
between  the  Soul  and  the  queen  Love,  who  sits  enthroned.  The 
Soul  accuses  Love  (spiritual  love  of  course)  of  robbing  her  of  a 
liking  for  the  goods  of  this  world,  but  Love  justifies  herself  by 
saying  that  she  has  given  to  the  Soul  instead  all  that  constitutes 
her  true  happiness.  In  another  dialogue*  the  Soul  exclaims  in 
wonder  at  Love,  who  in  eloquent  strains  describes  the  power  that 
is  within  her.  By  this  power  she  drove  Christ  from  heaven  to 
earth  ;  is  it  then  to  be  wondered  at  that  she  can  capture  and  hold 
fast  a  soul  .-* 

One  of  the  longer  pieces^  less  complete  in  form  but  more 
complex  in  ideas,  describes  how  a  call  comes  to  the  Soul,  and  how 
she  urges  her  servants  the  Senses  to  help  her  to  adorn  herself  to 
go  forth  to  the  dance,  that  her  craving  for  joy  may  be  satisfied. 
The  Soul  justifies  her  desire  in  strains  such  as  these: 

'  The  fish  in  the  water  do  not  drown,  the  birds  in  the  air  are  not  lost, 
The  gold  in  the  furnace  does  not  vanish  but  there  attains  its  glow. 
God  has  given  to  every  creature  to  live  according  to  its  desire, 
Why  then  should  I  resist  mine  t ' 

The  Soul  then  describes  the  various  experiences  which  led  to 
her  union  with  Christ,  which  she  expresses  in  passionate  strains 
suggestive  of  the  Song  of  Solomon. 

•  Mechthild,  Offenbarungen,  etc.  edit.  Gall  Morel,  p.  3  '  Wie  die  minne  und  die  kune- 
ginne  zesamene  sprachen.' 

*  Ibid.  p.  6  *  Von  den  megden  der  seele  und  von  der  minne  schlage.' 
'  Ibid.  p.  18  '  Von  der  minne  weg,'  etc. 


^34  ^^^^^  Convent  of  Helfta  [chap,  ix 

Again,  we  have  the  Soul*  complaining  to  Love  of  the  ties  which 
bind  her  to  the  body,  and  Love  directs  her  how  to  overcome  them. 
Understanding  too  discourses  with  the  Soul*,  and  the  Soul  admits 
the  greater  capacities  of  Understanding,  but  she  insists  that  Under- 
standing owes  to  her  the  capacity  both  of  contemplation  and 
spiritual  enjoyment.  In  other  poems  like  points  of  abstract  interest 
are  touched  upon.  One  of  the  most  curious  of  these  productions 
is  a  dialogue  in  which  Understanding  converses  with  Conscience* 
and  expresses  surprise  at  Conscience,  whose  attitude  is  one  of 
proud  humility.  Conscience  explains  that  her  pride  comes  through 
her  contact  with  God,  and  that  her  humility  is  due  to  her  contrition 
at  having  done  so  few  good  works. 

The  question  of  how  far  good  works  are  necessary  to  salvation, 
in  other  words  justification  by  faith  versus  justification  by  works, 
is  a  thought  prominent  in  the  beguine's  mind,  and  gives  the  key- 
note to  a  curious  and  interesting  allegory  on  admission  to  the 
communion  of  the  saints^  A  poor  girl  longing  to  hear  mass  felt 
herself  transported  into  the  church  of  heaven,  where  at  first  she 
could  see  no  one.  Presently  youths  entered  strewing  flowers, — 
white  flowers  beneath  the  church  tower,  violets  along  the  nave,  roses 
before  the  Virgin's  altar,  and  lilies  throughout  the  choir.  Others 
came  and  lighted  candles,  and  then  John  the  Baptist  entered 
bearing  the  lamb,  which  he  set  on  the  altar  and  prepared  to  read 
mass.  John  the  Evangelist  came  next,  St  Peter  and  so  many 
more  of  heaven's  inmates  that  the  poor  girl  felt  there  was  no  room 
left  for  her  in  the  nave  of  the  church.  She  went  and  stood  beneath 
the  tower  among  people  who  wore  crowns,  '  but  the  beauty  of  hair, 
which  comes  from  good  works,  they  had  not.  How  had  they  come 
into  heaven }  Through  repentance  and  good  intention.'  There 
were  others  with  them  so  richly  clad  that  the  girl  felt  ashamed 
of  her  appearance  and  went  into  the  choir,  where  she  saw  the 
Virgin,  St  Catherine,  holy  Cecilia,  bishops,  martyrs  and  angels.  But 
suddenly  she  too  was  decked  with  a  splendid  cloak,  and  the  Virgin 
beckoned  to  her  to  stand  by  her  side.  Prompted  by  the  Virgin 
she  then  took  part  in  the  religious  service  and  was  led  to  the  altar, 
where  John  the  Baptist  let  her  kiss  the  wounds  of  the  lamb.     '  She 

*  Mechthild,  Offenbarungen,  p.  43  '  Wie  die  minne  vraget,'  etc. 

^  Ibid.  p.  38  '  Wie  die  bekantnisse  und  die  sele  sprechent  zesamne,'  etc. 
'  Ibid.  p.  232  'Wie  bekantnisse  sprichet  zu  dem  gewissede.' 

*  Ibid.  p.  30  '  Von  der  armen  dirnen  '  (I  have  retained  the  designation  '  saint '  where 
it  is  used  in  the  allegory). 


SECT,  ii]  and  its  Literary  Nuns.  335 

to  whom  this  happened  is  dead,'  says  the  writer,  *  but  we  hope  to 
find  her  again  among  the  choir  of  angels.' 

This  allegory  was  severely  censured,  and  in  a  later  chapter* 
Mechthild  says  that  a  '  Pharisee '  argued  that  it  was  forbidden  for 
a  layman,  like  John  the  Baptist,  to  hold  mass.  Mechthild's  argu- 
ments in  reply  to  the  charge  are  somewhat  involved,  but  she  boldly 
declares  that  John,  who  was  in  close  communion  with  God,  was 
better  fitted  in  some  respects  to  say  mass  than  Pope,  bishop  or  priest. 

With  Mechthild,  John  the  Baptist,  John  the  Evangelist  and 
St  Peter,  patron  saint  of  the  Dominicans,  stand  foremost  among 
the  saints  of  heaven.  There  is  a  beautiful  account*  of  a  Soul  who 
found  herself  in  company  with  God  and  the  saints,  who  each  in 
turn  explained  how  they  had  helped  to  bring  her  there. 

Glimpses  of  heaven  and  hell  are  frequent  in  these  writings, 
and  a  full  description  of  hell'  and  one  of  paradise*  deserve 
special  attention  from  the  point  of  view  of  mediaeval  imagery. 
Hell  is  here  characterised  as  the  seat  of  Eternal  Hatred,  which 
is  built  in  the  deepest  depths  from  stones  of  manifold  wickedness. 
Pride,  as  shown  in  Lucifer,  forms  the  foundation-stone  ;  then  come 
the  stones  of  disobedience,  covetousness,  hatred  and  lewdness, 
brought  thither  through  acts  of  Adam.  Cain  brought  anger,  fe- 
rocity, and  warfare,  and  Judas  brought  lying,  betrayal,  despair  and 
suicide.  The  building  formed  by  these  stones  is  so  arranged  that 
each  part  of  it  is  occupied  by  those  who  were  specially  prone  to  the 
various  sins.  In  its  depths  sits  Lucifer,  above  him  Christians,  Jews 
and  heathens,  according  to  the  kind  of  crime  committed  by  each. 
The  horrors  of  their  sufferings  recall  those  pictured  by  Herrad,  and 
at  a  later  period  by  Dante  and  Orcagna.  The  usurer  is  gnawed, 
the  thief  hangs  suspended  by  his  feet,  murderers  continually  receive 
wounds,  and  gluttons  swallow  red-hot  stones  and  drink  sulphur  and 
pitch.  *  What  seemed  sweetness  here  is  there  turned  into  bitterness. 
The  sluggard  is  loaded  with  grief,  the  wrathful  are  struck  with 
fiery  thongs.  The  poor  musician,  who  had  gleefully  fed  wicked 
vanity,  weeps  more  tears  in  hell  than  there  is  water  in  the  sea.' 
Many  horrible  and  impressive  scenes,  such  as  the  mediaeval  mind 
loved  to  dwell  upon,  are  depicted. 

The  picture  drawn  of  paradise  is  correspondingly  fair.     Ac- 

*  Mechthild,  Offenbarungen,  p.  2  lo '  Da  Johannes  Baptista  der  armen  dirnen  messe  sang.' 

*  Ibid.  p.  46  •  Wie  sich  die  minnende  sele  gesellet  goUe,'  etc. 
'  Ibid.  p.  82  '  Von  der  helle,'  etc. 

*  Ibid.  p.  270  '  Ein  wenig  von  dem  paradyso.' 


^;^6  The  Convent  of  Helfia  [chap,  ix 

cording  to  the  beguine  there  is  an  earthly  and  a  heavenly  paradise. 
Regarding  the  earthly  paradise  she  says :  '  There  is  no  limit  to 
its  length  and  breadth.  First  I  reached  a  spot  lying  on  the  con- 
fines of  this  world  and  paradise.  There  I  saw  trees  and  leaves 
and  grass,  but  of  weeds  there  were  none.  Some  trees  bore  fruit, 
but  most  of  them  sweet-scented  leaves.  Rapid  streams  cut  through 
the  earth,  and  warm  winds  blew  from  the  south.  In  the  waters 
mingled  earth's  sweetness  and  heaven's  delight.  The  air  was  sweet 
beyond  expression.  But  of  birds  and  animals  there  were  none,  for 
God  has  reserved  this  garden  for  human  beings  to  dwell  there 
undisturbed,'  In  this  garden  Mechthild  finds  Enoch  and  Elias 
who  explain  what  keeps  them  there.  Then  she  sees  the  higher 
regions  of  paradise  in  which  dwell  the  souls  who  are  waiting  to 
enter  the  kingdom  of  God,  '  floating  in  joy  as  the  air  floats  in 
the  sunshine,'  says  Mechthild  ;  and  she  goes  on  to  explain  how 
on  the  Day  of  Judgment  paradise  will  altogether  cease  to  exist 
and  its  inhabitants  will  be  absorbed  into  heaven. 

The  beguine's  writings  contain  various  references  to  herself 
and  her  compositions,  and  considerable  praise  of  the  Dominican 
friars.  In  one  place*  she  describes  how  she  was  told  that  her 
writings  deserved  to  be  burnt,  but  she  turned  in  prayer  to  God 
as  was  her  wont  from  childhood,  and  He  told  her  not  to  doubt 
her  powers  for  they  came  through  Him.  '  Ah  Lord,'  she  exclaimed 
in  reply,  '  were  I  a  learned  man,  a  priest,  in  whom  thou  hadst  made 
manifest  this  power,  thou  would'st  see  him  honoured,  but  how 
can  they  believe  that  on  such  unworthy  ground  thou  hast  raised 

a  golden  house.? Lord,  I   fail  to  see  the   reason  of  it.'     But 

the  attacks  against  her  roused  her  to  anger,  and  she  closes  the 
poem  with  a  stern  invective  against  those  who  are  false. 

Another  passage  contains  an  autobiographical  sketch  of  Mech- 
thild's  early  experiences^  She  says  that  when  she  was  twelve  years 
old  she  felt  drawn  to  things  divine,  and  from  that  time  to  the 
present,  a  period  of  thirty-one  years,  she  had  been  conscious  of 
God's  grace  and  had  been  saved  from  going  astray.  '  God  is 
witness,'  she  continues,  '  that  I  never  consciously  prayed  to  be 
told  what  is  written  in  this  book ;  it  never  occurred  to  me  that 
such  things  could  come  to  anyone.  While  I  spent  my  youth  with 
friends  and  relations  to  whom  I  was  most  dear,  I  had  no  know- 
ledge of  such  things.     Yet  I   always  wished  to   be   humble,  and 

*  Mechthild,  Offenbamngen^  p.  52  'Von  diseme  buche,'  etc. 
'^  Ibid.  p.  90  '  Dis  buch  ist  von  gotte  komen,'  etc. 


SECT,  ii]  and  its  Literary  Nuns.  2)l)'l 

from  love  of  God  I  came  to  a  place  (Magdeburg)  where  with  one 
exception  I  had  no  friends.'  She  describes  how  at  that  time  two 
angels  and  two  devils  were  her  companions,  and  were  to  her  the 
representatives  of  the  good  and  evil  tendencies  of  which  she  was 
conscious.  The  devils  spoke  to  her  of  her  physical  beauty, 
promised  fame  '  such  as  has  led  astray  many  an  unbeliever,'  and 
prompted  her  to  rebellion  and  unchastity.  Obviously  her  passionate 
nature  rose  against  the  mode  of  life  she  had  adopted,  but  the 
thought  of  Christ's  sufferings  at  last  brought  her  comfort.  She 
was  much  perturbed  by  her  power  of  writing.  '  Why  not  give 
it  to  learned  folk.^'  she  asked  of  God,  but  God  was  angered  with 
her,  and  her  father-confessor  pressed  upon  her  that  writing  was 
her  vocation.  In  another  impassioned  account  she  describes  how 
she  was  oppressed  by  a  devil  \ 

In  the  third  book  of  her  writings  Mechthild  says^  that  God 
pointed  out  to  her  the  seven  virtues  which  priests  ought  to  cul- 
tivate, and  we  gather  from  this  that  she  did  not  consider  the  clergy 
devout  or  pure-minded.  In  further  passages'  she  dilates  on  the 
duties  of  prelate,  prior  and  prioress,  and  severely  attacks  the  conduct 
of  a  deacon  of  Magdeburg.  Even  more  explicit  in  its  severity  to 
the  priesthood  is  an  account*  of  how  God  spoke  to  her,  and  told 
her  that  He  would  touch  the  Pope's  heart  and  make  him  utter 
a  prayer,  which  is  given,  and  in  which  the  Pope  declaims  against 
the  conduct  of  his  clergy  who  are  'straightway  going  to  hell.'  In 
the  Latin  translation  God's  admonition  is  amplified  by  the  fol- 
lowing passages :  '  For  thus  says  the  Lord  :  I  will  open  the  ear 
of  the  highest  priest  and  touch  his  heart  with  the  woe  of  my 
wrath,  because  my  shepherds  of  Jerusalem  have  become  robbers 
and  wolves  before  my  very  eyes.  With  cruelty  they  murder  my 
lambs  and  devour  them.  The  sheep  also  are  worn  and  weary 
because  you  call  them  from  healthy  pastures,  in  your  godlessness 
do  not  suffer  them  to  graze  on  the  heights  on  green  herbs, 
and  with  threats  and  reproof  prevent  their  being  tended  with 
healthful  teaching  and  healthful  advice  by  those  men  who  are 
supported  by  faith  and  knowledge.  He  who  knows  not  the  way 
that  leads  to  hell  and  would  know  it,  let  him  look  at  the  life  and 

•  Mechthild,  Offenbarungen,  p.  no  '  Von  einer  vrowe,  etc' 

'  Ibid.  p.  68  '  Von  siben  dingen  die  alle  priester  sollent  haben.' 
'  Ibid.  p.  171   *Wie  ein  prior,  etc.';  p.   177  'Von  der  r^ele  eines  kanoniken,  etc.*; 
p.  178'  Got  gebet  herschaft. ' 

*  Ibid.  p.  198  '  Wie  bose  pfafheit  sol  genidert  werden.* 

E.  22 


;^;^S  The  Convent  of  Helfta  [chap,  ix 

morals  of  the  base  and  degenerate  clergy,  who,  given  to  luxury  and 
other  sins,  through  their  impious  ways  are  inevitably  going  the  way 
to  hellV 

The  friars,  it  is  said,  must  come  to  the  rescue  and  reform  the 
world,  and  Mechthild  being  especially  inclined  to  the  Dominicans 
dwells  on  their  usefulness  to  true  faith  in  a  number  of  passages'*. 
There  is  a  long  description  of  how  God  saw  that  His  Son,  with 
the  apostles,  martyrs,  confessors  and  virgins,  was  unable  to  lead 
back  the  people  who  had  gone  astray,  and  therefore  He  sent  into 
the  world  two  other  children,  that  is  the  two  orders  of  friars, 
to  save  them.  In  another  vision*  God  explains  to  Mechthild 
the  special  purpose  for  which  He  has  lately  sent  five  new  saints 
into  the  world,  one  of  whom  is  Elisabeth  of  Thiiringen  '  whom  I 
sent,'  said  the  Lord,  '  to  those  wretched  ladies  who  sit  in  castles 
with  much  unchastity,  puffed  up  with  conceit,  and  so  absorbed 
by  vanities  that  they  ought  to  be  cast  into  the  nether  regions. 
Many  a  lady  however  has  now  followed  her  example  in  what 
measure  she  would  or  could.'  The  other  saints  are  Dominic, 
who  has  been  sent  to  reclaim  unbelievers, — Francis,  who  has 
come  as  a  warning  to  covetous  priests  and  conceited  laymen, — 
a  new  St  Peter,  the  Martyr  (-j-  1252), — and  the  sister  Jutta  von 
Sangershausen.  History  tells  us  of  Peter  that  he  was  appointed 
inquisitor  against  the  heretics  in  Lombardy  and  murdered  at  their 
instigation*;  and  of  Jutta  that,  having  lost  her  husband  in  1260, 
she  placed  her  children  in  convents  and  went  among  the  heathen 
Prussians  where  she  tended  the  leprous  till  her  death  four  years 
afterwards'.  From  later  passages  in  the  writings  of  Mechthild, 
written  after  she  had  come  to  live  at  Helfta®,  it  appears  that  she  felt 
that  faith  was  not  increasing  in  the  world  ;  perhaps  she  was  disap- 
pointed in  her  exalted  anticipations  of  the  influence  of  the  friars. 

The  writings  of  Mechthild  of  this  later  period  are  more  mystic 
and  visionary  than  those  of  earlier  days.  She  is  distressed  at 
the  troublous  times  that  have  come  to  Saxony  and  Thiiringen, 


^  Revelationes,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  2,  p.  524. 

^  Mechthild,  Offenbarungen,  p.  115  'Von  sehs  tugenden  St  Domenicus';  p.  ir6 
'  Dur  sehszehen  ding  hat  got  predierorden  Hep ' ;  ibid.  '  Von  vierhande  crone  bruder 
Heinrichs';  p.  154  'Von  sehsleie  kleider,  etc' 

*  Ibid.  p.  166  '  Von  funfleie  nuwe  heligen.' 

*  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Peter  of  the  Dominican  Order,  April  29. 
"  Ibid.,  St  Jutta  vidua,  May  5,  appendix. 

"  Mechthild,  Offenbarungen,  p.  256  '  Wie  ein  predierbruder  wart  gesehen.' 


SECT,  ii]  and  its  Literary  Nuns.  339 

and  tells*  how  she  fell  ill  and  was  so  perturbed  that  she  lost  the 
power  of  prayer  for  seventeen  days.  Many  prayers  and  visions, 
some  of  great  sweetness  and  beauty,  were  the  production  of  these 
later  days.  A  long  allegory  called  the  '  Spiritual  Convent  or 
Ghostly  Abbey"'  shows  the  high  opinion  she  had  of  life  in  a 
nunnery.  In  this  poem  the  inmates  of  the  convent  are  personi- 
fied as  the  Virtues,  an  idea  occasionally  used  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  one  which  at  a  later  date  in  England,  as  we  shall 
hear  afterwards',  was  handled  in  a  very  different  manner,  the 
convent  inmates  being  represented  as  the  Vices.  In  Mechthild's 
convent  Charity  is  abbess.  Meekness  is  chaplain.  Peace  is 
prioress,  Kindliness  is  sub-prioress,  and  among  the  inmates  of 
the  convent  there  is  Hope  the  singing-mistress,  and  Wisdom  the 
schoolmistress  *  who  with  good  counsel  carefully  instructs  the 
ignorant,  so  that  the  nunnery  is  held  holy  and  honoured.' 
Bounty  is  cellaress,  Mercy  sees  to  the  clothes.  Pity  tends  the 
sick,  and  Dread  sits  at  the  gate.  The  provost  or  priest  is 
Obedience,  '  to  whom  all  these  Virtues  are  subject.  Thus  does 
the  convent  abide  before  God,'  the  poem  ends,  '  ...happy  are  they 
who  dwell  there.' 

The  writings  of  Mechthild  offer  many  more  points  of  interest. 
Not  the  least  curious  among  her  compositions  are  the  amplified  de- 
scriptions of  Biblical  history,  as  of  the  Creation,  the  Nativity,  and 
the  early  experiences  of  the  Virgin ^  which  enter  minutely  into  the 
feelings  and  emotions  of  those  immediately  concerned  and  give 
them  an  allegorical  and  spiritualised  application.  Short  spiritual 
poems  are  also  numerous,  but  so  much  depends  on  their  form 
that  a  translation  cannot  convey  their  chief  beauty.  Their  general 
drift  is  exemplified  by  the  two  following*. 

'It  is  a  wondrous  journeying  onwards,  this  progress  of  the 
Soul,  who  guides  the  Senses  as  the  man  who  sees  leads  him  who 
is  blind.  Fearlessly  the  Soul  wanders  on  without  grief  of  heart, 
for  she  desires  nought  but  what  the  Lord  wills  who  leads  all  to 
the  best.' 

And  again*,  '  My  Soul  spake  to  her  Spouse :  Lord,  thy  ten- 

'  Mechthild,  Offenbarungen,  p.  243  'Von  der  not  eines  uriuges.' 
^  Ibid.  p.  149  '  Von  einem  geistlichen  closter.' 
"  Comp.  below,  ch.  11,  §  i. 

*  Mechthild,  Offenbarungen,  p.  68  'Von  dem  angenge   aller  dinge*;  p.   107  'Von 
der  heligen  drivaltekeit,  etc.';  p.  147  'Von  sante  marien  gebet,  etc' 

*  Ibid.  p.  14  '  In  disen  weg  zuhet  die  sele,  etc' 

*  Ibid.  p.  16  'Von  der  pfrunde  trost  und  minne.' 

22 — 2 


340  The  Convent  of  Helfta  [chap,  ix 

derness  is  to  my  body  delightful  ministration  ;  thy  compassion 
is  to  my  spiritual  nature  wondrous  comfort ;  and  thy  love  is  to 
my  whole  being  rest  eternal.' 

Thoughts  such  as  these  are  found  scattered  up  and  down 
in  the  beguine's  writings,  and  give  one  a  high  estimation  of  her 
poetic  power,  her  ready  imagination  and  her  mastery  of  language. 
Her  vigorous  nature  guided  into  the  channel  of  spiritual  aspirations 
frequently  filled  her  poems  with  a  passionate  eloquence. 

In  conclusion  may  stand  a  i^v^  of  the  beguine's  moral  re- 
flections, which,  if  they  are  not  borrowed  from  elsewhere,  argue  well 
for  her  power  of  condensing  thoughts  into  short  sentences ;  but 
here  also  it  is  not  easy  to  find  the  exact  words  in  which  to  render 
the  chief  points  of  these  reflections^ 

'Vanity  does  not  stop  to  think  what  she  is  losing; 
Perseverance  is  laden  with  virtues. 
Stupidity  is  ever  self-sufficient ; 

The  wisest  never  comes  to  the  end  of  what  he  would  say. 
Anger  brings  darkness  unto  the  soul ; 
Gentleness  is  ever  sure  of  attaining  grace. 
Pride  would  ever  raise  herself  aloft ; 
Lowliness  is  ever  ready  to  yield... 
Sluggishness  will  never  gain  wealth  ; 
The  industrious  seeks  more  than  his  immediate  advantage.' 

And  the  following, — which  are  the  product  of  a  later  period 
and  have  in  them  the  ring  of  a  deeper  experience'^ — '  None  knows 
how  firm  he  stands,  until  he  has  experienced  the  prompting  of 
desire ;  none  how  strong  he  is,  until  hatred  has  attacked  him ; 
none  how  good  he  is,  before  he  has  attained  a  happy  end.' 

From  the  writings  of  the  beguine  Mechthild  we  pass  to  those 
of  her  companion  at  Helfta,  the  nun  Mechthild  von  Hackeborn. 
Her  '  Book  of  Special  Grace*'  consists  entirely  of  visions  or  reve- 
lations described  by  her  and  put  into  writing  by  her  fellow-nuns  ; 
it  was  widely  read,  and  gave  rise  to  similar  productions  in  other 
nunneries.  There  are  many  early  manuscript  copies  of  the  book 
in  existence ;  it  was  originally  written  in  Latin,  but  has  been 
translated  into  German,  English,  Italian  and  French,  and  has 
repeatedly  been  printed. 

^  Mechthild,  Offenbarungen,  p.  98  'Von  zwein  ungeleichen  dingen,  etc' 

^  Ibid.  p.  214  'Bekorunge,  die  welt  und  ein  gut  ende  priifent  uns.' 

2  '  Liber  Specialis  Gratiae,'  in  Revelationes,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  2,  pp.  l~\^\. 


SECT,  ii]  and  its  Literary  Nuns.  341 

The  visions  are  so  arranged  that  those  contained  in  the  first 
part  of  the  book  have  reference  to  festal  days  of  the  Church, 
to  Christ,  Mary  and  the  saints.  The  second  part  treats  of  the 
manifestations  of  divine  grace  of  which  Mechthild  was  conscious 
in  herself,  and  the  third  and  fourth  describe  how  God  should  be 
praised  and  what  is  conducive  to  salvation  or  'soul-hele.'  In 
the  fifth  part  Mechthild  holds  converse  with  those  who  have  de- 
parted this  life,  chiefly  members  of  the  convent,  for  the  belief  that 
it  was  possible  to  hold  communion  with  the  souls  of  the  departed 
was  readily  accepted  at  Helfta  as  in  other  religious  houses. 

A  sixth  and  seventh  part  were  added  to  Mechthild's  book  after 
her  death  by  her  fellow-nuns  and  contain  information  about  her 
sister,  the  abbess  Gertrud,  and  details  about  Mechthild's  death 
and  the  visions  other  nuns  had  of  her. 

The  nun  Mechthild  von  Hackeborn,  who  was  nine  years 
younger  than  her  sister  Gertrud,  had  come  to  the  house  as  a 
child  on  a  visit  with  her  mother,  and  was  so  much  attracted 
to  it  that  she  remained  there.  She  is  described  by  her  fellow- 
nuns  as  a  person  of  tender  and  delicate  refinement,  whose  religious 
fervour  was  remarkable,  and  these  characteristics  are  reflected  in 
her  writings.  She  was  often  suffering,  noticeably  at  the  time  when 
her  sister,  the  abbess  Gertrud,  died  (1291).  She  is  praised  for 
her  lovely  voice,  and  references  to  music  and  singing  in  her  visions 
are  frequent.  It  is  not  quite  clear  when  her  fellow-nuns  began  to 
put  her  visions  into  writing,  presumably  between  1280  and  1300, 
and  authorities  also  differ  on  the  year  of  her  death,  which  the 
Benedictines  of  Solesmes  accept  as  1298^  whereas  Preger  defers 
it  till  1310^ 

In  the  description  of  her  visions  Mechthild  von  Hackeborn 
appears  throughout  as  a  person  of  even  temper  and  great  sweetness 
of  disposition,  one  who  was  not  visited  by  picturesque  temptations, 
troubles  and  doubts,  and  who  therefore  insisted  chiefly  on  the 
beautiful  side  of  things ;  for  hell  with  its  torments  and  the  whole 
mise-en-sc^ne  of  the  nether  regions  have  no  meaning  and  no  attrac- 
tion for  her.  In  her  revelations  Christ,  the  Virgin,  and  other  members 
of  the  vast  hierarchy  of  heaven  enter  as  living  realities.  She  is 
particularly  fond  of  the  angels,  whom  she  loves  to  picture  as  the 
associates  of  men  on  earth  and  in  heaven.  In  conformity  with 
the  conceptions  of  her  age  Christ  is  to  her  the  wooer  of  the  soul, 

^  Revelationes,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  a,  p.  717. 

*  Preger,  W.,  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Mystik  iin  Mittelalter,  1874,  vol.  i,  p.  87. 


342  The  Convent  of  Helfta  [chap,  ix 

the  chosen  bridegroom,  who  combines  all  that  makes  humanity 
attractive  and  divinity  sublime.  Christ  and  the  Virgin  love  to 
confer  with  Mechthild,  or  rather  with  her  Soul, — the  terms  are 
used  indiscriminately, — and  enter  into  converse  with  her  when- 
ever she  seeks  enlightenment.  Flowers  and  precious  stones,  the 
splendour  of  vestments,  and  occasionally  some  homely  object, 
supply  her  with  similes  and  comparisons. 

The  following  descriptions  occurring  in  visions  will  give  some 
idea  of  the  spirit  in  which  Mechthild  wrote\ 

'  After  the  feast  of  St  Michael... she  saw  a  golden  ascent  divided 
into  nine  grades,  crowded  by  a  multitude  of  angels,  and  the  first 
grade  was  presided  over  by  angels,  the  second  by  archangels  and 
so  on  upwards,  each  order  of  angels  presiding  over  one  grade. 
She  was  divinely  informed  that  this  ascent  represented  the  abode 
of  men  in  this  way, — that  whoever  faithfully,  humbly,  and  devoted- 
ly fulfils  his  duty  to  the  Church  of  God,  and  for  God's  sake,  to  the 
infirm,  to  the  poor  and  to  travellers,  abides  in  the  first  grade,  con- 
sorting with  the  angels.  Again,  they  who  by  prayer  and  devotion 
are  closer  to  God  artd  in  nearness  to  Him,  are  devoted  to  knowledge 
of  Him,  to  His  teaching  and  help,  are  in  the  next  grade  and  are  the 
companions  of  the  archangels.  Those  again  who  practise  patience, 
obedience,  voluntary  poverty,  humility,  and  bravely  perform  all 
virtues,  mount  to  the  next  grade  with  the  Virtues.  And  those 
who,  opposing  vice  and  greed,  hold  the  fiend  and  all  his  suggestions 
in  contempt,  in  the  fourth  grade  share  the  triumph  of  glory  with 
the  Powers.  Prelates  who  fully  respond  to  the  duties  the  Church 
has  entrusted  to  them,  who  watch  day  and  night  over  the  salvation 
of  souls  and  discreetly  give  back  twofold  the  talent  entrusted  to 
them, — these  in  the  fifth  grade  hold  the  glory  of  heaven  as  a 
recompense  of  their  work  with  the  Pre-eminences.  Again,  those 
who  with  complete  submission  bow  before  the  majesty  of  the 
Divine,  and  who  out  of  love  for  Him  love  the  Creator  in  the 
created,  and  love  themselves  because  they  are  fashioned  after  the 
image  of  God,  who  conform  to  Him  as  far  as  human  weakness 
permits,  and,  holding  the  flesh  subservient  to  the  spirit,  triumph  over 
their  mind  by  transferring  it  to  things  celestial,  these  glory  in  the 
sixth  grade  with  the  Rulers.  But  those  who  are  steadfast  in  medi- 
tation and  contemplation,  who  embracing  pureness  of  heart  and 
peace  of  mind  make  of  themselves  a  temple  meet  for  God,  which 

^  JRevelationes,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  ^  ('Liber  Specialis  Gratiae,'  bk  i,  ch.  30,  De 
angelis),  p.  102. 


SECT,  ii]  and  its  Literary  Nuns.  343 

truly  may  be  called  a  paradise,  according  to  Proverbs  (viii.  31) 
"  my  delights  were  with  the  sons  of  men,"  and  about  which  it  is 
said  (2  Cor.  vi.  16)  "  I  will  dwell  in  them  and  walk  in  them,"  these 
dwell  in  the  seventh  grade  with  the  Enthroned.  Those  who  out- 
strip others  in  knowledge  and  apprehension,  who  by  a  singular 
blessedness  hold  God  in  their  minds  as  it  were  face  to  face  and 
give  back  what  they  have  drawn  from  the  fountain  of  all  wisdom, 
by  teaching  and  explaining  to  others,  these  abide  in  the  eighth 
grade  of  the  ascent  together  with  the  Cherubim.  And  those  who 
love  God  with  heart  and  soul,  who  place  their  whole  being  in  the 
eternal  fire  which  is  God  itself,  love  Him  not  with  their  own  but 
with  divine  love  being  the  chosen  ones  of  God,  who  see  all 
creatures  in  God  and  love  them  for  His  sake,  friends  as  well 
as  enemies,  those  whom  nothing  can  divide  from  God  nor  stay 
in  their  ascent — for  the  more  their  enemies  attack  them  the  more 
they  grow  in  love, — those  who,  fervent  themselves,  awake  fervour 
in  others,  so  that  if  they  could  they  would  make  all  mankind 
perfect  in  love,  who  weep  for  the  sins  and  faults  of  others, 
because,  indifferent  to  their  own  glory,  they  seek  but  the  glory 
of  God,  these  shall  for  evermore  dwell  in  the  ninth  grade  with 
the  Seraphim,  between  whom  and  God  there  is  nought  in  closer 
nearness  to  Him. 

'During  mass  she  (Mechthild)  saw  that  a  large  number  of 
angels  were  present,  and  each  angel  in  guise  of  a  lovely  youth 
stood  by  the  side  of  the  maiden  entrusted  to  his  care.  Some  held 
flowering  sceptres,  others  golden  flowers.  And  as  the  maidens 
bowed  they  pressed  the  flowers  to  their  lips  in  sign  of  everlasting 
peace.     Thus  angels  assisted  at  the  entire  mass. 

'  And  as  the  maidens  advanced  to  partake  of  the  communion, 
each  of  the  angels  led  her  who  was  entrusted  to  his  care.  And 
the  King  of  Glory  stood  in  the  place  of  the  priest  surrounded  by 
shining  splendour,  on  His  breast  an  ornament  in  the  shape  of  a 
branched  tree,  and  from  His  heart,  in  which  lies  hidden  the  wealth 
of  wisdom  and  knowledge,  flowed  a  stream  which  encompassed 
those  who  advanced  with  a  flood  of  heavenly  joy.' 

In  the  preceding  passages  we  see  Mechthild  in  the  state  of 
rapture  called  forth  by  the  moments  of  celebration  and  service; 
the  extracts  which  follow  describe  one  of  the  divine  visitations 
which  came  to  her  as  a  special  manifestation  of  grace*. 

'  RevelatiomSy  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  i  ('Liber  Specialis  Gratiae,'  bk  2,  ch.  2,  De 
vinea  domini),  p.  137. 


344  "^^^  Conve7it  of  Helfta  [chap,  ix 

'On  a  certain  Sunday,  while  they  were  singing  the  Asperges 
mey  Domine,  she  said  "  Lord,  in  what  wilt  thou  now  bathe  and 
cleanse  my  heart?"  Straightway  the  Lord  with  love  unutterable 
bending  to  her  as  a  mother  would  to  her  son,  embraced  her 
saying  :  "  In  the  love  of  my  divine  heart  I  will  bathe  thee."  And 
He  opened  the  door  of  His  heart,  the  treasure-house  of  flowing 
holiness,  and  she  entered  into  it  as  though  into  a  vineyard.  There 
she  saw  a  river  of  living  water  flowing  from  the  east  to  the  west,  and 
round  about  the  river  there  were  twelve  trees  bearing  twelve  kinds 
of  fruit,  that  is  the  virtues  which  the  blessed  Paul  enumerates  in 
his  epistle :  love,  joy,  peace,  long-suffering,  gentleness,  goodness,  be- 
nignity, meekness,  faith,  modesty,  temperance,  chastity  \  This  water 
is  called  the  river  of  love  ;  thereunto  the  soul  entered  and  was 
cleansed  of  every  stain.  In  this  river  there  were  numerous  fish 
with  golden  scales,  which  signified  those  loving  souls  which,  sepa- 
rated from  earthly  delights,  have  plunged  themselves  in  the  very 
well-spring  of  all  good,  that  is,  into  Jesus.  In  the  vineyard  palm- 
trees  were  planted,  some  of  which  stood  erect,  while  others  were  bent 
to  the  ground.  The  palms  that  stand  erect  are  those  who  despised 
the  world  with  its  flowers,  and  who  turned  their  minds  to  things 
divine ;  and  the  palms  that  are  bent  down  are  those  wretched  ones 
who  lie  in  the  earthly  dust  of  their  misdeeds.  The  Lord  in  likeness 
of  a  gardener  was  digging  in  the  earth,  and  she  said  :  "O  Lord,  what 
is  thy  spade.''"  And  He  answered:  "My  fear." — Now  in  certain 
places  the  earth  was  hard,  in  others  soft.  The  hard  earth  signified 
the  hearts  of  those  who  are  hardened  in  sin  and  who  know  not  how 
to  be  corrected  either  by  advice  or  by  reproof;  the  soft  earth  the  hearts 
of  those  who  are  softened  by  tears  and  true  contrition.  And  our 
Lord  said :  "  This  vineyard  is  my  Catholic  Church,  in  which  for 
thirty-three  years  I  laboured  with  my  sweat ;  do  thou  labour  with 
me  in  this  vineyard."  And  she  said:  '•'How.''"  To  whom  the 
Lord  replied  :  "  By  watering  it."  And  straightway  the  Soul  ran 
eagerly  to  the  river  and  set  a  vessel  filled  with  water  on  her 
shoulders,  and  as  it  was  heavy,  the  Lord  came  and  helped  her, 
and  its  burden  was  lightened.  And  the  Lord  said  :  "  Thus  when 
I  give  grace  to  men,  do  all  things  performed  or  borne  for  my  sake 
seem  light  and  easy.  But  if  I  withdraw  my  grace,  then  do  all 
things  seem  burdensome."  Moreover  round  about  the  palms  she 
saw  a  multitude  of  angels  like  unto  a  wall...' 

In  a  similar  strain  the  visions  of  Mechthild   proceed,  always 

'  Cf.  Gal.  V.  22-3,  to  which  Mechthild  adds. 


SECT,  ii]  and  its  Literary  Nuns.  345 

gentle  and  rarely  impassioned  but  shining  with  the  glow  of  end- 
lessly changing  imagery.  There  is  no  limit  to  the  pictures  which 
rise  before  her  mental  eye  or  to  the  points  which  suggest  analogy 
with  things  divine*. 

'To  rouse  the  piety  of  believers  in  relation  to  the  glorious 
image  of  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  on  the  Sunday  Omnis  terra 
(the  second  after  Epiphany),  that  is  on  the  day  when  the  expo- 
sition at  Rome  of  the  image  of  Christ  takes  place,  she  was  granted 
this  vision.  On  a  mountain  overgrown  with  flowers  she  beheld 
our  Lord  seated  on  a  throne  of  jasper  decorated  with  gold  and 
red  stone.  The  jasper  which  is  green  is  typical  of  the  power  of 
eternal  divinity,  gold  represents  love,  and  the  red  stone  the  suffer- 
ings which  He  endured  through  love  of  us.  The  mountain  was 
surrounded  by  beautiful  trees  covered  with  fruit.  Under  these  trees 
rested  the  souls  of  the  saints,  each  of  whom  had  a  tent  of  cloth  of 
gold,  and  they  ate  of  the  fruit  with  great  enjoyment.  The  hill  is 
emblematic  of  the  mortal  life  of  Christ,  the  trees  are  His  virtues, 
love,  pity  and  others.  The  saints  rest  under  different  trees  according 
as  they  adhered  to  the  Lord's  different  virtues;  those  who  followed 
Him  in  charity,  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  charity  ;  those  who 
were  full  of  pity,  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  pity,  and  so  on  accord- 
ing to  the  virtue  each  has  practised. 

'Then  those  who  were  ready  to  honour  the  holy  face  with  a 
special  prayer  approached  the  Lord,  carrying  on  their  shoulders 
their  sins,  which  they  laid  at  His  feet ;  and  they  were  forthwith 
transformed  into  jewels  of  glowing  gold  (xenia  aurea).  Those 
whose  repentance  had  come  out  of  love,  because  they  were  sad 
at  having  offended  God  without  having  been  punished,  saw  their 
sins  changed  into  golden  necklaces.  Others  who  had  redeemed 
them  by  saying  the  psalms  and  other  prayers,  had  them  trans- 
formed into  golden  rings  such  as  are  used  at  festivals  (Domini- 
calibus).  Those  who  had  made  restitution  for  their  sins  by  their 
own  efforts,  saw  before  them  lovely  golden  shields ;  while  those 
who  had  purified  their  sins  by  bodily  suffering,  beheld  them  as  so 
many  golden  censers,  for  bodily  chastisement  before  God  is  like  the 
sweetness  of  thyme.' 

The  following  is  an  example  of  a  homely  simile*. 

*  Revelationes,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  2  ('Liber  Specialis  Gratiae,'  bk  i,  ch.  lo,  De 
veneratione  imaginis  Christi),  p.  31. 

■■'  Ibid.  vol.  2  ('Liber  Specialis  Gratiae,'  bk  1,  ch.  23,  De  coquina  domini), 
p.   165. 


346  The  Convent  of  Helfta  [chap,  ix 

'On  a  certain  occasion  she  was  conscious  of  having  received 
an  unusual  gift  through  the  Lord's  bounty,  when  feeling  her  in- 
adequacy she  humbly  said  :  "  O  bounteous  King,  this  gift,  does  it 
befit  me  who  deem  myself  unworthy  of  entering  thy  kitchen  and 
washing  thy  platters?"  Whereupon  the  Lord:  "Where  is  my 
kitchen  and  where  are  the  platters  thou  wouldst  wash  ?"  She 
was  confounded  and  said  nothing.  But  the  Lord,  who  puts  ques- 
tions not  that  they  may  be  answered  but  that  He  may  give  answer 
unto  them  Himself,  made  her  rejoice  by  His  reply.  He  said  :  "  My 
kitchen  is  my  heart  which,  like  unto  a  kitchen  that  is  a  common 
room  of  the  house  and  open  alike  to  servants  and  masters,  is  ever 
open  to  all  and  for  the  benefit  of  all.  The  cook  in  this  kitchen 
is  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  kindly  without  intermission  provides  things 
in  abundance  and  by  replenishing  them  makes  things  abound  again. 
My  platters  are  the  hearts  of  saints  and  of  chosen  ones,  which 
are  filled  from  the  overflow  of  the  sweetness  of  my  divine  heart." ' 

From  a  passage  in  these  books^  we  learn  that  a  large  number 
of  Mechthild's  visions  had  been  put  into  writing  by  her  fellow-nuns 
before  she  was  made  acquainted  with  the  fact.  For  a  time  she 
was  sorely  troubled,  then  she  gained  confidence,  reflecting  that 
her  power  to  see  visions  had  come  from  God,  and  indeed  she 
heard  a  voice  from  heaven  informing  her  that  her  book  should  be 
called  the  '  Book  of  Special  Grace.' 

She  had  all  her  life  been  distressed  by  physical  suffering. 
During  her  last  illness  she  was  generally  unconscious  and  her 
fellow-nuns  crowded  about  her  praying  that  she  would  intercede 
with  God  in  their  behalf. 

Neither  of  the  Mechthilds  makes  any  reference  in  her  writings 
to  the  nun  Gertrud,  but  Gertrud's  works  contain  various  references 
to  her  fellow-nuns^  and  it  is  surmised  that  Gertrud  helped  to  put 
the  nun  Mechthild's  visions  into  writing  before  she  wrote  on  her 
own  account.  A  passage  in  her  own  book  of  visions^  refers  to 
revelations  generally,  and  the  Lord  explains  to  her  how  it  is  that 
visions  are  sometimes  written  in  one,  sometimes  in  another  lan- 
guage. This  idea  may  have  been  suggested  by  the  fact  that  the 
beguine  Mechthild's  writings  were  in  German  and  the  nun 
Mechthild's  in  Latin. 

^  Revelationes,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  2  (bk  2,  ch.  43,  De  nomine  et  utilitate  hujus 
libri),  p.  19a. 

'  Ibid.  vol.  I,  pp.  46,  269.  '  Ibid.  vol.  i,  p.  218. 


SECT,  ii]  and  its  Literary  Nuns.  347 

Gertrud  was  very  different  from  both  of  these  writers  in 
disposition'.  Probably  of  humble  origin,  she  had  been  given 
into  the  care  of  the  convent  as  a  child  (in  1261),  and  in 
her  development  was  greatly  influenced  by  the  sisters  Gertrud 
the  abbess,  and  the  nun  Mechthild  von  Hackeborn.  Of  a 
passionate  and  ambitious  nature,  she  devoted  all  her  energies 
to  mastering  the  liberal  arts,  but  in  consequence  of  a  vision  that 
came  to  her  at  twenty-five,  she  cast  them  aside  and  plunged  into 
religious  study.  She  mastered  the  spirit  and  contents  of  Holy 
Writ  so  rapidly  that  she  began  to  expound  them  to  others.  Then 
she  made  extracts  and  collections  of  passages  from  the  Fathers, 
out  of  which  we  are  told  she  made  many  books.  The  influence  of 
her  personality  was  such  that  'none  conversed  with  her  who  did  not 
afterwards  declare  they  had  profited  by  it.'  The  admiration  she 
aroused  among  her  fellow-nuns  was  so  great  that  they  declared  that 
God  had  compared  her  to  the  nun  Mechthild  and  that  He  said : 
'  In  this  one  have  I  accomplished  great  things,  but  greater  things 
will  I  accomplish  in  Gertrud-.'  As  a  proof  of  her  industry  we  are 
told'  that  she  was  occupied  from  morning  till  night  translating 
from  Latin  (into  German),  shortening  some  passages,  amplifying 
others  '  to  the  greater  advantage  of  her  readers.'  From  another 
passage  it  appears  that  she  compiled  a  poem  (carmen)  from  the 
sayings  (dictis)  of  the  saints^  and  as  an  illustration  of  her  moral 
attitude  we  are  told  that  when  she  was  reading  the  Scriptures  aloud 
and  '  as  it  happened,'  passages  occurred  which  shocked  her  by  their 
allusions,  she  hurried  them  over  quickly  or  pretended  not  to 
understand  them.  '  But  when  it  became  needful  to  speak  of  such 
things  for  some  reason  of  salvation,  it  was  as  though  she  did  not 
mind,  and  she  overcame  her  hesitation ^'  Her  great  modesty  in 
regard  to  her  own  requirements  is  insisted  on  by  her  biographer. 
Many  bore  witness  to  the  fact  that  they  were  more  impressed  by 
her  words  than  by  those  of  celebrated  preachers,  for  she  frequently 
moved  her  audience  to  tears*.  In  addition  the  writer  feels  called  upon 
to  mention  a  few  incidents  that  happened  to  Gertrud,  giving  them 
a  miraculous  rendering,  no  doubt  from  a  wish  to  enhance  her  worth. 

The  information  about  Gertrud  is  supplied  by  the  first  part  of 
her  book  called  *  The  Legacy  of  Divine  Piety  V  which  as  it  does 

*  Revelaiiotus,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  i,  pp.  i  ff.  on  her  life.  '  Ibid.  vol.  i,  p.  14. 
'  Ibid.  vol.  I,  p.  33.                *  Ibid.  vol.  i,  p.  327.                "  Ibid.  vol.  i,  p.  37. 

•  Ibid.  vol.  I,  p.  39. 

''  '  Legatus  Divinae  Pietatis '  in  Revelationes,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  i ,  pp.  i  ff. 


348  The  Convent  of  Helfta  [chap,  ix 

not  mention  Gertrud's  death,  seems  to  have  been  written  while 
she  was  alive,  perhaps  as  a  preface  to  a  copy  of  her  revelations. 
It  was  only  after  many  years  of  study  and  literary  activity  that 
she  determined  to  write  down  her  personal  experiences,  and  these 
accounts,  written  between  1.289  ^"d  1290,  form  the  second  part  of 
the  book  as  it  stands  at  present  and  constitute  its  chief  and  abiding 
interest. 

The  admiration  bestowed  on  the  '  Legacy  of  Divine  Piety '  was 
almost  greater  than  that  given  to  the  writings  of  the  nun  Mechthild. 
The  perusal  of  a  chapter  will  show  Gertrud's  attitude  of  mind. 
Starting  from  the  occasion  when  she  first  became  conscious  of  a 
living  communion  with  God,  she  describes  how  step  by  step  she 
realised  an  approximation  to  things  divine,  such  as  reverence,  love, 
and  the  desire  of  knowledge  alone  can  secure.  She  speaks  of 
experiencing  in  herself  a  deeper  religious  consciousness  which 
reacted  in  making  her  feel  herself  unworthy  of  the  special  attention 
of  her  Creator,  and  she  continues  in  this  strain*: 

'  If  I  look  back  on  what  the  tone  of  my  life  was  before  and 
afterwards,  in  truth  I  declare  that  this  is  grace  I  am  grateful  for 
and  yet  unworthy  of  receiving.  For  thou,  O  Lord,  didst  grant 
unto  me  of  the  clear  light  of  thy  knowledge  to  which  the  sweetness 
of  thy  love  prompted  me  more  than  any  deserved  correction  of  my 
faults  could  have  done.  I  do  not  recall  having  felt  such  happiness 
save  on  the  days  when  thou  didst  bid  me  to  the  delights  of  thy 
royal  table.  Whether  thy  wise  forethought  had  so  ordained,  or 
my  continued  shortcomings  were  the  reason  of  it,  I  cannot  decide. 

'  Thus  didst  thou  deal  with  and  rouse  my  soul  on  a  day  between 
Resurrection  and  Ascension  when  I  had  entered  the  courtyard  at  an 
early  hour  before  Prime,  and  sitting  down  by  the  fishpond  was 
enjoying  the  beauties  of  the  surroundings  which  charmed  me  by  the 
clearness  of  the  flowing  water,  the  green  of  the  trees  that  stood 
around,  and  the  free  flight  of  the  birds,  especially  the  doves,  but 
above  all  by  the  reposeful  quiet  of  the  retired  situation.  My  mind 
turned  on  what  in  such  surroundings  would  make  my  joy  perfect, 
and  I  wished  for  a  friend,  a  loving,  affectionate  and  suitable  com- 
panion, who  would  sweeten  my  solitude.  Then  thou,  O  God,  author 
of  joy  unspeakable,  who  as  I  hope  didst  favour  the  beginning  of  my 
meditation  and  didst  complete  it,  thou  didst  inspire  me  with  the 
thought  that  if,  conscious  of  thy  grace,  I  flow  back  to  be  joined  to 
thee  like  the  water  ;  if,  growing  in  the  knowledge  of  virtue  like  unto 

1  '  Legatus  Divinae  Pietatis'  in  Revelationes,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  i,  p.  6i. 


SECT,  ii]  and  its  Literary  Nuns.  349 

these  trees,  I  flower  in  the  greenness  of  good  deeds ;  if,  looking 
down  on  things  earthly  in  free  flight  like  these  doves,  I  approach 
heaven,  and,  with  my  bodily  senses  removed  from  external  turmoil, 
apprehend  thee  with  my  whole  mind,  then  in  joyfulness  my  heart 
will  make  for  thee  a  habitation. 

'  My  thoughts  during  the  day  dwelt  on  these  matters,  and  at 
night,  as  I  knelt  in  prayer  in  the  dormitory,  suddenly  this  passage 
from  the  Gospel  occurred  to  me  (John  xiv.  23),  "  If  a  man  love  me, 
he  will  keep  my  words ;  and  my  Father  will  love  him,  and  we  will 
come  unto  him,  and  make  our  abode  with  him."  And  my  impure 
heart  felt  thee  present  therein.  O  would  that  an  ocean  of  blood 
passed  over  my  head  that  my  miserable  inadequacy  were  washed 
out  now  that  thou  hast  made  thy  abode  with  me  in  dignity  inscru- 
table! Or  that  my  heart  snatched  from  my  body  were  given  to 
me  to  cleanse  with  glowing  coal,  so  that,  freed  of  its  dross,  it  might 
offer  thee  if  not  indeed  a  worthy  abode,  yet  one  not  altogether 
unworthy.  Thus,  O  God,  didst  thou  show  thyself  from  that  hour 
onwards,  sometimes  kindly,  sometimes  stern,  in  accordance  with 
my  improved  or  neglectful  way  of  life ;  though  I  must  admit  that 
the  utmost  improvement  to  which  I  sometimes  momentarily  at- 
tained, had  it  lasted  all  my  life,  never  had  made  me  worthy  of 
the  least  part  of  the  sustenance  which  I  received  in  spite  of  many 
sins  and,  alas !  of  great  wickedness.  For  thy  extreme  tenderness 
shows  me  thee  more  grieved  than  angered  by  my  shortcomings, 
a  proof  to  me  that  the  amount  of  thy  forbearance  is  greater  when 
thou  dost  bear  with  me  in  my  failings,  than  during  thy  mortal  life, 
when  thou  didst  bear  with  the  betrayer  Judas, 

'When  I  strayed  in  mind,  tempted  away  by  some  deceitful 
attraction,  and  after  hours,  or  alas  !  after  days,  or  woe  is  me !  after 
weeks,  returned  to  my  heart,  always  did  I  find  thee  there,  so  that 
I  cannot  say  that  thou  hast  withdrawn  thyself  from  me  from  that 
hour,  nine  years  ago,  till  eleven  days  before  the  feast  of  John 
the  Baptist,  save  on  one  occasion,  when  it  happened  through  some 
worldly  dispute,  I  believe,  and  lasted  from  Thursday  (the  fifth 
feria)  to  Tuesday  (the  second  feria).  Then  on  the  vigil  of  St 
John  the  Baptist,  after  the  mass  Nee  timeas  etc.,  thy  sweetness 
and  great  charity  came  back  to  me,  finding  me  so  forlorn  in 
mind  that  I  was  not  even  conscious  of  having  lost  a  treasure,  nor 
thought  of  grieving  for  it,  nor  was  desirous  of  having  it  returned, 
so  that  I  cannot  account  for  the  madness  that  possessed  my  mind, 
unless  indeed  it  so  happened  because  thou  didst  wish  me  to  ex- 


350  The  Convent  of  Helfta  [chap,  ix 

perience  in  myself  these  words  of  St  Bernard :  "  We  fly  and  thou 
pursuest  us;  we  turn  our  back  on  thee,  thou  comest  before  us; 
thou  dost  ask  and  art  refused  ;  but  no  madness,  no  contempt  of 
ours  makes  thee  turn  away  who  never  art  weary,  and  thou  dost 
draw  us  on  to  the  joy  of  which  it  is  said  (i  Cor.  ii.  9), '  Eye  hath 
not  seen,  nor  ear  heard  it,  neither  has  it  entered  into  the  heart  of 
man."  * 

These  passages  must  suffice.  Anyone  desirous  of  following 
Gertrud  through  the  further  experiences  which  guided  her  to  the 
knowledge  of  God  and  gave  her  an  insight  into  the  working  of 
spiritual  love  must  turn  to  her  writings,  which  bear  the  reader 
onwards  in  continuous  flow,  and  with  much  self-analysis  and  self- 
realisation  give  evidence  of  the  conscious  joy  which  develops  into 
rapture  in  the  presence  of  the  Divine.  A  passage  contained  in 
the  last  chapter  of  the  book  describes  Gertrud's  hopes  regarding 
her  work,  and  fitly  summarises  her  aspirations*. 

'  Behold,  beloved  God,'  she  writes, '  I  here  deposit  the  talent  of 
thy  most  gracious  friendship,  which,  entrusted  to  me,  the  lowliest 
and  least  worthy  of  thy  creatures,  I  have  set  forth  to  the  increase 
of  thy  power ;  for  I  believe  and  dare  aflirm  that  no  reason  prompted 
me  to  write  and  speak  but  obedience  to  thy  will,  desire  for  thy  glory, 
and  zeal  for  the  salvation  of  souls.  I  take  thee  to  witness  that  I 
wish  thee  praise  and  thanks,  for  thy  abundant  grace  withdrew  itself 
not  from  me  on  account  of  my  unworthiness.  And  herein  also 
shalt  thou  find  praise,  that  readers  of  this  book  will  rejoice  in  the 
sweetness  of  thy  bounty,  and,  drawn  to  thee,  learn  greater  things 
through  it ;  for  as  students  progress  from  first  learning  the  alphabet 
to  acquaintance  with  logic  (logica),  by  means  of  the  imagery  here 
described  they  will  be  led  to  taste  of  that  hidden  divine  sustenance 
(manna)  which  cannot  be  expressed  even  by  allegory... .Mean- 
while in  accordance  with  thy  faithful  promise  and  my  humble 
request,  grant  to  all  who  read  this  book  in  lowliness  that  they 
rejoice  in  thy  love,  bear  with  my  inadequacy,  and  feel  true  con- 
trition themselves,  in  order  that  from  the  golden  censers  of  their 
loving  hearts  a  sweet  odour  may  be  wafted  upwards  to  thee,  making 
full  amends  for  my  carelessness  and  shortcomings.' 

Before  the  personal  interest  of  this  portion  of  the  book 
the  other  parts  written  by  fellow-nuns  fade  into  insignificance. 
They  contain   accounts   of  Gertrud's   thoughts   on  various   occa- 

*  Revelationes,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  i,  p.  113. 


SECT,  ii]  and  its  Literary  Nuns.  351 

sions,  and  are  chiefly  interesting  for  the  comments  they  contain 
on  various  accepted  saints ;  we  here  see  what  thoughts  were  sug- 
gested to  the  Helfta  nuns  by  the  personalities  of  St  Benedict, 
St  Bernard,  St  Augustine,  St  Dominic,  St  Francis,  St  Elisabeth,  and 
others.  Thus  the  feast  of  St  John  the  Apostle  gives  rise  to  an 
account  of  him^  sitting  in  heaven,  where  he  keeps  the  holy  record, 
and  writes  in  different  colours,  sometimes  in  red,  sometimes  in 
black,  sometimes  in  letters  of  gold — a  simile  which  recalls  the  art  of 
writing.  The  *  Legacy  of  Divine  Piety '  of  Gertrud  has  repeatedly 
been  printed  in  the  original  Latin,  sometimes  in  conjunction  with 
the  '  Book  of  Special  Grace '  of  the  nun  Mechthild,  and,  like  the 
revelations  of  Mechthild,  the  writings  of  Gertrud  have  been  trans- 
lated into  German  and  English.  Both  in  their  original  form  and 
in  selections  the  writings  of  these  nuns  are  used  as  books  of  devotion 
among  Catholics  to  this  day,  but  neither  Gertrud  nor  Mechthild 
have  till  now  been  given  a  place  in  the  Acta  Sanctorum. 

Gertrud  outlived  her  distinguished  contemporaries  at  Helfta ; 
she  died  in  131 1^  her  thoughts  having  been  engrossed  by  the 
anticipation  of  death  for  some  time  before.  During  these  last 
years  of  her  life  she  composed  a  number  of  prayers  called  *  Spiri- 
tual Exercises ''  for  the  use  of  her  fellow-nuns,  the  religious  fervour 
of  which  has  perhaps  rarely  been  surpassed. 

They  are  written  in  rhyme  but  in  varying  rhythm  ;  perhaps 
they  are  best  designated  as  rhymed  prose.  Only  the  original 
Latin  can  give  an  idea  of  their  eloquence,  but,  in  the  interest  of 
the  general  reader  I  have  added  one  in  English  prose.  It  is 
one  of  the  series  designated  as  '  a  supplication  for  sinfulness  and 
a  preparation  for  death.'  There  is  one  prayer  for  every  canoni- 
cal hour ;  the  following*  is  intended  for  repetition  after  the  hour 
of  prime,  '  when  the  Soul  holds  converse  with  Love  and  Truth ; 
and  when  the  thought  of  eternal  judgment,  at  which  Truth  will 
preside,  causes  the  Soul  to  beseech  Love  to  help  her  to  secure 
Jesus  as  her  advocate.' 

*  And  thus  shalt  thou  begin  to  effect  a  reconciliation  with  God. 

'O  shining  Truth,  O  just  Equity  of  God,  how  shall  I  appear 
before  thy  face,  bearing  my  imperfections,  conscious  of  the  burden 

1  Revelationes,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  i,  p.  351. 

•  Preger,  W.,  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Mystik  im  Mittelalter,  1874,  vol.  i,  p.  78. 
'  '  Exercitia  Spiritualia,'  in  Revelationes,  etc.  edit.  Oudin,  vol.  i,  pp.  617-710. 

*  Ibid.  pp.  701  ff. 


352  The  Convent  of  Helfta  [chap,  ix 

of  my  wasted  life,  and  of  the  weight  of  my  great  negh'gence  ?  Woe, 
woe  is  unto  me ;  I  did  not  make  the  payment  of  a  Christian's  faith 
and  of  a  spiritual  life  there  where  the  treasures  of  love  are  stored, 
that  thou  mightest  receive  it  back  with  manifold  increase  of  interest. 
The  talent  of  life  entrusted  ,to  me,  not  only  have  I  left  it  unused  ; 
but  I  have  forfeited  it,  debased  it,  lost  it.  Where  shall  I  go,  whither 
shall  I  turn,  how  can  I  escape  from  thy  presence  ? 

*  O  Truth,  in  thee  undivided  abide  justice  and  equity.  In  ac- 
cordance with  number,  weight  and  measure  dost  thou  give  judg- 
ment. Whatever  thou  dost  handle  is  weighed  in  truly  even  scales. 
Woe  is  unto  me,  a  thousand  times  woe,  if  I  be  given  over  to  thee 
with  none  to  intercede  in  my  behalf!  O  Love,  do  thou  speak 
for  me,  answer  for  me,  secure  for  me  remission.  Take  up  my 
cause,  that  through  thy  grace  I  may  find  eternal  life. 

'  I  know  what  I  must  do.  The  chalice  of  salvation  I  will 
take;  the  chalice,  Jesus,  I  will  place  on  the  unweighted  scale  of 
Truth.  Thus,  thus  can  I  supply  all  that  is  wanting;  thus  can  I 
outweigh  the  balance  of  my  sins.  By  that  chalice  can  I  counter- 
balance all  my  defects.  By  that  chalice  I  can  more  than  counter- 
poise my  sins. 

'  Hail,  O  Love,  thy  royal  bondservant  Jesus,  moved  in  His 
inmost  being,  whom  thou  didst  drag  at  this  hour  before  the  tribunal, 
where  the  sins  of  the  whole  world  were  laid  on  Him  who  was  with- 
out spot  or  blemish,  save  that  out  of  pity  of  me  He  charged  Himself 
with  my  sins, — Him  the  most  innocent,  Him  the  most  beloved,  con- 
demned for  love  through  my  love  of  Him  and  suffering  death  for 
me,  Him  I  would  receive  from  thee  to-day,  O  Love  Divine,  that 
He  may  be  my  advocate.  Grant  me  this  security  that  in  this 
cause  I  have  Him  as  my  defender. 

'  O  beloved  Truth !  I  could  not  come  before  thee  without  my 
Jesus,  but  with  Jesus  to  come  before  thee  is  joyful  and  pleasant. 
Ah  Truth,  now  sit  thee  on  the  seat  of  judgment,  enter  on  the 
course  of  justice  and  bring  against  me  what  thou  wilt,  I  fear 
no  evil,  for  I  know,  I  know  thy  countenance  cannot  confound  me, 
now  that  He  is  on  my  side  who  is  my  great  hope  and  my  whole 
confidence.  Verily,  I  long  for  thy  judgment  now  Jesus  is  with  me, 
He  the  most  beloved,  the  most  faithful.  He  who  has  taken  on 
Himself  my  misery  that  He  may  move  thee  to  compassion. 

*  Ah,  sweetest  Jesus,  thou  loving  pledge  of  my  deliverance,  come 
with  me  to  the  judgment  court.  There  let  us  stand  together  side 
by  side.     Be  thou  my  counsel  and  my  advocate.     Declare  what 


SECT,  ii]  and  its  Literary  Nuns.  353 

thou  hast  done  for  me,  how  well  thou  hast  thought  upon  me,  how 
lovingly  thou  hast  added  to  me  that  I  might  be  sanctified  through 
thee.  Thou  hast  lived  for  me  that  I  may  not  perish.  Thou  hast 
borne  the  burden  of  my  sins.  Thou  hast  died  for  me  that  I 
might  not  die  an  eternal  death.  All  that  thou  hadst  thou  gavest 
for  me,  that  through  the  wealth  of  thy  merit  I  might  be  made  rich. 
'Verily  in  the  hour  of  death  judge  me  on  the  basis  of  that 
innocence,  of  that  purity  which  came  to  me  through  thee  when 
thou  didst  make  atonement  for  my  sins  with  thine  own  self,  judged 
and  condemned  for  my  sake,  so  that  I,  who  am  poor  and  destitute 
in  myself,  through  thee  may  be  wealthy  beyond  measure.' 


23 


CHAPTER   X. 

SOME  ASPECTS   OF  THE   CONVENT  IN   ENGLAND  DURING 
THE   LATER   MIDDLE   AGES. 

'  All  that  wons  in  religioun 

aw  to  haue  sum  ocupacioun, 

outher  in  kirk  or  hali  bedes, 

or  stodying  in  oder  stedes; 

ffor  ydilnes,  os  sais  sant  paul 

es  grete  enmy  unto  the  soul.' 
Rule  of  St  Benedict  translated  into  English  for  the  use  of  women, 
1400-1425  (11.   1887  ff.). 

§  I.     The  External  Relations  of  the  Convent. 

From  consideration  of  affairs  on  the  Continent  we  return  once 
more  to  England,  to  consider  the  external  relations  of  the  convent 
and  the  purposes  these  institutions  fulfilled  during  the  later 
Middle  Ages.  Speaking  generally  the  monasteries  maintained 
their  standing  unimpaired  till  the  beginning  of  the  14th  century ; 
then  their  character  began  to  change  and  for  quite  a  century  they 
ceased  to  be  attractive  to  progressive   and  original  minds.     The 

I  range  of  occupations  cultivated  by  their  inmates  was  restricted, 
and  these  inmates  gradually  came  to  regard  everything  with 
indifference  except  their  own  narrow  religious  interests. 

The  previous  chapters  have  shown  that  monasteries  at  different 
periods  had  served  a  variety  of  purposes  and  had  inaugurated 
progress  in  various  directions;  but  after  the  year  1350  few  if  any 
new  developments  are  recorded.  As  agricultural  centres  they  con- 
tinued prosperous  on  the  whole ;  the  abbot  and  the  abbess  retained 
their  character  as  good  landlords  ;  charity  and  hospitality  continued 
I  to  be  practised  by  them.  But  as  intellectual  centres  the  monasteries 
had  found  their  rival  in  the  growing  townships.  The  townships  at 
the  beginning  of  the  14th  century  were  so  well  established  that  they 


SECT,  i]     The  ^External  Relations  of  the  Convent.  355 


were  able  to  protect  and  further  pursuits  and  industries  which  had 
hitherto  flourished  under  the  protection  of  monastic  centres.  Book- 
learning  and  science  were  cultivated  in  a  more  liberal  spirit  at  the 
universities,  where  the  friars  of  different  orders  had  established 
houses ;  and  the  arts  and  crafts  flourished  on  more  fruitful  soil 
under  the  protection  of  the  town.  The  progress  of  the  English 
nation  during  the  14th  and  15th  centuries  is  uncontested;  but 
little  of  it,  if  any,  was  due  to  the  influence  of  monks.  On  the 
whole  monasteries  continued  to  be  favourably  regarded  by  the 
nation,  and  the  system  of  which  they  formed  part  was  not  attacked, 
but  while  the  friar  freely  moved  from  city  to  city  and  for  a  while 
became  the  representative  of  learning  and  art,  the  monk  bound  to 
his  convent  home  showed  an  increasing  want  of  intellectual  activity. 

The  change  was  part  of  the  great  revolution  which  was  taking 
place  in  feudal  institutions  generally.  The  age  of  chivalry  was  a 
thing  of  the  past,  and  though  the  romantic  ideas  it  had  engendered 
had  not  ceased  to  influence  mankind,  they  no  longer  possessed 
the  transforming  power  of  innovation.  Similarly,  mysticism  which 
had  been  so  largely  cultivated  inside  convent  walls  had  done  its 
work  in  ushering  in  a  spiritualised  interpretation  of  religion;  during 
the  14th  century  it  was  spread  abroad  and  popularised  by  the  friars, 
who  gave  it  a  new  development,  the  monk's  interest  in  it  seemed  to 
cease.  But  the  ceremonial  and  ritual  which  the  mystic  had  helped 
to  elaborate,  and  the  many  observances  by  which  the  Catholicism 
of  the  Middle  Ages  had  secured  a  hold  on  the  concerns  of  daily 
life,  continued  in  undisturbed  prominence, — with  this  difference, 
that  from  elevating  the  few  the  ritual  had  now  come  to  impress 
the  many. 

It  is  often  insisted  on  that  during  the  later  Middle  Ages 
monasteries  were  homes  of  superstition  and  idolatry,  and  that 
practices  in  devotional  ritual  and  in  the  cult  of  the  miraculous 
were  kept  up  by  them  to  the  extent  of  making  them  a  hindrance 
to  moral  and  intellectual  development,  and  obnoxious  to  the 
advocates  of  more  liberal  and  advanced  views.  The  fact  must 
be  taken  as  part  of  the  conservative  attitude  of  these  houses, 
which  had  strengthened  their  hold  on  outside  attention  by  obser- 
vances with  which  their  existence  was  indissolubly  bound  up. 
Certainly  a  later  age  may  be  excused  for  condemning  what  had 
become  a  mischief  and  a  hindrance ;  but  it  is  well  to  recall  that 
it  was  precisely  those  usages  and  tendencies  which  a  later  period 
condemned  as  superstitious,  that  had  been  elaborated  at  an  early 

23—2 


356        The  External  Relan^  -'ent.     [chap,  x 

period  by  leaders  in  thought,  who  saw  in  them  the  means  of  setting 
forth  the  principles  of  the  Christian  faith.  And  the  elaborate  cult, 
the  processions  and  imagery  of  mediaeval  Christianity,  have  a  deeply 
significant  side  if  we  think  of  them  in  connection  with  the  poetic, 
pictorial,  dramatic  and  architectural  arts  of  the  later  Middle  Ages. 
K  Convents  retained  some  importance  for  the  education  of 
(  women  during  these  ages.  Attention  must  be  given  to  them 
in  this  connection,  though  the  standard  of  tuition  they  offered  was 
not  high.  Compared  with  the  level  they  had  reached  during  an 
earlier  period  convents  showed  signs  of  retrogression  rather  than  of 
advance,  and  compared  with  what  was  contemporaneously  attained 
at  the  universities,  the  training  women  received  in  the  convent 
was  poor  in  substance,  cramped  in  method,  and  insufficient  in 
application.  But,  as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain,  a  convent 
I  education  remained  the  sole  training  of  which  a  girl  could  avail 
\  herself  outside  the  home  circle.  For  the  universities  absolutely 
ignored  the  existence  of  woman  as  a  being  desirous  or  capable 
of  acquiring  knowledge,  and  the  teaching  at  the  mediaeval 
university  was  so  ordered  that  students  ranged  in  age  from 
the  merest  boyhood  to  manhood.  These  centres  then,  by  ignoring 
the  existence  of  women,  appropriated  to  men  not  only  the  pri- 
vileges of  a  higher  education,  but  also  all  knowledge  from  its 
rudiments  upwards. 

The  standard  of  education  in  the  average  nunnery  was  de- 
teriorating because  devotional  interests  were  cultivated  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  everything  else.  In  early  Christian  times  we  saw  monk 
and  nun  promoting  intellectual  acquirements  generally,  but  the 
separation  of  the  sexes,  and  the  growing  feeling  in  favour  of  the 
stricter  confinement  of  nuns  within  convent  precincts,  advocated 
by  a  later  age  in  the  interests  of  a  stricter  morality,  more  and 
more  cut  off  the  nun  from  contact  with  secular  learning.  In 
the  1 2th  century  we  saw  Queen  Matilda,  the  pupil  of  a  Wessex 
house,  writing  fluent  Latin  and  speaking  not  only  of  the  Fathers 
of  the  Church  but  quoting  from  classical  writers  of  whom  she 
evidently  knew  more  than  the  name.  But  in  the  later  Middle 
Ages  the  class  of  writers  who  were  read  in  the  convent  was 
restricted ;  service  books,  the  legends  of  the  saints,  theological 
works,  and  some  amount  of  .scripture,  comprised  the  range  of 
the  nun's  usual  studies.  The  remarks  of  contemporary  writers 
bear  out  the  inferences  to  be  drawn  from  such  a  narrowed  cur- 
riculum of  study.     The  nun  is  represented  as  a  person  careful  in 


SECT,  i]      The  External  Relations  of  the  Convent.  357 

her  devotions,  pious  in  her  intent,  of  good  manners  and  gentle 
breeding,  but  one-sided   in  the  view  she  takes  of  life. 

The  author  of  the  Ancren  Riwle,  as  mentioned  above,  left 
us  to  infer  that  the  women  he  was  addressing  were  acquainted 
with  English,  French,  and  Latin,  and  their  education  must  have 
been  given  them  in  convents.  His  work  was  written  in  the  early 
half  of  the  13th  century.  In  all  convents  down  to  the  Reformation 
Latin  continued  to  be  studied  to  some  extent,  if  only  so  far  as 
to  enable  the  nun  to  repeat  her  prayers,  to  follow  mass  and  to 
transcribe  a  book  of  devotion.  The  lady  superior,  by  the  terms 
of  her  appointment  and  on  account  of  the  duties  of  her  station, 
was  bound  to  have  some  knowledge  of  it.  But  at  the  same  time 
one  comes  across  remarks  which  lead  one  to  suppose  that  Latin] 
was  falling  into  disuse  in  nunneries,  especially  in  the  south  oft 
England,  and  that  French  was  taking  its  place.  Corroboration  of 
this  view  is  afforded  by  a  list  of  injunctions  sent  by  the  bishop  of 
Winchester  to  the  convent  at  Romsey,  in  consequence  of  an 
episcopal  visitation  in  13 10;  they  were  drawn  up  in  Latin,  but 
a  literal  translation  into  French  was  appended  for  the  greater 
convenience  of  the  nuns^  The  rules  and  ordinances  prescribed 
by  Archbishop  Walter  Reynolds  to  the  convent  of  Davington  in 
Kent  about  the  year  1326  were  written  in  French',  and  so  were 
the  set  of  rules  forwarded  by  the  abbot  of  St  Albans  to  the 
convent  of  Sopwell  in  I338^  On  the  other  hand  injunctions 
written  in  Latin  were  sent  to  Godstow  in  Oxfordshire  in  1 279  and 
to  Nun-Monkton  in  Yorkshire  in  1397. 

French  down  to  the  middle  of  the  14th  century  was  the  language 
of  the  upper  classes  as  well  as  the  legal  language*,  and  many  literary 
products  of  the  time  are  in  French.  A  '  Life  of  St  Katherine ' 
written  in  Norman  French  by  Clemence,  a  nun  at  Barking,  is  ex- 
tant in  two  MSS.  Only  its  opening  lines  have  been  published  in 
which  the  nun  informs  her  readers  that  she  has  translated  this  life 
from  Latin  into  '  romansV  Letters  written  by  ladies  superior 
during  this  period  were  usually  in  French.  Thus  the  prioress  and 
convent  of  Ankerwyke  in  Buckinghamshire  addressed  a  petition  to 
King  Edward  III.  in  French^  and  the  abbess  of  Shaftesbury  in 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Rumsey,'  vol.  i,  p.  507  footnote. 

^  Ibid.  '  Davington,'  vol.  4,  p.  288. 

'  Ibid.  '  Sopwell,'  vol.  3,  p.  365,  charter  nr  7. 

■*  Jusserand,  J.,  Hisloire  litteraire dti  PeupU  Anglais.,  1894,  pp.  121  ff.,  335  ff. 

'  Romania^  edit.  Meyer  et  Paris,  vol.  13,  p.  400. 

"  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Ankerwyke,'  vol.  4,  p.  ny,  charter  nr  4. 


.35^        T^^  External  Relations  of  tke  Convent,     [chap,  x 

1382  petitioned  King  Richard  II.  in  the  same  language\  Various 
documents  and  year-books  which  were  kept  in  reh'gious  houses 
show  that  entries  made  during  the  early  period  were  in  Latin,  but 
in  the  14th  century  French  frequently  occurs.  In  the  15th  century 
both  Latin  and  French  were  abandoned  and  the  use  of  English 
became  general.  The  documents  of  Barking,  a  most  important 
Benedictine  nunnery,  are  partly  in  Latin,  partly  in  French,  and 
partly  in  English ^  The  extant  charters  of  Legh  or  Minchenlegh 
in  Devonshire  are  exclusively  in  Latin,  but  the  rubrics  of  the 
14th  century  are  in  French^  In  the  register  of  Crabhouse^  an 
Austin  settlement  of  nuns  in  Norfolk,  all  three  languages  are  used. 
In  the  nunneries  of  the  south  of  England  French  maintained  it- 
self longest,  but  it  was  Norman  French,  which  continued  in  use  after 
the  change  abroad  which  made  the  French  spoken  on  this  side  of 
the  Channel  (except  that  of  court  circles)  sound  unfamiliar  to 
a  Frenchman.  In  the  Prologue  to  his  Canterbury  TaleSy  written 
about  1386,  Chaucer  introduces  a  prioress  who  was  one  of  the 
pilgrims  cji  route  for  Canterbury,  and  remarks  on  the  kind  of 
French  which  she  spoke  (1.  124)  : 

*  And  Frenche  she  spake  full  fayre  and  fetisly 
After  the  scole  of  Stratford  atte  Bow, 
For  Frenche  of  Paris  was  to  hire  unknowe.' 

Evidently  he  is  referring  to  the  French  which  was  generally  in 
use  at  the  nunneries.  Stratford,  otherwise  St  Leonard's,  Bromley, 
was  situated  in  Middlesex. 

English  was  first  heard  at  the  opening  of  the  session  at  West- 
minster in  1363,  and  in  1404  French  was  unintelligible  to  the 
English  ambassadors  in  Flanders.  I  have  come  across  few  French 
documents  relating  to  nunneries  which  are  later  than  the  year  1400 ; 
in  fact  a  petition  in  French  written  in  1433  t)y  the  prioress  of  Little- 
more  in  Oxfordshire  stands  almost  alone^ 

There  is  extant  a  highly  interesting  rhymed  version  of  the  rule 
of  St  Benedict  written  for  the  use  of  nuns  in  the  English  dialect 
of  the  north  between  1400  and  I425^     It  is  not  the  earliest  version 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticoft,  'Shaftesbury,'  vol.  2,  p.  471,  charter  nr  21. 

^  Ibid.  'Barking,'  vol.  i,  p.  441. 

"  Ibid.  '  Legh,'  vol.  6,  p.  333,  footnote  /.     MS.  Harleian  3660. 

*  Bateson,  M.,  'Register  of  Crabhouse  Nunnery'  (no  date),  Norfolk  and  Norwich 
ArchcEol.  Society. 

'"  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Littlemore,'  vol.  4,  p.  490,  charter  nr  14. 

•  Koelbing,  Englische  Studien,  vol.  2,  pp.  60  ff. 


SECT,  i]      The  External  Relations  of  the  Convent.  359 

in  English  made  for  the  use  of  nuns ;  there  is  a  translation,  known 
as  the  Winteney  version,  which  was  written  for  them  and  is  pre- 
served in  a  copy  of  the  13th  century;  and  it  is  possible  that  the 
earliest  Benedictine  rule  in  Anglo-Saxon  for  monks  was  adapted 
from  a  version  in  the  vernacular  written  for  women*.  However 
the  author  of  the  rhymed  version  of  the  15th  century  is  conscious 
of  women's  comparative  ignorance  of  Latin.  He  prefaces  his  rule 
with  the  reason  which  prompted  him  to  make  it.  '  Monks  and 
learned  men,'  he  says,  '  may  know  the  rule  in  Latin  and  gather 
from  it  how  to  work,  serving  God  and  Holy  Church  ;  it  is  for  the 
purpose  of  making  it  intelligible  to  women  who  learnt  no  Latin 
in  their  youth  that  it  is  here  set  into  English  that  they  may 
easily  learn  it...' 

The  name  of  this  translator  is  unknown.  On  the  ground  of 
certain  passages  referring  to  singing  in  choir  (line  11 88  ff.)  it  has 
been  supposed,  but  with  slight  probability,  that  the  translation 
was  the  work  of  a  woman. 

Another  proof  of  the  growing  unfamiliarity  with  Latin  in 
nunneries  is  afforded  by  the  introduction  to  the  register  of  God- 
stow,  which  was  one  of  the  wealthier  English  Benedictine  nunneries. 
This  register  was  written  under  the  abbess  Alice  Henley,  who  is 
known  to  have  been  ruling  in  the  year  1464,  and  consists  of 
126  folio  leaves  of  vellum.  According  to  Dugdale'  it  comprises 
'  an  account  of  the  foundation  of  the  house,  an  A.  B.  C.  of  devotion, 
a  kalendar  of  the  year,  and  all  the  charters  of  the  house  translated 
into  English.'  The  translator  has  left  an  introduction  to  his  work 
which  in  modern  English  runs  as  follows  :  '  The  wise  man  taught  his 
child  to  read  books  gladly  and  to  understand  them  well,  for  lack  of 
such  understanding  has  often  caused  negligence,  hurt,  harm  and 
hindrance,  as  experience  proves  ;  and  since  women  of  religion  in 
reading  Latin  books  are  excused  from  much  understanding  where 
it  is  not  their  mother  tongue,  therefore  if  they  read  their  books  of 
remembrance  and  of  gifts  written  in  Latin,  for  want  of  under- 
standing they  often  take  hurt  and  hindrance ;  and  since  for  want 
of  truly  learned  men  who  are  ready  to  teach  and  counsel  them, 
and  for  fear  also  of  publishing  the  evidence  of  their  titles  which 
has  often  caused  mischief,  it  seems  right  needful  to  the  under- 

*  This  supposition  is  based  on  certain  peculiarities  in  the  language  of  the  rule  for  men. 
Cf.  'Die  angelsachsischen  Prosabearbeitungen  der  Benedictinerregel,'  edit  Schroer,  1885 
(in  Grein,  Bibliotek  der  angels.  Prosa,  vol.  1)  Einleitung,  p.  xviii. 

'  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Godstow,'  vol.  4,  p.  357,  charter  nr  73. 


360        The  External  Relations  of  the  Convent,     [chap,  x 

standing  of  these  religious  women  that  they  have  besides  their 
Latin  books  some  written  in  their  mother  tongue,  by  which  they 
may  secure  better  knowledge  of  their  property  and  more  clearly 
give  information  to  their  servants,  rent-gatherers  and  receivers  in 
the  absence  of  their  learned  counsellors  ;  therefore  I,  a  poor  brother, 
and  '  wellwyller '  to  the  abbess  of  Godstow  Dame  Alice  Henley 
and  to  all  her  convent,  which  are  for  the  most  part  well  learned 
in  English  books... have  undertaken  to  make  this  translation  for 
them  from  Latin  into  English.' 

I  have  come  across  very  few  references  to  books  which  have 
come  from  nunneries.  A  celebrated  manuscript  in  Latin,  which 
contains  a  collection  of  the  lives  of  the  saints  and  is  written  on 
vellum,  belonged  to  the  convent  at  Romsey^ ;  a  copy  of  '  The  life 
of  St  Katherine  of  Alexandria '  by  Capgrave  (in  English  verse  of 
the  15th  century),  which  has  lately  been  printed,  is  designated  as 
belonging  to  Katherine  Babington,  subprioress  of  Campsey  in 
Suffolk^;  and  the  famous  Vernon  manuscript  which  contains  the 
most  complete  collection  of  writings  in  Middle  English  on  salvation 
or  *  soul-hele '  probably  came  from  a  nunnery. 

The  inventories  taken  of  the  goods  and  chattels  belonging  to 
convents  at  the  time  of  the  dissolution  contain  few  references  to 
books.  Probably  only  books  of  devotion  were  numerous,  and 
these  were  looked  upon  by  the  nuns  as  their  personal  property 
like  their  clothes,  and  were  taken  away  with  them  when  they  left. 
The  inventory  of  the  nunnery  of  Kilburn  mentions  that  two  copies 
of  the  Legenda  Aurea,  the  one  written,  the  other  printed,  were  kept 
in  the  chamber  of  the  churchy  In  connection  with  Sion,  the  only 
house  in  England  of  the  order  of  St  Bridget,  we  shall  hear  of  a 
splendid  collection  of  books,  all  I  believe  of  a  devotional  character. 

An  inventory  of  the  goods  of  the  comparatively  insignificant 
priory  of  Easebourne  in  Sussex,  which  never  numbered  more  than 
five  or  six  nuns,  was  taken  in  the  year  1450  and  shows  what  books 
of  devotion  were  then  in  its  possession.  The  following  are  enu- 
merated :  two  missals,  two  breviaries,  four  antiphonies,  one  large 
legenda  or  book  of  the  histories  of  the  saints,  eight  psalters,  one 
book  of  collects,  one  tropon  or  book  of  chants,  one  French  Bible, 
two  ordinalia  or  books  of  divine  office,  in  French,  one  book  of  the 


1  Lansdowne  MS.  436. 

^  Early  English  Text  Soc,  nr  loo.     Arundel  MS.  396. 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Kilburn,'  vol.  3,  p.  424. 


SECT,  i]     The  External  Relations  of  the  Convent.         361 

Gospels,  and  one  martyrology^  It  is  in  accordance  with  the  ex- 
clusively pious  training  shown  by  the  possession  of  books  such 
as  these  that  Chaucer  lets  his  prioress,  when  called  upon  to  con- 
tribute a  tale,  recount  the  legend  of  a  boy-martyr  who  was  murdered 
at  Alexandria,  and  the  nun  who  was  with  her  tell  the  legend  of 
St  Cecilia.  The  prioress  in  this  case  did  not  fail  to  impress  her 
hearers,  while  the  monk,  who  was  also  of  the  party  and  told  of 
worthies  of  biblical  and  of  classical  repute,  roused  no  interest. 

In  the  eyes  of  Chaucer  the  prioress  was  a  thoroughly  estimable 
person.  '  Madame  Eglentine,'  whose  smiling  was  '  ful  simple  and 
coy,'  and  who  spoke  French  fluently,  was  distinguished  also  for 
elegance  of  manners  at  table.  She  neither  dropped  her  food,  nor 
steeped  her  fingers  in  the  sauce,  nor  neglected  to  wipe  her  mouth, 
and  throughout  affected  a  certain  courtly  breeding  which  went 
well  with  her  station. 

'And  sikerly  she  was  of  grete  disport. 
And  ful  plesant,  and  amiable  of  port, 
And  peined  hire  to  contrefeten  chere 
Of  court,  and  ben  estatelich  of  manere. 
And  to  ben  holden  digne  of  reverence.' 

Her  sensitiveness  was  so  great  that  she  wept  on  seeing  a  mouse 
caught  in  a  trap,  and  the  death  of  one  of  the  small  dogs  she  kept 
caused  her  great  grief.  She  could  not  bear  to  see  one  of  them 
beaten,  for  in  her  '  all  was  conscience  and  tendre  herte.'  The  only 
ornament  she  wore  was  a  brooch  which  was  attached  to  her  beads 
and  on  which  were  inscribed  the  words  Amor  vincit  omnia.  The 
poet's  designating  her  companion  as  the  '  other  nun,'  suggests  that 
the  prioress  in  this  case  was  a  nun  herself,  that  is  that  she  was  not 
the  superior  of  a  priory,  but  prioress  and  member  of  a  convent 
which  was  under  an  abbess. 

Education  in  a  nunnery  at  this  period  secured  the  privilege 
of  being  addressed  as  '  Madame,'  the   title   of  a  woman  of  the 

*  Blaauw,  W.  H.,  '  Episcopal  visitations  of  the  Benedictine  nunnery  of  Easeboume' 
in  Sussex  Arch.  Collections,  vol.  9,  p.  12.  According  to  Bradshaw,  H.,  '  Note  on  service 
books'  (printed  as  an  appendix  in  Middleton,  J.  H.,  Illumittated  Manuscripts,  1892) 
the  missal  was  used  for  celebration  of  the  mass;  while  the  breviary  contained  the  services 
for  the  hours,  including  the  antiphony  (anthems  to  the  psalms) — the  legenda  (long  lessons 
used  at  matins), — the  psalter  (psalms  arranged  for  use  at  hours), — and  the  collects  (short 
lessons  used  at  all  the  hours  except  matins).  In  the  list  above,  these  are  enumerated  as 
separate  books.  He  further  says  that  the  ordinale  contained  general  rules  for  the  right 
understanding  and  use  of  the  service  books.  It  is  noteworthy  that  this  is  in  French  in 
the  list  of  books  at  Easeboume. 


;362        The  External  Relations  of  the  Convent,     [chap,  x 

upper  classes.  Directions  in  English  about  the  consecration  of  nuns 
which  were  in  use  in  the  diocese  of  Lincoln  about  the  year  1480 
are  in  existence*.  In  these  the  bishop  at  the  conclusion  of  the 
service  is  directed  to  offer  words  of  advice  to  the  newly  professed 
nuns,  which  begin  as  follows :  '  Daughters  and  virgins,  now  that 
you  are  married  and  espoused  to  Him  that  is  above  king  and 
'  kaysor,'  Jesus  Christ,  meet  it  is  and  so  must  you  from  henceforth 
in  token  of  the  same  be  called  '  madame  or  ladye^' 

Judging  from  a  passage  in  Chaucer  (1.  3940)  this  privilege  was 
apparently  kept  by  those  who  had  been  educated  in  a  nunnery  and 
returned  to  the  world.  The  reeve  tells  about  the  miller's  wife  who 
was  '  come  of  noble  kyn  ;  she  was  i-fostryd  in  a  nonnerye,'  and  on 
account  of  her  kindred  and  the  '  nostelry  '  she  had  learned,  no  one 
durst  call  her  but '  Madame.' 

It  remains  to  note  how  far  the  standing  of  nunneries  was 
directly  affected  in  the  later  Middle  Ages  by  external  social  and 
political  changes.  Various  conditions  combined  to  curtail  the 
privileges  of  religious  houses,  which  when  once  lost  were  never 
recovered. 

The  reign  of  Edward  I  (1272- 1307)  was  marked  by  many  legal 
innovations.  One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  king  was  to  appoint  a 
commission  to  enquire  into  jurisdictions,  and  a  general  survey  of 
the  whole  kingdom  was  taken  to  obtain  correct  knowledge  of  the 
rights  by  which  property  was  held.  Local  and  manorial  rights 
were  throughout  called  into  question,  which  in  many  instances 
resulted  in  their  being  curtailed  to  the  advantage  of  the  king.  In 
common  with  other  holders  of  property,  the  heads  of  monasteries 
incurred  direct  losses,  especially  the  heads  of  smaller  settlements, 
where  the  property  was  not  so  well  managed  and  the  superior  could 
not  afford  to  have  a  legal  adviser. 

Among  those  cited  before  the  justices  in  eyre  were  the  abbesses 
and  prioresses  of  convents  of  various  orders,  who  as  we  gather 
from  the  account  of  these  pleas ^  sometimes  appeared  in  person, 
sometimes  through  an  attorney,  to  justify  their  claims  and  to  seek 
re-establishment  of  their  rights.  The  superiors  of  smaller  settle- 
ments, whose  property  lay  near  their  house,  generally  appeared 
in  person,  but  the  superiors  of  larger  houses,  where  the  jurisdiction 
over  property  which  lay  at  a  distance  was  called  into  question, 

*  Maskell,  W.,  Monumenta  Ritucdia,  1882,  vol.  3,  p.  357  footnotes. 
'  Placita  de  Quo  Warranto  published  by  Command. 


SECT,  i]     The  External  Relations  of  the  Convent.  363 

appeared  by  an  attorney.  Thus  the  abbess  of  Barking  which  lies  in 
Essex  appeared  by  an  attorney  at  Bedford  and  in  Buckinghamshire, 
but  in  Essex  she  appeared  in  person  to  defend  certain  rights  con- 
nected with  property  she  held  at  Chelmsford  ^  The  abbess  of 
Mailing  in  Kent  appeared  by  attorney  at  Canterbury,  where  she 
secured  renewal  of  her  rights  before  the  king's  justiciaries  not  only 
to  liberties  and  franchises  of  the  most  extensive  kind  in  East  and 
West  Mailing,  but  to  the  holding  of  a  market  twice  a  week,  and  of 
three  fairs  in  the  year**. 

On  the  other  hand  we  find  the  prioress  of  Stratford  appearing 
in  person  before  the  judges  in  eyre  at  the  Stone  Cross,  bringing 
her  charters  with  her^  The  prioress  of  Wroxhall  at  first  refused 
to  answer  the  summons  to  appear  at  Warwick.  Afterwards  she 
appeared  in  person  and  succeeded  in  establishing  her  claim  to  her 
possessions  in  Hatton  and  Wroxhall  together  with  many  privileges 
and  immunities  which  had  been  confirmed  to  her  priory  by  Henry  II, 
Richard  I,  John  and  Henry  III,  as  appears  in  the  charters  granted 
by  those  monarchs^ 

But  not  all  were  so  successful.  The  prioress  of  Redlingfield 
in  Sufifolk  also  came  in  person  to  justify  a  right  which  was  held  to 
belong  to  the  crown,  but  which  she  claimed  that  she  and  all  her 
predecessors  had  held  time  out  of  mind.  But  as  she  could  show 
no  special  warrant,  William  de  Gyselham  prayed  judgment  for 
the  king.  A  day  was  appointed  for  further  hearing  of  the  case 
at  Westminster,  but  no  further  proceedings  appear*.  Frequently 
a  case  was  adjourned  to  Westminster  and  we  hear  no  more  of  it ; 
sometimes  also  the  king's  attorney  did  not  choose  to  prosecute  his 
suit  further. 

A  closer  analysis  of  these  pleas  helps  us  to  understand  the 
various  and  complicated  rights,  immunities  and  privileges  which 
abbess  and  prioress  had  acquired  in  common  with  feudal  lords 
at  an  early  period,  and  which  the  larger  houses  retained  with  few 
abatements  down  to  the  time  of  the  dissolution.  The  study  of 
these  rights  shows  that  a  considerable  business  capacity  and  no 
small  amount  of  attention  were  required  to  protect  a  settlement 
against  deterioration  and  decay. 

^  Placita  de  Quo  Warranto.,  pp.  1 1,  97,  232,  233. 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Mailing,'  vol.  3,  p.  381,  charter  nr  5. 
'  Ibid.  'Stratford,'  vol.  4,  p.  119,  charter  nr  3. 

*  Ibid.  '  Wroxhall,'  vol.  4,  p.  88. 

^  Ibid.  '  Redlingfield,'  vol.  4,  p.  25,  charter  nr  2, 


;364        Tfie  External  Relations  of  tlie  Convent,      [chap,  x 

The  number  of  religious  houses*  for  women  which  existed  at 
this  period,  including  those  of  all  orders,  was  close  upon  a  hundred 
and  thirty.  Their  number  can  be  estimated  only  approximately, 
because  some  fell  to  decay  and  were  abandoned  as  we  shall  see 
later,  while,  regarding  Gilbertine  settlements,  it  is  unknown  at  what 
period  nuns  ceased  to  inhabit  some  of  them.  The  number  of  monas- 
teries for  men  including  those  of  all  monkish  and  canonical  orders, 
at  the  same  period  was  over  four  hundred  ;  while  the  friars,  the 
number  of  whose  houses  fluctuated,  at  the  time  of  the  dissolution 
owned  about  two  hundred  houses. 

Of  the  settlements  of  nuns  eighty-two  belonged  to  the  order 
of  St  Benedict,  and  twenty-seven  (including  two  houses  which  had 
been  founded  by  the  order  of  Cluni)  to  Cistercian  nuns.  Fourteen 
houses  were  inhabited  by  Austin  nuns  or  canonesses  (including 
Sion),  and  two  by  nuns  of  the  order  of  Pr^montre. 

In  England  only  the  orders  of  friars  of  St  Francis  and  St 
Dominic  had  houses  for  women  attached  to  them.  The  nuns  of 
the  order  of  St  Clare,  called  also  Poor  Clares  or  Nuns  Minoresses, 
had  been  established  in  connection  with  the  Franciscan  friars, 
and  owned  three  houses,  of  which  the  house  in  London,  known  as 
the  Minories,  was  of  considerable  importance.  Only  one  house  of 
Dominican  nuns  existed  in  England.  The  nuns  both  of  the  Do- 
minican and  the  Franciscan  orders  differed  in  many  particulars 
from  other  nuns  and  are  usually  spoken  of  not  as  nuns  but  as 
sistersl  They  observed  strict  seclusion,  and  as  a  rule  took  no 
interest  in  anything  save  devotion.  A  set  of  rules  for  the  nuns 
of  St  Clare  was  written  by  St  Francis  himself,  and  gives  a  fair 
idea  of  the  narrow  interests  to  which  women  who  embraced  religion 
under  his  auspices  were  confined ^ 

Regarding  the  wealth  of  the  settlements  of  different  orders,  the 
houses  of  the  Benedictine  order  owned  most  property  and  drew 
the  largest  incomes ;  the  houses  owned  by  monks  were  through- 
out wealthier  than  those  owned  by  nuns.  Judging  by  the  com- 
putations made  at  the  time  of  the  dissolution  the  Cistercian  houses 
for  men,  and  the  houses  of  Austin  and  of  Premonstrant  Canons,  were 
comparatively  rich,  whereas  the  houses  of  Cistercian  and  of  Pre- 
monstrant nuns  were  poor,  but  the  income  of  the  Austin  nunnery, 

*  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII  and  the  English  Monasteries^  1888,  appendices  to  vols,  i 
and  3. 

'  The  word  '  mynchyn '  was  I  believe  never  applied  to  them. 
'  Holstenius,  Codex  regularuin,  1759,  vol.  3,  p.  34. 


SECT,  ii]      The  Internal  A 7'rangeme fits  of  the  Convefit.     365 

Buckland  in  Somersetshire,  compared  favourably  with  that  of  the 
wealthier  Benedictine  houses  for  women.  We  shall  have  occasion 
to  speak  more  fully  of  the  house  of  Sion,  which  was  of  the  order 
of  St  Bridget,  and  the  wealth  of  which  at  the  time  of  the  dissolu- 
tion exceeded  that  of  any  other  nunnery. 

g  2.    The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent. 

At  this  point  of  our  enquiry  it  seems  well  to  pause  for  a 
while  to  describe  the  inner  arrangements  of  a  nunnery  as  they 
present  themselves  during  the  later  Middle  Ages,  the  offices 
which  fell  to  the  several  members  of  the  convent,  and  the  daily 
life  of  the  nun.  The  material  at  the  disposal  of  the  student  lies 
scattered  in  the  convent  registers,  in  the  accounts  of  visitations, 
and  in  contemporary  literature,  and  is  supplemented  by  the 
study  of  ruins.  The  inventories  of  monasteries  made  during 
the  reign  of  Henry  VIII  at  the  time  of  the  dissolution 
(c.  1 5 36- 1 5 38)  further  add  to  this  information.  For  no  religious 
settlement  for  women  was  founded  after  the  death  of  Edward  III 
(1377)  with  the  sole  exception  of  Sion,  and  no  important 
changes  were  made  in  the  routine  of  existing  houses,  so  that 
the  state  of  things  which  survived  at  the  dissolution  may  be 
taken  with  slight  reservations  as  supplementing  our  information 
concerning  the  arrangements  during  the  earlier  period. 

Regarding  the  position  and  duties  of  the  lady  superior,  it  has 
been  mentioned  before*  that  comparatively  few  of  the  Benedictine 
nunneries  had  the  standing  of  abbeys,  most  of  them  being  priories, 
and  that  the  abbesses  of  four  houses  had  the  additional  title  of 
baroness  by  reason  of  the  property  they  held  of  the  king.  They 
were  called  upon  to  fulfil  duties  in  accordance  with  their  station, 
and  like  secular  barons  found  knights  for  the  king's  service.  In 
1257  Agnes  Ferrar,  abbess  of  Shaftesbury,  was  summoned  to 
Chester  to  take  part  in  the  expedition  against  Llewellin  ap  Griffith, 
and  again  in  1277  Juliana  Bauceyn  was  summoned  for  a  like 
purpose''. 

The  lady  superior  of  a  house  in  the  14th  and  15th  centuries 
was  frequently  seen  outside  the  convent ;  pleasure  as  well  as 
business  might  take  her  from  home.  It  has  been  mentioned  that 
the  heads  of  convents  sometimes  appeared  in  person  before  the 
justices   in   eyre.     Dame  Christina  Basset,  prioress  of  the  Bene- 

^  Cf.  above,  p.  104. 

•  Dugdale,  Monastkon,  •  Shaftesbury,'  vol.  j,  p.  473. 


366     The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent,    [chap,  x 

dictine  nunnery  of  St  Mary  Pr6e  in  Hertfordshire,  in  the  account 
of  her  expenditure  between  1487- 1489  had  the  following  entry 
made  :  '  when  I  rode  to  London  for  the  suit  that  was  taken'.'  In 
1368  the  bishop  of  Sarum,  in  whose  diocese  Shaftesbury  was, 
granted  a  dispensation  to  Joan  Formage  to  go  from  her  monastery 
to  one  of  her  manors  to  take  the  air  and  to  divert  herself  ^  Com- 
plaints were  made  of  the  too  frequent  absence  of  their  prioress  by 
members  of  the  Benedictine  nunnery  of  Easebourne,  at  the  visi- 
tation in  144 1,  when  it  was  alleged  that  the  prioress  was  in  the 
habit  of  riding  about  and  staying  away  on  pretence  of  business 
more  often  than  was  deemed  advantageous  to  the  convent'. 

After  her  election  by  the  convent,  the  lady  superior  made 
profession  of  canonical  obedience  to  the  bishop  of  her  diocese  and 
in  some  cases  waited  upon  the  patron  of  her  house.  The  nunnery 
of  St  Mary's,  Winchester,  was  one  of  the  houses  that  held  of  the 
king.  In  1265  Eufemia  was  received  by  Henry  III,  and  her 
successor  Lucia  went  to  Winchester  castle  to  be  presented ^  In 
houses  which  held  of  the  king  it  was  part  of  the  royal  prerogative 
that  on  his  ccwonation  the  king  should  recommend  a  nun  to  the 
convent.  In  connection  with  Shaftesbury  we  find  this  on  record 
in  the  first  year  of  Richard  II  (1377- 1399)  and  again  in  the  first 
of  Henry  V.  In  1428,  several  years  after  the  accession  of  Henry 
VI,  who  became  king  when  a  child,  a  royal  mandate  was  issued 
to  the  abbess  of  Shaftesbury  to  admit  Joan  Ashcomb  as  a  nun°. 
And  in  1430  the  same  king  nominated  Godam  Hampton  to  be 
received  as  a  nun  at  Barking^ 

All  the  versions  of  the  Benedictine  rule  known  to  me  speak  of 
the  head  of  the  monastery  as  the  abbot,  and  in  the  Winteney  version, 
which  was  written  for  nuns  in  the  13th  century,  the  head  of  the 
women's  house  is  accordingly  designated  as  abbessl  But,  probably 
because  the  number  of  abbesses  was  comparatively  small,  the  trans- 
lator of  the  rule  of  St  Benedict,  in  the  rhymed  English  version  of 
the  15th  century,  speaks  throughout  of  the  prioress  as  head  of  the 
nunnery^     It  is  the  prioress  (1.  337  ff.)  who  is  to  be  honoured  inside 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  St  Mary  Free,'  vol.  3,  p.  353,  charter  nr  9. 
"^  Ibid.  *  Shaftesbury,'  vol.  2,  p.  474. 

'^  Blaauw,  W.  H.,  'Episcopal  Visitations  of  the  Benedictine  Nunnery  of  Easebourne,* 
Sussex  Archaol.  Collections,  vol.  9,  p.  7. 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon^  'St  Mary  Winchester,'  vol.  2,  p.  452,  footnote. 

*  Ibid.  'Shaftesbury,'  vol.  2,  p.  473.         "  Ibid.  *  Barking,'  vol.  i,  p.  441,  charter  nr  8. 

7  Schroer,  Winteney  Version  der  regula  St  Benedicti,  1888,  p.  16. 

8  Edit.  Koelbing,  Englische  Studien,  vol.  2,  pp.  60  ff.  (line  references  in  the  text 
throughout  this  section  are  to  this  version). 


SECT,  it]     The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent.     367 

the  abbey  (sic)  and  out  of  it  wherever  she  goes  or  rides,  who  shall  be 
law  in  herself,  who  shall  have  no  pride  in  her  heart  but  ever  love 
God,  and  who  is  responsible  as  a  shepherd  or  herdsman  for  the 
women  given  into  her  care.  All  these  injunctions  are  given  in 
other  versions  of  the  rule  to  the  abbot  or  abbess.  It  further  says 
that  the  prioress  shall  not  favour  any  one  nun  by  letting  her  travel 
more  than  the  rest, — a  command  evidently  added  by  the  translator. 
In  another  passage  (1.  21 16  ff.)  closely  following  the  original  text 
it  is  enjoined  that  the  prioress  shall  liberally  entertain  guests,  but 
if  it  happens  that  there  be  none,  she  shall  invite  some  of  the  older 
sisters  to  dine  with  her. 

A  detailed  account  is  preserved  of  the  formalities  of  the 
appointment  of  a  prioress  to  the  convent  of  St  Radegund's  at 
Cambridge*.  This  settlement,  founded  about  the  middle  of  the 
1 2th  century,  had  experienced  many  vicissitudes,  but  was  com- 
paratively prosperous  in  the  year  1457,  when  the  death  of  the 
prioress,  Agnes  Seyntel,  on  September  8th,  left  its  twelve  inmates 
without  a  head.  We  gather  from  a  charter  that  the  first  step 
taken  after  her  demise  was  that  the  subprioress,  Matilda  Sudbury, 
and  the  convent  sent  information  to  the  bishop  of  Ely  asking  for 
permission  to  appoint  a  successor.  This  being  granted  the  nuns 
assembled  on  Sept.  23rd  and  fixed  the  27th  as  the  day  of  the 
election.  On  this  day  all  the  nuns  were  present  at  mass,  and 
then  three  of  them  were  chosen  arbiters  {cotnpromissarias).  These 
were  Joan  Lancaster,  Elizabeth  Walton  and  Katherine  Sayntlow, 
who  took  the  oath  and  gave  their  votes,  and  then  they  administered 
the  oath  to  the  other  nuns,  who  gave  their  votes  also.  The  form 
of  administration  of  the  oath  and  the  oath  itself  are  both  given 
in  Latin.  The  nuns  were  adjured  '  by  the  Father,  the  Son  and 
the  Holy  Ghost,  at  the  peril  of  their  soul,  according  to  God  and 
their  conscience,  to  name  and  choose  her  as  prioress  who  was 
most  needful  to  the  priory.'  The  form  of  oath  corresponds  to  this 
adjuration. 

The  votes  being  then  counted  it  was  found  that  a  majority 
of  seven  were  in  favour  of  the  appointment  of  Joan  Lancaster, 
whereupon  Elizabeth  Walton,  being  called  upon  by  the  others, 
declared  the  result  of  the  election.  The  Te  Deum  was  then  sung 
and  the  prospective  prioress,  reluctantly  in  this  case  it  seems,  was 
led  to  the  chief  altar  of  the  convent  church,  where  she  was  left, 

*  Shermann,  A.  J.,  Hist.  Coll.  Jesus  Cantab.,  edit.  Halliwell,  1840,  p.  16. 


368      The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent,    [chap,  x 

while  the  result  of  the  election  was  proclaimed  to  the  people 
outside  'in  the  vulgar  tongue.'  All  this  happened  before  noon, 
when  the  nuns  returned  to  the  chapter-house  and  called  upon 
Elizabeth  Walton  and  Katherine  Sayntlow  to  draw  up  the  deeds 
of  the  election,  and  to  lay  them  before  the  newly  appointed  prioress, 
who  was  requested  to  affirm  her  election  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
vestibule  of  the  church.  After  much  persuasion  Joan  Lancaster 
yielded  and  accepted  the  election.  The  words  of  her  speech  are 
given  ;  in  them  she  declares  that  she  is  a  free  woman  and  le- 
gitimate, born  in  lawful  wedlock,  and  therefore  entitled  to  proffer 
her  consent  and  assent.  Eleven  nuns  put  their  signatures  to  this 
document,  one  of  whom  designates  herself  as  subprioress  and 
president,  another  as  leader  of  the  choir,  succentrix,  another  as  cel- 
laress,  celeraria,  and  another  calls  herself  treasurer,  thesaurissa. 

In  connection  with  the  Benedictine  convent  of  Langley,  in 
Leicestershire,  a  further  formality  is  recorded  at  the  election  of 
a  new  prioress.  The  permission  of  the  patron  of  the  house  having 
been  obtained,  the  nuns  proceeded  to  elect  a  new  prioress,  and 
a  page  with  a  white  staff  sent  by  the  patron  guarded  the  door 
of  the  priory  till  the  election  was  made.  '  For  which  in  right  of 
his  master  he  was  to  have  his  diet  but  nothing  more^' 

The  form  of  consent  by  which  an  abbess  accepted  office  is 
entered  in  the  register  of  Bishop  Lacy  of  Exeter.  In  1449  Johan 
or  Jane  Arundell  was  appointed  abbess  of  the  Austin  settlement 
of  Legh  or  Canonlegh,  in  Devonshire^  Her  consent  is  drawn  up 
in  English,  and  in  it  she  speaks  of  herself  as  sister  Johan  Arundell, 
myttchyn,  an  ancient  word  for  nun  which  continued  in  use  in  the 
south  of  England  till  the  time  of  the  dissolution. 

A  previous  chapter  has  shown  that  the  appointment  of  a  prioress 
in  those  nunneries  which  were  cells  to  an  abbey,  depended  on  the 
abbot*.  In  the  houses  which  were  independent  and  elected  their 
own  head,  a  licence  from  the  bishop  had  to  be  secured.  And  if  the 
nuns  neglected  to  secure  this  licence  before  electing  a  superior  diffi- 
culties were  apt  to  occur.  In  the  case  of  Catesby,  a  Benedictine 
house  in  Northamptonshire,  such  difficulties  are  repeatedly  re- 
corded. At  the  death  of  the  prioress  Johanna  de  Northampton 
(1291),  the  cellaress  of  the  house  was  elected  in  her  stead  by  the 
nuns  ;   but  the  election  having  been  made  without  a  licence,  the 

'  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Langley,'  vol.  4,  p.  220. 

2  Maskell,  W.,  Monumenta  Rittialia,  1882,  vol.  3,  p.  358  footnote. 

*  Cf.  above,  p.  206. 


SECT,  ii]     The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent.     369 

bishop  of  Lincoln  declared  it  void.  Afterwards  however  he  con- 
firmed it  in  consideration  of  the  merits  of  the  person  elected.  At 
her  death  similar  neglect  on  the  one  side  was  followed  by  similar 
opposition  on  the  other ;  the  bishop  first  declared  the  election 
void  and  then  confirmed  it.  The  relation  of  Catesby  to  the  dio- 
cesan continued  to  be  a  source  of  difficulties.  In  1444  the  prioress 
Agnes  Terry  was  suspended  from  the  conduct  of  all  business  re- 
lating to  the  revenues  of  the  house  during  the  bishop's  pleasure, 
and  a  commission  was  granted  to  the  abbot  of  St  James  in 
Northampton  to  inspect  the  accounts  of  the  nunnery^ 

Sometimes  neglect  of  the  administration  of  the  property  of 
the  house  was  the  cause  of  the  voluntary  or  forced  resignation 
of  a  superior.  Love  of  finery  is  represented  as  the  cause  of  the 
ruin  of  the  prioress  Juliana  of  Bromhall  in  Berkshire,  into  whose 
conduct  an  enquiry  was  instituted  in  1404.  It  was  found  on  this 
occasion  that  she  '  had  injured  the  convent  and  her  own  character 
in  that  she  had  converted  to  her  nefarious  use,  alienated  and 
wasted  chalices,  books,  jewelry  {jocalia),  the  income  and  pos- 
sessions' of  the  prioryl  She  resigned,  but  it  is  not  recorded 
whether  she  remained  in  the  house.  In  several  instances  a  de- 
posed lady  superior  did  remain  in  the  convent.  Thus  Margaret 
Punder,  prioress  of  Flixton,  an  Austin  convent,  resigned  because 
of  complaints  of  her  negligence,  but  she  remained  in  the  house  as 
a  member  of  the  convent'. 

The  dignitaries  of  the  Church  took  upon  themselves  to  protect 
the  abbess  or  prioress  against  violation  of  her  rights  by  laymen  ; 
under  social  arrangements  which  made  the  nunnery  the  one  place 
of  safety  for  the  unmarried  daughters  of  the  gentry,  it  is  obvious 
that  ecclesiastical  and  lay  authorities  would  be  of  one  mind  in 
severely  punishing  those  who  failed  to  respect  the  nun's  privileges. 

In  1285  a  knight  carried  off  two  nuns  from  the  settlement  at 
Wilton,' which  coming  to  the  archbishop's  ears  he  first  excommuni- 
cated him,  and  subsequently  absolved  him  on  these  conditions, — 
first  that  he  should  never  afterwards  come  within  a  nunnery  or  be 
in  the  company  of  a  nun  ;  then  that  on  three  Sundays  running  he 
should  be  whipped  in  the  parish  church  of  Wilton,  and  likewise 
three  other  days  in  the  market  and  church  of  Shaftesbury  ;  that 
he  should  fast  a  certain  number  of  months ;  that  he  should  not 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Catesby,'  vol.  4,  p.  635. 

'  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  *  Bromhall,'  vol.  4,  p.  506. 

'  Jessopp,  A.,  Visitations  of  the  Diocese  of  Norwich  (i49»-i53«),  pp.  185,  190,  318. 

E.  24 


370     The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent,     [chap,  x 

wear  a  shirt  for  three  years ;  and  lastly  that  he  should  not  any 
more  take  the  habit  and  title  of  a  knight,  but  wear  apparel  of  a 
russet  colour  until  he  had  spent  three  years  in  the  Holy  Land'.' 

Where  an  abbess  was  at  the  head  of  a  nunnery,  the  prioress 
and  sub-prioress,  and  sometimes  a  second  prioress  and  sub-prioress 
were  appointed  by  her ;  where  the  settlement  was  ruled  by  a 
prioress  it  was  she  who  appointed  the  sub-prioress.  This  is  in 
accordance  with  the  written  rule  of  St  Benedict,  where  the  abbot 
nominates  the  praepositus  or  provost  whose  duties  correspond  to 
those  of  the  prioress  or  sub-prioress ^  The  rhymed  version  of 
the  rule,  in  which  the  prioress  is  treated  as  chief  in  authority,  says 
the  sub-prioress  (1.  1406  ff.)  shall  be  appointed  by  the  prioress,  '  for 
if  it  were  done  otherwise  strife  and  debate  might  easily  arise/ 
This  provision  was  dictated  by  the  feeling  that,  if  chosen  by  the 
convent,  the  person  second  in  authority  might  presume.  For  this 
reason  '  the  sub-prioress,  sexton  and  other  such  officers  shall  not  be 
chosen  but  appointed  as  the  prioress  desires,'  and  if  the  sub-prioress 
does  wrong  and  refuses  to  mend  her  ways  '  out  of  the  flock  she 
shall  be  fled.' 

The  duties  of  the  person  second  in  authority  consisted  in 
seeing  that  the  hours  of  divine  service  were  rightly  kept.  A 
manuscript  now  at  Oxford,  written  in  English,  which  came  from 
Barking  nunnery  gives  directions  as  to  the  formal  appointment 
of  the  prioress  in  that  house*.  It  belongs  to  the  end  of  the 
14th  century.  Barking  it  will  be  remembered  was  one  of  the  chief 
abbeys  for  women.  The  manner  in  which  the  abbess  appointed 
the  person  second  to  her  in  authority  is  described  in  the  following 
passage :  '  When  a  prioress  is  to  be  made,  the  abbess  shall 
commend  the  rule  to  her,  enjoining  that  she  be  helpful  to  her  and 
maintain  religion  in  accordance  with  the  rule.  And  she  shall  set 
her  in  her  seat.  And  then  shall  come  the  chaplain  with  incense 
towards  her.  And  the  abbess  and  she  shall  go  before  the  convent 
into  the  choir.  And  then  shall  they  go  to  St  Alburgh,  and  the 
convent  shall  say  the  Levavi  (Ps.  121,  Levavi  ocidos  meos,'l  lifted 
up  my  eyes ') ;  and  the  prioress  shall  lie  prostrate,  and  the  abbess 
shall  say  the  prayers  aforesaid  with  the  orison  Oremus,  etc.  Then 
shall  the  prioress  go  to  the  choir ;  the  chapter  mass  being  Spiritus 
Domini.     And   the  same   day  shall  be   given    to   the   convent  a 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Wilton,'  vol.  2,  p.  317. 

*  Benedictus,  Regula,  c.  65  (in  Migne,  Patrol.  Cursus  Compl.  vol.  66). 

'  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Barking,'  vol.  i,  p.  437,  footnote  k. 


SECT,  ii]     The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent.     371 

pittance  or  allowance  of  good  fish.     And  when  she  dies,  she  must 
give  to  the  convent...'     Here  the  manuscript  closes  abruptly. 

In  houses  of  the  Benedictine  order  the  lady  superior  of  the 
house,  whether  abbess  or  prioress,  usually  dwelt  apart  from  the 
convent  in  a  set  of  chambers  or  a  small  house  of  her  own,  where 
she  received  visitors  and  transacted  business.  In  some  of  the 
largest  houses  the  prioress,  sub-prioress  and  sexton  also  had 
establishments  of  their  own  as  we  shall  see  presently.  In  Cister- 
cian houses  the  arrangements  seem  to  have  varied,  but  in  the 
majority  of  houses  of  the  order,  usually  among  Austin  nuns  and 
always  among  the  nuns  of  St  Clare,  the  head  of  the  house  lived  in 
closer  contact  with  the  members  of  her  convent  and  took  her  meals 
at  the  same  table  as  the  nuns. 

The  lady  superior  managed  all  the  business  of  the  house  and 
presided  at  the  meetings  of  the  convent,  the  members  of  which 
fulfilled  a  number  of  functions  which  we  will  pass  in  rapid  review. 
The  full  complement  of  ofiices  was  of  course  found  in  the  larger 
houses  only ;  in  the  smaller  houses  several  posts  were  frequently 
held  by  one  and  the  same  person.  Reference  is  most  frequently 
made  to  the  offices  of  sexton,  cellaress,  and  chaplain, — these  seem 
to  have  existed  in  almost  every  house. 

The  rhymed  version  of  St  Benedict's  rule  gives  the  following 
injunctions  about  the  duties  of  the  sexton  (1.  1521  ff.) : — She  shall 
ring  the  bells  to  all  the  services  night  and  day,  and  keep  the 
ornaments  of  the  church,  the  chalice,  books,  vestments,  relics,  and 
wax  and  annual  rents.  She  shall  preserve  the  vessels  of  the  altar 
and  keep  them  clean.' 

Other  versions  of  the  rule,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  contain 
nothing  about  these  duties.  The  sexton  at  Barking  at  the  time  of 
the  Reformation  was  responsible  for  the  receipt  of  considerable 
sums*. 

Duties  of  great  importance  devolved  on  the  cellaress,  who 
managed  the  receipts  and  expenditure  appertaining  to  the  food  ; 
certainly  no  light  task  and  one  that  required  considerable  powers 
of  management.  On  this  point  the  versified  rule  of  St  Benedict 
closely  follows  the  original  rule.  We  are  told  (1.  1467  flf.)  that  the 
cellaress  '  shall  be  chosen  by  counsel  out  of  the  community ' ;  she 
shall  be  wise  and  gentle  and  of  mild  ways,  not  hard  like  a  shrew,  nor 
slov/  nor  mean  in  her  dealings  (grochand  in  hir  dede),  but  gladly 
do  her  office  and  take  special  care  of  young  children,  poor  guests 
^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Barking,'  vol.  i,  p.  445  Computus. 

24 — 2 


372      The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent,    [chap,  x 

and  others  that  ask  at  her  door,  knowing  that  on  the  day  of 
judgment  she  will  have  to  render  account. 

Fortunately  we  are  in  possession  of  an  extremely  interesting 
document  written  in  English  about  the  year  i^oo.  It  came  from 
Barking  nunnery,  and  enables  us  to  form  some  idea  of  the  duties 
devolving  on  the  cellaress*.  It  is  entitled  '  Charthe  longynge  to 
the  office  of  the  celeresse,'  and  describes  the  duties  of  buying  and 
selling,  illustrating  the  economic  condition  of  the  house  no  less 
than  the  standard  of  living  at  that  convent.  From  the  manuscript 
the  inference  can  be  drawn  that  more  than  one  cellaress  was 
appointed  at  a  time.  The  one  whose  duties  are  described  in  the 
'  Charthe '  provides  and  deals  out  the  food,  and  manages  the 
receipts  from  the  home  farm.  The  '  Charthe '  opens  with  in- 
junctions how  the  cellaress,  when  she  comes  into  office,  must  look 
after  what  is  owing  to  the  office  by  divers  farmers  and  rent- 
gatherers  and  see  that  it  be  paid  as  soon  as  may  be.  A  list 
follows  of  the  sums  she  receives  annually  from  various  sources, — 
farms  and  rent  for  various  tenements  in  London  and  elsewhere. 
She  receives  '  of  the  canons  of  St  Paul's  in  London  for  a  yearly 
rent  by  the  year  22  shillings ;  and  of  the  prior  of  the  convent  of 
St  Bartholomew's  in  London  by  the  year  17  shillings.'  The 
following  entries  are  curious.  '  She  should  receive  yearly  of  a 
tenement  in  Friday  Street,  London,  but  it  is  not  known  where  it 
stands,  23  shillings  and  four  pence  ;  and  she  should  receive  30 
shillings  of  the  rent  of  Tyburn,  but  it  is  not  paid.' 

A  list  follows  of  the  things  she  is  to  be  charged  with,  from 
which  it  is  evident  that  the  duties  of  selling  as  well  as  of  buying 
devolved  on  her.  She  is  to  be  charged  with  the  ox-skins  she  sells, 
also  with  the  '  inwards '  of  oxen,  and  with  tallow  and  messes  of 
beef;  '  and  all  these  be  called  the  issues  of  the  larder.'  If  she  sells 
hay  from  any  farm  belonging  to  her  office,  she  must  charge  herself 
with  it  or  let  it  be  called  '  the  foreign  receipt.' 

She  is  then  directed  as  to  the  stores  she  has  to  provide,  which 
may  be  grouped  under  the  headings  of  grain,  flesh,  fish,  and 
condiments. 

The  grains  include  malt,  of  which  she  provides  three  quarters 
yearly  for  the  'tounes  '  of  St  Alburgh  and  Christmas,  and  she  pays 
twenty  pence  to  the  brewer  of  each  '  toune' ; — and  wheat,  of  which 
a  quarter  and  seven  bushels  are  required,  which  go  to  the  allowance 
or  pittance  of  the  four  men  and  dames  resident  in  the  monastery, 

^  Dugdale,  MonasHcon,  charter  nr  15. 


SECT.  1 1]     The  hiternal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent.     373 

for  making  '  russeaulx,'  perhaps  some  kind  of  cake,  during  Lent, 
and  for  baking  eels  on  Shere  Tuesday  (Tuesday  preceding  Good 
Friday).  She  provides  two  bushels  of  peas  every  year  in  Lent, 
and  one  bushel  of  beans  for  the  convent  against  Midsummer. 
Both  peas  and  beans  are  evidently  dried. 

Under  the  heading  'buying  of  store'  the  only  item  she  is 
mentioned  as  providing  is  twenty-two  oxen  a  year,  which  she 
evidently  feeds  on  her  pasture.  Another  passage  tells  us  that  '  she 
shall  slay  but  every  fortnight  if  she  be  a  good  housewife.'  A 
passage  further  on  refers  to  her  buying  pigs  and  possibly  sheep. 
Geese  and  fowls  she  apparently  received  from  her  own  farm. 

She  buys  fish  in  large  quantities,  principally  herrings,  some 
white, — that  is  fresh  or  slightly  salted,  some  red, — that  is  salted,  by 
the  cade  or  by  the  barrel.  A  note  at  the  end  of  the  '  Charthe ' 
states  that  a  cask  or  '  cade  of  herrings  is  six  hundred  herrings,' '  the 
barrel  of  herrings  is  one  thousand  herrings.'  Seven  cades  of  white 
herrings  and  three  barrels  of  the  same  she  buys  for  Lent. 

Also  she  must  provide  eighteen  salt  fish  and  fourteen  or  fifteen 
salt  salmon  for  the  convent  in  Lent.  Eels  are  mentioned,  but  not 
that  she  bought  them  ;  no  doubt  they  were  caught  on  the  convent 
property. 

Of  condiments  the  cellaress  has  to  provide  almonds,  twelve  lbs. 
for  Lent ;  figs,  three  pieces^  and  twenty-four  lbs. ;  raisins,  one 
piece;  rice,  twenty-eight  lbs.;  and  mustard  eight  gallons.  There 
is  no  mention  of  salt  or  of  sugar  as  being  provided  for  the  nuns. 

We  are  next  informed  of  the  cellaress'  expenses  in  money. 
Here  the  peculiar  word  '  russeaulx '  figures  again,  variously  spelt. 
All  the  ladies  of  the  convent,  who  at  the  time  numbered  thirty-six, 
are  in  receipt  of  '  ruscheauw  sylver,'  payable  sixteen  times  in  the 
year,  'but  it  is  paid  only  twice  now,  at  Easter  and  at  Michaelmas.' 
The  ladies  also  receive  twopence  each  for  crisps  and  crumcakes  at 
Shrovetide.  Wherever  there  is  question  of  paying  money  or 
providing  food  in  portions,  the  cellaress  has  to  give  double  to  the 
chief  officers  of  the  house,  such  as  the  prioress,  the  cellaress,  etc., 
which  suggests  that  they  had  a  double  ration  either  to  enable 
them  to  feed  their  servant,  or  perhaps  a  visitor. 

The  cellaress  further  pays  five  annuities  called  '  anniversaries,' 
namely,  to  Sir  William,  vicar,  to  Dame  Alice  Merton,  to  Dame 
Maud,  the   king's   daughter,  to    Dame   Maud    Loveland,  and    to 

*  I  am  unable  to  ascertain  the  quantity  indicated  by  the  *  piece. ' 


374     ^^^  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent,     [chap,  x 

William  Dunn,  who  are  residing  in  the  monastery.     William  Dunn 
moreover  receives  twelve  gallons  of  good  ale  with  his  annuity. 

In  '  offerings  and  wages '  the  cellaress  shall  pay  twelve  pence  to 
the  two  cellaresses ;  to  the  steward  of  the  household  what  time  he 
brings  money  home  from  the  courts  20  pence,  and  again  at 
Christmas  20  pence ;  to  my  lady's  (the  abbess')  gentlewoman  20 
pence;  'to  every  gentleman  16  pence  and  to  every  yeoman  as 
it  pleases  her  to  do,  and  grooms  in  like  case.'  The  abbess  receives 
a  sugar-loaf  at  Christmas ;  her  clerk  is  paid  thirteen  shillings  and 
fourpence,  her  yeoman  cook  26  shillings  and  eightpence  for  their 
wages.  Her  groom  cook  and  her  pudding  wife  (grom  coke  and 
poding  wief)  receive  the  gift  of  one  gown  a  year  of  the  value  of 
two  shillings. 

A  description  follows  of  the  food  which  the  cellaress  has  to 
provide  for  the  convent  on  special  days  in  the  year.  '  A  pece  of 
whete '  and  three  gallons  of  milk  for  '  frimete  on  St  Alburgh's  day ' ; 
four  bacon  hogs  twice  in  winter,  'and  she  must  buy  six  grecys 
(young  pigs),  six  sowcys  (perhaps  '  sowkin,'  diminutive  for  young 
female  hog,  or  else  'sowthes,'  Middle  English  for  sheep)  for  the 
convent  and  also  six  inwardys  and  100  (.■')  egges  to  make 
white  puddings ' ;  also  bread,  pepper  and  saffron  for  the  same 
puddings,  also  three  gallons  of  good  ale  for  '  besons.'  Other 
directions  follow  which  are  perplexing,  such  as  '  mary  bones  to 
make  white  wortys ' — can  it  be  marrowbones  to  make  white  soup, 
or  does  '  bones '  stand  for  buns }  Again  we  hear  of  '  cripcis  and 
crumcakes,'  chickens,  bonnes  (buns .?)  at  Shrovetide,  and  of  *  1 2 
stubbe  elles  and  60  shafte*  elles,'  to  bake  for  the  convent  on  Shere 
Thursday.  When  the  abbess  receives  a  bottle  of  Tyre  (wine)  at 
Easter  time  the  convent  receives  two  gallons  of  red  wine.  The 
convent  receives  three  gallons  of  ale  every  week.  Regarding  the 
wine  it  is  well  to  recall  that  grapes  were  grown  to  some  extent  in 
mediaeval  England,  and  that  after  the  dissolution,  a  vineyard  of  five 
acres  is  scheduled  as  part  of  the  possessions  of  Barking  nunnery^ 

A  paragraph  is  devoted  to  the  giving  out  of  eggs.  The  thirty- 
seven  ladies  sometimes  receive  money  instead  of  eggs,  '  ey  sylver,' 
as  it  is  called  ;  in  one  case  the  alternative  is  open  to  the  cellaress  of 
giving  thirty-two  eggs  or  of  paying  twopence.  Butter  also  forms 
an  important  item  in  the  '  Charthe ' ;  it  is  given  out  in  '  cobbets,' 
three  cobbets  going  to  a  dish. 

*  I  am  unable  to  ascertain  the  difference  between  'stubbe'  and  'shafte.* 
^  Rogers,  Th.,  Six  Centuries  of  Work  and  Wages,  1884,  p.  lor. 


SECT,  ii]     The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent.     375 

It  likewise  falls  to  the  cellaress  to  hire  pasture,  to  see  to  the 
mowing  of  her  hay,  to  see  that  all  manner  of  houses  within  her 
office  be  duly  repaired,  not  only  within  the  monastery  but  without, 
on  her  farms  and  manors. 

The  *  Charthe '  returns  to  directions  about  food,  and  mentions 
among  other  things  pork,  mutton,  geese,  hens,  bacon  and  oatmeal. 

The  following  passages  will  give  some  idea  of  the  language  in 
which  these  directions  are  couched. 

'  And  the  under-celaress  must  remember  at  each  principal  feast, 
that  my  lady  (the  abbess)  sits  in  the  refectory,  that  is  to  wit  five 
times  in  the  year,  at  each  time  shall  (she)  ask  the  clerk  of  the 
kitchen  (for)  supper  eggs  for  the  convent,  at  Easter,  Whitsuntide,  the 
Assumption  of  Our  Lady,  at  St  Alburgh,  and  at  Christmas ;  at 
each  time  to  every  lady  two  eggs,  and  each  (person  receiving) 
double  that  is  the  prioress,  celaress  and  kitchener...' 

'Also  to  remember  to  ask  of  the  kitchen  at  St  Alburgh's  time, 
for  every  lady  of  the  convent  half  a  goose... also  to  ask  at  the  said 
feast  of  St  Alburgh  of  the  said  clerk  for  every  lady  of  the  convent 
one  hen,  or  else  a  cock.'  The  manuscript,  which  is  corrected  in 
several  places  and  has  additions  made  by  another  hand,  closes 
abruptly. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  directions  about  food  found  in 
the  rule  of  St  Benedict  with  the  high  standard  of  living  suggested 
by  the  'Charthe'  of  Barking.  The  rhymed  version  says  (1.  1620) 
that  she  who  is  seeing  to  the  kitchen  shall  provide  each  day  two 
kinds  of '  mete,'  so  that  she  who  will  not  eat  of  one  kind  may  take 
the  other.  The  convent  is  also  to  be  supplied  with  two  kinds  of 
pottage  (thick  soup?)  daily.  If  they  have  apples  of  their  own 
growing  they  shall  partake  of  them  ;  also  each  lady  is  to  be  given  a 
pound  of  bread  each  day,  which  is  to  serve  her  for  her  three  meals. 
The  rule  adds  words  to  the'  effect  that  the  '  celerer '  may  give  an 
extra  allowance  of  food  if  she  sees  need  though  always  with 
caution  for  fear  of  gluttony.  In  regard  to  drink,  wine  and  ale 
shall  be  '  softly  '  tasted. 

It  appears  probable  from  this  'Charthe'  to  the  cellaress  that 
the  office  of  Kitchener  at  Barking  was  a  permanent  appointment, 
which  is  curious  considering  that  in  an  ordinary  way  the  members 
of  the  convent  were  bound  to  serve  in  the  convent  kitchen  as  cook, 
each  for  the  term  of  a  week.  The  injunction  is  repeated  in  every 
version  of  the  Benedictine  rule  known  to  me.  According  to  the 
rhymed  version  of  the  north  the  nun  who  has  served  her  term  in 


376     The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent,    [chap,  x 

— i ___ . — 

the  kitchen  is  directed  to  leave  the  kitchen  and  the  vessels  clean 
for  her  who  succeeded  her  in  office.  When  her  time  is  up  she 
shall  kneel  before  the  assembled  members  of  the  convent  saying, 
'  Blessed  be  the  Lord  that  has  never  failed  me,'  whereupon  the 
nun  who  is  to  act  as  cook^  shall  say,  '  Lord,  to  my  helping  take 
thou  heed.'  But  this  injunction  was  evidently  disregarded  in  the 
wealthier  houses  at  a  later  date,  for  in  connection  with  St  Mary's, 
Winchester,  we  read  of  a  convent-cook  and  an  under  convent- 
cook*.  A  nun  of  Campsey,  an  Austin  house  consisting  at  the 
time  of  a  prioress  and  eighteen  nuns,  complained  at  the  visitation 
of  the  house  in  1532  of  the  unpunctuality  of  the  meals,  which 
she  ascribed  to  the  fault  of  the  cook  (culpa  coci), — using  a  term 
which  suggests  that  the  cook  in  this  case  was  a  man*. 

An  appointment  in  the  nunnery  which  has  led  to  some  contro- 
versy is  that  of  chaplain,  it  being  alleged  by  some  writers  that  the 
chaplain  of  the  convent  was  necessarily  a  man.  Certainly  in  most 
houses,  especially  in  the  wealthier  ones,  there  were  men  chaplains  ; 
for  example  at  the  nunnery  of  Shaftesbury,  where  men  chaplains 
are  mentioned  by  the  side  of  the  abbess  in  various  early  charters 
and  played  an  important  part^  Again  at  St  Mary's,  Winchester, 
at  the  time  of  the  dissolution,  men  chaplains  were  among  those  who 
are  described  as  resident  in  the  monastery*;  at  Kilburn  nunnery  the 
fact  that  the  chaplain  who  dwelt  on  the  premises  was  a  man  is 
evident  from  the  arrangement  of  the  dwellings, — three  chambers 
which  lie  together  being  designated  as  set  apart  for  the  chaplain 
and  the  hinds  or  herdsmen'.  But  the  fact  that  the  chaplain's 
office  could  be  and  was  held  by  a  woman  is  established  beyond 
a  doubt  by  the  following  information.  In  consequence  of  an 
episcopal  visitation  (1478)  of  the  Benedictine  convent  of  Ease- 
bourne,  injunctions  were  sent  to  the  prioress,  one  of  which  directs 
that  '  every  week,  beginning  with  the  eldest,  excepting  the  sub- 
prioress,  she  shall  select  for  herself  in  due  course  and  in  turns 
one  of  her  nuns  as  chaplain  (capellanissam)  for  divine  service 
and  to  wait  upon  herself*.'     This  injunction  is  in  accordance  with 


^  Dugdale,  MonasHcon,  '  St  Mary's,  Winchester,'  vol.  2,  p.  451,  charter  nr  4. 

*  Jessopp,  A.,  Visitations  of  the  Diocese  of  Norwich  (1492-1532),  p.  290. 
'  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Shaftesbury,'  vol.  2,  p.  472. 

*  Ibid.  *St  Mary,  Winchester,'  vol.  2,  p.  451,  charter  nr4. 

*  Ibid.  '  Kilburn,'  vol.  3,  p.  424. 

'  Blaauw,  W.  A.,  'Episcopal  Visitations  of  the  Benedictine  Nunnery  of  Easeboume,' 
Sussex  Arch.  Collections,  vol.  9,  p.  15. 


SECT,  ii]     The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent.     377 

the  words  of  Chaucer,  who  says  that  the  prioress  who  was  on  a 
pilgrimage  to  Canterbury  had  with  her  a  nun  who  acted  as 
chaplain  to  her  (1.  163): 

'Another  Nonne  also  with  hire  hadde  she 
That  was  hire  chapelleine,  and  preestes  thre.' 

In  the  accounts  of  visitations  in  the  diocese  of  Norwich  be- 
tween 1492  and  1532  the  designation  chaplain  applied  to  an 
inmate  of  a  nunnery  appears  in  the  Benedictine  house  of  Red- 
lingfield,  in  the  Austin  priory  of  Campsey  and  in  others.  In 
Redlingfield  at  the  visitation  of  15 14  the  complaint  is  made  against 
the  prioress  that  she  does  not  change  her  chaplain,  and  at  Flixton 
in  1520  it  is  alleged  that  the  prioress  has  no  chaplain  and  sleeps 
by  herself  in  her  chamber  away  from  the  dormitory^  At  Elstow 
in  Bedfordshire  at  the  time  of  the  surrender  Katheryne  Wyngate 
adds  the  designation  'chapellain'  to  her  name'',  and  among  the 
nuns  of  Barking  who  were  still  in  receipt  of  their  pension  in  1553 
was  Mathea  Fabyan  who  is  styled  chaplain  (capellan)'.  How  far 
the  woman  chaplain  performed  the  same  offices  as  the  man 
chaplain  seems  impossible  to  tell ;  probably  she  recited  the  inferior 
services  in  the  chapel  of  the  nunnery. 

In  the  rhymed  version  of  the  rule  of  St  Benedict  the  office 
of  chaplain  is  passed  over,  but  in  the  poem  of  the  '  Spiritual  Con- 
vent '  written  by  the  beguine  Mechthild,  of  which  a  former  chapter 
has  given  an  account,  the  chaplain  is  a  woman.  And  similarly  the 
English  version  of  this  poem  called  the  *  Ghostly  Abbey  '  which  is 
attributed  to  John  Alcock,  bishop  of  Ely  {\  1500),  refers  to  women 
chaplains.  It  says  God  had  ordered  His  four  daughters  to  come 
and  dwell  in  the  abbey ;  Charity  was  made  abbess  and  to  her 
Mercy  and  Truth  were  to  be  as  '  chapeleyns,'  going  about  with 
her  wherever  she  goes.  He  bade  also  that  Righteousness  should 
be  with  Wisdom  who  was  prioress,  and  Peace  with  Mekeness  who 
was  sub-prioress,  Charity,  Wisdom  and  Mekeness  having  chaplains 
because  they  were  '  most  of  worship*.' 

I  have  found  very  little  information  about  the  arrangements 
made  in  the  nunnery  for  the  young  people  who  boarded  with  and 
were  taught  by  the  nuns,  and  hardly  a  clue  is  to  be  had  as  to 

^  Jessopp,  A.,  Visitations  of  the  Diocese  of  Nonvich  (i^g2-it)i2),  p.  138. 
'  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Elstow,'  vol.  3,  p.  411,  charter  nr  8. 
'  Ibid.  '  Barking,'  vol.  i,  p.  438,  footnote  b. 

*  'Here  begynneth  a  matere'  etc.  (by  John  Alcock  (?)),  printed  by  Wynkyn  de 
Worde  (1500),  last  page  but  one. 


378     The  Intertial  Arrangements  of  the  Convent,     [chap,  x 

the  number  of  those  who  might  stay  in  one  house  at  the  same 
time.  The  only  allusion  on  this  point  is  to  St  Mary's,  Winchester, 
where  twenty-six  girls,  mostly  daughters  of  knights,  were  staying 
at  the  time  of  the  dissolution.  Rogers  refers  to  a  roll  of  ex- 
penditure of  the  Cistercian,  priory,  Swine,  in  Yorkshire,  on  which 
he  says  are  enumerated  a  number  of  young  persons,  daughters 
of  the  surrounding  gentlefolk,  who  lived  '  en  pension '  in  this  small 
community';  and  Rye  has  compiled  a  list  of  those  who  boarded  at 
Carrow  at  different  timesl  From  '  The  Death  of  Philip  Sparrow,'  a 
poem  written  by  John  Skelton  (-j*  1529),  we  gather  that  the  girl  who 
is  represented  as  intoning  the  lament  over  a  tame  bird,  lived  and 
boarded  with  the  '  Nuns  Black '  at  Carrow,  where  her  sparrow  was 
devoured  by  the  cat,  whereupon  she  took  out  a  sampler  and  worked 
the  sparrow  in  stitches  of  silk  for  her  solaced  Apparently  not 
only  girls,  but  boys  also,  were  given  into  the  care  of  nuns, 
for  injunctions  forwarded  to  Romsey  in  13 10  by  the  bishop  of 
Winchester  forbade  that  boys  and  girls  should  sleep  with  the 
nuns  or  be  taken  by  them  into  the  choir  during  divine  service*. 
Injunctions  sent  to  Redlingfield  in  15 14  also  directed  that  boys 
should  not  sleep  in  the  dormitory®;  and  Bishop  Kentwode  in  the 
directions  he  sent  to  St  Helen's  in  London  ordered  that  none 
but  '  mayd  learners '  should  be  received  into  that  nunnery^  In 
the  year  1433  Catherine  de  la  Pole,  abbess  of  Barking,  petitioned 
Henry  V.  for  a  sum  of  money  due  to  her  for  the  maintenance  of 
Edward  and  Jasper  Tudor,  sons  of  Catherine,  the  queen  dowager, 
by  Owen  Tudor.  It  seems  that  these  boys  were  receiving  their 
education  at  this  abbey''.  But  the  popularity  of  the  convent 
even  as  an  educational  establishment  began  to  decrease  at  the 
close  of  the  14th  century.  Judging  from  the  Paston  Letters  it 
was  no  longer  customary  in  Norfolk  to  send  girls  to  board  with 
the  nuns ;  they  were  sent  to  stay  away  from  home  with  some 
other  country  family. 

Other  offices  held  by  members  of  the  convent  are  as  follows  : 
thesaurissa, — the  nun  bursar  who  was  responsible  for  the  revenues 
coming  through   the  Church;   the  precentrix  and  succentrix, — the 

^  Six  Centuries  of  Work  and  IVages,  1884,  p.  166. 
2  Rye,  W.,  Carrow  Abbey,  1889,  p.  48  ff. 

*  Skelton,  Poetical  IVorks,  1843,  vol.  i,  p.  51,  '  Phyllyp  Sparowe.' 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Rumsey,'  vol.  2,  p.  507,  footnote/. 

"  Jessopp,  A.,  Visitations  of  the  Diocese  of  Nonvich  {i\(j2 — 153'),  P-  I40' 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  St  Helen's,'  vol.  4,  p.  551,  charter  nr  3. 
'  Ibid.  'Barking,'  vol.  i,  p.  437,  footnote  w. 


SECT,  ii]     The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent.     379 

leaders  and  teachers  of  the  choir,  who  are  sometimes  mentioned 
together  (Campsey) ;  the  cameraria  or  chambress, — who  saw  to  the 
wardrobe ;  the  infirmaria  or  keeper  of  the  infirmary, — who  took 
charge  of  the  sick  nuns ;  the  refectuaria, — who  had  the  care  of  the 
refectory  or  dining  hall  ;  the  eleniosinaria, — who  distributed  alms  ; 
the  magistra  noviciarum, — who  taught  the  novices.  The  cantarista 
occurs  in  connection  with  Sheppey ;  no  doubt  she  is  identical  with 
XSx^  precentrix  o{  oXh^x  places.  The  further  designations  of  tutrix, 
or  teacher,  occurs  in  connection  with  Shaftesbury,  and  eruditrix, 
instructress,  in  connection  with  Thetford  ;  I  have  not  come  across 
these  terms  elsewhere. 

All  these  appointments  were  made  by  the  superior  of  the 
house  and  declared  in  the  presence  of  the  convent,  and  all  except 
those  of  chaplain  and  kitchener  seem  to  have  been  permanent. 
The  chaplain  was  probably  changed  because  it  was  a  privilege 
to  go  about  with  the  abbess,  and  the  kitchener  because  of  the 
hard  work  her  duties  involved.  On  the  death  of  the  abbess  often 
the  prioress,  sometimes  the  cellaress,  was  appointed  to  succeed 
her,  but  not  necessarily  so. 

Having  so  far  treated  of  the  duties  of  the  convent  inmates,  we 
will  examine  the  form  of  admission  for  novices  and  the  daily 
routine  of  the  nun. 

According  to  the  rhymed  rule  of  St  Benedict  (1.  2155)  the 
girl  who  was  old  enough  to  be  admitted  as  nun  into  a  religious 
community  was  granted  entry  as  a  novice  and  after  two  months 
had  '  the  law '  read  to  her,  and  then  the  question  was  put  if  she 
wished  to  stay  or  to  go.  If  she  stayed,  it  was  for  six  months ; 
after  which,  if  still  desirous  of  being  received,  she  proffered  her 
petition  to  the  abbess.  If  after  twelve  months  she  still  persisted 
in  her  resolution,  she  was  received  as  a  member  of  the  convent 
and  pronounced  these  words  before  the  altar  :  '  Suscipe  me,  domine, 
secundum  eloquium  tuum,  et  vivam.  Et  non  confundas  me  in 
expectatione  mea.'  The  formal  profession  or  consecration  was 
undertaken  by  the  bishop,  who  visited  the  nunnery  periodically, 
but  as  these  visits  were  often  years  apart,  it  is  probable  that  the 
declaration  made  before  the  superior  of  a  house  and  the  priest 
constituted  a  novice  a  member  of  a  convent,  and  for  all  practical 
purposes  made  her  a  nun.  Fosbroke  is  of  opinion  that  the  girl 
who  entered  at  the  age  of  twelve  made  profession  after  she  had 
passed  a  year  in  the  community :  he  adds  that  she  was  consecrated 
by  the  bishop  when  she  had  reached  the  age  of  twenty-five  and  not 


A 


3§o     The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent,     [chap,  x 

before^  But  it  is  impossible  to  draw  a  line  between  profession  and 
consecration,  as  the  *  non-professed '  nun  was  invariably  the  nun 
who  had  not  been  installed  by  the  bishop.  In  1521  at  the  visi- 
tation of  Rusper  the  settlement  consisted  of  the  prioress,  one 
professed  nun  and  two  nuns,  entered  on  the  list  as  not  professed, 
of  whom  one  declared  that  she  had  lived  there  awaiting  profession 
for  twelve  years,  the  other  for  threes  Women  who  had  been 
professed  at  one  house  were  sometimes  inmates  of  another  ;  and  I 
have  not  found  any  remark  which  leads  to  the  inference  that  this  was 
thought  objectionable.  A  nun  residing  at  Rusper  was  afterwards 
prioress  of  Easebourne.  The  record  of  a  visitation  at  Davington 
in  Kent  (151 1)  shows  that  the  convent  contained  four  inmates,  of 
whom  two  were  professed  nuns.  The  one,  professed  at  Cambridge, 
had  been  there  for  twenty  years ;  the  other,  professed  at  Mailing, 
had  been  there  for  ten.  The  other  two  inmates  entered  on  the 
list  as  not  professed  were  girls  of  ten  and  fifteen*. 

The  consecration  of  nuns  was  a  very  ancient  and  solemn  rite. 
Several  forms  of  the  office  as  celebrated  in  England  are  in  ex- 
istence*. One  comes  from  the  monastery  of  St  Mary's,  Winchester, 
and  is  contained  in  a  manuscript  written  probably  soon  after  1500 ; 
the  directions  are  in  English,  but  the  words  in  which  the  bishop 
addressed  the  maidens  and  their  answers  are  in  Latin.  Another 
manuscript  written  about  1480  contains  the  office  as  used  in  the 
diocese  of  Lincoln,  with  prayers  in  English  and  rubrics  in  Latin  ; 
it  contains  also  various  directions  and  addresses  omitted  in  the 
other  manuscript.     A  third  is  throughout  in  English. 

These  forms  of  consecration  show  that  after  the  celebration 
of  the  office  of  high  mass  in  church  the  prospective  nuns  entered, 
each  bearing  a  habit,  a  veil,  a  ring  and  a  scroll.  The  form  of 
interrogation  they  were  put  through  and  the  prayers  they  recited 
during  the  installation  are  given.  The  declaration  was  made  by  the 
nuns  in  Latin  and  runs  as  follows:  'I,  sister...,  promise  steadfast- 
ness (stabilitatem),  continuance  in  virtue  (conversionem  morum 
meorum),  and  obedience  before   God    and   all   His   saints.'      We 

'  Fosbroke,  British  Monachism,  1843,  P-  '76- 

2  Way,  A.,  '  Notices  of  the  Benedictine  Priory  of  St  Mary  Magdalen,  at  Rusper,' 
Sussex  Arch.  Collections,  vol.  5,  p.  256. 

^  Bateson,  M.,  'Visitations  of  Archbishop  Warham  in  151 1,'  in  English  Hist. 
Review,  vol.  6,  1891,  p.  38. 

*  Maskell,  W.,  Monumenta  Rii.,  1882,  vol.  3,  p.  331,  'The  order  of  consecration  of 
Nuns,'  from  Cambridge  Fol.  Mm.  3.  13,  and  Lansdown  MS.,  388;  p.  360  'The  manner 
to  make  a  Nun,'  from  Cotton  MS.,  Vespasian  A.  25,  fol.  12 


SECT,  ii]     The  hiternal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent.     381 

also  have  the  declaration  of  four  nuns  who  were  installed  by  the 
bishop  of  Ely  at  Chatteris,  which  is  couched  in  similar  terms*. 
The  nun  in  this  case  made  her  promise  '  in  accordance  with  the 
rule  of  St  Benedict  in  this  place,  Chatteris,  built  in  honour  of 
St  Mary,  in  the  presence  of  the  reverend  father  in  Christ,  William, 
bishop  of  Ely,'  adding  '  I  subscribe  this  with  my  own  hand,'  where- 
upon she  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  on  the  scroll  which  she  carried 
in  her  hand  and  from  which  she  had  read  her  declaration.  The 
form  of  declaration  made  at  Rusper  in  Sussex  in  the  year  1484 
is  similar,  but  the  nun  further  promises  'to  live  without  property 
(sine  proprio)'  of  her  own*. 

For  several  days  after  her  consecration  the  nun  lived  in  retire- 
ment, strictly  observing  the  rule  of  silence.  She  then  resumed  her 
ordinary  duties  in  church,  cloister,  refectory  and  dormitory.  She 
usually  kept  within  the  convent  close,  but  she  was  not  altogether 
cut  off  from  intercourse  with  the  outside  world.  The  rhymed  rule 
|/of  St  Benedict  of  the  north,  transcribing  the  passages  which  refer 
to  the  monk's  going  abroad  if  need  be,  adapts  them  to  the  use 
of  the  nun  (1.  2450),  '  when  a  sister  is  going  to  her  father,  mother, 
or  other  friends,  she  shall  take  formal  leave  of  the  convent.'  And 
if  she  is  away  on  an  errand  (1.  1967),  she  shall  not  stay  away  for 
a  meal  though  invited  to  do  so  unless  she  has  asked  leave  before 
going.  And  again  (1.  1957)  if  she  be  away  during  Lent  and  cannot 
attend  service  in  church  she  shall  not  forget  to  keep  the  hours  by 
saying  her  prayers.  And  again  (1.  2094),  when  nuns  go  away  into 
the  country  they  shall  wear  '  more  honest '  clothes  (that  is  clothes 
more  clearly  showing  their  profession),  which  they  can  take  off 
on  coming  home  for  simpler  ones.  From  passages  such  as  these 
we  gather  that  nuns  sometimes  stayed  away  from  their  convent, 
leave  of  absence  having  been  procured ;  and  that  besides  pil- 
grimages and  business,  friendly  intercourse  with  their  relatives 
might  take  them  away  from  the  convent  for  a  time. 

The  day  at  the  convent  was  divided  by  the  canonical  hours, 
stated  times  fixed  by  ecclesiastical  law  for  prayer  and  devotion*. 
The  hours  since  the  6th  century  were  seven  in  number,  viz.  matins, 
prime,  tierce,  sext,  none,  vespers  or  evensong,  and  compline. 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Chatteris,'  vol.  2,  p.  614. 

*  Way,  A.,  'Notices  of  the  Benedictine  Priory  of  St  Mary  Magdalen  at  Rusper,* 
Sussex  Arch.  Collections,  vol.  5,  p.  256. 

*  Comp.  Smith  and  Cheethara,  Dictionary  of  Christian   Antiquities,   1875,  article 
'  Hours  of  Prayer.' 


382      The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent,    [chap,  x 
1 . 

During  winter  a  night  office  was  said  in  church  at  the  eighth 
hour,  that  is  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  the  niatiitinae 
laudes  were  sung,  but  the  time  for  that  was  variable.  '  Then  shall 
they  rise  to  sing  and  read,  and  after  that  she  who  has  need  may 
have  meditations'  (Rhymed  rule,  1.  1166).  Between  Easter  and 
winter  however  the  rule  says  '  that  the  nuns  shall  unto  matins 
rise  when  the  day  begins  to  dawn  that  they  their  letters  well  may 
know.'  Injunctions  sent  to  Easebourne  in  1524  direct  the  prioress 
to  hold  matins  at  the  sixth  hour,  that  is  at  midnight.  Matins 
were  followed  by  a  period  of  rest,  probably  till  five  o'clock,  when 
the  nuns  rose  and  assembled  in  the  choir  to  celebrate  the  office 
of  prime.  This  was  followed  by  business  transacted  in  the  chapter 
house,  by  a  meal  and  by  work.  According  to  the  prose  versions 
of  the  Benedictine  rule  children  were  taught  between  prime  and 
tierce. 

I  At  tierce  a  short  chapter-mass  was  sung  followed  by  continued 
stbdy;  'from  terce  to  sext  the  nuns  shall  read  lessons '(1.  1905). 
At  eight  the  nuns  assembled  in  the  choir  for  the  celebration  of 
High  Mass,  the  principal  service  of  the  day,  after  which  came  the 
(ihief  meal.  This  was  served  in  the  refectory  ;  '  the  convent  when 
tjhey  sit  at  meat  for  to  read  shall  not  forget'  (1.  1739);  and  while 
r^eading  went  on  '  if  any  of  them  need  aught  softly  with  signs  they 
shall  it  crave'  (1.  1754).  The  time  of  the  meal  was  moveable.  In 
Slimmer  the  nuns  were  to  eat  at  the  sext,  but  on  Wednesdays  and 
/Fridays  they  were  to  fast  till  nones,  that  is  noon,  except  '  they 
swink  and  sweat  in  hay  or  corn  with  travail  great'  (1.  1768),  when 
the  time  might  be  altered  at  the  will  of  the  superior.  Between 
December  and  Lent  they  always  ate  at  nones.  If  they  eat  early 
'then  shall  they  sleep  and  silence  keep'  (1.  1910)  till  nones,  from 
which  time  till  evensong  work  was  resumed. 

About  three  o'clock,  vespers,  that  is  evensong,  once  more 
assembled  the  convent  inmates  in  church.  The  celebration  of 
evensong  partook  of  the  solemnity  of  the  celebration  of  high 
mass.  In  the  monks'  houses  at  high  mass  and  at  vespers  the 
youths  who  were  supported  there  for  the  purpose  attended  and 
joined  the  brethren  in  their  choral  service.  In  the  nuns'  houses 
the  arrangements  for  the  girls  who  dwelt  with  the  nuns  were 
similar,  at  least  in  some  cases.  After  vespers  came  supper,  and 
then  'the  nuns  could  sit  where  they  would  and  read  lessons  of 
holy  writ  or  else  the  lives  of  holy  men '  (1,  1791),  until  the  tolling 
of  the  bell  summoned  them  to  the  chapter-house,  where  they  joined 


SECT,  ii]    The  Internal  Arrangements  of  the  Convent.     383 

their  superior.  Compline  completed  the  religious  exercises  of  the 
day.  After  this  the  nuns  retired  to  the  dormitory,  where  silence 
unbroken  was  to  be  observed.  Inside  the  dormitory,  curtains, 
in  some  houses  if  not  in  all,  were  hung  so  as  to  separate  bed  from 
bed. 

The  celebration  of  the  hours  formed  at  all  times  the  great 
feature  of  monastic  life,  and  in  itself  involved  a  considerable  amount 
of  labour,  especially  during  the  later  period,  when  the  ritual  of 
service  had  become  very  elaborate.  Indolence  and  ease  might 
creep  in  between  whiles,  deterioration  might  take  place  in  the 
occupations  of  the  nuns  between  hours,  but  the  observance  of 
the  hours  themselves  constituted  the  nun's  privilege  and  her  raison 
d'etre,  and  was  at  all  times  zealously  upheld. 

§  3.     The  Foundation  and  Internal  Arrangements  of  Sion\ 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  women's  convent  life  in  England 
in  the  later  Middle  Ages,  it  will  be  interesting  to  devote  some 
attention  to  the  foundation  and  interior  arrangements  of  Sion,  a 
convent  founded  under  peculiar  circumstances  at  a  time  when  it 
was  no  longer  usual  to  found  or  endow  religious  settlements.  The 
information  relating  to  Sion  has  been  characterised  as  the  most 
valuable  record  we  possess  of  monastic  life  in  the  15th  century. 
It  refers  to  one  short  period  only  and  bears  out  what  has  already 
been  put  forward  with  regard  to  other  nunneries.  The  interests 
of  the  women  who  joined  this  convent  centred  round  devotional 
practices  and  a  highly  elaborated  convent  routine. 

The  settlement  of  Sion  belonged  to  the  order  of  St  Bridget  of 
Sweden,  and  was  the  only  house  of  its  kind  in  England.  It  was 
situated  in  beautiful  surroundings  near  Isleworth  on  the  Thames, 
and  was  so  richly  endowed  that  at  the  time  of  the  dissolution  its 
income  far  exceeded  that  of  any  other  nunnery,  not  excepting  the 
time-honoured  settlements  of  Shaftesbury  and  Barking.  It  was 
the  only  English  community  of  women  which  escaped  being 
scattered  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation.  Its  convent  of  nuns 
removed  to  Holland,  but  returned  to  the  old  house  for  a  time  after 
the  accession  of  Queen  Mary.  At  the  close  of  her  reign  the  nuns 
again  went  abroad  and  after  various  vicissitudes  settled  at  Lisbon, 
where  the  convent  continued  to  be  recruited  from  English  homes 

^  Aungier,  G.  J.,  History  and  Antiquities  of  Syon,  1840;  Myroure  of  Oure  Ladye, 
Early  English  Text  Soc,  1873,  Introduction  by  Blunt,  J.  H. 


384  The  Foundation  and  Internal  [chap,  x 

till  the  beginning  of  this  century.  Then  the  nine  sisters  of  which 
the  convent  consisted  came  to  England,  and  settled  at  Chudleigh, 
near  Newton-Abbot,  in  Devonshire. 

A  few  words  in  passing  must  be  devoted  to  the  nun  and  saint 
Bridget'  of  Sweden,  founder  of  the  order  which  took  her  name — 
a  woman  of  acquirements  and  influence.  She  was  born  of  a  kingly 
race  in  1304,  and  from  the  house  of  a  powerful  father  passed  to 
that  of  a  powerful  husband  ;  but  the  responsibilities  of  a  large 
household  and  the  care  of  a  family  of  seven  children  did  not  draw 
her  attention  from  social  and  political  affairs.  She  was  strongly 
imbued  with  the  need  of  reform  in  religion,  and  believed  in  the 
possibility  of  effecting  a  change  by  encouraging  monasticism. 
A  large  part  of  her  property  and  much  of  her  time  were  devoted 
to  enlarging  the  religious  settlement  of  Wadstena.  She  then  went 
on  a  pilgrimage  to  Santiago  in  Spain,  after  which  husband  and 
wife  separated,  each  to  embrace  convent  life.  Bridget,  or  Birgitta 
as  her  people  called  her,  dwelt  at  Wadstena,  which  she  reformed 
according  to  rules  which  she  believed  she  had  received  direct 
from  heaven.  She  also  wrote  some  '  Revelations,'  which  in  their 
strong  invective  recall  the  Revelations  of  St  Hildegard  of  Bingen 
with  this  difference,  that  St  Bridget  with  open  directness  spoke 
of  the  dangers  which  she  thought  were  gathering  around  Sweden. 
The  tone  of  these  writings  brought  her  into  difficulties.  She 
escaped  from  them  by  removing  to  Rome  in  1350,  where  she 
lived  for  over  twenty  years.  Here  she  was  looked  upon  as  the 
representative  of  the  Church  party  which  strongly  censured  the 
Pope  for  continuing  to  dwell  at  Avignon.  This  party  looked  upon 
Bridget  as  the  chosen  mouthpiece  of  God.  Her  power  of  prophecy 
was  generally  recognised  after  her  threatening  visions  about  the 
state  of  things  in  Sweden  had  proved  true.  Settlements  on  the 
plan  of  that  of  Wadstena  rapidly  multiplied  during  her  lifetime 
in  Sweden  and  in  North  Germany.  It  was  partly  owing  to  her 
influence  that  the  first  attempt  was  made  to  translate  the  Bible 
into  Swedish,  and  she  is  looked  upon  by  the  Swedes  as  one  of  that 
faithful  band  who  worked  for  their  national  regeneration.  She  died 
in  1372  and  was  officially  canonised  a  saint  in  1391I 

A  great  feature  of  the  order  of  St  Bridget  was  that  its  settle- 
ments consisted  of  a  double  community  of  men  and  women  who 
combined  for  purposes  of  divine  service,  but  were  otherwise  separate, 

'  }lzramQX\Qh,  Den  hellige  Birgitta,  1863. 
"  A.  SS.  Boll.,  St  Birgitta  vidua,  Oct.  8. 


SECT.  Ill]  Arrangements  of  Sion.  385 

each  community  having  its  own  conventual  buildings  separately 
enclosed.  The  convent  of  nuns,  according  to  Bridget's  stipulation, 
numbered  sixty  women  including  the  abbess,  and  in  accordance 
with  a  fanciful  notion,  such  as  one  comes  across  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  these  women  had  associated  with  them  thirteen  priests,  who 
represented  the  apostles,  four  deacons  who  represented  the  great 
doctors  of  the  Church,  and  eight  lay  brothers ;  the  lady  abbess  was 
at  the  head  of  this  double  community.  The  order  in  its  develop- 
ment abroad  endeavoured  to  influence  all  classes.  It  encouraged 
charity,  promoted  education  and  collected  books.  But  in  England 
its  tone  fell  in  with  that  of  other  nunneries  in  the  15th  century; 
the  interests  of  Sion  were  entirely  devotional  and  its  large  library 
seems  to  have  contained  religious  works  only. 

I  am  not  aware  of  any  mention  of  Bridget  in  contemporary 
English  literature  previous  to  the  introduction  of  her  order  into 
this  country,  which  took  place  at  the  beginning  of  the  15th  century. 
In  the  year  1406  Philippa,  daughter  of  Henry  IV,  was  sent  to 
Lund  in  Sweden  to  be  married  to  King  Eric  XIII  (i 382-1445), 
under  whose  rule  the  crowns  of  Sweden,  Denmark  and  Norway 
were  united.  The  princess  travelled  under  the  charge  of  Henry, 
third  Baron  Fitzhugh,  who  held  an  important  position  at  the 
court  of  Henry  IV ;  he  was  made  Constable  of  England  at  the 
coronation  of  Henry  V,  and  seems  to  have  been  on  terms  of 
intimacy  with  both  these  monarchs.  By  some  means  Fitzhugh's 
attention  was  drawn  to  the  monastery  of  Wadstena,  the  chronicle 
of  which  records  his  visit  to  it.  He  volunteered  to  found  a  branch 
of  the  order  of  St  Bridget  in  England,  and  promised  the  gift  of 
a  manor,  Hinton  near  Cambridge,  on  condition  that  some  of  the 
order  took  possession  of  it  within  three  years. 

In  consequence  of  Fitzhugh's  visit  and  offer  a  priest  and  two 
deacons  professing  the  order  of  St  Bridget  were  elected  at  Wadstena 
in  1408,  and  sent  to  England.  Blunt  considers  it  probable'  that  it 
was  by  the  advice  of  Fitzhugh  that  Henry  V  about  this  time 
devoted  manors  at  Sheen  and  Isleworth  to  religious  purposes. 
Carthusian  monks  were  settled  at  Sheen,  nuns  of  St  Bridget  were 
settled  at  Isleworth, — and  the  two  settlements  were  called  respec- 
tively Bethlehem  and  Sion.  In  February  of  141 5  Henry  V  in  the 
presence  of  the  bishop  of  London  laid  the  foundation  stone  of  a 
building  destined  for  the  nuns  near  Twickenham,  and  in  March 
the  royal  charter  was  drawn  up  and  signed.     By  this  the  members 

'  Myroure  of  Oure  Latiye,  IntrcKl.  p.  xiv. 
E.  25 


386  The  Foundation  and  Internal  [chap,  x 

of  the  new  settlement  were  bound  '  to  celebrate  Divine  Service  for 
ever  for  our  healthful  estate  while  we  live  and  for  our  souls  when 
we  shall  have  departed  this  life,  and  for  the  souls  of  our  most  dear 
lord  and  father  (Henry  IV)  late  king  of  England,  and  Mary  his 
late  wife,  etc'  Before  the  close  of  the  year  four  consecrated 
Swedish  sisters,  three  novices  and  two  brothers  arrived  in  England 
from  Wadstena.  They  were  sent  by  the  king  and  queen  of  Sweden 
and  were  sped  on  their  way  by  the  archbishop  of  Lund  and  other 
dignitaries. 

The  settlement  at  Sion  had  been  granted  an  income  of  a 
thousand  marks,  to  be  drawn  from  the  royal  exchequer  until  the 
permanent  endowments  made  to  it  should  amount  to  that  sum. 
In  141 8  Pope  Martin  V  received  the  house  under  his  special 
protection  ;  the  first  profession  or  monastic  engagement  took  place 
two  years  later.  Twenty-four  nuns,  five  priests,  two  deacons  and 
four  lay  brothers  pronounced  their  vows  before  archbishop  Chicheley 
of  Canterbury  (1420).  And  before  the  close  of  Henry's  reign  (1422) 
the  house  was  endowed  with  manors  and  spiritualities,  scattered 
over  the  land  from  Kent  to  the  Lake  district,  which  were  chiefly 
appropriated  from  the  possessions  of  alien  priories. 

The  appropriation  of  alien  priories  forms  an  interesting  episode 
in  the  history  of  English  monasticism,  for  it  constitutes  a  prelude 
to  the  dissolution  of  monasteries  generally.  While  men  were 
becoming  critical  of  religious  institutions  owing  to  the  spread  of 
Lollard  doctrines,  the  Lancastrian  kings  appropriated  the  lands 
and  the  revenues  of  alien  priories  and  made  use  of  them  to  fortify 
the  Church  and  monasticism,  thus  counteracting  influences  which 
in  the  first  instance  had  made  the  appropriation  of  these  houses 
possible. 

The  number  of  alien  priories  in  England  is  differently  quoted 
as  a  hundred  and  a  hundred  and  forty\  Most  of  them  had  been 
founded  soon  after  the  Conquest,  when  the  gift  of  a  manor  on 
English  soil  to  a  foreign  house  had  brought  over  from  France  a 
few  monks  and  nuns,  who  after  defraying  the  expenses  of  their 
houses  remitted  any  surplus  revenue  or  else  forwarded  a  sum  of 
money  in  lieu  of  it  to  the  parent  house.  When  the  relations 
between  France  and  England  became  strained  it  appeared  advisable 
to  sever  the  connection  between  the  foreign  house  and  its  English 
colonies.  Edward  I,  when  he  determined  on  war  with  France, 
appropriated  the  revenues  of  alien   priories  for   a  time,  and    his 

1  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIJ I  and  the  English  Monasteries,  i888,  vol.  i,  p.  42. 


SECT.  Ill]  Arrangements  of  Sion.  387 

successors  frequently  did  the  same ;  the  dangers  to  which  these 
cells  were  exposed  causing  some  foreign  houses  to  sever  the 
I  connection  by  selling  their  English  property. 

The  alien  cells  occupied  by  nuns  were  very  few.  Amesbury, 
which  had  been  constituted  a  cell  to  Fontevraud,  regained  its 
independent  standing  during  the  wars  with  France' ;  Westwood*, 
another  cell  of  Fontevraud,  and  Levenestre  or  Liminster  in  Surrey, 
a  cell  of  Almanache  in  Normandy,  were  dispersed,  and  the  abbess 
of  Almanache  treated  for  the  sale  of  the  property'. 

After  many  attempts  to  interfere  with  foreign  cells  Henry  V 
resolved  on  their  final  sequestration  (1414),  and  it  was  part  of  the 
property  thus  appropriated  which  was  bestowed  on  the  houses 
called  Bethlehem  and  Sion. 

The  chief  information  we  have  on  the  conventual  life  of  the 
women  assembled  at  Sion  is  contained  in  a  set  of ' additional  rules' 
written  in  English  '  for  the  sisters  of  the  order  of  St  Saviour  and 
St  Bridget'*.  The  same  rules  exist  in  a  manuscript  of  contem- 
poraneous date  adapted  to  the  use  of  the  brothers,  whose  duties, 
save  in  a  few  particulars,  were  similar.  They  acted  as  priests  and 
confessors  to  the  double  community.  The  chapel  had  a  double 
chancel,  each  with  its  separate  stalls ;  it  was  divided  by  a  '  crate ' 
or  grille  which  did  not  prevent  the  brothers  and  sisters  from  being 
visible  to  each  other  during  divine  service.  The  gate  of  this  grille 
was  kept  locked,  and  was  only  opened  for  the  entrance  and  de- 
parture of  the  clergy  when  they  said  mass  at  the  altar  of  the  sisters' 
chapel.  The  lay  brothers  of  the  settlement  acted  as  labourers,  and 
had  no  part  in  the  government  of  the  house. 

The  additional  rules  for  the  sisters  are  grouped  together  in  fifty- 
nine  chapters,  and  contain  most  elaborate  directions  not  only  as  to 
the  occupation,  behaviour  and  special  duties  of  the  various  inmates 
of  the  convent,  but  for  exigencies  of  every  kind.  After  directions 
about  the  holding  of  the  Chapter,  lists  of  defaults  are  worked  out, 
grouped  under  the  headings  of  light,  grievous,  more  grievous  and 
most  grievous  (c.  1-7).  'A  careful  consideration  of  this  code  of 
"defaultes"  and  their  penalties,'  says  Blunt',  Meads  to  the  conclu- 


*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Amesbury,'  vol.  i,  p.  333. 
^  Ibid.  '  Westwood,'  vol.  6,  p.  1004. 

*  Ibid.  '  Levenestre,'  vol.  6,  p.  1031. 

•*  Aungier,  G.  J.,  History  and  Antiquttifs  of  Syon,  1840,  p.  249  ff.,  from  Arundel  MS. 
nr  1 46  (chapter  references  throughout  the  text  in  this  chapter  are  to  this  reprint). 

*  Alyroure  of  Oure  Ladye,  Introd.  p.  xxxv. 

25 — 2 


388  The  Foundation  and  Internal  [chap,  x 

sion  that  it  was  intended  as  an  exhaustive  list  of  possible  crimes, 
and  that  it  offers  no  ground  for  beh'eving  that  the  Sisters  of 
Sion  were  ever  guilty  of  them  or  ever  incurred  the  severer  punish- 
ments enjoined  in  connection  with  them.'  Among  '  light  defaults ' 
we  note  such  as  neglect  ^n  religious  observance  and  in  washing ; 
among  'grievous  defaults/  despising  the  common  doctrine  as  taught 
by  the  holy  fathers,  and  going  unconfessed  for  fourteen  days. 
*  More  grievous  defaults  *  are  such  as  sowing  discord,  theft,  and 
using  sorcery  or  witchcraft ;  '  most  grievous  defaults '  are  man- 
slaughter, fleshly  sin,  and  blasphemy.  We  gather  from  the 
directions  that  one  mode  of  severe  punishment  was  imprisonment, 
whereas  '  discipline '  was  administered  regularly  by  the  sisters 
to  each  other.  The  power  of  the  abbess  over  the  members  of 
the  convent  was  absolute ;  she  is  spoken  of  in  these  rules  some- 
times as  sovereign,  sometimes  as  majesty.  It  was  she  who 
decreed  punishment  and  penance,  and  when  the  bishop  enjoined 
correction  in  consequence  of  an  enquiry,  she  decided  upon  and 
administered  it.  Twenty-eight  questions,  which  the  bishop  on 
the  occasion  of  his  visitation  was  allowed  to  put  to  the  abbess  and 
the  convent,  are  given  (c.  ro).  They  refer  to  devotional  duties, 
to  the  observance  of  fasts,  etc.  One  question  (nr  10)  enquires 
of  the  sisters  how  they  are  occupied  when  they  are  not  at  divine 
service  or  at  conventual  observances  ;  another  (nr  1 8)  if  there  be  an 
inventory  or  register  of  the  books  of  the  library,  and  how  they  and 
other  books  of  study  are  kept ;  again  another  (nr  26)  enquires  as 
to  the  state  of  the  infirmary. 

A  caution  against  slander  suggests  a  curious  idea  of  equity.  If 
any  sister  bring  an  accusation  against  another  before  the  bishop, 
she  shall  not  be  heard  '  unless  bound  to  the  pain  if  she  fail  in  proof, 
that  she  whom  she  accuses  shall  have,  if  she  be  found  guilty.' 

Among  the  men  who  necessarily  had  access  to  the  women's 
conventual  buildings,  physicians,  workmen  and  labourers  are  enu- 
merated. 

The  election  of  a  new  abbess  (c.  1 2)  was  effected  by  the  sisters 
alone  within  three  days  of  the  occurrence  of  a  vacancy.  It  was 
not  managed  in  quite  the  same  way  as  elsewhere.  The  prioress 
proposed  a  name,  and  if  the  sisters  voted  unanimously  in  favour  of 
it,  the  election  was  called  '  by  the  way  of  the  Holy  Ghost.'  But  if 
they  did  not  agree,  they  named  a  candidate  and  the  ballot  was 
repeated  till  a  sufficient  majority  was  obtained.  The  election 
was  not  valid  unless  confirmed  by  the  bishop.     When  the  abbess 


SECT.  Ill]  Arrangements  of  Sion,  389 

pronounced  the  words  of  her  '  obedience '  she  was  supported  by  a 
learned  man  of  law  or  notary,  besides  the  confessor  of  the  house 
and  two  brothers.  The  confessor  was  appointed  at  the  discretion 
of  the  abbess  herself,  the  'sadder'  or  elderly  sisters  and  the  brothers  ; 
but  the  other  appointments  were  made  by  the  abbess  alone  (c.  13). 
She  appointed  the  sisters  to  office  and  could  remove  them.  As 
elsewhere,  she  was  obliged  to  do  so  in  the  chapter-house  in  the 
presence  of  the  convent. 

The  rules  of  keeping  silence,  the  year  of  proof,  and  the  in- 
struction and  profession  of  novices,  are  fully  discussed  (c.  15).  The 
account  of  how  the  sisters  were  professed  is  supplemented  by 
Aungier'.  He  gives  an  additional  description  of  the  ceremony  in 
church,  probably  of  somewhat  later  date,  and  of  the  interrogatory 
through  which  the  bishop  put  the  prospective  nun.  The  first 
question  which  he  put  was  to  this  effect :  '  Art  thou  free  and 
unfettered  by  any  bond  of  the  Church,  or  of  wedlock  ;  of  vow,  or  of 
excommunication  .-' '  to  which  she  made  answer, '  I  am  truly  free.' 
The  bishop  then  asked  :  '  Does  not  shame,  or  perchance  grief  of 
worldly  adversity,  urge  thee  to  a  religious  profession,  or  perhaps 
the  multitude  of  thy  debts  compel  thee?'  To  which  she  answered  : 
'  Neither  grief  nor  shame  incites  me  to  this,  but  a  fervent  love 
of  Christ ;  and  I  have  already  paid  all  my  debts  according  to  my 
power,'  etc.  I  have  not  met  with  similar  questions  in  any  other 
place. 

In  the  additional  rules  directions  are  also  given  about  singing 
and  keeping  the  hours  and  the  festivals  (c.  18-44).  The  day  at 
Sion  was  divided  by  the  seven  '  hours '  in  the  usual  way.  At  the 
hours  in  chapel  the  '  sadder '  or  elder  sisters  sang  together  with  the 
younger  ones  or  'song-sisters.'  The  'observance  of  the  altar'  at 
both  masses  belonged  to  the  brothers ;  it  was  so  arranged  that  the 
brothers'  service  came  first  and  the  sisters'  began  when  that  of  the 
brothers  ended.  In  addition  to  the  usual  hours  and  masses  two 
ceremonies  were  daily  observed  at  Sion.  One  was  the  singing 
of  the  psalm  De  Profundis  at  an  open  grave  to  which  the  whole 
convent  wended  its  way  after  tierce.  The  other  consisted  of  a 
prayer  addressed  to  Mary  in  chapel  before  evensong,  from  which 
none  of  the  sisters  was  to  absent  herself  except  for  an  important 
reason. 

A   number  of  festivals  were  celebrated  at  Sion  with  special 

'  Aungier,  G.  J.,  History  and  Antiquities  of  Syon,  1840,  pp.  312  ff.,  from  Additional 
MS.  nr  5208. 


390  The  Foundation  and  Internal  [chap,  x 

services  and  processions  (c.  29).  Among  them  were  the  feast  of 
the  Circumcision,  the  translation  of  St  Bridget  and  the  day  of  St 
John  the  Baptist  '  when  their  feasts  fall  on  Sunday  and  not  else ' ; 
also  Palm  Sunday,  St  Mark's  day.  Rogation  Sunday,  St  Peter  and 
St  Paul,  St  Anne's,  Michaelmas,  all  the  feasts  of  Our  Lady  and  all 
the  principal  or  high  double  feasts  of  the  year.  On  these  occasions 
the  sisters  walked  two  and  two  in  procession,  and  the  sister  who 
was  sexton  bore  the  '  image  of  our  lady '  after  the  cross,  and  two 
torches  were  carried  on  either  side  a  little  before  the  image.  The 
additional  rules  contain  directions  to  the  sisters  on  the  arrangement 
of  divine  service  on  these  occasions,  and  further  directions  in  the 
rule  for  the  brothers  minutely  describe  the  elaborate  ritual  which 
took  place. 

The  additional  rules  also  contain  a  full  description  of  the  duties 
of  each  appointment  in  the  convent  (c.  45).  The  choir  in  church 
was  led  by  a  cliauntres  and  subcliauntres  who  should  be  '  cunning 
and  perfect  in  reading  and  singing.'  It  was  the  duty  of  the  eb- 
domary,  or  weekly  appointed  nun  (c.  46),  to  be  one  of  the  first  in 
choir  ;  she  was  *  to  abstayn  and  withdrawe  herself  from  alle  thynges 
that  wyke  that  myght  lette  her  to  performe  her  office.'  When  the 
abbess  did  not  execute  the  service  the  ebdomary  began  the 
Invitatory  ;  and  she  always  gave  the  third  blessing  after  the  abbess 
had  read  the  third  lesson.  She  also  fulfilled  the  office  of  the 
abbess  at  the  principal  feasts,  except  in  such  things  as  belonged 
exclusively  to  the  abbess. 

We  hear  also  of  the  duties  of  the  sexton,  sexteyne  (c.  48),  who 
kept  the  church  ornaments  and  the  altar  'whole  and  sound,  fair, 
clean  and  honest,'  and  who  saw  to  the  washing  of  altar-cloths,  awbes 
or  surplices.  She  was  not  allowed  to  touch  or  wash  the  hallowed 
corporas  or  cloths  with  bare  hands,  but  was  obliged  to  wear  linen 
gloves,  and  in  starching  the  cloths  she  was  directed  to  use  starch 
made  of  herbs  only.  The  sexton  had  in  her  keeping  wax,  lamps, 
oil  and  all  other  things  belonging  to  the  church  ;  she  had  to  provide 
for  the  church  syngynge  or  communion  brede,  sudarys,  wax-candles, 
tallow-candles,  wax  rolls,  tapers,  torches,  mats,  uattes,  and  round- 
lettes ;  and  she  provided  for  the  pennerSy  pens,  ink,  inkhorns,  tables, 
and  all  else  that  the  abbess  asked  of  her.  Also  she  opened  and 
shut  the  doors  and  windows  of  the  sisters'  choir  and  common 
places,  lighted  and  extinguished  tapers  and  candles,  and  snuffed 
them  '  in  such  wise  and  in  such  time  that  the  sisters  be  not  grieved 
with  the  savour.' 


SECT.  Ill]  Arrangements  of  Sion.  391 


It  was  the  duty  of  the  sexton  to  ring  the  bells  in  the  women's 
part  of  the  house  ;  the  ringing  of  a  bell  regulated  throughout  the 
life  of  those  assembled  at  Sion.  It  roused  the  brothers  and  sisters 
from  sleep,  summoned  them  to  church,  called  them  to  meals,  and 
ever  and  anon  gave  notice  for  a  devotional  pause  in  whatever 
occupation  was  going  on  at  the  moment.  When  one  of  the 
community  passed  away  from  life  the  large  or  curfew  bell  was 
tolled  continuously. 

Another  appointment  in  the  women's  convent  was  that  of  the 
legister  or  reader  at  meals  (c.  50),  who  was  directed  to  read  out 
distinctly  and  openly,  that  all  might  understand,  whatever  the 
abbess  or  chauntress  had  assigned.  On  one  day  of  the  week  she 
read  out  the  rule.  Absolute  silence  reigned  during  meals.  If  any- 
one had  a  communication  to  make,  this  was  done  by  means  of 
signs,  used  also  at  other  times  when  silence  was  to  be  observed. 
A  curious  'table  of  signs  used  during  the  hours  of  silence  by  the 
sisters  and  brothers  in  the  monastery  of  Sion '  was  drawn  up  by 
Thomas  Betsone\  one  of  the  brothers.  Together  with  other  tables 
of  the  kind,  it  suggests  the  origin  of  the  method  by  which  the  deaf 
and  dumb  were  formerly  taught. 

At  Sion  the  abbess  had  her  meals  with  the  sisters,  sitting  at  a 
high  table  while  they  sat  at  side  tables  (c.  51-52),  and  the  servitors 
or  lay  sisters  waited.  When  they  had  done  the  sisters  wiped  their 
knives  and  spoons  on  the  napkins  (without  washing  them  T)  ;  they 
were  to  guard  against  spotting  the  cloth,  and  spilling  the  food,  and 
were  directed  to  put  away  their  cups  and  spoons  honest  and  clean 
(without  washing  them  .^)  into  the  '  coflfyns '  which  were  kept 
underneath  the  table,  or  in  some  other  place  ordered  by  the  abbess. 
At  the  end  of  a  meal  the  sisters  swept  together  the  crumbs  with 
their  napkins,  and  then,  at  a  sign  from  the  abbess,  they  bore  the 
food  away  to  the  serving-house.  The  youngest  sister  took  the 
first  dish,  and  each  one  carried  away  something  ^ccordlngltp  age. 
The  language  in  which  the  utensils  are  described  presents  some 
difficulties.  They  carried  away  the  drink  and  then  'the  garnapes 
that  they  sette  on,  ther  pottes  and  cruses,  after  thys,  brede,  hole, 
kytte,  cantelles,  ande  crommes,  and  laste  of  alle  salt,'  ending 
evermore  with  the  abbess  or  president,  and  inclining  to  each  sister 
as  they  took  them  up  and  they  again  to  them. 

The  behaviour  of  the  sisters  to  each  other  and  to  the  abbess  in 
the  refectory,  the  dormitory,  the  chapter-house,  etc.  was  carefully 

*  Aungier,  G.  J.,  History  and  Antiquities  of  Syon,  1840,  pp.  405  ff.  *  A  table  of  signs.' 


392  The  Foundation  and  Internal  [chap,  x 

regulated  (c.  53).  The  sisters  when  they  met  the  abbess  bowed  to 
her,  '  for  love  without  reverence  is  but  childish  love.'  The  desire 
for  refinement  in  bearing  and  behaviour  is  manifested  throughout 
by  these  directions,  and  some  of  them  are  curious.  Thus  the  sister 
who  washed  her  hands  was  directed  not  to  'jutte  up'  the  water  on 
another,  nor  to  spit  in  the  lavatory,  nor  to  presume  to  go  without 
her  veil  and  crown  upon  her  head,  except  only  in  her  cell,  washing- 
house,  etc.  Judging  from  this  reference  to  cells,  the  dormitory  at 
Sion  was  divided  by  partitions  or  curtains,  so  that  each  sister 
practically  had  a  room  to  herself. 

Many  details  are  then  given  concerning  the  duties  of  the 
prioress  and  other  appointments.  The  nuns  appointed  to  enquire 
into  shortcomings  are  here  designated  as  serchers  (c.  55).  The 
treasurer  and  her  fellow  kept  the  muniments  of  the  monastery  and 
its  possessions  in  gold  and  silver  in  the  treasury,  in  a  large  chest  to 
which  there  were  two  keys,  one  kept  by  the  treasurer  and  the  other 
by  her  fellow  (c.  56).  These  sisters  also  provided  and  paid  for  all 
necessary  medicines,  spices  and  powders,  etc. 

Duties  of  no  small  importance  devolved  on  the  chambres^  or 
mistress  of  the  wardrobe,  who  saw  to  the  raiment  of  the  sisters  and 
the  brothers,  both  in  regard  to  linen  and  to  woollen  clothes,  shaping, 
sewing,  making,  repairing  and  keeping  them  from  '  wormes,'  and 
shaking  them  with  '  the  help  of  other  sisters.'  I  transcribe  in  the 
original  spelling  the  things  she  is  told  to  provide :  '  canuas  for 
bedyng,  fryses,  blankeites,  shetes^  bolsters,  pelowes,  couerlites,  cuscheus, 
basens,  stamens,  rewle  cotes,  cowles,  mantelles,  wymples,  veyles,  crownes, 
pynnes,  cappes,  nyght  kerchyfes,  pyldies,  mantel  furres,  cuffes,  gloues, 
hoses,  shoes,  botes,  soles,  sokkes,  mugdors  (sic),  gyrdelles,  purses,  knyues, 
laces,  poyntes,  nedelles,  threde, — waschyng  bolles  and  sope, — (written  in 
the  margin)  and  for  all  other  necessaries,  as  directed  by  the  abbess, 
which  shall  not  be  over  curious  but  plain  and  homely,  without 
wearing  of  any  strange  colours  of  silk,  gold  or  silver,  having  all 
things  of  honesty  and  profit  and  nothing  of  vanity  after  the  rule, 
their  knives  unpointed  and  purses  being  double  of  linen  cloth,  and 
not  silk.' 

In  illustration  of  the  office  of  the  chambress,  Blunt  has 
published  a  document  preserved  in  the  Record  Office,  which 
contains  the  account  of  Dame  Bridget  Belgrave,  chambress  at 
Sion  from  Michaelmas  1536  to  Michaelmas  1537,  the  year  pre- 
ceding the  dissolution*.     This  shows  that  the  chambress  provided 

^  Myrotire  of  Oure  Ladye,  Introd.  p.  xxvi. 


SECT.  Ill]  Arrangements  of  Sion.  393 

the  material  for  the  dress  of  the  sisters  and  other  items.  She 
buys  russettes,  white  cloth,  kerseys,  fryce,  Holland  cloth  and  other 
linen  cloth  mostly  by  the  piece,  which  varies  in  the  number 
of  its  yards ;  she  provides  soap,  calf-skins,  thread,  needles  and 
thimbles ;  she  purchases  new  spectacles  and  has  old  ones  mended. 
Among  many  other  items  of  interest  we  find  fox-skins,  paper, 
and  pins  of  divers  sorts ;  she  sets  down  a  sum  for  burying  poor 
folks,  and  '  expences  at  London,'  from  which  we  gather  that  she 
had  been  there  ;  and  pays  '  rewards  '  and  '  wages '  to  the  gronte,  the 
skynner,  and  the  sJmmakers. 

The  duties  of  the  cellaress  stand  next  in  the  additional  rules 
(c.  56),  and  they  recall  the  complex  duties  belonging  to  the  same 
post  at  Barking.  Blunt  has  also  illustrated  these  duties  by 
publishing  the  accounts,  rendered  by  Dame  Agnes  Merrett,  for  the 
last  year  preceding  the  dissolution ^  This  cellaress  also  charged 
herself  with  various  sums  received  for  hides,  calf-skins  and  wool- 
felles  or  sheep-skins.  She  received  payment  for  boarding  My 
Lady  Kyngeston  and  her  servants,  and  sister  Elizabeth  Nelson. 
She  received  rent  from  various  tenants  and  managed  the  home 
farm  at  Isleworth.  We  hear  of  her  buying  horses,  cattle,  hogs  and 
peacocks  for  its  storing.  Its  dairy  was  managed  by  paid  servants. 
This  cellaress,  like  her  fellow  at  Barking,  purchased  provisions  and 
fish  for  the  use  of  the  convent,  but  her  entries  are  more  numerous 
and  infer  a  higher  standard  of  living,  perhaps  due  to  the  fact  that 
these  accounts  are  more  than  a  hundred  years  later  than  the 
'charge  of  the  cellaress  at  Barking.'  The  cellaress  at  Sion  also 
bought  salt  salmon,  herrings  by  the  barrel,  and  red  herrings  by  the 
'  caade ' ;  also  stubbe  eels.  She  further  bought  spices,  fruits,  sugar, 
nutmegs,  almonds,  currants,  ginger,  isinglass,  pepper,  cinnamon, 
cloves,  mace,  figge  doodes  (sic),  topnettes  (sic),  great  raisins,  prunes, 
saffron  and  rice.  Her  '  foreign  payments '  include  seed  for  the 
garden,  boat-hire,  and  expenses  at  London,  by  which  we  see  that 
she  too,  like  the  chambress  of  the  house,  had  been  there.  Among 
her  other  expenses  are  rewards  to  the  '  clerke  of  the  kechyn,'  the 
*baily  of  the  husbandry,'  the  *  keper  of  the  covent  (convent)  garden,' 
and  the  '  cookes.'  Members  of  the  convent  were  deputed  by  the 
abbess  to  look  after  the  sick  (c.  57),  and  the  writer  insists  upon  the 
need  of  gentleness  and  patience  in  dealing  with  them. 

'  Often  change  their  beds  and  clothes,'  he  says,  *  give  them 
medicines,  lay  to  them  plaisters  and  minister  to  them  meat  and 

*  Myroure  of  Oure  Ladye,  Introd.  p.  xxix. 


394  ^'^^  Foundation  and  Internal  [chap,  x 

drink,  fire  and  water,  and  all  other  necessaries  night  and  day,  as 
need  requires  after  the  counsel  of  the  physicians,  and  precept  of  the 
sovereign  ;  do  not  be  squeamish  in  washing  and  wiping  them  by 
avoiding  them,  be  not  angry  nor  hasty,  nor  impatient  though  one 
have  the  vomit,  another  the  flux,  another  the  frenzy,  and  now  sings, 
now  cries,  now  laughs,  now  weeps,  now  chides,  now  is  frightened,  now 
is  wroth,  now  well  apayde,  for  there  be  some  sickness  vexing  the 
sick  so  greatly  and  provoking  them  to  ire  that  the  matter  drawn  up 
to  the  brain  alienates  the  mind.  And  therefore  those  in  attendance 
should  have  much  patience  with  them,  that  thereby  they  may 
secure  an  everlasting  crown.' 

Aungier  has  also  reprinted  lists  of  the  capabilities  of  indulgence 
granted  to  Sion,  and  of  the  pardons  secured  by  those  who  offered 
prayers  in  the  chapel  there*.  This  shows  one  of  the  means  by 
which  money  was  secured  to  religious  houses  in  the  15th  century. 
Indulgences  were  granted  at  Sion  on  almost  every  festival  in  the 
year.  By  '  devoutly  giving  somewhat  to  the  reparation  of  the  said 
monastery'  and  offering  prayers  on  Midlent  Sunday,  the  visitor  at 
Sion  might  secure  pardon  extending  from  a  hundred  days  to  'clean 
remission  of  all  sin  except  in  the  points  which  are  reserved  to  the 
Pope.'  To  give  alms  on  the  feast  of  St  Bridget,  the  patron  saint 
of  the  house,  secured  to  him  who  sought  help  '  pardon  and  clean 
remission  in  all  cases  reserved  and  unreserved,'  according  to  the 
wording  of  the  document.  This  power,  as  the  manuscript  informs 
us,  had  been  granted  '  by  diverse  holy  fathers,  popes  at  Rome, 
archbishops,  bishops,  cardinals  and  legates.'  Aungier  supplements 
it  by  printing  a  document  which  came  from  Norfolk  on  the  capa- 
bilities of  pardon  possessed  by  different  religious  houses-.  There 
are  entries  in  this  referring  to  the  'pardoun  of  beyds'  of  the 
Charterhouse  of  Mount  Grace  and  of  the  Charterhouse  at  Sheen, 
and  to  the  pardon  of  beads  at  Sion  and  at  the  *  Crossed  Friars ' 
beside  London  Tower. 

A  number  of  devotional  books  were  written  for  the  nuns  at  Sion  ; 
some  in  Latin,  some  in  English.  A  i^^N  of  the  service  books  of  the 
house  have  been  preserved.  Among  them  is  the  Martyrology 
which  was  in  daily  use  among  the  brothers  and  which  contains 
historical  memoranda,  accounts  of  the  saints,  the  records  of  the 

'  Aungier,  G.  J.,  History  and  Atitiquities  of  Syon,  1840,  p.  421,  '  Indulgentia  monas- 
terii  de  Syon,'  MS.  Ashmol.  nr  750;  p.  422,  'The  Pardon  of  the  monastery  of  Shene 
which  is  Syon,'  MS.  Harlelan  4012,  art.  9. 

*  Ibid.  p.  426,  footnotes. 


SECT.  Ill]  Arrangements  of  Sion.  395 

deaths  of  the  sisters,  brothers  and  benefactors  of  the  house  between 
1422  and  1639,  and  extracts  from  religious  writers.  This  martyro- 
logy  accompanied  the  women's  convent  on  their  wanderings,  and 
since  their  return  it  has  been  acquired  by  the  British  Museum'. 
A  translation  of  it  into  English  was  made  by  Richard  Whytford 
(f  1542),  a  brother  of  Sion,  '  for  the  edificacyon  of  certayn  religyous 
persones  unlerned  that  dayly  dyd  rede  the  same  martiloge  in 
Latyn  not  understandynge  what  they  redde-.'  Whytford  wrote 
other  religious  books,  among  them  the  '  Pype  or  Tonne  of 
Perfection  ' ;  the  '  Fruyte  of  redempcyon,'  which  is  now  held  to  be 
by  '  Simon,  the  anker  of  London,'  has  been  attributed  to  him. 

Among  other  books  written  for  the  nuns  is  a  curious  discourse 
in  English  by  Thomas  Fishbourne,  father  confessor  in  1420,  to 
which  is  added  a  portion  of  the  gospel  of  St  Peter  ad  Vincula^  It 
contains  a  discussion  on  the  nature  of  pardons  and  indulgences, 
particularly  of  those  procured  at  Rome.  Symon  Wynter,  another 
brother  of  the  house  (1428),  wrote  a  treatise  for  them  in  praise  of 
the  Virgin  (Regina  Coeli)*;  and  Thomas  Prestius  wrote  in- 
structions for  the  novices'.  The  house  owned  a  large  library,  to 
the  celebrity  of  which  Sir  Richard  Sutton  added  by  a  splendid 
work  printed  at  his  expense  by  Wynkyn  de  Worde  in  1519  and 
called  in  honour  of  the  monastery  'The  Orchard  of  Syon''. 

The  most  important  work  in  English  however  compiled  for  the 
nuns  was  a  devotional  treatise  on  divine  service  with  a  translation 
into  English  of  the  Offices,  called  the  '  Mirror  of  Our  Lady,'  first 
printed  in  1530,  the  authorship  of  which  is  attributed  by  its  latest 
editor.  Blunt,  to  Thomas  Gascoigne  (1403-1458)^  Gascoigne  was 
an  eminent  divine,  at  one  time  Chancellor  of  the  University  of 
Oxford ;  he  caused  the  life  of  St  Bridget  to  be  translated  into 
English  and  bequeathed  most  of  his  books  by  will  to  the  sisters  at 
Sion.  The  Offices  in  this  book  are  amplified,  and  Blunt  was  much 
struck  by  the  similarity  of  many  passages  to  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer.  The  purpose  of  the  writer  is  expressed  in  the  following 
words  * : 

'As  many  of  you,  though  you  can  sing  and  read,  yet  you  cannot 


1  Myroure  of  Oure  Ladye,  Introd.  p.  xlv.     B.  M.  Addit.  MS.,  nr  22385. 

*  Printed  by  Wynkyn  de  Worde  (?),  1526;  reprinted  for  the  Bradshaw  Society,  1893. 
'  Aungier,  G.  J.,  History  atid  Antiquities  of  Syon,  1840,  p.  529.     MS.  Harleian 

2321,  fol.  ijflF. 

*  Ibid.  p.  527.  '  Ibid.  p.  527.  *  Ibid.  p.  526. 
'  Myroure  of  Oure  Ladye,  Introd.  p.  ix.                                             "  Ibid.  p.  2. 


396  The  Foundation  and  Iniernal  [chap,  x 

see  what  the  meaning  thereof  is... I  have  drawn  your  legend  and 
all  your  service  into  English,  that  you  see  by  the  understanding 
thereof,  how  worthy  and  holy  praising  of  our  glorious  Lady  is 
contained  therein,  and  the  more  devoutly  and  knowingly  sing  it 
and  read  it,  and  say  it  to  her  worship.' 

The  '  Mirror  of  Our  Lady '  is  very  instructive  with  regard  to 
the  just  estimation  of  the  position  and  feelings  of  religious  women 
during  the  later  Middle  Ages.  There  is  much  in  it  that  is 
eloquent,  refined,  and  beautiful,  but  its  insistence  on  detail  is 
sometimes  wearisome.  The  style  of  the  writer  is  fitly  illustrated 
by  the  following  passages,  which  are  taken  from  the  introductory 
treatise  on  the  reading  of  religious  books*.  The  wording  of  the 
original  is  retained  as  closely  as  possible,  but  the  spelling  is 
modernized. 

'  Devout  reading  of  holy  books  is  called  one  of  the  parts  of 
contemplation,  for  it  causes  much  grace  and  comfort  to  the  soul 
if  it  be  well  and  discreetly  used.  And  much  reading  is  often  lost 
for  lack  of  diligence,  that  it  is  not  intended  as  it  ought  to  be. 
Therefore  if  you  will  profit  in  reading  you  must  keep  these  five 
things.  First  you  ought  to  take  heed  what  you  read,  that  it  be 
such  thing  as  is  speedwell  for  you  to  read  and  convenient  to  the 
degree  you  stand  in.  For  you  ought  to  read  no  worldly  matters 
nor  worldly  books,  namely  such  as  are  without  reason  of  ghostly 
edification  or  belong  not  to  the  need  of  the  house ;  you  ought  also 
to  read  no  books  that  speak  of  vanities  and  trifles,  and  much  less 
no  books  of  evil  or  occasion  to  evil.  For  since  your  holy  rule 
forbids  you  all  vain  and  idle  words  in  all  times  and  places,  by  the 
same  it  forbids  you  reading  of  all  vain  and  idle  things,  for  reading 
is  a  manner  of  speaking.  The  second,  when  you  begin  to  read  or 
to  hear  such  books  of  ghostly  fruit  as  accord  for  you  to  read  or  to 
hear,  that  then  you  dispose  yourselves  thereto  with  meek  reverence 
and  devotion... The  third  that  you  labour  to  understand  the  same 
thing  that  you  read.  For  Cato  taught  his  son  to  read  so  his 
precepts  that  he  understand  them.  For  it  is,  he  says,  great 
negligence  to  read  and  not  to  understand.  And  therefore  when 
you  read  by  yourself  alone  you  ought  not  to  be  hasty  to  read 
much  at  once  but  you  ought  to  abide  thereupon,  and  sometimes 
read  a  thing  again  twice  or  thrice  or  oftener  till  you  understand  it 
clearly.  For  St  Austin  said  that  no  man  should  ween  to  under- 
stand a  thing  sufficiently  in  any  wise  by  once  reading.     And  if  you 

'  Myroure  of  Oure  Ladye,  pp.  65  ff. 


SECT.  Ill]  Arrangements  of  Sion.  397 

cannot  understand  what  you  read,  ask  of  others  that  can  teach  you. 
And  they  that  can  ought  not  to  be  loth  to  teach  others... .The 
fourth  thing  that  is  to  be  kept  in  reading  is  that  you  dress  so  your 
intent  that  your  reading  and  study  be  not  only  for  to  be  cunning 
or  for  to  be  able  to  speak  it  forth  to  others,  but  principally  to 
inform  yourself  and  to  set  it  forth  in  your  own  living.... The  fifth 
thing  is  discretion.  So  that  according  to  the  matter  you  arrange 
your  reading.  For  you  must  understand  that  different  books  speak 
in  different  wise.  For  some  books  are  made  to  inform  the  under- 
standing and  to  tell  how  spiritual  persons  ought  to  be  governed  in 
all  their  living  that  they  may  know  how  they  shall  live  and  what 
they  shall  do,  how  they  shall  labour  in  cleansing  their  conscience 
and  in  getting  virtues,  how  they  shall  withstand  temptation  and 
suffer  tribulations,  and  how  they  shall  pray  and  occupy  themselves 
with  ghostly  exercise,  with  many  such  other  full  holy  doctrines.... 
Other  books  there  be  that  are  made  to  quicken  and  to  stir  up  the 
affections  of  the  soul,  as  some  that  tell  of  the  sorrows  and  dreads 
of  death  and  of  doom  and  of  pains,  to  stir  up  the  affection  of  dread 
and  of  sorrow  for  sin.  Some  tell  of  the  great  benefits  of  our  Lord 
God,  how  He  made  us  and  bought  us  and  what  love  and  mercy  He 
shewed  continually  to  us  to  stir  up  our  affections  of  love  and  of 
hope  in  Him.  Some  tell  of  the  joys  of  heaven,  to  stir  up  the 
affections  of  joy  to  desire  thitherward.  And  some  tell  of  the 
foulness  and  wretchedness  of  sin,  to  stir  up  the  affections  of  hate 
and  loathing  thereagainst' 


CHAPTER  XL 


MONASTIC   REFORM   PREVIOUS   TO   THE   REFORMATION. 

'  For  sum  (nunnes)  bene  devowte,  holy,  and  towarde, 
And  holden  the  ryght  way  to  blysse; 
And  sum  bene  feble,  lewde,  and  frowarde, 
Now  god  amend  that  ys  amys!' 

{From  '  IV/iy  I  cannot  be  a  nutty    1.  311.) 

§  I.     Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England. 

The  changes  which  came  over  convent  life  towards  the  close 
of  the  Middle  Ages  and  modified  its  tenor  can  be  studied  in  the 
efforts  made  to  reform  monastic  life  in  the  centuries  preceding  the 
Reformation.  Both  in  England  and  abroad  the  heads  of  many 
houses  were  zealous  in  removing  abuses  which  their  predecessors 
had  suffered  to  creep  in,  and  in  checking  tendencies  the  deteriorat- 
ing effect  of  which  now  first  came  to  be  realized.  The  bull  pro- 
mulgated by  Pope  Benedict  XII  in  1336  with  a  view  to  reforming 
the  Benedictine  order  had  been  accepted  with  a  reservation  in 
England  and  had  left  matters  in  Germany  practically  untouched. 
But  in  the  15th  century  a  movement  in  favour  of  reform  was  in- 
augurated within  the  religious  orders  themselves ;  it  was  increased 
by  pressure  brought  to  bear  on  monastic  houses  from  without. 
For  the  prelates  of  the  Church  as  well  as  others  were  eager  to 
interfere  with  monastic  settlements,  all  the  more  as  such  inter- 
ference frequently  tended  to  the  increase  of  their  own  prerogative. 
But  in  spite  of  the  devoted  earnestness  of  many  individuals  and 
the  readiness  of  convents  to  accept  correction,  the  movement  failed 
to  restore  its  former  glory  to  an  institution  which  in  common  with 
other  influential  institutions  of  the  Middle  Ages  appeared  doomed 
to  decay. 

The  attempts  of  the  monastic  orders  to  restore  vigour  to 
themselves,  and  the  efforts  of  the  Church  to  promote  monastic 


SECT,  i]        Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.  399 

reform,  were  largely  furthered  by  the  desire  to  counteract  the 
dangers  to  the  established  religion  which  threatened  from  the 
spread  of  heretical  teaching. 

In  England  a  critical  attitude  towards  monastic  institutions 
and  the  Church  was  the  outcome  of  Wyclif's  (f  1384)  influence. 
It  was  checked  for  the  time  being  by  the  alliance  of  the  Church; 
with  the  Lancastrian  kings  (after  1399)  in  favour  of  a  reactionary 
policy.  Several  monasteries  were  endowed  by  these  kings,  among 
them  houses  of  Carthusian  monks  and  Sion,  as  mentioned  above. 
Reforms  were  instituted  and  the  prelates  of  the  Church  eagerly 
resumed  their  powers  of  visitation.  By  so  doing  they  succeeded 
in  checking  monastic  abuses,  which  continued  to  exist  for  a  longer 
period  on  the  Continent  and  there  assumed  much  greater  pro-, 
portions. 

In  Germany,  owing  partly  to  its  scattered  provinces,  partly 
to  the  want  of  concerted  action  between  the  dignitaries  of  Church 
and  State,  monasteries  throughout  the  14th  century  were  left  to 
drift  in  the  way  they  listed,  often  in  the  direction  of  indiflferentism, 
often  in  that  of  positive  evil.  The  abuses  of  convent  life  at  the 
beginning  of  the  1 5th  century  were  far  greater  there  than  in  England, 
and  the  efforts  at  reform  were  proportionally  greater  and  more 
strenuous.  In  Germany  also  the  effort  to  counteract  the  eflfect 
of  heretical  doctrines  by  way  of  reform  was  decisive.  For,  as  we 
shall  see  later  on,  monastic  reforms  on  a  large  scale  were  instituted 
immediately  after  the  Church  Council  at  Constance  (141 5)  which 
condemned  Hus  to  the  stake. 

The  accounts  of  visitations  instituted  by  the  diocesan  give 
us  an  insight  into  the  abuses  which  threatened  life  in  the  nunnery 
at  different  periods.  The  diocesan  was  bound  to  visit  the  religious 
settlements  situated  within  his  diocese  periodically,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  those  which  had  secured  exemption  through  the  Pope. 
For  some  time  before  the  movement  in  favour  of  monastic  reform 
began,  these  visitations  appear  to  have  taken  place  at  irregular 
intervals  and  at  periods  often  many  years  apart.  But  afterwards 
they  became  frequent,  and  called  forth  injunctions  which  give 
us  an  idea  of  the  abuses  which  needed  correction.  Later  still 
these  powers  of  visitation  of  the  diocesan  were  extended  by 
means  of  special  permits  secured  from  Rome.  Towards  the  close 
of  the  15th  century  we  find  the  prelates  of  the  Church  eager  to 
interfere  with  monasteries,  and  regain  a  hold  on  those  which  had 
been  removed  from  their  influence. 


\ 


400  Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England,      [chap,  xi 

The  visitation  of  a  religious  house  in  all  cases  was  so  conducted 
that  the  diocesan  previously  sent  word  to  the  convent  announcing 
his  arrival.  After  assisting  at  mass  in  the  chapel,  he  repaired  to  the 
chapter-house  and  there  severally  interrogated  the  superior  of  the 
house  and  its  inmates  as  to  the  state  of  affairs.  Their  depositions 
were  taken  down  in  writing  and  were  discussed  at  headquarters. 
A  list  of  injunctions  rectifying  such  matters  as  called  for  correction 
was  then  forwarded  in  writing  to  the  superior  of  the  house. 

Among  the  earliest  injunctions  forwarded  to  a  nunnery  which 
I  have  come  across  are  those  sent  to  Godstow  after  a  visitation 
held  in  1279  by  John  Peckham,  archbishop  of  Canterbury*.  The 
first  part  treats  of  the  celebration  of  the  divine  offices  and  of  the 
part  novices  are  to  take  in  the  singing.  The  feast  of  St  John 
which  is  celebrated  by  childish  festivities  (puerilia  solemnia),  no 
doubt  in  accordance  with  an  ancient  folk  custom,  is  not  to  be 
extended  to  a  second  day.  Directions  are  then  given  about 
going  outside  precincts  and  staying  away  on  business.  The  nuns 
are  directed  not  to  converse  with  the  neighbouring  students  at 
Oxford  (scholares  Oxonii)  unless  they  have  permission  to  do  so 
from  the  abbess,  and  to  knit  no  bonds  of  friendship  with  them, 
'because  such  affection  often  brings  harmful  thoughts.' 

The  attraction  which  the  students  at  Oxford  exerted  on  the 
nuns  of  Godstow  has  a  counterpart  at  a  later  date  in  the  effect 
which  intercourse  with  the  students  at  Cambridge  had  on  the 
nuns  of  St  Radegund's.  When  John  Alcock,  bishop  of  Ely 
(•]•  1 500),  proposed  the  dissolution  of  this  nunnery  he  urged  that 
the  nearness  of  the  university  had  led  to  the  demoralisation  of 
the  prioress  and  the  nuns'. 

In  the  directions  forwarded  to  Godstow  we  also  find  it  enjoined 
that  secular  and  religious  visitors  shall  dine  in  the  guest-house 
(hospitalaria  communi)  or  in  the  chamber  of  the  abbess,  and  on 
no  account  within  the  convent  precincts  with  the  nuns.  Directions 
are  also  given  as  to  the  wearing  of  simple  clothes,  in  which  matter 
'the  rule  of  Benedict'  (sic)  shall  be  observed.  These  directions 
are  not  easy  to  understand.  '  Linings  of  dyed  woollen  (imposterum 
burneto^),'  say  they,  '  shall  not  be  worn  ;  nor  red  dresses  (rugatas 
tunicas)  nor  other  unseemly  clothes  wide  at  the  sides.' 

Archbishop  Peckham,  who  reformed  abuses  at  Godstow,  ad- 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Godstow,'  vol.  4,  p.  357,  Charter  nr  16. 
^  Ibid.  '  St  Radegund's,'  vol.  4,  p.  7 15,  Charter  nr  3. 
*  Ducange,  '  burnetum,  pannus  ex  lana  tincta  confectus.' 


SECT,  i]        Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.  401 

dressed  a  mandate  to  the  abbess  of  Romsey  in  1286  against  a 
certain  prebendary  William  Shyrlock,  who  seems  to  have  been 
one  of  the  residential  canons  of  the  place.  He  is  not  to  presume 
to  enter  the  cloister  or  the  church  while  suspicions  are  entertained 
against  him,  and  the  nuns  are  not  to  converse  with  him  in  the  house 
or  elsewhere,  for  he  is  accused  of  living  a  dishonest  and  dissolute 
life\     No  aspersion  in  this  case  is  cast  on  the  doings  of  the  nuns. 

A  serious  scandal  is  said  to  have  occurred  about  the  year  1 303 
in  the  Cistercian  nunnery  of  Swine  in  Yorkshire,  but  details  con- 
cerning its  nature  are  not  forthcoming.  In  consequence  of  an 
enquiry  into  the  state  of  the  house  the  prioress  resigned,  and  her 
successor  also  absented  herself,  it  is  alleged,  on  account  of  some 
scandaP. 

The  nunneries  which  were  cells  to  abbeys  of  men  were  exempt 
from  the  visitation  of  the  diocesan ;  they  were  inspected  by  the 
abbot  of  the  parent  house,  who  enquired  into  abuses  and  enjoined 
corrections.  A  mandate  of  this  description  which  was  forwarded 
to  Sopwell  nunnery,  a  cell  of  St  Alban's,  by  the  abbot  in  1338  is 
in  existence.  The  nuns  are  directed  to  observe  silence  in  the 
church,  the  cloister,  the  refectory,  and  the  dormitory.  No  sister 
shall  hold  converse  with  secular  persons  in  the  parlour  unless  she 
is  wearing  a  cowl  and  a  veil ;  and  tailors  and  others  who  are 
employed  shall  work  in  some  place  assigned  to  them  outside  the 
convent  precincts^ 

Among  the  injunctions  sent  to  Chatteris  in  Cambridgeshire  in 
the  year  1345  the  following  are  worth  noticing:  Nuns  shall  not 
keep  fowls,  dogs  or  small  birds  (aviculae)  within  the  convent 
precincts,  nor  bring  them  into  church  during  divine  service,  and 
they  shall  not,  from  a  wish  to  reform  them,  take  into  their  employ 
servants  who  are  known  for  their  bad  ways*. 

In  April  of  the  year  1397  a  visitation  of  the  nunnery  of  Nun- 
Monkton  in  Yorkshire  was  conducted  by  Thomas  Dalby,  arch- 
deacon of  Richmond,  who  acted  for  the  archbishop  of  York*.  He 
accused  the  prioress  Margaret  Fairfax  of  allowing  various  kinds  of 
fur  to  be  worn  in  her  house,  especially  grey  fur.  He  also  objected 
to  the  wearing  of  silk  veils  and  to  the  prioress  herself  acting  as 
treasurer  (bursaria)  of  the  house,  and  charged  her  with  having 

^  Dugdale,  Afonasticon,  '  Rumsey,'  vol.  2,  p.  507,  footnote/. 

*  Ibid.  'Swine,'  vol.  5,  p.  493.  ^  Ibid.  '  Sopwell,'  vol.  3,  p.  364,  charter  nr  7. 

•*  Ibid.  '  Chatteris,'  vol.  1,  p.  614,  charter  nr  1 1. 

"  Ibid.  '  Nun-Monkton,'  vol.  4,  p.  192,  charter  nr  2. 

E.  26 


402  Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.      [chap,  xi 

alienated  its  property  to  the  value  of  a  hundred  marks.  He 
censured  her  for  entertaining  John  Munkton,  and  inviting  him 
to  dinner  in  her  chamber,  and  for  allowing  the  use  of  unusual 
vestments  and  clothes ;  for  too  readily  receiving  back  nuns  who 
had  disgraced  their  profession  (lapsae  fornicatione) ;  and  for 
allowing  nuns  to  receive  gifts  from  friends  to  support  them. 
He  also  complained  that  John  Munkton  behaved  badly,  had  dallied 
(ludit)  with  the  prioress  at  meals  in  her  chamber,  and  had  been 
served  there  with  drink. 

Injunctions  were  forwarded  in  the  following  July  to  rectify 
these  matters,  and  directing  the  prioress  to  have  no  communica- 
tion with  Dominus  John  Munkton,  William  Snowe  or  Thomas 
Pape,  except  in  the  presence  of  the  nuns.  The  usual  vestments 
were  to  be  worn  in  church,  and  the  nuns  were  enjoined  not  to 
wear  silk  garments  (panels),  silk  veils,  precious  furs,  finger  rings, 
and  embroidered  or  ornamental  jupes,  in  English  called  gowns,  like 
secular  women.  They  were  not  to  neglect  the  commemoration 
of  the  dead  under  penalty  of  being  deprived  of  special  clothes 
(carentiae  camisarum  T)  for  two  whole  weeks. 

The  general  tenor  of  these  injunctions  argues  a  want  of  manage- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  lady  superior  and  a  tendency  to  luxury 
among  the  nuns.  As  time  wore  on  complaints  about  mismanage- 
ment of  revenues  became  more  frequent,  but  they  were  accompanied 
by  evidence  of  increasing  poverty,  especially  in  the  smaller  houses, 
which  shows  that  the  lady  superior  was  labouring  under  difficulties 
for  which  she  was  not  altogether  responsible. 

A  serious  blow  was  dealt  to  the  monastic  system  by  the  Black 
Death,  which  began  in  1349.  It  produced  a  temporary  collapse 
of  discipline  and  indifference  to  religion^,  and  resulted  in  changes 
in  the  state  of  agriculture  and  the  position  of  the  labourer,  which 
affected  the  poorer  and  smaller  houses  in  a  disastrous  manner. 

Thus  we  read  about  Thetford,  a  small  Benedictine  nunnery  in 
Norfolk^,  that  the  nuns'  revenues  had  much  decreased  through 
mortality  and  inundation  since  1349,  and  that  when  Henry  V 
levied  a  tax  on  religious  houses,  Thetford,  which  consisted  at  the 
time  of  a  prioress  and  nine  nuns,  was  excused  on  the  plea  of 
poverty.  The  increasing  poverty  of  the  house  is  evident  from 
accounts  of  visitations  between  15 14  and  1520^     On  one  occasion 

*  Gasquet,  A.,  The  Great  Pestilence,  1893,  Introd.  p.  xvi. 
■■^  Dugdale,  Monasiicon,  'Thetford,'  vol.  4,  p.  475. 

*  Jessopp,  A.,  Visitations  of  the  Diocese  of  Nonvich,  1492-1532,  pp.  90,  155. 


SECT,  i]        Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.  403 

the  nuns  declared  they  were  short  of  service  books ;  on  another 
that  the  prioress  received  illiterate  and  deformed  persons  (indoctae 
et  deformes)  into  the  house ;  and  again  that  there  was  great  poverty 
and  that  the  few  novices  had  no  teacher. 

Again  we  read  of  Mailing  in  Kent  that  it  was  excused  from 
payments  in  1404 ;  in  1349  the  bishop  of  Rochester  had  found  it  so 
decayed  as  to  be  hardly  capable  of  restoration \  Two  abbesses  had 
died  of  the  pestilence;  there  were  only  eight  inmates  left  in  the 
house,  four  of  whom  were  professed  and  four  non-professed. 

Mailing  recovered  itself,  but  not  so  Wyrthorp  in  Northampton- 
shire, where  Emma  de  Pinchbeck  and  many  of  the  Austin  nuns 
fell  victims  to  the  pestilence^.  The  archbishop  appointed  Agnes 
Bowes  as  prioress,  but  the  convent  was  beyond  recovery.  In  1354 
Sir  Th.  Holland,  the  patron  of  the  house,  petitioned  that  it  should 
be  united  to  the  nunnery  at  Stamford,  to  which  its  prioress  and  the 
one  remaining  nun  removed'.  In  the  royal  licence  which  secured 
this  change  it  is  stated  'that  the  convent  being  poorly  endowed 
was  by  the  pestilence  which  lately  prevailed  reduced  to  such 
poverty  that  all  the  nuns  but  one  on  account  of  penury  had  dis- 
persed.' In  the  course  of  the  14th  century  other  nunneries  com- 
plained of  insufficient  revenue  and  poverty,  among  them  Seton  in 
Cumberland*,  St  Sepulchre's  at  Canterbury  in  1359',  and  Rusper 
and  Easebourne  which  were  both  situated  in  Sussex. 

In  a  few  cases  accounts  are  preserved  of  successive  visitations 
to  the  same  nunnery  extending  over  a  number  of  years,  which 
afford  a  valuable  record  of  part  of  the  life-history  of  the  house. 
The  visitations  conducted  between  1442  and  1527  at  Rusper  and 
at  Easebourne  are  most  instructive  as  showing  the  gradual  collapse 
which  many  of  the  smaller  houses  experienced. 

The  chief  complaint  made  during  the  visitation  of  Rusper  in 
1442  was  that  the  prioress  of  the  house  had  failed  to  render  account 
to  the  sisterhood  during  the  term  she  had  held  office^  She  was 
consequently  enjoined  by  the  bishop  of  Chichester  to  produce  an 
account  year  by  year  and  submit  it  to  him  and  to  the  sisterhood. 
Some  thirty  years  later  in  1478  upon  enquiry  it  was  found  that 

1  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Mailing,'  vol.  3,  p.  382 ;  Gasquet,  A.,  77ie  Great  Pestilence, 
1893,  pp.  104,  106.  2  Gasquet,  p.  137. 

'  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Wyrthorp,'  vol.  4,  p.  266. 

*  Ibid.  '  Seton,'  vol.  4,  p.  226,  charter  nr  2. 

"  Ibid.  '  St  Sepulchre's,'  vol.  4,  p.  413,  footnote  /. 

^  Way,  A.,  'Notices  of  the  Benedictine  Priory  of  St  Mary  Magdalen  at  Rusper,*  Sussex 
Archaol.  Collections,  vol.  5,  p.  244;  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Rusper,'  vol.  4,  p.  586. 

26 — 2 


404         Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.      [chap,  xi 

the  convent  was  in  debt,  and  the  bishop  asked  for  an  inventory  of 
the  house,  which  was  drawn  up  for  him.  The  community  at  this 
time  consisted  of  the  prioress  and  five  nuns,  four  of  whom  are 
entered  as  professed,  one  as  non-professed. 

Again  in  1484  the  bishop  visited  Rusper,  and  three  nuns  were 
consecrated  on  this  occasion.  But  the  house  had  entered  on  a 
downward  course  of  poverty  and  decay.  In  1485  Rusper  was 
exempted  from  paying  subsidy  on  the  plea  of  poverty.  During 
the  visitation  of  1521  the  nuns  referred  their  pecuniary  poverty  to 
the  onerous  expenses  caused  by  the  too  frequent  visits  of  friends 
and  relations  who  came  to  stay  with  the  prioress,  while  the  prioress 
herself  referred  the  poverty  to  other  reasons,  but  agreed  that  the 
house  was  fast  going  to  ruin.  No  complaints  were  made  at  the 
visitation  three  years  later  (1524),  except  against  a  certain  William 
Tychen,  who  sowed  discord.  Again  in  1527  the  prioress  and  nuns 
deposed  that  all  was  well  in  the  house,  but  that  its  poverty  was 
extreme  and  that  it  was  on  the  brink  of  ruin. 

The  accounts  of  the  visitations  to  Easebourne^  are  even  more 
instructive,  for  there  the  deteriorating  effects  of  mismanagement 
and  poverty  were  increased  by  want  of  discipline  and  quarrel- 
someness among  the  nuns.  In  1414  the  community  consisted  of 
the  prioress  and  six  or  seven  nuns.  In  1437  and  1439  i^^  poverty 
was  already  so  great  that  letters  patent  were  secured  on  the  plea 
of  insufficient  revenue,  exonerating  the  prioress  and  her  convent 
from  certain  payments  called  for  by  the  clergy.  In  1441  the  house 
was  in  debt  to  the  amount  of  £^0,  and  here  also  the  convent  cast 
the  blame  of  mismanagement  on  the  head  of  the  house,  referring 
the  debts  to  '  costly  expenses  of  the  prioress,  who  frequently  rides 
abroad,  and  pretends  she  does  so  on  the  common  business  of  the 
house,  though  it  is  not  so,  with  a  train  of  attendants  much  too 
large,  and  tarries  long  abroad,  and  she  feasts  sumptuously  both 

at  home  and  abroad And  while  she  does  so  the  members  of 

the  convent  are  made  to  work  like  hired  workwomen,  and  they 
receive  nothing  whatever  for  their  own  use  from  their  work,  but 
the  prioress  takes  the  whole  profit.' 

In  reply  to  their  complaints  the  bishop  forbade  the  prioress  to 
compel  the  sisters  to  continual  work  ;  '  and  if  they  should  wish 
of  their  own  accord  to  work,  they  shall  be  free  to  do  so,  but  yet 
so  that   they  may  receive  for  themselves  the  half  part  of  what 

'  Blaauw,   W.   H.,    '  Episcopal   Visitations  of  the   Priory  of  Easeboume,'   Sussex 
Archaol.  Collections,  vol.  9,  pp.  1-32 ;  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Easebourn,'  vol.  4,  p.  423. 


SECT,  i]        Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.  405 

they  gain  by  their  hands ;  the  other  part  shall  be  converted  to 
the  advantage  of  the  house  and  unburdening  its  debts.'  But 
discharging  those  debts  was  no  easy  matter.  The  prioress  was 
commanded  to  sell  her  costly  fur  trimmings  for  the  advantage  of 
the  house,  and  if  she  rode  abroad  to  spend  only  what  was  needful, 
and  to  content  herself  with  four  horses.  The  administration  of  tem- 
poral goods  was  taken  from  her  altogether  and  given  to  '  Master 
Thomas  Boleyn  and  John  Lylis,  Esquire.'  But  under  their  manage- 
ment the  debt  of  £^0  had  increased  in  nine  years  to  £66 ;  and  in 
1475,  as  again  in  1485  and  1489,  the  house  had  to  be  excused 
from  payments.  Rumours  of  an  unfavourable  character  about 
what  went  on  in  the  house  now  reached  the  bishop,  and  before 
the  next  visitation  in  1478,  the  prioress  Agnes  Tauke  was  sum- 
moned to  Chichester,  where  she  promised  on  her  oath  before  the 
bishop  and  others  to  resign  her  office  if  called  upon  to  do  so. 

The  deposition  made  by  her  nuns  during  the  ensuing  visitation 
confirmed  the  unfavourable  rumours ;  two  nuns  had  left  the  priory 
ostensibly  for  their  health  and  were  abroad  in  apostasy.  One  nun 
referred  this  conduct  to  neglect  on  the  part  of  the  prioress,  another 
to  that  of  the  chaplain,  John  Smyth,  who  confessed  to  having 
sealed  or  caused  to  be  sealed  a  licence  to  one  of  the  nuns  to  go 
out  of  the  priory  after  having  had  criminal  intercourse  with  her. 
Other  complaints  were  made  against  the  prioress, '  that  she  had  her 
kinsmen  staying  with  her  for  weeks  at  the  priory  and  gave  them 
the  best  food,  while  the  nuns  had  the  worst' ;  also  that  she  was 
herself  of  bad  character.  But  these  recriminations  were  not  accepted 
by  the  bishop.  The  desire  of  Agnes  Tauke  to  improve  matters  was 
accepted  as  genuine  and  she  was  not  called  upon  to  resign. 

Discontent  however  remained  a  standing  characteristic  of  the 
nuns  at  Easebourne.  At  the  visitation  of  1521  the  prioress  deposed 
that  the  nuns  lived  honestly  and  religiously  according  to  the  rule 
of  St  Augustine  (sic)  and  were  sufficiently  obedient  to  her,  but 
the  nun  sexton  blamed  the  prioress  for  'not  making  up  any 
account  annually  as  she  ought  in  presence  of  the  sisters  concerning 
her  administration  of  goods,'  and  another  nun  deposed  that  she 
neglected  to  provide  for  the  sisters  the  sum  of  thirteen  shillings 
and  four  pence  in  money  to  which  they  were  entitled.  Again  in 
1524  the  prioress  deposed  that  all  was  well,  but  the  sub-prioress 
complained  of  disobedience,  both  among  the  professed  and  the 
non-professed  nuns,  who  on  their  side  complained  of  harshness 
of  treatment.     The  bishop  believed  the  complaints  of  the  latter 


4o6  Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.      [chap,  xi 

and  blamed  the  behaviour  of  the  sub-prioress,  who  submitted  to 
correction. 

The  recriminations  of  the  nuns  at  Easebourne  recall  a  picture 
drawn  about  this  time  by  Langland  (c.  1390)  in  the  Vision  of 
Piers  the  Ploughman,  in  which  Wrath  personified  as  a  friar  de- 
scribes how  he  stirred  up  quarrels  in  a  nunnery.  In  its  earliest 
version  the  poem  omits  these  passages  ;  and  Langland,  so  ready 
to  abuse  and  ridicule  monk  and  friar,  is  chary  in  his  references 
to  nuns.  In  the  later  versions  of  his  poem  (text  B  and  C)  '  Wrath ' 
is  described  as  acting  first  as  gardener  and  then  as  cook  in  a 
nunnery,  where  in  the  character  of  '  the  prioress'  potager  and  of 
other  poor  ladies,'  he  '  made  them  broths  of  various  scandals.' 
Among  the  stories  he  set  going  was 

...'that  Dame  Johane  was  a  bastard 
And  Dame  Clarice  a  knight's  daughter,  a  cuckold  was  her  sire, 
And  Dame  Purnell  a  priest's  concubine,  she  will  never  become 

prioress. 
For  she  had  a  child  in  cherry  time,  all  our  chapter  it  wist.' 

In  consequence  the  nuns  fall  to  quarrelling  among  themselves 
and  end  with  attacking  one  another  bodily.  The  picture,  even  if 
overdrawn,  proves,  in  conjunction  with  the  temper  of  the  nuns 
at  Easebourne,  that  peaceableness  no  longer  formed  the  invariable 
concomitant  of  convent  life  during  the  15th  century. 

Various  particulars  in  the  history  of  men's  houses  corroborate 
the  fact  that  considerable  changes  were  going  on  inside  the  mon- 
astic body  during  the  15th  century. 

Reference  has  been  made  to  the  fluctuations  in  the  history 
of  alien  priories.  Some  of  the  foreign  houses,  aware  of  the  dangers 
to  which  their  English  colonies  were  exposed,  advocated  the  sale 
of  their  property  in  England.  Numerous  grammar-schools  and 
colleges  profited  by  the  change  or  owed  their  foundation  directly 
to  it.  As  early  as  1390  William  Wykeham  bought  estates  of 
alien  priories  for  New  College,  his  foundation  at  Oxford.  Wayn- 
fleet,  bishop  of  Worcester,  who  in  141 5  founded  St  Mary  Mag- 
dalen College  at  Oxford,  annexed  to  it  Sele,  an  alien  priory  which 
had  been  admitted  to  denizenship^  It  is  noteworthy  that  some 
religious  houses  about  this  time  dissolved  of  their  own  accord. 
Thus  the  master  and  brethren  of  St  John's  hospital  at  Oxford 
obtained  leave  from  Henry  VI  to  convey  their  house  to  Wayn- 

1  Dugdale,  Monasticotty  '  Sele,'  vol.  4,  p.  668. 


SECT,  i]        Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.  407 

fleet*.  The  Austin  priory  of  Selborne,  which  'had  become  a  desert 
convent  without  canons  or  prior/  was  likewise  annexed  to  St  Mary 
Magdalen  College,  a  change  which  was  ratified  by  a  bull  from 
Innocent  VIII  in  i486*. 

It  has  already  been  said  that  a  change  of  attitude  towards 
religious  institutions  on  the  part  of  the  public  was  the  direct  out- 
come of  the  spread  of  Wyclif's  teaching.  In  1410  Sir  John  Old- 
castle,  the  so-called  leader  of  the  Lollards,  who  was  burnt  for 
heresy  eight  years  later,  made  a  proposal  in  the  House  of  Commons 
which  is  curious  in  various  ways.  It  was  to  the  effect  that  their 
temporalities  should  be  taken  from  bishop,  abbot  and  prior,  and 
the  revenues  of  their  possessions  employed  to  pay  a  standing  army, 
to  augment  the  income  of  the  noblemen  and  gentry,  to  endow  a 
hundred  hospitals  and  to  make  small  payments  to  the  clergy^  No 
notice  in  this  case  was  taken  of  the  donors  or  representatives  of 
the  settlement,  to  whom  land  and  tenements  upon  default,  or 
neglect  of  those  to  whom  they  were  granted,  otherwise  reverted. 
The  proposal  was  accompanied  by  a  list  of  monasteries  which 
might  be  appropriated,  but  the  proposal  was  summarily  quashed. 

The  Church  Council  held  at  Basel  (from  141 8),  at  which 
English  prelates  also  were  present,  was  emphatic  in  urging  the 
need  of  monastic  reform.  It  would  be  interesting  to  ascertain  if 
this  was  prompted  solely  by  the  feeling  that  the  recognised 
abuses  of  convent  life  lowered  religion  in  general  estimation,  or 
if  suspicions  were  entertained  that  religious  houses  might  be  har- 
bouring unorthodox  elements.  Great  efforts  at  reform  were  made 
within  the  Benedictine  order ;  chapters  were  held  by  the  abbots 
at  regular  intervals  and  the  system  of  visitations  formulated  for 
mutual  supervision  and  control  by  the  various  monasteries  once 
more  received  attention.  We  shall  see  this  system  in  full  operation 
on  the  Continent.  In  England  we  have  accounts  of  several  chapters 
of  Benedictine  abbots  held  between  1422  and  1426,  in  which  reports 
of  extensive  visitations  were  given*.  The  chapter  of  1473  appointed 
the  abbot  of  St  Albans  (Alboin,  1464- 1476)  to  visit  at  Glastonbury, 
and  the  abbot  of  Eynsham  to  visit  at  St  Albans'. 

Churchmen  on  all  sides  were  eager  to  promote  monastic  reforms 

1  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  St  John's,'  vol.  6,  p.  678. 

^  Ibid.  'Selboume,'  vol.  6,  p.  510. 

'  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII.  and  the  English  Monasteries,  1888,  vol.  i,  p.  1%. 

*  Wilkins,  D.,  Concilia,  1737,  vol.  3,  pp.  413,  419,  46a. 

•  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  St  Albans,'  vol.  2,  p.  205. 


4o8  Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.      [chap,  xi 

and  interfere  with  monastic  privileges.  In  141 8  Pope  Martin  V 
sent  a  bull  to  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury  bidding  him  hold 
visitations  regularly  \  But  the  story  of  the  gradual  encroachment 
of  the  Church  on  monastic  privilege  and  property  is  less  striking 
in  England  than  abroad,  for  the  independent  spirit  of  individual 
houses  was  less  strong,  and  convents  generally,  especially  those  of 
women,  seem  to  have  yielded  without  opposition  to  the  claims 
made  by  energetic  churchmen.  Some  monasteries  of  men,  how- 
ever, resented  interference  and  maintained  their  rights.  An  episode 
in  this  struggle  deserves  attention,  as  it  reflects  unfavourably  on 
two  nunneries  which  were  dependencies  of  the  abbey  of  St  Albans. 
There  was  a  long-standing  jealousy  between  the  lord  abbot  of  St 
Albans  and  the  lord  primate  of  Canterbury,  renewed  by  a  quarrel 
between  Abbot  Wallingford  and  Archbishop  Bourchier,  which  had 
been  decided  in  favour  of  the  former.  The  abbey  enjoyed  ex- 
emption from  episcopal  visitation,  not  only  for  itself  but  for  its 
dependencies  or  cells,  among  which  were  the  nunneries  of  Sopwell 
and  St  Mary  Pree.  In  1489  Archbishop  Morton  of  Canterbury 
secured  a  Papal  bulP  which  empowered  him  to  visit  all  the 
monasteries  of  his  diocese,  those  subject  to  his  visitation  and 
those  exempt  from  it.  And  this,  as  the  document  says,  *  not  only 
because  the  former  strictness  of  life  is  abandoned... but  also  because 
life  is  luxurious  and  dissolute.' 

In  consequence  of  the  authority  conferred  by  this  bull  the 
primate  penned  a  letter'  to  the  abbot  of  St  Albans  containing 
charges  of  a  serious  nature.  After  a  few  opening  sentences  it 
continues  in  the  following  strain : 

' ...  Moreover,  among  other  grave  enormities  and  wicked  crimes 
of  which  you  are  accused  and  for  which  you  are  noted  and  de- 
famed, you  admitted  a  certain  married  woman  named  Elena 
Germyn,  who  some  time  ago  wrongfully  left  her  husband  and 
lived  in  adultery  with  another  man,  to  be  sister  and  nun  in  the 
house  or  priory  of  Pre,  which  you  hold  to  be  in  your  jurisdiction  ; 
and  there  you  appointed  her  prioress  notwithstanding  her  husband 
was  living  and  is  alive  now.  Further,  brother  Thomas  Sudbury, 
your   fellow-monk,  publicly  and   notoriously   and   without   inter- 

^  Wilkins,  D.,  Concilia,  i737»  vol.  3,  p.  390.  ^  Ibid.  1737,  vol.  3,  p.  630. 

*  Ibid.  Year  1490,  vol.  3,  p.  633.  Froude  without  taking  into  consideration  the 
circumstances  under  which  this  letter  was  penned  takes  its  contents  as  conclusive  evidence 
of  the  abuses  of  the  monastic  system  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation.  Comp.  History  of 
England,  1893,  vol.  2,  p.  304;  Life  and  Letters  0/ Erast/nts,  1894,  p.  18. 


SECT,  i]        Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.  409 

ference  or  punishment  from  you,  associated  and  still  associates 
with  this  woman  on  terms  of  intimacy,  like  others  among  your 
brethren  and  fellow-monks  who  had  access  and  still  have  access 
to  her  and  to  others  elsewhere  as  to  a  brothel  or  house  of  ill  fame. 
And  not  only  in  the  house  of  Pr6  but  also  in  the  nunnery  of 
Sopwell,  which  you  contend  is  under  your  jurisdiction  also,  you 
change  the  prioresses  and  superiors  (praesidentes)  again  and  again 
at  your  will  and  caprice,  deposing  good  and  religious  women  and 
promoting  to  the  highest  dignity  the  worthless  and  wicked,  so 
that  religion  is  cast  aside,  virtue  is  neglected,  and  many  expenses  are 
incurred  by  reprehensible  practices  through  your  introducing  certain 
of  your  brethren  who  are  thieves  and  notorious  villains  to  preside 
there  as  guardians  to  manage  the  goods  of  the  priories,  which 
more  correctly  speaking  are  wasted,  and  those  places  which  were 
religious  are  rendered  and  reputed  profane  and  impious,  and  so 
far  impoverished  by  your  doings  and  the  doings  of  those  with 
you  as  to  be  brought  to  the  verge  of  ruin. 

'  Similarly  in  dealing  with  other  cells  of  monks  which  you  say 
are  subject  to  you  within  the  monastery  of  the  glorious  proto- 
martyr  Alban,  you  have  dilapidated  the  common  property  in  its 
possessions  and  jewels  ;  you  have  cut  down,  sold  and  alienated 
indiscriminately  copses,  woods,  underwood,  oaks  and  other  forest 
trees  to  the  value  of  8000  marks  and  more ;  while  those  of  your 
brethren  and  fellow-monks,  who,  as  is  reported,  are  given  over 
to  all  the  evils  of  the  world,  neglecting  the  service  of  God,  and 
openly  and  continually  consorting  with  harlots  and  loose  women 
within  the  precincts  and  without,  you  knowingly  defend  instead 
of  punishing  them  ;  others  too  you  protect  who  are  covetous  of 
honour  and  promotion  and  bent  on  ministering  to  your  cupidity, 
and  who  steal  and  make  away  with  chalices  and  other  jewels  of 
the  church,  going  so  far  as  to  extract  sacrilegiously  precious  stones 
from  the  very  shrine  of  St  Alban.' 

This  letter  is  dated  1490,  and  is  addressed  to  William,  pre- 
sumably William  Wallingford,  as  he  became  abbot  in  1476  ;  it 
is  however  confidently  asserted  that  he  died  in  1484.  But  this 
date  may  need  revision.  For  he  was  succeeded  by  his  prior 
Thomas  Ramryge,  who  was  not  elected  till  1492 ;  '  at  all  events 
this  period  of  eight  years  is  very  obscure,'  says  the  historian  of 
St  Albans ^     Concerning  William  Wallingford  we  know  that  the 

*  Newcome,  P.,  History  of  the  Abbacy  of  St  Albans,  1793,  p.  399. 


410  Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.      [chap,  xi 

chapter  of  Benedictine  abbots  held  at  Northampton  in  1480 
appointed  him  to  visit  all  the  monasteries  situated  in  the  diocese 
of  Lincoln,  but  that  he  deputed  two  of  his  convent  to  do  so*. 
His  successor  Ramryge  wrote  a  book  '  on  the  doings  of  the  abbots, 
monks  and  benefactors  of^the  monastery  of  St  Albans'  in  which 
Wallingford  appears  of  a  character  very  different  from  that  sug- 
gested by  Morton's  letter.  '  Prudent  and  wise  in  the  management 
of  his  abbey  and  resolute  in  the  defence  of  its  rights,'  says  Dugdale 
on  the  authority  of  Ramryge,  '  he  was  successful  too  in  resisting 
the  claims  of  Archbishop  Bourchier  (Morton's  predecessor)  which 
upon  appeal  to  Rome  were  decided  in  his  favour.'  He  completed 
the  high  altar  at  St  Albans  and  set  up  a  printing-press  in  his 
monastery  between  1480  and  i486.     • 

In  face  of  this  evidence  the  language  used  by  Morton  appears 
somewhat  violent.  Unfortunately  no  additional  information  is 
forthcoming  from  the  nunneries  of  St  Mary  Pr6e  and  Sopwell. 
We  have  an  account  rendered  by  the  prioress  Christina  Basset 
of  Free  for  the  year  1485- 1486,  four  years  previous  to  the  date 
of  Morton's  letter,  entries  in  which  show  that  Christina  Basset 
had  succeeded  Alice  Wafer,  who  had  been  deposed  for  mismanage- 
ment of  the  revenues,  but  continued  to  live  in  the  convent^  About 
Sopwell  we  only  know  that  Wallingford  appointed  a  commission 
in  1480  to  set  aside  the  prioress  Joan  Chapell  on  account  of  old 
age  and  infirmity  in  favour  of  Elizabeth  Webb,  one  of  the 
nuns'. 

It  were  idle  to  deny  that  the  state  of  discipline  in  many  houses 
was  bad,  but  the  circumstances  under  which  Morton's  letter  was 
penned  argue  that  the  charges  made  in  it  should  be  accepted  with 
some  reservation. 

It  remains  to  cast  a  glance  on  the  views  expressed  on  the 
state  of  monasteries  in  general  literature  in  the  15th  century,  from 
which  we  gather  that  the  religious  settlement  was  fast  sinking  in 
popular  estimation.  Two  poems  in  this  connection  deserve  especial 
attention,  the  '  Land  of  Cockayne,'  a  spirited  satire  on  monastic 
life  generally,  written  about  1430,  and  a  poem  of  somewhat  later 
date  preserved  in  fragments  only,  which  has  been  published  under 
the  title, '  Why  I  cannot  be  a  nun.' 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,   *St  Albans,'  vol.  2,  p.  206,    footnote  c\    'the  Book  of 
Ramryge,'  MS.  Cotton.  Nero  D.  Vli. 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  St  Mary  de  Free,'  vol.  3,  p.  353,  charter  nr  9. 
'  Ibid.  *  Sopwell,'  vol.  3,  p.  363. 


SECT,  i]       Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.  4 1 1 

The  'Land  of  Cockayne"  describes  in  flowing  rhyme  a  country 
'of  joy  and  bliss,'  where  flow  rivers  of  oil,  milk,  honey  and  wine, 
and  where  stands  a  fair  abbey  of  white  and  grey  monks.  Their 
house  in  accordance  with  the  popular  fancy  is  a  delightful  abode 
constructed  out  of  food  and  sweetmeats  with  shingles  of  '  flour- 
cakes,'  and  the  cloister  is  of  crystal  with  a  garden  in  which  spices 
and  flowers  grow.  The  monks  dwell  here  in  the  greatest  comfort ; 
some  are  old,  some  are  young ;  at  times  they  are  engaged  in 
prayer,  at  times  they  seek  diversion  away  from  home.  Another 
abbey,  'a  fair  nunnery,'  stands  at  no  great  distance,  the  inmates 
of  which  live  in  the  like  ease  and  carelessness.  Here  too  there 
is  a  river  of  milk,  the  nuns  wear  silken  clothing,  and  when  it  is 
hot  they  take  a  boat  and  go  to  bathe  in  the  river.  They  here 
meet  the  monks  and  disport  themselves  together,  throwing  off 
all  restraint. 

Clever  and  much  to  the  point  as  this  poem  appeared  to  the 
laymen  who  had  come  to  look  upon  convent  life  as  a  life  of 
idleness  and  self-indulgence,  its  historical  importance  is  exceeded 
by  the  poem, '  Why  I  cannot  be  a  nun^'  It  is  generally  spoken 
of  as  the  production  of  a  woman  on  the  ground  of  its  reflecting 
a  woman's  experiences,  but  there  is  no  direct  evidence  on  the 
point ;  its  author  writes  as  one  unattached  to  a  nunnery,  and  by 
the  remark  that  he  knows  more  than  he  chooses  to  tell  is  perhaps 
concealing  his  ignorance. 

It  consists  of  an  adaptation  to  a  different  purpose  of  the  story 
of  the  '  Ghostly  Abbey,'  which  was  peopled  with  personified 
Virtues^,  and  to  which  reference  has  been  made  in  previous 
chapters  of  this  work.  Here  personified  Vices  are  described  as 
having  taken  possession  of  the  abbey.  The  poem  is  divided 
into  two  parts,  of  which  it  seems  doubtful  through  the  state  of 
the  manuscript  which  ought  to  come  first.  As  it  stands  printed 
it  begins  abruptly  with  a  description  of  how  commissioners  re- 
ceived the  charge  to  ride  all  over  England  to  seek  out  nunneries 
and  enquire  into  their  state.  They  visited  the  houses  of  Kent 
and  are  represented  as  returning  to  the  father  of  the  writer, 
who  asks  them   how  they  have  sped    and    how   the    nuns  fared 

*  '  Land  of  Cockayne,'  in  Early  English  Lives  of  Saittls,  etc.,  Philolc^cal  Society, 
1858,  p.  156. 

'  '  Why  I  cannot  be  a  nun,'  in  Early  English  Lives  of  Saints,  etc.,  Philological  Society, 
1858,  p.  138. 

"  Comp.  above,  pp.  339,  377. 


412  Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.      [chap,  xi 

(1.  28).  When  he  has  heard  their  report  he  tells  his  daughter,  who 
wishes  to  become  a  nun,  that  he  will  have  none  of  it.  The  girl 
is  sore  aggrieved ;  she  deplores  her  ill-luck  and  continues  in  this 
strain : 

*  Then  it  befell  on  a  morn  of  May 
In  the  same  year  as  I  said  before, 
My  pensiveness  would  not  away 
But  ever  waxed   more  and  more. 
I  walked  alone  and  wept  full  sore 
With  sighings  and  with  mourning. 
I  said  but  little  and  thought  the  more 
But  what  I  thought  no  man  need  hear. 
And  in  a  garden  I  disported  me 
Every  day  at  divers  hours 
To  behold  and  for  to  see 
The  sweet  effect  of  April  flowers. 
The  fair  herbs  and  gentle  flowers 
And  birds  singing  on  every  spray ;  . 
But  my  longing  and  sadness 
For  all  this  sport  would  not  away.' 

She  kneels  to  Jesus,  the  king  of  heavenly  bliss,  and  tells  Him 
how  she  is  destitute  of  good  counsel  and  would  commit  her  cause 
to  Him.  She  then  falls  asleep  and  a  fair  lady  appears  to  her,  who 
calls  her  by  name  (Kateryne,  I.  122),  and  who  on  being  asked 
says  her  name  is  Experience,  and  that  she  has  come  with  the  help 
of  Christ  Jesus,  adding  'such  things  as  I  shall  show  thee  I  trust 
shall  set  thy  heart  at  rest'  She  takes  the  girl  by  the  hand  and 
leads  her  through  a  meadow  fair  and  green  to  a  house  of  '  women 
regular,'  a  cloister,  '  a  house  of  nuns  in  truth  of  divers  orders  old 
and  young,  but  not  well  governed,'  for  here  self-will  reigns  instead 
of  discipline.  '  Perhaps  you  would  like  to  know  who  was  dwelling 
here ;  of  some  I  will  tell  you,  of  others  keep  counsel ;  so  I  was 
taught  when  I  was  young,'  says  the  writer.  The  first  lady  they 
encounter  in  the  house  is  Dame  Pride,  who  is  held  in  great  repute, 
while  poor  Dame  Meekness  sits  alone  and  forsaken.  Dame  Hypo- 
crite sits  there  with  her  book,  while  Dame  Devout  and  her  few 
companions  have  been  put  outside  by  Dame  Sloth  and  Dame  Vain- 
glory. In  the  convent  remain  Dame  Envy  '  who  can  sow  strife 
in  every  state,'  Dame  Love-Inordinate,  Dame  Lust,  Dame  Wanton 
and  Dame  Nice,  all  of  whom  take  scant  heed  of  God's   service. 


SECT,  i]       Visitations  of  Nunneries  in  England.  413 

'  Dame  Chastity,  I  dare  well  say,  in  that  convent  had  little  cheen 
she  was  often  on  the  point  of  going  her  way,  she  was  so  little 
beloved  there ;  some  loved  her  in  their  hearts  full  dear,  but  others 
did  not  and  set  nothing  by  her,  but  gave  her  good  leave  to  go.' 
Walking  about  under  the  guidance  of  Experience  the  writer  also 
comes  upon  Dame  Envy  who  bore  the  keys  and  seldom  went 
from  home.  In  vain  she  sought  for  Dame  Patience  and  Dame 
Charity  ;  they  were  not  in  the  convent  but  dwelt  outside  '  without 
strife'  in  a  chamber  where  good  women  sought  their  company. 
Meanwhile  Dame  Disobedient  set  the  prioress  at  nought;  a  fact 
especially  distressing  to  the  writer,  '  for  subjects  should  ever  be 
diligent  in  word,  in  will,  in  deed,  to  please  their  sovereign '  (1.  273). 
Indeed  she  declared,  when  she  saw  no  reverence,  she  would  stay 
in  the  house  no  longer.  She  and  Experience  left  and  sat  down 
on  the  grass  outside  the  gates  to  discuss  what  they  had  seen. 
Experience  explained  that  for  the  most  part  nuns  are  such  as 
they  have  seen  (1.  310)  ;  not  all,  she  adds  ;  '  some  are  devout,  holy 
and  blessed,  and  hold  the  right  way  to  bliss,  but  some  are  weak, 
lewd,  and  forward ;  God  amend  what  is  amiss.'  She  passed  away 
and  the  writer  awakes,  convinced  that  she  certainly  does  not  care 
to  go  and  live  in  a  nunnery.  '  Peradventure,'  the  writer  adds, 
'  some  man  will  say  and  so  it  really  seems  to  him  that  I  soon  for- 
sook the  perfect  way  for  a  fantasy  or  a  dream,  but  dream  it  was 
not,  nor  a  fantasy,  but  unto  me  welcome  information  (gratius 
mene).' 

The  other  part  of  the  poem  advises  the  '  ladies  dear,*  who  have 
taken  the  habit  which  is  a  holy  thing,  to  let  their  lives  correspond 
with  their  outward  array.  The  writer  enlarges  on  the  good  con- 
versation and  the  virtues  of  the  holy  women  who  were  professed 
in  the  past,  and  enumerates  as  models  of  virtuous  living  a  number 
of  women  saints  chiefly  of  English  origin. 

Productions  such  as  this  clearly  show  in  what  direction  the 
estimation  of  religious  houses  and  their  inmates  was  tending. 
The  nature  of  devotional  pursuits  and  keeping  the  houses  was 
not  yet  called  into  question,  but  apart  from  its  religious  significance 
the  nunnery  had  little  to  recommend  it  As  places  of  residence 
these  houses  still  attracted  a  certain  number  of  unmarried  women, 
and  as  centres  of  education  still  exerted  some  influence,  but  the 
high  standard  they  had  at  one  period  maintained  was  a  thing  of 
the  past. 


414  Reforms  in  Germany.  [chap,  xi 


§  2.     Reforms  in  Germany. 

The  history  of  monastic  reform  on  the  Continent  previous  to 
the  Reformation  supplies  us  with  many  interesting  particulars  both 
of  the  position  of  monasteries  generally  and  of  the  convent  life  of 
women.  Though  religious  settlements  had  been  little  interfered 
with  before  the  Church  Council  at  Constance,  extensive  reforms 
were  undertaken  subsequent  to  it  in  order  to  secure  a  return  of 
discipline.  The  movement  was  inaugurated  from  within  the  re- 
ligious orders,  and  led  to  the  union  of  different  houses  into  so-called 
congregations.  But  its  peaceable  character  was  soon  marred  by 
the  introduction  of  political  and  party  interests.  Thirty  years  after 
the  first  convent  reforms,  it  was  no  longer  a  question  of  how  far  the 
well-being  and  right  living  of  monk  and  nun  should  be  secured,  but 
how  far  religious  settlements  could  be  made  amenable  to  external 
interference  and  who  should  have  the  right  of  interfering  with  them. 

For  this  complication  the  instability  of  political  life  is  partly 
responsible.  The  authority  of  the  Pope  had  greatly  decreased, 
and,  at  the  beginning  of  the  15th  century,  the  Emperor  no  longer 
kept  the  balance  between  the  contending  parties.  The  prelates  of 
the  Church,  many  of  whom  were  independent  temporal  princes,  had 
succeeded  in  allying  themselves  to  the  impoverished,  but  influential, 
nobility.  In  South  Germany  especially  the  Church  was  becoming 
more  and  more  aristocratic ;  birth,  not  merit,  secured  admission  and 
promotion  in  the  ecclesiastical  body.  The  townships  were  generally 
opposed  to  the  Church  and  the  nobility  ;  they  emphatically  insisted 
on  their  rights,  but  their  combined  efforts  to  make  their  influence 
felt  in  the  constitution  had  signally  failed.  Apart  from  them  stood 
the  princes  and  minor  potentates,  who  tried  to  coerce  the  nobility, 
in  many  cases  succeeded  in  depriving  their  prelates  of  their  rights, 
and  availed  themselves  of  the  general  relaxation  of  authority  to 
promote  their  own  selfish  ends. 

To  these  different  representatives  of  power  the  monastery  be- 
came debatable  ground,  where  the  diocesan,  the  township  and  the 
prince  of  the  land  in  turn  claimed  the  right  of  interference  and 
where  in  many  instances  their  interests  clashed.  The  greater 
settlements,  which  held  directly  from  the  Emperor,  were  not  drawn 
into  the  conflict;  it  was  round  the  lesser  ones  that  contention 
chiefly  raged. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  movements  in  the  direction  of  mon- 


SECT,  ii]  Reforms  in  Germany.  415 

astic  reform  is  associated  with  the  Benedictine  monk  Johannes  von 
Minden  (-f  1439)  who,  as  representative  of  the  abbot  of  the  house 
of  Reinhausen  near  Gottingen,  was  present  at  the  general  chapter 
of  Benedictine  abbots  held  near  Constance  in  141 7*.  Johannes 
returned  to  his  convent  burning  with  reformatory  zeal,  which  his 
abbot  and  fellow-monks  would  not  countenance.  He  left  his 
convent  and  after  many  hardships  was  enabled  by  the  help  of  a 
rich  patroness  to  settle  at  Bursfeld,  where  he  realized  some  of  his 
ideas'.  His  views  agreed  with  those  of  Johannes  Rode  (i*  1439), 
a  Carthusian,  who  had  become  abbot  of  the  Benedictine  monastery 
of  St  Matthias  at  Trier,  and  the  joint  efforts  of  these  men  resulted 
in  a  scheme  of  mutual  supervision  and  control  of  different  houses 
by  means  of  periodical  visitations  undertaken  by  members  of  the 
Benedictine  order.  The  settlements  which  agreed  to  the  innova- 
tion joined  in  a  union  or  so-called  congregation,  to  which  Burs- 
feld gave  its  name.  The  union  or  congregation  of  Bursfeld  was 
eventually  joined  by  one  hundred  and  thirty-six  monasteries  of 
men  and  sixty-four  of  women.  The  purpose  of  the  union  was  not 
to  attempt  any  new  departure,  but  to  guarantee  the  maintenance 
of  discipline  as  a  means  of  securing  the  return  of  prosperity. 

The  nunnery  of  Langendorf,  near  Weissenfels  in  Saxony,  was 
incorporated  into  the  union  of  Bursfeld,  and  a  comprehensive 
scheme  of  rules^  which  gives  us  an  insight  into  the  tone  and 
tendency  of  the  German  mediaeval  nunnery  on  the  reformed  plan, 
was  drawn  up  for  its  use.  The  rules  recall  those  contempo- 
raneously drafted  for  the  monastery  of  Sion  in  England.  We 
have  in  them  similar  directions  concerning  an  elaborate  ritual, 
similar  exhortations  to  soberness  of  living  and  gentleness  of  manner; 
the  information  on  convent  life  and  daily  routine  is  equally  explicit ; 
and  we  hear  of  the  different  appointments  inside  the  convent,  and 
of  the  several  duties  of  its  members.  There  is  also  an  exhaustive 
list  of  possible  failings  and  crimes,  followed  by  directions  as  to 
correction  and  punishment.  Cats,  dogs  and  other  animals  are 
not  to  be  kept  by  the  nuns,  as  they  detract  from  seriousness;  if 
a  nun  feels  sleepy  during  hours,  she  shall  ask  leave  to  withdraw 
rather  than  fall  asleep ;  if  a  nun  dies  of  an  infectious  disease,  her 

^  Mohler,  J.  A.,  Kirchengeschichte.,  edit.  1867,  voL  a,  pp.  6nff. 

^2  Coinp.  Leuckfeld,  Antiquitates  Bursfeldenses,  17 13;  Pez,  Bibliotheca  ascetica,  vol.  8, 
nrs  6ff. 

*  Discussed  in  Klemm,  G.  F.,  Die  Fratun^  vol.  4,  p.  181,  using  Ordinarius 
preserved  at  Dresden  (ms.  L.  92). 


4i6  Reforms  in  Germany.  [chap,  xi 

corpse  shall  not  be  carried  into  church,  but  the  burial  service  shall 
take  place  outside.  No  member  of  the  convent  shall  be  chosen 
abbess  unless  she  has  attained  the  age  of  twenty-nine, — a  provision 
which  I  have  not  come  across  elsewhere.  The  abbess  has  under 
her  the  same  staff  of  officers  whose  duties  have  already  been 
described.  There  is  the  prioress,  the  sub-prioress,  the  teacher  of 
the  novices,  the  cellaress,  the  chauntress,  the  sub-chauntress,  the 
sexton,  the  keeper  of  books,  the  chambress,  the  infirmaress,  the 
portress  and  others.  We  are  told  how  novices  made  profession 
and  how  the  hours  of  the  Virgin  were  to  be  kept.  We  are  also 
informed  of  the  occupations  of  the  nuns  between  hours,  and  learn 
that  they  were  active  in  many  ways.  There  are  references  to  the 
transcribing  of  books,  to  binding  books,  to  preparing  parchment, 
and  also  to  spinning  and  weaving ;  but  the  transcribing  of  books 
is  pronounced  the  more  important  work,  since  it  is  more  akin  to 
spiritual  interests.  Further  we  hear  about  visits  paid  by  the  nuns, 
and  about  the  reception  of  visitors.  Only  professed  religious  women 
were  to  be  received  on  a  visit  inside  the  convent  precincts ;  other 
visitors  were  to  dwell  and  take  their  meals  outside. 

In  the  case  of  this  nunnery  it  is  unknown  how  far  the  convent 
showed  readiness  to  join  the  congregation  of  Bursfeld,  or  how  far  it 
was  persuaded  or  coerced  into  doing  so.  The  movement  in  favour 
of  monastic  reform  entered  on  a  new  stage  with  the  advent  of  the 
zealous  and  influential  reformer,  Johann  Busch  (f  after  1479),  the 
promoter  of  the  congregation  of  Windesheim.  The  work  of  Busch 
is  the  more  interesting  as  he  has  left  a  detailed  account  of  it.  His 
book  *  On  monastic  reform '  describes  the  changes  he  advocated 
and  the  means  by  which  he  effected  them  during  a  contest  of  over 
thirty  years^  He  was  a  native  of  Zwolle  in  the  Netherlands  and 
entered  the  Austin  convent  of  Windesheim,  where  he  attracted  so 
much  attention  that  he  was  summoned  to  Wittenberg  in  Saxony 
(1437),  and  there  conducted  monastic  reforms  at  the  desire  of  the 
prior.  He  remained  in  Saxony  for  many  years,  residing  sometimes 
at  one  place,  sometimes  at  another,  and  pursued  his  plans  so  ar- 
dently that  he  occasionally  transcended  the  limits  of  his  authority'. 
His  success  in  persuading  convents  to  reconsider  their  tenor  of 
life  and  in  inducing  lay  princes  and  prelates  to  assist  him  in  his 
efforts  was  so  great  that  Cardinal  Cusanus,  of  whom  we  shall  hear 

?  Bosch,  J.,  Liber  de  reformatione  monasteriorum  (written  between  1470-1475),  edit. 
Grube,  1887. 

^  Deutsche  Allgemeine  Biographie,  article  '  Busch,  Joh.' 


SECT,  ii]  Reforms  in  Germany.  417 

more,  pronounced  him  especially  fitted  to  act  as  a  monastic  re- 
former (145 1).  His  book  contains  a  detailed  account  of  his  work 
in  connection  with  about  twenty  nunneries.  His  great  merit  and 
that  of  the  congregation  of  Windesheim  was  the  introduction  of 
German  devotional  books. 

From  these  and  other  descriptions  we  gather  that  many 
nunneries  willingly  accepted  the  proposed  changes  in  so  far  as  they 
were  designed  to  raise  the  standard  of  teaching  and  to  improve 
the  system  of  discipline,  but  that  opposition  was  made  where  the 
changes  tended  to  interfere  with  the  position  and  prestige  of  the 
settlement.  In  some  cases  a  compromise  was  effected  by  the 
energetic  and  intelligent  conduct  of  the  lady  superior;  in  others 
the  direct  refusal  of  the  nuns  to  conform  resulted  in  open  force 
being  brought  to  bear  on  them.  Scenes  were  enacted  which  recall 
the  turbulence  of  early  Christian  times,  and  show  how  strong  a 
sense  of  independence  still  lived  in  some  convents. 

Among  the  Austin  nunneries  which  gave  Busch  endless  trouble 
was  that  of  Derneburg,  near  Hildesheim,  where  he  was  appointed 
to  visit  as  father  confessor  between  1440  and  1442^  The  nuns 
there  were  in  the  habit  of  dining  out  continually,  and  when  ex- 
ception was  taken  to  this,  gave  as  an  excuse  that  relatives  and 
friends  were  always  ready  to  entertain  them  at  meals,  but  refused 
to  furnish  contributions  in  kind  towards  the  support  of  the  convent. 
Busch  got  over  this  difficulty  by  pleading  with  the  lay  people,  but 
his  action  in  the  matter  still  further  roused  the  rebellious  spirit  of 
the  nuns.  On  one  occasion  his  life  was  attempted  at  their  instiga- 
tion ;  on  another,  when  he  went  to  inspect  their  cellar,  they  locked 
him  in  and  left  him  there.  As  a  consequence  of  this  he  refused 
from  that  time  forward  to  be  the  first  to  go  on  any  tour  of  in- 
spection. His  efforts  to  impress  these  nuns  were  in  vain,  and 
finally  he  asked  for  the  assistance  of  the  bishop  of  Hildesheim  and 
the  abbot  of  the  Cistercian  house  of  Marienrode  ;  as  a  consequence 
the  rebels  were  conveyed  away  from  Derneburg  to  other  convents, 
and  their  house  was  given  into  the  hands  of  Cistercian  nuns. 
Similar  difficulties  occurred  at  Wennigsen,  at  Mariensee  and  at 
Werder,  where  the  Duke  of  Hannover  interfered  in  the  most 
arbitrary  manner'.  At  Wienhausen  the  abbess  and  convent  re- 
fused to  conform  to  the  rule  of  St  Benedict,  though  the  additional 
authority  of  their  diocesan  and  of  Duke  Otto  of  Brunswick  was 

*  Busch,  Liber  de  reforntatione  monasteriorum,  '  Derneburg, '  p.  588. 
-  Ibid.  'Wennigsen,'  'Mariensee,'  'Werder'  pp.  555  ff. 

E.  27 


4i8  Reforms  in  Germany.  [chap,  xi 

brought  to  bear  on  them\  Forcible  measures  were  resorted  to  in 
this  case  also.  The  abbess  was  deposed  and  she  and  her  nuns 
were  carried  away  in  a  chariot  to  other  nunneries,  and  nuns  from 
the  reformed  house  of  Derneburg  were  installed  in  their  place. 

At  the  Cistercian  nunnery  of  St  Georg,  near  Halle,  the  nuns  at 
first  declared  that  they  were  exempt  from  the  visits  of  the  diocesan, 
and  refused  admission  to  the  delegates.  After  prolonged  opposition 
they  yielded  to  Buschl  At  Heiningen  the  nuns  pleaded  poverty 
as  an  excuse  for  staying  away  from  home^  Many  settlements 
complained  of  poverty  and  insufficient  revenue,  among  which  was 
Frankenberg,  near  Goslar^  The  nuns  of  Dorstad  earned  money 
by  taking  pupils  from  outside  the  precincts^,  and  other  houses, 
among  them  that  of  Neuwerk,  received  girls  and  boarded  and 
educated  them,  Busch  however  forbade  their  doing  so  on  the 
ground  that  intercourse  with  secular  interests  was  harmful.  At 
Neuwerk,  which  was  a  Cistercian  nunnery  at  Erfurt",  the  wealth 
of  the  community  in  vessels,  vestments,  and  books  was  quite  a 
revelation  to  Busch,  The  house  owned  thirty  books  of  devotion 
(the  convent  at  the  time  consisted  of  thirty  inmates),  a  number 
which  appeared  to  Busch  so  considerable  that  he  did  not  insist 
on  the  nuns  adopting  the  service-book  in  use  at  Windesheim,  as 
this  change  would  have  rendered  their  books  useless  to  them. 

The  nuns  at  Neuwerk  readily  accepted  the  proposed  reforms, 
and  received  nuns  from  the  reformed  nunnery  of  Heiningen  who 
dwelt  with  them  for  three  years  and  helped  them  to  restore  their 
system  of  religious  discipline  and  teaching.  The  abbess  Armen- 
gard  von  Rheden,  of  the  wealthy  Benedictine  nunnery  of  Fisch- 
beck  on  the  Weser',  also  agreed  to  receive  nuns  from  a  reformed 
house  into  her  establishment  as  teachers. 

Full  details  are  preserved  of  the  reform  of  the  nunnery  of 
Marienberg^  near  Helmstadt  in  Saxony,  the  prioress  of  which, 
Helena  von  Iltzen,  hearing  of  the  work  of  Busch,  sought  his 
assistance  in  matters  of  reform.  Her  house  is  said  to  have  be- 
longed to  no  order  in  particular.  When  she  applied  to  Busch 
he  was  resident  provost  (after  1459)  of  the  Austin  canonry  of 
Suite   near   Hildesheim.     He   travelled    to    Bronopie,   a   nunnery 

'  Busch,  Libei-  de  re/ormatione  monasteriorum,  '  Wienhausen, '  p,  629, 
^  Ibid.  '  St  Georg  in  Halle,'  p,  568.  ^  Ibid.  '  Heiningen,'  p.  600. 

*  Ibid.  '  Frankenberg,'  p.  607,  '  Ibid.  '  Dorstad,'  p,  644. 

•  Ibid,  '  Neuwerk,'  p.  609,  ^  Ibid,  '  Fischbeck,'  p.  640, 
•*  Ibid.  '  Marienberg,'  p,  618. 


SECT,  ii]  Reforms  in  Germany.  419 

situated  outside  Campen  on  the  confines  of  Holland,  to  consult 
with  the  prioress,  who  accordingly  deputed  two  nuns  of  her 
convent,  Ida  and  Tecla,  and  one  lay  sister  Aleydis,  to  repair  with 
him  to  Marienberg.  Of  the  two  nuns  Ida  had  been  chosen  for 
her  knowledge  of  religious  service,  Tecla  for  her  powers  of 
instruction.  Busch  describes  how  he  travelled  across  Germany 
with  these  women  in  a  waggon  drawn  by  four  horses,  and  how  on 
their  arrival  at  Marienberg  Ida  was  appointed  to  act  as  sub- 
prioress,  and  Tecla  as  teacher,  and  how  the  prioress  of  the  house 
reserved  to  herself  the  management  of  temporal  affairs  only. 
Tecla  is  described  as  well  versed  in  grammar  (grammatica  com- 
petenter  docta);  she  instructed  the  inmates  of  the  house  in  scho- 
lastic knowledge  (scientiis  scholasticalibus)  with  such  success  that 
her  pupils  after  three  years  were  able  to  read  Holy  Writ,  and 
readily  composed  letters  and  missives  in  correct  Latin  (litteras 
sive  missas  in  bona  latina  magistraliter  dictarent).  *  I  have  seen 
and  examined  these  myself,'  says  Busch. 

After  three  years  the  illness  of  Ida  made  the  nuns  desirous 
of  returning  to  their  own  convent,  and  Busch  again  undertook 
to  escort  them.  A  proof  of  the  affection  they  had  won  during 
their  stay  and  of  the  regret  that  was  felt  at  their  departure  is 
afforded  by  the  letters  which  passed  between  them  and  their 
friends.  They  were  staying  for  some  nights  at  the  nunnery  of 
Heiningen  on  their  journey  home  when  two  letters  reached  them. 
In  one  the  nuns  wrote  describing  their  grief.  '  When  we  see  your 
empty  places  in  the  choir,  the  refectory,  and  the  dormitory,  we  are 
filled  with  sorrow  and  weep.'  And  they  wish  that  the  distance  which 
separates  them  were  not  so  great,  then  at  least  they  might  go  to 
visit  their  friends.  When  Tecla's  pupils  (the  letter  says)  entered 
the  schoolroom  for  their  lessons  on  the  Saturday,  they  wept  so 
much  that  the  prioress,  who  was  in  great  grief  herself,  was  con- 
strained to  try  to  comfort  them.  The  other  letter,  a  short  one 
specially  addressed  to  Tecla,  was  written  by  these  pupils:  this 
accompanied  the  longer  letter,  and  in  it  they  assured  her  of  their 
continued  admiration  and  devotion.  Ida,  Tecla  and  Aleydis 
in  reply  sent  two  letters  to  Marienberg.  A  longer  one  was  ad- 
dressed by  them  to  the  convent  collectively,  and  a  shorter  one  by 
Tecla  to  her  pupils,  in  which  she  praises  them  for  having  written 
such  a  good  Latin  letter  and  assures  them  that  she  is  glad  to 
think  of  her  stay  with  them,  since  it  has  been  productive  of  such 
good  results. 

27 — 2 


420  Reforms  in  Germany.  [chap,  xi 

The  nunnery  of  Marienberg,  which  had  so  readily  accepted 
reforms,  acted  as  advocate  of  similar  changes  to  other  houses. 
Busch  tells  us  that  the  nunnery  of  Marienborn  situated  not  far 
from  it,  and  the  nunnery  at  Stendal  in  Brandenburg,  accepted 
reforms  at  its  instigation^ 

In  the  records  of  Busch  comparatively  few  charges  of  a  coarse 
nature  are  brought  against  nunneries,  but  he  adds  an  account  of 
two  nuns  who  were  in  apostasy,  and  who  were  persuaded  by  him 
to  return  to  their  convents.  One  had  left  her  convent  and  had 
adopted  lay  clothing' ;  the  story  of  the  other,  Sophie,  an  illegiti- 
mate daughter  of  Wilhelm,  duke  of  Brunswick,  reads  like  a 
romance^  The  girl  had  been  stowed  away  in  the  convent  of 
Mariensee  by  her  relatives  for  convenience,  but  indifferent  to  vows 
unwillingly  accepted,  she  ran  away  and  for  seven  years  lived  in 
the  world,  tasting  few  of  the  sweets  of  life  and  much  of  its  bitter- 
ness. At  last,  broken  in  spirit  by  the  loss  of  her  child,  she  was 
persuaded  by  Busch  to  come  and  live  in  the  convent  of  Derneburg, 
the  members  of  which  received  her  with  tender  pity  for  her  suffer- 
ings and  treated  her  with  loving  care.  Finally  she  agreed  to 
return  to  the  nunnery  she  had  originally  left,  glad  of  the  peace 
which  she  found  there. 

Some  of  the  nunneries  on  which  pressure  was  brought  to  bear 
by  the  monastic  reformers  altogether  ceased  to  exist.  The  his- 
torian of  the  diocese  of  Speyer  (Rheinbayern)  tells  us  that  the 
Benedictine  nunnery  of  Schonfeld  was  interfered  with  in  1443  and 
fell  into  decay,  and  that  its  property  was  appropriated  ;  that  the 
Cistercian  nunnery  of  Ramsen  also  ceased  to  exist,  owing  to  feuds 
between  Count  Johann  II  of  Nassau  and  the  abbot  of  Morimund, 
who  both  claimed  the  right  of  interference;  and  that  the  disso- 
lution of  Kleinfrankenthal,  a  settlement  of  Austin  nuns  situated 
in  the  same  diocese,  was  declared  in  143 1  by  Pope  Eugenius  IV 
on  account  of  the  evil  ways  of  the  nuns*. 

The  historian  of  the  reforms  undertaken  in  the  diocese  of  Trier 
notifies  many  important  changes^  He  considers  that  the  nuns 
in  many  convents  had  drifted  away  from  the  former  strictness  of 

*  Busch,  Liber  de  reformatione  ntovasteriorum,  '  Marienborn,'  '  Stendal,'  p.  622. 
2  Ibid.  pp.  664  ff.  »  Ibid.  pp.  659  ff. 

*  Remling,  F.  X.,  Urkundl.  Geschichte  der  Abteien  und  Kloster  in  Rheinbayern,  1836, 
'Schonfeld,'  vol.  1,  p.  165;  'Ramsen,'  vol.  i,  p.  263;  'Kleinfrankenthal,'  vol.  2,  p.  79. 

^  Marx,   J.,    Geschichte   des    Erzstifts    Trier,     i86o,    vol.    3,    p.   466    (Benedictine 
nunneries,  pp.  457-51  r,  Cistercian  nunneries,  pp.  579-593). 


SECT,  ii]  Reforms  in  Germany.  421 

discipline  and  lived  as  Austin  canonesses,  returning  to  the  world 
if  they  chose  to  get  married.  Many  of  these  settlements  now 
accepted  stricter  rules  of  life,  and  among  them  were  the  nunnery 
of  Marienberg  (diocese  of  Trier),  the  abbess  of  which,  Isengard 
von  Greiffenklau  (t  1469),  had  come  under  the  influence  of  Jo- 
hannes Rode — and  Obervverth,  which  owed  reform  to  its  abbess 
Adelheid  Helchen  (1468- 1505). 

On  the  other  hand  Elisabeth  von  Seckendorff,  abbess  of  the 
time-honoured  nunnery  of  St  Walburg  at  Eichstatt,  refused  to 
see  that  a  changed  condition  of  things  demanded  reform.  The 
bishop  of  Eichstatt  made  his  power  felt ;  she  was  deposed,  and 
Sophie  was  summoned  from  the  nunnery  of  St  Maria  at  Coin,  and 
made  abbess  in  her  stead  (1456-1475)*. 

We  have  detailed  accounts  of  reforms  in  South  Germany  from 
the  pen  of  another  contemporary  writer,  Felix  Fabri  (-f-  1502), 
a  Dominican  friar  of  Ulm^.  He  tells  us  how  Elisabeth  Krelin 
(i*  1480),  abbess  of  the  important  Cistercian  nunnery,  Heggbach, 
a  woman  of  great  intelligence  and  strong  character,  effected  reforms 
in  her  house  on  her  sole  responsibility.  These  changes  were 
productive  of  such  good  results  that  many  nuns  left  the  houses 
to  which  they  belonged  and  came  to  live  under  her.  Gredanna 
von  Freyberg  (-f-  148 1),  abbess  of  the  ancient  and  wealthy  Bene- 
dictine nunnery  of  Urspring,  hearing  of  these  changes,  came  on 
a  visit  to  Heggbach,  where  she  made  friends  with  the  abbess,  and 
when  she  left  she  was  bent  on  carrying  out  similar  changes  in  her 
own  convent.  But  here  she  met  with  opposition.  Her  nuns,  who 
were  members  of  the  nobility,  aware  that  the  changes  advocated 
meant  interference  with  the  liberty  they  enjoyed,  divided  for  and 
against  her,  and  those  who  were  against  her  appealed  to  their 
relatives  for  support.  Gredanna  in  vain  asked  for  help  from  the 
abbot  of  the  monastery  of  St  Georg  in  the  Black  Forest  to  which 
her  house  was  allied  ;  he  dared  not  interfere,  and  it  was  only  when 
the  archduchess  Mechthild  of  Austria  called  upon  him  to  do  so, 
that  he  summoned  nuns  from  the  reformed  nunnery  of  St  Walburg 
at  Eichstatt  and  with  them  and  some  monks  came  to  Urspring. 
But  the  rebellious  nuns,  nothing  daunted,  shut  themselves  up  in 
the  outlying  buildings  of  the  infirmary,  which  they  barricaded  ; 
the   soldiers   were  called  out  but  from  a  religious  dread  refused 

*  Brusch,  C,  Chronol.  Mon.  Germ.,  1682,  p.  508. 

2  Fabri,  F.,  De  Civitate  Ulmensi,  edit.  Veesenmeyer,  Liter.  Verein,  Stuttgart,  1889, 
pp.  180  ff. 


42  2  Reforms  in  Germany.  [chap,  xi 

to  attack  them.  Nothing  remained  short  of  placing  these '  amazons ' 
as  Fabri  calls  them  in  a  state  of  siege  ;  the  pangs  of  hunger  at 
last  forced  them  to  yield.  The  reforms  which  Gredanna  then 
effected  were  productive  of  such  beneficial  results  that  the  house 
regained  a  high  standing. 

The  reform  of  Soflingen  near  Ulm\  an  account  of  which  we 
also  owe  to  Fabri,  affords  one  more  of  many  examples  of  the  tyranny 
of  interference.  This  house  belonged  to  the  order  of  St  Clare,  and 
like  all  the  houses  of  this  order  was  subject  to  the  Franciscan  friars, 
who  had  the  exclusive  right  of  control  over  them. 

The  Franciscans  of  Ulm  having  accepted  reforms  in  consequence 
of  the  papal  bull  of  1484,  the  town  authorities  of  Ulm  called  upon 
the  nuns  to  do  the  same,  and  Fabri  relates  how  *a  number  of 
burghers  accompanied  by  religious  doctors  of  various  orders,  by 
noblemen,  their  followers,  and  by  members  of  the  town-gilds, 
armed  and  unarmed,  marched  upon  Soflingen  in  a  great  crowd,  as 
though  to  fight  for  the  glory  of  God.'  They  conveyed  with  them 
a  new  abbess  and  a  number  of  nuns  of  the  reformed  order  of 
St  Clare,  whom  they  meant  to  instal  at  Soflingen.  But  here  they 
were  met  by  open  defiance.  The  lady  superior,  Christine  Strolin 
(•f"  1489),  shouted  that  she  could  not  and  would  not  be  deposed, 
and  her  nuns  vented  their  indignation  in  threats  and  blasphemy. 
Not  by  promises,  not  by  threats,  could  they  be  persuaded  to  leave 
their  lady  superior.  They  rushed  through  the  buildings,  snatched 
up  coffers  and  boxes,  and  followed  Christine  out  of  the  house. 
Their  loyalty  and  unanimity  in  defending  their  rights  awaken 
feelings  in  their  favour  which  are  confirmed  when  we  find  the 
bishop  of  the  diocese  disapproving  of  the  forcible  measures  re- 
sorted to  by  the  citizens  ;  endless  quarrels  and  discussions  ensued. 
The  abbess  Christine,  after  staying  at  various  places,  returned  to 
Soflingen  and  was  reinstated  in  her  rights,  on  condition  of  adopting 
certain  reforms  ;  some  of  her  nuns  came  back  with  her,  but  others 
refused  to  do  so  and  went  to  live  in  other  nunneries. 

Details  concerning  the  *  reform '  of  one  other  nunnery  are  worth 
recording  because  they  show  how  a  representative  of  the  Church 
openly  attempted  to  curtail  the  privileges  of  a  powerful  nunnery. 
The  struggle  of  the  nunnery  of  Sonnenburg  in  the  Tyrol  with  the 
Cardinal  Legate  Nicolas  Cusanus  (-f-  1464),  bishop  of  Brixen,  has 
been  the  subject  of  close  historical  enquiry,  as  its  importance  far 

1  Fabri,  F.,  De  Civitate  Ulmensif  pp.  202  ft'. 


SECT,  ii]  Reforms  in  Germany.  423 

exceeds  the  interests  of  those  immediately  concerned*.  In  this 
struggle  the  representative  of  the  Pope  came  into  open  conflict 
with  the  prince  of  the  land,  Sigmund,  archduke  of  Austria  and 
duke  of  Tyrol,  who  defied  the  Cardinal  and  obliged  him  to  flee 
the  country  and  seek  refuge  at  Rome.  The  quarrel  which  began 
over  the  nunnery  ended  with  the  ban  of  excommunication  being 
pronounced  against  Sigmund,  and  with  his  appeal  to  a  Church 
Council  against  the  authority  of  the  Papal  Curia. 

Sonnenburg  was  the  wealthiest  and  most  influential  Benedictine 
settlement  of  women  in  the  land.  It  was  in  existence  as  early  as 
the  nth  century  and  had  extensive  powers  of  jurisdiction  which 
repeatedly  brought  its  abbess  into  conflict  with  her  rival  in  power, 
the  bishop  of  Brixen.  Against  him  she  had  sought  and  secured 
the  protection  of  the  archduke;  but  at  the  time  of  the  appointment  of 
Cusanus  as  bishop,  the  settlement  of  a  matter  of  temporal  admini- 
stration between  herself  and  the  bishopric  was  pending.  Cusanus 
had  obtained  from  Rome  exceptional  powers  of  monastic  visitation, 
powers  such  as  were  conferred  at  a  later  date  on  the  Cardinal 
Legate  Ximenes  in  Spain  and  on  the  Cardinal  Legate  Wolsey  in 
England.  By  virtue  of  these  powers  Cusanus  at  once  transferred 
the  affair  with  the  abbess  from  the  temporal  domain  to  the  spiri- 
tual, and  in  his  character  of  monastic  visitor  and  reformer  sent  a 
manifesto  to  the  abbess  and  nuns  to  the  effect  that  after  the 
coming  festival  of  Corpus  Christi  they  were  on  no  account  to 
absent  themselves  from  the  convent  or  to  receive  visitors.  The 
abbess,  Verena  von  Stuben,  and  her  convent,  which  consisted  at 
the  time  of  seven  nuns,  ignored  this  command,  obedience  to  which 
would  have  cut  off  intercourse  with  the  archduke  and  made  at- 
tention to  the  pending  matter  of  business  impossible.  More  closely 
pressed,  the  abbess  gave  an  evasive  answer  and  lodged  a  complaint 
with  Sigmund,  in  which  she  and  the  convent  declared  themselves 
ready  to  accept  the  desired  change  (p.  6^-^  but  said  that  they 
were  convinced  that  such  a  course  at  the  present  moment  would 
be  fatal  to  their  position.  It  was  clear  to  them  that  Cusanus  was 
bent  on  their  ruin.  The  archduke  to  whom  they  appealed  declared 
that  the  prelate  was  transgressing  the  limits  of  his  authority,  and 
intimated  to  him  that  he  would  not  have  the  temporalities  of  the 

'  Jager,  A.,  Der  Streit  dfs  Cardhials  N.  von  Cusa  mit  dent  Herzoge  Sigmund  zntn 
Oestcrreich,  1861,  2  vols,  (the  struggle  over  Sonnenburg  is  in  vol.  i). 

2  Ibid.  vol.  I  (page  references  in  the  text  throughout  this  section  are  to  the  above 
account). 


424  Reforms  in  Germany.  [chap,  xi 

house  interfered  with, — a  decision  to  which  Cusanus  for  the  mo- 
ment deferred. 

The  documents  relating  to  the  further  progress  of  this  quarrel 
are  numerous.  A  kind  of  chronicle  was  kept  at  Sonnenburg 
written  partly  by  the  nuns,  partly  by  the  abbess,  into  which  copies 
of  over  two  hundred  letters  and  documents  were  inserted.  It  bears 
the  title  '  On  what  occurred  between  Cardinal  Cusanus  and  the 
abbess  Verena,'  and  is  now  in  the  library  at  Innsbruck*. 

Foiled  in  his  first  attempt  to  gain  control  over  Sonnenburg, 
Cusanus  now  devoted  his  attention  to  other  religious  communities. 
He  took  under  his  protection  a  number  of  recluses,  called  sylvan 
sisters,  *  Waldschwestern '  (p.  63),  and  having  secured  further  powers 
from  Rome,  attempted  to  interfere  with  the  convent  of  Minoresses 
or  Poor  Clares  at  Brixen  (p.  87).  But  these  nuns,  though  they 
were  low-born  and  uneducated,  were  as  stubborn  as  their  high-born 
and  learned  sisters  on  the  Sonnenburg;  Verena's  conduct  may 
have  given  them  the  courage  to  oppose  the  Cardinal.  Their  lady 
superior  was  forcibly  removed  at  his  instigation,  but  they  appealed 
against  him  at  Rome,  and  though  their  opposition  was  censured, 
Cusanus  was  directed  to  place  the  matter  in  the  hands  of  the 
Franciscans  at  Nurnberg,  who  declared  themselves  willing  to  in- 
stitute the  desired  reforms.  Nuns  from  the  convent  of  St  Clare 
at  Nurnberg  were  despatched  to  Brixen,  and  the  tone  of  the  house 
was  raised  without  its  privileges  being  forfeited. 

On  the  strength  of  his  increased  visitatorial  powers  Cusanus 
(1453)  returned  to  the  charge  at  Sonnenburg,  but  its  inmates  would 
give  no  official  declaration  of  their  intentions  (p.  90).  Accordingly 
the  bishop  of  Eichstatt  was  summoned  to  hold  a  visitation  there, 
but  he  was  refused  admission  by  the  nuns.  However  a  second 
deputation  came  which  could  not  be  warded  off,  and  the  convent 
gave  the  desired  information  ;  the  result  of  which  was  that  in- 
junctions were  forwarded  confining  the  authority  of  the  abbess  to 
the  control  of  the  nuns,  and  practically  despoiling  her  of  her 
property.  Strict  seclusion  was  to  be  observed,  and  the  house 
was  to  be  furnished  with  a  key,  which  was  to  be  given  to  a 
person  appointed  by  Cusanus.  The  management  of  the  monas- 
tic property  was  to  be  in  the  hands  of  a  bailiff  who  was  to 
render  account  to  the  bishop  direct,  not  to  the  abbess.  Scant 
wonder  that  the  abbess  Verena,  indignant  at  the  order  and  despair- 
ing of  help  from  without,  offered  to  resign.  Her  offer  delighted 
'  Jiiger,  A.,  Der  Streit  des  Cardinals  N.  von  Cusa  etc.,  1861,  Vorwort,  p.  x. 


SECT,  ii]  Reforms  in  Germany.  425 

the  legate,  who  forthwith  despatched  Afra  von  Velseck  to  under- 
take the  management  of  affairs  at  the  convent,  with  the  command 
that  she  was  to  take  no  step  without  previously  consulting  him 
(p.  94).  It  seems  that  Cusanus  entertained  the  idea  of  appropri- 
ating the  temporalities  of  the  nunnery  altogether,  and  transferring 
them  to  the  use  of  monks,  who  were  to  be  subject  to  his  friend  and 
ally,  the  abbot  of  Tegernsee  (p.  95).  He  afterwards  gave  up  the 
plan,  'since  the  nobility,'  as  he  wrote  (p.  127),  'look  upon  this  house 
as  a  home  for  their  daughters  and  are  opposed  to  my  plan.' 

At  this  juncture  things  took  an  unexpected  turn.  Verena 
consulted  with  her  friends  in  the  matter  of  the  pension  on  which 
she  was  to  retire  (p.  109) ;  and  Cusanus  was  angered  by  the  objec- 
tions they  raised  to  his  proposals.  There  was  a  stormy  inter- 
change of  letters  between  him  and  the  abbess  (p.  124),  which 
ended  in  Verena's  resuming  her  authority,  and  in  Afra's  deposi- 
tion. Cusanus  sent  an  armed  escort  to  fetch  away  his  protegee 
and  threatened  excommunication  to  the  convent.  In  vain  was  a 
complaint  against  him  sent  by  the  nuns  to  Rome;  Cusanus  had 
anticipated  them.  The  Pope  censured  the  nuns'  conduct,  affirmed 
Cusanus'  authority,  and  cast  imputations  on  the  character  of  the 
abbess,  which  were  indignantly  resented  in  a  second  letter  for- 
warded to  the  Pope  by  the  nuns. 

The  archduke  Sigmund  now  tried  to  interfere  in  the  interest 
of  peace.  A  second  visitation  was  undertaken,  and  a  list  of  in- 
junctions was  drawn  up  for  the  nuns  (p.  133).  Among  these  we 
note  that  nuns  from  a  reformed  convent  were  to  come  and  live  as 
teachers  at  Sonnenburg ;  the  abbess  was  henceforth  to  have  no 
separate  household,  she  was  forbidden  to  go  out  without  asking 
leave  from  the  diocesan,  she  was  not  to  go  on  pilgrimages  or  visit 
health  resorts,  and  she  was  not  to  be  present  at  weddings. 

But  the  abbess  and  the  convent  refused  to  accept  these  in- 
junctions, and  they  were  accordingly  placed  under  an  interdict. 
The  hospital  belonging  to  the  house  and  its  property  were  con- 
fiscated, the  chaplains  were  forbidden  to  celebrate  mass,  and  the 
ban  of  excommunication  was  pronounced  against  the  nuns  and 
was  reiterated  by  the  priest  of  the  nearest  church  on  feast  days 
and  on  Sundays.  This  was  a  great  humiliation  to  the  nuns  and 
helped  to  lower  them  in  general  estimation. 

Sigmund  was  absent  at  the  time.  Soon  after  his  return  Pope 
Nicolas  V,  the  patron  of  Cusanus,  died  (i45S)>  «ind  his  successor 
Calixtus    III    warned    the   Cardinal    against    pushing    things    to 


426  Reforms  in  Germany.  [chap,  xi 

extremes  (p.  161).  Sigmund  also  pleaded  in  favour  of  the  nuns 
that  they  were  staying  within  precincts,  and  that  Verena  was  an 
estimable  woman.  Cusanus  in  answer  contended  that  what  he 
had  done,  he  had  done  with  the  sanction  of  Rome,  and  that  he 
had  excommunicated  and  deposed  Verena  solely  on  account  of 
her  disobedience ;  and  he  then  acknowledged  that  she  was  a 
thoroughly  honest  and  excellent  manager.  In  his  letters  to  the 
abbot  of  Tegernsee,  written  about  the  same  time,  he  speaks  of 
Verena  as  a  very  Jezebel  who  is  full  of  wiles  against  him  (p.  153). 
*  Maybe  she  will  pretend  obedience  to  deceive  me,'  he  wrote  among 
other  things,  '  but  the  devil  of  pride  has  her  soul  in  his  possession 
and  will  prevent  her  from  really  humbling  herself  But  the  re- 
lations between  Sigmund  and  his  bishop  were  becoming  strained 
in  other  respects.  The  first  breach  of  the  peace  occurred  when 
the  abbess  came  to  Innsbruck  to  seek  support.  Cusanus  despatched 
a  deacon  to  prevent  her  being  received,  and  Sigmund  had  the  deacon 
cast  into  prison. 

The  nuns  on  the  Sonnenburg  were  in  a  sorry  plight.  They 
dared  not  leave  the  house,  the  usual  tithes  were  not  brought  to 
them  and  there  had  been  no  ingathering  of  the  produce  of  their 
own  harvest,  for  Cusanus  threatened  excommunication  to  anyone 
having  intercourse  with  them  or  looking  after  their  interests.  They 
were  nigh  upon  starvation  (p.  277),  and  had  recourse  to  an  un- 
lawful step.  They  took  a  band  of  armed  men  into  their  service  and 
directed  them  to  gather  the  tribute  due  to  them.  But  the  soldiers 
sent  by  the  archbishop  put  these  men  to  flight  and  then  stormed  the 
cloister.  The  nuns  fled  into  the  adjoining  woods  and  found  refuge 
in  a  house.  '  But  we  were  betrayed  and  had  to  fly  again,'  they 
wrote  in  their  chronicle  ;  '  during  three  days  we  were  pursued  and 
sought  by  the  troops,  repeatedly  we  were  so  near  to  them  that  we 
saw  them  and  they  saw  us.  But  the  Virgin  Mary  helped  us  to 
escape  from  them.*  Afra  von  Velseck  had  been  put  in  possession 
of  their  empty  house,  but  Cusanus  could  not  support  her ;  fearful 
of  Sigmund  he  had  fled  from  his  bishopric  and  repaired  to  Rome. 
The  archduke  conducted  the  nuns  back  and  begged  Verena  to 
resign,  offering  her  a  house  near  Innsbruck  (p.  309).  An  envoy 
was  accordingly  despatched  to  Rome  to  profler  terms  of  submission 
to  Cusanus  if  only  he  would  take  the  ban  of  excommunication 
from  the  nuns.  The  bishop  at  last  yielded  to  the  Pope's  com- 
mand, though  with  a  sufficiently  bad  grace.  '  I  send  you  a  copy 
of  Verena's  letter  to  me,'  he  wrote  to  the  envoy  Natz,  'she  tells 


SECT,  ii]  Reforms  in  Germany.  427 


lies  as  usual.'  And  on  the  margin  of  her  letter,  as  a  comment  on 
her  declaration  that  she  had  repeatedly  sought  absolution,  he  added 
the  words,  '  this  is  a  lie.' 

Penance  in  its  extreme  form  was  undergone  by  the  convent 
(p.  311),  but  as  Cusanus  persistently  denied  to  Sigmund  the  right 
of  appointing  a  new  abbess,  many  letters  passed  before  the  con- 
ditions of  peace  were  settled  and  ratified.  The  correspondence, 
as  Jager  remarks  (p.  315),  throws  an  interesting  light  on  the 
character  of  the  women  concerned.  Verena,  who  throughout  main- 
tained a  proud  dignity,  retired  from  the  convent  on  a  pension ; 
Afra,  who  had  resorted  to  various  intrigues,  finally  renounced  all 
claims,  and  Barbara  Schondorfer  came  over  from  Brixen  and  was 
installed  as  abbess. 

Thus  ended  the  quarrel  about  the  privileges  of  Sonnenburg, 
which  lasted  six  years  and  led  to  the  curtailment  of  many  of  its 
rights.  The  story  proves  the  inability  of  convents  to  preserve 
their  independence,  and  shows  how  their  weakness  was  made  the 
excuse  for  interference  from  without  to  the  detriment  of  the  abbess 
in  her  position  as  landowner. 

It  remains  to  enquire  how  far  the  improvements  effected  in 
monastic  life  by  peaceful  and  by  forcible  means  were  lasting,  and 
in  what  position  the  nunnery  stood  at  the  beginning  of  the  i6th 
century. 

Some  valuable  information  is  given  on  the  general  state  of 
monasticism  by  a  number  of  addresses  delivered  by  Tritheim, 
abbot  of  Sponheim  (-f-1516),  before  the  assembled  chapter  of 
Benedictine  abbots  between  1490  and  I492\  Tritheim  takes  high 
rank  among  the  older  humanists;  he  was  an  enlightened  man 
according  to  the  notions  of  his  age,  and  collected  a  wonderful  and 
comprehensive  library  of  books  in  many  languages  at  Sponheim. 
His  interest  in  necromancy  afterwards  brought  reproach  on  him 
and  he  left  his  convent,  but  at  the  time  when  he  pleaded  before 
the  assembled  abbots  he  was  full  of  enthusiasm  for  his  order  and 
full  of  regrets  concerning  it.  In  his  address  'on  the  ruin  of  the 
Benedictine  order,'  he  pointed  out  how  effectually  the  Bursfeld 
and  other  congregations  had  worked  in  the  past,  but  the  beneficial 
results  they  effected  had  passed  away  and  little  of  their  influence 
remained.  If  only  those  who  are  vowed  to  religion,  says  Tritheim, 
would  care  more  for  learning,  which  has  been  made  so  much  more 

'  Tritheim,  Opera pia  et  spirittialia,  edit.  Busaeus,  1604,  '  Orationes,'  pp.  840-916. 


428  Reforms  in  Germany.  [chap,  xi 

accessible  by  the  invention  of  printing,  the  outlook  would  not  be 
so  utterly  hopeless. 

In  these  addresses  Tritheim  takes  no  account  of  nunneries,  but 
we  can  discover  his  attitude  towards  nuns  in  an  address  to  a 
convents  the  keynote  of  which  is  that  the  women  assembled  there 
should  cultivate  love,  lowliness  and  patience  under  tribulation. 
The  address  is  gentle  and  dignified,  but  it  shows  that  Tritheim, 
in  common  with  other  men  of  the  time,  attached  importance  to 
nunneries  chiefly  for  the  piety  they  cultivated.  His  belief  in  this 
respect  is  shared  by  the  zealous  reformer  Geiler  von  Kaisersberg 
(•f  1500),  who  preached  many  sermons  before  the  nuns  of  the  con- 
vents of  St  Mary  Magdalen  (Reuerinnen),  and-  of  St  Stephan  at 
Strasburg,  and  who  likewise  saw  the  beauty  of  a  nun's  vocation 
only  in  her  devotional  and  contemplative  attitude.  We  gather 
from  his  sermons,  many  of  which  are  preserved  in  the  form  in 
which  they  were  written  out  by  nuns^  that  a  clear  line  of  demarca- 
tion existed  in  his  mind  between  reformed  and  unreformed  convents, 
and  that  while  emphatic  in  denouncing  the  ungodly  ways  of  the 
inmates  of  unreformed  houses,  life  in  a  reformed  house  was  com- 
parable in  his  eyes  to  Paradise.  Geiler's  efforts  as  a  reformer  were 
so  far  crowned  by  success  that  the  convent  of  St  Mary  Magdalen 
to  which  he  had  devoted  his  efforts,  outlived  the  attacks  to  which 
it  was  exposed  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation. 

The  fact  that  Tritheim  insists  only  on  the  devotional  attitude 
of  nuns  is  the  more  noticeable  as  he  visited  at  the  convent  of 
Seebach,  the  abbess  of  which,  Richmondis  van  der  Horst,  was 
equally  praised  for  her  own  abilities  and  the  superior  tone  she 
maintained  in  her  convent.  For  instances  were  not  wanting  which 
show  that  intellectual  tastes  were  still  strong  in  some  nunneries 
and  that  women  living  the  convent  life  were  themselves  authors 
and  took  a  certain  amount  of  interest  in  the  revival  of  classical 
learning,  as  we  shall  see  later. 

Thus  Butzbach  (called  Premontanus,  f  1526),  a  pupil  of  Hegius, 
who  became  a  monk  at  Laach  and  was  an  admirer  of  Tritheim, 
was  in  correspondence  with  Aleydis  Ruyskop  (fiso/),  a  nun  at 
Rolandswerth,  who  had  written  seven  homilies  on  St  Paul  in  Latin 
and  translated  a  German  treatise  on  the  mass  into  Latin.  He 
dedicated  to  her  his  work  on  '  Distinguished  learned  women,'  which 
he  took  from  the  work  of  the  Italian  Benedictine  Jacopo  of  Ber- 

^  Tritheim,  Opera^  etc.,  Epist.  nr  3,  p.  921  (written  1485). 
"  Geiler,  Predigten  Teutsch,  1508;  Seelen- Parodies,  1510,  etc. 


SECT,  ii]  Reforms  in  Germany.  429 

gamo,  but  from  delicacy  of  feeling  he  omitted  what  Jacopo  had 
inserted  in  praise  of  women's  influence  as  wives  and  mothers*. 
In  this  work  Butzbach  compares  Aleydis  to  Hrotsvith,to  Hildegard 
and  to  Elisabeth  of  Schonau.  He  also  wrote  to  Gertrud  von  Buchel, 
a  nun  who  practised  the  art  of  painting  at  Rolandswerth,  and  he 
refers  to  Barbara  Dalberg,  niece  of  the  bishop  of  Worms,  who  was 
a  nun  at  Marienberg,  and  to  Ursula  Cantor,  who,  he  declares,  was 
without  equal  in  her  knowledge  of  theology. 

But  in  spite  of  these  instances  and  others,  a  growing  indifference 
is  apparent,  both  among  the  advocates  of  the  new  culture  and  in 
the  outer  world  generally,  to  the  intellectual  occupation  of  women, 
and  the  training  of  girls.  In  their  far-reaching  plans  for  an  im- 
proved system  of  education  the  humanists  leave  girls  out  of  count, 
and  dwell  on  their  qualities  of  heart  rather  than  on  their  qualities 
of  mind.  That  the  training  of  the  mental  faculties  must  be  profit- 
able in  all  cases  for  women  does  not  occur  to  them,  though  the 
idea  is  advanced  with  regard  to  men. 

At  the  close  of  the  15th  century  Wimpheling  (-I-1528)  wrote 
a  work  on  matters  of  education  entitled  Germania.  It  is  a 
conception  of  ideal  citizenship,  and  in  it  he  insists  that  the 
burghers  of  Strasburg  must  let  their  sons  receive  a  higher  education 
and  learn  Latin  in  the  'gymnasium,'  of  which  he  gives  his  plan, 
regardless  of  the  vocation  they  intend  to  embrace.  Only  a  short 
chapter^  of  the  book  refers  to  the  training  of  girls.  Their  parents 
are  cautioned  against  placing  them  in  nunneries,  which  in  the 
writer's  mind  are  little  better  than  brothels.  He  advises  their  being 
trained  at  home  for  domestic  life  and  made  to  spin  and  weave 
like  the  daughters  of  Augustus. 

Similar  tendencies  are  reflected  in  the  works  of  Erasmus  (+  1 5  36). 
His  Colloquies  or  Conversations  introduce  us  to  a  number  of  women 
under  various  aspects  ;  and  the  want  of  purpose  in  convent  life, 
the  danger  of  masterfulness  in  wives,  the  anomalous  position  of 
loose  women,  and  the  general  need  there  was  of  cultivating 
domestic  qualities,  are  all  in  turn  discussed. 

Two  Colloquies  turn  on  the  convent  life  of  women.  In  the 
first'  a  girl  of  seventeen  declares  herself  averse  to  matrimony,  and 

1  Information  on  those  works  of  Butzbach  which  are  not  published  is  given  in  the 
second  supplementary   volume,   pp.  439  ff.    of  Hutten,    U.  v.,    Opera,  edit.    Bocking, 

1857- 

2  Wimpheling,  Germania,  transl.  Martin,  E. ,  1885,  ch.  77. 

3  Erasmus,  Colloquies,  transl.  Bailey,  edit.  Johnson,  1878,  'The  Virgin  averse  to 
Matrimony,'  vol.  i,  p.  215. 


430  Reforms  in  Ger7nany.  [chap,  xi 

expresses  her  intention  of  becoming  a  nun.  The  man  who  argues 
with  her  represents  to  her  that  if  she  be  resolved  to  keep  her 
maidenhood,  she  can  do  so  by  remaining  with  her  parents  and 
need  not  make  herself  from  a  free  woman  into  a  slave.  '  If  you 
have  a  mind  to  read,  pray  or  sing,'  he  says,  '  you  can  go  into  your 
chamber  as  much  and  as  often  as  you  please.  When  you  have 
enough  of  retirement,  you  can  go  to  church,  hear  anthems,  prayers, 
and  sermons,  and  if  you  see  any  matron  or  virgin  remarkable  for 
piety  in  whose  company  you  may  get  good,  or  any  man  who  is 
endowed  with  singular  probity  from  whom  you  can  gain  for  your 
bettering,  you  can  have  their  conversation,  and  choose  the  preacher 
who  preaches  Christ  most  purely.  When  once  you  are  in  the 
cloister,  all  these  things,  which  are  of  great  assistance  in  promoting 
true  piety,  you  lose  at  once.'  And  he  enlarges  on  the  formalities 
of  convent  life,  *  which  of  themselves  signify  nothing  to  the  advance- 
ment of  piety  and  make  no  one  more  acceptable  in  the  eyes  of 
Christ,  who  only  looks  to  purity  of  mind.'  The  girl  asks  him  if 
he  be  against  the  institution  of  monastic  life.  He  replies,  '  By  no 
means.  But  as  I  will  not  persuade  anyone  against  it  who  is 
already  in  it,  so  I  would  undoubtedly  caution  all  young  women, 
especially  those  of  a  generous  temper,  not  to  precipitate  themselves 
unadvisedly  into  that  state  from  which  there  is  no  getting  out 
afterwards,  and  the  more  so  because  their  chastity  is  more  in  danger 
in  the  cloister  than  out  of  it,  and  you  may  do  whatever  is  done 
there  as  well  at  home.' 

His  arguments  however  are  in  vain ;  the  girl  goes  into  a 
convent.  But  the  next  Colloquy,  called  the  'Penitent  Virgin S' 
describes  how  she  changed  her  mind  and  came  out  again.  She 
was  intimidated  by  the  nuns  through  feigned  apparitions,  and  when 
she  had  been  in  the  house  six  days  she  sent  for  her  parents  and 
declared  that  she  would  sooner  die  than  remain  there. 

Another  Colloquy^  shows  how  masterfulness  in  a  wife  destroyed 
all  possibility  of  domestic  peace  and  happiness ;  yet  another"  how 
a  woman  of  loose  life  was  persuaded  to  adopt  other  ways  on  purely 
reasonable  grounds.  Again  we  have  a  young  mother  who  is  per- 
suaded to  tend  her  child  herself,  since  the  promotion  of  its  bodily 
welfare  does  much  towards  saving  its  soul^     The  most  striking 

'  Erasmus,  Colloquies,  'The  Penitent  Virgin,'  vol.  i,  p.  237. 
^  Ibid.  'The  Uneasy  Wife,'  vol.  i,  p.  241. 

*  Ibid.  'The  Young  Man  and  Harlot,'  vol.  i,  p.  ^qi. 

*  Ibid.  'The  Lying-in  Woman,'  vol.  i,  p.  441. 


SECT,  ii]  Reforms  in  Germany.  431 

illustration  however  of  the  fact  that  in  the  eyes  of  Erasmus  the 
position  of  woman  was  changing  is  afforded  by  the  '  Parliament  of 
Women\'  in  which  a  great  deal  of  talk  leads  to  no  result.  Cornelia 
opens  and  closes  the  sitting,  and  urges  that  it  is  advisable  that 
women  should  reconsider  their  position,  for  men,  she  says,  are 
excluding  women  from  all  honourable  employments  and  making 
them  '  into  their  laundresses  and  cooks,  while  they  manage  every- 
thing according  to  their  own  pleasure.'  But  the  assembled  women 
dwell  on  irrelevant  detail  and  harp  on  the  distributions  of  class  in 
a  manner  which  shows  that  those  qualities  which  made  their  par- 
ticipation in  public  affairs  possible  or  advisable  were  utterly  wanting 
among  them.  Erasmus  passes  no  remarks  derogatory  to  women 
as  such,  and  yet  he  leaves  us  to  infer  that  they  cannot  do  better 
than  devote  their  attention  exclusively  to  domestic  concerns. 

Judging  by  his  writings  and  those  of  others  who  were  active  in 
the  cause  of  progress,  there  was  a  growing  feeling  that  the  domestic 
virtues  needed  cultivation.  A  change  in  the  position  of  women 
was  not  only  imminent  but  was  felt  to  be  desirable,  and  probably 
it  was  in  conformity  with  what  women  themselves  wished.  Both 
in  England  and  on  the  Continent  the  idea  that  virginity  was  in 
itself  pleasing  to  God  was  no  longer  in  the  foreground  of  the  moral 
consciousness  of  the  age  ;  it  was  felt  that  the  duties  of  a  mother 
took  higher  rank,  and  that  the  truest  vocation  of  woman  was  to  be 
found  in  the  circle  of  home.  This  view,  as  we  shall  see  presently, 
tallied  with  the  views  taken  by  the  Protestant  reformers  and  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  dissolution  of  nunneries. 

*  Erasmus,  Colloquies,  '  The  Asseml)ly  or  Parliament  of  Women,'  vol.  7,  p.  203. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

THE  DISSOLUTION. 

'  In  church,  chapell  and  priory 
Abby,  hospitall  and  nunry, 

Sparing  nother  man  nor  woman, 
Coopes,  albes,  holy  omamentes, 
Crosses,  chalecys,  sensurs  and  rentes, 
Convertyng  all  to  usys  prophane.' 

The  Blaspheming  English  Lutherans,  verse  33. 

'  The  Abbaies  went  doune  because  of  there  pride, 
And  made  the  more  covetus  riche  for  a  tyme, 
There  leivenges  dispercid  one  everi  syde. 
Where  wonce  was  somme  praier,  now  placis  for  swyne.' 

Quoted  by  Furnival  from  Douce  MS  365,  1.  95. 

§  I.     The  Dissolution  in  England. 

The  movement  of  the  i6th  century  commonly  spoken  of  as 
the  Reformation  was  the  forcible  manifestation  of  a  revolution 
in  thought  which  had  long  been  preparing.  This  period  may  fitly 
be  likened  to  a  watershed  between  the  socialistic  tendencies  of 
the  Middle  Ages  and  the  individualistic  tendencies  which  have 
mainly  prevailed  since.  It  forms  the  height  which  limits  average 
modern  conceptions,  but  which  can  be  made  the  standpoint  from 
which  a  more  comprehensive  view  of  things  past  and  present 
becomes  possible.  Like  other  great  epochs  in  history  it  is  cha- 
racterised by  a  sense  of  assurance,  aspiration,  and  optimism, — and 
by  wasted  possibilities  which  give  its  study  an  ever  renewed  in- 
terest. The  political,  social,  and  intellectual  changes  which  ac- 
companied the  Reformation  are  especially  interesting  nowadays 
when  the  standards  which  were  then  formulated  are  felt  to  be  no 
longer  final.  The  progressive  thought  of  to-day,  heretical  though 
the  assertion  may  sound  to  some,  has  become  markedly  insensible 


SECT,  i]  The  Dissolution  in  England.  433 

to  the  tenets  which  the  reformers  of  the  i6th  century  propounded 
and  in  which  Protestantism  found  its  strength  and  its  safeguard. 
While  paying  due  deference  to  the  courage  of  the  men  who 
heralded  what  was  advance  if  measured  by  such  needs  as  they 
realised,  the  thinker  of  to-day  dwells  not  so  much  on  the  factors 
of  civilisation  which  those  men  turned  to  account  as  on  those 
which  they  disregarded  ; — he  is  attracted  by  Erasmus,  not  by 
Luther,  and  looks  more  to  him  who  worked  in  the  interest  of  re- 
form than  to  him  who  worked  in  the  interest  of  the  Reformation. 

Among  the  important  social  changes  effected  by  the  Refor- 
mation the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries  forms  a  small  but  a 
significant  feature,  a  feature  pregnant  with  meaning  if  considered 
in  the  light  of  the  changing  standards  of  family  and  sex  morality. 
For  those  who  attacked  the  Church  of  Rome  in  her  fundamentals, 
while  differing  in  points  of  doctrine,  were  at  one  in  the  belief 
that  the  state  of  morality  needed  amendment,  and  that  marriage 
supplied  the  means  of  effecting  the  desired  change.  In  open 
antagonism  to  principles  which  formed  the  groundv/ork  of  mo- 
nasticism,  they  declared  celibacy  odious  and  the  vow  of  chastity 
contradictory  to  scriptural  teaching  and  in  itself  foolish  and 
presumptuous. 

The  language  in  which  Luther,  Bullinger  and  Becon  inculcated 
these  principles  is  often  offensive  to  modern  ears.  Their  views  are 
wanting  in  good  taste,  but  consistency  cannot  be  denied  them. 
For  these  men  were  logical  in  condemning  the  unmarried  state 
at  every  point,  attacking  it  equally  in  the  priest,  the  monk,  the 
nun  and  the  professed  wanton.  The  changed  attitude  towards  loose 
women  has  repeatedly  been  referred  to  in  the  course  of  this  work, 
and  it  has  been  pointed  out  how  such  women,  at  one  time  not  with- 
out power,  had  been  steadily  sinking  in  general  estimation.  Society, 
bent  on  having  a  clear  line  drawn  between  them  and  other  women, 
had  interfered  with  them  in  many  ways,  and  had  succeeded  in 
stamping  them  as  a  class,  to  its  own  profit  and  to  their  dis- 
advantage. But  even  at  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages  these  women 
retained  certain  rights,  such  as  that  of  having  free  quarters  in 
the  town,  which  the  advocates  of  the  new  faith  openly  attacked 
and  summarily  swept  away.  Zealous  if  somewhat  brutal  in  the 
cause  of  an  improved  morality,  they  maintained  that  marriage  was 
the  most  acceptable  state  before  God  and  that  a  woman  had  no 
claim  to  consideration  except  in  her  capacity  as  wife  and  mother. 

The  calling  of  the  nun  was  doomed  to  fall  a  sacrifice  to  this 

£.  28 


434  '^^  Dissolution  in  England.         [chap,  xii 

teaching.  Her  vocation  was  in  antagonism  to  the  doctrines  of 
the  party  of  progress,  and  where  not  directly  attacked  was  re- 
garded with  a  scarcely  less  fatal  indifference.  It  has  been  shown 
that  great  efforts  were  made  before  the  Reformation  to  reform 
life  in  nunneries,  but  various  obstacles,  and  among  them  a  growing 
indifference  to  the  intellectual  training  and  interests  of  women, 
were  in  the  way  of  their  permanent  improvement.  The  nun  was 
chiefly  estimated  by  her  devotional  pursuits,  and  when  the  rupture 
came  with  Rome  and  these  devotional  pursuits  were  declared 
meaningless,  individuals  who  were  driven  from  their  homes  might 
be  pitied,  and  voices  here  and  there  might  be  raised  deploring  the 
loss  of  the  possibilities  secured  by  the  convent,  but  no  active  efforts 
were  made  to  preserve  the  system,  nothing  was  attempted  to  save 
an  institution,  the  raison  d'etre  of  which  had  vanished. 

Previous  to  the  Reformation  the  efforts  of  churchmen  on  the 
Continent  to  reform  convent  life  had  led  in  several  instances  to  the 
disbanding  of  a  convent.  In  England  like  results  ensued  from 
the  conduct  of  churchmen,  who  in  their  efforts  to  regenerate  society 
by  raising  the  tone  of  religion,  rank  with  the  older  humanists 
abroad.  These  men  had  no  intention  of  interfering  with  the 
institution  of  monasticism  as  such,  but  were  bent  on  removing 
certain  abuses.  Among  them  were  John  Alcock,  bishop  of  Ely, 
Fisher,  bishop  of  Rochester,  and  Cardinal  Wolsey ;  they  appro- 
priated a  number  of  decayed  convents  on  the  plea  of  promoting 
religious  education,  and  their  action  may  be  said  to  have  paved 
the  way  towards  a  general  dissolution. 

Among  the  monasteries  dissolved  by  them  were  several  belong- 
ing to  nuns,  and  the  fact  is  noteworthy  that  wherever  the  property 
of  women  was  appropriated,  it  was  appropriated  to  the  use  of 
men.  Considering  that  the  revenues  of  these  houses  had  been 
granted  for  women  and  had  been  administered  by  women  for  cen- 
turies, this  fact  appears  somewhat  regrettable  from  the  woman's 
point  of  view.  But  no  blame  attaches  on  this  account  to  the  men, 
for  their  attitude  was  in  keeping  with  progressive  thought  generally 
and  was  shared  by  women  themselves.  Thus  Margaret  Beaufort 
(f  1509)  the  mother  of  Henry  VII,  whose  college  foundations 
have  given  her  lasting  fame,  seems  never  to  have  been  struck  by 
the  thought  that  advantages  might  accrue  from  promoting  edu- 
cation among  women  also.  She  founded  Christ's  College  at  Cam- 
bridge, planned  the  foundation  there  of  St  John's,  and  instituted 
divinity  professorships  both  at  Oxford  and  at  Cambridge.     But 


SECT,  i]  The  Dissolution  in  England.  435 

her  efforts,  in  which  she  was  supported  by  Fisher,  bishop  of  Ro- 
chester, were  entirely  devoted  to  securing  an  improved  education 
for  the  clergy. 

The  nunnery  of  St  Radegund's  at  Cambridge  was  among  the  first 
establishments  appropriated  in  the  interest  of  the  higher  religious 
education  of  men  on  the  plea  of  decay  and  deterioration.  It  had 
supported  a  convent  of  twelve  nuns  as  late  as  1460,  but  in  1496  it  was 
dissolved.  The  change  was  effected  by  John  Alcock,  bishop  of  Ely 
(•f*  1 500),  a  man  of  liberal  spirit  who  ranks  high  among  contemporary 
ecclesiastics.  The  king's  licence'  for  the  dissolution  of  the  house 
contains  words  to  the  effect  that  it  had  fallen  into  decay  owing  to 
neglect,  improvidence,  and  the  dissolute  dispositions  of  the  prioress 
and  convent,  which  were  referable  to  the  close  proximity  of  Cam- 
bridge. The  house  had  only  two  inmates,  of  whom  one  had  been 
professed  elsewhere  and  the  other  was  a  girl.  The  bishop  asked 
leave  to  declare  the  house  dissolved  in  order  to  appropriate  its 
possessions  and  revenues  to  the  foundation  of  a  college  of  one 
master  (magister),  six  fellows  (socii)  and  a  certain  number  of 
students  (scolares).  These  numbers  show  that  the  property  of 
the  house  was  not  inconsiderable.  The  sanction  of  Pope  Alex- 
ander III  having  been  obtained^  the  nunnery  of  St  Radegund  was 
transformed  into  Jesus  College,  Cambridge ^ 

This  instance  paved  the  way  for  others.  The  suppression  of 
the  smaller  monasteries  for  the  purpose  of  founding  and  endowing 
seats  of  learning  on  a  large  scale  was  advocated  by  Cardinal 
Wolsey  soon  after  his  accession  to  power.  He  was  advanced 
to  the  chancellorship  in  15 13  and  was  nominated  cardinal  by  the 
Pope   in   1 5 15,   and  among  the   first  houses  which   he   dissolved 


^  Dugdale,  Monastkon,  'St  Radegund's,'  vol.  4,  p.  215,  charter  nr  3. 

2  Gasquet,  F.  A.,  Henry  VIII  and  the  English  Monasteries,  1888,  vol.  i,  p.  62. 

^  At  a  meeting  of  the  Cambridge  Antiquarian  Society  (reported  in  the  Academy, 
Feb.  23,  1895),  Mr  T.  D.  Atkinson  read  a  paper  on  'The  Conventual  Buildings  of  the 
priory  of  St  Radegund,'  illustrated  by  a  plan  showing  such  of  the  college  buildings  as 
were  probably  monastic,  and  also  the  position  of  some  foundations  discovered  in  the  previous 
summer.  According  to  this  paper  the  present  cloister  occupies  the  same  position  as  that 
of  the  nuns,  and  the  conventual  church  was  converted  into  a  college  chapel  by  Alcock. 
The  college  hall  which  is  upstairs  is  the  old  refectory,  the  rooms  below  being  very  likely 
used  as  butteries,  as  they  still  are.  The  present  kitchen  is  probably  on  the  site  of  the 
old  monastic  kitchen,  and  very  likely  the  rooms  originally  assigned  to  the  Master  are 
those  which  had  been  occupied  by  the  prioress.  Further  details  of  arrangement  were 
given  about  the  dormitory,  the  chapter  house,  the  calefactory  and  common-room,  etc., 
from  which  we  gather  that  the  men  who  occupied  the  nunnery  buildings,  put  these  to 
much  the  same  uses  as  they  had  served  before. 

28—2 


436  The  Dissolution  in  England.         [chap,  xii 

were  the  two  nunneries  of  Bromhall  in  Berkshire  and  Lillechurch 
in  Kent. 

In  a  letter  about  Bromhall  addressed  to  the  bishop  of  Salisbury* 
Wolsey  directs  him  to  '  proceed  against  enormities,  misgovernance 
and  slanderous  living,  long  time  heretofore  had,  used,  and  con- 
tinued by  the  prioress  and  nuns.'  The  nuns  were  to  be  removed 
'to  other  places  of  that  religion,  where  you  best  and  most  con- 
veniently bestow  them,  especially  where  they  may  be  brought  and 
induced  unto  better  and  more  religious  living.'  Henry  VIII  asked  in 
a  letter  to  the  bishop  that  the  deeds  and  evidences  of  the  convent 
'  by  reason  of  the  vacation  of  the  said  place '  might  be  delivered  to 
his  messenger^  It  is  not  clear  whether  the  inmates  returned  to 
the  world  or  were  transferred  to  other  nunneries.  In  1522  it  was 
found  that  the  prioress  Joan  Rawlins  had  resigned,  her  only  two 
nuns  had  abandoned  the  house,  and  it  was  granted  to  St  John's 
College,  Cambridge,  by  the  interest  and  procurement  of  Fisher, 
bishop  of  Rochester^ 

Full  information  is  preserved  about  the  charges  brought  against 
the  nuns  at  Lillechurch.  From  records  at  Cambridge  we  learn 
on  what  pleas  proceedings  were  taken.  The  house  formerly  con- 
tained sixteen  nuns,  but  for  some  years  past  there  had  been  only 
three  or  four.  It  stood  in  a  public  place,  that  is  on  the  road  to 
Rochester,  and  was  frequented  by  clerics,  and  the  nuns  were 
notorious  for  neglect  of  their  duties  and  incontinence.  Moreover 
the  foundations  at  Cambridge  made  by  Margaret  Beaufort  needed 
subsidizing,  and  public  feeling  was  against  the  house.  Depositions 
were  taken  in  writing  from  which  we  see  that  the  prioress  was 
dead,  aftd  that  one  of  the  three  inmates  had  yielded  to  temptation 
some  eight  or  nine  years  before.  In  answer  to  the  question: 
'  Alas,  madam,  how  happened  this  with  you  .-'' — she  replied  :  *  And 
I  had  been  happy  I  might  have  caused  this  thing  to  have  been 
unknown  and  hidden.' — Together  with  her  two  companions  she 
agreed  to  sign  the  form  of  surrender  (dated  1521),  which  was 
worded  as  follows.  '  Not  compelled  by  fear  or  dread,  nor  cir- 
cumvented by  guile  or  deceit,  out  of  my  own  free  will,  for  certain 
just  and  lawful  reasons  (I)  do  resign  and  renounce  all  my  right, 
title,  interest  and  possession  that  I  have  had  and  now  have  in 
the  aforesaid  monastery.'     We  do  not  know  what  became  of  these 

*  Fiddes,  'Life  of  Card.  Wolsey,'  1726,  Collect.,  p.  100. 
^  Ibid.  p.  99. 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Bromhall,'  vol.  4,  p.  506. 


SECT,  ij  The  Dissolution  in  England.  437 

women.  Their  house  was  given  over  to  Bishop  Fisher,  and  by 
letters  patent  it  also  passed  to  St  John's  College,  Cambridge*. 

Regarding  the  charges  of  immorality  brought  against  the  in- 
mates of  convents  in  this  and  in  other  instances,  it  has  been 
repeatedly  pointed  out  by  students  that  such  accusations  should 
be  received  with  a  reservation,  for  the  occurrence  may  have  taken 
place  before  the  nun's  admission  to  the  house.  The  conven- 
tionalities of  the  time  were  curiously  loose  in  some  respects ;  the 
court  of  Henry  VIII  could  boast  of  scant  respect  even  for  the 
conjugal  tie,  and  a  woman  of  the  upper  classes  who  disgraced 
herself  naturally  took  refuge  in  a  convent,  where  she  could  hope 
in  some  measure  to  redeem  her  character.  The  fact  that  Anne 
Boleyn,  who  was  averse  to  the  whole  monastic  system,  at  one  time 
thought  of  retiring  into  a  nunnery,  is  quoted  as  a  case  in  point^ 

The  readiness  of  Wolsey  to  dissolve  decayed  convents  and  to 
appropriate  their  property  grew  apace  with  his  increase  of  power. 
In  no  case  is  it  recorded  that  he  was  deterred  by  opposition.  In 
1524  he  appropriated  St  Frideswith's,  a  house  of  Austin  canons 
at  Oxford,  and  made  it  the  nucleus  of  his  great  college'.  His 
legatine  powers  being  further  extended  by  a  bull  of  the  same 
year  and  the  royal  consent  being  obtained*,  twenty  small  convents 
were  dissolved  by  him  during  the  next  few  years^  Among  them 
we  note  two  nunneries,  Wykes  in  Essex,  and  Littlemore  in  Oxford- 
shire®. But  little  is  known  of  the  number  and  character  of  their 
inmates  at  the  time.  Two  further  bulls^  were  obtained  by  Wolsey 
from  Pope  Clement  (1523-34)  for  diminishing  the  number  of 
monasteries  and  suppressing  houses  of  less  than  twelve  inmates. 
Gasquet,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  a  detailed  account  of  the 
dissolution,  shows  that  Clement,  who  was  hard  pressed  by  the 
Lutheran  agitation  at  the  time,  only  reluctantly  yielded  to  Wolsey's 
request  ^ 

^  Dugdale,  Motiasticon,  'Lillechurch,'  vol.  4,  p.  379,  footnote  e. 
-  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  attd papers  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII,  Rolls  Series,  vol.  10, 
Preface,  p.  43,  footnote,  and  nr  890. 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,   'St  Frideswith's,'  vol.    3,  p.   138.    Fiddes,  'Life  of  Card. 
Wolsey,'  1726,  Collect.,  p.  95. 

•*  Wilkins,  D.,  Concilia,  I'lyi, '  Bull'  (Sept.  1524),  vol.  3,  p.  703 ;  'Breve  regium,'  ibid. 

P-  705- 

"  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  St  Frideswith's,'  vol.  2,  p.  138,  footnote  x. 

*  Ibid.  '  Wykes,'  vol.  4,  p.  513;  '  Littlemore,'  vol.  4,  p.  490,  nr  12. 

'  Rymer,  Foedera,  'Bulla  pro  monasteriis  supprimendis,'  vol.  6,  p.  116;  'Bulla  pro 
uniendis  monasteriis,'  p.  137. 

*  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII  and  the  English  MotMsteries,  1888,  vol.  i,  pp.  loi  ff. 


438  The  Dissolution  in  England.  [chap,  xii 

Wolsey's  proceedings  in  the  matter,  however,  roused  con- 
siderable local  dissatisfaction  and  brought  censure  on  him  from 
the  king.  '  They  say  not  that  all  that  is  ill  gotten  is  bestowed 
on  the  colleges,'  Henry  wrote  to  him  on  the  eve  of  his  fall,  '  but 
that  the  college  is  the  cloak  for  covering  mischiefs.'  The  king's 
ire  was  further  roused  by  the  cardinal's  accepting  the  appointment 
of  Isabel  Jordan  as  abbess  of  Wilton,  a  house  which  was  under 
royal  patronage,  and  where  the  acceptance  of  the  abbess  belonged 
to  the  king.  Anne  Boleyn  was  in  the  ascendant  in  Heniy's  favour 
at  the  time,  and  wanted  the  post  for  someone  else.  But  on  enquiry 
at  Wilton  the  unsuitability  of  this  person  became  apparent.  *  As 
touching  the  matter  of  Wilton,'  Henry  wrote  to  Anne,  '  my  lord 
cardinal  has  had  the  nuns  before  him  and  examined  them,  Master 
Bell  being  present,  who  has  certified  to  me  that  for  a  truth  she 
has  confessed  herself  (which  we  would  have  abbess)  to  have  had 
two  children  by  sundry  priests,  and  further  since  has  been  kept  by 
a  servant  of  Lord  Broke  that  was,  and  not  long  ago  ;  wherefore 
I  would  not  for  all  the  world  clog  your  conscience  nor  mine  to 
make  her  ruler  of  a  house  who  is  of  such  ungodly  demeanour, 
nor  I  trust,  you  would  not  that  neither  for  brother  nor  sister  I 
should  so  stain  mine  honour  and  conscience^'  It  is  evident  from 
this  letter  that  whatever  the  character  of  the  women  received  into 
the  house  might  be,  the  antecedents  of  the  lady  superior  were  no 
matter  of  indifference.  In  this  case  the  king's  objection  to  one 
person  and  the  unsuitability  of  the  other  led  to  the  appointment. 
of  a  third  2. 

From  the  year  1527  all  other  questions  were  swallowed  up 
by  the  momentous  question  of  the  king's  divorce.  Wolsey,  who 
refused  to  comply  with  his  wishes,  went  into  retirement  in  1529 
and  died  in  the  following  year.  The  management  of  affairs  then 
passed  into  the  hands  of  those  who  in  this  country  represented 
the  ruthless  and  reckless  spirit  of  rebellion  which  had  broken 
loose  abroad.  However  several  years  passed  before  the  attempt 
to  appropriate  the  revenues  of  monasteries  was  resumed. 

In  the  intervening  period  of  increasing  social  and  political  un- 

^  Blunt,  The  Reformation  of  the  Church  of  England,  1882,  vol.  i,  p.  92,  footnote, 
says  that  the  lady  in  question  was  '  Eleanor  the  daughter  of  Gary  who  had  lately  married 
(Anne's)  sister  Margaret.' 

^  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Wilton,'  vol.  2,  p.  317,  gives  the  correspondence.  The 
abbess  who  succeeded  to  Isabel  Jordan  was  probably  Cecil  Bodman  or  Bodenham,  of 
whom  more  p.  441. 


SECT,  i]  The  Dissolution  in  England.  439 

rest  we  note  the  publication,  some  time  before  1529,  of  the  'Sup- 
ph'cation  for  beggars,'  with  which  London  was  flooded ^     It  was 

an  attack  on  the  existing  religious  and  monastic  orders  by  the 
pamphleteer  Simon  Fish  (f  c,  1530).  Based  on  the  grossest  mis- 
representations this  supplication,  in  a  humorous  style  admirably 
suited  to  catch  popular  attention,  set  forth  the  poverty  of  the 
people,  the  immorality  of  those  who  were  vowed  to  religion,  and 
the  lewdness  of  unattached  women,  and  declared  that  if  church 
and  monastic  property  were  put  to  a  better  use  these  evils  would 
be  remedied.  The  king,  who  was  on  the  eve  of  a  rupture  with 
Rome,  lent  a  willing  ear  to  this  '  supplication,'  and  it  so  fell  in 
with  the  general  belief  in  coming  changes  that  the  refutation  of 
its  falsehoods  and  the  severe  criticism  of  Luther  written  in  reply 
by  Thomas  More  passed  for  the  most  part  unheeded^ 

Another  incident  which  reflects  the  spirit  of  the  time  in  its 
contrarieties  and  instability,  is  the  way  in  which  Elizabeth  Barton, 
of  the  parish  of  Aldington,  the  so-called  Maid  or  Nun  of  Kent, 
rose  to  celebrity  or  notoriety.  Her  foresight  of  coming  events  had 
been  received  as  genuine  by  many  men  of  distinction,  but  her 
visions  concerning  the  king's  projected  divorce  were  fiercely  resented 
by  the  king's  partisans.  Bishop  Fisher  wept  tears  of  joy  over  her, 
Wolsey  received  her  as  a  champion  of  Queen  Katherine's  cause, 
and  even  Thomas  More  showed  some  interest  in  her,  while  Crom- 
well accused  her  of  rank  superstition  and  induced  Henry  to  take 
proceedings  against  her^  She  had  been  a  servant  girl,  but  at  the 
instigation  of  the  clergy  at  Canterbury  had  been  received  into 
St  Sepulchre's  nunnery,  where  she  lived  for  seven  years  and  was 
looked  upon  with  special  favour  by  the  Carthusian  monks  of 
Charterhouse  and  Sheen,  and  the  inmates  of  the  monastery  of 
Sion.  At  the  beginning  of  1533  the  king  was  married  to  Anne, 
and  in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year  Elizabeth  Barton  was  accused 
of  treasonable  incitement  and  made  to  do  public  penance.  Later 
a  bill  of  attainder  was  brought  in  against  her,  and  as  Gasquet  has 
shown*,  she  was  condemned  without  a  hearing  and  executed  at 
Tyburn  with  several  Carthusian  monks  who  were  inculpated  with 

1  Fish,  S.,  'A  Supplicacyon  for  the  Beggers,'  republished  Early  Engl.  Text  Soe.t 
1871. 

"  More,  Th.,  'The  Supplycacyon  of  Soulys,'  1519  (?). 

»  Wright,  Th.,  Three  chapters  of  letters  on  the  Suppression  (Camden  Soc.,  1843), 
nrs  6-11. 

*  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  V/II  and  the  English  Monasteries,  vol.  i,  pp.  no— 150. 


440  The  Dissolution  in  England.  [chap,  xii 

her  on  the  charge  of  treason.  Henry  also  made  an  attempt  to  get 
rid  of  Bishop  Fisher  and  of  Sir  Thomas  More  by  causing  them 
to  be  accused  of  favouring  her  'conspiracy,'  but  the  evidence 
against  them  was  too  sh'ght  to  admit  of  criminal  proceedings. 
It  was  on  the  charge  of  declaring  that  Henry  was  not  the  supreme 
head  of  the  Church  that  Fisher  suffered  death  (June,  1535),  and 
on  the  yet  slighter  charge  of  declining  to  give  an  opinion  on  the 
matter,  that  More  was  executed  a  fortnight  later \ 

The  parliament  of  1533  had  passed  the  act  abolishing  appeals 
to  the  Court  of  Rome,  and  among  other  rights  had  transferred  that 
of  monastic  visitation  from  the  Pope  to  the  king.  In  the  following 
year  a  further  division  was  made, — the  king  claimed  to  be 
recognised  as  the  head  of  the  Church.  It  was  part  of  Henry's 
policy  to  avoid  openly  attacking  any  part  of  the  old  system  ; 
gradual  changes  were  brought  about  which  undermined  preroga- 
tives without  making  a  decided  break.  Cromwell  was  appointed 
vicegerent  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  and  it  was  on  the  plea  of 
securing  the  recognition  of  the  king's  supremacy  that  he  deputed 
a  number  of  visitors  or  agents  to  conduct  monastic  visitations  on 
a  large  scale,  and  to  secure  all  possible  information  about  religious 
houses.  His  plan  and  the  way  in  which  it  was  carried  out  struck 
a  mortal  blow  at  the  whole  monastic  system. 

The  agents  employed  by  Cromwell  were  naturally  laymen,  and 
the  authority  of  the  diocesan  was  suspended  while  they  were  at 
work.  Great  powers  were  conferred  on  them.  A  list  of  the  in- 
structions they  received  is  in  existence ;  and  we  gather  from  it 
that  monks  and  nuns  were  put  through  searching  interrogatories 
concerning  the  property  of  their  house,  the  number  of  its  inmates, 
its  founders  and  privileges,  its  maintenance  of  discipline,  and  the 
right  conduct  of  its  inmates.  The  agents  then  enjoined  severance 
from  the  Pope  or  any  other  foreign  superior,  and  directed  those 
who  had  taken  the  vow,  whether  men  or  women,  henceforth  to 
observe  strict  seclusion.  A  daily  lesson  in  scripture  was  to  be 
read ;  the  celebration  of  the  hours  was  to  be  curtailed ;  pro- 
fession made  under  the  age  of  twenty-four  was  declared  invalid ; 
and  'other  special  injunctions,'  says  the  document,  might  'be 
added  by  the  visitors  as  the  place  and  nature  of  accounts  rendered 
(or  comperts)  shall  require,'  subject  to  the  wisdom  and  discretion 
of  Cromwell ^ 

^  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers  etc.,  vol.  8,  Preface,  pp.  33  ff. 
2  Wilkins,  D.,  Concilia,  1737,  vol.  3,  p.  755. 


SECT,  i]  The  Dissolution  in  England.  441 


The  character  of  the  visitors  engaged  in  this  task  has  been 
variously  estimated.  Among  them  was  Dr  Legh  (•|*i545)  who 
is  described  by  a  contemporary  as  a  doctor  of  low  quality.  He 
wrote  to  Cromwell  (July,  1535)  recommending  himself  and  Layton 
("t"i544)  for  the  purpose  of  visitation'.  Layton  had  previously 
acted  for  Cromwell  in  conducting  visitations  at  Sheen  and  Sion 
in  the  affair  of  Elizabeth  Barton.  Legh  afterwards  complained 
that  he  did  not  act  as  he  himself  did  in  regard  to  enforc- 
ing injunctions-,  but  Legh,  even  in  the  eyes  of  his  companion 
John  ap  Rice,  another  visitor  with  whom  he  had  started  for  the 
western  countries,  was  needlessly  severe.  '  At  Laycock  (nunnery),' 
wrote  ap  Rice',  'we  can  find  no  excesses.  Master  (Legh)  every- 
where restrains  the  heads,  the  brethren  and  sisters  from  going 
forth  ;  and  no  women  of  what  estate  soever  are  allowed  to  visit 
religious  men's  houses  and  vice  versa.  I  think  this  is  over  strict, 
for  as  many  of  these  houses  stand  by  husbandry  they  must  fall 
to  decay  if  the  heads  are  not  allowed  to  go  out' 

We  have  seen,  in  connection  with  matters  on  the  Continent, 
that  the  heads  of  houses  who  were  landowners  felt  it  impossible 
to  conform  to  the  rule  of  always  keeping  within  the  precincts.  The 
injunction  in  this  case  gave  rise  to  a  number  of  letters  of  complaint 
addressed  by  the  heads  of  monasteries  to  Cromwell*.  Cecil  Bodman, 
abbess  of  Wilton,  wrote  to  him  as  follows*. 

'  Dr  Legh  the  king's  visitor  and  your  deputy,  on  visiting  my 
house,  has  given  injunction  that  not  only  all  my  sisters  but  that  I 
should  keep  continually  within  the  precincts.  For  myself  person- 
ally I  am  content ;  but  as  the  house  is  in  great  debt,  and  is  not 
likely  to  improve  without  good  husbandry,  which  cannot  be  exer- 
cised so  well  by  any  other  as  by  myself,  I  beg  you  will  allow  me, 
in  company  with  two  or  three  of  the  sad  (serious)  and  discreet 
sisters  of  the  house,  to  supervise  such  things  abroad  as  shall  be 
for  its  profit.  I  do  not  propose  to  lodge  any  night  abroad,  except 
by  inevitable  necessity  I  cannot  return.  I  beg  also,  that  whenever 
any  father,  mother,  brother,  sister,  or  nigh  kinsfolk  of  my  sisters, 
come  unto  them,  they  may  have  licence  to  speak  with  them  in  the 
hall  in  my  presence.     Wilton,  5  Sept.'  (1535). 

Another  injunction  which  was  felt  to  be  a  calamity  was  the 

»  Diet,  of  Nat.  Biography t  article  '  Legh,  Sir  Thomas.' 

•  Wright,  Three  chapters  etc.,  p.  56. 

'  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  etc.,  vol.  9,  nr  139. 

"•  Ibid.  Preface,  p.  ao.  '  Ibid.  vol.  9,  nr  a8o. 


442  The  Dissolution  in  England.  [chap,  xii 

order  declaring  that  profession  made  under  twenty-four  was  invalid. 
'  No  greater  blow  could  have  been  struck  at  the  whole  theory  of 
religious  life,'  says  Gasquet^,  'than  the  interference  with  the  vows 
contained  in  the  order  to  dismiss  those  who  were  under  twenty-four 
years  of  age  or  who  had  been  professed  at  the  age  of  twenty.  The 
visitors,  it  is  clear,  had  no  scruple  about  their  power  to  dispense 
with  the  solemn  obligations  of  the  monastic  profession.  They 
freely  extended  it  to  any  who  would  go,  in  their  idea  that  the 
more  they  could  induce  to  leave  their  convents,  the  better  pleased 
both  the  king  and  Cromwell  would  be,' 

How  far  inmates  of  convents  availed  themselves  of  the  per- 
mission to  go  is  difficult  to  establish.  Margaret  Vernon,  abbess 
of  Little  Marlow  in  Buckinghamshire,  who  was  left  with  only  one 
nun,  did  not  feel  unwilling  to  give  up  her  house,  and  wrote  to 
Cromwell  as  follows  ^ 

'After  all  due  commendations  had  unto  your  good  mastership, 
with  my  most  humble  thanks  for  the  great  cost  made  on  me  and 
my  poor  maidens  at  my  last  being  with  your  mastership,  further- 
more may  it  please  you  to  understand  that  your  visitors  have  been 
here  of  late,  who  have  discharged  three  of  my  sisters,  the  one  is 
dame  Catheryn,  the  other  two  are  the  young  women  who  were 
last  professed,  which  is  not  a  little  to  my  discomfort;  nevertheless 
I  must  be  content  with  the  king's  pleasure.  But  now  as  touching 
mine  own  part,  I  most  humbly  beseech  you  so  special  a  good 
master  unto  me  your  poor  bedewoman,  to  give  me  your  best 
advice  and  counsel  what  way  shall  be  best  for  me  to  take,  seeing 
there  shall  be  none  left  here  but  myself  and  this  poor  maiden  ; 
and  if  it  will  please  your  goodness  to  take  this  house  into  your 
own  hands  either  for  yourself,  or  for  my  own  (master)  your  son, 
I  would  be  glad  with  all  my  heart  to  give  it  into  your  mastership's 
hands,  with  that  you  will  command  me  to  do  therein.  Trusting 
and  nothing  doubting  in  your  goodness,  that  you  will  so  provide 
for  us  that  we  shall  have  such  honest  living  that  we  shall  not  be 
driven  by  necessity  either  to  beg  or  to  fall  to  other  inconvenience. 
And  thus  I  offer  myself  and  all  mine  unto  your  most  high  and 
prudent  wisdom,  as  unto  him  that  is  my  only  refuge  and  comfort 
in  this  world,  beseeching  God  of  His  goodness  to  put  in  you  His 
Holy  Spirit,  that  you  may  do  all  things  to  His  laud  and  glory. 
By  your  own  assured  bedewoman  M(argaret)  V(ernon).' 

^  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII tic,  vol.  i,  p.  273. 
2  Wright,  Three  chapters  0/  letters,  p.  55. 


SECT,  i]  The  Dissolutio7i  in  E^igland.  443 

Some  time  afterwards  she  was  in  London,  trying  to  get  an 
interview  with  Cromwell,  and  eventually  she  became  governess 
to  his  son^  The  property  of  her  nunnery,  together  with  that  of 
Ankerwyke  in  Buckinghamshire,  and  several  monasteries  of  men, 
was  granted  by  Henry  in  1537  to  the  newly  founded  abbey  of 
Bisham,  but  at  the  general  dissolution  it  fell  to  the  crown^ 

Another  petition  touching  the  matter  of  dismissing  youthful 
convent  inmates  was  addressed  to  Cromwell  by  Jane  G(o)wryng*, 
in  which  she  begs  that  four  inmates  of  her  house,  whose  ages  are 
between  fifteen  and  twenty-five  and  who  are  in  secular  apparel 
may  resume  their  habits  or  else  have  licence  to  dwell  in  the  close 
of  the  house  till  they  are  twenty-four.  Also  she  wishes  to  know 
if  two  girls  of  twelve  and  thirteen,  the  one  deaf  and  dumb,  the 
other  an  idiot,  shall  depart  or  not.  Again  a  letter  was  addressed  to 
Cromwell,  asking  that  a  natural  daughter  of  Cardinal  Wolsey  might 
continue  at  Shaftesbury  till  she  be  old  enough  to  take  the  vow  *. 

Modern  writers  are  agreed  that  the  effect  of  these  visitations 
was  disastrous  to  authority  and  discipline  within  the  convent,  not 
so  much  through  the  infringement  of  privileges  as  through  the 
feeling  of  uncertainty  and  restlessness  which  they  created.  Visita- 
tion was  dreaded  in  itself.  With  reference  to  Barking  nunnery 
Sir  Thomas  Audley  wrote  to  Cromwell :  *  I  am  informed  that 
Dr  Lee  is  substituted  by  you  to  visit  all  the  religious  houses  in 
the  diocese  of  London.  My  suit  at  this  time  to  you  is  that  it  may 
please  you  to  spare  the  house  at  Barking'.' 

In  point  of  fact  the  visitations  were  conducted  in  a  manner 
which  left  those  immediately  concerned  in  no  doubt  as  to  the 
ultimate  object  in  view.  In  court  circles  likewise  men  were  aware 
that  the  monastic  system  was  threatened  by  dangerous  and  far- 
reaching  changes.  While  Cromwell's  agents  were  on  their  tours 
of  inspection  Chapuys,  the  French  ambassador  (Sept.  1535)  wrote 
as  follows® :  '  There  is  a  report  that  the  king  intends  the  religious 
of  all  orders  to  be  free  to  leave  their  habits  and  marry.  And  if  they 
will  stay  in  their  houses  they  must  live  in  poverty.     He  intends 

*  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII ^ic,  vol.  i,  p.  276  ;  Ellis,  H.,  Original  Letters,  Series  3,  vol. 
3,  p.  1 1,  says  that  after  resigning  at  Little  Marlow  she  became  abbess  at  Mailing. 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  'Little  Marlow,'  vol.  4,  p.  419;  'Ankerwyke,'  vol,  4,  p.  129. 

*  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers  etc.,  vol.  9,  nr  1075  (her  house  is  unknown). 

*  Ellis,  H.,  Original  Letters,  Series  i,  vol.  »,  p.  91. 
"  Wright,  Three  chapters  etc.,  p.  74. 

*  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers  etc.,  vol.  9,  nr  357. 


444  '^^^  Dissolution  in  England.  [chap,  xii 


to  take  the  rest  of  the  revenue  and  will  do  stranger  things  still.' 
And  two  months  later  he  wrote  that  the  king  meant  to  exclude 
the  abbots  from  the  House  of  Lords  for  fear  of  their  opposition 
to  his  intentions  regarding  the  spoliation  of  monasteries*. 

The  one  merit  Cromwell's  visitors  can  claim  is  despatch,  for 
in  six  months,  between  July  1535  and  February  1536,  the  informa- 
tion on  the  monasteries  was  collected  throughout  the  country  and 
laid  before  Parliament.  Gasquet  has  shown  that  the  House  of 
Lords  was  the  same  which  had  been  packed  for  passing  the  act  of 
divorce,  and  that  the  king,  bent  on  carrying  his  purpose,  bullied 
the  Commons  into  its  acceptance^ 

The  preamble  to  the  bill  is  couched  in  strong  terms  and  begins 
as  follows^ : '  Forasmuch  as  manifest  sins,  vicious,  carnal,  and  abomin- 
able living  is  daily  used  and  committed  amongst  the  little  and 
small  abbeys,  priories,  and  other  religious  houses  of  monks,  canons 
and  nuns,  where  the  congregation  of  such  religious  persons  is 
under  the  number  of  twelve  persons,  whereby  the  governors  of 
such  religious  houses  and  their  convent  spoil,  destroy,  consume 
and  utterly  waste,  as  well  their  churches,  monasteries,  priories, 
principal  houses,  farms,  granges,  lands,  tenements  and  heredita- 
ments, as  the  ornaments  of  their  churches  and  their  goods  and 
chattels,  to  the  high  displeasure  of  Almighty  God,  slander  of  good 
religion,  and  to  the  great  infamy  of  the  king's  highness  and  the 
realm,  if  redress  should  not  be  had  thereof,'... and  it  goes  on  to 
say  that  since  visitations  have  produced  no  results,  and  bad  living 
continues,  the  Lords  and  Commons,  after  deliberation,  have  resolved 
to  put  the  possessions  of  these  religious  houses  to  a  better  use, 
and  that  the  king  and  his  heirs  shall  for  ever  enjoy  all  houses  that 
are  not  above  the  clear  annual  value  of  ^200  in  like  manner  as 
the  heads  of  houses  at  present  enjoy  it,  but  that  the  king  by  'his 
most  excellent  charity'  is  pleased  to  grant  pensions  to  those  whom 
he  deprives. 

Touching  the  evidence  on  which  action  was  taken  writers  of 
the  Elizabethan  era  speak  of  the  so-called  Black  Book,  the 
existence  of  which  has  since  been  disproved ^  Latimer  in  a 
sermon  preached  in  1549  refers  to  the  'enormities'  which  were 
brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  house ;  we  hold  a  clue  to  these 

^  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers  etc.,  vol.  9,  nr  732. 

'^  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  F///etc.,  vol.  i,  p.  293. 

'  Wright,  Three  chapters  Qic,  p.  107. 

*  Ibid.  p.  114;  Gasquet,  Henry  VIII  eic,  vol.  i,  p.  303. 


SECT,  i]  The  Dissolution  in  England.  445 

in  the  letters  forwarded  by  Cromwell's  agents  when  on  their  tours 
of  inspection,  and  in  their  '  comperts '  or  accounts  rendered.  The 
condensed  accounts  (comperta  compertorum)  rendered  by  Layton 
and  Legh  for  the  province  of  York  including  one  hundred  and 
twenty  monasteries  are  extant,  as  also  two  other  reports,  one  on 
twenty-four  houses  in  Norfolk,  another  on  ten\ 

It  has  been  remarked  that  the  evidence  collected  differs  accord- 
ing to  the  character  of  the  informers  ;  the  reports  of  Tregonwell 
for  example  are  by  no  means  so  full  of  scandal  as  those  of  Layton 
and  Legh.  Moreover  Layton  and  Legh  gave  a  specially  bad 
character  to  houses  in  the  north  where,  as  we  shall  see  later  on, 
both  the  people  and  the  gentry  were  in  favour  of  their  continuance. 
It  should  also  be  noted  that  the  state  of  the  lesser  houses  which 
fell  under  the  act  was  not  uniformly  worse  than  that  of  the 
larger.  Many  difficulties  of  course  stood  in  the  way  of  the  men 
who  collected  evidence.  They  were  received  with  suspicion  and 
hatred,  which  their  proceedings  were  not  likely  to  dissipate,  and 
they  naturally  lent  a  willing  ear  to  any  one  who  gave  information 
of  the  character  required.  It  has  been  shown  that  in  several 
instances  their  reports  were  directly  contradicted  by  those  made 
by  the  leading  men  in  the  different  counties,  who  after  the  passing 
of  the  act  were  appointed  to  make  a  new  and  exact  survey,  so  that, 
considering  the  evidence  forthcoming  from  both  sides,  it  seems 
reasonable  to  accept  that  while  the  mode  of  life  within  convents 
no  longer  compared  favourably  with  the  mode  of  life  outside  them, 
their  standard  had  not  fallen  so  low,  as  to  render  these  institutions 
uniformly  despicable. 

An  example  of  how  the  visitors  were  received  is  afforded  by 
a  letter  from  Layton  to  Cromwell,  in  which  he  describes  how  after 
meeting  Legh  in  the  north  they  visited  Chicksand,  a  Gilbertine 
house  in  Bedfordshire^  The  nuns  here  at  first  refused  to  admit 
him,  and  when  he  forced  an  entrance  the  two  prioresses  would  not 
admit  the  accusations  made  against  two  of  their  nuns,  'nor  the 
parties  concerned,  nor  the  nuns,  only  one  old  beldame.'  He  tried 
intimidation  and  was  told  by  the  prioress  'that  they  were  bound 
by  their  religion  never  to  confess  the  secret  faults  done  among 
them  except  only  to  their  visitor  of  religion,  and  to  that  they  were 
sworn  every  one  of  them  at  their  first  admission.' 

A  similar  esprit  de  corps  was  manifested  by  a  house  of  Gilber- 

1  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers  etc.,  vol.  lo,  nr  364. 
'  Wright,  Three  chapters  eXc,  p.  91. 


44^  The  Dissolution  hi  England.  [chap,  xii 

tine  canons*.  Layton  in  the  same  letter  gives  a  bad  character 
to  the  nunnery  of  Harwold,  in  Bedfordshire,  which  was  inhabited 
by  Austin  canonesses',  and  the  inmates  of  which  had  been  foolish 
enough  to  sign  a  Latin  document  in  favour  of  Lord  Mordaunt 
without  knowing  what  it  contained. 

The  accusations  brought  by  the  visitors  can  be  summarised 
under  two  headings,  superstitions  and  scandalous  living.  The 
accounts  of  superstitions  are  full  of  most  interesting  particulars 
for  the  student  of  art  and  of  folklore ;  the  properties  which  were 
attached  to  relics,  the  character  of  the  images  and  paintings  which 
were  held  in  reverence,  and  the  construction  of  saint-images,  will 
amply  repay  study^  The  instances  of  scandalous  living  recorded 
are  numerous  and  affect  alike  the  inmates  of  men's  and  of  women's 
houses.  Coloured  as  they  may  be  to  suit  the  temper  of  inquisitor 
and  informer,  there  is  no  denying  that  they  point  to  an  advanced 
state  of  monastic  decay. 

It  has  been  estimated  that  the  lesser  houses  including  those 
of  monks  and  nuns  which  fell  under  the  act  numbered  about  three 
hundred  and  eighty  ;  they  were  to  surrender  to  the  crown  within  a 
year.  Of  these  the  women's  houses,  owing  to  their  comparative 
poverty,  were  relatively  more  numerous  than  those  of  the  men.  Out 
of  about  one  hundred  and  thirty  nunneries  which  existed  at  this 
period  only  fifteen  were  exempt  through  having  a  yearly  income 
exceeding  ;{^200,  but  in  addition  to  these  over  twenty  by  some 
means  or  other  secured  a  reprieve. 

As  the  act  abolishing  the  lesser  houses  was  based  on  the 
assumption  of  their  corruption,  the  heads  of  some  of  the  houses 
which  bore  a  good  character  asked  leave  on  this  ground  to  remain. 
Among  those  who  wrote  to  Cromwell  in  this  sense  was  Jane 
Messyndyne,  prioress  of  a  convent  of  about  ten  nuns  at  Legbourne 
in  Leicestershire,  who  pleaded  that  no  fault  had  been  found  with 
her  house*.  '  And  whereas,'  she  wrote,  '  we  do  hear  that  a  great 
number  of  abbeys  shall  be  punished,  suppressed  and  put  down 
because  of  their  misliving,  and  that  all  abbeys  and  priories  under 

'  Ellis,  H.,  Original  Letters,  Series  3,  vol.  3,  p.  38. 

2  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Harwold,'  vol.  6,  p.  330. 

3  Ellis,  H.,  Original  Letters,  speaks  of  the  image  of  Our  Lady  of  Caversham  which 
was  plated  all  over  with  silver,  Series  i,  vol.  2,  p.  79  ;  of  that  of  St  Mod  wen  of  Burton 
on  Trent  with  her  red  cowl  and  staff,  Series  3,  vol.  3,  p.  104;  of  the  'huge  and  great 
image'  of  Darvellgathem  held  in  great  veneration  in  Wales,  Series  i,  vol.  2,  p.  82; 
and  of  others,  which  were  brought  to  London  and  burnt. 

*  Wright,  Three  chapters  etc.,  p.  116. 


SECT,  i]  Tlie  Dissolution  in  England.  447 

the  value  of  £200  be  at  our  most  noble  prince's  pleasure  to  sup- 
press and  put  down,  yet  if  it  may  please  your  goodness  we  trust  in 
God  you  shall  hear  no  complaints  against  us  neither  in  our  living 
nor  hospitality  keeping.'  But  petitions  such  as  hers  apparently 
passed  unheeded,  for  in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year  (Sept.  1536), 
the  process  of  dissolution  was  going  on  at  her  housed 

There  seems  no  doubt  that  in  many  cases  where  the  lesser 
houses  were  allowed  to  remain  bribery  was  resorted  to,  perhaps 
backed  by  the  intervention  of  friends.  Payments  into  the  Royal 
Exchequer  were  made  by  a  large  proportion  of  the  lesser  houses 
which  continued  unmolested,  and  among  them  were  a  number  of 
nunneries  which  paid  sums  ranging  from  ;^20  to  ;^400*.  Among 
these  was  Brusyard  in  Bedfordshire,  a  small  settlement  of  nuns  of 
the  order  of  St  Clare,  the  abbess  of  which  wrote  to  Cromwell 
seeking  his  intervention';  she  ultimately  secured  a  reprieve  and 
paid  the  sum  of  ;^20*.  Alice  Fitzherbert,  abbess  of  the  nunnery 
of  Polesworth  in  Warwickshire,  to  which  an  exceptionally  good 
character  was  given,  bought  a  reprieve  for  ;^50,  on  the  intervention 
it  is  said  of  friends*.  Again  the  abbess  of  Delapray,  who  is 
characterised  as  a  very  sickly  and  aged  woman,  secured  a  reprieve 
and  paid  £2^6.  The  agent  Tregonwell  had  reported  well  of  God- 
stow*.  Its  inmates  all  bore  a  good  character  excepting  one  who, 
some  thirteen  years  ago,  had  broken  her  vow  while  living  in 
another  convent,  had  been  transferred  to  Delapray  by  the  bishop 
of  Lincoln  and  had  since  lived  virtuously.  Margaret  Tewkesbury 
the  abbess  wrote  to  Cromwell  begging  him  to  accept  a  little  fee 
and  to  forward  the  letter  she  enclosed  to  the  king^  Her  convent 
was  allowed  to  remain. 

The  attempt  of  the  prioress  of  Catesby  to  save  her  house 
in  a  similar  manner  was  fruitless.  The  house  bore  an  excellent 
character  according  to  Tregonwell^  and  his  opinion  was  confirmed 
by  the  commissioners  who  came  down  later  (May,  1536)  to  take 
an  exact  survey.  '  We  found  the  house,'  they  wrote  to  Cromwell', 
'in  very  perfect  order,  the  prioress  a  wise,  discreet,  and  religious 


*  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII  tic,  vol,  i,  p.  47.  '  Ibid.  Appendix  i. 
'  Gairdner,  J„  Letters  and  Papers  etc.,  vol.  9,  nr  1094. 

*  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  F///etc.,  vol.  2,  App.  i. 
"  Wright,  Three  chapters  etc.,  p.  139. 

*  Ellis,  H.,  Orig.  Letters,  Series  3,  vol.  3,  p.  37. 

'  Ibid.  p.  116.  *  Ibid.  p.  39. 

'  Wright,  Three  chapters  tX-c,  p.  129. 


448  The  Dissolutio7i  in  England.  [chap,  xii 

woman  with  nine  devout  nuns  under  her  as  good  as  we  have  seen. 
The  house  stands  where  it  is  a  relief  to  the  poor,  as  we  hear  by 
divers  trustworthy  reports.  If  any  rehgious  house  is  to  stand, 
none  is  more  meet  for  the  king's  charity  than  Catesby.  We  have 
not  found  any  such  elsewhere,...'  But  the  recommendation  was 
insufficient  and  Joyce  Bykeley,  *  late  prioress,'  addressed  herself 
directly  to  Cromwell. — '  Dr  Gwent  informed  you  last  night,'  she 
wrote\  'that  the  queen  had  moved  the  king  for  me  and  offered 
him  20CX)  marks  for  the  house  at  Catesby,  but  has  not  yet  a  perfect 
answer.  I  beg  you,  in  my  great  sorrow,  get  the  king  to  grant  that 
the  house  may  stand  and  get  me  years  of  payment  for  the  2000 
marks.  You  shall  have  100  marks  of  me  to  buy  you  a  gelding 
and  my  prayers  during  my  life  and  all  my  sisters  during  their 
lives.  I  hope  you  have  not  forgotten  the  report  the  commissioners 
sent  of  me  and  my  sisters....'  But  her  letter  was  of  no  avail. 
Somehow  she  had  incurred  the  king's  displeasure^  and  the  order 
to  dissolve  her  convent  was  not  countermanded. 

The  sums  paid  by  some  nunneries  appear  enormous  compared 
with  their  yearly  income.  Thus  the  convent  of  Pollesloe,  with  a 
yearly  income  of  £\6^,  paid  the  sum  of  £ii^oo  into  the  Royal 
Exchequer ;  Laycock,  with  an  income  of  ;^i68,  paid  ;^300,  and  the 
nuns  of  St  Mary  at  Chester,  with  an  income  of  £66,  paid  £,160  \ 
other  sums  paid  are  given  by  Gasquetl 

Among  the  lesser  houses  reprieved  was  St  Mary's,  Winchester, 
one  of  the  nunneries  dating  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  period,  but 
which  in  course  of  time  had  decreased.  The  report  of  the  com- 
missioners who  came  down  to  take  stock  of  the  contents  of  the 
settlement  provides  us  with  many  interesting  particulars^.  The 
number  of  persons  residing  in  the  monastery  at  the  time  was  over 
a  hundred.  The  abbess  Elizabeth  Shelley  presided  over  a  convent 
of  twenty-six  nuns,  twenty-two  of  whom  were  professed  and  four 
novices.  The  nuns  are  designated  m  this  report  by  the  old  term 
'  mynchyns.'  With  the  exception  of  one  who  desired  '  capacity,' 
that  is  liberty  to  return  to  the  world,  they  all  declared  their  in- 
tention of  going  into  other  houses.  Five  lay  sisters  also  dwelt 
there,  thirteen  women-servants  and  twenty-six  girls,  some  of  whom 
were  the  daughters  of  knights  receiving  their  education.     Of  the 

^  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers  etc.,  vol.  10,  nr  383  (1536). 

"^  Wright,  Three  chapters  eic, '^.  136. 

^  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII  etc.,  vol.  2,  App.  i. 

••  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  St  Mary's,'  vol.  2,  p.  451,  charter  nr  4. 


SECT,  i]  The  Dissolution  in  England.  449 

women-servants  one  belonged  to  the  abbess  who  lived  in  a  house 
of  her  own  with  her  gentlewoman  ;  the  prioress,  sub-prioress, 
sexton,  and  perhaps  one  other  nun,  lived  in  separate  houses  and 
each  had  her  servant.  There  were  also  a  number  of  priests  and 
other  men  designated  as  officers  of  the  household.  Among  them 
was  a  general  receiver  and  his  servant,  a  clerk  and  his  servant, 
a  gardener  (curtyar),  a  caterer,  a  bottler  (botyler .?),  a  cook,  an 
undercook,  a  baker,  a  convent  cook,  an  under  convent  cook,  a 
brewer,  a  miller,  several  porters  and  'children  of  the  high  altar,' 
and  two  men  enjoying  corrodies,  that  is  free  quarters  and  means 
of  subsistence.  The  yearly  income  of  this  vast  establishment  was 
assessed  at  £\T%  and  the  house  therefore  came  under  the  act. 
But  the  abbess,  Elizabeth  Shelley,  who  is  described  as  a  person 
of  spirit  and  talent,  found  means  to  avert  the  storm.  The  sum 
of  ^333  was  paid  by  her  into  the  Royal  Exchequer^  and  (in 
August  1536)  letters  patent  were  obtained  by  which  the  abbey 
was  refounded  with  all  its  property  excepting  some  valuable 
manors^ 

Other  convents  which  at  the  same  time  secured  a  licence  to 
remain'  were  the  Benedictine  convent  of  Chatteris  with  Anne  Seton* 
as  prioress  ;  the  Austin  convent  of  Gracedieu  in  Leicestershire  ;  the 
convent  of  the  order  of  St  Clare  of  Dennis  ;  also  the  nuns  of  St  An- 
drew's, Marricks  in  Yorkshire  under  Christabel  Cooper,  and  of  St 
Mary's,  Heyninges,  in  Lincolnshire  under  Joan  Sandford*.  No 
payment  is  recorded  in  connection  with  any  of  these  houses  so  far 
as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain. 

Among  the  reprieves  that  of  the  Austin  nuns  or  White  Ladies 
at  Gracedieu  is  noteworthy,  as  the  report  of  Cromwell's  agents 
(Feb.  1536)  had  charged  two  of  its  inmates  with  incontinence,  and 
among  other  superstitions  countenanced  by  the  convent,  men- 
tioned their  holding  in  reverence  the  girdle  and  part  of  the  tunic 
of  St  Francis  which  were  supposed  to  help  women  in  their  confine- 
ment*. But  the  special  commissioners  a  few  months  later  spoke 
of  the  prioress  Agnes  Litherland  and  her  convent  of  fifteen  nuns 
in  the  highest  terms,  describing  them  as  of  good  and  virtuous  con- 


'  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII  eic,  vol.  2,  App.  i. 

-  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers  etc.  vol.  11,  nr  385  (20). 

=*  Ibid.  (22,  23,  35). 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Chatteris,'  vol.  a,  p.  614,  calls  her  'Anne  Gayton.' 
"  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers,  vol.  11,  nr  519  (11);  nr  1217  (26). 

*  Ibid.  vol.  10,  nr  364. 

E.  29 


450  The  Dissolution  in  England.  [chap,  xii 

versation  and  living,  and  saying  that  all  of  them  desired  their 
house  to  remain*. 

The  convent  of  Dennis,  which  secured  a  licence  at  the  same 
time,  was  one  of  the  few  settlements  of  nuns  of  St  Clare,  the  abbess 
of  which,  Elizabeth  Throgmerton,  was  renowned  for  her  liberal 
sympathies.  In  1528  a  wealthy  London  merchant  was  imprisoned 
for  distributing  Tyndale's  books  and  other  practices  of  the  sort, 
and  he  pleaded  among  other  reasons  for  exculpation  that,  the 
abbess  of  Dennis  wishing  to  borrow  Tyndale's  Enchiridion^  he  had 
lent  it  to  her  and  had  spent  much  money  on  restoring  her  house*. 
Legh  in  a  letter  to  Cromwell*  described  how  on  visiting  Dennis 
he  was  met  by  the  weeping  nuns,  who  were  all  ready  to  return  to 
the  world,  a  statement  in  direct  contradiction  to  the  fact  that  the 
house  was  not  dissolved. 

The  work  of  dissolution  began  in  April  1536  and  continued 
without  interruption  throughout  the  summer.  Gasquet  holds  that 
the  women  suffered  more  than  the  men  by  being  turned  adrift^ 
*  Many  things  combined  to  render  the  dissolution  of  conventual 
establishments  and  the  disbanding  of  the  religious  more  terrible 
to  nuns  than  to  monks.  A  woman  compelled  to  exchange  the 
.secluded  life  of  a  cloister  with  all  its  aids  to  piety  for  an  existence 
in  the  world,  to  which  she  could  never  rightly  belong,  would  be 
obviously  in  a  more  dangerous  and  undesirable  position  than 
a  man.' 

By  a  provision  of  the  act  those  who  were  professed  were  to 
receive  pensions,  but  the  number  of  inmates  of  the  lesser  houses 
to  whom  they  were  granted  was  comparatively  small*.  Moreover 
pensions  were  not  apportioned  with  regard  to  the  needs  of  sub- 
sistence, but  to  the  wealth  of  the  house,  so  that  even  those  who 
received  them  were  in  a  great  measure  thrown  on  their  own  re- 
sources. The  number  of  professed  nuns,  as  is  apparent  from  the 
accounts  given  of  St  Mary's,  Winchester,  and  other  houses,  was 
relatively  small  compared  with  the  number  of  servants  and 
dependents.  These  in  some  cases  received  a  small  'award'  but 
were  thrown  out  of  employment,  while  the  recipients  of  alms 
from  the  house  were  likewise  deprived  of  their  means  of  living, 

'  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII  etc.,  vol.  2,  p.   206;  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers 
etc.,  vol.  10,  Preface,  p.  46. 

2  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Dennis,'  vol.  6,  p.  1549. 

3  Ellis,  H.,  Orig.  Letters,  Series  3,  vol.  3,  p.  117. 

*  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII  etc.,  vol.  2,  p.  203.  ■'"'  Ibid.  vol.  2,  pp.  449  ff. 


SECT,  i]  The  Dissolution  in  England.  451 

and  went  to  swell  the  ranks  of  those  who  were  dissatisfied  with 
the  innovation.  While  the  process  of  dissolution  was  going  on 
(July  1536)  Chapuys  the  French  ambassador  wrote  as  follows': 
'It  is  a  lamentable  thing  to  see  a  legion  of  monks  and  nuns  who 
have  been  chased  from  their  monasteries  wandering  miserably 
hither  and  thither  seeking  means  to  live ;  and  several  honest  men 
have  told  me  that  what  with  monks,  nuns,  and  persons  dependent 
on  the  monasteries  suppressed,  there  were  over  20,000  who  knew 
not  how  to  live.'  His  estimate  may  have  reference  to  the  ultimate 
effect  of  the  act*.  The  immediate  results  of  the  suppression  were, 
however,  disastrous  throughout  the  country,  and  the  dissatis- 
faction which  the  suppression  caused  went  far  to  rouse  the  latent 
discontent  of  the  northern  provinces  into  open  rebellion. 

It  was  in  Lincolnshire,  in  October,  that  the  commissioners  first 
met  with  opposition.  From  here  a  rising  spread  northwards  to 
Scotland,  and  under  the  name  of  the  *  Pilgrimage  of  Grace '  drew 
votaries  from  the  lay  and  religious  classes  alike.  The  insurgents 
claimed  among  other  things  that  the  innovations  in  religion  should 
be  disowned,  and  that  despoiled  monasteries  should  be  restored. 
They  pursued  the  visitors  Layton  and  Legh  with  unrelenting 
hatred  on  account  of  their  extortions ;  Legh  was  in  danger  of  his 
life  and  barely  escaped  their  fury^  The  rising  assumed  such 
proportions  that  the  king  was  seriously  alarmed  ;  an  army  was 
sent  to  the  north,  strenuous  efforts  were  made  to  win  over 
the  powerful  northern  barons,  and  concessions  were  made  and 
rescinded  with  much  shameful  double-dealing.  Beyond  the  effect 
it  had  on  religious  houses,  the  story  of  the  rebellion,  on  which 
a  new  light  has  recently  been  thrown  by  the  publication  of  letters 
which  passed  at  the  time^,  does  not  concern  us  here.  Wherever 
the  insurgents  spread  they  seized  on  despoiled  monasteries  and 
reinstated  their  superiors  and  inmates;  among  other  houses  the 
nunnery  of  Seton  in  Cumberland  was  restored  for  a  time*.  But 
in  proportion  as  the  king  regained  his  authority,  terrible  bloodshed 
followed  ;  the  representatives  of  the  chief  families  and  the  abbots 
who  had  joined  in  the  rising  were  hanged,  burnt,  or  beheaded, 
and  their  property  confiscated  by  attainder.     Cromwell,  who  was 

^  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers  etc.,  vol.  1 1,  nr  43. 

■^  Ibid.  vol.  II,  Preface,  p.  12. 

'  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII tic.,  vol.  »,  pp.  84 ff. 

*  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers  etc.,  vols.  11,  n. 

*  Dugdale,  Monasticon,  '  Seton,'  vol.  4,  p.  n6. 

29 — 2 


452  The  Dissolution  in  England.  [chap,  xii 

still  on  the  high  road  to  prosperity,  availed  himself  of  the  rebellion 
to  institute  a  general  suppression,  which  was  speedily  and  sum- 
marily carried  into  effect.  In  the  autumn  of  1537,  the  fear  of 
systematic  revolt  being  quelled,  the  suppression  began  and  ex- 
tended over  the  whole  of  1538  and  1539.  No  further  evidence 
was  collected,  no  act  was  passed  till  April  1539,  when  a  provision 
was  made  by  which  all  monasteries  which  were  dissolved  or  sur- 
rendered fell  to  the  king\  The  commissioners  came  down  on 
each  house  in  succession,  beginning  with  the  less  wealthy  and 
influential  ones,  and  used  every  means  to  secure  a  free  surrender. 
Even  then  a  certain  reticence  in  the  proceedings  was  observed 
which  went  far  to  blind  contemporaries  to  the  vastness  of  the 
ultimate  object  in  view,  for  every  effort  was  made  to  keep  up  the 
fiction  that  Henry  was  doing  no  more  than  correcting  abuses 
and  accepting  free  surrenders.  But  the  study  of  documents  proves 
things  to  have  been  otherwise.  The  promise  of  a  pension  was 
held  out  on  condition  of  a  voluntary  surrender,  but  where  hesi- 
tation was  shown  in  accepting,  the  effect  of  threats  of  deprivation 
was  tried.  The  visitor  Bedyll  wrote  that  he  advised  the  monks 
of  Charterhouse  rather  to  '  surrender  than  abide  the  extremity 
of  the  king's  lawV  and  many  of  the  forms  of  surrender  which  are 
extant  remain  unsigned.  On  others  the  name  of  the  superior  is 
the  only  signature,  on  others  again  the  names  of  the  superior  and 
the  members  of  the  convent  are  entered  in  the  same  hand.  Con- 
sidering the  helpless  position  in  which  religious  houses  were  placed, 
it  seems  a  matter  for  wonder  that  any  opposition  was  made. 

It  is  interesting  to  find  that  as  late  as  (Jan.)  1538,  two  years 
after  the  passing  of  the  first  bill,  the  heads  of  houses  were  asked 
to  believe  that  there  was  no  wish  for  a  general  suppression^, 
and  that  a  grant  of  continuance  was  made  (May  1538)  to  the 
nunneries  of  Kirkless  and  Nunappleton  in  Yorkshire^  In  York- 
shire there  was  a  strong  feeling  in  favour  of  nunneries, — '  in  which 
our  daughters  (are)  brought  up  in  virtue,'  as  Aske,  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  rebellion,  put  it',  and  owing  doubtless  to  the  oppo- 
sition made  by  the  rebels,  a  number  of  lesser  nunneries  in  the 
north  which  came   under   the   act   escaped   dissolution.     Among 

^  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII  etc.,  vol.  2,  p.  340. 

^  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers  etc.,  vol.  12,  pt  2,  nr  27. 

^  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  F///etc.,  vol.  2,  p.  279. 

*  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers  etc.,  vol.  13,  pt  i,  nr  in?  (19).  nr  1519  (44). 

"  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII  etc.,  vol.  2,  p.  222. 


SECT,  i]  The  Dissolution  in  England.  453 

them  besides  Kirkless  and  Nunappleton  were  Swine  and  Nun- 
Kelyng;  there  is  no  evidence  that  they  secured  a  licence  at  the 
time.  The  fact  that  Kirkless  remained  and  gained  a  reprieve 
in  1538  is  the  more  noticeable  as  the  commissioners  had  in  the 
first  instance  reported  unfavourably  on  the  state  of  the  house\ 

In  February  1538  a  courtier  wrote  to  Lord  Lisle^  'the  abbeys 
go  down  as  fast  as  they  may  and  are  surrendered  to  the  king,* 
adding  the  pious  wish :  *  I  pray  God  send  you  one  among  them 
to  your  part.'  For  the  property  of  religious  houses  which  were 
appropriated  to  the  king  was  now  frequently  granted  to  courtiers, 
or  to  those  who  were  quick  enough  to  avail  themselves  of  their 
opportunities  in  the  general  scramble. 

Several  of  the  agents  who  had  previously  conducted  visitations 
were  among  those  who  carried  on  the  work  of  the  dissolution. 
Among  them  London  (-f-  1543)  has  been  characterised  as  'the 
most  terrible  of  all  the  monastic  spoilers';  his  letters  remain  to 
show  in  what  spirit  he  stripped  the  houses  of  their  property,  seized 
relics  and  defaced  and  destroyed  everything  he  could  lay  hands 
on^  There  is  a  letter  extant  which  Katherine  Bulkeley,  abbess 
of  Godstow,  wrote  to  Cromwell  complaining  of  him*.  He  came 
down  to  her  house  (Nov.  1537),  ostensibly  to  hold  a  visitation, 
but  really  bent  on  securing  a  surrender. 

'  ...  Dr  London,  which  as  your  lordship  does  well  know  was 
against  my  promotion  and  has  ever  since  borne  me  great  malice 
and  grudge  like  my  mortal  enemy,  is  suddenly  come  unto  me 
with  a  great  rout  with  him  and  here  does  threaten  me  and  my 
sisters  saying  that  he  has  the  king's  commission  to  suppress  my 
house  in  spite  of  my  teeth.  And  when  he  saw  that  I  was  content 
that  he  should  do  all  things  according  to  his  commission  and 
showed  him  plain  that  I  would  never  surrender  to  his  hand  being 
my  ancient  enemy,  now  he  begins  to  entreat  me  and  to  inveigle 
my  sisters  one  by  one  otherwise  than  I  ever  heard  tell  that  any 
of  the  king's  subjects  have  been  handled,  and  here  tarries  and 
continues  to  my  great  cost  and  charge,  and  will  not  take  my 
answer  that  I  will  not  surrender  till  I  know  the  king's  gracious 
commandment  and  your  lordship's...'  and  more  to  the  same 
purpose. 

^  Gairdner,  J.,  Letters  and  Papers  etc.,  vol.  lo,  nr  364. 

^  Ibid.  vol.  13,  pt  I,  nr  235. 

"  Ellis,  H.,  Orig.  Letters,  Series  3,  vol.  3. 

*  Wright,  Three  chapters  etc.,  p.  219. 


454  '^^  Dissolution  in  England.  [chap,  xii 

London  on  the  following  day  wrote  to  Cromwell^  asking  that 
the  '  mynchyns '  or  nuns  of  her  house,  many  of  whom  were  aged 
and  without  friends,  should  be  generously  dealt  with  (in  the  matter 
of  a  pension).  Stories  were  current*^  at  the  time  about  insults 
to  which  the  nuns  were  exposed  by  the  agents.  Although  it  seems 
probable  that  there  was  no  excessive  delicacy  used  in  their  treat- 
ment, no  direct  complaints  except  those  of  the  abbess  of  Godstow 
have  been  preserved. 

The  last  pages  of  the  history  of  several  of  the  great  abbeys 
are  full  of  traits  of  heroism  ;  one  cannot  read  without  sympathy 
of  the  way  in  which  for  example  the  abbot  of  Glastonbury  iden- 
tified himself  with  the  system  to  which  he  belonged,  and  perished 
with  it  rather  than  be  divided  from  it.  The  staunch  faith  of 
the  friars  no  less  commands  respect.  The  heads  of  women's 
houses  naturally  made  less  opposition.  However  Florence  Ban- 
nerman,  abbess  of  Amesbury,  refused  every  attempt  to  bribe  or 
force  her  into  a  surrender.  After  considerable  delay  she  was  de- 
posed in  December  1539,  and  was  succeeded  by  Joan  Darrell  who 
surrendered  the  house  at  the  king's  bidding'*,  and  accepted  the 
comparatively  high  pension  of  ;^ioo. 

To  some  of  the  heads  of  houses  it  seemed  incredible  that  the 
old  system  was  passing  away  for  ever,  and  they  surrendered  in 
the  belief  that  their  deprivation  was  only  temporary.  Elizabeth 
Shelley,  abbess  of  St  Mary's,  Winchester,  who  in  1535  had  saved 
her  house,  accepted  the  surrender  but  continued  to  dwell  at  Win- 
chester with  a  number  of  her  nuns,  and  when  she  died  bequeathed 
a  silver  chalice  which  she  had  saved  to  the  college  in  the  city 
on  condition  that  it  should  be  given  back  to  St  Mary's  if  the 
convent  were  restored^  The  fact  that  she  succeeded  in  carrying 
away  a  chalice  appears  exceptional,  for  the  inmates  of  convents 
who  were  expelled  seem  as  a  rule  to  have  taken  with  them  nothing 
except  perhaps  their  books  of  devotion. 

The  story  of  the  dissolution  repeats  itself  in  every  convent. 
The  inventory  of  the  house  having  been  taken,  the  lead  was  torn 
from  the  roofs,  and  sold  together  with  the  bells  ;  the  relics  and 
pictures  were  packed  in  sacks  and  sent  up  to  London  to  be  burnt. 

*  Wright,  Three  chapters  etc.,  p.  227. 

'  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII  etc.,  vol.  2,  p.  225. 
»  Ibid.  456. 

*  Dugdale,  Monasiicon,  'St  Mary's,'  vol.  2,  p.  451;  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII tic, 
vol.  2,  p.  476. 


SECT,  i]  Th4i  Dissolution  in  England.  455 


The  plate  and  jewels  of  the  house,  the  amount  of  which  was 
considerable  in  the  houses  of  men  and  in  some  of  women  (for 
example  in  Barking)  were  also  forwarded  to  London  to  be  broken 
up  and  melted ;  in  a  few  instances  they  were  sold.  The  house's 
property  in  furniture,  utensils  and  vestments  was  sold  there  and 
then.  The  superiors  and  convent  inmates  were  then  turned  away, 
and  the  buildings  that  had  so  long  been  held  in  reverence  were 
either  devoted  to  some  profane  use  or  else  left  to  decay. 

The  inventory  taken  at  the  dissolution  of  the  ancient  Bene- 
dictine nunnery  of  Wherwell  in  Hampshire  has  been  preserved 
among  others,  and  shows  how  such  a  house  was  dealt  with^ 
There  is  a  list  of  the  inmates  of  the  convent  and  of  the  pensions 
granted  to  them  ;  the  abbess  in  this  case  received  a  yearly  pension 
of  £\0,  and  her  nuns'  pensions  ranged  from  ^3.  6s.  %d.  to  £^6. 
We  then  get  a  list  of  the  dwellings  of  which  the  settlement  was 
composed.  The  houses  and  buildings  '  assigned  to  remain '  were 
as  follows :  '  the  abbess'  lodging  with  the  houses  within  the  quad- 
rant, as  the  water  leads  from  the  east  side  of  the  cloister  to  the 
gate,  the  farmery,  the  mill  and  millhouse  with  the  slaughter-house 
adjoining,  the  brewing  and  baking  houses  with  the  granaries  to 
the  same,  the  barn  and  stables  in  the  outer  court'  The  list  of 
dwellings  '  deemed  to  be  superfluous '  follows.  '  The  church, 
choir,  and  steeple  covered  with  lead,  the  cloister  covered  with 
tiles  and  certain  gutters  of  lead,  the  chapter  house,  the  refectory 
(ffrayter),  the  dormitory,  the  convent  kitchen  and  all  the  old 
lodgings  between  the  granary  and  the  hall  door  covered  with 
tiles.'  Then  follow  accounts  of  the  lead  and  bells  remaining,  of 
the  jewels,  plate  and  silver  'reserved  for  the  king's  use,'  and  of 
the  ornaments,  goods  and  chattels  which  were  sold.  We  further 
gather  that  the  debts  of  the  house  were  paid  and  that  rewards 
and  wages  were  given  to  the  chaplain,  officers  and  servants  before 
they  were  turned  away. 

As  mentioned  above  the  pensions  given  differed  greatly,  and 
the  heads  of  wealthy  houses  were  allowed  considerable  sums.  Thus 
Elizabeth  Souche,  abbess  of  Shaftesbury,  the  yearly  income  of 
which  house  was  taxed  at  ;^ii66,  received  ^^133  a  year  and  all 
her  nuns  to  the  number  of  fifty-five  were  pensioned.  Dorothy 
Barley,  abbess  of  Barking,  a  house  taxed  at  ;^862,  received  a 
yearly  pension  of  £\Zl\   while  Elizabeth  Shelley,  abbess  of  St 

*  Dugdale,  Monastkon,  '  Wherwell,'  vol.  a,  p.  634. 


456  The  Dissolution  in  England.  [chap,  xii 

Mary's,  Winchester,  received  only  £26  2i  year.  The  prioress  of 
St  Andrew's,  Marricks,  a  small  house,  received  £^  annually,  and 
her  nuns  a  pension  of  from  twenty  to  forty  shillings  each.  Gasquet 
points  out  that  a  large  number  of  those  who  were  pensioned  died 
during  the  first  few  years  after  the  surrender^  Probably  many 
of  them  were  old,  but  there  is  extant  a  pension  roll  of  the  year 
1553  (rcign  of  Philip  and  Mary)  from  which  can  be  gathered  that 
a  certain  number  of  pensioned  monks  and  nuns  were  then  alive 
and  continued  to  draw  their  pensions.  Gasquet  further  remarks 
that  only  a  few  of  the  nuns  who  were  turned  away  are  known 
to  have  married^;  considering  that  hardly  any  are  known  to  have 
left  their  convents  voluntarily,  and  that  many  of  the  younger  ones 
were  turned  away  through  the  act  of  1535,  this  seems  only 
natural. 

Eye-witnesses  as  well  as  Cromwell's  agents  have  left  de- 
scriptions which  give  a  striking  picture  of  the  brutality  of  the 
proceedings^  But  the  hardships  to  which  the  convent  inmates 
were  exposed,  the  terrible  waste  of  their  property,  and  the  sense- 
less destruction  of  priceless  art  treasures,  must  not  blind  us  to 
the  fact  that  the  breaking  up  of  the  monastic  system  was  but 
an  incident  in  one  of  the  most  momentous  revolutions  within 
historic  record.  The  dissolution  of  the  monasteries  at  the  time 
of  the  Reformation,  to  be  rightly  estimated,  must  be  considered 
as  part  of  a  wider  change  which  was  remoulding  society  on  an 
altered  basis. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  view  taken  of  monastic  life  at 
the  time  of  the  dissolution  with  the  attitude  taken  towards  convents 
in  the  following  period.  Some  writings,  as  for  example  Lindesay 
in  the  play  of  the  Three  Estates,  acted  in  the  North  in  1535*, 
severely  censure  the  inclinations  which  are  fostered  in  the  convent. 

But  strong  as  the  feeling  against  convents  and  their  inmates 
was  in  some  instances  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  when 
the  system  was  once  removed  little  antagonism  remained  towards 
those  who  had  represented  it.  The  thought  of  the  nun,  fifty 
years  after  she  had  passed  away  in  England,  roused  no  acrimony. 
Shakspere   had    no    prejudice    against    her,  and    Milton   was   so 

^  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII  tic,  vol.  1,  p.  481. 
'■'  Ibid.  p.  479. 

*  Ellis,  H.,  Oris^.  Letters,  Series  3,  vol.  3,  p.  34,  gives  an  interesting  account. 

*  Lindesay,  Atie  Satyre  of  the  thrie  Estaiis,  edit,  by  Hall  for  the  Early  Engl.  Text 
Soc,  1869,  pp.  420  if. 


SECT,  i]  The  Dissolution  in  Efigland.  457 


far  impressed  in  her  favour  that  he  represented  '  Melancholy ' 
under  the  form  of  a  '  pensive  nun,  devout  and  pure, — Sober,  stead- 
fast and  demure.'  It  was  only  at  a  much  later  period  that  the 
agitation  raised  by  the  fear  of  returning  '  Popery '  caused  men 
to  rake  up  scandals  connected  with  convents  and  to  make  bugbears 
out  of  them. 

The  losses  incurred  by  the  destruction  of  the  convents  were 
not  however  slow  in  making  themselves  felt ;  but  as  indifference 
towards  women's  intellectual  interests  had  made  part  of  the  move- 
ment, a  considerable  time  went  by  before  the  loss  of  the  educational 
possibilities  which  the  convent  had  secured  to  women  was  de- 
plored. '  In  the  convents,'  says  Gasquet\  'the  female  portion  of 
the  population  found  their  only  teachers,  the  rich  as  well  as  the 
poor,  and  the  destruction  of  these  religious  houses  by  Henry  was 
the  absolute  extinction  of  any  systematic  education  for  women 
during  a  long  period.'  While  devotion  to  domestic  duties,  ex- 
clusive of  all  other  interests,  continued  to  be  claimed  from  women, 
the  loss  of  their  schools  was  a  matter  of  indifference  to  society 
in  general.  But  in  proportion  as  shortcomings  in  women  were 
felt,  the  thought  arose  that  these  might  be  due  to  want  of  training. 
The  words  in  which  the  divine,  Fuller  (-f-  i66i),  expressed  such 
thoughts  in  the  17th  century  are  well  worth  recalling.  The  vow 
of  celibacy  in  his  eyes  remained  a  thing  of  evil,  but  short  of  this 
the  convents  had  not  been  wholly  bad. 

'  They  were  good  she  schools  wherein  the  girls  and  maids  of 
the  neighbourhood  were  taught  to  read  and  work  ;  and  sometimes 
a  little  Latin  was  taught  them  therein.  Yea,  give  me  leave 
to  say,  if  such  feminine  foundations  had  still  continued,  provided 
no  vow  were  obtruded  upon  them,  (virginity  is  least  kept  where 
it  is  most  constrained,)  haply  the  weaker  sex,  besides  the  avoiding 
modern  inconveniences,  might  be  heightened  to  a  higher  perfection 
than  hitherto  hath  been  attained'.* 

^  Gasquet,  A.,  Henry  VIII eX.c.,  vol.  2,  p.  211. 

»  Fuller,  Th.,  Church  History,  edit.  Brewer,  1845,  vol.  3,  p.  336. 


458  The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckheimer.    [chap,  xii 


§  2.     The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckheimer. 

A  memoir  is  extant  from  the  pen  of  the  abbess  of  a  convent 
at  Niirnberg.  It  was  written  (1524-28)  during  the  stormy  period 
following  upon  the  outbreak  of  the  Lutheran  agitation,  and  it 
helps  us  to  realize  the  effect  which  the  rupture  with  Rome  had 
on  a  convent  of  nuns.  Charitas  Pirckheimer,  the  author  of  this 
memoir,  was  the  sister  of  Wilibald  Pirckheimer  (-f  15  30),  a  well- 
known  humanist,  and  through  him  she  was  in  touch  with  some 
of  the  leading  representatives  of  learning  and  art  of  her  day.  She 
was  well  advanced  in  life  and  had  many  years  of  active  influence 
behind  her  when  the  troubles  began  of  which  she  has  left  a  graphic 
description. 

An  examination  of  the  contents  of  her  memoir  must  stand  as 
a  specimen  of  the  effects  which  the  Reformation  had  on  women's 
convent  life  on  the  Continent,  effects  which  varied  in  almost  every 
town  and  every  province.  For  the  breaking  up  of  the  monastic 
system  abroad  had  none  of  the  continuity  and  completeness  it  had 
in  England.  The  absence  of  centralised  temporal  and  spiritual 
authority  left  the  separate  townships  and  principalities  free  to 
accept  or  reject  the  change  of  faith  as  they  chose.  The  towns 
were  ruled  by  councils  on  which  the  decision  in  the  first  place 
depended,  and  in  the  principalities  the  change  depended  on  the 
attitude  of  prince  and  magnate,  so  that  the  succession  of  the  prince 
of  a  different  faith,  or  the  conquest  of  one  province  by  another, 
repeatedly  led  to  a  change  of  religion.  In  some  districts  the  first 
stormy  outbreak  was  followed  by  a  reaction  in  favour  of  Rome, 
and  convents  which  had  disbanded  were  restored  on  a  narrowed 
basis ;  in  others  the  monastic  system  which  had  received  a  severe 
shock  continued  prostrate  for  many  years.  But  even  in  those 
districts  where  the  change  of  faith  was  permanently  accepted,  its 
influence  on  conventual  establishments  was  so  varied  that  an 
account  of  the  way  in  which  it  put  an  end  to  nunneries  lies  beyond 
the  scope  of  this  work.  It  must  suffice  to  point  out  that  some 
convents,  chiefly  unreformed  ones,  disbanded  or  surrendered  under 
the  general  feeling  of  restlessness ;  and  that  others  were  attacked 
and  destroyed  during  the  atrocities  of  the  Peasants'  War.  The 
heads  of  others  again,  with  a  clearsightedness  one  cannot  but  admire, 
rejected  Romish  usages  and  beliefs  in  favour  of  the  Lutheran  faith, 
and  their  houses  have  continued  to  this  day  as  homes  for  unmar- 


SECT,  ii]       The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckheimer.         459 

ried  women  of  the  aristocracy.  Others  were  suffered  to  remain 
under  the  condition  that  no  new  members  should  be  admitted,  but 
that  the  old  ones  should  be  left  in  possession  of  their  house  till 
they  died.  To  this  latter  class  belonged  the  convent  of  St  Clara 
at  Nurnberg  which  we  are  about  to  discuss. 

The  convent  dated  its  existence  from  the  year  1279,  in  which 
several  nuns  from  Soflingen,  near  Ulm,  joined  a  number  of  religious 
women  who  were  living  together  at  Nurnberg,  and  prevailed  upon 
them  to  adopt  the  rule  of  St  Clara  and  place  themselves  under 
the  guardianship  of  the  Franciscan  friars  who  had  settled  in 
Nurnberg  in  1226'.  It  has  been  mentioned  above  that  the  nuns 
of  this  order,  usually  designated  as  Poor  Clares,  did  not  themselves 
manage  that  property  of  theirs  which  lay  outside  the  precincts  ; 
they  observed  strict  seclusion  and  were  chiefly  absorbed  by  devo- 
tional pursuits.  Under  the  influence  of  the  movement  of  monastic 
reform  described  in  a  previous  chapter,  Clara  Gundelfingen  (1450- 
1460),  abbess  of  the  house  at  Nurnberg,  had  greatly  improved  its 
discipline,  and  nuns  were  despatched  from  thence  to  convents  at 
Brixen,  Bamberg  and  other  places  to  effect  similar  changes.  There 
was  another  convent  of  nuns  at  Nurnberg  dedicated  to  St  Katherine 
which  was  under  the  supervision  of  the  Dominican  friars,  but  the 
convent  of  St  Clara  was  the  more  important  one  and  seems  to 
have  been  largely  recruited  from  members  of  wealthy  burgher 
families.  In  1476  it  secured  a  bull  from  the  Pope  by  which  its 
use  was  altogether  reserved  to  women  who  were  born  in  Nurn- 
berg. 

Charitas  Pirckheimer  came  to  live  in  the  house  (1478)  at  the 
age  of  twelve.  She  was  one  of  a  family  of  seven  sisters  and  one 
brother ;  all  the  sisters  entered  convents,  excepting  one  who 
married,  and  they  were  in  time  joined  by  three  of  the  five 
daughters  of  their  brother*.  These  facts  show  that  the  women 
of  most  cultivated  and  influential  families  still  felt  convent  life 
congenial.  The  Dominican  writer  Nider  (i*  1438),  speaking  of 
convent  life  in  the  districts  about  Nurnberg,  remarks  that  he  had 
nowhere  else  found  so  many  virtuous,  chaste  and  industrious 
virgins^  Of  the  members  of  the  Pirckheimer  family  who  became 
nuns,  Clara  ("f  1533)  joined  her  sister  Charitas  and  acted  as 
secretary  to  her  for  many  years  ;  her  letters  show  her  to  have 


'  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheimer,  1878,  pp.  i4ff.  *  Ibid.  pp.  67  ff. 

*  Nider,  Jos.,  Formuarius,  bk.  i,  ch.  4  (p.  8,  edit.  15 17). 


460         The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckkeimer .    [chap,  xii 

been  of  a  lively  and  sanguine  disposition*.  Walpurg,  another 
sister,  lived  as  a  nun  in  the  convent  of  St  Clara  at  Munich  ;  Katha- 
rina  became  prioress  at  Geisenfeld,  and  Sabina  and  Euphemia 
entered  the  ancient  Benedictine  settlement  of  Bergen  near 
Neuburg,  of  which  they  successively  became  abbesses.  Sabina 
(1521-29),  like  her  sister  Charitas,  was  a  great  admirer  of  Albrecht 
Durer,  whom  she  consulted  on  the  subject  of  illuminations  done 
at  her  housed  A  number  of  her  letters  remain  to  show 
that  she  held  opinions  of  her  own  on  some  points  of  doctrine 
and  watched  the  progress  of  affairs  at  Nurnberg  with  interests 
Her  sister  Euphemia  (1529-47),  who  succeeded  her,  experienced 
even  greater  hardships  than  Charitas,  for  when  Palgrave,  Otto 
Heinrich  of  Neuburg,  accepted  the  Protestant  faith  (1544),  she 
and  her  nuns  were  expelled  from  their  convent,  and  spent  several 
years  staying  first  at  one  place  then  at  another,  till  the  victory 
which  the  emperor  Karl  V  won  at  Miihlberg  (1547)  made  it 
possible  for  them  to  return  to  Bergen. 

Charitas  on  entering  the  house  at  Nurnberg  found  herself 
among  the  daughters  of  family  friends  and  relations.  She  con- 
tracted a  lasting  friendship  with  Apollonia  Tucher,  who  was  after- 
wards elected  to  the  office  of  prioress,  which  she  held  for  many 
years.  Apollonia  was  nearly  related  to  Anton  Tucher  (f  1524), 
one  of  the  wealthiest  and  most  influential  men  of  the  town,  and 
to  Sixtus  Tucher  (i*  1507),  a  learned  divine  who  was  made  provost 
of  the  church  of  St  Lorenz,  and  in  this  capacity  instructed  the 
nuns  of  St  Clara  and  provided  them  with  religious  literature. 
Scheurl  (f  1542),  a  nephew  of  Apollonia  and  a  distinguished 
jurist,  who  came  to  settle  at  Nurnberg,  greatly  admired  Charitas. 
We  shall  return  to  him  later  on. 

Felicitas  Grundherrin,  another  nun,  who  was  made  portress 
in  1503,  wrote  letters  to  her  father  which  throw  an  additional 
light  on  the  conduct  and  the  experiences  of  the  nuns  during 
the  period  of  religious  contention.  There  were  sixty  inmates 
at  that  time,  and  among  them  we  find  the  chief  families  of  the  town 
represented. 

We  are  not  informed  at  what  age  Charitas  made  profession. 

1  Muench,  E.,  Charitas  Pirkheitner,  ihre  Schwestern  und  Nichten,   1826,  contains 
some  of  Clara's  letters. 

2  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheitner.,  p.  67. 

*  '  Briefe  der  Aebtissin  Sabina,'  edit.  Lochner   in   Zeitschrift  fiir  hist.    Theologie, 
vol.  36,   1866. 


SECT,  ii]       The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckhehner.  46 1 

In  1494  she  was  joined  by  her  sister  Clara,  and  a  few  years  later, 
when  we  first  hear  of  her  and  her  sister  in  connection  with  their 
brother,  she  was  engaged  in  teaching  the  novices. 

The  career  of  Wilibald  Pirckheimer,  a  man  of  considerable 
literary  ability,  is  interesting,  as  it  forms  the  centre  of  the  intel- 
lectual and  artistic  life  of  Nurnberg,  which  at  that  time  was 
achieving  some  of  its  greatest  triumphs.  The  friend  of  Albrecht 
Durer  and  of  the  leading  humanists,  he  was  himself  full  of  en- 
thusiasm for  the  revived  interest  in  classic  culture,  and  filled  with 
that  liberal  appreciation  of  merit  regardless  of  origin  and  nation- 
ality which  is  one  of  the  attractive  traits  of  the  movement.  In 
compliance  with  the  taste  of  his  age  he  had  studied  in  Italy,  and 
shortly  after  his  return  to  Nurnberg,  on  the  occasion  of  their 
father's  death  (1501),  he  lent  his  sisters,  Charitas  and  Clara,  a  copy 
of  the  hymns  of  the  Christian  poet  Prudentius,  and  an  unnamed 
portion  of  Jerome's  works,  for  their  comfort  and  perusal  ;  Charitas 
thanked  him  for  the  loan  in  a  Latin  letter  in  which  we  get  our  first 
glimpse  of  her*.  She  says  that  she  has  been  interested  to  find 
among  the  hymns  some  which  are  habitually  sung  in  the  choir 
and  the  authorship  of  which  was  unknown  to  her,  and  she  begs 
she  may  keep  Jerome's  writings  for  some  time  longer,  as  they 
afford  her  so  much  delight.  She  refers  to  the  frequent  loans  of 
books  from  her  brother  and  assures  him  how  much  she  depends 
on  him  for  her  education,  begging  him  to  visit  and  further  instruct 
her.  She  has  some  knowledge  of  scripture,  she  says,  but  barely 
enough  to  instruct  the  novices. 

In  the  year  1487  Celtes  (f  1508),  a  celebrated  Latin  scholar 
and  poet,  was  crowned  poet  laureate  by  the  Emperor  Friedrich  III 
at  Nurnberg,  and  received  at  his  hands  the  doctor's  degree  and  a 
laurel  wreath.  Afterwards  he  travelled  about  in  Germany,  rousing 
interest  in  the  revival  of  classical  studies  wherever  he  went,  and 
encouraging  those  who  were  interested  in  learning  to  band 
together  in  societies  (sodalitates)  for  the  purpose  of  editing 
and  publishing  the  classics.  During  a  stay  at  a  monastery  in 
Regensburg  (1501)  he  had  come  across  the  forgotten  dramas  of 
the  nun  Hrotsvith.  They  seemed  to  him  so  worthy  of  attention 
that  he  had  them  published  at  Nurnberg  in  a  beautiful  illustrated 
edition.     We  do  not  know  if  he  was  previously  acquainted  with 

^  Pirckheimer,    B.,    Opera,    edit.     Goldast,     1610,    p.    345;    Binder,    F.,    Charitas 
Pirkheimer,  p.  52. 


462  TJie  Memoir  of  Char  it  as  Pirckheimer.    [chap,  xii 

Charitas ;  but  he  sent  her  a  copy  of  the  dramas,  and  she  wrote  a 
grateful  reply\  She  begins  by  deploring  the  news  she  has  heard 
that  Celtes  has  been  attacked  and  plundered  by  robbers.  '  A  few 
days  ago,'  she  writes,  '  I  received  the  interesting  writings  of  the 
learned  virgin  Hrotsvith,  sent  to  me  by  you  for  no  merits  of  my 
own,  for  which  I  express  and  owe  you  eternal  gratitude.  I  rejoice 
that  He  who  bestows  powers  of  mind  (largitor  ingenii)  and  grants 
wisdom  to  men  who  are  great  and  learned  in  the  law,  should  not  have 
denied  to  the  frail  and  humbler  sex  some  of  the  crumbs  from  the 
tables  of  wisdom.  In  this  learned  virgin  the  words  of  the  apostle 
are  verified  that  God  chooses  the  humble  to  confound  the  strong..,.' 
Celtes  was  charmed  by  this  letter,  and  was  inspired  to  compose 
a  Latin  ode^  in  praise  of  Charitas.  In  it  he  addressed  her  as  the 
crown  and  star  of  womanhood,  praised  her  for  her  knowledge  of 
Latin,  in  which  she  worthily  followed  in  the  steps  of  a  learned 
father  and  a  learned  brother,  and  enlarged  on  the  pleasure  her 
letter  had  brought.  With  the  ode  he  sent  a  copy  of  a  work  on  the 
city  of  Nurnberg  lately  published  by  him,  and  Charitas  in  reply 
sent  a  long  letter  which  is  most  instructive  in  regard  to  the  light  it 
throws  on  her  general  attitude  towards  humanist  culture*.  While 
delighted  by  the  gifts  and  the  attentions  of  so  distinguished  a  man 
as  Celtes,  she  felt  critical  towards  the  heathen  element  in  him, 
which  seemed  to  her  incompatible  with  the  claims  of  a  higher 
morality.  The  letter  is  too  long  to  reproduce  in  full,  but  the 
following  are  some  of  its  most  noteworthy  passages.  '  I  am  your 
unworthy  pupil,  but  a  great  admirer  of  yours  and  a  well-wisher  for 
your  salvation,  and  as  such  I  would  earnestly  and  with  all  my 
heart  entreat  you  not  indeed  to  give  up  the  pursuit  of  worldly 
wisdom,  but  to  put  it  to  higher  uses,  that  is  to  pass  from  heathen 
writings  to  holy  scripture,  from  what  is  earthly  to  what  is  divine, 
from  the  created  to  the  Creator... .Indeed  neither  knowledge  nor  any 
subject  of  investigation  which  is  from  God  is  to  be  contemned,  but 
mystic  theology  and  a  good  virtuous  life  must  be  ranked  highest. 
For  human  understanding  is  weak  and  may  fail  us,  but  true  faith 
and  a  good  conscience  never  can.  I  therefore  put  before  you^ 
most  learned  doctor,  when  you  have  enquired  into  all  under  the 
sun,  that  the  wisest  of  men  said,  Vanity  of  vanities... .In  the  same 

^  Pirckheimer,  Opera,  edit.  Goldast,  1610,  p.  341;  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheinier, 
p.  81. 

2  Pirckheimer,  Opera,  p.  343;  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheinier,  p.  84. 
*  Pirckheimer,  Opera,  p.  342;  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheinier,  p.  85. 


SECT,  ii]       The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckheimer.  463 

friendly  spirit  I  would  beg  you  to  give  up  celebrating  the  unseemly 
tales  of  Jupiter,  Venus,  Diana,  and  other  heathen  beings  whose 
souls  are  burning  in  Gehenna  and  who  are  condemned  by  right- 
minded  men  as  detestable  and  deserving  of  oblivion ;  make  the 
saints  of  God  your  friends  by  honouring  their  names  and  their 
memory,  that  they  may  guide  you  to  the  eternal  home  when  you 
leave  this  earth.' 

At  the  end  of  her  letter  she  begged  to  be  excused  writing  in 
this  strain  in  words  which  suggest  that  her  brother  had  urged  her 
to  speak  out  her  mind,  and  a  further  letter  of  hers  addressed  to 
Wilibald  says  that  she  is  forwarding  to  him  a  copy  of  her  letter 
to  Celtes\  She  begs  he  will  not  bring  him  to  the  grating  without 
sending  her  word  previously,  and  expresses  the  belief  that  Celtes 
will  not  take  umbrage. 

We  hear  no  more  of  their  intercourse,  Celtes  soon  afterwards 
left  Nurnberg,  and  when  Helena  Meichnerin,  abbess  of  the  convent, 
resigned  on  account  of  some  complaints  of  the  town  council, 
Charitas  was  chosen  abbess  (1503).  Her  acceptance  of  the  post 
was  made  conditional  by  the  Franciscan  friars  on  her  giving  up 
her  Latin  correspondence ^  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this 
prohibition  was  primarily  aimed  at  her  intercourse  with  men  like 
Celtes,  who  was  known  to  be  very  lax  in  his  morality,  and  whose 
sympathies  in  regard  to  learning  were  in  direct  opposition  to  the 
narrow  religious  views  of  the  friars.  Charitas  conformed,  but 
Wilibald's  anger  was  roused,  and  he  wrote  to  Celtes:  'You 
know  that  my  sister  Charitas  has  been  chosen  abbess.  Imagine, 
those  soft-footed  men  (^^uXottoSc?)  have  forbidden  her  to  write 
Latin  for  the  future.     Observe  their  caution,  not  to  say  roguery^' 

Charitas  apparently  wrote  no  more  Latin  letters,  but  her 
brother's  friends  continued  to  take  an  interest  in  her.  Wilibald 
had  a  sincere  regard  for  her  abilities  and  frequently  wrote  of  her 
to  his  friends.  Other  members  of  the  humanist  circle  sought 
her  out.  Scheurl,  the  young  jurist  mentioned  above,  sent  her 
from  Bologna  a  copy  of  his  '  Uses  of  the  mass '  (UtiHtates  missae) 
with  a  flattering  letter  which  was  presented  to  her  by  the  provost 
Tucher  (1506)*.  It  is  overflowing  with  youthful  enthusiasm,  and 
says  that  of  all  the  women  he  has  met  there  are  only  two  who 
are  distinguished  by  abilities  and  intellect,  knowledge  and  wealth, 

'  Pirckheimer,  Opera,  p.  344;  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheimer,  p.  87. 

*  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheimer,  p.  88.  ^  Ibid.  p.  220,  note  16. 

••  Pirckheimer,  Opera,  p.  340;  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheimer,  p.  89. 


464         The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckheimer.    [chap,  xii 

virtue  and  beauty,  and  are  comparable  to  the  daughters  of  Laelius 
and  Hortensius  and  to  Cornelia,  mother  of  the  Gracchi ;  the  one 
is  Cassandra  (Fedele,  poetess^)  in  Venice,  the  other  is  Charitas  in 
Nurnberg.  He  expatiates  on  the  merits  of  the  Pirckheimer  family 
generally,  and  says  Charitas  is  following  the  example  of  her  relatives 
in  preferring  a  book  to  wool,  a  pen  to  the  distaff,  a  stilus  to  a  needle. 
At  a  later  stage  of  his  career  (15 15)  Scheurl  wrote  that  it  was  usual 
for  men  who  were  distinguished  in  mind  and  power  to  admire  and 
respect  the  abilities,  learning  and  moral  excellence  of  this  abbess^. 

In  15 13  Wilibald  published  an  edition  of  Plutarch's  essay  'On 
retribution '  which  he  had  translated  from  Greek  into  Latin,  and 
dedicated  it  to  his  sister  Charitas  in  a  long  and  flattering  epistle^ 
Mindful  no  doubt  of  the  influences  about  her  and  referring  to 
difficulties  in  his  own  career,  he  spoke  in  the  highest  terms  of  the 
Stoic  philosophers  and  of  the  help  their  writings  afforded.  '  Accept 
this  gift  on  paper  which,  if  I  judge  rightly,  will  not  be  displeasing 
to  you,'  he  says,  '  and  carefully  peruse  the  writings  of  this  pagan 
author  (gentilis).  And  you  will  soon  see  that  the  philosophers 
of  antiquity  did  not  stray  far  from  the  truth.'  Charitas  was  able 
to  appreciate  this  point  of  view  and  admitted  in  her  reply  that  he 
had  sent  her  a  jewel  more  precious  than  gold  and  silver^  Speaking 
of  Plutarch  she  confessed  that  '  he  writes  not  like  an  unbelieving 
heathen  but  like  a  learned  divine  and  imitator  of  Christian  per- 
fection. It  is  a  wonderful  circumstance  which  has  filled  me  with 
joy  and  surprise.'  But  she  thought  her  brother's  praise  of  her 
excessive.  *  I  am  not  learned  myself,  only  the  friend  of  those  who 
are  learned ;  I  am  no  writer,  I  only  enjoy  reading  the  writings  of 
others ;  I  am  unworthy  of  so  precious  a  gift,  though  in  truth  you 
have  done  well  and  wisely  in  placing  the  word  Charitas  at  the 
head  of  your  work.  For  Charity  is  the  virtue  which  makes  all 
good  things  to  be  shared,  and  that  Charity  which  is  the  Divine 
Spirit  itself  will  reward  you  here  and  in  the  life  to  come,  where 
honest  efforts  will  be  fully  requited.' 

A  short  time  afterwards  Pirckheimer  dedicated  to  his  sister 
Clara,  who  was  now  teaching  the  novices,  a  'Collection  of  the 

^  Bom  in  Venice  in  1465,  was  acquainted  both  with  Latin  and  Greek,  and  studied 
history,  philosophy  and  theology.  She  disputed  at  Padua  in  public,  wrote  several  learned 
treatises,  and  was  much  admired  and  esteemed. 

2  Binder,  F,,  Charitas  Firkheimer,  p.  96. 

2  Pirckheimer,  Opera,  p.  230;  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheimer,  p.  55. 

••  Pirckheimer,  Opera,  p.  344 ;  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheimer,  p.  58. 


SECT,  ii]       The  Memoir  of  C/iariias  Pirckheinier.  465 

Moral  Sentences  of  Nilus.'  It  was  a  translation  from  Greek  and 
Latin,  and  the  title  was  ornamented  with  a  design  by  Durer^  He 
sent  it  *  to  prevent  her  feeling  any  jealousy  of  her  sister.'  Clara 
shared  her  sister's  tastes  and  was  herself  an  ardent  reader.  When 
the  New  Testament  edited  by  Erasmus  appeared,  Pirckheimer 
wrote  to  him  that  his  sisters,  who  zealously  read  his  writings,  took 
great  delight  in  this  book  also,  and  he  says  that  they  had  greater 
insight  into  it  than  many  men  who  were  proud  of  their  learning. 
They  would  have  written  themselves,  he  adds,  if  they  had  not  felt 
shy  of  so  great  a  man.  Erasmus  on  one  occasion  compared  the 
daughters  of  Sir  Thomas  More  to  the  sisters  of  Wilibald  Pirck- 
heimer. Some  writings  of  the  humanist  Reuchlin  were  also  perused 
by  them^ 

Wilibald  further  dedicated  to  Charitas  his  edition  of  the  works 
of  Fulgentius  (15 19),  in  a  long  preface  in  which  he  describes  the 
difficulty  he  had  had  in  procuring  the  manuscript  from  the  library 
of  his  friend  Tritheim,  how  he  had  despaired  of  deciphering  it  till 
the  learned  Cochlaeus  came  to  his  rescue,  and  how  sure  he  felt 
that  his  sister  would  look  upon  the  book  as  a  treasured  The 
translation  of  the  sermons  of  Gregorius  Nazianzenus,  an  important 
undertaking,  he  also  accomplished  mainly  for  the  use  of  his  sisters*. 

Besides  their  devotional  and  intellectual  interests,  the  nuns  at 
St  Clara  made  their  own  clothes,  and  seem  to  have  had  some 
ability  in  sewing,  for  when  the  imperial  robes  which  were  kept 
at  Niirnberg  were  to  be  carried  to  Aachen  for  the  coronation  of 
the  Emperor  Karl  V,  they  were  first  given  into  the  hands  of  the 
nuns  to  be  looked  over  and  mended  ^ 

An  interesting  light  is  thrown  on  the  less  serious  side  of  the 
character  of  Charitas  by  an  amusing  German  letter  which  she 
wrote  to  Durer  and  two  envoys  of  Niirnberg  who  were  staying  at 
Augsburg  in  15 18  on  the  occasion  of  the  Imperial  Diet.  From 
there  they  had  sent  her  a  missive  penned  in  a  jovial  hour,  and 
Charitas  in  reply  wrote*:  'I  received  your  friendly  letter  with 
special  delight  and  read  it  with  such  attention  that  my  eyes  were 
often  brim  full,  but  more  from  laughing  than  any  other  emotion. 
Many  thanks  to  you  that  in  spite  of  your  great  business  and  your 
amusements  you  should  have  taken  the  trouble  to  give  directions 

'  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheimer,  p.  65,  footnote.  '  Ibid.  p.  66. 

^  Pirckheimer,  Opera,  p.  247;  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheimer^  p.  61. 

*  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheimer,  p.  62.  '  Ibid.  p.  35. 

*  Thausing,  M.,  Diirer\'i  Brief e  etc.,  1872,  p.  167. 

E.  30 


466  The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckheimer.    [chap,  xii 

to  this  little  nun  about  cloister-life,  of  which  you  have  a  clear 
mirror  before  you  at  present....'  And  she  begs  the  envoy  Spengler 
to  study  accounts  with  a  view  to  advising  her  how  to  waste  every- 
thing till  nothing  remains,  and  begs  Durer, '  who  is  such  a  draughts- 
man and  genius,'  to  give  his  attention  to  the  buildings,  so  that 
when  she  has  the  choir  rebuilt  he  may  help  and  advise  her  how  to 
introduce  larger  windows  so  that  the  nuns'  eyes  may  be  less  dim. 

From  these  various  notices  we  conclude  that  time  passed  not 
unpleasantly  or  unprofitably  with  the  abbess  of  St  Clara  before 
those  contentions  began  which  followed  upon  the  attack  made  on 
the  established  religion  by  Luther.  In  Niirnberg,  as  in  most  other 
cities,  the  feeling  was  general  that  the  life  of  the  prelacy  was  de- 
generate and  that  the  Papacy  was  a  hotbed  of  abuse.  Luther's 
opposition  to  the  Pope  was  therefore  greeted  with  acclamation  both 
by  the  enlightened  men  of  the  town,  who  felt  that  the  tyranny  of  the 
Church  was  a  stumblingblock  in  the  way  of  progress,  and  by  the 
people,  who  readily  seized  the  idea  that  the  means  were  now  given 
them  to  break  through  class  tyranny.  Wilibald  Pirckheimer  was 
among  those  who  without  hesitation  sided  with  the  Lutheran 
agitation,  but  Charitas  thought  otherwise.  The  abbess  of  the 
convent  of  St  Clara  at  Eger  forwarded  to  her  some  of  the  fierce 
attacks  on  Luther  from  the  pen  of  Emser  (-f-i527),  and  Charitas 
was  so  delighted  with  them  that  she  had  them  read  out  aloud 
to  the  nuns  during  meals,  and  was  prompted  to  write  a  letter  to 
their  author^ 

This  letter  became  a  source  of  great  annoyance  to  her.  It  fell 
into  the  hands  of  Emser's  enemies,  and  was  published  with  an 
abusive  running  comment  on  Charitasl  Even  Wilibald  was 
annoyed  and  declared  she  would  have  done  better  not  to  have 
written  it.  He  strongly  supported  the  Lutheran  agitation  at  the 
time,  and  Eck,  who  suspected  him  of  having  written  the  attack  on 
himself,  entitled  '  Eccius  Dedolatus,'  for  personal  reasons  inscribed 
Wilibald's  name  on  the  Papal  ban.  There  is  extant  from  Wilibald's 
pen  a  fragment  in  which  he  expresses  doubts  as  to  the  rightfulness 
of  convent  life  generally ^  but  he  gradually  modified  his  views. 
The  violence  and  narrowness  of  the  representatives  of  the  party 
of  progress  in  Niirnberg  were  little  to  his  taste.  On  the  plea  of 
ill-health  he  withdrew  from  the  council,  and  took  no  part  in  the 
stormy  discussions   of   1523,  when    the   rupture  with    Rome  was 

^  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheitner,  p.  105.  ^  Eyn  Missyve  oder  Sendbrief  tXc,  15-23. 

"  Pirckheimer,  Opera,  p.  375. 


SECT,  ii]       The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckheimer.         467 

declared  complete  and  decisions  arrived  at,  momentous  for  the 
future  of  the  new  faith  not  only  in  Nurnberg,  but  in  Germany 
generally. 

At  this  juncture  the  memoir  of  Charitas^  begins.  She  describes 
the  effect  of  the  Lutheran  teaching ;  how  ceremonies  are  being 
abolished,  rules  and  vows  declared  vain,  so  that  many  monks 
and  nuns  are  leaving  their  cloisters,  putting  off  convent  garb  and 
marrying  and  otherwise  doing  as  they  choose. 

'  These  various  reasons  brought  us  many  troubles  and  diffi- 
culties,' she  writes  (p.  2),  '  for  many  powerful  and  evil-minded 
persons  came  to  see  the  friends  they  had  in  our  cloister,  and  argued 
with  them  and  told  them  of  the  new  teaching,  how  the  religious 
profession  was  a  thing  of  evil  and  temptation  in  which  it  was  not 
possible  to  keep  holy,  and  that  we  were  all  of  the  devil.  Some 
would  take  their  children,  sisters  and  relatives  out  of  the  cloister 
by  force  and  by  the  help  of  admonitions  and  promises  of  which 
they  doubtless  would  not  have  kept  half  This  arguing  and 
disputing  went  on  for  a  long  time  and  was  often  accompanied 
by  great  anger  and  abuse.  But  since  none  of  the  nuns  by  God's 
grace  was  moved  to  go,  the  fault  was  laid  on  the  Franciscans,  and 
everyone  said  they  encouraged  us,  so  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  convince  us  of  the  new  belief  while  we  had  them  as  preachers 
and  confessors.' 

The  friars  had  long  been  odious  for  their  determined  class 
feeling,  religious  intolerance,  and  encouragement  of  superstitions ; 
it  was  obvious  that  the  advocates  of  change  would  direct  their 
attacks  against  them.  Charitas,  fully  aware  of  the  emergency, 
assembled  the  nuns  and  put  before  them  the  danger  of  being  given 
over  to  '  wild  priests  and  apostate  monks,'  and  with  their  consent 
decided  to  hand  in  a  '  supplication '  to  the  town  council.  This 
council  was  presided  over  by  three  leading  men  (triumviri),  of 
whom  one  named  Niitzel  was  the  so-called  representative  (pfleger) 
of  the  convent,  another  named  Ebner  had  a  daughter  among  the 
nuns,  and  the  third,  Geuder,  was  the  brother-in-law  of  Charitas. 
She  consulted  Wilibald  on  the  matter  of  the  supplication,  but 
forthwith  wrote  and  despatched  a  letter  to  each  of  these  three 
men,  begging  and  claiming  the  protection  of  her  privileges. 

The  supplication  itself  (p.   12)  was  carefully  worded,  and  re- 

1  '  Pirkheimer,  Charitas ' :  Denkiviirdigkeiten  aus  Jem  Reforniationszeitalter,  herausg. 
Hofler,  C,  Quellensammlung  fiir  frank.  Geschichte,  vol.  4,  1851  (page  references  in 
the  text  to   this  edition). 

30—2 


468         The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirck/teimer.    [chap,  xii 

quested  that  the  connection  between  the  Franciscans  and  the  nuns 
might  not  be  severed,  contradicting  the  charges  which  were  brought 
against  the  former.  They  do  not  forbid  the  nuns  to  read  the 
Evangels  and  other  books,  Charitas  says, — '  if  they  did  so  we 
should  not  obey  them.'  The  nuns  have  the  Old  and  the  New 
Testament  in  daily  use  in  the  German  and  the  Latin  versions. 
Charitas  denies  despising  the  married  state  or  retaining  nuns  by 
force.  '  But  as  we  compel  no  one,  so  too  we  claim  not  to  be 
compelled,  and  to  remain  free  in  mind  as  well  as  in  body.  But 
this  cannot  be  if  we  are  given  over  to  strange  priests,  which  would 
be  destruction  to  our  community...,'  and  more  to  a  like  purpose. 

The  supplication  was  handed  in  at  the  beginning  of  1524, 
but  after  considerable  delay  the  councillors  postponed  giving  a 
definite  reply  to  it.  In  the  meantime  Charitas  was  much  annoyed 
by  the  mother  of  one  of  her  nuns  who  tried  to  persuade  her 
daughter  to  leave  the  convent,  and  finding  her  words  of  no  avail, 
appealed  to  the  town  council  (p.  19)  for  an  order  to  take  her  'out 
of  this  prison '  as  she  called  it,  into  which  she  had  sent  her  nine 
years  before  at  the  age  of  fourteen.  Charitas  also  sent  in  a  state- 
ment of  the  case  (p.  28),  but  again  no  reply  was  vouchsafed  her. 

The  letters  which  Clara  wrote  to  her  brother  about  this  time 
help  us  to  realise  the  situation.  All  her  letters  are  undated,  but 
in  one  she  thanks  Wilibald  for  his  advice  about  the  supplication, 
and  says  that  if  divine  service  should  really  be  abolished  she 
means  to  devote  herself  more  to  reading,  for  'the  dear  beloved 
old  writers  surely  were  no  fools \'  In  another  she  thanks  him 
for  the  loan  of  books  and  says  a  work  of  Erasmus  (probably  De 
libera  arbitrid)  has  pleased  the  sisters  by  its  moderation.  As  to 
Charitas  'she  finds  great  comfort  in  her  beloved  old  Cyprian,  in 
whose  writings  she  reads  day  and  night.  She  sends  greetings  and 
the  message  that  she  prefers  Cyprian  to  all  these  new  evangelists 
who  strut  about  in  cut  garments  and  golden  chains".' 

Though  Clara  did  not  lose  her  cheerfulness,  Charitas,  who  saw 
further,  was  full  of  apprehension.  From  what  her  sister  says  she 
regretted  the  severe  tone  of  her  letter  to  Geuder^  On  other 
occasions  also  she  was  led  to  indignant  utterances  which  she  after- 
wards regretted*. 

^  Muench,  E.,  Charitas  Pirckheimer  e\.c.,  1826,  p.  104. 

^  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheivter,  p.  125,  from  an  unpublished  letter. 

'  Muench,  E.,  Charitas  Pirckheirner  etc.,  p.  110. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  118  (on  a  letter  written  to  Niitzel). 


SECT,  ii]       The  Memoir  of  Ckaritas  PirckJteimer.  469 

A  gap  occurs  at  this  period  in  her  memoir  which  she  resumed 
writing  in  March  1525,  after  the  religious  disputation  had  taken 
place  at  Nurnberg.  After  many  stormy  scenes,  'the  preachers 
of  the  Evangel,'  as  they  called  themselves,  decided  to  carry  out 
their  intentions  without  waiting  for  the  decision  of  a  Church 
Council.  The  immediate  result  of  the  decision  was  an  attack  on 
all  religious  houses.  But  in  the  convent  of  St  Clara  the  determined 
and  reckless  energy  of  the  reformers  was  matched  by  indignant 
protest  and  unyielding  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  abbess. 

Charitas  has  described  in  full  (p.  33)  how  a  deputation  from  the 
town  council  asked  to  be  admitted  into  her  house,  and  how  they 
informed  her  and  the  assembled  nuns  that  their  connection  with 
the  Franciscans  was  at  an  end ;  a  '  reformed '  preacher  had  been 
appointed  to  preach  in  the  church  of  the  nuns,  and  they  were  left 
the  choice  among  several  men  who  would  act  to  them  as  confessors. 
Much  argument  followed,  but  Charitas  maintained  that  her  house 
and  the  Franciscans  had  always  been  closely  connected.  'If  we 
yield  it  is  only  to  force  and  we  turn  to  God,'  she  said, '  and  before 
Him  we  lodge  a  protest  and  declare  that  we  are  forced  against  our 
will,  and  that  we  reject  and  discountenance  all  your  proposals.'  The 
assembled  nuns  rose  to  their  feet  to  shew  their  approval  of  her 
speech,  and  the  deputation  in  vain  tried  the  effect  of  persuasion. 
Charitas  scorned  the  idea  of  having  anything  to  do  with  apostate 
monks ;  and  the  deputation  retired  after  blaming  the  women 
for  behaving  in  a  most  ungrateful  manner.  A  second  visit  led 
to  similar  results;  Charitas  abode  by  her  decision,  the  nuns 
wept,  and  the  deputation  retired  after  venting  their  indignation  in 
threats. 

The  hopes  of  the  convent  now  centred  in  Nutzel,  their  repre- 
sentative in  the  town  council,  and  Charitas  with  her  brother's 
approval  wrote  to  him  (p.  41)  begging  him  to  come  to  her.  But 
the  first  words  Nutzel  spoke  dispelled  every  hope  of  assistance 
from  that  quarter ;  he  blamed  the  nuns  for  opposing  the  council, 
and  urged  the  advisability  of  their  giving  way.  Charitas  was  most 
indignant  and  declared  she  was  well  aware  that  it  was  intended 
to  force  them  to  this  new  belief,  but  that  they  were  agreed  that 
neither  in  life  nor  in  death  would  they  listen  to  what  the  Church 
had  not  previously  countenanced.  She  called  upon  the  prioress 
to  read  out  a  second  petition  to  the  council  asking  to  have  their 
father  confessor  back  or  else  to  be  left  without  one.  She  wanted 
Nutzel  to  take  charge  of  this  petition,  but  he  was  only  angered, 


470         The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckheinier.    [chap,  xii 

and  taking  Charitas  aside,  represented  to  her  that  her  opposition 
was  a  serious  matter  ;  her  example  was  encouraging  other  women's 
convents  to  opposition,  which  would  relent  if  she  did.  He  said 
that  by  resigning  and  disbanding  the  convent  bloodshed  would 
be  averted,  and  he  spoke  in  praise  of  the  new  preacher.  But 
Charitas  remained  unmoved.  As  he  was  leaving  the  house  his 
daughter  and  the  other  nuns,  whose  fathers  were  members  of  the 
town  council,  went  down  on  their  knees  to  him  imploring  pro- 
tection. He  refused  to  listen,  but  was  so  far  impressed  that  he 
never  slept  all  the  following  night,  as  his  wife  afterwards  told  the 
nuns  (p.  54). 

The  convent's  opposition  to  their  plans  was  a  source  not  only 
of  annoyance  but  of  apprehension  to  the  town  authorities.  The 
peasants'  rising  was  spreading  in  the  direction  of  Nurnberg,  and 
as  popular  feeling  was  against  religious  houses  the  argument  that 
dissolving  the  house  might  help  to  avert  a  danger  was  not  altogether 
unfounded.  Nutzel  in  a  long  expostulation  (p.  55)  shortly  after- 
wards tried  to  impress  this  view  on  the  abbess,  but  Charitas  urged 
(p.  59)  that  other  reasons  besides  hatred  of  the  friars  had  roused 
the  peasants  to  rebellion,  and  complained  that  the  ill-feeling  against 
her  house  was  largely  due  to  the  reformed  preachers,  who  declared 
they  would  not  rest  till  they  had  driven  monks  and  nuns  out  of 
the  town  (p.  62).  Rightly  or  wrongly  she  held  that  Poliander, 
the  reformed  preacher  who  was  now  preaching  in  the  convent 
church,  had  been  promised  a  reward  if  he  persuaded  her  or  her 
nuns  to  leave  the  convent  (p.  6"]),  and  that  his  want  of  success 
aggravated  his  hatred  of  them.  It  was  in  vain  that  Nutzel  wrote 
in  praise  of  him  (p.  6']).  Charitas  now  looked  upon  Nutzel  as  a 
dangerous  enemy,  and  her  sister  Clara  wrote  to  Wilibald^  begging 
him  to  advise  the  convent  how  to  get  rid  of  the  man.  In  another 
letter'*  she  said  that  Charitas  was  seriously  afraid  of  him. 

In  place  of  the  Franciscans  a  number  of  reformed  preachers 
now  preached  before  the  nuns  and  the  people  in  the  convent 
church.  Among  them  was  Osiander,  formerly  a  Carthusian,  whose 
violence  at  a  later  period  was  censured  and  resented  by  his  Pro- 
testant brethren  ;  and  the  nuns  were  obliged  to  attend  and  to 
listen  to  a  torrent  of  abuse  and  imprecation  by  him  and  others. 
'  I  cannot  and  will  not  detail,'  says  Charitas  in  her  memoir  (p.  70), 
'how  they  perverted  Holy  Writ  to  a  strange  meaning,  how  they 

^  Muench,  E.,  Charitas  Pirckheimer  ^\.c.,  p.  106.  '  Ibid.  p.  109. 


SECT,  ii]       The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckheimer.  471 

cast  down  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  and  discarded  all  cere- 
monies ;  how  they  abused  and  reviled  all  religious  orders  and 
classes,  and  respected  neither  Pope  nor  Emperor,  whom  they 
openly  called  tyrant,  devil,  and  Antichrist;  how  roughly  and  in 
what  an  unchristian-like  spirit  and  against  all  brotherly  love  they 
abused  us  and  charged  us  with  great  wickedness,  for  the  purpose  of 
rousing  the  people,  whom  they  persuaded  that  an  ungodly  set  like 
ourselves  should  be  destroyed,  our  cloister  broken  open,  ourselves 
dragged  out  by  force,  since  we  represented  a  despicable  class, 
heretics,  idolatrous  and  blasphemous  people,  who  were  eternally 
of  the  devil' 

One  might  be  tempted  to  look  upon  this  description  as  an 
exaggeration  were  it  not  for  a  letter  from  Wilibald  Pirckheimer 
to  Melanchthon,  in  which  he  describes  the  outrages  to  which  the 
nuns  were  exposed  in  similar  terms.  'The  preachers  scream,  swear, 
and  storm,  and  do  everything  in  their  power  to  rouse  the  hatred 
of  the  masses  against  the  poor  nuns ;  they  openly  say  that  as 
words  were  of  no  avail,  recourse  should  be  had  to  force,'  and  he 
wonders  the  cloister  has  not  yet  been  attacked  \ 

Under  the  pressure  of  popular  opinion  and  increasing  restless- 
ness the  Austin  monks  gave  over  their  house,  and  they  were  fol- 
lowed by  the  Carmelites,  the  Benedictines,  and  the  Carthusians. 
The  Dominicans  hesitated  ;  the  Franciscans  refused  to  go.  Charitas 
expresses  wonder  that  the  'spiritual  poison,'  as  she  calls  it,  which 
the  preachers  several  times  a  week  tried  to  infuse  into  the  nuns, 
took  no  effect,  and  that  none  of  them  expressed  a  desire  to  leave 
the  convent  (p.  85). 

Things  had  now  come  to  such  a  pass  that  convents  outside 
the  city  disbanded  before  the  peasants'  rising ;  and  nuns  from 
Pillenreuth  and  Engelthal  sought  refuge  in  the  town  with  the 
nuns  of  St  Clara  (p.  86).  These  lived  in  daily  fear  of  their  house 
being  stormed,  for  the  people  shouted  and  swore  at  them  from 
below,  threw  stones  into  the  choir,  smashed  the  church  windows, 
and  sang  insulting  songs  in  the  churchyard  outside.  But  the 
nuns,  nothing  daunted,  continued  to  keep  the  hours  and  to  ring 
the  bells,  though  they  were  every  moment  prepared  for  the  worst. 
Clara  in  a  letter  to  Wilibald  described  her  own  and  her  sister's 
fears  in  eloquent  terms'^;  and  the  nun  Felicitas  Grundherrin  wrote 

^  Pirckheimer,  Opera,  p.  374. 

*  Muench,  E.,  Chariias  Pirckktimer  tic,  p.  108. 


472  The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckkeimer.    [chap,  xii 

to  her  father  entreating  him  to  abide  by  the  old  faith*.  In  these 
days  the  nuns  seem  to  have  read  a  good  deal  of  pamphlet  litera- 
ture, but  they  failed  to  see  anything  beyond  an  encouragement 
to  violence  and  disorder  in  the  whole  Lutheran  movement. 

A  further  attempt  was  made  by  the  council  to  coerce  the 
convent.  A  number  of  injunctions  were  sent  to  the  abbess  which 
were  to  be  carried  out  within  a  month  (p.  88).  The  first  of  these 
commanded  her  to  absolve  the  nuns  from  their  vow  that  they 
might  enjoy  '  Christian  freedom ' ;  another  that  she  should  send 
the  young  nuns  home  though  they  refused,  '  since  children  should 
obey  their  parents.'  The  deputies  who  laid  these  injunctions  before 
the  abbess  assured  her  that  the  council  was  prepared  to  restore 
to  the  nuns  what  they  had  brought  to  the  convent ;  that  they 
would  give  money  to  those  who  had  brought  nothing,  and  provide 
a  dower  for  those  who  married.  To  these  arguments  Charitas 
replied  that  the  nuns  had  made  a  vow  not  before  her  but  before 
God,  that  it  was  not  in  her  power  to  dispense  them  from  it  and 
that  she  would  not  urge  them  to  disobedience.  With  a  touch  of 
bitterness  she  added  that  their  mothers  were  continually  at  the 
convent  grating  urging  them  to  go  (p.  87).  For  the  matrons  of 
the  town  especially  sided  with  the  reformed  preachers  and  cried 
shame  on  convent  life.  'If  it  were  not  for  the  women  and  the 
preachers  things  would  not  be  so  bad,'  Clara  wrote  on  one  occasion 
to  Wilibald^  and  on  another  she  spoke  of  the  sharp  tongues  and 
violent  behaviour  of  the  women. 

The  deputation  further  claimed  that  the  nuns  should  take  oflf 
their  convent  clothes  (p.  93),  the  sight  of  which  they  said  gave 
umbrage.  *  We  are  continually  told,'  Charitas  replied,  *  that  our 
vows  and  our  clothes  threaten  to  cause  a  rising,  but  it  is  your 
preachers,  to  whom  we  are  forced  to  listen,  who  try  to  provoke 
one  by  abusing  and  condemning  us  from  the  pulpit  and  charging 
us  with  vices  and  impurity  to  humour  the  people.'  The  command 
was  also  given  to  do  away  with  the  convent  grating;  and  it  was 
backed  by  the  threat  that  if  Charitas  failed  to  comply  with  it 
the  town  authorities  would  throw  open  the  house  to  all  visitors. 
The  heaviness  of  this  blow  was  such  that  after  the  deputation 
had  left  Charitas  summoned  the  nuns  and  asked  their  intentions 
severally.  In  the  eyes  of  the  whole  convent  throwing  open  the 
house  involved  turning  it  into  a  public  resort  of  bad  character. 

^  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheimer,  p.  ii8. 
-'  Ibid.  p.  150,  from  an  unpublished  letter. 


SECT,  ii]       The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckheimer.  473 

They  felt  they  must  yield  or  leave  the  house  altogether,  but  they 
promised  to  abide  by  the  decision  of  Charitas  if  she  would  stay 
and  advise  them.  The  intrepid  abbess  decided  to  do  away  with 
the  grating  at  one  window,  declaring  that  they  acted  against  the 
rule  under  protest  and  only  temporarily.  On  the  other  points  she 
sought  the  advice  of  learned  men  outside,  but  they  advised 
compromise,  for,  to  give  her  own  words  (p.  95),  'they  said  all 
chance  was  gone  of  gaining  anything  by  opposition ;  we  must 
yield  if  we  did  not  want  the  house  to  go  to  ruin.  People  now  did 
things  by  main  force  regardless  of  justice  or  equity,  fearful  neither 
of  Pope  nor  Emperor,  nor  even  of  God  except  in  word  ;  things 
were  such  that  these  people  said,  What  we  will  must  be  done, 
thus  and  not  otherwise,  declaring  themselves  more  powerful  than 
the  Pope  himself 

In  the  meantime  the  feelings  against  the  nunnery  were  by 
no  means  unanimous.  Geuder,  the  brother-in-law  of  Charitas,  was 
emphatic  at  the  council  meeting  in  denouncing  the  throwing  open 
of  convents,  which  in  his  eyes  also  meant  turning  them  into  dis- 
reputable houses\  But  no  amount  of  opposition  made  by  him 
and  others  could  prevent  a  scene  from  being  enacted  in  the  convent 
chapel,  which  was  afterwards  looked  upon  as  disgraceful,  not  only 
by  those  who  provoked  it,  but  by  outsiders  whether  partisans  of 
the  Lutheran  movement  or  not.  The  repeated  attempts  to  per- 
suade the  nuns  to  leave  having  failed  and  Charitas  refusing  to 
bid  them  go,  two  of  the  chief  councillors,  one  of  them  NUtzel,  the 
representative  of  the  convent's  interests,  and  the  widow  of  a  coun- 
cillor who  had  long  clamoured  for  her  daughter's  release,  repaired 
to  the  convent  with  a  number  of  other  persons,  claimed  to  be 
admitted,  and  declared  they  had  come  to  fetch  their  daughters 
away.  The  three  nuns,  who  were  between  nineteen  and  twenty- 
three  years  of  age,  tried  to  hide,  but  Charitas  bade  them  come 
forth,  and  they  then  sought  refuge  with  her  in  the  convent  chapel. 
She  has  described  in  full  how  the  young  women  besought  her 
to  protect  them,  how  their  parents  and  others  abused  and  reviled 
them,  and  how  in  spite  of  their  protests,  their  indignation  and 
their  tears,  their  relations  at  last  resorted  to  violence.  Four  persons 
seized  each  nun  and  dragged  and  pushed  her  out  of  the  chapel, 
while  the  women  present  shouted  approval,  and  once  outside  their 
convent  clothes  were  torn  off  and  others  substituted  in  their  stead. 
After  a  scuffle  and  a  scramble  in  which  one  nun  was  knocked 

*  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheimer,  p.  153. 


474  ^^^  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirck/ieimer.    [ciiAi*.  xil 

over  and  her  foot  injured,  they  were  carried  to  a  chariot  waiting 
outside  and  conveyed  away. 

Charitas  remained  behind  in  grief  and  despair.  *  I  and  all 
my  nuns  are  so  distressed  at  all  this,'  she  wrote  a  few  days  later^ 
'that  I  have  almost  wept  out  my  eyes.... Nothing  ever  so  went  to 
my  heart.'  Indignation  at  the  violence  of  the  act  became  general 
in  the  town  and  spread  beyond  its  confines.  '  I  never  could  have 
imagined  women  acting  in  such  a  cruel  manner,'  Sabina,  the 
abbess  of  Bergen,  wrote  to  Wilibald  ;  and  in  another  letter,  appre- 
hending the  destruction  of  the  convent  at  Niirnberg,  she  proposed 
that  Charitas  and  her  nuns  should  seek  refuge  with  her^ 

But  Charitas  persisted  in  holding  her  ground,  though  with 
an  aching  heart.  When  the  men  who  had  fetched  away  their 
daughters  sent  word  offering  to  pay  for  their  maintenance  during 
the  time  they  had  lived  with  her,  she  refused.  Her  trials  in  one 
direction  had  reached  their  climax, — the  councillor  Nutzel,  who 
admitted  that  things  had  gone  too  far,  henceforth  acted  in  a 
conciliatory  spirit,  and  some  approximation  took  place  between 
them.  Not  that  he  ever  tired  of  urging  Charitas  to  desert  her 
convent  and  her  cause,  but  he  now  confined  himself  to  persuasion 
and  argument,  and  when  one  of  the  young  nuns  who  had  been 
carried  off  was  so  far  reconciled  to  the  world  that  she  came  to 
the  convent  window  and  urged  her  step-sister  to  return  home, 
pretending  that  Nutzel  had  sent  her  (p.  123),  the  councillor  dis- 
claimed having  done  so.  His  correspondence  with  Charitas,  which 
she  has  faithfully  inserted  in  her  memoir,  shows  that  she  patiently 
listened  to  every  argument  in  favour  of  the  new  doctrines.  She 
had  a  conversation  with  the  preacher  Osiander  which  lasted  four 
hours  (p.  128),  she  listened  to  over  a  hundred  sermons  preached 
by  the  Lutherans,  and  she  read  their  writings,  yet  she  could  find 
nothing  to  her  taste  and  it  seemed  easy  to  her  to  confound  their 
arguments.  Her  letters  show  that  her  unhappiness  was  great,  for 
on  one  occasion  she  went  so  far  as  to  put  before  Nutzel  (p.  122) 
what  the  result  would  be  if  women  like  themselves,  many  of  whom 
were  over  sixty  and  several  over  seventy,  returned  to  the  world 
and  tried  to  earn  their  living,  as  everyone  said  they  ought  to  do. 
She  declared  she  detained  no  one,  the  nuns  were  at  liberty  to  go 
if  they  chose  ;  everyone  was  giving  her  advice,  she  said,  but  she 

'  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheimer,  p.  i6i. 

2  *  Briefe   der   Aebtissin   Sabina,'    edit.   Lochner   in    Zeitschrift  fiir  hist.    Theologie, 
vol.  36,   1866,  pp.  542,  545. 


SECT,  ii]       The  Metnoir  of  Charitas  Pirckheimer.         475 

saw  no  salvation  in  the  new  doctrines,  which  did  not  appeal  to 
her.  Her  readiness  to  listen  to  argument  caused  Nutzel  to  set 
his  hopes  on  a  conference  between  Melanchthon  and  her  (p.  133), 
and  probably  at  the  instigation  of  Wilibald,  who  was  deeply 
grieved  at  the  injustice  done  to  his  sisters  without  being  able  to 
give  them  direct  help,  Melanchthon,  who  was  well  known  for  his 
uprightness  and  conciliatory  influence,  came  to  Niirnberg  towards 
the  close  of  the  year  1525.  *I  am  glad  to  hear  Melanchthon  is 
coming,'  Charitas  wrote ;  '  since  I  have  heard  he  is  an  irreproach- 
able, upright  and  justice-loving  man,  I  do  not  suppose  he  can 
approve  of  what  has  been  done  here.' 

Nutzel  at  once  (p.  149)  brought  him  to  the  convent.  *A 
few  days  later  our  representative  came  with  Philip  Melanchthon,' 
Charitas  wrote,  '  who  spoke  much  about  the  new  faith,  but  finding 
that  we  set  our  hopes  more  on  the  grace  of  God  than  on  our 
works,  he  said  we  might  as  well  seek  our  salvation  in  the  cloister 
as  in  the  world.'  They  had  a  long  talk  together  and  agreed  on 
all  points  except  on  the  subject  of  vows,  for  these  the  reformer 
declared  were  not  binding,  while  Charitas  maintained  that  a 
promise  made  to  God  must  be  kept.  She  describes  Melanchthon 
as  more  moderate  in  his  speech  than  she  had  ever  known  a  Lu- 
theran to  be.  Melanchthon,  on  hearing  the  various  points  of  the 
case,  blamed  the  councillors  for  having  forbidden  the  Franciscans 
to  confer  with  the  convent,  and  for  forcibly  taking  the  nuns  out 
of  the  cloister.  '  I  trust  God  has  sent  this  Lutheran  at  the  right 
hour,'  Charitas  wrote,  'for  they  were  discussing  whether  or  not 
to  expel  nuns  generally,  pull  down  their  houses,  and  put  the 
older  inmates  of  those  convents  which  would  not  surrender  into 
one  house,  driving  back  the  younger  ones  into  the  world '  (p.  171). 

According  to  her  account  Melanchthon  represented  to  the  council 
that  no  convent  at  Wittenberg  had  been  destroyed  by  force,  and 
after  a  great  deal  of  argument  it  was  decreed  to  make  one  more 
efifort  to  persuade  the  nuns  to  go,  and  failing  this  to  leave  them 
alone.  No  concessions  were  made  with  regard  to  the  friars,  the 
nuns  remained  without  a  minister  to  take  their  confessions  and 
to  administer  the  sacrament,  but  after  all  the  nuns  had  been 
severally  asked  if  they  wished  to  stay  or  to  go,  and  only  one 
declared  herself  ready  to  leave  the  house,  the  rest  were  left  in 
possession  till  the  end  of  their  days. 

With  the  account  of  the  last  visitation,  which  took  place  in 
1528,  the  memoir  of  Charitas  ends.     From  other  sources  we  hear 


476  The  Memoir  of  Charitas  Pirckheimer.    [chap,  xii 

that  short  of  annoyances  about  her  income  and  a  tax  levied  on 
the  convent  she  remained  unmolested,  and  passed  the  last  few 
years  of  her  life  in  peace.  At  the  close  of  1528,  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  her  entering  the  convent,  and  the  twenty-fifth  year 
of  her  appointment  as  abbess,  was  celebrated  with  some  amount 
of  cheerfulness.  Wilibald "  and  others  sent  presents,  and  after 
dinner  the  nuns  danced  to  the  sound  of  the  dulcimer  (hackbrett), 
which  the  abbess  played  ^  Wilibald's  interest  in  the  convent 
continued,  and  towards  the  close  of  his  life  we  find  him  busy 
writing  a  pamphlet  in  justification  of  the  nuns'*,  in  which  he 
developed  at  some  length  the  arguments  against  those  who  had 
oppressed  and  coerced  them.  He  died  in  1530,  and  within  a 
couple  of  years  was  followed  by  his  sister  Charitas  (1533).  Her 
sister  Clara  ruled  the  convent  for  a  few  months  after  her  and  was 
succeeded  by  Wilibald's  daughter  Charitas.  The  number  of  nuns 
was  slowly  but  steadily  dwindling ;  before  the  close  of  the  century 
the  house  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  town  council  by  default. 
The  abbess  Charitas  Pirckheimer  worthily  represents  the 
monastic  life  of  women  at  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Faithful 
to  the  system  she  had  embraced,  she  remained  true  to  her  con- 
victions to  the  last,  with  a  fearlessness,  candour,  and  determination 
which  give  her  attitude  a  touch  of  heroism.  She  is  one  among 
many  staunch  adherents  to  the  old  faith  who  experienced  hard- 
ships which  simple  humanity  and  feelings  of  equity  and  justice 
alike  condemned,  but  whose  steadfastness  could  not  save  their 
cause  from  being  lost. 

'  Binder,  F.,  Charitas  Pirkheitner,  pp.  183  flf. 

^  Pirckheimer,    Opera,   '  O ratio    apologetica,'    pp.   375-385;    Binder,    F.,    Charitas 
Pirkheitner,  p.  198. 


CONCLUSION. 


My  task  has  drawn  to  its  close.  In  a  series  of  chapters,  incom- 
pletely no  doubt  but  I  trust  not  superficially,  the  position  of 
woman  under  monasticism  has  been  brought  before  the  reader, 
and  some  account  has  been  given  of  the  various  aspects  of  convent 
life.  In  conclusion  it  seems  well  to  pause  and  look  back  over  the 
ground  traversed,  to  take  in  at  a  glance  what  Catholic  tradition, 
convent-life  and  saint-lore  have  done  for  women  in  the  past.  The 
area  over  which  the  reader  has  been  taken  is  a  wide  one,  and  the 
ground  in  many  directions  remains  unexplored.  Still  some  of  the 
most  prominent  landmarks  have  been  noted,  and  some  districts 
carefully  examined.  Thus  while  further  information  might  be 
sought  concerning  many  special  points,  it  still  seems  legitimate  to 
form  a  general  survey  and  to  draw  certain  conclusions. 

Turning  back  to  the  earliest  period  when  Christianity  with  its 
new  conceptions  first  came  into  contact  with  beliefs  dating  from 
a  distant  heathen  era,  we  have  seen  how  many  sentiments  and 
associations  of  ideas  peculiar  to  pre-Christian  times  lived  on  and 
were  absorbed  into  the  new  religion.  The  early  representatives 
of  Christianity,  with  a  keen-sighted  appreciation  of  the  means 
by  which  a  change  of  religion  is  most  successfully  effected,  treated 
the  older  conceptions  with  tolerance,  and  by  doing  so  made 
possible  the  establishment  of  new  ideas  in  the  old  heathen  setting. 
The  legends  and  the  cult  of  the  saints  contain  a  mine  of  wealth 
as  yet  little  explored  by  the  student  of  primitive  civilization  and 
folk-lore,  a  mine  which  has  here  been  tapped  at  one  vein  only, — 
namely  for  the  information  it  yields  on  the  antiquity  of  beliefs 
which  attach  to  certain  women  who  are  reckoned  among  the  saints. 

Passing  from  the  ground  of  tradition  to  that  of  history  we  have 
seen  how  the  convent  was  looked  upon  with  favour  by  women  of 
the  newly  converted  barbarian  races,  and  how  readily  they  availed 
themselves  of  the  protection  which  the  Christian  religion  held  out 


47^  Conclusion. 

to  them.  This  development  also  needed  to  be  studied  side  by 
side  with  previous  social  conditions  in  order  to  stand  out  in  its 
true  light,  and  it  gained  a  new  meaning  when  considered  in  con- 
nection with  the  elements  of  older  folk  tradition  which  it  absorbed. 
The  representatives  of  Christianity,  profiting  by  a  surviving  love 
of  independence  among  womankind,  turned  the  energies  of  women 
into  new  channels,  and  giving  scope  to  their  activity  in  new 
directions,  secured  their  help  in  the  cause  of  peaceful  progress. 
The  outward  conditions  of  life  were  such  that  the  woman  who 
joined  the  convent  made  her  decision  once  for  all.  But  provided 
she  agreed  to  forego  the  claims  of  family  and  sex,  an  honourable 
independence  was  secured  to  her,  and  she  was  brought  into 
contact  with  the  highest  aims  of  her  age.  At  a  period  when 
monasteries,  placed  in  the  remote  and  uncultivated  districts, 
radiated  peace  and  civilization  throughout  the  neighbourhood, 
many  women  devoted  themselves  to  managing  settlements  which 
in  the  standard  they  attained,  vied  in  excellence  with  the  settle- 
ments managed  by  men. 

At  the  outset  many  married  women  left  their  husbands  for  the 
purpose  of  founding  and  governing  convents ;  sometimes  they 
founded  convents  the  management  of  which  they  left  to  others, 
and  themselves  retired  to  them  later  in  life.  The  prestige  and 
advantages  enjoyed  by  the  heads  of  religious  settlements  vvere 
such  that  kings  and  queens  frequently  installed  their  daughters  as 
abbesses  in  preference  to  seeking  for  them  matrimonial  alliances, 
and  these  princesses  were  joined  by  many  daughters  of  the  most 
influential  families,  who  gladly  availed  themselves  of  the  oppor- 
tunity of  embracing  the  religious  vocation.  Through  their  close 
contact  with  high-born  women,  convents  maintained  a  high  tone 
in  manners,  morals  and  general  behaviour,  and  grew  into  im- 
portant educational  centres,  the  beneficent  influence  of  which  was 
generally  recognised. 

The  career  open  to  the  inmates  of  convents  both  in  England 
and  on  the  continent  was  greater  than  any  other  ever  thrown  open 
to  women  in  the  course  of  modern  European  history ;  abilities 
might  raise  the  nun  to  the  rank  of  abbess,  a  position  of  substantial 
authority.  In  the  Kentish  charter,  to  which  reference  has  been 
made,  the  names  of  the  abbesses  as  representatives  of  religion 
follow  those  of  the  bishops.  In  Saxony  it  fell  to  an  abbess  to 
act  as  representative  of  the  emperor  during  his  absence.  As 
independent  landowners,  who  held   their  property  of  and   from 


Conclusion.  479 

king  and  emperor,  the  abbess  took  rank  with  the  lords  temporal 
and  spiritual  in  the  right  of  jurisdiction  which  they  exercised,  and 
in  the  right  of  being  represented  in  Parliament  or  at  the  Imperial 
Diet  as  the  case  might  be. 

While  fulfilling  the  duties  which  devolved  on  them  in  virtue 
of  their  station,  abbesses  did  not  neglect  their  opportunities  of 
keeping  in  touch  with  culture  and  of  widening  their  mental  horizon. 
In  Anglo-Saxon  England  men  who  attained  to  distinction  received 
their  training  in  settlements  governed  by  women.  Histories  and 
a  chronicle  of  unique  value  were  inspired  by  and  drafted  under 
the  auspices  of  Saxon  abbesses.  For  nuns  Ealdhelm  wrote  his 
most  famous  treatises,  and  several  valuable  contemporary  bio- 
graphies, such  as  those  of  Sturmi  and  of  Robert  of  Fontevraud, 
were  written  at  the  express  desire  of  nuns.  And  while  eager  in 
encouraging  productiveness  in  others,  they  were  not  slow  in  trying 
to  develop  their  own  literary  powers.  In  the  6th  century  Radegund 
was  writing  epistles  in  verse  under  the  tuition  of  an  exiled  Latin 
poet ;  to  an  Anglo-Saxon  nun  whose  name  is  not  recorded  we  owe 
one  of  the  earliest  and  most  interesting  accounts  extant  of  a 
journey  to  Palestine.  In  the  8th  century  the  nun  Lioba  was 
trying  her  hand  at  Latin  verse  in  a  convent  in  Thanet ;  in  the  loth 
century  the  nun  Hrotsvith  in  Saxony  was  composing  Latin  dramas 
on  the  model  of  Terence.  The  contributions  of  nuns  to  literature 
as  well  as  incidental  remarks  show  that  the  curriculum  of  study 
in  the  nunnery  was  as  liberal  as  that  accepted  by  monks,  and 
embraced  all  available  writing,  whether  by  Christian  or  profane 
authors.  While  Scripture  and  the  writings  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Church  at  all  times  formed  the  groundwork  of  monastic  studies, 
Cicero  at  this  period  was  read  by  the  side  of  Boethius,  Virgil  by 
the  side  of  Martianus  Capella,  Terence  by  the  side  of  Isidor  of 
Sevilla.  From  remarks  made  by  Hrotsvith  we  see  that  the 
coarseness  of  the  later  Latin  dramatists  made  no  reason  for  their 
being  forbidden  to  nuns,  though  she  would  have  seen  it  otherwise  ; 
and  Herrad  was  so  far  impressed  by  the  wisdom  of  the  heathen 
philosophers  of  antiquity  that  she  pronounced  this  wisdom  to  be 
the  *  product  of  the  Holy  Spirit  also,'  Throughout  the  literary 
world  as  represented  by  convents,  the  use  of  Latin  was  general, 
and  made  possible  the  even  spread  of  culture  in  districts  that 
were  widely  remote  from  each  other  and  practically  without  inter- 
course. 

The  educational  influence  of  convents  during  centuries  cannot 


480  Conclusion. 


be  rated  too  highly.  Not  only  did  their  inmates  attain  consider- 
able knowledge,  but  education  in  a  nunnery,  as  we  saw  from  the 
remarks  of  Chaucer  and  others,  secured  an  improved  standing 
to  those  who  were  not  professed.  The  fact  that  a  considerable 
number  of  women's  houses  after  the  monastic  revival  of  the  i  ith  and 
1 2th  centuries  were  founded  largely  at  the  instigation  of  men,  proves 
that  the  usefulness  of  these  institutions  was  generally  recognised. 

While  devoted  to  reading  and  study  which  pre-eminently  con- 
stituted the  religious  vocation,  nuns  during  their  leisure  hours 
cultivated  art  in  several  of  its  branches.  Spinning  and  weaving 
were  necessarily  practised  in  all  settlements  during  many  centuries, 
for  the  inmates  of  these  settlements  made  the  clothes  which  they 
wore.  But  weaving  and  embroidery,  always  essentially  woman's 
work,  found  a  new  development  in  the  convent,  and  works  of 
marked  excellence  were  produced  both  in  England  and  abroad. 
The  painstaking  industry,  which  goes  far  in  the  production  of 
such  work,  was  reflected  in  the  activity  of  women  as  scribes  and 
illuminators,  and  the  names  of  several  nuns  who  were  famous  for 
their  writing  have  been  handed  down  to  posterity.  In  the  twofold 
domain  of  learning  and  art  the  climax  of  productiveness  was  reached 
in  the  person  of  Herrad,  in  whom  a  wide  range  of  intellectual 
interests  and  a  keen  appreciation  of  study  combined  with  consider- 
able artistic  skill  and  a  certain  amount  of  originality. 

Side  by  side  with  literary  and  artistic  pursuits  nuns  were  active 
in  the  cause  of  philanthropy.  Several  women  who  had  the 
sufferings  of  their  fellows  at  heart  are  numbered  among  the 
saints ;  and  under  the  auspices  of  Hildegard  a  book  was  com- 
piled on  the  uses  of  natural  products  in  health  and  disease,  which 
forms  a  landmark  in  the  history  of  mediaeval  medicine. 

With  the  consciousness  of  the  needs  of  others  came  too  a 
keener  power  of  self-realisation.  The  attention  of  nuns  was  turned 
to  the  inner  life,  and  here  again  their  productiveness  did  not 
fail  them.  The  contributions  to  mystical  literature  by  nuns  are 
numerous,  and  their  writings,  which  took  the  form  of  spiritual 
biography,  legendary  romance,  or  devotional  exercise,  were  greatly 
appreciated  and  widely  read  by  their  contemporaries.  Even  now- 
a-days  they  are  recommended  as  devotional  works  by  the  Catholic 
Church. 

We  have  seen  that  the  position  of  the  convent  was  throughout 
influenced  by  the  conditions  of  the  world  outside  it ;  changes  in 
outside  political,  intellectual  and  social  life  necessarily  made  them- 


Conclusion.  48 1 


selves  felt  in  the  convent.  Consequent  upon  the  spread  of  the 
feudal  system  of  land  tenure,  which  in  the  interest  of  an  improved 
military  organisation  reserved  the  holding  of  property  for  men, 
women  forfeited  their  chance  of  founding  and  endowing  indepen- 
dent monasteries,  and  the  houses  founded  after  the  monastic  revival 
never  attained  a  position  comparable  with  that  of  those  dating 
from  the  earlier  period.  As  monasteries  were  theoretically  safe 
against  infringement  of  their  privileges  by  prince  or  bishop  owing 
to  their  connection  with  Rome,  the  relation  of  the  Pope  to  tem- 
poral rulers  and  to  the  greater  ecclesiastics  directly  affected  them, 
and  when  the  power  of  the  Pope  was  relaxed  they  were  at  the 
mercy  of  prince  and  bishop.  We  have  seen  how  kings  of  England 
appropriated  alien  priories,  and  how  wilfully  princes  abroad  cur- 
tailed the  privileges  of  nunneries,  the  support  of  their  prelates 
giving  countenance  to  these  changes.  At  a  later  period  a  con- 
siderable number  of  women's  convents  were  interfered  with  by 
churchmen,  who  on  the  plea  of  instituting  reforms  took  advantage 
of  their  position  to  appropriate  the  convent  property. 

A  change  of  a  different  kind  which  affected  the  convent  in  its 
educational  and  intellectual  standing  was  the  growth  of  university 
centres,  and  the  increased  facilities  afforded  to  the  student  of 
visiting  different  centres  in  succession.  In  the  9th  century  Bede 
who  never  stirred  from  his  convent  might  attain  intellectual 
excellence;  such  a  course  was  impossible  in  the  13th  and  14th 
centuries  when  the  centre  of  education  lay  in  the  disputations 
which  animated  the  lecture  room.  Some  of  the  progressive 
monasteries  of  men  lessened  the  loss  they  felt  by  securing  a 
house  at  the  university  to  which  they  sent  their  more  promising 
pupils,  but  the  tone  at  the  mediaeval  university  was  such  that  one 
cannot  wonder  that  no  attempt  was  made  in  this  direction  by  the 
convents  of  women.  As  a  natural  result  their  intellectual  standard 
for  a  time  remained  stationary,  and  then,  especially  in  the  smaller 
and  remoter  settlements,  it  fell.  This  led  to  a  want  of  interest  in 
intellectual  acquirements  among  nuns,  and  it  was  accompanied  by 
a  growing  indifference  in  the  outside  world  to  the  intellectual 
acquirements  of  women  generally. 

Not  that  the  desire  to  maintain  a  high  standard  had  passed 
away  from  women's  convents.  The  readiness  with  which  many 
houses  adopted  the  chance  of  betterment  held  out  to  them  by  the 
congregations  of  the  15th  century,  goes  far  to  prove  that  nuns 
continued  to  identify  the   idea  of  salvation  with   a  high   moral 

E.  31 


482  Conclusion. 


tone  and  an  application  to  study.  But  study  now  ran  along  a 
narrow  groove,  for  the  monastic  reformers  favoured  devotional 
study  only.  The  nuns,  who  were  impressed  by  the  excellence  of 
the  reformers'  motives,  and  prevented  by  circumstances  from 
forming  opinions  of  their  own  in  the  matter,  showed  an  increasing 
readiness  to  adopt  their  views.  The  friars  led  the  way  in  this 
direction  by  cutting  off  the  nuns,  given  into  their  care,  from  the 
management  of  outside  affairs ;  they  were  followed  by  the  order 
of  Sion,  and  by  the  congregations  of  Bursfeld  and  Windesheim, 
all  of  which  alike  urged  that  the  primary  duty  of  a  nun  was 
sanctification  of  self.  The  interest  of  this  movement  lies  in  the 
voluminous  devotional  literature  it  called  forth,  a  literature  full 
of  spiritual  beauty,  but  in  the  production  of  which  nuns,  so  far  as 
we  know,  took  no  share.  By  writing  out  oral  sermons  they  helped, 
however,  to  preserve  and  spread  them.  The  change  which  had  come 
over  the  convent  life  of  women  cramped  rather  than  stimulated  their 
intellectual  vitality,  and  the  system  of  which  they  made  part  was 
apparently  beyond  their  control.  The  author  of  '  Holy  Maiden- 
hood'  in  the  13th  century  called  the  nun  the  free  woman,  and 
contrasted  her  with  the  wife  who  in  his  eyes  was  the  slave.  But 
Erasmus  at  the  beginning  of  the  i6th  century  urged  that  the 
woman  who  joined  the  convent  by  doing  so  became  a  slave,  while 
she  who  remained  outside  was  truly  free.  Erasmus  also  insisted 
on  the  fact  that  there  was  no  reason  why  a  woman  should  enter 
a  convent,  as  she  might  as  well  stay  in  the  world  and 
remain  unmarried  if  she  so  preferred.  In  point  of  fact  social 
conditions  had  so  far  changed  that  society  no  longer  called  to 
the  Church  for  protection  of  its  daughters.  For  a  time  the 
convent  ranked  high  as  an  educational  establishment ;  then  this 
use  began  to  pass  away  also,  and  it  was  largely  on  account  of  the 
provision  religious  houses  made  for  unmarried  women  that  they 
still  continued  in  favour  with  a  portion  of  the  community. 

Many  historians  have  advocated  the  view  that  the  Protestant 
reformers  discovered  the  abuses  of  the  monastic  system,  and  finding 
these  intolerable,  swept  the  whole  system  away.  The  evidence  ad- 
duced above  in  connection  with  the  dissolution  shows  that  matters 
Were  far  otherwise,  that  the  dissolution  of  convents  was  accom- 
panied by  many  regrettable  incidents,  and  that  as  far  as  England 
is  concerned,  it  may  confidently  be  called  premature.  For  many 
years  those  who  sought  progress  by  peaceful  educational  means 
seemed   to  be  confronted   only  by  hopeless  and   sanguinary  con- 


Conclusion.  483 

fusion  ;  they  passed  away  with  the  belief  that  the  whole  move- 
ment they  had  witnessed  was  opposed  to  real  progress,  holding 
the  view  that  the  Protestants  were  innovators  of  the  worst  and 
most  dangerous  kind. 

However,  as  far  as  convents  are  concerned,  it  seems  as  though 
the  Protestant  reformers,  far  from  acting  as  innovators,  had  done 
no  more  than  give  violent  and  extreme  application  to  forces  which 
had  for  some  time  been  at  work.  The  dissolution  was  led  up  to 
by  a  succession  of  conventual  changes,  and  before  the  outbreak  of 
the  Lutheran  agitation,  at  least  one  well-wisher  of  the  system  in 
Germany,  Tritheim,  had  despaired  of  putting  this  system  to  new  and 
effective  uses.  Not  that  monasticism  can  be  said  to  have  generally 
outlived  its  purposes  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation.  In  some 
countries,  as  in  France  and  Spain,  it  subsequently  chronicled 
important  developments.  But  where  German  elements  were  pre- 
valent, convents  were  either  swept  away,  or  put  to  altogether  different 
uses  by  the  Protestants,  or  else  allowed  to  continue  on  a  very  much 
narrowed  basis  by  the  Catholics.  Many  convents  fell  utterly  to 
decay  in  course  of  time  and  ceased  to  exist  at  the  beginning  of 
this  century,  others  again  still  linger  on  but  are  mere  shadows 
of  their  former  brilliant  selves. 

The  reason  for  these  changes  lay  not  altogether  with  those 
who  professed  religion  in  convents,  they  were  part  of  a  wider 
change  which  remoulded  society  on  an  altered  basis.  For  the 
system  of  association,  the  groundwork  of  mediaeval  strength  and 
achievement,  was  altogether  giving  way  at  the  time  of  the  Refor- 
mation. The  socialistic  temper  was  superseded  by  individualistic 
tendencies  which  were  opposed  to  the  prerogatives  conferred  on 
the  older  associations.  These  tendencies  have  continued  to  the 
present  with  slight  abatements,  and  have  throughout  proved  averse 
to  the  continuation  of  monasticism  which  attained  greatness 
through  the  spirit  of  association. 

Repelled  through  the  violence  and  aggressiveness  of  the  re- 
formers, and  provoked  by  the  narrowness  of  Protestantism  gene- 
rally, some  modern  writers  take  the  view  that  the  Reformation 
was  throughout  opposed  to  real  progress,  and  that  mankind  would 
have  been  richer  had  the  reformers  left  undisturbed  many  of  the 
institutions  they  destroyed.  The  revenues  of  these  institutions 
would  now  have  been  at  the  disposal  of  those  who  would  put  them 
to  public  and  not  to  personal  uses.  As  far  as  convents,  especially 
those  of  women,  are  concerned,  I  cannot  but  feel  sceptical  on  both 

31—2 


484  Conclusion. 


points.  Granting  even  that  these  houses  had  been  undisturbed, 
a  possibility  difficult  to  imagine,  experience  proves  that  it  is  hardly 
likely  they  could  now  be  used  to  secure  advantages  such  as  they 
gave  to  women  in  the  past.  Certainly  it  is  not  in  those  districts 
where  women's  convents  have  lived  on,  securing  economic  inde- 
pendence to  unmarried  women  as  in  North  Germany,  nor  where 
they  have  lingered  on  along  old  lines  as  in  Bavaria,  that  the  wish 
for  an  improved  education  has  arisen  among  women  in  modern 
times,  nor  does  it  seem  at  all  likely  that  their  revenues  will  ever 
be  granted  for  such  an  object.  It  is  in  those  countries  where  the 
change  in  social  conditions  has  been  most  complete,  and  where 
women  for  a  time  entirely  forfeited  all  the  advantages  which  a 
higher  education  brings,  and  which  were  secured  in  so  great  a 
measure  to  women  by  convents  in  the  past,  that  the  modern 
movement  for  women's  education  has  arisen. 


APPENDIX 
(to  accompany  p.  253). 

Rhythmus   Herradis   Abatissae    per    quem    Hohenburgenses   vir- 

GUNCULAS    AMABILITER    SALUTAT    ET    AD    VERI    SPONSI    FIDEM    DILEC- 

tignemque  salubriter  invitat. 

Salve  cohors  virginum 
Hohenburgiensium, 
Albens  quasi  lilium 
Amans  dei  filium. 

Herrat  devotissima, 
Tua  fidelissima, 
Mater  et  ancillula, 
Cantat  tibi  cantica. 

Te  salutat  millies 
Et  exoptat  indies, 
Ut  laeta  victoria 
Vincas  transitoria. 

O  multorum  speculum, 
Sperne,  sperne  seculum, 
Virtutes  accumula, 
Veri  sponsi  turmula. 

Insistas  luctamine, 
Diros  hostes  sternere, 
Te  rex  regum  adjuvat, 
Quia  te  desiderat. 

Ipse  tuum  animum 
Firmat  contra  Zabulum. 
Ipse  post  victoriam 
Dabit  regni  gloriam. 


486  Appendix. 

Te  decent  deliciae, 
Debentur  divitiae, 
Tibi  coeli  curia, 
Servat  bona  plurima. 

Christus  parat  nuptias 
Miras'per  delicias, 
Hunc  expectes  principem 
Te  servando  virginem. 

Interim  monilia 
Circum  des  nobilia, 
Et  exornes  faciem 
Mentis  purgans  aciem. 

Christus  odit  maculas, 
Rugas  spernit  vetulas, 
Pulchras  vult  virgunculas, 
Turpes  pellit  feminas. 

Fide  cum  turturea 
Sponsum  istum  reclama, 
Ut  tua  formositas 
Fiat  perpes  claritas. 

Vivens  sine  fraudibus 
Es  monenda  laudibus, 
Ut  consummes  optima 
Tua  gradus  opera. 

Ne  vacilles  dubia 
Inter  mundi  flumina, 
Verax  deus  praemia 
Spondet  post  pericula. 

Patere  nunc  aspera 
Mundi  spernens  prospera. 
Nunc  sis  crucis  socia, 
Regni  consors  postea. 

Per  hoc  mare  naviga, 
Sanctitate  gravida, 
Dum  de  navi  exeas 
Sion  sanctam  teneas. 

Sion  turris  coehca 
Bella  tenens  atria, 
Tibi  fiat  static, 
Acto  vitae  spatio. 


Appendix.  487 

Ibi  rex  virgineus 
Et  Mariae  filius 
Aniplectens  te  reclamet 
A  moerore  relevet. 

Parvi  pendens  omnia 
Tentatoris  jocula, 
Tunc  gaudebis  pleniter 
Jubilando  suaviter. 

Stella  maris  fulgida, 
Virgo  mater  unica, 
Te  conjugat  filio 
Foedere  perpetuo. 

Et  me  tecum  trahere 
Non  cesses  praecamine, 
Ad  sponsum  dulcissimum 
Virginalem  filium. 

Ut  tuae  victoriae, 
Tuae  magnae  gloriae, 
Particeps  inveniat 
De  terrenis  eruat. 

Vale  casta  concio, 
Mea  jubilatio, 
Vivas  sine  crimine, 
Christum  semper  dilige. 

Sit  hie  liber  utilis, 
Tibi  delectabilis 
Et  non  cesses  volvere 
Hunc  in  tuo  pectore. 

Ne  more  struthineo 
Surrepat  oblivio, 
Et  ne  viam  deseras 
Antequam  provenias. 

Amen  Amen  Amen 
Amen  Amen  Amen 
Amen  Amen  Amen 
Amen  Amen  Amen. 


INDEX. 


The  women  here  designated  as  saints  are  either  included  in  the  Ada  Sanctorum 
Bollandonun,  or  else,  this  work  waiting  completion,  are  entered  as  saints  in  the  'Table 
Hagiographique '  of  Guerin,  Les  Petits  Bollandistes,  1882,  vol.   17. 


abbess,  position  of,  87,   152,  203,  365  ff., 

388 
Abra,  St,  14 
Achachildis  or  Atzin,  34 
Adela,  40,  see  Adolana 
Adelheid,  abbess  at  Gandersheim,  273 
Adelheid,  abbess  at  Nivelles,  152  footnote 
Adelheid,  abbess  at  Quedlinburg,  152 
Adelheid  Helchen,  abbess  at  Oberwerth, 

421 
Adelitia,  nun,  213 
Adeliz,  abbess  at  Winchester,  210 
Admunt,  convent  at,  237 
Adolana,  St,  abbess  at  Pfalzel,  124 
Aebbe,   St,   abbess    at    Coldingham,    97, 

101-103 
Aebbe,  mother  of  Lioba,  134 
Aelfgifu  or  Emma,  queen,  makes  a  gift  of 

hangings,  226 
Aelflaed,  abbess  at  Whitby,    90,    93,   94, 

103-106,  124,  126,  225 
Aelflaed,  queen,  makes  a  gift  of  hangings, 

226 
Aelfthrith,  abbess  at  Repton,  108 
Aethelburg,   St,  abbess  at   Barking,    iii, 

112 
Aethelburg  St,   or    Aubierge,    abbess    at 

Brie,  78 
Aethelburg,  abbess  (at  Hackness?),  94,  106 
Aethelburg,   queen,   founds   a  convent  at 

Liming,  84 
Aetheldritha,   abbess  at   Southminstre   in 

Thanet,  87 
Aethelthrith,  St,  or  Etheldred  or  Awdry, 

96-99,  loi,  225 


Aette,  abbess  at  Folkestone,  87 

Afra,  St,  of  Augsburg,  31,  32-33 

Afra  von  Velseck,  nun,  425  fif. 

Agatha,  St,  of  Catania,  16,  17,  141 

Agilbert,  St,  76 

Agius,  interested  in  nuns,  154,  155,  157- 

159 
Agnes,  St,  of  Rome,  18,  167,  314,  327 

Agnes,  St,  abbess  at  Poitiers,  52,  55-65 

Agnes,  St,  princess  of  Bohemia,  293,  296- 

297,  298 

Agnes,  abbess  at  Quedlinburg,  233,  234 

Agnes  Ferrar,  abbess  at  Shaftesbury,  365 

Agnes  Litherland,  prioress  at  Gracedieu, 

449 
Agnes  Merrett,  cellaress  at  Sion,  393 
Agnes  Seyntel,  prioress  at  Cambridge,  367 
Agnes  Terry,  prioress  at  Catesby,  369 
Ailred,  his  connection  with  nuns,  215,  218, 

313-314.  321,  325 
Alburgh  or  Aethelburgh,  convent  of  St,  see 

Barking 
Alena,  St,  26 

Aleydis,  lay  sister  at  Bronope,  419 
Aleydis   Ruyskop,  nun   at   Rolandswerth, 

428 
Alice   Fitzherbert,   abbess  at   Polesworth, 

447 
Alice  Henley,  abbess  at  Godstow,  360 
Alice  Wafer,  prioress  at  Pree,  410 
alien  priories,  their  number  and  appropria- 
tion, 386-387 
Altwick,  convent  at,  273 
Alwid,  embroideress,  226 
Araalberga,  St,  23 


Index. 


489 


Ambrosius,  bishop  of  Milan,  on  Virginity, 

14,  on  St  Agnes,  167 
Amesbury,  convent  at,  194,  201,  203,  205, 

454 

ancre,  defined,  3H 

'  Ancren  Riwle,'  311-325,  357 

Angiltrud,  nun,  138 

Ankerwyke,  convent  at,  357,  443 

Anna,  duchess  of  Silesia,  295-296,  298 

Anne  Boleyn,  intends  to  retire  to  a  nun- 
nery, 437 

Anne  Seton,  prioress  at  Chatteris,  449 

anonymous  nun,  author  of  '  Hodoeporicon' 
etc.,  i39ff. 

Anselm,  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  in  con- 
nection with  women,  184,  208-211 

Anselma,  nun,  213 

Ansterbert,  St,  or  Austreberta,  76 

Anstrud,  St,  or  Austrudis,  77 

Apollonia  Tucher,  nun  at  Niimberg,  460 

Aries,  convent  at,  48-50,  52,  56,  226 

armarium  or  bookcase,  216,  223 

Armengard  von  Rheden,  abbess  at  Fisch- 
beck,  418 

Atzin  or  Achachildis,  34 

Augustine,  rule  of  St,  196 

Augustine,  canons  of,  see  Austin  or  Black 

Aurea,  St,  76 

Austreberta,  see  Ansterbert 

Austin  or  Black  canons,  186,  196,  197, 
209 

Austin  canonesses,  150,  197,  364,  371,  420 

Austrudis,  see  Anstrud 

Awdry,  see  Aethelthrith 

Balbine,  St,  30 

Balthild,  St,  71,  73,  74-78 

Bamberg,  convent  of  St  Clara  at,  459 

Barbara  Dalberg,  nun  at  Marienberg,  429 

Barbara   Schondorfer,  abbess  at   Sonnen- 

burg,  427 
Barking,  convent  at,  iii,   112,   113,   116, 

III,  201,  203,  358,  363,  372,  377,  378, 

443»  455 
Basina,  nun  at  Poitiers,  65,  67-69 
Baudonivia,  nun  at  Poitiers,  46,  52,  65 
Bega,  St,  89 

Begu,  nun  at  Hackness,  89,  93 
beguine,  defined,  331 
Benedict,  St,  rule  of,  50,  73,  74,  77,  186, 

198,  215;  Anglo-Saxon  version  of,  312  ; 

rhymed  version  of,  358  ff. 


Benedictine  nunneries,  number  of,  in  Eng- 
land, 204,  364 

Bergen,  convent  at,  204,  460,  474 

Berkley  on  Severn,  convent  at,  202 

Berlindis,  St,  26,  27,  31 

Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  190,  258,  «6o 

Berthegund,  69-70 

Berthgit,  nun,  139,  also  footnote 

Berthild,  St,  or  Bertilia,  abbess  at  Chelles, 
77 

Bilihild,  St,  29 

Bingen,  convent  at,  263  ff. 

Bischofsheim,  convent  at,  136,  137,  138 

Bona,  211 

Boniface,  his  correspondence  with  women, 
118-142,  225,  232 

Bourges,  convent  at,  230 

Breslau,  convent  of  St  Clara  at,  295 

Bridget,  St,  of  Ireland,  14  footnote 

Bridget,  St,  of  Sweden,  383  ff. 

Bridget  Belgrave,  chambress  at  Sion,  392 

Brie  or  Faremoutiers,  convent  at,  76,  77 

Brixen,  convent  of  St  Clara  at,  424,  459 

Bromhall,  convent  at,  369,  436 

Bronope,  convent  at,  418 

Brunshausen,  convent  at,  1 55 

Brusyard,  convent  at,  447 

Buckland,  convent  at,  365 

Bugga,  correspondent  of  Boniface,  131-133 

Bugga,  daughter  of  King  Centwin,  113 

Bugga  or  Heaburg,  131 

Burngith,  nun  at  Barking,  113 

Bursfeld,  congregation  of,  415 

Busch,  reformer  of  nunneries,  417  ff. 

Butzbach,  his  correspondence  with  nuns, 
428 

Caesaria,  St,  abbess  at  Aries,  48,  52,  56 
Caesaria  II,  abbess  at  Aries,  56 
Caesarius,  St,  rule  of,  48-50,  226 
Cambridge,  convent  of  St   Radegund   at, 

367,  380,  435  and  footnote 
cameraria,  see  chambress 
Campsey,  convent  at,  360,  376,  377,  378 
Cangith,  128  footnote 
Canonlegh,  see  Legh 
cantarista  see  leader  of  the  choir 
Canterbury,  convent  of  St   Sepulchre  at, 

403.  439 
capellanissa,  see  chaplain 
Carrow,  convent  at,  378 
Catesby,  convent  at,  368-369,  447-448 


490 


Index, 


Cathari,  373, 181 

Catherine  de  la  Pole,  abbess  at  Barking, 
378 

Cecil  Bodman,  abbess  at  Wilton,  438  foot- 
note, 441 

Cecilia,  St,  legend  of,  in  English,  326 

celleraria,  see  cellaress 

cellaress  or  celleraria,  office  of,  216,  368, 

371  ff-.  393 
Celtes,  his  connection  with  nuns,  183,  461  flf. 
chambress    or    cameraria,   office   of,   378, 

392 
Charitas  Pirckheimer,  abbess  at  NUmberg, 

458  ff. 
Chartreuse,  order  of,  186,  199 
chaplain,  female,  or  capellanissa,  office  of, 

376-378 
Chatteris,  convent  at,  381,  401,  449 
Chaucer  on  nuns,  361,  362 
Chelles  or  Cala,  convent  at,   75,   77,   78, 

82,86 
Chester,  convent  of  St  Mary  at,  448 
Chicksand,  convent  at,  445 
Chlotildis,  41 
Christiane,  St,  25,  29 
Christina,  nun,  213 
Christina,  nun  at  Romsey,  207,  208 
Christina,  prioress  at  Margate,  227 
Christina  Basset,  prioress  at  St  Mary  Pree, 

365.  410 
Christine,  abbess  at  Gandersheim,  159 
Christine  Strolin,  abbess  at  Soflingen,  422 
Chrodield,  nun  at  Poitiers,  50,  66-69,  ^^^ 
Chrothild,  St,  queen,  51 
Chunigundis,  abbess  at  Goss,  235 
Chunihild,  nun,  138,  139  footnote 
Chunitrud,  nun,  139 
Citeaux,  order  of,  186,  189-192 
Cistercian  nunneries,  number  of,  in  Eng- 
land, 363 
Clara,  St,  of  Assisi,  296 
Clara,  St,  convent  of,  at  Brixen,  NUmberg, 

etc.,  see  Brixen,  Niirnberg,  etc. 
Clara  Gundelfingen,  abbess  at  NUmberg, 

459 

Clara  Pirckheimer,  nun  at  NUmberg,  4596". 

Clares,  Poor,  or  Nuns  Minoresses,  364 

Clemence,  nun  at  Barking,  357 

Clement,  St,  convent  of,  at  York,  see  York 

Clugni,  order  of,  186,  187-189 

Clugniac  nunneries,  number  of,  in  Eng- 
land, 363 


Coldingham,  convent  at,  97,  101,  loa 
Coin,  convent  of  St  Maria  at,  152  footnote, 

421 
Columban,  St,  rule  of,  72,  73,  77 
consecration  of  nuns,  380 
Cordula,  St,  283 
Crabhouse,  convent  at,  358 
Cunera,  St,  21,  29,  43 
Cusanus,  as  monastic  reformer,  416,  422  ff. 
Cuthberht,  his   connection  with   abbesses, 

102-105,  225 
Cuthburg,  St,   of  Wimboume,    106,    113, 

116 
Cuthburg,  suffering  torments  in  hell,  121 
Cwenburg,  St,  of  Wimbourne,  116 
Cwenburg,  nun  at  Watton,  91 
Cyneburg,  St,  of  Castor,  106,  107 
Cynehild,  nun,  135 
Cyneswith,  St,  of  Castor,  107 
Cynethrith,  abbess,  225 

Davington,  convent  at,  357,  380 

Delapray,  convent  at,  447 

Dennis,  convent  at,  449,  450 

Derneburg,  convent  at,  417,  420 

Didimia,  abbess  at  Poitiers,  65 

Diemud,  scribe,  236-237 

Disibodenberg,  nuns'  convent  attached  to, 
262 

DoUendis,  see  Rolendis 

Dominican  friars,  abroad,  291,  295,  332; 
in  England,  309 

Dominican  nuns,  364 

Dominican  nunneries,  number  of,  in  Eng- 
land, 364 

Dorothy  Barley,  abbess  at  Barking,  455 

Dorstad,  convent  at,  418 

Eadburg,  abbess  at  Thanet,  120,  121,  122, 

«23,  235 
Eadburga,  84 

Eadgifu,  abbess  at  Leominster,  202 
Eadgith,  nun  at  Barking,  112 
Ealdgith,  nun  at  Barking,  113 
Ealdhelm,    interested    in    nuns,    1 12-115, 

172,  226 
Eangith,  correspondent  of  Boniface,   118, 

128-131 
Eanswith,  St,  of  Folkestone,  83 
Earcongotha,  St,  78,  85 
Easebourne,   convent   at,    360,    366,    376, 

403,  404-406 


Index. 


491 


Easington,  convent  at,  93 

East  Dereham,  convent  at,  96 

ebdomary,  office  of,  390 

Ebsdorf,  convent  at,  236 

Ecgburg,  abbess  at  Repton,  109,  126 

Edelind,  abl)ess  at  Niedermiinster,  241 

Edigna,  St,  37 

Edward's,  St,  convent  of,  at  Shaftesbury, 
see  Shaftesbury 

Eger,  convent  of  St  Clara  at,  466 

Eichstatt,  convent  of  St  Walburg  at,  421 

Einbeth  or  Einbetta,  St,  40 

Eleanor,  queen,  takes  the  veil  at  Ames- 
bury,  201 

elemosinaria,  office  of,  378 

Elisabeth,  St,  of  Thiiringen  and  Hungary, 
285,  295,  298-304 

Elisabeth,  St,  nun  at  Schonau,  257,  277- 
285,  429 

Elisabeth  Krelin,  abbess  at  Heggbach,  421 

Elisabeth   von   Mansfeld,  nun  at   Helfta, 

329 

Elisabeth  von  Seckendorf,  abbess  at  Eich- 
statt, 421 

Elizabeth  Barton,  439 

Elizabeth  Shelley,  abbess  at  Winchester, 
448,  449,  454,  455 

Elizabeth   Zouche,  abbess  at  Shaftesbury, 

455 
Elizabeth  Throgmerton,  abbess  at  Dennis, 

450 
Elizabeth  Walton,  nun  at  Cambridge,  367, 

368 
Elizabeth  Webb,  prioress  at  Sopwell,  410 
Ellandune,  convent  at,  see  Wilton 
Elstow,  convent  at,  204  footnote,  377 
Ely,  convent  at,  95-106,  202,  225,  226 
embroidery  done  by  nuns,  224  fF. 
Engelthal,  convent  at,  47 1 
Eormenhild,  St,  abbess   at   Sheppey   and 

Ely,  100 
Erasmus,  on  canons,  195,  on  the  position 

of  women,  429  ff. 
Erfurt,  convent  at,  236 
eruditrix,  office  of,  379 
Essen,  convent  at,  148,  149,  151,  232 
Ethel-,  see  under  Aethel- 
Eufemia,  abbess  at  Winchester,  366 
Eulalia,  abbess  at  Shaftesbury,  210 
Eulalia,  nun  at  Barking,  1 1 3 
Euphemia  Pirckheimer,  abbess  at  Bergen, 

460 


Eustadiola,  St,  abbess  at  Bourges,  330 

Eutropia,  35,  see  Ontkommer 

Eva,  recluse,  2 1 1 

Everhild,  St,  iii 

'Exercitia    Spiritualia,'    by    St    Gertrud, 

351  ff- 

•  Explanatio  regulae  St  Benedicti,'  by  St 
Hildegard,  270 

'  Explanatio  symboli  St  Athanasii,'  by  St 
Hildegard,  270 

'  Expositiones  Evangeliorum,'  by  St  Hilde- 
gard, 270 

Fara,  St,  abbess  at  Brie,  76 
Faremoutiers,  convent  at,  see  Brie 
Fecamp,  convent  at,  77 
Felicitas  Grundherrin,  nun  at  NUmberg, 

460,  471 
Fischbeck,  convent  at,  418 
•Fliessende,  das,  Licht  der  Gottheit,'  by 

Mechthild,  332  ff. 
Flixton,  convent  at,  369,  377 
Florence  Bannerman,  abbess  at  Amesbury, 

454 
Folkestone,  convent  at,  83,  87 
Fontevraud,  order  of,  193-194,  205 
Fortunatus,  his  connection  with  nuns,  58-64 
Framehild,  St,  76 
Francis,  St,  of  Assisi,  285,  291,  296,  301, 

364 
Franciscan  friars  and  nuns,  291,  295,  302, 

309.  364.  422 
Frankenberg,  convent  at,  418 
French,  use  of,  in  convents,  357  ff. 
Frideswith,  St,  of  Oxford,  1 10 
Frigith,  nun  at  Hackness,  93 
Fuller,  on  nunneries,  457 

Gandersheim,  convent   at,  148,   151,  152, 

I54ff. 
Gehulff,  35,  see  Ontkommer 
Geiler,  as  a  reformer  of  convents,  428 
Geisenfeld,  convent  at,  460 
Genevieve,  St,  of  Paris,  26,  43,  5 1 
Genovefa,  26 

Geoig,  St,  convent  of,  at  Halle,  see  Halle 
Gerald  Barri,  on  monasticism,  199 
Gerberg  I,  abbess  at  Gandersheim,  159 
Gerberg  H,  abbess  at  Gandersheim,   151, 

153,   160,   162,   163,   166,   167,   182 
Germana,  St,  25,  29 
Gertrud,  St,  nun  at  Helfta,  329,  346  ff. 


492 


Index. 


Gertrud,  St,  of  Nivelles,  7,  33 

Gertrud,  26 

Gertrud,  abbess  at  Helfta,  329 

Gertnid,  abbess  at  Trebnitz,  293,  295,  296 

Gertrud  von  Biichel,  nun  at  Rolandswerth, 

429 
Gilbert  of  Sempringham,  St,  order  of,  186, 

2I3-22r 

Gisela,  147 

Gisela,  queen  of  Hungary,  233 

Gisleberga,  St,  43 

Godam  Hampton,  nun  at  Barking,  366 

Godeleva,  St,  or   Godeleina,  24,    25,  29, 

30 
Godstow,  convent   at,  204  footnote,   206, 

357>  360,  400.  447,  453 
Goss,  convent  at,  235 
Gracedieu,  convent  at,  449 
Grandmont,  order  of,  186,  199 
Gredanna  von  Freyberg,  abbess  at  Urspring, 

421 
Gregory  of   Tours,    his    connection   with 

nuns,  5 1  fF. 
Gudila,  St,  23 

Gunthild,  St,  7,  27,  35,  139  footnote 
Guthlac,  his  connection  with  nuns,   108- 

iro,  225 
Gutta,  scribe,  237 

Hackness,  convent  at,  93,  94,  106 
Hadewy,  abbess  at  Herford,  147 
'  Hali  Meidenhad,'  326-328 
Halle,  convent  of  St  Georg  at,  418 
Hanbury,  convent  at,  100 
Harwold,  convent  at,  446 
Hartlepool,  convent  at,  88,  89,  90,  94 
Hathumod,   abbess  at  Gandersheim,  149, 

154-159 
Heaburg,  called  Bugga,  nun,  128,  131 
Hedwig,  St,  of  Silesia,  291  ff.,  298,  299 
Hedwig,  abbess  at  Neuss,  152  footnote 
Hedwig,  duchess  of  Swabia,  162,  233 
Heggbach,  convent  at,  421 
Heiningen,  convent  at,  236,  418,  419 
Heiu,  abbess  at  Hartlepool,  88,  89 
Helen,  St,  114 
Helen,   St,   convent    of,   in    London,   see 

London 
Helena  von  Iltzen,  prioress  at  Marienberg, 

418 
Helena  Meichnerin,  abbess  at  Niirnberg, 

463 


Helfta,  convent  at,  328  ff. 
Hereswith,  St,  78,  82,  96,  97 
Hereswytha,  abbess  at  Sheppey,  87 
Herford,  convent  at,  147,  148,  149,  155 
Heriburg,  abbess  at  Watton,  91 
Herlind,  St,  abbess  at  Maaseyck,  230-232 
Hersende,  abbess  at  Fontevraud,  194 
Heyninges,  convent  of  St  Mary  at,  449 
Hidburg,  nun  at  Barking,  113 
Hilarius,  verses  on  recluses,  211 
Hild,  St,  of  Whitby,  82,  89  ff.,  96 
Hildegard,  St,  of  Bingen,  256  ff.,  429 
Hildelith,  St,  abbess  at  Barking,  112,  113, 

121 
Hildemarque,  77 
Hilp,  ri,  35,  jdv  Ontkommer 
'  Hodoeporicon '  by  anonymous  nun,  139ft. 
Hohenburg,  convent  at,  22,  24,  238  ff. 
'  Horlus  Deliciarum,'  by  Herrad,  238  ff. 
Hrotsvith,  abbess  at  Gandersheim,  160 
Hrotsvith,  nun  at  Gandersheim,  143,  153, 

154-183,  429 

Ida,  St,  ancestress  of  Liudolfings,  23  foot- 
note 

Ida,  abbess  at  St  Maria  (on  the  Miinzen- 
berg?),  152  footnote 

Ida,  ancestress  of  Karlings,  23 

Ida,  nun  at  Bronope,  419 

Ida,  nun  at  Gandersheim,  151,  152  foot- 
note 

Idonea,  nun,  212 

Iduberga,  43 

Idung,  on  nuns,  198 

infirmaria,  378 

Ingetrud,  abbess  at  Tours,  51,  58,  69, 
70 

Inthware  or  luthware,  30 

Irmina,  St,  40 

Isabel  Jordan,  abbess  at  Wilton,  438 

Isengard  von  Greiffenklau,  421 

Itta,  43 

Jane  Gowryng,  443 

Jane  Messyndyne,  447 

Joan  Ashcomb,  nun  at  Shaftesbury,  366 

Joan  Chapell,  prioress  at  Sopwell,  410 

Joan  Darrell,  abbess  at  Amesbury,  454 

Joan  Formage,  abbess  at  Shaftesbury,  366 

Joan  Lancaster,  prioress  at  Cambridge,  367, 

368 
Joan  Sandford,  prioress  at  Heyninges,  449 


Index. 


493 


Joan  Rawlins,  prioress  at  Bromhall,  436 
Johan  or  Jane  Arundell,  abbess  at  Legh, 

368 
Johanna  de  Northampton,  prioress  at  Cates- 

by,  368 
John   of  Salisbury,   on   monks  and  nuns, 

■200,  io\ 
Jouarre,  convent  at,  76 
Joyce  Bykeley,  prioress  at  Catesby,  448 
Juliana,  St,  legend  of,  326,  327 
Juliana,  prioress  at  Bromhall,  369 
Juliana  Baucyn,  abbess  at  Shaftesbury,  365 
Justina,  nun  at  Barking,  113 
Juthware,  see  Inthware 
Jutta,  St,  338 
Jutta,  '  magistra, '  at  Disibodenberg,  262 

Katharina  Pirckheimer,  prioress  at  Geisen- 

feld,  460 
Katharine,   St,   life    of,   by   Clemence    of 

Barking,   357 
Katherine  Babington,  nun  at  Campsey,  360 
Katherine  Bulkeley,  abbess  at  Godstow,  453 
Katherine  Sayntlow,  nun  at  Cambridge,  367 
Katheryne  Wyngate,  nun  at  Elstow,  377 
Kilbum,  convent  at,  206,  360,  376 
Kirkless,  convent  at,  452,  453 
kitchener  or  cook,  office  of,  216,  375 
Kizzingen,  convent  at,  138,  273,  292,  293, 

303 
Kleinfrankenthal,  convent  at,  420 
Krischmerge,  41 
Kiimmemiss,  see  Ontkommer 
Kunigund,  St,  empress,  232 
Kunigundis,  St,  40 

'  Land  of  Cockayne,'  41 1 

Langendorf,  convent  at,  415 

Langland,  on  nuns,  406 

Laon,  convent  at,  77 

Las  Huelgas,  convent  at,  191 

Laycock,  convent  at,  441,  448 

leader  of  the  choir  or  precentrix,  succen- 

trix,  cantarista,  216,  368,  378,  391 
'  Legatus  Divinae  Pietatis,'  by  St  Gertrud, 

348  ff. 
Legboume,  convent  at,  446 
Legh,  convent  of,  or  Canonlegh  or  Min- 

chenlegh,  358,  368 
legister  or  reader,  office  of,  391 
Leobgitli,  see  Lioba 
Leominster,  convent  at,  202 


Leonard,  St,  convent  of,  see  Stratford 

Leubover,  abbess  at  Poitiers,  65  ff.,  226 

I^eukardis,  scribe,  237 

Liberata,  St,  or  Lilieratrix,  35,  37,  see  Ont- 
kommer 

Lillechurch,  convent  at,  212,  436 

Liming,  convent  at,  84,  87 

Lindesay  on  convent  life,  456 

Linthildis,  see  Lufthildis 

Lioba,  St,  117,  134  ff. 

Littlemore,  convent  at,  437 

Little  Marlow,  convent  at,  449 

Liutberg,  recluse,  147 

Livrade,  35,  see  Ontkommer 

Liwid,  embroideress,  226 

London,  convent  of  Poor  Clares,  or  Min- 
ories,  364 

London,  convent  of  St  Helen  in,  378 

Lucia,  abbess  at  Shaftesbury,  366 

Lucie,  St,  of  Sampigny,  25 

Lufthildis,  St,  25,  26,  42 

Lul,  his  correspondence  with   nuns,   134, 

137.  138 
Lilne,  convent  at,  236 
'  Luve  Ron,'  310 

Maaseyck,  convent  at,  231-232 

magistra  noviciarum,  see   mistress  of  the 

novices 
Mallersdorf,  convent  at,  237 
Mailing,    convent   at,    204  footnote,   363, 

380,  443  footnote 
Margaret,  St,  legend  of,  326 
Mai^^et,  St,  queen  of  Scotland,  207-208, 

289 
Mai^aret  Punder,  prioress  at  Flixton,  369 
Margaret  Tewkesbury,  abbess  at  Delapray, 

447 
Margaret  Vernon,  prioress  at  Little  Marlow, 

443 
Maria,    St,   convent   of,  at  Coin  etc.,  see 

Coin  etc. 
Mariahilf,  11,  35 
Mariasif,  11 

Marienberg,  convent  at,  in  Saxony,  418-419 
Marienberg,  convent  at,  near  Trier,  42 1 
Marienbom,  convent  at,  420 
Mariensee,  convent  at,  417 
Marricks,  convent  of  St  Andrew,  449,  456 
Mary,  St,  the  Virgin,  9,  10,  1 1 
Mary  and  Martha,  as  tyi^es  of  activity,  305, 

3'4.  3'4.  3^5 


494 


Index. 


Mary,  .St,  convent  of,  at  Chester  etc.,  see 

Chester  etc. 
Mary,  daughter  of  St  Margaret,  207,  209 
Mary  of  Blois,  abbess   at   Romsey,   201, 

212 
Mathea  Fabyan,  nun  at  Barking,  377 
Mathilde,  abbess  at  Essen,  151,  232 
Mathilde,  abbess  at  Kizzingen,  292,  303 
Mathilde,  abbess  at  Quedlinburg,  149,  151, 

153.  232 
Mathilde,  abbess  at  Villich,  152  footnote 
Matilda,  abbess  at  Amesbury,  201 
Matilda,  abbess  at  Winchester,  210 
Matilda,  queen,  207  ff.,  289  ff.,  298 
Matilda  Sudbury,  nun  at  Cambridge,  367 
Maxima,  abbess,  113 
Mechthild,  7 
Mechthild,   beguine,  305,   329,   330,  331- 

340 

Mechthild,  nun  at  Helfta,  329,  330,  340- 

346 

Mechthild  von  Wippra,  nun,  329 

Mechtund,  St,  40 

Mergate,  convent  at,  227 

Mildburg,  St,  of  Wenlock,  85,  121 

Mildgith,  St,  85 

Mildthrith,  St,  of  Thanet,  85-86 

Minories,  see  London,  convent  of  Poor 
Clares 

Minstre  in  Thanet,  see  Thanet 

mistress  of  the  novices,  magistra  novici- 
arum,  217,  378 

Modwen,  St,  in  and  footnote,  446  foot- 
note 

Montreuil-les-Dames,  convent  at,  191 

Munich,  convent  of  St  Clara  at,  460 

Munzenberg,  convent  of  St  Maria  on  the, 
152  footnote 

mynchyn,  use  of  word,  364  footnote,  368, 
454 

Neuss,  convent  at,  152  footnote 

Neuwerk,  convent  at  Erfurt,  418 

Nider,  on  nuns,  459 

Niedermiinster,  convent,  241 

Nigel  Wirecker  on  monks  and  nuns,  200 

Nivelles,  convent  at,  152  footnote 

Norbert,  St,  order  of,  see  Pr^montre 

Not  burg,  St,  34 

Notburg,  St,  or  Nuppurg,  26 

Notburg,  24 

Nunappleton,  convent  at,  452,  453 


Nun-Cotham,  convent  at,  207  footnote 
Nun-Kelyng,  convent  at,  453 
Nun-Monkton,  convent  at,  357 
Nunnaminster,  see  Winchester,  convent  of 
St  Mary  at 

Odilia,  St,  22,  24,  240,  251 
Ontkommer  or  Wilgefortis,  St,  35-38,  43 
'opus  anglicum,'  228 
'Order  of  Fair  Ease,'  on  religious  orders, 

201 
Osburg,  1 1 1  and  footnote 
Osburg,  nun  at  Barking,  1 1 3 
Osgith,  113  footnote 
Osith,  St,  no 
Oswen,  St,  or  Osman,  30 
Oxenfurt,  convent  at,  138 

Paris,  convent  at,  51,  76 

Paula,  St,  of  Avila,  36  footnote 

Pavilly,  convent  at,  76 

Pega,  St,  109,  no 

Pellmerge,  41 

Peter  of  Blois,  corresponding  with  nuns, 

213 
Petronille,  abbess  at  Fontevraud,  194 
Pfalzel  or  Palatiolum,  convent  at,  124 
Pharaildis,  St,  21,  22,  23,  27  footnote,  30, 34 
Pietrussa,  abbess  at  Trebnitz,  293,  295 
Pillenreuth,  convent  at,  471 
Poitiers,  convent  at,  51  ff. 
Polesworth,  convent  at,  447 
Pollesloe,  convent  at,  448 
portress,  office  of,  217 
Prague,  convent  of  St  Clara  at,  296 
precentrix,  see  leader  of  the  choir 
Pree,  convent  of  St  Mary,  366,  408,  410 
Premontre,  order  of,  186,  193-194 
prioress,  position  and  office  of,  204,  216, 

370  ff. 
profession  and  consecration  of  nuns,  379- 

380 
Pusinna,  St,  147 

Quedlinburg,     convent,     146,     147,     148, 
149,  150,  151,  152,  153,  232,  233 

Radegund,  St,  of  Poitiers,  45,  51-65,  225 
Radegund,  St,  or  Radiane,  27,  29,  34,  35 
Radegund,  St,  convent  of,  see  Cambridge, 

convent  of  St  Radegund 
Ramsen,  convent  at,  420 


Index. 


495 


Redlingfield,  convent  at,  363,  377,  378 

refectuaria,  office  of,  378 

Regenfled,  35,  see  Ontkommer 

Regenfrith,  35,  see  Ontkommer 

Regina,  St,  29 

Reinild,  St,  abbess  at  Maaseyck,  230-231 

Reinildis,  St,  23 

Relind,  abbess  at  Hohenburg,  241 

Repton,  convent  at,  108,  126,  202 

Richardis,  nun  at  Bingen,  272 

Richmondis  van  der  Horst,  abbess  at  See- 
bach,  428 

Rikkardis,  nun  at  Gandersheim,  161,  163 

Robert,  St,  founder  of  the  order  of  Fon- 
tevraud,  193 

Rolandswerth,  convent  at,  429 

Rolendis,  St,  27,  42 

Romsey,  convent  at,  201,  207,  208,  209, 
2H.  357.  360,  378 

Rosa,  211 

Rosalia,  St,  of  Palermo,  18 

Rasper,  convent  at,  380,  381,  403,  404 

Ryhall,  convent  at,  107 

Sabina  Pirckheimer,  abbess  at  Bei^en,  460, 

474 
Saethrith,  St,  or  Syre,  77,  85,  96 
Salaberg,  St,  77 

Scheurl,  his  connection  with  nuns,  460,  464 
Scholastica,  nun  at  Barking,  113 
Schonau, convent  at,  278 ff. 
Schonfeld,  convent  at,  420 
Schwellmerge,  41 
scrutatrix,  see  sercher 
Seebach,  convent  at,  428 
Sempringham,   order   of,    186,    195,    201, 

213-221 
sercher  or  scrutatrix,  216 
Seton,  convent  of,  403,  451 
Sexburg,  St,  84,  96,  100 
sexton,  office  of,  370,  371,  390 
Shaftesbury,  convent  of  St  Edward  at,  203, 

204,  210,  357,  365,  366,  376,  379,  455 
Sheppey,  convent  at,  84,  87,  96,  100,  205, 

379 

Sigegith,  113 

Sinningthwaite,  convent  at,  207 
Sion,  convent  at,  360,  364,  383  AT.,  439 
Soflingen,  convent  at,  422,  429 
Soissons,  convent  at,  I47 
Sonnenburg,  convent  at,  422  ff. 
Sophie,  abbess  at  Eichstatt,  421 


Sophie,  abbess  at  Gandersheim,  151,  152 
Sophie,  abbess  at  Kizzingen,  273 
Sophie,  abbess  (at  Mainz?),  152  footnote 
Sophie  von  Mansfeld,  nun  at  Ilelfta,  329 
Sopwell,  convent  at,  206,  357,  409,  410 
Southminstre,  convent  at,  87 
'  Spiritual    Convent    or    Ghostly    Abbey,' 

339.  377.  4' I 
Stanford,  convent  at,  206 
Stendal,  convent  at,  420 
Strasbui^,  convent  of  St  Mary  Magdalen, 

428,  of  St  Stephan,  428 
Stratford,  convent  of  St  Leonard  at,  212, 

358,  363 
Streanshalch,  see  Whitby 
sub-prioress,  office  of,  370 
succentrix,  see  leader  of  the  choir 
Suitha,  abbess,  134 
Superba,  211 

Sura,  St,  or  Soteris  or  Zuwarda,  29 
Swine,  convent  at,  207  footnote,  378,  453 

Tart,  convent  at,  191 

Tecla,  correspondent  of  Boniface,  135,  138, 

139 
Tecla,  nun  at  Barking,  113 
Tecla,  nun  at  Bronope,  419 
Teclechildis,  see  Theodohild 
Tetbury,  convent  at,  117 
Tetta,  abbess  at  Herford,  147 
Tetta,  abbess  at   Wimboume,    117,    135, 

136 
Thanet,  convent  at,  or  Minstre,  85,  86,  87, 

120 
thesaurissa,  see  treasurer 
Theodohild,  St,  or  Teclechildis,  of  Jouarre, 

76 
Theofanu,  abbess  at  Essen,  152  footnote, 

232 
Theorigitha,  see  Torctgith 
Thetford,  convent  at,  379,  402 
Thomas  Beket,  his  connection  with  nuns, 

201,  212 
Thomas  de  Hales,  poem  for  nuns,  309  ff. 
Tibba  or  Tilba,  107,  108,  no 
Tinmouth,  convent  at,  82  footnote 
Torctgith,  St,  or  Theorigitha,  112 
Tours,  convent  at,  51,  58,  69-70 
treasurer  or  thesaurissa,  368,  378 
Trebnitz,  convent  at,  292,  293,  294,  295 
Trentham,  convent  at,  100 
Tritheim,  his  connection  with  nuns,  418 


496 


Index. 


tutrix,  office  of,  379 

Uncumber,  38  footnote,  see  Ontkommer 
Urspring,  convent  at,  43 1 
Ursula,  St,  21,  25,  34,  40,  283,  284 
Ursula  Cantor,  429 

Verbetta,  St,  40 

Verena,  St,  of  Zurzach,  23,  24,  26,  31-32 

Verena,  St,  283 

Verena  von  Stuben,  abbess  at  Sonnenburg, 

423  ff. 
Villbetta,  St,  40 
Villich,  convent  at,  152 

Wadstena,  convent  at,  384  ff. 

Wala,  abbess,  130 

Walburg,  St,  or  Waltpurgis,  1 1  footnote, 

25,  26,  27,  139 
Walpurg  Pirckheimer,  nun,  460 
Walter  Map,  on  monks  and  nuns,  200,  202 
Waltpurgis,  see  Walburg 
Warbeth,  40 

Watton,  convent  at,  91,  218-219,  220 
Weedon,  convent  at,  100 
Wende,  convent  at,  236 
Wenlock,  convent  at,  86,  121 
Wennigsen,  convent  at,  417 
Werburg,  St,  roo 
Werder,  convent  at,  417 
Wessobrunn,  nuns  at,  236 
Wethburg,  abbess,  124,  126,  127,  132 
Wherwell,  convent  at,  212,  455 


Whitby  or  Streanshalch,  convent  at,  88- 

95,  103,  105,  106,  124,  202 
Wibrandis,  St,  40 
Wienhausen,  convent  at,  235,  417 
Wihtburg,  St,  96 
Wilbeth,  40 

Wilcoma,  abbess  at  Chelles,  86 
Wilfrith,    his    connection    with    abbesses, 

95  ff-,   225 
Wilgefortis,  St,  35,  see  Ontkommer 
Wilibald  Pirckheimer,  his  connection  with 

nuns,  461  ff. 
Wilnotha,  abbess  at  Liming,  87 
Wilton,   convent  at,    or   Ellandune,    203, 

369,  438,  441 
Wim bourne,   convent   at,    116,    117,    134, 

202 
Wimpfeling,  on  nunneries,  429 
Winchester,   convent   of   St   Mary  at,   or 

Nunnaminster,  184,  203,  210,  211,  366, 

376,  380,  448,  454,  455 
Windesheim,  congregation  of,  417  ff. 
Winifred,  St,  30 
Winteney,  convent  at,  359 
Wittewierum,  convent  at,  237 
Wolfsindis,  29 

Woodchester,  convent  at,  202  footnote 
Wroxhall,  convent  at,  229,  363 
Wykes,  convent  at,  437 

York,  convent  of  St  Clement's  at,  206 

Zuwarda,  see  Sura 


CAMBRIDGE:   PRINTED  BY  J.  &  C.  K.  CLAY,  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS. 


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